The Watch - What Are Apple TV’s Goals? Plus, the End of ‘Barry’ and Matthew Rhys on ‘Perry Mason’ Season 2.

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the news that ‘Barry’ will end after this coming season and what it means for HBO that both that show and ‘Succession’ are ending (1:00). Then they talk about Apple TV’s upcoming slate of very expensive TV shows and what the streaming service is trying to achieve (11:11), before they're joined by Matthew Rhys to talk about his work on the second season of ‘Perry Mason’ (42:37). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Matthew Rhys Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. 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,

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I'm an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio straight from the cleansing waters of Mandelor. It's Andy Greenwald! I mean, it is getting pricey because, you know, like the Instagram influencers have found it. Yeah, I know. The healing properties. It's like the blue pools of Croatia.

It's like, yeah, suddenly everyone's in Portugal. Yeah. I get it. By the way, we got a big show. Uh-huh. But I do think that people have appreciated, maybe not as much as we've appreciated being back in the studio. And one thing that I think that I missed that I don't think they, the listeners will ever really understand is that right as you do the intro, you have an expression on your face that's like, is he really committed to doing this podcast today?

Me? Yeah. Do you? It's like a little bit like Division III college basketball coach being like, what am I getting today? You know, like there are other things maybe. I never doubt you. I appreciate that. It's been 20 years, 25 years.

Yeah. And you never call in sick. 27 years. Andy, today on the podcast, we're going to talk a little bit about Barry ending and this season of endings that we're entering into in the springtime with Succession, Ted Lassow and Barry.

I thought we might do a quick check-in on what's up with Apple TV. As a venture, just get under the hood, look at what's going on there. They have like four or five shows coming out between now and May with some incredibly eye-popping talent involved. But like, I want to chat a little bit

about whether or not we think that the Apple TV message is getting through to people. We're going to do maybe... Are we going to do any Mandalorian? We could note... We could note Mandalorian. And then we're going to talk about Perry Mason. So Perry Mason's first episode of the second season

came out on Monday. The second episode is coming out next Monday, obviously. It's a show that you and I both... I would almost go as far as they love. I would like... I mean, we really, really are into this show. I like the first season quite a bit. I think the second season is a huge leap. And we're going to be joined by a special guest today to talk about it. And that is Matthew

Reese. The titular Perry Mason. That's right. One of my favorite things also, not just to have Matthew Reese, who's one of our favorite actors and a lovely guy, I love it when guests come back on the podcast, but you're like, has he ever been on the podcast? And I'm like, you should just send me a list of everybody you've interviewed on the podcast. I think that you should know, like multiplication tables. You should just have that available. available to you. You know? Let's start with just briefly noting

HBO put up the trailer for the new season of Barry and it will be the last season of Barry. So Barry, obviously, for anybody, I guess, spoilers for Barry, but Barry is in prison. It's in the trailer. And I think that when

that season, the previous season, ended and that that was like sort of Barry becoming incarcerated was obviously in the cards. I think this is such a sick way to end the show. And I just want to say to the people out there calling their own shots and be like, this is the end of the story I wanted to tell, I salute you.

There's nothing wrong with doing Grey's Anatomy for 20 years. I think it's awesome. And I think I'm really into shows being long-running propositions. But damn, when you can just be like, this is the story I wanted to tell and I got other stuff I want to do. You're really forcing my hand for the podcast announcement I was not going to make today. But, you know, this is the story I want. wanted to tell. Yeah.

You had one more sort of half-hearted endorsement of some piece of pop culture. Yeah, that's fine. I'm surprised. So I thought fourth and final is the thing. And I thought that the Barry information was not new. It's being treated like a surprise. But I thought that that was communicated when the show was renewed. Well, I know that he wrote three and four, if not entirely together.

I think they did. Yeah. I don't know that they ever came. out and publicly said that. It seemed pretty clear by the nature of... Well, I mean, the thing with Barry is that if they had wanted to, they could have just said, now Barry is getting in a car and driving to Oklahoma and will start a life as a bartender. Like, the Barry character and the sort of cinematic world that Bill Hader inhabits with

that show and how it can be a broad comedy or a thrilling action movie or a horror show or a dreamscape, it's kind of that bucket show where you can throw anything you want into it. And so if they wanted to do Barry and the Florida Keys, I would have watched it. I would TiVo that shit.

But, yeah, it would be well positioned to be a darker poker face. But I do think that you get into that kind of tricky area where the things that to my mind make Barry very, very special, not just entertaining, are related to the fact that no matter how broad the comedy gets,

haters laser focused on the morality of the story he's telling. That does seem to matter to him. And the show does seem to be about essentially a monster, who, you know, the show has also, during its run,

told us things about his trauma, about his reasons for doing things, even tried to show us his point of view, that it kind of makes sense if you believe that he loves Mr. Cousina, which he does, et cetera, et cetera. But to walk away from the bag I think would be contradicting

the things that made him interested in the character in the first place. I also wonder if it's just, the show is so wildly and well-plotted. And from what we heard in the announcement of the fourth season, Hayter directed this whole season himself. He went full-a-tour, shout-out Sam S-Mil.

And that's tiring. Yeah, that's tiring. It's also exciting for us as viewers. Very exciting. But it does create an event horizon that I don't know if this podcast is ready for, which is, I believe it's May 28th. if things hold,

schedules hold, if there's no scheduled rest days, no slipping during pregames like Kevin Durant last night, Succession and Barry are going to end on the same night. That's crazy. That's not fair to us, really. This is the studio we talk to Casey. No, it's not.

They all look the same. But the point is, Casey, what are you doing to us? Well, and then they'll also be airing on the same Sunday nights, which is what we have been longing for to get back to our, tonight I am sitting on the couch for two hours to watch must-see television, right? That's true.

I do love that. that will be really, really exciting. And challenging for you. Very challenging. You saw me sweat a little bit. But that, I mean, it almost does the shows a disservice to end to Pantheon shows on the same night. I think it's cool. I think it's cool.

Look at you. Yeah. Why don't we... You're very open to what the world brings you. You know, I think that's a healthier attitude. I just don't think that we have very many captive experiences anymore. Like even Ted Lasso and Mandalorian, which are two of the biggest sort of cultural phenomenons, if not like numbered hits on TV right now. Like, Mandelorian goes up in the middle of the night on Tuesday.

I don't even know what time Ted Lasso airs, quote unquote, but it's like you can watch it at your leisure. You know, it's like the idea that these two things will be careening towards an ending is very 2013-14 vibes. It is. and for as much as we are big fans of many other shows on the Home Box Office Network, whether it's White Lotus, which is coming back. I like the Maximum Home Box Office Network personally. Or Perry Mason.

Oh, you like Home Box Office Maximum. Yes. That's the very, I like, that's very formal. I like that a lot. Home Box Office Maximilian. Yeah. What is in the hopper for them that will feel like this, you know, in terms of shows building to something

so that it feels like an event? I mean, I do think from talking to Casey, that is always their goal. I do think they understand that that type of show relationship week to week and then season to season significantly matters to them. I feel like we could concern troll, but then it's like winning time's going to come back and House of the Dragon will eventually be back. I don't mean they don't have anything in the hopper that we're going to love and talk about and obsess over. But specifically, these two shows are maybe overly important to us in the way we like to watch TV and podcast about it. In that over a period of years we have grown incredibly attached to and fond of and that relationship with the show. building to that moment that feels like this is this is a sports Super Bowl kind of sorry

all Super Bowl are sports I keep that because I deserve to learn from my mistakes this is as if they played a sport at the Super Bowl it's almost as if what if in sports there was a championship and you played games up to a last game and whoever won that game was the winner yeah what if we did sports like that yeah I'll let Bill know free idea sports are free idea um you know I wanted to mention this I had like a little bit of a thing about like you know these shows ending and i mean i don't have a thing i was just noting that it was happening we're going to play your fiddle and uh you know i was i was reading some of the ted lasso stuff as that show i believe comes back this week it's also ending too right

didn't he say that this is the final season tell us and sudacus has been very clear that this is the show he won this is the story he wanted to tell like this is like this three the premieres next week the next week and that this was like a sort of three-part story i had kind of one whether or not Richmond was going to do the entire Leicester City arc. So for people who don't know in the Premier League, Lester City, was this kind of underdog team. They had gone down out of the Premier League. They had been promoted.

And then they went on to miraculously win the Premier League in a way that no one could have possibly imagined and may never happen again. And I had just noted with interest that that was, that Richmond, the team that Ted Lassau manages, was on that kind of journey. Right. But it doesn't seem like they're going to do that. I thought maybe it would be four seasons

and that he would win the Premier League. But I think that obviously the soccer or football is secondary to Ted Lassau at this point, where it's like a little bit more about the characters and a little bit more about the interpersonal relationships between the people around the football game. Is that disappointing to you? Do you wish there was just liquid football?

Don't give away my idea of Ted Lassow, Spinoff. It's just liquid football and it's nobody from Ted Lassow. It's just me managing. Yes. What if your take was what if TV shows were more like sports? That's your. But it kind of goes to a larger conversation I wanted to have with you about Apple. Yeah. Because Ted Lassow is inarguably the flagship show of Apple TV. I think morning show was conceived as such, but it didn't feel like that show. This is the thing. I want to say it didn't feel like that show, made an impact or like crossed over in any way. I don't know if that matters to Apple literally at all. And I also don't know how to gauge that because I'm sure there is like a huge,

maybe not particularly online group of people who are like morning show is one of my favorite shows where I watch morning show every week or morning show is like the most entertaining thing I've had in my life. And by the way, morning show isn't done. It's coming back. Yeah. Yeah. But go on.

But without Ted Lasso, Apple doesn't necessarily have that flagship show ready to step up. Well, yes and no. I think the thing that's confounding about Apple and its place in the television marketplace, it continues to be confit. Here's an example. It's always been the same thing that has been confusing, which is it's just so much richer than everybody else. And this is a vanity project, and it doesn't matter. I don't mean to say that the incredible list of creators are doing things in vain. Like, there have been great Apple TV shows.

There are many more on the way. It just continues to be inescapable that it's almost a lark for them. And the reasonings behind what they do and why they do what they do and what they put their cloud behind does remain opaque to a degree that it doesn't even with something like Netflix, which has historically been very, very reticent to share data or decision making. but because it is more attuned to or affected by the economy or the stock market or share prices, we can infer things. We see the decisions that they make and there's been upheaval, clearly, that we've talked about a lot. Talked about it all on the podcast. It's kind of like, you're going to love this.

And 15% of the audience is going to love this too. But I've been so sports heavy on this show thus far. I got to zag. So we got to give something out to the geek culture. Do you have you ever heard of a Marvel comic character called The Beyonder? You ever heard about that? I want you to be like straight up

This one goes out to my mouth breathers out there. Yes, this is my... Come on. The Android Dungeon Hive. Oh my guys, you've never had a date. This one's for you. Do you guys know Beyonder? Listen.

There was... They don't even let you on Bumble Dog. What's the name of this character you're doing? now where you're the fucking alpha who's just like this Ted lasso has too many feelings in it I just want slide tackles and running the table

holler at me when you get a date nerds this is good I think Matthew Reese is going to enjoy this energy yeah for sure I think there was a thing there was a big comic event that actually is relevant again

soon in the movies called Secret Wars the original one in the 80s where basically that one's going to be written by Jeff Loveness right I feel like that I laughed just because anything involving Jeff Loveness being like, hey, I'm on this one. Here's some interviews about my feelings is worth, I think that's true. Jeff Loveness weighs in on Dead Lassos season three. Is this the story they wanted to tell?

Too much football. Anyway, it means something different now than it did then. But in the 80s, they created this character called The Beyonder who was just like a dude with a Jerry Curl and a white leisure suit who was an infinitely powered God alien who could do whatever he wanted. And then the idea of him being like, hey, Thor and Spider-Man, let's do something. And they were like, you can do anything you want. That's the TV landscape. That was not worth the squeeze to make that analogy. I think it was the funniest part of this spot so far.

I really, I think we've had some other good, I liked it when you laughed when I said I was ending the podcast. Because you'll cry later. We find out this was the moment. All of this is to say, Apple continues to greenlight things and buy things and attract talent at a degree that is almost obscene. There are a number of projects in their docket that are exciting to us, film and TV. We're going to be watching this stuff. But their relationship to the things they've made is interesting.

So Ted Lassow, to your point, everyone was scratching their heads when Jason Sudakis and his collaborators and Bill Lawrence sold this commercial character from NBC Universal. An NBC sports character that was supposed to be a promo thing for the Premier League on NBC. And I think anecdotally we heard even with. In Apple, they were like, well, what's this? They were still in the throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks phase. As we've learned historically with TV networks and streamers, you never can predict the thing that's going to be your thing.

And that became their defining show won awards, and they were all in on it. To a degree, I think you're right, that the morning show, which was really like Netflix of House of Cards, like we're going to outbid everyone and we're going to do something splashy. It was a different sort of thing. Severance was really big for them. And I don't just mean numbers-wise, because we don't know. But that really laid down a marker in terms of the creative community, in terms of awards. And we've seen that borne out with how they've treated it.

There have been tons of ads, tons of FYC stuff. You go into an Apple store. Severance is making its presence felt, and I would imagine the second season will be greeted. Go into an Apple store. It's a super long hallway, and then Christopher Walkins in the back. Dancing? Yeah. Just passionately making out with John Turturro on a thousand screens.

I bring this up because the thing that is most just not, Disturbing is a loaded word. It's just been really weird to see. They spend a ton of money on their shows, and they get a lot of talent. And then if they change their mind or if they're not invested, you can kind of tell.

I'm not bringing up Hello Tomorrow because I wish the show ill. We love Billy Kruda. I met the guys who make the show. Stephen Falk from your worst worked on it. That pilot is beautiful. Production is outrageous. Jonathan N. Whistle directed it.

You get the feeling. This is anecdotal. We are not. crunching numbers here. But isn't there a feeling like, did this even happen? Like, it does not feel supported in a way that an expensive show starring an Emmy Award winner might be. And I do think that if this was,

you get into that weird conversational place where, well, if this was an AMC show under our stewardship, of course, they would be pushing it harder because they would have committed a lot to it. Then there's also the flip side. They couldn't have afforded to commit all this to it. Yeah. You mentioned the Netflix.

thing with House of Cards, this kind of reminds me of the era of Netflix, which we very well may still be in, but I think Netflix generally makes different shows now, different kind of shows. I still find out about Netflix shows that I watch, you know, I was making the list of the things that I have watched more than one episode of so far,

and there's several Netflix shows on there. I find out about them almost exclusively within the ecosystem of Netflix. So, it'll either be recommended to me because I watch something else, or I see, that it's in the tiles on Netflix,

but it is not because I was catch, I caught a Netflix trailer on YouTube or because there was an ad for something or a billboard or even an article, honestly. So like I'm watching this Netflix show right now called Red Rose, which is like basically a black mirror episode tacked on top of skins. Wow.

And it's like, it's pretty stressful, honestly, but it's like, it's really good. I can't believe you have time to watch that amidst your heavy diet of Saul Bello documentary. What a life. I feel in ways that's starting to happen with Apple. I know about Apple shows from Apple press releases, but I don't know that, like...

So, like, there's a bunch of stuff coming out in the next couple of weeks to months. Big Door Prize, which is a Chris O'Dowd, like heartwarming comedy, I think. Silo, which is the one I'm most excited about, which is this dystopian sci-fi show that Graham Yost is show running, and Graham Eost obviously is the person behind Justified

and is just like one of the great kind of TV and movie screenwriters of the last 20, 30 years. Can I just weigh in for a second? Silo looks sick. Yeah. Like that trailer is a great trailer. Yeah. Who knows what the show is going to be,

but you don't often see everything. All the pieces come together to deliver a trailer like that. It's basically like the remnants of human society live underground after an ecological disaster, but then there starts to be a suspicion about what they have been told about said ecological disaster or the state of the world. Is it lost from Desmond's perspective?

Right. But it's Rebecca Ferguson. It's Tim Robbins, Rashida Jones, David O'Yellow-W-L-O. That's wild to me. That's just something else that they have

that I guess is based on books that I don't know about. And then tack on to that, extrapolations, which is this Scott Burns show. Scott Burns wrote Contagent and has worked with Soderberg a bunch.

And Scott Burns has, honestly, like, a cast that if it was in a movie, you would think it was a parody of a movie cast. Yep. Where it's like Merrill Streep

and Ed Norton and Herring and Seattle Miller and all these people making appearances. This is like an anthology show about climate change that seems to be an interlocking kind of casting forward in the next 50 years. Also looks incredible. And it looks incredible. Forrest Whitaker is in this. And if you look at like, we spend a lot of time pissing and moaning about special effects.

But I have to say, like, Apple does not cheap out when it comes to this stuff. No. I guess the thing, the other thing that you probably hear in our voice when we talk about this is much like a leisure-suited space gun. God, we don't know what to make of this. Like, there's just a seemingly endless tap of wild-looking stuff that they are investing in. And it's tough to get a handle on what they want out of their service, what they're trying to be. Because no one else would have given Scott Burns the carte blanche to do extrapolations. No one would.

I mean, I'm sure HBO took a meeting. I'm sure people had good intentions. But the cost alone, you know, I just don't see it versus what the reward is. But maybe the answer to this is, before I answer your question, is we're seeing a service that doesn't need to play by those rules where they have to be a thing. You don't need to go there to expect a certain thing. Aesthetically or if, I don't know what's aesthetically or in terms of like editorial curation, I do feel like that there is an undercurrent of like affirmative or important programming.

Like Apple Greenlight stuff that they think ultimately trickles up to their brand values. This is like they're forward facing brand values. So spending $200 million or I'm just throwing out a number. I have no idea how much extrapolations cost. We'll get into that show later. But that is about like the dangers of climate change, which most big corporations at least say that they're concerned about. Yes.

That is like an investment in an idea that is important to Apple. That affirms their brand. And if money is literally no object to somebody, maybe that's. Yeah. And we've heard both anecdotally and just directly, that what's communicated in meetings with Apple, whether you're pitching something to them

or whether you're in the notes process, is the slow, insistent curve towards affirmation. Like, they kind of, there's a Spielbergian sentiment to the things that they want to do. I mean, Cota won best picture. That is very on brand for them. Ted Lassow, despite the people maybe

who would come over from Sony and were used to a different type of studio thing, that is their brand, and it is what they want. big ticket sci-fi. It was disappointing for me as somebody who wanted to see seven episodes dedicated to set piece practice. Just see guys take free kicks.

I'm sad for you that that was taken from you. But like these big sci-fi stuff, whether it's foundation, which is coming back, or Sam's Metropolis, which is coming to life finally for them, that all fits within that brand. I think what's curious is how, it's almost like, is Severance a model for what they want to be, which is we're going to be,

we're playing with HBO here. We want to do this sort of stuff. Or is it an outlier in the way that something like Master of Nunn proved to be an outlier for Netflix? Where it was like, we're going to do this, we feel good about it, and it's going to get us awards and acclaim and interest from a certain type of viewer, but it is not part of our larger brand strategy. And then looking down the road, Apple won the bidding war for the new Vince Gilligan show, which is going to star Ray Seahorn.

And it is not, you know, it's, non-Albuquerque. Maybe he'll end up shooting there, but it is not extended Heisenberg universe stuff. There's two reasons why it ended up there. The people who run Apple TV used to run Sony and Sony made Breaking Bad. There's a history of a relationship there. That's reason number one. Reason number two is they outbid everyone else. Does Vince Gilligan's brand and what we want from him fit the Apple metric or doesn't even matter? Does Shining Girls fit the Apple metric?

Is Shining Girls coming back? But Shining Girls was not an affirmative show. It wasn't. It's a great, it's great to be kind of show. It was not. And this brings us all the way back. Did it get a huge push? Right. This is not the steadiest footing for us to be on as deeply informed fact-based

podcasters to be like, doesn't feel like it's being supported. We don't know that. But you know what's, so let me do some good podcasting then. This is illustrative of HBO has had this run for the last half a year, pretty much, going back to winning time last year, at least if not before that, where it's just like, man, every 10 weeks, there's just another really banger show

that's on Sunday nights. Even if it's not entirely your thing, it's kind of worth checking out and you then find out like, oh, most of the people I work with or like people in my family or friends or whatever

are watching Last of Us or whatever. Like they have now had the headlock on for two, three quarters now. Apple is putting out probably the sum total of the budgets that they're spending on extrapolations, silo, the last thing he told me, Aizond ghosted the movie, Shmigadoon season two, Big Door Prize,

Ted Lassow, all the stuff that's coming out in a relatively small bunch. I would imagine dwarf most HBO shows with the exception of House of the Dragon. I mean, budget-wise. Oh, without question. I mean, we didn't even talk about like Shantaram. I mean, that's such a big show, 12 episodes. On location in India. And it exists.

Yeah. That's something that definitely was made. So, I mean, I think obviously you and I are both very excited about extrapolations. we're both very excited about silo. I do feel like for our sins, we need to watch liaison, the Vincent Cassell spy show. I think that's probably true.

City on Fire also from our buddy, Josh Schwartz, is coming soon. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm not negative. Is there a trailer for City on Fire? Like, when is it? Not yet. Okay.

It's coming out in May. Not negative about any of this stuff. Me neither. I'm just curious. I'm curious, and I do think that... Like a Beyonder almost. There you go. I love it.

It is... There's a larger conversation. lurking behind this that will become less subtext and more text over the next few weeks as we get closer to a potential writer's strike and just the sort of ripple effects of this really weird, really unpleasant contraction moment in TV becomes more evident that it's, it feels like weird like late capitalism stuff where it's like no one can get anything made and then you get everything made and all the money you want to you win the Apple lottery and Apple's like shrug emoji. Does it, you got to do it, but no one got to see it. Right. Now, look, is it marketing that you're

kept Shantram from becoming an international sensation? Probably not. I don't know. I did not watch it, and I apologize to the people who busted their ass for like a decade, literally, more to get that on the screen. But there is a creeping feeling

that I don't think is just me in this podcast booth being like, this is all really hard and needless, and what's it for? It's not a good, it's not good vibes behind the camera right now. Two months. Once we're done watching

the next 32 amazing shows. Well, I mean, just, well, after silo extrapolations in Ted Lassel, so let's do a gut check on this. Yeah, and not just the Apple part, but like, okay, so who's making what and why is a good thing to talk about. We don't have to spend a lot of time on Mandalorian, but I want to say one thing. Yeah. You know, I thought Rachel Morrison, the director, did a really good job on this episode. There was some really cool shots. I actually thought it was pretty.

It was obviously shot in the volume. It kind of looked like a real sun was hitting real character's faces at times. And she's obviously this hugely accomplice. director of photography previously. Also just little things like... She shot Black Panther and she's like really, really good. Yeah, an amazing, like Hall of Fame DP who's transitioning to being a director full-time.

Yeah, little things like fireworks limting off of the cockpit. Like I love that. Like, is it real, quote-unquote? It doesn't matter. It feels really good. It's artistically conceived and aesthetically successful. I don't have like a ton to say about the Dark Sabre or Bocatan

and like what's going on there. I do want to say, just, just, Follonee, hear me out. This is my new segment. Oh. Great. Faloni hear me out. And spoilers for the second episode of Mandorius.

What about Favs? Do you want Favro listening? No, just Dave. Just Dave. Just Dave. Just Dave. I know Favro wrote it, but Dave, I'm talking to you. It's time to build the great bridge between the Mandalorian and Andor universe.

And when you had an opportunity to do so. When he's like, go fly back to Bocatan's planet and get her little Grogu. And Grogu's like my arms. They're not big. I cannot fly. You got a droid for that, right? Yeah. And Grogu's way of navigating the galaxy

is just by pointing at the planet. Yeah. How fucking sick would it have been if Grogu was like pointed at the Miami Andor planet? Yeah. Where Cassian got arrested and was just like... I think I want to go there

and they start playing that like super sick Mario Kart music. And then it basically becomes like a 20 minute sequence like out of Billy Crystal and Gregory Heinz is running scared when they go down to the keys. Incredible movie.

Also, Shine Sweet Freedom. Yeah. Shine Sweet Freedom's playing Baby Yoda on the beach, sipping mitis, hanging out with all sorts of characters. Yeah, exactly. And then he goes and gets Bocatan and gets everything settled out. I would embrace that for any number of reasons.

I want more Ando content. Oh, Andalorian. Yeah, it's there. I mean, again, like you have an entire galaxy and you have Mandelor, Andor, and Endor. Like, guys, use the whole dictionary. So many letters. Anyway, I would appreciate that

because then there would at least be some, like, inspired madness or poetry to the navigation systems of this show. Because it is, the thing that I'm starting to bump up against with it is because it's the volume. Starting, too. And because, okay, we're starting today. Every day is a new day for us. You're in the volume.

You can go anywhere. you can show anything. You're already existing in a space universe that to my mind at least, I'm sure that like the hardcore non-bumble users of our audience

can tell me otherwise. But like, it seems like the fuel isn't an issue. You just press a button and you can go anywhere in a galaxy. Yeah, there's not a lot of gas stations

right, which also makes collisions like when they were temporarily fighting the pirate broccoli king last week and he's just like, I've got you now. And he's like, ding! And then he just goes 10 billion space miles away and the broccoli guy's like,

oh, I'll get you. you next time in infinite space. So it's just kind of limitless. So that the fact that when they got, I get why we went to visit Amy Sedaris to be like, hey, do you have the thing? And she's like, nope, bit, bit, bit. See you next time. Fine. Everybody's happy to see her.

But when they get to back to like Mandelor space and he's like, see this dot on my tiny screen, that's where we were last week. I'm like, this is an inefficient use of space fuel. So your concern is the energy crunch. Yes. A million percent. But

It's not just the... I could do that. Yeah. That's available to me to go on that tear. Okay. It's really more just like... What happens when gas problem turns off the faucet? You know what I'm saying?

When the empire is like, nope. Sorry, Western Corrassant. You can't have this anymore. Yeah. What's Chancellor Biden going to do then? Huh? Ripped from the headlines to the show. No, it's just more like...

It's just kind of janky. You know, somewhere a guy has his AirPods in and he's got his nose deep in an issue of beyonder... And he just looked up, he's like, don't you understand how fuel cells in the galaxy work? Issue of Beyonder. It's like Steve Bussemi holding up a comic book called Comic Book. Is that what you thinking this is? Hey, what's up, fellow geeks?

Right. So, no, no. My point is just like the show is at its best. And the little baby Yoda's doing some stuff and Dinharaun's fighting some guys. And then when it becomes like, go see the lady we saw last week sitting on a third. own for my magic sword that will unite people who don't take their masks off. I'm like, okay. It loses me.

I like my energy, and I know this might not be the most popular opinion, but I like this show best as a case of the week, essentially children's show. And I say that not because I'm still standing for Bluey. Let's not say children show. Let's say family show. Like, anybody can watch this. I don't think that this show should be every week Mando and Yoda go to. to a new place where townsfolk are being harassed by a villain and Mando 7 Samarize it.

Okay. But if that was the show, I don't know that I would be disappointed. I know. It was that show. I know. Let's go to the Squid Planet and need some. There was. But now it's about more than that.

It's about the Dark Saber. And it's legacy. And it's about whether or not you believe in a creed or not. We don't need to spend any more portions of a podcast. bemoaning the thing that exists that isn't the version of it that we would have wanted. What's a little bit tantalizing about this

is that Mandalorian was never going to be my number one favorite show on television, but for the first season, I think it was on my top ten, because it was this. And I do think it had a very high acclaim because it did bring back something to Star Wars that I think Star Wars

that I think Star Wars needed, which was a little bit of whimsy, a little bit of exploration, non-weighted by whatever. And, you know, and like, Oh, we're not... Drawing down on these big gritos. Just putting them in their place, you know? We're not pretending that the weird space Muppets didn't... We're not pretending they don't exist.

We're still going to the squid planet and drinking chowder from the tube, straight, hot and fresh from the tube, from the chowder tube. Should we talk a little bit about Perry Mason before Matthew Reese joins us? I think we should. One of the highlights of my young year so far,

aside from testing negative for the coronavirus after an extended period of time. was you just being like, I fucking love Perry Mason. We should have done it like Ozark, right? I know. You should have surprised me. I really just threw it into a text. Perry Mason returned, as I said, on Monday.

You're hearing this on Thursday. And, you know, I think for the first season, it was a little slow out of the gates. So this was like, this has been a property that has been in development for a very long time. Robert Downey and his wife, Susan Downey, a big-time producer.

They've kind of shepherded it for a while. It was supposed to be him. Nick Pitt's a lot. wrote the pilot, I believe. He was going to work on it. This was supposed to be Downey's television star return. And I think that the first season, you can see the push and pull of all the various things that they kind of wanted this to be. Should this be the anti-hero Perry Mason?

Should this be the origin story of a legendary character? At what point do we want this guy to get into a courtroom? And it's a long few hours before he turns into Perry Mason. And when he turns into Perry Mason, the first season, season, but even before that, I enjoyed. And the reason I enjoyed it, not only because of the just obvious satisfaction of having a courtroom drama that's reliable, like, well-written,

is because it was taking this sort of widescreen view of society in the 1930s in Los Angeles and saying, you know, how is that reflective of our times now, but also like, how can we, like, investigate sort of the history of this place being built, Chinatown-esque in some ways. And I think that that kind of idea is deeply infused into the second season immediately. Like as soon as it starts, you're like, oh, they're trying to get the Dodgers to come to town. And there's Chavez Ravine, and there's these rich, like, despots who are living in Beverly Hills.

And they've got, like, the city. And they're living on top of a place that has always been deeply Mexican and that fraught relationship between race and class. It runs right into the best version of itself in the season. You're exactly right. And I, you characterized it well. Like, I admired so much of it, especially Matthew Reese's performance. But, and a lot of the performances, great actors. Jay and Rylance, Chris Chalk, yeah.

I love them. And I love them even more in the season because this season, it really feels like it is becoming what it was meant to be. And it's such an interesting, it's not a time capsule because it's alive in front of us, but it's an interesting artifact of a very strange and fluid moment in television, where you feel the forces of the last 10 years of Prestige TV. weighing on it in that it is it's Perry Mason it is a IP character doing essentially a courtroom drama but HBO is doing it so what does that mean it means the budgets go up it means the attention

to detail and period go way up but HBO is also developing it through the 20 teens which means that it has to have a level of darkness it has to have an origin story and the thing that I don't have a fix for this but I am really struck by the fact that this is the show it wanted to be and I feel like the creators would admit it. But they also felt that because the way TV was ordered and considered, you needed the eight or nine episode runway to get here where he's milking cows and, you know, and working for John Lithgow, who I was shocked to find out was not returning for the season based on my deep watching of the first season up to episode four.

But you know what? You are a testament to the fact that this show is like, you know, I know that some people are probably like, do I have to watch all the first season if I want to get out on the second? And it helps, but you can probably watch the summary videos. Yes, which is quite exhaustive. But the thing is, suddenly, we're, it just feels unchalled. It's beautifully shot in Los Angeles and period. And it's Matthew Rees and Juliet, Rylance, and Chris Chalk, three actors who I would watch do anything and have watched do many things.

And the great Shea Wiggum. And the great Shea Wiggum. Oh, I mean, all the people on the margins, Justin Kirk, it goes down the line. Yeah, but those three particularly in an office fighting for good, but also drinking a lot of whiskey. I'm already sold. Yeah. And then there's just these things that start to come into focus. Like, watching Matthew Reese milk cows, while Terrence Blanchard toodled on his horn first season was nice, but felt a little bit like a luxury item. Now, when he's like sneaking around by the docks and riding his motorcycle with these big goggles like he's in Lost Highway, suddenly the jazz score is just like, yes, you are doing this to the fullest.

And it feels great. It's really entertaining. It's like you use the word luxury. It feels luxurious to me. Like, like every, the, the, the costuming, the lighting, the locations, the production design, the cinematograph. Like, everything feels kind of, like, top-notch. And, yeah, you're right. Like, you can watch Juliet Rylens, like, walk into a room and, like, pick up a piece of paper and walk out. And she's so good. So. And we should say that, like, the other changes were behind the scenes, right?

The two guys that created the Nick, one of our favorite shows of the last 10 years. Yeah, maybe in the entirety of this podcast. Possibly. Came in to take over season two. A lot of other, you know, they just. they just got the house in order in a different way. And it makes sense. Yeah, there's something kind of interesting about how this is an antidote to Arturist TV

because it's just like so many people have worked on this already. Yeah. And yet it's good because it's a TV show. It's ultimately, this is a gourmet cheeseburger, but maybe it's like a deconstructed cheeseburger that's like a hamburger steak because they wouldn't pretend that it's the same thing. But it is. And through two episodes only, like one of the things that really impresses me is

at the start of anything, particularly at the start of something that is now unshackled from an origin story with new creators coming in, that's the most fraught moment. You could put your arms around anything. What do you choose? And I think that with a real skill of the essentially second pilot,

the reboot of 201, is they chose really well. They chose a really good story that touches all the aspects of society. You have three characters who traverse all aspects of society, both Perry Mason because of who he is in his background.

And then Juliet Rylance's character, Della, who is a closeted lesbian, who also wants to be a lawyer, and Chris Chalk, who was a cop, who was a cop in the first season, and is now sort of their private investigator, but as a black man has a very different relationship with systems of power in the city, they can navigate it in the way that classic mystery characters do. And I love that.

The luxury thing I do want to continue to talk about through the season because, look, as the consumer and viewer, I am not complaining. Give me this. Give me more seasons of this. Let this go. As the industry watcher that we've been masquerading as for a lot of the podcast, I'm like, this is expensive. Period is really expensive. Period. That looks this good with these stars in California is wildly expensive. And it's on a Monday nights. Like, does any of it

matter anymore? I don't know. I don't think the Monday night thing matters. I don't think that it does, but it is an admission that this show is never going to be a Sunday night anchor show. It just doesn't have the weight or stakes or cultural failings. I don't know. I mean, it's like we own the city was a Monday night show. And I guess I could see, I take your point that it was we on the city ratings were minuscule. It doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it, but I'm switching hats now. I think that Perry Mason could appeal to people who watch Succession, and I think it could appeal to people who watch Colombo. Yeah, this is the HBO show that if, you know, if your parents watch mostly broadcast, no, this is a straw parent argument. Nobody just does this anymore. But if if your tastes

don't go towards the more challenging fair, there's nothing easy about the show, but you understand It's a mystery. It's like, how are they going to get these guys out of this jam? And the show knows not to reinvent the wheel. Like, there's, you know, there's a scene where Shea Wiggum, who is having more fun doing the show than literally anyone else has ever had on a television show is drinking beer with Perry Mason. And he's, he just drops a fact about the case. And Reese's wheels are spinning. Maybe we'll talk to him about the playing of the scene in the upcoming interview. But, like, it does the shoe leather part.

We understand the detail that gets him spinning that, well, that means that they couldn't have done. it and why, and now we're going to take the measuring tape, and we're going to, like, that's what we like in these shows. It doesn't try to hide that from us or keep that from us because it's too good for it. And I think that's, when you see a show become what it wants to be, is it. Chris, it's a good day in America. Well, why don't we tell Matthew Reese that we think he's done it? I'm going to, laying down a marker for you and Kaya, I'm going to spend the first 10 minutes of our talk explaining the Beyonder and the original Secret Wars and how he became friends with Boom Boom, a very low-powered movie. Matthew Reese, Ted Lassar. Should there be more football?

Yes or no. He'll say yes, he's Welsh. Yeah, that's true. We'll be right back with Matthew Reese. 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.

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well as promise we're now joined by matthew reese which is kind of a just an absolute honor and a thrill i don't know why i'm seeing me kind of yes well thank you for the invite it's appreciate you here's how much we like parry mason and this is this is maybe a lot to throw in you after 45 seconds of knowing you but andy and i were thinking of starting a whole new career path for ourselves it's drive time radio show early morning. We call it AM to the PM 365 days a year it's just Perry Mason talk.

Whoa. And Andy brought up the good point of what do we do the other 46 weeks of the year when Perry Mason isn't on. I'm the guy with a business head as you can tell. He's the passion guy.

Right. And that's why this works. And maybe that's where you come in. Yes. It's just where in the world is Perry Mason? You phone us up. You're just like, here I am.

Well, you know, depending on how long this runs for, I can give you the play-by-play. This bit or the actual show? This bit, we've got 40 minutes. Anyway, thanks, guys. It's been great. Yeah.

So I was just wondering, like, basically, I could keep you up to date with, you know, where the scripts are. How are doing the casting? What we've got, who are the new designers in for like, how it's, you know, where it's going. Today I drank four shots of fake rye. Yes. I get cold tea. Two shots of real. Yes, I like to mix it up.

I ask props to keep me on my toes. Oh, it's like Russian roulette, but with drinks. Exactly. I'm like, don't let me know. Does the fake whiskey have to be have like a syrupy kind of like viscous consistency for to work on camera or? What kind of whiskey do you drink, Chris? Yes. What kind of whiskey?

Maybe I'm thinking more of like Amoros and like that kind of stuff. I always, I do enjoy this. It's almost the one thing on a set that will include every department when everyone kind of goes, that's not right. Inevitably will annoy the props department because they're like, yes it is. And everyone goes to say, well, it's got ear bubbles. I can see the air bubbles. And they're like, no, you can't. I'm like, yes, I'm can.

I'm standing here. Everyone's got a strong opinion. Everyone's got a strong opinion about how it should look. And what is, what whiskey is that if it looks like that? Right. We're joking about AM to the PM, but our passion for this show is very strong. Clearly. We're ready to just give up our entire livelihoods just for this.

I mean, AM to the PM. Yeah. I don't think it's a 12-month-a-year gig for you. No, it's not. It's definitely not. That's the whole funny. I tend to think about it about a few seconds before someone says action. But the second season is so great so far.

So I've watched two. I watched two. And he's watched two. This is going up today. So it'll be before people see the second episode. But obviously the first episode ends with a great cliffhanger and twist with, I actually know someone who knows Tommy Dewey. Oh, wow.

And about halfway through the episode, I texted that person. I was like, this is great. Tommy's going to be the villain of the season. And he was like, is he? I thought he only worked for the movie. a week on that show and I was like, oh. And then the last scene of the first episode happens. I was like, oh, that was abrupt.

Yeah. You thought maybe they were so grateful to have Mr. Dewey on set, they block shot a season worth in a week. Yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't describe, I don't think anybody would describe Perry Mason as a series as being like light on its feet, right? Because it is, it's a heavy show. I am light on my feet.

Lighthearted. The show itself feels a little lighter on its feet in the second season, just in terms of like narrative pacing, the mechanics of it. Did you feel that making it? Was that important to you? It was, you know, we had some new writers come in for season two, and they said from the very first meeting, though, we do want to lighten this out.

There is a gallows humor to Mason. We want to explore that. There's, you know, we just want, there's, you know, they came with a few big rules that they wanted. They wanted to open up L.A. And they wanted a lightness. Yes, as you say, it is a dark show. And, you know, the case of season one was especially dark.

it was that was a hard one to find. Whenever you have babies involved. And you kill them. It's not, you know, it's hard to find the jokes. I'm sure they've tried. They try. We try. I tried.

And they kept saying that's not very appropriate. And they asked to bring the fake whiskey back in. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, real whiskey. Like shut him down. Shut him down. But it almost feels, is it freeing to get past the origin story?

You know, in some ways. Yes. Yes. Very much so. I mean, I had great, not great concern. But I had a deal of concern that it's like once you get past that, well, now what do you do? Like, do we fall into a rut?

Does he now, you know, we have the kind of Charlie's Angels moment at the end of season one with like in the office, things on the door, off we go. And then do we just pick up and he's winning cases? Because it's not what I wanted at all. Yeah. And one of the other things they came in and said, look, no, let's not start there. Let's start somewhere else and let's start Mason somewhere else, which I was very happy about.

But to the spirit of that, the Charlie's Angels thing, I'm sure that you loved working with the cows in season one. I love that. I have a lot of questions. Yes. But I'm saving them for the, you know, the slow months. Well, of course. Of course. Yes.

Dairy month. The night. Can we get a sponsorship for that? Oh my goodness. These things are going to go. This is really going to work. Yes. But there's something to Chris's point that I just felt the show relaxing into what it wanted to be.

Right. You know, you and Chris and Juliet in this room is so exciting because I'm a fan of all of your work and the characters are dynamic and it does feel like there's a different sort of momentum. Do you credit that with the experience of having all work together and have a sense of these characters and where you want to take them? Or did it really begin with the writer saying, this is the lens we're going to be shooting this season through?

I think a little bit of both in that it's so great when you do come back to a second season, you know, the luxury of coming back to a second season and you have that six months under your belt of knowing, you know, how you all like to work and how you do work and how you work best. And it's great. You get all that out of the way you have that foundation work laid. And then they kind of said, okay,

these are the conflicts we want to put within the Triumvirate so that, you know, there's a lot going on between the three of you. It's just, you know, it's layering the steak you're going to get your teeth into. Yeah. Do you,

I wanted to ask you a little bit about Los Angeles as both a setting, but also as such a huge element of the story. You know, Perry Mason is obviously an intimidating iconic character in the history of American mystery culture and fiction. But L.A. is, too. You know, like, you've got the novels of James Elroy, you've got Chinatown, you've got Raymond Chandler, you've got, it's essentially the canvas on which a lot of modern mystery has been painted anyway. What do you feel like you guys were trying to do with this season

differently? And how much was the sort of reputational figure of Los Angeles as a character in these stories in the past looming over you at all? I mean, it's hard. It does have those very kind of potent reference points, you know, going in. And as soon as you start saying, as soon as you, remember in season one, we would say, oh, it's set in the 30s, Evan just goes, ooh, Chinatown. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

And Tim Van Patton, you know, who was instrumental in kind of setting up, really leaned into Chinatown. He said, yeah, I'm going to put on a screening for the entire cast and crew before we started shooting. Because I want to screen China. I'm going for, like, let's not be ashamed of. let's, you know, steal from the best. I think that's cool. Yeah, and he was right to do that. And when they said, you know, when the initial interview I had with the whole team about season one,

and they said, we're going back to the origins of the books, we're going to put it in L.A. in the 30s, I just thought, 30s would be brilliant. And the little knowledge that I knew, having done some research on another project, that you just had this kind of Klondike town during the Depression that was booming and had this kind of incredible vast wealth. cheek by jaw with abject poverty. I was like, that's great. I mean, geometerically, the setting is incredible.

And then they loaded Mason by saying, okay, but, you know, second or third generation landowner, new world colliding. It was all fantastic. So just at every turn, the city and its evolution is lending itself in some form or another to what's going on. There's also that wonderful thing that our dear departed friend Tommy says. I'm so sorry to harp on him. But in the season premiere, which is fundamentally true.

He's raging about this for his other reasons, and he's under duress. But he says everyone wants to be here. And that is perpetually the thing about it. This moment in its history, it's sort of a second-class kind of town. Spiritually, people are ignoring it. Baseball teams won't come to it. But it has the spark that draws people, many different types of people seeking to reinvent themselves or chasing dreams. And as you said, that's extremely potent.

and I love the way the show in the season, I think this was the phrase you used, throws its arms around all of it. There are shanty towns, and the Mexican population, which has always been here, is now cheek by gel, up against this new money

and everything else that comes with it. Yeah, and that was, you know, it was, I have nowhere to go with it. Yeah, I can agree with you. This is a podcast not built on conflict. The episodes are very short. We often just affirm each other.

We're just like, did you watch The Mandalorian? I enjoyed it as well. Goodbye. It's not good radio, quote, unquote. I just say, I feel very safe and very warm here. And you are seen. Ah, that's all I will. Well, thank you.

It's been great. Bye. Great. Goodbye. Yeah, yes. So yes. I mean, you know, great, great kudos to Rolling Jones and Ron Pist Gerald for leaning into that. They really did their research of the time immensely, as did, you know, as did Jack

and Mike on the second season. And they got very excited. You know, so much, so much of season one. The case of season one, it was based tragically on a real case in Los Angeles. So this kind of, the history of the place just is a gift that keeps on giving for them. You know, you mentioned doing research for another project and that you had kind of been drawn into that. I was wondering, because you honestly, to seem like a very interesting person, an interested person. Like, how much of the thrill of taking on any given role is wrapped up in getting to dive into learning about, I'm sure with the Americans, you must have done a fair share of, like, Cold War spy reading and looking into that era of history.

But for Perry Mason, I mean, you could spend your whole life just going through like the greats of Los Angeles crime fiction or reading about the history of... And that's what we'll be doing on the podcast. Yeah. Every June. Chavez Ravine Part 9. Yes. Oh, look at this. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are the real kind of golden nuggets and the bonuses of those jobs, like the Americans, when they give you the premise, you go, oh my God, that's juicy. And for me, to say, I've always been attracted to kind of Los Angeles as a pioneer town and how it emerged, the way it did. And the kind of dizzying corruption that kind of came with it in the kind of wild west way it was, it evolved. So yeah, that was always been, and I've always loved this, just from a romantic point of view, I've always loved L.A. in the 30s and what that was and the stories of kind of Chaplain, Elflin and Fairbanks Jr., eating at Moussaun Franks and getting arrested on Hollywood Bullough and all that stuff.

I'm just, I'm like a schoolboy when it comes to. Did you get a chance to see Babylon? No. Yeah. It's not quite, you know, the same era, but it's just a few years. where it's got some of the silent film stars in it. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.

Yeah. What is your personal relationship with Los Angeles? Because you come from Wales. You live in New York now. Obviously, you've been here many times. You know, the industry that you're in often brings you here, whether it's, you know, whether you're living here or not. What did L.A. mean to you as a kid growing up in a completely different country versus

what it is meant to you in your relationship to it in your career? It was, you know, it was that golden place on the hill. Hill. It was Camelot. It was everything. And every other bad analogy I'm cloying for. But it was, you know, in the basis terms, growing up as a small boy watching the A team, which were, which this group of men, you know, escaped to the Los Angeles Underground, which was confusing in itself. It was incredibly exotic because you saw, you saw them with palm trees, you saw perennial sunshine and beaches. And then as my tastes have evolved, I like to hope, And, you know, I fell in love with film.

It was, it became that place that we all, you know, I found my group and it was the place we all wanted to go. And we were all desperate to go and terrified of going because what if it didn't work or it didn't turn out to be what we wanted. And then, you know, the first of us went to make Titanic. And then we were, you know, because I'm going to go to L.A. afterwards. Like, tell us what it's the life. This is Leo DiCaprio? Yeah, yes. No, I know another actor called Yoan Griffith who's in Titanic.

So he went out and he was like, it is, it is true what they say. You've got to come. And then we start coming for pilot season. And it was, there's still elements of Los Angeles that still give me a buzz. Like I'm in a movie when I see them. And it still holds that magic to me. It is like a gold mining, a prospecting town where you can come and you can be one hammer hit away from whatever. Did you ever live here?

Yeah, for six, seven years. Oh, wow. Making brothers and sisters? Yes, yeah. Yeah, so just getting to drive onto lots. I mean, the first time I drove onto the Paramount lot, I thought I was going to cry because I couldn't. It's pretty amazing still. It really is.

And we shot the season one interiors on Paramount. So I used to just ride my bicycle around looking at sound stages and pretending as Bob Evans. Did you continue to pretend to be Bob Evans later in the day? Yes. That could get dice. What time is the right time to stop being Bob Evans in a day? There's a good question. Usually when the sun goes down or when a police officer is telling you off.

These sunglasses are prescriptions. Yes, my apologies. So what is the process? I mean, the show looks beautiful. It's just especially, I don't know if it's just, you know, having sunk into the first season, it's just sumptuous some of the sets that we've seen already in this season. The location shooting is so clever. Because so much of the bones of that L.A. are still here.

they're just maybe underappreciated or not seen. What is that process like coming to set? I mean, this is a, we don't do many we, the town. I'm in this town. There's fewer and fewer period pieces being shot. It's very expensive. It's very taxing. You've got all of it happening.

So what is the experience like wandering into a place that maybe you'd been before as a civilian or as a, you know, a different time of your life? And suddenly it's 1930, I want to say two? Yeah, 33. I meant three. I was testing it. Yeah. Well, we went from 32 into 3rd.

For me, it's still 32. I know. I'm a stickler. That's classic Mason. Well, of course. Yeah, he lives his life like it's 32. Yeah. I'm incredible.

I'm like a giddy schoolboy. There were times, there was the News Eve party in season one when I walked in and kind of was a gaper. You know, I felt like I could see, you know, Douglas Fairbuck's Jr. or elephant at any given one. That is the beauty of HBO. and I will salute them until the day I pass that they just go for it, that they're willing to write those checks in order to make those productions look how they should.

And you walk into these wildly extravagant sets that have taken so long to be built and they're dressed, every inch is dressed, every background artist the same. And it only aids you as an actor. There's no suspension. You can just believe that you're in that. that place at that time. There were a couple of other instances. One, like the first time I went to

Musa and Franks on Hollywood Boulevard, for those who don't know, is one, if I'm not wrong, if not the old, if not the oldest. It's the iconic like steakhouse, yeah. Yes, it's on Hollywood Boulevard that was frequented by, you know, the golden age of silent movie stars. And I remember going there for the first time. So then when I returned and we took it over for Mason and they dressed it and everyone, I walked in and I just went, I had that moment. It was magic. It was magic. And it's rare these days that you have exactly that, these moments of magic of why you got into it, of sitting in a dark cinema going, oh my God, that looks incredible. I think that's the beauty of the show this season. It's just the title cards, the detail.

I've spent an episode when you're in the courtroom staring at the faces that they found in 2022 to be on the jury. And I'm like, what are these guys doing the rest of the year? We'll find out on our podcast. But these are faces from the 30s. They've done it. And I imagine walking into that room, you've got a full set. There's even like a in, I can't remember it's one or two, but there's a quick scene where it's you, Justin Kirk and Juliet Rylance, and you're in either not the city hall building or the. It's the drink after the. It's the drink after.

And it's just like, where is that? I'm sure it's like a bank downtown or some place, but the way that you guys have it done in it's so alive. Like there's so much background action and stuff like happening. But it's also like that's the. budget of a small movie for you to be like, I'm tired of having this whiskey and leaving? Yes. Yes. Now, that is great.

Yeah, it really is. Like, every department has got, it was just, you know, meticulous in their execution. There was, the other time, I was very fortunate. I, when I lived in L.A., I had, I owned horses and kept them in Griffith Park in Sunset Ranch. You can't just drop that on us. No, I'm going to come back. Yes. I'm looking for them from the A.m. to the PM, just doing the horse episode.

And we went back to, they took over Sunset Ranch. And, you know, because Beechwood Canyon was meant to be this kind of alpine village for, you know, for the movie stars. And that was going to be their stable. So they dressed Sunset Ranch. And I had the same thing walking to Muso and Franks, where you just saw all these people dressed that way. And I just, for a moment, I could believe I was in the 30s.

Yeah, I mean, you could still see it. Like, we used to work, our old office was in the Sunset Gower Studios. Oh, wow. And I think our boss's office, I don't know if this is apocryphal or not, but his office was Frank Kapper's old office. Now, I think they've done some stuff to the office itself, but maybe that's where he was. Yeah, they had some air conditioning. And then, you know, Gower Gulch there, that's basically, I think, where they would just do all

the cowboy stuff, you know, like all the Western stuff. It's amazing. Really. Are either of you two Angelinos? No, we're both from Philadelphia. Oh, right, right. Yeah. Wow.

What was L.A. for you growing up? I was always incredibly skeptical about it and came out here for work and even now go through, I think, multi-year cycles of liking it to loving it to hating it. How long you've been here? 11 years. Right. Yeah, and then he came out a little bit later. Yeah, we were both New Yorkers for a long time in Brooklyn.

No way. When I visit, the Americans thing, I would walk from my apartment to say. It was a dream. Oh, wow. You know, but I always thought this was maybe similar to you, like, A, completely made-up place. Yeah. And then incredibly romantic because of that. Right.

Whether it's from fiction or movies. But then you'd come out here and nothing makes sense and everything feels kind of good. But then when night falls and the air smells like flowers and there's palm trees, there's this sense of possibility that maybe people doing the reverse to New York might feel in the city. But it just felt so alien that it was intoxicated. And you get 35 minutes of traffic to drive six blocks. Yep. But then you get out of the car and it smells like flowers again. I'm still charmed.

Really? Yeah. I don't want to be cold ever again. I think, I tell people, my first impulse is to say two years, but it's been six. Because there's no sense of time anymore. Right. No, there isn't. That was the other thing.

It really isn't. Yeah. It's very confusing. Yeah. But I do love it. So I wanted to ask you, this is maybe a little bit of a high concept question. But one of the things that's interesting about this first episode, especially with Perry, is this trepidation. he has about getting back into criminal law and obviously has scar tissue from the first

case that he handled in the previous season. And I think obviously is like traumatized by that, but also knows it's destructive for people around him to be around him when he's going through those cases. And to not put too fine a point about it, I wondered if there's any ever similarities to choosing roles and whether or not you ever have trepidation, even with somebody like a character or like Perry, you know, where you're like, ah, that's, it's going to be like a dark suit to wear for a long time, you know? Yeah, yeah. No, yes, the short answer is, yes, there's always trepidation for many different reasons.

But I'm always won over by, if the script is there, I'm won over. If I want to know what happens at the end, if you invest it, all the, you know, usual cliches. But yeah, but also, when they pitched Mason, they said, look, we're going to load his bases, it's going to be a World War I veteran, you know, struggling to keep the family's farm, and everything they said, I was like, with every fact they gave me about what they were going to do

to his backstory, I was like, I'm in, I'm in deeper, I'm definitely in, I'm in over my head. What do I do now? Yeah.

So I was, it was just, those kind of parts don't come a long way. It's like a tractor beam. Oh my God. Yeah, there's so much to be playing at any one time that how,

how, you know, he's alienated within his own city, the beginning and the change he's witnessing. And it was just everything. And continue, and continues to be. I love that when they said,

look, he's going to be suffering from some serious imposter syndrome. Did he do the right decision? Haunted by what's happened. I was like, okay, great. This is exactly where we should be picking out. Also, Chris, this is an adventurous man. He owned horses.

That's right. Which he's tried to distract us from for the last four minutes. Are we talking about casual riding around Griffith Park horses? Yeah. Take him to... No, no, they were casual.

I bought two Mustangs out of the prison program. The U.S. The horses were in prison? They were. were. I got them out of... What did they didn't do anything? Did you do this as Perry Mason? Like you got them... I did. I did. Come on, guys. We're getting out of here. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I go in. Yeah.

No, there's about five or six prisons in the U.S. that have a wild Mustang program. That where they... Yeah, where they take... Because, you know, the BLM is struggling with Mustang numbers. So prisons take in wild Mustang and then they rehabilitate, you know, inmates with the horse at the same time. So that... It's like equine therapy. It's incredible. I watched it first time. It really is incredible.

And then they're given 90 days to kind of gentle the horse and at the end of three months. They sell, they said, so I went, have you ever seen Notting Hill? Yeah. Remember what Hugh Grant says,

I'm here with horse and hound? A friend of mine worked for horse and hound and called me up and said, look, we can't afford to come to Carson Nivide. Times have been tough since Notting Hill. Yes. Kind of through the spotlight on horse and house.

Well, yes. It mocked them in a cruel way. She said, would you be willing, would you be interested to go to go and cast Nevada to do a, and write an article for horse and hound. I was like, yeah. So I went.

I always, you know, I loved horses and ridd horses. So I went and I saw this one Native American gentleman came out with two, he trained two horses. And then I found myself with my hand in the air bidding on them as my friend's going, what are you doing? What are you going to keep these horses? And do you still have the horses? I don't. Sadly one passed away.

And then one is now living the life of Riley and Malibu. Okay. This also reminds me that there was a period when you were very busy with the Americans and then you suddenly showed up on the bastard executioner. I believe, was that on horseback? No, I did ask. They were like, you know, the classic... Because I got a horse.

If you guys need me... It's a tax write-off then. You bring your own horse. Yes. I'll bring me own. Yeah, yeah. We shot that in Wales at home, actually, ironically. But yeah, no, that was a classic moment when an actor goes, of course I can ride a horse.

And for once, production went, he's lying. He's lying. He's lying. This guy. Yeah, forget it. It does seem like we're in a new era of horses. I mean, like, as I was thinking when you were talking about, the banshees from Inneshire and the donkey in that film

has now been given like a lifetime, like retirement gift from Martin McDonough. No way. Yeah. And I was like, man, maybe it pays to be a four-legged animal in Hollywood these days. Yeah. Wow. Well, it's, it's better than a 4-1K. I think historically.

No. I don't think Mr. Ed was given a pension. No, I mean, there was not. turned into glue. I do have to ask because there's a through line here. We've noticed that you say yes to things, which is probably a very good attitude for an actor and scene work in things. But you said you suddenly found yourself owning horses. Just before we sat down with you, I was in a meeting and I mentioned that you were coming in to do a podcast with us. And the person said, I've been on his boat. And I said, excuse me? This is a very busy actor.

Who? Who's been on my boat? A producer named Michael Parrots And he says, I don't know him, but some friends, we went on a charter on, and he says, I think Matthew Reeves owns Ernest Hemingway's boat or something. And so I said, this is incredible. He said, by the way, tell him five stars. Best afternoon they've had in a while.

Oh, great, I'm glad to hear. But I then immediately Googled Matthew Ree's boat. Yeah. It didn't auto fill that. Horse, was the suggestion. But it said boat. And then I read this incredible article. I hope our listeners find us well in the New York Times.

Yeah. About, you can tell it. than I can't. But you have a boat. You just bought a boat. Well, I've actually bought it five years ago. I was foolishly and drunkenly scrolling, as I want to do, kind of looking at boats, online, some for sale. And then I came across. Do you just Google boats and see what happens? Yeah, no, I do the usual, yeah, the classics. I even look at eBay sometimes. Because you have these weird and wonderful boats pop up on eBay. And I was on eBay one late night drinking. and a wheel of playmate popped up

which was the same class of boat that Hemingway had and I knew they were built in Brooklyn there's not many of them left they were built in the 30s and there was one for sale relatively reasonably priced for what it was and I in this mad moment I bought it and I had these giddy

rose-tinted notions that I would bring this wooden boat back to Brooklyn back to life and people could go aboard and have a 1930s experience on a boat that was built in Brooklyn, circumnavigate the, you know, the Statue of Lutti while drinking Hemingway's favorite cocktail. This is lovely. Now, I don't want to – actually, I was going to say, I don't want to make this a maritime podcast. I do.

I'm going to be honest. So I have to ask, like, this is the rose-tinted version. Yes. And you're feeling warm. You're having a drink. You've done this thing. When does the hangover start? When does the cold splash of water?

Like, I'm going to have to – my wife is sleeping upstairs. I'm going to have to say, honey, I bought a book. What is the psychology of this? The next morning, that was pretty much, there was a lot of kind of, funny story. You know, boats. Historically a great investment. Yes, yes.

There was a lot of bear with me. Bear with me. What if I told you it was wooden? Oh, it was octaves. Octaves were being scaled. My cousin's husband does a thing that she would call the airplane coming in for a landing, where he gets a little high when he's apologizing. Yes.

There was a lot. You remember you told me, Farewold Arms is your favorite? favorite novel? Well, there are a lot of ways into this. Say it well to me. Yes.

Yeah. There's, have you ever heard of those site? Do you like cars? I'll, I'll take a look. Okay.

Have you ever heard of bring a trailer? No. So this is a site that essentially, in a lot of cases, the price of the car is that you have to then go get it,

you know? Right. But the cars are like 1983 BMW with 375,000 miles and bullet holes. And you're just like, But I can see the promise. Yes.

And I have spent so many nights at 1245 just like, almost, almost, you know. They had like Frank Ocean, the Frank Ocean BMW, the orange one was on there. And like, it's like, sometimes you'll just come across and you're like, that's Sunny Crockett's Lamborghini. Like, I don't know how this is happening, but it's just, but it's like completely broken down. You have to go get it and then you invest into like, to refurbishing it. I Google sports scores today. And I don't, you guys are incredibly romantic. Okay, so you have this boat.

Yeah. And it's not as... It was a multi-year process. It wasn't meant to be. I had a wooden boat shipwright picked out to do it. He couldn't do it. Got another one. He couldn't do it.

And at this point, I had this incredible captain who runs the business. You know, she said, look, there's enough YouTube videos out there. You and me can restore this boat. And I was like, God. What does it feel like to have someone say that to you? I live my whole life dreaming. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

Because I played a carpenter once. Yeah, you know, there was a lot of that. And God bless her, Captain Kelly Farwell. She was the one who kind of went, look, this is what we do. This is how we do it. And we took three years to restore her. Did it become, like, fun? Did it become like a somebody you really...

No, it was never, ever fun. It was a lot of tears on my behalf. Because when I would go, I can't do this. Like, put them together. Yeah. But now it's... you have a boat. Now I've a boat.

This guy's been on it. I know. People charter the boat and go out and have cocktails and listen to gramophone records in New York Harbor. Sounds amazing. All I do when we're charging is I just wait for Kelly, Captain Kelly, to call me going, we're going down. And the water's coming in and the bow from that bit you did. Would you just quietly put the phone down at that point and say, let's continue the scene?

I'd be like Chris and Juliet. So call reset. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about your. castmates on Perry Mason. It's just an awesome ensemble. And there's one person in particular, I think we'll go through a couple, but I want to talk

to you about Shea Wigam. Does Shea Wigam know that he was born to be in Perry Mason and to be walking around in those clothes, smoking rolled up cigarettes? I've never seen anyone having more fun at anything in my life than him eating or drinking on your shot. No one...

I said to him, I said, you should do a course at NYU just called eating and drinking for film and television. Yes. Or smoking for film and television. Who does it better? This is volatile Shay Wiggum and his dedication.

He will smoke when he's doing offlines. And I'm like... Chris would do that right now. I'm like, the camera can't see you. He goes, I know. That's a really good Shay Wiggum. I relish those scenes with him because no one... Like he views these episodes like meals.

rich meals to be devoured and he just, the relish in him ignites in me because no one does it. He does stuff like where there's a scene he does with, I think with Chris actually and he walks off. And like, it's just an exit.

You know, it's like nothing really, but I'm like he knows exactly how to walk off. This is unreal, man. Like he just seems like he was born to be in these scenes. I would never want to share a meal with him because if he didn't tuck his napkin, oh my God. Violently into his

collar? Yeah. What are we doing? No, nothing. There's no point eating. You'd be insulting. No.

The days when it was, him, me and Lithgow, I would, it would just gold. And just, we, sometimes we couldn't do it because we were laughing so, so hard. Who's making everyone break? Is it him? No, that was a round robbing. That was a beautiful triumvir of corpses who were just, as when the glint comes into the eye, were gone. Because I'll give it to Wigham.

He can, he will stay the course. When the world is collapsing around him, he is not distracted. But for some reason, just the chemistry of me, him and Lithgow is not great. I mean, there's so many people I would want to. One of the things with Wiggum was there's a scene that Andy and I were actually talking about on the pod before you drop by. But it's just Perry is fishing a little bit. Like he's sort of, he's got, he's got Shay's character over and he's there. We're talking about horse diving, which had an emotional surveillance for you that I think, I didn't realize.

I'm going to re-watch the scene. Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, has a deeper resonance from me. Because it's got a body of water and a horse. I mean, is everything, like, could the horse land on the boat? If he could land on a boat, it would be everything. I can imagine you going home to your wife and saying, so I just had this vision.

What if horses want to be on the water? Yes. What are the horse on my boat? Are we charging too much for this boat service? Could we just offer it as equine therapy for the horses? Yes. Could people sit on the horse while on the boat? But it's this great moment where you're, Perry is almost becoming Perry despite himself.

Like he kind of wants to just sit there and have a drink with his friend, but he's also lightly probing about, hey, you know how tall this guy was? Or was he a lefty and like, do what it, where do they have the car and like this little bits? And it's just such a, it's such a wonderful moment of like coming back into that character. It's actually also, I think, something that I have loved for a while now when you're acting, which is, it was always present in the American too. You can see a methodical mind at work between the lines and selling that, you know, that you're thinking of something and you can feel the gears turning and the audience is made welcome into that process. Like you're not ahead of us and you're not telegraphing, but we're going on that journey. It's a very, I feel like there's a question in here about a very specific and subtle type

of acting that I don't even know how I would phrase it. I don't even know if I could explain it. But you're present in the moment, I guess. You're doing, because we talked about it earlier in the podcast and the concept of like the shoe leather of the show, which I'm so happy that it embraces. You're going to go A to B to C with the case. But you're doing that even before the next scene begins with Perry's mind. Right. And to me, that's all in the writing. They're just teeing it up. But it's one of the beauties, I think, of having it in the time period that we are. And that I love, and it's what I used to love in those old, you know, in those old kind of crime series is that you have, you are with, you know, the protagonists as he,

is figuring it all out. Technology's out the window and we're going to be with him. He's got to get his tape measure out. He's got to get the tape measure out. You know, I love all that. I just think it's, it goes back to what it should be

where the audiences feel part of it. Yeah, I think Perry Mason with an iPhone would be pretty short. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Mason would throw that thing, you know, at a wall or, or, you know,

Wiggum very quickly. Yeah, or you'd have like an Apple Newton, right? Like a slightly out of, out of date. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Dallas, like, when are you getting rid of the flip phone? Exactly.

Did you have anything else you wanted to do? Well, I just, is this the sort of, so the idea of Perry Mason, it's been, you know, for the previous actor for Raymond Burrough played, the party played it for decades. Yeah. There's a world where this show, we just get to have more and more and more of it. Is that, you know, this is in the hands of HBO and the creators and it's a very different TV moment. Yes. But is there a world where you would enjoy returning to it again and again?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, as gratifying as it is, and it is, you know, incredibly. Absolutely. You know, my thing, maybe, you know, it's a lot of actors want this and sometimes it's a little spoiled to want it. But if we keep twisting on this theme, I'm in for, you know, till King can come. Well, I mean, Los Angeles is this great bounty for you, right? Oh. I mean, I was reading some of the, and I think to go deep into them would probably give away some of the stuff from the second season, but about some of the real-life historical figures that are being mirrored on the show and the McCutcheon family and who they're kind of their analogs are. And I'm just like, wow, man, like you could make 10 seasons before World War II about some of this stuff.

It's wild. Yes. Like I said, the research that they've been bringing up, you could just, you could literally just, you could literally just. take it from the history books. It's unbelievable. So the only thing that would stop us from wanting endless seasons of Perry Mason, because it is right in our wheelhouse. It's the world that we love. It's the type of storytelling that we love.

Would it keep you from future seasons of the wine show? Because that's... I'm going to speak for you. I'll use eye statements as I learned in college. That's the show for me. Yeah. Well, funny you should say that. You know, because my mother said, I think it's probably the best thing you've ever done. And she said it with absolute sincerity. In fact, after season one, I got, I was, you know, I got offered a part in the post,

Steven Spielberg, you know, Mel Streep and Tom Hanks. I couldn't do the second season, the wine show. So I called my mother, I said, I got good news and bad news. Because what's the good news? I've been offered a film with Steven Spielberg, and in the film is Mel Streep and Tom Hanks. That's incredible. What's the bad news? Well, bad news is, you know, I can't do the wine tune.

She went, oh, no! It would have been amazing, though, if you'd shown up to the post set and acted like a big diva because you were so mad that you were missing out on the wine show. Yeah. Or if I bought them, the wine show, people, to the set. We were doing bits from the set. There's just some things that I feel like when people use whatever power they've accrued for good. And for me, the good is, I'm going to just drink wine with my friends.

Yes. Yeah, you're doing it right. And thank you for your service in that regard. It's the least my liver can do. But what I love was that Matthew Goods, brother-in-law, who's been, who's a very successful TV producer, been trying to get a wine show made for a long time. And Matthew called me up with this idea. He goes, listen, we've got this great idea for a TV show.

Hang on. Let me just put it on. Did he do this in Robert Evans voice? Kind of. He's like Robert Evans anyway. Yeah. But he, and then, you know, his brother-in-law said, look, it's very simple. I'm going to have someone who knows what they're talking about and two monkeys to drink wine.

Do you want to do it? Yes or no? And you're like, Am I the monkey? Yeah, am I the monkey? Of course you are an actor. I was like, oh, right. Okay, then.

So, yeah, the premise was simple. As are we. It's beautiful. Well, we hope we get more of that. We hope we get more of Perry Mason. But thank you so much for coming by today. Not at all. It's been a real treat.

We can't wait to talk to you for the next 12 months. I'm looking forward to it. On a.m. to the PM. This is the beginning. I love it. Onward to glory. Thank you. Thanks.