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It's a lot to be like talking at the same time. It's a little much.
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Just to come with the almond milk, okay.
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Hey, what's going on everybody?
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For First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans and you're watching Hot Ones.
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It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.
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And today I'm joined by Natalie Portman.
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She's an Oscar award-winning actress who's been in the game since before she was a teenager.
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You know her from iconic roles in films like Jackie and Black Swan just to name a few.
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And her latest project is the documentary about the state of factory farming in America.
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It's called Eating Animals and it hits theaters June 15th.
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Natalie, welcome to the show. Thank you.
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So we're going vegan wings today, obviously, just as we have with Russell Brand, Ricky Gervais and others.
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But for better or worse, the sauces are still very much the same.
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How are you with spicy food? I like spicy food.
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I don't want to talk up my skill too much before Don't want to get cocky.
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But I do like spice, so I'm excited about this. This good. A lot of chewing.
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The vegan wings are a little bit spongy-er sometimes.
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So I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room because through watching the film, it really made me reconsider the future of this show, but that's an existential crisis for another time.
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I am wondering though, when you first read the book, what are some of the stats, the anecdotes, the facts that really stood out to you and inspired now the new project Eating Animals?
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Well, I think that um I didn't realize that most of our meat, dairy, eggs are from factory farms, that it's not just like oh a part of it and everything else is nice farms. It's the vast majority.
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Um and and when you see what it does to the environment like they're spraying like the pig [ __ ] up in the air and it's giving people all these respiratory diseases who live near pig farms.
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So the human impact, the environmental impact, and you just see that that it's having a huge toll beyond even the animal suffering which is something that is also super disturbing.
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And that's what's interesting about it because the film tries to reframe the debate over the ethics of eating animals away from #eatclean and how could you eat that cute baby cow into the broader consequences of factory farming?
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And besides, see the damn movie I am curious, what is your bar room pitch for not eating animals?
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I I say to people like I think it's really hard to completely change, but if everyone cut out meat, dairy, eggs from one of their meals a day or one day a week.
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Like if you could commit to that for yourself, if everyone did that it would make such a huge impact environmentally and on how many animals are put into difficult conditions.
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And then I know that you've given a commencement speech at Harvard, you've won an Oscar, but I am curious, where does Natalie Portman's sexiest vegetarian honor rank in your list of professional accomplishments? Very very high. Very high.
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Yes, there's a lot of sexy vegetarians, so.
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And you have the crown now, Natalie. You ready to move on? Yes.
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All right, so this next one is the Heartbeat hot sauce. Good.
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So some of your fans might not realize that your love for rap music doesn't start and end with these iconic SNL digital shorts.
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Andy Samberg said that you proved your commitment to the project by spitting a Lil' Kim verse.
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Do you remember which song you chose?
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Um probably the jump off.
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I listened to that a lot in that era.
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What's your favorite Natalie's rap bar when you look back on the two videos?
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Um well, now of course, I like I got mommy moves.
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So, that's when I can use in my life as I'm like packing school lunch. mommy moves. I got mommy moves. Delicious.
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People don't understand logistical complications of an interview food show, you know? It's true.
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You get stuff in your teeth.
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There's a lot that can go wrong. Yeah.
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You'd tell me though, right? I got you. got you. Thanks.
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So, you're someone whose resume reflects an insane degree of self-discipline and focus, but I know that you have a weakness, Natalie.
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Can you describe your food show Mount Rushmore, your top four? Yes.
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Uh food show Mount Rushmore is um Top Chef, MasterChef Junior, uh Iron Chef, and Chopped.
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I like cooking and I like competition.
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That's like the the nexus that really satisfies me.
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That's the intersection for you.
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And you know, Padma and Tom have both taken on the wings of death.
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What surprised you when you were a guest chef on Top Chef?
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It surprised me how long you tape, that it's like a full day thing, like you start in the morning and you're really just eating all day.
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I was really impressed with how much they could eat because after one day I was like, oh my and I eat like large quantities.
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But I just try and take a bite of everything and then move the stuff on the plate so I don't hurt anyone's feelings.
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So, it's not every day we have someone with a psychology degree in the hot seat.
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Not only that, but someone who's co-authored scientific papers such as frontal lobe activation during object permanence.
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So, with that in mind, I want to hit you with a handful of highly debated questions of the mind.
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Does having a psychology background give you any sort of edge in Hollywood?
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It's the same thing, really, um being an actor and the study of psychology cuz you're basically looking at people and thinking why they do the things they do. Do dreams matter?
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Are they significant at all? I don't think so, no.
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I think they're like your brain just getting rid of information it doesn't need and then your brain naturally puts it into stories.
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That's what I think about.
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What's your take on the psychological toll of social media?
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Is there a real danger to obsessively scrolling Instagram? Yes.
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There's a lot of like um self-obsession, I think.
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Does eating a taco from the top rather than from the side make me a psychopath? No, it's just annoying.
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All right, so this next one is Los Calientes. It's good.
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You're not just saying that? Mhm. You don't have to. No, it's good.
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All right, Natalie, we're going to do a current segment on our show called Explain That Grammy.
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Do a deep dive on our guest's Instagram, pull interesting pictures that need more context.
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We delve deep into the Getty's for Natalie Portman.
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So, what I'll do is I'll just bust out the laptop.
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I'll show you the picture and then you just tell me the bigger story. Does that sound good? Sounds good.
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All right, laptop, please. All right.
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Is it true that when you were at Harvard, you brought some guy friends over to Britney Spears's birthday?
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We actually co-hosted a New Year's party. Wow. Yes. It was really fun.
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We danced a lot that night.
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Speaking of dancing, what do you remember about learning to Crank That with Soulja Boy?
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These are This is a good deep dive.
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Although, I have like clearly amnesia about my own life. No idea.
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I mean, I remember that day, yes.
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Do you still remember the steps? I do not. Do you? Do you know them? I do.
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You do like a like you know, Superman that. Oh, right.
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Was that on like TRL or something? Yeah, there's a TRL. Okay. Good.
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So, I want to stay on the topic of getting jiggy with it cuz as we know, Natalie Portman's love for dance it doesn't end on the TRL set. No.
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What's your record for consecutive pirouettes? Not many.
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I'm not very good at pirouettes. I can do maybe two.
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Since Black Swan, there've been a couple moments of ballet bubbling up in pop culture when you think about Missy Copeland's Under Armour commercial or Kanye West's Runaway video.
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And I'm wondering, does that make ballet more accessible, more relevant to a younger audience or just one of those things that annoys the purists?
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No, I think it's great that more ballet gets exposed to um larger audiences.
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I mean, there are great artist athletes and what these professional dancers can do is so incredible and should be part of pop culture.
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Does it ever get hot for you?
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This is like your concept, right? Right.
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For us, we were just like, you know, how do we subvert the celebrity interview, you know?
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And to solve for that was hot sauce.
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But I'm no like hot sauce hero, you know?
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I just had to become one, you know?
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So, I still suffer for like, you know, it's still a labor of love, yeah, for sure. Got it. Okay. This is the Bunsters.
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The Bunsters Black Label out of Australia.
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I like it's a 16 out of 10.
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That one hit like at the back of my throat. Mhm. But all good. All good. have some almond milk.
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There's no shame in that. though.
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So, when Aaron Sorkin was writing The Social Network as biopic about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, I know that you got some Harvard buddies together to dish on campus life dirt.
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Do you remember some of the inside baseball you fed him?
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Um I think just mainly talked about what the finals club scene was like rather than like frats.
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There were finals clubs which are kind of like fancy fraternities, boys clubs and I'm getting I'm getting the heat now. Um and yeah.
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You could only get in if the guys let you in and you know it was a it was a funny scene.
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Can I give you three things that I'm told are extremely Harvard and then if you'd be kind enough to explain it as much as detail as possible I'd appreciate it. Okay.
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The freshman 15 list, primal scream, finals clubs.
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So freshman 15 list was the hottest freshmens. You don't say freshmens. You say freshmen.
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That's the that's the spicy talk.
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I'm just going to blame everything stupid I say on the spice.
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Um primal scream is when the um they do like a race around the yard um where everyone's naked and they run naked.
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And my freshman year some kids like put water down that froze so that they all slipped which was awful.
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All these kids like piled up on top of each other.
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And then um and then yeah, the finals clubs are like they're like fancy fraternities we all hung out at.
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It's getting really serious now. Beyond insanity, okay. On top of it. It's okay. Very impressive. Thanks.
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I mean it's spicy though.
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I'm just trying to read your eyes on that. It's hot.
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You're not having any milk? Yeah.
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If you're going to invite it, I'm going to go. I mean Yeah. I cleared my sinuses. Yeah.
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As we've touched down in your Natalie's rap SNL skits, you respond to cliche interview questions with these very violent rap tirades.
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As somebody who's been in this business since before you were a teenager, I know it's all jokes, but I'm sure that that was cathartic on some level. Yeah.
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How, if at all, does the international press differ from the American press?
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In certain countries, you definitely get specific things that you don't get in other places.
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I feel like I get some more political questions in Europe.
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In Asia, they'll ask about specific like Asian things like if I know about their particular films or cafe culture or things like that.
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Is there a country that does entertainment media better than other countries?
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Japan definitely has a fun time.
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You've done a lot fully crying right now?
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There's a little bit of glistening in your eyes, but I would say this. I KNOW. I KNOW. Oh lord. But you're so composed.
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I really I mean I like it.
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It's a lot to be like talking at the same time. It's a little much.
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Just give me the almond milk, okay?
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But you've also done a lot of off-piste things like Between Two Ferns and of course this Freak Show.
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Do you see a change in the ways that celebrities handled in the media over the last couple years?
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Well, it's nice that interviews are kind of like trying to be more fun now cuz I feel like no one wants to just hear boring question answers about your movies sitting in a chair.
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So, this is more entertaining, hopefully.
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How about for you, though? Painful.
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This one's called Hellfire. It's going down. Mhm.
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So, how long does it take for your mouth to feel like normal after?
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So, we still have one more sauce to go, so I'm not going to make any promises about when the roller coaster will start to go back down again.
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I'm like sweating and crying and snotting and mouth is like But, you are on top of it, Natalie. I would say that.
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You know, we have people come in here, they do laps around the studio.
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Yeah, they're just pouring milk over their heads and everything.
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So, it's like you actually are very composed.
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Even though on the inside it might be No, I mean it's it's manageable, but Respect. Salute.
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What makes Lily Tomlin and Diane Keaton your comedic heroes?
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They have such unique voices and personalities and I think there's so many like stereotypes of how we want to see women and how we want women to behave in society that you know, we're not just see we're just not seeing enough like different personalities and different types of people.
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Cuz there's a whole spectrum, you know, not just girls wanting to get married and talk about boys with each other.
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And then I know that you don't partake anymore, but you are a fan of the stoner film genre.
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What do you think is the greatest stoner film of all time? Lebowski.
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All right, Natalie Portman.
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It's it's a shame that, you know, in sort of alcohol You know, as an accompaniment. But, you know what?
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You just put that in the writer. Oh, yeah.
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We had Johnny Knoxville in here last week.
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He was just crushing You know, known.
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You just put that in the email and we got you. I see the seeds. You're adding?
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This is the last dab redux.
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We call it the last dab because it's traditional around here to put a little extra on the last wing.
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You don't have to if you don't want to. I don't say no to dares. There it is. There it is.
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Natalie Portman dabbing wings.
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Slightly aggressive, but we dig our own graves on this show. All right. Bottoms up.
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Yeah, that one's unpleasant.
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But thanks for introducing me to this. Okay.
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I'm going to maybe finish my milk. There you go. Chug, chug, chug.
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All right, Natalie Portman.
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Here we are at the end of the road having conquered some of the hottest vegan chicken wings in the history of Earth.
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And now there's just one more hurdle to jump.
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In 2015 you gave a commencement speech to the graduating class at Harvard.
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And now that you have a trillion Scovilles lighting your brain on fire, I'm curious what postscript would you add in the age of Russian hacking, Logan Paul, and teenagers eating Tide Pods?
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Okay, that's a big question.
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I'd say, "Hm, pay attention to the news.
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Vote and make sure your vote is real.
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Make sure it's a real democracy and we're not being controlled by outside forces."
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Well, you heard it here first.
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Natalie Portman, her commencement speech postscript, tears down her face.
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I don't know if it's the pain from the hot sauce or if she's just proud of herself for finishing, but either way a pat on the back and now there's nothing left to do but roll out the red carpet for you, Natalie Portman.
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This camera, this camera, or this camera, let the people know what you have going on in your life.
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Eating Animals is coming out very soon in big cities across the country.
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And you should see it because it'll teach you why you should eat vegan chicken wings with your hot sauce and not support factory farming. There you go, Natalie.
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This concludes the Hot Ones experience. How you feeling? I'm feeling on fire. Yeah.
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What how long seriously does it take for it to lay? yeah, yeah, yeah. It's It has a half-life. You know what I mean?
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So, as bad as you're feeling now is the worst that you're going to feel.
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Little milk, little something chill. It's [ __ ] crazy. It's nuts. It's nuts.
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We're going to have to do some photos.
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It was very delicious, like really good.
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until I spiral out of control.
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And at the end Do you want some water? That feels right.
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Water Water makes it worse. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys know. Aloha, spice lords.
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If you're wondering why I'm sitting on this beautiful beach, it's because I'm celebrating Los Calientes, the sauce of summer and the newest addition to the Hot Ones hot sauce family.
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This is beach vibes in a bottle.
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Sweet, smoky, spicy, and I might be biased, but I think it's the best hot sauce we've ever made.
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And here's the exciting news.
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If you want to pick up a bottle, it's available now. You know the drill. heatonist. com, heatonist.
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com for your bottle of Los Calientes.
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Los Calientes, muy delicioso.