Tim Minchin’s Infinite Universes

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Grace Cohen-Chen

Society & Culture

4.6 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The musician (-comedian-actor-composer-director-Californication guest star) Tim Minchin is an aspirational figure. He brings an unmatched level of precision and thoughtfulness to conversations, whether he’s discussing word play or the Catholic church. And he extends that scrutiny to his concepts of success and failure, which I welcome. Tim and I sit down to talk about the intricacies of his work, from the satisfaction of composing the successful Matilda: The Musical, to the pain of working on a big Dreamworks film that got canned. He’s poetic — and prophetic — about what we stand to learn from what we lose, and if that makes you never want to win again, well, so it goes. Tim’s new album “Time Machine” is out now! Find it at https://timminchin.lnk.to/TimeMachineLT 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.
0:49.8	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.
1:10.6	I'm David DeCone. I don't need to read that. I'm David DeCone. I know that without reading it.
1:15.0	And this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Tim Minchin is a man of many, many talents. He's an Australian. That's not one of his talents.
1:24.7	He's an award-winning musician, comedian, actor, writer, producer, and director.
	...

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