Speaker 1: Hey, shadow fam, this is Katherine McNamara. We love being
Speaker 1: your host for Return to the Shadows, relieving old memories
Speaker 1: and going back to the good old days of shadow Hunters.
Speaker 1: So we're excited to share a very special announcement. We
Speaker 1: are teaming up with Moment for an exciting live episode
Speaker 1: of the podcast. It will have all of your favorite things, BTS, stories,
Speaker 1: place lore, and of course domin Me. Nothing mundane, we promise.
Speaker 1: And the best part is there will be a live
Speaker 1: chat for some Q and A, some games and more
Speaker 1: by the Angel We can't wait. Tickets are on sale
Speaker 1: now at moment dot com. Slash Return to the Shadows
Speaker 1: See you March twenty second. Patty Baby, doing are you doing? This? Is?
Speaker 1: This is terrifying to see the three of us here.
Speaker 1: I'm nervous. I don't know what to make. Are you terrifying?
Speaker 1: Look at my hair this morning? I'm like, goodness, I
Speaker 1: was just about to say, letting it grow out. I'm
Speaker 1: into it. I like it. I'm totally I feel like
Speaker 1: I feel like a very nineties right now. It's some
Speaker 1: sort of middle part, you know, Yeah, you've got to
Speaker 1: You've got an end sync thing going on. Hey, middle
Speaker 1: parts are are perfectly valid. That's what the kids are
Speaker 1: doing again, what are they doing in the middle part?
Speaker 1: Very very in touch with the are you? Are you
Speaker 1: one community? I know about the younger kids these days.
Speaker 1: I know what they say and i know they're hair styles.
Speaker 1: And I'm very impressed by a lot of the works.
Speaker 1: Very British. It's a very British thing. They're all of
Speaker 1: the gym. I literally just go back from the gym
Speaker 1: and all of them have that sent a part, but
Speaker 1: like dead straight, like the David Beckhams, and they stu
Speaker 1: down to here and then and then it goes like
Speaker 1: this goes off the top of the head. Have you
Speaker 1: seen it, but like shaved everywhere else. It's like a
Speaker 1: reverse mullet. It's mental. No, that sounds terrified, it's wild.
Speaker 1: I don't know's it's the style. You know, we're just
Speaker 1: we're just out of touch because of our I think
Speaker 1: we're out of touch. Yeah, that's what it would all
Speaker 1: look like. It would be the d Could you imagine
Speaker 1: I'd have a middle part, you guys would have all
Speaker 1: these flips and flips and ship. Oh yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be a different show. Oh no, we would look so different. Well,
Speaker 1: Dom and I were talking about this the other day
Speaker 1: because we were looking back at some of the fashion
Speaker 1: and some of the stuff, and then chokers that emd
Speaker 1: in the show. It's insane. Chokers. Yeah, those are very
Speaker 1: in right now, are they? Have they come back again?
Speaker 1: I've come back that long? Yeah, Oh my lord, you
Speaker 1: don't know. I might. Here's the thing is that if
Speaker 1: I declare, it's true and it happens. So okay, let's
Speaker 1: go start it. That's true. I'm eating peanuts and I
Speaker 1: just want two more and then you can start. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: while you eat peanuts, I'm just gonna start this off
Speaker 1: and just say welcome back to Return to the Shadows today.
Speaker 1: Dom and I, I think are beyond excited because we
Speaker 1: have not only one of the most special people in
Speaker 1: the world of shadow Hunters, but one of our favorite people,
Speaker 1: the one, the only, Alec Lightwood. Matthew Didario. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you, Kat. That was a lovely introduction.
Speaker 1: I feel honored. I'm a little disappointed. Actually, I thought
Speaker 1: we were having Alberto back on. That's so I'm been hoodwinked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the only way I got yet. I want to
Speaker 1: go from there. Oh yeah, I was going to let
Speaker 1: it a little bit, let's start starts what we mean
Speaker 1: to go on? I'm into it, Yeah, Angels, just to
Speaker 1: let y'all know, this is just a little peek into
Speaker 1: what actually went down on the Shadow Hunters set. Just
Speaker 1: utter Shenandians all the time. You don't even know, don't
Speaker 1: you don't know, you don't know us. It was the
Speaker 1: show was canceled because of us. That's the real truth,
Speaker 1: that they just couldn't take us anymore. We're finally telling them, Wow,
Speaker 1: it was us. It was our it was our misbehavior
Speaker 1: and our constant, unrelenting aggression towards each other. It was
Speaker 1: it was spiteful, hateful, even wholiganism. That's what it really was.
Speaker 1: I almost said hula hooliganism. Yeah, but it's hoholiganism. Hula hoop.
Speaker 1: Who is there h hoop on? That I missed that
Speaker 1: would have been. It makes me so sad, and now
Speaker 1: I'm stuck on that word. Hum. All right, So what
Speaker 1: are we dealing with today? What are we talking about?
Speaker 1: And what about the full introduction? You need more things?
Speaker 1: Is this? Is this the extent of what you guys do.
Speaker 1: This is pretty much literally it's exactly like a convention.
Speaker 1: That's all it is. We just have microphones. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: we have microphones at conventions as well. It's very similar
Speaker 1: to convention, except time on a chair. I like, dude,
Speaker 1: this is mental. I have this stool right in front
Speaker 1: of me, which is what I use for auditions. It's
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable. And for the first not kidding, fifty episodes
Speaker 1: of this show, that's what I sat on, and I
Speaker 1: was uncomfortable the whole time. And then I realized that
Speaker 1: I could just turn this from my living room directly
Speaker 1: into this space. I mean, what a revelation, Matt. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just breaking news. Tom turned a chair and now
Speaker 1: he's kind of took some It took some very impressive
Speaker 1: that you figured that out. It's these kind of these
Speaker 1: kind of really this this genius is display of genius.
Speaker 1: You would love this chair. You're making fun, but you
Speaker 1: would love this chair. I bought this chair and I went,
Speaker 1: Matt would love this, and I got a discount, and
Speaker 1: I know you love that I've ever shown an interest
Speaker 1: in comfortable chairs? Is that something that I'm I'm sort
Speaker 1: of you believe about. You got a hammock, you lived
Speaker 1: in a hammock for like the first two years of
Speaker 1: filming the show. Okay, okay, well get clear though you
Speaker 1: wanted to stand as long as you Okay, well listen,
Speaker 1: a hammock it's quite different from a chair. These are
Speaker 1: two very different things. And if you're going to say
Speaker 1: that you know me so well, okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is what we're doing. I'm gonna I don't think
Speaker 1: you want I don't think you want to be at
Speaker 1: that angle. It you don't think you want to be
Speaker 1: at that angle? I really don't. I don't. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: just yeah, you're just crotch first into the into the microphone, dignified.
Speaker 1: Tell me this isn't like a hammot now all right,
Speaker 1: Oh dear, I'm so far away from my mark. You're
Speaker 1: just yeah, you're just crotch first into the into the microphone.
Speaker 1: All right, oh dear? So well, well, dam is in
Speaker 1: this structure. This is Matt. This is as much structure
Speaker 1: as we get on this show. So welcome, Matt. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about you, because obviously so many
Speaker 1: of these folks have seen you on the show. They
Speaker 1: adore you as we do. But let's let's talk about you.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Matt, the Matt up until Shadow Hunters.
Speaker 1: So you were you were born and raised in New
Speaker 1: York City, maybe maybe allegedly allegedly born and raised in
Speaker 1: New York City. Already a nightmare. We're all from places,
Speaker 1: and I'm from New York City, is what you say.
Speaker 1: And I think that I sound like somebody from New
Speaker 1: York City. That's all you've got. That's all the proof
Speaker 1: you've got, So continue, what else about me? Tell me
Speaker 1: more about me? I want to tell you more about you.
Speaker 1: You went to Indiana University. Actually, Matt, you and I
Speaker 1: have the same university degree, which is very interesting. Yes, yeah, true, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you graduated with a degree. What did you study
Speaker 1: mine or yours? What? It's the same. My official degree
Speaker 1: is majored in either finance and then economics as a
Speaker 1: as a miner or was economics, business economics and public policy. Boy, okay,
Speaker 1: well I didn't have the public policy part, but mine
Speaker 1: was also about thrown on there is business economics public policy?
Speaker 1: What does he even really mean? You know, whatever you
Speaker 1: wanted to make them, But it's a it's a Bachelor
Speaker 1: of Science and Business administration, you know, that's what that's
Speaker 1: well we did. I should be running. I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 1: I was designed by ro run public policy robots. One
Speaker 1: of the problems we had in Shadowers, we had a
Speaker 1: problem in shadow wanners, and I want to discuss this
Speaker 1: is a very serious problem. It was something it was
Speaker 1: never brought up. And I think because there's just a
Speaker 1: sort of a neat hatred on that set for robots.
Speaker 1: For robots, no robots. You think you have all this technology,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of it's a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of magical elements of play here, but we never
Speaker 1: built a robot. And if you thought about it, you know,
Speaker 1: even just a robot one of those like vacuum robots
Speaker 1: had a roombat. Do you remember Rancor? Yeah, I remember,
Speaker 1: and then I since since the show, you remember Rancor,
Speaker 1: a little robot that used to eat my curtains. At
Speaker 1: the time, he was a nightmare. And then I threw
Speaker 1: him out and then I said, okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get a rank or two, and I got a rank
Speaker 1: or two. When I was in LA he was a
Speaker 1: nightmare as well. He would clean one spot of my
Speaker 1: my house and it was only exactly where my feet were.
Speaker 1: And I tested it like this is what happens when
Speaker 1: when actors between jobs. So you're unemployed, you play video
Speaker 1: games and you do free shot like this a lot
Speaker 1: of free time, right. So I would walk around the
Speaker 1: house with a cup of tea and see if it
Speaker 1: followed me. And it used to follow me around like
Speaker 1: a puppy. It was the weirdest thing, and so owns.
Speaker 1: The only trail around my house that would get clean
Speaker 1: is exactly where I'm standing. It was mentally damn dumb dumn.
Speaker 1: This thing happened too, and you don't realize that that's
Speaker 1: the first step towards sentience. This thing was searching. It
Speaker 1: is for love for car. It was like a small
Speaker 1: duckling following with its mother. You didn't you didn't get
Speaker 1: imprinted on you? Yeah, it imprinted on you. Very good.
Speaker 1: It sounds like no I did. That's why I threw
Speaker 1: them out. That's why I threw it out. A hundred
Speaker 1: cent put this together is how Maximum Overdrive started. And
Speaker 1: Terminator and like eighteen other robot movies. There's no way
Speaker 1: I was having that in my house. Actually sent it
Speaker 1: to you. But wait, if you threw it out or
Speaker 1: sent it to someone else, didn't you anger it further
Speaker 1: that he did was he No, he killed it. He
Speaker 1: killed a living sentient being, probably the first example of
Speaker 1: a robot becoming sentient, and he killed it. Now, this
Speaker 1: is the thing, is I think this is actually better
Speaker 1: than how the shadow Hunters would have handled it. You
Speaker 1: see what we would have done in the shadow Hunter world,
Speaker 1: we would have said, Okay, well look at this potential
Speaker 1: menace here. You know what we should do is I
Speaker 1: don't know nothing to see what plays out. Because if
Speaker 1: you've never watched the show, anyone who's listening to this,
Speaker 1: one of the things that shadow Hunters were very good
Speaker 1: at was ignoring realistic and obvious threats yeah and if,
Speaker 1: and sometimes even inviting them in, sometimes even creating those
Speaker 1: threats entirely by their own sort of will. Yes. And
Speaker 1: Kat's character Clary, was especially talented at this, well remembered.
Speaker 1: I was unsure if you were going to remember all
Speaker 1: the character names. You've got the lead, so that's a
Speaker 1: good start. I'm very proud of you. Well, who did
Speaker 1: I play? You know, I did my research. Dom played?
Speaker 1: Do you say, Jason, I'm going to fly to Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Intention in the face where you live? Jay's good, very good, Jay.
Speaker 1: What's Jay short for? Because he's got little legs? What
Speaker 1: this is me? This is me sober, like entirely sober.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a sip of alcohol. That might be
Speaker 1: might be stupidest things I've ever said in my entire life.
Speaker 1: That was almost a me jokes. Are you okay? Because
Speaker 1: he has little legs? You? What do you mean? You
Speaker 1: don't understand? What's he short for? Like? What's the reason
Speaker 1: for him being sure? Is the joke? Because why is
Speaker 1: he sure? Because he's got little legs? Not? What is
Speaker 1: Jay short for? His full name? Yeah? Okay, Well, if
Speaker 1: anyone else there is a dumb dumb like Mattie and
Speaker 1: didn't understand the joke, I just gave you a play
Speaker 1: by play explanation of exactly why that's funny. I understand it,
Speaker 1: and I thought, actually it was very funny, and I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm very sore about it because it made me chuckle,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want it to. Okay, Well, matt we're
Speaker 1: very sorry for forcing humor upon you this morning. Um,
Speaker 1: but back to back to the structure of the show.
Speaker 1: This is half of my job on this podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit about you know, now you're an actor,
Speaker 1: you're a producer, you've directed things, you're you're doing, you're
Speaker 1: writing things. You're so involved in this industry. But that's
Speaker 1: not what you went to school for. So is that
Speaker 1: always where you wanted to go or what brought you
Speaker 1: kind of into this world that then brought you to
Speaker 1: shadow Hunters? Okay, here's all right. Fine, I'll give you
Speaker 1: a little sincerity for a moment, which I do not
Speaker 1: promise will continue. I think that I was reading something recently.
Speaker 1: This man was asking a question. He said that he
Speaker 1: wanted to he wanted to be an artist, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't like his job, and he wants to be an artist.
Speaker 1: And he says, somebody asked him, what specifically is it
Speaker 1: that you want to do? What do you want to create? Artist?
Speaker 1: Kind of a broad subject, right, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: just want to create stuff. I just want to feel creative.
Speaker 1: I want to be an artist. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting thought because you could sort of reject that
Speaker 1: very aggressively and say, well, that's that's silly. Different forms
Speaker 1: of art required sort of skills and different educations and
Speaker 1: whatever else. And in his case, it wasn't really like that.
Speaker 1: It was like, I don't really care how good it is.
Speaker 1: At first, I want to get better at it and
Speaker 1: I want to learn to create things. And I think
Speaker 1: that in the case of when you're an actor, when
Speaker 1: you're in this industry in general, you are so exposed
Speaker 1: to all the parts of it that they start to
Speaker 1: sort of melt together. And especially when you're on a
Speaker 1: show like Shadowners for a long time, you're exposed to
Speaker 1: all areas of that business and doesn't make you good
Speaker 1: at the other ones, but it does expose you to them,
Speaker 1: and you see their value, You see how you might
Speaker 1: want to take part in those other areas, and eventually,
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, And I think this
Speaker 1: is something that said a lot maybe overset is that
Speaker 1: you want to tell stories and you want to you
Speaker 1: want to create something artistic. For lack of a better
Speaker 1: word there, I don't really know what else to say.
Speaker 1: You want to create something an art You want to
Speaker 1: create a story. You want to tell people a story
Speaker 1: that they find interesting. And I think that you can
Speaker 1: sometimes do that through acting, but other times you might
Speaker 1: have to make things. You have to maybe write things,
Speaker 1: and if they're not good, they don't get made. And
Speaker 1: that's okay, you know, but at least you're doing it.
Speaker 1: And as Dom said, sometimes if you're an active you
Speaker 1: have a lot of free time, you can spend that
Speaker 1: time twiddling your thumbs and uh, you know, sitting out
Speaker 1: in the fields, which would be really cool. Actually just
Speaker 1: sit out with your grousse all day and just waiting
Speaker 1: for quite therapeutic. It is, except if you did it,
Speaker 1: you know, nine hours a day, it's not really good
Speaker 1: use of your time and probably would get boring unless
Speaker 1: you're really chill. I'm not. So I do other things,
Speaker 1: and as I've been doing them over these years, I
Speaker 1: think I've been getting better at them, and I'm actually
Speaker 1: really starting to enjoy it. You said you weren't going
Speaker 1: to eat any more peanuts. I'm gonna though that was such.
Speaker 1: I was a really eloquently beautiful story, and you finished
Speaker 1: it by breaking your one rule for the podcast. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that beautiful. I'm not saying his role in life
Speaker 1: is not tweetings doesn't make any sense. It was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was nice. If I'm honest, I was waiting for
Speaker 1: a punchline the whole time. You had mischief written all
Speaker 1: over your face, like license. But I think we've just forgotten.
Speaker 1: That's just Matt difficult to tell sometimes. What is it
Speaker 1: that you know? You know, you guys are both actors,
Speaker 1: but I know that I know that both of you
Speaker 1: like to tell kind of story. I know that you
Speaker 1: guys actually really like this whole uh movie and TV thing. Hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have any aspirations beyond acting? Are you? Do?
Speaker 1: You just want to be a space cowboy, but you
Speaker 1: could act as a space cowboy, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to be a space cowboy. Yeah, but that's a that's
Speaker 1: a different that's not really art, is it? Or is
Speaker 1: everything art? Everything's on how you do it. You know,
Speaker 1: anything can be sciences up. Then I would say everything's up.
Speaker 1: I could argue sciences art, you know what. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to accept that. That's like it's like when somebody
Speaker 1: says something really just succinct, like that sciences art. So
Speaker 1: everything's art, you know what. I'm not going to even
Speaker 1: read into what that means because I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that means. But I don't pack it. You can
Speaker 1: feel it. I don't, but I think you can feel.
Speaker 1: That's a great saying. Also you can feel what that means?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? I don't know, but I like
Speaker 1: I like it because it's vague, doesn't really say anything,
Speaker 1: and it accomplishes this task, which is to basically tell
Speaker 1: Matt to stop talking and move on to the next point,
Speaker 1: so I can feel what you mean. Right now, you
Speaker 1: can feel what I mean. So tell me about Tell
Speaker 1: me about when I when I first showed up on set.
Speaker 1: I want to know when did this happen? You could
Speaker 1: tell me. I want to tell me how you hell
Speaker 1: upon first seeing me. I want you to describe so well,
Speaker 1: my first thought because I had just landed and all
Speaker 1: of y'all were there already, and you whisked me away
Speaker 1: to dinner and I met you, and my first thought
Speaker 1: was tall tall, Yeah, my first thought. So many more
Speaker 1: adjectives that could have been used to describe Matt, but
Speaker 1: you know, I know, but that was so clear. It
Speaker 1: was my first thought. I was like, Wow, this man
Speaker 1: is tall, which incept that as it, which is its accurate.
Speaker 1: But then but then I could tell because you you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, you take some time to get to know people,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, and I was like, there's more to this man.
Speaker 1: This will be fun than than just I have layers. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: And then there was nothing. Nothing came from that. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it really came from that, you know. Seven years later,
Speaker 1: lots came from that man. No, I would say seven
Speaker 1: years later. A tool is how I describe him. When
Speaker 1: people ask what do you like? What was it like
Speaker 1: working with him for that many years? I say, tall. Okay,
Speaker 1: I accept this, and I think that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. I think tall and layered is what you said.
Speaker 1: A lot of depth, you said, a very interesting and
Speaker 1: fascinating person. You said all that, and don what's what's
Speaker 1: your opinion? My opinion was, um, so we I was
Speaker 1: there first, so I sort of heard the casting announcements
Speaker 1: coming in um and that sensation of you know, when
Speaker 1: you're about to have a heart attack, and it's just dread,
Speaker 1: like dread full dread, like the world is coming from
Speaker 1: an end, Like being a first date with somebody and
Speaker 1: you see them and they're just amazing. This is like
Speaker 1: being on a first date with someone and they turn
Speaker 1: up and they're the epitome of your worst enemy and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh no, everyone said this was going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I ignored them and I'm here anyway. And then
Speaker 1: I spent four years making the best of it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the beginning of every great film about two buddies.
Speaker 1: You start off hating each other, and then over time
Speaker 1: you grow. One of you becomes a more mature, impressive person,
Speaker 1: a more mature capable individual, and eventually that person is
Speaker 1: up to the standards of the other person and they
Speaker 1: become friend. So in my analogy, Aliens obviously maybe the
Speaker 1: best coming of age buddy story. You implanted an egged me. No,
Speaker 1: I'm saying you're the Queen. I would think you're the Queen.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the queen. Queen. I put the egg into
Speaker 1: you and then she never does that. The Queen never
Speaker 1: does that. The Queen lays the eggs. We need to
Speaker 1: watch Aliens again, man. And I also I was seeing
Speaker 1: myself as Sigourney Weaver or newte you you, I mean,
Speaker 1: that is an outright Sigourney Weaver is a is a legendary.
Speaker 1: It's honestly, it's just outrageous for you to make that claim.
Speaker 1: But I actually, you know what you do give me
Speaker 1: Sigourney vibes sometimes. Yeah, that's powerful and strong. You're independent,
Speaker 1: very capable cat. You also gave me Sigourney vibe sometimes.
Speaker 1: Although I think Sigourney is quite tall. Yes, I'm quite
Speaker 1: sure I am. But we we let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the casting process. So when did you were
Speaker 1: you aware of the of the books? How do you
Speaker 1: read them? How had you seen the film when you
Speaker 1: first got this in your inbox? What? What were your
Speaker 1: initial thoughts? Your costing story is my favorite of all
Speaker 1: of them. Give it to the people. Match just okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I'll throw a bone here. Okay, So the story is
Speaker 1: previously an audition for the film years before. That was
Speaker 1: my first exposure to this, and I auditioned for Jace.
Speaker 1: I believe the time, Um I wasn't right for the role,
Speaker 1: because um I wasn't a stupid idiot. But then I
Speaker 1: but then I. Then I eventually got this audition for
Speaker 1: the TV show version, and they auditioned me for Alec
Speaker 1: maybe the audition me for Jay's first Now I don't
Speaker 1: even remember. This is so long ago, guys, You have
Speaker 1: to understand the years just they keep flying by. This
Speaker 1: was like it was almost eight years ago that we
Speaker 1: were auditioning. Is it really just that? Yeah? Okay, it was.
Speaker 1: I go in, I do the audition in New York.
Speaker 1: I get a phone call they tell me, you got
Speaker 1: to go to LA for the audition in front of
Speaker 1: the big wigs or whatever. And you walk into a
Speaker 1: room lots of people in this in this big dark room,
Speaker 1: and you do your thing and then you leave. And
Speaker 1: then the next morning they call me and they say
Speaker 1: you're doing this. You're doing the show. And I go, oh, great,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. And they said you have to make a Twitter, counter,
Speaker 1: Instagram or social media accounts and you have to make
Speaker 1: them open. And I'm like, well, that sounds like like fun.
Speaker 1: Social media is a is a great thing that everybody
Speaker 1: likes and has never harmed anyone or society as a whole.
Speaker 1: So I love that. And I get to the airport,
Speaker 1: I get on a plane, and then I get off
Speaker 1: the plane and I remember that my phone wasn't really
Speaker 1: working because it was just you have to turn off
Speaker 1: it was. So the show was very big from the
Speaker 1: get go, and I learned that, so then I had
Speaker 1: to dive into it. So casting wise, actually, the part
Speaker 1: that I find more interesting, and I think this is
Speaker 1: true for lots of TV shows and when people get
Speaker 1: casting things, is that you generally get cast, you're excited,
Speaker 1: then you go to work, you know, and then you hope,
Speaker 1: you hope, you hope, you say, Okay, how is this
Speaker 1: going to be received? Is this going to go in
Speaker 1: a direction that's going to continue? Are people are gonna
Speaker 1: like me? People like this. We didn't have that experience
Speaker 1: at all, and I don't really know how to describe
Speaker 1: exactly like it was every single day it was like
Speaker 1: people telling you you're gonna do great, We're really proud
Speaker 1: of you, and then other people questioning, you know, cautiously optimistic,
Speaker 1: and then they released some information or release some footage
Speaker 1: and people go crazy and you're like, wow, is this
Speaker 1: going to be big when it releases? And then it
Speaker 1: comes out and people are enthusiastic. So it was just
Speaker 1: sort of a general positivity from day one to the end,
Speaker 1: and that it was kind of strange. There was no oh,
Speaker 1: I'm off filming quietly. It was like from the beginning,
Speaker 1: it's like we've already released. So that was a sort
Speaker 1: of unique experience. You're right, actually, yeah, we had. Nobody's
Speaker 1: really touched on that yet. That from the beginning, it
Speaker 1: already felt like a success. Even if we'd only done
Speaker 1: that first season, it already felt like a success because normally,
Speaker 1: as Matt was saying, with any other TV show or
Speaker 1: movie that doesn't have like a solidified fan base, so
Speaker 1: it's not a sequel or it's not based on something
Speaker 1: or whatever. You do try something and you go fingers crossed, like,
Speaker 1: let's hope that people like this because we have truly
Speaker 1: no idea. You have no idea how this is going
Speaker 1: to land with an audience. And you can test audiences,
Speaker 1: you can see what's going on socially, you can try
Speaker 1: and sort of figure out and second guess things, but
Speaker 1: sometimes that just doesn't work and it's just not the case,
Speaker 1: which is really interesting. See. Yeah, I mean there's there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of great shows that go unnoticed. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they get noticed later on or they get canceled
Speaker 1: who knows, and you're like, what I do wrong under
Speaker 1: the next one? And this never really felt like that.
Speaker 1: That was This was a very different I mean more
Speaker 1: than shows getting canceled, Like, there are so many pilots
Speaker 1: that happen that could have turned into great shows and
Speaker 1: never evolved past on stage. There are so many steps
Speaker 1: out there that don't ever get made that that a genius,
Speaker 1: that are brilliant, but they never get to that stage.
Speaker 1: The best movie you ever made is sitting on a
Speaker 1: a desk somewhere and on paper it's acts on my
Speaker 1: I mean, I it's a real lad sense. But no,
Speaker 1: but you're right, man. We were really lucky because we
Speaker 1: had this kind of microcosm of being released into the
Speaker 1: world in little bits and pieces with a fandom that
Speaker 1: was so excited, and a fandom that was had had
Speaker 1: the books and the film, but they were still ready
Speaker 1: to be open to something new. And that's you know that, Yes,
Speaker 1: there was some questioning, and yes there's you know, people
Speaker 1: wanted it to be done well, and we're cautiously optimistic,
Speaker 1: but largely pretty open to us coming in and kind
Speaker 1: of taking over the story that they loved so much.
Speaker 1: It was almost universally positive. I didn't see how negativity.
Speaker 1: I was just microcosm. Meant I almost misspelled it. It
Speaker 1: was very close to coming up with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of different results that would be interesting, you know what
Speaker 1: to see it chasms. Yeah. Have you ever been to
Speaker 1: Mount Everest? No you no, I had. I went to
Speaker 1: the top. Yeah, I took your flag off the top.
Speaker 1: Actually I went right after you did, and I, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. Get rid of massive yeah, I was thinking
Speaker 1: that the Shadow Hunters, maybe you should have spent more
Speaker 1: time in obscure or outrageous locations. We spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in New York. I know that was our jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: and I know that were and sometimes we would you know,
Speaker 1: kick on out to other places. But I really think
Speaker 1: I think one of the things would have been great
Speaker 1: is if we had gone to all kinds of bizarre locations.
Speaker 1: You know, I would have really hell right, yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: place and the seely realm. Again, interdimensional travel is not
Speaker 1: quite went to they dimensions? Are they realms? Hell? Was?
Speaker 1: Hell is realm? It's a realm. It's a realm. What
Speaker 1: is a realm? Is a realm? Like? Uh? Is the
Speaker 1: ocean a realm? No? I think it's just an adjacent
Speaker 1: plane of existence. It's a different way, same plane of existence,
Speaker 1: same an adjacent it's an adjacent plane of existence. So
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily say it's another dimension, but I would
Speaker 1: say it's well, then, what's the difference between a dimension
Speaker 1: existing within the same universe at a different I think
Speaker 1: this is okay. You know there's somebody who could answer
Speaker 1: this for us, I'm sure, So let me just hop
Speaker 1: on to you know, read it or something and just
Speaker 1: ask that question. I'm sure somebody will give me an answer,
Speaker 1: so I'll get back to this is what we mean.
Speaker 1: This used to happen on and we've spoken about this
Speaker 1: a whole bunch. What they talked about our round table
Speaker 1: a lot, which is it's actually a really lovely thing
Speaker 1: to have and doesn't happen particularly frequently on a TV
Speaker 1: set like the round table they gave for us, and
Speaker 1: we'd all sit around it and have snacks and like
Speaker 1: chat in between scenes, and you you will go off
Speaker 1: on some ludicrous tangent like we just have what's the
Speaker 1: difference between a dimension and a realm? Did we have realms?
Speaker 1: Is the moon just the back of the sun? Nobody knows.
Speaker 1: So then you would get into that and go people
Speaker 1: know that one. I'm gonna google do they shut it?
Speaker 1: Then you would go on Google this and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: figure out the real answer, and then we would move
Speaker 1: on to whatever the next facet of conversation is, and
Speaker 1: you would come back like eight or nine minutes later
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, this is fascinating, Oh god, this
Speaker 1: I think it's weird that you can't things tangents, right,
Speaker 1: but it's just knowledge, so it's not really a tangent.
Speaker 1: And in this case I need to make very clear
Speaker 1: actors between scenes or sometimes extremely bored. Not all the time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can be like NonStop work where there's no
Speaker 1: escape from it. But other times you are sitting there
Speaker 1: and you're gonna read stuff, or you can talk to
Speaker 1: each other. You can stare at your phone and press buttons.
Speaker 1: Who the heck knows what you're gonna do. But when
Speaker 1: you have a when you have enough time around other people,
Speaker 1: you can't just listen to people speculate all the time.
Speaker 1: You gotta sometimes, you know, solve the question at hand,
Speaker 1: and then that also opens up new questions, which I
Speaker 1: think is really great. I mean, we can speculate all
Speaker 1: the day about all kinds of things. I think it's great.
Speaker 1: For example, when people speculate about the show, I think
Speaker 1: it almost brings new life to it. It's more fun
Speaker 1: when somebody can can talk about what if you know,
Speaker 1: what if we had done what if we had gone
Speaker 1: to Mount every which was my original question. Would you
Speaker 1: guys just you steamrolled me? Well done, well done for
Speaker 1: bringing us back. Good job. Okay, well you're back on
Speaker 1: track here, that's your primarily So anyway, you guys have
Speaker 1: never been to to Mount Everest as people, right, No,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it's very high up. Have you
Speaker 1: heard about this, Yes, mountain in the world. It's the
Speaker 1: tallest mountain on Earth, they say, And it's the tallest
Speaker 1: place on Earth, isn't it? Yes? Well, what about the
Speaker 1: what about the sky? Is the sky of place? Is
Speaker 1: that realm place? What are all the clouds of a realm?
Speaker 1: Different levels to say, okay, the cloud rend Everest. Mount
Speaker 1: Everest should have been a place where there should have
Speaker 1: been demons inside the mountain. Okay, okay, because like if
Speaker 1: you think about it, is hell inside the earth, like
Speaker 1: like Lord of the Rings, like the dwarfs, like they
Speaker 1: have their own little their minds, they have minds in
Speaker 1: the minds of Maria. And yeah, yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: not our jurisdiction. See, now this gets down to the question.
Speaker 1: This is one of the serious problems with Shadow on
Speaker 1: Us was that our jurisdiction was actually quite limited and
Speaker 1: we really were just sort of we're really part of it,
Speaker 1: an organization with a lot of leadership levels, probably very
Speaker 1: top heavy also, by the way, and there wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of discretion allowed in our sort of almost like
Speaker 1: borderline policing work. It wasn't really clear what our real
Speaker 1: job was except to maintain order in what was sort
Speaker 1: of terrifying world of different different I don't even know,
Speaker 1: like creatures, but demons that not, and the Mundanes. It
Speaker 1: was just very complex, and honestly, I think the work.
Speaker 1: For one, I don't think that the Shadowers were being
Speaker 1: paid well enough. The actors obviously were being paid. The
Speaker 1: Disney Corporation didn't pay us. That's not anyway I would
Speaker 1: work for them again talking about Alec and Jason cat Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we went, so what what are the what are
Speaker 1: the shadow owners? What motivates them? Duty? Honor, duty and honor?
Speaker 1: Every time I say duty, dumb kn't handle it. Well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound right to me. We would say duty,
Speaker 1: duty is much more important, and I just I just
Speaker 1: don't think that duty and honor were appropriate paycheck. And
Speaker 1: also as they don't have we established they don't have robots,
Speaker 1: so they're also mopping the floors. They don't have robot vacuums.
Speaker 1: They're they're vacuum at the end of the day. A
Speaker 1: whole episode his tie, his sword. Any vacuums the entire,
Speaker 1: the entire at some point. Yeah, like when we were trainees.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was our job was to vacuum. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing this motion. Very higher artists could be anything.
Speaker 1: They're making a pizza or level is Where did we
Speaker 1: have a kitchen? Yeah, we have a shadow en we
Speaker 1: ever see that? Yeah? Well where we got to have breakfast.
Speaker 1: It was awesome. It was like pancakes and bacon. It
Speaker 1: was the best. That was the best. I had such
Speaker 1: a good day. That was such a bizarre moment. Only
Speaker 1: could not keep a straight face though none of you
Speaker 1: no my bacon. It was so strange about having us
Speaker 1: I'll sit down, and yet it was just so strange,
Speaker 1: such an out of the box thing, which I again
Speaker 1: like just one room that we used for almost anything.
Speaker 1: We used it for weddings, We used it for breakfast apparently,
Speaker 1: which I had assumed means also lunch and dinner. We
Speaker 1: used it for training, We used it for fight scenes,
Speaker 1: we used it for someone else helped me out beca
Speaker 1: I'm running out of things. I got to seven. I
Speaker 1: think I think we definitely brought a demon onto the
Speaker 1: planet in that one. Oh we did summoning, yes, but
Speaker 1: practically yes, we did it in our studio, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't I always assumed that it was meant to represent
Speaker 1: different rooms in the institute, like the breakfas. This room
Speaker 1: was not meant to be the same as the training room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was not to be the same as the wedding room.
Speaker 1: But but I always assumed that it was meant to
Speaker 1: be different parts of the institute. Which was your favorite
Speaker 1: room in the institute, So the institute for those of
Speaker 1: you don't know, the training room, like the training room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was also the dining room. Yes, the candles in
Speaker 1: the pillars, yeah, okay, yeah, that's the one We would
Speaker 1: change up a lot. So I think my favorite room
Speaker 1: was was Donald's Jason's room. My bedroom was one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I also like the Chinese restaurant. The Chinese restaurant looked
Speaker 1: so authentic that at times I wanted to I wanted
Speaker 1: to eat there. You could like smell the MSG on
Speaker 1: your way through. We did once when when Cassie said
Speaker 1: we brought dim sum into uh, they brought you guys,
Speaker 1: I mean you were there. Alex Lightwood was getting in shape,
Speaker 1: Alex Whitewood was not allowed to eat them some at
Speaker 1: that point. Oh yeah, that didn't last very long. Like
Speaker 1: we trained really hard but then and we continued training
Speaker 1: hard a lot, but like I stopped eating properly. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, I definitely was training all the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: so was I. No, I started eating potatoes again at
Speaker 1: one point and pasta Oh yeah, yeah, I never stopped
Speaker 1: eating potatoes. Yeah, so what else you got on that
Speaker 1: docket there? I'm bored of the institute. I want more.
Speaker 1: We switched up a little bit. But when you first
Speaker 1: got to Set, you know, we've told you what our
Speaker 1: first impressions were, But when you first got to Set,
Speaker 1: when you first met all of us, what were your
Speaker 1: first impressions? What were you most excited to dive into?
Speaker 1: What met your expectations? What was different than what you
Speaker 1: thought favorite? If you don't want to, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you do want to know it's not well, then you
Speaker 1: should say it. But if it's not me, then I
Speaker 1: wouldn't worry about it. You don't even say when I'm
Speaker 1: going to force you to say anything, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean when I first showed up, I didn't have a favorite.
Speaker 1: I thought all of you equally, I'll say this. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very obviously you guys are fishing for
Speaker 1: compliments here, just so strange and come might be I
Speaker 1: think that we can cut that out, Diego. We don't
Speaker 1: need him to say that in this we can just
Speaker 1: I think it's very important to show we can say
Speaker 1: whatever we want. You can say, you can say whatever
Speaker 1: you want, but it's not going to hide the fact
Speaker 1: that when I first met you, I was I was.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you go to a restaurant and the
Speaker 1: place looks nice, and then they bring out the food
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, everything about this, the presentation is fantastic.
Speaker 1: The way it looks smells nice too. Dom in particular,
Speaker 1: I mean the restaurant, and then the food comes, which
Speaker 1: is the core element of what a restaurant is supposed
Speaker 1: to do, and it's just not very good. And in
Speaker 1: terms of in terms of what kind of restaurant I'm
Speaker 1: talking about here, there were like four restaurants that I
Speaker 1: met on the first day on set, and the food
Speaker 1: was pretty good, but it wasn't great. And over time
Speaker 1: I think it improved, and then we eventually added some
Speaker 1: other people who were just they were just perfect from
Speaker 1: the beginning Chef's kiss very good. I like that the
Speaker 1: physicality came into the I like these metaphors. Now, let's
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about Alec and about this character,
Speaker 1: because let's leave it on a negative, let's leave it
Speaker 1: on a hypothe I loved all of you guys, and
Speaker 1: I was very impressed you all seem you all seem
Speaker 1: like real nice people, and I was real excited. I
Speaker 1: was one of the positive things that you said. And
Speaker 1: just leave no part of this. You should know, you
Speaker 1: should all know if you're listening to this. There there
Speaker 1: has never been a cast of seven mains. We have
Speaker 1: seven mains or eight eight depending time with Alicia, which
Speaker 1: sees it was that got along better? This is not
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen, just doesn't happen. People is always at
Speaker 1: least one, yeah, exactly, grabs grabs seven or eight people
Speaker 1: just off randomly. And see how how you've ever been
Speaker 1: on a jury before? No, no, yeah, I would like
Speaker 1: it getting me, man. I'm telling you, I don't know
Speaker 1: how they find they find me, Like I talk to people,
Speaker 1: nobody's ever been on jury, be like they get me
Speaker 1: like three times. The only thing I've been alive long
Speaker 1: enough to be on the jury three times? What are
Speaker 1: the laws about this? They're throwing me on the jury.
Speaker 1: It feels like I'm a shadow on them. Do you
Speaker 1: respond to random emails like when the prints of some
Speaker 1: country that you've never heard of as you've won, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not how they get you on jury duty? Are
Speaker 1: you talking about if the US government sends me a
Speaker 1: random The US government's a real thing. Yes, it is. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not like in Shadowman. So remember that
Speaker 1: we're talking about too different things. So in this case,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not driven by duty and honor in
Speaker 1: that area, but I do feel a certain level of
Speaker 1: duty and honor and that's why I go and I
Speaker 1: do jury stuff. But I'm starting I'm starting to get
Speaker 1: you know, it's running a little thin. And they pay
Speaker 1: you every day, you know, but you know the point
Speaker 1: their duty they pay. Yeah, yeah, I think they raised
Speaker 1: the amount too. I think it's like thirty dollars a
Speaker 1: day or something. But you know, so that's but that's
Speaker 1: maybe not enough to really inspire that duty. You need
Speaker 1: to electrify the soul, you know, you need to really
Speaker 1: tell me and not and not sort of chastise me
Speaker 1: instead as we look at this honor that is bestowed
Speaker 1: upon you, and I think that they should send your cake.
Speaker 1: I think they should send you some kind of like
Speaker 1: a metal you did great job of jury duty, something
Speaker 1: that really inspires you, you know. And that's the problem
Speaker 1: with the Shadow Hunt an organization because they didn't do enough.
Speaker 1: Not there weren't enough medals, weren't enough awards, you know,
Speaker 1: and every other military on the planet has figured it out.
Speaker 1: There's constant awards that they're getting pins all over them.
Speaker 1: They look like pin cushions. Us the three of us
Speaker 1: never got a single medal. I think we got chastised,
Speaker 1: but chastise more than we got metals. Yeah, we just
Speaker 1: get chastised. We do something good. Nothing happened to do something.
Speaker 1: We saved the world. The three of us saved the
Speaker 1: world like eight different times. We can get single medal,
Speaker 1: no single one. We also did almost destroy the world
Speaker 1: a few times. It's like it's like a balanced system,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Like, Yeah, we were gonna give it,
Speaker 1: but this is just negated the last six times you
Speaker 1: guys fucked up. So yeah, I think that actually maybe
Speaker 1: we would have gotten awards well, honestly no. But but
Speaker 1: that's exactly the case Dumb, because literally the inquisitor Mini's
Speaker 1: character after I killed Valentine, it's like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 1: you killed your dad. Good job. I guess you're not
Speaker 1: on his side, so we won't, you know, continue to
Speaker 1: prosecute you. There's definitely some neptism involved in all this.
Speaker 1: And also like, for example, at the Kent Institute in Ohio, Ohio,
Speaker 1: that's where Dumb is actually from. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: or he's from the accent and the house and the facade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all a facade, yeah, for sure. Speaking of awards,
Speaker 1: you won an award for the show. Oh, look at
Speaker 1: that segue. I know, I know, I came upward. What
Speaker 1: was it one? I w W. I won the Teen
Speaker 1: Choice Award for Breakout Star in twenty sixteen Teen Choice
Speaker 1: and then I won I won the Best Male Sci
Speaker 1: Fi Actor. That's right, that's right, in like twenty eighteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like two. Yeah, I have the surfboards. Yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: two surfboards. I hear you can use them. You can.
Speaker 1: They're amazing. I have one. We have one when we
Speaker 1: won for the show. They're actually incredible. I've got two
Speaker 1: in that are in storage right now because I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with them. They're in storage. Oh,
Speaker 1: cut them in half and use them as shelves. That's brilliant.
Speaker 1: That is brilliant. Cutn't which direction? Obviously long ways? Convertically
Speaker 1: that way? Yeah, yeah, you can just stick them on
Speaker 1: the wall and they're nice little thin bookshelves. Cut them
Speaker 1: which way, cut them into tiny little strips like this, psycho.
Speaker 1: You know, you know there's like there used to be
Speaker 1: these tests at school with like ARB tests. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what they used to call them, depending on
Speaker 1: the state you're in, and then be like logic products
Speaker 1: business trying to determine these kids capable of learning stuff.
Speaker 1: The answer is always no. The thing is is that
Speaker 1: for actors, they should have this every year to continue
Speaker 1: on and it should be things like if you receive
Speaker 1: a teen Choice award, which way would you cut it
Speaker 1: to turn in the show, and things like that. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I've missed you, Matt, I've missed you. And
Speaker 1: now that we're off on this other hand, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: really both back in. I'm gonna I'm gonna pull pull
Speaker 1: the surfboard back into shore. Okay, and uh, let's talk
Speaker 1: about Alec a little bit, because Alec had a huge
Speaker 1: growth and a huge development throughout the show and changed
Speaker 1: a lot as a character um and went through a
Speaker 1: lot as a character. And so first through third season,
Speaker 1: did you have any favorite kind of moments or favorite
Speaker 1: things that you got to do as an actor with
Speaker 1: Alec that that you look fondly upon, or you know,
Speaker 1: scenes that were your favorite or something. I think that
Speaker 1: after the after the first season, we had a fundamental
Speaker 1: shift in the way that the show is run, and
Speaker 1: there was an effort to adjust how the storylines proceeded,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it went to more of a dark place.
Speaker 1: There was things that were more there's things became more serious,
Speaker 1: I think. I think in the first season there was
Speaker 1: a kind of lighthearted quality at times, almost like fun
Speaker 1: was the primary focus. Did you get this sense at all?
Speaker 1: There was things that were kind of fun. Of course
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty intense, but then it started
Speaker 1: to be like, okay, and then there were times in
Speaker 1: the second and third season, especially for the Jay's character,
Speaker 1: they were quite unpleasant, and I think that Alec had
Speaker 1: a lot of that as well. But Alec luckily got
Speaker 1: a really nice story arc where he has a sort
Speaker 1: of a starts off kind of unpleasant and negative and
Speaker 1: then he grows from there, Whereas I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: like Jay started off all cocky and happy and then
Speaker 1: he got broken and he never recovered, which was great
Speaker 1: to see. And I think that and Clary, you know
Speaker 1: what happened to you at the end, Clary, I lost
Speaker 1: my memories. I got punished, Yeah, punished, yeah, yeah, deserved.
Speaker 1: You know I think that, Alec really, if you, if
Speaker 1: you look at it, I got to be this character
Speaker 1: that had had a really nice trajectory and ends with
Speaker 1: him getting married and getting out of the game, getting
Speaker 1: out of this place doesn't pay well enough. The demands
Speaker 1: duty and honor from you, but doesn't respect you, but
Speaker 1: doesn't It doesn't respect your fundamental rights. It doesn't respect
Speaker 1: who you are. And that's the problem with the whole clu.
Speaker 1: What is the organization called the Clave? Even the name
Speaker 1: is sinister, sinister name, and the whole organization is run
Speaker 1: by a bunch of authoritarian somewhat I don't even know,
Speaker 1: stuck to an ideology from the past, some kind of vaguely, vaguely,
Speaker 1: I don't even know. It's like a myth based religious
Speaker 1: society with a sort of a dictator type quality to it.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure how it all works. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: does have it does Geneva convention like aspects to it,
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? What was our one cold?
Speaker 1: There was like a there was after the uprising, there
Speaker 1: was like a the Accords, the Chords Accords. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it sounds like what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do is control a group of people and tell them
Speaker 1: how to live their lives. And frankly, I'm not about it.
Speaker 1: I'm not for it, and I don't like I don't
Speaker 1: like what it implies. So by the end, due to
Speaker 1: the valiant attempts of all of us to fight against this,
Speaker 1: this this evil organization. Who was the real bad guy
Speaker 1: in this film? By the way, I wanted in the show,
Speaker 1: it's not the demons. The demons were fine. They were
Speaker 1: just chilling. They're doing the thing. They're from Hell already,
Speaker 1: you said, just because they're from Hell, they're bad. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's an absurd comment. You don't know anything about. It
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly, No, it wasn't he was talking about He
Speaker 1: was absolutely evil. Was he was misunderstood. He was made well, okay,
Speaker 1: he was injected with demon blood and then made to
Speaker 1: be evil because he was tortured for ten years in hell.
Speaker 1: He hung me. I never really had a chance, you remember,
Speaker 1: he hung me on the bridge. He hung me right,
Speaker 1: fair enough. Yeah, but that's true. But you know, but
Speaker 1: you were You also became a demon creature and killed
Speaker 1: some people my fault? So did I? So did you?
Speaker 1: Did your fault when you get when you get taken
Speaker 1: over by a demon and kill He wasn't taken over
Speaker 1: by it and demon and kill someone? Know? Then? How
Speaker 1: was it? How was it his fault? It wasn't alex fault.
Speaker 1: He wasn't taken over by a demon? Will what happened
Speaker 1: to him? He was? He was raised badly? Oh, Jonathan?
Speaker 1: So is it his fault? How do we apply fault
Speaker 1: at impay and negative impact? How can we apply any
Speaker 1: level of fault to any of these these characters? We
Speaker 1: can't apply fault from their birth. We can apply fault
Speaker 1: to their to the things they've done. We can say
Speaker 1: these things are wrong. But ultimately at the core of
Speaker 1: it is that the Clave is an evil organization. Into
Speaker 1: the nature nurture argument is that what's happening yet A
Speaker 1: little bit? No, no, no, we're not. When I'm not
Speaker 1: getting into the more the moralistic things like that. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that the Clave is an evil organization hell
Speaker 1: bent on controlling it's it's underpaid, if paid at all,
Speaker 1: we are I'm very often understaffed as well. While while
Speaker 1: heavily understaffed, heavily understaffed because you can't get new staff
Speaker 1: if you're just demanding duty and honor as the primary
Speaker 1: motivation for work. Yeah, but what that led to was
Speaker 1: some really fun Yes, hold on, you're right. Sorry. Alex
Speaker 1: As his character fought against that organization, marries the love
Speaker 1: of his life. Yeah, the lovely Magnus, making the lovely couple.
Speaker 1: Malik his best friend has died at one point, came back,
Speaker 1: and then the Clary person. All these terrible things happening,
Speaker 1: but he in the end gets married and he gets out.
Speaker 1: He gets out, moves out, done, no more Clave, all done,
Speaker 1: and then they break it up from the inside. They
Speaker 1: turn it into just a normal semi hands on, you know,
Speaker 1: democratic environment where people get voted in kind of this
Speaker 1: is what you think happened, this is your like we
Speaker 1: get asked this a lot obviously, like what do you
Speaker 1: think happened after this? And my response is always the same.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a cop out, but it's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting for us to give this back to the audience.
Speaker 1: You know, if a thousand people watch it, a thousand
Speaker 1: people are going to have a different idea of what
Speaker 1: happened with the continuation of this story, because it's all
Speaker 1: hypothetical and it's up to you and how you relates
Speaker 1: to the characters and so on. So your interpretation of
Speaker 1: that potentially is eu Trojan horst into the system to
Speaker 1: take it down from the inside. Yes, correct, It didn't
Speaker 1: like take it down in sort of like a revolutionary
Speaker 1: where it just slowly sort of dismantled the parts that
Speaker 1: we're keeping this kind of structure upright, you know. And
Speaker 1: so you take a little party, take out this position, oh,
Speaker 1: make this position elected, and then you get some other
Speaker 1: organizations to sort of control the nature of that electorate
Speaker 1: and all that, and then you start paying people more
Speaker 1: and doing all that, and before you know it, the
Speaker 1: whole thing falls apart and the demons aren't turn out
Speaker 1: they're not actually bad. Because you know, you've ever seen
Speaker 1: the show Galaxy Quest No the movie, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the historical documents best the show that this follows
Speaker 1: around and ours are like historical documents. They're they're designed
Speaker 1: to present a story that's not entirely true. The enemies
Speaker 1: are are demons and all that, but it's just it's
Speaker 1: all heightened. In fact, none of it was actually that
Speaker 1: what an interesting concept, like if aliens are watching this
Speaker 1: right now, somewhere in a distant galaxy or maybe on
Speaker 1: the distant edge of our galaxy, who knows, with no
Speaker 1: context they're watching this and who do they think are
Speaker 1: the good guys versus a bad guys? Because we do
Speaker 1: we do some messed ups up and do and do
Speaker 1: they view this as a propaganda film? But there's a
Speaker 1: there's a major problem in your whole statement here is
Speaker 1: that the show has only been on the air for
Speaker 1: seven years, right, light that light hasn't even reached the
Speaker 1: end of the Solar system. I don't think that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, we weren't sending the information via light, are
Speaker 1: we light? As radiation? Radiation travels to speed of light.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, and oh okay, so alright, so maybe
Speaker 1: the maybe the aliens on Neptune though, because Neptune is
Speaker 1: just pactful aliens. Anyway, Oh that makes sense. I think
Speaker 1: I think that in this case, it's it's it's important
Speaker 1: to recognize that maybe the world we've been presented in
Speaker 1: the show Shadow Honors is a is really just sort
Speaker 1: of a propagandize show created by an organization that is
Speaker 1: fundamentally evil, the Cliff and we were servants of that empire. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: you heard it. Here has been a pleasure. Um soon, no,
Speaker 1: we have more but uh but no, let's say let's
Speaker 1: say this like, you know, yes, it was something that
Speaker 1: we always love talking about on the show, is that
Speaker 1: the good guys weren't necessarily the good guys, and the
Speaker 1: bad guys weren't necessarily the bad guys. And what that
Speaker 1: led to were some you know, very interesting relationships and
Speaker 1: friendships along the way. For example, you know Jason Alec
Speaker 1: who were Parabatie and that, you know, you got to
Speaker 1: explore that relationship and Alec and Clary who were often
Speaker 1: at odds, but because they cared about and one of
Speaker 1: the same things, they just came from very different perspectives
Speaker 1: and very different upbringings, and it was it was I
Speaker 1: loved exploring, you know, seeing your two relationship develop and
Speaker 1: get explored in different and tested in different ways in
Speaker 1: the show. And then we often got put together on
Speaker 1: the show, and it was always it was a it
Speaker 1: was a fun balance to play between this kind of
Speaker 1: love hate friendship. Well, look, we had, like you said,
Speaker 1: we had shared goals, right, yeah, yeah, we wanted well
Speaker 1: sometimes you wanted to keep Jason alive because you thought
Speaker 1: he was cute. Yeah, And I wanted to keep him
Speaker 1: alive because he was my bond closer than brotherhood. I mean,
Speaker 1: something incomprehensible, and you were just trying to basically, Claire
Speaker 1: was trying to take Jas from Alec, and I mean
Speaker 1: I just wanted to share him. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: take him. There was no shore not I think you
Speaker 1: would have shared. I can share, you cannot. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel shared. You didn't. You didn't feel thank you for
Speaker 1: this information. I felt like Alec got a very small
Speaker 1: piece of the pie. Okay, But then it turned out
Speaker 1: that you guys couldn't be together. Yeah, yeah, siblings For
Speaker 1: a minute, you did, but you weren't. Yeah. No, no,
Speaker 1: did you know in the books that that goes on
Speaker 1: for like three books? Oh, my Yeah, yeah, that's probably
Speaker 1: not for the best. Here's the thing though, In the end,
Speaker 1: you guys end up in a good sort of good situation.
Speaker 1: And I actually okay at the ending, right, So I
Speaker 1: liked Alec, ended up liking Clary and because shared goals, right,
Speaker 1: very clear they both both each other. Yeah, we trusted
Speaker 1: each other by the end. Yes, I was not concerned
Speaker 1: that you turn coat on us and do something crazy.
Speaker 1: I was more concerned that you'd get into some mischief
Speaker 1: because sometimes you would have your own little goals and
Speaker 1: ways of doing things, like raising demons that yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, he's my brother. Yeah he was briefly, and
Speaker 1: then he wasn't. No, the other guy, oh, the other guy.
Speaker 1: The guys more than just one demon. We're doing demons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so too. I'm trying to remember as well.
Speaker 1: I think you raised a whole bunch of demons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I I brought my add back then killed me.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like a blood loss. Maybe we were
Speaker 1: raising them because they weren't enough damons for us as slaughter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we would be like, oh, we need to know.
Speaker 1: We used to talk about this, like do you remember
Speaker 1: we would talk about during these like board sessions when
Speaker 1: we were just like sat around the round table and
Speaker 1: we'd be like, Okay, cool, so what happens Shadow Hunters,
Speaker 1: Zombie Apocalypse, what happens? How do we? How do we
Speaker 1: function here? Like? These were honestly some of the best
Speaker 1: slash worst ideas that we've ever had on set was
Speaker 1: dealing with how like Jason, Alec and Clary would deal
Speaker 1: with these like extrenuous situations. Yeah, like what didn't we
Speaker 1: go into this whole one where this was like a
Speaker 1: psychotic break that four friends had had and they just
Speaker 1: live in this abandoned church together and pretend to my
Speaker 1: demons with like sticks. I think that was just you
Speaker 1: I don't think you know, that would be a very
Speaker 1: interesting It would be an interesting way to something where
Speaker 1: people go into the Narnia whatever. No, there's no closet
Speaker 1: that they're going to in the language robe. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: just still in the same place, just sort of dreaming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's a good possibility. But it
Speaker 1: does reveal a little bit about themselves because they are
Speaker 1: exceedingly violent, very martial society and Starship Troopers a little
Speaker 1: bit definitely feels like Starship Troopers very starship Troopers. You're right,
Speaker 1: what was the nature of the question you asked? I
Speaker 1: was talking about the relationships on the show, but you
Speaker 1: touched on it. The biggest, arguably the biggest and most
Speaker 1: beloved relationship on the show is Malick and Dom and
Speaker 1: I talk about this literally every episode. We talk about
Speaker 1: the incredible work that you and Harry did on the
Speaker 1: show for so many years making this relationship that felt
Speaker 1: so honest and so well structured and so on. Arguably
Speaker 1: the healthiest relationship on the entire series, certainly the healthiest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Kat brings that up a lot. It's very true, which
Speaker 1: is very true, but also a little hurtful, as fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the relationship that she was in anything except
Speaker 1: structure of the story and how they communicate. Jason Clarie
Speaker 1: has a lovely relationship, but they don't communicate at all. Right, true,
Speaker 1: didn't you also have relationship with somebody else? Simon? Oh?
Speaker 1: She did, yeah with Simon a little bit Sebastian for
Speaker 1: a hot minute that season. Yes, who was my brother
Speaker 1: in disguise? Again, it's the whole thing. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: think that the very clear Malick was definitely the best
Speaker 1: relationship on the show, and that's due to people putting
Speaker 1: a lot of time and effort into it. I think
Speaker 1: that ultimately also having the tremendous support from fans also
Speaker 1: really helped sort of guide. Now. I don't think that
Speaker 1: generally shows should listen to fans when it comes to
Speaker 1: making decisions about characters and things like that, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that our show did. However, there was some
Speaker 1: element of this that did matter deeply to fans and
Speaker 1: people who watched the show, and it was seemed to
Speaker 1: be a unanimous kind of position, and it seemed to
Speaker 1: be very very widespread. So there was a certain level
Speaker 1: of Okay, what are people looking for, and what do
Speaker 1: people really want here? And what would I what would
Speaker 1: cause somebody an enormous amount of distress to see. So
Speaker 1: we tried to avoid things that were maybe like for example,
Speaker 1: false to create drama, and instead you want to create
Speaker 1: a kind of a storyline that feeds in without sort
Speaker 1: of false moments of destruction or fear about that relationship.
Speaker 1: And I think that they handled that very well, and
Speaker 1: I think that also the arc ended up working very well.
Speaker 1: So we saw a little bit of Magus's dark side
Speaker 1: and the things that he's dealing with as this immortal,
Speaker 1: ultra powerful being, and we saw a little bit of
Speaker 1: Alex growth as a very human individual who has happens
Speaker 1: have certain superpowers. And I think that by working through
Speaker 1: those on the show, as they worked with those together,
Speaker 1: which we saw a lot of that, they worked, they
Speaker 1: kind of you know, they worked on each other's issues,
Speaker 1: and they talked to each other, they communicated. That made
Speaker 1: it a very real relationship and also really justified their
Speaker 1: love for each other, which was more than just some
Speaker 1: kind of faded thing. Although you can call a fad
Speaker 1: if you want to. I don't know, it depends on
Speaker 1: your opinion, but it was it was justified. It was
Speaker 1: justified love that grew over an appropriate period of time.
Speaker 1: We saw them grow together, understand each other, and then
Speaker 1: finally get fucking married. Married. Yeah. Well, and they weren't
Speaker 1: without their problems. They weren't without their back and forth.
Speaker 1: Yeah and that, but they worked through it and it
Speaker 1: was good. Yeah. But we should also talk about the
Speaker 1: time frame. We do talk about the time frame a
Speaker 1: lot on this show. So we covered less than a
Speaker 1: month in all of the seasons. If you look at
Speaker 1: the actual timeframe of what happened, and when it happened,
Speaker 1: happened within a month. Oh, I think that I calculated
Speaker 1: this once it was I think it was maybe three
Speaker 1: in total. I think at the point that you and
Speaker 1: I are at, we're about halfway through season two right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we it's been about a month for us. But
Speaker 1: I think in total it's it's about three months, because
Speaker 1: at one point it jumps a week and there's one
Speaker 1: but like, there's certain things that happen. But I think
Speaker 1: you're right, mad. I think it was like three three
Speaker 1: and a half months in total. Yeah, I mean, when
Speaker 1: you know, you know that always happens. That's like I'm
Speaker 1: breaking bad. It was like breaking bad was only nine
Speaker 1: months or sign or eight months, which is pretty wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just happened, you know. I just have to sort
Speaker 1: of take it as you see it. Time is a
Speaker 1: time constructor we made it up. It is. It's a construct.
Speaker 1: Humans made it up. The alien's watching on Neptune. They're like,
Speaker 1: we don't care because we have a different version of time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, their days will be much longer, right, true,
Speaker 1: love knows no time. You know, you've got an eight
Speaker 1: hundred seven year old Warlock and that twenty something year
Speaker 1: old shadow hunter. It love knows no time. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know what I've noticed about getting older, which I've stopped doing,
Speaker 1: Like I stopped that like six years ago. Oh yeah
Speaker 1: you so yeah, that wasn't for it. But one of
Speaker 1: the things I noticed about was that there is a
Speaker 1: point at which you signed just it's just kind of
Speaker 1: the same, right, And it's actually interesting, like humans don't
Speaker 1: really have the capacity to really evolve themselves all that far.
Speaker 1: You get to a certain point and then you start degrading.
Speaker 1: And for you know, some people like Dom, it starts
Speaker 1: when they're twelve. For me, I haven't hit that degrading
Speaker 1: part yet. Kat, the same as you, I think probably,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So funny, I think so much of
Speaker 1: what you do is degrading. Oh god, you sist today,
Speaker 1: Tom was like a set up comedian today. Good it's gracious.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm laying them on thick here without without
Speaker 1: even given I'm sorry for what I'm doing today. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: This has been Honestly, this has been We've done so
Speaker 1: little work here. This has been the easiest. Guest. We've
Speaker 1: been awaiting your arrival for work. Were you talking about
Speaker 1: this is this is work. No, Kat and I have
Speaker 1: done with you don't know what We've just very good,
Speaker 1: very good. I'm not even mad. That's very good. I
Speaker 1: mean you did get paid to hang out with us
Speaker 1: for like five years, and now you just have to
Speaker 1: do it for free and you're like, uh oh wait,
Speaker 1: yeah no, it's not just duty on that drives this friendship.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay my pants. You gotta stop. Like, I
Speaker 1: think it's really funny. Maybe you shouldn't sit in that
Speaker 1: chair then duh, Yeah, I shouldn't sit in this chair.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's been squatch guarded sitting on a towel.
Speaker 1: What I want to say. I wanted to say something
Speaker 1: about the something about the Time show, the time the
Speaker 1: show went on for a while time. Oh right, So anyway,
Speaker 1: you get to a certain age and you sort of
Speaker 1: stop progressing, and I think that you can learn new things,
Speaker 1: but you're still the person you were at some point.
Speaker 1: And I know people say this like sometimes it's like
Speaker 1: some people are stuck at a certain age. Magnus is
Speaker 1: the same way, Like, I don't really have a problem.
Speaker 1: It's like we can't apply the same sort of sense
Speaker 1: of age and understanding. When somebody is of a certain
Speaker 1: age and then somebody's eight hundred and fifty, you know,
Speaker 1: not a problem we're gonna have to deal with in
Speaker 1: the real world. But if Magnus, let's say Magnus is
Speaker 1: an immortal, being a thousand years old. When someone's immortal, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and also doesn't have a concept of mortality, right, like,
Speaker 1: so it's not he's almost a thousand years old. You
Speaker 1: fantalize him a little bit. Yeah, keep him kind of
Speaker 1: as a child, because you don't without the fear of death,
Speaker 1: you don't have that constant sort of understanding. Also the
Speaker 1: fact that you're not aging, so that you don't have
Speaker 1: the visible and physical factors of age. So really he's
Speaker 1: sort of stuck as this young man, so he never
Speaker 1: really matures in that way. And you can tell that
Speaker 1: Magnus is not somebody who's of unbelievable wisdom. He's of
Speaker 1: a certain level of wisdom, but he still struggles with
Speaker 1: things that's still haunt him from the past. He's not
Speaker 1: oh I see laugh, he's that entirely omnipotent. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: still has like unresolved he sot has issues that need
Speaker 1: to be based in challenge. Yeah, and he's still he's
Speaker 1: still has the emotional capacities of immortal, Yeah, even though
Speaker 1: he's immortal. Yes, And it's it's kind of interesting, it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of it's strange. You know, you meet people
Speaker 1: of a certain age and there their wisdom seems to
Speaker 1: come from a sense of fatal and there's an end
Speaker 1: coming soon, and that gives them a tremendous sense of
Speaker 1: calm and peace or sometimes not because but they recognize
Speaker 1: a kind of acceptance of their of their fate, acceptance
Speaker 1: of their humanity. And when you're young, you don't really
Speaker 1: have that, and sometimes you need humans sometimes need that
Speaker 1: like shown to them, and sometimes it's free, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it creates a tremendous sometimes, like what are the two
Speaker 1: things you're born afraid of the dark and falling? Right,
Speaker 1: Like the two things that are innately we're afraid of
Speaker 1: children is the dark and falling, like because you can
Speaker 1: have that sense of like being dropped as scary, right,
Speaker 1: have that concept of gravity. I think those are the
Speaker 1: two things you're born being scared of. So you don't
Speaker 1: you're not born with a concept of mortality. You're not
Speaker 1: born with a concept of a finite end to this
Speaker 1: existence that you have. It has to be taught, It
Speaker 1: has to be learned. That makes sense, no, But but
Speaker 1: in the end, Matt, you of all people are timeless
Speaker 1: to us. Thank you and perpletely legendary. What a button.
Speaker 1: Thank you. But you know, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on with us today. And we just did Doria
Speaker 1: and we talk about your incredible work and the joy
Speaker 1: that you brought both on and offscreen to us during
Speaker 1: the show. So thank you for that. And you know
Speaker 1: what is long since because I was so insufferable on this,
Speaker 1: I just want to say, I think it's great that
Speaker 1: you guys did this podcast. I think it's really cools.
Speaker 1: Fans seem to love it, as I listened to some
Speaker 1: of them, and I know that you've mentioned that fans
Speaker 1: seem to really enjoy it, and I think that's really great.
Speaker 1: The show was really an amazing experience, something really cool,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I'm not sure with the nature
Speaker 1: of TV anymore, will something like that. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: really where that will come around again. And so it
Speaker 1: was very very it was very cool to be a
Speaker 1: part of that, and I hope that people continue to
Speaker 1: watch that owners going into the future and people who've
Speaker 1: never even heard of it in ten years, they hear
Speaker 1: of it and they say, hey, what's the show. They
Speaker 1: check it out and maybe it means something to them,
Speaker 1: maybe they like it, maybe it's important to them, so
Speaker 1: that'd be great. It's nice. Sharon is a great siste.
Speaker 1: Nice thing. It's a perfect way to bring this to
Speaker 1: an end. Matt, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: We know people who have been clambering at the bit
Speaker 1: to try and get you on here us included, So
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking some time autie your
Speaker 1: day and sharing some stories with us. Love you buddy,
Speaker 1: Thank you guys. Love you have your bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: Return to the Shadows as hosted and executive produced by
Speaker 1: me Dominic, Sherwood and Katherine McNamara. Our executive producer is Langley.
Speaker 1: Our senior producers are Liz Hayes and Diego Tapia. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Hannah Harris and Kristin Vermilia, and our intern
Speaker 1: is Sam Kat's. Original music by Alex Kinsey performed by
Speaker 1: Alex Kinsey and Katherine McNamara, and the episode was mixed
Speaker 1: by Seth A. Lansky.