Speaker 1: Look man, oh, I see you? Why oh? And look
Speaker 1: over there? How is that? Culture? Yes? Goodness? Culture racas calling.
Speaker 1: I want to get out ahead of this. A straight
Speaker 1: wedding took my voice this week. It has not I
Speaker 1: have the universe has not yet given it back. But
Speaker 1: I look forward to the day when I sound like
Speaker 1: me again. Well, I was just talking to you about
Speaker 1: hours ago, and you're in vocally you were even more
Speaker 1: shot than you are now. And I really have to
Speaker 1: commend your recovery. And you're got the body, and the
Speaker 1: human body is amazing. Isn't the body one of the
Speaker 1: most amazing things? Actually, it's a rule of culture. What
Speaker 1: number is this again? The human body is amazing. It's
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing things in the world. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about what brought you to this place? Well,
Speaker 1: I sort of like, what was that? A straight wedding
Speaker 1: on Long Island with all my high school friends, and
Speaker 1: so that you can sort of fill on the blanks there,
Speaker 1: I ended up ended up sort of wasted, drinking tequila
Speaker 1: on the rocks with my high school friends at a
Speaker 1: Marriott at two in the morning. So that was how
Speaker 1: that went. I'm so happy for you that you're able
Speaker 1: to do this because I think I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm speaking for I should just speak for myself. I
Speaker 1: will speak for myself. I do not speak for me.
Speaker 1: I won't speak for you or anyone listening. I couldn't
Speaker 1: do that with people from high school who I haven't
Speaker 1: kept up within a while. In a while, like, there's
Speaker 1: just so many cobwebs gossamer threads that we'd have to,
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of try to dust off. And
Speaker 1: I look, alcohol is a wonderful social lubricant, as we
Speaker 1: all know. But I just think great lube, great lube.
Speaker 1: I just would still be the gun oil of non
Speaker 1: sexual lubricants. Oh my god, gun oil is sexual. Though,
Speaker 1: What are you saying so I would say that alcohol
Speaker 1: is non sexual, Well don't. And sort of what I'm
Speaker 1: saying there is that gun oil is the lube by use. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's a bread crumb for the readers. Alcohol could
Speaker 1: be considered a sexual Lubritense in many ways is bowen.
Speaker 1: And that's why I stand you so because they're always
Speaker 1: thinking outside the box. You have sort of one of
Speaker 1: those most subversive queer comedy minds, and that's what shoots
Speaker 1: you to the top. For your consideration everyone. I know
Speaker 1: you get your ballots in hand. Makes me deeply uncomfortable
Speaker 1: that you talk about this every episode. Now that I
Speaker 1: think it's funny, and I think it's going to happen,
Speaker 1: I think it's and and then I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be I don't want to I don't want to talk.
Speaker 1: It makes me so uncomfortable to think about. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: look really uncomfortable. I'm on the ballot too. It will
Speaker 1: never happen for me. For the show, everyone, for your consideration.
Speaker 1: Matt Rogers, hot Dog. There. The billboards are everywhere in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles everywhere, for your consideration. Ads are so annoying.
Speaker 1: It's like we get it, we get it. Um no,
Speaker 1: but anyway, um I do want to also shout out,
Speaker 1: you know, the human body is amazing. You know what
Speaker 1: else is amazing medicine because I am on a steroid
Speaker 1: right now that allows me to speak to you, my
Speaker 1: god who and you've got the prescription straight away. He
Speaker 1: didn't even give me a prescription. This, I'm gonna say it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it hot straight doctor at the City
Speaker 1: m D. And you know I'm on record as not
Speaker 1: being about City m d s a k A. They're
Speaker 1: like an antibiotic candy store. So I basically was like
Speaker 1: waiting for him to say, there a chain restaurant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there a chain restaurant. But what I'm waiting for him
Speaker 1: to say, here's an antibiotic. Here's a Z pack. I
Speaker 1: don't even really need. I'm not even gonna look you
Speaker 1: in the eyes once. Just here's a pack. Throw it
Speaker 1: at me and get the funk out of here. They
Speaker 1: gave me a shot of a steroid. It was a gatorade.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe it. It was like
Speaker 1: a shot of gatorade and there was a steroid in it,
Speaker 1: and I took it. And now I'm on a steroid.
Speaker 1: How does it feel? Fucking fabulous? And he just he
Speaker 1: is flexed um speaking of steroids and being gay. We
Speaker 1: want to and I'm not saying anything about this NFL player,
Speaker 1: but we want to congratulate this openly gay NFL player.
Speaker 1: What's his name? Some Carl, Carl, Carl Gibb, Carl Carl gellib.
Speaker 1: I didn't really I I said good for him. I
Speaker 1: said good for him. I guess what does this feel like?
Speaker 1: I I'm having deja boudiculton Underwood in a way which
Speaker 1: they're not the same. They're not the same person. It's
Speaker 1: not the same situation at all. I'm like, are they not?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean and until until Carl does
Speaker 1: like my favorite Amazon products to help me feel pride
Speaker 1: like that was the funniest I've read in years. Hold on?
Speaker 1: What did it say? Hold on because because because it
Speaker 1: was like, what are your favorite Amazon bias? And we
Speaker 1: should say I did text our group that about it,
Speaker 1: and Boone immediately said, unfortunately a publicist wrote this, but
Speaker 1: I do I which I which very eliminated for me.
Speaker 1: A good job Bowen seeing all the PEPSI cans as
Speaker 1: it were. Yes, oh no, my go to water bottle
Speaker 1: is Voss. Is there great for me when I'm entertaining
Speaker 1: or when I have guests over. Difference are great for Voss.
Speaker 1: Water bottles are great for me when I'm entertaining or
Speaker 1: having guests over. So we can say that sometimes when
Speaker 1: he has guests over, he's not really entertaining. Baboom okay
Speaker 1: Reebok Club C eighty five Pride shoes. There's nothing better
Speaker 1: than a fresh pair of white sneakers, and these are
Speaker 1: nothing better. And these are the Reebok Pride shoes. I
Speaker 1: like them not only because they're white, but because they've
Speaker 1: got a little pop and a little and that's essentially me.
Speaker 1: I like to be clean, but all also have a
Speaker 1: little flair and a little dazzle. These are great shoes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a high coup. It's wonderful. It's
Speaker 1: poetry first to end on. These are great shoes. He said.
Speaker 1: I love these because their white. And that's a brave
Speaker 1: thing to say. As they say, and as they say
Speaker 1: the world over. You know, we both had we both
Speaker 1: had very straight um weeks. You at a straight wedding
Speaker 1: seeing a hot straight doctor, me being in what I
Speaker 1: think is maybe the straightest city in America. No, that's
Speaker 1: not true. I was gonna say it's Savannah, Georgia. But
Speaker 1: it's very there's a very gay story that happens there,
Speaker 1: which is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Speaker 1: But I mean otherwise, it's a pretty it's it's bachelorette
Speaker 1: party Central. It's bachelor party Central, and said and and
Speaker 1: and therefore I would say it is a very heteroic city.
Speaker 1: Um felt very it was very nice. Was there with
Speaker 1: my sister, my parents, my nieces, my brother in law.
Speaker 1: Stressful to eat out every single meal with two children,
Speaker 1: I will say, two young children. Young But it was
Speaker 1: a lovely time. It was it was, it was you know,
Speaker 1: my sister. My sister had a nice escape from from Atlanta,
Speaker 1: um and my brother in lawn. The were do for one,
Speaker 1: The kids were do for one. It was nice for
Speaker 1: the for the whole family to be getting together since
Speaker 1: the pandemic. All I'm saying is I don't think I
Speaker 1: love Savannah unfortunately, and I do have to be public
Speaker 1: about that. Well, you gave it a shot. I gave it.
Speaker 1: I really gave it a shot. Will you'll try anything?
Speaker 1: Once I took the ghost tours, I learned all about
Speaker 1: the bodies that are buried under every square. I learned
Speaker 1: about the Mercer Williams House. Of course, I learned about
Speaker 1: the ghost of Flannery Ricconnor, the racist ghost of Flannery
Speaker 1: Ricconnor haunting a house. All of these things. I love, love, loved.
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's a city for me. And
Speaker 1: that's okay. I think I needed I need to start
Speaker 1: recusing myself from a narrative of every city in America
Speaker 1: is a good city because it cannot possibly be true,
Speaker 1: because if every city is good, then no city is good.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You know? Then, ever, then
Speaker 1: everyone would live in every understanding, you could simply be chaos.
Speaker 1: And we understand the case. Oh, I understand, you understand.
Speaker 1: But I think it's great that we sort of got
Speaker 1: some straight going during Pride months, because the weekend of
Speaker 1: Pride is a on us. I got it out of
Speaker 1: my system and and this is going to be a
Speaker 1: stressful week. But we're we're we're strapping ourselves in and
Speaker 1: the straightness ends right now with this episode. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you that right now, the straightness ends right now, especially
Speaker 1: while we bring in our guests. Oh, I can't I
Speaker 1: can't really believe the guests. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And like you no, I I actually I get exactly
Speaker 1: what you mean. I can't believe the guests, do you know?
Speaker 1: But like when I say the words, I can't believe
Speaker 1: our guests? Do you do? You know what I mean? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do? And I sort of remember us sort of.
Speaker 1: I guess I guess you'd say starting this podcast years
Speaker 1: ago and thinking we'll never get a guest like insert
Speaker 1: the name of guests. Here are guests name. He's just
Speaker 1: he's had probably as prolific of her career as you
Speaker 1: could want. Is an exercise in futility to name all
Speaker 1: the credits and think, oh, yes, we've encapsulated this whole
Speaker 1: man's career. We're not gonna do that. But he's otherwise
Speaker 1: above vo men about town, about the world, owns the
Speaker 1: wonderful Club Coming in the East Village to say that
Speaker 1: that place is your place. The poh my god, I stopped.
Speaker 1: I stopped the boards of Club Coming many a time.
Speaker 1: People might remember in the in the grade before I
Speaker 1: was Catherine Cohen's sub whenever she wasn't there, I was there.
Speaker 1: And it was called it wasn't called Cabernet, cabinet, it
Speaker 1: was called Griggio gig and I got it going. And
Speaker 1: I think Alan Coming would have been very proud, and
Speaker 1: he would know he would have been very proud. And
Speaker 1: look it's back. We encourage everyone back in New York City,
Speaker 1: if you're visiting, if you live here, to go give
Speaker 1: it a visit. Wonderful shows happening every night, wonderful bar experience.
Speaker 1: He's also the director of the New audible original Hot
Speaker 1: White Heist with an all Stark Beer cast including Cynthia Nixon.
Speaker 1: I'm Rodriguez, Donte Rio, Jane Lynn, Tony Kushner. I can
Speaker 1: say this sentence as if he's not in it, but
Speaker 1: it's led by Bowen Yang, who is a talent, a
Speaker 1: queer talent, but the queerness he supersedes it. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. He's he's he's international international star. Wow,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you? And who who else would be
Speaker 1: an international star if not me? Would be our guests? Everyone,
Speaker 1: please welcome into your ears. Allen Kind Allen, thank you, boys,
Speaker 1: Bo and Yang and Matt Rodgers. Wow. We we were
Speaker 1: talking before about how good it's it is to hear
Speaker 1: him say your name, and then he said my full
Speaker 1: name for the first time, and oh boy, it was
Speaker 1: like bad. It's just it's just one worth it worth
Speaker 1: the way. You're joining us from an opal mind, tell
Speaker 1: tell the listeners the readers where you're from. Where you're
Speaker 1: coming from. I'm in Australia and South Australia. I'm an
Speaker 1: Adelaide memor artistic director of the Adelaide Cobalt Festival, so
Speaker 1: I'm doing some pop up club comings. Actually such fun
Speaker 1: d G and then we have performers and such fun
Speaker 1: um and then I'm doing my own concerts show at
Speaker 1: the end of the festival. But I came here to
Speaker 1: this place Couber p D And ironically I just did
Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper's show before you guys. And but it's called
Speaker 1: Couber with a B. And it's an old Opal mining
Speaker 1: town and everybody lives underground because it's so hot in
Speaker 1: the summer. So I'm actually in a hotel that it's underground.
Speaker 1: And you just see these little kind of funny pools
Speaker 1: sticking out everywhere, and that means there's a little air
Speaker 1: hole going down to some little person. There's seventeen I
Speaker 1: know all the facts. The people live in this town.
Speaker 1: Seventy of them live under fucking ground. That there's an
Speaker 1: element of danger here. There's an element of danger. What's
Speaker 1: do you feel safe? One of the thing is I
Speaker 1: can go out into my corridor and look left and
Speaker 1: I can see daylight, so it's not I don't feel
Speaker 1: quite so bad. But that's that's unusual. Yesterday I was
Speaker 1: in an Opal mine, I was in an Opal shop.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I'm an underground mind. Sorry, an
Speaker 1: underground shop, an underground cafe, an underground cinema. I did
Speaker 1: the whole thing, an underground church and underground Serbian church.
Speaker 1: This is a whole It's a city of males. It's
Speaker 1: just so weird. It was a weird Serbian priest ranting
Speaker 1: at this little Italian man who was a toutist, telling him,
Speaker 1: who what do you call him? Leonardo da Vinci was
Speaker 1: I nearly didn't know he did well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: he didn't couldn't get a word in edgeways, and I
Speaker 1: just was like, I was about to say, leave the
Speaker 1: boy alone, let let him be, but they kind of
Speaker 1: wandered off. But it was it's been crazy, like you
Speaker 1: know it. Also, they shot a part of Priscilla, Queen
Speaker 1: of the Desert here is you know that it's got
Speaker 1: that weird out back sort of an industry town where
Speaker 1: the industry is kind of almost gone and they're sort
Speaker 1: of pushing the toutist thing. It's just a mishmash of crazy.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. So then the history
Speaker 1: of the culture doesn't reach down there, and that's why
Speaker 1: this person didn't know Leonard da Vinci. You can't blame him, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you rest from it Italy? He was Italy? Is it Italian?
Speaker 1: That's the thing. I was like, he's had a little
Speaker 1: Italian boy And if little Italian boys nowadays don't know
Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci, we've lost something as a culture. If
Speaker 1: the little Italian boys today know Luca better than Da Vinci,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong. There's something wrong show biz. Did you
Speaker 1: see did you see who won the Univision song contest
Speaker 1: this year? It was it was Italy, wasn't it. It
Speaker 1: was Italy with a song with a rock and roll song,
Speaker 1: and the man snorted the line of coke off the table,
Speaker 1: apparently allegedly. And my favorite thing is when he came
Speaker 1: to you know, when they come to win the Univision
Speaker 1: song contests, you have to say something to the world,
Speaker 1: and he went, rock and roll never dies. He was right,
Speaker 1: he was right. What do you think of sort of
Speaker 1: like Eurovisions sort of because I'm imagining you're a fan
Speaker 1: Eurovision pivot to sort of not honoring pop music as
Speaker 1: of late, it feels well, I think that was just
Speaker 1: I think that's more like the the Italian one obviously
Speaker 1: was a freak. I think it's the fact that the
Speaker 1: public get to vote now right. I don't think that's wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't think it should I think it should be
Speaker 1: the weird little judges um and because like the weird
Speaker 1: Little Judges voted that little Austrian, cute Austrian boy with
Speaker 1: the sort of falsetto, which is much more what I
Speaker 1: think of as a Univision winner, and then the general
Speaker 1: public block voted for the Italian rocker alleged Coakheads. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm a big fan of your vision.
Speaker 1: I've I've I grew up with it. I'm very influenced.
Speaker 1: But I think in my eclecticism and my you know,
Speaker 1: lack of respect for sort of sort of normal pop groups,
Speaker 1: I think you have some quirk and and also my
Speaker 1: embrace of tacky pop songs. That's my thing. I keep
Speaker 1: saying this to people in Australia. My and a club
Speaker 1: coming one of my things about getting older. And you know,
Speaker 1: in my fifties I became a DJ in a barman
Speaker 1: part time. And I think both those things are about
Speaker 1: as you were saying about the lubricant, it's both. Both
Speaker 1: those things are my ways of encouraging people to let
Speaker 1: go and just have fun, not care what people think
Speaker 1: and be and be judged, and so I I think like,
Speaker 1: for example, I put on some Eurovision hits during my
Speaker 1: DJ sets in Adelaide, and I like it when people
Speaker 1: just let go and dance. They're actually in Australia, they're
Speaker 1: good at letting go America so much. And what about
Speaker 1: what about the UK? In the UK ada better? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they like the whole sort of thing of you
Speaker 1: univision is quite a good sort of metaphor fun. And
Speaker 1: also like you know, pantomime that we have at Christmas
Speaker 1: time where the concept of drag and cross dressing and
Speaker 1: things like that, and our our gender play is much
Speaker 1: more so those things are more in the mainstream culture,
Speaker 1: and I think that helps people. They don't feel that
Speaker 1: they're going to be judged for being too sissy or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, for when they dance to certain songs. So
Speaker 1: Americans are there the struggle, they're the challenge. It does
Speaker 1: feel like the pop when I was growing up in
Speaker 1: like um discovering, like even like the Late night like
Speaker 1: Graham Norton and you know, everything like that. I just
Speaker 1: I was always envious growing up here that the pop
Speaker 1: culture seemed gayer, Like it all just seemed like a
Speaker 1: lot more flamboyant. And then then you know, as as
Speaker 1: you get older and you understand, like you know, the
Speaker 1: government in England and everything like that, it is very
Speaker 1: rather conservative. So I think, like it's probably it probably
Speaker 1: feels maybe it's the grass is greener thing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think it is to that, but I know I
Speaker 1: think it absolutely right. It is gay. It means it's
Speaker 1: it's queer sort. It means, you know, queerness is more
Speaker 1: in the main stream of culture also, and I just
Speaker 1: think that's something that's. Yes, it's a conservative government, but
Speaker 1: I think over the years just in our you know,
Speaker 1: as like I guess, I mean maybe from Shakespeare's time,
Speaker 1: the concept of men dressing up as women. Maybe it
Speaker 1: comes from that. You know that that's that's partly. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that's helped. But even with race as well, Like
Speaker 1: I we often watch um, you know, I've got one
Speaker 1: of those who I shouldn't say this, it's not allowed.
Speaker 1: But you know, those things that you can pretend to
Speaker 1: be somewhere else when you're not, the sort of VPN
Speaker 1: things gives you a fake I p addressed as everyone has.
Speaker 1: You're you're scared about talking about VPNs dangerous now we
Speaker 1: know how to a probably danger Well. Anyway, I watched
Speaker 1: BBC I Player and you know, British show is quite
Speaker 1: a lot and it's so fascinating in the commercials. Grant,
Speaker 1: my husband, I was he was really remarking on this
Speaker 1: that how much more integrated race is as a concept,
Speaker 1: Like it's not like here went in America. Rather when
Speaker 1: he feels like, oh, he is the black people commercial,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Oh, we're doing but there's
Speaker 1: some Asian people in this commercial. Now where it's in Britain,
Speaker 1: it genuinely feels like this is there's it's just all
Speaker 1: mixed and it's just like it's much more I think
Speaker 1: we've gone. It's sort of post trying to be make
Speaker 1: a point about it, and it's just actually reflective of
Speaker 1: of of the culture. And I think I think that's
Speaker 1: the same with queerness as well, actually in terms of
Speaker 1: it being more integrated there. Yeah. Yeah, any time, let's
Speaker 1: in terms of like let's just say racial diversity, it's
Speaker 1: like any time uh, there's a you're presented with the
Speaker 1: image of a group of people, like on a college campus,
Speaker 1: sitting together and it's all different races, like there's something
Speaker 1: about there's something about that presentation that that that suggests
Speaker 1: that it is forced in a way, or that it
Speaker 1: is underlying how diverse this is. But wait, it's kind
Speaker 1: of yes, and it's too aware of itself, and so
Speaker 1: therefore it sort of breaks, it sort of defeats the
Speaker 1: whole purpose of like how right right. I think that's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in America that people do, you know,
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting being away from it a little bit
Speaker 1: and looking and thinking that you know, there's a sort
Speaker 1: of way that people know that they and that's what
Speaker 1: was interesting. But the past four years is that we
Speaker 1: we sort of know how we're supposed to behave, for
Speaker 1: how we're expected to behave and what is proper, but
Speaker 1: actually a lot of the time we're paying lip service
Speaker 1: to it and that and you know, doing Trump, those
Speaker 1: that that that didn't that change and people didn't pay
Speaker 1: lip service to anymore. So I think it's good that
Speaker 1: we push these things because obviously there's a long way
Speaker 1: to go and there's a lot of danger ahead potentially,
Speaker 1: but I think we have to find a better way
Speaker 1: of doing it so it doesn't feel disingenuous like that
Speaker 1: you're saying it's actually funny because like literally, like right
Speaker 1: before we going on, I realized there's a connection between
Speaker 1: this week's episode and last week's episode, which is we
Speaker 1: had Busy Phillipson, who's obviously the best friend of Michelle Williams,
Speaker 1: and I was telling her that I saw opening night
Speaker 1: of when you guys did the Revival, and so I
Speaker 1: saw you just absolutely I mean, your performance of a lifetime, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You've heard it when the Tony Award come now all that,
Speaker 1: but you truly were stunning. But I was thinking about
Speaker 1: how I really actually did not know, I said to
Speaker 1: study who I went with, I was I was really bad.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand because I think I had only seen
Speaker 1: the movie Cabaret once when I was younger, and so
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand that it was going to be
Speaker 1: as dark as it was and as sad as it
Speaker 1: wasn't as about Nazis as it was, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, and so I was thinking after, like, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously that musical depicts a culture that is very liberal
Speaker 1: and like sort of you know, seems to be extremely
Speaker 1: progressive and free, and then the darkness is right around
Speaker 1: the corner. So I just that's such an interesting thing
Speaker 1: that it's been a part of, like such iconic work
Speaker 1: that you've done too. That very well, Yes, I think
Speaker 1: I've done, you know, and other other things I've done
Speaker 1: as well. Actually, there by, I feel my thing is
Speaker 1: that don't and I always say this. I was just
Speaker 1: talking about Pride with Anderson Cooper prior. Sorry to keep
Speaker 1: name dropping, but I don't know who that is. We don't,
Speaker 1: so you know, we're not familiar with her. He and
Speaker 1: are part of the Silver Fox mafia were taking over
Speaker 1: the world. But you know about how I feel, you've
Speaker 1: got to be vigilant, you know that because it is
Speaker 1: we are perilous. We're in a perilous situation. Sure, great
Speaker 1: strides have been made, but look how quickly, Look how
Speaker 1: quickly it happened with Trump, when all of a sudden
Speaker 1: trans people are the devil and all these things, and
Speaker 1: you know, all these things have happened, and our rights
Speaker 1: are being eroded, were being eroded in many ways, and
Speaker 1: it's a struggle to get them back. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the fact that that was. And you know, if
Speaker 1: he'd got in again, I am so I was getting
Speaker 1: death threats by the end of the by the in
Speaker 1: the campaign, you know, regularly on on Instagram and stuff
Speaker 1: for posting anti Trump stuff, and I started to feel scared.
Speaker 1: And if he got in again, I was I would
Speaker 1: I would don't think I would have lived in America anymore.
Speaker 1: It would have been very hard. Yeah, I mean it really,
Speaker 1: it really did get to that point where it felt
Speaker 1: like it could be the end of the world. There
Speaker 1: totally and it could be easily like there's our now
Speaker 1: you know that thing definitely that that you hadn't been
Speaker 1: virulently homophobic, but it was definitely obviously on the cards. Anyway,
Speaker 1: We've got to be vigilant, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of these A lot of the work I've done is
Speaker 1: about that, about sell but here's the situation. Oh but
Speaker 1: look how much it hasn't changed. I did a movie
Speaker 1: called any Day Now about a gay cup in the
Speaker 1: seventies trying to adopt this little down syndrome child, and
Speaker 1: that was about like, it was a beautiful film, but
Speaker 1: it was also when we came to do it to
Speaker 1: promote it, I was thinking, well, you know, it hasn't
Speaker 1: got that much easier. You try from you try adopting
Speaker 1: a child in this state adoption system when you're queer
Speaker 1: these days, you know, there's lots of gay people with
Speaker 1: kids luckily they can afford to have a surrogate or
Speaker 1: got a different route, and so there's we just have
Speaker 1: to be vigilant and not resting our laurels. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what I slightly worried about Pride as well,
Speaker 1: that it's like harrah harah and actually think you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we're should we not have we should we should
Speaker 1: we should hope for the day when we don't need pride. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: Between me and man or friends, we've all talked about
Speaker 1: how the meaning of it or the whole ceremony around
Speaker 1: it is just changes over time in every year, and
Speaker 1: it's like what it even mean. Like I mean, like
Speaker 1: I remember a time when pride was for me. It
Speaker 1: was literally about like, oh my god, like this is
Speaker 1: like the first time seeing like queer people together, you know,
Speaker 1: like and now that yes, but that's what it's good for,
Speaker 1: and that's why, you know, old you know, assholes like
Speaker 1: they should stop saying things that because it's for people
Speaker 1: who don't have the outlet to do that. And I
Speaker 1: think that's great. I don't have a chance to do it,
Speaker 1: and I once I went on a gay cruise. I
Speaker 1: performed on a gay cruise and it was it was
Speaker 1: crazy thing I've ever done. It was like a bath,
Speaker 1: like I had to go down the stairs to the stage.
Speaker 1: I kind of got on in St. Lucia and they've
Speaker 1: all been on for like about five days, and I
Speaker 1: got taken down to the way the stage was and
Speaker 1: it was all through the little the lower cabins, the
Speaker 1: lower floors cabins, and it was like on every door
Speaker 1: I had, it was like they're almost like their grinder
Speaker 1: profile and every door and the doors open and little,
Speaker 1: you know, little hints of what you might see when
Speaker 1: you went in photographs like the rest the ocean. Totally hilarious,
Speaker 1: and I was a bit like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to get to the city. Anyway, did my
Speaker 1: concerts and then what I but what I thought was
Speaker 1: lovely about it was that there was people on that
Speaker 1: boat from all parts of America who don't have but
Speaker 1: who don't live in New York and can't go to
Speaker 1: a bar that you can you know, whatever can happen
Speaker 1: in the back room, or or they don't have that
Speaker 1: those kind of options and so it was so exciting
Speaker 1: and liberating for them to be on that boat and
Speaker 1: to feel safe to be able to do all that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what Pride is good for. But
Speaker 1: I think my overall worry is about the obviously the
Speaker 1: corporation that you know, the corporate sort of takeover of it,
Speaker 1: and the fact that people think, oh, that's fine, we've
Speaker 1: done Pride. Now, we've done the queers have been we've
Speaker 1: done our service to the queers. This year, we've all
Speaker 1: put on a rainbow hat and got drunk. And I
Speaker 1: feel it's that's that's my worry, that that kind of
Speaker 1: diminishes or perhaps um impedes our progress. Sure, are you
Speaker 1: are you experiencing any promo at all of New York? Like,
Speaker 1: are you, like at all like experiencing anxiety from being
Speaker 1: away from York this particular summer? Not really, because I'm
Speaker 1: having such fun. I mean, I'm basically doing New York
Speaker 1: and I'm doing club coming in, I'm dressed in a
Speaker 1: monkey suit, chancing around to Tackie pop songs, banging drumsticks
Speaker 1: and you know, bringing there's great performers here. They are hilarious.
Speaker 1: Do you know hands remember hands? The German. He was
Speaker 1: on American Idol. He's this Australian man who dresses up
Speaker 1: as a sort of in leader hoose and glitter and
Speaker 1: he's he lives nadly, so he's been doing great things.
Speaker 1: He actually did with Henry, he did, he did. They
Speaker 1: did a Tcheikovski Britney Spears accordion mash up. That is
Speaker 1: the most Henry thing. We have to tell the readers
Speaker 1: because they're going to be so excited to know. So
Speaker 1: Henry is obviously a dear friend of the show and
Speaker 1: beloved ex boyfriend of mine, but dear close friend also
Speaker 1: my musical director as well. But he's with you there,
Speaker 1: he's and you said he's on the other side of
Speaker 1: that Opal wall. Yes, he's in. He's come with me
Speaker 1: to the Opal place to couber p d. So he's
Speaker 1: like just a door down and we're waiting for me
Speaker 1: to finish this so we can go on this plane.
Speaker 1: But he's my musicals for the and he does like
Speaker 1: for my concert. But also he's the musical director. And
Speaker 1: we have a band at club coming in the Spiegel tent.
Speaker 1: And what I love is my favorite thing is I
Speaker 1: DJ and then the band plays along, and I just
Speaker 1: dance around, and I just I danced for like hours
Speaker 1: on end, and often in a rabbit suit, off in
Speaker 1: different suits, and then you know, stuff like that is
Speaker 1: such fun. So I actually don't have for more about
Speaker 1: New York because I feel I'm getting my fill here.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean I missed. I love when I
Speaker 1: see the pictures some from club coming. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm actually pretty pretty stated, But I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a bit nice to get back. You know. I
Speaker 1: often think that having fun as a choice, and I
Speaker 1: have a feeling about you that you make that choice
Speaker 1: to have fun a lot totally mad. Yeah, I absolutely do,
Speaker 1: and I think it's I think it's really interne. I
Speaker 1: think happiness is a choice. Actually, I really do, and
Speaker 1: I think I mean not not that I dismiss any
Speaker 1: kind of rough compression or mental illness. I've suffered that
Speaker 1: myself utually in the past, but I actually, yeah, I
Speaker 1: definitely feel I've I've made a choice to live, you know.
Speaker 1: I I always say this slightly sort of Hallmark cards
Speaker 1: kind of thing, but it's true that, like, I have
Speaker 1: great access to darkness, but I choose to stand in
Speaker 1: the light, and I think that's and also that darkness
Speaker 1: helps me in my work a lot. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's why I don't really like actors. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't really like hanging out with actors, you know, because
Speaker 1: they talked about acting all the time, and I find
Speaker 1: that just to mentally boring. I'd rather just do it,
Speaker 1: do it, go home, go out, and not fun. Years ago,
Speaker 1: I did this play Bent. You know that play is
Speaker 1: about gay people in the Actually I have I've heard
Speaker 1: of the play. Yeah, I don't think. I can't say
Speaker 1: I know it, but I know of it. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: played by Martin Sherman. And actually in a funny way,
Speaker 1: he actually kind of brought to the world's attention the
Speaker 1: fate and the and the lot of career people in
Speaker 1: under Nazism and like. And this is a play about
Speaker 1: a man going to a concentration camp and and pretending
Speaker 1: to be Jewish because you'll get treated better if he's
Speaker 1: Jewish then if he's gay. And it's and it's so
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it doesn't end well. It's a
Speaker 1: really bleak play. I did this in London for years ago,
Speaker 1: and I made a point. Oh and it was all
Speaker 1: these boys are also it was totally all men cast
Speaker 1: lots of Nats season blah blah blah and horrible. And
Speaker 1: I was me and this other boy where the people
Speaker 1: in the concentration camp and we and I just knew
Speaker 1: if I did not like leave it behind and have fun,
Speaker 1: I would go demented. So I did. I had to
Speaker 1: actually had the best time, even though it's the bleakest,
Speaker 1: most despairing thing to do. I left, I finished the
Speaker 1: play and I walked off stage and I just like,
Speaker 1: give me a drink? Where are we going? And we
Speaker 1: really And I think that's really important to do that.
Speaker 1: I've heard that a lot, yeah about people that do
Speaker 1: dark work, that they need to mean, they need to
Speaker 1: have aggressive fun while they're doing it. Absolutely. I remember
Speaker 1: Joan Collins if I made drop another name, you know,
Speaker 1: you know Bobby de Niro and John Collins said. John
Speaker 1: Collins came, how do you do this every evening? Do
Speaker 1: you give it to? I said, by not talking about
Speaker 1: it afterwards? Johan? Yeah, but how do you do it
Speaker 1: as a Joan? By not talking about it afterwards? So
Speaker 1: I mean, I was like, I don't want to discuss this.
Speaker 1: You've seen it obviously, it's how sorrowing obviously, like really insane.
Speaker 1: But now I'm not doing that anymore. And I think
Speaker 1: it's like that thing about you have to choose. You
Speaker 1: have to also you can choose to fun, you can
Speaker 1: choose to happens. You can also you have to choose
Speaker 1: when you're not working as well. And I think that's
Speaker 1: something like, you know, like last night in this little
Speaker 1: place in the middle of nowhere that people came up
Speaker 1: to me doing dinner and I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to take a photo. I'm actually just
Speaker 1: having dinner with my friend, like and you can say
Speaker 1: it in a nice way that means that you're that
Speaker 1: this is not an appropriate time yes to happen. Of course,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I always say that. I always say
Speaker 1: to people, I'm not going to take a footo of you,
Speaker 1: because if I take a photo with you, everyone would
Speaker 1: see and then everyone would want one and I'd have
Speaker 1: to do this all night long. Thanks so lovely to
Speaker 1: meet you. And they're like, oh, of course, of course,
Speaker 1: And that's actually just taken the time to explain it
Speaker 1: to them and be nice and people really get it.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's beautiful, And I of course This is
Speaker 1: like the time honed thing that you have developed over
Speaker 1: the course of your career. It's like you you know
Speaker 1: how to relate this information to these people. Yes, and
Speaker 1: it's just and the biggest and the biggest thing I
Speaker 1: always think, my mom, because it's just just be nice.
Speaker 1: It doesn't cost anything to be nice. And actually there's
Speaker 1: no situation that works less well than when you are
Speaker 1: nice in it. So you told me this story when
Speaker 1: we were recording how Wait Heist of when you am
Speaker 1: I allowed to say this when you when you and
Speaker 1: a certain actor on a certain movie went to a
Speaker 1: nude beach. Oh, yes, you can see okay, because this this,
Speaker 1: this is I feel like you're inheriting something from Syrian McKellen. Yes,
Speaker 1: when you guys were shooting X two, yes, where it
Speaker 1: was like Germany or something or was it was kind
Speaker 1: of done in Vancouver, Canada. It was Vancouver and then okay,
Speaker 1: so then so that you guys just don't tell the story.
Speaker 1: I love this story. And the thing is like we
Speaker 1: he came on my podcast that you Didently Coming Shelves
Speaker 1: and he talked. We talked about it because the thing
Speaker 1: each week I have a thing you know that my
Speaker 1: shelf and the thing that there's two things the thing.
Speaker 1: One of the things is a little necklace I've made
Speaker 1: from Hemp that he bought from my dog at this
Speaker 1: new dist beach. And the other thing was a little
Speaker 1: a little bracelet that had my name on it that
Speaker 1: this film that we were working on another film. Actually
Speaker 1: the little the daughter of the director, and I was
Speaker 1: making beads with her one day and then and her
Speaker 1: mom said, oh, she's finished the the necklace and she
Speaker 1: wants to give it to you, but she spelled your
Speaker 1: name wrong. I was like, oh, that's charming even more
Speaker 1: it said anal. And anyway, the Ian study was we
Speaker 1: were shooting X men and he's I always think of
Speaker 1: Ian mccammons like a fourteen year old girl trapped inside
Speaker 1: an eighty year old man's body. And he said to me,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're living quite close to each other
Speaker 1: on this place called uh, I can't remember, uh, what's
Speaker 1: it called? Never mind? And but it was near the beach,
Speaker 1: and and and but there and further along to the
Speaker 1: west was a new dist speech that yet and he
Speaker 1: said to me, oh, we apparently there wasn't just read
Speaker 1: on the newspaper there's no just beach. No, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: It's called rec Peach. I've read, but I heard about
Speaker 1: it too, Yeah, yeah, sure. A couple days later, Oh, Apartner,
Speaker 1: I wrote this thing about and no just beach. I said, yes,
Speaker 1: I said you said that the other day and yeah.
Speaker 1: And then if then she was like, oh, well someone
Speaker 1: told me they've been to this, no this beach. I said,
Speaker 1: do you want to go to the nudist beach? And anyway,
Speaker 1: he went, well, if you want to go, I don't
Speaker 1: know like that. I was like, let's go. So we go,
Speaker 1: and you have to walk down this lovely sort of
Speaker 1: verdant little path and then you come to this lovely
Speaker 1: beach and it's all like big, you know, three chunks
Speaker 1: have washed up on it, and you can sit against someone.
Speaker 1: And then he went in the podcast he was going
Speaker 1: and I went down there. No one had a stitch
Speaker 1: of clothing on. I was like, no, it's a nearest beach.
Speaker 1: And so we got naked and he just had a
Speaker 1: little sort of like a little hat that like cricket
Speaker 1: umpires wear, you know, one of this. I've got my dog.
Speaker 1: We're walking along, me and him, and it's so funny
Speaker 1: because when you get when you're naked and you get recognized,
Speaker 1: it's a really funny thing because people are look at
Speaker 1: your face and then they immediately dropped their heads down,
Speaker 1: get your junk. You know, it's it's immediate, and it's
Speaker 1: so it's hell alias and Ian was like, hello, everybody
Speaker 1: has scandal things like that, absolutely loving it. And then
Speaker 1: there was a guy came just to sell us little pipes.
Speaker 1: You know, there was all you could buy put pookies
Speaker 1: and everything, and this man had made homemade pipes on
Speaker 1: a piece of string around his waist and he was naked.
Speaker 1: Ian and I were sitting down and he was I
Speaker 1: couldn't see that one. And so the guy's coming close.
Speaker 1: He's a penis level to our faces and I'm like
Speaker 1: and he was like, oh, it's a lovely one doing
Speaker 1: like that one up by It was such a gas.
Speaker 1: That is so funny. I think that's a great story
Speaker 1: because it makes me think, oh wow, Alan coming in
Speaker 1: here a McCallen. Were these two gay actors on set
Speaker 1: for this like big blockbuster movie back at a time,
Speaker 1: and like, I don't know, like I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know that well, there weren't too many and that this
Speaker 1: this wasn't really part of the conversation. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about this in terms of like a representation thing.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, there's just obviously there's a shorthand
Speaker 1: when you when you when you run into another queer
Speaker 1: person in a working moronment like that. Yeah, yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: And just I don't know, like, like like, what what was
Speaker 1: it like for you guys? Well, it was that was
Speaker 1: that was the gayest film I've ever been on, actually,
Speaker 1: because you know, it was actually is fucking amazing. It
Speaker 1: is it is the Crown Jewel so good in it too,
Speaker 1: and it is, thank you much inherently queer because of
Speaker 1: its X men. It's an allegory of queerness. All the
Speaker 1: little little mutant singing and there's even a scene where
Speaker 1: he sort of has to come out to mutic to
Speaker 1: his mom and Chris Brian Singer and there was some
Speaker 1: of the people, the writers and everything was it was
Speaker 1: a very aside from the actual content of it, had
Speaker 1: a very queer sort of sensibility. But I mean I
Speaker 1: think now, like you know, like telling that story now
Speaker 1: it's got such a different things ha ha. You know,
Speaker 1: quirky quirky Allen quirky Ian, whereas then it would have
Speaker 1: been a bit more like subversive weird or what they're
Speaker 1: doing that's kind of we don't you know that that's
Speaker 1: changed the way that I think people and even I
Speaker 1: think the way that people understand queerness and understand even
Speaker 1: things like you know about monogamy and stuff or lack
Speaker 1: of in the queer community and how there's different rules
Speaker 1: and relationships that I think is much more prevalent now
Speaker 1: the idea and just take that concept, and I think
Speaker 1: and in the funny way, I think, you know, when
Speaker 1: when all the margin equality thing happens. One of the
Speaker 1: things I said in a statement was I think, actually
Speaker 1: queer people have a lot to teach state people about
Speaker 1: relationships and about how to maneuver them, and and and
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I still do think that's very true.
Speaker 1: There would be a lot happier if they let go
Speaker 1: of the whole idea because it is a very patriarchal,
Speaker 1: like yeah, they're in a prison. I mean really, because
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of unhappiness, especially amongst
Speaker 1: like you know that like baby boomer generation in America
Speaker 1: because and I think I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: alcoholism because of it. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like repression in that in that demographic because they they're
Speaker 1: too married literally to an idea that's not and they've
Speaker 1: been fair this thing that my thing. I think it's
Speaker 1: really awful. I think as awful as that one thing
Speaker 1: one whatever you call it in discretion or one part
Speaker 1: of one one way you've failed in this vow, because
Speaker 1: in this pact, that's basically what it's saying. If you
Speaker 1: fail at all, then the whole pact is over. Like
Speaker 1: I remember when my brother got divorced the first time,
Speaker 1: and it basically when I you know, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's so what you kind of something happened one night
Speaker 1: when you're away and for one you know, and then
Speaker 1: your whole life is over now, yes, and and and
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing that that that's that's what
Speaker 1: that is so damaging. And so what happens, of course
Speaker 1: as people just repress it and do it and and
Speaker 1: and lie and you know that, I think it's much
Speaker 1: worse ways of betrayal than actually discussing how you feel
Speaker 1: about the notion of it happening, and how you will
Speaker 1: how you'll all gather together again after it happens and
Speaker 1: be fine with the happening. I just think that's they're
Speaker 1: fed this Hollywood ending of how life should be, and
Speaker 1: we we everybody knows that's a sort of ship, yet
Speaker 1: they continue to buy into it. It's remarkable. It's weird
Speaker 1: the indulgences that are allowed, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's it's just it's when you take if
Speaker 1: everyone were to take a step back and look at
Speaker 1: it all, it would look hard because odd, I know.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what I thought was so great
Speaker 1: about Hot White High School and bringing it back too.
Speaker 1: Is that is that Adam, our dear friend Adam Goldman,
Speaker 1: who wrote it, brilliant. It manages to get so many
Speaker 1: issues I suppose you'd call them, but so many like
Speaker 1: the like the you know, queer people not being monogamous.
Speaker 1: I would say, mostly it's much much more of a
Speaker 1: comfortable concept to talk about in queer culture that putting
Speaker 1: things like that and other other kind of you know,
Speaker 1: queer life things into a very funny script, very casually
Speaker 1: and not very not not clunkily. I thought he did
Speaker 1: that such a good job of that. I can't believe
Speaker 1: how I've listened back to it a couple of times
Speaker 1: to be honest, and I don't mean you don't ever
Speaker 1: do this with with my own things, um especially especially
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, this this is just me saying this,
Speaker 1: and this is something that Adam keeps pointing out to me.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, but when you're in every scene, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh right, like I am. I'm really this is the
Speaker 1: first thing that I've done where I like really like
Speaker 1: anchored something and I should I should just say that,
Speaker 1: like like put producing making like a scripted podcast, like
Speaker 1: I just think. I just think the word podcast gets
Speaker 1: get like just like kind of makes frivolized as the
Speaker 1: whole thing, because it is not an easy thing to do,
Speaker 1: you know. It's just huge, like the sound design and that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's like it's all these things happening
Speaker 1: on a train and you're going on top of a
Speaker 1: carriage and it's a huge well it's like I mean,
Speaker 1: it was. It felt to me like I've made some
Speaker 1: films before, I've never done anything like this. I did
Speaker 1: not expect it to be any way as detailed and
Speaker 1: as sort of of such high production values as it did.
Speaker 1: Because the world we live in, and I think it's excellent.
Speaker 1: That was that guy. Jeremy was such a genius. Jeremy
Speaker 1: genius our sound designer. But um, but I would leave
Speaker 1: those days sometimes and be like, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: was a long day, Like that was a lot of work.
Speaker 1: And Alan like really directed me in such a in
Speaker 1: such a perfect way because A don't remember so the
Speaker 1: first day, so Matt, you'll like this and hate this
Speaker 1: the first day. The first scene we do. We do
Speaker 1: a couple of takes of this one scene, and then
Speaker 1: Alan's like really like giving me these great notes and
Speaker 1: he's and then at one point he's just kind of
Speaker 1: like figuring out what he wants to how he wants
Speaker 1: to present the note, and then in a lull, I go,
Speaker 1: you know, um, you can just give me the line
Speaker 1: read if you want. It's just like the way everyone
Speaker 1: knows it at sn L. And then Alan like very
Speaker 1: politely chuckles and he goes, oh that's no, that's okay,
Speaker 1: and like proceeds to do his job, which is to
Speaker 1: direct me, and he's just like actually like giving me
Speaker 1: the respecting the process enough and respecting me enough to
Speaker 1: be like, no, I'm not gonna like tell you. It
Speaker 1: feeds you how to do what I'm gonna actually get
Speaker 1: you there organically, And like I just I just like forgot.
Speaker 1: I was just in such a like fresh out of
Speaker 1: SNL space that I was like, no, just do it,
Speaker 1: just do it. The late I was just being so lazy.
Speaker 1: You just you you had the like you put on
Speaker 1: the situation, like, oh, we need to get it in now,
Speaker 1: we gotta move likely at all times I've knowned that
Speaker 1: what is that what they do is now this kind
Speaker 1: of like give your lane meetings all the time. Well
Speaker 1: I mean not all the time, but it's like like
Speaker 1: if you hit a wall, if something's just not working
Speaker 1: and it kind of rests on this one thing. It's
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to be offended, and no one ever
Speaker 1: is if someone just like just do it like this,
Speaker 1: and then the big could I be anymore? I'm using
Speaker 1: a friends line, but like could I be anymore? Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, So it'll be like that. Um, And so
Speaker 1: that was just I mean even that, like you know,
Speaker 1: even working on Hot White Heist was just like a
Speaker 1: reminder of how this process usually works when it's not
Speaker 1: in like this crazy pressure cooker. Yes, and it was
Speaker 1: just it was just so pleasant, that nice. So I'm
Speaker 1: so glad I didn't give you the lane reading that'd
Speaker 1: be terrible. I always I always think it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of like one of those things like and one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I don't really like hanging around with
Speaker 1: actors because it always becomes so moony about but things
Speaker 1: that happened to you. So like, my God, he gave
Speaker 1: me a line reading things like that. It's not that
Speaker 1: you know that it's I know it's not that bad
Speaker 1: actually fits, and I've I've actually there have been times
Speaker 1: and I just said, I actually, just tell me what
Speaker 1: it is you actually mean, because I just can't get it.
Speaker 1: You're not explaining it well enough to me, So just
Speaker 1: tell me you do it, and then I'll do it
Speaker 1: my way to make it better. Being out wait, I
Speaker 1: do want to, like just to quickly just to touch
Speaker 1: on something we were talking about a little bit earlier,
Speaker 1: because now I'm really thinking, thinking about and marinating in it,
Speaker 1: like you talk about this stuff that you've done, and
Speaker 1: then also like when you actually think about some of
Speaker 1: Bowen and I truly favorite movies of all time, you
Speaker 1: happen to appear in quite quite a few of them,
Speaker 1: and they are I think some of them. And I
Speaker 1: say this in the most beautiful and and then the
Speaker 1: most in the best way dumbest movies ever like Spice World,
Speaker 1: like we I I fucking we love and also like
Speaker 1: if you can find a way for us to be
Speaker 1: able to see it, you can't find it online around streaming,
Speaker 1: so please let us know Spice World just just justin
Speaker 1: the Pussycats, it's one of the most ahead of the
Speaker 1: ahead of its time movies of all time. Josie and
Speaker 1: the Pussycats love that film. Yeah, I love that film.
Speaker 1: Well wait, wait, wait, which one can't you see? Spice
Speaker 1: World is like very hard to find? Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: crazy too because especially during Pride Month, it feels like
Speaker 1: it feels like an aggressive and it's not like those
Speaker 1: girls to not market themselves up the Wise Zoo, but
Speaker 1: on packs of Christmas for years. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: the best. And also like Victoria Beckham liked in her
Speaker 1: seventies three questions, like, um, she she made a joke
Speaker 1: about like I'm still waiting for my Achievement award about
Speaker 1: that movie, and I'm like, yeah, but you make a joke,
Speaker 1: but your Victoria Beckham in the Spice World is High
Speaker 1: High Success and every single she was I think she's
Speaker 1: I thought she was such a funny girl on that movie.
Speaker 1: There was one. There was one. It was one thing
Speaker 1: she said that though she like she was kind of
Speaker 1: she played so much with the sort of being pushed,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't really pushed. To me, she's not She's
Speaker 1: not push but she kind of as assumed portionists as
Speaker 1: a sort of sort of Yes, she plays postion in
Speaker 1: the Univision Song Contest and she anyway, so one one
Speaker 1: day when we're filming the film, it was with a
Speaker 1: long weekend, it's a holiday, and she we were having
Speaker 1: rehearsing a scene and we're eating our toast and you know,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. I just still chatting as we get
Speaker 1: and getting ready to rehearse, and I said, oh, what
Speaker 1: did you What did you do this Victoria? She went, oh,
Speaker 1: I went with my boyfriend to the south of France.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, where did you go? As you went
Speaker 1: Saint Tropez. I was like, I was like, are you
Speaker 1: meaning just miss pronouncer? Are you doing that just to
Speaker 1: be sort of like pretend posh, make it a double
Speaker 1: on top. I was just whichever way. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm loving it whatever. Yeah, And because they went to
Speaker 1: stay and then of course it's in all the newspapers.
Speaker 1: They went to stay with Elton John for the weekend
Speaker 1: and it was just crazy that time because the girls
Speaker 1: were that was the most the absolute apex of their
Speaker 1: spiciness and it was just laz. I learned the Spice
Speaker 1: Girls dance moves from the Spice Girls. Ah wow, I know, right,
Speaker 1: that's it. But you have but you have like really
Speaker 1: kind of um just you've been, you've you've you are
Speaker 1: part of these things like like Bermie Michelle, like I
Speaker 1: got another one. I just think, I just think you, um,
Speaker 1: you are just you are just a very important figure
Speaker 1: in all of these things. And so we we we
Speaker 1: we pair our respects and such. You know, it's funny
Speaker 1: like people your age, um and and either you know
Speaker 1: a few years either side. But people who are like
Speaker 1: so spy kids for instance, And I did There's a
Speaker 1: Spell like in the Late and so I did loads
Speaker 1: of those films of like kids films are better like Room.
Speaker 1: You know, the expense, I was stuff that's right with
Speaker 1: with computer couldn't falling on my head I am invincible,
Speaker 1: but but there was so the Spike Kids thing. It's meant.
Speaker 1: But what's lovely about that is that in a way
Speaker 1: I was a sort of a magical part of a
Speaker 1: lot of people's childhoods and this figure, this character and
Speaker 1: sort of and I think the fact he was slightly
Speaker 1: scary to start with it then he becomes a nice
Speaker 1: person and so it's really it's really connect like in
Speaker 1: a fairytale character actually that you know, really connected. And
Speaker 1: I remember the way that when when people young people
Speaker 1: came up to me, when when it changed when they
Speaker 1: were the generation that I had grown up with Spike Kids,
Speaker 1: and they how they approached me as an adult. It's
Speaker 1: with this kind of wonder and awe and sort of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know your little like little kid's faces again, not
Speaker 1: like I tured to five olds. And when I was
Speaker 1: shooting this thing in Albuquerque a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: I saw that I came on the set one day
Speaker 1: and there was a boy and new camera assistant and
Speaker 1: he kind of did that face and I was like, oh, cutie,
Speaker 1: it's he's obviously freaking out because it's Mr Flipped from Spikers.
Speaker 1: But you can't say anything because it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're working. So I was coming back from my trailer
Speaker 1: one time and he was coming out the camera truck
Speaker 1: and he had his moment and he said to me,
Speaker 1: he went, alan, I've been meaning to say. I was like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: and he went, you touched me a lot when I
Speaker 1: was a little boy. Never say that again. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: another way. The thing is he probably was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: when I get my moment, what will I say when
Speaker 1: he arrived at that And you're like, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: don't say that in public. Yeah, or wait, wait, hold on,
Speaker 1: I have a question. Do you know the answer to this?
Speaker 1: Are you a playable character in the Golden Eye video game? Yes?
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm me and you can have once been me.
Speaker 1: And what was hilarious is that years ago when it
Speaker 1: first came out, I didn't know it was in those
Speaker 1: days when I did good Night, it wasn't. Now, when
Speaker 1: you do one of those films, you sign all these
Speaker 1: even if they're never going to happen, You sign all
Speaker 1: these things saying, oh, if I'm in the video game,
Speaker 1: I get black black percentage. You know, they make the
Speaker 1: toy of you, so that to do X number of
Speaker 1: interviews to promote the toy, you know, all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and it didn't have that didn't happen, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden there was just a game and we didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about it. Biggest of all time. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: no royalties learning and uh the anyway, one day I
Speaker 1: was I found out about it and I had an
Speaker 1: assistant called Landon at the time, and I came to
Speaker 1: the next I said, oh my god, Landon, I'm in
Speaker 1: a video game and he went, oh, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I've got it. I said, do you do? And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: if if you piss me off, I go home and
Speaker 1: shoot you in the balls, because you can. You can
Speaker 1: shoot me in the balls. And I still like, I
Speaker 1: play us from Ka Jansen and I shoot you in
Speaker 1: the balls. Really, I think it's so funny that you
Speaker 1: can he queers for Pride Month. This is my gift
Speaker 1: to you, the information that you right now can get
Speaker 1: an N sixty four and play as bomb Ka Johansen
Speaker 1: and Alan Coming and do a hand to hand combat
Speaker 1: fight slappers only slappers only. Well, well, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: How did you feel about this idea that like not
Speaker 1: a lot of people have on on this side of
Speaker 1: like you know, Hollywood or whatever, where it's like you
Speaker 1: have this intergenerational difference of people coming up to you
Speaker 1: and knowing you from a different thing. Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I mean it's sort of really
Speaker 1: And then now it's you know, from writing books and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I love and people say, oh, I love club
Speaker 1: coming you know things like that. I really and I
Speaker 1: used to sort of play a game when I would
Speaker 1: start trying and guess what was the thing they were
Speaker 1: going to say when I saw people come up to me,
Speaker 1: and I got so bad at it, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: it's actually quite nice that I don't know, because it
Speaker 1: sometimes confounds you that some little granny I'll come up
Speaker 1: and say, oh I saw you know, some crazy independent film,
Speaker 1: but me doing something. And so I actually like that diversity.
Speaker 1: And you can't guess because there are too many things,
Speaker 1: probably too many things. And then also I think what
Speaker 1: I was doing was like, oh, you know, like for example,
Speaker 1: four year old Spike, it's or you know, guy with
Speaker 1: a kind of iron maid and T shirt along here,
Speaker 1: it'll be excellent. You know. I was making all these
Speaker 1: sort of sort of stereotypical decisions. And then it's actually
Speaker 1: lovely to sort of be confounded and a lot and
Speaker 1: you can tell a lot by age, like you know,
Speaker 1: The Good Wife is obviously a big thing that for years.
Speaker 1: And also I host you know that what you've got
Speaker 1: to get them a masterpiece mystery. I'm coming and this
Speaker 1: is masterpiece mystery and that has a very definite specific
Speaker 1: demogmograph of older, older white people. Yeah, but but not
Speaker 1: always you can be confounded. It's it's quite nice. I
Speaker 1: like it. I like sort of And also I forget,
Speaker 1: you know. That's the other thing I realized writing this
Speaker 1: new book I've got coming out. I had to sort
Speaker 1: of research myself because I had forgotten so much. And
Speaker 1: luckily you can research yourself nowadays. You know, it's as possible.
Speaker 1: And I found out such a lot. But I forget.
Speaker 1: And that's why my website I really always Matt my assistant,
Speaker 1: and I always like, we've got to keep the website
Speaker 1: updated because I want to not forget what I've done,
Speaker 1: because I did. I have had very some very embarrassing
Speaker 1: incidents when I swore blind that I had never worked
Speaker 1: with like for example, I never worked with William before
Speaker 1: I thought I love, Oh my god, I would remember
Speaker 1: he's so great. I would love I see him sometimes
Speaker 1: at parties and I think it's such next time, I'm just, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd love to work with him. I had done a
Speaker 1: film with him and had scenes with them, and I
Speaker 1: totally forgot you were with Paltrow. You don't do you
Speaker 1: know what we're said? You know what I mean? But
Speaker 1: she didn't remember which films she was in. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was spider Man, that was Spider Man. I was an
Speaker 1: inspider Man. But this is but this is huge, though,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like what everybody I hope, I
Speaker 1: mean not everybody, but like what a lot of people
Speaker 1: probably aspired to you in terms of like getting having
Speaker 1: done so much that you forget what you've done, that
Speaker 1: you forget that you were in a film that you
Speaker 1: did scenes with. Willinger felt absolutely. I know, just like
Speaker 1: in Island. I once I had these friends and they
Speaker 1: bought this house that belonged to the man who wrote
Speaker 1: Hello Dolly and everything. What's his name, so, Jerry Harman Herman.
Speaker 1: So he had this big house in Fire Island. It
Speaker 1: was kind of legendary that, you know, Angel Lands. We
Speaker 1: would go over in the midll sing by the piano
Speaker 1: and my friends bought it and I spent some time
Speaker 1: in it, and it was like and they totally redone it,
Speaker 1: but but there was one room because the entire thing
Speaker 1: used to be zebra skin, and so there's this little
Speaker 1: Lou there was just zebra skin walldproop. It was the
Speaker 1: leftover Jerry Harman Lou and on it on the wall
Speaker 1: was like an award he got that he'd just forgotten
Speaker 1: left behind. And I remember thinking, God, can you imagine
Speaker 1: like being like having so many awards that one of
Speaker 1: them is in your loop and you actually move house
Speaker 1: and forget it. But this is the thing. It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that means that career isn't as
Speaker 1: important as we think it is, or if it just
Speaker 1: means that like it isn't right, Like maybe that's that
Speaker 1: that's the takeaway year that like you're not defining yourself
Speaker 1: by like being in a Will and the film movie
Speaker 1: No exactly. And I think that, you know, I've I've
Speaker 1: noticed over the years that there's certain things, a certain
Speaker 1: markers that you are encouraged to, you know, keep and celebrate,
Speaker 1: like the first time you're on the cover of a
Speaker 1: magazine or the first time you're above the title or
Speaker 1: all these sort of markets and your sort of business
Speaker 1: side of your work that you and people then send
Speaker 1: you pictures of things, and so you end I anyway
Speaker 1: ended up with like thousands of fucking pictures of me,
Speaker 1: like framed things, posters of films, and which is nice initially,
Speaker 1: but then it's let's like, well, what am I going
Speaker 1: to do with all these things? You know, It's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: And so then I put oxtional of forgiven the way,
Speaker 1: and now I realize it's such an interesting thing that
Speaker 1: now I just I kind of keep just the ones
Speaker 1: that I like in my little shed my gym shared upstate.
Speaker 1: And it's actually a really good thing to exercise looking
Speaker 1: at images of your younger self. It's very keeping. But
Speaker 1: I think that is true. I don't define myself by
Speaker 1: my work. I actually really like my work, but like
Speaker 1: you know, it's really fascinating. I loved the experience the
Speaker 1: pandemic gave me, which was to just do do other
Speaker 1: things and have the time to other things, and I
Speaker 1: was I was really I think it was one of
Speaker 1: the happiest years I've had in a long long time.
Speaker 1: Was was doing, you know, And I think that's that
Speaker 1: was very heartening to me that I don't I didn't
Speaker 1: freak out because of work, and I like my work.
Speaker 1: But you know, I I think that's also why I'm
Speaker 1: probably quite good at it. I don't take it that seriously.
Speaker 1: I care about it, but i'm not. It's not I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't get I don't yearn, which I think is
Speaker 1: a very bad thing to do. I just I keep
Speaker 1: myself open to the possibility of working with interesting people.
Speaker 1: But I don't start of think in five years time,
Speaker 1: I must have worked with you know, sure, blah blah.
Speaker 1: I think that's very You've got to try and be
Speaker 1: in the moment and focus on focus on what you're doing,
Speaker 1: but also focus on fun as much as focus on
Speaker 1: your work. Well, even the way you talk about a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff you've done, it seems like, um, it's
Speaker 1: not like, um, you're not talking about the the content,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it's like there was an experience
Speaker 1: attached to it that you see really treasure, such as
Speaker 1: your time at the Nude Beach with Ian McKellan like.
Speaker 1: And then of course it's an afterthought that X two
Speaker 1: was the best X men. But the content speaks to itself.
Speaker 1: It's there, it can be seen there, you can see it,
Speaker 1: but you don't. We don't know the experience, and that's
Speaker 1: something that right, you know, it is special for you,
Speaker 1: it's great and actually know that aside from that, you know,
Speaker 1: I had fun with you and speak, but that was
Speaker 1: a terrible film to make. It was really it was
Speaker 1: really you know, it wasn't happy experience. There's lots of
Speaker 1: weird ship going on, and it was with the set
Speaker 1: was very unhappy place. And I hated it. I hated
Speaker 1: making it. And so you know there's that as well.
Speaker 1: And actually I think again that's all the more reason
Speaker 1: that you should have a good time, you know, the
Speaker 1: end product. I've done a couple of films like that,
Speaker 1: Like I really think X two is a great film.
Speaker 1: And then I did this film Titus with Judy Timoth.
Speaker 1: I think it's really a great film. But both those
Speaker 1: experiences were just horrendous, and I don't think that the
Speaker 1: the excellence of those films is enough to meet it
Speaker 1: the bad experience I had. Yeah, I mean it's actually interesting,
Speaker 1: Like as I work more in the industry, I realized
Speaker 1: more and more that what's on the screen actually has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what the experience was. And you know,
Speaker 1: you you can see, especially with film and TV, just
Speaker 1: how much is you know, made an edit and lied
Speaker 1: about and you know, things like that. It's just it's
Speaker 1: just interesting. It's not when you grow up wanting to
Speaker 1: do this. And I think that's the quicker you find
Speaker 1: that out the way, the more you get the demystification
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: was that kid, yeah, yeah, and I was that kid
Speaker 1: that you know, I watched the Oscars and like I
Speaker 1: really bought into it and like really wanted to did
Speaker 1: want to be part of the community of people that
Speaker 1: I was reading about and watching. And then you grow
Speaker 1: up and as you become part of the sure you
Speaker 1: realize that's exactly what it is, and that it is
Speaker 1: a lot of construct and so that's why it is
Speaker 1: important to you know, prioritize experience for yourself and life absolutelf.
Speaker 1: And then I think what's really lucky about this is
Speaker 1: that it gets to take you to interesting places and
Speaker 1: you get to meet interesting people who maybe had that
Speaker 1: when they were young too, but right, but only when
Speaker 1: you meet people that are that have figured that out
Speaker 1: and like seeing all the pepsi cans as we say,
Speaker 1: you can, can you really figure out how to like
Speaker 1: enjoy it right now? I think that's absolutely true. Well
Speaker 1: I admired, but you guys and your sort of group,
Speaker 1: and I see it's happening, you know, so it through
Speaker 1: club coming really is. But this group of sort of
Speaker 1: young uh writer actor comedians, there's a very strong sense
Speaker 1: of community and of support I think, with each other.
Speaker 1: And that's I thought, I think that's really unusual. I'm
Speaker 1: not unusual, but it's uncommonly strong and seems really familiar
Speaker 1: when I look at you lat Well, that's I mean
Speaker 1: whenever people are like, um, oh well, I mean people
Speaker 1: will assume that, like you know that that that we
Speaker 1: will know certain people through um the podcast, But it's like, no,
Speaker 1: these are like relationships that we've built up over many
Speaker 1: years where we've seen each other really each ship, like
Speaker 1: in like in bar basements in Brooklyn and like, you know,
Speaker 1: like we like I remember the first time I saw
Speaker 1: you know, let's just say, like Patty Harrison or Katherine
Speaker 1: Cohen or like whoever, like we were not performing at
Speaker 1: the level we were. We we just but we weren't
Speaker 1: even like even that good grade of performance. We just
Speaker 1: wanted to get better at it, and we all happen
Speaker 1: to start at the same you know, water level, and
Speaker 1: then now it's just a coincidence. It's a happy, wonderful,
Speaker 1: fortuitous saying that we're all like in in the same
Speaker 1: neighborhood of like of doing stuff. But um, but I
Speaker 1: think but I was gonna say, like maybe, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not the person to say what um to assign
Speaker 1: meaning to what you're what you're doing UM these days,
Speaker 1: but like I feel like club coming is this thing
Speaker 1: where you are you are community building with with that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like your I think so, and I
Speaker 1: he felt that when we did when the when the
Speaker 1: pandemic hit, that one of the things that was apparent
Speaker 1: was that people needed a place to come even if
Speaker 1: we weren't opening shows. And so we you know, we
Speaker 1: try and like doing the Black Lives Matter marches, like
Speaker 1: some of the staff or like let's keep you know,
Speaker 1: they suggested, let's make it a safe space people can
Speaker 1: come and get water and snacks and go to the
Speaker 1: loo and things like that are really important too. I
Speaker 1: realized how important it was just for our core group
Speaker 1: of both performers and audience that they knew it was
Speaker 1: still there and they could come and they would be
Speaker 1: able to feel the same the thing like you know here,
Speaker 1: when I do it in like at the Spiegel tent
Speaker 1: in this festival, I say, you know, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a bit about Club Coming. I say, we have a
Speaker 1: motto all ages or genders, or colors or sexualities, everyone's welcome.
Speaker 1: Kindness is all and you know, anything can happen. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a great sort of just let's put that.
Speaker 1: When you put that out there, I think people, uh, come,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's manifest itself because people bring that sort
Speaker 1: of message to it. I really did realize that that's
Speaker 1: why work sort of so hard early on when everyone
Speaker 1: was hit financially for all these you know, they kind
Speaker 1: of got the benefits and things that we made. We
Speaker 1: had this thing called the Club Coming Community Chest, and
Speaker 1: we've got all these hilarious people to donate things. So
Speaker 1: and that was I think, you know, I really did
Speaker 1: that because I felt like we do have a community
Speaker 1: and it's really important to make sure that we look
Speaker 1: after them and so but if we can't nurture them
Speaker 1: in the way we normally do by paying them to
Speaker 1: perform and you know that, yes, then we have to
Speaker 1: try and you know, you have to kind of think.
Speaker 1: So it was. It was really and I take it
Speaker 1: very seriously that sort of thing. Actually, I'm very concerned about,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm very conscious of things changing and what's
Speaker 1: what what's the mood and there's new people and how's
Speaker 1: that going? You know, the sort of the feel of it.
Speaker 1: It's really because it's supposed, it's supposed it's reflects me.
Speaker 1: It's supposed it looks my spirit really, and it does.
Speaker 1: It really doesn't. It carries the light when you go
Speaker 1: in there, and like and the show is really popping off,
Speaker 1: like it's like a love bomb is exploding. It's so yeah,
Speaker 1: and I it feels weird, but like I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for it because it's like a truly like
Speaker 1: some of my first some of my last year's because
Speaker 1: I moved to Los Angeles for work stuff. But I
Speaker 1: I it's I think it's in the top three things.
Speaker 1: I always say, you know, for me, everyone's like, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do now that you're back in New York?
Speaker 1: And I'm back in New York for a month, And
Speaker 1: I always say, like, it's more about people for me
Speaker 1: that I'm going to see when I come back here,
Speaker 1: Like I'm always like I always will associate bone with
Speaker 1: it and our dear friends studio and like our close friends.
Speaker 1: But it's not having this conversation right now makes me
Speaker 1: really anxious to get there again because I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's my favorite spot. I mean, I'm so
Speaker 1: I'm so proud to be like a part of it,
Speaker 1: and like it's so you're you're oh the time in
Speaker 1: l A now, uh yeah, And I think that the
Speaker 1: dream is to sort of bounce back and forth, you understand,
Speaker 1: but like coast has worked, but yeah, right now, yes,
Speaker 1: but I mean I'm telling you it's just it's not
Speaker 1: replicable in l A. What that is and I think
Speaker 1: even outside of I mean, it's just not replicable any aware.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there are some places, but there
Speaker 1: was something about a packed room at club coming for
Speaker 1: a for a comic show, cabaret show, drag show, what
Speaker 1: have you. But energetically, spatially, there was nothing like it.
Speaker 1: Just you just felt and it's I mean, this is
Speaker 1: I don't know, this is a little bit of like
Speaker 1: a masturbatory thing to say, but like it's where it's
Speaker 1: it's where I discovered quote Uncoree or met Chloe Fineman
Speaker 1: who later was like in my who's in my class
Speaker 1: at S And I was like it was where I
Speaker 1: like saw her perform for the first time. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, who the funk is this girl doing
Speaker 1: all these impressions, She's incredible. So many people And then
Speaker 1: now it's like and now and yes, so many people.
Speaker 1: But it's like like look like it's like it this
Speaker 1: is the thing, Like but you you saying like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, all ages, all genders, all all sexualities, A
Speaker 1: kindness is key, Like hopefully that brings people together. Of
Speaker 1: course it does. It's a force in the world and
Speaker 1: people will will draw themselves to that and then naturally
Speaker 1: this is what happens. It's it's actually v D hartening
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, like do you ever do
Speaker 1: things like you sort of thing I really want to
Speaker 1: do this, like what you've got to creative visualization? I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess with with cubcoming, I did create a visually visualization.
Speaker 1: And also like you know, when you talk about when
Speaker 1: something's about to happen and you talk about it in
Speaker 1: the press or stuff, like that you can sort of
Speaker 1: creatively visualize in the more um you know, direct way
Speaker 1: by doing that. But it is really heartening to think
Speaker 1: that that's that's how it came about. Is that I
Speaker 1: just that's how I wanted to be and I just
Speaker 1: just put that message out to the world. Also, point
Speaker 1: was I was saying when I did um the other
Speaker 1: thing we have together coming out Shmiga Dune, I creatively
Speaker 1: visualized that as well, because I was it was it
Speaker 1: was it was like, you know, the end of the summer,
Speaker 1: and I've spent it's been lovely. At the summer, I
Speaker 1: was up stuck not stuck in the cats girls with
Speaker 1: my lovely husband, and I was just like, this has
Speaker 1: been lovely, but I kind of liked a little break,
Speaker 1: a little break my husband from my from you know,
Speaker 1: making dinner every night and blah blah blah. And I've
Speaker 1: you know, finished the draft of my book. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to and I'd like to do a show not in
Speaker 1: America and that kind of a America. And that just
Speaker 1: showed that it's an ensemble. Don't have to get up
Speaker 1: every single day and I can and somewhere safe like
Speaker 1: Knada where the people are kind and there's a plan boom.
Speaker 1: The next thing, I know, Oh you've got You've been
Speaker 1: asked to do this hilarious musical homage parody. Thing was
Speaker 1: all these great people in Kinada thing. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: have to visualize more. I can't. Yes, you know it
Speaker 1: always did it always did? You know. It's so funny,
Speaker 1: like you say, like you're in l A all the
Speaker 1: time now, like there's something happened to me. I think
Speaker 1: maybe it was the pandemic and also in the move
Speaker 1: to l A where it's so much more like entertainment industry,
Speaker 1: like I'm working during the day and I did lose
Speaker 1: that sort of like New York like Jack, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, like and so like it's just kind
Speaker 1: of um, it's it's it's just fun to remember that
Speaker 1: that's a thing like putting things out into the atmosphere
Speaker 1: really does work. I do believe that. Yeah, I know so.
Speaker 1: I in my book, I write because I think it's
Speaker 1: too easy to be down on Eli if you're not
Speaker 1: if you're not an earlier person, and it's it's one
Speaker 1: of these places I think that's quite sort of um triggering,
Speaker 1: or or it's you know, it's sort of what do
Speaker 1: you call that word? Um, I'm going to see bi
Speaker 1: polar polarizing, polarizing, polarizing, and that the thing is that
Speaker 1: I've lovely friends there, I love going there, but I
Speaker 1: don't ever I've never lived there. I don't want to.
Speaker 1: And I and and I've write about this. I say
Speaker 1: that it's it's kind of like how I am. If
Speaker 1: you think about Hershey, Pennsylvania, where they make which I
Speaker 1: do often and Matt Matt loves theme park person, so
Speaker 1: I love coaster Park. They've got some of the best
Speaker 1: rober clatures in the world, did they really? And also,
Speaker 1: are you a big you're a big chocolate person that
Speaker 1: you know. I don't go there for the chocolate, but
Speaker 1: I stay for the chocolate. I always think that l
Speaker 1: A is similar to must be similar to Hershey, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: because I bet there everybody's talked about chocolate all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, to me, because it's an industry time. And
Speaker 1: I think in l A everyone just talks about work
Speaker 1: all the time. And when you think about like that,
Speaker 1: it's not so menacing. It's but I just don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about work all the time. I said, already,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not keen on giggles of actors. That's
Speaker 1: like my worst nightmare. So the idea of being in
Speaker 1: a in an environment where like things like I remember
Speaker 1: one time this. I was saying this years ago and
Speaker 1: this waiter came came to me and I was like,
Speaker 1: he just wanted to focus on my salad, as Martha's
Speaker 1: chet said, and he said, he said, what, congratulations Allen.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, why you know when people say that,
Speaker 1: you think, what did I win an award? And no
Speaker 1: one's told me? And he went, oh, your movie made
Speaker 1: nineteen million dollars this weekend. And I was like, how
Speaker 1: do you know that? And I don't you know what?
Speaker 1: I mean? Like what I thought? It was awful and
Speaker 1: I'm bringing it up while you were eating? Thank you?
Speaker 1: Well wait, I mean okay, well, well, Matt and I
Speaker 1: when we were visiting l A years ago, we met
Speaker 1: up with our friend, this is Jamie Soalker. But he
Speaker 1: told us he was like, here's the thing about l A.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves it. And then we were like, what about
Speaker 1: the people who hate it? He was he was, they
Speaker 1: just don't know that they love it. I don't know
Speaker 1: yet that they love it. And I'm like that is interesting. Atmospherically,
Speaker 1: I do love it, like I And when I say atmospherically,
Speaker 1: I just mean like literal atmosphere, like I love the
Speaker 1: way I love the weather being the same everything. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I mean, it's so boring, but like
Speaker 1: I think, I think that's like, say, what do you say?
Speaker 1: What do people I mean say nobody would live in
Speaker 1: Iceland or things? Do you know what I mean? The
Speaker 1: thing is I would just go to Iceland then, but
Speaker 1: in terms of where I live, like I I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like dry and dry and hot and the same.
Speaker 1: I get it. I just think it's sort of I
Speaker 1: don't know, I absolutely understand, but I'd also just think
Speaker 1: I find it kind of weird that the climate would
Speaker 1: be the best thing somewhere. I totally, I totally get that.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'll even agree with you very soon, and
Speaker 1: I'll turn my ass right around and point myself back
Speaker 1: in New York. And it's just that the humanity and
Speaker 1: you can make you can. It says that, but you can.
Speaker 1: I love that, actually missing the witness, but I think
Speaker 1: you can. You have to make your own life in
Speaker 1: whereas in New York you find it. And then it's
Speaker 1: just a little more difficult to in Eliot, You've got
Speaker 1: to it's more it's a well, you know that thing
Speaker 1: about it's all spread out city. There's the first time
Speaker 1: I drove in Eliot. So I'm going to find the
Speaker 1: center of l A. There's not a center. And so
Speaker 1: that's the thing. You've got to realize. Everything is more
Speaker 1: spread and you've got to seek out a life within
Speaker 1: New York. It just hits you in the face. And
Speaker 1: I think that's I prefer that, and it's a journey.
Speaker 1: And that's what's fun about it too, that like you're
Speaker 1: always gonna have New York memories, Like there's not really
Speaker 1: l A memories, you know what I mean. Like, but
Speaker 1: like New York is alive in a way that every
Speaker 1: day is a curveball. And in l A's yes, you're
Speaker 1: less of an adventurer. In l A you just are.
Speaker 1: But also at the same time, I always think if
Speaker 1: I lived in early I would probably end up in
Speaker 1: a gutter with like a prostitute on my face and
Speaker 1: a needle in my arm. Bad. But you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that actually in New York
Speaker 1: you have there's it's I think it's the slightly repres
Speaker 1: like the thing that everybody goes to bed so early
Speaker 1: and gets in eli and everything like that, and you
Speaker 1: have to really look for after. I was fun as well,
Speaker 1: and so it's slightly I don't know whereas in New
Speaker 1: York that's like a part of living, it's a sort
Speaker 1: of celebrate part, whereas there it's a little repressed and
Speaker 1: sort of That's what I mean. I think I would
Speaker 1: end up in some you know, weird environment. You would swing,
Speaker 1: you would swing so hard the other way. But I
Speaker 1: I've never heard someone distill it this way. Where in
Speaker 1: l A you make your life. In the New York
Speaker 1: you find it. I think that's the perfect way to
Speaker 1: like to phrase it. Um, before we ask you the
Speaker 1: question about what culture made you say culture was for you.
Speaker 1: You were talking about sets earlier. I just want to
Speaker 1: know what was it? What was the set of Josing
Speaker 1: the Pusycats, Like we need we need some we need
Speaker 1: to know about our favorite movie. But it was a
Speaker 1: hut because, um, well the Girls was so young. I
Speaker 1: talked to Rozario about this recently. She turned twenty one
Speaker 1: doing that film twenty one and the Others was about
Speaker 1: the same age and they were just like these three
Speaker 1: week things. Actually remember one thing, this thing about work
Speaker 1: and Elie and everything. I remember it was when when
Speaker 1: we were shooting that um what do you called Gody
Speaker 1: Hone's daughter lovely Kate Kate Hudson was on the cover
Speaker 1: of Vanity Fair because she was in that Cameron Crow film.
Speaker 1: And I remember the three girls were like, oh, they
Speaker 1: were fascinating about this cover. And remember one of them said, gosh,
Speaker 1: who's her publicist? Like that? And I thought, oh, it
Speaker 1: was they were. They were already being sucked into that thing.
Speaker 1: How can I make that happen to me? And so
Speaker 1: it's interesting, but they were lovely. I remember one time
Speaker 1: we've talked about Lauren Bicole in the makeup bus, and
Speaker 1: none of them knew that she was. I thought, that's okay,
Speaker 1: they were in there, they're in there early. It's not okayah,
Speaker 1: I think they were. They're making their actress isn't film anyway,
Speaker 1: I told them. But my and also favorite thing was
Speaker 1: like there was one time where a little um melody,
Speaker 1: the character played Tara Reid, and you know, because at
Speaker 1: the time she was going out with what's his name,
Speaker 1: they were engaged. There was a whole joke in the
Speaker 1: film about that. You know, they was a big hot item.
Speaker 1: We're all going to go to their wedding after the
Speaker 1: film finish. That didn't happen at last any bit Tarda,
Speaker 1: there was something where we're doing a scene was late.
Speaker 1: Everyone was a bit tired. Was a night shooting. There
Speaker 1: was a little bit of conflict going on on the
Speaker 1: set with the direct one of the directors and the girls,
Speaker 1: and we got back to make up and they were
Speaker 1: all being upset about it, and I was like, girls,
Speaker 1: you just got to let you know, everyone's tired, just
Speaker 1: like you know, just say okay, I'll do it that way.
Speaker 1: I do want to take like that, and then just
Speaker 1: do it the way you want to, you know, just
Speaker 1: you know, just you have to kind of take a
Speaker 1: little bit, but don't make it. Don't make a bad
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And and Tarda was cris because it's
Speaker 1: okay for you Ellen. They respect you, but they won't
Speaker 1: let me give Melody any creativity. Seping you wouldn't let
Speaker 1: Melody get any creativity wherever you are. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: That movie also features um one of Bond and his
Speaker 1: favorite performances ever committed to celluloid, which is Parker posey
Speaker 1: in that film just tremendous. I mean that was just
Speaker 1: that's the dream piece of casting. I also, I love
Speaker 1: Parker so much. We had I know, so we were
Speaker 1: the two oldest people in the film. That was and
Speaker 1: I showed it and when Parker left, she was finished
Speaker 1: wrapped earlier. I was the oldest person on the film.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? But thirty five a cool thirty five
Speaker 1: would be like these fucking like I wouldn't like be
Speaker 1: that self conscious about me. I'd just be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great and these fucking amateurs are figuring it
Speaker 1: out as well. Yeah, just I went one of these films, yes,
Speaker 1: but it was it was a Parker was you know,
Speaker 1: she's hilly idios. I've got something took heart of doing
Speaker 1: that film, my first Parker, my first Parker posing movie.
Speaker 1: And then through that movie I discovered like all the
Speaker 1: Christopher guest things House of Yes, Like that was like
Speaker 1: my gateway into like that world of cinema where I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this is a little like Lane.
Speaker 1: This is like a little like pocket of of movies
Speaker 1: for me, And like it took something as like you know,
Speaker 1: Candy coated as Josey the post a gat which I
Speaker 1: still leave is like us like a satirical film. It's
Speaker 1: saying something about the culture in a way that I
Speaker 1: didn't was not said at the time, and I still
Speaker 1: think it has something. And like when we were saying that,
Speaker 1: so Matt has said a metaphor earlier look for the
Speaker 1: pepsi cans. It's just literally like what the whole movie is,
Speaker 1: which is emblazoned branding on everything, and like now, like
Speaker 1: you know, now we talk about it's like it's kind
Speaker 1: of a happening thing now to talk about how corporations
Speaker 1: are ruining pride. Of course they are, but it's like
Speaker 1: that was like in the year two thousand, like giving
Speaker 1: you this thing where every single surface was covered in
Speaker 1: a logo in a way that's so funny and like ironic.
Speaker 1: So it was like a idea of it sal phone
Speaker 1: ust as well, Yes, you know what else is that
Speaker 1: parodea of itself? Was um the Spice film. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: people were so and the reviews of it were so
Speaker 1: like this is bad. It's like you don't understand, this
Speaker 1: is camp. And I feel like at that at that
Speaker 1: time they just were I think maybe American critics were
Speaker 1: kind of like unaware of the fact that that was
Speaker 1: Maybe they just didn't want to give the movie any
Speaker 1: credit for being camp, or maybe they just didn't I
Speaker 1: don't think American people understand camp. They're not actually properly
Speaker 1: in the way, you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: sort of I think people think camp as they don't
Speaker 1: think of it as wet, to think of it as
Speaker 1: like someone wearing a feather bow and glitter, and I
Speaker 1: think that's the thing like that from the literary tradition
Speaker 1: and the sort and also sort of the repress the
Speaker 1: idea of a repressed having to repress a message but
Speaker 1: get the message over using a sort of almost a
Speaker 1: hidden language. That's what I think of as cats and
Speaker 1: that's what American people, I think, you know, just in
Speaker 1: it's it's I don't mean to bash America, but there's this,
Speaker 1: you know, irony. There's a bit of an irony bypass
Speaker 1: in general, which is per me. It's all culture, and
Speaker 1: I think that it's getting better, and of course in
Speaker 1: certain pockets it's absolutely there, but it's not as in
Speaker 1: the mainstream as much as it is in other cultures.
Speaker 1: Sell business, we must ask we must ask the question
Speaker 1: because this will be the latest we've ever asked a question.
Speaker 1: But we're just having too much of a I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you. So what was the culture Alan Coming then
Speaker 1: made you say culture is for me? This was the
Speaker 1: piece of whether pop culture or general culture around you
Speaker 1: that sort of moved you in in Alan coming direction.
Speaker 1: It was a piece of theater. And it was when
Speaker 1: I was a very little boy and a theater and
Speaker 1: education group came to my school and did a play
Speaker 1: in our dinner hall, and like you know, we all
Speaker 1: sat on the floor and they did this piece of
Speaker 1: and it was about the about a historical thing that
Speaker 1: happened in Scotland called the Highland Clearances, when all the
Speaker 1: people were cleared off the the hills and sent away
Speaker 1: by the English. And I really even at that moment,
Speaker 1: I thought, gosh, I am learning more from this than
Speaker 1: we did. Then I got in history class than because
Speaker 1: I'm seeing it now and it's been presented to me
Speaker 1: in this way and then and I thought it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And then I at play time afterwards, I saw them
Speaker 1: through remember through the fence, the metal grid defense of
Speaker 1: the play of the playground, looking through it and I
Speaker 1: saw the actors from the little theater company putting their
Speaker 1: big hampers of props and things into a van, and
Speaker 1: I realized they're going off and don't going to do
Speaker 1: this at another school. And I was just like, I
Speaker 1: want to do that. Decided to become an actor right
Speaker 1: that very moment. How old are you? How are you?
Speaker 1: It's probably about eight or nine. And guess what the
Speaker 1: very first job I did, the first professional job I did,
Speaker 1: I was and it was in the production of Macbeth
Speaker 1: in Glasgow and I played Malcolm. And we're sort of
Speaker 1: talking kind of like this about, oh, what was your
Speaker 1: first sort of thing that you wanted to become an actor?
Speaker 1: And I was. I told this story and the lady,
Speaker 1: the actress called morning Beat He's a brilliant Scottish actress
Speaker 1: who was playing Lady Macbeth, suddenly went wait, what what
Speaker 1: was the show about? And I said, Hircus. She went
Speaker 1: and it was near Dundee. I went, yes, she went,
Speaker 1: I was in that, and she was. She had been
Speaker 1: in the very show that I sever Several other actors
Speaker 1: a couple of other ones actually that and that crazy.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I think that people really forget, like whenever
Speaker 1: I hear or see that. Um, you know, like a
Speaker 1: particular education system is doesn't have theater or the kids
Speaker 1: aren't closed to theater. Like it's what you're saying. It's
Speaker 1: like some people genuinely like their world can completely expand,
Speaker 1: their mind can completely expand by seeing that. Bowen and
Speaker 1: I for several years did children's theater, and you can
Speaker 1: tell when some of the kids are changed by it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. And also I think it's been interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, with the pandemic that in a crisis, artists
Speaker 1: are the first people that culture turns to to make
Speaker 1: sense of it, to kind of entertain us, to take
Speaker 1: our mind so off it, or to raise money, to
Speaker 1: help raise money for various things. They are arts are
Speaker 1: the first sort of line of defense, if you like,
Speaker 1: in a in a crisis, and yet the arts is
Speaker 1: the first place that they have all the money cut
Speaker 1: in order to pay for everything. It's really hypocritical. Well
Speaker 1: it's just an arbitrary thing. I mean, this is this
Speaker 1: is the weird thing to bring up. But I feel
Speaker 1: like to those actors, like that day, it was just
Speaker 1: another let's say, Wednesday afternoon, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And you for me and Matt when we would go
Speaker 1: and do these children's theater shows at schools, would be like,
Speaker 1: well for us, it's like, how god we had to
Speaker 1: wake up at like five am today and like hack
Speaker 1: of it and like but then but then it's like
Speaker 1: but then, I don't know. But then hearing you someone
Speaker 1: like you say this that like you were like truly
Speaker 1: sparked by a children's theater the moment at your school,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh god, it's like you can you will
Speaker 1: never be able to tell and this is just undoubtedly
Speaker 1: have done that. You'll have undoubtedly done that to some people.
Speaker 1: And that's not and even if they don't become actors
Speaker 1: you would give you'll have changed them forever in a way.
Speaker 1: And I think that's you know, we have forget what
Speaker 1: great It's a pressure, I suppose in some ways, but
Speaker 1: what a great honor is that you have their job
Speaker 1: that can actually change people's lives. Absolutely. But I just think,
Speaker 1: and this is not I don't know why I'm connecting
Speaker 1: these two dots in terms of like cultural like like
Speaker 1: arts funding not getting what it should in this country
Speaker 1: or any country. But it's like because it's something that
Speaker 1: like people, there's no like number on it because people
Speaker 1: can't like a sign like yeah, we want something results.
Speaker 1: But then but then it's like, well, if if you
Speaker 1: were able to track like how many kids want to
Speaker 1: go into theater after like the theater trip comes through
Speaker 1: this school, then maybe it's like, oh well then maybe
Speaker 1: like I don't know, it's like it's such a it's
Speaker 1: a hard thing because it's it's because it is so arbitrates.
Speaker 1: Like it's like I was talking to Study today, are
Speaker 1: are very good friend? Study? We were like, you can't
Speaker 1: describe funny, like like she's like she's like she's like
Speaker 1: fucking professional comedian or just a writer for years and
Speaker 1: years and then talking to me about this, like one
Speaker 1: of her collaborators were just like you can't. You can't
Speaker 1: define what funny is, and therefore people get into arguments
Speaker 1: all the time about like who who's funny? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a terrible thing that you know, I think and and
Speaker 1: and and like some cultures we absolutely need to see
Speaker 1: it on paper to make sense of it, whereas you know,
Speaker 1: like where I'm from, it's it's people understand the value
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, Like the first Minister of Scotland quotes
Speaker 1: like she's a big reader, for instance, and she talks
Speaker 1: about books. Actually something says, here's a great book I've
Speaker 1: just read blah blah blah blah. Imagine that coming from
Speaker 1: an American politician. It's it would be incredibly rare. And
Speaker 1: then and also they would be criticized for taking time
Speaker 1: off to read a book probably, you know. And then
Speaker 1: and also but just like she's something you know, she's
Speaker 1: quotes poetry sometimes when she makes speeches and things like that.
Speaker 1: This the idea that language and and and culture and
Speaker 1: that way is so much more into the mainstream of
Speaker 1: how people think, and there's a reference point. It's not
Speaker 1: something that's seen as something we do for fun or
Speaker 1: something that's a little frivolous. It's actually much more valued
Speaker 1: in the very core of a society. And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you how you change that. You
Speaker 1: just have to tell yourself to give it to people,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the thing that we've got to be told.
Speaker 1: How you can't and if anyway, are certing that you
Speaker 1: can't blame people for being homophobic or racist, if the
Speaker 1: government of the day is homophobic and racist, because they
Speaker 1: are the people that are supposed to be leading you
Speaker 1: and explain to you what is decent and how to
Speaker 1: behave and so I think we've always got to That's
Speaker 1: why it's so depressing right now that all these great
Speaker 1: things that Biden wants to do is not going through
Speaker 1: because of this gridlock. Not awful, man, it won't let
Speaker 1: the voting thing go through. I mean, it's just the
Speaker 1: political system in America is so it seems so intent
Speaker 1: on just staying on stasis. As you know, modus up
Speaker 1: und a lot of Latin words in one sentence, what
Speaker 1: we love Joe mansion and this is just kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the worst, literally the worst, and unfortunately he is president
Speaker 1: of the United States. It feels like um, but because
Speaker 1: because it doesn't matter who is while that fucking asshole
Speaker 1: sits there. And also Kirsten cinema is no better and
Speaker 1: that I don't care, I don't care how blue or
Speaker 1: hair is. Um, that's actually it's more patronizing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually also I'm sorry it looks bad. I'm not good
Speaker 1: about her. Die job is bad. Not to remark on
Speaker 1: the looks of whatever, not whatever. She just looks bad anyway.
Speaker 1: But I will say, like, it's so it's so crazy
Speaker 1: that you say that, like people wouldn't be this way
Speaker 1: if it wasn't if the government wasn't like filling their
Speaker 1: heads with this because like when we do when we do,
Speaker 1: when we used to do these shows all the time
Speaker 1: as story parts was the name of the company, it
Speaker 1: was like all the five and six year olds were
Speaker 1: my favorite because they were the most untouched by by anything.
Speaker 1: And then you could see when they got to like eight, nine, ten,
Speaker 1: something started to turn, especially in the boys, like um,
Speaker 1: something was turning. It was just and you saw that
Speaker 1: little glimpse of like I want to have fun, but
Speaker 1: but I can't. I can't know what else to you
Speaker 1: know what else? Yeah, and you know what else to?
Speaker 1: When when the kids are really little, when when little
Speaker 1: boys are really little, they lay in each other's laps,
Speaker 1: they hold each other, they touch each other, and they're
Speaker 1: they're very tactile and they're very sensitive and emotional and
Speaker 1: pop in and they're screaming laughing when like when like
Speaker 1: something gay happens on stage, and by nature of Bone
Speaker 1: and I being on stage, many gay things happened. And
Speaker 1: sort of like us in a wig, like yelling at
Speaker 1: each other about like which spoon was magical? And which
Speaker 1: one wasn't like um stupid queer stuff. And like it does,
Speaker 1: it does. It does change when you can tell the
Speaker 1: parents or they don't have a filter. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: there then there's something happened, I think, and it is
Speaker 1: a male thing that I think they're told. They're just
Speaker 1: very quickly you realize that that's not acceptable. There's things
Speaker 1: not you know, there's things that are not are expected
Speaker 1: of you, and there's things that are not acceptable, and
Speaker 1: it's immediately it's a it's a very sort of about
Speaker 1: manning up in a way, and sports and things become
Speaker 1: very polarizing in that way too. And I think it
Speaker 1: is really interesting and it's always magical when you meet
Speaker 1: people who have escaped that who are also straight, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I think I'm all I love
Speaker 1: a straight boy in touch of these sort of femi
Speaker 1: queer side. I think it's just the best thing ever.
Speaker 1: And I and I I think that's actually something again
Speaker 1: about your your generation and your group that I've seen
Speaker 1: is that that is much that's much more integrated that
Speaker 1: everyone everyone has a sort of much more integrated kind
Speaker 1: of group of friends and it's much more and I
Speaker 1: think you you know, you you lot, because you always
Speaker 1: grew up with the internet, didn't you know, there was
Speaker 1: never any time because we were we were in about
Speaker 1: first second ord grade when it really starts to pop off,
Speaker 1: right right, So that's when you're a little too So. Um,
Speaker 1: I think you've always had access to so many more
Speaker 1: options in all sorts of ways, and you've grown up
Speaker 1: with like at the click, at the you know, three
Speaker 1: clicks away, having so much more information and so much
Speaker 1: more understanding of things. And I think that's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's obviously downsides to that as well, Um, but I
Speaker 1: think actually it's made you a more friendly and open generation.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, let's hope so but then yes, let's
Speaker 1: let's just hope so. But that's but now, but that's
Speaker 1: that's that's very um, that's very stupid you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think tearing hearing that talking about these five
Speaker 1: year olds, it's like or these kids and the turn
Speaker 1: it's like masculinity is self harm. Like that's that that
Speaker 1: that is what I truly believes that like like starting
Speaker 1: to like saddle yourself with an idea of how you
Speaker 1: should behave as a man. It's just like it's just like,
Speaker 1: I mean that is just like gender nonsense that ends
Speaker 1: up like ruining people's lives, you know, literally, you know
Speaker 1: that my fellone of my favorite memories ever. This is
Speaker 1: the last thing I'll bring up story parts. And I
Speaker 1: bring it up because Henry was there, because Henry Copersky
Speaker 1: was also a story pirate. He wasn't a performer, as
Speaker 1: we know, Henry is more comfortable behind the keys. And
Speaker 1: he was like just he just texted me and said
Speaker 1: to send you, send you regards, regard regards. You tell
Speaker 1: them I send my regards back. That's how you know
Speaker 1: our relationship is over. There's a little applause emoji. Then
Speaker 1: I accept his regards. I'm in a text later. One time,
Speaker 1: one time we were at a show. This is like
Speaker 1: very early on before we were dating. And I think, um,
Speaker 1: we started dating very shortly after this. But like this
Speaker 1: little boy. The teacher brought up this little boy and
Speaker 1: after the show and he had this book of pictures
Speaker 1: that he had drawn that he had like tied to
Speaker 1: that are like uh taped together, and his teacher was like,
Speaker 1: you know this is so and so he's one of
Speaker 1: my he's one of my very special students. And he
Speaker 1: he he wants you to show he wants to show
Speaker 1: you this book that he wrote and illustrated, and he
Speaker 1: just sat there and like went through the book, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a creative kid, like you know,
Speaker 1: and it was very clear, like a young young kid
Speaker 1: had done this. But to go to the length to
Speaker 1: make up sucks. It's fucking sucked. I mean the art scarbage.
Speaker 1: But now I'm kidding, but I don't remember the art
Speaker 1: it might have. But but like the fact that he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm ready and willing and able to prevent
Speaker 1: this and I'm presenting art and I want to create art.
Speaker 1: It just makes me feel like I want every kid.
Speaker 1: I want every kid to have access to all that
Speaker 1: stuff because we don't know the genius that we could
Speaker 1: be getting. And also we should say, it's so unfair
Speaker 1: some of these schools that we went to that obviously
Speaker 1: have no money. And I feel I just it's it was,
Speaker 1: it's just so clear that so much in New York
Speaker 1: needs to change, and so much everyone needs to change,
Speaker 1: because the all these kids should have a chance to
Speaker 1: like express themselves creatively and be exposed to stuff like
Speaker 1: you were. Also just to have like you know, it's
Speaker 1: good for you. It's actually it's just obsessed with like
Speaker 1: who's the next you know, blah blah, who is going
Speaker 1: to be the next Vincent van Go, Who's the next
Speaker 1: Mariah carry Actually, just the very fact of doing it
Speaker 1: is good and healthy and as a as an important
Speaker 1: thing we should do. Like keeping fit for our bodies,
Speaker 1: we should also keep fit with our minds and our
Speaker 1: hearts and our imagination. That's what the arts is for. God,
Speaker 1: I sound like a commercial, but the thing I always
Speaker 1: remember is when you put Vincent van Go and Mariah
Speaker 1: Carry on the same level, and I thank you. I
Speaker 1: thank you for that as like as like like I
Speaker 1: really thank you for that. What do you what do
Speaker 1: you think? I don't think so, honey. I think we
Speaker 1: should move on and think so honey. This is our
Speaker 1: segments in our show where we each take one minute
Speaker 1: to rail against something in the culture or something that
Speaker 1: is happening to us. Matt, do you have a topic.
Speaker 1: I do, and it's sort of fresh on my new
Speaker 1: newly New York mind. Okay, great, I will uh time you.
Speaker 1: This is Mount Rogers is I don't think so, honey,
Speaker 1: and his time starts now. I don't think so, honey,
Speaker 1: that the New York subways finally got figured out the
Speaker 1: second I fucking left. All of a sudden, I come back,
Speaker 1: and you can use your goddamn debit card to get in.
Speaker 1: I don't have to get a metro card anymore. Metro
Speaker 1: cards are a thing of the past. I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1: How come I used to have to suffer with that
Speaker 1: little piece of paper that I have to hold on
Speaker 1: to for a month, and if I lost it, I
Speaker 1: would lose the at the time insurmountable amount of money
Speaker 1: I had paid to get that. Now you can use
Speaker 1: your goddamn debit card or credit card. I don't think so, honey. Also,
Speaker 1: there WiFi almost everywhere, on every single stop. Do you
Speaker 1: know how many times I've been crying stuck in a
Speaker 1: subway between like the fucking this and then that on
Speaker 1: like the truly pits D train, trying to get somewhere
Speaker 1: and unable to communicate. Now communication is like water, everyone
Speaker 1: can have it. I don't think so high. I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, New York, you're trying it with maybe
Speaker 1: the humidity, but you're pulling me in with this new
Speaker 1: subway system. Things are looking good. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: I do think so, honey, and that's one minute. It's
Speaker 1: ever been like if there's a lot that's going on,
Speaker 1: that's like I'm like, what the fund is going on?
Speaker 1: But the subways have gotten pulled together. Hey, thank build
Speaker 1: a Blassi for that. Just kidding, I um, I think
Speaker 1: I think it's great that there's WiFi and every station.
Speaker 1: It's like it just makes the way. It's we're one
Speaker 1: step closer to making like internet usage like thing that
Speaker 1: everyone can have for everyone. Yeah. I always think that
Speaker 1: this when when I come to hotel and you have
Speaker 1: to to pay for the WiFi, think discusting, disgusting. It's
Speaker 1: just really like charging for that something that you could
Speaker 1: give free to everyone. Yes, I just ridiculous talking and
Speaker 1: especially in a swanky hotel and then they charge if
Speaker 1: the Internet I'm that year are they doing that? Where
Speaker 1: you're staying right now in the cave hotel is free?
Speaker 1: God bless I'm telling into via the free access or
Speaker 1: I would be building you. No, it's no, it's all
Speaker 1: for me. It's like worse when like it's like a
Speaker 1: shitty hotel, Like I'm at a study hotel and you're
Speaker 1: like it's like four you get born all night. Yes,
Speaker 1: where does any holiday in get off charging you four
Speaker 1: for WiFi? It's like you should be so lucky and
Speaker 1: I've checked into this establishment. But it's like, I suppose
Speaker 1: we don't make food call You remember when you used
Speaker 1: to make calls on the phone and you're probably had
Speaker 1: mobile phones. They must have made a lot of money
Speaker 1: from that and they lost all that, so we can
Speaker 1: charge the internet. It's the same with like you know,
Speaker 1: on planes, now you're not allowed to take emotional support animals.
Speaker 1: You can still take dogs, you just just have to pay
Speaker 1: for them. This is being a big change. People would
Speaker 1: abusing it. But it's also I think of thing that
Speaker 1: airplanes are like, how can we make some fucking money?
Speaker 1: So we'll just stop doing that? And you know you
Speaker 1: can still I could still go with my emotional support animal,
Speaker 1: la la, but I'm absolutely waiting to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but not everyone can. That's and that's what everyone can.
Speaker 1: That's rough makes an inconvenient. The WiFi on planes too
Speaker 1: was a nightmare. That's truly expensive. We haven't progressed. We
Speaker 1: haven't progressed on that front. And like several years and
Speaker 1: about like at least I would say seven years, there's
Speaker 1: been no progress on the in flight WiFi front still
Speaker 1: still bad. It should be faster anyway, anyway. UM, so
Speaker 1: that's mine for now, Um and yang? Are you ready
Speaker 1: with your I don't think so, honey, I am. I've
Speaker 1: got one. It's a little it's a little like whatever,
Speaker 1: but it's just just just it is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's a little whatever, but like it is what it is,
Speaker 1: and that Um, we are going to start bow and yang.
Speaker 1: This is yours. I don't think so, honey. This week
Speaker 1: and your time starts now, I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1: Transcribing likes and ums in any trans script form, but
Speaker 1: specifically interviews, specifically interviews with me, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be made to sound like a bumbling fool because I'm
Speaker 1: actually trying to find the words in order to properly
Speaker 1: convey the idea that I'm trying to communicate, specifically when
Speaker 1: I'm doing a long day of press. For that I'm
Speaker 1: willing and happy to do for Hot White Heist. But
Speaker 1: if you're catching me at the end of the press
Speaker 1: day and I've I'm a little too tired and I'm
Speaker 1: having trouble articulating myself, please do me the courtesy of
Speaker 1: cutting out the likes and the arms and the dusts
Speaker 1: and the filler words. And we all have filler words
Speaker 1: in every culture. I don't think I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a mark of unintelligence that you say like or um,
Speaker 1: but it just it makes the reading of the interview
Speaker 1: very fragmented, very disorienting. It just doesn't make for a
Speaker 1: good reading experience in terms of absorbing information for the reader.
Speaker 1: It just kills it. And I'm not gonna name the company.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name the publication that did this
Speaker 1: to me today, but they did it to me, and
Speaker 1: otherwise it would have been a great interview that read
Speaker 1: great on paper. Well, that's one I will say. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I do use a like or an arm for comedic effect,
Speaker 1: but it's very clear when that, it's very clear when
Speaker 1: that's true and ironic use, yes, exactly. And I was
Speaker 1: just Alan, I was trying to tell him about the
Speaker 1: damn show and they and they just kind of broke
Speaker 1: it up into all these and like, you can string
Speaker 1: it together, I promise you can. You can. You can
Speaker 1: edit it make it sounds somewhat cohesive. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I hate when you do that? Like sometimes you
Speaker 1: know how something should do like, do you do that
Speaker 1: when you go? I often say I don't want to
Speaker 1: do the interview. You'll can send me the questions on
Speaker 1: an email and I will then do a voice love
Speaker 1: love that I do a voice memo and I send
Speaker 1: it back to What I think is despicable, and it's
Speaker 1: happened a few times, is that they published the voice
Speaker 1: memo without asking make an audio file. Instead of transcribing
Speaker 1: what you said, they do an audio file and put
Speaker 1: it out into the world. That that's invasive. I don't
Speaker 1: like that at all. So it's very invasive. Exactly. It's
Speaker 1: like my I don't I actually have and I don't think, so, honey,
Speaker 1: might like to do one. I don't know it. You
Speaker 1: actually required, you're required to do one. We're not putting
Speaker 1: this out unless we get and I don't think I
Speaker 1: have I have it. I have it. This is alan
Speaker 1: comings I don't think, so honey, And as time starts now,
Speaker 1: I don't think so, honey. Is that I hate when
Speaker 1: people say things to you and they mean it to
Speaker 1: be an insult, but they're actually seeing something that's actually true.
Speaker 1: Like when people I remember, like a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I hosted the Tonys and I wore a short suit
Speaker 1: like a pair of shorts. Thank you. It was a
Speaker 1: good look. And and the and they saw the designer
Speaker 1: who had didn't They sold out the next day. It
Speaker 1: was a big thing. Well that Frank Rich. I will
Speaker 1: name him in New York magazine Who And Frank Rich,
Speaker 1: of course was the theater critic for the New York Times,
Speaker 1: you know, like the butcher bloody. Anyway, he said to me,
Speaker 1: Alan coming looks he thinks he's being youthful. He just
Speaker 1: looks middle aged. Guess what, I am fucking middle aged?
Speaker 1: Frank Rich? Why are you insulting me with something that's true?
Speaker 1: And it's also when people say to you you're I go,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm a wanker. I masturbate regularly. Why do
Speaker 1: you say to me? Yes? Why are you saying that
Speaker 1: as an insult? You do it too. I just think
Speaker 1: we should all look like when we're going to use
Speaker 1: a pejorative, and we've got to make sure the pejorative
Speaker 1: is a terrible thing and not the truth. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, honey. One more like Frank bitch? Am I right?
Speaker 1: That's rule culture number six? More like Frank Bitch. Also,
Speaker 1: Frank Rich as a theater critics should have something more
Speaker 1: like pointed and sophisticated to say, then you look middle eight.
Speaker 1: They are not necessarily sophisticated theater critics. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who would they write for, Okay, because we could also
Speaker 1: name more names. But there have been some flop theater critics. Yeahah,
Speaker 1: I obviously struck a chord in some way with them
Speaker 1: that it was by my presence and my not conforming
Speaker 1: to something. But I was just like, that's a stupid
Speaker 1: thing to say. I'm middle and I'm not just wating.
Speaker 1: Shorts to not mid laser were in hurt because I
Speaker 1: think it looks nice. Fucky exactly. You get to wake
Speaker 1: up every morning and b Allen coming and he has
Speaker 1: to wake up every morning and be frank Rich Oh
Speaker 1: my god, bitch. Yeah, I think I think, yes, an
Speaker 1: insult is not that insulting if it's just like accurate
Speaker 1: in a way that is not pejorative. It's mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's meant. It's me, but it's not it's thoughtless because
Speaker 1: it's not even like do a better insult. I'm here
Speaker 1: for it, you know what I mean. I think there's
Speaker 1: nothing better than a clever insult. Yeah, make an effort
Speaker 1: to case it in like some an effort. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: One of my favorite Trump things was when he came
Speaker 1: to to to Scotland. I saw these people and there
Speaker 1: was a man holding up a sign and it said Donald,
Speaker 1: everyone thinks you're a bare end. And I just thought
Speaker 1: that was the best thing ever. Do you know what
Speaker 1: bell end is? No? What is that, dick? It's like
Speaker 1: you know that, yes, gesticulation. And the other thing there
Speaker 1: was a lady when he first came during the campaign,
Speaker 1: and it was the when the Scottish uh know, when
Speaker 1: exit happened. He actually flew to Britain and he was
Speaker 1: in Scotland at his thing and he said a great
Speaker 1: result for Scotland we got and actually Scotland had voted
Speaker 1: to stay in Europe and the rest of Britain and vote.
Speaker 1: So you got it all wrong in many ways, not
Speaker 1: surposing me. But there was two things that made me
Speaker 1: laugh so much and made me very proud. One was
Speaker 1: that these people had hired a Marry actually band to
Speaker 1: be played right beside his golf course, right so he
Speaker 1: had to pass of Mary actually had to get into
Speaker 1: And there was a little lady who's this comedian actually
Speaker 1: Jenny good She was holding a sign that she'd made,
Speaker 1: so she looked like a little lady with a little
Speaker 1: cardboard piece of cardboard and she's painted. And I said,
Speaker 1: Trump is a count on the thing right, and there's
Speaker 1: a policeman coming towards are going, I'm sorry, darling, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to do you know. It was just fantastic.
Speaker 1: And then we were later at the bath to awards
Speaker 1: and Scott and I was getting one of My mom
Speaker 1: was with me, and the lady who had held up
Speaker 1: the sign was there, but she was all used up
Speaker 1: and had her makeup on in here and I didn't
Speaker 1: recognize her, and she went, oh, Alan, it's Jenny. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, and she went you don't remember,
Speaker 1: and the Trump is a count, lady, And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so nice to see you. And then my mom was, Mom,
Speaker 1: this is Jenny, and I remember Trump is a count,
Speaker 1: and she went to remember Trump is aunt remember, Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, I do, of course the count. That this
Speaker 1: actually is so funny. What I wanted to tell you
Speaker 1: when you were telling your Ian McKellen story right in
Speaker 1: Balso involves Henry that we went to Europe like on
Speaker 1: like for like a week and a half, like years
Speaker 1: ago when we were dating and we went to England
Speaker 1: and we were in London and we were we came
Speaker 1: out of our hotel. I think we were like finishing
Speaker 1: up a blunt. We're walking down the street finishing a
Speaker 1: blunt and a hundred yards Yeah, I know, he's yeah,
Speaker 1: he learned. He didn't learn it from me, but he
Speaker 1: got much much better at being quote unquote Henry from
Speaker 1: meeting some tips on joint. I tell you. So we
Speaker 1: were we were like, we were like finishing one and
Speaker 1: about a hundred yards in front of us, there was
Speaker 1: this guy who sort of was like in the in
Speaker 1: the visage of um Ian McKellen, And I said, finished
Speaker 1: that before we see Hell he and McKellen up there
Speaker 1: and we laughed, We laughed, walked up. It was he
Speaker 1: would have loved it. I was like, I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you weird. We've just checked into the hotel,
Speaker 1: walked down on the street. I was like, yeah, McKellen
Speaker 1: over here. It was. It was you creatively visualized them, man,
Speaker 1: there we go create a visualization title about title of that. Well,
Speaker 1: this is truly an auspicious episode. Overall, but a wonderful ending.
Speaker 1: This was really wonderful. We're gonna let you go on
Speaker 1: this plane with Henry. I know. I'm just to go
Speaker 1: and have an experience, another lovely experience. It's been so
Speaker 1: nice to talk to you every really really enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and lovely to finally meet you properly. Matt. We're not likewise,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't tell you you're you're such a
Speaker 1: I mean that they throw the word around, but you
Speaker 1: are an iconomy everything you've done, everything, you are, everything
Speaker 1: you're gonna be. Seriously bless you, bless you. I love
Speaker 1: I love the way the lights going down behind you
Speaker 1: in Long Eye. The lights are going out all over
Speaker 1: Long Island. You know there's a beautiful song the lights
Speaker 1: and Long Island. Just kidding that doesn't exist. But we'll
Speaker 1: get Henry on the keys and the keys we end
Speaker 1: up every episode of the song. Matt, Sure do, let's
Speaker 1: let's do it. What dude do? What did you do?
Speaker 1: Shake it off? R? Maybe crazy? You know if I
Speaker 1: could I do anything for you? What is the last
Speaker 1: len for the song? Please don't ignore me because for me,
Speaker 1: because you know why I adore you? Well, my fairy
Speaker 1: Andryus is really gone. It's amazing. For the rest of
Speaker 1: that song, listen to the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack
Speaker 1: starring Alan Coming. Thank my gosh, thank you so much.