The Reel Rejects - Marvel, Movies, & LIfe: Coy Jandreau Gets REAL Personal

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Diary Of A Reel Rejects Episode 7...In all the time I've known, I've never seen him get quite so vulnerable on camera before. This episode of Diary of a Reel Reject is one of my favorites. I'll tell you the real deal...while getting some SEO words in here so I stop getting emails from people who can "fix the channel." Sitting down with Coy Jandreau - DC Studios Comic Correspondent - someone I’ve been friends with for so long, and getting him to open up the way he does here was something truly special. Sure, we talk about Marvel, like Robert Downey Jr. playing Dr Doom and how he really doesn't like it, and dive into the state of the industry—stuff that I know you all love to hear about—but this conversation goes so much deeper than that. I don't know if we talk about Superman. Coy really opens up about his upbringing with a big family, being surrounded by movies and comics, and how those stories shaped his sense of morality. He talks about rejecting traditional ideas of right and wrong and instead finding inspiration from the heroes he grew up with—characters who taught him about strength, kindness, and staying true to yourself. We also get really personal, with Coy sharing his biggest fear: losing his identity or sense of self. We talk about movies like Memento and Awakenings that hit him hard because of this fear, and how he processes that through storytelling. He also shares his struggles with emotional vulnerability, like finding it hard to cry as an adult, and the rare moments where movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 break through that wall. Of course, there’s plenty of fun stuff too—talking about his celebrity crush on Shannon Sossamon, his admiration for actors like Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), and even his frustrations with the internet’s negativity toward art. Coy’s honesty and love for movies, comics, and creativity shine through this whole conversation, and I hope you find it as meaningful as I did. #DiaryOfAReelReject #GregAlba #CoyJandreau #MoviePodcast #MovieDiscussion #RobertDowneyJr #DoctorDoom #MarvelRumors #TylerDurden #TomHardy #JakeGyllenhaal #FightClub #Memento #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy3 #SuperheroMovies #DCComics #FilmIndustry #Storytelling #InternetToxicity #EmotionalVulnerability Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/thereelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Follow Coy Jandreau:  Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@coyjandreau?l... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coyjandreau/?hl=en Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CoyJandreau YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwYH2szDTuU9ImFZ9gBRH8w Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm joined by the ultimate interviewer, the koi genre. I love that you have a shirt that I don't have yet. That is of a show where I interview that you're interviewing me in. It's so turduckony. Had a goat growing up. Yeah, yeah, Chubaca. Chubaca. Yeah, it was awesome.

I was born on a mountain that my entire family lived on. We had a goat and like 20-some cats and dogs. Do you feel like movies and comic books perhaps helped shape your point of view? We'd have a VHS tape with three movies that we were reported off HBO and Cinemax and all that stuff that we'd watch every Friday. Comics didn't promise me some great shit after it's all over. They just said like, hey, be good because why the fuck wouldn't you be? And I think movies taught me that. I think comics taught me that.

I think my family taught me that. What's a movie that means so much to you yet when you watch it, you do think of your parents? Oh, that's a question. We say that's a great inquiry on this show. crossing that out just tape well hello there reject nation welcome back to another episode of diary of a real reject the show let me talk to this camera now coy the show where we talk about movies tv shows and possibly celebrities of how they have helped shape our identity turning back to you coy today i am joined can you cue every step i'm just trying to like help you edit out way in advance

This is you editing you in the future in the past. I'm joined by the ultimate interviewer, the coy genre. I love that you have a shirt that I don't have yet that is of a show where I interview that you're interviewing me in. It's so turduckony. I love. What did you just say? It's like an or a boris, but it's also a layer.

Jalen said, what was this word you just said? Turdukany. Do you know what a turduckon is? We're trying to relate to people. Turkey duck and chicken. it's a it's a way to prepare food on Thanksgiving by having a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey it's a turduckin so it's layers on layers and you were talking about interviewing me and you're wearing a shirt that is me interviewing others so it's a turduckin I have never heard this word once in my life turduckony and I use it as a verb which isn't common but they get the idea this is how we relate to people by using words in weird ways that is what I do as an interviewer yeah I spilled some crap on this shirt 10 minutes ago I feel like it's a great way to start off this show Right off the bat, I want to thank John for, of course, helping to set everything up leading the production. And I just shouted out.

We got Ted and Jalen over here. And, of course, we were shooting here at Multi House at the Preserve. Home to 6500 plants and anything else, plant life here, the urban jungle in L.A. I love it here. And Coy, this is your former set. Now it's my set. Oh, former. This is me learning.

This is how I find out. If you're only listening, you guys can't see Coy. This is the Koi's 20th century Fox Studio logo with the background. We're in the void of my past interviews. It will come back. I'll rescue you, my precious. Well,

before we were doing this, you were saying this is kind of strange because you don't really do interviews with friends. Yeah. It's usually people that I know only through their work. And then interviews are usually like, oh, I know you're externally. Like you and I know each other really well,

which I haven't really done an interview since I've been doing interviews with a friend. Well, honestly, I was thinking about what would I want out of this from discussing with you? And I was like, it might be cool for people to see a more emotional side of Koi, perhaps, because you're known to be quite the talker. You're known to be quite heady and very intellectual and turduckony, if you're quite turduckiness if you. The turduckins deductonator. I just love that these are all like compliments and I'm making up words. So I wanted to kind of see a different side of you. So I have some there I have a very few notes. I got exactly seven notes here. Okay. And there haven't seen them. Yeah, he hasn't seen them. I haven't spoiled any of it for you. And I'm a bit nervous myself doing this because I've seen you do such a good job at interviews this whole time. So I'm taking a slightly different approach, which is I'm just going to be exceptionally relaxed today. And then I'm going to let you breathe the coy that you are. Okay. So I'm of course going to want to kick it off with the, The question I love to ask people at the start of these, which is, who was your celebrity crush growing up?

And why was it that person? So when I was super young, I realized I had a crush that I didn't know what it was. But the first person I identify with having her crush on, do you know, like the difference where you're like, I felt like, oh, I have feelings, but I didn't know it was a crush. And then versus like knowing it's a crush. Oh, interesting. So knowing it's a crush, Shannon Sossman. Shannon Sossman was like from a Knight's Tale from. Oh, yes.

God. How old were you? I mean, that came out. I saw a Night's Tale on Theater, so 13. Okay. So, and that was, like, formative. Like, I saw it out every movie she'd ever done. Like, it was one of those things where I was like,

IMDB was new and fresh, and I used it to be like, I have a crush. Like, I was finding movies with her in it as a way to connect. And it was really funny because I found this movie called Rules of Attraction, not long thereafter, which is a hard R sex comedy, like super. It makes American Pie look light. It's a Brad Easton Ellis novel, the writer of American Psycho. So imagine if Patrick Bateman, who's the brother in this is actually supposed to be Patrick Bateman's brother. So James Vanderbeek plays Patrick Bateman's brother, and it's his world in college.

So all the depravity of American cycle, but set to college. And I was way too young to see that movie. And it was very eye-opening as a kid that was just in love with Shannon Sossman going like, I'm learning too much too fast. Well, what is it about her specifically? Yes, she's beautiful. Let's get that out of the way. I mean, physically, she's very attractive. what is it about her personality that you find yourself drawn to she's so captivatingly sure of herself

there's such a confidence that is an arrogance there's such a fluidity to the way she knows that she's got a nest like i i love confidence and i think arrogance is a turnoff and that's such a fine line and i think the fine line is what makes it attractive you can go past confidence so easily into arrogance and i love that there's something that is so attractive until it's not and shannon sauceman is the epitome of that like she's so quietly confident and then when she wants to be loud and wants to be the center of attention she can be she just turns it on and then she turns it back off like she's never requiring the room but when she wants it it's hers and she's also got this style that's so eclectic and so unique and so her like if i see an outfit on

someone today i still think of shannon sawsman today like it's been years and she just has this ability to make me want to be more quietly confident something so loud. It's really interesting that I'm drawn to that kind of energy. And I've just always liked really strong women that know who they are, what they want, and how they present themselves. Because I've always wanted to be more, I always feel like I'm three different people. Like, I'm who I think I am. I'm who this person thinks I am. And then there's the person that I'm presenting to try to find that middle ground. And with all my crushes, the only equalizer is I feel like they know exactly who they are. You're engaged now. Yeah. It reminds me so much.

of her. Yeah. That's where I was going with it. Yeah. Absolutely. As you were describing traits. Yeah.

We're cool to in her name, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any. And I love Anya. I think she's an amazing human being.

But as you were saying these traits about Shannon, I was like, yeah, I would say Anya actually does line up perfectly. Would you say that for the women that you have generally dated that usually they fall into that camp? That's about the only similarity. Okay. And it's kind of the only equalizer is like, I don't really have a physical type. I don't really have a physical type.

I don't really have. a career type. I don't have any of the usual checkboxes. Like online dating is hell because there's no box or swipe or like there's no thing I can be like that. I can't type in like someone who is quietly confident, no so they are, but can also be loud. Like that's not a thing. And I do think that's a through line. And then the other crush, which I was speaking to as like a an abstraction was do you know who the woman who plays star is in Lost Boys? No. So there's a character in Lost Boys and the character's name is star. And it's a very similar energy.

But I didn't know her name. I didn't know. Her name's Jamie Gertz. She's gone on to do tons of other stuff. But when I was a kid, it was just this girl star. And it's really interesting because in that movie, she's very much the same things I like about Shannon Sossman.

But I didn't have, I was like six. I didn't know what crushes were or how to formalize that feeling. But then I remember like now when I watched Lost Boys, I'm like, I had such a crush in her, but I didn't know what it was. Yeah.

So it's funny because I've got like a line in the sand of like first crush that I could identify. and then there's the first person that made me feel like that weird butterfly. And they're both the same energy. They're both very similar. They both have a like, and that is so much like my fiance. And it's so interesting being in a relationship that feels so different to other relationships. Like I've never been engaged and I'm so sure of this in a way that I've never been sure about any relationship or anything in my life. And it's so funny that like young me knew what he wanted to such a level that now that I have someone that feels like that, I'm like, well, that's it.

okay I'm gonna get married like it's just thanks and like nothing else in my life is like that like I the reason I like interviewing is because it is always changing the reason I like the entertainment industry is because it's always evolving I like change when I was an actor it was me not liking repetition it was me not liking things being certain for like a certain amount of time so it's so funny that in a relationship I'm like this is certain that feels good and now it's making me look at everything I've done in my life do I want certainty and it's it's always I mean I live in my head yeah you've talked there's something that you stood out to me

I forget what we were watching together but you were talking about something about like the brain falling apart I think is what you were saying like if you if the brain deteriorates like that is something that you fear the absolute most now I want to obviously talk

mainly about like linking things to movies and shit like that but there's some pieces of information is I got some fragmented pieces about things you fear and parts about your upbringing that I feel like I could tie in. That would be fun to do. So let's start with that.

What is this fear that you have talked about? The idea that we know who we are and we're so sure of it and that one day something could happen and that could be the biggest doubt in our minds. Like the idea that when you see someone who's lost their mind or who's gone through something either like emotional or drug or trauma, like, you know, like, you know, like, war or any number of things that it can change who you are to such a fundamental level. Human beings are so interesting to me because I'm always like, we're fine and we know how to fix ourselves, but then something can like take an arm off.

Like there's something so finite about us, so mortal. And with it physical stuff, like losing an arm, you can see the problem or the lack of or like what's missing. But the mind, it's just terrifying that you could just wake up one day and be different, that you could just be altered. And so the fact that like dementia and Alzheimer's and all these things that that erode away our mind happen as we age, not to everyone, but as you get older, a lot of times and just when I see someone either talking to themselves on the street or if I see like an elderly person that doesn't recognize their grandchild or doesn't recognize their significant other, like there's nothing more terrifying to me than looking at my own hands and not knowing how old I am. There's nothing more terrifying to me than looking at you and not knowing who you are and what our history is and our relationship is. There's nothing worth terrifying to me than looking in a mirror and being like, why do I look older? Just, it is the biggest fear.

I think I'd rather be dead than not know who I am. Is there a movie out there that properly illustrates this fear that you're talking about? I mean, there's a lot of movies that dabble in it. Like, Memento is pretty formative for my young, like, you know, want to be a filmmaker mind. And I, but it didn't give me like fear. It just gave me like, oh, that's an option. Like, you know, like, well, that sounds awful. So I don't think I've seen a movie that's like a horror tale of what I'm describing.

Have you seen Awakenings? No. With Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. No. It's a story about how it's based on a true story about a man who was a vegetable. Is that the proper term? I don't know if this offensive term. When I said lose an arm, it's bad.

I'm like, is someone going to be mad? Yeah, I don't know if that's the proper term or not. But it's based on a true story of this. And then Robin Williams plays this doctor who vent, I haven't seen it in like over a decade, but basically starts to regain his memory back the guy, Robert De Niro. Yeah. And then he starts to lose it again. And it is like a horrifying.

It's a drama. It's a movement of tears every time. But that's like such a, I feel like it's such a common, it's in my head. It seems like such a common fear, or we should fear it. But like whenever I bring it up to people, like, you're afraid of losing your mind. I was like, aren't you? So I guess people don't think about it as much as I do. But I think I think about, you mean, you described me as heady at the top.

Like, I'm in constant awareness of the human condition. That's why I like art. the whole point, I mean, to tie it to movies, which is the whole goal, the whole reason I like movies is because it is a mirror of our human emotion. I think movies are the great storytelling device that we've developed everything leading up to. Like I think, you know, so cave paintings led to books, led to stage play, led to movies. Like I feel like movies to me, it's my favorite medium, but it's a way for thousands of people to input their own experience and have someone steering and someone giving their own take on something as an actor,

someone writing, like there's so many incredible voices that is a culmination of everything that person's existence led to. And then we're gifted that on a screen. And then we are thinking about what that means to us. It is the ultimate and shared experience. And it's all about emotion. And that's something that AI can never fully take. It's going to do copies of it.

That's something that animals don't get to experience. Like there's that test of like an animal looking in the mirror, whether or not it knows. if it's him or not to me that's movies like there's nothing more unique to us and and it's all about the human experience of art and like that's how i think of things you're known to be the comic book guy yep and i'm known to drop waters when filming podcast i've been wondering why you're like trying to get a sponsor from someone or not like said pilgrino didn't pay for this let me hide this ad so you're known to be the comic book guy but i you've talked to me off camera about wanting to show that you're way more than comics sure you know as much as you love the art of it

all one thing that has always stood out to me about your wonderful mother who constantly pops to our live stream stephanie she's the best does she still work at a movie theater yeah and she worked at a movie theater your whole life so when i was like four three she was working in a movie theater in like where i was born and then she worked at a movie theater from when i was like 11 until they moved to Georgia and then now she works at one in Georgia. So she's consistently gone back to it. Uh, so when my, my dad, when the whole family moved to Georgia, she found a job there. Um, yeah. But yeah, they're like she's my first job officially. Like I was a paper boy and I was doing, you know, friends work and like mowing lawns. But my fish, like, you know,

1099 job. My first W2, uh, was the week after my 14th birthday at a movie theater because my mom worked there. Yeah. So I waited until the day I could work and then I applied to the movie theater a week later. I started working. So like from, the jump. She's been there. And then I followed. Okay. This is going to be fun. So there's a lot of disparate parts about your past that I got like weird fragments of. Okay. Okay. Like you once told me that you had a goat growing up. Yeah. Chubbacca. Chebacca. Yeah. He was awesome. So you grew up was, you had a farm life growing up as well. I was born on a mountain that my entire family lived on. So grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, his own uncles. I just imagine like a tribe and there's

a phrase. Yeah. The genre. But this is cool. Yeah. But so I, I'm the oldest grandkid of a giant family. And that's,

that's my mom's side. My mom met my dad in, and when I say dad, it's technically stepped up. He'd raised me. So he's, when I say dad, that's the man who raised me.

That's my dad. Um, he met my mom in art school. And then we all moved as a new family when I was five. So from zero to five, I lived in like deep South Virginia effectively on a farm. Like, it was uh my my grandfather is and everything like carpenter electrician plumber like can build from

scratch like he could be like here's a home and make it himself so that mountain like he did a lot of the homes on it and then other people like my great grandfather was an electric line layer like you know the power lines like he did most of the eastern seaboard like laying crazy power lines up and down so everyone in the mountain was very like hands on and could do stuff yeah and then uh like to this day they're all emts and firefighters that live in that mountain and i'm like talking about heroes and they're real heroes it's crazy like i go back home they're like blisters on their hands and i'm like i got a rough time under the youtube lights um but to this day like that's that family and uh i was like around horses and mule and we had a goat and like 20 some cats and dogs and but yeah it was like

deep south living you see this really fascinates me because of the wide plethora of knowledge that you have about cultures and such before we were filming you were talking with jalen here and you were you were talking about the subject of racism in the past, like when you were growing up. So did movies help expand that exposure to parts out? Because I feel like growing up where you grew up, where exactly did you grow up again? Danville, which is the, I grew up in the last Confederate capital of America. I was born in a hospital that overlooks the last Confederacy where like the war ended. Like the Confederate flag, like the Confederacy, like that was literally like hospital.

my window and then like so I like was born in racism yeah so when you're around that culture but you're the furthest thing from that kind of individual yeah do you feel like movies and comic books perhaps helped shape your point of view on society 100% yeah because I think my family is all not racist and all aware of the greater world but I think that's largely informed by the fact that we've had movie nights that we like literally they they would eat either rent a movie or we'd have a VHS tape with three movies that we recorded off HBO and Cinemax and all that stuff that we'd watch every Friday fun so we'd like family tradition was get everyone together and sometimes that's 30 people and we sit and watch movies together and

I like to this day I remember even with extended family everybody we all come over it's like a big gathering and and to this day I remember like one of my favorites was it was um the mummy the matrix and my favorite Martian we're on one VHS yeah well because that's how you record it so like we'd wait and see what was on the schedule and we'd record all the movies that we wanted so That's the M cassette. So, like, the VHS was memory X was six hours, and that's six hours for the tape. But we'd, like, pick what movie we wanted to watch. And my grandma to this day still has a spreadsheet of, like, 900 VHSs with three movies

on them each that sits in a closet that we can pop in the VCR. Now we have DVD and Blu-ray as well, but we still have all those old VCR VHS tapes. But every Friday, we'd watch a movie together. And I remember, like, when Twister came out, we upgraded and got a surround sound, and we tested the surround sound with Twister. And I remember those, those key memories. But growing up, we'd watch, like, a time to kill. and we'd watch movies like do the right thing

and we'd watch the movies that like showed how messy the world can be and I think that's why I wasn't exposed personally to a lot of racism in the South because I didn't see it. I saw the world not the niche and then when we moved to the north like we went to New England

it's different. It's a totally different world and it's still different to this day and then California is another kind of problem of you know different issues so I think that comics are a Trojan horse to morality it's a way for people to learn learn right and wrong, good and evil without any of the hullabaloo of cults and religions.

And I think that's why I have some aversions to religion because I didn't need to believe that I had to be good in order to win a prize when I die. I believe you need to be good because you should be good. So like comics didn't promise me some great shit after it's all over. They just said like, hey, be good because why the fuck wouldn't you be? So I struggle with people expecting a lollipop. Like you should just be good. And I think movies taught me that.

and I think comics taught me that. I think my family taught me that. Like there was never a reward or a prize for just not being a piece of shit. It was like the default. It sounds to me that movies and comics perhaps validated belief systems that you had in your family versus watching a movie or a comic and then you adopt a certain type of belief. Is that correct? I was so young when they were already such a movie family.

I would know the chicken and the egg of their experience. Right. But my experience was certainly like, well, that's good guy, that's bad guy. And then, like, I never had any sort of the gray area was interesting because when you're a kid, you want to root for the bad guy. Like, it's very like, oh, man, he's cool. But my family was always really good about being like, why? Why is he cool? And, like, explaining stuff without pandering to me.

Like, my family was never patronizing. I learned, like, my first words were literally mom, dad, tractor dinosaur. Turdacto. Turducan. But, like, they taught me words that would be useful. Like, I learned tractor as opposed to, like, dog. Like, I learned everything in the order of, like, they spoke to me like an adult. And that continued with media literacy.

They always let me learn, like, why is that character good or bad? Explain, talk to me about why you feel about this character. Explain why he's cool. Like, why is Darth Vader cool? And, like, all that stuff, we'd actually have real conversations. And I think my literacy is largely informed by the community I grew up in. And my community happened to be my family. Fascinating.

So you were already part of a tribe of a rejectionation of a group that was already sort of maybe not reviewing but reflecting on the experience of what you guys watched. So if you guys had a movie night, even if it was 30 people, you wouldn't just be like, that was fun. You would actually discuss it with them. So the 30 person thing would probably be like, you know, we'd be eating in one room like the classic, you know, three liter soda pizza like the 80s, 90s style. And then we'd all watch something. And when I say 30, I want to be fair to the situation, that was special-ish occasions. But I'm talking like 10 or 15 normally. Okay.

So like 30 might be, you know, a big deal. And then like 10 or 15 is more common. And then at minimum, like 10 of us. And so the conversation would then be my immediate family. So after the movie, if the next day I mentioned something was cool, my mom or dad or my mom and dad, maybe my mom, poppy would be like, let's talk about it. So it would be an immediate, like if I brought up something they were worried about, I think. now you know retroactively they would bring up like let's let's have a conversation what's a movie that means so much to you yet when you watch it you you do think of your

parents who that's a great question um that's a great question uh we say that's a great inquiry on this show oh excuse me that is a positive inquiry uh crossing that out just tape i'm gonna put you word inquiry on a scotch tape like uh what's it called tracing paper but it's your title um let's see a movie i think of my parents uh Jurassic Park was really Jurassic Park was pretty formative because you have their memory of watching it with them yeah because i i remember we watched Jurassic Park together as a family and i was fine because we watched it as a family but i would sneak and watch the lost world at vHS without them and it would scare the shit at me so like the comfort of family made Jurassic Park not scary because i could ask them what was going on it was

where i first learned about like you know science and like the scientific method and why it's dangerous like we had real talks like I learned dinosaur wicked young because I was obsessed to Jurassic Park but then it was funny because the lost world like I think my uncle had like my mom's brother on VHS and it was the one with the hologram cover with the like the and like I didn't watch it with them so I remember specifically putting it in the VCR because it was a VHS tape and building a fort to watch it because I thought it would keep the raptors out and being terrified whatever my parents would come up so I think a Jurassic Park because it meant from a young age I trusted my family enough to not be scared with them and now I think

think of being scared without them. So just the difference, like, one movie's not scarier than the other. I built a fort without my family. And with my family, I didn't need the fort. So I think about that a lot. Like, they were such a safe place for me, whether it was having a conversation about, you know, dinosaurs or why, you know, this was a bad guy. We watched lethal weapon every year at Christmas, and that movie's not for kids.

But I love that they didn't try to hide things for me. And it's also, because they're so young, they wanted to watch that shit. So, like, but they didn't ever make it like a faux pot to ask. and so guns were censored no and guns were always bad it was always like very clear like good guys might have guns but not a good thing to like you know be around um those conversations i think are why the difference in Jurassic Park and lost world is the exposure and those two movies mean a lot to me that's awesome yeah it's really interesting looking back like the fact that my mom worked in movie theater and then i worked there after meant we we continued that tradition because we'd always go to the movies together because we had free passes because we worked there so like i've always my whole life had movie access with family and every year at christmas i can't keep a list of all the movies I've loved this year that I want to share with them. Like, whenever I go home, I bring back Blu-Rays or watch whatever we've both, like, wanted to share. And there's movies I save re-watching for watching with my dad. Because my mom's going to have seen it already at the theater.

But, like, I will, like, have a list every year that's, like, dad movies. And then we all watch it as a family to this day. What movie character would you say is most similar to your mom? She is just good. Like, she's so wholesomely, like, childy. Played by Ben King. But like that childlike wonder, like she's where I get my wonder from. She's where I get that sense of like awe where I just love stuff because it exists.

I get my order from my dad and my persistence and my work ethic and my like drive. And my dad has fun because he sees the fruits of the work. Whereas my mom, I think, has fun because that's her default setting. Like she can get upset and like she can get mad. But like at the end of the day, she just loves stuff. So I'm trying to think of a character that like, Love stuff. You've ever seen a character before that's like,

that reminds me of my mom. I would say like the fun of Reese Witherspoon in the 2000s with the comedy of like Julia Roberts in her rom-com stuff where she's like kind of pithy, sassy, but like it's coming from a place of benevolence with a bit of the innocence of the baddiness of certain characters in the early 2000s that weren't written well. Like my mom's smart.

but she doesn't like need to care about everything. And that when written poorly comes across is like, you know, distant. But yeah, some, some amalgamation of that. Like, she's just like happy and free spirited most of the time when I think of my mom. I think your mom's the best. She's the best. I like whenever I've talked with her. Yeah.

She's just so present. Yeah. Yeah. She's so sweet, first of all. That's what I'm trying to quantify, but sweet characters usually written as dumb. You see why I'm trying to like, usually when someone's like, oh, they're sweet. it's like okay but like she's not well when did your step i mean we call him your dad yeah when did james come into how old were you in james too man you were too okay so he is just

my dad and and not only was i too but i was sick i i was preemie um so i was in the hospital all the time like all the time like i i was born five pounds 15 ounces and i was like five weeks early like i shouldn't be here and like it's crazy and um my biodad like was in and out of my life in the very early days. I don't know much details there, but my mom was 16, she had me. So at the end of the day, like, that dude was like 19 and I can't, I'm not going to be like, oh, this child abandoned me. He was a kid. But what's crazier to me is that my dad was a kid that stepped in. So I was two. My dad's only 17 years older than me. That means my 19 year old dad was like, I love this woman. I'm going to take on this child that is sick in the hospital all the time. Like, one of my earliest memories from

from being told, like, I don't remember this because I was two. But, um, my dad would, like, come to the hospital and read to me in one of those tents that was like for, um, like I had croup and colic a lot. So I was in like those, those like E.S tense. And he'd crawl in and read me stories and help me learn to read. He's the one that got me in the comics. Oh, what a sweetheart. Like, he was 19. Like I know, like 19 year olds now. What? That's, that's, I can't fathom it. So my dad came to my life then and then they read you comics. Yeah, books and comics. So like he was a huge, Claremont Byrne fan of X-Men. He got me into Spider-Man. He got me, and he was a big Marvel guy.

They met in art school because he was, he was illustrating. And now we prints, like, he works for printing presses. So, like, he's still in art, but on the, on the business set. Um, but he, uh, married my mom when I was five and asked me and gave me a ring at the ceremony, too. Like, he's that kind of guy where it's like, he made sure that I felt like I was involved in the family and that, like, he wanted me to be okay with it. And then gave me a ring. Like, that's, there are, like, good people. And then there's my dad. Like it's just when I think about like and when I was five he'd be like 21 or 22 and like to be that aware of the world to be like I want to make sure this kid feels like I'm part of this and then raised me ever since. And like again my workout that comes from him. He was working like six or seven jobs and going to college like he was working all the time and still made time for my mom still made time for me. Put himself through school and like just the greatest dude. Yeah. You know what I love about your family. And I think John kind of has it a little bit. I'll say John actually has it a lot with his family. There's so many people I meet who are passionate about these arts, but a lot of the time it's it became like a safe haven for them. It became an escape for them. It's not really a thing that becomes a communal bonding experience with your family growing up. Like you talk so much about, you talk about comics and movies. That's what you mainly talk about on the internet. It's what you mainly do for a living. And the fact of how it's so ingrained with the DNA of your family. Yeah. And you have such a tight bond with them at the same time.

I feel like that level of passion and enthusiasm often is misinterpreted in a world that is rather cynical about the state of the industry. 100%. And it's exhausting for me because I genuinely love this shit. It was like, oh, you love everything. And I'm like, I just don't hate everything with a side of I can be critical while still pointing out the positives. Right. Your lack of media literacy doesn't mean I love everything. It means you weren't listening. Like that's what drives me insane is like at the end of the day, it's impossible that a movie script got finished. It's even more impossible that someone said, here's a bunch of money. more insane that the casting actually worked. And then an astronomical thing on top of that is that a studio is like, let's put all this together, we're going to finish it. Then it somehow wraps, and then you get a distributor, and then I got to see it. Like, that's fucking crazy.

So, like, every single time credits roll, opening and close, I am thankful as fuck for whatever I just got to experience. And that's because my family made me realize, like, even now it's funny because, like, 10 minutes ago when I said 30, I'm replaying times it was 30 and thinking, like, wasn't always 30. I was being hyperbolic. People are going to undermine that. They're going to think I wasn't being serious.

And even now, I'm already worried about the importance of it to me being undermined by hyperbole when there were times it was 30. And those are my strongest memories because that was a family reunion or a holiday. And that was as important as when it was five. But people are always seeking to poke the holes and shit. So even now I'm thinking like, well, I need to find a photo where there's 30. It was the internet won't believe it. And that sucks that I have to validate my joy. And that's what the internet is.

It's, if you don't like something, I agree with you. you. If you like something, prove it. And like, fuck that. Like, I'm, I just, I hate that we have to validate the experience that's positive. And the experience that's negative is so much easier because there's no vulnerability in it. Hating something is the easiest thing in the world to do. It's just, it's, it's a default setting that's going to get you more likes. It's going to get you more engagement. You can put your little tear faces on whatever woman you're mad at on the thumbnail. And there you go. That's easy and it's profitable. But loving something is exposing that you share in a communal experience with the filmmakers that you're being vulnerable by blah, blah, blah. I'm not saying

to love everything, but I think you should be able to find merit in anything. And I think I got that from being raised in a world that loved shit. Like my family loved stuff. My, my grandpa, who's just as hardworking as my dad, who's just as altruistic. Like, I come from a long line of really good men. He literally lost his family at a young age and took care of his brothers and sisters and helped raise them when he was a teenager, then met my grandma and was able to raise a whole family. Like, they were in their 20s, 30s when I was born, because my mom, was 16 so they would have been sorry 30s 40s but like the idea of of someone like that then raising grandkids and like taking on a 16 year old mom with a a baby when you've just finally

gotten everything in order yeah and we never came from money but what we did to escape was movies like so so when you spoke to with john like it wasn't about escaping it was about that was something that could bring us together that didn't cost us 300 yes so it was it was on TV and it was a VHS we'd already watched. It was $3 at Hollywood video down the street. It was whatever that was, but we could all bond over it and we'd watch it four times in a weekend if we rented it

because that's crazy to rent something. Like we just, we didn't have a lot, but what we had was each other and what we have was movies. We've talked about I like to talk to the guys about this subject. And we've talked about this off camera quite a bit when it comes to crying.

You say you don't really cry that much when it comes to movies and stuff. What about when you were with your family growing up? If you felt like crying, were you comfortable to do it? It's not that I'm not comfortable now that I think. I mean, back then. No, no, it could be a blockage forever. I just don't think of myself as someone who cries and I'm jealous.

It's coming from a place of absolute envy. When I see someone crying, I'm like, you can just feel outwardly because it's such a, when I do cry, whether it's losing someone or, you know, Spitey's in the hospital and then I find out he's Okay, like when I think of Spider-Man, the character. Yes, when Spider-Man in the hospital, some issues fuck me up. Spidey cat, like the times I think of crying are like either loss or sickness or like, you know, breakups, like big, big traumas. It's always so nice.

It's always such a relief. It's always like, oh my God, this is like, I've been holding this in for years. It's always such a positive. If I could cry with movies, I would love that because I feel like I'd be happier. I'd be more, like my shoulders are always in my ears. man like just as a person like I am a tense angry frustrated fella it's all those shoulder lifts yeah I got to show you I'm teaching Greg traps the barbell behind you got to contract the certain spot yeah it's contraction support it's work yeah

that's why he doesn't cry so I don't cry I'm all tense in the shoulders from the lifts um that's like a bill burr came out of me when it comes to movies that did make you cry can you recall the first one that really got you there's got to be something land before time Fucked me up. Um, Land Before Time. Someone else brought up Land Before Time.

That movie's so good. Fival goes west. Uh, Land Before Time. Um, like those early animated ones, like I think when I was a kid, I could cry easier.

Uh, I don't know what changed. But like, my, my movie-based tears are all like pretty pubescent. Like, I don't think of myself

as crying after middle school in movies. And I, and again, I wish I could. Like, if I could add a thing to my repertoire,

it'd be that. Because I feel like, I would just put on a movie like when I when I go through a breakup I watch like crazy and um oh shoot blue valentine back to back because they both wreck me and I can cry but it literally takes the breakup and two of the most emotionally violent movies I know to like uncork and I always feel so much better but luckily I've been in a happy relationship for long enough I haven't popped those two in but like it's uh it just it's such a bandwidth thing I want it what was the last movie that made you cry.

You didn't cry at Wild Robot? I got close. I had the one tier, like the Native American 90s ad, but like I didn't have the like, I didn't feel that release. You know what I mean? Like my brain leaked,

but I didn't like, you know, I wanted to sob. You say so much weird shit that I hear people laugh and I'm just so used to you. It's like, uh-huh. What did I say?

I don't even know. Native Americans. You remember that shit? They were born in like 2002. He's like, shit. Those poor editors are going to be like, I'll leave it out of fun. I don't know what's he talking about. It was a big ad in the 90s.

It's so funny. Okay, that's so interesting to me. So, like, can you recall what the last one was, though? That really got you. I remember one time I saw you tear up and we weren't reacting to something. Okay. You were doing a giant Marvel movie ranking and you put Spider-Man No Way home at the top. Oh, yeah.

And it's the one time I saw you tear up. You hear me off camera go, are you crying? This Mr. Sensitive Empathic guy. He was like, this is what's getting you. You stop crying. You're reviewing. Like 50 movies. I'm so passionate to know my 50, bro.

You're just like, Spider-Rid and I'm like, this is what's doing it for him. Do you, have you cried ever reading a comic? Um, I must have. A comics really affect me because I feel like I'm, I'm steering them. Like, I feel like comics I connect to pretty uniquely because it's, it's almost hallucinatory for me. Like, I always talk about the space between the panels, right? Like, the moment between a frame and a frame, you're the actor, you're the writer, you're the director. The story is yours between that frame.

Yeah. And I love that it's such a lean art that you mainly have a writer and an artist. And, you know, the inkering the color, I don't want to discredit them. But, like, when you've got a comic, you've mainly got the writer. and the artist. And I love that it's two souls of experience telling one story that is so sometimes emotionally driven that you're one recipient. So it's like three people tripping balls together because you're just having this moment. And the space between the panels is when the character's alive and you, which sounds so cheesy. But like that's when the character

is like your experience between like what happened in A and B. So like there are times when if I relate really strongly to that beat, it might affect me. But I really try. try to live in the books when I read them, whether it's a narrative, whether it's a comic, whether it's nonfiction, fiction, whether it's a book with words or photos. I always want to be in every space between every letter because like that's how I want to experience it. And I tried to do the same with movies. Like I didn't like acting as much as I wanted to by the time I was doing decently in it because I didn't feel like I was as good as other people could be in the role. Like I would actively be like, I took someone's job. Like someone else would

be having the best time ever and they would probably make this movie a better experience. I'm costing the audience. I'm costing, because I love movies so much, I would feel guilty that I wasn't giving enough that it was worth the people that are in the future sitting there watching it. So I'm always living through the actor's history. Like when I think that's why I like interviews because like Jake Gyllenhaal, he builds his role so cumulatively. Like he'll talk about the socks that he wore in Southpaw changing him as a person. He'll talk about like the impact of learning this phrase. He'll talk about everything changes Jake forever and that's what I think life is so I want to leave a movie different because that two hours I'll never get back I might as well get the most out of it

I want to I want to finish a comic different I want to finish a book different but maybe because I'm so in it I can't cry because I'm because I wouldn't get through like you know what I mean like I'm such an exposed nerve I'm trying to be an exposed nerve maybe it's a a safety protocol that my brain's like bro you can't just be crying 20 hours a day but I want to be so emotionally invested in these stories. And that's also why I think I love them so much. Because I'm getting to witness someone's soul, souls, plural. And what a time.

So like, maybe it's a defense mechanism. My brain is, is, it knows how close it is to the wire, like the third rail, that it's like, maybe not. So I don't think of myself as being able to cry. I did cry at Guardians 3. I hate that everybody thinks I just do comic, but like

Guardians 3 made me cry. What part? The animals, man, Rocket, I felt like that 10-year connection to because I remember, I remember that one specifically because it's like the only time I've been embarrassed at a premiere because I didn't realize how bad I was crying and then I went to the after party and I was talking to people

and then I went in the bathroom like 20 minutes into the after party and I was like, oh, fuck, like raccoon eyes. Like I looked like I'd been weeping and I didn't realize it got me that bad. And then I was like, I just met a bunch of people and I look like this. So I remember that emotional like, because of that.

But why though? Why? Why did that get you? Civil War made me cry. That's the most recent. Civil War fucked me up. Civil War is not Captain America. No, yeah. Everything's accounting. No, 2024's. Oh, did it? Yeah. I was like, no way, he's talking about the Alex Carlin movie. Yeah. The two, 2224's Civil War, uh, it, I mean, politics are such an exhausting subject, but the movie is brilliantly apolitical. And what I found in it that scared me was that it felt like a history, book of the present. Like, when you read a history book, they're very smart to make photos of Martin Luther King in black and white, so we pretend it's not as recent as it was. They're very smart to retroactively make history written by the winners, even in photos.

Like Martin Luther King would be alive, most likely. Yeah. And like, those photos in black and white make you go, ah, crazy long time ago, and we were pieces of shit. It wasn't. We are. So the movie really affected my, experience of and again not to get political but we're living through and we always are living

through historic times it's funny in memes like I'm so sick of historic times historic we live and then it's history like everything's always a lot but it was an example of a dystopian future that wasn't the future it was the present and those images of like instead of a a vessel like a ship like in the in the 1800s it was a helicopter and it was the same frame they'd frame it like a history book and they'd make you feel like when you're a kid judging the past, oh, we're so much better than that now, but no, we're not. And the movie gave you the scope of how we will look back on this time with fucking disgust and how our grandkids will go, what were they thinking?

And again, I'm not talking about the present. I'm talking about the constant. We as humanity, not 2024 us, us throughout time, we don't know how to treat each other. And that movie really hit me in that no matter when I live, it will always be historic times. No matter what I do, I will always disagree with some people because of their decisions. And I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but they certainly think I'm not. And I have to deal with the fact that there will always be people that don't have my best interest at heart. And there will always be people that have others' interest at the cost for their wealth and their goals and their shit.

And that movie just signed a big fucking light on like humanity's pitfalls and our lack of empathy. And it made it a history book come to life for the president. It scared the fuck out of me and I cried. it's interesting that you would first sight rocket and you say the animals now you're talking about civil war it sounds like it could be off here it sounds like when it's actually reflecting a real world problem yeah that for some reason is the thing that gets to you the most some people have it where it's like their parents sure but it doesn't seem like it gets you but it seems like when there's an actual real world problem that you really do find you do you do take issue with that is reflected i'm also realizing in real time like like literally in real time that i've probably cried a lot of times that i don't remember and i'm wondering if it's a mental block because the the civil war epiphany was only because i was like scouring my mind and since i opened that door i cried during oppenheimer there was um i got to see oppenheimer with

lill borgensen scoring it with the opera i mean with the orchestra that that actually scored the movie yeah i remember what an insane experience but it opened up emotion in me that i didn't think i could feel just like the music got in my soul and it made me cry with beauty and sadness. But if you'd asked me not on camera, not racking my brain, I'd be like, I haven't cried in 10 years, like in a movie. But now I'm remembering there have been occasions, but I'm wondering if there's something in my brain. And maybe it's like, you know, I love being raised in 80s and 90s, McKeysmo. But maybe there's a part of me that's like, men don't cry. The movies taught me that. Like, since we're talking about what movies taught me, maybe I think I'm not supposed to cry. I love crying. But I don't have

the tool set to access it a lot but I'm also finding it interesting right now that I hide it from myself like I keep it like in a box even to me so like I got some shit to work out therapy what up I'll see you soon that's the funny thing about masculinity portrayed in films yeah because a lot of the time these masculine characters it's at the end of the day they're actors they're playing this masculinity and a lot of times you see these masculine characters get emotional and cry yeah I've seen Sylvester Stallone breakdown. You've mentioned Lethal We've seen Martin Riggs breakdown. Yeah.

Like you see these very masculine people break down. And yet they'll still be the embodiment, the representation of the masculinity. And most of my favorite actors are hyper masculine men with so much access to their emotion. So it's another thing where I'm seeking, just like we open this conversation about what I seek in a partner. And it's a quiet confidence that I don't have because I'm loud as fuck. what I seek in aspiring to be masculine is being a hyper masculine man that has emotional bandwidth.

Like Tom Hardy is a fascinating creature to me. Like Tom Hardy is the epitome of and Jake Johnel, two hypermasculine dudes, they are so tapped into their emotion. They are so ready to be whatever they need to be without shame. So I clearly subconsciously seek the answers to these exact questions.

This is fun to hear. I, one thing that we bond about is we both, kind of love celebrities yeah you know who we do we should talk about why yeah this is this is why that's why I want to bring it up that's a good back just going to that's why I'm bringing it up I feel like I'm already on the defense like I have like my weird reasons I would love to hear I mean like I want to dialogue about it I don't know this is a Q&A oh excuse me the I mean a big the short version for me is my dad was not really the most masculine secure individual I kind of tiptoe around when

comes to talking around my dad because there's people who probably wouldn't want me speaking about certain things, right? And I did notice he would really have a strong adoration like he wanted to be a celebrity to be a celebrity. And like he would he often, he looked, he didn't have the greatest relationship with his dad and his dad was a messed up guy. So I feel like whatever that image thing that people place or project on what we idol, when we put celebrities on a pedestal, like he had that really unhealthy yeah association with them i used to have that and like i've done i've tried things out in my life just because i've heard hey tom hardy said this in an interview ryan gosling did this you know i've i've done things just because of

celebrities saying stuff so when sometimes people talk about like celebrities being influential i'm like that's ridiculous and i go wait no i've done stuff because of celebrities like i have actually done that and and sometimes yeah it's like an easy thing to look at and and see they are successful and they say to be successful study success and not kind of got like a different version of it you know like i was watching who was that podcaster uh the british guy he he did the interview with the the olympic athlete that you show me the weightlifting guy the british dude with the shaped head josh williams i think i think so chris christ christ willis christian yeah he interviewed matthews great it's and i was like so good it's matthew connor i want to listen

to this right and and but i only know him from movies and stuff but i'm going to listen to him because I love Matthew McConaughey, the actor. Yeah. So, yeah, I can be very much influenced by that. And it's an easy access to be like, they're successful. Let me study what they got us do and say. And sometimes you find out they're not, maybe not the greatest people,

but sometimes you take a chance. That's a huge part of it for me. Also, Josh Williamson is a writer that GIGO comic that we went to the book. So it's my brain was putting them two together. And I was like, why Josh? Josh Williamson, GIGO writer. A huge part of it's for me is following people that inspire you. And I think that's what you're saying, in short,

is just follow those that you. you see succeeding in the ways you want to be. Mine, I think, is, that's like 20%. Another part of it is like acceptance. Like, a lot of people... Acceptance. I've always felt crazy, Greg. Like, I've always felt not normal.

So, like, I think if I see someone that is celebrated for their not normalness, that's an accepted version of me. So, like... Oh, weird. Look at that... Cool. Right? Like, look at that version of, like, how I feel like I don't belong.

but it's celebrated instead of kicked you know so like i it's so loud in my head and it's so like i always want more and i always have like i have to shorten my sentences and thoughts and words in every sentence because i already get you know that i'm heady and i over intellectualized and i always have this shit like i've had that my whole life so when people are playing characters like that and they're celebrated for it or people that talk fast or they're a little manic or they're great like i grew up in martin rigs seeing characters like Martin Riggs or seeing characters that are changing their stars like William Thatcher or seeing characters that are, you know, getting by by being cheeky and snarky like

Robert Downey Jr. and kiss kiss bang bang or people that did something really fucked up and they're trying to navigate it like Colin Farrell and Bruges. All of that just feels like a big puzzle that makes me feel like it's okay to be me. Like all of it's just adding up to like the tapestry that is the weird shit that I'm trying to both put out and put in. Like I don't think... So it's a dual association

with celebrity and character. Yeah. It's inward and outward. And I don't think I can separate. I think that like when I meet someone, they become that person, like who they really are. But when I've only seen their work,

I see them in interviews, which is similar to seeing them in performances. Like I don't see my friends that are actors as their roles because now we know each other. But I think leading up to that point, it's a coping mechanism. Like I don't,

I've met Tom Hardy a number of times. I don't know Tom Hardy. So I don't think of Tom Hardy as like what the guys really like. I've had experiences, but I wouldn't know like, that's a Tom Hardy thing to do. But if there's a role that I identify with that he's played, I'm going to connect to that and it's going to make me feel more sane because he's made it cool to be whatever blend of crazy that is. It's like I was talking about equalizers. Like when you're playing a role and you're doing it, you know, this way in this medium or in this movie or like you're turning down the comedy up the drama and scene to scene, I feel like that's all of us in every situation. It's

When you go from one lunch table to another, you're changing a little bit of who you are. If you're playing one role to another, you're changing a little bit of who you are. Actors made it okay to do that as opposed to being like a piece of shit. Like when people do it in life, it's being duplicitous. When actors do it, it feels like it's normalizing, trying to find a way to fit in. So I think it's following in successful people, but it's also finding acceptance and feeling insane. I think a lot of us have that because as you were saying, I'm like, oh yeah, no, I definitely have that too. Like, I just, I've never actually examined the question that I asked you, but I only plan on asking you, but no one ever asked me your question.

So I didn't actually, that is very true. And it got me thinking about a couple things, which is you're so right about, especially your weirdness. My cheesy quote, I came up with when I was like a teenager, was unique starts with the letter you for a reason. And I think it's, I still live by that, though. That's so heartwarming, dude. It's such a, I can picture a little bit like saying it. No, it's so good, dude. It's corny as hell, but I really believe that.

But what a good security blanket. It is, it's very true. And normally when you're trying to climb the ladder, I would say it definitely as an actor, but in almost any industry, they're always like you got to be this way, you got to be this way, you got to be this way. But whenever someone becomes super freaking successful, they're not like anybody else. No. They're just themselves. They are, they're very unique. And that's why they're successful.

And that's what feels good. That's not because they were trying to be someone else. Right. That's because they were themselves. And a lot of actors don't get to that point because you realize their normalness. Yeah. How many actors have they tried to make the next big thing? And you're like, that's just a guy.

Like, that's the opposite. Like, the uniqueness is to start with you. Like, I love that the people that make it to the point of world recognition or even success are weird. Yes. And that's why I love this job. And that's why I love Hunter S. Thompson. That's why I love, like, all of my heroes are weird people.

Yeah, they're not average. Right. Yeah. So it makes me feel normaler. And it's really. it also ties into my fears when I live like losing my mind and stuff like it's all based on perception

like if I lost my mind and I didn't know it would I care as much as if I lost my mind and other people judged me I don't know it might just be like I'd get to eat the same meal every day and I wouldn't care like I don't know what it'd be like but I'm so afraid of that perception yeah what is the what's the character

of masculinity that you really feel like you learned a lot from that would it be fight club oh yeah fight club is is kind of it's so funny how much that's my Bible but it's the Bible of the worst people like it's it's they say you can learn what to do and what not to do from things and yeah is that the movie like I learned what not to do or is there things that you learn what to do both uh Chuck Pollanick means a lot to me uh Chuck Pollanick is a man I I have read most of his works of and it's like he's the author

the author sorry of the book um and I found it fascinating that like certain people appropriated the term Snowflake and Snowflake was written by a gay man that was trying to figure out his way out of the closet at the time of writing and was out by the time like the movie and everything. But like it was a man navigating his masculinity by writing these masculine tropes and like the word Snowflake is literally a trigger word for the people that don't know what it is. And I love that. So that irony has just gotten better with every year. But the movie itself, like the protagonist is the guy that isn't cool and the cool things the bad guy does are the masculine tropes that I still think are cool.

And I love that. I love that there's an arrogance, not a confidence. There is confidence, certainly also in Tyler Durd. But there are certain attributes of him that are not acceptable. But there's this bravado that I think is so inspiring. And I love that the character is a cautionary line in the sand. Like, I see Tyler Durdon as the already on fire pier to walk up to and be warmed by, but not to walk down. Like, it's great because it can illuminate.

it can give you warmth, it can give you things, but don't get on the pier. Like, I love that Tyler Durdon is so influential to what I even think is cool. If I had unlimited money, I would dress like Tyler Durdon, I would act, I would walk. Like, it's just the epitome of thing. And that's all while I know it's not healthy. And I love that. And I love that it's a movie that is so masculine in every bit of its nature. But Marla is one of the only consistently positive things in Jack's life.

And I love that, like, this group of men get together. and beat the crap out of each other and they become a support group much like AA and men need that and we don't do that in society to this day that movie was made in 99 the book was written in 97 we are more repressed now than we were then

we like the middle children of history speech is not accurate for us because we've only had these crazy events but it's made us more withdrawn not less it didn't bring us together every dystopian movie from the 80s and 90s that was like well the way we get everybody to come together is this horrific war

has been proven wrong and like we all we've done is separate. So Fight Club to me is a time capsule of when we believed in the future and it's a nihilistic, bleak piece of comedy. And I love that. It's pitch black comedy about hope and we didn't succeed. Like it, we failed Fight Club. And I love that. And like there's, I mean, I could, it's a, it's a Hobbs, uh, Calvin and Hobbs metaphor in so many ways. It is a love story between two men in so many ways. It's, it's, it's, you can read that movie like a book. And every time you revisit it, it's a different book. And that's, so special. So yeah, that's like my masculinity

line, like my path, but I like that it's a cautionary one, because I love masculinity. You and I talk about this, like, I consider 2024 masculinity to have toxic written in parentheses in front of it. You say the word masculine, it's inherently bad right now because dudes be doing dumb

shit. And I think masculinity has a lot of positives a ton, but we can't look at those until we fix our shit. But while we're fixing our shit, like I think we need to also feed the flames of the good shit. But how do we balance that? How do we go like, these flames are good flames?

Trust me. Do you know what I mean? What were the things you learned not to do from FyCloom? I thought there's a lot of knots. Yeah, I was going to say like, where should I? Not to rely on yourself to the point where it is cancer. Like, I feel like it is a movie of learning how to be healthily codependent. Like, it taught me to open up.

Like, whether it's- Oh, cool. Bob's bitch tits or when Tyler goes to Marla and like, you know, they basically Tyler fucking Marla through the night to keep her alive because she was open enough to call them. Like there's so many great dark jokes about opening up to people and like Jack doesn't open up to anyone except Tyler. Tyler's imaginary. Like if Jack had had a friend, would any of that movie have happened? Like Jack is literally flying back and forth all over the country. He's got single serving everything. He's got single serving friends. He's got stuff, not people. And if he a person, then maybe we'd never even have Tyler Manifest. So how to be reliant on others

without being codependent, how to, how to let people in without it being toxic and how to see that line in the sand. Sometimes I get in this really big anxiety state where I'm just like frantic. My thoughts are racing like crazy. I'm getting really tense. And then I get a flash of the image and inside out too at the very end where she's paralyzed. Yeah. Because you know, I've texted you where I'm like, I'm in the urgent care who I am getting an IV. I've had like panic attacks. It's coming out on my body. I've broken out in hives.

Like anxiety has been like really paralyzing for me. And so I'd get that image in my head of when anxiety is paralyzed at the end and can't move and is frozen. And that often lately this past year since I've seen it has actually helped me out. I didn't really have a movie like that growing up. So it's kind of weird to have something now where I'm like, oh, I think about this. And it reminds me like, oh, yeah. Okay, that's what's happening.

Slow down. Yeah. Do you have anything that kind of keeps you in check a little bit or you find that your mind flashes to? This is maybe my favorite question I've been asked. I love that because that does tie into so much of my belief structure through movies. Two that jumped out, and I'm sure there's so many more, but the two as soon as you said it, the Matrix is as close to religion. If Fight Club is masculinity and morals and ethics, then Matrix is religion for me.

But one of the moments that really impacts me at the Matrix is two, actually, from Matrix. There is no spoon when he literally turns and the spoon turns. Whenever I'm having an experience where I think everything's important and everything's fucked unless I do the right thing, I literally at times I've had to go, there is no spoon. And I've had the image of like, what's real, bro? Like, I've literally had moments where I'm like, we don't know. Because I think of it as time, right? Like, what is the most important thing today is 99% not going to be the most important thing in a year?

Yeah. Nearly 100% unless it's one of the most important days of your life in five or 10 years. So that's kind of a way to see reality for me. If it doesn't matter, is it real? If it's about like nerves and anxiety and stuff, not like I killed someone, is it real? Like, that'd be a problem. But, like, there is no spoon has meant a lot to me. Also, the imagery that you have for anxiety, I think of another matrix moment.

where he's breathing and the world settles when he's in the subway, and he, like, flexes after fighting Agent Smith. Oh, in the hallway, at the end? Yeah, in the subway at the end and, like, that long shot. And he, like, kind of, like, flexes into, like, gets the world. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, I was talking about after he jumps for Agent Smith? Are you talking about when he's fighting him in the subway?

In the subway, after he reemerges hole, and he, like, flexes in the world kind of catches up to his reality. That's not on the subway, some hallway. Oh, I'm picturing the subway, but the scene of starting is the hallway. I meant subway. Subway scene after the, yeah, that scene of like... It's got to get so fucking pedantic about that. It's like, let me narrow this down.

I had both images in my head. No, I love that. We just really... Actually, I don't think it's a subway. It's both of our favorite movie, Greg. I understand. It's tied for both of us for first, right? Yeah. For me, it's your Terminator and Matrix.

It depends on what I watch. recently. Sure. It's like they're going to be terminary or two. It's going to be me. And mine's five clever matrix. So that's why you have the pedantic. You're allowed. But that moment like when I'm when I'm freaking out, I always try to like to square up my reality. I always try to like seize the world and make it wrap around me again because I'm a narcissist. So I always want like to find my footing. And if that means the world has to adjust and the fucking world has to adjust. Yeah. So that means like fucking breathe and center. So that breathing of him, which is probably not the visual metaphor that they were going for. Maybe it was. But like that is

me trying to fucking lock in we're centering himself yeah coming one right yeah so it is but like i didn't yeah i i i'm trying to get the world to feel like center yeah um well speaking of narcissism let's talking about working out oh yeah yeah who have movies oh sorry one more though those are my two majors oh i have one more uh just one more example um the changer stars thing in a night's dale really helps me um remind me of that so uh his name is william thatcher's son and he has to pretend to be sir olrick von lichtenstein uh and sir Ulrich is a knight. And so the whole idea of the movie is he's been pretending to be a night in order to do the joust and to be a knight and to fight and to get all this money and all this

stuff. And the idea is that everyone has the ability to rise above their status. Everyone can change their stars. So as a kid, you see him looking up at the stars and his dad and him have a conversation about like, you know, we all have these stars and you too can change them to where you're looking from another place, from another status in life. So when I was going through my first few years in L.A. or even in college, like there was a chunk of time from like 20 to like 23 or five. I'd write change your stars on my wrist. Oh cool. When I was like going through it. And I was like, I moved out here, didn't know a single person, didn't have a ton of money. I like moved out here with the four months of rent and hope. Uh, and so like there were so many months,

I'd like just be able to eat ramen or I would just be able to like there was a three year run where I would only eat whatever meat was on sale. So I'd gather all the Sunday newspapers and I would look through it was on sale and that would decide my diet for the week. I would literally be like, what can I make the cheapest and even then it was on credit cards but I was like what's the least amount of debt it was just like what's the smallest negative number so what am I eating according to the sales um so going through that while going to auditions and I was going up against people that were like successful already and I would see their success because I'd see them in a movie and I'd be like gotta go home to my fish I guess um I would write change your stars uh before auditions or before

um you know trying a big thing because I was trying to get out of like I'm in this position, I don't want to ask my family for money. I never want to be beholden to anyone. I want to do this my way. I know my family would have helped. And that's the worst part. Because if I'd asked, they would, but I did not want that. Like, this had to be me. So his situation was he was a Thatcher's son that couldn't have asked for money. But mine was like, I wanted to be a night myself. Like, I wanted to go through. Like, I wanted to change my stars. And I wanted to be someone that could to this day, when I go to the grocery store and I don't look at the price of something, I feel like a God. Because I went through a time where I couldn't even pick what I wanted. I had to pick what was

available for sale. And now that I'm able to go to Trader Joe's and not the save for less or the dollar store or any of that stuff, then it feels powerful. And that's all from Changer's Stars and that's all a Night's Tale. Wow. That one's way more profound. I was like, oh, he's the third one.

It might not be the best one. No, no. Like, oh, damn. That's the deepest one. So it's like consistently affecting the lifestyle. What is the comic book character that you really felt like you actually learned morality from or life lessons? Ryan Reynolds and Amityville Har. That was the body.

Amnyville Harr. Ryan Reynolds. It's perfect. And in Blade Trinity. That guy just seems like he's always cut. It's insane. Like he was on David Letterman. He's eating pizza.

How? I'm like, you eat pizza? Because he's tall skinny. So his body, I think, has a better metabolism than us. Yeah.

He just must always have like a constant. But Blade Trinity and Amni Evil horror, like he is peak. Yeah. And he's had that body for a lot of time. And he's got four kids. And he travels all the time. When I travel, I'm a piece of shit.

I don't eat well. Like, how's he doing it? So I think Ryan Reynolds is actually my, my, my, my, my 15 to 25. And then now the adult ones are the ones who mentioned. But Ryan Reynolds is like the goal. I'm sorry. Your question was about drawing and I got distracted by thinking of Ryan Reynolds' abs. No, no, it's, it's, it's, the question was, which character was it that really you felt?

Okay. I think Batman is like, awesome. Yeah. And I don't identify it. Yeah, but I wouldn't say I really. learn anything from Batman. Although the quote from Batman begins is something that really did stick with me. Okay. It's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you. That actually is one that often goes. People always quote the one from the second movie. There's so many in the

second movie. But that was that is the one that I often will think about that your actions are more important. Like love is an action. And and so that really stuck with me. Which comic book character is the one where you can confidently say, not just one that you have, admired, but you actually did adopt things from them. Would it be Spider-Man? I think so. It's interesting because Spider-Man is the character identify with the most consistently, and when the writing is bad in some comics, I don't care. But when Spider-Man's written badly, I'm, like, personally offended. So I know it's like a thing because even when, like, Spider-Man don't do that. Fuck you. Like, I get mad at the writer, the real-life writer. And, like,

when it's not how I see Spider-Man. And you know me, like, when someone writes a character differently, I'm the first guy to be like, Like, it's their take. That's how they see him, archetypal character. With Spider-Man, I'm like, that's not fucking Spider-Man. So I think that's my guy because of that identifying. What is the thing you identify most with Spider-Man about? Being ostracized because people didn't understand how you think.

And then using humor as a defense mechanism. He literally wears a mask and then makes jokes only when he's in that. And then his true self is charming enough to get the most beautiful women, but he's not welcome. I've always loved that, you know, people are always like, Andrew Garfield is too attractive. I was like, Mary Jane, Gwen, Stacey, Betty Brandt, like, Spider-Man's a hot guy. Otherwise, like, Black Cat wouldn't be like, you know? So, and then Spider-Man is who Black Cat is attracted to do because of his charisma and all that stuff. It's one guy, but the way he acts with different people is always fascinated me.

He gets confident as Spider-Man. He's not confident as Peter Parker, but he's clearly confident enough that Mary Jane loves him and that Gwen Stacy loved him. And he's smart enough that, you know, all the people bully him, but he's still a good enough person that he's got all these real ride or die friends. Like, Harry Osborne's a friend for a reason. And then later, Flash, when he gets to know who he is, becomes a friend. But the whole journey is people judging him. And I've always loved that Spider-Man, like, Steve Dicko and Stan Lee wrote, they conceived him together. And a lot of times, Stan Lee gets all their credit for writing.

But Steve Dickko was, like, a huge part of, like, informing the character because of how he looked, because of those conversations. So I want to give credit to both guys. But Stanley and Steve Dickko made the most icky. bug and made it a character that they thought would never sell. The first appearance of Spider-Man was in the last issue of an anthology series called Amazing Fantasy. Amazing Fantasy was getting canceled. They shoehorned Spider-Man in in the cancellation issue because no one would approve them. And then it took six months back then for any numbers to come back because it was like solicits all around the country. And when the six months came back, they were like, this is a

huge character, got greenlit into a book called The Amazing Spider-Man. But they literally like snuck them in under the wire because they were like, no one's going to like this spider guy. So I've always loved that Peter Parker is ostracized, Spider-Man is ostracized because he's an icky thing, but the people that know him love him and the people that get him, admire him, the people that understand who he is like the guy. And I don't feel like most people like me at first. And that could be my own insecurity. That could be me being on the internet too much. That could just be me, you know, through osmosis that, you know, no one has thousands of friends. But I'm always self-conscious every single conversation with someone new, every single business meeting.

And the back of my head, I'm like, I think I fucked that up. And I'm always worried that someone doesn't like me every time. People think I'm so confident. And I am confident. But I'm confident with a voice in the back of my head going, I don't think that person likes me. I'm gonna have to let that go. I don't think I'm going to get them to like me. I think I've got to move on

because they're not gonna like me. So like Spider-Man to me is that because he didn't have a lot of friends. He didn't have that stuff, but the people he had, he had. And that's always meant a lot. And the comedy,

obviously, like, I think I use comedies a defense mechanism like a lot of people, but I think I do it in a... Not at all. What do you mean? But like,

I think that Spider-Man kind of taught me that was okay. Yeah. So I think Peter Parker. Okay, with comic book movies being such, I feel like I have to ask you something about compost. I am so mad

at myself that you're like, what movie made you cry? And I'm like, God, it's three. Look, I'm so embarrassed because that was the one. But like, I think there's a part of my brain that when there's lights and there's cameras, my knee-jerk reaction is a comic thing because I know it's going to get clicks and I hate that I've clickbaited my subconscious. My medulla oblingata is literally thinking of SEO and it's running through the scenario that'll get the most clicks.

And I hate that I've TikTokified my existence. Well, we're in this weird day and age where I feel like there's two completely different sides of people on the internet. One is the really just genuine, sincere personality. And the other side is like just over the top, that annoying YouTuber voice or TikTok or voice. And I think at the end of the day, there's still like a bit of a switch for us. I think I'm an authentic person online, but I hate that my authenticity has an asterisk of, how does this help, the narrative of the video? No, I get you.

So the authenticity, I did cry out of audience, but I hate the 30 person thing was the same. When you asked me the question, I pictured like my great, when I was born, I had great, great grandparents, which is insane. Like when I look at that now,

like the insanity of my family having kids so young and living so long meant I had great grates. And when you first asked, I had a very clear mental image of the room I was in and the movie were watching, the food were eating and all that stuff.

So when I said 30, I could literally count the people in my head. And then I thought, very consciously, wow, that's crazy. That's such a good sound bite. And then my next thought was, someone's going to think I'm lying. And then it's going to undermine everything in the rest of this interview. And I haven't been able to let that thought go in an hour and 16 minutes. Do you know what I mean? So I'm authentic. I had a lot of those. I mean, you and I both have a, people might not think it just because I often take an intentionally slower rhythm in my life.

And you're like, Mr. Fast-talking guy. But I'm so afraid of death. Our brains have the kind of rapid-fire success. Like, I'm thinking of a million things I want all the time. happened during this entire time we've been talking when we're filming i i'm like that's a thumbnail like i'll see an image i'll be like that's finally a certain happening by the way it out loud or like i might i might have just reacted like genuinely i'll have like a re like oh my god and i like that's a thumbnail remember that you know even while you were talking there was something you i can't now i forgot what it was but there was something that you were talking about i was like that's the thumb thing like as you were talking to you like last week where i was like an hour and 19

minutes in I accidentally said fuck Greg remember to edit that out like I said a thing and I was like time code and I hate that my brain is like oh the edit like it's such a weird subconscious it's natural but it's like my brain's like zigzagging like all the time but to my original question what was the comic book movie the first one that you saw that made you go wow they really brought what I grew up on to life because there's been a lot of comic book adaptations but I can't imagine that every single one is like we talked about Spider-Man I know The Ramey ones are not exactly the thing for you. So I don't feel like that would be the answer.

At the time it was. Oh, it was. At the time. So I have an insane... Do you know what Wizard Magazine is? Someone just told me about them. Wizard magazine was a price guide and magazine about comic books. That was monthly.

Who was talking about Wizard? Tom. No way. It's so funny because I talked about Wizard with Tom and he's like, I'll use this later. That's so good. So Wizard Magazine was a magazine that was like Entertainment Weekly, but monthly and it was for comics. So like they'll have fan casts in there They'll have like top writers and artists

And it was very much like celebrating the the comic medium Like this announcement It literally was like a vogue or an entertainment weekly But for comic books And then the back was a price guide It was of invaluable like I loved this thing And to this day I right before it stopped doing Editorial on their website

I got to write two articles That was my goal from childhoods to write for Wizard And I got two articles in It was so cool that like that but it didn't get in print But I digress Wizard magazine I was reading since I could read read. I think I got my first wizard when I was three. So I learned a lot through this magazine.

Like, I didn't know 90% of the words, but I was learning because picture photo. That's how I learned to read with comics was picture photo. I learned words like the word battle ravaged, I thought was battle ravaged because I never heard it out loud. I saw it. And I knew that meant tattered clothes. So like I had associations, but I didn't know how to say them because no one ever used the word ravaged around me. So I didn't know what the word parody meant. And parody means not real, making fun of to jest a parody a spoof of on the back of a wizard magazine that i will remember until the fucking day i die there was a poster and it was a painted poster like in star wars like those like artistic paint where it's a real actor but it's done in the style of like you know bravado

and it was half spider man half Leonardo decaprio and underneath it said directed by james cameron and it was a poster for a spider man movie that for a fucking year i thought was real and i remember going to the movies. I'm looking for the poster. I remember going to the video store and looking for the poster because I didn't know the difference yet. And I remember just looking for the Spider-Man movie. And I was like, it isn't what? And then during the height of hope,

I learned what the word parody meant. And I was crushed. And my young brain, instead of trying to rationalize disappointment, went, they're not allowed to make comic movies. Like, my brain was like, it's illegal. Like, I thought they weren't allowed. So when Marrats came out

and Brody was talking about these characters. And Stan Lee showed up. I was 10. And I was like, wait, they could do it. Like, it was a revelation. And to this day, like, I credit Kevin Smith for like, you used Stanley's face. Yeah, yeah, because it was her magazine. Like he was, you know what I mean? Like I, he was a god to me. So like to see Stan Lee, I was like, wait, they're talking about comics in this. That's not illegal. So my brain was like unraveling these four years of thinking this one very weird thought that had seared into my mind. So when Blade came out, I didn't see it in theaters. It was in 98. I was 10. I tried to sneak in unsuccessfully.

but when I was 11 my buddy had a VCR in the back of his Toyota Camry it was a TV that sat in between the two front seats and in the back seat you could watch movies and it had a little headphone jack I'm very old so in that little thing

I remember we brought three movies but we changed the actual VHSs in the cases it was like Fern Gully something else and something else but inside the actual cases was the shining the mummy and look one of the real movies so halfway through the drive we fucking covertly switched out to Blade so the first time I saw

blade. I was 11 years old. I was in the back of a car and I was ride with my buddy and we were going to the woods. It was like his his parents had a cabin that was like an hour and a half away and like deep New Hampshire. And I remember like watching the day walker as we descended into the woods and I was like, I'm in a fucking comic book. Like it was so like the joy of being like they can do this and I'm living it and my buddy and we're watching our red movie like that rush of like fuck yeah. It's happening. And then the next year it was like public about Spider-Man. Like it became common knowledge. And then I was like, again, it was like, oh, my God, now it's allowed.

And they're doing all these. And then, like, X-Men came out. So X-Men came out, and that really helped me see that you could do the team and all the ads, like, the ads were like Wolverine on the cover and like Sabretooth silhouette and mystique silhouette. And I saw those at the movie theater. And I was just blown away that, like, it was like a comic. Like, they can, they can have these characters.

They made them look like that. It was, it was mind-blowing. But Blade, that drive, and then not long thereafter seeing posters for X-Men, seeing posters for Spider-Man. When I was 13, when Spider-Man came out, I loved it to death. In hindsight, I don't love some of the choices, but I wasn't psycho-analizing because the whole time I was just like, hey, Spider-Man, I can't believe it. Like, I, pure glee, the first two Spider-Man in theater. But, yeah, Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, one and two. So the one of the originals, they come up. Yeah, they did affect you. They did a huge.

It wasn't Batman for you. I watched Batman so often. It didn't feel like a comic movie it felt like to this day when I see the Joker in Batman it's just Jack Nicholson so like it wasn't special because it was always available like it came out it came out in 89 and my family watched it all the time so I just had it so it wasn't that build of anticipation it wasn't like and it doesn't feel like the comics of that time because in the late 80s early 90s Batman felt different to me like when I was reading it my brain was like oh it's a Batman movie it wasn't a comic with Batman in a movie it felt like oh that guy Jack Nicholson, even in my young brain. It wasn't the Joker. It was Jack Nicholson and makeup.

So I, for whatever reason, I never had the connection. I love the Batman movie, but it wasn't the feeling of a comic book come to life. It felt like Edward Cisorhands and stuff I was already exposed to. It felt like, it felt more like a Tim Burton movie. And I didn't know that then, but it felt more like a Tim Burton movie than a comic movie. So my brain didn't get that rush. And I didn't watch Superman until recently. what was the comic book movie that you'd say I guess the movie hurt you the most? X-Men 3 hurt me

because X-Men 1 was so formative and so inspiring that we could do it. X-Men 2 was better and even when it came out at that age, I knew it was better. It felt better to me. It felt more like the comic. And then I waited to be disappointed.

And back then, like comic movies came out like once a year. So like the anticipation on X3. Yeah. The build up, the characters I knew were coming. All the all the announcements. I was like, this is going to be even better than X-Men 1 and 2. And then when 3 came out,

I wasn't old enough to be a critic, but like we talked about at the top, the whole arc of this was, you know, media literacy talking with my family. My dad's a comic book guy. So we're watching X-Men 2 and it ends. And the Phoenix is rising up. And my dad and I are both like,

Claremont, fucking Claremont, Dad, who's coming, Phoenix. And then X-Men 3 comes out. And my dad and I've been waiting three years for the Phoenix. and then it's like, oh, let's kill Scott off camera. Like, Scott dies off sides. And like, as a kid, Scott dying over the lake not seen was heartbreaking. Like, I was like, I love Cyclops and he's gone off scenes.

Storm never getting her time to shine. Like, I've always loved Storm. She's arguably my favorite X-Men. I think Storm ranks top three and it just juggles by the day. But like, I never felt like we got Storm. And X-Men 3 kind of like invalidated it further. The juggernaut being a joke. the whole movie felt like

and I was a huge Ben Foster fan still am Ben Foster's Angel and he's in it for like seven minutes they're not a good seven minutes. No no no no my mom I've been such a nerd for so long my mom made me angel wings that were six feet tall they went up to here and they went all the way down to my feet by hand lacing feathers into a frame she handmade a frame and then handlaid feathers in and I wore it at the

movie theater because I was working at the movie theater for X-Men 3 I dressed as angel every day leading up to that movie and through that weekend, I had like a black shirt, these huge wings. I have a photo some somewhere. Oh my God. My mom made that for me. It took her months because I love the X-Men. And then if you have that much anticipation, that movie comes out and then it's that.

Yeah. Oh, damn. X-Men 3. Yeah, you really answer that question. Like people think it hurts now to have a comic movie, like fail. Wait a month. Like, oh, I'm sorry. You've got 30 days until the next comic book property.

I've waited three years and the next thing's not out for another. year. I mean, I think at that point, we were starting to heat up. I think Superman was about to come out with Brandon Ralph. I think at that point, like, the wheels were turning. But when you're 14, 16, I think it was 16, a year is a long time. Yeah, absolutely. And now people are complaining about waiting 30 days and time is like, it's just, it's so funny the different culture. It's like, oh, that one sucked. It's all over. And I was like, I survived X3. I was there. Is there a movie to this day that you off? I, for some reason, I feel, you know, does that joke about the Roman Empire, Menor was thinking about the Roman Empire. I don't have that. What I have is the dark

night. Okay. Since like I saw the dark night, I feel like for some reason, at least once a day, I think about the dark night. I love this. It's just always pops into my mind for some reason. I know I obsessively thought about it like for years. Yeah. And I don't even call it my favorite movie of all time. Yeah, it's on the, it's on the top too. But it's for sure, like just some for some reason, I just think about the dark night alone. I love this. Do you have a movie that you find that after you watched it? Because I don't feel like I really have that with any movies anymore.

I thought that was going to be Furiosa, but after a week I stopped thinking about. Yeah. But I haven't had that with a movie in so long where I watch it and I just can't stop thinking about it. And I used to kind of have that a little consistently. Yeah, in the 2000s I did. Like I remember like Requiem for a Dream. wanted me. I remember like the crow was my personality for a long time. Uh, the, so I think when you're younger, I think it's like more, because you have less of a personality. Yeah. So it like

informs a lot of you. There's more going on. Yeah. You're like, you're all hormones. So it's all like osmosis. Um, I think about, I think the, but mine are my top two. I think about, I think about the matrix and fight club, uh, probably once a day. Okay. Cool. I think, I think about whether or not this is a simulation a lot. I think about that too. Like, I, it probably, an unhealthy amount. It probably ties directly into my losing my mind. Because I'm like, is this real? Is that guy real? I never met him. Maybe not. Maybe it's part of the simulation. He's helping this whole program flow better. Like it's just a lot of the way of how you talk about it. A lot of we have you talked about things sounds like there's a bit of a detachment. 100% like them in the most simplistic

terms. There's an unreality to reality for me. There's a separation happen. Yeah. And I and I think that's where a lot of it comes from when it comes to like the crying. Yeah. The fear of the brain. falling apart the simulation there's a lot of this like doubt and questioning and then and I I don't what does that come from because your parents don't strike me as those kind of people oh they're so in their bodies man they're so good I say like that was the most jealous I've ever I'm literally like this sentence that just came out of me was so just pure jealousy like I saw it I was like look at those fucks just be great I think I think I'm always living just, just, just ahead of myself.

I think it's not anxiety because it's not that, it's not the guy for men. It's not the, you know, uh, Oma, umma's kid. What's your name? My hawk. It's not my hawk. It's more like the, the vector in Donnie Darko.

You know how he sees the vector of where he's about to go? Do you know what I'm talking about? I think I do. Saw it once forever ago. Oh, too, so good. Okay. So Donnie Darko, there's a moment where he's always talking about time travel and he's talking about the, the...

Okay, I don't remember this, never mind. Oh, you don't. The whole movie's about time travel. We've only gotten to the... Yeah, okay, yeah. I was like, it's about to get complicated. I like that my brain was like, how do I make this similar? You're like, already out.

I have no idea. I was like, I'm falling in the back. Okay, nope, you said time travel. I'm like, there's time travel with Donnie Dark. Do you know, like Hawkins's idea of like a bridge using a vessel in order to travel through time, like a wormhole for simple terms? So there's a base... That's where you fold the paper and then you put a hole in it.

In every movie and they're like, There it is. Hawking. So Stephen Hawking posited that, you know, you could build a wormhole to travel through time as long as you have like some sort of vessel. So the whole movie is talking about that being a possibility. And then I won't reveal the twist because you need to rewatch it. But there are elements of that that form the story. So at one point in the movie, after he talked to his therapist, he wakes up and he can see a vector of basically energy in front of those around him that are informing where they're going.

So it's a form of time travel where he's not seeing the future. but he's seeing what's informing the next moment. He's seeing that someone's about to get up, but it visualizes itself as a vector as a tube in front of him. It's like a visual anticipation tool? Exactly. So that is how I feel I navigate the world. I'm never able to be fully in my body

because I'm always right ahead of myself. I feel as a person that I'm sitting here, but I feel like I'm here. I'm always like what's the next, the next. And that's the ambition problem. That's the not able to rest problem. That's the speaking fast problem. That's my brain rattling.

I'm always a little in front of me, and I think that's why I can't, and that's why the detachment, I think I'm looking at myself in third person. I think I'm witnessing my life more than I'm living it. And there's a bit of a protective quality. Sure. Because I'm because I'm back here. I got to protect me. You know what I mean? Like it literally represents like an out of body. Like I'm not here to keep an eye on myself because I'm always looking in the next thing. Like I've only felt contentment with my career three or four times and all I do is my career. Like I only just with this relationship started. realizing the importance of slowing down to breathe in the moment of things that are outside of

me. Like, I truly love someone enough that I'm not thinking of me with her for the first time. And that's what's so interesting about being in it for the first time because I have 30 plus years of experience. So when you're with her, are you actively thinking? I'm not thinking about me. No, but I have had the thought. I have. Like, wait, no, that is me thinking about me. No, no, but I've, I've gone through like a 12-hour window where I was like, I haven't thought about what I needed to do for me at all. And that's rare for me. Because I'm always aware of what's my next, what's my next, what's my next. So I think there is a protectiveness of me because I'm aware that I'm out of me.

And I think that causes the whatever mild detachment feeling. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to awkwardly transition about your fiancé. The thing I wanted to ask about your relationship, is there a movie. I got a few questions. Is there a, my one note is, Ange. Like I said, I didn't see this notepad.

I have like a billion thoughts about. That's so funny. Is there a movie that would break your heart if she did not like it? Oh, that's a great question. Inquiry. That's a positive inquiry. I've mentioned the same, you know, roll-a-decks of hits throughout this interview,

so I won't say Matrix Spy Club at Night's Tale, my go-toes. I would really struggle if she didn't like the comedies I liked, I think even more than the movies that form my identity. And I do consider the movies I've mentioned identity forming. But I'm so sure of my identity at my age that I think I'd be comfortable with her not identifying with them because I'd be like, well, you like

me. So you must be okay with the elements that these movies inform me about. I know you love me. So that's okay if you don't love this movie that I consider who I am. But comedy, I think I'd struggle. Oh, like what? If she didn't like in Bruges, or Banshees v. Sharon

or salt burn. Not real comedies. I don't identify with real comedies. Real comedies. I don't rewatch comedies that are what is in the shelf of comedy. He's going to say like Anchorman to or something. No, it's funny. I don't rewatch those.

Those ones though. I don't like when I think of comedies, I don't go like American Pie anymore. Like what's a modern con? Like I think bridesmaids is overrated. They don't exist anymore. Oh yeah. So there we go.

And then if they come out, no one watches them. I try. But that's why... Joyride. Joyride was the last true comedy I watched. It's the one with the Asian women.

There's a four Asian women. Stephanie Sue is in it. Oh, she's great. Yeah, it's a great movie. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. Yeah. I think event Bruges is like top to bottom comedy.

Like I laugh over jokes in that movie. It's like so dark and so Catholic. Maybe I was raised in Boston. I'm around osmosis. I, I've just, like, we just don't have time for Irish. We just don't have time for that part. I watched fucking, uh, small things like these, is that what it's called? Uh, the new, uh, Killian Murphy movie.

Okay. And it was so funny because I wasn't raised in Catholic Ireland. The whole time I was like, I'm having osmosis trauma. Like, it was so weird that like people talk about like genetic trauma. And I was like, I'm uncomfortable around these nuns. Yeah. And like, it's, it's fascinating what, like, impacts you just like through your culture that I'm not even like, I'm not from Ireland. So I think the comedy comes from that

Like so interesting you said that it would be the comedies that affect you Because I'm the exact opposite with Olivia Interesting You guys don't share a comedy No weirdly we don't like a lot of the same comedies Like I I love it like a good Like a stupid comedy I love these like terrible comedies

Like she doesn't like the vulgar comedies She doesn't like super bad She wasn't super in a joy ride In fact I can't really I mean like have you seen that show Barry? Yeah Remember the Ronnie episode? the one with a little girl that's like one of the ones i could recall like we were dying of

laughter together yeah so like sketches we can get into together but comedy's not really which is weird because we have such a similar sense of humor interesting and like that's my favorite thing about her is how much we make each other laugh yeah and how dark our humor can get but yet we don't we're more likely to bond over like a benches of into sharing okay that we are like a will feral movie or so but if it was like she didn't if she didn't like turn to her two I'd be like, this is a real fucking problem for reasons. Like, no, it would be like, wow, that really just kind of, because she didn't really care for the Matrix the first time she saw it. And I thought she, because she's so smart that I thought that she would love it.

And then when we saw it in the theaters at an AMC re-release, she like fell in love with it. Interesting. And then I was like, oh, it makes me so happy. Oh, we're safe. Yeah. We have a future. So I've gotten used to like, okay, a lot of the comedies were not going to watch together. But if it was one of those, I would be so bummed by that.

So we watched Fight Club together for the first time I saw it with an audience because I saw it at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. And that's a movie that I think is hilarious. But when you tell people, one of your favorite comedies is Fight Club, they look at you like you're insane. So it was really beautiful to share the audience laughing. Like seeing that with a crowd and her and I laughing together was really important to me. So I think that kind of wrote off the like, this is formative. I know we're good because that movie is so formative. But we went and saw Salt Burn. And Salt Burn was a lot like, I ended up being at three. different banshees vina Sharon screenings because Fox Searchlight kept inviting me back to be their laugh track effectively. I was the only person laughing at the first screening and I found out later through a publicist that I was invited back because they wrote down like where I was and laughter

and like I was their laugh track that help people open up to laugh. Which I love and I became a laugh track for Fox Searchlight because I love that movie so much. Salkburn was the same but I just went to a random showing. I just bought a ticket and saw Salkburn and no one was laughing and I was belly laughing and I was feeling so uncomfortable. And then I looked over and Anya's laugh is just smaller than mine and she was chuckling and it was this blissful release that I was being self-conscious that like no one else is laughing but me. And then I saw that she was. And then that was such a warm moment of like, oh, thank God. Not only is it, I'm not alone, but I'm with the only person who's opinion I actually care about. So comedy I think is so important to me

that she gets where I'm coming from because I don't like the normal comedy. I like this stuff. And so that that's important to me. Okay. That makes a lot more sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's a safety net. your choice of that. What was the first movie you guys saw together? Oh, that's an interesting one. Um, I mean, Solberg was early. Oh, really? Okay. Because it was in the summer and we met in the summer. So it was within the first three months of us knowing each other, which is a bold swing. Um, so, uh, we met in Rome, but she didn't come to that fast 10 premiere, but then I saw her right after. So she bookended that movie, but she wasn't at it. I don't remember our actual first movie. I do remember that she got AMCA list the first time.

went to a movie together and that felt like security like I remember thinking like oh she sees this as something real well you know what I mean like you don't she didn't have it she didn't have it she committed like that felt like it felt like when you're in high school and you get a promise ring where she was like I will pay monthly to spend time with you because we were so new so I remember AMCA list I was like oh she likes me like that was important to me so yeah like that was early on but we've we've done movies a lot like that's big part of our whole thing she loves Wes Anderson and I remember loving that like that being a connecting thing yeah that might be be one of them. Oh, yeah, that's right. Her favorite movie's Grand Budapest Hotel. And that's been very informative for like style and comedy and like art and house and stuff. Like having that bond through Wes Anderson stuff. Is there okay, I got a flash of a memory

of something when we watched the Daredevil episode of She Hulk. Yeah. Remember we were just laughing at you because you're like, this inspired me to date again. And I was like, she Hulk with that. But It made me think of this.

Is there... Have you ever seen a romantic comedy or romance that made you go, I want that? My favorite rom-com. Crazy stupid love. That's your favorite rom- Favorite rom-com all the time? I'm assuming the Ryan Gosling. Yeah.

What they have is I love that the whole movie is about him being all about himself. And as soon as he finds someone that nothing mattered that the entire character is built around. You spend 80% of that movie looking at his wardrobe, looking at the way he talks, because that's the point of the character until that point. And after he meets her, right back to the masculinity, but there's an emotional guy underneath it. 100%. Yeah. But I love, like, it's, it's so beautiful. And obviously, the twist is amazing. And having a rom-com have a twist is insane. It's the writer of this is us. Like, it's pure emotion. Um, but I love that Ryan Gosling, we both share like a, like that guy's the coolest. Like, he's the epitome of cool. He

being single cool up until he makes being in a relationship cooler. And that's what the movie's about. Because then it makes Steve Carell being a little bitch cooler. And then it makes him wanting to be in a relationship and it makes the Kevin Bacon asshole less cool. One shift in the movie's tone makes

everything inverted. Up until that point dating was cool and Steve Carell was the dweeb. As soon as we see the importance of a relationship, it changes the Julia, not Julia. What's her name? Redhead. Julianne Moore. Thank you, Julianne Moore. It changed the Julianne Moore dynamic. And there's seeds planted throughout, obviously. Like, we see them getting back together and all that stuff. But it changes how cool that is in the eyes of the kids. It changes everything. And it's all about that

shift in Ryan Gosling. And so the relationship I'd want is the playfulness of them, the joy and like the silly stupid stuff. The fact that they're like playfully buying wine is so cute and endearing in those little moments are what life's actually about. Like, it's not always a spectacle. So I love the little moments between them. The fact that he's willing to fight for her, the fact that he'd sacrifice anything, the fact that she'd sacrifice anything. And their actual chemistry is insane. Like, that's why they did the four movies together. But like that, I think, is pretty, you know, up there.

To this day, I still don't, whenever I get a drink from a bar, take the straw out because of that movie. Because it departed, I still don't get a cranberry juice. Really? So on your fucking period? I drink. That's my go-to-cranberry. I don't get it because I have a drink. Bunker cranberry, go-to drink.

It's a natural dioratic. Actually, I said that to you at the bar. Do you remember last time we went out? I was like, is your fucking period. It's changed cranberry juice for me. Oh, man. That movie is pretty formative,

like quotes and stuff wise. Departed, yeah. Like the whole metaphor for cops and criminals when you're out of the other side of a gun is really fucking matter. It's pretty informed my like fear of death and like authority. Like that was crazy to watch as a kid

because I was like 18 when that came out. And I was like, he's right. Like the whole crime stuff, the town and the departed like all those movies. We've talked about my big formative ones, but like crime drama set in Boston. are a whole subcategory of love whose car we're going to take is pretty formative

there's so many I can just keep going forever honestly I was like I want to talk about directors of and yeah the Irish stuff and I love that you just wrote down Irish I mean I didn't have I'm trying to like not I snuck it in with banshees I've had so many I have like so many questions on my on my laptop that are just so really like a hundred of them and I was like I have a habit of just relying too much on looking at it yeah Yeah, so I was like, yeah, might as well just experiment and see if I could just have a one-note thing that makes me go, yeah, I think I know where I'd want to go ask about that question. Lamp. Because, yeah, I wanted to talk more about Fincher because it seems like he's your favorite director.

Man, there's so much, but we just don't got the time. If people like this, I hope. You know what? There's one question I didn't want to ask you. Okay. Well, rap strong. Well, rap strong. And leave a comment below if you want to see Fincher.

A fun risque one. Oh. Is there a villain you identify? identify with. It's really interesting considering we were talking all about like the Tyler Darden. Well, but being raised and having conversations about what makes a villain cool and whether or not that's good. That's when I thought about that.

Okay. It is a Vader and stuff like that. Yeah. A villain I identify with. I would say like not by the end of any movie because I do think I always really try to find a true north in who I am. and I feel like the movies do a good movies do a good job of making sure you know which way things are you know supposed to be pointed I think when I'm angry or immature I identify with a lot of the like dude bro villains like the Jordan Belforts and the Patrick Bateman for like super extreme like not on any day to day but like idealizing like I wish I could wake up and do 800 crunches and not care and peel my face like the the that kind of thing seems like a good escapism sure so it's not identifying with but it's kind of aspirational. like I wish I could escape. So I think my thing isn't identifying with villains. It's wishing I could be as free as they seem, but I can't.

And I really, I don't think that caring is a weakness ever. But when I'm not in good mental health, caring is the first thing I try to get rid of through a character. Because you detach. So villains become the hero to me when I'm not doing well. And that's actually usually a sign. for me that I need to like take a step back because I'm aware that that character is suddenly valid

like the Thanos was right is a good joke but I you know if you're on the 405 second traffic you're like well but that is when I'm that's when I'm not doing well do you know what I mean like anytime that I'm suddenly identifying with villains it is a good barometer that I need to reassess like you know when you go to the gym and you're

working out something and something twinges it's a good like okay before I pull it for me when I start to identify villains it's like almost pulling a muscle and being like, I need to reassess everything or this is going to really hurt me. So whenever that happens, I try to like take a breather. And same with manic characters. Like whenever I'm feeling like, I should watch lethal weapon because Martin Riggs, I'm like, you're doing all right, bud? Like, it's definitely a moment of like, I need to reassess because this character was an idol growing up, but you see the flaws in them as you mature. And if I'm suddenly

regressing, clearly I'm not doing as well as I thought I was. So I think the answer is normally no. And when I do, I worry. Okay. All right. Well, shit. All right, guys. Well, yeah, I can keep going. I mean, it's one of those things where I feel like because I know you off camera.

Yeah. That I can keep going forever. What's the longest episode so far? I think it was like an hour of 45. Wow. I think so. Something like that. So also not a show you can like speed round.

It's like the whole point is that it's interesting. So there's not like you, you know, rattle through some shit. And then sometimes there's like common questions, but then sometimes the common questions lead to a question of most of the time there are questions I haven't asked before. Oh, cool. So I think it is fun because I, yeah, I'm not just doing the end of inside the actor's studio.

Right, right. Favorite swear work. Yeah, because I would be bored of the show itself. So yeah, I had fun. Did you have fun? This was really unique for my life experience. And I've thought of stuff I don't think about often. This was oddly cathartic.

like therapeutic in way I didn't expect. I thought it would be like enlightening and I thought I'd be like, oh, I forgot that I loved that. I didn't think it would be, oh, I'm aware of different pitfalls in a way that I usually only get out of therapy. So it was a good little movie therapy. You just described how Quinn and Tarantino talked about Joker 2. You know, the ending has merit. And that's, you know what I mean? Tarantino don't see out of eye a lot, a lot.

You heard my love of that ending. You know my thoughts. I don't think the movie's great. But boy, that ending's got some merit for a certain type of culture right now. Now, Tarantino's that film, it's weird because he's probably my favorite filmmaker. Really? But man, as a personality, I'm like, sometimes you say some shit, Tarantino. It's just like, the whole thing, but like, I'm not going to watch showgun or Dune because they've already done him.

I'm like, what? What? And that's coming from someone that omages so many other directors. What are you talking about? Because you think you'll take stuff? That's my point is like, you straight up take like a glorious bastards is. not an original title. Reservoir Dogs was totally inspired. You've admitted to that

inspired by another Hong Kong film. A lot. It's a lot. It's so much. I'm like, would, for this same reason, would you not watch Al Pacino and Scarface? Because that's a remake. What a strange thing. I would never have thought Tarantino for you with Terminator and Matrix that's such like a diametrically opposed style to me.

Yeah, I love Tarantino films a lot. I'm pretty obsessed with them. I would have thought no one for you. I do not like hateful eight but I do. So I want I haven't seen. Yeah, it's the only one I really don't like. But, um, because I just, it's true. They are very hateful.

Hey, it's so true to enjoy this time, which is eight. Yeah, so true to the title that I'm like, I don't like hang out with them. It's just, they're a lot. Um, but I, yeah, Tarantino films, I, I adore a lot. I really do. Uh, and kill bills when my, Nolan, no, and I wouldn't say Nolan. Nolan's probably my favorite director, but there's, but the package of Tarantino, the writer director is, I just,

I just love all those films. I've only not liked Mank of Fenture. I even like Alien 3 to a point. Like I really... I like Alien 3. Yeah? So I think Mank's the only one and I just don't identify

with that era of filmmaking so it didn't resonate because I just don't know it. Like when you're watching a documentary and you know none of the characters are like, oh. Like it just doesn't resonate for me so Mank just didn't hit.

But otherwise... Did you? That makes me feel way better because I love Fincher and I was like, really struggling here. I'm like, this is boring. And it's real long.

You didn't ask any what movies don't you like questions So I appreciate it because I generally like don't think of them off. And Mank is an exception in this moment. But well, then we're just reviewing movies at that point. Which is not plenty. Which is the thing that we do over there.

In the next video. It's really easy to fall into that trap when you're talking with people who are into movies. Yeah. Like, we got to make sure we're not reviewing a movie. What's the most surprising thing from this interview for you? Um,

I would say the most surprising that is a great question. I would say the most surprising thing about it is. how you were discovering a lot about yourself. And all the time I've known you, I've never really quite picked up on that struggle to self-connect thing that you have of how you, actually this might be a good thing to like throw in at the end of all these discussions is like, what did I learn?

But yeah, that ability to, that lack of ability to really connect with yourself that you have a hard time with, but also the unusual awareness that you have about that. yeah where you can again see yourself from the outside like like you're looking at yourself which is a part of a disassociation personality i'm not so i'm not a psychologist expert right right the basic understanding of that sounds like a disassociation and that's a whole different conversation to unpack and that's why you're therapy for all that but it is

interesting how it affects your life and yet whilst having that it there are parts of it they remind me of Dan Merle in a certain sense. And parts that certainly remind me, remind me of me of that's why I love movies because I felt more when I watch movies more than I would in real life, I would say. And like, as controversial of opinions, as Scorsese tends to have,

he had some, he said something recently that I'm like, that is the best summation I've heard about movies, that it's like an empathy experience. I think he said that. Was that Martin Scorsese? you said that i think he was what's rogan's guy jesse check the uh you know but yeah that i believe it was him who said it's an empathetic and i'm like there's no other way i would

put it of why movies are so valuable yeah because you know i was telling dan i grew up around like racism exposure a lot and i think remember the titans was the first movie i saw that made me go wait a minute something might not be read about this yeah and it made me really like connect with that and um and i didn't say this to damn but i've had those moments in my head of like which have now become the white savior trope yeah or you like you kind of want to become that guy but you're like well what but that's another problem so i think there's like a constant reexamination i don't know i think it's more introspective in more ways than i expected to be so i really really did enjoy talking about it especially because learning a deeper level of

you and I have the privilege where I get to continue getting to know you you can apply this yeah and then one day the time will come recoy cries on camera I love they're gonna have like an insert for the sequel and you're like before our next interview the man wept yeah that doesn't be the text on the thumbnail why won't you cry it's gonna be all those like dude bros with like photoshop tears but it's me and you're like we made him cry yeah uh I I really think it's important for people that denigrate art to see it as like the agnostic church that we do because I do think it's a great non-denominational way to have empathy. I think it's really, I think it's really alarming that the first thing you cut in school programs is art. And then the next thing you cut in government

programs is art. And the first thing that people do in the pandemic is, why are we paying these fuckers? Oh, but I want to go home and watch TV. And the first thing that people do when they hear of a sag strike is like the actors are fucking overpaid. Without, art, we're not human. And the first thing we're going to lose if we let things go the way they are is empathy if we don't let art be as important as it is. So I really want to stress like there's a reason I don't have free time while I have the body that's allowed to do it because of how much we time, how much time we spend advocating for art. That's why I love the channel. That's why I love what we get to do for a living because we're advocating for something that makes people better.

And that might sound hyperbolic, but it does. I think it's the ultimate empathy experience because you do find people who you can identify with that perhaps put it into words or uh illustration that you never really got to experience in real life yeah and you know like i find it when i the movie drive is one of my top five favorite movies of all time and Ryan gosson's performance in that i think is so strong and that was the start of his like quiet yeah you know stoic uh empty kind of guys but I felt like I really, at the time in my life, there was something about me that really identified with him. Yeah.

Of, I feel a lot when I'm listening to music and I feel the, I feel empty unless I've, I have like a strong feeling of anger. And that's when I would really feel. And watching that meant so much to me. Sure. To watch that portrayal, like, oh, I get it. I identify with this.

And I don't think, I think a lot of times when movies, we forget about that experience, especially with what movies have become. Because there's so many, there's like a billion movies out there, but the ones that are like touted are not the things we're talking about. You know?

So, yeah. I just had an epiphany. I'm sorry to keep this going. The moment you talked about Ryan Gosling and Drive is how you identify is in this moment why I'm realizing I, and this is a big movie, so it's going to be a funny way to end things.

I think the reason I'm so upset about the way the Disney stuff is going with Downey's Doom is because he's always been an anchor for me when I've felt not seen. Downey is someone I always go back to. I always look at Downey's performances and I always feel informed and it's the first time that I feel like

he's doing something for money, not for art. And I hope I'm proven wrong. But the Doom announcement, I think it was personal because I've always been like excited for connecting to what Downey's going through and connecting to the human and the actor, which is another thing we talked about.

And I think Doom is the first time I was like, that's inauthentic. And again, in two years, I really hope we see that it's for another thing. But I think that's been why I've been struggling with that choice because Downey, whether it's kiss, kiss, bang, bang, or chaplain or any of his stuff that isn't in Marvel, that's always been the guy. Yeah. And now that he's doing

something that feels so not him, it's been hard for me to assess. Honestly, it's kind of like my whole experience with Marvel as of late. Yeah. It is, that's why the Russo brothers didn't excite me because, yes, I get it. It's a business. Of course I know it's a business. But the word show comes first yes it's the i think there's just so much of an it's we're in this time where we have such an awareness of the business with things now the internet de course we know it's a business and the fan association with and the way how like movies seem to adjust based off of that there's something about the rousseau brothers that just felt like this was never part of the plan originally yeah i don't think they ever wanted this to happen i think

But I don't think the two films because that was very public. Yeah. But the idea of doing what they're doing now feels like a pivot. Yes. And I get you have to do that, but there's just so much exposure to what celebrities go through. Yeah. What they have to deal with in court, you know, Jonathan Majors. And then now with just the whole industry of Marvel. Like there's something about the way Marvel is going where I'm not as excited as I want to be. Even though I'm definitely going to be there. Yeah, yeah. I'll be there opening night. But every announcement in the last few days. days like all the Kevin Faggy stuff as I've read it and not felt any like how do we know we know so much and and business is so the forefront of the internet side yeah it's strange it's a strange time where it's it's interesting to go down this path of how we grew up on movies yeah to then liking it to now and Denzel said this in the interview with where Jamie Fox interviewed him love that interview about see I forget what the exact word for work quote it is, but it's something about like, if you drink too much water, you're going to drown. Yeah. And I kind of feel like that's the industry. Yeah. It is like too much of,

you could have too much for sure. We've overanalyzed everything up until the release and then we're just filling the dots. And then we know people's personal lives to the point where there's not a full separation of church and state with what we're seeing on screen. Yeah. And I, I really worry that like, you know, I can't just watch a Marvel movie. Like we just don't get that experience. There's trailers for trailers. There's like three trailers. There's set photos. There's nonstop interviews. Yeah. It's just, it's nonstop. And yeah, I've never quite hit the nail on the head for me of what it is about the announcement of the Russo brothers. It just doesn't quite do it. I'm, I'm really intrigued by the Robert Downey Jr. part. I am. I agree. Yeah,

I do. I agree. At the same time, I'm like, I really want to see. Show me. Like, this could be a disaster or it's going to be awesome. Let's find out. And so I'm really intrigued by that. But I do agree about the business move of it, you know. It just sounds like something that I don't feel like Yeah, I get they're desperate, but when you can feel the desperation, it's not the same art and and I think when we're talking about our favorite actors right now Those are all people I don't know a lot about like I don't know a lot about Brad Pitt or Ed Norton or It's like too. We know so much about the people in it. Yeah, this we know so much about the people that are in these things now. Yeah, you know, and it's it's like I remember Christian and Bail talking about how he didn't like, he thinks there's too much behind.

This is around the time of the Batman begins DVD. Yeah. I stopped watching behind the scene stuff because of him. Yeah. In the behind the scenes interview, he was saying, I think there's too much exposure to behind the scenes because it ruins the magic. I agree. And I agreed with that at a very young age of him on a behind the scenes, TV commentary.

And I'm done. Then I was like, yeah, it does. Like, you can learn a lot if you're aspiring filmmaker. You absolutely can. But even TV shows now have it, which is a weird part of the climate where I watch The Walking Dead and then a second late or any HBO show and then a second later, it's like, here's a whole behind the scenes on the episode you just watched. And it immediately takes you out of the experience because now I'm aware of the construct of how they did it and everything. I'm not being lost in the story. I always love that bailed at all of his interviews as the character's accent.

And so most people didn't know he was well because it kept you in the. character like he was that character even for just subconscious shit yeah and we don't have that right now and i'm really curious if you ever do an interview with someone like gen z or younger if there's going to be i hear ted if there's going to be a cognitive dissonance right because ted wouldn't know the age that we lived through where it was separate he wouldn't know like he definitely wouldn't know going to rent a vhs but even the idea of not having i mdb for the all the stories i told was pre-imdb for the most part yeah i i couldn't look up facts i remember when the imdb trivia came out for the matrix i printed it out and I slept with it. Like I had. Oh, wow. Really? It was like, oh, I can learn so much. And I

remember it being like, I was like, this is like a book for how much I care about it. I printed out the goofs because I was like, oh, look, nothing's perfect. And it made me feel better about myself that goofs could happen in my favorite movie. And then I printed out the trivia because I was like, you can learn much about this as a book. And so I had those in a white binder, like a three whole punch. And I remember for a few nights, I like slept with it to feel like there was more to learn and grow. And it meant so much to me. Yeah. So Ted, which TikTok influenced you the most what a gift I'm even on that hell site actually that's which tweet did you see is there an instagrammer we should ask the opinion up which trailer for a trailer changes your

which 20 second sneak peek before the trailer that it's actually already attached to did you like best well on this melancholic note we're going to end it guys who knows if this makes the cut no it will it will might as well um thank you coy for opening up your heart and your soul today. I hope Anya watches this so as you can see all the nice things that were said about her. I love her so much. It's crazy. It's the best. Movies make more sense because of her. I love her so much. Dude, she makes, she makes the movies about love recontextualism. I love her to death. It's beautiful. And thank you all for watching. Thank you John for manning the cameras. Thanks, Ted, for being the coy to laugh at our jokes, even if they weren't funny. He's moral support we needed.

We needed them. I could hear a little part of my ear could hear it. I didn't. So I was I don't know when Jalen left, but he left. He was done with us. You were like, remember the Titans. He's like, I'm out for this gets weird. Anyway, thanks for being here. See you guys soon. Fincher next time.