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- [00:00]
Ariana Grande
Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit BPN FM to discover more. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chevoniss many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. Flex your business with an American Express Business Gold Card. You'll earn four times membership rewards points on your top two eligible spending categories like transit and electronics each month on up to 150k in combined purchases per year. Plus you can now earn 3 times Membership Rewards points on flights and pre flights paid hotels booked on amextravel.com terms and points cap apply learn more at americanexpress.com business gold amex business gold Built for business by American Express Foreign.
- [01:33]
Matt Koplik
Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL and welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history unt legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called Grab Bag and it is covering shows that you submitted and I picked out of a bow. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And coming back to us today is Pod, mother of the Breakdown. You last saw her from Passion. You know her, you love her. She continues to put up with me. I don't know why. Ms. Ali Gordon.
- [02:08]
Ariana Grande
Wow. Thank you so much. Hey, I just want to say I'm taking, I'm taking like a sober tone because I know this one is serious. So I'm just like, I'm like, thank you for your consideration and I'm honored to be here.
- [02:19]
Matt Koplik
Yes, well, because we're talking about a play and that's just. You have to be serious about it.
- [02:24]
Ariana Grande
We couldn't have been less serious. And we talked about doubt.
- [02:26]
Matt Koplik
I don't remember what we said about doubt.
- [02:29]
Ariana Grande
We liked it. We liked out. Yeah, I told that story about how my mom went to go see it in like 2004 and came home and was like, I don't know what everybody's talking about. The priest did it. And I was like, wow. She had no doubts. She was the only person who had no doubt seeing doubt. I really respect that.
- [02:43]
Matt Koplik
That is fair and I Do recall that I, after we watched it at the library together, because I had spent so many years being like, pillow man was robbed. I walked out of that video recording and I was like, I still think it's the better play. But I get how this was such a phenomenon with that original production completely.
- [02:58]
Ariana Grande
The performances were amazing. Do love Pillow Man. Have you done Pillow man on this? Have you talked about that?
- [03:03]
Matt Koplik
Didn't you and I talk about Pillow man on this?
- [03:05]
Ariana Grande
On the pod?
- [03:06]
Matt Koplik
I think so. Because you did the British Invasion and yours was the National Theater, so I know on that. I feel like.
- [03:13]
Ariana Grande
Did we touch on it?
- [03:14]
Matt Koplik
I feel like we did.
- [03:16]
Ariana Grande
Okay, that makes sense.
- [03:17]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, we did. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. We did Equus. And then I could have sworn the third one was Pillow Man.
- [03:23]
Ariana Grande
Unless it makes sense.
- [03:25]
Matt Koplik
Unless it was Warhorse.
- [03:26]
Ariana Grande
Warhorse.
- [03:27]
Matt Koplik
Part of me thinks it was Warhorse, but I think it was Pillow Man.
- [03:29]
Ariana Grande
We did Two Horses. We did Equus and Warhorse.
- [03:32]
Matt Koplik
I don't think we did Warhorse, but I just also. I can't get. Now it's. We said Warhorse so many times, it sounds weird.
- [03:38]
Ariana Grande
War Horse.
- [03:39]
Matt Koplik
War Horse.
- [03:40]
Ariana Grande
We're talking about, you know, what's coming to town. We're going to go see Warhorse.
- [03:43]
Matt Koplik
We're going she wars. We're doing a different war today. We are doing another episode on the great works, Angels in America, part one and two, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika.
- [03:55]
Ariana Grande
Wow. Okay. The reason I was saying I was taking a sober tone wasn't just because we were talking about a play. First of all, I'm just. This is my favorite play. I think beyond it being my favorite play, I do think it is the greatest work of American fiction written, if you want to be really fair, American drama. But, like, I would genuinely go to bat to say it is, like, the best piece of American fiction of the 20th century. Like, I think of books, movies, everything. It is like, to me, it is, like, the definitive work of the 20th century. I love it. I think it's. I read it all in one sitting for the first time in, I'm going to say, 2005, because I was getting my hair chemically straightened because it was a really bad time to be a teenager in the 2000s. Just a really, really rough time to be a young. So, you know, I had, like, hair down my ass. You've talked about it before. I had eponine hair, so I was getting my eponine hair chemically straightened.
- [04:54]
Matt Koplik
The problem with having you on the podcast is that we go down such rabbit holes of our history.
- [05:01]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [05:02]
Matt Koplik
And so many things that. So many things that we say require more explanation. For example, me saying that you have eponine hair. It came about because when Allie was at Stage Door, it was your first summer there, right?
- [05:14]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, it was my first ever. Yeah.
- [05:16]
Matt Koplik
We did not overlap at Stage Door, but we were already close friends by that point. And our friends Rachel and friend of the pod, Natalie Walker, were in that Les Mis with you. And you all called me when the cast list came out, and Natalie was Fantine. And they were like, oh, and Ali Gordon is eponine. And my response was, well, it makes sense.
- [05:33]
Ariana Grande
She's got eponine hair. Yeah. And it was freshly chemically straightened, as we can. As we can attest.
- [05:39]
Matt Koplik
Yes. And so now we joke about how Ali Gordon has eponine hair because it was just like one of those random things that we all thought about and just went, no, absolutely. I see what you mean. It totally makes sense.
- [05:48]
Ariana Grande
It also. It all makes perfect sense, which basically means, like, long hair with no layers and no style, just sort of down past the middle of your back. I just didn't know what to do with my hair. I just didn't know what to do with my hair. I have curly hair now. That's what I've realized. But it took me until 2020 to figure that out. So when I was 15, I didn't know that. So this is, like, early. And I think probably on my phone had, like, texting and snakes. Not like you were, like, on Instagram, so you, like, would bring books to read. And I remember I brought, like, a book and I was, like, not enjoying that. And I brought Angels in America. And so I, you know, cracked the first page and was like, what the fuck? And then immediately read the rest of it. Like, you know, in the entire. It was. I think it was like an eight hour sitting. I read, like, the whole thing in that sitting and have been obsessed with it since then.
- [06:32]
Matt Koplik
So, wait, was the HBO miniseries not your introduction then?
- [06:35]
Ariana Grande
No.
- [06:36]
Matt Koplik
Oh, my God. I. Okay, I totally. Mandela affected your intro to Angels in America because that was my introduction to. It was the HBO miniseries.
- [06:45]
Ariana Grande
I mean, this is certainly something we can get into more. I think that is an amazing introduction to it. There are very few things where if somebody watches the film version, your reaction is, that's great. That's amazing. That's probably one of the best versions of that ever. But, like, it's funny, the two things I feel that way about are Amadeus and Angels in America, where it's like, if you want to know more about it, you should absolutely read the script. You should learn more about it. You should see other versions of it. There's so much more to, like, dig into. But, like, I find the HBO version of Angels in America to be, like, so exquisite. I think. I think all of its cuts are smart. I think all of its restructures are smart. I think the cast is great. So, again, not to kick the can down the road, but we can talk more about that later. But I think for many people, it is their first introduction, and I think it's a great introduction. It's not one of those things where I hear people go like, well, I haven't read it. And I'm like, you've completely missed the whole point. It's like, oh, yeah, you should read it if you liked it, because there's so much more to learn. It's a great version of it.
- [07:40]
Matt Koplik
I remember talking about this with Alex Weisman. Just in terms of when people don't. Aren't exposed to something that I love or know, something that I know, I get very excited to show it to them or introduce them to it. I'm never like, oh, my God, you've never read Angels? I'm like, oh, my God, you've never read Angels?
- [07:55]
Ariana Grande
Like, right? You're like, there's some crazy shit in there. You got to get in there.
- [07:59]
Matt Koplik
It's very Abby on Broad City when she's like, oh, my God, you're so lucky. You're so lucky because, like, you get to experience it for the first time.
- [08:05]
Ariana Grande
If I had to, like, try to come up with an analogy, it's like, I feel like the HBO miniseries is like a perfectly shot arrow. The arrow pull was, like, taut. The arrows whizzed through the air. It was efficient. It, like, landed right in the bullseye, and you were like, hot damn, I'm Robin Hood. So that was a bad analogy because it had nothing to do with anything. But do you know what I'm saying? It just. It's just like a satisfying, efficient. You know what I mean? It just hits the target and it's. And it didn't take any detours. So, like, what's kind of fun about reading it is that, like, there is all this other stuff that kind of got, like, scenes that got cut, things that got rearranged, little detours with other characters. Like the. The Mormon real estate agent who has that scene with Hannah at the end of Melanie Approaches. Like, that scene is not necessary. But when you Read it. You're like, I just learned so much more about Hannah. I feel. I, like, feel like I got, like, a special secret insight that, like, from watching the movie, I didn't get that, and so I didn't need it. But I'm, like, so appreciative for it. It was almost like a little secret diversion. Do you know what I mean?
- [09:12]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Well, it's also the inverse of how these things usually go. Like, in a play, you're told of something that's happening off stage, and in the movie version, they're like, oh, we can add the scene to show that happening. And Angels, it's like they show the scene of Hannah Pitt selling her house. And in the movie they just talk about it, like.
- [09:29]
Ariana Grande
Right, exactly.
- [09:30]
Matt Koplik
But, yeah, I hear you. Having the HBO miniseries be my exposure and then getting into the play after the fact. And I talked about this as well in Part one, but I'm going to be repeating myself all the time. Dear Listener, I did in, I think, junior year of high school or sophomore year, I can't remember which, did do the prior Harper hallucination dream scene for an acting class because I just fell so deeply in love with the play after buying the scripts and seeing the miniseries. And then I got to see it at Signature with Christian Borrell. I then saw the national theater broadcast with Andrew Garfield, then saw it live on Broadway. And then at some point, Aurora's Spider woman released, like, 40 minutes of press reels of the original Broadway company.
- [10:13]
Ariana Grande
Do you think we have ever done. Done an episode where we haven't talked about Aurora Spider Woman?
- [10:18]
Matt Koplik
Probably not.
- [10:19]
Ariana Grande
I don't think so.
- [10:20]
Matt Koplik
Not. You and I know the secret third.
- [10:22]
Ariana Grande
Character of all of our conversations is Aurora Spider Woman.
- [10:25]
Matt Koplik
It sure is.
- [10:26]
Ariana Grande
It's sort of like when people, like, leave room for Jesus. Like when you and I are slow dancing, we are always leaving room for Aurora Spider Woman.
- [10:33]
Matt Koplik
Well, because Aurora likes a lot of the same shit we do.
- [10:36]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. When. Oh, my God, I'm subscribed. Are you kidding? When a notification comes up, I'm like, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Original. Like, off, like, you know, preview. I'm just. Count me in. It doesn't have to be a show I like. I'm just like, he just finds shit that I'm just like, oh, I need to see that. Yeah.
- [10:51]
Matt Koplik
He has so much shit, like, and a lot of it, like, going back to the 70s, which is insane. But I remember when he posted it, he eventually had to take it down and then somebody else reposted it. Thank God. But I'll like just in those 40 minutes, and I'm talking like some clips are 40 seconds, some are three minutes.
- [11:07]
Ariana Grande
And some are full scenes, some are literally like one liners.
- [11:11]
Matt Koplik
Yes. And it's. And it's of both parts. And something just clicked in my brain and I talked, because I talked about this, Alex as well. I have not seen the original Broadway company yet. I have made an appointment at the library. I'll be watching it after this episode.
- [11:25]
Ariana Grande
Sweet.
- [11:25]
Matt Koplik
And before I record with Rob Schneider and. But watching those clips, something just clicked with me. I was like, oh, I never quite realized how incredibly funny this play can be. I always knew it was funny. Like, there are you. You can't watch Angels and not laugh a couple of times. But watching that original cast, you know, many of whom had been a part of it since the inception, and George C. Wolfe, you know, literally firing off at all cylinders and just like the audience keeling over, like laugh after laugh.
- [11:58]
Ariana Grande
Before the pace clips, the along. I mean, and that's like a triumph of directing. But it's also the actors, like, really not like reveling in the beauty of the language or the drama of the scenes. They are just like the. The paces. Runaway Train. It's so great.
- [12:15]
Matt Koplik
Every version of Angels we get is reliant on two things. You know, who's the director and sort of what their tone is. And then also like, where are we in history when it's coming? And so they talk about this in world only spins forward. When it was being written, we were towards the end of the Reagan years. When it finally premiered in San Francisco, it was the Bush administration, Bush Senior. And then by the time it, by the time it finally got to Broadway, we had just begun the Clinton years. And then when the HBO miniseries came out, it was post 911 and towards the end of the first Bush no W administration.
- [12:53]
Ariana Grande
Again. Bush again.
- [12:55]
Matt Koplik
Exactly. And when the national.
- [12:56]
Ariana Grande
Bush perestroika.
- [12:57]
Matt Koplik
Bush perestroika. And then when the national was being rehearsed in London, that was like the beginning of the Trump administration and coming to New York. So sometimes it is anger, sometimes it is despair, sometimes it is hope. And sometimes it's just sort of ponderous. Like I feel like the Nichols HBO series, it's perhaps the least overtly funny of all the versions because like Nichols on camera doesn't. When he's doing something like an Angels in America, he doesn't lean into comedy like he does with something like the Birdcage or the Graduate. He's a little more respectful, which is.
- [13:37]
Ariana Grande
Not to say that's so funny. I do think it is quite funny of it, but there's a lot of it that I really. I think really gets the sense of humor.
- [13:43]
Matt Koplik
Oh, no, for sure, for sure.
- [13:44]
Ariana Grande
What I.
- [13:45]
Matt Koplik
What I mean is, it's not unfunny. Like, I think it is far funnier than the National Theater production, which is funnier than. Way funnier, which was a funnier production than I remembered it being when I rewatched it with Alex. But it is still like, they still lose at least half of the laughs there. The H1 miniseries is way funnier than that. But there are scenes, there are moments where it's played a little more intimately. And obviously there's. That's for camera. But like the way that Patrick Wilson plays Joe, he's like a little bit more of a soft boy, quiet, suffering. Not like a true anguish suffering, which then informs how Mary Louise Parker plays Harper, who's much more like, clearly high on Valium and thus, like, isn't leaning into the childlike wonderment and not like hitting as many punchlines as like a Marcia Gay Harden does.
- [14:35]
Ariana Grande
Yes, they could not be more different. I really like both of them so much. I feel like I could talk forever about the differences in their performance, but how much. I think they both work.
- [14:45]
Matt Koplik
Oh, yeah, there's also. And I said this before, but I'll say it again, no one is bad in the miniseries. Everyone is pretty wonderful. I think the weakest performance is Emma Thompson.
- [14:55]
Ariana Grande
She's funny.
- [14:57]
Matt Koplik
I think she's only kind of funny as the angel, really. I think her best performance is really funny. I think her best performance is as the homeless woman. I think she nails that scene.
- [15:06]
Ariana Grande
I also love her as Emily, as though the nurse. Oh, I think she's fantastic as the nurse. I like. I like have met that woman. Do you know what I mean? Like. Like, when she comes out, I'm like, oh, I know her well. She's triaged me. Do you know what I mean? I know that woman.
- [15:19]
Matt Koplik
We are going to get to this at some point, but I will say we are recording this the day after I saw Betty Gilpin in oh, Mary.
- [15:25]
Ariana Grande
Oh, my God. Wait, I do. Wait, can we dive? Can we diverge? I want to know. Do we have time?
- [15:33]
Matt Koplik
Sure. No, she's. She's really wonderful in it. First of all, Mary Todd Lincoln has a lot of parallels to Harper Pitt in many ways.
- [15:40]
Ariana Grande
And I think I'm loving this. This is some. Really. No one's ever said this before. And I love this.
- [15:45]
Matt Koplik
I didn't clock it until I watched Betty because I was like, oh, this is like, this is a woman who's suffering who is using her gay husband.
- [15:53]
Ariana Grande
Wait, there's so much.
- [15:55]
Matt Koplik
Her gay husband who, you know, all he wants is pretty white boy lips. He says so himself in his monologue to God.
- [16:02]
Ariana Grande
Wow.
- [16:03]
Matt Koplik
And she's using external chemicals to self medicate. And ultimately she sort of releases herself from him in the end. But it is at the root of. Of both stories is a woman who is in immense pain and suffering and confusion, doesn't really know what's going on. So much is happening behind her back and she's being manipulated left and right. So I was watching Betty Gilpin and I was like, oh, I think a couple of years ago she would have been a really phenomenal Harper.
- [16:30]
Ariana Grande
Oh, I would love to see that.
- [16:31]
Matt Koplik
Well, where she's at now, she would be an incredible angel because.
- [16:36]
Ariana Grande
Would love to see that too, because she's so.
- [16:38]
Matt Koplik
First of all, she's so fucking gorgeous, which is dumb, that she can also be as funny as she is, but she's so gorgeous. She can go so for broke, but she can go for broke while also finding the comedy. Because the thing about the angel is you have to be so grand, but also, like, there's a lot of humor to it.
- [16:55]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. God, I saw her years ago in a play. Maybe it was an Anna Ziegler play. Oh, God. It was about a woman who was an actress and her father, who was an actress. For an actress, an actor. Well, gender is a construct. And it was like her just like desperate for his attention and they had like a really, really terrible relationship. And it was a lot about abuse and drinking. God, what the fuck play was that?
- [17:26]
Matt Koplik
I don't know.
- [17:27]
Ariana Grande
Oh, I wish. I wish I could remember because she was really excellent in it. And it was around the time that she would have been the right age to play Harper. And she should have.
- [17:41]
Matt Koplik
There's a lot. There's a lot she should have and still could do if she had people like us on her shoulders being like, hey, Betty, you wanna. So getting a little further into angels and actually speaking of the character of the angel, which I feel like we talk about this in the first episode, but to make it extraordinarily clear, the character of Prior Walter, after he's been diagnosed with AIDS and is released from the hospital, you know, in a very bad spell of his infection, is starting to have what he thinks are hallucinations of his ancestors informing him that he is a prophet, that his family is a Family of prophets. And so millennium approaches, ends with him being visited by an angel who tells him that the great work will begin.
- [18:22]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [18:22]
Matt Koplik
And then. And then. Or the actual line is, the great work begins, the messenger has arrived, and then Perestroika is Prior discovering that he's a prophet speaking with the angel about the human race, the existence of. Of God and the abandonment from God and being inserted with this holy text from the heavens that he is supposed to now spout on earth. And once he is given this book, he, his health deteriorates immensely. And once he sort of rejects the book in heaven is when he's able to do much better health wise. So a question that many people talk about, and I wanted to sort of pitch it to you, is, do you think the angel is actually real? And is there an argument to be made that the angel is not real and that it. There's a reason why the vision start coinciding with Prior's new medication post hospital?
- [19:22]
Ariana Grande
Okay, so, I mean, I'm going to give you an answer that is my truth, but maybe is an infuriating answer, which is that it doesn't matter.
- [19:29]
Matt Koplik
Of course it doesn't matter.
- [19:31]
Ariana Grande
Do you know what I'm saying? But I think that is a strength of the script. Like, I'm not saying it doesn't matter. Like, what a dumb question. It doesn't matter. I'm saying what an amazing question. Isn't it incredible that it doesn't matter? It's kind of like, I mean, it's wizard of Oz and it's true because he says it when he wakes up, he goes. People come and go so strangely around here. Like, he makes like two or three different, like, like wizard of Oz references.
- [19:52]
Matt Koplik
Throughout as well as the. Some of it was wonderful and some of it was terrible. But all the same, I asked to go home and they sent me home.
- [19:56]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, they sent me home. Yeah, they, like, he. He talks about it a lot. So, like, it's obviously intentional. We're not smarter than Tony Kushner. But that is sort of the amazing thing where it's like, you can watch wizard of Oz and go, she went to Oz. Or you can watch wizard of Oz and go, she got hit in the head and realized how much she wanted to go home. And it doesn't really matter because, like, it. Ultimately the lesson was that the lesson was with less than she did it. And so it's like, I think all of the magical realism elements in the show are incredible because they could happen or they couldn't. And it almost doesn't really. It could be about, like, the triumph of the human spirit alone. It could be about, like, miraculous, divine intervention. Is. Is God really dead and. Or, like, did he really, like, abandon us and go away? Is Heaven a series of desks with, like. With, like, clerical working angels? Do you know what I mean? It's like. It's like they're amazing questions, but it's like, whether or not you believe it doesn't change how these characters interact with each other, which I think is, like, such an incredible feat. Do you know what I mean?
- [21:00]
Matt Koplik
Sure.
- [21:01]
Ariana Grande
I think it's, like, an amazing feat of storytelling.
- [21:03]
Matt Koplik
No.
- [21:03]
Ariana Grande
Do you want me to just say whether or not I think it happened?
- [21:05]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. I more wanted your personal take because there is no right or wrong answer, because I think there is so much compelling evidence for both, and there's no definite answer, as you said. I don't think Kushner wants there to be a definite answer. He worked very hard to give us both options and have both make sense.
- [21:22]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [21:23]
Matt Koplik
But I wanted to hear your take.
- [21:24]
Ariana Grande
And I like it. I want it to be real. I like the fantastical elements of the play. It just appeals to me. So I want the angel to be real. I want him to have gone to heaven and made an appeal, and for them to have, like, reversed his fate. I want Ethel Rosenberg to be a ghost and to have come out of the. You know, to be haunting him, but also give him his final passage with the Kaddish. I like it because I think it's all just great storytelling. So I like the fantasy elements of it. I do think it's very funny that. I think if you have no familiarity with the show, with the exception of, like, the little Mr. Lies stuff that happens at the beginning, and the Threshold Revelation, where it's like. There's just the teensiest weenciest little hints of, like, oh, magic. But then suddenly the. The Heralds arrive, the two Priors, the Prior Priors, and then you're like, what is this? What's gonna happen in this play? And then it, like, completely cracks open and becomes a new play. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's no. Well, I guess earlier in the show, when he's at the Doctor's office, the Flaming Book comes out of the ground.
- [22:35]
Matt Koplik
But that only he can see.
- [22:37]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, that only he can see. That feels like the first time that something happens where you're like, is this a dream? Or is something truly magical happening? Yeah, I want something truly magical to happen. I like it.
- [22:48]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. The thing is that all of the afterlife, prophet, angel stuff, none of that starts to happen until after Prior comes home from the hospital. But there are other elements of magic prior to Prior, Prior to that, as well as post that that have nothing to do with the angel or even technically speaking, with Prior, the scene. So I think that the miniseries, it's a little more gray area, probably intentionally so, because I know I mentioned this before, but, like, Prior and Harper only have one scene together in the miniseries.
- [23:27]
Ariana Grande
And in the play they have another in the Mormon center.
- [23:29]
Matt Koplik
They've got three. Yeah, they got three. They have the Mormon Visitor center and then.
- [23:32]
Ariana Grande
Oh, and then later in heaven. Yeah, I love that scene. I completely love that. Yeah, that's a great scene.
- [23:37]
Matt Koplik
Because when they're earthbound, they don't recognize each other. They just sort of feel like, I might have met you once before, and I can't place it. When it doesn't. It doesn't matter anyway. Like, let's just sit down and watch the. Watch the diorama in. But when they're in heaven, in this sort of limbo area, they're like, oh, I totally remember you. And they don't even remember the Mormon Visitor Center. They just remember the last.
- [23:58]
Ariana Grande
When they met, like in the. In the Vision Dream Miracle Space Sphere. Exactly.
- [24:03]
Matt Koplik
But when they're at the Mormon Visitor center, they both see the same vision of Lewis and Jo having this argument about Joe being Mormon together and leaving the stage. And that's where in the play where I'm like, I don't think it's in Prior's head. I think there are things going on.
- [24:19]
Ariana Grande
Elements.
- [24:20]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, exactly. In the world of this play.
- [24:23]
Ariana Grande
Well, I mean, like, I also think one thing that's fun about the magical elements is that, like, they're sort of gifted to a bunch of different people. And I think that's really interesting because it's like, sure, you could argue that, like, okay, Prior is having visions and Roy are having visions because they're both very sick and they're both on different medications and their bodies are failing them. So, you know, they're having. They're having visions, and then they're all. But then it's like, oh, well, Harper can have visions, she's on drugs. But then when it all starts to coalesce into being the same visions, that's when it's like, okay, I can't just write this off as being. You're sick, so you're having a vision. You're high, so you're having a vision. Like, the play does sort of say, like, no, look, we're experiencing the same thing at the same time. How can you have a joint hallucination? It must be magic. It must be real. You must be touched. I just, like. I also, like. I like that these people who are, like, profoundly suffering are, like, granted these visions. That's. I like that. That feels so poetic to me.
- [25:31]
Matt Koplik
Well, so speaking of visions, and I mentioned this with Alex, but I want to talk about it more with you because we didn't really talk about Harper as a character as much as I would like to. We actually talked about Hannah quite a lot. And we'll talk about everyone, because it's you and me. We'll talk about whatever the fuck we want to talk about.
- [25:46]
Ariana Grande
And you know. You know who my favorite character is? Like, with. With, like, leaps and bounds of space. Right? Is it like, I'm obsessed. No, I'm obsessed with Joe Pitt. I'm obsessed with Joe.
- [25:56]
Matt Koplik
Oh, I did know that.
- [25:58]
Ariana Grande
I'm obsessed with Joe. I think Joe was, like, the best character in the world.
- [26:02]
Matt Koplik
Okay, well, we'll talk about that. Because he's sort of. He's not thrown under the bus in World Only Spins Forward. But Tony Kushner is sort of thrown under the bus by a lot of the people who've done angels when they're. What they all said, you know, Tony has been really great in this play of, like, not creating a villain, but then, like, everyone goes. Having said that, I do think he's the most judgmental of Joe and, like, kind of gives him a shitty ending.
- [26:25]
Ariana Grande
Yes. Joe's the only person who does not, like, get to, like, come together in the end and have this, like, beautiful moment where you get to see how much these characters have changed and grown and. Da, da, da, da. But that makes me more fascinated with him. I'd like. I just want to know what happens to Joe.
- [26:39]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, well, so. And we'll talk about Joe as well, because we mentioned we sort of had a discussion of what could happen. There's the scene that Kushner writes in the miniseries for Joe to kind of give him some hope. And then. And then there's a revised version of Perestroika where they add a scene where Joe hallucinates Roy or just has a meeting with Roy's ghost. Unclear. And, you know, that's sort of Joe's first vision, one could say. And maybe it's because he is just in as much in so much pain at that point.
- [27:07]
Ariana Grande
He's profoundly suffering.
- [27:08]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Hannah says, like, your. Someone's, like, great desire being so in need ultimately is what gives them the vision of an angel. Like angels come to those who need it most.
- [27:18]
Ariana Grande
Completely. Yes.
- [27:19]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [27:20]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. I mean, I just, I find all this like that is all reasons why it makes. It's more fun to just be like, yeah, it all happened. It all totally happened. Do.
- [27:28]
Matt Koplik
I mean, I'm trying to find the exact line she says about what an angel is. She says something like along the lines of an angel is a dream or an idea, something like that. It's in perestroika when she takes. Prior to the hospital. Yeah, he. God damn it, what is it?
- [27:46]
Ariana Grande
I'm also searching.
- [27:47]
Matt Koplik
I have here is. Here is an angel is a belief with wings and arms that can carry you. If it lets you down, reject it. Which I love that. I love how. How business. Like she is where he's like, but all this stuff with angels and God. And she's like, if it's not what you want, like, say fuck it. Like it's right. Like, they are not immune to rejection.
- [28:10]
Ariana Grande
And I also love him just being like, well, what happens when you reject what happens when you reject a vision, when you reject an angel? And she's like, well, you usually die.
- [28:21]
Matt Koplik
I think she says, God feeds you to a whale.
- [28:23]
Ariana Grande
God feeds you to a whale. It's just so funny. It's like, it's great.
- [28:27]
Matt Koplik
So many funny lines. Okay, I want to talk about Harper specifically and the talk of her envisions and sort of her whole MO and her relationship with Joe before we do that. Ally, let's take a quick break.
- [28:38]
Ariana Grande
Billy, I'd beg to differ with you.
- [28:39]
Matt Koplik
How do you mean?
- [28:40]
Ariana Grande
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- [29:02]
Matt Koplik
Reigning light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira defends his title against number one contender Magomed on Goliath. And an explosive lightweight bout between Justin Gaethje and Rafael Pizzi. UFC 313, Saturday at 10pm Eastern. Buy it on espnplus.com PPP.
- [29:23]
Ariana Grande
Ever go on a date so bad you need an everything shower?
- [29:27]
Matt Koplik
Luckily for you, Billie makes products for that. A loofah full of nourishing body wash.
- [29:31]
Ariana Grande
Can scrub off the cringe from that extremely awkward hug. A full body shave with Billie's award winning razor will remind you what going.
- [29:38]
Matt Koplik
Smoothly actually feels like.
- [29:40]
Ariana Grande
And hydrating body lotion can delete dryness faster than you can delete the dating apps. You've got your reasons Billie's got your.
- [29:47]
Matt Koplik
Routine shop in store and@mybilli.com and we're back. So describe Harper Pitt to the uncultured fucks. Ali Gordon. Who is Harper? What's her deal?
- [30:00]
Ariana Grande
Harper is the wife of Joe Pitt. They are Mormons living in Brooklyn because Joe works as a clerk, so he works in law and so he's in New York. She is sort of unhappily in New York. She is a very sensitive soul who has obviously come from a very difficult life. Her upbringing was not easy. Joe says so much so himself that he was attracted to the vulnerability in her and the hurt in her and that he sort of saw some of himself in that and he kind of wanted to save her. So that's his attraction to her. Despite not necessarily having a sexual attraction to her. They had a emotional bond. She is a drug addict. Her pills of choice are like Valium and anything that sort of can help her hallucinate because she suffers paranoia, anxiety, visions. She believes there's a man with a knife under the bed. Do you know what I mean? It's like that kind of stuff.
- [31:07]
Matt Koplik
She has extreme agoraphobia.
- [31:09]
Ariana Grande
Yes. She almost has not go out exactly. But she's also like, what you said there is a sort of like childlike wonder, I think, which comes from a very sheltered upbringing where there was a lot of escapism in one form or another because it was not an easy upbringing. And then being like slap dashed into the biggest, craziest city in the world. That might just be my own perception as opposed to like straight up fact from the page. But that's sort of something I feel strongly. Do you know what I mean?
- [31:47]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, No, I think there's like the.
- [31:49]
Ariana Grande
New York of it all is part of her big dreams and visions. Do you know what I mean?
- [31:55]
Matt Koplik
Because, yeah, they move from Salt Lake City and a fully Mormon community where she's not happy, but she understands it all and then gets thrown into Brooklyn and the world both terrifies her and fascinates her.
- [32:10]
Ariana Grande
Right? And she does a lot of like looking out the window and like judging what's going on on the street. She's like, oh, there's a guy. There's a schizophrenic traffic guard. And it's like she's just sort of making stories. But there is sort of also this attraction to like the strangeness, the otherness of it.
- [32:26]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, I think. I think the chaos fascinates her. I. So for someone who's such a Kiki Dunst fan, it's A shame. I haven't seen this movie, but Melancholia.
- [32:35]
Ariana Grande
Oh, you've never seen Melancholia?
- [32:37]
Matt Koplik
Okay, that judgment of your voice.
- [32:39]
Ariana Grande
This was not judgment. This was excitement. Because I love that movie.
- [32:43]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, I watch it.
- [32:44]
Ariana Grande
Well, really, like, sometimes I watch it when I'm depressed, which makes no sense because it's such a depressing movie. But. But she is so depressed in the movie that sometimes I watch it and I go. I, like, feel. I, like. I'm, like, eating junk food. Do you mean? I'm like, oh, you're so sad.
- [32:59]
Matt Koplik
Talk about someone else who could have been a great.
- [33:02]
Ariana Grande
She would have been an amazing Harper. And you know who I think? I. I mean, I. They would never have cast him in it because he's not like the Marlboro Man. But, like, I would have loved to see, like, a young Jesse Plemons take on Joe. Sure, he's got that sensitive anger. I mean, just like one of my favorite actors. We'll. We'll.
- [33:18]
Matt Koplik
We'll talk about casting Joe in a second. But so with having not seen Melancholy, and maybe you can sort of speak more on this for me, what I understand is that the point is that it's, you know, it's her wedding day, and she's a depressive. Like, extreme depressive.
- [33:32]
Ariana Grande
Yes, yes.
- [33:32]
Matt Koplik
And everyone around her is, like, just trying to get her up and Adam to have this wedding. And then, like, in the middle of the reception, it is revealed that the world is going to end. Like, melancholy. Okay. But a planet is coming towards Earth.
- [33:46]
Ariana Grande
Yes, a planet is going to collide with Earth. But that happens. The revelation that that is definitely happening happens later. But the wedding is a disaster because she's, like, so depressed, she can't even make it through the happiest night of her life.
- [33:59]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [33:59]
Ariana Grande
And, like, everybody's, like, furious with her.
- [34:02]
Matt Koplik
But when it is revealed that the planet is colliding, everyone freaks their shit out. But she kind of weirdly steps up to the plate because she gets happy.
- [34:11]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, it's not even that. She's like, I'm gonna be responsible. She's just like, oh, it's all over. And it's like, a sense of relief for her because, like, life is misery for her. And so while everybody else is panicking and crying and doesn't know what to do and how to say goodbye, she's, like, achieved a sense of calmness. I'm obsessed with it, as you can tell. I have, like, a weird. I'm like. I'm, like, sort of obsessed and fascinated with like, her character journey. Because, like, yeah, she's a. She's not an easy character. She's, like, kind of. I'm gonna say ugly. And I don't really mean that in a pejorative way. Like, I'm not saying, like, it's so ugly to be depressed. Like, I just mean, like, it shows a really unglamorous side of sadness in a way that a lot of movies make it seem like. Oh. Like, remember in Crazy Ex Girlfriend?
- [34:54]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Sexy French depression. Yeah.
- [34:56]
Ariana Grande
Yes. It's like. It's like the absolute pinnacle opposite of that is, like, a person who's, like, acting like a child almost in House and how depressed they are. And it's like. It's. It's. It's ugly.
- [35:07]
Matt Koplik
It's the difference. It's the difference between Harper and Melancholia. It's sort of like how we talked about with Fosca and Passion, where. Yeah, they challenge the audience of, like, not every girl. And the bleachers. Not wearing the short skirt in the Taylor Swift song is the girl that you're supposed to end up with, like, is actually cute underneath. And. And Sweden has a wonderful viewpoint of life. Like, sometimes the girl in the bleachers is the Unabomber. And just like. And just like. And. And is as toxic as a Chernobyl urinal cake, to quote Anna Chlumsky and Veep.
- [35:35]
Ariana Grande
I love that. I feel like we should rewrite that song from the perspective of Foska.
- [35:40]
Matt Koplik
Absolutely.
- [35:41]
Ariana Grande
I think if you want to do that at BroadwayCon, I think it'll go over really well with your audience when.
- [35:45]
Matt Koplik
Gray and I do Broadway Con. Yeah.
- [35:47]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [35:48]
Matt Koplik
It'll be. Gray's just gonna be like, what the fuck is Passion? He'll be like, sondheim wrote a show called Passion. He won't.
- [35:53]
Ariana Grande
I think Gray might know Passion.
- [35:55]
Matt Koplik
He'll know of it. He won't know it. Come on.
- [35:57]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, this is. I don't know. I actually don't know.
- [36:02]
Matt Koplik
Well, I say you know Gray better than I do, but I. I feel like.
- [36:05]
Ariana Grande
I don't think we've ever talked about Passion, but I don't know.
- [36:09]
Matt Koplik
Like, unless Josh played it for him in the apartment at some point or you did.
- [36:12]
Ariana Grande
But, I mean, I think it is possible that he was, like, held at gunpoint by Josh and I while we performed. Like, I read.
- [36:19]
Matt Koplik
Probably.
- [36:20]
Ariana Grande
Like, that seems logical.
- [36:23]
Matt Koplik
Oh, okay. Sorry. This is. I should have lived in your building when lockdown happened because this was just a production of Angels in America that we missed.
- [36:32]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. We could have had a Great production.
- [36:34]
Matt Koplik
I'll say you as Harper, Josh is Joe, Gray as Prior, me as Lewis, and Marty as Roy.
- [36:40]
Ariana Grande
And also as Hannah. And also Marty and his stunning turn going back and forth turn as Roy and Anna.
- [36:47]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. And then you could also.
- [36:48]
Ariana Grande
He's so great.
- [36:49]
Matt Koplik
And then you would get to be Ethel Rosenberg. So we could, like, make sure that. That so he doesn't have to play two people in one in one scene. Yeah, we would. We would fuck around with the double casting.
- [36:56]
Ariana Grande
That sounds so fun. I also think one of the things that is missing from the. I love. Again, I love the HBO version, but there's less double casting because, like, there can be other characters. And so, like, while they are fleshed out by a realm of other great actors. I miss the double casting. Like, I love when Harper is Martin Heller because it's Jo in a scene with two people pressuring him to leave her behind. And he's literally looking his wife in the face while he goes like, well, you can't live for your life. You can't let your wife hold you behind. You know what I mean? It's like, I find there's something. And it really nicely mirrors the guy in the park having sex with Lewis. Being Prior. Like, it feels like so. Oh, that double casting feels so right.
- [37:40]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. You can't disassociate from where your heart actually is, no matter how hard you try.
- [37:45]
Ariana Grande
So.
- [37:45]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [37:46]
Ariana Grande
Which is very wizard of Oz again.
- [37:48]
Matt Koplik
Absolutely.
- [37:49]
Ariana Grande
But everywhere you look, there you are, you know?
- [37:51]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. The thing with Harper is I could argue that Harper is the sort of idyllic pixie, dream girl version of depressed and agoraphobic. Because in her state, she is so eloquent and so beautiful with how she speaks. She. She. She finds the poetry in the ruins of the world in her, like, Valium days. And the best Harpers are able to live in that space and then try to get themselves back to the world so they can talk about the things that are actually bothering them. Because Joe is not shoving pills down her throat. But Joe is often being intentionally obtuse or misdirecting in conversations with her. When she wants to talk, when she.
- [38:38]
Ariana Grande
Wants to get to the fucking point. Exactly.
- [38:40]
Matt Koplik
And he won't do it. And that is what drives her to Valium. So he's not literally putting the pills in her hand, but he is giving her the incentive every time to go back to the pills.
- [38:51]
Ariana Grande
Yes. And she also was, like, craving a sense of control in some way or another. Not in a way where it's like, I want to control you, but because he is so evasive when they talk about anything that gets difficult. Even just, like, where are we gonna live? I don't wanna live in Georgetown. The Exorcist was in Georgetown. You know what I mean? Like, they can't even have like, a fucking conversation about anything. She's got her list of things that are important to her, and he cannot hear it because he's just thinking of the world. He's just trying to get by. And he's just trying to be so pragmatic. And he's just genuinely, like, trying to, like, wake up tomorrow and not, like, kill himself. Do you know what I mean? Like, so they can't. They're, like, bound together by a profound understanding of not being loved. Do you know what I mean?
- [39:33]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [39:33]
Ariana Grande
Something that I, like, have a big. I have a big. I guess, like a real. What is it called? A stick in my craw. A craw. Something in my craw. I got something in my craw.
- [39:43]
Matt Koplik
You got. You got it. You got a. You got a crab in your couch. That's what you got.
- [39:47]
Ariana Grande
So what gives me a really big crab in my cooch is when Harper's and Joe's don't seem to love each other at all. Yeah, I really, really dislike it. He's allowed to be unbelievably frustrated with her. Like, sometimes I do, like when he loses her temper, his temper at her. And I like to see her try to get him to lose his temper because she is. She's, like, trying to, like, nudge at him and get him to say things and get him to open up. And so, like, there is an unhealthy relationship dynamic there. I'm not saying they have a great marriage, but sometimes you see them. You. Sometimes you see actors play them, and they have. There's just no love there. And I just don't believe it. Because they do love each other. And, like, there's that amazing scene where he comes home late from work and Harper's still awake. And the I burned dinner scene. Well, no, not I burned dinner. The one where it's like. Well, he's like, you're my good heart. And, like, she's like. She's like, I'll never leave you. And she's like, yeah, but I would leave you. Do you know what I'm talking about?
- [40:49]
Matt Koplik
Is that millennium or is that.
- [40:51]
Ariana Grande
It's in millennium.
- [40:52]
Matt Koplik
Okay.
- [40:52]
Ariana Grande
And it's before the big fight. It's before, like, the quartet. Do you know what I mean? Where they, like, have the. Like, Straight. Like the real fighting.
- [41:00]
Matt Koplik
So it's somewhere in between. I burned dinner and the. And the quartet.
- [41:04]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. Maybe I'll go grab my script. Oh, I think it's.
- [41:06]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. When he's talking about. Because he's talking about the. The painting of.
- [41:12]
Ariana Grande
Yes. With Jake. Jacob wrestling with the angel.
- [41:14]
Matt Koplik
Yes.
- [41:15]
Ariana Grande
And him, he's like, I'm struggling. I'm trying. And like, it's like a really nice scene. And like, they are hearing each other for the first time in, like, a long time. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. They obviously both suffered a lot. A real lack of love and understanding in their childhoods. Yeah. Probably physical abuse on both sides. Almost definitely on hers. I feel like it's alluded to pretty clearly. But I wouldn't be surprised also if that's true of Joe with his relationship with his father, who, Hannah, straight up says he didn't love you. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's. Yeah.
- [41:46]
Matt Koplik
It's implied. It's implied that Joe had physical abuse in his household. It straight up said that his dad just, like, didn't care about him at all. And his mom was really no help either. Harper. I think Joe says that, yeah, she suffered physical abuse.
- [42:00]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [42:00]
Matt Koplik
And. And it's implied, like, maybe even sexual too. But he just. It's both. Yeah. Both of them came from bad households where they were not raised in love and definitely sort of found each other as. As these sort of ports in a storm and.
- [42:14]
Ariana Grande
Correct.
- [42:14]
Matt Koplik
Almost kind of ran off together. Yeah.
- [42:15]
Ariana Grande
And. And also, like, at one point, Joe is saying, like, somebody like Harper would have had a very difficult time finding a husband because she's like Jack Mormon, essentially. Like somebody who's like, shunned, kind of shunned in their community. Like, not really a pillar of the faith. Like.
- [42:33]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [42:34]
Ariana Grande
Maybe even already doing. Yeah. Like. Like, because, like, they're both Mormon. They're both quote, unquote, religious when they get married still. But, like, she just was not. No guy is gonna be like, I have to marry that woman. And that, like, he saw something in her that he. I mean, like, look, I don't know how you. How a person would choose to play Joe. I don't know if their feeling is that when they married Harper, he really thought, oh, I underst. Oh, I. Ahaha. This is love. Oh, my God, I don't think I got it. And now I get it. It's wanting to care for somebody. It's wanting to save somebody. It's wanting to make their life Better. Oh, my God. I guess I just. All this time I didn't know what love was. And now I see it, and this is the woman who makes me feel it. Or if he knew when he married her. Do you know what I mean? Because, like, she accuses him of that, and he kind of is like, I think. I think maybe I knew when I married you, but, like, do you know what I mean?
- [43:25]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [43:26]
Ariana Grande
So I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know how far back he knew he was gay when he married her, but we're gonna.
- [43:31]
Matt Koplik
Okay, we got. We'll. We will talk about Joe more. Joe is a conversation with Harper because she does say in the I burned dinner scene, she was like, I shouldn't have married you. I knew. And then stops herself. And then she says, it's a sin and it's killing us both. And so it. Part of me wonders if by Joe marrying Harper and the community, knowing what kind of woman Harper was and I. It. Who knows what Joe's history was, if he ever dated in high school or anything like that. It's almost like him choosing to marry her makes everyone kind of side eye and go, why would you do that if you were serious about a wife and having kids? Like, why. Why would you go and get her? What's up with you? And sort of almost invites investigation, which might be another reason why they kind of pick up and leave for New York where no one knows them and no one knows how the Mormon community works. People just hear, oh, Joe has a wife, so he's straight. Right?
- [44:30]
Ariana Grande
So he's straight, so everything's fine. I also, like, I get the sense he was probably, like, a real golden boy in terms of, like, trying to, like, show off everything he had in every other way, which leads to him being, like, the perfect little student for Roy cone, because all he wants to do is impress him and, like, show his merit.
- [44:49]
Matt Koplik
Do we know much about what Joe is like?
- [44:51]
Ariana Grande
No.
- [44:52]
Matt Koplik
Back in Utah? Yeah. I'm like, I'm sure that. I am sure that Tony Kushner has the bio written out because he's got a bio written out for everybody. They talk about it in World only Spins forward when, you know, post Broadway, post national, they're doing productions all over the world in the 90s and early 2000s, and he comes to, like, visit a regional production where all the actors wrote out their little bios for their characters. Yeah. He's like, that's not right. And he's like. Takes the Harper aside. He's like, Let me tell you what Harper's deal is.
- [45:20]
Ariana Grande
See, I love that.
- [45:21]
Matt Koplik
I love that I'm a little double edged sword about it. I'm like, if they're. If they're so off that it is negatively affecting their performance in your eyes, definitely guide them back to the right track. But like, if they are still kind of getting the tone of it and details are off, you know, maybe correct detail here or there, but don't be like, no, that's not what Harper does. That's. It's just. It's giving me very Harry Potter vibes of like, no, I am in control of this entire universe.
- [45:43]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. But speaking of Harry Potter, I only saw. I've only gotten the chance to see Steven Spinella once, and it was when he was playing Snape and Voldemort in Cursed Child. I passed out at the show. He came on stage, I saw him perform for, I'm gonna say 45 seconds. I was like, I think I'm gonna pass out. I stumbled into the lobby and I passed out. I had the worst flu of my life and didn't know it. It was like the first day and then I was like sick for probably a month following that. So I never really got to see Steven Spinella.
- [46:14]
Matt Koplik
I saw Steven Spinella in Spring Awakening. He was the adult man in that. In the original. In the original cast.
- [46:20]
Ariana Grande
So did I see the original? I might not have.
- [46:22]
Matt Koplik
You might not have. I don't know your life, but that's hilarious. Either way, I really. I do know your life, but with.
- [46:29]
Ariana Grande
It was really tragic. I was like, this show's bad, but at least I'm gonna see Steven Spinella. And you didn't even get to see him. I know.
- [46:37]
Matt Koplik
The other thing I was going to say about Joe and Harper, with their getting married with him seeing her and all that. I'm sure part of it is like wanting to do good, seeing a broken soul, wanting to help, and also recognizing your own brokenness. But I also think for someone like Joe, who is constantly questioning his masculinity, seeing someone who is so, in his viewpoint, weak and vulnerable and in need of saving makes him feel more like a man.
- [47:02]
Ariana Grande
Totally. I. I agree with that. But I. But I don't think that that, that is like a conscious.
- [47:10]
Matt Koplik
No, I don't think he's.
- [47:11]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, I don't think it's just like a. It's a heart gut impulse thing of just like, if I can protect her, I'm a good. I'm.
- [47:17]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, he's on Malevolent Husband. Does no, he's not malevolent, but I do. And it's sort of what you were saying of when you play Harper and. And Joe, you got to have some sort of love there. Not only because it makes it make a little more sense, it's also just more interesting if you only play anger and annoyance with each other. That's boring to me. So for. For Joe, you know, you're not. You're not sitting there, like, twiddling your fingers like, Mr. Burns, you think, yes, Harper, you know, be the weak one I want you to be. But there is a part of him that prefers Harper when she is just so desperately in need of him.
- [47:51]
Ariana Grande
Yes, 100%.
- [47:53]
Matt Koplik
And also.
- [47:53]
Ariana Grande
And when she starts, like, lashing out.
- [47:58]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [47:58]
Ariana Grande
It's her way of sort of, like, establishing a level of control in the relationship. Not because he's controlling her, but because there is no way to control the tempest that she, like, can become. Do you know what I mean? Where it's like, I can escape, I can go places, I can run away, I can burn dinner. I can do things just because I can, because you know what I mean? Like, when she. When he's like, why? Why did you burn dinner? She's like, because I could do what? I mean, like, that's literally her answer. It isn't because, like, because I hate you, I didn't want you to eat dinner. It's literally because, like, because I was alone and I couldn't. It seemed like the kind of thing a crazy housewife does. I just, like, put it back in and I wash it, burn. You know what I mean?
- [48:31]
Matt Koplik
And also, like, what? And, like, what do I have to do to get you to sit down and talk to me?
- [48:34]
Ariana Grande
Exactly. She's just, like, searching for control. I liked Denise gao and James McArdle. I liked them both individually, and I liked them.
- [48:49]
Matt Koplik
James played Lewis. It was Russell.
- [48:51]
Ariana Grande
Oh, Russell Tovey. Sorry.
- [48:54]
Matt Koplik
And then did you see Lee Pace do it on Broadway?
- [48:57]
Ariana Grande
Yes.
- [48:58]
Matt Koplik
Okay.
- [48:58]
Ariana Grande
So I've seen both. I. I loved. I loved Lee Pace, as did. I thought he was a very, very unusual Joe, and I really, really liked him a lot.
- [49:06]
Matt Koplik
He. He is the best show that I have seen so far. I look forward to seeing David Marshall Grant at the library soon, but of seeing Wilson Pace, Russell Tovey, and then I think it was Bill Heck who did it.
- [49:20]
Ariana Grande
It was Bill Heck.
- [49:21]
Matt Koplik
Yes.
- [49:21]
Ariana Grande
Because they also, weirdly. Did you ever watch that? Like, oh, God, I wish it was called. Oh, I didn't know it was called the Ballad of Buster. Yeah, the Ballad of Buster. Scruggs, he and Zoe Kazan had a. Had another thing together where they were paired together. Do you know what I'm talking about? On.
- [49:34]
Matt Koplik
I've never seen the movie. It's Coen Brothers, right?
- [49:36]
Ariana Grande
It's Coen Brothers. And it's like a series of stories. And one of the stories, weirdly, is. Is Bill Heck and Zoe Kazan again.
- [49:42]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Well, I just love that you're like, oh, God. You know that random thing. It was called, I don't know, the Ballad of Buster Scrubs.
- [49:47]
Ariana Grande
Well, it took a minute for it to come back. No, I couldn't remember.
- [49:52]
Matt Koplik
The signature production overall was very underwhelming for me. The two things I liked the most about it were Christian Borrell's prior and Frank Woods. Roy Cohn loved him.
- [50:02]
Ariana Grande
Did you like Zachary Quinto?
- [50:04]
Matt Koplik
That is. Yeah. That is probably the most I've liked Zachary Quinto on stage. I remember seeing him in it and being like, I think you've got a lot of potential to be a great Lewis. And then I did not really like him in anything I saw him on stage since then. So I, in my opinion on that performance has soured.
- [50:22]
Ariana Grande
I thought it was a very. I thought it was a really unusual take on Lewis. And as a, like, as just like a fan, like, do you know what I mean? When people are like, I'm just like a fan of the game. Like, as a fan of the game, I was like, this is really interesting. Like, I've never really like Lewis with like so much like sexual charisma.
- [50:38]
Matt Koplik
Sure.
- [50:39]
Ariana Grande
But I'm not sure if he was like the Lewis of my, like, platonic ideal. He also.
- [50:44]
Matt Koplik
He was also. He played really deeply into the toxicity of Lewis because I just think that's sort of where Zachary Quinto lives. He, like, he lives in pain and just not. Not that he is gross, but he likes playing the grossness of characters.
- [50:59]
Ariana Grande
Yes, he did a really good job with, like, the self loathing and the like, stupid decisions made out of self loathing. But, like, I did not believe him at all in any of, like, in like the scene where he like sits and talks with Belize and is like, maybe I deserve. Maybe I deserve this. This thing on my head. It's the mark of Cain. I was like. I was like, you don't give a shit. Like the, like the deep, deep, like neuroscience.
- [51:18]
Matt Koplik
I didn't get help that he had Billy Porter's Belize to play off of, which that's. We will leave it there for the sake of being positive.
- [51:24]
Ariana Grande
I agree with that. I'm not Going to say anything.
- [51:27]
Matt Koplik
No more about that. But the. Well, actually, I will just say this. Like, talk about not getting any laughs. That's the only thing I'll say.
- [51:35]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [51:35]
Matt Koplik
But with. With the Joe and Harper as. We could sort of continue on Harper and start leaning into Joe. You know, we talk about how Harper's always like, what do I have to do to get your attention to get, like, you. Get you to sit down and fucking talk to me. I think Joe doesn't want to talk about real things for a couple of reasons. One, control to, you know, Harper. For as much as he talks down to her and tries to sort of infantilize her. Hey, buddy, buddy, kiss. Things like that. She can see right through him because she can see right through a lot of people.
- [52:07]
Ariana Grande
Right?
- [52:07]
Matt Koplik
She's. She's incredibly insightful. And a question I gave to Alex in the last episode. I want to hear your thoughts on this, too. Is like, is Harper also maybe like, not a lapsed prophet, but a prophet who maybe slipped through the paperwork in heaven? Because.
- [52:20]
Ariana Grande
Yes, yes. And, and. And what I like about this show is that it says that, like, many people in, like, in. In great suffering have the capacity to be that. Do you know what I mean? Like, they, like, start to touch on a little bit of the, like, the ability to see something beyond the veil. And I love that at the end, it goes from, like, my visions and the things that I see freak me out and make me feel disassociated from the world to her, like, feeling, like, an ownership of it when she's like. Because of my amazing ability to see such things. When she's talking about, like, seeing the souls, like, that's said with a sense of, like, pride and satisfaction as opposed to, like, oh, God, I'm looking out the window and I see souls. You know what I mean? It's like. It's like I have. My amazing ability to see such things has let me. Has given me the chance to see this, like, amazing, beautiful thing that, like, shows that the world only spins forward.
- [53:08]
Matt Koplik
It's gorgeous. You know what it is? You know what? You know what fucking M. Night Shyamalan stole from that? It's that for Sixth Sense, where Haley Joel Osmond is terrified of all the dead people he can see until he realizes or built. Bruce Willis helps him realize. Like, these are people who need closure. People who have messages to give to loved ones. And you can do that.
- [53:26]
Ariana Grande
And you can do it.
- [53:27]
Matt Koplik
This isn't. This is not a curse. This is a gift. If you. If you use it Correctly. And Harper has realized that, like, yes, she. She has visions, but, like, they're so crystallized and clear. There's got to be something good about that. Because something about. We learned from Prior when he goes to visit heaven. And we sort of talked about this as well, but, like, we get the angel and Prior is told from this angel in Perestroika, stop moving, stop progressing. Like, don't you understand? It's the. It'll be the end of the world if humans.
- [53:57]
Ariana Grande
The virus of time.
- [53:58]
Matt Koplik
Yes, yes, because you were an experiment. The human race was an experiment that God created because he got bored the angels one day.
- [54:05]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [54:05]
Matt Koplik
And he got super into you guys, and then something shifted in him and he was bored with you too, and he left. And you guys are too dumb to know, like, what you do. And we see all of it. We can see the future. We see where this is heading. And Prior goes to heaven and he sees them all. He's like, no, you don't. He's like, you. You're bad at what you do. You basically were liberal arts students who got put into CEO positions of like a Fortune 500 company without any knowledge of how to do it and still have no knowledge of how to do it. So, like, you get intel about the future, but you only get the bad stuff and you don't know how to interpret it. There's other stuff out there. You know, you're. You guys are just bad at business. Which is why I say Harper could be a prophet whose paperwork slipped through the cracks. Because the angels are bad at that shit. They're not on top of all of the profits of the world, and they're not on top of everything. Everything going on in the world. So Harper, with her ozone, you know, night flight to San Francisco monologue is her, as you said, owning her visions and recognizing and interpreting them how she sees fit.
- [55:14]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [55:14]
Matt Koplik
Which is wonderful.
- [55:15]
Ariana Grande
I mean, I love that.
- [55:16]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Alex believes that it's her dying and going to heaven, since heaven is like San Francisco and she's one of the souls rising.
- [55:24]
Ariana Grande
She's dying when she's on the airplane to San Francisco.
- [55:26]
Matt Koplik
Alex doesn't think she's ever on the airplane. Alex thinks she leaves, has an accidental overdose of Valium and Diesel. That is what Alex Weisen believed.
- [55:33]
Ariana Grande
Okay. Interesting.
- [55:35]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. It's not.
- [55:36]
Ariana Grande
Well, so one of the things that actually is more clarified in the play, that isn't in the HBO version, again, not necessary for the plot of the show, but is interesting, is that in that final scene in heaven where Prior and Harper encounter each other. He's the one who tells her that heaven is a lot like San Francisco.
- [55:56]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [55:56]
Ariana Grande
And so she gets the idea in her head to go to San Francisco because it is sort of unusual to, like, watch the show, watch the movie version. And then she has a big fight with Joe and the next thing you know, she's on a plane to San Francisco and it's her first. Then she's like, yeah, God, it's been years since I've been on a plane. You're like, why'd you go to San Francisco? Like, it makes a lot more sense that the idea was put in her mind that she's going to a place like heaven. She's going to heaven on purpose. Do you know what I mean?
- [56:17]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Because she. She wants to see a thing of beauty she's yet to see.
- [56:21]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [56:22]
Matt Koplik
What. What Prior describes the real San Francisco as. Because when she's in heaven with him and she's like, well, this place kind of sucks. He's like, well, it only sort of looks like San Francisco. The real place is amazing.
- [56:33]
Ariana Grande
Is amazing. Exactly.
- [56:34]
Matt Koplik
And she's like, oh, I kind of want to see that.
- [56:37]
Ariana Grande
And also, like, I love that scene where she and Joe are back in Brooklyn and they're looking at Manhattan from Brooklyn with the storm clouds over Manhattan, where she's talking about, like, the sort of like, end of the world vibes and how it attracts her.
- [56:51]
Matt Koplik
God, I just love that. Very melancholia.
- [56:54]
Ariana Grande
Very melancholia. I think you're gonna love the movie. I look forward to really strange. But I like. I do think you're gonna love it.
- [57:01]
Matt Koplik
The. What do you think attracts Harper to Joe?
- [57:05]
Ariana Grande
I think when their relationship was quote, unquote good. Right. I know it was never necessarily, like, phenomenally sexually good. Do you know what I mean? And there's always been a level of dishonesty there. Right. So, like, I'm just. That's my disclaimer of like, no one ever was truly proceeding with honesty here.
- [57:23]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [57:25]
Ariana Grande
But I do think he was a really good partner for her because I think he was like, maybe one of the first ever safe places ever for her. I think he was not afraid of what she'd encountered in her life. And he didn't treat her like it had, like, marred her or turned her into a person who was, like, unlovable or unworthy of love. I think he even found her ability to, like, understand and touch suffering kind of attractive because he was suffering. And in a culture that is very much like anti. Tell anybody else. About your suffering to, like, encounter a person who's like, not only do I hear you, but I get you. And, like, the more you tell me, the more I love you. Because, like, I. I, like, I am understanding of and attracted to the depth of suffering that you have understood. Because I don't think anyone else has ever understood it in me. Right. So again, I am understanding this is not necessarily, like, healthy to just be like, we love each other because we both have understood suffering. But I do think he made her feel really, really safe and really, really listened to and, like, maybe for the first time, like, she was like, the kind of person who could like, be in a quote, unquote, normal relationship when you've, like, gone years being like, will I ever. Will I ever be normal? Do you know what I mean? And then suddenly, suddenly somebody sees you and is like, well, we might never be normal, but, like, together we could do this. And then you're like, oh, my God, like, just like the normal people. Like, I have a husband and, like, life is. Life is grand and we'll be there for each other. And when I'm sad, you'll come for me. When you're sad, I'll comfort you. You know what I mean? Like, that kind of a thing.
- [58:56]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. What's fascinating to me is there are so many, so many parallels to my own life and my own writing that I have found in Angels, particularly in the Hannah in the Harper, Joe, Lewis stuff. The funny thing about Harper and Joe is that I realized upon this rewatch and reread, they don't have any friends. They. Yeah, she has no friends. He has no friends. Like, he still goes to work. Like, he doesn't have any co workers.
- [59:28]
Ariana Grande
But he doesn't have friends.
- [59:29]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Roy is the only person who he's hung out with outside of Harper in the play. Like, related to work, really. And that's only kind of on the newer side. He's just started sort of talking to Lewis. And that's also incredibly new.
- [59:42]
Ariana Grande
I mean, I think you. I think you have genuinely, like. I think it's proof he doesn't have friends when he's crying in the bathroom and like, when Lewis is crying in the bathroom and. And Joe comes out to, like, comfort him. Like, I think, like, you see in that moment a man who, like, is so lovely and has so many good instincts and no fucking friends. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, I was like, I was like, to me, that feels like such concrete. Like, you're like, oh, yeah, what a nice guy. This guy doesn't talk to anyone.
- [60:09]
Matt Koplik
No one, no one knows anything about him really. And that is the thing that, God, when we've talked about this, I don't want to get into it too much, but like, when, when all my shit was going down with Bub and we talked about it and you know, I told you about him and all that stuff and, you know, turned out you knew him or sort of knew him. The thing that, you know, everyone who was connected to him had said to me when they found out about the whole situation was like, yeah, he's very nice. The more I think about it, the less I actually really know him. And I think that is a trait of someone who has so much inside that they don't want anyone to know about. And you can get really isolated being that guarded without even knowing it. Like, it's. You're nice to everyone, you're kind to everyone, but you don't actually connect with a lot of people. You can pass through so many people in this world and not offend anyone. But like, do you have actual roots with anyone? The only person roots with is Harper. And they have this insular, toxic island that they live on from everyone else. And you watch them both just make bad decision after bad decision when it comes to each other for the entire two part play.
- [61:22]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [61:23]
Matt Koplik
And it takes, it ultimately takes her final thrust. And it's. And it's not, it's not the warning of terrible things that could happen, of, you know, get away from this man because you're just going to get even worse. It's the option of you can be happier over there. Like, it rather for two parts, she's been told, like, she's been told two things of, like, everything is bad here or like, you just got to make it work here. And then it's not until the end when, when Prior doesn't even say like, oh, leave your husband to go to San Francisco, he's like, you know, San Francisco is really beautiful. And she's like, she's like, oh, there's something beautiful outside of where I'm at.
- [62:04]
Ariana Grande
I just need to like, go try it.
- [62:06]
Matt Koplik
I just need, I need to go try it.
- [62:07]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [62:08]
Matt Koplik
And she's the one that breaks off ties.
- [62:09]
Ariana Grande
The other thing that I think is like so indicative of when people play the characters, quote unquote, wrong in my opinion, is that like, like Joe talks a lot about trying. He talks a lot about trying. Do you know what I mean? Like, many of their fights come from him being like, you know, I'm trying. Right. And Then, like, even being open and vulnerable about being like, that's me. That, that's me in that struggle. Because, like, I'm fighting against a creature that I'm fighting an unfi. A winnable fight, but I'm still fighting. That's what he's equating in the image. I mean, there's two things. One is the grappling with this beautiful man. It's literally a depiction of two of two beautiful men, sexy guys, you know, grappling.
- [62:52]
Matt Koplik
So it's how I feel about the Outsiders, where I'm like, it's 20 beautiful boys beating the shit out of me.
- [62:56]
Ariana Grande
Beating the shit out of each other.
- [62:58]
Matt Koplik
I'm like, you're right.
- [62:58]
Ariana Grande
So, like, there's that, but it's also him just being like, this guy is fighting because he has to fight. Because the. The alternative is something I can't even think about. But I. I know it's an unwinnable fight. And he's so honest about being like, I'm trying. I think when I see Harper's in that scene, really shut him down. Slash, like, show a sense of disgust on his. Of his admission in that moment. I really dislike it. I really dislike. Because, like, I think she knows deep down she brings it up a lot. But the more she's, like, disgusted with him or angry with him when he's open about it, the less I. I with that Harper. Because I think she just wants him to say it. Because, you know, they even say it in that fight when she, when, when she's like, just say it. And he's like, and then what? And she's like, then we'll figure it out. Do you know what I mean? Like, she's like, just say it. And then. And then we will talk about it. And then he's like, nothing. Do you mean he'll cut he. But she's like, she's leaving the door open for him to just say the words, and he won't say the words. Do what I'm saying.
- [64:06]
Matt Koplik
And so. Well, then when he won't admit it when he says, I'm not, and I don't know what difference it would make. What is her response? Months.
- [64:12]
Ariana Grande
Then she's letting me mad. Do you know what I'm saying?
- [64:14]
Matt Koplik
No, but. No, but. So I. I can't believe Alex. I didn't say this in the last episode. When they have. It's the I burn dinner scene after she has threshold of revelation with Prior. And Prior is like, your husband's a homo. And it's one of my Favorite punchlines. Because we know that Joe likes to go on walks.
- [64:28]
Ariana Grande
And she's like, yeah, do homo lots of long walks.
- [64:31]
Matt Koplik
And it's one of the times that Mary Louise Parker is actually incredibly funny as her.
- [64:34]
Ariana Grande
Incredibly funny.
- [64:36]
Matt Koplik
She goes, I don't like your revelation. I don't. You're not. You don't intuit well at all. Joe is very normal. He. She goes, oh, God. Gets up, walks up, walks to the other side of the room. Just turns out she goes, do homos take, like, lots of long walks?
- [64:47]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. And his, like, unbelievably dry response, like, of, yes, in tracksuits with lavender coiffs.
- [64:53]
Matt Koplik
It's.
- [64:53]
Ariana Grande
Oh, God.
- [64:54]
Matt Koplik
Play is hilarious, but so, so funny when. So she's confronting Joe and she says, tell me and we'll figure it out. He goes, I'm not. I don't see what difference it would make. What does she say to him? I'm gonna have a baby.
- [65:05]
Ariana Grande
Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Sorry. Yes. Again, she's just trying to get some fucking control. And also, I think what's really interesting about Patrick Wilson, specifically in that performance, is he seems very happy when she says that. And I have not seen a lot of other Joes play it that way. A lot of other Joes are like, jesus Christ. No. What? No, that's not possible. Your doctor said it's not possible. He. There's a moment there where he, like, genuinely gets a little joy, which I think is a very interesting choice as a guy.
- [65:32]
Matt Koplik
It's. It's. It's. It's joy for a second, but then the first word out of his mouth is liar. Yes. And. And you watch Mary Louise Parker again, like, be the little kid. She goes, you liar. Like, it's very. It's very two kids on the playground of like, my mommy and I met the queen last week. Liar. You're a liar.
- [65:48]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. Well, then I love. Also another one of my favorite Mary Louise Parker wines was when she goes, yes. No. Yes. Now we both have a secret. That's one of her best lines. That's one of her best performance moments.
- [65:57]
Matt Koplik
When he says, are you really pregnant? She goes, yes. No. Yes. No. Get away from me. Now we both have a secret.
- [66:01]
Ariana Grande
Now we both have a secret. Oh, she's amazing at that moment.
- [66:04]
Matt Koplik
And we know for a fact that it's. That it is a lie. When she has her. When after the quartet, which I wrongfully called the All Skate in the last episode, and she snaps and Mr. Lies, her. Her vision of the travel agent takes her away and she ends up in Antarctica, and. Which is actually just Prospect Park. But in the end, as when we leave her in the millennium approaches, as far as we know, she is in Antarctica. We have no idea where she could actually be. And she's. And Mr. Lai says, you know, you're not actually pregnant. You made that up. Which is how we know it's true. Because it's her.
- [66:37]
Ariana Grande
Herself talking.
- [66:38]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, talking herself. And she's like, well, as long as the snow is cold, then I'm pregnant and I can have any kind of baby I want.
- [66:44]
Ariana Grande
And it's also a very. I think that scene is very interesting. And also, like, the devolvement of the. As she's, like, coming back to sobriety and the vision is sort of falling apart, and she's, like, falling out of love with the Eskimo, the Jo Pitt stand in. It's just like her realizing basically what she's fantasizing about is nesting, right? It's having this warm, reliable guy who's gonna protect her, and they have a baby, and it's so. It's so loving. We're gonna bring this love in the world. And then as it's devolving, she's like, it's not a hero. It's just Joe. Do you know what I mean?
- [67:18]
Matt Koplik
Because I wanted a real Eskimo, not this lawyer, right?
- [67:21]
Ariana Grande
And so it's like, you know, I think what is really lovely about the writing is that, like, they're both very much in love with each other and very much out of love with each other. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like they're both equal parts true and that, like, you can see that what worked for them worked for them for a bit. And it's like, we have officially reached, like, the inflection point of, like, the unhappiness, the dishonesty, the untruthfulness to who we are. It is. It has officially gotten to the point where, like, we can't just. Like, we can't just love each other through this anymore. Like, we can't just be like, I love you. We're safe. We're safe. We're safe. Like, we can't, like, persist through the reality anymore. Like, the reality just keeps poking through.
- [68:01]
Matt Koplik
It's. It's the Joan Harper. I forget what movie it is. I think it's. It might be Something's Got to Give where the exchange is like, I love you. I love you, too. No, but I'm in love with you. And it's the. There's a Very big difference of Joe loves Harper, he cares for her, he's not a sociopath, he does want to help her. Harper is in love with Jo.
- [68:24]
Ariana Grande
Correct. And again, when people, when there's a sense of a Harper who just hates his guts from square one, her depression in perestroika doesn't make sense because she has to have believed that there was a possibility for their future together. And she has to have believed that he with withdrew it from her somehow. Do you know what I mean? Which is like, maybe not fair to, for her to say to be like, how it's not fair that you're gay. Do what I mean. But like, you know, she's not being rational or logical. She's heartbroken. And so like, when people don't play the like in loveness enough of Millennium Approaches, I feel like I don't really. I have fallen out of love with Harpers in Perestroika because I didn't feel that they were coming from any sort of real place of loss in Millennium Approaches, they just feel a little petulant. They feel a little bit like, well then fine, I'm gonna go hang out with your mom at the Mormon Visitor Center. And it's like, it's not that. It's like my whole life fell apart. This person I love and trust was lying to me. And I knew they were lying to me, but they still were lying to me. Do you know what I mean? Like that thing, there's like a childish thing in there that like, I need to believe something got really taken from her.
- [69:36]
Matt Koplik
It's really tricky because with Millennium Approaches, we are introduced to both couples pretty much immediately when the inciting incident occurs for, for both of them, the Harper, Joe and Lewis Pryor. And it's the inciting incident that the incident itself is not new information that ruins a good, a good relationship. It is new information that exposes what's missing here and ultimately causes these relationships to split.
- [70:06]
Ariana Grande
Because, like, that is the first thing we see of Lewis and Prior, which is that when Lewis is crying and saying like, why didn't you tell me? Prior's answer is like, I just, I didn't, I didn't want you to freak out. I didn't want you to leave me. It's like the first thing he fucking says, or he's just like, you had to be certain. I couldn't give you bad news and not have it be certain because, like, I know you're gonna act like this. And so like, we're seeing the cracks of this relationship, which is Like a man who is getting devastating life changing news, who isn't able to go to his partner and safely be like, listen, my doctor thinks, blah, blah, blah. Because he's just. He's so afraid his partner's gonna like, flip out and potentially leave him.
- [70:43]
Matt Koplik
Which is exactly what his partner does.
- [70:45]
Ariana Grande
Does.
- [70:45]
Matt Koplik
And then. And with Harper and Jo, the new information is Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn is to their relationship what AIDS is to Pryor and Lewis. And Roy is not a wedge that drives them apart so much as that he is a new piece to their puzzle that exposes everything that's wrong with them. And then on top of Roy is then the introduction of Lewis, but into that relationship. And it's not that either one of them does anything to them. It's just now that now that this island has new inhabitants, we're recognizing how flawed the infrastructure is of the. Of the living situation. Which is a very bonkers metaphor and messy. But so is this play. We'll talk about Jo in just a second, but first we gotta take another break.
- [71:32]
Ariana Grande
You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Freddy. We're so done with New Year. New you this year it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Geminis because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want and you know what? We love that for you.
- [72:04]
Matt Koplik
Someone else will too.
- [72:05]
Ariana Grande
Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries.
- [72:17]
Matt Koplik
You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first.
- [72:23]
Ariana Grande
Ba ba ba ba ba.
- [72:27]
Matt Koplik
And we're back. So.
- [72:28]
Ariana Grande
And the play that I saw Betty Gilpin in was called I'm Gonna Pray for your so Hard. It was at Atlantic in 2015. The play is by Hallie Pfeiffer.
- [72:36]
Matt Koplik
Okay, thank you, Hallie Pfeiffer. So this was pre glow then, for Ms. Gilpin. Yes.
- [72:41]
Ariana Grande
And this was around the time that she would have been just like an incredible Harper.
- [72:46]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [72:47]
Ariana Grande
So vulnerable. Just like raw nerve.
- [72:48]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. And. And young. I. I do think it's important that we realize how young a lot of these characters are. I mean, It's. This is 1985, you know, 28 through 32. So it's a little older than 28 through 32 today. But, you know, we're not casting 45 year olds in these parts. Yeah, they're. They are. They are aged young adults is how I would sort of describe it.
- [73:13]
Ariana Grande
Aged young adults.
- [73:15]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [73:15]
Ariana Grande
Okay, so here's. Here's something I want to say about Joe.
- [73:18]
Matt Koplik
Yes.
- [73:18]
Ariana Grande
First of all, I don't know if this is what you intended when we were talking, when you were like, let's talk about angels, that we were just, like, going to mostly talk about Harper and Joe, but I'm happy.
- [73:26]
Matt Koplik
Well, I did want to talk about Harper because I felt like she got the short end of the stick in the last episode, which means that we're now talking about Joe.
- [73:32]
Ariana Grande
Okay, cool. Because, I mean, like, I love the whole play. I really, really feel. I just, like, really love the Harper and Jo stuff, and I really love Harper and I really love Jo. So it's like, I'm thrilled to be talking about them because I do feel that sometimes they get a little lost in the conversation, weirdly.
- [73:48]
Matt Koplik
Well, they're the least fantastical elements of the play, but. And they're the most human. And it's the least sexy because, like, Joe.
- [73:55]
Ariana Grande
It is the least sexy for sure.
- [73:56]
Matt Koplik
Because, like, Joe gets Louis, so we get a lot of their fuckery. And, you know, Harper has her visions, but she doesn't have a lot of them. And as Prior starts to get his stuff going on, like, that's far more fantastical and it's less fast and funny, like Belize. And I would argue that Harper's arc doesn't really begin until the end of the play, whereas we get to see a nice full arc for someone like Hannah, and neither she or Joe are as, like, vengeful and evil as Roy. So it's. They are. I think they're the most human, they're the most relatable, but they're the least dynamic.
- [74:34]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. I don't know what it. I don't know really what my attraction is to them, but obviously I feel very strongly about them. So I'm thrilled that this is the way the conversation's gone. I just don't want to feel that you are. I don't want you to be like, okay, enough.
- [74:49]
Matt Koplik
The one thing I. The one thing you have to steer me clear from, because I did mention it a little bit last time, but. But as we know, I have made it a point now in every episode of Broadway Breakdown to remind the listeners that I did what? Wrote a play. Wrote a play. Because it is the only thing besides this podcast that I'll ever do with my life since I cannot give Birth. But I did. I was so thrown rewatching and rereading how much the Lewis Harper Joe shit relates to the Owen Aaron John. And I was like, okay, I cannot make the parallels too much, but sometimes I will. I will. Because I did not do it intentionally. It was just a light.
- [75:31]
Ariana Grande
Okay. So I was about to say it's not something that you do intentionally because I. Okay. I wrote a teen aimed musical which is like a fantasy comedy. It is, like super goofy, meant to feel like the most freewheeling. Like, it's like, you know, like when you play like a D and D campaign with your friends and it's like so silly. It's like, not like Game of Thrones. Y. It's like, just like, follow the fun. Like, I meant I wanted to write this thing to feel like your silliest, most fun game with your friends.
- [76:00]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [76:02]
Ariana Grande
And it's about a world that hasn't had magic forever. It's like, been like a really long time since there used to be fantastical beasts and fights and knights and. And now there's no magic. So the world has gotten, like, extremely, like, clerical. And there's one character who can do magic and she doesn't know why, but she's been able to do magic her entire life. And like, through the course of this journey, she finds out why she can do magic and her connection to this deep, this old, deep past and like, blah, blah, blah. And also they, like, are like, trying to fight through, like, the bureaucracy of, like, in the absence of chaos, bureaucracy became the answer to things. And it's a lot of just like, you know, fighting with people, trying to get you to fight out fill out forms and shit. And after I, like, wrote this musical and I really liked it and we did a little workshop of it, and afterwards somebody was like, hey, I loved Angels in America junior. And I was like, stop. Like, do you know what I'm saying? It couldn't have been less intentional. I wasn't like, oh, you know what? This is so funny. This is so much like when they go to heaven and heaven is in the absence of God, they decided to try and make their order. I just was writing from my heart and I obviously was writing something that had, like, impacted me deeply when I read it as a young person. And I was trying to think of a story that would appeal to a young person. And then I wrote Angels America Junior.
- [77:16]
Matt Koplik
This is also. I remember how you and I became friends at such a young age because we met around, like, 15, 16.
- [77:22]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [77:23]
Matt Koplik
And we were the only Two people that I knew who are our age who were like, you love Angels in America. I love Angels in America. You love Amadeus. I love Amadeus.
- [77:33]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. And then, of course, it was also like, you had. You had opinions on, like, Donna Murphy, and I was like, you know who Donna Murphy is? Do you know what I mean? Like, it was. I think it was a soul connection.
- [77:42]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. No, we. We connected on many, many levels. For me, those were like the pillars that our house.
- [77:46]
Ariana Grande
Those were the pillars. But I'm just saying, like, you, when I met you, I was amazed that someone even had a touch of knowledge on the things that I was, like, interested in. But also you. I mean, like, this continues to be true to this day. Everything I know about, you know, ten times more about. So, like, you know, it was like, oh, I, like, always felt that way. Or like, you just always had insight into these. These things.
- [78:09]
Matt Koplik
I. The thing I don't know that much, or at least in my opinion, I feel like I don't know that much about stuff. I always feel like there's limits to my knowledge, and that's why I'm always trying to learn more. I try not to. If I don't know something, I like to admit to that. But my biggest fear is saying something that's super incorrect and saying it so proudly and then someone.
- [78:30]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, but you're. That. That's just why you're not really incorrect. Often you just have sort of done your research appropriately and you speak with authority on things that, you know, you have the authority to speak on.
- [78:40]
Matt Koplik
To quote Belize, I am nothing if not well informed.
- [78:43]
Ariana Grande
There you go.
- [78:44]
Matt Koplik
Oh, yeah. We have to eventually talk about Lewis and Belize because I. I am very much a Lewis of the world. I am also like. That is the part that I would play if I were to be in America. My. My great. Growing up and having an understanding of self is me in high school wanting nothing more than to play Prior Walter. And then by the time I left college, understanding that I could never play Prior. I can only play Lewis.
- [79:09]
Ariana Grande
I mean, I disagree that you could never play Prior. I disagree with that. I just think that you would crush it as Lewis.
- [79:16]
Matt Koplik
Lewis is a lot easier for me just because it's me. Lewis is all of the most intense, hyperbolic, annoying elements of myself.
- [79:26]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [79:27]
Matt Koplik
All wrapped up into this package. Also, similar to Lewis, I have also been involved with someone like a Joe, which. Which led to a character like Owen to be written, which is what is. And what I didn't even realize I did with both of them is ultimately Owen is with his own Harper, who is in more in control than Harper is, but has not had her own threshold of revelation, has not had her angel crashing through the ceiling and being like, girl, get gone.
- [79:56]
Ariana Grande
Get, get gone, girl.
- [79:58]
Matt Koplik
And thus, like Owen, is Joe at the end of Angels as well as in the middle of Angels, because he is still tied to a relationship that gives him something but doesn't give him enough and is in fact draining him more than it is feeding him.
- [80:14]
Ariana Grande
And I have a question for you about Jo. Yes. That I don't think is a. Yes, no, correct, correct, not incorrect answer. I just like, really interested in your take on this. So the first person who says to Jo, please just say I'm gay. We can take it from there is Harper. And obviously there is deep love there. When he does eventually say in the quartet, I'm. I'm a homosexual, she loses her mind, takes a bunch of pills, completely snaps and leaves. So justified, certainly, but not a great reaction to telling someone you're gay. Then he calls his mom on the phone, or I guess before this, he calls his mom on the phone and says, mom, I'm gay. And she goes, well, this is a huge overreaction. You should know enough by now. Your father didn't love you. Okay? Not a great reaction to coming out and saying you're gay. Then he goes to Roy Cohn, who is his, like a mentor. Not a good man, but Joe really believes in him and in his republican way, thinks he actually is working for the. The good of America, and says, roy, I'm. I'm. I left my wife. I'm deciding to live as myself. All those things you said I should do, like live for myself and be selfish and leave my wife and like, like, take. Take life by the balls. I'm doing it. I'm gay. And Roy goes, no, you're not. Don't you ever say that again. Don't let me ever hear you say that again. He, like, gets out of his. I mean, again, talk about traumatic. He, like, gets out of his. It's not. Just don't be gay. He gets out of his hospital bed and his IVs rip out and he's bleeding everywhere, everywhere. And the whole unit's going insane because it's AIDS blood. And like, you know, I mean, it's like talking about a traumatic moment. So, like, this man stands up multiple times to claim his identity and is. I mean, the word I want to use is punished for it, right? Like every. At every turn he meets. I don't even know what the Word is. I was gonna say, like, a roadblock, but it's.
- [82:21]
Matt Koplik
It's.
- [82:22]
Ariana Grande
It's not even a roadblock. It's not just like, oh, that would be difficult. Don't go down that road. It's literally people being like. Like, turn the. Around you. You know what I mean? It's like. It's crazy. And then at the end, his mom is hanging out with three gay guys. He's not. He's not even part of it. So, like, what's so. Is he just meant to be, like, the job of this world in this. In this biblical story that he's the man who needs to test God's love and suffering? Does he need to find himself more? Do what I'm saying. Like, there's. There's so. He really never gets a moment of tenderness.
- [83:01]
Matt Koplik
He. That's sort of the thing. Right. Is so you, Joe. I feel like I talked about this before. We, as human beings, Sarah Silverman once said this on a podcast. Like, we gravitate towards where the love is, where the affection is, and only when it's turned on us do we realize what was actually there. And some people view it as, oh, you know, I did something wrong to make this person who said they cared about me turn on me. Other people would see it and go, oh, I was wrong about this person. They. Their care for me was conditional. And, you know, we understand why Joe has taken this long to get to where he is, to announce who he is to anyone in his life because of his. You know, we're told about Utah, we're told about Mormonism, we're told about religion. It's. We understand it's the mid-80s. The Republican Party has full control, and he is a Republican, and he likes Reagan, he likes the idea of America, and he likes what he can get as a white man who presents as heterosexual in this world. But he is also profoundly unhappy. And you can either go for what is outwardly easy, which is all of the things that the country will provide for you if you lie about yourself. But it's not easy in the long run. It has a way of catching up with you. It has a way of making literally, you bleed out of your mouth. If Joe had any kind of support system had. Or any kind of touchstone to, you know, all. The only healthy homosexual he knows is Lewis, at least in his mind.
- [84:48]
Ariana Grande
In his mind, yeah.
- [84:49]
Matt Koplik
Lewis is a. Is a healthy homosexual, which I do think, ultimately is why he ends up with him at the end of Millennium approaches. Because we've had. He has Two moments of being brave and saying who he is. And granted there are details here that make it trickier. He calls his mom at 2 in the morning drunk and he implies that he is in Central park because he likes to watch men get it on. All this is a lot of information. And even his mom, when she, when his mom flies to New York to talk to him about it, she's like, okay, I'm here, let's talk about it. She's like I. And, and admits like she did not take it well. And she's like, in my defense, it was like one in the morning my time you were drunk. Like a lot was thrown at me me. And I'll. And she's also not a person who talks about feelings. But you know, Joe gets that initial reaction catapults him to then tell Harper while she's in the middle of a Valium days. So he's not exactly. He's being honest but the, the playing field is necessarily level because then he tells Roy about it. But Roy is in a hospital bed. Roy is dying. And so it's bravery and pieces. And he doesn't take away from any of those interactions what I think you should take away, which is like, oh, the person that I invested a lot of my self worth in isn't worth it. Rather it's oh, they must be right then. So, and it, and it takes, it ultimately takes Roy being like go back to your wife for him to go back to Harper. And then one final push of trying to make it work. And like he's, he's a, he's a pendulum. He goes back and forth. Right.
- [86:30]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [86:31]
Matt Koplik
He goes, he, he has three weeks of list with, with Louis of non stop fucking goes to Roy to be like, I'm gay and I'm with a man and I'm. And I've never been happier. Roy then pushes Joe back to Lewis. Roy pushes Joe back to Harper.
- [86:47]
Ariana Grande
It is, they try and make it work one final time. One, just one terrible.
- [86:51]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [86:52]
Ariana Grande
Like, well, this is over.
- [86:54]
Matt Koplik
Exactly. It's one bad sex for him to go back to Lewis. And with Lewis, Louis, like Lewis is ultimately the true mirror to Joe because it's not about. Whereas Hannah and Harper and Roy are like, you're a good man, but the homosexuality, that's a problem. We'll work that out. Louis is like no, no, no, you're a homosexual. That's not a problem.
- [87:20]
Ariana Grande
It's everything else you are. Yeah.
- [87:22]
Matt Koplik
Everything else about you is awful.
- [87:24]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [87:24]
Matt Koplik
And Right. And Joe can't fully handle that. So I. Something I had said is a lot of people in this world, right. We talk about how so many issues that are issues unfortunately in this country and shouldn't be are people who look at the abstract and make a rash decision about it. Things about queer people, trans people, about women, people of color, immigrants. It's like the people that they don't know from a distance and saying, I can see the whole picture. And from the whole picture I have.
- [87:54]
Ariana Grande
This, yeah, this is what I've decided.
- [87:56]
Matt Koplik
And, and, and it's. And it means no empathy. And the thinking is usually once you get to know someone, once you're up close and you, and you see the nuance of, of humanity, that is when your empathy sinks in and you realize that it's not the decision you originally thought that is the in. That is, that is what Joe ultimately is, is Joe sees the world from a distance through black and white and through the eyes of the law. Which is why all of those terrible decisions, decisions he made on behalf of his boss.
- [88:25]
Ariana Grande
Right. You know, he thinks they are completely justified in terms of like legal proceedings. It's just words. It's just. Yeah, totally.
- [88:33]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. It's not about humanity. Lewis is the inverse of that. Lewis sees the pain of the world from a distance and is like, we must fight. But the moment he is up close and personal with another human being, that's when he's like, fuck this, I'm out.
- [88:46]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [88:47]
Matt Koplik
Which, which is. It's fascinating that he is the inverse of that. You know, he's on the right side of history on a moral perspective. But as a human being, he kind of sucks because he can't deal with the one on one. And so he is giving Joe a hard dose of reality. But because Lewis sucks and his, and his delivery of everything sucks, Joe is just feeling attacked and abused and isn't hearing anything that he's saying. Which is ultimately what then leads him back to Harper of. Well, the one person who gave, gave me affection is Harper. And so I'm. This is where it all makes sense. Harper, don't go. You're the only person who actually cares about me. And Harper, you know, slaps him, gives him the volume and it's like, go, get lost. Figure it out. She's like this can, you know, I'm never going to talk to you again because it hurt that badly. You need to discover yourself now.
- [89:39]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [89:40]
Matt Koplik
The question is whether he does it or not. The miniseries implies that it's possible he finds some redemption. The play. He could be the one person who's not better off by the end of all of this, which I think there is an artistic merit to that, because then you're like, well, everyone in the play went through such hell, but look how they all came out in the end, except for Roy Cohn, who's burning in hell.
- [90:02]
Ariana Grande
I mean, the author's note at the top of Perestroika from Tony Kushner says this play is functionally a comedy, not a farce, but people largely get what they want and are able to do so through exploration. Actually, you know what? Why am I saying this? Let's see what the man himself has to say.
- [90:25]
Matt Koplik
I have. And I have Perestroika right here. I have every. I have every edition of this play in print because I. I went out and I rebought the play. Now that there's a new addition with the added Roy Cohn Joe scene in Perestroika.
- [90:41]
Ariana Grande
Okay, here's what it says. A note to the actors and directors. Perestroika is essentially a comedy in that issues are resolved mostly peaceably, growth takes place, and loss is, to a certain degree, countenanced. But it is not at all a farce. All this happens only through a terrific amount of struggle and the stakes are high. And then it talks about, like, making sure not to play too many things, not to play the angel for laughs, and like, to make sure that, like, the gravity of the. The gravity of what the angel is asking for from Prior, even though it, like, sounds absurd to, like, not lean into the absurdness at all, it has to be dead serious, what she's asking him to do and what she's trying to give him. And that, like, it can be. It will be funny to us in the watching, but that they cannot have a wink at it at all. Like. Like an angel is giving him a sacred text. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's basically what that says.
- [91:24]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, the angel thing, it makes sense. And it's the. It's what makes comedy so hard because you, the actor, have to understand what makes it funny. You have to be able to figure out the technical beats of it. But then once you're the character, the character doesn't find it funny. That's what all. But that's also all comedy. Like, a character doesn't find their situation funny. It is serious to them. But you, the actor, have to understand how to convey that so the audience can laugh.
- [91:49]
Ariana Grande
I mean, but that is essentially just. That is just what he's saying is that it's like, of course the show is sad. And it deals with sad things and it's not like knee slapper funny, but that, like, ultimately it follows the beats of a comedy and that, like, people struggle and they get what they want, and then it's like it's over and it's not a tragedy. And that, like, there's a fatal flaw that leads to the undoing of this and that. And then, oh, my God, I accidentally killed my own daughter. It's Rigoletto. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like it follows more traditionally the beats of a comedy. But Joe really falls outside that spectrum. To me, he's like the only person who I feel like really just. I mean, like, obviously, like, you know, Roy dies, but even he gets a scene. I mean, if you're reading the play, even gets. He, even, he even, he gets a scene where he's in, like, heaven, hell or purgatory. It is very careful to say that he's not in any of those talking to God and he's going to represent him in family court.
- [92:34]
Matt Koplik
He even.
- [92:35]
Ariana Grande
He gets what he wants in a way.
- [92:36]
Matt Koplik
Well, so they. That scene, it's in the printed script. It was cut.
- [92:42]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. It says this scene can be cut, but I like it and I don't want it to be cut.
- [92:46]
Matt Koplik
I know it's a fun scene. According. It was cut for the Broadway production, supposedly. I will know for sure once I watch it at the library. But according to World only spins forward. Wolf wanted it cut because he was like, roy dies twice already. He's like, he's like, fucking kill the motherfucker. You don't need him anymore. Like, he has two fake deaths in that Ethel Rosenberg scene. Just kill him. And he's like. And he's like, perestroika is long enough as it is. Like, we gotta get to the finish line. Which is totally fair. And it is a good scene and it's a funny scene, but I understand it's also short.
- [93:15]
Ariana Grande
Cut the oldest living Bolshevik and leave fucking the talking to God.
- [93:20]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Honestly, the oldest living Bolshevik, I feel like is only in there because we have the rabbi at the top of Millennium approaches. We don't really need the Bolshevik.
- [93:27]
Ariana Grande
They left it in the signature production. I was shocked.
- [93:30]
Matt Koplik
What? The Bolshevik?
- [93:32]
Ariana Grande
Yes.
- [93:33]
Matt Koplik
They cut it.
- [93:34]
Ariana Grande
No, they was in it.
- [93:35]
Matt Koplik
No, it's, it's usually in it.
- [93:37]
Ariana Grande
I was genuinely shocked when, when I was like, when, when people are cutting things for time, when that doesn't get cut for time, I'm always kind of amazed.
- [93:43]
Matt Koplik
Oh, I, I, I would imagine that is something that Kushner has been adamant about not cutting. And yeah, then that is something that brilliant as he is, sometimes it takes someone dumber like us on the outside to look at him and be like, hey, Tony, baby, honey, hey, we can cut this one. We can cut this one. Honestly. But that's how I also felt about his screenplay for west side Story. I was like, you're an. You're an immense poet. Please let me at that screenplay so I can fucking trim it for you.
- [94:10]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, but it was good.
- [94:12]
Matt Koplik
It's a very good movie, that screenplay.
- [94:14]
Ariana Grande
Great movie.
- [94:15]
Matt Koplik
That movie could be tighter, I don't know.
- [94:17]
Ariana Grande
Anyway, that was just. That's just sort of a question that I have when I watch the show. I feel it every time I watch it also.
- [94:25]
Matt Koplik
Okay.
- [94:25]
Ariana Grande
Live on stage, not on stage. Movie version. Something I've seen 100 times. Somebody's new performance. I just. I always am left sort of wondering the real. Not even, like, what happened to him in terms of, like, gee, why don't have that character? But just sort of like, boy, oh, boy, talk about a guy who gets really put through the wringer. And so, like, in this show where many people face consequences, right? Like when. When Lewis is like. But when Lewis comes back to say, like, he's sorry and to see Prior again, and Prior is like, I love you, but never again. Never. Yeah, you can't come back ever. You're, you know, you, as the audience feel a sense of satisfaction because you're like. That is the correct answer. But you're also, I think, genuinely. I think if he came back crying, apologizing, and Prior was like, fuck you and the horse you rode on. In on. I'll never talking to you again. Even if you in your heart know that it would be completely correct for Prior to say that. I don't think it's what you want. It's like, not what you desire.
- [95:31]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [95:31]
Ariana Grande
Watching it, you want to see him go, you can't come back. Never. But also then when they're, like, hanging out as friends and, like, are still part of each other's lives, you're like, oh, this feels right. Like, thank God. I. I didn't really want to see these two men never, ever, ever, ever, ever be able to talk ever again.
- [95:49]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [95:50]
Ariana Grande
But I'm glad that Prior made this justified boundary because he knows he can't let it. He knows he can't let him in again to hurt him again. Correct. There's just not something similar with Joe. There's just. Do you mean they added that scene in the HBO version where he talks to his mom, and she sort of was like, good luck, baby. Well, it's a little kinder.
- [96:08]
Matt Koplik
No, it's a little kinder than that. She says to him, you know, should I make dinner tonight? I'll wait up for you. And so you know that, like, they're working towards having an open a relationship. Yes. Because, like, so, okay, two things. Hannah, for me, has the most interesting arc because she's the one who truly changes the most out of anyone.
- [96:29]
Ariana Grande
Definitely.
- [96:30]
Matt Koplik
Because there's always the question of, like, can we really change? And I think people can, but you're never gonna have this total 180. There's always a part of you that remains. It's just, can you evolve? Can you be a more evolved version of who you were? And so when we see Lewis at the end of the show, it's during the epilogue. He's still Louis. He's just, like, a little less insufferable. He's a little less pedantic, and he's a little more mature, but he still talks a mile a minute. He's still going all over the place and, like, thinks of himself as a New York City Bolshevik, but there is stuff to him like, Harper's gonna grow up a little bit, but she's also gonna always be a little wounded. And so Hannah is the one who definitely makes the largest change. So that's one thing. The other thing is I was asked by Alex if I thought that Joe was bisexual the way that Lewis kind of implies when they're together. And I. And I said no. And then I said, he even says, as such. And then I stopped myself, and I said, okay, I stand by my opinion. I withdraw my evidence because Joe does not have, when the play is over, an understanding of self. Self awareness. He's not willing.
- [97:44]
Ariana Grande
Who knows what he is? He doesn't know what he is. So how do we know what he is? I exactly.
- [97:48]
Matt Koplik
And I view it as if I were to be optimistic. And I like to think that I'm correct in this, based off of the scene that Kushner added for the miniseries and because Kushner has decided to be the J.K. rowling of angels in America, and he knows exactly what happens, happens to everyone. But it's the end of Slave Play, a play that I've always talked about how I don't care for very much. And if you want to hear more about that, you can listen to the episode with Marcus Scott. But I thought it was fascinating how it ended, or at least the night that I saw it how it ended, which was Makina Kalacango and Paul Alexander Nolan finally doing the slave role playing and having sex and going way too far and them breaking off and sort of this whole purging of self. And the final line is, thank you baby, for listening. And they have said, the cast has said and, and the writer has said, you know, the meaning of that line changes every night depending on like how the actress is feeling in the moment. And I saw it live and then I saw it at the library and it was very different perceptions. The night I saw it definitely gave the impression that this was a couple that was going to possibly survive. Because what, what Kina's character wanted more than anything was to address all of the toxicity in their relationship that was both due to the two of them. That was due to the world that they lived in and the legacy of inherent racism and trauma. And just like I want to talk about it, I want to get it out of the fucking up. Like get all the nastiness out. Like basically do couples ayahuasca and like.
- [99:22]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, yeah, let's get it. Like let's, let's, let's fucking puke tonight.
- [99:25]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, exactly. Which is ultimately what they do in that final scene. And it's basically burning down your house and starting again because it's on rotten foundation. And in a way you could argue that Angels in America part one and two is a seven hour burning down of Joe's foundation. And now. And when, when it ends, you go.
- [99:49]
Ariana Grande
Okay, baby, your TV just magically turned on. Did you see that?
- [99:52]
Matt Koplik
It did. Yeah, that happens sometimes. It hurt. It hurt. Ayahuasca. And when you rang, it really did.
- [99:58]
Ariana Grande
It was sort of spooky. I saw like a little thing and I was like, huh? And then I don't know if you saw my eyes just sort of like flicking that way, but that's what I was seeing.
- [100:06]
Matt Koplik
I've never made eye contact with you a day in my life.
- [100:08]
Ariana Grande
But you're looking at my.
- [100:12]
Matt Koplik
You're a magnificent mountains majesty or whatever. Purple mountains majesty. The. But yeah, I think you can look at Joe and go, okay, it's all burned down now. Your mentor is dead. Your wife has left you. The man who gave you your sexual awakening has called you a piece of shit to your face.
- [100:32]
Ariana Grande
Right? And has wants nothing to ever do with you until you. Unless you fundamentally change everything you believe and everything you've ever worked for. And then even then maybe never.
- [100:39]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. The at the most you could hope for is that this man who opened Your eyes, to your sexuality, who you claimed to love, who you don't. But, like, that's how you felt in the moment. Yes. Unless you change everything, he'll never see you again. And even then, it's just, like, he may talk to you. He may.
- [100:53]
Ariana Grande
I mean, you. I feel like you're so on the money because, like, Joe says it himself in the scene where they go to the beach where he takes off all his clothes, and he's like, I want to shed every skin, every new skin. Like, I want to go back to. Like, I am looking to go back to the version of me that is like.
- [101:09]
Matt Koplik
He doesn't say I want to. He says, I will.
- [101:12]
Ariana Grande
But that's what I'm saying. Like, it's. Well, I guess. Okay, I think I understand what you're saying.
- [101:16]
Matt Koplik
That's a prospect of losing Louis. He's like, what do you want?
- [101:19]
Ariana Grande
What do you want from me?
- [101:20]
Matt Koplik
I'll get. I'll get rid of everything.
- [101:22]
Ariana Grande
And so I think deep down, you wouldn't offer that if you weren't. If you didn't want it secretly a little. Now, I don't know if. I'm not trying to say he is prepared to do that. Do what I'm saying. I'm not saying he's prepared to renounce politically the things that you don't. I mean, like, there's a lot there. I'm not saying, like, he's an angel who's like. Like, free of fault, but, like, I think in him offering to do that one, it's quite sad, right? Like, you're not. You're supposed to feel a sense of pity watching that. You're supposed to be like, oh, no. This man has no idea who he is. And he's willing to be a blank slate for anybody who's willing to, like, shape him and mold him in the clay that. Do you know what I mean?
- [102:02]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [102:02]
Ariana Grande
He desperately wants someone to say, like, this is who you are, and I'm willing to. And I'll shape you. And he's like, oh, God, thank God. Because, like, that's just what. What he wants. He wants just someone to, like, come in and make it better and just be like, okay, you're gay, and this is what gay means, and this is what gay looks like, and this is what our relationship will look like, and just say this and believe this and do this, and then it'll be okay. And he's like, oh, good. That's what I was hoping for. I was hoping somebody would tell me exactly what I needed to be happy because he's not happy. But, like, I think also the only kind of person who says, like, I want to be flayed, which is like, literally what he says. The only person who says that is somebody who's like, oh, God, start over with me. Wait, he says that earlier. I pray for God to crush me into dust and start over. Oh, my God. I mean, like, this is the saddest man ever written. This is the saddest character ever committed to the page.
- [102:47]
Matt Koplik
He's. He is so incredibly sad because he also, like, everything about him is molded from everything that he's known and been surrounded by. His beliefs, his understanding of the world, all manlihood.
- [103:00]
Ariana Grande
What it means to be a man, what it means to be a religious man, what it means to be a married man.
- [103:04]
Matt Koplik
Grew up in an incredibly religious community in a very cold household where there were rules, there were structure, there was. There was right and there was wrong and everything was binary. And he takes that attitude to New York where he's. He's not, as I said, he's not malicious, he's not intentionally trying to harm people. He is so gullible. He gets. He has the meeting with Roy and Martin and he finds out about Roy stealing money from a client. He's like, I'm sure you intended. Would return it. You would, like, yeah.
- [103:38]
Ariana Grande
You wouldn't do that. Yeah, because he's like.
- [103:40]
Matt Koplik
Because he's like. Because no one would. That's wrong. And he's not realizing that, like, if Lewis were a kinder person, because Lewis is a moral person, but Lewis is not kind.
- [103:54]
Ariana Grande
Correct.
- [103:54]
Matt Koplik
Lewis is. I would. Lewis is not nice. And Lewis wants, like, they're. He and Joe are similar in the way that, like, they're both a glutton for punishment. It's like, like, tell me I'm a piece of so. And for Joe, it's like that way I can feel less guilty about, you know, how I'm feeling. Whereas Lewis is, like, in a way that kind of absolves me and I can go off and do whatever dumb I'm about to do next because you call me a piece of.
- [104:18]
Ariana Grande
Right. And so I know. Yeah, exactly.
- [104:21]
Matt Koplik
If Lewis were better. But he's just in such a. He's both in a flying rage of realizing who he's been for three weeks. This person who he thought was like. Like a semi moral, like, kind, but misguided Republican, only to find out from Belize that he's enticed the Roy cone.
- [104:38]
Ariana Grande
Right, the polestar of human evil, as.
- [104:40]
Matt Koplik
As Lewis Says so he's in this, like, full on, you know, rage, what's I'm looking for tirade or whatever and, and throws all of these decisions at Joe and is. And shouting at him. He could have said, you're a moral person who sees the world in black and white and use and the law makes elementary sense to you. The men who are above you and are relying on your decisions are not having you do that because they trust your judgment. They're doing that because your judgments line up with their conservative line of thinking. They are doing it for malicious intent and they are taking advantage of you. You understand the law, but through a very small lens from the community that you came from. The world is larger and more complicated than that. There are people from all walks of life and you have to include humanity into your understanding of the law. Can you do that?
- [105:40]
Ariana Grande
And. Right. And the answer is that he, at least at present cannot because it's never had to. It's never been a question that, that.
- [105:47]
Matt Koplik
I think that he could if, if he were given that kind of understanding and sympathy.
- [105:53]
Ariana Grande
Totally. Right. But it's like, it's like you don't just wake up one morning and go like, ah, yeah, equality, praxis.
- [106:02]
Matt Koplik
It's not a 180, but it's if someone like Hannah, who also. All she's ever known is this life can be exposed to the world and, and want to absorb it and still have her Mormon sensibilities while embracing the nuances of humanity.
- [106:16]
Ariana Grande
Correct. And she's. And like, especially Meryl Streep is like, so cosmopolitan. When you see her in that last scene, her haircut, her clothes and that's.
- [106:24]
Matt Koplik
In the script, it says that, you know, Hannah has noticeably changed. She looks like a New Yorker now. And it's, it's, it's so good because you watch her. Because the way you watch Meryl in that final scene is she is still Hannah. She's just Hannah who's now lived in New York for five years.
- [106:39]
Ariana Grande
Right. So, you know, and like, Hannah was born to be a New Yorker, which is like, so fun. Like, it's so fun to see this character in their, like their, their pragmatism and like, like that like, really cliched thing that they say about like, New Yorkers where, like, New Yorkers are kind but not nice.
- [106:53]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [106:54]
Ariana Grande
That is Hannah Pitt. Hannah Pitt is kind but not nice. She will take a stranger to the hospital because they're like, dying in front of her. But, but like, won't. It's not done with like, warmth it's like. It's just like, well, this is the right thing to do. Like, you know, she's. She was like, she was truly born to live on the Upper east side.
- [107:12]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Prior is dying in a hospital bed talking about an angel. And she brings up Mormonism and he's like, it's so ridiculous. And she just says, right to his face, to a dying man's face. It's not polite to call other people's beliefs ridiculous.
- [107:24]
Ariana Grande
Ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, like, she's. She's the best.
- [107:27]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, she's amazing. We'll talk more about Hannah in a second. Do you want to talk more about.
- [107:32]
Ariana Grande
I feel like you talked about Hannah, so I feel like we don't have to read Tribground if you. If you retreaded.
- [107:37]
Matt Koplik
Well, she. She just ties in and out. But yeah, we did talk about Hannah quite a lot. We'll talk about a lot of it more in just a second. But first, Ally, we gotta take another break.
- [107:48]
Ariana Grande
You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a coolage dollar. You're the nimble tread of the fe.
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Matt Koplik
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Ariana Grande
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Matt Koplik
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Ariana Grande
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- [108:27]
Matt Koplik
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- [108:32]
Ariana Grande
Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto.
- [108:35]
Matt Koplik
Friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger.
- [108:40]
Ariana Grande
So I can get in more squats anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3.
- [108:45]
Matt Koplik
Will that be cash or credit? Credit. 4 Galaxy S25 Ultra. The AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get yours@samsung.com compatible select apps requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. And we're back. Anything else about Joe that we wanted to sort of touch on?
- [109:08]
Ariana Grande
I mean, I feel like. I feel like I have said my. My biggest thoughts. Yeah, sorry, sorry, go ahead.
- [109:15]
Matt Koplik
No, we know your thoughts. I was about to say something.
- [109:17]
Ariana Grande
I just like. I. I don't like when Hannah. Sorry. I don't like when Jo and Harper are played without a sense of love. It can be a misguided love. It can be a Love that you know is doomed. It can be a love that you know has lies. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying it's a perfect love, but, like, when I see them played already hating each other's guts, when the Harper is petulant at all times with him, when she has no warmth towards him, when it is just coldness, when he is annoyed by her, when he is. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, there is a way to play these characters that I think is, like, really misguided. And I think it makes the second half of the play completely fall apart for them. And I do think that was unfortunately very present in the signature production. That's probably my least favorite time I've ever seen those characters played. And maybe even including high schoolers I've seen do the role. Oops, sorry.
- [110:11]
Matt Koplik
It was also this. As much as I liked Denise and I liked Lee Pace more so than I liked Russell, tovey it, I did not like their relationship in the National Theater production either. I liked.
- [110:21]
Ariana Grande
I didn't capture my imagination. I didn't think there was anything wrong with their relationship. They were both so beautifully acted, but they both were sort of playing people who were very guarded because of the deep, deep pain in their hearts. And I felt like they were never opening up with each other, ever. Which is actually, I think, a very interesting way to play the characters. I don't think it's like a misguided way to play the characters. I just didn't think it was as effective.
- [110:48]
Matt Koplik
In my opinion, it wasn't as absorbing for me. I thought both of their performances thrived in scenes with others and with Lee Pace. So I talked about this with Alex as well. And I kind of want to get your idea of this as well, of how you envision an actor for Joe.
- [111:05]
Ariana Grande
How do you cast it?
- [111:06]
Matt Koplik
Because this is a question that we're going to get to at the end, which is something on the Discord Channel, which, if you haven't joined the Discord Channel yet, guys, make sure to join. But people were asking, you know, dream casting angels in America. And it comes down to ultimately, what is most important for you, for every role and for Joe, you know, in World Only Spins Forward. Stephen Spinella had said that in his mind he would love to see a more effeminate flaming Joe. He thinks that, like, that would be really funny because there's a constant running joke of any time he mentions his wife to people who don't know him well, they're like, your wife. Yeah, but I obviously, like, Kushner has made it very clear through the text that Joe is meant to be a pillar of masculinity and almost like. Like, looking like the American Dream in the same way that I. I mean.
- [111:57]
Ariana Grande
It'S literally the title of the set. You know how, like, I guess I'm saying this for people who maybe haven't read the script. No, it's even the titles of the things in the HBO version. Every section has its own title.
- [112:07]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [112:07]
Ariana Grande
And the one where Prior meets Joe. Joe, by barging in on his workplace, is called Beyond Nelly. And it's because he says when he's. Just. By not even talking to him, but just by seeing Joe, he goes. He made me feel beyond Nelly. He made me feel like Wispy daisies was practically running out of my ears. So it's like. It's in the text. Like, he does have to be kind of like a. He was a maral, man. He says it.
- [112:27]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Yeah, he's. He's a dude. So not coming back to west side Story again. Issues that I have with the movie aside and issues I might have with any specific performances aside, on a visual level, everyone in the remake is cast well. Like, you look at them and you go, yes.
- [112:46]
Ariana Grande
Oh, totally.
- [112:47]
Matt Koplik
And something that made sense to me with Ansel Elgort's casting as Tony opposite Rachel Zegler's Maria. You know, Kushner really worked to make Maria a more. A larger character in the remake. I always thought. I always think Maria's a really wonderful character in general, but in the remake, she had a little bit more pragmatism towards herself and a little more wisecracky. But then. And from that came the question of, like, how could this intelligent young whippersnapper, like, fall in love with this dolt of a boy?
- [113:21]
Ariana Grande
Right?
- [113:22]
Matt Koplik
And the thing I'll say is, it's. You know, when they see each other, it's not like love. Love at first sight. You're the only person in my entire life who I know who's, like, had that. But every. It's more the. Because I remember telling you about the 94 carousel before I ever made you watch, but I was telling you about the way Michael Hayden lifted Sally Murphy up onto that horse, and it wasn't like a lock. Eyes, guys, I'm in love with you now. But it was a lot, guys. And who are you? Like, chemical? It was an animalistic instant, but, like.
- [113:49]
Ariana Grande
That'S part of it. Like, there really is no way. You can't genuinely look at another person and go, we're a good partnership. You go like, hello.
- [113:59]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [113:59]
Ariana Grande
There's like a magnetism. There's a. There's something chemical. There's something. I don't know if you believe. Like, I like. For people who believe in, like, fate or whatever, it's like, oh, my God, soulmate. But, like, you know, it's all just saying this same thing, which is just that, like, something in the air shifts.
- [114:12]
Matt Koplik
Something in the cosmos in the way that Harper and Pryor are able to meet. But with Tony, Maria, in the remake, it's very clear from Ansel's face and Rachel's face. It's less of like, I'm in love, and more of a who are you? And what Maria sees in Tony looking the way he does in the remake is that is the American dream. That is a tall, handsome, blonde boy in a suit.
- [114:33]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [114:34]
Matt Koplik
And it's like, oh, yes, please, I want. And in a lot of ways, that's sort of what Joe is and why characters sort of circle around him. What I would imagine it's something that also Harper enjoys is that this handsome man who looks like what the American dream is. Roy sees him. Roy, who considers himself a fierce American and hates traitors. It's, you know, communism and all that stuff does not look or sound or act like an all American man. But Joe does. And it's also, ultimately what attracts Louis, what attracts Lewis to him is like, Jo is a man and is so different from probably any man that Lewis has ever had sex with in the past. Wholesome looking and sweet. Like, looks like the leading man of a movie.
- [115:16]
Ariana Grande
Correct. And like. And like, for Lewis, I assume there's a part of him that's like, oh, my God, this feels so good to be, like, the object of desire in that way.
- [115:28]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [115:29]
Ariana Grande
And also it's like, I don't know, it's that stupid animal thing of just like, well, if you like me and you're hot, then I'm hot.
- [115:37]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [115:37]
Ariana Grande
And by and by that, I mean worthy. Do you know what I mean? Where it's like. It's like. It's not logical, it's not even healthy, but it's that thing of just like, if you. If. If you want me, then I'm wantable.
- [115:47]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [115:48]
Ariana Grande
So now I feel wantable.
- [115:49]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Ali Gordon. You know that I wrote a play, right? Did you? No, I haven't heard this. I never talk about it. The character breakdown I gave for John. I don't know if you remember the character breakdown, because spoiler alert, everybody. Ali has done Two readings of the play. So she's definitely like, seen this text. But in the character breakdowns for John, I had no. I gave the description smart, emotional. I said the gay Jewish boy version of Renee Zellweger in Jerry Maguire and not everyone understood what that meant. And it is similar to Lewis and Joe in the sense that Renee Zellweger is a Muggle in that movie. She is a. She is a real world 8 out of 10. But a Hollywood Rom com 7 6.5 out of 10.
- [116:38]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [116:39]
Matt Koplik
Who is very smart, very insightful and very self aware and is capable of making smart decisions. But 1996, Tom Cruise is in her face, the most beautiful Tom Cruise has ever been. And he is movie handsome, not real world handsome. In her face being like, quit your job and start a firm with me. Don't go to that other job in San Francisco, Stay here and marry me. And smart as she is, she's like, I guess so. And it's, it's, it's, there's, there is a magnetism that having a certain level of attractiveness gives a lot of people, whether we want to admit it or not.
- [117:16]
Ariana Grande
Yes.
- [117:17]
Matt Koplik
And so there's a lot of stuff that Lewis ignores about Joe simply because he finds him hot. And it's from the, from the jump, the first time they ever meet in the bathroom. And Louis, like, you know, that there's trouble in the air. Even when Prior says, I thought you would leave me. But when Lewis is crying in the bathroom over Pryor and talking to Joe and they're having the back and forth, you know, the. Oh, I voted for Reagan. Oh, a gay Republican. I'm not gay. Oh, right, right. Sure, sure. And they're like, whatever.
- [117:43]
Ariana Grande
They're.
- [117:43]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, they're sort of circling each other. The scene ends with Lewis saying, thanks for the toilet paper, Joe.
- [117:48]
Ariana Grande
And kissing on the cheek.
- [117:49]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Joe gives him his hand to like give, you know, say, you're welcome. And he pulls him in, kisses him on the cheek and leaves in a very like, I'm testing the water sort of way.
- [117:58]
Ariana Grande
Now, I mean, you. He does say sort of outright that he like, was a flirt. That like Lewis was sort of like a. They were, they were incorrigible flirt. Always. You know what I mean?
- [118:11]
Matt Koplik
They talk about. He mentions in Perestroika when they're walking on the beach, which is a pickup spot, he was like, you know, Louis, is it. There's no justice because I around way more than Prior did.
- [118:24]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [118:24]
Matt Koplik
He's the one that got sick.
- [118:26]
Ariana Grande
There's Even just a little bit in, like in. In that first meeting when he's like, all my friends call me Louise.
- [118:31]
Matt Koplik
It's.
- [118:32]
Ariana Grande
It's just. It's just flirting. It's just. He just. You can just tell that it is revealing a reputation. Do you know what I mean? Willingly. He's like, willingly saying, like, you can call me. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm that kind of person.
- [118:50]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. He's. He's like, you may be confused as to what you are. I am not openly gonna say it. My friends call me Louise. Get it?
- [118:59]
Ariana Grande
Right. Exactly right.
- [119:00]
Matt Koplik
And it's.
- [119:00]
Ariana Grande
But it's also like. It's not even like, haha. Get it? Only it's also like, like, I've got a lot of friends. I've got nicknames. Do you know what I mean? Like, it, like, really, like, it gives me like, a sense of like, I'm not.
- [119:09]
Matt Koplik
I. Oh, I've. I've always interpreted it as. When they're talking about that, do I sound like a. Do I sound like a. It's Lewis's way of saying, without saying, I'm gay. He's like, my name is Lewis. My friends call me Louise.
- [119:21]
Ariana Grande
Right. I'm not just saying you sound gay. I'm gay.
- [119:23]
Matt Koplik
Yes. Like, I am a homosexual. And, you know, your sensitivity is very sweet. And now you know. Yeah, let's see what happens.
- [119:33]
Ariana Grande
God, that scene is so fucking good.
- [119:34]
Matt Koplik
It's Stewie Griffin walking naked in the living room in front of that hot guy. And he's like, walking around naked, not gonna do anything, but if you see anything you, like, shout it out. Like, it's very. That.
- [119:45]
Ariana Grande
I just.
- [119:46]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, every scene in this play is good. Every scene is great.
- [119:50]
Ariana Grande
And also them on the bench having the hot dog together. My God, every scene is the best scene ever written. That is sort of unfortunately true about angels in America.
- [119:58]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [119:59]
Ariana Grande
Is that like, every scene you read, you go, if that was the best scene in the show, this show would still be amazing. And then you turn to the next page and it's the. And then it's a better scene. And then you're like, okay, well, if that was the best thing in the show, then I still paid for my money. And then you turn to the next page and it's like, it's just banger after banger after banger. Lines of such poetry that are so gorgeous, but it never feels like a serious play. Do you know what I mean? It's not a play about poetry. It's just the most beautifully written play.
- [120:27]
Matt Koplik
Well, because any time. So like, I would argue that the most, the, the densest elements of text and angels comes from the angel.
- [120:36]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [120:37]
Matt Koplik
And then probably like the oldest living Bolshevik. But when the angel speaks and talks about these, you know, grand ideas and, and the history of man and the history of angels and God, she goes into these very dense passages that then get cut through by a one liner from Prior. Basically, like either having to. To re. Explain to Belize what that meant because the whole point of that angels flashback is a flashback. Or she'll say something insane that you as an audience member, like, oh, I guess I'm pretty dumb for not getting that. And then Prior will be like, what?
- [121:17]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, yeah.
- [121:18]
Matt Koplik
And that's.
- [121:19]
Ariana Grande
Or like in. In the inverse of it, she'll tell a great, A sprawling story about how the angels used to live like this and God used to be like this and blah, blah, blah. And then one day he got. He got tired and he left. And it cuts to Prior and I also think it's one of Justin Kirk's best acting moments. And with tears in his eyes, he says, abandoned. And you're like, oh, he gets it. Do you know what I mean? He summarizes what she's saying. This like, long, convoluted story. He feels it because he feels abandoned by his lover. He's also been abandoned by. As the play thing, the interesting thing of the minute. Now he's gone. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I just like, I love that moment. It's the same thing where it's like, it either cuts to something that undercuts it, that shows it's absurd. It cuts to him understanding it in a way that's like, really profound, where you're like, oh, this isn't just a story. It's something that's personal.
- [122:07]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [122:08]
Ariana Grande
Feeling it mirrored in his own life.
- [122:10]
Matt Koplik
It's. It is a play infested with highly intelligent people and which usually sucks. Usually sucks.
- [122:21]
Ariana Grande
Plays about smart people usually blow. And I don't know how this one doesn't blow, but it, it doesn't. Because they're all different kinds of smart too.
- [122:30]
Matt Koplik
I guess they're all different kinds of smart. I also think that one of the. I think something that's interesting is pretty much any character can be right in one scene and then wrong in the next.
- [122:42]
Ariana Grande
Yes.
- [122:43]
Matt Koplik
Or do a good thing or want to get to the heart of truth in one scene and then want to run away from it the next. They are incredibly smart, but they're also incredibly human. So as we said, Harper very empathetic bleeding heart wants to discover the truth of her relationship just so they can figure it out. And then the moment it arrives, she flips and. And, you know, tears up all the carpet to get to the. You know, to get away from it all. And then perestroika is her sort of, like, realizing how she reacted, what the truth is, and sort of slowly gliding her way to a soft place to land and going off on her own. Jo is also a very kind person who doesn't want to, like, discuss negative stuff because of what might come up. And every time he tries to speak his truth, he is rejected, which leads him to then make more bad decisions. Lewis, who is a morally and politically justified person in the abstract, in the up close, is kind of awful. I would say Belize and Prior are probably the most, like. I don't know, like. Like, Prior is an upstanding person who is just going through it and is tested again and again and again. Belize is maybe the only person who doesn't really have a lot of fatal flaws to them, but Belize has incredible sense of humor and restraint. Knows when to not say anything.
- [124:13]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. I mean, I do think it is interesting that, like, they. The turning point for Belize is, can I. Will I offer a modicum of empathy to a person who deserves. Seemingly deserves very little. Empathy is a monster. And that is a very interesting question. It also becomes a very interesting question of, like, we are. We are led to believe he's a great nurse. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, everything points towards believing what he says. When he's like, everybody else here is gonna make this thing feel like Drano going into your arm. I'll make it feel like nothing. Like, you know what I mean? Like, when he talks with authority, you're like, belize is amazing at his job. And then he does something deeply, quote, unquote, unethical in stealing medication from a dead man which doesn't belong to him. It's fully theft now. Morally, it's gonna go to fucking waste. This guy shouldn't have had it in the first place. People's lives can be changed by having it, right? So it's like, you know, it's. Again, it's the same thing where it's like, people keep. Keep encountering these situations where, like, what you've learned, what you. What you've lived is being tested by, like, the reality of a situation.
- [125:25]
Matt Koplik
You know that Whitney Houston song, It's not right, but it's okay.
- [125:28]
Ariana Grande
But it's okay.
- [125:28]
Matt Koplik
Well, this is. It's not okay, but it's right.
- [125:32]
Ariana Grande
There you go. We should have written that for her as the follow up.
- [125:36]
Matt Koplik
She'd still be alive today if we'd written that for her.
- [125:38]
Ariana Grande
If she had written. If we had written the follow up.
- [125:41]
Matt Koplik
It's not okay.
- [125:42]
Ariana Grande
It's not okay. Okay. But it's right.
- [125:44]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [125:44]
Ariana Grande
Which will be the final lip sync song on season 29 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
- [125:50]
Matt Koplik
I'm assuming you're up to date on Drag Race.
- [125:52]
Ariana Grande
Yes, I'm up to date.
- [125:53]
Matt Koplik
I am. Fully not. Although I realize I've missed fewer regular seasons than I thought. I thought I'd missed, like, five regular seasons. I've only been missing this one because there's just been so many All Stars and international in between.
- [126:05]
Ariana Grande
Oh, yeah. And I have not watched most of those, to be entirely honest.
- [126:11]
Matt Koplik
The scene. So I'm glad you mentioned the stealing of the azt. We mentioned the Kaddish last episode, but we didn't really talk much about that particular moment of Roy dies. And I was thinking, like, so many amazing Meryl scenes in the miniseries. But one of my personal favorites is a. Meryl is my favorite performance I have seen of Ethel Rosenberg so far.
- [126:33]
Ariana Grande
Oh, yeah.
- [126:35]
Matt Koplik
And I'm including the clips of Kathleen Chalfont that I've seen.
- [126:37]
Ariana Grande
No, I. I completely agree with you. I like, I think she just nails it in a way that she's just amazing in that role.
- [126:43]
Matt Koplik
It's. It is. It is one of the gifts of film that you can be as simple as Meryl is as Ethel and be as effective. But she also has a lightness and a sense of humor about it. The way she, the way she goes. You don't look so good, Roy. It's like, ah, but you lost weight. It suits you. You are heavier than zaftic.
- [127:00]
Ariana Grande
Zaftig with hipstic.
- [127:01]
Matt Koplik
With hipster.
- [127:02]
Ariana Grande
That's a great line. My God.
- [127:05]
Matt Koplik
But when Roy dies and Belize calls Lewis because another great line where Lewis shows up, sees the dead Roy cone, and Belize is like, I'm supposed to call my authorities if his condition has changed and looks at his dead body.
- [127:20]
Ariana Grande
Well, it's changed.
- [127:23]
Matt Koplik
This show.
- [127:23]
Ariana Grande
So fucking funny.
- [127:24]
Matt Koplik
It's so fucking funny. But ultimately, he. He knows what's the right thing to do and it is to steal the medication because it's the wild west out here when it comes to the FCC and aids. Like, it's. This is the only really drug treatment that's happening. Many years later, we come to find out it wasn't terribly effective. It's basically a cancer medication that Right. Like it helped slow down symptoms, but that was really all it did. Which. And I'm, I'm glad that even in 1993 when the show premiered on Broadway, they don't call it a miracle drug. They even say Lewis says these pills will make you better. And Prior says no, it, you know, poisons your system.
- [128:04]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [128:04]
Matt Koplik
I'm not getting.
- [128:05]
Ariana Grande
He's afraid it's going to make him really, really sick.
- [128:07]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Which it might. Whereas opposed to something like Rent, it's like none of us have health insurance, but we all have access to AZT.
- [128:13]
Ariana Grande
In 1996 and we all feel great.
- [128:16]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. It's a miracle drug. We're all doing great with it.
- [128:18]
Ariana Grande
I love it. I'm running around.
- [128:20]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. It's not because we don't have hiv. We got full blown aids. And it's just like, it's like Jonathan Larson, your heart is in the right place. But like by. Please, you should have hired one more dramaturg. Just one more. But yeah, we died. We digress. That scene. It's not just that Belize is doing this wild west thing. He's recruiting Lewis, who he doesn't like, has, like, has never liked Lewis, even when Lewis was with Prior, because Belize is Prior's best friend, has never liked Louis and likes him even less after what he's done to Prior.
- [128:55]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [128:55]
Matt Koplik
So he's recruiting Lewis so they can thank Roy, a person that they both hate, for the pills. And Lewis says to him, you know, I, I'm not doing the cottage over his body. Like I don't even know it. My parents would never forgive me. Why would you want to do that? Why would. And, and lose. It's like, why would you want to pray for him? And Belie says, like, I would even pray for you. And he goes, it's not, he goes, it's not easy. It doesn't count if it's easy. And that is one of my favorite lines. I'm sure like Christian didn't come up with that. I'm sure someone I know.
- [129:27]
Ariana Grande
But what a great little.
- [129:29]
Matt Koplik
I. You. But I use it everywhere when like forgiveness doesn't count if it's easy.
- [129:35]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [129:35]
Matt Koplik
Like you. It takes so much work to. When. If someone hurts you or hurt someone you love and, and to get to a place of, of equilibrium with them takes a lot of soul searching, takes a lot of talking, takes a lot of work. It. It's not, it's not easy. And, and Belize is the one who kind of does what we're told America should do, which is take People you don't like or don't agree with and make change with them hold hands and make change. And that is. And it's a small moment, but it. It happens. It also, by the way, cuts against Roy's speech to his Dr. Henry at the end of Act 1 of Millennium Approaches when he gets his AIDS diagnosis, and he says, I don't have AIDS because homosexuals get aids. And homosexuals are men in this country who cannot even pass off a piss and anti discriminatory bill.
- [130:29]
Ariana Grande
Right.
- [130:30]
Matt Koplik
Like, they can't.
- [130:31]
Ariana Grande
He's like, they have no access, no connections. Like, when do I look like a person with no access and no connection Connections.
- [130:36]
Matt Koplik
Exactly. He's like, they can't get anything done. I can. Therefore, I am a heterosexual man who has sex with other men and I have liver cancer. Belize proves that wrong by being a homosexual who does make change. He steals what he. What we are told is like a lifetime supply of AZT that he intends to spread amongst the masses.
- [130:57]
Ariana Grande
Right, right, right. Hey, I'd actually. I don't think I've ever actually really ever thought of it that way.
- [131:01]
Matt Koplik
I didn't think of it that way until this very moment.
- [131:04]
Ariana Grande
That's great. I really. I'm like, I'm. I'm. I'm. I was gonna say I'm impressed, which sounded really offensive to be like, wow, a smart thought from you. I'm impressed. But just mean, Like, I just mean to say, like, if you think about how much you and I have thought about this play, like, how many hours we have spent not just watching it, but just probably, like, idly thinking about it. Like, it is amazing to have a new thought. Yeah. At all. And so, like, I genuinely am impressed that, like, I. I really feel like you, like, broke ground on that. And I was like, holy shit. That's like, new. Like, I am impressed.
- [131:33]
Matt Koplik
It absolutely might be. And I'm sure Kushner will listen to this and be like, Matthew Copper.
- [131:37]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, exactly.
- [131:39]
Matt Koplik
Like, yeah, duh. And then I'm also going to come for you for saying that my west side Story screenplay has too much air in it. But I'm like, you know what, Kushner, it's fine.
- [131:46]
Ariana Grande
He also, like, there's so much, and it's like opening a door that maybe we're not going to have time to walk down, which is totally fine. But it's like when we were talking about, like, what Joe represents and what Joe represents for these judges, it's not just a person who can communicate and can pass these laws for them. Joe is America now. He isn't. And he betrays Roy in a way by being gay because he's like, no, no, no, you're not allowed to be gay. You're the guy. You're the Marlboro Man. You're not allowed to be othered. You're the otherer. Stop. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like, there is a part of that, too, but it's like. Like, Roy talks about it so much, and it is just true in history that, like, when Roy was setting up the case against the Rosenbergs, where essentially the, like, historical perspective on it has been they were guilty, but it was wrong. Like, everything they did in order to reach that verdict has been wrong. Like, that is sort of like, that has been, I guess, essentially the, like, history's viewpoint on it. Now, I'm sure somebody's gonna listen to me this and be like, how dare you say that? That's slander. I'm not saying what I think or whatever. I'm just saying that this is like when you pick up a fucking history textbook. This is what I was gonna say.
- [132:57]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. There are basically two schools of thought on the Rosenberg case, which is either it was not right, nor was it okay. And then there are people who go, it was not okay, but it was right.
- [133:06]
Ariana Grande
Right. And so, like, the. The way that, like, a lot of people talk about it is that basically, like, there was a lot of proof and it is probably all true, but, like, there was, like, false testimony. And they. And then Roy Cohn pressured her, Ethel Rosenberg's brother, to perjure himself and say things he knew wasn't true. And even though he tried to walk it back, it was too late. But there was an intentional thing done by Roy on purpose where he made sure that the judge was Jewish and that he, as the persecutor, was Jewish. And that much of the jury, like, he, like. I mean, again, these are all things that are. You're not allowed to stack the jury the way that you want it to be. But again, this was all on purpose because he was trying to prove that it isn't about Judaism.
- [133:52]
Matt Koplik
It's about.
- [133:53]
Ariana Grande
It's not about the otheredness. Right. It's not like you can't just point your fingers at me and say, like, well, you're only saying that because you are this othered thing. You are the Jew. He's saying, well, look, if we can all say this, and we are the good ones, we can all agree if we're all saying this, those must be the Bad ones.
- [134:09]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [134:09]
Ariana Grande
I'm saying. And so it's like, there's a very interesting element there, too, of, like, in his death. Belize. And Roy talks so much about identity and specifically identity in America. And, like, Roy's perspective on it is, well, I can get anyone to do anything I want. I can bully anybody into anything. But that post his death, people said a lot of really hateful things about him. And some of it, I'm sure, is deeply justified because he was an extremely hateable guy. But also some of it was deeply prejudiced. There were a lot of people reveling in the fact that he died of aids. And they were like a fucking. Got him saying, you know, really disgusting things about just gay people in general and using his death as an excuse to say that these prejudiced things because he was such a bad guy that it gave him an excuse to say the mean things. They wouldn't have said otherwise. Right.
- [135:06]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [135:06]
Ariana Grande
Did things about being. Being Jewish. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like he. I don't know. I wish that I had. I wish I was smarter because I feel like I'm really close to saying.
- [135:16]
Matt Koplik
Something smart, Ali, how smart can you be? You are, woman. But.
- [135:21]
Ariana Grande
And my tits are so big. They take up so much of my. They take so much blood. You know what I'm saying? There's so much blood going there.
- [135:27]
Matt Koplik
Listen, no, girl, I've got the biggest dick, and that blood rushing to it does not affect my brain one bit.
- [135:33]
Ariana Grande
Except not at all.
- [135:34]
Matt Koplik
Well, I made some bad sexual decisions in my past, but it made me write a play, so how bad could it have been? But it's like when Ethel's telling about the disbarment hearing and how they voted. 1, 2, 3. And like, everyone was there, like, Right.
- [135:45]
Ariana Grande
And they all hate him. Yeah.
- [135:47]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. They wanted to get it done before he died because they wanted to humiliate him. And she says one of the members on the committee, on the committee said to the other, thank God I've hated that little faggot for, you know, 40 years. And it is both poetic justice and just pure homophobic hatred.
- [136:04]
Ariana Grande
Right?
- [136:05]
Matt Koplik
But, like, it's. It's this. It's this meshing of that, because in some ways you're like, yeah, he gets what he deserves. But also, it's not like that person's an ally to the community. They're using. They're using this slur against him, which is. They also know will undercut him.
- [136:22]
Ariana Grande
But it's like. But it's an excuse to Use it because, well, we're saying about somebody who's horrible. But it's like, but you know, that doesn't give you access to that well of hatred. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's like, why are you. Why are you drawing water from that? Well, I mean, like the very interesting. Roy Cohn has an AIDS quilt patch that was made by an anonymous person. We still don't know the. The artist that says Bully Coward Victim and that's made by somebody in the community. And I mean, like, that shows such an unbelievably new nuanced understanding.
- [136:59]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [137:00]
Ariana Grande
To come from somebody who is directly harmed from him. It really shows like, like, wow. Like what, what a. What a deeply nuanced understanding of the.
- [137:07]
Matt Koplik
Situation according to World only Spins forward. The organizers of the quilt met with the person who made that patch because they were like, we're not gonna put it on the quilt unless you can confirm for us that like you knew Roy, that this isn't like a political statement. This is. And they were like. And they basically. And so they did not reveal who the person was, but they spoke with the person and they got proof from the person that this was someone who knew Roy Cohn very well. Most likely was like a former boyfriend or something.
- [137:35]
Ariana Grande
That was also reiterated in. There was a documentary that came out not that long ago that was called Bully Coward Victim. Very similarly, where the person who was making this documentary wanted to use that as the title, but was also like, I do want to make sure that, like that's cool. And did go through some channels and was able to talk to this person who made the patch who wanted to continue to remain anonymous, but was like, the words. Use the words essentially. Do you know what I mean?
- [137:59]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, yeah. It's. Belize is I think the only character who says to Roy's face that he's gay without being like, you know that you're gay, right?
- [138:08]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [138:09]
Matt Koplik
I think Roy calls him a fag and bleeze is like, yeah. One fact to another. Something like that. And then winks at him. What I was also going to say was, you know, I don't have time for agoraphobic hatred. I do think that words have meaning. So if I use a hateful word, it's because I really mean it about a person.
- [138:31]
Ariana Grande
To.
- [138:32]
Matt Koplik
To maybe quote my own soon to be Pulitzer winning play, when you see a gopher acting like a gopher, what choice do you have to say, but that's a gopher, right? Like it every. There are billions of people on this earth. And there are people like Roy Cohn who were absolutely, to use the K word, a cunt. And just like, awful, Awful. Despicable. And sometimes as eloquent as you want to be, as insightful and educated as you want to be, you want to say polestar of human evil. Like Lewis. Sometimes you're like, no, that's a fucking dick. Like, it's just.
- [139:12]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, but it's also just a very interesting thing where, like, he is such a fucking monster. But you do see in his final moments that, like, you cannot bully yourself. You cannot bully your way out of the othered identity.
- [139:30]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [139:30]
Ariana Grande
And what you can try. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you can. You can legislate and silence and punish and be punitive and evil and you can do a lot of stuff, but that, like, ultimately, it doesn't save you from when people see you as not the American. And also, he did everything in his fucking life and power to be seen as that guy, the untouchable guy. And it's like. It's like, you know, the minute that anybody had the opportunity to undercut him, everybody took the opportunity to undercut him.
- [140:02]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. When you don't have. So he. He again, he is the toxic, evil version of Joe. Whereas Joe uses kindness and sweet. Or when Joe uses niceness and sweetness and man aziness to get through life without ruffling any feathers. He has no ties to anybody and thus no one to really support him when he comes out and it talks about, you know, his true self. Roy has gone through life with a razor blade, cutting at everybody and getting away with it. And so when he's finally in a moment where he needs support, no one's right, no one's there for it because this. This disbarment hearing could have gone away, but no one likes him. Everyone was scared of him. And now that he was in a position of vulnerability, everyone jumped. And with. And it's. He realizing him. Realizing that he truly had nothing to connect him to this world. Ethel saying, you know, you. You're. You're dying in. And it's the ultimate poetic justice. Right. I want to talk a little bit more about Roy and Joe in just a quick second, but first, let's take another break.
- [141:11]
Ariana Grande
Billy, I'd beg to differ with you.
- [141:12]
Matt Koplik
How do you mean?
- [141:12]
Ariana Grande
You're the top.
- [141:13]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [141:15]
Ariana Grande
You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred at New Balance. We believe if you Run. You're a runner however you choose to do it. Because when you're not worried about doing things the right way, you're free to discover your way. And that's what running is all about. Run your way@newbalance.com running. Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you.
- [142:21]
Matt Koplik
Think with Capella University.
- [142:23]
Ariana Grande
Learn more at Capella. Edu.
- [142:28]
Matt Koplik
And we're back. There's always a question with Roy and Joe of if Joe comes out to Roy and Roy freaks out. But one wonders if Roy Cohn kind of smelled that in Joe to begin with.
- [142:41]
Ariana Grande
I mean, I think, I think a little. But again, it's just like he was the, he was the all American proxy.
- [142:50]
Matt Koplik
But I think what I'm getting at is there's a lot of, you know, fatherly Oedipal complex with the Roy and Joe stuff of Joe finally having a father figure who believes in him and shows him affection and someone in power who he looks up to who says, no, you can do good. And Roy seeing Joan being like, oh, this will be my legacy. This is, this person will carry on my name and I will live on in this corn fed, you know, Mormon guy who sticks to my values. There's also something about. It's, it's in the way that Al Pacino caresses Patrick Wilson, in the way that Nathan Lane, you know, gets up close and personal with Russell, Toby and Lee Pace where it's like, so when we did Doubt, and I remember when I did the Downstate episode with Etai, we talked about predators, as both of those plays had, predators and Angels, in its own way, has a predator in Roy. And one of the weird things about pet, about pedophilic predators, especially on the queer front, is how many of them have this, like, sixth sense of sniffing out the kid who might be more lenient and not say anything in a moment of abuse, right? It's something that is discussed in doubt with the mom of the boy who's sort of on trial for this whole thing and saying, like, it's possible that my son is like that. And when Sister Aloysius is like, well, didn't your husband beat your son because he thought that he drank from the communion wine? She's like, he beats him every day because he's like a sissy. And then in Downstate, the piano teacher who abused his two students, you know, one we don't ever get to meet, but we find out he's living in Paris with a husband. And the other one is the one who we do meet, who has a wife and a kid. And it's. There is a gray area about this guy's sexuality because, like, the way he is with his wife and they talk about their sex life and the trauma that he has, but also just his insistence on wanting to confirm that he was special to this piano teacher who abused him and caused him so much trauma. But still, it's like part of you wonders, if this didn't happen to this man, would he have been able to guide himself to a healthy, open, queer lifestyle if he. If he was queer? And it's almost like Roy can sniff out in Joe the otherness in him. Whether that's queer or what not, I don't know. But you see in a lot of Roys when they have that scene at the bar with Joe talking about this, the disparate hearing, all that, that it's an intimacy that's not fatherly. It's an intimacy.
- [145:36]
Ariana Grande
I agree with that.
- [145:37]
Matt Koplik
Similar to how Lewis is. Like, my friends call me Louise. Anything about that you like? It's like Roy kind of testing the water with touch, physical touch of, like, how comfortable is he when I touch him here? How comfortable is he when I. When I touch him here?
- [145:52]
Ariana Grande
And there's also, I think, in. In Al Pacino's performance of that scene specifically, he is being so sympathetic. Like, when Roy is talking about his dad. Not. Sorry, when he was talking about his dad, he's, like, listening in such a way and, like, making sounds of, like, understanding and, like, you know, I mean, like, empathetic. And he's, like, touching it. Do you know what I mean?
- [146:16]
Matt Koplik
Like, he's really like, your dad loved you. I know this. Yeah, baby.
- [146:20]
Ariana Grande
Yes. And it's like, it does not feel like going to, like, a trusted adult and say, and being like, oh, God, I'm so sorry to hear that, son. Do you know what I mean? Like, he's. He's. He's locked in with him in a way that is intimate, beyond. Just, like, don't worry, I'm listening. I'm a good. I'm a good ear for advice. Do you mean, like, there was, like, there's something else going on there.
- [146:37]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. And it's. It's justified in the added scene that Kushner put in Perestroika, when Roy's ghost haunts Joe and they end up having a kiss. And he says to me, you know, show me what you learned out there in the world. And part of you wonders, I mean, again, the brilliance of good writing where you can play it so many different ways. When Joe tells Roy, I'm living with a man right now, and Roy hears that there's a lot going on. There's the, you, you idiot. You were supposed to be the golden boy, and now you're like, you know, first you won't go to Washington, and now this. What the fuck is wrong with you? And then also the, like, I was right to have an instinct about you and you wouldn't fuck me, but you're fudgeing some other random dude out there. Go fudge yourself.
- [147:24]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, I think there is a little bit of that in the physical fight they have at the end of Millennium Approaches, too.
- [147:29]
Matt Koplik
Oh, yeah.
- [147:30]
Ariana Grande
A little bit of the jealousy, a little bit of the, how dare you do this without me? Do you know what I mean?
- [147:38]
Matt Koplik
No, absolutely. Yeah. That's. That's all I really have to say about Roy. We didn't really touch much on Prior and Lewis. They both were discussed a lot in the last episode, as well as Hannah. But, I mean, any things about Prior or Lewis you want to say?
- [147:54]
Ariana Grande
I mean, I need to start wrapping up, so I don't want to, like, crack anything too. Too much. But we were texting about something and you were like, stop. Save it for the pod. Yes, that's very true of us. To just, like, start talking and then be like, this is an interesting little tidbit, but you were talking about just like, as you've gotten older and just like, how you prefer to see, like, a priority played. Yeah, because we were talking about how we'd seen now Steven Spinella, Christian Borrell, Justin Kirk, and Andrew Garfield, which we haven't talked about. We haven't talked to a Garfield at all.
- [148:24]
Matt Koplik
I've already talked enough about Andrew Garfield in the last episode, and I don't want to talk about it.
- [148:28]
Ariana Grande
Okay. Because I want to just say for the record, my, like, I sort of had to go on an Andrew Garfield apology tour later in my life because I've now seen him in so many things that have genuinely thought he's amazing in. But after I saw Angels, I was like, oh, this is the worst actor who's ever lived. And I told everyone that. Do you know what I mean? Like, I mean, like, I went out of my way to be like, don't fucking see that movie. That guy's the worst actor who's ever lived. And I have now seen him in enough things where I've had to just like, walk that statement back and be like, the guy is really good. He's very charming. He's a great actor. I just don't know what happened. I don't know what happened there.
- [149:04]
Matt Koplik
He should just. He should never have done it, is my honest opinion.
- [149:07]
Ariana Grande
But you don't think that that's a failure of, like, directing or something? How can somebody who has proven himself to be that good and sensitive of an actor, how could that have happened?
- [149:16]
Matt Koplik
It's a failure on all parts because Kushner wanted him. Kushner personally asked him, okay. He said yes, and Marian directed him. I don't particularly find Marian Elliott a phenomenal director of actors. I think she's not a bad one. I don't think that's her mo. I think what she does, she tends to cast really well, and then she's good at getting everyone on the same page. But I don't if the productions of hers that I've seen, there's usually one or two performers where I'm like, oh, you're missing some of the nuances that everyone else is getting. I felt it in Company. I felt it in Warhorse and Curious Incident. And she, technically speaking, co directed Death of a Salesman that came here, but I don't think she oversaw it when it was here. And I really hated that Death of a Sale when I thought it was so British and analytical with some really terrible supporting performances. But what I said to you was being introduced to Angels with Justin Kirk and then seeing other versions since then, and then, as I said, like, watching the 40 minutes of the OBC with Stephen and everyone, like, cracking my mind open of like, oh, fuck, this is similar to Joe with the Jacob portrait. I'm like, I. This is what makes sense to me the most about anything. Like, these words have never been funnier. These words have never been more emotional. It all just sort of cracks wide open. And I mentioned this also with the clip of Andrew Scott doing the Park Bench scene for the National Theater thing.
- [150:43]
Ariana Grande
Oh, my God, I forgot about that. That's another person who's an amazing actor, who's proven himself to be an amazing actor, but I just could not. I just thought it was so misguided.
- [150:51]
Matt Koplik
Oh, and see, I disagree because I.
- [150:53]
Ariana Grande
Don'T Like, I don't like his take.
- [150:55]
Matt Koplik
I don't. I don't like Dominic Cooper's. Oh.
- [150:58]
Ariana Grande
I don't like his Lewis either.
- [151:00]
Matt Koplik
And I think it. What makes that scene not great for me is that it is so uneven. I think that Andrew is doing what I want, or most of what I want, but he's not getting anything. So a lot of it just sort of feels inorganic because it's like I'm watching half of someone doing something that I like and nothing's on the other side.
- [151:21]
Ariana Grande
So. Yeah.
- [151:22]
Matt Koplik
So, yeah.
- [151:23]
Ariana Grande
I wonder if I would have liked that performance more with, like, something to bounce off of. Because my take, My gut reaction was that. Not that I was crazy about that.
- [151:29]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Like, if he was doing it even off of, like, Ben Shankman, it would have.
- [151:33]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [151:33]
Matt Koplik
Been. It would be far more good. But the thing what I said was I don't need a gay man to play prior, but I can always tell when a straight man plays it. And I am not. I am one of the homosexuals out here who doesn't think that, like, you must only play the sexuality you identify with. Sexuality is fluid and you can learn a lot about yourself by being in someone else's shoes. The number of female friends I have who consider themselves straight and then, like, played a queer role and they're like, oh, I think I'm actually bisexual. Oh, actually, no, I've. I've come to realize I'm a lesbian. I'm like, oh, wonderful. These things do happen.
- [152:05]
Ariana Grande
With Andrew in you, that journey is as. As the rabbi says.
- [152:09]
Matt Koplik
Yes, exactly. At the time of his performance, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because I did not like it in the broadcast and I liked him a little more live. And at the time, what I'd said was, it's like he's an alien who came to Earth, wrote down all the things homosexuals did, and brought it back to his home planet. He's not, technically speaking, wrong. It just doesn't fit on his skin. Re watching it with Alex, and Alex was far more into him than I was. I was like, oh, no. I genuinely, genuinely hate this performance. And it's ultimately that. That and him choosing to work with Mel Gibson have been the two things that have always poisoned the Andrew Garfield well for me. So no matter how good or dreamy he is in other stuff, there's always something removing me from it. And it's like, him and Tic Tac boom. I'm like, that's a good performance. I'm not invested Because I just. I can't. I can't do it.
- [152:54]
Ariana Grande
I mean, like, I. I guess what I'm saying is I've, like, I've seen him now in so many things that I thought he was great in, that I had to, like, genuinely be like. Like, hey, remember when I was like, never go see a movie that Andrew Garfield is in? That was the worst performance ever. I guess I have to, like, walk that back and say, sorry, yeah, he is really good in other things.
- [153:15]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, I remember. But I'd asked someone, because it was when Tic Tac Boom came out, and I was like. I asked him, who is now a former friend, not because of this, but I should have known then that we were.
- [153:25]
Ariana Grande
Wouldn't that have been funny, though, if you were like. And he said this about Andrew Garfield and we.
- [153:28]
Matt Koplik
Well, no, it's what he said about. But it's what my friend said about me. I. Because I had said, I can't get into Andrew Garfield. And I don't know why I hadn't made this discovery yet that, like, this was all tied together. Because I was like, I recognize that he's talented. He's a handsome dude. He seems like a genuinely kind person. Why can't I get on board with him? Why don't I trust it? And this person said to me, well, it's like, in a lot of ways, he's you, if you were at all successful. And I thought that there was a. So cruel and also so misguided, because I do not see myself in Andrew Garfield at all. He is a movie star. But that is when I heard that, I was like, oh, that is both very mean and very untrue. So let me actually do some soul searching, because I'm not going to get it from external forces. I have to figure out for myself what it is. It was very much a Joe Pitt journey. I can't get it from anyone else. I can't get the validation from anyone outside of me. So I have to search within myself. And I realized, oh, I never fully got over that he chose to work with Mel Gibson when he, you know, had the clout to pick projects. And he was like, yeah, I don't mind that. And I couldn't. And I really hated his performance in Angels in America. And those two combined have always left a bad taste in my mouth. And it's just. It's something that always lives within my DNA. But going back to someone like Justin Kirk, Kirk gets a lot of humor out of the movie, but it's more the same kind of humor that he did on something like Weeds, where it's more like a. A dry wise crack. It's less of an effeminate former drag queen camp element. And part of that is the Mike Nichols approach. Nichols definitely took a lot of the camp out of Angels in America and made it more prestigious. But I. I watch even. You watch just the 10 minutes of Spinella and you're like, oh, that is gay. And that is fire. And that's why I can't wait to go to the library to watch it. But, like, I. It's why I wish I had seen Michael Urie replace Borrell at the Signature, because I'm sure that was incredible. But so I. I watch Andrew in that broadcast again, and I just, like, it's. It is not mal. It's not ill intent. He. He is doing it wholeheartedly, which is why I'm. It doesn't make me hate him. It just makes me go, I don't like any of this, and this should never have happened. And I. I still get angry at that Tony winning because I just have to be like, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah, I know. I know people who still talk highly of his performance in that. And I'm like, I'm so. I can't fully take you seriously. It's just. I felt this. I don't. It's hard to say that and not sound like a dick because, like, Alex and I debated this and Alex really liked Andrew's performance, but he was describing it in such an analytical, like, here's how you can sort of justify it in this as this kind of takes. And I was like, no, just because on a chemical level, I'm watching, I'm going, this is all false and it's making me angry.
- [156:12]
Ariana Grande
That is, if it makes you feel any better, that's exactly how I felt. None of it really, truly felt sincere to me. Even the moments of high drama and emotion where he obviously was feeling an emotion, it wasn't bad acting. He was feeling something, but I couldn't tell what the fuck he was feeling. It was like unparsable unhuman emotions. I just did not understand. I did not understand his take on the character in the slightest. So, again, if you're listening to this and you want to, and you're like, from the Andrew Garfield Stan army, please know, I've seen him in other things and I think he's great in them, but I did not feel that way in Angels.
- [156:45]
Matt Koplik
He's great in Social Network. I think what it is, is prior Already goes through everything in Angels in America on every level of theatricality and human emotion that you can like, goes through loss, goes through pain, goes through joy, goes through, you know, an angel bursting through his window, meeting prophets. Like, all this stuff on top of all that is sick, close to dying.
- [157:09]
Ariana Grande
Comes back from abandoned by his partner. Yeah, totally.
- [157:12]
Matt Koplik
All, like, all of these things. And that is so. That is already a marathon you have to get through to. Then on top of that, have to figure out through physicality, voice and mannerisms, like how to portray an effeminate gay man without seeing like, a stereotype that is just. That makes it become the idea of a performance and not a performance for me.
- [157:35]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [157:35]
Matt Koplik
And so when you have someone like a Yuri or a spinel, where it's like, no, I. I know what it's like to put my arms up and my wrists just naturally flop or like. Or how to. Or. Or my voice already has like a light lisp to it. That is something I don't have to think about. I can think about all the other stuff now. And it just, it. It removes the wheels from your brain and. And allows that part to just live free. And so for Andrew, that everything felt false because even though he was, you know, diving into these well of emotions that were, I'm sure, very true to him, everything just came off as performative in a way that made me frustrated. So that was that.
- [158:15]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, I mean, like, there is a line that is delivered shockingly differently by both Steven Spinella and Justin Kirk, which is when in the scene where Lewis and Prior are talking about the afterlife, after they're talking about the Bayou tapestry and all that, where Prior sort of flippantly tells Louis that he's being trooper of the year, and then Lewis starts to cry and then Prior goes, I take it back. You're not too pervere. Those lines could not be delivered more differently the way that Steven Spinella and Justin Kirk do it, like, are like, truly, like, if one is one and one is 100, they're on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how it's delivered. Both are exceptionally effective. Both get a laugh, both feel really real to the characters that they're playing. They're just like. I mean, like, I'm sure there's a million examples of this, but, like, that's like one that just like, truly stands out to me in terms of being so, so different in how they're delivered, but, like, so effective in both ways. Like, you. You just see such a confident take on who this man is and how he deals with the world just so fully. Do you know what I mean? Like, you just. You're like, oh, yeah, that's a real person.
- [159:25]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. I think the way that Justin Kirk kind of gets around it is he does not go for super effeminate, which, again, in hindsight, is not my favorite. But it's. It allows all the emotions that he's portraying and all the humor that he portrays to carry through much more naturally because he's not working extra hard to be someone he's not. He's leaning into the sensitive sides of himself that can work for the character. Does that make sense?
- [159:53]
Ariana Grande
Yes. And, like. And you and I were talking about this where it's like, I do really feel son of wasps when I watch Justin Kirk's Prior. And I also. I was sort of being like, a little. I guess I was like, more on the defending end of his performance when we were talking about it briefly over text, where I was saying, like, I see in his performance someone who is locking down on a part of himself from his past. Because, like, in the scene where Belize and Prior are talking, and Belize mentions that Prior used to do drag, and he's like, that's, like, that's behind me now. Justin Kirk says that very defensively. Yeah, he's not like, oh, I mean, I don't. I don't really do that anymore. He's like. He, like. He, like, shuts that conversation down. Like, don't. Let's, like. Let's, like, let's not talk about that anymore. And you're like, oh, that's interesting. Do what? I mean, like, that raises more questions than not. When I see him deliver that line where I'm just like, oh, that's interesting that that's a part of your past that you are, like, not open to discussing right now. What happened? Why? What's going on? Do you know what I mean? Like, there's just some. There's just. There's just an interesting question there. And it feels very in line with his character, who's a little more dry and perhaps is not as, like, ebullient in his. I don't know. You know what I'm saying?
- [161:06]
Matt Koplik
The. The tie that I always made. And then I want to get to the final question with you so we can wrap things up. I. The tie. I. I don't say always that I have made recently with. That is since Belize and Prior both used to be drag queens. Prior doesn't do it anymore. Unclear just how long ago he stopped it, but it definitely, you know, it hasn't been years. It's probably like at least six months at most a year and a half. Like probably around that pocket of time it is shown to us. It's not really talked about. In the miniseries they cut this exchange between Lewis and Belize. But the diner scene where Louis is talking about democracy in America, just going on this whole rampage and saying like, race isn't actually an issue in America because race doesn't. Isn't real. Or like it's like that's a gut that he says about race. Like what we talk about with gender, like it's a construct and believes.
- [161:53]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, yeah.
- [161:54]
Matt Koplik
He's like, yeah, say that to your one black friendish. Like, don't, don't do that. But in the play there's the exchange where he's like, well, as a, you know, ex drag. He's like, as a drag queen, we have a concept of any. And Lewis goes, no. Ex drag queen of Lis goes xx. And Lewis is like, you're doing drag again?
- [162:13]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, yeah.
- [162:14]
Matt Koplik
I find it sexist. Like I do. I think drag is totally sexist. And what's the line he says? He's like, I think the gay community has to adopt towards drag queens the same way black women have to towards black women blue singers, which is one of those like phenomenally tone deaf bonkers lines.
- [162:28]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, you're just like, you're like trying to follow his logic. You're like, where did this come from?
- [162:31]
Matt Koplik
Where did this come from? And I love, I love the shot of Jeffrey Wright's take on it where he like, he uncrosses and re crosses his legs because he's like, what did I just hear?
- [162:40]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. And there's a moment where he's like, I'm gonna get into. Into it. Then he's like, I'm actually not going to get into it. Like regroups.
- [162:45]
Matt Koplik
And then he just says, oh, boy, we are walking dangerously tonight.
- [162:51]
Ariana Grande
I think I'm gonna rewatch it immediately after we get off this.
- [162:54]
Matt Koplik
Rewatch it, Rewatch it. But, but Lewis says that he objects to drag on a moral level. And I think it's more than that. I think Lewis also doesn't nev. Doesn't find prior sexy when he does drag.
- [163:07]
Ariana Grande
And so do you think he hasn't done it since they started dating? Because that's like four years.
- [163:12]
Matt Koplik
I don't think it's since they started dating. I think it was probably like halfway through. That's why I'm like six months to a year and a half because they were probably together for 2ish years. Because prior didn't do drag regularly, from what I understand. According.
- [163:26]
Ariana Grande
They do say how long they've been together in that last scene in Perestroika where he talks how long about how long he's been alive since his AIDS diagnosis. And he was. And that's six months longer than I live with.
- [163:35]
Matt Koplik
He and Louis lived together for four and a half years. Maybe they were together together for five years or six years. But I don't think the play specifies when Prior quit drag. Sure.
- [163:45]
Ariana Grande
I was just saying that, like, I think that gives a good insight into, like, when this could have been an inflection point in their relationship.
- [163:50]
Matt Koplik
And according to Kushner's character notes, Prior's income mostly comes from. He can. He's sort of freelance club designer and planner, so he gets money that way. But he also has a trust fund that he. That he has been very good about spending wisely. So it's like, he lives modestly, but he lives well. And between that and, like, and the club gigs that he chooses when he wants to, like, he. Drag was more sort of a pastime for him. And not.
- [164:20]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, it was fun. Fun expression, not. I have to get this gig in order to pay my rent.
- [164:24]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. And so he probably didn't do it that often. And there must have been a moment. I like to think there was a moment in his relationship with Louis where it was negatively affecting them. And Lewis claimed it was for political reasons. But ultimately, like, Lewis couldn't get sexy for Prior because he just didn't find Prior sexy as a drag queen.
- [164:43]
Ariana Grande
And I think this is very interesting.
- [164:45]
Matt Koplik
And you see, like, Lou kind of making this huge shift from Prior to Joe, who has all of this emotional baggage, but on a physical level is, like, such a man. And we all. It's possible that Lewis is versatile. It's implied that Lewis is a bottom. And Spinella says in World Only Spins Forward that Prior is also a bottom. I like to think that the two of them reverse. But I made the joke with Alex, like, their relationship is what happens when two bottoms get together. But, yeah, it's like, ultimately, one of them had to be the puzzle piece with the other one. And they made a lot of concessions, and Prior probably made a lot of concessions for Lewis. And again, it's just sort of the AIDS diagnosis is revealing all of the weaknesses that were already there.
- [165:27]
Ariana Grande
He tells.
- [165:28]
Matt Koplik
He tells. Believes, like, watching Lewis get worked up over something was, like, such an amazing show for him. But his mother said, you know, well, if that's how he acts on the small things, the big things are gonna fucking ruin him.
- [165:37]
Ariana Grande
Right? And they did.
- [165:38]
Matt Koplik
And, and. And they really did. We gotta wrap things up, so. Ali, first of all, thank you for coming on. You're always a delight.
- [165:45]
Ariana Grande
Thank you for letting me do this. I genuinely mean that because, like, this is such a huge piece and I have no real authority. I just really love it.
- [165:56]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [165:57]
Ariana Grande
So it was kind of. It was just. I mean, you do talk to people who have, like, been parts of. I was on that show or I did this and it wasn't. So I'm really just speaking from. I'm just in it for the love of the game. But I do really love this game. So I appreciate you letting me sort of.
- [166:12]
Matt Koplik
But those are my favorite.
- [166:13]
Ariana Grande
Those are my favorite episodes.
- [166:14]
Matt Koplik
The episodes that bring me the most joy are the ones with my freak nerd friends who know, who love the thing, have researched the thing, and can talk about the thing.
- [166:23]
Ariana Grande
I am a freak nerd.
- [166:24]
Matt Koplik
So with the hugest of tits.
- [166:27]
Ariana Grande
Yes. And. And no longer chemically straightened hair.
- [166:30]
Matt Koplik
Thank God. Ebony hair back and forth.
- [166:33]
Ariana Grande
That's what they were talking about when they said the world. The world only spins forward. When she was like, in this life, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for the straight hair we left behind, but embracing the curly hair ahead. That's what she. She was talking about me learning I had curly hair and sort of like, having to figure that fucking out.
- [166:47]
Matt Koplik
Go for it.
- [166:48]
Ariana Grande
And me being like, am I just. Am I just a product of the 2000s Pencil thin brows and absolute straight hair? And do you know what I mean?
- [166:56]
Matt Koplik
We're all a product and we don't want to admit it, but the moment you admit it, the sooner you can change your factory settings.
- [167:03]
Ariana Grande
Exactly.
- [167:04]
Matt Koplik
Before we close out, I do want to do a quick off the cuff with you Dreamcasting Angels in America, future production. And it can be anyone in any role if you want to. Like, if you want to get super creative, you can be, like, this person at this time of their life. But.
- [167:19]
Ariana Grande
Okay, well, I only have I only really one answer to this question.
- [167:22]
Matt Koplik
Okay.
- [167:23]
Ariana Grande
Because I wish I had more, but I'm so weird and particular about the show that I don't know if I have a ton of, like, dreamcast for it. I think Betty Gilpin is an amazing idea for Harper. Like that. Really? I was like. I got excited about that. Did you ever see Skeleton Twins with Bill Hader and. Okay, Bill Hader in that movie around that time of his life, maybe a little younger. He Would have been an amazing prior. He would have had a really, really interesting take on that character.
- [167:53]
Matt Koplik
Probably. I mean, first of all, incredibly smart, funny and intuitive man.
- [167:58]
Ariana Grande
Very. And a very good actor. He's really proven himself over time to like, to really have the chops. And in that movie, I was like, I see. I see a Prior. Like. Like, you know, I mean, like, the movie's fine. I'm not gonna be like, holy. You gotta, like, do everything in your power to stop and watch that movie. It's like, it's a totally fine movie. But when I was watching that movie, I was largely distracted. This is probably 10 years ago already, but even 10 years ago, I was like, I'm watching a guy who's got a great take on Prior. Like, I wish. I wish I could, like, pause time and, like, change reality and let him just sort of have a fucking shake at it. Because now he's too old for it. So it's too. It's too much. But again, when funny people play that role, you don't lean too hard into the drama. You really embrace what naturally sings and clips along about that script. Because when you're a funny person, you understand tone and pace. I think he would have been really great.
- [168:45]
Matt Koplik
Would Bill Hader as Roy Cohn be a little too clown makeupy? Would, like, that be like, I don't know.
- [168:50]
Ariana Grande
I guess. Like, sometimes I feel like I am more forgiving of just people who I like. Like, I remember when Nathan Lane was announced, people were like, ugh, what the fuck? And I in my heart was like, he's gonna fucking kill it. I know he's gonna kill it.
- [169:00]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [169:00]
Ariana Grande
And of course, like, I am really biased because, like, I fucking love him. But I was right. So it's all good. But, like, you know what I mean? I think I'm maybe more inclined to be forgiving of people I like already.
- [169:11]
Matt Koplik
If you don't try too hard to make them look like the character, like the person. So, like, you're not trying to do any kind of specific makeup. Be like, we gotta make him transform into Roy Con. No, just, you know, give us the essence of Roy and let Bill Hader be Bill Hader. Then maybe that. I think that'd be fun.
- [169:26]
Ariana Grande
Because one thing he does really well that I did not know he could do until Barry is. He is. He can be quite frightening. There's sort of a dead. A deadness behind the eyes that I didn't know he was capable of. And I think that would be really interesting for Roy.
- [169:39]
Matt Koplik
I'm going to make. I'm going to offer an olive branch to people about Pryor and the homosexuality of it all and say, I know he's. He's a little played out right now because of Oscar season. He's coming to Broadway this spring. But, like, I would give Kieran Culkin a chance to play Prior and see how that heterosexual.
- [169:58]
Ariana Grande
I'm intrigued. Yeah, I'm intrigued. Again, I'm not like, okay, 100% this is correct. But like. Like, I certainly would watch the fucking audition tape. Yeah, because, like, also what's really fun about him is he's mean.
- [170:09]
Matt Koplik
He is mean.
- [170:10]
Ariana Grande
You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what he brings naturally to the table as an actor. And I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that he, as a man is mean. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy, but he understands. He understands how to deliver a line in a way that is, like, so mean that nobody even understands it was mean. He, like, really gets that. And I think that's also a really interesting take on Prior because Prior's a very smart guy.
- [170:27]
Matt Koplik
He's very smart. Well, yeah. Intelligence can give you. When you're a certain heightened intelligence, especially when you work as a drag queen and you have to be on. On your toes all the time and on the defense all the time. You have, as Bianca Del Rio calls, like, that Rolodex of hate. And you can spot the weakness, find a super witty line about it and cut it to the quick. And I think when I think of him in succession, which is a show that I admire but don't like very much, his character, like, he is not a gay man, but the way he goes about being this little bundle of hard is. He is impish about it. And I think that impishness is where Prior lives of the.
- [171:09]
Ariana Grande
He also gets accused of being gay a lot in the show.
- [171:12]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Oh, does he? I don't. Yeah, I don't remember that.
- [171:15]
Ariana Grande
I just remember them all saying his dad is always being like, what are you, a little queer? Do you know what I mean? It's very interesting.
- [171:20]
Matt Koplik
Oh, yeah.
- [171:20]
Ariana Grande
They don't really answer that question, but they. They do. It does come up. It's put on the table quite a few times. Never, like, being like, come on, come out and be.
- [171:28]
Matt Koplik
We'll love you.
- [171:29]
Ariana Grande
It's like always, like, very hatefully said, but I did interesting.
- [171:32]
Matt Koplik
I always. I've. My memory of that show is when things like that are said, it is just like a taunt to anyone. I Don't remember being only him, but I just remember being.
- [171:40]
Ariana Grande
I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Cause I'm not, like, a super fan, but I did. But. But, like. But I think it was very specifically an insult saved for him.
- [171:50]
Matt Koplik
Sure.
- [171:51]
Ariana Grande
I don't remember him ever saying that to, like, Kendall. I don't. I don't ever remember him being like, you're gay to Kendall. Like, I don't think that ever came up.
- [171:58]
Matt Koplik
No. No.
- [171:59]
Ariana Grande
But I do think it was specifically for his character. Like, Kendall may babies.
- [172:03]
Matt Koplik
So that's in there.
- [172:04]
Ariana Grande
That's what I'm saying. And that's also not to track back to that thing where, like, I do think there's an amazing acting moment of Patrick Wilson's where when she's like, I'm having a baby. There's a flash of happiness and hope, and then he kills it. And he goes, liar. It's like there's a moment there where he's like, baby. Baby fix everything.
- [172:24]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. Me.
- [172:24]
Ariana Grande
Me man. Me have baby. Straight man make baby. Do you know what I mean? Like. Like, there is, like, a little thing in his brain. There's, like, a primitive thing in his brain where he, like, gets, like, kind of excited about that idea. And I think it's an amazing acting moment.
- [172:36]
Matt Koplik
Listen, I may not be a relationship therapist, and Ali may just have been married to one person so far, but I want. But I want to say this.
- [172:45]
Ariana Grande
Architect of my downfall.
- [172:47]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. To anyone. To anyone, whenever, wherever you are in your relationship. If you get to a point where one of you says, we should try to make a baby, I think that'll really help.
- [173:04]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. You're. You're in trouble. You're in trouble.
- [173:06]
Matt Koplik
End it now. End it now. I don't care if you're, like, no worthy exception. No. No. End it. Babies are not some. Like, the decision to have a baby should be like, are we financially ready? Do we think we're emotionally ready?
- [173:17]
Ariana Grande
A baby has never fixed anything. I just want to say that.
- [173:20]
Matt Koplik
Never. Not once. Not Maggie in A Chorus Line. Not the fake baby in Angels in America. Just the moment you go and the baby is, like, the ultimate extreme. But the moment you're like, oh, I think a dog could maybe help us, like, if we moved apartments. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The moment you're like, I think this would really fix or help our relationship. It's like, you're. You're. You're already doomed. So just. So don't make the mistake of Joe and Harper and just get on that night flight to San Francisco, baby, it'll help you see the ozone get repaired. Even if it's just a vision.
- [173:51]
Ariana Grande
Even if it's just a vision.
- [173:53]
Matt Koplik
Even if it's just a vision.
- [173:54]
Ariana Grande
A lapsed profit elapsed.
- [173:56]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. A prophet who fell through the paperwork. Ali Gordon.
- [173:59]
Ariana Grande
Yes.
- [174:00]
Matt Koplik
Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you if you want them to find you?
- [174:04]
Ariana Grande
Do you know when this is going to air? Do you have any idea?
- [174:07]
Matt Koplik
Probably like three weeks, end of February.
- [174:10]
Ariana Grande
So if this is end of February, if you are in and around la. A musical that I wrote lyrics for and like, you know, worked on music for, but I don't really write music with my part writing partner Angela Parrish is going up at the Hudson Theater and then it is going to Australia. So if you want to see it in Los angeles, it'll be the 7th and 8th of March and then it'll be at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and then it'll be in Sydney and Melbourne is like late March and then Sydney is April 2nd. It's a one night only event. So the musical is called Gross Profits. It's really fun. It's a Tin Can Brothers project, but we gotta. We're on it to write music and I'm understudying in the show, which is why I'm going to Australia. So hopefully you won't see me because hopefully I will not be called on to understudy. But that is why I will be there and that's. That.
- [175:01]
Matt Koplik
That's amazing. Congrats, baby.
- [175:03]
Ariana Grande
I'm psychedelic.
- [175:04]
Matt Koplik
I am. I am very proud of you and proud for you. I am so secure with myself that I look at your success and I go, my God.
- [175:12]
Ariana Grande
Well, you're going to be doing your play in Australia next year.
- [175:15]
Matt Koplik
I wrote a play.
- [175:16]
Ariana Grande
Did you read a play? Actually, I think it must have been confusing you with somebody else.
- [175:19]
Matt Koplik
I think you're. Yeah, you're mistaking me with. With Adam Driver. So I was trying to think also.
- [175:26]
Ariana Grande
Michael Urie, if you're listening to this, we are your two number one fans. I know we don't like see you in stuff, but seeing you in stuff doesn't meet. Doesn't matter. No, it's about. It's about how we feel about you inside. And I just want you to know we witnessed to be born on Ugly Betty. And we love you. We love you so much.
- [175:42]
Matt Koplik
You. You were my high school senior year quote in Ugly Betty.
- [175:45]
Ariana Grande
Wow. There you go.
- [175:47]
Matt Koplik
I. I have no regrets because it's who I was Then it's what made me become the person I am now, which maybe I should be regretful for. Ali, where can people find you? I told you, where they can find you is Instagram, Facebook, anything like that.
- [175:59]
Ariana Grande
Yeah, I guess you can find me on Instagram. I put my Twitter on. Yeah, I put my Twitter on private because Twitter really, like, was fucking free. Scaring me, freaking me out. Yeah, I haven't like, I feel like I'm. I feel like I'm a step away from deleting it. And this was my, like, intermediary step to deleting. It was like just putting my things on. Like private or locked.
- [176:17]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, I say. I say just delete it.
- [176:19]
Ariana Grande
I think I'm going to. I think I was just sort of like. I think I wasn't willing to pull off the band aid and I'm just like slowly inching the band aid off. But I think. I think I got it.
- [176:28]
Matt Koplik
I'm not on it, but I've been told Blue sky is fun because a lot of gays are on there. It's a lot of fun on that.
- [176:34]
Ariana Grande
I think I might be too old to sign up for a new social media platform.
- [176:40]
Matt Koplik
It's why I haven't gotten TikTok. But Instagram, you are Ms. Alice Nutting.
- [176:44]
Ariana Grande
Ms. Alice Nutting. M S A L I C E N U T T I N G and again, you can follow that and learn more about where this musical is premiering. And if you want to see angels in America Junior, that's called Power Trip and I do have a TikTok for that at Powertrip musical. And that's fun. Especially if you, like, are a person who's like a theater educator and wants to learn more about it and like, it's like, I would like to do this at my theater camp that I run or something. Or if you're a teenager, do you have teenagers who listen to your podcast? Do teenagers listen to this podcast?
- [177:13]
Matt Koplik
Yes, I have discovered that they do.
- [177:16]
Ariana Grande
Okay, well, if you're a teenager and you're like, I don't want to do Guys and Dolls next year, I'm sick of Guys and Dolls. You should check out Power Trip. It's really fun. And it is Angels in America Junior in its own way.
- [177:26]
Matt Koplik
Okay, fantastic. If you want to follow me on Instagram, only at Matt Koplik. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, you can give us a nice 5 star rating or review. Tell your friends about it. It's not a lot of fun. I. Yeah. So by the time. So the next episode will be another Angels episode with Rob W. Schneider, friend of the pod. And by that point, I will have gone to the library and I will have seen the 1994.
- [177:52]
Ariana Grande
Very exciting.
- [177:53]
Matt Koplik
Yeah. 1994 January performance of the entire original Broadway company the week before Ron Liebman and Marcia Gay Harden left. I'm very excited to watch it. They told me at the library that they filmed it all in one day, so it was like it was a marathon day.
- [178:05]
Ariana Grande
Oh, that. That's fun. That's really fun.
- [178:06]
Matt Koplik
I'm excited. Excited to see it all happen. Yeah. Everyone in that cast is someone who I'm like, well, you're just the fucking best.
- [178:13]
Ariana Grande
Yeah.
- [178:13]
Matt Koplik
Yeah, Very exciting. As you well know, we close out every episode with a diva. So I want you to pick our diva for the week.
- [178:24]
Ariana Grande
Does it have to be related to this? Should it be related to this?
- [178:28]
Matt Koplik
It doesn't have to be, but usually people pick with someone related because it's just. Just an easy think. But no, pick whoever you want.
- [178:37]
Ariana Grande
I'm trying to think about people who have been associated with the show who are, like, iconically a singer, a diva.
- [178:45]
Matt Koplik
Well, I know that last. I think Alex picked Meryl's Winner Takes It All. I'm pretty sure that's what I mean.
- [178:51]
Ariana Grande
I was gonna jokingly say last midnight. That was my joke.
- [178:54]
Matt Koplik
Oh, sure. I mean, what if for each episode we just close out with a different Meryl performance? So it's like. Like Meryl in the prom. Meryl.
- [179:01]
Ariana Grande
Yeah. Do. Do the prom.
- [179:04]
Matt Koplik
This is.
- [179:05]
Ariana Grande
Or do. No, can you do Meryl doing the number that she does in world that everyone's walking out of in death becomes her in the movie.
- [179:12]
Matt Koplik
I see me can't be me. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, we'll do that one. It's Songbird, the opening.
- [179:19]
Ariana Grande
Songbird. God bless you for knowing that I love you.
- [179:22]
Matt Koplik
Okay, so we'll do Meryl in Songbird, the musical version of Super Diffuse Truth, please. Fantastic. Yeah. So we'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much, Ally. Take it away, Meryl.
- [179:30]
Ariana Grande
Bye. Everywhere I look, baby All I see is. Come on.
- [179:52]
Matt Koplik
A bad addiction an inspiration.
- [180:00]
Ariana Grande
That'S me.