2022 Dragon Con Pre-Game Show Part 4: Ben McKenzie

Ben McKenzie (Gotham, The OC, Southland) talks about his first time coming to Dragon Con, his career, family life and crypto currencies.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the dragon Con pregame showpowered by Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space
Science Center, where you can learnthe science behind the fiction. My next
guest, you know from the ocsouth Land and Gotham. He's got a
new book coming out called Easy Moneyabout cryptocurrency. Ben Mackenzie, welcome,

(00:22):
Hey, how are you? Wewere originally gonna have you and your your
bride, Marina Backer. Is itum Moriana? Like? Do they roll
the rs in Brazil or do theynot? Ye mak, Yeah, you
were gonna have my better half onyou're stuck with me. I have many
many apologies. As we were talkingabout before we came on. Our house

(00:42):
came down with a cold. Uhnot COVID, so we're not contagious,
but but a cold yesterday. Andwe got three small kids, so she's
bearing the burden at home. Ihave the luxury of speaking to you here,
but yeah, sorry about that.Well, and you guys, well,
no, no, no, I'mI'm I'm quite happy to talk with
you today, and maybe we'll catchher at some point down the line.

(01:03):
I told you before that she andI met at a previous dragon Con.
She's done this a few times.This will be your first that's right.
Yeah, I've never done it,but I heard great things. What have
you heard? Because this isn't likethe other conventions? And I'm sure I'm
sure she's probably been able to kindof kind of fill you in on some
aspects of it, but probably notreally in full full description because it's really

(01:26):
hard to put a finger on exactlywhat makes it different. Yeah, that's
what I've heard is it's just awhole other blow act, really fun,
really wild, a little crazy.I mean it's a fan yeah, and
it's a convention. It's like theother conventions, but then it's rolled up
into this like NonStop five day costumeparty that just goes all hours of the

(01:49):
day and night, and there's somany different things and so many different fandoms
all represented. Yeah. Absolutely,I mean, be gentle with me.
I don't know what I'm gonna,don't want to get him myself. I
feel nervous. I feel like i'ma I'm like a high school freshman invited
to prom. I'm like, whatgoes on at these things? Anyway?
A lot a lot goes on atthese things. So but you're a family

(02:09):
guy, so I assume you'll beyou know probably yeah, I'm guessing with
kids, you're the ages of yourkids, you're probably going to be one
of those like in bed nine o'clock, nine thirty guys. I mean,
that's that's that's in my blood evenwhen I come to that's right. I
mean, that's where that's where weare right now with eight to six and

(02:29):
a new born, where you know, our eighteen month old, where if
we make it till ten o'clock,it's it's it's a small victory when you
guys pretty much say, when youguys do a convention like this, is
this a family affair or do theyhave to stay with someone while you guys
come to a convention like this?We we it depends, you know.
Sometimes you sort of use it asa way of kind of getting out of

(02:52):
town and taking a little trip.I think on this one where we're solo,
my my wife's mother's going to takecare of the kids along with our
babysitter. So we're we're set andit'll be a little weekend where the two
of us get so who knows,you know, two of us on the
weekend in Atlanta, we might beout till ten thirty eleven o'clock, the

(03:13):
world ter you never know. Thecrazy down there were already in the night
away. She's she's worked in Atlantawhen she's done, and she's obviously,
I guess gonna be working in inAtlanta if they're going to do the sequel
for Greenland in Atlanta. But soare you kind of there with her when
she's working. Do you guys comeand together for like her to work that

(03:34):
way? Or it does depend onwhatever your schedule is. Yeah, it
just depends. But for a Greenland, I was down there for on the
fall of it. We were downthere two years ago now filming um,
and we had a great time.A whole family had a great time in
Atlanta. It's such a great city. I've got two friends down there,
and um, you know, I'ma child of the South. I grew

(03:55):
up in Texas and went to schoolcollege in Virginia, so you know a
lot of Atlantas. The rhythms feelvery familiar to me. And honestly,
we had a great time. Runtof a house and there was a pool
at the house, and because welive in New York, you know,
we don't there's no pools around.The kids were like can we move to
Atlanta? You know, can wecan we live in Atlanta? And we

(04:16):
said, you know, we'll bethere, but we gotta gotta got to
work out of New York. Um. But yeah, we had a great
time and and I love Atlanta.I think the culture is great, the
food's great and uh and you gota pretty good baseball team too, Yes
we do. And uh. Actuallyit was a good sports year in general
for Georgia last year because also collegefootball. College football will be getting underway

(04:38):
this weekend while you're there, andGeorge is actually playing in Atlanta for the
kickoff game against against Oregon, andthose people, the football people end up
working their way into the hotels thatwe're in for Dragon Con. And that's
fun because they kind of get thereand they go, what in the hell
that I just walk into? Becausethey'll be a lot of people from Oregon

(05:00):
that they have no clue that Georgiapeople know, they know Dragon Con.
But when when the folks from Oregoncome in. I remember one year they
played Boise State and there were allthese people you know, from Boise State
walking around like what is this?And by the end of the convention they're
like, we're coming back next year. This is the best part of it.
I love it. World's delighting.It is, but it's kind of

(05:21):
the same. There's that fandom that'sthere and that passion that people have,
whether it's sports or whether it's youknow, whatever their favorite TV show is.
And I speaking of shows, andI want to talk a little bit
about because the the OC and Itend to think of you as a child
actor grown up, but you didn't. I mean, the OC was something

(05:43):
you were doing, you know,as a young adult, as is you
know the case in many cases withthese sort of teenage shows. Sometimes you
know, you get somebody playing younger. But I tend to think of you
as someone who started as a teenager. But you were in your twenties when
you got that. A little oldand too to be playing a teenager.
But yeah, I started at agetwenty three, twenty four, uh,

(06:05):
and I had a degree in economicsand political science from the University of Virginia.
UM so yeah, I was thislike twenty something year old guy who
moved to New York briefly and thenstumbled out to LA and kind of just
happens stantially got a TV show.You know, got that that sort of
that one in a million lottery ticketof an audition and and and booked it.

(06:28):
Um so I found myself on thisteam soap opera as a twenty something
you rolled with a college education,kind of going, what have I STI
I gotten myself into in a goodway, mainly, but just very very
confused. I did not grow upas a professional actor, but it was
a player. And you said,well, I want to get to football
in a second, because I sawwho you played football with, Drew Brees.

(06:49):
Yeah, you know, I wentto the same middle schools. Yeah.
Um yeah. It's an amazing atsurprise and amazing to watch his career.
Incredible, And you talk about theone in a million on getting the
audition and the casting and getting therole and then the show caught fire,
and that in itself is like winningthe lottery. Absolutely. Oh, it's

(07:10):
like a It's like, you know, a lottery for another It's like winning
a lottery that gets you into anotherlottery. It's you know, sort of
kind of lucky. You know,better to be lucky than good. I
guess I'll think it. M Yeah, it took off. And then I
basically stayed in the without intending to. I kind of stayed in the Warner
Brothers fold Warner Brothers studio that madethe OC but also a South Land of

(07:34):
the Cop show that it made afterwards, and then Gotham as well. So
for almost fifteen years I worked forWarner Brothers, effectively making show after show
after show. A good life.Yeah, no, And I mean that's
three pretty good gigs to have,you know, over that period of time,
Gotham obviously became its own phenomenon.And I guess when you guys took

(07:57):
and you did some writing on thatshow as well, you've got some writing
stock in your in your family tree. But when you step into a role
like Gotham, and it was goinginto territory that we hadn't really seen before.
We hadn't seen Batman at this agebefore, we hadn't seen Jim Gordon
at this period of their careers andlives and things. So you were taking
on a stewardship of these very belovedcharacters at this point. So there's probably

(08:22):
a line there that you're especially whenyou were doing some writing on the show,
where you're thinking, Okay, we'regoing to do this. We want
to tell a unique story, butwe also don't want to piss everybody off.
Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. You felt the weight of the
franchise and the passion of the fanswas evident, and quite frankly, the

(08:43):
passion was my own. I wasnot necessarily a huge superhero fan growing up.
But if there's one character that Ialways loved, it was Batman in
that world because it wasn't what Iloved about it was how grounded it was,
that it was so dark and twistedand not really I sometimes hesitate to
whether it's really even a superhero showbecause people don't have superpowers per se.

(09:09):
They have, you know, forthe most part, in the world of
Batman, they have um their theirtheir eccentricities, their psychological eccentricities. They're
usually the core of whatever they foundthemselves in, whether it's you know,
the guy obsessed with riddles who becomesthe Riddler or a billionaire playboy who who
takes on the cape and the cowland goes out and fights crime as vigilante.

(09:35):
Um. So, I just lovethat world. It was a challenge
both writing and interacting on the show, as well as being on it because
you you kind of you know,you're we were making twenty two episodes a
year of a TV show and tryingto live up to the to the very
high bar that have been set bythe movies, and and and yet at

(09:56):
our own contribution as well, youknow, not not detract from the legacy,
but add to it. I thinkfor the most part we did.
I think we did a lot ofgreat stuff, had a lot of fun
doing it. And the look inthe steel of the show I'll put up
with just about anything that was outthere before that's even out there now,
because it was moody and dark andfunny and violent, but very sort of

(10:20):
grounded emotionally, and I think itstill holds out for that reason absolutely.
And you guys didn't have the advantageof what I think the shows now and
movies now as there. Now wehave this multiverse concept that they're able to
use, and that seems to bethe very easy out whenever someone says,
hey, you're telling a different story, But you guys didn't have that at

(10:43):
the beginning. That's something that sortof evolved and becomes something now where they
can explain, Look, we're goingto tell this version of a Batman story,
then they're going to tell that versionof a Batman story. You guys
were kind of coming in clean onthat, saying, we're telling our version
of a Batman story, and youdidn't have that to lean back on then
at the start. Yeah, that'sright. I mean, because of the

(11:03):
the conceited in the core of thepilot there that rookie detective Jim Gordon is
assigned the case of the Wayne murders. You're bringing together these two strands that
previously, at least in terms ofstuff that's been filmed, hadn't really been
explored, right, young Gordon andBruce Wayne together with an emphasis particularly early

(11:26):
on in the show, of onGordon's journey. Right, Like Gordon as
our protagonist, and he is sortof he's trying to keep the wolves at
bay and benowst to him until BruceWayne can actually take over for him,
which is sort of what happens towardsthe end of the show or right at
the end of the show. Iswhat we had that because you have to

(11:46):
we could tell all the story upto Batman, but we couldn't tell the
Batman story that was not you know, ours to tell was sort of the
the deal they have been cut.So we could we could tell the story
we could tell us origin stories ofall of these great characters, both villains
and heroes. But um, butthe emphasis needed bey on the on the

(12:09):
cop at the center of the wholething. So speaking of that cop,
Jim Gordon, you're there still theonly guy who's played Jim Gordon and Batman
before to my knowledge. I'm holdingon to it. It's all I got
going for me. So because youvoice repeating it, You voiced Batman in
Year one, right, that's right, yeah, which was just a treat
because I you know, Year oneto me is it's iconic, uh,

(12:31):
comic, just just you know,just one of the all time greats.
And and I yeah, finally enough, I yeah, I did the voice
for for Bruce Wayne Batman and thatin Year one animated movie, and Brian
Cranston played Jim Gordon. So terrific, terrific company there, and that was
just the hoop. Anytime I've seenanything animated Batman related and it's not Kevin

(12:54):
Conroy, it immediately for me becomes, Okay, now who's this who's this
voice? Now? I want toplace him? And I was able to
place you, um, which Imean you were doing you were doing a
Batman voice of Bruce Wayne and aBatman, but I could place you,
and I think when your wife she'sdone some some voice over work, and
I love that I can recognize heralmost immediately, like on the Flash or

(13:16):
you know, any of the animatedroles and things. I immediately go,
Okay, well, I know whothat is right away when when she shows
up on that. And I meanthat's a little bit of a challenge of
a voice actor, is you know, you're trying to put something different into
it, but you're also putting abit of your take into it. That's
right, that's right. And obviouslyKevin has a tremendous legacy, and you
know, you're just trying to sortof again, sort of like with with

(13:37):
the show overall, the Gotham overall, you know, add to the legacy
and not to track from it.Uh, you know, throw your own
little little spin on things. Um. But it was fun. It was
fun to be able to kind ofyou know, that year one proceeded Gotham,
so I wasn't aware that I wasgoing to get the opportunity to play
Gordon, but it is kind ofneed in retrospect kind of look back on

(14:01):
it and say, man, yeah, I had a chance to to play
not one, but two iconic charactersthe story franchise. I've had friends tell
me, especially over the past coupleof years. In the last year a
lot boy, you got to getinto this crypto. Oh my goodness,
you need to invest everything you gotinto crypto. And I just from the

(14:22):
very beginning when I heard about crypto, I thought, this is what what
are we talking about? You?It was just like a different language.
I'm thinking the dog, like we'retalking Superman's dot. What are we talking
about here? Exactly? And thenone of them is named after a dog,
and I just in there telling meyou can invest twelve cents into it,
and I thought, what is thepoint? And then you start seeing

(14:43):
this trend of these people that arepushing it, and you go, these
are the people that are invested init, and of course they're pushing it,
and it makes sense. And thenI see that this is a question
that you've also been been asking andnow you're working on a book due out
next year. That's right. Yeah, So I have this degree in economics
as an undergraduate. I hadn't usedit much in Hollywood. The dismal science

(15:07):
is not something you discussed from thecraftshore of a stable. But um,
but I got kind of I gotalmost drawn into it. At Buddy of
Mind said much like you said,you know, you got to invest in
crypto, and I just thought,well, wait a minute, what is
this stuff? You know? A'slike what because they're calling themselves currencies,
but they're not currencies because like currenciesmoney, you buy stuff with them,

(15:31):
you know, I mean, that'sthe simplest answer. It's like, you
know, what do you do withmoney? You buy stuff with it?
Well, you can't actually buy thingswith crop. You can exchange them out
of real money. You can putreal money into them, hope they go
up in value, and then tryto take more real money out of it,
hopefully if you're lucky. But that'sthat's an investment. That's not a
that's not a that's that's an investmentcontract. That's a security is what it

(15:52):
should be under American law. Um, and so I just kind really puzzled
by it. I I sort ofthe more I look, the more it's
like, well, it's an unregulatedkind of parallel financial structure to the normal
financial structure that we have, whichyou know obviously has its own flaws.
But this thing just it's just rifewith conflicts of interests. It's rife with

(16:15):
all sorts of possible problems that Ithink people should be aware of. So
anyway, approach to journalist that Inever met by a new on Twitter and
said, hey, man, youwant to write a book about crypto and
fraud because I misses back that thisthing is going to go well, excuse
the French. I think it's goingto go tit's up, and I think
people are gonna lose a lot ofmoney, and I think, you know,

(16:37):
I have a duty to warn them, but I'm also fascinated and in
exploring it. So yeah, Sowe have a book come out next year
from Agram's Press, Easy Money,and it's about crypto. It's about the
thing called casino capitalism, where kindof kind of turned down if you notice
the sports gamblings everywhere, kind ofturn it everything into into betting, which

(16:59):
isn't necessary fairly bad, but itisn't productive per se. It's not like
adding value to the economy. It's, you know, there for entertainment value
maybe, but but economically these thingsare are zero stone games. You're not
creating new value. They're competitive gamesfor someone to win, someone else has
to lose. And that's what wasso troubling to be about crypto is that

(17:19):
I think there's a lot of folksout there with great intentions, but behind
the scenes there are a lot ofpeople making a few people making a ton
of money, and I think they'remainly making it on the backs of people
that are coming into the crypto exchangesto the wager and I'm bounced to them.
You know, there's another game goingon. It's my suspicion. So

(17:41):
writing a book about that, I'llbe out next year and then having a
lot of fun. It's a totaldetour from my career, but it's some
of the most fun I've had inyears. Nice to be able to work
your degree into into life in yourcareer, which is always a benefit there.
So we won't necessarily be talking aboutcrypto. And maybe at dragon On
when people come up to see you, they probably want to talk Gotham.

(18:03):
They probably want to talk to OC. But I suppose you talk to them
a little bit about crypto if theywanted to do anything else. You want
to say, folks thinking about comingto see you, I mean, I
don't know that anybody tuning into thisshow thought, man, we're gonna get
us a lecture on cryptocurrency, butI'm fascinating with it and I approached it
the same way you did, sothat's why I thought, Man, I
can't wait to read the book.But as far as the fans coming out

(18:23):
to see you at dragon Con foryour debut at Dragon Con, any message
for them as they're preparing to comeout this weekend, show me what you
got. I want to see thebest costumes. I'm excited to be there.
I can't wait to meet you,and you know it's fine. A
few things, thanks, a fewpictures. I look forward to it.
I can't wait to see what allthe funks about.