WHAT WENT WRONG - Garden State (with Zach Braff)

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

A bereft budget! Malfunctioning motorcycles! Two dogs looking for love in all the wrong places! This week, Chris & Lizzie speak with the writer/director/star of Garden State, Zach Braff, on how he made 2004’s little indie that could, Danny DeVito’s unlikely role in getting the film made, and just how, exactly, he scored the soundtrack of the decade.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one. As always, I'm one of your hosts, Chris Winterbauer, joined by your better host, Lizzie Bassett. But before we get to today's film, I just wanted to take a beat and thank all of you who participated in our audience survey. The info you provided us is truly helpful as we aim to both keep this podcast going and independent. Now, speaking of Independent, today we are talking about one of the seminal early aughts indie hits. That's right, Garden State, a film that was singularly formative for many millennials, including myself, and is celebrating its 20th anniversary, which is kind of blowing my suddenly old mind.

However, rather than stick with our staid and dusty formula, we've managed to cajole a subject matter expert into guiding us through the experience of making this film. So, without further ado, please welcome to what went wrong. Writer, director, and lead actor, Mr. Zach Brough. This is my, this is what I'm trying to get a voice, you know, voiceover work, you know, for commercials. You always want to get really close to the mic. We're going to start selling that as like a weird only fan's ASMR sort of thing.

The new Ford GT-500. Zach, thank you so much for being here. We're really excited to talk about Garden State. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I just want to give a little bit more of an extended brief bio and Zach, hit your applause button wherever you feel is appropriate here. Yeah, I do have a thunderous applause button because I do my own, to explain to your audience, I do my own podcast called fake doctors, real friends. And I have this soundboard. I don't know most of the sound effects, it won't be appropriate for your podcast, but perhaps thunderous applause at the right moment might be.

Here, I'll read this little short bio. Zach, of course, went on to write and direct 2013's wish I was here. and last year's A Good Person. He also directed New Line Cinemas going in style, and, of course, episodes of Ted Lasso, shrinking, and many, many other career achievements. And also, as you mentioned, he podcasts. Be sure to check out fake doctors, real friends.

But today, we're solely talking about the movie you had too little money and too little time to make. Of course, that's all movies, but it's especially your first movie. Yeah. So we're here to talk about Garden State. Yeah. Lizzie, would you like to read the details of Garden State

before we get into the questions? I surely would. And also, Zach, I just want you to know that anytime my husband leaves the dishwasher open, I do accuse him of trying to garden state me. So you really... Yes. I've heard that for many people. I think that really stuck with people. The dishwasher open. It's like, I truly think about it any time I see it, I'm like, it could happen. And I think also, I imagine when people see sidecars, they can't help but think sidecars are for bitches. Yes. Very true. I have some questions about the logistics of... including a motorcycle with a sidecar in your first tiny indie film. Yeah. Yeah, it was like the Jaws. It was like the Jaws shark.

It never worked. Oh, no. So I can tell you all about it. Amazing. All right. Well, to get into the details, Garden State is a 2004 romantic comedy drama film, written and directed by Zach Braff,

starring Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Sir Ian Holm, Gene Smart, Jackie Hoffman, Jim Parsons, Ann Dowd, Ron Leibman,

Michael Weston, Method Man, Otto Asando, and more. The film was released on July 28, 2004, and despite its diminutive budget, punched above its weight and changed the indie film landscape. So we always share the IMDB logline for the film, sometimes with diminishing returns. This one is, A Quietly Troubled Young Man returns home for his mother's funeral

after being estranged from his family for a decade. Yeah. Any notes on the log line? No, I guess it's, I guess that's, I mean, doesn't mention that he finds love for the first time, but I guess it doesn't need to. It leaves it open to all the things that the movie ends up being about. Yeah. Okay, hard-hitting questions first. Can you swim? I can swim. I was a late swimmer.

So many aspects of this film are little fragments of who I am, and I was a late swimmer. I didn't really, I learned after a lot of my friends. So I have memories of being a child and we would go on vacations and I would be sitting on the edge not being able to swim yet until my parents finally forced me to take swimming lessons. So I think that's from that. You know, like a lot of little anecdotes and little moments in this movie are all little experiences for my life in some way. And I think that's where that one's from. It's really impressive not swimming. Like I thought maybe you couldn't swim.

But maybe there was a lifeguard worried that their director was going to die. No, I just think I just brought my physical comedy and thought what would it look like to see a grown man not being able to swim. Very good. Well, okay, speaking of physical comedy and comedy, so the movie came out in 2004. Yeah. But it was obviously written at a very different time, both in your life, professionally and personally, as well as the greater, you know, film landscape. By the time the movie came out, my understanding is you were already the lead, J.D. Dorian, and Scrubs. But the script started when you were back in college. Can you walk us through the process of beginning the script?

Well, yeah, I mean, I think it was at post-college I began. And I was always collecting stories and anecdotes and just little pieces of my life. And I would write them on scraps of paper. I'd write them in journals. Occasionally, I would write at the beginnings of a scene. But this was mostly post-college. I went to film school at Northwestern. I was working as a PA in New York City. This was the height of the rap video. Well, I should say it's the height of all of the music video era. But I was working on a lot of rap videos and Mariah Carey videos.

And this was the era where the Fugees made a $7 million music video. I mean, it was the height of that whole time. And I worked on a Spice Girls video, lots of stuff like that. And that was all in New York City. And, yeah, while I was living in the East Village of Manhattan, I did begin to sort of put together what would be the film that became. It was originally called Large's Ark. The character's name was Andrew Largeman.

His name was Large. Larges Ark, like Noah's Ark. And so it started coming together. And then I moved to Los Angeles. I was auditioning there. I was working as a waiter there. And again, I had it in pieces. I kept working on it a little bit here, a little bit there.

And then actually in 2000, I got cast in Scrubs. And I think the timing was that we shot the pilot, I think? No, I think I got it. And then there was going to be a while before we shot it. And I knew I was going to make so much money from the pilot more than I had ever seen in my life. I mean, I was waiting tables and living hand to mouth. that I think I said, God, this is a sign from the universe. You're going to have all this money coming.

You have to finally, you have no more excuses. And also the obvious that being the, if this goes, being the lead on a TV show is going to give you the opportunity to get your movie made or at least seen, you know, move to the top of the pile. So I think that's when I really started to take it seriously and put all these fragments together into something cohesive. And then Scrubs started going.

And then my first hiatus, I did Shakespeare in the Park in New York City at the Delacourt Theater. I was in a production of 12th night. And it was there, I remember that I knew Natalie Portman had done a production of Seagull there. And there's a thing when you do plays at the Delacourt that they often get rained out because of summer rain. And so he sometimes waited out in the dressing rooms. And I wrote her a letter, and I thought it would be a good angle in saying, I'm sitting in the dressing rooms of the Delacourt Theater where I know you once sat waiting for the rain to stop. And here's this movie.

And I wrote this impassioned note. And so that level of the ball getting rolling happened in, like, 2001. Oh, wow. So outreach to her was first? Was that sort of like one of the first steps you took? Yeah, you know, you make a list. You know, when you're casting something, I think most directors do this. It's sort of like the arc, you write the archetype, you know, Natalie Portman.

And then you draw a line, and it's like anybody in your mind who you think is kind of like Natalie Portman. And I did that for Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm. And then I ended up getting them all. And my producer, Pam Abdi, who's now the president of Warner Brothers, she said to me, just so you know this never happens. And I was like, yeah, right. And of course, throughout the rest of my career, it never happened that way again. But I did get all of my first choices. Can we go back to, so when you first finish the script, Larges Arc, what's your process?

Who's the first person you shared it with? You know, it's such an intimate thing, I think, when you've finished a draft of something. Is it, you know, did you take it to your representation, friends for feedback? You know, what was that early stage? I think I showed it to my, I think I sent it to my age. I remember showing it to my mom because my mom is not a screenwriter, but a talented writer. And I always show her my things to get her feedback. She also was a voracious reader, so it just helps to get someone who reads a lot's input.

I don't know. I don't really remember anyone being too wowed by it, to be honest. Certainly not my reps. I remember them liking it, but I don't remember people going to, like, oh my God, there was no like, you know, you've stumbled upon golds. I don't remember that reaction. I remember that my agents had sent it out a bunch and there wasn't really, I wasn't getting a lot of traction.

And I was in CIA for some meeting and I walked, I had the balls or the chutzpah, as we, as we Jews say, to walk right into Kevin Yuvain's office, who's the head of all of CIA. And it was like the scene in the movie where you walk past the assistant. And the assistant's like, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? And I walked in and I remember him looking at me like, I knew him, you know, a little. I said a little bit. He had been in my signing meeting, but he, he, he, I remember him looking at me like, you're not supposed to walk right into my office.

What the fuck you're doing here? But he had, I remember he had read my script. And so I had such balls that I was like, Kevin, what's going on? No one's reading my script. And he kind of first had the reaction of what the fuck are you doing here. And then he kind of totally changed. And he went, you know who should produce your movie? Is Pam Abdi at Jersey Films?

And he goes, let me call her. And in that moment, he called her. And Pam was a Jersey girl, you know, my age. And she was the first person to really fully get it. And to really just be like, wow, this is different. This is special. And she's just been an amazing person in my life. I mean, that continued all the way to my last film, a good person when she was running MGM

and she was the main person who said, I want to make this at MGM. She's just been one of the biggest champions of my whole career. And so she got it and she brought it. She was the president of production then, but the partners of Jersey films at the time were Stacey Schur, Danny DeVito, Michael Schamburg, and also on staff there was Rich Kleubek, who's now an agent at UTA, I believe. And so they all became my producers. And then when Natalie said yes, we still didn't have any money. We just had producers who believed in it.

And I had thought Natalie saying yes would have made it 100% a go film, but it didn't by any means. That's crazy. I mean, she was coming off of at this point, Phantom Menace and at least Phantom Menace, right? if not that and attack of the clones, that you would think that that would sort of be the skeleton key at that point. I think I could be wrong, but I feel like there was, there's less so now,

but I think that maybe there was more anxiety about someone who'd never directed something before. Perhaps. And also the script, you know, it certainly wasn't a traditional script. It was different. I didn't really write thinking of a three-act structure in any kind of way. You know, where the third act should go, they all of a sudden just go on a quest for a missing piece of jewelry that he's never heard about. I did not use any sort of outline or structure. I just wrote what I thought was a good story.

And, you know, when people read scripts, especially executives, they're looking to see if you hit all those bullet points. On page 30, did they, quote, unquote, enter the new world. So I don't know, I'm just making up reasons this many years later, but there weren't, there wasn't anyone who was going to pay for it. And did you ever consider, because I've been in those meetings with the script where it's, hey, would you consider having somebody else direct it? You know what I mean? Like that kind of there's sometimes that angle of like, well, we could get a more established person in here. Is that something that ever came up in the process? Or was it just like, no, you know what, we've locked arms around Zach. We're moving forward with Zach and we're just going to figure it out.

Well, I would have never let that happen. I mean, I would have been like, I would have been like, Stallone and Rocky. I was not going to let that happen. I, you know, this was my, this was my baby. This was so personal to me. And I just never would have given it away to anybody. Also, you know, I always say, like, you know, do aspiring actors and filmmakers out there, like, no one's going to give me that script. I'm never going to get a hold of a script that's good that I'm proud of unless I write it. As an actor, I've said this a thousand times.

I never would have gotten that part if I hadn't written it. I mean, it would have gone to so many people before me. So I wasn't going to relinquish control of it because having a good script is the most important, powerful thing in Hollywood. Controlling a good script is the keys to the castle in Hollywood. Yeah, that's such a good lesson. As somebody who sort of started out in acting, I think you find very quickly that you have so little sort of control over your career and trajectory unless you start making your own content and work. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if your listeners take nothing else from this, it's the only way to have any power at all in the world of filmmaking is to control a great piece of property. Otherwise, it's just a complete role of dice, everything, especially being an actor. I mean, I can't tell you now that I'm directing how many people come in and they're amazing, they audition, they're amazing. They're incredible. We can't cast them because they look too much like the other woman we've already cast, or they

don't look like so-and-so's daughter or or X, Y, Z reasons, but they crush the audition. It's just such a roll of dice getting apart. It's so, and it could be like I was in a shitty mood the day that so-and-so auditioned. And then when the other person auditioned, we had just been belly laughing and we were so silly. And oh, my God, they made us laugh. I mean, there's just so many variables. It's so ridiculous that anyone ever gets apart. Yeah, seriously.

But when you, yeah, I mean, I've been also, I mean, when I'm directing TV, the amount of people weighing in on, you can't believe, I mean, people's kids are weighing in. They're like, you know, my teenagers really loved Sam, you know,

but my mom loved Karen. And it's like, you can't believe how many people are weighing in on, it's just such a fucking lottery getting chosen. But so the real key, and I knew this at an early age, was to control something

that was good. Totally. So you've got a good script. You've got, it sounds like Pam on board, Jersey films on board at this point, but you said it. You don't have any money. So. Yeah, no money. So how did you, how did you get the money? And how and why did it come from Rocket Mortgage co-founder Gary Gilbert? Yeah, this is kind of crazy story. But to sum it up, no one wanted to pay for it. The budget and the initial plan was about $6 million or so. And we went around, and I think there was only one, they called the mini-majors at the time. Let's just say it was a mini-major that wanted to, they wanted an equity partner, which means they wanted someone to come in with money and split it with them.

And at the time, Gary Gilbert, he and his brother, Dan, created Rocket Mortgage. And sorry, it's Quicken Loans now. They were bought by Quicken Loans. and they were amazing guys. Their father owned a bar. They're completely self-made. They created this company and killed it. He was young, right?

Yeah, I mean, it was incredible what they did. And then Gary was like, you know, wanted to get out of the mortgage business because he always dreamed about producing movies. So he came to town and he was being escorted around Hollywood by a guy named Dan Halstead, who was introducing him to the world of movie producing. and he was sort of taking meetings and looking at what he wanted to invest in. So he came to the meeting with this mini-major to sort of see what the deal was. And I remember that we came out of the meeting and in the parking lot, he said, you know, I don't know anything about film financing, but this seems like the stupidest deal in the world.

Like, I split it with them, but they recoup first. Like, why would I do that? And again, I'm just, I just know. the mortgage business, but this Hollywood film financing business is ridiculous. It seems so stupid to me. And we were all kind of laughing. And there was a pause and he went, is there any way you can make this movie for like $3 million? Because if so, I'll just pay for the whole thing myself. Wow. And we were like, give us a second. And we huddled up. And over the course of however long, we sort of rethought how to make the movie for what ended up being, I think, 2.75 million.

And that's what literally happened. Gary paid for the entire thing himself. Wow. And then when it went to Sundance, I think it sold for five or five and a half. And so he made a good bet. And then, of course, it went on to make a whole lot of money. And he owned most of the movie, of course. So he made a really good bet on me.

And so the other advantage I'm guessing is that you get to retain a lot of creative control as well as opposed to working with the studio. So, you know, Final Cut. Absolutely. I had directors. I had Final Cut. Well, I had Final Cut in a sense that I know, I don't know if it was official final cut. It was Final Cut like with Jersey films, you know, with Danny DeVito and his partners, Stacey Sharon. They were technically had Final Cut, but they weren't going to take it away from me. And I was very collaborative because, you know, the film had a rare sale at Sundance to both Miramax and Searchlight. There was there was that thrilling moment where, you realize there's a bidding war for your movie at Sundance,

which is a once-in-a-lifetime thrilling opportunity, and one I'd always dreamt of and read about, and it was happening to me. And then they decided to just, they both wanted it, so they stopped their bidding war and said, Miramax said, we'll take international,

you take domestic. So it was, I think one of the first times that had ever happened. And I don't think, I don't know that it happens very often, But Searchlight took Domestic and Miramax took Foreign on the film. So let's go back. You've just had a huge win.

You get the money. You get the control. But you have to cut the budget by over 50%. Yeah. And so how do you scale a $6 million movie to $2.5 million? And then, you know what I mean? Figure out you always want more days. You always need more time.

On this podcast, we've talked about, you know, the shining 167 days, I want to say, it shot. And I'm guessing, you know, 25 or so for Garden State. No matter what happens, it's always 25 days. I have this funny, I have a Russian friend who's a really, really successful line producer here in New York. And he's so scrappy. And I always ask him, oh, I actually pay him or his people to his crew to give me just initial budgets and initial schedules. And he's always like, it's going to be 25 days. No matter what I hand them.

He's like, yeah, this is 25 days. It's just sort of this, you know, it's five, five day weeks. It's sort of the standard indie schedule. Basically, you know, you know, it's your footprint. It's the size of the crew. It's everyone becoming a local hire. Not flying or traveling really anybody. Shooting in a place that has a tax rebate.

It's, you know, Pam Abdi was like staying on her parents' couch and using their car. I mean, any and every little shortcut you can take to make it happen. have to, obviously, it goes without saying, hire a scrappy crew that's going to be like, I can figure it out. And these department heads have all become pretty much some of the top people in their game.

I mean, Michael Wilkinson is certainly the top costume designer in the world, if not one of five. Larry Scher is certainly one of the top cinematographers in the world. Judy Becker, I can't even hire anymore production designer. But these were all people at the beginning of their career. And Myron Kirstein, he was blown up. He just cut

wicked. Oh, wow. So I got all these people at the beginning. I mean, I believed in them because I saw their talent, but no one's taking any sort of fancy rate. It's just a very scrappy production. And you only, and it really comes out of the director knowing exactly pretty much how you're going to cut it, because you don't have time for extra stuff. Although I did cut a lot out of Garden State. I cut a whole storyline out and I, you know, my assembly was like three hours long. So you still have to figure out what is the movie, what is the two-hour movie inside of the giant three-hour thing to assemble? But it does help to, I've gotten better at this now, especially with TV when I direct shrinking, for example, and shoot an episode in six days.

You really got to know what you're going to use because you can't be spending hours on a master that's going to be on screen for a second, you know. What was the storyline? What's the whole storyline that you cut? So, when I was growing up, my mom had four kids and was getting her PhD, and my father was a trial attorney. And so they obviously needed help. And we had a Haitian nanny, babysitter nanny. And she said to my mom, I'd love to work for your family, but I have a young daughter. So she'd have to be around a lot. And my parents said, of course, that's wonderful. That's great. So I grew up with this sort of a, I don't know, another sister that was my Haitian nanny's daughter. And so I wove that in the story.

When Large came home, there was a character that was this, you know, Haitian American young woman who was like a surrogate sister to him. And she worked at the local rescue squad on the ambulance crew. And there was a subplot about their friendship and was played by Ange New Ellis. Oh, wow. And she was wonderful and the whole arc was beautiful. But the movie was so long that, you know, when you first start to go, oh, shit, how are we going to cut this movie down? There was such a clear lift. So that was like my first time having to tell someone like, hey, I have to pull you out of the film.

It didn't really intersect the other story very much. So it was a clean lift. And there were other other other storylines too that's the biggest one but there were other storylines too that got that got lifted including a big reveal at the end of the movie that I had to pull out

for other reasons too. Can you share the big reveal that was pulled? Yeah it's kind of fucked up but what happened was so the movie used to if you recall you know the idea is that Larges Mother has been so depressed

and suicidal and and doesn't really want to live anymore and the very end of the movie when large left to go on the plane it then cut back to a flashback of the night

the mom drowned in the bathtub and you hear her flailing and you actually saw footage of her flailing in the tub and screaming and then you see Ian Holm run to the doorway of the bathroom and then put his hand on the doorjam and stop

himself as he decides whether or not he's going to allow his wife to go since she wants to go so badly. Oh my God. And as he's deciding whether or not he should basically agree to euthanasia in a sense, uh, she stops flailing. and then you see him slowly go and sit back down on his bed and he picks up the phone and he says, I need an ambulance.

He calls 911. Wow. And then it cut back to Large running back to Sam. So it was really, really, really, really powerful, but it totally hijacked the end of the movie because it was so upsetting. It's hard to go back to like a love story kiss at that moment. Exactly.

And, you know, it's funny for a long time, it was in the movie and that cut didn't make it to Sundance. But the biggest feedback I was getting was from Jersey films saying you have to take that out. It's too, it's so fucked up and it's hijacking the other movie. And I finally showed Bill Lawrence, who's always been a mentor, mine, you know, created scrubs and shrinking in Ted Lasso. And I remember I just bought a house and I had no furniture in the house. All I had was the avid in the living room and a couch. That's where we were cutting the movie.

Talk about ways you're saving money. You don't pay for a post facility. And I remember he came over and he said, you can't see this now. But that's the most powerful scene in your movie. And it will never be in your movie. Oh, wow. And I eventually realized he was right and I pulled it all.

And no one ever saw it. That is so hard. I also have to say having, you know, this came out when I was 15, and I remember being so emotionally attached to the love story between you and Natalie Portman's character. Watching it as an adult, it's the relationship between you and Ian Holm that just like, it hit me so hard.

It's so good. Thank you. That means a lot to me. I think when I set out to write the film, I thought it was a movie about a guy who comes home and in feeling love for the first time. from someone is able to move forward with his father. But then the film that I made in the film that,

because you never know what you got until you get into the avid. It's like I always say it's like a scavenger hunt. You go out, you collect all that you can collect in 25 days, and then you bring it all back to your house, and you're like, what the fuck that I get? You don't know. And I wish I was here, which I wrote with my brother,

that was even a bigger example of changing. what we had written because, you know, Joey King, who's become such a phenomenon now, but she was such a star that the camera couldn't take its eyes off of her. So I really restructured that film to be more about the relationship between my character and Joey King's character because she just was stealing the movie left and right. But in this case, when we were done cutting it, Natalie Portman is Natalie Portman, and we had great chemistry. And, yeah, it became clear that it was a love story.

Well, we are called What Went Wrong? So I do have to ask, in terms of your 25 days of production, what went wrong? You broke a lot of rules. You shot with multiple animals. You shot on water. You shot with motorcycles. You shot with a flaming bow and arrow. So tell us what happened.

What went awry? And we shot film. Remember when you could shoot film? Yeah. Yeah. And I never shot film again. Yeah, exactly. I always try and shoot film every movie.

And on a 25-day schedule, they're usually like, oh, that's like an extra $300,000. Would you like more days? Would you like a myriad of other things? And you're like, okay, fine. What went wrong? I remember that the second day of shooting was the ecstasy party scene, which we shot over the course of a full day.

Wow. And then I remember coming out of that, Natalie hadn't started yet. We were doing the first couple days without her. And when I surfaced after doing the ecstasy party scene for a full day, I ran into Pam and they brought me into a trailer and said, Natalie's had a family emergency. And so we have to just throw the entire schedule out the window.

So the whole... Oh, no. On the second day? Yeah. The whole schedule, we have been prepping for, you know, eight weeks. was basically, you know, useless because Natalie had to go to attend to a family emergency. So that was really crazy. And I remember, you know, just I had such amazing producers that Pam figured it all out.

And a lot of times these things can be a blessing in disguise because I wanted Dennis O'Hare so badly for that role of the guy in the quarry. And his availability wasn't, didn't line up. And I remember when we threw the schedule out, I was like, wait, this might mean we can at Dennis O'Hare now. And Pam was like, that's the spirit. But yeah, I mean, that's the first thing that came to mind. I just remember it being so, it felt so daunting and impossible to try and get all that we got in 25 days. The motorcycle never worked. We had two of them. They were kits. We had found a company that made these motorcycle kits because we needed two identical. And so if you're going to get a real antique, you're not going to find.

two identical. So we had found this company that made them as a kit. And so we were able to have two of them. And yet they never worked. So one thing we realized is that we had to have a full-time motorcycle mechanic on our crew. So that was what was one luxury we had to afford. And so there was a full-time motorcycle mechanic on every time the motorcycle worked because it never would start. What about getting the dog to hump your leg? Like I just like directing animals, dealing with animals. Was there anything in that? Yeah, the harder dog was the dog that masturbated, the French bulldog that masturbated. That was a funny story because that wasn't written into the movie, but my buddy, Peter Shapiro was such a character. He told me,

he goes, I don't know what your movie's about. But you got to see this dog. The dog just masturbates. It just sits there and masturbates. And it's the funniest fucking thing you've ever seen. So he showed me video of the Frenchie just sitting there masturbating. And I was like, I don't know where this is going to go, but this has to go on the film. And so in that scene in the house, we, you know, we shot our reaction to it, you know, when Natalie and I are looking at it. And then what we had to do was we had two cameras and we took the other camera outside, I think to shoot the pet cemetery scene, if I recall. And then we left a cameraman in there because he wouldn't just, the dog wouldn't do it on

cue. It was just when he was feeling it, you know? So this was not a professional dog. No. No, this dog was solely in the movie because my buddy was like, I have no idea what your movie's about, but you need to put this dog in your movie. And I saw the video of the Frenchy masturbating. I was like, you're right.

I don't know where that goes either, but that's going in the movie. And then I thought, well, it's perfect for Natalie's house with all the animals. So we got like a cordoned off area. Because the dog, you know, on a set, the dog wasn't really feeling in a masturbatory mood. There was a lot of stimuli going on.

And so we did this like cordoned off area and left a cameraman in there to just wait for it to happen. So his job is just to like hit roll as soon as it happened. Just have your finger on the trigger and wait until he starts fucking masturbating. And make sure he's in focus. Exactly. And he did. Like two hours later, he came out and lit a cigarette and he's like, I got it. The dog who humped my leg had been trained.

I think we went and searched, I don't know how they found it. We put out a, you know, the trainers can put out a, I don't know, like a Batman call sign. Yeah, it was like an APB. An APB Batman call sign in the sky for a dog that can hump on cue. And this dog, when I needed a dog that could be believably be a seeing eye dog and he had to be able to hump on cue. And I remember his cue, it's so funny, his cue to hump my leg was love him up, love him up. Oh, no. That's worse somehow. It's so weird. Yeah, I was going to say. Jane Hudishel, who was the actress playing that tiny part, and she's

become a big actress, especially a Broadway actress I just saw her in Uncle Vanya. But anyway, Natalie and I could not stop laughing because having the dog, having the trainer go, love him up, love him up. Love them up. And then we had to act like deadpan about it. And then she goes, here comes the lipstick. I got to ask quickly. Directing yourself, what is that like?

Any insight you can give, it sounds so horrifying to me. The idea of having to consider my own performance when I'm directing. I'm just curious what that experience was like. You obviously come from an acting background. You worked with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery and other, you know, Greg Berlanti, Broken Hearts Club. Like, I'm curious what that experience was like behind the camera, but also in front of the camera.

The best thing I can say to people that want to do it is, you know, the most important thing, and you know this, Chris, is that you, the director and your lead are on the same page. Because if that baseline isn't there, that the director and the lead are making the same movie and are in the same tone and want the same things, then the movie's going to be a disaster. So in a lot of ways, I always felt like I had that most stressful, hard thing removed. I didn't have to communicate with my lead

and get on the same page and steer him or her when it felt wrong. You know what I mean? Because when the lead isn't doing what you want them to do, it takes a lot of time and a lot of stress. And so I had to remove all that because I was clearly on the same page with myself, you have to have playback,

but you also have to not abuse playback. You can't just go check every take you're in. There's no way you'll make your day. So what I would do often is, if the camera's not on me, I would check the lineup of the shot, so I know what the shot is, and of course I'm trusting Larry Sher,

he's genius, and then I'm watching the performance. So I don't necessarily need to go watch other people's coverage because I'm in the scene watching it. And another good thing is that I can steer their performance. So if I want now, or whomever to be angrier at me, then what I'm giving them is inciting that.

If I want the scene to be more playful, I switch who I'm being. And a good actor will always respond appropriately to how I've switched my way of being. When it gets to my own coverage, let's say a single of me or over Natalie's shoulder, I would do a bunch in a row and then just kind of go,

I think that last one felt the best. Let me go look at it. I wouldn't go look at all five if I had done five versions, I would look at the last take. Sometimes you need to go look if it's a big crane move and you're in the shot.

You kind of want to see, like, did you nail the crane move how I imagined it? So you have to go look at those. My point is you have to be really judicious and choose when you're going to look at playback because otherwise you'll just eat the whole day with playback. But it's very, very hard.

The hardest part about it is all the stress of production on your shoulders while trying to perform. And I didn't really know that until I stopped doing it. And I was like, this is crazy because at lunch they come to you the producers come to you and they tell you all of this

no one's coming to you with good news ever ever they're only coming to you with problems no one's ever coming to you as a director and whispering in your ear good news they're only going like hey we have to talk about the teamsters for tomorrow they can't find the

we can't have a good base camp because of this reason and they're going to be in overtime And so you really kind of have to wrap like now. I had a fun one where the producers came up to me and they said, Black Panther hired the construction crew away. So we're going to need to find your construction workers. It's always like that. It's always like, hey, so-and-so has COVID.

Oh, no. And so that's the hardest part is to perform when you have all of this anxiety about the schedule, about all the behind. I always think of directing like, I'm throwing a wedding, and I don't want any of the guests who are the cast members, and really the crew, for the most part, the production crew, to know about any of the drama. We're the wedding planners. We know all the drama. We know that we can't go past 10 hours today. We know that that neighbor wants $5,000 or they're going to call the police. We know all the drama. But I want the actors to be as present as possible

and not worried about anything so that they're giving their best performance. And the same thing with the crew. You just want everyone as present and happy as possible. So to be then acting in it when you have so much weight on your shoulders is very, very hard. Now when I just direct, which I've been doing more of than being in the things, it's easier to not have to go and perform. And then, of course, when I just act, I'm like, I can't believe this. You guys are going to, I'm going to go back to my trailer,

and you guys are going to worry about all this shit. And all I have to do is go back to my trailer and need a sandwich. This feels like, this feels too good to be true. And because I'm a director, I clock the drama. I'm like, oh, my God, you have to deal with A, B, C, D, and E and F. I'll be in my trailer. Bye. Amazing.

Well, we have to talk about the soundtrack of this movie because it is one of the most famous soundtracks of all time. Grammy winning. Grammy winning, yes. Yeah. And it went platinum, too. Mm-hmm. I mean, I had it.

Everybody I knew had it. I remember. The Shins literally changed my life. Like, that scene, I just remember thinking, like, I heard that song. I was like, what the fuck is this new slang? This is amazing. Yes. So formative.

Yeah. How did you pull that off? I mean, obviously there were indie bands like the Shins on there who I think had not blown up by the time. But you also had Simon and Garfunkel and Coldplay and Nick Drake. and you had $2.5 million. So how did you do this? It was the ultimate example in not taking no for an answer. I mean, I had them all in the avid in my cut,

and everyone was telling me, you're never going to get these bands. So you're doing yourself such a disservice because you're going to have temp love for all these bands. You're not able to get any of them. And really quick, Zach, just for audience, temp love, you put something in musically,

works really well with the scene, you fall in love with it, and then the scene never, works with anything else, right? Yeah. Kind of layman's explanation. Yeah, well, you know, obviously when you're cutting in your house, you can put any song in you want.

You can put in Zeppelin if you want. It's just you're not going to get it when it comes time to pay for it. So I had really been told by anyone and everyone, I wasn't getting to get any of those songs. So what happened was we just

started, I just didn't take no for an answer, and we just started chopping away at it. I had the help of Amanda Demi, who was the one negotiating the deals. And I think our best asset was being able to show the artists or their managers how the movie. And I think that people just loved the movie. And we didn't have much to offer them. We could offer them back end money, meaning if the soundtrack ever made money. But this was at the time, that was ludicrous. Like, soundtracks didn't usually make money. This one went on to make a lot of money for those artists, which was amazing because they actually did make money off of it.

But, you know, little by little, they just started saying yes when we showed them the film. And I remember Paul Simon's managers being in the screening room at CAA and seeing one of them like swipe a tear when we showed them that moment in the quarry. And, you know, I think if I'm not mistaken, I think that we were able to get festival rights for the music, which is just like a allows you to. show it at a festival. And then I, if I'm not mistaken, and then I think when it had sold

to Searchlight and Miramax, we may have had a little bit more money to pay them. I could be wrong about that, but that's so long ago. That's how I think I remember it. You know, the shins weren't a big band yet, you know? And Coldplay was breaking, of course, huge, but they weren't, you know, as big as they have become.

Right, that's true. And, you know, that was their first album, Parachutes. And yeah, that's how it happened. And I really have to credit Myron Kirstein, my editor, who's the one who placed it all. I mean, I just assembled a massive list of music that I loved and with the help of my friends, Kerry Brothers, and others. And it was really Myron who helped me place all that music. You know, because you can have the greatest song in the world, but if it isn't placed right,

you don't get the goosebumps and the hair. That's my barometer is, you know, when I'm cutting movie, and you can have a song you can't stop listening to over and over and over and over again. And then you put it to a scene, like, there's no alchemy at all. And then your editor's like, yeah, but you also had this song, so I cut it to this. And then every hair on your arm stands on end. And you're like, okay, that works. Was there anything that you wanted that you weren't able to get? Yeah, Fiona Apple, paper bag.

Oh, wow. I love that song. Where would that have gone? I forgot where it went, but her manager was just, I remember Mada Demi being like, I cannot call this man again. He's so aggressively no. Oh, no. And I was like, but Amanda, we got everyone.

We got everyone. We can't give up. We have to win, win. He's like, I am not calling that man again. He is awful. Please don't do this to me. And again, I want to be clear that I don't, for all I knew, Fiona Apple never had any clue that was happening. But her manager was not amenable to the concept.

And, but I actually ended up using the song in the last kiss, I think, because I just, I was like, I love this song so much. I got to find a home for it. And I think they had more money when we made the last kiss. Because he was just saying, everyone was doing a deal, obviously, saying, like, we don't have the upfront money, but here's back-end participation. And he was like, no way. Wow. Speaking of back-end participation, so obviously the album went platinum. And then the movie, which released six months or so after Sundance in 2004, went on kind of a crazy run considering its budget.

I mean, it ended at over $35 million worldwide. That's over 10x its budget, over seven times its sale price at Sundance. So everyone from Gary Gilbert to Miramax, I'm sure, did very well. But it started, I think, on a more limited release and then grew from there. So I'm guessing there was some word of mouth. At what point are you like, holy shit, there's a hit on our hands with this movie. I mean, this was back in the day when you could really platform a movie. It's kind of been kind of a strategy that's phasing out.

You know, keep in mind, for those of you, listeners who maybe weren't old enough to go to the theaters then or this movie was before their time, you know, if you loved movies, you went to see the movies that were the big talk of Sundance. I mean, that was what we did. We wanted to see everything that was the big talk of Sundance. Sundance was sort of a hitmaker. And this had been a big talk of Sundance. And so it really, they platformed it, meaning they started New York and L.A. And then it just kept going and going and going. And, you know, I remember in Union Square, there used to be a Virgin Megastore. And around the corner, there's an AMC on 13th Street. And so many people were at this very hot market in the middle of downtown New York were going around the corner at the end of the movie to buy the soundtrack, that they put this big cardboard sign in the soundtrack section at the Virgin. in Megastore that said, we do not have the Garden State soundtrack.

Please do not ask us. Wow. I was actually going to buy more copies at a different location and bring it over to that one for people. So it just kind of really just took off in a way that nobody had ever predicted it would. I mean, not even the studios ever thought it was going to be. I remember Peter Rice, who was the head of Searchlight at the time, telling me, like, we're not going to submit it for any awards, which I don't know that I was expecting it to be awards bait,

and also Natalie had another movie that year... Oh, closer, right? Closer, yeah. So I knew that her sort of awards campaigning was going to go to closer because, you know, it's Mike Nichols and, you know, it was a holy, you know, one of those bigger, much, much more of an awards contender kind of movie.

But I think I was bummed and humbled a bit when Searchlight told me they weren't going to put any effort into any sort of awards for the movie at all. And then without them having put in a dime, I was nominated for a Writers Guild Award. I won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. I won the National Board of Review and other things. But I was all without Searchlight doing a thing. Wow. And then the Grammy, of course. Yeah.

But it was such a grassroots. I remember it was around the time. There were movies that were word of mouth. Donnie Darko is a big one that came to mind when I was in high school. And Garden State. It's like, have you seen Garden State? Have you listened to the soundtrack? That was the question.

I'm curious how you landed on Garden State, if we can bring it full circle to Larges Arc being the name that was left behind. Because Garden State is such a great example of it gives nothing away, but it weirdly evokes a feeling that feels specific to the movie. I don't know. I think we realized that no one could... Larges-Arge'sark was confusing to everybody, and no one really knew what that meant,

and so that had to go. I think we just threw a lot of titles up on the whiteboard. I don't remember who came up with Garden State. Obviously, for those that don't know, it's New Jersey's, you know... What do they call that? Your state slogan or whatever? So...

And it just kind of had a nice double entendre with sort of a state of mind, like your garden, you know, growing, growing a garden state. It just sounded cool, really. I mean, I don't know how it, we just knew that we had to get rid of Larges Arc because we had test audiences and, oh, it made it that far. Oh, yeah, dude, we did test audiences. That's such a trip when you do focus groups. And I had never been through any of that.

And we did a big test screening that went really well. Now, you would never put an actor in a movie in a test screening because the thing Chris is shaking his head because, you know, people are going to say not nice things and you would never want the actor to hear them. And so you would never bring them to a test screening focus group. But I had to be there because I'm the writer, director, producer, star. So I'll never forget. We did the screening and big screening, maybe, I don't know, 300 people or maybe more. And then what they traditionally do is they then get rid of everybody but about 20 people and keep them, bring them to the front row in the movie theater. It's so uncomfortable.

It's so cringe. And you do a focus group. And all the creators, people are involved, sit, you know, 20 rows back and they listen. And the focus group is not really, they don't really, they're not really aware of the 20 people behind them sitting and listening. They're being led by a focus group leader. And I remember I had a baseball hat low just so I could just, you know, you know, you. You also don't want to soil the test sample. You don't want yes, men who are aware of the filmmakers.

But I'll never forget a woman goes, kudos to Zach Graf for pulling this off. I just don't find him attractive. But maybe like the best validation you could ever receive. Like, you know, I almost feel like if I showed a movie and they were like, fuck that Chris guy, but this was pretty good. You know, I'd be like, okay. I love the G.

She said kudos. I'll never forget kudos to Zach Brat for pulling this off. I just don't find him. I'm trying to. Wait, sorry. Do you think she knows, did she ever find out that you were in the room, or do you think she was oblivious for the entire time? She was definitely oblivious when she said that. If someone whispered it to her on the way out, I have no idea. Because I do remember another woman turning her on and clocking me and me like, I do. I find he very attractive. If that, I bet she's never forgotten that for the rest of her life, if she did find out you were in there. It's amazing. Yeah, she's on a podcast somewhere else talking about that. Absolutely. And then there was another one.

I haven't done this since. I've done that kind of focus group and test audience for everything I've done. But for some reason, and this one, when we did on the other side of the glass, you know, and there's like a, you know, like you've seen in movies or where 12 people sitting around a table and asking them questions. And that was really bizarre because, you know, I'm on one side of the glass and literally there's a guy on the other side of the guy's four feet from me, and he doesn't know that I'm there. And there's talking openly about the movie and the title and why they don't like the title.

It's just all surreal. But it's also very helpful. I mean, I'm very pro testing, even though it can go awry if you have executives that are too reliant on it. But if you have good executives who are like, well, what's the tenor of what they're saying? Like, what's the, in the macro, what is the theme? of what they're trying to articulate, not exactly the specific thing. Particularly in comedy,

it's very helpful to know when people are laughing. If you have a joke that's just dead on its feet, you know it. Gary Marshall, by the way, has a great autobiography. I recommend get the audiobook so you can listen to him, read it because he is such a character. But he talks about how he would test things to death

because he looked at it like a play, like doing previews, so you can fine-tune every single joke. And so if they're cracking up at that joke, they're not laughing over the next setup for the next joke. And I really think the testing, even with my last film, a good person, we had a great test. But there was one thing, the audience was really,

it was so clear that they wanted one question answered. And it didn't affect me at all. I was like, wow, they're so obsessed with that question. Let's just answer it for them. And it wasn't something that even bothered me, you know. But so it's helpful. So I want to ask sort of about, the legacy of this movie.

And because, you know, a few years post-release, we obviously saw a shift in the way that Natalie's character was received. Yeah. I don't really know. Maybe you guys can explain to me why that is. I don't really know. I mean, I of course

have heard and read the criticism. But I don't really understand why Natalie in particular or the quote-unquote manic pixie dream girl was was picked out. I think maybe because there was a feeling

that it inspired a slew of movies with, I mean, is that it? You guys have probably read more about it than I have. Yeah, it seems like there was a run because Elizabeth Town is when it was coined. It wasn't off of Garden State. I think there's a bit of a Berenstein Bearer's false memory. Oh, really? I didn't even know that.

Yeah. So it came up like three or four years later with Elizabeth Town, and then you had 500 days of summer, which actually used, it turned the headphone moment into a trope when she puts the smiths on Joseph Gordon Levitt. So it actually, it's kind of a series of copycats, if that makes sense. And then all of a sudden, an archetype is born in a way, you know. Sorry, Lizzie, I didn't mean to interrupt your... Well, no, I was just going to say I read an interview that you did pretty recently where you sort of crystallized for me. It made so much sense why you...

wrote that character the way that you did. I think you said that like she was a fantasy for you. Like it, it was a fantasy that a woman would come along and sort of lift you out of depression, which that to Chris's point then sort of does become this manic pixie dream girl trope. But I guess my question is, has the discourse around it changed the way that you would write or direct female characters? Or did it just come from a very pure place and that you're always that's always what you're going to have to pull things from. No, I mean, I think if you look at a good person, there's nothing very manic pixie dream girl about Florence Pugh in the good person.

No. I was sort of blindsided by it because I, yeah, first of all, I was in my early 20s writing my fantasy. Right. I was very depressed and I was writing this fantasy that I would fall in love and the person I fell in love with would save me. I also, you know, if there's two big films that impacted my life the most, it would be Annie Hall and Harold and Maude. Those are sort of films I was raised on. And I think in both of those films, they were women who were so funny and silly and carefree and sort of archetypes for when inspired Sam, that she was silly and that she was funny and that she brought a new way to be into a protagonist's life.

I, of course, didn't mean to make any to offend people. I think I was really taken aback by the criticism. I wasn't really fully aware of Elizabeth Town and 500 days of summer, and that this sort of had become a trope. Well, it's interesting, too, because there was an interview with Natalie Portman, actually at the time, where she spoke of what drew her to the part. I'll read the quote. Sam's just a really funny girl.

Most parts for women, especially romantic parts, written by guys, are some weird idea of what a guy would want a girl to be. Like, she's hot. She takes off her clothes a lot, and she also really likes sports. And this is a real person who's got problems, and she's funny, and she's just as interesting and complex as the male character, and I appreciate that. So it is, it's also interesting that the discourse didn't really take into account

Natalie Portman's own reasons, you know what I mean, for being drawn to the role at the time. And also, I think, like, you know, Sam is a pretty complex character. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I agree that she's solely drawn to, to be a fantasy for for Andrew. But, you know, that's how way criticism works, guys. I mean, this is a podcast about making movies, right?

So you don't, you can't control the interpretation. You can hope that people get what you were trying to say, but people receive stories very differently from their own experience. And one can't invalidate any audience members' take on a film. So for those that were riled up by, Natalie Portman's performance in this movie, I apologize. But I don't know what else to say. I don't think you need to apologize.

No, not for anything. It remains. I just rewatched it with my wife last night because she was a huge fan. You know, that's a major part of filmmaking is that, and Chris, you've lived this. You can only do your best and put stuff out there. And then the world weighs in on it, you know? And it's such a lucky position to be able to make movies. we have to be those who those of us who get to do it occasionally have to be so grateful and and part of that

agreement part of that exchange is that people are going to have passionate opinions for or against what you made absolutely i do think it's interesting that it was not the initial reaction that it is something that built built over time and i it just seems you know the sort of the changing tastes and the changing especially with social media like the way that we view things um as a group changes so much. It's just an interesting sort of movie history. I wonder if there's other films that have experienced sort of a temperature change like that.

Oh, it's endless, I think. I think that's part of the most difficult thing about making movies is that you... That's actually why you should never chase a moment, if that makes sense. Like, you can only make what feels honest to yourself at any given point in time, because the world may change that you put it into,

and then the world will change as it continues to exist in the wild, and you no longer have any control over it either. You know, I think David Lynch, whenever he's interviewed about his movies, kind of about his interpretations or his thoughts on the films, often replies with, well, the movie was me saying my piece, and now you guys get to go, you know, talk about it. Yeah. And I think that you're exactly right, Zach, that, like,

the covenant that you make with the audience is, this is me. and as long as you're having a fair and honest discussion about it, you know, everything goes at that point. And that's the whole purpose. Yeah, I mean, that's what you can't be too precious about as a filmmaker, as much as it hurts sometimes. You, you know, you were lucky enough to scream your opinions from the rooftops, and now people are going to scream back at you what they think.

I mean, I find it great. I don't often read reviews even of other people's things, but occasionally I do, when I see someone getting eviscerated and I feel so bad for them and feel so much empathy because I've been there. And I don't always fully understand the ad hominem and anger level of the attack sometimes. But it's just a part of the discourse. And if there's people listening to this who aspire to make movies, that's part of the agreement that you get to make stuff. And then people are going to love it or hate it.

Well, and I hope that that's something that we can do with. this podcast too is you know you talk about how angry people can get if they don't like something like it is important to remember how hard people worked on it and how impossible task it is to make a movie yeah i feel so bad for some people when i mean this like the the the coyote wildly coyote thing so tragic i mean i know that's that's a slightly different example of not necessarily audiences or critiquating it but there's just the studio dumping it gosh it's it's so just so heartbreaking that now that's a part of it too. Yeah.

It's just, yeah, it's so hard to make anything. To end on a slightly more upy note, I have one last question for you, Zach, because it's a directing, acting question. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when you and Ian Holm have your closure at the end of the film. And there's a blocking choice. You put your hand on his chest. Yeah. And it's one of those things that I feel like if I read it in a script, the cynical part of me would say that I don't think that's going to work.

Yeah. And then when I watch it, I get as someone with, you know, fathers, we all have father-son issues, no matter how great our fathers are, there's an intimacy to that physical contact that always causes me to choke up. Yeah. And I'm curious how you literally came to that simple decision of, I'm going to put my hand on his chest, and there's a releasing power to that. I think I just thought, like, in that moment, Ian Holmes' character,

is so vulnerable and large is sort of leading the charge of that scene. And you get the sense that they haven't really had a hug or contact. And so large is sort of shifting everything by being the one who's driving the scene. And there was just something powerful to me about we're not going to hug. But now I'm in a bit more of a dominant position because I'm young and you're getting old. And I don't know, it just felt natural that he would place his hand on his heart to me. It didn't feel weird at the time. It felt like even though this is literally an arm's length away, I'm going to touch you.

And I'm going to touch you in the center of where your emotion is. I don't know. That was the idea. It's a beautiful scene. It works wonderfully. Thank you. Zach, is there anything that we didn't cover? We've kept you too long.

No, it's fine. It's fun to talk about it. It's the 20th anniversary. Yes. It's really fun to talk about. And I thank you guys for the conversation. Thank you. You've been really generous. We appreciate it so much.

I hope people listening, go make movies. We do too. That's largely the idea is to, this is the process, and it's not romantic, but the results can be, and it's very hard. I have a really great book recommendation. Another audiobook I listen to about the whole making of the godfather. It's called Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli. You can obviously read it, but I enjoyed very much the way the guy who read it, read it. And it's just for people who love the podcast, it's a perfect match because it's anything and everything about the insane process it took to make the Godfather.

And if you're going to have a podcast about how hard it is to make movies, when you hear all of the insane stories of how hard it was to get the Godfather made, and how nobody wanted Pacino and how nobody wanted Brando and Francis Fort Coppola could just not get anything past the studio and then the mafia wanted the movie shut down. It's the ultimate example of everything going wrong. And it happens to be one of the most famous beloved movies of all time. I know. We got to do it. We will do it.

We've put it off because it's such a daunting task, actually, to cover it. Well, you should first listen to the book. Yeah. Guys, of course, you can listen to Zach on Fake Doctors Real Friends. Yeah. Watch a good person. If you haven't seen it. Watch a good person. Watch a good person. Morgan Freeman, Florence Pew, Molly Shannon.

That's anywhere you rent movies. It's great. And then that's it. I'm in a new show coming out in August called Bad Monkey as an actor that's on Apple Plus with Vince Fawn and Michelle Monaghan and lots of other talented people. Nice. We'll keep an eye out for it. All right, guys. Thank you so much, Sack.

Thank you. That does it for our coverage on Garden State folks. Make sure to tune back in next time for a film that we've been putting off and yet feels more timely than ever, Jeeley. Really? Jeeley was selected as a result of a poll through our Patreon. If you're interested in more actively supporting the podcast, would like to vote on future episodes, or get an ad-free RSS feed, head to www.com slash what went wrong podcast to sign up. You can also join our full-stop tier to get a shout-out at the end of the show just like this.

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and check out our website at what went wrongpod.com What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer editing music by David Bowman Additional research for this episode provided by Sarah Bound