Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1942 - Mark Greaney
Uploaded: 2023-02-16T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1942 - Mark Greaney' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1942 - Mark Greaney' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-16. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1942 - Mark Greaney

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day!
What's up, Mark? How are you?
Nice to meet you, man.
It's very nice to meet you.
I've read, I'm on the 11th book of yours now.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so the whole Grey Man series.
I'm on Sierra Six.
Yeah, yeah.
The new one comes out immediately, so...
Yeah, they sent me the new one.
Good.
Yeah, so I have a copy of it.
That's awesome. I appreciate your reading.
It's, uh...
You write some fucked up books, man.
It's true.
You seem like such a normal guy.
I was always wondering, I'm like,
how does someone write like this
and not be a total psycho?
Like, the fact that you have those thoughts in your mind
and you can envision and create these scenarios in your brain.
Yeah, that pops into my head a lot when I'm talking to people.
Like, my aunt who's passed away, but she was 93.
And, you know, it's like,
hey, Dorothy, here's my book about sex trafficking.
I hope you enjoy it.
You know, she read it.
And of course, she would...
My aunt, if I joined the Taliban,
she'd be like, well, you know,
they have some nice clothing or something.
She'd find a positive.
She'd find a positive.
So she never complained about anything.
But, yeah, I do run into people all the time.
You know, kids' parents or, you know,
on my soccer team, my kids' soccer team or whatever.
And I'm like, I wonder what they think of me.
I wonder if they know.
Like, how many of them have read your books?
Yeah, it's the ones that say they've read my books.
And then I kind of go like, ah, crap.
Yeah, I get that with parents
when they say they've listened to my podcast.
Oh, I really love your podcast.
I'm like, shit.
I'm like, what kind of psycho stuff
do we have to talk about now?
But your books are so violent.
They're so...
It's like, for me, it's...
I really...
I listen to them on audio
when I'm in the sauna all the time.
Oh, great.
Because the sauna is so torturous,
you know, because I keep it at 190 degrees
and I'm in there for 25 minutes.
It's fucking rough.
Yeah.
And it's like, that kind of, like,
the kind of insane narratives that you create,
the kind of, you know, situations
that you create in your mind,
they're very good when you're suffering.
Yeah.
Well, thanks.
Yeah, I have a blue-collar, like,
philosophy about writing.
Like, I like generating a product
that people can use
if their flight's delayed
or, you know, they're snowed in or whatever.
And I get people emailing me all the time.
It's like, hey, I read your book
when my mom was sick
and I was at the hospital.
And, you know, I like that, you know,
that it serves a sort of physical purpose.
You know, like, it's an instrument.
It's not just an idea.
It's a great instrument of escapism.
Yeah.
Because it's so compelling
and because the books are so interesting.
And by the way, shout out to Jack Carr,
because Jack Carr is the guy who turned me on to you.
That's fantastic.
Because I had read his first book
and I was like, this is great.
Do you have any other authors that you recommend?
Like, who are you into?
And then he told me about you.
Yeah, yeah.
We've been friends.
Before his first book came out,
we were connected with one another
through a guy in the firearms industry.
And I was like, yeah, I think this guy,
I read his book.
I was like, yeah, he's going somewhere.
Little did I know,
I think he'd already had it optioned
for TV.
Yeah, he's just an awesome person, too.
You know, he's just a really great guy.
You know, I met him a few years back
in elk hunting camp.
Oh, wow.
It's actually where I met him in Utah.
Oh, wow.
And I didn't know who he was.
I hadn't read any of his books.
He gave me a copy of his book.
Just seemed like a really nice guy.
And I got it.
I'm like, this book is fucking great.
Yeah, yeah.
I did great with the series, too.
Oh, yeah.
I was impressed with it.
You know, I was really impressed.
Yeah, I enjoyed the Gray Man movie,
but it was not as good as your book.
Well, thank you for saying that.
I appreciate it.
It just wasn't the same story.
Yeah.
Like, they Hollywoodized it.
Absolutely.
And, you know, I liked it.
And what I say,
and I don't know how this makes me sound,
it's like the movie
is the best possible commercial
for my writing.
And if you're a writer,
you want eyeballs on your work.
And so it's, I love the movie.
And, you know, there's bits of dialogue in there
and things they did with the plot
that I really liked.
But, you know, it's not as gritty.
It's not...
Not nearly.
Yeah.
They do things that they have to do
shorthand in a movie.
I get 100,000 words to write a book
or 150,000 words to write a book.
So I have some luxuries that,
you know, they don't have
putting something on the screen.
But I like the fact that they're different
because there's still a reason
to read my book.
If you saw the movie and enjoyed it,
hopefully it turns you on to the book
and then you see something different in there.
No, I definitely think there's that element to it
because it is...
It's for sure a Hollywoodized version
of these gritty books that you write.
Yeah.
But it's also good.
Yeah.
Like if you didn't know about the book
and you just saw the movie, it's good.
Yeah.
They're two different things.
But the book is so much fucking nastier.
Thank you.
And also, Court Gentry.
I said thank you.
I don't know if that's what I should say.
You should.
It's good.
But Court Gentry in your books
is just so much different
than Ryan in the movies.
It's just like...
Yeah.
I mean, they did a lot without dialogue,
which I appreciated and I liked.
You know, he'd do a lot with a look.
But I mean, when you...
In a book, you're able to get into
the character's head quite a bit more.
So it's a different experience.
If you could pick a person, like an actor,
if you could start from scratch,
no disrespect to...
Is Ryan Reynolds or Ryan...
Gosling.
Gosling.
Why do I always fuck that up?
I always fuck that up.
I couldn't pick either one of them
out of a fucking lineup to save my life.
Gosling.
Ryan Gosling.
I really like the guy, too, by the way.
Who would you pick?
If you could just say any actor,
who do you think you would go with?
You know, that's a tough question
because that thing has been in Hollywood.
The Gray Man's been in Hollywood
since two months
before the little paperback came out in 2009.
So it's been bouncing around.
And I've heard every actor.
At one point, Brad Pitt was signed on to it.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
Like back 2011 or something.
And then it fell apart and it came back.
And each time,
they would send me a script
or whoever was doing it.
And at one point,
Charlize Theron wanted to do it.
What?
Yeah, they rewrote the whole script.
She wanted to be the girl?
No, she wanted to be Court Gentry.
Oh, my God.
So they wrote a script for it
and it was good screenwriters.
And I remember reading the script going like...
Was it the gray woman
or did you call her the gray non-binary person?
It was still the gray man.
Her name was still Court Gentry.
But everything was different.
And they never really explained,
is that short for Courtney or something?
Oh, my God.
But it was just a completely different plot.
Thank God they didn't do that.
I thought if they changed,
you know, like if...
And I love her
because she had just done Fury Road.
So, I mean,
I'd love to write something
for her to be in.
I didn't see Fury Road.
Oh, the Mad Max.
Oh, Mad Max.
Yeah, okay.
She was so good.
But as an author,
you couldn't put out
the gray man novel
with her face on it
and they opened the book
and it has nothing to do,
you know, with a woman.
And as much as I love her,
like I was like,
well, this isn't gonna,
you know, sell books
or get eyes in my work.
The screenplay
was actually really good.
But I remember thinking
if I went to the theater
and saw it
and it had a different title,
I would not even know.
There'd be like one scene
where I'm like,
oh, yeah,
I did a thing on a plane too.
You know, it was so different.
It was a completely different plot.
It was good.
I wish they'd make it
and call it something else.
Yeah, make it
and call it something else.
You don't call it the gray man.
It's,
that's such a weird choice.
Yeah, yeah.
At one point,
like real early on
when it first got option,
people were asking me
who should play the character
and I thought
it would be somebody
who's not like,
you know,
Rambo or anything like that.
So I was saying like Casey Affleck
or somebody like that.
Oh, interesting.
That you wouldn't expect,
you know,
in a big action film.
But wouldn't you need someone
who's like physically formidable?
Yeah, you know,
I don't,
the thing is,
is I've written 12 books
and I've never once
had him working out.
I've never showed him,
I've never shown him working out,
you know,
or even really training
because...
You talked a couple of times
about him doing like calisthenics
or something.
Yeah, yeah.
I've thrown it in a little bit
because I'm like,
all right,
how does this possibly happen?
Right.
How does he keep
these perishable skills
up and his fitness up?
But, you know,
there's actors that like
I really like,
like Max Martini.
I don't know if you know
who that is.
I don't know who that is.
You'd know him
if you saw him.
He was in 13 Hours.
It was a really good movie
in the Michael Bay film.
Wow, look at that.
That is amazing.
And so he's,
you know,
he's like a formidable dude
and a really good actor,
but there's,
you know,
he does,
I like the physical presence of him.
Yeah,
he might be good too
because even though
he's kind of recognizable,
it's not Brad Pitt.
Like every time
Brad Pitt's in a movie,
it's Brad Pitt.
If that guy's in a movie,
you could say,
oh,
I think I've seen that guy
in something before,
but he's court gentry.
Yeah, exactly.
Well,
I got a ton of people
mad that Ryan Gosling
was in it
before it came out
and they were like,
you need to get
some unknown guy
because nobody recognizes
the great man.
And I'm like,
you probably don't understand
how $200 million movies work.
They don't.
What we're going to do
is we're going to get this guy out,
you know,
find the guy at the mall
and make him the,
you know,
it's just not how it works.
It's too bad
because I don't really know
if it makes a difference.
I think they think
it makes a difference,
but I think
if you have a movie
that has an amazing plot
and a great,
like,
trailer
and it looks wild
and like people,
I think people get sucked
into it anyway.
Yeah,
and honestly,
like one of the best films
I've ever seen in my life,
which is an action film.
It's a Korean film
called The Man From Nowhere.
And it's also,
and fortunately,
it came out
after The Gray Man did.
Otherwise,
people would think
I'd ripped off The Gray Man
because it's about
a former assassin
who's trying to lay low
and he ends up
having to rescue this girl.
Well,
the book though
came so much earlier
than the movie.
Like,
how many years was it
between you writing the book
and then the film coming out?
I wrote the book in 2007.
It came out in 2009
and the film came out in 22
and so it's like 13 years.
I was still lucky.
You know,
everybody's like,
I bet you hate
that you had to wait this long
and I'm like,
if,
you know,
if I was an 85-year-old man
and they made a film
out of one of my books,
I'd be thrilled.
Yeah,
it's a rare thing,
right?
For sure.
Especially a big blockbuster film
with Ryan Gosling?
You're getting it.
Gosling.
There it is.
There we go.
Chris Evans was great in that too.
Yeah,
he was terrific.
Yeah,
he really played
an awesome version
of the character
you wrote in the book.
Yeah,
and that's an example
of a difference in the film
that I liked,
you know,
because my Lloyd
in the book
is not like
a physical presence.
He's more of like
the asshole mastermind
of the whole thing.
Right.
But I mean,
obviously,
if they can get Chris Evans
in their film,
they're going to beef up his role
and make it a more
mano-a-mano thing
and I thought that was fabulous.
Yeah,
and Chris Evans
just really nailed it.
He played the perfect
douchebag,
assh