Live with Jeremy O. Harris from Lincoln Center

Halfman, the new HBO original limited series from Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gad examines the tumultuous relationship between two estranged brothers, tracking the highs and lows of the pair over the course of 40 years. Starring Emmy award winner Richard Gad and BAFTA award winner Jamie Bell, Halfman premieres April 23rd on HBO Max.

0:01

Welcome to ScreenTalkIndiewire's weekly podcast, bringing you up to speed on the latest goings on in Hollywood. And I'm Ann Thompson in New York with Ryan Lattanzio. We are live at Lincoln center and we're waiting for Jeremy Harris to come join us, but we'll do some brief banter before that.

0:36

So before he gets here, we're going to talk about the current box office, which had some interesting developments over the weekend, as well as upcoming Cannes expectations with that lineup having been announced last week. And, you know, it's funny, Ann, we had some reservations about the drama, but now that movie has made 28 million so far for a 24 and it's doing really well. And it kind of seems like we're in the minority in terms of people who were resistant to it. So what do you think's going on there?

0:54

28 million. And it dropped only 28% on the second weekend, which is amazing. I mean, that's a really good hold. That means people really like it. So our reservations are irrelevant.

1:21

Yeah, Well, I think a lot of the reason that keeps people going to the movie is the kind of attention grabbing lure of the premise and what they're hearing is a major twist when it's actually just the plot of the movie and people want to talk about it.

1:35

That's it. I think it's a lot like Celine Song's the Material Materialists in that way. It isn't that it's a satisfying romantic drama. It isn't at all. But it gives people something to discuss afterwards. And that seems to be the thing that's driving the box office. And it means that the movie stars in the movie are actually bringing people in as well. I mean, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal and Dakota Johnson brought people in to the materialists, but for the drama, Rob Pattinson and Zendaya are doing a lot, even though each of them has franchises. But outside of franchises, it's actually Zendaya who does better.

1:49

Yeah, you know, I mean, look, we kind of both thought this movie might be disastrous, but it's turned out to be quite a sleeper hit. And a lot of that has to do with Zendaya. I mean, Euphoria, which is now back on tv. So the timing is sort of perfect for this movie being out. That show is wildly popular. You've got Gen Z as the biggest quadrant of drivers, ticket buyers, and those are people that are all really big fans of Zendaya. But I still feel the drama is still. It's like a third of a movie. I feel that there's not really even enough story there to drag it into a feature. But, yeah, it doesn't matter.

2:29

Doesn't matter what we think.

3:03

No, no.

3:04

So the other thing that's fun is that Pattinson and Zendaya are together in the Odyssey, which Cinemacon is going on this week. That movie is, according to polling, the one everyone's most looking forward to this summer, over all the other sequels and all the crazy. You. The. Everything else. Even the Marvel movies or the Spider man movies or the. You know, none of those movies are beating the Odyssey.

3:04

Well, you're really looking forward to the Odyssey.

3:30

Of course I am. I studied classics in college.

3:32

I'm more measured about that one. I'm not. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I will be seeing it.

3:37

Of course you will. Of course you will. And we're gonna go to see the Devil Wears Prada, too. And we're gonna go to see that

3:42

can't be great either.

3:48

Toy Story 4,

3:50

Ryan. I just.

3:55

That one, I forget, is even coming, to be honest.

3:56

And Dune.

3:58

Dune, yeah. We're doing that again. Everything that we did before, we're doing again.

3:59

Those are all seasons again. And then Spielberg's Disclosure Day. These are the movies that everybody's talking about at Cinemacon.

4:04

Well, that one. I'm really looking forward to Disclosure Day, though. It doesn't look super great, but. But I'm. You know.

4:10

Why are you looking forward to it?

4:15

I like it. I like an Alien takeover. Alien Among Us. Kind of of a movie.

4:17

Okay. All right. I'm just curious to see how Spielberg changes the model. You know, Makes it different. Makes it not the same as Close Encounters or ET or those other films. He's got to do something different, you know, or War of the Worlds. Whatever. It's gotta be. It can't be the same.

4:20

No. I mean, there's rumors that it's, like, set in the world of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which. That would be interesting.

4:38

Yeah. Meanwhile, Project Hail Mary is tracking ahead of Avatar 3, would you believe, and it has grossed over 510 million worldwide. That's big. That's really big.

4:44

Yeah. And we're going to be writing about that one for another year, probably until the next year.

4:59

And overall the box office is up 30, 23% over last year and even attendance is up 16%. So the exhibitors are in a good mood at the moment.

5:03

Yeah, I mean a lot of that has to do with the fact that there are exciting, interesting, original movies to go see. You know, if Paramount ends up taking over Warner Brothers, which just today there was a letter with over a thousand signatories from Hollywood that are decrying we know what's really going to be, what could be a devastating reduction in output and to diversity and to compensation for workers and so forth. So David Ellison is saying that they're going to do 30 releases a year with 15 from each studio. But that seems like a pretty high number.

5:14

15 each, yeah, that will be a promise that'll be hard to keep. But I like to see specialty fare like Neon's the Christophers, the Steven Soderbergh movie which you and I Both liked, and Exit 8. Both of them are doing well. So it isn't just big movies. Speaking of Neon, they've got already before Cannes, before the gates have opened. They already have six movies. So they still have a shot at the Palm Door even if they don't pick up anything else.

5:44

Yeah, the pre sale so far it's just been like Mubi and Neon trying to one up each other and they are jockeying. One of them once is going to win the Palm probably.

6:15

Oh my God. So you know, we have you talked about it last week, but it just seems it's all auteurs all the time, you know. So there's the Na Hongjin sci fi thriller with Alicia Vikander and Hoyan, that's the guy from Squid Game and Michael Fassbender the Unknown directed by Arthur Harari who co wrote Anatomy of a Fall. Fjord, directed by the great Christian Manju is always good, starring your favorite Renatarendsvey and her Private Hell, directed by Nicholas Winding Rough and he is kid or miss.

6:23

He's been kind of miss since I would say it's out of context.

7:05

And then there's Sheep in the Box, directed by Hirokazu Kureida. So that's an amazing list and that's what I'm looking forward to seeing. Now they're saying that Terry Frumo turned down Hollywood movies. I don't think he could get any. I mean honestly, he would have died to get Disclosure Day.

7:09

I think a lot of these ones that are just aren't ready something like Inyuritar's Digger. That's gonna be at Venice.

7:25

Yeah, well, that's later anyway.

7:31

Yeah.

7:33

So what are you looking forward at? New directors, new films?

7:35

I've seen like five or six so far. I'm still kind of working my way through it. But the festival opened with Leviticus, directed by Adrian Chiarella. And I've talked about that one before. That was a Sundance. It's a queer horror movie coming from Neon in June. Of course, Neon has it basically about a malevolent force that impersonates your crush and seems to be activated by this conversion therapy camp that's going on. That is a very good film. It reminds me a lot of it follows. I think that director will do really well. I was a really big fan of a queer Catalan. I always do the gay. I'm doing the gay movies, so forgive me. This Catalan movie called Strange river, directed by Jaome Clairette Mouchart. And this one was an interesting kind of spin on what I would call the Call Me by youy Name genre of queer coming of age movie. It's set in the summer, it's in like a gorgeous European location, but it's a little more surreal than that. There's another one called Trial of Hein by Kao Stanicke. And this is another queer kind of coming home type of a story. These movies are for sale. And then the word is really high on a film called Chronovisor, which I actually haven't seen yet. But it's a 16 millimeter movie about a Columbia professor who's tracking down a time travel device. That one got bought just before the festival.

7:38

But I want to recommend Arupcha. Arupcha is really good.

8:54

And that one, the one that we're also here to celebrate.

8:56

Yes. So Jeremy O. Harris is behind that. Hello. Welcome to Screen Talk. So we want to give everybody just a little bit of background about you. I mean, I saw Slave Play along with a lot of other people. Amazing. 12 Tony nominations, which is. Was remarkable then and would be remarkable now. But what's so fascinating, and this is what we're gonna get into, is all the things you've done since then, and it's, you know, HBO or television or acting or Writing or Arupta. So we're gonna dig into that.

8:59

Yes. I also saw you this weekend in Cat's the Jellicle Ball.

9:37

Yes. Yes.

9:40

Yeah. How did you get that gig?

9:41

Well, you listen, someone knocked on my door, and when a cat knocks at your door, you feed them milk. I know a lot of the producers on it and they were really. You know, this is such a specific and special moment, and I think it's a moment where people from a community that's very rarely served on Broadway, which is black queer people, are finally feeling like we can really own the space that we have in that theater. So I know that, like, a lot of people are trying to get as many, like, of the. In the same way that, like, you know, have you ever been to a ballroom? So when you go to a ballroom, if there's any, like, legends and that, like, living legends who maybe aren't even a part of the ballroom scenes, they get to walk, right? They get to show up. And I think they want a lot of those people from the Broadway world. So while I often try to forget that I got nominated for 12 Tonys, they wanted me to remember and for that to be celebrated in some small way with that community, which was really cool, because that show should get 12 to 40 tonys. I don't know how many they have available, but that was one of the best shows I've seen.

9:43

They should create new Tonys for. Exactly.

10:46

Yeah, yeah.

10:47

No, the audience went really crazy for. It's a kind of a wild experience.

10:48

Have you seen it yet? Oh, my God. You have to. You know, the first act of it, I was a little kind of like, is this wrong? Like, I think that there's a problem in our generation where we've, like, over literalized everything because identity politics forced us to, like, make people who seem to, like, not be able to realize that the civil rights they fought for, like, still hadn't been won. Right? So we had to be like, actually, this is what it means to be black. This is what it means to be a woman. And, like, a lot of our work got very literal. You know, think about the monologue in Barbie that America Ferreira gives where it's like, is that necessary? I don't know, but I guess a lot of guys didn't know that, right? Still, you know? And so I was watching the first act of it and being like, guys, like, wasn't Cats already the gayest thing we'd ever seen? It was, like, actually, like, a kink show, really, Right? It was about. It was four furries, but they sold it to children. And I was like, do we need to bring it to the ballroom? And then the second act starts. And I was like, wow, this is history. This is insane. Like, it's crazy that, like, Wildcats was on Broadway the first time. Dorian Corey was like, you know, well, she had a dead body in her house. But she was also, you know, being like a mother to all these people who had no home and creating houses for all these people had no home. And Cats now gets to celebrate her and all that history while also having Junior labeija in it. I don't know. Sorry. This is about movies, not about theater. But that was an amazing piece of spiritual gift this week that I got, and I'm very grateful for it.

10:51

Thank you. So you said something about trying to forget that Slave Play 1 was nominated for 12 Tonys. What impact did that success have on you? Just trying to meet those expectations afterwards.

12:14

Yeah, I mean, I think I talked about this a bit yesterday in our Q and A. I think that one of the things that was really wild was that I didn't have a chance to learn what my process was because my last year of grad school, I had two plays from Air Off Broadway that had a lot of success. And immediately upon graduating, I was being asked by T magazine to interview Rihanna for the COVID And so they flew me out to London. And then a week later, I found out I was going to Broadway and I had to move to New York and be on Broadway. And then halfway through my show being on Broadway, the first time I was given an HBO deal, that was a three year overall deal. And all those opportunities came in front of me. And after having had no opportunities for 28 years of my life. And so I said absolutely, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I said yes to everything before I had time to, like, metabolize what I had gone through. And so that meant that when I was two years into the deal, no TV show had come of it. Lots of scripts had been written inside of it, and I felt drained. I felt drained. And I didn't know how to refill my battery because no one had given me an opportunity to. And so I think that, like, instead of wallowing in depression, I decided to start utilizing that energy towards, like, other people and other work that I wanted to see. Because I was like, if, no, if my work isn't being made, then how can I make sure that, like, I can use the things I learned about putting my own work on to, like, help other work that might look like mine? That it, I don't know, some weird thing happened where instead of taking the sort of, like, depression that was, like, on the horizon, I, like, took the energy that depression can have on its. On its surface and on its corners and grabbed it up, you know, that silver lining. I took all that silver and tried to force it into other people's work. And turn silver into gold. I don't know. The metaphor got really lost there, guys,

12:33

but I think we got it.

14:22

Yeah.

14:24

Very inspiring. Well, we should talk about Aritzia, which. This movie stars Charli xcx, and it's got Lena Gora, who I think we're not. Maybe not as familiar with her, you know, in North American audiences. And it's set in Warsaw. And you produced and co wrote and also star in this movie, so very entertainingly so. Yeah.

14:24

Yes.

14:46

And I know you play. You play an expat American painter who becomes a kind of mediator for these two girlfriends that have a really explosive kind of literally relationship. But you had worked with Peto's before in a movie called the True Beauty. Being Bitten by a Tick. I also really liked that movie. How did you come to know him?

14:47

Well, Pete and I met at south by Southwest a decade ago. He and I both really like film festivals. He liked going as a filmmaker. I, at the time, was going as a film critic. I used to always go to the Indiewire party at Sundance.

15:04

Thank you.

15:17

I loved your hot tub there. It was great. And that South By. I was there because I really liked the beat of short films. Like, I liked celebrating the films that people maybe weren't noticing and seeing voices right when they were popping in. And we got to talking about that and those energies and the kind of movies we liked. And he was doing his first feature that starred Julia Garner called Everything is Beautiful is Far Away. So he invited me to a friends and family feature screening of that, in which he says, I gave a note that he's never forgotten. I have forgotten giving this note because I'm a Gemini, and I just, like, say crazy things off the top of my head. So I was like. I watched the movie and I was like. I guess I said, well, autism is Real, which was a note that he liked. It spoke to something inside of that film. And from then on, he became a friend that would show up for me and celebrate the work I was doing in the same way that I tried to show up for him. When I did that friends and family screening, I said more than just that. And so he came to see my play Water Sports, which was in this weird hospital in Koreatown in la. He saw the first production of Slave Play, and because I went inside of the sort of monastic life of being a grad student, I was just, like, aware that I had this new friend who would see all my work. But we hadn't been able to go deep. And it wasn't until I needed an editor for my doc. And his name came up, and I was like, wait, I know this guy that. We really became truly good friends. And we realized that in many ways, we shared a. A brain, or as they might say in like, a Korean shaman. Like, you know, if you know anything about Korean shamanism, you know that they have granny spirits. And we think maybe our granny spirits are talking to each other.

15:18

So talk about the. The actual writing of. Of the. I'm fascinated by this because you have several writers and you're, you know, you're writing. You. So what was that like? What was the collaboration like? I like. I like this movie, and I'm curious to see how it was written.

16:59

Yeah, I mean, Pete opened me up to something. And again, this goes back to what I was saying about not knowing what my process was after grad school as a writer, because I just, like, write. I procrastinate. That's how I write. It's a lot of loneliness. It's a lot of me talking about my ideas, and it takes a long time for the script to come out. And I didn't realize until I worked with Pete that actually I write quite quickly when I'm around other people, when I'm writing for people. Right. And his writing style demands that there are friends around, demands that there are people around because he wants to re. Invite back into his creative process. What made him feel creative for the first time when he was 15 years old, which was like making up stories with his best friends and filming them. So in many ways, you're in a writer's room where he's the lead writer, the showrunner, the director, and you're all pitching as your characters consistently. Right? And I think the thing that he's really good at weeding out is like, is that Jeremy O. Harris? Or is that Claude? Is this Charli xcx or is this Bethany? Right. He's really good at filtering what feels like ego and what feels like the story. And that's how we build a thing together. Every day you shoot three scenes. That's all you shoot. Each morning you wake up, you write the scenes for that day or the night before, you write the scenes for that day. And sometimes the scenes still haven't been figured out by the time you had to go, right. We might have decided that we know that the first scene of the day is gonna be Bethany and Nell meeting up at their flower shop, which we only have from one to three, Right. And if we haven't figured out what happens when Bethany's leaving that night, Then we have to figure it out during a walk when we're doing a setup, you know, so it's really fun. It's really fun. It's really activating. And I say so often, it's kind of like being in an escape room where, like, the timeline is, we have 14 dates until our hotels are done, until we have to get back on a flight back to America. We only are shooting the movie there. We don't have a budget to reshoot because none of us come from enough money to, like, find finance, that kind of thing. Right. We have a finite amount of resources, and we have to utilize all of them while we're there. And it's really fun.

17:12

So there's a script that you're working with, or do you end up improvising?

19:14

No, there is a script. And that script, I have it right here for you. That script exists on a collaborative note on the Notes app. I really want to get endorsed by Apple. I think Pete's movies should all be endorsed by Apple because he writes all his movies vis a vision. These notes, apps. Let's see, where's the collaborative note, Pete? Oh, here we go. Shared notes. He's the only person I have a shared note with because I don't really fuck with those. Beat one. See? Da da da. Wow. Yeah. 33. Rob goes to Claude. Hi, Claude. It's Rob. We met at that sushi restaurant, and I come to the party two nights ago. It's like, all there. And we write it together. And we'll say, like, that doesn't make any sense. Or that. And especially in this movie where half the scenes are in Polish. Right? Pete doesn't speak Polish. I don't speak Polish. Like, Lena doesn't speak. Or Lena speaks Polish, but Will doesn't. So we have one Polish speaker, a lot of other writers who are like, I think that she needs to say this in Polish. And her saying things like, I don't think Polish people say, I'm sorry. And we're like, what do you mean? Polish people don't say I'm sorry. And that was when we learned that, like, things that are simple for us in English, because we are. We speak that language or sensibilities we have do often change the language that we could even utilize in the script.

19:18

I love it. I love that.

20:33

Now that's very. What this process you're describing is very like French new wave almost. And, you know, this movie reminded me

20:36

kind of mumblecore or.

20:42

Mumblecore. Yeah, yeah.

20:43

Thinking mumblecore.

20:44

Yeah. So you debuted the Film at Toronto. And so I wanted to know about ending up at this new indie distributor, one two Special. I'm sure as a producer on the movie, you were involved in this process. And I think in terms of the marketing for this movie, you're obviously benefited by having Charli XCX's name on it, of course, but the movie is much more than just that.

20:45

Well, what I have to say is this whole process, this movie, there's a way to read this movie and be like, Jeremy and Pete, especially Pete, hate magic. They hate magic. Magic's not real to them. But I do really believe that, like, coincidence and magic are real and energies that we have to invite into our life. And the day that one Too Special announced they had picked up two Radu Jude movies, and Jason Hellerson was the person who created this thing and decided to distribute two movies by Radu Jude, who is my favorite living filmmaker right now. I dmed him and said, hey, you don't know me, but I'm obsessed with you, and I really want to be a 12 special artist. I know a filmmaker who's phenomenal, and I think right up your alley. His name is Peto's. You should see our next movie. And he left me on red. And then, like, right after Cannes, I messaged him again, and he was like, oh, cool. Yeah, I'd love to talk to you at some point. So let's. Can't wait to see the movie. And from that point on, one Too Special was my target. Every movie that they acquired felt more and more like it affirmed the sense that I had that, like, it had to be them. Like, when they picked up Urchin, I was like, urchin.

21:06

I loved Urchin.

22:08

Ryan and I both loved that movie.

22:10

It was so good. And Harris is one of my really good friends, and he's British like Charlie. So therefore, obviously they would want to do our movie. Right. It was like everything became.

22:12

I like the string board going, basically, yes.

22:22

So they've been really, really great. And yes, having Charlie has been amazing. I mean, the Angels, I say it over and over and over again. They've been the best fan base ever. They've been so supportive of this movie. But what I like about 12 special is that they are excited about playing pretend with Pete and I in the same way that Pete invites people to play pretend and we have a group chat with him and Nico where we just, like, throw out random ideas for marketing that, like, have nothing to do with Charlie and have everything to do with us wanting to see something fun. And they are so down for that. Whereas I think there would be, if we were with some other distributor, I think that they would care less about what the filmmaker wanted or what his producing partner wanted and more about, well, we have this pop star in it. How can we, like, like, squeeze every bit of life out of this pop star's fan base in order to get something from that? And that'll be the end all. Be. All of the marketing and an idea that Pete and I had of, like, letting audience members in general remix and make their own fan edits of the trailer would have gone by the wayside. Because they were like, unless we directly, directly market that to Charlie XCX's fans, we don't care. It's like, actually, we care about people on letterbox who make their own posters. We think those people are really cool.

22:25

Like, those posters are really good.

23:33

They're better. Like, I will never forget that. Like, I saw a poster for Zola that was so good. And I messaged H24. I was like, why aren't we using this poster? What's going on? They're like, we didn't make that poster. And I said, who did? And they were like, I don't know, some kid on Twitter. And I was like, well, hire the kid on Twitter. He's amazing. You know, I think one, two special would, though.

23:35

All right, so I'm getting the general impression that you are all over the place, and you've got juggling this and that and the other thing and all these different media. What are you up to? What are you trying to accomplish?

23:54

I think that I'm trying to keep myself interested. I think that, like, a thing that's really important, that was really important for me to learn about myself. This might be adhd. This might be being in the gifted and talented program as a kid. This might be just being a double Gemini. I like to juggle a lot of things in order to stay interested. When I was in grad school, I was taking classes with the theology students and the architects and going to CRIT for the photography and sculpture students while writing my plays. And I felt like all of those things sort of trickled down into what I was doing and made things that felt a bit more dynamic. I think I have a boundless curiosity and want to know how things work. And when someone tells me no, I want to understand why. So I think that's why I started. Like, producers would tell me no all the time, and I was like, well, let me become a producer and see why they say no. And now I know why some people say no. And I also think sometimes they should have said yes. I think I want to be a true Renaissance man as much as possible. And so right now, what I'm actively doing is we're making this movie together right now, which has been so fun. I'm learning so much about marketing and independent film in a time when no one's going to the movies or if they're going, they're only going to see a movie that has, like, a $400 million marketing budget and is hoping that it makes $600 million on the worldwide box office. And I'm like, how does any of that math work? I'm really excited about my new play that's coming next season. I ran Williamstown Theater Festival last year, still running it now with a really amazing group of people up there. And I'm really excited to keep seeing how what I'm doing in this space informs what's happening there. I think. I don't think I would have been as excited about making a play or writing a play that was half in a language that I am not fluent in if I hadn't just had this process with Pete. I don't know that I would be as excited or would have been as excited to write a play while we were in rehearsals had I not done this right. So I think that's what I'm doing right now. I'm trying to keep myself interested and curious before it all falls into the ocean.

24:09

It does look like you're having fun.

26:07

Yeah. Well, it sounds. And it sounds like this experience, what you're working on now, maybe is vivifying for your outlook generally on independent film. Like, we are in a moment where we go to all these festivals. You know, you're at them, too. There are so many original movies, but a lot of them don't get distribution. They just languish on the festival circuit. So you've got to feel lucky when any distributor buys your movie, right?

26:10

100%. And I think there are so many great new ones that are popping up. Sumerian is really great. They're releasing my friend's film Josephine, and our really good friend Chandler Levick's film Mile High Kicks or Mile End Kicks.

26:32

Mile End Kicks. That's supposed to be great. I need to.

26:47

And I'm really excited about a lot of the players that are popping up now because it can't just be neon and a 24. There needs to be a lot more. I think the thing that's really frightening is that with all These mergers with all of this, like, you know, the ability for tech to break everything that exists already in order to remake it in a shittier version later. I'm seeing that happen with movie theaters over and over and over again. The fact that, like, people were going to the movies more than they ever had in 2019 and after that, the sort of proliferation of streaming post Covid allowed that progress to be thrown away. That makes me really sad. But when I see that Gen Z is now the most like, moviegoing audience, that makes me really excited. Right. The fact that letterboxd has figured out how to gamify a third space. I wonder if there's a way to do it where it doesn't just feel like a game or like a box you're ticking off and more just like a part of a healthy cultural life is going to see movies with other people. But I have some small think bit of hope, you know, I do think that again, a lot of people who are hungry right now are. Are punching back at the people who are keeping the refrigerator doors closed. So I hope we keep doing that.

26:50

So what are you doing next? What is coming up?

28:00

So there.

28:03

The play. What is that called?

28:04

That play is called Spirit of the People.

28:06

Thank you.

28:07

I think. I'm not allowed to say much, but I'm. I'm pretty sure it's coming next season, which is really, really exciting and coming in a big way.

28:08

I want to see it, but I need it to come. It has to come here.

28:18

Yeah, it's going to be in New York. It's going to be in New York. I'm very excited about that. And then I'm, you know, that director, Chandler Levesque, she's working with my company on a big. On a big movie that we're doing with a really amazing.

28:20

So this is BB2.

28:32

BB squared. Yeah, yeah, squared. BB squared. Makes sense. Yeah. Double the babies, double the fun. Yeah. BB Squared has a really exciting slate. We have this movie with Chandler and a writer named Rafik Donatie, who I love. We've already announced that Raffi and I are working with Lena Dunham Ron Raffi's first TV show called Sex act that's going to be on Netflix. We're developing that right now. Sarah Paulson is going to be the lead of that. And then I have a movie that I'm writing right now that I'm really excited about. That would be my directorial debut. Pete has another movie. He has a couple movies, one that's a big one that's really exciting to do. Something big and different and another one that's going to be in Argentina with some other friends. It's really crazy and small. And then I'm adapting or I'm producing an adaptation of one of the best new Broadway plays of the last five years. I can let people guess which one it is, but it's not one of mine. And I'm very excited.

28:33

I feel like I would have seen it, maybe. I probably did. Okay, well, there was another one that you produced that I saw last summer, which was Prince Faggot.

29:32

Yes, yes.

29:40

And, you know, you. You have some other producing credits, as you know, that I was kind of going over. I wanted to ask, obviously Euphoria's back on tv. What was your relationship to that show? You were, you were a producer on the second season, right?

29:41

Yeah, first and second. One of the first people I met when I was 20 years old that like had any relationship to the business was Sam Levinson. We met at a CAA Oscar party when his partner at the time was in a play was. It was a Tony nominated actress. He and I got along super well. And he was one of the first people to say, like, I think you're a real writer. I think you're a real screenwriter. And I met his dad and his mom and I stayed over their house and he was forever and I think still is one of my biggest champions. And I'm really excited for. I watched the first episode of the new season last night. I'm not on the show this season, but I'm excited to see what, what it's going to be because I know some things that are going to happen.

29:51

So how did you work on the show? What was your participation?

30:32

I think that, like, I think of

30:35

it as the Sam Levinson Show.

30:37

It is the Sam Levinson show. But like, like all things, no one, no one makes a thing by themselves, you know. And so Kevin Turin, who is his producing partner and one of my great mentors as well, was there. And I think that in the early days, especially as scripts were written, we were his first sounding boards. The first people to say, like, that sounds great, that sounds crazy, what's going on, you know, and just like to be the first audience members and I think that like, as the, like one of the younger people in his life besides a couple other people, you know, that show wanted to hit every quadrant, right? It wanted to get the old, it wanted to get the youngs, and it wanted to get the, like the very youngs. And I think I was in that middle space of like Millennial, not Gen Z. Like, zillennial space. Being able to say, like, I think we'll fuck with that. I think that actually, you need to have a reference to Harry Styles there. But also, Sam was. Sam is so aware of what he was doing before he even made that show. But, you know, like, that show, in many ways is such an extension of his movie Assassination Nation, and the questions he was asking about the world and that. And the question was asking about youth in that. So I feel so honored that, like, that show was one of the ways in which I got to see how a TV show was made. I got to meet so many great friends that I'm still really. I mean, when Z was here last week, I got to see her for the premiere of the drama. And we, like, you know, went and rooted for IO at Proof. So I feel very much like he and Kevin gave me my first door into the chaos and community of making a TV show.

30:38

Thank you so much.

32:08

Thank you. This was really fun.

32:08

This was so much fun. I'm such a fan. You have no idea. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer@columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.

32:10