The guest
Bryan Callen: Stand-up comedian, actor (Joker, MADtv) and podcaster (The Fighter and The Kid), longtime friend of Joe Rogan.
What this episode covers
Bryan Callen and Joe Rogan open on supplements, peptides and stem cells before drifting into a long meditation on faith, masculinity, suffering and what makes Christ-like figures resonate. They spend much of the conversation geeking out over fighters and boxers, from Derrick Lewis and Fabricio Werdum to Usyk, Crawford and Bivol, and over how to train hard without destroying your joints as you age. A second long stretch covers great method actors, Joe's UFO obsession, conspiracy thinking, and the dangers of political prosecutions and legacy-media bias. It closes with riffs on aliens, simulation theory, and Callen's tour dates.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommended
The Immortality Key
Brian Muraresku
“that amazing book”
“my friend uh Brian murarescu he's the guy who wrote the immortality key that amazing book on the illuscinian mysteries”— Joe Rogan
BookRecommended
The Tools
Phil Stutz and Barry Michels
“read the book and I really really found it useful and I found it enjoyable”
“there's a book called the tools you ever see that the stunts that uh Jonah Hill had his therapist”— Bryan Callen
ProductRecommended
BPC-157
“it's like inner armor yeah it's an exoskeleton just take it”
“between that and bpc157 which is uh body protecting compound 157 I think it's called it's a peptide body protecting compound”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Grizzly Man
Werner Herzog
“it's an amazing documentary”
“it's the best unintentional comedy that's ever been made I agree 100 it's an amazing documentary it's and it's a comedy”— Bryan Callen
MediaRecommended
Monster
Patty Jenkins
“such a masterpiece it's my favorite performance of all time”
“monster is such a masterpiece I know it's so good she's one of my favorite people Charlize Theron it's my favorite performance of all time”— Bryan Callen
MediaRecommended
Raging Bull
Martin Scorsese
“my second favorite performance of any actor”
“my second favorite performance of any actor is De Niro and Raging Bull and he was the first actor Ever to do that”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese
“go back and watch Taxi Driver”
“go back and watch Taxi Driver why do it again holy I mean come on holy was he good”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
The Hangover
Todd Phillips
“I love The Hangover”
“I loved me he's one of my favorite people I love The Hangover he's such a special dude you should have him on the podcast”— Bryan Callen
MediaRecommended
The Moment of Contact
James Fox
“it's amazing”
“James Fox did this documentary called the moment of contact it's amazing it's about this town in 1996 in Brazil”— Joe Rogan
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
ProductReferenced
CoQ10
“they just prescribed me just some stuff like you know just like a multivitamin CQ10 uh Tom cataly brings your testosterone up”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
Tongkat Ali
“a multivitamin CQ10 uh Tom cataly brings your testosterone up a little bit I got a story about this”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
Taran Tactical
“get to the King of Jordan who lives in Malibu and shoots a Terran tactical and he's a great guy”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
ChatGPT
OpenAI
“they put in the chat gbt uh come up with chemical weapons and it came out with 40 000 different variants of a chemical weapon”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Mean Streets
Martin Scorsese
“go back and watch Taxi Driver why do it again Mean Streets Taxi Driver what was the Julia Lewis movie”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Awakenings
“oh Awakenings dude holy remember how shredded he was in that holy he worked out with Lee Haney for that”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Cape Fear
Martin Scorsese
“Robert De Niro and Cape Fear doing chin-ups that was such a creepy movie that's a movie you could never make today”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Heat
Michael Mann
“how about him in heat look at how how that's how you should always look and it was just a time”— Bryan Callen
MediaReferenced
The Machinist
“Christian Bale's done that a bunch of times he did it for The Machinist where he got down to nothing”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Fighter
“it was like when I saw the fighter Christian Bale on the fighter remember that opening scene I went oh you're gonna win an Oscar”— Bryan Callen
MediaReferenced
Gangs of New York
Martin Scorsese
“no like him and Gangs of New York was some crazy about There Will Be Blood”— Bryan Callen
MediaReferenced
There Will Be Blood
“There Will Be Blood gangs in New York be blood to the all-time greats”— Bryan Callen
MediaReferenced
Lincoln
Steven Spielberg
“I didn't see Lincoln it could have been Lincoln because it was almost like Lincoln was that Lincoln movie any good”— Bryan Callen
MediaReferenced
The Martian
“I went to Wadi room that's where they shot the Martian and they're some of the most beautiful”— Bryan Callen
Big reveals from this episode
- Callen reveals he was bursting into tears at commercials and broke down crying mid-speech at a friend's wedding, which he traced to Propecia raising his estrogen.
- Rogan explains he stopped kicking entirely for about a year after repeated knee injuries, relying on stem cells and knees-over-toes rehab to recover.
- Callen recounts being on the Joker set for five days watching Joaquin Phoenix's extreme method acting, dropping to 124 pounds and improvising self-injurious takes.
- Rogan explains the Comedy Mothership bar is named Mitzi's in homage to Mitzi Shore, built from the best elements of the Comedy Store.
- Callen relays the 'devil comes at your highest moment' idea via Denzel Washington to Will Smith and Mike Tyson to Francis Ngannou.
- Rogan recounts the 1996 Varginha, Brazil UFO incident from the documentary Moment of Contact, including a police officer who reportedly died of an untreatable infection after carrying an entity.
- Callen and Rogan debate at length whether the government could keep recovered-UFO programs secret, Rogan insisting such a secret is impossible to keep.
Worth remembering
- BPC-157, a peptide nicknamed 'body protecting compound,' is used by Rogan and his circle to speed injury healing.
- Crocodiles first appeared around 240 million years ago and have kept essentially the same body structure ever since.
- Kurt Angle won the 1996 Olympic wrestling trials after fracturing two cervical vertebrae, then went on to win Olympic gold.
- Pavel Tsatsouline's principle: do five reps instead of ten-to-failure to get the same work with faster recovery ('stimulate, don't annihilate').
- Robert De Niro gained about 66 pounds for Raging Bull, then unheard of for an actor.
- Pigeons were brought to North America as a food source (squab), which is why city pigeons exist.
- Lomachenko's father made him stop boxing for two years to learn Ukrainian dance, which became the foundation of his footwork.
- In underwater nuclear tests, the Navy positioned target ships expecting a certain blast size and was badly off on how powerful it was.
- In UFO lore, sightings ramped up after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, which is why the club's rooms are named Fat Man and Little Boy.
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