Pablo Torre Finds Out - "I Am a Camera": John Wilson on Magic Tricks, Nathan Fielder and How to Make a Documentary

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

In a crumbling empire of ludicrous wealth and slop, filmmaker John Wilson keeps showing us what it means to be human — even (and especially) when that involves poop and/or circumcision. The director of "The History of Concrete" sits down with Pablo to contemplate how A.I. is forcing Hollywood's hand, what Nathan Fielder (and the Hallmark Channel) taught him about storytelling, and why art can live in peaceful conflict with the demands of reality and journalism. Plus: Tim Tebow in the Philippines, Dwyane Wade in an elevator... and balloon fetishists.• See "The History of Concrete" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out, brought to you by Apple Card. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Everything is real. The foreskin restoration device is real. I have one at my house. Right after this. Have you been doing other stuff today? Or is today otherwise a chill? Today, I just like, I don't know, had therapy. The original podcast. Yeah, exactly. It does feel like, yeah.

It's like a very, it's kind of an imaginary line between the two. like doing like podcast I was inadvertently doing promo for my film No exactly yeah Seriously yeah It feels like that But yeah

I'm glad you've followed up And we could do this Yeah we could talk about whatever What's that? You're doing Texas? Yeah this is This is from a previous episode You know what Tim Tebow is?

Sounds familiar Played quarterback I love that I love that this is not Something would be intuitively immediately aware of No no I have such a massive blind spot there.

No, no, no, but I love it, John, because I've been thinking about you while also thinking about Tim Tebow, former star quarterback for the University of Florida and Denver Broncos. Okay. And this is something that I have not said elsewhere on my show that people have been asking me if I'm going to talk about.

Tim Tebow, who is extremely Christian, spent his spring break in 2008, in the Philippines, where my family is from, where he was born as the son of missionaries. And the thing he was doing on spring break 2008 was circumcising children. Oh, interesting. That he was personally doing that?

There's a quote from his dad, Bob. Quote, I got a kick watching him. He did a great job and he didn't look really nervous. I wouldn't let him cut on me, but he did well and helped where there was a need. Yeah, I don't know if I'd let him cut on me. either. I don't know if I would. If you're passionate about it, I don't know. It's very passionate. This was happening at Uncle Dick's home, a charity outside of General

Santos City, founded by the Bob Tebow Evangelical Association. Once again, Tim's dad. For people who don't know why I would think of you while thinking about circumcision, could you begin to explain why that might be? Yes, yes, for the uninitiated. I made a TV show for a few years on HBO that dealt with a bunch of different eccentric characters. And, you know, one episode was kind of about how to cover your furniture because I was dealing with a cat that was tearing up my couch. And as you explore a topic like that, you inevitably end up talking to anti-circumcision activists, you know, as one does. Yes. It became a big part of the episode. And yeah, I ended up spending a lot of time with a guy that had designed a device to regrow your foreskin at home. And it worked.

So a couple of things that I want to help people understand here is that when you say you spend time with a guy who had a device that would quote unquote regrow your foreskin, you are describing one of the images that is most seared into my brain. I imagine this has to be a thing that lots of people who love your show, How to with John Wells on HBO, which ran for several years like I do. This has to be high on the list of stuff. They're like, hey, John, can we talk about the uncircumcision machine? Yeah, it's something people love to think about, I guess. The image. Well, yeah, this guy, as he's demonstrating this to me, you know, he's, he's on his bed. He's kind of, you know, I don't know what Daffy ducking,

I don't know what you call it. He's nude from the waist down. Yeah. I go Winnie the Poohing. Winnie the Poohing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He has his foreskin kind of attached to his bed frame so that it's stretching it as he's sleeping or he's showing me how it works while he sleeps and you know he had an impressive skin but it's kind of I mean it's sad that after the episode aired

I thought it would be a huge boost in sales but actually he discontinued the product within a year or two after the episode came out that was going to be my next question yeah last I talked to him he was performing circumcision-themed music around England, busking. I was also going to ask about this, because in my memory, there was the guy who did the Forskin Restoration music. And I just wanted to clarify, was that the same guy?

Yeah, same guy. You do the sort of work where I am not sure if there are multiple Forescan Restoration guys, or if I am inventing that part. Yeah, it was all one guy. Yeah, I know it's a bit of a fever dream to kind of drift, you know, through all the different themes and characters. I don't want much, just want my four skin back again. No, it's not TMI. I shared it because we're friends.

But, you know, there are a lot of men like that that are anti-circumcision, you know, and they are very vocal, and they protest. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm circumcised, but I don't. I don't, I don't know. That was my next, next question, as a fellow circumcised adult. I'm not trying to regrow anything right now.

I feel fine. I hadn't thought about it until the machine. And I was like, is this something that we should get in on? I never really thought about it that much until, you know, I met him. And I think he makes a really good point, you know, about genital mutilation. But I don't know. I don't really regret that I had it done to me. But, you know, I understand you can screw it up.

I think that even in the hands of Heisman trophy winners, it is a dangerous job to be tasked with. Yeah, but it makes for a good dinner conversation. I think that you probably have dinners that are unlike anyone else's dinners. Well, we've had dinner a couple times. You know, it did okay. This so far, I would say, actually representative of those dinners.

Yeah. You know, just give him something to talk about. I want to point out, too, for people who have not seen how to, and I recommend that everybody does for whatever it's worth, like, you do not introduce the audience to the foreskin restoration guy from a position of, let's all laugh at the forskin restoration guy. You are actually presenting him. You might laugh, but that's, you know. But you're not condescending to him and you're not mocking him.

No, no. He's just like a guy like anybody else, you know? And it's like, I get it. It's not something you see every day. But it's like, there is no definition of normal that sticks. And to pass judgment on anybody else removes you from the equation in a way, as if, like, you don't have your own shit. Yeah. I should point out that I also found myself mostly laughing at you while I watch your work. I don't know. I like to center myself within the movies, like when appropriate, just. just to kind of like ease some of the tension because like I'll show a circumcision guy, but then I will admit something really personal or kind of that was mortifying to me at one point. And, you know, I'm genuinely working through that psychologically as I'm working on this stuff. And it's a way of kind of making everyone relate with the material in a way, just like as a species. Yes.

I was watching your, the film that is out now in theaters that I love. Oh, yes, the history of concrete. I love the history of concrete. Thank you. Yes, it's very good. Everyone should see it. That's right. Have you gotten better at pitching it? Oh, geez. No, it's still very tough. I feel like it's just one of those things where I know the power that word of mouth has.

Someone tells me, oh, you got to watch this thing. I'm usually like, if I trust the person, I'm like, okay, I'm going to watch it. I'm so bored. But concrete, you know, I think there's a bit of a, you know, there's a bait and switch there. I think the title was deliberately very challenging. Well, you got to, I think if I can help you sell your own film. Yes, please. As if you haven't already sold it, and it's already getting rave critical reviews, which it is.

It's sort of like the name of an album. Like you should take it in the sense of like, there's something here, and it might be meaningful. And it is, there's a lot of concrete talk. But it's actually something that is decorative. around, I think, just the idea of John is doing something new. Yeah. So don't you want to listen to what it is?

Yeah, if you're bought in already, I think you don't really need to think about the title or, you know, that much going into it. Like, you will be handed a lot of trivia about concrete and cement and stuff like that. The second most use substance in the world. Yeah, other than water. But it also uses a lot of water.

You know, a lot of sand. I don't know. This is how the pitches usually went. I'm just listing off raw materials. I like how there is footage of like Kim Kardashian in this. And do you know that there's sports in this? Are you aware that there is sports in your film? I heard that there were some sports people at the dinner that I was filming.

I didn't know who they were. So dinner is a through line. It turns out in your life and your work. This dinner is the GQ Man of the Year Party. in what year? Oh, that was probably 2023. And yeah, me, I was one of the men of the year for some reason,

along with Tim Robinson and Kim Kardashian was also like the most man of the year. She was being like recognized. The year almost. I guess. I don't know. It was a confusing event. I mean, these magazine things, it's nice to dress up sometimes and, you know, be in these like environments,

but I'm also just like, so confused about what their actual purposes. I want to set the scene, which is you are, and I am so glad that you were in 2023, a GQ man of the year, and also that you, of course, started filming. Yes. Because this is what you do. And the person who is giving a toast is the sports that I'm referring to. Oh, Dwayne Wade.

Yes, yes. Someone told me about, we actually took the elevator, my girlfriend and I, and he was extremely nice to us. Oh, he's so nice. Yeah, he was super, super nice. But I had no idea of who this person was. So Dwayne Wade, former Miami Heat. Yeah, I still don't know.

All-time Hall of Fame basketball player. One of the most athletic guards in the history of the sport. He's wearing like a sweater vest without a shirt underneath. Yeah. And he's raising a toast. And elsewhere in the room, the editor-in-chief at the time of GQ, Will Welch, says, Money is the most boring thing on earth. Yes, and then Kim is like...

Really? Not really. And I don't know, there was a very strange... Everyone starts laughing. And no one really knows whose side to go on, you know. There was a sort of like obviousness to the tone of Kim. She was like, in her view, it was matter of fact. Like, what do you mean?

Yeah. There was something. to you filming what felt like a candid moment at a dinner that you were not supposed to be taping at? Or whatever. I feel like anyone else

probably could have taped it. I don't just nobody else did for some reason. I think I wanted to capture I think some of the kind of awkwardness and confusion that like of like the identity of an event like that

you know and like what we're celebrating capitalism? I don't know. But it brings up this quote that you have later in the film is in that guide of board quote. The spectacle is capital

accumulated to the point where it becomes image. It always resonated with me, having read society of the spectacle ages ago. And it felt most relevant in this situation because it's like they're talking about money and whether money's interesting. And it just felt like all of the wealthiest

kind of most influential people in a room. And what we're seeing is, it feels just like the accumulation of wealth and like it will just spit out an image, you know, and that is an event like this. That is an image from this event. And, you know, I just never had seen an uncut shot of Kim Kardashian before.

So I just, not that I was like pursuing it per se, But I just wanted to capture, it was like a rare environment. I remember hearing you say something about how one of the original pitches for how to was it's planet Earth but for New York. Yes, yes, planet Earth but for New York. There is like a, you're watching this rare creature somehow just appear in front of your like wildlife cam. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It feels like, it's like, oh, there's the, you know, the Gibbon or I don't know, it's just like,

some, I don't know how rare I give it is. I always just say snow leopard, and I'm trying to think of another rare, the IBEX, I don't know. And it's just funny because like Willowelch set up this room and set up the seating arrangement. You know, I was one away from Chris Jenner. Oh yeah, and Dwayne Wade is right in front of you. Like you're right there.

But I'm just like, you know, I'm holding on my phone just like as far away as we are from one another, you know. And I don't know. But it's like, is this the shot that Will Welch wanted? Like, he knew that I was probably going to be inclined to film something. And it's like, I look at the footage and I'm like, okay, this is what you wanted, I guess. Or maybe he didn't think of it. There were some people from the GQ team filming in the room. Yes.

Like, so it wasn't like a fully private event, but like, I don't know where that content goes. I do think it's important to sort of foreground your particular relationship with money. Yes. Which is a through line in, I think, all of your work. Yes. At this point. The critique is very much, I think everyone's value system is just kind of twisted right now. I think aspirationally, people aren't like okay with being comfortable anymore.

And they want to kind of ascend to this point of ludicrous wealth that, ultimately doesn't solve any of your problems and only makes you feel emptier. I'm nowhere near as wealthy as any of the people in that room, but it's like, I'm comfortable. And I just like, I don't see the point in like, in just like doing a bunch of stuff that degrades me just like for the point of of accumulating more. We're a culture of aspirational Scrooge McDucks. Yes. We just want pools of coins to jump into, and of course we do. Yeah.

But what you do care about and what you say no to. Yeah. I'm not trying to be like moralizing. I'm actually trying to point out something that you say in the film, in the history of concrete, which is, and this is a bit of something that we believe here on my show, which is, quote, it's embarrassing to know so little about something that occupies so much of your visual environment. Yes. Which is true of concrete and also true of money. Yeah. Just to get to the finance.

Yeah, sure. To look into your tax returns for a second. Yeah, sure. How much did you spend on the history of concrete? I was pitching the movie out. I pitched it like 10 or 12 times, and we were asking for roughly the equivalent of like three episodes of the TV show,

like around like a million something. So, and everyone looks at the treatment, and they're like, how is this costing a million dollars? I think people are just kind of like, we're not going to pay for your vacation. Then about a year in, I just decided, like, I'm just going to throw my own money into this. and just like buy a flight to Ohio, you know, and just, so I feel like I probably, I don't know,

spent between like 10 and 20 grand of my own money just to like get this off the ground. But then other people were just working for points on the back end, pretty much. And then about two years in, when I had like a rough cut, that's when like Josh, Safdi and Eli and Ronnie Bronstine came on. They helped us out. I think it was like maybe a hundred grand or something.

So it was pretty cheap. I was going to say, so far that's the cheapest movie a person I know has ever made. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I really... I don't get into like the hard numbers in the film itself, but, you know, I mean,

I try to be really frank in the film about what things cost, Like, you know, it's like I talk specifically about what I charge for a rent. And you charge way less than you could. Yes. You know, one of my favorite onion headlines is like, it's like landlord raises rent due to thinking of new number, you know. And it's just like kind of how it feels sometimes where it's like, you could inflate it, you know, but it's like, why? Who are you trying to keep around in the neighborhood?

You know, like what are you, what kind of city do you want to live in? And, you know, this comes back to the whole Kardashian of it all where, I mean, you have, you have, like, a figure like Trump even, who is just like the, like, final boss merger of, like, this idea of celebrity and real estate, like, in this one vile. Yes, of capital being image. Yeah, capital being image, of real estate being, like, the apex of what you should be profiting from, you know. and that's awful. I think we need to uncouple real estate from celebrity and not make it this thing where you... I don't know.

I mean, I watch HGTV, but you know... So this show, we will do episodes that are invariably about real estate, about incidentally, another affection I have for this film, is that it's also quietly going to sneak in some talk about, yeah, like affordable housing. I mean, the lesson I kind of had to teach myself during it is like, why should this be expensive?

You know, I was, I mean, I wanted to pay people that were helping me, like my sound guy and producers and stuff. Like, that's, like, the most important thing to me is just being able to do that, first and foremost. But, like, why does it need money? I talk about AI in the film, but I don't get super into it. But it's like people within entertainment or something are using it to basically, like, oh, I couldn't afford a car crash, you know,

so I'm going to put it in with AI or something. But it's like, your limitations are the parameters that give the thing, make it unique. It's the thing that give it life and make a human. And you need to embrace your limitations instead of trying to outchase them constantly. Like so many artists, their best work, like filmmakers, whatever, is in that period when they're struggling and waiting for their ship to come in. And it's like, maybe you don't need to exit that phase. You know, like maybe seeing the seams and seeing all of the stuff that makes a human will become, like, is going to continue to stay valuable as long as, like, we still have a, like, a civilization. Which is up in the air.

Which is up in the air. Luckily, there is still for now the Hallmark Channel. Yes, there is a Hallmark Channel. Well, that's what's so funny. The only cable television channel that is growing. Yes, it's growing. As you point out. Yes, that was some trivia that veteran Hallmark, assistant director,

told us about in the film. Yeah, so, I mean, you can't argue with that data at the same time. Well, this is the thing, right? I want to know what and why they are succeeding. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? And how different it is from even what I might imagine to be a parody of what the Hallmark Channel is doing.

Because what they're actually doing in terms of their structure, in terms of their strategy, is deliberate and something that you personally witness in the film because at some point, why were you in these meetings? Oh, the class?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in, yeah, I was part of the Writers Guild, and there was a free class for Writers Guild members about how to write and sell a Hallmark movie. And that's what I went to go film. but you know i mean one of the first main rules that she laid out was that people don't

don't write a financial struggle into your into your work people don't people hate to see struggling financially these movies should be a balm they should be the the idea of what you could be and i kind of did the inverse but then i also there are a bunch of other rules that i kind of uh incorporate into the film don't interrupt a kiss yeah don't interrupt a kiss with a phone call. I did not do that. That was disappointing to me personally. I would never. I would never do that. And, you know, she said you cannot mention Jesus in any Christmas Hallmark movie, you know, so that's why I did mostly Buddhism in the concrete movie. Which you actually do. Yeah, which I do. Yeah. And the only film that has a sequence that involves Buddhism and Eric Adams.

Oh, yeah. Almost cut on top of each other. Yes. That was. was the first thing I think I edited for the whole movie, was that cross-cutting between this Tibetan sand mandala ceremony and this Eric Adams press conference that he was doing for this affordable housing initiative that he had just won the vote on. Yeah, and also Michael Imperiali,

practicing Buddhist, yeah. At what point did John get the note? You need a famous person. Well, that's, yeah, I mean, the film is filled with these extremely brief celebrity cameos, but that's just from living, like, for me. Like, in those two years, I was just like, I just happened to see a lot of these people.

And so I like playing the game. Like, there's something super fun about playing the Hollywood game. Yes. And I understand why it's valued, because a lot of times there's, like, really big laughs in those moments. And, like, people do like, you know, recognizing personalities and stuff like that, you know, myself included. So I feel like I'm, like the film is a product of my internal tension

with like wanting to do something kind of punk and just like say fuck you, but also like wanting to embrace Hallmark and like celebrity cameos and like this idea of a rocky menary. I ultimately do what they asked me to do, you know, but in kind of a in like a monkey's paw kind of way. There is an almost joyously spiteful

delivery of the assignment. Back to the teacher kind of aspect here. The Hallmark writer, she came and did a Q&A with me at the IFC Center for one of the screenings. And it was great. She's like amazing. She was such a good sport. And she loved the movie. She like totally got it.

She's like, yeah, you know, I understand. that's like the movie's all about like how to make art in a crumbling empire you know well that that is the thing I really did appreciate about the hallmark people which is that they were not vague about why they do what

they do and why it works and there's clarity that I I admire in that honestly totally yeah it was it was disarming like how how frank they were about their jobs and all of the

internal mechanizations of Hallmark. Even, like, I was invited to film a Hallmark movie production while I was there, but I couldn't do it because of timing. But they were just so open. I think they were just happy to talk about this stuff because, like, they had just been doing the same thing cyclically for, like, so long, you know, and they were just, like, happy to have, like, kind of any breaking continuity. Speaking of just like

how long you've been at something and how sort of clear it becomes that oh this is the thing that you do when you go back and watch your I mean your first short film

what do you think that is? Well I think it's lunar yes that was the first I think kind of documentary I made when I was in college that was about these balloon fetishists that get or sexually

attracted to the inflation and the popping of balloons. Some people call themselves lunar, other people don't like that terminology. They kind of sort of divide into two major categories. You have a group that's non-popping, that don't like to see the balloons popped, and you have a group that does like to see the balloons pop. They're very interesting. The poppers, they climax when they hear and see it happen, but the non-poppers are kind of traumatized by the sound of it from childhood or something,

to wear like noise cancelling like ear muffs or something like a baby at a concert yeah yeah yeah exactly what i loved about that by the way as you're describing the poppers and the non-poppers is that the two sort of uh avatars for either side they like politically aren't the same either there's one liberal guy one conservative guy and like this is clearly just something that cuts across political yeah yeah yeah the one guy that i really vibed with he was He was more kind of, he was like the liberal one. But then, yeah, then there was like the dark lunar who he had a company called Goth Balloon. This was 2006 that I was filming it.

And he was talking so much about Obama and how he has no, he like doesn't have a chance in hell at becoming president. And I didn't even know who Obama was at that point. Yeah, of course. You know, and I was just like, okay, like sure. And then so like watching that movie, now, it's just like so funny, hear from like an anti-Obama fetishist, like, in 2006. In the context of watching women who in this case are very, like, matter-of-factly, just

naked and participating in balloon inflation and... Yes. Yeah, you know, that strip club that I filmed it at was destroyed. I tried to go visit it recently. It's a pile of rubble underneath the highway 7,000. or something in Binghamton. Man. Did you recently visit Looney Nudes.com to see if it was still up? No. What's it looking like?

I'm here to tell you that it is a very functioning URL. Looney Nudes? Okay, yeah. This is what it looks like? I don't know if that's what you remember it. Oh, yeah, yeah. They have great web design. So, could you just, for people who are watching, could you describe just sort of the aesthetic of loony nudes?

It's pretty web 1.0. You have a beautiful font, kind of rainbow font with some balloon clip art. And then there's an image of a topless woman with clear balloon that she's blown up. That's about the size of her. It's enormous. These are very harsh flash photos. Yeah, look almost hostage-like. But then it says shop now.

There's a bunch of buttons that say shop now everywhere. And I don't know what they're... I mean, they make custom. balloons with... There you go. Please read. Our checkout is currently down and you will get an error

if you attempt to complete your order online to order. Please send an email to Mike D at Mellyloon.com. Oh, that's Mike D. That's the guy that I... Oh, that's the guy. Yeah, that's the guy that I covered.

I gotta say, on the scale of perversion, looney nudes.com is so quaint. It's fine. I mean, these... I like these guys. I don't know. I liked one of them.

I was going to say... Not the other guy. I like the one who's political world... You did also not pop in 2008. Yeah, the conservative guy, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's a political spectrum in every group of fetishist. This whole thing has like a GeoCities web, truly, like my childhood, like web 1.0 aspect.

You almost imagine like a web counter at the bottom. About to drive a lot of traffic, you guys got to. I know. The bump. I know. I'm going to have to text Mike D and get him to make sure he's got some balloons ready. repair the order form on the website. Yeah.

People are, people are, people are, people are common. It's a small operation. I wanted, I wanted to ask you about this story that I read about how Nathan Fielder got involved. Oh, yeah. How to? Because he becomes familiar with your work, according to one piece of reporting, through a, quote, legally problematic short of yours that was circulating privately at the time. Yes. Have I not sent that to you or I told you about it? The fact that you haven't said it to me is personally disappointed.

I'm sorry. It was a movie that I made 2015 or so. I was working, again, I mean, I was working for some fashion guy as a freelancer, and he disliked the work that I did so much that he refused to pay me $1,000. So instead of just saying goodbye to it, I kind of went scorched earth and tried to get in touch with him and it wasn't working.

So I then tried to get him on court TV and I submitted an application and everything and they tried to reach out to him and he still didn't answer them. So then I got my friend Clark to pitch the story to a new court TV show. You're talking about like, by the way, court TV meaning like a judge Judy

Yeah, Judge Judy, yeah. So we ended up going on the show called Hot Bench. But we basically took the story, but basically made it seem like Clark was the person that had hired me and refused to pay me. So we... I don't know. You did a cinematic adaptation of an actual small claims,

court-worthy claim that you have, except your friend Clark was playing the guy you were trying to litigate against. Yes. So they flew us out to L.A., and they put us up on this court TV show and I wore hidden cameras, like, during it, and I was, like, filming what happened behind the scenes

and, like, all the money that they give you and the way that they coach you before you go on. Today. Case number 297 on calendar, Wilson versus Filio. Please step forward. Filmmaker John Wilson is suing his former friend, Clark Filio, for failure to pay for video services and lost wages. I genuinely was trying to get $1,000.

And we did, because when you're on a court TV show, if I sue you for a grand and I win, you don't pay that. They pay the grand and also pay you an appearance fee. So that's how they get so many people on because you have already won, you know, like in their, like, that's what the producers tell you. which is something that I should have known

before you just told me what about how court TV works yeah just how about everybody is actually incentivized just purely financially to show up and I don't know by the way try your case in front of and this cannot be stressed enough

in front of a series of hot judges is that the hot bench I think that's the I mean I'm looking at the poster for hot bench I don't know if it's around anymore it might still be knows the Judge Judy production. How many seasons of Hot Bench? How many seasons?

13. 13, okay. By the way, season 13 began last month. Oh, wow. We're still in... Wow, we're still in the Hot Bench territory. Wow, yeah, I mean, I had some funny people text me, but not many people caught it. But yeah, so I made a movie about that, and then I tried to come out with it, but then

got a cease and desist. From Hot Bench? No, from somebody else. I don't want to say who. Understandable. So yeah, and then it went underground. A mutual friend sent that to Nathan. And then Clark, who I fake sued,

was at a gallery opening in Manhattan one night, and Nathan was there. And then he was like, Johnny should come out. Nathan's here. And we had never met before. then I just kind of came out, and then I followed them to dinner afterwards. And then, you know, I was obviously a huge fan of Nathan's stuff. But then he's like, what are you working on now? And I was like, I don't know, I was thinking about a TV show. And he's like, okay, let's like talk next week about it.

And then we just, then the rest happened. When I watch your HBO series, it is very clearly an extension of the work that you have been doing for a very long time. And so the question is, what did Nathan Fielder beyond his, sort of like, you know, blessing in Hollywood or whatever the fuck you might call it, it's good to have someone as an EP on a show that is himself like a fantastic artist. But what did you learn from him in terms of how you make the show? Oh, I mean, so much. I was like, I was scared. I was so scared when we started making the show. Because, you know, I made stuff kind of at a small scale. It was very personal and I would teach you how to, you know,

how to live with bedbugs or something like that. You know, it was satirical. But like, when we came up with the show idea, it was like, we wanted it to feel like there was a straight line going from that work into, like, the show. But also, I didn't know how to tell a story. And I was just living in this world of, like, kind of chaotic footage. And I never had really, like, talk to people,

on screen for a long amount of time and had like long interviews with people and he really just beat it out of me like any self-consciousness that I had I don't know I just I remember like a refrain constantly would just be like John this is a TV show you know

it can't just be a bunch of shots of dog shit you know like I think there needs to be like an arc here and like even if you're just telling the story Even if you know what's happening, you, like, maybe need to say it. You know, it's just, like, basic kind of stuff. The thing I think about when I watch Dayton's stuff, which I'm a huge fan of as well, is how much of this is real? And with you...

What is real? Well, are we about to do a thing about the nature of truth and storytelling? Well, can continue? What are you going to say? Well, look, I come at this not with any sort of, like, I'm trying to... to expose what is and is not real. I come at this from the perspective of somebody who is like a journalist that needs to always have in front of me some very clear language around

I'm not misrepresenting reality. Well, what I really mean is, do you see the work that Nathan does and the work that you do as a filmmaker, as a documentarian? Do you see those as part of the same school of reality? Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's all some crazy, like, fabrication in a way.

It's like when you write about anything, it's all from your perspective. And when you, like, edit any of this footage together, it's like the chronology in which things happen is, like, often, like, nothing like what you're presenting. And admittedly, when you put a camera in front of somebody, it's not exactly as if there isn't a camera there. Yeah, but I mean, that's why I like the style that I've, like, kind of developed over time where, and I really believe in, because it's like, there's less artifice there for me because it's like...

That's why I ask. Yeah, it's like, I am a camera, essentially, and you are, like, you are acknowledging me. You don't have to pretend like I'm not in the room. and I really like that I think that adds a lot of really cool tension and to me that's like it fully strips

any like any kind of as much kind of fictionality away as I can because like you're seeing like everything and I try to stay really wide in every shot

so you see like there's as much information in the frame as possible but you know what Nathan does is like I think he's like searching for a different kind of truth in certain ways but I think we do inform each other

and I think we're I don't know I'm I was like a real purist at first and I think he kind of like beat that out of me in a certain way what is an example of something that you would never have considered doing as a purist

documentarian that now you see the value in artistically I see the value in kind of like, I don't know. I'm trying to think of something specific. How do I put this? Like in the narration, I will often have like a thought that I may not have had in the moment,

but I can kind of reinterpret what happened in the environment by like coloring it with some bit of voiceover that I may not have like thought as a transitional moment from one idea to another. and, you know, like... It's kind of vague still, even. But I want to specify what you're describing there for people who don't know your work,

because part of the magic trick of your work is that you have all of this... I mean, it reads as found footage, but really it's you collecting footage across New York City and across the world. And part of the magic trick is in your ability to sequence them, like a collage, and you are voicing over it.

in the second person addressing the audience as you, which is all like very, again, high degree of difficulty. You are pulling off something that is almost impossible for a normal people to even imagine how you do this. And what you're describing, apparently, is that in the act of writing the voiceover, which is very much in your voice, and it reminds me not to be so like, whatever,

like under the hood of this, but it reminds me of how I talked to, in your chair, many moons ago, Ira Glass of this American Life. And I asked him, like, do you script in stumbles and us and ums? And he goes, of course. And so there's a performance of

mm. There's a performance of this isn't scripted, but in fact, as you're saying, of course there is writing here. And you're taking the liberty to write to tell a story such that the sequence is on some level justified. Yeah. I mean, there's an example in the

concrete movie. You know, there's this like part with DMX in it, you know. And the way that it's in the film, you know, it hits you by the end of it in a way that, like, I find really, I find like it works really well. It's so good. But like, you know, the inclusion of certain bits of information, you kind of only can put in when you're done shooting and you're just like, you're kind of fitting it into the edit at the very end, you know. So it's kind of like, even though chronologically it may be truthful, like the way that you're putting it into the story is like obviously this crafted thing.

And I don't know. I feel like it's all a magic trick. The magic trick analogy of does it ruin the trick to know how it's done? Yeah, everyone wants to know, obviously. And this is why there is, of course, like curiosity. from me about it, you don't get the raw material. No, and you shouldn't. It's like, I think it's bull-h-h-h. It's just, like, not.

What art is a lot of the time. And I think it was interesting, as documentary is concerned, as journalism is concerned, and you had, like, Susan Orlean in the writer's room for one of the seasons of how-to. One of the greatest magazine, Future Writers of All Time, and authors.

But the question of, like, how does art conflict with what journalism and documentary film might demand gets to, again, this gray zone in which, in the end, we can sort of be as granular or as argumentative as you want about it, what ultimately happens is the audience decides, do I trust the person telling me the story? Yeah, yeah, and it's very easy to turn people off, you know, and I, I want people to trust me in as far as that, like, I want to be able to trust the image and trust what I'm looking at too. Because I smell bullshit constantly, and I don't like to produce bullshould. And I want it to, like, be as close to what actually happened as possible. And, like, that has been a constant throughout everything I do. And it pains me to throw things out of chronology sometimes, you know?

But sometimes it does help. narratively. But you don't, you don't, you don't construct sequences, I've heard you say. You don't stage encounters on the street with someone that you know. No, I'm not doing that thing. I'm not doing like, oh, hey, how much is your rent, you know, kind of thing. Like, nothing, nothing like that. Can I see your apartment?

Yeah, exactly. No, it's not like that. That would make me sick to watch over and over again, like in the edit. Which is reality television, though. Yeah, sure. And again, I know shade of anything. Like, you do literally whatever you want. I'm just like, this is what I like to do.

It's like I meet one of the main characters in the concrete movie at the liquor store, like a block away from my house. That was the moment we met. I spent a year and a half with them after that, you know. And it's just like that is the kind of stuff that makes me excited. A true meat cute. Yeah, like, yeah. an actual MECU.

Like, didn't go on, didn't scout him ahead of time and say, hey, are you going to be at work on this day? No, not at all. Not at all. Can I remind you, though, as you talk about smelling bullshit, of the reason why people are perhaps who are very familiar with your work, are wondering, what is, what's going on here? It's the part of your show, how to, in which you do show the audience that you're faking shit.

What? The one with the toilet shot? Yeah, I mean, there, there's one episode, How to Watch Birds, it's one of my favorites. It's a, I loved it, but this part is worth explaining. I mean, I saw a real-life piece of footage of a toilet overflowing explosively, you know, and the entire room was covered in brown water. It was beautiful. But I had to have a stage day to get a tax incentive from the city. So we built a one, you know, a replica of the toilet

and had a pyrotechnic person come and make it so it recreated it exactly like I remember from the video. And I think it's season two, yeah, I passed it off as a thrill. Or I mean, I passed it off. It was just part of the collage, you know. And in season three, I admit that as kind of this, I say that that single shot was kind of like a telltale heart for me where I was like, it was grading on me that I had done, that I had fabricating something. It was haunting you from underneath the floorboard.

Yeah, and that one shot was bothering me. So then I make the entire episode where I meet this guy who is a Titanic conspiracy theorist, he believes that a different ship actually sank. You mean that literally, like, a conspiracy theorist about the Titanic? The theories that another ship called the Olympic was actually sank and that they were swapped. And, like, everything that happens to us within the kind of parameters of this fictional thing are all real.

And, like, was some of the most shocking, kind of synchronous, like, thematically stuff I've ever experienced. And it gave me chills. Like he talks about how he was a former police officer and talks about corruption and how like the only way you can keep a secret if one of use dead, you know? And it just delivered so amazingly,

like thematically for what I was going through with the film. And that's all just through setting up an environment for stuff to flourish, you know. But I was admitting that we fabricated the toilet shot to become closer with the audience the way I would with like you were just like a friend at a bar or something you know just to like just because you want to know and that's that was me showing my hand being like this happened you know but it something weird happened to the audience where they thought that that meant that I faked

a bunch of other stuff which is not true at all and it I feel like it was misinterpreted and so what I'm here to say near the end here what I found out today is that I can still have total confidence despite the business issues plaguing the foreskin stretching machine that that was in fact a very real device. Yes, the foreskin, everything is real.

The foreskin restoration device is real. I have one at my house. Everything is, that's the thing. Wait, do you actually have one at your house? I do, yeah. It doesn't really, he would have had to measure the head of my penis to

to give me one that fit me. So he gave me just one that he had lying around when I was there. So the device is either, yeah, too big or too small for me. But what you're saying is that it is used. It's been there. John Wilson. In the style of so many. any Instagram videos that violate the ethics of what we're trying to do here.

I do now officially want to see you're apart. Oh, wow. Well, yeah, just don't, yeah, if you're going to do that, then make sure you don't arrange to come off to be on the street to ask. This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.