The Watch - Spider-Man Enters the Multiverse. Plus, HBO Max Drama Continued and an Interview with ‘Industry’ Creators Konrad Kay and Mickey Down.

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

News broke this week that past 'Spider-Man' actors like Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will be returning for the newest 'Spider-Man' film, setting up the franchise for an 'Avengers'-like multiverse (9:03). The fallout continues from Warner Bros.'s decision to release their entire 2021 slate on HBO Max (19:15). Then, an interview with ‘Industry’ creators Konrad Kay and Mickey Down about creating the fast-paced and frenetic show (33:02). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Konrad Kay and Mickey Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the rigger.com and join me on the other line. He always fancies a bevy. It's Andy Greenwald! Let's get after it.

Oh my God. Dude, I had the worst salad of my entire life today. So we're starting from zero here, maybe even less than zero. It's Thursday when you're listening to this, Greenwald and I are recording on a Wednesday. it's a very exciting show because today Andy and I were joined by the co-creators, the co-writers of industry, Mickey Down and Conrad Kay. We talked to them for a fair amount of time about one of our favorite shows of the year industry. We'll probably also discuss episode five on this podcast and we also have some stuff to get to about mad Spider-Man's up in our lives and more fallout

from the HBO Max Warner movies saga. So we'll get into all that coming up next. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, gusalcumab taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoradic arthritis.

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Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I like the lead with a salad.

That's the SEO right there. Yeah, they're like, put the good stuff first. And Chris is like, let me tell you about the lettuce in my teeth. I actually I've been trying to do one portion of dressing in my salads and that's just not a lot of dressing it's a lot of tough greens for me

and that's just where I'm at today. Fibrous. Yeah. I know people who listen to this know that I mean look it's in many ways this podcast is what romance is all about because what this is is a chance

for people to grow old together with us or well we grow old together. That's what happens here. And so this evolution of this, of this podcast into a predominantly lunch-based salad pod is incredible. But I also feel like, Chris, you have to like, you have to, it's times are tough. You have to, like, uncork some joy. Now, I know there has to be a middle ground between just, like, dense, fibrous, undressed kale and, like, extra chasu double ramen, you know what I mean? Like, there's a different thing you could have for lunch that you might enjoy. I don't want you to suffer through lunch, especially if we're going to be recording

right afterwards. I feel great. I mean, I just mean, like, the actual eating experience was rough. How are you doing today? I'm great. I had a good lunch. What did you have? Do you have ramen? I don't eat salads. No, come on. I didn't even have some leftover. Listen, I cooked maybe the best chicken of my life. I wasn't going to bring this up because I didn't want you to be triggered the other day and I had a leftover piece of that chicken over rice with some with some broccoli greens. It was good. That's lovely. What do you want to talk about first?

Because I do want to hit this Spider-Man thing that came out. I wish everybody could see Chris's face when I said I cooked chicken. I want to start. We're going to talk. We're going to get. There's so much industry stuff coming on this podcast. We do need to do a little bit of industry of industry talk separate from hashtag industry, hashtag HBO's industry and talk about the Spider-Man stuff.

But I, something occurred to me that I want to. to get to. And I'm, people know Chris love surprises. So I'm going to spring this on you. But I, we have been, you know, we've been getting through a fair number of shows and we've been enjoying a lot of stuff recently. And there's still stuff on the horizon for us to discuss, even though it's already mid-December. We haven't even gotten into the small acts movies yet, which I'm looking forward to talking about with you. But I kind of wanted to pull up the curtain a little bit more. Now, to be clear, the curtain is probably in a decent place because we started by talking about your, you know, green intake and just generally like how well that salad ate shut out Tom Colicchio.

But I kind of wanted to spring this on you because people listen to this podcast and they know us as like, you know, media savants, right? Like we, we master our intake. We watch a lot of stuff. We maximize value. One of us does. Yeah, for sure. I was talking about you. You crush tape is what we're saying. I'm watching episodes of Paw Patrol for the third time. So we all, we all, have our crosses to bear. But what I thought might be interesting would be just once, drop the mask, drop the illusion. She should not drop the mask. No. Oh, keep the mask on, but inside, great call. This is a responsible, responsible podcast. Did you see there was some guidance given to the networks on how to convey the pandemic? And the suggestion was that one person

on each show should be the like designated pandemic driver and be the person to be like, hey man, that goes above your nose. Kind of like fire marshals? Like in offices where like the guy sitting next to you in the cubicle is like actually the fire marshal for that floor. And that I feel like that's you. But what I wanted to say, what I wanted to get to is let's just be honest. Like let's just be really real.

You know, we've done this show for a while at the end of the year. I'm willing to say like actually what. got watched in my home over the last two to three nights and how it got watched. And I was wondering what that would sound like if you did the same. I can't tell if you're setting me up for something. No, no, I've got no bit. I was just like... Oh, what actually got watched the last couple of nights? Because we knew going into recording today that we were going to do a lot of stuff about industry and the industry. So we didn't like try to cram anything else in there. And so, but because we had the space to have a conversation, I was like, maybe I should, maybe I should be doing something right now.

What else? What could I put on? Is it finally Yellowstone o'clock? And spoiler, no, it wasn't. But, you know, maybe the better way to frame it is not like as a gotcha question. So I'm not trying to get you. Maybe the better way to frame it is like, what did I actually do with my evening? You mean? Or maybe I just need help. Like, maybe this is actually a cry for help that I need a TV concierge of my own. I'll tell you. So Monday night, I didn't watch anything. Monday night, I played FIFA for like two and a half hours. And you're my hero. In a sense, I was watching something. I was watching greatness. You know, I was watching a young American, move into football management, and lift up a Moribund franchise in Newcastle

and takes them to the top of the Premier League with a honestly liquid football display. Just unbelievable. Messoon Club, as they say about Barcelona. They say it about Chris Ryan's Newcastle. So I did that on Monday night. And then last night, my wife and I did something that we enjoy very much, which is watched flight attendant.

Right. You've been talking this up and this is a place I should go. I'm not talking it up like it's Mank. I'm just saying it's entertaining. I am a Kaylee Cuoco fan and I don't care who knows it. Wow. Okay. I respect that. I appreciate that. See, I came stumbling out of the gate from the weekend where I think I spent the better part of two high quality nights because weekend nights, even though time, is meaningless now. Still feel like, okay, maybe now we can settle in. And we did have one night of Mank, which was good. But generally, I was coming off a couple days of, like, piecemealing together of viewing of the 2008,

highly regarded Japanese family drama still walking on the Criterion Channel. Sometimes I think you spit in the face of this podcast project. I'm bringing it up because, really a transporting film. You know my favorite genre is foreign films about families not getting along

over the course of a weekend where they make food. Like that is, that's what I truly care about and love. But I didn't even make it through the movie. And I was feeling, there's no shame greater than the shame of the media podcaster

who can't even finish. You know what I mean? Like, because at least if you grind it, then you've got content. Yeah. But I didn't even get that done. So we did have a successful bank night. Then there was the big question mark.

Then there's the open prairie of Monday. And I was like, okay, you know, we can't keep going with season four of Call My Agent because I got to tell you, that show may have jumped to the shark. Like, it is decreasing dividends. She just keeps calling her agent? Right. It just keeps ringing. Keeps going to voicemail.

I can tell you don't understand the premise of the show. It's not about one person calling one's agent. It's about the agent. I really don't. I don't have any idea what that shows about. It's really good. You should watch it, everybody. It's on Netflix.

Just be prepared for some massive slowdown around Saturday for it. Not much reason to call the agents after that. So I was like, but we like French things, and people have been talking up the show, The Bureau to me. Have you heard about this? It's like the French homeland kind of thing,

and it's on AMC, dare I say, pluce, like your beloved gangs in New York. Can I just point out that... You can have any opinion about this pod that you want. But today is the day that I realize that we really are pushing the boundaries of like saying that this is a podcast about Spider-Man and financial workers doing ketamine. And then we're talking about... I'll wrap it up.

I'm not proud of it. All this was to say, I was going to come in and be like, Chris, I got five seasons of a fire show for you. Like, remember everything that we like, but imagine this in French. And like, it's like, it's awesome. and Matthew Kassavits is like the interesting troubled secret agent and it's Paris and it's Syria. Well, I'd like to tell you it's good, but I felt a LaSleep about 15 minutes in. Did you call your agent? You were like, I called my agent in the sky.

I was like, get me out of consciousness. The worst thing was, I think I faked it because I didn't get up until the episode was over. and then yesterday comes around and my wife was like should we watch more of that show I really liked it and I was like I'm gonna have to get back to you on that

I have no memory of it so I have to watch it again it's terrible it's like Paw Patrol all over again I mean except I but you've never watched

Yellowstone like you've there's all these shows that are really popular in America oh oh okay okay

all right Senator Josh Hawley I see that's what we're doing. We're already pivoting to 2024. Andy, is it possible to have too many Spider-Man's in one movie?

It's like Doc Brown said at the end of the fact of the future, it's not the Spider-Men I'm worried about. It's everyone else, Marty. That's a paraphrase. In case you haven't seen, this is what I'm talking about. It was reported over the last couple of days in Collider and a bunch of different places.

That joining Tom Holland in Spider-Man 3 will be something of a Spider-Man reunion. Just all the greats coming back. The Spider-Men. Yeah. Toby McGuire, finally getting up from his seat at the poker table and coming back to the scene. Andrew Garfield, who we have not heard a ton from since Under the Silver Lake, coming back to Spider-Man. And even Kirsten Dunstan Emma Stone are in talks to reprise their roles as Mary Jane and Gwen Stacey in this movie, which will also obviously feature Zendaya.

Jamie Fox's Electro is coming back. Alfred Molina's Dr. Octagon. Octopus or Octagon? Is it Octopus? That was that great Cool Keith record from the late 90s. Man. And Cumberbatch is in this one, too, apparently. There's more. This is also now the test case for upstreaming the late lamented Netflix Marvel shows into main continuity MCU because Charlie Cox is strapping on the Daredevil suit for Spider-Man 3.

So this isn't the first time that we have seen. a movie that seems to be putting like its casting announcements before its premise. And I really have no doubt that the Spider-Man movies are delightful. John Watts obviously has like a real good handle on the material and Tom Holland

is a delightful Spider-Man and I think this movie will be good and clearly like they're kind of positioning these additional Spider-Men to fill the role vacated by Tony Stark as a kind of father figure to the character. I just kind of wonder whether... I got to say, I got to say Tom

And don't, don't listen to Toby McGuire Spider-Man. Can you imagine? He's like, never fold when you have an ace high in the river. I don't know what any of that means. That's his only advice for fighting villains. I can't even feel things till I'm down 60,000. Yes. But what do you think about this announcement?

I mean, obviously they're bringing in this idea of the multiverse that multiple timelines can be happening at multiple times, multiple realities. I think that was pretty inevitable, although I do. wonder whether or not is a look it kind of removes the uh feeling of consequences and stakes even more than they already are i think reason why endgame kind of lasts in people's minds is because of the at least the idea that there were there was some finality to the runs of a couple of those characters i know in comic books nobody ever really dies but what's your reaction to this well i think it's twofold one sure it's fun i mean i there is an element that i have to acknowledge which is

for so long movies, even like popcorn movies were bound in by pretty stodgy rules, right? And it was the Marvel movies that started to change that. And the main rule was you don't cross the streams that people, you know, stars are only out for themselves and they're leading roles. When I was watching Aaron Brockovich, I was like, why can't we have multiple Aaron Brockovich's? Well, I'm not even getting to the multiverse thing. I'm not against multiple Aaron Brockovich's. Now I'm trying to think of like other Soderberg, like the Karen Siskoverse. We essentially made that, yeah.

I know, I'm into it. No, I'm not even saying, but pre-Multiverse, just the idea that like, that Robert Downey Jr., one of the most bankable stars in the world, will just show up for a cameo in the Spider-Man movies or whatever, and that they were all kind of making one movie, which, you know, speaks to the thing that we remain interested in, which is that Marvel basically turned into the old studio system and just keeps the cameras rolling in Atlanta,

and people fly in and out, and it's no big deal. that's how they do the contracts. There's still an element of that in play here, which is just like, well, it's kind of fun. I mean, it's interesting and it's bizarre, and it's the kind of thing that used to only exist in the fanverse and on people's, you know, deep web pages of what they wished would happen, and now it is what happens. That's what runs the business, and that's kind of interesting. I think the bummer of it for me, and it might be good. It might be good for all the reasons you said. it seems like it's being done with the right spirit and like a lot of people are excited

to come back and why not? Those other Spider-Man movies were, the John Watt ones, were good. But the only thing that bums me out and people know where I'm going with this, I think, because this is generally my problem with the Spider-Man stories as they've been told to us is it boggles my mind

why Marvel slash Sony keep running away from the central conceit of the character. And I guess we're going to see this spirit, maybe because it's a smaller stake spirit and it'll be in the Ms. Marvel TV show or maybe in whatever the inevitable Miles Morales Spider-Man movie will be. Maybe this will backdoor set that up. But Spider-Man is a high school kid who has trouble with his girlfriend and his homework and with supervillains.

That's the story. And so far in this Disney, Sony Marvel copro version, he is Tony Starck's ward like Robin to his Batman. He becomes an international Iron Man with a superman. of spider armor, and now he's a multiverse, staggering galactic warrior? Yeah. What are we scared of here? What are we doing? Like, just because the cartoon did well with multiverses because it was a clever conceit, we don't have to do this.

That's my only note. Okay. I would like to see a pure Spider-Man story, but there's so many Spider-Man stories. It doesn't really sound legit for me to get too heated about it. I do think that you could look at it as Marvel-positioning Spider-Man as a franchise. in like the Avengers role of like the big group hang lots of movie stars established sort of story everybody feels very comfortable with who Spider-Man is and what it is and what he's fighting for and you just you can kind of populate that with a constellation of stars in the way you did with Avengers and then they have

all these smaller smaller I mean smaller it's not like they're making you know dogma movies but like more offbeat projects like Eternals that there's still some question mark about how much they'll resonate with people, although there's yet to really be a Marvel movie that did not resonate with people. Do you have any opinion about the potential resurrection of those Netflix shows? Do you think, is the real takeaway from all these announcements? Has Finn Jones just been sitting by his cell phone being like, they're going to call, mate, they're going to call. The fist has to live again?

I don't know. I think I would love to know what Marvel would have done with those properties. now if they were just starting them. And whether or not there ever would have been a, what if we did like a street smart TV vertical of these characters that all kind of occupy this New York crime motif? Like would they have done limited run series

on Disney Plus of like six episodes of Daredevil? And then maybe he disappears for a while and then they bring him back for four episodes of Daredevil and then they disappear for a while. And would they ever have made them as gritty as they were on Netflix? That's the other question, I guess. But, I mean, it's just curious. I mean, I wonder whether or not they, also,

I'm curious whether or not Charlie Cox is under a seven-year contract, and they're maybe not done with Daredevil. I think, no. I mean, for what I understand, and this is all just things that I've read, so they may not be accurate. But I think that there was a, Netflix had an exclusivity window for these characters, basically like once the shows were canceled,

they couldn't be rebooted in any way for two years. So that has now passed. But that suggests that Charlie Cox's deal was specifically with the version of Marvel TV that no longer exists. And so it would have to have been a new deal. And I mean, it's certainly, unless there's two things here,

and then we can move on. Either Tom Holland swings into the multiverse of Netflix shows and maybe he crosses with the Orange of the New Black Squad while he's over there, I don't know. Maybe the Fab Five. That could be an interesting little jaunt for him. Or they are actually, and in that case,

he goes into that alt reality, which wasn't the same reality as Avengers Endgame and all that. Or they're saying Charlie Cox has always been in the same ICU, and then there's opens the door for those characters to come back. It's interesting. I mean, that Daredevil show is pretty good. The Jessica Jones show pretty good. did you want to talk

to all about more of the fallout from the Warner Brothers decision to move their 2021 slate to HBO Max? I think we alluded to it on Monday's show that at the, at sort of the end of our section

before we talked to Hannah Fidel, we kind of mentioned that there was starting to be some hurt feelings expressed and that, especially some agents and managers around town saying like nobody checked with us,

we're going to have to renegotiate these deals, our back-end participation, and the profits of these movies are obviously compromised by this one month window where movies will be on HBO Max before they go to a theater exclusive run. Since then, we've had Christopher Nolan just honestly, like, Bryson Deschambeau, like,

350 off the tea on Warner Brothers and HBO Max. I think he said it went from the best movie studio in the world to the worst streaming service in the world, which I guess pretty much puts a cap on Christopher Nolan's relationship with Warner. I don't know. There has also been sounds of alarm from Denny Villeneuve, Patty Jenkins, Aaron Sorkin, to some extent. And then, interestingly enough, I read an interview with Steven Soderberg on The Daily Beast

where he was obviously like, he's a guy who's clearly seen the advantage in going to streamers in the first place and he was a lot more savvy and a lot more sanguine about the situation. He was like, this is a, it has to be read in context. It's a situation where the movie theater experience

is definitely going to be on hold for most of 2021. And they're being practical and they're making a decision. And I think he's sort of looking at it more in the long term rather than I have a movie that I have four years thought about being in multiplexes and I need to get it out. So I recommend people check those interviews out.

Yeah, I mean, the Soderberg thing, first of all, we should mention what a week he's having. His new movie is getting great reviews. It is exclusive to HBO Max. It's part of a three movie deal that he's got with them. Diane Weist, I'm very excited to see this. He also was announced as one of the executive producers of the Oscars, which is a,

extremely cool and interesting. You know, but the reason he has that job is also why he's uniquely positioned to comment like this, which is just he is streets ahead, as they used to say, of everyone else. Like, he is the most nimble filmmaker working, not just because he works quickly and in whatever medium is being presented to him, but because he kind of saw this coming and took himself out of whatever box he was being forced into. Yeah. He could make a big budget movie any time if he wanted to he has in the past,

or he can make a weird interactive TV show with Sharon Stone. You know what I mean? And I think that his comment reflects that kind of dexterous thinking. Yeah, and he's also somebody who's really thought a lot about distribution, the theatrical experience, the stuff he did with Logan Lucky, where he was essentially taking over the distribution of that film. It's that he's obviously somebody who's been thinking about this moment, long before the moment came.

And to contrast that with people like Aaron Sorkin and Patty Jenkins, and Variety had a virtual summit with them where they were having a conversation, obviously touched on these issues. So that's the reason I picked them out of a hat, because I think a lot of filmmakers would probably say the same thing. I mean, they have been operating very successfully within the current box that movies exist in, where, like, you have to put together one part from column A, one part from column B, one part from column C to get it made.

You know, for Patty Jenkins, it's basically she got the Wonder Woman job five years ago, and that is her only job now. Her job full-time is to develop, direct, and promote this movie, this franchise, right? She is the steward of the franchise, and that franchise is predicated on global release dates and all that. And so, yes, she's going to be prickly. And all of these interviews, people can be like, like the Christopher Nolan ones about, like, the sanctity of the cinematic experience. It's like, yeah, even I agree with that.

It would be cool to see movies in a theater, but I don't think that's really what this is about. And so Nolan, you know, I think it's just people feeling uncomfortable about what's happening in the future of their business because they've committed. They themselves are pot committed to, shout out to Toby McGuire, to the current system.

And any threat to that feels like a threat to them, even though, as the variety article notes, Patty Jenkins just got a $10 million sorry check from Warner Brothers being like, since you're not going to get any back in, here's just $10 million today. Yeah. And I think in all of these situations, in a lot of these comments, you see both things can be true at once. Patty Jenkins has been pretty upfront, as has Warner Brothers saying that they feel like society in general needs something like Wonder Woman 84 to look forward to.

I see your cynicism and raise you in the parlance of the god Toby McIreire. but she's like one time only in this particular circumstance I'm okay with this happening she obviously also got a sweetener for that happening in general I do I do feel for what Christopher Nolan was saying where it's like

if you've worked on a movie like Denis Villeneuve has worked on Dune for years and that's I mean he's somebody who's going to make a limited series next you know he is not like he is a snob about TV but he is somebody who's like I've dedicated a chunk of my life to making this movie for this experience, for this company under these circumstances, and now it's going to be sitting next to Love Life. And I like Love Life,

but having Dune in a little box next to Love Life is going to be fucking weird. It's a bummer for Cineheads. Is that what we call ourselves, people who love movies and love talking about movies? Yeah. I'm new. I'm new here. And it's obviously a disappointment to the filmmakers who you phrased it exactly, you phrased it well, have been making it towards a goal that has now shifted. But I struggle a little bit with Nolan's just indignance, right? Because like, first of all of people, it's times are tough all over. You know what I mean? Like, it just seems like it's a weird hill to announce yourself on. Yes. In the teeth of a global pandemic to be like, how dare Warner Brothers betray me this way? Like, I get it. Everyone has to worry about their own

Bailey Wick, so to speak, but like, read the room a little bit. But two, he spent the whole year holding that company hostage, basically, right? Being like, my film must be released in theaters, and they accommodated him to not great results for anyone. And ultimately, like, it is any creative person, any professional person, particularly directors who are generally controlled freaks. That's what makes them directors. This is a kind of tough area to talk about because, you can never control the outcome, you know. And these guys who have had a lot of success have been, you know, I think they've grown accustomed to thinking that they can.

And just by putting in X amount of effort towards X goal, it will, they will reap the rewards they've been reap, whether they're financial or creative or critical or whatever. But all this is a crapshoot, man. Like, you have to make the best thing you can make and you can't control what world it goes out into. You can't control how it's conveyed to the world. And the sad truth is that the directors generally don't want to admit, the moment that you're building for,

what percentage of, you know, for any, let's think of Christopher Nolan's last movie. Let's take Dunkirk, which you and I like it a lot. Over the lifespan of Dunkirk being available to people to watch. No, I meant before Tenet, because I haven't seen it. Sure. Hello. What is the percentage of people who have seen Dunkirk over its existence?

in the world who saw it in the theater versus people who have seen it on DVD or on streaming. I mean, for something like Dunkirk and for something like a Christopher Nolan movie, I think the first time people see the movie is in the theater. 70%, 70%, 60%.

I disagree because, well, the longer it's out. So if you go back further, take the prestige or a Batman movie. I see what you're saying. What I'm saying is no matter what these people do, it's going to be a box on a screen eventually. And most people will see it that way, no matter what.

And I know that doesn't sound I'm trying to hold the place in my heart. I mean, if you were told me in this podcast, you were going to give Christopher Nolan the participation trophy. I didn't expect that. Yeah, yeah, good effort. Good game. Good game, good effort.

We're going to get into our interview with Conrad Kay and Make You Down from Industry. Do you want to talk a little bit about episode five? We spoke basically about the season up through Nutcracker, I think, in our interview with these guys. And the whole season's available. You keep calling them by episode title.

Which one is that? I'm so deep. Like, even those guys, were like, we're impressed about how many character names you've managed to retain. I can't remember like what was in my salad today. And I can remember like Rishi and Jackie and like other traders on the floor. Yeah. So we kind of cheated because we were trying to stick. All the episodes are now available on Christopher Nolan's least favorite streaming service, HBO Max. We were trying to keep the conversation kind of more or less tied to linear, which means that we would only be talking about

episode through episode five, which aired Monday. Yes. We couldn't have. help ourselves, episode six, the Christmas episode, as Chris knows it, industry episode 106, colon, quotation mark, nutcracker, end quotation mark. That won't be on linear until Monday, but we couldn't help talk about it because it was so great and had a lot of, has a lot of major events in it. It's not really a spoiler-rific conversation, but we do touch on that episode. This was a real treat for us because we love this show more and more with every episode and week. It was also kind of a love fest because these sweet guys listened to us and that was really

nice to hear. So we felt we felt validated. And it was a really, really good hang. And I think the kind of thing that I hope people will listen to, even if they haven't fully committed to the show, because when you hear Mickey and Conrad talk about their motivation for making it, their love of these actors, these characters, this opportunity, it'll really make you root for them. as we have been. Yeah, and I'm glad that we talked about them when we did in terms of the arc of our conversation about this show over the last couple of weeks, because I think that episodes five and six mark a kind of turn for the season, at least, in terms of the tone and in terms of the state of the characters on the show. So, you know, you could easily kind of talk about this show as

the rise and fall of Harper, you know, and chart it through that way. But I think that to quote to quote the Doobie Brothers vices become habits, you know, like in this show. To quote Toby McGuire's therapist. Dude, what would you do of the first shot? I'll start a Kickstarter for this. The first shot is Spider-Man with McGuire. He's got to be wearing like a three-quarter zip-up under armor, you know, shirzy, Raybans, beats headphones are on, and he's just vaping and just taking down pots.

if you remove taking down pots, that's what I saw when I saw Toby McGuire in front of Go Get Him Tiger on Hollywood Boulevard a couple years ago. My man, it's not that he didn't look like he'd been slinging webs. He didn't look like he'd seen daylight in a minute. This was, let me put it this way.

It was 8.30 in the morning or something, and this was not his first coffee. You know what I mean? Gotcha. Yeah. It was his first coffee from yesterday. That's right. There is a Tobin McIre industry mashup joke to be made, but we'll keep hunting for it.

But this is an episode, episode five, where you see a lot of the characters start to take incredible risks and not just with their nervous system. They are starting to really play the edges of this game of stock trading and of financial services. And even if you don't understand what they're doing, you can get the gist of the aggressiveness with which they are moving while staying true to their characters. So it's really interesting to watch

Gus kind of say, I am accustomed to having these X, Y, and Z opportunities. And it's interesting to watch Harper kind of like, I'm getting after it anywhere I can find. Any edge that I can find, I'm going to attack it.

And what you said is just what rings really true to the series and my affection for it. It's about the characters. And I love them. I love their, their chemical intake. I love their personalities.

I love their aggression. I love their rough edges. And I just want to spend more time with them. And the show just continues to open them up in exciting ways. Not just referring to Robert's pupils dilating. We would be so upset if they didn't get to make more episodes of the show. I'm rationing it out. I watch six because, you know, Chris, you said you wanted to bring it up a little bit in the conversation.

but I've held back on the last two because I don't want it to be over. And, you know, Mickey and Conrad talked about, loosely that they have plans for future seasons, but they remain as in the dark as we are about the likelihood of that happening. I'm hopeful. I hope a lot of our listeners are giving it a chance because this is a recommendation that seems to work. This is a show that I've told people about,

and the first taste is free, then they get pretty addicted to it. Let's no more dilly-daling. Let's get into our conversation with Mickey and Conrader, It took a quick break and then we'll get into that interview. Thanks so much for listening, guys. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses.

Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all. investors manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Andy and I are so, so, so honored to be joined right now by Conrad Kay and Mickey Down, the writers, the co-creators of industry, which is one of me and Andy and Kai's favorite shows of the year. We're going to be talking about it more when we get to our best shows of 2020.

A little spoiler there. Sorry, yeah, but I think it's fair to say. Just absolutely have fallen in love with this show over the last couple of weeks. And it's a grower, guys. I just want to let you know that as far as I can tell from like my Twitter timeline and Andy and I have noticed that each week people are just like industry hive has assembled over here. So thank you so much for joining us. This is not like people saying, oh, I see a lot of Biden street signs. Yeah. He's definitely going to win.

This is Chris's small sample size is accurate and reflective of the broader TV watching public in America. So congratulations. So Mickey and Conrad, welcome to the watch. guys great to be here it's an absolute pleasure can't really believe it yeah we can't tell you how surreal it is I was just saying before we came on

though I mean Mickey has obviously been listening to you guys for many many years and we had this joke between ourselves which was kind of like your guests have been like Anya Taylor Joy Hugh Grant Scott Frank and now you've got a couple of no mark British screenwriters on your show

and we're thinking we're thinking for your poor audience like maybe maybe we have pictures of like Bill Simmons in compromising positions in a jiffy bag or something. Like how the hell we got onto this show? That's all to say we like, we couldn't be more honored to be here.

We're so, so excited. We're honored. This is, you know, we do the Anya Taylor joys for them. This one's for us. Absolutely. That's right.

This is the mixtape. Those are the albums. Conrad Mickey. Let's start with like just some basic background stuff for people who don't know. So I know that you guys, did you guys go to school together? And then that's where you sort of,

that's where you met, right? In university? Yeah, yeah. We went to Oxford together, and Conrad was there above me, and we did a lot of a very little. I mean, we sort of did absolutely nothing, and we panicked massively right at the end, and thought, okay, we need to get jobs very quickly. Conrad was a little bit more proactive than I was, but I literally was like grabbing around in the dark, being like, how long am I going to do the rest of my life?

You know, at Oxford, you have a load of people who are just trying to make you get jobs in banking. You know, they sort of seduce you from the, as soon as you get there. you have for dinner, they make, you know, they give you drinks, they give you those of free water bottles and a stash and thought, and at the end they say, okay, do you want to come with a work in finance and you're sort of seduced into doing it. And I feel like a lot of people, you know, they find themselves falling into it in a certain extent. And that's definitely what happened to me. And to a lesser extent, maybe to Conrad. So you both did take time in, I mean, because we're

very curious how much of this is from your own experience, how much of this is from experience of your peers and friends. So can you talk us through your own? It doesn't sound like it was the longest stay spent in the hallowed halls of higher finance. But what was your actual experience? I mean, I was there for about a year. I worked in the bit that Hari and Gus working, which is sort of, I worked at a sort of very blue-blooded old investment bank.

And Conrad worked on the trading floor at a big American Investor Bank in London. Yeah, Conrad lasted a lot longer than I did. was almost. I mean, we hasten, we like, there's a limit to which we want to say that the piece is autobiographical for the kind of obvious reasons. There are definitely, I mean, we were, the whole, you know, writing a show about finance is obviously quite difficult thing because people have such an aversion to it as a world, especially because it's kind of seen as kind of, well, firstly, you know, there's a kind

of moral stain on the whole industry, which obviously is very hard to escape. And also the kind of, you know, it's kind of exclusive, rarefied, people find a bit like it just you know people turn their noses up at it and i think maybe in some ways quite fairly but we were always of the mind that if we you know HBO when we were pitching them the show they always used to talk about this confident subcultures and like if you could if you could render a world with enough specificity then like people are going to find it interesting it's a bit like you're cracking open a bit of a black box so me and mickey would just like well we actually have first-hand experience of this you know we know the cadences of the way people talk to each

other, we've got an ear for the jargon because, you know, we spent three, three or four years there between us. And so we always felt like if we wrote with a kind of level of always trying to cleave to the truth, even if sometimes it was a little bit heightened, then people would kind of go with it and go with the flow. Because, you know, our touchstone with all of this stuff with, in terms of how we were selling the show was, you know, we're not, we don't, you know, audiences are far smarter than people give them credit for. And if, if you don't talk down to them and you kind of throw them into the deep end, then they're far more likely to get caught up and summing than if you're dumbing it down all the time.

I think that's absolutely right. And I think that that's part of the thrill of the show is we're just in a world that I don't know, Chris doesn't know, and yet we're totally engaged in it because it allows the stakes to be high enough to meet characters when they're at their extremes, which is when they're at their most interesting. But I have to say that you've taken a step further, and this is another thing that I admire so much about the show, which is to say that if I was in a room with these banker bros with their zip-up polar fleece vests, I would be like, who are these people? Why are they doing this with their life. But what I love about the show is that they would say that about me. I mean, low-key, the funniest joke in the whole thing is when Kenny and Yasmin are like,

Seb works in media, and they just laugh and laugh and laugh. And then the scene's over. Can you talk a little bit about the appeal for people who might not understand it that I think is written so well in Harper's journey, which is to say, like, this is in some ways a pure meritocracy. In some ways, if you're going to be killing yourself for a job, why not kill yourself for the job that just makes the most money. And there's something very pure about this that I think she seems to respond to and that you both have been very skillful

at interpolating for the audience who might not understand it. Well, there was actually a line in that we cut from the interview scenes where Harper said, why is it so ugly for me to say that I want to earn money? Which I think just like,

from a sort of starting point, which is just sort of an unexpected thing for someone that looked like Harper and had Harper's background to say in a TV show. And I mean, like, you know, there's this sort of thing they'd give you in the literature at this place,

which is like you are entering into a meritocracy. And in some ways, you know, that is a certain, a little bit of a lie. And I think what we're trying to do in the show is sort of unpacking, you know, how, you know, everyone goes in, you know, presumably at the same starting point, but then it becomes very clear after a while

that everyone has a sort of different ceiling. And that's sort of what the show is about for us. But, I mean, like, from personal experience, going into finance, I mean, like, even the place that I worked, you went there. And it was, you know, these are very international places. you know, there's a sort of, they do have a sort of quite broad range of different people from different backgrounds, different genders, different, you know, different racial backgrounds.

And it does feel like people are sort of, you know, people are rewarded for the amount of the amount of they work. That said, you know, there is a sort of, there is a sort of, I guess the other aspect of it is that people like me and Conrad, and maybe I'm speaking for me personally, was that I was really quite seduced by the idea of it more than the actual job. And, you know, a friend of my actually said after I quit, that, you know, Mickey, you realize that you don't actually like finance, you like finance films. You like the paraphernalia of them. You know, you like the sort of, you know, you like the sort of, allure of it is the sort of the cult aspect, you know. But then again, like, you know, you talk about

that scene between Kenny and Yasmin. And that's just, that is this sort of, you know, it's such a prevalent attitude in those places. Like, why would anyone not want to do this job? Like, why would you not want to be Kenny? Why would you not want to be Yasmin? Why would you look around and think, okay, well, you know, the idea of someone leaving university and going to work for a newspaper or going to work for a magazine is just so anathema to the way those people think. And it's exactly how I thought was right. I realized I was very, very bad at the job that I tried to, yeah. I think on some level as well, but obviously the show is really specific. And we wrote it very specifically to the financial services industry. But also, like, you know, the name of the show is quite generic and quite bland and industry. And I think part of why we called it that was, obviously, the industry goes by, industry within the industry, but I think a lot of industries do, but that it has a kind of, there's a universality to it as a workplace, because I think without wanting to get too grand about it or anything, me and Mickey were very conscious of the fact that when we were writing a workplace drama in 2020, well, we started developing in 2016, but what we wanted it to have

a kind of, as I say, like a universality, it almost exists as a kind of peer point to exist as a kind of wider metaphor for kind of corporate workplaces. And so I think like at the center of the show for me and Mickey, it's all about kind of like how hierarchies work in institutions like this and how sort of power is doled out, who has power, who's trying to get power, how it's sort of how it concentrates at the top and how difficult that is to deal with. And then there's stuff like the other stuff that we were really conscious about writing out was affinity bias. So like everybody in the show, every interaction is kind of laden with all these microaggressions, but they're always kind of about how do I relate to you on a class level, how do I relate to you on a racial

level or a socioeconomic level. And like every time we were writing a scene, we were always thinking about those things, which felt like very particular to the time in which we were writing, and we just couldn't help writing into those things. And then, you know, I think the other thing that we were really conscious of the fact, you know, it goes back to your original question about meritocracy is there's an inherent tension in the show. And this is so true of finance and more than any other industry because you're enumerated on an individual level and you get paid bonuses in February every year. But there's a huge tension in all of these places between individual will and collective identity and like the individual will of the single character versus the

sort of collective benefit of the whole institution. And then we were trying to tell that story really clearly through Harper over the course of the season and the choices she makes and how difficult it is if, you know, on some level people like Sarah and Darya, they have this kind of evangelical needs to change this structure in which they find themselves because it's kind of a quite toxic, quite masculine work environment. And we were basically trying to say how difficult that is. And when all these cultures kind of ossify and all of these young people come in and, you know, they have this kind of all this energy that they feel is going to change the place. But ultimately, the individual just ends up being subsumed by the system anyway.

So that was the sort of stuff we were leaning into. Yeah. And it's amazing because Sara and Darya seem to take for granted that these younger people are going to want to sort of be the foot soldiers of their doctrine, you know, that they kind of just assume, like, well, you must want to. just be these ornamental figures and the way I wish I want to push this industry. It seems like that meritocracy thing is the ideal

that Harper needs to be disabused of. She comes into the industry thinking, like I have found a place where purely on my skill level I can be evaluated and then she finds out that there are all these other internal politics that you have to grapple with and that's where she seems to almost

collapse under the pressure, right? Totally. I think it's just a product of her naivety being a 22-year-old leaving university and going to the job for the first time, which is the other thing that shows about. It's about sort of, you know, it's a, it was a way of trojan-hawcing, you know, young person relationship drama into a TV program, which is the thing that me and Conrad wanted to write more than anything when we started writing together. The first thing that me and Conrad wrote, actually, was a really bad banking script called Not an Exit, which actually is...

It's Greg's script. Yeah. Greg's script. Yeah. I was going to ask about that. I was like, you guys are Greg, aren't you? People keep asking us that. Greg is possibly the most realistic character in the whole thing. Because he's a competent of me and Conrad and all our friends. It says a lot about our friends, which maybe they want us to say. But yeah, we wrote this really, wrote the script. It was like, it was terrible.

They had like 10-page scenes of me people called Mickey and Conrad talking about how much they hated banking. And you know, you guys should have just started a podcast. That's basically what we did. But yeah, and it was, but then primarily, I mean, that was probably more set on the floor than it was outside of it. It was a way of doing a young person's show set in London, which is like something that we, at the time,

we didn't think there were very many of. And actually, I'm way more of them now. They've done them really, really well. But we just, yeah. What did you, you guys said in one of your early reviews of the show, you said how compelling it was to watch young people, people getting after it. And like, on some level, we wanted to write a show about young people getting after it.

And it was this, you know, the energy of the show, which we kind of found in the edit. I mean, the pace of the scripts was quite fast, but we really found it in the edit. And then Nathan came on and he did this incredible score and we had an amazing music supervisor called Olli. And then, and suddenly like, all just clicked into focus when we started cutting it together. And we were just, we realized very quickly that we wanted to make something that felt like a, like a real rush to watch. I don't know about you guys, I mean, but it's so often the case I find with a lot of television at the moment, or maybe I'm generalizing a bit, but sometimes I sit down to watch a show and I kind of feel like I'm doing homework.

And with this, it was kind of like, we're making the show about this world. It's kind of inaccessible. So on a very base level, the one thing it has to be is continuously watchable. And you have to kind of like, you kind of have to want to be caught up in the way these people are living and make it feel like it's moving at a clip. And I don't know, I feel on that level we kind of succeeded because whatever people, think about the show, the one thing I keep hearing from people is that they just, they find it very compulsive, which is great. Couldn't agree more. I mean, that is our gospel here as well, and the show is a total pleasure to watch. I mean, it is sadly unique that in this day and age with so much

quality, I smile more when I realize my homework is to watch industry as opposed to other shows that I admire, because I actually enjoy the whole experience. I'm not looking at my watch. But what you touched on just then, Conrad, specifically about your collaborators and how it came together in the edit is kind of where I wanted to steer the conversation because what I think impresses me most about you guys as first time creators and showrunners is the way you've walked this balancing act between high style and Nathan's score is part of that, that really innovative way you do the previously on through the logo of the show at the opening just to kind of hit the ground running. I love that.

And even in the pilot, which I thought Lena did a great job directing, it's so tight, so stylish, propulsive. But also, once you're at the second episode, and I kind of like this more. and if you guys listen to the show, you know this about my taste. Immediately in the second episode, I could tell that you guys love your characters. You just loved them, you know, and you loved writing for them, and you loved putting them in interesting pairings and situations. And it didn't have that kind of, this is important,

we're going to get you through the stiffness, you know, whereas if they were there as avatars of the mood, of the ambition of the story, you just kind of fell in love with them. And that makes it so much easier for audiences to fall in love with them, too. and that mix of high style and also emotion is, I think, the secret sauce behind any good TV, but particularly your show. It's funny you say that because the first version,

when we first got the show bought by HBO, obviously me and Conrad freaked out, immediately and thought, well, we're doing a prestige show for HBO, we have to make this as serious and as sort of self-important as possible. We wrote a version which was almost documentary than how boring it was. It was like, if you had filmed, it would have been like putting a camera on a trading floor and nothing really happened.

And then like, well, HBO gave us the best note which they possibly could have given us, which is like, guys, you're writing these characters in their third act, which is basically what me and Conrad. And we were writing from the perspective of people who had, you know, being in the industry, had been chewed up and spat out by it. So we were looking at it from a sort of quite bitter,

let's through a quite bitter lens. And, you know, they were like, just wasn't it fun at any point? Didn't you think like this was actually, going to be your career forever. Did you not have a good time? And we went back and like, the characters were always the same, pretty much.

We sort of chopped and changed a tiny bit, but we just took those characters and thought, okay, what were they like if they were leaving university rather than being 30 and trying to, and looking at this well through that. And this totally opened up the whole show for us. And suddenly we were, as you said, Andy, we were suddenly writing the characters just like with like fun

and like, this is something we did way more throughout the season as well. We started leaning into the humor way more. And basically being called. Conraise writing process is just trying to make each other laugh constantly. So, like, a lot of that sort of came into it in the latter part of this season. You're so right about affection for the characters, though, because I kind of feel like the reductive or the kind of really quick review of this show is,

everyone's hateable, how do we like any of these people? They're all odious and eagomaniacal and all this sort of stuff. And I've seen that all over the internet, to be fair. And I kind of like, okay, on some level, I totally get it. On the other hand, I kind of feel like, I'm speaking for me and Mickey, like we approach all of them with like a level of tenderness, which is kind of like even the Kenny character who's the most hateful, Eric who on some level is a pretty damaged guy. But I feel like when me and Mickey, we are writing them, we're fundamentally trying to

understand what drives their insecurity and what makes them the way they are. And, you know, what's the kind of child version of this person and how did they get that way? And then even when you're writing them in their most hateful moments, you know, we were always, you know, we cast actors who are very aware of their wounds and their own. insecurities and we taught him through all that stuff. So I think in all of Kenny's scenes, even when he's horrible, I think you can kind of, you may be, you maybe don't empathize with him, but I think there's enough dimensions to him to make you think, okay, well, he's a product of his environment and, you know, yeah. You also steer into that because what's so brilliant

about the way Kenny develops is that, and I'm through episode six, I probably should have said that at the start. I don't want to binge because I'm enjoying it too much. Yasmin is more discomfited by his kindness than by his abuse. You know, it's almost more, it appears more painful to her to see him like that because he's just kind of pathetic as opposed to someone who is full of rage or power or a question mark. I think when I was watching, when I watched Nutcracker, I realized that the sort of equation for the show was, it looks and sounds like the first half of Goodfellas,

but it actually feels like the second half of Goodfellas. it's like all the like Ronettes playing and like the Christmas trees moving around but actually the feeling inside is people getting dumped out of the back of a trash truck and like helicopters flying over you. I wanted to ask a little bit about the ensemble because my favorite, I think one of my favorite parts of the show is, you know, there's that that line that usually is described to when talking about the wire where it's like all the pieces matter. But I think it could be applied to industry as well because you get characters like Clement who, first turns up and you're like, this is a background. This is a background piece. And I think he's interesting, but he seems to be there really for like kind of droll one liners. And then as the show goes on, he just kind of opens up and blossoms as a character. Opens up a vein. Yeah, opens up. Yeah. But there's something about that performer. There's something about Ken Long as, as,

as Eric. The people that you found to do this is actually like what I love about TV is when you find an ensemble like this where I don't know, I didn't know any of these people, with the exception of Ken Lung. I was not familiar with any of these performers and now, like, I'm obsessed with them. Can you talk to me a little bit about the casting, but also a little bit about how parts changed

with the actors and actresses you found? I mean, the casting was obviously, two people who had never done before. The casting was probably the most interesting and exciting part of the process at that point. And, I mean, the one mantra we always had was we need to cast this appropriate age. And like the thing, actually the weird reference

we kept talking about was Donald Kirk, which is like there's probably one of the first war films we saw which, you know, had people of the correct age in those parts. And suddenly, you know, when you see a, basically a young boy being thrown out of a, of a, you know, exploding ships, suddenly you think the stakes are a lot higher.

And like, we just needed, we needed basically to capture the feeling of leaving university and being terribly scared and, you know, putting on a cheap suit, which is way too big for you. and just looking like a child in that environment. And like, the first thing we thought about was that we can't cast 28-year-olds in these parts. And then, like, the other thing was that we wanted to cast total unknowns.

We kept talking about, like, at a straight-out drama school. And, like, that basically revealed itself to be a lot harder than it sounded. And we saw so many, so many people. And there's this thing, obviously, and I'm sure, like, anyone who's been in this position can test to it. But, like, when the person you know is the character comes into the room, It just is like, it's like this sort of universal feeling that everyone in the room has. And it was the same for every single character, which we'd be cast.

And it was just so clear that these were the ensemble. The first time we got them all together, we filmed in Wales. So we got everyone in Wales. And Mahala, for example, I've never left a country before. And we flew it to Wales. And we did the sort of screen test of all them together. And they took a photo of them. And we just thought, OK, well, this is very, very exciting.

Suddenly it was like, OK, wow. Not only are we going to put this sort of brand new on ensemble on screen, but like we are sort of, you know, breaking these actors as well, which we're finding new people. And that was just absolutely amazing. The Ken part of the equation is, is really interesting because, I mean, the show, I think, I don't think the show works without him, to be honest, in the sense that I think he kind of feels like the glue that binds all of the youth together. And he, he was a really, I mean, we kind of cast him at the 11th hour. We were like very, we were very deep into the process. We couldn't find anyone we thought was, was, was

the right kind of fit for Eric and had the kind of right menace and strangeness and weirdly, I don't know if you guys watch high maintenance, but he, um, he play, yeah, he plays this, there's an episode where he like plays this depressed vet who, who takes magic mushrooms and starts microdosing and coming to work. And he was just, he was so good in that. And we me and Mickey were like, why have we never thought about this guy? And so we went out to him and then, like, I don't know. I mean, I, me and Mickey, like, we have so much pride in a lot of aspects of the work and like we're staggered by the performances of the young actors given that given you know their relative inexperienced but just like you know you said it in your

episode i think your review of episode four where you were like he must be so fun to write dialogue for and he's like he's he's like the best in the world for that it's like everything he finds he finds like meaning and humor and and like and really he has the weirdest sometimes the weirdest line readings on certain things everything he does like you know and you've obviously made TV, you know, like when you watch the rushes of an actor, he's one of those actors who you never, like, there's no take. There's no take that he does that's ever untrue or uninteresting. So like you could just, you know, you can use any, basically every time you roll camera on him, it's usable. And it's, you know, I mean, he's, he's just like, he's, he's just totally

brilliant. And I'm like, we, we feel very humble that he has anything to do with the project, to be honest. It's, it's so thrilling to watch him on two levels. One, because the performance is so electric and alive and surprising at every moment. Even when he's not on screen, you feel him lurking probably the way Harper does. And that infuses every episode with an extra level of intensity. But also just he doesn't get chances like this often. I went over his IMDB and I think I knew him best from Lost and you always note him when you see him. But I mean, he's 50 years old and look at this. And he's just uncorking 100 mile per hour fastballs. Sorry, American sports. And that was for the Bill fans.

We're wondering about this. And it's just thrilling. And that's an opportunity that you guys helped take advantage of, you know. And similarly, that's the spirit, I think, throughout the whole show. And you guys have heard us rave about the Eric Harper interactions. And I just wanted to get your thoughts specifically about casting of Ken and Mahala, who is just stunning. And to circle back to your previous point, I said to my wife last night,

there are moments when she looks like a child and there are moments when she looks like a grown-up. And the way the camera holds her face is just incredible. But what it does to a story like this to put those two and that relationship at the forefront, you know, both in terms of the casting and putting an American black woman into this world, putting an Asian American man into this world, and then it allows you to have a scene, which to me is still the high point of the series where they have the cigarette, you know, which was totally thrilling start to finish, totally surprising and totally true. And it was just incredible work by everyone.

but how that approach to taking advantage of opportunity and taking advantage of obviously diversity in the cast informed your creative process. The Harper and Eric relationship is just something that, you know, in the first four episodes, you sort of circle around it. And it's weird because I don't know why we didn't, I mean, you could probably look back in it now

and say it was intentional that we were basically leading to that cigarette scene and it would make us look like better writers. But it was something we kind of discovered in, that that central relationship was always very important but something we discovered really when we started filming it and by that point we'd written the first four episodes so we didn't have enough time but more scenes of that of that caliber in it

but like those two actors when they're on screen together and they're talking to each other just I mean Conrad said like you know you're champing of a bit to get those rushes at the end of the day you want to see every single take and you just like and it's all more usable as well and like we always wanted to do a sort of intergenerational

mentor, mentor, mente relationship, you know, and we always, we kind of always wanted it to be a, you know, a one between an old man and a younger woman, so I think that's something, obviously, I was about to say it hasn't been on screen before, but like the best workplace drama ever has it as well, a madman, but it's just... I thought you meant the intern with Robert DeNoyer. I would say I actually love that film, but right.

So do I. It's excellent. That's a good movie. I like that movie. Mickey, we actually watched that, Mickey, we actually watched that, Mickey, three years ago when we were writing the Bible for this show. Do you remember? It's a central text, you know? I think that was the same for gangs of London, too.

They were watching a lot of intern. It's the Rosetta Stone for so much of the great television coming from Britain these days. So, yeah, it was a long-winded way of saying they're absolutely incredible and that we wish we'd have written more for them. And the bit of something we've covered in as we were filming it. we had this other thing a bit, it was never as cynical as like, what is the most interesting lens through which to view this world? But there was something very important to us about

the outsider status of people in an insider's world, given how often stories set in this world looked at from the point of view of a sort of normally much older, obviously, because you're joining the top of the banks, often white, often male vantage point. So we were kind of always thinking about, we were always thinking about how two people, with a slight outsider status, socioeconomically, racially, how they might find each other, what their relationship might be in a place like that, how it might change, what they might see in each other. And we just, I don't know, there's a, again, I go back to the word tenderness, because like, I actually think the show, and I feel very strongly about this, just given what we've read

about it and stuff, I think the show actually has a warmth to it, which is found in certain key relationships. And I think it is, it's a kind of, it's a kind of despite this place, there's a kind of weird kindness to it and a codependency. I think that's just, that's really true of their relationship. I think it's like an emotionally codependent relationship where neither of them quite know what they're in it for. And they're trying to work that out. And I think actually, that's kind of like, what excites me and Mickey about it? That's like a, that's not a one season story. You know, that's like many season story, I think. I was curious about the way the show is shot because, you know, obviously, I think it's had some.

some comparisons to succession. But I also think a lot about it in terms of Friday night lights where if you read interviews of the people who made that, the actors would talk about it was essentially like a live set. So they would have handheld cameras

in a couple of different places and the scenes would just go and they would try different things and they would run these scenes but you were always on camera. You were like basically always assuming that you were being filmed and that brought out a different quality

in the performance. And I feel like I can detect that from your show. I feel like one of the amazing joys and I think I actually will rewatch the season for this reason is that there are all these moments that seem to be captured as they happened. Like, especially people watching other people

getting up from their desk to go into a closed off office or come back or someone's sideways glance at a conversation that they're kind of overhearing on the phone. And the whole Darya, Eric Harper, row of seats and then on the other side, you know, there's Rishi just kind of firing off these one-liners. Can you tell me a little bit of... Showing off his knowledge of every character. I know. I'm not even referring to IMDB. I know.

What a lot. Which is just like staggering. I bet you know the other... But how did you guys shoot? And what kind of environment was it on set? Did you have... Was there any improv? Was there some? Was there... And how did you guys sort of like... edit so that you were capturing life kind of happening there. I'm so glad you picked up on that because it was like exactly like it was a bit of a scheduling nightmare actually because like we we because it's an open plan office, you need to see in the background and see and have the other actors there the whole time.

And then Andy thing you were saying, which is that, you know, even in scenes where Eric's not in there, his sort of presence has felt because he's literally off camera looking at Harper and making it feel uncomfortable. Like, you know, we were always in the mindless like every actor is always always acting. And they're always, they could always be picked up at any point. There was two cameras shooting the whole time. And like,

you know, some actors did this more. I mean, for example, Ben Lloyd Hughes, who plays Greg was like, always running off to the side of the, the side of the set and saying,

can you mic me up? Can you mic me up? And I was like, I always had to be saying, this is not your scene. This is not a great scene. The other thing was, me and Conrad basically wrote

an entire other script of ADR over. everything. So like every single like kick up a little bit of dialogue you hear Rishi or Greg, any of the characters saying in the site is all ADR, which being Conrad wrote afterwards, which is like we just wanted

the, you know, these bases are like, you know, you're always capturing people talking behind you or gossiping and like, and it just also adds to the humour of it. Like, if there's a quite intense scene at the end, if you just hear Rishi saying something about some light he's gone to it, it just like undercuts the scene every single time.

And like, perhaps you do it way too much. But I hope we would have done it more if we could be able to. Definitely, yeah. We me and Mickey were just absolutely militant, almost like totalitarian about the sound design of the show. We were like, it has to be loud. It has to be oppressive. And HBO were like, guys, people are not going to hear your dialogue.

They're going to turn this thing up. You cannot start an HBO drama with disclaimer. Please turn on the closed captioning. Otherwise, you won't enjoy it. And we were just like, you know, the great HBO shows like The Wire. People watch them with subs. Sometimes it's fine. But to be honest, like, it's very, that's all to say. I reckon actually, if you watch it with close captioning on, you pick up so much of like, you know, me and Mickey,

I genuinely think some of the funniest lines are all of the ADR lines. And so it was just about making the world feel like super alive and have lots of texture to it. Picking up on this idea that you, when you write together, you're trying to make each other laugh. There is a great feeling in the scripts of one upsmanship where you can sort of feel the energy. that's happening between two writers, two friends that I think Chris and I are very receptive to and really appreciate. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about that process. And I wondered specifically, since we're talking about our mate, Greg, the decision to have him run into a glass wall and then get up and run into a glass wall again and then third time run into a glass wall,

is that an example of, I mean, I hope that's not lived experience for either of you, but is that an example of, okay, we have to have something happen here. What do we want to happen? And it was so brilliantly chosen because it's funny the first time. It's not funny the third time, which sort of, I guess, inverts the rule of comedy. But, you know, bravo to you guys for that. And I'm wondering how that dynamic plays out in the process, whether that's a good example of it or whether it's more along the lines of, well, now Robert should do ketamine and take a mysterious green pill and have someone blow cocaine up his ass. Greenwald really wants to know what the green pill was. I texted him last night.

Just for... Because again, as I said, Chris has been to London, been to London. so I wondered if he knew about the green pills. Originally, I think Greg ran into that wall five times. And they were like, everything too much. Yeah. Fair. I think me and Conrad, as you said, like, we're friends first, colleagues, I guess, second. We love working together.

I'll speak with Conrad. He loves working with you. I think, Conrad, if I'm staying at me, but it's untrue. But then we let's know, we egg each other on. constantly. That's why it seems like that end up in the show. Because me and Conrad think, also we just want to shock the people we're working with,

which is like the people that actually be a team from the production company, but what that reads the scripts. And we think, okay, how can we push this further? How can we be more unexpected? But always from a place, I hope that feels organic, because these are all things that I feel

that could probably happen in these characters to push their limits. It's a case of just, you know, trying to push stuff and just seeing I mean, it's seeing your stuff work. I mean, there's stuff in the show which we got rid of which, I mean,

maybe we went too far. There's other stuff that's in there which we thought, even up to the last moment, God, are we really going to put this on BBC 2 at 950? And it ended up on the front page of the daily mail. So you guys are Yasmin saying to Robert, did I go too far? That is you guys.

Basically, basically. The thing about the Greg's story in episode six is like a really, I don't know, I feel like it's one of, it's one of my favorite sequences in the show. from his like hung overnight out to him recounting how he got arrested for drink driving when he's on acid.

And then the head butt, I feel like it's almost like, you said this about, about the Goodfellas earlier, the kind of paranoia and stuff. I feel like it almost has like a quite dreamlike quality to it. And he's talking about like going home and watching Blackadder and doing loads of Coke.

And like, I don't know, I always, me and Mickey always felt like what was the kind of, how can we make the ending violent, but also how can we make it metaphorical, which is like, you know, he can't leave this place. He's trying as much as he can.

He'll do himself self-harm to the point of being hospitalized, but he still can't leave. Are you saying this is not an exit? Is this a backdoor pilot? So, yeah, I think it might be. No, no, no. It's just, I don't know. It means he's so right.

Like, I don't know. I get off on, we both get off on the idea of saying things that we think will, I don't know, push the envelope even more than we possibly could before. And it always comes back to that thing of like, okay, well, you know, does it push the envelope? Does it serve the story? And most of the time, I hope in this series that if you kind of, I'm not the people are really analyzing the sex scenes and stuff. But a lot of people are saying, oh, it's so gratuitous. It's so full on.

It's kind of like, well, the cornerstone of the whole show is true to life nurse. And we felt like if we were doing that in the office, then we had to do that outside the office. So we were kind of pushing those things as far as we could. Did you guys have, because you know how, like, does this dude Dale Die, who worked on, like, Platoon? and full metal jacket, and he's sort of the military advisor to make sure everything was realistic and true to life. Did you guys have somebody like that for Harper's birthday night to make sure that, like, we could push the ketamine and cocaine and champagne to what level before it gets just full train spotting and we're sinking into the floor or the rug?

I know what you're doing, and I'm not going to buy it. So if someone wanted to have a night out like that, technically you guys are saying that I would be able to keep it within the boundaries of a beating heart, right? Yeah. I honestly think there's this weird thing that's happened in the last probably five years in the UK and probably as a result of social media. But that's sort of like underground drug taking has become so mainstream. And I understand like, I've seen reactions on Twitter from primarily American audience. people are saying like, oh my God, do people do this and out of drugs? Yes. I'll say there is a certain section, subsection of people in the UK of a certain age that do

and do probably way more than what we've shown. I would say so. I would say we've actually leaned out of it, which I know sounds insane, but there is a kind of, I like, well, I say this with love and maybe, you know, not indicting me and Mickey in any for research purposes or anything, but London is just like the cocaine capital of the world. Like, there's this thing that's not really talked about in this city and is normally kind of pathologized or stigmatized in working class communities. But like there is a huge middle class cocaine problem in London, like absolutely massive. And it's like really underreported and like really secretive.

But it's just like you go, it's just everywhere you look in certain communities. So it's like we just felt like we were kind of actually telling it something that was pretty true to life. For what it's worth, Chris and I think maybe are a couple years older than you guys. But we've listened to be here now. You know what I mean? But I do really, again, I keep using this word admire because that's really how I feel about the show. Like, Robert likes a night out. He likes a couple of bevies.

But we rarely see the character who is too good at it, you know, and see, we can see trouble ahead, but he can just keep going. I think we've all known people like that, you know, it's not just a weekend night for him. It's a Tuesday. It's a Wednesday. And he can, despite some, you know, potential early morning sidewalk vomiting. just be fine. And I assume you guys talk to the makeup people about making him not look like death the next day

because he has the superpower that eventually, hopefully many seasons in the future, turns into a curse. That's exactly right. And I think you said it in the last show, which is like, you know, Harper goes in on that half that night and it looks like death and can't put itself together.

And Robert looks like he's sort of had a cup of tea and has got in at 8 o'clock in the morning. He has a power aid and he's ready to rock. He's like, Who wants to go out? Those people, you know, it comes crashing down for in the end. Yeah. They have this amazing stamina.

They just keep going and keep going. Yeah, I mean, I'm coming at saying, there's a huge middle class cocaine problem and drug problem in general in the UK. But like, especially in that environment, especially in finance. It's just like, you know, people have a lot of money in there. And they have a lot of, really, they have a lot of sort of quite free,

they have a lot of free times. When they're not working, they don't usually have any other real interests. So their interests are just going out and gang on it, which is the UK. Yeah. And also, Mahala was very, just to speak about episode four on time, she, for a kind of actress leading an HBO show, she had a remarkable lack of vanity when it came to that episode. They made it look genuinely hungover, which I thought was really good. I mean, that bit where she kind of, that match cut where she's asleep in the cab and then

she's asleep on the floor, honestly, it makes, I've seen that a hundred times. It makes me feel physically ill, because I just know that. feeling so strongly. And yeah, no, I just, I thought, I thought she was just terrific. And playing that every emotion in that episode, she was just really, really good. So we spoke at the beginning about how Chris's circle of friends, his Myspace Top 8, if you will, are all in on the show. And anecdotally, I know a lot of people who are becoming big fans as well. The six guys I follow in finance Twitter and also like four other friends that I am. The guy, the guy who explained the word quants to Chris,

who likes the show. But I also think people are responding to HBO's move, which raised our eyebrows, about putting the entire series on HBO Max. And people who I know who are watching it said, great, thank you. We'll be like Robert and hoovered up the rest of this. Do you guys have any insight into how that experiment worked out

or didn't work out? Do you have a sense of what might be ahead of you guys? Is there a season two? Obviously, I would like to do. And have you gotten any feedback at all from the relevant part? In terms of dropping the episodes, I think it was a conversation that was sparked between the BBC and HBO, because I think more recently the BBC have been doing that quite a lot. They've been dropping all their shows on iPlayer at the same time,

and it was something was sort of a departure for them, especially the kind of show in which this is, to have it come out week on week, especially on BBC 2, which is, I mean, it's network TV. To have that sort of stuff on the business is quite a strong. But then, yeah, I think, I think for HBO. we haven't seen numbers or anything, but we hear that it's done well, which is good. And in terms of like a second season or future seasons,

the show like this, which is, you know, about young people going into a new environment. There's, you know, we thought about where these people will be five, six years down the line. I mean,

you just think about that before you start writing a page of the first episode, you think, okay, well, what will happen you'll be looking at? Will Robert be alive? Like, we've got a really weird.

I mean, like, we won't give too much away, but like, some very odd endings for Rob that have come, have you've been ruminating on it. Yeah, I mean, it's up to, it's up to HBO. I mean, we'll see whether they, they pull the trigger on it. But, like, certainly we love to do it.

And this is the kind of question that no one involved in making TV wants to have to answer right now. But, you know, we can't help but watch the show and enjoy these giant crowd scenes, this big teaming office, all the shots to extras, as you discussed, and wonder if that's even possible to film. I mean, I know many things are, many things are filming again and people are, you know, following protocols and things.

But there's a moment in the Christmas episode where Darius says, oh, I like the office like this because it's so quiet, you know, it's reflective. And I'm like, oh, my God, is this the future for finance slash television? I mean, I think there's been great strides, actually, especially in Wales where we filmed in being very, very good about filming stuff. I mean, and keeping everyone safe. So hopefully, I mean, who knows? I mean, who knows what's going to look like next year?

hopefully there'll be some sort of vaccine or anything but yeah, I mean, we'll see. Do you think Robert has natural immunity to COVID? Just do-do. Robert has COVID-20 already. He had it and conquered it. It's like him in the wet market. It's just like that's season three.

There was a meme. There was a meme going around midway through the pandemic, which I could sort of vaguely have a sense memory of Nick that you might have a better one where people were saying that cocaine was actually a really good way to keep COVID at bay. So based a bit, they had that about,

about cigarettes and it almost got me. I was almost like, so it's okay again? Yeah. No, he's made of, he's made of stern stuff. He's made of stern stuff.

Thank you so much for joining us, guys. It's been one of the pleasures of this entire, like, pandemic has been watching this show and talking about it. And it actually,

you know, everything you said about it, not wanting to feel like homework and not wanting to feel like study hall and just kind of like slaving through something to get to the twist at the 46th minute of an episode. It's just like the entire thing is just such a rush. And so stimulating, no pun intended with all the drug talk that we've been having. It's just been fantastic. We love watching the show, guys. Thank you for it. And I think I should go back and find the text messages from the night I watched the premiere that I sent to Chris, which were extremely

Robert at 2 a.m. Even though it was like, even though it was like 8-17 and my children had just gone to sleep, so it's working. Thank you very much. It's such a pleasure. I want to say quickly, I mean, this might be very unprofessional, but my wife is an absolutely huge fan of this show, and we just had a baby two days ago.

She'd kill me if I didn't give both the baby and her shout-hound. Oh, congratulations. I'm really glad. Thank you. Dallington Island, moment. Oh, my God, welcome. We could do a side podcast. That's so fantastic.

Congratulations to you and to her. Thank you. Can we just say, and just one more thing while we famboy a little bit. Just like it was, you have no idea, firstly, how what a pleasure it is to come on this podcast, but also like, there were times last year when we were shooting stuff and we were like deep in the weeds. And we were kind of, I don't know, not losing our enthusiasm, but Andy, you know, when you were making bribe pratt. I'm sure you know that, you know, sometimes it can feel like a proper grind

and like you're kind of in the sausage factory and it can just feel tough. And so many times when we were, when we would be like, I don't know, being some Park Plaza Hotel in the Hilton really tired. And I'd just turn you guys on. And it would just, I don't know, energize me. It would just to hear two people who like, so, because obviously you guys do a curatorial thing, but you also like your enthusiasm for the form

and for like its potential and the fact that you guys love it so much and you talk about it so much and you're clearly such good friends. It's incredible, you know, it was really invigorating. So I just want to thank you both very much for that. I'd also say, thank God you like the show.

What if we hadn't? It would be so awkward. Our hearts are really pumping our chest and I think we saw that on Twitter, Chris, you'd say that it was that you'd put a picture of a Ken on them.

Yeah. To answer that. They're paying for your idea. Make them fucking pay. I was just like, that was a huge moment. I like 4 a.m. I got an alert about that and I was like,

I was like, and I knew Mickey wasn't going to be awake and for about four hours. I was like, we can, we live to fight another day. we live to find out of death. On the plus side, now that he has a child, he will be up then. So you can reach him.

And I have to say, I'm so grateful for all this, because if we hadn't liked the show, this would have been an extremely awkward 45-minute podcast with you guys. So this really worked out. You would have never had his own, lads. You'd have never had his own. I've only just begun doing industry memes. When the NBA season starts,

I'm definitely going to start firing off those Jackie shots. So it's good. It's good. Well, we hope we get to talk to you guys again. We're very hopeful for a second season. Stay well. Congratulations, Mickey. See you guys.

Thank you so much for joining us.