Hollywood Handbook - The Pro Version #424: JESSE ANDREWS, OUR PIXAR FRIEND

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Enjoy this un-paywalled episode of The Pro Version! To hear and watch more episodes, go to Patreon.com/HollywoodHandbook The Boys invite writer JESSE ANDREWS (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Luca) to describe his new Pixar film, Hoppers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm rooting for you, just, I mean, like, I've always, you know I've always been rooting for you. Thanks, man. And I've told you. In terms of balance, yeah, I am rooting against you. But in a way, that should be encouraged. That means more. That's when you've made it, you know? Or I mean, as in your case, when you have almost made it.

Because I, because I still do have pretty good odds on rooting against you. Yeah. Yeah. No. Good to have enemies. You have a career. Yeah. You can call it that.

I mean, it's going all right. I don't know why I'm in here. Let's go back through it a little bit because you wrote me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It was a book. Yeah. It was a poem first. Oh, I didn't know that. The title was because it rhymes.

The whole poem was the title first? Yeah, yeah. Title first. It was in the New Yorker. You know what? There's like a poem next to the... What are you doing with... Like, explain with your hand.

Like, what, like, what is up there? You're drawing like a huge magazine. I was being made very uncomfortable. Yeah, by the gesticuling, because it almost felt like the magazine could fall on me. Like, the sheer weight of a magazine that big. And the poem is very small. Yeah.

It's tiny in there. The font would have to be... I'm not a number of guy, but... Something like 50,000. 50,000. You know? Yeah. In order to fill a magazine like that with that little tiny poem.

It's, well, it's a New Yorker. It's like a big town, big city, you know, big fun. Can you speak up, please, for the show? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want the listeners to be able to hear you, whether what you're saying is something they agree with or, in many cases, not. Reflexibly.

They have to be able to hear it. Yeah. So does someone come to you and, like, Jesse Andrews, you, oh, the poem. We got to do. this book. This poem has to be a book. That's got to be a book. An agent was like, is it a book yet? And I was like, I don't know. Could it be? And they were like, yeah, just right, yeah. You know, just sit down in front of, just put one word after the other. Yeah. Pretty soon, you got a book. My thing was with the whole idea was, can we just pick one? Can it be like? That's been driving me insane as well.

Instead of all three of these. Because it's like, when it was a poem, I was blissfully unaware of it. Right. When it became a book, that was okay with me too. Yeah. Once it becomes a movie, I go, well, I kind of want to do a movie. It's three different things. I kind of want to do that.

And there's three of them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. What? So that's nine. Yeah. It's nine things overall. It's actually three.

I think that's like, it's like starting out, you're often operating from a place of insecurity, so you're like, is this enough? Will it ever be enough? You know, I have one character. Is that going to really hold people? I turn the volume back down, actually. I thought that I was going to want a little more energy. And it's, yeah, it's actually.

It's clipping. It's a clipping for me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was, can we like, pick?

one of these characters and of course he's like oh well what if it's me yeah oh what if it's just where'd you get that idea yeah look who's telling you that it's like i for me it can't be me unless it was me yeah but for me it can't be me and we've already done ear all right that's been so you think his name is earl yeah well here's my thing it probably can't be the dying either because the shelf life on that is very short. She's dying. Like in order to deliver, she's going to. And so I would say, let's just not do it.

Maybe don't do it. Am I crazy? Don't do it. Can I make the case for me? Okay. Because when everyone sees the word me. No one else is going to. Yeah. That's this business.

I know. You got to make, you got to throw an elbow every now and then. So when you write the word me, everyone's like, oh, that's me. Oh. You know? So you're sort of, it's like everyone, in a way, it's a sight of hand. And by the time they actually get in, get their butt in the seat. No refunds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It actually did happen to me a little bit. Okay. Like just now, well, even just in me saying for me, you'd have to rule out me. But when I started it, I was talking about you. But by the time I got around to explaining it, I said, actually, that could actually be kind of bitching if it was me. If it was you. Yeah.

That's the power of pronouns. You know, and if you use them. Well, you had a whole rant about pronouns you wanted to do on the show. I mean, that's part of why you're here, right? I really, I did. I did. Yeah, that like, you know, do you know, so do you know the word antecedent? I know parts of it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I know what that is. This is like Bugs Life crap again. Yeah, yeah. This is a whole Pixar thing. This is by a guy in Sanitation. I'm rooting for you, man.

Thanks, man. I love it, Pixar. I'm told they Pixar. Good stuff. We got to figure it out. How is ants spreading their seeds to other ants, which I think is what you were referencing before? Yeah, yeah.

I don't think kids should see that. You know what I mean? I think they should decide what they get to see. Oh, I don't. Yeah. I don't. I think that like you go to a kid and this is why my books have been pretty widely banned, you know, like all over America.

Yeah. But, you know, I think that's like a cyclical thing. Say Oliver America? Yeah. Oliver. Like the book, Oliver America. Oliver America? Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. The American Oliver Twist. You don't know because it had to be banned so much. It was even more twisted than Oliver Twist. Yeah. And more American as well. Yeah.

It sounds like Mark Twain. You have this movie coming out. I know we skipped another one, but like we will get to it. Don't worry. We'll go back. Oh, Jesus Christ. No, I mean, I don't know. This guys keep in score.

Sorry. How many did we skip? You skip two. Okay. So I don't know if that's a few, is it? That's a couple. A few is two to five for me. You have this movie coming out.

It's called Hoppers. Yeah, yeah. It overlaps. It's a Pixar movie. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yes, yeah. Hoppers is the name of the movie?

Hoppers. Yeah. Must be about bevers. Yeah I hear hopping Yeah I go oh You're the first person who said that

It's a relief to hear That's great Yeah if you could say that Like more publicly Because That's gotta be about beavers No one thinks it's about beavers Yeah hoppers

But you made that leap Incoming You made that hop Yeah I mean yeah I'm a little beaver myself right Yeah yeah Hopping Hopping down the beaver trail

Yeah yeah yeah Well they can You know they have big hind feet and that could propel you into the air. Theoretical. He doesn't happen in the movie, of course. No. Well, no, it doesn't.

No. Okay. Not once. But, you know, there's sequels maybe or there's like promo spots we could do. Yeah. You know, if you're on Instagram and you're kind of scrolling and then all of a sudden, oh, who's this beaver hopping along? Hey, go see hoppers.

This won't happen in the movie. You have to put that in the fine print or people will feel lied to. Well, you didn't have any problem doing that on me and her on the dying girl. Lying. Yeah. Yeah, you wanted them to get their butt in the seat under false pretenses. Seems to be a theme. I don't know about the...

A me part. A couple movies we skipped, but I feel like I'm going to find some problems there, too. You don't want to even... I mean, Luka, remember this? Well, to be fair, there were scripts that were not turned into movies, so that's even more than the two. Right. Yeah. Okay.

No, let's do it. Let's talk about every creative endeavor, every failed initiative you've ever taken. I'll get my eyeballs out from the back of my head real quick. They seem to have rolled all the way around. I feel like we've started out on the wrong foot.

We're almost done. It's really close, yeah. Yeah, I want to, no, I, yeah, I am trying to get my career on track here. You're part of this scrappy little team. Yeah. Over at Pixar. Up north.

Taking a lot of swings. Yeah. I really admire that. You know, Emeryville? Yeah, between Berkeley and Oakland. East Bay. Yeah. East Bay.

Elissa Lou. Exactly, man. Yeah. So, starting to get some attention finally, you know, along last. Black Panthers also, you know, from there. And anyway, yeah. Black Panthers from Or condo.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah. The movies, Bugs Life, you tried it. Yeah. It turned out. Yes, there are a lot of bugs.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That, that. I didn't work on that. That was true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it also turned out that they don't go to the movie. movies. Yeah. And that. It was worth a try. Yeah. Right. Right.

You had to, just from sheer numbers, if even 80% of the bugs had bought a ticket, it would be one of the most successful movies of all time. Statistically, like, the most common type of animal in the world. You know? And now you're doing this other one. Yeah. Which is about. Beavors.

Bevers. Yeah. And humans. That are also guys. So you're trying to. really trying to have it all Yeah Like guys like men?

Beaver that are also guys Yeah men or people Yeah these guys I'm men here Yeah come on Yeah We can do it There's gals too

There's not just guys But yeah But yeah Are we allowed to say that there's men in the movie Is it allowed for men Yeah To be in a movie today No it's true

The power of pronouns Again coming up You know what I mean Yeah there's some guys in the movie I was just saying that. Yeah. There's some men's men. What are those guys getting up to?

They're, well, they make a dam. They make a couple dams. They cut down a tree with their teeth. Okay. And then they bring it into... Damn, dude. Or like a running body, like a stream. Oh, damn, Daniel.

Did you do Damn Daniel in it? Did you do Damn Daniel the movie? Fuck. No, we didn't shit. There's nobody named Damn Daniel. There is not a beaver named to a name. Can I make a call? Can we stop this first?

Thank you. So this is what we've always tried to preach. You can change the movie at any time. Yeah. Why do we act like this is done? Like it's the final. Yes. We're totally reworking it.

The ball is going to change. The ball has to change a lot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I was resistant. You know what I mean? You don't always want to, you know, you want to kind of put it away and say this is done. But the fact is art is never done.

It's a living document. What's wrong with it? with the ball. It's a different episode. Let's deal with your show. We don't have time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know.

We honestly don't have time to like list off everything that's wrong. I listened to it, but a little star struck. We barely scratched the surface because once he got in there, under the hood, there was way more going on with the ball. I was finding new problems everywhere. Is it? That was a thread that you just pull and pull and pull. It's just one ball though?

Is that, maybe that's your problem? I don't want to. talk about it with you. I have so many issues with what you're doing for your own projects that it's actually disgusting that we spend any time on my thing, which is being handled very well by myself, Hayes, and a whole team of ball engineers. Yeah. No, you guys are crushing it. And also, like, live action to me, too, is, like, so much harder than animation in a way, because, like, live action, like, you have to have the ball. Animation, you can just draw whatever. Draw it. You You know, and that's why I got into it, because, like, I was finding live action really, really hard.

It was really hard. I would write a live action script, like, girl becomes a beaver, and they would say, like, how does, how? And I'm like, I don't know. It's the magic of movies. Or a dude, right? Or a guy. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A guy, a real American Joe, you know, kind of strides out of the bar, you know, with a beer and a gun, and he becomes a beaver. And then, you know, and they stop. You can't do that. You can't do that. And because the truth is, and this is the message of the movie, that an actual red-blooded American male like you're describing, is endangered species. Yeah.

Which is what the movie is about. That's what the movie's about. And they're being poached. They are. Yeah. They're being hunted for sport. It's open season. By the poacher.

And it's been open season for quite some time. Yeah. And it's time to, you know, strengthen some of the permit laws. Who in your opinion is doing that? Obama. Easy one. Obama? That one's easy.

Is that different from Obama or is that just how you say it? Oh, his name is Obama. Obama. This particular individual's name is Obamba. And if you want to see the spelling of his name to confirm it, just check his birth certificate. Oh, wait, I forgot. Yeah. Oh, wait, I forgot.

That's a good one. Yeah. because yeah thank you thank you for complimenting the joke I'm always I'm always aiming to make a good one

and the idea that I just did he wasn't sure like the way he approaches like you say that was a good one he doesn't even think you're talking to him yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean I assume there was someone else behind me who had made a good one of some kind

because it's been so long since I landed a good one talk about what you liked about the joke all right you set me up with like oh yeah he's got a birth certificate and then as in my mind

I'm realizing wait I haven't seen it then you hit me with oh wait where is it and I'm like oh you already know you're two steps ahead so that's just set up punchline and some people will say it's problematic

or whatever but those people are trouble essentially just obama i mean at that point if you say that now you're obama obama obama obama yeah you and so what do they do what like what do what do they do they're building a dam yeah yeah yeah yeah what are they doing well they're making a dam so all right this is really interesting so you take like you know if a stream or like a like a creek or a river it's flowing to the sea Beavers are like, hey, wait a minute, if you put a bunch of sticks in the way, then the water becomes a pond, right? It like holds up the water.

And now you have standing water and you can use that to like build a house. You have an ecosystem, tons of bacteria, which is food. It's all food. It's all protein, you know. Seweed. Well, I'm eating algae. You could. You're eating something that ate it.

let's say it makes its way up to you in the theater I'm eating something that ate this it's in the popcorn we did a deal something that ate this with AMC is in the popcorn there are because they're doing all these special buckets and stuff animals in every bucket put something that ate this stuff there's a living animal in the bucket in the bottom of the bucket and if you got all the way down to it yeah okay and it can sometimes eat its way out because it's so strong.

Yeah. It's a surprise. Healthy because it ate. We brought a special kind of, a new kind of mammal. Okay. It's, well,

it's like a nutria. A nutria is like a beaver. Yeah. You know, so it looks like a beaver, but it's very small. And it comes out. I know what an root tree is.

I know you know, but it's for the listeners. Our listeners, unfortunately. They all know what a nutriah. Yes. Unfortunately, our listeners are very

invested in just like the bestial realm we've tried to find another topic that they'll engage with us on and it's a fool's errand I don't like how you said that I can I can feel them sort of like arching their back

when they hear the neutria discussion a rodent of unusual size inconceivable a princess bride yeah Rob Reiner yes Yes, yes. You had a rant you wanted to go on about that. Is that correct?

About Rob Reiner? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't... His pronouns? I didn't understand. I don't know how it was... I don't think he's dead. I don't think he's dead. I just don't think he is. Okay. Well, a great filmmaker never is. I mean, their stories stay with us forever. And my review for this, you know, supposed Hopper's movie, and I don't believe it when I see it,

is the same as it was for all of Rob's movies, which is... Interesting if true. Interesting if true. Yeah. It is true. I'm not so sure. This movie is true. Yeah.

And it is actually a movie. It happens. I agree with John. I'll believe it when I see it. You can see, I invited you guys to see it. I'd want you to see it. Really? When?

Yeah. I didn't get it. And also, can I talk about something else? What's your email? Kevin had a party this weekend. Yeah. And he like told us about the party. Yeah.

He told us about it on the podcast while we were recording, which when I'm doing this, actually when I'm doing anything, it's so loud in here. Like there's nothing really getting, like numbers and dates and stuff are not coming in. And he's talking about the partyful invite and how many people have RSVPed. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. And he like tells us he's like, it's weekend after next or something. I said, am I going to get the official invite?

He said, you're getting it now. And he said, yeah, he said you're getting it now. Oh. And then the weekend rolls around. I'm like, I'm out of town, he's doing other stuff but also we never actually did get invited. I never got the party full invite. It just never happened.

If we're texting each other, like, is this, was this happening right now? I got a text where somebody was like, hey, are you coming to Kevin's thing? And I was like, when is it? And then I realized, I wouldn't be getting this text unless it was happening right now. Certainly no one's like anticipating Kevin's thing and wondering who will be there. Yeah. They're physically there at that moment going like, yeah. Feels a little empty.

Is there anyone else I can reach out to? We under-invited people. Did it go to spam? It was unfortunately not the problem. We under did everything else in our life before that. Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the road leading up to the- Once the problem is there. The problem's never the problem, which is screenwriting, you know. Tell me about this. What in my life brought me to this point? Well, I need some guidance from you guys, But my understanding of a character is that once you're, once the character has a problem, you need to drill back into their past and find why. And then the person in their past go into their past.

And then you're doing essentially a tree of life. And you go back to dinosaurs and you go back to like the Big Bang. And then what's before that? You know, is it like inside like a child's eye ball? Young Sheldon. what's before the Big Bang? Young Sheldon. Yeah.

I mean, like, yeah, we're still learning new laughs back there. Like, we don't know all these. Yeah. Yeah. Guys.

Yeah. We're just kind of learning what, what pushes their buttons. Yeah. That got a big one. From one of the new, that's one of the new laughs. Yeah,

yeah. So we're going to be doing a lot more of that. Yeah. That was good. Was it, filed that away. Intentional joke? Or was it?

Yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sorry. I wouldn't mind another good one.

We've all heard the joke be enjoyed out there. And in ear. Yeah. So. I'd need to know when it's a joke if you could like signal or do some like, I don't know, like business. This I don't, I can't have this. You don't want that at all. I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to do too much. I'm sorry. It's a big magazine and like whatever that was on your head. The physicality. It is a podcast at the end of the day. It's like three Sorry So three stooges

You know That's pretty old school That was all three stuages You were being all three stuages One of them It's a hand It's a hand and a head The others that are three

Each of them Also with all respect to you And you've obviously done Three or four movies or something Yeah four The amount of pleasure You got From your own idea

To say The Three Stooges to the extent that you couldn't even get it out for six to seven tries. And then when we got there, I said, I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to really enjoy this. Like, here it comes. Like, this guy's sitting on a fucking keg of dynamite. Yeah. But then you just said the three stooges.

But that's why writers become writers, right? Yeah. Because the shit is too good. I can't keep this locked up in here. And also to, like, say it yourself, to deliver the line yourself on screen. That's tough. You barely survive. I just like thinking about them.

Yeah. They make me laugh, but it's for me and that's selfish. Where do you get your crazy ideas? I start by reading The New Yorker. You know, I get like a nice big copy. And a lot of this, like, let's be honest. And it's huge. Magazines are so big in your life.

It's humongous. I'm a three inches tall. This is almost every shit. out some murmurs is like different animals yeah it's a cat at the therapist i'm a penguin president yes the yeah the yeah yeah the hoa meeting of the freaking squirrel um-hmm i'm a dog construction worker and it's stopping the cat for a muting to his job perfect example yeah yeah yeah that's great it's like so that's where i get and then it's like i'm like that's my idea sorry i'm not at all

Not at all. I got too excited about the thing I was thinking. The only thing you could make room for is me to compliment you again on the example of the HOA or whatever. Was that yours? That was my name. But that one was great. That was really good. That was great.

I was kind of in the ballpark and I was thinking about that stuff too. So I see it. I'm like, maybe that's my idea. I really want to, you keep talking about the neutrias. Yeah. I'm just kind of tap on the mic a little bit. They like just,

when you talk about one of these beasts, like an ASMR. get a little. Yeah. Yeah. It's ASMR, but it stands for something else. You know a dream. Animal smut.

Mm-hmm. More. Right now. Animal. Animal smut. That's more. Right now. Right now.

It's one word. It has to be because they're saying it's so fast. It's so loud. They need it. It's urgency. Yeah. What? Tell me about the guys in the movie.

Yeah. We got all kinds of guys. We have like a Bobby Moore. We have a John Ham guy. Yeah. We have an Eduardo Franco guy, very stranger things, you know, but he does other stuff too. Duarno is also a voice in goat. He's in goat?

Yeah. He didn't tell us. What is he in goat? Wait, what is he? Is he a beaver? I think so. Oh, fuck. Wait, really?

He's a beaver that plays incredible defense. He's a, but he's a deep. He built a whole damn out there. Playing Roarball. Fuck, that's really. good. He's the dam. There's a dam on the court and it's stopping people from... He builds it really

fast and you can't get around it. He boxes out. I think they call him damn Daniel in it. Oh, fuck. All right. Well, he didn't say anything about this to us. Did you ask? Did you actually

ask him one question about himself? Have you ever asked him anything about himself other than like what time can you help me with my movie? Yeah. I mean, no, I don't, yeah, I feel kind of, I feel kind of put on the spot right now. I'm just trying to solve this problem. This is really fucking bad.

Did anyone see goat? Did anyone see goat? It was a nice little piece of business. Took home a pretty penny or two. Fuck! We're all rooting for it. Why are you rooting for it? It's just a good time at the movies.

Yeah, just having fun again. Don't see it. Don't say that. Stop it. Stop it. I can't. Sorry. It's a rising tide.

It's good for everybody. You know what I mean? But not any other movie. I can't believe how much we're talking about goat on this episode at this point. It's two different movies. It's, you know what I mean? We're talking about ghosts. We talked about me and all in the dying girl before.

Turn it off. problem with that. The goat conversation. Yeah, I wrote that movie. We talked about Princess Bride. I wrote that. I wrote the Princess Bride. I thought of it.

I've been thinking about it. Well, your idea is for, yeah, for movies to start his books. Yeah. That's, and that is what it, or he's reading a book at the beginning, and I think it was a book, therefore it's mine. It's my idea. It's all, sorry. All right. I'm sorry.

I've been working on this. No, it's the men. It's good. There's other movie. Talk about some of the men. Yeah. So, the adult men.

That's great. Bobby Moynihan, John Ham, Merrill Street. What are there like, I know to you, these are just like names on a poster. Yeah, yeah.

But like, the characters in the movie. Like, what are they getting into? Yeah. What kind of mess they make him? Oh, boy. Well,

there's a very funny scene where John Ham gets into his car. And he thinks he's, alone, he's not alone, animals are in there and they take his stuff and they take his phone and they start typing emojis in a sort of text to speech way. And so they're like beaver, beaver, beaver. And John Hamm is like, how do you do that? How do you type emoji? There's a little button that says text to speech. And so they, yeah, they hit. And they know about that button, but we don't. Yeah, it should be on your phone. It's on my phone. You have that. It's one button. Can I show you, it's on your phone.

I'm not going to let you touch my phone today or ever. Okay, okay. No, that's okay. I understand. But I can show you on my phone after the episode and I'm not going to look at your phone. It is. And by the way, it is after the episode. It's been after the episode for a long time.

I understand. So that after has come and will forever be here and there will be no touching the phone or anything else. Did it happen after the goat or before the goat part? Did the goat part? Did what happen? After the episode. After the episode.

Is that before goat? That part we have to leave in just legally. I think there's probably going to be some sort of action taken against you because your- What? Behavior was so insane and kind of threatening, especially to some of the engineers, who have to like make sure that the sound levels are right. They probably have some kind of assault charge pending because their ears must be killing them from.

the wild petulant outburst regarding a movie that was actually just for people to have fun again. Produced by Steph Curry, Bay Area Legend. Sure, he's great. If I'm you, I'm not going home. Yeah. You know what I mean? After something like this.

You don't know how much fucking money I have after four, four count them, movies, and at least 20 scripts that were not made, but I did get paid for some of them, and others might sell at any time. And guess what? You can make any of those script. I'm sorry, I'm getting angry again.

It is weird which ones when scripts just like sell. Isn't they crazy? You know, you just got this thing sitting around and like you didn't even send it to anyone, but it's just like. I guess they want to buy it or whatever. Does that happen to you guys?

I guess they're like trying to buy this now. It's crazy how that happened. How does that happen? And it's always the one that you just like barely even did. Yeah, that I was like actually kind of kidding. Like I was like sort of like being like imagine this was a script and then it's like okay now I guess it's done now they want to buy it it's like suit yourself do you email it to who do you email it to is there like a list or like a

like a black list I know that this is sort of a roundabout way for you to try to get my phone again and I'm just going to tell you I can see it from here and I am not going to let that happen okay that's all right or to press the button that like makes the phone start reading all our emails like you really are eager to just like push button as a beaver and I'd love to get back to hoppers if we can't as a beaver because that's that's what I'm really here to what's the tagline act natural okay yeah because they because they don't know she's a beaver so she because or they don't know she's a human the beavers don't know she's a human in a lifelike beaver cost a robot you know suit like an avatar essentially we got to get

this straightened out The movie's coming out really soon. Yeah. You really have to know. Yeah. What it is. Let me try again. Realistic beaver costume, like a robot.

They don't know she's a beaver is what he said first. And it seemed like we've gotten pretty far away from that. That was the original pitch. Yeah. But it does, you know, these things change. They take like five years to make. And so at the beginning you're doing something. Okay.

No, I practiced this in my hotel room. She is a human. They, the beavers is the they, that's the pronoun, meaning beavers. Beaver's the antecedent. They don't know she's a human who put her consciousness through a wire by...