On the pod, the guys deep dive into Charlie and Glenn's upcoming films, Fool's Paradise and BlackBerry, in anticipation of their theatrical releases on May 12th.
*Charlie plays piano*
Glenn Howerton: Don’t talk to me.
Charlie Day: I won’t.
Glenn: Oh. That’s the first sip.
Charlie: First sip of the day?
Glenn: First sip of the day.
Charlie: You didn’t have a sip of coffee before we came in here?
Glenn: I don’t drink–yeah I don’t, no.
Charlie: Ah, dude I can’t get out of the house. I’ve got to have my coffee.
Glenn: Yeah. I’ve sort of trained myself to not have it first thing.
Charlie: Plus, I have my beans that I like. I got my grinds that I like.
Glenn: Now are you, are you still making it in–in the Keurig or the, or the, the Nespresso machine?
Charlie: No. I’m grinding beans.
Glenn: Oh. You’re doing a whole thing.
Charlie: Yeah. Um, the Joshua Tree coffee. Love it.
Glenn: Mm. Joshua Tree coffee.
Charlie: Yeah. Love it.
Glenn: I think I’ve had that before.
Charlie: So good. Damn is it tasty.
Glenn: We’ll that’s okay.
Rob McElhenney: What’s that?
Glenn: Oh. We’re just chatting here buddy.
Charlie: We’re chattin’. Is Megan coming today or no?
Mara: She’s runnin’ a little late. She’ll be–
All the guys: Ohhhh!
Rob: Well, that’s where we’re gonna start.
Charlie: What an excellent start. We get to roast Megan.
Glenn: Now, Megan’s not here.
Rob: I’ll say about Megan is, she’s gonna come in. She’s not gonna find it funny. She is gonna be sweating. She’s gonna be upset.
Glenn: Mhm.
Rob: So how we gonna navigate that.
Charlie: We’re gonna lean into it.
Glenn: Just lean right into it.
Charlie: Like it’s an open wound and we’re gonna push on it as hard as we can.
Glenn: Absolutely.
Charlie: ‘Cause that’s what–that’s what–
Rob: That’s what friends do.
Charlie: That’s what friends do.
Glenn: That’s what friends do.
Rob: That’s what friends do. They find somebody who’s in distress–
Charlie: They find the weakness.
Glenn: They find the pressure point, and they just go right at it.
Rob: And here she is!
Glenn: There she is!
Rob: Well, well, well.
Glenn: She’s on time!
Charlie: Right on time.
Glenn: She’s on time.
Charlie: You were gonna get it.
Megan Ganz: You should see my parking job outside.
*Laughter*
Meg: I’m so askew.
Glenn: Just dia–full diagonal parking.
Rob: We should have Glenn analyze it.
Charlie: We were like–we were like wolves who noticed like, one of the wolves is like limping.
*Laughter*
Glenn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlie: We were about to just attack.
Rob: But the problem is, what happens when you come over to the woods, and it’s 9 o’clock. So she’s on time.
Meg: I’m on time.
Rob: The metaphor was–would be. You go over to the wolf, and it turns out, that she wasn’t limping at all.
Glenn: Oh.
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: She was trying to lure you in so that she could find out–
Charlie: Yeah, she was luring you in–and there are other wolves behind you now.
Rob: Yes.
Charlie: And you’re like, “Ah fuck. Good job.”
Rob: She wanted to figure out who the wolves were that were going to come–
Glenn: Is that what was happening, Meg?
Meg: Uh, no. It’s just that you guys have forgotten that the wolf can cut all this.
Charlie: *Laughter* Yeah yeah, that’s true.
Meg: So, this doesn’t even have to exist in the episode if the wolf doesn’t want it to.
Charlie: But, I think it’s more like the wolf just had a thorn in it’s foot. And the other wolves were like, “Oh man. We’ll get to eat this one today.” And then–
Rob: And then, she was like “Nah.”
Charlie: “Nah. I like, got the thorn out.”
Rob: And then the other wolves were like, “Oh okay.”
Charlie: “Hey sorry, man. We weren’t really gonna eat ya.”
Glenn: “No. That was a joke. We were just–”
Charlie: “But the thorn is out? You’re fine?”
Glenn: “A friendly ribbing. And–”
*THEME SONG*
Rob: Here we are–
Glenn: I don’t even know how to do this.
Rob: Well, I’m sure Meg’s got some sort of a structure.
Meg: I do, yeah.
Glenn: Do you really?
Meg: I do, well yeah. I was thinking that we could discuss Fool’s Paradise first, and I’ve written down a bunch of questions. And then I thought we could get to Blackberry second.
Glenn: That’s probably a good idea.
Meg: Because, you’re involved in both. So–
Glenn: Oh.
Meg: you won’t be as bored, in the first one.
Glenn: Yeah. I was gonna say, I might fall asleep.
Meg: I would think.
Glenn: Okay.
Meg: If that’s alright with you guys? Does that work out for you?
Rob: That seems good to me. I was really looking forward to this episode, because uh–and hope all the creeps out there will get to notice this. ‘Cause I don’t know if the listeners will. But, it’s going to be–they–I don’t know if they’ve thought about this, but it’s going to be very uncomfortable for them.
Charlie: You mean from a–like a compliment stand point.
Rob: Yes. Because it’s very hard, it’s very hard to sit there and be complimented, over and over and over and over again.
Charlie: Well–
Rob: I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it anyway. But not because I want to make them feel uncomfortable, but because I’m so proud of them. Both of them.
Charlie: Thank you very much.
Rob: And I can’t wait to get into the specifics.
Charlie: I mean, I think I’ll be more comfortable with it than I was when we were in front of 9,000 people in Dublin. And it was like, I don’t want to sit here and take it.
Glenn: Alright. Let’s get to it. Shall we?
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: Let’s talk movies.
Glenn: I wanna talk about–’cause I do want to talk about your movie.
Charlie: We’ve all watched each other’s films. Um, and we’re here to talk about ‘em. Um, go!
*Laughter*
Ray Liotta: Take a look at this guy.
Charlie: What about him?
Ray: He’s a dead ringer for you!
Charlie: Man don’t look nothing like me. I mean, look at him. He’s too short.
Ray: He could finish the day for you!
Charlie: Oooo!
Man: Action! Cut!
Ray: Latte Pronto!
Ken Jeong: Excuse me Mr. Pronto. Can I call you Latte?
Woman: Latte.
Jason Sudeikis: Latte Pronto!
Kimmi Simpson: Latte Pronto!
Woman 2: Is that your name?
Mary Elizabeth Ellis: Amazing.
Ken: You and me are gonna do big things Pal.
Adrien Brody: Respect, bro.
Ken: Move, move! Stars coming through!
Meg: Do you want me to start off?
Rob: Yeah. Let’s have Megan start.
Glenn: Yeah. Why do you start, Megan.
Meg: Um, well I wanted to start by asking Charlie, uh, how did this film come about? Sort of like a chicken egg situation. Did you decide that you wanted to write and direct something, and then came up with an idea for what you wanted to write or direct? Or did you come up with the idea first, and then were like, “Oh, I’m the person to write and direct this.”?
Charlie: The funny thing about this thing is I’ve been tinkering with it, as sort of like a passion thing for a decade. So we were on season 10 of the show. And I was starting to feel pretty confident in my abilities to write and execute something. And I had done some rewrites on some feature films that I had been able to act in. Um, but I’d also sort of realized, I didn’t have control over those films. Like, the way that we have total control over Sunny. We have the final say. So as I was writing this movie, I thought, “Well, if I don’t direct it, I might get in a situation where someone’s making it something I don’t want it to be.” And that would suck. So, it was kind of realizing that I had to direct it. And then there was a piece of me that, forgive the comparison because it’s, you know, everyone’s all up in arms about it, and I understand. But like, I love Woody Allen movies. I loved Albert Brooks. I love things that seem like they were a singular voice from a person. So I, I think I always wanted to do that thing. Uh, and then I love certain types of movies. Like Being There. Which was obviously the closest relative to this movie. And I was like, “I'm just never going to get the opportunity to be in a movie like that. They're not gonna make them.” And then feeling like a certain kind of style of movie was just not getting made, or even like a Coen Brothers movie, or Paul Thomas Anderson, or these sort autor driven things being like, “Wow. A phone just might never ring.” Uh, so a combination of just some confidence with what we were doing at Sunny, as a boot camp of how to do it. And then a desire to be in a certain type of movie was the sort of initial like, “Well, let's just try to make one.”
Meg: I imagined to with a type of movie where you're not speaking, in the movie, not having control over that thing would be doubly impossible, because it would be like you lost your voice in two different ways. Like to have somebody else tell you how you're supposed to do a movie like that would have been–
Glenn: Well, I just want to start by saying I was so endlessly entertained. But I've, I’ve always been a big fan of this movie, in its earliest iteration. You sent me a script for this, for a version of this is different, but had a lot of the same elements that are–
Charlie: Sure.
Glenn: It's, it was probably 60 per– 60 to 70 percent of what you're actually gonna see in the, in the movie, was in that initial script, and certainly the style and the feel and the comedic sensibility, the, the Hollywood satire aspect of it. So I've been a fan of every single iteration of this even, you know, when it was, you know, this thing of like, “Wow do you make a movie with a protagonist that doesn't speak?”
Charle: And doesn't want anything, which was–
Glenn: And doesn't want, but more even more importantly, doesn't want anything.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: And is literally, it literally breaks the number one rule of screenwriting, which is having the main character get pushed around.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: Get like forced into other things like, being just just like a vessel of other people's motivations. And yet, and yet, somehow, like, that was the, that was also the thing I loved about it, and that I still love about the movie. Um, uh so I just want to before we start getting to all the questions, I just want to say like, I just love the film, and it's so funny, I love, I love every single sequence. It's never not totally entertaining from beginning to end, you know, and it's constantly like opening itself up and you're meeting new characters and like, exploring different sides of the business. And, you know–
Charlie: I was–
Glenn: until, until it really spirals out of control the end.
Charlie: Sure.
Glenn: You know, and you get to meet like, the people behind it, you know, that was that. Yeah, it's like, I don't want to totally give away but it's um, you kind of meet the uh, you know.
Charlie: The people that make the people.
Glenn: The people that make the people.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rob: But, what you just touched on, I think is what is a good kind of primer for people to understand before they go into the movie, and it makes it that much more enjoyable. That I think the idea that the main character doesn't want anything is the point of the movie because I think–
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: –that you and I'm taking this from the movie itself, not even conversations that we've had. That I think the idea is that people will project what they want to add on to the main character, right? And so the audience is doing that every character that's surrounding the character is doing that. And they're creating something that is just a reflection of themselves.
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: Not the person, like, I've never seen that before even being there wasn't really quite that.
Charlie: No, it's a slightly different thing, right. Where, well, it seemed to apply to this town, right, which is–
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: –built on persona and ego. I remember sitting and thinking, I was reading an article about The Rock. And then I switched over to some other entertainment article about Justin Bieber. And I was thinking, what are these names? And how do we just accept them and like, you know, it was talking about like Bieber's and things and I was like, that's a strange sounding word. Now I know, that is that, that man's name, but like The Rock, we just started calling a man an inanimate object and we're just–
Glenn: Well, he was a wrestler. I mean, you know–
Charlie: For sure. But–
Glenn: If you look at the wrestling world there’s a lot of that.
Charlie: We, we went for the ride, right? You know, he walks down the street, someone will go “There goes The Rock.” And I was like, “What strange sort of concept.” So the idea of a name and an identity and what that is just seemed like fertile ground.
Rob: It's super effective. You know?
Charlie: Yeah.
Meg: Yeah.
Rob: It because, it, it creates a mystique and a mystery and a conversation, you know, the edge, you know, the guitar player or Slash?
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: You know, it creates like, wait, this person goes, Madonna even. You know, a one name you. It doesn't compute, because my name is Rob McElhenney.
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: Right? Which is very–
Glenn: What if somebody was like, “I want to be called Mushy.”
Charlie: *Laughter*
Rob: Yeah.
Glenn: You know what I mean? “Everyone call me Mushy.”
Charlie: I’m sure someone’s probably even tried that.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: But then also, there was something interesting. Remember the story that I think we were talking about. Maybe you had overheard it, where Jack Black was like, in a casting office. And he had just done like, what was his breakthrough movie? It was um–
Glenn: Ooo.
Rob: Which one?
Charlie: Uh, High Fidelity.
Rob: Yeah.
Glenn: Oh yeah. Right, right, right.
Charlie: And he heard someone saying, “Get me the next Jack Black.”
Rob: Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s like the Hollywood, the Hollywood story.
Glenn: Oh the Hollywood. Yeah.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: Right. This is the progression of a Hollywood actor, right?
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: A famous Hollywood actor. It's, “Who's Jack Black?” And then it's “Get me Jack Black.” And then it's “Get me the next Jack Black.”
Meg: *Laughter*
Rob: And then it’s “Who’s Jack Black?”
Glenn: And then it’s “Who’s Jack Black?”
Charlie: And then it’s “Who’s Jack Black?”
Glenn: Oh that’s right. I forgot.
Rob: It comes full circle.
Glenn: It comes full circle.
Charlie: So I thought, in that already is an inherently entertaining structure, for just a story arc. But–
Rob: Yes. Wait, can you tell– tell the creeps and listeners what the inanimate object is. ‘Cause that’s…
Charlie: I had an idea in writing this. This was in the very first draft and it just stayed that like, someone asked someone for a latte, pronto. They were just always yelling for a latte, pronto. And then Ken, who really drives the story, uh, Ken Jeong, overhears Ray Liotta asking someone for a latte pronto, and assumes he's talking to me and assumes my name is latte, pronto. And then everyone just starts calling me latte pronto, which–
Rob: Is actually a really cool name.
Charlie: Which is a decent name. Yeah.
Rob: Latte. Latte.
Meg: I believe people would go for that.
Charlie: Yeah.
Meg: But I think the introduction of Ken’s characters where the satire really gets so much deeper, because you know, as Rob was saying, like, there's this projection that you can do on a character with no wants or needs. And so you might if it were just Latte Pronto. You might watch this movie and say, uh, well, “That's just the wrong way to go about things you actually should have these wants and needs.” But then you have Ken Jeong, who is a character of nothing but needs.
Glenn: Desperate wants and needs.
Meg: Desperate wants and needs.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: Well, it was a real acting challenge for Ken. Because he’s known as..
Glenn: Yeah. Listen. Well, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about was his performance in the film. I think those, those emotional moments are crucial to making the movie work.
Charlie: Me too.
Glenn: Um, I love those moments in the movie. I, those really grounded it for me.
Charlie: Same. I think he gave a performance unlike anyone has ever seen him give.
Glenn: Without a doubt.
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: And I think uh–
Glenn: It caught me off, it really caught me off guard. It really caught me off guard because again, I've seen the movie before. But I haven't seen the newer stuff that you shot, where you added more stuff with Ken and kind of doing the things–
Charlie: I essentially made him the main character, you know. Like, or like, split right down the middle in a way.
Glenn: Yeah, yeah.
Charlie: But he's the protagonist, right? He's driving the action. And he goes on as much of a rise and fall emotionally as my character does. But um, with Ken I remember saying to him, Listen, people are used to you doing a very, sort of, it's almost like a sarcastic, sassy, sense of comedy that he does. It's very funny–
Glenn: Really funny.
Charlie: –when he does that. It's really funny. And I was like, “Ken, you can't do this for this character. You have to be 1,000% earnest. You ca…” The character does some manipulation and some lying, but he has to do it in a very earnest, very–
Glenn: What was his reaction to that? Like did he, like, I don’t know if–was he worried that he wasn’t gonna be able to deliver that? ‘Cause it felt like he did a thing–
Charlie: No. He is such a, he’s a dream to work with because he, he wants to do a great job. And that's everything, right? So he's willing to sometimes we would do many, many, many takes. I push him hard. Sometimes I would feel like bad. I'm like, I don't want to break this guy he’s like, you know, he's jamming these scenes in and he's working, but he was just willing to do it and willing to just be more honest. And I was learning to be more honest as a filmmaker where, you know, a lot of this stuff. And my second pass that I got was just sort of like cat on the streets. And I just wanted to put him in a natural environment and kind of hide the camera a little bit and make things feel more alive and more honest, and he was just willing to go for it. And I would not, the movie wouldn't work without that. Um, I just needed that humanity, that honesty from his character to have the movie have a sense of purpose.
Meg: It also like, makes the satire so much more effective, because you guys do this all the time on Sunny, but I always think the best version of a satire doesn't fall wholeheartedly onto one side or in the other. So if the movie just condemned Hollywood, and said that there's nothing good to come out of this sort of place, I think it'd be less effective than to say that this relationship between the two of you is this one bright spot of hope, within an otherwise kind of like, bleak existence. And therefore I think makes the satire land a lot more.
Charlie: Well, I start the movie with Peter McKenzie, uh, who we all know as the, as the doctor from Sunny. Who tells you that you’re the, the Jackie uh–
Glenn: Jackie Denardo’s–
Charlie: Jackie Denardo’s breasts have been obliterated.
Doctor: She’s lucky to be alive. She broke her arm, a few ribs, punctured a lung shattered her pelvis, compound fractures in both legs.
Dennis: Her breasts?
Doctor: Excuse me?
Dennis: What about her breasts?
Doctor: I'm afraid that they were, uh, obliterated.
Charlie: And he's such a comedic assassin because he plays things so honestly.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: And I wanted a honest, believable doctor, sort of saying that my character, we meet him in a mental health facility at the beginning of the movie, and we don't know what his issue is. He's lost the ability to speak. We don't know why. And he's saying, you know, if he can have like one meaningful connection, perhaps he can break free from this–
Glenn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlie: –psychotic state. And then, of course, he delivers at a really great line about like, “The state's not going to pay for any of that. Put his ass on the first bus downtown.” Which only he can do in that way. But then the entire movie becomes about can both these men find a meaningful connection in Hollywood. And that turns out to be a difficult place to find any sort of real humanity. Those were all the things that I needed to discover. And it was just a hard path to find it.
Rob: One thing it seems that you had a grasp on from the very beginning is, you know you mentioned some of the influences and I 100% could see I could see them in all the best ways. Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, PT Anderson, even the best of–
Meg: There’s also some like, Buster Keaton.
Rob: Yes.
Meg: And Charlie Chaplin influences.
Charlie: There’s a splash of it.
Rob: Well, so much of it to me felt like anachronistic. Where you don’t know what time frame–
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: It actually exists in. So that makes it timeless. Because it’s clearly modern times, but there’s a sensibility, from both the 70s and the 30s.
Glenn: You get the sense it’s like from all of–every year of Hollywood all mashed into one.
Rob: Yes.
Charlie: That was what I wanted to do with the design, with the costume design. With the, the cars that I would pick for the characters.
Glenn: The bus, at the very beginning.
Charlie: The bus.
Glenn: That, you get dropped off.
Charlie: And then I got nervous for a while. Like, making it like, “Oh. This is a mistake.” You know? People wanna know what the hell time a movie’s taking place in.
Rob: I disagree. I disagree.
Meg: Yeah.
Rob: I think that makes it, that’s what makes it feel like a fairy tale.
Charlie: I came full circle on it. But my initial instinct was that I wanted to sort of satirize Hollywood through the ages. Uh, but I also knew that there were some unbelievable aspects and heightened aspects to the story. So I thought maybe I should, from a design standpoint, I could get away with pushing things a little further. But then it got scary. You know, it was like out lost in the woods in the editing room being like, is this, have I gone too far? And then going back and finding some stuff with Ken. Emotionally grounding that weirdly gave me more room to go further with that stuff. Can we stop and talk for one second about John Bryan's score?
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: I mean–
Rob: But that's what's so amazing about a composer of his talent. And, and also experience. That he can look at that movie and say, “Okay, so this seems timeless.” Which, with the wrong score can be a mess.
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: But he was able to weave that in so that it feels like it all fits together.
Glenn: Mhm.
Charlie: Yeah. You know, there were things that he scored that in my 10 track were much more upbeat. And he went again, it was like learning how to try to find some kind of truth, even though truth is like an elusive abstract concept. But in a movie that is where, it's all fiction right? But he was, he, he scored some things much more earnestly than I had initially done, and it was absolutely the right choice. But I was kind of like, “Hey, where are your instincts taking you, let's go explore them. And I'm going to stay out of your way, you've made great score, after great score, after great score. I'm gonna tell you how to do this.” There was some temp track stuff that I had in that he just loved, like these old sort of Les Baxter and Nelson middle tracks, which were these really sort of full Hollywood scores, the type, the way they arranged the music, they don't do any more. This is like some music theory, nerd, nerd out stuff, but like, just the way the chords are arranged, he had these things that we would call the Omni chords, and when you hear it has like, a throwback sound to it, where he would say, “Oh, you know, should we do this one a little more Omni?” and he would start to arrange the music and I would just get more and more blown away, as he did it. And then to listen to the full orchestra, you know, I said, “Look, I'm gonna let you take the full orchestra, and is many musicians–” he was like, “What you're not going to try to cut corners and say, I gotta like, double up sounds?” And I’m like “No, just free reign go.” Um, he was excited. So he was recording with old microphones.
Glenn: Oh cool.
Charlie: And uh, just all these tricks where he said, “Make sure the French horns point the horns at the back wall so that the sound bounces off the wall and back in.” That was– without him, I don't know, you know, you need everything to come together.
*Orchestra playing*
Glenn: That's why making a good movie so hard. Because–
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: –you can literally get almost every single element, right? And then you screw up one thing, like the score, score doesn't work, ruins the whole, ruins the whole thing.
Charlie: Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because there's a big sort of like, Hollywood idea of like, well, we can cut corners there. Like, let's not spend too much on the score. Let's not, you know, give the composer too much. Or like, let's just throw in some, and if you think about all your favorite movies, music is such a big part of why the movie works. Um–
Glenn: How about, John Williams? I mean–
Charlie: Yeah. Look at John Williams and–
Glenn: Take all the music out of Star Wars.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: You know. They’ve done that, right? People have–
Meg: Jaws.
Glenn: Where they pull all the music out and watch it. You’re like, “This doesn’t work.”
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: Jaws where the mechanical sharks not working. And then he’s like, “Well what if you just hear ‘da dun’.” And now we just associate those 2 notes with sharks.
Glenn: Yeah.
*Laughter*
Charlie: Incredible. Um–I do think that um, I mean. Talk about a man who doesn’t wanna hear a compliment. I do think John Bryan is up there in terms of that level of talent.
Glenn: Oh yeah man.
Charlie: Like a–
Glenn: Yeah. He’s so, so talented.
Charlie: Oh guys, today the show is brought to you by our friends at Mint Mobile.
Meg: Well from Rob's friends at Mint Mobile.
Glenn: Well now hang on a second Rob's friend at Mint Mobile.
Charlie: Okay, well today, the show was brought to you by Rob singular friend at Mint Mobile.
Meg: He actually sold it. But uh, it turned out well for him because he found a way for Mint Mobile to make him money too. And guess what? It can make money for you as well.
Charlie: Wait, it can make money for us?
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: Because I want the money that I made for it minted him a bunch of money. It can mint me money?
Glenn: Mint–Mint me money?
Charlie: Is it because Mint Mobile offers premium wireless on the nation's largest 5g network for only $15 a month?
Glenn: No, no, no, no. I'm no expert here. But what are you talking about? $15 a month? What, what's the catch?
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Charlie: Little things. Little widgets.
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Charlie: Glendall Roy?
Glenn: Ha! *Laughter*
Charlie: Is that what we’re saying?
Glenn: Yeah. Now, we’re not really gonna be closing those kinds of multi-billion dollar deals.
Charlie: Not yet.
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Glenn: Isn’t that kind of how he says it? Yeah. So, I don’t know. I just wanted to be clear about that.
Meg: Yeah. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/sunny. All lowercase.
Charlie: Go to shopify.com/sunny to take your business to the next level today.
Glenn: Are you listening to what Charlie just said?
Charlie: I just said it.
Glenn: shopify.com/sunny. Are you listening? shopify.com/sunny. Are you listening?
Charlie: Yeah, go. That’s how you–
Glenn: And if you’re not, “Fuck off!”
Charlie: “Fuck off!”
Ray: Sir Bingsley? May I come in?
Charlie: *Laughing* What the hell kinda high fool name is that? I answer to one name and one name only. And that’s Billy the Kid.
Ray: All right. Billy the Kid.
Charlie: Hang on. Don't drop the Sir part now.
Ray: Excuse me?
Charlie: Sir Billy the Kid. I think that gonna suit me just fine. Got kind of a nice ring to it. Don’t it? How ‘bout you call me that from now on. All right, and make an announcement to everybody all is out there. Right? It's Sir Billy the Kid from now on.
Ray: Listen to me, fuckface. You're either a Sir, and an actor from England. Or you're Billy the fucking Kid. But you can't be both.
Charlie: Let’s talk a little bit about Glenn’s performance in the movie.
Rob: I–that’s the thing–honestly, that is the thing that made us laugh the most. And I rewound it and rewatched it again. And that shows a few things. One, how much we love Glenn, but how our sense of humor is very specific.
Charlie: It’s so specific.
Rob: And I don’t know if the rest of the audience is gonna find it the funniest scene, I thought it was the funniest.
Charlie: I’ll tell you what. I've screened the movie, you know, a few times not like with an audience, um, like, you know, in color stages or whatever. And you always get a huge laugh whether people know Sunny, or they don't.
Glenn: Oh, yeah.
Charlie: Because you’re a great, great performer. And it's a funny scene and you nailed it, and you took you did a choice that I was like,”Oh, this is what you want to do. But let's go for it.”
Glenn: Well, we because it wasn’t writ–the character wasn’t written with an accent. And, I just had this, I had this funny idea of like–
*Laughter*
Glenn: What?
Rob: Me and Kaitlin are trying to identify the accent–
Glenn: You can’t.
Rob: You can’t.
Glenn: Because the whole thing was, what I was attempting, was like the broad–It was what I was calling a “European accent.” Which, you know, isn’t a thing obviously.
Charlie: At one point I was gonna–I don’t think I wound up changing your credit to–
Glenn: European business manager?
Charlie: Vaguely European business manager.
Glenn: Oh that’s right. Vaguely European–Yeah. It was like, I wanted to do, I wanted it to be like, “Where is this person from? Is he from–”
Charlie: You know, it wound up–it was great because it wound up playing into the town of like, identity…
Glenn: Yes.
Charlie: And, you’re like–
Glenn: It worked out nicely. Yeah, not, not what I was–I mean. I was just thinking, I don’t know. It just kind of struck me–It wasn’t like I was making a choice based on what I felt like it would fit in with the movie. Something that made it interesting to me was to just make him vaguely European.
Charlie: No. You crush in the movie. I–
Glenn: It was fun, it was fun.
Meg: There’s lots of uh, sunny things–
Charlie: There’s so many sunny people.
Rob: Yes.
Meg: Easter eggs that will–
Charlie: Tones and references.
Meg: Anyones we might not catch?
Charlie: Sunny fans are gonna have lots to chew on.
Glenn: Jillian Bell’s not a sunny actor but she–
Rob: She feels like one.
Glenn: She’s amazing.
Rob: She should be.
Charlie: She’s amazing.
Glenn: She’s amazing.
Charlie: Um, you know–
Glenn: The shit she’s singing to you as she–
Charlie: Which wasn’t in my first cut. Leslie found that. I somehow had missed that. I was like, “Oh this is great.”
Glenn: She’s like singing something about like being hungry–
Meg: Banana.
Glenn: “Do we have any banana?” “Beige banana.”
Charlie: “Beige banana.”
Meg: Uh–
Glenn: It’s so funny.
Rob: Well, you did a great job.
Charlie: Thanks man.
Meg: It’s really amazing.
Glenn: I’m really excited for people to see this movie.
Rob: I’m very excited. What–what’s the date again?
Meg: Uh–
Rob: The same day.
Charlie: May 12th.
Meg: May 12th.
Rob: May 12th. May 12th is the day.
Glenn: The same day as Blackberry.
Rob: Go out to the goddamn theaters you fucking creeps.
Charlie: This is a movie I would–I would personally want to see it in the theater if I wasn't doing it, or involved in it. Like, I miss comedies in the theater. I miss–
Glenn: Yeah, that communal–
Charlie: –like a group of people. Like why do we think, why does the industry think people don't want that anymore? Maybe they don't want as much as they want a Marvel movie but they still want it like–
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: don’t take it away completely. Anyway, you have a chance to go see it in theater, you also have a chance to go see Blackberry–
Meg: Blackberry.
Charlie: starring Glenn Howerton.
Rob: Oh buddy.
Charlie: Now let's get into this.
Glenn: Okay. Guys.
Matthew Johnson: 250.
Glenn: Here’s what I’m gonna do. I will give you $20,000 cash, today. I'll sell the phone, I'll work out this problem with USR, but I want 50% of the company. And I've gotta be CEO.
Matthew: Are you joking?
Jay Baruchel: No.
Matthew: Obviously, obviously no. No.
Jay: Statistically–
Matthew: Mike, no.
Jay: Okay.
Glenn: Who is in charge here?
Charlie: Well, let me set, set this up for the audience a little bit. So the movie is about the making of the Blackberry, which was, for our young audience, predated the iPhone as the device that really, uh, put emails and internet on a phone and sort of was the breakthrough thing.
Rob: And a fantastic device.
Charlie: And a fantastic device. And um, but just got just crushed by the iPhone. But um, I always like a movie. And Glenn plays sort of a businessman who helps the tech guys take this from just an idea to a successful business. I always enjoy a movie about a real life event. It's inherently interesting, right? ‘Cause you're like, it's like you're looking at a time machine. You're getting to see the past. But it was so second to me, then the real magic trick of this film, which was a filmmaker finally, giving Glenn Howerton the chance to take on a rich and dynamic character. And uh, with the training wheels completely off. I mean, the character starts at a 10.
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: But we like seeing Glenn Howerton out of 10.
Jay: Hello.
Operator: You have a collect call from–
Glenn: What the fuck is happening?
Operator: Do you accept your charges? Are you still there?
Jay: Yeah, yes. I accept.
Operator: Thank you.
*Phone ringing*
Glenn: Mike?
Jay: Hi.
Glenn: There are three reasons why people buy our phones. Do you know what they are?
Jay: Email–
Glenn: They fucking work.
Charlie: But, every inch of the, of the movie, every frame that you are in is so compelling. My only complaint is that you're not an every single second in the film. And by the way, you're in the majority of the film so no one's not gonna get–
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: a full dose of you. But I could have watched that guy brush his teeth. I could, I could have watched the story of that guy from the beginning to end and I liked the other story, too. I liked movie a lot. The movie’s great. But holy shit, man. You're so fucking good.
Glenn: Aw man, thank you.
Meg: Yeah.
Charlie: And I just want, I want so much more than that. I want more movies like that. In fact, I was, I was jealous watching it be like, “Why didn’t I make a Glenn Howerton movie where I have you like, in every scene doing your thing.”
Rob: Let me sell the movie again. To be, just because I want people to go see the movie and not just Glenn’s performance. The, they end with a Chiron, that's not giving anything away. Everybody already knows this. It says and this is considering at this point, there was a massive amount of different cell phone companies that were out there, the Razors and the Nokia's of the world and, and all sorts of different cellular companies that were coming out and carriers and it was the Wild West. It was before um, Android really came into existence. It was before the iPhone had come into existence and, and Blackberry had 45% of the market cap. I mean, almost half of everybody in the world that had a mobile phone had a Blackberry in 2009, or eight or whatever it was. And now that number is 0, 0.
Glenn: Yeah.
Rob: So this movie is tracking the beginning, and the rise of this massive company, and then it's inevitable crash. And to take a movie that, that's like an inherently exciting story. But you're not used to hearing about stories about a business being fascinating. And this feels like a thriller–
Meg: Yeah.
Glenn: Yeah.
Rob: –almost, you're watching a thriller.
Meg: And even knowing that going in, doesn’t make it any less exciting to watch that happen.
Rob: No. And you know. You know that in your pocket you have an Iphone.
Meg: Yeah.
Rob: And that, so you’re either old enough to remember Blackberry. Or you’re not. But to hear that they at one point had 50% of the, of the market now. And now everybody's walking around with these. That's what the story is really about, and how these disparate personalities were able to build that and then not able to beat the iPhone, there was no bad guy. It seemed at one point that Glenn's character was the bad guy. But in the end, they all had fallibility.
Charlie: That was really interesting aspect of that movie that each one of them, there wasn't like a sort of redeeming ending. You're like, “but.” you know. Well, maybe the, what's the character with the headband?
Meg: Doug.
Glenn: Doug.
Charlie: Maybe they said like, “Okay, he was sort of our good guy sort of.”
Rob: Sort of.
Charlie: Ish.
Rob: Because without, but, but the argument could be made that without the other two, Doug's success doesn't exist either.
Jay: Unless the carriers rebuild their entire networks, there’s nothing we can do. The phone’s use too much data.
Glenn: Well then fucking shrink it.
Jay: Yeah, okay. Um, we, we looked into that.
Glenn: Uh-huh.
Jay: These guys can’t do it.
Glenn: What do you mean they can’t do it? You said they were the best engineers in the world.
Jay: I said they were the best engineers in Canada.
Glenn: Well, okay. All right. Who could do it?
Jay: Maybe top guys from Motorola or Microsoft or Google.
Glenn: Okay.
Jay: What, what, what are you doing?
Glenn: Who else? Where else?
Matthew: John Cormack. Get John Cormack from ID. Do you guys hear me? The guy who made Doom.
Glenn: What’s Doom?
Jay: Have you played Wolfenstein? Please just don’t tell anyone about the phones.
Matthew: Can you hear me?
Jay: Yes, yes!
Matthew: Oh, shit.
Meg: There's something about your performance, that makes it very clear that you are right.
Rob: Yes.
Meg: Even though you're unlikable that you there's something–
Charlie: Oh that’s what’s so fun to watch.
Rob: He’s really really good at what he does.
Meg: Yes, yes.
Charlie: ‘Cause you want to watch–
Glenn: Yes.
Charlie: you’re playing a guy who clearly, he's got the anger issues, and he's emotionally unstable. But he's good. So it's a gunslinger, right. Like, you know, he's the best gunslinger in town. So you want to watch him? And that's always a really good sort of narrative to be like, can I watch the expert do the his be an expert at it? And we want to see you manipulate people?
Glenn: Well, you know what’s funny? Is, I had the same fear going into this, that I had in early days of sunny, where I was like, “He's gonna be so unlikable, that you're not–” and I was like, I think you do need to be rooting for this guy. And yet, you know, he has to be so ruthless. And you did hit the nail on the head. I mean, the main thing is, he is incredibly competitive. The real Jim is incredibly competitive. And I think he–
Charlie: To a fault. It destroys him.
Glenn: Yes, it destroys him, and he had it, but he had to be in order to build that company the way that he did, but–
Rob: And he’s not the reason that it fails. He’s not really the reason. They, they suggest some of the shady dealings, business dealings, which everybody was doing at that time.
Glenn: No. He's not the reason.
Rob: He's not the reason, he was not the visionary.
Glenn: No, Mike is.
Rob: There was a visionary who didn't see that there was a better vision out there.
Glenn: Mike did not, Mike did not, Mike was not doing his job properly. Right. He was the one who was meant to see where the market was headed. That's what he did so well, when he created the Blackberry. And he was so enamored of his own invention that he didn't see that somebody was about to take his lunch. And that's, and you're right, because my character the whole time is like “Mike, we, are you doing your thing?”
Rob: “You do your thing, I’m doing mine.”
Glenn: “I'm out here selling phones. I'm doing my thing.”
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: “Are you making the thing that we need to be selling?” You know, yeah.
Charlie: But you know, here's the thing about likability, and it's the same thing was Sunny that we always did, which is that if can I understand their want. And because we know your wants, you know, you've taken out your loan, your mortgage, your own house, and we know that you want and you're not being taken seriously enough within your business when we meet your character.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: And we know that you know, you referred that people you're like this is great lives like why did they fire you? You know, you nailed it like, “Because they're idiots.” with no sort of wink to the line just like pure just like that's a fact.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: But we know your want and we identify with your wants. So you can be an asshole you can be a ruthless, but we know you want this thing and we know you're in some ways you deserve it, because you are good at what you do.
Rob: Likeability is, it’s just the wrong word to describe–
Glenn: No, no. It’s rootability.
Rob: Yeah. And, and it's, is a character compelling or not? And what makes a person compelling? And being nice and polite and likeable, are social constructs that are fucking bullshit and don't belong in narrative. It's not what makes people interesting.
Charlie: What movies are, have that? You know?
Glenn: Yeah.
Rob: There’s no inherent conflict.
Glenn: You still, it’s like, to me, it’s less about likeability and more about rootability. Like I knew that you needed to be rooting for this guy. You didn't need to necessarily like him, but you didn't need to be rooting for him on some level. Um, but the thing is, is like through my experience of, you know, playing such a horrible person on It's Always Sunny. I really, I allowed myself to go to that place. And to be right on the edge almost of rootability. Just because in my experience, you're right it is, it is I was like it just, it'll be compelling. You know, it'll be interesting to watch and I think you'll understand where he's coming from if I do my job, right, like if you see, if you can see the thoughts that are going through my head the calculation that I'm making. But also like added tremendous amount of trust in Matt Johnson, who's who wrote and directed the movie. He wrote it with his producing partner, Matt Miller. They wrote the movie together and he directed it. And of course, accident plays Doug. And it's just–
Meg: I did not know that. Sorry.
Glenn: Yeah. The guy who played Doug directed the movie.
Meg: Oh my god.
Charlie: I did not know that either.
Meg: He's such a dummy in the movie, but–
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: Oh, he’s an assassin.
Meg: he’s, wow.
Jay: Um, so uh, um, we’ve been talking here. And, we, we um, we would like to make a counter offer.
Matthew: You keep crawling back. Like bugs. Like grubs.
Jay: Yup. Um, so we would like to offer you 10% for $500,000.
Matthew: “Are you out of your fucking mind? I look at 100,000 deals a day. I pick one!” Is that the quote? No, “I look at 100 deals a day. I pick one.” Wallstreet.
Glenn: He's an incredibly smart guy. I mean, when I read the script, I was like this. this script is so, it's so smart. It's so well done.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: It you know, and then in talking to him and seeing his previous uh, films, I felt like I could trust that if I wasn't doing the right thing. That was the thing that was gonna make the best version of the movie that he would have told me. So I just kind of like you said I took the training wheels off and just was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna do what I think is right here and let's let's just see what happens.
*AD BREAK*
Charlie: Oh, that's right. We're sponsored by everyone's favorite uh, green drink powder. That's athletic greens.
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Charlie: Adaptogens.
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Charlie: You feel that sensation of, what do they call it? Being alive?
Glenn: Oooo!
Meg: That’s good.
Charlie: It’s the best sensation there is man.
Glenn: ‘Cause I personally, I went from being on a mostly plant diet to a mostly meat diet. Okay, let's be honest, you know, which changed almost all my meals but never once did I miss my daily dose of AG1. I gotta get my greens, right so I gotta get my meats–
Charlie: Gotta have the greens. It’s an important part of the, of the, of the balance.
Glenn: Well, you gotta have good gut health. And AG1 really helps with gut health.
Meg: Well, that’s because it's backed by the latest science with constant product iterations and third party testing. So you know, you're always getting the best of the best.
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Meg: To make it easy athletic greens is going to give you a free one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/sunny.
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*SUNNY MUSIC*
Glenn: Well,
Charlie: Uh-huh.
Glenn: Uh, I was hoping Rob was going to be here today but–
Charlie: Mmm. We’re missing the hot takes of Rob justice. I gotta say, it’s–
Glenn: Yeah. But moreover, I need to, I need clarity on whether we're getting these tickets to the Wrexham Manchester United game in July. I want those tickets.
Charlie: I know. It’s still like a ways away but um, I feel like the tickets are gonna go quickly.
Glenn: They will.
Charlie: And I don’t want them to go without me having them.
Glenn: I want the good ones. You know what I mean? The good ones, they go.
Meg: If it comes down to the wire you guys could always get them on Gametime.
Charlie: Say what? *Noise*
Glenn: *Noises*
Charlie: *Noises* Tell me more about Gametime.
Glenn: Oh, I’ve actually heard of that. Now, now that I’m thinking of it. You know, they have uh, that app where you can get epic last minute ticket bargains.
Charlie: Wait, this is fantastic. Okay, so you don’t have to wait for tickets to go on sale and try to hoard through the. the millions of fans that are trying to get them?
Meg: No. Now I wait until, right before sometimes even day of. And I always land the best seat left in the house.
Glenn: That's great. Don't wear yourself out running up and down the field you know just sit back and wait to strike on goal when it's your time. You know what I mean? Sorry, I thought that would impress Rob Yeah, he's not–
Charlie: Yeah, yeah. He’s not here.
Meg: So snag your tickets without the stress with Gametime. Download the game time app create an account and use code sunny for $20 off your first purchase.
Charlie: Terms apply. Again create an account and redeem code sunny for 20 bucks off. Download Gametime today last minute tickets lowest price guarantee.
*AD BREAK OVER*
Charlie: I also want to compliment you, I feel like two, three lines in, there was no Dennis to me, there was no Glenn. You know, like, obviously you see your friend, you're bald. I know you're not bald, and I know you're not a man in Canada. So–
Glenn: *Laughter*
Meg: Well, he was for–
Rob: He was a man in Canada.
Charlie: I know you’re not a man from Canada. I know you don't care for hockey. There's, you know, obviously, there's always that thing and a movie where you're like, well, that's, you know, that Sean Penn doing a limp and a wig. But like, two to three lines in and you're just in.
Glenn: That’s good.
Charlie: And you are that guy. And you're consistent from beginning to end. How did, I have two questions performance wise.
Rob: Wait, can I speak, can I speak to that?
Charlie: Yes, please.
Rob: Because I, because I think you both, you guys both accomplish that, that I was most impressed with, to Charlie's point, you do this long enough, and your friends are acting in things and you see them. And it's hard to distance yourself, because you're spending so much time with them off camera.
Charlie: Sure. Of course.
Rob: And you're seeing them pull out the tricks that we all use.
Charlie: Yeah. We know all the moves.
Rob: Yes. And so I'm used to seeing every move that you have in every move that you have. That's why I think, and we didn't talk about this at all. But how fascinating it is that one of the one of the defining characteristics of you as a performer on you as a person is, is your actual voice, which is so distinct and fascinating. And to, Meg touched on this a little bit. But to take that away from yourself, I think was very brave, because it's a crutch that you can use. And it's also a tool that you can use to express yourself, your voice. But it also was so smart because it took, it took you as a performer as a person, and made you completely unrecognizable to me as I'm watching it. Because I'm watching you going, “Well, that still looks like Charlie, but it certainly doesn't sound like Charlie and he's doing something I've never seen you do before.”
Charlie: Oh, thanks man.
Rob: And, and with Glenn, yeah the baldness. The look–it wasn’t the look. It was–
Charlie: No. It was the delivery.
Rob: –the delivery. And your eyes dude. I was looking in your eyes.
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: I was like, I’ve never seen Glenn make that expression before.
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: It was cold, calculated killer. And Dennis is not–even though we joke he is.
Charlie: No, no.
Rob: He’s not like that.
Charlie: No. It’s not Dennis Reynolds at all.
Glenn: No.
Charlie: And it’s not Glenn Howerton being angry. It's that character. Now let me ask you this. Did you meet with the guy? Did you base any stuff off him? Because you're playing a real person, which is interesting.
Glenn: Yeah, no, actually, um, I only had–there’s a couple things. I really only had about three, three and a half weeks to prep for that movie. So I knew I had to make, I knew I didn't have time to do all the research that you would want to do ultimately, in most ideal circumstances, and also prepare the actual performance based on the material. So you know, Matt, and I both felt very strongly that you know, Jim, he's known a little bit he'll, he's known in Canada, but, but most people don't know him. He hasn't given a lot of on camera interviews. He doesn't have a lot of like, you know, people don't know what he's really like, what his tics are, what he sounds like, and you know, what his, you know, uh, body language is like, most people just don't know what that is. And we just felt like that was less important to focus on. I also knew that Matt and Matt had done so much research, you know, they, they interviewed countless ex employees and all these things to really find out who these characters were and what they were like, you know, so I really tried to just focus on, on the character that I was reading in the script. And what I felt like that that character should should come off as but. But I did, event– I did meet the real Jim.
Charlie: Has he seen the movie?
Glenn: Recently in Toronto. Yeah. So he had been sent the film. He watched it. Um, he actually did an interview, and kind of responded, you know, and for the most part was like, very, like, very complimentary of the film. And, you know, had some had a couple of gripes about the way things went down. He's like, “That's not really how it went down.” um, you know, which is understandable. But, but then he came to Toronto premiere, and I met him before the premiere. And he, was he was, he was lovely. It was it was super. I was nervous to meet him.
Charlie: Sure.
Glenn: You know what I mean? Because I was like–
Charlie: Because it’s a ruthless performance.
Glenn: I don’t wanna meet the man that I played. I don't want to meet the man, not, you know what I'm saying. I don't want to meet the person that I was portraying.
Charlie: Because was scary.
Glenn: He's kind of scary. Yeah, he's kind of scary. But he was, he was lovely. He was lovely. Yeah, he's very, he can be a very charming guy, too. And then he watched the premiere with an audience and I think he really enjoyed it. You know, seeing with an audience, I think it really came alive for him more than watching it by himself. And he told me he said, “That’s the, this is the–” he was like–going into it he said, “This’ll be the only time I’ve ever seen a movie more than once.”
Charlie: Wow.
Glenn: Yeah. He’s never seen a movie more than once.
Charlie: Now, how did you–yeah, that tracks for that character. How, how did you um, did you and Mike like, work really closely on figuring out the levels. Because, you know, you make a movie, you don’t shoot it in sequence. Right?
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: You shoot–because of the locations you might be shooting the last scene first or, you're bouncing all around. So, was it difficult to track where to be with this guy emotionally? Because, you know, you, I'm sure you wanted to be aware of how often you were at a 10? You know, and–
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: –when to play him down. How did you guys navigate that?
Rob: It seems to me like you were always, when the character walked into a room. He was at an eight.
Charlie: Yeah, which was really compelling.
Rob: Really compelling. Because you don't know when it's gonna go to a 10 at any moment. But it's an 8 not of anger, but of anxiety, like controled, anxiety and rage that's just sitting right under the surface and ready, and everybody around you. So the audit– every character, like sits up straighter, and everybody in the audience can't wait to see how Jim is going to react in this moment.
Glenn: Right. You know, for as much experience as we all have, like on, on camera, and acting with lights and boom operator and makeup people all over you and all this shit. Like, I have a lot of, a lot of, very comfortable on camera at this point. But what I don't actually have a lot of experience with, almost no experience actually, is scoring a film performance.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: Because in TV, your character doesn't really change. And after you've done two or three episodes, you know the character so well, you know, I can slip into the Dennis that like that. Like it's just, it's just like, like the flip of a switch, you know? So the challenge becomes, how do I get myself to the point where I feel the same way walking on the set, playing Jim, as I do playing Dennis who I've played for 13 years? How can I maximize the 3 and a half weeks that I have to prepare for this, so that I feel just as comfortable playing Jim as I do playing Dennis. And they're two completely different human beings. And Jim's totally, both characters are totally different than, than I am. There's aspects of course there have to be, I'm pulling from my own experience, my own life and all that kind of stuff. But, but scoring a performance that was a real challenge for me. I really, you know what I did, I took the, I remember hearing a thing that Anthony Hopkins said years and years and years ago, and I really was like, Okay, I think that that's a really good place to start, which is just read the script over and over–
Charlie: Yeah. For sure.
Glenn: –and over, over and over..
Charlie: Because unlike Sunny we have, you didn't write this one. So, when writing Sunny–
Glenn: Yeah, yeah.
Charlie: –the amount of weeks and months that have gone into writing that episode, you just know it. So well. You might forget, like some of the specific lines, but you know why the character wants what they want in each moment.
Glenn: But your characters, our character don’t have an arc. So either way, it doesn't matter as much. But you're right, a character has to, you know, a character has to start in one place and end in a different place. So it was just reading the script over and over again, and having a lot of conversations with Matt about, Matt Johnson about um, each scene and sort of what he was picturing and finding out that for the most part, we were almost always on the same page.
Charlie: Great.
Glenn: About the way it would play. Um, but you know, Matt also shot it in a way where the coverage was very simple. And we could play with it. So there were a lot of variations of those scenes that you know, that–
Charlie: Mostly handheld, right?
Meg: Very documentary almost.
Glenn: What they did was, they shot it on a, ugh. I’m forgetting the, the name of this thing. Okay, so this is what–this was super–the way he shot the movie was super, super interesting. I almost never knew where the cameras were.
Charlie: Wow.
Glenn: He would have a camera, like–
Charlie: A long lens, so–
Glenn: –like 100 feet away. On a long lens. And I, I was always asking like “Where, where’s the camera?” He’s like, he’s like, “It’s over there.” I'd be like “What?”
Rob: Like wildlife photography.
Glenn: I was like, that's exactly what it was. It was wildlife. And what they did, is they put it on, oh god. I’m forgetting the name of this thing. But basically it was on a tripod. But on the tripod there was a ball, this ball this like bouncy ball.
Rob: A gimbal.
Glenn: A gimbal. It was a gimbal. So they could, they could hold it and have it you know because you don't want to be, you can't be that, you can't be handheld when you're on that long of a lens.
Charlie: Yeah. It’s gonna get too shaky.
Glenn: Anyone who knows anything about cameras it gets too shaky. But on a gimbal you can add just a little bit of a handheld feel to it and have it feel handheld even though it wasn't technically handheld.
Meg: Give it that thriller feel you were talking about.
Rob: Yes.
Meg: And that's, that, that's one of the things I really love about the movie watching it too because, I, is that it does it's like a really interesting mix of like you feel like you're watching a thriller, and yet it is funny. But it's not overtly comedic. But it is funny. It's just like, a good example of you know, how when, you play it real but the it's so outrageous. I think that's where a lot of the comedy was coming from for Matt and for us it was like the more outrageous this is, the funnier it is. And,but it was, it's all based on real shit but I mean I, I definitely was not approaching this as a as a comedy at all.
Charlie: I’m so glad you didn’t.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: I think uh, any wink to that character, woulda’, you know, woulda’ hurt the movie. The fact that you played it dramatic and serious just, it drives the story.
Meg: Mhm.
Rob: I have a prediction. The prediction is this. Within a month of this movie coming out, the phone is gonna be ringing for Glenn Howerton. And I can tell you just anecdotally, I've already told you this, but I was at a football game with Shawn Levy, the director, and he came up to me and said, “I just have to tell you, I saw this movie called The Blackberry movie, and your friend Glenn is amazing in it. Can you tell him I said, he's amazing.” And I said, “Fuck you. You tell him. You tell him.” And he's like, “I want to cast him in something.” I'm like, “Definitely tell him that.”
Meg: Yeah.
Rob: So many times over the years. We feel like, I certainly feel like our cast is overlooked when it comes to casting some of these movies. And I see some of these jerk offs that get these movies. I'm like, “What, how are these people being cast in this when we have these people on our show?” And I'm just glad, and I'm just glad that people are finally recognizing that for both of you guys. And like, I’m telling you–
Glenn: It only took 16 years.
Meg: *Laughter*
Glenn: But we’re gettin’ there. We’re gettin’ there. It’s always–
Charlie: I hope the phones ringing for you too pal.
Glenn: Thank you.
Charlie: Like, I mean, you deserve it for sure. It does frustrate me what–it, like, and it will frustrate me. Like, when people are like, “Glenn is really good in this movie. Who knew?”
Rob: Ugh.
Meg: Ugh.
Charlie: Like, “Who knew?”
Glenn: Well, I think, I think that that is–
Meg: Right here.
Glenn: is shifting. Yeah, I know. I do think that that is, that is shifting. And, and I'm happy to see that happening. And I have a theory about that. But we can't get into it now because we're out of time. But, but I appreciate you guys watching the movie and, and I'm glad that I took a–I felt like I was taking a big swing. But I wouldn't have been able to take that big swing if I didn't know that if I failed miserably, I wouldn't have this to fall back on.
*Laughter*
Rob: Yeah.
Glenn: But really. It does–it gives you the confidence–
Rob: Not just economically, but emotionally.
Glenn: Emotionally.
Rob: Yes.
Charlie: That was reminding me of your trampoline speech. Like, “But I would’ve have had that confidence to take that back flip–”
*Laughter*
Charlie: “--if you weren’t there.”
Glenn: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Rob: Which resulted in you talking about how you licked someone’s asshole just a little bit.
Charlie: Someone’s asshole just a little bit.
Glenn: “Just a little bit.”
Charlie: “It wasn’t great, but it was fine. “
Glenn: “It was fine. It was fine.” *Laughter*
Charlie: *Laughter*
Rob: So you’re licking somebodies asshole on trampoline, and I’m wondering why you’re not getting cast in mainstream movies.
Glenn: Boy!
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re like, “Why do people not get it?”
Glenn: May 12th. Everybody go out, see Blackberry.
Rob: Double feature.
Charlie: Now I will say that I wrote directed, uh, financially engaged. It’s been 10 years of my life.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: And Glenn is also in my movie.
Glenn: Yeah.
Meg: *Laughter*
Charlie: So please–
Rob: See that one first.
Charlie: Please see that. ‘Cause it’s a win win for Glenn either way.
Rob: I’m proud of you guys.
Charlie: Thanks man.
Rob: I’m proud of you guys.
Glenn: Appreciate it.
Charlie: Let’s make some more stuff together. Let’s keep doing it.
[End Credits]