WEBVTT - Sam Fragoso 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:01.720 I don't know what else we're supposed to do when 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:04.000 we're here, because it's over so fucking quickly. We should 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.360 just laugh more, just laugh more. I agree. I agree. Good, 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.200 and you've got much more time to do it, which 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:10.920 is good. You can start earlier. I wish someone had 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.600 told me at twenty seven, I cheer up, stop being 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.080 so sad. When I was twenty seven, I didn't win 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.919 an Oscar, and I was really upset about it. And 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.640 my death was like, oh for Fox, say like, go 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.000 over it. You're twenty seven, like loads more terrible ship's 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.080 going to happen to you. Be more worried about that. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.200 This is literally nothing, you know. I felt the same 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.000 way going back on for Christmas. I said, you know, 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:34.800 I'm not winning an Oscar this year. I don't get 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.280 it now. I didn't make a film, but I still 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.920 think back in the nineties, my favorite David Letterman joke. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.560 Every time they would have like Ebert and Cisco on 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:45.800 you know they do like their Oscar preview, and David 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.960 Letterman would say, God, you know what, it's so upsetting. 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.239 Barber Strives in once again snubbed, and Roger would say, well, 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:54.240 she didn't make a picture that year, like doesn't matter. 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.640 She got snubbed. She got snubbed once again, Barbara, And 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:04.240 that was you at seven, And it's me to be snubbed. Hello, 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:09.200 I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions, Season two. I've 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.880 always loved Cruce's questionnaire. It was originally a nineteenth century 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.160 parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.679 questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.520 just the scientific method, really. In asking different people the 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.959 same set of questions, you can make observations about which 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.959 truths appeared to me universal. I love this discipline, and 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.840 it made me wonder, what if these questions were just 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.920 the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.759 if I ask these questions as conversation starters with thought 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.880 leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.000 adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.840 that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story. 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.280 They are when and where were you happiest? What is 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.720 the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:03.520 or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.640 most like answered what person, place, or experience has shaped 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.400 you the most? What would be your last meal? And 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.040 can you tell me something in your life that's grown 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.480 out of a personal disaster. And I've gathered a group 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.040 of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.760 humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.000 may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions. 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.640 We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.920 their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.840 fertile ground to connect. My guest today on many questions 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.600 is Sam frago So. Sam as the host of Talk 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.600 Easy podcast, which currently has over two hundred and fifty episodes, 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.560 meaning he knew it was cool to do a podcast 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.520 before all the rest of us. He's brilliant. His guests 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.960 include musicians like Lord and Janelle Monet, are writers like 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.440 Nikki Giovanni, screen legends like Matthew McConaughey and Law Done. 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.680 He's also a director of writer and I imagine an 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:10.280 ideal dinner guest. He's a really interesting cat. I'm very 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:12.600 happy that I met him, and I very much hope 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:22.200 you enjoy this wonderful conversation first question, when and where 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.360 were you happiest? All these questions are so hard. You 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.440 have to know that, and someone like me who prepares 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.880 a whole bunch. The first thing I thought of is 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.720 this Normanly philosophy. And I'll explain this. When I moved 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.600 to Los Angeles, I had started the show. I've been 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.000 a year in and he agreed to come on. And 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.320 back when I started it, you have to understand, like, 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.200 I don't come from money, my family is from Chicago. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.520 I don't know anybody. So I'm bringing this microphone, the 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.600 one I'm talking to two people's homes or offices or whatever, 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.120 and it's all portable. So I go to his office 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.000 and when you walk in, it's like a president or 0:03:58.000 --> 0:03:59.800 it's like someone who's met the president, and he has 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.760 my every president and we do this interview and it 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.280 goes great, and at the end of it, he says, 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.040 and it's something I thought he hadn't said before, but 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.960 it's something he often says, which is he says, Sam, 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.400 It's taken every split second of my life in this 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.520 case seven years to get here sitting across from you 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.640 in this moment, and it's taken every second of your 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.039 life to get to this conversation too, And I appreciate 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.320 every second of that journey. I hope you do too, 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.880 And so every day it has to be or I 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.800 try to make it the like effervescent moment, which is 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.400 the one we're in. So I'm gonna say you and 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.359 I it's Tuesday morning, I'm talking to many driver on 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.000 her show. The answer is you right now for right now. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.440 Oh my goodness, that's a very good thing to have 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:52.279 co opted a Norman Lair quote. He's extraordinary. Oh god. 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.080 I sang at his birthday party once with a full 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.040 jazz band, and I came in on the wrong count 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.720 and I just had to I just had to do it. 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.120 And it was honestly the most excruciating performance of my 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.080 entire life. I just I never caught up with the band. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.000 I never found my way through it. It was so bad. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.800 And he just sat there with his hat on, smiling, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:15.880 and I could see in his eyes he was like, 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:20.440 just don't stop, just keep going and you'll get to 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.360 the end. And I did. I can't believe you've say 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.640 in a jazz band for Norman there, Oh my gosh. 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.279 It was magnificent. He'd actually bought the record label I 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.200 was signed to, which is why. And it was kind 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.560 of this Hollywood affair. It was amazing. Even though I 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:37.600 was terrible, it was still the total privilege to be 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.800 terrible in front of him. I bet you were better 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.960 than you think. I don't think I was, But I 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.080 do like that idea in the unhappiness of this year, 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:48.799 which has been true for so many people. But honestly, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.800 particularly having lost my mom and rend your post about that, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.800 I was very moved by that. Well, you know, I 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.480 wish I could have a conversation about one's host death 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.480 ruminations about your parents. It's my parents, like the one 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.719 person I want to discuss, like, oh my god, Mom, 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.440 it's so weird how all of this stuff has receded, 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.520 all of the ship between us, and all of this 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:10.880 amazing stuff comes to the foreground. And the one person 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.559 I want to talk about it with is her, because 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.239 she would roar with laughter. She would say, isn't that amazing? Gosh? 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.479 I wish I'd known that when I was alive. But 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.000 it's it's less the sound of one hand clapping than 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.440 you'd think when a mother dies. She does involve herself 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.680 in conversations with me. It feels like, when does that happen? Well, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.560 when I talk to her, I can't help but talk 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.960 to her because it's been a lifetime of doing that 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.000 and I don't I don't put any judgment on that whatsoever. 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.680 And I feel like because I did ask her, I 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.040 was like, is this just my brain generating your voice? 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:42.520 And she was like, well, you know, I don't have 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.000 a brain anymore, so I'm just going to coop yours. 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.600 So yeah, it is me, but it's your brain, which 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.560 is such a statement. It's weird. Though your grief is 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.279 a funny beast. I feel like my mom's coop in 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.080 my brain in real time. She doesn't need to be 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.919 gone for that to happen. That is a really good point, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.040 and it's true, like moms just do that. They do 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.240 you do that to your son? Well? You know what 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.680 I think about that because as our relationship is changing 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.440 now that he's thirteen, and I can't bite him and 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.840 booby him like the way that I want to or 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.640 the way that I did. You know, he's this young 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.600 man now it's inappropriate and not cool, and he's very 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.720 tolerant of my love. But I realized that I've got 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.880 to temper it somewhat now and it's kind of heartbreaking, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.280 but he's so tolerant of me, and I do try 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.680 not to Actually that's not sure. I hardly try it 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.000 all to not be in his brain. But we have 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.480 a weird shorthand maybe because it was all just him 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.520 and me, we still laugh a lot. So I think 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.120 it's okay. Look, if you think it's okay and he 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.880 says it's okay, then it's probably okay. I do think 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.600 about that, the idea that it is still a gift 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.520 every split second of life, because when you really see 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.120 it go, when you really see it gone, I know 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.200 how much we will want it back. So to say 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.080 that that this present moment and every split second this 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.600 is it. This is where I'm happiest is being alive 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.360 in this moment and actually having an awareness of that life. 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.360 And that's the ambition. I mean, I think that it's 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:15.000 impossible to feel that every day, every moment. Yeah, but 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.560 I did think this morning, when I was showering, I 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.800 was getting dressed, I was like, well, I'm doing a 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.520 podcast with you. We don't even know each other so well, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:24.920 I mean almost at all. So I don't know. I 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.480 just love his way of saying, it's taken everything in 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.280 my life to get here, and that's true of all 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.360 of us. It doesn't just mean two people on a microphone. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.680 It's true of any good thing that happens. It's taking 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.959 everything else to get there. He always says, the two 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.520 most underrated words in the English language are over and next, 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:43.880 and if there was a hammock in the middle of 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.760 those two words, that would be the best definition of 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:50.040 living at the moment. Oh well, that's brilliant, that's so good. 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.000 I like that hammock idea. I know, but my mama 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.000 was used to say that you should hate the words 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.320 why and should into the backyard and I take a 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.680 really big hall and bury them, and then you would 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.320 have the hammock over the pit where Wyan should was. 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.560 I'm liking all of this. Are we thinking about this 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:15.199 a lot? And that things are connecting? There? What person, 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.760 real or fictionalized, defines love feeling? My joke answer right 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.400 away was I was just gonna say Phantom Threat, Oh 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:29.520 my god, I love that film. Oh I would so 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.840 get that. You literally want someone to poison you and 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.800 then make you better. That's dark. I love it. But 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.720 for the sake of not sounding um like a psychotic person. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.559 So I'm going to say both of my parents offered 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.520 different things, and I grew up with many divorces over 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:53.400 and over, and both of them beyond remaining amicable amongst 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:55.880 each other, they both I don't know. I guess my 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.320 idea of love for my dad is because he didn't 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.600 raise me day today. He was there on the weekends. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.600 The thing that I always think about is he did 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.439 some things that annoyed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaheah whatever, 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.160 But anytime he said he was going to be there, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.400 he was there. I don't know if that's a tragically 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.880 low bar, but no, to be reliable, to have a 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.600 sense of safety in the world, oh my god. Yeah, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.240 I think that's actually a great unsung tent pole in 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.000 one's life, is being able to depend on someone. Yeah 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.680 he showed up and give a ship. And quite honestly, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.640 that's basically the philosophy I've tried to take in my 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.120 own life. Quincy Jones father has this quote, and it's 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.200 like I read it every week and everyone on our 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.960 team reads it. Which is um, be the labor great 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.000 or small, do it well or not at all? And 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.120 I think about this about everything it's exhausting. By the way. 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.120 It's like I'm taking out the trash. It's like just 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.800 to take it out and make sure the neighbors don't 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.760 ruin their basket, you know, just do it right, and 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.640 I should just like toss it sometimes because they're rude neighbors. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.520 But I'm not gonna get into that. It's just everything 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:01.559 in my life. I think about that. And that's what 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:03.480 my dad and my mom both they both that they 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:05.960 showed up when they probably want to, and they gave 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.920 a ship. And that's that's love for me right now. 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.040 Or it's phanom thread by the way, I think it 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.280 can be both. I think it's fanom thread for you. 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.360 Oh no, I mean having people who like not so 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.760 much my parents really, but just the relationships that I 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:21.600 had with men, it was always it was like, ta, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.360 they showed up. Oh my fucking god, where have they gone? Wait? 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.120 I was just getting settled in this and then something 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.040 would happen for it to disappear, which makes me then think, yeah, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.680 the phantom thread version that relationships are about manipulation, the 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.920 idea of abandonment, then the opposite of that being somebody stays. 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.360 But oh god, this is getting really dark. I like 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.800 your parents version of the definition of love and the 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.439 phantom thread. Say what you're going to say, Well, it's 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.440 really just that idea that if enough people disappeared, like 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.280 a love relationships, from the relationship when you love them, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.800 eventually you think, oh, I have to do something to 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:57.920 make them stay that I'm not doing. So then the 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.560 phantom thread idea of trying to kill some one and 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.040 then you healing them doesn't become quite such a strange idea. 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.000 Let me ask you, did you know that someone was 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.640 going to leave before they left or was it always 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.800 a surprise? Well, that's really what any best friend or 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.640 shrink would tell you is in the rubble of your 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.280 relationship to go back and look for the red flags, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.200 and invariably I could see them afterwards. But at the 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:29.120 time now no real proper blindness in love, me just useless. 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.559 It's hard for me to imagine this because you seem 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.800 very observant, You're self aware, and love was the leveler. 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.439 I could never see it. Yeah, I could never see it. 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.880 In the thing, I could just never see it. And 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.720 then afterwards like, oh my god, how could I not 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.600 see Because one guy who was one of the great 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.440 loves of my life. Like we were on this huge 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.440 cliff walk, like a really dangerously close to a death 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.880 drop of a cliff in Cornwall and England. Oh literally, 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.200 there's not a metaphor you literally we were on with 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:01.880 a bunch of people. We were doing this walk. We 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:03.960 were walking for like five miles to a restaurant, and 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.840 he'd sort of been running and he'd been running the 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.080 path and then running backwards and then suddenly he just 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:10.920 didn't come back and he was gone, and he was 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.400 gone for like forty minutes, and I thought he was dead, 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.720 and my sister and my mother were like, he's definitely 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:17.640 not dead. And I was like, how do you know? 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.840 And I got into this hysteria, and both my mother 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.280 and my sister were like, something's up, because when he 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.560 did reappear, he had a really terrible excuse about having 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.280 to go off and peace somewhere private or something, and 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.679 everybody knew something was up, Like everybody secretly knew that 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:35.680 he'd gone off to call this woman he was having 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.640 a relationship with, which is exactly what he was doing, 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.160 except me, who was like, no, he's dead, He's dead 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.280 and gone, and I mean I just useless at reading 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.800 the tea leaves, Well, I think you're being hard on yourself. Well, 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:51.520 he was a total dick, So I mean, you know 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.120 I didn't like mother, to be honest, Yeah, exactly. You 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.080 never liked him. He would have You would have told 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.640 me that. I would have said, hey, Minnie, we just met. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.520 But it does not take four hi men, it's it 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.679 doesn't even take forty minutes to pooh. It doesn't even 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.080 take forty minutes to be like, why he said pie 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.240 and not poo. Also, if you're having an affair with 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.280 someone like why would you try and sanitize anything anymore? 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.640 Goes bananas? Not that good of a liar, a terrible lie. 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:15.640 And I think he must have on some level been 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:17.640 rolling his eyes that, like, when is she going to 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.480 get it? I never did get it. You know, I 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.760 want my romantic partners to be good liars and and 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.440 good at breaking up and try and kill you with soup. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.000 You want to get phantom threaded. Look, if someone's going 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.680 to be a really good and dustarly lover, you want 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.320 them to phantom thread you. I want to be fantom threaded. Hey, 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.800 you know what, I don't know. It's honest, It's sucked up, 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.000 but it's honest. I love the Phantoms Thread. I love 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:42.760 that movie. I love how she pulls the coffee. It 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.160 makes me want to punch her. Oh absolutely, you know, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:15:00.280 she pulls the water really high on the ground. So 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.760 in your life, can you tell me about something that 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:07.080 has grown out of the personal disaster. When I was twenty, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.320 which is not that long ago, it feels long now, 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.040 it's been seven years. When I was twenty, I decided 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.720 I was going to leave school, and I got this 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.960 offer from a really tiny, tiny publishing company to write 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:20.760 a book. The book was going to be called Talk 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.120 Easy Conversations with the Filmmakers of the Future or something 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:25.760 like that. That's when I was doing that kind of 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.880 interview writing work. And so I left school and I 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.520 started writing this and then by chance, at a film 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.600 festival it was in Toronto, i met someone and they 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.680 were offered a job they didn't want, and it was 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.080 to be the creative director of this art house theater 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.320 in San Francisco where I went to school, incidentally called 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:44.920 the Roxy. I don't know if you've ever been, but 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.200 it's called the Roxy Theater in San Francisco. It's one 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.040 of the oldest art house theaters in the country. He's 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.720 been around since the late twenties. It's definitely the oldest 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.160 one in California, I'm pretty sure. And they needed a 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.480 creative director, and I had done enough film work I 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.760 guessed to be in the conversation to get this job. Anyway, 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.440 skip ahead. I get the job. Obviously, in hindsight, hiring 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.600 a twenty year old to save an eighty year old institution, 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.840 non for profit with no programmatic experience, not the best idea. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.600 Not the best like junior creative director wearing like a 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.640 bow tie. I didn't wear a bow tie, but you can, 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.440 you get it. And so I do this job, and um, 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:26.880 I'm not good at it. I mean, honestly, I'm I'm 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.920 not I've never done it before. I'm programming movies and 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.960 I'm helping manage the staff of people, and I'm bringing 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.560 in people from around the country to come and do 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:38.560 you know Q and I and all these things, and 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.800 I'm doing the best I can. But I'm also twenty 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.360 and then twenty one, and I'm twenty one, like in 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.240 an apartment and trying to be like an adult, and 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.520 it's a joke. I'm just not qualified. And by the 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.320 end of this run of doing it for about eight months, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.240 I'm let go now. We said I left, but really 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.720 it was I was pretty much asked to leave, and 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.480 I was trying to traumatize because I was a twenty 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.280 one year old in a nonprofit working with other adults 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.040 in the thirties, forties and fifties. The point is I 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.400 didn't do the job particularly well. But the one good 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.080 thing that came from it is that every night I 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.119 had to do these Q and a's on stage. And 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.000 you've done many Q and his Q and a s 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:22.000 are terrible. They're They're usually horrible experiences where the audience says, 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.920 like ninety seven things and then they asked, like, what 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.879 was it like to work with Matt Damon in your case? 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.720 Oh god, it's so true that that's the question. I 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.760 think I've been asked more than do I want worship 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:35.840 with my mail? Yeah, which I'm sure if you're not 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.000 going to give a real answer to that, and why 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:39.960 would you? These Q and a's are terrible, But the 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.000 good part of this is that for seven days a week, 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.000 I had to moderate these conversations, and I had to 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.040 do these interviews over and over and over again. Some 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.919 are great, Some are bad in front of people, in 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.120 front of like an audience that's like trying to be interested. 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.600 And that's where talk Easy was born, the show, because 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.080 it came from me doing these Q and a's on 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.960 stage and kind of failing over and over and then 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.760 slowly getting better. And so what was a traumatic experience 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.879 of doing this job and failing publicly in front of people, 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.879 not just the audience, but amongst the staff, amongst like 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.600 board members, Like imagine like a twenty one year old 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.560 trying to impress board members that have money, Like I 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.080 was so ont of my depths, And what came from 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.080 that is the show. And so I'm grateful for that. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.280 But it was a personal disaster. And the thing about disaster, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.480 you know, when a tornado happens, you're not ever thinking, 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.280 but you know in three days, like we're going to 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.600 have a great meal. You're not thinking about the meal. 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:37.640 You don't even know there is going to be a meal. 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.920 It's just a disaster. It's just a goddamn disaster. How 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.119 do I get out of it? And so that was 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.760 a very long winding story. I love that though, because 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.359 that's a proper It did not work out. It ended 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.960 up with me getting canned, like any which way, you 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.119 apparently splice that it's not good and yet that's couldn't 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.680 be further from the truth. Failia. It's such a weird 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.640 word to me because there's so much gifting in it invariably, 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.440 which doesn't mean it's not agony. But again, two things 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.360 can be true. How have you processed it? Because as 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.119 an actor, it's one of the most agonizing jobs in 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.240 this way of are you getting this ongoing? Yeah, it's ongoing, 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.880 and it's literally you. It's someone saying you're okay, You're 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.200 not okay. It's literally someone going not you. And then 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.320 you think that asking why will make it better, But 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.240 what happens is they actually tell you, and then it's 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.000 even more personal and dreadful because it really is you 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.160 that they are saying no to hard, no to you Mini. 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.639 So how do you? How do you deal? Know? You 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:43.800 go crazy and you end up doing a podcast like 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.880 this where you sound absolutely bat ship the whole time. 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.719 You know what, you start seeing it as being as 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.200 opposed to the the awful idea of a snake. You 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.320 think it's tale, it's the good version of that, which 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.760 is it is all the same. What you, cause failure 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.760 is also success and vice versa. There are a huge 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.240 senses that I've had that didn't help me at or 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.240 didn't teach me, so I think it doesn't ever stop 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.600 being hard, but now I really can laugh about it more. 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.720 And part of why I like social media it's before 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.359 when years celebrity or an acting, there was no recourse. 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.840 There was no way of rejoining ship that people would 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.280 say about you, And now I love that there is, 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:23.960 which makes it so much easier. If there has been 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.000