David Dastmalchian (The Life Of Chuck / Late Night With The Devil / Oppenheimer) • #357

Look out. It's only films to be buried with.

Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with. My name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a writer and director, a chain reaction, and I love films. As Joan Didion once said, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. We watch the taste of things in order to be hungry, and then you know, eat stuff. Every week I invite a special guest diver. I tell them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their lives through the films. The men the most of them.

Prisoner no.

A Boogie Manner, a Murder butter, a Late Night with the Devil, a great conversationalist, a Oppenheimer. He is in everything you've ever loved. He is a true a boogie manner. Whenever you see him, you know you're in for a treat. I can't believe he's here. He's a hero, a legend and a man, and he's sitting right across from me on a zoom. Please, welcome to the show. It's the brilliant David dis Motune.

Brad.

That was That was the best introduction I've ever received in my entire career, in my life, So thank you very much.

It's such a great moment for me.

I'm such a fan of yours and I'm grateful I get to occupy your time and attention for the show.

Makes me very happy.

Thank you.

I'm very excited to do this with you. We've met very briefly a couple of times. I think I saw you at the Boogeyman premiere a preview. What was that fright Fest.

Something like that or or overlaried or something.

Yeah, And then I saw you at a party the night before party.

And then I saw you once but you didn't see me.

I think I was at Soho House in London and I was there with Peter Capaldi having a coffee and you walk past and I said, that's Brett Goldstein and he said, you just never know who you're going to see here.

David, And he said, who the fuck is that?

David?

So much to talk about. Where do we even start? Well, let's start with Life of Chuck, which I loved so much. Thanks, and you're you're a small but beautiful memorable part in it, like everyone Everyone's. More I like about the film is everyone's actually a small part in that film, which I think is the message of it.

It's true even I mean Tom is billed as Chuck. It's the Life of Chuck, and he's the star of the film, if you will. But to me, the cohesive like through line, narrative performance is actually rests on the shoulders in many ways of Chewetel's character. And then it's this really fantastic way of looking at the world through the lens of you know, everything from your thinking of like a Robert Altman film to like a Carson mcculler's novel.

It's finally happening. I hope I don't disappoint.

But also with my character's odd, beautiful little monologue, it's at the top of the film, and it really tonally in about a paragraph and a half, kind of sets a mood in a sense for this film you're about to experience. So I remember as I was getting ready to do it, thinking, oh, this is really like you got to really hit the right notes here, and Mike just helped me get it.

And I'm very very Yeah, it's very pleased.

It's a great experience that you've done that a lot of thing because you're that same thing in Boogeyman. You set the tone. You're the first. You're selling us the fear.

Of tone setter.

Dave does Walch, a character actor tone setter, h No. I think the thing that I ask directors the most about before we go to work is I get less interested in characters psycho. I think the psychology, the backstory, and all that wonderful fun stuff. Unless the director feels really imperative to make sure and share something with me that they think is going to affect something in the

To me, it's the build up conversations.

And I have a number of directors that I've been fortunate enough to work with a couple of times or more, and it's always tone. I ask them, please send me any albums, any records, any films, any books, any pieces of art. I have one director in particular who just sends me artwork and it helps me get my head around tone. And he's done it every film we've made together, and I find it incredibly useful. Maybe some people that's I don't know not but I.

That's that's what I was going to ask because in Life of Check everyone is so disparate and small, small amount of screen time, I suppose, but tinally everyone's in the same film, And I wondered how he did that, how much conversation there was, because I'm assuming you there for a day.

I was there for a day.

I flew down for a day, and then we shot the next day, and then I was gone. And Mike did a really good job over the phone. He would keep I think he called each of us and set up through his Really he's a really good communicator, so he was able to communicate the tonality and kind of what his hopes and dreams were for the world of

And he one of the things he does.

That's really useful is he sends you ahead of time his shot list. It's part of the call sheet actually, so you get your sides with shot lists, so you know the way we're going to be covering the scene, and then we can have a quick conversation, if you know, for the sake of the way that the scenes play out. In what I was doing, it's a series of conversations that Chutel's having with the different parents at a parent

And because Mike, as I think.

All great directors are such good communicators, I knew, I knew what he needed, and the slight adjustments he was making over the course of shooting our.

Stuff was just little little little ticks and stuff.

I love his stuff. I think he's a real real special one. I like how emotional all his stuff is, even his really really scary stuff.

It's very moving.

He really Yeah, he really makes films we love I think like you really care.

I love that.

I'm a fan of all shades of genre, the full spectrum when it comes to horror, like I'm a big I love camp, I love z I love Gore, but dialed in at the end of the day. The thing that really moves me the most when it comes to horror and I and Life of Chuck by the way, for those who are you know, enjoying our conversation right now, is not what I would describe as a horror film. But most of my most of Mike's work does live

You know what z Z like.

There's B films. Yeah, you'd be like, oh, there's a B like B like like D like z Z is like you know, ed Wood.

Like her Sharknado is the content temporary version of maybe what people would consider old Herschel Gordon Lewis films, or you know, I grew up as a kid. I was just talking about this. I have a couple of friends who I grew up with visiting me here in La and when we were kids, we'd ride our bikes to this video store and the teenagers stone behind the counter.

It was not a corporate chain.

It was like a mom and pop shop, so they didn't give care about you being underage, so you could just grab anything off the shelf and take it home and watch it.

And I watched a lot of good Z films back in the day.

I'd say, what about you played the leads. You did a lead role in a great, great film which was also a huge success, I believe Late Night with the Devil, which I loved I went to see at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

And we can do so.

Much, and I have to ask as a British person. Did you watch guys to watch there? It is?

It is hes of it? Yeah?

I did.

I was a longtime fan of ghost Watch films like Ghostwatch, Lake Mungo and Blair Witch.

Lake Mungo is so fucking good.

It's a masterpiece and you know what's wild. Joel Anderson, who made Mungo, was the person who is friends with the filmmakers of Late Night with the Devil. He read their script. He brought that script to Stephen Schneider and Roy Lee, who are the American producers on it, who brought me to the film because I'm friends with Roy and Roy had said, David did filmmakers, and I agree, like, you'd be great for the role. We're making this little film. Would you like to get involved? It's going to be

But I don't care. The point is I got to do.

It, and it was the first first time I have a production company. It was the first film because I have a company called Good Fiend Films, and we're the thrust of what I want to do is tell genre stories, horror and science fiction, but wrestling with big questions and identity issues. And it was just perfect timing because I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this. You've been, you know, a successful and talented and you know, very kind of across

Like there's something that felt like, ah, is it okay that I like this nerdy stuff? Yeah?

And Jack Delroy is is that to presentational? He's a talk show host, but privately he's deeply struggling. So thank you for going and seeing it, and thank you for saying what you said. I'm really proud of the.

Film and about to do it. It's really great. How do you cope with your changed circumstances in your normal life?

I have about a two and on a rougher day, three hours of time that's dedicated to i'd say, my my wellness, like just being as conscious and present as possible. In May, I celebrated twenty three years of sobriety, and so I'm still a part of thank you. I'm still a part of working a program that involves me getting an opportunity once a day, sometimes twice a day, to be surrounded by other people who share similar, you know,

I have a therapist that I really appreciate.

I journal, and then I try to be really diligent about surrounding my innermost circle with people that not only keep me grounded and honest, but also who I can feel safe with. But I'm learning a lot. I learn every day. I learned the choices that I make. The ramifications for the choices that I make, are often frustrating.

Why can't It's not fair? A life is not fair. There's no such thing as fair.

But as someone who's continuing to work and get in more and more high profile projects or maybe bigger things, I.

Go, well, why can't I just go do this thing?

Or sometimes it's simple things like just take my kids to go do something without being bothered whatever it's like, or I don't know, do stuff that I'd be like what. But But then when I'm conscious and I have the presence of gratitude, and I step back and I go, wait, man, look at what you get to do, Look at the what's the trade here? It's incredibly tipped in my favor. I think the scale is how about yourself? Has it been mostly positive or would you say mixed bag for you?

Well, hang on a second, this isn't about me, no, I know, I'm not for that.

This was a conversation about Well.

One thing we do have to talk about, though, is you have a show of your own which is about death. Yeah, the Trader great conversations, Yes, tell us more so.

I would love to have you come climb in a casket with me sometimes, Brett.

It was it started. I thought, very funny.

My friend Elan, who actually produces for my produced Life at Chunk producing the new Carry series. But Elan he approached me and said, hey, I'm doing a brand some branding work with this casket company.

I think you should come be like a spokesperson for them.

And I thought that was so hilarious because I mean, I am a vampire. I do sleep, you know, the bottom of my castle at night and during the day, I should say, I drink blood. I was like, oh, that's great, I can promote caskets. And at first it was a bit of like a getchy fun thing.

But then I met.

These people who is this little small company that were like they're trying, They're trying to enter the game. It's it's basically in the States, a very monopolized industry, the business of death. And so let's say you lose. And I've experienced it a number of times in recent years. Both of my parents have passed and others that I love. So you go, someone's dead, You're in trauma, you're in grief.

So I was like, this is a good thing.

Then Elon goes, what if we had a little podcast, or you and a friend getting adjacent caskets. You lay there and talk about whatever they want to talk about, if they're on a tour, doing a comedy special, if they're a musician.

But then let's talk a little bit.

About the end of life, because it is something that I would love to see more normalized. I was raised in a really religious atmosphere probably explains my love of horror, where the answers that you were given about end of life were like final. They were very simple, and if you couldn't wrap your head around it, you were wrong.

It's it's something I really love doing.

That is rights up my street. That is that is a rights ut Miami. One other question for you about acting and stuff. I'm so curious because you appear in so many things, sometimes in a big part, sometimes in the small part. But like looking at your CV fact, you know, it's a fucking incredible CV. You've done so many great films, and I'm wondering if you have any like if you're arriving, say Oppenheimer, which is this huge, huge film filled with huge stars and everything like that.

Oppenheimer is a really good example in answering that question, because I showed up on the film they were already into production. I had worked with the director previously once, which was the first time I'd ever been on a film set, and that was so long ago. I mean that was I shot with him in two thousand and seven, and I went to do Oppenheimer in two thousand and

To line delivery.

I want to be memorized, obviously, but I really like creating voice and posture and like physicality. But I don't think it's healthy for me in the creative process to pre plan the way I'm going to say things. It just doesn't work very well for me in the final

Questions like how's it going, Oh yeah, how are you doing?

Like how's everything, trying to pick up and gleam, what's the sense that I'm getting, what's the vibe? And then and then I get to set, and luckily for me, I was not first up in the sense of I was in the scene, but I was sitting adjacent to this table where a bunch of people were conversating. So I'm just doing my best to absorb the musicality, the kind of vibe for a silly term, but like you get it like way that things are going. And I know,

And it was funny because if you've seen the film I'm sure most.

People have, at this point, the first time I really speak to him, it's it's kind of one of those odd where I want to say so much to him, and I want to give so much to Oppenheimer and say all these things that I've experienced flying a bomber and my experience, you know, seeing the missiles that the Nazis were.

Shooting at England.

And I did it once and Chris seemed happy and he kind of compared. We had this moment where he was chuckling a little bit and he's like, you ever do like a Q and A after like a film screening, or like you do one of those things and then somebody one of the fans like approaches you and like just shakes your hand a little too long, like stares you. He's like, that's what you're He's like, that's what you're doing that I love. I was like, that's exactly the guy.

That's great. David. Yes, Brett, I've forgotten to tell you something. Tell me.

I should have told you earlier. Actually maybe when we were talking about your show. But fuck, I'll just I'm just going to tell you, and then i'll tell you.

I'll say it. You've died. You're dead. Dead.

Yeah, dead, I'm dead.

You're dead. Okay, how did you die?

I don't know.

You get to choose.

I was crushed by a giant starfish.

Wow.

Okay, so much like your character, you were crushed by a giant starface. Suddenly, did you provoke the sturface?

Yeah, he was trying to take over the planet and he was trying to crush the world.

Wow. So you're kind of a hero.

And I wanted I wanted to I wanted to protect everybody, and I have a a great fear of giant starfish. But I was willing to take him on to keep people safe. And then, motherfucking superhero.

Do you worry about death? I mean you I do.

Even just now when you said that, I get like, anxious, like I right now feel very no, It's okay. I have struggled with it since I was a little boy. I was, like I think I said earlier, I was raised in a religious environment where it was like, if you be a good person, if you do what we tell you to do, when you die, you're going to live in eternal bliss. If you don't do what we tell you, you're going to be cast into eternal pain and suffering. And those are your choices, which aren't choices.

Flames of hell.

And tell that to like a six year old, and see what that does to the curious mind, especially somebody who's been confronted with the concepts of things like infinity. I wrestled with it a lot, and I still do now. What's been wonderful for me? So nearly lost my life overdosed three times when I when I was in the

Attempt as you can imagine.

And I it's a paradox because I felt like, Okay, life isn't worth living, because my presence in the world causes more suffering on other people than my absence would.

So I felt in the time.

You know, anyone who struggled deeply with depression, your mental illness, it's a sad, sad, sad battle because the logic that your brain says to you is stuff that's like taking another hit of that drug is the only way you're going to get through another day, which sadly just puts you in the myers a more suffering or if you just were to end your life today. Everybody that you love may be sad for a few weeks, but their ultimately their lives are going to be better off. All

That's all I got loved.

I ask you a very serious question. If you don't want to answer, it will cut me asking the question when you I did, and when you made that attempt, do you remember what it felt like at the moment of it happening, Like did you do you remember thinking oh shit, or do you or it is it?

Do you not remember the feeling of it?

The sad thing is.

The sad thing is because I've heard people I've heard many times survivors of say bridge jumps or building jumps. When someone survives, they say as soon as they jump, they go, oh shit.

I wish I hadn't done that. I didn't.

I remember laying in the bathtub and watching the water turn redder and redder and redder, and thinking it's getting close, like I'm I was feeling not excited.

I was very sad.

But I remember thinking, like the paint like the suffering is is almost over. And I was a bit frustrated, to be honest, because when I did it, I was doing it and it is this such a sad state that my mental state was so bad that I did it in a place where I was going to be found by someone that I just didn't think that person

Like it's really like exp I'm.

Sitting in an office from my weird little production company that like, I don't know, it's like it's crazy that I get to be here today considering all that that I just told you about.

So again, I just say, if you're listening to this.

And you feel like you feel like that that mindset I was describing makes sense to you, I promise it's not true.

It is an illusion. And there is help. I just hadn't gotten to help yet. That's what's so sad. And the help that I had gotten wasn't the good.

There's all kinds of help out there, and I know it's frustrating when you've gotten help and then it doesn't work, and then you're like, well, I tried, or I took this medication, or I saw a therapist.

It didn't work.

People, It's fucking sucks. Sometimes it's not fair, but sometimes it's like a bit roulette. The more times you spin the wheel, the more opportunities you have to find the thing that's going to work for you. So it took me a number of spins of the roulette, but finally I got the right you know, combination of you know, therapy and recovery and psychiatry and spirituality all that shit.

But no, it wasn't like, oh I got out.

I woke up in the hospital and all of a sudden they gave me the right pill and I said, I'm ready to be healed, and I was, you know, res saved.

Well. A, firstly, thank you very much for sharing that. I really yeah, and knowing you the journey you're on now where you are in your life is amazing. You have a beautiful life and that's so lovely. And from the moment where you woke up and you were frustrated, do you have a sense of when of how long it took to start to see the first light, the first like, oh this this feeling is starting to go away.

So the fur like I woke up in the hospital and then I was I didn't have insurance, and this would have been in two thousand, two thousand, the end of two thousand, going in two thousand and one. I was transferred to like a state facility, which is not the nicest facility, but there was wonderful people that worked there. You get Cuckoo's nest a bit, you know, it's like that five and there's no U. Yeah, yeah, there's no method,

Look how much wreckage I've caused.

Look at all the people I've harmed and stolen from and heard and lied to and dah da da da da, how am I going to ever live again?

And you know.

I was in there a couple of weeks and like I had a really good therapist that was talking to me, and I met some nice guys and just in the in a round. But I remember I woke up and looked up and I have three older siblings, and I woke up and I thought it was a dream, and all three of them were like looking down on me, the way that like older siblings would look down at

That there's something to do, but it just it felt that way.

And by the way, if you're listening to this and you think, oh, I've been there, and then I fucked up again. I then went and moved into a rehab, went into a sober living, relapsed, lived in a car, got clean, relapsed again. I mean it took me another couple of years. I didn't take my last use until

Like visions or in like you know, angels.

What I do often see it in is in other people, which is how it manifests for me. But yeah, been there since and last year I got as close to that place as I've been in twenty three years. I'd say last spring, I was thousands of miles away from my family. I was going through an incredible disruption in

That's beautiful. Man. What do you think happens when you die? Now?

Then I think two things.

Well, the fantasy version of it, if we get to each have like our fantasy version, which would be lovely, is like a float up or a way into some like other dimension where there's this grand cinema that's like infinite, and it's like we all hang out there together and it's all love and there's no more distinctions between us based upon silly things like race, color, creed, gender, et cetera. We're all just these you know, beings, but we're all

Oh my god, I had.

To learn something about stuff. So that's one version that's very poetic and cinematic. I also just love the idea that the energy continues on and eventually this illusion that we've created for ourselves that we're all separate, it runs

Getting an experienced stuff. You know, I don't know, man, I don't know.

But if it all sounds to anybody out there like I know what the fuck I'm talking about, I do not.

One thing I know for sure is I don't know shit.

Well agree to disagree, So you absolutely bang on that exactly what happens. You go to heaven and its film with your favorite thing.

What's your favorite thing?

And Reese's peanut butter cups.

Yeah, they're fucking every everywhere you live. The wolves are made out of recist peanut peanut butter cups. Take a fist for whatever you want to. Everyone's really excited to see you in heaven, but they want to talk to you about your life. They want to talk to you about your life through film. And the first thing they ask you is, what is the first film you remember seeing? David Dismuchi The Muppet Movie. What a fucking great first film. Yeah, the perfect first film.

It's such a it's so embedded in my consciousness, going with Brian Bishop and his mother, Kathy Bishop. And not only is it the first film I remember seeing, it's the first film I remember seeing in a cinema. I mean it's probably pre school aged and sitting in the cinema and being transported seeing these disparate you know, outcasts, find each other, find friendship, go on a road trip together, have a dream, all put that dream together. And then the music, I mean, the music to this day is

That's how young I was.

Because soon after that, on like a Sunday after church, my parents took me to see Raiders the Lost Dark. And I also remember thinking that the tarantulas in the opening cave sequence were in the cinema with us. I was that that young. But for the Muppet movie, life is like a movie. We get to write our own endings. We keep believing, we keep pretending we've done just what we set out to do. I hope is the song I get to sing when I'm taking those last breaths.

Perfect answer. You get twenty points right off.

The back, I'm a winner.

What is the film that made you cry the most? Do you like crying? Are you a crier?

I told you I had a bit of a crisis last year, and it was really interesting because I've never been uncomfortable with crying. I think it's healthy and it's normal, and I certainly don't have any masculinity issues around it.

But I just couldn't cry the last year, which is so so strange to me. And recently, I have an eleven and an eight year old and we have a tradition we call pizza movie Night, where we watch movies and eat pizza. I mean, it's simple as that, and it's a really important part of our dynamic.

And about a month or two ago, I gave them their first time seeing one of my favorite films that I would like to take with me to the other side, which is in how a hal Ashby film called Harold and Maud It. And when trouble plays and Maud is saying goodbye to Harold and he is desperately trying to hang on to something that it's time to let go of. All three of us, me and the kids, we started crying, and I and I and I cried. I remember watching I've watched that film dozens dozens of times over the

But like, yeah, it makes me cry pretty hard.

So that was nice.

Another another excellent answer. I don't usually give points, but you're already on fifty. Fuck yeah, now you like Horra. What is the film that scares you the most?

Texas Chained as Occur is to me, it's a masterpiece. It's an incredible piece of cinema. Every detail, the production design, the performances, the way it's directed, the cinematography, the pacing, the writing, the camp mashed up with a burlesque body crazy, darkest kind of humor you can imagine. Then it smashes right into gritty, grizzly, visceral realness.

In a way.

The film that the reason I think it really fucked me up so much as a kid, and why it still gets my pulse going is that it's it's one of the films that feels wrong, Like when you watch it, you feel like I shouldn't I shouldn't be watching this.

This isn't good for me.

There's something so subversive in that, and Toby Hooper did such a such a service to all of us and making a film that did that.

It's dangerous. It feels like a dangerous film.

And it's there's other films that I can there's so many films that have scared, disturbed, shocked, horrified me. But it's it's tcm for me all the way.

You know what, thinking about like it's kind of a I mean this in no way as a judgment, but just as a comparison. Like Mike flanagan films. I think the way that he makes a film is like you feel safe. He's so in control, it's such a he's so clear on tone, on everything that you go into one of his films and it's like being held. And I think Texas changed some mass good. The reason it's so horrible, I think it's a horrible film and it's because it feels unsafe. It feels like there's an element

Feels like people are really suffering. You get pushed into the barbed wire.

And the performances he was able to get out of those those actors is just it's really inspiring. I mean, I would love to be able to make a film like that. I don't know if it's possible anymore.

I don't know. In our current sensibility and the clean.

Look of what cameras do now, and the way that all the information and data is absorbed by you know, cameras these days, it's just something about it, and it only gets more gruesome with time.

It's such a beautiful film.

What is a film that you love?

Most people don't like it, it is critically not acclaimed, but you love it unconditionally. It could be one of your z's.

That's a really good question.

I love the films of Coffin Joe, and I don't feel like a lot of people love those. I mean, this is interesting because I guess most film people would say something like pink, flamingos or polyester is considered important cinema. But I do think if you showed it to the majority of people they'd go, this is fucked up, this is disgusting. And I think films like Polyester and Pink Flamingos are very special. I also really love like body dumb comedy like meat Balls. I think that's such a

Yeah. Maybe it's like the John Waters stuff or the yeah like, oh yeah, you know what am I talking about? I have you name it?

At midnight I'll Possess your Corpse and Wizard of Gore and there's you.

Know, children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.

And all the like the Z and Gore horror that most people wouldn't watch. But if I had my brothers every Friday night, I would get to put on a cape and make up and host like a cable access for midnight theater and get to have, you know, show people all these really bad films.

I was a teenage were Wolf et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, okay, great, what is On the other hand, the film that you used to have, but you've watched recently and you've gone, oh, I don't like this anymore, probably because you have changed.

I had a really interesting, tricky experience recently watching because Halloween's a big deal to me.

I love Halloween.

I throw I think the best Halloween party that anyone has ever thrown or ever will throw.

It's a very important special occasion for me.

And several years ago for Halloween, I dressed up as ace Ventura when he's in the mental hospital in the ballerina dress, and then my partner was dressed up as Einhorn and then looking like watching it recently with the kids, I just it didn't. It didn't hit for me the way that I thought. I also found it rather transphobic and kind of like.

I didn't really like I didn't get it.

Yeah, yeah, I think that was one. I think he's

You know. Yeah, he's very, very good. What is the film that means the most to you?

Not necessarily the film itself is good, but the experience you had seeing that film will always make it meaningful to you.

I'm going to go back to the Muppet Movie.

Okay, I can always do that with me.

That really changed my life.

And I also think it's really important to point out the significance of Stanley Kubrick's two thousand and one, a Space Odyssey.

That was a film.

And I was already a big science fiction nerd and really loved comic books and genre and sci fi. I'd seen some cool stuff by the time I saw two thousand and one.

But it changed me.

It changed things, As the Joker says, you've changed things.

It changed things. It changed my consciousness.

It shifted the way I consider the possibility of what we get to do. And this is way before I ever considered that I might do this stuff professionally. It's just it changed the way I saw the human like creative.

I don't know it changed me.

I watched two thousand and one quite late because I knew I wanted this see it on the big screen, so I didn't. I waited until it was like on somewhere, so I only saw it maybe like ten years ago or maybe less than that. And it's fucking brilliant. And I was like pleased how brilliant it was. Like it wasn't like, oh, yeah, this has been overrated, but I didn't realize how weird it was. And also that it was made before they landed on the moon, and shit, is that right?

Sixty nine?

It was made in sixty nine. He or he maybe shot it in sixty eight.

I think, yeah, sixty seven.

So the sort of vision of space. Yeah, it's fucking amazing. It's it amazing that he did.

He's he's he's he's like Shakespeare.

He's like one of those people in our history of humanity where you just look at the body of work and you go, that's not human. That wasn't a human being. There's no human that did that. That's impossible.

You put his body of work back to back to back to back.

Just do like a you know, a kubric month for yourself at some point, and it'll it'll it'll shake any illusion you ever have out of the idea that you're going to make anything really that.

Yeah, what is the film you most relate to?

Film I most relate to is I think the Muppet Movie. I really feel like that movie encapsulates a lot of my thoughts and ideas about the human experience in a beautiful way. And you know, the most personal thing I probably have done yet, although I'm about to, I've got a couple of things coming soon. I wrote and acted in a film called Animals, which is deeply personal. It's not it's as much about about people's addiction to drugs as it is people's addiction to one another.

And so that's that's certainly something. Yeah, that's a good answer, David Mont. You and this is the reason people come to this podcast. What's the sexiest film you've ever seen?

The sexiest film?

Like, the film that like just turned me on in every way is God. There's so many I love second and sensuality and films and cinema. I'd say The Hunger, Yes, that's a.

Really special film.

And the way it evokes eroticism to me as a kid was very hot when I was like a lot of this.

Stuff is what set us in motion as sexual beings.

Anyway, A lot of the visual stimulation we took, obviously, the psychology of our childhoods and who we are born biologically and just how we were constructed shapes that stuff. But I do think movies have a profound effect on what turns us on. And I remember seeing Jess Franco's Vampiris Lesbos as a kid and being like, oh, sexy vampire women, and like the three brides of Dracula, and in the way that they're they're portrayed in Francis Ford

That exists outside the boundaries of.

Mononormative stuff and the way it's portrayed in cinema. I remember I was too young to watch, but I somehow has managed to get my hands on a copy of Henry in June about Henry and June Miller starring an incredible cast doesn't have it but like there.

Was like, oh, oh god, that was that was a going.

Sorry, I keep going. I love that subject. It's a great subject.

Angel Heart really turned.

Me on as a kid. That was super hot.

Yeah, there's a subcategory traveling boners, worrying Why Dunes, the film you found a rising that you went or you shit?

For sure, I think that when I was like, these are all things, it was like I was so young seeing all of the year like the Friday the Thirteenth movies where you'd see the boobs and then the violence would come right after. It was really troubling to me as a kid. Halloween has like a hot, sexy makeout moment and then all of a sudden, it's you know, choking and murder, and that was It was confusing for me and distressing.

I was your upbringing. It's like, yeah, the proof of what you've been to is like this leads to this.

I was so incredibly turned on as a little boy watching Blade Runner and the characters of PRIs and some of the other replicants. There was something about them, the makeups and the designs and stuff that was so hot for me. And I felt guilty about it for sure. Felt really like that was a trick. Those were all

Like for me, pretty fluid and.

It and it always comes with a good healthy dose of like weird guilt and shame that I want to use cinema to work through as well.

Yeah, so yeah, that makes sense.

What is objectively the greatest film ever made might not be your favorite, but it is the pinnacle of all cinema.

It's a tie to me, okay, and it is.

I go back to two thousand and one A Space Odyssey and Citizen Kane. When I watch both of those films, the reason I maybe I'm gonna give Kane the edge is because one yeah, okay, okay, okay, I'm not gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna commit I'm gonna say, Citizen Kane,

Was out of control, ridiculous.

Imagine the time, the effort, the vision, the execution that he was able to put into constructing, executing making that film. It's more than mind boggling. I just watch it every few years and I'm like, how the fuck did one human being have the.

Power to manifest this?

It's crazy.

What's yours?

I think the greatest? My greatest is Don't Live Now. Yeah, Well, Susanka ain't wrong, you't know wrong. What is the film you could or have? What's the most? Over and over again, it's.

A tie between Harold and Maud and Screw.

When I was a kid, I just I loved Scrooged.

I watched it over and over and over again, and then in the years since, I do have a number of comfort films, though Texas Chainsaws one of them, have certainly watched a lot of like House on Haunted Hill. The Haunting the Tingler, for some reason, is one of those old William Castle films that I've seen too many times.

What's the worst film you've ever seen?

Worst film I've ever seen was I'm sorry that I'm going to splank on the name for a second, but it was one of the.

Larry the Cable Guy movies, and it was just riddled with.

Like Islamophobia and like bad jill and terrible performance. And it was such a sad experience to watch because they had like this really amazing actor in it, and I remember thinking like that may happen to me.

Someday.

It may be like a really like you know, I might end up like doing something like that and it would break my heart.

Yeah, what is the film that made you laugh the most.

When I was a little boy, I snuck into the theater and I saw Tom Hanks and Bachelor Party, and I laughed so hard. I fell out of my chair, like peeing, laughing so hard, especially when the guy who's spying on the bachelor party falls from the window and then his butt cheeks are in the like moon roof of the car.

That made me laugh really really hard, so hard.

I yeah, I split a seam and that's up there. I mean, I think the first time I didn't. I wasn't familiar with Sasha Baron Khan, and I remember going to the cinema because everyone was talking about Bora Yeah, and I didn't see it coming.

It just took me.

It took me out of my I mean, I like levitated. I was laughing and so uncomfortable. It made me so deeply uncomfortable. That was one of those weird things that felt like this is subversity on another level. And I haven't gone back to it in a long time, so I don't know how that would affect me today, but it really fucked me up as funny as shit.

You've been really wonderful, thanks Brett. However, when a giant starfist was trying to crush the planet, and you thought, but I care, I care about people, I care about the future of this planet.

I must save them.

And you stood in the way of this giant stuffas and it crushed you to death, and all your organs splashed together. And I was walking past me the coffee and I guess anyone's seen David desmoted, And I said, I think it was he just saved the world, man, David spot it really Yeah, he's over there. And I look over and You're like, you look like tarmac, you know that time. I'm like fucking I was like, guys, we got to give me a hand here. So we get like diggers. We have to dig up the road

There's no room.

There's only enough room in this coffin for me to slip one DVD for you to take across to the other side. And on the other side this movie night every night, what film are you taking to show the people of Heaven Reese's Peanut butter Cups in Heaven?

David, this morning, go the Muppet Movie.

You are welcome there. They are going to be so fucking happy. David Dispoting. Tell people what they should be looking out for and watching and listening to starting you coming up in the future.

Please thank you, Brett. I hope everybody out there enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for listening. And if you're struggling right now, you feel alone, you feel you might harm yourself, if you don't see your way out, please google SAMSA, SAMHSA. It's got a bunch of portals of resources for ways that you can get free help. You don't need money to get help. You are not alone. I would hope if you are looking for something entertaining you might watch

Thank you than.

Well, an absolute joy. I have really enjoyed this. Thank you very much for spending your time with me. And happy fiftieth birthday.

Thank you, Brett, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm going to take my friends to go see a play now what a crewshment? I know?

So thank you, Thank you for having me.

Good day.

So that was episode three hundred and fifty seven. Head over to the Patreon at patroon dot com Forward Slash pret Goodsteing for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and video with David.

Goes Apple Podcasts.

Give us a five star writing and write about a film that means the most of you and my It's a lovely thing to read it house numbers and it's really appreciating. My nighbor Marien loves it. Thank you so much to David forgiving me his time. Thanks to Scruby's PIP and the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace for producing it. Thanks to iHeartMedia and Miilferrell's Big Money Players Network. Faced thanks to Adamitgison for the graphics and

You're going to love that one. Thank you for listening. I hope you're all well.

That's it for now, but in the meantime, have a lovely week and please be excellent to each others.

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