Imagination Rejuvenation, Failure Folly, and More with Ned Donovan

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:19):
I got added to his friendsfantasy golf league because they
put my email on the thread,not his. And. And I was in that league
for like a year and a half.Like, I played, I was really rude,
I talked a lot of crap. Andyet one day in the middle of like

(00:42):
my second season, a new namegot added to the email thread and
they were like, hi, this isour friend and college classmate,
Ned Donovan. Who are you?
Hi, and welcome to 5 RandoQuestions, the show with unexpected
questions and unfilteredanswers. I'm your host, Danny Brown,

(01:03):
and each week I'll be askingmy guest five questions created by
a random question generator.The guest has no idea what the questions
are and neither do I, whichmeans this could go either way. So
sit back, relax, and let'sdive into this week's episode. Today's
guest is Ned Donovan. Ned isan actor, singer, writer, producer,
and a bunch of differenthyphens around the entertainment

(01:25):
industry. He's a seriousregular on and co creator, executive
producer on the Dungeons andDragons TV show Encounter Party,
as well as a co host of DailyTips That May or May Not Help You,
a Ti of the Day podcast intwo minutes or less. He's also the
director of audio fiction forthe New Jersey Web Festival, the
first film festival experiencefor fiction podcasts and actual play

(01:47):
media. Now in its fifth year,Ned's worked with festivals all over
the world to launch the AudioFiction World cup, the first international
collective of festivalexperiences with jury adjudicated
competitions in audio fiction.So, Ned, welcome to five Random Questions.
Hey, thanks. It's so awesometo be here.
You are very welcome. And onething I didn't mention in the intro

(02:10):
there, but you have a dogcalled Bugsy Moggs. I do, and I feel
that's a name I should maybeknow. It's not Bugsy Malone. Cause
that's what it's called.
It's not Bugsy Malone. So,interestingly enough, I don't know
that you would, being fromScotland and Canada. Where in Canada
are you?
So I'm about three hours northof Toronto.

(02:33):
Okay. So only if you happen tobe a Toronto's Rap, a Toronto Raptors
fan, might this make sense toyou. But there is back in the 90s,
a point guard for theCharlotte Hornets named Mugsy Bogues.
And Mugsy was my favoritebasketball player growing up because

(02:54):
he was so short. And I foundit awesome that he was as good as
he was, surrounded by thesemen who were like 2ft taller than
him. And when we got our dog,he had a name from the rescue that
we didn't feel fit hispersonality. So we didn't give him
a name for a while. We justsort of, like, hung out with him
and called him nicknames. Andwe found ourselves calling him Bug

(03:16):
as a nickname. And we felt,okay, Bug feels right. Bug feels
good. But he can't be calledBug. He needs a name that shortens
into Bug. And we can't namehim Bugsy Malone because that's rude.
So. So we. But we foundourselves liking Bugsy. And that's
when my brain said, well, whydon't we spoonerize famous Charlotte

(03:39):
Hornets point guard MugsyBogues and make him Bugsy Moggs?
And that is where the namecame from. And it's funny because
I'm not a huge basketballperson. So people who do know Mugsy
Bogues will meet the dog andbe like, oh, so you're a big Hornets
fan? And like, well, no, Ilike the Boston Celtics. And they'll
be like, oh, so you justreally like the NBA? And I'm like,
not really. But for somereason, Mugsy Bogues really got it

(04:01):
for me. And listeners, if youdon't know who Mugsy Bogues is, you,
you might, because he's thepoint guard who the Monstars steal
the talent from in the classic90s movie Space Jam.
Ah, right. Well, I've seenthat movie. It's been a while since
I've seen it.
He's the really short one whoturns into the really short monster.
Right. I will have to look.I'll have to go back and watch that.

(04:21):
We watched that. We were kidsa few years back, when they were
still younger. They're nowteens and they're not quite as interested
in. But I'll have a look outfor that because it's one of my wife's
favorite movies, funnily enough.
Well, it's funny. Revisitingthat movie is hard because I don't
know that it's as good as itwants to be. I rewatch it every once
in a while because I reallylove that movie, but I more and more
love it for the nostalgia ofit. It is just like a giant nonsensical

(04:43):
advertisement.
Well, yeah, I tend to findthat a lot of movies now, they may
be. Not have aged quite aswell as we kind of remember them.
I mean, goodness is awesome.It always will be. And I feel that's
one of these that will standthe test of time. But then you go
back and watch something elsefrom that period. You think, not
quite. You know, not quite.But so Is your dog short then? Is

(05:03):
that why.
No.
So it's a tall dog.
He's 60 pounds. He's a blacklab German shepherd. He runs around
a lot. It was purely so thatwe could have a name that abbreviated
to bug.
And another thing that youalso enjoy is tabletop, tabletop
role playing games. And I knowHenry Cavill, Superman, for, you
know, for one of his manyroles, is a massive tabletopper role

(05:26):
playing fan, especially withthe Warhammer universe. So, Ned,
could you take Henry Cavill ina tabletop game?
Well, the first and mostimportant rule of most tabletop games
is they're not competitive,they're collaborative. We are working
together as friends to tell astory. If you watch my TV show Encounter
Party, which is availablelisteners on Roku, Tubi and Plex

(05:49):
for free right now, 22episodes. Each episode's an hour
long. It's a fantasy mysterythriller improvised in real time
by playing Dungeons andDragons on a soundstage. And the
way the game works is everyonehas their own character and everyone
has their own wants and needs.And then there's one person at the
head of the table whose job itis to weave the story along with

(06:10):
the players. And you are nevertrying to, quote, unquote, win. You
are actively trying to createstory experiences for yourself and
for your friends that are funand explorative. When I was in college
for musical theater, I playeda lot of Dungeons and Dragons and
other tabletop role playinggames, specifically as a way to keep

(06:31):
my improv skills and my actingskills up. Because, you know, someone
across from the table will saysomething random, and it's your job
to react and be part of it andhave fun with your friends. Of course,
the difference between mytelevision show and the actual game
is that my television show isdesigned for seven actors to make
a great product for anaudience. It is completely improvised,

(06:53):
but we're all thinking aboutthings from a larger television perspective.
At home, I've had like threebeers, and the only people I'm trying
to entertain are the fiveother friends I'm playing the game
with. And it's a verydifferent experience. You know, we
have a lot of fans in ourEncounter Party Discord server. We
call them the party people.And the party people will be like,

(07:14):
this seems like the most fun Dand D experience of all time. And
I'll say the same thing everytime. Oh, it's the most fun acting
job I've ever had, noquestion. But it is not the most
fun I've ever had playingDungeons and dragons because for
eight to 10 hours a day, wewere on camera having to be, like,
very active and very focusedand very cognizant that if we were

(07:36):
bad, we were just ruining aton of money for a major corporation.
And so. So it was. I would goback to my hotel room every night
a shell of a human. And we didthat for 10 straight days. Like,
is it cool? Absolutely. Was itthe most fun I've ever had playing
D and D? No, but it is themost fun I've ever had as an actor.
So the answer is, I don'tthink I could take Kenry Cavill because

(07:58):
we'd be working together.
Well, I like it. It's funny.The episode that just dropped today,
actually, as we record this,my guest is Jen Trebek, and one of
the questions came up was, whowould I. Her question for me, actually
was, who would be my idealguest? I ended up with two, actually.
I cheated a little bit, butone of them was Ryan Reynolds, obviously.

(08:18):
Deadpool.
He'd be Deadpool.
So it'd be awesome for you tobring Henry Cavill for me to get
Ryan Reynolds. We should allcome on, do a special one off live
taping.
Dang.
Right, Questions, roleplaying, tabletop, everything.
But I bet we can make thathappen. That seems like an achievable
goal, I.
Feel, when you, like, get intouch with all our contacts and just
make this just a socialchallenge going right now.

(08:39):
Hey, as an actor, I have topay for IMDb Pro so that I can have
my headshots on IMDb. Like,that's the only reason I pay for
it. But it's also a great wayto figure out whose managers and
what their emails are. So itisn't hard to reach out to the people
who manage those people. It'sharder to get a response.
Well, we shall. We shall lookat that. We shall look at that. And

(09:02):
speaking of entertainment, itis now time to bring you and place
you on the five randomquestions hot seat. Are we ready
to go, Ned?
Oh, you know, I'm ready to go.This is just like, by the way, in
Dungeons and Dragons and othertabletop games, there are many things
called random tables, which isa list of between usually 5 and 500

(09:24):
things in a theme, and youroll dice to decide which one you're
dealing with. So I really justfeel like I'm in a D and D campaign
where you have a random tableand you're rolling a D20.
All righty, let's see how thatD20 goes then. Let's bring up question
number one. Okay. I feel thisis a good one to start with because
we spoke about how you namedyour dog. So for you, Ned, question

(09:46):
number one. How did you getyour name and do you know the meaning
of your name?
Yes. I am from a waspy whitebackground in New England, and names
in my family are anegotiation. And so everyone gets
a name from one side of thefamily and then another name from

(10:07):
the other side of the family.And so I am not actually Ned. I'm
Edward. And Edward was mymom's dad's first name. And then
my middle name is Hilliard,which was my dad's mom's maiden name.
It's a. It's a transactionalequation. I became Ned because most

(10:28):
of the people in my family whoare Edward, we have a bunch of them
are Ted. And my parents wantedjust something unique, and so they
just picked Ned at random. Andthe, the kind of fun piece of it
is I've been Ned my wholelife. Very. It is hard for me to
respond to someone calling meEdward. When I was in first grade,

(10:49):
second grade, somewhere inlike the kindergarten to second grade
range, they were doingattendance on the first day of school
and they said Edward Donovan.And I literally was like, oh, there's
another guy with my same lastname. Like, I didn't know that I
was the Edward they weretalking about because I've just been
Ned my whole life. It made itreally easy as an actor because my

(11:10):
legal name and my. My stagename air quotes are different. And
so you can find Ned Donovaneverywhere. And you're going to find
mostly my acting stuff and mydike, and that's great for me. That
works out awesome. But EdwardDonovan is my legal name, but truly
is not a person that I'm awareof. Doesn't speak to my personality.

(11:32):
People meet me and I tell themI'm an Edward and they get confused.
I feel like a Ned to people.So that is the origin of my name.
And, and in my family, almosteveryone has some kind of that negotiation.
You get a first name from oneside of the family and a middle name
from the other side of thefamily. And so the lineage continues.
Well, it's like you said, I dofeel Ned is a lot more approachable.

(11:55):
It's like an every person, aneveryman name. Whereas Edward is.
To me, it's like, I think ofEdward like the king of, I guess
the king of the uk. Edward isseventh or whatever it was. I'm not
a big royal, as you canprobably tell, but he was one of
the kings And I think heabdicated because he got involved
with a married woman orsomething like that. He was married
and he got involved withsomeone. But Edward seems a very

(12:17):
formal name. You think of,you're an acting. You think of actors,
you think of obviously EdNorton, amazing Ed Furlong. Then
you get Edward Fox. And EdwardFox is a very print proper. And then
you look at good old Ned andthe immediate Ned is going to be
Ned Flanders.
It is the common. The otherpiece of it is there are a lot of

(12:39):
Edward Donovan's, right?Donovan's a pretty, you know, Eurocentric
last name and Edwards a prettyEurocentric first name. There aren't
a lot of Ned Donovans. So it'shelpful in terms of just like uniqueness.
There is unfortunately a veryfamous British journalist named Ned
Donovan who happens to beRoald Dahl's grandson. And he's also

(13:00):
married to a Jordanianprincess. And so I get like, he'll
write a, an article in the UKand I will get his hate mail because
I'm a little older than him.So I got the Ned Donovan handles
on Twitter and everywhereelse. And so people try to find him
and they get to me also ouremails are similar. They're not the

(13:23):
same. They're. They're in thesame ballpark. And so people will
misspell his email and I'llget like his dinner reservations.
And so I have his phone numbernow and I'll text him to be like,
hey, a contract came in foryou. I'm going to forward it.
That is cool. You know, when Iwas a lot more active on Twitter,
obviously playing Danny Brown,and there's a very famous rapper

(13:44):
called Danny Brown as well.And his fans used to, they obviously
never looked at the avatar.You'd see this middle aged white
guy as opposed to the young,you know, black rapper. So they also
never checked the avatar. ButI used to get some stuff from his
fans and he actually messagedme once, said, hey, I'm really sorry
about this man. He was reallynice. But I'm really sorry about

(14:04):
this man. Don't mind them,they're just having fun. Say, oh
no, I've heard worse things.But it was funny. And it reminds
me of on Twitter as well,there's a guy like a satirist, I
believe, called Liam Neeson.
Yes.
But he gets mistaken for LiamNeeson the actor. And obviously it's
spelled different like Nissanthe car as opposed to the actual

(14:25):
actor or whatever. So, yeah, Ican imagine, you know, it could how
that can happen and especiallyif you mentioned that he writes columns
for the newspapers. Normallyyou'll have either people for his
column or against the column,whatever the column is. So I can
understand you gettinginteresting messages. What's been
your favorite there? Have yougot a favorite? Good or bad?

(14:45):
Well, when we were both incollege, because he's not that much
younger than me, he tweeted atme challenging me to a duel for the
Ed Donovan handle. And he toldme to meet him in Piccadilly Circus
with swords. And I said, thisis America. You can meet me in Times

(15:06):
Square. And we've sort of beenfriends ever since. The other thing
that happened is that there'sa Ned Donovan who's a good deal younger
than both of us. And he was incollege after I was well out, and
I got added to his friend'sfantasy golf league because they
put my email on the thread,not his. And. And I was in that league

(15:31):
for like a year and half.Like, I played, I was really rude,
I talked a lot of crap. Andone day in the middle of like my
second season, a new name gotadded to the email thread. And they
were like, hi, this is ourfriend and college classmate, Ned

(15:52):
Donovan. Who are you? Oh,hello. I'm an actor in New York City.
And this has been really fun.
I. I saw something like thatonce where somebody had been called
up by this company and theywere asking for update on the accounts
or something, year end reportsaccounts or whatever. And it wasn't

(16:15):
a guy, they just called thewrong number, but he ran with it
for about a month or two andit was like a little business in
Albany just outside New Yorkor whatever. And just watching the
back and forth, it was justlike, crazy. So, yeah, I could imagine,
you know, making a quick exitonce the real Ned Donovan appeared.
Yeah, he. He then accidentallysent me his Keurig that he bought
for himself. And I had tofind. I had to like, go find the

(16:38):
invoice because he had, likespent money on this. And I don't
know this person, nor do Iknow how to get a hold of him. And
I, like, went to Keurig and Iwas like, hi, I'm not the person
who bought this machine. Canyou please go to the invoice and
give me his phone number? Andthey're like, well, that's a violation
of privacy. I was like, do youwant this guy to get his coffee machine

(17:00):
or not? And so they finallygave me his phone number and I called
him and I was like, hi, isthis Ned Donovan who used to go to
insert University that I won'tname to protect his privacy. And
he was like, yes, why do youknow that? And I was like, hello,
this is Ned Donovan whopretended to be you in a fantasy
golf league. I have your Keurig.
Put a ransom note for hisKeurig. Awesome. Well, one thing

(17:24):
we will try not to getmistaken is the lineup of the questions.
So I feel that was a good one,a nice one to start off with there,
Ned. And I love the answer yougave me there in the sharing bit.
Let's have a look and see whatquestion number two is. And this
kind of follows alongactually. And I've not seen this
pop up on the show before, sothis is good to have. Question two,
Ned, what's your family like?

(17:47):
What? I mean what is anyone'sfamily like? Wonderful and dysfunctional
and all of the stuff. I'm froman upper middle class background
in New England. My mom's sideof the family is former upper crust
from upstate New York. Myfather's family are self made business

(18:12):
people from the Boston area.And I would say my family sort of
like runs along the lines ofthose two things slammed together.
You know, my great grandfatheron my mom's side was a guy named
Edward Peck Curtis. You canlook him up. He's mad cool. He was

(18:32):
a general in the Air Forceduring World War I and he is the,
the top credited flying aceduring World War I. Now we joke that
that can't have been that hardto be statistically because planes
were only like 7 years old atthat time. But he was really cool
and he ended up after he leftthe Air Force, he was a vice president

(18:53):
at Eastman Kodak which, youknow, K act created film and all
that. He ended up found beingpart of the team that founded the
FAA for Eisenhower. Very cool.Like rich American history on my
mom's side and then my dad'sside is the story of, of you know,
immigrants and, and kind of a,a lower class through and self made

(19:16):
people and a lot lessgenerational wealth and a lot more
like grind it out, build abusiness, build a family. My close
nuclear family. My parents gotdivorced when I was young. I'm a
very happy product of divorce.I joked about it all the time, like
not only did I get twoChristmases, but just like life got
better. My dad ended up movingwhen I was in middle school to Pennsylvania.

(19:40):
He was a college professor ofbusiness and economics. My mom was
a US History teacher. And bothof them unfortunately passed away
from cancer in 2016 and 2017.And so then it's Me and when I, before
I was born, my parents lost adaughter and so my family was just
always sort of like we weredefined by what we did. My mom was

(20:03):
a teacher, I did a bunch of,you know, extracurriculars as a kid.
My older brother was also anextracurricular forward person. Ended
up moving to the Middle eastfor his career, non military. And
we just sort of like floatedaround being little weirdos, living
our lives. My brother and Iremain pretty close, I'm in New York,

(20:24):
he's not. But we, we travel tosee each other a lot. And then my
extended family, my mom's sideand my dad's side never really like
intermingled. So I hang outwith my dad's side of the family
and I hang out with my mom'sside of the family. I've got a plethora
of aunts, uncles and cousinson my mom's side. I have just a couple
on my dad's side. And then I'mmarried to a wonderful family that

(20:45):
we see their family a lot. Somy specific nuclear family as a kid
was kind of defined by traveland visiting and traditions and things
like that and my family life.Now I've always been a big believer
in chosen family matters morethan blood family. And I'm very fortunate
that I chose my blood familyto be my chosen family. And so I

(21:06):
have a great community ofpeople I call family here in New
York. Beyond my wife and herextended family, we have a really
close knit group of friendsand community here in New York. And
especially at holiday timeit's sometimes very expensive to
get home. So New Yorkers oftenstay and so usually we're throwing
Thanksgiving and otherholidays here in my apartment and
bringing people over that wecall family. When I was growing up

(21:28):
I, after my dad moved away,right, I was a precocious little
teenager being raised by asingle blind mother. So I was a real
asshole. And I was ended upraised by an extended crew of people
I call family to this day. Andso I've also sort of always said
like I chose my parents, Ilove my parents very much and I have

(21:51):
a lot of people in this planetthat I call mom and dad who have
no blood relation to me. Andso I always define family as like
there is blood family andthere's, there's commitments there
and traditions there andthings like that. But for me family
is defined by community. Andmy blood and extended family happens
to be part of my community.
That's a wonderful answer. Ireally like that. And one thing that

(22:14):
was Interesting when youmentioned it there, Boston and New
York. Yeah, I've got friendsin Boston, I've got friends in New
York. And if you could picktwo communities, if you like, in
the U.S. i don't know all theU.S. but where I've been in the U.S.
anyway, if you could pick twocommunities in the U.S. that are
very a stubborn andheadstrong, but also no BS and tell

(22:35):
you exactly what they feel soyou know exactly where they stand,
it would be Boston and New Yorkers.
That's true.
So I feel it must have beeninteresting as well, growing up with
a family that's got these twosides. I'm not going to say they
were button heads or anything,but was there stubbornness there?
And was there, you know, didyou see? Well, I'm New York, so I'm
right, I'm Boston, I'm right.That kind of thing or no, because.

(22:56):
My mother very much wanted tobe a Mainer. Both of my parents loved
Maine more than their homestates. And so I always have identified
as a Mainer. And being aMainer means I'm in New England,
which means I'm by associationconnected to Boston. My father's
greatest life dream was to befirst baseman for the Boston Red

(23:18):
Sox. He was not first basemanfor the Boston Red Sox, but I was
raised to be a die hard, noholds barred, unapologetic Boston
sports fan. And my mom had noproblem with this. My mother was
not a huge sports persongrowing up, so she had no allegiances.
And then she liked being aMainer so she just attached herself

(23:40):
to the main teams. Also, shelived in Maine for more years than
she ever lived in New York bythe end of her life. And so she.
We have. I've. I, from acultural perspective, identify as
being from New England. I willadmit, and I'm gonna say this on
a podcast or a bunch of peoplemight hate me. I don't love Boston

(24:02):
as a city. It's not like aplace I love to hang out. Sorry,
Boston, but. But I love NewEngland and I love Boston sports
teams and I, I love being inNew York as the jerk who stands up
against New York sports teamsbecause of the Boston New York rivalry.
With one exception. I as a kidwas a season ticket holder to the

(24:23):
Portland Sea Dogs, which isthe minor league baseball team in
my hometown. And at the timethey were an affiliate of the Miami
Marlins. Now they're anaffiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
And I, after becoming anadult, desperately like, wanted to
be a season ticket holder ofsomething. I Love sports. I love
being a fan, I love going togames. But I live in New York and

(24:48):
I can't be a New York sportsfan because my family will kill me.
There are rules here and sobecause of that I've had to sort
of just like not be one.However, my wife and I became season
ticket holders for theNational Women's Soccer League team
here in New York, the GothamFootball Club. Because there's no

(25:11):
Boston team, so it's aloophole. I'm not violating any rules
here. Now, after becoming aseason ticket holder for Gotham,
Boston announced they weregetting a team. But I, I'm not going
to change allegiances. I justnow have one New York team and then
all of my New England teams.
I know I had a friend, as Imentioned, I've got friends in Boston
and New York and they movedfrom Boston. Where did they go? Washington,

(25:34):
I believe they moved to. Andhis wife loved Washington, fell in
love. They moved young whenthe kids were young. So the kids
grew up supporting Washingtonsports teams. But the father, the
dad would always, when Bostoncame to town, he'd park his family
off in the Washington side,drop them off and then he'd walk
around to the Boston side andgo in there and cheer on with these
teams.
Same with you then obviouslyI'm exactly the same way. And my

(25:56):
wife and I, we use the Gothamsoccer team as our like travel. We
go to a lot of their awaygames and we contact the teams we're
going to and we'll puttogether like packets of 10 and 20
tickets and we'll take all ourlocal friends that live in that city
to come with us. And we alwayssay to them, you should rep your
home team. That's fine. Here'stheir colors. But I'm going to show

(26:17):
up and be a real jerk New Yorkfan. Everyone just needs to be ready
for that.
I like it, I like it. Andthat's, that's fine. I'm a big ball
football stroke soccer fan.Sure. And there's no way I could
support anybody else but myteam. You know, where I lived, my
team's Arsenal.
Oh sure. It's what a good teamto be.

(26:38):
A fan of at the moment. It's,it looks good. We've got a good manager
in, good backing, etc, sogood, good times.
Well, and the Arsenal women'steam is arguably the best women's
team in the world. You know,someday you're going to come down
to New York, Danny, and you'regoing to join us for a Gotham Football
Club match. And you're goingto lose your mind. Because in my
opin, women's soccer is bettersoccer. But when I lived in. I lived

(27:00):
in London for school for sixmonths and I went to a bunch of prem
matches because when else am Igoing to have that opportunity? And
I took myself up to Liverpoolto see Liverpool versus Man U. And
I didn't know much aboutPremier League soccer as a kid. My
best friend's dad was fromTottenham, so he told me if I ever

(27:22):
picked up a prem team, it hadto be the Hotspurs. And I was always
a fan of Watford because Ithink it's really funny that their
logo's a moose, but theirname's the Hornets. That's the only
reason. But I went to thisLiverpool match and I'm enjoying
the match, having a good time.The break, the. The half break comes
and all of a sudden all thesemen in Liverpool jerseys and painted

(27:43):
faces and beers everywhere puttheir arms around each other and
start swaying back and forthand singing the Liverpool fight song,
which is, you'll never walkalone. Now you'll never walk alone.
Famously from the early 1900smusical Carousel, written by Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.And I was a musical theater major

(28:04):
at the time. And I don't meanto be stereotypical, but I don't
really associate Liverpoolwith musical theater or with a song
that is often taken by theLGBTQIA community. Liverpool's not
necessarily a town that Iassociate with that community. And

(28:25):
I was so confused. And Iturned to a man after me afterwards,
sitting there listening to,you know, thousands of men sing a
song that I have only everheard sung by women of color. And
I turned to this man and Isaid, why is this the Liverpool fight
song? And he was like, oh,well, it's a song by. And he named
a band. I can't remember. It'sa. It's a 90s.
Yeah, Jared and the Pacemakers.
Great. And I was like, no, itis not. And he was like, yeah, no,

(28:48):
it's a. It's a punk song. Wesing it for the. It was a mining
incident, apparently. And Iwas like, yeah, but it's a song sung
by a woman in a musical in1922ish. And he was like, that can't
be true. And that was the endof the conversation. That was the
most confusing day of mysports and musical theater life.

(29:09):
No, and like you say, theLiverpool community are like such
a working class community andthey'll stand up for anybody and
everybody. Great community.And like, if I didn't support Arsenal.
I probably would supportLiverpool purely because of that
community. I might not likethe team, but the team, the community
itself. But yeah, the song, Ialways just knew it from, you know,
German pacemakers, becausethat's what.

(29:30):
I don't even know who this is.
Oh, they're a very famous,like, Liverpool band. Kind of not
quite up to the Beatles level,but a bit above other Liverpool bands.
So. And that was their big,big song. They had a couple others,
but that was the big, big one.
Did they do like an album ofmusical theater covers or did they
just pick that song?
I think they just picked thatsong, mate. They just. I guess I

(29:50):
like the lyrics, you know. Andthen like you said, it got picked
up by the Scousers.
It's so funny to me, when itwas on, like, I saw the most recent
revival on Broadway and all Icould think was like, what would
a guy, you know, who might notbe a musical theater person, who
came to New York as a touristand was like, you know what? I'm
going to go see a Broadwayshow. And the ticket that made the

(30:11):
most sense was Carousel. Whatwould his brain do if they started
singing you'll never Walkalone at the end of Act 2?
Probably thinking the musicaldirector is a Liverpool fan. Yes,
Liverpool fc. They'll beshouting that from the rafters.
I think about it all the time.
I love it. And I always loveto hear about people's family, so
thank you for that. So let'shave a look at question number three.

(30:37):
Question number three. Andthis is a nice timing, actually.
So as we record, this was sortof kind of going from summer into
fall, so changes in theweather, etc. Ned, question number
three. What is your favoriteday of the year?
My favorite day of the year?Well, I'll open by saying I hate
birthdays. I'm sure a lot ofpeople say birthdays, but I actively

(31:00):
dislike my birthday. I'm not aperson who loves attention, which
is weird because I'm an actor.So everyone's like, oh, well, you
must love attention. And theanswer's like, no. I like when people
watch art that I make, but Idon't love when I'm the center of
attention. Like me, Ned asNed. You know what I mean? That's

(31:20):
just that. So birthday's notit. I'm a big believer, and this
is controversial, that summeris a scam. We all love summer because
it was the break from school,right? Like, that's why summer. So
it was a long, extended periodof time that we were Able to go do
things. So our love of summeris deeply tied into the like, schedule

(31:45):
of life when we were younger.But it is my belief that summer sucks.
It's hot, it's nasty. You knowwhat's awesome? Fall. And what we
should do is readjust theworld calendar to have like August
to October off instead of Juneto August. In my opinion, if we had
those months off, we'd all behappier, better people. And we can

(32:08):
be in school through thesummer because the summer sucks.
So in that vein, probably myfavorite day of the year is going
to be esoterically like thefirst day that feels like fall. Crisp
wind. Maybe you need a lightcoat over it. A day that I used to
call for you football. But forme, premier soccer level soccer weather.

(32:29):
It would be soccer playoffweather. When I was in high school,
like late October, earlyNovember, maybe a little earlier
than that. If it shifts early.The leaves are changing but haven't
all fallen yet. It's crisp,it's cool. You can be outside all
day because it's not too hot,it's not too cold. That would be
to me, the favorite day of theyear, which I'll arbitrarily assign

(32:52):
to like October 13th.
That's just a few days beforemy birthday. So I will willingly
accept that. Exactly. Butyeah, that, that makes sense. I mean,
I'm. I'm a huge winter person.I love the snow, I love the colder
weather. I feel it's easier to walk.
That's good where you live.
Oh, I guess it has to be. Lastyear was horrendous, but I liked
it. But yeah, I mean, I guessit also ties into your upbringing.

(33:15):
So you mentioned your main.Now New York, New York can be stinky
like Toronto. Here in Canada,it can be stinky, hot and humid in
the summer.
Brutal.
But Maine, I could imagine NewEngland, etc. Boston areas gotta
be lovely in the fall with all the.
There is no place better onearth than Portland, Maine in October,
November. It is, it is. Ifyou're planning a trip, people. Portland,

(33:37):
Maine. Mid to late Octoberthrough early November is to me the
best time of year anywhere onthe planet. Go enjoy yourselves.
Now, is that because of thecolor? I've never been to Portland,
but is that because of thecolors and the, the cooler temps
or.
Well, first of all, Portland,Maine is the place I would live if
I could make a living as anactor. I love where I'm from. I love

(33:58):
my home. Every time I'm there,I think like, ugh, I wish that my
career aligned with livingBecause I'd move here tomorrow. And
if ever I decide that I'm doneacting like I will hard look at Portland,
Maine as my next destination.So Portland is just like my favorite
city on earth, right? Thefood's good, the people are good.
It's not too big. You can doit all in a certain amount of time.

(34:20):
The community feels right.Right. Like, if you're visiting,
you can get all the things youwant to get done done in, you know,
a normal amount of time. Youdon't feel like you missed anything,
but also you feel like youcould come back again and again and
again again. So Portland,Maine is just like my favorite place.
And then at that time of year,leaves are changing, temperatures
are perfect. There's oftenlike a morning mist, which is fun.

(34:43):
The days are getting shorter,which is a bummer. But, like, the
daytime that there is is likeperfect daytime. And then the evenings
aren't blisteringly cold yet,so you can go out and have a nice
time. That's a good time to bearound the ocean. And anyway, if
you've got like a good windjacket, like, being out on a boat
is perfect at that time. Sofor me, that's kind of the answer

(35:08):
is like, fall in New Englandrules. And then Portland, Maine,
being my favorite place andfall being my favorite time of year,
means that's like the perfectwindow to slam the two things together.
It reminds me of the. Again,I'm thinking back to when I was growing
up and what music my parentswould listen to and in the background.
And as a kid, you became the.Remember the music that you grew

(35:28):
up with. And my mum was a hugeBarry Manilow fan, and he's got that
very famous song, Weeknd inNew England. One of my favorite songs,
like the piano progression,chords, etc. So it was a weekend
in New England, just likeBarry. I mean, I'm trying to remember
the lyrics now. I think it wasa love song. As opposed to talking
about New England.
Yeah, it's more of like awe're gonna go on a romantic getaway
song. But it is a good song.There's a great band, kind of folklore

(35:54):
band from. I don't know whattheir range was, maybe like 70s to
90s. But they're calledSchooner Fair and they do a lot of,
like, folk music, classicIrish music, sea shanty type music,
things like that. And theyhave a song called I See the Light,
which is about driving down95, 295 through Maine. And Portland,

(36:16):
Maine is a peninsula, so it'ssurrounded by Water and one of the
highways, as you drive in,you're looking out over the bay of
the ocean at the city and Isee the light. Light is about that.
And that's sort of what Ithink about with that track is I
see the light across the bay.Like that's just like the vibe of
Portland to me.
And obviously you mentionedthat your mom, she always wanted

(36:38):
to be.
She always wanted to be a Mainer.
Did she get to Portland?
Yeah, because I grew up indowntown Portland and that's, that's
my, that's my, my home. Andsince my parents have passed away,
like, I still consider. Myparents moved a lot when I was a
kid. Right. My parents gotdivorced, my dad bounced around to
other places. My mom bouncedaround to other places. She lost
her eyesight, she moved closerto work. And so I never had like

(37:01):
a house that I lived in for, Iwould say longer than like six years
as a kid. And so Portland justkind of became the ethos of home.
There was not like a house Iwent to or there was like a restaurant
I'd go to for lunch or like acoffee shop. Like Portland is just
home to me. Kind of as ablanket statement.
Right. And obviously, like yousay, now you're in New York, your
family. So is your family. Isyour wife a New Yorker?

(37:23):
My, My wife is fromConnecticut, so fellow New Englander.
Both north and we live on thenorth side of the city. Specific.
Because it's easier to gethome to visit our families. And we
actually spent. My wife and Ispent a good chunk of COVID lockdown.
We rented a house in themiddle of the woods of Maine and
just went up there because wewere both working fully remote at
the time, so we didn't need tobe crammed in a New York City apartment.

(37:46):
And so we have spent a goodchunk of our relationship in Maine.
It's a place we try to get toat least twice a year, if not more.
It's only about depending onwhere in Maine we're going. It's
only like a five hour drivefrom where we live. So it's a, it's
a, it's an achievable goal, asit were.
Yeah, it's funny, I know wewere speaking in the green room earlier

(38:06):
before we start recordingabout Maine being Stephen King territory.
And when you mentioned youwent to like the cabin in the woods
kind of thing, it reminds meof him, I guess, like the Misery
book where the writer wants togo to the cabin to get away and create
a new book. Do you Ever getthat feeling when you're there? Obviously
you're in the creative field.Is your wife in the creative space
as well?

(38:26):
No, my wife works in tech.
Okay, cool. So that's stillkind of creative, but not actor,
media, creative. Do you everget that sort of inspirational feel
when you're there that, hey,we should just stay here and work
on X, let's do this dream thatwe've always had?
Or I've done it multiple timeswhere I'm in Maine and I'll. And
these projects have never beenmade. They were like creative thought

(38:47):
experiments more thananything. Back during. In 2017, there
was a massive blizzard thathit the northeast and kind of everything
shut down New York and on up.And so me and my. My creative collaborator
Marcus bagala, worked with 10writers in New York City to write,

(39:09):
like, an audio fiction about asnowstorm that took place in Maine,
where we told the writers howthe episode had to start and how
the episode had to end, butthen they could write anything into
the middle. And so the whole.It's like. It's a fever dream of
nonsense because we havewriters who come from theater and
writers who come from film andwriters who make, like, novels and

(39:31):
it's. And like, we never endedup recording that show, which I'm
still bummed about. I thinkabout it a lot. And I wrote a movie
with some friends that tookplace at a house that we were in.
Yeah, I'm. I'm. I'm generallya person. I make a living creating
projects, selling projects,making new projects. I constantly
have too many projects. Iadmit that my wife lovingly tells

(39:54):
me it all the time, and I'mcreatively stimulated when I'm in
places and situations thatare. That feel exciting and new.
Right. If. If I'm. And thatcould be anything from, like, seeing
a really good piece of theaterto, like, sitting in a park with
a friend I haven't talked toin a while. A little idea will pop
into my brain, and I get a lotof those in me, and then I end up

(40:16):
writing them and I usuallydon't end up releasing them. And
that's fine.
But it could be a podcast. Iknow you said earlier, even though
you are a podcaster with apodcast, your main, you know, living
experience, if you like, orworking in experience, is in the
creative space. So actingmusicals, etc. But could also be
a podcast idea down the line.You know, the unreleased, you know,
thinkings of Ned Donovan.

(40:37):
Man, Danny, don't give meanother one. I've already got two
new podcasts I'm developing awesome.
I always feel like tattoos,you know, you get your first tattoo
and you want more. And I foundthis with podcasts, and you create
one, you enjoy it, you think,this is easy, I could do it. And
then you realize it's notquite as easy. Once you've got 10
under your belt.
All of a sudden you have fourand you're like, oh, God, yeah, yeah,

(40:59):
yeah.

(42:24):
100%, 100%. So let's have alook at question number four. I'm
laughing because we were justkind of speaking about why you hate
summer. So question numberfour. What do you miss most about
being a kid? And I'm guessingit's not summer.
I'll be so honest with you.This I'm gonna take, like, a cop

(42:46):
out answer and you might say,well, then we're gonna click a new
question. I still feel like akid when I went through acting training.
Like, 90% of the training Iwent through in college was them
trying to convince us to feellike kids again, to imagine and play
and, you know, like, a kidwill think of something and they'll

(43:08):
just do it, and it's fun andit's reactive. And that is kind of
a necessity in the world ofacting, right? Someone does something,
you have to react to ithonestly, and you have to react to
it without the. The baggage oflife behind you. And so, so much
of my life is built aroundplay. Whether it's screenwriting
and I'm just making up worldsin my head, whether it's walking

(43:30):
my dog and, like, I'll write.So while running with my dog, like,
just running up the roadhumming stuff to myself into a voice
note. So much of, like, as akid, being a kid feels so defined
by play that I feel like Iplay all the time. So I often still
feel like a kid. Now. I wouldsay, like, the thing I miss most

(43:54):
in life, and this has beentrue since the day I graduated high
school, is God, Danny, I missplaying sports. I was a soccer player,
I was a lacrosse player, I wasa tennis player, and I golf now.
But the primary reason I don'tplay sports, one, I'm not 18 anymore,
but two, is that I make aliving dancing and moving. And I

(44:16):
need to be able to be agileand flexible. And if I'm in a TV
show and I need to run downthe street, I need to be able to
run down the street. And inNew York City, if I join, like, a
rec soccer league, some ex copwith something to prove is going
to, like, shatter my leg. On aslide tackle, and it's going to ruin
my career. So the day and whenI went to college, they actually

(44:37):
made a bunch of us who camefrom athletic backgrounds sign a
little agreement with theschool that said we wouldn't play
contact sports and we wouldn'tplay sports with a high risk of,
like, knee injury while atschool. So I haven't played a soccer
game since I was 18 years old.I haven't played a lacrosse game
since I was 18 years old. Thatbums me out, man. I'm well over double

(45:00):
that now. And I, I haven'tplayed since. And, and sports, I
would say, like, I love actingand I love theater and I love music
and I love creating.
I.
My heart, it's my soul. I lovetabletop games, but damn it, Danny,
I love sports. I will go in onsports more than anything else in
the world, and not being ableto play them kills me. I played a
pickup, one pickup game ofbasketball when I moved to New York

(45:23):
City, I went me up. My friendwho I was living with played at a
court every weekend and I wentwith him, took my basketball, called
next, ended up on a five teamof five of guys I don't know. And
I took an elbow to the facethat almost shattered my orbital
socket. And for, like, threeweeks, I had a massive black eye.
Danny. I auditioned formusicals five to 15 times a week.

(45:46):
I can't be walking in looking.I just got punched in the face. That's
crazy. So I, I, that's thelast time I played, like, an organized
sport that wasn't lacrosse or,I mean, golf, because golf at least,
like, no one can hurt me but me.
No, it's. Why am I hearingthat? Both our kids are competitive
athletes. My son's competitivesoccer. My daughter's competitive

(46:06):
cheer. But they both wantedplay on their school teams as well,
you know, so my daughter wantsto play netball, volleyball. My son
wants to play basketball,soccer for his school. But their
teams have said to them, well,you can do that, but we'd prefer
you didn't do that, because ifsomething happens, you're now out
this team. That's six monthsor whatever, right? You break it

(46:27):
up.
It's the club versusinternational problem, right? Like,
we love international and welove club, but every once in a while
you see a player tear theirACL in an international match and
you think, what a nightmare.
Yeah, especially if it's,like, a friendly, which I see no
problem. What's the point offriendly? That, like you say, they
don't pay the wages, the Teamloses a player there, the athlete

(46:48):
loses an opportunity to playfor their country in the big competitions.
Totally. So yeah, I don'tunderstand that at all. I'm curious.
I mean I like the fact yousaid play there as well. I'm curious.
Do you think it's a bitdifferent for kids now? You mentioned
you. I'm going to assumeyou're over 40 because you mentioned
you.
I'm not. That's very kind of you.
You.

(47:08):
I'm not over 40. I'm in theballpark of 40.
Okay, well it was when yousays I'm double that and more so
I.
Thought, okay, I'll be mid-30s.
All right, mid-30s. Let merewind that. I will not edit this
out. I'll make myself looklike a head.
A single second of it out. Danny.
Right. Do you think then thatobviously you grew up playing physical

(47:28):
sports? Do you think that'sless a thing now with electronics,
video games, et cetera? AndI'm not saying it's a bad thing necessarily.
I was a big video gamer, lessso now for multiple reasons. But
it just seems that there'sless opportunities now for kids to
do physical stuff as opposedto techy electronic y stuff and they
might not miss it as much if Iwas to ask maybe your son or daughter

(47:51):
in 20 years down the line.
I was and am a massive videogame player. So I've never really
found a disconnect between thetwo concepts simply because like
I did both, you know, I samewith theater, right? Like I would
play DND and do theater. Iwould get out of theater class and

(48:12):
go play Halo 2 until 2 o'clock in the morning. I love video
games. I have cousins andnieces and nephews who are much younger
than me and I've sort of likewatched curious about this question.
And the only thing I thinkthat I consistently see with just
like children as a whole isthey are itching for creativity and

(48:36):
stimulation and what's not.And you know, I even think about
it to this day. Like I was avoracious reader as a child. I loved,
I took 10 books out from thelibrary, I consumed them. They wrote
stories into my brain and Iimagined pretty pictures and it was
wonderful. And I read like abook a month now and like what a
bummer. I, I think, I don'tthink there's less opportunities.

(49:01):
You know, I went to a summercamp when I was a kid. It was a seven
week, no electricity, campingin canvas tents on an island in the
middle of a lake for. And Ilove that Camp. If I could go back
and do that camp again andagain and again, I would to this
day. Now they see a decliningenrollment. And the easy way is to
say, like, oh, kids aren'tinterested in outdoorsy camp anymore.

(49:24):
But the reason that they seedeclining enrollment almost exclusively
is that schools are comingback earlier and earlier and so the
kids have to miss a week ofcamp so the parents just don't send
them. Or like, unfortunatelywe're putting pressures on kids now
to have extracurriculars andvarsity stuff and community service
and they have to go to camp toget prepped for a college like we

(49:48):
have. We are breaking. We areso, so obsessed with making kids
pre professionals at 7 yearsold or whatever that a lot of the
experiences that I had as akid that are still there are seeing
declining enrollment purelydue to that conflict. And I don't

(50:08):
think it's a screens problem.And I don't like, I don't. I think
it can be. I think kids withtoo much screen time, what it can
do is, is reduce their abilityto imagine. Because when you don't
have a screen, you have tomake up the world in your head versus
if it's spoon fed to you. It'sthe same reason why I think it's
really interesting watchingadults who love watching TV who have

(50:31):
trouble reading because theydon't imagine anymore because TV
feeds you the image on aplatter and your imagination is no
longer stimulated. And I wouldsay, like as a whole, adults blanket
statement are bad at imaginingthings. Their imaginations have atrophied.
It's a muscle they don't use.And I think that a lack of imagination

(50:54):
historically leads to a lackof empathy. Right. If you can't imagine
big grand worlds in your head,then you also can't imagine what
it's like for that person witha different life experience down
the road for you. I thinkthere's a direct causal line from
giving human beings thingsthat imagine for them and human beings

(51:17):
have less empathy for theirneighbors and for, you know, less
privileged people,underrepresented communities. I think
it is a direct causal linefrom I use AI to generate stuff to
I also dislike people whodon't look like me. And I truly think

(51:40):
that line is when you don'timagine things, when you don't imagine
worlds and then a thing hitsin your brain, we go like, I just
made up a person. What's thatperson's backstory? When your brain
doesn't make those leaps likethey do as a kid, empathy gets blown
out of the water because youjust can't imagine what other people's
lives are like. So you assumeeveryone's life has to be like yours

(52:00):
and if they're not living likeyou and they're doing things that
you feel like are attackingyour life, then they're doing it
wrong. And I, I have a strongfeeling that that is based on a lack
of imagination which I thinkcan be attribute a screen based culture
and a TV based culture and afilm based culture rather than an
imagination based culture. ButI, I also think that's not limited

(52:22):
to children. And somethingthat I, I think adults are really
good at and I think it's crapis assigning blame to generations
below them for anything andtrying to attribute it to something
that they have that theydidn't have, that they didn't have
back then. So obviously nothaving it made the them better. But

(52:42):
like I can talk to a 9 yearold and imagine great and grand things
with them and then if they saysomething that could be contrived
as bigoted or confusing, youcan talk to them about what it's
like to be that person andthey can imagine that person as a
person and they can talkthemselves into realizing that people

(53:03):
are just people. And adultscan't do that because adults can't
imagine. Therefore, what do Imiss about being a kid? I miss that
the world around me hadimagined imagination.
I love that I wrote about thiswhen I used to blog years and years
ago when I still wrote and Icouldn't be arsed to not write anymore
and get lazy and speak insteadbecause that's easier to do. And
my daughter was, I'm going tosay four at the time and we used

(53:26):
to go around the library, thelocal library every week, every weekend
so that she'd come home fromdaycare. We'd all be at home. Me,
my wife, my daughter, my son.But every weekend me and my daughter
would go to the library and wejust look at the books and she'd
play with some of the toys andetc and she pulled out a book that
was. I can't remember theguy's name. I'll leave it in the
show notes. So when you listento the episode, please do check out
the show notes for this book.I'll link through to it. But it's

(53:49):
basically it was that awordless book. So it was just pictures
and it was about a boy andhe's playing and the illustrator,
not the animator, theillustrator did such an amazing job
that my daughter, even thoughshe was 4, could go to different
Places what this little boywas thinking. She was close to his
age in the book anyway, but itwas just the fact there was no words.

(54:09):
You just had to imagine. Toyour point there, Ned, what was happening
with the boy at the time, inthe plane, etc. And yeah, I 100%
agree. I feel we can assertand blame to tech, blah, blah, social
media, whatever, but it's onus at the end of the day as well.
You know, do we just want totake the easy route out and just,
you know, believe the firstthing that comes to us through a

(54:30):
screen or do we actually wantto go back to old library days where
you had to take out 10 littlecheck cards and work your way around
the library, find a book andfind a resource, et cetera. So I
love that answer, Matt. Ireally appreciate that one.
I really think empathy is tiedto imagination and I think imagination
is just like a losing skill.And I do think, you know, I play

(54:50):
a lot of imagination games. Iplay tabletop role playing games
all the time. I'm in sevenwithin campaigns with my friend,
with various friend groups. SoI am imagining all the time. I'm
doing a lot of this. Like thisis a skill that I have kept up because
of what I like to do. But I dofind it interesting if I take a long
break from role playing gamesto play a video game. It is hard

(55:11):
for me to imagine when I comeback because a video game spoon feeds
me the images and it really isjust like a muscle you have to flex
and if you choose not to flexit, I think society is worse for
a unimaginative populace.
Nope, I'm an old fart now. Iam over 40 so I will put that right

(55:31):
out there. And as I say I willleave that little bit in about me
being an arse and calling youover 40. But yeah, I 100% agree,
mate, 100% agree. So, yep, notusing our imagination. We've reached
question number five. So Ned,let's have a look at what question
number five is. And I likethis. I feel this is going to be

(55:51):
a good answer from you.Question 5 To end your time in the
hot seat. Ned, what was yourbiggest failure and what did you
learn from it?
My biggest failure? I havesuch a weird relationship to failure
in that I don't love it as aterm, but I do love it as a term

(56:15):
for people who aren't me. AndI don't mean that as shitty as it
sounds. What I mean is thereare a lot of professions and life
experiences and, and the waythat people's lives are set up where
failure is like a huge fork inthe road. It's a big you did it or
you didn't and the worldcontinues. And most people's lives

(56:36):
end up working like that.Therefore, like, because most people's
lives end up working likethat, it becomes an a question that
makes a lot of sense forpeople that aren't me. In the same
way that I audition five to 15times a week, I work two to five
times a year. So you can dolike quick mental math and understand

(56:57):
the amount of rejection Iexperience on a daily basis. That
like, rejection is just sortof like a built in piece of my career
and it doesn't bother me atall. And I'm a big believer that
if people in my professionwant to have a long career and have
longevity, they just got toget comfortable with rejection because
it doesn't, it doesn't meananything. And the nice thing about
rejection is it means someoneelse didn't get rejected. And it's

(57:20):
nice that other people haveopportunities. And if you can just
think like that, then it's notreally a failure at all. It's just
a different path your weektook or your day took, or your year
took or your life took. So inthat vein, I've had a lot of failures
and you can get to the easyones. Like I lost the soccer match
in the state final my freshmanyear of high school. And I still
think about it. I can thinkabout like hard failures where there

(57:44):
was a path and then that pathwas closed off. I didn't get into
a bunch of colleges I wantedto go to. I guess that's a failure,
right? Like, you know, I'mgoing to say this on a podcast. Someone
might get mad at me. Manypeople on the Internet who love to
be in my DMs like to ascribethe word failure to my television
show. Because at the end ofthe day it didn't become the most

(58:06):
popular D and D showovernight. And, and we don't have
a second season yet. And a lotof people say like, well then isn't
that a failure? My answer'slike, no, cause I got a damn TV show
like that's a huge success.You just have to like most failures
until they're like supermassive. Which I would say like,
I don't think I've ever hadone so massive. I would attribute

(58:27):
it on that scale. Mostfailures are just different paths
you end up taking, making. ButI think my life is set up for that
because rejection is aConsideration of failure. And so
like I fail all the time thatI just don't really care because
it's such a baked in piece ofmy life. I think this is different

(58:50):
than like a career path in acompany for 40 years where 36 years
in you get fired. That feelslike a failure because having to
go find a new job and build anew path is hard, hard and daunting.
And that is a company activelyaffecting the rest of your life massively
because your income streams godown and your pensions don't fail.

(59:12):
And you're right, there arethe normal, quote unquote path of
an adult in society has bigfailures to take and learn from.
I just don't feel that the waymy life works, it's similar. Like
I've made a lot of projectsand very few of them have gone on
to be hits. So you, I guess,could call all the misses failures.

(59:36):
But I had fun doing them andthey're cool as hell. And like, I
don't view anything I've everreleased as bad. It just maybe didn't
connect and that's different.And so what I learn from failure
is that we ascribe too much tofailure. But I'm privileged and fortunate
that failure in my life ispretty small and I can move on from

(01:00:00):
it the next day. You know,like, I was in final callbacks for
a major Broadway show that ranfor a really long time. And the people
that I know in that show madea lot of money. They now get a lot
more work because they have aBroadway credit. Like it changed
the course of their career andI didn't get it. So, like, I guess
that's a failure, but I justdon't think it's worth viewing it

(01:00:21):
as such because if I'd been inthat Broadway show at that time,
I wouldn't have worked in techwhen I took time off acting, which
means I wouldn't have met mywife. And now I have a wife. And
if I'd been in that Broadwayshow, our paths wouldn't have crossed.
So, like the, the world isfull of failures, but the world is
also full of like, successesyou don't think about. Because we
only think about the failures.And we only look at successes as

(01:00:42):
big and we only look atfailures as big. And I think there's
just like a lot of changes indirection all day, every day. Some
big, some small, somesuccesses, some failures. And what
I learned from them is like alife is a life. And so there's no
need to like think aboutanything that big anymore. Right.
Like nothing I've ever donethat the world might consider a failure

(01:01:07):
feels as monumental to my lifeas the days my parents died. But
that's not a success orfailure. That's just a fact. You
know what I mean? Like, and soit's, it's hard. I don't think there's
like a good answer to thisquestion that comes immediately to
mind because all of myfailures feel like they have other

(01:01:27):
successes and all of mysuccesses feel couched in a little
bit of failure. And if I likefocus too much on any of them, I'll
go insane.
No, I think that you'vedefinitely not failed to answer the
question. I think that's aperfect, you know, a perfect answer.
And it's like, you see, hadyou succeeded in any one of the things

(01:01:48):
that you so called air quote,because it's an audio show, air quotes,
time. Had you succeeded in anyof the times that you'd failed, like
you say, you've got that slideindoors moment now, your life completely
different. Maybe not the wifeyou're married to, the kids you've
got, you know, the job thatyou've got, etc. Besides, there's
a really good. And again, Ican't think of who the, the sportsman

(01:02:10):
was that was gettinginterviewed, getting interviewed
on TV after a game that theteam had of a lot lost. And one of
the, the, the journalistswho'd probably never played sports,
competitive sports anyway intheir life had asked so what does
it feel like to, to be, youknow, to fail this year? And the,
the, the sportsman came back,said, well, you look at Shaq and
he maybe played 10 or 12finals and he won two. And that could

(01:02:33):
be wrong stats. It's justlike, you know, quoting wrongly there
maybe. So the other 10 thatShaq didn't win, is he a failure?
Are you going to see Shaq O'Neill as a failure for not winning?
And these 10, come on. Youknow, so you see, it's, it's context,
it's like it's all relevant, right?
And I think if you get focusedon failure, you fight really hard
to achieve a thing and then itdoesn't happen. I spent three years

(01:02:55):
developing a script and a TVshow that will never see the light
of day, that I, I spent somuch of my life working on creating
in my head, putting on paper,putting into decks, meeting with
people and then it just didn'thappen. Is that a failure? No, because

(01:03:15):
I went and made a differentthing. You know what I mean? Like
I, I just, I have. If youSpend a lot of time ascribing the
word failure to know and thenlike being haunted by that. No, then
you're never going to go lookat the next yes. You know what I
mean? Like you spend so muchtime looking backwards because all
successes and all failures arein the past, which means, means none

(01:03:38):
of them help you towards thefuture. So it's like move on. There
are failures that are bigenough, I assume to haunt people.
I just don't have one thatmakes it worth caring that much about.
Well, I like that approach andI like your approach to life in general,
mate. You know, speaking toyou over the last hour or so has
taught me a few things aboutyou which I didn't know before. So

(01:04:00):
I appreciate you taking thetime to spend on the random question
hot seat today day as is onlyfair because I've had you on the
hot seat for the last hour orso. It is now time for me to pass
the question baton over toyou, mate.
All right. I have a questionthat I'm very proud of. I do ask
this question as like aconversation starter to people sometimes
because I think it's fun. Buthere's the question at hand. What

(01:04:25):
is something mundane, totallynot world changing or threatening,
but a conspiracy theory youare 100% sure could be true. That
exists at a small level.

(01:04:45):
I mean, I guess you get theobvious ones. While Elvis is alive
and he's living on the moonand he's jamming with Jimi Hendrix
and all that kind of stuff.You know, I'm going to say probably
it's not. I don't think it's aconcern conspiracy theory as such,
but it may be. Anywho, so I'mScottish, I live in Canada, but I'm
Scottish. And we've got ourvery own urban legend of Nessie,

(01:05:10):
the Loch Ness monster. AndI've been to Loch Ness many, many
a time. I've never seen her.And it's a she, you know, she. Nessie
is a she. But there was onethat I heard and it was tied into
this and I'll have to try toremember where I heard it about.
It's not coming to at themoment, so I do apologize. But there
was a little bit where I'd.I'd heard that Nessie was basically

(01:05:33):
a little lizard that had beenfrozen. And then, you know, for whatever
reason there was mininghappening at the time and she escaped.
She. She got frozen and shegot warmed up because of the mining,
the heat of the tools, allthat crap. So she escaped and she
ended up in Loch Ness. Soyeah, so there's like, there's meant
to be like this sort of urbanlegend of Nessie and how she got

(01:05:55):
unfrozen by the mine etc, butthat sounds like a pile of crap.
You know there's not going tobe a lot of miniature dinosaur that
got frozen and then gotunfrozen. So the locals were told
to go and you know, swim aboutthe lake and put their hand up and
you can't see this becausethis is an audio show but if you
were watching on YouTube orwhatever. My arm is above my head

(01:06:17):
and I'm making a lot of sortof dinosaur head with my hand but
basically that very famouspicture from the 1950s or whatever,
that's not Ness. It's just alittle guy sewing along on his back
with his arms sticking out thelock and he's got his hand like that.
If it's true, who knows? Ilike to think Nessie is true. So
I don't know if that'sactually a conspiracy theory or not.

(01:06:38):
I think that counts. Urbanlegends and conspiracy theories are
kissing cousins, which is aweird phrase I don't know that I've
ever said out loud and Ididn't like it.
Kissing cousins.
Yeah.
Then Elvis have a, a moviecalled Kissing Cousins I think or
a song.
I'll be so honest with you, Idon't know.
No, I will have to look out, Iwill have to check that. I feel,
I feel they did my mum like Isay she was like a big music fan.

(01:07:01):
Beatles, Elvis, etc aboutManilow. I feel Cousin Kissing Cousins
was a movie of his but I couldbe wrong. I'll have to check that.
But yeah, that would be, thatwould be my, my one. It's not, not.
It's not up there with Area51. It's not up there with JFK and
Elvis.
It starred Elvis PresleyKissing cousins.
Ah, there you go then. Soyeah, Elvis, you, you naughty dog.

(01:07:23):
Kissing. Mind you, I meanthat's a whole different conversation.
Elvis and a 13 year oldPriscilla. I'm not going to get into
that in case of any Elvis fanslistening. But yeah, so Ned, I have
really enjoyed, like I saymate, before you ask your question,
I really enjoyed getting toknow you today.
This has been a blast.
I've really enjoyed it. Ilistened to the podcast you do with
audio and anybody that hasn'tchecked that out, the dltips, I strongly

(01:07:47):
urge you to check that out.And again all the details will be
there. But for people thatwant to listen to that podcast, check
out your TV show, check outyour music, your theater, anything
about you. Where's the bestplace to connect with you online?
Or just find out where allthat lives online?
Well, as we sort of talkedabout about earlier in a in a in

(01:08:08):
a question ago, I'm veryfindable on the Internet. I'm at
Ned Donovan almost everywhere,except for the places that British
journalist Ned Donovan gotthere first. The jerk in those places.
I'm Ned Donovan 13. You canfind me almost anywhere under those
handles. Ned Donovan.com hasall the links. It's also how you

(01:08:28):
can contact me Daily Tips thatMay or May Not Help you is a Monday
through Friday daily tip ofthe Day podcast where a consumable
quick tip that may or may nothelp you from myself and Ariel NissanBlatt
in under two minutes. It'sfun, it's quick. We're quickly approaching
the end of our second year ofexistence and we're also quickly
approaching our 500th episodeand we would love for you to check

(01:08:51):
out the show. It's a blast.It's fun. You can also follow that
show at Daily Tips pod onLinkedIn. You can follow it on Twitter,
Blue Sky, Tik Tok, Instagramand Threads at Daily Tips Pod. And
because the episodes are twominutes or less, every episode also
releases on those platforms invideo form. So you can listen to

(01:09:14):
the podcast wherever youlisten to podcasts or you can watch
the show on any social mediaplatform that we have. Dailytipspodcast.com
has all those links andencounter party, my TV show, I will
tell you Danny, is geo lockedto the United States at this time
so you will have to watch itwith a vpn, but it is available inside
the United States or on VPN aton Plex, Tubi and Roku. And the original

(01:09:40):
podcast Encounter Party thatbecame the TV show can be listened
to worldwide on all podcastplatforms. The TV show and the podcast
have no connection except it'sthe same cast, but it is a completely
new story and a completely newcharacters and it just shares the
same name. So if you can'twatch the TV show, the podcast is
the next best thing.
And I shall be sure to leaveall the links to those in the show

(01:10:00):
notes as always, includingsome recommended VPNs in case you
want to feel naughty andyou're outside the US and watch the
TV show, I'll be sure to leavethem in the show notes. So as always,
whatever app you're listeningon, or if you're listening to this
on the website, check out theEpisode Show Notes and all the links
will be there through to Nedand all the cool stuff that he does.
So again, Ned, reallyappreciate you coming on today's

(01:10:20):
five Random Questions.
This was a blast. Thank you.Thank you.
Thanks for listening to fiveRandom Questions. If you enjoyed
this week's episode, I'd lovefor you to leave a review on the
app you're currently listeningon or over at 5randomquestions.com.
Review and if you know someoneelse that would enjoy the show, be
sure to send them this way.It's very much appreciated. Until
the next time, keep askingthose questions.

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