The Truman Show

The year is 1998. Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Oh, and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. The movie, The Truman Joe. Oh, unspooled, unspooled, unspooled Hello everyone and welcome to... Unspooled! Yes, welcome to unspooled. This is a podcast about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you miss them. We have covered the AFI Top 100 and now we are checking off movies from three major lists. The Letterbox Top 250 films were the most fans, the IMDb Top 250, and the New York Times 1000 Essential Films. And we will be chasing our own curiosity too. I am Paul Scheer, I am an actor, writer, and director, and I have directed some hidden camera prank shows. And I will tell you, I identify with Ed Harris. It's a very powerful feeling to be behind that wall of monitors, making sure people are coming in and going at the same time. I was on a positive prank show and I feel like there's a lot of similarities there. Maybe, maybe I am part of the problem. I am Amy Nicholson, I'm the critic for the Los Angeles Times. I am wondering if you are part of the problem. That's terrifying. Like, one of my nightmares is that there could be a camera on me ever. I hate cameras. I lose my mind about cameras everywhere. I'm always yelling at wamos and trying to be like, people, they are videotaping you. Don't get in them. They're driving around the street just seeing what you're up to. I hate cameras. This show that I did, it was back for the UPN network when that was still a thing. And it was based on a British show called Make My Day. So you didn't even know that cameras were in your house. Your friends would let us in to your home. And we would install cameras there while you were out at work so we could follow you from the moment you woke up till the end of the day when it was revealed that you were on a prank show. Now the problem with the show was we weren't pranking people in a negative way. We were giving them the best day ever. So when we pulled the rug out at the end and said, hey, you're on a show where we gave you the best day ever, it felt like the worst prank. There was no relief. Like, it wasn't like, oh my God, I'm not in, you know, a car with a crazy alcoholic. It was like, oh no, everything that you thought good was happening to you, that was all fake. It was a tricky balance. Never aired. Oh my God. Never aired. Yeah. I mean, I am fascinated in this idea that we're definitely going to get into this episode about how relentless positivity is the worst sort of torture. I mean, it really was. We shot eight full episodes and at the end of the taping of it, the head of UPN at that time told us, we don't do positive prank shows. Instead, he opted to double down on a parody of American Idol where they kept on pushing forward the worst singer. And then at the end, they revealed to the winner that they were actually the worst person in the competition, which was equally horrifying. That's awful. Yeah, it was a really tricky. Look, Amy, my first job ever. I have to ask you something that I just really always want to know. Yeah. Don't the people fart on camera and what do you do about that? Okay, well, I will tell you a story not about farting because we never heard of fart. Like we didn't follow them into the bathroom. Like there's no, and I guess we could be watching that, but I think there are certain laws that we abided by. But we had one episode where our mark got on a speedboat and was going out to Governor's Island, which is like a little bit off of the island of Manhattan. And our actor who was with him, I guess had a hemorrhoid that burst and blood started coming out of his pants. And we were above the speedboat in a helicopter and we could see the blood smears on all the white cushions of the speedboat. And it's still to this day was one of the most embarrassing things because he's bleeding out of his butt. And I don't know how you hide that. And it was all over the place. And we had to use the shot because we had a helicopter chasing a speedboat. So yeah, that was pretty much the most shocking moment on that show. Wow. Yeah, rough one. Secondary question. What about picking their nose? No, I mean, honestly, we weren't in the bathroom with them. But I mean, I guess you could argue that if you woke up with like morning wood, if you're a dude, we would have saw that. I don't know. Wow. Like there's also a lot of footage that we weren't watching live. It wasn't like the Truman Show in the sense that it was all being fed into us like Mr. Beast style. Like, right, we would get the tapes back at the end of the day and then just pull the moments that we wanted. So we'd be fast forwarding and just like, okay, here, this is him getting out of bed. Okay, this is that. But if it wasn't embarrassing, it would have been passed around the office. And I only really remember the hemorrhoid. Wow. Eight episodes. So not bad. Feel good that yeah, you might be picking your nose. You might be farting. Farting, by the way, rarely comes up on mics, I think. I mean, as somebody who's acted in front of the camera, you can smell it before you can hear it. Although I will say that I once was doing a live stage show where our piano player farted and they did have the piano mic. And the way the piano was mic'd and where this gentleman's butt was was on the same level. So when he farted, it went through the mic and then it reverberated throughout the theater during one of our scenes, which was possibly one of the funniest things that have ever happened. Thank you for answering my question. That is just the question I have every time I watch something like The Bachelorette. Oh. Come on. It's just a lot of people in a house. I mean, you've got worse problems than farting. I mean, like, I always think the smell. Like, we are so lucky that we don't smell reality TV. Reality TV, to me, like when you look at summer house, oh, summer house drama, I can't get enough. But it's like the morning after the party, I just feel like it's not, it's not a good spot. It's not a good spot. But I mean, obviously, if we're talking about Truman Show, then we've got to be thinking at one point, Truman, the character, definitely masturbated. He had to have masturbated. And now I want to ask you when we really get into this, would that have made this an even better movie? Would it have taken this 10 to a 10.1 or would it have dropped it down to a 9.99? Okay, well, we will talk about it all because there apparently was a darker version of this film. But let's start at the beginning. Can I just say that every now and then you get a product that is advertising on your show that you connect to so deeply. 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Their first picture is their sonogram. I have seen many of my friends. It's true. Before they were born. Oh yeah, absolutely. Wow. Yeah, it's like, oh, congrats. Here's a little baby coming out. Oh, they're coming. Here we go. 1998, this idea of constantly sharing your life is still, I think, pretty new, pretty strange. The real world does exist on MTV, but shows like Survivor, Big Brother, those are still two years away. You know, I just want to point out something here because obviously if you're of a certain age, you remember this advent of reality television. And I remember when Survivor came out, it was the most like, oh my God, it felt like a dirty show. Like how could they do this to human beings? Right. And now Survivor is like the grandfather, like the gold standard of reality, right? That's how far we've come. Like Survivor was, I think, pushing limits in a way that we had never seen before. And, you know, I was a huge fan of the real world. And I feel like before people understood what reality TV was, that was the best experiment of it because you would have real conversations. I think you go back to real world season one, you had these like interesting conversations about race. You had real world San Francisco where one character had AIDS. Like there's a lot of real stuff going on. Now people just go on and get brand deals. But back in the day, there was a grittiness to it, like a real verite nature to it that I think has been co-opted and completely blown out now. I know, it's almost like we're back doing our episode on reality bites. But that is true. Like the very first cast of the very first real world in New York, I think they felt this obligation to be like, okay, we're a handful of very different people. Let's hash it out. Let's talk about the problems of the world. Let's like pick a presidential candidate that we want to root for. Yeah. And yeah, I loved that. Like they were treating it as though it was a social experiment. And I think you hear the phrase social experiment thrown around, I think even on love is blind. Like this is a social experiment. We're just seeing if you could fall in love that way. That's definitely what we're here for. The social experiment of it. But I think they meant it in the real world. At least seen in the one. Oh, I do too. And I think that unfortunately what has happened is reality TV sometimes is more interesting than anything you could possibly script. I find that with watching a documentary, these characters are real. So when they're real and making these decisions, there's an investment that you take or a real strong opinion that you have about them that I don't think you could ever fully have about a character that is written. I think that they're very different experiences. But again, going back to a couple of weeks ago with the drama around the summer house, cheating scandal and hiding this romance, people are bent out of shape about it. I was talking to a friend who was in a writer's room yesterday and he's like, we can't break the next episode because everyone is talking about it because it's also this like parasocial relationship. You feel like you know these people. This show has been on the air for 10 years. We now are in this world where reality shows are on for 10 plus years. We know these characters, Sandoval, all that sort of stuff. You know, we followed these people and we feel a connection to them, which is why I think this script is so interesting because it was even before any of this stuff. We already said it was two years before Survivor and Big Brother. This script, older than that. Yeah, but it gets that idea. I mean, this is a movie where the people who are the fans of the Truman Show, the times we get to see them like out in their little cubicle lives, working in the garage. They have fan pictures of their favorite minor characters. Oh, I love the neighbor, you know, framed on their wall. Yeah. I mean, that is the attachment, the parasocial love. It's just what we didn't know in 1998 was that we would vent it not through buying photographs of people and putting them on their wall, but through just yelling about them on the Internet and getting mad at people all the time. Or buying cameos from them. Now, the original script, like we mentioned, is written by Andrew Nicol, who wrote Agatica and Simone. And it's a spec script that he had in 1991, which is the year that the real world started. And he calls it the Malcolm Show and it is very dark. Maybe this is one of the versions that does have masturbation in it. I feel like it had to. Oh, I think it had some bad stuff. I mean, his version of the script, the first one, Malcolm, that's the TV star, doesn't he? He's on TV. He lives in a fake version of New York City that is just riddled with danger and crime. Malcolm is an alcoholic. He is cheating on his wife with a sex worker. Everybody in the world knows that his deep dark secret is just out there. He doesn't know that, but they all know that because they're watching him cheat on his wife on television. I love that idea. I mean, so that I mean, can we remake that now? We're living it, man. Now, that script does get sold for a million dollars. The director, Brian, a million dollars, a million back in 1991. That's a lot of money for a script. Now, the director, Brian De Palma considers doing it. I mean, he can do sleaze and voyeurism, but he's kind of on the fence, right? So it gets passed around to people like Tim Burton and Sam Raimi, which are interesting and odd choices. I don't feel like it totally captures what this movie could be. But then it goes to Terry Gilliam. And after we talked about Brazil, I could see that really clearly. And then people like David Kronenberg talk about it. And Barry Sonnenfeld is brought in. And of course, the man who's been attached to like a bazillion projects. Steven Spielberg. That's right. Whenever multiple directors are attached, so is he. Now, I will say I could see Spielberg doing a version of this film. I could I could see it and it'd be interesting. I feel like the Truman Show that we got is actually closer to the Spielberg version of it, which is interesting to me. Right? Yeah, I actually can see that. And suddenly as we're talking, I'm thinking now I want to do AI by Spielberg, but that's another point. Oh, that's a whole that's a jump. Well, it's not about that. But none of those people directed it. It goes to Peter Weir in 1995. And Peter Weir has made it known. He wants to do something challenging. He says like, I'm looking for trouble. Send me your broken scripts. And he gets the script and Peter Weir says it was like trying to pick up a hedgehog. It was bristling with metaphors. Imagine I'm saying that, but I'm Peter Weir and I have an Australian accent, which I like it. And I did it. Try to torture me. Great. Now he takes in the darkness and he goes, all right, this is too dark again in an Australian accent. This is too dark. And and he he has this idea. Let's get Jim Carrey, who is fresh from his breakout of doing Ace Ventura, the mask and dumb and dumber and and I guess maybe less notably of all those Batman forever. And Carrey is in this moment where he wants to do something different. He's looking for trouble. He wants to do something dramatic and he loves that Peter Weir turned, you know, Robin Williams into a serious actor with dead poet society. Again, this is the second time we're doing Weir. We're getting weird. But as much as Jim Carrey wants to do it, he can't because he's too busy making the cable guy. And Weir is like, OK, I'll wait. And while I wait, Andrew, Nicol and I are going to make the script more cheerful. If I looked at it as a movie, I thought it had to be light where he had it dark. I wanted to make it real, not science fiction. I wanted to make it just the near future, if you like, which of course it turned out to be, not that we knew that. And to do that, I thought, well, why would people watch it 24 seven? It has to be not depressing, which it would be. It has to be kind of enlivening. And they do. They move the television show from gloomy New York City to this happy, tiny coastal front suburb. They surround Jim Carrey's Malcolm. He's now named Truman with these cartoonish happy smiling people, his wife, Meryl, his best friend, Marlon, his mother. They're played by Lorelyn E. Noah Emmerich and Holland Taylor. There's also a director and a tech guy that's Ed Harris and Paul Giamatti and an extra named Sylvia that Truman falls in love with. And she gets fired from the show. She is played by Natasha McElhoun. I do think it's interesting that Peter Weir, his big contribution to this script is kind of making it a 1950s Americana. I mean, that's really what he does. It doesn't represent the now of now. It's kind of like if the 50s never really changed, right? It's obviously in the 90s, but it's also this like leave it to beaver world. Yeah, I think what Weir thinks in his head is I should also be interested in who wants to watch the show and why. And it seems like he made the decision that people want to watch comfort food, happy food. They want to watch people being in a good mood and a nice guy being nice. And I think that was a smart choice. And the reason why I wanted to do the Truman Show is because the second season of jury duty, it's wrapping up. And I was thinking about the attraction to watching just a good person try to do good things and try to be the best version of themselves in a world that's a little bit weird, but everybody's ultimately trying, right? It just, it feels comforting to know that this is how the world could be too. And it's not just people on the Bachelor getting drunk and screaming. I mean, Company Retreat is very much, you know, especially this season. Very much a Truman Show because they are living with this character for seven days or about that period of time. I was talking to some of the actors on the show and, you know, they couldn't just clock out. They had to hang out, quote unquote, like after hours, right? And that's interesting. And they, you know, they had all these different rules, which I don't know if I can break for them. So I will just stay back and say it was very much all being controlled, but there are times where nothing was supposed to be happening. So nothing did happen. And that's kind of fascinating too. And as you know, or if you've watched it, they don't have cameras in the Marx bedroom, right? So there is a little bit of privacy there as well, but they also don't have their cell phones. So you can't really connect to the outside world. Anyway, let's focus on Truman Show and say that it got there and it took a long time to get there because it took 12 drafts and three years. But finally, the Truman Show is released on June 5th, 1998. That's seven years after the first script was written. And it's just in time to be a little early. Yeah. And it is also a big hit, though. It costs $60 million, it makes $264 million, and Jim Carrey wins the Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Actor. It's going to be so hard to talk out of my ass after this. But I'll manage. I'll manage. Oh, what a shocker. I mean, if you look back at some of my earlier dramatic work in films like Earth Girls Are Easy and Once Bitten, you might have seen this coming, but... But I really wasn't expecting it. And boy, you know what this means, don't you? I'm a shoe in for the Blockbuster Award. That's right. Oh, yeah. But alas, just like how Adam Sandler got shut out for Uncut Gems, we've also recently did an episode on that, as well as in Poet Society. He gets snubbed by the Oscars. They only nominate, instead, Truman Show for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Sporting Actor for Ed Harris. And they lose all of those because this is that really intense Oscar year where Saving Private Ryan and Shakespeare in Love are just going head to head. Which we did two episodes on that, too, I believe. We definitely did Shakespeare in Love. Yeah, we have done both of those, yeah. You know, I think it's interesting because it feels like back in that time, you were penalized. People didn't want to take Jim Carrey seriously. Like, oh, well, it's a fluke that he's good in this, right? Like, that's kind of the mentality behind it. He's very good. He has a lot to do in it. And I think what's brilliant about the script and brilliant about the casting is that Peter Weir is playing on all the things that we love about Jim Carrey, but also giving Jim Carrey this runway to do something incredibly different. And I think something that he did fantastically well in Cable Guy. When I talk about a movie that we should do on the show, I would love to do Cable Guy, one of my all-time faves. Really? I've never seen Cable Guy. What? Oh. Ben Stiller directing a great, great movie. Wow, great movie. I mean, listen, you know that I love my Ben Stiller directing. Yeah, so... I just got really excited because I saw that on the Letterbox Time 250 films with the most fans, they have a movie that I thought you and I were the only people of the member of, of the fan club of, they actually have the Ben Stiller version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. People love that too. I love it. Great. That movie definitely has gotten a lot more traction as it's like left the public consciousness. Like, I think people find it and go, oh, how come I didn't know about this? And I think it's probably a lot about advertising at the time. Like, people went in probably expecting something very different than what it was. I know the first time I saw it, I think I saw it at a Friends and Family screening. I thought it was going to be a lot more like the Danny Kay version. And I was really taken in by what it was, which is a lot darker and more interesting than that. Yeah, it's really fantastic. Welcome to Paddy's Pete's City, your blind date is already at the table, and there she is. Cousin Brenda, what are you doing here? You're married anyway. Substitution brought to you by Paddy Power. Cousin Brenda makes way for Beth, the office crush. Oh, get in! You might not always pick the right starter, but your sub can still deliver. 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Because I believe the tremendous success of this film opened up the floodgates for mainstream networks. Because you gotta remember, MTV was not mainstream. It became mainstream, but real world was not like a mainstream show. But Survivor, Big Brother, these ideas, I think, were greenlit because of the success of this movie. I believe that this created the future that we are living in. I'm not saying that it wouldn't have happened, but it happened earlier because of it. Really? I do, I mean, because think of it, right? You watch this movie and you go, oh my god, I would kinda wanna watch that. Right? There's a part of you that is engaged by it. It is tapping into something in our public consciousness, but I could see, you know, in this movie, like you said, makes $264 million. People are like, yeah, so all of a sudden you go, what if it's The Truman Show, but they're all trapped on an island? This Truman Show meets Gilligan's Island. Yeah, let me watch it. Right? I mean, that's the pitch. And maybe there are a bunch of these sitting on people's desks, but the way that we've gamified and the way that we kinda start to blow out the premise, it's very different. You know, reality TV becomes very different from the real world very quickly. Yeah, sure, the real world is there, but I don't think it was... I don't think that it was hitting mainstream America the same way that this movie did, and I think that this movie opened up our acceptance to reality as a primetime genre network format. But this movie also says it's terrible and... We don't care about that. We're idiots, Amy. And the shows that then also came to exist are totally different than The Truman Show. They're also mean for the most part. Okay, I mean, you are... But you don't understand, right? They did try to do, I think, a trueman-ish version of this. Oh, Joe Schmo Show? Yeah, the Joe Schmo Show, where Joe did not know that he was in a reality show where he was actually the star of this. And it was like everybody's in the house, they're competing. What I love is talk about actors getting cast and launching their careers off reality show of all things. Kristen Wiig was on the Joe Schmo Show. It was like one of the girls who lived in the house. I mean, this is her actually in one of the survivor-ish competitionist moments, voting for his competition and breaking his heart. This could be the deciding vote, unless there's a three-way tie, so we'll have to see. Dr. Pat. I feel like the person that I voted for is the most real. The person who has been not only true to himself, but true to all of us. And deserves this the most. And also who gave me three consecutive orgasms. I'd like to vote for the Hutch. I choose the winner. She is incredible. And then, of course, that's like the season finale, where it's building up some moment where Joe finds out that this entire show is fake and has a complete meltdown. I think he handles it pretty well. Are you an actor, dude? Are you an actor? Are you an actor? Everything I told you about my life. Hold up, are you an actor? Tell me, just say it. I am. What the heck is going on? It's going on. Someone fill me in. And you know, Amy, I do want to just acknowledge the Joe Schmo Show. I watched it. It was fascinating. But, you know, if we're going to even go back to the genesis of the idea of the prank or the idea of hitting camera, I think we have to thank Alan Funt, right? You know, he was doing this back on the radio. There's two gentlemen who also, I've had a San Francisco, I can't remember their names, but they were two amazing prank people as well who would interview people on the street. Like they were newspaper men, you know, getting reactions to stories. And I think that we've always had a fascination with this idea of like catching people or hearing what people really think. It's like this social experiment, right? We, again, that term is back up. But I do want to just say that while the new format of this is like a longer form living in a house, it all goes back to the original thing of what would you say or do when you didn't think people were watching? And I mean, it's funny. I haven't never watched it, but did you ever watch an American family? Which was like a PBS? Oh, the original. Yeah. I haven't watched it, but I did read Emily Nussbaum's really great book on the history of reality TV, which is named after the line that we hear in this movie, Cue the Sun. What time is it? It's way too early for that. Cue the Sun. I love that moment, which was actually done practically, by the way. But yeah, so I do think that like this is it's just it is capturing this thing that we want to know, you know, what are people really thinking? And what are really, and what are people really thinking about me? I think that that's part of the idea of why this movie works and why we've been obsessed with this, because it's very naval gazee in a way. And, you know, now the idea of like the Truman Show, it's even like a psychological diagnosis. Like people who think that they are like it. Well, now I mean my sons call it main character syndrome, like where you think everybody is, you know, revolving around you. Yeah, I mean, that is definitely a thing. Like people started showing up in, I think the early 2000s saying that they were convinced that they were being recorded by cameras all the time and that everyone was acting fake around them and that nothing in their life was real. I mean, when you hear Jim Carrey's character in this describe what he think is happening, he does sound like he's having a psychotic break. Truman. Look. Lady. Flowers. And... Truman, this is silly. There it is! There it is! There's the dinner beetle! Yes! Wooo! But you know, I gotta say, I disagree with you though. I don't think that the Truman Show, as the Truman Show is conceivable in this movie, really wants to know what anybody is thinking in their head. I think they want that comfort food. I think they want to control his world so that he comforts us and not we ever get to know him. I mean, there's that line in here, nothing is fake, it's merely controlled. I think they're raising him and this fish tank to try to make him somebody that makes the audience just feel good about humanity. I guess I'm saying the reason why people are continuing to watch is yes, it's comfort food because it's allowing you to watch somebody else and you get to play act how you would act in those situations. I don't know, that to me I think is a part of what we love about reality TV. Yes, it's not hard. That's the reason why we are watching reality. That's why Bravo is gigantic. It's not, it is comfort food, but we're like, oh, if I was in that situation, I might do that. That's not a heavy lift. It's kind of nice because you're removed from having to deal with that in my mind. Maybe we're just splitting hairs, but I do feel like the reason why Bravo and reality TV is giant, even love is blind is because it's comforting and it makes you think but doesn't make you uncomfortable about thinking. Oh man. See, this is why I can't watch something like love is blind is because I get too into it. Right. And I'm like, who is that person? What is their entire life? And I just, I think too much and I'm on Reddit boards. It's awful. So I cannot watch these things. But I think that the movie itself, the Truman Show though, it's not even thinking about all of that yet. I think in a way, I think Peter Ware is making kind of a spiritual sequel to Dead Poet Society because Dead Poet Society is a movie about like people are trying to control your brain and how you think and you deserve the right to be a free thinker. Right. Right. Where Robin Williams comes into this school where all of the boys are controlled. They're taught that like this is the canon and this is what you're supposed to learn and this is what matters and this is how you think and this is how you write and this is how you behave and you're all going to be the future leaders of the world. And he's like, think of yourself, be free, be weird, be messy and people lose their minds and he gets fired and all hell breaks loose. I think the Truman Show is exactly about that. Like that Truman is essentially the student living in this controlled world and he doesn't know that he doesn't have the right to think freely yet. And he's trying to discover that for himself. I mean, I was even thinking there's like scenes in here where because it's like this 50s aesthetic, he kind of even looks like Robert Sean and Leonard towards the end of it. When he's in that fisherman sweater and his brown hair is all messy. I'm like, oh, it's the same heroic thing. I am facing my willingness that I will die in order to feel like I can live free. Right. I guess the idea that maybe Peter Weir is bringing forward from Dead Poets is like, think for yourself, question everything. Don't just take everybody at face value. Um, yeah, like I almost think to the Truman Show, the future we're living in is so hard to imagine that they're almost not even criticizing that. They're just criticizing the mind control that's happening inside of the bubble. Well, like the name. Let's talk about the original reality show or the original idea behind this, which is Plato's the cave. Um, right. So if you are not familiar with Plato's the cave, I can't believe you're putting your monocle on. Go ahead. You know, this is, right. So there are these prisoners that are changing a cave and they're only able to see shadows on a wall cast by objects behind them. And they mistake those shadows for reality, right? And one prisoner's freed and stumbles toward the fire and then outside and then slowly realizes that everything that he thought was real was just a projection. And when he returns to tell the others, they don't believe him and they would rather keep on watching the shadows, right? They, they would rather live in the comfort of what they know than the unknown. Um, and I think that this movie does follow a lot of that, right? It's, it's like the dad coming back in, you know, Natasha McClone, you know, trying to reveal this stuff to him, right? This is, um, and, and we see Truman wrestling with this. And I don't even have a line kind of like that, like here. Christoph, let me ask you, why do you think that Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of his world until now? We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. It's as simple as that. Yeah, I think that line is really scary because there's so much that we accept even just how things should be in this world because it's just how it is. And it's hard to imagine changing them. Well, and I think there's a part of this too where, you know, if you act on your own impulses, if you go away from the status quo, you are risking losing all the things that are the most important to you, you know, family and safety. And, you know, I think in this movie, like you said, like he sounds insane and it's sanity too, right? You know, we, um, and, and I think that then the, then the movie goes out and this is where I feel like I want to examine what you're talking about because you're saying, oh, people want this for comfort food. But the, the end of the movie is really to you, the audience going like, you, the audience are also prisoners to this TV. You got to turn this off and you got to live your own life. Yeah, but there's people who are living it basically all the time, 24 seven in a Truman show bar. A bar that's only about the Truman show and you go there. I guess it's nice to go there to watch TV with people. And I mean, right, but they're all, but they're all watching it when they're cheering together. But, but there's a part of me that feels like that's what like the social media thing, you know, social media thing. But I mean, you can make a correlation. You have to take your monocle off. Some bifurcals. But you know, I, but I do think that that is, I think that there's something really interesting here because I like going back to play though. And I would never reference play though normally, but in my research, we've done a million episodes and you have never actually just naturally. Play though, never did. I love this. But you know, but there's a part of me that goes like, Oh, wow. So this is something, you know, because people are like, Oh, social media is bad. Oh, video games are bad. Oh, music is bad. Right. You know, Oh, color is bad. Whatever it is, like we like whatever is new is bad. And I think what new things do often is disrupt our reality or the way that we view reality. And Jim Carrey is a serious actor that destroys my reality. I need to get used to the idea. And so we're, but we're going back to the time of play though. Right. Like so it is like in the sense drinking a cappuccino every time you said that. I apologize to you, the audience and to you, Amy. But like, but I do think that that's interesting. It's like, I think that we're so caught up in our own modern times. Well, no one else had to deal with something like this. And we're literally talking about a text that was about like fire and cave shadows. Right. Like, like we are always, there's a, I think an inherent fear to leave the tribe, to leave a point of view, to be independent. So I agree with you 100% that this is a continuation of that same idea in Dead Poets Society. Like break free from the world, which I think is a good underlying thing. But I also think it, it even goes out further. It's like, like in Dead Poets Society, he's affecting that class. This is like how we all are complicit in it. There's so many levels of complicity. And I also think, you know, I know I said in the beginning, like I feel for Ed Harris's character. I don't think that Ed Harris's character is inherently bad. No, I mean, in fact, Peter, we are kind of came up with this whole backstory of who he is and how he got here. I did things like I wrote a background to Kristoff. I said to Andrew, do you mind? I'm going to really invent this guy's background for myself. And so I wrote a 10 page piece about him and where he came from and documentary background. And, you know, he won an Academy Award for a piece he'd done on the homeless in which he'd put some cameras in a kind of crash pad and, you know, filmed homeless people. And that, you know, made it plausible. And initially the Truman Show was only to be about a baby. And they were going to do one year of its life, which seemed more logical, and sell baby products. So they only built a nursery and they hired a mum. And, you know, you would see the kind of products for sale there, you know, the powders and oils and things for the baby and baby food. It was so successful, they decided to add a father to it. So they built a garage. And so the father could come and go from the nursery to the garage. And in there would be, you know, his car and the rakes and tools and, you know, and so they developed a little husband and wife story going and went for another year. And then Kristoff presented them with the big plan, which was to go from cradle to grave, a whole life, and build not just a house, but a town. And then, you know, I went to the details of how he raised finance, you know, I had advisors telling me how you would do this and get money from here. The Japanese loved the idea right off. And, you know, so I was making it plausible for myself. And I like how Ed Harris plays him, actually. I like the beret. I like the wire frame glasses. I mean, originally this role was supposed to be played by, I believe, Dennis Hopper. And I think they did it a couple of days and were like, no, and it seems very vague as to what went wrong. But I like how Ed Harris does this because I think he has that kind of combination of coldness and intellectualism, but also a tiny bit of a soul. Like when he says to Truman, I've been watching you since you were born. I do feel like he loves him, but he is also willing to let him die. I think he's kind of just playing this like God, right? Yeah. Coming down from the mountains, from the sun, from the sky. I can control the weather. Behave or don't. If you don't behave, I might kill you. Well, you know, this is something I just want to just, just to bring up the Dennis Hopper of it all, which I think is really interesting. I've heard this. I can't talk about who said it, but a very famous actor was being courted for a part. And a very famous director wanted him to be in it. And this director told me the story one on one. So I know this is a true story. And the actor said, I see this part in a very specific way. I'm going to make a choice. And if you don't like it, you can't fire me. And I'm not going to tell you what that choice is until I do it on set. And I always thought that was like such an interesting thing. It's like, I have a choice. I'm not going to tell you and you can't fire me if you don't like it. That's a very tough position to put a director in the director. This director said no. Peter Weir said yes to those same exact parameters that Dennis Hopper gave him. I have a choice. I am going to do it. And and they didn't like it. They just didn't like what he was. I guess he was not collaborative. You know, it was just sort of, you know, he had done a very researched idea of what it was. And it just didn't work. And I could see it as kind of and I hate to be assuming, but I'm going to. It could be in a way more fanciful, more Willy Wonka, more that character in Apocalypse Now. And I think that the the the stayed nature of Ed Harris, like that kind of guiding force, like a really like a father figure is more important because I don't think you want a showman. I don't think you want like a PT Barnum here. I think that that actually wrecks what the movie is or makes it less special, makes it more spectacle. I think that the film does not think that he's a good guy at all. You know, like, I mean, there's even that moment where he's getting phone calls as he's doing like one of his rare TV interviews on air and a color columns. And it's like the Hague for Christoph. He's like, yeah, yeah, uh-huh. The keg is definitely coming for Christoph and some other people. But I also, yeah, I think that we're has the empathy to feel like you can't just watch this guy for 30 years, give 30 years of your life. How young was Christoph when his show started? My goodness, he must have been a baby himself and and not care about him a little bit, which is, I mean, to me, the horror of the Truman show comes in the supporting characters who are just around Truman, who have to have lived with him their entire lives, particularly, particularly his best friend, Marlon. You know, the actor played by Noah Emrick. I mean, this is a guy who was assigned as a young kid to be this kid's best friend from when he was seven. And he has grown up on TV his whole life. And I mean, what even is that mentally? Like, I found an interview with Marlon where he was talking about it, like here. I mean, I created my own personal sort of backstory on on Lewis, you know, on this kid who obviously he'd been on the show, on the Truman show in the movie for his whole life with Truman. Grown up together. So you have to imagine that this kid had some very pushy stage mother who was willing to sell her son into this unreality, you know, and sacrifice his childhood for the sake of becoming a television personality. So there's that element to this guy who was an aspiring child actor. Then there's the other reality, which was that he actually did grow up with Truman on the Truman show and they became best friends. That was an authentic, I think, real relationship. Because when you're eight years old, you're not faking your best friend and sort of, you know, the notion that you're with someone all your life, that you can't actually share the secret with. It must have been very, very difficult for for for Lewis, you know, to have this burden as a child. So I think that creates a very interesting sort of almost psychotic split in this character who has to be false perpetually to the person who is authentically probably his best friend in the world. And then he of course grows up and realizes he's this famous actor. But it's all predicated upon this very deep and profound betrayal, false life that I think must have made him a very complicated man. It's interesting because I also guess like at a certain point it goes away because like it's not that Marlon could actually have a real life. Right. You cut to moments in this film where you see like a crew or lights or, you know, you see a little bit of the backstage production of it. But the truth is to live in this world and live in this town, like maybe he gets a week off a year when he goes on vacation or does something like that. But he's not having a mown yeah, I'll be right. Yeah. But like where is he going? He's not been in like it's almost like the they're all trapped there. And you see are under different ideas of what that is. But what is your life? Like are you faking being his best friend since seven? Or is it just now part of you? I think that that's one of the things that the movie kind of wrestles with is like, yeah, they go to bed. But I would imagine so does Marlon like, you know, like, yeah, he's got to be there in case something happens. Right. Yes. And I think that adds just such this wrenching dimension to a scene where, you know, Truman is starting to have a breakdown. He's like, I really think that something's weird is happening in this world. And Marlon, his whole job is just to kind of show up with six packs of beer, sell the beer to the camera and try to convince him to stay to try to convince him. Hey, everything's fine. You have a great job. You know, we're just having a good time. Like try to talk him down from leaving the whole time, try to be like his if he's not PT Bartom, he's the guy with the keys to the elephant cage being like, you got to stay in here. You know, don't you ever get antsy itchy feet. Where's it ago? Fiji. Where the hell is Fiji? Near Florida? See here. Yeah. This is us. And all the way around here. Fiji. You can't get any further away before you start coming back. And so there you hear him when he's happy doing his job or he thinks it's working out. But when it gets harder towards the end, that scene where they're like sitting facing the waterfront at night and stuff is like very close to going sideways. That is heartbreaking because you can't tell as you're listening to him. If he's being sincere, if he's lying, you realize he's getting lines in from an earpiece. It's just devastating. You're the closest thing I ever had to a brother, Truman. I know that things haven't really worked out for either of us like we used to dream they would. I know that feeling when it's like everything's slipping away and you don't want to believe it. So you look for answers somewhere else. But... Well... But... Well, the point is I'd gladly walk in front of traffic for you. Well... The point is I would gladly step in front of traffic for you, Truman. And the last thing I'd ever do is lie to you. And the last thing that I would ever do... is lie to you. I mean, how do you feel about this guy? Like, where is he to you on the villain scale? I don't know how much control this person has. He's been doing it since he's seven. And I think that there's something really magical about this part by Ed Harris, which is it's the dad, right? Like if I could control... I don't want to control my son's friends. But if I had the ability to be there and lift his spirits, get him to a place, you know, not have him go through things that are painful, but that's life, obviously. And that's why I wouldn't want to do it. But if I had that ability, like, that's what you kind of feel Ed Harris is doing. Like he is, yes, he's the puppet master, but I think not in an attempt to get ratings, in an attempt to kind of protect his son, his creation, right? This is like the idea of a director having to guide his film, which is Truman, to this finish line. And there's no end. Now, I mean, I think, yeah, there was an idea that Ed Harris pitched to him where he would play Christoph as a guy who had a birth defect. Like he said that Christoph should have a big hunchback that made him get teased a lot as a child, that he had a miserable childhood. And so having suffered as a child, he wants to create somebody who doesn't have to suffer. I love that idea, but I think that you do... Like, and that's where I feel like you don't even need to go that deep. Because I think anyone who is... Who has been in that position, and I just say it from the protecting children point of view, right? I think it's, yeah, I get it. I'm there. Like I feel it. Yeah, but you have to let people get hurt. Well, and that's part of it too. That's how we become... You know, I was saying when I was touring around with my book, I would always say, you know, trauma is the fire in which we are forged. That's what makes us stronger. That's what makes us better. And that's who... How we become who we are. It doesn't matter what your trauma is, but that is... The obstacles in our lives are the things that actually propel us forward, or keep us held back. Yeah, the worst thing that happens to you is the worst thing that happens to you, even if somebody else's worst thing is worse. It's still your worst, and it shapes you. And, you know, and I feel like... I don't know. This is what is interesting about... These movies and drama... Because I have to think that like Peter Weir is looking at this as a director. Like what would he be doing as a director in this? Like, you know, this is... You know, you have to look at it. Like, you know, and all the care that you take to, you know, cast your movie the right way. Get it out. Get it, you know, released. And make sure you don't... Nothing is harmed from what you wanted to say. Like, really committing and caring for it. That's, I think, such a... An interesting story for a director to tell. And it was... We always talk about... It's always about the director's point of view as well. Like, you know, how am I a director? And I think that this movie, it's right there. Yeah, I mean, I suppose any director could have the same quibbles. Like, have I made an actor feel so upset that they cried so that I could put their tears on screen? And am I a terrible person for that? Right. And, yeah, that kind of threading of the needle between, like, even on the simplest level, some actors take apart just because they identify with it. So are we watching them completely as a character? Or are we watching 80% of the character? Are we watching 20% them thinking about something awful that happened to them? It was a lot like this. You know, it is blurry. And I believe that when you look at this movie, you can probably even go further out and saying, like, are we protecting our partners? Are we protecting our children? Are we protecting them too much? And maybe this movie is just saying, like, we need to release a little bit because that's the biggest part of living a really fulfilling life, is letting mistakes happen. And yes, this is the heightened version of it. And I think that the reason why Jim Carrey is such a great pick is because he is childlike. He is, like, so happy-go-lucky. So you're actually watching someone who looks and acts like a child have this realization. Like, he's having his puberty on camera, mental puberty. Yeah, he is. And I think that in a way, he is so sincere. Like, he can do that gigantic smile. I think he does mean saying hi to his neighbors with the gusto that he has. But what terrifies me is just seeing how subconsciously the world around him is shaping his thoughts. I think, like, maybe there's something just in the mood that I'm in right now where what I was just drilling into was that every morning he goes to the magazine store and he buys a newspaper, he buys a magazine. And everything he's being offered for sale is, like, dog fancy, country living magazine. It's about cars, newspapers where the headline is always like, See Haven is great. Everyone loves See Haven. Oh, you shouldn't travel. Travel is really bad. You know, disasters could happen to you. I was thinking a lot watching this movie about Bullying for Calibre, the Michael Moore documentary about just how the national mood is controlled by the news. Why are we more scared today than we used to be back in the 70s when more people were getting murdered on the street? You know, why are we being told to be afraid of certain things and also that certain things are fine and just being distracted and not being told the truth of stuff? You know, like, I'm really fascinated even getting back to the whole childhood of it all that kids today aren't allowed the same freedom to run around on the streets and get into trouble. And, like, why? You know? Oh, I mean, the amount of stuff that I did, you know, and part of it is, like, maybe that's a point of view that we have because we're in Los Angeles. I mean, I think kids that maybe in different parts of the country are able to do that. I hope so. Maybe I just find newspaper articles that make me mad, but it's like parents are arrested for letting their kids walk to the park. I'm like, what? Yeah. What are you talking about? It's hard for you to understand, but I think it's because we assume the world is more dangerous than it is. But I think it's because we're watching news that tells us that it is. Well, I also think that this movie is really interestingly structured because it's doing two things at once, right? We're watching this movie that is about, oh my God, can you imagine if you were in this reality show or watching this reality show, how would they do it, right? So there's a lot of technical fun of this movie, just like, oh, they're coming in, they're being cute. But the movie really... Yeah, all the camera shots where you're, like, inside of a button or, like, watching through a briefcase, all the framing, it's really cool. It doesn't feel like it ever forgets and cheats. And as a shot, it doesn't feel like it could be coming from a secret camera. And what I kind of love about the movie is that it kind of follows two separate tracks. Like, the end of Act One has, like, a... like, a inner, emotional kind of a climax, right? And then you also have, like, the technical issues. And I think that that's what's really interesting in the entire film, is that they're running these two stories. So, because you could see this movie just as somebody figuring out that his life is a lie. This is a technical, like, it's like, noises off or something like that, where the whole thing starts to fall apart around him. But they really are seeding the emotional breakdown. And I think that that, to me, is... is actually the... I mean, is the part that makes this a classic film, right? It's sunny, it's cheery, and we probably would have liked it if it was just like, oh, my gosh, this is the day the reality show goes off the rails and they realize it. But it's so beaten into, the emotional part of it is beaten into in such a way that I feel like that's the staying power of this movie. Like, because it's the darker part of the movie. And I feel like that's the part from the original script that they did bring over, even though they sanded the edges of it. But that emotional thing is really dark. Yeah. Or even the fact that you realize that... You know, they fake this boat accident to make him terrified to leave. And then they keep the sunken boat right by the pier. Yeah. So every time he walks to the pier, he gets scared. Like, that is torture. That is incredibly psychologically cruel. But then even beyond that, I mean, honestly, the way that he is living his life and the things that are holding him back are actually incredibly relatable to all of us. Like, hey, I feel like we should go on a trip. I'd like to go somewhere. And his wife discouraging him by being like, well, but don't we have this other stuff that we should be doing instead? We've got other things we should spend money on, blah, blah, blah, blah, like here. I figure we can scrape together 8,000. Every time you and Marlon get together, there's... We can bum around the world for a year on that. And then what, Truman? We'd be where we were five years ago. You're talking like a teenager. Well, maybe I feel like a teenager. We have mortgage payments, Truman. We have car payments. What, we're just going to walk away from our financial obligations? It would be an adventure. I thought we were going to try for a baby. Isn't that enough of an adventure? That can wait. I want to get away. See some of the world. Explore. Honey, you want to be an explorer. This'll pass. We all think like this now and then. I find that monologue really scary. Because I find that scene really scary because basically his wife is saying lines that I say to myself in my head all the time. Like you can't do that and you can't do that. You should be more practical with your life and you're letting your life live by you. You're not experiencing it to the full. That's horrifying because really I think that's in the core of this film. In a way, honestly, you know what else the Truman Show really made me think of is it's a wonderful life. Because this is also the version of that too. I'm so excited you say that because I literally was like I got to bring up it's a wonderful life. I just wrote that down. And it's because it's a wonderful life also kind of says it kind of goes the opposite direction, which is like I know you want to leave, but honestly you should stay here. It's like the Truman Show worked and kept him there. This is what your life is. So it's an interesting, I was looking about it from the point of view of the director by my blanket and his name. Of Frank Capra. Yeah Frank Capra is kind of the successful version of that Harris. He kept them there. Oh your uncle just gave away all your money and blah blah blah blah blah. But you're right. In a way, the way you're coming at it's a wonderful life from the other angle of like but you should stay home and all of your family is here. I wonder if that's what they're making fun of when he sits down to watch a movie and they're like here's your favorite old classic. This is exactly what it's about. And there'll be another episode of I Love Lucy same time tomorrow. But right now, it's time for Golden Holy. Tonight we present the enduring much loved classics show me the way to go home. A hymn of praise to small town life where we learn that you don't have to leave home to discover what the world's all about and that no one is poor who has friends. Full of laughter and love, pain and sadness, but ultimately redemptive. Which oh okay now the layers are like really stacking up to me because it's like if you interpret it's a wonderful life as just be fine your life is fine. Then it is that inner version of show me the movie and the movies are telling us just to suck it up and everything's great and you don't have to travel anyways. Right and I think that that is the thing that is really really interesting. Like our movies very rarely tell us to go and leave and get out. I mean I've never seen Eat, Pray, Love but I assume that's what it is. No but you know and I think that maybe that's part of like the argument that he's making is that we're all complicit. We want to watch those movies. We want to you know we're there we're not at the bar but we want to be at the bar. Right we want to like we're gonna we're gonna all gather around it's easier to be there than it is anywhere else. You know it's interesting to me. Yeah I think that's why where the Truman Show hits me the hardest is almost stripping the reality show element away from it. And just thinking about how it really is not even just a symbol of mental thinking that this is like a real place. I just assumed that my entire life that the Truman Show was filmed on like a gigantic set and no this is filmed in an actual town that designed itself to look like this because it's for people who want to live in a version of a town that looks like a happy movie set all the time or everything is 1950s and everything is perfect. That this is one of those fake towns that got made in Florida just basically to be like a theme park of a town. It's called Seaside. It has 400 houses. They're all very controlled of the design. They have to be slightly different from each other but not too different from each other. They all have to have a white fence but they have to have a different white fence. Rich people basically built this town to say I want to live in a set. I want to live in a world that is this cozy version of the world that looks like the 1950s movie of my dreams. And it is real and they do live there and I find that just completely brain breaking. I mean if you've heard of like Celebration the Disney Town they basically took the idea from Seaside. And that's what I was going to bring up like that idea is like people I mean the fact that people wanted to live in Disney. Right. I think the reason why there are Disney adults in the Americana didn't you. Oh well I didn't want to. We were considering living in the Americana when we were going to do work on our house. There's a difference. There is a difference. And I will say that just from being on the outside of that I was like oh thank God we never did that. Walk out of your house Frank Sinatra and Fountains all day long. Although my mom lives there and she absolutely loves it. Like loves it, loves it, loves it and makes her feel like but you know but my mom is also an older woman who I think is very happy to um to have that like that kind of fake world around her. Does she walk downstairs and go to the cheesecake factory? You know the funny thing about my mom is she doesn't go anywhere. But I'm like you literally live in the place where you can go anywhere you want and you don't. Can you hear Frank Sinatra from inside her place? She likes to leave the door open so you can. Wow. Yeah. So you know there you go. I'd lose my mind. Could you live in this town? No I don't want to. I mean that's what I'm saying. But I do think that this is the idea. I know that I love certain things about like Disney World and I think the reason why and it's changed as I've gotten older. But I think the thing about Disney that's so wonderful is it's safe. It's the reason why there is an Olive Garden in every city right? I remember whenever I'm on tour I'll say oh hey you know where's a good place to eat around here. And people will say oh the Cheesecake Factory. You know like hold on a second. Like what do you mean? And they're like oh yeah yeah the Cheesecake Factory. It's like well no but I mean and I think that that's part of it is like people feel like this is safe. This is a safe you know oh it's safe it's good. It's yeah that's delicious. I get scared in places like that. Like I get scared when you travel and you're in a place where everything's really clean and nice. I get freaked out. Like am I not allowed to be here? Am I ruining the place? Am I scuffing it up with my dirty sneakers? I don't like hyper clean well maintained things. They just make me feel like I don't belong. I get that. I think that there's a safety sometimes. I don't know. I think that chain restaurants the end of mom and pop stores the reliance on places that are familiar. When you go from town to town again not that I am like touring all the time but I'm out and about. You know you see these things. There's like oh these people are they want their everything looks the same. I mean everything looks the same and I don't think it used to be like that. I know it used to be like that. But that there's a you know I don't know. I feel like that's a bigger part of this movie as well. Welcome to the realms of peril and glory. Explore the mechanically magical vistas of veil. The paranormal mysteries of liminal London. And the cyberpunk chaos of cyborg. The odd by our incredible guests from familiar shows like ox venture and no roles barred. Search realms of peril and glory to find out more. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world. Praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s and man it is so good to be back. Join the glass cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. What do you think it means psychologically that disgraced politician Matt Gaetz grew up literally in the Truman House. Not just even in the town but literally in the house. His parents bought that house in 1991 before the movie was made. It only cost like one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars by the time back in 1991 now it's like almost three million. But what does it mean if you're a person who sought public life growing up in the house that was a public house or a version of the world that was just completely phony to begin with. I mean that to me is really fascinating right because you are you are living in exactly what you said a world that feels a little bit more fake right. It's supposed to be you know it's supposed to be and I think that if you're a make America great again guy but you live in a place that was made to basically be the model of make America great again. This is what you want it to be like you know and you know we I'm not trying to be political but I do think that there is something that's very easy to say and it's somebody who's smarter than me who said it. So I'm repeating them and paraphrasing them which is when we go let's go back to the way that things were oftentimes what we're saying is. Let's go back to when things were easier when you were a child when you were younger when you had less responsibilities. Yeah so you're not the 90s because I love the 90s because they didn't have to worry about anything. Exactly followed the news and I didn't know what was happening 100% right so that that idea is natural that idea is very Truman show right that idea of living in town is a part of that but it's it's unrealistic because you're not engaging your age. And you know when I heard my grandma talk about the difference of the post office in town. No politician is going to change the way your town looks right like in that way it's not going to you know it it's your own percept it's because it's it's a POV that is warped through childhood eyes. And what we see what we do it's so completely different so I understand and I actually really relate to the idea of let's make America great again because it's like let's make it simpler let's make it easier. This shit is complex I have to have an opinion about this and that and I don't that makes me feel uncomfortable now I have to be confronted with something that makes me feel uncomfortable as a kid. That's you are blockaded from that for the large part by parents and by age and by just the amount of information you're getting so I have that and I can see that I could see somebody falling into that kind of belief system very easily. But again you have Matt Gates who you know is having like I mean God I don't even where it's like sex trafficking and all this other stuff which is also like that CD underbelly it's like yeah you're saying one thing but you're living a very different life. Men okay oh no I just had the most sick thought ever I actually do want now a 24 hour reality show just said in this town about all the horrible stuff that happens in this place that looks so perfect. Because I don't trust it I don't trust a town like that I think anybody who would build a town like that and move into it. And actually even that I think Truman shows mother does here where she's like oh my goodness everything's going to see the rest of the world is trash or even at Harris who loves this town. He thinks that this is how reality should be in that everywhere else is broken. Right I have given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world. The place you live in is the sick place. See Haven is the way the world should be. Yes exactly so that's what we're talking about where we are talking about making it perfect making it right and the world is messy and the world is complicated and these are these are the ideas right it's and it's easier to stay in the cave then go out like my good friend plateau said right then then dealing with I don't know like all these bigger issues and what's kind of heroic. Is once he understands that outside that door is something that will not treat him as well. I mean I would love to have seen a sequel to this movie because I think that that actually is fascinating to the celebrity in the world and who is he and how can he react and you know it's like that. Give me the J Kelly of Truman. No you're right but I like that the film ends where it does because it's like his private life is private we don't get to see it. Yes and but he's going but he's making a choice to say it may not be right it may not be perfect it may not. Be good but at least it's a choice and I get to make a choice. I love how Jim Carrey plays the scene and I love how Peter we're stages the scene. Because you know his boat crashes into the actual limit of the set and it looks so surreal. Oh my God it's just gorgeous they actually use the image even for the poster of can a couple years ago like sky with stairs and darkness. And instead of putting the camera like on Jim Carrey's face where he could do his big Oscar moment they probably would even gotten him the nomination because people are ridiculous. Oh I'm crying and I'm blubbering and oh my God and a thousand emotions crossing my face the whole time. He puts the camera just on Truman's back we don't get to watch how he's reacting we just watch him absorb it he makes like I think the tiniest little noise his little under playing here. And he then gets to just absorb it and how beautiful is that how subtle is that like that's not I think how I would just assume you'd play the scene right. I agree exactly right like it gives him some human respectfulness he's had the camera up in his face in his bathroom mirror and now he gets to be alone. You know and and oh my gosh I just thought of that that's right there is no camera right there there wouldn't have been you know. And I do think that you know this movie is ahead of the curve in a lot of different ways. I also can't stop thinking about Pleasantville but I don't remember enough of it to be able to draw a beautiful comparison to it but like Pleasantville came out the year after this I believe or 98 it came out and that was also about like the the the log line of it was nothing is as simple as black and white. And it was this like 1950s family that's starting to see color and what does that mean. And you know so I think we're wrestling with this idea of like this transition to a more you know the late 90s into the early 2000s is this a more complicated time and then you know it's interesting because in 2001 we do have 9 11 to right so it's like that's another shock. I'm like oh wow hold on right like the world is opening up the Internet is more accessible like the world is expanding right in front of us in this moment. Yeah and these are the ones that are kind of like like just pression enough to say hey it's changing. Exactly and you're trying to keep it the same and cozy and it's not going to work. I mean I do think if we had a Truman show Truman show itself now on the air I think audiences would probably take about a week to be like hold on what's up with Christophe he's a horrible person right. I don't think they would even know but do you know who's running company retreat. Well no but I am thinking about how everybody's mad at the love is blind producers for not feeding people keeping them cold and making them drunk all the time. Well but that I mean that's different like I think that those are two different things because he's not abusive like that. No but I think we're quicker to condemn a show for the way that they have structured it. Okay I mean I guess there's a there's a part of it too where it's like we all watch that show where it was like the fictional version of what it's like to be a producer on the Bachelorette like you know I think that what people don't want to see is oh these producers are manipulating what we're seeing because there's just still a part of us it's like oh I just want to just enjoy these are actually real people and they're happy. But now we're like in a such a deep cycle of the reality show where people go on to its show knowing that they'll be the villain knowing that they'll be this. I mean it's just it's iterated it just keeps evolving and evolving and evolving psychologically where now it is basically scripted you could you're just going in knowing that you're a scripted character like everybody is Marlon now in a way. I guess everybody is closer to the Laura Lenny character the Merrill of it all who knows very well what she's doing and why she's there. I mean she is basically contested on the Bachelorette was like well I guess I will sleep with this guy occasionally for ratings I mean hearing Laura Lenny talk about how she considered the characters fascinating. She was a rabidly ambitious powerful woman who when not on the set my idea was that she had this huge room with an enormous conference table and she was just making deals left right and center and making an enormous amount of money. That she gained so much popularity through the show that she had an enormous amount of power for example every time she slept with Truman she'd get a bump in salary. I mean because that's gross you do have to kind of go there with that character she's living with this man she is sleeping with this man occasionally doesn't seem like they do it that much. But it has happened they are married and I wonder what it does to her psyche knowing as the entire world knows and that the entire world knows about her that she's his second choice. That he would have gladly dumped her in a heartbeat for Sylvia but Sylvia is gone in that she's just the world's most public I guess. Yeah you know and it's interesting it's like this idea too it's like I think it's funny that the dad and the girlfriend or the girl he likes really were trying to like they reneged on what they did like they yes they want to take the part they got there and they go I don't like this right. So that there's a part of that too which is like oh they they change your mind once they're there and do we have more admiration for the people who never changed their mind I don't know are they are they better actors is that what they're supposed to do like you willingly did this thing. But then humanity came in I mean it's all over the board it's tricky it's asking a lot of questions and you know we don't get to spend that much time with the Sylvia character. But I love that when we do I love the way that Natasha plays it is she's just always glancing over her shoulder she looks so terrified she looks like she's in a spy movie. I mean she's just always aware of where the cameras are and she's freaking out. I'm Truman Burbank. Yeah I know you know Truman I'm allowed to talk to you. Really? Yeah well I can understand it I'm pretty dangerous character. I'm sorry it's not up to me. Girls gotta be careful. I mean that whole there like I respect that we don't see too much behind the curtain of how the show works works that it's not you know that a third of the movie isn't taken up too much with like the mechanics of how these actors are doing that we get to kind of build in our imagination or understand it just through her nervousness. Although they did have a deleted scene where they were talking about what's going to happen if they can get this romance that they're trying with the secondary redhead that they kind of cast to look I think even like Sylvia a Vivian. Right. The red hair to work in his office to replace you know Merrill who's leaving the film because he's having a break and grabbing knives and it looks very dangerous to be him right now. They have a meeting of what will happen if they can actually get this couple together and they can create a sequel. I don't have to tell you how critical these next few weeks will be. This takes us into the next generation. When the child is born the network will be switching over to a two channel format to chronicle both lives. What happens when Truman and the baby are both on camera together. There will simply be duplicate coverage. Let's just hope we don't have twins. So when Truman dies we go back to the single channel format right. That will be all. Thank you. I love that scene and I think I don't miss that scene of being in the movie. I totally agree because I think that like what I was saying early on too is like part of it is just. It's not about who cares how they do it. It's cool. We don't need to get in the nitty gritty of it. That's not what the movie is about. That's a different movie. This is a movie about him and he's got to make that choice. I think that the choice that he's making is a choice that everyone is agreeing to. Letting go. Having more control. Finding out what a choice is. I would also argue that Peter Weir is having an issue with Jim Carrey during this movie too because Jim Carrey wants to improvise more. Peter Weir is like no it's going to wreck what I need you to be because he needs him to. It's a very straight line of what he needs to do and how he needs to be. So I also think it's like I'm sure that Peter Weir is wrestling with should I give him more? Should I am I making a mistake in this because you have to think like oh am I not getting what I need from him or am I doing the right thing? He's trying to control Jim Carrey the person he wanted in this. Yeah and I love that he said the reason he wanted Jim Carrey is because Jim Carrey has that I think classic love ability. Right? Like he said that Jim Carrey was basically like a modern day chaplain which is lovely and I think that is fairly correct and I would have loved to see I think even more Jim Carrey that was serious than this. I'm glad that we have this film. I'm glad that we have Eternal Sunshine. I think those two are perfect movies and I think he was perfect for that. And I think actually in this period of his life even Jim Carrey is really understanding what it is like to be a Truman because he went from anonymous to major celebrity incredibly fast. You know he went from that life of I'm just a comedian living my life going around doing my thing. Suddenly I have paparazzi in my backyard. I have people chasing me when I'm you know trying to get married. I think he was really wrestling with that. Like am I on the right track being gigantic movie star doing Batman forever? Or is there a more authentic version of me that I should explore? And I think this was his attempt at that. I totally agree. And where are we now? Like you said this is a movie that comes up before all this stuff and I think we take the wrong thing away from it. And I think but that's okay. Right? But it's interesting because I think of this packaging that it's in and the character that it's in. We look at it and it stays with us and we go that's right. Now what's on Love is Blind tonight? Right? Like you know it. Or even here. Like the show ends. The show that all of the people have been obsessed with and they're like okay what else is on air? Like that's the last line of the movie. You know whatever what are we going to watch next? Right it just becomes disposable. And you know I think that like that's part of like I don't know the commodification of like entertainment to a certain degree as well. It's like the reason why you know we aren't you know you're doing the two years between seasons of a show. And because things are just you're forgetting things. Like what's entertaining me now? Oh that show is back that I loved. Oh but it's been a year I don't care anymore. Right? Like you can't it's almost forcing it's like daring you to find and be a fan of something. Even movie stars I think are having a hard time launching. I mean if anything yeah the loyalty that you could love this show for 30 years feels almost hard to imagine. Except for reality. Yeah you know what it is it's like because he's controlled on this bubble he can't do the thing that would get him cancelled. Well they would never let him yeah. Yeah they would never let him do anything that would be cancelable. Like oh no you're flirting with the girl that we don't want you to be flirting with she's gone. He couldn't do the thing that would make him an internet villain. Unlike everybody else who stays in front of cameras too long. And I feel like there is something where we'll always be wrestling with are we abusing people are people like you know I don't put my kids on social media. That's a choice that I make because they can't make that choice yet. If when they get older they can do whatever they want. But right now I am protecting them from that. I remember that there was a kid in my son's first grade class who was obsessed with having people follow his YouTube channel. The worst thing you would ever want he's not making anything of interest in those videos. Not that that would but it's like it's like why do we need followers why do you need these things and it's like so in my mind I try to protect them from those issues. There's enough other issues I have to deal with and you know we're subjecting ourselves we want to be seen people would want to be Truman now people would subject to that. Now people would subject themselves to this willingly and that's maybe the big difference too is people would want to go in and people are going. I mean that's what it is people are going in and you know in very different ways but that's what's happening. I'm well I would love just to be inside the body of someone who wants to do reality TV just for a day so I can understand what on earth they are feeling because to me it sounds like my absolute nightmare. Just any camera on me ever is my absolute nightmare. You know and that's to me and that to me is like I did one reality thing I did a one day shoot reality show and I was scared out of my mind not because well there's a couple things one. You're like I have no control over any of this what they're going to use and that's you know as an actor you have no control over a lot of the stuff unless you're a producer. So there's that but it's also you and you don't know what you're going to do and then you have to be like I'm going to make sure I don't get manipulated here and one of the things that we did was the first. Challenge was hey who wants to take this ball and throw it through a hoop. And if you get it in the hoop you win a car for one of your fans if you don't get it through the hoop you are immediately eliminated from the show. So the risk of throwing this ball you have one shot kind of sucks right like it's like I don't want to get kicked off the show. So you just immediately say no and then you wait 20 minutes or like anyone want to throw this ball and again you're like no now it's 40 minutes. Then it comes back in 60 minutes like anyone want to throw this ball and someone never like yeah I'll throw it because you've been waiting for 60 minutes and you're done and you're like and your your your thing changes but when you watch the show it's like anyone want to throw this ball and one person raises their hand it feels fast it feels you know like it's it's a morphing of reality so I I knew that these things are at play but you never know how they're going to look on a different way or how you can be manipulated because you really are allowing yourself to be edited in ways they could take things if you watch traders there's a break down of how they were editing people's words differently to make create more drama like you know you are just a prop you are a you are a puppet and that's and that's and that's what you have to kind of agree to. Hell on earth. I do wonder if we're going to come back to like a moment of the zeitgeist being very pro privacy. Yeah. I because I do feel like this is it I'm done man I got way most driving around recording me on the streets I got food carts driving up and down with cameras everywhere just like. Give it footage to the cops like I'm done with this I'm done with cameras following me all the time I mean how you could shoot the Truman show I think just with like city footage of anybody. Oh yeah I would like to see an end of cameras that's me I don't know I don't I just it's terrible. Well I mean by the way you know what I was thinking about when we're talking about this is a bow finger when they made the movie with the Eddie Murphy stunt double like that that's a great other movie like that too. You know I've never seen both finger either. What Amy all right both finger and cable guy are going on the list. Okay. 100% OK Molly and Harry make sure you mark that down. This is fascinating I think this is movie still works this day because it does bring up a bunch of thorny questions it does give you a cheerful ending I think it does give you a. I think you can feel good about the choices you want to make in life I think you can also question the choices that you are doing I think it's it's a movie that doesn't make you feel bad. And for all the things we just talked about that's the trickiest thing you could possibly pull off and in a time where this movie is now however old it is you know over 25 years old. We don't talk about Pleasantville the same way. I don't know if Pleasantville just got just kind of washed away in the storm because the Truman show but Truman show does have weight because reality TV gets more and more popular and as my sons watch Truman show. They loved it and got it they were so into it because they understand what reality is. Yeah or what reality quote unquote is by the way if you want to watch a great breakdown of reality and what different things are I mean I know everyone knows this but there's a great David Letterman special where he imbeds himself with Mr. Beast on Netflix which is pretty fascinating. Okay but you know what I want to do a weird version of this idea next week. I think we should do. Oh my gosh my life is fake. What is happening to me. My wife isn't really my wife and now I want to go shoot some things. I think we should do total recall. Yes I am ready for total recall cannot wait. I read that book as a kid. I remember when I had a chicken pox that's and then I got to see the movie I was so psyched. I was like I read it first. You're like three boobs. I can't wait. They're boobs. They're boobs. You know Amy by the way I want to start telling people that if you have not yet well I guess you wouldn't have known yet. 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