The Watch - ‘Top Chef: All-Stars’ Is Our New Favorite Sport. Plus, Kathryn Hahn!

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Unsurprisingly, Quibi is not doing well while everyone is stuck at home. We explain why we have some sympathy for the nascent streaming service (10:53). Plus, breaking down the restaurant wars from last week’s episode of ‘Top Chef: All-Stars L.A.’ (31:41) and an interview with Kathryn Hahn about her new show ‘I Know This Much is True’ (45:33). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Kathryn Hahn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Brian Coppelman. And this is David Levine. We are the showrunners and co-creators of billions. And this is... Behind the billions. Behind the billions. We're going to talk about how we make the show, the decisions we made in terms of what we decided to shoot,

how we wrote it. We are going to share Inside Skinny on what it's like to make the show. Dave, I'm sorry I just said Inside Skinny. You did. I mean, you've set the bar high. We have a lot to provide now. And we will be providing it on Sunday nights right after the show. We'll have guests who are actors on the show.

We'll come in and talk to us, people who make cameos on the show. Should we interview crew members, too? Well, we're going to talk about some crew members, maybe standout crew members, superstars, crew superstars, if you will. Really psych to do this. Sike to talk to everybody about the show. Listen in on Sunday nights right after the show airs on Showtime. I need sports to have to clear the room.

Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com and joining me on the other line. Front of the house has always mattered to him. It's Andy Greenwald. TGIF, baby.

Happy Friday! Good bit. I like this. You road tested that bit. Me and Kyle laughed. And now you're like, the listeners get it too. It's because it's all I got. I am a desiccated husk.

It's Monday at 3 p.m. How is your weekend? Weekends are the days, to remind me, a weekends are the days when there's no schoolwork. Yeah. It was great. How was yours? It was pretty good.

I watched a bunch of ocean movies yesterday for the big picture, an episode that's coming out tomorrow. Top five movies set on the sea. So my wife and I watched some ocean movies. Oh, by the way, when you said ocean movies, I assumed you meant Stephen Soderberg's classic trilogy of dapper conmen. Yeah, those are always on repeat. No, I watch movies set on the sea, you know, like waterbound movies.

Chris, famously, your hottest take is about the sea. It's not that high of a take, right? I mean, the sea is dope. What year was that? 2012? When did you drop that? I think it was like 13 maybe? I don't know.

I just feel like back then, that was pretty, that was pretty takey. Yeah, that was also like big Somali pirate era. So people were out on the sea, you know, real Captain Phillips times, you know. Speaking of. And I, you know, I don't want to take away from... I zagged. I don't want to take away from your weekend. But one thing we've been, one thing that's become a source of a lot of interest in my household,

mostly coming from my older child, but I don't want to just say it's from her. It's a lot of interest in the ancient Roman Empire. And so I'm learning a lot, a lot of, what do we call them, factoids? Fun, you know, you know that there's that website heavy that I don't understand what it is? I assume it's some sort of like machinese-based. front for gambling or something. I don't know what it is. 23 things you didn't know about the

Roman Empire. But generally, it's like if someone is milkshake ducked that morning within 20 minutes, that website will be the first Google result being like top five things you need to know about the racist milkshake duck. Yes. Anyway, the Julius Caesar one would be fire. And that guy packed a lot

of living into 55 years in the ancient world. Let me tell you, one of the best bits was he kept coming back to Rome taking over than having to flee. He had to flee all the time. Yeah. But then he kept coming back, like, you know, with more, more dudes and bigger power and eventually taking over the Senate and the Republic. But the detail that I'm super into, and I

immediately went there since you started talking about the sea, is that there is just a little footnote in his very, very long biography that mentions that at one point during his adventures in Hispania, Gaul. Sure. He was kidnapped by. pirates. And the pirates were like, this guy, this guy looks rich. He looks pretty powerful. We're going to put a bounty on his head. We're going to, you know, we're going to get a, what do you call it when you kidnap someone? You demand ransom. Ransom, yeah. So they were like, we're going to get 20 pieces of silver for this. You learned all of this from heavy? No, no. Heavy doesn't have one. I'm saying old world heavy would be great. Yeah. Those are called

books. I could be that. That's books. I've got a, I've got an interesting business problem. proposition for you. Anyway, I bet listeners are loving this. They were like, we're going to get 20 pieces of silver for this dude. And Julian Caesar, the prisoner was like, that's a fucking insult. You ask for 50. So they were like, oh, okay. He went full Mel Gibson. Yeah. And he was like, by the way,

just so you know, you should do this. You should get all your money. But I'm going to come back once I'm free and I'm going to crucify all of you. And they were like, this guy. This fucking guy right here. You were serious about that? Julius. Listeners?

Did he crucify him? Yeah. He did. He went out and he found the pirates that had him. And as an act of mercy, he had all their throat slit before he crucified them. But he did it. That's such a class act.

And I just feel like, look, I know we're in a different era. I know we're in an era where politicians have to do their business from their basements. But all I'm asking for, for, look, the left, the right. He said, she said, I want people who follow through. That's my campaign for 2020. I want to follow up on this. But briefly, if you're just tuning in and you didn't expect rise and fall of the Roman Empire today. What if you are the co-host of the podcast and you didn't expect that? Chris, you could speak to that. The funny thing is neither of us

expected it. Today, we're going to be talking about a little bit about Top Chef in a bit. And then the second half of the podcast, I had really a Hall of Fame guest for this pod. Catherine Hahn, one of the stars of I Know This Much Is True, which is a new limited series on HBO, adapted by Derek C and France from the Wally Lamb novel. And it is, man, it is pretty searing. It's definitely, like, I remember when we were talking about zero zero zero before and I was like, it's hard for me to like recommend this as a hang, but as a watch, watching, you know, this is like full flight, Mark Ruffalo. he's playing two roles. He plays twin brothers.

And it's about, I mean, it's essentially just, it's a show about trauma. But if you have the appetite for like that Blue Valentine kind of place beyond the Pines level of, you know, searing human behavior, this is really, I can't recommend this more highly. It's pretty, it's pretty stunning stuff. But we'll talk about that with Catherine Hahn later. But back to Caesar. Who is Catherine Hahn's favorite Roman Empire? That's a great question. How long did Caesar live for?

He's 55 years. Yeah, that was it. That was it. He poured it, man. He poured it on. Like, that's the thing about guys back then is they were just like, life expectancy was so low. And you have to add on to the fact that, like, when they were like, you know what, summer break, I think I'm going to go on safari, right? That took like two years.

Two years to do shit. That's even the case for like Henry James novel characters where they're just like, I'm going to Paris. See you in three years. Like, what the fuck? How is that a plan? I'm just saying when Caesar was like, I'm going to go to Great Britain and try to conquer it twice. What percentage of his 55 years on the planet did that take? Yeah. And then there's the whole pirate thing, which is a whole other story. Then you've got to go back and crucify those guys. I just feel like I know. I just feel like we're wasting our time because the player efficiency rating shouts to John Hollinger for these ancient figures is extremely high.

Now, I'm going to quiz you on something. Okay. You ever heard of a little lady called Cleopatra? Yeah, man, of course. Cast a long shadow. Look at us. We're still talking about her. It's 2020.

Guess how old she was? Like 30. Like 30. She was 39. Okay. So she was a little older than you expected. She outlived Janice Joplin. I'm sure that was of great comfort to her.

as she positioned the asp over her own neck. She's like, Wait, how did Cleopatra go out? Suicide by snake poison. What? Is this well known? This is, we are doing a full pivot to history. When the TV shows end in like six to eight weeks,

we are pivoting. Kaya, did you know that's how Cleopatra went out? No, I don't think I did know that. There you go. Greenwald, you really are getting good at teaching. Chris and Kaya and all of my children of my students. Why do we venerate the false idol George R.R. Martin when our friend Encyclopedia Britannica has for years contained the fact that

Julius Caesar ran off on his fourth wife, had a child with Cleopatra. Do you know what that child's name was? Caesareon! Wait, how do you know all this? Are you actually teaching this to your kid? She was really interested, so you got a pivot. That's awesome, man. I love it.

Caesarian, though, he was like, bet, I'm the pharaoh and I'm the emperor of Rome. And you know what people in Rome said? Please meet this rope we will use to strangle you at age 17. That's a wrap on Caesarian. Wow. Lizzie is, is, so, I mean, like, do you feel like this is going to be a long-term project for you guys, or do you think you're going to be, like, channel flipping around history? I, at this point, we're channel flipping as things get interesting.

But I do want to say, I was going to mention that I thought that was kind of a cool flex, because people were like, that's not really Julius Caesar's son. We don't need to recognize him. But Cleopatra was like, I'm going to name this child Caesarian. And I was like, that's kind of a cool flex for the, from the, from the, from the, ancient world. And then just before signing on to this podcast, I was reading about Future, you know, the multi-platinum rapper who had an interesting Mother's Day as he sent Happy Mother's Day tweets to his six or seven baby mamas. And his children have names like Hendrix

and Prince Future. So I feel like we haven't really traveled that far. Time is a flat circle. That's true. Is there anything else you wanted to hit before we got into Top Chef because really the only TV news to come out was the kind of the press push by Quivvy, which we touched on briefly as a kind of like a Curioso when it first launched. We were like, you know what? They're probably not there yet with the content, but I'm curious because they are hiring a bunch of interesting people and they're trying to, and they're trying to like sort of flesh out this new, this new platform and this new format with the landscape and also the horizontal and the vertical cinematography bit,

and it was supposed to be for phones. Then obviously, first two weeks, numbers weren't great. They immediately pivot so that they're like, okay, now you can watch it elsewhere besides just your phone. And then today, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who's one of the people behind Quibi with Meg Whitman, comes out in the New York Times, has a kind of a damage control interview, essentially chalking up the issues with Quibi's, reception to coronavirus.

Now, obviously not saying, like, we're not for coronavirus. Quibi would have become the new Netflix. But I think very specifically was pointing to the idea that Quibi was something that people were supposed to be doing these in between moments, whether it was sitting in their car, like, as they were waiting in the grocery store parking lot or online or in the subway or wherever. And that that, taking that out essentially, like, you know, for lack of a better term, crippled them.

Now, I don't think he's wrong. You know, I think that he's, he's probably right. I mean, I think that the disruption of what we thought we knew about how people ingested culture and content has been shattered. And as we've kind of been discussing on this podcast for the last couple of weeks, like, the things that you used to do at a certain point in the day, the things that you used to do on your drive to and from work, you know, you yourself were like, I used to have like a 90-minute commute. I could get all sorts of stuff done in that car. And now you don't. But do you think that Katzenberg's kind of defense here sounds right? Or do you think that there's something fundamentally off about the quiby model?

Well, I think both can be true. And I think that the first point I think is accurate, which is this is a service that was specifically targeted for the type of viewing opportunities that simply don't exist right now. That's just without question true and a valid point to make. Now, whether they should have gone ahead with their launch in early April, you know, as things were completely shutting down is another question. But I also think the fact that we're asking that question kind of speaks to the second point, which makes me feel with some confidence that there would be a similar damage control story about Quibi's launch happening regardless, which is the fact that it appears, the entire business model appears to be an attempt to service a niche that may not. need servicing. One of the already one of the pull quotes

from this times piece that just dropped an hour or two ago that already seems to be doing the rounds is people asking, well, okay, if Quibi isn't working, why is TikTok soaring? And Katzenberg uses that famous analogy that's like comparing apples to submarines. Right. Which seems like a poor idea

in business. So I'm with him on that. But I think that one of the things that this moment has really revealed is the almost binary extremity of what we want from entertainment in this moment, which is to say the very idea of Saturday Night Live producing an entire 90-minute show on people's iPhones, the idea of talk shows happening from people's addicts or basements, the idea that perfectly acceptable, high-gloss, high-budgeted programs would be reduced to what our podcast is at this moment, which is just two people with headphones on chatting with completely unconsidered backgrounds behind them in their homes, that has really

rewired a lot of assumptions about what people are willing to get and what people really want from stuff. And so I feel like there's an appetite for something that just fills the need, two people talking about something you're interested in, self-generated videos of people dancing, as is the case of TikTok, or a desire for the biggest possible thing, which is why, you know, regardless of how movie theaters fare for the next year and a half, I think that movie theater spectacle like Wonder Woman 1984 or The Fast and the Furious movies are fine. What Quibi seemed to try to do is fill a small space with a medium-sized thing, right? Because they're not cheap shows, even if they're shorter. They're shot with real, real, is a silly

term, but they're shot with proper crews, you know, with relatively big actors. They're not cheap to make. The scale that they're making them at is the same as any other. network show. It's just that they're being chopped up into smaller pieces. So that's what's most striking to me about it. And that seems to me that, it strikes me that that might have been a problem regardless, although there may have been a longer runway for them to say we're still building when we weren't in an economic catastrophe. To the extent that Jeffrey Katzenberg or Quibby or anybody needs my sympathy at this moment, I actually do have a bit of it

for the situation because I think that we're going to see it I would guess in the next couple months with Peacock and HBO Max to some extent even though those two

services are going to launch with these libraries and with shows baked into them that people are going to be like yeah I would probably pay X amount of dollars per month just to have friends

playing in the background of my house all the time or the office or whatever I still think that judging the launch of a place platform like this, as if it's, uh, we're judging the box office returns of a weekend movie is probably ill considered. I mean, when you think about the ones that are actually pumping

and working right now, Netflix and Hulu, they've gone through huge changeovers of terms of what they are supposed to be. Like Hulu was essentially first going to be where you watched network TV the day after or the couple of days after. And since then has gone on to become pretty impressive archive and library of a lot of television, plus a very, very efficient way to watch current day television, plus an original programmer to be reckoned with in their own right, both on the Hulu side and on the FX on Hulu side. Netflix starts out as a mail order DVD company, then becomes an online movie library, and then becomes an original content company to what it is now, which is it seems like whatever comes out on Netflix Friday is the thing

that people are talking about on Monday, be it dead to me or whatever. So the idea that any of these places are going to launch and immediately have that brand identification, that sense of reliability, and that sense of, oh, I want to see whatever is on this thing

because I trust that it's good or I trust that it's worth my time, it's going to take years. And if they're that leveraged and they're that splashy, I don't know if they have years. I totally agree with what you're saying. And I think the Hulu reference is especially apt

because I think Hulu's superflu surprised the entire town and certainly itself when it became the first streaming service to win a series Emmy for Handmaid's Tale. And the year or two after that, you could feel them just being like, well, what are we? Are we making, remember there was the 112263 miniseries with James Franco? Like, are we doing these high price adaptations? Are we going to be mass market with comedy? I mean, it was very unclear what they were going to be. And in the last few months, you know, we've suddenly started talking about them a lot because they made a lot of canny programming choices and it positioned themselves really well. The unique challenge of Quibi in any time period

is that, and now I know this is an inaccurate analogy because both examples I'm about to use, I think are essentially software. I'm not was. I didn't build anything in my garage. So I could be wrong about this. But they are trying to be hardware and software. They are trying to be both the razor and the razor blade. Yes. In that they're like, you have to have our bespoke app to watch the programs that we are programming for it. That's different than even though Netflix obviously once it became a streaming service or a devoted streaming service, that was a different interaction or interface for people who were used to either getting DVDs or watching cable. This is another step past that. And one wonders if there hadn't been a better lane for Quibi

to say, take this technology, take this idea, take the relationships that Katzenberg has with people in Hollywood and basically offer themselves as an adjunct service to Netflix, say, where these are quick Netflix bites. Micro, yeah. You can watch them on your Netflix app, but you could also watch them on your phone in a way that is optimized for watching them that way, as opposed to trying to watch, you know, a beautifully shot moment from Narcos or whatever on your iPhone. So that's a lot of what or could or shoulda.

I mean, Katzenberg has taken big swings this whole career. That's what he does. And the fact that he got this thing up and running with the talent attached to it is remarkable. It's, it's fascinating. I wonder whether or not, I don't know what, I have some ideas about what data collection in this era is going to be like, but I wonder what Nielsen there is, or how do you even adjust for what people are doing with their time and what they are choosing to do with their quote unquote free time while they're home like this and while they're, while they're forced to kind of like contemplate another night in, another night in another night in, another night in. And

whether or not that has an impact on what people, the decisions people are making going forward. Because Quibi, I think, is essentially supposed to be something in transit. If it's just going to be micro, gosh, I don't know. I don't know if it can compete with Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Because those things already feel like they're programmed to live in your pocket and be a quick distraction. I wonder, and I'm sure there are people much smarter than us involved in every step of the decision making process for these companies. But I think you're really on to something there, which is to say that in the in-between moments, such as they even exist in this time, Instagram stories brain erasure is the real competition for something like Quivvy.

It's not the new episode of Defending Jacob on the Apple TV app on my phone. It's what are six friends I haven't seen in two years doing? Right. Right. Because it's not socially distant. These are people I fully don't even know anything. I want to be clear about that. That is interesting if you start to centralize all, if you start to centralize, like, you do everything on whether it's your laptop or your Apple TV or your phone, but that's also where you do a lot of your interactions with the outside world.

And that's also where you look at Instagram or that's also where you watch golf instructional videos or cooking instructional videos on YouTube. It feels different than the discrete choice to watch TV. And when you get into that territory, of like, oh, this is also where I do my group texts. Like group texts are taking up a lot of my time. I know that. You know what I mean?

My group chats are like... I'm right here. Dude, we're on a couple. Okay. All right. I guess you must be talking to those people on Instagram stories. Should we get into... I like how we went from two guys definitely didn't know anything about Cleopatra.

Yeah. And being really irreverent with one of the most important figures. in world history to you guys being really serious about Quibi for five minutes. Did you have anything else you wanted to add to that?

Not to that, but I did think it was worth saying since you were talking about the time we're taking to watch TV, just shoutouts to some, I don't know if you have something to throw into this, but we're kind of between shows

at the moment because normal people is over and we'll pick up one or two things, I'm sure, in the next week or two. But I've done some Quar watching and I'm curious, and just some things that I would shout out and discuss. I bet you have a couple things as well before we get into the top chef. One is if you have, both of these are relatively short, 90 minutes,

60 minutes. First one is a doc on Netflix called Circus of Books that I really, really recommend. It's about a famous or infamous, however you want to look at it, bookstore in West Hollywood and then for a later period also in Silver Lake called Circus of Books that was a, I became a, basically a haven for the gay community during the 80s, during the AIDS scare, during the 90s. They sold books, but also like sex toys and community more than anything else. And totally fascinating. As a relatively recent transplant to Los Angeles, I didn't know the history of this place.

But I promise you, even if you had seen the store, even if you had shot there, you probably didn't know the couple, the very mild-mannered Jewish couple, husband and wife, that owned and ran the stores. And it's a really heartfelt and interesting documentary made by the couple's daughter, Rachel, and features a wonderful appearance by an old friend of ours from New York, Fernando Aguilar, who used to work at the store. So I

really recommend it. It's a really fascinating documentary and a lot of fun. Also, and maybe this is worth mentioning on a day when we're also mourning the loss of the great Jerry Stiller, wife and I watched the new Jerry Seinfeld special last year. How is that? Fascinating.

Did you say wife and I? Yeah, the wife and I. I feel like I'm transitioning into a little bit older school style of delivery here as befits it. It's a really solid B. That guy really knows that to do a stand-up special, you know, and it's enjoyable. It's very him. What's kind of amazing about it, and I wonder how many more things like this we'll see and talk about, is that there are sections of it that feel so much different than they did when he

filmed it, which was probably only a month or two ago. I'm sure that will come up a lot. Yeah. There's a whole thing in the beginning about how like all we do is people is basically find excuses to leave the house and get together to kill time. And now like no one's really that happy doing anything ever. So that was kind of fascinating. There was a part that took on an air of just full tragedy as he was making fun of the U.S. post office's business model. Yeah. I was like, they should cut this.

We should do. They should just remove this part because it's no longer funny. And then there's a whole section about how the buffet is like the failure of humanity. And I was like, well, I think it's done. Yeah. I think that you could put this joke in a time capsule with a poison snake and Cleopatra's illegitimate heir to the Roman throne cesarean and just toss it because it's never going to be relevant. Do you hear people like cracking up when he does? does that bit? Like, is it, does it kill? It kills. Oh, they love it. Oh, my God. I mean,

one of the things, and I'll say this to people who maybe, maybe don't have the appetite for Jerry Seinfeld comedy specials in the year 2020, it is kind of incredible to watch a guy who just loves doing one thing more than anything else. He just loves doing that. Yeah. It's just what he really likes doing. And I, and I, at this point, in my life as a quarantined elementary school teacher, I really admire that. I find there's something kind of moving about a dude is just like, this is the only thing I really like doing.

And even though I am richer than 99.2% of Earth's population, I'm still going to do this. I wanted to recommend two things actually non-TV or movies. So one is a book. It's been a while since we've done Double Down Book Club, but we've mentioned a bunch of stuff in the past.

I wanted to say that Andy had brought up a bunch of times over the years, Jean-Claude Izzo's Marseitre Trillard. and I read Total Chaos and that was incredible. So if you're looking for a really transporting European adventure, it's very atmospheric. It's really great. It's set in Marseille.

It features this hard-bitten cop trying to untie a murder from his own past and a murder from his present. And it's just an incredible crime saga. It's great. So total chaos. First book of the trilogy. Yeah. But the one that I'm reading now that I really like,

and I think a lot of our listeners might dig is called Safe by Ryan Gaddis. I love this book. Yeah. And it's a 2017 novel and it's basically about these two guys. It has like elements of heat to it, but it's a guy who's a safe cracker for law enforcement agencies and goes around and when they need like a safe opened up in a drug stash house, he's the person they call. And then there's another guy who is a dealer.

And it's kind of like the colliding paths that they're on, the roads that they're on that will inevitably collide. and it is an awesome, awesome depiction of like contemporary Los Angeles crime culture. Not that I'm an expert on it, but it's very convincing. And it's got this real vibe of like all the places in L.A. that I drive by where I'm like, huh, San Pedro. You know, and I've never gotten off there, you know, but like it's all, it's set in all of these like counties and towns that ring Los Angeles or kind of circle out from it,

but still feels like an L.A. crime book. So that's really good. Did you do the podcast with me when Ryan was. on the pod for all involved for us. He's a great guy. We should, if we want to get a book club going, he would, I'm sure would love to hop back on with us. Yeah, but I highly recommend that. And then the other thing that I've been listening to, so I kind of needed to switch the curatorial part of my brain off this weekend for some reason. I was just like, I don't really want to make decisions about whether I'm listening to this or that. And someone, a guy I met recommended this thing. I don't even if you've ever heard of this called NTS. And it's basically

I guess it's like internet pirate radio and they've got stations in London, L.A., Manchester, Shanghai, but they're obviously, the stations are closed, but the shows are still going. They're still being uploaded these DJ sets. And they vary, man. Some of it is like, you know, some dude wearing a mask and it's called like Japan Wax.

And it's just like, all right, mate, his burial. It's called State Forest. Big rhythms. And then it's just like blast. Like he just plays dubstep for like an hour and a half. Some of it is like random psychedelia, but it's like all these DJs uploading their radio sets and it's curated and put together as if it's like a radio station playing all day.

You can listen to one of two channels, one's playing usually from L.A. and one's from London. And you can really get lost down the rabbit hole. And it's kind of awesome. I spent the entire weekend jamming out to it. That sounds great. I want to do that. I'm probably not going to mention that I'm now on page 391 of the Mets. Magic Mountain, which is my quarry.

And I've actually kind of enjoyed reading something that I'd never read that felt like a big thing that one should maybe give a shot to. And it's actually, for this moment, it's good in two ways. One, because it's about sickness as a social construct. So it's relevant. Two, I'm finding, chipping away slowly at something and seeing that it is actually getting done to be kind of helpful. in this time in a different way than at the beginning when I think I was rereading a lot of books

for the comfort of that and the familiarity because I knew where and how they ended. Now you want the project. This is a little bit more of a lesson that even if I'm only able to read seven or eight super dense pages about the device called the Blue Peter, which gentlemen carried around in their pocket to ejaculate spute them into from their ill lungs and then tuck them back into their waistcoat. or whatever. A little of that goes a long way. The pages do add up. And it did also lead to one of my all-time favorite conversations with my parents who are also, of course, sheltering in place. Well, no, my father said, well, have you been reading anything? And I said, actually, I've been

reading the Magic Mountain. And my mother said, oh, Thomas Mann. My father says, first of all, it's Mon. So if anybody ever wondered where I came from, there it is. Let's talk these restaurant wars, man. So we're going to get into a Top Chef from last Thursday. Skip ahead to Catherine Hound if you haven't watched it because we're going to spoil Top Chef Restaurant Wars. But if you are a Top Chef fan and you haven't watched Thursday show by Monday, come on.

Yeah. Come on. I mean, I was under pressure. I felt pressured to watch this. I was shocked you hadn't watched it. The reason why I felt like I had to watch it was because AG logged on to Twitter and had a great tweet about this.

and you were talking about, let's start at the most crucial moment here, which may have been the selection of teams. So for everybody who doesn't know, restaurant wars, obviously, two chefs are, well, in this season,

two chefs won a pre-pitched competition, or a pitch competition, where they went in and pitched the judges on their concept for a restaurant, made a couple of sample dishes. And the two chefs who won were Kevin and Gregory. Kevin wanted to do a kind of southern, home style comfort food,

but refined, you know, casual but refined. He wanted to do a casual but find a restaurant called Country Captain, right? And it was based on this chicken dish that's almost like a chicken curry, but... That came from, where did it come from? His plantations. Yes.

And then Gregory wanted to do Khan, which was his Haitian fine dining concept that he, I think, is in the process of wanting to open a restaurant like that in Portland. So it's obviously something that It's very important to him. And what happens is it's basically playground style. You get to pick your team back and forth, back and forth.

So, you know, it's incredible sometimes when you think that this is the 17th season of the show. And I believe all of them, and by the way, this is all of them including Top Chef Masters, of which I saw every episode, Top Chef Jr., of which I've seen every episode. This is the Hallmark. This is the one they do every year. And it's the one that the chefs either, they used to make a big deal like, that's the one you've been looking forward to. But now I think it's the one they're dreading because it's,

just a buzzsaw. Regardless of what happens and the shifting outcomes and whether they choose flowers or the decor or whether they are charged with less of that, whatever, there's one constant, which is you yourself at home can pick the order of the teams along with the chefs. Because as you said, it is playground style. And so what that means is just like on the playground, it is they take best player available always, always. The only exception to that, and it's happened a couple times,

is when the person choosing has a history with someone, and they've worked together before or their close friends. And in those cases, you will see a captain of a team pick someone who is a grinder, basically. That's my roommate. They're a great sous chef. I know that they'll execute all this stuff. They will trust me, they will defer to me, and they are a prep lord. Like, they will just crush the mezun plus for this restaurant.

Right. So, okay, so they draw knives. Kevin goes first. And Kevin, like I was sketchy. Gregory went first. No, Kevin went first and picked Brian Voltagio. Did he? Which made, yes, which made sense for the reasons I'm saying.

They were on top chef together in the Las Vegas season. Right, and Brian's like, I will die for this guy. Like, we made a promise to each other that we were going to go to the finals, yada, yada. And they're generationally aligned. And Brian Voltajillo is a beast in the kitchen, both in terms of his skills and, well, in terms of his craft and his skills. So then it's Gregory's turn. and it's completely obvious.

Vegas was not taking bets. This is the easiest decision possible. Yeah. The person who has been the MVP of this season, other than himself, the person who is his roommate, we learn, in the Top Chef House,

easily the best person available. And Kevin would have felt the same way, obviously, and he did, and that's Melissa. And what Gregory does in this moment, I swear to God, this was the most shocking moment in 17 seasons of Top Chef.

He chose Malarkey. I mean, I can't even find an analogy for this because malarkey would have been the odds-on favorite to be picked last, to be the person you were stuck with who has never even played kickball before, yet is being forced to play

by the teachers who want to include him in the games. So there's something crucial to recognize here. In the pitch contest, even though most people at home probably found Brian's pitch to be stupid, or not even stupid, but just kind of like, okay, that's... It's corny. Yeah, he went and pitched a Baja Asian street food concept using Shrek characters or based on like Shrek, the movie, and did this whole song and dance. And you know what? Those discerning people sitting at the table laughed it up. Yeah. And they were like, Like, he did it. He sold that the shit out of that. And I don't know. So, like, they don't obviously do a lot of, like, post game top chef stuff as far as I know. Like Survivor, you will see, you know, Jeff Probes will do interviews that go out like after the Survivor episodes goes. And it'll break down some of the strategy. Sometimes give a little light onto like moments that maybe weren't showed or why it was put together in the way it was. So I don't really know in the room whether or not Gregory was like, I am picking forefront of the house.

He was. He did say that, yeah. But like, I don't know whether he was like, no matter what, I'm taking Malarkey first because I want him to do front of the house. I think that he was going to. And that's what I'm so shocked by. And, you know, generally, Padma is an observer here. We don't, or they cut it to make it seem like she is. They cut to her being like, I have to ask you why you just did that. Like, Malarkey's standing right there. And she's like, what are you doing? He essentially, if Gregory is, it's like, it's like he basically passes on, I don't know, like Clay Thompson. You know what I mean? Like he could have had the perfect complimentary player in Melissa, but he understood, I am going to be obsessed with cooking this. And I can't worry about people. I need someone out front doing a song and dance to keep people chill. It's not just that, though.

It's that when you look at how it shook out, this is what was so stunning. And it did for a moment maybe occurred to me that there was going to be a David Goliath thing here because when it shook out when they went they alternated picks

Kevin's team you could make a case that that would be your restaurant wars team if you had a draft from all the seasons of Top Chef. This is Kevin

who is up to this point been unstoppable and is one of the best and most successful and was a finalist in Vegas cooks ever to be on the show. Brian Voltajio the only one

to be on regular top chef and masters and now back. Melissa, who he ends up with after the Malarkey decision, who is the odds on favorite to win the season and is also just a beast and a genius. And Karen, who's extremely talented, a Beard Award winning chef. And it just come back from being in Last Chance Kitchen where she, like, lost in the regular kitchen,

went to Last Chance and beat two people. And so Gregory is standing over there with Brian Malarkey and Stephanie, who would be everyone's picks to be the next two to go home. No disrespect to them. It's getting fierce. the competition. And Leanne, who is extremely talented, but also has been at the bottom repeatedly. It is a complete mismatch. And then you start to think, well, okay, okay, maybe, you know, if you are

just doing playground rules and you just pick the best people available, does that the same thing as picking a team? Right. Right. Like the idea, what is the NBA equivalent here, though, of like Gregory being so confident in his own ability to lead an offense and score that he picks Kyle Corver first? You know what I mean? It's just someone who's good at one thing? But I didn't even know he was that good at it. I don't even know if it's a sports thing. It's more like team of rivals. It's more like picking a bunch of people.

The thing that he did that was ingenious was that he not only was like, because Stephanie said this, she was like, Gregory is not looking for her input. And it's like, it's actually easier to do it this way because I am not going to ruin Gregory's dish. I'm going to follow a recipe. And Kevin told his people, bring your own vibe to this and like the shrimp and grits. Like, Voltajia probably made a really good shrimp and grits meal in a meal. a vacuum, but within the context of the way too elaborate and 12 side dishes. Right. That Kevin put

on his menu, that Voltaggio shrimp dish didn't quite work, right? Like, at least according to the judges. Right. None of the people on Gregory's team were like, I want to try it this way. It was like, Gregory's going to tell you what to cook. He's going to tell you how to cook it. He's going to taste everything. He's going to make three dishes, which is very hard. And Malarkey's job is to literally go out there and wear a hat and be like chaos, you know, it's controlled chaos, baby. Like, it's chaos behind the scenes, but it's all under control here. And always going up and telling his stories and like greeting everybody and doing a great job and not having to run back and do mushrooms like Karen or whatever. And it was like, it was an ingenious way to do it.

Doesn't mean what it sounded like it meant. No, but it was also. Cook mushrooms, not do them. Do them. That's right. Karen was microdosing the whole time. It's a wonder that they got any food on the plate. But. But, it was also. But, I did feel like he picked for need rather than best player available. But also, it showed like, I mean, you, ever since we've made my year by talking about Top Chef on our podcast, like I've been beating the same drum, which is to say that the gamesmanship part of it is the least interesting part. But he broke the game in this one for me. This was totally incredible because he had the confidence in his vision, the confidence

in his leadership skills, which are considerable. You know, everybody likes him. He keeps a very cool, calm demeanor. And that speaks also to the sort of generational change and temperamental change of cooking in America over the last few years. And he represents that really well. But he was, as you have said, and I think people on Twitter responded to say, like, he was really confident in what he wanted to do. It's very personal. So he knew what it was going to be. And he knew

how to delegate it. Malarkey proved to be pretty good at doing the hardest part of restaurant wars, which is the thing most chefs are not good at. And Kevin, despite having been veteran of the show, and despite having opened many successful restaurants, made every single mistake. So it was truly thrilling. Like, I was high after watching the show. Oh, I mean, it was everything from when Gregory replaced Leanne as the Expo cook with Stephanie, every decision Gregory was forced to make, he made right. You know, and even when they were like, judges table, like, you need to finish this fish. He was like, the fish is going to take as long as it takes. I'm not

serving them raw fish. Or that he didn't serve the dishes he served to get the captaincy, right? He switched up the dishes. All these decisions he made, this is why it was like sports, I guess, because there were split-second decisions made that felt absolutely insane, except nobody's going to remember the moment before you through the Hail Mary if someone catches it. So now afterwards, we're like, oh, it was brilliant because he didn't fall prey to expectations like Kevin's dish did when you didn't have the right curry blend or whatever.

So all of that was awesome. Gregory is a hero, as far as I'm concerned. One of the best top chefs, one of the best restaurant episodes ever, following one of what I thought was one of the worst, one of the best restaurant wars ever. Then I also want to call out, Kevin, bury him a G. Because that's also something you never see.

And the veteran savvy that was lacking in his decision-making for his restaurant was very present in his exit. It was starting to go a little sideways, where I felt like, you know, Melissa and Brian were not, they weren't throwing Kevin under the bus, but they were definitely like, look, this was way too ambitious. And Karen felt it coming too for her screwing up front of the house and mushroom dish. And Kevin said something that you never see on reality shows,

let alone top chef where he was just like, every single thing is my responsibility. And there's really no other choice here. They didn't even pretend there was another choice. They were like, is there any reason anyone other than you should go home? And he was like, no. Yeah. They were like, well, you have to go home.

I mean, and the only alternative would have been to be like, yeah, Karen should go home because if people were sitting and turning over better, it would have been a different experience. But I think the perspective that you get as a veteran knowing that the goodwill it generates to behave in an upstanding way in public far outweighs the short-term benefit of shiving someone else. You know, he doesn't need this show for any reason other than, you know, he wanted to prove he could do it after his cancer scare. Yeah. And maybe there was some unfinished business. but his life is good and his life is fine. And I think his reputation is only enhanced by that behavior. He's also not gone because he went and got after it at Last Chance Kitchen.

Last Chance Kitchen's still going, as Tom likes to tell us. By the way, if you are watching Top Chef as obsessively as we are this year, highly recommend Tom Colicchio's interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air. You can get it as a podcast. It was on last week. Tom is truly an impressive and inspiring leader for that industry and kind of just speaks about the way this country works or doesn't work. in a way that is really, I found it very moving

and I found it very inspiring. And he makes complicated issues seem parsible, if that makes sense. I mean, he's a pretty impressive dude. And along with friends of his like Jose Andres, and obviously we've been promoting World Central Kitchen on this show, it gives me a little bit of hope that there are some people in this world who can help figure out how to feed people.

Yeah, for sure. which isn't always an issue. Well, we can wrap it up there and get into my interview with Catherine Hahn, and we'll be back on Thursday with some, hopefully another special guest, and we'll also, we'll have plenty of stuff to talk about by Thursday, I believe. I mean, do you know what was going on with the Goths? Are you even prepared? And I'm not talking, Susie and the Banshees.

I'm talking about the barbarian invasions, baby. This week in history with Andy Greenwald. I love it. I'm ready for it. All right. See you Thursday, man. Great, great, great job, Cesarian. it is my absolute honor to welcome Catherine Hahn to The Watch. Anybody who's been listening to this podcast knows what a huge fan, both myself and Andy, are of Catherine's work.

I loved Mrs. Fletcher. I love Transparent. I mean, Stepbrothers is a foundational movie for me. Everything in between. Catherine, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Oh, I am. It's my absolute honor and pleasure as well, my dear. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about I know this much is true,

which debuted last night on HBO. is from a Wally Lamb novel. It's directed and written by Derek C. in France, who's a director that I, like, placed beyond the Pines is still like a really amazing movie to me. I remember when that came out. And I was curious whether or not, what was the hook for you to be a part of this?

Because was it Derek or was it the book? Well, how did that happen? I mean, I was familiar with the book, but I had not read it. I was, like you, a enormous fan of Derek's work. For me, my end was through Blue Valentine. Yeah.

I just remember being the discomfort of that intimacy was, I just remember being so incredibly moved. And it felt like, it felt like the kind of moviemaking from the 70s that I kind, you know, and that kind of filmmaking that I kind of grew up admiring and wanting so much to be a part of, always had wanted to feel as an actor, like that kind of a playground, where performance is kind of prioritized over anything. Yeah. Which is still so rare. So it was between him and also then Mark,

who I just have always just admired as an actor, and I just think he is one of the greatest. And through him, you know, my end, I just remember when I saw, you can count on me and just being blown away by his, crazy vulnerability as a performer. It's like, you know, especially in this like beautiful male shell to have this like beautiful access to this deep vulnerability.

And then when I read the subject matter and I was so excited and moved that it was going to be through these two incredible men was going to be handling mental illness in this way. And I knew it was going to be such an empathetic and deep. and personal um personal lenses that I was I just wanted to be a part of it I also just wanted to bear witness to mark playing those two parts as well and I knew it's just going to be just an actor's playground

I was I yeah I just wanted in so badly I was because I was the thing I was curious about is like you you know you mentioned stuff like you can count on me it's funny you know like I had we had Laura Linney on the pot a couple weeks ago to talk about Ozark actually and it does seem like Like, you can count on me is one of those, like, iconic movies for, for actors where, like, if they saw it at a certain time in their life or if they saw it as they were kind of, like, getting into the business, like, it becomes, like, this totemic, like,

Laurelini and Mark Ruffalo in that movie are, like, and lots of Philip Seymour Hoffman performances, too, from that era around there. Yeah. Yeah, where it's, like, that becomes, like, the reason to keep doing it. Did you feel that way about that movie when you saw it? Oh, for sure. I mean, I think on a person. level, just on a family level, it was just that relationship that just the scale of it, the size of it.

I always still think about just that it was so small and so specific and tiny, but yet was so spoke to all of us on such a deep level. I love those movies. I love those stories. Those are the ones where you like, yeah, there's a few of those that hit me on that, that level. The Savages was another one. Tamara Jenkins. You mentioned Philipsy Moffman. And again, the amazing Laura Linney. So there's definitely a few of those. But his performance in that

was also just like, who are you? This just like beasts that just like also when the kids are all right. Like he's just an incredible fox catcher. He's just such an incredible performer. And yeah, again, harkens back to just like that kind of,

you know, I'm from Ohio. Like I grew up doing. theater, like, there's just a type of actor that's just, like, not precious about it, that just, like, gets down to business that just is, that doesn't want to, like, over-talk it or over-intellectualize it, but just, like, loves other actors that finds so much of the performance that's found in looking at the other actors' eyeballs. It's that kind of, like, ensemble feeling. You pick up your own costumes.

Like, you know, it's Midwest's crap. Like, that's the kind of stuff I, like, that's the kind of stuff I, mostly love. Like that's the kind of people I want to be around and make stuff with. And Derek's stuff has that feel too. But I was wondering, so when you're watching stuff and you're, that's Catherine, the viewer prefers that kind of stuff. Is there a difference between what you kind of like to watch on screen versus what you

like to actually perform in for yourself? Or are they one and the same? Oh, it's so interesting. I think they're one and the same. Like I do feel the same like energetically. Like when I see, when I see, when I see. see something that I'm like really incredibly moved by. I think because I'm an actor,

I immediately want to be in that world and meet that crap. You know what I just saw recently, which I had never seen before, was Snowpiercer, which is a total left turn. I'm just taking you on a left turn. No, let's do it. It's Ryan.

But I was like, oh, that is such a thinking action movie. And I just was so turned on by it. Just the whole ideas of viewer that you're taken on this ride through that train. I could not wait to get to those cars in the front. Like I just felt like the limitations of the train

must have been such a, like the limitations to shooting-wise must have been so exciting. So that's a totally different genre, but yet I felt like, and something different than the work that I've been doing, but to answer your question immediately felt like, oh, that would be fun to do something like that. Like, would be really, would be so fun.

Because I, you know, I would imagine that there's like, you might have like that kind of like, that's something I want. That's like to see Blue Valentine, to see Place Beyond the Pines and to know this material and to get to work with Mark. And then, man, I got to say like the show, I was blown away by it, but I still think like the material is so raw. And then even that first scene with you and Mark in the first episode where you guys are meeting by the van, you're just like, oh, God. like the emotional intensity and there's something about the way Derek shoots stuff

that feels so confrontational and not quite claustrophobic but when you're making it do you feel that intensity? Do you feel how like raw that his style is? Because I'm curious about how style impacts performance in that sense. Yeah. I mean, it was, I remember that,

I mean, that first, that scene was the first scene that I shot. And which helped a lot because there was so much to build back from with us, especially with these parts in which you're kind of bobbing in and out of that story in there to, you know, you had to build a lot of history in a short amount of time. And, you know, Mark laughed at some point because I literally didn't even know where the camera was. Like, it was so intense. It was so intense. Like we, and to Mark's credit and Derek's credit, like, Mark who was carrying. so much as a producer and as a star and the number one on the call sheet.

His generosity and kindness and just like, he's such a collaborative bird that we were able to build, he was there completely to just listen and also just be there for us to find this deep and really complicated history in a very short amount of time. So by the time we got to that scene, it just felt like it was just there. It just wasn't overthought. It wasn't. So, again, it just goes to that work ethic of just, like, getting down to it. And so by the time we were shooting that scene, like, I really had no sense of he knew exactly

what the camera was. I was just like, like, holding on to it, like, just holding on to him. Like, I just, it was incredibly, you just, when you're in it with those guys, like, you just hardly have time to come up for air. Like, when you're in it, you're in it. And that's, like, thrilling. thrilling, thrilling, thrilling. So, yeah, he, you know, Derek loves, like, it's a good dream.

Like, you don't, it's like a real dream. He just makes it so performance first. So, you know, like, I, we had a house together, and he let me go in the day before to work with the art director and the props and the, these amazing artists to kind of put my fingers on everything and rearrange furniture and just make it feel like it was our house, even though, like, you know, I wasn't even in, like, just so, but you feel that texture. Yeah, yeah. And you really do feel that it does something.

So it doesn't just feel like you're walking on, you just don't feel like these scenes with the wallpaper and the background and the light and the whatever and the piece of weird art just kind of is stuck there and the actors are in front of it. It just feels like it's one and the same. It just like it means something. And it also gives an actor that kind of autonomy of being so that you really arrive on the set with incredible confidence of who you are and what you are going for.

And I don't know why an actor would or why a director would want anything less than that. And also, he's like, every actor in this, though, blows my mind. It's like, I just think you could disqualify. see so many incredible performers doing things that they don't usually get a chance to do. Rosie O'Donnell is so amazing.

Archie's incredible. I love Juliet Lewis so madly. Like Imogen Rob Hewbel, everybody's so good in this. And that's such a testament to Mark, like also being so generous, giving, so much breath and Derek to everyone else's stories. You know, I mean, it's something

that's probably like the degree of difficulty of playing twins is, it's off the charts. Like, because I guess like, if it goes wrong, it's so wrong. But it's kind of breathtaking

when you see them in the diner scene at the first point. Like, you're just like, holy shit, he's playing two people at once. Like, this is really happening.

Like, were you witnessed to like, because I've seen the first two episodes, but did you get to witness and much of the mechanics of shooting mark in those two roles at once? I was mostly, there for Mark

when he was Dominic. So but when there was scenes with the both of them then I was done there for his double Gabe who was opposite Mark who's the stand-in for whoever whatever twin was not there and

this gentleman Gabe who's an incredible actor and learned all the dialogue for both twins such an unsung invisible hero of this too was like Mark's acting partner for all those scenes and he was also just like an incredible huge part of this process and if if mark you know I think was meant so much for mark to have such an incredible acting partner for you know to work with

of those scenes yeah that's yeah mark it was like incredible to be able to shoot like for example like I would be I would shoot this very intense scene with mark he would be give so much and then I would look at the call sheet and see how much more shit he had to do that day. That was so intense. And then look at the rest of the week and be like, oh, my God. Like, how do you? I just, it was so, so much. But yeah, he's a miracle.

Did you spend much time with the novel once you had signed on to do it? Because I was wondering whether or not there's like a tricky thing when you're doing an adaptation and you have that source material where, you know, if it is a novel that does a lot of the sort of investigation into the interiority of people, you kind of get a cheat sheet of how to play the character, but it also maybe colors the lines in too much because you're like, oh, okay, like I'm essentially just executing this menu here rather than filling it in myself.

Wally Lamb was an amazing collaborator in this as well, because I know he had told Derek that he was like, this is, you know, I want you to make this yours. And so I think what when I read the novel and then the adaptation, what I took away so much was that even if all of the storylines couldn't be, I mean, it's a beautiful, dense 700-page novel. And so in order to like consolidate that, you know, some things were going to have to be let go of, but what was essential to it, what was kept, I felt so deeply was just the feeling, like the essential, the feeling. And like the essentials just were so intact and in place. And so after I read the novel, I did put it down because I felt like it was, I wanted to just meet Mark there in what this was, I think, and meet Derek there in what this was.

And so like a couple times we did look back at it just to like reference and make sure we were on the right path. But for the most part, I think that what the Bible was done, the out of the United States. Like it was just a, sure. Yeah. I'm trying to think, because you did, I Love Dick, but was, have there been others that you've done that were like the book is this? Have you ever done a piece where the like source material has this much of a kind of like weight to it in terms of how below this book is? Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Yeah. Mrs. Fletcher did too. I've done a bunch of adaptations. Yeah, Mrs. Fletcher for sure. And it's also, it's always an interesting process because then it's like a threefold process for the novelist for the writer. Yeah.

you know, the source material, but, um, because, you know, they have to see their piece go from from theirs to then another writer to then the actor. So they see it like kind of released like in a threefold way. It must be like an interesting experience of seeing it take shape in that way. But, um, yeah, so I've had, I've gone through it a couple times. You know, when you, if we could take a step back and just kind of look back at your, your kind of career, it's, it's just such an interesting, you can kind of like read the last 20 years. of movies and TV through the the job, like the roles

and jobs you've had because you've done everything from like blockbuster comedies to, you know, these strange almost like experimental level like comedies like just, you know, quick appearances in like stuff with Rob Hewbel and then you've done network TV and you've done these sort of more, I think

what people would call prestige TV, but are, you know, beautiful pieces on their own. I mean, you did my favorite episode of the Romanoffs. I mean, then you do, you know, there's like movies like afternoon delight slid in there. For you, like, are you at a point where you're doing the work where you're like, you're viewing these, these roles that you're doing and these jobs that you're taking as responses to one another? Or is it always just like, this is cool and this is what I want to do right now?

Or do you ever think, like, I did Mrs. Fletcher. I'd like to do something different than that next. I think it's more the former. I think it's just like when it just like, I, you know, it's sometimes that has. happens to be because of what I just did, maybe that someone sees me for this next. But I think it's more the former. It's just like I just think whatever, I mean, it's been a real chaotic journey, Chris, right?

I'm not going to lie to you. It's a very, I would never have funk it that it would have unfolded the way it has. It's been so bananas. But I think it really, you know, I love doing a big, those big. blockbuster comedies so much and I love taking a big swing in those things and as much as these tiny little awesome weird shows that last season but I'm and I'm will be so happy to be able to keep swinging back and forth all of them so you know I don't know I like taking a risk I'm not afraid of it I am so

grateful and thrilled that those stories are still being made and told and hopefully they'll keep being told. So yeah, no, it's not like a grand plan. And I'm certainly not like trying to like make a narrative for myself in any way. But I'm thrilled with the things I've been able to do for sure. But I would imagine like, you know, when you first started appearing on TV and Crossing Jordan, and that's like, that was like a seven season run, right? So, and that was kind of, the paradigm back then. That was like, well, maybe I'll get a hospital show and I'll be on that hospital show for the better part of a decade, right? Or maybe I'll do a cop show and I'll be on a cop show for the better part of a decade. And it's so different now where you might do a six episode limited

series for one streaming service and then what is essentially a mini series for another. And then you might be in a Marvel thing and then you might do a voice work thing. But that's like what acting is now. Yeah. And then honestly, that is kind of what I was the most excited about when I was graduating from school way back when. And I remember, like, I mean, Crossing Jordan was so fantastic and I was

so grateful to have, like, that was like my camera boot camp, honestly. I'd like never really done anything like that. And those people were all, like, my first family when I came out to L.A. And, um, but the seven years thing of it was a long time. It was a long time. And I was, I mean, again,

like gratitude, gratitude, gratitude for it. But it was, that's a, it's a long time. But you're right. It was a big, that was the paradigm, like that you wanted to get on a procedural. And that was a long, a long shift. But I'm certainly, I think more like in my, in my, like, you know, makeup cellularly. Like, I'm more of definitely like an actor for hire. Like, I'd rather do the gigs that are like, that I can like slip in and out of. Yes. A little bit. But that being said that, I'm glad I had that experience for sure. Love those people and I love that trip. Do you remember when it started to shift at all? Like, maybe not,

like, both for you, but also, like, in the air, it felt like that change started to really materialize? I don't know. Like, I guess it was about, what is it now? I don't know. What is time right now? I have no idea what to happen. But I think it was, but I guess it was like, I mean, I know when it was for, you know, this, like, you know, this, like, but I'm not. over here was I know it was when I had after I had my son it felt like it started to shift for me like a couple years he was like a couple years old and then I know that I it started to feel different that I that all of a sudden I didn't wasn't asked to be playing like um it was because I was getting older and because like those jobs just weren't happening but I just remember going from like

the best friend shift like it's shifted out of best friend to pregnant friend to whatever friend to just all of a sudden I was just like now I could just be like a whole person and was being asked to be a whole person and it was by mostly women filmmakers and the stories just started getting more interesting and so that started happening and that that sort of started a different shift I guess like around afternoon delight maybe like 13 it was definitely afternoon to light. Yeah. Yeah. Because that I remember... Thank you. Yeah. Okay. No, because I remember seeing that. No sense of date for time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, because I remember seeing that and being like, what a great... That movie reminded me of movies that I kind of grew up seeing in like the 90s,

like indie movies when, you know, I would first start going outside of the multiplex to see movies. And it was just like this incredible small human story that was so fully realized that you were just like, oh, do they still make movies like that? That's just so important. I love that experience. Yeah, that was the absolute turning point for me. Yes, if you were asking in terms of like when the limited all stereo, I have no idea. But like for me in terms of my little life, that movie was like the biggest turning point, creatively, personally, like on so many levels, that little three and a half week shoot was a game changer for sure.

For sure. I just hadn't been asked to do that. It started like that whole group of people too, Jill. And then that whole group like our DP, Jim Frona, our costume designer, our set designer, like everybody kept continued on together for a long time too. And that's an incredibly, I mean, Jill put together such an incredible group of human beings. Yeah, it seems like that. That's a pretty profound, like working community that you all put together.

Yeah. Well, before I let you go, I wanted to ask you a little bit about, what you've been watching while we've obviously all been mostly at home, you know, for the last couple of weeks. Do you find yourself looking for escapist stuff to watch or like more confrontational things to watch or like what's what's sort of been on screen for you? It's interesting because it's been a little bit of both to be honest. Like there's been, you know, we just, we were chatting before this about the last dance and it's just been really, really enjoying that. Yeah. School, we were in school in Chicago around the same time as that went

down. So at the beginning, you know, and... But you're from Ohio. Were you a Cavs fan? Yes. I was a Cavs fan, for sure. And then my husband, as he knows, from Seattle. So, yes, last night was a hard, heartbreaker for him. But we've been watching that. But then we've also been watching, like, some crazy documentaries. We've been really watching this show called One Strange Rock, which was on a while ago, but we've been, so we've been trying to watch stuff with the

bam as well, but then we've been watching a lot of horror. Like I just mentioned snow and like action and the host. We've been watching all of it. And then we've been watching, yeah, for some reason we want to like, we've been kind of leaning into the dark over here. I'm not quite sure why. I'm trying to just like embrace that. Well, it's nice to feel like real fear instead of just like a dull fear.

Yeah. I think that's why. I mean, my son is 13 and a half and I just remember this is kind of, that was the age when I kind of was into horror. And so it's kind of fun to experience it with him. Have you guys been going like Halloween or is it not there yet? We saw a nightmare on Elm Street together, which was real fun. We saw silence with the lambs.

Oh, man. There's a couple of scenes in there that are maybe even 13-year-olds might be like, what are we watching? My mother's day. That's my mother's day doing. And in the morning with the two and a half year old time. Jesus.

We definitely fast forwarded through a couple of scenes. Yeah. But you know, it's a slow burn. It takes a while to get into it. Yeah. Boy, oh boy,

are those humans good in that movie? Yeah. That's, we did a rewatchable's pot about that a couple of year or two ago and it was just, it's basically like a perfect movie. You know, it's so good.

From the second it starts. Yeah. Oh, God. Brooke Smith is so good. good, everybody. But yeah, we just watched that weird documentary that's pretty fantastic called Spaceship Earth above the biosphere, which is kind of amazingly perfect releasing right now. So that was really fantastic. So yeah, we've watched a lot of like Pryperian stuff, which has been really fun, movies that I haven't seen before. And we've been a lot of reading. So it's been,

yeah, you know. That's good. Those are some good recos in there, though. That's some good stuff. Spaceship Earth, we've got to talk about on the pod soon because I think of a lot of people It's crazy. There's a Steve Bannon appearance in that. It's pretty surprising. Yeah. Well, we'll look out for Steve. We'll keep our eye out for him.

I was like, whoa. I didn't expect it. Thank you so much for joining us today. This was so my pleasure. Yeah. Absolutely. And congratulations on the show. It's really remarkable.

So it's a really cool piece of work. Oh, thank you so much. And please stay safe and sane. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.