1025 Processing Pain, Losing 250+ Pounds & Dissecting Trauma w/Actor Ethan Suplee

I think if I had a six pack at 22, I never would have done Remember the Titans. I would have been happier in school. And, you know, who knows what my life would be like now because acting was escaping who I was.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin.

Tricia Cunningham wrote, the individual who says it is not possible should move out.

Of the way of those doing it. And Oprah Winfrey said, Turn your wounds into wisdom. My guest today has dealt with psychological and physical wounds for most of his life and shares with me everything he has learned about the pain of being overweight and the wisdom from losing over two 250 pounds twice. Two different times he did this. Actor Ethan Suplee has starred in movies and TV shows like Remember the Titans, My Name is Earl, American History X and over 40 other titles and just recently launched a podcast called American Glutton. Ethan really opened up in this interview and was willing to take a deep dive into his past to dissect some of the most crucial moments in his childhood acting career and health journey so he could share with us the knowledge that he's gained along the way. Some of the questions I asked him were, what are the easiest diets to stick to from his process? Also, how did Ethan get into acting while dealing with all of his insecurities of being overweight? What does Ethan's acting process look like and how does he tap into characters so easily? What was worse, the mental or physical pain of being overweight? And what advice does he have for parents that want to communicate with their kids about food and living a healthy lifestyle. Some of the things you're going to learn are the psychological effects of being overweight at a young age. The pivotal moment for Ethan when he knew he needed to change his life. When Ethan developed an unhealthy relationship with his food and what that was like. How his acting career started as a distraction from his weight and so much more. Also, he shares at the end the lessons Ethan learned about Leonardo DiCaprio's work ethic that will blow you away.

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Welcome back everyone on the School of Greatness podcast. We've got my man, Ethan Suplee, in the house, brother. Good to see you, man.

Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

I went on your show probably a month and a half, two months ago. And for those that don't know, if you ever go on Ethan's show, you're sitting in a sweatbox. We were, I watched a video and I'm drooping.

But you know what? Yes, 100% yes.

So I probably lost about five pounds.

I started having to do all the social media pictures before.

I'd be that smart.

Because I would be as though I'd just worked out. Giant sweat stains. I don't know what happens, 'cause right now I feel a nice cool breeze.

We got the AC on.

And we're recording, so it's not a conflict, but somehow in that studio, when you hit record, the AC shuts off.

Yeah.

And then you and I generate so much heat.

So much. The conversation was so deep.

That's what it is. It was not my size that did it. You know, it's just our internal magnetism.

I know, but I look at the clip like, Man, I was dripping. But you have sweat out probably a thousand times more than me in your life.

So much.

Because you've lost over a thousand pounds in the last decade or two, right? You've gained and lost.

Listen, that quote, I probably said it, but I am so I lean towards hyperbole a lot. And so I think that's probably exaggerated. I've never sat down and gone like, well, I gained 200 pounds in this stretch, but then I gained back 175 and then I lost and then I gained back. I haven't done that. From my heaviest to now.

What was your heaviest ever that you could scale?

Okay. Here's the thing, it gets tricky because I know I gained weight. But the heaviest I've ever objectively seen was there was a shipping scale that people had me get on because I didn't regular scales didn't work for me.

And what's a normal scale go up.

To 300 400 maybe 400 now I mean when I was a kid it was really like I think 250 like I was I would blew past the regular doctor's office scale a long time ago now you get a scale in your house that goes above 300 and No problem. That happened later. As a kid, I got on a scale, a shipping container scale, and it said 536. And then I know I gained weight. So I don't know exactly what I was. I would guess over 550, but I say 550 because it's 14 pounds above what I know for sure I was. And today, I'm 250. so it's at least 286 pounds from there to now.

It takes discipline to gain that much weight and discipline to lose that much weight.

I agree.

And you did this all while being in like 30, I think you've been in what, 30, 40 movies since you were younger.

A lot, yeah.

A lot of big movies you've been in. Remember the Titans is one we were just talking about. You said it was a massive Premiere. You also say you don't watch your own movies back after you act. So you've been in all these movies with huge names and you don't watch the movies yourself. You've gained and lost weight over the last 30 plus years. What is harder to do, gain the weight or lose the weight? Because it's hard to put on 200 plus pounds of a normal frame that you might have, right?

I think that's the way I try to think of it now, that it requires effort to gain weight, but really, for the most part, while gaining weight to that extent, it's a very mindless, you almost think of it in terms of like a depression kind of washes over you. You're not thinking about the effort that it requires to find the calories, to consume the calories, to be inert enough to not use the calories. So there is effort. When I break it apart analytically and I try to go like, how much effort and discomfort did I experience while gaining weight and from being overweight? versus losing weight and being at a less weight, the effort is much greater, but it's done in a mindless way.

It's easy to pick up a 32 ounce Coke and drink it all day as opposed to be disciplined in working out and eating the correct things and actually lose it.

I like what you're saying though, because I think that's true. It's just a perspective on how you're looking at it. It required a ton of effort to gain weight. To gain weight. And then a ton of discomfort also.

How much pain were you experiencing during that time?

Every day, constant pain. Knees, back, slipped discs, just from carrying a lot of weight. I still have ankle problems. I have collapsed arches, flat feet. There's a lot of weird issues that I would not have had had I not carried hundreds of pounds of excess weight for years and years and years. And then psychologically the idea of every chair I sat down in, I would have to think about, am I going to break this chair? I got to really ease into it. I would even sometimes give it a couple shoves, how solid, how sturdy is this? You know what I mean? Looking at chairs, am I going to literally fit in that chair. And God forbid somebody else breaks a chair in my presence because I know everybody's gonna think, did he have something to do with breaking that chair? Was he sitting there? Do you know what I mean? And these are maybe ridiculous things to think, but they're the thoughts that occur. And then going to sleep, sleep apnea was a thing. I never slept well. So, towards the end before I started losing weight, I would just fall asleep sitting up because I was never really asleep at night. All of that required effort to get there, to maintain that, a lot of effort. I think that's the more rational way to consider it.

When you are sleeping, sitting up, feet hurting, back hurting, digestion probably not well, whatever, feeling insecure, am I going to break this chair? When you're having those thoughts day after day, week after week, year after year, what keeps you in that place of, well, I'm just going to stay in this place as opposed to wanting to make a psychological or habit change for something better for your own health? What keeps you there?

Well, this is why I talked, I said, like it's mindless effort because I'm not having those thoughts. I'm not thinking, this is an irrational thing to have to do to test the strength of a chair. All these aches and pains, I could live without them. They've just slowly built up to the point where they just are life. And so, you know, it'd be different if today I went to sleep and woke up with some severe knee issue and then I would, everything would be focused on how do I solve this knee issue? This is not ideal, but that's not how it happens. It's like your knees start to ache a little bit and then it's just like, well, I stood longer today and then eventually you get to the point where you're actually tearing and damaging stuff and you're too heavy to get an outpatient surgery, so you're just living with pain and yeah, but it's so gradual that you're not thinking in the terms that you would if you woke up tomorrow experiencing all of that.

It's little by little.

Yeah.

It's little discomforts that you start to learn to deal with.

Yeah.

When was the moment for you? Because I'm sure you were probably thinking for a long time, like, I should probably lose some weight, right? I should probably start eating healthier. When was the moment that was the make or break moment for you that you said, Enough is enough, or Never again, or I gotta start this journey the real way, like I'm going all in. When was that moment?

There was a period in 2002. I had fallen in love with this girl when I was 16 and we were really, really good friends. She says we were best friends and she had zero interest in me romantically.

You were in the friend zone.

I was in the friend zone.

Yeah.

Fine.

16 years old.

16 years old.

What was your weight like then?

I was heavy, but I wasn't quite as heavy as I am now.

200, 250, 300.

You know, I wasn't, even then it's like I wasn't getting on scales often. I certainly wasn't 500 pounds. I actually have a picture of us from when we were 16 and we were hanging out. And I'm a heavy guy, but I'm not morbidly obese. We became romantic in 2002, and there was just a moment where I was like, oh, if I'm gonna make this work, if this really has a shot at longevity, I gotta change because she likes to do stuff like take a hike and spend the day at the beach and go to museums and I can't do that. So that was kind of it. It was like, I wanna have this relationship with her so I must change. It was a bizarre kind of counterintuitive conversation that I had with her too because having it, I was scared like if I have this conversation, she'll know. that I'm overweight, like that I'm obese. As if she didn't know. As if she didn't know. It was like this thing, if I show her that this is something I want to change, not just like this masculine thing of like I'm showing weakness, it wasn't that, it was this is the hardest, this thing is so unconfrontable, I never think about it. I push it away, it's almost become something subconscious. So if I bring it to the forefront and I say let's address this, that's a very scary and narrow path to walk because failure, I figure life is failure at that point, you know?

Yeah. So that was 2002. Did you start going all in? Was it dabbling a little bit and kind of lost weight and went back off the wagon? What was that like for the next 18 years till now?

I went all in and I'm a sober guy too, so I went all in in a similar fashion to achieving sobriety, which was admit that I'm powerless and turn my problem over to somebody else and go, I am incapable of figuring this out right now. I'm going to do exactly what you say until we get to the point that I can take over. And she was like, Great. Here's what you're gonna do. I've went and found a guy who has a liquid diet. You can do it for up to two months. Why don't you do that? You don't have to do it for two months. You can do it for one month. You can do it for two. Let's see how this goes. And I crushed that.

Two months liquid diet.

80 pounds. Wow. Two months.

This is not like drinking Cokes all day, liquid diet. This is no sugar liquid diet.

This is like, I mean, the calories were so low. It was like three weird protein shakes with some green powder and a ton of supplements that were, I think, mostly fiber and some vitamins and as much water as I could drink. And that's it.

80 pounds. Two months.

80 pounds.

But that's still in the 400 Zone.

Yeah, but.

But you must.

I will say this. Of all the weight I've gained and lost, I never dipped back into those 80 pounds, never once. So that, that I. It was such a prize that I've never gotten close to like back into that zone. And I followed that up with, I don't even know what the diet's called. It might have been like a blood type diet or something. And it was kind of on that where I realized like, well, I'm gonna have to try different diets. And I tried basically every diet that exists.

What worked the best for you?

The easiest thing was keto. Because I just didn't have to think about anything.

You can eat lots of meat, just eliminate certain things and eat as much as you want of other stuff, right?

Yeah, and that worked to a degree. As I had less and less weight to lose, I found that I had to like mess around with what I was eating. Because when I first started, it was like, you can eat bacon and Swiss cheese all day long. I'm like, okay, well that's easy. And I would and I'd lose weight and I'd be like, this is a magical diet. And I'm putting mayonnaise on everything and I'm losing weight. How is this possible? You know, my little salad would have four cups of salad dressing on it and, you know, no sugar but like a ton of fat. And that did work and I was able to do it and it was super easy for traveling. You just rip the bread off stuff and eat mistakes. And, you know, it's actually, I think, designed to be easy to get around the world and eat this way. Once I got really close to... There were two periods. There was a period in 2012 where I was super into cycling and I got really lean, much smaller than... Was.

It 190 or something?

Or 1...? That was just about 200. tiny for me. And you know, you think about 200, that's still you're a big dude, but that was really, really small for me. And I just noticed that if I was eating only fat, I was suffering on the bicycle. Like, I wasn't as efficient on the bicycle. So some sugars, gels, some carbs entered my diet and like I would fly up hills, you know, which was really cool. Then I had a bad accident. My wife told me that I wasn't ever gonna make a living riding a bike. I thought we were rich and that I could retire and just ride my bike at like 35 years old forever. That was not the case. She said I had to go work again. So I went back to acting and the bike kind of fell away and I started doing CrossFit and rowing machines. I could crush a full marathon on a rowing machine, no problem. And then at some point, I was kind of having trouble finding work and kept hearing like, well, you're not the big guy, the heavy lovable guy anymore. So there was a point where I was like, okay, I'm just going to eat and lift weights and see what happens. And I ate whatever I wanted for about a year and lifted weights and got pretty near 400 pounds again. Wow.

Yeah.

You gained 200 pounds within a year.

Yeah.

Close.

Well, no, it was really from like 2000, three years. It was three years, yeah.

2013, 2014. How long did you pause from acting?

2010, and pause is not quite the right word. I did a few pilots that didn't get picked up.

Sure.

But I was putting no effort into it. It was like if they called me and said, please come do our pilot, I would do it.

Right.

But I was-- you-'re not going on auditions.

No, I was really just riding my bike.

When you've been in, how many movies you've been in and TV shows?

I've never counted. I actually have no idea.

50 plus you think?

Yeah.

At least, right?

Yeah.

When you've been in that many movies or shows, do you have to audition anymore?

Yeah, sure.

You still have to audition?

Yeah, definitely. Really?

Even if they've seen all your work, they know what you can do.

Yeah, I mean sometimes it's just a matter of the director wanting to see if you're exactly what he wants for this specific project or now that I'm physically different, what is that gonna look like? You know? But, yeah, yeah, I still have to audition.

What was the. When you look back, what do you think the. The thing is that drew you to eating as a. As a. A bad habit or an addiction or a. mind-numbing process that was a part of your life for so long. Was there a number of events? Was there moments? Was there something that connected you to that?

I've tried to do like self psychoanalysis on this and I get to a point where I'm five years old. I go to visit my grandparents in Vermont and their reaction to me and if I look at a picture of myself as at five years old today, I see just like a normal healthy kid with maybe some chubby cheeks, right? Their reaction to me was like, oh my God, what are your parents doing to you? You have gone to crap, right? This is out of hand. We need to get this under control. And my favorite food was lasagna, which my grandpa would always make me.

Yeah.

And he had it cooking as I arrived. I could smell it and I'm there visiting them for the first time without my mom or dad in Vermont, like super excited. Their reaction is this and then they basically were like, we're not, you can't have a second helping of lasagna. So in that day was the first time that I snuck food and it was clearing the table and eating food off their plates.

At the same time, like clearing it and like.

Yeah, just stuffing in a few bites because I was not allowed to, like I reached for a second helping and got my hand padded like... At five. Yeah, that's off limits. You eat what we tell you to do and then the next day they weighed me first thing in the morning, which I had never been on a scale before and I'm being weighed and then it was like, okay, we're going on a one mile walk that is for your benefit. And this did a number of things. It developed the sneaking food habit. It developed the habit of wanting to eat privately and the idea that people witnessing me eating was not good. And it also created a weird barrier to me just naturally wanting to be outside and active because at five, I was very active running around. But when it was enforced, when it was this point of like... A punishment almost.

Yeah.

We're not consulting how willing you are to do this. We're not saying, Is there something you'd like to do outside? We're saying you must go march on this. It was like a mile to their mailbox and a mile back. And like, this is not for fun. This is for because you have gotten so overweight. That really pushed the idea of physical activity into another punishment type thing where I just didn't want to do it anymore. kind of this wild confluence of.

New.

Mental structures that I built where it was like, well, I'm gonna sneak food now and I'm gonna not do activities.

How insecure were you about your weight when you got older and started recognizing it or seeing maybe someone make fun of you or realizing, oh, I can't go on a hike with my. My girlfriend or. my friends and do these certain activities. Did you feel insecure about it ever? Or was it more of just, this is who you are?

I definitely felt insecure about it. I also got into a lot of fights as a kid and was like, you know, there were a few times in elementary school where some preschooler would say, wow, look how fat he is. And that obviously wasn't gonna fight a little preschooler. And you come to learn, well, avoid little kids at all costs. because they just say, they see something and they just talk about it and that made me terribly uncomfortable. But if like another 10 year old said something like that to me, we would just have a fight and then people would know like, oh, he's not a nice guy. In that circumstance, we're not gonna say that to him.

Yeah. So how did you get into, acting and being such a successful actor while also having this kind of insecurity or knew that you stood out in a different way than most the other actors in Hollywood.

There was like, I, in school, there were, I didn't really like school either. I didn't, I, I grew to really dislike anything done from a point of authoritarianism. I, I just was not for me. So if it's like, you're going on a diet or you to do sports or you have to study, I was not into it. Which is really bizarre because now I love nothing more than a diet I find for myself and studying something I'm interested in and finding a sport to be interested. Like I can become obsessive about these things and do them 110% if it's my own determination. But from a point of authority, it just didn't fly. And I noticed a couple of things. I was never like a class clown. but we had an actor in my school and so much more attention was paid to the fact that he was an actor than any of his physical attributes, any of his other accomplishments in school. It was like this distraction, this like, here's who this person is, but here's this weird identity that actually has nothing to do with him that we're all gonna focus on that. There was something kind of magical about that. Like, I can't kill people with jokes. That's just not what I do. But what if I had that too?

What if I had that too? You- not super sexy and attractive.

I'm not gonna do that.

Yeah.

But I could create this other identity that would distract people from how fat I am and talking about that or poking fun at me or even wanting to talk to me about it. Because I'll just show them this. What if I do this? So there was, and it got you out of school because this dude would leave school for weeks at a time and go hang out on sets and like guess what's on a set? Craft services on a set. Free food all day. And you got a trailer, like you can fill your pockets with food and go back to your trailer and eat it. Like it's this wonderful place. It was like Unlimited food supply. Oh my god. And then there was also like Always gonna be like some grip who had a prescription to Percocet that you could like give a wink to. And by the way, it always started legitimately. Like my feet hurt, my ankles and my knees hurt. Like these are real things.

You're on set 18 hours a day, you're doing this over and over and over.

Like none of it is just irrational. It's all irrational, but it's also very easily rationalized. Yeah, if that makes sense.

So how old were you when you realized this kid was an actor getting this attention?

15, 14.

Where were you living?

With my parents in Burbank.

Oh, here in California. Yeah. So there was a teen actor.

Yeah.

You were in LA.

Yeah.

And so was the next step like, I'm going to acting class. I'm going for auditions. Give me a manager. What was the next?

The next step was like, I'm just not going to school. And I'm a gigantic 14-year-old and my parents are not gonna get me in the car and get me to school. Like, it's just not gonna happen. And they're also not gonna be able to talk me into it, 'cause I'm a jerk.

You're being like, no, shut up, mom and dad.

Yeah, I don't care. And then it was kind of thinking about my life and and going like, well, he has a job. That's not hard. You remember lines and you go and say them and you create this kind of alter ego that distracts people and puts the focus on something completely arbitrary. And I think I was 17 and I just had pictures taken maybe at 16, sent them out to people, got an agent, first day of auditions, I got a job.

No way. First audition.

The first thing I auditioned for was Melrose Place. I then went from that audition to Boy Meets World. And the audition for Melrose Place, they said, We want you to do it. Then they found out I wasn't in the union, and they said, We don't have it in the budget to buy his way into the union. But Boy Meets World did, and so that was my first job.

So the first day of auditions, Second audition, you do, do you remember your lines? Do you remember what this was even about?

Yes, I, It's like a 30 second.

Thing, it says five minutes, it's, I.

Remember the lines very clearly actually, strangely enough. I shove Ben Savage into a locker and I say, Hey, you were almost in my way. And he says something, I don't remember what he says, I only remember what I say. And I say, Are you saying I'm gay? And he says, no, no, no, no. And then I'm like, good. And that was the audition. It was like maybe a little bit more than that, but I remember that so much because there was so much discussion on the set of like, there's no way this gay joke stays in.

There's no way. Back then it was like a big--.

Well, I mean, I don't know if it stays in today. It wound up staying in. Like the writers liked it and then the studio and network signed off on it and it stayed in, but I.

Remember the director, by the way, the.

Director, What a glorious guy, this guy David Trainer who wound up directing every episode of that 70s Show and then every episode of the Ranch, which I went and did a bunch of episodes for and got to work with him again, like 25-year bookends. From '94 to whenever we did the last episode, a couple of years ago.

What was that like? Seeing a director 25 years apart?

So cool.

Did he remember you from that audition?

Yeah.

I mean, maybe not the audition, but he remembered me from work and we laughed about Boy Meets World and, you know, talked about our careers through the years and got to work together again, like a total sweetheart of a guy.

Do you feel like it was easier getting booked as an actor back in the 90s with the process that it was then than it would be for someone now?

I don't know. Probably not. I'm sure it's just as hard. I think it's-- Seems like it was easy for you.

I just showed up. They wanted me in the first one, but they couldn't afford me. The second one, they wanted me and.

They paid for me. Yeah, it was not the war of attrition that many people experienced. That was not my experience.

And then was there ever a time where it was hard to get booked? Or were you like every year you were getting something? Whether it was a commercial or a guest spot or a movie Every year you're getting something pretty much.

I worked consistently until after my name is Earl. And then, in fairness, I wasn't trying to work. And I still was getting offered pilots, and I did a bunch of pilots that didn't get picked up. And then after that, like a few years of that, I went like, oh, I need to work. You know, we're not like wealthy people. people I have to work. And then there was, I noticed a little bit of a grind. But leading up to that, like the beginning of my career, you know, there were certainly things I wanted to do that I didn't get to do, but for the most part, I was constantly working.

What do you think it is that makes you such a great actor and such a great bookable actor for 25 years?

I have no idea. I think I just have a good line of bullshit. You're gonna have to beep that. But, like, I can con people into hiring me.

But there has to be something, your way of conning people. What is that? Is it a way of being? Is it. Are you just so convincing in the role? Do you. Again, you talked about, I get to put myself in an altered ego. Do you truly step into an altered ego and just don't care what anyone thinks? If you look silly, you're just like, I am the character, or you. confident. What's the thing that makes you stand out?

There is something about what you're saying that has some truth, and I'll try to elaborate on my ideas of it. There is. It can happen where I'm a pretty shy person, and I. I'm not an extrovert by any means, and I don't like being around a lot of people, but if I'm.

In.

If I'm being a character that doesn't have those kind of whatever you want to call mental afflictions, which I don't even think of them really, it's just my personality. But if I'm playing somebody who has a different personality while acting, so it's not like I exist this way 24 hours a day, like Daniel Day-Lewis, like I've heard he does. It's not that.

But if you're in the environment of upset experience.

But it's even less if the guy says action, I can feel that insecurity goes away. I can feel some version of what I think that person is feeling. If that's true.

How do you do that?

I have no idea. I really have no idea.

Did you have a lot of training? Did you go to acting class or workshops or did you So I think this is what the character is gonna do. I'm gonna act like it.

And I went to acting classes when I was 16 and they were great. They didn't really teach me anything you're talking about.

So, I mean, it just came naturally then.

I think so.

Did you watch a lot of movies and TV and did you kind of mimic these things of actors that you'd watch?

I watched a lot of TV and movies. I definitely did mimic I did some of that stuff for sure. I did some of that, but I don't think I was very good at it necessarily. Like one of these guys who like can, there's a guy named Jim Meskimen who can like do these voices and you believe it's like Robert De Niro or Morgan Freeman or somebody like an iconic voice that you hear and you go, that's him. And then it's not, it's this guy. I could never do something like that. But I was into mimicry and I've always been interested in people and mannerisms. I find different mannerisms to be so interesting. And, you know, I do have an affinity for different people and just think that there's something to be said about the way different people behave. And then I like the idea of all of my BS. See how I did that? All of my BS. I could just get rid of it for a moment by Being this other person and it was this kind of freeing wonderful thing. Now the minute they say cut all my garbage comes back.

He walks back your trailer and it's still somewhere.

Yeah, no, and then I'm going to craft service and I'm filling my pockets and I'm going to eat it in private. That was still true.

You would never eat in public with like friends. It's like hey come eat with us for lunch.

I would but I'd be very considerate of what I'm eating. yeah, I would never eat the way I wanted to eat. And then, you know, I would go eat on my way home.

Get some fast food or whatever and just blow it up.

Yeah.

I always thought, you know, he's really thin, junkies are really thin. And it didn't work for me. Drugs, I just kept gaining weight.

So you tried the drugs and it didn't work?

I tried the drugs, it didn't work. Really?

Yeah.

I try to ever, I wasn't trying the drugs in order to lose weight. I was in legitimate physical pain and I was trying to numb that out. And then it just turned out I really liked drugs and alcohol. And I would use those in a very similar way, in a sneaky way, and to extreme excess.

What was more painful, the emotional or mental pain, discomfort or the physical pain?

I think when I had to like pick it apart, for sure the physical pain was worse, but it was something that I wasn't connecting with. It just existed. It grew so gradually that it wasn't something I was even aware of until I got rid of all of it and I went, oh my God, what was I dealing with back then? It was tremendous pain. The mental stuff, I don't know how to weigh that. You know what I mean? I still have, there's still mental pain, there's still mental garbage to work through every single day.

Really?

Yeah.

What's the biggest thing that you're trying to work through still?

Motivation. Like, you know.

To stay in shape, to stay eating healthy. To consistently.

Existence requires some effort to get motivated, all of it. eating healthy, I can get into a routine and the routine is fine for me, like a hamster on a wheel, I will just sit and do that all day long. Well, it turns out my wife wants to be taken out and that's not part of my routine. So that's effort, turns out my kids don't like the food that I'm eating right now. That requires effort, you know what I mean? And so there's all of these things. And by the way, just getting out of bed every day and like having to think about guilt and how I feel about guilt and guilt I think ultimately is a good thing, but it can also be debilitating. It can be so much that it knocks you off your path and makes you go, Screw it, I'm not doing any of this because why bother? I'm already feeling the guilt, so I'm done.

What are you most guilty about?

I don't feel guilt today. I have no guilt today, but I'm saying the idea of if I've got a guy who's programming my training right now because I'm, because you know, as I get to a point of body fat percentage that I've never been at before, even when I was 200 pounds and riding my bicycle eight hours a.

Day, you were what, skinny fat then?

I wasn't even skinny fat, like 12% body fat in a DEXA scan is not fat at all. You're way below the average, but I'm trying to get to 8-9% and each one of those is really, really hard.

It's so hard.

And so I got a guy programming workouts and food and everything's being programmed right now. Now I got to, I think, 13% on my own and then it was just like, If I go harder, I'm losing muscle mass. If I go easier, I'm not losing anything. I needed a little help. Now it's gotten down to one and a half grams of salt per day. Oh my God. But I'll go like, well, I'll measure the salt in a teaspoon. That's a teaspoon and a half of salt, no big deal. But then it's like, no, dude, are you also adding soy sauce? That's got sodium. Are you also drinking diet soda? That's got sodium. One and a half grams means total, right? And so I'll get guilt about that. Now, there was a point in my life where I would have so much guilt from something like that. Like if I realized at the end of the day, wow, I doubled my salt intake for today, that I would just go, well, let me just order a pizza.

That's me. I would have one piece, one bite, and I'd say, ah, just eat the whole box.

Yeah.

Of chocolate, pizza, ice cream.

Whatever. I'm gonna go to, I'm gonna find Krispy Kreme when it's piping hot. 12 donuts to go.

Yeah, and get one to go.

I could go for a box right now. I could eat a box of donuts, no problem right now. I'm not going to. But like that, so like I'm trying to balance guilt and go like, I want the guilt to let me know, like, okay, you screwed up, tomorrow you're gonna do better. That is where guilt works for me. Why do you think guys like me.

And you, when we crossed the barrier of guilt, I shouldn't have done that. That little thing, I shouldn't have had that thing, because I told myself I wasn't gonna eat that piece of chocolate. Now I ate it. Let me just go all in and have, like, the day's ruins. Let me eat the whole box of chocolates, the whole pizza, the whole bucket of ice cream, the gallon. Why do you think guys like us do that? What is that?

As opposed to somebody who can just.

I just have one bite. I feel bad and let me stop. Right.

Which is where I'm trying. I'm trying to analytically talk myself into being that. And it's a lot of effort. This is effort, dude. All effort. I think I am constantly trying to talk myself into failure and then subsequently having to talk myself out. And I think the mind or whatever portion, there's a guy named Gurdev who talks about how there's A thousand of us in each of us. And each one has a mission. One guy's mission is the box of donuts. Whether you listen to that voice or not, there's part of you that's going, how is that not valid?

Eat it, eat it.

Yeah, that's a valid part of you, but I'm trying to follow this one voice right now.

And.

I think there's just the constant, let's derail him, let's derail him. It's winning that every time. And the part of me that's like the addict that's constantly looking for angles, like maybe if he goes a little harder in the gym today, he'll hurt himself.

And then he'll be in a hospital.

And then he'll need a surgery, and then we'll get some drugs.

Really?

I think that's part of it. And you gotta go, no, not gonna go too hard, not gonna hurt myself. I'm looking at those future possibilities. And so guilt can be the same thing. Guilt can be like, well, you screwed up, screw up all the way. It doesn't matter. You've already screwed up, you know? Okay, but I didn't screw up all the way, right? So I'm gonna take a win for that. That's a big W for the team, you know, all. And all the good eyes inside me are rejoicing. They're going, yeah. And all the bad eyes are like, damn, he beat us again.

What do you think about in the morning before your day when you wake up? Because I think people in general think about their food and think about sugar and think about eating healthy, eating bad. I think it's part of a lot of our makeup, especially in today with just body dysmorphia, with social media, with influencers, with filters. I think people are obsessing about it. What do you have to think about to make sure you set yourself up for a healthy day?

-It'S never a day of. It's always days ahead of time. So, if I have 3 days of food left, that's when I start thinking, okay, what's the next round of food gonna look like?

-What do you mean 3 days of food left?

-Like in a week. -If we get to Friday and I run out of food on Sunday, I'm starting to think about, okay, I gotta figure out what I'm buying at the store.

You mean the food in your fridge? -Yeah. -Gotcha.

What produce did I see last week? Is it bananas right now? Is it blueberries? Like what's in season? What vegetables do I feel like eating right now? Am I gonna go for some lean beef or am I gonna make it a fish shopping run? It's a couple days in advance and I might not go to the store but I'll go to the store with at least 48 hours of food still in my house. I'll never go to the store hungry. I'll do my shopping and the food for tomorrow is always prepared a day before or food for whatever day it is. I don't know if I said that in a complete sentence.

It's prepared the day before you leave.

Yeah.

So it's ready to go so you don't have to think last minute like I'm hungry, let me just snack on something.

That's a death sentence.

So you plan your week for your nutrition to set yourself up to win.

Yeah.

And that helps you mentally, it helps you prepare for the day and just not have to stress about The challenges that come with it. As much.

Right, I still get stressed sometimes. Like last year I was in Louisiana a lot for work and so.

I.

Would be bringing a day's worth of food with me on the plane. So I knew I'm safe for the day.

A day until you get there.

Well, even safe after I get there, 'cause I've got food for when I'm there. But my very first stop, I get my rental car. and I'm going to the grocery store. That's the very first thing I'm doing. And I'm not doing it hungry, and I'm not doing it when I'm out of food. I'm doing it so that I never hit that point.

What happens when you go to the grocery store hungry?

I just make bad decisions. I will find inevitably that there's something in my cart that I hadn't planned on getting, and somehow it's there, or I've bought it and I'm unpacking it, and I'm like, I wasn't gonna buy this. Why did I buy this? Why am I eating it now? -Now I'm forced to check it out.

-Yeah.

What's happening here?

-Why is it gone?

-Yeah.

Do you feel like this is too much of an obsession? Should all people think this way? Or is this only for people you think that really need to take care of their health?

Look, I hear about, there's a big movement right now, intuitive eating, which I think is how you should eat. That sounds like the most rational way to eat. That would not work for me.

Yes.

That is not something that I am at a place now that I would be successful with. But not everybody is an alcoholic. Not everybody's a recovering drug addict. Not everybody was 500 pounds. Not everybody. I don't think everybody's dealing with the same mental garbage. We're all we're all different in that way. I'm sure there's a lot of you could clump groups together and go like these people are similar in this way. Okay, fine. But even if you break it down, you're gonna find lots of differences. And so, I would never think anybody has to do what I do. But I would suggest like if you're finding yourself at the grocery store and you keep having stuff in your cart that you weren't gonna buy and you're then eating it, Try, just give it a shot going full. Eat and then go to the grocery store and see if you can stick to your plan, that's all. But like, if you're not having that trouble, then you don't even need to think about it.

You've got a couple kids, right?

Four.

Four kids. What's the age range?

Geez, the oldest is 24, the youngest is 13.

What advice you have to parents of kids in this day and age on how they should be their way of being, their energy, their communication style to their kids around food, nutrition, working out based on what you saw didn't work from your personal experience. Maybe there are other factors involved than just your grandparents saying this to you and kind of doing that stuff. I'm sure there's other factors, but what advice would you have to parents to raising healthy Kids. On nutrition and fitness.

I mean, I will first say I failed that all of the things that I would give advice on. Not that I'm a failure. My kids are awesome. Two are in college. The other two are very successful in their schools. Like, they're really, really great kids. They're well adjusted. But any advice that I would give, I've also failed at and not done in the way that I wish I had. But the most important thing is I read a study by a guy came out of Harlem which just talked about the number of words that are said to children at a very young age and how influential that can be on their life. And that's like the one thing I didn't fail at. I talked to my kids a lot. I read to them. and I talked to them and I would sit down and have a conversation with them about anything they wanted. Obviously, they're all girls, so there were times where stuff came up and I said, that you should really talk to mom about because I don't really know about that. That happened, but mostly was just talking to them and not being afraid to use words that they didn't understand and for sure making sure they knew what I was talking about. They didn't understand what I was talking about. And then there were lots of times that they just said, like, shut up, Dad, you're just showing off big words. And then that would be the end of the conversation.

But.

You know, I grew up in a household where food was very restricted. There was never alcohol in the house, and drugs were super taboo. and I wound up having bad habits with each of those things. So pretty early on, my wife and I, and of course all three of those are my biggest fear for my kids. Like if my kids get into any of those, I don't know how I react. I don't know how I just break in half and turn into like a giant puddle of grief that gives up on life and the guilt will, I could posit that that would be the insurmountable guilt that I go, Forget it, I'm done. I'm ruined, right? So in order to avoid that, we made these kind of things not taboo or attempted to make them as not taboo as possible. Nobody's gonna get in trouble.

Really, that's good.

Our house is like a safe area. How do you do that where it's.

Not taboo, but it's like, okay, if my daughter's eating three buckets of ice cream every day, hey, let's have a conversation.

Listen, and that's where I'd say I'd failed mostly with the food because much in the way I grew up where I think in an attempt to affect my eating, my mom was shopping at health food stores before they were trendy, when it was like, hippies, Sikhs, and people who were very obviously dying of cancer at Erowan and there was dust on everything and the Kardashian wasn't cool.

It wasn't cool.

It was like a dump, right, when I was a little kid. That's where my mom shopped because she wanted to get healthy food to feed to me and my reaction was, well, I'm just gonna eat as much unhealthy food as possible. So I've also failed in that sense of like, Kids, we're not eating chicken thighs because they're high in fat. We're just gonna eat chicken breasts and there are none of them like this. And it's like tough luck, that's what I bought. So I didn't do that well. But what we've seemed to manage a little bit better and now we have kids in college, one's a senior, and I hope this has been successful. It has, from all observable factors, that, you know, drugs and alcohol were something that we just wanted to have conversations about, you know, that nobody was going to get yelled at, nobody was going to get in trouble, just be honest with us. And then that kind of thing never became a problem.

That's good.

Yeah.

That was a big success.

That's good, yeah. We were talking about this before, about how you, it's 20 year anniversary, remember the Titans? 25.

Yeah, 20.

20 year anniversary this year.

Yeah.

This month.

Like right now. Now. Yeah.

Which was a big football movie for me. I was a junior when that was playing. Maybe I was a senior. Maybe I was going in my senior year, so I was a senior in 2000, and it was a big, big hit for every football player in America. So it was a big part of my senior year, going to college. I remember watching that movie a lot. What are your thoughts on 20 years later for what you said was the biggest premiere of a movie you've ever been to, at the Rose Bowl, 20,000 people, fighter jets coming over, you know, every celebrity and their friend there. What are your thoughts 20 years later from that movie for you?

It's I have really selfish vain thoughts.

What's that?

And, and like I go like, how appropriate is that That movie today, number one, super relevant. That's cool. That's not the vain thought.

With the racism, conversation, social justice.

All of it. And it's designed to be appropriate for little kids. You know what I mean? It's a Disney movie.

PG-13 or PG?

I don't know if it's PG or PG-13, but it's a Disney movie. It's not Touchstone, which normally a movie about football Would be over in touch with this is Disney. Yeah, right? So like what a great message at any entry level, you know, you're showing kindergartners this movie and it's appropriate. Great. I played a real person. The guy I played was never as big as I was. Right. Never. And I feel so much guilt about that even today.

Really? He was like, what, 280 maybe or something?

Right, he was a normal whatever part, by the way, I don't know anything about football, so whatever position I played, I don't, yeah, lineman probably, that sounds right. And I have some guilt about that.

Being way bigger than the real person was.

And then at the premiere, there were certain things that happened that Kind of just solidified how awful this was. We'd never met these guys. I'd never met him.

We-- the real life people.

Yeah. And you know, while it's like based on a true story, there's a lot in there that's invented and fictionalized and you know, it's not exactly what happened, I don't think. I don't know what the real story is, but there was there was no desire for us to get to know these guys. I played a real guy in a movie called Deep Water Horizon and that was, you're looking at pictures, you're having some correspondence with their family, we're going to honor this person, right? So it was very different. This was like, no, no, this is just concentrate on the movie, right? Fine, that's what we did. But I meet him and And he's just like a normal big guy who looks like he played football. I do not at that point look at all like I played football. And I feel whether he did this or not, I feel this feeling of I'm disappointing him. This is who's playing me.

He kind of looked at you with.

A little, I don't know.

Who knows?

I don't know if he did. If he did, he was more than, he had more than reason to do that. If he didn't, and it was all an invention in my head, then that's what happened. I don't know what's true, but I felt, yeah, wow, I'm. I'm twice your size. I'm portraying you. And then there was a thing where all the guys whose real life guys showed up get together with the actor who played them, and we sit on the back of little golf cars, and there's a parade. We do. parade around the Rose Bowl.

Wow.

There's like a stadium. Yeah. This is crazy. I've never even talked about this. We're last. Or we're not even last, but we get in the car.

You and him.

Yeah.

The real guy.

Yeah. On the back, facing backwards.

Right.

And I sit down, and I don't know how this happens, but. The tire under me goes flat.

Oh, it does not very much.

Instantly goes flat.

No, it does not.

And there's dudes with walkie-talkies and headsets screaming, you, gotta go, you gotta go. So other cars are now driving around us to go in this process.

So it's not a long gap of no one going.

Right.

And we get out and they're scrambling like, get another car. I don't know what happened to the tire. I don't know if it was like, had a hole in it and I was just the straw that broke its back. I don't know what happened, but for me, I crushed that tire. My weight flattened that tire. And so we then are standing there waiting and I'm like, oh, my God, this is just one of the most horrific moments of his life, I assume, and it feels really bad to me. And then they get a car and we get in the car and it doesn't crush the tire this time, but the car cannot move in the way that the other cars are moving. The other cars are, we're already gonna try and play catch up.

Oh my gosh.

And we're just going half the speed of the rest of the pack.

Oh my gosh.

So they lap us. No, they don't.

And I probably should not be laughing. No, the way you tell me is making me laugh.

Yeah.

It was... and then we get off on the field and we wave and then he turned and walked away and I never saw him again and I could not have felt worse, dude.

I felt like, oh my gosh, I felt horrible.

What a horrible, horrible experience. I think they went out and did like a full lap and we just like tried to catch on to the back and they very quickly pulled pulled away.

He went like 20 yards and stopped or something.

Well, we made it almost a full way around, but people are lapping us. They're already out of their cars and standing together, and we're like going so slow, just like painfully slow, all by ourselves, not in this parade at all. It would be amazing for somebody to find the video of this, 'cause somebody must have taken video of this.

So, What were you feeling as you got back on the golf cart?

Just utterly humiliated.

Oh my gosh. Utterly humiliated. Did you say like, no, I'll walk. I'll like, pick a stride.

No way, I wasn't walking.

He might have actually. He might. So you both got off after the golf cart. Collapses.

Collapses, we get a new golf cart, get on.

Which probably felt like an eternity, but.

It was probably 60 seconds later. Something like that. And then we got on it and very clearly, We were just inching along. Inching along in our golf cart.

How can you explain this?

It was awful. And I've felt tremendous guilt about that.

Oh my gosh.

I still feel a bit of guilt about that.

Did you say anything to him afterwards, or was it like you guys stopped, waved, and he went his way? 20 years later, you haven't spoken to him?

No.

I think he actually passed away a few years ago. That's a shame too. I mean, I, you know, I don't know what I could have done, but I feel bad for the guy.

So was that one of your most humiliating moments in your acting career?

For sure.

What was one of the proudest moments in your acting career?

I did a TV show called Chance, which was on Hulu, and Oddly enough, Stephen King became obsessed with it and started tweeting about me and I felt pretty proud about that.

So was it the fact that he was tweeting about you or was it the fact of your performance you felt?

Yeah, I felt proud of it. I was playing a very intelligent, tough guy. I've never done that before and so.

I was feeling a little- Tougher or intelligent and tough?

Both.

'Cause American Ninja 3X, I was in.

More of a tough- He was, come on, I was a bit of a clown in that. Gotcha.

Yeah. I.

Maybe he. Maybe that guy was tough, but he wasn't intelligent.

Gotcha. So intelligent and tough.

Yeah.

And, like, capable and all this stuff and, like, you know, in shape. And I I was still pretty heavy at that point.

This was.

This was one right in the middle of, like, I'm gonna eat whatever I want and lift weight. So I had a lot more muscle. Yeah, yeah. But I also had a lot more fat, and I I was just. I've just always. I'm proud of that. Like I thought it was really, really a cool show.

Did you ever get frustrated feeling typecasted at any point? Or did you ever feel like, oh, I really wanted this role, but I'll never be able to get it?

I didn't ever get frustrated being typecast because I was working and, and the, you know, as long as I was working, everything was fine. And then there was a role, there was a book called the Confederacy of Dunces, which I really wanted to play a character in that. And it would have been appropriate too, because he was an overweight guy. And there were a number of instances where like, I remember at one point, like, John Cusack was gonna wear a fat suit and do it. And then Will Ferrell was gonna wear a fat suit and do it. And there was one version of a script which they were interested in me doing. I think Chris Farley was gonna do it right before he passed away. And then there was a moment where there was some momentum in me playing that role and then it fell apart. It always fell apart. I still think that would be such a cool movie. I would not be right for it at all today. And plus he's much younger than I am now. This was like you know my early 20s.

Which moment on set that you were either involved in, in the scene or watching or whatever on the set, experiencing it, where you're like, that was the greatest acting moment I've ever witnessed. Do you remember? Was there a specific actor, whether famous or not famous, or just a scene, or maybe it wasn't even something that made the film, but a moment you were like, wow, it moves you.

Here, here. You know, listen, I've been in some really, really good movies with really, really talented actors. I've worked with Edward Norton a couple of times, with Denzel Washington a few times, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill. I've worked with him on multiple movies and seen him do some really incredible acting. And all of these guys are super capable. Oddly enough, I watched a scene at the end of a movie that is, by all accounts, a silly little violent comedy that I was in. And the gal who was the lead in this movie was doing acting work that was mind-blowing, I thought. Her name's Betty Gilpin. She's on a TV show called Glow.

And the female wrestling one.

Yeah.

And we did a movie called the Hunt, and she was really good in all the scenes I was in with her, but I watched a scene towards the end of the movie where I was just truly blown away by her in the way that you're talking about. And that's the, that's what comes to mind right now. It might also be, like, the most recent movie I had come out, so watch it on pay-per-view but I, I'm, it's also an honest answer.

In the Hunt.

Yeah.

Is this about like hunting people?

Yes. It's like a kind of like ridiculous.

Scene in the woods and it's like five people die right away.

Yes.

I watched this movie.

Yeah, so that gal, that one ish. She's the main girl.

Oh, at the end, the fight scene.

And not just the fight scene, but leading up to the fight scene where she's in the bunker and she has a conversation with the dude And she's doing stuff that you're like, what the hell are you doing? It's so awesome.

Interesting. So you were there on set watching this?

No.

Or you saw it afterwards.

I saw it take. I didn't watch the whole movie, but I saw that scene and I was like, dude, this girl is doing some far out S-H-I-T. Really? Yeah.

What do you think it was about her way of being that made it so special and memorable for you? You know, here's the thing.

The other time I was impressed bringing it back to Remember the Titans was Ryan Gosling on Remember the Titans. Really?

That was kind of as a breakout role too, right? For him?

He had done a bunch of stuff. He was on like the Mickey Mouse Club with all with like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. I know that. And yeah, he was like a full child actor and then he did like young Hercules or something like that for years in New Zealand.

Skinny, I remember the Titans.

He was the youngest. He was the only one who was a teenager. Really? I think, yeah. And we're sitting down with the director, Boaz, and Ryan, we're talking about the scenes and talking about the general vibe, and Ryan says, Just so you know, here's this thing about my character. And Boaz is like, what are you talking about? That's going to be so distracting. I know you can't do that. And Ryan says, no, no. If it's distracting, you tell me and I won't do it. But I really feel strongly about this. And then he proceeds to be one of the most interesting characters with not a lot of dialogue in that movie. He is doing stuff that is not distracting at all, but makes you look at him and be interested. And I think that's what Betty is doing in the Hunt. There's a thing like, look, we're all trying to be real and natural, unless you're doing like a slapstick comedy and then you're doing some big cartoonish character, right? That's a thing. But for the most part, the movies that I've done are not that.

So you're trying to be authentic and.

Real you're trying to be authentic and real. You're trying to clobber together and mold a mental idea of what this character is, what their interests are, and you're adding as much to that as possible to give it depth. And I think if you, if you look at the really great actors, they're picking and choosing mannerisms and things that are real, but are also like, really interesting and unique versus like a guy who shows up and says his lines, right? And by the way, sometimes like you look at like Robert Duvall in the Godfather and sometimes that stillness is really interesting, right? But he's choosing to do that. That's a choice that he's making. He's not just lazily showing up and saying his lines. I think I've done that a lot. I have just shown up in set my lines. And when I can find interesting things and actually put a bunch of effort into the character and create this alter ego for myself, I think it becomes more special. And Ryan Gosling did that in Remember the Titans and Betty Gilpin did that in the Hunt.

What did Ryan do? What were his mannerisms that really stuck out?

You just have to watch it because None of it is how he behaved in real life. And he has a presence that is nothing like him at all in real life. It's a character choice. And he's got to communicate that to the audience without saying a lot where the focus of the scene is not typically him and he does it perfectly.

Where it's not distracting.

Not at all. I mean, you could have a guy who's just hamming it up trying to get on camera. That's not what he's doing.

Goofy or something. For some reason, I don't think I've seen this movie in probably a decade, but for some reason, I remember him like kind of doing a nod with his head type of thing. I don't know if that was what he did, but he said it's kind of like a chuckle thing with his head, like a kind of a silly but not too different. I don't know if that was it or not.

That's part of it.

Yeah, but it's in the manner is everything.

Every scene that he's in, he is existing as this character.

Wow.

And it's not, It's thoughtful, it's intentional. It's much more than just a dude at high school. It's much more than that. And I say that remembering, really liking him and being friendly with him at the time and observant of him and seeing what he did and being impressed by it and knowing that he put more into it than just a dude at high school. And there, I don't know that I showed up and put any more into it than just I'm a guy at high school. I really don't. And that's just being completely Frank. I was probably just a guy at high school, and Ryan wasn't. And that's why he's who he is.

Wow. You also said that you don't watch any of your own films, and you've probably been 40, 50 plus films, whatever. You only watch yours. You don't watch your scenes unless you are maybe on set and the director says, come check a look at this. And I need you to.

I don't even really. I really like to do that. It screws me up. Here's the thing, like if there's a technical reason that I have to look at it because I'm not understanding what he wants to see and he's telling me like, no, you need to get further or deeper or whatever. Because it, you know, that's happened and I'll look at that and he'll play it back and I'll say, see you land here, I want you to land here. But there's also tape on the ground so like, right, you know where you're supposed to be. missing it by that much, somebody's just gonna move the tape or, you know what I mean?

So why did you watch your first clip back on Boy Meets World?

Did you like, I probably did and I've just very quickly realized that like I'm never gonna be truly satisfied with what I do. I'm never gonna think like that was a home run and once it's done, it's done. I have no power to affect changing it.

You know, as an athlete, we would play a football game and then we'd watch the game film.

Yeah.

The next day to see what could we do better, what were our mistakes, things like that. Did you ever see yourself as wanting to study your film and try to say, how could I improve it for the next time?

And I'll tell you what, I did that one time, but here's the thing, here's the difference. Like, movie to movie, I'm doing something completely different. But we did the pilot for My Name is Earl, and then there's like a weird gap where like who knows what's going on.

-Wait six months to a year? -Yeah.

Some dude in Kansas City who owns the world is watching it and going like, I like this, put this on. You know, something like that really happens.

And.

Meanwhile we're like, what are we gonna do for work? Let's find another thing. I go off and do a movie and right. And then it's like, no, no, we're doing this show now. We got to do however many more. I think first season we did like 25 episodes. And I remember going back to the set and going to the creator Craig Garcia. I go, I have no idea what to do. Like I don't remember like what do I do?

Six months ago when you shot the pilot.

Yeah.

Like and that was that was like that was a legit character. And it just, like, evaporated from my mind. And he was like, okay, let me show you this scene. And he just played me one scene. He said, all you have to do is open your mouth and look up. And he showed me one clip of me, like, doing that, opening my mouth and looking up, and I had it, and I was like, good, I'm good. I'm good to go. And that was it. And so. Yes, in the same way that I think an athlete can watch a football to go like, oh, if I'm getting out here faster, but you're also talking about some kind of choreography where you are doing something with other people that you want to repeat exactly. And you can look and go like, I'm missing it here. With acting, it's not quite that. I could see doing it for a play or theater. I could totally see that.

Do you feel like you never wanted to, what if you had a six pack when you were 22 and remember the Titans? Would you think psychologically you'd be like, yeah, I wanna watch myself with a six pack. That's possible. Like destroying a dude or catching a football. I mean, as opposed to being the.

Overweight guy all the time and not wanting to look at that. I think if I had a six pack at 22, I never would have done Remember the Titans. I would have been happier in school. and, you know, who knows what my life would be like now. If I had had a six-pack at 22 and still wound up being an actor, I think I'm an actor because, like, I wasn't super confident enough to do anything else because it acting was escaping who I was. And if I had a six-pack six-pack. What do I need to escape from? I mean, that's all anybody needs, is a six-pack.

Is that what you think?

No. But it helps.

You fell out. So you feel like the whole time acting was an escape for you?

A little bit, yeah.

Yeah.

Do you still feel like you're gonna escape now?

Not as much. I don't find that I need to escape very much now. I'm also, like, an old man. I have kids in college. like, you know what I mean? Like, what the hell am I escaping from? Like, my life is awesome. I have all these kids and a wonderful wife and, like, I really am pretty content. There's not much I want to escape from now.

What advice would you give to young people trying to become, to become an actor or get into the acting world? What, what feedback, advice, suggestion?

I think that there's a There's a lot of an idea that it's very glamorous and a lot of Hollywood parties, and there's some of that certainly. There is no glamour on a set at all. And now I say that not being Jennifer Lopez and knowing what she maybe she gets some glamour and is allowed to shut stuff down if she's having a bad hair day. because that's such a big part of her presence, right? I don't know. I haven't worked with her or somebody of her stature in that way. I've never seen glamor on a set unless that's what we're filming. And then it's all BS. It's all make-believe. It's not real glamor. It's like a facade, right? So that's not part of it at all. It's like construction dudes with cameras and heavy equipment.

And what's in your face and there's no privacy. Yeah.

Yeah, and you've got makeup on and a costume that doesn't quite fit exactly the way real clothes would, you know what I mean? Like, there's a lot going on that you're constantly aware that this is BS. This is not real life. This is fake. And then for me, you can see when people are lazy. I know that I was lazy a lot. my career and I know it's very obvious that I was lazy. And you can see when somebody's done a lot of creating this character to present to you and even if it is still, still could be creation, right? Batman is very still. You can go through the Batmans and see how some of them are doing that in a deeper way than others. You can go like, that guy is hitting a home run. That guy is not. That's fair. I think that it requires that a little bit. But showing up, all you need to know technically is be on time because there's going to be a ton of people waiting on you and know your lines because if you don't, you've really not done any homework and it's embarrassing. Don't do that. Then you got a bunch of people who are like, we all learned our lines. You didn't learn your lines. Now we're all waiting on you. You might as well have just been late learning your lines, right? That's the technical aspect. But then the creative aspect is like, get into that. You know what I mean? Go deep, do stuff, find mannerisms that are obscure, that you observe people. Nobody is exactly the same. Everybody exists in a different way and take some of that stuff and use it, throw it into a character, see what happens. You know, that to me is like where acting becomes magical.

That's cool. A few final questions for you. And before I ask them, you've got a podcast called American Glutton, which I was on, which was fun.

Yes.

Which talks a lot about thoughts on food, culture in America. You have a lot of different interesting people on. actors to scientists, researchers, nutrition people talking about this concept. And where can they listen to that?

I mean, I have an app for Apple podcasts, but I think it's on all, anywhere you can get a podcast, you can listen to it. It's called American Glutton.

Yeah.

And you're on social as well?

Yes. Ethan Suplee on Twitter and Instagram.

Very cool.

Yeah.

American Glutton. Make sure you check that out if you want to, if you want to hear me and Ethan sweating.

Yes. So listen to our interview. You can hear it dripping off of us. I will say, like, this is magically cool, this room. I am so comfortable in here.

You walked into the room sweating when you got in here.

I saw the sweat and now you.

Look like, this is like, this is what you gotta do in your room. It's what you gotta be doing. You gotta turn it on, you see on, crank it up. Couple of final questions. You worked with some of the biggest stars in the world. Was there ever a time where you were nervous to work with one of these big stars on one of these sets. And what was the biggest lesson you took from one of them that really stands out? There was Leo or Denzel or whoever, but what was, were you ever nervous being like, wow, I'm about to do a scene with this person? And then what was a big lesson you learned from one of them?

So I'll answer those two different people. Denzel Washington, the first time I worked with him, I was nervous. And then he didn't let anybody off the hook. He's playing the coach, right? And he's playing a real no-nonsense guy in Remember the Titans. He is not coming in being friendly to the kids, right? He's like hard ass. And he came on set and he was that. And then I did other movies with him and even towards the end, he's not doing that because that's who he is. He's doing that because that's the character, right? And so he is, I'm gonna come on, I'm gonna maintain this and you are going to behave appropriately without saying any of that. And I was nervous.

He never broke character and said, Hey.

I'm just... Never once.

Playing along. He just acted as if.

He walked on set and he was the coach.

Wow.

And so I was nervous. That made... I mean, it was like you pucker a little bit, you stand up straighter and you're like, this is the dude. I don't want to upset this dude. I don't want to get yelled at. So that was the. The time I can recall being nervous. I'll say from. From leo dicaprio, who i'm friendly with. And so I got a little bit more insight into how he behaves on a set for myself. As I said, i've been lazy a number of times. you can very easily see it. I know in the first season of My Name is Earl, by the time we got to the second season, I wasn't learning my lines the night before. I was kind of like showing up on set and learning them quickly. And that, to me, was a sign of like, oh, you know, a little success and like, now I'm not going to put as much effort into it. Which I turned around by the later seasons and got my act together a little bit. Leo always knows all of his lines and when they knock for him, no matter what he is doing, when they knock and they say, We're ready, he is up and walking to set. Like they could be dressing him. They will continue to dress him as they walk to set. Yes, I swear to God. He is one of the most considerate and hardworking dudes I've ever seen. And it is really impressive because once you get to his level of stardom, it's very easy for them to knock and then somebody else, an assistant or whoever, to go like, yeah, we need a few minutes. That's like not a big deal, right?

Happens all the time.

Happens all the time.

It's like two minutes.

And when you got as much dialogue to learn as him, It's also wouldn't be insane if he showed up and had to sit and learn it a little bit with the other actors. You know what I mean? That's quite frequently the case too. Neither of those are true for him. He knows his lines cold long before he arrives at set. We'll spend all night working on them if he has to, or nights leading up to a big day of dialogue. and nobody will ever wait for him. He will never allow them to be ready and him to not be there. So that's like, that's pretty impressive.

For me.

Witnessing that, the times that I have, I've always been really kind of blown away by that and thought, like, yeah, that's how. That's how I would like to comport myself if. If I was ever in his shoes, and I failed at that. on a much smaller scale and had to like pull myself together on my own and go like, I don't like this. I don't like the idea of them saying they're ready and me going like, okay, well now I'm gonna get up and go to the bathroom and then I'll come. No, I've had however long in my trailer that should be done so that when they're ready, I'm walking to work, you know?

Well, it's pretty inspiring.

Yeah.

This is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths.

Okay.

So imagine it's your last day on this planet.

Yes.

Many years from now.

Yeah.

You accomplish everything you want. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all your content with you to the next place.

Okay.

Take all that stuff with you. All your movies gotta go with you.

Yeah.

Content, podcast, everything you do. But you get to leave behind three things to be true from your life. Three lessons you would share with the rest of us. This is all we would have to kind of remember you by are these three truths or three lessons that you would share to leave behind. What would you say are your three truths?

I believe that the greatest position we can take with regard to any other person is interest. That's a lesson I've learned. I think that ultimately the stuff that we accumulate that defines us is meaningless. And I think that the World Wrestling Federation has far more legitimacy than politics. Those are my three truths.

That's the third one. I like it. We'll have to do another one on why later.

Yeah.

I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Ethan, before I ask the final question for your consistent journey of discovering yourself, of going down the path of, you know, doing the hard stuff. It's not easy to lose the weight you lost and keep saying, I've got to stay consistent with this because it can be easy for you to go back on track and to make yourself almost accountable to the world now by doing a podcast, by talking about it consistently, by being open about it. I think it's really inspiring to help other people in the world who might be struggling in the same way. So I acknowledge you for constantly opening up and staying consistent to your vision, man.

Thank you.

We need you around and healthy. So I'm grateful for all that you're doing. This is the final question.

Okay.

What's your definition of greatness?

I think that greatness is overcoming obstacles, whatever they may be. I think that if And even just the pursuit of overcoming the obstacles is greatness. So, you know, it doesn't have to be that you won the race or even finished the race, but that you're in it, I think, is greatness. My man.

Thanks, brother.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it, man.

Yeah.

Thank you so, so much for listening to this episode, my friend. I'm so grateful you came here and decided to spend some time with me and Ethan today. If you enjoyed this, make sure to share it, Lewis Howes applepodcasts.com/1025 or just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this. And please click that subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts right now. Leave us a rating and review. If this helped you in any way, then you can help me in return by clicking subscribe and leaving a rating and review as that'll truly help us spread the message of greatness to more people. And if you want inspirational messages sent to your phone every single week from me behind the scenes content, then text the word podcast right now to 614-350-3960. Again, text the word podcast 614-350-3960. And I want to leave you with this quote from psychotherapist and author David Ricco who said, Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us. Wherever you're feeling that type of pain or discomfort, wherever that is in your life right now, realize there's an opening there. That opening is allowing you to dive in and start really paying attention to where the problem is and figuring out how you can solve that. So you can have a healthier, happier, stronger life. You deserve love. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be healthy. This is what you were born to do. And if no one has reminded you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.