Peter Dinklage, director Elliot Goldenthal, and Andrew Schulz dissect House of the Dragon's risky writing versus Hollywood's reliance on sequels, while Dinklage advises against online child photos despite his fame. They debate shifting from male to female villains in The Thicket to avoid victim tropes, contrast communal theater with isolated streaming, and argue AI cannot replace human dialogue innovation. Ultimately, the conversation champions failing better over perfection and preserving hope in an era of shortened attention spans. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Game of Thrones vs House of Dragons00:14:32
Do a lot of dwarves have beers?
Shut the f ⁇ up.
No.
Talk to Janarian men, to be exact.
Those are old guys.
Okay.
I knew that word.
We're leveling it up.
I'll bring it down.
I'll bring the both of you.
Your life is Game of Thrones.
This show is House of Dragons.
Williamsburg was crazy in the 90s.
It was just affordable.
It was all the...
It's all the curlies were there.
The globalists.
Wow.
Right.
Short.
Bonziklaga.
HBO was really worried about Game of Thrones.
Dragons, we do like Wire and Soprano.
But it was the risk.
With great risk comes great reward.
Do you have people in the dwarf community reaching out and saying, listen, bro?
In the tree hollow?
I daren't say where they live, Jesus.
Hold on, let me call them.
It's really small.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Flagrant.
Today, I am incredibly excited.
Maybe the most excited I've ever been to do an episode of Flagrant.
Okay, we have an illustrious guest.
I think the first time that I met him, I said season two of a specific show, his character was the greatest season that a character has ever had in the history of television.
I think that's what I said.
Yeah.
And then he said, can you leave me alone, please?
I don't think that second part was true.
We have Peter Dislich.
Let's go.
Now, we also have...
Yes.
The special effects are high here.
We also have Elliot with us, guys.
And what's up, Elliot?
Fearless director of Peter's new movie.
And Andrew.
No, no, this is your guy.
We're going to film, not a movie.
Okay, my bad.
Highbrow.
I need to be higher brow.
You do.
How do I do it?
I'm fucking fuck.
Can you teach me how to be more sophisticated when I talk about the cinema?
Yeah.
Oh, now you got a fresh new wave.
It's rubbing off of it.
It is, yes.
Okay.
We're very excited to have you because you barely do podcasts.
You don't do anything.
I don't do anything.
Outside of just being part of like, you know, huge movie franchises and TV shows, sorry, film.
Yeah.
There are, you know, when researching you, there's like three things on the internet.
Yeah, right.
You have a Mark Marin.
You have an address that you gave your college.
That was a highlight.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Very cool.
That's really awesome.
Very cool.
That was very cool.
And it was like about 20 years after I graduated, I guess.
And the school hasn't lost its beauty.
And the kids, they look so young.
Yes.
We think we're adults at that age and they just look like children.
So that just means we're all old.
But that's good that you think they look like children because sometimes in Hollywood, you're like, they're too young.
Look how young.
You're on the right side of the screen.
I would never think that I'm appropriately.
21 yet.
Where does your dorm room?
Yeah, no, that was a highlight.
But I do things.
I do things.
I do this.
I do things.
This is rare.
You got to do things.
You got to sell the cars.
The more you do things, though, I drink a lot of coffee when you pour the wine.
You start talking your mouth off, especially with friends.
Yes.
And you just get in trouble.
This is.
So actors should because it's taken out of context.
It's taken and used for somebody else's agenda.
Yes.
Anything hot button.
We won't talk about anything hot button.
Talk about what you had for breakfast.
That's all we're going to do.
They dare anybody to turn it into their own agenda.
Yes, I agree.
But they will.
They will.
They will.
Now, you did have a good opinion about the Olympic opening ceremony.
I did not see it, but I heard Gaga was great and Celine.
Oh, I heard it rained.
It did rain.
But literally, I didn't even know the Olympics were happening.
Oh, no way.
I've been upstate.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Hey.
You know what I mean?
I'm a patriot.
We're a globalist.
Wait a minute.
A globalist?
What does that mean?
Part of the Hollywood agenda?
That doesn't mean when you're pro the world.
That's humans.
That's the animals.
I love animals.
That seems all the aliens in the universe.
No, not all of them.
Yeah.
No.
No, there's a few.
Yeah, I feel like there's a few.
There's just a few.
Are we talking about the animals or the humans?
Can we just rank the human?
No.
Let's get the most.
I can't have a forecast.
Can you swear on this?
Of course.
You have to care.
Whatever you are.
Yeah.
Badge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So you can really do whatever you want here.
Really?
Yeah.
Elliot, we're going to have to keep Elliot buttoned up.
Clothes on.
Yes.
Dude, Elliot has a piece on him.
Did you know that?
He has what on him?
He's got a like a real tool?
He's got a weapon.
Oh, yeah.
He showed it.
He showed it to us when we were out in college.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When that's you got the part.
I thought I got it on my merits.
No.
He was like, let's compare foreskin.
You got the part, then got the part.
That's how it goes.
That is 100% correct.
Do you have the foreskin?
No, I don't.
But he doesn't either.
He's a huge Jew.
That's not just the domain of the Jews.
There's some other people that have it.
Catholics.
I don't think Catholics have to do it.
We did back in the day.
Yeah.
Market, really?
Catholic.
Yeah, I'm Catholic.
I was raised very Catholic and I'm still, you know, just wrapped up.
It's like my third version of birth control.
You know what I mean?
You just tie it off at the end.
That's real.
No conduct.
Condo.
Double down.
No foreskin abstinence.
No pregnancy skin.
Fantastic.
Extra baby.
No, no, no.
I still don't know.
Yeah, no, that adds it up.
Wait, you went to Catholic school.
That's something I learned in my top sector research.
All boys Catholic high school.
Oh, wow.
Very healthy for a guy like me.
Wait, why?
Because I wasn't about to talk.
No, no, dude, hold on.
I'm going to set you back a couple years.
Because it's, you know, we're not going through much when we're going through puberty anyway.
No, no, no.
So it doesn't matter.
And just guys.
Just guys who are really jacked up.
Yes.
No, I mean, it was a really, my mom gets so mad at me when I just, you know, and because she's like, it was private.
We paid for it.
It was really a beautiful, lucky place to be.
But no, when you're that age, you don't really understand that.
You understand, like, nobody understands me.
And I'm going to start smoking cigarettes and hang out with like the Judd Nelson and the breakfast club crowd.
Okay.
Now, I'm glad you brought up the Judd Nelson Breakfast Club crowd because in doing my research, you said this that you would wear.
Just Judd Nelson.
No, not Judd Nelson.
First time I've ever brought up Judd Nelson in conversation.
But I think Judd inspired that you would wear capes.
Judd Hirsch inspired, I think.
I don't know.
You're mixing your job.
It's too sophisticated for me right now.
I don't even know.
I don't know if you're not going to be able to do that.
I mean, it's still called some movies.
You got to dump it on the bottom.
Yeah, yeah.
Judd Hirsch.
No, capes.
You said you would wear capes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Black velvet capes.
A lot of black.
Jesus.
A lot of black capes.
Yeah.
Combat boots.
Okay.
Mullets.
Which just was the thing.
What's the reasoning?
What's going on here psychologically?
What are you trying to do?
That's exactly why I wore the capes because of people like you.
Trying to get underneath me and never understanding.
No, I think it's protection.
It's a shield.
It's hiding.
Were you sassy with it?
Like, would you ever like fuck every time I exited the room?
I did rock a beret.
Yeah.
My dad had the beret.
Yeah, the berets.
Berets were popping.
Yeah, he still wears a beret.
Yeah, he does.
Yeah.
I haven't.
I put away my beret.
Yeah.
I tried to wear it to school once.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Raspberry Beret made it a thing.
I don't know.
Like a lot of Jersey kids were wearing berets after that song came out.
But you also, you used to wear top hats.
Yeah, I had a little top hat fades.
Like you went through a top hat.
Yeah, but I was just trying to get laid.
Yeah, because top hat will get you laid.
Yeah.
I think you would start a conversation.
I was certain someone.
Yeah, yeah.
Men.
Where's the monocle?
What you hiding in there?
Are you a top?
I'm a top.
Men.
Noctogenarian men, to be exact.
Those are old guys.
Okay.
I knew that word.
I knew that word.
That's 80s.
Yeah, yeah.
80s.
We're leveling it up.
I'll bring it down.
I'll bring the vote right now.
I'll say movies, not films.
I'll say, I'll say magazines, not books.
Please.
Listen, listen.
Your life is Game of Thrones.
This show is House of Dragons.
You just have to dump it down.
That's not fair.
Unfair of him.
We all saw season eight of Game of Thrones.
You never watched Game of Thrones, man.
I always love getting that.
Like, you were on Game of Thrones.
I've never seen it.
Yeah, we're just identifying me.
I haven't, you know what?
Shit.
Are you the most identifiable human being on the planet?
Yes.
It's funny.
You have a nap.
The problem with this is like coffee gets here.
Just use Mark.
Game of Thrones.
Yes, it's not just.
No, I don't.
I mean, this is not fooling anybody, but sunglasses and hat.
Everybody's like, why are you just fucking trying?
I really did have a moment, though, when we used to.
God, we got out of me and my family got out of Chelsea when Game of Thrones was really hitting and we had to move out.
So we moved to Brooklyn where everybody's just a bit calmer.
But I was walking up 10th Avenue towards our old apartment and I was being harassed a little bit.
You know, people mean well, but and Leonardo DiCabrio walked right by me in a baseball cap and sunglasses and he just went, he made me a little.
And I was like, God, they don't even know because they're not looking for Leo.
They just see me.
But, you know, no big deal.
99.9%, 80% of the time.
They mean well.
And the other 20%, you just don't want to give them a lecture.
Yeah.
It is a funny thing because in terms of like you're on the biggest show ever.
And then in terms of recognizability, they're going to hit.
Like immediately they're locking it in.
Well, they're confused while you're there.
Like on the street or getting a coffee or something.
They're just trying to, they're they.
Again, they mean that.
They're just.
Thank you.
They're just confused.
Yeah.
They don't get it.
Also, I think when you watch someone, this is different where film is different from television.
Is it like I remember watching The Wire when I was younger and those people were that was their real life?
Yeah.
They weren't actors to me.
Right.
Well, there's that.
Yeah, that shows.
It's incredible.
But I think the same thing happened with Game of Thrones.
Was like, oh, this is the world that I'm just a voyeur in.
And then you see somebody just walking their daughter getting coffee.
And it's like, yeah, that doesn't make sense at all.
Why aren't you writing?
And you were also so good in that show.
And to his point, we spent years getting so long.
Tyrion.
Yeah, that's the thing.
It's a familiarity, unlike a movie.
It's a familiarity.
Yeah, 90 minutes.
I just have to point out, like, before we met, I thought Tyrion was this ingenious character that you concocted.
And then we hung out one night and party.
And I was like, I don't even know if he's acting.
This guy is fucking getting after it, dude.
Like, what happened?
I almost wanted to read the book and see if you just made him you.
No, it wasn't me.
Dave and Dan are writers.
Yeah.
They're so good.
They're so good.
Yeah, I haven't watched House of Dragon because I feel like what I don't know.
It just, I just spent so many years doing that show.
Yeah, it's a little close.
I'm watching other things now.
Maybe one day.
But I will say it is wild.
It's not, it's, I miss that show, but it's like I miss the life of it more because it's nine years.
And you know, it's just such a thing.
It's such a big chunk of your life, which is rare.
I will say the difference is like, because I'm obviously a huge fan of Game of Thrones and I've been a fan of House of Dragons.
Is I think what some Hollywood execs thought is the reason people like Game of Thrones is the dragons.
And I don't think they realize that it was like exquisite writing.
Yeah.
And it was.
You hear it.
It's like I love Breaking Bad because those guys are so good, but you hear that crispy, like Vince Gilligan writing.
You're like, this is how people talk, but it's so elevated.
Dense.
Every sentence.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And it's not just like it's not like you read some scripts and you're like, there's so many scenes where it's just somebody asks a question, somebody answers it.
And it's just so sort of dense.
Meaningless.
It's just, that's not how people talk.
Yeah.
Wait, what do you mean by that?
That's not how people talk.
No, no, no.
They're not supposed to ask, you know, not how people talk in life.
Yeah.
They talk over each other.
They do fits and spurts of poetry and like they forget their chain of thought.
It's a really good writers know that.
Yeah.
And then it's fucking hard to make it look natural.
But like, that's the thing.
It's who is I?
Oh, John Goodman.
I heard a, I think it was a podcast.
There we go.
John Goodman talking about that, like the Cone brothers.
Like, you think it's so good and so fresh, you feel like those guys are just improving.
Fame Arriving Too Late00:16:20
Yeah.
But no, it's written.
Every line they're just faithful to.
Yeah.
And you say Breaking Bad.
You go outside the lines and it's like it falls apart if it's a really good script.
You know, if you the thread, the sweater will become unthreaded and that you'll lose it.
But you stick to those lines.
And I remember watching watching Game of Thrones, like there were certain lines that I remember almost like rap lyrics.
The chaos is a ladder.
I drink and I know things.
Or a t-shirt.
But they become t-shirts.
Yeah.
Which obviously we're going to commodify everything.
This is like America.
Yes.
They haven't heard thought of that before.
Yeah.
And but it's so impactful.
Like, okay, this is it.
And that's what I was going to say.
Like Breaking Bad, maybe the best show ever.
I love it.
But there's, I remember I Am the Danger.
I remember that one thing.
I'm the one who knocks.
I'm the one who knocks.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Or come on.
For Game of Thrones, you get a few of those every season.
Like a few of those, Chaos is a ladder.
Like you said, these things, holy shit, that's going to happen.
Something Saul Goodman.
Yeah, yeah.
I fancy myself a little smart, but I was like, oh, God.
Why didn't I put that together?
Yeah, I didn't even see that.
Yeah, that is perfection.
The light tour, the last leg, this is it.
Atlantic City, we've added a second show on August 24th.
Then we got San Antonio.
We added a second show.
Then we have Las Vegas, September 13th.
That's the sphere weekends.
We are all going out to Vegas for the sphere.
On Friday, we're coming to the life tour in Vegas.
And on Saturday, we're going to UFC, the sphere.
Then we got Cleveland and Columbus.
Then we have Minneapolis.
Then we have Milwaukee.
Denver, we've added a third show.
That's going to be October 16th through the 17th.
We added a third show.
October 18th, Cincinnati, we've added a second show.
Rama, Ontario, we're up there.
Then Salt Lake City, we've added a second show.
Reno, Nevada, we have two shows.
San Jose, we've added a second show.
Portland, and then Honolulu, Hawaii.
And then the life tour is over.
So if you want a chance to check out the life tour, this is the craziest tour I've ever done.
This is the tour that brought all of my dreams.
Made all of them come true.
Actually, you guys actually made all of them come true.
But I think it is by far my best work and is the work that I'm most proud of.
I would love if you guys come and check it out.
These are your opportunities to check it out before it is over.
TheandrewSouls.com.
Do not get hit over the head by the scalpers.
I will see you guys out there.
Peace.
What's up, guys?
It's date time.
This is important.
I'm going to start doing a monthly show at New York Comedy Club.
People in New York don't even realize I live here.
They keep asking when I'm going to come.
I'm going to do about 20, 30 minutes at this show once a month along with some friends.
I'm going to do a big chunk of time at New York Comedy Club.
First show is August 14th, New York Comedy Club.
Also, August 29th and 30th, I'm going to be in Honolulu, Hawaii.
September 6th and 7th, I'm going to be in Vegas.
September 12th and 13th, I'm going to be in Doral, Florida.
And the 19th and 20th, I'm going to be in Timonium, Maryland, which I'm pretty sure is outside of Baltimore, but I don't really know.
28th Greensville, South Carolina.
And we are going to have more dates coming at you guys.
Go to akashing.com for those.
Also, if you want the best Jai in the city, go to my brother's Jai shop that I have also invested in Fontenias.
That's F-O-N-T-A-I-N-H-A-S.
Go there, check it out.
Best Jai in the City, or I'll give you your goddamn money back.
Let's get back to the show.
I won't give you your money back, probably, but I'll think about it.
Let's talk.
When the idea of playing the rule comes up, is it?
Do you not even care that it's fantasy?
Are you just looking at it?
Were you familiar with the books?
Genre has nothing to do with it.
Nothing to do with it.
Sadly, though, sometimes genre, I don't know.
I mean, I was raised in the 80s where it was like before Lord of the Rings.
You had like just like B movies.
The fantasy was like B movies.
Yeah.
Beastmaster and like they weren't because they're so expensive to make.
It's hard to, you know, to make it look good.
Yeah.
No fault of any filmmaker was struggling to make those things.
But, you know, then I guess probably I fell in love with sci-fi because of Star Wars and Blade Runner and the ones that were done really well.
Yeah.
But fantasy was always sort of like, really?
Yeah.
I mean, we had Jim Henson, like Dark Crystal, which was really cool when I was a kid, but everybody sort of shied away from it because it was a certain thing and it wasn't elevated enough.
So Star Wars.
They were worried.
HBO was really worried about the Game of Thrones.
Yeah.
They were like, there was a few people who really believed in it, and Dave and Dan, especially in their writing.
But because of that, I think they were just like, dragons, but we do like The Wire and Soprano Twitter.
Yeah, Mafia.
That's so not what.
But they're mafia.
And as you with great risk comes great reward.
Yes.
And every day.
And I wish people did it more because then we have knockoffs and sequels.
And it's like, I'm missing that risk.
So you think that's what's happening right now with film?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
There's a concern about risk.
Yes.
But I think being inundated by all these remakes and stuff, that are sort of flopping at the box office.
They just are like.
But aren't you learning a lesson because of that?
Nope.
It's really hard.
And I wouldn't begin to know how to run a studio, but I think you've already spent some money developing these scripts.
We're already at the gate.
Just unlock the gate, let us run.
And if we mess up, we mess up, but we might not.
And it might be great.
Yeah.
But I just don't understand, you know, reasoning, that reasoning.
I was talking to a guy who's in the business, and he was saying that the studio model is there's a guy who works there who might be in love with film.
Like he truly might love it, and that's why he ended up getting the job.
But his job is put out eight movies a year.
Right.
That's the job.
A quota.
A quota of movie.
And whenever you have a quota, like if you're a cop with a quota, you're going to arrest some, you know.
What?
White partner.
I was wanting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We should be the, like, go on the dating game.
That's the number one.
Yeah, we kind of were doing it already.
How long do you spend washing your hair?
Five minutes.
Three hours.
Three hours.
You really should.
We should just go out tonight, the three of us.
Yeah, we'll just see what happens.
Yeah, yeah.
Because we're going to attract three very different types of people.
Were girls just throwing it at you like crazy?
No, when?
Come on, when?
Game of Thrones?
Would you have there?
Come on.
There had to be some.
Game of Thrones, even if you're married, whatever.
No, present itself.
Just the presentation.
Thank God sort of already had kids when Thrones was hitting.
Shout out to your wife, incredibly talented, lovely.
She's a creator director.
But back to the girls throwing it at you.
So I rejected it.
It's a weird thing because when fame comes a little later, you're just like, okay, great.
It's happening.
But then maybe you sort of know how to navigate it better.
But I'm the personality which probably should have had more fun when I was younger.
But those people who are getting that full, like, all right, let's say men who are famous at a young age who are having the opposite sex or the same sex throwing themselves at them.
How would you ever trust that?
Yeah.
Like, how do you, I mean, you know, how do you trust that?
It's, yeah, you're not falling from me.
You're falling for this idea of I'm not that, you know, so it's, it's very, and, and I'm sure a lot of young people can speak much more eloquently than I can about it because they're living through it as we speak.
But yeah, that would be, and I'd see the young people on thrones, which is huge.
We go to Spain and, you know, there'd be people in the lobby like, hello.
What do you want to do?
And it was just like, wow, that must be very good.
It was like being a heavy metal musician in the 80s.
Right.
A motley crew.
It was like our version of that and what those guys must have just had experience.
Sorry, if we can backtrack a little bit, you've probably spoken about this, but if you can indulge us, when you get the script for Game of Thrones, when you read Tyrion's character as the first season is being filmed, what are you thinking?
Are you thinking like, this is what I've been waiting for?
I've never really gotten a role like this.
I'm sure you get a lot of bullshit roles and like stuff that you're like, this is the same fucking thing I always get.
Then you get this guy, Tyrion, who's so complex, so smart, so layered.
Are you like, I get to flex now?
And then are you like, this is going to be it?
Yeah, yeah.
No, yes, I get to flex, but I'm sort of maybe cynical about if something feels that good.
It's not going to work.
It's not going to work.
Nobody's going to buy this.
In the first season, we didn't have any money, truly.
I mean, it's all relative.
We had some money.
But even at the end, if you visit our base camp, our trailers were the same as they were in the first season.
It was really, and I think that's what made the spirit of all of us come together so well in the crew.
We roughed it, man.
You really would never know.
Our salaries got higher as it went along, but the conditions were kind of great, like an indie movie almost.
I mean, the sets were extraordinary, and the costumes were extraordinary.
That didn't feel indie, but the vibe did.
And I think that's what really.
But to answer your question, no, I was kind of cynical, like, this is great.
Nobody's going to go for it.
After it's weird.
After the first season, did they start expanding your role?
Do you think that they saw something special?
I don't know if you start expanding it, but they definitely started what happens in TV.
They start to write for the actor.
They gear it to your strengths and challenge your weaknesses.
Oh, like, so what did they try to challenge for you?
Oh, shit.
I set myself up.
Yeah.
He's like, my ability to act good.
I don't think.
No, I told them, you know, I knew David Benioff a little bit and I got to know Dan, thankfully, who now are two of my close friends.
We're also the only Americans on that show.
I mean, some of the producers were American, but I was the only American cast member.
Mamoa was American.
He was on for the first season.
That was a fun, fun season.
But so we sort of just got like houses and everybody else would sort of commute back and forth to London.
So the three of us sort of spent a lot of time together being like sort of missing our families and being the Americans abroad.
But they definitely started.
You could feel them warming up and making your, you sort of become synonymous.
So they start to understand you and how you're going to play this character and then they write towards that.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, they all had, they had the long, the long game in their mind the whole time.
The map of the whole thing was exquisite.
But yeah, I just wanted to not be a fantasy dwarf.
I wanted to like, not to be crass, but I wanted to have a dick.
Yeah.
And like, and that's so like, it's like, you know, when clinically, what you are is, has become sort of poached by the fantasy world as a term for somebody who's not human.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like a gnome or an ogre or whatever else.
There's a hunter fairy, pixie, leprechaun, elf, everything.
Dwarf.
No, no, that one's real.
That one's actually a thing.
There's no gnomes in the world, but that's a thing.
But therefore, when you do that, you're clipping your bones.
You've got all kinds of fantastical things.
Dragons, unicorns, dwarves.
Yeah.
You're just clipped.
And I was like, I can't be clipped, guys.
I can't be clipped.
Akash has a.
And they do that with not just people my size.
That's what I say.
They do that with nationality.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, we've got to be careful.
Who, who, who do they do?
Who?
Oh, throughout the time.
They were not talking about what we were talking about before.
Every slave movie has black people in it for some time.
When do we DI that?
Why do we all lie slave owners?
Why slave owners always got to be white?
What's that about?
Disgusting.
That's negative stereotypes, dude.
Crazy stuff.
Oh, my God.
Crazy stuff.
Yeah, there's a...
I thought it was, I thought it was pretty cool as I was looking at all the things that you've done.
Again, I don't know.
I don't know when you first started maybe getting into it.
There's certain things you have to do, but it seemed like you made a choice not to play any of those roles that you would probably get offered somewhere.
Oh, I can imagine.
Yeah, early days.
Now they know better.
So we're not going to send that to Pete.
Yeah.
He'll be upset.
No, no, they just, I'll just quick now.
Most people that want to be an actor.
Let me let me rephrase that.
Most people want to be famous and they want to be famous through acting.
Yeah.
We'll grab at it every day.
Yeah.
It's the difference.
And it's a culture we're living in.
A lot of kids are asked, what do you want to be when you grow up and they say famous.
It's hard because everybody's unique, coming at it from their unique angle.
And I can only speak for my angle on what I wanted to do.
And I think it's more to do with the people you surround yourself with, the people you're lucky to find along the way.
Like I call it the tribe.
You know, you become friends with really good writers, really good directors, and you start to do that together because we're nothing without each other.
We can't act in a vacuum.
It's collaboration.
So that's you sort of hook your wagon to talent and hopefully friendships.
And they're usually the same thing.
Do you have people in the dwarf community reaching out and saying, listen, bro?
In the tree hollow?
I didn't say where they lived.
I didn't say where they lived, Pete.
Hold on, let me call them.
It's really small.
That's dwarfish.
What did you say?
What did you say?
That's dwarfish for somebody to page me.
You guys remember pagers?
I'm just asking him.
You think they're on a fucking group chat or something?
Yeah, I had a real thoughtful question, Mark.
I'm sure there are.
I'm just not on those group chats.
No, You know that your fake Instagram account has four and a half million people.
No way.
I met that person once at a press conference in Barcelona, maybe.
You believe them when they said that they ran it?
No, it was.
And he's really a young guy.
And I went, oh, I didn't know how to process it because he was like, isn't that great?
I'm that guy.
I'm really trying to, he was like, he, it was like he was being altruistic, like helping me or something.
And I was like, no, I'm trying to.
You can do what you want to do.
Just be kind and don't put pictures of my kids.
And I just went right for that.
Yeah.
I admonished him for that.
And he was so kind of, it was hard to argue with him because he was really sweet.
Yeah.
You know, young and he, and he never did since I checked a couple of times just to make sure he wasn't.
And he didn't.
Yeah.
You can't do that, man.
Yeah.
Leave the kids there.
That's off limits.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The kids.
There's a couple things that are off limits and everybody instinctually should know those things as humans.
Yeah, but the desire for attention makes you often look the other way.
Yeah, that's the thing.
I know.
At what age did you...
Yeah.
But it's strange when people set those up.
It's more attention for me than them.
So is it what I don't think what's the reasoning?
They couch it.
They see the numbers go up.
They still get the gamified dopamine hits from the platform.
Taylor Swift and Cassettes00:06:54
Right, right, right.
So anything the more shocking get more, I guess.
Yeah, especially if they don't have kids, if they're young, then they're just like, oh, yeah, it's just content.
You know, my cousin posts their kids.
Like, why can't you?
Yeah, and we're also living in a culture where people are posing on magazine covers with their newborn babies.
Yeah.
I actually worry about that.
Like, I have, I just had a daughter.
I know.
It's fucking awesome.
That's the coolest thing ever.
I did not know that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, God, the best.
Yeah.
It's the fucking coolest thing ever.
I thought you guys are good friends.
How do you not keep up with this guy at all?
I mainly ask him the questions.
So I know a lot about what's going on.
You're going to follow his fake account.
Yeah, that's where you are.
Yeah, I'm going to send you the fake account.
It's great.
It's really cool.
I wore capes too, but you never fucking asked me.
No, but it's one of those things where it's like, it's the coolest thing I've ever created in my entire life.
My wife and I.
She did most of the creating.
For sure.
And it's God complex.
But don't they have it?
Yeah.
It's right just making lifelinks.
But at the same time, I feel like, okay, right now she could look like any baby, but once she starts to look like just her, I'm like, okay, I don't think she can ever be on social media, at least not mine.
I don't want anybody to be able to recognize her.
But it's also this thing that I'm so proud of.
They've become their own person, too.
And they're not doing this anymore.
They're eye-rolling.
Okay.
So that's, I'm a little bit terrified of that too.
Are you at the point where the kids are going, hey, I need my own time, Dad?
Like, you're bothering yourself.
I'm not going to them.
I've had to go film a movie.
I mean, the greatest thing is they do, they're their own person.
Yeah.
And your parents will tell you the same thing.
It's like, it's then it's not overnight.
It's gradual.
And they're always their own person.
And you just, you're, yeah.
How old are you?
You don't, you can't take the credit anymore.
The credit sort of fades away.
And then, and then, yeah, it's cool.
Yeah.
How old are you?
How old are you?
12 and 6.
12 and 6.
Oh, you 12 is 6.
This is real human.
Yeah.
She sure is.
Ideas, opinions.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Telling you how the world is.
Yep.
Yep.
What is something she told me?
What is something?
Oh, it's great.
Shakespeare's overrated.
No, it's just, it's just great to just be, just have enlightening conversations with your kids.
But what was she saying?
Oh, God.
I mean, I mean, you know, Taylor Swift.
I can tell you anything about Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift is, let's talk about culturally Taylor Swift.
Yeah, the real.
Because I'm in it.
I'm in it deep.
And anybody with kids, not in, what?
Anybody who's like, ah, talk about that thing.
Culturally.
Anybody with a tween can tell you the same thing.
Taylor Swift is just huge.
I mean, she's everywhere.
Get out of here.
But I think, and I'm like, I think she's fantastic.
But I also go, but what about Nirvana?
What about the Beatles?
What about this?
What about that?
But it's like Taylor all the way.
And my son loves Nirvana.
And I'm like, thank God.
And we blast the Nirvana in the car when we're together.
But when you're not around, Taylor Swift.
Yeah, but it's, it's, and I think it's like, oh my God, it's what people were like with like the Beatles, with the, like, the old parents were like, what's that?
You know, what is that stuff?
It's all the time.
We're hearing the Beatles.
And it's, but she's really something.
How about politically?
Have you guys had any?
Because she's.
I have no point.
I just wanted to bring up Taylor Swift.
Do you want you want tickets to the show?
Yeah.
Did you go see her?
Have you seen her?
Oh, no.
She saw Gavi Rodrigo, though, which was fantastic.
Oh, yeah.
She's awesome.
Yeah, she's really smart.
And they're really good.
They're so good.
Yeah.
And they've sort of broken through to, you know, what pop music can be a little bit bubblegum and they've like put some real genius behind it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, you're not super, super.
I'm starting to sweat.
Because I bring up like cultural icons that are saying the right thing.
I love their music.
I really do.
And I listen to it all the time.
You got to.
Whose music sucks?
Overrated overrated.
We want to know whose music sucks, Pete.
You know, not Nirvana, obviously.
Who is long gone?
What about the WYZ?
That caveman who was hitting the Rockies.
Yeah, he really did.
But no, but there was like a very famous ska band that was popping up in Jersey back in the day.
Yeah, there was.
It was hugely famous.
Hugely famous.
The Wizzy?
The Wizzy.
You feel that done at all?
It's very familiar.
Very familiar.
The Wizzy.
I like the sucks.
I like the earlier stuff.
Yeah, the early stuff was like, yeah, they kind of fell off for me.
Yeah, what was it?
What do you think happened?
I don't know.
Yeah, do you go?
I heard just they went through different ways.
I heard it was drugs and capes.
A lot of.
I had a huge addiction.
Is this the least known fact about you?
That you were one of the lead singers of a ska band?
We rap, we like, tried to be the Beastie BOYS rap ska, everything.
But you were playing trumpet, which at one gig, because we were so drunk, somebody sat on it.
I don't know how you can sit on a trumpet and completely bend the bell damn um, I still played it.
Um that I had one gig where I just got kicked in the heads.
I still have a scar here from blood was everywhere by a bandmate, or accidentally, of course.
Um, but the thing about bands back then is they don't last long because so you don't have roadies and somebody always there was like our drummer Jim, had a truck.
Okay, so it was.
If you have a truck, we got to load the equipment in your truck, Jim.
And then you know you start to people get a little bit like.
You know Jim maybe wants to hang out afterward and not load up the truck and we there's the one girl that came to the show and you go all share or something.
It was nice, yeah.
No, you want to, you don't want so uh, you just sort of you start to really get at each other.
Yeah, and then the the uh um, the band's mission statement isn't fulfilled.
Some of us want to be actors, some of us want to be not in Whizzy for a long time, and just the nature of it, you know, just you know.
Did you ever step away?
Think about getting the band back together?
Um uh, that would be well surprised.
Come on, I I yeah, i've lost touch with those guys, except for for Jim the drummer.
Um um yeah, they're, they were.
We had a lot of fun.
They're great great, great bunch of people.
We just uh, we're young yeah yeah, and not musicians.
Beyond Just Supplements00:05:05
That's a huge no, that's not true.
A couple of them were real good musicians and would I wasn't, would you write the songs, co-write the lyrics?
Yeah, oh yeah, and did you release?
I feel so old right now.
Oh yeah, I wrote those Whizzy lyrics.
Uh, we didn't release them.
That was.
This is the time of cassettes.
There's a demo on youtube right now.
Really, your demo is on youtube.
Oh nice nice, that was fun.
No, it was fun.
We just got free drinks, and you know it was.
It was a couple years of my life.
Wow, were you living in Williamsburg at the time doing that.
I was.
I was living in Williamsburg.
Dude, you lived in Williamsburg at the time that it was the most dangerous.
Yeah, that's the city in America almost.
I did the a lot of us in the 90s.
You graduate school, you move down to Manhattan.
You don't even think of Brooklyn.
I lived on Ludlow Street oh, Low Side yeah, the smallest apartment and then you moved to Williamsburg because you couldn't afford Manhattan and Low Rest.
As soon as you get a little scratch, you move back into Manhattan and then you get a little fame and you get the out of Manhattan and you move back to Brooklyn, like we live in downtown Brooklyn now, because there's really good schools and people sort of genuinely leave you alone a little bit more.
Williamsburg was crazy in the 90s or what.
It was just affordable and a little uh, empty.
I think New York i've never been there was all the it's all the, all the globalists factory, the globalists.
Yeah yes, the Curlies were there.
Wow right sure, Von Zikla can talk about that.
Calm down, you can talk at it.
Stop talking about the dwarves.
You can talk about the drums.
Our domain is this, and don't get me riled up again.
Yes, but no, it's just because we couldn't, it was cheap.
It was cheap.
They say they are.
No.
I'm not talking about it.
We're not.
Elliot's here.
Elliot is here.
That is hateful.
I know.
Wow.
Very, very, very religious guy.
Yes.
Elliot is a very, your fearless director is a very religious guy.
I know.
He kept Shabbat when we were at the film.
Yeah.
Yeah, we were eating Chinese food.
I still don't know what Shabbat is.
Yeah, what is Shabbat?
What is Shabbat?
Elliot, what is Shabbat?
Shabbat is actually...
Talk into the mic.
Shabbat is actually the most important festival in Judaism.
Can you talk into the mic, please?
Why don't you help your brother?
My brother here.
We're like segregated over here.
It's called the ghetto.
All right, guys, let's take a break for a second.
Let me solve a huge problem.
Hangovers.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Here it is.
Pay attention.
It's done.
At my age, even a night of responsible drinking after shows can absolutely destroy ruin the next day.
You have like a few drinks.
You're like, there's no way I'm going to feel this tomorrow.
No way I'm going to be hungover.
Yes, you are hungover.
This is God's way of letting you know you've had your fun.
Okay.
It's not time for fun.
It's time for parenting.
My point is there is a solution.
Z Biotics has figured it out.
Z Biotics is the world's first genetically engineered pre-alcohol probiotic.
When you drink alcohol, it gets converted into toxic byproduct in the gut.
It's this toxic byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day.
So Z Biotics is a probiotic drink that produces an enzyme to break down this byproduct so you don't feel that hangover.
This is genius.
So just remember to make Z Biotics your first drink of the night.
Have it in there already breaking down that alcohol.
Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow.
Tell you, you have vacations, you got weddings, you have birthdays, you have reunions.
You just want to go out on a Tuesday and you want to get after it knowing you've got something to do on a Wednesday.
Z Biotics has your back.
You go to zbiotics.com slash flagrant.
You're going to get 15% off your first order when you use flagrant at checkout.
Z Biotics is back with 100% money-back guarantee.
So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money.
No questions asked.
So remember, head to zbiotics.com slash flagrant and use the code flagrant at checkout for 15% off.
Thank you, Z-Biotics, for sponsoring this episode and our good times.
Now let's get back to the show.
All right, guys, let's take a break for a second because we got to talk about Symbiotica.
Listen, there's a lot of supplement companies.
This is not just a supplement company.
How many supplement companies do you know that sell Sheila Jeet?
You don't know any, okay?
Unless you live in India or Singapore.
What I'm telling you is they're going the extra mile.
First of all, Shila Jeet is a substance found in rocks in the Himalayas.
It can improve memory, learning abilities, help the brain cope with stress, help joint health, and improve muscle strength and vitality.
The risk is that if you buy the wrong brand, your Sheila Jeet may be tainted with free radicals, mycotoxins, and a bunch of other things that are not good for you.
But with Symbiotica, you know you're getting high-quality shit.
Each jar is manufactured under strict quality control, ensuring consistently pure and safe resin.
And that is what you want.
Now, Shub and his father have been taking this forever.
The Shila Jeet Story00:15:49
He put us onto this.
It is, it's actually pretty amazing.
I'm not going to lie.
A little creepy looking when you first look at it, like something you find on the moon, but it is a vibe.
It is a, I want to like show people what it looks like.
Look at that.
It's like venom from, you know, the Spider-Man movies, but it is a vibe and it has been incredibly helpful.
And yeah, so I would recommend dabbing into the Sheila Jeet.
My point is, whatever your health issues are, it's worth heading to symbiotica.com.
That is C-Y-M-B-I-O-T-I-K-A.com and seeing what they can do for you.
Plus, use the code Flagrant at checkout.
You're going to get 20% off their purchase and free shipping.
Again, that is C-Y-M-B-I-O-T-I-K-A.com.
Promo code flagrant for 20% off.
Your order plus free shipping.
Also, they have these like delicious, incredibly convenient vitamin suckdowns.
We're going to call them suckdowns.
And they just got it figured out.
I would check them out right now.
Check out Symbiotica.
I'm sure they'll have something that you can indulge in and you get that discount.
Now, let's get back to the show.
Why did you end up going with Elliot to make The Thicket?
Why did you what?
Why did you stop?
Just doing it again.
You're doing it again.
Elliot, you want the origin story of the thing?
I like origin stories.
Just to let everybody know, Dinklich and Elliot have made this beautiful film, The Thicket, that they were generous enough to put me in.
And I got this haircut that the internet loved for about a year.
They really were complimentary about it.
They said super kind things.
And it was really awesome.
Yeah.
You're really great in the film, man.
You're very kind to me.
He plays a pimp, kind of.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, look at that accent.
Elliot said you were great too.
Off-camera, so it's real.
No way.
Yeah.
Okay.
And it's wait a second.
We have to talk about how hard you worked.
I did.
I did work hard.
How hard did I work?
I actually have to say, I did work.
Wait, but no, we, you know, I was amazed.
You really dived in.
It was like some real fucking Olivia.
Oh, thanks.
No, you, you, I wanted to maybe save this, but you, what I found remarkable was you really took it seriously.
You took the work seriously.
Yeah, it was cool.
Five fucking days, we were on the phone and you were like committed and you did it.
And we I remember you, I think you were sitting here.
You did like 15, 20 takes.
You didn't it's hard.
Acting's hard.
I'm not good at it.
And I was like, I don't want to, you know.
Not true.
No, actually, I mean, it is hard.
You are not good at it.
But you're good at it.
No, you're really good.
Because it's the thing about comedy.
Comedy is drama twice.
So in order for you to get where you needed to get to, it was almost a very natural thing.
The thing that was fascinating about watching you work was your movement.
This is too serious.
No, I love this.
You got to understand that.
That felt more natural because I did get to hit a woman.
Sorry, man.
I'm your character.
I didn't know this was a fantasy movie.
No, no, no, no.
Go on.
Go on, Elliot.
Why did you add that scene?
That wasn't there.
And then on the day, we're going through something at home.
I knew you'd connect.
I thought, no, I was really, I wasn't surprised.
Okay.
But what I found was interesting with you was, you know, you were doing stunts.
You did fight sequences.
You know, that's not.
Yeah, the fight stuff was really cool.
Fight stuff was really cool.
Here's the thing.
He never tells us anything.
Here's the other thing that he's watching with.
And they have to come together.
Look how gay he's being right now, picking at his hands.
Look how lucky he got.
He was the only actor that got a scene inside.
He literally had 90% of his scenes inside.
And we're out there.
It was minus 35 degrees, which was unbelievable.
Oh, yeah.
But you took direction really well.
You didn't argue.
You riffed, which was, you know.
No, you guys were cool.
It was awesome.
I thought it was really fun.
And I thought it looked beautiful.
Obviously, you know, you sent me the film and just like, it looks so amazing.
And, you know, it's pretty.
I'm very proud of it.
We worked really hard on it.
The guy who wrote the book that this is based on is very excited about it.
Joe Lansdell.
Yeah.
Joe Lansdell.
He's been helping us out with the promotion.
I see.
I mean, he's hyped.
That's always great.
Because adaptations of books are a very hard thing to do.
They have to be separate entities.
And if you're too faithful to it, what's the point?
So we sort of took some liberties.
Yeah, we had a great writer, Chris, and he just sort of changed some things around.
And you have to.
Otherwise, just read the book.
Right.
You're not going to be that faithful.
That's an interesting take.
Most people are like, oh, this wasn't authentic to the book.
But that is a good point.
If you want exactly the book, read the book.
Well, I would argue that people want to see the book come to life.
Yeah.
Sure.
Picture in your hand.
Get it distilled.
Get that essence of it, the spirit of it, but then take liberties, I think.
They did that with thrones.
I mean, those things were, you know, those books.
And Harry Potter.
Yeah.
Harry Potter, I would have to pick and choose.
As a true fan.
Yeah.
Those are really faithful.
I read those to my kids now.
You left a lot out because you needed to for time.
Right, right, right.
But I feel like they definitely cast exactly what you think.
Oh, yeah.
Which is, I mean, I'm all for movie making, obviously, but sometimes it's a shame because the imagination of who you think, you just think of those actors now.
And now with the Game of Thrones, you think of the actors.
So it's hard to read a book after you see the movie.
But no, the big thing was in the book, and one of our other producers years ago had the inspired idea to make the villain a woman because in the book, it's a man, a cutthroat Bill.
And we changed it to a woman.
And I think that opened it up so much.
Yeah.
Let's see if you just make it more realistic.
The woman's developing.
There's a villain.
But you made her ugly.
Well, it's hard with Juliet Lewis, but it was we really.
And you mean that seriously?
I just want to point out because they were going to think you were being sarcastic.
She's beautiful.
And you were being generous.
Come on.
I'm beautiful.
But even now that you're like this.
But you made it a thing.
Why did you make a thing?
I wouldn't make it.
I didn't think you were being real there.
Like, God love me.
Did I do that?
Yeah.
I started that.
You're dead.
No, I think it's just because otherwise it's like all scenes.
He just turned into a bad fly away.
I still do that without the cape.
We made the character of the villain into a woman played by Juliet, the brilliant and beautiful Juliet Lewis.
And I think that sort of was inspired.
And Chris, a guy who wrote the screenplay, ran with that and it made it so much better than like the outlaw gang.
It was really guy heavy, our film, as we all can attest to.
And you don't want the women and the westerns just to be victims, which they are so much.
We're inundated by that.
We're the long-suffering wife.
And it's not just the domain of Westerns.
So it made it really richer because it's not when is this guy going to try and keep this young woman.
It's sort of like she came at it with like a real maternal instinct, like sick and like protective.
And it was really, right?
It got so much on so much deeper level.
Yeah.
She was almost like a parasite to their youth.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Otherwise, it's just sort of, I don't know.
But I like that you guys are, you know, showcasing stories where women are bad.
Yeah.
I think that's what's fun about that.
That's my point.
Exactly.
Like men are the heroes and they save the day for these awful women.
And I think those stories are really important to get out there right now.
You know what I mean?
Elliot, you misogynist.
I mean, that was always going to be the real intention of the film.
Yeah.
I like how you snuck that in there.
Is it that subtle?
I haven't done my job, have I?
No, no, no.
Elliot is obviously a champion of women.
He directed rap videos for years.
Why don't you tell us?
Wow, it's all making sense.
You see?
You see this?
Girls, girls, girls as well.
People think I'm being sarcastic, but like all the music videos that we watched growing up, Elliot directed.
Okay.
Just give us the bangers that.
Oh, Method Man and Redman.
The Rock Waller.
I did Shine.
Wait, which one?
Shine.
Skippity-by-body.
Shine.
Shine Barrel.
That guy did that guy on the trend.
That's a British gangster.
So there's this guy, Shine Barrow.
I said Shine slipped my.
No, no, you'll know this.
What year are we talking about?
I'm going to tell you the story.
It all makes sense.
Shine is this rapper that's come out.
He's a Bolivian guy.
It's coming out.
He was there at the nightclub when Sean P. Diddy Combs allegedly shot an adversary in a nightclub while he was dating J-Lo in New York City.
Shine ends up taking the blame.
Probably done by the lawyers of Sean P. Diddy Combs.
Whoa.
Gets extradited, I believe.
Yeah.
To Belize.
Oh, he's not Bolivian.
He's Belizean.
Belize.
Believe.
So basically, Sean, Sean's like P. Diddy's team of lawyers puts the whole thing on.
And I love Shine, dude.
I thought he was going to be that guy.
Well, it was really Diddy that actually did it.
And now we know Diddy's like a horrible human being that you fraternize with.
I was in that club that week.
So what happened was we were scouting a video for a rapper called Black Rob.
Yeah, of course.
You did Woah.
We did Woe.
It was really sad because these are iconic moments.
So he really should have had one in the thicket, like a rap or something.
Just something like I guess you were the closest to your character in terms of like the rap video and stuff.
Because he's a pimp.
Is that what you're trying to say?
Making that generalization.
I mean, Jesus Christ.
We were in the club that week.
And I remember we had to, we went and met J-Lo and Diddy together.
And he wasn't very nice.
Wait, wait.
Diddy wasn't nice to J-Lo?
I will.
There was a guy called.
Can I understand this?
You're saying Diddy was mistreating the woman he was with?
We were shocked.
I can't believe this.
I know.
What was he doing though?
Well, we did this big pun, big.
So anyway, we really had a hard time calculating the script and the gloss of the thickest.
We can guard him.
Give us the Diddy drama.
Cheers.
We did.
There was a rapper called Big Pun who, you know, was there.
Anyway, so he died.
And we did a tribute video.
And the tribute video we shot in the Bronx and then we shot in Los Angeles and everybody was in it.
Like Noriega, Buster Rhymes, Missy Alley.
We're all in this house in Bel Air.
And Diddy walks in with J-Lo.
And say hi, whatever.
He's always very sweet to begin with.
And then she goes to the top of the stairs, and I'm just watching this argument take place.
And I hear out of the corner of my ear, don't you fucking embarrass me, you.
And I look up, I'm like, what?
And she literally goes white and is like sort of looks down at the floor.
And he's staring at her.
And she goes, okay, but can we have meatloaf from Kate Mantoneali's afterwards?
And that was so that's what it takes.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, but he was heavy.
He was heavy.
I mean, I did when we did Woe, you know, I had, you know, what would happen is everybody would come out from the block.
There'd be like three, four hundred guys like screaming, and it's very hard.
You know, not that they were out of control, but it's three or four hundred people up in Spanish Harlem.
Yeah, and he didn't have to fight.
They'd asked me absolutely fucking terrifying.
Jewish boy from London, you see three to four hundred black and Puerto Ricans.
What is your knee-jerk reaction?
You got invited to the block talking.
So he asked me, What do you do in that?
He asked me for a monitor and a milkshake.
And then I couldn't get that.
Where's my mother?
I'm standing there.
I'm looking at him.
It's like 2 a.m. in the morning.
And then I'm like, I'm so, I'm so sorry.
So I step off and he had a guy who worked with him.
I'm not sure if I can say his name, but he would come.
The guy came up and he just said, We don't like how you sound.
And I'm just like, What do you mean?
He goes, You're a long way from home.
And I was like, Well, what do you mean by that?
He was just like, You better be careful.
And I made sure I always carried a milkshake with me every video I did.
Except for Jay-Z.
I never had to carry a milkshake with you.
What was the video you did with Jay?
I did Girls, Girls, Girls.
How was Jay?
I truly couldn't believe how professional he was and gracious.
And he had it down.
We, you know, at the time, it was the day before 9-11.
We shot that video the day before 9-11.
Wow.
But what were you doing on 9-11?
I mean, he wasn't in the towers.
Isn't that interesting?
No, he said.
He goes, What was 9-11?
He was great.
He made a speech afterwards.
I said to him the day after, I said, On 9-10, he was like, Something crazy is about that.
The blueprint.
The coming out.
Something's in the air.
Yeah.
Literally.
We can't do this.
He made a speech.
He made a speech.
What did he say?
I said, Listen, you're Mr. Fucking New York.
You've got to talk.
And he got up and he said, you know, this is a tragedy and it's a terrible thing.
It was kind of, I was really surprised that he did it, but he felt he needed to do it.
And then we started talking about British gangster movies.
And then I said, he goes, well, what's up?
What are you doing next?
I'm going off to Hawaii.
He goes, why are you going to Hawaii?
I said, I'm going to dive with sharks.
He goes, man, that's dangerous.
And I'm like, wait a second, you just did a fucking double album with R. Kelly.
Don't talk to me.
Elliot, how do you become, how does like a Jewish guy from London become the go-to director for the iconic music videos of our children?
I really don't.
I actually don't know how happened.
Was there one that was so amazing that everybody else started calling?
I worked with Sansi Gold.
I think it was because I worked with Sunshine Goldi Gold.
And she was very, very cool.
And everybody was like, oh, you want to do that?
So she was the tastemaker.
Santi Gold is the tastemaker.
And then Jessica Simpson.
Wait, what'd you do with Jessica Magnificent?
I did her biggest video.
I did this song called With You.
And as soon as you know, as soon as Method Man and Method Man and Redman saw the Jessica Simpson video, like, that's our guy.
And this is when music videos were.
Music Videos and Tastemakers00:08:31
They were movies.
They were, yeah.
And there was an MTV that showed videos.
Yeah.
How do you, how were meth and red?
So I did this video called Derot Wilder.
Yeah.
Classic song.
So how were they?
They were fantastic, but we were shooting up on this big sort of runway.
It was about 50 feet up.
And I said, and there was no safety for them.
And we had this big sort of styrofoam egg.
And they were getting, they were drinking and having a good time.
And I said to Redman, I said, listen, do me a favor, just slow down just for a half an hour.
Stop, just slow down on the boots.
They get up there, roll camera, action, literally comes out, drinks a chugs a bottle of heny.
And you see the beginning of the video, throws a bottle of heny.
And yeah, that's how that was a highlight of the night.
And then we had in the video, they jump on a car and there's pyrotechnics that go everywhere.
Hey, maybe you don't.
Well, you got it right here.
Oh, wow.
Oh, so, so, oh, this little thing drops off 50 feet on each side.
There's no safety.
Oh, wow.
Method man was so cool, though.
Yeah, both of them were the fucking shit.
Just like the slag.
Just go, if you can, go to this.
There's a bit where they jump on a car.
I mean, this is crazy.
So I knock on the door and I say, listen, we've got to do pyrotech.
You know, you've got to talk to the actor or the performer.
Like, we're about, there you go.
It's about here.
So I said to them, just slow down.
And then Reg says, I'm on mushrooms.
And I think they're going to put you on a car and you're tripping your tits off.
And you'll see the expression on his face.
He literally doesn't know where he is.
When he's on the car.
Yeah, when he's jumps on the car.
I mean, them really.
I mean, they are so awful.
But what a great environment, to be sure.
I need to get my son came.
Yeah, he was happy.
Explosions going on.
There you go.
Oh, that's crazy.
Yes.
But they were great.
Okay.
Maybe the pirate doesn't work.
That's so much fun.
I never know.
Black dudes were doing mushrooms back in the day.
They really were ahead of their time.
Yeah, progressive.
Because black psychedelics, I don't think, hit until like kind of recently.
I mean, Jimi Hendrix, yeah.
But then you didn't hop on the wave.
White people really like.
Jimmy, you guys kind of close.
How the hell did we get Jimmy?
I don't know.
Played the one national anthem where they were like fucked out.
That's how it was.
Honestly, guitar.
Electric guitar.
Oh, yeah.
That wasn't.
Black people weren't doing electric guitar.
I didn't care as much.
And Woodstock.
He was a lot of people.
He was white at Woodstock.
A lot of white people at Woodstock.
Is that true?
Yeah, that's where they were making them for a while.
Is that true?
There were mostly white people at Woodstock.
What the fuck is going on?
Where were you guys?
I mean, DMX came.
We almost took it over.
We almost took it over.
We're talking about 60.
The other.
Yeah, you sound like the OG.
69, you guys were like fighting for rights or something like that.
We were just chilling.
Did you say DMX?
Yeah.
DMX would go missing.
Wait, did you have a Mac story?
So on Girls, Girls, Girls, DMX had gone missing for three weeks and he popped up on our set and we had to stop shooting because the person from the record label, I said, listen, come on, I want to keep shooting.
She's just like, no, they haven't seen each other for a long time.
It was like he was a till of the hun or something like that, meeting like his lost, lost son or something like that.
But yeah, he came in, disappeared, grabbed Naomi Campbell, and that was it.
Wait, he was.
That's fire.
Are you saying DMX was having a amorous relationship with the city?
I was saying that they were both there at the same time and then they weren't.
That's all I can say.
I could have gotten away with anything on the set of a thing.
Yeah, no calories.
What were we thinking, dude?
We were so well behaved.
We really were.
I mean, we were just such, we were really just kind gentlemen.
We were just.
It was cold.
It was cold, Elliot.
I'm sorry.
It was really cold.
Why didn't we shoot it in Texas?
I mean, it was an interesting choice because the book is East Texas.
I wasn't geared back to the thicket.
I was just making a joke.
I would like to talk about it.
You can talk about your scene six.
I have to be CC.
I would like to talk about it because when I'm reading this book, it's East Texas.
Yeah, East Texas.
That's where Jake's from.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then where we filmed it is Calgary in February.
That is the coldest part of Canada.
It's unfortunate.
Beautiful.
It's stunningly beautiful.
Very cold.
Very cold.
Gonna shoot it right before the pandemic in Spain in like the desert, more deserty locations.
I mean, that would have been lovely.
Yeah, but that would have been so lovely.
We could have a nice, what is a good Spanish wine reference?
We could have a Rioja.
Beautiful prostitute.
What is that?
What?
What is it?
I think it was a protest.
I think we could protest for something.
Cold.
Because you know what it is with cold movies?
No horse.
It's really, you got to get cozy when you drink it.
My trailer is more like a milk.
Is that the movie?
I totally didn't know that.
Got your heater up.
But it's it looks snow looks so pretty.
You can make a mediocre movie.
You set it in snow and it's gorgeous.
It's stunning.
It really is.
Every movie.
Like this movie is beautiful.
Because snow, I don't know what it is, what it does.
It's just unique for us.
The second you see it, you want to go outside.
It looks really good on the snow.
Yeah.
Horses and snows.
They shot the revenant.
Same exact place.
Right by the parking lot.
I remember watching.
I'm not going to sit there.
Anyway, so I remember seeing he was talking about how hard it was to find the locations and it was like it was brutal and they went all over the world and they found anyway.
So the location come to find him.
We said we go and they go, this is where they shot the revenant.
And it's like, this is incredible.
And I was like, I was imagining, was it really that difficult?
And there was a parking lot literally five feet away.
And I was like, just imagining how difficult that day must have been.
Like we found our location.
The most beautiful location.
Next to a parking lot.
Yeah.
Next to a parking lot.
Leo getting just thrashed by a bear.
Yeah.
Next to a parking lot.
Thrashing.
What did you think it was?
There was a lot of conversation.
Getting fucked by the bird.
Okay, so there was a lot of conversation about that.
That's not how you have dragging around.
I mean, just you're getting me riled up again.
You keep on getting me riled up.
He's a popcorner.
We've talked about that.
Yeah, I'm on my back.
Exclusive.
Popcorn?
Yeah, popcorner.
Yeah, yeah.
What is that?
God, I'm you don't know what a popcorn is?
No, I'm on my back.
Show me.
I'm not going to show you, but I'll show.
Popcorn.
Like you burst into.
No, no, I don't burt, but I just hit a little pop-pop.
Like, I'm on my back.
But I just, you know, every once in a while and let her know I'm still here.
Or Renbacher.
Exactly.
Yeah, just because once she forgets if she thinks that this is just her world, then I just remind her, no.
Smile.
Why?
Is that your game?
Are you a back?
Are you a popcorn?
You got to get on your back.
I don't know the term.
Are you more revenant?
Missionary.
You know, in the cape style.
The lazy.
Until 1986.
You don't know about the 1986 move.
Bringing the cape into the bedroom is fire, dude.
Never?
That is.
No, that is just the death of anything attractive or sexual.
Yeah, but just as like a finishing movie.
What about a top hat?
That's crazy.
Top hat is great.
Something to just rest your elbow on.
You've done this before.
This has happened a lot.
You put it over the girl's head, depending who she is.
You know what I mean?
I'm just saying.
Never, Mark.
Wow.
Never far.
Wow, too far.
I get it.
You come in here.
You're going to get to get away with this stuff.
I'm your guest.
It's disgusting.
It's disgusting.
He was his camouflage shirts.
What?
What is he looking at on there?
You don't want to know.
This moves.
Crazy move.
By the way, these were big in the 80s, the gene shorts.
Oh, yeah, they're coming back.
Did you wear jean shorts?
No, because I had respect from his black.
Jean Shorts from the 80s00:10:32
That's the problem.
Yeah, if it were velvet, Peter would be like, all right, we'll look into it.
All right, guys, let's take a break for a second.
Listen, you know, summer, summer, unfortunately, summer is coming to an end.
You know what that means?
That means absolutely nothing when it comes to this advertisement because it's all about hard dick.
Veins out.
The veins are out.
Blue Chew is bringing the veins out.
You're going to look stressed.
You're going to look like you're chewing hard.
Okay.
Your dick should look like a pit bull.
And Blue Chew is going to make that happen.
Same act of ingredients inside Viagra, Cialis, but this is the chew, this one that we rock with, okay?
This is the one that the backs get sticky with.
Bears.
Bears.
And you get your first month free.
All you got to do is go to bluechew.com, use the promo code flagrants, and you got to pay the $5 shipping.
$5 shipping.
What a bargain for the best dick you've ever delivered in your life.
Let's get back to the show.
All right, guys, let's take a break for a second.
Listen, winning the gold medal at the 800-meter freestyle is very, very difficult, okay?
There's Irishmen out there.
Okay.
You know what's easy?
Hiring Morgan and Morgan is easy.
Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm.
They have over 100 offices nationwide and more than 1,000 lawyers with over $20 billion recovered for over 500,000 clients.
Morgan and Morgan has a proven track record of fighting to get you full and fair compensation.
I'm telling you, getting injured because of someone else's negligence is hard to go through.
But luckily, submitting an injury claim with Morgan and Morgan is easy.
It's like using an app.
I know it sounds daunting.
It is not daunting at all.
You can go submit it.
Okay.
So if you're injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan.
Their fee is free unless they win.
For more information, go to forthepeople.com/slash flagrant or dial pound law.
That is pound529 from your cell phone.
That is F-O-RTepeople.com slash flagrant or pound law, pound529 from your cell.
This is a paid advertisement.
Let's get back to the show.
Yes, Pete.
What were you going to tell us?
We have to give respect to Calgary, I think.
Oh, because we were talking about finding this location.
And I think we found.
We found a great place.
What just happened right there?
I've been boring myself.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Ellie, were you happy with Calgary?
I really liked Calgary.
I thought the people were amazing.
Chad.
Yeah, Chad was wonderful.
You know what it is about going to a place like Calgary?
They are so.
No, no.
If you shouldn't LA or New York, there's so much to do.
The people meet.
That doesn't make it hard.
I just love it.
He can't even be in promo mode.
It's just so beautiful.
He's like, I think we should give credit to what's the safest thing?
Calgary.
He's a great actor, but no one is an actor.
You play the most iconic character in TV history.
Hey, can you promote this film?
Calgary's coach.
That's why I don't really do these things.
That was one benefit, though.
Everybody on the crew is a hunter.
Yes.
So we have like elk.
Yeah.
I don't eat meat, though.
No, literally.
That is so cool.
You work in New York and it's like, what did you do this weekend?
I went to a bar.
I hooked up with somebody on Twitter or whatever.
I don't know what kind of set that is, but you go to Calgary.
What did you do this weekend?
Hunted elk.
Yes.
And this is like the hair makeup person.
Oh.
And you're like, wait, what?
What did you say?
Yeah, look at this video.
I know what we can tell.
I know what we can talk about.
It's such big country and it's so fun.
And that's, and they are, we're we were the only show in town.
My point was, we were the only show in town, so we got the greatest crew.
And sometimes when you go to other cities where you're not the only show in town and you're an indie movie, nobody cares.
You just get you, you know, you get some people who aren't the best, the best at what they do.
Yeah.
All due respect, but we got the best at what they do.
Now, I will say about this film, one thing that I was, it was very surprising.
The transpo team, these are the people that drive you around.
The trans team, yeah.
Are you going to do it again?
Are you going to row me up?
Hey, hey, are you going to fucking rile me up right now?
The trans team, which would call it the trans team.
That's what you got.
I heard they run Hollywood.
Yeah.
They do.
They do run Hollywood.
They move.
And for whatever reason, a little bit faster than regular women.
You always go too far.
I do do that sometimes.
But it's always him.
He just insignified.
What did he do?
He was an insecure.
He was using the actual term.
Don't bring the game out.
Don't you disappear.
Okay.
Oh, God.
Not you, Pater.
Okay.
Not the transpo team, all women.
What did that do for you?
I didn't know that they could drive sticks.
I didn't know.
I don't actually not feel.
Do you know what I'm saying?
What about popcorn?
They would get.
I didn't popcorn any of them.
I was having honest conversations with them.
So where are you from?
No, no, no.
My favorite thing about Calgary, Calgary is like the Texas of Canada.
So we would get in that car.
They'd be all polite.
And then, and then, then, like, you know, I would just kind of like be asking some questions.
You know what I mean?
And within like a few minutes, they were like, that COVID.
Get out.
No, no, they would, they would, they do the COVID was a hoax.
They were like, I'm not getting fast.
And I was like, these are my people.
I found my people in the transport team in Calgary.
Oh, wow.
So that is a positive.
Yeah.
You're too trans.
I remember once in Gun Thrones, we had a driver.
I forget which country.
We're not in Belfast because we had our crew there, but we're somewhere weird remote.
And there was a she would speak in tongues and she would be driving and she'd go, and it wasn't Tourette's.
It was like, she was like, I'm just contacting my higher spirit.
No way.
And going like 60 kilometers an hour.
You're just like, excuse me?
What?
It was wild.
Did you inquire about this at all with Ben?
It was a talk.
Yeah, it was wild because then you go, who's going to pick my family up at the airport?
Not this person.
This person, not this person.
I hired a witch.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was a wild, wild thing.
I mean, that's pretty crazy.
I guess what we're trying to say is that women can drive.
If they're possessed by a man.
Yes.
That's kind of what you were going to say tonight.
Damn it, Mark.
Why are you doing all these?
Why can't you come back?
Don't lie.
Pete, don't lie, Pete.
That's what you were going to say.
We need you here.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
Okay, listen, this movie.
Can we get into promo mobile?
We have to actually try to.
I thought I did really good job.
So, Calgary.
This is.
You just went women's drivers.
They were good at driving.
They got us there every single time.
I want to ask if you're going to be able to do it.
They were Canadians.
Do you believe in ghosts?
You think ghosts are real or no?
Be honest.
Do you guys see him?
Can I tell you something about Mark?
Can you guys see the Sixth Sense?
You should delete him out.
Why don't you camo?
I'm in camo.
I'm halfway gone.
You can barely see me.
Where's the time have you?
The bottom half is just weird 80s jeans shirts.
We're both Catholics, I'm asking.
He believes in demons 100%.
So it's against the law for us.
Yeah.
He believes in them.
He is.
Oh, really?
No, he's like... Wiccan?
The opposite.
The exact opposite.
Isn't your sister Wiccan?
No, she just does drugs.
Sent to my mom.
So he is 100% sere in believing in demons.
I've never seen a demon.
I've never seen a demon.
No, they're out there.
They just have skin.
Yeah.
And they wear suits.
Oh, damn.
Okay.
Now we're getting zone.
Wait, wait, did you get invited to like a Weinstein hotel or something?
What did he offer you?
There's more than one Weinstein out there.
Whoa!
That's good.
Come on.
Give us the good stuff.
Country's falling apart.
Okay.
No, back to the Wiccan.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I've never seen a demon, but in my brain, I'm like, they still might be out there.
Like sometimes I'll see something move in the room like a shadow.
I'm like, hold on, what the fuck?
This is genuinely.
I never did that.
You've never done that.
I look like that.
It's too much organic shit going through you.
Like too much natural living.
Yeah, I think so.
I'm just raw dogging the world too hard.
Sobriety is like a high in and of itself.
Have you done acid?
What?
Have you dabbled in the psychedeles?
Everybody has their 20s.
I mean, the 20s were crazy.
So you have seen a ghost.
See, I'm not fucking crazy.
No, I never saw a ghost.
Did you ever have any like crazy hallucinations during this wild time in the 20s?
I mean, in the 1920s.
In the 1920s, yeah.
During this wild time in the middle.
Past life.
Yeah, early nights and all these flapper girls.
Yeah.
I mean, the economy was not moving.
I was wearing spats.
No, I just like listening to music and seeing some colors.
And, you know, pink Floyd is all.
You're wondering when it's going to...
Because when you have a certain amount of anxiety like me, you wonder, okay, when is it going to be over now?
I really don't want to.
I want it to be over now.
I'm good.
Did you have bad trips?
No, no, but just like, okay.
It's enough.
We're done.
Enough already.
We're done.
It's lasting too long.
I'm a control freak.
Yeah.
That's why I don't do drugs anymore because that.
Yeah.
They just stick around.
It's like a guest that won't leave.
Yes.
You know, that's all.
Snoop Dogg Loves Chicken00:13:19
Yeah.
And I guess micro-dosing is what everybody's doing now.
I don't even.
What's the point?
Yeah.
Back in the day, we macro dosed.
So this is the best drug.
It's not, though.
It destroys families' lives.
Profession.
It really kind of might be even worse.
That's a good point.
I'm so glad.
I'm so glad you didn't indulge your stupid fucking idiotic thing.
No one's ever killed me.
I mean, it's kind of been proven, Andrew.
That it's the worst.
But to change.
Bro, I thought I had one right there.
I thought I was really on it.
No.
Cost benefit analysis.
But you're right.
I put nicotine above us.
Oh, yeah.
Mark's all in the nicotine.
Everybody smoked back in the day.
Camel lights.
Now it's Zinn.
Camel lights.
Yeah.
They're all little camel lits.
Do you know the Zins?
Do you know what the Zins are?
No.
Magazines?
Topic.
Zine.
Oh, that's zine.
Zine, yeah.
The Zins are these little pouches people put in under their lips.
You haven't seen this?
That's called Cuman Tobacco.
No, but now.
Can you show us?
Actually, David, can you ask David?
I've had one in my mouth for 30 seconds and I had diarrhea for three days.
So it's probably weird.
The problem is weight loss.
It is a diary.
That's true.
It's hard to make an Indian have diarrhea.
Yeah.
That's true.
Oh, right.
He can handle buttercurry on the bottom.
It's impossible to make, like, he's built for hard shit.
Right.
Yeah, I'm built for semi-soft shit.
Would you ever do hot ones?
Yeah, absolutely.
But I'd feel a lot of pressure.
Like, if Alex played in like a charity basketball game, I would have the same level of the same level of like, God, who is the one actress, Jenna Ortega, just bodied that whole shit?
Yeah.
I would feel like I would have to go that hammer.
You did really well on hot ones.
Yeah, dude, too.
Is it weird to bring up another show on your show?
Not at all.
The one funny thing about that, I mean, actually, I fucking hate you.
We're beefing.
Yeah.
No, we have a public beef.
The one thing about that show that's so interesting is that, like, it's a great premise.
It's better than this one.
I don't know.
What is the premise?
What is the premise?
The premise is say we have to say, racist ways.
He's an asshole.
America.
USA.
Yeah, you know, we're in such good shape right now.
Yeah.
The show is.
You know, we had a Civil War once.
We did.
Didn't it work out?
Well, don't we think?
What were we about to say?
The Jude.
No.
No, no.
The show is.
I think the guy is overshadowed by the show.
I think the interviewer is.
Is that why you're trying to hurt?
No.
To be bigger than your show.
I just need chicken.
We need chicken.
We need another thing.
I'm trying to say that.
We need another thing.
I think the interviewer is fantastic.
I think people think it's about the chicken, and it's not.
He just asks really good questions.
It's like it's not about the dragons.
It's not about the chicken.
Wait, damn.
And they're trying to sell the show without him, but nobody wants to buy it without him because the show is really about him.
I want to do that show.
I think he's fantastic.
I think you'd be great at the show.
I think you're fantastic.
You didn't have to compare.
Okay.
But the fact that you said that, it meant a lot.
Yeah.
Let's compare.
Would you do that show?
Would I eat chicken in front of people as a white man?
You're going to make me make me eat.
So those 90s videos.
What else am I going to do?
You want me to sit there and eat watermelon as a white man?
Whoa, whoa, who asked you to do that, dude?
What the hell?
KSP is suggesting racist things to me as a white man.
Yeah, he did.
That's great.
You know what's funny?
You want me to play basketball as a white man?
You want me to eat?
Don't do it.
Jacket potatoes when I'm not Irish?
All right, that's better.
You would have scared me with that.
You know what's funny?
You could have gone anyway.
Elliot trying to make it less racist by going, we had a chicken incident on a rat video.
Wait a minute.
What happened?
With Snoop Dogg.
Wait, what did Snoop?
My brother.
He's not your brother.
You know what?
He's a big throws fan.
I met him once.
Is he your brother?
Hey, I'm honorary.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to say it right now.
Wait, do you get to say that special word?
Fuck off, man.
Chicken?
Lots of love.
That's your boy.
No, just.
Yeah, he disrespects you.
No, it's just love.
Yeah.
I'm not going to go into your guys' personal relationship.
I feel like it's something between you guys, and I don't want to pry.
Then we're going to respect that.
Yeah, we are closed.
We're going to respect that.
Yeah, that's for y'all.
Hey, Ellie, can you tell us your chicken and black evil story?
I can tell you about Snoop Dogg and the politics of chicken.
I mean, any way you say it, it was very specific.
No, politics.
Politics of chicken.
We were doing a video for the Eastsiders who was from the LBC.
And, you know, the entourage showed up.
It was about 250 people.
Hungry.
Well, this is a thing.
Come on, Pete.
This was Pete, I need you to work together, okay?
My public, my God!
We're cutting down all the raised stuff.
It's gonna be a 10-minute episode.
And the catering trucks and the food up anyway, so the production assistant, production assistant, Snoop is like, I need some chicken.
Come on, dude.
He didn't say it like that.
I need some.
I need some chicken.
That wasn't it.
Anyway, so.
How do you ask, Snoop?
What do you say?
Pete, please get a lot of chicken.
No, but when you have a six-year-old with your friends, when they go, give me that.
Instinctually, I go, you think, how do you ask?
You can't say it.
So now I'm programmed to go, how do you ask, dude?
Yeah.
Yeah, you say that.
That's actually good.
How do you ask, dude?
How do you ask for chicken?
Yeah.
Anyway, it wasn't what they are.
It was, I mean, the production assistant was like, so it was like, Snoop would like some, because he spoke about himself in the third person.
Snoop Dogg would like some chicken.
And the production assistant said, well, there's a KFC around the corner.
Peter doesn't like that.
The third person.
You don't like the third person?
You guys invented the third person.
Who's the English?
Nobody else is third personing.
That's fair.
So Snoop, it's like a needle on a record just stopped.
And he said, no, KFC.
It has to be Popeyes.
I could have told you that.
I mean, the PAG is no.
No, I respect that movie.
Yeah, he had a KFC.
Is it really?
I don't want that white-ass chicken.
I quite like KFC.
The famous bowl is fabulous.
I mean, it's got everything.
But what does it have?
Ted cheese, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy.
That's Mark's hot ones.
It's just KFC wings.
Yeah, I mean, if I want to spicy too much.
I want to go crazy.
I'm going to down a gallon of milk probably with it.
It'd be fun.
I would do that.
Alex, you can probably speak on this from a place of expertise.
Absolutely.
I would prioritize Popeyes over KFC.
Definitely.
And then what is the most elite chicken?
Oh, come on.
Sco's.
What?
What's Roscoe's?
Or Roscoe's.
Oh, I don't have that out here.
What do you have out here?
Churches?
Popeyes.
Popeye's priority.
But Roscoe's there's only just the one, right?
There's a couple out of the shit.
There's one in the middle.
How many in there now?
A couple in LA.
Yeah, Altadena.
Oh, wow.
Hollywood.
And Pico.
Yeah.
Hollywood also.
God, that mac and cheese, man.
Whoa.
Yeah.
It's a good.
But you don't eat.
You don't eat meat.
I think I've been to four.
I don't.
I do now.
You know why?
Because of thrones, like it needs more promotion.
I started eating fish and chicken again on the whole show.
Vegetarian.
C, not sea, sorry.
Because vegetarian in Croatia.
It's impossible.
Yeah.
You cannot do it.
Yeah.
Really tired on the set.
And I was like, you know, my dad, my dad, and I fished together and I missed fish.
And so ended up you're right on the seaside there.
So you got to get after it.
And I said, I'll have a tuna steak.
And it was just, that was it.
But I don't eat the cow or the pork or that stuff.
Really?
Yeah, not since I was 16.
What about the poultry?
Last hamburger I had was McDonald's cheeseburger drive-through when I was 16.
And I met a girl who was like this willowy vegetarian writer from the neighboring all-girls school.
Nothing ever happened because I was wearing my cloak.
And I was like, whoa, that's so cool.
Vegetarian?
What is that?
And then me and my brother, Jersey, went through a drive-through, ordered McDonald's.
I started eating a cheeseburger.
And I went, oh, I'm going to be a vegetarian after this, after I finish this McDonald's cheeseburger.
You got to go into rehab high.
Yeah.
And that was like 50 years ago.
Did you get the attention of the girl?
Did she acknowledge your sacrifice?
I actually met her years and years and years later, about 15 years ago.
And she said, oh, I was just, I was vegetarian for like six weeks.
And I went, it was like a lifetime for me.
Dude.
But thank you.
I had a friend that did this in college.
He like met a girl, fell in love.
Miles is right here.
Just say that.
No, not him.
And meets this girl.
She's like very into activism and stuff.
In order to like, you guys had the same hair?
No, He was like clean cut, like Mormon.
Different type of asthma.
You're talking about a girl.
Oh, yeah.
No, the girl also had clean cut.
Like she said.
Yeah, lesbian.
And in order to like get this is where the story's going.
Yeah.
You like kind of like where he got her jean shorts.
I could rob her.
I could rob a lesbian.
He's in me.
But he ends up like losing her and they stop dating.
In order to win her back, he becomes vegan.
And then that's not enough.
He ends up joining the Peace Corps and lives in Central Africa for four years.
When you do that, the women are really attracted to all that.
And doesn't ever win her back.
Oh, God.
Meets another girl while he's in Africa and then started stalking her and was like, why aren't you?
They never react well to that stalking.
Yeah, right?
So he met a girl in Africa?
No.
Why are you laughing?
I'm not going to say that.
The way that you said it makes it seem like it's going to be racial.
It's not racial at all.
It could be a cultural thing.
Where in Africa?
In Lesotho.
No way.
Yeah, it's a small country inside of a country known as South Africa.
Oh, wow.
Okay, cool.
South Africa.
Correct.
But it's a country within South Africa.
It's kind of weird.
And what's the deal?
She's just a nice girl.
Nice woman.
Just digging diamonds.
Nope.
That's not just hang on.
All day.
Digging those diamonds from the beers.
That's the beers, I think, in South Africa, too.
Yeah, yeah.
You assume shit.
Yeah.
You assume that she was living in Africa as an African, I think.
And that's not.
Is that a crazy thing to assume?
She was a Peace Corps also?
She was in Peace.
She's a Peace Corps.
She's in Peace Corps.
She's definitely white.
Yeah.
Why didn't you join the fucking Peace Corps?
I love that ad.
The toughest job you'll ever love.
Remember that ad?
No.
Bring that ad.
That is exactly.
It's not often I look at people like they're old, but I was like, holy fuck.
That was their tagline.
And the drum would go.
Speaking of me, I didn't join the Peace Corps.
No.
Well, my mom was a very, very outspoken, still is a peace marcher.
Really?
And I was raised in the 80s when it was like raised by like always the fear that nuclear war was going to happen at any minute because of so much like Cold War environment.
Wait, you actually felt that as a kid?
Yeah.
So this was, wait, you were dealing with like Cuba stuff, Cuban Missile Crisis.
No.
No, that was.
I mean, you're dealing with Reagan.
Yeah, yeah, no.
Cold War, Soviet.
Yeah, yeah.
So when you were growing up, so when did they start to integrate the schools and stuff like that?
When is that?
Did they make you do bomb drills?
You had to go under the desk and shit.
Duck and cover.
Yeah.
Is that really part of it?
Yeah.
As if that would be 49.
You're 40.
You know, Game of Thrones is not a documentary, right?
I'm 650 years old.
Don't you suck.
600.
Don't use Cebu City.
But don't use a different time.
Celsius.
Celsius.
Time is different with our communities.
I'll never say community again.
I'll never ask a question about.
I just don't, don't, don't.
Who has the minutes from the last meeting?
Comedy at the Front Lines00:09:05
Get him to hide.
He is.
Can we please?
We talked about the beards everywhere.
Why do dwarves all have beards?
I don't know.
What is it?
That stereotype.
What is that?
You've got great facial hair, though.
That's unemployment, man.
It's just unemployment.
And Thicket.
Thicket.
It definitely works for Thicket.
Oh, wow.
Do a lot of dwarves have beards?
Shut the fuck up.
No.
Deal with a real one.
Dealing with a real one right now.
I want to say that.
Every time I'm going to go.
Tell him.
Shut the fuck up.
No.
I was asking.
Tell him, shut the fuck up.
Is that a stereotype?
I was curious.
I love that.
Let him fucking know.
All right.
That'll play around, dude.
God, I really want to kind of come back.
But shut the fuck up.
It just shuts it all up.
I should have like done that.
It's perfect.
No, it just shuts it all up.
We're just talking about the fan Lord of the Ring stuff.
If you look in his eyes, he's still reeling right now.
He's melting down.
I'm right next to him.
I'm still dead inside.
He's dying.
He's dying on that couch.
So anyway, thick it.
Thicket.
In theaters.
We're signing off.
No, no, we're not signing off.
But in theaters when, though, in theaters.
September the 6th.
September the 6th.
There's still movie theaters.
Yo, how long will they be alive?
Why is there no Peter Dinklish on YouTube promoting?
Because the only thing he's...
Yeah, you're seeing a theorem.
You won't bother.
And there's no theaters anymore.
It's so sad.
There's a Jonathan.
Yeah, the movies.
But the Oscars.
Yes.
Jonathan Ross.
No, it's a funny thing.
We could talk about culturally because I feel truly.
And in terms of comedy, which I think this is what this is, you're supposed to be funny.
Yes.
We're talking a hardest.
Like, I feel like comedy is at the front lines of which it shouldn't be.
It should be the opposite of what's dying in the movie business because it's really hard to make a comedy that's released in theaters.
And it shouldn't be because you want the people around you to laugh and everything.
But people are getting their fix from YouTube.
YouTube.
Falling down the stairs.
Let's get a little tweak.
I got my laugh for the day.
Like a little laugh.
And I don't want the long form comedy anymore because I don't have the, because show me the laugh beginning to end and like a pal Ashby movie, even like, you know, that just, I don't want to follow a narrative to get my laugh.
I want a quick fix.
That's a big investment.
So we got to watch that.
I think that you were onto something.
I don't know what I'm on to, but I feel like, you know, you guys are all funny.
We should watch that.
International.
That's what I was saying.
They're fearful.
Long-form comedies.
Yes.
Yeah.
My understanding was internationally, it doesn't play as well because so many jokes are whatever.
So they believe.
So they'll put their money into it.
I mean, you were in a Marvel movie.
It's like that internationally will play.
Comedy, you don't know if the joke is going to translate well in.
But you need the patience for the madness of part of this.
And I feel like, whoa.
I also think if you put out a comedy movie that's not funny, it is wildly disappointing to go see.
Well, they're, yeah, it's so sad.
That's the thing.
So it's like, and I think people are a little bit hesitant.
You know, culturally, I think that pendulum swing.
And, you know, I think there was a moment where it swung in a direction where people are a little scared about taking some chances.
I think the pendulum swung back, but it takes time to make films.
So in the next maybe year, two or three, then maybe we'll get some fun stuff.
But I also think like people want convenience, man.
So you can watch a movie at home.
You can watch the greatest TV shows at home.
You want me to put on shoes and an outfit and get a babysitter and go to the fucking crinkler next door to me.
Dude, I saw Dune.
We saw Dune in San Francisco.
We watched Dune.
You had a Sarah Patch Kids crinkler next to you.
This was actually, it was more annoying.
I had someone ironically.
I'll shish my own kids for doing that.
I love it.
I fucking.
I had a guy ironically laughing next to us.
Like he was so in on it.
Oh, God.
That he's like, oh, that wasn't exactly how it was.
And now I feel like I'm not getting it.
So now I'm insecure about my own consumption of the movie.
And I can't just get lost in the picture, which I want to get lost in.
And I had that moment where I'm like, I have a big screen at home.
I have a good sound system.
Dune's coming out in like a week.
Fucking two weeks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then should we all be making stuff for, I mean, the money isn't there, obviously, but should we make stuff for streaming because that is how people are consuming things?
Or should we push people to the theaters?
Well, I think it's sort of, we can't.
Spielberg, I heard an interview with him and he's like, I don't run a studio, but even for promotion, for the people, for the diehards that don't have a big screen who want to see it on the big screen.
And it's also the sound because sound at home isn't as good as any of those things.
Depends on the movie theater you're going to do.
We have Alamo in Brooklyn, which is incredible.
The seats are incredible.
They play great movies.
They play retrospectives.
But Spielberg said in this interview where he's like, I don't rent a studio, but just show it for a couple of weeks for the diehards and for promotion for when you stream it.
Just give it that chance.
Don't allow that chance to go away.
Because like me, who back in the day, when I would like line, I remember with my friends, we lined up for Cape Fear on the opening day.
Cape Fear opened, and there was one guy ahead of us.
We were up all night drinking and we got there at like the first showing at like 10 a.m.
And there was one guy in front of us already on the line who was like crazy.
This middle-aged guy by himself.
And you're like, wow, wow, you're more of a diehard than we are.
And that was the excitement.
And it was communal.
Just waiting online.
Remember, I saw Star Wars five times when I was a kid.
And part of it was like, what number is this for?
You were the community of standing online.
It was so fun.
Yeah.
And that's what I was thinking.
But we didn't have the thing at home.
For stand-up, or I mean, for comedy, so much of laughter is contagious.
That will never go away.
Seeing it in the theater with everybody laughing and then you get to share that laugh, you'll laugh more than you will if you watch it by yourself.
That's true.
I wish there was.
And that's why live comedy, so much of it is better.
So much of the reason is better than watching on TV because we get to share the laugh.
Yeah.
Also, I think that's why horror still works in the theaters.
Horror.
It needs a collective.
It is so.
We're scared together.
Yeah.
We're scared together.
So there's the comfort of being together.
Like watching a fucking scary movie by yourself.
Psycho.
Alone.
Psycho behavior.
You got to go to sleep after that.
Yeah.
But watching it with, you know, 100 other people or 200 other people, you get to leave going, oh my God, that was crazy.
This person throws their popcorn.
It's a fun.
You kind of laugh after you get scared and breaks the tension a little bit.
That's an interesting point about like the, you would brag.
It was almost a badge of honor how many times you saw a thing.
Right.
And that is gone.
Right.
I don't think there's the redundancy anymore.
Like, oh, I saw Titanic five times or whatever people ended up seeing.
Right.
I'm trying to think of a movie that I saw in the theater, like, and I was like, happy to see it multiple times.
We also know about everything before we see it now too.
Oh, you think too much is spoiled?
Oh, definitely.
So by the time the film is coming out, the internet has spoiled it.
TikTok has spoiled it.
All the writers are spoiled.
Think about it.
1977, when I was a kid, I didn't know what a Chewbacca was or a C-3P.
So the first time you see it.
The first you see, you're going, what is it?
What?
And it's almost like, I have to go and watch this again because now I know what it is.
So I can.
No, that's a fantastic point.
The first time you were at the movie.
It's the first time.
Your mind is blown.
Yeah.
Now we go into the movie in the same way you go into a restaurant.
I already know the best dishes.
I know what everybody recommends.
Everyone is going to be in this.
But let's like everybody on the I'm old.
This is going to sound very old.
But everybody on the dating websites, I've told you, I know it's mostly lies, but I've told you everything.
Every single thing about it to talk about.
There's nothing.
There's no slow reveal.
And even that slow reveal is redundant because I've already read everything.
It's more romantic than the slow reveal.
Yes.
If finding something about somebody, it's the Lewis and Clark of the bedroom.
The adventure.
Yeah.
That is.
Yeah.
You uncover a shared interest.
You're like, oh, fuck.
Views got even better.
Oh, my God.
You love jean shorts too.
For meant to be together.
They're meant to be together.
You didn't put that on your website.
That's a great point.
If I know everything, why do I have to get ready and go to the thing?
If I knew nothing, everything I'm about to consume is going to be a surprise.
And that's what it makes sense why horror is.
We cushion ourselves to not have the unhappy ending.
Yeah.
And sometimes unhappy endings in case of everything is like really important.
Now, think about it.
I'm going to talk about happy ending.
Internet Obsession Today00:03:53
No, no, no.
I would love to.
But think about horror still gives you that experience live because it's not seeing a chewbacca.
It's the surprise of this person jumping out.
So you still get that surprise.
Right.
In most other genres, you're being tipped off to what's going to happen.
Right.
So what we crave is that surprise.
Right.
And if you're not going to provide that surprise, I might as well watch it at home.
Right.
And you want to rush to with the horror.
You want to rush to the theater because like the great movies like Six Sense and Get Out is like, you know, you don't want it spoiled.
So you have to forget that because you know that something is going to be revealed.
And like with a drama or comedy, it's like it's different.
So then if we know that that will always be spoiled, then we have to change the way that we consume it or the way that we deliver it to people because you can't stop the internet, right?
No.
Good luck.
It's kind of impossible.
It's just how we re-engineer.
Having kids, I think I have faith in like they're going to sort of turn their backs on it a little bit.
So funny.
We talk about, I know.
It's probably, it's good.
Parents are dealing with it all the time, but it's, it's, uh, I would like a generation of like that, of like Luddites again.
So, yeah.
And they're all beat farmers.
No, no, no.
It's, it's, uh, all right, you know how like it's just saturation.
Yeah.
And when you saturate someone with whatever, it's like with drugs or either go to rehab with internet.
They got to get, you know.
I think that like our generation is obsessed with the internet.
And I think it's new.
And I think children always reject the obsessions of their parents.
Right.
And I wonder if your kids, my kids, will see us on our phones all the time and be like, that's what old people do.
Fuck that.
I don't want to.
It's going to be like a straight-edge movement in social computer.
I genuinely believe that.
It's the bottom line of like, they just still want to stay connected to their friends.
And that's what they're, the bottom line of why they're using it for that connectivity, which we're pushing, we're putting on them all the horrible things that happen on the internet, all of that stuff.
But they just want to be with their friends.
And if you don't want to miss out on a trend that your friends know about or just like follow them, you know, just anything.
Like, how are you?
Just like, you know, anything like that.
You want to stay connected.
I think we put on to them all the evils of it all.
And they're sort of so savvy early on now that they're just like, yeah, I just ignore that stuff.
So now they can discern between like the horrible content and that just to find ways to connect with them.
I hope.
I hope.
Yeah.
This is the idealistic version of the youth.
Yeah, we are the uh and this is not my thought, but like uh we're the first generation that's smoking cigarettes.
Who you said, Dak said it, yeah, Dak Shepherd, where it's like eating junk food, everybody eats junk food or fast food, smokes cigarettes, and then the next generation is like, Yo, what the fuck were they doing?
Right, we had to hide Playboy magazine under our beds in the back between the magic, we had them in our tree fort in the back woods wrapped in plastic so they didn't get wet.
Now, if it's like if it's such easy act, and there was like a go and do the tree fort, yeah, you know, like now it's like jerking off in the woods, so crazy in a tree fort.
You can't do that shit, you can't get away with that anymore.
If you're doing that in a tree fort in the woods, yeah, it's a little terrifying sketchy.
So now it's so saturated that you can just get in it whenever you want, whenever you want.
Why aren't they all locked in their bathrooms all the time?
Yeah, um, you got it so easy, but so it's so saturated that maybe they're gonna be like, it's not a not a big deal.
Watching Porn with Friends00:03:23
I remember downloading an image to jerk off to, and it would load from top to bottom, no pun intended, yeah.
And like, it was terrifying because like the tits load, but you don't know if there's gonna be a dick there.
Oh, wow.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, so you've already started the beat.
You know what I mean?
Faxing porn?
What is that?
Check out this image.
Mom, play the fax machine.
Yeah.
I remember watching like before cable, there was a box on like my friend Chris had it, who had like cool parents.
They had the bar down in the basement with the pool table.
So they were the first to get cable in Jersey growing up.
And it was just a box that sat on their TV called Womet Go Home Theater.
And it was you turn from the regular TV and you flip the switch for this one station.
And it had, it was the first cable, like 1970, whatever.
And during the day, it would be scrambled.
So you would look at the boobs in the scramble.
Yeah.
I think I saw one.
Flip back and forth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's great.
Before HBO, which later became my employer.
We had, yeah, we had, what was it, Channel 35?
There was this woman, Robin Bird.
Robin Bird.
Dude, come on.
Come on.
She made us men.
Robin Bird made us.
Well, who's Robin Bird?
The Robin Bird Show.
She was public access, right?
She was a retired porn actress.
Okay.
She was like Tracy Lord's era.
Okay.
Robin Bird.
And then she did this public access show called Robin Bird Show.
And it was so beautiful.
She would host.
She would just talk to like pornography.
Porn starters.
And somebody would get up and dance kind of half naked.
And she would, they would just be naked.
And she was like an older woman.
She was older then.
Yeah.
And she was sort of sun-soaked.
Yeah, it's like white trash Diane Summers.
Yeah.
Like just had smoked three packs a day.
Yes.
And incredible, though.
But it was just an SNL.
Who's that?
Dana Carvey?
Sherry O'Terry.
Oh, Sherry O'Share.
Dana Carvey.
Mastrup disguised.
Masturbate disguise.
Masturbation of disguise.
Dana got it.
Oh, fuck.
Anyway, yes.
Yeah, you put on Robin.
You look up Robin Bird and you're going to get a lot of.
But I remember we would go home as a group of friends.
That's so weird.
Is Jamil out there?
Like, we would go home with like five of us.
We would sit on guys.
Yes.
And we would watch together.
Yeah.
And like it was the Super Bowl.
You were like, literally.
First time I watched porn was with the homies.
No, for real.
And my mom, my mom is, you know, my mom's from Scotland, grew up poor as shit.
So, one of the things that, like, when she first, you know, they had this dance studio and, you know, dancing got popular.
Remember, swing dancing got like really popular.
It was in like gap ads and shit like that.
Dancing's been popular.
I know that's going down to the point where like you could be in Scotland teaching lessons.
Oh, no, this is hard to dunson.
Yes.
So you were raised in Footloops.
I was raised there.
Dancing was illegal, but we really broke the barriers.
Kevin Megan was there in the burn.
Yeah.
Six degrees, man.
CGI and De-Aging Actors00:15:03
Wait, what is that?
Seven.
Seven?
Yeah, seven degrees.
Anyway, is it now seven?
Six degrees.
Oh, because we're overpopulated as a culture.
It's gotten big.
It's gotten tougher.
But the penis is real.
And did you know that?
What?
Kevin Magan is known for having a unit.
I didn't know that.
Him and Elliot.
Wow.
Did you guys talk about that while you watched Robin Bird show together?
Mostly just that.
Yeah.
But I remember we were watching in the room and the door would be open and we'd watch it with on mute.
And I didn't realize that it would reflect off a window.
So my mom, who just made a couple bucks, one of her big splurges was when she bought the internet package, not the cable package.
She goes, I want all the channels.
Thank you, mom.
Thank you, mom.
And we were just all there hard with the homies.
And my mom noticed one day walking by that the TV would reflect off of the window.
And then the next week we went and showed up and there was no porno for us to be hard to.
No.
And yeah, it really affected our friendship.
Yeah.
So you were left with the oxygen network.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We would watch Elliot's music videos.
Thank you, Elliot.
You should have gone to Jersey.
You really could have got the hook.
I know.
You could get the flavor.
Damn it.
What do you think of artificial intelligence in movies?
As far as like writing and making you think it's level with that question, buddy.
Not with writing.
I have a couple of friends who are teachers and they're navigating that landmine of students submitting papers at a high school level of English papers written by AI.
And they're very talented writers and they teachers and they can spot it right away.
But it's like we had Cliff Notes back in the day and it's like the new high-tech version of what Cliff Notes were.
In movies, it depends.
I think everybody sort of treats AI like the enemy.
And it's really not.
It's a tool.
It's like if you have a hammer, you could either build a house or kill somebody with it.
And it's really like it is still a tool.
And I have a friend who's a really incredible visual director.
And he sends me like short films that he makes just with AI.
And they're weird and beautiful, but they're definitely AI.
There's nothing human about them.
So I think it's really kind of cool if it's used not to lie.
If it's used like a dragon.
If it's if you it's like CGI, it's like CGI.
If you CGI a dragon, it's great.
If you CGI a dog, that's obviously a CGI dog because we know what a dog looks like.
And we'll always be able to tell.
But if we treat it like a really cool technological tool, then I'm all for it.
Do you think that we can write dialogue?
Just don't lie with it.
Just don't try and like hoodwink.
Cut corners.
Yeah, don't try to hoodwink me as a viewer, as a human being with it.
Yeah.
Or cut corners and like not hire a real person.
Do you think AI dialogue can match Syrano?
No.
No chance.
No, not the chance.
Ever.
No, no.
I don't think so.
Because it's regurgitation.
It's regurgitating information that a human at the bottom line, a human is given it.
Yeah, it can only work off what it has.
It can't innovate.
It can't inspire.
It can't make something that's never been made.
No, good luck with Shakespeare.
Good luck.
All power to you, but it's never going to happen.
Have you done Shakespeare?
Yeah.
He did Cyrano, right?
Well, no, Cyrano is written by a very talented Frenchman.
Well, also, I think there's a French.
There's a wife that played a role in that screenplay, right?
Yeah, she wrote Cyrano.
Yeah.
We did it as a play.
Wife is incredibly talented.
Yeah, yeah, you played.
You did writer, director.
And you were very, very, when we hung out, you were very humble.
Emin Rustan is the French writer.
It just took me a second to remember his name.
But you were very humble and kind to your wife, and you were like, she's so unbelievably talented compared to me.
That's what you said.
And I remember that.
I thought that was very nice.
And you said that with nobody around.
And I thought that was cool.
Yeah.
Wow.
Then you said, just kidding.
Got to be humble and kind.
Yeah, I don't think that's a good question, though.
I think it's everybody's getting a little bit panicked.
And we've created it.
And we live in this sort of like Blade Runner thing of like things that they're going to take over.
Yes, we use them all the time.
Yeah.
I've seen people compare it to Photoshop.
Like when Photoshop kind of came on the scene through Adobe, there's a lot of initial pushback from artists to say, like, oh, if you're not sketching it with hand, you're not a real artist.
You know, you're using it.
But I do.
Yes.
I know a lot of incredible prosthetic makeup artists.
And now it's sort of to age people and de-age them.
And it's creepy.
And it doesn't have the same impact that an incredible prosthetic artist does to add wrinkles or take away de-aging is harder.
But, you know, I think that's sort of fake looking too.
Dove brought up a good point.
I think this is not to continue to talk about Game of Thrones, but we will.
You can tell when sets are created and sets are real.
I don't know why you can tell.
Because you're a brain.
But my brain should look at these things that are created digitally, but they look almost perfect.
And you had an interesting point, which is like in a real set, it offers more movement.
You can like walk about the room.
Well, that's the thing.
They're trying to make it perfect and nothing's perfect.
And it's great for deep.
Ellie, she can speak to this better than I can, but it's great for like really deep background just to sort of, but like the stuff in the room, no.
You can't do it.
It's sort of ridiculous because it's actually more expensive than actually going and shooting a real C.
Yeah, you're saying building out the artificial sets.
It's ridiculous.
It's so expensive.
Because CGI AI artists know that, all right, pay me because now it's a thing.
Like The Mandalorian.
Yes.
It's all shot on a virtuous.
And it just looks.
You know it.
It's a great show, but you can tell that it's not real.
It's not tactile.
Yeah.
But it's the way, you know, it's mostly.
But that's okay because it takes place on different planets in a way.
A little bit.
It's more is forgiven.
It's not okay.
Yeah, you get away with more eyes.
But more is forgiven.
Thicket looks it.
You see it.
Like, I'm not even trying to promote it.
You will see it.
And it will instantly feel cold.
I think it affects the actors subconsciously as well.
100%.
If you are cold, you don't have to act cold.
Right.
Yeah.
And you can think about acting whatever the role is and getting the emotion.
You know, like those things done for you.
Yeah.
Whereas if you're on a sit, like a set with a screen behind you, there's so many things to calculate.
All the great filmmakers prefer real locations to being on a stage.
Yeah.
I think it was.
The stage is easy for some things.
Interior is great.
Boom.
Even that, I'd rather shoot in a real restaurant and shut it down for the day and have like, I don't know, it just feels like people have sat here where I'm sitting and ordered feels like a soap opera when it's fake.
For whatever reason.
Yeah.
When it's real, I lose myself in it.
I believe it.
I can believe the absurdity.
I can believe a fucking, I can believe the fantasy.
I can believe a fucking dragon when the castle's real.
When it feels like the background might be artificial and every stone is like perfectly laid.
I don't know if I can tell the difference, to be honest with you, but I can definitely see it affecting the acting.
Like, to your point, if I'm eating, you can tell the difference.
You don't know you can tell the difference.
Yeah, I don't know if I maybe I can't.
I don't know.
I can't think of examples where it was fake.
I didn't know that it was cheaper to actually go to location.
If that's the case, why does that mean everybody?
I mean, it's called a volume stage.
And you have to go out and you have to shoot the background plates in order to do it.
And then we create like Batman, the new Batman Patterson, that was all shot.
So what's his name?
Matt.
Matt Reeves.
Matt Reeves, yeah.
All volume stage.
I thought that looked good, though.
Yes.
But you're talking about like $200 million.
Got it.
So you need to spend that type of money to make it.
Wow.
I mean, can you even?
And that's the whole thing of like indie movies are trying to, you know, how do you compete with that?
So what about this idea?
You don't have that facility.
So you got to go real.
And then it feels better.
Okay.
You were part of the golden age of television.
And some people say the golden age of television basically happened because movie budgets skyrocketed to the point where they couldn't take chances and they had to only do these $300 million existing IP films that were guaranteed success.
And then all of a sudden, the beautiful stories that were maybe adapted from books ended up thriving on television.
That's what some people say.
Now that movies, these $300 movies, aren't necessarily making money, they're losing money.
Do you think that the studios will start making the $20 million film in an effort to profit?
And now we'll live in the golden age of film.
I don't know whether it's low tide or high tide.
After our show, everybody wanted to spend a lot of money because they thought that's how you make a lot of money.
And then there was the feeding frenzy, Netflix and Amazon with all those people.
Everybody's like spending, spending, spending.
And I think a large part due to thrones.
And then it didn't work out for a lot of them.
So they went, nope, we're not spending any money anymore.
And so then you're going, all of us on the creative end of things go just have to keep up with their expectations.
Yeah, and their budget, their slate, and all that stuff.
So it's sort of like, what do you guys, what's the flavor now?
And how can we help?
And we're just, we want to entertain people.
And I kind of feel like you want to do it.
It's really hard.
And it's, but that's, it's like, it's like politics in this country.
We're never satisfied.
We're never, the pendulum is just swinging back and forth.
Yeah.
So there is no formula.
It's just real whatever is popular.
You can follow that popular craft.
Everybody's chasing the whim of this.
Yeah, but with that, you sacrifice risk and creativity and all that stuff.
Is there a story that you would want to tell or a movie you'd create or a film you'd want to make that just like either hasn't been made or couldn't be made given the restrictions?
Oh, there's a billion of them.
But I don't know until I read them.
You mean what story I want to tell?
Yeah.
Has there been anything in your mind recently that you're like, oh, I would love to see this?
Well, I just love like challenging, like in South Korea, they challenge why South Korean films are so great.
They challenge genres.
Like you can watch a horror movie that can leave you in tears.
Like an action movie that just is so beautifully dramatic.
Like they don't, they're not, and thank God we've sort of had them come into our, they've, they're, they're very popular in our country.
Parasite was huge.
Parasite, yes.
Um, because I just like the idea of defining genres.
Um, I think Jordan Peel does that really well.
Yeah.
He's like so good, but they've been doing it before Jordan Peel for a long time.
And but people in our, I'll say it, maybe in our country, they just get sort of like, well, what kind of movie is it?
How many rotten tomatoes did it get?
Why don't I need to know what I'm seeing?
Yeah.
I don't ever, ever want to know what I'm about to see.
Yeah, Pixar is incredible.
Yeah.
And I think they define the genre where you're like, oh, I'm just going to go see the little kids cartoon.
And then you walk away being like, what the fuck was that?
Why did they just do that in the first 10 minutes of it?
Why can I not move?
Why are they courageous?
No, I mean that genuinely.
Like, why, why do you think they are so brave?
Kids are more open than we are.
Dude, that might be.
That might be it.
I don't know.
They might be more willing.
Shrek was another one that really like flipped all that stuff on its head.
It's like the princess at the end.
Yeah.
But they've done it.
They've defied what I was just talking about of like kids movies, movies for adults.
Wally is a fucking movie.
I saw that before I had kids.
It's one of the greatest movies I think ever made.
And there's no fucking dialogue.
It's like if Stanley Kubrick made an animated movie.
That movie, Wally, is like still one of my top five movies of all time.
And it's an animated kids movie, but it's not so good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dude, have you watched it with your kids?
Yeah.
And do they appreciate it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
And are they getting the point of the film?
Like, yeah, of course.
Everything.
Yeah.
Because it gets kind of deep towards the end.
It's what happens when you pacify a group of people and just give them the most convenient thing.
That's our perception.
They get something else.
They get something else.
Yeah.
I do notice the only thing I do notice is the pace in which these movies go.
We saw Inside Out.
They all have a pace to, like, I showed them E.T. a couple of years ago.
It's funny because you watch E.T. as an adult and you're like, well, this movie is all about divorce.
It's not about the alien at all.
It's not at all.
It's all about divorce and the kids suffering from it.
And the mom, but they thought it was just like kind of slow.
And I think it's no fault of theirs.
It just we live at.
We live at a speed now.
I saw taxi driver with your little kids.
I showed him Schindler's list.
They were like, we need a fat tomorrow.
He said it.
What's wrong with the Nazis?
No.
Yeah.
Done of interest was a big hit with them.
You know, that is a great point.
Pace.
They're used to such fast pace.
Yeah.
And the older films are much slower.
Yeah.
But they build in a way that the newer ones where you don't have the attention spanned don't.
So like if you give E.T. a little bit of time, all of a sudden you're really fucking invested in the story.
But like you said, it's not about the dragons.
It's not about the alien.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's about this like turmoil in the family, which is probably the most relatable thing to people and kids growing up at that time.
For sure.
Divorce getting super popular.
Ooh, yeah, yeah.
But I didn't see any of that when I was a kid.
None of it.
You just saw, oh my God, this is a- I saw Reese's?
I was like, I really want Reese's.
Do you know M ⁇ Ms turn them down?
Yeah.
Fucking idiots.
So crazy.
You idiots.
Nobody turns down Spielberg.
That's the same.
What makes Spielberg special?
Oh, man.
That innocence.
Failing Better Than Before00:08:06
Human condition.
That idea of like, it's not, it doesn't, well, especially with the movies that I grew up with, Close Encounters, which still is one of my favorite movies of all time.
It doesn't talk down to the kids.
It makes them just right there with everybody else.
Treats the children like adults.
Well, just like smart.
Yeah.
They can solve problems.
They can.
Yeah.
And he just has like a hope.
I'm such a cynical fuck, but I need to go to the movies for hope.
Like something's good about people.
And he's always done that.
And not in a saccharine way, but in like a real beautiful, artist, beautiful artist way.
But he also and all the great artists.
Jaws.
Fellini, everybody.
Yeah.
Hope.
But Jaws is hope too.
It's like this working class, like run of the nuance of family, the nuance of like sitting around a kitchen table without like making it feel product placement or something.
Mundane.
Yeah.
And it's also, it's weird because it's what it's sort of, I think about that sometimes.
I'm like, we grew up with his films.
Did they define our childhood?
Or did I have a childhood and Spielberg was a part of it?
Because I was obsessed with movies from a very young age.
And Spielberg in the 70s.
And for my childhood, he was like, did he gear my childhood?
It's funny.
It's like, that's how deep it runs because it came at that age.
So you're looking at your childhood and your family dynamic through the lens.
Mom and dad, why aren't you getting divorced?
Like, you love each other.
This is weird.
We'd have a fucking alien if you just hated him.
He's trying to build characters.
Okay, so Spielberg master at that.
Anybody else outside of Elliot or Elliot included?
But I have a real cynical side going through me, too.
But this is.
Kubrick was asked, because did you, you maybe know this story?
He's like, he was asked, why would you make?
Because he was Jewish.
Sandy Kubrick, the greatest filmmaker of all time.
Don't hold it against you.
Spielberg's also a favorite filmmaker of all time.
He was asked, did you ever think about making a Holocaust movie?
And he said, I don't make comedies.
I don't make comedies.
And they said, it's impossible.
Yes.
Wayne, why do you say it's impossible?
Because apparently it's like really bad what happened.
And they said, what about Schindler's list?
And he said, Schindler's list was about, I don't know the number, 850 people surviving.
The Holocaust was about 6 million people.
Dying.
So as great a film as Schindler's list is, it still had that hope.
Like it was about survival.
And I want to see Kubrick's version.
It's too late now, but like about like, there's no happy ending here.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And it's like, yes, we need the hope.
We need the back.
But yeah.
That's interesting.
That was his version of that and why he didn't do it.
But like what you see in a story is interesting.
You want it, you're cynical.
So you want to see the best versions of humanity.
You want it.
And it reminds you, like, okay, I'm a little cynical, but you know what?
There are, there is some good shit out there in the world and it's worth pushing through and life is awesome.
Right.
And yeah.
Because I get, I take, because I get sort of bombarded with a lot of weird shit on a day-to-day basis living here in the city.
And if I get one, it makes it okay if I get one like one like little story.
Just like from a stranger.
It's, it's like, uh, or it's like, it's weird when you're, when you, when you're in the public eye, it's like Blanche Dubois, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.
Streetcar name desire.
It's a great line.
And I like, that's true.
For if you get a little in the public eye, you're like, I just want a little kindness from you.
It's really refreshing.
It reminds me.
It gives me a little hope.
People are good.
Because most of it's like, oh my God, like stealing pictures from me.
I want to take from you.
And when you just get a little like, what can I give to you?
Or what can I do to let you be?
And all I need is just that little reminder.
It's nice.
It's not what is me at all, but I rarely get it from white people.
It's all about this.
Yeah.
How do you feel about the state of the country?
Like, are you worried at all in this political climate?
Careful now.
Whoa.
Careful now.
Yeah.
I'm worried all the time.
All the time.
What gives you hope?
You free freedom of speech.
I don't know.
The next generation, which will just hopefully obliterate all our bad mistakes.
Yes.
You know, because we're living in wild times.
Whoa.
I don't think people are aware that, again, we did have a civil war not so long ago in the grand scheme of like the how long people have been around.
So it's terrifying.
Yeah.
I do think we are a little like numb or desensitized.
Yeah.
Which happened in Europe a while ago, too.
What happened around that?
I don't know.
Nothing bad, probably.
The thicket in theaters.
September.
Okay.
I know you have plenty of things to do.
We are so grateful for your time.
Anything before you leave?
Any like lasting, last thoughts?
You gave this great speech at your college, and I thought it was really cool.
You wanted that.
You wanted more of that.
No, I don't.
I wanted exactly what you gave today.
Director Schultze.
No, just because just hanging out with you, I was like, oh, I hope we get the guy that I hung out with, which I thought you gave us, which is awesome.
Get rid of these cameras.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, I thought you brought it even with the cameras.
But I really thought that you had some great advice for these kids, and it felt like you actually really cared about your college.
I don't think a lot of people care about their college experience, but I thought you did.
Yeah, I really don't.
And I thought it was really cool.
And it wasn't impactful to you, but you fucking enjoyed it.
I wouldn't, come on.
No, your college.
Yeah, you'd enjoy going.
But it felt like you valued your time at your school.
I wish I did.
I wish I valued my time in high school more.
Interesting.
It's hindsight is 2020.
We all have regrets.
But no, I just, it's just, again, they look, they're all so young.
And it's like, wow, that's such a, it's such a, you're at such a fork in the road at that age.
Yeah.
And you can go down any number of paths.
And I was just trying to speak to don't worry about making mistakes.
I thought, yeah.
You know, because mistakes are everything.
They're maybe more important than like things that you don't think are mistakes.
Fail.
Fail again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got that tattoo on my back.
Wait, really?
Yeah, Beckett, my favorite writer.
Yeah.
It's all about like failing.
And what is it?
Ever tried, ever failed.
It's just fail again, but fail better.
Because there's no like perfection.
It's just failing better.
And that's what we do for a living.
We just, we still, we just trust that every time out of the gates, we're going to make something great, but it's all about failing better.
Yeah.
You know?
And it sounds cynical, but it's really not.
Just about failing better.
And you keep on feeling better and events.
And I like that contradiction of terms, too.
What do you mean?
Failing better.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
If the expectation is almost like, hey, this is, this might not work out, but it might work a little better than the last time you tried.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And differently, too.
Yeah.
But again, it's all about just faith in each other and all that stuff.
Yeah.
Peter Dinklich, everybody.
Ellie Lester.
Ellie Elester.
Peter Dinklich.
The thicket.
And we would love it if you guys went and watched The Thicket.
Don't watch The Thicket.
Also, go watch it.
But we would love if you guys go check it out.
Go check it out in theaters.
These guys are absolutely amazing.
They let me be in this really beautiful, cool movie.