Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi friends! Welcome to Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff, and today we are watching All of Us Strangers. My name's Steve Selnick, and I'm joined today, as always, he just got done tripping the fire alarm. It's my good friend Charlie Peppers. Charlie, how are you today, my friend?

I am doing so damn well, ready to dive in and talk about this spooky and, dare I say, sexy film.

I would dare to say that you would be correct in both of those assessments and joining us today. This is a very special treat. This is first of all, my friend, which is, which is, you know, you have to start off with. We have friends on the podcast, but also someone who served as a publicist for this film that we're going to speak about.

All of us strangers, Ryan and Gary is joining us today. Ryan, thank you so much for taking some time and joining us on Charlie and Steve watch stuff today.

Of course, thanks for having me.

So before we dive into, you know, the plot and all of this stuff that we. Enjoyed about all of us strangers. We have to do this every single time. We always ask our guests how they know the person that invited them onto the podcast. [00:01:00] So Ryan and I, of course, know each other from the cult formerly known as November Project.

Is that also where you and Charlie met or did you know each other separately

from our cultish stair

running?

is how we know

That's where the the, the thread ties

together.

it's so funny because, like, that's how we know each other, but it feels like such a reductive, like, our friendship has grown so much since then, and it's such like a minor part of it now, that That is how we met each other, but it feels reductive to say that's how we know each other, because that isn't how we know each other, it's, it's how we met.

But we, our friendship has evolved so much since then, so that's how we met, but but we're homies in so many other ways.

I couldn't agree more. You actually beat me to it. It's and it's part of the reason why I consider my friendship with Charlie so special is because, you know, at this point, our peak of at least my peak of November project interest was in that like 2014 to 2017 range, which is

at this point, like a long, a long time ago. So the fact that [00:02:00] I can be sitting on here on this call on this podcast with the two of you because we've been Kept up a relationship in ways that have extended beyond doing the free fitness, especially now that I get paid to do fitness for part of my living. it's really special. So thanks for, thanks for joining us today.

And we, we mentioned, we mentioned it a little bit at the beginning and, and I would love to clear out and give you the opportunity to explain what exactly it means to be a publicist for this film. What exactly it means to be a publicist either in general or in the In the Hollywood industry we've, we've had lots of, we've had writers on, we've had producers on.

This is the first time we've had a publicist on. And so I would, I would love for you to give our audience an education on what that means in the world of Hollywood.

Yeah, totally. I mean Publicity has, it takes a lot of different forms, especially, even in, even in entertainment, it takes a bunch of different forms. There's personal publicists, there's studio publicists. I'm on the studio publicity side, meaning I work [00:03:00] specifically for the studio. In this case, it was Searchlight Pictures and the individual titles that fall under that.

There are also, you know personal publicists, I like to say, if you've seen Entourage Shauna is the personal publicist, and that really just helps everyone kind of understand what that job looks like because they know that show so well. But basically, it's bringing the You know, kind of the textbook definition is bringing the product, in this case the film, to the consumer, in that case the viewer via earned media, whether that's you know, media appearances interviews, magazine covers digital You know, interviews late night talk shows, awards events, that type of stuff.

It's basically all of those unpaid ways to utilize your talent and your creators to bring the product to the consumer. Publicity has evolved even in the, 14 years that I've been doing it. it's no longer just, you know, interviews and appearances. It's, it's evolved [00:04:00] so much because the media landscape is so saturated.

It involves social media and it involves stunts. It involves appearances, all of that stuff. So all of that, all of that is under the umbrella of PR. And when it comes to this movie in particular utilizing Our great stars as well as our creator Andrew We, we bring the movie to the people on a, on a smaller scale, I think it's also constructing the narrative of what we want people to take away from this movie. You know, making sure that people are understanding it properly that our creator's voice is being heard in terms of helping understand it.

And, making sure we're, we're putting forward a really good image around, around the project.

That's a super thorough explanation. Thanks for walking us through that. And then just sort of in terms of, of this movie that we're going to discuss today, All of Us Strangers, what did your role look like in sort of the, the lead up to, because I know that you were very involved in it all the way into the lead up of the release of the movie.

Like part of the reason why I saw it so early in theaters was because I know you were stepping for it [00:05:00] and working for it so hard. So we made a point of getting into the theater and seeing it. And feel free to. Go as detailed into this, like where you started to where you ended up finishing the project.

how did your involvement in this project specifically beyond as we joked looking badass standing behind Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal and photos? Did that work out this time around for

Yeah, I was, I was brought onto Searchlight I was brought onto Searchlight summer of last year when I found out that I'd be working on this title and, and I pretty much saw it through from, you know, the announcement of its premiere date through award season. And it really included everything, you know, from, from the beginning to the end.

I work on a team, obviously. I don't just do this by myself, but that team, includes other publicists who helped, who helped pitch, who helped work with talent who helped get us into, you know, film festivals and, and all of that stuff. So you know, I was with the project from the ground up.

And, I mean, I've worked on, I've been in entertainment for, 14 years now, and I've [00:06:00] worked on so many projects, so many television shows, a couple other films, and no, no project has really touched me like this one from a personal standpoint, you know, from a professional standpoint in terms of the talent that I get to work with you know, it really got to flex all my muscles in terms of reaching out to, you know, LGBT outlets to make sure we're, we're presenting that story.

I like to think that I do work hard on a lot of my projects, but this one was particularly special because I really felt connected to this title in a way that I really hadn't With any of my other projects leading up to it. So yeah, I think, I think it's good to hear that you said that Steve, that that's how you saw it.

Because you know, if a publicist is doing your job, their jobs, well, people are watching the thing. And if that's what got you to watch the thing, then, then I think we did a decent job.

I'm sure you did beyond that as well. Well, so I was going to ask you as sort of like a follow up to that, what you, what project you're most proud of. And it sounds like maybe. We're about to discuss one of the [00:07:00] projects that you're the most proud of so I'm going to I'm going to steal a I'm going to steal a sports ball reference if you will

I listen to a lot a lot of sports ball podcasts specifically basketball podcasts and in the in the NBA especially an NBA podcast they have a A question for players that's basically like, what's your welcome to the league moment?

What's the moment where, whether it's good or bad, you go, Oh shit, I'm in the NBA. Like I'm, I'm here. I belong here in a way. Maybe it's an embarrassing moment. Maybe it's a successful moment. So can you've had obviously a 14 year career as a publicist or an entertainment, maybe not necessarily a straight line into being a publicist the whole time, but what, what was that welcome to the league moment for you where you're, you're standing in a moment?

Kind of realizing like, oh, I'm in this, and I belong here, and this is what I do.

This is, this is really funny because I know the answer to this, but I don't know if you need to think about it, and that's when I peed next to Brad Pitt at the PGA Awards. [00:08:00] And I always say that if I ever keep doing this and the stories that I find myself in get crazier and crazier, my memoir is going to be called I peed next to you because I peed next to you.

At this point, many, many famous people, many, many, wealthy, successful people. But you know, when I was still a, I was a publicist at the time, but you know, it was really early on in my career. I went to the bathroom and I was all alone there. And then Brad Pitt just walked in and feed next to me. And I'm like, this is what separates, this is, this is the bridge.

This is what has, has brought me over from being a normal person to being someone who works. In the industry getting the, the, the ability to listen to what an a-list, stars, p sounds like hitting the porcelain of urinal. So that is, that has been, that was the moment, and it's only been uphill since then. So.

that was a 15 out of 10 response to that one. Charlie, is there anything you want to ask about just general publicist life before we jump into the movie?

I've just been taking in your [00:09:00] beautiful responses and hearing about this, it's so different than what I do. I write professionally, so just hearing about the publicist's lifestyle and the hustle, that's really intriguing. If I do have one question, it's personality do you think makes a talent able to naturally thrive publicity wise?

Like, what is the best personality for someone to have when it comes to really promoting shit and being out there?

Real quick. I know that you're a writer and that's awesome. And I know when I was starting out my career as a publicist and I was trying to figure out my path, the reason I came into publicity and the reason why I'm a studio publicist, as opposed to, you know, a tech publicist or a personal publicist came from a love of film and TV.

And there was a moment in you know, when I was finishing up college where I was like, I want to work in entertainment, but I don't want to be a writer or I don't want to be a director and I don't want to be a creative, but I do want [00:10:00] to be, you know, I want to have access to production, access to scripts, access to all of that stuff without the pressure of actually creating it.

And that's, I don't know if anybody's going to be listening to this, who's kind of in the same boat, but you know, these jobs like marketing and publicity and, certainly development, you know, you get to be close to these productions and you get to be in the world without. the creative pressure of creating it.

And that's kind of where I found that symbiosis. So, I mean, the reason I think I'm able to speak so eloquently about being a studio publicist is because of how much I love it. And so the symbiosis of like, of, of working with writers and working with creatives and working with directors, but, but coming from you know, the framework of being raised in, in the.

the film community and understanding what production is and what everyone's role is, has led to, my success and me loving this. But in terms of your question certainly being smart, I think, is a really big part of it. I know it sounds easier than it is. But You were seeing it now and we don't have to get [00:11:00] into the, the, you know, political implications of cancel culture or anything like that, but smart talent makes smart decisions.

And so much of your success in the industry hinges on how you treat other people, how much people enjoy working with you. Nothing happens in a silo anymore. And when people are. Mean and awful and racist and sexist that comes out and that's no longer acceptable. And I think people trying to maintain old ways of behaving with the new way the industry is moving, it's never gonna work.

And so where I stand as a publicist, what I want to do is I want to elevate your best qualities as opposed to fix your worst qualities. And if I can focus my attention on elevating your best qualities and not the other thing that's how we can focus more on your success than cleaning up your failures.

And so I think just being smart, being, being just a good, a good quality person that people, it's very similar to other, any other jobs, just being somebody that you want to be around. Obviously your talent and your creativity get you, get you very far, get you to [00:12:00] this place. But when that starts to level out it's really.

You know your enthusiasm that that separates you and enthusiasm is a big part of it too. You know what I mean? Like you want someone from where I sit as a studio publicist I want somebody who can sit in a chair and speak passionately about their projects as opposed to someone who You know You have to feed talking points and you have to like beg them to say something nice and you have to like, you know but I will say that in my career, the talent I've worked with have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, overwhelmingly wonderful and positive.

Those, those kind of difficult talent are so few and far between. And then this project in particular all of them were just, everyone involved was so fantastic in a way that I'd never experienced on a project before.

That's so wonderful to hear. And particularly, and we're gonna get into, like, digging into more of the plot y, writer y aspects of this movie shortly, but That comes across on screen because the camaraderie that you would need with a troupe of actors like this is the only kind of [00:13:00] camaraderie you would find on stage because there were some parts of this film that did feel like a stage play and I mean that as the Highest compliment that I can give you on this pod.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, certainly Andrew Scott comes from the world of theatre, you know, he is well known for playing Moriarty and for being in Fleabag, but he really is at his heart a theatre actor and it really came across on screen, I think, and certainly with, with the intimacy of the film he, his last stage play was, was Vanya in, in London and he, in London.

It was a one man show and so you know, he's used to these, the capturing of the loneliness and the intimacy I think really came from him being a stage actor. And then Paul, you know, Paul just finished his run on, on Broadway or on the West End as well in Streetcar Named Desire.

And so he brought, you know, those stage aspects to this performance as well. So yeah, I mean, that's a very astute observation because they're, they were both living in that world. You know, the, [00:14:00] the having four characters as well definitely made it feel intimate and made it feel quiet and like a stage play as well, but, but yeah, that's definitely how I felt as well.

let's jump right into it. Ryan, thanks for answering our questions

about the industry. If, if you have more stories about just the experience of doing any of this stuff throughout, feel free to just, just jump in. We, we're, we're absolutely entranced by your stories

about this

stuff. So getting into the film and stuff All of Us Strangers released on November 17th, 2023, written and directed by Andrew Haig, based on the novel by Taichi Yamada. Starring Andrew Scott, Paul Meskell, Jamie Bill, and Claire Foy. And the plot of the movie is, one night in his near empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam, Andrew Scott, has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor, Harry, Paul Meskell, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he [00:15:00] grew up and the childhood home where his parents, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before. And we're gonna just jump right into it because, honestly Especially on a second walkthrough, the opening shot, and I feel like I'm being Charlie right now, we open on, and so, but like, I'm not usually one who like stops on an opening shot, and this opening shot sort of slaps you in the face and puts you in the, in the mood. I, I saw the, for the first time I saw it in theaters, it was kind of in the middle of the day, you know, a pretty sparsely populated theater for being like literally a 1 p. m. on a weekday. And you could kind of just feel the energy shift, not in a bad way, but in a like, okay, like this is, this is where we are. You, you see Adam, Andrew Scott coming into view, watching the sunrise over the city. I, I thought it very immediately captured [00:16:00] loneliness, which is, I think, something that Andrew Scott is Adam's living with very heavily the entire time. this slowly turns into him sitting in front of a computer screen with a, a script with just a few words typed out, and that quickly turns into him laying down on the couch eating a snack, watching TV, which turns into nighttime, which I don't know about the other two of you, I, I identified with that feeling very strongly of a lack of motivation and that general malaise that can come with a lonely depression and all of a sudden a fire alarm pulls Adam outside and you kind of also quickly realize that the building is mostly empty.

Most of the lights are off. No other people are going outside and you get a first look at Harry who is the only other person up in the building.

something that never occurred to me is this opening scene of the character. We're seeing him, this is a creative being creative. We're seeing what the creative process looks like in a day for somebody who's a [00:17:00] writer, cause sometimes words don't hit the page and you just, in my headcanon for the movie, He's watching the sun come up because he's been up all night trying to figure out how to break this idea for a story he has and it's so important to him. He's probably rewritten and deleted and rewritten his slug line a hundred different times. So in watching this film for the third time, I understood him in a way that I didn't before and that he is a chromogeny creative and just very. Like he can't get it out also with the fire alarm moment I want to pin that for later because I do believe that it is foreshadowing and there's another moment of foreshadowing That happens at the liquor store when he first meets his dad, but I'll bring that up when we get there

Charlie, I'd love to hear more. I mean, I'm sure it'll come up later about your connection with Adam from the perspective of a writer because it's I mean, certainly at the beginning you know, they make [00:18:00] many allusions to his writing developing and changing as his relation as he, you know, meets Henry as he starts talking to his family and you got you start to see him develop as a writer, or at least his process.

Even, either being kick started or being rejuvenated and I'm so curious to hear that. You know, I have a lot of friends who, who are also writers and also really responded to the film. But, you know, this idea that writing is not something that happens separate from your life, that they happen coexistingly.

And so I'm using it as a parallel of kind of what's going on and how, How your best work reflects what's going on in your life, I think, was a really fascinating take. You know, obviously, Andrew Haig is a writer and, and Adam was based a lot on his experience, but it was interesting, I think, to see that relationship change between him and writing which I don't, I, I know is not often in the forefront of conversations, but was really fascinating to watch.

The next moment is I mean, I don't know if I'm speaking with hyperbole here, but this [00:19:00] is honestly potentially one of the biggest moments of the movie, and you don't know that it's the biggest moment of the movie until the very end, I put in the notes when Adam met Harry to kind of like, it's, it's very, you know, it's a romance that's being set up, but this first meeting you get Harry, Paul Metzko getting down on the whiskey.

He's very drunk. He's clearly depressed. He's on the verge of tears, like very clearly on the verge of some sort of a physical breakdown, let alone from just the fact that he can barely stand from how drunk he is and how the silence is driving him crazy because it's an empty apartment building and how they purposely don't let the windows open up enough so they don't want people jumping out of it and making bad publicity for the apartment building that they're clearly trying to fill. And then. He starts to kind of be like, I could come in, I could be whatever you want to be. My first watchthrough, I thought that was just him being like, I mean, it's obviously him being drunk and sad and wanting company in some way, just kind of like, going the wrong [00:20:00] direction into getting it in that first interaction. Obviously we'll get to the reason why I read it wrong, and maybe potentially why Adam read it wrong, but he says no. And he says have a good night, and Adam closes the door we get that final shot of Harry back in the elevator, swinging that whiskey a little bit deeper as he's headed back to his room. And we've all watched the movie. We're going to talk about it. We know that after this night, Harry goes back and he dies from drug, alcohol, whatever reasons, and that all of the times that you see Harry moving forward, you're seeing him in the same capacity that Adam starts to see his parents, in which they are spirits, ghosts, visions, whatever you want to say for yourself, however you want to interpret that. if you're wondering if this is the make or break moment, if Adam had seen the person in need and welcomed them into his home, [00:21:00] even if anything happened or didn't, would he have saved this person's life? I think the three of us can agree, probably. At least he wouldn't have gone home and finished that huge bottle of whiskey and railed all those lines of cocaine and put whatever concoction of chemicals into his body that ended his life. Did you have a feeling that that was the route we were going, or were you just as caught off guard? I mean, obviously Ryan knew the plot of the movie, but Charlie, I guess that's a question for you.

It's so funny. When I first watched this film with my partner, Cody, I saw it, and I was like, Adam, if you don't let this beautiful man in your home, you are such a Honestly, I went on such a journey with Adam because I Was just, I found him to be such a square in the beginning, and just so rigid, but, I will say, to the movie's credit, I like that that's where we started him off, because seeing him crack open was so damn [00:22:00] beautiful, and seeing him come to that moment Of revealing more of himself to Harry and having those moments with his parents was a very smart decision because if he started off really open and went through everything, we wouldn't have a movie, but that was definitely a eye roll moment of, you're not gonna give this guy anything, no, maybe another time, just like a, I don't think that's a good idea, just go, go sit on his face. Yeah, that was pretty

much my thinking.

exactly. Like, seriously. But yeah, you know what? That's exactly it. Like, Adam wasn't ready yet. He wasn't ready to let someone physically in or emotionally in, and he needed to go through all of that stuff with, we had to do some kind of adjustment to this barrier in order to, for that to, for that to have happened.

And so as frustrating as it was, I will say that it's, it is interesting too, because I have [00:23:00] in my personal life both been Adam and Henry in that situation. You know, I, I, I have seen times when like I've been like sad and lonely and I've gotten really really drunk and I'm like all I need to fix this is for someone to just let me into their bed and it'll all get better.

And, you know, the humiliation and the desperation that comes with it, you know, I just felt that so deeply. I saw myself so deeply in that level but at the same time I saw myself in Adam too where I'm just like, there are days when I'm like, I'm not worthy of this. I'm not ready for this, this is not what I need right now, and it's, it's just interesting that, that, that, the, the connection I felt to both of those kind of situations.

also Charlie, yeah, Henry was, Is, is gorgeous, but it was also being a creep. Like, this is a complete stranger who found your apartment, who

came to your room drunk, and was like, Let's bone, I don't know, maybe there's a little bit of like, Uhhh, this guy might kill me. No?

[00:24:00] I know, but

look at him. But look at

him. I know. This is why, this is why I'm so susceptible to pretty. I

Good to

yeah, that, that, that, what you're seeing on this pod, or listening to on this pod, gentle listeners, is one of Charlie's weaknesses. So please have, have grace with me.

One self analyzes like Charlie. That's what I've learned through doing this podcast. That's, that's 100%. All right, well, we can move into the next day, which is Adam still hung up on his writing. He hasn't really turned any of those creative corners yet.

He detours into a box of memories and Stares at a picture for a while and decides to hop a train to the suburbs he took the photo with him and he walks off the train and he has appeared back at the house, which is in the photo that he pulled out of the box, which is his childhood home where he grew up we see a kid in the window. Which I [00:25:00] interpreted as that being him, since we never see him again, and so he just like sees childhood self in the, in the window which is sort of the beginning of the, this is a whole Him seeing apparitions of his past life.

Could he interact with his childhood self? Could he not? Like, what was the intentionality behind this moment?

I don't know about intentionality. I, well, okay, let's, I don't know, you don't explicitly see him interact with his childhood self. It looks like his childhood self, unlike his parents is confined to to the house. I think it's I don't know how I read it. That's it. That's a good.

That's a good point.

It is funny because he seems to, as he gets more and more, as he has more of these visits and gets more I don't know if it's closer, but just like context, he does there's a lot of unprocessed trauma there, obviously. It's very clear he never interacted with any of this stuff. And he needs to in order to get past whatever he's dealing with into the [00:26:00] creativity that he needs to find. I think I do agree that as he's spending more time in there, he's becoming more of his childhood self again, whether that's a good or a bad thing. He's bringing, like, for a long time it was held at an arm's distance, so he sees it at a, far distance and then slowly he sees it closer and then all of a sudden you're in a scene where he is his child itself.

So I think it's just like slowly assimilating back into that. And I actually think that's the moment where I guess his subconscious is like, okay, you need to like pull back into reality a little bit, but we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves there, but I do think it's like the first step in this progression of, I mean, as you say, there's a ton of layers going on here, so I do think that that is like a little layer, and I like that he never interacts with this child itself.

He walks away from the house, and he meets up with this man at a convenience store, who buys some booze and buys some cigarettes, and sees Adam, and goes, are you ready to go home? I didn't realize we were getting into like visions of ghost stories at this point. So I was like, who is this man? [00:27:00] How do they know each other? What's going on here? And then when they get back home, Claire Foy comes out, they're all like, Oh, my boy's come home. That was when it snapped for me, that's like, oh, he's seeing his, he's, he's seeing his family, whatever age they were, as he remembers them. I did not notice this, but Charlie has here in the notes that you can hear a car screeching to a violent halt before Adam's father emerges from the liquor store, which is something that we would call a Riddler Trophy if we were covering an episode of our Batman the Animated Series, a great little Tidbit there from Charlie,

I noticed that every time I watch this scene, I noticed different things about it. The first time I watched it in the theater with my boyfriend Cody, I thought, oh, is this going to be somebody else that he's after romantically? And, I think that that was intentional, because the way that he runs into his father is similar to the way that he is introduced to Harry. And in my headcanon for the movie, I think that [00:28:00] psychologically, part of his attraction to Harry is fueled by that belief that some part of us looks for qualities of our parent figures inside of our partners. And I think the mirroring of those two introductions of Harry and the Father was very, very intentional, and I like how they rhyme with each other.

I also like what this says about, like, there's a slight underpinning of cruising culture to the way that this entire encounter feels, in a way that I thought was interesting. But at the same time, I didn't find it creepy. I think that it was Done subtly enough so that the audience could kind of project onto what they thought this would be or what it could be. What were your thoughts about this moment, Ryan? I'm curious.

Well, I do know Andrew Haig did you know, it is meant to subvert your expectations. It is supposed to be set up like a, you know a cruising situation where this [00:29:00] man with, like, a pornstache comes out of the woods, does a little head nod, and then he follows him into it. And you know, it does feel like, you know, a cruising situation.

I, I, what, what the meaning is behind that or what the intentionality is behind that. I'm not entirely sure. I think it's astute to think that there is a, you know, a bit of like, we look for similar traits with what we're comfortable with in, in these types of romantic situations. But, even though the audience didn't know, Adam did know that that was his father.

So, you know, he wasn't following that as a cruising situation, it was never a cruising situation for him, but but, you know, there was a moment when I first saw it where it's like, oh, so, like, he'll act on this, he won't act on this with Henry, but he'll act on this with with Dad or with Stranger at that point, and and for that to kind of be flipped on its, on its head after he leaves the convenience store, I think, is just really meant to subvert your expectations.

And I think that's what this movie does really well from beginning to end, is, you know, constantly [00:30:00] keeping you on your toes really toying with your expectations in terms of what you, what visually you expect to happen. And, and, and completely flipping that on its head. And I think this is one of those really good moments where it does that.

Agree. And we get a really great seed with the first time he's catching his parents up for the last 30 years of his life. You know that something has clearly happened to them. They shared drinks and music and memories from when he was young that he watches his parents dance again with this wonderful smile of both satisfaction and intense longing, and he obviously misses seeing them together in this capacity. we don't know what happened to them yet at this point, but you're getting that seeds of like, I never thought I would see you again, and eventually they do say goodnight and Adam heads home back to London. We get another meetup between Adam and Harry here in the elevator lobby where Harry apologizes for His behavior, and Adam seemingly riding the [00:31:00] high off of getting to see his parents again for the first time in 30 years, to his brain space at least, says that he would like to have a drink with him, and they part ways from there, and the next day Adam looks out the window from his apartment and sees Harry down on the grass, and he waves up to him, and they, Meet up in Adam's apartment, and they share some weed together, decidedly better than drinking, he's taking a break from drinking for a while, I thought that was a good one and they discuss why they live there, it's all very lonely, kind of just like their situations and how they ended up in the apartment building. That they live in currently and they talk about something here that I want to bounce to both of you guys because they talk about the difference of saying gay versus saying queer And I would love for you to to talk about just how you feel about the relationship between the two words How do you feel about saying queer versus gay?

Is there is there anything about that conversation that It resonated with you,

I identify as both. One I find to [00:32:00] be a sexual orientation, and one I feel is more about how you are culturally aligned, and how you move through the world. So, working backwards from that, I identify as a queer black man, but if we're going deeper, I think that even if I didn't say that I was a queer black man, There is an element of blackness that's innately queer because it is not being a white person and when you're white, you are pretty much the default in this country and western civilization, and I would say, hell, the world, you know?

So I think embracing the fact that you're queer is about finding empowerment and not being what is seen as heteronormative or just At the center of what the world revolves around and identifying as queer for me makes me feel a part of not just The gay male community but people who are all over the spectrum in terms of how they identify sexually and how they identify in terms [00:33:00] of their representation in the world and how certain things impact them and don't impact them so I very much am proud to identify and to adhere to the queer identity. When it comes to being gay, my response to this is a lot more superficial. I just find men stupidly sexy. That's really it. Like, men, like I find men so sexy that I look at straight men and I'm like, do you not see what I see? You are so blind if you can't just see that the V in his pelvis is just, do you not want to reach out and grab that?

Like, do you not see his face? It just, I can see the beauty in women, so I'm, I'm wondering, with like, street dudes, I'm like, do you not, like, kind of wonder what it's like to hit that? Like, so, like, that is my definition of gay and queer and how it kind of percolates in my head. Ryan, what do you think?

Well, yeah, I think it's, it's a really, important distinction. And I think that [00:34:00] conversation kind of speaks to that, that both the sexual elements of being gay and queer and the community elements of being gay and queer are both stunted in Adam. And they, they, they do go, these do, Things do co exist together, so, you know, obviously later we get scenes with his mother and father of him, coming out, and then we get scenes of him and Harry, you know, having sex, and so, I think just the cultural aspects of being, of being in the queer community, as well as the kind of physical aspects, like you said, of sexuality and gayness are, are all kind of intermingled.

But in terms of this particular scene where I sit you know, Andrew Scott is 47 years old and Paul Meskell is 20, I think what he felt was 26 years old. So there is a general generational difference between the two men and I think this is a really good conversation to kind of denote that, and so the fact that he hasn't hit the progressive Places that Henry is currently with his sexuality is just another [00:35:00] kind of explicit way to show that he, he is stunted, he's held, held back in his sexuality.

Something that I find really interesting that, you know, having worked on this movie and seeing the reaction is this, this stark difference between the reaction of young gay people versus older gay people with this, with this movie and I think I don't want to generalize, but you know I think older gay people connected it with this film in, in a lot of ways, certainly the allusions to the AIDS crisis you know, not necessarily feeling like you were free and open in your 20s, and, and how that ties to, you know, your relationship with your parents, and, you know, a lot of, people in the older generations didn't ever get to come out to their parents because it, you know, in their lifetime it was, it was never okay. So I think that it's a little bit of an allusion to that conversation that's happening, I think, between the older and younger generations in gay culture.

And just to yes and something that you said there, I think one of those other differences is when he asked Henry if his parents know and he's like, yeah, of course. And they're supportive and stuff like that. [00:36:00] I kind of, that glossed over me and in both of my watch throughs as like sort of a throw away, but like, what a difference to have. That luxury that he never experienced, not just because his parents are gone, but as we'll see from the next scene, because they just won't understand as, or at least his mom won't understand as readily, and maybe his dad will understand more readily, but will still have some problematic views about why he understood. And so yeah, what a, what, that's, both of you, very, very well said, and thank you for sharing so willingly on that. And so they do, Go into this. They, I say on the outline that they run out of things to talk about and eventually share a kiss and and sleep with each other. And it's, I honestly should have put more there.

It's a truly beautiful scene. It's, it's well shot. It's the, the music here is, is wonderful. It's. It's just a beautiful scene of, of Adam, that we can only assume, like, really opening himself up to somebody for the first time, or one of the first times, or in a way that he's certainly not done or allowed himself to [00:37:00] do in a long time,

Real quick I just want to make a distinction in something you said. You know, you said they sleep together. They actually don't sleep together, they just they are intimate in, and then at the end

No, that's a good

Yeah, and at the end of it, you know, Henry goes, I could stay over and Adam goes so, you know, it is breaking down.

It's chipping away at that granite and getting a little bit out of there. They're able to have this sexual intimate moment, but when it goes to further intimacy of staying together, which could potentially lead to more conversations and, you know, all of that stuff, Adam is like, I got to draw the line again.

It's not going to happen. And so we see him moving in that direction, but I think it's a really important distinction. That, that Adam is still not there yet.

I see in Adam something that I've seen in other older gay men that I've been with. the reserved disposition of. I'm not going to reveal a lot of myself, so I'm going to give you just a little bit, and I'm going to be closed off until, you know, I feel comfortable.

So, in that, I kind of felt, I was [00:38:00] looking at the other character, Henry, and wondering, why are you so into this guy? I was kind of wondering, I got what the attraction, For Adam was, but I didn't get why somebody would be so drawn to Adam at this point, you know, but I do get that, again, this is somebody who is crying out for help and just wants a connection, and probably thinks that the connection means more if he can get this guy's walls to come down. But, yeah, that's, those are my thoughts on it.

And at this point, technically, he's imagining it. So, it's also a little bit of his brain doing the work of this is what I would want if I was going to open myself up to happiness. This is how it would start to happen for me. And we have a, another trip out to the burbs, crazy downpour. Just his mom is home this time, so it's, it's just Adam and the mom who forces him to change into dry clothes of his father's, and she just sort of has this [00:39:00] moment where she takes in how grown he looks, and, and that really seems to affect her in a, in a way that seems very understandable for a mother who didn't get to experience her son growing up, and we get one of the scenes that we were just talking about.

Adam comes out to his mom very easily, he, tells her that he's gay, and the, the, big, since when you don't look gay, very like, yep, they were around 30 years ago, what's a gay person supposed to look like, lady? But I actually would love to have one of you two kind of jump in here and talk about this scene and what you identified with, how it was executed for you by all means, go for it.

I love this scene. I think, you know, it wasn't my own personal experience, but I know that it was an experience for a lot of gay people. it's so, I'm not a parent, but I know the like, this, this struggle that you have inside yourself where you like, you love your child un, unequivocally.

But loving all of them becomes difficult, and so, you know, this all happens in such a quick moment [00:40:00] that she's forced to, you know, mom is forced to reconcile with everything in one, in one flash, and, it encapsulates, these feelings of confusion and and anger, but also fear of you know, I know that when I first came out, my mom was obviously very, not obviously, but my mom was very accepting and loving, but one of her biggest things was like, I don't want your life to be hard.

I'm gonna worry about you more because you have this thing now that makes your life more difficult. And I couldn't argue with her on that because it's, it's true. Any, any kind of, you know, minority identifier you have makes your life a little bit more difficult. And I felt that in this conversation.

I felt, you know sure it might not align with her beliefs, but it stems from this piece of like, I want the best for my child. And this is gonna make things a little bit more difficult.

Yeah, going off of what you said, I find, this is my favorite scene in the movie. This is my favorite scene. I think that it, I'm gonna speak about it technically on a writing standpoint, then [00:41:00] I'm gonna get more vulnerable and speak about how it reflects my own experience. So, rewinding back, this scene is well written because I, Don't find the mother to be a monster in this scene. I think she has a very human reaction. Maybe I'm speaking from a place of privilege because I have gone on to have a very beautiful understanding and fluid relationship with my mom that we both had to work really hard at, so I'm able to look at the nuances of the mother's reaction in this scene with a lot more grace than I would have, like, 12 or 13 years ago. That's just where I am right now, because I know that my mom did try her best and she's come so far. But, if I'm pushing back against my own assertion, I think that the actress also elevates the material here. Because the way that she grapples with the realization that her son, her only child is gay, is very, very self [00:42:00] absorbed. And we can, we, she never forgets her love for him in this scene. Her love for him in this scene is very clear throughout. What she's going through is her own insecurity of, what are people gonna think? What's going to happen to like, what if I tell the neighbors what's going to happen here, which is so often what so many parents go through. And I think to go deeper than that, I think some parents go through that because they don't know who they themselves are. And they don't know what it feels like to have to stand so strongly in that. So to see their child having to do something that they themselves haven't done is extremely intimidating, and it illuminates a part of themselves that they maybe haven't nourished before. in this moment, she's having to face her own shortcomings and areas of growth, and things that she doesn't know about the world, and what Her own limitations as a mom is but what I think this is is a beautiful Opportunity for her to rise above the way that she was parented by her [00:43:00] mom and it suggested that she didn't have the best mom By how she speaks about her mom in hindsight but yeah, the scene has so many layers and things going on with it, and I love how maturely it was written and acted and When I came out to my mom just to wrap this up I decided, okay, if I can just make her laugh, if I can just make her laugh, so we were at a Denny's, I ordered a Grand Slam, and my mom was like, you got a girlfriend, you got a girlfriend, and I said, hey mom, have you ever wanted to have sex with a woman, and she sort of blinked, and recoiled a little bit, and she said, no, and I slammed my fist on the table, and said, me neither, And she sort of laughed and she was like, Oh, fuck you!

And that's how I came out to my mom, you know, but She had her own back and forth about it And the biggest thing that my mom brought up in that moment was This isn't the vision that I had for our family I was [00:44:00] definitely feeling myself. I said, that's not my problem. Which, okay, good for me, but also, true.

I think it speaks to a lot of, queer people's experiences in that, so Adam is in his late 40s, he's talking to his mother, and he doesn't even, I know it's called a coming out scene, but he doesn't really come out, he just very matter of factly says, I'm gay, and I think that really parallels queer people's experience of, we're always coming out, we're coming out when we first come out, when we're You know, in our 20s, we're coming out every time we start a new job and people find out we have male partners, we're coming out every time we meet a new person we're, we're constantly throughout our lives coming out to people again, kind of what we touched upon what Charlie you touched upon earlier that that the default is always heterosexual, regardless of how we present.

We're constantly coming out. And so that coming out still, I think reveals itself as more matter of fact, as we get older, where we're like, this is my fiance, and he's a man, and so even though it's just a matter of fact saying it is a version of coming out.

So I think [00:45:00] that's a really good way To kind of visual, like, the scene is a very important way of explaining, like, whether it's your mom, or whether it's a stranger, you're just constantly constantly coming out. So I, that's how I kind of read that story, that, that scene.

And just say yes and that I feel like and maybe his mom does this a little bit this time But I think strangers are for some reason they learn this about you and then they if they feel comfortable enough with you they use you as an opportunity to like Educate themselves on the subject and, and maybe as, as maybe just being gay, but just for other aspects of your life that they don't identify with, like Charlie, maybe you as a black man, have people come up to you and try and understand more about black culture and think that they can use you as that sort of like education labor for how they can under, they think that they're trying to be nice and understand more, but in fact, they're just trying to ask you to do the work for them,

Oh, you know what my tactic this is how I fuck with people when they try and

Oh, great. Yes, please.

whenever people are like, you [00:46:00] know, like like Biggie like Tupac. I look at them I'm like, I have no idea who those two people are. Could you could you could you tell me?

Adam kind of does this, but at least in my personal life, whenever people lean on me for the acceptance, it's, I always like, it's not my job to get you there. You know, what's, what's going to help you get there is my existence and your relationship with me. if you accept me.

My quote unquote lifestyle, then you accept gay people. But it's not my job to give you the tools, it's your job to look at your relationship with me, evolve that and, and to accept it. And so, I'm not gonna give you the tools to accept it, you have to look at me and accept it yourself. And I think Adam was feeling that way too, where he's like, this is who I am.

I know you're, you're having difficulty right now, but you're going to accept it.

Well, I mean, honestly, using that as an opportunity to kind of branch into the next scene, Adam and Harry meet up again as he's back in London, and we kind of get this montage of Harry being a caretaker to Adam, Harry being a partner to Adam, them just being on the couch together, watching TV, playing with [00:47:00] one of the other's hair and Sort of as he gets these opportunities to open up to his parents, he's taking those opportunities to live a little bit more in the identity that he's pushed away for so long that as I agree with you that he sort of stands up for in a more Confident way than maybe he would even would have at the beginning of the movie, just from the way that he, like, recoiled from the word queer at the beginning of that conversation with Harry. And this does lead into that very, very hot sex scene that we see of I say, we actually see the, I mean, the implied penetration this time, which is why I think maybe the first time around, I just thought it was implied that they sleep together, and then it's just like, no, you shouldn't stay the night.

But this one is just like, there's no doubt that's happening. And you get, you get more connecting between them. You learn why Harry is the outcast of his family. Not because he's gay, just because that's the way that he ended up. He just wanted a different life from the rest of them. And maybe that's a reason for some of his loneliness, because he is separated from [00:48:00] that life that seemingly everyone else In his life has taken and that's going to take us into the third parent visit, which is just going to be a one on one with Adam and his father.

This time

andrew Hague. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with his other work, but he's done. He's, he's a master of these, of these. Intimate gay scenes with his film, Weekend, with the show Looking, and it's just, it's certainly become a signature for him, but they're just so masterfully done, these intimate scenes, because they're sexy, and they're, you know, intimate in there.

Everything is there. You know what I mean? He doesn't skirt around what's happening. And again, it like forces you, if you're going to watch this movie about a gay couple, you're going to be forced to watch them, you know, make love. And I think that is so key to understanding how all this happens. You know, I think there's an interesting conversation happening now with film, with Gen Z in film of Is a sex scene necessary?

And I mean, I think [00:49:00] it's the most ridiculous conversation because to put a blanket over all sex scenes and say whether they're necessary or not is, is idiotic. But in this particular case, seeing that sex scene, seeing that intimacy is so key to understanding how far Adam has come, how far Adam is going to go.

And, and, you know, it's, it's not something that, that can be skirted around for the full understanding of this, of this journey.

to yes and what you said, and also the fact that he's bottoming. Comes from a place of showing how far he's come into just being a little bit more vulnerable because I know that there is an older generation of gay men who, particularly if they grew up during the AIDS crisis, are petrified.

Petrified! Of bottoming, and are very strict in their identification of I only top, that's what I do, I'm not verse, you and your kids and you're verse bottom, verse top, like fuckin yeah, I think that that was very much him [00:50:00] allowing himself to be vulnerable in a physical sense, and it was a lovemaking scene, you definitely saw the vulnerability between them. As far as the piece of Gen Z talking about if sex scenes are necessary, I think that that's a very fair conversation, because I think in the industry they have been abused before, and they have also put actors in positions that I don't think that the actors necessarily need to be in, but In this movie, it fits because of how much care and tenderness was put into the writing of these characters and from the sex scene coming from a place of character.

Yeah and something interesting about the Adam bottoming, he doesn't just bottom, he chooses to bottom, Henry gives him the option, he says, I love everything. And Adam actively says, you know, you can fuck me. So I think not just the act of Adam bottoming, but making it his choice and giving him that that agency to kind of take his sexual.

experience into his own hands is [00:51:00] also really key to understanding how far he's made it. So I think that's a very, very good observation.

We do go into our next scene of him getting his opportunity to chat with his father one on one This is my Very inappropriate Riddler Trophy because I reacted out loud in the theater and I regret it.

But the song that his dad puts on on the record is the same song that is used in this cinematic trailer that opens up one of my favorite games of all time, Fallout 3, where you live in a post nuclear apocalypse in DC. So when I heard it, I started laughing, like I just could, I just had like a very visceral like, Oh my god, like this is, I'm now in Fallout, and it, it like knocked me out for a second, and then I had to realize that I was sitting in a theater with a bunch of other very sad people that were trying to consume art, and I was like, okay, get it back together.

But then we, we proceed to have a very, in my opinion, it was a very different supportive discussion. Of Adam's, as you say, as you said [00:52:00] before, Ryan, the, the constant coming out that he has to be doing here where he doesn't necessarily have a problem with his son's sexuality, He's expressing his own regret of how he maybe treated someone that he perceived as being gay when he was younger as kids are cunts, and he says it while he's getting choked up, and like, and I think part of it is his heart is breaking for the fact that his son was crying in his room because people were bullying him and he didn't do anything to help him, but I think he also saw Some of his younger self, being that cunty kid, to somebody else who was maybe his son that went home and cried by himself in his room.

And, sort of the notion of, I think there's a lot of Discourse, especially in recent years, of people making apologies because they didn't know how it was affecting other people at the time. And the merit of being able to [00:53:00] be educated and apologize genuinely and move forward, and obviously, like, His father doesn't get to go move forward into the world and be a better ally to other gay and queer people because he clearly died 30 years ago, so this is more of, like, a point of catharsis, again, for Adam to move forward with his life, but I just kind of want to throw that discussion point out to you two of just, like, how do you feel of actually being a part of this community of where people are either forgiven or not forgiven for their transgressions? Just because they apologized or seem to have done the work like what where's that line go for you Charlie? Go ahead

So I'm gonna make a plot point at first. In this, I want you to argue with me if you think that I'm off base here. I think that if Adam's dad had come in while he was crying and comforting him, and had comforted him in that moment, Adam would have had the tools to have saved Henry's life that night and to have let him in when he was clearly in distress. I [00:54:00] think we can trace Adam's inability to hold space for somebody. And maybe, also, to play devil's advocate for myself, maybe Adam doesn't have the emotional intelligence to have recognized what was happening on many different levels, and if his dad would have demonstrated that, maybe he would have picked up on what was happening beneath all of the sexy eyes, and we can come inside for whatever you're available for, you know, so I think we can trace back Adam's ineptitude for connecting at a certain level with other men in particular in this moment. Also, when it comes to my own relationship with my father, I think You know, my dad didn't grow up with a father. So, everything that my dad learned about masculinity was just through TV or through people that he met in his life and kind of took cues from. So my dad has a very curated form of masculinity, but I would argue [00:55:00] that when we really look at masculinity and femininity, they are highly curated. You know, I don't think that anybody is naturally one or the other. We just pick up aspects of those that Resonate with our own personhood as we move through our lives and find out who we are more in our core. So Yeah, the scene definitely highlighted the complexities of Adam's father Being younger and trying to find himself while his kid is simultaneously in pain I found it very well acted and very very gentle just a great scene

is my absolute favorite scene in the film. I could talk about this scene for hours and hours on end. I connected with it so much on a personal level from my own relationship with my father. Again, like, it subverts our expectations because we see this this coming out scene to his mom, you know, when you think about kids and their relation gay kids and their relationship with their parents, you automatically assume the mother is the one who's more accepting and the father is the one who isn't, and while there [00:56:00] is pieces of acceptance and non acceptance on both the mother and the father's perspective.

The dad's kind of openness and acceptance of his son and also his deep, deep regret is something I don't know if we expected from his father, which I think is, is a really Again, interesting way to subvert our expectations. I think it's genius casting to have Jamie Bell be his father. You know, Jamie Bell is probably still most famous for his film debut as Billy Elliot.

And, you know, the entire film about Billy Elliot is about this boy who is doing ballet when he should be boxing. And it's his father's eventual acceptance of his femininity. all of, you know, his, his tough, tough dad finally like realizing he has to love his son no matter what and so for that to be in the back of your mind as you're watching, Jamie Bell do this scene with, with his son in this movie, I think it's just a, just streak of fantastic casting.

when Adam is there and he's, he's trying to be, When he sits down, he's immediately put back into, into his relationship with his father where he's supposed to be tough and [00:57:00] strong. But when dad says, I should have come into your room and when you're crying and I'm so sorry dad puts down that wall.

So Adam's wall can come down and you see him immediately revert to being back to a child. He covers up his face, he starts crying, he no longer becomes That strong boy that his father encouraged him to be because his father finally gave him permission to not by saying I wish I'd come into the room.

And so you really see that evolution within a two minute span. And then again you, they hug and then you see him, see his reflection in the mirror as a boy and you know he's, he's come back to that point. So I, it's just a masterful, masterful scene. I, recommend seeking out the script because the script does a really good job of explaining back to a child about some of, you know, some of the, that dialogue comes a little bit, through a little bit more clear, so yeah, I just love this scene so much, I can talk about it for forever.

Yeah, and I, I think about, Charlie, what you said too about I don't know if I necessarily [00:58:00] I'm in agreement that, that if his father came into his room, he had the tools to help Henry because I think a lot of, there's a lot of other trauma that came along with it that was, that was preventing him from doing that.

But I do think about how meaningful it would be if he had done that. I think about my own father and our relationship now, for better or worse, if he had come into my room and told me, It'll be fine, or, or things will be better. How that would have changed the trajectory of my life. And it made me think about how little things I've said here and there.

It's like, have I ever said something that revealed that I wasn't accepting of someone's character and has that stuck with them longer than I, than even I would have ever imagined. And so it's just such a, such a phenomenal scene.

well said guys, Adam continues to take steps of growth after every single one of these conversations he's back at home and they're doing a hard launch Adam and Harry. They're stepping out into public together they're going out to a club which you know, you know going Out in public, [00:59:00] with another man, as a couple, must be a huge moment in Adam's life.

Probably something that he's never done before, never allowed himself to do before. Lots of shots, I guess, I guess Harry is drinking again. Flashing lights, dancing eventually they end up in a bathroom stall, and they're doing some coke as Harry says, he found it, he found it in his wallet.

He says, do you wanna do coke? They do the line of Coke. And then he goes, oh, actually it wasn't Coke, it was ketamine. So the whole thing is

Oh, I 100

percent missed that!

it's a ketamine a ketamine trip. Not a Coke.

Oh, wow. Charlie, did you catch that?

I don't think I did. Good

Oh wow, yeah, that totally slipped past me both times. Alright, well that fucking changes how you would react to that for sure and maybe makes the bad trip that happens I'm not even going to cut that, that's really good for me to know sort of the, the turn into the bad Suddenly, like, the music, first of all, that sort of, like, screeching, orchestral music turn to when everything starts [01:00:00] going a little sour and his vision gets blurry in the mirror, you just kind of, you get that moment of, oh, we're in a horror movie now, which is, I think, something, if it was meant to put the audience off balance, check, in that box, for sure and he, he club and he wakes up back at home in the suburbs, in his pajamas, it was in the 70s.

But just because I let myself sort of grab it like someone who I was, there beautiful sort of ocean scent thing. And he walks downstairs, and his parents are downstairs setting up a Christmas tree, and they're singing along to You Were Always on My Mind, which is sort of, like, the song that is attached to this movie, they do the angel, where they lift him up and they do it just like they described in a scene of an old memory together, and You're sort of figuring out that this is a memory that he's living in real time and Not only is it a memory that he's living in real time.

It's the night that they die He kind of like recognizes the moment where his mom's trying to tuck him in and He pulls her to not leave and he does the thing that all scared kids do which is get into [01:01:00] bed with their parents You have this just amazing conversation between him and his mother about What his life is like, what happened to him after they died and passed away, where he ended up and after breaking down that he isn't okay to his mother, that he is lonely, that he's been struggling with it for 30 years, he turns over and suddenly Harry's in bed with him, and he turns over and kisses him, and he is back in bed alone, and suddenly police are knocking on his door, and then he wakes up on a train.

Very skippy turn of events, very trippy turn of events. You see Harry on a different car, lights flash, Harry disappears. That was my first moment where I was like, hold on a second. Because none of the weird stuff had happened with Harry up until that point. And Charlie, you have a great note here. You noted out loud if you were wondering if the train is purgatory. And it's taking people over the rainbow bridge. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, I think that what we're experiencing [01:02:00] is Adam just experiencing the amalgamation of a lot of his different life experiences on that train ride. And seeing his partner on a different cart. So maybe his partner is further along in his journey to the afterlife than he is. I think that the directing choice right here for him to have the ketamine trip after a night out was a way to throw the audience off the scent that we are seeing the two gay male lovers. As already ghost. I think that it's like no. No, it's a ketamine trip. It's like no No, this is his mind doing something to make sense of what his life was I think that what we're seeing right now is just the psychological Untethering of all right, what actually got me to this point and that brings me to something that's a little Less abstract which is the scene in bed with his parents one I think them putting the angel in the [01:03:00] Christmas tree was so damn warm and such a pleasure to watch Also the look that the mom gives him while she's singing I think is her form of an apology to him and her saying, I do see you, you were always on my mind.

And that was very lovely. And one of my favorite acting moments of hers in the entire film, I, it kind of made me choke up a little bit. that's a mom looking at her kid and starting to see him as his own person.

What we're really seeing in that bed scene is Adam realizing that all the baggage he had with his parents Transferred into his relationship with his partner. Then at the end of the day, he was left with all that unresolved trauma by himself Until the cops show up in the bed. That's what that scene meant to me What did it mean to you Ryan?

I think you, you hit the nail on the head. I loved this scene as well. Just a little fun behind the scenes tidbit. So this scene was filmed, it was the only day in the entire production when all four of them were on set on the [01:04:00] same day. So that scene in the bed was a continuous take.

Jamie Bell is in the bed with Andrew Scott in the bed with Claire Foy when it shows them it pans over and as they're, as Claire Foy and Andrew Scott are having a conversation, Jamie Bell wiggles out from the bottom of the bed and Paul Meskell physically comes into the bed on the side so that when the camera pans over, it's Paul Meskell.

So that's literally the only time in the entire production of the of the film that all four actors are working on the same day.

That's so

cool.

That's awesome. And that that feels like theater.

That's a very

practical way to do that

More context for what just happened, sort of. We, we get Adam waking up in bed with Harry saying that he started screaming for his parents in the middle of the club and he took Adam home. we get a li we get sort of like the final context download for what happens to her parents.

We, we find out that that night that he just relived was in fact the night that his parents went out to a party and crashed on black ice and died in the car wreck. And that While his father died right away, his mother [01:05:00] was blinded in, mostly blinded, and actually ended up in the hospital for a while, in which he didn't go and visit her before she passed away itself and his terror of being alone forever just solidified in his soul and it kept him from ever moving forward with his life in any sort of meaningful way beyond, like, becoming an adult that's functional and finding a job and surviving In like a capitalistic sort of way, but he's never been able to move on in any sort of full way.

And, and again, Harry just sort of being the, that perfect partner that Adam's always longed for has just super understanding and is, is just there to comfort him and understand and Just kind of be there for him to open up in that way which is very, very beautiful as, as Charlie has noted as well, and that that sort of starts to point us towards the finale of this film, which is a final. Parental visit where Adam convinces Harry to come with him to his parents house. He doesn't really, like, [01:06:00] explain what's going on. He's just kind of like, Come on this train ride with me. Come to this house with me. And then he's, you know, it's dark, it's late at night. He's knocking on the door, ringing the doorbell.

And Harry is starting to get kind of freaked out. And he's like, Hey, let's get out of here. Let's go back to London. You know, and he takes him around the back of the house. We see his parents standing in the hallway. As Harry slowly backs away out of the frame and he's banging hard on the glass window of the back of the house and he eventually breaks the window and wakes up in his childhood bed yet again and gets to have a conversation with his parents about Harry and who he is and what he means to him in his life and the is he your boyfriend conversation and him being like yes, no, I don't know. I thought that was very real and we start to have this, like, I don't think you should come visit anymore, because it's clear you're not moving on, and perhaps through doing all of this work, you're ready to move on, and [01:07:00] part of that process that you're going through, and sort of this acceptance, is that you do actually have to let us go, at the end of the day, which Charlie, you have noted here, feels like an act of generosity.

Why do you think that's an act of generosity from his parents?

They want him to have love, they want him to have love, and they also, they want him to heal. They really want him to take from his experience what he needs to take from the experience, but they also, they want more for him because he doesn't have the bigger life if he keeps revisiting this tape and replaying it over and over.

I think that this is a great act of love that they're offering to him. Ryan, what do you think?

Yeah, I think that's a very, I think that's that's exactly it. You know, the scene where they see he brings Henry to the house and they see him see the parents through the front door and for the first time they look ghostly. I think so [01:08:00] much of the interactions he's had with his parents have felt rooted in reality, but this was the first time it really kind of entered the supernatural realm, which I think was very on purpose.

So that the next time he saw them, they were like, This relationship, this thing that's happening between us, is changed. It's no longer become casual catch up conversations. It's become, like, you seeking us out. It's become you bringing more people into the world. It's become you, like using it as a crutch to heal your problems, when that was never supposed to be the point of it.

So I think when when it made that, That change into this other thing, his parents recognized that and said, Okay, this is where, where we need to stop. So yeah, I think that's exactly what it was.

And that takes us into, I think this is my favorite scene of the movie, just because of how in the gut it hit me, especially the second time around. Which is their little trip to the mall to go to his favorite childhood restaurant, and he sits there, and he orders the family special. And, Ryan, [01:09:00] you let me know about a Riddler trophy here before we got going, that technically the only other credited person in this movie is the waitress, because she is the only other person to speak.

So I did not grab her name, so apologies to the the waitress at the restaurant whose face I don't even think we see. But, technically, she is the only other, credited actress in this film because she was like, that's a lot of food for one person. And so yeah, they have this sort of like final conversation to say goodbye.

And I thought this was very interesting because even Though Dave, and I think by saying Dave, it's really he, has done all of this work to get things off of his chest and to say things that he's never said and to allow himself to feel vulnerable and to feel things. He chooses in this moment to protect his mother's feelings by lying to her and saying that her death was quick, because it was one of the last things that she wanted to know.

And, you know, his parents show pride in their son for getting through it, where he just feels like he's [01:10:00] carried sadness and guilt and loneliness the whole time. And this little moment of, of the three milkshakes showing up and all of a sudden he's sitting alone at the table as the camera pans out and the food starts to appear and he's there by himself. And I just, I just thought that was such a gutting moment and, and one where. He's having his final moment of despair.

And at this point, my first watch through, I thought that he was going to go home and start living his life with Harry. Now having done this work to heal from his trauma of losing his parents and, and we get this beautiful goodbye and maybe the goodbye that he never got to have. And so he's feeling some sort of closure to come back home and now start his life with Harry.

But alas, we get home for our final moment. And under a full blood moon, which I did not notice the first time, I very much so noticed the second time around, Adam decides that he wants to go into Harry's apartment for the first time. you get an indication that something is wrong right away. He opens the door and he is clearly hit by a [01:11:00] smell that is not pleasant. I heard someone groan very audibly as he started to walk into Harry's apartment. And room just kind of like a, Oh, this is what's happening sort of thing. I think the experience in my theater was just this sort of like, everyone knew what was happening and yet the air still disappeared from the room, which I think is, you know, a hard cord to hit. And, and you see the ketamine and lines on the, on the table in the kitchen and you see. A TV with white noise on because, as he said, he can't stand the silence. And eventually he gets into a bedroom where you see Harry lying dead with the empty whiskey bottle on the floor next to him, and Adam sort of hangs his head in both despair and understanding of what's been happening for the last amount of time. And just has a moment of grieving, and then kind of just gets up and walks out of the room. But Harry is standing in the living room waiting for him. And this obviously made [01:12:00] me want to come back and watch it again. So I'm glad that I had the opportunity to do it and come talk about it on the podcast because I was I just didn't see it.

I didn't, like, usually I'm very quick to be like, oh yeah, I saw this coming the whole time. I, if you go back and listen to our Saltburn podcast, I was like, I knew right away he was gonna kill all those fuckers. Like, this one, didn't see it the whole time. Totally, like, didn't realize until he was walking into the apartment that this is what had happened.

And that, that first scene carried so much weight for this reason. And Adam and Harry have this moment where now Harry is, you know, begging him to not see him like that. Let's go be together up in your place. And here's my question for all of you. After all of this work, do we feel like Adam is trading his one hold up for a new one, instead of moving on and living his life?

I think that Adam is such a evolved version of himself in these last two scenes with his [01:13:00] partner that I wouldn't say him holding up. At the expense of himself, I think that this is actually a selfless act of comforting somebody who was in a lot of pain. I think it's an act of love. I think it's something he just learned from his parents, to put someone else first.

Because when he was coming to his parents, it was as a stunted adult who really needed clarity on why he was in so much pain about certain areas of his past. When it comes to him showing up in that bed and holding him from behind, I think what we're seeing now is his position in the relationship being flipped, because I think Adam was the person in greater need of affection in the beginning of the relationship, now it's his turn to be the more affectionate and caring one, and that is the completion of his character arc. Do I wish they were both alive and that we didn't have this and I wouldn't say bummer, it's [01:14:00] not sad, it's melancholy. And when things are melancholy, they're sad in a beautiful way. What do you think, Ryan?

Yeah, it's interesting. Being the publicist on this film, I've obviously, first of all, I just realized I've been calling him fucking Henry this entire conversation. I'm so stupid. His name is Harry, not Henry.

Amazing

this idea like maybe five or six times, and I'm like fucking staring at the poster right now.

It's like so ridiculous. Anyways, Harry being a publicist on the movie, you know, you get people coming right out of theater and you get the raw, visceral reactions, and I, it's been one of the biggest points of contention on this film. I think it's very controversial about, certainly about whether people like it or not.

but also about what it all means. If you ask Andrew Haig and Andrew Scott, they're very clear that it is a happy ending. That it is, exactly what you said, Charlie, hit the nail on the head. That we are seeing a completely different Adam than we had from the beginning of the movie.

That his relationship has transformed from, One of being a person who's being taken care [01:15:00] of who who's who's a broken person to someone who can now do the caretaking and that had it not been for Harry transforming again from this drunk mess to, you know, now being the spirit, then we wouldn't have been able to see Adam jump right into that.

And also this idea that now he's They're, they're embracing each other, that they float up and be part, part of, be one of the many, many stars is, is a happy ending. He's gone through the, the, the difficulty of reuniting and letting go of his parents. He's gonna have to go through the difficulty of letting go of Harry, but now he has the tools.

To be in a real substantive relationship and because his relationship with Harry existed in the framework of him being in the world of his parents, it was never gonna be real. And now that all of that is left behind, he's starting a completely new new page in his life and really actually can start fresh as opposed to, you know, having all this baggage that being said, I do think in [01:16:00] terms of what was real in terms of the rules of the world, my interpretation, if you ask Andrew.

Hey, like, what does this mean? His answer will just be yes. The idea is that it's supposed to be vague enough that you're supposed to interpret it and apply it to your own life. In order to make your own inferences and make your own assumptions about what happened. He hopes that people come out of it hopeful.

Obviously that's not going to be the case with everybody, but the idea is that again, when I said earlier that everything's so grounded in reality and nothing is really sci fi or, or supernatural, the idea is you're just supposed to watch this and assume it's all happening and not try to figure out what are the rules of this world.

And that really distinguishes it from I mean, I saw Field of Dreams yesterday, and those movies, I think, are both very spiritual siblings to each other. This, you know, this longing for a relationship with a parent, this, this coming re reemergence as ghosts. And I think there's rules to that world.

But for [01:17:00] this one, I think if you really immerse yourself in the story, then those rules don't, don't matter.

It's a great read I love it

Yeah I want to point out the phenomenal use of music in the movie. Always on my mind of the the Pet Shop Boys version. Certainly the one that came out what in in the emerge in the 80s when the gay when the AIDS crisis was happening you know, it it's It's really, it's prominence within the gay community at that time.

Really really important. And I think really really good use. But also, you know, that Frankie Goes to Hollywood song The Power of Love is just such a beautiful, effective song. And him whispering into his ear, you know, like, what is it keep the vampires from your door, I'll be with you, all of that stuff is just so.

so important and poignant. Yeah, I just love the music in this movie.

the vibes were right the whole time Which, like, if you watch the movie, I think the only way to ex Cause usually when you say the vibes were right, you're [01:18:00] usually like, Oh yeah, like, the vibes were right, everyone was chill, and like, This is a different sort of the vibes were right.

And you have to watch it to understand what that statement means.

real quick, a couple more behind the scenes things I wanted to share. I don't know if you know, knew this, but something that really helped elevate the storytelling. The first thing is that the house. That his childhood home that it takes place is actual Andrew Haig's childhood home.

He looked up the address, knocked on the door, and said, Hey, can I film a movie here? And they let him. So that's actually the house he grew up in. So it really helped immerse them in that world and, and, and was really a. Very fascinating part of the storytelling. All of the photos were Hague's childhood photos, just with faces photoshopped onto them.

So it really helped, you know, I felt like this was a bit of therapy for him in getting his story told. And so that was a real big part of it. Another thing too is the the analog ness of the movie. The use of records, the use of photos the lack of, you know, cell phones. And the fact that it was shot on film.

really gave it that [01:19:00] old timey, that old timey look and you really felt was it was a really, really physical, you know, physical place. And I think that was a really good use too.

I think people do their best work when their heart is in it. And my heart was in this movie. I love this movie so, so much, and it's so easy to, to promote a movie that, that you love. Andrew, Scott, and Paul Maskell, and Jamie Bell, and Claire Foy are four of the most wonderful, generous people I've ever worked with in my entire life.

Andrew and Paul, specifically they are just so kind and wonderful. And it was really a dream come true to, to work with them on this project. and he, he's, I don't, I think, again, people know him from Fleabag, and and Sherlock, but I don't think people knew that he was capable of this type of work. And hopefully this is a springboard for him to really launch a career of that really utilizes his, his skill.

So I'm very excited to see what happens I just love how people have been responding to this movie. And I mean, Steve, I know Charlie and I have been talking about [01:20:00] how we responded to this movie from a queer perspective, but you being, I, I, it's interesting seeing how gay people respond, how parents respond.

I, being an only child, you know, with Adam being an only child, how do you, how did you respond in that capacity to this movie?

from, just like a baseline standpoint, More queer stories, please. Like, however you want to tell them. I've seen enough people that look like me and are attracted to the same things as me. So like, any other opportunities that we can have to tell these stories. So then people like me can go and sit through them and see that, A, these people have the same experiences that we do, but here's how all of these experiences are different from your experience, and maybe you didn't know about X, Y, or Z. So I think it's like, even for people like me, who have made a point of going out and educating myself in those areas, like, stories like this are incredibly important in that continued education, because that education isn't done. I have a close friend [01:21:00] that I lost when I was 19 from leukemia I spent a long time not dealing with it in a way that held me back from continuing my life in a meaningful way. And like, took a whole long time and there are good days and there are bad days still. I think, not necessarily from an only child perspective per se, cause I always did a good job of keeping people physically around. But in terms of a dealing with loss how like that malaise that I talked about being able to identify with those sunrises that I talked about or that you can talk about seeing are the ones that like you can experience when you move. are too afraid to sleep, but you're also, like, too afraid to do anything else. So I, I think I do get that. Obviously, all of the other finer points of, of the queer relationships and the relationships with your parents when you're trying to navigate just telling them who you are and existing in who you are. I am very lucky in the sense that I've never really had to do any of that stuff. So it's an important movie for [01:22:00] me in the sense that People like me need to see that repeatedly. I actually just heard I was just on a I'm a podcast producer by trade I was on a recording right before this and People actually should never get sick of hearing the message Because how often do you actually hear a message enough times to know it? So more movies like this more messages like this more stories like this

Yeah something Andrew said that really stuck with me early on in the campaign was he said from from specificity grows universality, so this story is very very specific in terms of who these people are What the relationships are, you know, I did not grow up in London. I did not grow up as an only child.

My parents did not die when I was a kid but you know so many pieces of it where I was able to connect with in my own life and my own and in My own way and you're seeing straight people connect this To this movie, you're seeing parents connect to this movie, people who have lost loved ones connect to this [01:23:00] movie.

And, and again, because of all of those because of, because it's been, it was so specific in its storytelling, it forces you to kind of look in your own life and see how you can connect to it. So I thought that was, that was really poignant. And another quote that I always go back to is something Kumail Nanjiani said at the Oscars a few years ago, where he goes, I spent my whole life watching straight white men on film and was forced to relate to it.

Now straight white men can watch me on film and it's now their turn to relate to it. I've spent my whole life doing it. It's not that hard. I think that, you know, that speaks volumes. I think that's really important and it's really exciting This book that he adapted, it was originally called Strangers by Taichi Yamada, but it was originally a heterosexual couple in Tokyo.

But he reformed it, of course, to match his own life. And I think, you know, that's the type of fiery exciting adaptation, adaptations that can go so much [01:24:00] further when they, when they become really intimate, personal stories. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to more of that type of storytelling.

And I'm so glad, again, one of my favorite things about this is how straight people are reacting to this movie. There's no barrier to entry just because. It's a gay couple and, and that's what I love about it.

So Ryan, if we do ratings for all of this you are allowed to be as biased as you'd like to, but typically in our reviews of Batman the Animated Series, we throw out how many batterings we would like to rate the episode. But for this one, we, or for our movies, we try and hook into something that is a little relevant to the movie itself.

So we're going to use records for this one. So how many records out of five? are you going to be rating all of us strangers?

it's an easy five out of five for me. Not just from my personal experience of it being one of the most important projects I think I've ever worked on and probably will ever work on, but again, it touched me in so many ways and I, I love every, I love every minute of it. So it's a five out of five for me.

For me, I am going to give [01:25:00] it a 4 out of 5 records. I will say that this film touched me very deeply because of the scenes with The mom and the dad and how symmetrical a lot of the scene choices and scene work was in this film.

I think that that's not just a testament to the writing of it, but the acting of it and how they work together. I think that more than the filmmaking of this, just the teamwork of the making of this film is so apparent that it bleeds through the screen and you can't help but just lean in because of the intimacy and the warmth that's created. My one reservation with giving it 4 instead of 5 is that I would have liked a little bit more of Harry. I think that I felt robbed of more time with him. But I wonder, I can't help but wonder if that was the point. Of feeling robbed of more time with him because we were so focused on the story with the parents [01:26:00] that I wished we would have gotten a scene with the level of catharsis. With Harry that we got with the two parents and the level of maybe how Harry saw the relationship and them coming to an understanding or a negotiation of how to work forward, you know I just felt robbed but the fact that I felt robbed is also a high compliment of the film because it left me wanting more And I just adored the shit out of that character

I'm coming in between you guys, which I decided I was going to say that regardless, despite of what you can make of it. And I'm giving this one four and a half records. This is actually a higher rating than I would have given it after just one watch through. So I'm actually super grateful that I watched it again. Especially if you walked out of this movie, not quite. I'm going to be totally honest for a second. I walked out of the movie being like, that was beautiful. I'm glad I saw it. I didn't totally get it. I'm like not, I'm walking away like not 100 percent grasping onto the message and maybe I'm too sad to function after watching this.

[01:27:00] And, and Aaron was like, well, you just, my partner Aaron and I saw it together. We actually saw it on her birthday. What a movie to want to see on your birthday, her choice. and she's in a sad movie sprint right now. And she was just like, well, yeah, you just, like, you never know what's going on with other, like, I, she, she took very much so, like, you never know what's happening with other people, like, be kind to everybody.

You just, like, you never know. You just absolutely never know what's going on with anybody at any time. And, and knowing her, that is a very, like, yes, that is what you took away from it. That doesn't surprise me. The second time around, Ryan very graciously gave us us. codes to watch the, the movie. Now as a reminder, you can watch it on Hulu, highly recommend that you jump onto Hulu and watch it.

We'll have that link in the show notes. I just, I gave myself space to interact with it, which I don't think I did. The first time that I watched it I took notes, obviously, to make this outline for the podcast. So that allowed me to kind of like process some thoughts and some feelings a little bit more.

So like, I highly encourage you that if you walked away from it the first time, not totally getting it, you don't even need to be in the right head space. Just allow yourself to engage with it [01:28:00] for however long the movie is. And I think you'll walk away from it. Finding different moments and different messages and stuff that you can really appreciate so high ratings from the three of us Ryan, I just wanted to Sincerely, thank you for spending so much time with us this afternoon and for talking through both your experience as a publicist on this Movie in general and through the finer points of the movie week.

It really comes through that you truly loved working on this film and that it touched you in a very meaningful way. So we, we really appreciate you sharing all of that so willingly with us. Before we go, can you just tell the people where they can find you on, on the socials and all that good stuff?

Absolutely I am at Aguire Ryan, A-G-Y-R-R-E-R-Y-A-N on Instagram and X reach out, come say hi. I can talk about this movie forever. So thank you guys so much for having me and giving me a chance to do that.

And currently available for hire, correct? Hire this

man to publicize your film and or

project. Let's

do. that.

Love

you're, if you're listening and you need a great [01:29:00] publicist, we got a guy for you. Studios. All the studio execs listening to Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff, get on it right now.

Haha.

Thanks guys.

thank you for being so lovely. This was such a great conversation. I knew it was gonna be good, but I didn't expect us to go to so many great, deep places, and that's a testament to not just you as a publicist, but you as a human being and what you bring to the table, so thank you.

Thanks guys.

Agree. I love being friends with both of you. I love doing this podcast and doing it with people that I can genuinely call friends. So for our special guest Ryan myself, Steve Selnick, and my good friend Charlie Peppers, thank you for watching all of us strangers with us. We will see you all on the next one.