Speaker 1: I don't know what else we're supposed to do when
Speaker 1: we're here, because it's over so fucking quickly. We should
Speaker 1: just laugh more, just laugh more. I agree. I agree. Good,
Speaker 1: and you've got much more time to do it, which
Speaker 1: is good. You can start earlier. I wish someone had
Speaker 1: told me at twenty seven, I cheer up, stop being
Speaker 1: so sad. When I was twenty seven, I didn't win
Speaker 1: an Oscar, and I was really upset about it. And
Speaker 1: my death was like, oh for Fox, say like, go
Speaker 1: over it. You're twenty seven, like loads more terrible ship's
Speaker 1: going to happen to you. Be more worried about that.
Speaker 1: This is literally nothing, you know. I felt the same
Speaker 1: way going back on for Christmas. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not winning an Oscar this year. I don't get
Speaker 1: it now. I didn't make a film, but I still
Speaker 1: think back in the nineties, my favorite David Letterman joke.
Speaker 1: Every time they would have like Ebert and Cisco on
Speaker 1: you know they do like their Oscar preview, and David
Speaker 1: Letterman would say, God, you know what, it's so upsetting.
Speaker 1: Barber Strives in once again snubbed, and Roger would say, well,
Speaker 1: she didn't make a picture that year, like doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: She got snubbed. She got snubbed once again, Barbara, And
Speaker 1: that was you at seven, And it's me to be snubbed. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions, Season two. I've
Speaker 1: always loved Cruce's questionnaire. It was originally a nineteenth century
Speaker 1: parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five
Speaker 1: questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's
Speaker 1: just the scientific method, really. In asking different people the
Speaker 1: same set of questions, you can make observations about which
Speaker 1: truths appeared to me universal. I love this discipline, and
Speaker 1: it made me wonder, what if these questions were just
Speaker 1: the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed
Speaker 1: if I ask these questions as conversation starters with thought
Speaker 1: leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I
Speaker 1: adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions
Speaker 1: that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story.
Speaker 1: They are when and where were you happiest? What is
Speaker 1: the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
Speaker 1: or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you
Speaker 1: most like answered what person, place, or experience has shaped
Speaker 1: you the most? What would be your last meal? And
Speaker 1: can you tell me something in your life that's grown
Speaker 1: out of a personal disaster. And I've gathered a group
Speaker 1: of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
Speaker 1: humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
Speaker 1: may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
Speaker 1: We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
Speaker 1: their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most
Speaker 1: fertile ground to connect. My guest today on many questions
Speaker 1: is Sam frago So. Sam as the host of Talk
Speaker 1: Easy podcast, which currently has over two hundred and fifty episodes,
Speaker 1: meaning he knew it was cool to do a podcast
Speaker 1: before all the rest of us. He's brilliant. His guests
Speaker 1: include musicians like Lord and Janelle Monet, are writers like
Speaker 1: Nikki Giovanni, screen legends like Matthew McConaughey and Law Done.
Speaker 1: He's also a director of writer and I imagine an
Speaker 1: ideal dinner guest. He's a really interesting cat. I'm very
Speaker 1: happy that I met him, and I very much hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy this wonderful conversation first question, when and where
Speaker 1: were you happiest? All these questions are so hard. You
Speaker 1: have to know that, and someone like me who prepares
Speaker 1: a whole bunch. The first thing I thought of is
Speaker 1: this Normanly philosophy. And I'll explain this. When I moved
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, I had started the show. I've been
Speaker 1: a year in and he agreed to come on. And
Speaker 1: back when I started it, you have to understand, like,
Speaker 1: I don't come from money, my family is from Chicago.
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody. So I'm bringing this microphone, the
Speaker 1: one I'm talking to two people's homes or offices or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it's all portable. So I go to his office
Speaker 1: and when you walk in, it's like a president or
Speaker 1: it's like someone who's met the president, and he has
Speaker 1: my every president and we do this interview and it
Speaker 1: goes great, and at the end of it, he says,
Speaker 1: and it's something I thought he hadn't said before, but
Speaker 1: it's something he often says, which is he says, Sam,
Speaker 1: It's taken every split second of my life in this
Speaker 1: case seven years to get here sitting across from you
Speaker 1: in this moment, and it's taken every second of your
Speaker 1: life to get to this conversation too, And I appreciate
Speaker 1: every second of that journey. I hope you do too,
Speaker 1: And so every day it has to be or I
Speaker 1: try to make it the like effervescent moment, which is
Speaker 1: the one we're in. So I'm gonna say you and
Speaker 1: I it's Tuesday morning, I'm talking to many driver on
Speaker 1: her show. The answer is you right now for right now.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, that's a very good thing to have
Speaker 1: co opted a Norman Lair quote. He's extraordinary. Oh god.
Speaker 1: I sang at his birthday party once with a full
Speaker 1: jazz band, and I came in on the wrong count
Speaker 1: and I just had to I just had to do it.
Speaker 1: And it was honestly the most excruciating performance of my
Speaker 1: entire life. I just I never caught up with the band.
Speaker 1: I never found my way through it. It was so bad.
Speaker 1: And he just sat there with his hat on, smiling,
Speaker 1: and I could see in his eyes he was like,
Speaker 1: just don't stop, just keep going and you'll get to
Speaker 1: the end. And I did. I can't believe you've say
Speaker 1: in a jazz band for Norman there, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: It was magnificent. He'd actually bought the record label I
Speaker 1: was signed to, which is why. And it was kind
Speaker 1: of this Hollywood affair. It was amazing. Even though I
Speaker 1: was terrible, it was still the total privilege to be
Speaker 1: terrible in front of him. I bet you were better
Speaker 1: than you think. I don't think I was, But I
Speaker 1: do like that idea in the unhappiness of this year,
Speaker 1: which has been true for so many people. But honestly,
Speaker 1: particularly having lost my mom and rend your post about that,
Speaker 1: I was very moved by that. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: wish I could have a conversation about one's host death
Speaker 1: ruminations about your parents. It's my parents, like the one
Speaker 1: person I want to discuss, like, oh my god, Mom,
Speaker 1: it's so weird how all of this stuff has receded,
Speaker 1: all of the ship between us, and all of this
Speaker 1: amazing stuff comes to the foreground. And the one person
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it with is her, because
Speaker 1: she would roar with laughter. She would say, isn't that amazing? Gosh?
Speaker 1: I wish I'd known that when I was alive. But
Speaker 1: it's it's less the sound of one hand clapping than
Speaker 1: you'd think when a mother dies. She does involve herself
Speaker 1: in conversations with me. It feels like, when does that happen? Well,
Speaker 1: when I talk to her, I can't help but talk
Speaker 1: to her because it's been a lifetime of doing that
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't put any judgment on that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And I feel like because I did ask her, I
Speaker 1: was like, is this just my brain generating your voice?
Speaker 1: And she was like, well, you know, I don't have
Speaker 1: a brain anymore, so I'm just going to coop yours.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it is me, but it's your brain, which
Speaker 1: is such a statement. It's weird. Though your grief is
Speaker 1: a funny beast. I feel like my mom's coop in
Speaker 1: my brain in real time. She doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: gone for that to happen. That is a really good point,
Speaker 1: and it's true, like moms just do that. They do
Speaker 1: you do that to your son? Well? You know what
Speaker 1: I think about that because as our relationship is changing
Speaker 1: now that he's thirteen, and I can't bite him and
Speaker 1: booby him like the way that I want to or
Speaker 1: the way that I did. You know, he's this young
Speaker 1: man now it's inappropriate and not cool, and he's very
Speaker 1: tolerant of my love. But I realized that I've got
Speaker 1: to temper it somewhat now and it's kind of heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: but he's so tolerant of me, and I do try
Speaker 1: not to Actually that's not sure. I hardly try it
Speaker 1: all to not be in his brain. But we have
Speaker 1: a weird shorthand maybe because it was all just him
Speaker 1: and me, we still laugh a lot. So I think
Speaker 1: it's okay. Look, if you think it's okay and he
Speaker 1: says it's okay, then it's probably okay. I do think
Speaker 1: about that, the idea that it is still a gift
Speaker 1: every split second of life, because when you really see
Speaker 1: it go, when you really see it gone, I know
Speaker 1: how much we will want it back. So to say
Speaker 1: that that this present moment and every split second this
Speaker 1: is it. This is where I'm happiest is being alive
Speaker 1: in this moment and actually having an awareness of that life.
Speaker 1: And that's the ambition. I mean, I think that it's
Speaker 1: impossible to feel that every day, every moment. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I did think this morning, when I was showering, I
Speaker 1: was getting dressed, I was like, well, I'm doing a
Speaker 1: podcast with you. We don't even know each other so well,
Speaker 1: I mean almost at all. So I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just love his way of saying, it's taken everything in
Speaker 1: my life to get here, and that's true of all
Speaker 1: of us. It doesn't just mean two people on a microphone.
Speaker 1: It's true of any good thing that happens. It's taking
Speaker 1: everything else to get there. He always says, the two
Speaker 1: most underrated words in the English language are over and next,
Speaker 1: and if there was a hammock in the middle of
Speaker 1: those two words, that would be the best definition of
Speaker 1: living at the moment. Oh well, that's brilliant, that's so good.
Speaker 1: I like that hammock idea. I know, but my mama
Speaker 1: was used to say that you should hate the words
Speaker 1: why and should into the backyard and I take a
Speaker 1: really big hall and bury them, and then you would
Speaker 1: have the hammock over the pit where Wyan should was.
Speaker 1: I'm liking all of this. Are we thinking about this
Speaker 1: a lot? And that things are connecting? There? What person,
Speaker 1: real or fictionalized, defines love feeling? My joke answer right
Speaker 1: away was I was just gonna say Phantom Threat, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I love that film. Oh I would so
Speaker 1: get that. You literally want someone to poison you and
Speaker 1: then make you better. That's dark. I love it. But
Speaker 1: for the sake of not sounding um like a psychotic person.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say both of my parents offered
Speaker 1: different things, and I grew up with many divorces over
Speaker 1: and over, and both of them beyond remaining amicable amongst
Speaker 1: each other, they both I don't know. I guess my
Speaker 1: idea of love for my dad is because he didn't
Speaker 1: raise me day today. He was there on the weekends.
Speaker 1: The thing that I always think about is he did
Speaker 1: some things that annoyed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaheah whatever,
Speaker 1: But anytime he said he was going to be there,
Speaker 1: he was there. I don't know if that's a tragically
Speaker 1: low bar, but no, to be reliable, to have a
Speaker 1: sense of safety in the world, oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's actually a great unsung tent pole in
Speaker 1: one's life, is being able to depend on someone. Yeah
Speaker 1: he showed up and give a ship. And quite honestly,
Speaker 1: that's basically the philosophy I've tried to take in my
Speaker 1: own life. Quincy Jones father has this quote, and it's
Speaker 1: like I read it every week and everyone on our
Speaker 1: team reads it. Which is um, be the labor great
Speaker 1: or small, do it well or not at all? And
Speaker 1: I think about this about everything it's exhausting. By the way.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm taking out the trash. It's like just
Speaker 1: to take it out and make sure the neighbors don't
Speaker 1: ruin their basket, you know, just do it right, and
Speaker 1: I should just like toss it sometimes because they're rude neighbors.
Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna get into that. It's just everything
Speaker 1: in my life. I think about that. And that's what
Speaker 1: my dad and my mom both they both that they
Speaker 1: showed up when they probably want to, and they gave
Speaker 1: a ship. And that's that's love for me right now.
Speaker 1: Or it's phanom thread by the way, I think it
Speaker 1: can be both. I think it's fanom thread for you.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I mean having people who like not so
Speaker 1: much my parents really, but just the relationships that I
Speaker 1: had with men, it was always it was like, ta,
Speaker 1: they showed up. Oh my fucking god, where have they gone? Wait?
Speaker 1: I was just getting settled in this and then something
Speaker 1: would happen for it to disappear, which makes me then think, yeah,
Speaker 1: the phantom thread version that relationships are about manipulation, the
Speaker 1: idea of abandonment, then the opposite of that being somebody stays.
Speaker 1: But oh god, this is getting really dark. I like
Speaker 1: your parents version of the definition of love and the
Speaker 1: phantom thread. Say what you're going to say, Well, it's
Speaker 1: really just that idea that if enough people disappeared, like
Speaker 1: a love relationships, from the relationship when you love them,
Speaker 1: eventually you think, oh, I have to do something to
Speaker 1: make them stay that I'm not doing. So then the
Speaker 1: phantom thread idea of trying to kill some one and
Speaker 1: then you healing them doesn't become quite such a strange idea.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, did you know that someone was
Speaker 1: going to leave before they left or was it always
Speaker 1: a surprise? Well, that's really what any best friend or
Speaker 1: shrink would tell you is in the rubble of your
Speaker 1: relationship to go back and look for the red flags,
Speaker 1: and invariably I could see them afterwards. But at the
Speaker 1: time now no real proper blindness in love, me just useless.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to imagine this because you seem
Speaker 1: very observant, You're self aware, and love was the leveler.
Speaker 1: I could never see it. Yeah, I could never see it.
Speaker 1: In the thing, I could just never see it. And
Speaker 1: then afterwards like, oh my god, how could I not
Speaker 1: see Because one guy who was one of the great
Speaker 1: loves of my life. Like we were on this huge
Speaker 1: cliff walk, like a really dangerously close to a death
Speaker 1: drop of a cliff in Cornwall and England. Oh literally,
Speaker 1: there's not a metaphor you literally we were on with
Speaker 1: a bunch of people. We were doing this walk. We
Speaker 1: were walking for like five miles to a restaurant, and
Speaker 1: he'd sort of been running and he'd been running the
Speaker 1: path and then running backwards and then suddenly he just
Speaker 1: didn't come back and he was gone, and he was
Speaker 1: gone for like forty minutes, and I thought he was dead,
Speaker 1: and my sister and my mother were like, he's definitely
Speaker 1: not dead. And I was like, how do you know?
Speaker 1: And I got into this hysteria, and both my mother
Speaker 1: and my sister were like, something's up, because when he
Speaker 1: did reappear, he had a really terrible excuse about having
Speaker 1: to go off and peace somewhere private or something, and
Speaker 1: everybody knew something was up, Like everybody secretly knew that
Speaker 1: he'd gone off to call this woman he was having
Speaker 1: a relationship with, which is exactly what he was doing,
Speaker 1: except me, who was like, no, he's dead, He's dead
Speaker 1: and gone, and I mean I just useless at reading
Speaker 1: the tea leaves, Well, I think you're being hard on yourself. Well,
Speaker 1: he was a total dick, So I mean, you know
Speaker 1: I didn't like mother, to be honest, Yeah, exactly. You
Speaker 1: never liked him. He would have You would have told
Speaker 1: me that. I would have said, hey, Minnie, we just met.
Speaker 1: But it does not take four hi men, it's it
Speaker 1: doesn't even take forty minutes to pooh. It doesn't even
Speaker 1: take forty minutes to be like, why he said pie
Speaker 1: and not poo. Also, if you're having an affair with
Speaker 1: someone like why would you try and sanitize anything anymore?
Speaker 1: Goes bananas? Not that good of a liar, a terrible lie.
Speaker 1: And I think he must have on some level been
Speaker 1: rolling his eyes that, like, when is she going to
Speaker 1: get it? I never did get it. You know, I
Speaker 1: want my romantic partners to be good liars and and
Speaker 1: good at breaking up and try and kill you with soup.
Speaker 1: You want to get phantom threaded. Look, if someone's going
Speaker 1: to be a really good and dustarly lover, you want
Speaker 1: them to phantom thread you. I want to be fantom threaded. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't know. It's honest, It's sucked up,
Speaker 1: but it's honest. I love the Phantoms Thread. I love
Speaker 1: that movie. I love how she pulls the coffee. It
Speaker 1: makes me want to punch her. Oh absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: she pulls the water really high on the ground. So
Speaker 1: in your life, can you tell me about something that
Speaker 1: has grown out of the personal disaster. When I was twenty,
Speaker 1: which is not that long ago, it feels long now,
Speaker 1: it's been seven years. When I was twenty, I decided
Speaker 1: I was going to leave school, and I got this
Speaker 1: offer from a really tiny, tiny publishing company to write
Speaker 1: a book. The book was going to be called Talk
Speaker 1: Easy Conversations with the Filmmakers of the Future or something
Speaker 1: like that. That's when I was doing that kind of
Speaker 1: interview writing work. And so I left school and I
Speaker 1: started writing this and then by chance, at a film
Speaker 1: festival it was in Toronto, i met someone and they
Speaker 1: were offered a job they didn't want, and it was
Speaker 1: to be the creative director of this art house theater
Speaker 1: in San Francisco where I went to school, incidentally called
Speaker 1: the Roxy. I don't know if you've ever been, but
Speaker 1: it's called the Roxy Theater in San Francisco. It's one
Speaker 1: of the oldest art house theaters in the country. He's
Speaker 1: been around since the late twenties. It's definitely the oldest
Speaker 1: one in California, I'm pretty sure. And they needed a
Speaker 1: creative director, and I had done enough film work I
Speaker 1: guessed to be in the conversation to get this job. Anyway,
Speaker 1: skip ahead. I get the job. Obviously, in hindsight, hiring
Speaker 1: a twenty year old to save an eighty year old institution,
Speaker 1: non for profit with no programmatic experience, not the best idea.
Speaker 1: Not the best like junior creative director wearing like a
Speaker 1: bow tie. I didn't wear a bow tie, but you can,
Speaker 1: you get it. And so I do this job, and um,
Speaker 1: I'm not good at it. I mean, honestly, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not I've never done it before. I'm programming movies and
Speaker 1: I'm helping manage the staff of people, and I'm bringing
Speaker 1: in people from around the country to come and do
Speaker 1: you know Q and I and all these things, and
Speaker 1: I'm doing the best I can. But I'm also twenty
Speaker 1: and then twenty one, and I'm twenty one, like in
Speaker 1: an apartment and trying to be like an adult, and
Speaker 1: it's a joke. I'm just not qualified. And by the
Speaker 1: end of this run of doing it for about eight months,
Speaker 1: I'm let go now. We said I left, but really
Speaker 1: it was I was pretty much asked to leave, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to traumatize because I was a twenty
Speaker 1: one year old in a nonprofit working with other adults
Speaker 1: in the thirties, forties and fifties. The point is I
Speaker 1: didn't do the job particularly well. But the one good
Speaker 1: thing that came from it is that every night I
Speaker 1: had to do these Q and a's on stage. And
Speaker 1: you've done many Q and his Q and a s
Speaker 1: are terrible. They're They're usually horrible experiences where the audience says,
Speaker 1: like ninety seven things and then they asked, like, what
Speaker 1: was it like to work with Matt Damon in your case?
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's so true that that's the question. I
Speaker 1: think I've been asked more than do I want worship
Speaker 1: with my mail? Yeah, which I'm sure if you're not
Speaker 1: going to give a real answer to that, and why
Speaker 1: would you? These Q and a's are terrible, But the
Speaker 1: good part of this is that for seven days a week,
Speaker 1: I had to moderate these conversations, and I had to
Speaker 1: do these interviews over and over and over again. Some
Speaker 1: are great, Some are bad in front of people, in
Speaker 1: front of like an audience that's like trying to be interested.
Speaker 1: And that's where talk Easy was born, the show, because
Speaker 1: it came from me doing these Q and a's on
Speaker 1: stage and kind of failing over and over and then
Speaker 1: slowly getting better. And so what was a traumatic experience
Speaker 1: of doing this job and failing publicly in front of people,
Speaker 1: not just the audience, but amongst the staff, amongst like
Speaker 1: board members, Like imagine like a twenty one year old
Speaker 1: trying to impress board members that have money, Like I
Speaker 1: was so ont of my depths, And what came from
Speaker 1: that is the show. And so I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1: But it was a personal disaster. And the thing about disaster,
Speaker 1: you know, when a tornado happens, you're not ever thinking,
Speaker 1: but you know in three days, like we're going to
Speaker 1: have a great meal. You're not thinking about the meal.
Speaker 1: You don't even know there is going to be a meal.
Speaker 1: It's just a disaster. It's just a goddamn disaster. How
Speaker 1: do I get out of it? And so that was
Speaker 1: a very long winding story. I love that though, because
Speaker 1: that's a proper It did not work out. It ended
Speaker 1: up with me getting canned, like any which way, you
Speaker 1: apparently splice that it's not good and yet that's couldn't
Speaker 1: be further from the truth. Failia. It's such a weird
Speaker 1: word to me because there's so much gifting in it invariably,
Speaker 1: which doesn't mean it's not agony. But again, two things
Speaker 1: can be true. How have you processed it? Because as
Speaker 1: an actor, it's one of the most agonizing jobs in
Speaker 1: this way of are you getting this ongoing? Yeah, it's ongoing,
Speaker 1: and it's literally you. It's someone saying you're okay, You're
Speaker 1: not okay. It's literally someone going not you. And then
Speaker 1: you think that asking why will make it better, But
Speaker 1: what happens is they actually tell you, and then it's
Speaker 1: even more personal and dreadful because it really is you
Speaker 1: that they are saying no to hard, no to you Mini.
Speaker 1: So how do you? How do you deal? Know? You
Speaker 1: go crazy and you end up doing a podcast like
Speaker 1: this where you sound absolutely bat ship the whole time.
Speaker 1: You know what, you start seeing it as being as
Speaker 1: opposed to the the awful idea of a snake. You
Speaker 1: think it's tale, it's the good version of that, which
Speaker 1: is it is all the same. What you, cause failure
Speaker 1: is also success and vice versa. There are a huge
Speaker 1: senses that I've had that didn't help me at or
Speaker 1: didn't teach me, so I think it doesn't ever stop
Speaker 1: being hard, but now I really can laugh about it more.
Speaker 1: And part of why I like social media it's before
Speaker 1: when years celebrity or an acting, there was no recourse.
Speaker 1: There was no way of rejoining ship that people would
Speaker 1: say about you, And now I love that there is,
Speaker 1: which makes it so much easier. If there has been
Speaker 1: some kind of slight or something that is misunderstood, there's
Speaker 1: a way of actually interrogating and usually humorously putting that
Speaker 1: out there, which I like to make fun of the
Speaker 1: stuff that is hard, to take the sting out of it,
Speaker 1: but also to get over it, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think in my case of this story, when I was
Speaker 1: twenty getting the job, I didn't think, that's kind of
Speaker 1: funny that they're giving job. Well, because we have Hubris
Speaker 1: and you're twenty, of course they give it to me.
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, the San Francisco Chronicle, they should write
Speaker 1: the story about it. It's going to be great. And
Speaker 1: then in hindsight, I'm my for one, that haircut is
Speaker 1: not good on me, not for bad, bad, the outfit
Speaker 1: even worse, the attitude somehow worse. I mean, there made
Speaker 1: no sense, I mean no sense. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love that for you. You love the failure for me.
Speaker 1: I'd love that failure for you. And it's perfect because
Speaker 1: it gave you something really foundational. You know, if you
Speaker 1: can't remember how you got the good things, then you're
Speaker 1: a real dummy, because how you got the good things
Speaker 1: was what Norman said, that every moment and every second,
Speaker 1: it took all of it to get to that, and
Speaker 1: that required a lot of goofs and gaffs and failures,
Speaker 1: and some have them more public than others, but we
Speaker 1: all have them in our lives no matter what you do.
Speaker 1: But I do wish this is the hope I have
Speaker 1: getting older, that the gap between something good happening and
Speaker 1: making that recognition that it took all these things to
Speaker 1: get there, that that gap lessons and then I'm more
Speaker 1: appreciative more quickly. That is the hope. That is a
Speaker 1: hope I think that does happen. I hope that happens
Speaker 1: for you, has happened for you totally, because it's like
Speaker 1: you realize the crazy expectations you put on yourself when
Speaker 1: you're young, or I know that I did that in
Speaker 1: order to be happy, it has to look like this,
Speaker 1: and it's like, wow, that may happen if you're lucky
Speaker 1: once maybe twice. To stopping having that expectation, that's what
Speaker 1: sets you free. And then things that you didn't realize
Speaker 1: we're going to make you happy make you happy. So
Speaker 1: actually it's in a huge expansiveness that happens with getting
Speaker 1: older that nobody talks about what is the quality, like
Speaker 1: least about yourself. I think because I try to maximize
Speaker 1: every moment, every situation. And that's true not just on
Speaker 1: microphone but in my life with friends, and it's exhausting.
Speaker 1: I'm controlling and it works well as a podcast host,
Speaker 1: it works well as a filmmaker, but there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that has a really hard time being the
Speaker 1: passenger in any situation. To be fair, I have terrible
Speaker 1: motion sickness, So that is true. I just don't I
Speaker 1: don't let go easily. I'd like to figure that out.
Speaker 1: I'm also a big I don't know where this comes from.
Speaker 1: I think childhood, but a big post game review kind
Speaker 1: of person. So I grew up playing sports, and you
Speaker 1: know how, after a basketball game happens, or any sporting event,
Speaker 1: the commentators come on and they say, God, like Lebron James,
Speaker 1: like you really didn't do that? Well tonight will? That's
Speaker 1: like basically what I look forward to sometimes after a
Speaker 1: party is with my friends being like, can you believe
Speaker 1: that fucking idiot? Can I swear in here? Yes you can.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get too negative. I'm reviewing every interaction and
Speaker 1: saying like, yeah, that person was kind of a schmucker. God,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that person married that person. So I'm
Speaker 1: overly critical and I'm controlling. Those are my answers. What
Speaker 1: do you think would would happen if you did let go?
Speaker 1: Do you have a sort of image of yourself in
Speaker 1: a kind of gauzy state being led by someone else
Speaker 1: and like, finally just feeling sort of like I don't
Speaker 1: agree with Guss And in one of those movies from
Speaker 1: the forties, she's just floating through a garden. Is that
Speaker 1: what letting Go feels like you? Or is it terrible? Yes?
Speaker 1: It feels like every forties film. For me, it feels
Speaker 1: like every single moment of his Girl Friday when it's
Speaker 1: working that film so much. No, I don't know what
Speaker 1: that looks like. And I think if I had an
Speaker 1: image of who that looks like or what that looks like,
Speaker 1: I may be quicker to embrace letting go. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. What I know is what it's not, which
Speaker 1: is not being as anxious or not feeling like I
Speaker 1: have to control the lighting or the music at a
Speaker 1: thing in that part, I would love to let go.
Speaker 1: I would love to let go. Do you have to
Speaker 1: be on the demis switch. I don't have to be,
Speaker 1: but it's better if you are. You know. I'm just
Speaker 1: making some adjustments that I think we'll all agree on.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, ye so funny. I've made sounds with big,
Speaker 1: big personalities, both male and female, and someone was like,
Speaker 1: you're being really I think they said beta. I would
Speaker 1: say beta, you'd be really beta, like on the set
Speaker 1: with this person like, how is that? Because you're really alpha?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, here's the thing. What I'm
Speaker 1: good at is actually realizing that it's more important for
Speaker 1: someone to be alpha than it is for me to
Speaker 1: be alpha. And actually the most alpha thing you can
Speaker 1: do in a situation where someone wants to be alpha
Speaker 1: is be beta. So basically what I'm saying is, if
Speaker 1: you really needed to be on the dimmer switch, I
Speaker 1: would fucking let you. And I have let people be
Speaker 1: on the dimmer switch in movies where it might have
Speaker 1: been better if I didn't. Well, this sounds great for you,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how it's going to translate for me.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting, particularly people have the expectation that you're
Speaker 1: going to stand up and go funck. Now, you can't
Speaker 1: do this, you can't do that, stop it. I want
Speaker 1: to do that. I think it's just good to think about.
Speaker 1: It's like, in the next moment where you're really wanting
Speaker 1: to be on the dimmer switch, if you go, well,
Speaker 1: maybe if I let them be on it and see
Speaker 1: what happens. I love it. I'm convinced. The next question, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: what I was thinking about it. You said something that
Speaker 1: triggered a whole bunch of memories, which is I have
Speaker 1: let other people. We've really taken this metaphor very far,
Speaker 1: but move the dimmer switch up and down. And what
Speaker 1: happens is if they're used to you controlling the lighting,
Speaker 1: whatever the plans, when you're not, there's almost like a
Speaker 1: paralysis that happens, at least amongst my pals. So I
Speaker 1: have to let go, though, I have to just let
Speaker 1: it be. I think it's kind of interesting just doing
Speaker 1: something differently. Maybe it is this past two years of
Speaker 1: just going, well, what's the fucking worst that can happen?
Speaker 1: It's all happening, so just to see what that looks
Speaker 1: like and if it doesn't work out, that's actually also fine.
Speaker 1: When did you figure that out that you needed to
Speaker 1: sometimes take a step back for the other person to
Speaker 1: step into their element. Honestly, on a set with my
Speaker 1: son was very small with an actor who was really
Speaker 1: there were a lot like it was hardcore, like that
Speaker 1: process was a lot the way that they were on
Speaker 1: set with a lot and this whole idea of going,
Speaker 1: if I've sort of fight for what it is I
Speaker 1: want to do here and how I want to do it,
Speaker 1: it's going to cause so much trouble. And I had
Speaker 1: a panic, going, well, how am I going to do
Speaker 1: my job if I don't get to do it like
Speaker 1: I need to? But if I do it like I
Speaker 1: need to, it's going to piss this woman off. And
Speaker 1: I then realized that it would actually be really interesting
Speaker 1: to go they clearly need it, they need it more.
Speaker 1: And what if it's a high degree of difficulty and
Speaker 1: it's actually more interesting if I try and figure out
Speaker 1: how to do my ship without doing what I normally
Speaker 1: do and asking for the things that I normally need.
Speaker 1: What if I just tried that, Because I could really
Speaker 1: see that she was looking for something to hang her
Speaker 1: stuff on, and it could very easily have been me.
Speaker 1: It did feel like being a superhero or some form
Speaker 1: of like Judah, like you've cracked the code or something,
Speaker 1: kind of like it took all that energy, all that
Speaker 1: expectation that she was going to have a big fight
Speaker 1: with me, and just didn't do anything except allow her
Speaker 1: to get everything that she needed. And I didn't feel smart.
Speaker 1: It was pretty cool. Actually, I feel like having a kid.
Speaker 1: I think it was probably Henry. It probably was. That
Speaker 1: was like I'm making milk and like feeding my baby.
Speaker 1: If you need to do what you need to do,
Speaker 1: go ahead, I'll just be over here making milk. That
Speaker 1: is the part of parents today. I'm looking forward to,
Speaker 1: not the milk part, but just I don't know something
Speaker 1: about it feels deeply humbling and probably in a good way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see those kids with their parents. They don't really
Speaker 1: care about their parents. And they don't care that you
Speaker 1: didn't win an oscar at seven. No, they really don't.
Speaker 1: They don't care about any of the stuff that we
Speaker 1: think we care about, Like, they just don't. There's such
Speaker 1: a relief in that because you actually get to be
Speaker 1: the most unadulterated version of yourself because they don't know
Speaker 1: what your best qualities are. They just want food and
Speaker 1: love and pepper Pig. What's that? Oh, you'll find out
Speaker 1: pepper Pig will rule your life one day. Sam, It's
Speaker 1: a cartoon. You sounds like you just joined a cold
Speaker 1: When you've watched every every episode of pepper Pig, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like you have joined a cult, poor signed cult.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Just google pepper Pig and watch it a
Speaker 1: a little episode. It's an English cartoon. Absolutely will not
Speaker 1: what person, place, or experience has most aughted to your life.
Speaker 1: When I was fifteen, I moved to California from Chicago.
Speaker 1: It sounds like I made the move. I was moved.
Speaker 1: People broke up. I moved really strange to go to
Speaker 1: a high school and have to meet three thousand new kids,
Speaker 1: And I did the best I could, but honestly, for
Speaker 1: the majority of my sophomore year of high school, I
Speaker 1: would spend lunch in the library watching old Ebert and
Speaker 1: Cisco videos as they reviewed movies from and nineties. Then
Speaker 1: I would watch them on the late night shows, and
Speaker 1: I would obsess over these tapes. Because at the time
Speaker 1: I was a film critic. I was writing all these
Speaker 1: reviews on the weekends, and in that lunchtime, I would
Speaker 1: immerse myself in these two middle aged guys, in part
Speaker 1: because I didn't have friends. At the end of high school.
Speaker 1: As I continued, I went to a festival called Ebert Fest.
Speaker 1: Roger created it. It's down in Champagne, and again I'm
Speaker 1: from Chicago, so there's added significance, and my father and
Speaker 1: I went. At this point, Roger had a cancer where
Speaker 1: he couldn't speak anymore. But at the end of the
Speaker 1: weekend he was signing everyone's book and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to do this. I really want
Speaker 1: to go home, but my dad said, look, we're not
Speaker 1: going until you go up to him. So I went
Speaker 1: up to him. I gave him my little business card
Speaker 1: that had a sad blog domain where I wrote all
Speaker 1: these reviews, and an email and I wrote a little
Speaker 1: note on the back and he signed the book. We
Speaker 1: went on and at the end of my junior year,
Speaker 1: on lunch break, I remember sitting in my car and
Speaker 1: I get an email from him and it says, dear Sam,
Speaker 1: I read your stuff. It sounds good. You can be
Speaker 1: a writer, film critic or otherwise. But by the way,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't include your age on the website in these times.
Speaker 1: Who knows. And that was it. And that note, you know,
Speaker 1: at seventy eighteen, when you come from where I've come from,
Speaker 1: that changed everything. It basically said, give it a go.
Speaker 1: And if you don't, you know, you're a real idiot.
Speaker 1: So I gave it a go. I think it's so
Speaker 1: amazing that idea of incidental mentorship. I think about the
Speaker 1: things that people have said to me, things that were
Speaker 1: said in passing that had exactly what you just said.
Speaker 1: He was seventeen, sitting in your car, you received this
Speaker 1: email and it actually changed your life. And I guarantee
Speaker 1: he was not thinking about that when he wrote it.
Speaker 1: He was just, Oh, that kid. Oh. I listened to
Speaker 1: a couple of his things that was just him being
Speaker 1: a good just being a good person. It's amazing, like
Speaker 1: that kind of relay. He didn't know that he was
Speaker 1: handing you up baton, but he was. And I love that.
Speaker 1: It's a remarkable thing. And it's something I think about
Speaker 1: all the time because you and I are talking on
Speaker 1: microphones in a fairly charmed existence. And if you don't
Speaker 1: have gratitude and if you don't try to pay that
Speaker 1: forward in some way, even if it's just an email,
Speaker 1: an incident, mentorship. It took a moment for him. It
Speaker 1: took him less than three minutes. Imagine that you changed
Speaker 1: someone's life in three minutes. The doors wing open. I
Speaker 1: like that there's magic in the things that one says
Speaker 1: that you don't know that you were meaningful. It's like
Speaker 1: Norman Lear, Norman Lear laughing and looking so kindly at me.
Speaker 1: Just go and just get to the end of the song.
Speaker 1: It totally blows, but just get to the end and
Speaker 1: it's going to be done. Like that's really good advice.
Speaker 1: And that was just going a look, I've no I've
Speaker 1: been changed by a lot of people who don't know
Speaker 1: that they helped me. That's for sure, So we must
Speaker 1: do it ourselves. Incidentally, if you're interested in people, at
Speaker 1: least For me, Talk Easy is literally a show about
Speaker 1: other people. I think being preoccupied with other people is
Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile venture. I've never really learned anything from
Speaker 1: talking myself. Maybe we share that. Listening to other people's
Speaker 1: thoughts about the world and what they think is such
Speaker 1: a great respite from being in the echo chamber of
Speaker 1: my own brain not being able to answer questions. I'd
Speaker 1: much rather ask people questions and get them to answer,
Speaker 1: and then I can go, oh, God, yeah, God, and
Speaker 1: then add that into whatever my four o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning echo e head is saying, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I've done almost three episodes of the Showdow, it's so impressive, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of talking. Well. I started when I
Speaker 1: was I like specific questions, like all of the kind
Speaker 1: of like speculative looks that goes on and on being
Speaker 1: interviewed for years and years. When you're a hundred, you
Speaker 1: really appreciate the brevity of what did you have for breakfast?
Speaker 1: That I can answer. Well, when you come on Talk Easy, yes,
Speaker 1: I'll ask my specific questions, yes, and I'll try not
Speaker 1: to get to well, we'll get existential. It's impossible not to. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. I mean, I've realized it is good
Speaker 1: to talk about these specific things because I do think
Speaker 1: they lean into other stuff. I think they're big enough
Speaker 1: questions that they balloon into other things so that we
Speaker 1: see the thing is what's revealing about it. The level
Speaker 1: of interrogation is maybe interesting to one person, is scary
Speaker 1: and toxic to another, and will actually reveal stuff that
Speaker 1: they don't want to be revealed. Largely, people want to
Speaker 1: keep their heads in the sand. And I know that
Speaker 1: because I am a fucking Ostrich. You know about a
Speaker 1: lot of things. Part of this show was like, No,
Speaker 1: you have to face it. You have to face these
Speaker 1: hard questions. You have to. I have to. It's funny
Speaker 1: I always say them about you. You're really like an Ostrich. Really, um.
Speaker 1: I think the emotional interrogation is utterly terrifying for most
Speaker 1: people because it's a house of cards, Like literally and figurative,
Speaker 1: it is a house of cards, just keeping everything together,
Speaker 1: with the debt, the payments, the social constructs, the parenting,
Speaker 1: the professional success, the love and the sex. We barely
Speaker 1: hold it together most of the time. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: take an enormous man, which is why I think people
Speaker 1: just can't fathom it. I kind of admire that you
Speaker 1: have seven that you hit as opposed to every week.
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to reinvent the does the
Speaker 1: person though? When you're doing your podcast, doesn't the person
Speaker 1: help you reinvent the wheel a bit themselves because they're
Speaker 1: either super vibos or they're really not a ricalcitrint. You
Speaker 1: have to pull it out of them. I never say
Speaker 1: ricalc I love that word. It's my favorite word. Everything
Speaker 1: about me feels ricalcitrant right now, except doing this podcast.
Speaker 1: I know I can feel some of it through you
Speaker 1: in the zoom. I have this quality. It's I unfortunately
Speaker 1: absorbed whatever the other person feels. Oh my goodness, you're
Speaker 1: a zoom em path. What a nightmare for you. I'm
Speaker 1: a normal EmPATH even zoom. It's not broken it. You
Speaker 1: are so amazing, you really are. It is an absolute
Speaker 1: pleasure to have talked to you, and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to come on your podcast many driver, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: You can hear Sam's podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Speaker 1: every Sunday, were ever you listen to your podcasts to
Speaker 1: learn more about his work and view the show's library
Speaker 1: of over two hundred and fifty episodes. Visit talkisipod dot com.
Speaker 1: Coming up soon, you can hear episodes with Stacy Abrams,
Speaker 1: Margaret Atwood and many more. Mini Questions is hosted and
Speaker 1: written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer
Speaker 1: Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby
Speaker 1: by Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced
Speaker 1: by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and a Unique Oppenheim at
Speaker 1: w kPr, de La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg,
Speaker 1: And for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver.