The Black-and-Chrome Action Movie Pack and ‘Onslaught’ With Michael Biehn and Adam Wingard!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to take some MDMA, get kinky, and grab some guns because on today’s show, Chris Ryan joins us (duh) to discuss Adam Wingard’s new metal action flick, ‘Onslaught.’ They briefly cover two additional recent releases in ‘Mutiny’ and ‘The Whisper Man’ before diving into ‘Onslaught’ and building out their “Black-and-Chrome Action Movie Pack.” Later, Sean is joined by iconic actor Michael Biehn and Wingard to discuss ‘Onslaught’ as well as the wild personal story that inspired the film and plenty of anecdotes about making movies in Hollywood. (0:00) Intro (1:47) The ‘Mutiny’ leak, and does piracy affect the box office? (7:19) ‘The Whisper Man’ (17:22) ‘Onslaught’ (34:08) The Black-and-Chrome Action Movie Pack (52:05) Michael Biehn and Adam Wingard join the show! Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan, Michael Biehn, and Adam Wingard Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh and Jacob Cornett Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessy and this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Onslaught. Today on the show, we're having a very metal episode of the Big Picture because we're discussing a very metal movie, black and chrome metal, that is. Adam Wingard has a new movie that throws back to the halcyon days of sawed-off shotguns, unkillable super soldiers, desolate American survivalism, government conspiracy, and insane action set pieces. The movie is Onslaught and it's a loving homage to movies like T2: Judgment Day, The Road Warrior, and many more. Chris Ryan is here to talk about it and to help me build out the black and chrome action pack. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Wingard, as well as one of the stars of his film, the action movie icon, Michael Bean. You know him from The Terminator, Aliens, Tombstone, and many more films from the 80s and 90s. Wingard

• 1:00Sean Fennessey?

  shared the crazy personal story that inspired Onslaught, and Bean shared tons of anecdotes and wisdom from 50 years of making movies in Hollywood, the highs and the lows. It's a great chat, definitely stick around for that. But first, some movie news with CR. This episode is presented by State Farm. You know the feeling, long day, good meal, you finally sit down, and now you're just staring at your screen. Slasher, rom-com, period drama, psychological thriller, but some decisions don't have to be that hard. State Farm is here to help. Like when you choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan. Bundling, just another way to save with the Personal Price Plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 1:46Speaker 01

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• 3:10Speaker 03

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• 3:17Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage, and pedal-to-the-metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it.

• 3:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, CR, are you ready to break down a news story that is nine days old?

• 3:44Speaker 05

  Let's do it.

• 3:45Sean Fennessey?

  So, the Jason Statham vehicle Mutiny.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  Which I have not seen.

• 3:48Sean Fennessey?

  Which I have seen, and I'm happy to say, I enjoyed.

• 3:51Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 3:52Sean Fennessey?

  The film premiered in movie theaters last weekend to modest interest, and it was revealed that one of the reasons why this film may have premiered to modest interest is because the film was accidentally shared on Amazon Prime for two hours for users, I think, the day before it was released.

• 4:13Speaker 05

  Yes. This is a real Doug from Title move, if I can invoke a Watch character.

• 4:18Sean Fennessey?

  Bring the Watch lore in.

• 4:19Speaker 05

  Yes. When Title, I can't remember what album they either did or didn't successfully upload to the service. We imagined a sweaty, middle-aged white man, much like myself, named Doug, working in the offices and pressing the button, or not pressing the button, as it were. And maybe he got involved.

• 4:36Sean Fennessey?

  What was it, Magna Carta Holy Grail?

• 4:38Speaker 05

  It was something like, it was some Jay thing or Beyonce thing, where it was, "Where is it?"

• 4:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Title, you still have that?

• 4:44Speaker 05

  Uh, don't. I heard the fidelity on their audio is quite good, though.

• 4:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I think that was true eight years ago. I don't know if that's still true.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  I listened to my audio on little white pods, though. It's a different matter.

• 4:57Sean Fennessey?

  Good point. So, Jim from Amazon.

• 5:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:02Sean Fennessey?

  Uploaded Mutiny, and the pirates came in. And this is a film that takes place on a ship. There's a pirate quality to the film.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  Ironically, yeah.

• 5:10Sean Fennessey?

  Great premise on this movie. Jason Statham plays a bodyguard who is a former police officer who has formed a bond with a shipping magnate of some renown.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:23Sean Fennessey?

  This shipping magnate is selling his company because it's not for his son. His son doesn't want to work in this business. He wants to try something else. So he's selling the business. On the eve of the sale, this man is shockingly murdered in front of Jason Statham, and Jason Statham will have his revenge. And his revenge is on a boat. And so he goes on the boat to figure out what's really going on with this. Very entertaining Statham movie.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  I can already guess what, who's behind all of this, right?

• 5:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I won't spoil anything.

• 5:51Speaker 05

  Please don't, yeah.

• 5:53Sean Fennessey?

  Nevertheless, this movie, you know, it's a question, I think, of is Statham's box office power maybe not as strong? He was in a film earlier this year called Shelter, which also did not perform that well. But like I said, one of the reasons why maybe it didn't perform as well is because it was up online and people might have pirated it.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:07Sean Fennessey?

  And do you think that's a, like, has a meaningful impact on something like box office? Because piracy is not something we talk about often on this show.

• 6:15Speaker 05

  You know, the two things I thought about here was the dangers in which, in housing films specifically, in a world where, in the same sort of compartment that you would house albums or TV shows or anything else, is that you're essentially then gambling with the theatrical financial performance of those movies anyway. Now, this movie has written all over it. Wait for it to hit streaming in three weeks. So I don't think they made a big push being like, for the next 90 days, if you want to see Mutiny, you're just going to have to bring your ass down to the theater.

• 6:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  But I definitely think that, like, look, man, you could take a cursory look at X, and you will be quite surprised by the things that are being uploaded there to be viewed without even download. And I think that we don't talk about it as much because most people, I think, like us, are like, I'll just pay the $15 or whatever the fee is per month to have access to everything anyway. It's about ease of use. But for a lot of people out there, it's both financially expedient and kind of a cheap thrill to be still trafficking in this stuff.

• 7:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think you're totally right. I think there's obviously an entire underworld of this sort of thing happening that has probably meaningfully harmed a number of movies over the year, including movies that we deem incredibly successful.

• 7:33Speaker 05

  I mean, this is a huge issue for streaming networks several years ago, and I think continues to be in terms of uploading episodes to foreign, like, markets. Like, usually this would happen with Thrones when it would go up in country X, and it would get pirated. Now, it would also not even be live. It would just be like they've uploaded it into the backend server, and it would kind of be like when we used to write about rap, where they would tell us, like, essentially, once a record went to the CD printing plant, there was really nothing they could do to stop it.

• 8:06Sean Fennessey?

  There was a long period of time.

• 8:08Speaker 05

  There was some guy getting paid $9 an hour somewhere along the line who's going to be like, "Oink," and that's all you take. It just needs one leak.

• 8:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's so interesting because in that period of time, it felt like there was a music needs to be free mentality. And I think a lot of pirators think about culture that way. And obviously, there are a lot of safeguards in the world of entertainment that just allow for that. And in the era of streaming, both music and movies, we think that's not possible anymore.

• 8:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:31Sean Fennessey?

  But it is, and it can have an impact. It's fascinating. Mutiny, you know, waiting the three weeks, I think, would be fine.

• 8:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were talking when, I think, Bill was on to do the Flops Draft. We talked a little bit about the kind of psychology around modern moviegoers and to what extent they're seeing things, and they're like, that's definitely a renter now. And the renter being something that you can do in four to six weeks instead of going down to the theater versus what's like a, you know, an event film that you want to be either in a theater full of people because you want to feel their reaction, or because the spectacle is so grand that you want to appreciate it on a big screen, like Odyssey or Spider-Man or what have you. You know, it's funny, we're going to probably talk about a Netflix movie, Whisper Man, which is sort of right in, is right kind of in the in-between of those

• 9:19Speaker 05

  two things to me, in terms of the experience of it. But I was wondering how you were kind of thinking about the instant VOD market these days.

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think a lot of the big studios have changed their windows. So Universal, for a period, had a 17 day window for films that I think failed to garner $50 million in its first two weeks of release. And they've since changed that and they've extended them. There was a lot of pomp and circumstances at CinemaCon about this in April. And it seems like most of the studios have been pressured to lengthen their windows. But not all of them. Like, I noticed that the film The Wrong Girls, which is the new Kristen Stewart, Aliyah Shaw cat comedy, stoner comedy, hit VOD this week, like, a week and a half after its release. That was really fast. Now, it didn't perform very well at all at the box office, but this is a new Kristen Stewart comedy that had a 10 day window.

• 10:10Sean Fennessey?

  And I guess there's something fascinating about that being a normal for a certain level of movie.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:18Sean Fennessey?

  Whisper Man, which we should talk about, is sort of the inverse.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  Bring it down a little bit.

• 10:24Sean Fennessey?

  Whisper Man, sort of the inverse. So Whisper Man, it's a new feature film directed by James Ashcroft. Horror thriller, I guess? Serial killer thriller?

• 10:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, it reminded me, at least in intent, a lot of Reptile, which came out a couple of years ago on Netflix with Benicio del Toro, a little bit of The Empty Man. That vibe, that, like, very, very indebted to Fincher, that in Whisper Man features an explicit homage to Zodiac early in the film.

• 10:56Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:57Sean Fennessey?

  So, curious movie. Now, I say it's sort of in between these two things because when you look at the stars, Robert De Niro, Michelle Monahan, Adam Scott are the three leads. Hamish Linklater's in the film. There are a couple of other more notable names that I won't spoil for people who haven't watched this movie, at least not quite yet, but some big cameos. And this is a pretty celebrated collection of actors, and it's a film that, I think, relative to other Netflix titles like it, like, shot on real locations and has a lot of craft applied to it. And it does, it did feel to me like Netflix attempting to kind of match a narrative movie to a lot of the true crime serial killer content that they make.

• 11:39Speaker 05

  Very much so.

• 11:39Sean Fennessey?

  On the nonfiction side.

• 11:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:41Sean Fennessey?

  And the premise of the movie is essentially that Adam Scott's character is a novelist whose wife has died and he's moved to a new town with his eight year old son. And his eight year old son is abducted by the Whisper Man.

• 11:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 11:57Sean Fennessey?

  Whoever that is.

• 11:58Speaker 05

  The latest in a number of young boys being abducted in and around this town.

• 12:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Turns out that the Whisper Man was also at work 30 years ago and that Adam Scott's character's father was a police detective responsible for putting the Whisper Man away.

• 12:11Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 12:11Sean Fennessey?

  And that detective is played by Robert De Niro in one of the quietest performances I've ever seen in a movie in my entire life.

• 12:18Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 12:19Sean Fennessey?

  He never goes above this tone of voice for, in a two hour serial killer thriller.

• 12:25Speaker 05

  Except for the one moment where he rescues Adam Scott from drug dealers in Jersey City. That is, that is the truth.

• 12:32Sean Fennessey?

  Shades of the Stomp Out scene in The Irishman there. You know, Robert De Niro is getting old and, but he's still, he's still putting in the hours, putting in the time.

• 12:43Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of this movie?

• 12:44Speaker 05

  You know what? This was one of the first films in a long time that I've seen that I was like, that should have been a TV show.

• 12:50Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 12:50Speaker 05

  I actually thought that the pacing of it and the way that they tried to kind of shoehorn in a couple of things towards the back half of the movie, in the third act especially, probably would have worked great over six to eight episodes. And instead, it just sort of seems to come out of nowhere, especially the Hamish Linklater part, kind of is in the background of somebody saying his name and then you're like, wait, you guys meet Hamish Linklater is in this movie?

• 13:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And Hamish Linklater, I think it's amusing to note, plays a collector, a bone collector, a collector and scholar of serial killer artifacts.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:27Sean Fennessey?

  And it seems to be having a grand old time.

• 13:29Speaker 05

  Sure. Everybody does seem to be, I guess, I guess, he especially seems to be enjoying himself. They probably could use one more ham in this movie.

• 13:36Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Michelle Monahan playing it very straight, Adam Scott playing it very straight, Robert De Niro playing it.

• 13:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  You know, Michelle Monahan's character, for instance, it's not, not an important plot point to note, is a Quaker. And at one point, Adam Scott goes and confronts her at her, her meeting house and, and, you know, she's just like, please don't yell at me and, and this, this house of worship. And that's a cool detail. We're like, what? This should be, this would, in any, in any other story, like, probably be a little bit more expanded upon, like, this woman, her faith, whatever led her to being a detective. There's a, there's a few elements of here where I could feel maybe some development happening in this, in the way of like, hey, this could be a pretty good, like, like, white knuckle, like, presumed innocent style thriller that then they, they turned into like a lengthy two hour movie, I would say.

• 14:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I would say especially in the final third, it really drags. That's a smart take. I, I think I agree with you. I would never watch that show.

• 14:37Speaker 05

  It's always the other way, right? We're always watching TV shows where you're like, guys, guys, this would be an awesome movie.

• 14:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And, but I'm, I'm not sure if the mythology itself could withstand eight episodes, but that hasn't stopped many TV shows before from elongating to do that kind of work. It's, it's a fascinating thing. Something feels off and part of it is, I think, that this kind of movie, which is, as you said, heavily indebted to Fincher and The Silence of the Lambs and this wave of movies that came in the aftermath. You mentioned The Bone Collector, Taking Lives. In the 90s and 2000s, this was a very dependable 75 to $120 million kind of movie where adults would show up on a date night to watch it, they would have some thrills, they'd get to see a movie star save the day, and they would feel satisfied that the killer would go behind bars or be killed in a moment at the end of the film.

• 15:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:26Sean Fennessey?

  And we don't have those as much anymore, right?

• 15:31Speaker 05

  No.

• 15:31Sean Fennessey?

  And I do think true crime has kind of, kind of replaced that idea.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  And I would say even true crime is, is, is making incursions into our beloved horror genre. I was, I was watching a movie called Man Finds Tape, which came out, I think, or is dated for 25, but I only, yeah. And it very much like, I am both a victim of this crime, but also a podcaster documenting it, kind of like, you know, am I also making a documentary about the found footage that I found?

• 15:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 05

  So there's like, there is like this kind of uncanny valley happening where I can't tell, like, is this, did somebody decide to make like a found footage horror movie out of a true crime podcast that they were developing and whatever? It is, it's certainly a, a emerging genre. As far as it, like, the, the streaming movie aspect of it, the thing that surprises me still is, and I know how to get around this, it's just like the Friday night thing where like, seven men you know have watched Whisper Man on the same night. Cause we're just all home, you know? And it's like, eh, come on, how am I gonna be?

• 16:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'll give it a try.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. And the same thing happened with Devil's Mouth, the shark movie from a couple of months ago. So, yeah, I, that phenomenon is, I just don't know how to recreate that or recapture that at the theater of like, ah, I'll just, it's, it's, it's a five o'clocker.

• 16:49Sean Fennessey?

  It, it is. There's something interesting happening inside of me, at least, though, with movies like this, which is last night, Eileen and I watched an episode of Furious, which we're really enjoying. And after it was over, Eileen said, should we do one more? And I was like, I think I have to watch The Whisper Man. And she was like, what's that? And I explained it and she was like, I'm not watching that. Even though the Furious and The Whisper Man have some things in common.

• 17:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:14Sean Fennessey?

  And so I was like, all right, I'll just, I'll go watch The Whisper Man and you can go to sleep. And halfway through Whisper Man, I was like, fuck, I wish I had watched Furious. Like, I, this was not, now, we're getting this podcast segment out of it, I guess.

• 17:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:26Sean Fennessey?

  But there felt something kind of instantaneously disposable to me about the movie, whereas with a show, and as you know, I don't watch nearly as much TV as I did, say, 10 years ago. With a show I really like, as you and Andy have talked about many times over the years on The Watch, there's something really enjoyable about going on a journey with a show. And you can't have a journey with a mediocre movie that you know is mediocre and that is just gonna go into a text chain for 48 minutes with six other men and then never be spoken of again.

• 17:55Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't, I, it's an interesting confrontation with my time.

• 17:59Speaker 05

  Isn't that funny, though, that it's replaced the utility of television in that way? Like, the streaming movies are what you would say, okay, it's the end of the night, I've done my work in the great temple of cinema, now I'm just gonna throw on whatever's on HBO or whatever. And instead, you're like, I, rather than do the work of, of being an ally and being present for female trauma, I'm gonna go watch The Whisper Man instead.

• 18:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I don't really know how to reckon with that. I think it's probably a testimony, at least for me, to the fact that I'll just watch any movie.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:35Sean Fennessey?

  There's not really a kind of movie that I won't watch at this phase of my life.

• 18:38Speaker 05

  We're gonna find that out by the end of this podcast, I think.

• 18:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, maybe so.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  Truly gonna celebrate that.

• 18:43Sean Fennessey?

  I will push the edge, for sure. But I, I just mean, like, no matter how bad it is, I'm kind of curious.

• 18:47Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 18:47Sean Fennessey?

  And with TV, my shield is up. I'm like, I really need seals of approval from many sources, while also knowing I like the people involved. I like the kind of storytelling in it. You know, like.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  Jack me around, like, on episode five and it should just end there, but instead, there's five more episodes.

• 19:05Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't want it to be a show that could go on for eight seasons and that I have to wait nine years to watch eight seasons of a show that I'm only kind of invested in. Nevertheless, I like that comparison that you made. Well done.

• 19:14Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 19:15Sean Fennessey?

  Onslaught could only be a movie. There's no, there's no TV show for Onslaught.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  And many are saying that only two men could really podcast about Onslaught.

• 19:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah, they put it in a lab for us. I remember vividly, I don't remember if you were at this screening, I remember vividly going to see 2012, 2013, whenever the film was released, the film The Guest at the Ace Hotel.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  Couldn't have been me, cause I, I saw The Guest with the people.

• 19:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, I was with people, a lot of people as well. It was not a premiere, it was just a special screening of, of, it was the Ace Hotel Theater, which I think is now called the United Theater. And it was a big, big crowd and Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, and I think Dan Stevens all spoke after the movie. And you and I love your next and we loved the guest. And I think that was a real season tickets moment for Wingard movies. And then immediately after that, he takes this pretty dramatic turn to make Blair Witch, Death Note and two King Kong versus Godzilla movies over his last 10 years. This new movie is what I'll call a return to form.

• 20:22Speaker 05

  Do so, please.

• 20:23Sean Fennessey?

  What, what form that is, we can debate.

• 20:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:26Sean Fennessey?

  But Onslaught stars Adria Arhona, Dan Stevens, Reunion, Eric Wareheim, Reginald Vel Johnson of Die Hard fame and Family Matters, of course, Michael Bean, guest on this podcast, Drew Starkey and Rebecca Hall. The premise of the movie is an army sniper living in a trailer park, struggles to protect her family from a trio of super soldiers who have escaped from a secret military facility and are killing everyone in their path. That's a very accurate description of what this movie is.

• 20:54Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of Onslaught?

• 20:55Speaker 05

  I felt so deeply pandered to.

• 21:01Speaker 05

  Not even saying it's like the best movie ever made or anything like that, but the core elements of this movie really scratch an itch for me and

• 21:11Speaker 05

  you know, even some of Wingard's fetishes are not my personal fetishes.

• 21:17Sean Fennessey?

  Like what?

• 21:17Speaker 05

  Like the, the, some of the sexual stuff in this movie that like, I'm not a big BDSM dominatrix guy.

• 21:24Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, good to know.

• 21:25Speaker 05

  But I, I'll die defending his right to do it. You know what I mean?

• 21:29Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 21:29Speaker 05

  And

• 21:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that sequence is quite memorable.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  It's sometimes it's kinky to watch other people do something that they think is kinky. And this movie does fuck. This movie does fight. This movie doesn't really have a story.

• 21:43Sean Fennessey?

  Does it love?

• 21:44Speaker 05

  I think so. It's about a love between a mom and her daughter.

• 21:46Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  Right? And it's a love between Drew Starkey and several women. And I just really enjoyed myself. I think that for fans of scratched up covers of VHS films from the eighties, for fans of Cameron and Carpenter, and we're going to get into like a kind of very specific action subgenre that we may or may not be weaving out of full cloth. Like, I just thought this was super enjoyable.

• 22:12Sean Fennessey?

  I felt the same way. I don't think it's the most high concept movie. It is a very loving homage. And if you're not interested in the homage part, it may not hold up.

• 22:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:21Sean Fennessey?

  In the Adria Arhona character, there's a lot of Ellen Ripley. We just did the rewatchables of Aliens.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Super Sarah Connor here.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of Sarah Connor in here, sort of single mother, trying to figure out how to stay alive in the face of some killing machines.

• 22:37Sean Fennessey?

  There's some Assault on Precinct 13 in here in terms of the sort of like the noise and the fear of being confined in a place like trapped and fearing a violent end.

• 22:47Sean Fennessey?

  Lots and lots of Cameron's ideas about the way that the government kind of like hyper manages its populace with violence. And it's also, the other kink I think is, I love the way that Wingard unleashes actors who would otherwise seem to be prestigious respectable figures like the great Rebecca Hall. Like Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens and just turn them into little freaks, you know, little weirdos. We can add Drew Starkey to the list. Drew Starkey, who, one of the stars of Outer Banks, who appeared in Luca Guadagnino's Queer.

• 23:24Speaker 05

  Buy your stock now.

• 23:26Sean Fennessey?

  He's doing some stuff in this movie.

• 23:27Speaker 05

  And he's doing some stuff over the next two years. And it's, it's really, it's quite exciting to see him in this film.

• 23:34Sean Fennessey?

  When he showed up, you and I, like, we didn't fist bump, but there was a psychic fist bump.

• 23:38Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 23:38Sean Fennessey?

  Where it was like, this man has made a choice. This is a strong choice. According to Wingard two, he had some ideas that he wanted to put into the character.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Great.

• 23:46Sean Fennessey?

  That showed up on screen.

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Great.

• 23:47Sean Fennessey?

  Which is what I want to hear. Like, I want to hear that there's an actor who's like, sure, this character is kinky, but we can go a little further.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:53Sean Fennessey?

  And Starkey plays, as you put it the other day, the sort of Winston the Wolf of government conspiracy.

• 24:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:03Sean Fennessey?

  Management.

• 24:04Speaker 05

  He's the, he's the fixer for when super like soldiers or government secret programs go wrong. He's there to clean up the mess.

• 24:12Sean Fennessey?

  Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall play a husband and wife team, one a doctor of super soldiers. They're both sort of not so crypto Nazis. There's some white supremacist bent to their point of view.

• 24:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:24Sean Fennessey?

  And they are interested in

• 24:27Speaker 05

  Creating killing machines without conscience.

• 24:29Sean Fennessey?

  And reviving dead soldiers.

• 24:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:32Sean Fennessey?

  And removing, removing that conscience and allowing them to just do what the government wants them to do, which is just kill.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:39Sean Fennessey?

  Adria Arhona is a woman suffering from PTSD, who is a mother, whose daughter has been dropped off unceremoniously by her father at her house and, which is a trailer park.

• 24:49Speaker 05

  In Mexico?

• 24:49Sean Fennessey?

  In New Mexico.

• 24:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:51Sean Fennessey?

  And she, does she manage the trailer park? Is that her job?

• 24:54Speaker 05

  She's like the super.

• 24:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 24:56Sean Fennessey?

  And the super soldiers eventually find their way towards that trailer park. Great action.

• 25:04Sean Fennessey?

  Not totally sure I understood all of the motivations of all the characters.

• 25:10Sean Fennessey?

  It was a 90 minute film, probably could have used like a little bit more seasoning on the characterization. And yet, like, I was thinking about this because a friend of ours said that they didn't really enjoy this movie. And I was like, well, how did I feel the first time I watched They Live? Or the first time I watched The Terminator?

• 25:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:24Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like the first time I watched the movie and I was like, there's something kind of like handmade and a little dingy about this, but I like that. And maybe this isn't Howard's End, but it's not trying to be.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  No, and I think that Wingard really knows how to get the most out of what is probably a relatively limited budget. And he did this with The Guest. I think this is fairly explicitly taking place in the Guest verse or in the idea that this, this kind of stuff is happening. And I think it's really worth mentioning too, that this is essentially a Western that takes place at night. You know, this is about a team of small town trailer park folk teaming together to fend off super soldiers, which is basically the plot of half the Clint Eastwood movies in the seventies, just without the super soldiers part. And he just really like, you know, if you're going to shoot in New Mexico for tax breaks or whatever, like make it New Mexico.

• 26:19Speaker 05

  Do it like, like take advantage of, of the surroundings and he really does. I thought that there was probably like three full different movies in this movie. There's the Arhona part, which is pretty on the nose, straightforward, like an Arnold Schwarzenegger plot about like a guy who's just trying to be a good dad, but is gets pulled back into the world of violence. Then there is the almost cartoonish, pretty awesome, Michael Bean, Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall side of things. It's all about government experiments on soldiers. And then the Starkey part, which kicks in about midway through the movie

• 26:59Speaker 05

  and is just an absolute jugular adrenaline shot to the whole thing, kind of made it for me. Because I was just like,

• 27:09Speaker 05

  first, I guess like I have seen it before, but I was like, I have not seen a movie do this in a while where it's just like, this guy, we gave no notes to. And so he is, should we talk a little bit about what his character is up to?

• 27:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 27:22Speaker 05

  He's interrupted in the middle of a BDSM session.

• 27:27Sean Fennessey?

  A house of pleasures.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean,

• 27:29Sean Fennessey?

  No judgment.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  No, of course not. But he's like, kind of leashed up while women wearing gimp masks, but nude.

• 27:37Sean Fennessey?

  And otherwise nude.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, otherwise nude tease him. And we find out quickly that when the government interrupts this vacation session, not unlike the one in Born where Carl Urban is just doing mad vodka shots.

• 27:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 27:51Speaker 05

  In the middle of the day in Moscow and they're like, we need you to kill Jason Bourne, you know, again.

• 27:57Speaker 05

  Drew Starkey gets pulled out of this. He is rolling on pure MDMA and he is for the rest of the film. And it's just a delightful character trick. I don't, I don't know what to say.

• 28:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he finds himself in a convenience store at a certain point. And I guess like you do when you're rolling, he just kind of zones out for a minute, but the camera never moves off of him. And you can kind of feel him losing touch with reality while also being plunged into this really violent, hyper emphasized world of super soldiers.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Yes, he is investigating a mass shooting, but stops to inhale a bottle of water.

• 28:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 28:32Speaker 05

  His body is about to go

• 28:33Sean Fennessey?

  So dehydrated.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  In toxic shock.

• 28:37Speaker 05

  Don't take this movie too seriously.

• 28:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 05

  But I, I, I thought like, that was just like a really good slider to throw.

• 28:44Sean Fennessey?

  There's one other thing in it that I really liked that I didn't totally see coming, which is that, you know, Wingard is really a genre maven and he does turn the third act into kind of a slasher. Like there are a lot of overt homages to horror movies that I think through the first 80 minutes, I was like, well, this feels like kind of a down the middle military movie, the along the lines of a lot of the films that we'll talk about. But he does get you some Texas Chainsaw and some, uh, The Hills Have Eyes and like some components of sort of like, in the middle of nowhere, there is a violent force that can take everything from you, that I thought was also pretty effective. I had a good time with the movie. Not a masterpiece, but not trying to be.

• 29:25Speaker 05

  Around the edges really well. I thought Wareheim was really funny in this movie.

• 29:28Sean Fennessey?

  He was funny.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Reginald Vel Johnson, it was really cool to see.

• 29:31Sean Fennessey?

  I can't remember the last time I saw him.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:34Sean Fennessey?

  20 years, 30 years, when, is he still working?

• 29:37Speaker 05

  I don't even know, but he's, he plays a too old for this shit vet who, who connects with Arhona's character. And it's just, it's, what do you think of her?

• 29:47Sean Fennessey?

  Great question.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  She's a, she's him right now, right? Like she's getting a lot of like big roles. She got, by all accounts is Wonder Woman.

• 29:56Sean Fennessey?

  She's rumored to be Wonder Woman.

• 29:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:58Sean Fennessey?

  She is.

• 30:01Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda and I have talked about it many times. It's just stunningly beautiful and almost to the point of distraction. And you like use that to such great effect in Hitman that like her alluring quality almost like explains the movie. Like, of course, this guy would do all this crazy shit so that he could allow for all this to transpire. We'll see about Wonder Woman. I have no idea what to make of what's happening at DC. It seems like that could go in any number of directions right now. Who knows if there will actually be a Wonder Woman movie? There's a lot of speculation about like, what happens if Man of Tomorrow doesn't work? But she's gonna be in Man of Tomorrow.

• 30:38Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 30:39Sean Fennessey?

  I think she could do a lot of different kinds of things. I think the fact that she's very comfortable in a movie like this and pretty credible, holding a giant gun is cool.

• 30:47Speaker 05

  Yes. I mean, it was funny to watch. I saw a video of her talking about her experience making this movie where it sounds like she was essentially up for six weeks in the middle of the night, shooting guns in the freezing cold in New Mexico. And then Starkey came in for like, three days at the end and got to be on ecstasy and like putting cigarettes out. And that was, she was like, must be nice, basically.

• 31:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he's begging for a spinoff. Begging. There's a very obvious, if this is happening in the guest first, there's a way to kind of keep expanding that. I don't know if this is the most commercial movie of all time. It feels like it's being kind of slid into a quiet part of the calendar.

• 31:20Speaker 05

  Sure. This is to our earlier conversation of VOD banger, though. I think you should see it on a big screen because some of the photography is wonderful. And like, I think it, the vistas and the way that they kind of do the Western stuff is a really awesome time. And you get to hear guns go boom.

• 31:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Even Wing Guard himself said, in not so many words, like, I've designed this to be a cult classic. You know, like, he has, he really has that pitch down. Now, whether or not that's like, a pitch that has value to all people is kind of an interesting thing to think about for me, because sometimes the keys are jingled in my face and I'm mad about it. And sometimes they're jingled and I love it. And I'm only human. I can't really, it's my subjective experience. But this was one where I was like, God, I fucking love John Carpenter. Like, I just love those movies. And I think they're so smart and so dumb at the same time in a way that I find so appealing.

• 32:07Speaker 05

  Those are, and we're about to mention a couple of them, those are my comfort movies. Like, if I'm trying to fall a bit to sleep, and I'm not doing the things I should be doing, like reading and, you know, calming down, I will put on Big Trouble in Little China, or Prince of Darkness. And I just love the music, and I love the photography, and I love the way that people talk and act and the shit that happens.

• 32:33Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree with you.

• 32:34Speaker 05

  I don't know what to say. It's just how they made me.

• 32:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's something we've always bonded over. So it's funny to watch someone, you know, who's effectively our age, who had basically the same experiences growing up watching movies. I mean, he talks about his relationship to aliens, and how it kind of like, expanded his mind as a young kid in the interview. But I-

• 32:56Speaker 05

  I mean, this is a fascinating aspect of what he did here is that we don't have a lot of people who are making programmers, to use a term that is probably way outdated. But the idea of making a innings eating, modest, but really fun movie that can be watched over and over again over the course of five to 10 years, but really is just there to be the third thing on a marquee somewhere.

• 33:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's why I think this is kind of an interesting trio of films to discuss, that Mutiny, and The Whisper Man, and this movie, all kind of occupy the same-

• 33:34Speaker 05

  Action thriller, whatever.

• 33:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the same kind of category, the same kind of phylum of genre movie where it's like, there is a star attached to the movie. There is like a veneer of prestige associated with it, but it's also quickly like dispensed with that prestige. Like, it's almost like knowingly, like, don't take this too seriously at times. All three will be received in different ways and seen and experienced in different ways, which will be the most remembered. I would imagine it's gonna be Onslaught, though. I don't know if it's gonna be like an all time classic or anything like that. I don't think it quite gets there. But there is still like a strain of this thing, but our expectations of those movies have been significantly reduced.

• 34:11Speaker 05

  Yeah. Or, I mean, I think that, partially because like, we talk so much about the box office performance of films now, that like, in a way that I think was, is different than maybe perhaps what it was viewed in, say, the 80s or the 90s, when a lot of these movies thrived, that we look at something purely as to whether it connected or not, rather than whether or not it's like, kind of cool, and people might dig it down the road. I was having a very fun exchange with a buddy of mine who was like, I like Dogstars. How about that? And I was just like, honestly, you might, you might, you know what I mean? Because I was like, if I was just going to Dogstars as a dude, I might dig it, you know, a little bit more.

• 34:53Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen the 1991 film Time Bomb?

• 34:58Speaker 05

  Remind me what this is about?

• 34:59Sean Fennessey?

  Bobby Necher is the director, science fiction action, starring Michael Bean, Patsy Kensit, and Richard Jordan. It's about a watchmaker who runs into a burning building to save a woman, and then eventually becomes ensnared in a secret government conspiracy.

• 35:13Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 35:13Sean Fennessey?

  And Adam talked about this, and Bean, being the star of it, and how, to Adam, when he saw that movie, he was like, this is it. And it was a reference for him on Onslaught, based on the action.

• 35:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:29Sean Fennessey?

  I've never seen this movie.

• 35:30Speaker 05

  I've never heard of it.

• 35:30Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, MGM put it out in 1991. You'd think I would have some familiarity with it. It cost $7 million to make, and it made $64,000 at the box office. It's a true, you know, sent to the dustbins of blockbuster kind of a movie. And I never pulled it off the shelf, and neither did you. But there are all kinds of, movie history is littered with titles like this. So it's really fascinating. So we'll talk about the Black and Chrome Action Pack, which will include some extremely well-known classics and some lesser known films, right after this.

• 36:00Speaker 05

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• 36:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so Black and Chrome is inspired, at least in part to me, by the title of Mad Max Fury Road's Black and White Edition, which was eventually put in theaters and then included on the Blu-ray and 4K discs. And that indicated, almost like, the color coded idea of these sorts of movies. Which is not to say it's post-apocalyptic, or science fiction, or military, or alien focused, or, you know, conspiracy focused. But like,

• 37:29Speaker 05

  All of it.

• 37:30Sean Fennessey?

  Everything.

• 37:30Speaker 05

  I wrote down some stuff here, kind of stream of consciousness, to give people an idea of what we're talking about. Future set and/or future feeling, militaristic, fetishistic, sci-fi leaning, percussive, pulsing, gritty action, has to have some sort of vehicle, preferably a motorcycle, definitely souped up. Leather jackets are cool, drugs are cool, being in the special forces, but also having a heart is cool in this world. So like, you just kind of have this, I would also say that extreme settings are also work really well. Jungle, desert, et cetera. We like to have a great backdrop for these.

• 38:10Sean Fennessey?

  Love that.

• 38:12Speaker 05

  And yeah, definitely sense of humor works in these.

• 38:15Sean Fennessey?

  How do you think about the heroes?

• 38:17Speaker 05

  Men with no name. Pushed to extremes, can kind of redeem themselves if they do the right thing with this last mission, or this mission in particular.

• 38:28Sean Fennessey?

  What if they're women?

• 38:29Speaker 05

  That's even better. Yeah.

• 38:32Sean Fennessey?

  Why do these movies not really exist anymore? Like, did something change in the culture?

• 38:39Speaker 05

  You wanna know why?

• 38:40Sean Fennessey?

  That discontinued this?

• 38:41Speaker 05

  I think people play video games of them.

• 38:44Sean Fennessey?

  That's it. Cause that's what so many games are now.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  Is this kind of environment and experience.

• 38:49Speaker 05

  I think this is like a lot of Call of Duty and a lot of Halo and a lot of take your pick. I mean, maybe even going back as far as Metal Gear.

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:58Speaker 05

  And Resident Evil, like, I am not an expert, but I know that it's pretty awesome to smoke cigarettes and drink beer and play these games.

• 39:08Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:09Speaker 05

  Uh, and that used to be what I would do is just re-watch They Live 100 Times, you know?

• 39:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's such an interesting observation. I think you're totally right. There's something about that like primal feeling of letting your weapon rip.

• 39:25Sean Fennessey?

  But I think the movies like allowed for.

• 39:28Speaker 05

  And like a nuclear pulse rifle, not like anything weird. Yeah.

• 39:31Sean Fennessey?

  No, not a handgun, like something, something sort of artificial and imagined, but also seemingly very destructive.

• 39:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think there's something else about how action was sort of suffused into larger, more comedic versions of, you know, tent pole movies, you know, that comic book movies and Jurassic and Fast.

• 39:57Speaker 05

  And fantasy.

• 39:58Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of fantasy, sure fantasy too, but like they kind of sucked all that energy up and like, yeah, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings. These, these, these films, you know, we're reading Harry Potter right now for the first time and even in Harry Potter, there's like all these notions of vengeance and fate. And like, when will there be the epic showdown, you know, this classical storytelling tropes? And, um, these movies do seem to be really out of fashion. And I guess you could make the case that maybe like John Wick is working in the tradition to some extent. That feels more elevated, stylized to me than some of these movies are.

• 40:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, it's funny, there's a couple of sequels we have on this list we're about to give folks and like, weirdly Ballerina would be like, would be blood and chrome to me, but like Wick, maybe not.

• 40:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 40:46Speaker 05

  I don't know why I say that, but like that, the intent of Ballerina feels very much like, let's self-consciously make a John Wick B movie.

• 40:57Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree with you. And if, if that movie were discovered on cable at 16.

• 41:02Speaker 05

  And I'd almost just fucking killing people for two hours.

• 41:05Sean Fennessey?

  There's that great scene when she's, I think she's in Scandinavia somewhere.

• 41:08Speaker 05

  Throws all the grenades.

• 41:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Like that, that stuff is so fun, but when you're sitting through a two-hour Ballerina movie that is like very, very loosely connected to John Wick. You're like, ah, seems like a wasted time.

• 41:18Speaker 05

  And also you and I are traditionalists and I think a lot of these movies start to taper. These movies start to taper off when we become a little bit overly indulgent on CGI and.

• 41:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 41:28Speaker 05

  I think the VFX in Ballerina felt a little unfinished to me and some of the like scenes that are preposterous are preposterous because well, like nobody would live through this like in any way, shape or form. And so her throwing a bunch of explosives around just doesn't really feel the same way it feels to watch like a giant big rig truck full of super soldiers like bearing down on a, on a, on a town like it does in Onslaught.

• 41:56Sean Fennessey?

  What's the single best example of these kinds of movies?

• 41:59Speaker 05

  My take would be Road Warrior. Because it's like building the fashion and aesthetic of these kinds of movies out of nothing. Because it is like all scraped together, both like the film itself being kind of an instant cult sensation anyway, but the football pads with leather jackets with crazy Dodge Chargers, with feral kids, with like, whoever the fuck that guy was in the desert for Road Warrior. What was his name? It's like Galacticus Maximus something.

• 42:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes. Um, yeah, I got, I would probably say Terminator 2 is my platonic ideal.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  Again, leather jackets, souped up shit, super killers.

• 42:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think I lean ultimately, it's funny because Road Warrior is also a post-apocalyptic, future telling story, but I think the desert versus the kind of dying cityscape. I think I lean dying cityscape more. And maybe that's why I'm more of a Carpenter person, because a lot of his movies take place in those kinds of environments, though not all of them obviously. There's a lot of desolation in some of his films too. Likewise for Robocop and Total Recall and the Verhoeven movies where there's like, just this kind of glimmer of comedy in the storytelling that I really enjoy. Um, and I think Onslaught is, is doing that, you know, not just with the Wareham character, but with like some of the sarcasm that a lot of the characters are speaking in or some outlandish performance styles that like Dan Stevens is, is rocking with. Aliens falls right in the middle.

• 43:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it has a lot of the hallmarks just because of the Colonial Marine stuff, but then is sort of separated by the, the classic kind of survivalist, like one woman protecting a child against a monster.

• 43:40Sean Fennessey?

  Are there any other all-time classics that go in this? Cause I, you know, we've got three tiers here of movies and I can certainly make arguments for Starship Troopers or for Snowpiercer. You know, movies that have that feel, that, those colorways, that dinginess that I was talking about. And are sometimes very comic, sometimes very absurd, but to me, there is a, there is a distinct difference between Aliens and Starship Troopers, even though they're totally related to each other.

• 44:08Speaker 05

  There's a nice, for, for Carpenter fans, they'll know these, but they're probably lower on the power rankings for most people's Carpenter films, but John Carpenter's Vampires and Ghosts of Mars are both about incredibly cynical bands of brothers taking on the supernatural.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  And with incredible settings, either in like, I think what, uh, Vampires takes place in like the Great Plains or something, or like Texas, right?

• 44:38Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was in the desert. Yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  In the desert. And then Ghosts of Mars is on Mars and it features Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham and Ice Cube and Pam Grier fighting cannibalistic.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  They're not aliens, are they in Ghosts of Mars? They're like, they've been like taken over by a.

• 44:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're not really ghosts.

• 44:55Speaker 05

  No.

• 44:56Sean Fennessey?

  They're really more zombie-esque. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think, I mean, I love Vampires, love. John Carpenter's Vampires, I think is way underrated. Ghosts of Mars I have, I'm less interested in, but maybe actually fits this even more in a way.

• 45:09Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 45:10Sean Fennessey?

  Um, because of some of the story elements.

• 45:11Speaker 05

  Fashion.

• 45:12Sean Fennessey?

  The acting styles. Yeah, yeah. And you know, there's something about him trying to do his, like Mario Bob's Planet of the Vampires, like that's really what he's trying to do is those kinds of like 50s, 60s movies. Yes, totally.

• 45:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:25Sean Fennessey?

  Universal Soldier?

• 45:26Speaker 05

  Sure. Yeah.

• 45:27Sean Fennessey?

  I think this one has been a little bit forgotten.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  JCVD, yeah.

• 45:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, JCVD, Dolflungren, very similar story idea to Onslaught, like clearly a direct influence and, you know.

• 45:38Speaker 05

  Did Adam mention this as like a?

• 45:40Sean Fennessey?

  He didn't.

• 45:41Speaker 05

  A totem for him? No?

• 45:42Sean Fennessey?

  He didn't, but you know, it's Roland Emmerich, it's very early Roland Emmerich who went on to make Independence Day and many other big, big, big noisy blockbusters over the years, Godzilla remake, et cetera. And I remember really liking it, but it's exactly what my, what Adam's talking about on the podcast, what you're talking about, which is I saw it

• 46:01Sean Fennessey?

  in the attic of my, of a friend of a friend's house when I was 11. And we weren't supposed to be watching it.

• 46:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:09Sean Fennessey?

  And we snuck it up there and maybe it was mom and dad's blockbuster rental and we went and we watched it and I was like, God damn it, this is cool. This is such a cool idea, such a violent movie. I can barely understand either of these men speaking to each other, but I'm really enjoying myself. So I feel like that movie, and because that movie has spawned like a VOD paradise.

• 46:27Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 46:28Sean Fennessey?

  Of spinoffs and sequels.

• 46:29Speaker 05

  Really like, it's incredible action set pieces.

• 46:33Sean Fennessey?

  Some of them, yeah. The John Heims one is particularly good.

• 46:38Sean Fennessey?

  Tier two?

• 46:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:41Sean Fennessey?

  I like what you've got here with Dread and Upgrade. I put Kurt Russell Soldier on the list.

• 46:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then there's some, some sequels, rather looked down upon sequels that I think are worth mentioning. Particularly McG's Terminator Salvation, which is probably lives on because of Christian Bale's viral meltdown.

• 47:04Speaker 05

  But is actually probably as much blood and chrome as the first two.

• 47:07Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 47:08Speaker 05

  And then Predators, which was Robert Rodriguez's. Was it him or what? He produced it?

• 47:14Sean Fennessey?

  Produced it. Nimrod Antal directed it.

• 47:16Speaker 05

  Nimrod Antal directed it with Adrian Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins.

• 47:23Sean Fennessey?

  All your guys.

• 47:24Speaker 05

  All, uh, super killers dropped on a planet to fight a predator.

• 47:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, literally criminals, right? Who, from prison who have been dropped onto this planet. Um, yeah, I think there's other movies, like I do think that the pitch black Chronicles of Riddick movies are in this zone for sure. V for Vendetta is a movie that I think is, you know, maybe more politically charged.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  Any of the Matrix movies in there?

• 47:45Sean Fennessey?

  I think Reload, there's a case for Reloaded in tier one because Reloaded is such a pure action film.

• 47:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  And it does have the leather jackets. No, that's the second one.

• 47:53Speaker 05

  Second one.

• 47:53Sean Fennessey?

  The second one, which has the sequence on the highway.

• 47:55Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:56Sean Fennessey?

  And some of the like more bravura, action sequences in the film where you've got the two albino twins and Neo really going full blown.

• 48:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. I have a leather trench coat.

• 48:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 48:08Speaker 05

  Hear me roar.

• 48:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of his most Arnold performance as well. Um, there's something like self-conscious and fun about it, but also very super serious. I really, I like Reloaded a lot. So that, I think those are there. And then there's like a third wing.

• 48:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:20Sean Fennessey?

  Of like maybe less respectable or less quote unquote, good movies.

• 48:24Speaker 05

  I got creative with this one.

• 48:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 05

  When we were brainstorming.

• 48:27Sean Fennessey?

  I added a few too. And I think there's two tracks. I think there's pure sci-fi and there's pure military. Sometimes they cross over.

• 48:35Speaker 05

  They cross over in the Tomorrow War.

• 48:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Did you like the Tomorrow War?

• 48:38Speaker 05

  More than I thought I would for a, what was it, like a day and date or like an Amazon Prime, straight to Prime blockbuster, right? With Pratt as a teacher who then becomes a future super soldier against a robot army, right?

• 48:55Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, this could happen to you.

• 48:56Speaker 05

  Any day now.

• 48:57Sean Fennessey?

  You could get called up. CR, we need you.

• 48:59Speaker 05

  The Pratt Battalion.

• 49:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. If you won't enlist, we'll bring you in via draft. How would you do in the Tomorrow War?

• 49:05Speaker 05

  I think, you know, Chris and I could talk a lot about Young Washington, some of its pros and cons.

• 49:10Sean Fennessey?

  You think he's re-

• 49:10Speaker 05

  Have you seen Young Washington?

• 49:12Sean Fennessey?

  Not yet, but I will watch it. I also haven't seen The Brink of War, which is about Reagan and Gorbachev.

• 49:17Speaker 05

  If we did an Angel Studios special, do you think it would do numbers?

• 49:22Sean Fennessey?

  Angel Studios Hall of Fame?

• 49:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:24Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it would do numbers. No, I don't think the audience is really caught up on those titles. I watched some of them.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:30Sean Fennessey?

  What was the Jim Caviezel hit that he had?

• 49:33Speaker 05

  Well, I don't know, but he just put one, there's a trailer out for one where he just goes around like breaking the arms of human traffickers.

• 49:39Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see his film where he portrayed Christ?

• 49:42Speaker 05

  The Passion of the Christ?

• 49:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Speaker 05

  You know what? I actually don't think I saw The Passion of the Christ.

• 49:47Sean Fennessey?

  Should we watch it on Easter?

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 49:49Sean Fennessey?

  Sound of Freedom, which was a mega sensation a few years ago and kind of an indicator, I think, of where certain things were going. Like you can draw some connectivity to like obsession or Amazing Digital Circus.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Where it's like, we are hyper-targeting a niche.

• 50:06Speaker 05

  There's, we actually know that there's a huge audience for this.

• 50:09Sean Fennessey?

  There's an audience for this, yes.

• 50:11Speaker 05

  Tomorrow War, I threw in there, Without Remorse, an absolutely appalling movie from Stefano Salimo, my goat, with Michael B. Jordan, with a screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, and yet somehow is the most like morbid, dark, kind of dull Tom Clancy reboot you can possibly imagine. Not sure, I don't think he is going to continue into the Jack Ryan versus old.

• 50:35Sean Fennessey?

  The plan was Rainbow Six with him and Jamie Bell, and then it looks like that's dead right now.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:39Sean Fennessey?

  But we shall see. I mean, he did make the Thomas Crown affair for Amazon.

• 50:43Speaker 05

  Sure. He seems like he's still in business with them. I'm just saying like, I think we would have heard a little bit more. He's got Miami Vice in 28. We have to, we have to clear all the other calls until then.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  Rainbow Six, done properly, fits neatly into this package.

• 50:58Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of movies like Ultraviolet, the Emile Jovitch sci-fi action movie is like this, Aon Flux, which doesn't really work, but has all the-

• 51:06Speaker 05

  The release one?

• 51:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, has all the trappings. Did you watch the Aon Flux animated series on MTV?

• 51:10Speaker 05

  I think I've seen it as like, this is on MTV for 15 to 20 minutes. I'm not, not down with that. I'm pretty cool with that. I just don't sit down to watch it.

• 51:20Sean Fennessey?

  Why, you're being a little defensive?

• 51:21Speaker 05

  No, I just mean like, I think that my reputation precedes me as a cartoon hater and-

• 51:25Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I see. What about The Head? Did you watch The Head?

• 51:29Speaker 05

  I'm sure I did, but I can't think of like even what it's about.

• 51:31Sean Fennessey?

  Did you watch Beavis and Butthead?

• 51:32Speaker 05

  For sure. Important guys for me.

• 51:35Sean Fennessey?

  You didn't watch The Simpsons?

• 51:37Speaker 05

  I did.

• 51:37Sean Fennessey?

  You did?

• 51:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, but during the Herman's Head, Simpsons, Living Color era, not, not just recreationally.

• 51:43Sean Fennessey?

  I see. More of a Beavis or more of a Butthead?

• 51:46Speaker 05

  Who's the redhead?

• 51:48Sean Fennessey?

  There are no redheads in Beavis and Butthead. There's a blonde guy and there's a brown haired guy.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  You don't think he's redhead? You don't think, not ginger?

• 51:55Sean Fennessey?

  I think you're a redhead. I mean, is that what you're asking?

• 52:01Speaker 05

  I always really appreciated their critique of Pavement. It made me look inwardly about some of my taste.

• 52:06Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. And they're like, why don't these guys do something?

• 52:14Speaker 05

  Do something?

• 52:16Sean Fennessey?

  There is an interesting note in, in one of Matt Bellini's newsletters recently about Mike Judge trying to claw back the rights to Beavis and Butthead because they are crossing, I guess, the 35-year threshold for which creators can revert, the rights can revert back to them.

• 52:31Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 52:31Sean Fennessey?

  And 2027 will be 35 years since they first appeared on, I think, Liquid Television.

• 52:38Speaker 05

  Didn't they try to reboot that? Didn't they try to bring Beavis and Butthead back?

• 52:42Sean Fennessey?

  It might actually be active right now. The thing is, is like, to me, what was truly wonderful about that show was not the plot machinations, episode by episode, but the music video stuff.

• 52:52Speaker 05

  Mystery Science Theater.

• 52:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was the best part. But also we were music dorks, so what do we know? Tron Legacy, where do you land on that?

• 52:59Speaker 05

  Six score, fun to look at. Don't remember a ton about the plot.

• 53:08Speaker 05

  They're probably not going to make another one of these, even though they seem to be kind of cult classics. So I almost want to put these in blood and chrome just because-

• 53:14Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, did you watch Aries? Tron Aries?

• 53:16Speaker 05

  I didn't see Aries.

• 53:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. It's not very strong. Wouldn't recommend it. I do think that franchise is dead for now. Although there is a Tron ride at Disney World.

• 53:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, and the Tron video game continues to do numbers, I bet. Do you think that the, like, guys trying to get the rights back to their, to their franchises or get the rights to their franchises is going to- I saw this Ridley stuff where he's like, I'm going back to Alien. It's, I'm coming back from my, my corners.

• 53:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What about it? What are you asking?

• 53:43Speaker 05

  Like, how feasible is it even for that to happen?

• 53:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think it depends on how much power and influence you wield.

• 53:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:49Sean Fennessey?

  You know? I mean, will you be coming back for Take Hunter 10 years from now? Maybe you should. Right? What else would you come back for?

• 53:59Speaker 05

  I would come back for anything that allowed Beavis and Butthead to view my work.

• 54:02Sean Fennessey?

  Should we-

• 54:03Speaker 05

  Speak honestly about it.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  Should we send a strongly worded letter to Josh Demaro about the ownership of The Sea is Dope?

• 54:13Sean Fennessey?

  And how can we get that back in your hands?

• 54:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:15Sean Fennessey?

  Because that's valuable IP.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 54:16Sean Fennessey?

  Off-site, hugely influential, had a real tone and attitude about it.

• 54:21Speaker 05

  It's almost like Time Bomb. It's like, if you, if you know, you know. And maybe like 20 years from now, some guy will be like, you may think that I've been influenced by Cormac McCarthy, but in fact, it was this blog post on Grantland that you have to Google specifically to find.

• 54:33Sean Fennessey?

  You think that'll still be up?

• 54:35Speaker 05

  In some capacity, if we still have an internet, yeah.

• 54:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's all out there.

• 54:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:39Sean Fennessey?

  You know, just kind of grab it. Thank you, CR.

• 54:42Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 54:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's go now to my conversation with Adam Wingard and Michael Bean.

• 54:51Sean Fennessey?

  Michael Bean and Adam Wingard are here. Incredible moment. Adam, I know that you grew up loving Michael, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the first time you saw him on screen or not on screen and how you developed a relationship to his work?

• 55:06Speaker 06

  Well, earmuffs, Michael, because this is embarrassing to talk about, you know? I don't want to weird him out, you know? Actually, he's heard me tell this story a bunch of times. This is part of our mythology now. But yeah, like, it kind of goes all the way back to when I was a little kid. Back in the early 90s, I was at a Walmart with my family and they had just released a toy series of Aliens, and the toy series consisted of like the Space Marines and all these like different versions of like the Alien figures. And I had never heard of the series up to that point. And so when me and my brother saw them at the store, we were just like fascinated.

• 55:51Speaker 06

  And for whatever reason, my parents were in a good mood and they, you know, it wasn't every time you'd go to the toy store, they would actually buy you a bunch of shit. And so like, we actually walked away with, you know, a couple Space Marines and a couple Aliens. And, you know, specifically, I picked up the Hicks figure, you know, which is Michael's figure. And, you know, it became literally my favorite toy, you know? And I still remember the toy. Actually, I have another one that I had Michael sign it on his podcast. It's my most treasured item that I have. But, you know, like the, the figure is really interesting. He had like a bazooka. I don't know why you didn't have a bazooka in the movie, but, and it had, one of his hands, for some reason, was kind of like, one was straight and the other one's kind of like this, you know?

• 56:33Speaker 06

  But it was like, that was like the toy that like, you know, I didn't just strictly, like when I bought toys, it wasn't like G.I. Joe's go over here, He-Man's go over here. It was like, they all kind of worked together, you know? So that Hicks toy, you know, he interfaced with a lot of the other toys, you know? So, you know, like we, we, we got these toys, we were obsessed with it, but we hadn't seen the movies, right? And like, I grew up in a really small town called Marion, Alabama. And the one video store we had was like part Radio Shack, which is like, I don't even know if that's like, like a legal kind of thing that they had going, but it, so it was like half Radio Shack and half,

• 57:15Speaker 06

  you know, video rental store. And we go there and they had just a copy of the first Alien, and I think maybe Alien 3 was just coming out. It was right there at the beginning of the 90s. And, and so we got both of those and then we're like, wait a minute, these don't have the Space Marines. Like, what's the deal? Like, so, oh, it's, oh, it's Aliens. That's the one we needed to see, you know? And so we go to the, the head of the video store, his, his name was Tommy, I think. And we're like, can you get a copy of, you know, Aliens? And we looked everywhere. Like at the time, for whatever reason, Aliens was like kind of out of print and hard to find. And so like, you know, Tommy, he goes and like orders a copy of it. And it doesn't come in for like a week, right?

• 57:59Speaker 06

  And then we kept going back in, you know, like pretty much every day. Like it was like every day we'd go in, is aliens been, is aliens yet, you know? Is it here yet? And this went on for a long time, at least like a month or two, right? And, um, and at a certain point, I think like somehow like Tommy just got tired of us like coming in there asking about aliens. And so, you know, he went out and somehow tracked down a copy and we rented it from him and we had, we, we had it in our possession for an entire month. And I lost count of how many times we watched it. I think it was like 24 times or something. We would just watch it constantly.

• 58:33Speaker 05

  How old were you?

• 58:35Speaker 06

  Um, I would have been probably like 10, you know, something like that, you know, nine or 10. And, um, and so, yeah, which is pretty young to be watching the Alien films, you know? But, um,

• 58:50Sean Fennessey?

  I think we're the exact same age and that's probably exactly when I saw it too.

• 58:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, that's like, you know, like I was always too afraid to watch horror movies. And I always felt like the Alien movies, the Terminator films, those are sort of like the gateway movies into getting into horror. Cause they're still sci-fi and like weirdly, I still kind of think of like Terminator and Aliens as being for kids, you know, like, but like,

• 59:09Sean Fennessey?

  They were marketed to us, you know, they wanted us to see it.

• 59:12Speaker 06

  Yeah. So I'm watching this movie and I'm like, you know, you know, for the very first time, I remember the whole time it was like, which one's Hicks? Which one's Hicks, you know, I just wanted to know, you know? And like, you know, Michael comes on and he's like so cool in the movie, you know, he's got his like, I like to keep this handy for close encounters. And, you know, all his cool lines and, you know, he's so cool. He's falling asleep in the drop ship, you know, on the way down. And, um, so totally lived up to the expectations, you know? And around the same time, you know, me and my friends were really discovering Terminator for the first time. So we became obsessed with Michael Bean. This is all in Alabama and we created what we called a Michael Bean Fan Club.

• 59:51Speaker 06

  And I still remember writing it down on a piece of paper, you know, like that, like we were just like all thought that Hicks was like the coolest guy. And just like all your roles really. And, um, and we didn't really know how to say, uh, Michael's last name either, because we went to like Hicks from Alabama. So we used to call you Michael Bayhan.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure you got that a lot.

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  It's not the first time I've been called Michael Bayhan.

• 1:00:19Speaker 06

  And so, you know, like flash forward, you know, many, many years later, you know, we're developing Onslaught. And, you know, I'm sitting there with Simon and he's writing the script and, you know, we get to this character Baylor and we're kind of just like doing our wish list of like, you know, who do we want to cast and, or who do we want to kind of write with our, you know, thinking of in this role? And, uh, at that time, Simon and I were really obsessed with a movie called, um, uh, uh, uh, Time Bomb. And, uh, which is like a lesser known film. Have you ever seen Time Bomb?

• 1:00:50Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen it, no.

• 1:00:50Speaker 06

  Oh, man. I mean, when I brought it up to you, you were like, oh yeah, nobody's mentioned Time Bomb in a long time, you know? But, uh, it's, it's a cool movie, actually.

• 1:00:59Speaker 05

  It was, uh, it was directed by a guy named Avi Nesher, who had, uh, directed a movie, uh, about, uh, the English being involved in, uh, the Middle East and kind of getting thrown out. And it was like a really, really, really good movie. And so I, I saw that movie and met Avi and, um, uh, I, I, I said I would do it. Uh, Rafaela de Laurentis produced it and, um, they cast Patsy Kensit in it. And, um, you know, um,

• 1:01:40Sean Fennessey?

  Knowing Smile.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, I had, uh, yeah, she was, she very attractive, but she, she played a, um, a psychologist in it. And, uh, it was a small movie and it, it didn't do any business. Um, uh, and it wasn't as good as I thought it was, but Adam brought it up when he wrote me a letter, um, introducing himself. And he brought it up saying, you know, I love the action sequences in this. I'm going to have my stunt team go through, watch this movie because I like the stunt so much. And, um, you know, so, you know, something that I hadn't thought about for a long time.

• 1:02:26Speaker 05

  And I didn't really think about, I thought of Patsy for a long time. And I, I didn't think about, um, I didn't think about the movie for, for a long time. And that came up out of kind of nowhere.

• 1:02:39Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, cause like Simon and I were always talking about with it, like, you know, my film, The Guest, it's like, you know, at one point I was like actually interested in seeing if we could get the rights to Time Bomb, just to like tie it in and make it in the same universe, literally as The Guest, like for like a sequel. Because they feel like it's the same thing. It's like a super soldier kind of program.

• 1:02:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 06

  You know, he's sort of like a, almost like MKUltra super soldier that like has like his memory wiped and stuff. And, um, uh, you know, so Simon and I are really obsessed with that. And that's why we kind of like, you know, Michael was really on the top of our minds when we were doing it. And he's right, it's like the, it, it's kind of an interesting film because it's got like a lot of like B movie elements to it. But the, the action in it is like fucking like unparalleled. I mean, like, I don't know what the deal was, like with who the action choreographer was, but it's some of the coolest stuff. And the action scenes are all pretty short, right?

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 06

  But they're just these like insane bursts and they, I took a lot of inspiration because like, I like how you guys in that film, like anytime you're shooting a machine gun, you're always screaming. And there's something very primal and realistic about that. Cause it's like, you get the feeling like, it's like the character's like, like almost trying to like threaten as he's like firing. Was that like your idea or was that sort of the choreographer's?

• 1:03:56Speaker 05

  That's just me having fun, you know?

• 1:04:01Speaker 05

  If I'm out on a range someplace and I got a machine gun, I'm, I'm screaming at the same time, you know? Yeah. No character, no character development there.

• 1:04:11Sean Fennessey?

  I did want to ask you though, when, did you know when you were working in the eighties and nineties that kids like Adam had that relationship to your work? Did you have a consciousness of being idolized and that there were fan clubs? Like obviously they were successful films.

• 1:04:26Speaker 05

  You know what? I don't, um, I, I think I'm just different than, um, uh, a lot of actors. I, I came out to LA to, to work. I needed, you know, I needed right away to get a job so I could not work at the manual labor job that I had. And so I started in bits and pieces in television and, um, I, I never, I never, it never dreamt in my wildest dreams that I would end up in some of the movies that, and, and work with some of the people that I worked with. I thought like, if I could be on a soap opera for 10 years and get paid a hundred grand a year, I would have sold my soul for it, you know?

• 1:05:10Speaker 05

  Getting a commercial was a huge deal. Getting into the Screen Actors Guild was a huge deal. Getting a, like a modeling job that the picture showed up in Playboy, I'd run home and show my parents. And like, my expectations were really low. I've talked to a lot of actors, I, I knew ever since I was, you know, three or four, that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't at all. I went to college, uh, I did go,

• 1:05:34Speaker 06

  Are there nudes of you in Playboy?

• 1:05:38Speaker 05

  That's Playgirl.

• 1:05:39Speaker 06

  That's Playgirl.

• 1:05:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. You should know that. I think you do.

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  So, um, I don't, um, so I, I never, it was always about the work to me. And it was, I just would go from one job to another job to another job. And, um, I was very, very serious about the work and I never had a publicist. I was never, I never, I, I felt a little bit better. We did the red carpet for his, his movie and, uh, what's it called?

• 1:06:16Speaker 05

  Onslaught, Onslaught. So we, uh, so we, and I felt a little bit more comfortable, but I never really felt comfortable doing press and doing the red carpet and doing pictures and going to parties and stuff like that. So I, I was not aware. I mean, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they, they started calling me iconic. And so I had to get my dictionary out and read like iconic. Okay, you know? And, um, I, I just am a different, um, type of, um, uh, a person when it comes to the,

• 1:06:58Speaker 05

  the movie star element and the actor element. The actor element, I've always been very serious about and always been, uh, very, very passionate about. The movie star stuff, I always felt uncomfortable. I'd go on like the morning show and I, I'd go in Johnny Carson show and I just, I just, it just made me feel uncomfortable. And, uh, I'm better now because I have a podcast and it's easier. When you're doing three minute bites, you know, and you gotta get something out, uh, to promote your movie and be cute at the same time. That's like, I was never very, very, very good at, felt very, very uncomfortable.

• 1:07:40Speaker 05

  And standing, I still even standing that line, hey, Michael, over here, over here.

• 1:07:49Speaker 05

  It, it all just seems a little, you know, I, uh, I, I like the work. I, I like, and I really, really, really enjoy the work and collaborating. And one of the reasons why Adam and I got along so well is we took his words and we mushed them and we played with them. And, and, and, and I had some weird ideas and well, what about this? And what about that? Yes, Michael and no, Michael. And, uh, the most important thing for me and the most fun thing for me is, um,

• 1:08:26Speaker 05

  and you don't always get this experience, but when you are able to have a writer, director, uh, an actor in the words, okay? You start with that. A lot of times that's what you just end up with, you know? You go do a movie and those are the lines and that. That's the director and I do my job, he does his job and there's the lines. But in our situation, and it was the same with me with with Jim Cameron, it was the same with me with Billy Friedkin, it's been the same with me.

• 1:09:01Speaker 05

  The the fun of it for me is being able to go like, hey, this is cool. What do you want to do with it, you know? Well, let's push this over here. What do you think about this idea? I like that idea. Let's go with that idea. What about this? Not so much, you know, but but being able to mold it and and be collaborative is the, for me, it's the high of acting, it's the the highest part of acting. And we did, we did quite a bit of that for a role that doesn't have an extraordinary extraordinary amount of screen time.

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  We worked a lot on that and we had fun and we made some changes to what I think that I thought what we were going to be doing when I came in and maybe what Adam thought we were going to be doing when we came in. And I thought, you know, it worked out really well. And and and so that that that to me is the the the important thing.

• 1:10:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I kind of wanted to ask you about, you know, not just that sequence, but the whole vibe of the movie. You spent about 10 years in in IP world, you know, making big movies where there's a lot of, I guess, interested parties probably that have to.

• 1:10:20Speaker 06

  To say the least.

• 1:10:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Sean Fennessey?

  I I really fell in love with your movies with Your Next in the Guest. Those are the, you know, those are my favorites of your films and and this feels like a real return to that, very conscious return to that. I was wondering, maybe you could talk a little bit about why you pivoted back to doing a movie like this and maybe why these movies are so important to you.

• 1:10:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I guess it kind of, you know, like, started back in 2021, you know, like, this was like, you know, during the pandemic and, you know, the world was in an apocalyptic state and, you know, I you know, we we managed to squeeze out Godzilla versus Kong and it was, you know, still successful at the top of that year. And that was just, you know, just such an intense situation. And, you know, in in some ways, I I think back to that time and I'm like, would I have done, you know, another sequel to Godzilla versus Kong right away if the pandemic hadn't happened? But because there was this feeling of like, you know, it felt like movies could just go away. And it was like, you know, and I had a great time doing Godzilla versus Kong.

• 1:11:25Speaker 06

  It was a lot of work and I was at the end of it, just like, I felt like I was going to be really burnt out, but really just like after like a short period of recoup and, you know, the fear of the industry going down, it was sort of like, hell, I'm ready, throw me back in, let's do another, you know? And so I instantly, the second that we were able to develop another one, I did. And so, you know, we started that process towards the end of the year of 2021. And and, you know, at that time, I'd been working on a lot of other little stuff and I'd had a lot of movies set up. You know, I was like attached to Face Off 2 and Thundercats and a movie called Hardcore, just all these big studio projects, you know? So all my development was kind of in that direction, but I really wanted to do something a little smaller, a little bit, you know, more my thing.

• 1:12:09Speaker 06

  But I didn't really have that story quite yet, you know? And then at the end of the year, I was over at Simon Barrett's house. He lives like just a couple of blocks from me on the other side of Los Feliz Boulevard, which is a pretty, you know, the traffic goes pretty good, good and fast down there. And so we had, we finished our our day of working on Face Off 2 and you know, I remember I was like about to walk across the street, you know, and I thought, oh, you know, I should go to the grocery store and get some tacos, like some stuff to make tacos. And so I started turning around and I started walking towards the grocery store and I thought, you know, I'm gonna go get my car. I was I was picturing myself with like bags walking up the street, you know? And so I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna go back to my house.

• 1:12:53Speaker 06

  And so I went back over to the street and then the light turned green, you know, or the the crosswalk light turned on. And I took like two or three steps in the road and a car just plowed right into me, you know? And I like flipped over the the hood of it, you know, like, like, basically, the way that I can describe it is like, I never actually saw the car and the car never stopped, by the way, it just kept going. And like, it was like I went from being like, thinking about, I'm gonna go make tacos for dinner, you know, that would have been my last thought to suddenly it was like, I couldn't really see anything, but I was aware that I was getting hit by a car. And it was like I was in a like a tornado is what it felt like, you know?

• 1:13:36Speaker 06

  So I don't know if it looked as impressive as it felt, you know? But it was interesting because everything does go in slow motion, you know, like I didn't feel any pain, but I was, I knew I was being hit by a car, you know?

• 1:13:49Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:13:50Speaker 06

  And like I landed and the first feeling I had was embarrassment weirdly of like, oh, my God, that was my fault, you know, because I didn't even think about the fact at first. It it only occurred to me later, I was like, no, I had the the right of way, somebody just ran a red light, you know? But I like pulled myself out of the road and I thought, oh, my God, I was like, am I paralyzed, you know? And so, you know, I tried to stand up and and then all the pain hit me, right? And it really, it felt like somebody took a gigantic paddle and just like, just like the size of me and just hit this side of me, you know? And it was just like all this pain surged, I couldn't get up, you know? And, you know, but I was kind of doing this like check, you know, like the scariest thing when you do something like that is that you're sort of like, okay, is my neck okay, you know?

• 1:14:35Speaker 06

  Am I paralyzed? Can I move my legs? And you go through this process, you're like, okay, I'm in a lot of pain, but I'm okay. And I just felt like it, like all this blood on my face, you know? And this guy runs up to me and he's like, oh, my God, are you okay? I was like, I was like, oh, my God, I was like, I thought that my whole face had gotten ripped off, you know, like, that's what it felt like, you know? And I was like, oh, my God, do I have a face, you know? And he was like, yeah, yeah, you're all right, you know, like, and and so, you know, one of the bystanders that came by, they called like an ambulance and stuff. And so like I got them to like go get Simon. Simon comes out from his apartment, you know, and he comes over and he's like, oh, yeah, you look all right, man.

• 1:15:15Speaker 06

  And like, you know, so like the ambulance comes and gets me, takes me off. Long story short, you know, like, I'm really fucked up for a little while. And I started that Godzilla movie in a cast, you know, like, because the pre-production officially started two weeks after that. And so I didn't have any time to heal at all, you know? And then, you know, six months later, my partner gets pregnant and this was like a totally unexpected thing. And then so suddenly I'm thrust into all these, like, I'm thrust into this new reality where I'm a father. I'm recuperating from this accident, you know? I'm making another, you know, 150 million dollar movie. You know, all the pressures that come with that and the stress, you know?

• 1:15:57Speaker 06

  I ended up having another little physical problem that I don't want to go into right now, but and so, you know, like, once I finished that Godzilla movie and I was in post-production, I thought, well, you know what's interesting is now I'm in a place that weirdly like, you know, because I've been in franchise IP land for so long, you know, I didn't really have a story to tell, you know? It was like I didn't, I was, all my movies for so long since The Guest were focused on, you know, just building my career. And so that's why they were all sort of like, these are the available movies that I can get made, you know, and I could put myself into them, but they weren't my story. And so I was like, I knew that I want to do a story about a parent, you know, a reluctant parent.

• 1:16:40Speaker 06

  I knew I wanted to do a story about kind of PTSD in a way, you know? The military thing just became like a way to do that because I felt like I was working through my own things. And, you know, so this movie, even though it's like, when you watch it, it's just like a good time and it's like fun and, you know, you know, sometimes it's ridiculous and sometimes it's funny and it's got a couple disturbing things. And, you know, it is about a character dealing with like past trauma and stuff like that. But, you know, it, you know, I wanted to do something that I could put myself into.

• 1:17:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's very personal, it sounds like. Geez, that's a crazy story.

• 1:17:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was wild.

• 1:17:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny, I was thinking, as I was thinking about talking to both of you guys, I was trying to think about how to characterize the kind of movie that it is and the way that like you're really even being used in the movie as like a, like a talisman, like a symbol for this, the history of these movies, right? Like the Terminator and Aliens and a lot of these films represent. And I kept thinking of black and chrome, like that was the thing, like the color, the images, the ideas that struck me. And those movies are defined by their action. You've made a lot of action movies, you've made a lot of action movies. I was hoping you could maybe demathologize like what makes a good action movie? And how do you know you're making a good action movie if you do? Because what we see on screen is obviously so dramatically different from what it's like to be on set of one of these movies.

• 1:17:58Speaker 05

  You can talk more about, you know, shooting action. You know, I'm just like, where do I run? You know, where do I jump? You know, I don't, I don't really know the basics of of of of

• 1:18:14Speaker 05

  shooting action.

• 1:18:16Sean Fennessey?

  But do you, do you know when you're making one that it's working?

• 1:18:20Speaker 05

  Well,

• 1:18:22Speaker 05

  you know, every shot that you do, whether it's action, whether it's an action shot or whether it's just, you know, talking. Most actors, at least I know, when it's working and when it's not working. And, you know, some, we rely on our director at the same time.

• 1:18:42Speaker 05

  You know, the action sequences for me really got, you know, real when I, you know, did The Terminator. And, you know, Jim was very intense and very focused. And because of his intensity and his focus.

• 1:19:01Speaker 05

  And his passion, you know, I, I wanted to please him. And so I, you know, I did a lot of running and jumping and there were a few stunts in there that I, that I didn't do. Um, I, you know, I, when it comes to action, for instance, when, when Adam said, oh, you know, I just saw this movie that you did called Time Bomb and the action in it is incredible. I'd seen Time Bomb in a rough cut and I was like very disappointed because I'd seen this guy's previous movie. So, um, I, uh, I just know, I, I know when, when things

• 1:19:42Speaker 05

  work and when they don't work and, uh, mostly action sequences, I, I, I think are a lot easier to make work than, than some of the other stuff.

• 1:19:52Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Speaker 05

  Am I wrong? I mean, from a director's standpoint, that might be completely different, but.

• 1:19:57Speaker 06

  Well, you know, I was really delighted when we did this one because, you know, we, you know, like your character doesn't have a lot of action, but there's, there's some pretty, there's, there's, there's an intense moment that you have to do and, and you definitely insisted on doing it and, uh, and we didn't use a double for you or anything at all. I don't think we did at all. No, because you, you fell back on the pad and everything. And by the way, like on set, like, you know, we had to put some squibs on Michael and like, there's like a moment where like, when we did it, just like kind of around everybody, he took his shirt off and everybody was like, damn, are you guys looking at this? It was like, he's still got it, man. Look at that. You know, like everybody's all jealous and shit. Um, you know, it's funny. It's like, people ask me all the time about like, it's like, oh, you, you know, you look like you really enjoy doing action, you know, is it

• 1:20:42Speaker 06

  really fun to be doing that stuff? And the answer is absolutely not. Action's never fun because you never have enough time to do it, you know? And it's like, it's fun in the sense that like, you know, when you're rolling and it works, it's like, yeah, everybody's like having a blast, you know, in that moment, but it's just like, you, you know, action requires so much coverage most of the time. And, and even more difficult if you're trying to do it in a longer take, you know, it takes that much more prep and, you know, in a movie like this, a lot of like the, the choreography is tied in with like gunshots and all this stuff. And, um, so, you know, action is one of those things that like, it's, I, I love it, but, um, you know, uh, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, yeah. It can be a pain in the ass.

• 1:21:26Sean Fennessey?

  Are you ever surprised after you finish something that you, maybe if you weren't sure if something was working or not, when one of these movies goes on to be iconic? Like I know you've talked about Tombstone, right? Where that was like a little bit of a more complicated production.

• 1:21:37Speaker 05

  Well, he, here's the thing is that, um, people don't realize, they won't realize with this movie either. There'll be a bunch of people come out and review it and they'll say this and they'll say that about it, but they don't really effing know. Okay?

• 1:21:56Sean Fennessey?

  You can curse if you like.

• 1:21:57Speaker 05

  Terminator came out, Terminator came out and, um, it, it did well. It won the first weekend and nobody really expected that. But Terminator was not in the top 20 movies box office the year it came out. Okay? So it wasn't this, you know, now we think of like the Terminator, of course it was this huge hit. It wasn't, it wasn't. And, um, uh, nobody was like clamoring to get me in their movies. And luckily I, I was able to work

• 1:22:36Speaker 05

  with Jim, uh, a few more times. And, um, uh, now, you know, people talk about the Terminators being iconic, being, you know, changing the way that, you know, people, you know, shoot, shoot movies. And Tombstone is another example of a movie that we made. We had a lot of problems making it. Uh, the movie came out, nobody gave a shit. Nobody cared. Um, I can remember the New York Times in, uh, review was just horrible. A lot of bad reviews. Um, nobody ever, I, cause I want to read my own reviews, see what people say. New York Times,

• 1:23:16Speaker 05

  LA Times, The Reporter, The Variety, San Francisco Chronicle, The Texas, nobody even mentioned Johnny Ringo. Didn't, didn't even get a mention. And, uh, and when they were talking, everybody said Val was good, but most people didn't like that movie. Okay? So the people's immediate reactions to movies, reviewers and, um, um, when they have to all of a sudden write down, oh, I like this movie for these reasons and I didn't like it for these reasons. I really don't think that they're that applicable to really how

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  good the movie is. People don't realize, you know, Shawshank is another example of a movie that like, nobody cared about. Nobody cared about it.

• 1:24:06Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, like with The Guest, I mean, like that's probably like the movie I was most identified with in a lot of ways. Um, and you'd like, on that one, we, we got like good reviews out of the festivals, but like nobody saw that film at all.

• 1:24:19Sean Fennessey?

  I was just telling someone though, I saw it at a screening at the Ace Theater out here in LA and it was, blew the doors off. Like you would have thought it was the Terminator when it played, but then, you know, it's also about how many people will a movie reach at any given time and then how they find it. Like you told the story about going to the video store to find aliens. Like that's how I saw a lot of your movies. I don't think I even saw Tombstone in theaters. I think I saw it on video and like, I think the shelf life thing continues, but one thing I was worrying, thinking about with you is you saw that over the course of 10 or 12 years of your career where like,

• 1:24:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:24:50Sean Fennessey?

  The Terminator becomes increasingly more popular in the eighties. Did you find yourself trying to chase parts like that or movies in?

• 1:24:57Speaker 05

  No, I, I was just trying to make a living and I was like trying to take, um, you know, the best roles that came along. Um, I was, I've never really chased anything. I'm just like, I got sent scripts and if I liked them, I, uh, I did them. Um, a lot of them I didn't like. My big mistake in, in, in, with my career was I would get a script, uh, like Navy SEALs, for instance, and I would get it and say like, oh, uh, well, this is not, not, not, not really what I was expecting. What? Charlie Sheen's doing it? Oh, Charlie

• 1:25:39Speaker 05

  Sheen's doing it. Oh, okay. Um, who's directing it? Louis Teague, Louis Teague. What's she done? A woman in red. Oh, a woman in red. Oh, that was good. Like I, you know, I liked The Woman in Red. That was, that was really well done.

• 1:25:53Sean Fennessey?

  Cujo too. Come on, Cujo.

• 1:25:55Speaker 05

  Well, Cujo. Yeah. Okay. And so, so I needed that push and, um, so I, so I said, okay, I'm in. And then I found out he didn't direct A Woman in Red. That was Gene Wilder who directed A Woman in Red. He directed a movie called A Lady in Red. So, uh, but that movie, like it, it needed a lot of work and, um, unlike Adam, unlike Jim Cameron, unlike Billy Friedkin, um, they, they had the clamps down on that script. I don't know what they wanted. They make some comedy or something like that. Um,

• 1:26:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's like four movies in one. It's, it's all, the tones are all over the place.

• 1:26:37Speaker 05

  It's a mess. And, and we had the Navy behind us going, yeah, you want to shoot on an aircraft carrier? Shoot on the aircraft carrier. You want to fly in jets? We will fly in jets. You want to do helicopter stuff? We'll do helicopter stuff. We have a Navy SEAL to double each one of you. We got underwater stuff. And that, that was my biggest disappointment. I kind of forget what your, your, your original question was, was really, but.

• 1:27:03Sean Fennessey?

  It makes me think of something that's true for both of you guys in your careers. Like Navy SEALs now has like a $50 4K and people love that movie. So even if you worked on it and you're like, I don't know, it didn't work, you know, and, you know, the guest or you're.

• 1:27:18Speaker 05

  Nobody loves that movie.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  You'd be surprised, man.

• 1:27:20Speaker 05

  I don't know where you're getting your information.

• 1:27:22Sean Fennessey?

  You'd be surprised.

• 1:27:23Speaker 05

  And to tell you what, no Navy SEALs loved that movie.

• 1:27:26Sean Fennessey?

  That may be true. Um, but, and you know, your early films too, like maybe they were huge box office successes, but you, like they, these things, they build cults around them, especially genre movies. They really have these massive cults. Like what is it like to kind of experience that, having made something and feeling like maybe it didn't totally reach as many people as you wanted?

• 1:27:46Speaker 06

  Well, you know, it's funny. It's like, you know, back then it was probably pretty disappointing, but more from the perspective, not just of the individual movies, but more what it meant for the longevity of my career. Cause for me, for many years, it was always about like getting the next one set up, you know, because, you know, like that, that's really where like it hurt me more, you know? Um, uh, cause the reviews were good in those early movies, but the, but the box office wasn't good. And, um, but you know, I have to admit, like, you know, after doing those Godzilla movies and age 24 probably doesn't want me to hear me say this, but like when I was setting up this film, I was like, this is not a movie that's about opening weekend for me. I mean, you know, you hope for the best and everything, but for me, it's like, you know, kind of selfishly as a director,

• 1:28:29Speaker 06

  I felt like I needed to kind of solidify who I am as a filmmaker, because I think like, I felt like I was kind of getting lost in the franchise IP thing. And, you know, even though those movies have my personality in them and some of my style, it's like, you're still playing by pre-established rules that those IP and stuff dictate, you know? And so for me, the mission statement was like, I want to get in there and I want to do my movie. And, you know, hopefully it's successful when it comes out, but I, I felt like if I'm doing my thing, it's like, this is a calling card for another 10 years. If I'm not able to convince somebody to make, let me make another one of these for a while, you know? And, um, and you know, and that's an important thing that, you know, filmmakers,

• 1:29:11Speaker 06

  you know, like especially if you get kind of sucked into the studio system is that at a certain point, you know, like if you're able to step away, it's like, you kind of have to, you know, you have to like force yourself to get back in there and, and, you know, do the movies that are, you know, kind of all about your, your, your own thing, you know?

• 1:29:30Speaker 05

  And you know, for also for me too, um, you know, Tombstone would come out and I, I didn't look at it as like, oh, it's not doing, you know, like I was too busy trying to make a living. I've got five boys. I've been married three times. I, you know, I just had to work and I was just like working. And so for whatever reason, I never sat back and thought like, I didn't realize box office was even important in any way, uh, until I did Grindhouse. And when I did Grindhouse, it was the very first time I remember looking at the opening weekend and thinking, oh, that's weaker than, um, than I expected. But before.

• 1:30:14Speaker 05

  I'm so busy doing the acting part of it that um the career and the iconic whatever, all those words and that just, just, just, just happened. There was no, there was no like, well, I'll do this movie and if I do this movie, then that will happen. There was no planning on being, I never thought a movie star or a film actor, working with people like Adam and Jim and, and um, all sorts of good people and working with great actors. It never dawned on me, never

• 1:30:50Speaker 05

  thought that I would ever work in that, in that, in these environments. And um, so I, I, it's hard for me to explain, but I just never thought of it as a career as much as a job. And there are guys like Johnny Depp and like Brad Pitt and numerous, numerous people, Denzel and, and Richard Gere, numerous people that are great movie stars and great actors too. But I felt like I did a really good job acting, but the movie star stuff, I just, I didn't pay attention to it and I didn't feel comfortable.

• 1:31:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny that you put it that way because I wanted to ask you a little bit about how you're really able to get, I think what could be otherwise perceived as sometimes more prestigious actors to really let their freak out. You know, like Dan is so good in your movies.

• 1:31:44Speaker 06

  Literally in this one, we get a lot of freakiness.

• 1:31:46Sean Fennessey?

  Truly, but like Rebecca and Drew Starkey is so, so good and so magnetizing in this movie. Why do you think actors want to play like that in your movies? What do you, what is it about that you see in them that you want to see that from them?

• 1:32:00Speaker 06

  I don't know. Maybe, maybe, yeah, that's, that's an interesting question. I mean, I, I think, you know, I'm a very collaborative person, not just with actors, but across the board with, you know, everybody. I mean, the funny thing is about when you're making films, the director is oftentimes the, you know, least experienced one on set, you know? And I remember like back in the mid 2000s, a friend of mine was writing a movie and it was for a film, I won't say which movie it was, but it was, I think the budget was about a million and a half, you know? And so we were right out of film school. And so it was like, oh, cool. You know, they're doing this big movie out in um, New Orleans or wherever it was. And so we went on set and the guy directing it

• 1:32:43Speaker 06

  was a writer up until that point. This was his first movie he ever directed. And um, and so he really didn't know what he was doing. And it's self admittedly, he didn't know what he was doing. He even said like, when we showed up, he was like, he was like, yeah, you know, like um, you know, like I didn't know really like what a director did. Like when I came on set the first day, I was like, do I tell him where to put the lights or whatever? You know, and he's telling us this stuff and I'm just like, what? You know what I mean? Like, and then it kind of hit me. I'm looking at like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing, admittedly doesn't know what he's doing. And you got all these professionals around him that do know what they're doing, right? And you got all these jobs and I, and it suddenly hit me. I was like, a movie is designed so that

• 1:33:27Speaker 06

  even if the director has no idea what he's doing, it will get done. It may not be a good movie, but it will get completed. And sometimes that works. There's sometimes there's a magic to just the pure creativity that somebody can bring. And it can, you know, even if they don't really know all the ins and outs of directing, you know, it, it, you know, it can still turn into something.

• 1:33:47Speaker 05

  Tombstone was a lot like that. And Tombstone is a beloved movie. These days, that, that movie 30 years ago, nobody cared about. Now, everybody absolutely loves it. But that movie had Kevin Jar for four weeks. They threw out most of his material. They brought in George Cosmatos, who was a shooter. They had no idea what the story was about, what the characters were about or whatever. They shot it. They got it to a good editor and um, you know, it didn't really have a

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  director. People ask about Kurt directing it and Kurt was totally responsible for uh, we had a script that was 160 pages and he tightened it up and a lot of actors lost scenes and he had to be the person who was in charge. And he's a great guy and a great leader. This is gonna have to go, Michael. This is gonna have to go Powers and the wives. This is gonna have to go. But it was a mess. It didn't have a director. It had a series of people that were sort of directing it. And um, and, and, and when it came out, it didn't do anything. Now, 30 years later, that's, that's,

• 1:35:05Speaker 05

  that's just kind of typical of you don't need a director. My 11-year-old son could be a director because he could because DP could come to him and say, you want the cameras over here or over here? And he's like, well, put them over there. Okay. You want that actor or that actor? I'll take that actor, you know? Do you want to like, shall we run this scene? Yeah, go ahead. All right. We'll shoot it like this? Yes. Are you happy? You know, like truly, truly.

• 1:35:34Speaker 06

  Yeah. Well, and you know, like with, with me, I really like working with repeat actors, you know? I think that's like that rapport that you can build is, is great. Like, I mean, for instance, Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens, like I couldn't have started my experience with them with this movie for a lot of reasons, you know? And it was the, you know, they trust me and I, and I trust them. And it was almost like we were challenging ourselves to do things that they'd never done before, you know, because we had that familiarity, you know? And, you know, I think it's the same with Michael. I mean, it's like, this was our first kind of testing ground. But by the end of it, like, we were already really kind of having a lot of fun. Like, there's a sequence in this movie where, you know, where Michael's like, sort of like offending Dan Stevens' character.

• 1:36:19Speaker 06

  And in the script, he's sort of just like, you know, you know, I was actually picturing it one way, which was a little bit more straightforward. Like, it's kind of written in a way where he's sort of just like, you know, you just ate shit, doctor. And he's sort of just like talking down to him, you know? And on the day, Michael's like, he's like, you know, like, like, I want to try something, you know? Like, what, what if like, I'm like totally humiliating this guy and I'm just laughing at him. I'm just laughing my ass off. And I was like, you know, and I'm thinking, okay, this could work, but if it doesn't work, I need to make sure that I have like an out, you know, like, but I want to, you know, I want to give it a shot, you know? So, you know, I tempered the expectations. I was like, all right, let's try it. I was like, but let's at least do it the

• 1:37:02Speaker 06

  way it's scripted and, you know, just in case, you know? And then, you know, he did like take one of it. And I was like, okay, forget the way it's scripted. This is working. Let's do that, you know? So I'm, I'm looking forward to our next one. I mean, you can see, you know, I, I got Michael to, you know, he's scruffier than usual. This is, this is because I've asked him to. And uh, you know, so we can't say what it is yet. Um, you know, but um, you know, right away, I was like, okay, can you, will you grow your hair out like this? And he texted me, yes, sir. And I was like, yes.

• 1:37:34Sean Fennessey?

  Michael, I want to ask you about that because what Dan is doing in the movie is, is pretty big. And you've been opposite, like Paxton in Aliens is big. So when you're acting and you know an actor's making a big choice in the way that they're performing, like, how do you respond to that? Is that something that is discussed before you start shooting?

• 1:37:50Speaker 05

  You know, I, uh, usually, it's always about the words. It's all, from an actor's standpoint, it's always how good the words are, you know? And this was an extremely well-written script, okay? Um, the reason why I made that choice was um, this was described early on, I don't know if it was you or A24, as a gonzo something or other, you know, which was, to me, just meant like, anything goes, you know? It's like playing an Alzheimer's person, you know? I could just say anything I want here and, you know, like, uh, and I, I thought, I'm not even sure where that came

• 1:38:31Speaker 05

  from. I just thought, um, wouldn't it be fun if, if instead of, you know, it staying in that sort of realm of, of, of, I'm disappointed for the company that I'm working for, that this didn't work out, that this whole thing was just insane. And it's just struck me as funny. And I didn't think he would go for it. I didn't think he would go for it. I just didn't. I just, but this is the thing about Adam. I think most good actors, and I heard Drew was this way too. Come after you, come after you. What about this? What about this? Can we try this? Can we try that? What do you think about this? Okay, well, let's, let's give it a try. And Jim is also good that way, you know?

• 1:39:16Speaker 05

  Just like, yeah, okay. And he'll say, and he'll say no to me, eight times out of 10, but two times out of 10, he'll say, well, let's try it. Or once, you know, like, yeah, this really works. And that, that to me is a very collaborative, what makes movies fun for me is not showing up on the set, not showing up on the red carpet, not learning my lines. It's getting together with a group of two or three or four people, including your DP and your sound guy, you know, and saying, well, like, how are we gonna mold this to make it even, even better, you know? And how are we

• 1:39:59Speaker 05

  gonna kind of make this like, you know, jump? And um, I think that we took, you know, when I first got the role, Adam sent me a, a letter and said that he was a fan and, and would I do this? And I He went out and saw the guest and I was like, okay, I'm definitely gonna do this for sure. Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but then I watched two King Kong versus Godzilla's that he made. And I'm not the guy, I'm not gonna watch King Kong versus Godzilla. That's just not my fucking, you know, that's just not my wheelhouse, you know? But I watched it and right from the very beginning, I thought, oh, this is kinda interesting.

• 1:40:41Sean Fennessey?

  They're fun.

• 1:40:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, this is a lot, a lot more. There was a lot there that I didn't even realize, cause I hadn't given it a chance. And so, you know, so, you know, then I signed on and, you know, it was, it was great. And the thing also that was happening is that Adam had already shot the rest of the movie. So you know the movie, you know that I work with Dan in that sequence. That entire sequence that takes place with the helicopters coming in and us coming up. And that was all, so he already had shot his movie and he looked really fucking confident.

• 1:41:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's like, yeah, I know what I have.

• 1:41:27Speaker 05

  He looked like he was really happy with what he already shot, you know? And that, that, and I asked him also, like, you know, how did it go? Going great, Michael, going great.

• 1:41:39Speaker 06

  You'd never know if it didn't though.

• 1:41:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:43Speaker 06

  No, but this was a great shoot. This was like the smoothest shoot that I ever had, so it was authentic.

• 1:41:47Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you said, you described it as a calm set, but this is not a calm movie. This is like a rip roaring movie.

• 1:41:53Speaker 05

  He's calm, okay? He's, he is a leader that leads, I would say, by example, but he's calm. And I'm sure inside of his head, he's intense, but he's not running around this and that, you know? He'll, we'll finish a shot and then he will walk over to the next place he's gonna shoot. And his crew just kinda follows him over there and he's, he's, he's very calm. And maybe it's because he knows what he wants.

• 1:42:33Speaker 05

  But I've been telling this story, I gotta tell this story because I, this is, this to me is about like collaboration. Okay, so I, I found out, cause I talked to your DP yesterday at the party and I found out something. But anyway, so I, I had to go off and do another movie. So Adam showed me the movie about four months ago and I was, when I went to see the movie, I was, I was like,

• 1:43:01Speaker 05

  what am I gonna say if it's like, it's not as good as I, you know?

• 1:43:05Sean Fennessey?

  You still think about that, cause you've been in that position before?

• 1:43:08Speaker 05

  Well, I have, and the problem with me is, I'm really honest. I told Jim Cameron, I thought the third act of Aliens had some, not, The Abyss. The third act of The Abyss had something chunky about it.

• 1:43:22Sean Fennessey?

  Some people agree, yeah.

• 1:43:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, just, you know, and, so, so anyway, so this is kinda this collaborative thing that I'm talking about. I'm shooting a scene and I'm waiting for the doctor, I'm waiting for the doctor to show up. And so I say to Adam, like, I'm fucking just standing around here waiting for the scene to open. Can you give me a phone, just so I've got something that I'm doing, you know? The phone ends up being like kinda part of the character. It's like, I mean, I'm on the phone.

• 1:43:54Speaker 06

  We introduce you, yeah.

• 1:43:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I take the phone and, which was not scripted or anything, so I take the phone and I'm doing this. And we had a real good prop guy, real good prop guy. And he took the phone and he did some stuff to it and made it look kinda military. Not that it makes any difference, but maybe it would help me or whatever. So I'm looking at the phone and I'm doing the phone. And then we're getting ready to shoot what I would consider like a master. And although he doesn't really shoot masters per se, but what I would consider shooting a master. And the next thing I know, he is like down on the phone and the phone is the beginning of the shot, okay?

• 1:44:36Speaker 05

  And then he pulls back to reveal me and then he pulls back even further to reveal the operators. So if I hadn't said to him, hey, can I have a phone? And this is like a director who's, you know, he's got it storyboarded. He could shoot it 20 different ways, but because I asked for a phone, he thought, hey, maybe we'll do it like this. And we did, so when I saw it last night, I realized, I, I thought like, I thought, I saw that the first time. And then your DP told me, oh, the shot's in there, but it's just when it's pulled back a little further.

• 1:45:17Speaker 05

  But my point is, is that me being able to say, hey, that shot wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for my input. Which was not input, it was just, hey, can I have a phone?

• 1:45:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:31Speaker 05

  It, that's what's, that's what's exciting, you know, about.

• 1:45:36Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think that's something you would have done 15 years ago?

• 1:45:39Speaker 06

  Um, I mean, I was even, I was even more seated the pants 15 years ago. Oh, well, yeah, cause you know, like my first movies were all, and that's probably where this comes from is, you know, my first movies were, we didn't even have scripts. We, we just improvised the whole film, you know? Cause I was part of a movement that people call Mumblecore, you know? And those Mumblecore movies were entirely unscripted, just actors kinda riffing. And, you know, you just shoot a ton of footage and then you kinda put a movie together. And so that was a good lesson though for me, because it does teach you to sort of like not be rigid. I'm, you know, I've never been the type of filmmaker where like, I'm like, just shoot the boards, you know what I mean? Cause like I want that kind of like the realism, the spontaneity.

• 1:46:22Speaker 06

  And again, I wanna be inspired by the people around me, you know, like the actors, the crew and all that kinda stuff. And, you know, the shot you're talking about, like we knew we wanted to do a shot with like, you're waiting. And we, and we had all the guys like suiting up and all their stuff. But we didn't really have a beginning to the shot. And so whenever I saw you on the phone, I was like, oh, this is interesting that this. It also said something about your character, because it's like, you know, this guy's in the middle of this like, you know, crazy military exercise and he's busy, you know what I mean? And he's the only guy that gets a phone at this place, you know? But there was also a two-fold thing too, is that because it was the beginning of the shot, we were able to kind of like, just kinda subconsciously stash one of the, like the cockroach, one of the main killers,

• 1:47:06Speaker 06

  his mask over there, you know, so that it gave the audience one moment to see that mask before we put it on the character. And it's one of those things you, you probably don't even really notice it, but it's, it's in there. So it's like, you know, part of the shot is a mask in the background and then the phone. And then you pull back and see you on the phone and then it's the rest of the guys. And so, you know, like, I mean, maybe I also just didn't have a really good plan that morning and I was just like, oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:30Speaker 05

  Cause I asked you about it and you said like, well, you, you know, you have it all storyboarded out anyway. And you, there were probably 15 different ways that he could have shot that. And being the director that he is, other people that I work with, and I've worked with some good people that are also similar. But most people come in and they, they know, before I walk on this set, they know where I'm gonna be. And they know where their camera's gonna be. And, you know, it just, okay, so I come in, I do my lines, try to do the best I can with the other actors.

• 1:48:12Speaker 05

  And there's a difference between that and exploring a scene from a filmmaking standpoint, from an acting standpoint, from a DP standpoint, where everybody's kind of like, you know, going in and saying, well, what if we, if we put the camera, Michael, if you could take one step over this way, then we can make the camera work. And that is to me the most fun about making, that's why I get in my car, I drive into my set, get in the makeup chair, put the wardrobe on, walk out on the set. Usually wait four or five hours before I walk out on the set in my trailer. Cause they, you know, always want me there at dawn and to work at one in the afternoon.

• 1:48:56Speaker 05

  But come out and it's that moment of collaborating with, with Adam especially on this show. It is just like, it's thrilling for me. It's thrilling to be able to, it's like being part of a painting, you know?

• 1:49:15Speaker 06

  I like that you don't also like, you don't actually go back to your trailer between shots. Michael just like hangs out, like, you know, it's really funny, cause like when we, you know, first, you know, our first day working together, it was like the, it's like a big exposition scene. So it was a very difficult scene. We had a lot of pages and stuff and, you know, and there's a lot of like walking and talking and it's very complicated, you know? So it was kind of a hard scene to kind of like start, you know, a character off and a relationship and all that kinda stuff. But it went really well, but like, you know, once we did our first sort of blocking, you know, like we sent everybody away and, you know, the crew starts going and, you know, Mike is just like hanging out. And like, I look behind like a door and he's like sitting there and he's like sitting there like this, like.

• 1:50:00Speaker 06

  You know, and I thought, it was just like, it was such a funny visual. I have a photo of it too, you know, you're just hanging out, but like, he, he likes to just hang out. He doesn't leave the set ever. And I don't know, were you always like that or?

• 1:50:12Speaker 05

  No, I wasn't always like that. We used to have a lot more fun in my trailers than.

• 1:50:19Speaker 06

  Let's talk about that.

• 1:50:22Speaker 05

  Back in the day. I find now, listen, what I'm doing in my trailer is the same thing that I'll be doing two hours from now at home. I'll be sitting on my bed, like going like this on my phone, you know? And I.

• 1:50:38Speaker 05

  I like the energy of a crew. I like the crew to know that I'm interested in them and I kind of get to know them at the same time. I talk to them a little bit and I like them to know that I appreciate what they're doing and that I'm watching them. And, you know, it's like actors like people watching them. And I, and I'm genuinely interested in, okay, what's the shot gonna be? Oh, he's got a camera here and he's got a camera here. Okay, well, I'm gonna walk behind this camera and see what, where he's at on this camera. And I'm gonna walk behind this camera and then I'll talk to the guy, says the camera

• 1:51:21Speaker 05

  gonna move. And I get a better idea than just walking onto the set, being an actor. I know more about what the shot is going to entail, what it's gonna look like, what it's gonna feel like, whether the camera's gonna move. And I, I enjoy the camaraderie. You know, making a movie is a lot like being, I grew up playing sports and, you know, we all want to win the Super Bowl and we're all playing to win the Super Bowl. And everybody has a position. He's the coach. You know, I might be, you know, the tight end. Dan might

• 1:52:01Speaker 05

  be one of the running backs. We've got linemen. We've got, and it's, it's a, it's a team, team effort. And so I like to, I like to be out in the field, not in the locker room, you know?

• 1:52:16Sean Fennessey?

  This has been great. The movie is a lot of fun. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen?

• 1:52:22Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:52:23Sean Fennessey?

  Have you guys seen anything recently you like?

• 1:52:26Speaker 05

  Well, I'll tell you, just, just out of, you know, I, I don't know if you call it great, but I have trouble finding movies, you know, and I've been around for so long that I've seen all the great movies like 10 times. But, um, um, I hadn't, I'd seen, Adria had done a movie with Glenn.

• 1:52:51Sean Fennessey?

  Glenn Powell?

• 1:52:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I saw that and I'm like, okay, she's very sexy and I think that was successful or whatever.

• 1:52:56Sean Fennessey?

  Hitman, yeah.

• 1:52:57Speaker 05

  But I watched a movie called El Fricos, El Freaks. Do you know that movie?

• 1:53:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yes. Yes, her film, yeah.

• 1:53:03Speaker 05

  Fucking, and I saw that, I wanted, when I met her, and I didn't get a chance to talk to her. But I, I wanted to say, I saw this movie. She's on it as a producer. I have a feeling that movie wouldn't have got made if she wasn't.

• 1:53:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, very small film.

• 1:53:18Speaker 05

  Very small movie, shot supposedly in Cuba.

• 1:53:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:21Speaker 05

  And, you know, I, if you're familiar with the movie, it's just a little tiny movie about people that were so desperate in Cuba that they would inject themselves with the HIV virus to, you know, get away from the, the sugarcane fields and, and the horrible life that they were living in, in, in the city. And she was great in it. And she's, there's a scene in, you know, the scene where she's chasing the car out, her husband out. I just love her. And by the way, like, she is like phenomenal. And, and

• 1:54:03Speaker 05

  Drew is fucking phenomenal. He makes them like really interesting, kind of like, really interesting choices, really interesting choices.

• 1:54:12Sean Fennessey?

  I saw the movie with a buddy and every time he showed up on screen, we turned and looked at each other like, this is good shit. Yeah. Loose Freakies is the name of the movie that you're talking about. Yes.

• 1:54:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And, so, I, I've heard her talk about talking to Adam. I wasn't sure if I could do this. I wasn't sure. Well, in that movie, at one point, one of the young kind of star of the movie is lying about having HIV and she finds out about it and she just gets fucked and she goes fucking, like she goes to her ex-husband in your movie. Yeah, no, you could, she knew she could do that. She could do that. I, I'm looking at Jason Momoa, taking pictures and I'm like, I don't know, I don't know how Jason is, you know?

• 1:54:55Sean Fennessey?

  Don't get those eyes out.

• 1:54:57Speaker 05

  You know, she's, she's, she's, she's a fiery, spitfire. He said she was just a pleasure to work with, a lot of fun and everything. But man, I wouldn't want her out of me.

• 1:55:08Speaker 06

  I've been lucky. I've had almost only good experiences with actors. And the one, I've only had like one season actor that I work with that I had a bad experience with.

• 1:55:18Speaker 05

  Come on, okay. Whatever is the initials?

• 1:55:23Speaker 06

  I'll tell you after.

• 1:55:26Sean Fennessey?

  So it is a man.

• 1:55:28Speaker 06

  Yeah. So, like, the, you know, it's funny with me, it's like, I'm like, always like so far behind because I, I end up re-watching movies more than I watch new ones. Like, I just get obsessed with like, repeat viewings, you know? And, and so like, whenever I'm gonna watch a new movie, it always feels more like I try to take as safe a bet as possible because I hate more than anything, the feeling of like, walking out of a movie and, you know, being disappointed or like bored during the film and that kind of stuff. And, but this year's been pretty good. Like, I, I really liked Pillion and I thought that was a really great experience. Really like, I was, the, the ending really threw a curveball at me, you know? I was really.

• 1:56:10Speaker 05

  What's Pillion? See, there's so much content.

• 1:56:13Sean Fennessey?

  I'd love for Adam to explain the premise of the movie to you.

• 1:56:16Speaker 06

  It's like the scene with Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens, but like the gay version of that for like an entire film.

• 1:56:22Sean Fennessey?

  For two hours, yeah.

• 1:56:24Speaker 06

  It's pretty amazing. It's like nothing I've really ever seen before.

• 1:56:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's actually, it's actually pretty funny. I mean, it's like a, it's like a romantic comedy.

• 1:56:34Speaker 06

  It's like kind of a sweet movie for a lot, in a weird way.

• 1:56:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's called Pillion.

• 1:56:37Speaker 06

  Pillion, yeah.

• 1:56:38Speaker 05

  Pillion?

• 1:56:39Speaker 06

  Pillion. Like, it's like the, I guess it's a reference to like the seat on the back of like a motorcycle, you know? But that one and also Backrooms. I mean, I loved Obsessions, you know, or Obsession, and I love Backrooms. But like Backrooms, like, I don't know, I've always been obsessed with like the liminal space thing. And so to see somebody do a movie on it, it was, I was like really, you know, like kind of blown away just like the visuals of it. And kind of jealous too, you know? Because like, I've always thought like, oh, you know, if like, like, let's say like I retired today, like, I think the, the thought that I've always had is like, I'd love to just get like a shitty digital camera from like 2002 and just like drive across the country and just like find

• 1:57:22Speaker 06

  liminal spaces and, and like do a photo book of it or something. Because I just, there's something so cool about that. So, you know, I was really, really into that. And I was just, you know, it's, it's been a cool year for horror and all that. So.

• 1:57:33Sean Fennessey?

  Right on. Michael, Adam, thank you so much for doing this.

• 1:57:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:57:37Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Adam and Michael. Thanks to CR. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production support. I'm headed to Telluride. Amanda is already in Venice. When we get back, we will have our festival reports. We'll tell you all the movies we saw and what you should see. We'll see you then.