#1859 - Louis CK & Joe List

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Hey, fellas. What's going on?

So let me first say, that fucking movie is great. It's really good. I really enjoyed it. I fucking laughed hard. When The Family in Maine, holy shit, was that great. With Nick DiPaolo, Tony Vee. Oh my God, it's very funny.

Joe List (0:29)

That makes me feel good. Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:30)

It's really good. It's really good. It's really good. You're a good actor, Joe.

Joe List (0:34)

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

You're really good, man. You're really good.

Joe List (0:37)

Thank you. I have very little training, but I was playing myself. We wrote it, so a lot of real emotions.

Louis C.K. (0:43)

It doesn't matter though if you play yourself, because you have to play moments. You have to play feelings. You have to listen.

And I didn't know if he was going to be any good. It had to be him because it was his story. We wrote it together. I directed it.

And, but I didn't know if he would have the mechanics right, but he's very natural. I never had to talk to him once during the filming. It was just, you know, it gave me a lot of room to really do better.

Joe List (1:05)

I'm acting not terrified right now.

Louis C.K. (1:07)

Good, nice job. But you're not, you look terrified.

Joe Rogan (1:12)

Well, I don't know why you would be terrified. I just don't understand. You do a million podcasts. You do it all the time.

Joe List (1:17)

I do a lot of podcasts. I've been here, well, first of all.

Louis C.K. (1:20)

Well, there's a lot at stake because the movie is out just now on the website.

And it's on my website for 15 bucks. I just want to get it out there.

Joe Rogan (1:28)

Fourth of July.

Louis C.K. (1:29)

Fourth of July.

Joe Rogan (1:30)

Yeah, it's fucking great. I can't recommend it enough. It's really good.

I enjoy the shit out of it. I watched it today because I wanted to watch it right before I came here. I wanted it to be really fresh.

Louis C.K. (1:40)

Great.

Joe Rogan (1:40)

It was excellent.

Louis C.K. (1:41)

Well, I never made a movie like that before. Most of my movies are a little weirder, a little more challenging. I like to keep an audience off balance.

But this was just a story. This is such a basic story.

And it's a very independent, just kind of like normal movie. It's not about a big subject. It's about people.

Joe Rogan (2:01)

It's really good, though. It's really good.

If I went to see that in the movies and I didn't know any of you, I'd really enjoy it. And I had a question about filmmaking itself. There's moments where you, the therapist, are talking to him, where it's a head-on shot, but the camera's slightly moving a little, which I thought was very interesting.

What is the reason to do? Is it to keep you occupied? Is it to create a sense that you're actually there? Because when you're seeing a person, you're kind of moving and kind of static?

Louis C.K. (2:32)

Well, it depends. Sometimes, what we used in this movie, we used what are called anamorphic lenses, and they make more of a dollar bill shape than a television. It's wider. So the movie's about a guy who has severe anxiety, and so anxiety is about having too much peripheral sense. And so sometimes we would rock the screen, the camera just a little bit, just a tiny bit, to feel his disbalance, like if you're just sitting in a chair, you feel like you're gonna throw up a little bit.

And we did other effects, like sometimes we made the light go green, which is kind of like a green nausea, feeling nausea and anxiety are very connected. So we did that with him to make him look like he was as uncomfortable as he really can be.

Joe Rogan (3:17)

How much do you enjoy that process versus the process of creating stand up?

Louis C.K. (3:21)

I love it so much. I just love it so much. It drives me crazy how much I love it. I love film, I love lenses, I love photography.

I love all the tech stuff. I love going drilling way down with the DP about what's the equipment we're gonna use and why. I had a good DP on this one who didn't give a shit. He was just like, yeah, you could, I guess, who cares? He was just a real, he came up as a camera loader. He's not like a film school guy who wrote a thesis. He's a guy who worked in the camera department and now he runs it. So, but I like it, I like it. I like equipment, I like the process. And the problem, it's all day problem solving.