The Many Lives of Peter Weller

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Grace Cohen-Chen

Society & Culture

4.6 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sitting across from Dr. Peter Weller — another actor/author/academic like myself — I knew I was in for an engaging conversation. But as Peter explained the shape his life has taken, I saw beyond his vast accomplishments to his deep sense of self-knowledge. Long before he was Robocop, Peter was a masterful jazz trumpet player, idolizing innovators like Miles Davis. Yet, for all Peter’s talent, the horn wasn’t the ticket to self-expression he craved. He pivoted to acting, finding a new sense of wonder and challenge working opposite legends like Diane Keaton. At the heart of it all is the idea he explored in his academic work: the inextricable link between art and artist. And hey, he even gives me a few tips for finishing a dissertation. Fail Better is now on YouTube! Watch this episode here. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Find more video podcasts on our YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Lemonada on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's morning in New York.
0:02.8	Oh, God.
0:06.2	Hey, everybody.
0:07.3	I'm Mandy Patinkin.
0:08.7	And I'm Catherine Grady.
0:09.8	And we have a new podcast.
0:11.7	It's called Don't Listen to Us.
0:14.1	Many of you've asked for our advice.
0:16.1	Tell me, what is wrong with you people?
0:19.2	Don't listen to us.
0:20.3	Our Take It or Leave a Adv device show every Wednesday, out now.
0:24.7	A Lemonada Media Original.
0:29.8	Hey, just a quick message before we get started.
0:32.9	You can now listen to every episode of Fail Better AdFree with Lemonata Premium on Apple Podcasts.
0:39.1	You'll also get ad-free access to and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser
0:44.6	than me with Julia Louis Dreyfus, the Sarah Silverman podcast, and so many more.
0:49.9	It's just $5.99 a month and a great way to support the work we do.
0:54.5	Go ad-free and get bonus content when you hit subscribe on this show in Apple Podcasts.
1:00.5	Make life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium.
1:09.5	I'm David DeCovney and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are.
1:17.1	Peter Weller is a professor and art historian and an actor to boot, which is probably what you know him from.
1:24.2	He played the titular character in the Robocop movies.
	...

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