Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with Michael Cerveris

at last my podcast is complete again he's not a pirate i can't get that laugh his voice is so weird at last yeah uh the one i wanted to find was alan rickman saying you gandered four times in a row oh you gandered you gandered i can't do it i can't do it right you know that part where he just keeps on saying gandered over and over again and that's like that's my new asmr i have forgotten what a sort of pleasurable physical response i have to hearing alan rickman say gandered five times yes sir you gandered well right is that what he's really talking about uh i uh you know alan rickman obviously uh we lost him too soon sure uh still a very very tragic loss to the artistic community i am happy that before uh he left us someone figured out that he needed to say gandered it was like what's the thing we haven't given him the chance to do on screen and rickman said i got two for you one say gandered five times in a row two uh play a cgi caterpillar right right we'll see you got it under the wire the thing i forgot is that uh this movie uh shares uh like five cast members with alice wonderland like roll them over he always does that though he's easier yes exactly i'm gonna be making an out right right that's his vibe i think this is when he's like doubled down on on london which david you probably don't understand this but tim burton there's no place like london lived in london for a while right i mean you understand because when you todd lives in london but you don't have any personal connection to this idea he was in a very very evocative real london you know very very uh very much like the real place yeah what what what what even the guest our guest is perplexed 1995 i moved to london i've seen productions of sweeney todd in london um yeah i mean look look at the i think like the royal opera house that's what they did the shock and awe on our guest face and it's genuine because no one can act this well no one can act this well uh we have a very exciting guest well you should introduce the show first actually it's called a blank check it's about filmography directed to a massive success early on their career give a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want sometimes those checks clear sometimes they ouch i can't do it it's close it's because i'm going to front of jack sparrow well he's got he's threatened that line too i mean he's yeah it's a broad he's got a touch of the sparrow in this performance sure this is just sort of like depressed jack sparrow right like jack sparrow if he was on a prison ship for 50 years right all drained out of him a johnny depp style wine spiral sure right yeah uh it's a main series on the films at timberton it's called poverty sister cast and today we have a very special guest yes we had teased when we were getting ready to the season we said we have booked a guest for this episode in a very loose way that we booked like six months in the next year uh uh who who has has won uh one of the major awards we want to give it a big so that people can speculate right there's one of the major awards of the performing arts right uh but in fact he's won two of the same one of the same one that's pretty cool zero of all four yeah exactly you have a double t right yeah you have a two uh who has played sony todd the demon barber fleas ring i have and when we were like who do we want to get on uh i i have this lightning bolt of light right petal pump and great she said she gave you a withering look she gave me a withering look she told me to trap my cell phone and then uh she reminded me that i know you and we've worked together yes tech with mikey we're doing that tech thing uh but i like this movie a lot i feel like david likes this movie a little less than i do i i love the show sweeney todd so i think when i saw this movie which is i hadn't seen it since i last saw it in theaters i was like wow i still love sweeney todd and it was violent and i sort of appreciated how violent it was those are my two big takeaways now i had never seen the show sure sure before seeing this movie so i like this movie a lot but it exists as its own object that's interesting right in that case it's probably almost great i mean it's 80 percent of one of the great musicals like one of the best shows of all time but i've also spent much of the last 10 years having people go like but you don't understand like getting so frustrated when i still haven't seen the show you didn't see anything i know yeah i know uh shamefully but so i felt like we need to have someone on who not just is like you know a fan of the show but has like literally lived in it to explain what this movie is or isn't doing correctly at different times because i have no understanding of any of that right i just like that it's uh i know i like i know i like but i also i have been in the other position a thousand times where i like covet this like beloved object and someone adapts it poorly and it drives me insane i spend like i go out into the streets and rip my clothes off you won't believe what they did the thundercats you're like how long uh was the uh production that you ran how long did it run um it ran for a year on broadway okay did you do it off broadway as well uh there was no it was in London though the same the same conception right uh directed by john doyle also there and with where you play the instrument yeah that was a big yeah it was an ensemble of nine instead of you know the 35 people who've done it originally um and the orchestra was just us so the orchestrations were all changed and um it was you know it was more of a kind of chamber piece which sometime always said was his original intention it's pretty intimate it's a lot of you know the songs are often just in a room like two people singing to each other like it's not i mean i have to imagine stage it is still mostly set within the shop uh yeah yeah i mean sort of one unit right of set it was how prince's idea to kind of you know open it up into this sort of uh you know allegory of of the industrial world grinding up people the original production this giant contraption i've never seen it but i've always heard about it it was the first broadway show i ever saw i saw in previews right before it opened so people didn't really know people were not right yeah and it was not you know super warmly received at the time you know but uh this is my biggest question for you i'm sorry i'm interrupting you to cover the fact that my time started ringing to make it look like this was all in control acting reacting baby um like it was critically fairly well liked right one award like it was a very polarizing it's not cherished the way it is now you know like it's so many people's favorite musical of all time sure maybe my favorite time right and sometimes career is a lot of that where it's a lot of like why don't we give this the respect it deserves i mean it wasn't the first musical i saw but like uh seeing the production of assassins that you were in and one of first 24 was like one of those for me where it was like a total light bulb like i didn't realize you could do this everything about it that was my experience too i mean i i'd grown up sort of being in community theater musicals and stuff like that and um but i never really thought that i would be in musicals because i thought the things that i'm interested in and you know what little talent i have is not really destined for for you know oklahoma or it was sort of because you're a very talented musician and a very talented actor but in terms of what you're interested in you were feeling like well i want to do musical comedy yeah i enjoy going to see it but i don't think i have much to offer and then i saw len carrieu in this production and and you know there was this fantastic terrifying actor in this really dark and funny you know piece and i thought well maybe there is a world where you know my tastes so this is like the thunderbolt moment anyway right yeah now was it a thing for you where then that became like oh god what if i ever got to do that like was it a notion of like i hope i get to play hamlet someday i hope i get to play you know it was you know in a broad broad way i mean at the time of course i identified with victor garber as Anthony like that was the role because you know age-wise that was what i was closer to so i sort of thought you know someday maybe i'll get to do that and when the chance to do this came around it was so much sooner than i ever expected it would be because i had this idea of sweeney being much older than me and because he was younger than i was when i actually did it but he looked so much older like their vision of the character was much more kind of haggard and and then bob gunton played him in the revival which is you know another sort of character actor guy like the warden from shawshank those are both guys who are wonderful actors and are handsome men but have old guy face and always right you know i'm sure they made them both out a ton you look at pictures of young bob gunton you're like right he always looked at bob gunton yeah he had to kind of grow into it so it's like he's maybe best fit to do in theater roles like that and they're sort of like uh agelessly cranky um so what you're talking about the opportunity comes around you're younger than you would that's sort of 2004 five somewhere in there yeah yeah 2004 i guess was assassin so this was 2005 2006 so right um yeah but you were happy to do it i was thrilled and and so so grateful that john doyle's uh take on it was so different from the original because i had like worn the vinyl lp out learning you know every nuance of it and i saw it seven times on broadway i saw i saw george turn and lancario do it and um i just kept going back through the you know through the couple years that it was on and so i knew it inside out like that version and it would have been i was already competing with my memory of those guys to begin with yeah so it was such a uh helpful thing to me that that john just wanted to go back to the beginning and explore and question everything about it i mean everybody involved in our production revered that original version wasn't like oh we're going to make our own or we're going to you know solve it or something right like it wasn't something broken yeah no but but you know we we realized even with things like the um in the worst pies number um we started staging the first day and we had like a rolling pin patty who's playing mrs lovitt had a rolling pin and a um and a dough and flour and stuff and we and as we went along it's like well she never actually talks about making pies she talks about the pies but it's Angela Lansbury's right yeah Angela Lansbury's version is so indelibly actually on our mind that we think well you gotta have a rolling pin and you gotta have flour but actually none of that is taking place in the lyric in the song and in the end we got rid of all of that and it just sort of reduced everything down to its bare essentials so you didn't take anything for granted you sort of re-examined every yeah every assumption that we reset i guess back to like yeah it wasn't pirelli played by a woman is that yes yeah yeah yeah who learned the accordion to be able to play the accordion i mean there's like fiendishly talented people all around me i would sit there some nights just like there were sections where i wasn't playing when i was just sort of sitting to the side and watching uh lormelina who's playing uh joanna sitting on on a chair on top of a casket on top of stall horses with her cello not just playing joanna and singing joanna but playing the cello part at the same time playing joanna and playing joanna exactly uh i guess you've maybe sort of just answered this through i mean talking about the process and doyle forcing you to sort of reset and you know i i have all my like mental gymnastics with the tick because it's like here's this thing i've grown up with this character i know but like this script that i'm playing is new right so i would just engage with it as like these lines have never been said by a guy before so i don't have to worry about it but if you've listened to a soundtrack a thousand times and you've seen it seven times on broadway and you have those specific like sort of choices in your head it's not just you saw someone did it well but it's like you know the leader you know their pitch you know everything yeah is there like do you put active work into uh making sure you do something different than them do you try to block out your mind no again i think it was because of the way john worked uh it it made it possible to kind of forget all of that pretty quickly and just and like you're saying like going back to the this new script even though the words were the same as has been said before and it all sounded different because the orchestrations were different we were playing you know the instruments um and it was also different because john works in this fascinating way everything's just kind of developed so organically and he has uh because of the the changes in the orchestration some of the the actors weren't playing the same instruments that the actors in london had played so that meant that they were free to do different things we were also sort of building the set through the show as well like we would we would move the ladders and we would move the coffins and um so the direction would be like we would start at the top of the show and just kind of stage just minute moment by moment uh as we went along and so john would say all right i need you to take this bucket full of blood and it needs to get to the top of that ladder um by the time joanna sings and that was sort of up to you whether you grabbed the bucket and ran up the ladder and then just sat up there and waited until joanna sang or whether you sort of hung out down at the bottom and just ran up at the last minute to be there in time for joanna or you know you could kind of do something in between and you could do that on a given night differently every time so everything you did was related to what everybody else on stage was doing which started to take your attention off yourself and what you were doing you just had like a bunch of tasks that's really interesting it was so great because you were because of the taking that production the actors are inheriting a lot of jobs that often by other people on stage where you have to stay kind of not mechanized but precisely timed because well that's connected to someone with a pulley or a guy with a tuba but then when you're the guy with a tuba right you can right you can sort of still like live in the moment in the way you're doing that's even more than usual i think it made for an amazing ensemble uh because we had to listen and feel and breathe with everybody else on stage and even to play to play the music we didn't have a conductor so we just had to listen to each other and often we're not facing the rest of the company so you had to be able to kind of like focus with the back of your head so it changed the way you acted the way you listened the way you did everything okay so this is why i'm fascinated you have to like act and sing but the great thing is that you're spending so much of your conscious time focusing on these detailed things that it actually lets you you're very natural and sing much better because you aren't you know doubting yourself every second it's that weird fucking thing of just like how much uh obstacles actually uh help obstacle or opportunity well right that's the thing but like all those like nightmare scenarios where you're just like oh fuck like this ran long and we're losing the light and we have like two minutes to get the scene done somehow that ends up being the best scene yeah and then the things where you're like give me all the time i need sure it's just like garbage sucked yeah yeah i like uh you know i can say this because we shot in a very weird way uh on season two so uh you will not be able to necessarily ascertain the shooting order uh but i was like you know i'm a very neurotic person and i was here's a little squishy i'm a very neurotic person and uh i like went into season two and i was like here's my new approach for season two i'm gonna be very calm oh right you're trying to put that out there in the universe yeah right right like you're hot david thing i was like david's gonna come hot this year hot david 2019 yeah 2018 came from the gym yeah it was the year okay nothing going on there but i was like i'm gonna be really calm and i'm just not gonna let myself get worked up and i'm gonna try to be relaxed and breathed and prepared and not let myself get back into corners or any of that and then inevitably uh the show started becoming crazy as it does oh and it's built around your being erotic so they must have really thrown everybody else maybe they weren't like this is too easy for him let's put the screws on him i remember the exact order we shot stuff in and when i watched the first five episodes and i saw the pieces that were filmed in those first 10 days i go wow i am not good here like i'm not good and in the days where i was losing my mind i was like i can't even act i'm so stressed out about all this stuff i'm fucking killing it like michael says you gotta be stressed out you're a stressed out guy but also that thing of just like if you have other things to worry about yeah it forces you to just make the sort of seat your pants decisions which if you are connected to the character material or any of that right if you have sort of you know the basic operating chops whatever then it's probably better performance than the one where you're just guessing yourself and thinking about it being meticulous so you live in a show for a year you live in this character for a year you're really like putting your bloodshot and tears into the performance on like multiple sides and he's making a movie like right around the same time you told me he came yeah he he and Helena came like early well like midway maybe through the run did you know that the movie was happening at that point like was that announced it was rumored I think I feel though like Sam Mendes Sam Mendes and it was like ostensibly this was the Sam Mendes movie that Tim Burton took over it was rumored to have the rights around Logan to have the script his producers were on board and then obviously he made it his own thing but it was that movie so I think it was like right around the time that it was becoming apparent that Sam wasn't going to do it that they showed up kind of unannounced and we didn't know for sure that the movie was happening but the fact that they were there seemed to kind of hint that maybe they were at least thinking about it and they didn't come backstage or anything but you know they were unmissable out in the audience you think they're like a vibe maybe it was spotlight on them I don't know and then a little while later actually I think the rumor was that Johnny Depp was coming with them and he wasn't there with them but then because that must have looked like an even cleaner equation do they tell you someone famous is coming to the performance they know and some actors don't ever want I like to know you don't want to just look and say exactly so I'll always ask if there's anybody and half the time I have no idea I think we knew but when Johnny Depp did come then a little while later totally unannounced I didn't tell anybody and somehow escaped being noticed on the way in and through the whole show well he was hiding under 16 hats and scarves yeah I think so but he would think that somebody might notice that I hear bracelets clanking but he apparently came around to the stage door and said do you think do you think do you think if I came back and said hi no I think that would be okay and then word spread like wildfire backstage I mean it's also the height of it like Pirates of the Caribbean is very recent re-watching this remembering because it's kind of bizarre that he got an Oscar nomination for this not just because of the performance he won a Golden Globe but this movie didn't have much other success with the Academy but then I had to remember this was his peak this was him doing the victory lap after 20 years of being this underground icon of now he's the biggest movie star and everyone was just so on board with him so did you meet him yeah he came back and all the girls in the company all ran back up to put extra makeup on to come back down to call your makeup off it took a while and I think he went over to see Patty first we had dressing rooms on opposite sides so it was hard to see everybody at once so he went over Lawrence Fishburne had come to see the show that night and I had done an episode of The Equalizer with him so he came back to say hi and Adam Duritz from County Crows was there that night who was also a friend of mine so yes there's a photograph of the three of us in my dressing room together or the four of us so yeah so everybody ended up in my dressing and we were hanging out for a while but at this point did you know that he was playing a part or was it still it was still and I asked him after the other guys left he hung out and for a while I had my guitar in there because I used to practice and stuff between shows and so we talked for a long time about music and stuff and I said so are you doing the movie do you know and he said well after watching he was really very nice I put myself on tape for Tim he hasn't come back to me I don't know his casting was announced I'm finding it right in 2007 mid 2007 so that's when it became formal yeah it wasn't I guess it hadn't been announced very often if there is a revival of a show that is so successful and then a new movie adaptation happens it's like well either they're going to carry over some of the cast or they're going to take their inspiration I feel like no I feel like more often you're right they cast big movie stars who don't have musical printing there's either the producer's thing where they're like let's just the original cast of the hit show we'll hire the director of the stage show which is totally different skills and we'll just do as close to it as possible and that usually doesn't work there's some weird lifeless politics or this approach which is like let's just cast the most famous people we can think of and hire a big shot director I guess I was leading there under false pretence but that's the thing the second he comes on you're like well it's going to be Johnny Depp and Hanban Carter I know what he's going to do with the material now at this point in time where do you stand on Tim Burton and where do you stand on the idea of him doing it when you're starting to put this together I thought Sam Mendes was an exciting great idea but then when I heard that he wasn't doing it I've loved Tim Burton's movies so I thought well that makes a lot of sense and I can actually see Johnny Depp and I know he does sing he's been in bands but I think he took a lot of voice lessons because it's a whole different but yeah so I thought in the world of big box office movie stars and directors this is actually one of the better choices you could make to put this particular show out there I did sort of feel like maybe it's a little too obvious a choice like a little too easy these are sort of his only two movies that are aggressively violent and kind of scary like very much a hard R the thing I find really interesting about this movie now in the context of we've been watching 20 films of his he's the one who picked Tim Burton and I have certain regrets I don't regret doing this but I'm so tired the thing that stands out to me about this movie is so often he's making films from this sort of outsider perspective I'm a weirdo I don't understand this world I don't understand how other people behave sometimes those people are villainous sometimes those people are well intentioned but the movies are all about that sort of feeling of alienation this is a misanthropic movie this is a movie about how everyone's terrible I'm not saying he brought that to it it is unlike his other films in that way the good characters are the weirdos in this movie and that's inherent to the material but it's interesting because I did have that reaction never having seen Sweeney Todd but growing up with theater kids who were like you haven't seen Sweeney Todd you love it it's like the musical is fucking dark that's not you're making front of Sweeney Todd that's not you're making front of a 14 year old but I remember reading that announcement going like oh I guess that makes sense I didn't feel excited by it because it felt so on the nose I wasn't dreading it I was more excited than hearing he's going to do Dumbo what does he have to say a dark Dumbo but you read that he loved the show he had a lightning strike moment like you did where he was in college and it was the first musical he ever liked and he saw it five times and you're like I guess this is one of those things and he claims that he wrote letters to Sondheim when he was a student and was like would you ever let anyone make a movie which he probably didn't read those letters an interesting thing about him Sondheim does or at least used to always read the letters and write back I remember when I was in college people saying you can write to him and he will send you a typewritten letter back I didn't do it then but I saw a friend's letters and then subsequently I had done it before I ever met him and he did I wonder if today the same rules apply with texting Sondheim 1-800? CBS but yes you understand what things you're connected to in the material but yes he usually is I'm the sensitive person who's wronged by society around me I don't know how to function and this is one of those weird morally dubious things where everyone is kind of bad in their own ways the general take on it is just like god fucking people we all suck right that kind of thing I feel like that was sort of style like when Gary was with sort of curtain hair and also Lancaster right right there's a shock of white that's true and as you were talking about the staging the pie scene the staging is much more like the Angela Lindbergh where she's got a rolling pin she's got pies she's got flour she's sort of banging it all around it does feel like the original version is the one that's in his head yeah right and his main work he's doing is and this is what I think desaturating it desaturating the fuck out of it severely like there's that scene where during the Pirelli scene when they start speaking out from the crowd and I go like this is a classic sort of Tim Burton-y moment of here you have this big crowd scene and two people in it are so incredibly stylized that even in this wide shot they're going to stand out without the need for like a special you know on them and the movie is so desaturated that everyone looks as pale as they do despite the fact that you know that they're wearing two tons of like white clown makeup and like dark eyes like the film is so colorless for that one sequence I see right David yes got an intentional air about you today well I'm more intentional about what I wear day to day oh I'm sure you can get those from anywhere right oh quince oh he's showing tag he's showing tag on me um it's been my go-to because very clean fits very nice fabrics yeah they don't feel like cheap fabrics I hate dirty fits I hate cheap fabrics I am wearing you know if the weather's getting warmer I really rely on my quince polo shirts for the kind of like exactly like a formal enough piece of clothing that I can go to the office but it's comfy yes because we do have a dress code here at the moment so they got those 100% pima cotton fees with a softness they got a feel totally enjoy and for the last time David is touching the fabric pants hit that same balance relaxing comfortable I gotta tell you I recently had a birthday and my in-laws sent me a quince gift card because they know I like quince so much and I am itching to spend this that's a really strong endorsement that's an endorsement right yes everything at quince is priced 58% less they work with those ethical factories they cut out the middleman getting premium materials without the markup I've got this cashmere zip hey David is showing me oh nice I like that sweater very nice I wear it all the time it's got pockets so refresh your everyday with the luxury you actually use head to quince.com slash check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now built in Canada too that's quince.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash check David yes you look like a man who doesn't know that fast growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers I had no idea yeah well David they have all the plants yard or home needs including fruit trees privacy trees flowering trees shrubs and house plants my home is littered with all of these and they're all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy it's like your local nursery but anywhere you live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else and whatever you're looking for fast growing trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate space and lifestyle for me all inclusive I'll take any kind of tree you've got Griffin I know you're you know a green thumb yeah oh my god I got 10 green fingers yeah I think you're gonna agree with me on this then you know you go to a garden center and you just find it so overwhelming and inconvenient you took the personal statement out of my mouth Ben that is how I feel guaranteed to be healthy and to thrive but let me guess when the trees arrive it takes a really long time for them to grow they have their life and thrive guarantee it promises your plants are happy and healthy no green thumb required just quality plants you can count on plus get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape choose right plants learn how to care for them every step of the way can you imagine if Wally had a promo code for fast growing trees that movie wouldn't install it never would even exist right now they have great deals on spring planting essentials up to half off and select plants and listeners of our show get 20% off their first purchased when using the code check at checkout that's an additional 20% off better plants it's an interesting choice to like make the entire thing look so goddamn bleak sure I mean it's a choice I don't know I mean also these sort of CGI London these sorts of like weird shots where it's like you know zipping around this fake Fleet Street when it started I was like oh wait fuck do I hate this movie like we opened like the CGI boat on the CGI rivers and the super fast like I was just like I don't what alright so before you said you do like Tim Burton before we get on to the plot so you were so I was I was all on board and like really eager to see it and eager to love it and you were telling me that you saw it at the Siegfeld yeah they had a big screening right before the opening weekend it was like you know on a Wednesday before something at the Siegfeld and it was you know their invitations to all the Broadway cast and lots of people and Sacha Baron Cohen was there and Alan Rickman was there and Sondheim was there John Logan was there I don't think Tim Burton wasn't there I don't believe and Johnny Depp wasn't there but you know it was a it was a celeb-y sort of New York premiere kind of thing and in the perfect place to see it too and your reaction are you watching the film because I feel like there was a cloud forming in a monthly release where I feel like all the purists were like oh have you heard they like cut this out they're doing this instead like there was a lot of skepticism from Sweeney purists I was not I was trying not to give in to any of that because there had been you know a different version of that same thing in anticipation of our because you know we were doing a very faithful to you know to what Sondheim had written and he was there with us and he was very much on our side but there were plenty of people who had heard you know there was no horns and so I knew what that was like so I wasn't going to give that a lot of weight the thing that worried me the most was seeing trailers with no singing it and I thought why are they trying to sell this like it's not a musical like it's a horror period piece that worried me more than anything else the trailer has no singing at all except there's that one yeah that's it which I guess people were just like oh I guess he that's like a weird Tim Burton first one line they have the that leading into the only singing part in the trailer and this was a movie where I remember Deadline writing the story about it that it's opening day was big and then it dropped like a stone and they were like people are walking out 10 minutes and demanding their money back because they didn't know it was a musical like they had sort of mostly sold it as like a slasher they sold it like very strange time to release a movie like this but this became like oh this is like for the people who were like I don't want to see a fucking Christmas family movie I'm going to see that like Tim Burton horror film it's like Tim Burton Saw and then like the opening is him on a pirate ship singing and people were like what the fuck is it you can't get around it it's almost sung fruit you know it's nice singing and so you're going to start singing right away and yeah you better be in on it or not but like it says people were literally like filing complaints to like not the FTC but like the advertising like the film had been falsely advertised so they went to see it under false pretenses well I mean I don't disagree entirely and I think it was the same choice yeah I think it was really not smart no no I think it caused them a lot of damage and especially when it's like you have the people who love the original work so skeptical about this and then you're advertising a way to try to trick the people who aren't going to like it into seeing it it like kind of feels like they were lining themselves up to get everyone angry but this is like the kind of musical for people who don't like music so why wouldn't you like put that Right, you should own this as the musical for people who don't like musicals rather than being like, it's not a musical, come on in, just sit down, please sit down. I did this movie The Mexican with Brad Pitt and Julie Robinson. You're a Mexican?

Yeah, I played it. I haven't seen it since I was 15 years old, which I saw it on my 15-year-old birthday party. But anyway, sorry, carry on. People are constantly campaigning for us to cover Gore for Vince Bionna.

Oh, you should, you definitely should. Yeah, right, it's an earlier gore. Early gore, the weird magic gun with the heart. Yeah, you're in the Mexican.

And it was, like, when we shot it, it was this kind of quirky... Oh, I know, you're going to rest. And they're barely in it together. And they were not in it together, actually.

And the poster was them canoodling. Yeah, and the trailer was the same thing. So similarly, they kind of sold it as this romantic comedy that it wasn't. And the people who would have been interested in what it actually was didn't think it was for them.

And the people who it was sold to came and it wasn't that. So it's the same thing. It's another 15-year-old birthday party. We all had a great time.

I was going to say, I remember that movie coming out. It opened pretty well and then dropped so fucking hard. I wasn't interested in seeing it because I was like, I don't care about seeing Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, like rom-coms. But it's got, like, Gandolfini as a gay man.

I saw it on a plane six months later. I was like, this one's fucking rules. Why didn't they tell me it was this? And in both cases, it's like you've got Johnny Depp and somebody telling you about Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.

What are you afraid of? These are still commercial elements. It's like it's sort of a stylish crime comedy with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. It's as strong a sell as it's a rom-com with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.

And the same thing, like, you want to see Johnny Depp sing? Here's a really bloody musical. It's an interesting pitch for people who don't like a musical. Was the Mexican your connection to Fringe?

I'm putting this together in my head. It was the same writer. It was. It wasn't direct.

It wasn't direct. It was like years and years in between. But yeah, there's an interesting lining up of things. So what have you thought about the Mexican in a while?

It was a good movie. Maybe by this point in time. Yeah, we'll be talking about it. Right, exactly.

But sort of, what is your experience? We'll go into the plot of the film and you'll be able to elucidate what it's doing wrong or where it's shifting from what you would have done or any of that. Not that I'm teaming you up to just give notes on Johnny Depp's performance or anything. But what is your sort of experience while watching a movie?

Is it like a sinking sort of stomach thing? Yeah, kind of. I don't think I knew that they had taken the ballot out. Because Burnett said in interviews beforehand, like, we couldn't really fit it in.

They had cast people to play the chorus. Christopher Lee among them. Really? Anthony Head, that's why he's in the movie.

Right, right. And then, I guess, I think it was partly time and partly they had some sort of instruction in filming because Johnny Depp's daughter was sick or something. Yeah, yeah. And so it's what they cut.

Now you're cutting one of the most famous numbers in Broadway history. You're cutting the signature song of the show. And yeah, the thing that starts it off. Yeah.

And here are two other crazy things. One is he cast five actors to play the ghost chorus. Right, right. They're all gentlemen ghosts.

And so they announce that Christopher Lee and Anthony Head to play gentlemen ghosts. And all the sweet Todd fans are like, there are no gentlemen ghosts. What are you talking about? And then in interviews...

He's a gentleman ghost. Right, sort of like... And he's a guy where this has come up a lot. He's not super articulate.

He's kind of like sort of mumbly when he does interviews and everything. And then people who work with him are like, he really knows what he wants, but he's not good at expressing it. So in interviews, when people ask him what he's cutting out, he would just sort of be like, I don't know, it just feels weird to have with the townspeople singing stuff. Which I can send off red alerts for everyone.

Like, does this guy not get the show? So then they're cutting the gentleman ghosts. And it wasn't clear at the time, but it was Johnny Depp's daughter had gotten sick. They shut down filming for four weeks.

And it had to sort of restructure and go like, we've already cut a bunch in the adaptation at the script stage. Now we have to cut even more because we have to finish the movie. We have a release date to hit. Johnny Depp's probably got three more Pirates movies lined up that he has to go on to.

So it is like this... It's a very short movie considering... It's much shorter than the show. Yeah.

Right? It's less than two hours long. I feel like the show is... It's just under two hours.

Yeah. Maybe the show isn't much longer. No, I don't think so. The ballad is what's been cut and that's probably 10 minutes, right?

Yeah, and when I was going back to look at it again in anticipation of getting together today, because I haven't seen it since I saw it in the movie theater, and I was thinking about, you know, was it for time? Because I didn't know any of the story about his daughter being sick or anything, so I didn't really know why that was cut, and I thought it was just time, but there's so much air in it. Yeah. That if, you know, if that was the concern, and for me, one of the problems in the film is the pacing to begin with.

It's just like, it's... Rapid heading. Yeah. We just sort of go from scene to scene without a lot of energy to it.

And then the end moves really fast. Yeah, sure. Like, the last 10 minutes are like a bullet train, and then you're like, wait, it's over? And that's true of the show also.

I just think when the pacing is that, it becomes more jarring. It's not that there's a problem with all the sort of inciting incidents at the same time. It's that it's just like, get whiplash, right? Because then when it starts speeding up, you're like, oh, there's going to be 30 minutes of them maintaining this pace, and instead it's like 10.

Yeah. And there were just lots of places where, sometimes there were places where the ballad, you know, a reprise of the ballad would have been, that's just a montage thing anyway, like when he's building the chair for the first time. It's like, you could have that text show in there and do two things at once instead of just watching him put gears on. Right.

And I think you need the staginess of people singing to relax the audience about the staginess. It's still stagy. The movie is stagy. Like, it's mostly in two different rooms, you know, like, and that would just heighten the unreality a little more and, like, make it more fun.

And it's a great song. Well, and it is, like, right. It's not a pretty smart guy, sure. He didn't write that song by mistake.

He knows you have to sort of, like, lure the audience into this world, especially since it's such a specific tonal thing. It's so different than most musicals. And as I said, I love this movie, but that opening still fucking almost turned me off of it. I've seen the thing three or four times now.

You know, where I'm just like, what the fuck is this? And it's, like, hard to imagine an opening that is so perfect and alienating almost every single symphony, you know, LSO is playing it. And Paul Giamignani, who is sometimes musical director, you know, for years, is fantastic. And so the orchestra sounds amazing.

It's so exciting. And then, you know, and then nothing is done with it. And we're on a boat. And then we're on a boat.

And you're ready. There's one moment where you go, like, he starts singing on the boat. And a part of the audience goes, they're singing the wrong song. What is this?

They fucked up. A part of the audience is like, they're singing a song? What is this? And even for me, I'm just like, this is dropping you in fast.

And I can't get the rhythm of this thing. I remember kind of liking it just because you've got, you know, that the young hero is singing and then Depp sort of slicks up and he's like, meh. You know, it's fine. And he's doing, like, Grand Guignol.

I mean, I forgot how sort of posey this performance is. And I'm not saying it's a postury performance. But he's really going for just kind of, like, pure iconography. Like, it's like, it's 20% nose acting.

Like, it's a lot of nose snarling. You know, but it's a lot of, like, stillness in dramatic poses. He's letting the wig do a lot of the work for him. I forgot how severe that Robert Kardashian striped in his hair is.

Robert Kardashian was a striped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You mean David Schroger. Yeah, but for me, this movie starts working when Helena Bonham Carter comes in.

Because I think she is super keyed into the white sort of zone. I love Helena Bonham Carter. She's a great actress. She's nothing I love.

Exactly. She's a fine singer. I mean, the singing in this is sort of fine. Like, I don't know how, you know.

He had actors who can kind of fake their way through the songs as opposed to musical theater. Yeah, there are a couple of, like, Laura Michelle Kelly who plays a bad woman. Sure. She's amazing.

And the woman who plays Joanna also, I think, came from the West End. I think that's probably right. Yeah, let's find out. I forgot about her.

She was sort of, yeah, like a young discovery type. Jane Wisner. Wisner, yes. She's Irish.

She's been in a youth production of West Side Story, and she was discovered from that. More like West End Story. Yeah, you know, she's mostly a stage actress. Helena, I feel like at this point, she's a great actress.

I've been around long before Tim Burton just, quote unquote, trying to cover her. She's stuck in a bit of a Tim Burton trap, though. This is the thing. It's like, after Planet of the Age, she pops up in every Burton movie, and people would sort of go, oh, you know, because, you know, he'll always cast her.

And she's also not doing... She's always good in them. She gets tagged unfairly with this sort of nepotistic, you know, like, and then she gets this role, which is a huge role. Huge.

Because she's played more supporting roles in all the other films. Right, usually she's... Yeah. And again, I feel like people sort of roll their eyes.

Yeah. But she's pretty good. I think she's pretty great in this. I do.

I mean, I understand you can throw all the complaints at the singing, but I think she's... The thing he's trying to do with this movie is he's sort of trying to find a midway point between The Sondheim Show and the sort of horror movies that he grew up on. Right. And there's a company, I forget the name, but it was like a company that was sub-Hammer horror.

Sub-Hammer? Oh, yeah, you mean like the Buckets of Blood company. Called Alkeon or something like that? Yes.

I do know what you're talking about. He said he and John Logan bonded over watching those movies, that it was like this sort of like D-grade images. They were like, we want to make it. Very good.

Yes, exactly. Like The House of the Drip Lobby, those sorts of things. So he's like, I kind of half want to make the musical, and I half want to make this sort of very straight-faced sort of like gothic horror grander old film, which is like a weird balance to do. And I think she's best tapped into the sort of, not the tongue-in-cheekness of it, but the humor of it.

I mean, that is sort of like just allowing other characters to get laughs off of him in contrast because he's so stuck in his own like universe the whole film. Like it's all him staring off into the distance. Yeah, I remember thinking at the time, and thinking again when I saw it recently, that sometimes it's not good to work with the same people all the time, especially somebody that you are on such a wavelength with, because maybe they don't push you the way you need. I feel like he has, Depp has a much better performance in him.

Especially at this point in time. This is more him doing, as you said, what we might expect of him. He's a charismatic actor. But him in the Sam Mendes version would have probably resulted in a more engaging performance.

I mean, this is really when they start to get stuck in like a cul-de-sac, the three of them of like HBC, Burton, and Depp, where also there's like tempered excitement every time they're announced to be doing a movie together because I know what it's going to be. And this one also feels like the apex of, they're literally just becoming fetish objects for him. Like he's found these two people with both upside down seer drop cases. He's very angular, sort of mothic, beautiful people.

His wife and his best friends. And he just keeps on styling them more and more to look like his dreams. And I do have that like uncomfortable kind of thing watching it where it's just like, it feels like he has too much control. What we were talking about before of like the limitations and the obstacles and whatever.

Like he has now like had his, the two people he's closest to in his life are both bankable. So he can make any movie he wants with the two of them, make them look exactly how he wants. He's got his regular creative collaborators and people just back off. And it just feels like there's not necessarily enough tension that he had the early parts of his career.

Because I was like, yeah, do the Tim Burton thing. Just do it. Well, Sweeney is a character and you have played Sweeney Todd. He could be one dimensional.

Like he's this sort of Terminator-esque. He's so ruined. Like, you know, and he's so hell bent on revenge. He's sort of this like ghoul.

He sort of died already. And he's like kind of a reanimator of revenge. I remember in your production, I mean, well, he rises out of a grave. It was sort of the classic introduction of Sweeney Todd.

But yeah, do you think that's a limiting thing? Like that you could just sort of look at this character and be like, yeah, he's just a scary ghoul man. I think it's just a mistake when people think that that's what it is and try to play it that way. Obviously, it's never going to be interesting if it's just one dimensional.

I mean, I think, again, because our production was so unusual, it was easy to go back to the script as though, you know, like if you're doing Hamlet, you've got to look at it. People have been doing it for 400 years, but you have to pretend, you know, well, I'm the first person to ever read this. What do I know from the script? And, you know, you get details like this is a guy who's been away for 12 years.

This is a guy who's still a father and a husband. And my thought was if he could have come back and found his wife and daughter immediately, which is for all he knows when he gets there. And then he'll, you know, he'll take them and they'll escape to the north of England and have a happy life. And it's actually the villain of the piece really is Mrs.

Lovett, who recognizes who he is. She's the one who's gotten rid of his wife and daughter, essentially. And then, you know, sees an opportunity to have an alliance and have this man that she always was sort of fascinated by to begin with. And she channels and, you know, she's the lady M of the story.

So I think there's a lot of room. And I think Johnny Depp does this or, you know, gestures towards it with, you know, a vulnerability and a broken side, in addition to the deep, deep wells of vengeance. But I would say, you know, half in Depp's performance, half in the stylization of Depp. From the moment he steps forward and starts singing on a boat, you're like, this guy's gone.

Like, there's no coming back for this dude. And that is a thing I think the movie kind of botches, which is just like, there is no possible happy scenario for this guy the way they played him in this film. It doesn't feel like if he met his wife, he would just be like, let me scrub this. I freak out now.

I can smile again. Like, it's the difference between, like, playing Dracula, who is still, like, a romantic character with emotion and empathy, even though he is villainous, versus playing this character as a theatrical zombie, which is kind of what Burton and Depp have decided to do. And he's sort of just like a mythic monster at this point. I mean, was that kind of like, not to force you to sort of spill your secrets if they are things you covet, the fundamental spine of the character is that?

Well, I think for me it was that he's a father, you know, and that as deeply as he goes into his, you know, his tragic flaw is his need for vengeance and retribution that makes him oblivious to what is literally in front of his face at times. So, you know, I think he has to remain a human, a recognizable human being to us so that the monstrosity can be even more disturbing because it's like, wow, I guess if I felt that deeply maligned and that my life was taken away from me, I might actually, you know, have that kind of revenge fantasy myself. And this movie certainly has none of that tension. Not really, it's more like, when are we going to get to, you know, the killing.

But the thing is, I feel like his best two scenes are the Pirelli scene, because he gets to be a little fun, right? He gets to have a little more levity, a little more sort of like pride in his skill. And then Epiphany, which is the one time that like, they kind of like, which is the, you know, kind of sweet, they get a little like charisma, like he's at least like alive and the staging of that is alive with him like walking around and it feels more unreal, it's not just him in a chair or next to a chair. Because some of this movie feels like a fish out of water comedy, like it's like Thor or something where the joke is like, why is this guy so filtered?

Sure, he just starts standing there being weird, right? And he spends so much of the movie not making eye contact with people. I mean, it's like he's in his own show in his head, which is a choice. And that can work, I think, but it has to be supported and not left to just kind of sit there by the, you know, by the direction.

Right, but you know, when he's like peering at Joanna through the window, you're just like, this guy is still just like gone. Like he's in a sunken place. There's no rescuing him. The biggest place I feel like they missed that opportunity is in A Little Priest, which is one of the most fun numbers in the whole show.

It's so nastily funny, yeah. Yeah, and it's so brilliantly placed in the order phase right after Epiphany. So right when you've had this like bile-filled, like horrific thing, you know. I want you to play this.

Yeah, and then immediately Mrs. Lovitz is like, you know, hmm, she's in a voice. And so it should be so great. It's so great, and it just lands like a lead balloon in the movie.

He's very lead in that one. He really doesn't do anything. And they also, I think, make a mistake of, it's one of those, oh, okay, some movies are going to open it up. So when they...

talk about each of the kinds of pies you know they look out at the window and see the kind of people and the point is not like that it's the people it's the pie like in the show right it's all like hand mimed and and they're always talking about pies so it's a game between the two of them instead it's so literal it's so literal when he says when he says is that squire on the fire and they have a guy through the window a squire standing in front of the fire it's like oh come on yeah and and it doesn't it doesn't make it delightful and wicked and fun the way you know it can be without losing any of the you know actually give you more of an opportunity to go even deeper in the dark stuff because you've had some you know playtime so well also i mean this is not a dancey musical no but he even more so is trying to create more movement through his edits and the juxtaposition of images that he is through right because there is some sort of like pointed choreography of people how they rotate around each other in the room there's some sort of like theatrical dramatic uh choreography that that is effective yeah but a lot of it is like that and that's an example of one where it's just like you're not gaining anything by doing this yeah i love like just in the pirelli sequence the reveal you start with sasha baron cohen sharpening the blade and you cut to the reverse angle and you see his knuckles there's stuff like that's like perfect burton like delayed graphication like that's where i see the animator stuff coming up he really understands like the power of like showing you an image at just the right time sure well the whole by the sea thing it's like one of the most successful parts of the whole movie i think and that's sort of playing off this concept of like sweeney's just in another fucking show yeah yeah straight through to him he's just like an edward gory cartoon but it's funny if he's sitting there all dressed up in the sea clothing and like sort of looking sulky but that's a musical number that's all about editing but it works you've got an interesting way to make it cinematic yeah um the first time she she slides over the pie is like a very well-timed edit i mean there's like a gulf between when he's on to something yeah about not how to open the show up blankies quick question and be honest when was the last time you actually thought about how much fiber you were eating not protein not calories fiber in the u.s fewer than one in ten adults hit their daily recommended intake fiber isn't a bonus nutrient it's foundational that's where he will comes in on those days when i got a rush to the studio to tape an episode and i need a quick and healthy meal i reach for one bottle for one scoop that gives me everything a real meal is supposed to give you the black edition ready to drink has 35 grams of protein 7 grams of fiber 27 essential vitamins and minerals no artificial sweeteners it's gluten-free and it's under five bucks or let's say on the days that i want something a little more customizable i use the black edition powder i can add it to whatever and get 40 grams of protein same complete nutrition just a different vibe the rtd and powder duo has become my insurance policy against chaotic days and makes staying consistent so easy limited time offer get fuel today with our exclusive offer of 15 off online with our code check at fuel.com slash check new customers only thanks fuel for partnering and supporting our show like at work in this medium yeah versus when he's just opening things up or literalizing things for the sake of i don't know it can't just be them in a room right right which i feel like it's them in a room right you kind of own that yeah well and that's that's two two you know problems with those two things one the rooms are so huge cherry cavern is odd and empty like it doesn't feel like you know the london no it should be like cramped and smoggy and gross person you know exactly but yeah so it's impossible i remember reading newspaper stories about sweeney sims oh but so you've got these like huge cavernous rooms with just like people and nothing else in them so you're more aware of any kind of staging moving around stuff or not doing it and you also like just don't have a lot of stuff around and then when you go into the streets of london teaming with life at this time and they're like empty most like four people in petticoats yeah that's it it's you know it's just that's and the the asylum scene is one of the you know more disturbing environments because it's chock full of like freaky scary people and shows and stuff yeah i think the movie gets so much better in the back i agree when it's being it's embracing the imagination yeah right it takes yeah i mean the movie doesn't have much of a pulse until blood starts but there's a clear like shift of like you know the way the musicals it's color like the movie demands color and so that is the one thing that's good about the black it's very very intentional of course it makes the first hour a little tricky to get into yeah and the other thing is in the same way that like you know musicals are uh the characters are at a point where the only way to express themselves is to break into song the blood feels like it's serving a similar purpose in this like he's using the blood as sort of cathartic opening of everything that's so repressed the problem is you are setting up and i like this one you are setting up a film where it's like okay so the first hour it's gonna be monochromatic and no one has any emotions because i'm leaving it all it's all wind up for the second hour where it's a ton of blood yeah sure and that's i think it could have worked just as it is if you really felt underneath that surface you know depth surface uh deadness there was this this raging fire inside which you just don't and that's where i think you know he that's the fate of the hell and the zombie thing is just like you know i go to that specific analogy because it just feels like he's like driven by like brains like there's not a thought process he's just moving towards an end goal without any sort of strategy as opposed to alan rickman who i mean is just a brilliant actor and a great stage actor and you know and also not that i know a particular musical theater actor but he knows how to use language and fill you know your text with so much nuance and complicated i mean he's a much more torn you know driven troubled questioning character than sweeney todd is right and i think he's also owning that this is a filmed musical and he knows that he can do slightly more introspective work because the camera's like right you know two feet away from him and then even as another parallel like timothy spall is going big with his performance timothy spall's one of those guys where he i've seen him get the most subtle yeah but right you could you can sort of wind him up and he's like let me go you can let him go and especially like harry potty right right yes uh but he is tapped into the central sort of vanity of this character that's driving him where even though it's very cartoonish it's rooted in a real thing and you see that you see him playing the conflicting emotions yeah there's a real need it's just like eyes on the front like yeah yeah yeah in a way that is sort of lacking any nuance yeah i mean it's well performed but it's like and i just you know i just i'm certain that there's there's more there's more there's a very good actor he is uh and this is sort of his last sort of quote unquote good performance i'm trying to think about his filmography like after this oh he makes well right after this he makes public enemies right which he's pretty good and he's sort of being used as a marquee idol there i mean i think his last good performance is rango yeah and then he's in alison wonderland in the tours and he's in rango this is when we start moving into a really bad yeah and then he does another pirates he does dark shadows he has a lone ranger he does another alice he does mordecai he does another alice right and yeah um but certainly i don't think this i do think he is somewhat trying to stretch himself that's why he got but i i agree that he's a little lifeless i wonder too if if any of it has to do with so much of your performance having to be through singing and you know and maybe not feeling you know entirely confident even though he is a singer has a you know very nice voice yes it's different you know it's different being a pop singer a rock singer and and a you know a storytelling theatrical singer and i feel like there's a problem i think generally in musicals on stage too that often when people open their mouths to sing they kind of stop doing it they're just singing and i understand why and it's you know you have a lot to think about when you're singing but it almost i would always rather hear somebody who's not hitting every night every note beautifully but is really telling me the story and really using the text to like convey the character and everything else i do feel a little uh self-consciousness maybe at what he perceives as his lack of experience where's the hell no that doesn't happen she's sort of just having fun yeah but also even like this is not a musical where they did the songs live you know that's another thing i think is a big mistake yeah and i see him like there are moments especially some of the bigger sort of more operatic songs where his performance sort of you know they still sing on set because you have to match the sort of the breathing and all of that but i i sense in his physical performance less confidence than what is on the track you probably have more time to like hone and then you i feel at moments distinctly like he looks not embarrassed to be singing but embarrassed that he maybe isn't as experienced maybe it's not that so much it's like trying i mean because when you're when you're essentially lip-syncing in your you know live performance you're trying not to screw up all the time you know and so there's this and i'm sure there also was a lot of concern probably discussion about you know the scale of the performance and the singing scale of you know for the camera what's too much and um and it just felt like everybody was afraid of going too far being you know too far over the line for the most part and and you have to make a decision in the recording studio in a booth about what it's going to be and then you know and then recreate it on the day with all this other stuff going on i mean it's it's a really difficult task and you know it just seems like i just would have loved to see them do it live see them you know not worry so much about the the details and the particulars and the the nuances and tones and just like just go and chew the scenery a little more yeah yeah i mean i feel like she's having a lot more fun with it she seems a little more confident and i i do feel like she's certainly doing that thing where she's singing in character yeah and she's acting while she's singing yeah you're getting the story you're getting the like thought processes yeah the other thing i just uh was really taken by re-watching it is her eye acting is so good because so much of this movie relies on twitchily looking around yeah the shifting of her focus i mean like tim burton milks so much out of yeah her glancing from one area to another especially sort of choreographed to the rhythms of the music she's very often she's got spinning right like that's sort of what that character is where she's going i'm attending as you say for her to be the sort of leading that figure that makes the show as tragic as it could be you have to believe that she is preventing him from a certain level of happiness that i don't think is attainable from the start of the show when she reveals that you know she has lied about his wife i just go like they weren't gonna get together right you know what he's talking about he's gone you know he's like robocop now yeah he's like going back home it could have been that she gives him the razors yeah starts a nice little barber business you know he's good at it i mean he's good at it you know yeah exactly you know she can close the shop you know they could make a profit if he wasn't so intent on stabbing people in the throat i mean business is nil yeah he's a big town but still right right and also word of mouth non-existent but that is you know many people walk around going like i cannot recommend this guy highly enough except for the one guy with a family who comes which is another moment that i think is pretty well executed of revealing that family through the cut where you don't understand why he hasn't slashed the guy's throat yet and you cut to the other angle like yeah yeah um i think there's other stuff we should talk about sasha's performance yeah sure yeah he's so great he's really great he is he's really into it and he's fun yeah you kind of get the feeling it's like he figures i got nothing to lose yeah exactly it was one of those i saw this in theaters uh i was living in paris uh with my friends this is actually true i saw some of the weird movies in paris that would like that you know some french subtitles like you see because in france they will usually show it in the language but they'll put french subtitles on it after college david it's weird it's weird to see them trying to translate sometime into french you know lyrics after college david lived in paris for a year and worked as a bartender aka the sexiest thing that anyone's ever done so mysterious of you david uh compelling you saw this in france and then sasha baron cohen comes on screen it was it was when the uh credits play okay and his name came out my friend and i'm like sasha baron cohen is in this no exactly i grew up in england it was very important to me and i guess like he's really on the right he's really the king of the world right and this is him doing a different thing it's in his wheelhouse he's doing a funny cocky accent he's doing a funny you know european italian guy accent but he's a decent singer he's got like a nice oh yeah uh sort of like profound voice you know he's fun and he's playing emotional depths to this character and the pettiness and the sort of uh strategic minded kind of wiliness of him sure i remember his announcing them announcing his casting in that sort of like i mean what this movie they filmed it uh the beginning of 2007 where it comes out the end of 2006 and i feel like this was maybe the first post or at where everyone was going like well you can't keep on doing these like like hidden camera movies because everyone's going to know what it does so everyone's trying to go like what's his movie career going to be like now like what's it going to be and this seemed to be i mean he has pretty consistently always been more interesting if you give him a supporting part of the movie versus his scripted vehicles which don't really work well like you can imagine johnny depp being a great pirelli oh yeah you know without the burden of carrying this you know iconic character especially in his early burton working relationship where he was a leading man making character choices and also whereas this it feels like he's burdened with like i'm the leading man yeah yeah he would have a whole spin on this sort of showman thing anyway it'd be great yeah yeah it was the pope that's my favorite line it's so funny and then they have a little uh little portrait of the pope it's so funny i think toby's very good in this too and he didn't really act that much after this no no he is good he's got his face yeah often that's played by an older actor right like i feel like that's more like a teenager like right yeah because neil petrick harris played that role yeah um yeah yeah it's usually it's usually a young you know youngish looking but older like a tenor yeah yeah and it's you know this is it's great making it a child right it's all more exciting exactly and i love it when you leave the bottle in the chin yes i'm a drunk kid it makes those things funnier you're a big urchin fan yeah it's like there's something like you know innate in our like human conditions when you see a kid with dirt on his face who looks sad you know and it's like it makes those jokes funnier yeah it makes his sweetness sadder right it makes it more frightening it makes the tension of when he's locked in the basement really like visceral yeah i mean that's like something you really kind of gain uh something that i think doesn't work in making a film rather than a stage show is uh the second bigger one comes on screen yeah you don't have the same sort of license that you have in stage production where you're like well actors double up on parts right yeah the fact that they're not showing her face you immediately go like well this has to be something yeah like they're clearly withholding a clear shot of her face for a reason again the problem is empty london where she's like the only character shows on the street because in the production there's a team and you don't you really don't clock it so much but yeah there's no way not doing this it's the actual license who knows whatever and she's great i mean she i felt like she's a fantastic singer and and you know emotionally you know brings everything that you would want to it um but yeah it is sort of no no not knowing what that's headed it's that sort of basically film language like i literally think the only movie where that works is somehow the prestige right where for an hour into it you do this guy really clock that they're not showing you the other guy yeah you know and he only starts focusing on when he wants you to like figure it out for yourself yeah i feel like any other time in a movie where they don't give you a close-up of a character saying that much dialogue you know something's happening yeah you know that they're withholding something for you you know deliberately to trick you yeah uh the two young you know they're pretty and you know i'm re-watching this uh forgot until she comes on screen that it isn't Amanda Seyfried because I had somehow combined this and the Miz in my head between the Sasha Baron Cohen and Helen Bonn Carter and the sort of like Captain Woman in the ivory tower even though Linus is after Sweetie Todd that's what Joanna's song is it's sort of like wait is this a love song or is this frightening but there you go Jamie Campbell Bower he's been around since he's been in the Twilight movies he's been in a couple of different franchises he's a drawn Englishman a very skinny drawn Englishman and yeah it's a very small it's a very intimate movie and you had done this intimate show but obviously intimacy is way easier to get away with on stage you would think it's easier on screen but I think if you're not moving around from set to set too much it can become very oppressive very fast I think that's also one of the reasons why I hate all the sweeping CGI town shots not just because I can bear not particularly well executed but it feels like you are trying to quote unquote open this up in a way that's totally unnecessary and works against what should be an asset how intimate it is you should feel sort of bottled within it and every time they cut to the CGI like cityscape or the crazy like you know sort of zooms through the city I'm just like you're working against yourself yeah if it was claustrophobic like you could never get away from never get any perspective I think that would you can tell they only could really afford to build this one sort of town square center and the fact that the set is that big but you're also so confined to this one area helps add to the menace of the city and this is like every time they zoom out you deflate the balloon a little bit if you can zip around London that quickly it's easy because the thing starts really like clicking in a real high gear there's one for production design one thing you can't be worth Dante Ferretti who's obviously a legendary beautiful but you know you think of Dante Ferretti you think of these giant sets that he would build out in Rome but another thing where the town square is sort of the main area of Peaky Blinders have you seen it it rules it's so good so I was just like the whole time I'm like are some Peaky Boys going to show up that's like you know it's like 50 years on I think they're like post World War 1 I will it's also Birmingham which is the even like glummerer place you did it better the other thing I forgot that I was only reminded by looking at Wikipedia was that this won Best Picture and Best Actor at the Golden Globes and I was like why do I have no memory of that happening and it's because it's the strike year this is the writer's strike year where the Golden Globes was a news broadcast they had two people and they just in like a fucking local news set I forget who it was it was like sub-entertainment tonight anchors it was like those types of people it was like Billy Bush or whoever going like and the winner is Johnny Depp and then they just play a clip and there were no acceptance speeches they barely read the nominees they just read the winners they just read the winners it was like 45 minutes long I remember watching it sadly in my college dorm room where you have only the college local cable I bought a little TV they did it in my college dorm room Jackie Wasserstein from down the hall was the host it was very surprising because Mad Men was in its first season it was still this critical favorite that was on a weird channel no one watched and it won the globe and Jon Hamm won best actor and it was just sort of in the list and people were like wow that would have been a big deal if this was a shit for these guys every shocking win failed to make any imprint because there were no acceptance speeches which you realize are what make those awards it's always trying to cut down it's like it's the greatest illustration of like if you don't see what winning the award means to the person the award kind of means nothing to the public and you just imagine how weird it is for Johnny Depp to just get FedEx in the mail because you imagine he probably wasn't watching that broadcast and then just shows up but you know I am glad for its existence if only because somebody like you who's never seen it before like your introduction to it and you're still getting Sweeney Todd so I'm happy that it exists for Sondheim and for people to discover it and it certainly has had a lot to do with the estimation of the piece itself culturally it helps people who might not have ever heard of it discovered or might not have ever seen it and then maybe you can then go and listen to the original cast recording or your cast recording or anything like that it also feels to me like it doesn't feel like culturally this holds the place of oh this is the definitive Sweeney Todd or that it was so disastrous that no one wants to touch it again I think because of how specific Burton is and the two actors he used at the time how much it takes place in his own little hermetic career that's his Sweeney Todd and maybe 15 years from now someone else is going to do a more traditional version or a more untraditional version or whatever it is it doesn't feel like he's sort of taken the one shot that someone had to make this movie I would be surprised if there is not a new Sweeney Todd film within the next decade or so it just feels like it will probably happen I suppose the only other film adaptation is Into the Woods which is so bizarre a very big hit that kind of doesn't exist that one kind of doesn't exist and it feels like another movie where all the purists were like they're gonna fuck it up and then it came out and people were largely indifferent to it I saw that you did? yeah when I was very young oh you mean you saw the show and it left a real lasting impression it was a great show and it was if you remember the set it was huge and that I think was like a real you're talking about the Broadway it was huge and I remember being like I like this I saw it with Vanessa Williams that's a revival that's a revival that's a revival that's a revival that show has done so much they usually only do the first half right yeah no I think it's just you just make the wolf a little less I think there is a version like the young people just the first half because it gets dark yeah certainly but I think that was everyone's fear going into the Disney film it was like well that's totally what Disney's gonna do and then they adapted the whole show and it kind of just doesn't work but in a way that no one could really get angry about like it's just sort of like well that thing just kind of lays there it's just kind of there they stage the songs it's okay everyone can sing kind of everyone's fine that's an example of a movie where it feels a little claustrophobic where the amount it's in a bad way somehow the woods set which is big makes the world feel too small you know or maybe it's the set outside of the woods I don't know what it is but something about that movie that cost like fucking $80 million and still feels really small and dramatic in a way that doesn't help it everyone's good in it like it's like a weird you know Chris Pine and Billy Magnuson doing the agony is very funny it has moments that are great Emily Blunt's great and Emily Blunt's quite good she's talented alright let's play Box Office game you still like it no I still like it but the other thing I was gonna say is you know how few Sondheim adaptations we get how sort of sacred those techs seem to be and how afraid people are to try to bring them to screen I so badly wish someone had the courage to try to do Assassins which is a tricky one because it is very sagey in sort of its whole conception that it doesn't take place in a tangible reality but if you lean into it I think yeah I mean so many of them a company could be a really interesting small scale like Mike Lee-ish kind of music they're ways to get creative with his shows Follies seems like designed to be a film Follies is the one that would be easiest I think this new company that I saw there's another one here the Fiasco I think it's you know that Mark Fiddish is on season 2 of Effect I heard so I have this I've repeated it to everyone who has the power to make these decisions but I'm like if we get a season 3 if we keep going every season we've got to get someone from the Broadway musical I'm like literally we're just working with the Assassins these are like great people let's get them all in there Patrick Harris can play Cheffey's Chippendale I'm leading up to the musical tick episode right exactly I am kind of the only person in the cast who can't sing right but then it would be like the Buffy musical episode where Buffy doesn't sing too much right you cut around me or no it's Willow who can't sing you'd be great I would commit I would certainly commit Griffin has plenty of shame what are you talking about he just womenized it I make it seem like a choice right exactly yeah but like Valerie's a great singer Peter's a great singer have you ever heard Peter Peter seems like the guy could be a great singer I mean those English people also they're always like five tool talents secretly where they're like oh I can fence and dance what are you talking about I had to do it for my own level exactly Peter does this crazy thing where like the hours on the show are so difficult it's such a physically demanding thing there's so much verbal dexterity that he has to apply for that character and he'll stay up until like three o'clock in the morning every night being like can I tell you something I worked on last night I just thought I had this idea I thought it was funny and I stayed up working on it and it's either like a video where he'll like cut something together and re-dub the people or whatever or he'll write song parodies like Weird Al Yankovic style yeah but he'll do them in perfect impressions of the people so he's on like Beatles songs where he just like you know the beginning of Day in the Life where it's like he does a version of a song where it never gets out of that period and Paul McCartney just keeps describing any single thing and he played for me I was like why did you do this and he was like I don't know zero percent chance okay box office game yeah okay so do you want to explain this game for Michael December 21st 2007 I'm a crazy person and the only thing that's fixed in my brain is box office performances in movies so I try to guess the box office weekend of the phone count oh actually oh wow this is a good one for you okay you're welcome to join in please guess so what were you going to say this is literally Christmas yeah it's Christmas weekend it's yeah 21st to 27th it's a four day weekend yeah it opened to 13 million dollars and I feel like Sweeney Todd right I feel like four or five were the opening day and it like drops 70% on day two it did pretty well on Christmas I was looking at it weird but it's Christmas people go to the movies they go see Sweeney Todd right but it opens for real it's open people's throats some families you know I think it was 13 for the four day and then 9 for the 52 domestic was it's final total basically it's budget and 152 worldwide number one is a movie we've talked about it's a sequel Ben loves it it's a sequel in a franchise that never got to go any further but it did really well this is the second and last film that's right well they could make another one it's been a while Ben loves it and it's from 2007 yeah yeah is it yeah yeah I think it was Cage's character's name is Ben Ben, Gates I don't know I just remember that isn't he supposed to be a great descendant of Ben Franklin or something I don't know because in families the second one is they steal the book of secrets of course I don't know I haven't seen the second one I saw the first one do you have a National Treasure take Michael? no the second one the big trailer line is we're going to have to kidnap the president yeah right they kidnap the president it was a big hit it did really well it fucking rules it's like an example of easy layup to do a third movie except two things happened one Disney shifted to being like we only want to do movies that make a billion dollars if a film makes $700 million it's not worth it for us anymore and two isn't this was the last moment they were like before we do National Treasure 3 why don't we do Sorcerer's Apprentice and they just lost all their goodwill on that one my friend Derek Simon and I we have spent years trying to stealthily do our own sort of real life National Treasure trying to steal the script for National Treasure 3 which exists they commissioned it they wrote it right after this and it just never got off ground I believe so we have friends who have at different times worked in the Jerry Ruckheim Productions offices who have stolen pages truly stolen pages my friend Derek has two pages framed in his office I have them saved to my phone they're in the cloud we know the opening two or three pages we're trying to we're literally trying we're trying to steal the script okay so that's number one it's a cute Christmas movie I saw it two times it was a movie my whole family wants to see on Christmas Day because it was it was that type of movie where it's like everyone can kind of agree no one's totally excited except for Griffin right okay number two is filmized on theaters it's kind of a horror movie but like very big budget horror movie with a big star really good I've always been very fond of this movie truly horrifying this is no ordinary dog it's not this dog it's based on a book how do you explain this movie it's scary I was scared it was an Oscar play at all not at all it's a pure commercial play it comes out Christmas time it came out the week before it's dystopian yeah it's the future it comes out like it makes 250 million dollars oh oh I am legend I am legend it's for Will Smith Omega Man yeah I mean I feel like you and I share this opinion which is like one of those movies it's definitely his best performance he is so incredibly good in that and it's also one of those movies that is so frustratingly close to being a masterpiece it's like it doesn't have a great ending which is sort of its problem and the monsters are really bad yeah they should be that's one of those crazy movies I grew up in Grunge Village where they filmed all that movie my senior year of high school was every night I would look out my window and watch them film overnights right and they like in the Washington like Square Fountain they would have like clearly like movement actors and like dancers in white leotards and vampire makeup running and scurrying around and I would just like literally like hands on my like you know on my chin look I'm like someday I'm gonna be in the pictures and then they thought that the vampires look so bad that they like at the last minute CGI'd all of them and they look really bad and really rushed I can't imagine that the practical ones look worse but the stuff that's good in that movie is so fucking good and Will Smith Rose I'm just agreeing I remember seeing it and I remember when they were filming it too like Marina Ireland she like bleeds from the eyes at the fence at some point I love that vividly alright number three is a children's film that you like to talk about the first in a long running franchise that is not going away right and ironically I have only seen two out of the four and this isn't one of them no this is I hate this fucking movie it's all in the trip months which makes an insane amount of money huge hit it's a surprise hit in 2007 right the entire like sort of economy of a small country do you remember the tagline of the first movie no no it's really specific you only would have done this tagline right about now here comes trouble the original entourage in like sort of the font of entourage there was a poster that was Jason Lee just leaning into a white negative space you know a void of you know humanity and the three films are there and the tagline was just here comes trouble that's right here comes trouble and they're all dressed in their sort of entourage adjacent wardrobes one of them's got a bucket hat I did not know that the film was being made and I went to see a movie with my friends that summer and we walked by that poster and stopped and stared at it for five minutes. The original Entourage.

For five minutes we just looked at it and went, here comes Trouble? I think it's... Yeah, he's little. I guess he's a little one.

Right. Simon is E? Sure. Yeah, he's obviously Vinny Chase.

And I don't know, Dave Saville is Johnny Drama? Sure. Who's Ari? Who's Ari?

Fuck. In the first one, oh no, it is David Cross plays their shifty agent now. Right, right, right. Those three films are all about David Cross trying to get the better of those chipmunks and it's one of those things I hate these producers.

I hate them on a personal level. I didn't want to be in this movie. Trying to talk about four. Right, right.

It's a terrible franchise. Number five is Winnie Thompson. Number four. How do I describe it?

It's a true story. Legendary director. Legendary screenwriter. People kind of forget this movie exists.

Charlie Wilson's War. Mike Nichols, Aaron Sorkin, Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks, who got asked him behind it. And it's like one of those like you wouldn't believe it but this congressman like sold guns to Afghanistan and sort of like is that something we need to re-examine now? Nope.

It's one of those it's a movie that ends he's sort of wagged the dog. Right, right. He's a dog wagged the dog. Very heightened like watching him with a clown show.

That's also one of those movies that just has like an insanely overqualified supporting cast of people who are on the verge of becoming like major like Emily Blunt and Amy Adams in like sort of really nothing roles. Amy Adams plays like a secretary and just takes notes from Tom Hanks in a bunch of scenes and it's like this is the last time Amy Adams isn't Amy Adams. You know with all the weight that implies? There's one great scene in that movie which is Philip Seymour Hoffman's introduction where Tim John Slattery and he just does Aaron Sorkin wrote that fucking movie too.

I know, yes. There's one scene of Philip Seymour Hoffman doing a five minute Aaron Sorkin monologue to John Slattery that ends with him taking a hammer and breaking his office window that rules. I watch it on YouTube all the time. The rest of that movie does not exist and that's one of those movies where a year in advance everyone was like well, it was Nichols, Hank, Robert, Sorkin.

One of Nichols' last movies. Is this his last movie? I think it's his very last film. Right, because Closer is before that.

It is. I think that's his last movie. Do you think it's because my father was a Greek show-up-pop maker or do you think it's because I'm a fucking spy? Fuck you.

That's the Philip Seymour Hoffman because it's really good watching you too. All right, we're done. It's a fucking child. It's a good Philip Seymour Hoffman yells at someone soon.

Do you want to ask those questions? Oh, yes. So apologies in advance, Michael. I'm going to do with this.

Because you're a wonderful man. You've been very kind to me. We've been so close for so long. We've been pretty friendly.

I will say, I was very intimidated when you had gotten cast on the show. Big fan of your work. But was like, oh fuck. You're famously terrifying.

Well, I was like, fuck, he's a real actor. He's going to like see you from me. He's going to walk right up to you and be like, excuse me. Who's the fucking trained dog?

Do I have to put peanut butter on my finger in order to trick him? Can we put him in a velour tracksuit or something? And the first day that we worked together were those two days where we were out in the field where it was like 120 degrees. Oh, yeah, and blowing up cars.

Right, and you were wearing like a camel skin coat. That was like... Or camel hair. Camel hair, sorry.

Camel flesh hat. You were wearing a coat and then you had like stunt harnesses underneath you and everything. And I was in a full costume. That was the day that Peter fainted out of dehydration.

Oh, great. It was like a nuts fucking... On the Boy Scout camp in Staten Island. Right, and we had a fire and...

We were literally on a Boy Scout camp. We had our lunch in the Boy Scouts cafeteria. And so you and I met in the tent where we're both sweating. And it was kind of great because immediately it was like we're both...

There's no pretense. It was dead. But David even said to me, not to out you, David, but you were like, I'm kind of intimidated by Michael Cumming. He's such a serious actor.

I just like, I wonder. And I was like, he's the sweetest guy. He's the best. He's got no ego whatsoever and you're also just such an incredible artist and so an incredible worker.

I needed to appreciate all that because you're going to stop being friends with me after this. So Rachel, our sometimes producer of the show out the window here at the Audioboom offices. You should let her inside or something like that. Yes.

She sometimes... Oh, she'll pop in and work the ones in zeros. She and her friend, big fans of your work, big fans of Swing's High, and they wrote a series of questions. You're cold reading these as far as I know.

I'm cold reading these. So if I can put on my James Lipton hat for a second. Is Mr. Todd here with us today?

Can we speak to Mr. Todd? I suppose you could. Well, I'm not fucking around.

Okay. Question number one. Dear Mr. Todd, what barber school did you cook to?

I guess I would say the School of Hard Knocks. Sure. Just a little off Fleet Street. They have a good theater program too, right?

Yes, and I started with shampoo. Oh, that's like 101. Yeah, working way up. Now, this one feels less like an interview question, more like a trivia question.

To what food stuff do you enjoy comparing hair colors? And don't worry, there are four options. A, corn. B, sunflower.

C, hay. D, wheat. It's supposed to be D, but instead they put a second B in. I'll take two B.

Okay. Or not. Mr. Todd.

Ben's very into this. Mr. Todd, what rhymes with locksmith? Oh, I've been stumped by this for years.

Next. Where do you plan to retire after Vengeance since you hate London so much? Big black pit. What are your post-Vengeance plans?

Black pool. Oh, lovely. I'd like to see. Lovely this time of year.

And that's, I mean, it's expensive. You want to go from a pit to a pool. Even if both are black. Sorry if this is too personal.

Did you and Miss Lovett have intercourse? Wow, that's a question? I did not write these questions. I don't think so.

I mean, I'll let you speak. Could you be more specific? Which, Mrs. Lovett?

Wow. Let's just say, the barber never tells. A lot of times teaching Anthony the different shades of blonde hair back to the blonde hair. But when Anthony gets to the asylum, he just points to Joanna and says, that one.

Do you regret the time you spent teaching Anthony all that? Do you think of that as sort of sunken cost? He's a fucking idiot. Yep, sure.

It feels like these questions are very pointed to try to get specific answers. Are you kidding me? It doesn't. I've managed to do none of that.

When you return to London after 15 years, no one recognizes you except Senior Pirelli slash Daniel Higgins. What did you do that he remembers you? Or is face blindness limited to the English? After all, you did not recognize your own wife that you spent 15 years pioneering.

I mean, this feels kind of sinister. You know, I never really looked at her that much when we were together. I had changed my hair, but I guess the Irish really are more perceptive. And you know what?

That is sort of the principle your entire life is based around that a hair can really change your hair. You know, the modification of a cut. Are you sorry that you didn't get to kill Anthony? Well, I suppose it's the son I never killed, so in that way, it's probably a good thing.

Here's one, and I don't know, someone else might enter the studio to also answer this question. Who would win in a fight between John Waltz Booth and you? John Waltz has a gun. Yes.

I'm forgetting my answer. Folksy! Six semper to rest! That's a big line.

It's kind of the at last my arm is complete again of his essence. I can tell you an interesting anecdote about that. I always knew it from the recording as at last my arm is complete again, which is what Len Carey was saying. So when I went to do it the first time when Sonkheim was there for a run-through, I did, you know, at last my arm is complete again, and he said, did they change the script?

And I was like, really? My right arm is complete. At last my right arm is complete again, meaning like metaphorical and literal. But Len Carey was left-handed.

So it was cut for Len. Tricky Len. And another assassin-related one. I love doing research for characters, especially when you have a real person.

One of the great actors of all time, John Waltz Booth. That's what he's mostly a member for. Yeah, exactly. Up to that point.

There's a book, a collection of his letters and stuff, so it was really interesting research. And I realized that in the Balladeer song, he says 27 years of age. Why did you do it, Johnny? And when I was reading, I realized, oh, actually he was killed.

He would have been 27 that year, but he was killed short of his birthday, so he was actually 26. So, you know, thinking I was doing him a big favor, I go to see him and say, yo, Steve, oh boy, doing a little research. And he said, he was actually 26. And there was a pause.

And he said, 27 sounds better. I'm like, he's got two syllables. Also, one tragedy that John Waltz Booth makes is the 27th club. Maybe that's what Steve wanted to do.

He was really almost there, too, looking at him. He was like two weeks off of his birthday. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so he's sometimes doing some fuzzy math.

Fair enough. I'm going to apologize in advance for this question, which I want to remind everyone was written by Rachel, who usually acts like we are poorly behaved when she appears on the show. I just want to remind everyone that she acts like we are in the show. There are two questions left.

They're both quick. I think you will not want to answer it. Okay. Did you ever eat Mrs.

Lovett's pies? Also, did you ever eat Mrs. Lovett's quote-unquote pie? You should have screened this.

I didn't know this. I will say that in our production, they were all pantomimed. They kind of lined as well. Yes, yes.

There was not even a prop pie for you to eat. A final question, and another very leading question. What did you do with the Bones? Carve a nice spoon set?

I'd start a band and play drums. Oh, I love a Bone drum. You love them, too? Absolutely.

I'm a big fan of Bones. Well, let's just drop it. No follow-up to that. Do you have anything you want to plug in?

People should check out your music if they haven't used it. Yeah, Lose Cattle is my band. We've got a few recordings out there on the iTunes, Spotify. You tour around to do shows.

You tour around. Yeah, we did. Your finger on the pulse. Yeah, in New York and New Orleans especially, we play a lot in those places.

And no, I just finished doing something that I'd still have my tongue removed, if I mention it. Yeah, and actually, probably. Yeah, now I'm trying to think because you've done your Marvel. You've got your Marvel punch card which you weren't allowed to talk about.

In fact, now I think I can because it's been on Netflix. Right, it's been enough time. Wait, Kevin Feige just walked in. It's not a wire.

No, we were talking about your Marvel appearance in Hound. You could come back. Yeah, it's possible. The character in the comics does come back as I can.

And Tick, we don't know. You could come back. You and I have both heard some of the Blue Sky pitching that they did for ideas for how you'd come back that were fantastic. Fantastic.

It does happen season two. A non-spoiler spoiler. Now you tell me. I've been waiting.

I thought this was kind of when I was going to find out. Well, yeah, I can tell you season two we finished filming in July and it comes out April 5th. We're still waiting for a couple of those final rebrights. I think we're still missing some pages on the script.

That's the timetable we usually work on. Yeah, and Gotham is over now so I won't be coming back on that either. Right, I want you to come back. I feel like the first two Ant-Man films have leaned heavily into science-y villains and I want the third one to just be like here's a guy with an egg gun.

I think that's what why build to this sort of superhero surplus culture if we can't get to the point where it's going to go. I demand it. I want that. Come on.

Amen in three. Amen in the wild. We dare you. Do it and be legends.

Thank you for being on the show. Thank you. This was a blast. And thank you all for listening.

And please remember to rate or to subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Goodo for our social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Liam Montgomery for our theme song. Go to Blinkies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit.

Go to T-Public for some real nerdy shirts and Patreon. Come check me. Listen to that stuff. We're going through the Marvel films so we'll eventually get to Eggman himself and we'll pause the movie and go on a 40 minute Eggman specific.

Yes. And as always, you know, I had like 45 minutes ago. The end of this movie pays out like a blood bank. There we go.