BEN ZAND: Investigating Looksmaxxing, Trad Wives & Darkest Corners of the Manosphere

Ben Zand is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist whose work has taken him to some of the darkest corners of the world. Ben immerses himself in the darkness, getting close to people living on the edges of society to understand more about their lives. His recent documentaries have explored some of the most controversial topics of our time, from cults and trad wives to the men shaping the manosphere, and those being influenced by it. In this episode, Ben shares: What it was like being held at gunpoint by a kidnap gangWhy looksmaxxing is the scariest part of the manosphere His experience of meeting truly evil peopleWhy people are drawn to cults Ben is a reminder to stay curious, ask questions and want to understand more about the world we live in. Ben Zand is Great Company. If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us: Instagram - @greatcompanypodcast TikTok - @greatcompanypodcast Jamie - @jamielaing And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: [email protected] THE CREDITS Producer: Helen Burke Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins Video: Harry Sawkins Senior Social Media Manager: Laura Coughlan Audio: Rafi Amsili Geovannetti Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I've met killers, I've met racists, I've met everything. They think that there is a reasoning, a method to the madness. Probably only once, maybe like twice, I've met like someone I thought was an actual psychopath, you know, like an evil psychopath who had no empathy and they were terrible.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  You like them?

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Ben Zand and I'm in great company.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  The award-winning filmmaker.

• 0:21Speaker 02

  His work takes us to some of the most unexpected corners of the globe.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  I'm intrigued by people who are really convinced that they both understood themselves and the answers to the world's problems. They kind of create this like rationale in their brain that makes it okay to do bad things. Like in Mexico, I've interviewed cartels a lot. They all say, we never kill good people. What is your definition of a, of a bad person? Someone who's stolen, someone who's disrespected. Okay, but your definition of disrespect is quite broad.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  The manosphere.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  The social media platforms like Reddit is where a lot of these guys are going to, to kind of find out what it means to be a man. You pull the layers back and there's just deeper trauma.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  If you had to steer young men or boys away from the manosphere, how would you do it?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  I mean, it's a tricky question. I mean, I'd say like, I was in Venezuela. We were trying to interview a kidnap gang. Blindfolded just put us in the back of motorbikes, took us into like some hills. And then when I got there, they thought I was a police officer and they put guns to my head.

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  Since becoming a father, has it changed your opinion of wanting to put yourself in these situations?

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• 2:58Speaker 01

  Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Great Company. Today's episode is with Ben Zand. This episode is amazing. Ben is a documentary maker. He's made shows on Manosphere, Tradwives, Cartel. It's incredible. And the situations he's put himself in are wild. So get ready for it. Now, before we start, if I can just ask one quick favor, if you can click that subscribe button. It takes one second. It's completely for free and it does so many amazing things for our show. Okay, thank you. Enjoy this incredible episode of Great Company with Ben Zand.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  But if you had to pick a documentary that everyone should watch, your favorite documentary, and one of the films that you've made that is your favorite, what three would you pick?

• 3:42Speaker 00

  That's a very difficult question. The documentary that got me into making documentaries sort of like supersized me, you know, that kind of sense of like gonzo journalism, like I love that style of content, like where it's like somebody takes on a thing. In terms of which one of my docs?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Which one of your docs?

• 3:58Speaker 00

  It's literally impossible to answer that question. It's kind of like My Babies or something. You know what I mean? I'd say like, maybe our gooning documentary, if you want to step into the goon cave, feel free to go onto our, onto our website.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  And which documentary do you think everyone should watch because it's so impactful?

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Tickled is a fantastic documentary.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Tickled is, Tickled is so great.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  It is. It's the type of documentary I love where it's like, because basically a good documentary is something where like-

• 4:23Speaker 01

  It starts with something then-

• 4:24Speaker 00

  It starts and then it ends completely different. And I can't, you know, they say stranger than fiction and you need like kind of twists and turns. It's like that thing where it starts as like kind of a seemingly like obscure thing that you don't quite, you know, understand. And then it turns into something way bigger. I mean, another thing is like, you know, one of my good friends is like Uber Butler. Do you know Uber?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  I love Uber.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I think Uber's documentaries are great. I know he's got like a Channel Four doc out right now. So I love like people like him where they're just like, they're just fascinating brains. You know, if you kind of sit down with someone like that, they kind of, they see the world a different way. So I love people. I like presenter-led documentaries. That's my thing. You know, I like hosted stuff. I think obviously character-led docs are extremely important, but I love following people through an experience as they do something. That for me, to be honest, is also why I wanted to make stuff myself, because that's actually less and less ubiquitous in the world. You know, now docs are very much like kind of either true crime, character-led docs, kind of celebrity documentaries. People should watch more documentaries because I think like, the thing people don't quite realize is documentaries actually are not only incredibly difficult to make, they're also actually really expensive

• 5:23Speaker 00

  to make. And especially the type of docs people love where it's like, you know, if you make a documentary, like we made a documentary about this guy. He's, it's like, I got an email once from this Amish man who was living in a community in, in Ohio in America. And he was, he initially said to me, you should make a documentary about what it's like to be gay in the Amish community. And I kind of like looked at it and was like, well, that'd be hard to do without anybody to talk. And then he replied saying, I, I am that man. I am the guy who is, and I've been, I've got, I'm married, I've got two children, I'm living in this community and I feel like I'm trapped. I don't know what to do. So then we followed him for like five years. And now he's kind of like, you know, through like the kind of highs and lows, he eventually got out here, his life fell apart and he's now married

• 6:08Speaker 00

  to another kind of ex Anabaptist, which is like part of that kind of religious group. And he lives a kind of happy life, finally being himself, living freely. But those types of documentaries, like-

• 6:18Speaker 01

  How do you fund that?

• 6:20Speaker 00

  Exactly. I mean, it's freaking difficult, you know, like, and often people don't really watch them. Or like, it's never going to be as big as like a big entertainment film. So I think a lot of people always tell me they love docs and I'm like, well then support a documentary maker because genuinely it's quite difficult to make these films. And I think it's really important to be able to capture these stories and to see life happening on camera and to support filmmakers doing these work.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Okay, well, so let's get into some of the docs, right? So, you know, one of the big topics at the moment is the manosphere, right? And Louis Thure did his one on Netflix.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  But you've already, you've already been in that world. And what's kind of terrifying about it is that it's this corner of the internet that is so kind of impactful to young men. What did you find out when you investigated everything to do with the manosphere?

• 7:03Speaker 00

  I mean, to be honest, it's a kind of continual investigation because we've done, we've done quite a few films in that space. I think like, I mean, I suppose I'd preface it with like, I think we have a general reality now where there isn't like kind of a shared truth. You know, there's no kind of mainstream culture in the way that it used to be. You know, we used to have a kind of finite amount of TV channels and locations that we'd go to to get information. And it was a kind of bit more of a kind of central idea of what it meant to be man, woman, whatever, whatever. I think now we've kind of moved into the space where like, information is a kind of battleground where you have like multiple, you kind of legacy media institutions and are kind of not as powerful as they once were. You know,

• 7:48Speaker 00

  you have kind of independent creators like yourself and myself who are kind of creating another kind of type of content over here. And then you have kind of social media platforms like Reddit and kind of Discord and on the kind of fringes that is where a lot of these guys are going to, to kind of find out what it means to be a man or whatever. And I think, you know, it's well documented that, you know, these types of guys are kind of feeling increasingly kind of confused about who they are. And, you know, they're leading, they're trying to find answers to why they feel like they kind of don't have, maybe they're not working, their needs, you know, they're not in education, employment or training, whatever. So they kind of generally feel resentful to society and they're trying to find an answer to those problems.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  So it's a, it's a resentfulness and insecurities?

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, you know, what the kind of general process of how these guys fall down this, you know, I've made docs about looks maxes.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Explain that to our audience who don't know what looks maxing is.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Well, they all kind of come from this idea of like the kind of black pill ideology, which is this idea that like kind of looks are really all that matters. Like only a small section of men gets the majority of women. And if you're not that type of guy, you're not like kind of Chad, then your kind of chances are just hopeless. You're not going to meet anybody. So, and you can kind of take a range of actions from that point. You can like become an incel. So you just accept that like, you're out of luck and you become this resentful kind of woman hating kind of thing that just lives in a room and doesn't really interact with people. And, or you can become a looks maxer and you try and kind of game the system. You try and get like a specific face that they've decided is like the face based on these kind of like pseudo-scientific kind of ideals.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Being just so symmetrical in a way, right?

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, like giant jawline, very hardcore jaw. Like, I mean, I got like kind of looks maxing test and was told like I have like a negative cantile tilt, which is like bad. Like my eyes point downwards and I've got a dorsal hump on my nose, which is like a lump on my nose, which is supposedly bad. But like, you know, so there's all these things that you can just lean into it. But I mean, it's like, it's like mostly bullshit. Obviously looks are important. It's hard to deny that, but they take it's like just such a degree.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  And what do they, what do they do when they, when they are look maxing? What do they do to try and improve their looks?

• 9:57Speaker 00

  They'll like hit their jawbone to try and change the shape of their jaw. Cause there's like this idea that if you hammy your face, the bone grows back stronger. So you can kind of dictate the direction of your jaw. They'll mew, which is they chew. I mean, they'll put their tongue at the top of their mouth. They'll chew like thick gum to try and get a bigger jaw. And then on the extreme ends of it, they'll get leg lengthening surgeries to try and be taller. Cause a big part of it is like, you have to be six foot. So it's like, I mean, and this is the thing is like, I go into these worlds kind of- As a bit of like a kind of anti manosphere, kind of observer within the space, which is really all I'm doing is trying to put these ideas back to them and saying, look, like, I understand you feel

• 10:38Speaker 00

  kind of out of place, you know, kind of, and it often comes down to like, maybe they were bullied in school, they didn't get the attention from women they wanted. Um, and then they've kind of grown up and they get this kind of sense of, often it's entitlement around like, I think I should be able to meet a woman and I'm not meeting a woman, so I'm quite annoyed about that. And then they'll go on to these forums because they, and this is what I'm saying around the sense of people don't have a central place for truth anymore. And you have all these little mini echo chambers that people fall into. So they'll go on a Discord forum or on Reddit and then a bunch of other people in similar scenarios to them will tell them that they have the answer to those problems. And it's, maybe it's looks maxing, maybe it's like the kind of

• 11:18Speaker 00

  incel ideology. And we've done things around gooning, which gooning is not necessar- do you know gooning?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  No, I now spend my life spending too many people, telling too many people.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Tell me what gooning is.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Gooning is um, kind of like an extreme porn addiction, but it's like where people create like a goon cave.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  You, you, you got access to a goon cave?

• 11:37Speaker 00

  I stepped into a goon cave. I won't go into too much detail because it's a fascinating place to be, but uh, a goon, the kind of concept of a goon cave is like, um, they like, uh, it's basically like just porn maxing. So it's like, you want as much porn as you can. So they'll have like seventy screens that are just playing different bits of porn, but it kind of goes into this, I, I, it's all about.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  The idea behind it and where you sit and self pleasure yourself.

• 12:02Speaker 00

  Basking yourself in this kind of like hedonistic, kind of like dopamine pit, basically. It's like, and the idea is like you're, you know, they'll do it for up to twelve hours and they'll, you know, so it's like, they're not actually like ejaculating en masse for twelve hours, but like they're kind of like getting to the limit and then going back down again. And I think I, I'm, I'm interested in this for multiple reasons. One is like, uh, it's kind of like the sense that there's like a kind of, there's clearly a problem when it comes to like, kind of, um, men and women being able to meet each other in the world that we exist in. And like, gooning is a, is like an extreme, another answer to that problem, which is like, I'm just going to completely check out of that. I'm just going to step out of the system altogether

• 12:45Speaker 00

  and just get any form of interaction and love from this kind of synthetic porn addiction. We're also doing something about AI companionship and that's another part of that story. We're doing something about tradwives, which is another part of that story. So it's like this kind of central thread running through all of this, which is like, clearly people, both men and women are saying, you know, I'm not able to meet someone that I feel is a kind of a partner for me, or I feel like I'm kind of locked out of the system, or men aren't kind of acting how I want them to act or kind, you know, so I'm just going to kind of step out of this altogether, or I'm going to take drastic action. And there's like the kind of like list of things you can do to resolve this that all seem to be just wild.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  But how do you get access to these areas, right? How do you, because my big question is this is the amount of things that you've done, whether it is speaking to cartel or going to a goon cave or talking to you about look maxing or whatever it may be, right? You're getting access to these people. So in my mind, these people who are doing this don't really want to do it in private. They're happy to be on camera. They're happy to be famous or whatever it is. So how does that, how does the initial contact start?

• 13:52Speaker 00

  I mean, it's a process. It takes a while. I'd say the thing, because people always say to me, why would anybody want to talk about that on camera? And I think it's because a lot of people feel misunderstood, no matter who you are, no matter what they've done. Like they generally feel like they have reasoning. You know, they've got a reason that makes sense.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Whether you're a killer or.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Whether you're a killer, whether you're a gooner, whether you're, you know, whatever. It's like, you know, they, they think that there is a reasoning, a method to the madness. So that they kind of are eager to talk about it. But it's a process, you know, we'll, we'll go to where they are, basically. So that might be, you go on to these forums, if it's a car, if it's a drug lord, you get a fixer in a location that lives in that space. So you basically go to the community and then you try and you spend a bit of time doing it. And there's a lot of kind of

• 14:34Speaker 01

  What?

• 14:34Speaker 00

  false starts, you know, a lot of people will say no. Um, I mean, recently, like our last documentary, an interesting one, like it was about getting a millionaire to meet a homeless man. And we needed to get a millionaire in two days. Um, so we just went to a really expensive gym in Arizona, because we were in Arizona, uh, and just sat outside the gym until Lamborghini showed up and then just spoke to him, tried, you know, kind of said to him face to face with the premises and this guy was worth like hundreds of millions of dollars and he said yes to it. So I think there's an element of kind of just, you just have to put yourself out there and try and kind of make a reasonable case to somebody. And then a big part is making it seem like you have reasonable, not scandalous intentions, you know what I mean?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that comes from you, right? Because your, your aura, your energy, and I, I feel like I can trust you.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think because I am trying to be trusting, I think, and that's the thing, I'm, I'm, we always say like, in the work we do, like, don't say anything in the documentary that you wouldn't say to somebody's face, if you know what I mean. It's like, I'm not gonna, like, if I was making a documentary with you, I might, you know, say, hey, you know, why do you think this about this thing? And we'd have a debate, kind of this conversation around it, but I wouldn't then talk shit about you in the film behind your back type of things. I'm always trying to make it so that like, you at least are, it's a conversation between us and I'm being honest about what I'm doing. So I'm always very transparent. Like, I'll say like, you know, like the trad wife one we've got coming up, like, we've actually got two films coming up, one big British trad wife and a big American trad wife. And like.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  And just quickly explain what tradwives are.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  I mean, tradwives are this, a kind of, I suppose, a, another solution to that problem, that kind of men and women don't seem to be able to match together and, and um, as easily as maybe they once did. And they have come to the conclusion that like, actually the solution is women need to be subservient to their husbands. It kind of, it comes from a kind of religious, kind of Christian worldview quite often, where it's like the role of a woman in a relationship is submission to their kind of husband who is serving God type of thing. And this is like, become a thing. So there's now people doing kind of trad wife academies where they're teaching women how to act like this to their husbands. So we're, we're looking at it from the perspective of like,

• 16:47Speaker 00

  you know, they quite often believe women shouldn't vote and that women should be kind of disenfranchised from the voting system, like, you know, there's certain things that I can kind of happily say I don't agree with. But that's like, obviously I think women should be able to vote and my, my wife can, you know, my wife is probably the least trad wife, wife you could ever have. My wife is like, yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  My wife is the least trad wife.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting because like, because like a lot of these don't think women should work. Um, and they don't think they should have stressful jobs. And my wife's like a war correspondent for like a major news organization who, as we speak, is flying to the Central African Republic.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  An Emmy award winning.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  A multi Emmy award winning journalist. So it's kind of like, you know, completely different world views, but like, um, but like, you know, that she wants to talk because they think that, I think, you know, they think they've got an explanation. They think it makes sense, you know, and they think that there'll be an audience who think that what they're saying is right.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  People seem lonelier than ever. We feel disconnected, right? And perhaps that's because the internet, maybe it's because of social media. What is your view on that? Why do you think we're lonelier than ever?

• 17:45Speaker 00

  I think it's a lot of these things. I think like, yeah, you know, I think we don't have the kind of communities we once did, you know, it's, uh, and I think people are just increasingly isolated. Like you, you see it from the characters in the films I make, like, if you look at the lives they lead. Um, quite often they don't work or they work very late. Their sleeping schedule is just messed up. Like they'll kind of be awake in the early hours of the morning and they'll sleep kind of through the day. Um, and then their kind of social circle is the internet and it's like specifically like forums, you know, they'll be on these forums until really late into the night. And I remember when I made, um, you know, every time I make one of these films, I think that always astounds me is like, when you meet someone who's kind of like perennially online,

• 18:26Speaker 00

  they talk about their friends from forums as if they're kind of real people that they interact with in the real world. So you'll say like, you know, do you have friends? It's like, yeah. It's like, do you meet up with your friends? Yeah, I meet up with them quite often. And then I'll say, in real life, and they'll go, no, I talked to them on the forum. And I think is that sentence is just no difference. That is now the relationship. And clearly there is a massive difference to that kind of personal human connection. And the funny thing for me about stepping into this world is like, I am like probably the least perennially online dude really you can meet. Like I kind of, I am, you know, I've got a good circle of friends, big family, big family of in-laws.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Me and my wife, uh, kind of socialize a lot. I've got a beautiful son. So it's like, I'm kind of stepping from this world that I'm pretty happy with. And I feel like I kind of have a kind of, it's mostly figured out. And then I'm kind of like going into these worlds and generally, it, sometimes it feels really obvious. You're like, well, obviously, you know, don't sit in a goon cave for twelve hours on a Sunday, you know, that, that's probably not going to be the solution. But I think then you get under the, you know, you pull the layers back and there's just deeper trauma or kind of issues or insecurities that are coming from that, or kind of relationships with their parents. So I think it, it's difficult because people have a lot of problems that they need to resolve and, you know.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Do you think a lot of it is down to that, down to the trauma when they were younger, whether it's family or friends or bullying or whatever it may be, that has led these individuals to have these views and think about these different things?

• 19:52Speaker 00

  I think it's hard. I mean, I think it's yes, but I also do think that it's a lot more difficult now, you know, I think, you know, once you once you leave, like school now is a different place anyway, and that people are kind of on their phones and on the internet, but like, when, once you've left school and maybe kind of university, like, how do you make friends? You know, if you're not someone who's inherently sociable and you're not kind of, um, you know, extroverted, it is actually just quite hard to meet people and make friends. So I think like, and you know, historically, um, you know, if you were feeling a bit lonely and a bit like kind of isolated, you know, there'd probably be more of an onus to go outside and meet people because there wasn't any other way to kind of satiate that feeling of kind of isolation. But now you just don't need to in the same way. Now you can just fall into this pit

• 20:37Speaker 00

  on your phone and, and feel as though you're making connection when you're not actually making connection.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  And connection is the most important thing, right? That, that's what makes us fundamentally happier is having real life connection with individuals, right? And the, the problem is now is if you're bullied, right? If you, if you were, if you were bullied at school, you could leave school and it was left. Now bullies follow you home. They're on the internet. They're on your social media. They're on your Snapchat. Right? They, they almost harasses you. It can't leave you. So you then you feel like you're imprisoned within your own life because of it.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  I think also you're just continually reminded, um, kind of who you're not, obviously, you know, I think that sense, and you see this a lot in the manosphere where they're like, they're being pumped imagery of like what it means to be a man and like kind of, you know, people with Lamborghinis and multiple women on their arm and they all kind of look the same. So that they're kind of using that as a basis as to like, that is the experience of manliness now.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  So if you, if you weren't Switzerland right now and you had to steer young men or boys away from the manosphere, how would you do it?

• 21:37Speaker 00

  I mean, it's a tricky question. I mean, I'd say like, I can only talk about myself and my own values in many ways, but I think like, a lot of it is, you know, in terms of the economy, like the, you know, it is harder to get jobs now. These are legitimate things that play into that because this sense of a lack of place, a lack of kind of purpose will lead you to that sense of, I am annoyed, I want there to be some kind of rationale behind my annoyance. Okay, I've landed on this ideology, this all now makes sense to me. So I think there's a lot of major societal problems that we need to kind of resolve. I'd say like, you know, specifically around like, um, because a lot of it is around wanting submissive women. You know, part of it as a guy has the least submissive wife ever, like, I don't really get why people want that. You know, I think there's a really weird,

• 22:22Speaker 00

  like, these kind of strong men tend to be like the most weirdly insecure guys ever. Even if you meet them one on one, they're kind of like so insecure, their whole life is about kind of appearance and they don't really truly understand themselves and who they are. So I just try and be like a principled guy, like I'm trying to just be good to my wife and so on. I'm trying to have like a kind of, you know, equal relationship where we talk about things and it's about no one being better or worse than the other. We're just kind of part of that. And then just trying to be a productive member of society. Like I'm just trying to be, you know, I'm trying to learn from my problems. I'm trying to help people where I can. And like, that's as far as I can be and say what a man is to me. And I don't really, I don't think there's any specific example of the best man. I think it's just who am I? What have I seen that works?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  So, so what do you think your skill is? Are you good at making friends?

• 23:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean,

• 23:12Speaker 01

  That is your role in a way. You have to, you, you, you in a way have to persuade people that you're trustworthy.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  I think I'm good at treating people with respect. I think, you know, I kind of, I really try and see the humanity in everybody I talk to, regardless of what you've done, you know. So it's like, I'm trying to be respectful. I'm trying to be as non judgmental as I can in that moment. Sometimes I will judge you if you've done something horrific, but I'll be kind of transparent about it. So I think it's, it's not so much that I'm being people's friends. I'm just being transparent with them and I'm being human to them, you know, in the sense of like, I'm really trying to give them their basic humanity and respect in our kind of engagement with each other to a point that like, I'm not going to screw you over. I'm going to treat you fairly, but I am going to ask you kind of difficult questions because I'm on a bit of a mission to try and understand why you are the

• 24:00Speaker 00

  way you are. And there'll be people watching this and they'll have their own questions. And I'm going to kind of be the conduit for those questions. So I think it's a sense of like, yeah, like, and I'm generally quite curious, you know, like I, I am mostly, my, my wife always kind of says to me, like, um, I ask a lot of questions to everybody. And, and, and it's not just because I'm a journalist, it's because like I genuinely just, I'm quite intrigued of like, why is that like that? Like I'm actually, you know, why, why do you do that like that? And she'll kind of quite often laugh and with someone, she'll be like, it's just, you know, just chill out.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  It's exactly the same as me.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  The world's interesting, isn't it? That's the thing.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Like, like I, I go on holiday with my wife. I, I would happily sit next to a couple and talk to them to find out about what they're like, what they do. My wife hates it. She's like, why, why do you care? Because people are so interesting.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  And I guess it's like learning, you know, it's cool to be like, oh, other people do different things. And as I've, actually, that's one thing like in my thirties that I've really am, and that is probably a portion of growing up, which is just like, God, there's so much I literally don't know. I have not been through many things, you know.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Growing up in Liverpool, right? So what age did you move to London?

• 25:06Speaker 00

  So I moved to London at twenty one years old. Yeah. I, I left Liverpool when I was eighteen and I went to university in Edinburgh.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Um, and, um, and then went to like America, like over a summer, which is, and my, my accent progressively got less Scouse as I did different things.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, because

• 25:25Speaker 00

  I used to proper talk like that lad, now I

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Now I enunciate my words more and all that, you know.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Because the accent is hard to put, right? So I, I, I, I can sense a little bit of Scouse, but then there's, there's a bit of a southern going on.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  There's a southern, like, that's the worst thing, worst thing you can ever say to me.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  It's a little touch, man.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  I don't have an issue with Sudans, but Scouse is very precious about accents. But, uh, but no, it's interesting. I think it's, um, it's actually like mostly, I went to America to work in a summer camp. Do you remember Camp America? Did you ever hear of Camp America?

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  So I went to go work in a summer camp over, over the course of a summer. And, um, and I, it was my first year of uni. And I remember like, I'd say to the kids, like, go to sleep, go to sleep. And they'd be like, what? I don't understand what you're saying. And then like, so I started talking slower and slower. And then I got that kind of like annoying, like, you know, like that uni accent, where everyone's kind of accents kind of merged together. Um, and then now this is me.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Wait, so what was, what was Camp America like?

• 26:19Speaker 00

  It was amazing. It was like, um,

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Because I know from Parent Trap.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like a summer camp. Um, it was cool. It was like a kind of camp. So I was a councillor in a camp. So like, um, I was, I was nineteen and I was like looking after kids who were like, um, probably like between five and sixteen. It actually taught me a lot about, uh, people because kids are like adults, but just absolutely wild. You know, it's kind of like adults with no emotional restraint. So it was quite an interesting, um, kind of life lesson around how you just deal with like hundreds of different personalities in the most intense setting. I've always loved that fine line between kind of being insanely deeply uncomfortable, um, in a place that you're, you know, kind of a bit of an outsider. You don't really understand the kind of customs

• 27:06Speaker 00

  and norms of a place. Um, uh, so I both kind of love and hate that in equal measure. Uh, and I think it goes back to like, I, I grew up feeling a bit like many people, I think in the media who become creatives, you know, you feel like a bit of an outsider because of circumstances. I've got from like a kind of mixed race, mixed culture, family, kind of different religions, different backgrounds. Um, so I didn't really understand what the way to live was anyway. So I kind of, it started on a kind of bit of an emotional journey around like, you know, at first I was like, I'm fully British. And I was like, I don't necessarily feel entirely British. People didn't treat me like I'm entirely British in, in school. So then I went to Iran when I was sixteen. My family from Iran. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna go, once I step off this plane, I'm going to belong. And then, my God, did I not feel like I belonged.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  So it was kind of like, from that point, I was like, right, I don't necessarily feel like I belong anywhere. Um, so that, you know, who the hell am I? So I think there was a kind of long period of like, I literally have no idea who I am. And then that naturally lends itself to kind of being like, oh, well, I'm intrigued by who other people are. And I was kind of specifically intrigued by people who were really convinced that they both understood themselves and the answers to the world's problems. That was always like the most fascinating thing. Cause I'd be like, whether it's someone who's like deeply religious or kind of really politically aligned, or they had some like really clear vision of the world. I'd be like, great, maybe if I meet you and spend some time with you, you'll give me the answer.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Why, why do you think identity is so important?

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Uh, well, to me, it was because I felt identityless, um, which is probably an experience a lot of people who are kind of from like mixed cultural backgrounds have where you don't really, like, also like, being a kind of British Iranians, a bit of a weird kind of identity. Like, there's not loads of Iranians in Britain, wasn't in Liverpool growing up. So there wasn't like that kind of merge of identity wasn't really a thing. So, I mean, the strongest identity I have is Scouse, because Scouse is quite a strong identity. But when I grew up, I also got kind of a lot of, of shit. I was kind of growing up in the kind of, um, embers of the, of nine eleven in that sense of like a much heightened version of like, um, what like terrorism in the Middle East and all that. And,

• 29:06Speaker 00

  and that, you know, I think that, that sense that like, there was some places that were bad, some places that were good, didn't quite know how I fit into that sense of things. Um, so just for a long time, I felt mega identityless.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Did you experience racism?

• 29:20Speaker 00

  I mean, yeah, like I got called the, the P word a lot, you know, um, you know, like, and, um, I, uh, and I just liked that kind of sense of just not really like, you know, when I grew up, like you, basically, it was like a kind of very kind of, you know, white British environment, but it wasn't even just that. It was like, if you didn't have a one all over, literally like a skinhead, you, or you didn't have like kind of Air Maxes, like Nike, like one tens and all that, or kind of, you just like a very specific look, definition. Like, I really just did not feel like I fit in. I was like, um, I was like a chubby lad, um, in like quite a rough environment. Um, and it felt like I was

• 30:03Speaker 00

  just hiding stuff like, um, uh, you know, my, my, my, you know, kind of mixed race, my family's got, like, you know, a member of my family's got kind of disability and all these things. For, you know, my two grandparents were deaf from birth and like, so kind of like all this stuff that just felt like kind of shame and not really knowing what, you know, I'd be embarrassed that for my friends to come to my, you know, grandma's house because it, you know, I was worried that people were going to judge me for these things. It was just a sense of kind of feeling uncomfortable and not really knowing like actually what was okay, you know, what was normal.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  When did you find your sense of identity?

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Probably in the last few years.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Really?

• 30:40Speaker 00

  I think my, my thirties have been great. I've genuinely loved my thirties. I mean, I, I always remember I had a friend who once said to me, he was like, I was like twenty three and he was thirty three. He was like ten years older than me. And we were on a shoot together in America. And, um, and I said to him, what's it like being thirty? You know, as if like it was this thing, you know, it's like, another planet or something. And he was like, yeah, he's American. He's like, yeah, it's pretty cool, man. Like, uh, and he was like, you know, in your thirties, you just know who you are. Or he was like, at least you, that's the aim, that when you get to that point, you know who you are. And I kind of was like, oh, that's quite a high bar, you know, like that, uh, by that point, I need to kind of understand who I am. And obviously I'm not now like completely, I don't have the answer to everything, but I just, I'm a lot more comfortable in myself.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Which I think a process of a lot of things, like, I think as you age, you start to get more and more kind of evidence. You know, I mean, when, when you're young, and especially when you're trying to do different things and you, you know, like you don't necessarily have reference points for it, you always feel uncomfortable because you're doing things for the first time. You don't really know if it's going to work out. You don't know if you're good enough. You have all these insecurities. But then you get older and older and you get more and more bits of evidence to suggest, okay, I kind of know who I am, kind of know this. So now I have just a bank of evidence to be like, I, I'm at least all right, you know.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  The amount of people I sit opposite, right, and talk to have the same experience. And if I look back at my, like twenty year old self, man, it's like not even comparable. And, and it's not a sudden, it wasn't a light switch, but my thirties is when everything changed. Far more confident myself, know kind of what I like and don't like.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  But, but I think part of it is kind of environmental as well, because the truth is when you're in your kind of late teens, twenties, like your life is quite dependent on other people. You know, you, you do need people to like you in some capacity, or you're at least more than you do when you age, because you're not kind of financially independent. You haven't really figured out what type of career you want as you grow up. So you're just dependent on people. So therefore those insecurities have much more weight, because like, you know, if you, you don't know if you're good enough, like, you know, with me, it was like, I want to be a journalist, then I want to be a documentary maker, then I want to be, I want to be on camera, then I want to run my own business and all that. And all those things, I had to get the help of the people in order to get to that point. So you are dependent on other people liking you, wanting to work with you. So those insecurities just heightened.

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• 34:59Speaker 01

  You spent seven years investigating a cult leader called Nature Boy and his group, which you called the craziest cult of our time. What did you find out?

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Well, the thing, you know, this is a-

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Seven years is a long time.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Well, I mean-

• 35:12Speaker 01

  It's like a medical degree.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  The thread, exactly. The thread of all these docs is trying to understand why do people do things that seem kind of out of the ordinary or extremely difficult to believe. And it's pretty much always the exact same thing, you know, like they-

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Is that the three, what is the three line?

• 35:29Speaker 00

  The three line is like, you don't like, you know, these are, you know, there's a guy called Nature Boy, his name is Eliseo Bishop. I came across him initially, like I was working for the BBC at the time and, and I saw this cult. I was basically like doing a series, going to Central America. I used to have a very cool job where I'd just go to a place for a month at a time and make some films type of thing. And I was going to Central America. I was like, oh, Costa Rica is a bit kind of like Thailand or something where people go to try and find themselves or they go on like these kind of long gap year holidays. So I just Googled Costa Rica cult. And I came up with a picture of this guy. And then madly enough, he just had this WhatsApp number on his Instagram. So I just like kind of called him and he was like the most charming dude in the world. Like he was this like really kind of like, you know, ripped, kind of good looking.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Nationality?

• 36:13Speaker 00

  He was like kind of black American, from Atlanta, like, and his whole group was called Melanation at the time. The idea was like the more melanin you have in your body, the closer you are to God. But you could, you could join no matter what race you were. The idea was like, you just had to be naked and mostly naked in the sun and you get browner skin and that would mean you're closer to God. And then it kind of like, you had this idea of, which is like, it kind of built it off the, from the kind of sense that like, America is a, you know, kind of racist country and the kind of, it's Babylon, like the system's broken. Instead of trying to fix America, just leave the country. So you managed to kind of get a bunch of young Americans to fly, most of them had never left the US, they'd never had passports.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  They were all these kind of young, smart, kind of like ambitious Americans who just basically paused their life for like six, seven years to try and follow this guy. And it just ended terribly.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Well, ended how?

• 37:08Speaker 00

  He became, it became a sex cult and he forced them to do loads of things they didn't want to do. He eventually got charged with rape and now he's serving life in jail. And I think, and again, it's like, people are looking for someone to follow. They want something to believe. They feel as though, you know, they don't know who they are, they need direction. And the problem is like, especially with social media, you get these like kind of snake oil salesmen, you're extremely convincing, you know, you watch the videos and you're like, wow, like it does seem like you're making a lot of sense. And effectively they then groom you over a period of time and then you're just in it. It's very difficult to unwind.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  What do these cult leaders have in common, do you think?

• 37:47Speaker 00

  They're extremely personable, extremely, they've got a lot of character and they, I think-

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Dominant, alpha?

• 37:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the kind of the framing is that they're dominant and alpha. Again, they're super insecure, like in a really weird way, like, you know, he, he wanted all the women to himself, kind of forced people to break up from their relationships so that the women would only be with him. But like the sense is like he is the alpha of the group. But if you look back into his personal story, I remember I was on the phone to him once, talking to him, like, he was adopted as a child. He never felt like he had the sense of family and identity and belonging. So he was trying to kind of, he always felt out of control. So he's then trying to create this-

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Control.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  Thing that he controls.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Right, all from childhood.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  A family that will never leave him. That's basically his thing, you know?

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Do you think though, that someone like that is, we look at that and go, oh, he's a cult leader. Do we think there are cult leaders hiding in, hidden in plain sight?

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think like, for me, like this, I think anybody who can, I mean, there's elements of being a cult leader that can be like, it's a sense that you can create a shared sense of identity amongst a group of individuals and you can make them all sing to the same tune to achieve some kind of end goal. So like, there's probably like, you know, low level cult behavior that probably exists in loads of companies. It's like, you have like this kind of like dominant CEO who's like, no, let's all be like this. I think that it then kind of turns into it when it's like, stop talking to your family, you know, detach from everything you know, has a very strict code of conduct that you can't break, kind of commit yourself entirely to me. And I'm going to start now completely messing with your mind by kind of sleep deprivation,

• 39:23Speaker 00

  by making you kind of repeat the same words over and over again. So it becomes like this rarely tried and tested route that just seems to work, mostly men who kind of create these often sex cults.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Is it illegal?

• 39:35Speaker 00

  The consequences of a cult are illegal, if you know what I mean. Like in terms of what then happens in a cult, which tends to be sexual abuse and control and fraud and money. I think the kind of concept of can people, you know, there's a commune, you know, like you can live in a commune, that could theoretically be not illegal, but it just depends what happens.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  That's so, you know, what's interesting is that you, the reason why you, you say you're sort of good at what you do is because you don't cast judgment, right? You, you take people for what they are. So you're saying that even if people have done terrible things, maybe I think you've done a terrible thing, but also I want to know about you as an individual. It's a great way to be because I think we judge people so quickly.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely, obviously sometimes cast judgment, like I'm not kind of literally the Buddha, but I think it's more just like, even if I am judging you for a part of your life, I'm not necessarily kind of taking that wholesale. And I kind of meet a lot of people who, to be fair to them, have a lot of reasons to kind of feel angry at their scenario or like they have like, you know, one of the docs you've come up is about kind of an AI companion. And it's actually a woman who's in a relationship with her, a kind of a character on her phone. And she's also married to her husband. And in the documentary, her husband's like, he basically admits, you know, he doesn't have the emotional space for his wife, like he's not there for his wife. He's going through a lot. He struggles with depression. He's in a job he doesn't like.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  He has to like, and he feels he has no control over his life. So she's kind of trying to figure this out. So quite often I'm just, I kind of do these docs and that's why I'm saying-

• 41:03Speaker 01

  That's so sad.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  It is sad, but I think a lot of people have, people do have reasons for what they do. You don't know, I don't always agree with those reasons. I just, you know, I try and just accept that people do things due to the kind of circumstances of their life or the environments that they grew up in or I don't think, I hardly ever meet people who are like actually evil. I've met some people who feel-

• 41:27Speaker 01

  In your line of work?

• 41:28Speaker 00

  Well, I've met some people, like, you know, I've met, it's sometimes, I'd say probably on like, probably only once, maybe like twice, I've met like someone I thought was an actual-

• 41:38Speaker 00

  Psychopath, you know, kind of evil psychopath who had no empathy and they were terrible. But actually, most of the time, you know, I've met killers, I've met people who, you know, racists, I've met everything. And like, most of the time, they're actually.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  You like them?

• 41:50Speaker 00

  I like them, yeah, one on one. Like, you know, I've met like kind of massive, you know, I remember I was in Lebanon once and I met this kind of drug lord who had killed loads of people. And like, I got there, I turned up, he had cooked me, his wife had cooked me like little kind of pastries, like extremely nice, extremely welcome. And he's talking to me about his kids, you know, it's like, so those.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  I knew it was like, I quite like this guy.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  I was like, wow, this guy's, yeah, he's quite nice. I mean, obviously, like, the kind of journalist in me is still trying to have, you know, that's why I'm not trying to be their friends. I'm trying to kind of have like some kind of separation. But it just makes you realise, like, people find a way of kind of moralising things, you know, like, I've met a lot of people who have killed people, but they create their own kind of like, and you see, you do this, you see this a lot in like, kind of cartels, you know, like in Mexico, I've interviewed cartels a lot. And they'll, they'll say, we never kill good people. We only, we only kill bad people. And you say to them, okay, like, what is your definition of a, of a bad person? It's like, someone who's stolen, someone who's disrespected. You're like, okay, but your definition of disrespect is quite broad. So, but they, but they kind of create this, like, rationale in their brain that makes it okay to do bad things. And, yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Your wife's pregnant and she's an incredible journalist, right? You're an amazing journalist. But you both put yourself in dangerous situations and you have a son as well, right? Since becoming a father, has it changed your opinion of wanting to put yourself in these situations? Or do you try and block that out and continue?

• 43:09Speaker 00

  Yes. You know, like, I'd say, like, you know, there was probably the worst experience I've been is I was in, I was in Venezuela and I was making a documentary for the BBC called World's Most Dangerous Cities. And I got blindfolded by, we were trying to interview a kidnap gang, which is probably a bit of a weird move in the first place. But, and then they made us kind of handing off phones, getting on the back, kind of blindfolded us, put us in the back of motorbikes, took us into like some hills. And then when I got there, they thought I was a police officer and they put guns to my head. And you can see the tail end of it in kind of the dock. But like, that, I was like genuinely shaken up.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Give me, give me the, give me the feeling. What is the experience when that happens? What are you feeling? What is going through your mind?

• 43:50Speaker 00

  That was one of the only times that I was like, why am I doing this? Like, this does not feel worth it at all. This is a bit of a stupid thing to do, like kind of playing with fire. And you see it, like, in the documentary, I'm clearly pooing my pants. Like, I kind of have gone white and I kind of don't know what to really say. And, and it's very worrying. So I was just like terrified, like actually terrified. And, and, and then, you know, I, I probably, I probably wouldn't do that now. In a way, though, it's hard to predict that that's going to happen, you know. So I would make documentaries meeting people who have done bad things. So you don't, I didn't like plan for that to happen. But I'm definitely more conscious now. But I think it's actually more, I mean, but then I have a bit of an,

• 44:33Speaker 00

  you know, I'm always like, I can figure it out on the ground. I can like.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  You have that optimistic sort of attitude, right?

• 44:38Speaker 00

  Say this thing. It's actually now about.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  I can probably reason with them.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  I can reason with them, you know.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  What is something that you're looking forward to, that you're excited that's coming out on Saturday? What, what is the one that you're making at the moment? Like, this feels great?

• 44:52Speaker 00

  I mean, the trad wives films are going to be great. It's a kind of two part series, basically, where like, in the first one, we investigate one of America's biggest trad wives and we join her at like, a kind of critical moment in her life. She speaks at like Turning Point USA, which is like a major kind of conservative political event for women. And she, like, we would watch her, she kind of bursts onto the scene and follow her journey and we interact with her husband. And she's, you know, she's kind of projecting this idea of like, yeah, like the ultra, ultra, ultra alpha husband and a kind of submissive wife. But actually, in reality, their relationship is inverted because she's this big kind of influencer and he's basically working for her in that moment. And like, so the kind of inherent contradictions are fascinating within that. But generally, I just think

• 45:37Speaker 00

  like, I mean, it's cool, like the, the beauty of like, you know, I've now don't work for a media institution is that we just make what we want to make.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  And do what you want.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  As a creative, it's very important to be the master of your own destiny. Like, I think you need to be the person calling the shots.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  For it to actually be the thing that you want to make. Like, I think it's very difficult to do that through like executives or people giving you loads and loads of notes. So I think like, there is a beauty now, we make it, I work with the team and we just go, do we like this? Yeah, we do. Put it out there, see what happens, you know. Cool. And it's fun.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Have you ever made a film where you felt like you could have, let me caveat that with the, the reason why I mentioned it, right, is Louis Thure did his documentary with.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Jimmy Savile.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Jimmy Savile, right? And, you know, he speaks about now that he wished he'd pushed hard, he'd gone a bit deeper, maybe he made a mistake, right? Have you ever been in a situation, made a film where you felt like, maybe I could have done a better job there?

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Every single film.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Get out of here.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, like, because, I mean, documentaries are a kind of fascinating kind of experience, really. Because what you're doing is, it's not like a kind of, it's not a podcast, or it's not a kind of news interview on TV or whatever. Like, I'm stepping into someone's life for like a sustained period of time. And so you have like the kind of conflicting thing of like, I want to ask you interesting questions and like kind of dive deep into your life, but also like, I'm in your space, surrounded by everyone you know. And also like, I need to be with you for like, over the course of a week. And, you know, you don't know how it's going to go. And like, I remember I made a film once about like a kind of evangelical pastor in South America and Guatemala. This guy's worth like millions of dollars. He flies private jets around and he preaches something called the

• 47:13Speaker 00

  prosperity gospel, which is like the idea that if you, the more money you give, the closer you are to God. And we were meant to be filming with him for like a week. And on the first day, I asked him the wrong question and he pulled all the access and then we couldn't film anything. And then I was filming another documentary with a guy called Dennis Hoff, who was like, they called him the Trump of Perumpf. He was the biggest legal brothel owner in Nevada. And he was like friends with like Ron Jeremy, this like disgraced porn star, Heidi Fleiss, this kind of big madam. And I filmed with him for two days and then on the third day, he just died while having sex. But like, the documentary fell through because I was actually flying back to London for one day to go to a wedding. And then I was meant to fly back. And because I flew away, I missed the whole thing happening. So like, it was with this incredible story and I didn't get to do it. So like, every one

• 47:56Speaker 00

  of them, like, because we are literally just capturing life on camera, you know what I mean? We're not, so it's not produced, you're just there for these things. So it's like, all of them, I'm like, oh, I should have asked that question better. Or like, so it's all of it is, yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  What do you think about celebrities who make documentaries about their lives but have edit control?

• 48:14Speaker 00

  I mean, I think it's, I mean, to be honest, it's fine. I think it's just.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Don't be Switzerland.

• 48:18Speaker 00

  No, it's fine. Like, I mean, it's not like, in a world in which there's a load of content and there's like, you know, they call them authorised and unauthorised docs. You have like an authorised doc that might be like Victoria Beckham has control over her film. And an unauthorised doc would be like R. Kelly or something, you know, like, so I think like, you know, or like the Michael Jackson series. I think, so I think there's a place for them and people clearly love them. And a part of doc is about like, do people actually watch this thing? Impact is everything. My problem is, if the only environment we have is where there's docs where celebs have control over their content, or on the flip side, true crime stories, which are kind of mostly horrible and really depressing. Like, for me, that's not what docs is. Like this, you know, kind of observational documentaries, which is like following people as they live through something and experiencing

• 49:03Speaker 00

  something, is the stuff that's like, less flashy, it's the stuff that like, you know, takes longer to make, but it's also beautiful. And it like really is for me, the core of documentaries and like experiential, on the ground stuff. So it's like, that I wish there was more of.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  And then if someone's listening right now and they want to follow in your footsteps, right? And they want to start making films, they want to make documentaries, they want to get themselves out there. What advice would you give to them?

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Well, the beauty is, we are in like the most kind of democratic time to make, to basically make a career like that. Because like, you literally can now. Like, when I, when I started, I wanted to make docs, but like, I didn't really know like what the hell, how you did that. Like, I kind of fell into journalism by accident and didn't do that well in my grades. And that was kind of like, journalism was quite an easy theory to get into. And I didn't go to a fantastic uni. And then I kind of stumbled on this thing and like freaking loved it. I was like, holy shit, this is the first time that like, I can meet people. This is great. But then when I finished, I was like, don't have any contacts in the industry, don't really know what to do or who to kind of talk to. So basically, I just did loads and loads and loads of work experience for free and eventually landed on something. Now, you don't really have to do that. Now you can just literally start making stuff.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Pick up a camera and go.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  And basically build an entire media empire. Like, and there's obviously going to be winners and losers from that. And some people won't make it, but the opportunities are freaking endless, you know. And I think like, you really can become the preeminent kind of filmmaker, documentary maker in the world by doing it off your own back. So, yeah, if you want to, I'd also just make sure you actually want to do it. You know, I think big part of it is like, do you really enjoy it? And figure out if you do.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  If you're sitting in your rocking chair, you're 90 years old and you're looking back at your life, what do you feel and hope that you've achieved?

• 50:42Speaker 00

  I just want to have done what I wanted to do for as long as I possibly could. You know, I was thinking, like, I was reading a book recently and it was about kind of investment, because I'm terrible at investment. Like, I don't know how to invest in things. And the guy in it is talking about, I should reference who it is, but I can't remember because I never remember who wrote books. So, but he talks in it about like, his investment strategy is like, don't try and make big wins, be in it for the long haul, basically. You know, try and incrementally put a little bit away at a time into a specific fund and it will kind of compound over time and you'll have money in your later years. You might not get insanely wealthy, but you'll be comfortable and it will allow you to do what you want for as long as you possibly can with the people you love. And it made me realise that

• 51:26Speaker 00

  actually that is just my goal in life, like kind of to compound over time what I know, get incrementally better and like to try and stop wanting to win immediately and just to be like, actually, I'm going to look at life as a film and then I'll look at that last chapter. And that's really what I'm trying to get to. So I just want to enjoy the process.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  That's a great, that's great advice. I'm going to take that advice for myself.

• 51:49Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  I absolutely love that.

• 51:51Speaker 00

  You can credit me and not.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  I will credit you.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  The mythical guy that I forgot who it is.

• 51:59Speaker 06

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 52:29Speaker 03

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• 53:02Speaker 01

  Ben, thank you, man. I really appreciate this. We have our last eight questions. Quick fire. You ready for these?

• 53:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  What's a saying or phrase that makes you smile or cheers you up?

• 53:09Speaker 00

  Well, my niece said to my son in Liverpool on the weekend, "Say, all right, la, I'm from Liverpool." And he's like now a little kind of southern boy. And he went, "All right, la, I'm from Liverpool." So that's a phrase that I quite like, yeah.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Best compliment anyone's ever given you?

• 53:25Speaker 00

  When I was in school, the girls would kind of like come up to me and be like, "E, are you wearing mascara?" Because I've got long eyelashes. And then over time, I realized it's actually great to have long eyelashes. So now, if someone says I'm wearing mascara, I'm like, sweet.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Great. What scares you most about yourself?

• 53:44Speaker 00

  That I'll never be able to relax.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, same. When was the last time you cried?

• 53:50Speaker 00

  I am terrible at crying.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  What, you don't cry?

• 53:53Speaker 00

  I really, I got married about two years ago. And for about a week in advance, I was like, how do I make myself cry? Because like, this should be the place that you cry.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is it.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  And I got to like, I'm just really happy for my wife. And that was like, kind of like the closest I got. And it was kind of embarrassing. So I don't know. I just find it hard to cry.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Really?

• 54:14Speaker 00

  So I've never cried. Obviously, I have cried, but I cry for about like 2.3 seconds.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  And then it goes?

• 54:19Speaker 00

  And then my brain goes, okay, stop doing that.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Stop doing that. Is that healthy?

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Definitely not healthy. Well, actually, maybe it's fine. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I'm fine, aren't I? Like, I'm not like kind of out of control or anything.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  No, you're very in control.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  I talk a lot. And maybe that's my crying.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, maybe it's mine. What's something you can't let go of?

• 54:35Speaker 00

  Eventually, I guess, youth and being able to do sports.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? I think like, that'll be the hardest thing. Eventually, I won't be able to let go of. Like, recently, I stopped playing football for a bit. Because I got like kind of sore knees and toes and all that. And then I realized like, no, I can't be that guy. You know what I mean? Like, you can't be like, oh, no, I'm not too old. I'm only 35. So I don't want to ever get to the point where I'm like, I'm now too old to do.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  No, you've got to keep moving. You've got to keep moving. Keep doing it.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  And I want to do team sports. So yeah, that's something I need to make sure I don't let go of.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  But it's really interesting speaking to you because we're similar ages. And everything that you're.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  How old are you?

• 55:11Speaker 01

  I'm 37.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  And everything you're sort of experiencing going through, I'm sort of investing the sports, like youth. I think, is midlife crisis? Is that what it's called?

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Well, I think, I mean, one thing I actually have found from documentaries is like, I genuinely think there's like, there's like a preset of human beings, if you know what I mean? There's like kind of, there's a finite amount of experiences we can have. So like, people genuinely do really go through. I guess we're probably in reasonably similar environments. I guess both in the world, you've got a new kid and all that. So yeah, I think, I think, and that's why, that actually gives me mega reassurance often. Because I'm like, I guess this is just how life goes.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  This is just how it is?

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  What's your guilty pleasure?

• 55:49Speaker 00

  Nuts. I'm obsessed with nuts.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Give me what kind of nuts?

• 55:53Speaker 00

  There's a shop in New York called, it's not called These Nuts, that'd be inappropriate. It's called like kind of Nuts something. I bet, I just like, everyone who knows me knows I love nuts. But this specific shop, you can go in and get free samples. And my God.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Doesn't feel like a good business.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  I literally might have used about $4,000 of nuts. But like, I felt so sick. So like, if I eat nuts, I used to be quite a little a chunky monkey as kind of growing up. So now I eat really healthily, but I, I just binge on food. But I have to make sure it's healthy food. But nuts is the thing that I eat a lot of.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. What's your biggest turn off?

• 56:32Speaker 00

  Bad breath.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  What's your biggest turn on?

• 56:35Speaker 00

  I'm actually like a proper cuddly dude. So like, I like, like being proper close. You know what I mean? Like, just like, my favorite parts, like me and my wife have spent like, like the day together. And we like, haven't looked at our phone all day. We've like, put our son to bed and we're being proper sweet and cuddly with each other, watching a film. And I feel like, you know, you just feel like an absolute abundance of love. That's the greatest thing in the world. But life is so busy, that's hard to get that all the time. It's like when you get those, like on Saturday, I went to the beach in Liverpool. I went to Formby Beach. We had like such a nice day. I didn't use my phone. And then like my wife, we're sitting there, I saw my family, and it was just like, that is so nice.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Those moments in your mind where you go, I just need to capture this.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Maybe that's being a dad, though. You know, like, maybe you change, you know what I mean, being a dad.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  I think you're right. What do you like most about yourself?

• 57:29Speaker 00

  I like that I've got to a point where I can learn from things and take constructive feedback. So like, you know, with my company, like I, I try and say to people, be genuinely honest with me if I am just incorrect or a bit of a dick or whatever. And I, and I kind of don't really believe in like hierarchies. In that sense, obviously, everything has a hierarchy. But like, I guess I don't, I really, really try not to look down on people at all. And I really try and learn from things. So I think like, and I'm kind of, I'm grateful that my brain is all right. Like, I don't suffer from kind of serious struggles or kind of mental illness. And a lot of that just feels like a lottery. So it's like, I'm kind of lucky for that. So like, I am, so yeah, I'm kind of, I'm grateful for that.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Ben Bonus, would you rather do a documentary with Louis Theroux or Michael Moore?

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a good question. That is a good question. Hmm, that's a very good question. I mean, Michael Moore is like the kind of OG of that kind of sense of like authored documentary. And you kind of like, I mean, it's fascinating because the heights Michael Moore hit, like with like kind of Fahrenheit 911, he has like the basically the highest grossing documentary of all time in cinemas.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  What did it make?

• 58:40Speaker 00

  I think it was like $300 to $400 million or something. Fact check that, but I think that's actually correct. And, but then Louis, like, I think his sustained growth.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  It's amazing how he stayed relevant.

• 58:52Speaker 00

  And like, yeah, and he is kind of like, so, so, oh, it's a good question. I mean, also, they both worked together at one point on TV Nation, like a kind of US show. So maybe, maybe through Louis, you get some of Michael Moore's.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Switzerland.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  Well, Switzerland. Yeah, exactly.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  So maybe I'll just like get a little.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  How do you make a decision in life, that's the. I'd say, I'd actually say Michael Moore. I mean, because Michael Moore, like, I, I think he, he is more of an OG in that sense of that he kind of constructed this style of doc that Louis himself learned from, you know, so I think there is a kind of beauty in that.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Ben, thank you so much. Thank you for everything you're doing. We're going to leave all the links to your shows where you can see your stuff, everything in the show description. You are fantastic company. Thank you for coming.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Appreciate it, man. That was fantastic. Come on, baby. Man, your life is insane.

• 59:52Speaker 06

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

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