Matt Johnson Meets World

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, since Writer's birthday is not that far away, and I know how much writer loves astrology.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Oh, the Secret Language of birthdays?

00:00:26
Speaker 1: Do you have this book? Writer?

00:00:28
Speaker 2: Everybody had? I don't think I have it anymore, but of course everybody and everybody's had the team.

00:00:33
Speaker 1: That's also the secret language of relationships, and you can match up the two birthdays people hit this.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: This book was like the best seller back in the day.

00:00:43
Speaker 1: It was massive and I loved it. Anytime I had a crush on a guy, the first thing I would do is like, when's your birthday? Like, read about him in this book, read about him in the relationship book.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: So I writ it's Writer on Friday.

00:00:58
Speaker 4: What do we see?

00:01:00
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to go to December eleventh here.

00:01:02
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.

00:01:06
Speaker 5: He's Oh my gosh, December eleventh, the day of intensity.

00:01:17
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, I'm already so happy. Those born on December eleventh are basically serious individuals, intense, thoughtful, and filled with purpose. They are extremely well directed toward their goals and therefore difficult to stop. Despite their deep mental orientation, which is not necessarily a verbal one, they often have a commanding physical presence as well. This combination of thought and physicality makes them powerful individuals.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: The dynamism verbal physical at all, Okay, keep going.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: The dynamism of December eleventh people usually carries them through difficulties. However, if they are neglected, fall out of favor, or lose the support of either their teacher or their followers, they can experience tremendous psychological stress, sometimes even coming close to giving up or falling apart. Fortunately, those born on this day are capable of recovering from even the most drastic setbacks and making a comeback, after which they are still more resilient.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: Agree that every sentence contradicts the one before. It's so this is science perfectly written. It's like science. It's like teachers or followers. And then the next sentence is like, it's they'll be really devastated, but they all come back really easily. So you see yourself in You're gonna see it great. Yeah, it's science.

00:02:39
Speaker 1: Not so much their faith in themselves, but the nature of their indomitable energy, which seems to take over impersonally and have a life of its own, ensures their success. As conduits of energy. Those born on this day can have an enormous influence on those around them. Not only their words and deeds, but even their thoughts themselves can affect the feelings of their families, friends, and colleagues. One look at them may reveal how they feel, for they are quite transparent. It is difficult for them to hide their emotions, which are usually written openly on their face or expressed in their body language for all to see. Paradoxically, they themselves may not be aware of what is obvious to others. In this respect, it is of great benefit for them to have an understanding mate or friend who can help them be more self aware and keep them in touch with how others see them. December eleventh. People can assume positions of great responsibility, but are not the best choice for positions requiring impartial arbitration. Their primary responsibility, well, their primary responsibility is to their work and ideas, or perhaps their moral understandings and vision of how they wish life to be. Those born on this day take matters of right and wrong very seriously, and can indeed err on the side of being condemning and judgmental.

00:03:51
Speaker 4: No Ah.

00:03:53
Speaker 1: Such judgment has a severe aspect and is usually taken to heart by others as parents. December eleventh, People must be extremely careful not to lay heavy pressures on their children. In fact, a live and let live policy toward the world in general may be better than carrying the flaming sword of an avenging angel. Furthermore, December eleventh, people must learn to relax, have fun, and enjoy themselves. Often their high seriousness gets in the way of others feeling lighthearted. If they can reserve their seriousness for their work and allow themselves to be more playful in their free time, they will greatly improve their quality of life.

00:04:26
Speaker 2: Wow, let me see, I'm embracing more playfulness in my work. This is my work right now? Yeah, this is so much. Yeah, it's very playful. Do we have to wait till August to hear mine?

00:04:37
Speaker 1: No? No woman to read? Okay, yes, yes, he's just so hungry. August eleventh. Here we go.

00:04:46
Speaker 2: Part of the eleven brother Sacred Path, Yes exactly August eleventh.

00:04:52
Speaker 1: As you know, those weren't on the eleventh, they're part of the eleventh Brothers.

00:04:55
Speaker 6: Yes, exactly.

00:04:56
Speaker 1: All right, yours is the day of validation. Those born on August eleventh have a strong desire to reveal the truth. They also have a feeling for the dark side of life and for topics that others may be uncomfortable with.

00:05:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: It is their job, they feel, to courageously bring what is hidden to light, to test, to probe, and if necessary, expose those who pretend to be what they are not.

00:05:17
Speaker 6: None of this is accurate.

00:05:18
Speaker 1: No, the next know, I think of a few text messages where you've been like I just someone needs to someone needs to reveal this about.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: Them, defining characteristic of Will. The first thing said, So you're rationalizing, trying to make it work because it's August eleventh. Why don't we Why don't we do this? You know what we do. Let's stop reading this. Let's take your birthday and we'll take I'm going to take three different ones and we'll shove from different days, include one that including your birthday, and see if you can guess which one is yours.

00:05:51
Speaker 1: Well, I have like mind memorized.

00:05:53
Speaker 6: I was going to say, Daniel is going to know exactly what hers is.

00:05:57
Speaker 2: You can be reading August twelfth right now, for all I.

00:05:59
Speaker 1: Wasn't planning on reading. I'm just going to read Wills. Yeah, No, this is not Will. It is extremely important for August eleventh people to have an audience, and I was like, oh, just to have an audience for their challenging, sometimes disturbing views and unusual behavior. This is not accurate anyway, Well, all right, I feel like Writers was pretty good. But anyway, Happy Birthday, Writer.

00:06:26
Speaker 6: A month away.

00:06:30
Speaker 2: Happy Birthday. I am the Avenging Angel.

00:06:37
Speaker 3: I feel like if somebody had given Rider a sandwich before you told him that, it would have been an entirely different conversation.

00:06:43
Speaker 1: You're exactly right. Welcome to Pon meets World. I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm Writer Strong, and I'm Will Fredell. I think we all find it cool when something from Boy Meets World finds itself mentioned in other forms of pop culture. Some favorites Sam Jackson performing beat poetry about the show on Jimmy Fallon. We've been an answer on Jeopardy many times. Multiple rappers have both mentioned the show and Topanga too many times to count, Family Guy, The Simpsons, SNL. The list goes on and on, but one reference in a little known debut movie from a director named Matt Johnson is one that is a little less conventional. The Canadian actor director made the found footage dramedy independently, eventually catching the attention of the festival circuit and Kevin Smith, who would join on as a producer after calling the film about a school shooter the most important movie you'd see all year. And in the movie, the twisted main character played by Matt himself does the feenie call nice.

00:07:53
Speaker 6: At least someone's doing it.

00:07:57
Speaker 1: Not the guy who who created it. No, not that guy, but someone is doing it, shing it, And we knew this was a big deal. It was the rule breaking, genre melding kid who had first caught attention with the web series then TV show Nirvana the Band, the Show that aired in the US on Vice, And then in twenty twenty three he'd direct the movie BlackBerry with Glenn Howarton and Jay Bearschell, a film that won a record setting fourteen Canadian Screen Awards with seventeen nominations. And now we are all lucky to get Nirvana the Band, the Show, the movie currently on tour in the US, then released nationwide in February, and he's directing the upcoming a twenty four Anthony Bourdain movie called Tony, with Dominic Cssa playing the late chef and writer. And I have never seen Writer or Jensen more excited for it is.

00:08:48
Speaker 3: They have been nerding out since they told us he was coming on. It was like two little kids at a candy store watching.

00:08:54
Speaker 1: Them just nerding out. Welcome to Pod meets World. A man who, unlike Corey, never put the cam quarter down. It's Matt Johnson.

00:09:08
Speaker 4: How are you doing?

00:09:09
Speaker 1: You have absolutely no idea A starstruck writer and my husband Jensen and nwady even will.

00:09:20
Speaker 4: I know I know about Writer because I had met him, I think for the first time this year in Austin, South Soide. I met him in person and and and I could tell that he had seen a lot of my films yah were He.

00:09:34
Speaker 1: Was probably effusive in his in his you know what, it really.

00:09:39
Speaker 4: Does go both ways because I was explained to him. I'm not sure how much of this you guys want to talk about on your show, but but your show was like the seminal piece of I even use the term literature for me as a young person to understand not only stories but archetypes of characters. My name's Afew, my brother's name is Eric, and and Mike. We had two sisters who were both obsessive. Obsessive boy meets World fans, and so we watched it all the time. I'm in Canada, so it was a different We didn't have TGAF. We had what I mean, you might even know what it was called, but they played you and the teenage Witch, okay, and I don't know what else, but we watched the show religiously and it was fundamental to my understanding of story and character. Fundamentally. There's even Boy Meets World references in my early fans.

00:10:32
Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you I wanted to get it out of the way first, that there was a feenie call in The Dirties, which was your first movie. So was there a reason that you had the psychopath character?

00:10:43
Speaker 2: Say it?

00:10:44
Speaker 4: Or look, I'm going to tell you something. No, I'll tell you something about Will's character. Okay, And this is this is deeply sincere. When I was young, I saw Eric Matthews as the kind of person I wanted to be. I saw him. I remember these episode where he walks he's defending his brother in like over something, and he walks in and music to a like a law and Order style show is playing, and then he puts his briefcase on the table and opens it up and he was playing a tape. If you look at just that, just that little tiny moment of what he thought was appropriate. And it's not like he's laughing saying I'm hilarious. He does it because he's like, oh, yeah, I'm pretending to be an adult. In that, you actually see the genesis of a lot of the characters that I wind up playing in all of my works, people who have a kind of Calvin and Hobbes style approach to reality and play where it's like to be an adult is to is to pretend to be an adult, and they don't actually make the jump, and in not making the jump to being serious about it, there's something to that that I can't even put my finger on it. But that is what I was doing in the Dirties. I don't it's funny. I mean, obviously I don't view that character as as psychopathic at you him as as having a detachment from the real rules of reality. And so he's pretending to be a school shooter because to him, it's just play in the same way that Eric Matthews would constantly play at the world of being an adult, because rightfully so, I would say the consequences didn't really concern him. He's sort of above it. He was the character that people clapped for when he appeared. He was almost like the imaginary friend, you know, and so he had that, he had that power and that that they like a or clearly a lasting impact.

00:12:38
Speaker 2: Well, I think the I think the essential quality of that too is the earnestness, right, like the commitment to it. You're never winking, you know, like none of your characters ever. I mean, you have moments, especially in the new form, where you turn to the camera and you say, like, brilliant, this copyright is going to be a you know, you have moments but but you but but the earnestness, the heart is always there. There's always so such commitment. And that is a very Eric Matthews thing because like Will never you know, he never looked at the audience and was like I know what I'm doing as stupid. He was just in it and you're just like, oh my god, this guy's going for it.

00:13:09
Speaker 4: Another thing that that this character does so brilliantly, and I mean we're talking about him, he's right here, but he is never ever cruel. Yeah right, And this is so and it's so important and again it wind up I guess so. I'm sure it's silly to even talk about this way, but it winds up forming a layer of my own sense of morality as a young person, where I'm seeing what Eric Matthews is doing. I mean, it's an extremely moral show, like the show is. I mean, it's a children's show that is kind of about teaching tiny moral stories. But the way Eric approached it was that you can bend the rules so long as your intention is actually goodness for everybody. Right. He can lie, he can he can go into, you know, like kind of moral gray zones where the adults can be like, this guy's trouble, but nobody would ever be like, don't stay away from this guy, like he's not actually morally dangerous, right, And I think that that's something that left the lasting impact on me and I in some ways. It's it's why a lot of my work is in some ways infantile would be the negative way to say it, but childlike concerned with an adolescent morality formation. Where the characters in the Van of the Band, in the Dirties in Everything in BlackBerry is another great example, like the characters form a morality around the idea that my intention is the best for you, and so you must forgive my behavior because because you have to look beyond it to see that, yeah, I'm screwing around and I'm not maybe taking this as seriously as you would like me to, but my intention is actually for you to be Like in the in the episode I bring up, his intention is to get his brother out of trouble, right right, even though it's absertain what he's doing is insane, his intention is so pure and good that everybody can't just help but kind of laugh at him. And he's also the court jesture. He exposes the fact that this the adult system built around the Matthews family is everybody's playing right the soul Like anyway, I could. I could go on and on about that, but first the morality of the show.

00:15:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, it's amazing.

00:15:23
Speaker 3: But also I just wanted to add that everything you're saying about Eric, I had planned out from day one, and of course.

00:15:31
Speaker 4: You're feen years old, being like a philosophical approach to the character that he's going to transcend the script.

00:15:38
Speaker 3: I am going to be the moral center of this show. I had it planned from day dot.

00:15:42
Speaker 2: So I was not saying that's actually a good way into Matt, like, like, how much did you plan this out? Because you're talking about this and you're you're you're breaking down your own sort of sensibility wonderfully. And this is what I felt like the moment I saw BlackBerry. I watched that film, you know, honestly, like there were a couple films that came out around the same time that were all like the story of a product, you know, there was like Air and I was just like over that as I was like a Tetris movie do we need and somebody was like, no, no, no, no, no, BlackBerry is the one to watch. And I started watching it, and about halfway through, I was like, oh my god, this is this is so brilliant, this is so well written. And I immediately knew. I was like, and that guy on the screen is leading this entire thing. I could just feel it. And then of course that weekend I did a deep dive and I watched all of your movies and like, I just became obsessed. And I feel like you're describing exactly exactly what I felt, which is that you know, you have this this insistence that character sort of overtakes plot and overtakes story and the character themself is like seeing themselves in a plot and they are able to, you know, influence people around them. I just think it's so brilliant. Was that always? Like did that happen just naturally? Like where did Like I'm assuming Nirvana the Man started from you guys just improving and playing together and discovering.

00:17:03
Speaker 4: Yes, Jay McCarroll what the other guy and also the co creator of the show. It was a childhood friend of mine. It's sort of after Boy Means Like I was watching Boy Means World as a true adolescent, and then by high school. I don't know, I wonder if he was even still on the air, but but I'm basically trying to put it in your timeline to try to figure it out where this happened in terms of your own lives. But in high school I met him and he went to a different high school, and we became very fast friends because we had a similar sensibility. We were from the same part of town, and so all of our references were the same, and it was just kind of play. He's a piano savant, like he's a true literally can play any song on the piano. After just hearing it for ten seconds, like he's a child genius. He's like he's like Mozart or Dama Dais. If you've ever seen that, feel like that, that accurately shows what he's like. He can he composed in the run of the band of the movie composed all that music he did. He did the music in BlackBerry is like a once in a lifetime talent in terms of sitting at a piano and being able to just create anything. And I, in my own way, I think had a kind of jealousy envy of that kind of magic, which is what it seems like when you're a kid. There's even a Boymans episode about this where it's like somebody is quite good at something and there's a jealousy.

00:18:22
Speaker 6: Alexand Alexander Niqui sa.

00:18:26
Speaker 4: And you're like, oh, I wish I could be this and so and that. I think that feeling of wanting to match him brought me into a place where it's like I would improvise scenarios or talk and and and so we created that dynamic between a piano player who could basically play anything and somebody with a microphone who had sort of in a you know, almost like Jack Kerouac like talks poetry, talk in live narration, and that just kept developing and developing until after I had gone through undergraduate film school and we started living together in downtown Toronto. We just developed it into a web series. But your question was like, how much of this was a plan? Like, really none. I could not articulate the themes of my own work. I could not have this conversation with you about the influence of Boy Meets World over me. When I decided to put that in my first movie to Dirteys, I just knew it felt right. I just knew that this character referencing Eric Matthews yelling at his conscience, which is sort of what Phoenie represents in the show, yelling to his conscience to say, come out and play with me. I couldn't explain it, but it just felt right. And the older I get, the further away from that, I see it creating a very clear path towards the things that I'm interested in, which come from again this kind of adolescence, adolescent sense of play, and the lasting impact of the games we play when we're kids into our adulthood. And it's why I actually think your show is so brilliantly named, because although it may seem trite, it's like, oh yeah, boy, meet World, It's like, that's not really what it's about. Everybody in that show is kind of learning the script for how to be an adult. The Panga is acting way beyond her maturity. It's absurd, right to the point where I love this episode where you cut your hair thinking that you will have absolutely no reaction, you're beyond vanity, etc. Only to be struck instantly by the fact that I can't. I like, my persona was so strong it fooled even me, right, And so all these characters are pretending to be adults, which is something that had a lasting impact on me. All my movies in some ways are about are about people who haven't gone through a write of passage or haven't actually transformed into adults pretending to be and the magic that you get from still being in that of thinking anything's possible, that that you make the rules, et cetera, et cetera.

00:21:04
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so curious because, like, to me, this gets to I'm really curious about your process, especially how it started versus where it's now. Because you're in your work, you have so much tension between improvisation, like clearly improvisation, Like it seems to me like you're just riffing. You're just in front of a camera and you're keeping it loose with the camera to keep up with you as an actor or your fellow actors. But then structurally you always have a way to bring it full circle where everything sort of comes back around. So I want to know, like, even in the early episodes in Nirvana, were you were you writing things? Were you improvising and then going back and writing a script that sort of made sense of the improv or were you just improving scene for like how does how does this work? I mean I'm assuming like BlackBerry, you out a script.

00:21:49
Speaker 4: Yes, But again, all of this we had stolen from sitcom television. So again to keep bringing this back to like TGF boy Mean's world style storytelling. It's like when you're a kid watching these shows, you don't realize that it's not just happening life, do you know what I mean? You know, I'm ten years old watching the show. I literally believe it's unfolding. Yeah, and there's no plan And it's only when as a young filmmaker, in a way, I was almost trying to mock the form of the sitcom. Like Nirvana the Band, the show in some ways is pretending itself to be a sitcom, and because we were pretending to be one, we wound up needing to learn how a three act structure for television actually works, and how funny it can be to put characters who are so stupid and don't and really don't deserve that kind of treatment in that world, and so that when the movie's a perfect example, it's like as when Matt goes back to the year twenty twenty five and the world is different and he's gotten the come upance that of course you would expect he would get if this were a sitcom where you know, you wish on a with a with a lamp, and then you get the wish, but it's corrupted, like in some ways that's a cliche, but in our world all the cliches seem fresh, and so we became addicted to them. And so I wound up teaching myself. I won't even say like I sat down to try to learn it. But in editing these things, the more we could cleave to the strict rules of Hollywood television story writing, the better it was, and it was like the exact opposite of what I thought in film school, where I thought, oh, I'll make movies and I won't follow any rules at all, like screenwriting is for old people, like all it sucks, like why would I, why would I know any of this? And then it was the exact opposite was true.

00:23:49
Speaker 2: And that was discovery in editing. That was when you started.

00:23:51
Speaker 4: Completely completely once we shot an entire episode, because I was editing the original episodes of that show. As I was doing it, the more I could fake it into a sitcom three act structure and make it like it was a boy Meets World episode, the more I was like, this is unsquarsably funny to me. And it's almost like you tie it together with a like an invisible structure that I don't even know that the audience even follows. But it makes all of the asinine nonsense of in the movie's example, a time travel story where really like these guys, at any moment, a real person could stop them, be like you guys, can stop, you don't need to do this, You're wasting your time. And yet because they are in the propulsive mode of well, I'm on tgif I gotta finish this movie. I have to do this. It creates a kind of new thing which is like the real world and real people colliding with this nineties clean, morally clear story that that, for whatever reason, I found very addictive when I was young.

00:25:04
Speaker 6: It's incredible.

00:25:05
Speaker 3: One of the things that I loved is because I just kept rewinding certain parts and rewinding certain parts. But the overall idea about the film that I loved so much was it really shows how wonderful, how important, and how really difficult friendship can be. And I just I you know, it's arguably the most important relationship you'll ever have in your life, is your best friend or best friends, And there's times it's not the easiest thing in the world, but you know that it's helping you develop the kind of person that you're becoming.

00:25:36
Speaker 6: And there's something you just.

00:25:37
Speaker 3: Caught that where it's like, God, I love you so much, and I can't be anywhere near you right now, of course, and it's just so great about it.

00:25:45
Speaker 4: The great quote that that that that rings in my mind as this young young quote that says, a great friend tells you who you are, and it's not something you can decide. You don't get who you are, even though of course we all think that we do.

00:26:00
Speaker 7: And yeah, again, almost every single episode of Boy Meets about this. Right wants to be this, Sean wants to be this, but they actually need to tell one another you're not that. And how many times in your show did the characters say this isn't you.

00:26:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a cliche, and yet what are they deeply saying. They're saying, you are acting outside of your moral norm and you keep going down this path, it will destroy you. Right, It's it's almost every third episode somebody will say this isn't you. But there's deep wisdom in that, right, which is that your friends create you, right, they make you. And so the decisions that you make, my decision to sit down and watch Boy Meets World, my whole family being drawn to it. Why why was that? Do you know? Like you write these questions like people think these questions are meaningless, but there's something there that that is well what you say, it's like it's profound. Yeah, even though it's this teg I have show that many people think about it almost mock. But what are you talking about? It developed your sense of morality?

00:27:06
Speaker 5: Absolutely?

00:27:07
Speaker 1: Absolutely? How much does being in Canada play into your work.

00:27:12
Speaker 4: I think that now that I'm older, it is it's become more clear to me that being outside of the American system. Even even the fact that I didn't have TGIF when I was a kid, and I would watch it on whatever our Canadian subsidiary broadcaster was, but I would see the ads between in between Boymans was like a TGIF and I'd be like, what is this tag that? It just seems so cool? I want to be a part of that, but I couldn't be. It gave me a kind of ironic distance from all of American culture, and so I think it's why The Dirties is so much about a kid obsessed with in almost like a younger brother way American culture and wanting to touch it, you know, like wanting so desperately to be a part of it. I think there's a there's read of my whole career, which is this guy is just this younger brother of American culture and he just wants he wants people to know that he loves it, and I want to reach out and be able to hold it in my hand like a jewel. Right, Navana the band is basically a whole series of that of us making these somewhat cryptic but sometimes very overt references to American media that shaped us. But it's not ours. I just made a movie in the United States about Anthony Bourdain with it for the first I remember with an American crew, and it was amazing to me. Was the first time I ever shot anything in America. I'm going from location to location with this huge American film crew and they're saying things like, oh, yeah, this is where these people shot Jaws, and this is the and we just shot this movie over here that won an Oscar. And then they just made that movie The Holdovers, which was nominated for all these Oscars, and I was like, whoa, this is like their lives. Like for you, guys, you are like, it's you. You get to be the defining culture of planet Earth. And it was the first time that I'd thought about it from the perspective of, oh, like what I just think of as multi media culture, Like what I just think of is the stuff that I watch. That's just American culture, water that you swim in.

00:29:23
Speaker 2: And well, so you were empowered then by this sort of outsider status or the sensus. I mean, are are you going to be able to hold on to it, like, did you feel it with this film? Now that you were working with an American crew and American producers and you know you're going to be it's going to get released right you're are, do you still how are you going to be able to maintain that that outsider sensibility?

00:29:44
Speaker 4: It was very difficult, And I will say that in a lot of ways, as I'm making movies that are that are bigger where it isn't where it's not cute, necessarily for me to kind of make movies like Nirvana the band to show the movie right, like, I don't have those same tools his. Let me put it this way, When I made BlackBerry, I thought that that movie was me leaving that part of my esthetic behind, and it proved to instead be the movie that most people know me by as opposed to my earlier work. And so I was I had thought that I had already had this, you know, sell out my aesthetics moment, and it seems as though it didn't occur. So I think that anything that I make, because in some ways I'm so limited and because my experiences are so defined, it's always going to be in my voice at some level now, and that may prove to be false. We'll find out.

00:30:40
Speaker 3: One of my favorite parts of the movie is just no matter what, no matter what the characters are going through, no matter what they're doing, they'll always stop and welcome people to Toronto.

00:30:50
Speaker 6: It's just like, oh my god, everything's going Hey, welcome, welcome to the city. We're really happy to have because it's.

00:30:56
Speaker 4: Just both patriots. You got to understands. Toronto is such a diverse city and so many people come to visit here. And I think that almost self consciously. When we're shooting the show, people look at us and they're like, what are these people doing? And I feel a kind of no, no, no, like a statesmanship like as like no, no, I'm happy you're here. Yea. But I like it when the when the when the French girl at the end plug the cable in and she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I need your help. Oh you're where you're from? France or Quebec.

00:31:34
Speaker 2: Can you see you? My favorite?

00:31:35
Speaker 6: Could you press the button on the side there.

00:31:38
Speaker 2: But this speaks to you were you were. You're literally on the street filming with with regular people, right, I mean, this is in proversation.

00:31:45
Speaker 6: Okay, so we need listen.

00:31:47
Speaker 1: We need our listeners to know this in case they've never seen a Matt Johnson movie, we need to explain this a little bit. How you blend written, scripted moments blended with man on the Street style stuff.

00:32:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, A great way to think about it is that imagine a Boy Meets World episode. The only actors in it are Will Ryder, Danielle and Ben And that's right. So so you as a shoot, you're in a high school, and everybody in the high school there's real they don't know where they're in a movie, but you guys know the script, and so you're going through an episode being like, well, somehow we've got to do this. And so whenever somebody joins in, they don't know they're in a movie, but but you talk with them. It's a lot like the movie Borat. If Borat was like in a eighties like family movie. That's right, thinking about it.

00:32:39
Speaker 3: Great, have you ever had a bad experience while shooting on the street.

00:32:42
Speaker 6: I mean something happens where it's like.

00:32:44
Speaker 3: Oh my god, we've almost got beaten up, we almost got arrested. I mean, so any of these kind of things happened arrested.

00:32:49
Speaker 4: Sure, because sometimes we're shooting things like that, that crazy moment at the beginning with the c and tower like that, that one was an extremely close call. But we're because we're not mocking anybody, and we're not trying to ever make anyone look bad. You'd be surprised at how nice people are. We've never ever been in a situation where somebody thought, Oh, I'm being like you guys are making fun of me and I'm mad. That's that never ever happened. And I think it's because we seem so mhmm, charitably brainless, do you know what I mean? I think this person could not mean any harm whatsoever.

00:33:32
Speaker 3: Like like Eric, exactly like Eric, like you actually you will think, like how many times do people get mad at you in the show.

00:33:41
Speaker 4: It's only when they misunderstand what you're doing. That's when Eric Matthews would get into trouble. It would be like, Oh, they just didn't understand that he actually meant the best, Like your brother would get furious with you all the time until he realized, oh, he's trying to help me. Yeah.

00:33:55
Speaker 3: But that also it also it just shows that the senior talking about the sea and tower shows, so the differences between Canada and the United States because you're just sitting there watching and you're pulling it, pulls out the pliers and it is like, oh, I'd use these for my jeans, and like you're good, come on through where it's like, oh, you would have guard dogs around you.

00:34:12
Speaker 2: By that point, it's like.

00:34:13
Speaker 3: Oh, it's delightfully Canadian. That moment, it is just wonderful. I was like, oh my god, they're letting them go. It was just so crazy.

00:34:20
Speaker 4: I think that might be the other piece of my citizenship that comes through in my work is that there's a kind of fearlessness because of the provincialism of my country that there. It's not that there's no consequences here, but it's just that we are such a different level of safety via in Toronto, where like if anything, if somebody gets hit by a car in Toronto, it's national news. Right, Wow, do you know what I mean? It's just so so different.

00:34:54
Speaker 1: Must be nice. How did you now?

00:34:58
Speaker 3: I have to ask how did you shoot the CN tower stuff, like the stuff at the top and the pair of shooting off.

00:35:03
Speaker 2: I mean, how is this green screen?

00:35:05
Speaker 6: It didn't look like it so.

00:35:06
Speaker 4: We never use We never used green screens, but but often because because we would as soon as people know that we're shooting something, they act different, right, so we can't do anything.

00:35:16
Speaker 6: That's the Heisenberg principle.

00:35:18
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, as soon as they know. As soon as people know, then then it's then it's then it's over. Well, you must know how many times did you guys bring a guest star into the show and then you look at one another after a take and you go, they don't get it?

00:35:31
Speaker 6: Yeah?

00:35:31
Speaker 4: Right, Like how often does that? I mean, I'm actually sincerely curious how often did that happen?

00:35:37
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know.

00:35:39
Speaker 3: You know, what's funny, I see it more. I saw it on On Boy occasionally. But where I really see people out of their element where they think it's one thing and they get there and something completely different is voiceover when you're when you're going into doing an animated series and you get these brilliant actors that come in that just don't get it.

00:35:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: I felt a lot of feature films. On features you would be like, oh, we're in different movies. I mean, the thing a sitcom is that the form is so given.

00:36:02
Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean people come in knowing what they're you know what. Of course, obviously maybe that would happen in like the first season. Once that's done, you're such a phenomenon that people are coming to audition with the boy World exactly.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: I mean they have like the rhythm of the language literally in their head, do you know what I mean? Like by by season two or three, like we know how every line is going to be delivered, like just by reading that on the page, and everybody can kind of feel that rhythm and like get into it, and you know it's Michael Jacob's voice. Like as a writer, we all just sort of like, oh okay, we hear it, we know it. But also, the sitcom as a form is so formalized, it's so structured, it.

00:36:38
Speaker 3: Has a standard beat to it, which is why when you get somebody like a Matthew Perry or something like that, who's everybody else is listening to one song and he's obviously completely has a different beat in his head, he stand out as a sitcom actor because it's like, oh okay, you hear the beat, but you're going jazz. And so it's that that's where so writer's right, you get a lot of people that come in that know that it's the joke and set up joke and set up joke.

00:37:02
Speaker 6: I mean, that's kind of what a sitcom is.

00:37:04
Speaker 3: But when you do that, get that actor who walks in, he's like, oh man, you're totally off on another thing.

00:37:08
Speaker 6: That's kind of you can you can create.

00:37:10
Speaker 2: That, But I've felt that on features, you know, where you're literally looking around the room going, oh, they think they're doing a comedy and the rest of us are doing a horror film. How do we make this work troll too? Yeah?

00:37:22
Speaker 4: Right?

00:37:23
Speaker 2: But you know, yeah, I mean and hopefully I mean that is the job of a director, right, is to manage that tone and hopefully get everybody on the same page as far as you know what you're doing. But what I love about your work is that element of chaos. Like, so, I want to hear about Shooting the Dirties because that's a movie that is very funny but ultimately very tragic and dramatic too. And so from what I've heard, you just had run of a high school to make this movie.

00:37:48
Speaker 4: Multiple different high schools. Again, I made that movie when I was so young that we were able to go into high schools in Canada and just film without people really they whether they thought we were students or thought that were we meant to be there. It was a kind of mix of both. And again because we really didn't need no harm and we were interacting with students sort of at their level, and we shot a ton. I would say that what has to have been brought up is that in all of this work, unlike an episode of Boy Meets World, we shoot more that we don't use than we do. So we shoot, we shoot scenes and scenes and scenes, sometimes entire movies that don't make it to ask.

00:38:30
Speaker 2: So what does the script look like? Is it an outlet?

00:38:32
Speaker 4: Don't write scripts? That's that's that's the big that's the biggest thing. S IF on BlackBerry. Because I was working with American actors, I wrote a very very detailed script with Matt Miller, the producer, and we sent that script to actors and that was the entire movie. Now that changed a ton because we played a lot on set and in editing I completely reformatted the movie with with Kurt Lob and Bobby up Church, the editors of all this stuff. But in general, the Dirty's Operation Avalanche of Front of the band, the show. They not only did they not have scripts, we well, maybe have a one or a two page outline that will set up the entire movie, and then once it's been typed out, we don't even refer to it. Like the six or seven of us who make this stuff, we just keep it all in our heads because it changes every day. Right, so we'll be out in the street, I'll give you a bad Luckily, the producer, Matt Gregson is one of those key's part of the team. So the gold standard example of this in that movie is the scene will brought up where we're sneaking into the sea and tower and the security guard lets us through with those pliers that were later going to use to cut the safety cords.

00:39:44
Speaker 6: To jump off, and clearly wearing parachutes.

00:39:47
Speaker 4: Well this is the secret, okay, So we're clearly wearing these parachutes on our back under our clothes. We assumed that security was going to say, what are those on your back? They were going to expose that we were wearing parachutes? And then and the original a plot was us sneaking into the SkyDome a different way, but when security one didn't mention the parachutes on our back and then to let me in with the pliers. We thought, all right, so I guess now we're doing this instead. So our plan was never to jump off the CN tower. That was not nobody well it's inconceivable, like, I don't even know how you would do it. And it was only because the reality let us go there that we kept going.

00:40:29
Speaker 1: So when do you regroup? When do you then look at each other and say.

00:40:34
Speaker 4: Times oftentimes one beat that we shoot will be an entire day, and then we all go back to our office and go, okay, so now what So we group every single day and rewrite based on what we got.

00:40:46
Speaker 3: Oh, such a free, amazing way to shoot a filmy.

00:40:53
Speaker 4: Let me disabuse you of that will and answer your question at the same time. Video Okay, So it is the most painful thing I've ever done in my life. I really do it again for any amount of money. And Danielle, we shot for two hundred days. That movie has a two hundred day production schedule. We literally shot the movie for two hundred days.

00:41:12
Speaker 6: Oh my god.

00:41:13
Speaker 3: It so it's it's apocalypse now and then your film essentially.

00:41:17
Speaker 4: It's it's a nightmare to make and although it seems fun and like, oh wow, these guys are having such a good time. We're not two.

00:41:24
Speaker 1: Hundred days over how long? In one year?

00:41:27
Speaker 4: A year? We shot the movie for one year, two hundred days.

00:41:29
Speaker 2: But but your your crew has to be tiny. I mean you're six of us, six of them. Okay, so so there is you are nimble, you are able to sort of just.

00:41:38
Speaker 4: But we all van Yeah, oh my god.

00:41:43
Speaker 1: Do you ever get nervous out there?

00:41:45
Speaker 4: Yeah? Every single time I need to talk to a stranger, I get nervous because I'm like, because I don't want to embarrass them. I want them to be happy. And normally once we start talking, then it's like, oh good, they're in a good movie. This is good vibes. But the think like any of those things when I had to go through security and we're when we're in Canadian tire and that libertarian is telling us not to jump because he's worried able to die, Like all of that stuff is neurve.

00:42:07
Speaker 3: Wracking, right, But now I'm sorry you you have to give certain people lines because at one point you go up to a guy on the street and you say what year is it?

00:42:15
Speaker 6: And he says it's two thousand and eight.

00:42:17
Speaker 4: Yes, we cheat so so in that instance. Now that's a very specific part of Toronto Young and then Desk Square where it's what's a wild area you'll remember later on in the movie. From that moment, I see a guy who says, Hollywood, Hollywood, mister Rocky, mister Arnold, mister Jennifer Lopez. That's the place where there's where there's like a lot of day drink king. I'll just say and so and so. Yes. Sometimes if like we're desperate to have somebody say something, we'll give them a line. But they're always strangers and there are always people are like in a movie, hell.

00:42:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, o god, our releases a thing? Do you have to get? Okay?

00:42:54
Speaker 4: So much? If who speaks, anybody who like, who interacts with the plot, our producers chain stand to get releases from and we don't always get them. Sometimes we have to blur their faces.

00:43:04
Speaker 6: How close are the cameras? I mean, does everybody see that you're filming something or not?

00:43:08
Speaker 4: That's ugh Jered Rabb. The cinematographer move in some ways developed this language is shooting on cameras that sometimes are like three hundred and fifty enilimeters like the lengths. They're so long that Jay and I can't even see where.

00:43:21
Speaker 2: They wow wow wow.

00:43:24
Speaker 4: And on the Dirties, that was that was necessary because that's a movie where if people were to see the cameras, it completely breaks well, it breaks the reality in a way because because the trick, the magic really is is that these guys know they're in a movie nobody else does, and so it's almost like they're glowing. You know, do you guys read Calvin Hobbs.

00:43:47
Speaker 2: You know, Waters's obsessed.

00:43:49
Speaker 4: So Bill Watterson's what's so amazing about his technique to me? To me, I don't know anything about about comic books, but his backgrounds are like paintings. They're these beautiful, like gorgeous and yet incredibly simple paintings. And so Calvin and Hobbes and the characters they stand out in this almost like tin tin way where it's like whoa, It's like they pop right out and and that aesthetic. We're almost trying to follow that by having a world that is so dynamic and wild. But you know, these two guys, whether it's Me and Owen in the Dirties or Me and Owen in Operation Avalanche, or Matt and Jay in Nirvana, the band. They it's like they glow like you follow them because because you have put a context around them where it's like, oh, they're in the movie, right, and so you can follow them against these very rich, bizarre backgrounds that are kind of out of step with with with what they are. And if you're trying to we're going to try to recreate like your Boy Meets. Did you guys ever shoot an episode on location in the real world?

00:44:47
Speaker 2: This is just a little bit, but you know they did Disney World World.

00:44:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's evil again, is it's horrible?

00:44:57
Speaker 4: It's hard? Fine?

00:44:58
Speaker 6: Thanks me.

00:44:59
Speaker 4: So let me ask you something because this this episode doesn't come to mind for me. Do you remember watching that episode and thinking, oh, there's a real estatic shift when we're outside and with like, it's so crazy. I remember the Fraser shot an episode where they had actually shot in Seattle, and it doesn't it doesn't look like the show at all. You just what it's So Seinfeld had the same issue, and we were thinking, Okay, let's have it so that that that is our base level the outside in the world, real people like that's that's what the show always looks like. So there isn't that that's correct when you go from them from one.

00:45:36
Speaker 2: To well, that's one of them.

00:45:37
Speaker 3: I'm convinced it's still you know, everyone said they hated the story, but I think psychologically one of the reasons people hated the last episode of Seinfeld is because they didn't recognize any of the sets. They're in there in a different place, then they're in court, then they're in It's like, wait a minute, I've been for nine years. I've been watching these people in this apartment, and now you're not going to have them in the.

00:45:55
Speaker 6: And this way. Yeah.

00:45:56
Speaker 3: Right, So that's why I still think it was a psychological thing for people. It's like I didn't like the story. It's like, yeah, but I also think you didn't know where you were. Yeah, And that's that's a big concession, especially on sitcom. It becomes you want it to be there. Our living room is your living room. That's how that works. And so when you take ability, that lets you break yes exactly. So, oh god, I just I'm thinking about the idea of two hundred days of shooting I make it.

00:46:20
Speaker 2: Well, so I'm curious you you so you made BlackBerry, which is sort of a leap up into more mainstream, more Hollywood style film filmmaking, and then you choose to go back to nirvana. That is that the right, that's the order, right? So why or what was the process did you enjoy BlackBerry?

00:46:38
Speaker 4: Was that?

00:46:38
Speaker 2: Is that what you want to continue doing? Are you going to try and do both styles of filmmaking?

00:46:42
Speaker 4: Well? I already made the Boordain movie yeh, Cape Cod a few months ago, and that was shot very much like BlackBerry, with a script where it's all with a huge crew.

00:46:52
Speaker 2: Are you in that one as well?

00:46:54
Speaker 4: No? No, I couldn't. Interesting, There wasn't There was not a role for me. It's nineteen seventy five and any more day is twenty years old and falling in love meeting Yeah, it was something you It would have hitch got it.

00:47:06
Speaker 2: You didn't hitchcock it at all.

00:47:07
Speaker 3: You're walking in the you're walking a dog in the background, You're you're the barista.

00:47:11
Speaker 6: Nothing.

00:47:12
Speaker 4: It would have been like Eric Matthews walking onto the set of mad Man.

00:47:15
Speaker 6: Okay, I gotcha, Yeah, I gotcha. That makes sense.

00:47:18
Speaker 4: People would have been like, like such an error that again you'll you'll see the movie and maybe have a different opinion. But the answer is Yes, I like working in things where it is not, for lack of a better word, all about me, where it's not like my own where I'm at the center of it. And uh. And I didn't think I ever would like making movies like that, and BlackBerry was quite painful to make, but I feel like it has been an opportunity for me to. I know, I say this unpretentious, it's like I like exploring story that way, and I feel like whatever it was that I had to say with this childish, adolescent, make your own reality style of filmmaking, I am finding ways to transpose into these more standard stories because I think that message is somehow important. I think nearly it's the message of my life, which is that there is a kid in everybody, and so much of adulthood is learning to silence and strangle that for good reason, like we have to socialize ourselves to be normal. But if you killed that person, you actually die. And so trying to where the message of nor or less anything I do, is that that you were who you are when you were ten, and that may humiliate you. That may not be who you want to be, but you really can't escape that, and so you may as well, embrace all the positives what ever that was, Yeah, yeah, for its maximum, because otherwise you're you're just going to be pure persona like you won't actually get to live a life. You're you're you're gonna you're going to be a performer forever.

00:49:11
Speaker 3: Well, I always say, I mean, I I say this to my wife, I say this to my friends. I always live by a very simple model motto, which is there is a very big difference between childish and childlike. Yes, and so I think, I like, I embrace it, and you have to. I mean, it's it's super important. But yeah, that's the pers I mean.

00:49:29
Speaker 2: One of the things that I've always loved about your work is is also you're you're acting like you're a genuinely wonderful actor. And I learned from the best dude. It's and I think that I think that you know, in something like Black Bear, I could see your influence just by being part of the team. You know, you're in on the in the scene with them, you can see the other actors sort of upping their game or or adjusting to you. So I'm curious, when you're not in the scene with them, how has it been working with actors and trying are you still like doing scenes? Are you like, what's it been like to direct?

00:50:04
Speaker 4: I'll tell you my process. I made this movie with Dominic access at the cast of the BOORDA movie is unbelievable, like especially the four main pillars of it, and domin Accessor, who was the star of The Holdovers. He's the young guy who is buddies with Jiamatti. The way that I work is that I typically wind up doing most of the writing with the lead, right, So Glenn Jay and I on BlackBerry, like we talked a lot about like what it was that was interesting in this script that was also kind of a part of their life, and trying to find as many connections to that as we possibly could. And in that discussion you wind up talking through a lot of the scenes on Tony with domin access So much of it is us going through it together, finding ways to make one another lap and on set, I'm like literally right beside the actress when we're doing scenes, like I'm talking them in most cases, like I mean physically my hand, especially with with dom like we would be in physical contact with one during takes.

00:51:08
Speaker 2: And then you're rewriting on the day you're like, oh, that didn't work, let's try this, or you know, you're.

00:51:12
Speaker 4: Normally it's not me saying that didn't work. Normally, it's do I'm telling me we need to change it right now and be like yeah, because you know what. You guys will know this when when you're not telling the truth, when you are being given dialogue where it's like, wait a minute, Sean wouldn't say this, and the director's like that's the line, you're like, ah, but wait a minute. You don't understand. It's hard to make people understand that. It's like I can't say that. And it's not that I am I'm moralizing or that I'm like trying to be a diva Topanga can't say that. You try to get me to say that is like you're like you're torturing me, and you're not just torturing me, you're kind of killing what it is that this is. And I think that because I love acting and i'm ACTI get my own things and I'm always playing myself. I wound up learning, oh, you can't actually have an actor lie if they're if, unless that's their skill set, unless they're Denzel Washington, and they can literally make any piece of dialogue sound like certain people who have a gift totally. But if you don't, you just you just can't. And so I'm I'm always like if an actor says this doesn't work for me, it's not even a discussion. It's like, one, you're right, and two let's figure out what how you do? Say this?

00:52:32
Speaker 3: But you just mentioned Denzel Washington, who if you could pick anybody, who would you work with?

00:52:36
Speaker 4: Like?

00:52:36
Speaker 6: Who you.

00:52:40
Speaker 4: Pick? I think he's the best actor? A lie, you can there is no movie where did you see he can do anything?

00:52:48
Speaker 6: Yeah, not a good movie. He's awesome.

00:52:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, he says, just like, yes, write that down. Whatever he just said, that's that's a truth. Write it down.

00:52:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:52:59
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:53:00
Speaker 1: There are some pretty big rumors about you with future movies like Magic the Gathering. So it's.

00:53:22
Speaker 3: A magic are you Are you kidding?

00:53:29
Speaker 4: Are you kidding?

00:53:30
Speaker 1: Yes?

00:53:32
Speaker 3: Magic Cards, O writer taught me how to play magic and a hash.

00:53:37
Speaker 2: Hash bar on Amsterdam.

00:53:39
Speaker 6: He taught me how to play Magic the Gathering.

00:53:40
Speaker 2: We were in the back we were backstage of boy playing magic all the time, yes, the time.

00:53:45
Speaker 4: I can't believe that. So Magic Cards taught me to read when I was a kid, I refused to read. I thought reading was for girls, you know, I was like like five years old. Truly, it's a it's a generational problem that literacy seems somehow feminine to to certain people. And it was only through comics and magic cards literally that I was like, oh, reading can be amazing. And it was because Danielle, have you seen a magic card before?

00:54:10
Speaker 6: Like you, oh yeah, we got it.

00:54:13
Speaker 1: They got me playing. Yeah.

00:54:15
Speaker 4: What's so great for young people with magic cards is that in order to play it is a game about reading. And what's so great is so many of the cards are verbs, and so it's like an action word and so there's the name, there's a picture of what's happening, and then you get to see what the rules text are. So it's such a great for me. I'm being like, oh, yeah, I'm lightning bolt and there is a lightning bolt. That must be a lightning bulb.

00:54:38
Speaker 2: Right, but your vocabulary is peppered with words like irma's and softer and relate to the world.

00:54:47
Speaker 3: Is one red tap one red for your lightning bolts. That's three points of damages against it.

00:54:51
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you throw in random roab. Yeah, there's so many times when I've realized, like, oh, that's just a magic term. That doesn't make sense to anybody else in the world.

00:55:00
Speaker 4: Writer, do you know why the vocabulary in magic cards become so esoteric and interesting and become such a why they white ramps up in terms of its difficulty. It's because they're printing so many cards. They need to find new words to say these same simple verbs, and so it's such an em Oh. Anyway, I'm a I'm a i'm a. I was addicted. I wanted to be a professional magic card player when I was a kid. That was my dream. And it was at the end of film school where I was going to brand Pre Detroit, and I had made Day two, which is this is like a big magic card tournament and it was limited champions of chemicgaua block, and I was like, oh my god, I'm going to become a professional magic card player. I'm just a kid. I guess it was in the second year actually, and I lost. I came like thirty seventh or something like that, and I was like, damn it. And then I decided that day I think I'll just I'll just finish film school and I'll.

00:55:53
Speaker 1: Make films such a Defeat.

00:55:58
Speaker 2: Circle.

00:56:00
Speaker 3: Okay, wait wait, wait, First, I want to know what what did you play?

00:56:04
Speaker 4: Well? I played limited, I played, I played everything like. I played so much that to say what I would play whatever was winning. But colors that I love are blue and red like I love is it? But I love great? I love every color like I love back in the day when the color wheel wasn't so defined, like there'd be all kinds of crazy effects happening in everything called. The very first card I ever opened was Balance.

00:56:32
Speaker 3: I won Balance from Riders Brothers Silo in a game we were playing for cards, and it's the first cards we.

00:56:38
Speaker 2: Played for ant and I.

00:56:40
Speaker 3: Won my I still have it. I still have my Balance card. It's a phenomenal card.

00:56:43
Speaker 4: All right.

00:56:44
Speaker 2: What can you tell us about the movie? What can you tell us?

00:56:46
Speaker 4: Like?

00:56:46
Speaker 2: What are you writing it right now?

00:56:48
Speaker 4: It's being written. We're writing it right now and and hopefully we we I don't even I can think. I can say but but but it's I think, But I've say this. Magic Card fans are going to love this movie because I am a I am A I am a'm like magic cards raised me. So when I know they were making a movie. I said, oh, I should make this because the outcome of it it will matter a lot to me. Like I bought this movie to be for other people what this game did for me when I was a kid, which is open up a world of I can't even say, you know, it's just too much.

00:57:26
Speaker 3: But anyway, I never, I never ever do this. Ken Ryder and I come to the set and be atmosphere.

00:57:32
Speaker 4: I was about to say, you please, yes, of course. Are you kidding?

00:57:38
Speaker 2: Are you gonna be shooting in America or where? Do you even know?

00:57:41
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

00:57:43
Speaker 2: I just want to come. You will come wherever I will, We will be there.

00:57:47
Speaker 6: You're kidding.

00:57:50
Speaker 1: I will come. I will come. They tried to get they got me to play on a slumber party night, and I don't know. I don't know if the game is for me, but I will, I will come. I would like to just officially ask if you would like to be our new Corey when.

00:58:07
Speaker 4: We do when we do the one. Here's the thing, I don't think I have what Corey has, because he, more than any other character in that show, had a kind of moral center and an indignity. When that was impugned that I could. I mean, if if Will dies, then I'll have then you'll have a use for me. I can't. You can't be worried. It's not possible. It would be again, it would be such a stretch. What he was doing was was was unique. I mean, he he was the center of that show, which, which like Seinfeld was like so many of these shows, kind of meant that he couldn't really be that fun. Yes, yeah, right, like things needed to happen to him. One of my one of my favorite episodes, and actually an episode that becomes more and more true to me the old r I get is when Ryder sneaks into the philosophy class. You guys know this episode and and what does the professor say that He's like, oh, you're brilliant, but you but you don't know how to write, like you actually need to go back to high school to understand the basics. This is like that is that is so deeply I mean, this sounds so insipid, like so moronic for me, but it's like that was in the same way that I thought I would leave film school and just make all kinds of crazy no rules, like nothing mattered. It would be pure insanity capturing the camera. It's like I had to go through that exact exact learning where it was, oh I can, I've got great ideas. I can. That's all I need, right, And it was, oh no, I actually need to learn how to write. I need to put all my stories in this structure that they were trying to teach me in film school, but I thought was lame and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. It's like I literally went through that episode of the show. So, yeah, I think I could play I think I could maybe play Sean. I could definitely play Eric. I can't play it, Corey, What am I going to do?

00:59:59
Speaker 2: Completely agree?

01:00:00
Speaker 6: So I'm out of a job.

01:00:01
Speaker 2: Thanks man.

01:00:05
Speaker 4: What's going on with with Boy Meets World? I'm so painfully ignorant, Like is it's like, are you you guys had a Girl meets World? Did Yeah? They didn't girl?

01:00:15
Speaker 1: Well, we did a girl meets World and now there's nothing going on with it. We just meant I meant more. Actually in our personal circle, will you be our ben?

01:00:22
Speaker 4: Will you enjoying the click? Yes?

01:00:25
Speaker 1: Can you just more of us.

01:00:26
Speaker 4: Are now interviewing other people? I'm just a fan, I love it.

01:00:33
Speaker 1: We're just okay, great that that's really what we what we want. Funny, Okay, I know you have talked about with this with and now we're talking about magic the gathering, and that you are going to infuse your sensibility into all the movies you do. But is there also a possibility that you're going to just keep alternating between you know, match.

01:01:06
Speaker 4: Gathering in movies. Yeah, I think yes, and I think that's actually a good thing. I hope I get to do it like that. The thing is, I have a like a group of friends who I work with all the time, and it is impossible in some ways to move that group into these gigantic American productions where in some ways, like on the Boordame movie, well like I am, I'm a much smaller piece of the machine right as I'm sure you guys can relate to on like on. As soon as something gets so big, like the director is an important person, but they're not, they don't get to call really any real big shots, and so that is that's a very different system. And so yeah, I'm going to continue to make movies in Canada where it is just small group of people working out of the office I'm in right now, and then larger style films where I get to deal with things that were important to me as a kid. It's strange how whether it's magic cards or Anthony Bourdain or BlackBerry, all of these things are all stuff that I just was exposed to when I was a young teenager, and I just can't escape.

01:02:25
Speaker 1: Well it's okay there now we're all best friends.

01:02:28
Speaker 8: So yeah, so that's how it works, don't discribe.

01:02:30
Speaker 1: So Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie will be showing in Boston, Dallas, Austin, and Chicago in December and then wide come February thirteenth, twenty twenty six. And when can we see Tony the Anthony Bourdain movie? When will that be released?

01:02:45
Speaker 4: I think A twenty four is releasing it next year, but I don't know when. Okay, so exciting, you know. I invite you guys to the community. Please we would all go together.

01:02:55
Speaker 6: We would love that that yeah, hell yeah, definitely.

01:02:59
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you so much for being here, and sure, I mean just the thrilling to have you. I'm sure you could tell by the way we all fanned out over you.

01:03:10
Speaker 4: But I can say, sincerely, it was much more so for me. I mean, I hope I've expressed it. But the work that you guys did when you were just kids, and I recognize that, I know, I know that at some level it was out of your control, but it shaped me and my family's view of the world. Wow. From wherever you were shooting the show in the United States, it making it up to Ontario. It was like the vade Meekham for us. We carry it with us wherever we go.

01:03:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a thank you so much, thank you for spending your time with us. And we'll see you at the premiere.

01:03:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much.

01:03:47
Speaker 4: Matt. Goodbye, Yeah, goodbye. It was nice meaning you too. Goodbye Rider, I'll see you again.

01:03:52
Speaker 1: I'll see you again for sure, definitely.

01:03:54
Speaker 6: Bye bye.

01:03:55
Speaker 1: What a guy.

01:03:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's so cool.

01:03:58
Speaker 3: It's a combination of a brilliant filmmaker and an incredible actor who also just wanted to spend his time making us feel awesome about ourselves.

01:04:08
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. Like I it's so I always love this moment when you connect with somebody's work, you know, like the way I did with his movies, where I just immediately was like there's something going on here. That speaks to me as an writer, as an artist, as an actor, with all of it. And then when I actually met him and he reciprocates that, you know, he's like, well, you were huge influence on me and we were able to and I was just like, oh my god, Like I love that. That's like one of my favorite things. And you know, I mean like he you know, like he says, you know, he's waxing poetic about the influence of Boy Meets the World on his life. But and I and I think some of that is hyperbolic to a degree. But on the other hand, it's also like he believes that art can change the world. He believes that the things he's saying, even though they're silly fun movies, often are affecting viewers. They are getting under your skin. They are And like, that's that's a real artist.

01:05:00
Speaker 4: You know.

01:05:01
Speaker 3: I tell you something, right, Okay, I tell you something in that Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie has made me re evaluate my creative output.

01:05:09
Speaker 2: Me too, Man, I'm in the exact same space we were texting rider at I were texting about it last night, like we gotta get together, we got to do something.

01:05:15
Speaker 3: We gotta I mean, it's it makes you want to to be creative, but you also have to realize he is a one in a million creative true one Jane can who can handle that undertaking.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: And a kind of chaos with structure that he's constantly balancing. It's so much work. It's so much work.

01:05:33
Speaker 3: Two hundred days of shooting, two hundred days of shooting.

01:05:38
Speaker 6: That's insanity, I know.

01:05:40
Speaker 2: But the movie is so funny. Everybody out there, if you can get if you can watch it, if you just get a hold of this movie when it's out or in your town. It is so freaking good. It's one of the I haven't laughed that hard in a movie in like a decade. I was crying with laughter at the premiere. I watched it again two nights ago and I just could not stop laughing. It's so brilliant and Yeah, I love Yeah man, he's a hero.

01:06:04
Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening to this episode of Podmeets World. As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod meets World Show. You can send us your emails podmeets World Show at gmail dot com. And we've got merch.

01:06:15
Speaker 6: Two whites, two blues. Tap for merch.

01:06:19
Speaker 1: Podmeets worldshow dot com will send us out.

01:06:23
Speaker 6: We love you all, pod dismissed.

01:06:26
Speaker 3: Podmets World is nheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfordell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensencarp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddie Moore.

01:06:40
Speaker 2: Engineer and Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen.

01:06:43
Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram at Podmeets World Show or email us at Podmets Worldshow at gmail dot com