Dax Shepard: Grief, Fatherhood, and Friendship

Anderson Cooper· Host0:00

Welcome to All There Is. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, I'm glad you're here. My guest on the podcast today is Dax Shepard, host of the podcast Armchair Expert. He's also an actor and a writer. I spoke with Dax a couple weeks ago in New Orleans at BookFest, which is an annual event at Tulane University where dozens of authors come and speak. [gentle music] I'm still going through boxes of things in my basement that belonged to my mom and my dad and my brother, and the other day I came across some grainy pictures of me on a trip to New Orleans with my dad. There was one taken in a photo store on or near Bourbon Street, one of those places where you dress up in costumes. All the others are from a, a cheap Instamatic camera I had. That's why the pictures are so grainy. But seeing them brought back the memory of that trip, wandering around the French Quarter in an old cemetery with its above-ground tombs. I remembered the way my dad made me feel. I remember his love and the way he treated me, as a person worth listening to and worth including in on everything. I hope that's how I can make my boys feel. The photos on the back all have the date that they were processed, July 1977, which means I had just turned 10 on that trip, and in less than six months my dad would be dead. When Dax and I sat down in front of an audience at BookFest, I talked with him about his dad, who died in 2012, and also about his friend Eric Dane, the actor, who died last