April 26, 2022 • 46 mins
What happened to the real Tony Kiritsis after the hostage crisis? Did he and Fred Heckman ever meet again? Plus, what drew Jon Hamm to step into this world and play Fred Heckman? In this special bonus episode, join us for a roundtable discussion about the making of American Hostage, featuring Jon Hamm, Joe Perrino, director Shawn Christensen, writer CD Carpenter, and moderator G.G. Hawkins.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hi, my name is Adam Volleridge. I'm one of the producers of American
Hostage. In today's post show,we're going to have a discussion featuring John
Hamm who plays Fred Heckman, JoePerino who plays Tony Kuritzis, director Sean
Christensen, and write a CD Carpenter. If you haven't already, make sure
to listen to American Hostage on AmazonMusic, Wondering Plus, or anywhere you
(00:21):
get your podcasts. This discussion willbe moderated by Gigi Hawkins. Gigi is
a writer, director, and selfproclaimed audio file. She co hosts the
No Film School and Distorted by Glamorpodcasts and has worked with the likes of
Gimblet Media, iHeart the Gotham andGoogle on their podcasting. Thank you all
for being here, Thank you Adam, and welcome to the American Hostage post
(00:44):
Show. If you're listening to thisright now, I highly recommend you actually
listen to the podcast that we'll betalking about, or you can be coming
in blind and it might be avery different experience for you. And before
we get into it, because we'rehere talking in the audio for Matt,
if everyone could just say hello andtheir name, so the audience could hear
(01:06):
who's speaking, Hi guys, y'all. Pryn right here, I play Tony
Chritsis, John Hamm, I playFred Heckman. I'm Cede Carpenter, I'm
the writer. I am Sean Christensenthe director. Awesome, thank you.
The seven second delay for live televisionwas introduced in nineteen seventy five by NBC
(01:26):
so that Richard Pryor could host SaturdayNight Live without the network getting fined for
all of his obscenities. The delaywould also be useful we discovered if a
man were to be shot point blankin the head live on national television.
So I wanted to start with sortof how this story came to be.
(01:52):
I'd love to hear from CD firston how you came across the story and
how you brought it to Sean andsort of what drew you to the story
of American hostage. Sure, Iactually grew up kind of hearing the story
and the peripheral as a kid.I grew up in the Midwest. I
grew up in Kentucky, and Ijust remember being a kid in hearing stories
(02:12):
about a guy who was so madone day he tied a shotgun to some
other guy's neck. I didn't reallythink much of that for years and years
and years, and then when Istarted working with Sean and Criminal Content,
you know, as a true crimecompany, I was thinking back on all
the true crime that I had kindof experienced and grown up with, and
that was like the number one storythat popped in my head. So I
went back to to our research andfound that the story was just really compelling
(02:35):
and interesting and amazing, and soI threw a pitch to Sean and I
guess maybe Sean could take it fromthere. Yeah, you brought it to
me and you had a kind ofa made up show first, and then
I was like, can we havesomething that's you know, a true story.
You brought this. We did alittle research on it because it's very
much about like this hostage taker whosefeels you know, and we saw this
(03:00):
Fred Heckman character, and for audio, it sounded great to have you know,
a radio reporter being someone in thisaudio podcast is giving us a handle
on the situation and going through thatperson. And that was I think how
we knew we could we could makethe show with that kind of device and
just the fascinating story of this guytrying to basically negotiate with this hostage taker
(03:24):
to have a man's life be saved. Somewhere in the middle of the whole
thing, they took a national pullof how many people related to Tony Kuritzis
seventy percent of the country related tohim the man with the gun? But
(03:44):
I mean, let's be honest aboutit. Does anyone really root for the
banker? I think it's interesting thatyou guys chose to tell this story and
audio, and it really makes sensefor it to be an audio first story.
Now, John, having had suchsuccess in TV and film, what
was it about the audio format thatattracted you to this project? A lot
(04:09):
Like just was said, there's athere's sort of a very tee quality to
it's when it is and was originallybroadcast on the radio. This was sort
of going back to how it wasoriginally experienced, and there was something exciting
about that. I had been aconsumer of podcasts for quite some time,
(04:30):
longer than they've even been around,really, and I remember my kind of
first introduction to something like this wasway back when I was a kid listening
to old BBC broadcasts of things likethe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other
various and sundry things that were inthose days called radio plays, but realizing
(04:50):
that there was a tremendous amount ofstorytelling that you could put into those and
you could tell stories that you probablycouldn't tell from a motion pictures endpoint or
a televised standpoint because it was tooexpensive, or you didn't have the ability
to show the man shooting the lasersout of his eyes, or you couldn't
get the location or the period.Stuff was so expensive, And so you
(05:12):
could do it this way and stilltell the story and still be very rich
and evocative in the words and thepictures that you're drawing, just with an
audio sensibility. So it was itwas an exciting opportunity. And the drama
is sort of built right in.So it's pretty cool to see that and
will not even see it. Tohear that I should I suppose I should
say, but also to be apart of it, I need these three
(05:40):
questions asked, because these three questionsspill it all out. Okay, Tony,
all right? The question three,I'm ready, Tony, do you
regret having killed Dick? Tony?You get that one down for it?
Tony, did you kill Dick?You got that down, didn't you for
it? I need you to answerme now, Tony, is Dick Alive's
(06:05):
Tony? Now? Now you knowthere's a there's a condition here. You
know, we can't do this interviewif you kill him. You told me
that you wouldn't hurt him. What'sinteresting about the audio format is it is
so intimate because the listener is cocreating with the story as they're hearing it.
(06:30):
And I think one of the mostinteresting elements about this story is the
journey that the audience goes on withTony. And so I'm curious, Joe,
what was the experience going into thischaracter who starts from a place of
being very much the bad guy,but by the end I felt myself questioning
that, rooting for him, feelingfor him. Yeah, I'm it's easy
(06:55):
to um to initially think he's abad guy or crazy, but I couldn't
judge him that way. I mean, he was definitely Tony at that point.
He was definitely a He's a depressedman, but he's desperate man.
He's angry, sad, and youknow, it's fairly easy to connect with
him. On an emotional level.I'd be lying if I said it was
(07:15):
hard to get into his head orhis emotional state. But as soon as
I brought up the nine one onecall, I connected with him immediately.
I resonated with his pain and frustration. You can tell there was a whole
lot of vulnerability under there at thatpoint. He's definitely a dangerous man.
I mean, for there's sixty threehours, the risk of a blood bath
(07:36):
was astronomical. But as far asthe humanity, I feel like I connected
with that. I mean, itresonated with me immediately. And John,
your character Fred, he really wassuch an interesting channel into sympathizing and empathizing
with Tony. And as we knowfrom the story, many people actually sympathies
(08:00):
with Tony at the time of thecrisis, despite him being, you know,
a gun wielding hostage taker. Whydo you think that was And was
there anything in the process of steppinginto the role of Fred Heckman that sort
of helped you arrive to that place? Well, similarly to Joe, the
last thing you want to do issort of is judge the character you're playing,
and that's what Fred also doesn't do. He has to deal with this
(08:22):
person as a human being. AndI think as soon as we start dealing
with people as a collection of theirpolitical ideas or their circumstances or their choices,
we get into very dangerous objectification andtalking about people as if they're not
people. I think that's part ofthe big why the story is sort of,
you know, forty some five yearsold and yet pretty resonant to the
(08:45):
political landscape we have now. Ithink we're dangerously close to just kind of
writing the whole section of the populationoff because they think or they think they
think a certain way. In reality, we actually do have a lot more
in common. And and what Joewas saying about how Tony's mental state and
being depressed and being angry has ledhim to make these choices doesn't necessarily make
(09:07):
him a nonentity or a non person. He deserves the respect of being heard.
And I think, you know,that's that's sort of an interesting buzzword
of our current cultural manipulation in dealingwith one another. But being seen and
being heard actually does affect people's abilityto communicate, an ability to kind of
(09:28):
let their feelings be known. Andas soon as we stop doing that,
that becomes very very dangerous and verycounterproductive as a society, we really just
start walling people off and that's nothelpful. Like that great line that Fred
says that Tony was yelling into thevoid, you know, years before Fred
Heckman or society at large heard him. I mean he felt, you know,
he felt like he was invisible,like the Invisible Man, and that
(09:52):
can be you know, that leadspeople to do desperate things or act out
of anger or sadness or I didn'tjust make myself a part of the story.
I pulled the whole station into itwith me. I never once stopped
(10:13):
to think about what it might doto them, the ramifications. Once I
had my sights on the prize,I put the whole station, the whole
city really in jeopardy. Tony Kurtzishad been screaming into the void for years
before the world noticed him, beforeI heard him. But that doesn't mean
(10:35):
I should have let him speak.And it's absolutely a relevant story to today,
and I wonder, and I'd loveto hear from the wider group as
well. Do you think that thereare enough reporters like Fred Heckman today aka
folks who are really leaning into thisunbiased, almost Walter Cronkite types, And
(10:56):
who do you think is maybe closestto that for our I think it's hard.
I think it's really hard because thecoin of the realm when it comes
to news or journalism has shifted significantlyover the past fifty years from informative to
infotainment. And you know, thereused to be a time in the world
(11:18):
when the television went off and themessage was go to bed. It's we've
done all we can do for today. And we live in a twenty four
seven, three sixty five globally communicated, instant gratification society now, and part
of what you have to do,what you literally have to do in that
situation, is to be attention grabbing. So I mean, I think if
(11:39):
you look at kind of the peoplethat are doing true journalism, whether they're
on the ground in Kiev or Donetskor what have you, or breaking stories
are that are important and have somekind of real political or cultural significance.
Yeah, I think there are peoplestill doing that. I just think they're
wildly overshadowed by the much louder groupof quote unquote journalists that are really opinion
(12:05):
people who are trying to stir thepot, you know, and we all
know who those guys are. Andit's on both sides. It's it's Rachel
Maddowan, it's Tucker Carlson, andit's for a lot of people, it's
Don Lemon, and it's you know, Bill O'Reilly or if he him on
the air anymore, I don't evenknow. But you know, it's if
you're if you're if you're stated objectiveis entertainment, you're going to start fudging
facts. Yeah, And I thinkyou know that That's the was the interesting
(12:28):
thing John about this, this characterI think we had talked about when we
first talked the a political nature ofhim. He's just kind of trying to
handle the situation. There's nothing aboutit. But today it would be politicized,
you know, But at the timeI think it was, you know,
and U and actually to John's pointtwo about so much of just being
commentary, now, that was actuallykind of why Fred ended up retiring and
(12:50):
leaving WBC in nineteen ninety three,is that he felt as though it was
just becoming commentary rather than news.He eventually was inducted into the Hall of
Fame of Indiana Journalists. I thinkin like two thousand and five. But
yeah, he put his foot downin it and he left for his journalistic
principles, which is something that I'vealways kind of respected about him. Colo
(13:13):
enrichment. He's been written say MinnesotaBA parent company uper Velt. When I
started working at WIBC, America wasrapidly changing. I was doing stories on
McCarthyism, the counterculture, the riots, the oil crisis, Vietnam. But
by nineteen seventy seven, if youtuned into WIBC and heard Fred Heckman,
(13:37):
you didn't get the news. Yougot stories about leaky ceilings or lost kittens,
maybe the occasional corporate misconduct. Idon't know if the news lost me
or I lost the news. Oneof the most interesting themes that's like brought
up in the series is this ideaof the public looking to this event happening,
(14:03):
this breaking news moment, but there'ssomething in human nature almost like rubbernecking,
like we can't look away from whetherit's true crime or this breaking news
or our Twitter feeds, and theurgency around that. I'd love to hear
your thoughts, Sean, on howyou approached it as a director, like
to create that urgency but in thecontext of you know, the nineteen seventies
(14:28):
and what was it like, howwere you thinking about it? Well,
first of all, you know,we had archive footage from the real incident
that we knew we were going tobe able to mix in to the podcast.
So we had this really fun,interesting vice we could always go between
when you know John Joe or gettinginto things, when their characters are getting
(14:50):
any things. We could always floatinto a real life firsthand witness of the
event and float into real life reporters, and sometimes we go is an easter
egg, we go to Fred Heckmanreporting the real Fred Heckman in the podcast.
Sometimes is kind of a little easteregg to do that. And by
the way, I thank big thankyou to w IBC for providing that to
(15:11):
us and also wish TV for helpingout on all of this stuff. And
so once we knew we had that, we were able to record the podcast
knowing that we could always jump intothat and always get that feeling of being
in that era through that archive footage. Well, I've known him on life,
(15:33):
I've been troubled him on life mywhole life. All I ever wanted
was the story, the big one, the one that puts you on the
map, the one that takes thecountry by storm and hits the national zeitgeist,
capturing America's hearts and minds. Thatwas the dream, my dream,
And then one day, like aturbocharged V eight DND five hundred, the
(15:56):
dream finally hit me. And allI can say to that is be careful
what you wish for. So oneof the things Sean you mentioned, and
John as well, you both havespoken about your love for the film's network
(16:17):
in Dog Day Afternoon. Are youboth Sydney Lumette fans. Yeah, yeah,
I know who the biggest Sydney Lumettefan is on this one as well
in CD, and we made apitch deck on toos well, we don't
have six hours to talk about Latte, which is no, we don't,
but you do have the poster behindyou. You need at least a week
to totally met with with CD.Yeah. Well initially, yeah, initially,
(16:38):
the pitch for the show was itwas a sort of a mix for
me if three films of Network,Dogy Afternoon and Fails Safe And I actually
kind of envisioned Fred Heckman mostly asHenry Fonda from as the President and feels
safe, just someone who is extremelycalm and rational and just in a horrific
position and tries to seek the humanityin that movie in the Russia than in
(17:00):
this show twenty critzes. So lamentwas my primary influence. We also looked
at other seventies films that taking apoem into three and things like that.
But yeah, hopefully the limit influencecomes through in some way, or I
feel like I may have failed inmy job as a writer. And I
do think part of it is,you know, there's something even though Sidney
Lumette was making movies well into thecentury, that part of him is sort
(17:23):
of inextricably linked to the seventies,and a lot of what his movies and
the tension that they create draws uponis that kind of analog technology and analog
flow of information where so much ofthe pickups in films that have been mentioned
are because information travels in meaning realseventies time, Meaning if somebody calls somebody
(17:45):
in the phone rings and Nobe picksit up, it just keeps ringing,
and there's something super quaint about that. But there's also something, if you're
old enough to remember that super frustratingand super tension building about that too,
So you know you can extrapolate that. You know, the dog days obviously
one of those things where just stuffis happening and no one seems to know
(18:06):
what's going on. I think thatour our podcast, our story here has
a lot of that too, whereyou had mentioned the sort of rubbernecking sense
of what's happening because you're you're listeningto this on the radio, thinking this
can't be real, this is reallyhappening. Oh my god, what do
I do. I can't quote unquotelook away turn off the radio. I
(18:26):
like to have to know what howthis ends. And I think there is
something really, you know, kindof old school, which is a terrible
term. I hate using it,but I just did. But but sort
of familiar yet yet distant, aboutthat separation of the time we have now,
which is if you want an answerto a question, your three clicks
away from it, and if youneeded, you know, a resolution to
(18:47):
anything, you can you can youcan get it and it can be delivered
tomorrow. And it's it's that's justnot possible. It's just not in the
realm of possibility back then. Yeah, I get nostalgic for it. You
know, right. And even bythe way, Rees, I was listening
to some Blink one A two songand they were like the lyric you know,
Star sixty nine, What the hellis that? You know, and
it's just kind of like that waskind of fun stuff, you know,
(19:08):
Yeah, to figure out all thosethings on those phones and now that's all
gone, you know, getting lostin the car where you're going. We're
just bar bets, you know,like the idea of yeah, I bet
you couldn't name the last five AcademyAward winners like I can. I just
look at it right now. Yeah, we have to force ourselves to not
use Google and do those bar betsand find our way to our destination.
(19:30):
I think that'll be good for thebrain. Yeah. The show actually,
I think forces the listener to almostlive in this world of the seventies,
of this delayed gratification and delayed informationand then understand the tension there. And
well, definitely as a listener,I was piecing together what was going on
and almost figuring out this puzzle.I never became overwhelmed to the point that
(19:55):
I like checked out because and Ithink that all the credit goes to UCD
for Bill being out a world ina story that had clear worlds within it,
stakes within each different world. Though. I'm sure you had to kill
so many darlings when writing this script, especially knowing what actually went on in
real life. So I'm curious,So, what were some of the most
(20:17):
painful things that you had to cutout when creating this script? To be
honest? Well, thank you forthe compliment, but also we didn't.
I feel like we didn't really haveto cut out that much. I mean,
the biggest challenge I think of theshow was just trying to figure out
how we were going to do eightepisodes of essentially two people talking on a
telephone. Some of the conversations thatare in the show are taken directly from
(20:38):
almost transcripts from the actual dialogue,but I would say maybe eighty five percent
of them or not. But thereare some differences between reality and kind of
what we did with the show.You know, we lovingly exaggerated the truth
at points, but I think thatwe did kind of keep to the spirit
of what actually was happening. Therelationship between Fred and Tony is real.
(21:00):
I mean, you can listen tothe actual tapes of those two and I
was lucky to since that Sean didn'treally feel like we had to cut a
lot of bit Like Sean and Garbone, Adam and the producers were all very
kind of cool with what was onthe page and just fleshing it out from
there. And then again the performancesin the sound design, I think really
just kind of kick it up.You know, the writing is what it
(21:21):
is. But you know, withoutJoe and John and Carla and Dylan and
Becky and James and our incredible casts, I don't know if it would really
work. I want to get tothe sound design in a moment too,
but I am curious, and I'msure the listeners are curious as well.
What ended up happening to Tony andFred in terms of their actual relationship,
we don't really know. So atthe end of the show, obviously Tony
(21:44):
is found not guilty. He didend up being institutionalized for a few years
and then was released in nineteen eightyeight, and as far as we know,
lived a very quiet life afterwards inIndianapolis. He didn't cause any problems,
there were no more incidents. Hedied in two thousand and five,
and I believe Fred died in twothousand and one. We don't know if
they ever met up. We don'tknow if they had a real relationship afterwards,
(22:07):
but we do know that Tony alwaysheld Fred in high regard and definitely
credited Fred as the person who reallykind of got him through that that specific
crisis. Can I just say somethinghere, We didn't really cut any almost
anything out of the phone conversations betweenTony, Criticis and Fred, which is
like fifty percent of the podcast.And I have to just want to contell
(22:29):
that the listeners here that John andJoe I don't believe you guys met each
other before we did this, right, so he did not, So we
do this. We taped this ina couple of days, and they're our
trusty producer here made it so thatJohn and Joe were together, I think
for that final day, just kindof by themselves. He kind of like
that. We stripped everyone else outand it became just you guys, and
(22:51):
I remember watching you guys on thezoom. We recorded this virtually and just
because also I don't remember this John, but Joe was like in a closet,
do you remember, he was likea deep pandemic. So we were
very we were very isolated. Iremember, like none of us could see
Joe, Like we literally couldn't seehim, and he was like this reflection
face off the iPad, and John'skind of sometimes responding like as Fred and
(23:15):
I feel like we were all afraidof Joe a little bit. And and
but just the way that the walkingon eggshells the John you're doing, and
also the fact that Joe's just likein this dark, weird closet, like
underlit by an iPad, looks likea horrible digital campfire thing all by choice.
Yeah, yeah it was. Ididn't want to. I want it
to be in the shadows. AndI want you to open up the phone
(23:40):
lines. I'm going to show youwhat I'm talking about. I want people
to call in and to tell youthat they see what I'm doing, that
they see what I understand. Well, Tony, we're not set up to
take calls at the Swear to god, Fred, you are hitching to hear
that gunshot, aren't you. Aren'tyou You want them to just as much
as I do. You have toto tell me no, Look, I
don't want him dead, Tony.That's not the number. Motherfucker's brains all
(24:06):
over the receiver so Argul Harris gotdamn talks Tony. Do you think I'm
gonna ask again if you would liketo call into the station. Our number
is five five zero six three nine. What was it like recording in the
pandemic? So you were in closets? Was everybody in a closet? I
(24:30):
was? I recorded in my hallwaycloset. And um, I mean for
me, it was such a giftto have this, this juicy project with
loved ones and working with you know, the cream of the crop, mister
Hamm and everyone, Sean CD andjust to kind of channel see a lot
(24:52):
of the things I think Tony wasgoing through. You know, I resonated.
It resonated so quickly with me becauseit's a lot of things I was
going through in the pandemic. Confusion, fear, frustration, anger, There
was social unrests. Everyone felt likeshit, you know, and so I
just channeled all of that. Itwas the great opportunity to channel all of
(25:14):
that through this project. And itwas a great catharsis. I mean truly,
it's truly a gem of a highlightof the entire pandemic. Was I
always a part of your plan here? Yes, sir, You're the best
(25:34):
in the business, fright, justlike I'm the best in the business.
And I tell you what, I'vebeen here and all these reports all day,
and every one of them calls mecrazy, every one of them calls
me mentally ill. And that's thebiggest live or hear in my life.
I have every single one of myfaculties, and I have each one sharp
as attack. I am not insane. I do not need psychological probing and
(25:55):
I do not need to be counseledfor my course of action. I am
a man and man iss hale whohad everything taken away from me. And
I'm fighting you saying don't know whento fight. I know how to fight.
I know how to rig up ashotgun, and I know how to
rig up a bomb. And I'llsay it right now, this was a
premeditated act. I'll say that becauseI know, I know. I got
(26:15):
cops right outside who keep telling meI can get out of this about pleading
sanity, and I am not inside. All right, Tony, all right,
I believe you, John. Youdid something before. Love is a
(26:36):
crime. That's a different kind ofthing, though, um yeah, that
was different. Love as a crimewas a little more of a reenactment kind
of base still based on true story. H and I had done another one
called The Big Lie after this thatwas another just scripted story, but this
was the I think this was thefirst that I had done, and it
was it was nice to just tosort of bring it all full circle too,
(26:56):
Like it was really nice to haveCarl look at Gino, who I've
known for years and worked with before, and Dylan and Becky Baker who have
known for years and haven't had achance to work with before. But like
it was I think a testament tohow good the material was that it happened
to draw all these people. Imean, that was the exciting part of
it. And having to also getto tell the story of what was actually
(27:18):
going on in this guy's life whilehe was having to deal with this extraordinary
situation. You know, that's kindof all of that is really value added
in the sense of even if youlook at Walter Cronkite was mentioned before.
You know, I'm sure Walter Cronkite, I don't know, drank too much
or had you know, a bummerof a home life, or kicked his
dog once or something. You know, like we set these people up as
(27:41):
these perfect individuals and no one canlive up to that, and you know,
and that's and that's kind of animportant thing to remember. Again,
if we're talking about personalizing human beingsinstead of holding them up as objects or
holding them up as paradigms of behavior, then you know, again we're really
missing something about being human. Interms of Fred's character, John, was
(28:02):
there anything that you think you wouldhave done differently in this situation or was
there anything specifically that surprised you abouthow he handled it? Um that I
would have done differently? Not chickinga call? Probably I would have been
you know, yeah, I don'tknow, you know, and ring and
(28:22):
ring, and nobody will as Idon't. I honestly have no concept of
what that existence even is. Youknow. It's it's so bizarrely out of
any kind of experience that I've everhad, you know. I mean,
we all like to think, like, oh, if there was a bank
robbery and I was there, I'dtake the gun, and but most mostly
human beings freeze and they get freakedout and they're terrified, and then probably
(28:48):
I would probably be in that worldas well, they freaked out, terrified
world. So I honestly don't know. You know, that's part of the
fun of getting to do what wedo on a daily basis is I don't
have to talk to anybody off theledge. I can just read what it
says on the paper and then theyread what they say back, and I
know how it's going to end,thanks to CD. So. Actually,
(29:11):
one thing that I think is alwaysinteresting when thinking about specifically scripted audio is
in the performance. And this isa question for Sean. In the performance
of talent, like, you can'trely on the gravitas of these good looking
faces, but rather, you know, it has to be a performance that
comes from the voice. And againwe're co creating with the listener who's building
(29:34):
these images in their mind, whichis why I think the power of audio
is so why it is so powerfulas a storytelling method. So, you
know, having worked in both filmand audio, Sean, how do you
approach directing from this perspective and alsoas a follow up in such a high
stakes scene after scene, how didyou let there also be some like breath
(29:57):
in the story? Well, Idon't know if it was a breath and
there wasn't a breath in the recording, I'll tell you that I think we
just kind of went from one sceneto the next in a pretty quick fashion.
But yeah, the cadence of someone'svoice is important, and and you
know, I kind of know I'veknown Joe for a very long time,
and of course we all know John'svoice. I know that they have their
(30:19):
voices are just very different and verycompatible in that way. So you know,
that was something we could just kindof build around. Then when you
get into other characters, you doactually have to find certain voices that,
as they say, cut through likea knife, you know, or you
do have to find boy, forexample, James O'Connor also, which is
(30:41):
the opposite of that. He soundslike Orson Welles Dick Hall, and he
has a very baritone voice. Andso I try to mix and match the
most different voices possible around the star, you know, in order to make
them be separated, because if someonelistening to this in a car or on
their headphones or something, they needto know where they are a little bit
(31:04):
more than in a TV show,you know, geographically and in the situation.
So having those kinds of different voicesis important. I'm not sure that
I answered your question completely. No, Well, that's one very important aspect.
Yeah, that's a perfect segue becauseI hope we can geek out about
audio. Now. You know,Sean, you also have a background in
(31:25):
music. And one of the thingsthat I felt this podcast in particular stood
out in terms of scripted audio isthe layers of sound design, specifically moving
from scene to scene, moving frommedia to being in the room with people
in a way that like, again, I never felt lost. I was
(31:45):
always with you in terms of whereyou probably wanted me the listener to be.
So the way you even talked aboutcasting voices sounded very musical to me,
and I'm curious, like, canyou talk a little bit about the
sound design process, how you builtthese scenes through sound. Well, the
first thing I did was I broughton Brandon Jones, who I had done
(32:07):
Blackout with UM and he did aphenomenal job with Blackout, which is a
fiction podcast a couple of years agowith Rommy Malick. He came in to
do this and he built out thenewsrooms and all the different spaces. And
when you know you have him someonewho kind of his sound sounds, you
know, very three dimensional, thenthat's a wonderful thing to have. And
(32:31):
then again with the archive footage.Being able to blend that in was really
fun. And then when we heardit, we didn't have John does these
voiceovers to kind of also situate us. We didn't have that when we first
recorded. John came back and thankfullycame back and did a few little of
(32:52):
these voiceover bits to kind of helpus know where the where Fred's head was
at and where we were at,you know, sort of began geographically or
in the story time wise. Youknow, you can kind of jump ahead
in time through this these little tinyvoiceover handles. You just don't want to
overuse them, So that was somethingthat we implemented a little later on.
(33:14):
Actually that felt like the breath inthe story, like the time where the
listener, the audience could rest onus. Those voiceovers are also, I
think, sort of an extension ofthe epistolary nature of the piece, you
know. I think we approached allof this very much as sort of like
a an audio version of a filmor a TV show, you know,
really making it as immersive as possibleto make up for the fact that there
(33:35):
is no visual But something you mentionedearlier, Gigi, was this idea that
the audience creates the story along withyou, which I think is also similar
to the novel, and especially thoseearly novels which are themselves epistolary, They
often take the forms of collected journalsor collected letters. And so by setting
this story in an audio medium withthis radio element built into it, and
then also giving the audience that breathand these moments where Fred is going to
(34:00):
directly addressed them in chase thoughts withthem, it is all sort of just
of a piece and an extension ofthat original idea. And then, in
terms of how you guys were recording, because this was in audio, did
it end up feeling more like astage performance? And this is a question
for John and Joe specifically, howdid that feel? Wasn't nice to switch
it up from the stop and goof television and movies. It was absolutely
(34:23):
I felt it was a stage performance. I mean it was. I was
sweating, and I mean it waseverything in that little little closet of mind,
but so satisfying and working with Johnand just being there in the moment,
giving and taking feeding off of eachother. I mean it was incredible.
Yeah, I mean I would sayit's had It certainly had a lot
(34:44):
in common. It was it wasvery live for one of a better word,
you know, but it was itwas like doing a lot of live
performance as I did at the beginningof my career, and that there was
not an audience. Uh so,uh it was it was a little different
to not have an audience to feedoff of sort of feel that energy.
(35:05):
But yeah, you know, therewas very much a sense of immediacy with
it. And I've had a lotof friends that have done these sort of
zoom productions of plays and I alwaysthink that sounds so weird, and then
having done this, going I don'tknow, I guess, I guess I
can see how that's a that's athing. Was there anything that surprised either
of you guys about the performance itselfor you know, because you were acting
(35:27):
this way surprising? I mean,at the end of the day, it
was. I would say that whenI was done, I was exhausted.
So yeah, there was a lotof there was a lot of mental and
sort of emotional energy that went intoit. That was a little surprising given
the fact that you don't have thesort of ramp up that you have when
you're doing a live performance. Youdon't have to put your costume on and
makeup and thirty minute call and fifteenand ten and five and places and all
(35:50):
of the ramp up that's there isnot there. You're just sort of like,
oh, I'm sitting in this weirdbooth and or closet or what have
you, and staring at a tinybox that I can't see because I don't
know my contacts and you and yougo, all right, I guess I'm
just gonna do this. But partof, you know, being in that
world, you are very kind ofenclosed in particular, and it's it's certainly
an interesting experience, that's that's forsure, I guess. You know,
(36:13):
but you guys don't have to dolike the marks and the blocking and the
company moves and the three hours orthree days between you know, scenes and
stuff. So is that part ofwhat makes it, I guess super exhausting,
you know, because there's no Imean, it's nice to not have
that stuff. But then also ifyou when you guys were doing it all
in a row, I remember thinking, you know, it's it's a lot,
(36:34):
you know they were doing they weredoing the full scene every time.
Wow. Yeah, I mean forme, it was exhausting, like I
said, But in the best inthe best way, because yeah, we're
doing the entire scenes and letting itall rip, and it's there's no break
in the setups. So it feltthat much more like just as live performance,
(36:55):
stage performance. A lot of freedomthere. Yeah, for sure.
What has surprised everyone about audience's reactionsbecause the show is out in the world.
The show was advertising Times Square,which was so cool to see.
How how are people receiving and reactingto the show. My experience, people
are loving the show or absolutely lovingit. I mean, I'm grateful that
(37:17):
I have some you know, friendsand family close confidence who give it to
me straight and they're absolutely blown awayby the quality and the performances. Just
overall. They were lost in theworld and along for the ride, and
they absolutely loved it. Yeah,I was. I was pleasantly surprised as
well. You know, you younobody, nobody sets out to make a
bad movie, so you know youthink, Okay, well, I don't
(37:39):
know, I like it. Ihope someone else will like it. I'm
going to put it out in thisocean of content and see if anybody finds
it. Even but we have hadan incredible We had incredible support from Amazon
first of all, who immediately sparkedto it, which was which was telling
in some way, shape or formyou and you think, okay, well
now this is this is meaningful ina real way. And yeah, so
(38:02):
that that helped it rise above thenoise. And then it was yeah,
you know, I got an emailfrom my agents saying like, this is
number one in America. Cool.And then I kept scrolling down the email
and it was like and the UKand the Netherlands and Australia and Spain and
this and all these tear I waslike, whoa, Okay, I guess
(38:22):
somebody's listening somewhere. So yeah,and it is a testament to Amazon,
who backed us Amazon Music and Wonderingbacked us all the way and done a
wonderful job. And it's still we'restill, you know, seeing what the
response is. I know, Idon't ever read really much when something goes
out there in the world. I'malways kind of terrified. But then I
(38:43):
get these text exchanges from these guys, you know about where this and that
and the other time, I go, god, I just I can't even
you know. So I'm a littlebit bashful that way, but um,
well, it'll hopefully it'll keep growingand we'll keep keep finding finding its audience
as well. I think one ofmy favorite things is I'm a psychopath,
so I'm the opposite and look upeverything about it online. But there have
(39:04):
been responses from people who knew Tonycharts As personally or who had interactions with
him, and they're very um.They seem to like the show a lot,
and you know, to hear theirstories about how Tony acted with them
and who he was as a personas always interesting. I've read so many
about how, you know, therewas a young woman who when she was
nineteen it didn't have a car.Tony would just drive her to work every
day just because he could, andhe would, and he was just such
(39:27):
an interesting, i think, fascinatingpersonality. And basically all these people who
had known Tony before the incident unquotethe incident were essentially shocked that he did
it, and it seemed to themas though it was very out of character.
Well, it's very human. Weall go to that place. He
just went there, let himself gothere. We just saw somebody to go
to that place at the oscars.I mean, you know, it's like
(39:50):
it's it's we're in a very strangeand elevated time of people feeling very disoriented,
and I think without a paradigm tofall back on, I think when
you start removing all of those guardrails, people tend to go off off piece
a little quicker. And I thinkthat that's that's a symptom of where we
are. And it's a real bomber, you know. I think it's it's
(40:13):
a it's a hallmark of a societythat's that's lost its way in a in
a major way. Yeah, Ihope that this story can help people from
all sides of the I'll find comfortand in the frustration, and I hope
there's like a cathartic element to it. Um Now, as we're wrapping up
here, every time I finish workingon a project or finish writing a script,
(40:34):
all of a sudden a new ideafloods in, And so I'm curious
what's next for everyone who's on thiscall, and what types of stories are
you itching to tell as you moveforward? Well, I have Top Gun
two coming out, and may countawesome counsel a little bit. It's a
little bit, you know, Idon't know. We shot that movie in
twenty eighteen. So it's uh,it's finally Uh yeah, talking about the
(41:00):
lead grab. It's very true.Um yeah, you know, I mean
it's it's I was just asked thisquestion last night by a producer friend of
mine who's looking to do a project. I don't know. Is the short
answer. It's it's I'll know itwhen I see it is hopefully how you
you can really answer that question.So that's basically what I'll say. I'll
(41:22):
know when I see it, andhopefully you will all see or hear it
when I see it here I don'tknow. And in the meantime, we'll
go watch Top Gun two. You'llbe able to find that, how about
you, Joe? Uh yeah,Well right now, I'm I'm on Nantucket,
the Beautiful Island. I'm Nantucket doinga period film, Revolutionary War,
a film about the founding fathers ofVermont, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner and
(41:45):
such, and uh yeah, thisplace is just amazing Nantucket. I've never
been here and it's just phenomenal.I'm enamored with it, and I mean,
telling the stories just anything that,Like John said, you know,
I know it when when I feelit. I mean, American House is
just definitely up there. I mean, I don't think I've had something as
(42:07):
as just you know, dense anduh and just meaty, something that truly
resonated in a long time. AndI'm grateful for the opportunity to to collaborate
with these guys and look forward todoing more in the future. This is
the thing, gig, when youask that question, it's like someone works
really hard on a project and thenthe first question is, what's next.
(42:30):
Oh, you just poured years andyears of your life into this. People
put it in and yeah, andthey do all these things and you really
sit and it's like, so,what's next. Yeah, We're doing a
couple more of these scripted podcasts,So that's what's next for us. I
don't know how much I can divulgeother than that, but we want to.
We're doing more of them, anduh, you know, I don't
know. Well. The fun thingabout, you know, kind of where
(42:52):
we are in this world of endlesscontent is that it feels overwhelming in a
lot of ways, but it alsofeels kind of freeing in other ways,
in the sense of there's so manydifferent ways to tell a story that have
really been explored over the course ofthis pandemic, Like you know, we
briefly touched on it earlier, butthe idea of like, well, I
don't know, we'll see how thiscomes out, and I guess we'll all
(43:13):
go into our relative closets and spacesthat we won't breathe on each other,
and who knows what's going to happen. And then of course what happened was
that something great happened, and that'syou know, that's kind of that's affirming
in some way, I think,And it feels like we're coming out of
the mist a little bit and hopefullywe've learned a little something, but also
hopefully we've taken that thing away withus too. Of like you know,
(43:36):
you don't necessarily need all of theall of the trappings and all of the
this is and that, So youcan tell a pretty effective story if you
just are you know, committed toit and really put the work in.
Yeah, and talk about somebody who'sput the work in CD. You know,
this has been something that you've beenthinking about since you were a kid,
and to have it come to life, I guess maybe I won't put
(43:59):
the pressure on you to answer what'snext unless you want to I'm kidding,
but if you're looking, we've gota guy. Yeah, yeah, I
mean I don't know I as awriter. You know, I've got a
bunch of scripts lying around, andso it's kind of just said the whims
of which producers and financers say yesand and the ones that I'll say no.
(44:21):
So m hopefully someone will say,but I you know, I'm going
to work with Sean and criminal content, with some more stevend development which I
won't talk about. You just haveto stay tuned on this feed and someday
something will pop on your And onelast question for you, CD having this,
(44:42):
you know, I think we cancall it your baby, this idea
that came from a long time ago. Was there anything that you got to
take home to like your family,your parents and say, like look what
I made, mom and dad?Like remember when I was obsessed with this
hostage crisis and like now I'm ascreenwriter. Now it's all off. What
was that moment I got to explainto my parents what podcasts were, which
(45:05):
is that should be another podcast?Right? Yeah? I actually long form.
Yes, I actually had to burnthe podcast on to send like blank
CDs for some of my relatives.Oh, gosh, but really yeah,
but wow, I don't know,I mean just the entire experience, I
mean, Sean and Crima, content, everybody involved where they were just like
(45:27):
terrific. I feel like I didn'tget hardly any pushback on ideas or if
people had notes, and the collaborationsthat came out of that I think just
improved the show in a pretty amazingway. So um, I don't know.
I guess the Dobe answer is theexperience was the best part, but
yeah, it really was. Yeah. These guys are the hardest, like
the hardest working guys creators that I'vereally ever experienced, and they're They're amazing.
(45:54):
So well, congratulations everyone, andthank you for taking the time to
geek out with me about audio anddissect this story. And I know that
the listeners will be thankful for youguys taking the time to like help digest
this. You know, if thiswas a constant binge, this was probably
a much needed decompression from what theyjust heard. So so thank you,
(46:16):
thank you, thank you, thanksvery much, thank you all for listening.
Make sure to listen to American Hostageon Amazon Music, Wondering Plus,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, my name is Adam Volleridge. I'm one of the producers of American
Hostage. In today's post show,we're going to have a discussion featuring John
Hamm who plays Fred Heckman, JoePerino who plays Tony Kuritzis, director Sean
Christensen, and write a CD Carpenter. If you haven't already, make sure
to listen to American Hostage on AmazonMusic, Wondering Plus, or anywhere you
(00:21):
get your podcasts. This discussion willbe moderated by Gigi Hawkins. Gigi is
a writer, director, and selfproclaimed audio file. She co hosts the
No Film School and Distorted by Glamorpodcasts and has worked with the likes of
Gimblet Media, iHeart the Gotham andGoogle on their podcasting. Thank you all
for being here, Thank you Adam, and welcome to the American Hostage post
(00:44):
Show. If you're listening to thisright now, I highly recommend you actually
listen to the podcast that we'll betalking about, or you can be coming
in blind and it might be avery different experience for you. And before
we get into it, because we'rehere talking in the audio for Matt,
if everyone could just say hello andtheir name, so the audience could hear
(01:06):
who's speaking, Hi guys, y'all. Pryn right here, I play Tony
Chritsis, John Hamm, I playFred Heckman. I'm Cede Carpenter, I'm
the writer. I am Sean Christensenthe director. Awesome, thank you.
The seven second delay for live televisionwas introduced in nineteen seventy five by NBC
(01:26):
so that Richard Pryor could host SaturdayNight Live without the network getting fined for
all of his obscenities. The delaywould also be useful we discovered if a
man were to be shot point blankin the head live on national television.
So I wanted to start with sortof how this story came to be.
(01:52):
I'd love to hear from CD firston how you came across the story and
how you brought it to Sean andsort of what drew you to the story
of American hostage. Sure, Iactually grew up kind of hearing the story
and the peripheral as a kid.I grew up in the Midwest. I
grew up in Kentucky, and Ijust remember being a kid in hearing stories
(02:12):
about a guy who was so madone day he tied a shotgun to some
other guy's neck. I didn't reallythink much of that for years and years
and years, and then when Istarted working with Sean and Criminal Content,
you know, as a true crimecompany, I was thinking back on all
the true crime that I had kindof experienced and grown up with, and
that was like the number one storythat popped in my head. So I
went back to to our research andfound that the story was just really compelling
(02:35):
and interesting and amazing, and soI threw a pitch to Sean and I
guess maybe Sean could take it fromthere. Yeah, you brought it to
me and you had a kind ofa made up show first, and then
I was like, can we havesomething that's you know, a true story.
You brought this. We did alittle research on it because it's very
much about like this hostage taker whosefeels you know, and we saw this
(03:00):
Fred Heckman character, and for audio, it sounded great to have you know,
a radio reporter being someone in thisaudio podcast is giving us a handle
on the situation and going through thatperson. And that was I think how
we knew we could we could makethe show with that kind of device and
just the fascinating story of this guytrying to basically negotiate with this hostage taker
(03:24):
to have a man's life be saved. Somewhere in the middle of the whole
thing, they took a national pullof how many people related to Tony Kuritzis
seventy percent of the country related tohim the man with the gun? But
(03:44):
I mean, let's be honest aboutit. Does anyone really root for the
banker? I think it's interesting thatyou guys chose to tell this story and
audio, and it really makes sensefor it to be an audio first story.
Now, John, having had suchsuccess in TV and film, what
was it about the audio format thatattracted you to this project? A lot
(04:09):
Like just was said, there's athere's sort of a very tee quality to
it's when it is and was originallybroadcast on the radio. This was sort
of going back to how it wasoriginally experienced, and there was something exciting
about that. I had been aconsumer of podcasts for quite some time,
(04:30):
longer than they've even been around,really, and I remember my kind of
first introduction to something like this wasway back when I was a kid listening
to old BBC broadcasts of things likethe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other
various and sundry things that were inthose days called radio plays, but realizing
(04:50):
that there was a tremendous amount ofstorytelling that you could put into those and
you could tell stories that you probablycouldn't tell from a motion pictures endpoint or
a televised standpoint because it was tooexpensive, or you didn't have the ability
to show the man shooting the lasersout of his eyes, or you couldn't
get the location or the period.Stuff was so expensive, And so you
(05:12):
could do it this way and stilltell the story and still be very rich
and evocative in the words and thepictures that you're drawing, just with an
audio sensibility. So it was itwas an exciting opportunity. And the drama
is sort of built right in.So it's pretty cool to see that and
will not even see it. Tohear that I should I suppose I should
say, but also to be apart of it, I need these three
(05:40):
questions asked, because these three questionsspill it all out. Okay, Tony,
all right? The question three,I'm ready, Tony, do you
regret having killed Dick? Tony?You get that one down for it?
Tony, did you kill Dick?You got that down, didn't you for
it? I need you to answerme now, Tony, is Dick Alive's
(06:05):
Tony? Now? Now you knowthere's a there's a condition here. You
know, we can't do this interviewif you kill him. You told me
that you wouldn't hurt him. What'sinteresting about the audio format is it is
so intimate because the listener is cocreating with the story as they're hearing it.
(06:30):
And I think one of the mostinteresting elements about this story is the
journey that the audience goes on withTony. And so I'm curious, Joe,
what was the experience going into thischaracter who starts from a place of
being very much the bad guy,but by the end I felt myself questioning
that, rooting for him, feelingfor him. Yeah, I'm it's easy
(06:55):
to um to initially think he's abad guy or crazy, but I couldn't
judge him that way. I mean, he was definitely Tony at that point.
He was definitely a He's a depressedman, but he's desperate man.
He's angry, sad, and youknow, it's fairly easy to connect with
him. On an emotional level.I'd be lying if I said it was
(07:15):
hard to get into his head orhis emotional state. But as soon as
I brought up the nine one onecall, I connected with him immediately.
I resonated with his pain and frustration. You can tell there was a whole
lot of vulnerability under there at thatpoint. He's definitely a dangerous man.
I mean, for there's sixty threehours, the risk of a blood bath
(07:36):
was astronomical. But as far asthe humanity, I feel like I connected
with that. I mean, itresonated with me immediately. And John,
your character Fred, he really wassuch an interesting channel into sympathizing and empathizing
with Tony. And as we knowfrom the story, many people actually sympathies
(08:00):
with Tony at the time of thecrisis, despite him being, you know,
a gun wielding hostage taker. Whydo you think that was And was
there anything in the process of steppinginto the role of Fred Heckman that sort
of helped you arrive to that place? Well, similarly to Joe, the
last thing you want to do issort of is judge the character you're playing,
and that's what Fred also doesn't do. He has to deal with this
(08:22):
person as a human being. AndI think as soon as we start dealing
with people as a collection of theirpolitical ideas or their circumstances or their choices,
we get into very dangerous objectification andtalking about people as if they're not
people. I think that's part ofthe big why the story is sort of,
you know, forty some five yearsold and yet pretty resonant to the
(08:45):
political landscape we have now. Ithink we're dangerously close to just kind of
writing the whole section of the populationoff because they think or they think they
think a certain way. In reality, we actually do have a lot more
in common. And and what Joewas saying about how Tony's mental state and
being depressed and being angry has ledhim to make these choices doesn't necessarily make
(09:07):
him a nonentity or a non person. He deserves the respect of being heard.
And I think, you know,that's that's sort of an interesting buzzword
of our current cultural manipulation in dealingwith one another. But being seen and
being heard actually does affect people's abilityto communicate, an ability to kind of
(09:28):
let their feelings be known. Andas soon as we stop doing that,
that becomes very very dangerous and verycounterproductive as a society, we really just
start walling people off and that's nothelpful. Like that great line that Fred
says that Tony was yelling into thevoid, you know, years before Fred
Heckman or society at large heard him. I mean he felt, you know,
he felt like he was invisible,like the Invisible Man, and that
(09:52):
can be you know, that leadspeople to do desperate things or act out
of anger or sadness or I didn'tjust make myself a part of the story.
I pulled the whole station into itwith me. I never once stopped
(10:13):
to think about what it might doto them, the ramifications. Once I
had my sights on the prize,I put the whole station, the whole
city really in jeopardy. Tony Kurtzishad been screaming into the void for years
before the world noticed him, beforeI heard him. But that doesn't mean
(10:35):
I should have let him speak.And it's absolutely a relevant story to today,
and I wonder, and I'd loveto hear from the wider group as
well. Do you think that thereare enough reporters like Fred Heckman today aka
folks who are really leaning into thisunbiased, almost Walter Cronkite types, And
(10:56):
who do you think is maybe closestto that for our I think it's hard.
I think it's really hard because thecoin of the realm when it comes
to news or journalism has shifted significantlyover the past fifty years from informative to
infotainment. And you know, thereused to be a time in the world
(11:18):
when the television went off and themessage was go to bed. It's we've
done all we can do for today. And we live in a twenty four
seven, three sixty five globally communicated, instant gratification society now, and part
of what you have to do,what you literally have to do in that
situation, is to be attention grabbing. So I mean, I think if
(11:39):
you look at kind of the peoplethat are doing true journalism, whether they're
on the ground in Kiev or Donetskor what have you, or breaking stories
are that are important and have somekind of real political or cultural significance.
Yeah, I think there are peoplestill doing that. I just think they're
wildly overshadowed by the much louder groupof quote unquote journalists that are really opinion
(12:05):
people who are trying to stir thepot, you know, and we all
know who those guys are. Andit's on both sides. It's it's Rachel
Maddowan, it's Tucker Carlson, andit's for a lot of people, it's
Don Lemon, and it's you know, Bill O'Reilly or if he him on
the air anymore, I don't evenknow. But you know, it's if
you're if you're if you're stated objectiveis entertainment, you're going to start fudging
facts. Yeah, And I thinkyou know that That's the was the interesting
(12:28):
thing John about this, this characterI think we had talked about when we
first talked the a political nature ofhim. He's just kind of trying to
handle the situation. There's nothing aboutit. But today it would be politicized,
you know, But at the timeI think it was, you know,
and U and actually to John's pointtwo about so much of just being
commentary, now, that was actuallykind of why Fred ended up retiring and
(12:50):
leaving WBC in nineteen ninety three,is that he felt as though it was
just becoming commentary rather than news.He eventually was inducted into the Hall of
Fame of Indiana Journalists. I thinkin like two thousand and five. But
yeah, he put his foot downin it and he left for his journalistic
principles, which is something that I'vealways kind of respected about him. Colo
(13:13):
enrichment. He's been written say MinnesotaBA parent company uper Velt. When I
started working at WIBC, America wasrapidly changing. I was doing stories on
McCarthyism, the counterculture, the riots, the oil crisis, Vietnam. But
by nineteen seventy seven, if youtuned into WIBC and heard Fred Heckman,
(13:37):
you didn't get the news. Yougot stories about leaky ceilings or lost kittens,
maybe the occasional corporate misconduct. Idon't know if the news lost me
or I lost the news. Oneof the most interesting themes that's like brought
up in the series is this ideaof the public looking to this event happening,
(14:03):
this breaking news moment, but there'ssomething in human nature almost like rubbernecking,
like we can't look away from whetherit's true crime or this breaking news
or our Twitter feeds, and theurgency around that. I'd love to hear
your thoughts, Sean, on howyou approached it as a director, like
to create that urgency but in thecontext of you know, the nineteen seventies
(14:28):
and what was it like, howwere you thinking about it? Well,
first of all, you know,we had archive footage from the real incident
that we knew we were going tobe able to mix in to the podcast.
So we had this really fun,interesting vice we could always go between
when you know John Joe or gettinginto things, when their characters are getting
(14:50):
any things. We could always floatinto a real life firsthand witness of the
event and float into real life reporters, and sometimes we go is an easter
egg, we go to Fred Heckmanreporting the real Fred Heckman in the podcast.
Sometimes is kind of a little easteregg to do that. And by
the way, I thank big thankyou to w IBC for providing that to
(15:11):
us and also wish TV for helpingout on all of this stuff. And
so once we knew we had that, we were able to record the podcast
knowing that we could always jump intothat and always get that feeling of being
in that era through that archive footage. Well, I've known him on life,
(15:33):
I've been troubled him on life mywhole life. All I ever wanted
was the story, the big one, the one that puts you on the
map, the one that takes thecountry by storm and hits the national zeitgeist,
capturing America's hearts and minds. Thatwas the dream, my dream,
And then one day, like aturbocharged V eight DND five hundred, the
(15:56):
dream finally hit me. And allI can say to that is be careful
what you wish for. So oneof the things Sean you mentioned, and
John as well, you both havespoken about your love for the film's network
(16:17):
in Dog Day Afternoon. Are youboth Sydney Lumette fans. Yeah, yeah,
I know who the biggest Sydney Lumettefan is on this one as well
in CD, and we made apitch deck on toos well, we don't
have six hours to talk about Latte, which is no, we don't,
but you do have the poster behindyou. You need at least a week
to totally met with with CD.Yeah. Well initially, yeah, initially,
(16:38):
the pitch for the show was itwas a sort of a mix for
me if three films of Network,Dogy Afternoon and Fails Safe And I actually
kind of envisioned Fred Heckman mostly asHenry Fonda from as the President and feels
safe, just someone who is extremelycalm and rational and just in a horrific
position and tries to seek the humanityin that movie in the Russia than in
(17:00):
this show twenty critzes. So lamentwas my primary influence. We also looked
at other seventies films that taking apoem into three and things like that.
But yeah, hopefully the limit influencecomes through in some way, or I
feel like I may have failed inmy job as a writer. And I
do think part of it is,you know, there's something even though Sidney
Lumette was making movies well into thecentury, that part of him is sort
(17:23):
of inextricably linked to the seventies,and a lot of what his movies and
the tension that they create draws uponis that kind of analog technology and analog
flow of information where so much ofthe pickups in films that have been mentioned
are because information travels in meaning realseventies time, Meaning if somebody calls somebody
(17:45):
in the phone rings and Nobe picksit up, it just keeps ringing,
and there's something super quaint about that. But there's also something, if you're
old enough to remember that super frustratingand super tension building about that too,
So you know you can extrapolate that. You know, the dog days obviously
one of those things where just stuffis happening and no one seems to know
(18:06):
what's going on. I think thatour our podcast, our story here has
a lot of that too, whereyou had mentioned the sort of rubbernecking sense
of what's happening because you're you're listeningto this on the radio, thinking this
can't be real, this is reallyhappening. Oh my god, what do
I do. I can't quote unquotelook away turn off the radio. I
(18:26):
like to have to know what howthis ends. And I think there is
something really, you know, kindof old school, which is a terrible
term. I hate using it,but I just did. But but sort
of familiar yet yet distant, aboutthat separation of the time we have now,
which is if you want an answerto a question, your three clicks
away from it, and if youneeded, you know, a resolution to
(18:47):
anything, you can you can youcan get it and it can be delivered
tomorrow. And it's it's that's justnot possible. It's just not in the
realm of possibility back then. Yeah, I get nostalgic for it. You
know, right. And even bythe way, Rees, I was listening
to some Blink one A two songand they were like the lyric you know,
Star sixty nine, What the hellis that? You know, and
it's just kind of like that waskind of fun stuff, you know,
(19:08):
Yeah, to figure out all thosethings on those phones and now that's all
gone, you know, getting lostin the car where you're going. We're
just bar bets, you know,like the idea of yeah, I bet
you couldn't name the last five AcademyAward winners like I can. I just
look at it right now. Yeah, we have to force ourselves to not
use Google and do those bar betsand find our way to our destination.
(19:30):
I think that'll be good for thebrain. Yeah. The show actually,
I think forces the listener to almostlive in this world of the seventies,
of this delayed gratification and delayed informationand then understand the tension there. And
well, definitely as a listener,I was piecing together what was going on
and almost figuring out this puzzle.I never became overwhelmed to the point that
(19:55):
I like checked out because and Ithink that all the credit goes to UCD
for Bill being out a world ina story that had clear worlds within it,
stakes within each different world. Though. I'm sure you had to kill
so many darlings when writing this script, especially knowing what actually went on in
real life. So I'm curious,So, what were some of the most
(20:17):
painful things that you had to cutout when creating this script? To be
honest? Well, thank you forthe compliment, but also we didn't.
I feel like we didn't really haveto cut out that much. I mean,
the biggest challenge I think of theshow was just trying to figure out
how we were going to do eightepisodes of essentially two people talking on a
telephone. Some of the conversations thatare in the show are taken directly from
(20:38):
almost transcripts from the actual dialogue,but I would say maybe eighty five percent
of them or not. But thereare some differences between reality and kind of
what we did with the show.You know, we lovingly exaggerated the truth
at points, but I think thatwe did kind of keep to the spirit
of what actually was happening. Therelationship between Fred and Tony is real.
(21:00):
I mean, you can listen tothe actual tapes of those two and I
was lucky to since that Sean didn'treally feel like we had to cut a
lot of bit Like Sean and Garbone, Adam and the producers were all very
kind of cool with what was onthe page and just fleshing it out from
there. And then again the performancesin the sound design, I think really
just kind of kick it up.You know, the writing is what it
(21:21):
is. But you know, withoutJoe and John and Carla and Dylan and
Becky and James and our incredible casts, I don't know if it would really
work. I want to get tothe sound design in a moment too,
but I am curious, and I'msure the listeners are curious as well.
What ended up happening to Tony andFred in terms of their actual relationship,
we don't really know. So atthe end of the show, obviously Tony
(21:44):
is found not guilty. He didend up being institutionalized for a few years
and then was released in nineteen eightyeight, and as far as we know,
lived a very quiet life afterwards inIndianapolis. He didn't cause any problems,
there were no more incidents. Hedied in two thousand and five,
and I believe Fred died in twothousand and one. We don't know if
they ever met up. We don'tknow if they had a real relationship afterwards,
(22:07):
but we do know that Tony alwaysheld Fred in high regard and definitely
credited Fred as the person who reallykind of got him through that that specific
crisis. Can I just say somethinghere, We didn't really cut any almost
anything out of the phone conversations betweenTony, Criticis and Fred, which is
like fifty percent of the podcast.And I have to just want to contell
(22:29):
that the listeners here that John andJoe I don't believe you guys met each
other before we did this, right, so he did not, So we
do this. We taped this ina couple of days, and they're our
trusty producer here made it so thatJohn and Joe were together, I think
for that final day, just kindof by themselves. He kind of like
that. We stripped everyone else outand it became just you guys, and
(22:51):
I remember watching you guys on thezoom. We recorded this virtually and just
because also I don't remember this John, but Joe was like in a closet,
do you remember, he was likea deep pandemic. So we were
very we were very isolated. Iremember, like none of us could see
Joe, Like we literally couldn't seehim, and he was like this reflection
face off the iPad, and John'skind of sometimes responding like as Fred and
(23:15):
I feel like we were all afraidof Joe a little bit. And and
but just the way that the walkingon eggshells the John you're doing, and
also the fact that Joe's just likein this dark, weird closet, like
underlit by an iPad, looks likea horrible digital campfire thing all by choice.
Yeah, yeah it was. Ididn't want to. I want it
to be in the shadows. AndI want you to open up the phone
(23:40):
lines. I'm going to show youwhat I'm talking about. I want people
to call in and to tell youthat they see what I'm doing, that
they see what I understand. Well, Tony, we're not set up to
take calls at the Swear to god, Fred, you are hitching to hear
that gunshot, aren't you. Aren'tyou You want them to just as much
as I do. You have toto tell me no, Look, I
don't want him dead, Tony.That's not the number. Motherfucker's brains all
(24:06):
over the receiver so Argul Harris gotdamn talks Tony. Do you think I'm
gonna ask again if you would liketo call into the station. Our number
is five five zero six three nine. What was it like recording in the
pandemic? So you were in closets? Was everybody in a closet? I
(24:30):
was? I recorded in my hallwaycloset. And um, I mean for
me, it was such a giftto have this, this juicy project with
loved ones and working with you know, the cream of the crop, mister
Hamm and everyone, Sean CD andjust to kind of channel see a lot
(24:52):
of the things I think Tony wasgoing through. You know, I resonated.
It resonated so quickly with me becauseit's a lot of things I was
going through in the pandemic. Confusion, fear, frustration, anger, There
was social unrests. Everyone felt likeshit, you know, and so I
just channeled all of that. Itwas the great opportunity to channel all of
(25:14):
that through this project. And itwas a great catharsis. I mean truly,
it's truly a gem of a highlightof the entire pandemic. Was I
always a part of your plan here? Yes, sir, You're the best
(25:34):
in the business, fright, justlike I'm the best in the business.
And I tell you what, I'vebeen here and all these reports all day,
and every one of them calls mecrazy, every one of them calls
me mentally ill. And that's thebiggest live or hear in my life.
I have every single one of myfaculties, and I have each one sharp
as attack. I am not insane. I do not need psychological probing and
(25:55):
I do not need to be counseledfor my course of action. I am
a man and man iss hale whohad everything taken away from me. And
I'm fighting you saying don't know whento fight. I know how to fight.
I know how to rig up ashotgun, and I know how to
rig up a bomb. And I'llsay it right now, this was a
premeditated act. I'll say that becauseI know, I know. I got
(26:15):
cops right outside who keep telling meI can get out of this about pleading
sanity, and I am not inside. All right, Tony, all right,
I believe you, John. Youdid something before. Love is a
(26:36):
crime. That's a different kind ofthing, though, um yeah, that
was different. Love as a crimewas a little more of a reenactment kind
of base still based on true story. H and I had done another one
called The Big Lie after this thatwas another just scripted story, but this
was the I think this was thefirst that I had done, and it
was it was nice to just tosort of bring it all full circle too,
(26:56):
Like it was really nice to haveCarl look at Gino, who I've
known for years and worked with before, and Dylan and Becky Baker who have
known for years and haven't had achance to work with before. But like
it was I think a testament tohow good the material was that it happened
to draw all these people. Imean, that was the exciting part of
it. And having to also getto tell the story of what was actually
(27:18):
going on in this guy's life whilehe was having to deal with this extraordinary
situation. You know, that's kindof all of that is really value added
in the sense of even if youlook at Walter Cronkite was mentioned before.
You know, I'm sure Walter Cronkite, I don't know, drank too much
or had you know, a bummerof a home life, or kicked his
dog once or something. You know, like we set these people up as
(27:41):
these perfect individuals and no one canlive up to that, and you know,
and that's and that's kind of animportant thing to remember. Again,
if we're talking about personalizing human beingsinstead of holding them up as objects or
holding them up as paradigms of behavior, then you know, again we're really
missing something about being human. Interms of Fred's character, John, was
(28:02):
there anything that you think you wouldhave done differently in this situation or was
there anything specifically that surprised you abouthow he handled it? Um that I
would have done differently? Not chickinga call? Probably I would have been
you know, yeah, I don'tknow, you know, and ring and
(28:22):
ring, and nobody will as Idon't. I honestly have no concept of
what that existence even is. Youknow. It's it's so bizarrely out of
any kind of experience that I've everhad, you know. I mean,
we all like to think, like, oh, if there was a bank
robbery and I was there, I'dtake the gun, and but most mostly
human beings freeze and they get freakedout and they're terrified, and then probably
(28:48):
I would probably be in that worldas well, they freaked out, terrified
world. So I honestly don't know. You know, that's part of the
fun of getting to do what wedo on a daily basis is I don't
have to talk to anybody off theledge. I can just read what it
says on the paper and then theyread what they say back, and I
know how it's going to end,thanks to CD. So. Actually,
(29:11):
one thing that I think is alwaysinteresting when thinking about specifically scripted audio is
in the performance. And this isa question for Sean. In the performance
of talent, like, you can'trely on the gravitas of these good looking
faces, but rather, you know, it has to be a performance that
comes from the voice. And againwe're co creating with the listener who's building
(29:34):
these images in their mind, whichis why I think the power of audio
is so why it is so powerfulas a storytelling method. So, you
know, having worked in both filmand audio, Sean, how do you
approach directing from this perspective and alsoas a follow up in such a high
stakes scene after scene, how didyou let there also be some like breath
(29:57):
in the story? Well, Idon't know if it was a breath and
there wasn't a breath in the recording, I'll tell you that I think we
just kind of went from one sceneto the next in a pretty quick fashion.
But yeah, the cadence of someone'svoice is important, and and you
know, I kind of know I'veknown Joe for a very long time,
and of course we all know John'svoice. I know that they have their
(30:19):
voices are just very different and verycompatible in that way. So you know,
that was something we could just kindof build around. Then when you
get into other characters, you doactually have to find certain voices that,
as they say, cut through likea knife, you know, or you
do have to find boy, forexample, James O'Connor also, which is
(30:41):
the opposite of that. He soundslike Orson Welles Dick Hall, and he
has a very baritone voice. Andso I try to mix and match the
most different voices possible around the star, you know, in order to make
them be separated, because if someonelistening to this in a car or on
their headphones or something, they needto know where they are a little bit
(31:04):
more than in a TV show,you know, geographically and in the situation.
So having those kinds of different voicesis important. I'm not sure that
I answered your question completely. No, Well, that's one very important aspect.
Yeah, that's a perfect segue becauseI hope we can geek out about
audio. Now. You know,Sean, you also have a background in
(31:25):
music. And one of the thingsthat I felt this podcast in particular stood
out in terms of scripted audio isthe layers of sound design, specifically moving
from scene to scene, moving frommedia to being in the room with people
in a way that like, again, I never felt lost. I was
(31:45):
always with you in terms of whereyou probably wanted me the listener to be.
So the way you even talked aboutcasting voices sounded very musical to me,
and I'm curious, like, canyou talk a little bit about the
sound design process, how you builtthese scenes through sound. Well, the
first thing I did was I broughton Brandon Jones, who I had done
(32:07):
Blackout with UM and he did aphenomenal job with Blackout, which is a
fiction podcast a couple of years agowith Rommy Malick. He came in to
do this and he built out thenewsrooms and all the different spaces. And
when you know you have him someonewho kind of his sound sounds, you
know, very three dimensional, thenthat's a wonderful thing to have. And
(32:31):
then again with the archive footage.Being able to blend that in was really
fun. And then when we heardit, we didn't have John does these
voiceovers to kind of also situate us. We didn't have that when we first
recorded. John came back and thankfullycame back and did a few little of
(32:52):
these voiceover bits to kind of helpus know where the where Fred's head was
at and where we were at,you know, sort of began geographically or
in the story time wise. Youknow, you can kind of jump ahead
in time through this these little tinyvoiceover handles. You just don't want to
overuse them, So that was somethingthat we implemented a little later on.
(33:14):
Actually that felt like the breath inthe story, like the time where the
listener, the audience could rest onus. Those voiceovers are also, I
think, sort of an extension ofthe epistolary nature of the piece, you
know. I think we approached allof this very much as sort of like
a an audio version of a filmor a TV show, you know,
really making it as immersive as possibleto make up for the fact that there
(33:35):
is no visual But something you mentionedearlier, Gigi, was this idea that
the audience creates the story along withyou, which I think is also similar
to the novel, and especially thoseearly novels which are themselves epistolary, They
often take the forms of collected journalsor collected letters. And so by setting
this story in an audio medium withthis radio element built into it, and
then also giving the audience that breathand these moments where Fred is going to
(34:00):
directly addressed them in chase thoughts withthem, it is all sort of just
of a piece and an extension ofthat original idea. And then, in
terms of how you guys were recording, because this was in audio, did
it end up feeling more like astage performance? And this is a question
for John and Joe specifically, howdid that feel? Wasn't nice to switch
it up from the stop and goof television and movies. It was absolutely
(34:23):
I felt it was a stage performance. I mean it was. I was
sweating, and I mean it waseverything in that little little closet of mind,
but so satisfying and working with Johnand just being there in the moment,
giving and taking feeding off of eachother. I mean it was incredible.
Yeah, I mean I would sayit's had It certainly had a lot
(34:44):
in common. It was it wasvery live for one of a better word,
you know, but it was itwas like doing a lot of live
performance as I did at the beginningof my career, and that there was
not an audience. Uh so,uh it was it was a little different
to not have an audience to feedoff of sort of feel that energy.
(35:05):
But yeah, you know, therewas very much a sense of immediacy with
it. And I've had a lotof friends that have done these sort of
zoom productions of plays and I alwaysthink that sounds so weird, and then
having done this, going I don'tknow, I guess, I guess I
can see how that's a that's athing. Was there anything that surprised either
of you guys about the performance itselfor you know, because you were acting
(35:27):
this way surprising? I mean,at the end of the day, it
was. I would say that whenI was done, I was exhausted.
So yeah, there was a lotof there was a lot of mental and
sort of emotional energy that went intoit. That was a little surprising given
the fact that you don't have thesort of ramp up that you have when
you're doing a live performance. Youdon't have to put your costume on and
makeup and thirty minute call and fifteenand ten and five and places and all
(35:50):
of the ramp up that's there isnot there. You're just sort of like,
oh, I'm sitting in this weirdbooth and or closet or what have
you, and staring at a tinybox that I can't see because I don't
know my contacts and you and yougo, all right, I guess I'm
just gonna do this. But partof, you know, being in that
world, you are very kind ofenclosed in particular, and it's it's certainly
an interesting experience, that's that's forsure, I guess. You know,
(36:13):
but you guys don't have to dolike the marks and the blocking and the
company moves and the three hours orthree days between you know, scenes and
stuff. So is that part ofwhat makes it, I guess super exhausting,
you know, because there's no Imean, it's nice to not have
that stuff. But then also ifyou when you guys were doing it all
in a row, I remember thinking, you know, it's it's a lot,
(36:34):
you know they were doing they weredoing the full scene every time.
Wow. Yeah, I mean forme, it was exhausting, like I
said, But in the best inthe best way, because yeah, we're
doing the entire scenes and letting itall rip, and it's there's no break
in the setups. So it feltthat much more like just as live performance,
(36:55):
stage performance. A lot of freedomthere. Yeah, for sure.
What has surprised everyone about audience's reactionsbecause the show is out in the world.
The show was advertising Times Square,which was so cool to see.
How how are people receiving and reactingto the show. My experience, people
are loving the show or absolutely lovingit. I mean, I'm grateful that
(37:17):
I have some you know, friendsand family close confidence who give it to
me straight and they're absolutely blown awayby the quality and the performances. Just
overall. They were lost in theworld and along for the ride, and
they absolutely loved it. Yeah,I was. I was pleasantly surprised as
well. You know, you younobody, nobody sets out to make a
bad movie, so you know youthink, Okay, well, I don't
(37:39):
know, I like it. Ihope someone else will like it. I'm
going to put it out in thisocean of content and see if anybody finds
it. Even but we have hadan incredible We had incredible support from Amazon
first of all, who immediately sparkedto it, which was which was telling
in some way, shape or formyou and you think, okay, well
now this is this is meaningful ina real way. And yeah, so
(38:02):
that that helped it rise above thenoise. And then it was yeah,
you know, I got an emailfrom my agents saying like, this is
number one in America. Cool.And then I kept scrolling down the email
and it was like and the UKand the Netherlands and Australia and Spain and
this and all these tear I waslike, whoa, Okay, I guess
(38:22):
somebody's listening somewhere. So yeah,and it is a testament to Amazon,
who backed us Amazon Music and Wonderingbacked us all the way and done a
wonderful job. And it's still we'restill, you know, seeing what the
response is. I know, Idon't ever read really much when something goes
out there in the world. I'malways kind of terrified. But then I
(38:43):
get these text exchanges from these guys, you know about where this and that
and the other time, I go, god, I just I can't even
you know. So I'm a littlebit bashful that way, but um,
well, it'll hopefully it'll keep growingand we'll keep keep finding finding its audience
as well. I think one ofmy favorite things is I'm a psychopath,
so I'm the opposite and look upeverything about it online. But there have
(39:04):
been responses from people who knew Tonycharts As personally or who had interactions with
him, and they're very um.They seem to like the show a lot,
and you know, to hear theirstories about how Tony acted with them
and who he was as a personas always interesting. I've read so many
about how, you know, therewas a young woman who when she was
nineteen it didn't have a car.Tony would just drive her to work every
day just because he could, andhe would, and he was just such
(39:27):
an interesting, i think, fascinatingpersonality. And basically all these people who
had known Tony before the incident unquotethe incident were essentially shocked that he did
it, and it seemed to themas though it was very out of character.
Well, it's very human. Weall go to that place. He
just went there, let himself gothere. We just saw somebody to go
to that place at the oscars.I mean, you know, it's like
(39:50):
it's it's we're in a very strangeand elevated time of people feeling very disoriented,
and I think without a paradigm tofall back on, I think when
you start removing all of those guardrails, people tend to go off off piece
a little quicker. And I thinkthat that's that's a symptom of where we
are. And it's a real bomber, you know. I think it's it's
(40:13):
a it's a hallmark of a societythat's that's lost its way in a in
a major way. Yeah, Ihope that this story can help people from
all sides of the I'll find comfortand in the frustration, and I hope
there's like a cathartic element to it. Um Now, as we're wrapping up
here, every time I finish workingon a project or finish writing a script,
(40:34):
all of a sudden a new ideafloods in, And so I'm curious
what's next for everyone who's on thiscall, and what types of stories are
you itching to tell as you moveforward? Well, I have Top Gun
two coming out, and may countawesome counsel a little bit. It's a
little bit, you know, Idon't know. We shot that movie in
twenty eighteen. So it's uh,it's finally Uh yeah, talking about the
(41:00):
lead grab. It's very true.Um yeah, you know, I mean
it's it's I was just asked thisquestion last night by a producer friend of
mine who's looking to do a project. I don't know. Is the short
answer. It's it's I'll know itwhen I see it is hopefully how you
you can really answer that question.So that's basically what I'll say. I'll
(41:22):
know when I see it, andhopefully you will all see or hear it
when I see it here I don'tknow. And in the meantime, we'll
go watch Top Gun two. You'llbe able to find that, how about
you, Joe? Uh yeah,Well right now, I'm I'm on Nantucket,
the Beautiful Island. I'm Nantucket doinga period film, Revolutionary War,
a film about the founding fathers ofVermont, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner and
(41:45):
such, and uh yeah, thisplace is just amazing Nantucket. I've never
been here and it's just phenomenal.I'm enamored with it, and I mean,
telling the stories just anything that,Like John said, you know,
I know it when when I feelit. I mean, American House is
just definitely up there. I mean, I don't think I've had something as
(42:07):
as just you know, dense anduh and just meaty, something that truly
resonated in a long time. AndI'm grateful for the opportunity to to collaborate
with these guys and look forward todoing more in the future. This is
the thing, gig, when youask that question, it's like someone works
really hard on a project and thenthe first question is, what's next.
(42:30):
Oh, you just poured years andyears of your life into this. People
put it in and yeah, andthey do all these things and you really
sit and it's like, so,what's next. Yeah, We're doing a
couple more of these scripted podcasts,So that's what's next for us. I
don't know how much I can divulgeother than that, but we want to.
We're doing more of them, anduh, you know, I don't
know. Well. The fun thingabout, you know, kind of where
(42:52):
we are in this world of endlesscontent is that it feels overwhelming in a
lot of ways, but it alsofeels kind of freeing in other ways,
in the sense of there's so manydifferent ways to tell a story that have
really been explored over the course ofthis pandemic, Like you know, we
briefly touched on it earlier, butthe idea of like, well, I
don't know, we'll see how thiscomes out, and I guess we'll all
(43:13):
go into our relative closets and spacesthat we won't breathe on each other,
and who knows what's going to happen. And then of course what happened was
that something great happened, and that'syou know, that's kind of that's affirming
in some way, I think,And it feels like we're coming out of
the mist a little bit and hopefullywe've learned a little something, but also
hopefully we've taken that thing away withus too. Of like you know,
(43:36):
you don't necessarily need all of theall of the trappings and all of the
this is and that, So youcan tell a pretty effective story if you
just are you know, committed toit and really put the work in.
Yeah, and talk about somebody who'sput the work in CD. You know,
this has been something that you've beenthinking about since you were a kid,
and to have it come to life, I guess maybe I won't put
(43:59):
the pressure on you to answer what'snext unless you want to I'm kidding,
but if you're looking, we've gota guy. Yeah, yeah, I
mean I don't know I as awriter. You know, I've got a
bunch of scripts lying around, andso it's kind of just said the whims
of which producers and financers say yesand and the ones that I'll say no.
(44:21):
So m hopefully someone will say,but I you know, I'm going
to work with Sean and criminal content, with some more stevend development which I
won't talk about. You just haveto stay tuned on this feed and someday
something will pop on your And onelast question for you, CD having this,
(44:42):
you know, I think we cancall it your baby, this idea
that came from a long time ago. Was there anything that you got to
take home to like your family,your parents and say, like look what
I made, mom and dad?Like remember when I was obsessed with this
hostage crisis and like now I'm ascreenwriter. Now it's all off. What
was that moment I got to explainto my parents what podcasts were, which
(45:05):
is that should be another podcast?Right? Yeah? I actually long form.
Yes, I actually had to burnthe podcast on to send like blank
CDs for some of my relatives.Oh, gosh, but really yeah,
but wow, I don't know,I mean just the entire experience, I
mean, Sean and Crima, content, everybody involved where they were just like
(45:27):
terrific. I feel like I didn'tget hardly any pushback on ideas or if
people had notes, and the collaborationsthat came out of that I think just
improved the show in a pretty amazingway. So um, I don't know.
I guess the Dobe answer is theexperience was the best part, but
yeah, it really was. Yeah. These guys are the hardest, like
the hardest working guys creators that I'vereally ever experienced, and they're They're amazing.
(45:54):
So well, congratulations everyone, andthank you for taking the time to
geek out with me about audio anddissect this story. And I know that
the listeners will be thankful for youguys taking the time to like help digest
this. You know, if thiswas a constant binge, this was probably
a much needed decompression from what theyjust heard. So so thank you,
(46:16):
thank you, thank you, thanksvery much, thank you all for listening.
Make sure to listen to American Hostageon Amazon Music, Wondering Plus,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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