Hey there, everybody, welcome to not Another crime podcast. I'm Georgia Love, I'm Stammy Peterson.
I am a journalist.
I am not, but today we are joined by a journalist, in fact, my hero today. And I've always had a very parasocial relationship with this person and we tried to do a few podcasts while he was finishing his book, and instead of doing the interview, I got two wonderful tours of his house. So I feel like I've become the stalker. It is the great John Ronson.
Hi. Hey, hey, both of you. Yeah, I apologize this. It was very like So what happened was we we kind of raged to do this when I was in the middle of bit in my book, and when the zoom hour approached, I came on and said to you, look, I just can't do this. I'm so down the rabbit hole focusing so hard. So I apologize and I'm.
Not You still turned up, which is the main thing. Most people wouldn't turn up, but you still turned up to say I can't do it.
But that is like my wife always gets really annoyed with me because when I go to parties, like quite often, right as I turned up at the party, I say, we can't stay long.
Managing expectations. That's called I think that's great.
And it's not a lie like I'm going through a tunnel or anything.
For me, it's just like a tell of I don't want to be here at all. Son says, it's very rude, and what you should do is be incredibly friendly to everybody and then leave very quickly. And you think so great.
It's the old rule of if you go to a party, you just need to be there for one moment that everyone's going to be talking about, and as soon as that moment has happened, you can get the hell out of there because people will remember you were there for.
That, right, Yes, exactly. So anyway, I'm glad that we're doing it now. I was so because I've written a true crime book called The Castle. I've literally I've just finished it a cut, but I can't talk about it tonight. I could talk about all because it's like a yeah, but just that I'm very much would I'd like to come back when the book's out so we could talk about it. Then, well, hang on.
We haven't. We haven't started yet. You might hate it by the time we get to the ends, like we've got it now on recording, you're saying you want to come.
Back, so admitted.
Well, luckily, I've got lots of other true crime things to talk about.
John, What is your because I mean, you know, you do write nonfiction, and and you've written so many different books and they've all covered so many different areas. So you've been publicly shamed the Psychopath test. I absolutely loved your podcast series that you did the Last Days of August. Uh for you personally, how how interested are you in true crime and is it something that you're drawn towards or is it just a human interest story that gets you first?
I guess the stories I'm interested always mystery stories, like I want to try and understand something about the world that I don't understand, So I guess inevitably, you know, sometimes that's about human behavior. Why are people behaving in this? You know? Sometimes it's real mysteries, and I guess that crosses over into true crimes. So I guess. And I remember, like as a kid, one of my favorite books was A Bit Not in the Garden of Good and Evil
and in Cold Blood and the Execution of Songs. So I was a huge fan of that, those kind of classic narrative nonfiction true crime books. So yeah, so I guess there's just that crossover in terms of mystery solving.
I really love that you said that. I've always said my favorite book of all time is In Cold Blood and I first read that as a it was probably about fourteen, and people you just said as a kid, I loved In cold Blood. And people always say to me, what's wrong with your brain? Why were you reading that at that age and why was it your favorite? But I think I found a kindred spirit heredly.
I mean for me. I guess when I really think about why I like In Cold Blood, it's more to do with maybe Truman Capoti than it is with the murderers. Yeah, because he's such a great you know, he brings you into that world so beautifully and he's so curious that he wants to solve this mystery too. And I the same with John Batt had been in the good Garden of Good and Evil. So these were nonfiction writers who wanted to solve mysteries. I wanted to like go to
dark places, I guess, and understand them. And that really inspired me, and I guess that is what I have done all of these years myself.
You've always had a part where you you're kind of always a part of the story, kind of like you know in Cold Blood as well. Did that kind of inspire you as a as a as a way of writing.
Yeah, very much so, those books and Hunters S. Thompson and PG O'Rourke, and and then when documentaries, let Nick Broomfield documentaries came out, a similar thing but in documentary form. Uh yeah, I wonder why. I just always thought there was something really heroic about about, you know, people like contrastops and going into these crazy worlds and writing about them. And there weren't novelists I never identified to us, you know,
aspired to be a novelist. It was always about the real world, about people going into real life places and like fuck everything up or or or solve mysteries or but just be part of it. So there was that the kind of heroism of it. But also I think there was the honesty of it. Like I learned from D. A. Pennet Baker and all of those early documentary makers that the journalist is part of the story, Like everything changes
when the journalist comes into the room. So so you have to admit that by making yourself part of the story.
I love that as well, because it's kind of taught. So I'm a journalist by trade, but very much doing general news, the daily news. So in that style of journalism, it's very much that you shouldn't be part of the story. You know, You've got to tell the facts from an unbiased position. But I think that's kind of why I love getting into those kind of like your books and
In Cold Blood and those kind of John Saffran. It's that desire of you know, I got into journalism because I'm obsessed with the stories and I want to tell stories and the same kind of thing as you learn about the human mind, So to be able to kind of delve in and feel like, oh, imagine being part of the story, but not in a way that you've been publicly shamed, which is bringing in another book of yours.
Yeah, absolutely, And yeah what you said about you know, telling the facts in an unbiased way, like I agree, I think you need to do. You know, I love to put myself in a bit of the story, but I want to I want the story to be unbiased, and I think that's sort of the reason for putting yourself in a bit of the story, because a journalist does skew things when they enter the room, and a journalist does bring along their own bias, and so the most honest thing to do was to make that part
of the story. An admitute. It's like showing your workings in a way.
It is, you know, very not true crime, in a very different way, but sort of related. So I'm doing I do radio news at the moment. And for your information background, nine years ago, I was on the Australian version of The Bachelorette. And yesterday, yesterday in my radio job, I was reading an entertainment story about Jessica Simpson denying rumors that she was going to be the next Bachelorette because she said she doesn't need help finding a partner
and she's got plenty of options. And as I was reading the story, I went, oh, I'm good for her, and I was like, that's me injecting myself into the story.
And John, you were talking before about Nick Broomfield as well. He went in and interviewed famously Eileen Wernos. Did that scare you kind of a little bit in terms of like going into this world or was that more like have you been terrified of some of the people that you've interviewed, or how do you kind of approach that in a way of talking to people like then, like you know, like how do you do that?
Yeah, it's funny. It's I get like anticipatory anxiety as I'm driving towards somewhere. But really I think the curiosity takes over so much in the psychopath test. I go to Broadmore, which used to be called the broad More Asylum for the criminally insane, so you know the kind of place that it is, and people are like, oh my god, you must have been so scared, but obviously
you're way more curious. I'd also just so delighted to be somewhere where most people don't get to go that that those things overwhelm any any fear that you have. In fact, I remember I was sitting at BroadWare one time and I said the nurse, I said, God, I can't pinch me. I can't believe of it Broadmore. I'm nurse. What we've got spared there? If you like.
You're starting to assure you like that. I'm having such a fan go a moment because I listened to the psychopath test as an audiobook, and just having you there in front of us saying Broadmore in your beautiful accident. I was like, oh my god, it's real.
Like I got to say, like when often you don't know if the story is gonna hit or not, you know a story is good. But I remember I was sitting outside Broadway. I didn't put this in the book. I was sitting outside Broadball with Brian, the scientologist who was the guy who got me into Broadmare because scientologists are very good at circumventing bureaucracy. And in the curve afterwards, he said to me, like, after we'd met Tony, and Tony was a guy who took very quickly spell it out. This.
Tony's the guy who faked madness to escape a prison sentence. But he faked madness too well, and he didn't end up in some cushy hospital. He ended up in Broadmore where nobody would Yeah, totally so. And the scientologists like were had taken Tony on told me about him and they did the car after beating Tony. I always remember Bride said to me like, you know, I just want to say John, like, thank you so much for taking the story. And I said, like, are you kidding me?
Like this is this is going to be with me for the next thirty years. I knew, I knew in the moment what a big story in terms of just like you know, people be curious about it. Yeah, like I knew that, I knew it was going to get good.
It did. Thank you, Thank you for giving it to us. Thank you to Tony and Brian from our parasocially thanking them for you for allowing you to do that.
How how often, John, do you like when you're going to start a new project like the book that we can't talk about but we will at some point, But when you go and start a new piece, if you're an article or whatever you're doing, do you I mean, I know that we're spoken about Reddit and you and I have in the past gone on very deep guards into Reddit sadly, uh And for you personally, do you
sometimes imagine this is true? But do you go down a lot of different rabbit holes and get to a story and then realize it's not something or is your intuition over the over the last few years, I imagine would get a lot better. Do you sometimes go down a path and start interviewing people and then realize there's no story in it.
Oh yeah. Often, often the times it really works, it's like it's like you know, lightning striking. It's it's just so lucky. There's so many dad aheads, there's so many bleak days when you're looking for I mad this documentary study Kubrick's box as, and I said to Christian Kubrick's wife, like, you know, in those ever length of the gaps between movies, what was he looking for? And she said, that magical moment of falling in love with the story, And that's
what you're looking for. And you just don't know what it's going to be until you know, until you find it, it jumps out at you. With the psychopath test, for instance, I just this psychologist happened to mention to me that you were much more likely to find psychopaths at the top of the tree than at the bottom. And this was a thought that you know, no, that's that's kind of been consciousness now, but it really wasn't at the time. And I was thinking about this, and I suddenly thought, Okay,
I should learn how to spot psychopaths. I should go on a psychopaths spotting course. And then journey into the corridors of power and try and spot psychopaths, and like, I have no idea what's going to happen, but whatever it is, it's got to be good. And so that's like one of those moments, and a similar thing actually with the new book The Castle. This is the one
thing I can say actually because it's out there. So the way that crashed into my life was I was asleep and my son, while I'm asleep, is texting me the series of texts and I see the last text first, and the last text is something like it's okay. We managed to get out. It was totally fucked, but we're
okay now. Yeah. So then I read all the other texts that had preceded it, and he and some friends had been invited to a party at a stranger's house that they'd met online in the forests of New England. This is a very well you'll see. So when they get there, the stranger's house was a massive, newly built castle with way too many turrets, like really odd, huge castle, and they went in and there was no party. They'd been invited there for other reasons.
Oh my god, I'm hooked, all right, give me the book straight into my veins immediately, right.
And then when I found this story, when he told me the story, I went to the castle and that's how the book begins.
That's amazing.
Hey, John, you're pretty good at a tease. You should consider doing writing or something for a living. That was really good.
I've got to say, I'm pretty cliffhanger shameless like that's I was talking to my wife about this this morning. I say, oh my god, you know, I really I really go for the cliffhangers.
I mean they go for you.
Can you tell us a little bit about the last days of August as well? I think it was such a podcast that really got me hooked, you know, because of your wonderful cliffhangers. But you know you did, you did start it and went into this world to find out about someone who sadly took their own life.
Yeah, and I see this kind of This is like a true crime cautionary tale. Actually, because of all the stories I've done, I'm glad I did this story. And I'm too hard in myself, like the way I'm going to tell this story, I think I'm too hurd to myself and almost everyone who listens to the Las Day of August really likes it and thinks it's responsibly done and so on. But I focus a lot on the kind of ethical flaws and the problems and the yeah,
things that I organized over. So I just made this documentary called The Butterfly Effect for Audible, which is this really sweet, upbeat documentary about the porn industry trying to adapt in the wake of all of these tech utopians coming in and taking over.
It was kind of porn Hub, wasn't it. And the people that, yeah, that took over and the HS tapes weren't a thing anymore, and it would just completely change the industry, which which happened very quickly.
Yeah, porn just like decimated the industry, And so I went to the poor world to see like how they were coping in that.
That is a good life hack. Make no no, babe, Honestly, it's for a documentary.
Yeah. Now my wife is very like permissive when it comes back. Yeah. So ah, So that was like a really sweet night should upbeat documentary. And then about a couple of months after it came out, this porn style called August Dain's Mercedes Kubowski took her life and I can't remember how it happened, but I ended up talking to her husband, Kevin, who said that she'd been there'd been a Twitter storm that day and she was being like kind of publicly shamed on Twitter and that was
and actually took her life. So I'd written a book about public shaming, and I'd made a documentary about the porn industry, so it just seemed like I should reach
out to her husband. So that's that's what happened. So I reached out to him, and he said that he completely he blamed the people who were dragging her on Twitter for her death, and he was going to release the statement and some of them were very big names in the porn industry, and he was going to release a statement naming and shaming the people who were respond
who he felt were responsible for her death. And then shortly after that, a few people in the porn industry said to me, we think mercedes death is more complicated. There's more stuff going on. You should investigate it, implying that maybe it wasn't even suicide. So that was what set me off on the journey.
Yeah, I mean there's so much along the way as well, a power outage, there's you know, the going to the going to the hotel. There's all these little bits and pieces that you kind of look at it and it's a clue after clue that maybe there is something more sinister of thought. Does that scare you though, when you maybe make comments about, oh, it doesn't seem like that is that is exactly what happened?
Does that? Does that scare you?
In in once it's out there.
Entering into the world of crime or potentially crime, entering into that from afar, but kind of putting yourself into it.
Yeah, well, I guess there's there are fears. There's probably well one of the fears, Okay, I'm putting myself in personal danger is one. I'm putting myself in legal jeopardy is another. And then the third one is is this ethically the right thing to do? And those are like, you know, at what point is it appropriate to pro around in somebody's life, especially somebody who's you know, grieving,
even if their behavior was shitty. So you know, all of these things were just like rustling around in my head for like the two years I was making however logic talk to make the show. So yeah, like those were three ultimately of the three fears, the one that became the biggest one was the ethical one. The other two I never felt with that story. I never felt in any physical danger. Actually that's not true. We being leader, did feel in physical danger. But I think we were
both being paranoid. Leader is the producer. I think we were just being paranoid. But at one point we hired armed like an armed guard.
Wow. Yeah.
And but honestly, looking back on us, I think we were being paranoid. God, I was gonna say, And I never felt there was any legal jeopardy because honestly, we're really careful, we're really assiduous, like I don't, you know, mess around with that kind of stuff. So the only thing left really was was was kind of ethical. And that just haunted me. And you know, and anybody who does true crime reporting, if they're not haunted by that, then they shouldn't be in the job.
Yeah, and then they're going to run into the legal part as well. I think that if you're not haunted by that.
You come from this really disarming, this disarming kind of point of view where you you always and it's so genuine with you. You care about the people and you
want to find out more. Do you feel like that that really you know that that way that you've kind of come into journalism and you probably see it done incorrectly a lot, do you do you look at that and kind of go, this was always you know, that's kind of your superpower in a way that people kind of trust you and and and want to want to divulge a lot of information I want to.
I think it's I think it's maybe more like, you know, when I decide to do a story, I get so obsessed with that, like I go down the rabbit hole and just completely consumes me. By the time I'm approaching interviewees, my passion for the story and for them and their stories. I guess it becomes, you know, kind of rubs off from them, and they and they're more agreeable to talk to me. And I guess there's a sort of enthusiasm that comes with the curiosity, and maybe that sort of
pumptiousness is attractive to them. Yeah, And and I am genuinely curious, Like it's rare that I go into a situation feeling judgmental, Like I'm genuinely curious. And so when I'm talking to them, I think they can tell they can tell.
That absolutely with the psychopath test, like going in to meet different psychopaths and actually staying in touch with people. Has that always been something about the stories that you tell that you kind of you are so involved in these people's lives, and you have stayed in touch with with the people who identify themselves as psychopaths. You know and and and you know and are of no harm to society. They understand that, you know, they're different compulsions,
They understand how they are as a person. Do your family ever kind of go, John, what are you doing? I guess your son's not because he's texting you in the middle of the night.
I remember my wife always laughs about this when we were first dating. I guess in the nineties I invited a member of the Madson family to stay and I was doing a kind of documentary. I never turned into anything, but we got some I think the BBC like somebody gave us somebody to do a documentary about where the you know, where members of the Madson family are now
and one of them. I got talking to Sadra Good and she said she was coming to London and I said, oh, you just come and to stay at the night, and she said, well to address and I said, like N one one j X and she said say that again. I said, you know, N one one X J for John X for what you have carved in your forehead, and she went, she went, that's not funny. And then I said to I said to Alada, I hope you don't have just invited one of the Madson family to stay.
She was like, yes, I do. Mind what are their dietaries?
There we go. That's a classic example of you being disarming and charming, because I'm pretty sure no one else would have the confidence to say X like you.
Have calved off. Could you like if that, if that line pops into your head.
Is can you can you tell us a bit about that?
What?
What was? Did you say? It was?
She?
What was she like?
She was actually quite scary. Sounds good. I think her bandsaid name was or Sanday. She was like a big member. She wasn't peripheral, you know, she was hardcore. She'd be you know, well, no I can't say that, but you know she was one of the hardcore members who didn't do any of the murders. And yeah, I've only got fleeting. I mean, I'm going back to the nineties. Now we
never even never turned into anything. But I remember meeting her and her boyfriend in this really remote hotel in exactly the kind of place you don't want to be stuck with a member of the Madson family, like some desert yeah, exactly, Yeah, some middle of nowhere desert motel. And it was a bit tense. Actually, this has been a couple of times when you're dealing with somebody who you can tell is has got, you know, psychological problems
that might mean they're prone to violence. Like there's been a few times when I'm doing all of that disarming stuff, which, by the way, that makes it sound like I'm putting it on, but it's and very much yeah, yeah, And I then realized that actually these are pretty dangerous people. That has happened a few times. And I think it happened in a small way with I don't want to like oversell it, but I got a sort of sense of unease from her.
Who or what is the kind of quite unquite scariest situation you found yourself in, Whether that's that someone else would say, I can't believe you put yourself in that situation that scary, or that you really felt in that moment, you know, from a kind of crime or unease situation.
To be honest, like, I can't really go into detail, but some of the stuff in the new book in the Castle has made me feel that way. Wow. And before that, well, there was well going to Aryan Nations in Idaho, driving up past all the signs saying Jews turn around now that noes and then turning up you know, with with all of my jewishness and and these skinheads these really scared, like you know, this was like a proper hardcore, your muscular skinhead community all surrounding me and
asking me if I was Jewish. That was That's one of the times what I felt like in very immediate danger. But you know how that resolved itself. This is I've always thought this is amazing. So they didn't say are you Jewish? They said what's your genealogy? Meaning are you Jewish? Yeah, so I said, I'm Church of England. I always joke about this with Louis through because Louis throw was once at a situation very similar to this when they said are you Jewish? And Louis said, I'm not going to
tell you if I'm Jewish. Or not, and Louis isn't Jewish And I was in that same situation and they said to me, are you Jewish? And I said no, no, no, Louis is a brave and Louis wins that comparison.
Can I just say, I will die happy if I can legitimately say the sentence. I always joke about this with Lewis through.
Sorry, So okay, so what we're saying, yes, oh yeah, yeah. The way that resolved itself was I said, I'm Church of England. And then one of the guys around the circle, who wasn't the skinhead like a bit older, said made some joke about the Church of England, and that joke signified to all the skin heads to disperse, and so they all did. So that guy, at that moment, like you know, was saved me. And I've often wondered, I've often wondered who was that guy? Was he a real Nazi?
Might he had been an undercover federal agent like this, We know that there was a bunch of them in places like Area Nations. Uh, you know what happened in that moment? Maybe he just maybe you know, Okham's razor would say that he just didn't want, you know, film crew. The last Signian Nations needed was beating up some journalist. You know, so that was you know, that's probably what happened, but I don't know, maybe something else happened.
Yeah, Wow, what a story. Oh my god, John.
I know that you're you know, you're always working. Like I remember us talking recently about you know that you work seven days a week because you just love it. You know, has that has that grown over time? Do you still get that invested in things like working all the time? You know, you go for your walk, your back you're thinking, is is there just a part of you that just has all is just love what you do?
Yeah? I just love it. Like on the very rare occasions when I take a couple of days off, I kind of appreciate it, Like for maybe a day, I think, Okay, I understand why people try leisure. Yeah, like I could, I could see why. But ultimately it's not long before the sort of cold winds of bleak paranoia sweep through you, and that those cold winds are sated by being on a story, by being intrigued by something. I just find that. So like, if I wake up, you know what I've
got this bar. Now we live in the middle of nowhere, and I've got this barn where I work. And I'm there at like five thirty or six in the morning, and I turned on all the lights and sit in my chair and I find myself and it's still dark. This doesn't come up yet, and I find myself smiling like like this is this is where? This is great, Like I've got something to do, I have purpose. I've got a story that gives me. That's the thing I do. Well. Yeah, I just love it.
Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
I love that.
How wonderful John.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. It's so lovely to have you on. And I know, like your son, I wasn't messaging you in the middle of nights. We're podcasting right now and you having to go, oh shit, finishing your book and everything. I'm so excited about the new book and and you know, is there more psychopath test Nights coming coming soon? Are you touring again?
I just did another Psychopath Night tour in Britain, which I really loved. I really finessed it. I think it's like the best version of the show I did, like seventeen of them. But no, I think with the new book with the Castle coming out, we'll probably put Psychopath Night on the shelf for at least a few years. There's a little bit of talk about amatized again, like over the years, like that's every so often it looks like it may be dramatized and then it isn't. But
there's a bit more talk of that. And if that happens, oh definitely, because I love Psychopath Night and so so I would absolutely do it again if something like that came up. But I was actually going to tell you a story which I can.
I tell you that was like, never ask if you can tell us a story.
Okay, well, it's just because of the theme of this and and it's it's a self aggrandizing story. So I apologize, but I don't think I've ever told it. So it's just that. So you know, the reason why we're sitting here and everybody's so interested in to crime these days is to a large extent because of Season one of Cereal And yeah, you know that was like such a kind of revolution in storytelling, and you know, a million copy caps and so on. What about anyway?
What about the nation call, which she kept saying that throughout there's so many iconic manes.
That's right. Anyway, Sarah Kanik and Julie Snyder who made it, who were like brilliant and they're brilliant, brilliant journalists, and they were like the kind of beating heart of this American life. And I'd worked with both of them on the Tony story in the Psychopath Test. I told them I was working on the story for the book, and
they said, I'll do it for us as well. So I was like working with Sarah and Julie And then a couple of years later they made Cereal and I emailed them to say like how much I was enjoying it, and they said, like, we've been thinking, like while we've been making it, we've been thinking a lot about that
Tony story about Broadmore. It's been like and so I think, like I can't say that like that story inspired, yeah, but I do think that maybe it sort of influenced some of the storytelling a little bit.
And wow, the original podcast influencer.
Right, yeah, And because and the the repels from season one of Servia was so huge.
And you've been podcasting for a long time as well, and you've been at you know, this American life and everything. When you talk about the fictionalized version of the psychopath test, who would you feel comfortable playing you? The question not Louis.
Now you know what I am. So what I learned really early on with adaptations is just stay the fuck away, like let them do it. I so, I don't even think about it, like they could just do whatever they want.
Very diplomatic.
Obviously Frank was very different for you. But what about you know the men who stereic goats when that was made into a film. Were you Were you a bit more hands off for that one and decided to let them do it or because it's so personal to you? Did you? Oh?
No, I was. I was very very hands off. We in the screenwriting process, Peter Strawn wrote the screenplay Who Won An Oscar last year for Conclave, and he wrote the screenplay. I was remember walking into a Starbucks in central London one time while Peter was writing the screenplay and Peter was in there and as he looked over at me, his face just sank and it's like the last and I get it. Like when I was writing Frank,
I would have felt the same way. If the real Frank Sidebossom walked in the room like you want it. You don't want real life puncturing. And so I had nothing to do with the screenwriting process. We visited the set. The best, the best thing in terms of you know, that process was you know, we visited the set for
a couple of days, me and Peter. But when the film came out, George Clooney like so nicely, like I will never forget this kindness, really included me and Peter in all of the like the like in the film festivals. We were up on the stage with them and and like included us in all of the publicity for it. And you know a lot of people don't do that. For a lot of people, we're like the dirty secrets, like the writers.
Pretend they don't exist, and it's our movie, not book the.
Magic and and I don't know that was so generous of him to do that.
Wow, you know it's funny because as as such a book lover myself, I am always nervous when a book that I love is turned into a series or a movie because I want it to be traditional to the book. So that's so interesting to hear someone from the novel side of it or the you know, the book side say, I'll stay away from it because if it needs to be different, it can be because as the consumer, I'm like, no, let the writer be part of it. It's their story.
Well, I have a number of reasons for having that attitude. One is that I'm not as good at fiction as i am nonfiction. So if I did interfere, and I may not know what I'm talking about. So you know, if I'm on a non you know, in nonfiction, I know what I'm talking about, and in fiction I don't. So that's one reason. Another reason, that's kind of the main reason, to be honest, I'm sure there are other
reasons for that. That's the main ones. Yeah, I just think well I always remember, like like Nick Hornby, I used to like have the odd lunch with him because we both lived in Islington, and he was like, if you if you are getting involved in Hollywood, just just go to it with no emotion, because if you go to it with any emotion, you're gonna get hurt in some in one way or another that you won't even expect. And Hollywood is a very alpha male place, like it's
a very like Glen Garry Glen Ross type place. And so for all of those reasons, I go in with no emotion, or I don't go in at all, and I just let him get on with it. They know what they're doing. I don't. I don't love that Glen Garry Glenn Ross's atmosphere, and so it's just best to.
Let them do their thing.
Yeah.
I had that story about Nick Cormby that the reason About a Boy is such a good film is because he wrote the book in Hugh Grant's voice, like he had Hugh Grant in his mind already where he wrote it just going oh my god, so Qugh Grant's.
Definitely going to that's the character I in picturing. Yeah, it's like translates so well to the movie.
And when you read it you're like, oh absolutely, I can't imagine anyone else doing it.
Wow.
And we'll feel that way one day when the psychopath test is made into it.
Yes, so who is who is Tony? In your mind?
I don't have a clue visualize it. Yeah. No, honestly, I don't think about it because you never because you know what, when I was making Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, I was remember this. I've met this guy who was really high up in Warner Brothers, like a real old timer, and I said to you, he was in Saint John's Word, in this big mansion in London, and you know, real kind of grizzled Hollywood old timer, high up in Warner Brothers.
And at the end of the interview I said to him, I said, oh, you know, I've written this book called The Menisteric Goats, and you know this talk that it might be getting turned into a movie, and this guy goes a job. I'm going to tell you something about movies. This is what you need to know about Hollywood. No film ever gets made.
I love that.
Brilliant with three films that got made, and on each occasion it's like such a fucking miracle that that's another reason to not get involved. It's like, why mess with the miracle? Like there's a million reasons for films not get to not get made, and that you know, it's a miracle when it happens.
Wow, I'm just picture. I'm a massive Broadway nerd. So that whole story on my mind was in the set of Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, parking spot at Warners. I mean I'm invested in this.
Story, John, thank you so much.
Yeah, that was really fun.
Oh, thank you, Thank you Sech for your time and just your your openness with us today. But with everything you do, where such massive fans, and we know our listeners are as well, and we can't wait to have you back, and we need to get you back before we can talk about the castle, because I'm worried that's going to be too far away and I need to know more.
Well, it's only August. It's like the end of August, and I might be coming back to Australia, like I hope. So there's talk of it. I don't know if it's going to actually happen or not. That if it does, i'd love to see you in person.
Yeah, you know you're my hero, John, and I fanboy over you every time I've seen you in person, and I twice now and I fanboy every time.
So now he is just showing off.
But thank you so much, John for taking the time. We really appreciate it.
Thank you, it's a pleasure.