Wonder Man (ft. Andrew Guest)

33:51Andrew Guest:And when that came out, I was like, oh, shit. Good for Zyko's killing it out there. He's doing every superhero genre. So I think we tried to find a balance between having enough real-life people from the industry in our show without it being what the show was about. And the other thing that makes it difficult in the MCU is that everybody's already worked in the MCU. so you start thinking about or they're in talks right or they're already talking to the mcu about working so it became very hard to find a lot of people who could play themselves uh and weren't already iron man yeah no that's that's a very very good point uh but of course you pitched up at joey pants and i believe every franchise should have joey pantoliano in in it at some point so can you talk about bringing him on board and then obviously paying it off at the end where he uh usurps trevor shall we say um that was an incredible uh experience getting to work with joe uh but we had a we had this role in mind we weren't quite sure who the actor was going to be yet but we wanted this foil for trevor sort of an actor who had a long storied career who maybe isn't a household name necessarily but like had the right perspective on the job where he had been smart about prioritizing his family and making right the right financial decisions and And it did everything that Trevor didn't do and now is reaping those rewards.

35:17Andrew Guest:And when we were sat down at Marvel, we had this list of incredible character actors that so many of us had grown up loving. And Joey sprang to the top of that list for everybody. And then I got to talk to him on the phone and be like, listen, I've written this character. It's called Joe Pantoliano. I'm going to send it to you. You tell me how this feels. And if there's anything you want to change, let's talk about it. And the wonderful thing about Joe is that he's done all this thought about acting. He's written these books on top of it. So there's many lines that come out of Joe Pantaleona's mouth that are from him.

35:52Andrew Guest:Art Linkletter references and all. And he just threw himself into the role, which was incredible. At what point did you have him usurping Trevor, replacing Trevor in the Wonder Band film? That was something I'm a huge fan of The Player, the movie, the Robert Altman movie. and there's this runner throughout where Richard E. Grant is pitching this very serious movie about death row that has no celebrities in it. Yeah, very well. And then the finale, the end moment is you pull out there at the premiere of this and it's Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts in the movie with no stars. And I thought that was a fun little homage for us when we, when we thought about how Trevor couldn't be in the movie in the end, the idea that Joey stole the role and we could have this little reveal and pullback at our premiere.

36:41Andrew Guest:It was really fun. One of the things I loved about how Simon interacts with Joey Pants in the second episode is that he's, Simon's a film buff. And he immediately starts dropping Midnight Run references. You know, this is the guy who shouted, you got the Duke! I mean, you know, it's Joey Pants. Was that a big aspect of Simon's character? He meets Trevor when he goes to see Midnight Cowboy of all films. in the first episode. Yes. It was, it was one of the fun things was Simon, you know, Simon does come at his starstruck when he first meets Joey pants. He is a fan of his and, and finding that moment where Simon gets pushed to the push to the point where he wants to tell Joey Pantoliano that he sucks was a really fun thing to find because it was, it was a way to start bonding Simon and Trevor in this, in a more substantial way.

37:36Andrew Guest:and um it's hard because if you think about it simon and trevor are the assholes in that scene like joe is is he's not he's not really being all that condescending i mean we we had to find takes where he was sort of more of a dick so the audience would would would side with simon and trevor but simon and trevor are yelling at this guy for for taking acting not as seriously as they take it which to them is like the greatest affront you could possibly have when joe may has a much happier, more well-rounded life. But yeah, he was incredible to work with. Let's talk about some of the key moments that run throughout the Sam and Trevor relationship.

38:22So they meet. It's a great meet-cute. They meet watching Midnight Cowboy, which cannot emphasize this enough, Andrew, is a film about a male prostitute and I don't even know what the hell Rato is, but whatever he is. He's a hustler. He's a hustler. He's a hustler and a male prostitute and is, I think, famously the first X-rated movie? X-rated movie to win an Academy Award, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it's a hell of a movie. Was there any pushback on using that as the bonding device for these guys?

38:55Andrew Guest:Never. Never pushback. It was one of the first things I thought of when I had my first meeting on this series was Midnight Cowboy, because I thought about those two, how different those two characters are, how the whole movie is really about this weird relationship that starts with a lie, that starts with Ratso trying to scam Joe Buck, and then they do connect, and it is kind of tragic at the end. And I love that they were, as Trevor says in our series, these two outsiders. and I wanted Simon to be a working actor, but who, somebody who felt like he was still on the outside. And Trevor is obviously this outsider.

39:35Andrew Guest:He's had this really checkered past. And I liked, I root for those kinds of characters. I root for Ratso and Joe Buck. I root for Trevor and song, you know, that's makes me love them. Were you ever tempted to echo the ending of Midnight Cowboy? Have Trevor died tragically on a bus? I not on a bus, but there it did occur. to me that yes, there were times when I thought, is that a heroic end for Trevor? Does he make a sacrifice that is the ultimate sacrifice and lose his life? And is that what would that do to Simon? You know, to me was tempting in a sort of yeah, even an Obi-Wan style, you know, how do you become Luke Skywalker without Obi-Wan dying, you know, kind of thing.

40:20Andrew Guest:But you were just kicking it around. That wasn't a serious consideration. It never went on the page. Okay. in terms of Trevor's background I love I think it's episode two where we see we get a little glimpse we go to his apartment and we see some of the stuff that he's done and once again we see that his leer was a toast of Croydon which is great we get to hear that he played a character called Ron Jenkins on Coronation Street now Ben Kingsley played Ron Jenkins on Coronation Street so talk me through that also there's a reference to an omnibus episode where he played Edgar Allan Poe, The Need for Nightmare.

40:58Andrew Guest:That's a real Ben Kingsley role. Turtle Diary is a real movie that we reference when he started with Glenda Jackson. They really did freeze two sea turtles from the London Zoo. Sir Ben was so lovely to give us the opportunity to make real references to his career. There were points where I wanted to see little clips from those, but it became too difficult to make work legally. but yeah how fun and how well done of you to actually figure out that he was in that episode as Ron Jenkins Coronation Street, Andrew come on, it's like the national institution here, people know Coronation Street better than they know the royal family, this is this is big stuff Ian McKellen was in Coronation Street a couple of years ago as well so it's a big thing every Brit did their stint Every young up-and-coming actor has to do as an incarnation straight, or Corey, as we call it over here.

41:55Can you talk me through that action sequence in episode 5? Again, being slapdash and sloppy and being almost antithetical to what people expect from superhero shows.

42:07Andrew Guest:Yes, we wanted, that was something when we were talking to Pong, who was our stunt choreographer, we wanted to make clear, like, Simon's not a fighter. he's incredibly strong and powerful but he's not trained and he has no idea he it should feel slapdash and uh and a mess and uh tiffany johnson who directed that episode that was our was really excited everyone got excited because it was our one time on this whole show so many of our crew had signed up to do a marvel series and they were excited to do it and then we're like we're no we're going to another restaurant these two actors are going to talk about acting for another five pages i'm like what have i what show is this uh and we finally had a real set with uh real stunts uh it was fun for all of us to get to do um and i think tiffany killed it uh and pong working with somebody like pong was just incredible it also has one of my favorite jokes in the entire series that episode which is the uh the hard cut from come on let's go let's get him to them sitting stuck in traffic just i think anybody who's been to los angeles can relate to that feeling and we got to shoot on hollywood boulevard it's very rare to be able to shut down enough traffic to shoot right where we shot it was it was really fun that's amazing uh let's talk auditions um episode six is about auditions ultimately trevor and simon pass the audition for uh for uh fond kovac and they they get the roles of wonder man and barnaby but it also starts with Trevor's audition to become the Mandarin years and years ago.

43:41Can you talk about starting off with that? And whose voice is that? Who's off camera?

43:48Andrew Guest:Oh, Jerry Burns, our great, amazing off-camera actor who did such a Jerry Burns. I'm sorry. And he is terrific. And it was so, I mean, anyway, he was lovely and so great to work with on the day. and you know anybody when you tell them they're going to do a scene with sir ben kingsley they say yes which was really fortunate for us but uh that moment was something that i was curious to think about i wanted to think about who trevor was before we met him in iron man 3 what what what were the circumstances um for for him to have ended up uh doing this mandarin role um and And I love the idea that we're put in Trevor's mind for the first time.

44:38Andrew Guest:Well, maybe not for the first time, but at this crucial moment when we've been tracking everything Simon's been worried about for this role and this callback. And hit it so many times how much it means to him, how much it means to him. And to start this episode with reminding the audience that this is a big deal for Trevor, too. like Trevor has had this terrible luck in some ways and these terrible choices he's made and this is another opportunity like he wants to be Barnaby he wants to get this role yeah very much so and it's really interesting also that you're keeping the Mandarin alive in people's heads so you knew I guess by that point you knew what Trevor was going to do what our ending was we had to keep him alive to a certain degree so in episode two i wanted and i wanted the show to be something that even if you've never watched iron man 3 or any other marvel project you could hopefully understand and like so we wanted to show footage in episode two of what the mandarin was like in iron man 3 and then have to keep alive this idea that this was that it was part of trevor's past something that he ultimately ends up having to go back to and unfortunately pretend he blew up this studio in order to save something What sort of conversations did you and Destin have about that?

45:54Because obviously in Shang-Chi, Destin had the Mandarin, the real Mandarin, as a major character, but the world doesn't know that that Mandarin exists. So did you have back and forth about, do we do this? Do we have Trevor reclaim the Mandarin again?

46:11Andrew Guest:once once we didn't know the it was sort of throughout the the writer's room process where we stumbled on this concept of trevor actually taking credit for this explosion um and once that happened everyone was just on board with it trevor destine never got concerned because i again it feels like it doesn't bump with the real mandarin from shang chi as you say no one knows that he's the real Mandarin. And the biggest concern, the thing that was sort of trickiest to sort of work around was how does Arian's character from the DODC, how does Agent Cleary feel about this? Because we didn't want him to think that he was wrong this whole time.

46:59Andrew Guest:And so making it clear that Arian, because of the pressure he's under at work, is going to take this win, even though he knows it's not the real win. And he knows that Simon is actually superpowered. He never stops believing that. He's like a dog with a bone, even at the end of the episode. One last thing I wanted to ask just about episode seven, which is, again, just this hugely important episode. As a journalist who's regularly visited movie sets, including MCU films, it made me feel very powerful. Do we really disrupt actors in that way? yes you do i mean uh we're all sensitive vulnerable people not just actors us writers and our direct and directors and we you guys have a lot of power uh in the you know and particularly ones who are really good at your jobs because you know oh i'm done then no because people people trust you as they should you earn their trust when you prove to be right and an important person to listen to about this process because, you know, it makes, for me, there are those journalists and those critics who I've grown up with and I still turn to to read their thoughts about stuff because I want to know how they feel about it because they're often right and sometimes they see things I don't see and it is, you know, you can all destroy us with the stroke of a pen, ultimately.

48:28Episode seven's about literally making Wonder Man the movie but also about breaking Wonder Man. also so can you talk about that i mean you know finally having simon reach this moment of ultimate stress about simon and trevor's relationship reaching this moment of ultimate stress as well and then obviously the the great big blowout we get for for both of them at the end of the episode yeah i wanted to uh keep alive hopefully get the audience to kind of forget about this dodc for

48:57Andrew Guest:most of the episode and be focused on this other threat that Simon, uh, you know, we start with them having gotten what they wanted from the beginning of the season. So like how, what, what's the next problem? And the problem being that Simon is terrible at interviews and knows that he's still kind of an asshole and that the people aren't going to like him. And, and, and, uh, having Trevor be there and be supportive and trying to help him work through this and then this the rug getting pulled out from both of them when they realized that that the journalist has been focused on trevor this entire time uh was to me a fun way to get out the news that was eventually going to have to come out between these two the secret could not uh exist forever and was going to be this sort of breaking point moment um so so again writing because we talked about writing trevor's speech on the phone was writing that sequence the sort sort of the showdown between them at the end of episode seven.

49:54Was that the tough one? And earlier in the episode, we have that discussion with Simon and Von Kovac, where he's talking about lying. He's bumping up against this line. You know, you can't redeem yourself for me. And then Trevor says, oh, I'll just simply say I'll never forgive you. Did you toy with having that almost literalized in terms of that exchange at the end of them saying those lines to each other, but really meaning it?

50:17Andrew Guest:That is interesting. It was designed as a mirror, the audition scene where they're reading from the fake movie and this moment that the real moment is. And I never actually thought about using that same dialogue, but it's interesting. And I hope that people would connect those two moments to a certain degree. But that was a scene that it was really interesting. But at that point in our process, Yaya and Sir Ben had gotten close enough that they were really protective of that scene. And they talked to each other before we sort of blocked it and had some choices they'd made about how they thought it made sense for their characters.

50:58Andrew Guest:And Sir Ben, who is so committed, you'll notice him punching his fists together in frustration when he's being called on all his shit by Yaya. And he bruised his, he showed me the next day. So Ben had bruised both hands. He was so in the moment. Yes. They both just deliver in this incredible way. It was just a real joy to work with both of those actors. Yeah. And Trevor, who hasn't shut up for seven episodes, can't say a word at that point. That's exactly right. He's just caught. He's got nothing to say. Absolutely. And then the final image of the show, the final moments of the show, we see Simon break Trevor out of prison.

51:45I love that he used Trevor's box breathing exercise. Nice. Was that something you had up your sleeve right from the off?

51:55Andrew Guest:I mean, it was something that sort of appeared in episode five and we kept alive and liked. and both our actors sort of found it as well. You'll notice that Sir Ben, when he gets the phone call from Agent Cleary at the end of the first episode, does this big exhale, the same kind of exhale he's told Simon to do before his audition. And that's nothing that was in the script. That was Sir Ben, you know, taking what's on the page and just finding more and more out of it. So, yeah, it was great. And of course, you finished with, you've got a lot of great needle drops in this show, Andrew, but you finish with and it had to be right it had to be harry nielsen everybody's talking once we figured that out we auditioned a couple other different final songs and uh once we came back around to harry nielsen it was just like of course this is this is who they are they're ratso and joe but just kind of like more pg-13 friendly version well one of the funny things about using clips from midnight cowboy is uh we couldn't have the character smoking and it's very hard to find a moment in that movie where those characters don't have a cigarette in their mouth you watch we watch it um it's so yeah pg-13 indeed that's a hell of a thing uh amazing andrew mcletico um just want to ask real quick about the future for these characters where you know are you are you hoping it'll be a second season down the line or where we might see them again for for you i mean i can tell you that Destin Daniel Cretton, myself, Yaya, Sir Ben loved making this show.

53:32Andrew Guest:You don't often get to do a project where you love the process of making it quite as much as we all loved making this. I think we would all jump at the chance to make more of it together. It's really going to be about how the world receives this project and we'll see if the MCU fans go on this ride with us because it is very different. And we hope that people who don't think of themselves as MCU fans might give the show a chance and maybe they will fall in love with Simon and Trevor as much as we love these characters. Like they don't need to know the lore. That's exactly right. Bit of Trevor.

54:05And that's it. That's all you need. That's it. And yeah, you're good to go. All you need to know is that you played Ron Jenkins in Coronation Street and you are good to go.

54:13Andrew Guest:That's the most important part. Yeah, absolutely. Andrew, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and thanks so much for your time. It's been my pleasure. Thank you, Chris. Okay, that was Andrew Guest talking about Wonder Man. That's the first time in the show's history, the podcast's history, we've ever had a guest called A Guest. Hurrah. I once knew a man called A Fish. Really? There's no such thing as A Fish. There is. His name is Arthur. Really? Arthur Fish? Arthur Fish. Are you sure you're not friends with Aquaman? Oh, shit! Shit! Five pounds into the swear jar. That sounds like you're mates with Aquaman, let's be honest.

54:46Were you mates with Aquaman? Yes. Okay. How did that happen? No, it was actually... Are you really Diana Prince? This is all making sense. That's another reference. I didn't say that. You said that. Wait a second. I'm trying to establish something here. You referred yourself early on in the show as Diana Prince. You're friends with a man called Arthur Fish. Do you know any Bruce Waynes? Any Clark Kent? No comment. Okay. This is all very fishy. Arthur Fishy, in fact. Anyway. Just so we're keeping track, I reckon it's about 25 pounds that we need from you so far, Chris. to myself I forgot to mention that that's where it goes to me I forgot to mention that we're being members of your board of peace is that what's happening okie dokie let's talk about Wonder Man all eight episodes dropped at once as you will have heard in my interview with Andrew Guest I really like what the show isn't we've been talking for a long long time on all our MCU supporter specials about how we just would like these characters to hang out and not have to fight off a world-threatening alien invasion or another super-powered bad guy.

56:01And the MCU gives us that to a large degree. And this is a show where they've gone, you know what, these are two characters you're going to really, really like, and we're going to push them together for eight episodes, and there's going to be virtually no superhero shit whatsoever. and I really liked and admired that about this show. Let's go around the table and get general reactions. Do you agree, first of all, and what do you think of the show overall? Hellspells, let's start with you. I like that they went for that. I don't like that they didn't 100 % achieve it for me in the sense that, yes, we are focused on the characters and we're not having a lot of superhero nonsense, but it doesn't seem to be focused otherwise.

56:41wise, it doesn't seem to have a point or a, it doesn't seem to have focus. It seems to, this feels like it's fragments of 16 different scripts that were developed and now survive in this format. So it's not a Hollywood satire, although sometimes maybe it seems like it might want to be. And it's not a government satire of, you know, people just desperately trying to fill a prison, although at times it feels like it maybe wants to be. And it doesn't go off on a sort of caper of the week, although sometimes it does. And it doesn't really come to any satisfying conclusion for me beyond the fact that they make their film.

57:21But shouldn't that have been the meat and the spine of the show? Why wasn't the making of Wonder Man a bigger deal to this show about the making of Wonder Man? I just didn't think it hung together. I really liked the characters. I really liked the setup. I thought the Josh Gad joke was very good, but it just felt all over the place a little bit to me. And literally, I watched it the day before yesterday, and I'm struggling to remember the details. So a lack of Wonder Man, in your opinion? I mean, look, I didn't need him to be going around, you know, saving people or whatever. And I thought that the last scene was just about the right amount of action.

58:00I thought that was fun and clever, and he's using his actor powers rather than his superpowers to you know to pull off the big escape at the end i thought that was great but that was like 10 minutes of a show that had gone for four hours and i know that you know that's where he ends up that's not where you're going to spend the whole four hours but it felt like that there could have been more setup and more more just joined up thinking for this i look i didn't hate it i had a nice time a lot of his time watching it, but I just didn't think, I just didn't think it did what it set out to do, and I'm not sure which of those aims it was setting out to do, ultimately, because it feels pulled in 10 different directions.

58:42All right. Amon, you wrote the four-star review of this for Empire. Okay. So where do you stand? I think I know where you stand. Empire's four-star review. I did that. I really like this show it's interesting I agree with some of what you're saying and it's also interesting just thinking about what the talk was going into the show because there were interviews and pieces that I wrote that were saying this is a Hollywood satire and a superhero satire and it's not those things as you say but I really vibed with what it is which is this romance and that friendship between Trevor and Simon And in that regard, I think it does pay off that story.

59:31Because these are two characters who really need each other and who are changed for the better through their interactions. And I do think, ultimately, it pays off that thread. This is your wicked. I mean, just, I mean, wasn't wicked his wicked? I mean, also that. who can say if they've been changed for the better but because he knows him he has been changed for good isn't Wicked your Wicked? I mean also yes they have been changed loathing loathing alright no spoilers James unlimited

1:00:15this may be a different spoiler special like you I love the Josh Gad joke I need that in summer remix immediately on Spotify have they dropped it yet I need to check but that was awesome and I think episode 4 is one of the standout episodes of this entire show so yeah I really liked it I appreciated how different it was I've gone back and forth on the I'll see you next time. Whether or not they should have unleashed all eight episodes at once or done it weekly. I'm sure we'll get into that. But I think ultimately, because of what this show is, the binge model might actually have been better just because of the way in which we as a culture generally consume MCU stuff.

1:01:04I think the binge model might have been the right way to go. But on the whole, I thought it was really great. there was only episode 5 which I just thought was I mean this is an inessential show in many respects but that episode in particular that's where they go after the guy who stole it and the what's it that felt very inessential and skippable and I don't you know that's actually one of my favorite episodes of the 8 but it's really interesting because this is a short show each episode's about 30 minutes once you take off the pre-album previously on Wonder Man and once you take off the credits each show is about 27 minutes something like that that is about 18 once you take off the preamble and the postamble.

1:01:41Is that a word? It is now. It's about 18 minutes. But it actually felt like stuff happens and there's a little bit of action. There's a lot of comedies. One of the funniest gags in the show for me is the hard cut from Simon yelling at Trevor. They're running off in pursuit of the guy on his scooter. And he goes, let's go, let's go. And then it hard cuts and I'm stuck in traffic. And that destroyed me. But yeah, I really liked that episode. but Jimbo Jimbo unadulterated loathing or you okay? I think I'm very much in Helen's camp on this I actually had a really good time with it and I agree with him on that I think regardless of should we say Marvel's strategy or Disney's strategy in releasing this all in one go in a kind of fire and forget method I actually do think it lends itself to that I watched pretty much the whole show in one evening and had a pretty good time with it it's quite gently amusing I don't think a weekly format I don't think it has enough plot to make you care enough to be like, oh, I must tune in next week because you'll be like, I mean, what's going to happen?

1:02:41They're going to sit around and chat. It's a vibe show. It's not a plot show. It is about these two characters. They are compelling people to be with. And, you know, I've had a complicated relationship with Trevor Slattery, not in that way. But I love him in Iron Man 3. I think that fake-out is genius. I think that whole confection is brilliant, but I think Shane Black is so deft at writing these things. That's what makes it work. I hated him in Shang-Chi because I thought it didn't feel like it didn't feel interesting it felt like a waste of that character and it felt like a kind of watered down weak version of what had been put together in Iron Man 3 this actually builds on the version of him I think that we see in Shang-Chi but humanizes him and rounds him out and gives him an inner life and actually made me feel like I knew Trevor Sattery as a person and not a punchline and I really appreciated that so I had a really good time with that I think for me it's similar to what Helen said I think it attempts a number of different things and it does none of them all that well and I think you know the insider Hollywood thing is very sub Barry and doesn't quite and also it's unfortunate for it that it arrives in the wake of the studio which is an extraordinarily well done Hollywood satire which really has teeth this has no teeth at all it gums you gently but it never bites but it's fun you know it's recognisable it's familiar it feels real it feels relatable but it's all very gentle and I think I have no problem with any of the performances and the performances are spot on.

1:04:07And to your point, I'm on, I do think Doorman is a great episode. I think that was, I really, really enjoyed that. I did quite enjoy the next one as well. I quite enjoyed all of them, to be fair. I just think if the screenplays had been a little bit punchier, if they had a little bit more bites and a little bit more, you know, actually really went for it a little bit, I think this would have been a really great show. There's a line, I can't remember exactly what it is, but there's a line that Trevor says, because this is the first MCU property, I think to really engage with the idea of the concept of drugs and drug use and I quite like that Trevor was owning his sobriety and keeps talking about how he's 13 years sober because when we see him in Iron Man 3 which obviously does reference drugs and drink he's an absolute mess of a man and that's the moment that he goes straight so to speak he becomes sober from that moment onwards Presumably not necessarily by choice initially because he's first in prison and then stolen by the Mandarin You can't get drugs in prison We all know Have you guys seen, speaking of prison, have you seen the web series, the Trevor in prison web series?

1:05:09Because that's actually quite fun. Web series or the Hail to the King that Drew Pierce short that he wrote? Yeah, but that was that. It went to anyone online, right? It was the one shot. It was just a one shot. I thought it was broken into pieces. Oh, fine. Well, yes, but that, that particular thing. I liked that. I thought that was a lot of fun. Yeah. I think I'm a big Trevor Slattery fan. Ironically, I've forgotten the point I was going to make about Trevor being addled by drugs. I've been distracted but I think the point I was going to make was about the deepening of Trevor's character in this and the deepening of Sir Ben Kingsley's performance in this I really admire and appreciate that side of things and that he's willing to own up to his drug problem and this is a show that references drugs I think a little bit more overtly than any other MCU show so it's trying to be a little edgier in that way it has a Midnight Cowboy clip but as Andrew Gass said they couldn't even they couldn't even pick a clip where any of the characters were smoking and they certainly couldn't discuss the fact that Joe Buckina is a male prostitute or that Ratsorizo is essentially a pimp a dropout whatever also it's a major spoiler for anyone out there who watches Wonder Man not yet having been old enough to watch Midnight Cowboy that's the end of the movie guys like it's it's quite a I feel like there should be a spoiler warning on it but hey it's a over 50 year old film i think i think it's okay people are still discovering so anyway i i just i think i wanted more from the relationship a little bit i i enjoyed the bits where trevor was being a weirdo and referencing ridiculous stories from his past and name dropping strange names in odd ways i remember my point i enjoyed him having beef with joey pants like that was fun yeah but i just feel like that's a good dynamic okay simon as this incredibly repressed buttoned up straight man who cares so deeply about his acting and then you've got trevor who cares so deeply about his acting but is also a complete wastrel trying to rebuild his like it's a good dynamic yeah it's a good dynamic yeah just it It wasn't funny enough.

1:07:22And there wasn't enough of Trevor being funny and Simon being, you know, repressed. And I just, I wanted the dialogue and the repartee between them to be better than it is. I mean, Andrew's worked in some of the great comedy shows of the last, you know, 10, 15 years. You know, he knows this stuff. And I just feel like at some point, I think this just has been torn to shreds and, you know, pasted back together in a weird collage. The thing I was going to say, I just remembered that, I was talking about, there's a line, I think it's in episode five. I don't have the line verbatim. I didn't write it down entirely.

1:07:59I'm paraphrasing. But Trevor blurts out a line about Stevie Nicks having drugs bunged up her blowhole. And I was just like, wow. I mean, for Marvel, that's quite a daring and quite a dangerous line. Outside Deadpool, yes. Well, yes, but in the studio, that would be just a throwaway line. Entourage, it would be just a throwaway line. And you're right, I think punches were pulled a little bit in the writing of this. Perhaps by necessity, because obviously there's a rating thing here, and they're not going full R-rated Deadpool territory. But also, maybe they're trying to broaden it and not make it too insidery.

1:08:37Because I'm not sure, I'd be fascinated to know who they thought they were aiming this at exactly. Is it for Marvel people who are wanting an interesting sort of slightly novelty palette lens or is it for people who aren't Marvel to kind of make them more interested? I don't quite know what the objective is. Yeah, it's... I just felt like there is a toothlessness to the Hollywood satire. Like, the people making this show actually think it's pretty okay and don't have much to say or Disney didn't want them to say too much because, like, you know, the scenes on American Horror Story, first of all, funny.

1:09:10The idea that he comes in is this one-day player and he has all this ridiculous stuff. Like, that was really solid to me. I was having a really good time at that point and it sort of felt like a thing. But it didn't ever go far enough to make it a sort of big, ridiculous, broad Hollywood satire. It just sort of, I mean, what are we making fun of? Like, a protein smoothie and turkey bacon? Like, that's fairly normal everyday things in the world. It doesn't feel like that's any weird Hollywood, you know, nonsense. It didn't feel like it was ever going far enough into the Hollywood craziness to make it feel like a fun Hollywood satire.

1:09:47And I think the ones that work, whether it be Entourage, whether it be the studio, pushing the excesses, pushing the extremes is what makes those land. And because you go through those and go, oh my God, I can't believe they said that. Oh my God, that's so true. Like, that's genuinely fun. But as you say, this is very vanilla. It's very watered down. It's very safe, which is a shame. And if you combine that with the fact that, you know, the comedy in it, again, is quite gentle and sort of, oh, you might smile a bit, you don't really laugh. Again, it feels like it dabbles its toes in a lot of sort of genre pools, but never quite commits.

1:10:17And that's it. And, you know, I like the rug pull in, was it episode five with the sweetie manufacturers who were not, in fact, rug dealers? Like, that was a fun rug pull. And the idea that these are just like little Gen Zers launching their artisanal what's-its. but again it doesn't like it could go further making them weirdo artisanal what's it it wasn't it wasn't very outrageous like the drug dealers turn up there's an actual sense of jeopardy from them rather than these are just buffoons of the week perhaps there's a lot of stuff I want to talk about but James your point there about it being all quite gentle leads us to a discussion I think of why it has been released the way it has been released and Amon I don't know how did you watch them all back to back when you got the episodes?

1:11:05Not all of them, actually. I watched, I think, the first three, and then I watched the other five the day after. Okay, because I didn't watch them all eight back-to-back, but it only takes about four hours all in to do that. So you could absolutely do that. I think one of the reasons why is because the stakes are quite low, and each episode kind of ends on a vague sense of a cliffhanger, but it's not the sort of cliffhanger that would tune in next week. Like, oh my God, I can't wait to find out whether Simon got that audition next week. But I think if you just roll from one episode into the other, it can carry along on this rather amiable wave.

1:11:41And that's certainly my experience when I watched, I watched, I think, the last four or five in a row as well. Yeah, I thought it was very, very enjoyable to be consumed that way. And as I say, when I think about week-to-week stuff with MCU TV, when it's worked really well, it's not only that there is enough to talk about episode by episode but it's about what it means for the wider MCU and what it means for the wider saga who which characters are they meeting the theorizing is what powers that momentum week to week we would have struggled to do a week to week podcast about Wonder Man I feel like there would have been maybe if they did it in Ironheart-esque chunks that would have worked but yeah there's no ties to the multiverse saga he isn't being introduced to any major MCU characters this show doesn't even deign to fully answer what the origins of his powers are and I just know that if we got a week to week thing all of those things would be on discussion and theorized by various people and then you get to the end of the rainbow it wouldn't have given you any of that it never purported to try and give you that but people would have been wanting that and might have been disappointed if they got to the end of those 8 weeks and didn't get some of that so I get why they unleashed all 8 episodes in that regard I like that they didn't feel the need to do another traditional origin story and I was expecting the flashback with probably, let's be honest him getting his powers at the same time his dad died I thought that was going to be the thing.

1:13:26But there wasn't even like a discussion really about, you know, I thought he'd maybe like sit down with his brother and discuss the dad's death or, and it might come up or it might be hinted at somehow that way. Not even anything like that. And it felt, it did feel odd because I thought that was one of the things that made Simon himself feel a little bit underserved to me in that he clearly does have this trauma and he clearly does desperately miss this father who was such an influence on his life. But, you know, there wasn't that moment of kind of, I don't know, sharing that experience, sharing that sadness, opening up a little bit to his mother and his brother.

1:14:05I think his mom knows, obviously. His mom knows he was devastated by his dad's death, but they don't... And they know about his powers. And they know, I think, but they don't, you know, they don't bring it out into the open. And I just felt like that would have been really helpful for me as an audience member, I think. It would have been really helpful to see that he does have people who are watching his back and get that bit more sense of he's letting them in a little bit and he's letting them care for him a bit more than he did. Do you know what I mean? That would have been one of the things that I think would have helped show that he has grown through this show and that he has gained a little bit of self-confidence or courage or whatever to just open up just a tiny bit about his powers.

1:14:43And I don't think we even get that much. Do you think that he hasn't grown on the show period? I think he has, but I don't think it's terribly well shown beyond his relationship with Trevor. I think that's a relationship that's really important. Obviously, it's the backbone of the show. But I just think it needs to show how it trickles over elsewhere in his life as well a little bit. That second part, I definitely agree with. But yeah, like one of the things that I really appreciate about the final minutes of the show. Obviously, we've gone through seven and a half episodes of him mismanaging his powers because of all that depressed energy.

1:15:16but because of that friendship with Trevor, he's able to now control them and to free him in the way that he does. I mean, he's effortless with it, with some of the stuff that he does. And he's acting as well. I love that. I love it. Which is brilliant, because again, I feel like Simon needed that from Trevor and for Trevor's side to just be seen as someone other than a villain and to have that respect and friendship, that's what Trevor needed. So I love that give and take between their relationship. And I did get a lot from it, like just the purity of them doing what we're doing and just talking about their favorite lines and their favorite movies.

1:15:55That was some of the purest, sweetest stuff in the entire show for me. How many lines did it take you guys to spot Pretty Woman? Because I literally got it on line one. I don't know Pretty Woman at all. I got it quite quickly. Not on line one. Definitely not on line one. But I realized what he was doing and it did make me smile. Line one, I'll be honest, line one, I didn't say pretty woman, but I was like, I know that. He's quoting something else. It was quite line two. I was like, oh, no. So it's about him taking eight episodes, because that was episode six, that fake, that audition where he hides behind pretty woman.

1:16:26It's about, you know, I said this, Andrew Gass, it's about the final episode. It's about both of them taking responsibility. Trevor taking responsibility for Simon's fuck up on the set of Wonder Man and claiming to be the Mandarin again. even though clearly the damage control agent knows that that's utter fucking bullshit and they've got no physical evidence whatsoever to pin Trevor to the crime. But, you know, you could argue that that's a commentary on... Bureaucracy. Yeah, because it doesn't really matter to him whether he just needs a body to put in the literal box. I've really enjoyed Arianne Moyad in this series.

1:17:02There's one line which sticks out to me because, again, Trevor and Simon have got the thing about them vibing over different films and different quotes. And Trevor tries that with Cleary, and he's just like, yeah. And it did amuse me when they had that. I think it's the conversation where Trevor's like, I'm not going to text him right back. I'm going to wait a little bit, which that entire scene is hilarious. He's like the anti-Coulson in a way, isn't he? He's this law enforcement official who's popping up in different shows and, of course, films as well. He's in No Way Home. But he's a bit of a dick.

1:17:39But the show, maybe, you can see some of the pressure that's brought the Baron in. Maybe he's not that much of a dick. He's a dick, but he's not, you know, he's not a super dick. It was interesting, that shot of the room full of agents. No, no. The room full of agents. First of all, all men, all in dark-colored suits, all very, like, uniform as people. I thought that was an interesting depiction of, you know, government agencies. because it isn't necessarily the way that the MCU has depicted government agencies before. They have been a diverse bunch. They have been sort of slightly, generally public servants trying to do the right thing.

1:18:17I think there's a little bit of a political tinge, actually, to this sort of much more kind of old school FBI. It's an old school FBI J. Edgar Hoover kind of model of what an agency looks like, I think, in this one. And I don't think that's a coincidence. but going back to Simon I think it's also about him it's the show's arc is about him finally getting out of his own way in a way but also taking responsibility at the end for his powers and for who he is and what he does at the end is a really pretty seismic moment I guess for him and also maybe the MCU if he decides to become a hero after this because as we all know because of the the doorman clause he can't act anymore but then again why would he want to act because he's done the thing that he wanted to do his entire life.

1:19:04Here's my question. Yeah. Do we think Hollywood would actually have a doorman clause? I say this because... If they lose, they've lost Josh Gad. Yes. I understand the severity of that devastating tragedy. Frozen 3 is in turnaround because of this. You say that. However, here's my question. AI Josh Gad. Look, put your like Zaslav-y hats on, right? If I told you... I can't afford a Zaslav-y hat. If I told you I could save you the entire VFX budget on your next blockbuster, I think you would sacrifice Josh Gad yourself. That's what I think. I would expose Josh Gad to radioactive material to try to make Josh Gad a superhero.

1:19:49Exactly. And I think if I came in as Simon Williams and I said, look, I have my powers under control. Which is a fucking lie. No, but at the end of the film, at the end of the film, I can fly, I can do this, I can do that, and I can save you$150 million on VFX. I believe I can fly. I can't believe that you're just advocating for VFX people losing their livelihoods. I am not. I'm just, no, no, no, I'm not advocating for it. I'm saying that a studio head would not hesitate to kill Josh Gad if that's what it took. What was the reason they used in the show? Was it that basically films were uninsurable because insurance companies would not insure films In case you lost your star to a void from which there is no escape.

1:20:33And nobody knows where he is. Presumably he'll show up in Peacemaker Season 3. I don't know. That would be hilarious. Oh my God, that's 30 quid. I would love to do that. Oh no, shit! God damn it! Damn, I hit post rules. Oh dear. I've lost my entire month's wages now. Also, Helen mentioned the FBI and that's also a DC reference. What? oh isn't it outside of the city limits no shit it's in town run all the way all the way to the DCU damn it another£5 alright so let's talk about some specific things that happened in the show we also have some listener questions which is great so what did we make of the big events of episode 8 Trevor claiming to be the Mandarin again.

1:21:28Now, going through it, I've seen a lot of these episodes twice now, and they do seed it. There's a lot of discussion of Trevor and the Mandarin. Obviously, there's the audition at the beginning of episode six. Another thing I like, that each episode began with a cold-open flashback of some kind, and we get to see how Trevor stumbled into getting the job of the Mandarin and took on that chilling aspect. That voice, by the way, off camera is just a dude talking to him. It's a very good, it's in the interview with Andrew Guest. People will know who he is. I thought it was meant to be at first Aldrich Killian.

1:22:03And then I thought it was meant to be James Badge Dell's character from Iron Man 3. But it's not. It's just one of the Mandarin's dudes. One of Killian's dudes. Because he'd have a dude for that. He'd have a dude. He wouldn't do that himself. But what do we make of that? What do we make of Trevor taking on the mantle of the Mandarin once again? given everything that went down in Destin Daniel Cretton's Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, which reclaimed the Mandarin. Yeah. Of course. Well, for better or worse. I really liked how I thought it was a lovely Grey Snow. It does make a nonsense of the whole Marvel's Twilight banner, though, which is the whole thing is that it will have no bearing on anything, but crucially, you don't need to have seen anything else to understand it, which in this case, and let's be honest, also to an extent in Echo, is not true because...

1:22:46Is that what they stipulate? Broadly speaking, they're standalone-ish, and they don't create ripples within the wider pond. That's the idea behind the branding. Right. So they said that with Echo. And the idea is that they are going to be more character-focused and so on a smaller scale. But with this, I'd say... This counts as the Echo Sport special, by the way. It does. That's it. We've done it. It's been 30 seconds. I would say, like, the required reading here is probably Iron Man 3. I mean, you don't really need to have seen Shang-Chi for it, but I think you do need to... To fully get it, you need to have seen the big Mandarin reveal and all of that.

1:23:17I don't think you do. I do. I don't... Because I think it lacks all teeth and impact if you don't really understand what it is. I mean, look, people aren't stupid. They can piece the bits together. But I think, you know, it defangs the whole moment. But as Chris knows, they seed the various Mandarin things in before that final moment in episode 8. Even if the audience hasn't seen Iron Man 3, there's enough references to the Mandarin in this show that they understand what's going on. I don't know. I don't think that's the case. I think you understand narratively narratively, that this is a thing that has happened.

1:23:49But I don't think it works dramatically unless you've seen it. Unless you've seen what? Unless you've seen him as the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. You don't think it works in the show then? No, I think it works brilliantly because I've seen Iron Man 3. This is hard to follow. I'm confused. A little bit. I get what you're saying. They establish in the show that he has played a terrorist and that people believed him and were scared of him and that this is now in his past. And we've got clips. Yeah, yeah. We've got clips of that. We've got him, we've got references to him going to prison. and we've got references to him being broken out.

1:24:18We even have references to him living in another dimension for a while. Another dimension. Thank you. It's all established. But I think what James is saying is you don't really feel it. You don't get the impact of that unless you've actually seen at least Iron Man 3 and ideally also Shang-Chi. I'm very tired. You must remember this. This is true. Exactly that. But as it stands, as I have done the required reading, I loved that as a moment and I thought it was a great sort of selfless moment for that character. where his conscience got to him. And it was a clever way out of that situation that didn't seem like you could get out of it.

1:24:54And I thought that was genius. Just the idea that's like, Trevor Slattery was the performance or whatever his line is. It's nice. I like it. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, poor old Trev. He's stuck in that prison. But perhaps he was like, I've been broken out once before. I'm sure I'll be broken out again. Just until I ask a question about Trev, you yourself are a supporter of Liverpool Football Club. Can you correctly identify for me where Trevor is from at various points? Because it felt to me that his region migrates around the north slash midlands of the country quite a bit during the show. I'm like, are you Scouse?

1:25:29There's a little bit of Brummie in there. It seems a little bit non-location specific. And he can do, don't forget, Cockney as well. He can. I have not been from Liverpool myself, although it is one of my favorite cities. And I do love the people and the Scouse dialect and the Scouse accent. having now studied Sir Ben Kingsley performance as Trevor Slattery across four MCU properties, I have absolutely no fucking idea where in Liverpool he is meant to be from. I think all of it, generally speaking. Although he's never... I don't think if you showed this to a scouser and you said, where is he from?

1:26:09I think they'd say anywhere but Liverpool. Yeah, I think so too. So it's like the Daphne's brothers in Fraser. It's not quite that bad. Okay. But when he goes to prison at the end, I was like, yeah, I get it. For the accent alone, I get it. Lock him up. For the accent alone, I get it. No, it's, you know, it's, he's had experiences as Trev, right? He's been on a journey, and that journey has involved hoovering up a lot of drugs over the years. And I presume that he left Liverpool at a very young age and therefore his accent is somewhat malleable. You know, like if you listen to, Daniel Craig grew up kind of Liverpool adjacent.

1:26:53So his accent isn't Scouse. And then he sort of summered in Wolverhampton. He summered in the Hamptons. The Wolverhampton. And his accent has changed. Like Jason Isaacs, right? Jason Isaacs is from Liverpool. Yeah. And we've, you know, if you ever get him to speak as he would normally speak, it's wonderful. of old but over the years his accent my accent's changed he deliberately showed his accent he came to London he can also do an incredible Northern Irish he's done that bit on a chat show where he goes all around the regions of the UK and he does them all perfectly yeah he's very very talented as indeed is Trevor Slattery one of the things I loved about this show as well was Trevor's back catalogue slowly being like filled in as well I could not get enough of that I wanted more and more and more and a lot of them are Ben Kingsley projects as well which is great the film he talks about as Andrew Guest said in the interview in the film he talks about having done with Glenda Jackson Ben Kingsley did do with Glenda Jackson but of course the big one for me was when they revealed that he played Ron Jenkins on Coronation Street which is the character that Ben Kingsley played on Coronation Street which I absolutely love and adore and I wish they'd got the clip but I played that because I think it was in the 60s the late 60s but very early days of Coronation Street and there he was very young Ben King I really liked Trevor in this and I've been in the minority when it comes to my thoughts on Trevor and Iron Man and Shang-Chi yeah you're not a fan you weren't a fan of the fake out right he's not the toast of woman the toast of Watford I liked that they got the fake outs of Drew and like they managed to do that to the entire MCU It was an amazing piece of storytelling in the best Iron Man film I'm on.

1:28:45What are you talking about? Iron Man 1 is the best. Oh, come on. Iron Man 3 is fucking top-tier MCU, no doubt. Agree to disagree. And then Shang-Chi, I just don't think that he fit in that movie. But here, he really clicked for me. And his redemption of sorts felt earned. I also just like, you know, part of what Trevor helps Simon with is just the overthinking and the backstory and being too much and it feels like his his backstory as a character is simple but powerful he's wanting to go back into acting to prove to his mother that you know he can he can do this and to you know for that reason essentially and even though he gives up that dream ultimately I feel like his mother would be proud of the decision that he makes to use the Mandarin in that way it's lovely Yeah, it's a lovely choice.

1:29:40They deepen the character really, really beautifully. He never actually comes out and says it, but you get a sense that there's maybe a couple of kids that he's had along the way that he's no longer in touch with. You know, because it never states his age, but Ben Kingsley's in his 80s. And, you know, is this guy... At one point, I think it's in the Wonder Man episode where they're making the Wonder Man episode and they're talking about the trousers being too tight and the costume fitter's like, oh, well, you know, you're not going to be fathering any kids. And he goes, oh, have you known Anthony Quinn fathered a child at 81?

1:30:09So maybe he's referencing kind of, is he actually Ben Kingsley's age? If he was Ron Jenkins in Coronation Street, we have a date for that. So perhaps he was. I don't know. But I love the fact that they deepened his character and they made this guy who was a buffoon, a one-note joke, but I thought a joke that I really, really... A funny joke. I really, really love the joke. It absolutely hits. And I do like him in Shang-Chi. He has that guy about Planet of the Apes, which destroys me, where, you know, how do they teach those apes to ride horses? Oh, God, it's so good. It's such a great joke. And, of course, his double act with Maurice, the sort of bum monkey thing.

1:30:48The bum monkey. That's incredible. I don't know what a species it is. I do love that they bond over, you know, a shared, serious approach to acting. I love that when Trevor gets out from under his addiction to everything by the sound of this. anything you got he's addicted but when he gets out from under that the innate actor who was underneath actor who I think had you know maybe lost his way because of the drugs but he comes back and he gets back to some you know earlier state and he is serious about acting and I think he recognises and respects and values that in Simon and I do love that I didn't have a lot of problems with their relationship I just I just felt like they could have pushed the humor without losing that heart for Trevor and that's kind of what I wanted I guess for both of them I didn't have space for this in my review but I also loved that the show took the time to give us an authentic experience of Haitian Creole culture I thought that was beautifully done in that episode where they go back to Simon's home and he interacts with his family which again felt very authentic and considered and precise.

1:32:09I like that. Him going, you know I understand you. Yes. Which is great. It's interesting. And that's a major rewrite as well because one of the things I like about the show as well is how it rewrites Simon Williams from the comic books. I mean, it really changes a lot. In a major way. He's white in the comic books. He's a major movie star in the comic books. I guess he gets to that point at the end of the show. But even things like his brother, Eric, turns out to be a bad guy called the Grim Reaper who is a thorn in the Avengers side. This Eric Williams is not superpowered. He doesn't have Simon's powers.

1:32:47There's none of that whatsoever. So he's not going to become that character. Interesting. He definitively said that. He didn't definitively say that, that he had no powers, but I think that's fairly obvious. I don't know that it is. Okay. And I feel like they've in part left the origins question open because it could easily, based off what we have seen in this episode, that Simon is a mutant. I think they could easily go that way, which is not the way it is in the comics. But if that is true, then it could be a thing within the family, which means that Eric might also have powers. You can't have a mutant called Eric.

1:33:27Yeah, when's that ever worked? I think it's a stupid idea and I don't think we should pursue that line of questioning.

1:33:36Can I just say that I really, really enjoyed the final Joey Pants reveal that he's taken over Trevor's character. Pants reveal is always good. Pants reveal. I didn't love everything about the earlier scene with him as a son. I like the idea that there was beef, but I didn't think some of the financial advice was funny enough. Again, sharp enough. Yeah. Ridiculous enough. If I wanted him to be pushing some, you know, some stupid way of making money would have been funnier to me. Like if he'd had a, if he had a skincare line, that would be funny. But him advertising... Joe Pantigliano skincare line.

1:34:11That would be funny, right? Or Joey Pants, Joey Pants. Oh my God. Right, exactly. Because they would have pockets like a kangaroo. It'd be amazing. What would you put in the pocket? What is it got in the pocket? You'd put your precious in there, clearly. That's what pants are for. But I just, or like he's got a stake line based on that one scene in The Matrix or something, something. I just felt like... Why weren't we in the writer's room? I don't know. It's just sensible to invest in property. Like, that's boring. Like, go further. It's like, this is just basic good financial advice. This isn't another way the joke is.

1:34:46And I don't know why Simon would take offense at that. Do you know what I mean? It just made no sense. It's not sensible to invest in pants as the South Park elves found out. buy pants steal pants profit maybe that's a Joey Pants business model I don't know maybe it is there's one character I would have liked to have seen more of and that's Olivia Thelby's yes who does a lot with a little but I think there's a lot more there with her relationship with Simon and we only skimmed the surface of it really it's a very male show it is it's a very very male show I mean yes it's Wonder Man not Wonder I know but like you have damn it his ex His mum and his agent, all of whom have very small roles.

1:35:31And that's kind of it. All right. A couple of other things before we get into some listener questions. Let's talk about episode four, shall we? Byron Bowers as Damar Dorman Davis. Dorman is a character in Marvel Comics, and he is as ridiculous as it seems. Ding dong. And I love that they turned him into, you know, this is kind of standard procedure now, isn't it? you get this an awful lot in James you'll know this I believe you do a podcast about television apparently you'll get a lot of standalone episodes these days in shows that will focus on a lesser known character or a character we haven't seen before Last of Us season one Cheers ran for 11 seasons and then they focused on a little known character called Frasier and they spun him off into a show which ran for a couple of seasons he did Rivalry did it recently did it?

1:36:20with what? with Frasier with Frasier yeah it was great Graphic. Niles. Did he have his joy pants on? Someone did get niled. I'm listening. Anyway, niled before sod. No, it doesn't work. That's like a standard thing, right? Yeah, it's not quite bottle episodes, but almost like field trip episodes or capsule episodes where they'll zoom in on something. I mean, loads of shows do it. And they're often very, very special episodes of TV shows. And I think that's the same thing here. I think it breaks the rhythm nicely. The use of black and white works well. and it just feels like it's a very interesting little sort of side quest and it becomes a high point of the series without a doubt I think.

1:37:00You think it's a high point of the series? Yeah I think so. Which is wild because the main characters are essentially absent from that episode but it's just a lovely little fable and I just think it's brilliant. And yes, Josh Gad who is an interesting choice I mean all that stuff is inherently funny. And if you were to go to Fabric this Saturday night you would 100 % hear that version of In Summer. In Summer! They have not released it they haven't released it the Wonder Man soundtrack at all yet, sadly. That must be on there. Which is a shame. DJ, give me the In Summer remix now.

1:37:33Yeah, Mon, what did you stand in that episode? Stand out of the series, for sure. Really, really loved it. And yeah, it's just really, really funny. But I enjoyed the story as well. I really enjoyed Doorman Davis' story. And I think Byron Biles does a fantastic job with that character. I wish it was more than one episode, really. I thought he was going to show up again. Me too. I thought that I was discussing this with another person who was watching the show. And before we... So we watched that episode and we predicted that around episode seven, Simon would get captured and be put in the same place as Doorman Davis was.

1:38:17And then episode eight would be about that. See, it's so good we weren't doing weekly episodes. This is the thing. This would have been an app on guarantee.

1:38:27Yeah, I liked it. It didn't blow me away. Episode three of season one of The Last of Us blew me away. This wasn't on that level. Nothing in this show is. This show is quite a kind of middle-of-the-road experience, so I think this fits with it. But it is nice. But it was well done. Nothing against the performances. Again, I just thought that the satire could have been sharper. or the adverts he was doing could have been sillier. It just could have been pushed. It was quite a fun little exploration of that trajectory of someone who, via a gimmick, becomes a kind of an overnight star and then it wanes very, very quickly and his star shines very brightly and then essentially puffs out while taking Josh Gad with it.

1:39:08Maybe it was a metaphor for the MCU. Maybe it was. I thought there'd be a post-credit scene, to be honest, at the end of episode eight where Wonder Man's sitting at home, or sorry, Doorman is sitting at home somewhere, you know just drinking a drink or something and then suddenly Josh Gad appears out of his stomach yeah where is Josh Gad he's in another dimension another dimension he's in the door dimension presumably somewhere with Dormammu which is very good Dormammu Dormammu I've come to serenade you Dormammu would love Frozen wouldn't he I think that would be the thing that would really turn him around on the whole destroying earth thing I think so yeah but not a fan of Frozen 2 weirdly controversially because some people we consider to be superior to the original film.

1:39:50Great songs. Great songs. Into the end, no. It's a very musical podcast, isn't it? Which is good, because thank God, because we can't refer to the DCU, can we? Oh. What? 35. Let's talk about the president of Boravia, shall we? Von Kovac. 40. Yeah. I'm really having to pay myself a lot of money by the end of this podcast. So Slatko Buric as Von Kovac, the mysterious director. Again, I thought they were going to push that aspect of things a little more and have him be a little bit more eccentric and maybe even downright batshit insane uh but he's really just a kind of a presence in the show until until that final pivotal uh audition episode in episode six uh what do we make of him and the helen pointed this out right back at the beginning the wonder man movie of it all that the pacing of the show is very interesting and it takes six episodes to get them to the audition, and then Wonder Man the movie is made and released very, very quickly indeed.

1:40:53I must admit, one of the things that really irritated me about this show was they used the image of Williams on the red carpet at the premiere of Wonder Man as one of the publicity shots, which strikes me as kind of a major spoiler. I mean, you kind of guess this is where it's going, but that did irritate me a little bit. it also just like you know the way it was all sold was that it's about he wants to make wonder man but he has to hire the superpowers to be cast as wonder man so wouldn't wouldn't it have made more sense to have at least one full episode on filming where he's trying to control his powers through filming at least one full episode on that wouldn't it have made sense for that there then to be you know the whole discussion of what he does next during the at least a year before it comes out have they never heard of post-production I just I did feel like that was again just inexact and again if you are going to make any degree of a Hollywood satire you have to kind of engage with what Hollywood is and there is a time problem there I'm sorry again like going through the show there was a lot of talk about the superhero satire-ness of it all and I remember seeing a trailer in which they're interviewing Von Kovac and he's talking about making a superhero movie and I thought they were going to push that element more.

1:42:08Yeah. I did. He could have been very funny on that. There could have been a whole thing about an arthouse director suddenly wanting to do a superhero. Like that could have been made quite absurd. He would be so desperately broke that maybe this is the only thing he can do. Who knows? Yeah, or even like getting into, do you remember when Ang Lee did Hulk and the VFX department met up with him and he basically handed them like an old piece of driftwood with some lichen on it and is like, that's what I'm going for. Do you know what I mean? Like there's stuff you could do with that interaction that would be really crazy and fun.

1:42:40It's interesting. I think that Slatko Buric is a really good actor. I felt he was a bit too low energy in this. I wanted that character to be wilder and more over the top. And as I said earlier, just downright batshit insane to the point where he makes Trevor Slattery look normal. You know, where even Trevor's going, I don't really know how to deal with this guy because he's so out of left field. And it didn't quite do that. I didn't know anything about the show going in. I didn't know whether Simon had his powers. I interviewed Yaya for the magazine a couple of months ago, and obviously he couldn't say anything.

1:43:16I was like, does Simon have his powers when we meet him, or is this about him accruing those powers in the making of Wonder Man? There's a nice irony there. The actor playing a superhero becomes a superhero while playing the superhero and then has to cover that up. That would have been cool. I thought that's where it was going to go. you know all the stuff the initial trailer which was very heavily audition oriented it was you know it had the Von Kovac character bringing him to his house and you know we're gonna make a film that after this you know no one will ever make a film again because no one will have the balls to do it I thought he was gonna take some sort of weird almost multiversal odyssey that as a result of that Simon would have got powers but that's obviously not what he was doing but what is what was interesting is that I I going in I didn't know I didn't know want to expere from that character but i was still a little bit underwhelmed by his lack of energy in that audition scene i did enjoy the fact that the wonder man's script emulated how the relationship between simon and trevor was evolving oh yeah um because you know they're in the car when they say barnaby portrays wonder man and obviously that's part of what's going on i thought that was some clever storytelling yeah that was nice i mean in terms of the audition again i would have liked the other people to be ideally bigger names like more recognizable faces but definitely within the universe of the show bigger names and more more you know more recognizable faces like if they'd gone in and been like oh my god you know you starred in lilo and stitch three oh my god i can't believe i'm here with you you're the star of rogers the musical which is now a major motion picture exactly that kind of thing would have like again made simon and and trevor more underdoggy but just given you a bit more again kind of Hollywood satire, Marvel Universe satire just kind of built it up a little bit.

1:45:05Yeah, Sam Rockwell had been one of the guys, for example. It's interesting as well, like just this wide cross-section of people who were up for both roles. There didn't seem to be, I thought we were going to get that guy. We get it to an extent in the first episode, you know, which I guess has been done before but it's also very much the actor's experience where you walk into a room to audition and there's a dozen guys who look just like you, who are dressed just like you and you have to somehow prevail above all those other guys, all of whom feel that they're born to play this role the way that Simon Williams feels he's born to play this role.

1:45:39I thought it might have played with that a little bit. The superhero fatigue thing, it didn't hammer it as much as I thought. She-Hulk would have had a field day with this by now and I felt it slightly pulled its punches with that. The one thing that really did tickle me low was in the final episode when Trevor's been replaced and they haven't got Joey Pans back in to play Barnaby yet. And so you have Yaya... Talking to a tennis ball. Talking to a tennis ball on a stick, which is, I think, almost a direct reference to the comments that Scorsese said years ago that blew the whole fucking thing up in the first place.

1:46:12I also think I would have liked, in the audition scene, maybe a little bit more of his personal history with Wonder Man. I thought there was going to be a sort of... I'm sorry, I'm so nervous because this movie means so much to me because this is... I went to see it with my now departed father. And, you know, it's one of my core memories. You know, something a bit more open up. But I guess he can't be open at that point in the script is the idea. But at the same time, if he had just had a little chink in his armor and just a glimpse of how much it means to him there, I think it might have just given you a bit more sense of why Von Kovacs went for him at that moment.

1:46:47Anyway. It's not clear why he's gone for Trevor and Simon. I guess I get that. I guess, you know, a lot of directors historically and today want the discovery of an unknown, you know, to be like their thing. It's like, oh, I have discovered and groomed this person. I have made them what they are. And there's a sort of almost an ownership of it often. I mean, Preminger and Gene Seberg, for example, absolutely classic case of it. But it has happened quite a lot through movie history. And I think that makes sense to me that he might want a Simon. And then Trevor is notorious. and that is something that he could play with in terms of making this film more talked about.

1:47:26I can kind of backwards engineer it if I'm honest. Especially for a sort of eccentric director. But it's never really addressed and I think that would have been made more clear if everybody else in that audition room at Vrunkovak's house had been on a higher level than these guys. Yeah, I agree. Can I get a point, by the way, for showing remarkable restraint in the fact that we've done a podcast for about an hour now. I don't know how long this is going to be by the time you listen to this. About a show whose two lead characters are called Trevor and Simon and I haven't made a single reference to We Don't Do Duvets.

1:48:01Can I just say that I deserve a reward for that. Now, I'm on Laughed there. Do you understand that reference? None of you understand. Helen looked blank. I don't think you did because I don't either. Did anyone not? Did you ever watch Going Live? To be fair, I'm aware of Going Live but I didn't watch it. I did watch it but it was many years ago. They had a comedy double act and going live called Trevor and Simon and they used to swing their pants and they did, we don't do duvets, they did comedy sketches every single week and it became quite a big thing. They had their own TV show and everything.

1:48:33They fucking did. Yeah. They fucking did. Fuck you all. Can I just say I deserve a point for restraint. Okay. Okay, well. After you haven't just yelled fuck you all. One point for restraint and 40 pounds in the swear jar. Why? Just because I mentioned Superman a bunch of times. No, for reference. Going live is not the DCU. Yet.

1:48:57Jesus Christ, I'm going to owe so much money. To be fair, it might be Wonder Woman 1984. Oh! Oh! Oh my God. No one will ever know. No one saw that film.

1:49:11We're going to owe so much money by the end of this. We might as well be Bruce Wayne. Right. 60. All right. Some very, very quick listener questions. Fal Shopaholic has returned. It's been a while since we heard from Fal Shopaholic. Is Wonder Man supposed to be like Buck Rogers? I don't know. Yeah, I think so. I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying the scene from the original Wonder Man movie where he's kicking people off the rock looks like it was shot at that one rock that they always used for Star Trek that appears in Bill and Ted's Boba's journey. You know, the one. It's one of those old-school serialized type things, isn't it?

1:49:52Yeah. Really quite quaint twee things like Flash Gordon and whatnot. Yeah, a bit Buck Roger is a bit Flash Gordon. Yeah. That kind of vibe. Buckaroo Banzai across the eighth dimension. Has the Department of Damage Control ever done anything right? Only by accident, I think. Nope. And, Val, it was your point. I wonder if people who've never seen Iron Man 3 or Shang-Chi would have tuned in. they might have tuned in because it certainly gave the impression of being something else and I'm sure they would have enjoyed it I'm just not sure it would have landed quite as squarely as it otherwise might have done yeah here's one from Dingo76 I wonder if he's Australian as well Dingo76 says does Leo or any of the other real actors being mentioned in the show mean they will not star in future MCU shows no No, because we know that the Big Lebowski exists in the MC universe, but we also know that Obadiah Stane exists.

1:50:52So there's clearly a... That's because the dude was played by someone else. Okay. He was played by Bo Bridges. Right, but if Leo exists in the universe, but Leonardo DiCaprio can therefore still play a character. I mean, he won't, but... Because Scorsese would disown him. That would be terrible. Well, he should be the star of Roger's musical. Why? I don't know whether he can hold a tune. But he'd be great. He'd be great as Cap. I don't like it. Little blonde fella. No. He's got experience with doors. I think it was a bed frame, wasn't it? I think it was a bed frame. Was it a bed frame? I don't know.

1:51:26It was a door that they were on. I thought it was irregularly shaped. No, it was a door. It's a fucking door. It's a fucking door. You're angry at me in this podcast. And there was enough space on that door. Not according to James Cameron. He did tests. He proved it. I'm so, so angry. Steve Talentire these are all in blue sky by the way Talentire says is this the funniest Marvel show yet? There are some genuinely lol lines I would say no because I mean I would say it's gently amusing I don't know if I'd call it funny I think Moon Knight has some properly funny moments in it I think She-Hulk has some properly funny moments in it WandaVision WandaVision has some very funny moments no I'd say it's not even in the top three or possibly five Hawkeye Hawkeye another one yeah good show I mean She-Hulk's an out and out comedy and is still one of my favourite shows in the MCU and more audacious than this one it has to be said I mean yeah there's nothing in this show like the moment where She-Hulk climbs out of the Disney Plus the Disney Plus console and then goes looking for Kevin Feige to give him a piece of her mind that is genuinely genius if this had that had that kind of ambition I think it genuinely would have been a much better show yeah Coronation Street in the MCU is confirmed.

1:52:46Which other long-running soaps exist in that universe? Would the snap have made EastEnders more or less depressing? Thanos was a big fan of Crossroads, I've heard. His Benny was a toast of Bermanent. Oh, you laugh at that, but Trevor and Simon, oh, for some reason, I'm just being fucking gassed at here. You've never heard of Trevor and Simon. No, but Benny. Benny, I'm familiar with. Benny Crossroads. Willie Hat and everything. Oh, my God. The dungarees. Oh, the whole thing. But Trevor and Simon, who were quite a big thing back in the, like, 90s, 90s, I want to say. What did you watch on Saturday morning TV when I was watching Going Live and laughing at the antics of Trevor and Simon?

1:53:27So I do remember Get Fresh with Gaz Top and Gilbert the Alien, but realistically, the only reason I ever watched Saturday morning TV was to watch the kind of piecemeal cartoons like Centurions that they would gole out over the course of, like, four hours. And you'd get them, like, little two-minute installments. Yeah. It was quite upsetting. I think 10 minutes. 10 minutes. It was 12, yeah. I was watching Batman the animated series. Of course you did. It's because you're like 15.

1:53:53All right. Let me just check and see if I have any questions. Okay, that's another tenner. We said DCU, not DC. No, we said DC. No, we said DC. You said DC. Did you bring your wallet? No. Did you bring wingtip shoes? That's a weird reference to going live with to Grantley Buffalo of all things Grantley Buffalo I see that I understand I've got the Mighty Joe Moon Fuzzy I've got Grantley Buffalo albums yeah oh dear oh boy oh boy alright some very very quick ones from Instagram here what would the team think about more episodes in a second season of Wonder Man or a whole new TV show with more of this type of episode and are there any characters who this is the Doorman episode sorry I should read the first part of the question that would help.

1:54:40Okay. What's happening? Let's start over. Okay. Hello. I thought the Dorman episode this is from Mac Barker. This is a terrible question reading. I thought the Dorman episode on Instagram MC Barker 42 I thought the Dorman episode added so much texture and depth to the MCU with such an interesting story in a very unique way. What would the team think about more episodes like that in a second season of Wonder Man or a whole new TV show with more of this type of episodes and are any characters who should feature and Mac Barker knows he's playing to the crowd and he's added Sonny Birch. I mean, there will never be a second season of Wonder Man so it's kind of academic.

1:55:17You don't think there will be? No. No. Yeah, I don't think so. Look, you could do a second season of course. You could have Wonder Man 2 is in production and he's now whatever. I don't know. I just, I don't know if this hits hard enough for that to be clamoured for. It'll go into the same universe in which Echo 2 is currently in production. I mean, I wouldn't be so sure. The response to this has been better than I expected because I was wondering how the MCU... Wonder Manning. Wonder Manning.

1:55:51I was... Do you notice someone said conscience earlier on and I purposefully... I'm trying to be a better person. But I think we may have coined a new one. Incredible. Wonder Manning. Sorry. Sorry, I'm on. Anyway, before you were so rudely interrupted by James, please continue your point. by James, yes. I was thinking about how it would play to the MCU faithful given that it has or rather hasn't gotten hasn't got so many of the elements that we typically see in an MCU show. But the response has been very, very positive. And so, who knows if this is the last time we have seen these characters. I wouldn't be so sure.

1:56:29I'm pretty sure. But equally, I'd be interested to know what the, because ultimately it's going to come down to streaming figures, isn't it? If lots of people watched it and there's interest, then possibly yes. But I would not have thought it will trouble many of the other MCU shows in terms of viewership. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I mean, look, they're both great people in the leads. You know, it's a weirdly, I really like the title treatment. I know this sounds like damning with fake praise, but I did. Does a bit. You know, it looks cool when you open Disney Plus and it's right there.

1:57:01It looks good. It looks cool. I do love the font. It's good font. so maybe it'll do well I just I just also just think it's not sharp enough I feel like the Venn diagram overlap is quite small again it comes back to the who's it for because if you don't like Marvel you're immediately out because you're not going to watch it you're not going to watch it if you do like Marvel you might also be immediately out because it's not what you signed on for so there's a very small amount of people I would say who this will hit the sweet spots for because if you do think oh you know I really want to see a Hollywood satire you'll watch Barry you'll watch the studio or maybe you watch Entourage even though it's a bit problematic but sure or even the franchise right even the franchise which is a superhero set up again flawed but has more teeth than this I think you're not entirely wrong but I think that that would be a shame because we're always asking and wanting Marvel and indeed any superhero project to try and do and be different and this is there to be very different it's a very different swing and for me it's connected clearly in a more positive way for me than any of you but like I appreciate the fact that they're taking wild swings like this and even I think I can say this, having seen a little bit of what they're up to with Vision Quest, they are, again, taking big, unique swings with that.

1:58:23I appreciate that, and I feel like... I feel like all of us appreciate that. We just want the swing to have connected harder. Yeah, I think it's an unusual swing. I don't think it's a big swing. I think it's a slightly half-assed swing. I think had they really swung for it, we'd all be... This metaphor may have gone off the rails slightly. Which game are you playing with? It's very hard to say. Possibly golf? I'm not sure. I think it's baseball swings. I mean, whatever I'm playing for. I feel like they've taken a big swing. They've connected with the ball. Some kind of bat. But at a slight angle.

1:58:55Like a bad man. And they've clipped it. They've clipped it. They've put a spin on it. They've clipped the ball. They've put a spin on it. It's gone off sideways. But it hasn't gone as far as it should have done. It's hit the referee in the face. This is not golf. If they had hit, you know, if they'd really connected straight on with the ball, with what they're attempting here, home run. They pulled their swing. No, no, they didn't pull it. Oh, sorry. They didn't pull their swing. It was a big swing, but it didn't connect at the right angle, and so the ball has gone in the wrong direction. Has it hit someone in the crowd?

1:59:27No, I think it's just kind of died at home plate. And yes, I'm very proud of knowing at least one piece of baseball terminology. It's died at home plate. Home plate, of course, being where the Tree of Souls is.

1:59:41you're mixing up with home trade what the fuck is going on I don't know what's going on I don't know what's going on I just wanted to stop Matt I think everyone listening to this is united and yet we have one more question okay and well Anne Lewand on Instagram how much do you think they're paying Ben Kingsley I don't know a lot that's Sir Ben Kingsley to you hopefully lots yeah hopefully lots they should be paying him lots yeah absolutely and one last question from Kieran Wattie this is tied into what we've been talking about apart from the tortured baseball slash golf metaphor will we see Wonder Man again in the next five years never ever again well look I'm on saying yes to series two of season two if you prefer I I'm saying maybe to season two I wouldn't be amazed if he turned up in somebody else's you know project at some point I think look nothing against the character I really like Yaya as an actor I think he's incredible but I don't know that I'd count on it right now I liked him in this it's a different role for him when I interviewed him he was saying that I'm a funny guy in real life and all I make is really depressing dramas and horror films I play bad guys a lot and that's not me at all and so you know getting a chance to be a little bit more comedic a bit lighter on his feet I thought I thought he suited that really really well he was brilliant brilliant and yeah I like that he got to show some new colors of the emotional rainbow a little bit because especially if you look at what he does in Aquaman he is very oh damn 15 you keep a tally of what everyone owes you're all buying me lunch buying you a car that's fucking right if you look at what he does in those other movies from that other studio which studio?

2:01:36You're not going to get me. You're not going to get me. He is really in one mode for that for most of those films. And here he gets to be sweet, gets to be sensitive, he gets to be vulnerable. There's one line, I think, in the first few minutes of the final episode which really got to me. He thinks he's about to be arrested and he calls his mum. And he's like, I love you, mummy. And it's just like, oh, that really got me. That was a beautiful scene. I really love how they both play it because she knows he's really messed up at that point. She can sense it immediately just from the fact that he's called maybe at an unusual time.

2:02:15And he doesn't say anything about it and he won't open up and he won't talk about it. And she just knows and it's lovely. It's really, really good. Honestly, one of the standout scenes in the show for me. Shola Adarusi is the name of the actor. He plays the mother. She's very good. She's very good. Even that scene where it's her and Serben in the kitchen He's not here, you don't have to say Sir Ben. It's a matter of respect. That scene with her and Sir Ben in the kitchen when she's talking about when Simon was younger and basically thanked her for loving him. Stuff like that is really, really beautifully played.

2:02:58Yeah, there's a lot of really, really lovely scenes and lovely moments going throughout. but in answer to the question this is the last thing in answer to that question will we see Wonder Man again in the next five years? I think we will and I think I know where we're going to see them as well. There's a little film coming out called Avengers Doomsday and there's been a strong rumor that it will feature a warring factions of Avengers teams. There's Sam Wilson's team and there's the Thunderbolts slash new Avengers. I think there'll be a third Avengers team that will show up halfway through the movie composed of all the people who've appeared for one scene in Marvel post-credits things.

2:03:39And there'll be... Harry Styles. Yes, the Remember Us Avengers, Brett Goldstein, Harry Styles, Charlize Theron, they'll all be there showing up. Mahershala. Mahershala. Can you imagine? And then K-E-V-I-N shows up and shuts that down. Yes, no, I don't think we'll ever see them again, but I'd like to see them again because he's an interesting character and I think he will play well with others. But there we go. Anyway, liked it. We'd like to see more. But we shall see what happens with this show. And that's it for our Wonder Man supporter special. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Thanks as ever for subscribing and supporting all that remains.

2:04:19Now to say goodbye to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning. Goodbye, Aquaman. James Dyer. Damn it. Goodbye. Is that it? yeah I'm sorry getting from me I am an actor and I'm in character and where are you from? Liverpool en virile by way of Wolfram with a brief detour through Moseley yes Liverpool en virile the most disguised phrase ever Liverpool by sea

2:04:53it is goodbye from our very own Green Lantern damn it I'm on Warman Talking about the MCU is a calling. It's the single most consequential thing anyone can ever do with their life. You should try talking about the DCU. That's fucking amazing. Goodbye, Mon. Peace be unto you, my friend. And it's goodbye from our very young hawk girl. Oh, darn great. Whoa! At least she's in the DCU. Whereas Wonder Woman is not. As of yet, they owe so much money. Toodaloo. Toodaloo. and it's goodbye from me. I am off to see... To see a bank manager about a loan. Unfortunately, like the human torch and Sam Wilson, I feel I will be denied a bank loan.

2:05:42Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye-bye.