The Watch - Chuck Klosterman on TV Franchises, Passive Consumption, and Dream Sequences. Plus, Alison Brie on Her New Movie, ‘Somebody I Used to Know.’

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Andy is joined by Chuck Klosterman to talk about how, inspired by ‘Yellowstone,’ more and more networks are looking to franchise their TV shows (1:00), as well as what his TV-watching habits have looked like lately (17:39). Then, Chris is joined by Alison Brie to talk about her new movie ‘Somebody I Used To Know’ and how it’s not the traditional rom-com (1:01:39). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Chuck Klosterman and Alison Brie Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Andy Greenwald. I have no known professional affiliation with the ringer outside of this podcast. And I'm thrilled to be joined on the other line by my old friend, Chuck Closterman. Chuck, welcome back to the Watch. You know, it's been a very long time since I've been on this show. I know.

And listen, I'm not going to say who's responsible for that particular bit of black listing. But he's not here right now. He's in England. So you could talk directly to me and to the mic. I, you know, Chris is a creator of obstructions. Well, Chris also, you know, kind of siloed you guys out. You did your own podcast together. We did.

We did. Of course, yes. So really, it's been even longer since I've been on that podcast. Well, you know, the last time I was on the watch, there was an argument over whether or not Beyonce should win the Grammy for best album. Time is a flat circle. Exactly. Nothing has changed. Has your thinking on that change?

Well, I don't know if I've thought about it at all since that conversation. So probably not. Well, so we have some business of our own to discuss, but I should say at the top, Chris is currently in the United Kingdom, a place he loves very much. If you're hearing this podcast late Thursday or early Friday, you might still have time to get tickets to a live show he's doing in London. He'll be talking about what they call over there football, which is not about the Super Bowl featuring our Philadelphia Eagles. That'll be Friday night. At the back half of this podcast, you will hear his dulcet tones because he recorded an interview with the lovely Alison Brees about her new movie, somebody I used to know, which is premiering on Amazon tomorrow. And so Chris's interview with Allison will come on after Chuck and I really, really get into it, really chop up the issues of the day.

And, you know, we all know Chris loves to do accents. Do you think when he is in England and he goes out by himself, like Phoebe's not with him, he's just going down to the, you know, the news. agent or whatever. Do you think he adopts something of a British accent? I kind of think he might. I don't. Just on occasion, just to work on it and just to see how it goes and like, you know, to make the other person feel more comfortable because Chris makes other people feel comfortable when he talks to them at conversation. That's kind of his one of his great skills as a podcaster. And he kind of carries that over to life. So I like to imagine that like, or maybe he uses like a Scottish accent. he's visiting from Scotland or something.

See, I think you've actually disproved your thesis within your comment there because I think that Chris really strives to make people feel comfortable. And I think his accent, well, incredibly entertaining, is not, you know, Oxford-esque. It's not spot on. So I feel like it might make people uncomfortable that this, you know, friendly charlatan is, in some ways, mocking them. I don't think he would do it. My question is, do you think he'll come back with just a few more, Britishism sprinkled into his speech.

Like there are people I know who are fully American who say things like fair play, and I say no, no. No, I mean, it's possible. I feel like the last time I saw him, he may have one point casually used the phrase American football. I think that that may have happened. Was he referring to the emo band? Or was he? No.

Luckily, I was going to say, I don't know if this is the space to discuss Chris's behavior in foreign countries, but actually this podcast is the only place for that discussion. I did want to run through a couple things. So as is normally the case, Chris Leavestown and many, many, many bits of news break in the larger Chris Ryan extended universe. Particularly there was a lot of news about his favorite show and America's favorite show, Yellowstone, ending potentially, shockingly early, potentially as soon as the end of this current season, primarily because Kevin Costner doesn't want to work hard, which, which, you know, I respect. I respect. Yeah, I love the fact that Yellowstone exists.

I love that the biggest thing in this, like, medium of art is something I haven't seen. I didn't think that would happen anymore. It was starting to feel like it was impossible to not experience the biggest things. I don't think it's like, I'm like, oh, I'd never watch that. It might be good. I just never have. I hardly know anybody who has. And yet it is absolutely the biggest television show in America.

And I'm glad that things like that still happen. Don't you think it's a little bit like Pauline Kale saying she doesn't know anyone who voted for Nixon, though? Like, I thought that you, I thought that you would have seen this show. I feel like you have your finger on the pulse. It's about a region of the country that you come from. I don't know if it tracks with your personal experience up there, but. Well, I don't know if it does. I just haven't watched it.

And it doesn't feel as though there's any social pressure to watch it. I guess that's what I'm getting it. That so many other situations when something is, is like, you know, that big. There's a sense that, like, if you don't know what's going on, you're like, you shut out from this world. But this is operating the way things used to operate, where, like, the biggest thing is not what is of interest

to sort of, like, the media mindset, you know? And I'm glad that that still happens. And I wonder if that's going to happen more moving forward. If we're going to more and more often see that the thing that is, like, most important to the largest number of people will be more, and more distant from like the coverage of culture. Because that's how it used to be. And then it moved the other way.

And they kind of came together for a while. And there was this period where it kind of felt like the biggest things were the only things anything anyone wanted to write about. Now it's not like that. But is your point that this is a throwback because the biggest thing is not a cool thing, which used to be the way it was when we were young. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's even a throwback.

It might be unique to now. I just think it's interesting that the biggest thing is something that I'm not inundated with. That it is able to exist in like its own world with this massive audience. And, uh, I mean, I mean, it's, I don't, I don't watch a lot of westerns. I mean, I guess that's the thing. If it was a, if it was a show that was about, I guess, uh, that part of the country and those kind of lives, but in some different vocation, like I just assumed it was going to be more of like a standard Western thing.

and I don't watch many of those. But I have no, this is in no way a criticism of the show. I don't know a goddamn thing about it. Yeah. It's hugely popular. That's the one thing I know. It's popular to, yeah. I mean, we'll let Chris come in and talk about the editorial nature of it.

I just can't get over the fact that like, it's not just like a little bit more popular than other things. It, on the Paramount Network, not even the streaming service, it gets eight million viewers when it airs at the time that it airs. a decently rated show on Basic Cable could get half a million viewers. It is so exponentially more popular than anything else. And so then, you know, it is also not just informed, and this is the thing, you know, this is what I was alluding to, it hasn't just informed the programming strategy for a studio,

Paramount. It hasn't just informed the programming strategy for its entire streaming service, right? But now it's infected the entire corporate parent, because now Showtime, this is the other bit of news that I wanted to get to, is kind of trying to Yellowstone itself, or at least replicate that success. Chris McCarthy, who technically heads, he heads all the studio group that also, you haven't seen Yellowstone,

but one of the most inexplicable things about it, Chuck, is that when it begins, the first image is MTV Studios. Because somehow, within the Paramount Parentage, this is the single most popular thing that the word MTV is attached to anymore. So this studio group is announced that, after last week,

with a fantastic decision to rename Showtime, its relatively successful prestige pay channel of multiple decades, is being renamed Paramount Plus with Showtime, which just sounds like a weird night out. They have done away with sort of low-performing prestige chasing stuff like the adaptation of three women that just offloaded and sold to stars, even though it was finished. These other shows that had experimented with over the years like the Michelle Gondry Show Kidding or On Becoming a God in Central Florida. And instead, there's going to double down on the franchises that work, which is what the shared and verse kind of is. So it means there'll be more dexteres, which is another show that was popular that I don't

have anything to say about. And the show billions, and this felt like an onion headline, I don't know if you saw this. The show billions is being spun off to include potentially. We'll see how these actually develop. Trillions, millions, and billions UK. Okay. Now, my thought was that it should also include, gazillions, which is about a group of precocious five-year-olds learning to count.

But, you know, I don't want to blow up their entire development pipeline. So this is real, though. This is actually what they've announced. Yeah, well, because you had, you actually mentioned this to me. And when you said, like, they're going to do, like, three billions. I thought you were, like, using, like, a hypothetical, but it's real. That's the idea. So, now, okay, with, with trillions, it's pretty easy to figure out what it's going to be.

It's going to be, like, a Warren Buffett type situation. Right. Like richer people. Yes. And then millions, I mean, that could just be like a successful real estate person in like La Jolla, right? That's like, there are a lot of people who are making a million dollars in the United States now. So millions is about quote, and this is from their press release, diverse 30 something financial mogul wannabes doing whatever it takes to make it in Manhattan. To make maybe the first million. Yes. Like this is what our goal is. Yes. That sounds like the show you wish Yellowstone was. No, I don't know. No, I mean, I thought like the show, like Yellowstone, to me would be interesting.

Like the store I wish it was. It would be like, like, maybe like about the park rangers there. Oh, just like helping people put out fires or start fires or. Yeah, and like dealing with the bison and all that stuff. And then like, okay, so billions UK, well, is that in pounds then? Or is it euros? Our assumptions that it's just. which already exists, but billions UK, oh, billions London.

Okay. Also, billions Miami. Which billions would you like, Chuck? There are billions that. It's just, this was inevitable, like the franchiseification of stuff, like just give people more and more of what they want. And it was interesting, the Hollywood Reporter at a piece today, basically, with some anonymous quotes from some people being like, this is the death of creativity

in television. And this was the endpoint of where a lot of these things were headed, and it's very dispiriting because if you look at the things that were actually hits and also kind of affordable hits, things like the bear or severance recently, like these are original ideas. And you kind of, you can't control that. You can't figure out a way to monetize a pipeline to produce that. It's just that's still where hits come from.

But then there are other people being like, oh, no, no, this is good, because this will allow us to Trojan horse the next generation of ideas and writer. But that never works like that. So I guess the question that I had for you, this is kind of a rough pivot. But when you're hearing about this stuff, because I don't even know what your TV consumption is these days. We're going to get to one of the planks of it later in this conversation. But as someone who recently wrote a book about the 90s, which, by the way, I neglected to say, Chuck, not only are you my good friend and a writer, but your most recent book, The 90s is out in soft cover. It is.

It is. Like, it's out in soft cover right now. Last week. and buy it. Yeah. Some people don't like the sort of the unforgiving hardness of a book in its first edition. I am one of those people.

You don't like to read hard covers? Well, it's a weird thing to say because I try to make a living selling these things. But if a soft cover and a hard cover of a book came out simultaneously, I would always buy the soft cover, even if they were the same price. Because I just, I like, I think that the physical object is easier to handle. And then, you know, with the hardcover books, you got that slide cover, and then it's like if that gets ruined. Well, then it seems like you're reading a book from like the Victorian era then because it doesn't look like anything. This is good for my brand.

That's fine. You know, I think that the reason like things like Kindles and all that, like it's hard for those things to become popular because the technology of the soft cover book is very hard to beat. It's very hard to beat something that you have that much content. that you can actually like throw against a wall and nothing happens. Or you can treat it well or you can treat it badly and there isn't really any, there's no perceived difference in that. You can write in them, you can fold things, you can rip things out. I mean, I just, it's hard to compete with that, you know.

Have you gotten any feedback as to which particular section of the 90s has caused people to throw it against the wall? I don't know, probably the author photo. Right. So the reason I was trying to do this potentially awkward, I mean, Chris is good at these sort of segues and foldovers and things. But as someone who watched television in the 90s, as did I, do you, are you, like one thing that Chris and I have been talking about is it just seems like the industry writ large destroyed a successful model of television when it moved off of cable in the cable bundle where everyone made money and there was just a lot of stuff and is now desperately trying to recreate it, both in terms of these so-called fast channels, which are like, like, tubi and, you know, all these free-vis, where it's basically just,

it's ad-supported stuff again. But then also with these franchiseifications, where everyone's looking at what like Dick Wolf did with the Law and Order things and being like, let's do it with Dexter, or Nightcourt is back, or, you know,

God knows what other reboots are coming, Frazier is coming back. Do you feel any, do you have any opinion about this about the return of the 90s? Do you feel like this is going to be successful? Do people still want this stuff? Are they just servicing the same group of people?

like us, who watched it 30 years ago? I mean, I don't know about that. It's a complicated thing because I think the expectation of what television is has changed so dramatically that talking about it now is, like, we're almost sort of talking around the actual experience. Like, okay, so I'm watching poker face right now. And, you know, I just, I like Natasha Leon. she's like, she's a little bit like Danny McBride, just listening to her talk is funny. Like, it doesn't really matter what she's saying.

It just kind of, you know, but when I watch the show, I have tons of issues with it. Like, like, my wife and I'll watch an episode, and usually when the episodes are over, like, I complain a lot. Like, you know, Flechman's in trouble, okay? Every episode of that series left me sort of with this idea that I saw just flaws in everything. Like, like, I thought the acting was good. But every part of the construction, I had, like, like a problem with.

And then I think to myself, if either of those shows had been on in the 90s, they would have been the best show of the period. I mean, this happens constantly. That I'm constantly seeing these shows that in my mind are imperfect or whatever, because I'm using this completely different scale now of like that they have to be complete and everything has to fit together and it can't just be entertaining and all the, you know. So all these things that are happening with television, I still think overall, like the quality of content is exponentially higher, you know?

The idea of trying, are you saying the idea of trying to return or these like, like I watch this, I watch this channel, or I guess it's an application, Pluto. Okay, I, so Pluto, I think if you get Disney Plus, you know, you get Pluto for free. You can get Pluto for free, just sign up for it. You just go to Pluto TV. And, you know, if people who have it, they'll be like, I knew what it is. but if you don't know what it is, it's like hundreds of channels of like live TV. And when I say live, I mean like really live.

You can't pause it. You can't record it. They have commercials and it's temporary. If you see something, that's it. You can't go back. And they're mostly like old shows from the 70s, 80s and 90s. There's a bunch of news channels. Like you can watch like the local 10 o'clock news from like Miami or whatever.

That's kind of fun to do. There's a bunch of music. channels kind of separated by decade and then one channel that just shows music documentaries. So I watch this a lot because it is more of a passive experience, which is a weird thing to say, but it's true. It's like all these other TV shows that are good or alleged to be good, I feel like I have to make a completely different investment into, the way I used to or still do make investments into watching movies.

So I do think that there is something attractive to the idea of television becoming less significant and less important and therefore more enjoyable to the consumer? I mean, is that kind of what you're getting at? Well, yeah. I mean, I think broadly it goes back to something that we've talked about for years, which is that TV doesn't necessarily mean the interesting reimagining of Irma VEP on HBO. I mean, TV is the box still where there's just a lot of different content and a lot of different experiences and purposes for that content.

And we're seeing that become a corporate issue. Another thing that was announced this week was that apparently Warner Brothers Discovery is backing off of the idea of combining HBO Max with Discovery Plus because they're realizing that the people who pay whatever they pay for the Chip and Joanna Gaines suite of programming might not want to pay $15 a month for the Irma Vepri imagining that maybe those are different actual experiences and people might not pay for them in the same way. But I do think in terms of the content, we're having an interesting moment. There's the, did you read the New Yorker profile of Bella Bajaria from Netflix that we were talking about the other week? No. You needn't, but just one of the takeaways that has actually trickled down almost instantly into the conversation here in all caps, this town, is that what she describes, she describes what she's looking for at Netflix is a gourmet cheeseburger, right? She wants something that's really well made, but it's essentially as familiar and satisfying as a cheeseburger. And so that's why, in a way, in a way, that's what poker face is, right?

It's almost an absurd orgy of riches to have a episode of Colombo remade with Ryan Johnson directing and Natasha Leon starring in it. That is just, that is the height of indulgence. It's like the Daniel Ballude Cheeseburger that had truffles and foie in it. But I'm interested in your other point about finding this Pluto thing because I didn't, I knew what it was and I knew that there were channels on it. But I didn't know that it had a particular channel called like Slow TV or like Slow Watching, which you told me about. And so to bring this all together, the other night I had like, I had a free, free window beginning at 9 p.m. That's classic prime time, right? Like that's when you can fire up maybe shows you're behind on or whatever.

And the thought of even considering what I was behind on was so daunting and was so unpleasant and homeworky that I sat in silence probably for about 15 minutes. thought about reading, but that would be crazy. And instead it was like, oh, Chuck told me about this Pluto thing. So I turned it. I signed up for it. I turned it on. And I watched about 20 minutes of a train going through the countryside. Yeah, well, you're watching the show all aboard.

Yeah. I guess that was the show. Yeah. And a lot of times what I like to do when I'm on Pluto is I run through all the music channels. Then I run through all the news channels because besides getting like the weird, like local news from like various cities, it also. also has like the real kind of fringe out there political shows where it's like a guy in front of a flag, like talking about like what the future should be or whatever. I'm sorry, is that out there these days?

I feel like that guy's a congressman. But then I move down and I, it's just, it's an image from the front of a train moving through Norway. Like, so it's like you're seeing like the landscape of Norway and there's no dialogue. There's no information about Norway or about the train. It's just the train. So I'm watching this for a little bit, and I'm kind of mesmerizing a little bit. It's also kind of pretty, I guess, in a way. The way looking at a painting is pretty, but like it's moving.

The train stops at a station and just sits there for like 12 minutes. It doesn't move. Sometimes the train goes into tunnels. That's what I was going to say. It went into a tunnel, and I thought my computer went to sleep. Yeah, trains go in tunnels more than you realize. I guess I shouldn't be surprising, but it's like there's a lot of times. tunnels out there. But, okay, now people are listening to this and they're like, oh,

he's just trying to be weird that he watches. But here's, they're not listening anymore. Okay. The thing is, though, I think part of it has to do with the fact that I am sort of like almost thrown off balance by that I'm seeing this on television. Because I had such an idea of what television was for so long that when the possibility, of what it could be opened up to the state it is in now, I'm always still sort of amazed by it. Like, you know, my wife wants me to get rid of cable. She says it's a waste of time.

We spend too much. There's all these, you know, different ways we could get the things we want. But I find that flipping from channel to channel is still an amazing experience because I just can remember flipping through four channels, just waiting for anything that was not bad. Like something that I could, you know, and just that I'm just seeing things. thing after thing. So when I'm on, so I'm on Pluto and I'm watching this slow TV thing. I'm watching this train go through. Then the next night, it was like a, it was a train ride

kind of, I think, kind of through Canada or something. I, it is, it's a different kind of relaxing because it's not like staring at nothing and it's not like following something. I am watching something and I understand that this is a television show and this is, I'm in what country I'm in and all these things, but I can also think whatever I want. I mean, that's why, like, a lot of times I watch a lot of sports with the volume down, because I like watching sports, but I also like to be able to think other things while I'm watching it. And this seems like a TV channel that's actually geared toward. It also, to me, feels like I'm dreaming while I'm awake.

Because it's completely uncontextualized. It has sort of the sense that I'm seeing nothing in a texture. way. So there must be some kind of subtextual meaning to it. Yeah. Yeah, well, also it's, it's waking things up in you or it's what does this signify in your mind? Why are you responding to it? I agree. Do you find yourself, here's a question. There's never been more television. It's scripted certainly, but you throw in everything else plus the new train channels that we're just discovering. Do you, has your appetite for watching things changed? Because I wonder if you, If you interviewed yourself from 15 years ago and maybe, you know, we're both living in,

we're living in New York, maybe we're doing this over a beer. And we're both saying, well, we're watching, what are we watching? We're watching maybe, I don't know, did you watch 30 Rock and Mad Men, you know, and maybe this new show Breaking Bad or something like that? That was pretty much it. And do you find that at this moment, when there are 400 shows in the year, proportionally, are there still the same number that you feel deeply invested? in and are actively watching and care about,

as opposed to the way you were describing checking out Fleischman or the other shows that you have crossed your transom recently. Well, like the Fleischman show seems to have had some of the impact that those previous shows did, and that I see, like, lots of stories and kind of conversations about things that are kind of adjacent to what's actually happening, but somehow feel tied, at least specifically to the, like, New York Magazine or whatever.

It's like the kind of person. Yeah, I'll tell you who's not watching that. Yeah. The 8 million people who watch Yellowstone. But go on. I think that in the past when this happened, we were, like, it was so still surprising that, like, madmen and these shows were so rich and that there were so many, like, ideas in them that in the past you would only associate with film.

And now we're at a television show that was ongoing. So it was almost like you were having a conversation about a movie throughout the movie. And the movie just kept going on and on and on. Now, when I have conversations about television, it more seems to be people mentioning shows and then seeing if anyone else is also watching it. It's less likely that you're going to find someone who's watching the exact same. Or people will say, like, what are you watching now?

And you'll tell them and they'll be like, oh, I guess I'll start that. I saw that or whatever. When the bear came, that was a little bit, like I felt like a lot of people were watching that simultaneously. And that kind of, and that was a real kind of cool thing for a while. and it was just kind of a... Like, I'd been a while since I had enjoyed watching a show that much.

I think my appetite probably has changed. I do seem to enjoy it less. But that's not... It shouldn't be surprising. I mean, it's... I mean, I'm 50 now. I'm sort of moving out of the window of who TV wants to appeal to. So things that are still appealed to me is either me kind of moving back against the

nature of my age or the show kind of creeping forward. The show Yellowstone, you're talking about, like, I'm talking about like, I don't even know it. I know what it is. I bet that I wonder what the average age for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be.

Yeah. And people watch TV linearly. In a way, isn't Yellowstone sort of what would, like, the dream would be for CBS to have? It is CBS. Oh, it is. I mean, it is because it's paramount, but that's exactly right. In my own limited, and I apologize, Chris isn't here to stand up for the Sheridan verse.

but my own limited incursions into Taylor Sheridan shows, whether it's Mayor of Kingston or any of these Yellowstone spin-off, our prequel series, that's been my takeaway. Like, this is Slow Food CBS. This has, and it's very confounding, actually, unless you sort of give into it, because they all speak to each other, they all speak the same rhythmic language.

They're all basically written and directed by one guy on his ranch. But the collision feels odd at first, because the subject matter, the trappings, the production values, certainly increasingly the stars are of today. They're extremely modern. They're prestige streaming TV circumstances. But the concerns, the themes, even the storylines are CBS. Now, I say that not as a snob because I think one of the things supporting this conversation

is that I think that passive TV is a good thing and is entertaining and has its uses. But that is a strange collision that is enormously successful. We should move on because I know you had a couple of other topics, but I do think this is interesting. because this entire loose conversation we're having is definitely triggering one of our frequent guests and our friends and maybe our Bette Noir, Sam Esmail, whose whole belief every time he comes on this podcast is that passive laundry folding TV is the devil and the TV is now a haven for real filmmaking and real auateurs and that that is the benchmark of visual entertainment, right? that you need to give to a television show made with intention at a high budget the same amount of rigor and focus that you would, an art house movie that you paid money to see in a dark room with strangers. Sometimes it is, though. I mean, sometimes that's true.

I had not seen the third and fourth season of Atlanta until a couple weeks ago. And I think particularly the third season of that show, it's legitimately original. And like, and the, the, sort of the way scenes look and stuff like that, it did, it was almost jarring because people had kind of gotten away from that. You know, I think that like when, you know, like Mr. Robot and like Breaking Bad in those shows, there was a high emphasis on that, on like the cinematat, you know, and that has, and I, I'm guessing when you made your show, you felt that was an important part of it, you know. Yeah. I made it for Smeal Corp. I had to. But no, I did.

But also it's funny. You've now completely made it up to him because he feels that season three. of Atlanta was singular genius and yelled at us about that too. So, well, that was the best one. It was definitely better than season four in season two. I'd watch season one when it came out. Oh, definitely. Totally disagree.

Oh, that's interesting. Why do you say that? Well, we got into this pretty hot and heavy. See, I got to admit, I can't listen to the watch anymore because I don't keep, well, no, here's why. Can I tell you why? You guys talk about things too quickly. I can't keep up with everything that's happening.

I don't want things spoiled. I would have to go back. When I listen to your episodes, they're always like much, much older than the ones that are coming out. Because you guys are, to your credit, you're like right on the cusp of what's happening. So it's like I don't, you talk about, like, I can't do that. I can't always be watching everything all the time. Yeah. This is great because, first of all, no one would ever accuse me of watching everything all the time.

But also, I think the reason is you just alluded to it, Chris and I still barely, are in the coveted 18 to 49-year-old demographic. Barely. You've recently graduated from that. So your needs are now different, whereas we still need to keep swimming in the crazy party pool at the Las Vegas. Well, I just think it's the nature of doing a podcast.

Like, it wouldn't make a lot of sense. Like, even what we're doing now, for a podcast, this does not make a lot of sense, like mentioning things from even the relatively recent past, you know? Because the expectation is that people who are, You know, it's like, it's almost like people are experiencing these things along with you. And it's just, my life makes that almost impossible now. And it bums me out because it's like, I like listening to your show, but I'm always afraid I want to hear something that's going to ruin experience later.

Like you're going to say something and I'm going to know something. Or like, even if you don't give anything away, you're going to frame the show in a way that I will then watch it with that framing in mind. Well, so Atlanta season three is a good example of that. And I do wonder, so you're the second person that I've spoken. to recently who watched seasons three and four recently, separated from the scrum of expectation, of sort of instant reaction of podcasts like this one, who enjoyed it. I mean, with varying degrees of intensity, but there certainly was no negative feeling about it. I think that it's impossible to separate some of the criticism of season three from the scarcity of Atlanta for

a number of years before it and the jarring nature of some of the creative choices inside of it. And also there's a different level of stakes, right? Because you, it's interesting. I just feel like you singling that out for its aesthetics, for its ambition, for its surprising, the surprising nature of it. Well, for the fact that some episodes had nothing to do with anything about the show, I did not expect that. You know, it's like, I guess maybe if I had expected that, I would be like, well, it would have bothered me in some way because it's, I mean, there's nothing, I think, I shouldn't say nothing. It's a great, this is a great experience of watching anything.

When you're watching something and it is completely disconnected from what you assume is going to be there, but you don't know that. So in your mind, you're constantly trying to make that connection. And then when you finally realize that you don't have to do that, the whole back experience changes. I recently rewatched Margin Call. Okay. Now, when Margin Call came out, that was like, I think my favorite movie from that year. And I watched it again, and it was good, but it wasn't as. go to and here's why. Because when I watched it the first time, I spent the entire film thinking,

I got to figure out what's going on with this story, with this language. What are they talking about what's really happening? And then at one point, I realized, oh, you don't need to know what's going on. It's kind of like, like, like, primer or whatever. It's like just the language of these people talking, you know, it's just, it's the way they're talking about it. And now, knowing that, I was actually just seeing the story and it was much less thrilling. I think I've mentioned this before, but I think one of the most memorable and interesting music listening experiences of my life was in college when I went on, like, records used to come out on Tuesdays. And I went to the record store in your ear in Providence, Rhode Island, to buy the first ghost face killer record, Iron Man, and was so excited. And I bought the CD and I unwrapped it.

And I brought it back to the main green, you know, and sat down in the springtime, I guess, put it in my disc man, put it in my ears. And was really surprised by the nature of the music and the first track. And I was like, well, you know, Ghostface is an artist. Riz's doing some weird soundscapes. It sounds a little soft jazzy, but I don't know. And then some singing started. And I was like, I'm going to skip. I'm going to skip because this is the intro.

You skipped the next track. And it was kind of more of the same. And it took me maybe 35 minutes to just whether realize or admit that there had been an error at the CD packaging plant. And I think I had the new record by Maxwell, the R&B singer. But by listening to this searching for what Ghostface was doing was a really interesting and active listening experience. And probably you thought that if nothing else, like this is good.

Even if I don't like it, this is good that he's doing something to such. The weird experience, it's on me if I don't get it. I need to go to where he is. I probably told you this, but the wildest kind of example I have this for my own life is I was, I went to the first screening of natural born killers, the Oliver Stone film, because I was reviewing it for the paper in Fargo. So I go to, and there was no press screenings in Fargo. So you would just go to the very first screening.

So it's like Friday at 1 o'clock. And I'm watching the movie and it was a highly anticipated movie and I'd had the soundtrack for quite a while. And it was at the time because of who Oliver Stone was, I think the perception was like this is going to be his masterwork. So I'm watching the movie and, you know, I can't even remember what exactly my feelings were about it. And then at one point, the movie took a dramatic artistic shift. I couldn't I couldn't figure it out it was like suddenly there was like a fire and all all the language was now like a David Lynch film like I couldn't understand what they were saying and then at one point I heard the cowboy junkies cover of the Velvet Underground but it's being played in reverse and I'm like what does this mean like where is this going and then it goes on like this for about 20 minutes and then all of a sudden like the film almost like kind of like It burns and it's over. And then a guy comes out and he says, we put the last reel of the film in backwards.

But because, me and everybody in the theater, because, like, we didn't know what we were supposed to see. And because, like, there are, like, throughout that movie, he uses, like, lots of lenses and, like, weird cameras and stuff like that and, like, night vision type stuff. And you can't tell sometimes if this is supposed to be real or cartoonish. So I spent that whole period figuring like, what am I going to say about the end of this movie? Like, am I just not getting it or am I actually getting it? I think I am. And I started convincing myself that he was actually making some kind of comment about how society and sort of like the bloodlust of the side in the media has sort of like move the world in reverse. And like we were now kind of going back to almost like a primitive primal state where it's like, you know, where violence was sort of the key to everything where it was like like caveman like the beginning of 2000.

2001 or whatever. And, you know, of course then, the guy said you can all see the next version of, well, you can come back, you know, a free ticket or whatever and watch the movie again. And, you know, it would never be as good. It could never be as good as the mistake that they made. Yeah. I love that. I also think that this is relevant to what you were saying about your reaction to Atlanta season

three and also connecting it back to what you said about our initial reactions to things like Mad Men. because we couldn't get over. I love the way you said it, that we get to interact and comment on this rich cinema, this movie in real time and have that experience. Atlanta is still,

even though we've moved away from a lot of the trappings of traditional television, was still presented to us as a TV show and arrived as a TV show as the third season of a TV show.

And that comes with a certain expectation, a certain compact with the audience, right? Whether it's good or ill, that there will be something similar to guide us from our experience with the first two seasons

and to this season, that characters who we've grown to love or their developments will be continued, respected, and honored in this third season. So broadly, I think that my issues with season three, I still think are fair or valid criticisms because I did think some of the bigger swings, while I admire the desire to take the swing

and the creative Cajonese to even consider it in the first place, I don't think they landed often. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn't. But I have to be honest, that definitely part of my reaction was because I was watching it and receiving it with those antenna up as a subsequent season of television. And when there wasn't a lot of Alfred in it, I was disappointed because my experience with

the show is watching Brian Tyree Henry play that part. And they were withholding it, something I respect, but I didn't entirely enjoy. Tell me this. One thing that I feel like you often mentioned when you're talking about television, you used to write this a lot when you were a TV critic, You often talk about things that you feel are earned or unearned in television shows. It's a real, like a hot button word for you. What do you really mean by that? I mean, I know what you mean, but what do you?

I would like to hear you really describe when you say something is unearned. What are you usually saying? Well, I think often it would come up in terms of, honestly, this is also a hot button word. I feel like the killing you used to talk about that long. Well, I think there's two things. I think in terms of like a screenwriting language, the idea of something being earned means that you've set it up properly so that it feels like a natural evolution of events. It doesn't necessarily need to be a surprise or a twist, but it needs to feel connected to what you had been watching up to that point. You know, so that you are not thrown. You don't feel like you're being taken advantage of. And a lot of that comes from this idea of the writer of a piece or the showrunner of a piece who's often the same person as kind of like they're driving the bus, right? And if you trust that person to be. a responsible driver or you understand the rhythms of the way that they drive and the way they stop or start or approach turns, you can relax into the ride and trust them. Trust that the things being presented to you are going to be presented in a way that you will ultimately

feel are valid and also makes you feel valued. There's a tendency sometimes, I think, in stuff that I don't respond to, to throw shocking imagery or to go for the jugular in terms of like scenes of emotional violence or distress that I just don't, this is when I often use the word earned because I'm like, I don't trust you to show me that. I don't think you're being responsible with that. A couple things. What does like a filmmaker or a showrunner need to do to earn the right to show,

say, a decapitation? Like, like, as a hypothetical example, like what, that happened like the first season of old Game of Thrones, right? They chop my guy's head off at the end. I'm sorry if you haven't watched it yet. There's a version of you, Chuck, that's way behind like a decade behind on this podcast, it just got spoiled.

So to earn a decapitation, what does one need to do? Well, I think there's two tracks to consider it in. One is aesthetically, like, is this filmmaker or director or writer someone who has a certain aesthetic point of view where this is the language that they use and it makes sense?

I definitely consider violence differently like when I watch something that James Gunn makes, like I know going in that he uses violence the way some writers use exclamation points. You know, that's just part of it. And so I either buy the ticket or I don't. I think in terms of storytelling... Wouldn't that be the epitome of unearned use of it then, though?

Wouldn't that, like, if it's... I don't love his stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think I have problems with it, but similarly, like, I understand that it's like going to see... If you see a filmmaker, you know, if you see an Olmodovar movie, it's going to be in Spanish.

You know what I mean? that's just the way it's going to be. And so you either buy the ticket or you don't. I think that for me, it's generally often, like, I like seeing human beings in heightened circumstances, and I like to see some consideration of genuine human reactions or emotional responses to things. So a beheading should be pretty horrific. And if you're in the intent of the beheading is more about the way people react to it, I don't think I need to see the gouts of blood, you know, spouting from some someone's neck personally. I don't think you need that because I think you play it off of the person's face who has seen it,

which is what happened in Game of Thrones. So do you kind of... So it plays off of Aria's face. Do you kind of tie it into the idea of things being gratuitous? In this specific case of violence, yes. Okay. I do. Well, I broke this up because here's something else I wanted to talk to you specifically because

you write television. Okay. So the best fictional film I saw last year was Tar in my thing. I agree. non-fiction film was a trauma zone, like that 10-part documentary about like Russia from 1985 to 1999. That was incredible. What?

I'd like to see that. Is that on Pluto TV? We're pretty far back. But so the best, the best fictional movie I thought was tar. And it's been out for a while now. But the thing is, there is sort of this kind of growing sentiment and I think a very convincing sentiment that the last 15 minutes of the movie, maybe the last 20 minutes of a movie are a dream.

Okay. And I find dream sequences real fascinating to me, because to me they're a little bit like footnotes in writing. Like I as a writer love using footnotes. I understand that to readers, those are often really annoying. And sometimes I'm even annoyed by other people's footnotes, even though I have the desire to add more and more footnotes to everything I do. Dream sequences are popular among screenwriters because it allows them to sort of

of get kind of these things into the story that would be impossible to illustrate in any kind of real world. But I feel as though most viewers feel it is a cheapened experience. Like to me now, the idea that the end of tar is a dream, but I wasn't conscious of that while I was watching like someone had to tell me that for me to figure it out. It was interesting because it made me want to watch it again. But in another part of me is like, well, but if it is, if it's all, you know, what, like, it's already a dream, right? It's already a fantasy.

None of this is real. So you're putting, so I'm wondering, like, in your world, in the screenwriting world, how do they, like, what is, what is sort of the, the, the reputation of or the, sort of the, the feelings toward adding dream sequences? Because there's, like, dream sequences in the Sopranos, you know, like, and they, and they were used, I thought, pretty well for the most part, sometimes. They were very divisive. Yeah.

Yes, they were the most divisive episodes. I mean, the most divisive episode of Dallas is the one where, like, turns out that, you know, Bobby Ewing was alive for a whole season. The whole season was a dream. The end of Roseanne was all a dream. So, like, those seem to be in some ways, like, you know, the most troubling moves. But, like, what are your thoughts on this? Like, do you— Can't believe you just spoiled Roseanne.

I—well, first, I want to say about Tar, I completely. agree. I'm seeing it again on Monday, so maybe I'll be more ready to talk about it. And Chris and I still haven't really, we just keep teasing it, but we haven't really talked about it. But Tar is my favorite example of this, because I profoundly reject the idea that it's a dream. There's no textural basis for that assumption. Oh, yes, there is, Andy. There's clear textural basis. But wait, the best kind of conversation and the best kind of art for me is when we can have this debate. Now, I'll watch it again. Maybe I'll completely have a different experience. But I love that you can make a text-based or interpretation-based case that this is a dream at the end,

or not. It could be both. And it's a tribute to the style of filmmaking and the performance and where the movie goes, which to me, I mean, I've told people, I'd probably said it on the podcast. Like, those last 15 minutes, like, I levitated out of my seat. I mean, I just was, I already loved the movie, and then I went into some sort of transcendent, like, Stendahl syndrome. Like, this is true art, and I'm ringing like a bell. I don't think it's a dream. I think it's real. So you think that it is within, okay, so the first, you know, three-fourths of that movie are pretty close to the ground, right?

Like, it feels, you know, so it seems plausible to you that the main character would go to a performance in her outfit and then run out and attack the conductor? Like, in retrospect, now that makes no sense. That's like, like, why would she be there? Why would she be dressed in that way? But here's the other thing I wanted to mention. So the director of that, of course, was in Eyes Wide Shut. He's Nick Nightingale in Eyes Wide Shut.

He's a big Kubrick aficionado and Disciple. He studied, he talked to him during the filming. And, you know, Eyes Wide Shut is based on a novel that's just about dreaming. It is probably some of the, I think, the deftest use of kind of atmospheric sort of dreamlike ambiance in that even the things that are actually happening very much seem like dreams. Like when Tom Cruise is walking down the street and these guys accused him of being gay or whatever, that is like a dream somebody has about that. that fear if they haven't. But also, he's walking down the streets of quote-unquote New York that look nothing like New York. Don't even try to make it look like New York.

Everything about that movie makes you feel unsettled. I mean, there's, you know, and it's like there's, you know, all these sort of like, you know, dreams are all symbolism, right? So there's like a Christmas tree in every scene except when he's at the sex cult. Like, so does that mean that that's the one place that Christ doesn't exist or whatever? Like there's all this stuff. So that, that knowledge, the fact that he's this person in this movie is the guy who made this film. And the fact, there are some dream sequences earlier in the film, although much more conventionally done.

Like, it's like you know there's, I don't know. I just, I wonder why I like talking about this idea. I like the idea of being a filmmaker who would make a dream sequence. And yet, as someone in the audience, it does to me, to me, seem the unearned thing that you use. That anything you put in a dream is unearned. Well, I have a couple thoughts about it. I think that the most important thing you said is this is all made up anyway. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that.

And I think that what TAR does in its last act, regardless of the intention of the filmmaker, is to brilliantly and almost sneakily recreate the discomforting experience of being trapped in a dream. It gives you that feeling, which is not the same thing that many more straightforward, intentional dream sequences do. They instead feel like kind of, you know, a chance to show off. a little bit or get a little wackier, creative with the lenses you're using, you know, and to communicate information. The end of tar doesn't really serve that purpose. It's not communicating some inner aspect of Lydia Tar. The whole movie is about the inner aspect of Lydia Tar. It just

gives us the sensation in a way, puts us inside of her skin and the way she must be feeling. I think, I love this stuff. And I, you know, one of the most compelling things that I read all of last year was that essay about how Top Gun Maverick is entirely an after-death sequence. Again, textually in the text, is it? I mean, I don't think so. But I love that we can have that conversation and have that spirited debate. But I think that's a different conversation than why people use them as, well, I'll let you finish that. Because I just want to speak to the point about, like, using them in scripts.

I mean, like, okay, like the thing with Maverick being a dream, okay, with the idea that's his dying thoughts or whatever from that early, like when he's testing some. In the first 10 minutes with Honda and he crashes in your home state of Oregon. Yeah. It is becomes a fantasy or becomes a dream. If you what, this is a, this is kind of a somewhat paradoxical situation. The idea of it being a dream becomes almost airtight. If you say to yourself, everything I see in this movie has to be plausible in reality. Because the thing he's doing in that jet, a human cannot survive.

And a human could not survive ejecting from a jet at that speed at that height. Okay. But now another person is like, well, you can't. in a movie, it's a movie. The whole thing, you know, but if you say like, no, I'm going by this kind of this, I'm using only the logic of reality. Then the idea of him parachuting down and like walking into a diner or whatever and that's everything starts from there. The idea that he would go back and like his friend's son looks just like him, like the friend and plays the same kind of music on the piano and that and that there's, you know, because when you're watching it, like

You know, the relationship he has with the bartender, it's like, well, that's kind of weird. Like, she was important in his life. I didn't know she was important in his life. But if this is what he thinks while he's dying, although then again, if you had a thought while you were dying, you think you would envision the person you actually did love, which would be Kelly McGillis. I don't know. Yeah. Yes.

Look, I reject generally the idea of like life, actual reality as a. appropriate comp or cheat sheet for what movies should do. This is how we end up with the kind of like Reddit message board culture where we're just, everything is a question that needs to be answered. I mean, the best movies just exist in their own emotional, spiritual, spatial place that isn't your life that takes you out of it and gives you these same feelings. And I think that the best movies are dreams. And the reason most dream sequences fail are the same reason why the most interesting thing

to you, Chuck, is the dream you had last night. night, the least interesting thing you could tell me today would be the dream you had last night. And that's the disconnect. And so the best movies make you feel like you are a party to this dream, whereas the worst dream sequences are just like someone telling me about a dream they had, which as soon as it hits the air, like, curdles. You know, it's in you as this living thing. And you start to say the story of it, and you just feel it decay in front of you.

It's just doesn't exist. It's not interesting in reality. But if you, I'd say you were pitching a television show, you were pitching a pilot. and it was dependent on a dream sequence. Would you think that there would be pushback against that? Do you think some people would say that, well, that's a lazy way to do this? I think it depends where I was pitching it. You know, I mean, I think that, circling all the way back to our first conversation,

like I recently watched a show where every single beat, not just the, I mean, it was a straightforward show. There was no dream sequence, no fantasy elements. but everything was entirely the safest, most predictable, familiar choice. Everything. There was no surprises in it. And I think this show will do quite well. You know, and I think, so I don't, I think that if I was pitching a original, you know, non-IP passion project to HBO, and it all hinged on a dream sequence, they would push back on that.

Why can't you do it in the world of the show? Why do you need to take this detour? And if I said, oh, because the filmmaking language is the crucial element, you know, then they would maybe go along with it. But if I was pitching to the new iteration of Paramount Plus with Showtime, for example, they might be like, is he dreaming about billions or trillions? In which case, we know which show to slot it into. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that there is a familiarity, like characters who have disturbing dreams and then wake up screaming. Like, does that happen in real life?

Not in my experience, but it communicates something. I just, I think it was the third season of Atlanta. Maybe it was the fourth season. One of the characters goes to one of, like a, to like a, like a one of those sensory deprivation tanks. It's the finale at the end of the fourth season. Is that, okay. And he has this idea that as long as he can imagine Judge Judy being thick that he knows he's in, he knows he's in a false reality or whatever. And, you know, and it kind of keeps going on.

And so it ends with him basically still in the false reality. Because that was the, I think there are, I can only think a two, one other example where something is built around a dream and we never exit the dream. Waking life is like that. The entire movie is a dream, the Richard Linklater film. And then it ends where he keeps trying to wake up and he's not able to wake up and it's all rotoscoped. So it's like you, you sense that, well, this is supposed to look like it, you know. And then like he just kind of floats away at the end. Like there is no end to the dream.

I don't, I can't think maybe if I sat here for a while, I'd think of other examples. but usually the thing about a dream sequence, I guess, that it has to end. And maybe that's the problem. I mean, that's what I love. I love the finale of Atlanta because, again, it was playing with that trope of like finalees and what's real and what isn't. But I think it ultimately, again, not in the text, but in the subtext, landed where we are, which is that we're sharing this dream.

This is fake. And it's over because arbitrarily Donald Glover decided he was done and signed an overall deal with Amazon and, you know, the economic shifted. got busy and famous, and so it's over. But that's as random a reason as anything else. I mean, I keep thinking about David Lynch. And, like, arguably, those movies are all dreams that never end. Because when the people are awake, characters who have dream sequences in these things,

in Twin Peaks or whatever. And then they wake up, and they're not in any universe of Earth I've ever lived in. They're still in his dream. I mean, to a degree in David Lynch's stuff, the dream sequences are a little bit it more like reality than the other stuff. Because when the people have the dream sequences, they're closer to what we think dreaming is supposed to look like and sound like. It's the way they talk in life that is kind of the alienating sort of experience.

But that's why I feel like to tie in the James Gunn thing, there's a language of dreams that we experience and there's a language of certain filmmakers that you just have to buy into. And whether it's James Gunn or it's like screwball comedies of the 40s with Carrie Grant and Catherine Hepburn, like I watch Holiday or bringing a baby. No one has ever talked like that. No one has ever been in situations like that. But you buy in because these are the rules.

This is the box that you're existing in. And for the duration of it, you're waking up is when it's over, right? And I like that kind of shared dream. That makes sense to me. In a way, I prefer that to a show that is slavishly devoted to like how things really are. And it would take this long to drive to this town so we can't actually do that. I don't actually care if, you know, I remember, I don't know if you've had this with your kids, but I remember both my daughters at different times pointing out the unreality of movies

because characters don't go to the bathroom. And I was like, well, do you think that Frozen would be better if Elsa took a minute, you know, to go to her royal chambers to do whatever she needed to do? And they said, yes, because then it would be real. Well, that's also, you know, when kids watch films, they want them to be real in a way that I don't know if we do. I mean, like, like, sometimes I think that we do. As an adult, you watch a film, you wish life was like that or you wish you, you know, but, but kids really want that to be true. And they, and they, they know it's not in a way, but they also, like, they can suspend their

disbelief in this different way. Like, just something we just talked about maybe, there's always this project I've wanted to do, which is I wanted to, I've wanted to make a documentary about the history of, like, the versimilitude of language in TV and film. like how over time language becomes more and more realistic, but I'm not sure if it does, if it's just kind of reflecting how people actually did talk. Like, okay, so you know in that movie quiz show, the key question the guy gets wrong is like the movie Marty, right?

I think that's, you know, it's the man. Well, because of that movie, I went and tried to watch Marty one time, and it was like the people don't talk. It's just, it's impossible to watch because of the way the language is in some ways, you know? So then I started wondering it was like, or did people during that period? of time talk differently. And you, because you go, like, you move through time and, like, sometimes there'll be jumps.

Like, I thought to show Girls in some ways was kind of a big jump in this in terms of the realism of language. I think it would be fun to kind of see clips through time of what was considered, like, the most realistic language of the period. Because in the 70s, there were some films that were jarring to people because people were actually talking like, you know, humans, you know? Well, I think this is an ongoing thing because in Shakespeare's time, people didn't talk in Shakespeare poetry.

Like that that was not how people talked. But there was an expectation that the theater would be elevated, right? That it would be beautiful writing or poetry or performance in that way. It's just often a question also of standards and not to throw too wide a net about it. Like we've been going through this a lot in our real reality where like up until 10 years ago, right, the state of the union address, for example, is a performed thing and everyone knows the rules and you stand up and you clap for America and you sit down and you discerting agree about some things. And then you're, you glad hand and you're done. And then 10 years ago, that Jackass goes, you lie. Everyone's like, oh my God, and clutching their pearls, right?

And then this week, there's another state of the union. And it's basically Friday night raw, right? Like, people are like, fuck you, like just screaming profanities at it, like they're at a minor league hockey game. And the only reason they weren't doing that before is because, I guess, everybody agreed on a convention. That this is, this is the way we, we perform this. And as soon as someone changes the rules about that, and I think there's a sliding scale for that, certainly, in what is gratuitous

or what isn't in movies, what's depicted in movies, but in the way that people talk to each other. And people kind of always want the opposite. I remember when people used to say things like, it should be more like the way it is in England, like way is in parliament. People yell at each other, people, you know.

Spirit of debate, yeah. But now when it happens in America, it doesn't seem good. It seems worse, you know. It definitely seems dumber, like the money things in America. It does not seem, because everyone's like, you know, people would watch C-SPAN, right, Prime Minister's question to be like, oh, look how deft they are, jabbing and parrying. You know, like they're watching a fencing match at the Olympics. This is a little bit different. Well, I feel like we covered it. I feel like what's left in the table? We've done dream sequences. We got the State of the Union. You disagreed and then agreed with Sam S-Mail. I feel like you hit all the podcast talking points. Do we leave any meat on this bone other than we shouldn't wait a hundred years to have you back? just my honor to be involved. You know, my pleasure.

My pleasure and honor. So thank you to Kaya for producing us beautifully, as always. Some housekeeping, about to throw it to our old friend Chris Ryan, who had the pleasure of speaking with the great Alison Brie about her new Amazon film, somebody I used to know, which is premiering tomorrow, the 10th on Prime Video. And Chris will be back post-Super Bowl, something that we're both very excited about, on Monday for a new episode of the WatchPod. I know that the Last of Us, episode 5 is dropping early.

We will not be podcasting early to meet it because Chris is still in the UK. So we will be back with the new episode on Monday. Stick around for his interview with Alison Brie now. But most of all, thank you to Chuck Losterman, the 90s. It is in paperback, the superior format at bookstores everywhere now. Poor Chris, I watched the Super Bowl in England one year. It starts at like 1245. Oh, he's coming back.

He's coming back. Oh, he is. He is going to be back. Yes, he's going to be back. We will be together holding hands, I imagine, in some capacity. Because the last time the Eagles were in the Super Bowl, the Eagles winning was the seemed like the most surprising thing until Chris Ryan tackled me, which in 26 years of friendship had never happened.

So who knows what he'll uncork this time. All right. Thank you, Chuck. Great to see you. Bye-bye. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous,

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into my conversation with Allison Brie, who stopped by to talk to me a little bit about somebody I used to know, which is her new, I guess, romantic comedy that's going to be out on Amazon on Friday. I had a great time talking to Alice, and she's been co-writing or writing a lot of the material that she's been peering in over the last few years. So I was fascinated to hear about her taking over some of the more creative reins of her career and working with her husband, Dave Franco, and just some of the lessons that she's learned over the last couple of years navigating the end of glow and then coming into her own as a creator herself. So it was a really fun conversation. Allison's obviously

an amazing performer and we're both me and Andy big fans of a lot of the stuff that she does. So check out my interview with Alison Brie. Somebody I used to know is coming out on Amazon tomorrow. That's Friday. Take care. So excited to be joined by Alison Brie, who's here to talk about somebody I used to know, her new movie that's coming out on Amazon and is directed by Dave Franco, co-written by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Allison, thanks so much for joining me. having me, Chris. I'm so excited to be here. So I was like reflexively going to describe this movie as like a delightful romantic comedy, which it is in part. But then I got started being like, you know what though? Like I mean, obviously this movie is darker in some ways and more complex and is about lots of different things besides will they or won't they, you know? And then I was thinking about some of my favorite what you would call rom-coms. Like, you know, my best friend's wedding or say anything or whatever. And they're all the same way. They're all like, actually, it's like, there's a lot more going on under the surface here than will, there, won't they? And I was, I thought that was like a cool place for us to maybe start

because if you're going to do a movie like this, it can't just be, I'm sure for you, like, just like, oh, this is like a fun relationship comedy. It's got to be about like, what's this person going to do with their life and they're at this crossroads? What was going through you and Dave's minds when you were writing it? Well, I'm glad that you brought it up in this way because I I totally agree that, like, I love rom-coms. I love it as a genre. And I think that, you know, Dave and I wrote this in 2020 during the height of the pandemic during quarantine. And I think it came from a place of wanting to make the type of movie that we were wanting to watch,

which is that comfort movie, right? Rom-coms as a genre are the movies that you want to watch over and over. And they are really, right? We love them. I find them extremely comforting. They're, you know, they're kind of my favorite things. And so you're right, it did also start from a place of like, we can't have darkness right now.

We need some positivity and light. We want something upbeat. But then as we went back and watched a lot of our favorite romantic comedies, yes, it's like anytime you're dealing with relationships between characters, there's like a pretty similar formula, which is like, you know, the problems arise in the first act. the characters kind of get themselves into trouble or some bad behavior or some missed connections or wires crossed. And then the third act has to be everybody kind of like untangling those

wires apologizing for the bad behavior. Like everything has to come to a head and people have to kind of get to the root of what's going on with themselves emotionally. And especially when we were watching, you know, the movies that I think of, which are more rom-comes from like the 90s, you know, the 80s. It's like when Harry Met Sally, sleepless in Seattle, pretty woman, my best friend's wedding, I love while you were sleeping.

These movies, I think the number one thing we noticed was that they're shot like dramas. They look like dramas. Yeah. Beautiful. And they're performed like dramas, you know? And actually,

they have a lot of dramatic material in them. And even when we started describing our movie to people, I just like you, we start by saying, well, it's a rom-com. And then I started to say, well, it's a rom-com with a site of rom-dram. You know? Yeah, yeah.

It's not the full category of romantic drama, which is like where one of the leads has a terminal disease or something like that. But yeah, I think we just really wanted to harken back to that time and also, but then update the characters and kind of like the way that you would imagine like, so what if me now in 2022, 2023, if I were in a rom-com, what would the conversations be like that I'd be having? And can we kind of put these characters in these sort of traditional rom-com setups? But then have them all just exist as real people who are current to our time. And also, we didn't want to have any villains, you know?

It's sort of like any situation, especially if you're trying to look at like a grounded love triangle, It's usually not so cut and clear, so black and white. It's really like here's a group of complicated individuals who are each on their own emotional journey and they all have to learn and grow. Yeah, that's such an amazing point you just made about the people in the movie don't think they're in a comedy because I guess that's something that sort of got lost over the last, gosh, you would probably know better than I would. But, you know, when the movies that we watched growing up that were thought of as comedies

and you're watching my best friend's wedding. It's like, Dermann Mulroney and Julie Roberts do not know that they're not doing bits. Oh my God. Julia Roberts, when she's like sobbing, apologizing, being like, but that makes me pawn scum. It's like the lines are funny. They wouldn't be as funny

if she were playing them for comedy. She's crying real tears. You're like somehow you're on her side, even though she has done the most horrible things throughout the whole movie. Yeah. And I think it is, it's like that's why, I think that's why we still connect to those movies that like when Harry met Sally, which was made a long time ago, but the performances are so grounded,

the people feel real, like you want that connection. Can I talk to a little bit about the writing process? Because you mentioned it sort of came out of the pandemic. And I imagine like, you know, being at home and watching these movies and stuff. But does that, because you've now kind of seized the means of production in your career where you're doing a lot of writing for your own roles. Was the writing with Dave in this instance different than any other where it's not like a defined like now we're writing where like final draft is open and we're going to work for eight hours? Was it sort of like more over dinner or over coffee and like randomly

around the house? No, not at all. I actually would say it was maybe even more defined because it's, well, as I say that, I'm immediately going to backtrack it. I guess it was a little bit of both. I think, you know, on the one hand, so we had started brainstorming the idea at the end of 2019 when we were in Dave's hometown of Palo Alto. And I think that was sort of talking about the idea of going back home and things like that. And so at the start of 2020, we were trying to find, imagine this, trying to find time to right. And when everything shut down, trying to find time to rewatch some survivor seasons,

you know, when we'll possibly have the time. But if you'll remember, you know, that initial shutdown, we were in production on the fourth season of glow, rest of peace. And so like that initial shutdown period was two weeks as far as we all knew, right? Like, okay, we got the go ahead. Production will shut down for two weeks. So Dave and I treated those first two, two weeks, you know, in like mid-March as like a writer's retreat, essentially, thinking like, okay, we have two weeks. Let's see if we can bang out a draft before you have to go back to work. And then, of course, as the pandemic slogged on for another year, I think we did kind of try to maintain for our own sanity, some sort of schedule, which like as actors, I think we're kind of good

at doing that anyway. We spend a lot of the year unemployed regardless of. global pandemic. So you kind of have to, so it was like, you know, we'd get up, we'd do a little workout, we'd have breakfast,

and then it was sort of like, now it's time to write, and we would have our writing period of time probably from like noon to five. And then I would sort of try to be like, and then that's the cutoff. Now I need to go back to like, I'm having a glass of wine,

I'm making dinner, but sneaky Dave would be like, definitely, we're done writing for the day. And then while I would be making dinner, he would sort of, you know, he'd sit up, he'd be at the kitchen counter with me, kind of like, looking back over whatever we worked on that day and kind of like picking my brain in a subtle, sneaky way, but actually just getting me to continue writing.

But it was kind of like, and in a way, it was pretty brilliant because it was sort of, we very quickly learned anyway that like Dave's the one that wants to be at the computer, doing the typing, like, focused. I have to kind of be pacing around the house, kind of doing something kind of, you know, I get a little bit more antsy. So often while I'd be cooking dinner, Dave would read back over a scene that we had just kind of sketched out and he'd be like, I don't know, this dialogue doesn't feel right. Like, what would you say if I said this to you? And next thing, you know, we're workshopping dialogue. Yeah. But it's like I'm, you know, tapping into that. It's like right side of the brain is doing one thing. Left side of the brain

is doing the other kind of thing, which was kind of nice. I'm chopping vegetables being like, no, I'd probably just say, say it like this. And then he'd be typing it in and, that's how that work. But we did try to have real set hours. And you're like, oh,

did you see this Andrew Cuomo press conference? Like, how about that? I mean, yeah, I think probably it was a little bit of a nice distraction tactic for both of us. Yeah.

You know, you started writing, it seems like, was your like move into co-writing or writing some, the material that you're performing in, something that came out of like an inciting incident for you in your career? Or was it something that you would always sort of envisioned as like part of what you wanted to do in Hollywood or the entertainment business? Like being the person who's like,

you know what, I'm going to be, I'm going to write the rules that I want to see. I want to write the movies or the TV shows that I want to see. Or was there something in your career, like whether it was working on Glow that kind of made you say like, yeah, you know what, it's time for me to take on a little bit more responsibility here. Yeah, sort of the latter. I definitely had never really thought about writing in a serious way, though I would have ideas. I would have ideas, but I would never really share them with anybody. Maybe sort of just like, probably just as a way to keep myself busy to think about little creative ideas, but again, but would have been way too scared to share those ideas with anyone. And yeah, working on Glow, I think directing an episode in our third season, even though obviously directing and writing are very different, but like getting different juices flowing, I think, and even just seeing the amount of women that we had on that show behind the camera working in all these different capacities was really inspiring and kind of helped me to feel like, you know, maybe I should just sort of like, oh, maybe I can work in other capacities.

in this industry, kind of building my own confidence once I got on set directing and realized, you know, I know a lot more than I even realized that I know I should give myself a little more credit. And that sort of coincided then with watching Dave write the rental with Joe Swanberg. So all these things that was like this culminating. I had been kicking an idea around in my mind for years and years and years about sort of like wanting to make some kind of film about my grandmother's mental illness, which ended up being horse girl that I wrote with Jeff Baina. And I guess more the inciting incident was Dave writing the rental because he hadn't written anything before either. Well, he'd written sketches for funny or die and he'd written some other

scripts that I don't think he ever took out. But that one, I was just watching him come home every day from writing sessions feeling like he was amped up. He was so energized. And it was so cool and I think I just and I kind of was like if he could do it I could do it I want that yeah you know I want that yeah I want that and and and obviously if there had been it's like I don't want to blit it's not like I don't know that I was in some super dark rut in terms of like roles acting wise although I might have been I certainly would say if I were getting the roles that I was wanting to do there wouldn't have been that space to do that.

So in a way, it was kind of nice, I guess, that there was kind of this break. I was feeling so fulfilled. I glow as a show. And I think I was looking at like the film landscape, the stuff that, that I would have been getting opportunities to do weren't quite, I don't know, meeting my hopes or expectations, I guess. But it was more just wanting to tap into this other creative side and like being really inspired watching Dave do that.

And I think the two things, well, I think it made me realize, you know, I should do this with a partner because clearly I have some sort of paralysis. And even as I described my process, like, it's hard for me. I can't imagine sitting alone and putting pen to paper typing out. You know, like that seems so daunting. And Jeff Bain and I had worked on a couple films together. I had been in his film Joshy and Dave and I were both in The Little Hours. And he and I were spending a lot of time together kind of hiking in the neighborhood.

And so, and he was a really non-dose. judgmental person. I think also that we would take these hikes and kind of talk about movie ideas anyway. And he would often throw ideas out. And horse girl ended up kind of being the marriage of this idea that I had had had for a really long time. And also an idea that Jeff had kind of pitched to me and we merged them together. You know, you mentioned Joe Swamberg. You mentioned your creative relationship with Jeff. And I was just thinking, like, I saw an interview a while back with Jake Johnson when he was talking about when he met Joe was at the end of like the first season of New Girl and that he was not burned out but was like had been very used to doing things in a certain

kind of way and Joe came along and was just like there's like this whole other way of doing things and the idea of you hashing out a story with Jeff like on a hike seems probably to be like a much more creatively fulfilling process than maybe like the way that things usually get pitched and worked out in Hollywood. And so as part of it like, the process is also like a much more pleasurable one when you're working with friends and working in this different kind of way? Definitely, yes. I think, you know, the longer that I work in this industry, you have so, such little control. Yeah. The time. And not that it's just about having control, but you do start to, I think priorities shift a little. And I have certainly realized like getting to a

phase, you know, to more of a phase where I'm like, I want to work with people. people that I like. Like, yeah, I want to work with people that I know and like. And the vibe on set is close to being equal with the final product in terms of like my priorities. I want to make things that I'm really proud of. But I also want to have a great experience while I'm making them. And yeah, I think that for, I don't want to speak on behalf of Dave, I guess, but it's interesting. You're right, looking at Swanberg and Jeff and how they definitely were for, fulfilling some kind of counter programming for us. I think that when I think about working with Jeff,

it reminds me more of when I was in college at Cal Arts. And all the art that we were doing, you know, it's like maybe the one time, right, where you kind of get to do what you want is in college. And the art that you're made, it's like art for art's sake. Yeah, there's not ratings or box office or whatever. Yeah, it's truly for you.

And what if we do this scene, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, but we'll set it, I don't know. And this is alleyway and, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, that was like not a creative spin on that. But you know what I'm trying. But like, you know, I just think at school, it's also a place where you can take more risks. Actually, you're kind of like, you know, with Horse Girl, I think it was like the most beautiful experience because the stakes felt honestly very low.

We made it for Netflix. You're not worried about box office numbers. The budget was very low. and the story was weird and wild. So everybody, and we only had an outline. We had pitched it as a 30 page outline. We shot it as a 30 page outline. So it's sort of like there was never any moment where some hours that be were like

stepping in to say like, here's how you'll make this more commercial in any way because that was totally unnecessary. And it was so freeing and it felt like we could take some bigger, wilder swings. And to this day, like even when we put it out, it felt like it, my surprise, I cared less than I had ever cared about sort of like reviews and stuff like that

because I was so proud, like happy with the thing I made that was exactly the thing I wanted to make, even though I knew that it was not going to be for everybody. And there's certainly, there's got to be some semblance of that. I mean, I think with this, Dave and I are trying to make a more accessible film than Horse Girl was per se. But at the same time, I do feel. that same feeling of we feel incredibly proud of this movie. We had an amazing time making it. There was so much love involved on all sides. And we made exactly the movie that we wanted to make. And I, I love it. Yeah. And how did you find Leavenworth? Because I think a lot of these movies live and die by their settings. And I had never heard of a Christmas all the time town in Washington, which is

where this is, did you shoot it in Portland though for the most part? Or we shot, yeah, we shot almost a whole movie in Portland and then we shot the last three days in Leavenworth just to grab all of our exterior stuff and I mean not all of our yeah just like that mid all like the date montage and the main street stuff yeah right of town yeah um well we have a friend who whose family lives in Leavenworth so Dave has been there before I had never been until we shot the movie but Dave had been up there for a wedding I think and you know our friend's parents still live there. And so we were able to,

I honestly don't know that we even called her to pick her brain about it. We sort of just, I think also it's a friend of Dave's who is just the loveliest and her whole family is just the sweetest, kindest, best people that we know. And I think that kind of set in our minds this like idyllic place.

Yeah. But it's so interesting to think of somebody really wanting to escape it. You know, you get back at every, Everybody's like so loving and wonderful. But Ali, my character, has become so self-serious. And also, I think we're also just playing with the idea of like, and this is ironic because I'm born and raised in Los Angeles,

and I still live here. But the idea that like most people want to escape the town in which they grew up, even if it's a beautiful, amazing thought. Oh, yeah. I mean, in Leavenworth is a small town. So there's that aspect of it too. But it's sort of like, depending on what you want to do with your life. If you can't always fulfill those dreams in the exact city that you grew up,

unless you're me, I guess. Do you have a Christmas affinity? Like, do you think that if you had been raised in that kind of environment, you would just be like, you know, like, I think I need a break on Christmas going forward or like, do you like enjoy the sort of the pageantry of the holidays that are there? Not at all. I actually think I, in life, I'm like a bit of a grinch. And also I'm Jewish.

My mom's Jewish, but we celebrate Christmas. My dad is Christian. And so I've always grown up celebrating both and generally despising the holidays. This year I tried to get really into it. I actually think I'm coming around on them. I'm really trying to come around on the holidays. And I love holiday movies weirdly. Yeah.

And I will say, I think if I had grown up in Leavenworth that I would, I think I would love the holidays more. Instead of going to go in L.A. with palm trees. Like, what are you, we're just like, now it's Christmas, I guess. Because of happiness season, I thought maybe you were like, I'm on, I'm doing a Christmas trilogy now, you know? Well, this is something we, I'm glad you said this because we're trying to make clear that this is not a Christmas movie. Even though we said it in Leavenworth where it's Christmas all the time. And I think people see some of the first images that come out and they're like, it's the holidays.

And we're like, it's genuinely not the holidays. It's like a fall wedding, you know, or a. Spring, springtime wedding. That's really... It just looks that way all the time there. I love that what you said, though, about the, you know, your real-life friends having this kind of, like, idyllic sort of, you know, it sounds like maybe long table, outdoor dining and, you know, shared plates, you know, everybody family style.

We just tried to recreate her family's home. Yeah, we found a great house that had the essence. But I would imagine a lot of this, any, of any film, but especially a film with, like, comic timing and romantic timing that it comes down to chemistry. I want to ask you about Jay Ellis, but I first wanted to ask you, I just found that your scenes with Danny in this movie were so lovely and so good. But like chemistry is hard. You know, it must be something that comes with, say, making a television show with someone for quite a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we wrote that role for Danny. Yeah. So we just and then and then hotly pursued him to do it. And exactly. what you said, I think. Yeah, we just really wanted it's like

that person in the movie and Danny is this kind of interesting role because it's, you know, he's Jay's best friend but he's also kind of my close friend and I mean, we could all do it, we're actors, you could certainly fake having a history with someone, but how much

better is it when you have an actual great history with someone and Danny and I are still very close friends and we hadn't acted together since community so selfishly, I just wanted to have Danny up there with me. And it was so fun. It's just all so real and genuine.

We're really not faking our joy of being around each other. It's easy to have banter. Like anything that Davy and I would write just was so smooth, you know, in the scenes with Danny and I. We would kind of have our own fun with it. You know, I'm nervous. I'm sort of like some of the stuff that we're saying certainly are like community bits from behind the scenes.

Right. But these characters are obviously not actors from a TV show, but I feel like it still works where you get that idea that these people definitely grew up together. They've known each other for a long time, and that they fall right back into it every time they see each other, which is certainly how my relationship is with Danny. We've known each other for so long and shot the show together for a long time.

And we do, there will be long periods of time where we don't see each other because of, you know, just schedules and life. And when we come right back, it's right, zoink and doink, always. I admired Jay Ellis for putting himself in yet another love triangle after several years of that and insecure. But how did you and Dave settle on Jay

as the sort of love interest in this movie? Well, we love insecure, big insecure fans. So we've loved Jay from that for a long time. And I think the main thing is, was that looking at that role of Sean, it's a tricky role. You know, certainly my role, she takes the cake for like bad behavior in the movie.

And so we're very happy, obviously my decision as co-writer to like own all of Allie's bad choices in the movie. And then we were just sort of like, gosh, we really got to find a guy who's inherently lovable, right? Forgivable. Because he's going to make some questionable choices too.

And we really want the audience to be able to come back around to being on his side and really understand, again, that all of these people are just complicated people and they're all going through their own shit. And I think that Jay does that. I mean, it helps that he is incredibly handsome and charming. So he made that really easy. But I do think also, and as a person, he is so warm and kind. And I think all of that stuff reads. And I hope that people are, you know, are open to coming around on Sean, who, again, it's like, we just really wanted to make everybody a little bit messy and having their own emotional arcs. And I think Jay did such a beautiful job of, like, finding all of those parts of Sean's personality and his, you know, the characters' insecurities and kind of the stuff that he's dealing with.

I think like a big part of this movie that was important to Dave and I was providing really ample backstory for all of the characters. Even if we only touch on it for a line or a quick scene, you know, Cassidy and her parents and their history and Jay's character's adoption history, things like that. You know, where we just sort of were like, movie isn't about that, but that does inform a lot about who this person is. Yeah, it makes it so that they're not just like, and it's a guy who's lucky in love, you know, like that kind of thing. Yeah. There's that guy. He's like kind of confused sometimes.

Well, I just thought it was such a great film. And thank you so much for coming on the pod today. And hopefully I'll have you on again. Thank you for having me. This was so fun. Take care.