Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler - girl on guy 179: david benioff

Episode Date: April 7, 2015

join novelist, screenwriter and game of thrones co-creator david benioff and aisha as they talk about compulsive reading, pathological lies, urban childhoods, rural college years, surmounting rejection, enduring success, and adapting the unadaptable. plus david revisits his childhood in the creepiest way possible, and a self-inflicted wound unfolds live during the show. girl on guy is waiting for winter.

This is Girl on Guy. Hey, everybody, welcome to Girl on Guy 179. Welcome to the show. This is a very special episode of Girl on Guy. It's not a premium episode, but it is special because it is with Mr. David Benioff, co-creator of the massive hit television show, Game of Thrones, season five of which debuts this Sunday, April 12th at 9 p.m. on HBO. I'm a fan.

I'm sure that you know that I'm a fan. And so I've been trying to get this interview for a very long time, and it is finally happening. It is happening. Very, very excited to bring this episode to you as it turned out better than I ever could have hoped. But before we get into that, let's just take care of a little bit of business. This episode of Growing Guy is brought to you in part by Casper mattresses. And if you don't know Casper, this is a totally new way to shop for a mattress. It is an online retailer of premium mattresses for a,

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So check this out. It's an incredible risk-free offer, free delivery, returns within 100 days, and an incredibly highly engineered mattress at just the right price with an incredible risk-free trial and return policy. They are made right here in the good old mother-effing US of A. So check it out. It's casper.com slash girl on guy. The promo code is Girl on Guy for $50 off your mattress purchase from Casper mattresses. Check them out. All right, this episode of Girl on Guy is with David Benioff. A quick background. When you get into the show, you'll hear that David and I went to college together, and that is pretty cool. There's a little Dartmouth mafia slowly forming in Hollywood. We're very slow to show up, typically because we're hungover. But he's a great guy,

and these stories are funny. And if you are not caught up on Game of Thrones, there may be spoilers buried not so deeply within this episode. So just be prepared for that. I don't want you to burst into tears of salty, salty blood because we've told you something that you didn't want to know about what's upcoming on Game of Thrones. But there is a lot of deep dive info about the show

and how has we created and what's coming. Nothing that's going to spoil season five. But definite spoilers of previous seasons that you've not seen the show, then woe be unto you, my friend. But this is a great episode, loaded with lots of fantastic information. David has an extraordinary CV and has written a bunch of massive films, including The 25th Hour and Troy, 25th Hour, is based on a book that he wrote. He's a fascinating mind and a lovely guy. And, oh, something very, very special. A live, real-time self-inflicted wound occurs.

in this episode, courtesy of yours truly. So this is really, this is a doozy. I know you're going to love it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Girl on Guy 179 with novelist, screenwriter, and the executive producer and co-creator of Game of Thrones, David Benioff, coming at you, straight out of the Girl on Guy Moondor

and right into your face. David Beniof, welcome to my show. Thank you, Asia. This is exciting. I really have been pursuing you for quite a bit of time. You may not have heard about it. It hasn't been that long. It feels like forever.

We're supposed to see each other at Comic-Con. Yeah, but I think like three Comic-Cons ago. Yeah. It was three Comic-Cons ago. I don't know. I'm going to put you to put it to me as soon. I think I'm a louder talker than you. I think you're like your interior guy.

I think everybody's a louder talk. Yes. But obviously you've been very, very busy over the last few years. And Comic-Con is also the worst place to try to meet anyone ever. It is. Yeah. It is. It's my strongest.

memory of Comic-Con was going there the first year we went and walking out of the hotel with Peter Dengledge and this was right after the show had come out. Right. And seeing him disappear into a mob of people and then it was like one of those shots where the guy disappears into a mob and then he see him kind of fleeing out

and went straight back to the hotel. He was trying to go across the street to the convention hall to, you know, look at comics. Right. And he made it about 10 feet from the hotel and it's just like, this isn't going to happen. Never going to happen again, by the way. No. We'll never happen again. No. And I don't No matter how I say this is going to, I'm going to sound like an asshole, but I'm going to say it.

Peter Dinklage is not like, he's got a miss. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't think. Well, yeah. He's so distinctive looking. And obviously he's physically distinctive. Yes. And I can't think of a situation in which he could be sneaking around Comic Con in disguise.

I mean, it feels like other stars could put on sunglasses in a baseball hat and you kind of just, you know, Tom Cruise could look like an anonymous guy. Like a dude. Yeah. But Peter, people are going to look at him no matter what. And so you walk anywhere with him at this point. And you've got every 50 yards, there are 100 selfies. And, you know, he handles it well, though. He handles it better than I would.

He is a classy dude. He's a very smart man. God. I met him like years ago. It's like post-station Asian, but pre-thrones. And I was like taken. I mean, he's just like a delight. Yeah.

Women really like theater. He's fucking hot. I met him with my wife. And I was kind of like, dude, this guy is making a gel. He's really, he's, he's got an insane amount of swag. He just, like, exuding. swag, yeah, which is, it's, he's a pimp. He really is a pimp. Let's just do, let's just go back to the beginning. And I'm going to start, I'm going to preface this by saying everybody that David and I went to

school together and, in fact, went to school the same year together, graduated in the same class. But I don't know that we knew each other at Dartmouth. You were a, I knew who you were, because you were in the a cappella and group. Yeah. Is it rockapella? The rocabellas, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I saw you singing and all. And I think you and I was Dave Murphy, right? I did go out with I knew who Dave was, and Dave was, you know, Dave's a really nice guy. Yeah. So back then at least, he was massive, so I was kind of terrified of him.

He was big, the large fellow. Yeah. And also, you were a fight out? I was. Okay. So you were right next to AD, which is the house that he was in. Was he a fight out? No, no, you were on the row.

You were on the row. You were on the row. Yeah, we were on the row. Yeah. Yeah, no, Dave was a very large guy. And also, he was infamous. He was an infamous personality. Yeah.

And then I finally got to know him. And it's like, oh, he's actually a great guy. Super sweet. He's an amazing guy. but from a distance, he was really intimidating. I always went. That's why I never actually said hello to you. Oh, there you go.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was, I aimed very big in college. I was like, I mean, like literally and figuratively. I was swinging for the fences the whole time. So we did go to school together, but we never interact. Although obviously now we realize we had, it's a small school. You get connected at fringes. Now we're taking over Hollywood.

Now you and I are the, there's three of us, the Dartmouth Mafia. Oh, and Lord, you know, those guys are crushing it. The, you know, last man on earth. Oh, yeah, God, I need to pay better attention. They went to our school. Oh, they did. They did a little piece in the magazine this month. They're so young, it's hard to, exactly.

And they quoted a bunch of us, you and me and Shonda. They put a photo of a different black woman in the magazine, and I'm going to milk that for the next 10 years. I won't be contributing to the Dartmouth Fund any time long. Beautiful girl, but just not me. I think like a reporter from E or something. I mean, it was pretty bad. That's embarrassing.

I enjoyed it. I mean, I actually, it was so funny that I've just been like just really savoring it. Because people keep tweeting going, there's a piece and it's not you. I'm like, no, it isn't really. It's not me. We don't. Even in the Ivy League, we all look alike. I've really been enjoying it.

When was the last time you were back there? Oh, never. I mean, I went at five. You were there at a reunion because I think we sat on the same panel together, right? Five was when I went. Yeah, five. And then not since. currently boring to tears every single person who did not.

I know. This is inside baseball. Luckily, people who listen, the show was always inside baseball. They're used to it by now. But yeah, we did. We sat at a table together at reunion. And then since then, I don't know, do you want to. With Grant Rose, I think, right?

Yes, me, you, Brandt. There was someone else. It was like. Someone else. Yeah. But so here's my question. Do you feel compelled to go back to visit Dartmouth at all? No.

No. No. I don't have any hard feelings against it. I just, I'm done. Like, I had a great time up there. Yeah. And, but I feel like the people who I want to see from there, I see. You see, yeah.

And, you know, in terms of going back there, no, it's kind of, it's kind of far away. It's remote. I mean, because it's not just at the opposite end of the continent from where we are now, but then you can't get directly there, like, in any kind of an efficient fashion. There's no efficient way to get there. And also, I just kind of feel like I really had a great time, but there was always something a little bit weird to me about the alums who would come back, like, every year for homecoming.

So needy. Yeah. It's kind of like, aren't you past this? Right. So I feel like I hear from time to time I'm almost in an email like, we got to stop this, they're going to ban alcohol or they're going to ban the fraternities or something.

It's kind of like, well, that was a long time. It was coming. Right, I don't feel like I can get a boner for this issue now. No. At 45, it's hard enough to get a boner for important things. It's like, I don't want to do it for Dartmouth. To get an actual boner. It's working on getting actual voters for what it's really meant to be used for.

I've got to save the boner. They really do. No, we can conserve voters. I will say, before we move back to the very beginning, that I remember distinctly when I was there, and I was also in the house, I mean, not in the tavern. Even when I'd visit my friends at other houses, and their alums would come back,

and I'd be like, that is a million-year-old guy, and he's down there drinking beer. Like, that's so sad. He's so old. And I'm sure those people were like 28. Do you mean? God, he's practically dead. So you were in the hippie house.

I was in the tavern. Yeah, I was in the hippie house. We drank like conservatives, though. You drank mushroom tea. You drank mushroom tea. Oh, God. Yeah, we did. Well, I always tell people that when you sank our house, we would be like, because it was a fraternity before when a co-word would be like, drink, drink right now.

But only if you want to. I don't want any kind of social pressure. Are you feeling all right? Do you need a moment? It wasn't like that if I don't. No. No. It wasn't the touchy feeling.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny. Also, you feel kind of very connected to the person that you were back then and then completely. different from that person in so many ways. I don't feel not connected to that person. I honestly I have a hard time remembering what was going on in my head back then and why I did things I did and why it's just so long ago. I have a terrible memory. I don't know if it's... Me too. And so like college feels like I have sort of vague, happy memories of it. I had a good time there. That was great.

And I grew up in New York City. So it was really nice to be this beautiful country place. But but that's about like I kind of have certain specific memories. But, but, it all sort of blends together. Right. It's the depressing thing about getting really old, I think. Well, see, the things were not that old.

Well, to 21-year-old me, we'll be really, we'll be cackling hysterically. They thought they were old when they were 40. 44. We're both 44. Yeah.

That's the thing is, is we're not old. But like the, you know, again, like it's all about perspective. I kind of feel like I just started to figure shit out like a couple of weeks ago. You know what I mean? But I also have a terrible memory,

and I'm always so comforted when I meet somebody else whose memories as bad as mine because then I think, okay, this is, I'm not dying. Yeah. Or having like a really prolonged, like a 14-year stroke. Well, you might be. I might be. I mean, that would be like.

Right. Please make me feel better. Yeah. Also, I just think I'm a lot happier now, and I feel like I've kind of finally, yeah, you were saying you found it a few weeks. Like I feel like things start to make more sense to me, like having a family.

I don't know. Just everything feels more, more kind of like, Like I'm not faking it. I feel like I was just kind of pretending to be somebody in college. And still, I'm sure, in certain circumstances, faking it. But for the most part, I'm just kind of like the guy I am at home. Right, right.

Right. And yeah, that's interesting. I think you also get to a point where you just don't give a shit anymore. I mean, you have to under certain circumstances when you're working. But it's nice to be in a position where you can say, well, I don't care if I impress these people. I mean, this is who I'm going to try to be as authentic as possible. Or you're not even trying.

You're just like, oh, this is who I am. Yeah. And impressing my wife is impossible. Just don't even try it. What's the point? She knows you now. She's like, oh, this is, you figured it out. All of my jokes and stories before.

Aw. And also, yeah, you have a pretty impressive professional life, but at home you're just like, David. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not even that impressive. But at home, it's definitely. But that's a good thing.

I remember, like, having a dog. My dog died a long time ago. But I remember it was a good thing having a dog. and like whatever happened good or bad your dog didn't give a shit right exactly up to you at the end of the day and stoked

exactly the same yeah yeah you're back and you're gonna give him dinner and it didn't matter if you just got a great job or if you just been fired off a job yeah

same to him and you know that was I'm not saying anything original here but it was a good thing to have it's a good thing to have a dog who just doesn't give a shit about your career yeah and also if you if things are going well for you

you can rely on your dog to shit on your belongings and bring you right back down to earth yeah and then after that your children to do the same thing. You said you grew up in New York? I did. You were born in, like, in Manhattan? Yes.

Interesting. I always, whenever I go to New York, I love New York so much, but whenever I go to New York City and I see people like walking their kids to school, I think, God, it would be really hard to be a parent in this town, but maybe interesting to be a kid. It was a great place to be. Where did you grow up? San Francisco, which is also a city, but not nearly as kind of like, yeah, but not, not, nearly is kind of like impactedly urban as New York. Yeah, well, okay, but, but I mean, I lived in San

Francisco for only one year, but the one thing I really liked about it, there were several things I liked about it, but one thing I liked about it, like New York, was you could get around without needing a car, you know, and growing up, I, you know, we didn't have a car, not because we were poor, but just you didn't need it. It was easy to get around by subway, by bus, and having a car was actually a huge pain in the ass. So there is something, the great thing about growing up in New York for me is just you become independent at a really early age, and you're not relying on your mom or dad to drive you to your friend's house. You get there. You take the bus. You'd take the subway, whatever. And it's, um, there's just so much there. I mean, it's just hard to be bored as a kid

in New York City. Or if you are bored, it's, you kind of know it's your own fault. Even at a young age, you kind of get that. Like, if you're bored in New York City as a kid, you're doing something wrong. So I loved it. I mean, I had it, I had a great time growing up there. But you're right now, I look at it. I'm kind of like, God, that must be a really tough place. Right. Right. And then, yeah, and you were kind of like laying your own kind of, like, pre-concons. conceives notions about like what it would be like. But you just, I mean, you changed my perspective on it. But also, like the idea of letting my girls, like I was on the subway from the age of eight,

like the idea of my girls getting on the subway eight or nine, fourth grade is nine, I guess. Yeah, fourth grade is nine. My daughter, one of my daughters is eight now. The idea of the next year I'd be like, okay, you don't go out there and take the subway by yourself, you'll be fine. That's terrifying to me. Right. This is such an interesting kind of point of discussion.

Like now, because I don't understand what you. where we are culturally, I mean, I started taking the bus to school, I think by myself, at least eight, I think it was seven, like second, second third grade, definitely by the third grade. Yeah, city bus. And, you know, walking to the bus stop with my bus pass, waiting at the bus top, getting on the bus, getting off, and then walking four or five blocks to school. I mean, that was every day. Walking the 79th Street bus, take a cross down. And it was great because I had to walk past the two girls schools on the way to the bus stop. So I would see all the girls from the two girls

schools near where I live were called Chapin and Burley. And so like all these girls in their girls' girl's girl. Yeah. So even though I was prepubescent and didn't really know why I was making me have these strange feelings, it felt kind of exciting. It's like a wonderland. What's like a wander through a crowd of girls? Then you poof yourself. Then you poof yourself. You're not the only one Eggers. Yeah. No, it was good. Yeah. But again, you know, you had that experience and now you think about your kids doing the same thing and it feels really forward. Yeah. And I don't know if that's, I don't know what that is that we've, you know, like, is that a cultural, like people keep saying, well, the world is different now. I don't think it is. I just think we know more about it. But New York was more dangerous back then than it is now. I mean, New York is safer now than it was since like 1959 or something. It's crazy. So, so it's not, it's not based on fact. It just seems like some, I don't know, I've become like a fuddy-duddy middle-aged guy who's like, no, you're not going to take the subway. I don't think it's you. I think it's like this interoperable. I think it's like this. I think it's like this.

internet fueled paranoia, and it's not that there aren't threats out there, but we know them, we see them more, we hear them more. So our fears are kind of compounded. And then I think there's also this kind of like cultural disapproval. Like you don't drive your child everywhere. They're not constantly in your possession. You know what I mean? And I... Meanwhile, driving with me is a lot more dangerous than getting on the subway. I can't guarantee that. Yeah, because you didn't even grow up with a car. I didn't grow up with the cars. I didn't learn that drive until college, actually. And my big brother at school, you know, we had like a big brother, and he sort of gave me my first lessons.

And then, yeah, I had some bad experiences where I would borrow my roommate's car in the middle of the night to drive to Harry's truck stop. Oh, yes, Harry's truck stop. And got pulled over, and there was this whole thing because I wasn't actually sober. Bad, bad thing to do, really bad thing to do. Everybody, and we're not endorsing any of this behavior. We are just, we're reporting now. This is just reportage. We're just recounting what happened with no judgment.

We went to school in the middle of nowhere. Yes, in the woods. And by the way, at that time, not that we're a million years old, but at that time, not an apology, but the intense stigma around driving drunk did not exist. It was still relatively new. I mean, I wouldn't even think of it now, and no one would. But I think back then, you're like, I'll slap my face,

I'm freshen up, you know, that kind of thing. Well, we were stupid. And, you know, and also, we went to, we lived in this, little town where I don't think there was anything open after like 11. Right? And so the one place you could go if you wanted to eat at 4 in the morning was Harry's truck stuff, which was out in Manchester or something like that. Oh, Thetford.

I don't know. New England is a big green blob to me now. One of them is Manchester is New Hampshire. Yeah, Thetford's Vermont. Yeah. I'm trying to remember which way it was. I'm thinking it was New Hampshire. But anyway, it doesn't matter.

And meanwhile, I had taken my friends, my roommate's car without actually asking because he was passed out drunk. Well, that's implied consent, though. Not for sex, just for borrowing your car. It's not implied consent. Very specifically, not implied consent for sex. Oh, man. Yeah, I saw where that was going.

I put a stop to that. Yeah, yeah, really dumb. Yeah, but, God, kids are so stupid, though. I mean, like this aggressively idiotic, you know? Like, not just kind of, whoops, passive dumbness, but let me just, like, set all of us on fire as fast as I can. Yeah, and not even being like, oh, this will be macho. It's just like, of course you're going to go get.

you know, the pancakes and... Oh, they had this corned beef hash there that I was obsessed with. Yeah. They did a good corned hash with the egg on top. Oh, God. It was crispy. Oh. And also when you're drunk, you'll eat anything.

When you were growing up in New York, were you, I mean, were you a bookish kid? Mm-hmm. Yeah? Like a big reader? I was a big reader. My sister, two older sisters in the middle sister, Carolyn, taught me how to read when I was, when I was young. And then from that point on, I was just, I was, yeah, it was a very kind of,

loner, not in a black trench coat kind of way, not like in a scary way, but I just definitely, you know, there are pictures of me in kindergarten and you see like all these kids having good time, and then I'm sitting in a corner reading, I don't remember what the hell was reading, but yeah, I got very into books very early

and which was a great thing. And my sister deserves a lot of credit, because I think you know, everyone else was working and she was there in the apartment. And I remember, like, we had this little blackboard and she would draw letters in the blackboard, board and teach me how to read and wow that's impressive she was a good older sister how much how much older was she than you so like i'm assuming you were like maybe three or four when she started teaching you

how to read i guess so yeah that's really impressive yeah yeah she was really um she was really patient and and and you know it come from a family of readers and and uh so there were always books everywhere and it was always kind of i think that's probably why i became a writer because it was just a house where uh books and writers were held in incredibly high esteem there weren't any writers that in the family, but it was just that was something that was considered, you know, kind of like that was the top. Like if you were a writer, that was really impressive. And so it just, and making up stories and all that, it was, it was, it was a big deal in our household.

Did you start making up stories at a young age? Well, I was a terrible liar, you know, I was just a path to life. So I would, you know, and, and I think in second grade, the teacher said, you know, we're all supposed to write a little story about what our fathers did. This was back in pre-PC time, so mothers weren't supposed to be working. So it was like, what does your dad do for a living? And my dad, in my mind, had a really boring job because he worked at a bank. So instead of that, which seemed really lame, I made him a submarine commander.

And this is Manhattan, right? So the teacher calls in my parents. The next time there's a meeting, and she's kind of like, hey, you know, I don't want to say that you're not a submarine commander, but seems slightly suspicious that you would be. And it was just everything was just making up a sort of a more exciting life other than, you know, not that there was anything wrong with my. It wasn't like I came from like some kind of bad abusive childhood. It was great.

It was just sort of, you know, it was just very, felt very normal. Right. And I wanted something else. And so I found that just by lying to everybody. Do you remember other times where you like really? Well, the one that creeps my wife out because I told her this a few years. I was walking. I was somewhere in Manhattan and I bump into this kid or this kid says, hey, David, and I see him.

And I had that moment of panic because I kind of vaguely recognized him, but I didn't know his name. And it was embarrassing because he just called my name. And I said, no, I'm Jack. I'm David's twin brother. And he goes, oh, my God, I didn't even know that David had a twin brother. And so I thought that was sort of funny. And I've told people over the years, and I told my wife, she looked at me like I was a psychopath. She said, what is wrong with?

So, because if you were able to do that, I don't even remember. Like, but you were a little kid? No, it was probably old enough that it was weird. I was probably like 13 or something. Yeah. But she's just like you are a sociopath because that's a sign of being a sociopath that you can lie that well. And what else are you lying about? Hilarious.

Yeah. There is something also about lying about like fabulating or confabulating that is very addictive. Fabulating. Fabulating, yes. That is very addictive, right? Like once you get away with a lot, well, because there's the one thing where people say what's a tangled web like you have to keep lying and maintain an original lie. But there's something else, which is like it's so much more delicious to tell these compelling

stories and then it really becomes addictive. So maybe it's not like an underlying sociopathy. It's just, God, it's so fun when I seem so much more interesting. I mean, even the fact that you were the twin, all of a sudden, that was an interesting story to tell. Yeah. Well, it's definitely more interesting for you because, for example, like whenever I was on for a long time, I don't do this anymore. But when I was on a plane, I was flying somewhere, and if I happened to strike up a conversation

with a person next to me, I would just always make up a complete false identity. And it was just more interesting than saying what I really did. At the time, for a while I was teaching, which is fine. Teaching is great, but I didn't want to say, this is what I do. I'm a teacher at a high school in Brooklyn, because that's kind of, it's not interesting telling the truth of that.

All I'm doing is telling you stuff I already know, but if I can start making up this story and if I can do it well enough that the other person doesn't believe it, and it wouldn't be cool. There were very specific rules to it. It couldn't be about how awesome you were. It couldn't be some story about, like, oh, I play baseball for the Florida Marlins. Right, right.

It had to be something just kind of like out there. Yeah. And then it was almost like I'd award myself points for the most out there lies I could tell without, you know, triggering any suspicion. That's interesting. That's a fun game to play with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And then you kind of have your greatest hits probably.

I got really really well. I'll be embellished. Let me shape that one again and see. Or would you ever go back to a good one? I've forgotten all of them. Oh, have you? We get back to the table. Yeah, the terrible.

I did that just the other day, and I almost never do this, but I do it when I don't really want to, I just don't want to have a conversation about what I actually do. And so sometimes if somebody doesn't recognize me, and then they ask me what I do, then I'll make something up just to be done with the conversation. I'm sorry, Uber drivers. It's mostly Uber drivers.

Uber drivers all listen to your podcast. Oh, they're all pissed right now. Never going to get a ride again in this town. But, you know, sometimes I don't want to do it. I know the Uber guys rate you as well. They're going to give me one star. I love when they negotiate with you when you get out of the car. They're like, you're going to be five stars? I'm like, are you going to give me five stars? Let's make a deal.

I always just say, yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. But now I've come to, and I'm going to negotiate harder because I've just blown myself up with Uber guys. I see it. I get nervous if they drop me off at my house and it's like, well, if I don't give him five stars, and even though his car kind of stank of cigarettes and he doesn't have a drive, he knows where I live. Yeah. It's kind of screwed up. And, you know, what if he lost his Uber drop because of my... Your bad rating.

Because they do if they go below a certain level, they lose their... I've heard a couple of guys get pretty hysterical. I got one guy who's like, and then these kids are drunk, and then they get in the car, and then they're yelling at me because they want to change the music, and I can't change the music because my car won't pair with their phone, and then they give me one star. I'm like, that's terrible. I've never given anyone less than five stars.

Yeah, I've given a couple of guys four stars when they didn't know where they were going. Fewer than five stars. Yeah, a couple fours, but nothing less. Yeah, a couple fours. It seems reasonable. Yeah, that seems reasonable. Fours, like if your car smells a cigarette. Yeah, I mean, like, literally, if you deserve one and I give you a four, like, everybody wins here.

Like, you still made out like a bandit. You understand that there was something suboptimal about your performance to that. Figure out what it is, and course, correct. So you were a bookish kid. I was a very bookish kid as well, and I was always interested as, like, how that manifests itself. Were you into comment? Because I noticed they have some comic book. I did like comic books.

And I have a few comic books here, but I was not a comic book obsessive. I was like sci-fi and fantasy. That was like my big thing. And I loved, and it's so nice when you're, what's so interesting when you're a bookish kid, because what I find, and this is not new either,

but I love to read, but I really only wanted to read shit that I was interested in. So like, I would get so excited about reading like non-school-related stuff. I would, like, kill myself to, like, finish a book. But then I could, like, you know,

it would be like, wading through, some textbook would take me forever. And do you remember what got you into the fantasy? Do you remember the early ones that you read? It's funny because when I was a little kid, my parents never gave me sci-fi. I don't know how I got into it. But I loved video games and I loved movies.

And I would probably do what you did, which is fantasize about putting myself into these situations. Right. Yeah. I really wanted to be an astronaut, for sure. I wanted to go to space. But you, yeah. So you were visualizing putting yourself in the movie. Yeah, you know, like if I read like left-handed darkness or,

I just wanted to go to whatever that planet was or go to Mars, you know, rape Bradbury. Mars was not a very cool, never really went well for people on Mars. But I always wanted to go there. That's what creepy stories. Yes, no, I was exactly the same way. I was one of the nerdy kids hanging out in the science fiction and fantasy section of the Barnes and Noble on 86th Street.

And yeah, for years and years, I was pretty much the only thing I read except for the required school reading. And I had my Dungeons and Dragons game. I grew up in a big building on 86th Street, and the Feinberg brothers lived up, you know, like 10 floors up or something. So we had our weekend game and, you know, this campaign that went on for like seven years. Hilarious. I do remember where I was a dungeon master, and Jeremy was Jonah the cleric and his brother Doug was, I don't know what, but it was a great, you know, education for doing what I do now. Yeah, oh, absolutely.

I mean, it's, you were literally, you were like pre-Duneration. for the life that you have now. And also, I will say that something like Dungeons and Dragons requires an incredible amount of like, kind of like linear memory. Those games get pretty complex. I'd never had the memory for a game like D&D. I needed the computer to tell me how to feel.

Right. They're super complex. And we cheated, though. I mean, we didn't really stick by the rules because, you know, I think Jeremy finally had like a level 30 cleric or something within like a year. I don't know. It's the kind of thing where he's supposed to play

where you don't really level up until like you've been at it for, it's like getting a black belt in the road. You're not supposed to do it really quickly. But that was too boring for us because we wanted to fight, you know, like the dragons. Yeah, exactly.

Satan and everything else, not just a bunch of orcs. I'm getting too nerder. There's a low level orcs. Yeah, low level orcs. And there's like a bottomless reservoir of orcs. Like they're everywhere. Like they're never.

You can't get that. You can't get that piece with yourself for Kenon yet. And there's only one team at Queen of the dragons. When did you start writing these confabulations down? That's a good question. I'd say probably like seventh grade. And then, boy, I wrote some really, I wish I had more of the crappy writing, not to,

not so I'd be proud of it, but just to kind of, so I could show my kids, like if they were frustrated, look how incredibly bad. Now I'm a professional. I actually make a living off of this crap, but look at these horrible. I mean, I got rejected by my school literary magazine for, you know, three straight years.

Wow. And when I got to college, I got rejected. And the intro to creative writing, taught by, you know, the wonderful Ernie Hebrot, but I got rejected the first three, maybe two,

but I think three times I applied. And rightfully so. This wasn't like a case of, you know, oh, they didn't recognize as genius. I sucked. And, you know, just it was, you know, I think there are writers who are born with just insane levels of talent.

And you can tell from the get-go that they've just got something really special. And then there are writers like me who aren't born with anything particularly special, but they just keep at it for long enough and eventually, you know, you're able to write something that somebody somewhere is going to like. And so it was just really keeping at it.

And I think having no, not really knowing an alternative, you know, there wasn't really, because I think if there had been an alternative, if there was like the, well, there's always law school or there's always, you know, there's always going to work in some business. I probably would acquit, but there just wasn't anything else that I had any remote interest in doing. So that was it. It was just either right or, you know, right or go teach for the rest of your life.

Right. And I was a pretty bad teacher. Did you, we'll come to that in a minute, but did you ever remember thinking to yourself, oh, I got to figure out something else to do? Or was it? You just loved it so much. that you were persistent? I think,

I don't think there was ever a moment where I was like, I got to figure out something else to do or it's over. I think there was a moment, there were many moments in my 20s where I was just like, this probably isn't going to happen.

So, you know, you're probably going to be a high school English teacher for the rest of your life and, you know, which isn't the worst thing at all. And, but the only problem is that I would see the older teachers

and the ones who were happy people were the ones who were really passionate about their teaching. And the ones who were miserable, which was more of them were the ones who just weren't that into it anymore. And I already knew after only two years of high school teaching that I just didn't have the passion for it. So I knew I was going to become one of those bitter old English teachers who's just, you know, correcting everyone's grammar every time they say anything. And it's just like wearing the same stinky Tweed jacket every single day.

You know, just smells like coffee and dentine. And that frightened me. Yeah. And, you know, just to be completely clear. clear there's nothing better than a passionate teacher. Like that's the greatest thing out there. And thank God for them because I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the teachers in my life who helped me.

But I wasn't one of those people. Right. And it's also, I mean, you know, I mean, it's also nice to have that clarity in the young age because I think sometimes people just think like, oh, well, let's see how it goes. No, absolutely. I feel really lucky about that that that I knew from college, really, you know, I wanted to be a writer. I mean, from the time I think that I realized I wasn't going to be a professional athlete,

which was pretty young. It was pretty early on. that I was like, this dream of playing shortstop for the New York Yankees is not going to pan out. And after that, it was just writing. You wrote in high school, were you an English major at Dartmouth? I was, yeah. I remember vividly, and I wonder if this, well, we've already established that neither of us have very good memories, but I do remember vividly kind of realizing very late in my college career that I hadn't quite

figured out college until that moment. Like, I was a good student and I kind of did the work. But I remember it was maybe like not until my junior spring that I was like, oh, I can have like my completely my own ideas and present them with authority rather than, oh, you got this thing I want to see if you like it. You know what I mean? I was kind of like, see, from a distance, you seemed like you had it all figured out. Never. Yeah, you were like the tall, beautiful girl and the pillows and you were going out. with Dave Murphy, who just seemed like some kind of...

Who's a younger version of the mountain? Yeah, he's basically a younger, better-looking mountain. And so it was just like, oh, that was like a very different league that you were in. I'm so funny because I don't see myself back that at all. I was like, I was just kind of like dumpy and confused and had quit rowing crew. Yeah, I mean, you know... Even in Hollywood too long. That's called Body Dismore.

Thank you for putting a name to it. I was wondering what I've been. been struggling with all these years. But yeah, like I, just like as an, as an intellectual, as an, as a, as a thinker, like, you know, even, I wonder, like, if you're in an, if you're in, as an English major, even like, I always feel like there's a part of you as a student that's always like, is this the right answer? And it's really exciting when you kind of figure out, well, like, whatever answer I give is the right answer. And I wonder if you had that idea going in or when you might have arrived at the point of like, oh, I'm an artist now. Like, I get it.

I still don't think I've gotten to the point where I think of myself as an artist. Like when I hear writers referring themselves to artists, even if it's a writer I happen to admire, there's just something about that word that I feel like an artist is someone who's putting paint on a camera. Really? Yeah. And so when people call themselves artists, especially here, especially here. And I was like, oh, shut the fuck up. You're a fucking screenwriter.

Shut the fuck. But I think I just remember the first time I felt like maybe, this, maybe this could work as I wrote a story in high school as about a boxer and a boxer's last fight. And it was read in front of, the teacher who taught theater, so who is a professional actor, read it in front of the entire school, like the school assembly. And everyone was really quiet.

I was terrified when this is happening. Luckily, I didn't have to read it, which is great, because I'm not good at that, but a really good actor was doing it. And we were a bunch of assholes. Like we were fucking like, you know, privileged New York City pricks. Right. Really sarcastic. Really just like no respect for anything.

And assemblies were the worst. Like people, outsiders would come in and just get shalach. Just right. Just get ripped apart. Yeah. Yeah. They were fucking ripped apart. And so in front of this terrifying crowd of my snotty pears,

he read the story and everyone was quiet through the whole thing. Like people were actually listening. They were really caught up in it. And that was the funny. first or it was just that had a huge impact I was just I just I just remember kind of looking around and you know my friends and people I wasn't friends with they were all just watching right and that's there's just something really powerful about that that you know because it's really hard to get inside someone else's head and you know no matter how well you know somebody or don't know

that it's just hard to have you know to get in there and that's one of the great things about storytelling is it really gives us access to another person's mind and and it's one of you know it's the great thing about reading. That's why, you know, we fall in love with that in early age is because it's what gives you access to all these other lives, you know, no matter what your life is, no matter how good it is or whatever. You just, I think we have this basic human craving for other experiences. And stories gives us that opportunity.

And so I think that was the first time I wrote something where it felt like it mattered to people, even just for the 10 minutes, not like, you know, not like any of them, the next day we're like, man, that was the greatest story of all time. But for 10 minutes, they were interested, and that had a big impact on me. I was going to ask this later, but I always wonder this, and I, it's so interesting to hear about you, like, you know, you're a kid at this point. You're 15, 16 years old. You're writing about the interior life of a boxer.

So, I mean, a very specific, but I think almost an unanswerable question might be, how did you get yourself inside the head of a boxer? Yeah. Well, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, funny because there's the whole cliche about write what you know. And then there's a screenwriter named Jane Espinson who said, if we only wrote what we knew, there would be no stories about spaceships, which I thought it was a great line. And, you know, I think it's, there's, to me, it goes back to the whole thing about lying and making up these identities. There's something to

me really exciting about writing what you don't know. I mean, that's where it gets scary because it's so easy to fail, you know, I mean, it's so easy to fuck it up because that's not our experience. And it really requires you to get into someone else's brain. And we were just talking about how hard that is. I think for that story, you know, I grew up and I wasn't a tough kid. And I think for every boy, or at least most of us, there's something you just want to be it. You want to be tough. Like you grow up and you want to be tough.

And that's why kids are so obsessed with, you know, there's a character at the Mountain right on the show. And he's played by this Icelandic strongman. I'm Top Thor, who's the, I guess, the second. and strongest man in the world. And my partner on the show, Dan, his two sons are obsessed with Hofthor. You know, there are six and three. And they just watch Hoffthor videos on YouTube, and it's just like why we're obsessed with superheroes. And like, you just want. And so that was obsessive for me. And so there's something about a boxer that just felt. But then I was like, well, what if I was tough, but I still had, you know, some of the fears because I don't really

believe that even if you are a tough guy that means you're without fear. So it was just kind of like trying to find my way into that character's mind. And, you know, honestly, this was 25 years ago, so I don't remember much about the story, but it was just something appealing about writing about someone so very different from it. It's someone that you idealize. Someone who I idealized, but then in the process of the story, hopefully de-idealized, so he doesn't seem like some idealized character, but actually feels like a real person. I doubt very much that I pulled it off at H-50.

It's hard enough to do it, 44. but that was the intent of it anyway. Yeah. So you majored in English at Dartmouth, and then do you think when you graduate, I'm going to go off and be a novelist, or are you like, now I've got to go find a way to make a living?

I thought, yeah, I thought it would be really easy. Even though everyone told me it was going to be hard, I just had this kind of fantasy that I got a job in San Francisco, actually. I was working at, do you remember Harry Denton's? Yeah. Right, so I got a job working at Harry Denton's, this bar down by the ferry building in San Francisco.

and I think it's still there. I think it might still be there. Yeah, it's like an old-fashioned. Very old fashioned. Yeah, very old fashioned. Yeah, absolutely. But the idea was I'll work at this bar at night

and during the days I'll write this, you know, awesome novel and then, you know, in a couple of years I'll publish it and I'll become famous and go from there. Sounds like a plan. Yeah, it's a really good plan. And of course, none of that happened. But after about a year, I was like, I was working at a bar, is not going to be, this isn't going to be a long-term plan.

So I thought, I'll teach. Why was that? Just like not, you could make a living or? I mean, not that it is a long-term plan, but I'm just curious. Because I was working door at the bar and I was just like, you know, if I have to get in a fight to defend my family or something, okay, fine. But it was like every night you're basically like in the position where you're going to basically have to like drag some drunk eye out of the bar.

Right. Right. And I don't want to deal with this. I mean, there are people who are great at it. Yeah. They're a real tough guys. I'm not one of these real tough guys. I'm a phony tough guy. I'm not even a phony tough guy. So this is bullshit. This is not a job for someone with my skill set. Right. I'm the opposite of Liam Neeson. I'm like I have a specific set of skills. None of them are useful for rescuing your kidnapped daughter. So it was just, it was fun. It was a good experience because I really liked the people I work with. And it was interesting working in a bar. But after a year, it's just like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. But maybe teaching high school would be good. And it would be good for a writer because he had summers off and all that.

And so I went back home to New York. I lived in Brooklyn and taught two years of high school in Brooklyn and continued working on this book, eventually finished this novel. How difficult was that for you? Because it sometimes comes up on the show, people who feel resentful or frustrated with their jobs, their day jobs, for lack of a better term. And one thing I always say, well, the great thing about a day job is that it can pay for you to do whatever it is you really want to do without worrying about whether the thing you really want to do is going to pay. But I wonder how difficult it must have been to both be teaching and writing a book at the same time.

It's hard. It's really hard. I mean, teaching turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be and more exhausting and gave me much more respect for the really, you know, we were talking about the passionate teachers. Because, you know, I kind of thought of it like, oh, you go, you're at school from 830 until 4. or whatever. I also help coach the wrestling team, so you're there until then, but then you get off pretty early, and then the nights maybe you can get some work done. But the truth is, you get home, and you've got papers to grade, and you've got tests to score, and you've got, like, the next days' classroom presentation to prepare. So you have really, very little free time, and you do get

the summers, which is amazing, you know, and I got a lot of work done on the summers, but it was, look, I think it's a great job. I think it's, it was really good to be around the kids. Like, I still am friends with several of my students from back then. But again, it was just sort of realizing after a couple of years, this isn't what I'm supposed to do. You know, I just know that because I'm not happy doing it. And I've got to believe there's something out there that I'll be happy doing. And also, not just, not even just about my own personal satisfaction, but I'm not going to be good at something if I don't love doing it, you know, and I didn't love it. The book that you were writing when you were teaching, was that the 25th hour? No, it was a

it was a book called Wag which I ended up submitting to every publisher in America, I think, and got rejected. Really? Yeah, it was a, I did get an agent out of it, so that was good. And then, because it was a pretty big agent, actually, I was just super confident that he was going to get it published. And it was the second novel I wrote, because I wrote one when I was, you know, 22, when I was working at that bar in San Francisco. He sent it out to everyone, and he was kind enough, my agent was kind enough,

to send back the rejection letters all collected. Kind enough? Yeah. Kindly. Slate sarcasm. So all of your. Yeah. He sent me this,

I was going to say FedEx, but I wasn't worthy of a FedEx back then. Like the U.S. Post, Manila envelope filled with 34, pretty sure it was 34 rejection. letters. And in that novel, it had taken me about three years to write. So I was kind of crushed. And for the longest time, I couldn't read the rejection letters because it was, you know, I was the worst than getting dumped by a girlfriend because, you know, at that point, because

it just felt like three years of my life had just gone down the drain and, and I'd never gone out with anyone for nearly three years, you know. And it took me a really long time to read the rejection letters because it's just too painful, you know. And finally, I opened up the envelope and sorted through them. And probably about 29 of them were just the form rejection letters. I say, thank you for interest. We don't, you know, this book doesn't work for us, whatever. But there were four or five where the editors had actually taken the time,

and they clearly read the book, and they responded to it. And I'm really grateful for that, because even though they rejected the book, there was a consistent theme to their rejections, which was we like the characters and we like the dialogue. The story feels like it's all over the place. It doesn't really feel like it's, there's. is a cohesive narrative. And it just feels like, you know, it's all over the map.

And it was. And then after getting these letters and reading them, I remembered this moment where I'd been in my apartment trying to put the novel together. And I had all the different chapters. In a novel, Dinko, it wasn't linear chronologically. And I had about 40 different chapters, and I had them all down, the first page of each chapter,

down on the floor of the apartment. And I was trying to kind of put together this mosaic that would tell me this is the way the novel is supposed to be structured. And many months, years after that, it occurred to me that maybe that's not the best way to structure a long novel. There's probably a better way to do it. And so then I thought there's got to be, I need a story that's shorter and that I can control more. And so I started thinking of stories that would all take place over the course of one day. And I'd written a short story at college about a young man who's, it's his last night out before going to prison. And I thought, well, maybe there's something.

Maybe I can take that story and expand it and learn more about Monty's life. And so that was what ended up becoming 25th hour. That was the first novel that you got published. Was that process similar to trying to get Wag published? You had an agent at this point, though, so it was a different... It was, again, it was frustrating because he first submitted to all the... The agent submitted to all the big publishers, and they all rejected it again, and... Which was really, because this was another few years of writing, and by this point I was about 30,

and it was kind of... It was even harder at 30 getting rejected than it was at, you know, 26, because 26, even though you feel sorry of yourself, you're kind of like, well, you're supposed to get rejected at 26. But when you're nearing 30, you start to think maybe this isn't really... really going to work out as a career and does that mean I'm going to have to go back to teaching, which I suck at. Right. Right. But eventually he found a small publisher that wanted it. So I got, you know, my $7,500 advance.

The book was published. How did it become, what was the path to it becoming a film? So someone got it into Toby McGuire's hands and Toby read it and he really liked it and he thought it could be a movie and he called the agent and he said yeah we should find someone I want to option it and we should find someone to adapt it um and I found out about this and I said well I'm I was living in L.A. at this point I was like you know I'm I'm here and maybe we could meet and I'd adapt it because I'm cheap I'm not even in the writers guild so I'm super cheap and I know the story better than anyone else does so we had this meeting and I was terrified like I you know

and he's not a big guy and he's not a scary guy or anything, but I was so intimidated. And because it's Spider-Man. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know if he had Spider-Man yet, but you could just tell. It was coming. He's going to be Spider-Man. So it was terrifying, but I guess it went all right,

and he basically hired me to write the adaptation. This is always an interesting question, and I've spoken to some other writers about this, but, you know, it was your book, and it was your adaptation, and then, you know, Spike Lee ends up directing it, Edward Norton, Phil Seymour Hoffman, Rosario Dawson, a bunch of really exciting people in there, Barry Pepper. How much of what you wrote made it into the film?

Oh, almost all that. I mean, the great thing about that project was Spike. So the first time I met with Spike, he was the only person I had met with, and by this point there had been a number of Hollywood meetings, he was the only person I had met with who didn't just have the script there, but he had the book. And the book was, you know, the cover was. was splayed, the spine was cracked, there were all these, the pages were dog-eared, and I could

see from the other side of the desk that there was underlining and stuff, notes were written the margins and all. And he had my script, and he said, why'd you cut this scene out? And there was a scene where Monti, Montgomery Brogan played by Edward Norton is looking in the mirror, and he starts cursing himself out. And the scene's pretty much directly from the book, but it wasn't in the script. And he said, why'd you leave that scene out? And I said, because it just didn't seem cinematic to me.

I was stupid, and I was still young and dumb enough to say things like that, even though I had, you know, so, anyway. So Spike said, why don't you, despite my bad memory, this is one vivid memory I have, was him saying, kind of giving me that look from across the table, a skeptical look, and saying, why don't you let me worry about cinematic and you just write it? Right. And it ended up being probably my favorite scene in the whole movie. And so he, you know, Spike actually pushed me to make the script more faithful to the book. And that was great. So, you know, there's all the good stuff that I wrote, has made it in there.

And he was smart enough to cut some of the bad stuff. So that's exciting because a lot of times you hear about, you know, screenwriters. And, you know, guys hired guns or guys who are writing on spec. And at this point, you're new to the business who kind of turned something in and then it becomes something very different. Yeah. The whole that experience was looking back on it. I didn't realize how lucky I was because working with Spike, having Spike Lee direct

their first movie, first of all, is unbelievable. Seriously. And also, I mean, partly just because he's so talented, but also because he's a strong-willed man and he's got enough, you know, juice in this business where he can make the movie he wants to make. And so I didn't get any notes from. There was no studio giving notes.

There were no producers giving notes. Once Spike came on, it was all Spike. Yeah. And, you know, and again, I grew up in New York and I grew up watching his movies. So that was a really exciting. Like, you couldn't really imagine, unless it was like Scorsese or something. Like, who's a more New York director? I guess there's Woody Allen, but Woody Allen would not be the right director.

No, I think you and I can agree as a team. He's not the guy for the Spruce. He would have been the wrong guy for that movie. So, you know, the Scorsese version would have been interesting. But, you know, Spike Lee can't do any better than that. And just having him as the one voice to listen to while, writing and while revising was an incredible gift. And it was one of his, I mean, in my opinion, I mean, it's one of his best films.

I love that movie. I mean, it's, I don't know, you know, do the right thing as incredible movie, and I love jungle fever, and I love most of his movies. Most of his movies, yeah. But it's, you know, it's a movie that I'm still proud of many years later, and that's rare. I'm not cheating on you, but I want to make sure that I don't forget anything on your CV. I mean, cheating on you.

You please, please do forget most of the things on the series. I don't want to do that. I guess the thing, the reason why it stands out for me, honestly, is because it also felt like a real departure for him narratively. It felt like a different kind of film. You know what I mean? I remember feeling like this of all of his movies. It was like 20th of the hour felt like narratively like a narrative shift,

which I thought was really interesting. And I still haven't gone to a next game with Spike Lee. Well, Spike, come on. I mean, come on. What's going on, man? All right. He works with all these directors who are from Vancouver and stuff, like Barry Puff. like Barry Pepper or somewhere in Canada,

and he brings them to Knicks games, but he doesn't bring them to it. Spike, if you're listening to this podcast. This is an error that must be corrected. Immediately. You go from there, and again, not to put too fine a point on it,

but it's like a very auspicious start for your screenwriting career. All goes downhill for you. And then you write like the biggest fucking movie ever after that, which was Troy. I think it's like the 68th biggest movie ever. It was a pretty big movie when it came out. It was a big deal.

Yes, that was a completely different experience. It just by way of a quick story to show how different was. So, you know, with 25th hour, I remember I come to set and I brought my parents because, you know, they live in New York. And it was this great thing where they, you know, Spike checks in. Spike sees my dad. And my dad's kind of like, you know, an old fellow who grew up in Brooklyn. And he's kind of likes his look. He's like, why don't you be an extra in this barroom scene?

He puts my dad in as an extra, and it was just great. You know, everyone was really, couldn't have been nicer. And Troy, the first time I come to set, and I get to Video Village, and I said to one of the producers, do you mind if I have some cans to listen in and to listen in on the dialogue that I wrote? And the producer said, oh, you know what, let me go ask the director because he's a little bit, he's a little bit funny about that. And I was like, okay, well, I mean, I'm sure it's going to be fine. Since I wrote it.

Since I wrote it and everything. I get that you don't want like a bunch of strangers wearing cans. But so she goes off and comes back, you know, half an hour later. It took a really long time to come back and I can just see from her sheepish expression that it'd go well. And she's like, I'm really sorry. He's just, a lot of people have been listening. So they wouldn't let me listen. Wow.

And I was kind of like, why am I here? There's no. And so I didn't like make a scene about it, but I just, that was the last time I went to set. Because what's the point if you can't hear anything? You can vouch for its veracity. So everybody, I had to stop really quickly because in the middle, in mid conversation, go ahead, David. I made her vomit. That's not, by the way.

That's how good I am. I'm so entranced by your life and your accomplishments that I threw up. I don't think of me a woman vomit since. It's been about 25 years. I was going to say, just nause over my own inadequacy is what just happened. You know what is hilarious also? I think I, well, I am. I feel...

Drink some Coke. I will. He opened a Coke for me. You're a very lovely guest, by the way. Very gracious. Well, that's what my grandmother always gave me. Yeah? It was good enough for Florence Benio.

I want to say that this is absolutely off-piece. Two things. One that's relating to both of us, and then the first one is not. Which is that when you are nauseous, you are using every fiber in your body not to throw up. Yes. You're like, you know, trying to quash the impulse and stuff. down and ignore it. You know, I'm shifting in my seat. I'm thinking, like, I'm really focused on what you're saying. I feel literally like a completely different human being since I threw up.

Like, it was awful. And I'm like, it's so good. Like, ting. Yeah, like I'm a totally different person. So, drink boot. Yeah. Do it again. I'm, it was, uh, drink boots into it. Now, see, that was what, that was where we have the connection is the boot. People who read my book, know, the Dartmouth, you know, rallying cries, boot then rally. Yeah. And, uh, and it was also, So, you know, while you were in the bathroom vomiting, I managed to see, I managed to see, oh, fuck. Go through my stuff? Well, I don't think you're private stuff, but I saw, right, hold on. Oh, I can't wait to hear.

Al Yankovitch is private. Oh, yes. You are soon to be adding your private email to that list. That is my, that's like my equivalent of like a sign-in book. I'm just writing Weird Al tonight. I've got some song ideas. He's really gracious, by the way. He'll totally write back.

He's the Swedish. So, yes, that totally happened. And that is, I'm telling you that story now. And then in, like, in homage to David Benioff, I'm going to tell it on a later podcast and really embellish it. Like, really augmented. The sad thing is, first of all, I think we should lead with this instead of all the boring bullshit about my screen. The screenwriting career, really no one gives a shit about you. But you throwing up was actually really excited.

And if I guess, oh, my God, she looks kind of not that great right now, but I'm not saying anything. All that controversial. This whole time, I'm just, I'm killing this woman with my stories. I'm murdering her slowly. If I ever get on

any version of the late night, the very next late night show, I do, I'm going to tell my story. So you think it was the rice that you have for lunch? The rice that I mean, that's what came out.

And I literally like, I went from, dirty rice, was it what kind of rice? It had chicken in it, but it's kind of room temperature. Uh-huh. It was like a room temperature,

like a dirty rice. Yeah, like it had, like, eggs and, you know, and what did you say was your, was your rice, chicken rice and egg, vomit that you just... What came up?

And was it reddish or was it kind of... No, there's no blood, but it was undigested. I mean, it was like it was in and then it was out again. It was like that... What time did you eat? Two? Two? Yeah, just a couple hours ago. Yeah, yeah, like 1.32 o'clock, so not that long ago. Yeah. All right, we're moving on

from my... More likely, though, it was the guy's poopy fingers. That we're making... That the guy who made the rice? It's more likely. Of all ingredients in the dirty rice, I would assume it's the fecal matter. That would be the objection of I think it's the fecal matter. I gotcha.

But I literally feel like we all felt when you were like a sweaty little seven-year-old and like your feverish feel like shit and you don't want to vomit and then you vomit and you come sprinting out of the bathroom and watch cartoons. That's how I feel right now. That could all change very soon. You know, I'm just going to go vomit. Just pull the trigger to see what it feels like. It's a reset.

So, no, we're talking. I am very curious about Troy. I mean, it was like this, see, this woman comes back. Nothing I say about Troy is. I'm so, no, we are going to stay on track. So this woman comes back after half an hour of acting as if she was trying to help you. Did I finish that boring story? Yes.

So I didn't get to listen. To your own movie. You know what? It's just a self-pitying Hollywood screenwriter story. No, but okay. So look, people out there who don't work in the entertainment business don't find it nearly so dismissable. I think it's interesting. And that was what I was, it's interesting.

It's just the contrast between Spike Set, which was very warm. Right. And felt like there was respect for the right. writer, which is a nice thing. And Troy, which did not, you know, which was the opposite. And so that's all. And I think that that is more, maybe not so much, but on the bigger movies, more representational of the way that writers are treated on films, which is, you provided a service and, you know, I mean, look, this is not the nicest metaphor. But, you know, you're like a hooker. Like, I've come, go away. Like, you know, your time here's done. Yeah. Nice hand job. Please get out.

Exactly. And no kissing. And no kid. There will be no kissing, especially after you just booted. At this point now, you're a full-fledged screenwriter. What moved you to L.A.? Was it after 25th hour? I went to graduate school at UC Irvine. So I was living in Orange County. And then when I graduated that, I had a girlfriend living in L.A. And so I decided, you know, well, I didn't really have anywhere to go.

And it felt like I'll just keep living. I was able to keep teaching classes at UC Ravine. and I had my girlfriend in L.A. And ended up living with a friend's sister in Santa Monica, and so blah, blah, blah, blah. So it just kind of came together. And at this point, you're thinking, even though you are a novelist, I mean, you're, you know, that you want to... I mean, I always wonder, you know, you see, it's... Being a screenwriter is so much more of a journeyman's job than being a novelist.

And I know you poop-pooed art, but, you know, when you write a novel, it's kind of... And not that screen plays or not. Kind of, you know, conjured out of whole cloth and very much about, like, you're a own interior life and your dreams. I didn't poo-poo art. It's screenwriters who call themselves artists because I just feel like it's super pretentious. But yes, I think part of the reason that I, you're asking like, why did I want to keep writing screenplays? Yeah. I think part of it was honestly, I got paid $7,500 for the novel and, you know, which is, and I was really excited about that. Someone was publishing my novel and the book was going to be on the bookstore shelves, and that's

amazing, but $7,500 doesn't go that far. Right, right. And I didn't want to teach anymore. more. So I wanted to make enough money to live on and be a full-time writer. And, you know, as I said, my girlfriend was a writer and she was making a living off of it and a nice, I mean, she had a much nicer place than I did. We slept at her place every single night. And so I thought, I can do this. And it also seemed like a lot of fun to me. When I wrote the adaptation of 25th hour, you know, it's, it's, it's, um, there's so much white space on every page of a screenplay. A novel is just filled with all that black ink. So dense. Yeah. So dense. And, um, writing dialogue and, um, just that's, I love it.

Like that's the fun part for me. The hard part for me is writing the descriptions, you know. Right. And there's just something great about writing interior restaurant day or night. And a production designer is going to figure that shit out. I don't have to worry about it. I'm just going to write what the characters are saying. And so it's just, you know, I still love writing novel.

Like writing fiction to me, there's, you know, it's, I still think of it as kind of the highest form of writing, but it's so fucking hard. It's torture for me. Like, I don't have fun doing it. I really have fun writing screenplays. You do have, and I, people can find this out on the internet, so I'm not, like, putting you on blast. But Troy is kind of like maybe like anti-writer as it was and non-inclusive as it was.

It kind of changed, you know, everything about, like, you're, you know, your writing career. I mean, it was a big payday, and it was a big movie, and it kind of changed everything. And I wonder at this point, if you're thinking, okay, and look, maybe now, for sure, absolutely now. not me, you could pretty much decide whatever you want to do next. But I think people have an illusion about Hollywood that we're all kind of like, well, shall I work with Scorsese or Spielberg today? Let me see, you know, let me call them on the phone. You know what I mean?

Like we're just, you know, almost never, any of us in a real place of having, like, choices. But I imagine that come, at least for a window of time coming off of Troy, you could kind of decide what you, what kind of movie you wanted to write next. Is that true? I'm guessing. Yeah, no, there was, there was a, brief window where it was great and where the guy running Warner Bros. at that time, Jeff Robinoff,

who's the one that gave me a chance to do, Troy, said, what's the next thing you want to do? And I said, I'd love to adapt for in the belt holes because it's one of my favorite novels and I think it's an incredibly cinematic novel and the original adaptation. You know, it's a great old movie and everything, but it wasn't that great, frankly. I think we could do a lot better. And he, and he'd, like, love the book and he loved the idea. So yes, that was the easiest moment there's ever been, right, just in the wake of Troy, before Troy had even come out, honestly. I think partly it's just also because it's such a well-known book. And, you know, so it wasn't like a really hard, it wasn't like Game of Thrones, whereas going into a bunch of people who had never heard of it before

and trying to explain Game of Thrones and 10-minute pitch. Which I've read all the Game of Thrones books, and I don't necessarily know that I could explain Game of Thrones. Yes, even now, even after working on it for eight years, it's hard to try to try to. to sum it up for people who don't know it. Yeah. I'm going to jump ahead because we have to take about. Let's talk about Game of Thrones. Let's talk about...

I'm going to go vomit real quick. You're going to feel so much better after you do. I swear to God. But you can't vomit out your feelings, though, David. I can't. I've been trying for so many years. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work. Because it's so funny.

I love fantasy and I love sci-fi, although I get a lot less access to it as an adult than I did as a kid. I just have less like recreational reading time. And I did not know these books. And I remember the original campaign and it was such a big deal. But it wasn't like sometimes when you read about something and you're like being adapted or, you know, option for a show. And like, oh, yeah.

I was like it kind of was like it all was happening. It wasn't like when 50 Shades was adapting. Oh, and I've been thinking and talking about this book and movie. I haven't seen it yet. It's a piece of, I didn't read the books and I went because I had to talk about it on a podcast. Like, I was going to do a comedy podcast. We picked, like, a really funny movie to talk about. So we picked shades of, it's great.

And I went with a friend, and neither of us had read the books. And from what I understand, they're pieces of shit. Sorry, people out there who love those books. And the theaters filled with women who have read the books, like four really miserable men, one of whom was a friend that I went with. And I just remember thinking, like, God, everybody in this movie looks like they wish they weren't in this movie. So is it sexy? No, and then it's not sexy.

And afterwards, I tweeted a movie about hot sex and it's not at all sexy. This is like a massive failure. But it was like, they don't have any chemistry. You can tell they don't really like each other. The sex is really like clinical. There's like one hot, there's one hot moment in the entire movie. Which is what?

Spoil it. Well, I'll spoil it. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to sound like a deviant. I mean, there's just this one moment where he's trying to persuade her to date him. She's kind of broken up with him because he's in S&M and she's not interested. And so she says it's nice knowing you. or it's nice to meet you or whatever, and he goes,

well, I'll show you how nice it is to meet me, and he comes over to a place and he seduces her. All of that is very mechanical, but there's just this one where he flips her over. I was like, all right, that kind of work. I mean, it's literally like 10 seconds of the movie at work. I don't know. I know.

And then she ate his shit. Wouldn't that be great if that was actually the movie? She sat on a glass table. I don't know. Detroit Hot plate. That is cute, but taking someone from B. Which is actually brings us right back to Game of Thrones. It really does.

And people, when they saw the first season, they kept saying, like, God, there's a lot of anal sex in this. We're like, that's not anal sex. Just because it's behind her. Just because it's just normal. That doesn't mean he's going in her ass. That's how married people have sex when they don't want to talk to each other. When you want to watch TV. Yeah, exactly.

When they want to watch Game of Thrones. It's date night and Game of Thrones is on. How do we make these things work? That's the best position. So I want to hear about how you discover these books because, again, in the interest of full disclosure, I have. I have read all the books and I have seen the series. And I imagine as a writer for myself, if I picked up those books, I would say to, hey, me and the air around me and anybody nearby who can hear me, these are fucking unadaptable books. Impenetrable, so dense, so many characters, so many things happening.

So how did the idea first come to you? Or what? So I had a conversation with a guy named Vince Gerardis, who is George's agent. By the way, this is literally the best Coca-Cola I've ever drunk in my life. I feel so happy. Thank you for that. I was very kind. Coke in a bottle.

She's drinking Coke in a glass bottle. Tiny glass bottle. Really? I'm going to sleep next to the empty bottle at night. It is too. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, David.

I feel so much better. I don't know why. Now this is just you taking care of me on my own show and my own space, but thank you very much. where were we? Oh, so Vince Gerard is George's agent. He was describing a bunch of different books that he represents, and then he started talking about Game of Thrones. And I had grown up, we were talking about this,

I grew up a total fantasy nerd, but hadn't read any fantasy in about 20 years. And as he started describing this world, there's just something about the way he was talking about. I was like, that sounds kind of fun. It probably will suck, but it sounds kind of fun from his description. So he ended up sending me this box with all the first, I guess at that point it's four books.

And it was a big box, and those are big-ass books. And that was back, now they have like the very classy covers. But they still had the cheesy, you know, in the mass market fantasy section, the bookstore covers with like the muscle-bound barbarians and the, you know, like the little princess. Windswept maiden and the steel bra. All of the art that would have looked really good on your D&D.

Yeah, I was so into it as 12, but there's no way I'm going to let us not. I started reading, and the moment when Brand gets pushed out the window, I was just like, whoa, I did not see that coming. And this is different. And then I got about halfway through the book, and I was so in love with it. And my wife started making fun of me because all I wanted to do is read this book. Right. And I ended up calling one of my best friends, Dan Weiss, who I'd gone to school with.

And we were both fantasy nerds from back in the day. And I said, this book that I'm reading is, I think it's the best. thing I've read in a really long time, and they sent it over to look at as a feature adaptation, but I don't think that makes any sense because it's too dense, too complicated, too many characters, but I think it could be a great HBO series. It was from the beginning. It wasn't just like TV series. It was HBO series because, you know, I was thinking of whether it was Rome or Deadwood or, you know, all those really complicated shows with so many characters, and, and HBO felt like just the right place for it. So he went out and got the book, and then, like, a day later he'd

finished because he's annoying. Wow. He's annoying. I finally finished it and then we ended up calling George to see if you'd be willing to not have them adapt to as for movies but as a TV

series and it turned out he was a huge fan of those shows that we love like Rome and Deadwood and all and and so it just went from there but it was just this kind of like this is going to be a really hard thing to sell because HBO doesn't

generally do stuff like this, but if we could somehow pull it off. Then we got to the third book, we read the Red Wedding and all. If we could somehow pull this off, and if we could get that first season made, and then if we could somehow get to the third season to have that scene, we're going to fuck so many people up. And really, it was like, all along, it was just like, let's just get that far.

If we can make it that far. Just to the Red Wedding. We're like, that's the goal. Yeah. Because for so many, so many years, it seemed so unlikely. I mean, for nearly three years, we couldn't get the pilot made because the people who bought the show at at uh at at hbo um left and new people came in and and it was kind of hard to like get the excitement going again and then finally we got to make the pilot and it you know didn't work really all that was so so it didn't look like we were going to get a show and and uh

we got really lucky to be honest wait so i feel like you kind of yada yada at the ending um you're trying to get this show made. I should have yada yada at the beginning. No, no, it's just yada yada. This is the, this is, there are people out there for who. Let's just hear. What was your a cappella solo? The rocapelola solo.

People out there are literally salivating. Mr. Blue? Sitting in a pool. Did you do Mr. Blue? That wasn't my solo might have been some end-voke song. Oh, stop it. But literally there are people for whom they're like on like, like year-long tenterhooks waiting for the next season of the Shetka-laught.

So this is compelling to them. And it's interesting to hear that it took you three years to get this pilot made. And was it just that you kept getting put off, but no answer? It was just complicated. I mean, for one thing, everyone knew from the beginning it would be expensive, right? It'd be really expensive show. And then there became like a question of maybe there was a partnership with the BBC. Like for a year or two years, there was a flirtation with the BBC. And it was just all this kind of boring, frankly, backroom stuff about getting the thing made and where it would shoot and all that stuff. And it's just one of those things where you kind of need, um,

you need a certain number of yeses before it gets made. Maybe it's like 11 yeses, maybe it's 15, whatever, and a single no will stop it. And we just couldn't get that 11th yes. We kept getting close. And finally, Dan and I wrote this letter to the HBO brass, a pretty long letter explaining, and this is after we'd pitched it and after they bought it, and after we'd written the pilot, and after they'd approved the pilot and all, but it still wasn't getting made.

And we finally wrote this letter saying, basically, this show is going to be a hit. and we stake our careers on it and here's why. And it was a really fairly hubristic thing to do because nobody knows if something's going to be a hit. Nobody. Yeah, even brilliant. Even the guys who have done hits before. And we haven't made any, like we hadn't done anything on TV.

So even the guy who's made seven TV hits can't say if the next one's going to work. And no one's actually made seven TV hits, maybe something. Maybe Chuck Lori. Chuck Lori. Yeah, yes. He's past. He has ones we don't even know about it.

Exactly. So we wrote this letter to them. and basically saying, look, this is the most popular genre in the world, fantasy, and there's a reason that people all over the world love it, because we want to be transported somewhere else, we don't want to read about the fucking news.

It can be horrible, it can be terrible things happening to people, but not in our world. Like, let's just take everyone somewhere, everywhere, take everyone somewhere else. Right. Where everyone's on the same footing, because it doesn't matter where you're from. Like, no one's been to Westeros, no one's lived over there, right? And

and this genre is so powerful. these are the best books in the genre since Tolkien, you know? And it's not just us saying this. Like, here's the Time Magazine review and here's the New York Times review and blah, blah, blah. Yada, yada, yada. And eventually they said, okay, let's go shoot a pilot. And then we were like, all right, now we're in. And then we fucked that up.

So. No, how did you fuck it up? How did you fuck it up? Every way possible. You know, there were casting mistakes. There were writing mistakes. There were just every way it was possible to screw things up. we screwed things up.

And finally, it really came down to, and there were a couple months after we'd turned the pilot into HBO where it was, first of all, it was clear they were disappointed, but it was unclear whether they were going to proceed anyway. And finally they said, okay, we're going to let you go do it, and we're going to let you reshoot the pilot. But, you know, we can't say there's going to be a second season. Basically, they'd already drop so much money, and it was kind of like,

we might as well have one season. And so even then, even after we were already in the hole for so much, like, this is, then it would be a waste if we didn't try. Right, right. We've already lost so much money. So might as well throw a little bit more money in that hole. Right. And so it still felt like it wasn't going to happen.

And Tim Van Patten came in and this amazing director, Tim Van Patten, and he just, you know, shot the first two episodes and reshot the first episode and really saved the day for us. So that was, you know, a lot of gratitude for it's 10. and new cast members who came in and just, you know, there's an old Beckett saying fail, fail again, fail better. I love that. I have it written on the wall in my dressing.

Yeah, I have my bathroom wall. And that's what it's like. I mean, it's just the kind of job where there's no way to know what you're doing, even if you went to graduate school for this, whatever, just until you've actually done it, you don't know what you're doing, period. And we had to learn on the job. And I just, I give HBO a lot of credit for sticking with us. even when all the evidence told them they shouldn't, you know,

because we gave no indication that we were going to ever become successful at this. You turn to this first pilot. It's clear they're not happy, but they say, let's move forward, and they tell you to do a reshoot. And I'm sure they gave you notes. But I wonder what notes you gave yourselves. Well, so the most kind of harrowing moment wasn't even seeing the disappointment in the HBO people's faces. It was when we screened it for some of our writer friends.

And so it was Scott Frank, Craig Mason, and Ted Griffin, three excellent screenwriters. And they all came to our little office and the lot for most in Santa Monica. And we're like, this will be great. We'll screen the pilot for them. And this is before we realized it was bad. We thought it was good because we had done it. We never done anything before. We've been kind of a story.

And you can see people talking on screen. And you can understand what they're saying most of the time, except when Sean Bean is talking. And so we'll screen it for them. And then we'll be great. and then we'll go have drinks at the Formosa. Sounds like a great night. Yeah, it should have been a great night. And then we're watching their faces

and the look of kind of just pity on their faces. Oh, no. And incomprehension, these are smart people, you know, so if they're not getting what's going on, there's a big problem. And really basic kind of like screenwriting 101 stuff. Like, you know, for the ending of the pilot to work, you need to know that Jamie Lannister and Cersie Lannister

are twins. They're having sex together. They're having insest. twin cestuous sex, and that's a big deal, and this kid sees it, and that's a really big deal. That's not supposed to be happening. So none of these three guys got that they were brother and sister. Oh, wow. And, you know, because we hadn't put in the script, it just wasn't clear from, I think one person at one point in the episode in dialogue says something like your sister.

But people don't catch that stuff. Right, right. So it was just like really simple, educational, you know, it was an education. And it was a lot of very basic mistakes. And then just also kind of figuring out the best way visually to tell a story like this. And, you know, people's outfits were way too clean. You know, everyone looked like they'd just walked out of the, you know, D.K. King's Landing shop. And it was just people look stupid.

So are you going to throw up again? No, I'm good. I'm actually great. I'm in great shape. I feel good. I keep, like, kind of mentally checking in to see if something's about to happen. It seems to be all quiet on the Western Front. So this is so interesting because again like

Yeah What's so great One of the things that is so great about the show right now Is how Authentic it feels Even though it's not really authentic to a period at all I mean you know So funny

The three people on the planet Who still poo the show were have poo to me We're like people were like well you know It's not historical I'm like yes You're right It's a good point It's not historical so that is not a criticism really

so much as a statement of fact. But if it was true to a period, it feels very true to that period visually. I mean, it's not a real place or real time, but if you imagine that this is a place in a time, people would be filthy and... Oh, my God, yeah. You read about medieval London

and just, you know, literally just rivers of shit flowing down the middle of the street and, you know, the whole men are supposed to walk closer to the sidewalk to the street yeah yeah right so that they let the ladies keep their feet out of the shit and you know it was a really filthy time um at least in europe not not everywhere but um the japanese were much cleaner well they're a festidious people and that is not a racist statement so save your ire um so so yes and and part of it absolutely was just trying to make it feel real even though it's

not a real, even though it's a fictional world, it still has to feel real. Like once you're in there, you have to feel like you're a part of it. And so that was a big deal, was, you know, working with Michelle Clapton, the costume designer who's, who's so brilliant. And, but half of her job, you know, half the job is designing these incredible costumes and that half the job is breaking them down and making them look like they've been lived in and sweated in and, you know, everything else, all sorts of bodily fluids for the last however many years. And the only people who look good are the queen in the king because they have, you know, fresh clothes every day, but most people don't. Poor Aria has been walking around like the same outfit for four years.

Dude, years. Those, those leather breeches or whatever, she's rocking. They are ripe. Diff. Right. She doesn't need needle to run you through. How did you figure out, again, because the show in iteration, in execution, is very layered. There are million characters. I remember, like, after season one, like, the L.A. Times did, like, a two-page spread where they, like, show, They had like a whole diagram so you could figure out who everybody was and how they related to each other. But you must have had to make decisions about what to include

and what to exclude, especially as the books have gone on. Having read all the books, I know there's stuff that's missing, which I'm not one of those like slavishly devoted readers. It's like, everything's how to make it in. It's impossible. But I do wonder how you were able to make those decisions. Yeah, I mean, I wish there was this kind of a simple rule of thumb, but honestly it's just, does this character or this storyline work for the story

that we're trying to tell in the show. And the show is an adaptation, and it's an adaptation of these incredible novels that George came up with, and all the characters in the show, with maybe one or two tiny exceptions, have come straight from the books, but there's just not room for everyone.

And it's not even just, you know, sometimes people say, well, you know, but you could have more characters, and, you know, but it's not just about having time for everyone. It's kind of like, I don't want to have just, two minutes of aria in every episode, two minutes of John Snow and bounce back and forth between

12 different storylines. So at a certain point, it's like these are the people who we care about. And, you know, in the fifth season, we bring in a few new characters, but to bring in 40 new characters, you know, which happens in the books. Which what we'd have to do if we're being slavishly devoted, that would sink the ship, you know? And there's no way to be slavishly devoted to Feast for Crows because only half of our characters are in that book, you know? So it would mean saying goodbye to you know, half of our, the DeNaris and art, half of them, Ari is in it, but half of them would be gone for a season. That just isn't going to work for us. So it's kind of trying to take the entire story that George is telling, this great saga that he's come up with,

and figuring out the best way to make, let's say, a 70-hour screened adaptation for it. And if that, you know, that means that some stuff's going to not make it in. And that's, we're just ruthless about it, you know, if it doesn't, if it doesn't make sense for the story that we're trying to tell on the screen, it's, out. One more question at that, but, and now this is a, well, this is not a spoiler, but let's just, if you haven't, if you're not cut up, whatever, sorry, womp-womp. So I know, because I have read the books, and I actually posted this on Facebook last year,

and I got a lot of, like, angry posts, and I was right, and you were wrong, and you can all suck it. You guys are catching up. You are caught up with the books. I mean, I feel that, not completely, but, like, I remember thinking last season, oh, this is stuff I read in books, some of the stuff is, you're not, you're not, book three some of the stuff is book four because also those two books I think take place essentially simultaneously and I was like they're you know I was guys they're in book four they're like no they're

not they're still you and I was like well you haven't read them if you think that they're still in book two you are going to hit the end of your source material before you hit the end of this series and how are you planning for that carefully I mean you know the the good thing is we've had a lot of conversations with George about where he's going and, um, and we've seen this coming for a long time. This is, you know, this is a slow moving development. It's not as if we just realized a couple weeks ago, oh shit, we're running out of books. Like, right. We've known for a while that this was a likelihood. And, you know, George has to take his time. Like George is creating the great fantasy epic of his time. And I want those books to be as great as they possibly can. And, and, uh, he needs to

take as much time as he needs. So, you know, we're never going to, it's ridiculous for us to try to rush them. At the same time, it means that we're going to have to, we can't take like a four-year hiatus and wait for the next books to come out. So we have to press forward. Luckily, we know where we're going and we've known from the beginning, you know, more or less the shape of the story. And so we've been planning for this for a long time. And it's just about, you know, it's, it's, it's, look, I think it's going to be great. I'm very, I'm not worried about it. Is it Is it possible, I mean, is it possible that the way that the path of the television series will diverge from the novels?

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's, there are multiple paths, right? I mean, there's so many different storylines, and some of those paths definitely will diverge, and some will be very similar, you know, and there's, there are certain major things that are going to be in the last book, you know, and we're, we know where George is going, and that's where we're going as well. And there are other plot lines which will definitely diverge. So I'd say the first season was pretty scrupulously faithful. I hate trying to pronounce that word.

You did it perfectly. Thank you. And the second season was also very faithful, but slightly more divergent. And every season, it has to become a little bit more divergent. Because as you said, otherwise we'd be introducing 30 new characters every year. And we don't want to do that. And there are just certain things that sometimes we have a character on the show. who's just such a good actor and becomes such a dominant screen presence that we want to see more of

that character. So, you know, Richard Madden, as Rob Stark, is such a great character, such a great character, such a great character. He had very little page time in the book because he wasn't a POV character. And so we just kept writing more scenes for Richard. And, you know, Natalie Dormer, a wonderful actress. But Natalie Dormer is not like the Marjorie in the book. So, you know, we kind of... Oh, yeah, no, Marjorie was very marginal. Sorry about that, strangely a little. statement, but in the book, you know, she was really, she was kind of like a side player. That's with a culture and marginal margin. If you have Natalie Dormer on your team, you know, what's the point of having that? So we wanted to write for that actor's strengths. And it's, um, or like, I've, just, again,

spoiler alert, but like stuff with Theon Grayjoy that I don't remember reading in the books where you gave, you kind of, he appears and disappears and reappears, but we got what happened in the middle in the series. Yeah, and that's one of our favorite characters. I mean, Theon's just such a great complex character and Alfie is such an amazing actor. He's fantastic, yeah. And we didn't want to be away from him for two years. And partly it's just you don't want to lose that character for so long. And partly it's because from our perspective, in order to really understand how we became Rique, how it became that, you need to see what happened. Maybe we didn't need to see all of what happened. Maybe we went a little overboard with a torture.

way from, I mean. It's possible that we went a little bit too far with the torture scenes, but the good thing is, I think, at least people understand, you know, why this character is so traumatized now. Westrus is a brutal place. I mean, I think we've established that. It's an unkind place. Esos isn't really that much better. None of it. The Summer Isles. South Theris, all of us is. Southorus. Southorus.

Northarus. There is the Souththrus. I'm not kidding. Look it up. It's out there. out there. The two little bit questions I have now is, I'm just going to ask you, you don't have to answer. It would be great if you could. I haven't asked her. I was going to make a dirty joke. It's okay. Feel free. Dress left, circumcised. Some of those things. Come on, everyone dresses left. It's like 90% of people. It really is. I'm not even a choice really. It's just that's what I go. There's no choice. It's like being right-handed. The White Walker Kingdom, that was something that I felt

was completely, like where the babies were going. from, yeah, from Crestor's Keep. Who we said it's a kingdom. Well, I don't know. There's a guy with a hat on. Well, maybe it's a girl. Oh, David Wooden. All right.

It's fine. I didn't think you would answer, but I'm just really curious about it. I mean, I remember for the first time, my husband's had running the books, and I remember at the Red Wedding, he watches it, and he's so upset, and I am acting upset for his benefit.

And he looks, he goes, oh, you knew that was coming. And I said, I did, But it was still shocking. You didn't know the pregnant lady would get stabbed. No, right? That means insane. So that's apropos of nothing other than to say.

I think that when that White Walker sequence with the baby was the first time I was truly and genuinely shocked. Oh, good. And that was really exciting. Good. More more to come. Yeah. You. I imagine you become very good at becoming lip-lock. This very last question before you do self-inflicted wounds.

And it is how grueling is it to make this show? because I think you guys are in like four countries and how long is the production season and... Yeah, it's pretty insane. I mean, and we're not even the, you know, Dan and I are not the ones who work the hardest. We're not the ones who work the longest hours anyway. I mean, that would be Bernie Caulfield and Chris Newman,

you know, the producers who actually do the kind of nitty-grady producing. Their schedules are completely insane. The thing that's hardest about it from my perspective is it's just, it's 12 months out of the year because we're always, we're either in production or we're in post-production and also starting to outline and write the next season. So there's never a time where it stops. And it's been, you know, so now we're going into the, we're writing the six season now. Fifth season is shot.

Fifth season's shot and we've pretty much finished editing it. We're still doing sound. But, you know, so your typical day, like this morning, I was in color timing, which is great. It's actually really relaxing because they're just sitting there in a dark room and there's this beautiful, huge monitor up there. And Joe, our expert color, like, that's the most civilized part of it. Right, right. And then there's the mixed age where it's, which is where you realize how much sound matters and something I didn't know until I got into this business is, like, sound changes everything. And, but there's always something like every day, like today was colored tomorrow.

We're going to the composer's office. It's just, you know, it's pretty full on. But at least it's like nine to five. The problem is then you go home and, you know, we're supposed to turn in the first episode in two weeks, you know. Wow. Yeah. And we haven't started it yet.

So we have an outline. We have 160 page outline, but we haven't started it. So it's just there's always Game of Thrones work to do. And it's actually weirdly the most kind of relaxing time is when you're in production because that's when the schedule's most set. Like every day, you know, you show up at eight and every day. We have actually civilized hours over there. It's eight to six.

Yeah. Yeah, Europeans don't, they don't like to work long hours. They don't, you know. But it actually, we get a lot done, and it's, um, it's, uh, the cruise. I'm not saying Europeans are lazy. I'm just saying, we will, well, some of them are. Well, some of them are probably like, but not the people we work with. But, you know, but their set hours are like, like a real work day.

Ours is like five in the morning until, you know, midnight. And also the way it rolls, the way like the Fridays go into, like, people don't know the schedule. Like, it's just, it's not designed for human beings. Right, right, where you end up going in to work out in, you. on a day at 5 a.m. And then Saturday, yeah, wrapping at 5 a.m. on Saturday. Yeah, we don't do that, which is great, which is good for the stamina of the crew and everything. And, but, but it's just constant, you know, so it's constant. And I also, so I'm always kind of like wondering when we're going to have a little bit of a break. And at the same time,

just so I don't sound like a whiner about it. Like, I've never had a better job and I never will have a better job. I mean, the odds of me liking anything more than I like working in the show are pretty close to zero. So it's great. And it's just, it's, it's, I guess a testament to how much we love it that even after six years of doing this, we're still so obsessed with it that it doesn't feel like a grind. I mean, it feels like a grind. But it doesn't feel like a bad grind. It feels like a good grind still. Yeah. You know, if that makes any sense. What will you do when, when Game of Thrones goes away? Yeah. I mean, it's, oh, well, you know, there's a book called Dirty White Boys that we want to adapt and direct and incredible novel by Stephen Hunter.

which is very blessedly, very different. I said in not quite, but pretty much present day in Oklahoma and guns, which are way easier than sores. Way easier. Oh, God. Yeah. Like the idea of just having a guy pull a trigger and then having a little blood patches go. It's just, oh, it's so fun and easy.

So, yeah, I'm excited for that. All right, let's do self-inflicted wounds. All right. Do I just talk? Yeah, yeah. You don't tee it up? No, I don't tee it up. I just, you get to tell the story.

I've already told one today. I've already, I've already, I've already told one. Actually, I reenacted one where I actually, yes, I actually, although I would argue that that was a wound inflicted by the poopy fingers of whatever gave you. I wouldn't, that person's going to die. Get that man. Like Ned Stark style. Okay.

I got the hop, remember the hop? Yes. That was the last time I had really bad food poisoning. Oh, wow. I'm a delicate flower, though. I get sick. I should have known that was food poisoning when I started feeling crappy because I have had food poisoning. so many times. You're blaming on the workout. I was like, that seems weird that she'd be vomiting because

she worked out. I mean, like, it seems like, it seems like you, yeah, if you'd just worked out. Yeah, no, I was at five and a hour this morning. I don't know. It's a, I'm a mystery to myself. Okay. You are a mystery one. All right, self-inflicted women. So, um, so were you always tall? Yes, very tall from a very early age. Right. You're kind of like tall and gangly. Gangly and uncoordinated until about three weeks ago. Right. So I was little. I was very short and skinny. I was really skinny, and I was the lightest kid in my class.

I was a 75-pound seventh grader. And in seventh grade, for the first time, we had a dance at my school. I went to an all-boys school in New York City, and we had a dance with some of the girls' schools. And it was pretty exciting because we don't see girls a lot at this all-boy school. It's mysterious. Yeah, mysterious. and but it was also terrifying.

And at that age, girls are bigger than boys usually. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And they were way bigger than me because I was 75 pounds, you know. So I was just, I wasn't having much luck. And I was way too scared to ask anyone to dance. And then a couple of my kind of friends,

like not really, but like guys I was sort of friendly with, one of them had brought a flask of vodka, like it snuck in a flask of vodka. Oh, yeah. It was a pretty big deal. Like when you're 12, like, Bold. Yeah, that's bold.

And also that's leaping a couple of levels up in your mage qualification. Oh, yeah. You're going like one to 12 over night. I probably just finished my D&D game with the Feinberg. So this was like, what, what? A slasca vodka, it just felt really impressive. And they were passing it around. And so, of course, I had to take a swig from the slasca vodka.

I'd never drank hard liquor before in my life. And so I drink it and I had, and I didn't take a large, I didn't get drunk from it, but I felt something kind of weird like in my stomach, and I'm like, oh, I don't feel so great. And then I thought, you know, I need to get the bathroom, like right away. And I was a kind of fastidious, is the word you used before. I was a kind of fastidious kid, you know, and I sort of hated shitting in public bathrooms. Well, why not? Right.

But there was one bathroom at my school that was really clean because it was right across, from the headmaster's office, you know, so they kept it nice because that's where the parents, you know, visiting parents would come in and all. And so that's where I would go. If I had time to make it to that one, I'd always go to that one. And so I went in there, and I used to go to the farthest stall under the maybe, kind of suspicious theory that fewer people would bother going all the way of the fall. That's always my strategy.

But probably, see, everyone thinks that. So it probably knows the closest one. I want to figure out the stats on this. Right. Right. Do you need a study. Yeah. We need to do a study on this.

So I went to the far stall, and I sit down to do my business, and I pulled down my underwear and everything, and then I realized that I had somehow made a little ducky in my tidy waist. Like, it was just in there. Oh. A little one, but still, like a piece of a little turd. Yeah. And I was like, oh, God, this isn't good. And I'd never, I can't remember.

Like, I'm not someone who was generally got pooping himself issues, like, you know, not since I was a baby. Also, it was alarming to discover it there and not remember having made it. Yes, right. I hadn't remembered making it, and I was out the first co-ed dance of my life, right? So I'm like, I don't, I can't put back on the underwear, obviously. I take it off and I'm thinking, I can't flush it down the toilet. It's not going to go. That's not going to work. But I've taken it off and I've put back all my pants and my shoes and I've got this little wad of shitty underwear in my hands. and I'm thinking, okay, I can just go out, the bathroom's empty, I can go out and put it in the garbage and cover with paper towels,

and no one will be the wiser. And just as I'm about to open the stall door, Chris, the kid who had the flask of vodka, comes into the bathroom. And he goes, hey, Dave, is that you in there? It sure stinks like it. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty bad. But then I hear a girl's laughter. So Chris, who is, by the way, is the cool kid, right?

He was the kid who was smuggled in the flask of up. He was the kid who at 12 already had hair under his armpits and like pectoral. Like he was like developed and everything. So he's in there with some girl and they're laughing at the fact that I've like, you know, just taking a little shit or something and they're giggling and whatever. And so now I'm just terrified. I'm sitting there and I'm waiting for them to leave. Finally, after what seems like a million years, Chris and his new girlfriend walk out of the bathroom.

But now I'm too scary to walk out. Yeah. And put this shitty underwear in the garbage. So I'm looking around and I look up and the ceiling of the bathroom has those, you know, those kind of fireproof tiles that you can push up? Yeah, like the drop ceiling. Exactly. Yes. So I stand, I close the toilet seat.

This is a genius, by the way. Right. I was really proud of myself. I push up the tile thing and I throw my tidy whiteys back there. And then I lower the, the little block the tile and I go outside and everything's fine. Wash my hands. Go back to the dance. Don't dance with anybody, but no one knows that I've just shot myself.

It's all fine. So the next school day, I'm walking down the hallway, and I see the janitor, the school janitor. And he kind of smiles at me, kind of like gives me a little head nod. And I was like, that's kind of weird. And then it occurs to me as I'm walking past that I'd gone to summer camp that summer before, and my mom had put my name in all the underwear, like, you know, my name's in all my clothing and big block letters. and obviously the janitor had found it.

And so for the rest of the time I'm at school, every time I see the janitor, I kind of turn and just walk away as fast as I can. So cut to 10 years later, I've just graduated college. I'm walking down 79th in Broadway with Amy Noss. Do you remember Amy Noss from college? I do. Okay, so Amy was a good friend of mine from college.

And I tell her this story, and I tell her the story, and we get to the end, and I say, you know, we're only about four blocks away from the school. You want me to go show you the school? And she says, sure, why not? And so I take her back to my old school, and we're walking around, and I said, you know, we walked by the headmaster's office. I said, I just want to check something, just because I'm just want to check it.

I go into the bathroom, and I'm looking, and I'm like, I was probably just as anal, because I didn't really remember, but I was probably just as anal when I was 12 as I am now. I bet I used to use the far stall. So I go to the far stall, I close the toilet seat, and I stand up, and I push open the top. dial thing. And I kind of look back there and there's nothing there. It's been 10 years.

And I'm about to get back down and then I realize that there's another tile that's kind of like connecting the wall to the ceiling like the corner tile. And I push that one in and I reach into this dark, like dusty cub and I can't even see that far in and I feel something soft and I pull it out and it's this tiny little pair of tidy whiteies for like a 75 year old, a 75 pound boy. And it says my name, right, printed in big black letters on the waistband, and I open up the tidy whiteies, and there's this

10-year-old shit stain right there on the crotch. And I walk out of that bathroom, and Amy, my friend is standing there, like, looking at pictures, and I come out of the bathroom, and I'm holding up the tight bar. And it was, like, the greatest moment of my life. So I don't know if that's really a self-inflicted wound, or it's a story of triumph in the end. And both. It's a story, it's a story of the human spirit. It's a good of redemption. There you go. By the way, you avoided the gaze of that janitor for absolutely no reason. I did, yeah, for years. He was just a friendly guy.

He was just friendly. Mm-hmm. He just really liked me. I have to tell you, I love both the meat of the story and the Cota. I love that you held it above your head like it was like it. And this was such a, like this moment meant so much to me. And years later, I was talking to Amy Noss and I brought it up and she didn't even remember it. I was like, how can you, this is like a major moment in my life.

You know, this is when I became a man. for real, and you don't even remember it. This was my second bar mitzvah. How could you not? Exactly. Exactly. That was great. This was great.

I'm so glad we finally got to do this. I'm so sorry that I made you ill. No, it really was not you. I mean, you were here, and after I saw you, I vomited, but those are not necessarily correlative, really. They're not necessarily correlative. No, or correlative, but not causational. It's hard to rule me out as the culprit.

I'm going to do some, I'm going to do my own study. Okay. But I am very, very excited for. for this season of Game of Thrones. And hopefully we will someday actually get a drink at Comic-Con. That would be fun. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.

Thank you. That was David Benioff. Wasn't that the best? So great. Two quick items for the Apologia. I'm not going to apologize for throwing up. That was one of the worst episodes of food poisoning I've ever had in my life. I was sick for two days.

I was vomiting up the contents of my very soul. It was not fun. And more than a little bit of, humiliating. So that's just my own little SIW for this episode. But if you were offended or alarmed by the conversations we had about driving drunk when we were in college, know that that was a very long time ago. A, the statute of limitations is up on that. B, no one is endorsing that kind of behavior. C, people are idiots, right? That's that disclaimer. You guys are the greatest. You know what to do. Come follow me, friend me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter. There's more. Isn't there more

Instagram at all of my handles? Aisha Tyler, Girl on Guy. and Courage in Stone launching summer 2015. And visit me at ishthtali.com. Come check out the store. There's lots of girl and guy gear, T-shirts, books, posters, lots of wonderful things

to let everybody else in the world know that you are a member of the Army and that you kick-ass. Get ready for the fan appreciation event that will be happening this summer at Comic-Con that is coming. And I will be performing live

at Bullseye Comedy Night at Bam the first second weekend of May, May 9th in New York, and there's a link to that If you go to ishtala.com and click on Aisha on tour, you can get tickets. Those will sell out, so I would get those now. And I'm not doing a lot of live shows this year. So that is your shot.

If you are anywhere near driving distance of New York City, that's an opportunity to come see me live this year. You guys are the greatest. You are my army. You are massive. You are legendary. You are unstoppable. And you are a Legion. I'll touch you on the next one.

Late. Girl on Guy is a production of Hot Machine. Blowing shit up since two. 2009.