Full Transcript for Ben Affleck on “Animals,” Matt Damon, and His Family

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Speaker 4

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Very excited to bring you my conversation this week with Academy Award winner Ben Affleck. My gosh, there's so much to talk to him about and we talked so long and so in depth that I'm not going to do a big wind up.

You know Ben Affleck, you know the whole story, grew up Cambridge, Maggie and Matt are best buddies, Good Will Hunting launches them to fame, we get into that and his funny reaction now. Looking back almost 30 years later on their Oscar speech that night at the Academy Awards, two 25 year olds up there jumping around. We started though talking about his new film on Netflix called Animals.

It's a movie that he co-wrote, he produced, he directed and he stars in alongside Kerry Washington. He's a guy, Mark Kimball, running for mayor in Los Angeles and when their child is kidnapped or perhaps they believe their child is kidnapped, it kind of exposes a lot of the flaws and problems and Lines in their own marriage and their own relationship.

We get into that in depth. We also talk, you know, he started this AI company four years ago, just sold it to Netflix for a ton of money this year. And he's really, really well-versed and smart and thoughtful and kind of rational about AI in a way that we don't hear a lot. It's kind of like either we're going to be destroyed by AI or it's the greatest thing to ever come.

So he's got some really good thoughts about AI. Just like a super smart, super passionate, super intense guy with a lot to say about Hollywood, about his movies, about his company, artist equity that he and Matt started. It's a new kind of production company that just gives everyone working on the film equity in the project. So if it does well, everybody gets paid after a little bit more than they already did.

He kind of walks through that. So we just dig in a lot about the movie, a lot about his career, some AI. I think you're going to really enjoy spending this time today with Academy Award winner Ben Affleck right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Ben, good to see you, man. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. It's a pleasure.

Speaker 2

Appreciate

Speaker 4

it. Just watched Animals last night, extraordinary movie. Congratulations, it's really good. Thank you very much. Co-wrote it, produced it, directed it, starred in it. I assume you also catered it. Yeah, yeah. Like did it all, you know? No, you know,

Speaker 5

it kind of, that gives you the illusion of like,

you know, oh, well, here, you know, here's this guy did it all. Like, these are, movies especially, you know, they're really collaborative efforts. I mean, maybe it sounds like a cliche or something, but it's, it's like you've got to get great actors. In this case, I really asked all the actors like, I mean, literally, hey, I need you to write scenes, like Adriana, Luis, like, you know, for example, it's like, here's basically what's happening.

I need you guys to write it and just. Do it. I can't tell you, you know, what it's like to be this part of Mexico and how, you know, these conversations and with Carrie, you know, I really want to tell a story about like that was really, yeah, we got, I mean, we got this, the urgency and the sort of all of those things that I think make, you know, the audience need to kind of know what happens next.

But kind of inside it for me is a look at, you know, relationships and marriage. Like, what is that? What's the most important thing about a marriage? Is it maybe it's how much of it is about like, yeah, the house and the shared, we're sharing expenses and we got a shared kid or kids. Like, you know, that's how marriage started essentially, right? Was like, that had nothing to do with who you love somebody.

That was irrelevant. It was a contract, right? Like, because we were likely to survive and procreate. And now, you know, in our obviously lifetimes in the modern, like, you know, it's. Worlds full of just, you know, influencers and advice on love and making it last and all that stuff. And of course that's important too, right? But like, it's also easy to think that you get like sort of dissatisfied or restless or unhappy and, you know, to kind of go, well, it's my, it's this relationship.

Like I think it's an interesting idea. So Bradley Cooper made a great movie called, there's this thing on, had this line at the end where this couple's getting divorced and they get back together and the guy goes, yeah, I'm unhappy. I want to be unhappy with you. You know, it felt like it was such a brilliant way of looking at, you know, the separation between like we're who we are.

The idea of someone else is going to make us happy is an illusion, you know, but I think people think that. I'm not happy in this relationship. Well, Is that because you may just be unhappy with stuff in your own life, or is it a result of something that's going on in this relationship, this marriage? And in this case, it was really kind of, you know, what movies do well, I think, is sort of take something to an extreme, where you have this couple that so many scary, difficult, threatening things happen all at once, they don't have any kind of choice, but ultimately the sort of mask comes off, and they show each other without the sort of concerns you have about like, oh,

will this be unattractive, or will the person not let me, it's just like, this is who I am.

Speaker 4

You

Speaker 5

know, like take it or leave it. And what I like about this is this kind of an interesting discovery there, you know, and I wonder like, is that really, like what an interesting idea, you know, that could be the truest intimacy, you know, being loved for like all the, who you are, the good and the bad, right? And also you can be rejected for that.

And then it's like the most powerful rejection. So I think that's why people, you know, why we, the movie overall is sort of about like how we want to show people a certain version of ourselves. We're living a very performative life now, all of us, not just on social media, but, you know, with one another. And we have, you know, ways that we kind of indicate what our sort of beliefs are and little tribes that all have to sort of share the same advertised beliefs.

And it What it doesn't allow for is the sort of complexity and nuance of like the human condition, you know? And so I wanted to make a movie that, you know, didn't have the sort of rules that I feel like have developed recently where there's this kind of self-censor. Well, you can't say that. Or this character can't do that. Or well, this character's representing this group, so they can't be this.

I just thought like. The more you get into that, the more it's predictable and boring or lecturing or a sermon. I think what audiences want to see, at least if you're proposing to show them something about life, it wants to feel real.

And that was a little scary, and I needed really good partners, and that's, get back to your point, like I had great, great collaborators, and I'm really proud of the movies as a result.

Speaker 4

I mean, it's marriage, it's parenting, it's race, it's class, but it doesn't hit you over the head with it. It's sort of embedded inside the story. So when you were dreaming this up, were you able to mine your own experiences in terms of marriage and parenting and think of how would I behave in this situation, or where have I fallen short, or what have I done well, and all that?

Speaker 5

I don't know how to do it. Without connecting it to some kind of real feeling or experience, right?

I think there are actors, filmmakers who can, and I, you know, hats off to them. I don't know, you know, how Daniel Day-Lewis does what he does. You know, he hasn't been, you know, disabled. There are people who I really admire, to me, who it seems to me can really conjure things up out of thin air.

I kind of need to have some touchstone that's real. Now, that doesn't mean that I literally transpose, like this is a thing I said to my ex-wife and Bob, like, in fact, if you were to try to do that, interestingly, it sort of doesn't work. Like, you can't do something that's too obvious, because actually, among other things, as an actor, it won't feel real.

Like, you'll reject it, you know? There's a, like, there's one of the acting Classes I took, you know, talked about, you know, method acting and how do you find emotions from your past and make them feel real in the circumstances that you're imagining. And they talked about, like, you don't want to remember the moment that your mom died, right? Like, for something, that's too sort of on the nose.

You know, a simple example is like, oh, well, what did the oxygen machine sound like that was in the room? Or you remember, like, those beeps of the... And then all of a sudden, because it's kind of indirect, it sort of lets the guard down, and then all of a sudden you start to remember, oh, yeah, that's what that felt like in the room at that time.

So that's what I mean by it's not, I wouldn't be able to say, like, oh, yeah, this is just a compilation of my real life experiences, but it has to be the kind of thing where, you know, asking questions about how do you connect and, you know, getting into marriage, I think is quite common, where it's like, oh, you realize your marriage Because it's, parasitity has become in some ways like a partnership, right? And you're like, okay, I'm doing this, you're doing that, and that's functional, but you ask yourself like, well, is that a marriage? Is that what it is? Is that all, all there is? It was, this is a movie to me that, that was like kind of about asking questions more

than prescribing, hey, audience, when you leave this movie, you're going to see things my way, or you're going to see this thing I want you to see. Again, it's like we were talking about before we started rolling, like, that doesn't work. If you try to lecture an audience, they'll reject it. No matter how much you believe in what you have to say, no matter how passionate you are about it.

There's something about the stridency of that or the didactic nature of it or pedantic in some way. If somebody wants to take a class, they'll enroll in one. If somebody wants to hear a sermon, they'll go to a church or a mosque or a synagogue and hear a religious leader give them a sermon on morality. That's not, I don't think, what movies are good at.

What movies are good at is showing you other people's experiences and kind of opening you up to identifying with that and putting you in those, in their position. And that's why they can be thrilling and scary, as well as kind of cause you to think about things differently.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I'm smiling because obviously I've never had that kind of trauma in my life. It's depicted in the movie, but there are certain looks. Between a husband and a wife or certain moments or a certain energy where you've maybe said the wrong thing or let someone down or all of that, like, it comes through.

Speaker 5

And that's what I wanted to build around the movies, is that, you know, obviously you take circumstances that are extreme, like in this case, and that's what gets that rise to this climax and drama, but you've got to make it feel resonant to people in their marriage. In the beginning, you know, it's like, this isn't a couple that's obviously great or not great, you know, but there are these moments that, you know, you have and feel like he and his wife are not connecting, and then she kind of says something that's a little judgy, and he's kind of like, what the f*** does that mean? But how much of a fight do I want to start? And she's clearly disappointed that he hasn't

thought about the Halloween costume she wants to make, and he's going, you know, I got a lot going on here. You know, the real thing to me is about, like, how much can we understand the point of view of someone else? What ha, you know, in marriage or in relationships, you know, the importance of

kind of assuming the best of the other person instead of assuming like, oh, what, you don't care about me or you're not, you know, like, no, they probably do care about me. They probably have their own, you know.

but again, like, it doesn't work to, for me to just say it in this way. I mean, that's sort of like, then you might go, oh, yeah, that's obvious, but it doesn't touch you or affect you. I think to go through the process with With people and experience it and kind of root for them. And I want audiences to watch the movie and I hope and expect that I think I'll have succeeded if, you know, you've got like a husband and wife or whatever it is sitting there going, oh, a little bit of a different take.

I'm like, I don't know. I think that he kind of has a point here, you know, and then I've, then I've sort of done my job right. because I'll have gotten you into the position where you sort of feel by proxy, like you're a part of that marriage. And then when it gets to this point of, oh, like he's actually going to find, finally be able to say what kind of marriage and life he wants.

And she's going to be able to say that too. And then there, that's when the, the marriage either ends or really starts. We imagine, hopefully we go, huh, how much of a, do I have with my, in my marriage? You know, that's interesting.

Speaker 4

Yeah, no, you, you, that comes across really well. I'm sure you're aware, Ben, you were not the director's first choice to star in this movie.

Speaker 5

Usually that would make me feel very self-conscious. And secure, but it is technically true. Even though I was sleeping with the director, I was passed over initially.

Yeah, yeah, I actually wanted to, it's too great. Like we started this company. One of the things that, something Matt Damon and I started a kind of a small movie studio called Artist Equity. Part of it was frankly because I wanted to not be traveling all over the place. I wanted to have a little bit more control and authorship over my life.

And part of it was because we thought there were ways that, you know, this process could be done better. Principally like reassigning some of the controls around the way that like money is spent and the way compensation works to artists to align incentives between artists and investors and lots of sort of certain business side stuff. But also kind of got to a point in my life, we were talking earlier about, you know, hitting a certain age, seeing your folks.

Get to a certain age, recognizing your own mortality, and kind of recognizing the fact that you only got so many years. And the way you spend every day ends up being your life. You know, we sort of think we're doing this thing day to day, and like eventually our real life's going to start. Eventually we're going to get to that place we want to get to.

But the dirty secret seems to me is that this is it. Like this is my life today, you know, and these are the people I'm spending it with, and this is what I'm doing. And, and so being able to kind of push that in a direction that feels better to me, or that where I spend that time more with like, for example, with a guy, with Matt, who's, you know, my best friend, and we've been friends for so long, and so close to one of those families and so on, like, let's try to make our life feel a little bit more like that.

We did that with this movie Air. We were going to do it again with this movie. And, you know, that was, to me, just sounded like heaven. Unfortunately, found out as we were getting pretty close to production, hey, you know, there's another kidnapping movie, and it's got this similar plot. I was like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. Like, well, and I've kind of gotten to a place and learned enough where, and frankly, like, when you become the sort of, technically, I guess, the boss, you can go make the decision.

You go, okay, we're not going to do it. Like, I don't need to, I certainly don't want to compete with Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, who are making the other movie, who are guys I admire a great deal. And, you know, I don't, I don't want to see how it serves me to be compared to them. And also, like, you know, audiences, like, it's hard enough to make a movie that I just want to show up for.

I don't need to have the additional hurdle of, haven't I already seen this movie? So, just kind of decided not to do it. And then, after a few months, and that then, shortly thereafter, ended up getting offered this little kind of Maybe the Odyssey that bombed and he was very embarrassed by it, of course. It just didn't work at the box office or with the critics, which happens sometimes.

And I know he's disappointed by that. But he got offered the Odyssey, which is kind of a life, really wonderful thing, really to see, cuz I knew it meant a lot to him. I knew how much he respected Chris and loved working with Chris. And, you know, he's had a lot of, he's had the opportunity to do lots of stuff in his career, but this was really, it's great to see a friend who accomplished something that is clearly really meaningful to him.

I mean, he was really as happy as I've ever seen him the day that he got that job. You know, and that was lovely. I mean, I was really happy for him. And it was great. Obviously, it turned out to be a great, great, but I think it would have been even absent that result, which was so great. Like, it was a great experience. But, you know, what it meant was, okay, you know, If I still want to do this, and I got more and more interested in the sort of thematic stuff we're talking about, that kind of we go around with this sort of mask of ourselves on, what happens if you have to take that mask off? Like, do we even know who we really are, what we're capable of? And this like

portrait of moral compromise and how it happens and how creeping it is. And frankly, just the opportunity to tell a really good, like for performances, you know, I thought it was a really great opportunity. I'm going on and on about it, but ultimately I decided to do it with, and at that point I was like, I'm just going to play the part. I don't want to risk somebody else, you know, going off.

And we got, I got Kerry, Jen Garner was going to play the wife, because I just thought, God, I really, she, I think is such a great actress, and I thought it'd be really interesting to see her do something like this, because I know she has so many, you know, you know somebody really well. The advantage of that, whether it's Matt or my brother or like the people that I've known for a long time and worked with, you get a lot of advantages because you know, oh, let's see this other side, you know what I mean? This other thing.

And you can kind of steer people towards that. And that's what I was really hoping to do. But then, you know, I talked to her and she was like, yeah, I can't, I'm not going to play your wife. That's not going to work.

I get it. I understand, yeah. As usual, very wise, a little bit wiser than I am. But

so then, you know, it really, and also the movie had gotten into like, I had gotten into wanting to, like you say, not play by the rules and not like have one of these sort of movies where it's like, well, you can't say that because you're this character or you represent that group. Like, to me, that's just predictable and boring and artificial and imposing all these kind of structures and rules like this person can't play that type.

I just don't believe in any of that

Speaker 4

shit.

Speaker 5

and so I thought, okay, let, let me make a more provocative, interesting, really honest version of this story and carry as somebody who I've known for a long time and find it really fascinating because she's incredibly authentic and incredibly smart and incredibly fluent in terms of how she presents and she's articulate about, she's got this real social intelligence, I guess is what I mean.

and yet I always feel like I want no more, like what's really going on? Nobody can be this like nice or this perfect, you know? And so I was really excited that she said yes. And Gillian Anderson, who's amazing. So I got a great cast and put it together. And even though I was the second choice, it was a little humbling, but I went with it.

Speaker 4

Oh, Matt's like, I love you, dude, but Nolan just called. See

Speaker 5

ya. Yeah. Actually, like I said, he took it before even was sort of come back. But by the way, even if we had been shooting it and, you know, or gonna shoot it, and he had gotten that opportunity, that's one of those things where it's like, I'm a believer in this. I think this is a kind of a known sort of thing in Hollywood. Like, you don't stand in the way of people when they get these kind of lifetime opportunities.

Like, you just don't do that.

Speaker 4

Especially your best friend.

Speaker 5

Yeah, your best friend, but definitely not your best friend or really anybody. Like if I had somebody in my movie and they all of a sudden like, hey, I got the lead in a Scorsese movie. I'd be like. Of course we'll let you out. You know what I mean? Like, first of all, I don't want you to feel miserable and imprisoned and sitting there thinking I could be working with Martin Scorsese, the lead of a movie, and I'm stuck here doing the part I don't want to do.

And also, like, it's a hard life. You know, you're going around trying to audition. You're at the mercy of somebody else's choices and opportunities. They just don't come along all the time. So another actor gets that. Even had Matt been, you know, a few days from shooting, I would have said, Matt, go, go do this. Like, I know how meaningful this is to you.

Wouldn't even, wouldn't have, like, it would have been obvious. I would have been, even if he had did, no, no, I don't want to, I would have been like, I actually don't want you to be here. I don't want to feel bad. I don't want to, you know what I mean? It's just that we don't have that kind of relationship. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't take that approach with anybody.

Because part of it, honestly, selfishly is like, It, when I say it's collaborative, like, it's really collaborative, and that means that the people that are there with you gotta really be committed to it, and love it, and wanna do it, and bring in something extra to it. And for somebody who's just kinda like going through the motions, reading their lines, and avoiding the furniture, it's, it's just ordinary.

And if you're in the business of ordinary, you're not gonna be in business that long, you know.

Speaker 4

Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down Podcast. Stick around to hear more from Ben Affleck right after the break.

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Speaker 4

Welcome back. Now more of my conversation with Ben Affleck on the artist equity point. We had Matt on the show for the Odyssey, and I think he said it was that week that the checks were going out for the rip. And he was, he was as proud of that as he was of the Odyssey, the way he was talking about it. So just for people who don't know, like what did you see that was missing in Hollywood, and what did you seek to fill? Because clearly that model is working now.

Speaker 5

Yeah, it was like, well, really, you know, it was something that I think everybody saw. As you think back, whatever it was, three or four years ago, we had this big labor stoppage, right? And that was really hard and frustrating, and cost a lot of people a lot of work, and I know it had a big impact. Like, it was a really a big, a big deal for folks because a lot of people were already kind of hand-to-mouth anyway, you know? And then all of a sudden, you know, you can't work, and it created a lot of feelings and divisions, and there isn't a clear sense of, like, Because you can obviously foster this impression of like, well, there's all this money and they're being greedy

and that's very appealing. You know, whenever politics gets into those kinds of discussions, I think they get separated from the ground truth of what's really going on. And I had the chance during that time, because I guess, I don't know, you get old enough and you find out you're like, you know, I still think I should be, I'm like one of the young people.

I said, I look around, I'm the guy that like people put the joint away, you know, when I come over there. I'm like, hey, I'm cool. You don't have to be, you know, but you're, that's right. You know, you're not the cool guy. You're the, you're the older guy. You're the authority figure, ostensibly, which is sort of horrifying. But what it meant was, there was a group of people like who were sort of had been around and working in various capacities.

And they, they were doing a lot of work long before I was and really tireless work. And they said, Hey, would you help us try to fix this labor issue, you know? And so I said, okay, because I thought this would be fun, but because, you know, it was like, felt urgent and like we were at a time the business was really changing and the economics were changing.

And so there was a need to understand, we all understand ratings and what you sell ads for on television when you have the Nielsen's and the overnights. We all understand box office, that's reported, those are numbers. Streaming and the way the streaming model worked is different. I mean, they're kind of selling like a gym membership, right? Like, you know, come, you know, you're not paying every workout, right? You're buying your annual membership at Bally's and it's like at a monthly fee or whatever.

And so then how do you ascribe a value to the treadmill and the, you know, the bench press or whatever? I mean, that's a weird metaphor, but the subscription thing, right, is different than buying a ticket. And

And during that time, I had a bunch of, you know, informal, not in any official capacity, but, you know, conversations with all the different sides and everybody who was representing them. And what I found was Netflix in particular, like having talked, it was the first time I really got to know Ted Sarandos. He was really open to and interested in like, yeah, we'll share, like, this would be great for us.

We'd actually like to share some of the information about how things do on our service, what that means in terms of value. And we'd like to create a system that felt more fair to people. You know, they're a very successful company, but they also one that recognized like, we don't work without a partnership with the creative community artists, that kind of thing.

So knowing that willingness was there from that experience, went back to him.

we're actually, and the rip, because of what I told you about how like we were going to do this movie and then it got postponed, we actually had brought this movie, The Animals, to them before the rip, although it ends up coming out after, which is why we don't have that same deal in place on this movie, because frankly, I just At that time, I hadn't thought up the possibility, nor did I think we had enough sort of established relationship with them to implement this.

But by the time the rip came around, I went to them and said, look, let's, you guys are trying to manage costs. I get it. You know, Netflix feels a little bit, I think, like they were paying a kind of pioneer tax and everybody was, you know, trying to stuff money into their pockets with both hands. And whether that's true or not, if you feel like that, it makes it hard to arrive at what feels like a fair deal to folks.

So I said, look, let us manage this cost downward for you and kind of doing what Matt and I have did with Ars Equity in general, which is like, we'll take the leap on the first time, build this model. And if it works out, then we can sort of turn around and say, look, this is a different way of doing this. And so we're due star money and we didn't, and the other actors, essentially, we built in, didn't ask everybody to reduce.

Crew didn't reduce at all, actually, because no one had ever done bonuses for crews. So the idea of telling the crew, like, if it works, you're going to make more money, just, it wouldn't have worked. They wouldn't have believed it, and it would have been like, we would have been banging our heads against the wall. I know that we had to actually write checks.

And people had to cash checks before anyone was going to say, oh, there might actually be an upset. I mean, there's an old joke in Hollywood, like what did the producer say to his kid on Christmas? Like, we'll get you next time. So the history of that is people feeling ripped off hasn't helped. So we basically said and worked out a deal with Netflix that said, like, look, whatever you're underwriting to in terms of numbers of views, if it exceeds that, right? There's got to be a point at which we kind of everybody recoups and feels like they arrive at what they should have been paid because no one wants to feel like, hey, we invest all this money and if nobody watches it,

we get cleaned out. But by the same token, if you're going to ask people to sort of to take less. Has to be a real upside. And that's the really, that's what kind of air was about. It's what this company is about, like fairness, you know, and, and if people are driving, creating value, and if you want to get them invested in something so that they actually give a about, about the shareholders, what, you know, what they care about, which is creating value for the, the Netflix subscriber, you want to get them all on one page, we've got to all be aligned to the same thing, which is making it good, which means, you know, it's not just about when, when's lunch and your

overtime and all the stuff that, or, or how big your trailer is or all the that, that people can get caught up in. and so we, we built this sort of structure based on, on views. And it said, like, we'll hit this point and we kind of, you're break even essentially. And then in success, where the movie performs beyond the point to which you sort of underwrote the investment essentially, there's extra money there and we're going to distribute that to the actors and to the crew.

And thank God the movie didn't bomb because then it would have been like off or not. Like it was, was successful and I think in no small part because everybody knew that that was a big experiment and we had something to prove and people, you know, the actors worked harder to promote the movie and get it out there. And I think the audience, I think you can't dismiss the idea that an audience knew, hey, I have an impact.

If I watch this, somebody might get paid.

I wouldn't, I would think that probably helped too. Whatever it was, the movie ended up being successful and, you know, people ended up making another 20 some percent on their salary, right? That's a big bonus. Like that's a nice hit. And it really shocked people, I think. And so, you know, look, you've got to be able to Tolerate the fact that like, well, if it doesn't work, that's not going to happen.

And bet on yourself. And not everybody, I don't think, wants to do that, and not everybody has to. But building out a model where, and by the way, and if the movie had been K-pop demon hunters successful, everybody would have gotten, you know, like, it'd be retired, you know, and that would have been that. But, you know, not every movie can be K-pop demon hunters.

Let's face

Speaker 4

it. No, no, no, that's a one of one. It's a

Speaker 5

one of one, sir. The thing that I thought was that I wanted to make sure was part of the template, because I think Netflix would have, look to Netflix, it was a good value proposition thing, right? They didn't mandate, oh, it's got to be distributed to the crew. We used it in part to lower costs because we went to Steven and Tiana and Kyle and all the other actors in the movie and said, hey, you're going to take a little less, but you're going to get a hit in success.

Thank God they got, they got a hit and Also their agents, which you can't put that past cuz they're the ones we have to make the next deal with. And they remember, they can say, hey, yeah, you know what? So and so actually made another, they made another, you know, actually the actors, you know, it were very reasonable, meaningful bonuses.

So you've got to be able to prove that it happens and it's going to work and that people are going to get there.

But I don't know that anyone had included the crews, but I also know frankly that like sometimes that's another part of what you're grappling with is that I've looked at, you know, I thought like, gosh, why is this got to be, you know, 30 million bucks for us to shoot this movie or 40 million bucks? Like, you know, I feel like there's, I know there are savings here, right? But people naturally protect, you know, what they've spent their life building towards.

And so, and I don't want to be somebody who's just trying to claw that back. and, you know, and just making that the only source of savings instead of like, you know, by the way, in the executive sphere, you guys ought to be cutting back here and then the, and the talent side, like it's got to be shared, right? Yeah. So in order to do that, and in order to, to hopefully enshrine this particular model in a way that like, if the next people want to pick it up and, and go with it, then it means that the crew is included in that too.

And I just, I really believe in that because I've, I know for absolute certain that your movie is better, the environment is better, the likelihood of quality is higher, the experience of the human beings doing it is improved. If like every single one of these, like other 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 people here are also invested in giving And like, hey, that was a good interview.

Hey, people are going to watch that. Like, they'll stay a little bit longer or try a little bit harder to go, oh, you know what? Let's pick up this little extra piece because that's going to make it better. If all you give a shit about is your check and going home, because it'll make a difference to you if it's good or bad, and no one's treating you as if you're particularly important to the process, then you're not going to help.

And you're going to be like, fuck them and their extra piece and their extra shot. You know what I mean? And yeah, well, we were over at the slider, it

Speaker 1

Work or, it was off, too bad. You know, it's like, and, and you're gonna have, as, as you know, like, you're sitting there going, I gotta make this good. Like, people gotta wanna see what I'm doing. Like, you're aware of that. And so in order to, like, inculcate that kind of awareness across the board,

you need to, you need to share in those incentives. Otherwise, people are less apt to do that. Some people will, will work to a higher standard anyway, just because that's who they are, and they give a, you know, but I don't wanna ask someone to have to care a whole hell of a lot more, for nothing, you know, and I want people to feel connected to the final result, because they are.

And that's, that was the, the ethos.

Speaker 2

By in works, by in works. It does. You

Speaker 1

want the highest likelihood of predicting a result mostly is going to have to do with, you know, what the incentive is. People have to get there, right? Like we are a species that is acculturated to work based on like from a very early age, reward and punishment. I mean, that's the first stage of world development. You're a kid and you get told, well, you're going to get a timeout or a spanking or you're going to get a cookie.

And that's the first way we learn, oh, so I want to go this way instead of that way. And yeah, then we, you know, in adolescence, we start to understand, you know, okay, I, you know, the rules are here for a reason so that we can all get along. And it's interesting to come back to the movie. And then the lessons we also, if you believe psychologists, we start to go.

If I'm not perceived to be a good person, other people won't like me, right? Which is not the same as having a inner moral code, but it's the sort of next stage. And supposedly, I mean, this whole movie came out of me reading this article that then said only 15% of people ever reach the third stage of moral development, which is actually, you know, I believe something is wrong and I'm not going to do it, even if the state or the church tell me that I should, or if there'll be a consequence to me, or if I have to sacrifice something, I'm still not going to do the thing that I believe is wrong.

Because

Speaker 2

that's the hard last step of morality.

Speaker 1

Exactly. That's what you're sacrificing something. That's what this movie is fundamentally about. Like, what were we willing to sacrifice for our, you know, and how we become actually quite entrenched, you know, and worried, and fear makes it harder.

Speaker 2

I'm glad that your model is working at artist equity, because hopefully that People pick it up and work it. And you've always been innovative in that. I'm thinking back to like Project Greenlight and how the web fits into Hollywood, the internet, all that. And now, of course, AI, and you've been on the leading edge of that with your company that you sold to Netflix.

You said you use it in post-production for this movie, but I'm just curious because, man, the headlines right now are this whistleblower says it could end humanity in a decade. This one said it's going to save humanity. And regular people going about their lives don't know what to make of it all. You clearly understand it really well. Sitting here in 2026, what's your view of the power, the promise, but also the risks of AI?

Speaker 1

boy, that seems to be the question of our time, at least right now. Part because there's a lot of fear, part because there's very few sort of informed voices, and they say kind of extreme things. And there's a reason for all of that, I guess. What I would say is that ultimately, You know, it comes down to a little bit more common sense than we sort of, like fear gets us dysregulated.

You know, as humans, we respond to fear signals, to signals of danger, much more than anything else. You know, that's how we had to, that's how we evolved and we learned to survive. So that if there's a sound that sounds like a lion or an alligator in the bush, like that's the thing we're paying attention to. And that's how PTSD works, that's how trauma works.

And so if you're lying in bed at night and you hear like some glass break and it sounds like someone's climbing in a window, the first thing you think is not, well, most home invasion robberies don't result in violence. And actually this person probably just, and it may not even be a robber. It may be someone who's lost their key. You panic, right? Your cortisol spikes, your adrenaline spikes.

And, you know, you'll reach for a gun. And that's the way that we've learned to kind of survive, is to have this fight or flight instinct. I think that a little bit of like sober, thoughtful analysis is merited at this point with AI. And the first thing to understand for me is that like we're wholly in control of the, of how this technology is implemented.

The notion that, well, it's happening or it's inevitable is false. And that like any industry, you know, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, driving a car, you need to get a license. There is plenty of common sense, like regulatory, you know, care that can be applied here. There's also, you know, And I think that that's appropriate. So like the idea that these people are arguing for like utterly unfettered, nothing that's unfettered has ever worked.

Like that is not something that is wise. Like particularly if what we all share is the acknowledgement like this is going to impact everybody, right? There's also like understanding what currently AI is, which is, you know, a construction of a technology that is a predictive technology. And understanding and really making clear the difference like not only is this not thought, it is not sentience, it is not a being, it does not have feelings, like it is not another person.

That's a very important thing to recognize. It is a technology that I haven't seen, you know, any research paper or any indication whatsoever that would suggest that there's anything even remotely like Human thought present in this. What it does is it mimics human speech and thought quite well, but the way it does that is actually very simple, which is how it works.

It takes a, it essentially says, it's a machine that predicts the likeliest next word in a sentence. Period, full stop, end. That's it. If it's a video, it's predicting the next pixel, okay? The next pixel is likely to look like, you know, and that in concert with, like, you start with a bunch of noise, and you say blue dolphin swimming in the ocean, and it has learned by looking at, you know, billions and billions of images that if blue dolphin is correlated with, you know, a shape that sort of looks like this and that's surrounded by water, et cetera, et cetera.

So then the way it works is you go with language models. It's very simple. No matter how sophisticated Astra, Sol, or Fable 5.5, these are all doing the same thing, just in a more sophisticated and extensive way, which is saying, what's the next word? Once upon a time, you know, well, once upon a, is there like, and time is the next word.

And, you know, there's a prompt that's injected into a language model before you ever see any of it that says, you are a helpful AI chat bot, and you are working with a user. And they're asking you a question and you need to help, you know, provide the answer. That's part of the sentence that it predicts, and then it adds on what you add to it, and then it literally takes, finds the next likeliest word, tacks it onto the sentence, runs that through an incredibly elaborate, you know, Give it kind of like, you know, drop a marble down those,

you know, there's a bunch of attention blocks, and then there's the multi-layer perceptron layers, but essentially all it's doing is assigning meaning to something, and then using something called softmax to normalize, you know, for 3.5 is 28,000 vectors of meaning, and it sounds like, oh my god, this is so sort of overwhelming and complex, but really it's like it knows all the words in the English language because it's looked at the whole array of the way the words have been used online and their relationship to one another, and it has constructed a set of meaning that is in relationship to one another.

So in an AI model, You know, you could take, you know, X and Y are two dimensions, right? And Z is the third dimension. So imagine 28,000 dimensions. In physical space, it's hard to imagine, but if you just imagine it as a number next to another letter, well, then you can understand. It's just a long series of information, and think of that sum, okay? If you were to, you don't actually literally add it all, but if you did, each word would be correlate to a sum.

So that the word for, if you added, you know, Japan, or if you added, let's say if you added Italy to Hitler, you'd get a sum that correlates roughly with Mussolini. In other words, it's a way of assigning numerical values to word meanings so that you can use numerical interpretations to understand them. And that's how it predicts the next word.

It seems like a person talking to you, because it's mimicking speech in such an effective way. But the way that human beings think and talk to one another and relate to one another is not by, I'm going to say a word and then guess what the likeliest next word is and guess what the likely predict. We don't think at all remotely that way. We have experiences, we have perspectives, we have feelings, we think about whole ideas, we construct them in a very complicated sort of arrangement, and then we interpret and think, how can I say these things in such a way to communicate what I mean? That's radically different than what AIs do.

It's not sentient, it's not a person, it's not, and so that kind of confusion or like using an AI as your therapist or your friend, I think that poses a sort of danger. That's not unlike the dangers that, that, that, that we face with social media. Because I don't think there's anybody in the world who sits around and, you know, unabashedly 100% goes like, thank God for social media, it's made everything so much better.

But I can remember when, you know, when it, when social media first emerged, it's sort of Pollyanna, oh, it's going to be, you know, the green revolution. This is when it's democratized information. And now we're sitting there going, man, this has not made my life all the way better. There's something really dark. And obviously, you see this lawsuit that was just settled, extremely, can be extremely deleterious for teenagers, kids.

And also, you know, there's more an attitude of like, yeah, social media is part of our lives. We have to have it. It's part of the way we make a living. But we also know that it's had a negative impact. My guess is that AI will be viewed similarly, ultimately, which is to say like, yep, my washing machine talks to me and, you know, I kind of have, I live in a world that's smarter in some ways, but there'll be the similar kind of like sense of nostalgia and yearning for like a simpler time and a time when we weren't so, you know, totally infused with technology.

But I think the other thing to be really, really clear about is that like we have a choice about what we decide to allow technology to control or dictate. So that the first thing to understand is the difference between like a deterministic technology, which is computing as we've known it, your calculator, is it'll give you the same result every time you say four times four, right? It's going to be precise, it's going to be exact.

When you're writing code for machines, Hey, you say X is always going to be equal, you know, greater than Y squared. It's always going to look like that. Probabilistic or stochastic technologies, which is what AI is, it functions because graphical processing units are good at computing things in parallel and doing this kind of predictive, which think of it like a bookmaker.

It's setting a line. It's finding a mean, right? And so it's saying, yeah, it's going to be in this zone. And so people are like, oh my, hallucinated or it's sometimes wrong and act like that's aberrant. It's not aberrant. That is a function of how this technology has to work in order to do the things that it does successfully. So first you got to understand that it's error prone, it's always going to be error prone.

And it can say things with a tremendous authority and surety. And then you go, oh, that doesn't make sense. I don't think that's right. Take a look at this. My fault. You're absolutely right. I made a terrible, you know. And so like it's, it's fallible, right? So what that means is, and we've learned this lesson before, I think computers came along and all the traders thought, oh great, we can put all of our, we're going to stop us.

As soon as a stock hits a certain number, I'm going to sell my stock. And then in 1982, everybody did that and they had these, their computer sales, and stocks hit a certain number and everybody started dumping them and it caused a panic and wiped the market out, right? Like, so we've learned, let's not hand the wheel over entirely to these technologies.

The notion that you want to seek to remove the human from the loop, I think is the most pernicious. notion, or the idea that actually the efficiency gains are going to involve, you know, how many people you can eliminate. First of all, nobody wants to live in that world. Second of all, it's, or maybe even first of all, depending on your perspective, that's actually going to fail.

Because this is technology that needs management, it needs expert guidance, no matter how much, how good, like, you know, coding harnesses are. I can tell you, you have to sit there and fix them and iterate with them, and they'll likely sail off and rewrite half your code base if you don't understand, like, no, no, no, no, you can't do that.

They're bounded by context. They will often forget things. They will, you have to be careful what permissions you give them. That is all true. So, so what that tells me is like, be mindful about what things, don't just seek to be like, oh, we're going to hand over management to AI, and we're going to hand over the, you know, the governance of things to AI.

That's just like a terrible idea. But if we do that, that will be the fault of the humans who make that choice, not of a technology that is simply self-evident in what it is and what its failings are.

Speaker 2

Stick around for more of my conversation with Ben Affleck right after a quick break.

Speaker 3

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Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Ben Affleck on the regulation to your leadership now, who's like, no, we don't want to get in the way because we're going to lose the race with China to get there. And then you have CEOs who I suspect you were somewhat suspicious of saying, stop us before we go too fast, and they have their own incentives to do that.

Yeah, I

Speaker 1

mean like, right. And that's, I think, with anybody who has a view on anything, you know, you want to listen, but listen critically and see what you can learn. But also imagine like, well, why is this person, where's their incentive to say this? It's naturally good to pace the frontier if you're one of the four companies that's spending a gigantic amount of money to scale, improve their models, that feel that they're in a Frantic, you know, race with their competitors, and they're spending, you know, a quadratic, they're at a quadratically increasing spend to reach the next level of model, and finding that it's like, oh, an increasingly smaller marginal improvement of

each model. I feel great if I were in that business, and somebody was going to say, guess what? We're going to sort of collude to manage our spend downward, so we don't have to dump quite so much money into it. But effectively, what that creates is a kind of a cartel. Like, and so I think, you know, I understand why, and these businesses have advertised themselves as, we need to be in charge of this because it's so dangerous and it could kill us all.

Well, like, to me, that's a bad argument. And also, you know, if you have a history of saying, we're going to be open, and we have an open technology, and we're going to name our company OpenAI because we're going to be open models, and then all of a sudden you pivot to being not only not open, but not for profit, but a for profit, closed model system.

It probably means that like you can't always be trusted to follow through on what you've promised because the last thing we saw was you completely change 180 degrees from your original position around this. So if you think about a little bit critically, but also not like it's not demons or not evil, they're trying to run businesses, they're trying to be successful.

I'm sure they all believe in what they're doing and like to me I think Jensen Huang is a really smart guy. Like having encountered him I find him to be like the most normal, down to earth, legit. He's like a guy who you can talk to and it's like look, you know for example he's just a guy who seems to me to be working very hard to maintain and preserve access to openly models, which I think is extremely critical and important for a number of reasons.

One, because Openly models, many of which now can and in the future will be able increasingly to run on device. So you will not need to have the massive electricity expenditures and the consequential environmental and cost impacts of that. If you can run Qwen 3.8 27 on your 32 gig, you know, Mac Pro laptop or whatever, MacBook Pro,

and you don't have to send an inference call to Astra in order to have that particular question answered, that's an efficiency gain. That benefits everybody on the planet. And it's also,

it actually does democratize this technology, right? Like you don't want to have it be such that the only available models are closed models and therefore, that's part of why I'm suspicious of this like Chinese threat. Because what I think in part it means is, well, and these open models, because they're Chinese, we don't want to use them.

Well, that just means that fewer people are going to control your ability to access them because you can download open model for free right now. Face, costing nothing, and run a lot of inference and AI on that that you would otherwise be paying $200 a month to, you know, a lot of these other, you know, hyperscalers, frontier models, cloud providers.

So I think that one of the things that, like, Jensen's doing that seems to me be very wise is working very hard to protect that. He bought Hugging Face, Hugging Face is the repository for these models and a sort of hub of that. And he's also a guy who seems to me just kind of a baller. Like, they were like, what are you going to do about the 5% billionaire tax? He was like, yeah, what? Nothing, fine.

Speaker 2

What

Speaker 1

else?

Speaker 2

Which

Speaker 1

I think is so hard. You know what I mean? Like, if you're that guy who's, like, picking up and moving your whole because they're going to tax you 5% on your 100 billion, like, I think you're kind of a sucker. You know what I mean? Like, really? Are you that? You need to hoard your money that much? There's a 5% knock on your net. Maybe you're not as much a savage as you think you were.

If you're going to pick up and run, because someone's going to tax you 5% on 100 billion dollars that you can't even spend in 100 lifetime. Like, that's so much money. You have to be a government to distribute that much wealth. So I don't understand the psychology behind like, you know, and that's where I think there needs to be like, like I heard a guy, Chamath, who said, I've known for a long time, was say something I thought was pretty smart on one of these podcasts recently.

It was like, hey, Like, if we're going to be doing all this development and trying to tell people that, like, they're sharing in the value of this, it can't just be theoretical future value. You know, you're looking at the past industries that have expanded, like whether it's, you know, Carnegie or Rockefeller, they built museums and parks and, you know, and the railroads were evident public good, but they also, like, invested in communities around it.

If you want to get people to embrace data centers because you think they're critical to what you're doing, boy, you, you know, you better make it evident to people that there is a benefit to them. I have a data center in their backyard. Otherwise, it's no surprise that they're going to be like, oh, you're going to come here and spend all this money and create 200 jobs, and we're just going to be staring at a giant concrete square.

Stuck in all our water

Speaker 2

and our power.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, and the water thing is a little bit of a, because it's really a sort of a closed loop water system, but they are electrically very taxing, like, take a lot of electricity. And That's another instance where it's like, be honest about it, talk about what it is and what those impacts are. And, and, I mean, look, it's unfortunate.

Like if, if this four or five trillion dollar expenditure in the next three or four years is real, that's about what it costs to build the national highway system in the United States, right? Like we need more. And it's probably like if you had to, if you had a problem to solve, like a PhD in economics, and your thesis was, how can I spend the most money and create the fewest jobs? Data centers would probably be the answer.

Right, because like, there just aren't the human, you know, you've got some construction and you've got some investment, but then you're buying a lot of chips and infrastructure, but you're not investing a lot in human labor. But what you could be doing is like starting, you know, trade schools, for example, for the applied side of AI, for the, for implementation, for IT.

You could be working with like junior colleges. You could be investing in education to create a labor force that can support this, that can grow and evolve into where there are going to be jobs that there are right now that people can't even fill. Like, we've got to understand the relationship that we have to one another. It can't just be one sector grows and, you know, absent any recognition of like, what's the rest of the economy going to do? Ultimately, fundamentally, you need customers, if nothing else, like to be able to afford to pay for these goods.

And that's what I mean about, one of the things I like about Jensen Wang's response was just like, okay. Yeah, is there an impact? Is there a tax? Like, fine, not going to change my life. I'm fine. And I don't, I'm not worried about like hoarding my own personal wealth. I'm actually worried about trying to build a future that's like, that's meaningful and in which, you know, people can participate.

And you can argue and you can debate. And the truth is nobody has a crystal ball and nobody really knows, which is why I think there should be like transparency. There should be emphasis on responsible use. There should be a lack of kind of demagoguery, fear mongering. And, you know,

I think that that's, it's just a, in a, in a sort of a. A little bit of a moratorium on the like, this is too complicated, you can't possibly understand it, but I've seen the abyss. You sit down and go, dude, what was the abyss that you saw? And it's like, it turns out there's no technical basis for this. A lot of it is a sort of sci-fi futurism.

But what if it all just thinks that we're paperclips? It's a mild hypothetical. I'm like, okay, that doesn't bear any relationship to anything that I see right now. Like, talk about real and practical impacts. And yep, one of the tools is going to be litigation, but it can't be the only tool, right? But also, you don't want to create, like make it impossible to, sorry, companies or run a business.

I understand that. Like, there, it's sort of, I mean, it strikes me as kind of the sort of Buddhist answer, you know, is there's a sort of middle path, you know, and there has to be some

wisdom and thought and maturity and respect for all sides and the recognition, which is what Speaking to like the company that I built with, you know, some people a lot smarter than, than I am and who, but, but who all of us shared the same basic mission, which was kind of similar to, we talked about our security, which is to say that if you want to, if you believe in a certain vision of the future and you believe that this is the direction that it can go, you've got to go, go out and do that and build that in order to demonstrate it.

And so here is a company that we built that adds value, that's, that, that actually adds and enhances creativity, that works alongside every single actor. We're not making anything up. It's not, nothing's purely imagined. Nothing's in my movies. We typed it in. There's fake people. It's not that. I don't want to do that. That seems to me.

I don't think the audience wants it. I don't think anybody wants that. What I think

is interesting to filmmakers and creatives is the same ongoing fact that like, okay, well, we had black and white movies that were silent, and then we had talkies, and then we had three-stripe color, and then we used to have arc lights that only, you know, were like would catch fire for nine minutes, and you had to have someone stand there and put it out so it would burn the whole place down.

And then we had HMIs and LEDs, and we've been able to make movies better looking and more interesting as these technology, and serve the audience better.

The idea that the goal is to get rid of people or to even do everything artificially, that is not my goal, not the goal of this company. The goal of this company, Interpositive, and the goal that were shared by Netflix, which is why I was really happy to sell it to Netflix, as opposed to someone that I think that doesn't have a relationship with creators, that doesn't care about that isn't a relationship with, you know, isn't a guild signatory, that isn't really in partnership with artists and creators every day, is because they know, like, this is the core and the heart of our business.

We're not genuinely not wanting to replace anybody or any job. We're trying to just include this technology so that we can continue to evolve our business and grow and stay competitive. Because, you know, Hollywood's got a lot of problems in terms of its business model, and not one of them have to do with AI, you know, as we were talking earlier.

Like, we're really reckoning with, like, what do things cost? You know, are people still going to the movies? What can you invest in? Every week it seems like there's a headline of a movie successful, or, oh my god, this movie's a wipeout, and no one's going to go to the theaters anymore, and what's the value of streaming? So we got to figure that out.

Clearly, people are still consuming this. Clearly, there's still value there. We got to find a balance and some fairness. And so that, to me, is the ongoing challenge, and I think In order to do that and, and to show that, yeah, I, I don't think we should abjure this entirely and sort of, you know, take this monkish approach so that says, like, we can't touch the stain of AI and you should sort of label something as, and it's like, the aud, you know, the audience will reject something that's ugly and artificial and false and not human anyway.

I'm not interested in that. What I am interested in is having all the same people and all, all the, and actually enhancing the human artistic aspect of it so we can spend more time shooting and less time doing the boring that nobody wants to do. that, that makes it possible.

Speaker 2

I didn't mean to send you down a full AI wormhole, but I think you're such a good rational voice on this. People kind of need to hear it. Before I let you go, I've kept you a long time. back to your career a little bit. I was thinking that next year is the 30th anniversary of Good Will Hunting, and I wonder Given everything that's happened in your life and your career since then, when you see those two guys on the stage getting their Oscar, what do you see in that video?

Speaker 1

I mean, it feels mortifying to me. Really? These two kids who are just don't know anything, like just two totally hapless kids. You know, I mean, we had no, just like totally lost it and kind of geeked out. I mean, I think I repeat, I thanked Boston three times. Like, I didn't give any thought, not a single thought to like, what happens if I win? I better have something to say.

You know what I mean? Like I had no, the whole idea of even being there was absurd. The year before, we'd watched a show from an apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, sitting around drinking beers, like making bets on it. And the next year being there and Billy Crystal was singing about us, it was like, it was like stepping into like a hallucination or something.

Speaker 2

But I think that's why people loved it, because it felt real and raw and honest. Oh,

Speaker 1

yeah, they did. And it was real and raw and honest, but it was us that were like, hey, we're so happy. You know, like, just like voices got real higher. Maybe my voice was, but maybe I hadn't hit puberty yet. I'm not sure. It feels like, but it's, I get it. It was a beautiful, I mean, the truth is, I think it's nice to, if I can step out of myself, like, probably it's nice to see somebody really authentically enjoy something, right? Like, and not be kind of jaded and have their rehearsed speech and do their shtick.

And that part was certainly true. You can tell because we kind of look like fools, you know?

Speaker 2

Do you think about, I mean, obviously, Good Will Hunting set you on a path and launched you two guys, but everything you've done since then, including because you directed this movie, I'm thinking when you started with Gone Baby Gone, and that'll be 20 years next year, that like set you, to me, on a totally different path where you were sort of controlling the process a little bit differently than just being a movie star.

Did it feel that way to you? And then you had all those successes through Argo.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that was, you know, look, in some ways, it kind of speaks to why I feel like Failure and setbacks and difficulties.

You know, we hate them. We don't, we're aversive to them. We mourn them when they happen, but some of the best things that's ever happened to me. I would not have learned what I learned, and I wouldn't have the life that I have now that I really love, in part, which is the perspective of I also know what's really important to me. You know, I kind of know, like, hey, I love my work.

It gives me a lot of purpose, but I'm not going to compromise the time that I have with my kids. Right? And I also know sort of what I know, and I know that you have to bring a humility to it and bring other people into it and also question, okay, I got an idea for this, but like if someone else has a better idea, I want to listen to them and incorporate that.

And for me, it was like I got lucky in a weird way, and that I got successful young, and then I had real failure. Like not too long after that, really. I had three, four movies in a row that just wiped out, and then I was like, oh, I may not work again. And I confronted that fact, and the fact that all of a sudden people I thought were my friends didn't want to call me back, and you know, like went through that whole experience of like, oh, none of you, these people actually liked me or were my friends, and you know, kind of Got this abuse of some of those illusions early on, and then thought, okay, got to kind of make it again, you know, as a director.

And my first movie, you know, the pitch was like, well, no, no, I'm not in it, don't worry. You know, that's kind of where my acting career was at that point. It was about, and so then every movie that I made to me felt like make or break. I had to work or I wasn't going to work. And what I realized was that that made me work harder and be more dedicated, and that's kind of what it took for me to be successful.

At least early on as a director, I had to be all-consuming, and I had to work. I was like, I don't know that I'm any more talented than anyone else, or I even know how to do this any better than anyone else, but I can work harder than anyone else. And that was my approach, and I can learn. Maybe I don't know, but I'll listen, and I'll learn, and I'll remember.

And that was the approach I took to it, and I just was successful enough with Gone Baby Gone, I got a chance to direct another movie. And then I was able to be in it, and that one I thought. If this doesn't work, I'm finished. I'll never act in another movie. This will be the death knell. I'll be like, I'll have no excuses. And so that was the most urgent thing in the world.

And the truth is like, I learned to push and push myself and grow through some of that failure. And I also learned that there's, it isn't going to kill you. Like you fail, you fall down, you look stupid, you look bad. Like that's kind of the nature of trying to do something interesting is you got to be willing to do that. If you just play it safe, you can play it safe, but you'll only ever be kind of inside that zone, you know, and it won't ever really be any different than anyone else is doing.

And if you want to, if you want to excel and you want to try and you want to, you have that hunger, you have to be willing to look terrible when you miss. And then I realized, but that's not going to kill me. Actually, like I've had, you know, so many embarrassing things. I've forgotten half of them. And the truth is, like, that's not what matters.

What really matters, what really stays with me, the things that I hope my children look to when they see my life and career and they take the positive examples to take from it are, like, my dad didn't give up. And my dad did not hold himself above anybody else. He just, and he was successful in direct correlation to the hard work he put in.

Sometimes you work hard, you don't get there, too. But that actually, if you do that, You'll leave with an esteem that no one can take away from you. That is kind of like, if you can develop your own sense of what constitutes success and failure, that doesn't need someone else to tell you it was great, that doesn't need the approval or approbation of the whole world, you can live a really happy life where I don't find myself chasing it, chasing that appeal.

I love this movie, Animals. I really want people to see it. I think they'll like it. I make movies mindful of the audience and their time and and their experience.

But also, you know, I'm also comfortable with like, I did some things I really wanted to do in this that I think were really interesting and I can take the, I think, appropriate pride in that without sort of also needing to over-inflate myself. And speaking of my kids, it's also like kids keep you humble and I think it's important to see that.

Like I think the most important example I can set for my children is, like when I make a mistake, I can apologize to them. Because I want them to understand that that's what an appropriate relationship is. Like, you have a relationship with somebody who can't apologize or can't admit when they've done something wrong, it's almost impossible to have a meaningful relationship with that person.

As soon as I f*** up, I do something, I say, I go, you're right, I'm really sorry, that was my fault, that was a mistake.

There's the value, I think, for kids being able to see that and being able to go, yeah, when you interpret this as wrong or thoughtless or unwise, like, you may be right about that. And then they're willing to kind of listen to me a little bit more, and I've been able to foster an honest relationship with my children that's really meaningful, and it's not predicated on the illusion of me as perfect or all wise.

And allows them to see me for who I am. Like we were saying earlier, you know, we get to this age where you realize like we're just like our parents, we're just like us, like we're just people trying to figure it out, trying to kind of do our best, making some mistakes along the way, trying to correct. And your children are going to see that about you and see the feet of clay.

And that's really where, what I think about most of the time is like what kind of example am I setting both around like how do you find esteem and how you have to self-esteem, you know, is such an important thing. We talk about it all the time, but the way to get it is like do esteemable things. And, you know, and that can be like treating other people well, that can be, you know, helping other people, that can be building something that which you're proud.

But the other way that we try to get it is kind of sitting back and putting everyone else down to try to make them lower than us. That doesn't, that doesn't really work. and so that's the, the sort of meaningful ongoing journey in my life is how am I raising my kids? I got a great, their mom is spectacular and, and, and, amazing and always makes me feel like I'm coming up a little short.

No matter what I do as a parent, Jen's like, oh, I'm doing that too. And then we're also going to a picnic and I'm like, I can't believe it. Like, there's no, there's no one upping her. You know what I mean? On the parent thing. I realize the kids, I'm like, I think I'm doing about seventy five percent as good as your mom. And that's like, they're like,

maybe forty, but.

Speaker 2

You're like, I'm topping out at seventy five. I said, I'm

Speaker 1

maxing out. Woo, B plus. How do, yeah. This

Speaker 2

is all I got, guys.

Speaker 1

I, I don't pretend to try to be like, you can't, she's not somebody that I would want to get into a parenting competition. But what it is, is great. We, you know, I respect her. I'm grateful for her. We got a really good thing where, you know, it's the only other person in the world who Who cares as much about the things I care the most about as I do, you know? And I think that's a really important thing, you know, married or divorced, like, I think the most important thing is,

you know, having that mutual respect, being able to get along with that person. I think you can, I think you can have either way and have a healthy environment for your kids, but, like, you don't want to have that, like, toxicity or poison or conflict. That's really corrosive. So, you know, but it's also fraught with mistakes and, you know, we just can do our best.

Speaker 2

But your kids should see that too, right? That it's not perfect.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the idea, then what they think, I have to be perfect too? Like, no. And, you know, you just got to try your best. You got to work hard. And they got to feel kind of loved and rooted for.

And luckily, they don't have a lot, it's not all that difficult to see their fathers failing. So,

I don't worry about them having to live up to the perfect image. They're like, we got it, Dad, you're not perfect. We even forced that. We see it, nice and clear.

Speaker 2

We've done the Google work. Exactly.

Speaker 1

Oh, they love that. They send me stickers. I don't even know how you do that on text. Like, you can take a picture and make it a sticker. I'm like, where are you getting these pictures? Why do I need to see this picture of myself from like, 98? You know what I mean? Like, can this just die? I think they're the only ones who are like, the whole game of like, how stupid did our dad look in a picture is like, it never ends.

There's no thank you. Paparazzi and journalists and whoever. I love

Speaker 2

the idea that your own children are sending you the memes that we've seen. Oh my god, they think

Speaker 1

it's the. I'm like, this is not funny. This is wearing out its welcome as a joke. Never gets old. Dad is like, look how stupid dad looks. Will always be funny, it turns out.

Speaker 2

And the more you say it's tired, the more they say. Oh yeah,

Speaker 1

they're like, you know. And you realize they give, like, it's not just, you know, the thing of when you talk to your kid and they roll their eyes. The worst thing is when they like, look at each other. Yeah. Okay, dad. I'm like, oh my god. I've become that. It's like, you know how me and my brother used to like be with like, we'd be like, okay, mom, you know.

Of

Speaker 2

course.

Speaker 1

And it's, it's just the way it goes, man. Man,

Speaker 2

and we're about the same age and we're talking about teenagers on this side, parents, mine aging. I'm sorry, you lost yours this year in quick succession, a couple months apart. Did the loss of your mom and dad give you a moment of perspective on your own parenting and on your relationship with them and all of that? You

Speaker 1

know, like I think you spend a lot, I mean, I spend, yeah, all of a sudden it brings all those things kind of up, like my own mortality, the time I got left, looking at myself as a parent, looking at my parents not as parents,

Speaker 2

you

Speaker 1

know what I mean? But like realizing, oh, oh, that actually, you think of like your parents as just sort of relative to you because I think the nature of being a kid and all that stuff is like, who are they? Well, they're my parents. Well, like, I look at my mom's, you know. Life and pictures or letters or stuff. And I realized, oh my gosh, she had like this whole other life before me and all this potential and promise.

It was this beautiful, smart, young woman who's had these dreams and ambitions. And then she took all that and decided to raise these kids and be a teacher. And I don't think I ever was kind of appropriately grateful, you know, or really respected or appreciated that enough.

and I don't think she would have wanted me to. Like she wasn't somebody who wanted, you know, oh, say thank you to me. Like that wasn't her personality. But that's not the point. The point is that I, I kind of, it took that for me to really get it. Like, oh, you were a person. You didn't have to have kids. You didn't have to have me. You didn't have to.

Not only be a great mom, but like a great grandmother, dedicate your time, like she was there for my kids, my brother's kids, like she spent the back half of her life, like just I'm going to be a grand, I remember she was threatened to steal my Oscar and give it back when I had kids, that was her bit. And to the point where I

Speaker 2

was like, you can have it,

Speaker 1

but you're going to have to wait. But then it was like the best and

yeah man, you think about that and that, that person who raised you and you know, you miss them and you think about all the things, and it wasn't like there's things I, I didn't say or said all the things,

but it's a different world when your parents aren't in it anymore. It's kind of like, you know, it's just different. I don't know, I, people who are watching or experiencing it will know, and it's sort of subtle, but it's like that thing of, oh, that, the foundation that I always sort of assumed was kind of back there, you know, is gone. And and it also makes me feel like It's like, like we were to our discussion earlier about how you spend your time and, and your days, like this is the life, this is the time we get, and it goes by, and, you know, it matters.

and look, a lot of folks don't have a lot of choice or agency, right? Like, I get it, like sometimes you gotta, you gotta go overseas, cause you're in the military, you're not gonna see your kids for two years or whatever it is, and like, that's really, really tough. And, and like those, but like, nonetheless, no matter what situation you're in, I think, you know, we have the choice to let our kids know, let the people who we love know we love them, you know, doesn't take a lot.

You know, it does take some, some commitment and some care and some thought, and just, just to kind of be mindful of like, cause we're, this is who we are every day, whatever we lay down, how we behave, how we treat each other, things we do, we often say things and mess up and, oh, I, that wasn't my intention, I didn't mean to, it's like.

It doesn't end up really mattering what you meant to do. It kind of ends up mattering what you did. And that's what, that's what this really reinforced for me. And, and I, and it makes me, it makes me think about, okay, this is kind of how it's supposed to go. Like a thing can be really sad, but not tragic. Like nothing tragic about living 84 years.

That's, that's actually, you've, you've outlived the life, average life expectancy. You know, she, my mom herself said, I had a great life, you know. I,

only thing I will say is that she faced the last chapter of her life with like,

very impressive courage that I didn't kind of know she had. And, I don't know, she set a very high bar and example for how to, how to handle it. And I realized, oh, death is, is that, is just another step of our life. It's another challenge. It's another thing that we face. And we actually Have control over how we handle that and, and how we approach it.

And that has an impact on other people. And I thought like, man, mom, that was really pretty impressive. You know, she was very purposeful and thoughtful about how she wanted to spend her time, who she wanted to see. When she was like, nah, I'm good. We don't need to do any more treatment. I don't need to chase. I don't need to be, you know, a chemo or that and a surgery and all that.

I don't want to be miserable in a second. I want to spend these years, this time with people that I love and doing things I want to do and traveling. And she did it, you know, and she wanted to live to see her nephew graduate high school. And, and she did. And it's funny then, then like once she had done the things that she kind of expected to do and started to have that kind of, you know, pain and stuff that happens, I could just tell she, she was good, you know, and kind of made, I feel like she sort of made that choice too.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

So set the bar, set the bar, set the bar for me too, like I want to be the kind of grandparent to my, if I'm lucky I'll have grandkids and, and, I'd like to, I'd like to be half the grandparent that she was. She was really something else, you know.

Speaker 2

She sounds amazing. I have bad news, your grandkids are also going to send you the memes. No, see

Speaker 1

this is my plan. My plan is I'm like me and your kids are going to with you. And you're not going to like that because you know what, they're going to be like, right, mom's up. I know, look at, and they won't like it, she won't be funny then. When grandpa comes around and is like, hey, you want some money? Let's go over here. You want some ice cream? You want to see a picture of your mom when she was six and walking around naked? Here she is.

And then I'm going to be cool again. It's going to take a minute, but that's my, that is my long term move.

Speaker 2

Wow, you're already compiling oppo research on your kids.

Speaker 1

I really am like, okay guys, make this money. Wait till you have your own kids. Because they're going to be like, oh my god, mom, you're so embarrassing. Right? Kind of embarrassing. I'm ready.

Speaker 2

Back on your own kids. Last thing, you won celebrity who wants to be a millionaire. Incredible.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Speaker 2

And for-

Speaker 1

I'd help. And for,

Speaker 2

and for, for a great cause. Love you to talk if you can. Sure. Eastern

Speaker 1

Congo initiative is something I've been working with for 15 years now. It's part of the world that was really, really traumatized and disrupted by all this war and the Rwandan genocides built over the border. It's a place I visited and just thought like, there's people in this community really, who are really working hard and who are trying to repair their own community and, and in a very wise way, who just don't have kind of access to the The international donor group or to the kinds of resources.

And again, it was my kind of attempt to try to like apply a different model in, in the case of philanthropy, which is to say like philanthropists don't need to show up and dictate like how you should do this and nor should philanthropists, there's a lot of NGOs that just sort of show up somewhere and end up bringing a bunch of people from Europe or North America and paying themselves to stand around and be experts.

And no real value accrues and no real improvement accrues to the, to the place in which they're working. And so, it was a model that's been important to me for a long time. And, and we work with like women's victims of gender-based violence in war. We've done a lot of capacity building with coffee farmers and growers. And, you know, education, internal health, access to clean water and healthcare.

And, the idea is to sort of make investments in these local organizations that then become sustainable and then don't require further investing. and in particular, in the case of, you know, with the, abrupt dissolution of USAID and the, which is kind of this tiny fraction of the US federal budget, but, a very meaningful piece of the amount of money in the form of aid that goes out to the world.

And I think it was unfortunately one of the, the noblest, things that United States government did, and it's now wiped out. There's even greater need for that. You see there was an Ebola crisis, an ongoing Ebola crisis in, in DRC, in Eastern Congo, where we're working. And so

half of that money from the millionaire went to just trying to stem and limit the spread of, of Ebola, which Further, I think, illustrates the interconnected nature of our lives. The, the fallacy that like someone else's problem far away, so it's not my problem. Your problem if Ebola gets out and just crosses the borders, you know, and, and I mean, that's the most obvious example.

I also just believe that fundamentally, like, if you've had good fortune and you've had, and you have something to give, like, selfishly, I think it's really good for us to help others. It kind of gets us out of our own. It gets us connected to other people. It's actually quite healing.

and, and I hope I, that it's also done some good for other folks, but I know that it's done a lot of it for me.

Speaker 2

Yeah, good on you for doing it.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Great to talk to you, man. Really appreciate it. That was fun. Thank you so

Speaker 1

much. Oh, we will.

Speaker 2

My big thanks to Ben for a great, comprehensive conversation. He was there as long as we wanted him to be, was willing to talk about everything, really enjoyed his thoughts on the movie business, on AI, being so open about his family. It was a great talk, and I appreciate it. His film, Animals, is out now on Netflix. And my thanks, most of all, to each of you for listening again this week.

If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. You can also watch the video version of this podcast now by subscribing to NBC News dot com. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday Today every weekend on NBC to see these interviews with your own two eyes. I'm Willie Geist.

We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Speaker 3

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