I’m Corbin Bleu and my last meal would be a white wine spritzer, chicken liver pate, grilled cheese with French fries, A5 Wagyu putin, Jamaican stewed oxtails, butter chicken, massaman curry, sausage and peppers, rigatoni a la vodka, pappardelle al turfo, raspberry sorbet and key lime pie. Everybody has exactly two things in common. We’re all slowly dying and we all gotta eat. Corbin, welcome to Last Meals. Thanks, and we all gotta pay taxes. We all gotta pay taxes, unfortunately. But even that, I guess you could skip out, technically. Technically you could, and eventually you will die, and you’ll still have to eat. Those are the constants. Those are the constants. I was gonna ask you if you thought about your last meal before, but I know you have because we’ve been talking about your last meal for a minute. So, when you guys, when I first found out that I was gonna be doing this show, so beyond excited, by the way, I love the concept. Food, for me, is huge. I grew up in an Italian household where there was like food everywhere. I mean, even just… You could not walk in and not have, at least, bread on the table, and pasta, there’s always so many different parts of the meals. And I’ve always had to finish my plate. And that sorta just stuck with me, so to this day, I could be ready to fall on the floor and if there’s till food left, I’m like oh my God, we gotta finish it. So, food for me, man, is huge. And then to think about a last meal? If I know that I’m about to die, I would rather just eat myself into a coma. Wait, hold on, that’s a really good point. Yeah. So you’re saying if you know you’re about to die, you’re going to physically end it with the meal. What a better way to end it than with food? That’s a beautiful note here. You’re like taking control of your life, you’re doing the thing that you love, you’re making sure that your last meal, once you finish that last bite of food, you’re out. If I could just go to sleep in a coma with having just had an insane meal, I mean, that sounds like a way to go. So it sounds like you have thought about the concept of death a lot as well. I think it’s important that we think about death. Thank you. Just like you said. We all are gonna die. Yes. I know there are a lot of cultures that actually contemplate death daily, and a lot of people, we don’t actually consider death until we’re in either a near-death scenario or we find out that we have a certain amount of time to live. In times of my life where I’m not go, go, go crazy just from morning to night, like it’s just been for the past month ’cause I’ve been working a lot, I really do keep on my regimen for food, for physical activity and for meditation. And with meditation, a big part of what I do think about is death. It seems crazy to me that people don’t think about death all the time. Like, it’s there, it’s looming, but for me, you take some power away from it by thinking about it all the time. By making peace with it, by understanding that there is no life without the context of death. And I think the more, it’s just like anything, the more something is unknown, the more you fear it. So if you can start to wrap your head around something, even if you’re about to go do something that’s terrifying, I went skydiving for the first time not too long ago. Braver man than I am. I, first of all, I’m a daredevil. I love doing stuff like that. Like, I have no problem. And the night before, it hit me, and I started to have that, oh, what if something goes wrong? This could be it. And it really actually did start to hit me and I think just even putting myself in that scenario of well, I’m willingly going into a scenario where I mean, if something goes wrong, I’m in that freefall. It’s gonna end. And I think it’s being in the moment and every part of life that you can be, being grateful for what has come. Obviously, we have things that we wanna do. I have so much more that I wanna do in my life but if I could really succumb to the fact that no matter what, today might be my last day, gotta contemplate that, I could be okay with that. Well, dang, man. Let’s at least get some food in here before you go. Let’s eat! Corbin, first course. We’re starting nice and light. We got a chicken liver mousse right here, blended with a little bit of carrot, onion, and apple for sweetness, chopped hard-boiled egg and thyme on top. Grilled bread with a little bit of black salt. And then we have a non-alcoholic white wine spritzer with lemongrass, passion fruit juice, soda water and Thai basil. Nailed it. Nailed it, thank you. I’m so beyond excited. Oh my God, first of all, it’s gorgeous. Thank you. Of course, of course. We took our restaurant prep seriously. You had sent me like an actual recipe doc for this chicken liver. Is it something that’s really special to you? So I have always loved pate, but once I met my wife and started learning about her heritage, she’s half-Russian, and her grandparents made the best chicken liver pate. And it’s so simple. Carrots, onions, and then they throw in some chicken stock, some butter, and of course, salt and pepper. And I had it for the first time there and I mean, I wanted just to take a tub home and eat it by the spoonful. I’ve done that before. That’ll let you the gout real quick. A dancing career with gout, it’s gonna be tough. That would be tough. Well, please dig in and tell me about the white wine spritzer. Absolutely so– You don’t drink. I don’t drink. I stopped drinking like six years ago. Just for a lifestyle choice. Even for the fact that I do dance for a living. And I use my body so much. I found just taking that out, what a huge difference it’s made in my life. Are you talking like physically, are you talking spiritually, emotionally? I would say all of the above. Mainly physical. It’s poison. It’s poison for everything. If that’s what it is, it’s the point of alcohol. It’s mainly physical. If I was to really have my last meal, I would have a real white wine spritzer. Real white wine spritzer, for sure, but today, we’re just gonna have our mock version. I mean, this is delicious. Oh, the passion fruit, though. The passion fruit. It’s one of the few fruits that have umami in it. People don’t realize. There’s that little lingering sensation where you’re like . Absolutely! Right? Yes! People don’t think about that. It’s incredible. I wanna start drinking this. Yeah, I gotta dig into this. It looks so good, I don’t wanna dig in. It looks so good. You talked about to Big Game about how much food you’re gonna eat today and so, I want you to know that I will match you, just to make you comfortable and also I’m one of those people who habitually eats and cannot stop. It’s really strange. I don’t have that. I know that there’s a thing that you’re supposed to feel when you’re full. I have to tell myself, I’ve had enough. Yeah, it’s a conscious choice. Like a corgi. I’ll just keep eating until I feel like I’m gonna explode, and I’m fine with that. Cheers. Cheers. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness! A little off-script with the apple. I love the apple addition! A little bit of verdue in there, a little but of grape must. There’s something you said earlier that I wanted to touch on. You said you still have so much more you want to accomplish. I mean, you obviously, had a long career on the Disney channel. You’ve been working since you were two years old. How much more do you have to accomplish until you can just call it quits? ‘Cause I have this theory that everyone who performs secretly has an extra strategy backup plan. They have a farm, right, in their head that they’ve built where they’re like one day, I’m gonna stop, I’m gonna disappear. I’m gonna start raising the world’s best pigs to make the world’s best ham. What’s your version of that? How much more do you still have to do? I don’t know about that because acting is a career, but you can just do it until the day you die, and I think that what’s so wonderful about performance is art does imitate life and as we get older, we gain so much more wisdom, we have so many different experiences and just being able to portray those things, I can’t, there are certain parts of my life right now that I would not be able to portray in this instance of my life that I might be able to portray when I’m 80, 90 years old. Hopefully, but by the grace of God, we’ll see. But I feel like, I mean, I would love to get old and still be on camera, and get to play like the crotchety old guy. I was gonna say the hot, old guy. Hot and crotchety. Hot and crotchety. At the same time, I do think there’s a beautiful thing to aging, and even my wife will say, she’s like will you still love me when I’m old and wrinkly? I’m like are you kidding me? Corbin, we’ve entered our tour of Italy, not to be confused with the Olive Garden dish of the same name. Here, we have rigatoni a la vodka with whipped ricotta and basil oil. We got some classic hot Italian sausage on a bed of peppers and onions, little bit of tomato sauce, little bit of Sunday gravy on there. Then here, we have a wild, mushroom ragu with pappardelle, and then of course, we have the fresh… If you wanna just– May I? May I, could I just– If you wanna hold her, smell her, please. Now that’s a truffle. Oh my God! This is described to us by our truffle dealer as a big honker! And sure enough. Maybe that’s a Trevor original. Yeah, I think Trevor called it a big honker, and sure enough. Wow! Would you mind if I shaved it fresh over… Please! Oh my God! Beautiful. And we can just make… Oh, if truffles get into– Truffles get into the sausage, it’s all good. Go, go, go. God, this is so good. I’m gonna toss the truffles in real quick. These are not the psilocybin mushrooms. They’re just good to have fun. They’re just the regular, old fungi. We’re about to find out in about 20 minutes. I… I love sausage. I always have. Breakfast sausage, Italian sausage. And that was one thing that my mom always made was sausage and peppers. And then the next day, we’d get bread and we’ll use the leftovers to do sausage and pepper sandwiches. This is comfort food, man. Heck yeah. If you were full before, this is going to absolutely floor you and turn you to concrete and I think that’s what we would want as we hurdle towards our near death experience. Hey, speaking of death. Let’s talk about God, then, Jesus. We’re getting close to it. So you played Jesus in Godsville. I did. And one, you said the harness was bulbous, which I’m sorry about that. I know you’ve recovered since sat on a bag of frozen peas or something. You know we’re not really on the baby train. We’re not wanting to have kids so if I did a little bit of damage there, we’re okay, it’s all good. Little bit of ball busting ain’t never hurt anybody. No, this might be TMI, but because we are not wanting to have kids, at least not right now, I wanted to see if I was working with a loaded gun or not. Of course, yeah. And– Everyone should know. And it’s a full barrel. That’s what’s up. So… What’s the count, we flipped 12 million? It was like, whatever the average is, I can’t remember, it was like five times that amount. It was like okay, cool. That’s gonna be the title of the video, by the way. Corbin Bleu has five times the amount of sperm as any other man. You identified as a Christian in an interview in 2012. Where are you at with that, with your big sperm-filled balls? Over the years, my connection to organized religion in the sense of actually going to a facility, going to a church, has dissipated. But my spiritual connection has actually only gotta stronger and I think it’s just because we don’t know what anything is and I think that goes… Even for… I would never even say that I was an atheist because that’s still being a finite, definite answer that you’re– That you’re gonna tell. Yeah, yeah. You’re like I know. I know the right answer. None of us know. None of us– I don’t know how to work my TV remote. But I will say that it’s… I do believe and feel that we are all connected and I do believe in God, whatever that may be. Whatever you visualize it as and we always say, you know, the universe is doing it and when I say the universe, that’s God, that’s whatever it is to you, whatever it means to you, I do think that there is some sort of a higher power. I hope that there’s somewhere else that we go afterward because it would be nice to keep going with something else. Yeah, I’m enjoying this. In a different way, I mean. I wanna keep it up. But I don’t know. And I think that’s just something that over the years, as I’ve come to realize that to be so set in a way to say that any answer that we truly don’t know what the case is is silly. But as I said, I really do believe in the fact that there is a major energetic connection between all of us. Yeah, the normal ass French fries with the normal ass grilled cheese. We did a little fancy, both American and Cheddar on sourdough. And there here, we have the this is the poutin with red wine beef demi-glace gravy, A5 wagu, the squeaky cheese curds, the real kind, and then we have the marrow bones roasted with a little bit of chimichurri. That was an original. You didn’t ask for that. That’s a Chef Josh special right there. Oh, okay, okay. Tell me about the grilled cheese. Grilled cheese and French fries. That was my go-to order as a kid. Every single restaurant that we went to, grilled cheese and French fries. So to this day, I held in a major place in my heart just to know how to make a bomb grilled cheese, it is so important. We tested all the and we are very comfortable… It looks like perfection. I don’t want it to get cold. Let’s do it. We gotta give it a little pull apart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mhmm. It’s so nostalgic, especially with the American. That crunch in my ear as it bites down, cheese is perfectly melted. Got that buttery. Can I have some of your barbecue sauce? I’m not gonna double dip. Please! And then barbecue sauce is always my go-to. Love trying all different barbecue sauces. People have like a wine collection. I always wanted my barbecue sauce collection. Tell me about this poutin. Please serve yourself some, this is… French fries, still to this say, is my one all-time number one favorite thing to eat, and my wife is also Canadian. So when I was first introduced to the concept of poutin, my mind was blown, and life has never been the same ever since. And we make our own poutin at home. Straight from potatoes and everything. We don’t do anything frozen. Make our own gravy. And the fact that you put in the A5 wagyu meat… The A5 wagyu, it should get you there. I’ve loaded up the perfect bite. Get the fudge outta here. You gotta be kidding me. You’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s so beautiful. Oh my God! What? I would never have made this without you. Um, oh my God. Unbelievable. This is one of those life-affirming dishes. That chimichurri. Cuts it. It cuts through all of it. I gotta ask you about a very serious subject, though. Yes. You died in 2013. 2013, you died. I read it on the internet. I done Googled it. Oh my God, I’ve never thought about this. Did you really? You tweeted, there was RIP Corbin Bleu trending on Twitter and you tweeted a picture of yourself from Magic Mountain going, nope, still at Magic Mountain, but then I read another article that said that you were a clone, and I don’t know what to believe. Get your damn story straight, Corbin. Are you dead, are you alive, are you a clone, does it matter? Once Disney heard that I had died, they realized that they were gonna lose out on some of the money so they decided to make a clone and I really just have the panel in the back. I’m a robot. They already made the action figures, so they had to– That was a horrible, horrible day. I remember that, why? Because my mother called me. Crying. Like, shame on you to all of those people out there that started that rumor. It’s like we– Not because of me. Whatever for me. I’m like, that’s so stupid, but my poor mother. You owe an apology to Corbin’s mom. She called me crying, and she’s like Corbin, and I’m like hey, and she’s like oh my God, there’s this… Just the fact, when she heard my voice, she was okay but then she explained to me this whole situation that there’s this rumor that I was dead and just the fact that I had to go and actually make it known that I wasn’t. What a, just a crazy world that we live it. I was a Six Flags. I feel like people in our generation, though, we know that there are stupid internet death hoaxes all the time. This is too good, I had to go back. But like a mother, she had no idea. She thinks that’s the news, you know? You were born and now you’re dead. Shame on you. You owe everybody an apology. All right, Corbin, now we have reached the curry sampler from around the world. We have stewed Jamaican oxtails, we got the fresh oxtail seared and then braised with the all spice, the thyme, the scotch bonnet chilies in there. We have Thai red massaman curry. Pretty simple, just some beef and potatoes, and then we have the Indian butter chicken, that’s murgh makhani, all the black mustard seed and of course, tons and tons of fresh butter and turmeric in there. If I was to actually go out after this, we should figure out a way over the next 20 minutes to make peace with our lives. Just do it. I feel like I have such a contradiction in myself just because I do have this insane love for food and for gorging myself, but also I’ve got this major need and want to be as healthy as possible and to keep my body in fighting shape for . For whatever comes. For whatever comes. The musicals, yes. For the musicals. When I say fighting shape, I guess I’m referring to being able to dance on stage. That’s really what I’m referring to. It’s definitely a difficult thing that I fight within myself. So I had a, oh, excuse me. I took a psilocybin journey, and– Oh, nice, Yeah, and one thing that popped up was that I overeat. Wait, hold on. A lot of people are like, go take psilocybin to cure addictions, to calm their fear of death. They say they see God. And you took psilocybin and it was like aye, put the fork down. That was exactly what came up! That’s like, well you said to cure addictions, right? Well, I guess, yeah. That’s my addiction. That’s incredible. That’s my problem. But, so, I had already made some food prior, and it was a poke bowl. So just fresh ingredients. And the mushrooms were telling me just remember how important it is to prepare things for yourself for your future self and that went from food to body to like, retirement. It was all of these… Seriously, it was all of these different things that came up. Get your financial plan. Passive income would be nice, Corbin. But then also, it was as I was eating, I ended up eating too much of it and I had to have this whole moment with myself. It was telling me, it was like, you do overeat. That is the part of you that… Food is your vice. Yeah. That’s incredible. I gotta ask. I mean, not in like the Disney background, but I mean now being on High School Musical, the musical, the series. You’re playing yourself in the new season. So you’re playing yourself playing a character in a series based on the musical based on the movie. Confused yet? Nah, I think I got it, man, pretty simple. But is there a pressure with Disney to be incredibly wholesome. Do you feel the need or do you define what wholesomeness is yourself? I did come on the scene… I mean, I’ve been doing this since I was two. I did movies at eight years old. I did, I worked on ER– You were in Mystery Men. I was in Mystery Men. I played William H. Macy’s son. The shoveler. Oh yeah, man. When High School Musical hit, I was 16, and of course, it was overnight. We became these… It was literally like the Beatles. Because we did tours of the music and performed in stadiums that the Beatles, like 70,000 people a night. Jesus. It was nuts. And of course, being in the world of Disney but also to be these young role models, there was a pressure, of course, to maintain a certain lifestyle, certain look. And the avatar of Corbin doesn’t necessarily align with Corbin at 33. That’s something that I have also been reckoning with and being able to just be more comfortable with. And I think there was… I think the hardest part I was able to get over was this thought of always having to be nice and confusing that with being respectful. This is my fiancee and her younger brother– You’ve got to be kidding me! This is at the Macy’s Day Parade after party. I can’t even do the math on this. Macy’s Day Parade. That was probably 2009 or 2010, I wanna say. That woulda been about… I think ’09, maybe. Woulda been like 14, 15, my little brother. Oh my God, that’s amazing! He’s a little Broadway actor now. You inspired him. That’s so cool! He texted me. He’s like Corbin’s such a nice man! I’ve gotta meet them now. Come back for Shabaat one day. Oh yeah. Do the damn thing. That’d be awesome. But she’s said, he was like he took so much time out of his day to talk to me just like I was a normal person. We’re all normal people. And I think if that’s, too, I’ve always been in that mindset, I mean, I think where people get a little funky sometimes with experiences is when they do start to see me not as a person. One, don’t put yourself down and put me above you. But also, know that I’m also on the same plane with you. I can also be having a bad day. I could also be busy, and I don’t necessary… Just because you’ve bought a ticket to a show that I’ve done or I’ve watched a movie that I’ve been in, doesn’t mean that I owe you something because that’s my job and in the same way that you go to your job, you do your thing, my job is to go and do that. Don’t be. Don’t be a dick to the person bagging your groceries. Don’t be a dick to the person who’s acting… I had someone recognize me in a bar and said go home and make me a sandwich, and I have never… Damn! You can’t do anything. You can’t say anything. It’s like what if this person tweets about it. Person tweets about it, but it’s fine . So funny! But, and that too. That fear of there being some retaliation, but even that retaliation, the fact somebody would then side with them because of what they said. And I think that’s what I’ve had to sort of relinquish and put away and go, you know what? I know in my heart of hearts that I am always going to be as kind and treat other people with respect as much as I can, but I can’t control everything. Yeah, sometimes you put things out in the world, people run with them, not a problem. Absolutely. Corbin, we’re nearing the end of the meal, hopefully not our lives. Wanted to end with something nice and refreshing to send you back out in the world. We’ve got some raspberry sorbet with macerated blackberries and basil, little bit of fresh basil on top, and then just a simple key lime pie, man. Perfect. A little bland. If we do go to a restaurant, my favorite thing is to look at the entrees. Like, I’m not a dessert first type of person. I’m definitely a salt over sweet. But if I’m having my last meal, I’m going out with dessert. Yeah, six appetizers, three desserts. Order every post-dinner cocktail. We’re just going, man. And key lime pie is one of my favorites. I love tart. That was the theme running through the whole thing. Tart, herbacious, nothing too cloying. Ooh! Oh, okay. You guys have got that Graham cracker crust perfect! That is exactly right! Dense and buttery, it’s the only way to go. Mm, but that crunch with it. Hearty. So good and so tart. I want my lips to pucker. Mmm, mmmmm. So good. So my one last question. You mentioned we would all be foolishly arrogant to say we know what happens when we die, but if you were a betting man, and I don’t know if you are, but you had to say what happens when the lights finally go out, what do you think happens in your heart of hearts? My hope is that we do get to go around again, and the thought of a hell, or more so even the thought of a loving God, of something that has made us, that loves us, I can’t picture that being sending someone to hell for all of eternity. Doesn’t add up. It doesn’t add up. I feel like there’s so much more to learn and my thought is, as beautiful as life can be, as we’re experiencing with this food, there is a lot of suffering in this world. I think this could be its own form of a hell, it could be its own form of a going through it again, maybe, to try and figure it out. I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is. Again, my hope is that I’m doing it right. That’s all I hope. I hope that I’m doing it right and I’m going to continue to keep my mind open, continue to keep my heart open, continue to learn as much as I can so that way I can do it right and if I’m not doing it right this time around, I hope I get to go around again and maybe do it better next time. Call it and mull again, one more go. We’re rolling it back, folks. Corbin, you ready to get into the lightning round? Let’s do it! By the way, we have a lightning round. Cool! Other than me, of course, who is the one person dead or alive you’d want to spend your actual last meal with. Sasha. It was always Sasha. It’s ma wife. Who’s your dream eulogizer at your funeral? Oooh, Barrack Obama. That’s, oh my God. Oh, he would kill that so hard. Right? He would kill that. How do you wanna be remembered after you die? I would love to be remembered as someone who brought positivity or at least joy into other people’s lives. From a direct place, I mean, from a place of spreading kindness. But also, I would love to be remembered for my work. I really… And I think that’s too where I say I know that there’s a lot more that I wanna do in my career. I’m very proud of my career thus far and I have been blessed enough to have done so many different mediums from film and television and stage and drama and comedy, music, as a recording artist, as a dancer, as a producer, as a host, but I still feel like there’s so much more that I want to do and I would really love to, I mean… As performers, as actors, we love the applause, we love the immediate gratification that comes with that, and I think that, I would hope that people would remember that. Yeah. Finally, are you happy, existentially? I am so happy. You seem happy. I’m so happy because I have love in my life and it goes back to… You said who would you wanna have your last meal with. I truly, I’m madly in love with my wife. It’s ridiculous. Like we’re both, it really is. We’re really gross. I’m happy ’cause I have love in my life. I think there are parts of me that aren’t, just because I do look at the world and humanity on a whole. There are times where I’m just like, what are we doing? It’s tough out there. I feel like we’re moving… I feel like we really are just going in the wrong direction. But I do believe that we can’t, we can’t control the world as a whole, and growing up, I always like the, I can change the world. If I can inject that positivity… And I do think that we can change the world but I think it’s on a much more maybe smaller or even, it’s on a scale that if you can change one and then another can change another one, and it’s within creating your world, your own people that you can connect with and touch with, then yes, you can create a more positive world and I feel like I’m trying to do that. I feel like I’m doing that within my world, within my circle, and that fills me with joy. Before you die, do you have any last words? My last words. I hope I get to find out what this was all about, but if I don’t, love made it worthwhile. Corbin, that was on the spot? I’m gonna get a tattoo of that on my wrist. It’s either or put the shopping cart away. That’s the simplest thing. The one thing you can do! Just walk it to the place! 30 seconds! Please! I take five every time I go. I just pick them up! I do the same thing! It drives me nuts! Just put in the thing. People put it right in front of the car. There are rules! There are rules in society! That’s the dichotomy that we’re dealing with here. Corbin, thank you so much for stopping by, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the insane meal and for spending time with me, man. Of course, of course. And make sure to check out Corbin on High School Musical: The Musical the series. Seasons one and two are on Disney Plus right now. You coming in for season three? Coming in for season three, man. It’s gonna be good. We’re filming it right now. The cast that’s there right now is insanely good. And it should be. That sounds awesome, man, can’t wait. Can’t have to have you… We gotta have you over. We gotta cook for you next time. I’m down. I got nothing else to do. I’m sure, yeah, absolutely. Tonight? What you doing tonight? I have a fitting that I gotta get to. Right now, which… Wardrobe department’s gonna hate me right now. Everything’s three sizes bigger. And thank y’all for stopping by Mythical Kitchen. We got new episodes for you every week. We got new episodes of our podcast, A Hotdog is a Sandwich, every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up on Instagram and TikTok @mythicalkitchen with pictures of your mythical dishes under #DreamsBecomeFood. See you next time. Corbin, we got one more surprise for you. One more surprise. I can’t! It’s more food? No, it’s not food. Corbin, get in the wheel barrow. Corbin, I’m not joking! You actually! Get in the wheelbarrow! You said you wanted to be carted out. We’re gonna take you out like a NASCAR driver. In the trash. There you go. We’re taking you to a farm. We’ve got a beautiful farm upstate. It’s gonna be beautiful. I lived and ate well. The Mythical Kitchen’s favorite way to obliterate garlic, immortalized in T-shirt form. Get the Palm Heel Strike Tee now at mythical.com.