Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody, welcome to not Another crime podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Georgia Love, I'm Stammy Peterson.
Speaker 2: I am a journalist.
Speaker 1: I am not, but today we are joined by a journalist,
Speaker 1: in fact, my hero today. And I've always had a
Speaker 1: very parasocial relationship with this person and we tried to
Speaker 1: do a few podcasts while he was finishing his book,
Speaker 1: and instead of doing the interview, I got two wonderful
Speaker 1: tours of his house. So I feel like I've become
Speaker 1: the stalker. It is the great John Ronson.
Speaker 3: Hi. Hey, hey, both of you. Yeah, I apologize this.
Speaker 3: It was very like So what happened was we we
Speaker 3: kind of raged to do this when I was in
Speaker 3: the middle of bit in my book, and when the
Speaker 3: zoom hour approached, I came on and said to you, look,
Speaker 3: I just can't do this. I'm so down the rabbit
Speaker 3: hole focusing so hard. So I apologize and I'm.
Speaker 1: Not You still turned up, which is the main thing.
Speaker 1: Most people wouldn't turn up, but you still turned up
Speaker 1: to say I can't do it.
Speaker 3: But that is like my wife always gets really annoyed
Speaker 3: with me because when I go to parties, like quite often,
Speaker 3: right as I turned up at the party, I say,
Speaker 3: we can't stay long.
Speaker 2: Managing expectations. That's called I think that's great.
Speaker 1: And it's not a lie like I'm going through a
Speaker 1: tunnel or anything.
Speaker 3: For me, it's just like a tell of I don't
Speaker 3: want to be here at all. Son says, it's very rude,
Speaker 3: and what you should do is be incredibly friendly to
Speaker 3: everybody and then leave very quickly. And you think so great.
Speaker 2: It's the old rule of if you go to a party,
Speaker 2: you just need to be there for one moment that
Speaker 2: everyone's going to be talking about, and as soon as
Speaker 2: that moment has happened, you can get the hell out
Speaker 2: of there because people will remember you were there for.
Speaker 3: That, right, Yes, exactly. So anyway, I'm glad that we're
Speaker 3: doing it now. I was so because I've written a
Speaker 3: true crime book called The Castle. I've literally I've just
Speaker 3: finished it a cut, but I can't talk about it tonight.
Speaker 3: I could talk about all because it's like a yeah,
Speaker 3: but just that I'm very much would I'd like to
Speaker 3: come back when the book's out so we could talk
Speaker 3: about it. Then, well, hang on.
Speaker 2: We haven't. We haven't started yet. You might hate it
Speaker 2: by the time we get to the ends, like we've
Speaker 2: got it now on recording, you're saying you want to come.
Speaker 1: Back, so admitted.
Speaker 3: Well, luckily, I've got lots of other true crime things
Speaker 3: to talk about.
Speaker 1: John, What is your because I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: do write nonfiction, and and you've written so many different
Speaker 1: books and they've all covered so many different areas. So
Speaker 1: you've been publicly shamed the Psychopath test. I absolutely loved
Speaker 1: your podcast series that you did the Last Days of August.
Speaker 1: Uh for you personally, how how interested are you in
Speaker 1: true crime and is it something that you're drawn towards
Speaker 1: or is it just a human interest story that gets
Speaker 1: you first?
Speaker 3: I guess the stories I'm interested always mystery stories, like
Speaker 3: I want to try and understand something about the world
Speaker 3: that I don't understand, So I guess inevitably, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes that's about human behavior. Why are people behaving in this?
Speaker 3: You know? Sometimes it's real mysteries, and I guess that
Speaker 3: crosses over into true crimes. So I guess. And I remember,
Speaker 3: like as a kid, one of my favorite books was
Speaker 3: A Bit Not in the Garden of Good and Evil
Speaker 3: and in Cold Blood and the Execution of Songs. So
Speaker 3: I was a huge fan of that, those kind of
Speaker 3: classic narrative nonfiction true crime books. So yeah, so I
Speaker 3: guess there's just that crossover in terms of mystery solving.
Speaker 2: I really love that you said that. I've always said
Speaker 2: my favorite book of all time is In Cold Blood
Speaker 2: and I first read that as a it was probably
Speaker 2: about fourteen, and people you just said as a kid,
Speaker 2: I loved In cold Blood. And people always say to me,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with your brain? Why were you reading that
Speaker 2: at that age and why was it your favorite? But
Speaker 2: I think I found a kindred spirit heredly.
Speaker 3: I mean for me. I guess when I really think
Speaker 3: about why I like In Cold Blood, it's more to
Speaker 3: do with maybe Truman Capoti than it is with the murderers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because he's such a great you know, he brings you
Speaker 3: into that world so beautifully and he's so curious that
Speaker 3: he wants to solve this mystery too. And I the
Speaker 3: same with John Batt had been in the good Garden
Speaker 3: of Good and Evil. So these were nonfiction writers who
Speaker 3: wanted to solve mysteries. I wanted to like go to
Speaker 3: dark places, I guess, and understand them. And that really
Speaker 3: inspired me, and I guess that is what I have
Speaker 3: done all of these years myself.
Speaker 1: You've always had a part where you you're kind of
Speaker 1: always a part of the story, kind of like you
Speaker 1: know in Cold Blood as well. Did that kind of
Speaker 1: inspire you as a as a as a way of writing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much so, those books and Hunters S. Thompson
Speaker 3: and PG O'Rourke, and and then when documentaries, let Nick
Speaker 3: Broomfield documentaries came out, a similar thing but in documentary form.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I wonder why. I just always thought there
Speaker 3: was something really heroic about about, you know, people like
Speaker 3: contrastops and going into these crazy worlds and writing about them.
Speaker 3: And there weren't novelists I never identified to us, you know,
Speaker 3: aspired to be a novelist. It was always about the
Speaker 3: real world, about people going into real life places and
Speaker 3: like fuck everything up or or or solve mysteries or
Speaker 3: but just be part of it. So there was that
Speaker 3: the kind of heroism of it. But also I think
Speaker 3: there was the honesty of it. Like I learned from D. A.
Speaker 3: Pennet Baker and all of those early documentary makers that
Speaker 3: the journalist is part of the story, Like everything changes
Speaker 3: when the journalist comes into the room. So so you
Speaker 3: have to admit that by making yourself part of the story.
Speaker 2: I love that as well, because it's kind of taught.
Speaker 2: So I'm a journalist by trade, but very much doing
Speaker 2: general news, the daily news. So in that style of journalism,
Speaker 2: it's very much that you shouldn't be part of the story.
Speaker 2: You know, You've got to tell the facts from an
Speaker 2: unbiased position. But I think that's kind of why I
Speaker 2: love getting into those kind of like your books and
Speaker 2: In Cold Blood and those kind of John Saffran. It's
Speaker 2: that desire of you know, I got into journalism because
Speaker 2: I'm obsessed with the stories and I want to tell
Speaker 2: stories and the same kind of thing as you learn
Speaker 2: about the human mind, So to be able to kind
Speaker 2: of delve in and feel like, oh, imagine being part
Speaker 2: of the story, but not in a way that you've
Speaker 2: been publicly shamed, which is bringing in another book of yours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And yeah what you said about you know,
Speaker 3: telling the facts in an unbiased way, like I agree,
Speaker 3: I think you need to do. You know, I love
Speaker 3: to put myself in a bit of the story, but
Speaker 3: I want to I want the story to be unbiased,
Speaker 3: and I think that's sort of the reason for putting
Speaker 3: yourself in a bit of the story, because a journalist
Speaker 3: does skew things when they enter the room, and a
Speaker 3: journalist does bring along their own bias, and so the
Speaker 3: most honest thing to do was to make that part
Speaker 3: of the story. An admitute. It's like showing your workings
Speaker 3: in a way.
Speaker 2: It is, you know, very not true crime, in a
Speaker 2: very different way, but sort of related. So I'm doing
Speaker 2: I do radio news at the moment. And for your
Speaker 2: information background, nine years ago, I was on the Australian
Speaker 2: version of The Bachelorette. And yesterday, yesterday in my radio job,
Speaker 2: I was reading an entertainment story about Jessica Simpson denying
Speaker 2: rumors that she was going to be the next Bachelorette
Speaker 2: because she said she doesn't need help finding a partner
Speaker 2: and she's got plenty of options. And as I was
Speaker 2: reading the story, I went, oh, I'm good for her,
Speaker 2: and I was like, that's me injecting myself into the story.
Speaker 1: And John, you were talking before about Nick Broomfield as well.
Speaker 1: He went in and interviewed famously Eileen Wernos. Did that
Speaker 1: scare you kind of a little bit in terms of
Speaker 1: like going into this world or was that more like
Speaker 1: have you been terrified of some of the people that
Speaker 1: you've interviewed, or how do you kind of approach that
Speaker 1: in a way of talking to people like then, like
Speaker 1: you know, like how do you do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. It's I get like anticipatory anxiety as
Speaker 3: I'm driving towards somewhere. But really I think the curiosity
Speaker 3: takes over so much in the psychopath test. I go
Speaker 3: to Broadmore, which used to be called the broad More
Speaker 3: Asylum for the criminally insane, so you know the kind
Speaker 3: of place that it is, and people are like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, you must have been so scared, but obviously
Speaker 3: you're way more curious. I'd also just so delighted to
Speaker 3: be somewhere where most people don't get to go that
Speaker 3: that those things overwhelm any any fear that you have.
Speaker 3: In fact, I remember I was sitting at BroadWare one
Speaker 3: time and I said the nurse, I said, God, I
Speaker 3: can't pinch me. I can't believe of it Broadmore. I'm nurse.
Speaker 3: What we've got spared there? If you like.
Speaker 2: You're starting to assure you like that. I'm having such
Speaker 2: a fan go a moment because I listened to the
Speaker 2: psychopath test as an audiobook, and just having you there
Speaker 2: in front of us saying Broadmore in your beautiful accident.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, it's real.
Speaker 3: Like I got to say, like when often you don't
Speaker 3: know if the story is gonna hit or not, you
Speaker 3: know a story is good. But I remember I was
Speaker 3: sitting outside Broadway. I didn't put this in the book.
Speaker 3: I was sitting outside Broadball with Brian, the scientologist who
Speaker 3: was the guy who got me into Broadmare because scientologists
Speaker 3: are very good at circumventing bureaucracy. And in the curve afterwards,
Speaker 3: he said to me, like, after we'd met Tony, and
Speaker 3: Tony was a guy who took very quickly spell it out. This.
Speaker 3: Tony's the guy who faked madness to escape a prison sentence.
Speaker 3: But he faked madness too well, and he didn't end
Speaker 3: up in some cushy hospital. He ended up in Broadmore
Speaker 3: where nobody would Yeah, totally so. And the scientologists like
Speaker 3: were had taken Tony on told me about him and
Speaker 3: they did the car after beating Tony. I always remember
Speaker 3: Bride said to me like, you know, I just want
Speaker 3: to say John, like, thank you so much for taking
Speaker 3: the story. And I said, like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: Like this is this is going to be with me
Speaker 3: for the next thirty years. I knew, I knew in
Speaker 3: the moment what a big story in terms of just
Speaker 3: like you know, people be curious about it. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: I knew that, I knew it was going to get good.
Speaker 2: It did. Thank you, Thank you for giving it to us.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Tony and Brian from our parasocially thanking
Speaker 2: them for you for allowing you to do that.
Speaker 1: How how often, John, do you like when you're going
Speaker 1: to start a new project like the book that we
Speaker 1: can't talk about but we will at some point, But
Speaker 1: when you go and start a new piece, if you're
Speaker 1: an article or whatever you're doing, do you I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that we're spoken about Reddit and you and
Speaker 1: I have in the past gone on very deep guards
Speaker 1: into Reddit sadly, uh And for you personally, do you
Speaker 1: sometimes imagine this is true? But do you go down
Speaker 1: a lot of different rabbit holes and get to a
Speaker 1: story and then realize it's not something or is your
Speaker 1: intuition over the over the last few years, I imagine would
Speaker 1: get a lot better. Do you sometimes go down a
Speaker 1: path and start interviewing people and then realize there's no
Speaker 1: story in it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Often, often the times it really works, it's
Speaker 3: like it's like you know, lightning striking. It's it's just
Speaker 3: so lucky. There's so many dad aheads, there's so many
Speaker 3: bleak days when you're looking for I mad this documentary
Speaker 3: study Kubrick's box as, and I said to Christian Kubrick's wife, like,
Speaker 3: you know, in those ever length of the gaps between movies,
Speaker 3: what was he looking for? And she said, that magical
Speaker 3: moment of falling in love with the story, And that's
Speaker 3: what you're looking for. And you just don't know what
Speaker 3: it's going to be until you know, until you find it,
Speaker 3: it jumps out at you. With the psychopath test, for instance,
Speaker 3: I just this psychologist happened to mention to me that
Speaker 3: you were much more likely to find psychopaths at the
Speaker 3: top of the tree than at the bottom. And this
Speaker 3: was a thought that you know, no, that's that's kind
Speaker 3: of been consciousness now, but it really wasn't at the time.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking about this, and I suddenly thought, Okay,
Speaker 3: I should learn how to spot psychopaths. I should go
Speaker 3: on a psychopaths spotting course. And then journey into the
Speaker 3: corridors of power and try and spot psychopaths, and like,
Speaker 3: I have no idea what's going to happen, but whatever
Speaker 3: it is, it's got to be good. And so that's
Speaker 3: like one of those moments, and a similar thing actually
Speaker 3: with the new book The Castle. This is the one
Speaker 3: thing I can say actually because it's out there. So
Speaker 3: the way that crashed into my life was I was
Speaker 3: asleep and my son, while I'm asleep, is texting me
Speaker 3: the series of texts and I see the last text first,
Speaker 3: and the last text is something like it's okay. We
Speaker 3: managed to get out. It was totally fucked, but we're
Speaker 3: okay now. Yeah. So then I read all the other
Speaker 3: texts that had preceded it, and he and some friends
Speaker 3: had been invited to a party at a stranger's house
Speaker 3: that they'd met online in the forests of New England.
Speaker 3: This is a very well you'll see. So when they
Speaker 3: get there, the stranger's house was a massive, newly built
Speaker 3: castle with way too many turrets, like really odd, huge castle,
Speaker 3: and they went in and there was no party. They'd
Speaker 3: been invited there for other reasons.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm hooked, all right, give me the
Speaker 2: book straight into my veins immediately, right.
Speaker 3: And then when I found this story, when he told
Speaker 3: me the story, I went to the castle and that's
Speaker 3: how the book begins.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Hey, John, you're pretty good at a tease. You should
Speaker 2: consider doing writing or something for a living. That was
Speaker 2: really good.
Speaker 3: I've got to say, I'm pretty cliffhanger shameless like that's
Speaker 3: I was talking to my wife about this this morning.
Speaker 3: I say, oh my god, you know, I really I
Speaker 3: really go for the cliffhangers.
Speaker 2: I mean they go for you.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about the last
Speaker 1: days of August as well? I think it was such
Speaker 1: a podcast that really got me hooked, you know, because
Speaker 1: of your wonderful cliffhangers. But you know you did, you
Speaker 1: did start it and went into this world to find
Speaker 1: out about someone who sadly took their own life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I see this kind of This is like
Speaker 3: a true crime cautionary tale. Actually, because of all the
Speaker 3: stories I've done, I'm glad I did this story. And
Speaker 3: I'm too hard in myself, like the way I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell this story, I think I'm too hurd to
Speaker 3: myself and almost everyone who listens to the Las Day
Speaker 3: of August really likes it and thinks it's responsibly done
Speaker 3: and so on. But I focus a lot on the
Speaker 3: kind of ethical flaws and the problems and the yeah,
Speaker 3: things that I organized over. So I just made this
Speaker 3: documentary called The Butterfly Effect for Audible, which is this
Speaker 3: really sweet, upbeat documentary about the porn industry trying to
Speaker 3: adapt in the wake of all of these tech utopians
Speaker 3: coming in and taking over.
Speaker 1: It was kind of porn Hub, wasn't it. And the
Speaker 1: people that, yeah, that took over and the HS tapes
Speaker 1: weren't a thing anymore, and it would just completely change
Speaker 1: the industry, which which happened very quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, porn just like decimated the industry, And so I
Speaker 3: went to the poor world to see like how they
Speaker 3: were coping in that.
Speaker 2: That is a good life hack. Make no no, babe, Honestly,
Speaker 2: it's for a documentary.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now my wife is very like permissive when it
Speaker 3: comes back. Yeah. So ah, So that was like a
Speaker 3: really sweet night should upbeat documentary. And then about a
Speaker 3: couple of months after it came out, this porn style
Speaker 3: called August Dain's Mercedes Kubowski took her life and I
Speaker 3: can't remember how it happened, but I ended up talking
Speaker 3: to her husband, Kevin, who said that she'd been there'd
Speaker 3: been a Twitter storm that day and she was being
Speaker 3: like kind of publicly shamed on Twitter and that was
Speaker 3: and actually took her life. So I'd written a book
Speaker 3: about public shaming, and I'd made a documentary about the
Speaker 3: porn industry, so it just seemed like I should reach
Speaker 3: out to her husband. So that's that's what happened. So
Speaker 3: I reached out to him, and he said that he
Speaker 3: completely he blamed the people who were dragging her on
Speaker 3: Twitter for her death, and he was going to release
Speaker 3: the statement and some of them were very big names
Speaker 3: in the porn industry, and he was going to release
Speaker 3: a statement naming and shaming the people who were respond
Speaker 3: who he felt were responsible for her death. And then
Speaker 3: shortly after that, a few people in the porn industry
Speaker 3: said to me, we think mercedes death is more complicated.
Speaker 3: There's more stuff going on. You should investigate it, implying
Speaker 3: that maybe it wasn't even suicide. So that was what
Speaker 3: set me off on the journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so much along the way as well,
Speaker 1: a power outage, there's you know, the going to the
Speaker 1: going to the hotel. There's all these little bits and
Speaker 1: pieces that you kind of look at it and it's
Speaker 1: a clue after clue that maybe there is something more
Speaker 1: sinister of thought. Does that scare you though, when you
Speaker 1: maybe make comments about, oh, it doesn't seem like that
Speaker 1: is that is exactly what happened?
Speaker 2: Does that? Does that scare you?
Speaker 1: In in once it's out there.
Speaker 2: Entering into the world of crime or potentially crime, entering
Speaker 2: into that from afar, but kind of putting yourself into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess there's there are fears. There's probably
Speaker 3: well one of the fears, Okay, I'm putting myself in
Speaker 3: personal danger is one. I'm putting myself in legal jeopardy
Speaker 3: is another. And then the third one is is this
Speaker 3: ethically the right thing to do? And those are like,
Speaker 3: you know, at what point is it appropriate to pro
Speaker 3: around in somebody's life, especially somebody who's you know, grieving,
Speaker 3: even if their behavior was shitty. So you know, all
Speaker 3: of these things were just like rustling around in my
Speaker 3: head for like the two years I was making however
Speaker 3: logic talk to make the show. So yeah, like those
Speaker 3: were three ultimately of the three fears, the one that
Speaker 3: became the biggest one was the ethical one. The other
Speaker 3: two I never felt with that story. I never felt
Speaker 3: in any physical danger. Actually that's not true. We being leader,
Speaker 3: did feel in physical danger. But I think we were
Speaker 3: both being paranoid. Leader is the producer. I think we
Speaker 3: were just being paranoid. But at one point we hired
Speaker 3: armed like an armed guard.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And but honestly, looking back on us, I think we
Speaker 3: were being paranoid. God, I was gonna say, And I
Speaker 3: never felt there was any legal jeopardy because honestly, we're
Speaker 3: really careful, we're really assiduous, like I don't, you know,
Speaker 3: mess around with that kind of stuff. So the only
Speaker 3: thing left really was was was kind of ethical. And
Speaker 3: that just haunted me. And you know, and anybody who
Speaker 3: does true crime reporting, if they're not haunted by that,
Speaker 3: then they shouldn't be in the job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they're going to run into the legal
Speaker 2: part as well. I think that if you're not haunted
Speaker 2: by that.
Speaker 1: You come from this really disarming, this disarming kind of
Speaker 1: point of view where you you always and it's so
Speaker 1: genuine with you. You care about the people and you
Speaker 1: want to find out more. Do you feel like that
Speaker 1: that really you know that that way that you've kind
Speaker 1: of come into journalism and you probably see it done
Speaker 1: incorrectly a lot, do you do you look at that
Speaker 1: and kind of go, this was always you know, that's
Speaker 1: kind of your superpower in a way that people kind
Speaker 1: of trust you and and and want to want to
Speaker 1: divulge a lot of information I want to.
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's maybe more like, you know,
Speaker 3: when I decide to do a story, I get so
Speaker 3: obsessed with that, like I go down the rabbit hole
Speaker 3: and just completely consumes me. By the time I'm approaching interviewees,
Speaker 3: my passion for the story and for them and their stories.
Speaker 3: I guess it becomes, you know, kind of rubs off
Speaker 3: from them, and they and they're more agreeable to talk
Speaker 3: to me. And I guess there's a sort of enthusiasm
Speaker 3: that comes with the curiosity, and maybe that sort of
Speaker 3: pumptiousness is attractive to them. Yeah, And and I am
Speaker 3: genuinely curious, Like it's rare that I go into a
Speaker 3: situation feeling judgmental, Like I'm genuinely curious. And so when
Speaker 3: I'm talking to them, I think they can tell they
Speaker 3: can tell.
Speaker 1: That absolutely with the psychopath test, like going in to
Speaker 1: meet different psychopaths and actually staying in touch with people.
Speaker 1: Has that always been something about the stories that you
Speaker 1: tell that you kind of you are so involved in
Speaker 1: these people's lives, and you have stayed in touch with
Speaker 1: with the people who identify themselves as psychopaths. You know
Speaker 1: and and and you know and are of no harm
Speaker 1: to society. They understand that, you know, they're different compulsions,
Speaker 1: They understand how they are as a person. Do your
Speaker 1: family ever kind of go, John, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: I guess your son's not because he's texting you in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: I remember my wife always laughs about this when we
Speaker 3: were first dating. I guess in the nineties I invited
Speaker 3: a member of the Madson family to stay and I
Speaker 3: was doing a kind of documentary. I never turned into anything,
Speaker 3: but we got some I think the BBC like somebody
Speaker 3: gave us somebody to do a documentary about where the
Speaker 3: you know, where members of the Madson family are now
Speaker 3: and one of them. I got talking to Sadra Good
Speaker 3: and she said she was coming to London and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: you just come and to stay at the night, and
Speaker 3: she said, well to address and I said, like N
Speaker 3: one one j X and she said say that again.
Speaker 3: I said, you know, N one one X J for
Speaker 3: John X for what you have carved in your forehead,
Speaker 3: and she went, she went, that's not funny. And then
Speaker 3: I said to I said to Alada, I hope you
Speaker 3: don't have just invited one of the Madson family to stay.
Speaker 3: She was like, yes, I do. Mind what are their dietaries?
Speaker 2: There we go. That's a classic example of you being
Speaker 2: disarming and charming, because I'm pretty sure no one else
Speaker 2: would have the confidence to say X like you.
Speaker 3: Have calved off. Could you like if that, if that
Speaker 3: line pops into your head.
Speaker 2: Is can you can you tell us a bit about that?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What was? Did you say? It was?
Speaker 3: She?
Speaker 2: What was she like?
Speaker 3: She was actually quite scary. Sounds good. I think her
Speaker 3: bandsaid name was or Sanday. She was like a big member.
Speaker 3: She wasn't peripheral, you know, she was hardcore. She'd be
Speaker 3: you know, well, no I can't say that, but you
Speaker 3: know she was one of the hardcore members who didn't
Speaker 3: do any of the murders. And yeah, I've only got fleeting.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going back to the nineties. Now we
Speaker 3: never even never turned into anything. But I remember meeting
Speaker 3: her and her boyfriend in this really remote hotel in
Speaker 3: exactly the kind of place you don't want to be
Speaker 3: stuck with a member of the Madson family, like some
Speaker 3: desert yeah, exactly, Yeah, some middle of nowhere desert motel.
Speaker 3: And it was a bit tense. Actually, this has been
Speaker 3: a couple of times when you're dealing with somebody who
Speaker 3: you can tell is has got, you know, psychological problems
Speaker 3: that might mean they're prone to violence. Like there's been
Speaker 3: a few times when I'm doing all of that disarming stuff, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, that makes it sound like I'm putting
Speaker 3: it on, but it's and very much yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 3: I then realized that actually these are pretty dangerous people.
Speaker 3: That has happened a few times. And I think it
Speaker 3: happened in a small way with I don't want to
Speaker 3: like oversell it, but I got a sort of sense
Speaker 3: of unease from her.
Speaker 2: Who or what is the kind of quite unquite scariest
Speaker 2: situation you found yourself in, Whether that's that someone else
Speaker 2: would say, I can't believe you put yourself in that
Speaker 2: situation that scary, or that you really felt in that moment,
Speaker 2: you know, from a kind of crime or unease situation.
Speaker 3: To be honest, like, I can't really go into detail,
Speaker 3: but some of the stuff in the new book in
Speaker 3: the Castle has made me feel that way. Wow. And
Speaker 3: before that, well, there was well going to Aryan Nations
Speaker 3: in Idaho, driving up past all the signs saying Jews
Speaker 3: turn around now that noes and then turning up you know,
Speaker 3: with with all of my jewishness and and these skinheads
Speaker 3: these really scared, like you know, this was like a
Speaker 3: proper hardcore, your muscular skinhead community all surrounding me and
Speaker 3: asking me if I was Jewish. That was That's one
Speaker 3: of the times what I felt like in very immediate danger.
Speaker 3: But you know how that resolved itself. This is I've
Speaker 3: always thought this is amazing. So they didn't say are
Speaker 3: you Jewish? They said what's your genealogy? Meaning are you Jewish? Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I said, I'm Church of England. I always joke
Speaker 3: about this with Louis through because Louis throw was once
Speaker 3: at a situation very similar to this when they said
Speaker 3: are you Jewish? And Louis said, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: tell you if I'm Jewish. Or not, and Louis isn't
Speaker 3: Jewish And I was in that same situation and they
Speaker 3: said to me, are you Jewish? And I said no, no, no,
Speaker 3: Louis is a brave and Louis wins that comparison.
Speaker 2: Can I just say, I will die happy if I
Speaker 2: can legitimately say the sentence. I always joke about this
Speaker 2: with Lewis through.
Speaker 3: Sorry, So okay, so what we're saying, yes, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The way that resolved itself was I said, I'm Church
Speaker 3: of England. And then one of the guys around the circle,
Speaker 3: who wasn't the skinhead like a bit older, said made
Speaker 3: some joke about the Church of England, and that joke
Speaker 3: signified to all the skin heads to disperse, and so
Speaker 3: they all did. So that guy, at that moment, like
Speaker 3: you know, was saved me. And I've often wondered, I've
Speaker 3: often wondered who was that guy? Was he a real Nazi?
Speaker 3: Might he had been an undercover federal agent like this,
Speaker 3: We know that there was a bunch of them in
Speaker 3: places like Area Nations. Uh, you know what happened in
Speaker 3: that moment? Maybe he just maybe you know, Okham's razor
Speaker 3: would say that he just didn't want, you know, film crew.
Speaker 3: The last Signian Nations needed was beating up some journalist.
Speaker 3: You know, so that was you know, that's probably what happened,
Speaker 3: but I don't know, maybe something else happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Wow, what a story. Oh my god, John.
Speaker 1: I know that you're you know, you're always working. Like
Speaker 1: I remember us talking recently about you know that you
Speaker 1: work seven days a week because you just love it.
Speaker 1: You know, has that has that grown over time? Do
Speaker 1: you still get that invested in things like working all
Speaker 1: the time? You know, you go for your walk, your
Speaker 1: back you're thinking, is is there just a part of
Speaker 1: you that just has all is just love what you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I just love it. Like on the very rare
Speaker 3: occasions when I take a couple of days off, I
Speaker 3: kind of appreciate it, Like for maybe a day, I think, Okay,
Speaker 3: I understand why people try leisure. Yeah, like I could,
Speaker 3: I could see why. But ultimately it's not long before
Speaker 3: the sort of cold winds of bleak paranoia sweep through you,
Speaker 3: and that those cold winds are sated by being on
Speaker 3: a story, by being intrigued by something. I just find that.
Speaker 3: So like, if I wake up, you know what I've
Speaker 3: got this bar. Now we live in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 3: and I've got this barn where I work. And I'm
Speaker 3: there at like five thirty or six in the morning,
Speaker 3: and I turned on all the lights and sit in
Speaker 3: my chair and I find myself and it's still dark.
Speaker 3: This doesn't come up yet, and I find myself smiling
Speaker 3: like like this is this is where? This is great,
Speaker 3: Like I've got something to do, I have purpose. I've
Speaker 3: got a story that gives me. That's the thing I do. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just love it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: How wonderful John.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk
Speaker 1: to us. It's so lovely to have you on. And
Speaker 1: I know, like your son, I wasn't messaging you in
Speaker 1: the middle of nights. We're podcasting right now and you
Speaker 1: having to go, oh shit, finishing your book and everything.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about the new book and and you know,
Speaker 1: is there more psychopath test Nights coming coming soon? Are
Speaker 1: you touring again?
Speaker 3: I just did another Psychopath Night tour in Britain, which
Speaker 3: I really loved. I really finessed it. I think it's
Speaker 3: like the best version of the show I did, like
Speaker 3: seventeen of them. But no, I think with the new
Speaker 3: book with the Castle coming out, we'll probably put Psychopath
Speaker 3: Night on the shelf for at least a few years.
Speaker 3: There's a little bit of talk about amatized again, like
Speaker 3: over the years, like that's every so often it looks
Speaker 3: like it may be dramatized and then it isn't. But
Speaker 3: there's a bit more talk of that. And if that happens,
Speaker 3: oh definitely, because I love Psychopath Night and so so
Speaker 3: I would absolutely do it again if something like that
Speaker 3: came up. But I was actually going to tell you
Speaker 3: a story which I can.
Speaker 2: I tell you that was like, never ask if you
Speaker 2: can tell us a story.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, it's just because of the theme of this and
Speaker 3: and it's it's a self aggrandizing story. So I apologize,
Speaker 3: but I don't think I've ever told it. So it's
Speaker 3: just that. So you know, the reason why we're sitting
Speaker 3: here and everybody's so interested in to crime these days
Speaker 3: is to a large extent because of Season one of
Speaker 3: Cereal And yeah, you know that was like such a
Speaker 3: kind of revolution in storytelling, and you know, a million
Speaker 3: copy caps and so on. What about anyway?
Speaker 1: What about the nation call, which she kept saying that
Speaker 1: throughout there's so many iconic manes.
Speaker 3: That's right. Anyway, Sarah Kanik and Julie Snyder who made it,
Speaker 3: who were like brilliant and they're brilliant, brilliant journalists, and
Speaker 3: they were like the kind of beating heart of this
Speaker 3: American life. And I'd worked with both of them on
Speaker 3: the Tony story in the Psychopath Test. I told them
Speaker 3: I was working on the story for the book, and
Speaker 3: they said, I'll do it for us as well. So
Speaker 3: I was like working with Sarah and Julie And then
Speaker 3: a couple of years later they made Cereal and I
Speaker 3: emailed them to say like how much I was enjoying it,
Speaker 3: and they said, like, we've been thinking, like while we've
Speaker 3: been making it, we've been thinking a lot about that
Speaker 3: Tony story about Broadmore. It's been like and so I think,
Speaker 3: like I can't say that like that story inspired, yeah,
Speaker 3: but I do think that maybe it sort of influenced
Speaker 3: some of the storytelling a little bit.
Speaker 2: And wow, the original podcast influencer.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, And because and the the repels from season
Speaker 3: one of Servia was so huge.
Speaker 1: And you've been podcasting for a long time as well,
Speaker 1: and you've been at you know, this American life and everything.
Speaker 1: When you talk about the fictionalized version of the psychopath test,
Speaker 1: who would you feel comfortable playing you? The question not Louis.
Speaker 3: Now you know what I am. So what I learned
Speaker 3: really early on with adaptations is just stay the fuck away,
Speaker 3: like let them do it. I so, I don't even
Speaker 3: think about it, like they could just do whatever they want.
Speaker 2: Very diplomatic.
Speaker 1: Obviously Frank was very different for you. But what about
Speaker 1: you know the men who stereic goats when that was
Speaker 1: made into a film. Were you Were you a bit
Speaker 1: more hands off for that one and decided to let
Speaker 1: them do it or because it's so personal to you?
Speaker 1: Did you? Oh?
Speaker 3: No, I was. I was very very hands off. We
Speaker 3: in the screenwriting process, Peter Strawn wrote the screenplay Who
Speaker 3: Won An Oscar last year for Conclave, and he wrote
Speaker 3: the screenplay. I was remember walking into a Starbucks in
Speaker 3: central London one time while Peter was writing the screenplay
Speaker 3: and Peter was in there and as he looked over
Speaker 3: at me, his face just sank and it's like the
Speaker 3: last and I get it. Like when I was writing Frank,
Speaker 3: I would have felt the same way. If the real
Speaker 3: Frank Sidebossom walked in the room like you want it.
Speaker 3: You don't want real life puncturing. And so I had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the screenwriting process. We visited the set.
Speaker 3: The best, the best thing in terms of you know,
Speaker 3: that process was you know, we visited the set for
Speaker 3: a couple of days, me and Peter. But when the
Speaker 3: film came out, George Clooney like so nicely, like I
Speaker 3: will never forget this kindness, really included me and Peter
Speaker 3: in all of the like the like in the film festivals.
Speaker 3: We were up on the stage with them and and
Speaker 3: like included us in all of the publicity for it.
Speaker 3: And you know a lot of people don't do that.
Speaker 3: For a lot of people, we're like the dirty secrets,
Speaker 3: like the writers.
Speaker 2: Pretend they don't exist, and it's our movie, not book the.
Speaker 3: Magic and and I don't know that was so generous
Speaker 3: of him to do that.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know it's funny because as as such a
Speaker 2: book lover myself, I am always nervous when a book
Speaker 2: that I love is turned into a series or a
Speaker 2: movie because I want it to be traditional to the book.
Speaker 2: So that's so interesting to hear someone from the novel
Speaker 2: side of it or the you know, the book side say,
Speaker 2: I'll stay away from it because if it needs to
Speaker 2: be different, it can be because as the consumer, I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: let the writer be part of it. It's their story.
Speaker 3: Well, I have a number of reasons for having that attitude.
Speaker 3: One is that I'm not as good at fiction as
Speaker 3: i am nonfiction. So if I did interfere, and I
Speaker 3: may not know what I'm talking about. So you know,
Speaker 3: if I'm on a non you know, in nonfiction, I
Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about, and in fiction I don't.
Speaker 3: So that's one reason. Another reason, that's kind of the
Speaker 3: main reason, to be honest, I'm sure there are other
Speaker 3: reasons for that. That's the main ones. Yeah, I just
Speaker 3: think well I always remember, like like Nick Hornby, I
Speaker 3: used to like have the odd lunch with him because
Speaker 3: we both lived in Islington, and he was like, if
Speaker 3: you if you are getting involved in Hollywood, just just
Speaker 3: go to it with no emotion, because if you go
Speaker 3: to it with any emotion, you're gonna get hurt in
Speaker 3: some in one way or another that you won't even expect.
Speaker 3: And Hollywood is a very alpha male place, like it's
Speaker 3: a very like Glen Garry Glen Ross type place. And
Speaker 3: so for all of those reasons, I go in with
Speaker 3: no emotion, or I don't go in at all, and
Speaker 3: I just let him get on with it. They know
Speaker 3: what they're doing. I don't. I don't love that Glen
Speaker 3: Garry Glenn Ross's atmosphere, and so it's just best to.
Speaker 2: Let them do their thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had that story about Nick Cormby that the reason
Speaker 1: About a Boy is such a good film is because
Speaker 1: he wrote the book in Hugh Grant's voice, like he
Speaker 1: had Hugh Grant in his mind already where he wrote
Speaker 1: it just going oh my god, so Qugh Grant's.
Speaker 2: Definitely going to that's the character I in picturing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like translates so well to the movie.
Speaker 1: And when you read it you're like, oh absolutely, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine anyone else doing it.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And we'll feel that way one day when the psychopath
Speaker 1: test is made into it.
Speaker 2: Yes, so who is who is Tony? In your mind?
Speaker 3: I don't have a clue visualize it. Yeah. No, honestly,
Speaker 3: I don't think about it because you never because you
Speaker 3: know what, when I was making Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, I
Speaker 3: was remember this. I've met this guy who was really
Speaker 3: high up in Warner Brothers, like a real old timer,
Speaker 3: and I said to you, he was in Saint John's Word,
Speaker 3: in this big mansion in London, and you know, real
Speaker 3: kind of grizzled Hollywood old timer, high up in Warner Brothers.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the interview I said to him,
Speaker 3: I said, oh, you know, I've written this book called
Speaker 3: The Menisteric Goats, and you know this talk that it
Speaker 3: might be getting turned into a movie, and this guy
Speaker 3: goes a job. I'm going to tell you something about movies.
Speaker 3: This is what you need to know about Hollywood. No
Speaker 3: film ever gets made.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: Brilliant with three films that got made, and on each
Speaker 3: occasion it's like such a fucking miracle that that's another
Speaker 3: reason to not get involved. It's like, why mess with
Speaker 3: the miracle? Like there's a million reasons for films not
Speaker 3: get to not get made, and that you know, it's
Speaker 3: a miracle when it happens.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm just picture. I'm a massive Broadway nerd. So
Speaker 2: that whole story on my mind was in the set
Speaker 2: of Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, parking spot at Warners. I mean
Speaker 2: I'm invested in this.
Speaker 1: Story, John, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was really fun.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, Thank you Sech for your time and
Speaker 2: just your your openness with us today. But with everything
Speaker 2: you do, where such massive fans, and we know our
Speaker 2: listeners are as well, and we can't wait to have
Speaker 2: you back, and we need to get you back before
Speaker 2: we can talk about the castle, because I'm worried that's
Speaker 2: going to be too far away and I need to
Speaker 2: know more.
Speaker 3: Well, it's only August. It's like the end of August,
Speaker 3: and I might be coming back to Australia, like I hope.
Speaker 3: So there's talk of it. I don't know if it's
Speaker 3: going to actually happen or not. That if it does,
Speaker 3: i'd love to see you in person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you're my hero, John, and I fanboy
Speaker 1: over you every time I've seen you in person, and
Speaker 1: I twice now and I fanboy every time.
Speaker 2: So now he is just showing off.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much, John for taking the time.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, it's a pleasure.