Jon Bernthal
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
For me, it really worked. And man, do I believe it. If you had asked me then, I would have been like, this is a bunch of bullshit. But now I'm like, those Quaker values are beautiful. I love the school and I'm so grateful to the school and the people who are my best friends who I played on my undefeated high school football team with are still my best friends. Oh, they play football.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And there is really that element there, this dichotomy, but support it. Anyway, truthfully, what I'm most grateful for is it really was a place and a city that was diverse. People throw that word around, but the kind of folks that I got to grow up with were from all walks of life and in that city. And at that time, I'm just so grateful for it. And I think where D.C.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
is, it's such an interesting thing because you cross one river in your Virginia and then you go out this way, you're in Maryland and there's the Eastern Shore. It's such a wildly different place. Okay, so you go to Skidmore, but you're there for how long? I'd gotten in trouble in high school, so I had this sort of thing looming over me while I was in college. Trial coming your way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I went to Skidmore to play baseball, and it was at Skidmore where I started acting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, this woman, Alma Becker, I have her name tattooed right here. She was my first acting teacher. I told this story before. I've never heard it. Okay, sorry. I know, it's the worst though, man. Anyway, I boxed my whole life, and so my head's a little, and my biggest fear is that I'm telling the same story over and over again, and someone's sitting there being like, fuck this story again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
In every boxing gym, there's somebody who does that, and I'm so afraid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, I'm scared for me about that too, to be honest with you. And you're going to be just fine. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I took this class to fulfill a requirement. I was a total shitbag. I was there just to play baseball. What position did you play? I played catcher. Oh, how are your knees? I'm okay now. I mean, but from boxing and catching, and I play a lot of outdoor basketball, they were bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I've had a bunch of surgeries, but hey, my little brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, it was bad for a while, but I played all through high school and college. I played some baseball in Russia. Oh, we got to get to that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, boy. There was an intro to theater class that all the athletes took and you would sit in the auditorium and I heard you could just sort of take acid and sit in the back and watch movies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, that sounds great. I ended up, because I'm a total shitbag, in the intro to acting class, which was the serious acting student class. And I had never seen anything like this before. And the first assignment was to bring in something that you really cared about to share it with the class. Everybody was sitting on the floor, which I thought was the weirdest fucking thing in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Like, why are we sitting on the floor? And they were going around person by person. Theater people sharing. And they were taking it so seriously. Really emoting. And it just dawned on me. I totally didn't bring anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You just didn't want to participate. Anyhow, it was slowly but surely working its way to me. And the only thing I thought to do was to get my catcher's glove because I was going to fall practice right afterwards. And I kind of launched into this story about how my mother had given me this glove on her deathbed. And my mom's like alive and well. Yeah. I just thought that was sort of acting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I just told this story. And I'm like, you know, and then me and my brother, you know, we just have a catch and talk about mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I really went to this crazy place. And I'm like, Whoa, guys, I'm just doing the acting here. Like, chill out. And this woman, Alma, who's this magical woman from the San Francisco theater in the 60s and the 70s, was in original Sam Shepard shows. It's just great, fierce woman, made everybody leave. And she just ripped me the fuck apart. And then she said, but you're auditioning for the play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Learn this monologue. Come back tonight and audition. I did. And I have no idea why I did. But I remember walking back to the house with the baseball players where I lived. And I remember reading the words and something was happening to me. I'm like, what the fuck is this? The same thing that was happening in that room. And I got in the play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
All these layers of, wait, a world like this exists? I can definitely identify with that. What I'll tell you for me more specifically was the guy who was getting in fights on the street, that guy was fake. That guy was scared. But what I found out, and still to this day, man, if I can tap in to like real people, genuine chaos and danger. I love my friends so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I sort of went from the guy in the back talking smack, like, let's all go do this to, you know, the shame. I got to be the guy in the front. Okay, now I got to be the guy to do it one-on-one. Okay, now I got to be the one to like prove to myself that I can do it. This stupid, toxic, awful game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But what I found was that intoxicating energy, if I could tap into that this way, I could do it in such a positive way that brought me closer to people. Both pursuits are full of fear. For sure. And I think in both cases, what I've really responded to is that it's a group effort and it's a collaborative effort.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And you get so close with, I know it probably sounds cheese dick and hokey, but like the soldiers that you're with next to you. The reason why I was getting in street fights is I didn't know how to tell my friends how much I loved them. Exactly. It was all it was. I love those guys. I didn't know how to do it any other way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, yeah, like bro. And my wife comes from a genuinely tough family. Her uncle is a WWE. He won the gold medal for American wrestling. Yeah. Kurt won the gold medal in 96. And Eric. They were teammates? Best of friends. Mark trained him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. But I mean, my wife's dad's got even better stories. Oh, yeah, okay, wow, wow, okay. They're serious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. And the truth is, I don't want to sell these guys short because they're not mongoloids. They're not simple. They're beautiful people with successful families and beautiful careers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That was one of the biggest things for me. I remember there was this one time in D.C. when we were at a bar and there was some little stupid altercation. I think my little brother had gotten into it with some guy and I was fiercely protective. Because, you know, then you go to therapy and you start working on your anger. And it's so crazy that we're even talking about this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But, you know, I really like keeping an anger journal and really whittling it down and doing the work. Like, what are the things? And one of the things for me are my brothers. I just knew from a young age my job... was to protect my brother. So going into certain situations, playing pickup basketball with them on the street, going out drinking with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Like if my brothers are around, I am that guy. And I still to this day. You're their security. A little bit. And I just do remember my brother got into it. This guy was giving him a hard time and this other guy stepped in and I just got up. And I remember I hit this guy and I knocked his teeth out. I have this theory that you only got hurt in fights when it's your fault.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Somehow that was my scientific. That's very interesting. Complete bullshit. But, you know, I remember I got this huge infection on my hand and it was Christmas Eve. And I just woke up that next morning in this state of like absolute horror that this guy has to wake up on Christmas morning without his teeth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Literally my two front teeth. But I just remember being in DC and like crying my eyes out thinking about this guy. And that was at least the beginning of you got to stop this shit. Yeah, yeah. I always talk about this with my kids, like the steps of behavior. There's unconscious incompetence where you're just doing dumb shit and you have no idea you're doing it. And then that-
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
super incredible and vital point where you're like oh conscious incompetence I am doing something wrong why am I doing this and then that next step of conscious competence where you're like if I tell myself every day here it comes don't do that I can plan for it I can do a million different things to keep myself from doing that and then maybe you can get to that spot of unconscious competence where you don't even have to think about it you just do that and for the most part because I don't ever believe you're good I don't believe that this is gone from you or me or whatever but
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I just do want to say, I think with my brothers and my friends, the one thing that was always present is we only wanted each other to be okay and to be safe and to grow out of our bullshit. And whether we were able to say that to each other at the time or not, no. But that was clear, is clear. And I'm so grateful for that. Yeah. Okay, Russia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, I didn't know, man. I knew that this is what I wanted to do. Once I started acting, it was baseball and acting. Is this like 96? I went to Russia in 98 and then I was there from 98 to 2001.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Three years? Yeah, two years. I first went for a year and that was to be in the Russian school and she had hooked it up, got me an audition. And can I ask what the value of that, is that school where like Stanislavski taught?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, the Moscow Art Theater. Yeah. And I was just dealing with this case. I was in real trouble and having to deal with parole boards and not being able to continue school. And I went to her and I just said, look, how do you do this? I thought it was like being a plumber. Like, what are the steps that I need to do? This is what I want to do. I wanted to be a regional theater actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And that was it. And she said, look, there's no rhyme or reason to this thing. There's no one way. But she said, you know, if I were you, I would audition for the Moscow Art Theater. Americans haven't done this before. And I think what she knew, one, she needed to get me out of my environment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I think, too, there was a level of training over there and an environment over there that was so beyond humbling. Moscow was wild in the late 90s. It was completely run by the mob. Shootouts in the Duma. I had guns pulled on me multiple times within my first few days there. You know, it was a really lawless place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And for a guy who's like, I'm a tough DC guy, like a barrel, like you are not tough. Like you are a little bug. These motherfuckers ate their shoes. Bro, the old lady on the street, right? Like the babushka will fuck you up. Straight up. And also, I hadn't done international travel. To go to a place to be a Russian actor, to be a Russian singer, that meant every bit as much as to be an American.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You know, to be an artist there was, for lack of a better word, at this time in my life, it was this enormously masculine thing. thing to do. You learn how to do ballet. You learn how to do acrobatics. You learn how to fight super rigorous and unbelievably cut throat. If you get into these schools, it's so hard to get in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You know, out of 10,000 kids, they'll take a hundred and then every semester they'll cut you in half. That last year, those 10 kids, you're doing 10 plays in repertory. And when you show up to the theater, you're told which of those 10 plays you're doing and which role you're playing, both male and female. The level of discipline was so unlike anything I'd ever seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
What's going on with the language? Is it So when I first got there, no, no, definitely not, man. Nobody was speaking English at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was hard. I lived in a place called Park Kultury, which is a Gorky Park and not a great area in Moscow then. The deal is if you got into school, they provide a translator. So I had this guy who was with me all the time. But the cool thing was, is honestly, in your first 12, 13 months there, it's training your attention and your concentration.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
A common exercise would be if there was 12 of us, it's like ensemble building. At the same time with no leaders or followers, we'd all stand up at the same time. And then at the same time, we'd all pick up our chairs. And at the same time, we'd all start moving around the room. And you would have a newspaper article and you would have to read a paragraph from that newspaper article.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
While we're walking around the room, it's starting to get confusing, right? While we start walking around the room, I'm saying, Dax, what color is your underwear today? Right. And you would say red, right? Or whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then you would say, John, what'd you have for breakfast? Strawberries and eggs. And we'd go around the room. The teacher, meanwhile, is snapping, coughing, and clapping. Then at one point, the teacher says, stop. Everybody stops. And at the same time, everybody makes a semicircle with their chairs. At the same time, everybody puts their chairs down. Same time, everybody goes and sits down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And you had to know, what did Dax ask John? What was the answers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
My wife is disgusted by beards. I just got off of this movie. I just got back from Africa. And now we got kind of word that not the next thing I'm doing, but the one after that, they want to keep the beard. And I think the beard's going to play in it. So like this beard ain't going nowhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
How many coughs? How many snaps? Exercise. Yeah, yeah. But while you're doing your own thing. But while you're reading your thing, and then you need to know every answer and you need to be able to recite. That sounds perfect for you. It was perfect for me. Yeah, yeah. Especially coming from the sports background. It was more rigorous than boxing. It was more rigorous than football.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was more rigorous than anything I'd ever done. And I think in Russia, to be an acting teacher is the highest acclaim that you can get. So my teachers were the biggest stars. Wow, yeah. Not just that they were famous, but they were the most respected. Oleg Tabakov is like the Robert De Niro of Russia. He's a teacher.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So if you're anywhere in Moscow and a Moscow art theater teacher comes into the place that you're in, you have to stand up and you can't sit down until they sit down. Those guys all lived through communist times. So, you know, public gatherings were outlawed. So if you were to do theater, it was always state sponsored theater. Probably propaganda to some level.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Propaganda to some level, but then if they said, okay, you guys are doing a play and this is a state-sponsored play, but because my arbitrary look on it, if I'm a state person, you know, I think that there's actually an anti-state message. Yeah. They'll come to your house and kill you. Yeah. Meyerhold was one of the biggest Russian directors in the Moscow Art Theater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Assassinated in his apartment. Teachers sent to Siberia. Well, did they or did they not?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Who knows? You know, it's corrupt as hell. This is where they came up in. And my three main acting teachers, these three men, they're best friends. I love these guys. And they did this play called Cinzano about these three best friends who one of their mothers died and they sit in an apartment and drink a bottle of Cinzano and talk about it. They did it all through the 80s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
performing in subway tunnels and abandoned buildings, putting signs up through the city. If anyone had been caught. Dead. I don't know if they'd be dead, but they'd definitely go to prison. They'd definitely be in trouble and they performed it anyway. So there was just this level of vitality to it that I think I really responded to. How lonely were you? No internet. I didn't have an email account.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. That would be what would sustain me. Things were not looking good for me. Like I do feel every day I am in church, man. I am walking the walk. It's just for me, my mind was blown every single day, spiritually, physically. and just being in such a different environment. And I don't know if that's even possible now. I had one phone call on Christmas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I called my mom and my dad, and I called my best friend, Greg Zumis. And I remember how awkward it was, and I didn't know how to talk to them. And my dad was like, do you know how much this is costing? Are you sure? I'm like, Pop, what are we talking about, bro?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
While I was there to make a little bit of money, Moscow had just gotten a team. It was interesting there because all these new sort of American things were popping out. You really had very different Russias and very different Moscow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The Moscow that all the kids that I went to school with, you know, they were coming in their whole families from the Ural Mountains, eating off a hot plate, really destitute. At night, it was drinking vodka, singing, rapping, playing theater games. No one had any money. So it was like you scrounge together what you had. That was the Russia that I knew.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But there was this other thing with the mafia and it was this fascination with American culture and these sort of American restaurants and McDonald's. And one of the things was baseball. So there was this new thing in Russia where these mafia guys would go with their model girlfriends and go watch baseball games. I went in 2000 to Russia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Real, real, real drinking. Not surprising to see dead guys on the subway on the way to school. There are certain cultural rules on the street. Like if somebody falls down and cracks their head open, you do not touch that person. You don't help them. You don't call anybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It's disgusting. And then this thing just accentuates it. So, you know, it's funny, man. I come from a family, like my whole family sort of reminds me. My brothers are really good looking. My nose has been broken a ton of times. I was born with these giant ears. I like hate the way that I look. Yeah. Yeah, me too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I could tell you stories all day, like really brutal, dark stories that happened there. But for every single one of those, I've got one that is so profoundly beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And on every corner, there's a statue of a playwright or a poet or an actor. To find somebody like a street guy, he'll know what's playing at the Bolshoi. He'll be able to name all the members of the Moscow Art Theater. And when you go, there's no idea of this sort of like subscription-based gentry exclusive theater. Yeah. The theater is religion. Every theater is packed every night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
People are sitting in the rows. It's cheap. You take your family to the theater. You go and you see theater. It's like something that you do and not in any kind of like, do you know who's going to be in this? And also just the way that these plays are even put on. There's no such thing as, okay, we're gonna rehearse, and then we've rented this theater, so we're gonna go up in June.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You rehearse a play until the director says it's ready. Could be three years. Once you have a role, like if you're playing Hamlet and you're playing Desdemona, those are your roles, and you might get a call next week. Every night, there's a bill of what shows. It's not like this show is playing here. You're going to see Dax in Hamlet tonight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then tomorrow they're doing Othello and you're playing Desdemona. So you have your parts. There's plays that have been running there for 35 years and they're just, oh, they're going to do it at the Taganka tonight. And you got to see this production. It's like a rock band.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was in rubles, but I think at the time it was close to probably 25 bucks a game. Okay. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
For me at that time, 25 rubles, which was approximately five bucks if I'm doing this right, not in the Western places, but the three of us could go out to a Georgian restaurant, eat Hachaporti, split a bottle of vodka, get a couple of chickens, maybe a thing of beans, the best bread you've ever had. And we'd sit there and get completely...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
completely fucking hammered and eat do you guys know what hot chiporty is no georgian food it centers around this thing called hot chiporty which is basically like this bread with these three kinds of georgian cheeses sort of like fried into it with an egg fried over the top like then you can put these russian beans on it i mean it's bonkers good for five bucks three four people eat and drink as much as you want so for 25 bucks yeah not bad
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You know, because I was 20 years old, my buddies were all Russian teenagers and people in their young 20s. And so to be like the big spender, like, come on, I got you. It was so, so crazy to be able to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I mean, it was a lot of years. When I was in Russia, Harvard has a graduate school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
To go to graduate school. To go to graduate school, even though I never went to college. I didn't even know one could do that. Me neither. But then you go back to Russia, but this time as a Harvard student, which is a totally different thing. And that was an extraordinary thing, too. But they do these showcases and stuff. And I got an agent. So you have a master's from Harvard. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
If I could bring in like a group of people that could tell you stories of how big of a, like a colossal fuck up. I love this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
My best friends were from South Boston. My friend John Davis Sparky just passed this year. He OD'd. Fucking greatest guy. Played baseball with him. But this group from South, he took me to Harvard to audition. They're all waiting outside. They're like ripping lines in the car. The craziest group of them. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You know, he's like, wait, he's like, did you get in? I go in there and I do this audition. They told me in the room, they saw me in Russia. They're like, come back. It really is Goodwill, honey. He's like a janitor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was fucking nuts. I remember exactly where I was calling my mom on Sparky's phone. She couldn't believe it. But I met my, I met my wife, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You met her at Harvard? No, she was an ICU trauma nurse in DC. I met her the day I got home from Russia. Yeah. What a story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
For a few years in the beginning, there was definitely the whole ugly thing that I was telling you about where I was like, okay, this is not going to happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, with like Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Lizzie Kaplan. And it was the people that had done Friends. And it was supposed to be the one. Jimmy Burroughs took us on the private jet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The Class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember it was Chris Klein and James Van Der Beek, I think, going into rooms to test with those guys. It was like, this is a total fucking joke. Look at you, you fucking charlatan, you ugly little joke. In the beginning, it was really hard. It was It was just no, no, no, no, no for years, nothing. Couldn't make money. I was like selling weed. I was bouncing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I was doing whatever the fuck I could. But I'd come home feeling sorry for myself. And my wife was working at these major trauma centers around the country being like, never saying it. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, dog. And she would never say that. But she could just do it by like, come here, I got you. And I'm like, I'm crying on her chest. What did you do today?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
bro right and like literally like an angel i'm upset about this bullshit yeah but i will say man through that time it was really genuinely total gratitude it was an influx of positivity it was like you're getting really close and there was no end game so you haven't been arrested in a while yeah i mean i got in trouble one more time pretty bad in 2009 that's when everything kind of shifted for me oh wow after you've been working that's when i stopped drinking and yeah yeah you don't drink i do not for how long
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No, it was the anger thing. Just wrong dog in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That event more than anything else. Like, yes, I was working. It was a really bad thing. Happened in Venice. And I think more than anything else, there's an issue sort of with one of my dogs. I tried to take my dog. It was a bunch of them. Oh. I ended up hitting a guy and he got knocked out and hit his head on the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Being down in jail in LA and not knowing whether this guy was going to wake up. And it was literally as profound and clear a moment as I've ever had. Wow. Okay. If you're going this way, this is your life now. There's no more acting. There's no more girlfriend. There's no more any of this. You got to go be the devil. You're going that way. He's not waking up. This is your life now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
They're the Emanuals of D.C. I'm the middle, but my parents took in a bunch of foster kids and my parents were sort of the parents in DC. They all had their own specific and unique and separate and private relationships with friends. So if you were in trouble, you'd go to my dad. It was really lovely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You just ruined your entire life. For me, it was way more active than that. It was like, okay, if we're going in that direction, I'm going to let you into my life. I will be the worst version of myself. I will fully give over to whatever energy that is. And I see with so many people, violent criminals, folks that we call monsters. I know that they've been in the same spot and I was ready, man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It's not a tough guy bullshit. It's like, I am ready for whatever the fuck comes my way and I will meet it with whatever comes my way. And then the next thought was like, but... If just this one time, please, I swear I'm dumb, I will devote myself to this thing. I will devote myself to this woman. I will serve in every way that I can. I will really do your work. Whatever that is, I promise you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Literally in that moment, he woke up. That was July 3rd, 2009. July 3rd, 2010, I was in Atlanta starting The Walking Dead, engaged to my wife, a year sober. Year later, my first son, Henry, was born. I'm like blown away with gratitude. And at any point, including now, if it all goes away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You know, when I go into prisons and I get to know these people and there's some folks that we've been a part of reducing their sentences and getting them out. The biggest thing that I'm aware of when I talk about my life, there's shame in it. Because the truth is, man, I had every opportunity. I went to a great school. I had good parents who loved me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I hit these walls over and over and over and over. So many chances. This wasn't the worst thing that I had ever. Like, dude, what are you doing? But the thing that I find is the only reason that I got these second chances is because of that privilege. Honestly, it's the only reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And there are so many folks who just don't have that or who made that same deal with whatever and it didn't work out for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
For me, it's always, again, been I have these pillars of brothers who never fucked up, just got it all fucking figured out. And by the way, always made me feel like I had real worth. In a bond, you go to John. You really want to talk about something in motion? You really want to have an honest conversation? I know they come to me. They'll always come to me. And I was always that guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That being said, I know it all came from shame. It all came from the times I was beat up, the times that I was jumped and I didn't do anything about it, the times that I was really scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Do you know how much violence has happened because of young men laying in bed in light, hating themselves because they couldn't make their hands move?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I know how toxic that road is, that shame and that I'm really a wimp. I'm really a coward if these guys find me out, you know, so I'm going to talk a little bit like all those things are just such horrible roads to walk down. And it is crazy that a lot of the things that I get to do is portray these uber tough, strong. And the thing that I find such a gift is,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
is that I'm really aware of each one of their, not just deep vulnerabilities and sensitivities, but their shame. I just don't think there's any such thing as like violence without pain and shame. You're crying inside. You go into prison and you hang out among folks who have had real, real time to sit with this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I think my dad is really nice. He's a rougher, he's very direct. Where's he from? Enormously smart. He's from Syracuse, New York. Son of immigrants, Russian, Polish. But I don't know that people would lead with nice. Oh, great. When you get to know him, 100%. Right. Fiercely loyal, a great guy to have in your corner. What kind of law did he practice?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You go into prisons and you find folks who are, in my opinion, some of the most ethically and innovative and deep and spiritually sound because they've just had so much time to sit and really work a lot of this stuff out. And when you find folks like that, it's such a gift, fully evolved, like fully figured it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
There are people who never get to be around their kids because they're behind walls. And I think they're some of the best parents on earth. The way that they breathe is in full consideration of their children, of their offspring, of their spiritual connection.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And you just know. Can I say one thing about that? Yeah. The guy who 2009 got knocked out, hit his head. 2010, July 3rd, I wrote him a letter and I said to him, I realized that when I hit you, I saw you in me and I wanted to fucking smash it. That's what it was. Yeah. Thousand percent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, I feel so bad for David and George because they're so great, you know, it's The Wire. But that show was, I think at that time, especially in a subject matter that I'm so curious about, fascinated by, deplored by race and policing. It's like so at the center because of that show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I got this unbelievable front row ticket and access point in this fucking city that is like right at the tip of the spear of these fucking issues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And to really get to understand policing and for three months going out every single night on the east side with the gun squad and then on the west side of Baltimore with Nagovich and them on SWAT raids and like really getting to know these guys really, really well. And then at the same time, understanding it through the systemic lens that George and David shared kind of singularly can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Then getting to know the real guy and understanding it for all its complexities. It was just such a fucking gift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
when you're dealing with David and George, they're not interested in making the scene the funniest. It is journalistic integrity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So he started off his three cousins that were his best friends and like his brothers growing up. One of them specifically, but they were sort of involved with pretty major bank robbery in Connecticut. And my dad went into law, I think. To defend his friends. Yeah. But then he got into representing radio stations and TV stations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Everyone said like the dude's fucking larger than life in this tapestry. We're like 90% of the people I'm working with are not actors. What a fucking gift. And in that world at that time after Freddie to be able to go into Baltimore in Baltimore, the wire is like required watching for every cop, like, you know, for every gangster, for every community member.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, dude. And so like when you're saying, hey, I'm here with that, they open up to you. You make these unbelievable friends. But the experiences I had getting to play that role. Yeah, I'm just so grateful for it. I am so happy for you that you had that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I have not. I saw his movie. I cannot wait to see this show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
My two oldest, they're your part. Man, it's like everything. How do I raise kind, empathetic, sturdy kids? young men protectors who take accountability. And there are things that I really feel my wife and I have gotten right. And there are things that I really feel like we haven't. And that is the rub. There are things that are unquestionably good. I think jujitsu is unquestionably good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
A martial art that doesn't require you to strike somebody, which causes the other person to get angry and scared and strike you back, or that is such violent with striking that they could fall down and hurt themselves, but it's a martial art of getting close, you hearing them breathe and say, hey, I'm right here and this needs to stop now. I got you, I'm with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
To teach that to kids and to get them to have a facility in that and to be able to walk into a room and know that, that is an unquestionable skill. Good thing. Really having respect for nature, like getting outside, learning how to be outside, loving outside, doubling down on things that no one can take away from you. No one can take nature away from you. No one can take reading away from you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No one can take music away from you. Giving them these solid touchstones to really see value in those things as kids. freaking huge. And then everyone says it and maybe I'll be proven wrong. It's sad, but the phone and the screen is the enemy. But I was raised the kids that were told don't ever touch beer. Don't ever touch sugar. Those are the kids like the second they got the shot there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, exactly. Right. So how do you do it? But I think what you can do is you can clown the fuck out of people who are always on their phones. That's what I do with my kids. I'm like, look at that family. That motherfucker has not gotten off. Like, how sad is that? Maybe that's not the best way. But it's a way. Hey, look, it's like Del Poynet. Like, that guy has not gotten off his phone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I will probably completely mess this up when my other brothers would do this much better. But legend has it that there was a few young businessmen that he became extraordinarily close with. And he was with them from a very, very young age. helping them build their businesses, sort of being their right-hand man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But I do think that there are sort of undeniable things. Art and food and skills and travel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's really exciting. Again, not to be a cheese dick, but I do believe the greatest part of this thing is the people that you get to meet along the way. And in the first one, Ben and I really didn't get much time together. My character was sort of mysterious. You didn't know that they were brothers and they come together at the end. This one is the two of them together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And Gavin O'Connor and Bill Dubuque, same writer and director. I don't know about for you guys, but as I'm getting older and older, I am just constantly looking for models of people that have really got it going. And Gavin's a guy that I really look at. He's been through it. He's been in those valleys. And I don't think you can be up in the mountaintops unless you've been in the valleys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But he is just like a family first guy who takes his art super seriously. And I love him. And I've really found that with Ben. I just got done working with Matt on the Nolan film.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Thanks, man. That is really. Talk about being anointed. Oh boy. You know, I knew Matt from Ford Ferrari, but I just think that what they're doing together with this company is so beyond beautiful and what we need. And I think in a way it's going to save this whole thing. They're artists first guys, but Ben is brilliant. Yeah. Intimidatingly so. Yeah, he really is such an incredible filmmaker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And what I loved is on this film, he's the studio head and he's the lead actor, but he's not the director.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And it's such an interesting thing to sort of navigate, especially in that role. Through personal things in his life, he's really got a deeper connection to the role. And you can see it and you can feel it. I think he's brilliant in the movie. And we really had this awesome thing together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
When you ask me about my dad, the first thing I would say is fiercely, fiercely loyal. He is the guy you want in your corner. He's been in my corner. I've seen him be in other people's corners. No matter what happens, that guy's got your back. Huge lesson for me as a father. Was he a tough father? Definitely. And I think I was wildly disappointing as a son.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's a cool storyline. Really cool. And I think it's really personal to everybody who made it, which is the most important. Bill Dubuque, who wrote it, created Ozark. He's wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It does come from a really personal place. And I think that he writes family. And when you think about Gavin in the movies that he makes and sort of uncovering father issues and brother issues and masculinity, and these guys are all sort of like deep dive type guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Because of the first film, you do get sort of a sense through these flashbacks of how these boys were raised in this really, really unique, violent way by their father. I wanted... Brax, the character that I played, he had to be equally... I didn't want it like one guy's got the affliction and the other guy's got it figured out. It's like, no. He is every bit... Here's one side of the coin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's it. They're equally dependent on each other. They're equally in awe of each other. They're equally fucking frustrated with each other. I find with everybody, I don't know if you guys think this with the relationships in your life that are the most important, but I'm constantly...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
blown away by the things that i love about people so much are such a close cousin to what i cannot fucking stand about them like it's like the same thing and it can be something totally positive my wife will never tell a lie she will never exaggerate her integrity is so insane but it's like dude if we just say he's sick you know what i mean like we can like
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Like we can get through this, but oh my God, I'm so in awe. And so I think you really feel that in this movie, the things that these guys love each other for are exactly what also drives them crazy. And I think it's really honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I don't know that. Like I hate, look, being from the Moscow art theater and all that, I do think it's bastardized and it has nothing to do with what that method was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Fucking Tom's on this Nolan movie too, man. And he was just clowning me. Yes, I was playing a fucking mute. And embarrassingly, we were in this tiny little village in Ireland. And it was one of these deals where... We're all living together at the same little resort. There's nowhere to go. So every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we're together. So we're not just together on set.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
We're together all day, which is great. I love these guys. Wouldn't want it any other way, except I come up with this idea is I'm going to be silent the entire time. So now they've been dealing with this fucking asshole. What if you saw someone was on fire? Bro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But like the way it all came to an end, which is so embarrassing, is not only do they have to deal with me on set, but we would sit there at dinner. What do you want for dinner? And I'd be like- You know, this is so lame.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Bro, it was so bad. And then there was salmon for every meal. And I'm obsessed with lemon for my salmon. So I wrote on this little notepad to Tom Holland, who was like 17 at the time. I'm like, hey, dude, can you get me some lemon for my thing? I write that down. He's like, of course, can we have some lemon? And the guy comes over and drops the lemon in my soda. And I'm like, fuck. I'm done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I'm done. I can't do it anymore. That was the breaking point. That was the breaking point. That was one of the breaking points. And I think the thing that is frustrating to people, and certain people are definitely guilty of it, and I really try to catch myself because there is this thing that we want to show everybody how hard we're working. Some of it is performative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I have seen people where I've been like, oh, this motherfucker. Like, we all know how hard you're working, dude. Like, great, good for you. But I've also been unbelievably surprised by that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
where I thought that and I was like oh no I will tell you Shia on Fury when I first saw him get back from real boot camp in full fatigue show up at Brad Pitt's house be like I just got back from boot camp G and I was like dude and then eight months later this motherfucker has not stopped for one second being all the way dialed in and he's laying down shit that no one else is laying down he's proving once again to perform on a level that other people can't do other people can't
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
He's a head of oncology and orthopedics at UCLA. Went to Princeton, All-American football player. This is a bummer of an older brother to have. That's my little brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
How do you find folks? To be honest with you, over 90% of the people that I have on are just friends of mine from life that I've just been like lucky enough to get to know a lot of the cops in Baltimore. I have a really weird relationship with it. I've always really felt the need to shy away from getting too much of me out there. That's an old actor trope. It is. I totally get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I also think that for me, we don't make money off the show. I don't monetize it in any way. The genesis of it was really after George Floyd. I found myself watching that and knowing that I had to be part of the resistance. It would make me so angry and so disgusted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then I had to do something and I would turn on the TV and I would go down there and then I would see people throwing bottles at cops. And I looked at each one of those cops and I'm like, I know these people. their brothers, their sisters, their fathers, their daughters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then I would go down to Newton Division where a bunch of my really good friends work and I would go make sure they were good. I just was so sort of disgusted with the national discourse on subjects like that, but especially that where I felt like the folks that were being the loudest
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
were the people at the opposite poles waving their flags as hard as they could because they were filled with fear and shame because they'd never experienced anything in the middle. They had never been down in that valley where they've actually come face to face with a cop or they've come face to face with somebody from one of those communities. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then I just looked at my life and I was like, wow, the one thing that I know is the guys that I know who run gangs and guys who I know who have been in that life and are real community minded community activists, the real ones. They can look among their own community and they can tell you who's real and who's not. They'll tell you which one of these guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, he stands for the set, but he's not like that guy ain't the real thing. That dude right there, he's down for it. Like he'll help the lady crossroad. He's down for this community. And they can look across the divide and say that cop over there, he's real. He shows up. There's a kid in our community that has cancer. Since he's five years old, he shows up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I've also saw it on the other side with the cops that they can look over and say, that guy's stand up. And then I was like, wait a second. What would happen if I put those guys together? Because in this moment where everyone's an expert, but no one is actually walking the walk. What would happen if you put those two guys together?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And those are the people ultimately that I want my kids to learn from. And so that's what the first shows were, were basically it was cops that I was buddies with and gangsters that I was buddies with. But then it kind of evolved and it was, yeah, special forces soldiers, surgeons, teachers, activists, actors. But I'm a fan of your guys show. You guys are actually really great at this. I am not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No, no, I'm really not. The point that I'm saying is that my show is never... It's not about you. It's definitely not. And the one thing that we hear over and over about my show is he doesn't say anything. You're a facilitator. That's great. I hope so. As I get older in both fatherhood and this career, I really keep coming back to intention. Intentions are everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Shit, bro. It's hard enough. He was, I believe, he was the youngest producer for the Nightly News ever. He won like five Emmys by the time he was 25. He's got more Emmys than you. He sure does. I mean, the joke in my house, getting back to the ugly thing, is that if I had my brother's looks, I'd have five Oscars right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Like, what are your fucking intentions? And every time that I've done one of those shows where... I can get behind my intentions, forgive me. But when I used to play baseball, I had this coach in college who used to say, you're in the batter's box. And all of a sudden you start spiraling. You're like, fuck, I can't hit this ball. Fuck, fuck, dude. He's got, look, he's gonna throw a curve ball.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
What is it? And you start to spiral out of control. And this guy said that in those moments, you gotta step the fuck out and remind yourself, why do you do this in the first place? Take yourself back to like, what are you doing this for? And if that is really clear and solid in the podcast thing for me,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
When I've had people on where I believe in this person, one day I want my son, little Bill Bernthal, to listen to this guy and be like, yeah, dad fucks with this guy. Dad says watch this guy. It's not about who they voted for. It's not about their politics. This motherfucker has integrity. This motherfucker is about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And the majority of the people that we have on our show, they've never been on camera before. You guys do that too. Like they've never done this. And I recognize that I'm asking them to do something that they're really not that comfortable with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And so I do have a very weird relationship with it because look, you guys, I'm sure people are just lining up to be, I mean, like, look at the people you guys have on, like on our show, it's a little different. It's like, oh shit, that's right. I remember my friend from DC. It's more that kind of thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I'm sort of have to sell them on the fact that, Hey, you know me, I'm not going to fuck with you. Anything you don't want in here, take it out. You know, like you're good. And then in the same way, I know you're either a really good friend of mine or you're a friend of a friend's who say, this dude, there's no bullshit here. There's no bravado. There's no bluster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
This was awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate you guys having me. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was so good. Thank you, brother. Thank you very much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You know, when you first start out, and I've said it before, you're just facing sort of like this avalanche of rejection. I think the first thing we go to as human beings is, oh, I'm disgusting. It's because my ears are big. And I do remember palpably walking into rooms where the casting director looked up and was sort of like, oh, you know, but I think, no, no, no, for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But I do also think it's because, look, in the beginning, I'm trying to be on soap operas. I would be in the waiting rooms and see these beautiful men and just be like, this ain't gonna happen for you, bro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But there was never a part of me like, oh, you just wait. When I get my hands on some meaty, it was always, I suck. This isn't going to work for me. It's your gross. But what a blessing in the long run, because I do think that there is a thing for folks that I've seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I don't know that it necessarily means because of their looks, but I have sort of come up with people where I thought, wow, they've really got this whole thing kind of licked. And they play beautiful young men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But then when it comes time to play a father or to play a soldier or to play a cop or to play somebody who's really worked with their hands, honestly, whether they've done that or not, I think it really can become a hindrance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Well, friends, it's really coming full circle right now because I'm trying to decide what we're doing with our kids next year. And, you know, I don't know if... We have 10 and 12. Do you have babies? Mm-mm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The whole thing. For me, being a dad, I love things that you're never going to lick, that you're going to fail at constantly, that you just want so bad that you can pour every bit of your heart into and that you just keep running into walls. And my God, do you just fail over and over again as a parent?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You admit it and you show up. And so trying to figure it out now, I don't know if you could say the same thing, but I'm tremendously grateful for how I grew up, where I grew up, even with all of the walls that I ran into. And there is a huge pressure on me for my kids to learn what I've learned. Unfortunately, I don't think they're going to be able to learn it the way that I learned it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Nor should they. Nor should they. But I think it really could have gone and did go bad a lot of different times. And, you know, my brother was definitely not a brilliant student. No, not at all. He really got bullied a lot. I think D.C. at that time, no matter where you were in that city, was a rough city. And it was rough on him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I think a lot of the decisions that I made, how I was going to conduct my life and how I was going to carry myself was really in reaction to that. In a very similar way, I think my little brother made those same decisions of what not to do based on what I was doing. Sure. It was a pendulum swinging in your family. I think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But I think the thing that was steady all the way through with my folks, because yes, both of my brothers are really wildly successful guys. And I think more than just that, they've had unbelievably satisfying careers. They're deeply kind and good people who put helping people and being there for other people before anything else. They're family first people. They have wonderful friendships.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
They have wonderful marriages. They have wonderful children that they love. Oh, I hate them. I hate both these guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Believe you me, we have anything that you could possibly have within a family. But with our immediate family, I was doing an interview the other day for this movie I have coming out and they asked Ben Affleck and me, like, what is your superpower? I mean, it was just so clear. I really do think it's them. It's my family. There's never been resentment among each other. There's not been jealousy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
There's been total support. I did get in trouble a lot when I was young. What brand of trouble did you find yourself in? Got locked up a bunch of times and it was mostly I had problems with violence. Okay. Got into martial arts and boxing when I was young and probably learned from some of the wrong people and a lot of questions with my own manhood and fear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I feel like so much of that stuff comes from shame anyway. And again, when I talk about teaching my kids, I really believe every person has to have their own problem. fluency and relationship with violence, I find specifically as a man, I think you have to be able to have a healthy relationship with it to sort of understand it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Because I think when it's super far away from you and you've never delved in those waters, it can be enormously toxic. And so to try to teach my kids that, my boys and my girls, but teach that to them in a place shrouded in honor and respect and kindness and justice and under the umbrella of safety has been a real focus of mine. And man, I wish I had that. I mean, it's just super basic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It kind of goes for everything with these kids and with us. And I try to remind myself all the time, try to not let your feelings be the boss of you. Try to not do anything out of anger, out of resentment, out of fear. Try to be your own master in that way. You're never going to have that licked. You're But you can aim towards it. You know, you can try.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Going to this unbelievably prestigious and lauded school that I went to, I still, you know, by the time I was 11, I was taking the subway and the bus to school. I'd gotten jumped. I'd gotten mugged. That's not going to happen to my kids in Ojai. No, no, no, no. That is not going to happen. They have better odds of coming face to face with a cougar. For sure. For sure. But let's teach them that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
In both this business and in life, I've come across so many people who clearly walk down the street and walk into a room and have no situational awareness and didn't grow up the way that you grew up and aren't thinking about those things. And it's not that, oh, gosh, they're a sitting duck or, oh, they're vulnerable or, oh, this is going to be bad for them. It's just that. Who knows?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And these things could become enormously valuable at a certain time. And when it does, what you don't want to do is sit in the corner and say, oh my gosh, make it end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I think you want to be able to be in a situation where you can protect your family, protect your friends, stand up to somebody who's getting it bad, no matter what that is, but to never fall to the base inclination and desires that push you to say, oh, I feel bad about myself. I'm going to go bully that guy. I know what I can do right now. I feel a little bit ashamed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I'm going to be the loudest talker in the room. Rather, hey, you've been there. You've been on the mat. You've been in the ring. All that stuff, you recognize it for what it is. It's noise. And to give you a sense of confidence that's curated by really, really spiritually strong people. And what a gift I think you can give. And for me, because I had my boys first. So you have two boys and a girl?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Let's go. You'll go tonight and spend the day tomorrow? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
My niece's dad, he's in prison in Florida. He's not going to get out. And my wife's sister, who's wonderful, is six months sober now, but really been fighting her her whole life. Good for her. Yeah, she's really, really fighting the fight. This little girl, she's seen a lot. She's been through a lot and was going into the foster system. And we were able to get down there and get her to us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, good on you. And the gift has been so profound for my kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But also, it's funny when I talk about that, people are always sort of coming to me or coming to my wife because it's really my wife, but saying, wow, that's so great. And I just totally see it as it's a gift to us. It's a gift to our kids. Oh, I believe that. Both are true. Both are true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
There are Quaker values that are enormously beautiful. There are no real Quakers that go to that school. The way that sort of D.C. was in the 80s and 90s, D.C. is a city that's not part of a state, and the public schools were in pretty rough shape. Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
because it's really a lesson in hypocrisy, that city, because you have this sterling city on the hill in the middle of the city, which is all these monuments and all these government buildings, but that's protected by the park police and the secret service. There's no litter. Nobody from DC lives there. And then you go like two, blocks in any direction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And there's a different kind of music, a different kind of vernacular, a different kind of folks. It's definitely not what it used to be, but it is that. And you see that growing up, no matter where you go, it's a loss of innocence. You sort of start to figure things out. For us, I think specifically that school just had a history.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I was really brought up with the idea of Quakerism, that there is that of God in everyone. The way that Quakers pray. I don't know if you guys have ever attended a Quaker meeting. I haven't, but I have a friend who's an atheist who attends a Quaker church. I mean, the way that Quaker meeting works is everybody sits around in silence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So at that school, for instance, once a week, everybody, every coach, every security guard, every buildings and grounds member, every teacher, every student sits in silence. And there's no leaders, no followers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
There's no rabbis. And if that of God moves you, anyone, you get up and you address the congregation and you speak from the God that's within you. So it's really steeped in conflict resolution and equality and diversity. How cool, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The school that I sort of came up with was vast, vast majority scholarship students. It really put a real onus on all kinds of diversity. There's kids that weren't allowed to go to the public schools that were allowed to come to our school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And what I saw was this really sort of utopian, beautiful thing where kids that were in some cases involved in things out of school that were genuinely dangerous. Kids were lost to gun violence. were on school grounds really a part of this community where they felt respected and safe and even when things would flare up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
there was a way of dealing with them where there was no principle saying you're suspended, you're kicked out. It was a group of your peers. And we would try to get to the bottom. Okay, well, why are you doing what you're doing? And let's see if we can bring you guys together. And maybe you need to go spend a night in his neighborhood. And maybe you need to go to her house and see what that's like.