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Russell Crowe (2025) - Nuremberg, Addiction and Gambling · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Today we're doing a deep dive
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  into, well, a really huge conversation.
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  It touches on everything from the absolute gravity of war
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  crimes and history. Yeah, heavy stuff like the
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  Nuremberg. Trials exactly.
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  And then it shifts, you know, right into very personal
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  territory. Addiction, sports culture, even
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  Hollywood burnout. It's quite the range.
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  It really is. We've got a fascinating set of
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  sources here, and they managed to weave this thread through all
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  these seemingly disconnected topics.
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  So our mission today, for you listening, is to pull out the
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  core insights from all this. We're looking at human nature,
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  really. How small, incremental choices
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  can snowball into something horrific.
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  Or, you know, into addictive patterns, whether that's
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  chemical or behavioral. It helps.
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  What are the mechanisms culturally or even naturally,
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  for finding balance or recovery when things go off the rails?
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  So the conversation starts with this film about the Nuremberg
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  trials, and the sources really highlight its impact.
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  It uses actual Holocaust footage.
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  Powerful stuff. Some of it apparently hadn't
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  been seen bubbly since like 1946.
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  Wow, that sets a heavy tone right away.
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  But it sounds like the film didn't just, you know, drop that
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  horror on people immediately. How did it ease viewers in?
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  Well, that's the interesting part.
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  The sources say they used a clever narrative trick.
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  They kind of disarm you first. How so?
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  With the human elements, the interpersonal drama you see,
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  like the prison commander dressing down these mental
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  health experts who are arguing amongst themselves, it feels
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  almost familiar. OK.
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  So you get drawn into the human side, Yeah.
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  Before they lock the door, as the source puts it, and then
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  show you the really harrowing evidence in the courtroom
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  scenes. The real juice.
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  And that method connects to this key psychological finding right
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  from the psychiatrist Kelly. He looked at the 22 main Nazi
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  figures after the war. He did.
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  And the expectation, you know, from the government was pretty
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  clear. They wanted him to say these
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  guys were monsters, psychopaths, totally different from us.
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  But that's not what he found. No, he found the opposite.
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  Almost every single one, maybe barring one or two he assessed
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  as well. Normal.
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  Rational numeral and rational. That's chilling.
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  What's the implication there? The implication is terrifying,
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  really. It suggests that these kinds of
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  horrific acts aren't just confined to, you know, the
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  mentally unwell. So anyone is capable.
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  That was his conclusion, essentially, that all human
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  beings are capable of these horrific acts.
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  And that view? It was deeply unpopular.
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  It wasn't the government sanctions story they wanted.
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  And that led to him being removed.
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  Pretty much, yeah. It challenged that comforting
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  idea that evil is something out there, something separate from
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  us. That's the really disturbing
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  take away. If rational people can do these
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  things, how does it even happen? The sources point to that
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  incremental thing, right? The boiling the frog idea.
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  Exactly. It's subtle changes over time.
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  You slowly stop seeing the humanity in the other.
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  And the sources warned about that today, with modern
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  polarization pushing everyone into just red or blue.
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  Precisely. It strips away the nuance, the
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  room for subtlety in any discussion.
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  It makes it easier to demonize. If you're constantly told the
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  other side is fundamentally bad or wrong, then that next step,
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  that slightly more extreme step, becomes easier to take.
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  Critical thinking gets replaced by just, well, tribal loyalty.
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  It's a dangerous path. That idea of collective identity
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  is powerful. We just talked about how we can
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  lead somewhere dark. But it also shapes positive
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  cultural passions, right? Like sports?
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  Absolutely. And the conversation pivots,
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  right? They're looking at how different
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  countries view sports. It's fascinating.
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  Yeah, the sources mentioned that Americans tend to grow up
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  looking in. You know, the focus is domestic,
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  the NFL, the World Series. That's the peak.
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  Whereas for Australians, New Zealanders, it's about looking
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  out. The ultimate achievement in
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  sports like rugby or cricket isn't just winning a local
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  league, it's international competition representing your
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  country. Like playing a Test match in
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  cricket. Exactly.
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  That's the perfect example. You have the really short
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  formats like T20 which is exciting, fast, over in an
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  evening, good for grabbing attention.
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  Then you have the one day game and then the Test match.
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  That's the ultimate 5 full days, two countries battling it out.
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  Five days with breaks for tea and lunch?
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  Yep. Morning tea, lunch, afternoon
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  tea. It's got this incredible ebb and
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  flow. You need to understand the pace,
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  the over that six throws by the bowler.
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  T20 is just 20 overs each side. Bang Bang.
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  But a Test match is an. Epic.
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  It truly is. It's strategy Endurance, Crowe's
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  cousin, who was a legendary New Zealand captain.
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  They called him the Michael Jordan of world cricket.
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  He described it as the gentleman's war.
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  Gentleman's War. I like that it sounds like it
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  appeals to a certain kind of fan.
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  Definitely people who love the details, the stats, the history.
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  Very similar to dedicated baseball fans, actually.
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  That obsession with the minutiae.
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  OK. So let's contrast that with US
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  sports again, you mentioned the structure.
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  Yeah, American sports are heavily built around commercial
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  breaks. Yeah, it's fundamental to the
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  business model. Think about trying to sell ad
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  time during a soccer match. It's tough.
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  So the NFL, for example, needs that predictable structure and
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  fairness, right? The sources highlight this push
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  for across the board fairness in the NFL.
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  It protects the product, makes it consistent, marketable.
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  But rugby league, which Crowe is involved with, he owns the South
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  Sydney Rabbitohs right oldest team from 19 O 8.
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  That's the one. And, well, rugby league is maybe
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  easier for Americans to grasp than rugby union.
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  The refereeing, well, it's different.
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  So more subjective. Hugely subjective.
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  There's a lot of room for interpretation by the ref.
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  For an American audience used to the NF LS attempts at near
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  mechanical consistency, it can be really frustrating.
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  Calls can seem arbitrary. Interesting, So that cultural
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  acceptance of subjectivity, of the human element, even in
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  something as high stakes as pro sports, that connects us to the
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  next bit, doesn't it, About risk and addiction?
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  It really does the perfect segue.
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  Yeah, because if US sports focus on fairness to sell ads, the
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  sources suggest the Australian sports scene is almost
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  intertwined with gambling, with risk.
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  It's quite startling actually how normalized it seems to be
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  over there. You see betting ads constantly,
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  Ladbrokes has mentioned. And the teams themselves are
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  involved. Deeply, the sources say teams
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  can own up to 50% of the gambling operations tied to
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  them. That's a massive conflict of
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  interest, surely? And with bedding apps on your
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  phone, it's just everywhere super accessible.
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  Udiquitous is the word almost impossible to avoid.
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  And Crow shared this really intense personal story about it
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  from back in 92 in Reno. Yeah, a real cautionary tale.
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  He was young, had a bit of luck at blackjack, felt invincible,
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  and then went to the roulette wheel and lost everything,
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  absolutely everything. Hit rock bottom stranded with
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  just $25.00 left. Wow, and that triggered
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  something A. Profound physical reaction, he
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  said. He was just vibrating, his whole
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  body was shaking, real desperation.
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  And then he. Called his mom.
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  He did, and she drops his bombshell on him, tells him
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  about his great grandfather, a professional gambler who in one
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  night gambled away the family house.
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  No. Way.
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  Yep, and it kept the family poor for two generations because of
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  that one impulsive act. That must have hit him like a
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  ton of bricks. The idea that this this
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  inclination could be genetic echoing down the years.
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  A massive, terrifying wake up call you imagine about
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  predisposition, about consequence.
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  But he also contrasted that dark experience with a different kind
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  of gambling, right? Something more disciplined.
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  He did, which is fascinating. He told a story about playing
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  Team Blackjack with Tom Cruise. High stakes, but with rigid
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  rules. Team Blackjack?
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  How does that work? The person in the first chair
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  and the person in the last chair make all the calls for the
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  table. Removes the individual impulse.
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  They won $25,000. OK, so control was key.
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  Absolute discipline. And then the kicker, They flew
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  back to LA on a comped jet, finishing the New York Times
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  crossword puzzle together. It shows you can engage with
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  risk, but it needs boundaries control.
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  But for society as a whole, that normalization of gambling and
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  alcohol too, it has huge cost, doesn't it?
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  Immense costs. The sources describe the
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  Australian Government's approach to allowing all the betting and
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  alcohol advertising as timidity, like they're afraid to regulate
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  it properly. Despite the consequences.
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  Despite the fact that, according to the sources, three to five of
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  the absolute worst nights for domestic violence in Australia
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  are 100% connected to a sporting event, usually involving
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  alcohol. That's staggering.
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  And to loop this back to the history, back to Nuremberg,
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  addiction played a role there too.
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  It did. It connects back surprisingly
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  well. The sources mentioned Herman
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  Goering, one of Hitler's top men, right?
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  He was severely addicted to narcotics.
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  When he was captured. He apparently had something like
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  40,000 Pills 40,000 an unbelievable amount, and the
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  historical suggestion is that this addiction seriously
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  impacted his judgement, his faculties, his relationship with
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  Hitler, especially from 42 onwards.
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  So was the addiction driving his actions or just making
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  everything worse a symptom of the collapse?
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  It's a profound question, isn't it?
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  And it wasn't just him. We know German troops on the
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  front lines were widely using methamphetamines.
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  Pervidin addiction was woven into that history, too.
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  So we've gone from historical horror to addiction, and now the
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  conversation turns to the personal cost of intense work
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  like acting. Yeah, Crow talks about this
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  recent period where he just worked relentlessly, shot 5
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  movies back-to-back between December and August.
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  That sounds. Brutal.
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  He described himself as feeling completely empty as his brain
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  felt broken. Just total burnout from the
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  creative pressure. And that pressure involves
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  really digging deep for each role, right?
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  Finding fresh ground, as he put it.
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  Exactly like tackling Goering, you couldn't just play him as a
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  caricature monster. He had to research the man's
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  whole life, war hero Mountaineer to understand the complexity
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  before the fall. That takes a huge toll.
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  And then he got an unexpected. Break kind of a prayer answered
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  moment. As the sources describe it, his
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  next big film, the Highlander remake with Henry Cavill, got
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  postponed. Why?
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  Cavill ruptured his Achilles tendon.
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  Terrible for Cavil obviously, but for Crow it meant a four
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  stop, a chance to breathe. And there's cool story
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  connecting Crow and Cavil, isn't there?
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  There is a real full circle moment.
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  Crow apparently met Cavil years ago, when Cavil was just a
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  school kid playing rugby. No way.
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  Yeah, Crow signed a gladiator photo for him and wrote that
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  classic line. A journey of 1000 miles begins
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  with a single step. That's amazing.
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  And then years later they meet again properly when Cavil is
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  Superman and now they're Co starring.
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  Crazy how life works. So this force break, where did
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  he go to recharge? What's his panacea?
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  His property in Australia? A big patch of bushland, but
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  1700 acres. Wow, did he buy that recently?
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  No, and that's what's interesting.
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  He bought the 1st chunk, 100 acres way back in 1996, before
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  LA Confidential, before he became this massive global star.
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  That shows some serious foresight, and he's doing
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  conservation work there. A major rewilding project.
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  Yeah, he's planted something like 38,000 trees these partly
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  as a carbon offset, but it's more than that.
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  Like restoring the native ecosystem.
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  Exactly. He's doing the hard slow work of
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  clearing out invasive non-native stuff like Lantana, trying to
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  bring back the original environment, red cedar, white
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  mahogany, even uncovering waterfalls, restoring the Land's
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  natural integrity. That's incredible.
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  It's like healing the land. And that healing aspect has
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  spread. A friend of his, Marlin Hanbury
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  Tennyson. I actually wrote a book about
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  this kind of work transforming land back into temperate
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  rainforest. And now that knowledge and even
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  that space are being used to help former soldiers dealing
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  with PTSD, there's a direct link being made between connecting
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  with the slow, restorative rhythm of nature and healing
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  from trauma or extreme pressure. Hashtag tag Tag outro.
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  OK, so we've covered a massive amount of ground here, from why
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  seemingly rational people commit atrocities to how addiction gets
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  normalized and finding solace and literally restoring a piece
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  of land. What's the big take away for
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  you, the listener? I think he comes down to seeing
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  the connections we've jumped between huge historical events
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  and really intimate personal struggles, but the underlying
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  theme seems to be about the complexity of human decisions.
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  It's driven by what? Things like, you know, possible
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  genetic inclinations we might not even be aware of, those slow
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  incremental shifts in society we talked about, and maybe just the
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  fundamental human need for rest, recovery and connection to
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  something real like nature. And maybe the most crucial take
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  away is about vigilance, being aware of manipulation.
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  Definitely, whether it's political forces constantly
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  trying to shove us into red or blue boxes, removing all nuance.
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  Or even historical examples like media moguls shaping narratives
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  for their own interests like William Randolph Hearst.
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  The sources mentioned bots, the constant push pull of the two
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  party system. It often feels like the goal is
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  just to keep the argument raging rather than actually solving
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  problems, doesn't it? We constantly need to ask why a
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  certain narrative is being pushed so hard and who really
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  benefits from simplifying complex issues.
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  Yeah, and we talked about how things like gambling and alcohol
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  become normalized, their social costs often ignored or
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  downplayed, while other things like marijuana historically were
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  demonized, often for economic reasons, were pure propaganda.
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  Right. So the final thought we want to
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  leave you with is this. What else in our modern lives
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  have we just accepted? What pervasive, normalized
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  things are we just living with without really thinking about
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  their true long term costs just because they're everywhere?
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  Things like maybe social media addiction where the effects of
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  ultra processed food systems. Are we accepting these things?
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  Is just part of life now, the same way past generations might
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  have accepted their own destructive norms?
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  It's definitely something to think about, staying vigilant,
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  not just about the big political stuff, but about the everyday
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  things we've simply gotten used to.