723 - Blank Meets Blank

24:28It's sort of just like that it's the North Star. That's what they're aiming for. And yet other very successful franchises you don't see so often, like Minions is a great movie and almost no one's trying to make their own Minions because it's just so specific and weird. And I think people recognize like you kind of can't do that otherwise. It also is not good fodder for those discussions. Yeah. Sometimes movies that work because of their beautiful simplicity are not going to be referred to because it's sort of like, it's not going to help you. Right? So they're looking for things that they consider to be complexly good that will help you navigate the story of this complex movie about the slinky.

25:12And the fact is, it rarely does help. I think you've put your finger on where it helps. very early on when there is just a huge question about, it was very helpful when we, I remember we sat down and we pitched the Sheep Detective movie 10 years ago, 17 years ago. Yeah. And it was very useful to say, tonally babe. Babe, yeah. Like that's, that everybody could be like, okay, got it. It's not tonally minions. It's not Toy Story. It's babe, got it. helped. And then we could just say, that's not going to impact the story, the characters, anything. It's just now you know what planet we live on. Yeah.

25:57There's a project that I don't know if it'll ever happen, but Paddington has been an incredibly useful reference because that's a movie with all live action people and one animated bear and you buy it within the context of the world. So it's not unprecedented. It gives you a sense of like, oh, this is kind of what it's going to feel like. Even if the tone was different, the sense that that movie worked and was successful and everyone gets it is really, really helpful. Yes, it is nice, you know, because people will say, I don't understand. So you're saying that the movie takes place in the world, but there's a talking animal, but only one talking animal.

26:29And he wears clothes and no one really seems to comment about it. And you can say, well, Addington. And then sometimes like, well, yeah, but like other than that. I love it when they get into arguing. Like, guys, we're not arguing about science. Stop it. Absolutely. Stop it. does it sound like fun or not? Taking off a few more cons is that even if your project really is groundbreakingly original, that comp could make it feel derivative. And so like you could have just like a great new idea. You could have The Matrix, but because you said, you referred to some other thing and it's like, well, but The Matrix.

27:05And it's like, so yeah, you have to be careful. Look, if you can say with a straight face, I don't have a comp for this movie. This movie is going to be a comp for other people. that's bold but that is what the Wachowskis could have said because that is what they made like no I don't know how to begin a comp for the Matrix but how many times has the words the Matrix been uttered as what my movie is imagine the Matrix if yeah and so here's the problem with imagine the Matrix if is like the Matrix tone is so specific and the scale is so specific if you say the Matrix but it's like wait What things are you taking from the Matrix and what are you leaving behind?

27:45Right, sorry. If you take one thing out of the Matrix, it's not the Matrix anymore. But that's the beauty of an original story. I mean, I don't know how, I mean, they had a book, but a comp for Silence of the Lambs. I don't know if anything had ever been done quite like that. Let's see if we can keep going back in time so that they can keep making a laugh. Yeah, older references. Until we get to Casablanca, we'll stop at Casablanca. It's a great train robbery. What was the comp for that? Absolutely. Some play. So a useful comp, I think it gives you some sense of the scale and genre. So if I've been pitching and I say it's a contained thriller in the spirit of Panic Room, but with a supernatural twist, great.

28:29That is useful because it gives me sense like, okay, Panic Room, I get that it's a movie of a certain size and scale, but that is still very constrained and the supernatural twist, I get that. But it was useful for them to say Panic Room. A useful comp is expansive, but not reductive. As I said before, it's starting a conversation, but it's not constraining you down to a smaller thing. So you're saying it's not crazy to make this kind of movie, but we're also just not rehashing something that's old. I think a fresher comp is generally more useful for the market. And so if you're making a domestic thriller and you're pitching one this week, you're going to reference The House Made because it made$300 million worldwide.

29:09And it's like, that's a big, giant hit. that is useful to you. It's funny. It's also the least useful productively because it was just out. They just made it, yeah. It's better to, like, creatively it's better to go, I'm going to unearth some weird crap that you've forgotten about. But yes, this works definitely better in the room. Because like there's 15 other movies you could think of that are probably domestic thrillers that might be closer to your specific thing. But getting back to Kristoff's original question, it's like, if they're not going to know that reference, then it's not useful to bring up the reference.

29:39That's right. You don't want to, And God, I've seen that happen a few times where someone basically says the equivalent of, I'm old and confused. So don't, don't, don't, don't do that. And so then there's a question of like, what are the timeless comps that are so canonical that you can always use them? I listed a few here. We said the Lego movie already. I think Clueless is a timeless comp, Legally Blonde in the sense of like, she's a feisty outsider who bests the system. The Devil Wears Prada, A Few Good Men, the social network. Those are things I think you can reasonably assume that most executives you're talking with are going to have a familiarity with.

30:17And so you could use them. And there's more, but like those are some good obvious choices. Weirdly, like Star Wars is not a comp you're going to use in things because like it's just, it's kind of too iconic and too specific to what it is. It's also just everything now. It's everything. It's everything. Yeah, and I think it's probably good. I would like to hear from some of our listeners in their 20s and early 30s about the comps that they frequently use in here because I suspect they're going to be more recent than these. Although I do note that Aaron Sorkin gets two on your list, which is impressive.

30:49We haven't had Sorkin on this show. We've not. We should. I feel like we should. I feel like... He's doing the new Social Network movie, so maybe we'll have him on to talk about that. Yeah, or just have him on. I mean, like, I feel like I've been talking about Aaron Sorkin for 20 years on this show, and then I just realized... He's probably one of the most cited screenwriters we've never had on the show. Well, he's, I mean, he's a genius. He's an absolute mind-blowingly brilliant writer. Yeah. And how have we not had him on? Okay, Mission Sorkin. Yeah, so I've had him on a panel before, but it was a really challenging panel and it wasn't his fault that it was a challenging panel.

31:24I did the writers on writers panel for when they have like all the WJ nominees. And so I had 14 people on stage that I had to leave questions on. It's so tough. Yeah. No, this would be a... A one-on-one conversation. Well, or, you know, two-on-one. Two-on-one, yeah. I mean, if you would let me show up, I would like be nice. The two of us... The two of us are one. Are one, Aaron Sorkin. Are one. The two of us are 0.63 Sorkins, my friend. Finally, let's talk about sort of bad comps. And I think the worst comps are what I call Frankensteining, where you're putting together two or more movies. It's like, wait, I'm now more confused because you combined these two movies.

32:03I know. And so in The Office yesterday, we were thinking about like, we were trying to come up with like the worst Frankenstein and it ended up on something that's kind of brilliant. So it's Die Hard meets The Flintstones. I always said, it's Die Hard meets The Flintstones meets The Fast and the Furious. And it's like, adding The Fast and the Furious ruins it. But Die Hard meets The Flintstones? Come on. Yabba dabba doo, motherfucker. It's so... I mean, I feel like I understand what Die Hard meets The Flintstones is. Absolutely. Yeah, now... So who is Barney in The Die Hard Flintstones? Is he the cop?

32:33Is he... Yeah. Yeah. He's the cop. Yeah, Barney's the cop. Barney's the cop. Barney's the cop, talking about the Twinkies. Of course, it's the wife. Yes, yes. She's the damsel. Yes. And so Hans Gruber is probably some new character who's not part of the Flintstones. Possibly the Great Gazoo. I don't know. Oh, yeah. The Great Gazoo does appear, right? And it has an effete quality to him. It does. It could be the Great Gazoo. Why aren't they making this movie? I know. Roll cameras. Right. By the way, again, people in their 20s are like, Who is the great kazoo? I used to remember listening to old people.

33:07When I called them old people, they were my age. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah. Like David Zucker and Pat Proft used to talk about these things from the 30s that I had no... Yeah. Who are you discussing? What are these movies? What are these things? You know, now it's me now. It's awesome. I love getting old. I don't care. I don't care. So I think the last takeaway I'd give with comps is that you should really focus on what I call legibility. It's like, does the person actually understand what it is you're trying to say and communicate? So rather than like the craziest, wildest comp, it's like, does it actually make sense?

33:49Like, is it communicating effectively what you're trying to do? And don't go for the comp if you have another way to describe it without the comp. If it's genuinely helpful for the other person to understand, use it. But don't feel obliged to give a comp just because it's part of it. It's not. Yeah, it's something that you're going to put on food that everyone will notice. So like, you got to be careful about it. I just, by the way, I just thought of a good one. If you want. Okay. This is something that David Zucker said to me. All right. I was 30. Okay. And he said, we were talking about something, pitching some idea and he goes, I don't know, that sounds like, I don't know, like an old Ben Turpin ladder gag.

34:30What? And I was like, a Ben Turpin ladder gag? And then we had to Google Ben Turpin. And if you do, it's quite a thing. So I'm anticipating it's going to be like a sort of silent film thing where the ladder keeps falling over and the guys balance down two sides of the ladder? Yeah, but it's Ben Turpin's face. The ladder is irrelevant. All right, I'm Googling it. Yeah. Ben Turpin died in 1940, by the way. We were having this discussion in 2003. This guy had already been dead for 63 years. And when he was alive, he was not particularly notable, but you absolutely got it right. He worked in silent films.

35:18He was born in 1869. Incredible. Okay, like the Civil War just sort of recently ended. And this guy was famous for basically pretending to be cross-eyed, I think. Yeah. And I was like, David, how in the world would you think this comp, to put it in the terms we're using today, would mean anything to any of us? And then we constantly would refer to a Ben Turpin ladder gag from that point forward, constantly. I still don't know what it is. No. I think Ben Turpin might be good for a Minions movie because it's a kind of physical comedy that we just don't do in live action anymore, but it's delightful.

35:59But man, trot that out in a meeting and just watch people's faces go, a who? A who? A what? I think it's also worth noting the degree to which Hollywood people are trained to, if they hear a comp they don't know, just just nod along. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, when we were kids, we did it, right? I remember going through all those early meetings when I started writing. Totally. And people would talk about the party. And I was like, oh yeah, the party. And then I had to scramble to find the party and watch it. I certainly wasn't like, what? But I didn't know anything. Yeah, I'm much better now at sort of saying, I don't know what that is.

36:39Or like, I've heard of it, but I'm not familiar with it. It's better. It's better. Unless it's something that you are going to be fully embarrassed by. Like, there's a couple of movies that I probably should have seen that I just haven't seen them. Crazy. Let's do some questions. Yay! Jason has a question about attaching names to a micro-budget feature. About 20 years ago, I did an informal reading of a play with a well-known actress in her apartment. I was an actor in the play reading opposite her. We have not kept in touch. I've since focused on screenwriting. And fast forward to today, and I'm in post-production on my first feature.

37:15Self-produced, micro budget. The voice of my character's dead Jewish grandmother who lays into him about wasting his precious life, and this actress would be my dream actor for this. My plan is to complete the film using a local actor for the voiceover so I can share the film with said celebrity when the time comes and request that she play the role. It will require maybe an hour for her to record the voiceovers. Is this a good plan? If so, how do you recommend I reach out? I fear going through agents or managers' contact details on IMDb Pro may be ignored due to the micro-budget nature of the project.

37:51I would like to translate Jason's question a little bit. Yes, please. So an actress who won't know who I am, who I met 20 years ago, I want to do the voice in this short that I've already directed, a micro-budget feature, I guess. She's a stranger. Yep. So you know her, she doesn't know you. Yep. So you reach out, you reach out, I think, through the management, You reach out through whatever means you can to try to get to her and be specific. But I would say low in the ask to mention, like, we actually read together on this play, if at all. Craig, what's your instinct? Yeah, I mean, you're going to want to mention it just because— There's some point of contact.

38:28—it at least says, hey, I was in a room with your client and didn't kill her. I'm not a lunatic. When it's micro-budget, the actor is going to probably need scale. You know, like, I don't know. When you're talking about micro budget, if you're going for a big actor, they're going to need to get money. They're not going to do this just for funsies. I'm not sure about submitting somebody else doing it. I think that's a mistake. I think actors are used to reading things, but what they aren't used to is getting somebody's performance and somebody saying, can you do this? But better? Yeah, Craig, I think you make a really good point.

39:08What I would say is the email might just say like, the feature's already completed and there's a scripted voiceover that is essential to the film. I'd love for you to do it. And I'm happy to send you the script and send you a link to the completed film so you can see what it is and what you would be doing. And on the completed film, I would not use the substitute performance. I would just put subtitles on. Agreed. And I would definitely underscore one hour in a recording studio as close to this woman as possible. Just grease the skids as much as you can, but I would not send somebody else's performance.

39:48Yeah. Jason, I'd also say like, you want this actor because she's super, super talented, but you also want her because she's a name. And I get that. And you're not going to sort of acknowledge that in the email, but everyone's going to understand that that's really the reason why you want her versus someone else who could do probably as good a job. And so it's worth, I think, pursuing her, but it's also worth thinking about like, who is the best person who could actually do this job and be ready to meet with and audition some other actors who could do this voiceover? Yep, agreed. Question from Tim in Toronto.

40:25Do you think the only ethical position vis-a-vis getting any type of feedback seeking from AI is a hard no? Or if it's acceptable in some cases, what are the potential conflicts to think about and avoid? Is the main problem that considering such suggestions might harm the quality of my screenplay? Or would it be plagiarism since I couldn't ethically take credit for the creative product as purely my own? But then why wouldn't incorporating a friend's notes feel like a threat to the integrity of my writing in the same way? I think clearing this up would be a big help to understand the issues better and avoid conflicts before running into them.

41:01Oh, I think we need to define our terms here. What is feedback seeking? I mean, is it, is feedback seeking like proofread this, point out like grammatical errors, point out like missing words? Or is it, hey, do you like this? Yeah. If it's just like a judgmental, it's like, is this good? I don't think that's a thing you should ask. Useless. Useless. I think a lot of people are turning to AI for notes. That's stupid because AI is tuned to kiss your ass. AI is tuned. AI is not interested in making your script better. As far as I can tell, what AI is interested in is keeping you talking to the AI so eventually they can monetize you talking to the AI.

41:39It's not interested in actually making your script better. This is a hard no for me because it's stupid, not because it's not ethical. Although I will point out the difference between asking a friend and asking AI is your friend gives you that willingly with the understanding that you're going to incorporate it. They have consented through the act of giving you feedback, whereas AI has scraped a bunch of crap without any consent and is barfing it back at you. So no, it isn't ethical, but also it's stupid. Yeah, so the ethical and stupid equation also feeds back into, is there an objective truth that this thing can provide?

42:18So that's why I was saying, if it's proofreading with the goal of sort of what proofreading is, like, sure. And there is an objective, like this sentence is correct or not correct, or there's something weird here. Or I could even notice, you're using this phrase like 14 times. That's countable. but it taste, what is the intention behind things? What is it, I don't know, writing is meant for human beings. And so if it's code review, sure, it can catch errors in that, but there's not like there's a, most of what you're talking about here really isn't objective errors. It's just a matter of taste and style.

42:55And I think there's a very narrow limit to what I think submitting something for AI feedback is worthwhile. while. And that's why I'm so concerned and so frustrated by AI-based coverage and that kind of thing. Because when someone's generating coverage off of AI or generating notes on a document off of AI, come on. AI is really good at summarizing things, sure. But the work that a Hollywood reader does to really provide consistent feedback and analysis of what's happening with the characters, what are the plot points, what's driving, is it good? That's not a thing that is an AI skill set. That's not even a thing that most people who do that job can do well.

43:42There are very few people in our business who understand how to read something and then talk about it in a way that is helpful to the writer so that they improve it. That is a skill that is nearly as rare or perhaps even rarer than the skill of writing itself. This thing of going to AI is just the desperation. I need, somebody has to tell me something. And I honestly do believe that AI is, well, it's notoriously butt kissing. It's fawning and overly encouraging. AI is never going to read your script and go, right, I read through it. It's terrible. Stop doing this. It's never going to do that. Well, the thing is, like, you could tune an AI to be harsher or sweeter and all that stuff.

44:27But, like, the fact that you can tune it means that it doesn't have an objective reality to it. Right. What is the point of this? I don't understand. So, Tim in Toronto, listen, have human beings read your work. You will agree with some of them. You will disagree with some of them. If you have a writing group, there's going to be people who have genuinely helpful feedback and people who are just the worst. and that is part of the process is figuring out who to listen to. And my concern is that if you're feeding into this AI system, you're going to feed into the AI system that tells you that you're the best writer and that's not necessarily going to help you.

44:59Or it doesn't matter what it tells you. It doesn't matter. It's stupid. The AI is never going to watch the movie. The AI is not going to enjoy it. They're not going to buy a tub of popcorn and sit there and read it and watch it. Nor has the AI ever watched a movie or ever had an experience or ever had a feeling. Yeah, it's ingested all these things. Yeah, and also it's not even intelligent. We keep saying AI. That I is super, super questionable. I got to tell you, like, it's weird. I know we are caught in this dilemma of whether or not AI is going to become sentient and destroy us all, or is it just a massive scam, a technological scam with a hard dead end built into it that it may have already crashed into?

45:43I don't know the answer to that. But if I had to guess one way right now, I'm thinking like, ah, I don't use it. But like as a party trick, when somebody's showing me something, I'm like, I am so profoundly unimpressed. Like, and I love technology. I am unimpressed. Now, boy, am I screwed when they do become sentient. They heard that. Oh, they're not going to like that. They're not going to like it. I know, I know, I know. On the intelligence front, I think what's so interesting comparing sort of what we thought computer intelligence was going to be like versus what we're actually experiencing now.

46:21It happened so quickly, like where we got to right now, it happened so quickly. I think we haven't had a chance to adjust our priors because remember like the Turing test and like those kind of things? We blew past that. We didn't even kind of notice that we sort of blew past it. I think it's forcing us to evaluate what do we even mean by our intelligence? Because I think when we talk about our intelligence, I think we were sort of describing what it felt like to be human, to have taste and intellectual curiosity and all these different things. When it comes down to like ability to crunch and match patterns, well, these are really good at crunching and matching patterns, which is probably a fair amount of what our intelligence actually is, but ours is actually different and weird and distinct.

47:00Yes. What these computer systems are doing is also weird and distinct, but it's not what we're doing. Well, there's an overemphasis on the kind of intelligence that the people who create artificial intelligence have. But there are other kinds of intelligences. And more importantly, our brains are not intelligent primarily. Our brains are there to keep us alive and theoretically push forward some sort of evolutionary priorities that have nothing to do with intelligence. And intelligence is one of the tools we use to do it. But we are fueled by crap that is not in an AI and will never being an AI.

47:36It is both, it is both your greatest weakness and your greatest strength that we are. Our intelligence is sitting on top of a big blob of fear, lust, anger, hunger. It's just, listen, it could happen. I understand. But right now what I see basically is a very fancy version of the paper clip in Microsoft Word. Like, hey, looks like you're trying to write a letter. It's just a very fancy version of that. And to be fair, Craig, I think what you're saying there is it looks like that because we have created a product that does that. Yeah. The underlying stuff underneath that is more complex and sort of weird and soupy, and we don't actually genuinely understand it.

48:23Yeah. But I would say that you and I both come from an evolutionary background. We believe that humans as we know them exist because of a weird confluence of circumstances that ended up creating creatures that wanted, in order to stay alive and thrive, develop these brains that can also helpfully do all these other things, but they weren't designed with that intention. It's just kind of remarkable that we do the things that we do. And Craig's often talking about the limbic system and the lizard brain and other things. We have these drives and desires which are not our normal intelligence, but are so much of why we are human.

48:59and we're not even aware of these subconscious processes and that's just what being human is. We don't know why we do the things we do. We don't know why these models work the way they do either. No, and it may be possible that if some sort of matrix of intellect, which is what our brains create, that matrix of intellect may mathematically, physically, not be capable of creating a thing that is more complex than it. that may be a kind of truth. We don't know. But it is an interesting question. Can a system of complexity give birth to a system that is more complex than the system itself? I don't know the answer to that.

49:43But that's a fundamental philosophical question that probably, it was probably discussed by the ancient Greeks. It's just basically - I hope so. Because they covered so much. But in any case, Tim, And what I think you're hearing is cut it out. Go talk to people. Cut it out. And so what we're hearing from John is like, if you're using it to proofread and do, you're using it to do the things that these systems are actually good at doing, which is basically looking for mistakes and like I left out that word. And so I thought they are much better than the spell checkers we grew up with. Yes. Fine, great.

50:15If you're using it like as a substitute for Grammarly, I got no problem with that. Sure. But for actual creative feedback, I think it is a mistake. And I think you are doing yourself a disservice to rely on the opinions of a thing that doesn't actually have opinions. Amen, my brother. Let's do our one cool things. Okay. My one cool thing is a performer named Fuller Regrets. Craig, click on that link and can you describe what Fuller Regrets looks like? Tell us what you're seeing. I hope that, I don't know if Fuller Regrets is a drag queen, an old lady, an AI version, an AI created drag queen old lady, but it is a wonderful old white woman with hair that looks like it was whipped out of a cotton candy machine.

51:08She only wears one kind of clothing with a lot of fake pearls on. Yeah, I would say it sort of feels like a 1950s socialite. Yes. Maybe, yeah, like a 1950s socialite who's already 80 years old. But the description of Fuller Regrets is an ageless, panty-less woman of the world. The only thing artificial is my patience. I pulled a clip here. So what I love so much about Fuller is like, so it's a drag performance. So it's this guy who has this character, Fuller Regrets. And what you see in terms of wardrobe is actual wardrobe. But there's like a thousand filters put on the face to sort of make this guy in his 20s or early 30s seem like this 80-year-old woman.

51:55Oh, my God. What works, what is the reason to enjoy Full of Regrets is the writing and performance is so good. And so let me play a little clip of Full of Regrets. All right. I was once lost in the backwoods of Mississippi after my Studebaker ran out of gas. I followed a light in the distance, and when I was near enough to realize it was a burning cross, it was too late. I had stumbled upon a KKK meeting. Now, the only thing I hate more than folding a fitted sheet is a racist. I had to think on my feet, so I quickly pulled out my breasts and tied them together, creating a pale titty slingshot.

52:28I dropped to my knees a talent I was well known for in my 20s and collected as many rocks as I could find. Their pointy white hoods stood out in the dark southern night like corn and shit. I began pummeling these tiny peckered bigots with stones, my breasts slapping furiously like tightly wound rubber bands. They dropped like albino flies, not knowing what hit them. They scattered back to their pickup trucks like a ballet of drunk Q-tips. Engines revved, tires screeched, men collapsed. After the excitement calmed down and the party dispersed, I smothered each of these ignorant, not-so-friendly ghosts with my ample derriere.

53:04ending each asphyxiation with a delicate ladylike.

53:13Oh my God. I tied my breasts together.

53:20That is great. That is great. So a tremendous performance, but just great writing. And who is the man behind Fuller Regrets? I'm not sure. So you can actually go down the rabbit hole and figure it out, but I'm not sure they actually want their name. I'm not sure they're actually presenting themselves as their name. I think it's just a character that exists as a character, which is also a drag thing. Yep, I get it. You know what? This is full of regrets and we need dig no further. Absolutely. But I think it's so fun. You know, I've talked to before on the show. It's like, you know, drag traditionally is like a thing you do in live performance in a place.

53:52And so for Fola, like hair and makeup can get you a certain distance, but like it works so well as you're in her house and she's talking directly to camera with the filters on that also, sure, this is just a different small vector for drag to travel into, but I just think it's delightful. And you can spend a good hour digging through all her many videos, which are so, again, impossible, but specific. And it feels like somewhere on the Ethel Merman, Joan Rivers, Kitty Carlisle. It made me think of Kitty Carlisle. Let's talk about old things. Do you remember Kitty Carlisle? Of course. So Kitty Carlisle was a contestant on To Tell the Truth.

54:35And so she was an actor who became like a socialite. Her whole story is interesting. I was looking at her like, is there a movie to make about Kitty Carlisle? Probably not, but it's - No, but there were people that were famous for being on game shows, basically. Which is great, back from the day. Yeah, J.P. Morgan. Yeah. Well, Paul Lynde was essentially, I mean, was also an actor, but really was famous for - Famous for - Hollywood Squares. Hollywood Squares. And what's her face? was it Brett Summers? Brett Summers on the match game? Brett Summers? I think she was like Jack Klugman's wife or something, but she didn't really, she wasn't an actor.

55:07She just did that show. You gotta find her name, Brett Summers. I mean, this is like now, yeah, it's Brett Summers. She was in fact married to Jack Klugman. And right now everyone is screaming at me, you are old. Old, yeah. Not a great comp for bringing up anything. And Kitty Carlisle is not a great comp. No. But for people who know what Kitty Carlisle was, sure, you get that. She was the Ben Turpin of her time. And we've talked about Jack Plotnick before. Oh yeah, so good. And Jack has a new thing he's been doing. I don't know if you've seen them. They're incredible. Yeah. Have you seen any of his Bobby Wygant interviews?

55:44I'm going to look these up. It's astonishing. So Bobby Wygant, who I'm also now obsessed with, was a, you know, when you do like film junkets and stuff, inevitably you start talking to, they'll have you in there for a day and you have to either go to a studio or you do it remotely and you talk to local entertainment reporters all around the country. And Bobby Wygant was the entertainment interviewer and film critic in Fort Worth, Texas. And she got all sorts of people that she would interview. And she is incredible in how kind of inappropriate she is and how pushy she is while being incredibly polite and there were some amazingly awkward interviews with her and Jack does her and also does her producer because they have in the archives, you'll hear the producer like talking to her and her talking to him and she's kind of mean to him.

56:41It's spectacular. There's an interview with Jodie Foster. There's an interview with Farrah Fawcett Majors. They are both so funny and there's more. So a little extra, one cool thing, Jack Plotnick doing it again with his Bobby Wygan interviews. It is so interesting, like Jack Plotnick, you know, in Los Angeles, I've known him for a zillion years. And so like every 10 years I might see Jack Plotnick, but it's just such an icon. You know what? I saw Jack, I think probably in person once four years ago, but if this happens, I text. Yeah. Just like, oh my God. Oh my God. Incredible. The Jodie Foster one is astonishing because these actors are looking at, like, Because he's intercutting him with them.

57:24Yeah. And they're looking at Bobby Wigand with like such thinly veiled loathing. That's awesome. So good. All right, so mine was full of regrets. Yeah. Craig, you're one cool thing. It's an incredible performer. Let's shift now into some sadness. So we're recording this on Saturday, January 31st. Yesterday, January 30th, Catherine O 'Hara died. and I think all of us were, I know all of us were shocked. Yeah. I was in a stunt session. We were like working on a big stunt with everybody and then, you know, I get this text and I look down and I'm like, wait, what? And it was one of those things where you have to just finish something.

58:08So I just compartmentalize, finish it, go to my office and then cry for an hour. And I'll tell you, I don't cry because people, even people I know like that I've worked with or something, but Catherine O 'Hara was one of the most decent, beautiful, wonderful people I've ever worked with on top of being awesome in every way. And she's been part of our lives since we were kids, you know? And all the way through to now, And I urge people to go back and look all the way back to her early stuff on SCTV and watch how great she was from the start. And when we talk about unique, nobody ever has been Catherine O 'Hara.

59:04Gilda Radner was Gilda Radner. Carol Burnett was Carol Burnett. We've had great, great comedians sort of in that zone. But Catherine O 'Hara was her own thing and nobody else could do it. and no one else will be able to do it again. It is such a brutal loss. I mean, I think about her husband, Beau, and I think about her sons. Her son, Luke, worked on our show in set deck. And I'm just heartbroken. I don't know what happened other than apparently it was a relatively short illness. I don't know what happened, but it is so tragic. And I miss her. I will not be so vulgar as to like, Oh, let me read you the last text I got from Catherine O 'Hara.

59:49All I'll say is that it made me cry even more. This one hurts. This one hurts a lot. One thing that's, whenever you lose an icon like this, it hurts. But the fact that she was doing so much that was so terrific so recently, it's extra surprising. Because so often there's like, this person was out of the business for like 10 years or something. And the fact that she was working on your show, she was working on the studio, Schitt's Creek. Like, she was in a zillion things because she was so good and she was so different in everything. She was grounded in your show in a way that we just hadn't seen her for a while.

1:00:24And then you saw her, how manic she was in the studio, which was a different kind of mania than what she was doing in Schitt's Creek. Yeah. She's just an incredible talent. And so... She could do anything. To have her suddenly yanked away is the surprise. It is. We hadn't prepared for that, like, oh, we could lose Catherine O 'Hara. No, no. She was 71. Yeah. And she was a sprightly 71. and fun. And also I'll say like being here in Canada, I was very aware of how proud, well, I knew how proud she was to be Canadian. I know how proud Canada is of her. And Canada has given us per capita more funny people than any country in the world.

1:01:02And she's up there, you know, with the very, very greatest. And I don't think it's a big spoiler to say that, you know, she was going to be in our show again because of course she was. She's so good. Yeah. But yeah, she was stolen, you know, from all of us. And I don't, it's not like, the thing that's upsetting me is I don't get to see her in other stuff. Like I don't care about my show. I wanted to see her in other things because what else was going to happen? Do you know like? Oh my gosh, there were so many things she could do. And obviously the next 10 years could have been filled with Catherine O 'Hara things that we won't have.

1:01:46That would have been always funny. Yeah. Always. You know, so I don't know, just cheers to Catherine O 'Hara, who hopefully is somewhere out in the universe enjoying fruit wine. And on behalf of humanity, just a deep gratitude. We were lucky that we had Catherine O 'Hara. That was like, we were lucky. Agreed. I would trade a thousand Ben Turpins for one Catherine O 'Hara. All right, that is our show for this week. Script Notes is produced by Drew Marquardt, edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our outro this week is by Pete White, who I believe is also a first-timer. We love our first-timers. They're sending us brand new outros.

1:02:26If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com. That's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find Script Notes at johnaugust.com, along with a sign-up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. This Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books. You can find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. Find us on Instagram at Script Notes Podcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau.

1:02:54You'll find the show notes with the links to all the things we talked about in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to all our premium subscribers. Drew and I were just talking about sort of how great it's been that our numbers continue to grow and thrive. And so thank you very much for all our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can sign up to become a premium subscriber at scriptnotes.net, where you get all the back episodes and bonus segments, like the one we're about to record on email. Craig, Drew, thank you for a good show.

1:03:24Thank you, John.

1:03:35Thank you.