Drama Queens - Work in Progress: O-T Fagbenle

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Triple threat, O-T Fagbenle, has had viewers glued to their screens with his portrayal of Luke on Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale," which is coming to its conclusion after six intense seasons!The actor, writer, and director joins Sophia to talk about the final season of the Emmy-winning show, including his evolving relationship with his on-screen wife, June Osborne — aka Elisabeth Moss — his audition for the role, and his feelings about the show ending. Plus, a deep dive into AI, a conversation about politics and community, and O-T's heartfelt work in progress.The final episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" will drop on Tuesday, May 27, on Hulu.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello, friends. Welcome back to Work in Progress. Today, we are joined by an actor that I am such an enormous fan of. You likely know him from his award-nominated role as Lou. Benkole in Hulu's groundbreaking drama series, The Handmaid's Tale.

I was obsessed with his character in presumed innocent, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, Ruth Naga, and Peter Sarsgaard. And he was absolutely hysterical in Lute alongside Maya Rudolph and amazing on Netflix's No Good Date with Lisa Crudrow, Ray Romano, and Dennis Leary. O.T. is here today to talk about art, the last season of The Handmaid's Tale, Politics, Parenthood, and everything in between. And I'm going to get to pick his brain about what it was like to play. Former President Barack Obama.

Let's jump in with O.T. Fed Benley. We sure did. I love it. I should have thrown my job. Dodgers hat on. Someone closes a gift. I don't know anything about baseball. Baseball for me is really more about going with friends and like getting the hot dog in the beer and having the experience. I'm not good in public, like big lots of people, like lots of people around me.

I'm not, I'm such a homebody. I never really get out very much. I'm a big basketball fan and even like every now and then, like some opportunity to go watch a game and will come off and be like, I'm good in my garage. Like I mean, you can see it better on ESPN anyway. This is what I'm saying. I don't even know what the advantages are. I eat uncomfortable seats.

You don't get to see all the angles. I don't know where my glasses, so I'm squinting. Well, what we're going to have to do at some point is get you to a Liberty game so you can see the Gurley's play because Barclays Stadium for that team is the most fun I ever have in a crowd and I don't love a crowd either. Okay. I have not seen Liberty play, but I've seen plenty of ladies basketball.

My sister's in the W. Tell me, let me. Oh my goodness. It's not an overstatement to say that she is the most decorated British basketball player, man or woman of all time. Wow, I thought I was going to ask you all about your shows today.

And here I am being like, what's what's it like to be the brother of one of the goats how does that feel it feels great i remember the first time because i come from a basketball in family and i remember the first time like she took me down into the post and like you know like gave me the old elbow and like made a blay up on me and i was like oh okay uh when your little sister can dunk it's a great for you yeah we used to i play outdoor basketball a lot and we i take it you know we go down to the outdoor court and i remember There's one day in particular I remember that she was wearing like a summer dress and she was just dominating and it was just like watching these guys have to have to live with someone in a dress

taking them down and like doing post moves on them. It's one of the happiest moments of my life. Oh my God, what a vibe. Yeah. That feels like the next, you know, Nike or Adidas commercial getting ready to go. Oh yeah, that's true. I should pitch it. Right? A hundred percent. I'm like, I'll direct that. All right. This is actually a perfect segment. Well, first, where are you today? Where are you in the world? Right now, I'm in my garage in L.A. in, yeah, West Adams. Okay, cool. Oh, I love it. Yeah. I went to USC, so I think. Oh, okay. What did you study? Well, I went for a BFA in theater. All right. Check out.

And everyone was great, by the way. But I, you know, at 18, I think I just sort of thought, are we, is all we're going to do sit around and question our instincts all day. I think this is really starting to make me a crazy, self-conscious person. And so I wound up shifting and studying journalism and political science at Annenberg. Okay. And I loved it because in this weird way, what it did was it took every movie I watched, every play that I read, and it made me really think about how does it feel grounded, how does it feel real? Every one of these stories should be the sort of story that might be covered

on the news one day, right? Like, anybody's life can be looked at like that. So it gave me this balance that I think I needed. You're a drama kid too, yeah? Well, I define drama kid, but basically, yes. I think probably under any definition, I started doing drama classes when I was around 10. And then I was going to go study economics and politics at college and then I like on a whim almost I thought let me try and see if I can get to drama school which is a very unlikely thing to happen to be honest because in England back then back in my day um back in my day they they would like audition like 2,000 people and they would take 17 boys and each year at Rada they would take like one black kid like and so you know

that was the average and so the odds weren't great um Yeah. And so I didn't expect to get in. And then I did get in. And I was like, oh, I guess this is now the root of my life. So we almost went, we went different ways. You started studying theater and went into, and I did the opposite. So, yeah.

That's so funny. All right. So that's interesting because I always wonder, you know, I sit across from somebody like you and people know your work. They've watched you. They have relationships with you based on, you know, series or films or theater even. And I'm always really curious if we went back in time, you know, maybe to that boy that was watching his sister Dunkin a dress, if you got to hang out with yourself when you were nine or ten years old now, do you think you'd see the man you are today in that kid? Do you think you guys would have so much to kind of go, ah, I get it. I see how you became this person and you could look at him and go, holy shit, you were always like this?

you know what and this is i don't know how many of your listeners have this but i don't have a good sense of myself as a child i don't have a very good memory for back then i i have scattered pieces and so i feel quite disassociated with my younger self like and it sounds weird to say but my relationship with my stories of my granddad before i was born like i feel connected to it It's part of my history, but I find it's very unintuitive to think that's me. I don't have a strong connection. So, like, there was some kid who existed, and that kid grew to become me. But I, I don't, you know, it's not completely like that, but it's partly like that.

That being said, so I'm always curious and hungry to ask, I ask my mom, my dad, you know, parents and family members, you know, what they remember of me as a kid. And it seems like it checks out. It seems like there was no huge departure. there was consistency, even though there isn't like a lot of memory of that consistency. Yeah, I get that. It's funny. I have that conversation in my family sometimes too. There's these sort of seminal moments that I remember, but then my parents will ask me about things, and sometimes I feel so bad when they go, you don't remember this? And I'm like, no, I was probably in the backyard chasing a butterfly. I don't know what I was doing. It wasn't, it wasn't kind of

printing on me, I think, in the way it might have, for an adult who was conscious of a moment in time or their child's achievement, you know, now I wonder when I look at the kids in my life, I'm like, what are you going to remember? Are you going to know that you were so obsessed with this movie and we had to watch it every night for seven months? Like, or will it just be a memory in the bag? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A lot of them remember to talk. Like, you know, I have a three-year-old and a two-year-old and, um, uh, a super cute baby. It is interesting just going, oh, you know, what feels like the majority of my life energy is focused towards pouring into them and going, oh, what does this mean that you won't remember all these tips to the park? And then, you know, like, so what is the value of this and you know, kind of like, through studies and through life that, oh, yeah, well, this all does go.

This all does pay into them. This all does develop something. It just won't be memories of like a thousand change diapers. And that's a weird thing to think. Yeah. And also, you know, when I don't say to you like, oh, you know, I used to change a diaper as a kid, there's nothing I find more irrelevant than what you used to do for my kid. You know, it's like, okay, great. Next subject, you know, so, and it's going to be like that for them.

You know, okay, great, dad. Totally. It's like the thing you would never want to say to your auntie or your grandfather is like, do you think about it when you piss? Of course you don't. Babies don't think about it. But I think it's so fascinating what you're saying, you know, that the reality that repetitive affection or encouragement or certain kinds of speech create safety, agency, awareness in children.

And it's such a trip to have littles in your life. My partner's kids are four and almost three. And to watch what they become, based on what they watch, the ways they develop, what they're conscious of when things kind of hit them and then you see that milestone day where a thing you've repeated a thousand times clicks and then they make this leap. It's like, I can't believe we were ever that small. Yeah.

And then you look around and go, holy shit, now we're the grownups in the room? Oh, my God. I know. I know. The development of consciousness, like, one of the things that came to me watching my kid, go up, is that, like, actually, preference is a huge part of personality. Do I like the blue or the yellow? Do I like this music or not dancing, this food, or that food? And actually, like, a lot of what one might call personality is actually preference.

And it's fascinating to me to see that at six months old, you know, like, that straight noodle is absolutely unacceptable. And the curle noodle, I will have a tantrum if I don't have a car. You know, and so where do these preferences come from? And, you know, it goes one of my big fascinations, a philosophical fascinations. is free will and and what goes to that is choice. Why do we make the choices we do? And to what extent can we change the choices we make and stuff?

Yeah. Oh, that's a nice, heady one. That's a conversation. I love. I'm curious for you, where do you think when you kind of reflect on that stuff, you know, the agency, the choice, growing up in a basketball family, where do you think your agency or desire around performance came from? Were you a really bookish kid?

Did you love to read and then want to see books come to life? Or were you watching movies going, I'm going to do that? You know, again, I don't remember my childhood. But I do get some of the sense that I was a bit of performing kid. But I also come from a family of storytellers. Telling stories is a big part of our family. And I come from very, both my parents are very demonstrative in the way they tell stories. And all of that is relatively natural to me.

But it wasn't always a dream of mine to become an actor. because I was going to do economics and politics. So, and that's 18. So up until that age, it never entered my mind that I would do anything apart from either some type of economics, politics, sociology, that was my interest, all basketball. And unfortunately, I wasn't skilled or tall enough for that one. And so actually, and it's interesting, I'm a mentor to some young people. And it's interesting, this idea of, like, doing what you're passionate about.

And, of course, like, I really like that thing. but it wasn't what I was the most passionate about. It was what I think I was most uniquely best at. And my passion for it grew as I dedicated more and more of my life to it. And so it's interesting because it kind of came the other way around to it. I had some talent. And then because of that talent, I eventually, about six years in, started applying myself. And through dedication came more passion.

And passion came dedication in a virtuous circle. Right. Right. Right. It's like when you learn to till soil, the garden is so much more fruitful, right? Well, I know nothing about gardening, unfortunately. I don't know a lot about it, but as they do now, you know, our devices and our phones and everything's always listening. So now that I'm beginning to dig a little deeper past the research I did a few years ago when I decided I wanted to be a beekeeper, and I just wanted to know what would please the bees outside. Now I'm trying to learn more about how those ecosystems work.

And now everything, every time I open any electronic device, it's like, did you know this interesting fact about coastal rosemary? Would you like to learn how to build a vegetable box? And I'm like, yes, but also this is so creepy. But you know what? I've got this really mixed feeling about these kind of like bespoke algorithms. Because on one side it's creepy, but on the other side, like, if you're going to give me, if commercial.

are a fact, then don't even, I don't want to watch a commercial about some random thing that's not interesting to me. Like, give me a commercial about something. I mean, you know, sometimes I go on someone else's YouTube, I'm looking for a video. And I'm like, what is this trash? Like, I'm not interesting. You know, so I'm actually not, I'm not too against it. Obviously, at a point, it can become, like, intrusive. But yeah, if I'm in the bees, give me the beekeeping. So, wait, why did you, is it an environmental thing or you just wanted your own honey? I had always wanted to do it. I think it came from, environmental passion. And, you know, I grew up in L.A. and I spent most of my childhood all up and down,

you know, Central California, California coast. I love the mountains. And learning about how to sort of stand up for nature was so important to me. And then I just sort of knew I had this weird thing where I was like, when I'm a grown up, I'm going to be a beekeeper. And then I realized, shit, I'm a grown up. So maybe I should start. And so I decided to plan. the things I knew the bees would love so that I could work with this nonprofit in L.A. that would bring

a beehive over. Essentially, you can sign up so when they have to get a beehive, a swarm out of like a building or somebody's backyard or whatever, they'll bring it to you. Then I'll just throw it in that. Wait, how much space do you need?

What's the minimum amount of space to have? You don't need a ton of space. What you need is they have to go more than three miles from where they were taken or they'll go right back. They have really intense, basically like B GPS is perfect. And so the coolest part of it was I planted this whole garden. It was my big COVID project. It was stuck at home. What am I going to do? And one day the guy's helping me finish these like terraces I was doing run up to the house and they go, we have to

stop. We have to stop. There is a huge beehive in the base. of the wood pile and now that we've gotten down there we see it we don't know how long they've been there we have to call an exterminator and i was like i was like this is my field of dreams i built it and they came wow and so we rescued my own bees wow they didn't have to go for no it's crazy and what i learned is you can only move them up to 24 inches a day because essentially it's like they think they've come home a little drunk and they can't get their key in the front door they're like wait a second, this isn't this my house? Oh yeah, this is my house. But if you move them any more than that, they'll just start to rebuild the hive right where it was. Or if you move them more than three

miles, it resets them and they'll stay put. We can't get back. One of my other, one of my part of pet interest, which I wish I was smarter about is like bee intelligence, like ant's intelligence. I feel like the metrics and the way we kind of like conceive of intelligence just isn't appropriate for the way bees and ants and other but it's clear that they have all the hallmarks of what we think you know problem solving and novel situations and like adaptability and and it's just I'm just fascinated by it because I can't bring my bring my head around to properly conceive of how their intelligence collective intelligence works it's truly incredible and by the way knowing that you have a passion for politics as do I bees are

studying bees will teach you so much about how we should live. They work as such a team and such a unit and their hives are these societies and everybody takes roles. And I remember, you know, during the fires, not at the top of this year, but probably three or four years ago, there was a crazy fire season in L.A. that backed up to summer. So it was like over 100 degrees out. And the bees would line up on the edge of the hive and flap their wings to, blow colder air inside to cool the hive and keep the queen safe and they would take turns almost like penguins do in the freezing cold you know going to the outside of the huddle to keep each other

warm and i was like wow they really just know how to show up for each other really very emotional yeah that is incredible my goodness kind of cool and i i don't know maybe maybe it really resonates with me, too, because for us as actors, you know you're just one of the many hundreds of people on a set, right? Well, I think I'm a big of special now, I think of yourself, I'm unique now, I'm thinking. I'm the queen being, okay? I kind of got a wake-up call when I did my first short film, which is like over a decade ago now, and I did think the actors were special on the set.

I mean, consciously or unconsciously, I was just like, I'm a very important part of this situation. And then I made this short film and it really just humbled me because being a director, all the things that actors complain about, like being brought in like three hours before your scene starts and, you know, and then all the other people on the set, the focus puller, the sound guy, all of these people are as important to me as my actor. And yeah, sure, my actor is super important, but if you have to wait around, Mr. Actor while we wait for Like, you're going to wait around. And it really just kind of like open my eyes, my little, yeah, yeah, self-obsessed to like, oh, there is a bigger picture out here and you are just one B in the hive.

That's it. It really is a hive and it has to function as a system. And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too. Not necessarily being disillusioned with our job, but on my first show, which, you know, we thought would go two or three years max, and then we did nine seasons. Like, when do you ever know that's going to happen? In our seventh season, I started directing. Okay. And in the most interesting way, it made the whole show, even though we were seven years into this place, these characters.

It made the whole thing feel brand new for me. It made me feel so inspired, so lucky. to do what we do, it sort of, I felt like it really expanded my creativity. I'm envious that you got to do that so early in your career as a director on a short because it's just, it changes you, I think, in the best way. Yeah, it's really interesting. I think one of the things I like about life is diversity. I like, I like trying new things. And I found that there's just lots of stuff that I'm not good at, you know.

I'm not particularly good dancer. Like, I mean, I'll look, I'll dance on a dance for it and have a good time. But if you want to teach me tap, like, I try to learn how to tap. It just, I just, it didn't come intuitively. Directing was very intuitive to me. It was like, it was this rare experience that you get every now in life where you go, oh my God, I really like this. I found the thing I really like.

And I think passion is really the precursor to talent. And so, yeah, it was wonderful for me. My first short film, we had a budget of $50. We spent $40 on pizza. You've got to feed people and $10 on a stick to hold a microphone that I'd borrowed. And yeah, and it was real, real low-budget stuff, but it was, yeah, it was a real transcendent experience for me. That's so cool. I think about early career stuff and I read in an article prepping for today, you were talking about, you know, being 30 and wanting to stop landing these guest roles and go for these bigger parts, you know, expanding yourself as an actor.

and you told the story of like, you know, 100 auditions and no callbacks. And I was like, honey, oh, my God. It took me right back to my first pilot season going on probably 100 auditions, you know, running around L.A. and panic. Like, how do you think now having the career that you do and having done these amazing projects that you've been on and reflecting on that early directing, Do you think that those early experiences helped keep you focused in a way? Or do you think you just had that sort of young person's determination that I think we all had to have to survive to get here?

I mean, look, I don't know. I really don't know how to answer that. I am a pretty driven person and I find it hard to be too idle for too long. I'm going to put my energies into something and there is a point where I could give up acting where I was like, okay, well look, it's just not working and I need to be able to be self-sufficient

and, you know, I've begged borrowed and stolen and it's not working and so I give it, you know, so there is stuff I could have faced which could have turned me back but it would be a pretty high mountain and also I didn't have, for most of my career up to that point when I turned 30

I would just do anything. I did children's theater I did theatre in old people's homes I did you know like and so the most important thing for I was doing shorts that I was paying to be part of I was doing acting class I did go on karate I was still doing acting classes like I was very I was always involved

and engaged creatively and I think that helps not become too disillusioned because if you become completely divorced from your creative outlets then I think that that can feel like a death yeah that's a beautiful way to think about it what was it like auditioning then for The Handmaid's Tale? Because now the show is seven seasons in,

which is so crazy. Yeah. And yeah, how did it, did you know then? Because it was an adaptation of the book, like did it already feel like it was going to be a really big deal? Was it nerve-wracking? Or did you have that sort of energy on and go, no, I know this is for me? Oh, I know really.

I know when I can do a part like the times I read it and be like I'm going to do my thing on that now you may not want my thing but I'm going to get to do my thing on this but anyway all that to be said look you've had lots of people faces now and put it up on tape and you're just like

it's thrown into the ocean and just like never hear anything back and it's the weirdest yeah and so this was just another self tape that I was doing and I had a great actress friend of mine Nickyama Kuma Bird who put me on tape and she's great because she's a person who just like

make me do another take and another take another thing even though I think we've got it she's like, go on just do another one and changes so I had that and anyway I sent it out one thing that I did have though is that Reid Morana who was the director I'd worked with actually the DP on a little

gig I'd done before and so I kind of had reached out to her and I think sometimes lots of those kind of like cross-pollination that can help something go but when I was offered it Lizzie Moss wasn't who Lizzie Moss is now

and Hulu wasn't what it is now I mean it's hard to remember but Hulu won the very first Emmy for Best Drama series so with Handmaid's Tale so i.e. before then they were not on the map they were

nowhere so so far from like feeling like oh this is the one to be honest when I first got offered it I was like, okay, great. And I said to my agent, so nothing else on all right? We're definitely sure this is great, great. I was happy about it. It was great source of material.

I wanted to work with Reed again because she's extraordinary. But there was no sense of what it would be or how long it would go or anything like that. Yeah. Oh, what a trip. I'm such a fan of Reed as well. It's cool to hear that you guys. She's a great person. Work together.

Yeah. So what is it like now? I mean, you know, the show, you're preparing for it to come to an end. And obviously, the whole dynamic, as you said, of the show and the streaming platform itself and all of it has exploded and changed, is it bittersweet? You know, I imagine part of you is ready for the next thing for more freedom. But then it's also this incredible thing you've all been doing and this cultural phenomenon on and this reflection on society and like it's big yeah i know you know what because i got i get asked

this question there were variations of it quite a lot and i guess my my intuitions about it seem to be different from what the question implies which is that i don't have much of a sense of it ending i which is i mean number one my last day on set was five months ago you know or whatever six months you know like and so and since then i've worked on three other projects and i was working on another project you know so so the sense of okay what day did it end well it kind of ended six months ago but but in a weird way I don't feel it's ending because I feel like what it is for me is the experiences I've had with the cast and the crew the experience I've had growing as an artist with the material and so that's what it is and so that is with me

like that car on end and so look the paycheck I got on the last thing okay that's gonna I'm gonna have to find a new paycheck and so will I miss the guaranteed yeah I can miss that but that's not what people are talking about when it's like are you going to miss it and so and for me

I haven't watched most of the show and because you've been making it I've been making it and I and that's my relationship with it my relationship is with the scripts and with the cast and the crew and the sets and so so so the thing that I I like to think, well, I miss it. Well, I can just call Lizzie.

I mean, I was just texting with Amanda yesterday. Like, so I'm not going to really miss them. And hopefully we'll do other projects together. And sometimes it's two years before handmade seasons. So anyway, I guess all of this to say is that my, I, there is, in me personally, there's no sense of mourning. There's great gratitude. We did it.

We did it. You know, what was it? It's supposed to last forever? You know, okay, great. So it ended well. That's the best you can hope for us. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's really beautiful. And I think it is interesting to think about, because it is a streaming show, to your point, the end is much longer. It's not like you're finishing a season of a crime drama on CBS and then three weeks later the finale airs and you're still moving out of your apartment and then it's over forever. You get a much longer tail with something like this. That's cool.

Yeah. was it a neat thing in in these latter years at not just working with lizzie you know who you talk about being so exceptional i imagine you built such a an intimacy and a rapport as you know castmates co-workers friends with her playing your wife but in the end to circle back to our queen bee theory she also started directing what what was that like you know to to get to expand you your creative relationship with each other while she was in the director's chair. Well, when she first started, you know, the sense of it is that you just want to support her. You want her to win. And there is a real camaraderie amongst the casting crew. Like, we are here for each other. We're here for the material.

And like, so Lizzie's directing, great. How can we support you in this? Turns out she didn't need our support, Quanko, because she was just an absolute natural and nailed it visually and acting, you know, with the actors and stuff. And what I came to find is that I had some of my best performances with her as director because she kind of understood my process as an actor. And it's like, I don't know, it's stupid stuff like, very often my best take is after I feel like Dave, director has got what they want.

You know, my people please are. I'm just like, do you feel you're happy? And then you tell me, okay, well, then you're, you can do anything. And then, and very often it's then when something will catch. And so she knows me well enough, that she's almost like quite early on. She kind of pushes me to be a bit more of it. And so lots of little nuance type things like that where she can help pull out the best of me. It's great working with it. I love that. And it's really nice to hear, not just hear you. I mean, for our listener friends out there in the ethers, I get to look at you

while we're talking as well. And it's nice to see the way your face lights up when you talk about that creative relationship and the energy on set and being seen, especially because, you know, as a viewer, as a fan, the world is so dystopian and the experience that the, that women in this world have with men is by and large so terrible. It's sort of gorgeous to hear about how nice it is for you guys as real people. Because yes, as an actor, your job is to service the material you have to play the shit out of somebody whether it's the lead in a rom-com or a serial killer but it can be so heavy to i think wade through material this grave and i don't know i as another actor i'm so like touched watching you grin talking about how great she is and how you guys

get each other and you speak the same language because you know a lot of what you have to portray for those of us who watch you is so gnarly how do you make space for that you know how do you um is that sort of surreal especially i know you can't take it personally you know it's not you but but also is it weird at moments to be aware of you know being a man in in that in that version of the world yeah i don't know it's hard to because i i guess when i'm luke i'm inhabiting his perspective of the world and when i'm me And it's, I sometimes get, and also my processes is that I, when I'm acting, I always speak as like, I don't ever say that, even me just saying now when I'm Luke,

my natural instinct say I, like I'm in the role and say I do this, my wife's in it. You know, like, that's, so it's hard sometimes for me to differentiate. So it's like, oh, me in the world of handmaids and me are the world of handmade. I guess, look, the overall, and tell me just time, if this is not answering your question, is just that I try and stay woke. I try and say informed about what's going on in the world but my energies and focus go to where are the places that I have levers of influence

where can I make this issue a little bit better where can I contribute here and all the rest I just try not to keep on my shoulders too much and so so when I'm doing the scene I'm not thinking about wow you know overall what is it what is it to have a repression regime and and you know the how the downtrod and then how our society is like affected by race and class and gender and sex and I'm just like how you know what is going on in this scene right

now between me and this person and yeah and for me personally as an actor you know I played macuchio right and macchio gets stabbed in the stomach and then dies bleeds out knowing he's going to die young and miss the rest of his life oh It was so fun. It's so fun. I bet that was gorgeous. And so, so, you know, so it's the same. I'm doing acting in the handmaid's hell.

I've got to weep. Your daughter's been taken from me. Oh, how tasty. Give me more. Yes, yes, yes. You know, I'm not going away. Oh, my heart is broke. Oh, all the fathers who have lost daughters.

No, I'm like, my, my job is like in the moment when I'm doing it. You know, I'm methoding, you know, and so it's hard emotionally. but ultimately as a person I don't go home and have bad dreams about it. Yeah. Well I always think the balance of that is sort of fascinating because our job is

to shut out the rest of the world and just be as present as possible as you said in the scene, in the moment, every day you've got to do the thing. And I think there's something so freeing about that but it's also got to be kind of crazy

to look at, as you said, to be conscious of what's happening in the world. Have you ever had a day where you see a news story or some insane thing is going on and you're like, are we manifesting the bad guys? Like, what?

What's happening? I would imagine maybe, obviously you've got to focus when you're on set, but like when you're on hiatus and you see what's going on in the world, are you just like, oh boy? You know what it? Yes is a simple answer.

But I think I take the real world so much more seriously than I do the art that it's like the the art is like I don't know a low resolution simile a rhyme of reality and and so I'm much more engaged in like reality and so yes oh it's interesting that there is a poem about what's going on right now but yeah but if I read an article now I'm not I'm not really thinking about hammaids I'm thinking about oh oh gosh my daughter you know what kind of rights would be available to her and and and and to be honest also i try and remind myself that i think it's very very easy to become very america-centric in terms of like what's going on and you know i i've done quite a lot of

charity work and i mean i've not done a lot of charity work i'll take that back i've got a charity where we've done some work and most of my focus has been on women, young girls in Africa and particularly in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Nigeria and it's like, so when I'm dealing with like the specificities of that, it's kind of not connected to, you know, you're figuring out, okay, well, how can we help facilitate microloans for farmers in Zimbabwe? It's a different type of like, you know, questions as well. So that's sometimes they're not as immediately like, oh my God, these are. Yeah. Totally.

And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. You reference your background and where you grew up and, you know, whether you're working on the African continent or you have the English part of your history or you're working in America or you're filming in Canada. It's like there is there is such a, I think there's a. beautiful gift about coming from multicultural backgrounds. And I think one of the greatest gifts of what we get to do as actors is that we get to live everywhere. Everyone becomes our neighbor. And you really do get to sort of learn so much about people in society. And, you know, for me, leaning into knowing how my dad was raised in Canada, knowing how my mom's family in Italy grew up, knowing how, like, you know, seeing the differences in their experience versus my

experience growing up in America, it gives me a lens on how to remember how big the world is. And also, then I can't help but pay attention when I'm like, oh, look, fascism is rising everywhere. Oh, no. Yes, but, you know, we have had the elections in Australia and the elections in Canada. Oh, and it's been so lovely. You know, and so I think, you know, I try as much as I can get kind of like apocalyptic in my thinking. Yeah. And I do try and like, yeah, just remember, you know, when I go, oh, everything's going to fascism.

I go, no, no, no, no, no, O.T, look, look at those, you know. Well, and I think service can really help you reprogram your brain to always look for the helpers, to always look for who's doing the good thing. always look at the helpers isn't that the helpers isn't it doesn't it come from like an american oh oh oh mr rogers oh mr rogers yeah we never had mr rogers but i played some for my son we were looking for like good tv and um and i remember this thing about like looking out for the helpers kind of thing yeah yeah mr rogers he was he was like kind of gangster the sweet old man who wore his cute cardigans which by the way it turned out his mom made for him oh wow like

just so utterly precious was really um he was kind of a gentle revolutionary he was very um pro-equity and he took a lot of leaps and bounds on tv that no one else was and he did it with that sweet little old man face and voice and i as i learn as i've learned more about him over the years and even his fight for pbs i'm like damn i wish i got a bought mr rogers a beer probably doesn't even drink beer. What I had to buy him a cup of tea. Tell me, are you more optimistic or pessimistic about the world? Let's just give it the next

10 years. If I am being pragmatic and I have to work on that because I, people, I think because I am a fighter for justice, people who don't know me well assume that I'm always angry about something and I'm like, no, I'm actually wildly optimistic

to the point that it's been a bit dangerous. So I try to be very communicative. about reality so people can know how to organize. Sitting in that pragmatism, I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, which makes me sad. But I also believe that there is, that we are in a moment of a shift where people really are being touched by the reality that there are so many more of us than there are of the oligarchs.

you know, the fact that we've had the, you know, here in the U.S., we've had the theft of a trillion dollars from the working class to 18 billionaires in the last 10 years is pretty terrifying. And I'm afraid for people who will suffer in ways that that sort of oligarchy class can't even fathom because they've never had to go without, they've never had to make certain kinds of choices. And I worry about people, but people want to help each other. And I think as we see what's coming, I'm really hoping that the opportunity that it felt like we kind of squandered when the pandemic hit and we really had a chance to make some great shifts, especially in terms of public health, and especially in terms of the way we show up for each other, we got more isolated, sadly. And I think people are realizing the effects of that and the radicalization that happened and all of these things. And my hope for us, this is where the optimist comes out, is I'm like, we're better together.

People, I really do think people are good. I think fear can make us cruel. But when you really start to see your neighbor, spend time with your neighbor, everything changes. And I don't think we're as different as a lot of folks would like us to believe. And I really hope that what's happening now is kind of lifting this veil for a lot of people. I definitely feel like I'm seeing it in certain ways. And I'm just hoping it doesn't take us the lessons that it took 100 years ago to come back to each other because they were brutal and horrible and awful.

I'm really hoping that we can do better because we know more now. But I guess we'll see. How do you feel? It's a great answer. Much better than anything I'm about to say, for sure, Zies. Well, how do I feel? In terms of that, do I feel optimistic about the next 10 years? I don't know if it's optimistic or pessimistic.

Just how do you feel? And maybe where do you want to live? I know, I know. It's a good question. I feel like my sense is that we live in very revolutionary times and the rate of change and progress and potential for damage. There's huge variability when I kind of try and assess the probability distribution of the future. And so it's hard to say, really.

I mean, in particular, I think the administration that we have is strangely, you know, I don't mean this in a necessarily good way but not in a good way, revolutionary in the terms of it's just changing really hard and fast a lot of a lot of things that have been like kind of set in place and how much damage

or even potential progress in various areas is so unknown and it feels like and there we've got a long runway for that to kind of all play out and then on the other hand there's like AI which I think you know, I think it has the danger of being under-hyped. I think the ways in which AI may change our societies over the next decade

are going to be quite profound. And so I'm uncertain, really. I know. Me too. Me too. And there's things that make me nervous, you know, in the sort of theme of the show of yours we've been talking about most. I see the way AI tools are being used at really alarming rates to abuse women and girls.

And I am working with some really brilliant people who are ringing the alarm bell about what serialized violence against women and girls means as a tipping point for society. Can you tell me more about how AI has been used to? Yes. So deep fake pornography, for example, is when you consider not, just how we need to think about it, but actually what we understand in terms of the data of what it does to victims. It is the digital sex trafficking and the digital rape of women and girls. It is allowing for content that creates the same kind of PTSD as physical assault,

and it is being weaponized against famous women, non-famous women, neighbors, teenage girls, and children. And over 98% of the victims of this kind of abuse are female. Right. And so when you think about, you know, sexual assault being used as a weapon of war, which obviously is a war crime, but what it indicates for society, what it indicates about the level of brutality with which you see your neighbor, it's a tipping point for the kind of violent conflict that should alarm all of us. And the way that it is sort of shrugged off because it's, quote, digital is also alarming because the human brain cannot tell the difference between seeing a videotape of an assault and an AI assault.

So it is creating desensitization. It is creating memory when it is imported into virtual reality. It creates the illusion of an experience. So what does that then do to women and girls in the world who can be approached on the street by men who think they've had sex with them against their will? You know, it has really alarming ramifications. And unfortunately, companies like Meta and Google and every tech company that we all use make a fortune surfacing this content. And we've seen increases like in the thousands of percent. So two years ago, there were around half a million views on this kind of content, and today we're seeing over four billion views a year.

So to see the explosion of it and to know that it is currently something that we are not legislating fast enough against is terrifying because not only is it creating a more unsafe society for 51% of the population, but the amount of energy it takes to assault women this way, like what it's going to do to the planet is really scary. Now, on the other side, we see incredible opportunities for AI, and it's actually why my best friend and business partner, we advocate, we both invest in what we believe to be good AI, and we are literally advocating in Washington and in front of Congress for protections and laws to be,

made about this bad side of it. We produced a documentary about it. It's called Another Body. You should watch it. It's fabulous. But, you know, we invested in this amazing woman, you know, she is a black woman from Detroit who realized from an engineering background that started an automotive, she went down this incredible rabbit hole of what AI can do. And the best way I can kind of explain it is if you think about a disease that medicine can't figure out how to treat, they can't drug it so people are dying. It's basically like the disease is locked, right? It's like a padlock and they're trying so hard to find the key, but it can cost billions of dollars in 15 years of clinical research to find a key that might fit the lock. She has developed a way to essentially

use AI to, if you will, this is a metaphor obviously, but Imagine being able to 3D model the lock so you can 3D model the shape of the key. Right. So she is cutting down time to create drugs that can save people's lives for previously, quote, undruggable diseases with this technology. And you see AI catching breast cancer five years before a radiologist catches it and all of these other wonderful things. So what worries me about that technology is kind of what worries me about society at large. It's like if we're in the 2020s and you compare it to the world in the 1920s, are we going to go the terrible route of the 1930s or are we going to have a 2030 kind of revolution

that sees community and access and us stand up for each other or not? And so I don't really know, but I'm hoping that we can be, smart about it and I hope that you know AI can go solve diseases and we can still make art because people need art so badly yeah sorry to kind of um scramble your your brain no not at all I think about AI more than I think about anything really yeah I spend more time oh I have to send you some things oh yeah I definitely do I I yeah I spend more time like trying to study AI and and its implications more than anything else I studied, to be honest. So everything, I guess all you're saying, I'm just like, you know, taking in and, you know,

processing. There are so many things I think about everything you say, but I just don't even know where it starts. I'm just like, yeah. Yes, thank you for that. But, you know, extraordinary, the work that you're doing. And, yeah, just like you said. We're trying. Yeah.

And now a word from our sponsors. It's that sort of same feeling I was talking about earlier, about the bees, where I was like, when I grow up, and then I was like, shit, I think I'm a grown-up. You know, my best friend and I have this experience five years ago, we kind of looked around and went, oh, are we, oh, God, we're the adults in the room now? Oh, we have to start, we can't just volunteer for other people. Right. Now there's people who, they want to volunteer for us. Oh, God. So, you know, we're definitely trying. Um, but yeah, I think in, in my, in my most ideal outcome scenario, that technology would make more space for the rest of us to, um, have more reasonable hours and also make more art.

I know. I really hope for this version, this kind of like UBI and, you know, but over the last 30 years, all the efficiency that we've managed to create in automation. and with the internet and all of those things, that all that efficiency has just gone to the oligarchs. And there were economists who would predict that that efficiency would go to labor and therefore labor would become shortened and we need to have more spare time, we'll time with our family. And it's just not the way it's gone. And it makes me kind of like a little pessimistic.

But OT, don't you know that they couldn't give it to us? Because the oligarchs needed more yachts? This is, I mean, and this is the thing. Because a fleet of yachts. isn't enough. You need a whole shipping yard, apparently. Yeah, and if yours don't become enough then you need to build spaceships. And so Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, we

really do, but like what you said, you know, us coming together, us finding our union, our community, and ultimately voting in representation that will because the market is great. Like, you know, the market is great at a bunch of stuff.

It's just not, it's just it's not great at some things that are really important. And if we don't have strong government that kind of comes and steps in to take over from the government market or at least affect the market in ways that are going to protect labor, protect people, protect people, protect people who are from disadvantaged backgrounds, then we're in the mercy of the yacht builders. Well, yeah, and that's the thing. All of the progress, however fraught, all of the progress that particularly has been made in our living generation, you know, the forward strides

terrify people who don't desire more balanced power. But I think the more of us who can understand that if you have more power, so do I. If I have more power, so do you. Like, we hopefully can affect change by, I don't know, by being willing to, you know, to see each other. And I guess by being willing to trust the economists. It wasn't lost on me that a few weeks ago, you know, when she spoke, I think it was in San Francisco. Kamala was like, oh, you mean this plan that those 19 Nobel economists said would trash the economy and mine was great? You mean this

plan is trashing the economy? I'm not going to say I told you so. And I was like, yes. I needed. I did, I did need just like a moment of humor for her. What's your, I mean, I'm just curious, what, and please don't ask this question to me back because I don't know. But what, what's your assessment of of why the election went the way it did? Like, well, why do you think, you know, in November last year, like more people didn't make the choices that look, you know, to calm, I seem so obvious?

What do you think, you know, number one, number two is there? I think there's a lot of algorithmic influence there. Because when you start to look at what anger porn, essentially, people were being fed depending on their algorithm, You know, she was accused of being blue in one person's algorithm and accused of being read in another. And the messaging was completely effective in both of those algorithms. I also think, I hate to say it, the world hates women in power. They just do.

The world or America? I mean, America certainly, but a lot of the world, I think, as well, unfortunately. You know, it's a confluence of so many issues down to the... uplift and new popularity of tradwives. Like all of it is advertising. And unfortunately, when you look at the way they essentially advertised against progress and against her and against labor, let's be clear, it worked. And then it was compounded by, and I think really made worse by the fact that, you know,

we have a now president, a second term president, who is paraphrasing Adolf Hitler to drum up terror and anger and anti-immigrant sentiment. And, you know, people keep being like, stop making those comparisons. I'm like, well, then stop quoting the fucking guy. Like, we won't say that you're using his words

if you don't use them, but you're using them and so's half your staff. So it's like that stuff is really effective, unfortunately. And when you don't have policy to run on. You have to run on fear, loyalty. You have to create a cult when you have nothing to defend. And he's done it. And I think it's really unfortunate. And I think the fact that the man who bought the election for him for $256 million controls the largest fear of influence and could algorithmically program 300 and something million people every day, you know, he's turning

around and he's made himself what, $8 billion so far, if not more? It's like, it's all just a grift. The cryptocurrency and the Saudi's buying $2 billion of it and, you know, oligarchs from around the world doing, they're literally buying America. And I think everyone who realized they got sold outrage porn right now is like, uh-oh, uh-oh. But the scary thing is, and we talked about this a lot in his first election, when you open Pandora's box, you don't really get to close the lid. When you create a cult,

when people buy into QAnon and the guy who started it is like, I didn't think anyone would take me seriously. This was like fan fiction on the dark web. Like, well, people are trying to kill each other over your fan fiction now. So again, it harkens back to the way I feel about AI. It's like,

we better get some regulation on some of this stuff before it's too late. I'm excited that, is it in Sweden or Switzerland? Maybe neither. Now, of course, I can't remember. I'm going to have to look it up afterwards. Somewhere in Europe is proposing a bill to make it illegal for politicians to lie and that they will get fined every time they lie to the public. I'm like, yes, yes, that should be it.

Because if I hear one more person say, oh, Ben Shapiro doesn't believe half the shit he says on his show or on Fox, but it's how he gets the clicks. All right. I'm like, are the clicks really that worth it to you, bro? I don't know. It's Wales, apparently, quick Google search. That's a good old Welsh. There we go.

The Welsh. The Welsh. Now, look, everything you're saying to me makes absolute sense. Absolutely. I think sometimes when I look at the world, I'm always like, okay, that's what those people, my antagonists are doing. that's what the obstacles are doing whereas what do I need to do

different what what work they're going back to sphere of influence like what are the things that I can do do you retrospectively look back and go hey we played it perfectly then we were just out what do you think we're have you seen Ezra Klein's new

new book on a bungee? Yes I ordered it it's really it's really worth I found it really compelling listening to him talk about you know this new vision of you know, democratic leaning, democratic vision for abundance for America.

Anyway, I'm just curious if you've got any takes on like what do you think of holes were? I think there's a lot. I think at the end of the day, it's tough to, I think it was really tough for people to understand and it started in 2016.

I think people don't understand how influential these non-traditional channels are now. I don't think we have been cultivating spheres. You know, the manosphere is funded by the right, by Russia, by all this dark money. We haven't cultivated spheres that are based in reality. We don't, we haven't fought back against Mitch McConnell's 40-year plan to defund American

education. So do we, do we really want to judge people who can't necessarily understand a complex economic proposal from someone qualified to hold the office of president when folks are just trying to figure out how to pay their electric bill? feed their kids. Like we have to demystify policy a bit. I think we have to talk to people where they are. And I think what we have to do a better job of is fight back against this insane idea that because we defend labor and we defend building a prosperous middle class and a and a well taken care of like fuck a living wage, I want people to make a thriving wage,

a well taken care of working class, that doesn't mean we want you to stay there. But there has been all this research that I've read in the last few months about how folks who don't fall into these upper classes in this country believe that the Democrats want them to stay where they are, that we don't believe in class mobility, that somehow saying you shouldn't be stuck making, you know, $46,000 a year in a factory job, why not double? they're like how fucking dare you think I'm not worth more than $90,000 a year and it's like nobody said that By the way I don't care Launch a company win the power ball Whatever go be the most

Go become the richest person You know I would love that for you I would love that for me by the way But I'm not saying you don't deserve more I'm saying I think you deserve more than what you have So that you actually have the space to continue to work up from there But there is this fallacy in public opinion that they think that Democrats don't believe people deserve wealth. And

it's like, that's not it. I just don't think people deserve to be oligarchs. Like Elon Musk didn't make, you know, whatever, close to a trillion dollars by doing anything. He's made it by stealing from everyone and underpaying his employees and grifting global governments for contracts. Like, I just want you guys to have some of his money, actually. Yeah, I think the conversation about, like, for example, like the top rate of tax often kind of when people hear, oh, you want the top rate of tax to be 50% and straight away in one's mind, it's like, so you want to take 50% of my money?

And it's like, it's just understanding, oh, you know, whether it's 10 million or whatever the number is above that, every dollar is taxed that X amount. It's just, it's intuitively, even for me, like they're here, they just intuitively feels like, oh, that's cool. crazy. You're not taking enough. I'm struggling to playing the bills, but just, you know, that's... Yeah. It's like, I'm telling you, you don't know anyone who would get taxed like that. And neither do I. Right. We don't know those people and they'd be fine. Yeah, and it's...

They'd be fine. Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, I guess it kind of did, then, you know, I guess the most seasoned, potentially counter-argument to that is that, okay, well, then you risk the flight of of business you is the flight of rich people who do pay numerically a disproportionate amount of wealth even if it's not like proportionately i don't know if that makes make any sense but but yeah but i mean obviously there are ways around that you know taxing wealth as opposed to taxing income and all those kind of things well that's the thing i don't care if you're wealthy go be wealthy good for you all I'm saying is if you have $2 billion, I think you'd be fine with a billion. You'd be fine.

You'd be great. Good for you. Great. But, you know, when people talk about, you know, what this country used to be, I'm like, you mean when wealthy people paid a 70 to 80% tax rate, when all those social services you want, but you don't want other people to have. everyone could have when the wealthy people

75% of their income like someone with a billion dollars you don't think could live on 250 million dollars I'm not saying you can't have a jet I'm not saying you can't have three jets I'm just saying maybe you don't need to be able to afford to buy Boeing as a company

when kids don't have lunch at school call me a radical well I mean many would and maybe you are maybe I am maybe I am yeah I wonder and I wonder this about America and I also wonder about England where I come from

whether or not like whether or not those value systems it seems to me in the Nordic countries that intuition is kind of fundamental it's in the ground like the intuition that oh we're going to have

a net that means you can cannot go broke because you got sick. Like, that's unfathomable. But I do wonder whether, and this is part of the incredible dichotomy of this amazing country, which is that on one hat, that it can be so capitalistic, so market that you can have great innovation, you can have great, and on the other side, you have this incredible poverty. And that's ultimately the gamble that the people of the country en masse want to take. And it's like, well, then I just don't mind.

Am I just the minority that thinks, hey, why don't we scale it back a bit? You know, like... Well, but I think that's... It's the false binary there. I'm not saying, you know, poof, we're socialists. We are... Everybody gets the same income. And if you have over 10 million, you get nothing.

I'm not saying that. I'm literally saying, keep a billion, but maybe not two. I know, I know. And so here's what I think is really interesting. right? There's this idea that we're going to take it all away and then no one's ever going to be able to get rich. And you might not be rich now, but you could get rich. And if we give everybody's support, then you're not rich now, but you'll never get rich. And I'm like, okay, so essentially you think you're going to win the lottery, which is delusion. But I still play, by the way,

it's fun. I like it. I like my little tickets. I'm like, what if it's my week? I don't know. but what's crazy to me about this idea is it's like they've they've poisoned the well and again I'm not saying we should be a socialist country but what I am saying is it's fucking ironic to me that we have socialism for rich people and capitalism for poor people in America right rich people get all the socialist benefits they get the tax breaks they get the income shelters they get the write-offs they get to offshore their shit They get to write off their private jets, but teachers can't write off colored pencils and paper for their classrooms.

Like, it's cuckoo bananas to me. And so for me, I'm like, look, be as capitalist as you want, but also just pay your taxes. I would much rather Elon Musk pay his taxes than teachers have to figure out how many power bars they can afford to buy because half their kids aren't getting enough calories during the day. Like, I just, I don't feel bad for the guy. And again, I don't think we should take.

all his money away. I'm just saying, like, at a certain point, you don't even, you're not even going to miss it. Like a wealth tax, you're not even going to miss it, bro. Yeah, he wouldn't even know, go on. And I mean, I guess to that extent, it's almost just like, oh, can we just have it fair? Can we have equals? Like you said, like we, so, you know, the average person on the average person in the middle class has to pay tax on what is their biggest source of wealth for most of them is the equity in their home. You know, you pay 1%, or whatever, your state, you pay wealth on that. But people don't pay wealth on the shares that they hold.

And this is mainly held by the billionaires. And so it's just like, well, so we figured there is a system. It's not socialism. It's not crazy crushing people when you're taking the wealth of the middle class, but it is when you're taking the wealth. And so, you know, even I guess one way, but it's just like, can we just have it be the same? Just the same.

How about the same? Can the schoolteacher get the same as Elon? Just proportional tax would be so great. So it's just the same. It's not so hard. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. It's actually, it's so funny to me because it makes me think I love diving into this stuff with you. I'm like, oh my God, we need a meal and a bottle of wine with all of us.

our friends, clearly. I know, I also realize we're over time, so I have to pay you two more compliments, but... Oh, great, we have time for compliments, please. It really makes me think about when you played Barack Obama in the first lady, because I'm like, oh my God, I... Yeah, you just, you have such a wonderful political mind, and it's so much fun. I think to, um, to dig into these things and ask questions and debate and to do so,

hopefully, you know, in the spirit of taking care of people. Was it surreal to play the president? Oh, yeah. Now, that was super serious. Did you get to talk to him? No, I didn't. I tried. We didn't. Although, Viola did get to Queen by that, she said she did get to speak to Michelle a little bit because they'd had a previous relationship. But it was crazy. And they have in Atlanta, this like, you know, fake White House.

And so, yeah, I'm getting out of the limo and this fake president. It was super, super surreal, and terrifying, scary and thrilling and, yeah, so yeah. Wow, that's so cool. I also unrelated, I mean, to that show, not to any of this, because it's you. I loved presumed innocent so much. I loved it. And you were so good. And you and Peter Sarsgaard were just so good.

And I had this moment where I was like, God, I haven't enjoyed disliking someone. in a show like this in a long time it the tension was so compelling and and and the motivation even though you were supposed to be the foil right the motivation and and i could just read not exactly what you were thinking obviously but i could watch your thoughts while you were on screen and see the way you detested this person and then made us the audience second guess is he the hero Where is he the villain? Is this man correct? Like, oh my God, the cat and mouse of you guys

was so much fun hats off to you. I loved it so much. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed doing it. I mean, it's funny because one of the things I did was funny, I was study politicians. And because they're so often this two-faced thing where on the one side, you're like,

oh, yeah, what you're saying I agree with? On the other hand, you're like, I do not trust you. And so I was just like saying, what is this thing? Anyway, so I started working on it, I start working on the voice and, you know, about like, you know, how annoying and kind of like grating some people's voices as well. Anyway, I remember, but I don't think they as a production really knew what I was going to do with the part or like, like it was going to be that kind of like hateable, likable, hateable character. And I remember I did the first scene and I came on and I said, look, do you mind if I watch a little playback?

And I watched it and I went, oh, yeah, he's hateable. And the producer turns to me and went, oh, no, no, I mean, he's not hateable. He's, you know, we don't want him hate. And I was just like, no, this is going to be fun. You're like, no, it's nice for me. This is what I wanted as an actor. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God, I love it.

But so much comes from Peter, because Peter's just this extraordinary actor to play with. And, you know. He's amazing. Yeah. And it's so, he's so unpredictable. He's so unpredictable. And I think I work well under some level of chaos. Oh, I love that.

Well, what's next for you? I mean, obviously, you know, Handmaid's Tells coming out, you're all doing the press and the things, but as you said, it was over months and months ago for you as an actor, so you're on to the next. Are you working on something now? Have you just wrapped something? Can you tell us even? Oh, yeah. There are a couple of little, you know, I don't want to call them a pair projects, but, you know, friends of mine who asked me to do little bits for them. So there are a couple of things like that that's coming out. But the main project I'm working on now is called the miniature wife, which is this. bizarreo comedy uh kind of surreal comedy uh and i'm playing like the weirdest character i've ever played in my life this is like he is so out there there are many a day i come off going well that was insane um so anyway so that's so for peacock and then i'm writing and so you know i'm writing and i'm writing and pushing and developing and and trying to do stuff like that with my brother and so those are those are amazing that keep me off the streets as well as my kids

Oh, it's fabulous. That's what I want. I think, you know, referencing our earlier sort of segue, things feel heavy. I want to go to work and laugh. I want to go to work and be stupid and funny and weird. And I'm like, I can't, I don't want, I need a break from the heavy. Levity and absolutely awkward humor feel like such a respite. I love that you're doing that right now. Oh, yeah. Well, that, all that is coming to a screen at you. Yeah. Well, good. And you and your brother, you have a production company together? Yeah. He has a production company? You do it together. Yeah, so he's got his production company. And then I have like a label under his production company.

There were all this stuff that we did together. I just love working with him. He's kind of like what I was saying about Lizzie before, is that he's someone who just knows how my brain works and gets me writing. And funnily enough, I was two weeks before Christmas and we were going to do Christmas in Virginia. we have some family out there and he was going to come join me and I was like Lucia I have an idea for this movie and he was like oh great great lovely

why can you write something down I was like no no no I want to shoot a a proof of concept and so let's shoot it over Christmas so we'll have Christmas day and then we'll shoot for two days after that and he was like well we don't have a cast and I was like is your daughter coming

okay great so that's one I'll ask my best friend to come and so he was like OTI are you serious but he's so game that we went and did it and we shot this crazy short over two days after Christmas

anyway so that's my my brother's mentality is just like how we did a TV show together called Max M-A-XXXX check it out on Hulu it's a call Wild comedy and we got all these like we got the backstreet boys in it

we got a bunch of Larry King who did a little cameo in it and that just came because he's got the attitude of like let's just go up to Larry King and ask him hey Larry, would you just give us our stuff five? We wasn't going to his agents. When we did the back street boys, we weren't talking to people's managers.

We were literally like, yeah, will you come to do this? And, you know, with Kevin for the backstreet boys, we were like, come on. Well, he was like, well, I can't do right now. You know, I'm going home. We were like, where'd you live? Why don't we come to your house? And so he let us come to his house. And then we gave him a bottle and he smashes it over my head.

You know, it's, uh, anyway, so working with Lutti is just like, it's a whirlwind. And like I said, I'm, like, pretty well, and some chaos. Well, I love that you guys jump in and just make it happen because I think we need permission to do that, especially in this business where it's like, you've got to call so-and-so, and then they'll call something. And you're like, don't you know that we're all just like a bunch of circus performers what we're doing? But I also think it's so cool that you guys have like such a special mandate because knowing, you know, as again, as I was prepping, you know, reading up on how you very intentionally hire black department heads. it's from makeup to locations, to producing, to writing. It's like to expand our world, not just on camera, but behind it, to make sure people get to see themselves,

to make sure their experiences are represented. Like, the whole thing is so important. And it's, I don't know. I love that you're, like, chasing Larry King down and that you're also making shit happen for your whole crew. It's very, very awesome. Ah, thanks a lot. Yeah, I mean, just to say about that, just real quick, though,

Because it's interesting because like DEI and all that is in the news. I mean, I can't speak specifically for Lutti, but for me, like when I was making my show, I just wanted to make sure we interviewed the black head of costume. That they got a fair chance that when we interviewed actors, that we were interviewing some actors with some disabilities. Because I think so often what happens is like these talented people aren't getting in the room. So it's not about giving someone who's not.

talented a job. It's like kind of like what you were saying before. Can we make it fair? Because you oligarchs are going, oh yeah, my nephew has just graduated, but you give him a shot at something. So you have your pipelines of getting people in. Can we just make it fair to this person who doesn't have some connection in the industry also gets to be interviewed? And through that process, we met some amazing, you know, men and females and people with disability and all sorts that just were extraordinary, but we're never given the chance to shine. Yeah. I think it's really cool. To your point, all you're doing is expanding, you know, you're expanding the pool. Exactly. And it's wonderful. I'm going to ask you my last question. Obviously, you have

a thousand irons in the fire right now. And as you mentioned, your dad and, you know, your family is all over the place. And it's, it's so many spinning plates, but you love the chaos. I think all of us circus kids do. What, whether it's personal or professional or maybe it's a mix of both, what feels like your work in progress when you look out at the year ahead? Well, no, sorry, break it down for a minute. What do you mean with my work in progress? Just like, I like to know what feels like something that guests are noodling on or working

on whether, you know, somebody recently shared some really deep shit about what they're going through in therapy, you know, someone was like, I'm going to get this movie made this year. You know, we've got friends trying to write novels. It's like, I guess I just always wonder when people are smart and creative and also have families and are doing the thing we're all trying to do, which is make it all happen. Like, what's that central thing that you feel like you're working on and tinkering and... The thing that I'm... thinking about most today and a lot is

I can't say about that again too emotional which is basically just being a great father like and I'm trying to figure out how do I give the best lift off to these incredible creatures that

I for now I'm looking after because if I do a good job to become adults and be free in the world and I'm managing that with the demand of all the things that we all know, you know, like paying the bills and doing your own art and having your own life and being healthy and all the things that we're supposed to be doing. Yeah. But, you know, they're so vulnerable. It's complicated, you know, how best to water these gardens. And so, you know, being patient, I think patience is one of the things I struggle

with, you know, and yeah, there's no rushing that process. You just have to go through the middle. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's a pretty interesting thing, you know, when you talk about their ages. I think about how close, you know, the kids in my life are when you love to communicate and you love complexity and a deep conversation to figure out how to communicate really well with a tiny little brain that is developing and learning but doesn't have all the language yet. It's like a whole other kind of creativity. Yes, and also for me, it's kind of like, you know, my head, you know, I don't know where they call it ADD or whatever, but my head runs and I'm thinking about bunch of things like, I'm thinking about free will and I'm thinking about, you know, market situations and AI, I'm thinking about this ball writing projects, something better thing, and then you, you know, and then my, you know, my daughter wants to throw the ball, whatever the thing is, just scribble on something or she wants me to chase her, but she doesn't want me to chase her, she wants me to cold, her and me run you know and and it's like you just have to be there doing that thing and to give them the most it's to be present and I'm so tempted I want to put a podcast in my ear while we're doing because it's like my brain needs there's other things going on and it's like it's quite hard for me to kind of let go and just be like okay just present like we are running we are rolling and sure five 10 minutes is

crying but just figuring out that hour that two hours that presence with them like you say because they can't communicate on the breadth of bandwidth that we can and so we just have to go analog and

yeah it's incredible it's incredible oh well this has just been such a joy yeah we have to do again yeah absolutely and you know best of luck with the show coming soon and and i mean gosh just all of it it's really really exciting and and yeah we'll have to

we'll have to dive back into some of the nerdy policy yeah processing soon i'm down for it all right my dear thank you for today yeah thank you This is an IHeart podcast.