July 2, 2025 • 61 mins
LOOK OUT! It’s only Films To Be Buried With!
Join your host Brett Goldstein as he talks life, death, love and the universe with the glorious and great DAVID DASTMALCHIAN!
A really lovely, fun and extremely touching episode which contains multitudes. David's been putting in work for years and will very much be a face you'll recognise, if not a name you'll remember, and as always with these talks with Brett we hear so much of what makes the person who they are. In this case, not only do we hear about David's 23 years sober, 50 years of life, his religious upbringing, achieving tone of character via art and music, Z-movies, and past roles - we also hear about his personal life which in this case will require a trigger warning.
As David clearly states after going into his experience, help is available and can be found should you or a loved/cared-for one be in similar circumstances. The warning should be observed after the second ad-break here - hard to give an 'out' time as ad-breaks are unpredictable but if you want a clean sweep, give it like 10 minutes. Help lines are below in the links.
All that said, a lovely episode from someone with a lot of heart and soul. Enjoy!
Video and extra audio available on Brett's Patreon!
LINKS IF YOU NEED HELP
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THE SECOND BEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE
SUPERBOB (Brett's 2015 feature film)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Look out. It's only films to be buried with.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with. My
name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a
writer and director, a chain reaction, and I love films.
As Joan Didion once said, we tell ourselves stories in
order to live. We watch the taste of things in
order to be hungry, and then you know, eat stuff.
Every week I invite a special guest diver. I tell
them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their
lives through the films. The men the most of them.
(00:36):
Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Sharon Stone, and
even Forms. But this week we have the award winning actor, writer,
producer and filmmaker David Dismulchin. My comedy special Second Best
Night of Your Life is streaming now on Max and Skye.
Give it a watch, you'll fucking love it. Head over
to the Patreon at patreon dot com. Forward to Last
Brett Goldstein, where you get an extra twenty minutes of
(00:57):
chat with David. He tells a very good secret about
beginnings and endings, and you get the whole episode, uncut,
adfree and as a video check it out over at
patreon dot com. Forward Slash Bret gold Team, So David Desmulchin.
You might know David from his roles in Prisoners, Dark Knight, June,
Murder Bot, Life of Chuck, Late Night with the Devil,
(01:17):
all sorts. He's in everything. We recorded this over zoom.
We had such a lovely time. I do think I
have to do a trigger warning. I very rarely do these,
but we do have a discussion about suicide, and if
that is something you don't want to listen to, then
feel free to skip this one and sending you love.
If that's the case, that's it for now. I very
much think you're going to enjoy this one. I very
much hope you enjoy episode three hundred and fifty seven
(01:40):
of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to
Films to be Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein,
and I am joined today by an actor legend, a
(02:01):
Life of Chucker, a suicide squadn a.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Prisoner no.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
A Boogie Manner, a Murder butter, a Late Night with
the Devil, a great conversationalist, a Oppenheimer. He is in
everything you've ever loved. He is a true a boogie manner.
Whenever you see him, you know you're in for a treat.
(02:28):
I can't believe he's here. He's a hero, a legend
and a man, and he's sitting right across from me
on a zoom. Please, welcome to the show. It's the
brilliant David dis Motune.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Brad.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
That was That was the best introduction I've ever received
in my entire career, in my life, So thank you
very much.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's such a great moment for me.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I'm such a fan of yours and I'm grateful I
get to occupy your time and attention for the show.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Makes me very happy.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'm very excited to do this with you. We've met
very briefly a couple of times. I think I saw
you at the Boogeyman premiere a preview. What was that
fright Fest.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Something like that or or overlaried or something.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, And then I saw you at a party the
night before party.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
And then I saw you once but you didn't see me.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I think I was at Soho House in London and
I was there with Peter Capaldi having a coffee and
you walk past and I said, that's Brett Goldstein and
he said, you just never know who you're going to
see here.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
David, And he said, who the fuck is that?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
David?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So much to talk about. Where do we even start? Well,
let's start with Life of Chuck, which I loved so much. Thanks,
and you're you're a small but beautiful memorable part in it,
like everyone Everyone's. More I like about the film is
everyone's actually a small part in that film, which I
think is the message of it.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
It's true even I mean Tom is billed as Chuck.
It's the Life of Chuck, and he's the star of
the film, if you will. But to me, the cohesive
like through line, narrative performance is actually rests on the
shoulders in many ways of Chewetel's character. And then it's
this really fantastic way of looking at the world through
(04:17):
the lens of you know, everything from your thinking of
like a Robert Altman film to like a Carson mcculler's novel.
It's just like there's all these different characters and humans
that populate the space of someone's life, and whether they're
existing in reality or in memory. Mike Flanagan keeps calling
into question as the story progresses, and I get to
(04:38):
have one little interaction, but it's a special and beautiful interaction,
and I'm really glad you liked the film. I think
the film's beautiful, and I love I love Mike's work.
And I felt a great deal of pressure in going
to do it because a I've been friends with Mike
for a long time, and so when you finally get
the opportunity to work with one of your friends or
for one of your friends, you feel like, and at
(05:00):
least I do an extra sense of oh my goodness, Wow,
this is something we've been talking about for so long.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
It's finally happening. I hope I don't disappoint.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
But also with my character's odd, beautiful little monologue, it's
at the top of the film, and it really tonally
in about a paragraph and a half, kind of sets
a mood in a sense for this film you're about
to experience. So I remember as I was getting ready
to do it, thinking, oh, this is really like you
got to really hit the right notes here, and Mike
(05:30):
just helped me get it.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And I'm very very Yeah, it's very pleased.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It's a great experience that you've done that a lot
of thing because you're that same thing in Boogeyman. You
set the tone. You're the first. You're selling us the fear.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Of tone setter.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Dave does Walch, a character actor tone setter, h No.
I think the thing that I ask directors the most
about before we go to work is I get less
interested in characters psycho. I think the psychology, the backstory,
and all that wonderful fun stuff. Unless the director feels
really imperative to make sure and share something with me
that they think is going to affect something in the
(06:09):
way I perform, behave, or maybe get blocked. That interior
work is just my responsibility to do on my own
and I those conversations to me are less productive on
set unless you're in a crisis and you're trying to
solve a problem.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
To me, it's the build up conversations.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And I have a number of directors that I've been
fortunate enough to work with a couple of times or more,
and it's always tone. I ask them, please send me
any albums, any records, any films, any books, any pieces
of art. I have one director in particular who just
sends me artwork and it helps me get my head
around tone. And he's done it every film we've made together,
(06:44):
and I find it incredibly useful. Maybe some people that's
I don't know not but I.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's that's what I was going to ask because in
Life of Check everyone is so disparate and small, small
amount of screen time, I suppose, but tinally everyone's in
the same film, And I wondered how he did that,
how much conversation there was, because I'm assuming you there
for a day.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I was there for a day.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
I flew down for a day, and then we shot
the next day, and then I was gone. And Mike
did a really good job over the phone. He would
keep I think he called each of us and set
up through his Really he's a really good communicator, so
he was able to communicate the tonality and kind of
what his hopes and dreams were for the world of
(07:26):
the film, but also for the individual characters. And then
on the day he's really kind of it's kind of
wonderful to work with Mike because he has the same
crew often and he's got to flow around him of
people that just kind of go from one project to
the next, and it feels a bit like, you know,
this just traveling circus.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And he one of the things he does.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
That's really useful is he sends you ahead of time
his shot list. It's part of the call sheet actually,
so you get your sides with shot lists, so you
know the way we're going to be covering the scene,
and then we can have a quick conversation, if you know,
for the sake of the way that the scenes play out.
In what I was doing, it's a series of conversations
(08:04):
that Chutel's having with the different parents at a parent
teacher conference. So instead of covering both sides of the table,
one you know, interaction after the next, we blocked it
where it's like we're going to shoot all the parents
coverage for the morning, then we're going to turn around
and we shoot all the teacher coverage for the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And because Mike, as I think.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
All great directors are such good communicators, I knew, I
knew what he needed, and the slight adjustments he was
making over the course of shooting our.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Stuff was just little little little ticks and stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I love his stuff. I think he's a real real
special one. I like how emotional all his stuff is,
even his really really scary stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
It's very moving.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
He really Yeah, he really makes films we love I
think like you really care.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I'm a fan of all shades of genre, the full
spectrum when it comes to horror, like I'm a big
I love camp, I love z I love Gore, but
dialed in at the end of the day. The thing
that really moves me the most when it comes to
horror and I and Life of Chuck by the way,
for those who are you know, enjoying our conversation right now,
is not what I would describe as a horror film.
But most of my most of Mike's work does live
(09:10):
in that space. And and there's something to me about
like playing it straight, playing the drama of the given
circumstances and not trying to plus up the horror anyways,
what makes stuff more meaningful. So when you watch something
like you know, The Midnight Mass or Usher or these
other shows that have been so wonderful that Mike's created
(09:30):
and made, that's where that that's where that when you
when you watch a character who's you know, going through
a crisis that you can relate to and you feel like,
oh my god, I understand that feeling, and then they
get attacked by you know, blood sucking monster. It's just
the snakes are so much better.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You know what z Z like.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
There's B films. Yeah, you'd be like, oh, there's a
B like B like like D like z Z is
like you know, ed Wood.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Like her Sharknado is the content temporary version of maybe
what people would consider old Herschel Gordon Lewis films, or
you know, I grew up as a kid. I was
just talking about this. I have a couple of friends
who I grew up with visiting me here in La
and when we were kids, we'd ride our bikes to
this video store and the teenagers stone behind the counter.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
It was not a corporate chain.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
It was like a mom and pop shop, so they
didn't give care about you being underage, so you could
just grab anything off the shelf and take it home
and watch it.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And I watched a lot of good Z films back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I'd say, what about you played the leads. You did
a lead role in a great, great film which was
also a huge success, I believe Late Night with the Devil,
which I loved I went to see at the Chinese
Theater in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And we can do so.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Much, and I have to ask as a British person.
Did you watch guys to watch there? It is?
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It is hes of it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I did.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
I was a longtime fan of ghost Watch films like Ghostwatch,
Lake Mungo and Blair Witch.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Lake Mungo is so fucking good.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
It's a masterpiece and you know what's wild. Joel Anderson,
who made Mungo, was the person who is friends with
the filmmakers of Late Night with the Devil. He read
their script. He brought that script to Stephen Schneider and
Roy Lee, who are the American producers on it, who
brought me to the film because I'm friends with Roy
and Roy had said, David did filmmakers, and I agree, like,
(11:28):
you'd be great for the role. We're making this little film.
Would you like to get involved? It's going to be
something small, but I think you'd really enjoy it. So
I read the script and I was flipped out. I
was like, hey, yes, I love this script, but be like,
I'm so. I was so thrilled that they even considered me,
because I don't if I was a producer, casting director,
I don't think reading Late Night with the Devil, I
(11:49):
would go Dave Dismalchin, there's a number of other actors
that I would imagine ahead of me, and I you
never know the whole story. Maybe they went to all
of them and then they were just like, who else
can we go to?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
But I don't care. The point is I got to do.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
It, and it was the first first time I have
a production company. It was the first film because I
have a company called Good Fiend Films, and we're the
thrust of what I want to do is tell genre stories,
horror and science fiction, but wrestling with big questions and
identity issues. And it was just perfect timing because I mean,
I'm sure you've experienced this. You've been, you know, a
(12:24):
successful and talented and you know, very kind of across
the spectrum performer, comedian, actor, writer. But in the last
few years, all of a sudden, your life just changed
drastically in many ways. I feel similarly in the last
few years, not to the degree of I mean, your success,
but I've had some success that has changed the way
(12:45):
that like interactions in public take place, the amount of
press that I am asked and have the great gratitude
to get to do to promote things that I care about.
But I've had to you know, I'm going to be
fifty this year and over the many years since teenagehood,
where you're trying to create an identity just to attract
the you know, people you're attracted to, or maybe to
(13:06):
keep yourself safe from the social fears that you have
into my adulthood, where my profession and my personal life
and just being a member of society is like about
creating a kind of exterior thing that keeps you both
safe and is also a presentation of I think the
best version that you want people to really believe about
(13:28):
you and Jack in this strip, and I was wrestling
with all that stuff while I was going to make this.
I was like, what's the real, authentic me? If I
strip everything away, who is the real me? And I
think he's a nerd that likes reading comic books, that
likes watching horror movies. I don't need to always I
was really insecure getting into the film and television business,
coming from theater, being like I only am wanting to
do you know, independent drama, and like don't I can't.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Like there's something that felt like, ah, is it okay
that I like this nerdy stuff? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
And Jack Delroy is is that to presentational? He's a
talk show host, but privately he's deeply struggling. So thank
you for going and seeing it, and thank you for
saying what you said. I'm really proud of the.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Film and about to do it. It's really great. How
do you cope with your changed circumstances in your normal life?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
I have about a two and on a rougher day,
three hours of time that's dedicated to i'd say, my
my wellness, like just being as conscious and present as possible.
In May, I celebrated twenty three years of sobriety, and
so I'm still a part of thank you. I'm still
(14:40):
a part of working a program that involves me getting
an opportunity once a day, sometimes twice a day, to
be surrounded by other people who share similar, you know,
struggles and needs. And the gift is what I look
at it as I have I meditate, I do yoga
when I wake up, I exercise.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I have a therapist that I really appreciate.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
I journal, and then I try to be really diligent
about surrounding my innermost circle with people that not only
keep me grounded and honest, but also who I can
feel safe with. But I'm learning a lot. I learn
every day. I learned the choices that I make. The
ramifications for the choices that I make, are often frustrating.
(15:24):
If I'm in my like what I call king baby mode,
when I'm not conscious and when I'm like when my
eight year old is running the show and it's like, well,
why can't I go do this thing that just other
people can do? I used to do that as an addict,
I go, well, how come I can't do Everyone else
gets to smoke pot, everyone else can drink a glass
of wine?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Why can't It's not fair? A life is not fair.
There's no such thing as fair.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
But as someone who's continuing to work and get in
more and more high profile projects or maybe bigger things, I.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Go, well, why can't I just go do this thing?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Or sometimes it's simple things like just take my kids
to go do something without being bothered whatever it's like,
or I don't know, do stuff that I'd be like what.
But But then when I'm conscious and I have the
presence of gratitude, and I step back and I go, wait, man,
look at what you get to do, Look at the
what's the trade here? It's incredibly tipped in my favor.
(16:16):
I think the scale is how about yourself? Has it
been mostly positive or would you say mixed bag for you?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, hang on a second, this isn't about me, no,
I know, I'm not for that.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
This was a conversation about Well.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
One thing we do have to talk about, though, is
you have a show of your own which is about death. Yeah,
the Trader great conversations, Yes, tell us more so.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I would love to have you come climb in a
casket with me sometimes, Brett.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It was it started. I thought, very funny.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
My friend Elan, who actually produces for my produced Life
at Chunk producing the new Carry series. But Elan he
approached me and said, hey, I'm doing a brand some
branding work with this casket company.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I think you should come be like a spokesperson for them.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
And I thought that was so hilarious because I mean,
I am a vampire. I do sleep, you know, the
bottom of my castle at night and during the day,
I should say, I drink blood. I was like, oh,
that's great, I can promote caskets. And at first it
was a bit of like a getchy fun thing.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But then I met.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
These people who is this little small company that were
like they're trying, They're trying to enter the game. It's
it's basically in the States, a very monopolized industry, the
business of death. And so let's say you lose. And
I've experienced it a number of times in recent years.
Both of my parents have passed and others that I love.
So you go, someone's dead, You're in trauma, you're in grief.
(17:49):
All of a sudden, you're confronted with like a car
salesman who's like, here at the home, here's here's the model.
Do you want the one that you really loved your
parents for twenty thousand? Do you want the one that
you kind of love them for well, or do you
want that I didn't really have a relationship with my
parents for eight So these guys said, the law states
that you don't have to buy the caskets that are
(18:09):
being sold to you. You can get them sent from
even a costco if you wanted to. And they're offering
things at like a fifth of the market value at
some point because they don't think it's fair for people
to have to go into debt just to bury a
loved one.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
So I was like, this is a good thing.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Then Elon goes, what if we had a little podcast,
or you and a friend getting adjacent caskets. You lay
there and talk about whatever they want to talk about,
if they're on a tour, doing a comedy special, if
they're a musician.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
But then let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
About the end of life, because it is something that
I would love to see more normalized. I was raised
in a really religious atmosphere probably explains my love of horror,
where the answers that you were given about end of
life were like final. They were very simple, and if
you couldn't wrap your head around it, you were wrong.
Basic right, And it really messed me up as a
(18:58):
kid because I had so many questions and I was
so curious about what happens after we go and where
does science and anything maybe we might call other stuff
meet Like all that was so fa So in doing
the show Grave Conversations, it's like everybody from you know,
Kamil nan Gianni gets in and makes me laugh and
we're mutual friends with Camille, but then he's got me
(19:18):
crying to really great you know, musicians, directors. I just
James Gunn was just in the other day and we're
talking about Superman and then the next thing, you know,
we're talking about funeral planning and the fear that we
sometimes have when it comes to the stuff. So that's
what it is, and I'm really proud of it.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
It's it's something I really love doing.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
That is rights up my street. That is that is
a rights ut Miami. One other question for you about
acting and stuff. I'm so curious because you appear in
so many things, sometimes in a big part, sometimes in
the small part. But like looking at your CV fact,
you know, it's a fucking incredible CV. You've done so
many great films, and I'm wondering if you have any
(19:59):
like if you're arriving, say Oppenheimer, which is this huge,
huge film filled with huge stars and everything like that.
What I'm asking you is, let's say you arrived in
the middle of one of these films, it's well underway.
How do you approach fitting in? I spoke when you're
on a big new project, Are you're really going to
be there probably for a short period of time. Do
(20:20):
you have tricks or is it just you see how
it you just feel it out.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Oppenheimer is a really good example in answering that question,
because I showed up on the film they were already
into production. I had worked with the director previously once,
which was the first time I'd ever been on a
film set, and that was so long ago. I mean
that was I shot with him in two thousand and seven,
and I went to do Oppenheimer in two thousand and
(20:46):
twenty two. I think, so what fifteen years later, all
of a sudden, I'm back in I'd gotten the opportunity
to read the full script one time at Universal, so
I got a sense of the world that was being built.
But honestly, a lot of it was going over my
head because I was trying to read it in one
sitting and it was a dense script and I was
in a locked room. I got to meet with him
(21:07):
and talk to him briefly in his office, where he
really just said something to the effect of all I
kind of like, I know, you'll know what to do
or something. We talked a bit about my character Borden.
But yeah, So I showed up in New Mexico and
all of the actors portraying the different scientists, obviously, Killian,
Robert and other leads had been on the job for
(21:30):
at least a month maybe, so they had a rapport.
They had an energetic kind of tonal vibe going. There's
a rhythm to the way that all directors make their films,
and especially with someone as a student talented as Nolan is,
where it's the train is just going and everybody is
on board because he's so good at communicating vision. So
what I do and I try to process the nerves
(21:52):
as best I can doing all the stuff I told
you early, Get up a little bit earlier, even if
I have to to make sure I get in some
good breath and yoga and focus and think and try
and clear my mind, open my mind, try and get
rid of expectations for myself, try and let go of
any pre planning performative stuff, especially when it comes.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
To line delivery.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I want to be memorized, obviously, but I really like
creating voice and posture and like physicality. But I don't
think it's healthy for me in the creative process to
pre plan the way I'm going to say things. It
just doesn't work very well for me in the final
experience of it all. And then I get there and
I immediately put on my if I'm able to, depending
(22:32):
on the set and the environment, put on my like absorption,
you know, cloak, which is now I'm going to start
just soaking in and that means from the moment I
get into like this set and meeting the base camp
ads and pas, to getting into hair and makeup, where
now you're going to start interacting with other actors, just
being as curious as possible, asking.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Questions like how's it going, Oh yeah, how are you doing?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Like how's everything, trying to pick up and gleam, what's
the sense that I'm getting, what's the vibe? And then
and then I get to set, and luckily for me,
I was not first up in the sense of I
was in the scene, but I was sitting adjacent to
this table where a bunch of people were conversating. So
I'm just doing my best to absorb the musicality, the
(23:16):
kind of vibe for a silly term, but like you
get it like way that things are going. And I know,
you can't become friends with people too quickly. It's just
it's unnatural and it's weird. But you can be curious
with people, you can have conversation with people. And fortunately
for us, no one was going back to their trailers
in between setups, and no one had their phones really
(23:37):
around I think that was just something Chris had asked
us to do, and in fact, drinking water instead of
bottled waters, we were drinking water out of like period
correct glasses. And we just sat around a table and
spoke and listened and talked, and by the time I
was ready to like engage with my first interaction with Chillan,
I felt comfortable.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
And it was funny because if you've seen the film
I'm sure most.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
People have, at this point, the first time I really
speak to him, it's it's kind of one of those
odd where I want to say so much to him,
and I want to give so much to Oppenheimer and
say all these things that I've experienced flying a bomber
and my experience, you know, seeing the missiles that the
Nazis were.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Shooting at England.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
And I did it once and Chris seemed happy and
he kind of compared. We had this moment where he
was chuckling a little bit and he's like, you ever
do like a Q and A after like a film screening,
or like you do one of those things and then
somebody one of the fans like approaches you and like
just shakes your hand a little too long, like stares you.
He's like, that's what you're He's like, that's what you're
(24:42):
doing that I love. I was like, that's exactly the guy.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
That's great. David. Yes, Brett, I've forgotten to tell you something.
Tell me.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I should have told you earlier. Actually maybe when we
were talking about your show. But fuck, I'll just I'm
just going to tell you, and then i'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I'll say it. You've died. You're dead. Dead.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, dead, I'm dead.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You're dead. Okay, how did you die?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
You get to choose.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I was crushed by a giant starfish.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Okay, so much like your character, you were crushed by
a giant starface. Suddenly, did you provoke the sturface?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, he was trying to take over the planet and
he was trying to crush the world.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Wow. So you're kind of a hero.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
And I wanted I wanted to I wanted to protect everybody,
and I have a a great fear of giant starfish.
But I was willing to take him on to keep
people safe. And then, motherfucking superhero.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Do you worry about death? I mean you I do.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Even just now when you said that, I get like, anxious,
like I right now feel very no, It's okay. I
have struggled with it since I was a little boy.
I was, like I think I said earlier, I was
raised in a religious environment where it was like, if
you be a good person, if you do what we
tell you to do, when you die, you're going to
(26:17):
live in eternal bliss. If you don't do what we
tell you, you're going to be cast into eternal pain
and suffering. And those are your choices, which aren't choices.
Then you're basically telling somebody, do what we tell you
to do, or you're going to be abandoned forever into
the you know, pits of.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Flames of hell.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
And tell that to like a six year old, and
see what that does to the curious mind, especially somebody
who's been confronted with the concepts of things like infinity.
I wrestled with it a lot, and I still do now.
What's been wonderful for me? So nearly lost my life
overdosed three times when I when I was in the
(26:56):
throes of my opiate addiction. I was a heroin addict,
and I was like once resurrected, resuscitated in an ambulance,
once resuscitated by other junkies who just shot me up
with saline and ice, and once more, I just woke
up thankfully after I don't know how long I was out.
I also survive pretty well as serious of a suicide.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Attempt as you can imagine.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
And I it's a paradox because I felt like, Okay,
life isn't worth living, because my presence in the world
causes more suffering on other people than my absence would.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So I felt in the time.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
You know, anyone who struggled deeply with depression, your mental illness,
it's a sad, sad, sad battle because the logic that
your brain says to you is stuff that's like taking
another hit of that drug is the only way you're
going to get through another day, which sadly just puts
you in the myers a more suffering or if you
just were to end your life today. Everybody that you
(27:58):
love may be sad for a few weeks, but their
ultimately their lives are going to be better off. All
of this is untrue. If you're hearing this and you
think that about yourself, it's a lie. It's not true,
and it's a trick that this bizarre miscalculating dysfunctional function
of our brain does when it actually thinks it's helping you.
(28:18):
Because you've been wounded at some point in your life,
probably when you were a kid, and it hurts so
bad that the thought of feeling that way ever again
is like an insurmountable concept. So you'll do anything to
avoid feeling that way. And to me, sometimes feeling and
thinking about death is one of those things, so I
get really anxious about it. I also have this new
relationship with whatever it is that is the big power
(28:42):
that I am so fascinated by, and it's become really loving,
which is really special. I've found like a new relationship
with it that isn't punishment or fear based, and so
I think I have new thoughts about it all the time,
and I certainly have no answers or major conclusions other
than and it's something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
That's all I got loved.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I ask you a very serious question. If you don't
want to answer, it will cut me asking the question
when you I did, and when you made that attempt,
do you remember what it felt like at the moment
of it happening, Like did you do you remember thinking
oh shit, or do you or it is it?
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Do you not remember the feeling of it?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
The sad thing is.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
The sad thing is because I've heard people I've heard
many times survivors of say bridge jumps or building jumps.
When someone survives, they say as soon as they jump,
they go, oh shit.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I wish I hadn't done that. I didn't.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
I remember laying in the bathtub and watching the water
turn redder and redder and redder, and thinking it's getting close,
like I'm I was feeling not excited.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
I was very sad.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
But I remember thinking, like the paint like the suffering
is is almost over. And I was a bit frustrated,
to be honest, because when I did it, I was
doing it and it is this such a sad state
that my mental state was so bad that I did
it in a place where I was going to be
(30:12):
found by someone that I just didn't think that person
would be home for like another day. That person ended
up coming or I thought they wouldn't be back at
least until much, much, much, much much later, and they
ended up coming back in finding the lock door, breaking it,
in getting the you know, ambulance, and then I woke
up in the hospital very sorry, I was. I kept
(30:33):
apologizing to everyone, but I also was. I was frustrated,
you know. And now as I sit here today, you
know I'm talking to you. I just spent this morning with,
you know, two of my best friends from childhood. I
have two beautiful, incredible children. I have dozens and dozens
(30:56):
of people who I love and who love me back.
I'm sitting here talking to somebody genuinely, Brett. I know
I say this every time I've met you, but like like,
I'm I'm like a deeply I'm a big fan of you.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Like it's really like exp I'm.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Sitting in an office from my weird little production company
that like, I don't know, it's like it's crazy that
I get to be here today considering all that that
I just told you about.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
So again, I just say, if you're listening to this.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
And you feel like you feel like that that mindset
I was describing makes sense to you, I promise it's
not true.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It is an illusion. And there is help. I just
hadn't gotten to help yet. That's what's so sad. And
the help that I had gotten wasn't the good.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
There's all kinds of help out there, and I know
it's frustrating when you've gotten help and then it doesn't work,
and then you're like, well, I tried, or I took
this medication, or I saw a therapist.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
It didn't work.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
People, It's fucking sucks. Sometimes it's not fair, but sometimes
it's like a bit roulette. The more times you spin
the wheel, the more opportunities you have to find the
thing that's going to work for you. So it took
me a number of spins of the roulette, but finally
I got the right you know, combination of you know,
therapy and recovery and psychiatry and spirituality all that shit.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
But no, it wasn't like, oh I got out.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I woke up in the hospital and all of a
sudden they gave me the right pill and I said,
I'm ready to be healed, and I was, you know,
res saved.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well. A, firstly, thank you very much for sharing that.
I really yeah, and knowing you the journey you're on
now where you are in your life is amazing. You
have a beautiful life and that's so lovely. And from
the moment where you woke up and you were frustrated,
do you have a sense of when of how long
it took to start to see the first light, the
(32:38):
first like, oh this this feeling is starting to go away.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
So the fur like I woke up in the hospital
and then I was I didn't have insurance, and this
would have been in two thousand, two thousand, the end
of two thousand, going in two thousand and one. I
was transferred to like a state facility, which is not
the nicest facility, but there was wonderful people that worked there.
You get Cuckoo's nest a bit, you know, it's like
(33:03):
that five and there's no U. Yeah, yeah, there's no method,
Christopher Lloyd. There's no method. One maintenance program for for
you in the in the in the state run facility,
they'll give you some aspirins and they strapped me to
a cot basically to kick the drugs. And it took
about ten five to ten days for I mean, just
(33:26):
awful withdrawals. And then it really sinks in when you're like,
holy shit, look at the state of my life.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Look how much wreckage I've caused.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Look at all the people I've harmed and stolen from
and heard and lied to and dah da da da da,
how am I going to ever live again?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
And you know.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
I was in there a couple of weeks and like
I had a really good therapist that was talking to me,
and I met some nice guys and just in the
in a round. But I remember I woke up and
looked up and I have three older siblings, and I
woke up and I thought it was a dream, and
all three of them were like looking down on me,
the way that like older siblings would look down at
their baby brother in the basinette. And my siblings had
(34:03):
found out about what had happened, and they'd all flown
up to Chicago to come and be there, and I
felt a glimmer of hope. Some friends came and visited
me and brought me McDonald's because the food was shit,
and brought me some cigarettes. And I felt a glimmer
of hope. And then and I just hung on to that.
That something in me shifted. I had a desire to live.
(34:28):
I felt like I tried so hard, so hard, and
there's something in me that was like there's something yet
to do, which sounds maybe narcissistic, like my life is
so important.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
That there's something to do, but it just it felt
that way.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
And by the way, if you're listening to this and
you think, oh, I've been there, and then I fucked
up again. I then went and moved into a rehab,
went into a sober living, relapsed, lived in a car,
got clean, relapsed again. I mean it took me another
couple of years. I didn't take my last use until
May tenth of two thousand, too. But there was a light,
there was something in me that And that's when I
(35:04):
talk about this new relationship I have with the concept
of something bigger than me, which I don't see in.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Like visions or in like you know, angels.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
What I do often see it in is in other people,
which is how it manifests for me. But yeah, been
there since and last year I got as close to
that place as I've been in twenty three years. I'd
say last spring, I was thousands of miles away from
my family. I was going through an incredible disruption in
my personal life. I was insanely dysregulated. Instead of drugs
(35:36):
and alcohol for many years, I'd started to find myself
dependent on others, especially like a partner, my children, even
as like a source of safety and support for myself.
And that was all kind of ripped away for me
as my career took me places where I couldn't just
take my family anymore, and I was starting to really
feel disassociated from some of the long term relationships I'd
(35:59):
been on in my life. And thankfully I got back
right back into all the stuff that I do. And
here I am now a year later, and I feel
more hopeful and more in many ways alive than I
think I ever have. And I'm gonna be fifty in
a few weeks, and I feel I was like when
I was a kids, Like fifty, that's so old. Oh
my god, I'm never gonna feel alive at fifty, And
(36:22):
I feel very much alive.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That's beautiful. Man. What do you think happens when you die? Now?
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Then I think two things.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Well, the fantasy version of it, if we get to
each have like our fantasy version, which would be lovely,
is like a float up or a way into some
like other dimension where there's this grand cinema that's like infinite,
and it's like we all hang out there together and
it's all love and there's no more distinctions between us
based upon silly things like race, color, creed, gender, et cetera.
(36:53):
We're all just these you know, beings, but we're all
the world one. But it'd be really cool to like
watch the sorrow full sad moments and the highlight reels
and the wonderful moments of like our lives almost like
on a giant movie screen together and we could laugh
together and then hold each other and be like, oh
my god, I'm so sad you had to go through that,
or oh my god, look at that awful thing I did,
(37:15):
and why would I do that?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Oh my god, I had.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
To learn something about stuff. So that's one version that's
very poetic and cinematic. I also just love the idea
that the energy continues on and eventually this illusion that
we've created for ourselves that we're all separate, it runs
its course. It's not necessary anymore, and all that energy
kind of recoagulates back into a nice little nesting ball
(37:40):
and we get take a good couple you know, infiniti's
worth of nappy, and then we get tired of that,
and then we explode and wake up and big bang
ourselves back into a couple infinities of playing around out
here in a very Alan Watson kind of.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Getting an experienced stuff. You know, I don't know, man,
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
But if it all sounds to anybody out there like
I know what the fuck I'm talking about, I do not.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
One thing I know for sure is I don't know shit.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Well agree to disagree, So you absolutely bang on that
exactly what happens. You go to heaven and its film
with your favorite thing.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
What's your favorite thing?
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And Reese's peanut butter cups.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, they're fucking every everywhere you live. The wolves are
made out of recist peanut peanut butter cups. Take a
fist for whatever you want to. Everyone's really excited to
see you in heaven, but they want to talk to
you about your life. They want to talk to you
about your life through film. And the first thing they
ask you is, what is the first film you remember seeing?
David Dismuchi The Muppet Movie. What a fucking great first film. Yeah,
(38:45):
the perfect first film.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
It's such a it's so embedded in my consciousness, going
with Brian Bishop and his mother, Kathy Bishop. And not
only is it the first film I remember seeing, it's
the first film I remember seeing in a cinema. I
mean it's probably pre school aged and sitting in the
cinema and being transported seeing these disparate you know, outcasts,
(39:09):
find each other, find friendship, go on a road trip together,
have a dream, all put that dream together. And then
the music, I mean, the music to this day is
still very vitally important to me. Rainbow Connection. I'm going
to go back there someday, the Magic Store. So then,
I mean, I was so young that when at the
(39:30):
end of the picture, when they're in the dailies in
the screening room and Sweetems rips through the screen and
runs into the theater with them, I thought he was
in our theater.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
That's how young I was.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Because soon after that, on like a Sunday after church,
my parents took me to see Raiders the Lost Dark.
And I also remember thinking that the tarantulas in the
opening cave sequence were in the cinema with us. I
was that that young. But for the Muppet movie, life
is like a movie. We get to write our own endings.
We keep believing, we keep pretending we've done just what
(40:06):
we set out to do. I hope is the song
I get to sing when I'm taking those last breaths.
I feel that way, and it's a special magical film.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Perfect answer. You get twenty points right off.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
The back, I'm a winner.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
What is the film that made you cry the most?
Do you like crying? Are you a crier?
Speaker 4 (40:24):
I told you I had a bit of a crisis
last year, and it was really interesting because I've never
been uncomfortable with crying. I think it's healthy and it's normal,
and I certainly don't have any masculinity issues around it.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
But I just couldn't cry the last year, which is
so so strange to me. And recently, I have an
eleven and an eight year old and we have a
tradition we call pizza movie Night, where we watch movies
and eat pizza. I mean, it's simple as that, and
it's a really important part of our dynamic.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
And about a month or two ago, I gave them
their first time seeing one of my favorite films that
I would like to take with me to the other side,
which is in how a hal Ashby film called Harold
and Maud It. And when trouble plays and Maud is
saying goodbye to Harold and he is desperately trying to
(41:19):
hang on to something that it's time to let go of.
All three of us, me and the kids, we started crying,
and I and I and I cried. I remember watching
I've watched that film dozens dozens of times over the
years with my friends. In high school, we had a
VHS copy of it. We used to take all manner
of drugs and then you know, end the night by
putting on Harold and Maud before dawn and you know,
(41:41):
just liling away to all the beautiful philosophies that she
evokes in that beautiful script.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
But like, yeah, it makes me cry pretty hard.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So that was nice.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Another another excellent answer. I don't usually give points, but
you're already on fifty. Fuck yeah, now you like Horra.
What is the film that scares you the most?
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Texas Chained as Occur is to me, it's a masterpiece.
It's an incredible piece of cinema. Every detail, the production design,
the performances, the way it's directed, the cinematography, the pacing,
the writing, the camp mashed up with a burlesque body crazy,
darkest kind of humor you can imagine. Then it smashes
(42:20):
right into gritty, grizzly, visceral realness.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
In a way.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
The film that the reason I think it really fucked
me up so much as a kid, and why it
still gets my pulse going is that it's it's one
of the films that feels wrong, Like when you watch it,
you feel like I shouldn't I shouldn't be watching this.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
This isn't good for me.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
There's something so subversive in that, and Toby Hooper did
such a such a service to all of us and
making a film that did that.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
It's dangerous. It feels like a dangerous film.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
And it's there's other films that I can there's so
many films that have scared, disturbed, shocked, horrified me. But
it's it's tcm for me all the way.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
You know what, thinking about like it's kind of a
I mean this in no way as a judgment, but
just as a comparison. Like Mike flanagan films. I think
the way that he makes a film is like you
feel safe. He's so in control, it's such a he's
so clear on tone, on everything that you go into
one of his films and it's like being held. And
I think Texas changed some mass good. The reason it's
(43:19):
so horrible, I think it's a horrible film and it's
because it feels unsafe. It feels like there's an element
of it that feels really like, is this real? Like
it feels dirty, it feels like it.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Feels like people are really suffering. You get pushed into
the barbed wire.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
And the performances he was able to get out of
those those actors is just it's really inspiring. I mean,
I would love to be able to make a film
like that. I don't know if it's possible anymore.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
I don't know. In our current sensibility and the clean.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Look of what cameras do now, and the way that
all the information and data is absorbed by you know,
cameras these days, it's just something about it, and it
only gets more gruesome with time.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It's such a beautiful film.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
What is a film that you love?
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Most people don't like it, it is critically not acclaimed,
but you love it unconditionally. It could be one of
your z's.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I love the films of Coffin Joe, and I don't
feel like a lot of people love those. I mean,
this is interesting because I guess most film people would
say something like pink, flamingos or polyester is considered important cinema.
But I do think if you showed it to the
majority of people they'd go, this is fucked up, this
is disgusting. And I think films like Polyester and Pink
(44:36):
Flamingos are very special. I also really love like body
dumb comedy like meat Balls. I think that's such a
great film. I watch it with some regularity. I showed
that to the kids recently. I guess that's very beloved though,
isn't it. I'm trying to think of, like, what's one
that people are just like, fuck this dumb movie and
I love it.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Yeah. Maybe it's like the John Waters stuff or the
yeah like, oh yeah, you know what am I talking about?
I have you name it?
Speaker 4 (45:04):
At midnight I'll Possess your Corpse and Wizard of Gore
and there's you.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Know, children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
And all the like the Z and Gore horror that
most people wouldn't watch. But if I had my brothers
every Friday night, I would get to put on a
cape and make up and host like a cable access
for midnight theater and get to have, you know, show
people all these really bad films.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
I was a teenage were Wolf et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, okay, great, what is On the other hand, the
film that you used to have, but you've watched recently
and you've gone, oh, I don't like this anymore, probably
because you have changed.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
I had a really interesting, tricky experience recently watching because
Halloween's a big deal to me.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I love Halloween.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
I throw I think the best Halloween party that anyone
has ever thrown or ever will throw.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
It's a very important special occasion for me.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
And several years ago for Halloween, I dressed up as
ace Ventura when he's in the mental hospital in the
ballerina dress, and then my partner was dressed up as
Einhorn and then looking like watching it recently with the kids,
I just it didn't. It didn't hit for me the
way that I thought. I also found it rather transphobic
(46:19):
and kind of like.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I didn't really like I didn't get it.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
Yeah, yeah, I think that was one. I think he's
a genius, though I would I wish. I feel like
I keep hearing that Jim has retired from acting in
many regards, and that makes me sad because he's one
of those people that I always thought it would be
so cool to do, Like remember when he did Marlboroughman
with Ewan McGregor, like when he does the like obviously,
(46:42):
Eternal Sunshine is a classic masterpiece, but like I just
always hoped and prayed i'd get a chance to get
in the ring with him and do something like really
really weird.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
You know. Yeah, he's very, very good. What is the
film that means the most to you?
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Not necessarily the film itself is good, but the experience
you had seeing that film will always make it meaningful
to you.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
I'm going to go back to the Muppet Movie.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Okay, I can always do that with me.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
That really changed my life.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
And I also think it's really important to point out
the significance of Stanley Kubrick's two thousand and one, a
Space Odyssey.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
That was a film.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
And I was already a big science fiction nerd and
really loved comic books and genre and sci fi. I'd
seen some cool stuff by the time I saw two
thousand and one.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
But it changed me.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
It changed things, As the Joker says, you've changed things.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
It changed things. It changed my consciousness.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
It shifted the way I consider the possibility of what
we get to do. And this is way before I
ever considered that I might do this stuff professionally. It's
just it changed the way I saw the human like creative.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
I don't know it changed me.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
I watched two thousand and one quite late because I
knew I wanted this see it on the big screen,
so I didn't. I waited until it was like on somewhere,
so I only saw it maybe like ten years ago
or maybe less than that. And it's fucking brilliant. And
I was like pleased how brilliant it was. Like it
wasn't like, oh, yeah, this has been overrated, but I
didn't realize how weird it was. And also that it
was made before they landed on the moon, and shit,
(48:19):
is that right?
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Sixty nine?
Speaker 4 (48:21):
It was made in sixty nine. He or he maybe
shot it in sixty eight.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I think, yeah, sixty seven.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
So the sort of vision of space. Yeah, it's fucking amazing.
It's it amazing that he did.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
He's he's he's he's like Shakespeare.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
He's like one of those people in our history of
humanity where you just look at the body of work
and you go, that's not human. That wasn't a human being.
There's no human that did that. That's impossible.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
You put his body of work back to back to
back to back.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
Just do like a you know, a kubric month for
yourself at some point, and it'll it'll it'll shake any
illusion you ever have out of the idea that you're
going to make anything really that.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, what is the film you most relate to?
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Film I most relate to is I think the Muppet Movie.
I really feel like that movie encapsulates a lot of
my thoughts and ideas about the human experience in a
beautiful way. And you know, the most personal thing I
probably have done yet, although I'm about to, I've got
(49:25):
a couple of things coming soon. I wrote and acted
in a film called Animals, which is deeply personal. It's
not it's as much about about people's addiction to drugs
as it is people's addiction to one another.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
And so that's that's certainly something. Yeah, that's a good answer,
David Mont. You and this is the reason people come
to this podcast. What's the sexiest film you've ever seen?
Speaker 3 (49:50):
The sexiest film?
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Like, the film that like just turned me on in
every way is God. There's so many I love second
and sensuality and films and cinema. I'd say The Hunger, Yes,
that's a.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Really special film.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
And the way it evokes eroticism to me as a
kid was very hot when I was like a lot
of this.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Stuff is what set us in motion as sexual beings.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Anyway, A lot of the visual stimulation we took, obviously,
the psychology of our childhoods and who we are born
biologically and just how we were constructed shapes that stuff.
But I do think movies have a profound effect on
what turns us on. And I remember seeing Jess Franco's
Vampiris Lesbos as a kid and being like, oh, sexy
vampire women, and like the three brides of Dracula, and
(50:41):
in the way that they're they're portrayed in Francis Ford
Coppola's Bromstokers Dracula. That really got me going as a kid,
and then as an adult it's still you know, I
love so much of that stuff, certainly stuff.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
That exists outside the boundaries of.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Mononormative stuff and the way it's portrayed in cinema. I
remember I was too young to watch, but I somehow
has managed to get my hands on a copy of
Henry in June about Henry and June Miller starring an
incredible cast doesn't have it but like there.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Was like, oh, oh god, that was that was a going.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Sorry, I keep going. I love that subject. It's a
great subject.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
Angel Heart really turned.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Me on as a kid. That was super hot.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Yeah, there's a subcategory traveling boners, worrying Why Dunes, the
film you found a rising that you went or you shit?
Speaker 4 (51:42):
For sure, I think that when I was like, these
are all things, it was like I was so young
seeing all of the year like the Friday the Thirteenth
movies where you'd see the boobs and then the violence
would come right after. It was really troubling to me
as a kid. Halloween has like a hot, sexy makeout
(52:03):
moment and then all of a sudden, it's you know,
choking and murder, and that was It was confusing for
me and distressing.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I was your upbringing. It's like, yeah, the proof of
what you've been to is like this leads to this.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
I was so incredibly turned on as a little boy
watching Blade Runner and the characters of PRIs and some
of the other replicants. There was something about them, the
makeups and the designs and stuff that was so hot
for me. And I felt guilty about it for sure.
(52:40):
Felt really like that was a trick. Those were all
really tricky, you know, It's all It's always tricky. Sex
will always be tricky for me and with me because
of the programming that I was, you know, plugged into
as a kid, but also because I just I kind
of my identity. As the older I get, the more
I kind of start to like really it continues to
(53:01):
take its own shape and it continues to change, and
so like what turns me on, what I'm at, who
I'm attracted to, all that stuff is.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Like for me, pretty fluid and.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
It and it always comes with a good healthy dose
of like weird guilt and shame that I want to
use cinema to work through as well.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, so yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
What is objectively the greatest film ever made might not
be your favorite, but it is the pinnacle of all cinema.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
It's a tie to me, okay, and it is.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
I go back to two thousand and one A Space
Odyssey and Citizen Kane. When I watch both of those films,
the reason I maybe I'm gonna give Kane the edge
is because one yeah, okay, okay, okay, I'm not gonna
I'm gonna I'm gonna commit I'm gonna say, Citizen Kane,
the performance he's directing himself. I just directed myself this
(53:58):
week for the first time ever, sitting at Video Village,
and I was dressed as a full on Bigfoot and
I'm sitting in dressed in a full bigfoot costume, trying
to deliver performance notes and give lighting, you know, input
in camera notes.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Was out of control, ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (54:16):
Imagine the time, the effort, the vision, the execution that
he was able to put into constructing, executing making that film.
It's more than mind boggling. I just watch it every
few years and I'm like, how the fuck did one
human being have the.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
Power to manifest this?
Speaker 1 (54:39):
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
What's yours?
Speaker 2 (54:41):
I think the greatest? My greatest is Don't Live Now. Yeah, Well,
Susanka ain't wrong, you't know wrong. What is the film
you could or have? What's the most? Over and over again, it's.
Speaker 4 (54:54):
A tie between Harold and Maud and Screw.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
When I was a kid, I just I loved Scrooged.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
I watched it over and over and over again, and
then in the years since, I do have a number
of comfort films, though Texas Chainsaws one of them, have
certainly watched a lot of like House on Haunted Hill.
The Haunting the Tingler, for some reason, is one of
those old William Castle films that I've seen too many times.
(55:24):
Any Yeah, but I think it's somewhere between the Probably
probably Harold and Mod would edgit out, just because there
was so many nights in high school that we would
end our night in some parents' basement passing out and
we popped. We always had our copy of Harold and
maudda pop and it just it was like there was
so many mantras in there for us.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
What's the worst film you've ever seen?
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Worst film I've ever seen was I'm sorry that I'm
going to splank on the name for a second, but
it was one of the.
Speaker 3 (55:53):
Larry the Cable Guy movies, and it was just riddled with.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
Like Islamophobia and like bad jill and terrible performance. And
it was such a sad experience to watch because they
had like this really amazing actor in it, and I
remember thinking like that may happen to me.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Someday.
Speaker 4 (56:11):
It may be like a really like you know, I
might end up like doing something like that and it
would break my heart.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, what is the film that made you laugh the most.
Speaker 4 (56:20):
When I was a little boy, I snuck into the
theater and I saw Tom Hanks and Bachelor Party, and
I laughed so hard. I fell out of my chair,
like peeing, laughing so hard, especially when the guy who's
spying on the bachelor party falls from the window and
then his butt cheeks are in the like moon roof
of the car.
Speaker 3 (56:41):
That made me laugh really really hard, so hard.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
I yeah, I split a seam and that's up there.
I mean, I think the first time I didn't. I
wasn't familiar with Sasha Baron Khan, and I remember going
to the cinema because everyone was talking about Bora Yeah,
and I didn't see it coming.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
It just took me.
Speaker 4 (57:06):
It took me out of my I mean, I like levitated.
I was laughing and so uncomfortable. It made me so
deeply uncomfortable. That was one of those weird things that
felt like this is subversity on another level. And I
haven't gone back to it in a long time, so
I don't know how that would affect me today, but
it really fucked me up as funny as shit.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
You've been really wonderful, thanks Brett. However, when a giant
starfist was trying to crush the planet, and you thought,
but I care, I care about people, I care about
the future of this planet.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
I must save them.
Speaker 2 (57:43):
And you stood in the way of this giant stuffas
and it crushed you to death, and all your organs
splashed together. And I was walking past me the coffee
and I guess anyone's seen David desmoted, And I said,
I think it was he just saved the world, man,
David spot it really Yeah, he's over there. And I
look over and You're like, you look like tarmac, you
(58:05):
know that time. I'm like fucking I was like, guys,
we got to give me a hand here. So we
get like diggers. We have to dig up the road
just to get you. But there's chunks of you know,
cement everything. Anyway, I've only to stuff you in the coffin.
The coffin's rammed. You wouldn't be able to do on
any repisodes of great conversations in this coffin.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
There's no room.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
There's only enough room in this coffin for me to
slip one DVD for you to take across to the
other side. And on the other side this movie night
every night, what film are you taking to show the
people of Heaven Reese's Peanut butter Cups in Heaven?
Speaker 3 (58:38):
David, this morning, go the Muppet Movie.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You are welcome there. They are going to be so
fucking happy. David Dispoting. Tell people what they should be
looking out for and watching and listening to starting you
coming up in the future.
Speaker 4 (58:53):
Please thank you, Brett. I hope everybody out there enjoyed
our conversation. Thank you for listening. And if you're struggling
right now, you feel alone, you feel you might harm yourself,
if you don't see your way out, please google SAMSA, SAMHSA.
It's got a bunch of portals of resources for ways
that you can get free help. You don't need money
to get help. You are not alone. I would hope
(59:13):
if you are looking for something entertaining you might watch
Murder Bot on Apple. It's currently streaming a film Life
if Chuck is out now. The film Dust Bunny from
Brian Fuller will be coming soon. One Piece season two
will be airing on Netflix in the near future. And
I'm also very excited to report that my comic books
are currently available at your local comic store, including Count Crowley,
(59:36):
The Creature Commandos, Nights Versus Samurai, and several upcoming that
I will be announcing soon.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Thank you than.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Well, an absolute joy. I have really enjoyed this. Thank
you very much for spending your time with me. And
happy fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 4 (59:52):
Thank you, Brett, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm
going to take my friends to go see a play
now what a crewshment? I know?
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
So thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Good day.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
So that was episode three hundred and fifty seven. Head
over to the Patreon at patroon dot com Forward Slash
pret Goodsteing for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets
and video with David.
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Goes Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Give us a five star writing and write about a
film that means the most of you and my It's
a lovely thing to read it house numbers and it's
really appreciating. My nighbor Marien loves it. Thank you so
much to David forgiving me his time. Thanks to Scruby's
PIP and the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace
for producing it. Thanks to iHeartMedia and Miilferrell's Big Money
Players Network. Faced thanks to Adamitgison for the graphics and
miss Alighting for the photography. Come and join me next
week for another amazing episode with a very special guest.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
You're going to love that one. Thank you for listening.
I hope you're all well.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
That's it for now, but in the meantime, have a
lovely week and please be excellent to each others.
Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Back back backs out sax bys and six by backs
out backs back back backs out sax by back back
back
Look out. It's only films to be buried with.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with. My
name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a
writer and director, a chain reaction, and I love films.
As Joan Didion once said, we tell ourselves stories in
order to live. We watch the taste of things in
order to be hungry, and then you know, eat stuff.
Every week I invite a special guest diver. I tell
them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their
lives through the films. The men the most of them.
(00:36):
Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Sharon Stone, and
even Forms. But this week we have the award winning actor, writer,
producer and filmmaker David Dismulchin. My comedy special Second Best
Night of Your Life is streaming now on Max and Skye.
Give it a watch, you'll fucking love it. Head over
to the Patreon at patreon dot com. Forward to Last
Brett Goldstein, where you get an extra twenty minutes of
(00:57):
chat with David. He tells a very good secret about
beginnings and endings, and you get the whole episode, uncut,
adfree and as a video check it out over at
patreon dot com. Forward Slash Bret gold Team, So David Desmulchin.
You might know David from his roles in Prisoners, Dark Knight, June,
Murder Bot, Life of Chuck, Late Night with the Devil,
(01:17):
all sorts. He's in everything. We recorded this over zoom.
We had such a lovely time. I do think I
have to do a trigger warning. I very rarely do these,
but we do have a discussion about suicide, and if
that is something you don't want to listen to, then
feel free to skip this one and sending you love.
If that's the case, that's it for now. I very
much think you're going to enjoy this one. I very
much hope you enjoy episode three hundred and fifty seven
(01:40):
of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to
Films to be Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein,
and I am joined today by an actor legend, a
(02:01):
Life of Chucker, a suicide squadn a.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Prisoner no.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
A Boogie Manner, a Murder butter, a Late Night with
the Devil, a great conversationalist, a Oppenheimer. He is in
everything you've ever loved. He is a true a boogie manner.
Whenever you see him, you know you're in for a treat.
(02:28):
I can't believe he's here. He's a hero, a legend
and a man, and he's sitting right across from me
on a zoom. Please, welcome to the show. It's the
brilliant David dis Motune.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Brad.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
That was That was the best introduction I've ever received
in my entire career, in my life, So thank you
very much.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's such a great moment for me.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I'm such a fan of yours and I'm grateful I
get to occupy your time and attention for the show.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Makes me very happy.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'm very excited to do this with you. We've met
very briefly a couple of times. I think I saw
you at the Boogeyman premiere a preview. What was that
fright Fest.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Something like that or or overlaried or something.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, And then I saw you at a party the
night before party.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
And then I saw you once but you didn't see me.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I think I was at Soho House in London and
I was there with Peter Capaldi having a coffee and
you walk past and I said, that's Brett Goldstein and
he said, you just never know who you're going to
see here.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
David, And he said, who the fuck is that?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
David?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So much to talk about. Where do we even start? Well,
let's start with Life of Chuck, which I loved so much. Thanks,
and you're you're a small but beautiful memorable part in it,
like everyone Everyone's. More I like about the film is
everyone's actually a small part in that film, which I
think is the message of it.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
It's true even I mean Tom is billed as Chuck.
It's the Life of Chuck, and he's the star of
the film, if you will. But to me, the cohesive
like through line, narrative performance is actually rests on the
shoulders in many ways of Chewetel's character. And then it's
this really fantastic way of looking at the world through
(04:17):
the lens of you know, everything from your thinking of
like a Robert Altman film to like a Carson mcculler's novel.
It's just like there's all these different characters and humans
that populate the space of someone's life, and whether they're
existing in reality or in memory. Mike Flanagan keeps calling
into question as the story progresses, and I get to
(04:38):
have one little interaction, but it's a special and beautiful interaction,
and I'm really glad you liked the film. I think
the film's beautiful, and I love I love Mike's work.
And I felt a great deal of pressure in going
to do it because a I've been friends with Mike
for a long time, and so when you finally get
the opportunity to work with one of your friends or
for one of your friends, you feel like, and at
(05:00):
least I do an extra sense of oh my goodness, Wow,
this is something we've been talking about for so long.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
It's finally happening. I hope I don't disappoint.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
But also with my character's odd, beautiful little monologue, it's
at the top of the film, and it really tonally
in about a paragraph and a half, kind of sets
a mood in a sense for this film you're about
to experience. So I remember as I was getting ready
to do it, thinking, oh, this is really like you
got to really hit the right notes here, and Mike
(05:30):
just helped me get it.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And I'm very very Yeah, it's very pleased.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It's a great experience that you've done that a lot
of thing because you're that same thing in Boogeyman. You
set the tone. You're the first. You're selling us the fear.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Of tone setter.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Dave does Walch, a character actor tone setter, h No.
I think the thing that I ask directors the most
about before we go to work is I get less
interested in characters psycho. I think the psychology, the backstory,
and all that wonderful fun stuff. Unless the director feels
really imperative to make sure and share something with me
that they think is going to affect something in the
(06:09):
way I perform, behave, or maybe get blocked. That interior
work is just my responsibility to do on my own
and I those conversations to me are less productive on
set unless you're in a crisis and you're trying to
solve a problem.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
To me, it's the build up conversations.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And I have a number of directors that I've been
fortunate enough to work with a couple of times or more,
and it's always tone. I ask them, please send me
any albums, any records, any films, any books, any pieces
of art. I have one director in particular who just
sends me artwork and it helps me get my head
around tone. And he's done it every film we've made together,
(06:44):
and I find it incredibly useful. Maybe some people that's
I don't know not but I.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's that's what I was going to ask because in
Life of Check everyone is so disparate and small, small
amount of screen time, I suppose, but tinally everyone's in
the same film, And I wondered how he did that,
how much conversation there was, because I'm assuming you there
for a day.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I was there for a day.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
I flew down for a day, and then we shot
the next day, and then I was gone. And Mike
did a really good job over the phone. He would
keep I think he called each of us and set
up through his Really he's a really good communicator, so
he was able to communicate the tonality and kind of
what his hopes and dreams were for the world of
(07:26):
the film, but also for the individual characters. And then
on the day he's really kind of it's kind of
wonderful to work with Mike because he has the same
crew often and he's got to flow around him of
people that just kind of go from one project to
the next, and it feels a bit like, you know,
this just traveling circus.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And he one of the things he does.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
That's really useful is he sends you ahead of time
his shot list. It's part of the call sheet actually,
so you get your sides with shot lists, so you
know the way we're going to be covering the scene,
and then we can have a quick conversation, if you know,
for the sake of the way that the scenes play out.
In what I was doing, it's a series of conversations
(08:04):
that Chutel's having with the different parents at a parent
teacher conference. So instead of covering both sides of the table,
one you know, interaction after the next, we blocked it
where it's like we're going to shoot all the parents
coverage for the morning, then we're going to turn around
and we shoot all the teacher coverage for the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And because Mike, as I think.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
All great directors are such good communicators, I knew, I
knew what he needed, and the slight adjustments he was
making over the course of shooting our.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Stuff was just little little little ticks and stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I love his stuff. I think he's a real real
special one. I like how emotional all his stuff is,
even his really really scary stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
It's very moving.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
He really Yeah, he really makes films we love I
think like you really care.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I'm a fan of all shades of genre, the full
spectrum when it comes to horror, like I'm a big
I love camp, I love z I love Gore, but
dialed in at the end of the day. The thing
that really moves me the most when it comes to
horror and I and Life of Chuck by the way,
for those who are you know, enjoying our conversation right now,
is not what I would describe as a horror film.
But most of my most of Mike's work does live
(09:10):
in that space. And and there's something to me about
like playing it straight, playing the drama of the given
circumstances and not trying to plus up the horror anyways,
what makes stuff more meaningful. So when you watch something
like you know, The Midnight Mass or Usher or these
other shows that have been so wonderful that Mike's created
(09:30):
and made, that's where that that's where that when you
when you watch a character who's you know, going through
a crisis that you can relate to and you feel like,
oh my god, I understand that feeling, and then they
get attacked by you know, blood sucking monster. It's just
the snakes are so much better.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You know what z Z like.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
There's B films. Yeah, you'd be like, oh, there's a
B like B like like D like z Z is
like you know, ed Wood.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Like her Sharknado is the content temporary version of maybe
what people would consider old Herschel Gordon Lewis films, or
you know, I grew up as a kid. I was
just talking about this. I have a couple of friends
who I grew up with visiting me here in La
and when we were kids, we'd ride our bikes to
this video store and the teenagers stone behind the counter.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
It was not a corporate chain.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
It was like a mom and pop shop, so they
didn't give care about you being underage, so you could
just grab anything off the shelf and take it home
and watch it.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And I watched a lot of good Z films back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I'd say, what about you played the leads. You did
a lead role in a great, great film which was
also a huge success, I believe Late Night with the Devil,
which I loved I went to see at the Chinese
Theater in Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And we can do so.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Much, and I have to ask as a British person.
Did you watch guys to watch there? It is?
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It is hes of it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I did.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
I was a longtime fan of ghost Watch films like Ghostwatch,
Lake Mungo and Blair Witch.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Lake Mungo is so fucking good.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
It's a masterpiece and you know what's wild. Joel Anderson,
who made Mungo, was the person who is friends with
the filmmakers of Late Night with the Devil. He read
their script. He brought that script to Stephen Schneider and
Roy Lee, who are the American producers on it, who
brought me to the film because I'm friends with Roy
and Roy had said, David did filmmakers, and I agree, like,
(11:28):
you'd be great for the role. We're making this little film.
Would you like to get involved? It's going to be
something small, but I think you'd really enjoy it. So
I read the script and I was flipped out. I
was like, hey, yes, I love this script, but be like,
I'm so. I was so thrilled that they even considered me,
because I don't if I was a producer, casting director,
I don't think reading Late Night with the Devil, I
(11:49):
would go Dave Dismalchin, there's a number of other actors
that I would imagine ahead of me, and I you
never know the whole story. Maybe they went to all
of them and then they were just like, who else
can we go to?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
But I don't care. The point is I got to do.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
It, and it was the first first time I have
a production company. It was the first film because I
have a company called Good Fiend Films, and we're the
thrust of what I want to do is tell genre stories,
horror and science fiction, but wrestling with big questions and
identity issues. And it was just perfect timing because I mean,
I'm sure you've experienced this. You've been, you know, a
(12:24):
successful and talented and you know, very kind of across
the spectrum performer, comedian, actor, writer. But in the last
few years, all of a sudden, your life just changed
drastically in many ways. I feel similarly in the last
few years, not to the degree of I mean, your success,
but I've had some success that has changed the way
(12:45):
that like interactions in public take place, the amount of
press that I am asked and have the great gratitude
to get to do to promote things that I care about.
But I've had to you know, I'm going to be
fifty this year and over the many years since teenagehood,
where you're trying to create an identity just to attract
the you know, people you're attracted to, or maybe to
(13:06):
keep yourself safe from the social fears that you have
into my adulthood, where my profession and my personal life
and just being a member of society is like about
creating a kind of exterior thing that keeps you both
safe and is also a presentation of I think the
best version that you want people to really believe about
(13:28):
you and Jack in this strip, and I was wrestling
with all that stuff while I was going to make this.
I was like, what's the real, authentic me? If I
strip everything away, who is the real me? And I
think he's a nerd that likes reading comic books, that
likes watching horror movies. I don't need to always I
was really insecure getting into the film and television business,
coming from theater, being like I only am wanting to
do you know, independent drama, and like don't I can't.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Like there's something that felt like, ah, is it okay
that I like this nerdy stuff? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
And Jack Delroy is is that to presentational? He's a
talk show host, but privately he's deeply struggling. So thank
you for going and seeing it, and thank you for
saying what you said. I'm really proud of the.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Film and about to do it. It's really great. How
do you cope with your changed circumstances in your normal life?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
I have about a two and on a rougher day,
three hours of time that's dedicated to i'd say, my
my wellness, like just being as conscious and present as possible.
In May, I celebrated twenty three years of sobriety, and
so I'm still a part of thank you. I'm still
(14:40):
a part of working a program that involves me getting
an opportunity once a day, sometimes twice a day, to
be surrounded by other people who share similar, you know,
struggles and needs. And the gift is what I look
at it as I have I meditate, I do yoga
when I wake up, I exercise.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I have a therapist that I really appreciate.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
I journal, and then I try to be really diligent
about surrounding my innermost circle with people that not only
keep me grounded and honest, but also who I can
feel safe with. But I'm learning a lot. I learn
every day. I learned the choices that I make. The
ramifications for the choices that I make, are often frustrating.
(15:24):
If I'm in my like what I call king baby mode,
when I'm not conscious and when I'm like when my
eight year old is running the show and it's like, well,
why can't I go do this thing that just other
people can do? I used to do that as an addict,
I go, well, how come I can't do Everyone else
gets to smoke pot, everyone else can drink a glass
of wine?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Why can't It's not fair? A life is not fair.
There's no such thing as fair.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
But as someone who's continuing to work and get in
more and more high profile projects or maybe bigger things, I.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Go, well, why can't I just go do this thing?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Or sometimes it's simple things like just take my kids
to go do something without being bothered whatever it's like,
or I don't know, do stuff that I'd be like what.
But But then when I'm conscious and I have the
presence of gratitude, and I step back and I go, wait, man,
look at what you get to do, Look at the
what's the trade here? It's incredibly tipped in my favor.
(16:16):
I think the scale is how about yourself? Has it
been mostly positive or would you say mixed bag for you?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, hang on a second, this isn't about me, no,
I know, I'm not for that.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
This was a conversation about Well.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
One thing we do have to talk about, though, is
you have a show of your own which is about death. Yeah,
the Trader great conversations, Yes, tell us more so.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I would love to have you come climb in a
casket with me sometimes, Brett.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It was it started. I thought, very funny.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
My friend Elan, who actually produces for my produced Life
at Chunk producing the new Carry series. But Elan he
approached me and said, hey, I'm doing a brand some
branding work with this casket company.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I think you should come be like a spokesperson for them.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
And I thought that was so hilarious because I mean,
I am a vampire. I do sleep, you know, the
bottom of my castle at night and during the day,
I should say, I drink blood. I was like, oh,
that's great, I can promote caskets. And at first it
was a bit of like a getchy fun thing.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But then I met.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
These people who is this little small company that were
like they're trying, They're trying to enter the game. It's
it's basically in the States, a very monopolized industry, the
business of death. And so let's say you lose. And
I've experienced it a number of times in recent years.
Both of my parents have passed and others that I love.
So you go, someone's dead, You're in trauma, you're in grief.
(17:49):
All of a sudden, you're confronted with like a car
salesman who's like, here at the home, here's here's the model.
Do you want the one that you really loved your
parents for twenty thousand? Do you want the one that
you kind of love them for well, or do you
want that I didn't really have a relationship with my
parents for eight So these guys said, the law states
that you don't have to buy the caskets that are
(18:09):
being sold to you. You can get them sent from
even a costco if you wanted to. And they're offering
things at like a fifth of the market value at
some point because they don't think it's fair for people
to have to go into debt just to bury a
loved one.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
So I was like, this is a good thing.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Then Elon goes, what if we had a little podcast,
or you and a friend getting adjacent caskets. You lay
there and talk about whatever they want to talk about,
if they're on a tour, doing a comedy special, if
they're a musician.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
But then let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
About the end of life, because it is something that
I would love to see more normalized. I was raised
in a really religious atmosphere probably explains my love of horror,
where the answers that you were given about end of
life were like final. They were very simple, and if
you couldn't wrap your head around it, you were wrong.
Basic right, And it really messed me up as a
(18:58):
kid because I had so many questions and I was
so curious about what happens after we go and where
does science and anything maybe we might call other stuff
meet Like all that was so fa So in doing
the show Grave Conversations, it's like everybody from you know,
Kamil nan Gianni gets in and makes me laugh and
we're mutual friends with Camille, but then he's got me
(19:18):
crying to really great you know, musicians, directors. I just
James Gunn was just in the other day and we're
talking about Superman and then the next thing, you know,
we're talking about funeral planning and the fear that we
sometimes have when it comes to the stuff. So that's
what it is, and I'm really proud of it.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
It's it's something I really love doing.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
That is rights up my street. That is that is
a rights ut Miami. One other question for you about
acting and stuff. I'm so curious because you appear in
so many things, sometimes in a big part, sometimes in
the small part. But like looking at your CV fact,
you know, it's a fucking incredible CV. You've done so
many great films, and I'm wondering if you have any
(19:59):
like if you're arriving, say Oppenheimer, which is this huge,
huge film filled with huge stars and everything like that.
What I'm asking you is, let's say you arrived in
the middle of one of these films, it's well underway.
How do you approach fitting in? I spoke when you're
on a big new project, Are you're really going to
be there probably for a short period of time. Do
(20:20):
you have tricks or is it just you see how
it you just feel it out.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Oppenheimer is a really good example in answering that question,
because I showed up on the film they were already
into production. I had worked with the director previously once,
which was the first time I'd ever been on a
film set, and that was so long ago. I mean
that was I shot with him in two thousand and seven,
and I went to do Oppenheimer in two thousand and
(20:46):
twenty two. I think, so what fifteen years later, all
of a sudden, I'm back in I'd gotten the opportunity
to read the full script one time at Universal, so
I got a sense of the world that was being built.
But honestly, a lot of it was going over my
head because I was trying to read it in one
sitting and it was a dense script and I was
in a locked room. I got to meet with him
(21:07):
and talk to him briefly in his office, where he
really just said something to the effect of all I
kind of like, I know, you'll know what to do
or something. We talked a bit about my character Borden.
But yeah, So I showed up in New Mexico and
all of the actors portraying the different scientists, obviously, Killian,
Robert and other leads had been on the job for
(21:30):
at least a month maybe, so they had a rapport.
They had an energetic kind of tonal vibe going. There's
a rhythm to the way that all directors make their films,
and especially with someone as a student talented as Nolan is,
where it's the train is just going and everybody is
on board because he's so good at communicating vision. So
what I do and I try to process the nerves
(21:52):
as best I can doing all the stuff I told
you early, Get up a little bit earlier, even if
I have to to make sure I get in some
good breath and yoga and focus and think and try
and clear my mind, open my mind, try and get
rid of expectations for myself, try and let go of
any pre planning performative stuff, especially when it comes.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
To line delivery.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I want to be memorized, obviously, but I really like
creating voice and posture and like physicality. But I don't
think it's healthy for me in the creative process to
pre plan the way I'm going to say things. It
just doesn't work very well for me in the final
experience of it all. And then I get there and
I immediately put on my if I'm able to, depending
(22:32):
on the set and the environment, put on my like absorption,
you know, cloak, which is now I'm going to start
just soaking in and that means from the moment I
get into like this set and meeting the base camp
ads and pas, to getting into hair and makeup, where
now you're going to start interacting with other actors, just
being as curious as possible, asking.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Questions like how's it going, Oh yeah, how are you doing?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Like how's everything, trying to pick up and gleam, what's
the sense that I'm getting, what's the vibe? And then
and then I get to set, and luckily for me,
I was not first up in the sense of I
was in the scene, but I was sitting adjacent to
this table where a bunch of people were conversating. So
I'm just doing my best to absorb the musicality, the
(23:16):
kind of vibe for a silly term, but like you
get it like way that things are going. And I know,
you can't become friends with people too quickly. It's just
it's unnatural and it's weird. But you can be curious
with people, you can have conversation with people. And fortunately
for us, no one was going back to their trailers
in between setups, and no one had their phones really
(23:37):
around I think that was just something Chris had asked
us to do, and in fact, drinking water instead of
bottled waters, we were drinking water out of like period
correct glasses. And we just sat around a table and
spoke and listened and talked, and by the time I
was ready to like engage with my first interaction with Chillan,
I felt comfortable.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
And it was funny because if you've seen the film
I'm sure most.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
People have, at this point, the first time I really
speak to him, it's it's kind of one of those
odd where I want to say so much to him,
and I want to give so much to Oppenheimer and
say all these things that I've experienced flying a bomber
and my experience, you know, seeing the missiles that the
Nazis were.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Shooting at England.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
And I did it once and Chris seemed happy and
he kind of compared. We had this moment where he
was chuckling a little bit and he's like, you ever
do like a Q and A after like a film screening,
or like you do one of those things and then
somebody one of the fans like approaches you and like
just shakes your hand a little too long, like stares you.
He's like, that's what you're He's like, that's what you're
(24:42):
doing that I love. I was like, that's exactly the guy.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
That's great. David. Yes, Brett, I've forgotten to tell you something.
Tell me.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I should have told you earlier. Actually maybe when we
were talking about your show. But fuck, I'll just I'm
just going to tell you, and then i'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I'll say it. You've died. You're dead. Dead.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, dead, I'm dead.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You're dead. Okay, how did you die?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
You get to choose.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I was crushed by a giant starfish.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Okay, so much like your character, you were crushed by
a giant starface. Suddenly, did you provoke the sturface?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, he was trying to take over the planet and
he was trying to crush the world.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Wow. So you're kind of a hero.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
And I wanted I wanted to I wanted to protect everybody,
and I have a a great fear of giant starfish.
But I was willing to take him on to keep
people safe. And then, motherfucking superhero.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Do you worry about death? I mean you I do.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Even just now when you said that, I get like, anxious,
like I right now feel very no, It's okay. I
have struggled with it since I was a little boy.
I was, like I think I said earlier, I was
raised in a religious environment where it was like, if
you be a good person, if you do what we
tell you to do, when you die, you're going to
(26:17):
live in eternal bliss. If you don't do what we
tell you, you're going to be cast into eternal pain
and suffering. And those are your choices, which aren't choices.
Then you're basically telling somebody, do what we tell you
to do, or you're going to be abandoned forever into
the you know, pits of.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Flames of hell.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
And tell that to like a six year old, and
see what that does to the curious mind, especially somebody
who's been confronted with the concepts of things like infinity.
I wrestled with it a lot, and I still do now.
What's been wonderful for me? So nearly lost my life
overdosed three times when I when I was in the
(26:56):
throes of my opiate addiction. I was a heroin addict,
and I was like once resurrected, resuscitated in an ambulance,
once resuscitated by other junkies who just shot me up
with saline and ice, and once more, I just woke
up thankfully after I don't know how long I was out.
I also survive pretty well as serious of a suicide.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Attempt as you can imagine.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
And I it's a paradox because I felt like, Okay,
life isn't worth living, because my presence in the world
causes more suffering on other people than my absence would.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So I felt in the time.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
You know, anyone who struggled deeply with depression, your mental illness,
it's a sad, sad, sad battle because the logic that
your brain says to you is stuff that's like taking
another hit of that drug is the only way you're
going to get through another day, which sadly just puts
you in the myers a more suffering or if you
just were to end your life today. Everybody that you
(27:58):
love may be sad for a few weeks, but their
ultimately their lives are going to be better off. All
of this is untrue. If you're hearing this and you
think that about yourself, it's a lie. It's not true,
and it's a trick that this bizarre miscalculating dysfunctional function
of our brain does when it actually thinks it's helping you.
(28:18):
Because you've been wounded at some point in your life,
probably when you were a kid, and it hurts so
bad that the thought of feeling that way ever again
is like an insurmountable concept. So you'll do anything to
avoid feeling that way. And to me, sometimes feeling and
thinking about death is one of those things, so I
get really anxious about it. I also have this new
relationship with whatever it is that is the big power
(28:42):
that I am so fascinated by, and it's become really loving,
which is really special. I've found like a new relationship
with it that isn't punishment or fear based, and so
I think I have new thoughts about it all the time,
and I certainly have no answers or major conclusions other
than and it's something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
That's all I got loved.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I ask you a very serious question. If you don't
want to answer, it will cut me asking the question
when you I did, and when you made that attempt,
do you remember what it felt like at the moment
of it happening, Like did you do you remember thinking
oh shit, or do you or it is it?
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Do you not remember the feeling of it?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
The sad thing is.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
The sad thing is because I've heard people I've heard
many times survivors of say bridge jumps or building jumps.
When someone survives, they say as soon as they jump,
they go, oh shit.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I wish I hadn't done that. I didn't.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
I remember laying in the bathtub and watching the water
turn redder and redder and redder, and thinking it's getting close,
like I'm I was feeling not excited.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
I was very sad.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
But I remember thinking, like the paint like the suffering
is is almost over. And I was a bit frustrated,
to be honest, because when I did it, I was
doing it and it is this such a sad state
that my mental state was so bad that I did
it in a place where I was going to be
(30:12):
found by someone that I just didn't think that person
would be home for like another day. That person ended
up coming or I thought they wouldn't be back at
least until much, much, much, much much later, and they
ended up coming back in finding the lock door, breaking it,
in getting the you know, ambulance, and then I woke
up in the hospital very sorry, I was. I kept
(30:33):
apologizing to everyone, but I also was. I was frustrated,
you know. And now as I sit here today, you
know I'm talking to you. I just spent this morning with,
you know, two of my best friends from childhood. I
have two beautiful, incredible children. I have dozens and dozens
(30:56):
of people who I love and who love me back.
I'm sitting here talking to somebody genuinely, Brett. I know
I say this every time I've met you, but like like,
I'm I'm like a deeply I'm a big fan of you.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Like it's really like exp I'm.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Sitting in an office from my weird little production company
that like, I don't know, it's like it's crazy that
I get to be here today considering all that that
I just told you about.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
So again, I just say, if you're listening to this.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
And you feel like you feel like that that mindset
I was describing makes sense to you, I promise it's
not true.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It is an illusion. And there is help. I just
hadn't gotten to help yet. That's what's so sad. And
the help that I had gotten wasn't the good.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
There's all kinds of help out there, and I know
it's frustrating when you've gotten help and then it doesn't work,
and then you're like, well, I tried, or I took
this medication, or I saw a therapist.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
It didn't work.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
People, It's fucking sucks. Sometimes it's not fair, but sometimes
it's like a bit roulette. The more times you spin
the wheel, the more opportunities you have to find the
thing that's going to work for you. So it took
me a number of spins of the roulette, but finally
I got the right you know, combination of you know,
therapy and recovery and psychiatry and spirituality all that shit.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
But no, it wasn't like, oh I got out.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I woke up in the hospital and all of a
sudden they gave me the right pill and I said,
I'm ready to be healed, and I was, you know,
res saved.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well. A, firstly, thank you very much for sharing that.
I really yeah, and knowing you the journey you're on
now where you are in your life is amazing. You
have a beautiful life and that's so lovely. And from
the moment where you woke up and you were frustrated,
do you have a sense of when of how long
it took to start to see the first light, the
(32:38):
first like, oh this this feeling is starting to go away.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
So the fur like I woke up in the hospital
and then I was I didn't have insurance, and this
would have been in two thousand, two thousand, the end
of two thousand, going in two thousand and one. I
was transferred to like a state facility, which is not
the nicest facility, but there was wonderful people that worked there.
You get Cuckoo's nest a bit, you know, it's like
(33:03):
that five and there's no U. Yeah, yeah, there's no method,
Christopher Lloyd. There's no method. One maintenance program for for
you in the in the in the state run facility,
they'll give you some aspirins and they strapped me to
a cot basically to kick the drugs. And it took
about ten five to ten days for I mean, just
(33:26):
awful withdrawals. And then it really sinks in when you're like,
holy shit, look at the state of my life.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Look how much wreckage I've caused.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Look at all the people I've harmed and stolen from
and heard and lied to and dah da da da da,
how am I going to ever live again?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
And you know.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
I was in there a couple of weeks and like
I had a really good therapist that was talking to me,
and I met some nice guys and just in the
in a round. But I remember I woke up and
looked up and I have three older siblings, and I
woke up and I thought it was a dream, and
all three of them were like looking down on me,
the way that like older siblings would look down at
their baby brother in the basinette. And my siblings had
(34:03):
found out about what had happened, and they'd all flown
up to Chicago to come and be there, and I
felt a glimmer of hope. Some friends came and visited
me and brought me McDonald's because the food was shit,
and brought me some cigarettes. And I felt a glimmer
of hope. And then and I just hung on to that.
That something in me shifted. I had a desire to live.
(34:28):
I felt like I tried so hard, so hard, and
there's something in me that was like there's something yet
to do, which sounds maybe narcissistic, like my life is
so important.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
That there's something to do, but it just it felt
that way.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
And by the way, if you're listening to this and
you think, oh, I've been there, and then I fucked
up again. I then went and moved into a rehab,
went into a sober living, relapsed, lived in a car,
got clean, relapsed again. I mean it took me another
couple of years. I didn't take my last use until
May tenth of two thousand, too. But there was a light,
there was something in me that And that's when I
(35:04):
talk about this new relationship I have with the concept
of something bigger than me, which I don't see in.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Like visions or in like you know, angels.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
What I do often see it in is in other people,
which is how it manifests for me. But yeah, been
there since and last year I got as close to
that place as I've been in twenty three years. I'd
say last spring, I was thousands of miles away from
my family. I was going through an incredible disruption in
my personal life. I was insanely dysregulated. Instead of drugs
(35:36):
and alcohol for many years, I'd started to find myself
dependent on others, especially like a partner, my children, even
as like a source of safety and support for myself.
And that was all kind of ripped away for me
as my career took me places where I couldn't just
take my family anymore, and I was starting to really
feel disassociated from some of the long term relationships I'd
(35:59):
been on in my life. And thankfully I got back
right back into all the stuff that I do. And
here I am now a year later, and I feel
more hopeful and more in many ways alive than I
think I ever have. And I'm gonna be fifty in
a few weeks, and I feel I was like when
I was a kids, Like fifty, that's so old. Oh
my god, I'm never gonna feel alive at fifty, And
(36:22):
I feel very much alive.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That's beautiful. Man. What do you think happens when you die? Now?
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Then I think two things.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Well, the fantasy version of it, if we get to
each have like our fantasy version, which would be lovely,
is like a float up or a way into some
like other dimension where there's this grand cinema that's like infinite,
and it's like we all hang out there together and
it's all love and there's no more distinctions between us
based upon silly things like race, color, creed, gender, et cetera.
(36:53):
We're all just these you know, beings, but we're all
the world one. But it'd be really cool to like
watch the sorrow full sad moments and the highlight reels
and the wonderful moments of like our lives almost like
on a giant movie screen together and we could laugh
together and then hold each other and be like, oh
my god, I'm so sad you had to go through that,
or oh my god, look at that awful thing I did,
(37:15):
and why would I do that?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Oh my god, I had.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
To learn something about stuff. So that's one version that's
very poetic and cinematic. I also just love the idea
that the energy continues on and eventually this illusion that
we've created for ourselves that we're all separate, it runs
its course. It's not necessary anymore, and all that energy
kind of recoagulates back into a nice little nesting ball
(37:40):
and we get take a good couple you know, infiniti's
worth of nappy, and then we get tired of that,
and then we explode and wake up and big bang
ourselves back into a couple infinities of playing around out
here in a very Alan Watson kind of.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Getting an experienced stuff. You know, I don't know, man,
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
But if it all sounds to anybody out there like
I know what the fuck I'm talking about, I do not.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
One thing I know for sure is I don't know shit.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Well agree to disagree, So you absolutely bang on that
exactly what happens. You go to heaven and its film
with your favorite thing.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
What's your favorite thing?
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And Reese's peanut butter cups.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, they're fucking every everywhere you live. The wolves are
made out of recist peanut peanut butter cups. Take a
fist for whatever you want to. Everyone's really excited to
see you in heaven, but they want to talk to
you about your life. They want to talk to you
about your life through film. And the first thing they
ask you is, what is the first film you remember seeing?
David Dismuchi The Muppet Movie. What a fucking great first film. Yeah,
(38:45):
the perfect first film.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
It's such a it's so embedded in my consciousness, going
with Brian Bishop and his mother, Kathy Bishop. And not
only is it the first film I remember seeing, it's
the first film I remember seeing in a cinema. I
mean it's probably pre school aged and sitting in the
cinema and being transported seeing these disparate you know, outcasts,
(39:09):
find each other, find friendship, go on a road trip together,
have a dream, all put that dream together. And then
the music, I mean, the music to this day is
still very vitally important to me. Rainbow Connection. I'm going
to go back there someday, the Magic Store. So then,
I mean, I was so young that when at the
(39:30):
end of the picture, when they're in the dailies in
the screening room and Sweetems rips through the screen and
runs into the theater with them, I thought he was
in our theater.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
That's how young I was.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Because soon after that, on like a Sunday after church,
my parents took me to see Raiders the Lost Dark.
And I also remember thinking that the tarantulas in the
opening cave sequence were in the cinema with us. I
was that that young. But for the Muppet movie, life
is like a movie. We get to write our own endings.
We keep believing, we keep pretending we've done just what
(40:06):
we set out to do. I hope is the song
I get to sing when I'm taking those last breaths.
I feel that way, and it's a special magical film.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Perfect answer. You get twenty points right off.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
The back, I'm a winner.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
What is the film that made you cry the most?
Do you like crying? Are you a crier?
Speaker 4 (40:24):
I told you I had a bit of a crisis
last year, and it was really interesting because I've never
been uncomfortable with crying. I think it's healthy and it's normal,
and I certainly don't have any masculinity issues around it.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
But I just couldn't cry the last year, which is
so so strange to me. And recently, I have an
eleven and an eight year old and we have a
tradition we call pizza movie Night, where we watch movies
and eat pizza. I mean, it's simple as that, and
it's a really important part of our dynamic.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
And about a month or two ago, I gave them
their first time seeing one of my favorite films that
I would like to take with me to the other side,
which is in how a hal Ashby film called Harold
and Maud It. And when trouble plays and Maud is
saying goodbye to Harold and he is desperately trying to
(41:19):
hang on to something that it's time to let go of.
All three of us, me and the kids, we started crying,
and I and I and I cried. I remember watching
I've watched that film dozens dozens of times over the
years with my friends. In high school, we had a
VHS copy of it. We used to take all manner
of drugs and then you know, end the night by
putting on Harold and Maud before dawn and you know,
(41:41):
just liling away to all the beautiful philosophies that she
evokes in that beautiful script.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
But like, yeah, it makes me cry pretty hard.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So that was nice.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Another another excellent answer. I don't usually give points, but
you're already on fifty. Fuck yeah, now you like Horra.
What is the film that scares you the most?
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Texas Chained as Occur is to me, it's a masterpiece.
It's an incredible piece of cinema. Every detail, the production design,
the performances, the way it's directed, the cinematography, the pacing,
the writing, the camp mashed up with a burlesque body crazy,
darkest kind of humor you can imagine. Then it smashes
(42:20):
right into gritty, grizzly, visceral realness.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
In a way.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
The film that the reason I think it really fucked
me up so much as a kid, and why it
still gets my pulse going is that it's it's one
of the films that feels wrong, Like when you watch it,
you feel like I shouldn't I shouldn't be watching this.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
This isn't good for me.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
There's something so subversive in that, and Toby Hooper did
such a such a service to all of us and
making a film that did that.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
It's dangerous. It feels like a dangerous film.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
And it's there's other films that I can there's so
many films that have scared, disturbed, shocked, horrified me. But
it's it's tcm for me all the way.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
You know what, thinking about like it's kind of a
I mean this in no way as a judgment, but
just as a comparison. Like Mike flanagan films. I think
the way that he makes a film is like you
feel safe. He's so in control, it's such a he's
so clear on tone, on everything that you go into
one of his films and it's like being held. And
I think Texas changed some mass good. The reason it's
(43:19):
so horrible, I think it's a horrible film and it's
because it feels unsafe. It feels like there's an element
of it that feels really like, is this real? Like
it feels dirty, it feels like it.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Feels like people are really suffering. You get pushed into
the barbed wire.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
And the performances he was able to get out of
those those actors is just it's really inspiring. I mean,
I would love to be able to make a film
like that. I don't know if it's possible anymore.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
I don't know. In our current sensibility and the clean.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Look of what cameras do now, and the way that
all the information and data is absorbed by you know,
cameras these days, it's just something about it, and it
only gets more gruesome with time.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It's such a beautiful film.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
What is a film that you love?
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Most people don't like it, it is critically not acclaimed,
but you love it unconditionally. It could be one of
your z's.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I love the films of Coffin Joe, and I don't
feel like a lot of people love those. I mean,
this is interesting because I guess most film people would
say something like pink, flamingos or polyester is considered important cinema.
But I do think if you showed it to the
majority of people they'd go, this is fucked up, this
is disgusting. And I think films like Polyester and Pink
(44:36):
Flamingos are very special. I also really love like body
dumb comedy like meat Balls. I think that's such a
great film. I watch it with some regularity. I showed
that to the kids recently. I guess that's very beloved though,
isn't it. I'm trying to think of, like, what's one
that people are just like, fuck this dumb movie and
I love it.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Yeah. Maybe it's like the John Waters stuff or the
yeah like, oh yeah, you know what am I talking about?
I have you name it?
Speaker 4 (45:04):
At midnight I'll Possess your Corpse and Wizard of Gore
and there's you.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Know, children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
And all the like the Z and Gore horror that
most people wouldn't watch. But if I had my brothers
every Friday night, I would get to put on a
cape and make up and host like a cable access
for midnight theater and get to have, you know, show
people all these really bad films.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
I was a teenage were Wolf et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, okay, great, what is On the other hand, the
film that you used to have, but you've watched recently
and you've gone, oh, I don't like this anymore, probably
because you have changed.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
I had a really interesting, tricky experience recently watching because
Halloween's a big deal to me.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I love Halloween.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
I throw I think the best Halloween party that anyone
has ever thrown or ever will throw.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
It's a very important special occasion for me.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
And several years ago for Halloween, I dressed up as
ace Ventura when he's in the mental hospital in the
ballerina dress, and then my partner was dressed up as
Einhorn and then looking like watching it recently with the kids,
I just it didn't. It didn't hit for me the
way that I thought. I also found it rather transphobic
(46:19):
and kind of like.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I didn't really like I didn't get it.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
Yeah, yeah, I think that was one. I think he's
a genius, though I would I wish. I feel like
I keep hearing that Jim has retired from acting in
many regards, and that makes me sad because he's one
of those people that I always thought it would be
so cool to do, Like remember when he did Marlboroughman
with Ewan McGregor, like when he does the like obviously,
(46:42):
Eternal Sunshine is a classic masterpiece, but like I just
always hoped and prayed i'd get a chance to get
in the ring with him and do something like really
really weird.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
You know. Yeah, he's very, very good. What is the
film that means the most to you?
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Not necessarily the film itself is good, but the experience
you had seeing that film will always make it meaningful
to you.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
I'm going to go back to the Muppet Movie.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Okay, I can always do that with me.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
That really changed my life.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
And I also think it's really important to point out
the significance of Stanley Kubrick's two thousand and one, a
Space Odyssey.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
That was a film.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
And I was already a big science fiction nerd and
really loved comic books and genre and sci fi. I'd
seen some cool stuff by the time I saw two
thousand and one.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
But it changed me.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
It changed things, As the Joker says, you've changed things.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
It changed things. It changed my consciousness.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
It shifted the way I consider the possibility of what
we get to do. And this is way before I
ever considered that I might do this stuff professionally. It's
just it changed the way I saw the human like creative.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
I don't know it changed me.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
I watched two thousand and one quite late because I
knew I wanted this see it on the big screen,
so I didn't. I waited until it was like on somewhere,
so I only saw it maybe like ten years ago
or maybe less than that. And it's fucking brilliant. And
I was like pleased how brilliant it was. Like it
wasn't like, oh, yeah, this has been overrated, but I
didn't realize how weird it was. And also that it
was made before they landed on the moon, and shit,
(48:19):
is that right?
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Sixty nine?
Speaker 4 (48:21):
It was made in sixty nine. He or he maybe
shot it in sixty eight.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I think, yeah, sixty seven.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
So the sort of vision of space. Yeah, it's fucking amazing.
It's it amazing that he did.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
He's he's he's he's like Shakespeare.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
He's like one of those people in our history of
humanity where you just look at the body of work
and you go, that's not human. That wasn't a human being.
There's no human that did that. That's impossible.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
You put his body of work back to back to
back to back.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
Just do like a you know, a kubric month for
yourself at some point, and it'll it'll it'll shake any
illusion you ever have out of the idea that you're
going to make anything really that.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, what is the film you most relate to?
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Film I most relate to is I think the Muppet Movie.
I really feel like that movie encapsulates a lot of
my thoughts and ideas about the human experience in a
beautiful way. And you know, the most personal thing I
probably have done yet, although I'm about to, I've got
(49:25):
a couple of things coming soon. I wrote and acted
in a film called Animals, which is deeply personal. It's
not it's as much about about people's addiction to drugs
as it is people's addiction to one another.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
And so that's that's certainly something. Yeah, that's a good answer,
David Mont. You and this is the reason people come
to this podcast. What's the sexiest film you've ever seen?
Speaker 3 (49:50):
The sexiest film?
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Like, the film that like just turned me on in
every way is God. There's so many I love second
and sensuality and films and cinema. I'd say The Hunger, Yes,
that's a.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Really special film.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
And the way it evokes eroticism to me as a
kid was very hot when I was like a lot
of this.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Stuff is what set us in motion as sexual beings.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Anyway, A lot of the visual stimulation we took, obviously,
the psychology of our childhoods and who we are born
biologically and just how we were constructed shapes that stuff.
But I do think movies have a profound effect on
what turns us on. And I remember seeing Jess Franco's
Vampiris Lesbos as a kid and being like, oh, sexy
vampire women, and like the three brides of Dracula, and
(50:41):
in the way that they're they're portrayed in Francis Ford
Coppola's Bromstokers Dracula. That really got me going as a kid,
and then as an adult it's still you know, I
love so much of that stuff, certainly stuff.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
That exists outside the boundaries of.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Mononormative stuff and the way it's portrayed in cinema. I
remember I was too young to watch, but I somehow
has managed to get my hands on a copy of
Henry in June about Henry and June Miller starring an
incredible cast doesn't have it but like there.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Was like, oh, oh god, that was that was a going.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Sorry, I keep going. I love that subject. It's a
great subject.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
Angel Heart really turned.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Me on as a kid. That was super hot.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Yeah, there's a subcategory traveling boners, worrying Why Dunes, the
film you found a rising that you went or you shit?
Speaker 4 (51:42):
For sure, I think that when I was like, these
are all things, it was like I was so young
seeing all of the year like the Friday the Thirteenth
movies where you'd see the boobs and then the violence
would come right after. It was really troubling to me
as a kid. Halloween has like a hot, sexy makeout
(52:03):
moment and then all of a sudden, it's you know,
choking and murder, and that was It was confusing for
me and distressing.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I was your upbringing. It's like, yeah, the proof of
what you've been to is like this leads to this.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
I was so incredibly turned on as a little boy
watching Blade Runner and the characters of PRIs and some
of the other replicants. There was something about them, the
makeups and the designs and stuff that was so hot
for me. And I felt guilty about it for sure.
(52:40):
Felt really like that was a trick. Those were all
really tricky, you know, It's all It's always tricky. Sex
will always be tricky for me and with me because
of the programming that I was, you know, plugged into
as a kid, but also because I just I kind
of my identity. As the older I get, the more
I kind of start to like really it continues to
(53:01):
take its own shape and it continues to change, and
so like what turns me on, what I'm at, who
I'm attracted to, all that stuff is.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Like for me, pretty fluid and.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
It and it always comes with a good healthy dose
of like weird guilt and shame that I want to
use cinema to work through as well.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, so yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
What is objectively the greatest film ever made might not
be your favorite, but it is the pinnacle of all cinema.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
It's a tie to me, okay, and it is.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
I go back to two thousand and one A Space
Odyssey and Citizen Kane. When I watch both of those films,
the reason I maybe I'm gonna give Kane the edge
is because one yeah, okay, okay, okay, I'm not gonna
I'm gonna I'm gonna commit I'm gonna say, Citizen Kane,
the performance he's directing himself. I just directed myself this
(53:58):
week for the first time ever, sitting at Video Village,
and I was dressed as a full on Bigfoot and
I'm sitting in dressed in a full bigfoot costume, trying
to deliver performance notes and give lighting, you know, input
in camera notes.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Was out of control, ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (54:16):
Imagine the time, the effort, the vision, the execution that
he was able to put into constructing, executing making that film.
It's more than mind boggling. I just watch it every
few years and I'm like, how the fuck did one
human being have the.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
Power to manifest this?
Speaker 1 (54:39):
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
What's yours?
Speaker 2 (54:41):
I think the greatest? My greatest is Don't Live Now. Yeah, Well,
Susanka ain't wrong, you't know wrong. What is the film
you could or have? What's the most? Over and over again, it's.
Speaker 4 (54:54):
A tie between Harold and Maud and Screw.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
When I was a kid, I just I loved Scrooged.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
I watched it over and over and over again, and
then in the years since, I do have a number
of comfort films, though Texas Chainsaws one of them, have
certainly watched a lot of like House on Haunted Hill.
The Haunting the Tingler, for some reason, is one of
those old William Castle films that I've seen too many times.
(55:24):
Any Yeah, but I think it's somewhere between the Probably
probably Harold and Mod would edgit out, just because there
was so many nights in high school that we would
end our night in some parents' basement passing out and
we popped. We always had our copy of Harold and
maudda pop and it just it was like there was
so many mantras in there for us.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
What's the worst film you've ever seen?
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Worst film I've ever seen was I'm sorry that I'm
going to splank on the name for a second, but
it was one of the.
Speaker 3 (55:53):
Larry the Cable Guy movies, and it was just riddled with.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
Like Islamophobia and like bad jill and terrible performance. And
it was such a sad experience to watch because they
had like this really amazing actor in it, and I
remember thinking like that may happen to me.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Someday.
Speaker 4 (56:11):
It may be like a really like you know, I
might end up like doing something like that and it
would break my heart.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, what is the film that made you laugh the most.
Speaker 4 (56:20):
When I was a little boy, I snuck into the
theater and I saw Tom Hanks and Bachelor Party, and
I laughed so hard. I fell out of my chair,
like peeing, laughing so hard, especially when the guy who's
spying on the bachelor party falls from the window and
then his butt cheeks are in the like moon roof
of the car.
Speaker 3 (56:41):
That made me laugh really really hard, so hard.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
I yeah, I split a seam and that's up there.
I mean, I think the first time I didn't. I
wasn't familiar with Sasha Baron Khan, and I remember going
to the cinema because everyone was talking about Bora Yeah,
and I didn't see it coming.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
It just took me.
Speaker 4 (57:06):
It took me out of my I mean, I like levitated.
I was laughing and so uncomfortable. It made me so
deeply uncomfortable. That was one of those weird things that
felt like this is subversity on another level. And I
haven't gone back to it in a long time, so
I don't know how that would affect me today, but
it really fucked me up as funny as shit.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
You've been really wonderful, thanks Brett. However, when a giant
starfist was trying to crush the planet, and you thought,
but I care, I care about people, I care about
the future of this planet.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
I must save them.
Speaker 2 (57:43):
And you stood in the way of this giant stuffas
and it crushed you to death, and all your organs
splashed together. And I was walking past me the coffee
and I guess anyone's seen David desmoted, And I said,
I think it was he just saved the world, man,
David spot it really Yeah, he's over there. And I
look over and You're like, you look like tarmac, you
(58:05):
know that time. I'm like fucking I was like, guys,
we got to give me a hand here. So we
get like diggers. We have to dig up the road
just to get you. But there's chunks of you know,
cement everything. Anyway, I've only to stuff you in the coffin.
The coffin's rammed. You wouldn't be able to do on
any repisodes of great conversations in this coffin.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
There's no room.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
There's only enough room in this coffin for me to
slip one DVD for you to take across to the
other side. And on the other side this movie night
every night, what film are you taking to show the
people of Heaven Reese's Peanut butter Cups in Heaven?
Speaker 3 (58:38):
David, this morning, go the Muppet Movie.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You are welcome there. They are going to be so
fucking happy. David Dispoting. Tell people what they should be
looking out for and watching and listening to starting you
coming up in the future.
Speaker 4 (58:53):
Please thank you, Brett. I hope everybody out there enjoyed
our conversation. Thank you for listening. And if you're struggling
right now, you feel alone, you feel you might harm yourself,
if you don't see your way out, please google SAMSA, SAMHSA.
It's got a bunch of portals of resources for ways
that you can get free help. You don't need money
to get help. You are not alone. I would hope
(59:13):
if you are looking for something entertaining you might watch
Murder Bot on Apple. It's currently streaming a film Life
if Chuck is out now. The film Dust Bunny from
Brian Fuller will be coming soon. One Piece season two
will be airing on Netflix in the near future. And
I'm also very excited to report that my comic books
are currently available at your local comic store, including Count Crowley,
(59:36):
The Creature Commandos, Nights Versus Samurai, and several upcoming that
I will be announcing soon.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Thank you than.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Well, an absolute joy. I have really enjoyed this. Thank
you very much for spending your time with me. And
happy fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 4 (59:52):
Thank you, Brett, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm
going to take my friends to go see a play
now what a crewshment? I know?
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
So thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Good day.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
So that was episode three hundred and fifty seven. Head
over to the Patreon at patroon dot com Forward Slash
pret Goodsteing for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets
and video with David.
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Goes Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Give us a five star writing and write about a
film that means the most of you and my It's
a lovely thing to read it house numbers and it's
really appreciating. My nighbor Marien loves it. Thank you so
much to David forgiving me his time. Thanks to Scruby's
PIP and the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace
for producing it. Thanks to iHeartMedia and Miilferrell's Big Money
Players Network. Faced thanks to Adamitgison for the graphics and
miss Alighting for the photography. Come and join me next
week for another amazing episode with a very special guest.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
You're going to love that one. Thank you for listening.
I hope you're all well.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
That's it for now, but in the meantime, have a
lovely week and please be excellent to each others.
Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Back back backs out sax bys and six by backs
out backs back back backs out sax by back back
back
Host
Brett Goldstein
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