Pablo Torre Finds Out - "I Just Am That B*tch": Ilana Glazer on Broad City, Broadway and Bursting Bubbles

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Before she rode the shooting star of Broad City into the comedy stratosphere, Ilana Glazer lived in Pablo's old apartment. The non-roommates reunite to blow off steam on: the infuriating inequality of New York; the Helveticazation of Silicon Valley; the re-establishment of Hollywood; the Fox Newsification of a "trillion-dollar hate propaganda machine"; the wisdom of Edward R. Murrow and George Clooney; and the spiritual engine inside us all... even (and especially!) if you're Jesse Watters playing the recorder at morning assembly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. You are a Clooneyhead. You're a full-on Clooneyhead, dude. Right after this ad. Hi, Pablo, good to see you. I love to see you. Thanks for coming here.

Hi, nice for having me. I hope this wasn't an annoying commute. No. Why would it be, A, annoying or be more annoying than any other? I don't know. Commute. Thank you. Do you do the headphones?

Does it matter? No. Let's do no. So it's like UN General Assembly Week. So genuinely a horrifying traffic proposition. Oh, yeah, sure, traffic, but the whole thing is horrifying. Yeah. Do you feel represented geographically?

Where you live, does it feel right for you? It does feel right because I'm now a washed dad. Copy that. I didn't know you were a dad. I have a five-year-old who started kindergarten. Washed. Ugh, I just learned about this slang. Get over it. Get over it. You're cool. Shut up. Also, you're a nerd. Me too.

Like, great. All of these things can, we can contain multitudes. That's right. Wait, I have a five-year-old, you said. Yeah, yeah. And you have a... I have a four-year-old. Okay. Yeah.

So I feel represented because I'm surrounded by either small children and their parents or extremely old people who I aspire to be one day. 100%. Desperper. honestly, like a little desperate to be them. Yeah. I've gone from, oh, I wish I was in a cool neighborhood to I want to trace the arc of the life I wish to live every day when I walk outside my building. I love it.

That's honestly beautiful to me. I was just talking to a comedian yesterday. Like, she's 27 years old. She lives in Murray Hill. And she's like ready to like make the move to Brooklyn, which means like I'm older now to her. So it's like Murray Hill, that's, I wouldn't call that cool, I'd call it a party neighborhood. So it was so funny is that I grew up there. Oh, right.

I mean, your characterization is correct. As I often have to point out to people, it wasn't always a place where consultants went to vomit. Oh, my God. And now, of course, it is entirely that. It's only that. Oh, God, it's so puky. I'm shook that you grew up in New York City because, you know, I'm from Long Island and it's just mostly transplants. not from around the world, from the suburbs.

So you grew up here. I grew up here. That's major. That's major. Thank you, Alon Glazer, for being here, by the way. Thank you, Pablo Torre, for having me. I introduced myself to you. We had not met before earlier this year,

and you came to the set of Morning Joe where I happened to be co-hosting that day. Joining us now, one of the stars of Good Night and Good Luck, Emmy Award-winning actor Ilana Glazer, who is also making her Broadway debut, She plays the trail blazing CBS News journalist, Shirley Worshba. And I accosted you in a way that in a deposition, I would be arrested for. Girl, no.

It was not accosting, but it was shocking. And I wouldn't say aggressive, but it was like, like you had, literally we had shared space. At different points in time. At different points in time. So tell your people, tell the people. So what I told you, as I leaned across. cross the table past the other co-hosts. And I was like, hey, just so you're aware.

Just honed in. Just focused in. I was the bull's eye. Here's a thing I've been meaning to tell you, Alana Glazer, for literally 10 years, despite never having reached out to you before, which is, I'm pretty sure we lived in the same apartment. And we had. Let's not say the address, even though neither of us live there anymore. You don't want to retroactively docks us?

No, it's like scary. Just exact addresses are frightening. But, and we had. I will say that it's in the East Village, generally speaking. Yeah. And I'll say that because the reason I knew this is even creepier because I went through my email. And I was like, when? So me and my room, to be clear, this is a lovely two-bedroom.

Yeah. In the East Village. Right. Recognized, first and foremost, I would say, for its enormous patio. Enormous. Can you please explain for people who didn't visit our apartment what this was like? Okay. I'm just like sort of like sorting this out and like getting my my feet on the ground here.

So first of all, you are like overcorrecting for, yes, it is a creepy thing, period, to be like, I know where you lived. Yes. And you're a man. So it's like, I've slept in your bedroom potentially depending on your setup. Yes. You're a man. I'm a woman.

I get it. It is like, what? You know, it is like intense. But you were like not weird. And this happens in New York. I'm remembering that I lived in South Slope. And it happened to be the same apart. apartment my friend Boris Kiken from comedy.

Shout out to Boris. Shout out to Boris. But I got his mail. And literally there were like roaches, like weed butts in the brick from Boris. And I don't think you got that for me because that's not exactly the type of dinner I am. But we have the same experience. So it's not, I just want to say New York City vibes. And you grew up here.

It's not the craziest thing. It's not the craziest. But just to be very clear about like me to say. discovering this in 2015. And Broad City came out 2014, so like this is like, you're like, what? And I'm, to be very clear, like, a super fan of Broad City. Really? I didn't know that. Oh, me and my wife, we washed it together.

Oh, my roommate, we watched it going through. This is not just me blowing smoke up your butt. Oh, that's crazy then. My Gmail archive was like full of Broad City references, and I'm like fishing out. March 10th, 2015, it gets creepier now. Okay, you're over-correcting, but okay. No, it's just that I, on this show where I find out stuff, I was finding out stuff 10 years ago, it turns out. And I had found your then roommate's Instagram account because there was an article in New York Magazine, which was referenced that you lived in the East Village.

And you lived with, again, not to dogs him, but a writer for BuzzFeed. This is published, so I feel comfortable saying that. And I was like, oh, wait a minute. I know people who work at BuzzFeed. Who is it? Is my mental process? Sure, for sure. And I looked up on Instagram, your roommate, and, like, dropped my phone on the ground.

And I was like, why? You knew him? I just recognized my apartment. Yeah. Yeah. In the photos. Yeah. Crazy.

I lived there before you guys. Oh, I thought you had lived after. Oh, no, no. So you weren't receiving my mail. I literally was receiving yours. Yes, dude. Yes, Pablo. I literally, it just hit my brain of seeing mail.

Yeah. And being like, oh, who's Pablo? Literally. Literally, dude. That's it just hit me. It's me. Copy that. Okay. Wow, that's so funny. If the New York court system is looking for me, blame Alana Glazer for never fording the jury summons. Yep. I now it just hit me. Oh my goodness. Wow. Wow. So our deck was crazy. It was huge to a, to a comical. It was clear that a mistake had been made. Yes. And then they, you know, slap some walls around it. And they were like, it's.

it's a huge deck or whatever, which is smart. But the grotesque part was that it was visible by thousands. Thousands of trapped New Yorkers in tiny apartments could look at the deck we shared across space-time. It was not chill. It was just, we called it, and this is again a very nerdy nickname for it, we called it the Panopticon because just like. Hysterical.

Everyone watched the deck. Is that a word? It is. And it's like a very high-valued. Where if we're just like, I think Foucault may have talked about how in a certain vision of a prison, one way to keep the inmates always under surveillance is to just make them feel perpetually watched. And so for us, the joke was like, we are being watched in this basically like canyon of air conditioners and windows. Ugh.

A wrecked out, an alley of just like apartments looking down. Grotesque. I don't even know what the square footage of this thing was, like 600 square feet. It was bigger than the two-bedroom. It was way bigger. And the joke was like, we're just out here. Like, we had a- Cholotore.

I'm seeing it on mail. Go on. Sorry. We put a kiddie pool out there and sat in it for a while. Yeah, you did. But yeah, we just, unrepentantly just, like, got high in front of, like, the Lion King Canyon. Before it was decriminalized, so it was brave.

We were pioneers. Panopticon and Foucault are the, like, the homework I got to do. This is the kind of podcast you've wandered into. 2014, Broad Cities Out. You're living in this two-bedroom apartment. You're kind of living in a place that feels, given your level of rising fame, I would say, beneath your station. You're kind of like still living like an actual young New Yorker. Yeah.

And things are happening. Yeah. You know, I was city biking today with a backpack, a heavy backpack on the basket of the city bike, strapped to the city bike. And I was like, I just am that bitch. I'm just the person I've always been and will always be... Like, I don't think I was living beneath my station is so funny.

I think I was financially smart to be renting at that time until I could afford to buy. A very economical price point in my memory. I was living with Matt. We were like sharing groceries. We were eating tuna on spinach salads.

And it's like, I like to live, feeling connected to people and sharing reality. You know, in a personal sense, Broad City wise, like, what a miracle. It felt like, you know, the star, the more you know or whatever. It feels like Abby and I were straddling that star and, like, riding across the sky. And we were just riding it. All we could do is ride this shooting star.

Like, wow, how amazing in our, I mean, it was just... Were you surprised by the... I mean, again, I'm a New Yorker, so I have a very biased point of view. But were you surprised by how widely popular it was? I mean, like, I was surprised to... be the person in that position, but given Broad City, the artistic entity, I'm not surprised that It was so good. It was so good. I went back and watched some of it. I'm like, fuck, this is good.

I love it. I love it. And it's like, you know, I just think that people, all different kinds of people are starving for an honest female lens, you know? I think people, I think it is particularly funny to move through a story with a woman because the way women move through the world is absurd. We're like placed in a box. And then we try. try to embrace the box, and then the box s us, but not the way we want to be. You know, it's like, it's just, it's a funny pickle women are in. I'm not surprised looking at the work of Broad City that it was successful, but then it was a phenomenon in New York, and a phenomenon among a certain type of thinking and feeling

person, it stayed kind of niche and was never, I would say, like, embraced by the establishment in a way. It stayed for the people who knew about it. It did have like this thing which I love as a true like genuine unapologetic New York elitist. Do you have an example? Because lately I'm rethinking this concept elitist and I want to talk about it. Sure. But when you say New York elitist, do you mean the understood shared value that everybody's equal on the subway?

Is that what you mean? I mean it very simply like greatest city in the world and I wish there was another place that provided me. Again, like the vast diversity inside of what feels at times like a little town. Yeah. And so the whole idea, like, New York's a bubble. I'm like, it is, but it's also a bubble containing the biggest possible, most diverse sample of humans in which we all have to interact. Yep. Including on the subway, including on the sidewalk, including on line at whatever. It's just like, and there's that level. Anyway, this is just, I'm not trying to give a stump speech for New York City. No, I am. No, not even for New York. Because also, like, you know, New York City is really tough. It's really hard to live in. Yes. It's incredibly difficult. It's also like since COVID, I think the income disparity has widened even further.

And it's been impossibly heartbreaking to see this suffering rise in visibility. And I'm not saying it should be in the shadows, but it has become more visible. We pay so much taxes to live here. Why are people starving in our faces? Why are people not sheltered? Why are people unhoused and feeling unsafe even in shelters? So people are on the street, on the subway is suffering. It is hard to live here.

year. And the wealthiest people don't even live here. It's a tax haven for whatever. And their brownstones are empty. I mean, it's like, it's, it's infuriating and upsetting. And so many people need just basic, their basic needs met here in New York City. And the idea that it's some bubble, utopian bubble is the thing that I want to like, I'm starting to push back against because Fox News and a very, and enormous, like, beyond what we can really see, like trillion dollar hate propaganda machine that is actually bigger than Fox News, but Fox News is perhaps the largest container for it, has sown this narrative about coastal elites being against people who live in smaller cities or suburbs or rural areas. And meanwhile, Fox News comes out of Midtown Manhattan.

Oh, yeah. And the people stumping for hate, by the way, stump all you want for pride and love. People stumping for hate are multi, multi, multi, multi, multi, millionaires, like manipulating people who don't have their basic needs met to profit themselves. And I'm like, we don't live in a bubble. We live in a hard place where we confront our differences and accept each other all day, every single day. And the elitists are the Fox News hosts and the Fox News producers who are creating these narratives to divide the people that they consider beneath them.

I think Jesse Waters is a good guy. I think that guy's all right. I have a good thing about Jesse Waters. My friend went to high school with him, and they went to, I believe, a private high school in the suburbs of Philly. And Jesse Waters, I learned from my friend posting the day after Trump got elected the second time that Jesse Waters would play the recorder every morning at like morning announcements. And it was not a recital.

Nobody else was performing. Jesse Waters would play the recorder because he wanted to. Nobody wanted this. Nobody wanted this. And also this young, creative person wanting to be seen and heard and then probably wasn't met by the external world the way he had hoped. So then to turn into this hateful propaganda machine, it's just like, dude, you chose this and you know better is what I think. And so this is where I just got to jump in here to point out that we here at Pablo Torre finds out, did of course reach out to a Fox News spokesperson to fact check Alana Glazer's friend's story about Jesse Waters, Unilever. laterally serenading his suburban high school with his recorder during morning announcements.

And what the spokesperson told us is that, quote, Jesse doesn't recall the exact morning announcements. And quote, Fox News also did not deny to us that Jesse Waters was pretty into the recorder in high school. Which brings us back, I suppose, to that television network as an institution. and the truly bizarre origin story of a different television career. So I've done sports television for over a dozen years now. The first, as a young fact-checked Sports Illustrated, my staff is so tired of me telling the story.

The first one I ever did, the first appearance, the first hit, was on the O'Reilly Factor. Wow. And I had no idea. How old were you? It was 2008. I was 23. Oh my God.

And Bill O'Reilly, this is 08 O'Reilly. Like, 08. The point being that this was like weeks after that we'll do it live. Now, I can't read it. There's no words on it. Okay. There's no words there to play us out. What does that mean?

To play us out. Sting is going to do, it's a video, sting video. What is... For credits. I don't know what that. that means to play us out. What does that mean? To end the show? Yeah. Yeah. All right, go, go. In five, four, three. That's tomorrow and that is a... In five, four, three. That's tomorrow, and that is it for us today, and we will leave you with a... I can't do it.

We'll do it live. Okay. We'll do it live. We'll do it live. Do it live. I can, I'll write it and we'll do it live. Thing sucks. In five, four, three. That's tomorrow and that is it for us today. I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thanks again for watching. We'll leave you with Sting and a cut off his new album. Take it away. Oh, incredible. I'll never forget.

And so I walked into a television and inside... You're a little baby. You're 23 years old. Oh, my God. The first floor of the Fox News Building with... those big windows, like up against a sidewalk. Oh, my goodness. And there was literally a panhandler making noise. Oh, my goodness.

And he was, like, yelling for silence as we're counting down, like, in our ear and our -in-be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking, are we about to get another, we'll do it, am I about to be like the- We'll do it live? Yeah. Am I going to, I'm going to be in this viral video?

And however it happens in a way that I presume is also horrifying. The panhandling sound stops, and suddenly I am being told by Bill O'Reilly about Michael Phelps' swimming career through the lens of his experience as a high school swimmer on Long Island. And that's what it was. That's what I was there to do, was just like listen to Bill O'Reilly talk to me about swimming. About himself being a swimmer? Yeah, he had tics as a swimmer. Because Michael Phelps smoked weed? Is that the thing? I wish that there was any more depth to what the conversation could and would have and should have been.

It was entirely just, man, this guy's really good at swimming. Let me tell you about swimming. Oh, that's it. I was just like a representative from Sports Illustrated. It was entirely irrelevant what I said or thought. And by the way, that's fine. That part's totally fine. I just say that to say, when you go to that building, you realize how it's right across the street from MSNBC.

Yeah. It's right across the street from every other. Every fancy restaurant that is, like, lampooned as, like, elitist is where they eat. That's right. And the premise of, like, their black car service taking them through real America is like, nah, Sean Hannity wasn't doing that shit. And also, like, definitely, I imagine Bill O'Reilly grew up swimming and golfing and whatever, like, him describing his, like, illustrious. Oh, his origin story begins in Levittown, you know, the cradle of suburbia. That's right.

So he's a real, he's a real American. God damn. I say all of this to say that when those guys are traversing their version of New York, it's a very both familiar experience to any New Yorker who's also just like been around it, but also for you, your particular version of fame in 2014-15 to go back to that era, that must have been fun? The fame part wasn't fun, but making Broad City was so fun. But the fame part, I think, was overwhelming and I was really young.

And also people were understandably confusing our characters with who we were. You're in New York City living as you do in the show. Yeah, because I am who I am. And, you know, it was funny, we would often get asked if the show was improvised. And it's like, no, we're really good writers and producers and we're directing this. Yeah, Amy Sederis showed up and was just like, you know, we're just going to vibe. Right, right. But people really were confused.

I think it was so good and such a touchable texture that it was hard to parse from reality. And also, I think it was a new way to see women so honestly and so funny. So it was just hard to make sense of for a lot of people. How do you describe the show for people who have never seen it? I don't. Well, you have to see my show brought. It was a millennial, you know, I don't know. Because two women in that way, and like almost like a buddy cop sort of dynamic, was for me something I'd never seen before in that way.

Yeah. By the way, like Amy Poehler had blessed the show was one of your... She was our executive producer when we pitched it with her. And she was also in our web series, our finale. Yes, right, right. And so here was just like this legitimate, this is... Immediately it was like, okay, so what's this going to be? And then it ended up, as I've ranted and raved about, just like this special thing.

And when I try to explain it, I don't know. I'm like, you should watch the scene where Amy Sederis is giving a tour of a quote-unquote railroad apartment to Alon Gleaser and Abby Jacobson. Well, what do you think? It's a hallway. It is a beautiful railroad-style apartment in your budget. Where's the bathroom? Where isn't the bathroom? Geez, wear a catheter.

Go on the corner. You can fit a king-sized bed in here. if you fold it up like a taco. Why am I so turned on right now? Ew. Pam, this place is horrible. Let's just move on. Look, don't bully me, all right? I can't take it.

I was cyber bullied within an inch of my life last night. Two knuckleheads running around New York City in their 20s is how it feels to me. The show was also like part of this robust moment for Comedy Central, which was my go-to channel growing up. Like I would always, it was- That era. Oh, that era. That era of Comedy Central of Amy Polar, Upright Citizens Brigade and The Daily Show when John Stewart took it over, Chappelle Show, Strangers with Candy, Amy Sedaris also. I remember being on Long Island watching Comedy Central and being like, where is this all being made? It was being made in New York City. It was like right there, you know? And then to have to be part of this other sort of rise in Comedy Central's like portfolio. It was like such a family vibe at the time.

And it was, we didn't really realize it would be the last gasp of the channel and also TV in that way. Right, right, right, right. I mean, you guys were clearly like internet fluent, but you were being housed in a way that was linear and analog. Right, right, right. It was, it was traditional television. Yeah.

Straight up. And that lineup just in a sports sense, it's just like an insane lineup. just like, okay, that was all there at the same time. Yeah. And now we can never have that again. Right, right. And. But we will in our own ways.

Will we? We'll find our way back, I think. I don't know. I don't know. I think there's going to be different ways of it that don't seem one to one, like an analogy. But what are we going to do? Disappear? What are we going to do?

Just fall over and die? I mean, like, we're living in this world that we live in. And everybody's got, we're human beings with engines inside of us, spiritual engines, where we, just like Jesse Waters, playing the recorder at morning announcements, when nobody asks. Just like Jesse Waters playing the recorder, it may not be in the same form. And I think the establishment TV and film has, like, stopped bringing in fresh blood and has really clung to its tent poles. and, you know, that's sometimes comforting, sometimes frustrating, but I'm a hopeful person and I'm a faithful person. And I do have faith. I practice the faith that, you know, new voices will keep speaking up and being heard.

I think right now what you're describing, which, again, is seen every day online, is like the open battlefield of content. And we're all elbowing each other. and no one's watching the same thing. And people are, again, blessed by various financial instruments and or tech companies. What I miss about like, oh, wow, a channel is that if you trust the people on any level who used to run it, and of course they were wildly imperfect and made horrible decisions at times and all that, they still had the power to help and enable and platform someone that they thought was good. And in that way, I'm just like, oh, now, but now we're just like all competing in the overall.

open battlefield of content. And that's just a different way. This moment where authoritarianism has like a chokehold on our democracy makes me look back at her history and say, has it always been this way? It's hard to draw the line of when democracy was doing its thing because of the genocidal framework on which this country was built. Yeah, the whole thing of like, when would you like to have gone back to? It's just like, well, tough, tough for lots of people to even pick anything before 1990.

Yeah, if that. If that. And, you know, what has historically happened here against Native Americans and black people and immigrants, it's just like what democracy for whom, you know? So it starts to blur the lines for me. And when you're talking about these institutions and I'm thinking lovingly about TV and turning on a channel and now it's kind of perverse and creepy the way tech companies pretend like they care about humanity and are trying to maximize for humanity. But they're really trying to. maximize for their own profit. And also they're focused on AI and trying to create that as a new species that takes over humanity, not really humanity. So to see like they're sort of soft colors and a soft mauve and Helvetica or whatever, and they put that together and try to act like it's progressive, but it's really just a choice of optics. I should be very clear that like my nostalgia for that time is rooted in a just like despair at the lowest bar. that I wish we could clear, which is that someone who had a ton of money

and a ton of power and authority over what America broadly was consuming could feel anything like shame or accountability, even if it was on a relative basis. Yeah, right. That, I'm like, man, that sounds great relative to the utter, like, state of nature that this is. I'm also not, I mean, I really love disagreeing,

and like getting into it to find the middle space, but I'm not even disagreeing with you. I'm like sort of exemplifying how hard it is for me to parse right now. Where does the line get drawn? Totally. And so this is my extraordinarily long segue to explaining, like, why you were on television at that table with me because you decided to do a thing that seems so hard to me.

And so ancient by comparison to all the things we're talking about, which is you did theater. Broadway. Broadway. You did good night and good luck. Yeah. Which I got to see. And I saw you in the audience.

Was that incredible? That's when I was just like, I hope she understands that like this is, I'm just like blocking eyes with you. No, you're, I appreciate it so much, but you're overcorrecting for a creepy factor that isn't there. Great. But I love it. Great. I did lock eyes with you. And the sort of thing where it was just like, Jesus, I have no idea what you can see in the audience.

At the curtain? Every face. No, and I'm like looking like at every face. Because I also like it was so, so I did Good Night and Good Luck. Yes. Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslaw, starring George Clooney. As Edward R. Murrow. As Edward R. Murrow.

And this is based on a film that he directed. I think it was like too young at the time to play Murrow who like brings this sort of heft in seriousness. And then he was able to play Murrow for the Broadway show. And it was an incredible experience. I was nervous for previews. to like break into from rehearsal to performances, but I wasn't nervous after a certain point. And I attribute that to having gone on the biggest stand-up tour I'd ever done just the year prior. And I was really missing stand-up because you look at people's faces.

And it's almost like a conversation, but it's not. But it's just a different connection. And like on stage, I'm laughing about seeing you because I'm like desperate to look at people's faces and talk to them like at stand-up when I was doing Broadway. It was interesting to have that. Fourth wall, they call it. What? So, again, to make you do the thing of, like, summarizing what this was about, for people who are not familiar, Edward R. Murrow, a true standard bearer of what it meant to represent the public interest as a journalist. Right.

Was a war reporter. Right. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused a lot. alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and give him considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear. He merely exploited it and rather successfully. Cassius was right. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. Good night and good luck.

And your role in this newsroom, which again, I long for despite the fact that we're talking about like the 50s. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. But I'm like, man, look at that. An institution with people who care about this thing. You play the role of. Shirley Worshba. So, yeah, Edward Aramara was a true patriot. You're right. I love the way that you said that, like representing the public interest. It's so true. And it felt so good to embody that. And Shirley Worshba is an unshaping. sung hero of broadcast news. Yeah. She was there the whole time. She was a journalist who worked with Walter Cronkite, too, like an illustrious career. But the whole notion now of like doing this play at this time in which McCarthyism is, that's like the plot.

Yeah. Is that Joseph McCarthy, Senator Joseph McCarthy, he's rooting out communism in America and particularly in the news media in the press. Yeah. In this case. And I don't know. I was watching it. And I was like, this. feels both incredibly important for people to hear and learn about again.

And also in comparison to what's happening now, almost quaint. Yes, that is exactly what my husband said. Quaint is the exact word my husband used. And it was like, shivers me. So another way to summarize this, also this play, is that Edward R. Murrow went to battle for free speech. The group of journalists were building up to fully cover McCarthy and show what an unpatriotic politician he was being by causing terror. And like, who really wins?

We would talk about in rehearsals and shaping this play. Like, who really wins? Because McCarthy was censured, but he's still in the Senate. And Edward Murrow's program was knocked down to a Sunday afternoon like civics lesson. And yet it happened. And that sort of notch in history was carved out. So at least we have it to look back at. But I think the onslaught, the over-stimulation that we are facing right now and all feeling crazed by was such a useful tool to disempower the masses.

Whereas at the time, you weren't constantly taking in signals and stimulation and screens. So I think I really believe that with enough quiet, people really share values and share the value of freedom of speech. When you're saying I'm longing for this like 1950s newsroom, but like at least it was quite enough that people could look at each other and hear each other and hear themselves. And we really do, I think, share values most people around the entire planet. Oh, and this one way specifically, freedom of speech, it is the thing you hear all the time from the MAGA Republicans. It's ostensibly a thing they care deeply about. It is very conveniently the thing they care deeply about when it is their speech.

And so the premise of, like, is this on paper the thing that everybody can unite around abs of and looting. Yeah. We hear it rhetorically all of the time. It's just that when it comes time to actually enforce it and who must feel like, in this case, it's the FCC and the literal president of the United States, in this case, it is them feeling like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't say that about us. Now it's, it's absurdist. It's so painful.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. From a trying to do the play perspective, at what point does it stop feeling surreal that you're looking into the eyes of George Clooney? When do you normalize that? Well, it's like you're talking about me, like, living in the apartment that we both lived in, right?

And like that it's beneath my station, but I'm like, no, it isn't. That was the right place for me to live at the time with my friend and roommate. So with George Clooney when I first met him just at a workshop for this play, he was so down in the soil, in the process of it, that it wasn't like the Casamigos' very own, George Clooney. You know what I mean? It was like he just had thoughts and ideas and we were just talking about the play. He made it easy to just be in it with him in a real way. Yeah.

He's so grounded. It's, you know, there's people I think in this, in my business who are kind of in the business to get to a position where they can perform fame in personal settings. That's so far from who George is, what he really, and as you could see in the play, oh my God, he cares about democracy. He's a true believer. I mean, the whole idea of like, I'm going to make one of my causes journalism. I know he comes from a family of his father was a journalist. That's right. It's just something that, man, like, journalism.

As a concept, I often talk about this on this show. We just need better branding. People don't think it's cool. They don't understand what it is. You sort of need a cosine from someone cool. And I share your sort of like some version of your nerve endings where it's like you meet enough famous people and you're like, okay, I get the general gist.

This is not like perpetual like sticker shock. But with him, I just see this public confidence and confidence and comfort, even how it comes out for like the curtain call, just like the way he walks, as if like he's, and again, I'm going to sound like I have a, I do have a crush on him, but like the way he just is able to be the balancing point between I know I'm fucking famous,

but I'm gonna sort of like arch my spine in a way that suggests that I am also not above all. It's just like, there's that, you know what I'm talking about? Surreal is what's sort of tripping me up about your question where I'm like, surreal. Like he's so grounded. And for me, it was the artist and the leader that it just takes this reality away. It's like he's just such a leader that, again, the shared reality and the common values that we all share if we quiet ourselves enough and turn off our phones.

George is leading with those values. He leads with his heart. He believes in what he does and what he says. And it was just so inspiring. He really, he really is my hero. Part of my concern, I was like, man, is this going to feel over the top? It's giving a portrait of journalism through this man, this iconic figure for whom like awards are named after that we strive to win. How much of that is going to feel like, this is a little on the nose. And then you sort of like zoom out to what's happening in real life and you're like, yeah, this feels like a useful thing for people to be. reminded of. Somebody had asked me in an interview about the show, do you think it's an echo chamber? Do you think it's like you're doing this for the, you know, for New York's elite? First of all,

New York's true elite are so conservative. That's the other part about the New York bubble that people don't realize. I'm like, is the richest people controlling so much of the narrative? The New York elite are conservative. What was so brilliant about this play was the Trojan horse of George Clooney and people coming to see this, the icon, that you ask if it's surreal, but they're meeting the artist and activist and advocate that I so admire. And some people leaving, getting up and leaving. How often do that happen?

Not often, because I think people were like, wait, what happened? Like, we don't know this story well enough that Edward Armoura went to battle against Joseph R. McCarthy and took him down, but was also somewhat taken down on the process. We don't, I mean, it's a fascinating story.

It was told so beautifully. Oh, but his network, yes, under pressure from... That's right. political, obvious political forces decided we need to compromise our principles to support the business and the cooperative relationship we want to have with the most powerful people in our country. That's right. And the thing I also want to say is it was New York's elite, which are deeply, violently conservative, but then also tri-state area people. I grew up on Long Island. These are the conservative people who made Fox News happen. I remember being a caterer waiter at the golf club in the rich part of my town. And like seeing Fox News play, and it was moderate back then.

So it was kind of similar to what was on NBC and ABC. And tri-state area people who live in Jersey, Connecticut, and Long Island, who are coming to Broadway to see what they imagine is Ocean's 11, George Clooney, or whatever, coming in, like, really learning something and seeing him stand up for what he believes in. Seeing people stand up for human rights and what they believe in is rare these days, not because it doesn't happen, but because it isn't distributed by the algorithms. Yes. So I see these people like moved.

And it was important that these people are moved and know where we're at. The other thing about why it's meaningful to me for like a very famous person like George Clooney to stand up for journalism is that I presume as a default at this point that if you're a very famous person who's been reported on, you resent the job. general genre of the profession that is doing that to you. And of course... And do you mean reported on, like, famous stuff? I just mean public scrutiny from people who call themselves reporters that may well be, as well as tabloid people who are not but wear the costume of it. Right, right, right, right. But just like the general thing of like, I can understand if that guy's like, if anyone in that position is like, yeah, this isn't going to be my cause. But the fact that it is for him, I mean, I just presume that very few super wealthy, super famous people are like down to ride for the institution of journalism when it means that they themselves might be investigated at some point for any reason.

Yeah, you're right. And here's this dude who's like, yeah, I'm going to teach people about how this is important. So inspiring. And like the act of George standing up there every night. And can you believe the montage at the end? I know. The montage, that was the only part that I was. I was like, ooh, it's on the nose.

It was like a nail and a hammer hitting that nail. And so that's the thing I was referring to where I'm like, is this necessary? And the more I think about what's happened since, I'm like, it's actually more subtle than it could have been given every, again, given whatever, pick your example from the last several days. For people who didn't see it, the montage was basically a history of television through journalism. Like newscast, it's the post-credit scene of like a comic book movie. It's like, this is what happened after. And George would stand there and the montage would play behind him and it would get worse and worse and worse. And this was something that he like would always like hit him.

There was this Jerry Springer beat. And it's Jerry Springer like having poor people wrestle each other on his show. And George would specifically, and you're asking, could we see out? We could see everybody. And he's looking at the faces of the American people to see how they're responding to the montage behind him. And at the Jerry Springer point, he would look for who was laughing and thinking this was funny. But I think also they were like, people were confused and also shocked and the anxiety building of watching this montage. And it would build to Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute at the presidential inauguration, which happened just this year.

So it meant so much to me as a Jewish person who's stood up for the dignity and safety of Palestinian people in this moment of Israel's war. against Palestine, as a Jew who is afraid for Jewish safety, too, to see that montage end. Highlighting the Nazi salute was so meaningful to me. And I just felt like so, so grateful to him for that. I feel this as I walk through my neighborhood and encounter very old people. I'm like, you guys, you guys were on to something. In what way? the way of life that came before the disruption of the internet it's the noise and it's not even i don't know

like the it just didn't get regulated soon enough can i give you my political platform for how to solve the internet yeah please i hesitate to do this um but i think we should all go back to 56 kbPS modems i think high speed internet so say it again 56 kbps modems like the fastest of the most of the modems that would scream at us. Yeah. That, when like, as I say, like, when a JPEG really meant something, when it unfurled like a tapestry on your computer screen.

Yeah. I just feel like we, you earned it. Yeah. I mean, the slowing. I think everything needs to slow down. Quiet. I loved what you said before about, like, in the quiet of just like fewer distractions, noises,

voices as much as we want, lots of voices, the more that we can just like really like just sit and not be assaulted. Yeah. And when you were making me think like picturing Shirley Wershba in the newsroom and like the the quiet of going out to get a newspaper or whatever or going out to get cigarettes, like on your walk, you're not checking your phone. It's the pace. The pace is part of the assault.

And we have to, unfortunately, you know, like the fossil fuel companies have made us think that we're the problem. So we have to recycle. And then it's like, that's right. And then it's kind of unclear where the recycling's going, right? And we did. I think we all agree that the recycling isn't going anywhere that my daughter was. I know. It's not. Is my sense as well. And then in the same way, I've been, I've been taking it upon myself to slow down my intake of social media and the internet. But I'm making that connection now to, to like recycling where it's like it really isn't our responsibility individually. It needs to be. And parents with children, like we are, we have to shape very carefully how they're going to be taking

in this or that. And screens are everywhere now. We have to talk to our kids constantly because it's genuinely unsafe for our children. The tech billionaires know that. They're not being tracked the way we are. But there needs to be government regulation. And right now we're in such a crisis. I'm laughing at the idea of like regulation. It's like, yeah, it would be nice. It would be nice. It's hard right now. Things are so upside down and so absurd. It's hard to even think about asking for reasonable things or demanding reasonable things or protesting

for reasonable things. But I do think that's going to be part of moving forward to keep naming the baseline, like health care, access to health care for everybody and to keep naming it as what would be normal because we're in such an abnormal time. I think I just generally would like our elected officials. in this administration to just feel the watchful gaze of thousands of eyeballs upon them as if they are sitting on a patio in the East Village in New York City, just like knowing you're being watched. Yeah.

We see what you're doing. Millions. I'm hoping it's millions. There's like 330 million people in this country. You know, at a time like this, as we go around the table and say what it is, we found out today, on a show called Pablo Torre finds out, a show about finding stuff out. I have found out that in the quiet,

it's important to distinguish between voices you want to hear and the sound of a lonely recorder being played by a Fox News host who just wants to make everybody listen to the shit that's coming out of his mouth. I've found out today that you are a Clooneyhead.

You're a full-on Clooney head, dude. I'm... And you have good taste. I'm unrepentant about that. Wait, can I say what I've found out, actually, more personally? Today, what I've found out is that I was getting your mail. And I had the memory, truly the memory, of seeing Pablo Torre on mail and being like, you know, in New York, well, I'll never meet them. And it just hit me in recording this that I, like, have seen your name since.

Yes. 10 years ago. Yes. How cool is that? Like, that is magic, dude. It's one of the reasons, I love New York City. It's also another one of the reasons why I'm missing a lot of Sports Illustrated. So if you want to get those back, this direction.

Yeah. Sports Illustrated. It's just like one sexy issue a year, right? Well, it depends on what you're into. Yeah, that's right. Because other times. Yeah. Those guys.

Yeah, them football costumes. Yeah. So into it. I should watch football. I would watch football more if it weren't so scary. Well, there's that. Everybody's getting so hurt. They are hurt, but.

But their butts? Yeah. I know. Alana Glazer, thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me, Pablo. This closed a loop for me as well. And I'm just so pleased to talk to such a smart man in my generation. Smart feeling thinking men have been so f***ed over through representation.

So it's really nice to talk to you and remember that my husband isn't the only... My husband and George Clooney aren't the only good men. The Holy Trinity, me, your husband, George Clooney. You're not the only good men out there. There are more... I feel like, though, on the metal stand,

that's a pretty good, big three. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.