An Unbelievable Life Story

Greg Staffa 0:28

My guest today has a life story that's telling something out of Hollywood, but would have trouble making it seem believable. Dar Dixon was born in Tehran, escaped the Iranian Revolution as a teenager, and then spent roughly two decades in a doomsday cult, and somehow, on top of that, built a career spending more than 30 years in Hollywood. As an actor, you've seen him in shows like This Is Us, Botch, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Los Angeles, Grey's Anatomy, and more. And now he's sharing his side of his story through the HBO docuseries Bring Me the Beauties and his memoir, The Walk In. There's a lot to unpack today, so let's just welcome Dar Dixon. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Childhood Moves And Returning To Iran

Greg Staffa 1:12

Greg, thanks for having me, man. So you were born in Tehran. At what age did you come to America?

Dar Dixon 1:18

I came to the States really early. I was just before my second birthday. We came to the States. I never really got a straight answer out of it. My mother was two, had two twins, and she was probably, I want to say like eight months pregnant when we left. And uh the babies were born on my birthday. So me and two of my brothers have the same birthday. But yeah, we came here when I was two. We lived all over the country, mostly in Northern California, and sometime in 1972, we moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico. Maybe I should back up a little bit. In Northern California, we lived in San Francisco. We start I started out in Brooklyn. Then we went to San Francisco, and then we went to Santa Cruz and Aptos and Capitola and Felton. And then uh in 72, we moved to God, I sound like a dinosaur, don't I? 1972. We moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico. My dad got a job there at the scientific laboratories, now they call them the national laboratories. And then uh we went on a vacation the following year to Iran. It was my return, my my father and mother and I was returned. It was the first time for three of my brothers. He got a great job offer, and the following year, he you know, he took it. We moved, and we stayed there from '74 until I want to say it was about June of 1977, because he worked with the uh he was three degrees of separation from the Shah himself at that time, literally, no you know, hyperbole. And he was uh working for the uh Ministry of War, which is like the Department of Defense. And so they found out things, they didn't say the word revolution, but things were going to go sideways. And it was more than just a possibility. And so without I didn't know any of this, none of us knew any of this. My father concocted this story that I was gonna, you know, we were gonna leave, uh go on vacation that summer in 1977, and I was gonna stay back and I was gonna go to school in Los Angeles, uh, a boarding school. And uh anyway, we did that, got here and and landed in Manhattan. And by the time we got to the hotel room from JFK, there was a phone call. My mom took the phone call, and she was on the phone for about five, seven minutes, and she came back down. She was like, she's seen a ghost. And she was like, Boys, we can't ever go back. It's never gonna, you know, we can't go back till you're on it. So that that was that was that. Took my father another year to get out of the country. Uh, we moved and uh back to Los Alamos because it was familiar, it was easy. Now, mind you, we had no money, we had only the clothes on our back and the suitcase and whatever was in our pocket. And I mean, I was 15, so I didn't have anything. I'm pretty sure my brothers didn't have anything. And I don't know, I don't know, maybe my mom had a few hundred dollars with her. I don't know, you know, I don't know. And we started from scratch, yeah.

Greg Staffa 4:26

Wow, that is a fascinating story. Now, a lot of people with your background, they they may have been born in another country and they might have grown up there for a few years and then come to America. But you were born there, came as a baby to America, and then went back as a 12-year-old, yeah, and returned by 15. Even though that's your home country or that's the country that you were born in, right? Did it ever feel like home?

Dar Dixon 4:54

Oh, yeah. Great question. Great, great question, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Staffa podcast. Don't forget to subscribe right now. Back to the story at hand. Yeah, I'll tell you, when I went back, uh for me it was going back, but you know, I didn't really have any memories of Iran growing up as a kid, you know, from two two on, you know, I'm I wasn't one of those kids who remembered being born or something like that. My earliest memory start, I don't know, maybe three or four, I'm not sure. Anyway, uh, when I went back, I was hit immediately by the smells, the air temperature, the taste of the air, the sounds in the air, the music in the air, the smell of the foods, you know, the the fragrance from the tea. I mean, everything was so familiar. And you know, you're a kid, so you don't really think about it, but yeah, I definitely felt like this was it wasn't necessarily home, but it was my home as well as the United States of America.

Greg Staffa 6:00

Interesting. So there's almost like a almost like a subconscious level of remembrance, even

The Call That Ended Iran

Greg Staffa 6:05

though as a baby and stuff you couldn't remember, but just being there, you you felt that you were connected, even though you spent most of your early childhood being in America.

Dar Dixon 6:15

For me, it was that way, yeah. And then since I'm the oldest out of four boys in our family, and you know, the Persian culture, you know, whether you like it or not, I didn't make the rules for people. They place a value on the firstborn, and so there was a lot more attention and kind of deference paid to me, whether I liked it or not. And and I think maybe that also kind of helped me settle in. You know, if you're getting it's kind of a small love bombing, you know what I mean? Innocent, not a not a coercive one, not a you know, uh a bad one. But um, yeah, it was it was really like that for me. And uh the language came back to me rapid fire. I can't say that I speak it very much these days. I can understand, I can speak, but I'm not as fluent as I am in English.

Greg Staffa 7:00

Now that you're back, you're you lived in America more than you lived over there. Oh, yeah. You're back again here in the United States, spent several years here, you play a little Division I football. So most people would say that you adapted and were living the American dream

Why Cults Work On Anyone

Greg Staffa 7:18

to some extent, at least on paper. But then the eternal values thing came. And I think a lot of people, when they hear like a doomsday cult, they their first reaction is, well, I would never fall for something like that. And you didn't have a history, it seems, of falling victim to to things, you know, your family moved around a lot, but it seemed like your family life was a good one. Tell us a little bit, tell us that story, because that's just that's a story in itself. Yeah, no doubt.

Dar Dixon 7:48

Yeah, the cut, you're right. The common uh the common um interpretation of anybody gets in a cult is they're basically, yeah, you're dumb, you're a meathead. Why did you get involved? You're such a dummy, you're so gullible. But um, ironically, just about two weeks ago in Australian court, the parliament, uh, they've been ruling on undue influence, which is the legal terminology for what brainwashing and uh manipulation is. You know, sex trafficking, it happens, it happens with you know, religious cults like I was in, it happens in human trafficking, all of it. It has nothing to do, they ruled, they found through through uh having expert uh testimony and eyewitnesses that it has nothing to do with the person's intelligence level, but rather a million little yeses that you agree to along the way, and then one day, who knows, 59,000 yeses later, 20 yeses later, you find yourself ankle deep or knee deep or you know, neck deep in some doo-doo that has nothing to do with what you originally thought you were getting involved in. So that's where it starts off. So check so check this out. So let me let me this is this is a kind of a fun way to tell this story about the cult. So there was a cop, he had a revolver against my chest. I'm on a mountain road in western North Carolina. It's nighttime, it's around almost 10 o'clock. And this guy's screaming that he's gonna shoot me. And he's gonna shoot the dogs that we had at the on this property. They were harmless, but you know, he was he was wound up. I talked him out of it in about 10 seconds that I still can't fully explain. And then I ran, not from the cop, but from the group I was on my way to see. So let me back up a little bit to 1984. This is I'm 22 years old. My family had gotten out of Iran a few years earlier. Um, like we just talked about. Um, my father had run Iran electronics industries in Shiraz, Iran, which is in the south. He'd walked the Shah of Iran through his own factory. And after the revolution, he clawed his way back to something in California. And I kind of was the son who hadn't landed on anything yet. My brothers were kind of programmed in, locked and loaded. They were finishing school, high school, or they, you know, the other two were in college on their way to you know to finishing that. And I'd I'd dropped out of football. I I uh I just quit football. That's a longer story, not that important right now. And

The Cold Read That Hooked Him

Dar Dixon 10:18

so I was kind of floating a little bit. And I'd I was it sounds crazy, but I was working the steam table at this little vegetarian restaurant off the 101 in Lucadia, which is right next to Encinitas, and it's in North County, San Diego. And I was kind of looking into every religion that I passed by, like you know, it's kind of like their exits I was that I might take, you know. I was just curious, I wasn't really desperate. But hold on to that difference because the myth is that people like me are broken, right? Like I just said, they're always waiting to be saved. And the truth is a little more dangerous that than that, like I just uh I just explained. So I wasn't broken, I was just available. So one afternoon, this guy walks in, and he's about six feet tall, he's bleached blonde hair, he's got a deep dark tan. He's in his mid-30s, he's moving like he's wired into the wall, and he's extremely handsome. My first thought, and I remember it to this day, when I saw him, I was looking through the uh the plexiglass window from the kitchen into the dining room was who's this asshole? He just he stuck out like that. Anyway, this guy's name was Frederick Von Meers, and within about two minutes, uh I well, let me back up. I I see him and I couldn't escape, I couldn't kind of like shake it off. There was something about that guy. So I was like, you know, it's a slow day, it's a Hare Krishna restaurant. I should mention that. I know it sounds crazy, but I was working there a couple of afternoons for free lunches, and I had a real uh restaurant job way down in La Jolla, which is kind of like the Beverly Hills of San Diego, at a nice restaurant there. So I walk out of the the uh the kitchen and and about I just walk by the table and I can't help myself. I stop and I pivot and I turn around and I go, God man, I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm sitting down at the table and he looks across at me with these crystal blue eyes. He grabs my hand and he goes, Dear, you're so mad. Tell me your birthday. Where were you born? What time? And I'm like, I know where I was born. I'm not sure what time it was, but I'm not sure exactly precisely where it is. Next thing I know, the guy who's sitting next to him was about my age. He's his right-hand man, his name is John, and he starts flipping through this ephemeris, which is a book astrologers use to look at your planets. And Frederick's telling me things about the gap between who I was and who was who I was supposed to be that I I never said out loud to anybody. I know now it was a cold read, right? I didn't at the time, but now I know it was just a classic con man cold read. It's vague enough to fit anyone, it's sharp enough to feel like surgery. We talked for, I don't know, 35 minutes, an hour. I don't know. Time kind of just disappeared. And then he did the thing that actually, you know, took me, hooked me in. He gave me the brush off, right? In sales, they call it the takeaway. He says, uh, I should probably just stay in California. You know, you stay here, dear, and read some books. He used to use deer all the time. He's a trip. Uh, you should definitely catch uh HBO Max Max and see this uh documentary, Bring Me the Beauties, because what I'm saying really doesn't do Frederick justice. He was out of his mind. So he's telling me all these stuff about me. And we talk all this time. He says, get away. You know, no, you stay here, you don't have to come, you know, read some books. We'll keep in touch by phone. And the second that guy pulls away, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, man. I watched it. I I'm serious. I want to learn more, you know? And that withdrawal is the whole con one move. But I don't want you to think that the whole con is just that one move. It's more, it's not linear, right? And it's not just one thing, it's a series of things that pile on top of each other. You know, you can get you get taken by being dropped so that getting picked back up feels like you won something, right? That's that's the only lever he's doing there in the con game. But what he was really selling was that he said he was an alien. He was from the planet Arcturus. He walked into a human body on January 23rd, 1978, at seven in the evening. Um, he was very specific about that time. He said he was here to find uh and train the leaders for the new age uh through the coming catastrophes. He said there was going to be a pole uh a pole shift, um, that the magnetic axis of the earth was going to shift a few degrees and create intense problems for Earth. He said he was from Arcturus, but he was from Brooklyn. He had three facelifts, he had pulled out all of his own teeth. And the first time I went to see him, he had me take a shower in about two inches of brown water sitting in the bottom of his tub with little green leafy bits floating in it. Uh and I said to Frederick, you know, this tub is backed up and the water is dirty. And he says, You have to hear this in the voice. Oh, don't mind that deer. It's just vegetables. Like, you know, his body was so pure, you know, it was just vegetables. There's nothing wrong. Don't worry about it. Jump in. And um I got in the tub. Still can't believe I did it to this day. You know, I was a reasonably smart 22-year-old guy, gone to school, and I'm standing there in another man's filth because the story that he'd wrapped around it was built well enough. And that's the entire subject of the book, right there in one bathtub. A few weeks later, I told my parents I'm flying to New York. They insist they come up with me to LAX. I meet Frederick at the gate. He looks like he slept in his clothes, his hair's going 12 different directions. He starts trying to work my father and name-dropping that he's close with the Shaw's sister. My old man looks at him with squinted eyes, like, what the is this guy talking about? My mother's leaning in my ears, whispering, you know, he's a charlatan, he's a charlatan. And um, I don't know, sometime after what I just described, a couple of beats later, I just kind of stopped and it was time to get on the plane, their final boarding. And I looked at my parents and I looked back at my mom and I said, Mom, don't worry. He's an alien from our tourists, he's looking for leaders of the new age. Everything's fine. And I jumped on the plane. I gave him uh the next stretch of my 20s in New York. Uh I was in a loft in the South Bronx. I was painting, never done a painting before in my life. And, you know, it was because our destiny would be the people who'd lead humanity into the end of the world, right? In 1988, the group went on live television. This is also in the documentary, the show called People Are Talking. Richard Bay was the host, and he's grilling Frederick about being from Arcturus. And Frederick actually says to him that he's from Arcturus. And he goes, you know, Frederick, you know, you you know, you say you're from Arcturus. Are you an alien? He keeps on, he goes, I'm trying to tell you, but you're interrupting me. And he says so. He goes, You keep interrupting me. He goes, you know, you you're never gonna be uh you'll never be a Ted Coplin unless you get manners. And and Bay answers back, he says, You're never gonna be a David Bowie unless you get a better story. And the audience goes nuts, and I'm watching the thing, and it just goes even worse from there. The the audience was loaded with a bunch of born-again Christians, so it's kind of like a Jerry Springer style show. At some point, we moved down into uh in the early 90s, they uh down to uh North Carolina, and things started to go sideways, and it kind of after Frederick had died um in early 1990, it kind of went from spirituality

From New Age To Y2K Survival

Dar Dixon 18:06

into militias and guns and stockpiling food and going off the grid and all this crazy shit. And like we stockpiled for an apocalypse that had a date on it, which you know was supposed to be the as soon as the year turned to 2000, right? But the came and it went, and the mountains were quiet, and the world went on being the world, right? You know, you're looking around seeing things aren't exactly what they're supposed to be, but you know, it shatters your certainty in things, right? It doesn't shatter it, it kind of reschedules it. I'm trying to think how much longer I want to go with this, but maybe I'll just hold it there and let you let you ask me a couple more questions with it because it does get kind of crazy, and there are so many twists and turns.

Greg Staffa 18:52

It does, and I think a lot of us, you know, think that, well, you know, this couldn't happen to me, but in the way that you explain it, it almost sounds a lot like fishing, where you're putting the bait out there and you're kind of teasing the fish a little bit, and you finally get the fish on the hook, right? But you don't just jerk it and reel it in like fast, you play with it a little bit, you ease up your line, you let it go. And so the fish thinks you know everything is fine until finally he's pulled out of the water. And that sounds a little bit, and I don't mean to simplify it that much, but it almost seems like you got put on the hook, he let you go by brushing you off a little bit, and you're like, Well, I'm gonna continue enjoying this. No, you're you're not brushing me off, I'll brush you off. And it seemed like there was almost a mental game at play that you didn't even realize that you were on the hook being fully reeled in until it was too late.

Dar Dixon 19:47

That's true, that's all true. That's a good way to put it. I mean, uh, there's uh just broad view, that's that's true. It is like that, you know. You've got to reel people in. Nobody ever raises their hand and says, Hey man, I want to join a cult. You you join up a group of people or a person that makes you feel really good about yourself and really good to be around them. And the non-clinical term is love bombing. And and everybody goes, Oh, you know, love bombing, love bombing, and kind of makes fun of it. But it's rather powerful, and and as a human being with a human brain and a human body, it's almost impossible to resist it. In fact, it is impossible to resist unless you're willing to just be an asshole with everyone all the time. So then, like you say, the fishing part, you know, things shift and change, and it's just uh, you know, it just gets crazy. Like that's that's it's why I'm not just a guy with a strange story, because you know, I'm watching television again, I watch a guy come down a golden escalator with golden hair, and and uh I feel something in my body that I'd felt before, you know, uh in that road, on that road where that cop had that gun against my chest, you know, and and I'm not making a left point or a right point here, but I'm making a structural one. The machine that took me ran on aliens and gemstones. And I watched that same machine calmly set the aliens down, take up a flag and a grievance, and keep running without changing shape at all. That's what I'm talking about when they shifted from you know spirituality into these militias and this uh doomsday survival stuff, right? Doubt gets punished as betrayal. Information moves only in one direction, and an exit's price so high, I mean, you can't afford to leave it. It's the same animal, different suit. Nobody wants to hear it, and nobody wants to hear it about Frederick for sure, you know. No, no, no. That's I mean, that that's what it is. I mean, the best thing to do with to get a better feel for it, you know, is really to check out the documentary. And then, of course, I've got my book

Red Flags And Waking Amnesia

Dar Dixon 21:55

coming up, which is an inside look, like a forensic account of. How that happens to you. Yeah, my God. I went off on a little bit of a tangent there. The book is called The Walk In. And the reason I took that uh that title is because he called himself a walk-in. Now, I don't really hear it that much today, but in the 80s, when he really got famous and this group I was in, started to take off. A walk-in was supposed to be an evolved and exalted soul from God knows where. This I'm just giving you the rap, giving you the explanation. And that soul is supposed to offer to walk into the body of a soul that's not having a good time here, which to me sounds like someone who's suicidal, right? Or having suicidal ideations. And so that person walks into that body and the other soul walks out. And it's never discussed where the other soul goes. But anyway, that's the walk-in. And you know, I didn't plan it at all, but during the beginning stages of writing this book and then you know, doing interviews and and uh uh talking about this and and uh you know being in the documentary stuff, you know, I realized the book's gotta be called the walk-in. And and really what I've done, you know, like what have you done here? What I've done is taken that word and flipped it on it on its head. There's no new age mysticism, no, you know, spiritual thing, no woo-woo hocus pocus. It's just a guy, me, walking back into my own life. And I thought that that encapsulates it perfectly for me. Yeah, yeah.

Greg Staffa 23:37

Now, for an outsider, there's a lot of us that might be judgmental and say, you know, there's a lot of red flags. Uh, someone saying that they're an alien. To me, that's kind of a red flag. You when you're you're in it, yeah. Were there any of your own red flags that you kind of dismissed? I mean, the obvious ones, but were there little things that you questioned it and just brushed off? I mean, your your parents saw it right away, and you kind of brushed them off. Was there anything along the way where you're like, well, this is a little bit too weird, but I'm gonna dismiss it because this is where I am?

Dar Dixon 24:16

Yeah, yeah, that's a good question, and it's a big, big, long answer. So let me think how I can shorten it. So mind control, brainwashing are very powerful weapons, and uh you cannot think your way out of them. You cannot think your way out of them. The only way to heal yourself or oneself from brainwashing and mind control is to feel their way out of it. When you're in that situation that's causing the brainwashing and the mind control, what's also going on, which I haven't mentioned until now, is that you suppress all your feelings that are doubt, that are fear, doing something that you've been charged to go do, right? Any kind of betrayal, any kind of questioning of anything. You just push all that down, you shove it down into a tight little ball in your gut, or you throw it over your shoulder and keep running, and you know, you end up gaslighting your own self. So, did I see that? Do people see it? They absolutely see it. But the thing is, when you're brainwashed and mind control, you're in a kind of state of a waking amnesia. And that waking amnesia doesn't allow for you to stop and go, hey, you know, this guy says he's from Ark Terrace and he's gonna teach me to be able to lead over the new age. That's a crock of shit. Let me get out of here. I just for me, his crazy was was funny. It was it was interesting, it seemed harmless enough, right? Yeah, the guy thinks he's from outer space, whatever, right? That's part of being naive in 22 and not understanding the world yet. But after like I said, it happens a slice at a time, a slight yes at a time, an agreement at a time, and then all of a sudden you're in so deep that you don't even you don't even know how to get out. And the thought of getting out feels like death because you have so wholly wrapped your beliefs around the story that the leader has made that to doubt any one of those things, like you just asked me, or to question any of the things, or to challenge any of his statements would cause you to not only get brutally, we call it he used to call it slamming sessions. You get brutalized, peppered with all the problems that that you cause and what an idiot you are, stuff like that. You'd get that. But then the other thing is you might get kicked out, which I eventually did. And uh in March of 89, I went back five years later. That's another story, but you can read about it in the book. Giving up on the cult or or or leaving the cult or saying, Oh god, that red flag or starting to pay attention to all your red flags.

Leaving, Longing, And Recovery Work

Dar Dixon 27:05

That's the equivalent of death.

Greg Staffa 27:07

In relationships, like anytime there's a breakup, there's always a piece of you that remains behind. You know, there's never a clean break, there's always a piece where you kind of keep longing for that person or you keep finding yourself, and you had said that you at five years later you kind of tried to go back, but you got kicked out. Do you feel that the separate like at what point was there almost like a detox process where you had been mentally, and I'm not implying that they drugged you or anything like that, but was there kind of a mental spiritual drugging that you had to then cleanse yourself of? And what was that process like? And is there still, and I'm not saying are you still involved in the cult, but is there still a piece of you that says, I get why I did that, and part of me misses this little aspect of it?

Dar Dixon 27:57

Oh, yeah, was there good amongst it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, another good question, right? You're you're a sharp, yeah. People go, God, it couldn't all be bad. No, it wasn't all bad. For example, Frederick was hilarious, he was smart, he was quick on his feet, he had a razor-sharp sense of humor that was irreverent. Um, he was also a gay man, so and he was a very flamboyant gay man. So just naturally, he was a show unto himself. And like I said, you know, I I that brand of crazy at that age for me, based on everything that I, you know, been through that point in my life, it was it was kind of a welcome break until it wasn't. And then, you know what I mean? You're like, what happened? Where did I go? So, yeah, there was a lot of great stuff. You know, we would do things in group activities every once in a while. There were probably 20, 20 of us in the inner circle in Manhattan back in the day. And, you know, like on Friday evenings, we'd pick a movie and we'd uh we'd go to the movie, all 20 of us together at 20 tickets, and just go like take up two whole rows uh at the theater, you know, and it was fun. It was just there was stupid stuff. There was a million other stupid things we would do. You know, some of the stuff was like the late night, you know, what do you want, coffee clutch as we used to call it. Just sit down and and talk to each other and get to know each other better. You know, you really did form a family and um with these people, you know. Uh but afterwards, you know, you realize that what you thought was family and this and that had all been you know manipulated for bad reasons, and there were a million other things to go along with it, but uh yeah, there was definitely

Acting As A Way Back

Dar Dixon 29:40

good.

Greg Staffa 29:41

So then you you've fully gotten away from it, you've sobered up, so to speak, to put it lightly or whatnot, and you decided to explore acting. Was there a a natural trans? I mean, it almost sounds like there's somewhat of a natural transition because you had embodied in some ways someone else of your own mind, your own spirituality that was kind of um embodied into something else. Was acting kind of a natural way to to for you to have that another mindset similar to to that, or am I just looking into things?

Dar Dixon 30:20

I mean, you could be looking into things, but you could also be onto something. I always liked it's just it came naturally to me. It wasn't like I studied it. I was very good imitating voices and then creating characters, imitating people, celebrities, and stuff. And I always wanted to act, but I, you know, the truth was I was just scared to death to go do it on my own. And I just I didn't do it forever and ever. When I finally did, I was like 20. It's not a linear progress process, by the way. I had been kicked out of that cult in 89, March of 89. And within about, I say two years, I had gotten, I'd been going to acting classes, auditioning stuff, and I finally got my uh I really I got my first audition, silk stockings, believe it or not. I had to join the union right away. But then, like I said, that was in '91 or '92, I don't remember now off the top of my head. I went back to the group, which had now uh migrated down to South Carolina, North Carolina, where we were going to be, you know, positioned for the aliens, right? I, you know, I didn't do it for for a couple, I was there from 94 through 96. And when I came out, when I got when I escaped for the last time, I was like, this is insane. You know, the cops gunned my chest and stuff. Like, wait, I didn't sign up for this bullshit. That time, that was late October. It was actually October 31st, no pun intended, of 1996. Uh, I didn't know much, but I knew that I needed to get into my acting classes. And really, what I needed to do is start working again as an actor as fast as possible. That's just what I did, you know. Like the art of acting is has been uh very good to me. Uh, the craft of acting, the skill of acting has been very good to me. And uh Hollywood has been good to me right now. Um she's going through some growing pains. It's nothing personal, but it's a very challenging time in Hollywood. But, you know, I've been in there, I've been in here taking swings since '92. It's been a really long ride. Um, and especially after from 96 on, there was indirect and not conscious on my part at all, therapeutic benefits from getting on stage and kind of getting my yayas out, as the stones said.

Greg Staffa 32:47

To me, it sounds like for those 20 years, you lost yourself and you gave yourself up to someone else. Does taking on these roles and being someone else, is there is there almost like a safety net mentally that it seems like for so many years, through the cult and through acting, you're not you, you're portraying someone else, or you've surrendered your yourself to you know this person that now has this kind of mindset over you. Is acting a continuation of that where it's easier for you to be someone else rather than Dar Dixon?

Dar Dixon 33:27

Oh no, no, no, no. Actually, quite the opposite. I love acting, but I love myself way more than acting. I love being Dar Dixon. You know, I took a long time to get to the point to be able to say that, but I really genuinely mean that. Um, and I love acting. What happened was your question is really very deep, and and perhaps I'm just not as deep as you in that sense, but when I was going through this terribly long, bumpy, no map included recovery from this cult that I was in, it turned out that that acting just it's what's one of the best things you can do. You know, any kind of an artistic endeavor, especially after one has finally gotten out of their cult setting, um, it's it's one of the best things you can do for yourself for all the reasons you're saying. And and you know, I wasn't conscious of any of that because you're really just I was just trying to not seem like a freaked out, you know, crazy ex-cult member to everybody, and that I was still the same guy you knew before. You know what I mean? But what happened is you embody the ruthless tech billionaire, or you embody the, you know, the the amputee veteran uh from Iraq, or whatever the case may be, right? Or the hippie, the hippie doctor I played in dying to sleep um a couple years ago. You know, there's you you do transform through the process. You do. I don't like to get too much into this acting talk because it it just seems so masturbatory and self-indulgent. But but there is therapeutic benefit in exploring those parts of yourself that you honestly would rather not show people, especially when they're very vulnerable, very revealing, you know, things that that upset you. Um it's very therapeutic. But I didn't think about any of that. And I know it sounds like this guy's out of his mind. You you might be right, it might be.

Greg Staffa 36:14

Is that something that you're avoiding or you're focused on, or just that's how the casting has been for

Typecasting, Control, And Reinvention

Greg Staffa 36:20

you?

Dar Dixon 36:20

Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no, that's so funny. You said these names, and I'm like, as soon as you said the first name, I was like, what the fuck is he talking about? And I'm like, Oh, these were character names, weren't they? Okay, yeah, okay. So shorten the question again. That's so funny. Oh no, no, I know what it was. Okay, so what I was perceived as in Hollywood, and I had a very nice career doing it, was what I called suit man. I've got a kind of a deep voice. I'm 6'3, a big guy, and so I used to get these authoritative roles like cops, lawyers, judges, doctors, prime ministers, presidents, you know, CEOs, billionaires, those kind of people. And uh that's how I was viewed. And I had a little uh medical scare that you know almost cost me my life. Everything's fine. And that happened back in 2017. I was like, fuck this, you know, I didn't get into acting to be, you know, soup man. Like, let's have let's get into it. You know, I'm tired of being in a soup every single time I'm on set. It wasn't always like that, obviously, but the majority of the work. So um I grew my hair and I let my beard grow out. My beard had a lot of white in it, and I was highly sensitive to letting anybody know that. I disabused myself of that neuroses with my white beard, and I had long hair for several years. And you know, to your point, casting directors didn't know what to do with me. I'll never forget I met this one casting director, lovely woman. She was like, Oh dar, oh, you've got a scruffy beard. I'm like, my hair's also seven inches longer, too. But she hadn't even noticed that. So it's interesting. I started to get better, you know, more interesting roles with longer hair and that beard. And I got treated a lot differently by people. You know, the one of the reasons you you say lazy casting, it's really hard to make a television show or a film or a commercial or whatever it is you're shooting, right? Whatever the production is. It's really, really hard. And, you know, time is money. And I know that's a tired cliche, but honest to God, when you are on set and the lights are burning and the crew's there, you have to be able to count on that person. And so that plays into a big, big, big, big part of why you're getting what you call lazy casting. It's just easier to get the work done. You know this person's gonna get it done. You've seen them do it before, the audience is familiar with it, the the financiers will be okay with it, whatever it may be. That that's kind of a little bit of an inside look at it. Drives me nuts. I hate it, but that's just how it is.

Greg Staffa 39:09

Now that you're an outsider that has that that history and you've put enough years behind you, uh, Hollywood loves that kind of cult leader story. There's been episodes of like SWAT where they have to go into you know a cult or whatnot. There's a show called Nagley, which is the Jack Reacher spinoff, and it deals primarily uh with a cult leader and his as the cult that he runs, and it's it's a huge storyline that covers most of the season. Well, when you look back at those kind of things and see Hollywood's interpretation of those kind of things, is it do you find a way to laugh about it? Go, God, they they got it so wrong, or do you feel like they're kind of mocking you, or how how does your personal deep down feelings think like people then hear your story and they associate to other things and say that couldn't have happened to me? Well, it's because Hollywood doesn't have the time to kind of break it down like you did. So is there a kind of a resentment or embarrassing, or how do you know?

Dar Dixon 40:15

No, I I I not for me, Greg. For for you know, for example, my friend Hoyt, who's the you know, the focal uh he's the focus of the docuseries. He uh he's pretty good about it, but he does let some of the stuff get to him. And I don't know, but you know, everybody everybody's got their something. And I always try to tell him, like, you know, dude, do you let it roll off your back? And you get that just means you get to tell your side of it and you get to tell your story, la la la. So for me, I just I don't know. I used to do a lot of commercial work and and uh meaning commercials, right? Selling toothpaste and you know, financial instruments and whatever the hell else. And probably the biggest thing there was that you know, millions of people are gonna see what you're doing, even if there's just like 30 of your friends here, you know, you're just doing this thing on a set and you know everybody sort of, right? But after it's done, like millions and millions of people are gonna see it, and you have no idea how they're gonna respond to it. You hope they're gonna respond the way that you're presenting it in that direction, but there's no guarantee that they will. You never know what the audience is gonna like until you do. I've had plenty of nasty things said about me. Um, I've had, I mean, it just growing up and moving all the time. You know, I've moved over 80 times. I counted it one night, I just got locked in one night after this, you know. Anyway, and I was like 80 times. I'm like, dude, no wonder. And then I find out full therapists because, you know, that's like one of the top five stressors in life. And I was like, oh, so you're telling me I don't have long to live. Okay, doc, thanks. Small joke. So I don't let things bother me too much. And then my wife, you know, when we first met, which was soon after I got back, I escaped in late 96. Uh, she and I met like a month later, and um, she's

Hollywood’s Cult Stories Versus Reality

Dar Dixon 42:10

just a remarkable human being. She grew up in a really challenging environment and has historical background to it, and grew up in a fishbowl, really. And listening to her life story and hear her grow up and what she went through. And then uh my wife is a black woman who grew up in in uh Atlanta, Georgia. And just listening to her story and the story of my family members and of all black Americans and black people that I know, like it just gives me a perspective. So that kind of stuff just rolls off my back. You know, I can't if I'm gonna sit there and focus on the things that I can't control, that's a pretty good recipe to be miserable. And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to do that. I'm not gonna do that. So let me just focus on the things I can control and let the other stuff be what it's gonna be.

Greg Staffa 43:01

Interesting. I just have a couple more questions. I know we're running a little bit behind here, but I appreciate you coming on. On NCIS Los Angeles, you played an Iranian American character who was accused of selling secrets to Iran. And given your own history, you know, was that something that you know hit home for you? Was that something that was um did you really grasp it as an you know outsider looking in? How was taking on a role that in some ways could seem so personal to you?

Dar Dixon 43:33

Oh yeah. I uh I think the guy was just an American. I don't think he was Iranian, the character, but he was selling nuclear secrets to the Iranians, and um those are the days that I got to wear my long hair in that uh that show. Great show, by the way. Chris is a nice guy. LL Cool J, great guy. Just good people all around. So this guy's selling secrets. So check this out. When we were in Iran, we met a family, and uh the family was the inverse of my family. My family, my father's the Iranian, obviously now an American for much longer than he was Iranian, and my mother was the American, uh white American lady from uh southern Idaho, southeastern Idaho. Their family was the inverse. The mom was the Iranian, and the dad was the white boy from Oklahoma. He ended up being the guy, the father ended up being a spy for the CIA. And my my friend, uh one of the you know, his child, uh Cyrus, wrote about it, wrote a book about it, an excellent book. And um so I thought this is this is surreal. This is surreal. Christ, I knew a guy who was an actual spy, he's an American, he's selling secrets to the Iranians. Or he's he was he was stealing Iranian secrets and giving it to the Americans, and this guy's doing the opposite. So, yeah, I did have a lot in common. I knew what it was like, but unfortunately, that character didn't have a lot of that in him. He just had kind of hard ass and sneaky in it.

Greg Staffa 45:17

Now, so let's talk a little bit. There's the HBO series bringing me the beauties, and you're also working on writing the the walk-in, which you talked about earlier. Is that is that period? I mean, you you talked about it easily, you know, here is there points where it's hard because there is, I mean, that let's be blunt. There is a lot of judgment. Anytime someone these days hears cult, there's a lot of assumptions like you said, and you work very hard in explaining it, and on paper, it makes sense to some degree, but there's still a lot of initial judgment. Is it hard to go back and tell that story, or is it is the most it's kind of therapeutic for you?

Dar Dixon 45:58

Not for me, no. You know, what was therapeutic was going through my recovery process, um, which there used to be it's not it doesn't exist any longer, but there was one place in the United States and one place in Germany that would deal with cult survivors, and so I went to the one in the United States and went through that, and you you know, went through all this therapy, and uh that was very therapeutic, very cathartic. That went on for several years. Um, and I thought that was it. And I started to write the book, and uh my wife and and and Hoyt had mentioned it. Oh, that'll be very therapeutic for you. I was like, what the hell are you guys talking about? But they were right, you know, it was therapeutic in a very different way. Those two things were really therapeutic. So um talking about it doesn't bother me, and I've also worked really hard, really hard on myself uh to get

Roles, Iran, And A Spy Connection

Dar Dixon 46:55

out of the brainwashing and out of that uh mind control through the abuse and all the other trauma that goes along with it. Um I had to understand me being me, even though I'm supposed to be a really dumb actor, which I probably am to be fair, um, I had to know how it happened to me, the mechanisms by how it happened, how those mechanisms work in the brain, and then emotionally, and then how those things were applied to me in my specific situation. And by doing that, I could work my way through it and work my way out of it. And after that, I figure, you know, that's a good place to start. And so talking about it doesn't bother me, it really doesn't. I'm I'm very different than most. I hear this constantly, especially since the the uh the documentary came out, was that I you you seem like the one who's kind of more normal, like not really hurt over it anymore or anything. And I never really thought about it, and I, you know, I didn't know until I saw that, and I was like, yeah, I do sound different, don't I? So no, it doesn't bother me. Uh I'm happy to talk about it. Christ, I I used to do quite by accident, it happened organically. I started doing coaching or consulting, so to speak. I I can't stand that coaching word, but um I would talk to people who'd been in cults, former cult members, or still in a cult, or they were in some kind of an abusive relationship, because at its core, that's all a cult is. It's an imbalance of power in a relate in a personal relationship. And um, that imbalance gets used against the other person without the power. It's an abusive relationship. So domestic violence, you know, all that kind of that's that's that's what it is. Um, that's what a pimp does to uh sex workers. That that's how it happens. That's what they do, sex trafficking, the same dynamics at play. Um so yeah, I mean, you know, it it it I worked I worked hard to not be that way, to be able to talk about it. And I've found out that a lot of the people that were in the group that I was in have not been did not apply that same rigor that I just told you. And unfortunately, you know, they they have this big dark secret that now is out for everybody to see. And some of them, I as I understand it, haven't even told their significant others or their spouses, even their children, which is wild to me.

Greg Staffa 49:24

Yeah, wild. In doing the research and writing for your book to walk in and even working on bringing me the beauty is the HBO documentary. When we're involved in something, it's hard to see the world around us. But in doing your research, was there anything about yourself that you discovered? Did you discover, you know, a better understanding of who you were that allowed you to fall into this?

Dar Dixon 49:50

Oh, it that that's that's unavoidable. It's unavoidable. If you sat down and write about the darkest chapter of your life, I promise you, I promise you, you will transform your life in ways that you can't even imagine. And that's not hype, that's just factual. I promise you you will, and it's not magical

Writing The Walk In To Heal

Dar Dixon 50:15

or mystical, like I'm not selling you a silver bullet or snake oil. You think about sitting down and writing about something that is deeply personal to you. You have to become deeply vulnerable and talk about things and write about things you would rather take to your grave in most cases. Well, that's what makes for a good story, but it also is. I mean, it's it's the stuff that uh it's the stuff that you have to do, you know? And doing that and going through those processes that that I just described and writing it out and having to think, how am I that's not how I wanted to say that. Oh, I gotta reword that through that whole process. I promise you, thing you start dealing with things that you you didn't even know were a problem. That certainly was the case for me. And granted, I'm an outlier, I had this you know unique situation with a cult, but I've heard this over and over and over again with anyone who's bothered to write anything that is autobiographical or a memoir.

Greg Staffa 51:19

Yeah, you have to you have to face your own realities, even if they're uh not perfect.

Dar Dixon 51:25

You know, there's I really recommend it, man. Nobody gets out of here alive, nobody, you know, and the most important relationship you have is with yourself.

Greg Staffa 51:38

Let's say Steven Spielberg came to you and said, I have Steven Spielberg backing, I have Steven Spielberg money, I really like your acting. You've already done the Bring Me the Beauties. Yeah, you're working on your book, The Walk In, so I don't want to do that. But if you had a story outside of those two things that you would love to tell, yes, what story could we tell?

Dar Dixon 52:04

Uh, you're gonna have to get the book. I will say this much though, without going deep into it. I gotta tease the book. Everybody's got to sell, right? What a George Michael song, When You Shake Your Ass, They Notice Fast. Everybody's Got to Sell. Um, I knew a woman, I met a woman after I had escaped. Hoy and I lived together for about a year, um, just outside of Brentwood in Los Angeles here. And it was there that we got together and we, you know, away from all the cult and everything. He'd escaped, I'd escaped. You know, they weren't in our lives. We were 3,000 miles away. This woman, Hoy comes on one out and he goes, Hey, dude, I met this woman. She's blind. Yeah, she lives in Massachusetts. I don't I don't know what to tell you. I don't know, man. She does his thing and you go into hyperspace, and I'm like, what? And you just do it over the phone. I'm like, what? So I I call her up and we start talking, and then she does this thing. And I don't like woo. I hope that's come through. I don't like hocus pocus. I want I I'm looking for the pragmatic and the practical and the reasonal. I always leave room for the magic, but uh I'm I prefer to be a man of science and art rather than conjecture and and you know uh hypotheses. She took me into this thing she called hyperspace, and I I mean the closest I can it felt like the beginning of uh hallucination. You either took I can't speak to LSD, but mushrooms. It felt like that. Felt like I'd left my body, I was floating in space, and somehow, somehow, what she did, you know, helped me quite a bit. And um, she claimed to have been abducted by aliens as a little girl, and that's why she went blind, because she was born with perfect sight. And after that experience,

New Documentary And Propaganda Parallels

Dar Dixon 54:10

she started to go blind until she went completely blind, and then not only did she go completely blind, I don't know what happened, but the doctors tested her, she didn't even have rods or cones, so she didn't have the medical biological equipment to you to see with the human body, but yet this woman could do these things, and she would talk to you about being on it on a spacecraft and like, yeah, okay, and maybe it's time to leave, you know. But she's remarkable, and I know Spielberg would love that, and it would make one hell of a movie, and I'm just touching the outer edges of it. Interesting.

Greg Staffa 54:47

Yeah, so we've covered HBO's Bringing Me the Beauties. We've talked about your book, The Walk In. Is there anything else that is coming up that we can see you in?

Dar Dixon 54:58

That is what's happening right now. I just auditioned for something yesterday, um, but I can't talk. Well, by the time this airs, when's this gonna air?

Greg Staffa 55:08

Probably two weeks from now.

Dar Dixon 55:09

Yeah, so we're cool. So I just uh auditioned for a show called Napa. Uh Seth Rogan and uh Rose Byrne are the stars, and uh they want me to play an Iranian. I don't look Iranian, but I sound it and I know how to act it. Uh we'll see what happens. Maybe I do, maybe I get it, maybe I don't. We'll see what's happening. In the meantime, I'm working on uh collaboration with uh the same filmmaker that made uh Bring Me the Beauties. He and I are collaborating together, and I'm gonna put together my documentary about my life story. Um because and loosely, I'll just tease it here. I've dealt with you know propaganda, mind control, brainwashing in three different situations. I dealt with it in Iran during the revolution. There's all kinds of stories I can get into there. I dealt with it in the cult, I just talked about for the past hour, and then I'm dealing it right now on a national scale with uh Donald Trump and his regime here in America. It's kind of amazing. And so I'm going to take those three viewpoints, my experiences, kind of connect the dots, and allow people to make decisions for themselves, make it entertaining in the meantime. And there's a special twist that I'm not going to say. But I'm very excited about that.

Greg Staffa 56:27

All right. Final question, and I appreciate you coming on. I'm sorry we took a little bit lexer time. But so much of your work is tied to you know the cult, the roles that you've played, the Iranian background. But when you get up in the morning and you go into the bathroom, you splash a little water in your face and look in the mirror, who is it that you see?

Dar Dixon 56:52

An old man that I'm not sure who he is. I'm kidding. I just, you know, dude, it just getting older is is not the best thing. Like, because you don't get better looking the older you get. After a certain point, there's an expiration date, right? And everybody has to deal with gravity. So yeah, I miss some of my hair and some, you know, I miss my my my youthful looks, but I wouldn't change anything. Because I I just

Identity, Regret, And Gratitude

Dar Dixon 57:20

I wouldn't, man. I wouldn't. I know that sounds crazy, and I'm glad I met Frederick, and I'm glad I got caught up in that bullshit. I wouldn't be the guy I am today if I hadn't. And, you know, the transformation of where I was. We'd gotten caught up with these militias talking about sovereign citizens. This is 1996, okay? And these people are on the phone with with the FBI director, and they're they're in uh they're involved with the Oklahoma City bombing, they're involved with Ruby Ridge in Idaho, they're involved with uh uh the bombing in in Atlanta at the Summer Olympics. And I went from that nonsense on the outer fringes of that insanity, to marrying the youngest daughter of Reverend Dr. Ralph David Abernathy, who, along with his best friend, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., started the American Civil Rights Movement. I mean, I gotta pinch myself, it doesn't even seem real. But but here I am. Oh yeah.

Greg Staffa 58:23

Well, thank you for coming on.

Where To Watch And Follow

Greg Staffa 58:25

Uh again, check out HBO's Bringing Me The Beauties, and also the the walk-in, which I assume is on Amazon and and uh you know, anywhere you buy books.

Dar Dixon 58:35

Yeah, it's gonna be on buy books. Well, I'll tell you what, let me uh you want to get on the list and I'll alert you right away. Go to my website, it's dardixon.com. That's d-ar-di-i-x-l n dot com, backslash hashtag, and this is one word the walk dash in.

Greg Staffa 58:55

And I'll put a link to that in the bottom of your page here so people can find it easier. But dardixon, thank you so much for coming on today. Mr.

Dar Dixon 59:03

Staffa, you are a gentleman and you've asked really great questions. I gotta say, I've done a lot of interviews in my life. You asked some great questions.

Greg Staffa 59:11

Well, thank you.