Last Interview on the Left: Midnight Radio w/ Ethan Hawke & C. Robert Cargill

This week on Last Interview on the Left - Eddie sits down with Ethan Hawke & collaborator C. Robert Cargill to discuss their brand new serialized, supernatural horror fiction podcast: Midnight Radio. Ethan breaks down the genius of Art Bell, recreating the vibe of classic AM radio on Midnight Radio, shifting gears from John Brown to Horror icon, a possible glimpse into the future of The Grabber, and much, much, MORE...

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  Hello, everybody. How you doing? Thank you for joining us here on Last Interview on the Left. We have a very special one. We got to talk to a very, two smart, wonderful human beings, very accomplished guys, people I admire very much. That's why I love my job, is I just get to meet the coolest people all around. I'm joined today by Ethan Hawke and C. Robert Cargill, better known as Cargill. They previously worked together on Sinister and the Black Phone series with Scott Derrickson. Both a blast. We are big fans of the Black Phone series. Last Podcast on the Left, we did a special interview with Scott when Black Phone 2 came out.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  So much fun. We got a new horror icon and I'm all about it. Now, did you all meet on Sinister or you've been working in horror forever here?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  That's where we met, right, Cargill?

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. We, Sinister was my first film and Ethan was our first choice when we had the script. And he jumped on board and we worked on it and we just had such a great time that we stayed in touch and worked together multiple times now.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  So between this and Midnight Radio, you just assume Ethan's like the most inquisitive man in the world.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  I mean, he's also the most well-read man I've ever met in my life. You know, I travel in literary circles and nobody is as well-read as Ethan.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah? What you reading these days, buddy?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  What am I reading these days? You wouldn't believe it. At the exact moment, I'm reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Nice. You're a little too old. You missed it.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  No, it was just interesting. It's interesting. There's been so much talk about that book. It's been canceled by the right. It's been canceled by the left. Everybody hates this book and I stumbled on an interview of Cornel West talking about it. It made me think, you know what? I don't think I've read this book since I was 12 years old. I don't really know what I think. So I decided to read it. But I will say, talking about Sinister, where Cargill and I became friends. It was one of the, I hesitate to say the word easy, because that implies like it's not hard work. We all worked really hard, but it was so simple and fun. And I think when, when good work is happening, it actually often is that way.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Nobody made a problem where there wasn't a problem. The script was dynamite. Cargill and Scott were so exciting to talk to about the horror genre. That was Cargill's first film, but it was my first horror film. And so they were teaching me a lot about the geometry of that genre and about my, it was one of my favorite characters that I've gotten to play. And when I was a kid, and that's what I told them all about, my first director was Joe Dante, who loved horror and had a passion for it. He made Piranha and The Howling. Obviously, he made Gremlins.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  But so that it was my.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Explorers, right?

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, but my entry point about the language of cinema was from a genre film director who happened to be brilliant and is brilliant, Joe Dante. And that's where our friendship started. And then when they sent me the Black Phone script, it was one of the hottest scripts I've ever read. I mean, it was just, you could not put it down. And that was another time period where just making a movie was a lot of fun. Scott, Cargill and I both feel this way. He's a great combination of just really a profound guy, very approachable to talk to, really collaborative and has a real vision. And you just need that. You need somebody to captain a ship. And he's a really, really good captain.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  And that allows Cargill and I to do our jobs as first mates of a sort.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  That's a good way to put it.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  So The Grabber, love The Grabber. Great, I mean, well, you know, hard to say that.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  You don't love him, I hope.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not inspired by The Grabber, but you know, I also, I love my horror icons. I love, any chance of a Black Phone 3 happening? I feel like you could do 12 of these things if you wanted to, or you could just end it right now. It's, I feel like it's one of those.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  There's definitely interest in a third one and we're interested in making one. As I've said publicly numerous times, I'm not, I'm not going to move forward with another sequel unless we have a great idea up front.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  And we recently got that great idea, so we'll see what happens. There's a very good chance The Grabber may come back sometime in the future. We're, no guarantees yet, but there's a chance.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah, dude. I want more Grabber.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  One of the things that was obvious about the second film is, is that

• 5:56Speaker 02

  part of what I love about Black Phone 1 and Sinister is the film, yes, it's a really scary movie, but you can tell the filmmakers have something to say with the movie. There's a subconscious to the movie. And if that subconscious isn't there, then a sequel just becomes a money grab. And it's not fun to watch and it's not fun to make.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  And so you have to have a central idea and a theme that this character could be used for. Right? Wouldn't you say, Cargill?

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. No, it really is, you know, I've done the painful sequel game. I've done the development on sequels that didn't happen. It just, it's not fun if the core isn't there.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  So, but the neat thing is, is that we've got such a great team. And what we're playing around with allows us to go in multiple different directions. And, and it can be really exciting as, as it moves forward, if you get it right. But yeah, it's, it's a slog otherwise.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And writing horror is hard. It is very difficult, you know, because some things may seem scary on the page, but then like, once you start like really talking it out, it's like, ah, is that really?

• 7:07Speaker 03

  It's actually the other way around. Honestly, my, my experience has been it's just the, it's the opposite. You're always like, this isn't scary. This isn't scary. And then it turns out much scarier than you thought. After we turned in the, our first draft of Sinister, we were convinced it wasn't a very scary movie. You know, we're like, it's not gonna be that scary, you know? We, can we punch this up some more? With Black Phone, before Black Phone came out, there was a whole big discussion as to whether we should sell it as a paranormal thriller, because it's not, people were like, it's not really like horror scary. And then we released the movie and, you know, we scared the bejesus out of folks.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  And, and, and, and it's like, wait, we, it turned out scarier than we thought. It really is. No, because it's, it's, it's not, if you put something on the page that isn't that scary, you can always punch it up with sound design and cinematography and mood and performance. But it's very hard to do the other way around. You can't, you know, just because something's written scary on the page, if you don't have all those elements, it's not gonna work. But for some reason, it does punch up from the page.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  It was, it was a lot of fun. And I gotta ask Ethan, as an actor, you've played so many great characters. You've played so many wonderful, like, human beings, I think. You've played like great, great people. You've played like John Brown and whatnot. Now, you're playing The Grabber. Does that mess with you? Like, you gotta like, you know, you have to kill children. So like, what, like, how do you prepare for that? Does it like go home with you or are you just like, I'm an actor who gives a shit?

• 8:51Speaker 02

  I've never said the sentence, I'm an actor who gives a shit. That I've never said, probably to a fault. That's just not my demeanor. I do, I learned, strangely, I learned this lesson on, it might sound pretentious or something, but I really learned it playing Macbeth, which I think is the original horror film. It's, you know, whenever theater companies are in trouble, they always want to do Macbeth because audiences love it, because it really, it's, it's, if done right, it's really terrifying. But if you're playing that character eight performances a week for months,

• 9:30Speaker 02

  it's like a guided meditation on greed, evil, the corruptive nature of power. And you're, it can bring you to a really dark place that can leave you not fun to be near and not fun to wake up with in the morning for yourself. And I started learning how to use your imagination and let things pass through you. Like kids, on Sinister, for example, I was, it was so, we had a lot of children in that movie. And kids love to play. And let's play like this is, nothing is more fun for kids than making a haunted house.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  And one of the things that Scott did really well is, we were just having a good time imagining, you know, okay, it's 10 o'clock. You have all your best friends over. Everybody's got popcorn. We're gonna tell you a scary story. Light the campfire. Here we go. Everybody, we were gonna give you the chills and kids get into it. Oh, I've got. And there's a sense of playfulness where it's not that you're not really imagining it. You are really imagining it. You're imagining it absolutely completely, but you're not identifying with it, I guess. So for The Black Phone, that is not a character you want to bring home with you. I, I felt keenly aware that the quality of the writing was such

• 10:55Speaker 02

  and the mystery and the power of it was such. The use of the mask was kind of profound in its own strange way. That I tried to be like a little kid and imagine that I was the type of person that enjoyed torturing children. And, and then I tried to let it pass through me. And not, and then I would go home to my own children and take them out for ice cream.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  To Ethan's point, when we made Sinister, we used every part of the house. So the, there was this huge basement as big as the house downstairs and that became our production offices. And so where we had our green room where we sequestered the kids was right over next to my desk where I was working. And there was one afternoon where all the kids are sequestered downstairs, sitting on the couches, talking, and they get to talking about how their characters killed their parents. And one, and one kid goes, how do you kill your parents? And he's like, oh, I, I kill her with a, I kill them with a lawnmower. And one of the other kids goes, aww, I just drowned mine.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were right.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Into it.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  I would get bummed out. So we're, so we're watching, I'm listening to Midnight Radio, the new podcast. It's available everywhere. The first couple of episodes are out now. Please go check it out. I've listened to the first two. It's a blast. I've definitely got some Art Bell coast to coast vibes going on here. I feel like you guys are obviously inspired, having a good time. But I, I will say, Ethan, it's not your first time playing a radio DJ. I, I'm a, I'm a big fan of Blaze. I gotta say.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Phenomenal movie. It was, it was a lot, it was a lot of fun. How is, how is Ben Dickey these days? I, where's the next album? Do you have you heard from him? What's going on?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's doing, he's doing great. I mean, look, you guys, let's face it, the music industry is tough out there.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  It's a nightmare.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, for my friends that are musicians, you know, the film business is following it a little bit as we watch what happens for streaming. But, you know, a lot of our musician friends are struggling to get paid to make music. Everybody wants everything for free. And it's very, very challenging environment. And it was really hard. Blaze came out right before the pandemic and Ben had all these tours set up and an album coming out. And they all got kind of crushed, right?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  That Glimmer in the Darkness album's awesome, by the way.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that record. And, and he's a beautiful man and a great artist. And he was essentially the reason I made Blaze. Cause of, just, I wanted to put his lightning in a bottle. And it's just so hard. I have so many friends, you know, Cargo lives in Austin, you know, it's, it's really changed in the course of our lifetime, how difficult, you know, the, the big trees in the forest are alive. But all that beautiful underbrush of smaller bands and independent labels and all these people where you could make a decent middle class living as a working musician, if you were really, to work really hard and you were creative. And there's just no money there for people.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  It's a damn shame. I know, I've met a lot of musicians being in the industry as well. And learned how many people that I look up to and think they're amazing, have second jobs. And it's, it's, it's, it's mind blowing to me. I feel so bad for the, no one's buying records anymore.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Everywhere. It's almost, if you are not a New York Times bestselling novelist, you have a second job, even, even if you're putting out two, three novels a year.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  You're teaching.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  It's screenwriting, it's happening. The arts have just been gutted across the board. I will, quick, quick, positive aside, though, did you catch Ben Dickey in the episode of Midnight Radio?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's right there.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Really? Which one? The first one?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, the episode one, he's the guy who has the Clydelang tape. The, he is the one, he is the, the fake one, the government made, setting it up.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  He's brilliant.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  That's hilarious. Thank you for bringing him back. I love my man.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  He's, he's fantastic. But that's part of the, the joy of, for Cargo, Scott and I, we've had these film experiences that we loved. And this is, I love the adventure of doing something new. You know, I've made a documentary here and then I wrote a graphic novel. It puts you in that kind of beginner's mind. And we're all storytellers. That's what we do for a living. We tell stories. And so it's, it's the same job, really. But now we're just using writing and voice. And it's so powerful. We're falling in love with this form. We've had such a good time. It allows for such creative freedom. I love

• 15:48Speaker 02

  the intimacy of the experience when you're listening to a good podcast. And I love the way your own imagination can send the thing off. You know, it can launch your brain, a good, I, I think Midnight Radio is doing it. I feel really proud of what we're doing. But we've had such, it's been our own adventure. You know, we started this thing without, just us, just us. We just started recording it because Cargo had such a great hit as a writer. Scott had such a great vision for what it was. And yes, I love Art Bell. I love the whole dream of it, the whole Twilight Zone aspect of it all. It turned us all on. And it's been one of the most rewarding, simple projects in my life in the last couple of years. Wouldn't you say Cargo?

• 16:33Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. It's so much fun to, when we all get in that booth together, and we're all just, you know, there's, you know, 10 of us all like clustered around and we're working out the scene. And we get people in the booth and, and recording, and it's just a lot of fun. And the vibes are great. And it never feels like work. And, you know, we'll be there six, eight, 10 hours recording, but we'll just have had a blast. And, and it's really, it's really its own beast in, in the best way.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Now, I was kind of moved, sorry, I'll shut up in a second. But the first episode, we have Austin Pendleton playing this great part. And he was kind of my first and only acting teacher. And so to get to be in there, you know, we're both much older now and get to be like in a little studio, just acting with my old professor. It's so thrilling for me.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  That's amazing. You get to do stuff like that. And with Art Bell, I, he's a, you know, he's a big part of what we do over here as well. We, we're all huge fans of him. He understood something about storytelling, that how do you make a, a completely unbelievable story seem convincing? How were you able to draw from that and like create this? Cause I, you guys, you did such a great job of like being Art Bell without being Art Bell. You're still, you're still definitely your own character. But you're, you're able to like, you, you kind of pull and you, you get the, you get the stories out of people just like that. What, what do you think he understood about storytelling and you guys are putting in here?

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Well, I'll go first, Cargo. He was always arrestingly intelligent. And because of the breadth of his knowledge, and he asks smart questions, and he gains your trust. That's what art, and I feel like Cargo in your writing, you've, you've harnessed that part of his personality. Do you, do you think?

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Scott and I really kind of dug deep into who he was and had, had a really great late night talk about it, where we really kind of said, well, who was Art Bell, you know, beyond what we know. And what we kind of came to was that Art Bell's superpower was he could tell the difference between the true believers and the bullshitters. And the people who are calling just to get on the radio and, and tell a fun story and try to get one over on people. And the people who really did believe what they were talking about, they really did have these experiences or believe they have these experiences. And he knew how to ask the right questions to allow someone to unravel themselves, rather

• 19:06Speaker 03

  than always directly confronting them, while meanwhile, making sure it made for great radio. Like he just had a sense of, this is what people want to listen to. This is what people want to hear. You know, they've been digitizing the old episodes and putting them up on YouTube for the last couple of years. And it really is one of those things that you can still sit down and listen to these things and they are still creepy. They are still good. You could just hear when he's asking those questions and you can tell the lilt in his voice when he catches someone in, in a lie. And, you know, he's always kind of, he was always paying attention to it. And that intelligence and, and that ability

• 19:44Speaker 03

  to, to get the, the truth of what someone's saying out of them, it was his most defining trait that allowed him to make really great radio.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Now, it's clearly thought through. It's clearly, you know, well put together and written. But did you guys, you riff a little bit at all? Or was it just, is it straight from the script the whole time?

• 20:06Speaker 02

  We try, we try to riff. I mean, one of the things that, how I feel about riffing is, you want to, you don't want to have to fix anything. You know, this happens on, not just on a radio program like Midnight Radio, this happens in film work. I love it when I come up with an improvisation on set and the director and the writer are like, yes, you've harnessed the idea. And it's like you're putting icing on a cake. If you're coming into a creative space and having to cook the cake, that's a mistake. Then what, what happens with Scott and Cargo is, this thing is beautifully made. It's built, the

• 20:47Speaker 02

  architecture works. Now, the actor can come in and obscure it, throw a joke in, cut that line and weave this other funny thing that their grandfather said and put it on top of it. And Scott and Cargo are really supportive of that. And sometimes you hit pay dirt where somebody does a riff and it's just brilliant. And sometimes people do riffs and they're terrible, but you can cut them out. It's okay.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. We, essentially because of the structure of the show, we stick with the script. But yeah, like, like Ethan says, there's a lot of great lines that, that came out of the actor in the moment. There's a lot of, there's the occasional back and forth that we're like, oh, we're doing that now. That is what we're doing. And, and then, and you find the magic. But yeah, this is the type of show that the structure is so important that you can't, it's not, because we, we actually, we talked about that early on. That was me and Ethan, we're like, well, what if we have two different ways we do this? We have episodes where there are actors who need to, who need the page. They need to read off the page. They need to, they need a script in order to, to find their character.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  But then there's people who are really great at acting exercises. And we tried that once. And instantly it was like, no, no, no, we need a script for this. This has to be a scripted show.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  The audience's time is too valuable. One of the things that I learned on the Before trilogy with Richard Linkletter is like, improvisation like that is for the rehearsal room. It's, it's a great way for actors to find their voice, find the character, maybe come up with one or two gems. But the audience's time is precious. And if you're wasting it. They lose faith in you and you have to make everything feel like an improvisation. Everything has to seem spontaneous. Everything has to feel like real life to hypnotize the audience, you know? But if you're up there just saying, aren't I so funny? Isn't everything that I think of so interesting? Uh, I think most of us as audience members kind of roll our eyes.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a lot like stand up as well. The, um, now I listened to the first two episodes. How many episodes is this gonna be?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Nine.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Nine.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Nine for the first season.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Nine for the first season. And I gotta say, I'm too in. So I, you know, no spoilers, of course, but is this all connected? Are we telling one full story here?

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Yes, 100%. The, the whole idea is that each episode feels anthological and then starts building on previous episodes. And then by the, by the time, by the time you get to episode, the end of episode eight, there's something that happens that instantly, if you've been listening, you are gonna be like, oh, my God, I know what's gotta happen in episode nine. Like if they don't do this, I'm gonna be upset. Like it's, we're, we're building to that kind of excitement and momentum.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  It functions for me. I think it's like a great idea. It feels like a spider web. Like episode one just feels like one line across. It's got a perfect story to him. And then the second story kind of intersects in one place. And then the third one in three, four, five, six, you know, until by the, it's starting to be this beautiful web where you see the connections that are forcing a story.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  And I gotta say, it seems like we're gonna be diving into a parallel universes a little bit here and.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Stay with us, buddy. Stay with, stay with us.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  We dive into, truth be told, we dive into a little bit of everything. The, the real, the real fun of this show is that we're digging up a lot of the favorite old school, um, uh, storylines that you know, from not just Art Bell, but all of that AM radio sphere and the, you know, um, I was, I was one of those weird kids who in high school I was going to head shops, but not to buy, you know, uh, tobacco, water, water pipes for tobacco use only. I was going for their esoteric book sections. And so I was getting.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  I was.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I read Playboy for the articles. Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was, no, no, I was grabbing stuff like High Weirdness by Mail and the Anarchist Cookbook and just all the great conspiracy edgelord stuff of that time.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  I don't think you're supposed to tell people you have the Anarchist Cookbook, but.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's okay.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  So I like marinated in that. So this is, this is my chance for me and Scott to like, pull out our favorite conspiracy theories and drop little bits and pieces there and little bits of esoteric here and there. One of the fun things about it is half the stuff we talk about in the show are very real, uh, conspiracy theories in the world, things that either.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  More than half, Cargill, more than half. Most of everything you're working with has a seed somewhere in reality, you know? Don't you, don't you feel?

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah. But, but we touch on so many of the things. So if you have your favorite thing from a, you know, do you like some Area 51? Do you like some shadow people? Do you like time travel? We've got a little bit of everything sprinkled in, uh, into the, the, the first nine episodes for you.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Nice. That, that Area 51 call that went off the, off the era for Art Bell is legendary. It's so much fun. The, um, so I, I guess, so parallel universes, I want to go back because you also wrote, um, or part, one of the writers of the first Doctor Strange film. So there's definitely something parallel interest, parallel universes is something you're very interested in. You have to be. Uh, do you believe in it at all in reality?

• 26:15Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, I don't, I don't know. Um, you know, I, I believe parallel universes are a lot like, uh, God, uh, in that, you know, you can be a true believer, but we have absolutely zero evidence, you know, there, there's, you can work it out on paper and go, well, the math says this could be right. And it's like, yes, but does, does it really exist? I don't know. Um, but I do, you know, the, the, the, the quantum physics of it all is interesting, but what I do love about it is it makes for great storytelling. Um, you know, there, it offers, it, it offers the ultimate thing that you talk about in storytelling, which is possibilities. Uh, and what are those possibilities?

• 26:57Speaker 03

  And, um, what we're, what we're hoping to do with this is do something just a little different because we have done a lot of parallel universe stuff in the, you know, over the last decade. Um, it's become much more mainstream and easy to talk about, which is great. It's kind of like a time loop movie, you know, up until Groundhog Day, nobody really understood the mechanics of a time loop. And now it's a whole subgenre of film. Well, parallel universes have kind of gone off and but become its own, uh, side part of science fiction and fantasy and, uh, um, and playing with that is, is an awful lot of fun.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  I really loved what the movie Midnight Special was able to do with it. It was a blast. Now, if the, um, so what conspiracies do you guys feel hold water? What kind of, uh, spooky, uh, things that maybe a subject you're covering in, uh, midnight radio where you're like, actually, I kind of believe that. Like what, what's something you guys that kind of gets you guys?

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Well, there's some things we'll end up talking about that, that really did happen, um, that, that were conspiracy theories for a while and then came out and proven things like, uh, MKUltra and, uh, Operation Wandering Soul. Um, you know, things like that. Uh, we get into a lot of the more supernatural conspiracy theories in the show. Uh, so whether we believe those or not is, you know, what are the shadow people? You know, who knows? Um, but, uh, uh, let's, I'm trying to think if there's one we have in the show that I'm like, oh yeah, no, that's, that's legit real. Um.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Do you have any personal experiences? Maybe you'd like to, like to share something spooky? Maybe you've seen a ghost? I mean, I've seen some shit, you know, like, uh, like, you know, there's gotta be things you don't understand. I mean, you're both world travelers. You, you've talked to every, being in the entertainment industry, I always say is like having a backstage pass to the world. I'm sure like you guys meet some guy who works at NASA. He's like, I gotta show you some shit, you know? So, uh, we, we, you know, off the, you know, not off the record completely. Obviously I'm, I'm staring at you, but, uh, the, uh.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Just between us and the millions of people who know.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  I, well, you know, it's probably 20,000. But the, uh, what do you guys think?

• 29:05Speaker 02

  It's funny. My, my take on all this is that we have a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of reality. And, and that's a base. None of us know why we were born, why we have to die, why we're on a star hurtling through space. There's all these questions, monumental questions that we kind of have to turn a blind eye towards to go shopping and pick our kids up from school and go to game. If you think about it all the time, why is everybody we know gonna die? Why, why does that have to be? And, um, and when you start meditating on that, you start realizing that you really don't know very much at all. And so ideas like other realities and ghosts, nobody does know what happens when you die. Um, there's been, you know,

• 29:52Speaker 02

  tons of confirmed accounts of nuns levitating and all kinds of wild things that we have no logical answer for. Um, and my brain loves that because I think it helps change the way that you look at your life and helps you be in the present moment and understand.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  We don't even understand time, you know, and, and how it works. And we're obsessed with it. We measure everything by this thing that we don't understand. And so one of the things I've always loved about science fiction is helping me see how little reality I actually do understand. Um, and, you know, I've had my share of spooky experiences in my life, some of which are, but they're, they're better, they're not well told on when, in not dialogue with direct human beings, you know, because they, it, it, it wants a conversation. Uh, but I've, I've definitely had my share of things that make me feel like I'm not sure I understand the planet I'm on.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yes, I've, I've heard some interviews with you. You're a very interesting man, Ethan. I, uh, I personally, I'm a professional skeptic. I don't really believe in much, but I love a good story. You know, it doesn't mean, you know, just because I think it's fooey doesn't mean I don't love hearing about it. Um, now, that being said, staunch atheist, but I've heard you talk very intelligently about your faith, Ethan. And so I, I'd love to hear, what, what is something that keeps you going? What makes you keep like staying, uh, religious?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Um, mystery. Um, you know, faith is, uh, it's such an interesting word because you know, it has doubt in it. It's kind of the opposite of certainty. And, you know, I think sometimes the word atheist has this, um, idea of certainty to it.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Um, and it's a beautiful thing, you know, when your kid is born, you know that you didn't do that. Like, you know, yeah, I has, I had some agency involved in the actual messy human work of it, but giving breath of life to a human being and watching something that's created from, from the magic of people falling in love, uh, is very, very powerful. And, you know, I had it as a kid even, just an absolute, um, joy of the gift of life that I, I know I, I'm not responsible for. And it, the, the next question becomes who is responsible?

• 32:35Speaker 02

  What is responsible? What is the source of light? What is the source of energy? What is the source of love? Why is there evil? Why is there darkness? What, you know, are they two, are life and death, two sides of one coin? It's, it's kind of easy to say, I don't believe. It's very difficult, um, to say, I believe, I, I like kind of saying, I have no beliefs.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  I have faith, you know? Um, and I'm, I'm putting myself forward in the world in an attitude of faith. Um, does that make sense to you?

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think I'm down with religion. I'm just not, I'm not, it's not a faithful person myself. I grew up in Catholic school. I kind of live on the theory of whatever makes you not be a monster, please believe in that and please, you know, make that, make that, make that what you do. Um, now, but, um, it's very interesting because he's covered so many dark subjects and I imagine it's gotta, it's gotta be difficult for you, like doing a movie like Sinister and then going to church on Sunday, you know?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  No, it's not, it's not difficult at all. I mean, you know, there, there is an unbelievable mysterious force for good in the universe. You wake up in the morning, you see the sunrise, you watch the leaves turn and the wind blows and the leaves are blowing and your kids walk into school and their hair is tussling and they're giggling and you feel this unbelievable, uh, joy that exists in the universe. And to turn a blind eye to the kids being bombed and the injustice in the world and terrible things that happen to good people and, uh, the unbelievable wealth beside, that gets attributed to some terrible people, you can't believe it.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  The world is not just, there's these powerful mysterious forces at play in our daily life. And we have to decide what, how we're going to participate.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  And, and, and that participation requires an attitude of some kind. And it, you know, of what, what wolf are you going to feed? You know, the wolf of greed and injustice and vanity and ego, the benevolent, um, caring, compassionate, um, truthful dignity, you know, those kinds of words. Um, and, and so, so that's where the religion comes into play. And I have met some extremely religious people in my life that are extremely inspirational. The discipline, the care for others, uh, and I believe in the power of storytelling, right? I mean, Cargill and I have dedicated our life to it.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  And I think giving people an imagination gives them strength that we can imagine a better world, we can imagine things, we, we, we have immense power, creative power inside of us that is, I think, why we're here, to share with each other. And, and so I've dedicated my life to it.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  And to your, to your initial core question, Eddie, um, you know, that, uh, as my good friend Joe Hill says, the, the guy who wrote the short story Black Phone, um,

• 35:48Speaker 01

  We've interviewed him a couple of times. He loves you guys.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Uh, horror is not about extreme sadism, it's about extreme empathy. So when you're making horror, you're, you're always empathizing and empathy is the core of any great religion. Uh, and so they, they do go hand in hand. I mean, hell, I, I was raised Catholic as well. Um, and you know, the horror stories that were told every week, I mean, we go into church and we hear about a guy getting nailed to a cross.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Like, you know, there's a reason why Catholic horror is its own subsection of horror because they just gave us a whole, a whole book full of crazy stuff to, to, to mine from. So it really isn't hard to go from, you know, being someone working on this dark material to, to being that person of faith.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Pretty ironic way for a carpenter to go, I'll say that. Um, the, uh, guys, this has been a blast, but I just want to ask.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  I'm a fan.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Oh man, I'm a fan. This is great. You guys are wonderful. I really appreciate you, but I, I gotta ask a couple of questions, Ethan, just because I got you here and I'm never going to talk to you again. Um, what, as a comedian, uh, what, what did you learn from Robin Williams? What is something you learned from him?

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Spontaneity.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  The present moment. He was a, um, overused word is the word genius, but he was a comic genius. Um, his ability to, uh, prepare and then exist and be creative. When you were with Robin, you weren't getting a reheated performance. He was alive in the present moment. And once you kind of feel that vibration, he wasn't practicing his lines in front of the mirror. He was responding to the given circumstances that were in, in a given scene, almost like, you know, the way these dogs would, like a living human that, it was very, very powerful thing to witness as a young person, that level of spontaneity.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, so who improv more, him or White Fang? The, uh, I'm sorry. The, uh, I watched White Fang every day as a child. Thank you very much for that, by the way.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  If I could step in for one second, we had, uh, like week, week two of Sinister, we have a scene where we have five kids standing outside. We've got fog coming in and we've got a dog and Scott yells action and the dog is supposed to growl at Ethan and instead licks its chops and sits down and me and, and, uh, uh, me and Scott just burst into laughter and we're laughing and Ethan just walks up and he goes, enjoy the laughing on this take. I've done this before. Wait till take three. And then the White Fang stories came out.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I imagine that was so much hell. The, uh, now John Brown, phenomenal. I thank you for playing Good Lord Bird. That was one of my favorite series I've ever seen. Uh, I had such a good time. You, you were like at 13, you know, you were way past 10 and somehow it was still believable. Uh, playing someone like John Brown in a time like this, there's so much responsibility to that. Were you nervous or were you excited? Like, how did it feel?

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Uh, all of the above. I understood what was at stake. Uh, those, when you're talking about this nation's history, um, it brings up a lot of feelings for a lot of people, a lot of contrary feelings, a lot of difficult, our nation's history is extremely difficult to talk about. Um, I was really lucky. For those people that don't know, James McBride is an award-winning novelist. He wrote the novel, The Good Lord Bird, and he is one of the funniest, most passionate, loving, you know, you hear these stories about, oh, I don't know, meeting Tolstoy or something, you know, about, you have this idea in your head, what a great novelist would be like.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  And his powers of empathy, his education and his, the depth of his character, he just gave me so much confidence. Um, he believed in me a hundred percent and he backed me a hundred percent. And, uh, there were a lot of dangerous scenes in that show. Um, and he really kind of believed that no good comes from not talking about these things. And it, and also, you know, he was telling the story of John Brown as it would be told by Red Fox or Richard Pryor or something.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  So it's not, nobody, he knows how to, um, put more than a spoonful of sugar in the medicine, you know? He, he, he knows how to deliver a story and make you see it new so that you're not being preached at, you're not being talked down to, you're not being told you're a bad person, you're going to absorb this story. And John Brown is a, you know, a really pivotal figure in American history and it's shocking to me how many people don't know who he is.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  I know. That's why I was so happy to see the series and thank you for being a big part of it and giving that much to the character. That was fucking awesome. Uh, before we go, I just want to make a statement that horror is in a renaissance. Horror is on top. You guys are helping lead the way and I thank you very much for keeping, in my opinion, the most important and prolific genre at the forefront of everyone's mind. Uh, this show, um, that, that is available now, Midnight Radio is a blast. I can't wait to finish it. I'm gonna, I, I never listen to narrative podcasts. It's such a rare thing for me, but this is on the money. It's legit. It feels good. I really want everyone to go and listen to this, you know, Art Bell ain't around no more.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  This is it, this is it. We're having some fun here. Good in there, but before we go, I have another podcast that I do called Movie Stories and we're covering David Cronenberg right now. And you guys are inspirations to all of us. I would love to hear, uh, your favorite, uh, David Cronenberg moment or movie and, uh, something to kind of, you know, what, what, what gets you going about the, the Chrome.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Well, my, my favorite, I'll jump in, Cargill, is that, um, I was a young aspiring actor. I was first falling in love with, um, acting when Dead Ringers came out, you know? And Jeremy Irons was so, do you remember that movie, Cargill?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Oh, of course.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, what a great performance. And, and, and it started opening my eyes to about, um, how genre films could have unbelievable acting in them, you know? Uh, and, and.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  And I remember when Scott and I were first having our meeting about Sinister. It's kind of what Karga was saying about empathy, about horror and empathy is so interesting because Scott was telling me actors love to play vulnerable, actors love to play sexy, actors love to play tough, confident. Nobody wants to be scared. It's not a sexy position to take as a performer. And he was showing me, he was talking about the Here's Johnny scene in The Shining. And he was imagining that scene if Shelley Duvall didn't play

• 43:14Speaker 02

  fear. It's her, it's her performance that makes Jack Nicholson great in that film. It's her response to Here's Johnny that makes Here's Johnny so powerful, right? And talking about the value of having empathy for those of us who experience fear. And most of us go through our life experiencing a tremendous amount of fear. And if we don't have empathy for it, we don't have empathy for ourselves in a very profound way. And I don't know, I don't know how that directly relates to Cronenberg, but it makes me think about the power of those stories.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  I'm excited for Dead Ringers.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Mine is, it happened recently. I watched Videodrome for the first time.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  For the first time?

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Well, here's, I mean, that's part of the story is that I had it transposed in my head with another movie that I grew up with. And so I was always convinced that I had seen Videodrome. And I was convincing it with the movie Looker, if you remember that.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  I've never seen it.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  1981 Michael Crichton movie, really crazy Bananas movie, but deals with a lot of the same themes as Videodrome. And so in my head, I'd seen Videodrome. And then I saw a scene from it in a YouTube video. And I was like, wait, I've never seen this movie. I've got to watch it. And I sat down to watch it and was so taken by how prescient a film it was, where he was talking about the dangers of us like sinking into television and media. But what he really did is he laid out about the brain rot that was going to happen in the future with the internet. And if you watch it as an allegory for the internet, before the internet exists, it is such a profoundly amazing look at exactly all the

• 45:03Speaker 03

  things we're wrestling with right now, that they're talking about in the movie just openly. And it's watching a guy essentially go down a QAnon rabbit hole and come out the other side completely nuts and not understanding what the ending of his own story is. Like, is he going to die there? Or is he going to live on in Videodrome? We don't know. It's so interesting to see how Cronenberg took this philosophical idea and turned it into a perfect horror movie, that here we are 45 years later, and it is absolutely relevant to our absolute everyday life. And so.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  That's amazing. I have to see that. As you're saying that, I also just have another favorite Cronenberg moment. You guys remember when Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, he's turning into fly, and he spits up, he pukes in his hands, and he eats it. And then he goes, that's disgusting. Like, is that gross? It's such a great moment.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Well, thank you, fellas, for coming by. Midnight Radio is available wherever you listen to podcasts. Make sure you put your ears on it. Go watch Sinister if you haven't done it. Check out Sinister 2, the Black Phone series. We got the new Freddy Krueger in front of us. We're having a blast. Thank you so much, fellas, for coming by and talking to me here at the Last Interview on the Left. Good luck to you. I'm not that you need it, because this is sure to be a success. I can't wait to finish it.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Thanks. We're really proud of it. Thanks for having us on your show.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Hopefully I get to talk to you guys again sometime soon. All right. Bye.

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