Opening Up with Paul Mescal

Do you regret at all saying yes to this?

Absolutely not. Yeah, you good?

You know I think I'm good.

We'll see.

We'll see at the end of it I'll be like, ah.

[soft music]

How familiar are you with what we're about to do?

I tried to describe it to somebody earlier today

and I said it like I knew it

and I don't really know what it is, to be honest.

We're gonna go through a set of questions.

Instead of each of us answering each of these questions,

you're gonna have the opportunity to kind of Uno reverse me

on a few of them where you will answer it.

And then ask,

And then you can make me answer it too.

Okay, so the first pre-question is, you know,

you and I have met a few times.

I would say we know each other and are friendly.

Yeah, we're friendly, definitely, I agree.

So where would you put us on a scale of one to seven,

one being strangers

and seven being as close as you can possibly get?

One being strangers, seven being,

I would say three or four.

[Paul] I was gonna say a three. Yeah.

That feels the best.

Let's go three.

Are you ready? Ready, yeah.

Okay, first question.

Given the choice of anyone in the world,

who would you want to have over as a dinner guest?

Anybody in the world?

They have to be living?

I'll give you dead. Well, I feel like I,

the answer that's coming to my head is,

well my granddad died when I was young

and I feel like I never really connected

with him as an adult,

'cause I wasn't an adult when he passed.

So I probably go with my granddad.

He's like the, in terms of close family,

he's the person that I feel least,

not least connected to,

but least connected to as an adult.

Do you ever struggle with

how much exposure your job demands

compared to how private you are in real life?

Yes.

Yeah, I think we've like,

I think it's a tricky thing

because the job requires it,

but also I don't have the capacity

for what is asked, sometimes.

Those two truths are at war with each other sometimes.

Before making a telephone call,

do you ever rehearse what you're gonna say and why?

Do I ever, I have, but I don't.

I'm a phone caller as a per, are you a phone?

That doesn't count as a?

You can, yeah, you can have that.

I'm not a great, like, texter,

so I'll regularly communicate things

that probably should be communicated

over text and phone calls.

What makes you a weak texter?

Sometimes text feel like obligations to respond to.

You have to open, you have to read it.

You have to consider a response.

Whereas when you're on the phone with somebody,

you kind of are just,

if you're like fundamentally more anxious leaning,

I think phone calling is actually better.

Which might sound crazy, but I think that is better.

It might be better with the text

when you see the text?

Or voice note?

Yeah. Better than texting.

What would constitute a perfect day for you?

Honestly, today, like we both live around

a specific park that I'm obsessed with.

Yeah.

And I think I'm a winter boy.

Like this morning walk, I walked around the park

for a little bit before I got picked up

and I was like, this is perfect.

But that would be the start of the day.

And then it sounds boring to just be like,

go home and watch a documentary.

Like, do you know that historian David Olusoga

watch something that he, I think he's brilliant.

Or watch a World War II documentary.

Maybe not, that wouldn't be in the perfect day.

I love history documentaries.

Wow. Yeah.

I'm just kind of going off with my perfect day now.

Like what would I.

Yeah, right now. Do today.

[Adam] Yeah.

What day of the week is it?

'Cause that'll dictate. Well perfect.

You get to dictate that.

It's a perfect day.

So let's Friday where I'm not called into work,

it's winter out for a walk, layered up,

come back, get a coffee at that specific place we both know.

I like that place.

[Adam] Go to that place. Yeah.

Then go back, watch a nature documentary.

Open a bottle of wine at home.

Maybe have some friends over

and then go out dancing.

And then on the way back order like Five Guys.

Yeah, like a guilty Uber that would meet you at the door.

Yeah. Yeah.

That sounds pretty good to me.

[Adam] Sounds pretty great. Yeah.

When did you last sing to yourself

and when did you last sing to someone else?

I was singing to somebody,

we shot a scene where I was singing

to lots of people this week.

That counts?

That's technically an honest answer, I guess.

I sang to myself,

singing to yourself sounds like a weird sentence,

doesn't it?

Yeah. I sang for myself.

Yeah, in the presence of only yourself.

[Paul] Yeah. Yeah.

On Friday night.

What did you sing?

I was writing a song and I was on my own in the house

and I was singing It.

Didn't know you were a songwriter?

I did not until a little while,

and I don't know about, well yeah, I think I,

well I like writing songs.

Oh wow.

So I did a bit of that on Friday

and then the time before that,

probably at home, the week beforehand.

Yeah.

With somebody els, it was great.

If you were able to live to the age of 90

and retain either the mind

or the body of a 30-year-old,

the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

Oh, I wouldn't want the mind of a 30-year-old.

'Cause I assume that like, I would love to have the body

of a 30-year-old in terms

of like physical capacity and the mind,

or are we assuming that like?

Assuming, I think the question spiritually is saying

that your mind would have its natural, organic,

biological aging process.

See, that's scared.

Like that's the fear,

[Adam] Huh?

I would like struggle if I had a healthy

90 year old's mind.

That's kind of the dream.

Because you've the wisdom of the life that has preceded you

and to have the body of a 30-year-old would be great

because you'd be able to like have physical agency.

I think that would be the dream.

But having like, I struggle with the idea

of like your mind wanting your body

to do something and it just can't do it anymore.

That's ultimately what's gonna happen to all of us.

But tough.

Yeah.

It's not a very fun question.

No, that's true.

In the spirit of not very fun questions,

do you have a sacred hunch about how you will die?

I remember I said in an interview recently

that I like don't really see myself as an old person

and my dad called me and was like,

I wish you wouldn't say that.

And I understand what he means in terms of he's right.

But I am turning 30 in February

and I don't feel good about it.

Not to say that that is old, I just don't,

I remember being young

and seeing like my best friend's older brothers

and they were like 19, 20.

I was like, woo, that's the age you wanna be.

And that's 10 years ago for me now.

I don't know how I'm gonna die.

I can't visualize in spirit of the last question,

I can't see myself at 90 years of age.

Not to say that it won't happen,

I just, I would be surprised.

Not in a dark way, I just don't like,

like I hope I get there,

but I can't see what that looks like.

Can you see what 90 would look like?

[Paul] No. Yeah.

But not in a.

No, it's not in the morbid sense.

It's just like,

Just so much has to happen before that.

So much has to happen.

And like, I think maybe I'm nervous about the concept

of what has to happen to get to 90,

like to get to 90 fundamentally means

that like parents are gone.

You're gonna lose a lot of friends.

[Adam] Definitely.

And this is a very privileged age now at 29, 30

where you're of course confronted

by the like mortality of loved ones.

But it doesn't necessarily feel like

a very present thought.

That's not true for everybody.

That's true for me, I feel very lucky

that I haven't experienced like very, very close people

to me become ill and pass.

But I know that hasn't happened for people my age.

Of course, you're confronted with the mortality

of your parents all the time

and as you get older, that's true.

And that's tough.

So 90 I'm like,

it's gonna become thick and fast then.

A lot has to happen before 19.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I often think that. Yeah.

Name three things you

and your conversation partner appear to have in common.

Me and you have in common.

I think our core relationships like a maybe like,

are very, very important to us.

Like Alex and romantic partners are very important to us.

Yeah. I think

what we have in common is we love the same

part of the same city.

Yep, definitely.

What's another thing that we have in common?

I think we're hard workers.

It's quite good.

It's that good, yeah.

I was gonna say black hoodies.

Black hoodies.

We have that too, that's optional.

For what in your life do you feel most grateful for?

I feel very, very lucky with the people

that I'm surrounded by.

And I feel like it's expanding, actually.

Like the important people, like obviously my family are,

have been steadfast since day one,

but I feel like I have a chosen family as well.

And I think I'm relative.

I think I'm like a mixture

between introverted and extroverted.

But I always feel like when I make a new friend

or a new important person, I'm like, that's it now.

And then someone else will come in and it's like,

I feel very lucky that like the circle

of people that I love is getting bigger, which is great.

I love that.

If you could change anything

about the way you were raised, what would it be?

Oh.

And weirdly made me sad.

I think there's nothing

that I would change about the way I was raised,

but I would love to

take some sort of burden off my parents.

Because I think they,

they just loved us under like certain pressures

that I don't know if I would be able to do.

If I could go back in time and just be like,

to take some sort of burden from them

because they worked so hard to give us what we needed.

And I don't think we were,

not to speak on behalf of my siblings,

I don't feel like I was grateful enough

at the time for that.

I think that's true for children generally.

It's like you're not aware of the bigger picture

until you're suddenly like an adult and you're like, Jesus.

[Adam] How?

Concept of raising a child now.

[Adam] Yeah.

Which I would love to do, but like this idea that like,

that's wild to me.

Yeah.

In one minute, tell your life story

in as much detail as possible.

Born in 1996 in Holles Street in Dublin.

My mom's was a police woman and my dad was a teacher.

Grew up in Maynooth.

Grew up in a state called Rockfield first.

Then I moved to Castledawson.

I went to two Irish schools growing up.

So we would speak Irish in school.

Played lots of sport growing up.

Thought that I wanted to play Gaelic football as an adult.

Went on stage, did Phantom of the Opera when I was 16.

Fell in love with being on stage.

Went to drama school.

Nearly dropped outta drama school, loved drama school.

Fell in love with acting.

Really lucky.

And jumped into a career that was like willing to accept me

and took me in with open arms.

Fell in love, fell outta love.

Mom got sick

and like extraordinary things were happening in my life

around a time that was like very full professionally.

And I feel very lucky that all of those things did happen.

Landed in a city that I didn't love initially,

with people that I love.

And we all seem to have gathered in the same

place in the city by accident.

And that's kind of where I'm at now.

Quite well done for 60 seconds, I thought.

Well, in the back of my head, my brain is going,

how many seconds is that?

By the way, you're about a third of the way through.

[Paul] Really?

You're doing very well.

Are we going too fast do you think?

No, there's no such thing as too fast or too slow.

If you could wake up tomorrow

having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

Patience, for sure.

I'm not patient at all.

Like, do you know when you come across people who've like

meditated regularly, you give off patient vibes,

you're calm vibes?

I also don't like the word vibes and I used it twice there.

But you give off like a patient energy.

I don't think I'm patient.

I never would've thought that about you.

Well, I think, yeah.

People who know me will know that

like I'm not particularly patient.

Like emotionally impatient

or just like wanna keep things moving.

No, I think I'm patient.

I think I'm relatively good in like a crisis.

I'm patient in like in relation to other people,

but I'm not patient at like work.

I'm not patient on a day-to-day.

I'm not good in a queue.

I'm not good at like sitting still for too long.

Or like if somebody says

that something's gonna take half an hour

and it takes 40 minutes

or if you're on a, like an example of this would be,

say you are driving home from work

and nine times outta 10 it takes 35 minutes

and then you look at Google Maps and it's 42 minutes.

That drives me nuts.

I'm not driving the car, it doesn't matter.

I will Google maps

how long it's gonna take to get home.

And when it, like, if it goes from like.

Starts going off. 35 minutes

to 38 and it's like.

That's tough.

Plus seven minute delay.

I'd be like, let's just take this contour.

Wow. Yeah, not great.

You also, I think you're quite a fast walker.

I'm a fast walker, yeah.

You've always been a fast walker?

Yeah, I think so.

My mom's a very fast walker.

See I quite admire that.

That's a good trait. Yeah.

If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself,

your life, the future, or anything else,

what would you want to know?

I want I, I'll answer this,

but I want to earn a reverse to buy me time.

What would you, how would you answer that?

Do you know what?

I would say that,

life, I like not knowing everything that's gonna happen.

Yeah.

I really like conspiracy theories

and like there's probably some aliene stuff

that you could pass the crystal ball that's quite cool.

But I would probably use

the crystal ball opportunity to like,

I'd say there's some things that I've been

holding off doing a little bit.

Right.

So it'd be more immediate.

Yeah, if there was, if there was some like reassurance

from the crystal ball, if the crystal ball could act like

as a bit of a artist's therapy

and be like, yeah you should, you know,

that thing would work out.

Right.

I'd probably use that to push

through some reluctance I have in certain parts of my life.

Particularly in art.

Yeah.

The one that was jumping into my head there

when you were talking was like,

will I,

my good answer is yes, but like, will I be acting forever?

Is the question that I have.

'Cause I love it, but I feel like it's very demanding.

I want to have a kind of like artistic output for forever.

But I think it needs

to be something other than acting for me to sustain that.

So that's what I would ask.

[Adam] Would you be relieved

if the crystal ball's like,

no, you won't be acting forever?

[Paul] No.

Because that means other stuff will have happened?

No, I actually, that's interesting.

I would want the crystal ball to say, yes,

but it won't only be acting.

So almost like a relief.

Like, oh wow, I pursued other stuff as well.

Yeah, and then I'd be like, what is it?

What is the other thing?

I feel like you get one

thing from the ball though.

It feels greedy to ask more than one thing

from the crystal ball.

Then the question will be, will I be acting for forever?

And if not, what else will it be that I would be doing?

Okay, you can hedge.

It's just everyone else will judge you, not me.

You won't get any judgment from me though.

In what ways do you most feel misunderstood?

That I'm generally sad.

I don't think I'm sad.

I think when I first met you I thought

he's so funny and playful.

I'm glad that you thought that.

Yeah, I thought you'd be quite

serious before I met you, and then.

No, I don't, I think I'm, I don't,

I would never describe myself as funny.

I love when other people do, I'm like, yes.

I think people have a,

maybe an assumption that it's tied to work

and I'm a little bit bored of it, to be honest.

The sad thing. If it was true,

I'd be like, that's great.

I also just think.

I don't understand how

we as an audience absorb

music, art, films anymore.

I think we're very drawn, which we spoke about earlier,

this concept of compartmentalizing ideas or themes

and then placing them on an actor.

And then also this like whole concept of like fan bases.

[Adam] Fandom.

It's so insane to me.

Do you know there's loads of actors out there

that you don't have to like tie yourself

to one entity.

Yeah.

But like, it'd be like just listening to one band

and then refusing to listen to anybody else.

And I think that that is becoming easier for people to do

because of visibility and internet

and kind of the culture of the internet.

There's maybe an assumption that I am sad

and I don't think.

And you don't think you are.

It's true.

But having said that, I am drawn to grief and love

and depression in work,

because I think it's something that I definitely connect to

and is true for me in moments.

And I do feel an artistic

compulsion to express that.

And I feel like I'm good at that.

But I don't think that it

is all the same color.

And like a film like Hamlet,

is a very different color to one of Aftersun,

or Normal People,

or even something like Streetcar,

which maybe you wouldn't see as like something

that's fundamentally sad straight away.

It's actually I think the saddest piece of work

that I've been involved in.

I don't think I'm sad

and I think people might think I'm sad.

It's good to get that on the record.

Get that on the record.

And Adam said that I was funny

You were quite funny.

I Remember that.

Funny and fun.

[Paul] Folks, yeah, yeah, it's real.

It's kind of tied back to a previous question.

Is there something that you've dreamed

of doing for a long time?

Why haven't you done it?

Maybe it's not a small dream.

I would love to go

on a like long backpacking holiday in South America

and I haven't done it because I haven't had the time.

I was talking to someone recently about maybe

carving out time to do that.

Like six weeks.

No plan.

One backpack, go.

You haven't had six weeks?

That's true, I have had six weeks.

Why haven't you done it? I haven't done it.

I think the truth is I've had six weeks

but it's always been in preparation for another job.

Like it's time spent between jobs.

Like the maximum amount of time I've ever had

is like eight, nine weeks.

And half of it, if I was to do eight, nine weeks off,

three of those would be like in bed recovering.

And then the next six weeks would be preparing

for the next thing.

Can I gently challenge?

Yeah, that was so sweet.

Of course you can. Yeah, very gently.

Do you think any part of it is like,

we spent so much of today exploring

like projection of other people.

But do you think any of it's to do with an actor's anxiety

of like the next job where it's gonna come from?

I don't have that, I think.

You just genuinely haven't had

six weeks to go to South America.

I've had it before, this feeling of like next job

and the fear that I do have is one

of not personally desired,

but being desired an audience for the work that I do.

But I'd be lying if I said that I was worried here,

sitting here about being employed.

'Cause I haven't had that experience

since I've graduated from drama school.

And that's one of great privilege, but it's not one.

And as a result of that, I'm not sitting here.

I do have a panic

that like suddenly everybody's gonna think

I'm at fucking shit my job and then it'll disappear.

But not in a kind of tangible.

Not if you like go away, you kinda miss an audition

or some call is gonna come out.

No, in fact that's, and also I haven't,

maybe the reason I didn't wanna do it

is because I've really enjoyed the rhythm

that I've been working at.

And I think that process began when I was 23

and I'm now turning 30.

And it is that thing of like,

oh, I can feel myself wanting

to slow down a bit more and certain priorities come in

where I spend my time.

And whether that's with my family or with my partner

or with friends,

I've never had a desire

to really spend my time anywhere else

other than work up until this point.

So maybe that's actually the answer

why I haven't done that yet.

And now I do have a desire

to not spend my time necessarily

in a rehearsal room or on set.

The act of choice being that I do want

to be there and I do wanna do it.

And then after that it's like spending time elsewhere

and how I spend that is maybe around South America.

I hope happens for you.

So do I. What's the greatest

So do I What's the greatest

That's hard, I dunno.

There's so many things that come to my mind with that.

I'm very proud of when I first started working,

that I'm very proud of when I first started working,

Like in terms of how much time.

Like, I would just disappear.

time I like, I would just disappear.

And I think I'm very proud of,

not in terms of the friend that I am now,

not, not in terms of the friend that I am now,

and been like, oh, I actually show up

more than I have before.

You feel more present.

I think the thing that I'm proudest of,

I think I'm very proud of how I show up in my relationships.

I think I'm very proud of how I show up with my family,

my friends, and with my partner.

There's obviously like accomplishments

that like relate to career.

The thing that I feel most proud

of in my career is actually the relationships.

Because I think that the reason that

certain like tangible accomplishments have come out

of those things are because of like actually fundamentally

loving the people that I made it with.

I have a real world, real life love for Jesse Buckley.

For Josh O'Connor.

For Andrew Scott.

For people that I've worked with.

I absolutely love them.

And I think that's a big,

I've kind of waffled that answer,

but I think the biggest accomplishment in my life

is who I love and who loves me.

That's probably the biggest accomplishment.

That's a really good answer.

[Paul] Yeah. That's really cool.

I'd also say. What about you?

I wanna ask you that.

What's your greatest accomplishment?

That's definitely the deepest question I think so far.

They're actually meant to get heavier as they go.

Really, fuck.

Yeah.

I'm like whoa.

I would say that there's

like very tangible things in my life.

Yeah.

That are like clear accomplishments.

How do you feel about accomplishments?

Because I'm proud of like actually certain

like tangible accomplishments,

but like how do you feel about like receiving those?

I like it.

It feels really good at the time.

[Paul] Yeah.

But I would say that I put them

in the rear view mirror very quickly.

Yeah, for sure.

And I have a big issue with like,

I've never been good at marking the occasion.

Right.

I think the great accomplishment

of my life is like if you zoomed out is probably

to be here now like this.

My family for many generations was in the south of Iraq

as these, you know,

were a very, very teensy tiny ethnic minority

and been very persecuted over the years.

And for my parents to have in just one generation

gone to Australia.

Yeah.

Had all that ambition.

Poured it into that.

You talked about parenting earlier.

Yeah.

It's like, for them to have accomplished all that,

what's and all flaws and all

however it had to happen.

[Paul] Yeah.

Is like a miracle unto itself.

And I still think it's just like,

it's crazy how much happened

to our family in one generation.

So almost just being here.

When did your parents move to Australia?

Oh, they moved in the eighties.

Wow.

Late eighties.

That's an amazing transition.

They are so ambitious.

Yeah.

And however much I accomplish,

I will never match their accomplishments

because you can't fathom the scale.

They're not even from Iraq's biggest city.

They're not from the capital.

[Pual] No.

They're from the 10th biggest city in Iraq.

Wow. Nazarea.

To go from Nazarea to where we are today in this house,

and now we get to talk about art.

But where does that sit with your greatest accomplishment?

I don't know, I feel like part of my journey

is trying to put out work

or build a life that honors their sacrifice

and their own ambition.

[Paul] Right, right.

And I feel like I'm starting to do that.

Yeah, that's amazing.

And if you look at my life holistically,

I feel pretty good about it.

Yeah, yeah. So, but yeah,

I'd say like more tangible on paper.

They're really cool.

Yeah. And there's a few

that have happened to me,

but I move past 'em pretty quickly.

I know. I think that's.

It's a bad habit.

I dunno if it's a bad habit.

I think it's a bad habit if you're consciously refusing

to accept the fact that it's something

that maybe makes you proud or that you're,

but I also think you can dwell on like past successes

in a way that hinders you moving forward sometimes.

But it's about balance.

[Paul] I like that. Yeah.

Can I say something about your answer?

Yeah.

I would say it's also a little bit of a miracle

that you are the way you are,

at least from what I know of you.

I sat at a dinner a few years ago next

to an actor who's let's say a generation or two above you.

Yeah.

Who's had a very incredible career.

And I would say he was particularly white hot in a certain

period of the nineties.

Right, who was it?

Who the fuck was it?

Spill the beans. Come on.

And I said to him, you know what it's like,

it's crazy how cool you are because

if I or any other person I know had been in

that white hot center of your career.

Yeah.

At that period of time, I'm pretty sure

I would've turned into a monster.

I would've been the biggest piece of shit, and he laughed.

He laughed and I'm like, Why are you laughing?

And he said, Because I was a monster.

He was, was he? And he came out

and he kind of pulled it back in.

Wow.

And I think whenever I meet someone like you

or like quite a few of your peers in London, I would say.

Yeah.

It's a good generation of artists, but.

I'm also impressed by how levelheaded you all are

and like you could be such a piece of shit

and I'm pretty sure you're not.

Yeah, but this is the thing.

I'm sure there's people in the world

that think I'm a piece of shit

or that you're a piece of shit.

Definitely.

Like all of that is true.

And I think the mistake that I made

before was that like

I believed people

that like had no access to my life or who I was.

To be fair, I haven't been privy to people

like actually thinking that.

But I think it's a mistake to assume that some people don't.

And I do feel very,

like that's kind of tied to the accomplishment.

It's like, I think the greatest accomplishment

that I feel is that the people that I know love me

are the people that I admire most in the world.

Do you know, that means something.

I'm doing something right.

That is happening.

It's like how do you,

how do you receive somebody saying,

I'm surprised because

I don't think this is what you're saying.

But ultimately the point is.

I'm surprised you don't suck.

That I don't suck.

I've come across probably on,

out of all the people that I've worked with,

crazy talented, crazy, like astronomically famous people.

And I can count.

There's one person that I think is not particularly good.

Who was it?

But every like I've met, do you know what I mean?

I met a lot of people, really.

I think I've met a lot of people

who, like you would, from an outsider's perspective,

you would assume that the worlds at their feet.

And they do in certain instances.

Like it's an amazing privilege.

And even that person

that I wasn't particularly like impressed by,

they weren't the monster,

the cartoon monster

that I think people think exists within this industry.

They definitely exist.

Yeah, I think they're a rarer bird

than we think they're are, yeah.

Which I'm grateful for.

'Cause can you imagine going

to work every day and that's what you're surrounded by?

It's either gonna wash off on you

or you're gonna run away from the job that you love.

I continue to think though,

it is a miracle anytime I meet someone.

Relatively adjusted.

I think it's parents as well.

Family goes a long way. Yeah.

Do you feel comfortable getting morbid again?

Probably. If you knew

that you would die in one year's time.

Jesus.

Would you change anything

about the way you are now living?

If I was to die in a year's time,

I probably would pull out of the job that I,

like I would not be on set.

If I knew I was gonna die in year, ooh.

You're gonna call Sam Mendez and be like.

Gonna call Sam and be like, you know what?

I'm loving this but I'm actually gonna die within the year.

All the best.

No, but then at the same time,

it's the question of would I want

to like live life as normal.

Yeah.

And my gut is that I would want to continue.

I feel really happy in my life at the moment.

Like really the happiest I've been.

So I think I'd probably stick with it.

[Paul] I dig that. Yeah.

'Cause you might go and be, okay, I'm gonna do this

expensive America visit.

Stop walking around the park the whole time.

Cook frosty park.

The frosty park.

Actually I'd continue life as normal, yeah.

I respect that.

If you're gonna become a close friend with someone,

share what would be important for them

to first know about you?

I think I can be intense with, I don't know.

What would I first want them to know?

I like that answer.

I think it would be intense, I think.

What do you have to like, what kind of intensity?

It's like the big relationships in my life,

like new friends who've come in or like, it's big.

They're big and they're like,

it's intense and then it will calm down.

Like I'll warn them that it'll like be pretty intense

in terms of, I don't know, like meeting Harris and Joe

and like I knew Joe from before, but like, right?

It's been a very intense, like,

they're very important intense relationships to me.

And like new friends that have come in, in the last year.

I think I can be intense

and I freak out about it a little bit internally.

But How does it manifest?

Like I haven't spoken to you today, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just like. What are you doing?

Yeah.

When did you last cry in front of another person?

Oh, I dunno.

I remember one of the more recent times was,

what month are we in now?

We're in.

I think it's almost December.

September.

September this year.

I probably cried more recently than that,

but that's the one that I remember.

Nothing more to add on that one.

It's completely fine. Yeah.

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

What, if anything is too serious to be joked about?

I think there's many things that are

too serious to be joked about.

And I think it depends on who's saying it

and why they're saying it.

I don't know.

I think there's so obviously subjects,

but I'm actually more interested in like why people

are interested in finding comedy

in things that are traumatic for people.

I'm like, if you're smart enough to make a joke about that,

there's way easier territory for you.

I'm suspicious of that as a like psychology.

I'm like, go somewhere else with your genius

and find something that is more accessible and less,

maybe the danger is the thing that they're drawn to.

I dunno specifically.

People's heritage I'm not really into as a bit, .

As a bit. As a bit.

I'm like.

It's a rich history of heritage based bits I suppose.

Yeah, it's a pretty expansive,

but anything like that, anything that I,

people feel connected to or proud

of as like they're,

they're part of their being and if you kind of insult that

or attack that,

that for me would be the territory that I'm like.

Maybe it's not too serious

but it, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I do know what you mean.

I feel like this kind of plays back to your friendship.

Loyalty.

I'd quite like you in a corner.

Yeah, I'm good in a corner.

Another way of saying the same thing,

what's something people would be surprised to learn

you take very seriously?

What do I take very seriously?

I take baseball very seriously now.

What?

I know, I take it very seriously.

I got into a recent.

Major League Baseball?

Major League baseball.

What? It's true.

Like the last year

went to my first Major League Baseball game at Fenway Park.

Red Sox fan. Red Sox fan, yeah.

Irish connection, Boston?

No, partner connection, huge.

Like court like right down on the, what's it called,

like right beside the.

Diamond?

Dugout?

Dugout.

Right by the dugout.

But I was into it before,

like I watched the highlights on my phone

every morning in the chair.

Didn't just think to watch cricket or?

No, cricket's less interesting to me.

Yeah, I'm big Red Sox boy.

That's something I think that's relatively surprising.

Can follow up with that another time?

Yeah.

Goodness, revelations.

Okay, we got through it.

Yeah.

Feel like you did a lot of heavy lifting there.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if we were truly connected

to the original intention of the exercise,

but to follow back up,

where would you put us on a scale of one to seven?

One being strange and seven being as close

as you can possibly get?

And we said three to begin with?

Yeah.

I feel for sure more than three.

I feel four.

Yeah, comfortable, four.

Like comfortable four.

I would say there were moments

where it was five-ish, but there were brief.

No, I mean like four.

Like I feel like definitely there was like some six,

seven moments in there for me in terms

of what was expressed.

But I think overall, like is the question related

to us generally?

I think we've gotten closer as a result for sure.

Do you feel like you met your own expectations in terms

of like how open you wanted to be,

how open you thought you were gonna be?

Yeah, probably exceeded them in certain moments.

Yeah, I feel, how do you feel about it?

Like I said, we spent a lot of today

speaking about and exploring like projections.

Yeah.

Onto talent and what fandom means

and public and private eye.

I feel like we tried to construct this environment

where you are literally in my home.

Totally, I know. There's a lot

of people in my house.

That's so nice.

I think it was really fun to try.

No, but it's true.

It's like it sets you up in a public,

it removes the public side of something

that has to be that.

Like it is ultimately an interview, but it helps.

[Speaker] There's a line on there

that's something like wrapping it up.

Thanks for your time.

Wrapping it up.

Thanks for your time.

After, like, we've talked about death.

Thanks for your time.

I had a great time hearing your thoughts on death.

I'm just gonna sit here

and contemplate death and like.

Yeah, I think we could just like gradually turn off

the lights maybe?

Yeah.