Joe Rogan Experience #2381 - Taylor Kitsch

Kitsch and Rogan range over the craft of acting and the toll of fully inhabiting traumatic real-life characters. Kitsch details training with Navy SEALs (Marcus Luttrell, Ray Mendoza, Chris Kyle-era operators) for Lone Survivor and The Terminal List, including live-fire and Sim-round ambushes. He opens up about his sister's near-fatal fentanyl addiction and the nonprofit he started, Hauser's Ridge, and about his estranged alcoholic father's death on Father's Day while shooting American Primeval. A long stretch covers his portrayal of cult leader David Koresh in Waco, drawing on a surviving Branch Davidian and lawyer Dick DeGuerin, and the disturbing details of Waco and Ruby Ridge. They close on hunting, Montana, mountain life, and the corrosiveness of comfort, critics, and Los Angeles.

• Kitsch, a Canadian, says the first time he ever fired a gun was while training for Lone Survivor.
  00:15:41
• Reveals for the first time that Mike Murphy's iconic death scene in Lone Survivor was actually shot in an Albuquerque parking lot with a built stage and green screen.
  00:28:13
• Admits that as recently as ~13 years ago he didn't even know what fentanyl was when his sister was using it.
  00:40:15
• Says he personally wrote the pivotal 'It's only pain' tepee scene in American Primeval with director Pete Berg.
  01:04:49
• Broke a bone in his foot mid-scene on American Primeval and had it surgically cut out and replaced with bone wax so he could keep working.
  01:05:20
• Tried to pull out of Waco a month before shooting because hoarding the character's energy became too much.
  01:12:08
• His father died on Father's Day while he was shooting American Primeval; he arranged bagpipers and was back on the horse acting two days later.
  01:48:53
• A surviving Branch Davidian told Kitsch on set that, decades later, he was on his way to view blueprints for an alien warship.
  02:13:24

• Kitsch builds a music playlist for every character; an Explosions in the Sky track with a heartbeat was his song for Mike Murphy.
  00:29:16
• His sister has now been clean nearly 10 years and works as a nurse, which inspired his nonprofit Hauser's Ridge.
  00:37:35
• His sister survived a 60-pill overdose only because the sleeping pills were time-release.
  00:47:38
• For The Bang Bang Club he lost 35 pounds in 30 days on coffee and broth, dropping his resting heart rate into the low 20s and damaging his thyroid.
  01:09:30
• Kitsch nearly bought David Koresh's 1968 Camaro before deciding he wanted nothing the cult leader had touched.
  01:13:42
• Joe relays that Charlie Sheen (his guest the day before) said his first crack experience is to this day the greatest moment of his life.
  01:38:37
• Joe wears a Seiko 'Willard' watch, a reproduction of the one Martin Sheen wore in Apocalypse Now.
  01:39:08
• Koresh memorized the Bible by age 15 and used Bible speak as a 'trump card' to out-talk negotiators and child protective services.
  02:08:42
• Jack Carr deliberately became a SEAL first to gain real combat experience before writing his bestselling novels.
  02:31:35
• Discusses that the ATF, facing defunding after Ruby Ridge, pursued Koresh for a high-profile 'win.'
  02:22:39