Speaker 1: Pushkin, Happy birthday to me.
Speaker 2: It was your birthday.
Speaker 3: It was your birthday last week, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: That's kind of why I was phoning. I.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, buddy.
Speaker 1: It lose to something when you have to call a
Speaker 1: week later to receive to get your own your own
Speaker 1: birthday wish from someone you know, it hurts.
Speaker 3: Okay, Honestly, I feel like your birthdays is that important
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 4: Am I wrong?
Speaker 1: Well, it's not as important to me as the first
Speaker 1: night of Kanka and the second night, not the third night.
Speaker 1: I hate the third night. You know what, As a
Speaker 1: birthday present to myself, I'm going to hang up on you.
Speaker 1: Happy birthday to me indeed from Pushkin Industries. I'm Jonathan Goldstein,
Speaker 1: and this is Heavyweight Today's episode The Messenger right after
Speaker 1: the Break. As a kid growing up in Cleveland, Michael
Speaker 1: loved acting. The only problem I wasn't very good. In fact,
Speaker 1: he stank in every summer camp show. He was placed
Speaker 1: in the back row. In a children's production of The
Speaker 1: Hobbit the Musical. Backstage, a kid dressed as a dwarf
Speaker 1: told Michael, my mom says, you're singing is awful. But
Speaker 1: it didn't stop Michael. He nursed his acting bug all
Speaker 1: the way through senior year, when one day he heard
Speaker 1: about a movie being filmed in Cleveland and the director
Speaker 1: needed lots of teens to be extras. Straight after school,
Speaker 1: Michael made his way to the auditions. He was shown
Speaker 1: into a room with the director and some of the crew.
Speaker 1: They gave him a script and he started acting.
Speaker 5: And their eyes lit up, and I was asked to
Speaker 5: keep reading, and so we did the scene again.
Speaker 1: We did it again and again and again, and all
Speaker 1: the while Michael was overcome by a curious feeling.
Speaker 5: I was doing a good job.
Speaker 1: Had you ever experienced this before, like, been in an
Speaker 1: audition where people were responding this way?
Speaker 5: No, No, I was usually in auditions where they're like,
Speaker 5: we can make him a tree.
Speaker 1: At the end of the audition, the director told Michael
Speaker 1: that he was not going to be an extra. Michael
Speaker 1: was going to be the star of the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Why was he going to be the star of the
Speaker 1: whole movie? Was it his brando esque brooding, his Shia
Speaker 1: la Buffian intensity.
Speaker 5: They showed me the storyboard and I looked exactly like
Speaker 5: the kid in the drawings of the storyboard. That's the
Speaker 5: reason I got it. They were just like you look
Speaker 5: like the kid we drew.
Speaker 1: The film was called The Messenger, based on a true story,
Speaker 1: and the true story it was based on was a
Speaker 1: little known World War II anecdote about a teenager named
Speaker 1: Thomas E. Jones. Jones was a telegram messenger in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: On August fourteenth, nineteen forty five. He was sent to
Speaker 1: deliver the telegram that announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies,
Speaker 1: but on the way to deliver the message, he got
Speaker 1: pulled over for an illegal U turn, and thus the
Speaker 1: end of World War Two was delayed by ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Michael played the role of Thomas as he navigated that
Speaker 1: fateful day.
Speaker 5: I show up to set and I just was immediately
Speaker 5: involved in the magic of film. And they had to
Speaker 5: fake the daylight by putting lights outside the window. And
Speaker 5: I remember being like, Oh, you're not just like capturing
Speaker 5: a moment, You're creating a moment.
Speaker 1: And the custodian of this exciting new world. The director
Speaker 1: of the movie was a twenty five year old wonder
Speaker 1: kid named Quincy. Quincy took to Michael immediately. Throughout the production,
Speaker 1: he check in with Michael on the phone and take
Speaker 1: him out for wings. Michael looked up to Quincy to.
Speaker 5: Meet someone who was orchestrating this giant production and then
Speaker 5: for him to take time talk to me.
Speaker 1: I felt part of Even after filming wrapped, Quincy stayed
Speaker 1: in touch, calling Michael with updates about the movie's release.
Speaker 5: We were going to premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
Speaker 5: I learned that it was a big production, one hundred
Speaker 5: thousand dollars short film, which is a lot of money
Speaker 5: for a short movie. The executive producer was this man
Speaker 5: named Pat.
Speaker 1: Croche Pat pad Pad if you don't know the name.
Speaker 1: Pat Croche was a media presence, an entrepreneur, famous in
Speaker 1: the world of sports because he owned the Philadelphia seventy
Speaker 1: six ers in the late nineties. He was a motivational speaker.
Speaker 2: I get up, I slap my palms together, It's going
Speaker 2: to be a great.
Speaker 1: Day, a noted pirate enthusiast.
Speaker 2: People ask me if I'm a pirate, and I say yes,
Speaker 2: but three hundred years too late.
Speaker 1: And the kind of beloved pre me too, macho man
Speaker 1: who'd show up unannounced on the set of the local
Speaker 1: news just to scoop the anchor woman up into his arms.
Speaker 5: Accident on the jersey term.
Speaker 1: I guess, oh my god, because when you have that
Speaker 1: much joi de vivre, what choice do you have?
Speaker 6: You know, whatever Pat comes in the room, you never
Speaker 6: know what's.
Speaker 5: Gonna happen, rules because Pat crochy, because he's involved. The
Speaker 5: movie gets a lot.
Speaker 1: Of press for a short film by an unknown director.
Speaker 1: The Messenger received an unheard of amount of press. ESPN
Speaker 1: carried a story with footage of Michael on set, and
Speaker 1: there was a huge write up in USA Today. My
Speaker 1: dad was.
Speaker 5: Flying that day. You know, he's in an airport. He
Speaker 5: picks up the USA Today. He flips it open and sees,
Speaker 5: you know, a two page spread with my picture on it.
Speaker 5: So the family's excitement, the friend's excitement. Everyone starts to
Speaker 5: just be like, this is a very big deal.
Speaker 1: Michael was planning on college in the fall, but as
Speaker 1: anticipation around the movie grew, he started to reconsider.
Speaker 5: Leading up to the Philadelphia Film Festival, talking to Quincy,
Speaker 5: He's like, Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This
Speaker 5: is a real chance, this is a real opportunity. This
Speaker 5: is bigger than I imagined. I was like, maybe maybe
Speaker 5: I try and pursue acting.
Speaker 1: Maybe Michael had been wrong all these years everyone had
Speaker 1: been Maybe he really was a good actor, and it
Speaker 1: took Quincy to discover it. Michael couldn't wait to walk
Speaker 1: the red carpet, see himself on the big screen, and
Speaker 1: enjoy a virgin appleteini with Tom Hanks.
Speaker 5: Did your parents come with you to the premiere? Well,
Speaker 5: we didn't make it to the premiere. The movie was canceled.
Speaker 5: So the week before the Philadelphia Film Festival premiere, I
Speaker 5: got a phone call from Quincy and he was clearly crying,
Speaker 5: and he told me that the movie wasn't going to
Speaker 5: come out and nobody was going to see it. Because
Speaker 5: it turns out that Quincy had lied and had told
Speaker 5: a really big lie.
Speaker 1: The lie Michael's referring to had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: his historical anecdote itself. That part was true, But over
Speaker 1: the end credits, Quincy played footage of the actual present
Speaker 1: day Thomas E. Jones being interviewed on his deathbed. The
Speaker 1: only problem.
Speaker 5: That guy was an actor.
Speaker 1: It seems Quincy had just found a random old man,
Speaker 1: slipped him into a gown, strapped him into a hospital bed,
Speaker 1: and christened him Thomas e Jones. But there was one
Speaker 1: thing Quincy wasn't counting on.
Speaker 5: Because the movie had received so much attention, Thomas E
Speaker 5: Jones's real family found.
Speaker 1: Out, and Thomas E Jones's real family wasn't happy because,
Speaker 1: as it turned out, the real Thomas E Jones was
Speaker 1: very much alive, breathing, eating, sleeping, and not on a
Speaker 1: deathbed but just a regular old bedbed, and so Pat
Speaker 1: Crochey decided to pull the movie.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was crushing disappointment. I had the ticket
Speaker 5: to go, I had the suit, I had all the
Speaker 5: expectation I had in my brain, everything that could be
Speaker 5: possible after and it's all gone, it's all it vanishes.
Speaker 5: And then it's a wave of embarrassment because I have
Speaker 5: to tell everybody.
Speaker 1: Michael had to go back to his friend's family, his
Speaker 1: grandmother who'd been clipping every article about the movie, and say,
Speaker 1: remember how I was going to be a big movie star.
Speaker 1: It was all a fraud. And the guy who thought
Speaker 1: I had talent also a fraud.
Speaker 5: And I never talked to Quincy again.
Speaker 1: Michael abandoned his dream of becoming an actor, but his
Speaker 1: time on The Messengers still had its impact. It allowed
Speaker 1: him to realize how much he loved being on a set,
Speaker 1: loved the magic of creating a whole world from thin air,
Speaker 1: and that pushed him towards a career in TV, writing
Speaker 1: for shows on Disney and Nickelodeon. Meanwhile, Quincy's IMDb credits
Speaker 1: have grown sparse.
Speaker 5: I always wondered what happened to Quincy becau to him.
Speaker 5: There was part of me that wanted to tell him
Speaker 5: that I've like succeeded, that I've pursued movies because of him.
Speaker 1: But along with that, Michael has a lingering question for Quincy.
Speaker 5: I never understood why you would take such a big
Speaker 5: risk like that to make such a big line. It's
Speaker 5: like you've set up a film crew to film this
Speaker 5: guy on his deathbed and it wasn't like it just
Speaker 5: seems like a bad plan.
Speaker 1: As Michael has climbed the ranks of show business, this
Speaker 1: question has only gained in poignance. Why risk your reputation,
Speaker 1: especially when the story was good enough as it was.
Speaker 5: Why did you lie.
Speaker 1: After the break searching for Quincy to become the messengers messenger?
Speaker 1: But first, the best messages of all promotional messages from
Speaker 1: our cherished sponsors, We really do love you guys ill
Speaker 1: two gross. It's a little gross, eh, keep it in.
Speaker 1: Why did Quincy lie? The more I think about it,
Speaker 1: the less sense it all makes. Why go to the
Speaker 1: trouble of hiring an old man and building a hospital set?
Speaker 1: Why not just use the real Thomas E Jones?
Speaker 7: Hello?
Speaker 1: Oh, hello, my name is Jonathan Gould. I've so far
Speaker 1: been unable to contact Quincy, so I reach out to
Speaker 1: someone else who might have the answer. I was looking
Speaker 1: for a Thomas E. Jones.
Speaker 7: He's deceased.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm very sorry.
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm his widow. When he died, we would have
Speaker 7: been married almost seventy years.
Speaker 1: Thomas's widow, Nancy, is eighty nine years old. She says
Speaker 1: she doesn't know why Quincy didn't just go to Thomas himself,
Speaker 1: But we get to talking and she tells me the
Speaker 1: story of how she first met Thomas. It was through
Speaker 1: his work as a messenger. It turns out Nancy's father
Speaker 1: was Thomas's boss at the telegram office. She tells me
Speaker 1: how in nineteen forty five, there was a dedicated telegraph
Speaker 1: machine standing by for the sole purpose of awaiting the
Speaker 1: Japanese surrender.
Speaker 7: And when that machine started ticking my father. He handed
Speaker 7: his message first to my husband, who was a bicycle
Speaker 7: messenger at sixteen years of age.
Speaker 1: Since the bike was too slow for such an important message,
Speaker 1: a coworker agreed to drive Thomas in his car. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he set out in the wrong direction, and thus the
Speaker 1: most famous U turn in American history, or at least
Speaker 1: the only one I've ever heard of, and I've read
Speaker 1: my Howard Zinn. The U turn got Thomas and his
Speaker 1: driver pulled over by a cap Of course.
Speaker 7: They were saying, we've got the Japanese piece a render
Speaker 7: message here. Yeah, I've heard a lot of stories. But
Speaker 7: the police realized it was the truth. They just pore
Speaker 7: up the ticket.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a story is. Yeah, and it's a pretty
Speaker 1: different story than the one in the Messenger. Not only
Speaker 1: were the Joneses angry about the fake Thomas, but they
Speaker 1: were also angry about what they considered the fake story.
Speaker 1: In Quincy's version of events, Thomas is in no hurry
Speaker 1: to deliver the message. He makes a casual pit stop
Speaker 1: at a diner, where he hits on the waitress and
Speaker 1: enjoys a large breakfast of pancakes, all while the war
Speaker 1: rages on the Jones has read about that scene in
Speaker 1: the media coverage of Quincy's movie, Newspaper write ups with
Speaker 1: headlines like boys, pancake breakfast delayed the end of World
Speaker 1: War Two.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, my kids were just serious about that.
Speaker 7: Talking about kids, We're talking about people now sixty years old.
Speaker 3: We were outraged. The kids were outraged.
Speaker 1: This is Victoria Jones. She's one of Thomas and Nancy's
Speaker 1: six children, all of whom when it came to the messenger,
Speaker 1: were in agreement.
Speaker 8: Which was unusual for the six of us.
Speaker 1: This is Thomas's son, Mike Jones. He says that the
Speaker 1: only one inclined to let the whole thing go was
Speaker 1: Thomas himself.
Speaker 8: That was kind of my dad's attitude, like, oh, don't
Speaker 8: make a big deal, don't get this person in trouble.
Speaker 3: We said, no, this is altering history.
Speaker 8: It just kind of portrayed him like as the slacker,
Speaker 8: you know, like, oh, the heck with that, I'm going
Speaker 8: to go and flirt and eat pancakes.
Speaker 1: Victoria says that although Quincy never reached out to her father,
Speaker 1: he easily.
Speaker 3: Could have, just like you found my mother by getting
Speaker 3: a few phone calls, Quincy could have found my father,
Speaker 3: and he never tried.
Speaker 1: When she found out about the movie, Victoria messaged Quincy
Speaker 1: several times, but she says he grew defensive and eventually
Speaker 1: stopped answering.
Speaker 3: And then when my father died, I sent him a
Speaker 3: message and said my father is now deceased.
Speaker 1: Huh. And he did not respond to that.
Speaker 3: No, I should go back and look. He might have said,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, and that was it.
Speaker 1: I tell the Joneses the story about Michael and how
Speaker 1: I'm trying to reach Quincy myself.
Speaker 3: Good luck with that one.
Speaker 7: I'm sure he'll take this better left of dead story
Speaker 7: out too.
Speaker 1: It turns out Nancy Jones is right. When I finally
Speaker 1: get through to Quincy via email, his response is emphatic.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in talking about that project anymore, he writes,
Speaker 1: And that's the last I hear from Quincy. What happens
Speaker 1: next is years go by, unrelated to my failure to
Speaker 1: speak with Quincy. But you never know. Heavyweight is canceled
Speaker 1: and I lose my job. And while the story never
Speaker 1: entirely leaves my mind, without an ergonomic office chair and
Speaker 1: a long distance phone plan, there's not much I could
Speaker 1: do about it. And then one day, while trying to
Speaker 1: decide on a fun font for my resume, I receive
Speaker 1: a message from Michael. He says he has an important
Speaker 1: update to share. Hey Jonathan, Hey Michael, how are you good?
Speaker 5: How are you doing?
Speaker 1: It's been almost three years since Michael and I have spoken.
Speaker 1: You have a son.
Speaker 5: Now, I've got a wife, I've got a son.
Speaker 1: The whole family is currently in New York, where Michael's wife, Katie,
Speaker 1: is producing a movie. It turns out that Katie's movie
Speaker 1: is the reason for Michael's update.
Speaker 5: He's the associate producer on the movie. His Name's Dan.
Speaker 1: Michael explains that while out for dinner with Dan, they
Speaker 1: started talking about the industry, by which I mean the
Speaker 1: show business industry. And one of the things people in
Speaker 1: the indie enjoy chatting about most is how they got
Speaker 1: into the industry industry. So Michael told Dan the story
Speaker 1: of the Messenger, about the director Quincy, about the producer
Speaker 1: Pat Crochy.
Speaker 5: And Dan is from Philly. Dan's parents are family friends
Speaker 5: with the Crochies.
Speaker 1: You're kidding. Show biz connections in this life, There's not
Speaker 1: a thing that doesn't come down to show biz connections.
Speaker 1: It's not what you know when you know where you
Speaker 1: know it or why you know it, but whom you know.
Speaker 1: Pat Crochy was the executive producer on the movie, the
Speaker 1: one who ultimately shut it all down. So, with Quincy
Speaker 1: unwilling to talk, he's our best shot at figuring out
Speaker 1: why Quincy had lied. At some point Pat had to
Speaker 1: have demanded an explanation from Quincy. Dan agrees to talk
Speaker 1: to his mom, who agrees to talk to Pat's daughter,
Speaker 1: who agrees to talk with Pat, who then agrees to
Speaker 1: talk with me. Mister Crochy, call me Pat. This is
Speaker 1: Pat Pat Pat Crochy.
Speaker 2: One thing I like to say about your Heavyweight podcast
Speaker 2: is that it always inculcates a high vibrational frequency.
Speaker 1: Can you say more about the high frequency?
Speaker 2: Well in the realm of form? If we're going to
Speaker 2: transcend form.
Speaker 1: Pat Crochy has a white goatee that ends in a
Speaker 1: point at his chest. He's in the Zenden, a large
Speaker 1: room above the barn on his fifty three acre estate.
Speaker 1: His walls are covered in Chinese and Tibetan calligraphy. He
Speaker 1: says that these days he seldom makes any media appearances.
Speaker 1: Is there any reason for that?
Speaker 2: Ah, it's a great question, you interviewer you well. Ten
Speaker 2: years ago, something happened. My mind cracked.
Speaker 1: Pat's mind cracked in a meeting for one of his
Speaker 1: restaurants he owned several, among them the Rum Barrel, which
Speaker 1: is pirate themed.
Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there think it to myself, what the
Speaker 2: hell am I doing here? I don't really give a
Speaker 2: shit about the next great group or sandwich. This is
Speaker 2: just more. I always was seeking more, another win, another
Speaker 2: standing ovation, another best seller, another another more more. There
Speaker 2: was never enough. Never.
Speaker 1: What Pat realized was that in spite of all his successes,
Speaker 1: he wasn't really happy, and so he tried to change
Speaker 1: his way of thinking. But it was a slow process.
Speaker 2: The ego in the was if I can change my mind,
Speaker 2: that'd be another great bestseller and I would go back
Speaker 2: on the speaking gain. It was all ego, all commercial,
Speaker 2: but that's how Grace hooked me. Everything that unfolds is perfect.
Speaker 2: I have this adage, the past has served his purpose perfectly,
Speaker 2: But most people are cherry pickers. Where I wish that
Speaker 2: would have changed, or I wish this, or no. The
Speaker 2: purpose of the past, Jonathan, There's only one purpose to
Speaker 2: bring you and me right here and now. Okay, the
Speaker 2: past is smoke off the end of my cigar.
Speaker 1: For me, the past is also smoke off the end
Speaker 1: of my cigar, juicy wafts of precious smoke to be
Speaker 1: hysterically clod at, like a rabid raccoon attacking a helium
Speaker 1: filled garbage can. And so I asked Pat to go
Speaker 1: back to the past and explain how he became involved
Speaker 1: with Quincy, Michael and the Messenger. He says it all
Speaker 1: began in Key West at the pirate themed museum he
Speaker 1: owned that sat beside the pirate themed restaurant he also owned.
Speaker 2: And you get to know all the piratical personalities on
Speaker 2: that island, one of which was Reef. And Reef is
Speaker 2: a salvager and he's really got a piratical nature. He
Speaker 2: would even dress as a part and I really loved him.
Speaker 1: One day, Reef ast Pat for a favor. Could Pat
Speaker 1: meet with his son, Quincy, who wanted to make a movie.
Speaker 2: And we got talking and he turned me on to
Speaker 2: this script that he has been writing.
Speaker 1: And you liked it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, are you kidding me? It's talking about this
Speaker 2: young boy who has an effect on the ending of
Speaker 2: World War two?
Speaker 1: And you hadn't known that story. I hadn't known that story.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I had never heard of it.
Speaker 1: What was your impression of Quincy when you first met him?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: I liked him and so and I believed everything Quincy
Speaker 2: told me.
Speaker 1: When Quincy's lie came out, Pat was furious prior to.
Speaker 2: Ten years ago before you know, my minecrack. He's lucky
Speaker 2: he didn't cross my path, or else he wouldn't be walking.
Speaker 1: Do you mean that you mean that literally?
Speaker 2: Uh, let's say no, since this is being taped. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty street savvy. I couldn't believe that I got buffalo
Speaker 2: like this as someone I thought was a friend, you know,
Speaker 2: a friend, a Key West friend. I was so hurt
Speaker 2: that I was angry. And when I'm angry, the old
Speaker 2: Pat crocheap, the old corner guy man. Not only did
Speaker 2: I lose the money, but all the contacts that I
Speaker 2: made for him to get him in USA. Today, I
Speaker 2: opened all these doors, through all my relationships, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, when I realized that it was
Speaker 2: a fraud, that it was phony. I mean I had
Speaker 2: to go and apologize to everyone.
Speaker 1: But Pat says that these days he doesn't have time
Speaker 1: for rumination or regret.
Speaker 2: And even though I am here at peace. My body
Speaker 2: has bell marrow cancer. I'm on chemo every twelve hours
Speaker 2: of chemo mets incurable. However, I don't regret that. I
Speaker 2: don't nothing. Oh wow, Jonathan, it's only my body, It's
Speaker 2: not me.
Speaker 1: Before we get off, I ask Pat Michael's burning question,
Speaker 1: why did Quincy lie? But Pat says he doesn't ask
Speaker 1: the why questions only Quincy. Pat says, if he goes deep,
Speaker 1: can answer that. Patt and Quincy haven't spoken for decades.
Speaker 1: Their last interactions were angry ones. Right after Quincy's lie
Speaker 1: came out all the same, Pat offers to reach out
Speaker 1: to Quincy. He contacts a friend who he thinks might
Speaker 1: have Quincy's phone number. I don't have high hopes, but
Speaker 1: Patt and Quincy do end up speaking, and afterwards, for
Speaker 1: reasons I can't discern, Quincy agrees to speak with Michael.
Speaker 1: A video call between Michael and Quincy is arranged, and
Speaker 1: while we wait for Quincy, I asked Michael the opening
Speaker 1: question I learned in jayschool. Are you in a bathroom now?
Speaker 5: This is our tiny little kitchen in our apartment.
Speaker 1: It's late at night, and Michael gives me a tour
Speaker 1: of his darkened New York apartment.
Speaker 5: And there's our Carson's little lunchbox.
Speaker 1: Very sweet. Where is he right now?
Speaker 5: Carson is asleep.
Speaker 1: What a lazy bones? And then Hello. Quincy enters the chat.
Speaker 1: It's been almost twenty years since he and Michael were
Speaker 1: together on set. Quincy was twenty five at the time.
Speaker 1: He's in his forties now.
Speaker 6: It's nice to see Michael's face. I haven't seen his
Speaker 6: face in a long time.
Speaker 5: And it was good to see you.
Speaker 1: Michael and Quincy begin by reminiscing about their time together
Speaker 1: about making the movie.
Speaker 6: There are two scenes that really stand up for me.
Speaker 6: One is when all the kids are in the.
Speaker 1: Diner and the exchange memory from what feels like unfraught
Speaker 1: territory stuff like the casting and the fun of being
Speaker 1: on set.
Speaker 5: My favorite scene was doing doing the U turn. You
Speaker 5: had me drive stick shift and I lied when I auditioned.
Speaker 5: You're like, can you drive stick And I was like,
Speaker 5: I can drive stick. I couldn't drive stick I was
Speaker 5: I never heard that, I know, and I was like
Speaker 5: stalling out, like grinding the gears.
Speaker 1: It feels like Michael is trying to make Quincy comfortable,
Speaker 1: show that Quincy wasn't the only one capable of lie
Speaker 1: was a fraud.
Speaker 6: Into the car from like pulling his hair out to
Speaker 6: I thought the kids could drive.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't take long before the conversation turns to
Speaker 1: the elephant in the room, and it's Quincy who brings
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 6: I remember wanting to reach out to you in years
Speaker 6: the past. Yeah, I felt a lot of guilt because,
Speaker 6: like this film, everybody had put so much sweat and
Speaker 6: tears into it, and uh, it was just nothing like evaporated.
Speaker 6: And I thought, my god, I failed every single person.
Speaker 6: And then I became like national news, and then the
Speaker 6: blogs were writing about.
Speaker 1: Me because The Messenger got a colossal amount of press.
Speaker 1: When the truth came out, Quincy received a proportional amount
Speaker 1: of backlash, similar to how the tidal wave of The
Speaker 1: Messenger's success hit Michael, the bad news about The Messenger's
Speaker 1: failure hit Quincy. He was at the airport reading that
Speaker 1: day's newspaper over someone's shoulder and.
Speaker 6: They were reading the article about me and how I
Speaker 6: had lied, and that hit me like I'd say a
Speaker 6: ton of bricks, But a ton of bricks would have
Speaker 6: felt like a pillow compared.
Speaker 1: To what that was how are you coping?
Speaker 6: I was in denial. I kept going back to this
Speaker 6: like excuse of well, the Titanic, right, the Titanic, it's
Speaker 6: a fake movie. It's based on a true story. There
Speaker 6: was no Jack and Rowe, and yet what I had
Speaker 6: done was totally different. I mean I was literally trying
Speaker 6: to pretend that this other actor i'd hired was Thomas Jones.
Speaker 6: And it took me a year or two to sort
Speaker 6: of come to terms and just be like, man, I
Speaker 6: really fucked up.
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the question of why why swap
Speaker 1: a random old man for Thomas E. Jones? To explain
Speaker 1: Quincy starts with how he came to the story of
Speaker 1: the Messenger in the first place.
Speaker 6: I'd been working that summer at the Truman Little White
Speaker 6: House in q Wes, and sort of in my onboarding
Speaker 6: at that museum, they told us to read David McCullough's
Speaker 6: Truman biography, and it was in that book that I
Speaker 6: saw this one sentence about Thomas E. Jones and The Messenger, And.
Speaker 1: It was literally one sentence, one sentence in parentheses, in
Speaker 1: the middle of a thousand page book.
Speaker 6: And I thought, God, what an amazing story.
Speaker 1: But Quincy thought, you know what would make it an
Speaker 1: even more amazing story if he could find Thomas E. Jones,
Speaker 1: interview him and include that interview in the movie. And
Speaker 1: in Quincy's telling, he did look for Thomas Jones.
Speaker 6: I had hired literal investigators to go find this person,
Speaker 6: two different guys, and they both said, like, you know,
Speaker 6: we can't. We can't find them, but we found these
Speaker 6: two death certificates that kind of match up.
Speaker 1: So the death certificates felt like enough. Quincy concluded that
Speaker 1: the Thomas E. Jones he was looking for probably was dead.
Speaker 6: And I didn't share that with anybody because in my head,
Speaker 6: I just saw the story rolling out. He's like, we
Speaker 6: were going to tell the story and then the end
Speaker 6: you saw the real guy and that I couldn't get
Speaker 6: away from that story.
Speaker 1: And in the absence of the real guy, the next
Speaker 1: best thing was a fake guy.
Speaker 6: Oh well, that decease Thomas Jones will never know and
Speaker 6: anybody that sees the movie, it's gonna be so great
Speaker 6: and they're gonna be crying and laughing at the end
Speaker 6: of it that they won't care.
Speaker 1: For this role. There was no casting, no auditions. In fact,
Speaker 1: the part of Thomas E. Jones wasn't played by an
Speaker 1: actor at all.
Speaker 6: He was actually a tour guide at the Truman Little
Speaker 6: White House.
Speaker 1: Quincy had asked a work friend from the museum to
Speaker 1: do the job.
Speaker 6: And then the real Thomas Jones found me. And I
Speaker 6: certainly remember that feeling. It was like a disgust I
Speaker 6: felt for myself.
Speaker 1: In the aftermath, Quincy left the film world for many years.
Speaker 1: He was fired from his job at the Truman Museum.
Speaker 1: He eventually found work clerking in a bookstore and making
Speaker 1: wedding videos. Well, this was the first time a live
Speaker 1: Quincy's had been so brutally exposed. He admits that the
Speaker 1: lying itself was something he'd been leaning on since his
Speaker 1: teen years.
Speaker 6: You know, I had come from a fairly poor family
Speaker 6: in Key West, and I had attended a very exclusive
Speaker 6: prep school up in western Massachusetts called Deerfield Academy, where
Speaker 6: I had no business being there, And so I I
Speaker 6: felt this like sense of just like always needing to exaggerate.
Speaker 6: People would be like, oh, I'm going to Paris for
Speaker 6: want or break, and I'd be like, oh, gosh, you know, Paris,
Speaker 6: It's great. I didn't even know what country it was.
Speaker 6: In it was like a daily thing. Freshman year, someone
Speaker 6: had a picture Jimmy Hendrix a poster and I remember
Speaker 6: looking at his name and thinking it looked kind of French,
Speaker 6: and I was like, oh, I love Gym Hendrye. And
Speaker 6: I remember him looking at me and being like, what.
Speaker 1: For Quincy. Lies became a beautiful wall between himself and
Speaker 1: everyone else. Lies protected him but also isolated him. It
Speaker 1: took the collapse of The Messenger to finally get him
Speaker 1: to stop, and.
Speaker 6: It was actually very relieving because it took a lot
Speaker 6: of weight off my shoulders that I didn't have to
Speaker 6: make every story ten percent better. I didn't have to.
Speaker 6: As hard as that was, that was the most important, lesson,
Speaker 6: full stop period of my life.
Speaker 5: After we did The Messenger, I didn't take that as
Speaker 5: anything that stopped me.
Speaker 1: When Quincy is done sharing the effects The Messenger had
Speaker 1: on his life, Michael shares the role that played for him.
Speaker 5: Seeing the camera, seeing the crew, it blew my mind.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that this was possible. I didn't know
Speaker 5: that this is what it looked like.
Speaker 1: And I was in It's Quincy and The Messenger that
Speaker 1: inspired Michael's career, but it isn't just that Quincy gave
Speaker 1: him a professional life. He gave him a life.
Speaker 5: I married this beautiful person who she's a movie producer,
Speaker 5: and we have this amazing kid called Carson who's two
Speaker 5: and a half years old. And all of this life
Speaker 5: that I have, this partner, of this career, this kid,
Speaker 5: it comes from this wild, weird, random moment in Cleveland,
Speaker 5: Ohio where you decided to cast me in this short film.
Speaker 5: And it's all this to say, like I never got
Speaker 5: to just thank you. I've always appreciated that door that
Speaker 5: you showed to me and allowed me to walk through
Speaker 5: that moment, that time, that invitation that you gave me
Speaker 5: to be on set changed the entire direction of my life.
Speaker 6: That means a lot to me. I I look back
Speaker 6: on that time and totally with totally different eyes. It
Speaker 6: was one of the most difficult things in my life.
Speaker 6: And I can't tell you like how meaningful it is
Speaker 6: to me to hear that someone had something good come
Speaker 6: out of it, because it certainly didn't feel like that.
Speaker 6: I was convinced that it would ruin everyone's life, because
Speaker 6: that's what I was feeling at that moment.
Speaker 1: Quincy just assumed anyone involved with the messenger would still
Speaker 1: be furious with him, and so a few weeks back,
Speaker 1: when he saw Pat Croche's name pop up on his phone,
Speaker 1: he says he almost felt too scared to pick up,
Speaker 1: but when they spoke, instead of yelling at him, Pat
Speaker 1: told him it was time to let it go.
Speaker 6: As soon as he said that those words let it go,
Speaker 6: I just sat out in front of my house and
Speaker 6: cried for a good twenty minutes. I didn't know before
Speaker 6: we talked today, actually genuinely what you were going to
Speaker 6: say today.
Speaker 5: You know you were I met you as this person
Speaker 5: I looked up to.
Speaker 6: You're gonna make me cry. I'm really, really genuinely happy
Speaker 6: for you.
Speaker 5: Thank you for taking time just to talk to me.
Speaker 5: It really thank you for the life I got to
Speaker 5: have because of it.
Speaker 1: Recently I got to share in that life. One day,
Speaker 1: leaving our New York studio, Michael says he's off to
Speaker 1: meet his wife Katie. Her crew is filming just a
Speaker 1: few blocks away, and Michael asks if I'd like to come,
Speaker 1: and I say sure. On the corner of twentieth Street
Speaker 1: and Seventh Avenue, shooting is in full swing. The movie
Speaker 1: stars John Tatruro as an aging pickpocket who ends up
Speaker 1: with a thumb drive containing a crypto wallet on it.
Speaker 1: Michael and I are waved past the protected perimeter and
Speaker 1: Katie gives me a pair of small headphones as I
Speaker 1: watch take after take of John Totruro slamming down a
Speaker 1: payphone and screaming fuck in fake fury. I feel like
Speaker 1: a ten year old on a field trip. All around us,
Speaker 1: the city bustles as normal. We are tucked away in
Speaker 1: our make believe world, watching make believe things. It's all
Speaker 1: a lie, of course, but one that we're all in on.
Speaker 9: And how good.
Speaker 4: Now that the fern ures returning to it's goodwill home,
Speaker 4: Now that the last month's raft is scheming.
Speaker 2: The damage to possum.
Speaker 4: Take this moment to desolee too felt around for five team.
Speaker 1: From Things That Accident Lee. This episode of Heavyweight was
Speaker 1: produced by Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with
Speaker 1: Moheeny mcgauker and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane.
Speaker 1: Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Lucy Sullivan,
Speaker 1: Karen Chakerjee and Nazanine RAFs and Johnny Our production council
Speaker 1: is Jake Flanagan. Emmamonger mixed the episode with original music
Speaker 1: by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson and Bobby Lord. Additional
Speaker 1: scoring by Blue Dot Sessions, Bobble Principal and Shanghai Restoration Project.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by the Weakerlands, courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast, or email us
Speaker 1: at Heavyweight at Pushkin dot Fm. We'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with a new episode.