Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Mike Flanagan

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House) joins us this week and talks about his successful tenure as a horror film director and how he’s able to still scare people despite being personally desensitized to horror. Mike talks about the inside and outside pressures working off of Kubrick’s classic ‘The Shining’ while also getting Stephen King’s blessing to continue his story the way he wanted to in ‘Doctor Sleep.’ We go deep into our opinions on the horror genre as a whole, how Mike is starting to shift the balance between career and family, and how he was able to morph into a gripping horror film director after growing up afraid of everything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Rocket Money. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, Ryan, I am... Over the Moon. Yep. I am... Smitten. I'm a huge horror movie fan as you guys know I talk about it ad nauseum and uh you know Stephen King is the best hard writer on earth

which I talk about in this podcast Stephen if you're listening it will blow me away that you're even like your ears are hearing my voice you're uh I'd love to interview you someday Stephen can I call you Stephen uh the interview I just had with Mike Flanagan was extraordinary and I know that a lot of people probably don't know Mike Flanagan and they're like oh when's Jenna Fisher coming on or when or this you know they get excited about actors and things like that i i i get excited about horror i get excited about great horror i get excited about super talented people who do horror like stephen king like mike flanagan directed a movie called oculus directed dr sleep also wrote it he wrote it with stephen king stephen king you know of course the great stephen king also the haunting

of hill house if you haven't seen that on netflix is one of the best series ever i mean I mean, if you think American horror story is good, you have no idea what's good until you watch this show, The Haunting of Hillhouse. Mike knows how to scare. It's a tricky thing. I don't think a lot of people scare me anymore. I watch horror movies and maybe I'm jaded. Mike talks about it in this interview. We talk about a lot of things.

But hearing him sort of talk about meeting Stephen King and I could have gone on for hours and sitting down with him and watching that movie. Doctor Sleep, which is out now. You guys are going to love this interview. I truly think this is one of my favorite interviews. I wanted it. It was the longest one, but it feels short. If you like movies, if you love horror, if you love Stephen King, if you like a good dude going through a little stress and anxiety

and trying to make people happy. And Mike Flanagan is an extraordinary guy. We were both fanning over each other and geeking out. Ryan, you really liked it. You don't know anything about horror and you really enjoyed it. I don't. Well, he, I mean, he said something, like, a little preview. Like, he was the kid who was always like, he was scared of dumb things, like, like, Fraggle Rock.

Like, there was a scene in a Fraggle Rock episode with the ghosts of Fraggle Rock, and it scared him as a kid. Right, right. And he's turned it around, and now he's directing very scary things. And so I think there's hope for me still as a 31-year-old adult that I can still overcome my fear of Fraggle Rock. Fraggle Rock scared you? No, I mean, but, like, something like that. Like, I would get scared by, like, dumb little things like that. Like, you know, like little creepy puppets.

Right. Yeah. I have those in my house. Yeah. No, I don't like it. Yeah. Don't care for it. Well, you know, talk to human, what is it called?

Services, HR, Human Resources. What is it? Well, talk to Jess. Call to Jeff. Anyway, let's get into this. Dr. Sleep is out now. Tweet me, Instagram, me, Instagram, Stephen King.

Tell him how much you love the movie. Go see it. Support movies. Especially Mike Flanagan. I think this guy's got a long career and I want to do everything he does or be a part of something. Let's get inside of Mike Lennigand. It's my point of you. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum.

Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience. I'm truly excited about this. I mean, I've been excited before, and you might think people don't care much about directors as much as they do actors. musicians and things like that, but I consider you one of the best directors out there. Oh, Jesus. Oh, no. Mike Flanagan, thank you for allowing me to be inside of you today, first of all, because it's, oh, it's my pleasure. Yeah. I am excited. You brought me a Dr. Sleep poster. Yes. You signed it. You thought for a second, is this for you? Are you going to sell it?

Oh, I didn't know. And I had no idea. I had no idea, like, what the proper etiquette for that should be. So I was going to leave you the room to do with it whatever you wanted. Well, when you, you Walked in the house and I showed you around, you saw things from the shining. Oh, it's, yeah, it's a treasure trove in here. Right? Yeah. I have a shining doll. I have, like, a lot of toys.

Is it weird, a 47-year-old, that you walk into a house of toys? No, no, not at all. Do you have toys? I do. I have a whole room of toys, but it's like the biggest room in the house. I used to take over my entire house before I was married. And then my wife, Kate, in her generosity, said, you can have this room. And so I've put everything into the room, but it's, it's every square inch.

the room it's kind of everywhere you look there's something what what is your prize possession oh my god um i mean i have so many things in there there's stuff that's kind of from my stuff that i love and then there's also just the nerdy stuff i collect right and my prize ones would be i've got i have the actual stunt sword um that colin farrell used in terence malick's new world um i've got that how much was that oh it's probably a thousand bucks you paid a thousand i did on auction and i was the only bitter and that made me really sad But, because I love the new world. I was the only bidder on the Star Wars thing, this auction for this, but it was at a dog charity.

Maybe that's why. But it was a Star Wars autographed by the entire, I'm talking about everybody. Kenny Baker, Chabaca, like, you know, everybody. And I got it for like, 1,500 bucks. And I'm like, this is unbelievable. This is worth at least $1,600. That's amazing. Now, I've got, you know, a bunch of the stuff, some of which I've collected myself and some

I've bought a lot on auction. But I've got, you know, a glove signed by the whole cast of Elm Street 1. What? Minus Johnny back. Well, look at that. There's a nightmare in Elm Street, Freddie. Oh, yeah. And then I saw another glove above your head.

Yeah, that's a, that's a doll. That's like a puppet. Oh, I see his head there now, too. Yeah, it's a puppet. Oh, that's fantastic. Wow. That's awesome. I've got a, I've got a Jason Borhees mask that's signed by everyone who's played Jason.

Everyone? Everyone. How many? Oh, I guess that's... 14? I don't know how many are that I'd have to go count And then I have a bunch of weird stuff

I've got two sonic screwdrivers from Doctor Who That I'm really proud of All right, you give me You give me hope, you know why? Because you are a nerd like me But you're married And you have kids Which means someone said yes to you, Mike

Which means maybe there's a chance for me I believe in you I think it's going to work out I mean You got to find somebody who's going to walk into this environment And appreciate how awesome it is That's the thing and they are absolutely out there

I mean you know someone said what did you really do today if they had to say everything you did line it up from beginning to end if I had to there would be a couple of things in the middle that were like well I bought a little action figure of Tar Man from Return of the Living Dead for 4999 on Etsy

that happened that'll happen I cruise Etsy for stuff mostly lately I've been buying up everything I can find for Hillhouse on Etsy wait a minute you're buying things from your own series that you produce created and wrote, directed, all that. And you have to buy things. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Well, fans will

make, they make, they make their own stuff. And it's so cool. They make t-shirts. I buy all the shirts. They'll do kind of paintings, drawings, pendants. I've got these red room door pendants that a couple of people have made. What about the tall guy? Do they have something? Yeah, there's a really cool t-shirt print of the tall man that someone named. And then I tracked down, are you familiar with readful things? No, I know needful thing, Stephen King. readful things it's custom one of a kind action figures um that this guy makes and he only makes one of every single one of them and you have to jump on them so fast oh like everything you can think of can you ask him yeah i've never commissioned anything but i i stalk him and they're like five or six

like uh i have and some of them are really goofy don't give out the name oh you already did readful things i'm happy to advertise for him but it's it's i do have a back channel though i can i can reach out directly if there's something you're looking for you have to send me that information i'll send you all the info but it's i because that like i have um i he made a tall man figure for haunting that i've got uh and a bent neck lady i've got that but he also made lady have you seen it ryan he's not a big horror movie guy oh no you know i i tried to understand like i'm trying to understand why people some people ask me like why do you like horror what what is it about horror are you just sick are you demented. I'm not into torture porn. I'm not into a lot of that stuff. I describe it as when you're

at Six Flags. Yeah. And you're on a roller coaster and that downhill, that adrenaline you feel. When there's a moment from, you know, the moment with Tallman or Bent Neck Lady, those moments in Haunting of Hill House that I go, oh my God, I get the goosebumps and I feel it. That is a feeling I just really enjoy. Maybe it's because my mother used to rent horror movies for me when I was eight, like Motel Hell and make them die slowly and whatever. I don't know. But there's that feeling I get of when I'm scared. I also get very angry when people call movies horror

and then there's nothing scary about them at all in movies. So that's, I want to talk to you about that. I've noticed that actually reading your tweets. Do you get upset with me? No. No, I love reading your tweets. You do? Yeah.

Because, you know, I definitely want to talk to you. But first, before we get there, what is it that you love about horror? That's an amazing question. I think for me, I was a kid who was really scared of everything. And I think a lot of us were like this. I had a really hard time. I was the kid in the room whenever everyone else was watching Thriller who had to like hide behind the couch or the Landis short video. Yes. That video. It was scary. That was terrifying. And at the age I was when it came out, I was, I was petrified. How old are you? Oh, geez. I, I'm 47. I'm, I'm, I'm,

I'm 41. Okay. So you're younger than me when I am. Yeah. And, yeah, and I was, I was like, the kid probably I'm sure you probably had kids like this at that time that were around you like the littlest ones in the corner that are like completely petrified that was always me and that went way way back to like it was an episode of fragile rock that first scared the shit out of me let the music play it was the yes not this it was like please don't let this music play this is terrifying it was the the terrible tunnel which was a part of of the fragile rock universe where all the ghosts of fragles are trapped forever and if you wander in there you're dead what So it took me years actually to kind of look back at my first real horror feature and be like, oh my God, I just did Fragle Rock.

I did the terrible tunnel. And like people get dragged off. Fraggles get dragged off and they're trapped there forever. And it traumatized me. And so the thing that I, as I've gotten older and have been fascinated by horror, the reason that I think I figured out why I love horror, I was so afraid as a kid, watching something scary and getting through a scary scene. or getting through a whole movie or getting through a scary book became practice at being brave in little increments,

little controlled, safe increments. Wow, I never looked at it like that. Well, I think a lot of us, whether we know it or not, you know, the first emotion that most of us feel as kids is fear. It's like it's the one thing that kind of unites all of us.

Right. And so anything out there that lets us exercise that part of our character in the imaginary world maybe makes it so that we can be braver in the real world. And I think that's why the horror genre exists.

On the, like, esoteric level, then it's also really fun. You know, it's, it's, it releases enough incredible adrenaline and chemicals into your brain that it can be very- Are endorphins released? I guess they would be in the way, right? Yeah, it's a stress reaction. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And I think with fear, with intense fear, our bodies release adrenaline. It's that fight or flight thing. Right. You know, it can be kind of an exhilarating experience. So it can be really fun, too. And now that I'm, like, impossible to scare, like, now that I've completely over-saturated myself.

You're almost jaded, right? Yeah. And it's like, oh, well, nothing, I can understand why other people are being affected by this, but it's not, I'm, it's like seeing all the ones and zeros in the matrix. And you're just kind of like, you know, oh, yeah, it's just ones and zeros. So what then, what scares you? What, it's very, because we could talk about this for a long time. It's very hard to scare me. very few things do that and when I said in the beginning when I said I think you're one of the

best directors around when it comes to horror I don't know anyone else where I can think of I love James Wan I love insidious was genius conjuring he can scare me he's done it but like there's few people that I go see me with the guy who directed the witch what's I can't put uh Robert Eggers yeah right yeah so I mean that movie was spectacular to look at and there were some creepy moments I wasn't that scared but it was great and what I wanted to was more of that witch. When I saw that witch in that cabin, I'm like, God, if there was five more moments like that or more intense, that would have blown me away. Well, there's that brilliant moment when she's kissing the brother and the hand comes up behind his head and the hand is so

grotesque compared to this beautiful woman. Yes. You know, I think things like that, you know, that was a really resonant moment in that movie for me. The stuff that scares me, it changes all the time. I have a very difficult time feeling scared these days. So when a movie does it, it's really kind of this magical thing. And I grab it and I call all my friends. I'm like, oh my God, we have to watch this movie. And then I end up watching it six times. Like handing it out. Insidious? Like for the, the last one that really got me was an Australian movie called Lake Mungo. It's just... Everybody tells me to watch that. It's so great. It's phenomenal. Everybody says, Ryan, make sure I watch Lake Mungo. All right. I swear to God, people were talking about that.

I think that's scary. By the way, by the way, do you care if I, record some stuff. No, no, no, no. We used to use, I just, I'm like the camera guy. I'm like the... That's a beautiful camera. I don't even know what it is. So, like, when I say what scares you, then the follow-up to that would be, well, if you don't get scared very often, how are you able to scare people? Well, the things that scare me are, are ideas. Like, I, I, I've become completely desensitized to shocks and startles and jump scares and all that. Like, just... Using sounds to make you scare. Yeah, I feel like that's just walking up behind someone and kind of banging two pots together. Like, it's, it's an involuntary.

tear reflex that you invoke in a viewer. And I've resorted to jump scares in my career. You have to. And some of them I'm, I'm really embarrassed about. And some of them I'm really proud of. But I don't tend to react to those. The things that get me are more existential. It's that Kubrick does it so beautifully. It's that sense that you're in this world that's a fly trap that's closing around you. And you might not even see the edges. You might not even see the teeth. You don't really know when it's it will have consumed you and it's like that feeling of total uncertainty in an environment that should be safe that scares like the scene with danny and the shining with mr. Hallerman and he says to me says is this mr.

howellman what's in room 247 nothing they ain't nothing in room 237 and you ain't got no business going in there yeah that moment that was scary it was just two people talking And I'm like, oh my God, I got goosebumps again. And that's a story I desperately want to see on screen someday is whatever happened to Dick Hallor in Room 237 of the Overlook. Oh, I'm dying to see that. He gave me more goosebumps. Yeah.

See, I think that's, you know, so the next question is, this is something since you said you do the interview, which I love that you're here. I kept thinking Stephen King, who I think is the most brilliant horror writer in history. I mean, there's no comparison. I just think you think horror, you think Stephen King. I freaking love him. Yeah.

If he ever liked one of my tweets, I'd be like, Stephen King liked me. I've had that happen. I saw that. It makes, you make, or at least I make a really weird noise when it happens. Do you do that? But you try to act cool in front of him? Because you met him a few times. I tried to act cool in front of him.

I met him one time. And I did not succeed in acting cool. It did not work. I mean, what do you, what did you say when you first met Stephen King? I don't remember. That's the thing. I was all pumped. Somebody has it on tape.

Warner Brothers filmed it, which was also making me feel. really weird. Oh, God. But I remember him coming through the door, and then I kind of black out for a while, and then I remember being in the movie theater with him, which was probably about a half hour later. But I'm sure I just kind of tripped over myself and maybe said, I have this habit I'm learning where I meet, when I get starstruck, I say the person's name to them, which is a really, like, bizarre thing that I just am realizing I do. Quentin Tarantino, how are you? I don't even put a question onto it. I just say their own. name.

Hey, Quentin Tarantino? Not even a, hey, that's still a sentence. Quentin Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino. And then nothing. As though I'm waiting for, you know, I'm narrating this to someone else. That's humble. That's sweet.

That's like what we need more of in life. It's like that moment where you're a little kid, we're like, I'm excited. I don't get excited that much. So when I meet somebody that's one of my, it's just, it's nice. It's nice. I think you inadvertently do it. And hopefully you think people look at you and go, that's cool. He likes me.

I hope so. I, um, I, I, I felt like I was getting better at it for a while. And then I was on a plane a couple weeks ago And Kurt Russell was on the plane And I just lost it Fucking Kurt Russell, the thing Talk about a great horror movie One of the best of all time

That's one of the things I've got in my In my little nerd room that I'm really proud of I've got this really It's a great like one of a kind Don't say it's a spider head Oh no I would love this Wouldn't that be great Spiderhead would be amazing

But yeah I'm God damn that movie's perfect It really is Yeah that one holds up John Carpenter went to my college, Western Kentucky University. And the fog, when he's talking about the fog, me bragging and name dropping immediately. No, that's okay. We can do this.

I'm going to, we can do it all day. He says, like, you know, the fog is moving towards State Street or whatever. He starts naming streets. That's in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Awesome. Yeah. It's not that cool. That's cool to me.

I think that's awesome. Yeah, right. So you just said Stephen King, a half an hour later he was watching. Are you saying you didn't meet Stephen King until after the movie was made? Yeah. What? Yeah. The first time I met Steve,

it was when I brought him. Steve. Now it's Steve. I'm allowed. He made it clear that he was sick of me just looking at him and saying the words, Stephen King. So he, you know, he said, please just call me Steve. But the first time I met him is when I brought him Dr. Sleep and I screened the movie for him. And he loved it. He did love it, which was crazy. Inside of you is brought to you by Rocket Money.

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Now, I would think that someone who loved the movie, Stephen would have a problem with directing the sequel to the Shining. Considering that he didn't have a good relationship with Kubrick, considering that his screenplay or the book was nothing like the movie so you think that would be Stephen King's or as you know him Steve would just look at you and say

let me ask you a question did you like the Shining yep thank you nice meeting you yeah it was quite a it was quite a conversation and I was so freaked out about it it wouldn't have happened except he loved Gerald's game and who doesn't love Jerry

if you haven't seen it's on Netflix still right it is yes what a surprise because you don't think that movie's going to yeah well go ahead with the steven king store we'll get into gerald's game so so he was happy enough with that that when warner brothers said hey flanagan might want to do dr sleep he was like great um but he didn't know what i wanted to do with it which was kind of folded folded into the kubrick universe because you know in the book like you said it's it's so different they overlooked burned down you know dick halleran's alive everything's different

and so i i had to get in touch with him and say hey uh before before we proceed on this Before you endorse it, I just need your blessing on something you might not like. And his initial reaction was like, no, I don't, I don't like that. What was it? Oh, you can't tell, really, because I haven't seen. I don't want you to tell too much anyway. I can tell a little bit at this point. I can, I mean, it's out tonight.

But I haven't even watched a trailer purposely. Oh, wow. Because I don't watch trailers because there's something I'm that excited about. I want to be surprised by everything. All right. Then I'm going to be really careful. I'll be really careful. Yeah.

So I pitched him a scene. you'll know which one when you see the film. And I said, what I want to do, for me, the only difference I would make to the Dr. Sleep novel is the location of the third act. And for me, I thought that would be awesome to stage in the abandoned Overlook Hotel of Kubrick's world. And he had a lot of questions about how that could work.

He wasn't really keen on it, but I pitched him one scene. He wasn't king on it. And the pitch went over, and he said, okay, do that. Proceed, but let me read it. So then it was about the script, and I sent the script, and I freaked out. And he came back and said,

look, I actually really liked this. Really? Yeah. So you had really one shot. Yeah. So you had the nail, you had, how many people read this before you said, okay, I'm going to give it to Stephen?

Two. My producer, Trevor Macy, who's produced everything I've done. Oculus. Yeah. So Trevor read it and my wife read it. And then I sent it off to, King and then um how long before he responded almost two weeks fucking yeah well he fucking

I know it was um and he had he had written about a day after he had received it he's like look I'm halfway through it and I love this so far but my son Joe's getting married so I got to go do that might be a minute before I get back to you and everything he was going to hate was in the back half so I was like oh shit so I sweat bullets on that for a while but he came back he loved it By then, I'd given it to Warner Brothers, and they'd kind of all decided to do the movie. And when he finally came back and kind of was like, yes, you have my blessing to do this draft, he qualified it by saying, look, I really love this. And I think it's so good. In my experience, this is not the kind of movie a big studio will make.

And I got to say right back, like, so funny you say that, they'd greenlit it this morning. off the same draft you read and well how about that yeah but if he if he hadn't had signed off on what we wanted to do i wouldn't have made the film because this you had your your vision this is this is what i think is going to work you know a lot of people will say you know jaws isn't as good as benchley's novel i'm like fuck you well then don't go see the movie read your book you know i'm like hey you love stephen king you like reading you're a reader great i'm a reader but i don't read everything and if Stephen's listening to this I fucking love Stephen

but you know at the same time I'm like this movie is powerful it's one of the biggest horror movies of all time Kubrick had a vision a lot of movies if you stick to the book

they don't translate it as well right and so you get sometimes where in other Stephen King novels where they go by the book to make everybody happy and they don't work there's been many and there's been many that have work

Carrie was brilliant there's I love Pet Cemetery I don't know how I mean I loved it at the time I was brilliant. Yeah, yeah. The original. Yeah, Mary Lambert. Yeah, Mary Lambert.

Brilliant. So, I mean, it's kind of, I get it. Like, this is your heart and soul you're writing a book. This is, and so when someone, I guess it's different, though, when they say, hey, we love the book. We're going to make this movie just like the book and then they don't. That is, I can understand that. That could be a problem. I think, you know, to your first point about people complaining about, like, oh, the book is better.

Whether something's better or worse between a book and a movie to me is, it's an impossible thing to quantify. It's like, oh, this painting is. better than this song you know it's it's two completely different mediums um and and so i i always look at them as very different things and i've got the benchly book you know displayed in my little nerd room next to my next to my yes signed he's not alive anymore is he no that was tough to track what about blot is he still alive i don't know can you write the uh exorcist no that was uh bladdy yeah and no i don't believe so i'm not sure i'd have to check by the way that how did you feel about this? I love the

Exorcist 3. Oh, my God, yeah. No, I love the Exorcist 3. It's so underrated. George C. Scott is revelatory. It is not in the files. This is not. My God. How about when he's against the wall?

He's like, I believe in infidelity and I believe in I believe in stank and I believe in you. I believe. It just gets so intense, man. No, and he's got, you know, like his whole chin is collapsing into his chest. No, I love The Exorcist 3.

The lady on the ceiling remains, I mean, a decade ahead of its time. You're not the radio man. Yeah. I knew you weren't the radio man. Yeah. Dude, here's why I love this movie. The Exorcist written by Blattie, directed by William Prekin, is brilliant. One of the best horror movies ever made.

Incredible. Yeah. You can't really question that. But you see that, how do you pronounce it? I was fucking up. The heretic. Yeah, the heretic. The heretic.

I don't even know. Just skip over that way. I don't even know what it means. Yeah. It's sort of like the, what is it? Well, it's a, you know, a heretic is someone who's basically blaspheming, you know, speaking out in the opposite of a religious kind of. Gotcha. So.

It's heresy. It's, it's, it's sacrilegious expression. Right. That's what it means. They were better if they actually explained what that word meant before people. What are we going to see here? I think it's the heretic. Well, and that at some, someone at some point was like, you know, it's going to be really scary.

What if her eyes are crossed for like a lot of this? like what if that's kind of one of the main symptoms of this possession but but freaking blotty had nothing to do with it but then you make three yeah no one wants to see three but it's written and directed by william peter blotty who wrote it who wrote legion yeah who uh based on the book uh have what called possessed about the real exorcism in st louis who was the uh the boy yeah the little boy right yeah and um brilliant you got f murray abraham you got uh what's his name who comes back and plays the priest. Yeah, who plays Damien Karras. Right. He comes back. But I mean, this movie is well acted. The story, if you line them up from the Exorcist to the Exorcist 3. Yeah.

Is just, and, you know, I always tell people to watch, like, oh, they're really, the Exorcist three? It has in it. Not only, I mean, it's a great story. It's got a really wonderful story. The way they tie it in with the Gemini killer, you know, they got this great procedural in the background. And Dorff, Brad Dorff? Yeah. Brad Dorff? Yeah, it is Brad Dorff. Yeah, yeah. And it's fantastic. And then you've got these individual set pieces like the much celebrated, I hope, wide shot down the hallway. One of the best, I must have a thousand people ever. Yeah. It's one of those things where you don't need to do, like that's a problem with, I have with a lot of horror directors is it's, it's got to be fast. The kids lose their attention

span. Fast cuts, fast cuts. Right. This is a long, it's on sticks and you're looking down the hallway they have like one cut to the counter yeah the cop comes and gets his hat back goes leaves comes in the nurse goes in the nurse goes out all these things are like what the fuck are we watching but then you start to go okay something's going what's going and the jump that you get is one of the most terrifying moments in cinema and it's directly proportional to the amount of time and patience that you've had with the shot prior to that moment like if you cut into that same shot 10 seconds before that crash zoom um it's not going to land not as effective no it's It's the alchemy of that edit, of deciding the amount of time to linger on the shot, how to choreograph these actors in wide, you know, the rhythm of it, the flow of it, the way it decides when to be totally stagnant.

It decides when to pull your eye and you're desperate for movement by the end of it. Your eyes are seeking out anything to move. That's right. And so the moment that moment happens, it's not just the abruptness. of this lateral move, it's that that would probably scare you out of your seat because of the difference in speed and momentum that you've been dealing with while your eyes have been waiting for something fast. And he on top of that does a full-blown, manually operated crash zoom just cranks the lens. And that is the equivalent of being pushed off a cliff as a viewer

toward this thing you don't want to look at. You need that. It's incredible. You need that moment. Right to the statue. right to the it's oh yeah and then and right off of the right off you never even see the moment of violence you don't need to see you don't need you don't see anything yeah it it is so exquisite and complex and it is so indicative of someone who has completely mastered a scare in the visual medium yeah it's it's one of the most educational shots in in horror cinema and that the rest of the film around that moment is just as strong and helps prop it up how about the moment we're at the end where the old woman's there at the house and goes with the giant scissors that

i mean it's huge and goes lieutenant i wanted you to see this and she pulls her out of the way before her neck gets right before it yeah yeah or just the moments where brad dorf is like you tell them i am the jemini killer or you will suffer yeah it was just like you were like so invested in this and so on edge when they they they force you to kind of lean into this conversation and that's the, it's the beauty of movies like Silence of the Lambs, where it's like you're, you're hanging on a conversation. And that, that's a testament. Yeah. And that, you need great writing and need great actors for, for an audience to sit and, and, and just exist in a conversation to the point that it can create tension. That's art. And, and it's something that, you know, you look at what

Blatty's doing there, prioritizing those things, characterization, conversation, mood, tension, atmosphere. And then you look at where the genre tends to go, which, is with the path of least resistance, which is to get rid of all that and just startle somebody, you know, or gross somebody out. Right. Or be like, hey, wouldn't it be awful if you were systematically tortured while tied to a chair for two hours? Because we can replicate that experience, you know.

And it's like, yes, I can objectively say that's a very unpleasant thing. But they're like, but that's the whole movie. And it's like, okay, well, that's all you got. All right. Cool. And the amazing thing is about the genre, there's an audience for that. there's there's kind of a flavor of horror for everybody you know so yeah it's tough and and as much as i could be like ah i'm not interested in watching torture porn then i watch martyrs and

i'm like this is genius how is that yeah by the way folks listen if you're listening right now which i should be i mean i shouldn't say that because you're already listening it's ridiculous but like we are even we not we aren't even talking about anxiety we haven't talking about like how he got here we're going to get into that a little bit but right now i mean we're this is exciting for me so just fucking back off for a minute um what were we're saying uh uh i think i was on martyrs martyrs martyrs marters is one of those movies where you're like it's just in a lot of the best movies are found not in theaters i have to say it the best movies you get if you dig deep you're going to go through a lot of shit but you're going to find one like martyrs where you know it's

just when you think you're watching a certain movie you're going down to the next level in a basement whatever and you realize this is a different movie now or another movie um what's the movie with the girl who asked the guy to prom and he says no and then so she kidnaps him her and her father and torture they torture him yeah and by the way you think you know what's going on in that but what is that called i feel it's called the loved ones the loved ones that's it yeah why wasn't this in theaters too gratuitous to it was brilliant come on they go in that basement yeah no it's it's wonderful i think i think what you run into there is that when you're creating a product for a giant theatrical audience. It has to be less specific. It has to be

broader or else people aren't going to come out to see it. And I think that's why you get these really awesome companies like A24 who are consistently taking risks with films that otherwise five years ago would never have had a theatrical run, even a limited theatrical run. And they're getting supported. I think that's wonderful. But a lot of that's because horror fans like you know you have to dig through every possible corner and turn over every rock, whether it's streaming or it's importing DVDs from another country, you know, trying to find great material because for the longest time, you know, wide release pictures had to play by this kind of paint-by-numbers structure that would never take risks. And they couldn't be too scary.

Right. That means people might leave or they won't bring their kids. Hey, how long is Dr. Sleep? it is it is a a brisk two and a half hours long now let me tell you something yeah you know i've been one you've read my tweet i have so now usually i'm like movies don't need shouldn't be that long i will say this this is and i said this if it's one movie that should be two and a half hours long it's a movie that's following the shining that's a sequel that any horror movie fan or anybody who love the shining which i don't know if there's anybody out there who doesn't or have read the whatever i want this i've been waiting for this forever you want it to be two and

half hours it's not like these other movies that are just like oh this is a horror movie that came out it's just like look the exorcist was barely two hours uh you you don't always need to be that long now when you're directing i never maybe this is what it is i never feel like that's why i want to johnny when i watch your movies i never feel like they're that long i never even look to see how long i was watching your movie maybe that's the difference but maybe that's a difference. Well, I'm never thinking about how long the movie is. It's all about the story. You know, how long does a story take to tell? And in the case of Dr. Sleep, when I read the novel, I put it down, and my first thought was it's five acts. That's just the story that he told.

So I knew any movie would be long. The other unavoidable reality about Dr. Sleep as a story is that you've got kind of this whole prologue you have to do just to catch everybody up and to bridge this four decades, you know, between where we leave. Danny Torrance and where we pick them up. We've got to cover that. Right. You've got to tell everybody what happened. So then we can get into our primary story.

But once you get back into the Overlook Hotel, you never want to leave. That's the problem. And that happened to me in the script. And most of the time you can. Most of the time you cannot. It's forever and ever. And it happened when I was writing it. And it happened on set.

You know, like we never wanted to break those scenes. And so then you're looking at a third act that by itself is 45 minutes long. And you want to. You want it. Did you ever think, you know what, for lack of a better word, fuck people who haven't seen the Shining. If they haven't seen the Shining, fuck them. We're not going to recap because everybody loves the Shining.

We don't need to tell everybody what happened. They should know if they're going to see it. Well, we didn't recap so much as we have another character named Abra, who's a teenage girl, who doesn't know anything that ever happened to the Torrenses or the Overlook or anything. And she's our way in. So we didn't do like a previously on The Shining. I get you. Yeah, it was more that we kind of had to introduce her

and she very organically learns about, you know, Dan throughout it. But when it came to the runtime, knowing it was always going to be long and knowing that was going to be an issue, you know, and this was before, like, I had no idea what we were making the movie. How long was the rough cut? My cut was three hours. And were you happy with it? Like, this is it, we're done.

I was thrilled with it. I knew it we weren't done. I knew it couldn't run theatrically. It was too much for a third. theatrical run you didn't know what to cut you never do do you never do and then so you just try things and and I tried I cut even further back I I we auditioned a version of the movie that was like two hours and five minutes and it just didn't work because what you lose there is character and and so you didn't care about people you have don't you think that's the most important I say this every time yeah

whenever you watch a movie whatever it is with a comedy I'm not gonna laugh if I don't really like these guys I'm not gonna cry if I don't feel for them if I don't empathize I'm not going to be scared for them if I don't give a shit about them and I think like you said great acting emotion and you care about them like your characters in haunting of Hillhouse I really liked them all even though they were all flawed in many ways oh yeah I was with them I was with them yeah and I think that even like Oculus again you had Karen Gillen and you get Katie Sackoff and you had you know the performances there were just dynamic and you like these people well and even even villains I imagine you've got some experience in this in taking a character who is an iconic villain and imbuing him with

sympathy. So that even if you're not going to condone who he's going to become, you're going to understand it. And that level of investment in character, whether you like them, because you can love a villain. And I loved Lex. Wow. Thank you. That level of work is the only thing that makes the story work. Stephen King knows that. That's why his books are the way that they are. Yeah. And that's why when he decides to get rid of that, when he's like, you know what, I'm not going to, I'm not going to deposit any love into these characters. I just want to fuck shit up and set something on fire. He writes under Richard Bachman, you know. And it's this really fascinating thing to me. But, but yeah, so the characters kind of dictated the runtime in this case. Most people that I've talked to about it said it didn't feel like two and a half hours. Well, that's the most important. I think it was because this year

there was a couple movies I went to but also I think I went into them thinking I'm not going to like this anyway I already know that this isn't for me you're watching it for some reason well and there's that too people bring stuff into the theater the idea that they don't like no movie

you and I are never going to walk into a movie and greet that movie on its terms it's just never going to happen and I knew there were I had it at 50-50 and it looks like based on the tomato score it's about 70, 37, instead of 50-50, yeah, of people who were going to hate Dr. Sleep just for existing. And to those people who think it's sacrilege to even kind of approach this movie, that it's

because of Kubrick and because of The Shining, to make the film at all is, is not acceptable. To those people, any runtime, an 85-minute version of the movie would have been too long. It's not long enough. It's too short. Yeah. you're always going to get the haters yeah yeah i think that's i mean that's part for the course and that's also one thing you know with uh rotten tomatoes i just i get so pissed off at rotten tomatoes and you look at these movies and they see 90% and then i'm like i go i go into the theater

and i'm like who the fuck and i'd still get pissed off because i'm like i know horror i go in i'm just i want to love it i want to be scared and then when i watch a movie and it's not good i feel like unless i'm just but why does it they make so much money they always make money So then I start thinking, okay, I don't know what I'm talking about. I guess I should just close my door and shut the fuck up. I feel that way all the time. I feel that way all the time where I, it's supposed to be my job to at least pretend to know what people want to see.

I have no idea. And there are movies that I'm like, oh, people are going to eat that movie up. Everyone's going to love this film. It is going to crush. And then it just like just blips out. Nobody says it. And then I'll go see like this other movie that's this juggernaut at the box office. and I'll be so excited.

And I'll see the certified 98% fresh, you know, tomato thing. And I'll go in and I'll come out of it and be like, ugh, but that wasn't for me. I don't get it. What am I doing? What, where am I so disconnected, kind of from the zeitgeist? Yeah. What people like. And I have no idea.

I don't even, like, I don't even ask for much, Mike. Mike, I don't want much. If I go into the shy, if I go into Dr. Sleep, I'm telling you, if there are three, four moments where I go, oh that is so fucking cool or I go oh my god holy shit you give me a handful of those three three because I don't even get three from most time movies out there I know if you're listening to your horror fan you don't get them either I'm gonna call you I'm gonna go dude Bangkok man

I don't even know why this is a fascinating kind of way to to do like a meeting and an introduction to each other like yeah because I where I sit I feel like it's 50-50 for me whether you're gonna come out of that movie and be like Mike oh my god dude I love it or you're gonna come out and be like fuck you dude no no no you're wrong no you're wrong you're wrong because I do know you Mike you may not know me you may just know me from TV or movies but let me tell you Mike I've seen your work and you are you slam dunk it I know you wrote Oculus right yeah but dude watch the movie Oculus and then after you watch

and you go wow that was pretty cool and that was scary then I want you to go wow if somebody else would have directed it though would it have been that cool I don't think it would would have maybe because it was your baby maybe because you wrote it with the mirror and the performances and you're in this house and it could be stagnant it could get old and it does it you keep us going you keep us guessing you keep the camera moving you keep the characters it's just i know from that if it was that is that alone i'd be like okay well okay that was great but then watching haunting of hill house seeing your work and and being scared and watching it and enjoying it like i do i know that i'm going to like it wow

I truly believe that. I think you're going to have, no matter what, just as someone who loves the shining, and I can tell just walking through your house, how much you love the shining, which just heartens me. It's a beautiful thing. You're going to have strong feelings.

And they could go either way. I felt the same way, though. I mean, how hard is it as a director to just go, let's just say there's a magic stop button, like end? Yeah. Like, let's say after you're editing, producing, all the notes are coming in, editing we need to do this blah blah we need to get this and then one day there's just one button

it's like a renn and stumpy episode well could that stumpy press the red button the shiny candy like button yes and you press it and it's over that's it doctor sleep's done you're that's no touching it anymore yeah how hard is that one moment somebody does it for you thank god because the and i forget who said hey your wife kate does it enough it'd be great if kate was your children it's usually the studio they they do it And it's that thing where, like, I forget who said it, but they, they said movies aren't finished. They're abandoned. And that is how it feels.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You hit a point where suddenly the buzzer goes off and this thing, wherever you've left it, is just taken off the table and thrown into the world. And I've had the experience on this movie where I thought the movie was over. And they were like, you can do one more thing. You know, and because I've been chewing on something that was bothering me.

And I was like, God, damn it. we'd already delivered the movie and I got to do it they let me do it and and I was actually costly I'm sure it was because I was I was already in Vancouver doing the Haunting of Bly Manor and

Warner Brothers sent an avid had it built in my office in Vancouver sent the film up handcuffed to somebody you know on a on a on a plane who's going to get their arm cut off if anything happens to the drive or is that just kind of like I think it might have really been

they handcuff it yeah I think they really do I don't know if it's physical cuffs but I think that is an option I think they will do that sometimes should happen sometimes should happen but they brought the movie to me in Canada and I had to do the change

everyone wanted to do and then send it back and say can we just retroactively swap out this one reel all over the And you happy you did it? Are you so happy you did it? I am.

And how much did you stress over that one thing? A lot. I lost sleep for about two weeks and that was why Did you call your doctor? They were in the same place. Terrible. Well done.

They were in the same boat, was the thing. You'll probably know that bit when you see it too. There's a scene in the film that's almost impossibly difficult to watch. And it's the most disturbing thing I've ever filmed. And I had a hard time watching it on set. And we shot so much more of it than is in the film. And it was always this thing of like, if we do this wrong, people are going to get up and leave. But we had to do it right.

because it's also the driving course of the whole movie. I want to ask you something to, and I can't. I know, I don't want to ruin it for you. I want to say. The second it happened, you'll be like, oh, it was this. Yeah. I have a feeling I know what it is.

Okay. Go for it. I'm going to say it. We can cut it. All right. But if I say it and you say yes, then I don't get to see it. But I'm still thinking it.

Okay. So this scene has nothing to do with single torrents or any event of the shining. It's a completely unique to Dr. Sleep scene. directly from the book. I'm getting chills. Look at my arms. Look!

You'll know instantly, oh, this is what he was talking about. It's so hard to watch. It's so hard to kind of endure that the studio had been kind of chewing on it. We'd done a version that left a lot more in, or a little more in. And they had said, hey, it's still bothering us. We think people are going to, it's too much for people to take. And I had to agree.

I was like, I've been up at night too. You need to send the movie so I can back it off. so I can just take out the take out the 10 seconds that's going to make this at least palatable What's your favorite shining scene The scene from the movie God damn

Can I guess? Sure I mean the old woman in the bathtub It's pretty fantastic Yeah Mrs. Massey's great I think the most terrifying for me Maybe it's you

Is when little Danny's sitting with his dad You don't know what's going to happen And he goes Dad You wouldn't hurt mom or me would you Would your mother tell you that Danny. Would your mother say something to you?

No. Danny, I love you. You know what I mean? You do that really well. I don't even know the words. You do that really, really well. I think my favorite scene is when Jack backs Wendy up the stairs in the Colorado

lounge. Come on. There's something, the way it's shot, the way it's performed, the desperation of it, the insidious, like just the. the incredible evil of it the way the space compresses as you get higher and higher. How do they do that? Oh, you just

walk with a camera. That's just a handheld that I'm not doing too much. We did it. We kind of recreate that scene with Steadicam, which is something that was pretty much essentially invented on the set of the Shining. Right. But

yeah, we we kind of retraced his steps in a couple really interesting ways. Give me the bat, Wendy. Give me the bat. I'm not going to hurt you. You're not going to hurt you. I'm just going to bash your brains in.

Bash him right the fuck in. Stay with me, Jack. Stay with me. I'm very confused. I'd love to go back to my room. I'm very confused. Oh, my God, little pigs. You've had your whole, what is it?

You've had your whole life. Fucking life. Yeah. You've had your whole fucking life. life to think things over with goods a little what is it what are another couple minutes going to do for you now i know you guys are loving this two two nerds just geeking out right now um did i mean did you see a documentary on the shining yeah 237 no not that one no no no different one well this is based on the kubrick's assistant oh yes brilliant yes no have you met him no i haven't i would

love to he seems like such a cool guy right well we uh we sent the movie off to kind of everybody over in the kubrick world um to the estate and they all watched it he'd be an interesting guy to have in the podcast, wouldn't he? Yes, my God, yeah. I would listen. What an eccentric guy. He quit his whole acting career to work for Kubrick. Yeah.

And be tortured. That's a torturous life. Yeah. Well, it sounds like Kubrick tortured everyone. Everyone for a lot of reasons I don't understand. Do you think, or do you have any insight into Kubrick's relationship with, what's her name? Shelly DeVall. That whole thing in the, that Kubrick's daughter filmed, you know, and you see that.

thing it's like oh god you know god damn it we're shelly the cameras are rolling how do you there's do you think he was doing that to get a performance out of her or do you just not like her i don't know i i you know i i wouldn't want to speculate about that too much it i've seen the footage and it's rough it could be i you hear the stories of directors who try to kind of create that emotional experience in their actors to try to get an honest performance and he was notorious for kind of putting his actors through the ringer um in order to order to kind of strip away any preconceived preparation they ever could have put into the part. Wow.

So don't look in the mirror if you're working with Kubrick. I don't know. I got to ask Danny Lloyd about it. Danny Lloyd, huh? Yeah. What's his name? So Danny Lloyd was on, he was on set for us for a day. Really?

Yeah. For a cameo. And I got to say to him, okay, so what do you remember? He was only six when he made the film. And he never did, his acting career stopped, basically, at the end of it. Do you, did you see any of the stuff you hear about with Stanley and Shelley? And he said, no, not that I remember. And I can imagine that this isn't something you would want to do in front of the six-year-old on the set anyway.

He says, what I remember about Shelley was that she was very, very nice and she was very, very sad. You know, he didn't even know for most of it that he was making a, horror film it's like he was very much on the outside of that experience right and would just kind of stanley would say make your scared face and look at the look here we didn't even know he's looking at how did he get those those faces were Oscar award winning yeah they're amazing and just that shake of the head with the drool and yeah and he would just be okay now now in stanley i guess would just walk him through each one and be like now look here and now you're real scared now shake your head now look this way wow yeah did you get to look through any shining footage old footage that warner brothers has like scenes

that were cut moments different takes all hundred takes of that door being axed that's like going to george lucas's fucking ranch and going in that star wars thing which i was in god it was the best thing of my life did you get to see all this stuff that no one's seen i've seen a bunch i haven't seen footage and i asked i was like where's i want to see the original ending

i wanted to see that that rumored ending where the police go and and they can't find jack's body and then they go see danny in in the hospital and they give him the they give him the ball you know that was rolling toward him right It's like you read all about this stuff. I wanted to see all of that. They didn't have it.

I don't know if anyone has it. I don't know if it exists physically anymore. And what I did get, though, I had access to all the footage that was in the film, and they were restoring it. They were doing that big 4K restoration at the time. So I had all of it in its most beautiful kind of pristine state. And the other thing they gave me was all of his production design elements,

blueprints, set design plans, notes. The car puts the wall. All of that so that we could rebuild the hotel to his specs. And amazingly, a lot of the drawings that we got, and I've made copies and framed up and put them on the wall in my office. And I've done in my nerd room. They have... How much?

How many? How much? Oh, how much? We'll offline on that one. Oh, my God. But they have his, like, handwritten notes to himself and to the crew about certain elements. of it like the beautiful kind of exterior ultra-wide through the trees

look at the hotel he's marking you know make sure that the the poles are hidden by these specific trees protect for you know the 133 aspect ratio here make sure and it just all these little notes and so that stuff was um I've called it a forensic film school

like that I got to go to making the film where I got to kind of take this class with Stanley Kubrick, only he wasn't there. And I got to put my camera right where his was put in the same spaces that he built. And I could interrogate him and say, why didn't you put the camera five feet to the left? Why not go on a longer lens? I could just try that and see what it looked like. And time and time again, I would come back and say, no, he put it in the perfect place.

Wow. And there's no other place in this whole room. You were questioning? I wasn't like arms folded like with the... You were just seeing if it could work. Yeah, I just wanted to understand better. His brilliance. Yeah, I wanted to see his thought process.

I wanted to be able to kind of say, okay, so why, for example, he really didn't prioritize continuity over performance and symmetry of his frame. He would move actors. He would move props. There's different color typewriters throughout the movie. Didn't care, you know. No one knows. really unless you're really well i think no one cares and it's one of those things where like when

you watch a movie like when i watch um when i watch the untouchables and you see connery's button go open and close open and closed open and closed you don't give a shit because you're watching sean connery into palma's untouchables you just don't care and it's like yeah yeah yeah they somebody fucked up his wardrobe continuity i see it's all over it do you learn do uh do you uh let some of that stuff go do you do now you do now you learn from him in that way Yeah. I used to drive myself crazy on continuity. And, you know, the reason you put Wendy in the dead center of the stairs when in the reverse shot on Jack, you had her cheated far over to the left. And I would say before this experience, I would say that's too big of a cheat. You're clearly, you know, messing up the continuity of the blocking. No one's going to buy it. Now I know better. Of course they are because they're looking at her. And they're looking at this beautifully composed shot where the chandelier is just centered over her head. And there's equal weight. on the left and right side of the frame at the staircase on either side of her

as she's backing up at the bat and it feels right. Do you think somebody ever said to him like, Stanley, it's a little bit, I don't know, it's not consistent, the continuity's a little bit, shut the fuck up. I mean, do you think people ever,

he had people who would tell him those things? If they did, you know, I better be right. And I can't, I can't imagine he wasn't aware. I believe he was completely aware and he made the decisions, you know, confidently to be like, I don't care. Because I'm sure someone pointed out to him at a certain point that when you open the bathroom window in the Torrance residence, and this is where Danny needs to slide down the snowbank.

The very end. Because of the way he built the set, when you look at the front door of the residence in relationship to the staircase and the rest of it, you know that that window opens up into a hallway. It's unavoidable. When you built the window there, it physically opens up into a hallway. It's not like, you know, whoops. He didn't care. And there was an element, I think, that's very intentional and genius, where he just said, you go through all these pains when you're building sets, especially in different sound stages,

to create an environment in someone's head. You want it all to make sense. You think it's your responsibility as a filmmaker to protect that logic. And he said, no, no, no. In fact, it shouldn't make sense. And if you really try to think, the more you try to think about it, the less passive of a viewer you are, the less sense it will make. and the Overlook Hotel will become amazed

and it'll be impossible. That's a level of genius, you know, that I don't know how to approach because you can look, if I were to do that in a vacuum, if I were just to be like, no, it shouldn't make sense. People are going to be like, that lazy Flanagan just doesn't care

about continuity. And they'd be like, you suck at this, you know, because I could never, I wouldn't have had the foresight to approach it that way intentionally i i don't know how you with something like this with the movies that you do i i have some messages and voicemails from some actors that have worked with you oh god oh no um and first all do you get anxiety do you take things for anxiety are you overwhelmed constantly how do you

balance your life with you kate and the three kids uh and have a life to doing this new series from doing transitioning you're always working you're on set you want to make this the best you're and Stephen King's like, this has to be good. How are you not, like, snorting Coke, taking Xanax? How are you keeping your shit together, Flanagan? Well, it's funny, the kids in the marriage keep you off the Coke pretty easily, you know. Do they? They do.

You out of your fucking mind. You know, I actually, as, you know, I've had more kids and settled into that part of my life, I stopped drinking. Yeah, I stopped smoking, you know, which was like my thing on set. was chain smoking for a decade, for two decades. I couldn't function without it. But I've gotten healthier as a direct result of having a family. The truth to your question is, I'm riddled with anxiety. Riddled? Riddled. It's been that way since I was young. And I worked at this pace in the beginning because I thought my career could evaporate at any moment. And I'd wanted for long to do this for a living. And I'd been through so many jobs in and out of the industry that

were barely keeping the lights on. And I didn't have insurance. I didn't own anything. I didn't have a car. You know, like I was scraping by for so long that I thought when it looked like, oh, God, I'm actually making a movie for a living. I'm getting paid enough that this is my job to make this movie, which didn't happen for me until Oculus. At that point, I thought this can go away at any moment. I can't wait to see what the world thinks of Oculus. I can't wait for the reviews. I can't wait for studios to show up and give me another job.

I better start the next movie right away. And so I started the next movie while Oculus was just finishing post. And it's been that way my whole career. They overlap so that there's never a chance if one of them really shits the bed. My rationale is I'm already into another one. Yeah. Like, what are you going to do? take it away from me in mid production like you still have to pay you yeah yeah i'm pay or play

now damn it you know the uh for the long time it really was that this could go away so fast i better just keep going and not look down it's like wily coyote off the cliff you know if i look down i'm going to fall so just look ahead and keep working and i'm only now 10 years into it kind of saying all right what i want to do is spend time with my children and what i want to do is sleep and I want to take naps because I'm older and I missed really formative parts of my kids' lives doing these shows sometimes and the the sense that I'm never getting that back for a movie that A.O. Scott really didn't love. You know, you know, like that that's starting to kind of sink in and the sense that like I'm looking around the room and realizing it's like,

okay, I've got an amazing life, I've got a great house. Gratefulness. Yeah, I got everything I'll ever need. How about I relax for a minute, take a break, and just play with my kids. And that's become my priority for the last couple of years. And it's only really going to kind of kick in now that this one's over. But like Bly Manor, as I'm sitting here talking to you, something is happening that has never happened in the history of my career, which is, as you and I are having this conversation right now, in another country, they are filming an episode of the haunting of Bly Manor And I'm not there. And that is crazy.

Wait, they're filming an episode. Yeah. A blind manner. And you being the producer, writer, creator, showrunner. You don't direct all of them, obviously. This time I don't. Obviously, because you're here. And you're going crazy kind of?

I'm going nuts. Yeah. And you know, I know. Well, I spent the morning before I got here. I spent the morning on a conference call with all the department heads, just doing a tone meeting on the next episode. my directors for the next block have just hit the ground they directed this movie

with Martin Freeman on Netflix called Cargo a zombie movie that made me cry great film which is why I want that down Cargo and Mungo Yeah Cargo and Mungo Also Australians This is being filmed In Vancouver right now In Vancouver you're not there

You've got to learn how to let it go Because you got to trust the people around you You gotta trust hey I can't do everything I can't control everything You're a control freak a little bit Very much I always write the thing And then I shoot the thing

And then I always edit the thing myself And I'm just now relaxing that grip Because I've put together an amazing team A lot of the people up there Worked on season one I've been all over every script I've oriented everybody I was up there for all the prep

I shot my episode the first one I got everybody up to speed It's time to let go Or I'm gonna drive them crazy And you're drive yourself crazy Yeah And by the way I'm as your psychiatrist

today. You're mine. I always need a psychiatrist. But I think of this. I think it's something you said about 25 minutes ago, which is if Warner Brothers will allow you to change something after everything's pretty much locked and change a scene around. I think that if you really something went that badly, which it probably won't. But if something you can't cut around to shoot something extra for this, I think it's doable. So I wouldn't worry yourself on these things. No, but it's what I love about it is like I woke up this morning. I played with my kids. Kate is, so happy that I'm there and not in Vancouver and I'm going to go back it's not like I'm leaving them forever it's just like I I had to do press I had to open doctor sleep I'm you're tired I'm tired

and I said I'm taking a week for me do it and I'm just going to be be a dad you have ADD probably not not diagnosed right I do I take a little V Vance I know I've never taken anything I I don't think anything I wanted if I needed to well it just helps me like yeah once I focus on something I can focus if I survive ants what that does and I don't recommend anybody taking this I'm just saying it helps me sure because I was diagnosed with it but it's like you know if I'm all over the place getting a million things done I got to do this I got to do this if you have to it doesn't force you to sit at the computer and start writing no it if you do so you can then zone in and just do that it helps you focus on one thing because my mind's going everywhere

that's that's why I've done it so I think it makes a lot of sense I mean look look you got to go don't you? I'm good. Is this fun? I'm up to you. I'm having a blast. Do you think this is like the best podcast you've probably been on? This is, I love this podcast.

This is really wonderful. Yeah. I love it. Most people, you know, you talk about the same five things. It's like I answered the same five questions and it's like, thanks. And we're off. But this is, I mean, we're having a pretty serious conversation here. I love this.

Yeah, because I like you. You're a likable guy. Look, this could be cut, but I'm going to, this is somebody you worked with an Oculus. Listen, she left a voicemail. I said, hey, if you want to say something, just say it. We could always edit this. Platting it. How are you?

I miss you dearly. And I very much cannot wait to see Dr. Sleep. It looks epic. You know, Kubrick is my favorite. I could think of a better filmmaker to bring a sequel to the world. And, yeah, I'm very excited for you and the movie and all of the people that we know that are in the movie. I'm on a flight right now, so they're probably going to tell me to get up my phone right now. I miss you.

Bye. So that's Karen Gillen from Gardens of the Galaxy 2. She's been in everything. She was an Oculus. I remember I interviewed her on the show, and we talked about that monologue that she has. Yeah. And I said, I can, I don't think I can remember. You know, when I work with Flanagan, just don't give me 10 pages of dialogue.

Well, I love doing that to people, though. Do you? Yeah. How long do they get? You don't change your writing around like Kubrick. You're not going to start writing this stat. No, I hate rewriting. So once we have the script and you have lines, I have lines.

I have lines. Yeah. Oh, good. You don't change. And if you come to me and you're like, hey, I have some ideas for changing lines and I'll be like, oh, oh, do you? And I really, I hate, over the years, I've gotten really grouchy about it. No, I, I love people to have that stuff early. My favorite way to shoot that stuff, poor Karen had to do, it took her two days to shoot that bit, right?

Because I was- Two days to shoot that? Yeah, because I had decided in my eagerness, that scene was, I think it was 15 pages long, right? Right. And so I thought this scene could be incredible. boring. This is the one where this is my first real movie. Everyone's going to come at me. I better make sure that I'm covered editorially. I think

this would be cool if I edit to a different angle on every sentence of the 15 pages. And I do. I am not on a single shot for more than one sentence in that whole sequence. And so I covered it exhaustively and expected Karen to be able to just keep it up. How many times should

say it? Oh my God. I mean, we went past Z on the slate. I mean, we ran the alphabet on the slate. So we were going, was she like, what the fuck are you doing? Well, she was nervous too. I mean, how do I learn these lines? They're going out. Once you do it, you fucking.

Well, she, I think at the time, and coming off Doctor Who, I mean, she was, this was her first, her first studio film. It was my first film. We were nervous in the same way. So she wanted as many at bat as she could get. It's like, if you look at it, it's a very young director's insecurity manifest in the coverage of that scene, right? But I love the scene.

I'm thrilled with what she did. What I do now, and if you talk to Robert Longstreet, about his seven-minute monologue, what I love to do. Oh, my God. How nervous was he? Oh, he was, he was shitting himself. And he's an amazing actor. He just wants to be great, and he's so intense.

He's got so much. He's so good. He's so good in Haunting the Hillhouse. He plays the, what's it called the, Mr. Dudley, the caretaker. The caretaker. Yep. And he, I mean, he decimates that monologue. But if you notice, what I do now, now that I've gotten old.

I build a medium And I have you run it once For timing It's for my Dolly grip To learn how long it takes you To get to the end of the monologue And in his case it was five pages And it was about six minutes

And once the Dolly Group knows We roll a take And your coverage Is medium with a slow push to close That takes the duration Of the monologue That's intimidating Yeah, no shit

That could be very intimidating It gets worse The thing I refuse to do Because I don't want to be second-guessed editorially, even though I'm often editing it, I won't shoot a reverse on whoever you're talking to. I won't. Yes.

You have no cutaway? No cutaway. Well, what do you? So you would just keep doing it and you need cue cards. We'll get cue cards, but we're not doing this. Yeah. Have you ever had to get cute cards? No, I've never had to do.

Well, yeah, I can't say who. But yes. I mean, you've had to do it. I've had to do it. I've had to, no. No, no, for me, it's, whatever an actor needs to deliver their best work, whatever that process is, within reason, I will. support. What about an earwit?

Yeah, I'd support that. Robert Downey Jr. supposedly used airwings. Yeah, I would completely support that. As long as it's not making things worse for their fellow performers, I will support it. If part of their process is disruptive and making it harder for another actor to do their job, then I'm going to push back. In general, for me, I'm like, look, you know what you need in order to do your best work as an actor. I'm here to facilitate that, and I'm here to show you what I think this scene looks like. And you and I together make that happen. And we do it in a way that we both high five at the end of the day and say, like,

we just did something fucking awesome. And that's how I want to work. So if it's cue cards, whatever it takes. Robert was super terrified. He did four takes. That's it. Four takes. The one that we printed is three.

We ran a safety. We ran a safety at his request. There's one thing that you... Right. Right. Was that the best one? No, three was the best. Four was, I think he just wanted to know he did it again. And my other policy on set is if an actor requests another take, no matter what time it is, they get it. In the same way that if my DP says I need another, they get it. It's respect. Yeah. It's love. It's a loving set. And even if very often, nine times out of ten, if an actress says, I think we got it, but I want to run one more, something awesome happens. And the one time out of ten, if it doesn't, if it's like, Well, nope, we've just proven to ourselves. We had it. And that's great.

That's worth it right there. Do you ever have actors that don't like you that you don't get along with? Yeah, sure. Really? Yeah. And you're like, I'm a nice guy. Because what I'm getting here, let's listen to this message. Remember, we can cut this down.

So what we're hearing, all right, this is another message to Mike Flanagan from Robert Longstreet, who was the caretaker. Beautiful fucking soul that man is. What I would say is just that his sets are so safe. They're big, scary, should be scary, intimidating places, but he's always relaxed and silly, you know, and coaches a great, loving, supportive performance out of you. And then he's writing a set out that it's easy to do that because none of it sticks in the mouth like a brick.

And then he's an impeccable editor. So he makes the most out of what you do. So it's just, it's all so carefully thought out with him that it's just unbelievably safe. That man has changed my life. I love him. That man has changed my life. Oh, yeah.

He's changed my life. Karen Gillen said, you were the reason why she came into America. You got her into America with Oculus, right? Yeah, that's right. Does it make you emotional? Yeah. I'm looking at you, getting emotional.

I like that. That's a human. No, no, it's, there are people throughout my career that I feel like we've kind of climbed through the trenches together you know like i brought karen to america for her first movie but she also carried me through my first movie you know so so it's anything that i ever did for karen gillen she did for me and and robert you know uh i've worked with now twice and about

to work with again he's doing blind manner he's he's he's not he couldn't do bly because he's doing uh hallow what's it called bligh manner bligh manner b l y e a b l y b l y yeah yeah And, but he's doing my next thing called Midnight Mass, which is kind of my baby. So you, you're very loyal. You just, you just want to use, you're like Sam Ramey and Bruce Campbell. Oh my God, yeah. You're like, if you like somebody and you're just like working with them. Oh, I love it.

And you get the best out of them. And that's what I, what I like about you is I already trust you where I'm going to go on set, if I work for you, which I hope to hell I do, I know that you just got my back. You can just tell you're that guy. I know by these people's responses, by the people you've worked with. and if there's something when he says the word safe that when you have that safety on set

you feel you're better, you're just better when you have people supporting you on set you feel better. Everybody's better. Right, right, right. And that's kind of the thing. When the crew respects the cast and when the cast respects the process,

you know, and it's down to the little, the most intangible things change the temperature of a set. Right. You know, people being on time changes the temperature, cast and crew. I exhaustively shot-list every scene long before we're ever unset, not because I want it to be rigid. I just want to build scaffolding in which we can all play.

I'm wide open to changing things, especially as we discover things together. It's that I want to show that I respect what we're doing enough to have built the scaffolding, that I'm never going to show up there and say, what are we going to do today? I have at least the first answer, the first answer in that volley, and it's all there. overheads and shot lists and diagrams and blocking diagrams and you guys can look at it and say like, well, I actually think I, oh, what about this? I'm going to play it this way. It could be even better. And my thing is like, that can absolutely be better.

Katie Sackoff said something about like she, she worked with you on Oculus, you know, for Battlestar, Galactica folks and tons of movies. You've seen her and everything. Her message didn't come out great, so I couldn't play it. But she said something, she was like, Mike, I want to be on the floor or something. I'm going to crawl around or something. Like, okay. You're just free like that. You're like, I mean, of course you're like, if you have like, well, we're going to be ramped in an hour.

Or if I disagree, I'll say so. If I say like, you know, I don't see that, you know, I don't see that landing as well as I see this other option. But I respect the hell out of it. And it's, I'm always going to have a conversation. The other thing is it costs me nothing to try it. Right. Like nothing. And part of the thing I think with some, some filmmakers are really.

scared that if they take someone else's idea it makes them look weak or like they're not I've learned they don't have authorship it takes you it's maturity yeah it's taking me some maturity to just go that's better going with that yeah you go with the best idea best idea always wins and the thing about film and television it's it's hundreds of people it's the most collaborative art form in the world and so if you think an idea is less valid because you didn't have it you're you're not going to make it. Or you are going to make up, no one's going to like to work with you. Like Kubrick.

And I don't know, you know, to what extent. I know Nicholson, you know, absolutely put his mark all over, all over that work. The ways people collaborate are very different. But, you know, like, and Katie Sackoff is a great example of an actor who I worked with, who I've been desperate to work with again. And I just haven't, the stars haven't aligned yet. But it will. I have no doubt.

And then, you know, there are some people who I don't gel with on. You know, they're very few. What is it about an actor that you just, like, is it kind of a false bravado or like the bravado onset, like a sort of like, I know everything, this is how we're going to do it, why are we here, let's go, hurry up, when are we rapping? Somebody just doesn't want to be there? I can usually tell, I can get a good reading on who an actor is by how they treat the PAs. That's how I can tell.

Unless they're deeply self-destructive, when I first meet any actor, they are going to be so easy everyone's just gushing with enthusiasm and praise and they're so malleable and everything's great it's how they deal with the second ad with real people at 4.30 in the morning yeah it's like that's who they are they fucking ready yeah I'm in my trailer for three hours what the fuck are they doing yeah or or like you know they get invited to set and 45 minutes later well you know well that's time I came to sit you weren't ready yeah I'm doing Stallone was that yeah that was pretty Stallone Next time, I'm a set. I come over, I'm waiting an hour.

Like, you know, that's my time. This is your time, Mr. Hand. What movie is that from? That one I don't know. Fast time's at Richmond High, but not in that voice. I did Stallone in Fast Time. I was thinking Stallone. And I was like, do I have to go all the way to, like, stop for my mom will shoot?

Like how, I'm going deep Stallone in my head. But the people that do, you know, kind of elevate the rest of the cast and the crew, that short hand is worth so much in that trust. when I can trust an actor that's worth so much that that's why I do get to work with a lot of the same people again and again and you know they'll deliver you know that they're going to be fun on set you know that they care about people

well and I know that they respect my process I know how to respect their process and it doesn't mean we're not going to have our moments here and there where we're all tired exhausted and stressed but we have them together and we have them in a way that's like you know it's safe even if you're frustrated with someone it's like a great marriage

you may disagree but it's always with kindness you may get frustrated but it's never personal you know like like that kind of stuff's beautiful and yeah there there are there are people you know i've i've had i've had henry now in five of my things henry thomas henry thomas the great henry thomas five of you wow five times we've worked together he's fantastic i love him so by the way your wife kate yeah brilliant she is she's you met her on absentia i met her on uh i met her in between absentia and oculus she was The ghost in Oculus. Right.

Yeah. She's, and haunting at Hillhouse, she's tremendous. That whole cast is tremendous. I'm just like, yeah. So you met,

were you, how do you do that? Oh, you said in between. Are you lying? Did you say you met him in between? Because you don't want to say you met her on set?

I did meet her in between. She actually auditioned for another project that never, never happened. Another, another movie. That's how I met her. And I saw her in a play in L.A.

Prior to that. Did you make the first move? It depends on who you ask. I will always say that she did. Yeah. Kate Siegel. Kate Siegel. Yeah. No, we had a pretty scandalous kind of beginning the two of us.

Whoa. Yeah, you know, but it all worked out. Yeah, it was two kids. Two kids. And the other thing about it is I often say like that's the collaboration of my life because it's as as profoundly kind of effective for me offset and onset. I love being on set with her. I love working with Kate. which is one of the things that made us want to get married. It was after we finished hush. And I was like, if we survived that, because we wrote it together,

we had an accelerated and brutal production schedule that was six-day weeks, all nights. Was she mad at you sometimes? Oh, yeah. Well, and she's carrying the whole movie alone. She doesn't have dialogue. You know, she has no, one of her arms is tied behind her back in the film,

essentially, because she can't talk. This hurts, Mike. This hurts me. I know, can you just bear with it for it? it's cinema and I'm like just just jump through the window like we talked about and I can't put a pad down because it's a wide sorry honey bye and um and we didn't see the sun for three weeks it was it was we were nocturnal beings the whole the whole cast and crew and we all went nuts and we only had a million bucks but yeah so kate and i we really um we came out of it and it was like we should we should be married if we survived that and she likes horror loves horror. Oh, that's a, that's a good thing. It is. What's your favorite horror movie to watch together? Oh, man. I don't know if we have one that we revisit a lot together.

Last night, we watched Don't Look Now. Oh, my God, that's a key, Southern. Donald Southern. Yeah, I love that. That's old school. The ending. The ending's so creepy. Incredible. Yeah. But, I mean, I've, I've also gotten the distinct pleasure of tripping over movies she hasn't seen. That's always, I love it so much. For the first time with, like, you know, a girlfriend or something.

Yeah. Oh, you got to go on those. ride. I love this ride. Well, and I'll be like, well, you know, I mean, I'll make, I'll make a Goldblum joke, you know, and she'll be like, uh-huh. I'll be like, you know, from the fly. And she'll be like, uh-huh. I'm like, wait, you haven't, you haven't seen the fly. And she's like, no, no, I haven't. I was like, no, don't do that thing where you tell me, you've seen it because you know that I'm about to make you stop whatever you're doing. Okay, fine. Yeah, and then it's like, all right, put the kid down, give, you know, put the kid, we're going to lock the kid in this room,

so it can't make noise while we watch the fly. And she's like, that's not acceptable parenthood and then later after the kids are asleep we watch the fly all first of all i'm gonna let you get out of here and we're gonna get a picture this this has been i'm just i'm just gonna say it's just this is probably my favorite this is my i mean it's so fun to talk to you that i just let's just finish up with dr sleep dr sleep i'm i'm pushing this to tuesday so this is coming out tuesday because i want people to listen to it and i want everybody out there to go see dr sleep i would not have had him here if i didn't think that mike flanagan was going to make a movie worth watching a movie that I can't wait to see

I just wouldn't do it I think you guys know me and um doctor sleep for everybody that's listening you have to go because what you know we're going to tweet about it

we're going to talk about it I know I'm so excited and he invited me to a screening can I say that yes but I can't go because I'm going to be in Austin this weekend we can fix that though

when you get back we'll figure something out do a screening at your house maybe I can do that you have a screening room I do is it really nice it's not as nice as yours

well mine's kind of a makeshift one right sort of it's pretty amazing yeah I think from what I can see your screen's a little bigger that's a 120 it's five inch not that big I think mine's at 120

okay so it's right around there yeah it's it's ish really good sound yeah I think I think but you're I bet your visuals because if you online you might go I don't know the darks are a little crushed I don't know I wish we would have watched

this at my home Mr. Flanagan Oh so you've you've heard about my screening voice No is that what you saw Oh yeah yeah that's what Kate would absolutely say yes that's exactly what he sounds like yeah yeah well look wherever you want to yeah i would love to um that would be great look i'm so excited about this movie your work ethic is just ridiculous i don't know how you survive but you are managing and you're working and you're learning how to just be present and be with your family and enjoy that and work is

work and you are not your work correct correct you used to be yes very much and that would have probably killed you eventually oh it would have killed me very quickly do you see therapy i love therapy i love therapy Therapy's the greatest. Do you have a week? It's been a minute just because I've been working. But yes, before it was twice a week for a long time. And it's like going to the gym. It's like there's no downside.

I feel like every human being should be in there. But what do you talk about like you? Did you have a good childhood real quick? Yeah. The parents were cool. I had a great childhood. And I think, you know, that's one of the things that's always so strange to me because people come at me and they're like, what happened to you?

Your parents were fucked. Yeah. Like what the fuck happened to you? Who hurt you? You know? And it's like, no, I actually, my parents were terrific, are terrific. I had a very safe and happy childhood. And I think that's why I got so scared of the idea that that could be disrupted.

And that's why I, I, I'm like a moth to flame when it comes to stories of familial trauma and generational trauma. I just keep diving for them. I don't know why. That's obvious. Yeah. Yeah, Oculus, haunting of Hillhouse, the doctor's sleep, every one of them. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it is a

uncomfortably kind of omnipresent motif for me. And, and I didn't even realize it until they really started piling up. And it was like, oh, this is what I do. These are the stories that I grab. Eating studio execs when you're going in for a pitch, they go, hey, Flanagan's coming in. Five bucks says it's family dysfunction.

Yes. You're on. Oh, good. Now we get to see a multi-generational exploration of grief. And then you're like, then you come and you go, okay, it's this. And the other guy goes, yeah, I knew it. And then he goes, in space. Wait, what?

I've got to get to that. You want to get to space? Where is the level of franchise where you get to go to space? Because I think it's like number four. And I've always wanted to have enough success with one of these titles that I can finally either go to space or the hood or like wherever you get to go in the late kind of straight to video phase of your horror franchise. Like making a movie that's in space. Yeah. But like Hellraiser in space, leprechaun in space.

Wow. like critters in well they were from space but then they went back to space yeah yeah like you know at what point do i get to do oculus in space uh none of my movies really ever kind of generate a sequel so doctor sleep you've read the shining you've read dr sleep obviously you had to go through hell to get stephen king although it doesn't sound like it was that difficult you just had a really good idea and you came through you followed through and he liked it and he liked the movie yes yes so I mean, this is like, this is pretty extraordinary. This is probably, you think this is, there'll be a bigger moment than this with your career?

I always hope so. Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is enough. I always, I hate to have that moment where like, oh, I just peaked. Oh, shit. But isn't that okay? It would be fine at this point. Isn't that okay for me?

I'd be okay with it. If somebody said, hey, if this thing and this thing is all you did, is that right? I'm like, yeah, of course. I got a house. I have friends. I could do what I want. I write. No, if it did go away tomorrow, I'd be okay.

But you're insatiable. Yeah. That's what. it is you just want to keep going you want to push yourself you want to create something you want to entertain you want to give the people what they want in a way but you also want to be satisfied with what you're giving well i'm also i'm i'm utterly unemployable at anything else i can't do anything i can't play piano i can't play piano i can't play piano i asked one thing and he said yes i can play piano but i can't read music so i can't do it like professionally favorite band

oh don't say something current because i won't know them um i've got a okay um chicago nothing current are you because I mean for me like what comes out what you're thinking something

Gregory Alan Isaacoff Ben Folds um death leopard dude death leopard was just in Vegas and I missed them and I saw him

a few years back I love them what's your favorite death leopard song photograph how does it go wait photograph

I don't want your photograph how does it start though no no I love got a photograph picture of I don't

my might be haughting gliton glottin glovin all right I got something to say you don't know that it's better the burnout pour some sugar on me

it was a big deal what's the other one God I love love bites love bites love bites love bleeds I'm running down I'm sorry we're killing you out there

I love that you love Def Leopard. I remember that Pyromania album with the building or something? Oh, yeah, yeah. Die Hard the Hunter. Yes. And it was so weird because I would, it's like I had my Def Leopard side of me over here. And then the other one that I was obsessed with in the same breath. I could be like, I'm just going to hit pause on the deaf leopard.

And I'm going to put in my Richard Marks. And that was like, that was my thing. He sang two songs. What? Did Marks as a buddy. Ah! I had to cut him out of the little movie I directed because it just didn't, he was great, but it didn't work. But first concert I ever saw in my life, Richard Martin.

Richard, what's your favorite? He gave me a free song for the movie. That's like 20 grand. He gave me, um, endless summer nights. It's, I remember every moment. Yeah. And I remember every moment.

Time was all we had until the day we said goodbye. Dude. Yeah. You know James Gunn, the director. Yeah. He's a good buddy. mine and on set he would always be like oh my god rosamumum listens to the shittiest music oh play some more little river band play some more christopher cross i'm like these are great musicians they gave me

greats uh look man this has been a freaking true will you come back oh anytime anytime anytime you'll have to promise me that i'll be in one of your things maybe someday yes soon yeah we'll do the next thing we'll do midnight mass we'll get you in there um jesus christ you already thinking of something yeah i got a couple ideas we'll talk we'll talk offline i got a few i got a few ideas that could work. But let me talk to you. I want you back on every, regardless of what happens, on every project you do,

you come back and talk to me first. Deal. Or I just want to sit down with you and talk to you. And I, because I love your work, man. I think you're an amazing human being. This has been a lot of fun. You're so down to earth.

Thank you. Guys, go see Dr. Sleep. What's your Instagram and Twitter? Instagram and Twitter, both Flanagan film. The Instagram, that was only for pizza. So if you're looking for anything interesting, there's nothing cool there. It's only pictures of pizza.

And I have to do, so this is what I've been waiting for this whole time. Yeah. All right. Because what I didn't tell you on the way in the door. Right. Is that I am a huge, and I mean huge, smallville fan.

Get lost. Rabid. Yes. My roommates and I in college lived and died on the show, right? And the reason why is I've been obsessed with Superman in that world since I was a kid, I used to wear a full Superman outfit under my clothes at school and insisted my friends call me Clark. And I would come home and rip off the shirt and stand on the side of the road.

And I would wave at cars. and I'd say drive safely because I assume that's what Superman would want. So this is what I almost did when I came into your house and it was that close and I didn't do it. I'm going to do it right now to send us on. Michael Rosenbaum. No!

So you really were, I'm like, when you were talking about that back then, I'm like, yeah, I'm not that big of a star. I'm just like a guy who just worked a little bit. But you're like, you were thinking about it. Yeah. That makes me feel like really, maybe I am somebody. Mike, you know what? I'm going to give you today?

Yeah. So Tom Welling and I made this wine for knocking point one. They asked us to make it. So it's a picture. We designed the picture, the wine. So it's our faces facing each other like Clark. And so first of all I'm going to give you, we're doing another one for knocking point coming out in January. So I don't know why I'm leaking that app, but whatever.

They just, you know, they offer you money and they give you 100 bottles of wine. And you say, fuck yeah. So I'm going to give you two bottles of wine. Wow. There are our faces over. You could pour it out or you can put it wherever. I'm also going to give you something very special since you're a small thing because I just actually went through memorabilia. I found an autographed first picture of the pilot episode of every character signed it.

I know some might be one might be in jail right now. I don't know. There's things that have been keeping up with that. But it's autographed by the entire cast. I'm going to give you that. Dude, that's, you don't have to put in your own, though. No, I will frame that and put it in a spot of honor in my room. Dude, are you kidding me?

I found a new best friend. You just have to retroactively sign it to me. I'll just add two mic. Just add two mic in the corner and I'll just put it right up. It's done. Perfect. Ryan, let me ask you something.

You haven't been here at all. No, you guys have been having a great. This has been fun. No, but honest, like, you didn't know, Mike.

You were so excited when I am. You were so like a child. I just like, he's just, he's just great. I think he's like, I think there's so much more that we haven't even seen yet.

Like, you're only 41. Yeah. You know, the big directors. I mean, they, you know,

I mean, you're hitting your stride, man, with Dr. Sleep and you guys. It feels good right now. Yeah. I mean, it does.

guest. I mean, they have great guests. Rain Wilson's there, Eli Roths here, Jenna Fisher. A lot of great people, but you know, I'm gonna, I want to get the word out for this movie. It deserves it. I haven't seen it. I'm telling you, I know it's good because I know your work. That's it.

All right. Well, this has been such a joy. Let's do it all the time. All the time. Yeah, man. And she tells me I'm too old And threatens goodbye Fighting fire Fighting fire Fighting fire

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