MOVIE MIKE: Top 5 Interviews of 2025: Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things, Weapon’s Director Zach Cregger, Sinner’s Director Ryan Coogler, and more!

It’s been a fun year of conversations, movie making stories and behind-the-scenes secrets! In this special year-end episode, Movie Mike counts down his Top 5 Interviews of 2025 that include everyone from Robert Englund talking about playing Freddy Kruger, Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things making his debut behind the camera,  director Zack Cregger on having one of the biggest movies at the box office this year with Weapons and more!

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the dust Trolle Podcast Network. This is movie Mike
some movie Podcason.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host, Movie Mike. We've done it, folks. The
end of another year. Twenty twenty five is in the books.
What a year for movies. About to get into my
top five interviews of the year. But before we do that,
let's look back. It's now been six years of doing
this podcast. Started to back December twenty nineteen, and what

(00:30):
a way we've come. I remember being so nervous to
sit down to record my first episode.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I did so much prep.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Probably sounded like I was talking a mile a minute
on that first episode. At times I still do that.
I was on an interview, speaking of interviews I've done
this year. Somebody was like, man, you are talking so
fast in this and I don't realize I'm doing it,
but I get so excited and so behind the scenes
on that. I do a lot of press junkets where

(00:59):
I go in and there are a bunch of other
people in this zoom waiting room, all waiting in line
to go and talk to these people who are probably
talking to at least when I do them two hours worth.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Of people or so.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
So when you get in there, you only have five sometimes,
if you're lucky, ten minutes with him, and I'm very
appreciative of that time I do get with him, but
I know I have to go in. I have to
establish a quick who I am and what I want
to get out of it is some good stuff for
you guys. And when I only have five minutes, I'm like,
I got to waste very little time getting this question
out and just rocket. But I remember that person being like, man,

(01:36):
you are talking so fast, and that flashed me back
to when I first started this podcast, where I felt
I just needed to get so much information. And I
think over the years, if you've been here from the beginning,
hopefully you've heard me get better at this. And I
think a lot of that is me just caring less
as far as being so worried about how people are
going to judge me, which I cared a lot about

(01:58):
early on. But now I know, if you've been here
for this amount of time, you are rocking with me.
You're part of the movie crew. So thank you for that.
It's been a really interesting six years of doing a podcast.
Looking back right before twenty nineteen, I thought, man, movies
are gonna be this good forever. That was the last
really great year in movies, and then boom twenty twenty

(02:18):
everything shut down. And to think I started this podcast
right before movies were taken away from us. I still
remember that last movie I went to go see March
of twenty twenty onward, pretty mid Pixar movie, but that
was the last thing I ever experienced, and then had
to shift how I did this podcast. So a lot
of that growth was for me not having new movies

(02:42):
to talk about and learning how to do these movie
history episodes. And hopefully you enjoy the format that I
really feel works the best because we go past present
in future a lot of movie history in that early
segment depending on what it is, or we recap all
the movies we've seen in the last month, and then
we had the as with the movie review and of
course the future with the trailer park.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
So hopefully you enjoy that.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
If you think maybe we should change things up a
little bit, or some things you want to hear on
the podcast, let me know. I always want to know
what you want to hear, because that's why I do
this show, So hit me up. On any socials or
the old school way moviemke d at gmail dot com.
But I just wanted to say, because I really mean
it to anybody who makes this podcast a part of

(03:27):
your week, no matter when you listen, if you let
episodes build up and then run through them, or if
you go back every single Monday on the feed and
hit play, I appreciate you. And I do these interviews
because I want to learn more about the things that
I talk about every single week, because a lot of
it is just my perceptions of things and my feelings
on things. But I enjoy actually getting to talk to

(03:50):
the people who make this art that we consume. I
love talking to directors because I believe they are the
next real rock stars that are going to be so
essential in the era of movie making that we are
going into with all these things with AI and all
these companies being fought in this world of uncertainty where

(04:11):
I feel like celebrity status isn't what it used to be,
that just because you have a big name doesn't mean
that movie is going to do well. I think where
the industry is really going to evolve is with having
visionaries who know how to make a movie that is
a spectacle and know how to create something, whether it's

(04:35):
a moment, whether it's a story, whether it's a character
that people are really going to connect with. I think
it takes a great director now to really drive home
a great box office hit that is significant and noteworthy.
Aside from that, the movies that are going to do
well are big animated movies, which if you look at
the last few movies this year to earn over a

(04:59):
billion dollars, they've all been animated movies.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
So you either have to have.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
A great director, and oftentimes when you look at your
favorite movies from the year, it is going to be
movies with a really great director. So it's either that
or you have an animated movie, which I love as well.
But that is why a lot of the times when
I do these end of the year episodes, it's conversations
with directors. But let's get into the list now. At
number five, not a director Robert England aka Freddy Krueger,

(05:27):
who I did get to talk to for the first
time last year, and I will never pass on an
opportunity to talk to Robert England because even though he
has been living with this character for decades now, he
is still so passionate about it and appreciates everybody who
tracks him down on the street to get a selfie
with him because they love a Nightmare on Elm Street.

(05:48):
And he just talks about these movies still so passionately,
which somebody like him could be sick of this and
not want to talk about a movie he made back
in the eighties. What else can you talk talk about?
But every time I've talked to him, he's been so
warm and generous with his time. He always gives great
insight to the making of those movies. So at number five,

(06:09):
I have Robert England ready. Makeup took about four hours
each day. I wonder, what did you listen to while
you were sitting in the chair? Did you get like
music going to hype you up?

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Like?

Speaker 3 (06:18):
What did you do?

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well?

Speaker 4 (06:19):
You know, when we began the series, I wasn't the
star of the series yet. I was just the guy
under pounds of foam latex and colostomy bag glue. So
I had to surrender to my makeup men. And so
that was David Miller in the in the early years,
and then Kevin Jaeger, the great Kevin Jeger, and then

(06:41):
the KNB crew, who now of course have done you know,
have oscars for Chronicles of Narnia and created Walking Dead
many other things. So I was sort of I had
to suffer a lot of heavy metal in those early days.
Those guys raw headbangers, So there was a lot of
heavy metal in the makeup trailer.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Did that help you at all to get into character
during that process, like the heavy metal going Is that
when you kind of start to like, okay, I'm sinking
into this character now, and then you're immediately able to
film right after that, or there's some other process that
psyching yourself up.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
No, you know, I think that the aggravation of the cold,
the cold glue in the morning on my face, and
the time you know, spent in the makeup chair and
getting poked with those old makeup brushes that had become
kind of crusty over the weeks, you know, of use.
Those guys were cheap skates, you know, they would get

(07:39):
to like pull a tooth to get a new brush.
So when they touched me up, they I was getting
poked a lot, and you know you kind of feel that,
especially around the eyes. So I wasn't in the best
of mood, and so that would make me slightly profane,
and I would tease those guys or threaten to spit
in their coffee, things like that. And I could see

(08:02):
myself all the time in the mirror because we were
using a big makeup mirror, and I would see myself
in the mirror, and sometimes I would slip into a
voice that I would eventually settle on as Freddy's voice,
you know, you know.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Like damn it, Kevin or or David, get that brush.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
Out of my face. And it just worked, and I
knew that that I could live in that voice. You
have to remember back in those days and on all
the films, I didn't have a lot of dialogue every day,
maybe one or two lines a day until later on.
You know, Freddie got more verbose as the as the
franchise went on, and I did some narration in parts

(08:41):
in Freddie versus Jason. But that's sort of how I
found Freddy in the makeup chair, you know. And then
that began back with David Miller at his studio out
in the San Fernando Valley on the original one. You know,
I really sort of found the voice there in those
hours of experimenting with David Miller and creating the makeup.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Looking back on the movies, I realized how physical the
role of Freddy was. Was that kind of surprising to
you how physical it actually was to become Freddy Krueger.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Well, you know, I was an athlete, you know, I
surfed all my life. I surfed it well into my sixties.
And I'd been a gymnast in middle school, and I'd
been on the swimming team, you know, in high school
and lettered, and so i was an athletic actor and

(09:33):
I'd used a lot of those skills in the theater
as well. But with Freddie, what was fun was when
I had that makeup on, it sort of made me
more or less inhibited, and I was able to kind
of dance him a little more and move move him
differently than I would move as Robert England without makeup.

(09:56):
I wasn't afraid to explore the physicality of the care
the stunts. I just did as many of them as
I could. That's just sort of a you know, a
misguided actors macho that we all succumb to on the set,
you know, where we try to do as much as
we can. And you know, when when I when there
were big fire stunts. That's not me. I did some

(10:19):
fire stunts, but the big ones isn't me. And when
you see Freddie flying through the air on fire and
things like that, that's not me. But you know, you
know I did a lot of my stuff, you know,
I you know I did, and you know, everything from
fire stunts to underwater stuff. So uh, it was fun,
you know, to have a little bit of that legacy
that I could bring up, you know, and during happy

(10:41):
hours somewhere for bragging Wace.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
But thank you so much for the time, Robert. This
is awesome, all right, thank you.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
I'm by Mike.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
At number four.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
I have the cast of Hell of a Summer that
include Fin wolf Hard, who you would know from Strangers things,
which at the time of recording this, I cannot wait
until those episodes drop. Maybe I've already seen it this
point when you're hearing this, and oh man, I cannot
wait for the ending of that. He co directed it
with Billy Burke, who was also in the movie, and
Fred Heckinger is in it, who was also in gladyat

(11:12):
or two earlier this year sat down with them at
the Bell Court Theater here in Nashville to talk about
how they made this movie. It is available to watch
on Hulu, so let's get into it now. The cast
of Hell of a Summer. I think the thing to
me that I really stuck out about this movie that
I don't see a whole lot now is a good
quotable movie. Like I found myself thinking, like I started

(11:34):
thinking of whenever your character is kind of like sad
that he's not the one being killed because he's like, no,
it's probably just killing at random, right, So how did
that go? From writing everything and then seeing it translate
on screen? Like how is this still funny? That's a
good question, goes It's still funny because you write it

(11:55):
and then you're totally directing it, and then you're seeing
all the edits, and then you're thinking, like now that
people are seeing it, like how can you think like
is this even funny tony to us everybody else?

Speaker 5 (12:06):
I mean, it's a good question, and you just have
to trust that it was funny to you. And like obviously,
when you see a joke a million times, it doesn't
make you laugh every single time. So sometimes you have
that instinct like can I push this further? Do I
try to make this funny? To me every time I'm
watching it. But in my opinion, it's kind of a
dangerous game to be playing, where it's like, if this
really made us laugh as we're writing it, and we
feel like this is the most sort of most grounded

(12:28):
version of this performance, the read of this line that
we think worked best, we have to trust it. And
then as we screen it for people and get other
eyes on it, it's really helpful to see sort of
what they're laughing at. And I'd say more often than not,
the stuff that we thought was the funniest, like our
instincts were right, So I don't know, it's funny, Like
I try not even to think about it as funny

(12:49):
all the time.

Speaker 6 (12:50):
Yeah, and the edit, I mean yeah, And then in
the production side of it, we were just talking about
that the other night, where you this the script that
these is real. It was so it was so funny
and in such a grounded, character driven way, and there
was you know, just every scene is quite intentional in
that sense, and there is a thing once you start

(13:14):
doing the scenes you kind of have to everyone who's
in it is also so funny, and I feel like
we would play and explore, but at the end of
the day, Like the movie ends up being kind of
like ninety five percent or something of the of the
actual script from the get go. So there is a
sort of trust element that Billy's talking about that I
think maybe you're asking about in terms of if we

(13:37):
found this funny at the outset, like it, you know,
it won't always be the shiny thing, but focus on it, Yeah,
because it really is. It is the intentional thing here.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
I love what you said about the movie being sell
character driven, because I think that's also what set out
to me, is like I could buy into everybody's personalities
and I know how Jason is going to react to
something because he's a guy who loves his job. Like
that's kind of what I took away from this, Like
this is somebody who just wants to do his job
to the best of visibility, and that is what he's
kind of here to do. And then you have your
character Bobby, who's just like, I gotta be good looking

(14:09):
to these guys. So what's the how do you write
really well rounded characters?

Speaker 5 (14:14):
You write every character is if you're gonna play them
in the movie.

Speaker 7 (14:18):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
So is this movie a lot of like what you
guys are like in real life a little bit.

Speaker 8 (14:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
I like to think that we're a little more self
aware than our characters, and that's sort of why we're
able to make fun of certain aspects of our personality.
But I mean there's definitely I would say that Finn
and I when we were just sort of joking around,
would fall into these caricatures of ourselves, which i'd say
sort of became Bobby and Chris, and like it's a
send up of our dynamic and sort of our own

(14:45):
personal I don't know, I don't want to say like
insecurities or something, but like there's elements of Bobby for
sure that come from my own life that I just
find funny and like I'm not fully committed to, but
the fact that I can very easily think like that
is concerning to me. Like it's too little, too easy
to fall into that sort of mindset. But then I'm
not even actually joking about the like writing every character,

(15:08):
like writing every characters if you'd play it, And I
think that's thing helpful about being an actor and a writer.
As we were writing versions of the script, it's like
we would do a pass with each character in mind,
being like yeah, I were to be sent this character,
what would excite me most about playing this part? What
would I want to see? And then we'd try to
add that so every character sort of felt fleshed out

(15:29):
and had something real and sort of had like a
life behind them, even if they're a character who gets
killed off very quickly. So it was kind of like
a funny, soft way of being like.

Speaker 9 (15:37):
Yeah, I think it's also just like, you know, just
thinking about you know that there's a lot of young
actors out there, and ninety nine percent of stuff that
gets sent out just like I don't know, just doesn't
feel right or you know, it doesn't feel like it
has you know that the character that's you auditioned for

(15:59):
maybe had everything that you want or you know, the
arc that you want. And it was one of those
things where we were kind of approaching it from an
actor's perspective.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
And then coming from the horror element of the movie,
which I love. What were some of those movies that
you went back and studied and thought, I want to
take a little from this movie. I want to take
a little from that movie and put it into this.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
We watched the thing, We watched a lot of the
John Carpenter films, just because of the blocking of those
films in the way that he sort of is able
to block and represent group dynamics and like the thing
specifically this idea of group that sort of splintering, splintering
and turning against each other. So that was a reference
the First Halloween obviously, but a lot, like most of

(16:40):
our sort of stylistic references were from comedy movies or
from movies that that weren't in the horror space. Do
you have any that you're.

Speaker 9 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, you know, like Sean of the Dead
was a huge one that we looked at. And then
you know, as far as even just like visual visual stuff,
I mean we looked a lot about you know.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
At like uh uh the Howling or.

Speaker 9 (17:02):
Like uh like Dean Kundy's stuff. It was like the
DP I guess of the eighties and even just like
even though nut like it is nothing like any that's
like we would just watch like movies that we loved
and like grew up watching and like loved the look
of and you know, for whatever reason, and this like

(17:23):
I watched Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade like five times,
like in the year that we wrote this and it
has nothing to do with the movie in the slightest,
but like, I don't know, there's some kind of adventure
in that movie that I just love so much, and
and in that era as well, like late eighties, early nineties,
and then you know, yeah Scream obviously, so like a

(17:43):
lot of different influences coming from kind of all angles.
A lot of like Coen Brothers stuff too, raising Arizona
One too. But then yeah, like even with movies like that,
there's they're like visually they're so energetic with Debt or
Seanda the Dead, and we didn't want that this movie
to feel like that. So it was like, what can
we chase styles these without feeling like we're doing those
movies because it didn't feel right for the script.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
But yeah, Fred, what did you love most about playing Jason?
Because he's a character who's so endearing you root for
him the entire time, and I feel like you really
brought that role.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Tolive, what did you love about that role?

Speaker 6 (18:15):
I really loved how two wrote him. I loved that
in this story, every single character kind of once the
killing starts in the movie, they don't like just magically
transform into different heroic people. They can only react and
figure out their their issues by being themselves and their

(18:38):
most kind of eccentric and uh sometimes stubborn ways. Uh
And so I yeah, I just I think some like
you play people that you find also genuinely inspiring. Like
he's someone who is uh, he's like gets he's in

(18:59):
on the he gets that people. He gets that he
can be a joke to people, but also is funny
himself and also not a joke to himself at the
same time. And I felt that those things all together
you meant something to me and h and felt, Yeah,
resonent of a lot of people I know and how

(19:22):
I feel sometimes. So I really liked that call. I
liked that he was like in on the joke but
also not at the same time. I thought that that
was like a yeah, there's there's so there's so many
qualities to him that I really admire and loved playing.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
I have one final question for you, guys, what did
it feel whenever you first started to have success, Because Finn,
I remember you when you were in pop music videos,
like I'm huge into punk rock, Canadian punk rock, and
I remember seeing you in those way back then.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Like, what does it feel when you just.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Start like getting those first roles, getting those first projects,
and you just feel like this actually might be a
reality my dream.

Speaker 9 (20:00):
Yeah, we got to talk about Canadian punk rock after this,
but I would say, I mean that's kind of I
was just happy doing that, like even as like a
little kid, being able to be a part of these
cool indie projects like music videos for cool bands that
I loved and student films, and like I just loved

(20:20):
doing it and being on set and it just kind
of snowballed and all those sets inspired me to direct
and want to direct. And I feel like, you know,
we made this film all together and specifically when me
and Billy started writing it, and like that feeling. Even
though we made it, you know, with with like a

(20:44):
bigger crew and it wasn't like a student film, it
still had that energy, Like it still had that sort
of vibe that I could feel when I was that
young on set and just looking at all these amazing
kind of young artists like starting their careers and me,
that's what I'm always chasing. And sometimes you find it
in every I feel like you find it in every

(21:06):
set in some way. So but it was definitely felt great,
Like I loved doing all those videos.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Well, this has been great. It's also confirmed my feeling
that you guys are all like real friends in real life,
because that comes across in the movie. So I hope
everybody goes to see it and can feel that as well.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Thanks so much, Thanks for the time, guys.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
At number three, I had the cast of The Ballot
of Wallace Island, which I believe is one of the
most underrated movies of the year. And I'm not just
saying that because they did this interview with me, but
Tom Bazden and Tim Key are so great together. And
the movie is about Tim Key's character, who is a
guy who wins the lottery uses his money to reunite
his favorite folk band to come out to his island

(21:48):
and play a private concert for just him, nobody else,
just him and Carrie Mulligan is the other member of
the indie folk duo. They haven't talked in a really
long time, and this is them reuniting to make a
little bit of money. There's a lot of drama, there's
some heartfelt moments, there's some comedic moments, there's music.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
It has all the things that I look for.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
In a small independent picture that felt like it was
just made to put a smile on your face and
maybe a couple of tears depending on your level of emotion.
But let's get into this one. The cast of The
Ballad of Wallace Island.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Does it feel.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Weird to you guys that I feel like I know
each of you after watching this movie?

Speaker 10 (22:29):
I think that's terrible because my character is quite specific.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
How much how much of yourself did you put into
each of your characters at all?

Speaker 10 (22:40):
Well, I'm Zara, but I think.

Speaker 11 (22:44):
There's a huge amount of Tim and Charles and there's
a fair bit of me and how I would say.

Speaker 10 (22:50):
He was asked this last night and I thought we
haven't talked about this, but that was an incredible insight
when he said that his character is seventeen year old
himself and my character is his mother at the time.
And I think it's I know his mother, love his
mother's pieces, but yeah, I can see there's a lot
of his mother in my character.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
You guys both have a background in comedy, which I
have toured doing stand up. The thing about doing stand
up is you get an immediate reaction. You know, if
a joke is good or not based on how the
audience responds. When you put out a movie.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
What is that like?

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Now, when the movie's coming out, people are starting to
watch it, you're starting to hear rumblings of reviews. How
is that different from that instant comedy approach.

Speaker 10 (23:35):
It's totally different and kind of mind blowing. We did
the first time we saw the film was in sun Dance,
and I think with any kind of new stand up show,
it just starts as a tiny acorn in front of
thirty or forty people and gradually grows, and you gradually
work out what works and what doesn't and improve it

(23:56):
and get it better and better. By the end of it,
you might be playing to quite a big room, but
with complete assurance that everything sort of works. Whereas with
this we didn't have any screenings at all. We didn't
know what exactly we had. We knew we liked it,
but we didn't know, you know, exactly how much would
sort of grow to be more affectionate of our own movie.
It's the first time we saw it was in front

(24:17):
of fourteen hundred people, and it's kind of petrifying because
you know, if you could be city, it could be
a very long hour and a half. You know you're
waiting in that first ninety seconds to see whether this
movie can create any kind of a connection with an audience.
You hope it will, but yeah, that is the difference.
There's no you get everything all at once, right at

(24:38):
the end, when all of the work has been done
and you're just sort of praying that people will like it.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
And how does that feel watching yourself back for the
first time at Sunday and seeing like, oh, like that's
my performance. I'm seeing people reacting here like, are is
this emotion going to come across?

Speaker 11 (24:52):
I mean it's yeah, it's really exciting, and I mean
I just found it very moving when I was watching it.

Speaker 7 (24:57):
Sunnames. I don't like watching stuff that I men very much.

Speaker 10 (25:03):
If you see his body of work, isn't that weird?

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Though?

Speaker 2 (25:06):
In the creative space where it almost feels weird to
take in your own work, something you work so hard
on well, and you're like, if I sit around listening
to my own jokes or watching my own movies, it
feels like I'm self absorbed here.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
But it's like I'm proud of it.

Speaker 7 (25:18):
But I don't know if it's self absorption.

Speaker 11 (25:19):
As much as you just want to sort of you
just want to focus on the thing that you're working on.
In a way, and once you've done it and you've
finished it, it's lovely to talk about it, and it's
lovely to sort of see people enjoying it. But in
a way, it can be quite torturous to watch stuff
and go, oh, that could have been a bit better,
or I could have done that there, or I could
have you know. And I think that's what's funny about
when we watch the film now, because we've both come

(25:40):
from comedy, I think it's actually a really good thing
that we didn't watch it with audiences at a point
where we had the chance to go back into the edit,
because I think we'd have put some jokes back in.

Speaker 7 (25:49):
It's the truth.

Speaker 11 (25:50):
I think when you watch it with an audience and
they start laughing, you go, oh, they would have loved
that joke, and they would have loved that joke that
we can't, and you forget that Actually, what you're doing
is you're crafting a store that's got to be sort
of coherent, and it's got to have a certain pace
and rhythm to it. And if you start cramming it
with jokes, because you can tell that they audiers like
certain jokes you then you unbalanced the whole thing. So actually,

(26:11):
I'm very glad that we didn't get the chance to
fiddle with the film after people had seen it.

Speaker 10 (26:17):
We might have been quite greedy and self sabotaging. But
our director is very he's got a very good eye
for it and a very good he's more, he's wiser
than us and sort of knows that actually, if we
get to a certain point in the movie by you know,
eighteen minutes, then that would just be much much better
for the movie. And so it doesn't help if us

(26:37):
two were saying it'd be great to have a decent
joke about a vacuum cleaner after five minutes.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
So going in like the filming process, talking about like,
oh we would have changed some things. Was everything that's
in the movie exactly what was on the page?

Speaker 10 (26:52):
No?

Speaker 11 (26:52):
No, But but you know, a fair bit of it.
I think there's obviously, you know, you can tell watching it.
I think that there is a fair of improv particularly
in that first act between Herb and Charles. You know,
there's scenes where they go quite loose and they and
we and we sort of play around a bit. But
a lot of it is pretty you know, it's pretty

(27:13):
tightly written, and we wanted to kind of we wanted
to be able to sort of drive the story on
at certain times in the film and didn't want it
to feel loose at all.

Speaker 7 (27:21):
So you know, in the edit you're.

Speaker 11 (27:23):
Kind of trying to calibrate when when you want little
periods that feel quite meandering and feel quite characterful, but
nothing's much is happening, and periods when suddenly you go
through the gears and a lot happens in the space
of five or ten minutes.

Speaker 10 (27:36):
I'd say most of the improv is. A lot of
the improv is instead of a little interaction that's two
lines long, those lines might just get chopped into five
bits and just happen really really quickly, like more and more,
like what a conversation would be like. So you get
I think, yeah, if it was written like that, it
would be so weird on the page. I think, so

(27:56):
we know exactly what we want to say, and then
after we've done it a couple of takes, it then
becomes a little bit more detailed.

Speaker 7 (28:02):
I think that's true.

Speaker 11 (28:03):
I think I think it's it's like a blueprint for
us that we stick to pretty closely.

Speaker 7 (28:07):
But we couldn't.

Speaker 11 (28:09):
Other actors couldn't do it because it's not like we
say the exact words as they're written, because it just
wouldn't kind of feel right.

Speaker 10 (28:15):
But then when the other actors come in, they can
do it because that was really good. It's not like
Carry mulligan is kind of going, how on earth are
you doing this?

Speaker 3 (28:26):
That brings me to my next question.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
With the scenes with Carrie and you figuring out the songs,
you know, rewriting after all this time, how much of
that was actually you two learning those songs for the
first time.

Speaker 7 (28:40):
I mean, you're very perceptive, like.

Speaker 10 (28:44):
It hadn't you prepared for that scene?

Speaker 7 (28:47):
We hadn't. We hadn't had a lot of time.

Speaker 11 (28:50):
The mad thing was that that Carrie turned up the
evening before she started shooting, and she brought her baby,
who was a few weeks old, maybe seven eight weeks on,
and you know, and as soon as she was there,
she threw herself into it, and we you know, was
very happy to kind of talk through character and rehearse
some stuff and try out the songs and all these things.

(29:12):
But we didn't have a lot of time, and we
just had to kind of go with our gut a
little bit and what felt right and just you know,
as you say, hope that you can organically create an
atmosphere as two actors that feels very very close to
what the two characters are doing. And I think I
think we did do that. But it's it's a risk,
you know, you don't quite know what you're going to get.

(29:33):
But that's that is what's sort of lovely about it,
I think for us, and was particularly nice during the
shooting was it was it was a genuine surprise to
all of the crew and to Tim, like when we
started playing songs in front of him, You've never heard
us play songs before.

Speaker 10 (29:49):
No, that's so there's that's that first time you see
my character listening to their music. That's also the first
time my nature's character my character in real life.

Speaker 12 (30:00):
Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 10 (30:04):
Heard it as well.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
That is the moment that hit me the most emotionally
seeing you react to your love. Yeah, in the in
the first moment when you hear it, and then also
at the concert performance, where where do you go to there?
Because I could feel the backstory of your character come
out of what's what he's been through. But where do
you go to as an actor to get that performance.

Speaker 10 (30:23):
Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, actually that first time, well,
where I see them around the dinner table, I think
there's a lot going on. I feel like for me
and Tom that the we are we are quite kind
of passionate about this project. It's taken a long time
to come to fruition. I think all of that is
going into it. So when they're when they're singing, I

(30:46):
loved hearing them sing. But also there's a slight pinch
yourself moment that that you're the movie is being made
and that Carry mulligan is in front of you singing
with your pal and the music's so nice, And I
think it was a real moment for all of us
where the crew were really invested. We were shooting it
really quickly, probably only did that take about that scene

(31:06):
about two or three times. And Griff the director is
like behind the camera just you can see that he's
kind of like welling up. It's kind of a moment
for all of us. So, yeah, there wasn't really a
great deal of acting. It's just sort of this is
It was quite a moving moment. I wasn't I wasn't
I wasn't drawing on other times where you know, beloved

(31:26):
folk duos had sung to me, and I was just like,
this is insane that this is happening. So it kind
of came. I think if it was hard to draw emotion,
I think I'd struggle. It sort of came quite naturally.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Can you guys speak on that a little bit, because
I don't think people realize not only how hard it
is to get a movie greenlit, how hard it is
to get a movie made, but to get a movie
in theaters, and to be here sitting here today talking
about that, like hearing you reflecting on that moment on
the set, which is huge. Yeah, Like how important is
it to support a movie like this?

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (31:57):
Well, I think it's it's vitally important.

Speaker 11 (31:59):
And I think it's been so lovely for us to
go to screenings this last week and see these full
cinemas of people just really enjoying it but also genuinely,
you know, surprised by this story that they knew nothing about,
and going into a cinema completely blind, you know, not
seeing a reboot or a sequel or something that they

(32:19):
kind of know what it is. After five minutes, they're
seeing a completely new story and and just going with it,
just being taken up by it and being carried along
by the other people in the room. And there's something
that's just just magical about that. And you know, I'm
quite greedy for it. I think, having seen it, you know,
experienced it the last few days, I just feel like
I just I just really want to want everyone to

(32:40):
see it that way.

Speaker 10 (32:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think we don't take it
for granted. And I think, you know, we do lots
of different things in lots of different areas live and TV,
and I think you sort of know when you're doing
this one that we've kind of something is connecting. And
I feel very lucky that, I mean, this could not
see the light of day. We could make a Obviously,
the first thing is no one could have filmed it

(33:02):
because no one likes the script. Once it's filmed, there's
a chance it's a movie which not many people see.
So to see it playing in a cinema is kind
of I don't think we take it for granted. No,
I don't think we do take.

Speaker 7 (33:13):
It for grant.

Speaker 10 (33:13):
Of course, you know, it may never happen again for us.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Something else that stuck out was the wardrobe. I feel
like wardrobe gets overlock, like nobody gives love to the.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Wardrobe, But for actors, does that put.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
You in the mindset of your character of like when
you put on the clothes they're wearing, the kind of
transform into them.

Speaker 7 (33:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (33:31):
The first time we did it was with the short film,
which we've seen like several times over the years, and yeah,
that's definitely my dad's cardigan where I must have gone
home for the weekend right before shooting and just raided
his wardrobe basically, So it kind of feels like, yeah,
sort of sentimental watching that one and this one. They
had seen it the wardrobe department that short film, and

(33:54):
then they just created Yeah beautiful. I mean, weirdly, my
child's costume is so herbs costume for the majority of
the film because he gets wet and has to go
into my clothes, So it's kind of a sea of
these yeah Charles Heath clothes and it looks Yeah, I
agree when you Yeah, they've done a really great job
on the costume.

Speaker 7 (34:15):
Yeah. I think you're right, though.

Speaker 11 (34:16):
I think that people often focus on costume when it's
like sci fi or something, or like Wicked or something
where it's just like completely otherworldly kind of costume as
opposed to character for costume, which is just just clothes
that exists in the world, but they're just selected in
such a way they tell you so much about the character. Yeah,
and I love that about particularly Charles's costume, and it's

(34:37):
the kind of you know, the cardigans with the whale
embroidered into.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Say, I saw your green cardigan, I'm like, I gotta
find the like I want to wear that.

Speaker 10 (34:45):
Yeah, that first the first shot of that, when you
see Charles for the first time facing away from camera
putting the record on. That's a pretty spectacular Cardigan's a
whale on the back.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (34:56):
There was talk at some point of that being much.

Speaker 7 (34:59):
So I'll look that exact one, or getting loads of them.

Speaker 10 (35:04):
I mean, merch can't just be getting loads of them,
is right. The bedrock of merchandies.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Was Maguire and Mortimer, based on any real duo, because
I have an affinity for anything twenty ten's like that
was when I was in college. That's like the music
I go to when I need to feel comfort. Was
it based on the specific being?

Speaker 11 (35:24):
I mean, I'm the same, I'm sort of very much
you know, sometimes in my head I still think it's
kind of twenty ten, and I forget in terms of
a lot of the music that I was sort of
you know, it's kind of glued to my brain.

Speaker 7 (35:35):
It's sort of from that period.

Speaker 11 (35:37):
No specific bands, I think, but people like maybe Gillian
Watch and Dave all into that kind of like Double
Act and you know, I don't know, really a little
bit of David Crosbian and Roger McGuinn kind of like
you know, those kind of groups where there was a
sort of falling out Buckingham Nick's a little bit, you
know what I mean, like that kind of bands who

(35:58):
were together and then fell fell out again. But yeah,
in terms of the kind of sound, certainly sort of
that I don't know, sort of Ryan Adams kind of
like twenty ten, so period that kind of imp must
be quite a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Well, I love the movie. I hope everybody goes to
watch it. I really appreciate the time. It's been really
great hanging out with you guys.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 10 (36:19):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
A number two I have director Greg Hillman and retired
FBI agent Walter Lamar. They were a part of a
Netflix documentary that came out earlier this year called Oklahoma
City bombing, American terror And before this, I hadn't really
talked to a lot of people who made and were
a part of a documentary, just because I focus on

(36:40):
stories that are not real. But I thought maybe this
could be something that people could connect with, and it
ended up being one of my favorite conversations I've ever had.
And it was so much different to handle because normally,
when I talk to people about their work, it's all
fictional things. You can ask them anything about any character

(37:01):
or any ideas behind why you put this in. But
when it comes to documentary films, it is so much
different because you were talking with people who were actually
involved and in this case, a really traumatic event. And
the reason this documentary came out is because it was
the thirtieth anniversary of the nineteen ninety five bombing of
the building in Oklahoma City, which was one of the

(37:23):
deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in United States history, and
Walter was a part of that. He was a part
of the rescue and Greg did an amazing job of
highlighting the story, highlighting the heroes, not glorifying the villain,
and getting that real human reaction and being very cautious
of the fact that you were talking to people who

(37:45):
witnessed probably the worst things ever, and for a lot
of these people, including Walter, was the worst day of
their life. And I think I had to go about
this interview a little bit differently, knowing that some of
these things may be hard for him to talk about.
So even gets emotional in this interview. If you've not
seen it on Netflix, maybe missed it earlier this year,

(38:05):
but it is called Oklahoma City Bombing, American Terror.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Let's get into this interview.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
I was completely moved by the documentary. And I was
born in Texas in nineteen ninety one, so I really
don't remember a whole lot as a kid. For me,
watching this documentary was learning all the details in full,
from beginning to end, and it was really powerful to me.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
So Greg, I'll start with you, why.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Do you think is so important right now, about thirty
years after it for people to watch this documentary and
learn about it.

Speaker 12 (38:37):
You know, I'm gonna throw to what was there, when
it was when it happened. He was an FBI agent
in Oklahoma City, and he did some extraordinary and heroic
things that day, and well, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 13 (38:50):
Well thanks Greg. The timing of this documentary is important,
and it's an important because of the messages that the
documentary conveys a powerful graphic reminder of the consequence of hate.
And when you think about those that are consumed by hate,

(39:10):
they lose trust in everything. They have no trust in
anything or anybody. And when you have no trust, the
enemy is around every corner. So we have to be
very mindful of that and paying attention to the messages
of this documentary that the consequence of hate, the importance
of having trust, right, But the more important message is

(39:33):
the power of coming together. And Mike that you mentioned
having previewed the documentary, so you know exactly what.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
I'm talking about.

Speaker 13 (39:41):
I think that message was loud and clear throughout the documentary.
I think Gregan has teamed it an amazing job conveying
that all important message.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
I think that is something I take away from watching
it is sometimes I struggle with anything that is true
crime or something focused on a situation when are lost.
I find it hard to view that as entertainment, and
it's hard for me to say that this documentary was entertaining.
But it's so powerful in a way that it's not
the subject matter that I'm entertained by it's the fact

(40:11):
that there was so much humanity that happened that day,
and so much that I saw how people reacted to it.
That was really inspiring for me to see.

Speaker 12 (40:19):
Well, it makes me happy to hear, you know. I
think it's certainly a dramatic story, you know, and there
are thousands of ways you can tell the story because unfortunately,
so many people were impacted by it, you know. So
our job was to find a handful of people who
were hopefully involved in the kind of the moments that
were most intense over the next seventy two hours, and

(40:41):
we were really fortunate to do that. You know, we
found several people who were right in the heart of
what was happening all through that next three days. Was
one of those guys, you know. And what's amazing to
me about a lot of the people that we met
and talked to, And this thing is, you know, you
could understand most people just running away from a building
that's just blown up in the middle of your city,
in the heartland of America, you know, but there's so

(41:03):
many people in Oklahoma City that day who did exactly
the opposite. They turned around and they ran right to
the building. You know, there was a nurse, Rebecca Anderson,
thirty seven year old woman who ran into the building
to try to help people, and she actually wound up
dying because it was so dangerous in there. Something fell
and hit her. You know, the whole building was just
in shambles that nobody knew if it was going.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
To fall over.

Speaker 12 (41:24):
You know, as Walla says in the documentary, he doesn't
know if he's going to see his kids again when
he goes into that building.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
To try to help people.

Speaker 12 (41:30):
All these people kind of discovered this hero inside them
that they may not have known was there unless they'd
face something like this. And I found it really inspiring
to hear all of those stories.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Walder.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Can you talk about that because in the documentary you
say that you saw it on TV, you saw the smoke,
and then immediately went into action. Can you take us
back to that day of you watching it first on
TV before you went there, you know.

Speaker 13 (41:54):
Mike, and you know, I'm sure that you recognize that
that folks like myself that were there that day that
have been impacted by this. Uh. And I've thought about
it because when things like this when we are there.
I was at the branch to video and stand off

(42:14):
at Waco, Texas to day that the compound burnt down.
I was there, surrounded by the smell of burnt flesh,
seeing skeletal remains that were just hours before were human
beings and now they're so those things are all put away,
and they're put away in a box. Try to put
them back here so you can continue to function, You
can continue to work, you can continue to do your job.

(42:37):
So being interviewed for the documentary, that box had to
be taken out in every detail had to be talked about.
So it was it was pretty tough. And even setting
here today with you, I have to tell you and
it's and it's kind of a tough thing to say.
I'm onto Virgitiers even talking about it right now and
having just previewed the documentary and seeing stuff that that day.

(43:04):
You know, when we're looking back at that footage from
that day that Greg and his team pulled together and
brought there to take us back to that day, I
was right there and some of the things that I
saw in that footage, my mind focused down and blocked
out so that I was able to continue to do
what I had to do. And that was to go

(43:26):
in the building and looking for survivors. But that morning,
I was fifteen miles away and I felt and heard
to blast. I went in immediately into the house. And
you're much too young to remember these days. But when
we had sonic booms and they were pretty frequent and prevalent,
I thought maybe it was a sonic boom. So I

(43:46):
asked my wife, I said, did you hear that? She said,
I did. I felt it and heard it, turned on TV,
saw the plume of smoke, got my car and headed downtown.
But it's only dawned on me just within the past
couple of days. When I left the house that morning,

(44:07):
my entire life was going to change that day. And
when you try to try to quantify what that really means,
I mean, I continue to function, I continue to live,
I continue to be a husband and father and so on,
and do my job at the FBI. But there there

(44:27):
was there was change and that and and I thought
about that. When I went back home at four o'clock
in the morning the next morning, I realized what that
that that my life had been changed, just like all
the rest of the people that were there that day,
every person that was there, every person that was impacted
by this, and now even the people that will see

(44:48):
this documentary, it will change them in some way.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
I really appreciate you being so vulnerable there. I can
hear it in your voice, I can see it in
your face, and I think that was really what I
learned about your story by watching this documentary was the
bravery you had that day. I can only imagine how
that is looking back, even just have memories of it,
but having to see the actual footage from that day,
I imagine that's super powerful.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
So I really appreciate you sharing that with me.

Speaker 12 (45:12):
It's interesting because it's not just bravery back then, but
it's also the bravery that all the people that we
talked to in the documentary had to come and sit
down with us. Yeah, well, just describe. You've got to
go back into that moment. You got to open it
up and you know, re experience it. And some of
the people that we talked to, like doctor Carl Spengler,
who was ann emergency room resident who ran right to
the building right after it happened, and you know Renee

(45:34):
More who lost her six month old baby in the building,
they never really talked much about it to anybody in
the media, you know, and so it was really a
gift for them to like sit down with us and
go back to those moments and share that with us.
And yeah, it's incredible to watch people do that.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Greg, how do you manage that as a filmmaker of
wanting to do this story justice but also being respectful
to everybody involved, because, like you said, some people just
don't want to speak about these things or go back
and remember some of this stuff.

Speaker 12 (46:03):
And we talked, you know, we definitely talked to folks
in the build up to shooting who had amazing stories
to tell but didn't want to go on Cameron do
that and I completely get that, you know, we totally
respect that. And even when people sat down with us,
my job is to, especially in a thing like this,
is to just help them tell their story the way

(46:25):
they want to, you know. And other than that, I'm
not pushing. I'm not trying to get them to tell
me something in a more dramatic way. I'm not trying
to get them to share something that they don't want
to share. I think it's just important to let people
tell you their story.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Walter, I'm curious at what age did you decide that
you wanted to get into law enforcement. And what age
did you know that you wanted to eventually be in
the FBI.

Speaker 13 (46:48):
You know, Well, I'm an American Indian, I'm Blackfeet and
witch Ta, so we don't have an Indian country. We
don't have a lot of role models that are FBI agents.
So we don't have Uncle Ben who's an FBI agent,
Aunt Susie who's an FBI agent, somebody in our community
who is. So that thought had never even really entered
my mind. My mother's father was in law enforcement. My

(47:09):
dad was in law enforcement for a period of time.
And I was a school teacher on the Blackfeet Reservation,
teaching high school shop and I went to a conference
and there were two Native FBI agents there and they said, hey,
have you ever thought about this? Well? I hadn't. Well
you should, and I did. And it's kind of a
kind of a long twisted story. But I'm at the

(47:31):
FBI academy and I have a total, total, and complete
lack of confidence because I'm a high school shop teacher,
Native American. The rest of my class are attorneys, and
one guy's a rocket scientist and on and on, and
I felt so small in that classroom. But once I
got through the FBI academy and I was at my

(47:52):
first office, I realized that it was the job that
I was meant for, and it was a job that
I was made for. I think when Greg mentioned that
the bravery and such, well, it's it's not. I guess
there is a certain amount of that that's in there,
but it's about doing your job. You know what your

(48:12):
job is to do. You go and you do your job,
and you don't think about it being an act of
bravery or anything else. You just go do what you're
supposed to do. And I feel like that FBI job
was what I was supposed to do. And one thing
that I will say, and I've mentioned this to Mike,
having gone through these interviews now thirty years later in

(48:34):
my seventies, so you start looking and reflecting on things
a bit differently. But one of the things, and I
think I'm probably absolutely not alone in this, but and Mike,
you mentioned it on the very front end when you
talked about the kind of the dichotomy here of entertainment
and information that it's And so I came to the

(48:55):
realization that there is an inner conflict and there has
been for thirty years since the bombing, and that conflict
comes with the fact that you are not able to
tell yourself that you did good. It's hard to pat
yourself on the back and say I'm proud of the
person I was that day because of exactly what you mentioned,

(49:18):
the tragedy that's involved in that, the things that we
all saw that day, the things that we all had
to do that day, and to be able to say
good job, it just hasn't been able to come. So,
you know, and I'll thank Gregg and the rest of
the team the way they did work us through the interviews,
how we were allowed space and place in those interviews,

(49:38):
and then subsequent to interviews, that realization finally came to me.
And that's something that I'm going to work on. As
silly as it sounds, but to be able to just
say to myself, you know, you did good.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Well, it sounds like it's hard for you to take
credit for some of your efforts. And as you see
me standing or sitting in this studio right now, you
might see I'm a big superhero fan and when I
think of the greatest superheroes, the greatest superheroes don't do
the job because they need it. They do it because
the people need them. And that is what I see
in you.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Alter.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
You have something inside of you that wants to help
other people. And you're doing it not because you want
to do it to be praise or renowned. You do
it because I feel like there's something inside of you
that this is. I know this is the good thing
that I need to do and I need to help people.
So just know that I just by talking to you
watching in this documentary, I can feel that, and I

(50:29):
have just met you and been talking to you, and
I feel like super proud for you.

Speaker 10 (50:34):
Right.

Speaker 13 (50:34):
I'll also say that, and Greg dis saluted it to
a bit ago. My story is but one of a
thousand stories. My story is but one of a thousand stories.
And those other people that I know that were in
the building, that rushed to the building, people that I
know that experience that you know, my wish would be
that their story, all of their stories could be told

(50:56):
because there is there was no one hero that day.
There was everybody. And that's what I said earlier, the
power of coming together. Everybody came together and everybody had
a contribution. And those stories are just incredible and they're
amazing and the stories that Greg and his team were
able to tell, but just a few of those. But

(51:18):
I'm hoping that people want they see the documentary that
they recognize how many other stories are there.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
I thought you handled that really well of not glorifying
him in any way, but using his voice just throughout
what was most chilling to me, how he had no
remorse about anything, and I'd never heard his voice, and
I think having that there was important. But again, like
we've been talking about how we struggle with finding things
like this quote unquote entertaining, I felt like it was

(51:45):
important to include that to tell the full story good.

Speaker 12 (51:48):
And I think so too. You know, we didn't want
to given a platform in the grave kind of thing,
you know, but it's and it's only a slight piece
of you know, that material, so you just kind of
get a tiny sense for who he was. But I
think what we have in there is very indicative of
who this cat was. You know, he was a very sad,
empty human.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
There were a lot of things I learned about his
capture by watching this documentary that when he was captured,
that they didn't know that it had any connection to it,
and it was all because of the license plate that
he was driving around. He didn't have a license plate.
Could you talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 12 (52:19):
Charlie Hanger has told that story many times, and I
think he does a good job for us, you know,
just that he wanted to go downtown like everybody else,
you know in law enforcement, you know, in the five
hundred mile radius, and he was told, no stick in
your area. You're an Oklahoma State trooper, you know, and
do your thing out there, and fortunately he did. And
then he came up on mcvay's car without a license plate,
pulled him over, started talking to him, and when he

(52:41):
asked for mcvay's driver's license to McVeigh reached for his pocket.
He had a windbreaker on pulled tight across his chest,
and that's when Hanger solid he had a pulster. And
there had just been just a couple of weeks earlier
shooting of a state trooper in Oklahoma, so he was
on high alert and that's why he reached out grabbed
a gun and from there, you know, McVeigh was in trouble.

(53:02):
Nobody knew that he'd done the bombing, but you know,
he was driving without a license plate on his car.
And he now had an unregistered gun, so he was
going to go in and sit in jail for at
least twenty four hours at that point.

Speaker 13 (53:14):
You Know, one thing I'll say about Trooper Hanger pulling
him over that day is one of the things that
I learned working in the FBI, working with a lot
of law enforcement agencies and police officers. I call it
cop eyes, that they developed cop eyes, or they have
cop eyes, and it's based on instinct and intuition. They
see things that we don't always see. And sometimes they

(53:34):
see things that they don't recognize overtly, but it's their
instinct and intuition. And I think that day wasn't just
happenstance that Trooper Hanger pulled him over. I think his
spidy senses and his cop eyes recognized that was that
there was something afoot and pulled him over.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Wealter. What do you hope you are remembered for?

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Question?

Speaker 13 (54:00):
You know, Yeah, Mike, that's a damn good question what
I would probably most hoped to be remembered for. And
I wasn't always you know, And I even thought about
this when I was thinking about the documentary. When I
left the house that morning, my kids were still asleep.
I came home, I was a different person. I didn't
get a chance to tell them again that I loved them.

(54:21):
And that's why I said that in the documentary that
I just when I was in there, I honestly goodness
wasn't sure that I was going to come out, and
I just had this desire to be able to tell
my kids just one more time that I love them.
So what I would like to be remembered for. I'd
like to be remembered as a good dad and a
good pap up.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
I love the documentary. I hope everybody sits down to
watch it and really takes all those messages in. I
hope everybody learns from all the stories. And I really
appreciate the time getting to talk to you guys.

Speaker 12 (54:50):
Thank you very much, Mike. We appreciate it.

Speaker 13 (54:52):
Well, Mike. Yeah, and I too appreciate having an opportunity
to visit with you and your viewers.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
Thank you so much. An honorable mention.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Before we get to number one, director Ryan Kugler, who
this year had a smash hit on his hands with Sinners.
Like I was talking about earlier, he is a true
visionary and somebody now that can make any movie he wants,
because he's had so much success with Sinners, with the
first Creed movie, Black Panther one, and Black Panther two.

(55:26):
On the horizon, we are looking at Black Panther three.
I put it as an honorable mention because I only
really got to ask one question. But here we go,
Ryan Kugler, you're Ryan.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
You're one of my favorite directors. And I think not
only for directing but writing.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
And I think something that you're gonna be remembered for
is the representation.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
I think that was huge for me.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Like in Black Panther two, having the first major Mexican
character in the MCU was like amazing. Was that something
that you set out to do early on or something
that kind of developed over time? The power of representation.

Speaker 8 (55:57):
It's something that I shot out to do early on,
but it also wasn't something that I consciously thought about.
Man Like I grew up in Oakland, California, like in
the nineties when it was just an incredibly diverse city. Man,
I wasn't able to travel because I didn't have the
money too, but I felt like I had the whole
world right outside my door. You know, people from all
parts of the world were there, and they were proud

(56:19):
of their cultures. You know what I'm saying. They share,
We would share with each other. We were over each
other's houses, eating each other's food, and listening to each
other's music. That was how I grew up and when
I got enough enough means to travel, and I discovered
that Oakland really prepared me for what the world. What
the world was man, you know what I mean. I
got dropped off in Hong Kong. I never forget, and
I was like, Yo, this is like being It's like

(56:40):
being downtown San Francisco, you know what I mean. I
almost knew my way around, you know. And for me,
if I have this ability, it's blessing to be able
to have a camera and write things that that people
are going to have an opportunity to go see. I
do fill up a responsibility to do my best to
present the world as it is, you.

Speaker 6 (56:57):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 8 (56:58):
And all is fine. That rewarding when I'm watching a
movie when the world feels like that. So I feel
like that's my responsibility to continue to give out to audiences.
So it means a world few to share that with me.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Bro And at number one, I have director Zach Kreiger,
who also had a smash hited the box office this
year with Weapons. Before this, his directorial debut was Barbarian.
Next year, he's coming out with a Resident Evil movie.
Back in the day, he was part of a comedy
troupe and TV show called The Whitest Kids. You know,
as soon as I just got on the interview to

(57:31):
talk to him, I felt like we had been friends
for ten to fifteen years. And maybe it's because he
has roots in punk rock, and I think when I
meet other people who are also fans of the music
that I grew up with and grew up probably in
a similar way because of our love of a style
of music that you kind of had to be weird
to be into. Maybe it was a little bit of

(57:51):
instant connection there. But he is somebody who has so
much attention to detail, and Weapons was a movie that
really moved me, had a cultural impact this year. Taught
us a new way to run. If you haven't seen
Weapons yet, it is also on HBO Max, So let's
get into that now Here is Zach Kreiger. What is
it like when you wake up and realize you have

(58:13):
the number one movie in the country.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
What is that feeling like.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
It is surreal? It doesn't. It doesn't feel like I
think maybe somebody might expect it to feel, because it's
you're still in your bed and your skin in your room,
and it's you know, there's no there's no news, pixie
dust sprinkled in the air.

Speaker 5 (58:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
It's you can look at your phone and kind of
reinforce that that's happening, and then you put your phone
in your pocket and you're still just in your house.
So it's it's a weird thing, you know. It's I'm happy.
Don't get me wrong, I don't. I don't mean to be,
you know, pooing anything, but uh, you're still you.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
So so yeah, I think I understand that because I
in my life, I've lost one hundred pounds and I
was really proud of myself when I was really proud
of myself when I did that, and I thought once
I did all the work and lost the way that
I would be suddenly happier. And then I woke up
when nan I realized I did it. I don't know
if I feel any happier. Is it kind of that

(59:11):
same way where you're like, I thought this was going
to solve all my problems. This is what I wanted
to achieve as a filmmaker, and now that I have it,
it's like, okay, cool, this is it.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Okay, Well I think there, I think maybe, but I
think there's something deeper under the surface that that we
have in common. Right now, you did something really hard
and and you are reaping the benefits of that because
you probably have more energy, and you probably probably have
some self esteem rise from that, right And I think
that so even though my moment to moment is largely

(59:39):
similar than as it was before, I do have like
there is a sense of accomplishment that I think kind
of is an underlying vibe that that I can I
can recognize as being as being different. Do you feel that.
I know when I got sober, I felt that way,
you know, I felt like, oh, like things still bother me,
but like I have this like cushion of self esteem

(01:00:03):
that I've never had before, and I only got that
after I got sober. So maybe maybe we have that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
And yeah, yeah, feeling the self esteem is a big
part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
I guess I just thought that once I lost all
the weight, that suddenly all my problems would fix and
I'd find a girlfriend and I'd be like, okay, now
I get the job.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Would like come storming into your living room and like
somebody would.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Just give you a raise exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Oh yeah, the world doesn't work out well.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
And I think with you in the creative field, that
you're always kind of chasing that thing, and then sometimes
when you have you're like, oh man, was this really
what I wanted the whole time?

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Well that I don't know, because I think I've wanted
to be a filmmaker since I was like six, and
so so I you know, there's always maybe a fear
that you're going to be like the dog that catches
the mail truck and like, you know, is it gonna
monkeys pop? And by the way, maybe it will. I
don't know it. You know, this is all very new,
so I could I could be singing a different song
in two years. But but right now, you know, I'm

(01:00:56):
I'm in Prague and I'm making a new movie, and
you know, my wife and I are good and I'm
doing okay, So I'm alright.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
So I'm a huge fan of post Malone. I had
the chance to meet him. I posted a picture of
him in my Instagram story and later I saw that
he watched my Instagram story, Like that's cool post Malone
watch my Instagram story. That was almost cool then meeting
him in some weird way because I don't know. I
think we're all just like fascinated with social media and
who watches our stuff?

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
For you?

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
As a filmmaker, do you ever during the process of
making a movie, think, man, I wonder who the most
famous person is going to be that has watched my movie?

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
No, who would that be?

Speaker 12 (01:01:33):
For you?

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Though?

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Like, oh man, I really wish they would watch my movie,
Like I love this person. Maybe since I was a kid,
I'm a huge fan of them now, Like if this
person watches Zach Craiger movie, I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Don't know, Brad Pitt, I've always been a giant fan.
That would be pretty cool. You know, there's so many
people you admire and I could give you a hundred
names right now that would blow my mind if they
saw the movie. I don't know. It's funny, like the
idea of being on set and being like, all right,
I'm sitting up a shot and one day person, ye,

(01:02:05):
Barack Obama's gonna watch this.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
And I'm really gonna impress them. With this one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
I do not think that way.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
For Barbarian.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
You said you learned to prep the shoot and shoot
the prep. What did you learn from Weapons?

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Great question. I think I learned to and I'm still
learning it. I learned I need to learn to just
like relax a little bit more. Everybody I'm surrounded by
is really good at what they do. The movie's not
gonna collapse. You know, we're gonna get it.

Speaker 5 (01:02:34):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Here's what I learned. My cinematographer said during prep, you know,
we're not playing a win lose game here. We only win.
And I was like, are you allowed to think that way?
Do you think that way? Could I think that way?
And like, yeah, that's the attitude, man, Like I don't
need to freak out that if I forget to say
something in prep, suddenly everything's gonna burn to the ground

(01:02:55):
and production and the movie will be broken. Like, no,
the movie's gonna win, you know, because it's a good
idea and I have talented people and it's gonna it's
we're gonna get everything we need to get. And I
think when I was making Weapons, I had this fear
that that wasn't true. But I think that is I'm
allowed to live in that mindset now.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
I think one of the most surprising things that I
wasn't expecting when watching the movie and even rewatching the
movie were the moments of comedy where it was kind
of unexpected. It was maybe Josh Brolin saying line like
what the hell?

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
Like what theF for? What's going on here?

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And there was just these moments that kind of popped
in the theater where I was like, Oh, if you
cut this movie differently, do you think it could be
a comedy?

Speaker 5 (01:03:35):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
I wonder. I don't know, but I'd love to see
someone try.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Why is it that people who have maybe roots in
comedy like you kind of translate to horror so well,
like a Jordan Peele I'd even put like a John
Kazinski in there, going from having this background in sketch
comedy where people know them for that and now suddenly
have such success in horror.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
How do those two genres kind of have some similarities?

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Because I think you have to have an ear for timing,
and I think you have to be good at surprise.
I think every joke is a surprise, every single one,
every joke. Everything you've ever laughed at follows a recipe
in a formula, like an algebraic formula. That formula is this,
an action with an expected outcome yields an unexpected outcome. Okay,

(01:04:21):
So it's basically just saying, you do this, you think
you're gonna get that, and you get a surprise. And
I promise you there's not one thing you've ever laughed
at in your life that doesn't sort of follow that.
And and try me if you ever see me on
the street and you think you have one that doesn't
follow that for me, come up to me and tell me,
and I bet I can, I bet I can beat you,
because it just does and and and so that is

(01:04:44):
someone who's kind of good at that surprise, that like
anti rhythm or that that little like pop is probably
going to be good at scaring you, because scares are
follow the same anatomy, you know, where it's like you're
subverting in expectation and and I'm not sure if it's
the exact same, but it's very similar. So it's the
same muscle group, is what I'm trying to say. It's like,

(01:05:06):
it's like you're good at the same instrument. Maybe is
the way I think about it. That was a really
mouthful bullshit to describe it a simple question.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
But yeah, one of my favorite things about you is
that you were in a punk band back in the
day where you said you would just basically get on
the floor and just scream until they totally had to stop.
But you grew up in the DC punk scene, which
I'm a huge band of punk rock. If you had
to create a Mount Rushmore of punk artists, who would
be on that Mount Rushmore?

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
Your top four?

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Wow? Okay, I'd go bad brands first and foremost perfect
for DC. Yeah, I would go Fugazi probably, I would
put you know what a great question, dude, I might
have to say the Misfits, Oh love it, huge Misfits,
early Misfits when Danzig was in the band.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I don't even consider them the Misfits after Danzig lev
It's like it's just dancing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah, yeah, And then like, I don't know, I mean,
oh god, that's so hard. That's such a hard one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Fourth, Well, and what do you got there?

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Maybe maybe Dead Kennedy's I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
I feel like that is a classic punk rock list
right there. That is tough, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
But now I'm madimiself. Those are all like obvious. You know,
I could get like really like narrow a niche and
say like born against and his zero is gone and
like keep going down that path. But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
But melt Rushmore is the people who are gonna be
remembered forever. You gotta have dantic space up there. The
Crimson ghosts up there is that kind of I would
probably put. When I got into punk rock was late nineties,
early two thousands, so I'd put Rancid, No Effects, Blink
on eighty two, and Green Day.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
These are all pop punk bands.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Dude, you don't consider those punk bands too?

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Green That all every band you just named is like
pop punk.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Okay, So I'll go punk rock. Then I would go Ramones.
Can I take the Ramones? Yeah, of course, yeah, I'd
go See then I do feel basic kind of like
you did, because I'd go Ramones, Misfits.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
And Prop Ransom. Would you consider Rancid pop punk?

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Not not? Not as pop punk? Is like Blink what
I did too?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Wow, you consider rancid pop punk, that is, I said,
not as the other You're like, you're commercial tasting music, Okay,
for that's probably got black flag though that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
I meanp Ivy was like that was like the band
that was my gateway drug, you know, and that's basically
you know, that's rancid practically. So so I I get you.
I'm not, by the way, I'm not giving any shade
at all. I'm just saying like they were all very similar.
They're all kind of living in that same kind of
kind of like you know, time and space, you know,
no effect screen day and you know so that that dude, No, no,

(01:07:43):
no problems here. But I'm just saying, like you made.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Me feel so basic, now, Zach, that's not what I meant. Well,
I really appreciate it's been awesome to get to talk
to you. You are one of my favorite directors, so
this is an honor.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Thanks Mike. It's really fun to talk to you too, dude.
Don't don't hold that against me that I asked you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
I thanks man.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
All right, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
So that is it the Top five interviews of twenty
twenty five. Coming up later on the podcast, we're gonna
have Kelsey do her top ten books of the year.
So if you are looking right now at books for
twenty twenty six, maybe you're making the new year's resolution
of reading more, Kelsey will have her top ten that

(01:08:22):
she recommends. After that, we'll start out the new year
with my top ten movies of twenty twenty five. I
always like to wait until the year is completely done
because I hate having any kind of carry over. If
a movie comes out in twenty twenty five, it has
to be on my twenty twenty five list. But you
have all these great movies coming out on Christmas that
I haven't seen yet, So it feels wrong for me

(01:08:45):
to make a full list that embodies the year when
there are big movies I haven't seen yet. So if
you're wondering why that episode hasn't come out yet, I
always wait until the next year starts, so.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Have that to look forward to.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
But until next time, go out and watch good movies
and I will talk to you later.