Video Games with Rahul Kohli

Summary

Flightless Bird: "Video Games with Rahul Kohli" (July 14, 2026)

Overview

In this episode, David Farrier dives into the world of video games—its history, culture, and personal impact—while exploring what makes America's gaming scene unique, alienating, and, at times, hostile. Farrier and cohost Rob reminisce about their own introductions to gaming, the generational shifts they've witnessed, and how technology has shaped their lives. British actor Rahul Kohli, now the leading actor in a critically acclaimed PlayStation game (Saros), joins the show for a raw discussion about representation, racism, and the emotional highs and lows of reaching a childhood dream in an industry still wrestling with inclusivity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Personal Histories with Video Games

Childhood Memories and Escapism (00:06 – 18:43)

• David and Rob share their earliest and most formative gaming experiences. Super Nintendo, Donkey Kong, NBA Jam, GoldenEye, and Mario 64 are highlighted as major touchstones.
• David: "My first video game experience ever...something in my brain fundamentally shifted and changed in a similar way that I think kids’ brains shift when they get given an iPad these days." (13:48)
• The conversation touches on LAN parties, arcade culture, friend networks, and the status that came with having the newest consoles.
• Rob and David discuss the guilt associated with playing games as adults, especially as responsibilities pile up: "As you get older, there’s a guilt to being productive or not...the idea of sitting for two hours and playing a video game as a parent…seems irresponsible." (17:19)

Generational & Socio-Economic Factors in Gaming (10:23 – 11:18)

• Playground hierarchies, wealth disparities, and how the latest hardware became markers of status.
• Differences in gaming platforms—console wars (Xbox vs. PlayStation), the “elite” aura of PC gaming, and the rise of subscription/digital media.

Nostalgia, Violence, and Bonding (11:18 – 24:22)

• The evolution from simple, side-scrolling games to open-world shooters and the cultural phenomenon of Grand Theft Auto, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.
• Robust discussion about experiencing in-game violence as fantasy, not reality, especially for those not exposed to gun culture:
  • Rob: "At that young age, being introduced to like, weapons...but again, it's almost like Hangman where...it wasn't necessarily this, like, click and association of violence." (11:34)

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Rahul Kohli: Career, Migration, & Representation in Gaming

Moving from London to LA (27:36 – 33:44)

• Rahul’s candid account of moving from London to Hollywood and immersing himself in LA’s party culture:
  • Rahul: "I did LA in the most disgusting, in your face way and I was fine with that...But it felt very empty. It has a lot of people and a lot of things to do, but it still feels very isolating." (28:04-29:01)
• Challenges with transportation, isolation, and comparing LA’s social fabric to London’s pub/tube culture and New York’s “walkable” vibe.
• Noted differences in racial dynamics and regional variations within the US, revealing the diversity and sometimes divisive nature of American states.

Experiences with Racism, Particularly in the US and Canada (32:53 – 36:45; 41:20 – 46:04)

• Rahul discusses experiencing more overt racism—in public and online—in the last few years than ever before, especially as the face of a major video game:
  • Rahul: “I have never felt more racism thrown my way than I have in the last, I'd say two years. Yeah, hell, it's like open season on Indians.” (42:13)
  • On internet hate: “It's so normal. It's not bots, it's people. I know who. I click on the profile and you see them with their kids...just a hairdresser. And I'm like, what is going on?” (43:21)
• Discusses the acceleration of intolerance across various forms of bigotry—homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, and Islamophobia—amplified by social media and international politics.

Being a “Non-White” Lead in a Major Game (44:07 – 53:39)

• Saros, the game where Rahul stars as protagonist Argent Devraj, is explained: a third-person, sci-fi, bullet-hell action shooter where he did full motion and facial capture (44:17-44:53).
• The pride and surrealism in fulfilling a childhood dream is undercut by a new, insidious wave of targeted hate.
• Rahul: “A brown dude on the front cover. Never really happened before in AAA games...at worst it would blow up and become its own like thing...But the marketing wasn't aggressive with this game for internal reasons...I made a conscious effort...I wouldn't discuss race discourse with this game publicly.” (48:44-51:36)

Not Discussing Race in Game Promo—A Protective Strategy (51:28 – 53:39)

• Rahul shares that avoiding discussion of representation was a deliberate tactic to avoid being the headline or the focus of attacks:
  • Rahul: “All that's going to happen is that. That's the sound bite. That's the article head. And all of a sudden I have 50 f***ing articles that are only about me talking about my race when it has nothing to do with the game.” (52:28)

Coping with Online Hate and Emotional Fallout (54:52 – 55:56)

• Rahul and David discuss the emotional toll of “taking everything personally” and trying not to cater to every online comment.
• David: “It's exhausting because...it gets really like catering to everyone's comment online. It's an insane way to live.” (55:19)
• The Internet, sensitivity, and finding a “middle ground” where caring about your work does not destroy you.

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Reflections on the Culture, Industry, and Technology

Shifting Culture: Game Wars, AI, and Media Literacy (18:43 – 20:18; 56:01 – 57:30)

• The hosts explore how the shift to digital/download-only platforms, storage space, and subscription models is changing ownership and access.
• Nostalgia for LAN parties, internet cafes, and physical media.
• A brief but wide-ranging digression into AI, deepfakes, and the increasing difficulty of distinguishing authentic content online:
  • Rahul: “I want to say like 12 months change that we've had to now like sort of reprogram ourselves is immediately seeing something and then having to then pay triple attention to make sure it wasn't just AI.” (56:12)

The Visa Process for International Artists (58:42 – 66:20)

• Rahul and David share the labyrinthine absurdities of maintaining O-1 visas (for "aliens of extraordinary ability"), recent bureaucratic changes under the Trump and Biden administrations, and the precarious balancing act for foreign artists living and working in the US.
  • Rahul: "It's the most braggy visa...I wish they’d change the name..." (59:17)
• Mishaps and frustrations with US immigration, including amusing anecdotes about misprinted green cards and exhausting processing logistics.

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Acting Methods, Accents, and Industry Anecdotes

Immersing in Roles and Dropping the Method (67:48 – 71:16)

• Rahul’s journey from exhausting method acting ambitions to learning to “just act”—with the help of costar Rose McIver.
  • Rahul: "I was very isolated, like actor who thought everything needed to be method. I was a bit exhausting when I started...Rose was the biggest leader of, dude, just act." (68:09)
• Hilarious stories about "going method" for iZombie, including sneaking into NA meetings for a role and spending time in a real morgue.

Accents and Cultural Confusion (66:21 – 67:48)

• Amusing sidebar on Americans being perpetually confused by their accents.
• Rahul: “It’s a 50/50 roulette of British or Australian…depends what mood I’m in.” (66:39)
• A playful dig at Kiwi flatness (David), and Rahul expressing envy over how flawless Kiwis and Aussies perform American accents.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• David (on gaming addiction): “It’s like crack to me. I’m also very high level in Pokemon Go because it’s the same thing, just slightly improving, meeting goals. I feel like there must be some sort of deep-seated psychological programming slash malfunction that’s going on in the back of my brain that I just have to keep leveling up in these games.” (01:19)
• Rahul (on video game racism): “I've never received so much racism as I have in the last four weeks from being the star of a huge video game.” (43:17)
• Rahul (on avoiding race questions): "If Alana continues to do that, it seems like it's the only thing she wants to talk about and the narrative changes on it...That's the article head. And all of a sudden I have 50 f***ing articles that are only about me talking about my race when it has nothing to do with the game." (52:08)
• Rahul (on acting method): “You didn’t need to listen to the Soviet Union anthem all day just because you had Russian brain.” (70:47)
• David (on first gaming experience): “There’s a photo of me and my brother laying on the floor. It’s our first time overseas. Most of our time we just wanted to be playing that video game as opposed to seeing Niagara Falls.” (13:45)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:06–18:43: Childhood and adolescent gaming experiences (roleplaying, escaping, early consoles, nostalgia, and gaming guilt).
• 27:36–33:44: Rahul’s move from London to LA: shocks, challenges, and comparisons.
• 32:53–36:45, 41:20–46:04: Experiences with racism, shifting climate in North America, and online hate after Saros.
• 44:07–46:04: The process and pride of leading Saros, critical acclaim, and industry context on representation.
• 51:28–53:39: Tactical silence: Avoiding media race talk to prevent being tokenized or targeted.
• 58:42–66:20: Artist visa pains, surprising mishaps, and expat community life.
• 67:48–71:16: On method acting, accents, learning to let go.
• 74:19–74:56: Post-interview reflection on how none of the backlash was about the gameplay.

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Tone and Style

The episode embraces Farrier's usual blend of warmth, irreverence, and thoughtful curiosity. Back-and-forth banter regularly veers from light-hearted nostalgia to serious contemplation of identity, race, and the price of artistic vulnerability in digital spaces. Kohli is candid, self-aware, sometimes hilarious––and deeply sincere about both his pride and frustration.

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For Listeners

This episode is a must-listen if:

• You’re interested in how video games shape identities and community,
• You’re curious about the reality of immigrant or minority representation in US pop culture,
• You want a nuanced, emotionally resonant take on both the joy and cost of “making it” in games.

No ads or outros are included in this summary. For further thoughts or to share your own formative game memory, email: [e-mail].

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Transcript

[David Farrier]

Hi, man.

[Rahul Kohli]

Hi.

[David Farrier]

My little McDonald's cheeseburger. Yeah, that's. That was a real good insight into your brain, though, right? When it's under pressure, where does it go? And the answer is straight to the cheeseburger. I love a cheeseburger. This might actually be aligned today's topic. We're talking gaming, video gaming, that kind of thing. And there's one thing I know about you, Hayden, is that you love video games. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Video games. Yes, yes, yes, I love video games. What. What are you playing at the moment and why do you love playing video games so much? I've been stuck for a really long time just playing Elden Ring over and over again. It's like a weird pattern that's sort

[Rob]

of

[David Farrier]

been forged in my brain. A road that I just have to constantly walk down. And I've played hundreds and hundreds of hours of the game Elden Ring. If I think about the games you play, you like to play kind of role playing games, don't you? You like to sort of inhabit a different life for a while. Yes. Is it Inhabit a different life? I think that the thing that really gets me about role playing games is the constant incremental improvement.

[Rob]

I'm like.

[David Farrier]

It's like crack to me. I'm also very high level in Pokemon Go because it's the same thing, just slightly improving meeting goals. I feel like there must be some sort of deep seated psychological programming slash malfunction that's going on in the back of my brain that I just have to keep leveling up in these games. And it gives me such great satisfaction. I can feel people diagnosing me right now. Do you feel like you're improving in your own life as well or just in the game world? I imperceptibly, if anything, I think I'm getting worse. Just calcifying, you know, just calcifying into my bad habits. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America. And I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now I get very excited whenever we have to have guests on the couch who are not from America because I get to rant and rave about America even more because I have someone with me to gang up on. Rob. In this episode, we're joined on the couch by Raul Kohli. Raul is from London, moving to Los Angeles, where he ended up being cast in some of my favorite TV shows, including iZombie and Netflix's Midnight Mass. But what really caught my attention recently is that Raul is starring in A massive video game. As in his likeness is the main character. He's the guy that you play. This is interesting to me because, well, gaming in America tends to be a pretty notoriously white space. And Raoul is not white. The game Saros is getting rave reviews. Raul's dreams come true. But along with that, he's touched a nerve. We wanted to get him on the show to talk about his impression of the United States and how it's changed over the years, especially through the lens of acting and gaming. So get comfy and grab your controllers because this is the video games with Rahul Episode.

[Rahul Kohli]

Flightless Bird Touchdown in America.

[David Farrier]

I'm a flyless bird.

[Rahul Kohli]

Touchdown in America.

[David Farrier]

Rob, I'm back from New Zealand.

[Rob]

You're back. Welcome back.

[David Farrier]

Thank you. Successfully through customs. They let me back in. I bought you some gifts. Would you like them at the top of the show?

[Rob]

Let's maybe save it to the end of the show.

[David Farrier]

Should we save it to the end? Can I give you one to start with? And I'm going to dribble them out.

[Rob]

Okay, Good, good, good.

[David Farrier]

I am going to present you with a Cadbury Crunchy Bar. This is like gold in New Zealand. It is. We would say in New Zealand, Hokey Pokey on the inside, chocolate on the outside. I believe Americans would say honeycomb.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We. We had Hokey Honeycomb. We. We had it when the New Zealand ice cream truck came for one of our live shows. And it was my favorite flavor. The best is Cadbury, a New Zealand brand.

[David Farrier]

Oh, God.

[Rob]

Because we have Cadbury eggs here.

[David Farrier]

You know, look, I'm going to Google this. This is a really good example of how the more I spend time in America, the less I know my roots. So it's British.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Spun off from Kraft Foods since 2010. Weirdly growing up in New Zealand. And this probably is why my brain farted. It's marketed so heavily with very specific, like, New Zealand things. Right. Like when we did that Milky Bar Kid episode for Nestle growing up, I was like, nestle is a New Zealand brand. Clearly the Milky Bar Kid has a New Zealand voice. Not knowing how marketing works and that they localize it in every area.

[Rob]

Well, but you can't get them here. Is that true?

[David Farrier]

I have never seen a Crunchy bar in America.

[Rob]

I mean, it looks delicious.

[David Farrier]

It looks like, I reckon, give the kids a little bit. Save a little end for Vincent and a little end for Calvin. Maybe Natalie, a bit of the middle. And then you have the other half

[Rob]

smell chocolate so she won't be Able to have it, but. Oh, that's right.

[David Farrier]

Just nibble off the chocolate and she can have the honeycomb scent.

[Rob]

She'll love that.

[David Farrier]

One other bit of trivia. When I got back to America, my neighbor was giving things away from their storage, and she presented me with Hangman, the board game. The COVID says Hangman, a classic American game for two. Two things jump out. I didn't really think of Hangman as being American. And I also have only played Hangman as a game on paper where you just draw it out. So I'm curious what an entire board game world is built up around this very simple concept.

[Rob]

Yeah. I mean, in the fact it's that game as a whole, on paper. Like Calvin's played Hangman. So it's.

[David Farrier]

It's such a. It's such a bleak game.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

You were hanging. Like, hanging is dark. It's bleak. It's execution.

[Rob]

But as a kid, I don't know that it was. I was fully associating this person's being executed as I'm playing it. You're just drawing a person.

[David Farrier]

You draw. Yeah. And I didn't think you draw the rope around the neck or a line. And I never thought this person is. The ground is being brought out from underneath them. They're dropping, their neck is breaking. They're dead. That was never there.

[Rob]

Yeah. It would be more like you're getting detail. You're getting fingers drawn and then shoes and you're putting clothes on them. And it was pretty fucked up that it's insane. That was elementary school. Like, elementary school, you're playing Hangman also.

[David Farrier]

It makes me think of that board game episode we did ages ago where I discovered that in New Zealand it was Snakes and Ladders, but in America, they made it Chutes and Ladders because snakes were allegedly too scary. Kind of insane. When Hangman is your classic American game where you're killing a man, it's like, snakes are no good.

[Rob]

This cover has a guy with a noose.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's.

[David Farrier]

No, it's very. Yeah. No, it's a man with a noose. You know, he's in sort of Western Times. He's in a Western village, but it's still pretty. I mean, ages on the box. Eight to adult. So eight, not. Yeah, yeah.

[Rob]

I don't. Yeah. No.

[David Farrier]

I'm not a parent. I don't know. When do you teach your kids about hanging?

[Rob]

About execution styles?

[David Farrier]

Anyway, gaming. I'm excited about today's episode because how this came about. I was in a Best Buy, which we don't have in New Zealand. God, I hope that's still true.

[Rob]

Why do they're closing? They're not opening. So they expanded to New Zealand.

[David Farrier]

We just got a Costco a couple of years ago. So we have Costco now. I don't know what the local New Zealand treat is on their menu. I should find out. Anyway. I was in a best Buy and as someone that used to play a lot of video games, I'm always curious. So I wander through the Xbox aisle and the PC aisle and the PlayStation aisle and I saw this guy I know on the front cover of this new PlayStation game with a giant poster. I'm like, rahul, what are you doing on here? This is insane.

[Rob]

Did he answer?

[David Farrier]

He wasn't in the store. I loudly announced it. Nothing happened. People just looked at me weird. And I thought he would be a great person to get in here because I think gaming is a huge topic. He's incredibly passionate about games. I also clock that he is not from America. So I thought we could talk some shit about America and get his perception and also just the nature of him being a brown guy as a main character in a video game. I kind of had a feeling that would have created some ripples and was curious to kind of get his take on how that was for him.

[Rob]

Yeah. Well, before we get into it with him.

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rob]

I'm interested to hear kind of your personal background with video games because it's so generational.

[David Farrier]

Deeply. Deeply.

[Rob]

When I was a kid, we had Super Nintendo. And then I remember when the Nintendo 64 came out, you're a little bit older, so And. And international. So I don't know if that changes.

[David Farrier]

No, I want to compare. I want to know what your formative. The thing where your mind was kind of blown and drawn into a game. Like what that was.

[Rob]

Yeah. Well, it's weird because there's waves. Every time there's a new generation of video games, it changes completely. So when I was a kid, we had Super Nintendo. I was big into the sport games. There was Brett Hull hockey and Big Hurt baseball. NBA Jam.

[David Farrier]

I know NBA Jam.

[Rob]

NBA Jam was a big one.

[David Farrier]

So sport all the way for you. You wanted to play these games.

[Rob]

And then there was Donkey Kong, Mario Land, Mario Kart.

[David Farrier]

Were you playing these at your house or friends houses or both?

[Rob]

Both.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rob]

So we. We had a Super Nintendo and my friend that lived behind us had a regular Nintendo.

[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

So. And the games all are different. And then my neighbor who was a little bit older had a Sega. So we'd sometimes go over to his house to play Sonic.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And there's these lines kind of drawn between all of these games. I mean, like, Dreamcast came out at some point too, and then it took a disc. And you're also seeing kind of the socioeconomics at play of kids at school that are wealthier completely.

[David Farrier]

Who has what, who are getting the

[Rob]

new consoles every year they come out and it's weirdly this like status thing that starts happening all the way. But. But at first, very pure. I feel like Super Nintendo with like the Mario and the Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. And then I do remember there being a big transformation when Nintendo 64 came out and Mario World 64 came out.

[David Farrier]

That was a big moment where it

[Rob]

was, here's this 3D world with Mario. GoldenEye.

[David Farrier]

GoldenEye cannot express how big GoldenEye was with me. And my friends loved GoldenEye. It was still. It's still good if you can get your hands on that console or an emulator. Holy shit.

[Rob]

Going through like the vents with Odd Job and finding the Golden Gun.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Hell yeah.

[Rob]

But at that young age, also being introduced to, like, weapons as a result. But again, it's almost like Hangman where, yeah, I think societally maybe different, but it wasn't necessarily this like, click and association of violence.

[David Farrier]

I couldn't agree more. And I think that, Yeah, I mean, that's where the whole debate around violence in video games comes from. Right. It's like what it's teaching you and does it reflect in real life? But I agree, I never thought when I was shooting things in video games as a kid, extreme violence in front of me. I never once associated it with any kind of real life action. It was all fantasy.

[Rob]

Yeah. And I don't know if that's because you were so far removed from weapons, from gun culture. Like, if. If my dad was a hunter and we had guns around, maybe that association would have been different.

[David Farrier]

But yeah, your brain would be going,

[Rob]

gun was so foreign.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Your brain. If your parents were big hunters, say your brain would be going, oh, maybe I could do this with a real gun as opposed to going, this is a dumb video game.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I feel like my way in as you're talking. My brain's popping in so many ways because there's crossover despite us definitely having different things at different times. My first video game experience ever, the only farrier family trip we've ever taken was to Canada because my mum, after she left school, went and did a year in, I believe, Vancouver, babysitting, like nannying for a family and so we all went over to Canada when I was about. I would have been seven probably.

[Rob]

She was still nannying at that time.

[David Farrier]

She's still nannying now. I went back to like visit her family that she nannied for and I. I'll try and find some photos to put up because I looked incredible. It was fucked up now. Little David was insane. So anyway, the family we were staying with, they had a one of the very early Nintendo's. I wish I could say what it was, but it was Super Mario World so it was my favorite.

[Rob]

I thought it was super Nintendo then.

[David Farrier]

Would it be Super Nintendo because it

[Rob]

was the side scrolling slot where you would put it in, not open up

[David Farrier]

and put it in. Yeah, this was very long time ago. Square controller.

[Rob]

Yeah. You had to blow, blow in the bottom of the game if it wasn't working.

[David Farrier]

Oh yeah, absolutely. Blow the shit off. And I just remember being something in my brain fundamentally shifted and changed in a similar way that I think kids brains shift when they get given an iPad these days or something like their brain. It's a moment you can never go back from. And there's a photo of me and my brother laying on the floor. It's our first time overseas. Most of our time we just wanted to be playing that video game as opposed to seeing Niagara Falls or going and looking at a Mountie or maple syrup or whatever the fuck Canadians do. So that was like my first thing. And then it went. I was at school, sort of fast forward when I'm sort of 13, 14, 15. I was a computer monitor, which is lower tier in a social scene than being a librarian. It was rough. I basically was in the computer rooms volunteering during the day and would help out in the computer labs and I'd clean the mice. Back in the day a mouse would have a ball in it. It wasn't lasers. It got gunked up by like kids. Horrible sweat.

[Rob]

Public use of a mouse.

[David Farrier]

Awful.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And so my job was to like pop the balls out and like clean them.

[Rob]

Have you ever taken like your keyboard and shake?

[David Farrier]

Oh, I do it once a week.

[Rob]

Horrific. Awful. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Oh. So clean your keyboard everyone. Anyway in there, I got massively into all the first person tutors. So Descent and Doom and Quake. Yeah, and Doom is something that I would daydream about at school. All I wanted to do was get home and get into that world. Doom was. It's hard to describe how much it took over my head.

[Rob]

Doom was kind of scary too. That one beast that would run after you.

[David Farrier]

Oh, fucking terrifying.

[Rob]

That you could not. It was hard to kill. Right.

[David Farrier]

It was hard to kill. And playing through the quakes as well. I was. I. I was. It's hard to describe how obsessed I was with gaming. I would. On weekends would take my computer. I get my parents to drop me off at a friend's house and we'd network them up and have land parties over the weekend. It's. I'm. I'm basically just trying to say I was the biggest gaming nerd imaginable and then got into Xbox and then kind of just event. Sort of dropped off. I've completely dropped off. I probably until I was 18, maybe university. It was all I did.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And now it's like this world that I wish I was still into. But I've just dropped off. And that's why Rahul is interesting to me because he never stopped. He's an adult who has just kept playing and has slowly been voice. Like getting into actually being acting in games. He was a voice and a character in Diablo 2.

[Rob]

This.

[David Farrier]

Obviously this new one is huge for him. But I kind of look at. I kind of wish I was still into it.

[Rob]

I get what you mean. There's like a nostalgia and a feeling. There's an escapism to video games and just like a simpler time. I like. I remember playing video games like a sleepover. Sleepovers till 7am the sun's coming up and you're playing video games.

[David Farrier]

Still got goosebumps. Literally got goosebumps thinking about that. It was the best feeling.

[Rob]

Yeah. Um. So I miss that time. But there's. As you get older there's a guilt to being productive or not.

[David Farrier]

I share.

[Rob]

I share that to build.

[David Farrier]

I share that with you.

[Rob]

Yeah. Where. Where the idea of sitting for two hours and playing a video game as a parent.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And as someone that works a lot.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Seems irresponsible in my brain. Like that's the case. I'm building as to why I could not play video games.

[David Farrier]

That's exactly me. I think you nailed it. I think it's guilt. I think it's. I feel it if I'm watching a TV show for too long on my butt. I think you get around that by doing work while you watch stuff. I struggle to do two things at once. So I can't. But the idea of sitting down like I used to for eight hours. It's just. I'm riddled with guilt about what I should be doing. I can't even imagine what that would be when you're also like raising kids. Because That's a whole other. I'm just talking about. I should be doing some work or maybe like checking in on some friends.

[Rob]

We do though start to bleed into like. Calvin has gotten a little into the switch, so it can be a bonding thing with your kid.

[David Farrier]

That's cool. So you're playing Mario Kart with your kid. That's the thing.

[Rob]

We've done that. Yeah. So there is. There was the whole. The whole World of Xbox vs. PlayStation vs. Computer games I think was interesting. Huge. Because Xbox and PlayStation were kind of battling for market superiority. They were just trying to one up each other all the time.

[David Farrier]

Still are, I feel like.

[Rob]

Still are.

[David Farrier]

Varying degrees of success.

[Rob]

I don't. I feel like Xbox hasn't put out a new console in a while.

[David Farrier]

I feel like when I was in Best Buy, PlayStation has all the real estate. Xbox felt like a tiny section.

[Rob]

I do think recently I remember reading something controversial happened with PlayStation where if you bought some stuff that you were supposed to own from the platform, they've removed some from their catalog and you don't have it anymore.

[David Farrier]

That adds into the whole physical media debate. Whereas you don't have a thing on disc and it gets removed, you're fucked.

[Rob]

Xbox and PlayStation I think have been moving more and more digital without the actual physical gaming. Buying it from the store and downloading it. But then hard drive space becomes a thing.

[David Farrier]

This whole all that is all subscription based, obviously.

[Rob]

Yeah. And then computer gaming, I feel like was a whole nother world, which was almost the next level of video gaming.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, I feel like. And again, I'm talking from the perspective of someone that stopped doing this like 20 years ago. So. Any gamers listening? Forgive me, but I feel like PC was always seen as being the elite hardcore. If you're a real game, you have a PC. PC, yeah. You got a keyboard, you need a keyboard, you need a mouse for that specific sharpshooting that you're going to do.

[Rob]

Well, we. I mean, we would go to Internet cafes because they had the T1 Internet cafe and play Counter Strike.

[David Farrier]

Internet cafe culture was incredible.

[Rob]

Everyone in there chain smoking next to you and.

[David Farrier]

Different times. Yeah, different days entirely.

[Rob]

I can still smell just to kind

[David Farrier]

of state how much I was into games from, I guess, sort of a nostalgia point of view. When I was a reporter in New Zealand, I ended up going to E3, which doesn't happen anymore, but it took over the LA Convention center and it was basically the launch for all the new games that are coming out that year. And I just bring this up because that was the year because I had to come over and keep the trip really cheap and book the cheapest places possible. That's when I stayed at the Cecil Hotel in downtown la. And that's where I found out later that it was. I was staying there when the woman was still in the. The water tank on the roof and I showered and drank from the tap. So that's one note around games. I also at one point during that sort of reporting time ended up in Galway in Ireland and I sat down and played Doom with John Romero, who is the guy that co created that game. And that was just fucking heaven. That was so cool.

[Rob]

Yeah. Oh my God.

[David Farrier]

I just want to say how cool that was.

[Rob]

One other thing before we get into the interview. Do you remember when Grand Theft Auto came out?

[David Farrier]

I remember.

[Rob]

Well, do you remember the 2D PlayStation version of it?

[David Farrier]

No, I came in. No, actually I'm going to. I sort of lied then. I don't have a defining memory of that. I know that it's a phenomenon and I know how exciting it was to play, but I didn't have a come to God moment like I think a lot of people did.

[Rob]

Yeah, I. I think that maybe can be its own episode because that gta, I think there's another one coming out. Not to just in future is everyone's very excited about. I think 1 and 2 were on PlayStation and it was just like an aerial 2D version of it. And then GTA 3 came out and that was the one that everyone.

[David Farrier]

It blew people's minds. Yes. Because that was open worlds, incredibly violent. So many side quests. Holy.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And it's still going.

[Rob]

Yeah. And then last cultural phenomena came for me. Tony Hawk, Pro Skater. When those came out, I during COVID got they like reissued Pro Skater 1 and 2 and we had like an Xbox in the garage. So I got it. It was insane to see my muscle memory playing that game just kickstart 15 years later of like. Oh, triangles grinding and. Yeah. Just how quickly my. My fingers could click back into that game.

[David Farrier]

It hadn't gone anywhere.

[Rob]

No.

[David Farrier]

Like literally like riding a bike. Jump back on.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Do you play anything now or you haven't for a while?

[Rob]

No, it's been a while.

[David Farrier]

Just for your kids. Yeah.

[Rob]

Post that. Whole world would just get in. I would just get into sports games during sports season. So when it's football season, I would play Madden.

[David Farrier]

Oh, you mentioned NBA Jam earlier. Yeah, I did get into that and that was the last point. We touched on this briefly in the blockbuster episode, but I Think we would both do that thing where we would rent a console on the weekend.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I just remember renting it. Sega Mega Drive 2 was the thing that my family would get. And when I say family, I just mean me. And I just remember going so hard on NBA Jam, Echo the Dolphin, Flashback, a bunch of sonic games, Golden Axe, street fighter, Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

As I think about, the Mortal Kombat was a huge part of my life.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And weirdly like growing up again, it goes back to the violence. Mortal Kombat and I grew up in a like a pretty, you know, Christian conservative. All that stuff was kind of okay.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Like weirdly it was all right. It was like fantasy and I loved it.

[Rob]

I missed the Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat stuff. That was more arcade for me because we didn't. That was Sega, it was all single. Right. So we didn't have a Sega. So if we were at an arcade, that would be there. But that it was like too repetitive for me where you're just. You've got the two buttons you're mashing

[David Farrier]

once you get into the combos and shit.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And we're living in a time where Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat films are all coming out again. That is that nostalgic shit is targeted at people in their 40s like me. Makes me feel insane. I'm so fucking excited.

[Rob]

Giddy like a child again.

[David Farrier]

If you think we are slightly passionate about games, Rahul Kohli is a whole different level. And he is now starring in this giant PlayStation game. Very nice to have him on the couch. Here is our conversation with Rahul Kohli. Welcome.

[Rahul Kohli]

Hey, how you doing?

[David Farrier]

A very boring question that we always get people to start with. Just sort of introduce yourself and what it is that you do as you define it.

[Rahul Kohli]

My name's Rahul Kohli and I'm an actor. Not super. Well, I mean it depends what you watch. If you like horror, you probably have seen something I'm in.

[David Farrier]

Horror people know you.

[Rahul Kohli]

Horror people? Yeah, possibly.

[David Farrier]

I met you through my New Zealand friend, Rose MacGyver because you were both on the same show. I. Zombie.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And so I met you through her and I just thought you're a delight from the get go.

[Rahul Kohli]

I think you were staying in Vancouver, Right.

[David Farrier]

I was my first kind of on set experience on like a program. And it was kind of amazing to see all you guys do your thing because I've never really been around TV like that.

[Rahul Kohli]

Sure.

[Rob]

Did he mess anything up on set? Do you like knock something Over.

[Rahul Kohli]

I can't remember if I was working when. When you were there. I know that. So Rose, she was gonna have a goat.

[David Farrier]

Me for this.

[Rahul Kohli]

So Rose has that. I think there's been a few times where this has happened, especially with me. I think me and Rose were very like brother and sister. And we would, like, say we were all meeting up for a casting or whatever. Rose might say, oh, by the way, I got a friend in town. They're gonna join us. And you'd be like, we don't know him. And said. But Rose was like that. She was very much like, bring people around. And there was a point where she hit me up and she said, my buddy Dave's in town, but I'm at work and we're on location. Can he come hang out at yours? Do you remember?

[David Farrier]

Yeah, I do remember.

[Rahul Kohli]

And I was like, this fucking dude is.

[Rob]

You made a doc about tickling.

[David Farrier]

You love him, you know, can you babysit this guy?

[Rahul Kohli]

I'm not sure if we had that much. I had that much context about the documentaries. I remember you came round and, like, you were awesome. And I was like, oh, okay, well, my bad. But I obviously, you know, it's just like.

[David Farrier]

No, it's a very funny way. It's a very funny thing for a colleague and friend to sort of force their friend on you for the day. It's like they're in town. Babysit this guy David.

[Rahul Kohli]

This could go look after him.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, completely. It's like you've got other to do. Horrible.

[Rahul Kohli]

But it was awesome.

[David Farrier]

But it went well.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, yeah, well, because I was obsessed with the things you've made.

[David Farrier]

It was nice. We had that.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. Sort of in common, you know, your

[Rob]

fandom of your own stuff.

[Rahul Kohli]

We were both big fans of Dave.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Came out wrong.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

But my point is, the day went well.

[Rahul Kohli]

Absolutely. The day went well.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And I. I know where we have you in here to talk about gaming specifically, but I remember back then you did have a lot of gaming paraphernalia.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I admired some of your figurine collection because I also am collector. You dive into that a little bit. But before we get to that, I'm just curious. You came, and we can tell from your accent, you came from London to L. A.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yes. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I was just curious what that transition was like, because I came from New Zealand, which is much smaller. Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Wellington.

[David Farrier]

I came from Auckland.

[Rahul Kohli]

Auckland, okay.

[David Farrier]

Big city, but compared to London, much smaller. Sure, but you came from, like, big British city to big American city. I'm curious like what that transition felt like for you.

[Rahul Kohli]

So when I first got here, I was in a very. I don't know how to describe this Drake mode. I was feeling myself.

[Rob]

Canadian.

[Rahul Kohli]

Canadian. Crody. No, I was like 27, 28. I'd never sort of had money. My acting gigs prior to Izombie was like background roles. Maybe a line in a soap opera once and that was it. And then I went from that to Izombie. So I was on a bit of a tear. I. I could find like I didn't have to pre drink. I. We used to like buy a 2 liter bottle of cider and pre drink it. That'd be us done and trying that buzz. Um, now, you know, we had disposable income. So the first place I lived was next to the Pantages on Hollywood Boulevard.

[David Farrier]

Amazing.

[Rahul Kohli]

So I did LA in the most disgusting in your face and I was fine with that. Like it fit me for the time. I was constantly partying and you leant

[David Farrier]

into all of LA's LA things 100%.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. You know, I could see the Hollywood side and I could see the stars, you know, the Walk of Fame and all of that. And I was just a rat. Like Spider man and cosplay and stuff.

[Rob]

Was that impressive? Like were you. You grew up watching America on TV and it was like, oh, this is what I saw in movies.

[Rahul Kohli]

Absolutely. It was definitely like I was definitely living my own story. Like that kind of fantasy in my head, you know, like if you're a. A kid from, from the uk, you only, you know, you. Your perception of America is very much like, well, Times Square and you know, Hollywood Boulevard or the Hills, you know, you just have these few things that you pull from. So that felt like a very different experience once I kind of like was like, I don't ever want to do that again.

[David Farrier]

You calm down slightly.

[Rahul Kohli]

Calm down a bit. I actually disliked it. Once the kind of party stopped, it felt very empty. It has a lot of people and a lot of things to do, but it still feels very isolating. And I struggled with the lack of transportation.

[David Farrier]

Like yeah, you're stuck in your own space. Wherever you are without a car. It's. You can't easily be at your friend's house.

[Rahul Kohli]

Exactly.

[David Farrier]

Lives in a different area.

[Rahul Kohli]

Almost everything code would do in London. You, you know there's a. There's a 30 minute radius pretty much.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

If you wanted to go out for drinks as well. Like having that tube system and having public transport and just. There was just. And there was A pub culture and you go out and you do things and. And I very much found out here, man, if you're 20 minute drive plus, it's done. We're not even. We're not even remotely considering it. Yeah.

[Rob]

West side's a different state.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, exactly.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Easy to become super isolated when you're just trying to set up your stability in a new place that feels unique

[Rob]

to LA and not necessarily America. You've been around America since, I'm assuming.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, yeah. Spend time. Yeah, a lot of places now.

[Rob]

Do you feel that that tends to still be the trend of America, even outside of LA or so?

[Rahul Kohli]

New York is my favorite and I think that that's probably to do with where I'm from. I felt like anytime I'm in New York, I just shot there for a few months. First time we just did the Exorcist with Mike Flanagan. I had only ever spent at that point like a week or so in New York for like press or events and I. I never felt more home. I knew the rules. I was just like, get up and get out and walk and.

[David Farrier]

And you're sorted for the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

And even the attitudes, I think that there's a personality compatibility. Like on. On izombie, the people I would say I was the closest to out the gate was Rose. And I think that Kiwi Brit.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Kind of camaraderie and totally sense of

[David Farrier]

humor lines up perfectly straight away.

[Rahul Kohli]

And the other person was actually Malcolm. I had less kind of growing pains with him in terms of like humor, not understanding me. And he was a New Yorker. And especially when we went out and how we like to dance and, and talk, that was kind of in the same. Getting a little bit aggressive, but you're not, you're just, you know that New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

It's all showing.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. So. So those two were like my instant clicks.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Culture wise. And I felt that with. With New York too. But then I've been to other places where I think Europeans don't realize and probably Brits don't realize. Like, it. You are in a different country. It's. States are different countries. They really are.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

It might not look it at first. You might just keep seeing the same sort of like Starbucks.

[David Farrier]

Starbucks, yeah, yeah. But so different. That's the main thing that I'm keeping reminded of is how different every state is.

[Rahul Kohli]

It really is.

[David Farrier]

It's mad.

[Rob]

I mean, even like politically, you go to a place that is red versus blue, like. Yeah, totally different. Yeah. Different country.

[Rahul Kohli]

I Try not to bring any kind of like bias or things. I've heard about it, you know, because filming's filming. I don't get to pick where I go. Like I've shot in Alabama and that was rough. And it wasn't because I went in with any kind of like notion of this might be a bit different for me. I felt it immediately the first time I went to buy cigarettes at gas station and I was like, oh, this does not feel good.

[David Farrier]

Like a race thing right there in your face.

[Rahul Kohli]

That felt like straight away. Albuquerque was kind of similar too. I felt this like shift and I was like, ah. But then I, you know, you go to Seattle, Portland and shot in Atlanta as well.

[David Farrier]

Completely fine.

[Rahul Kohli]

Completely fine. Completely chill. So it's, it's, it's. I, I don't think I'd run back to Alabama anytime soon. Yeah, I don't have a choice, you know, if you film, you film.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, it's amazing that still exists. I mean, that's one thing with the show. Like I'm walking around America as a white guy. I don't feel any of that, you know. So you're having such a vastly different experience to this country than I am.

[Rahul Kohli]

I think it's accelerated too. I've watched the shift. There was a big shift in Canada as well, a racial shift. One of the things. So when I, when I first got here and we started doing iZombie, it's 2013, 2014, we're still in the Obama administration. I don't think the culture wars had. Had was anywhere close to what it was like now. And this whole anti woke campaign and all of this stuff, I think it started to culminate. It started to really accelerate around 2016, 2017. I think you can probably put a pin in when the Last Jedi came out. A lot of it to do. And they said, I remember the shutter around. Of course there were bots, there was, it was a war that was being manufactured.

[David Farrier]

Which sounds mad when you're talking about that with no context.

[Rahul Kohli]

I know, right?

[David Farrier]

But yeah, that film was that it just generated so much chaos.

[Rahul Kohli]

It started something. Couple that with Gamergate as well. We were destined for some sort of disaster. But when I got here, there was obviously racial tensions. There was always like, you know, me walking around. There was always some. But I. But it definitely felt the. Especially like in Vancouver, for instance. That's where I spent eight months of the year. So anything that happened in America was. I was barely here. But Vancouver was interesting. I felt like, I felt welcome. I remember A lot of positive attention being in restaurants or bars. People just interactions were always positive. And then after Covid I went back and it felt very hostile towards South Asians. And there's been this huge backlash against Indian immigrants, student visas, all of this

[David Farrier]

type of same thing in New Zealand, right?

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. And Australia as well is going that way.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

And so I've always fell into this category where because of how I present people will sometimes assume I'm Muslim or I'll get some form of Islamophobia thrown my way. Whatever that's been since 9 11. Like it's just been the way it's been. It's nothing. But I'd say in the last six years racism towards South Asians just increased and has completely changed how I feel about like I'm about to go to Canada next week and I know that in like Nova Scotia there's been huge flare ups about Indians being there and accusing them of shitting on their beaches.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. So instead of just enjoying a new job that's coming up, you're thinking what is this going to feel like? What's this going to be like? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

And I don't feel it too much in la. I don't feel it. But I definitely felt it in Vancouver. I definitely felt it in Nova Scotia when I was last there. They're definitely. My presence seems to annoy people.

[David Farrier]

It's fucking mad to think that it's gotten worse since you got here. It seems obvious now you're saying it, but it's still, it sucks.

[Rob]

It's the permission that's been given from the top to that. People were embarrassed probably to feel like that when we had Obama and they knew that wasn't culturally accepted.

[David Farrier]

Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from article now. When I first moved to Los Angeles and well, I accidentally marooned here and moved into my first apartment, I filled it up with just a whole lot of crap, you know, I just needed to like get by. Since then I've been trying to make my home much more stylish and long lasting with quality items that are still affordable. And that's where article comes in. It makes it effortless to create a stylish, long lasting home at an unbeatable price. I recently for instance, replaced all my bedding linen and my duvet with beautiful article linen. It just arrived. I'm really into it. I got a beautiful deep green forest green duvet cover. I love it so much. It's so fluffy. It feels so good against my skin. God, it's better than what I had before. And that's the thing with Article. It's all consistently high quality. You can tell the difference in the quality when you get it in the mail. Article also has support when you need it. If you've got a question about the new desk you buy or the new bed, or the new stuff you get for your office, again, Article covers everything in your home. It feels like while their customer care team is available seven days a week offering knowledgeable support and even a free interior design service to help you get everything just right if you need help with that sort of thing. And they've also got a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. So you can shop with confidence. If you don't completely fall in love with your furniture you get, or your bedding or your office desk, whatever, you can just return it. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.combird and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's article.combird for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Zazzle. Now if it's one thing I really struggle with, it's getting good gifts for people. I leave it too late. I don't think about it enough. And then when it comes to the time to actually buy something, I'm left flummoxed. I go to a mall. I panic. The whole thing is awful. This is where Zazzle comes in to save me. If you're three days out from someone's birthday and you have no idea what to get, Zazzle is going to sort you out. Essentially, it's a custom marketplace where you can take basically any product like a mug, a tote bag, which I'm a big fan of, a card. My other favorite, a phone case. And you can make it mean something. I got a bunch of phone cases recently. They have Snoopy stuff on there. The best snoopy stuff. I've got a mug, I've got some iPhone cases, great presents. So, so good. To the point where I ended up taking some of them for myself and now I'm just using them on my phone anyway. You can browse millions of designs or start from scratch and build something completely your own. Either way, you're the designer in charge of the whole thing. Everything's made on demand, so there's none of that awkward, out of stock stuff. You pick it, you customize it, you get it done. And over 30 million customers have trusted Zazzle with their most important gifts. You can make it 30 million and 1. At the moment I'm got my eyes set on where the wild things are. Hello, God. My presents are all sorted right now. Save 25% on your first order at Zazzle.com that's 25% savings on your first [e-mail]. go make somethings amazing Zazzle.com this summer. Say I do.

[Rob]

I am marrying a stranger like never before.

[David Farrier]

Am I crazy? It's a whole new Married at First Sight on Peacock with new experts. My name is Dr. Lisa.

[Rahul Kohli]

My name is Paul Brunson.

[David Farrier]

Lord couples, this could be the start of a very successful marriage. And Lord surprises. Or maybe not.

[Rob]

Everything is just not enough.

[David Farrier]

You're little bit crazy. I don't know what's going to happen. I want my fairy tale ending. Married at First Sight now streaming new episodes Thursdays only on Peacock.

[Rahul Kohli]

Something's definitely happened. Where I can only speak from my experience, like from my lens. I think in a lot of ways right now everything has been accelerated. Homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti Semitism. We are, we're all, I think, together pushing towards intolerance, like a place of intolerance. And that's just, I think it's being accelerated by social media and it's attention. Yeah. And it gets attention and the administration doesn't help. And so I know we're headed there. But on a personal note, I have never felt more racism thrown my way than I have in the last, I'd say two years. Yeah, hell, it's like open season on Indians. And when I see the comments, I see that it's, it's really normalized. It's normalized in a really strange way. So if, if someone uses an F slur or the R slur or they're using the N word on a, on someone's post. If you go on that profile and you look at it, it's usually no name or numbers. You know, it's generating that nonsense. Go and watch an Indian person doing something, playing tennis. I don't know, whatever they've posted and look at the comments. Regular profiles with people whose jobs are listed making racial stereotypes about Indian South Asians. And I've never seen that before. And I was like, wow, the craziest one about this is that it's socially acceptable to accuse me or, you know, when my game came out, I was saying to my partner, I was there for the height of 9, 11. And Islamophobia and traveling we are. So we were pulled out of a group and whenever we tried to go to the airports, we were interviewed in private screening rooms. I've experienced all of that. I've never received so much racism as I have in the last four weeks

[David Farrier]

from being the star of a huge video game.

[Rahul Kohli]

The amount of stuff everywhere and it's so normal. It's not bots, it's people. I know who I click on the

[David Farrier]

profile and you see them with their kids.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's just like dude with, with his whole ass business address on the. Just a hairdresser. And I'm like, what is going on?

[David Farrier]

It's combining acting and games. It's almost like. Because gaming is. Can be so septic and toxic and obviously you see there's an amazing side of gaming, but it has this seething underbelly. And that's what you're seeing now, right?

[Rahul Kohli]

I live and breathe it. I was embedded in the culture. I was playing from three, four years old. It's all my parents remember is just how obsessed I was with that. The first job I wanted, wanted to go into development. I worked in the video game shop selling game, being part of the community. Yeah, it's a really strange one with Saros because you make something that you're proud of. But I.

[David Farrier]

And just for people that don't know about this game or that aren't and can you just explain how you fit into this world and what the game is like, what type of game it is just for someone that has no clue.

[Rahul Kohli]

So Saros is a game that came out beginning of May and it's a third person action sci fi shooter where you play as Argent Devraj which is played by myself. And it's the type of game that is like it. It has its roots in more of an like an. They call it bullet hell. But if you see it, it's, it's. It's akin to like an arcade shooter Chaos. High action difficulty. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

You are the central character. You're on the box, you're on the poster. The other day which is when I texted you being like, oh, there you are, front and center.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. I did the most motion capture for it. I did the performance capture which is the. The face dots with the camera which

[David Farrier]

is like your dream to be this like front and center giant title, right?

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Kid who worked in a gaming store, I know you have been involved in games in a variety of ways, but it doesn't get more involved than like this. It's surreal.

[Rahul Kohli]

It definitely feels weird to be 40 and feel like you like, oh, that's it.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I've done this now.

[Rahul Kohli]

That's it. That ceiling's done. Like, I always thought one day you'd get to that and finally get there and then it's everything you wanted. I mean, and even like the little stuff like, okay, you might get all that, but then like every, like, critics might hate it and you might end up with a three out of ten. It wasn't.

[David Farrier]

No, there's not far from really well.

[Rahul Kohli]

So it ticked everything.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. So you've got that on one side. You've released this thing you're really proud of. It's a critically acclaimed game.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

At the same time, you've got a whole lot of gamers giving you. We're just being racist shitheads.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Which is. Did you know it would be. And I wasn't intending to talk about this, but, like, are you, were you surprised at that? Like, were you prepared for that, knowing what you know about people?

[Rahul Kohli]

No. No. I remember the, the first zoom where they offered me the role and I didn't know. I didn't have context. Right. So I knew how smart the studio who made it. I was a big fan of their work and I knew they wanted to have a zoom with me. No context. Didn't know it was a lead role, didn't know what it was going to entail. And I've had those where, like, you sound like you're being set up for a big meeting and then it's like, and we'd like you to play this coffee mug and it's four lines. Could you do it? And you realize, why did you have your iPhone? And said, this could have been an email. Why are we having a fucking meeting over it? So I, I, so I had the meeting with them and, and all the pleasantries were out the way. They were about to play me a pitch, like a slideshow on their screen share, and I stopped them and said, I want you to know before you play this, I'm in. It's a yes. That's off your reputation. I have no idea what this is gonna be. And then they hit play. And then it was the lead.

[David Farrier]

Holy shit.

[Rahul Kohli]

Face, Mocap, all of it, the works. You will be a PlayStation mascot, you know, exclusive.

[Rob]

Is that normal now that an actor is portraying? Cause that wasn't how, like, counter strike as a kid playing. That was not like, here's a specific actor.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's been done. I would say it's not the norm. They'll have high profile actors come in and end up doing a voice like. I mean, Gary Oldman's done video game voices and stuff like that.

[David Farrier]

But full mocap is much rarer, isn't it? With introducing a person. I feel like the other big thing that jumps out to me was Mads and Death Stranding. Right? Yeah, that was like the big example.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. Hideo will. Will combine voice and looks and he.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, well, he's sort of scanning in every actor that joke around him.

[Rahul Kohli]

Right.

[David Farrier]

Like any actor in town, you'll scan in, you're getting. He's got them in his database.

[Rahul Kohli]

Absolutely.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[Rob]

I asked that just because. So it's a big deal that they were like. No, no.

[Rahul Kohli]

And especially the thing with the video game stuff is, is that like, like if you look at a Kratos or you know, from God of War, if you look at a Nathan Drake from Uncharted, like Nathan doesn't have Nolan North's likeness. There's baggage that comes with an actor that you recognize of TV or film. Oh, it's them in film and tv where we, we use that muscle a lot where we see a recognized face. But accept, we put that aside and accept. And I think in gaming you don't. You haven't had to do that. So it does stand out when you're like. And it happened. That's Kevin. That's Kevin Spacey.

[Rob]

Well, but that also then changes hate that's coming towards you because it's not of this character you're voicing, it's you on there.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. To be fair, once I knew what they were doing, I knew the back of my head. Well, I'm sure this is going to go smoothly. You know, I know I'm not an idiot. I part of the culture. I knew what was going to happen. I knew, I knew even at just a base level, one or two things were going to happen. Right. At its most kind of like normal and chill. A brown dude on the front cover. Never really happened before in AAA games. I'm probably gonna get Indian puns, usual trolling, you know, call center, Indian scammer stuff. That was gonna be fine. At worst it would blow up and become its own like thing. Like and you know, like it become a giant kind of like out of control misinform hates anti woke campaign. I knew we were going to be on somewhere on that spectrum and I don't think we ended up being on the. On the worst Case. And I think that's because

[Rob]

I don't

[Rahul Kohli]

think it was popular enough. And I think that was probably it. It didn't occupy enough space.

[David Farrier]

It wasn't Halo. Whatever.

[Rahul Kohli]

Wasn't Halo, wasn't a sequel. There are a few triggers to trigger group.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. If they'd seen you come in and up their favorite franchise, which is traditionally bang kicks Normal. Yeah. This is.

[Rob]

It's their own Little Mermaid backlash because they put a black woman in instead.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. So with ours, because it was a new ip, because it was sci fi. Like they still. I mean, I saw way too many comments than I should have. When we're talking, we're not talking like, oh, I saw 10 or 50. We're talking close to a thousand. I'd seen over the course of a year or two of just pure outright. I'm not touching it. Fuck Indians. Had this game had been a sequel, had it have been a character on TV that was now played race swapped, had there been any of that, it would have been done. We would have been a massive problem. But the marketing wasn't aggressive with this game for internal reasons. Whatever.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. You weren't being shoved down people's faces.

[Rahul Kohli]

No, we weren't. We were shoved down anyone. So. And I think that, that, that also not to say that their response is justified, but there are ways to fan the flames of that. And I think over marketing, I made a conscious effort as well. So this is an exclusive for this podcast.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

Finally. We've been waiting for an exclusive for years.

[Rahul Kohli]

I wouldn't discuss race discourse with this game publicly.

[David Farrier]

Okay. Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

So when we did, when I did my little press days, I had contacted Sony prior to that and said, I will not be answering any questions about representation. And Alana taught me that. My partner, she taught me this really interesting trick and she said so she was, as a woman in games, she said the thing that makes her stand out as she sort of has been a trailblazer in her. In her way. A lot of people, when they call her in for podcasts, interviews, journalists, they want to talk about that. And that's completely fine. That's what you are. That's, you know, it's. It's out of curiosity. It could be celebration. It could. It's always in good faith. However, if Alana continues to do that, it seems like it's the only thing she wants to talk about and the narrative changes on it.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, she's pushing this.

[Rahul Kohli]

She's pushing woman in games. Again. Talk about some. It's all she's been asked. She gets stuck in this like, cycle. And I'm so glad she gave me this because she said every single person is going to ask you first question. What's it like to be a South Asian on the front cover of a game? And all that's going to happen is is that. That's the sound bite. That's the article head. And all of a sudden I have 50 fucking articles that are only about me talking about my race when it has nothing to do with the game.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And a tiny part of the interview as well that suddenly goes everywhere and then.

[Rahul Kohli]

And usually the headlines aren't with your best interests. They have. They don't have your best interests at all.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, well.

[Rob]

And then you're meant to represent the entire race.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, exactly. For a billion Indians.

[Rob]

Which is probably not why you got into.

[Rahul Kohli]

Exactly. So. So. So I had a no talk about rule because I was like, when this game does come out, the other thing that bad faith grifters do is look through that, find isolated quotes. Find something where I said it's about time we, you know, we move away from the straight white male. Boom. Got it. Clipped content. And I got you. And I got you.

[David Farrier]

White erasure.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. And then I'm. And then I'm cooked. So, yeah. I did a very controlled. I never spoke about it. There was. And it felt my heartbreak. I watched an Indian dude who was so excited on your side.

[David Farrier]

He's like, yes.

[Rahul Kohli]

And wanted to do it. And he was like, I just have to ask you, as a South Asian, how does it feel to be the lead of this PlayStation game? And I went, well, it feels great to be the leader of a. And I completely just clicked that bit out. And I watched him go, oh, he didn't give me that. I wanted to talk about that thing that connects us. So I'm doing it now with you guys because I don't care. My watch is over. The game's done.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. They've moved on to distance on things.

[Rahul Kohli]

The new one was like the first 15 minutes of Bond gameplay came out the AA7 game.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

And they didn't like the way in which the woman in his earpiece is talking to him.

[David Farrier]

That's the new one. Fuck. It's wild.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Dude, you said this was the top of the mountain for you. Like you wanted to be the lead of a franchise or in a video game, but then to have such a dark cloud be tied.

[Rahul Kohli]

I'm wrestling with it, man.

[David Farrier]

We're so similar. I have such a similar reaction to. I'm much smaller scale than you, but I get. So. I take everything very personally and I want to address it whether it's good or bad. And I go around telling myself it's for good reasons, but a lot of the time it's just I'm sensitive to and I want to be honest about it. Yeah, but it's not though, it's, it's exhausting because like, it gets really like catering to everyone's comment online. It's a insane way to live.

[Rob]

I do think it shows in your work, and I'm assuming yours too though, that you care enough about it that you're not just disconnecting and walking away once it's out.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. There must be a middle ground, right?

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Of like not going insane, but also caring in some way.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, there has to be.

[David Farrier]

But you're also like me as well. Like you're, you're like all of us. Like you're online, like you're connected to that world and that's just part of your life that you've always been online like that.

[Rahul Kohli]

There is a middle ground to it where that's probably can be a superpower to care, to be passionate, to be sensitive. I think is, is. It's not a bad thing. But anything in excess is obviously not good.

[Rob]

And I think the Internet, it magnifies all of that.

[Rahul Kohli]

It just accelerates and it's getting worse.

[David Farrier]

The Internet's getting shittier as time goes on. Social media has made it more charged and it's breaking and it's harder to use and Google sucks. Yeah, it's all getting horrible.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's just, I mean, yeah, the, the new. I think I want to say like 12 months change that we've had to now like sort of reprogram ourselves is immediately seeing something and then having to then pay triple attention to make sure it wasn't just AI and not even real anymore.

[Rob]

Poorly written headline.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, there's that now. Is this real?

[Rahul Kohli]

Was this street fight real? And then you look back and you're like, no, they got eight fingers. Why someone made that. Or like, look at this cat eat a burger.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Even cat, even cat videos are all now. And you're like.

[Rahul Kohli]

And it's not because I'm, I'm media illiterate or like you, I'm so easily duped. I'm like a, you know, a 90 year old pensioner who thinks, you know, can't discern that from the, you know, the. My problem is, is that I keep getting tricked by AI because I don't know why someone made it.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't make sense. Why would someone make this?

[David Farrier]

The motivation is not obvious. Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

If you see Trump punching Obama Yes. I get why someone made that.

[David Farrier]

Right.

[Rahul Kohli]

I get why that was put through. Whatever. I don't get why the cat eating a burger in a funny way, needed to happen.

[David Farrier]

Raise a really good point. Yeah, completely. The motivation is what makes it as equally confusing as the actual. Yeah. AI Generated. Whatever.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. I get the sex ones. I get the. Like, the catfishing. It was always going to happen.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

We've been doing that as. For hundreds, I guess. Catfish.

[Rob]

Humans.

[Rahul Kohli]

Lonely humans. Yeah. They're going to always, you know, catfish. I don't know.

[David Farrier]

It's exhausting.

[Rahul Kohli]

Someone's bedroom and. And. And how they've moved their furniture and assemble. It's complete bullshit.

[David Farrier]

AI and you're like, suddenly you've been watching this.

[Rob]

Computing power for this.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Building data centers and, like, small towns for this. It's like, fucking up everyone's water.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I don't want to do, like, such an abrupt change, but, like, what are you particularly excited about at the moment? Like, I feel you're back with Flanagan shooting some cool shit.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Is the stuff you're particularly excited about or are you just still in a daze from this gaming stuff?

[Rahul Kohli]

I'm off to go and shoot the second series of a show I did for Amazon. We were Liars and we shot the first series in the Nova Scotia summer, isolated, kind of like, island. I kind of am welcoming it in my head. I know I have a job to do, but to me, it's going to be a real nice way to, like, get away from everything.

[David Farrier]

Nice. You mentioned just before visas and visa issues. I've literally just got Rob to fill in a form saying he'll work with me for another three years for my 01. You're o1ing it as well?

[Rahul Kohli]

I ow1 it. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

How is that going for you? I'm about to send it in, so pay my money to my lawyer.

[Rahul Kohli]

I have some heartbreaking news for you. So I'll say this weirdly, because the O1s. I know your audience knows what no one is. Right. It's for artists.

[David Farrier]

I rample on about it enough. Yeah.

[Rob]

You talk a lot about it.

[David Farrier]

Blah, blah, blah.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's the most braggy visa. Because it's a visa.

[David Farrier]

An alien of extraordinary ability.

[Rob]

He talks about all the letters that famous people write for him, about how great his character is and how valuable he is to our society.

[Rahul Kohli]

All of that. I wish they changed the name of it. Dude, that's right. Because I've had the amount of TSA agents who already might have a bee in their bonnet. When they see I've had it said to me in a shitty way. And what's your extraordinary ability?

[David Farrier]

It's not my words.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's like actor.

[David Farrier]

Well,

[Rahul Kohli]

I do an American accent on tv, but weirdly, every single time my renewals happened, it happened during the Trump administration.

[David Farrier]

Right.

[Rahul Kohli]

So I always have this heightened, like, oh, it's done. It's. I'm done. So I'm never going to get it renewed. It didn't, you know, it didn't need renewing during Biden. It just. My weird timing.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Keeps happening during Trump administrations.

[Rahul Kohli]

Fine, easy. It's. I'd say it's like, it's never been easier, so that's fine. But one thing he did change, which I didn't find out until two, three weeks before I had to do it. Remember with the way the O1 works, you could. You need to go to the embassy, process it outside of America.

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rahul Kohli]

So a lot of us in American la, actors in particular, where we went to Vancouver. Nope, not allowed. No more country of origin. Only you have to go back to New Zealand.

[David Farrier]

That's right. Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Did you know that?

[David Farrier]

Yep. I recently got that knowledge. It's a massive pain in the butt. It's a huge trip. It's a big difference going to Canada to going to New Zealand and cost and resources. And they're also, I believe, doing that to people applying for a green card now.

[Rahul Kohli]

I saw that too.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. You used to be like, you could. If I was on an O1 and I wanted to apply for a green card, I could do it all within the us, keep working, keep having my life. Now you've got to off back to New Zealand already.

[Rahul Kohli]

Stay on ice in your own country.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. It's so annoying, all this.

[Rahul Kohli]

Wait, hold on. So this doesn't make sense. So, so, so I. So say I have an O1 visa for three years and next year. I still have like two more years left. Next year I apply for the green card. I have to leave.

[David Farrier]

You gotta go.

[Rahul Kohli]

Even though I have an O1.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. The green. For the green card to be processed and for that to be. You've got to be out of the country. I better be careful because I. I often talk some and I, I do occasionally get things wrong because I'll read a headline.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

But I'm pretty confident it's changed enough where people are pretty up in arms about how disruptive it is.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Because you used to be able to just stay within the country.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And you would process it and you maybe have to go Back to out of the country to get it approved and come back in.

[Rahul Kohli]

We had a really funny thing happened with Alana, who's Australian. So she had. She was on the O1 train and decided, sorry, I'll run an O1 conversation now. We're also sorry. We just got Bitch about America. No, this wasn't their fault. So during the fall of the House of Usher and a show I had done the pilot for was. Was picked up. And one of the biggest reasons I wanted to do that show was it shot in la, which you never hear, yeah, that is the holy grail. I said Saros was the apex. It's not. It's just doing any show in. Shooting at home for a few months would be like, oh, my God. So. So Alana knew that, okay, he's out in Vancouver during the fall of the House of Usher for. I think at that point I was like, I think they had to be quick with me. So they block shot me, which is why I'm always in the loft. So I was like, yeah, pretty much that. To release me. So I was only there for a couple of months, and then I'd come back to LA and we would start filming this series for six, seven, eight months. So Alana was like, oh, wait, hold on. I don't have to travel up to see you or anything. I'll do my green card now. So she applies. They take her passport now she's grounded, right?

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

And then the showrunners call me about a week later and they're like, hey, interesting news. We're shooting in Vancouver for this new show and that's it. And you're contractually obligated. You're obliged. So they took the LA thing away. That had just disappeared. And she didn't have a passport now.

[David Farrier]

Can't go anywhere.

[Rahul Kohli]

And then we had to reshoot the half of the Fall of the House of Usher because we changed cast members, which people can Google. So I ended up being out for a year when I didn't have to be.

[Rob]

Huh.

[Rahul Kohli]

And we had a stalker. Oh, great happen. And I had to fly home between every. Like, basically anytime I wasn't on camera, I went home to protect the house and be there. That's how we end up with Banjo. So a good thing came out of it. We got Banjo because we were like, we need. We need. You know. You know, we have stalkers and stuff. Like.

[Rob]

That's what you named your gun?

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, yeah, that's my. That's my Al 15 or whatever. No, we. We adopted a German Shepherd Husky.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. She couldn't leave. She stuck there.

[Rahul Kohli]

Stuck. I couldn't be there.

[Rob]

Stuck with a star.

[Rahul Kohli]

So that whole green card thing, none of it was America's fault? Oh, no. This was America's fault. Rob, are you ready for this?

[Rob]

I'm sorry.

[Rahul Kohli]

So it works out because I said I'd be gone for a year. Right. You only need six months. So it worked out that for the last month or so of filming, she'd have her green card and could come visit me instead. So she gets the green card and it arrives and they put mail on her green card. Just a misprint.

[David Farrier]

You gotta file again. Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Because it doesn't match the passport.

[David Farrier]

Oh, that's so.

[Rahul Kohli]

And it wasn't. It's not that. Alana's CIS woman. Right. Like, pronouns are she, her. It was just a misprint. Oh, that's so frustrating that it said male. Oh, it had an M and she had to surrender. It took about two months to reprocess.

[David Farrier]

Oh, that's so annoying.

[Rahul Kohli]

So she cleared. She cleared the whole shoot. That was our green card with Alana. So that's why I've put mine off for you.

[David Farrier]

I'm like, yeah, completely. You know, I haven't thought about when I'm going to do that. I think maybe with the green card, it's a case of when you actually want it in your hands, you've got to leave and go back to your country of origin, like with the 01. So while it's been processed, you can stay, but if you want it, you've got to go back to. It's just like the 01.

[Rahul Kohli]

Well, you don't go back to your

[David Farrier]

country of origin for.

[Rahul Kohli]

For us, like, line it. If. If there's a world in which you know you're working abroad, just do it then. Just do it then, because there's no point. Like, I. I should have thought about that now because I know I'm going to be in Nova Scotia for pretty much all of it. I could have just submitted and left.

[David Farrier]

Just time it a bit better.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

It's so scary surrendering stuff, though, like sending that passport away. It's a horrible feeling.

[Rahul Kohli]

It really is.

[David Farrier]

As we wrap this up, I'm curious what Americans, where they think you're from with your accent? Are they confused by you? I get Australia, I get South Africa.

[Rahul Kohli]

Al Qaeda. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

You've got the race element added in that you have to deal with. Do people go like, you're British.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's a 50, 50 roulette of British or Australian. So Whatever my voice is doing in American is.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Okay.

[Rahul Kohli]

Depends what mood I'm in.

[David Farrier]

It changes.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. There's a really. I have a really cocky. If I feel. If I thought I was particularly, like, handsome that day.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

Or I got a compliment.

[Rob]

You're more British.

[Rahul Kohli]

I get really, like, cockney and I don't think. And it does become bottle of water. And that's if I'm feeling myself. So I think that's when I'm having a British day. And I think when I'm more vulnerable and I'm speaking a little bit better.

[David Farrier]

Do I morph at all with my personality or is it always just this annoying voice? Careful how you answer.

[Rob]

That's mostly the same.

[David Farrier]

Mostly the same.

[Rahul Kohli]

Do kiwis change tone? The whole. Isn't the whole kiwi thing that you like. Despite the concords is just flat the whole way through?

[David Farrier]

It's pretty flat. Yeah.

[Rob]

Your American accent, that was pretty ridiculous.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I don't do a good American accent. You do a much better American accent than me. I'm not going to do it here now. Embarrass myself. You've got an American accent down pretty well. I believe it.

[Rahul Kohli]

I'm very envious of Aussie actors. Kiwi actors.

[David Farrier]

You reckon they're better at it there?

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Rose does a great American.

[Rahul Kohli]

It's insane. I got to show her some love here because, like, I was very isolated. Like actor who thought everything needed to be method. I was a bit exhausting when I started.

[David Farrier]

She. For the record, she never said that about you.

[Rahul Kohli]

No. I mean, no. She's. I know she's. We have, like, such love for each other and stuff, but.

[David Farrier]

But you're a bit insufferable. Back on those izombies, you became a zombie.

[Rob]

How does one get method for eyes on Dude?

[Rahul Kohli]

I went to a real morgue, looked at real cadavers.

[Rob]

Right.

[Rahul Kohli]

Learn.

[David Farrier]

You want to know how this works?

[Rahul Kohli]

I did some stupid when I started doing brains because when you eat a brain, you adopt the personality. I would go method on just the personality. And Rose be like, dude, it's just a CW dickhead. Like, I snuck into an NA meeting when I played a heroin addict.

[David Farrier]

Incredible.

[Rahul Kohli]

You know what it was? Insecurity. Learning that you can do it without that. But you're doing it because you want to be Robert De Niro. Don't be Robert De Niro. Be Royal Coley. And Rose was the biggest leader of. Dude, just act. Just act. And that because I was green and I'm so glad I got paired with Rose. Because Rose was. Is the most extreme version where she's doing Kiwi, like, half a second before the cameras roll and boom. Flawless American.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Yeah. That's the cap. I've seen her do that. It's crazy.

[Rahul Kohli]

And like, watching someone do that while you're like, I must stay in it all day. I'm Russian.

[David Farrier]

It's so funny that the thing you were going method on was a show where a big trope in that a big part of the show is like, you're a different. Vastly different character. Often.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

It's not a whole season. You're a cop. It's like, no. Whenever you eat a different brain, you're someone different. That's so stressful.

[Rahul Kohli]

Honest.

[David Farrier]

It's literally my next episode.

[Rahul Kohli]

I think when I'm scared. Yeah, I resort to that, which is all I knew. I knew that, like, I could commit and research. That was my superpower. Like, you talk about passion and prepared, I could really affect, like, if I kept doing a physicality for a few hours, it could lock in for months. Yeah, I'm really impressionable like that. And so when I didn't feel like I was smart enough to, like, understand a character from reading it from the script, and when I was at school, I realized, oh, wait, if I. If I put in maximum effort into this method, I get good results. And now the only times I get like that is when I look at a role and I go, oh, I miscast. Oh, I'm the worst actor on the Midnight Mass was the closest I got to being like that again, where I stayed American all day, and I went. I did a ride along with the police, and it came back. But it wasn't because I needed it. It was because I was terrified.

[Rob]

Insecure.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah. And that's exactly. And I think Rose was the biggest supporter of me of stop being insecure. You can do. You're good at this without that.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, cool.

[Rahul Kohli]

You didn't need to listen to the Soviet Union anthem all day just because you had Russian brain.

[David Farrier]

The one thing I like about that whole method thing is you get to hang out with some other interesting people and, like, that's good stories from it degree you don't have to do it.

[Rob]

Well, that's probably where you picked up your skill to be good at it was you shape shifted in all these different ways, and now you can do it a little more naturally, I guess.

[Rahul Kohli]

So. Yeah. You train that muscle so you don't have to go back to all of those basics.

[David Farrier]

I'm very glad that Rose was the One that calmed you down from your method Chaos.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah, she did. Good to know I was looking back at it. It was a privilege. And one of the best acting lessons I ever got was being paired up with Rosemary. I learned how to be a lead. I learned what it took, and I didn't realize it at the time, and I didn't appreciate it as much because I was in my Drake era, but I, I.

[David Farrier]

When you started with Drake and president, I bought era.

[Rob]

So who. What era are you in now if you had to. To pick?

[Rahul Kohli]

I don't know. What era am I in? I'm in my.

[David Farrier]

That's hard.

[Rahul Kohli]

That stumps me.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, that's hard.

[Rahul Kohli]

Because you know what my problem is? I'm all the names running through my head. I'm like, shouldn't say that. Think they've caught a case.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rahul Kohli]

They've said they just recently said something they shouldn't have their mag.

[David Farrier]

You're in your era.

[Rahul Kohli]

I'm in my era. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

That's what you're in.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Thanks for coming in.

[Rahul Kohli]

Thanks for having me.

[David Farrier]

No, you're great. This summer, Prime Video takes you back before Legally Blonde, before law school, and into the world of Elle woods in high school. Set in 1995, this Gemini vegetation vegetarian

[Rahul Kohli]

knows exactly who she is until her family moves from Bel Air to Seattle.

[David Farrier]

Packed with iconic fashion, 90s nostalgia, and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one law school was hard. High school was harder. From the world of Legally Blonde, watch Elle, a new original series only on Prime Video. Watch now. Loved him so much. Yeah.

[Rob]

That was one of my favorite conversations we've had in here.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I feel like he got. He had sort of because he had already done promo for this game a while ago and had to kind of keep locked up on certain things, like talking about race. I think because he knew us, he could sort of just be like, okay, comfy, can talk and super insightful into what that whole experience was like.

[Rob]

Yeah. I mean, listening back to it again, it's just annoying how bad actors ruin things for no reason. Reason completely.

[David Farrier]

And there is no reason as in actors, but as in bad people.

[Rob]

Yeah. There's no reason for a reaction to be that to him.

[David Farrier]

No. The Internet has given people a deeply strange power where they can gang up. Even the way people crash scores on Rotten Tomatoes or something, if they don't like a certain actor. And it usually is over something as dumb as race.

[Rob]

Yeah. And for something to should have been a celebration for him and for culturally that this was someone leading a video game completely Just fully soured is very unfortunate.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And just the fact he kind of knew it was coming as well, but it was sort of shittier than he thought it would be. And the game, I was just scrolling through some reviews of the game. It's like critically acclaimed. Saros is a triumph in every sense. Saros is excellent. It builds on the foundations of the former one. A blistering rapid fire epic without peer. It's like the game critically is friggin incredible.

[Rob]

Yeah. None of this was about gameplay. No.

[David Farrier]

It's just an insane thing to face. And also just the fact he talked about how it spiraled out more for him in the last couple of years and gotten increasingly shittier. It's just so deeply annoying. Dude's awesome. That was such a surreal thing. I went to visit Rose on set because she was in Izombie and I wanted to see how a TV show was made. And yeah, she just offloaded me on him. So he's just having his normal day playing video games actually on that day. And Rose turns up with me and is like, can you babysit David for the day? And he was lovely. He was such a good person to get into Canada with and he's just always been awesome. And I thought when I saw his little face on that poster, like, holy, this would be a perfect guest. Because this is just such a fascinating thing to talk about.

[Rob]

Yeah, it does make me laugh, the idea of your friends having to get babysitters for you when you go visit them.

[Rahul Kohli]

Oh yeah.

[David Farrier]

I couldn't go for my own. It's like someone in their 30s.

[Rob]

It makes sense. Knowing you, it 100% makes sense. David's here from out of town. I need to get a babysitter.

[Rahul Kohli]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

She could have just left me at her place or let me like roam the streets.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

That wasn't. I actually hadn't really thought about how ridiculous that was until now. That's really fucked up.

[Rob]

It's probably happened a couple times to you and has. Most times you go visit friends, places.

[David Farrier]

Also something I thought was interesting listening back. He talked about how he was nervous to talk about race in the original run just because of how his quotes could get taken out of context. And that's such a problem, I think for anyone speaking now about anything is that you can't often do it in good faith because, you know, including this episode, if there's some asshole listening to this episode, they could clip a couple of words and that becomes a headline on 100 aggregated websites reporting on something

[Rob]

and that stokes the hate even more completely.

[David Farrier]

And context is everything. And that's such a shitty thing to have to think about when you're trying to have an opus and honest conversation, knowing that that whole context necessarily won't spread but some tiny quote will be clipped. I mean, there are whole. There's a whole industry about just getting clips for views on people's accounts, you know.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And finally, briefly, him touching on the joys of Halo AI. Well, both Halo. We touched that.

[Rob]

We forgot Halo. Halo was a pretty transformative game. I feel like that was another pinnacle when that came out.

[David Farrier]

Years of my life playing that game and when we were talking about it at the beginning of the epi, completely forgot about it.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

So many games that were played and just him talking about AI briefly about how it is just getting increasingly difficult to know what is real and what's not. I think AI Video has now reached the point where it is not easy to see even if you know the tells. And we're living in a really insane time where you don't even know if the information you're hearing is said by that person or is just some. I can assure you that ever, if you're watching this video or listening on our official channels, it is the real thing. He said this. Yeah. This is not listening to this.

[Rob]

AI generated.

[David Farrier]

Don't know if you have any feedback about video games, anything that Rahul had to talk about. We have flightless bird chat gmail.com. always love to hear from you. Tell us what games change your life depending on. Sort of curious to know your age and what the game was that completely, you know, we've got. We've got listeners who are 80. What was the thing that changed your life? We've got listeners who are like kids, tell us what. Listening with their parents.

[Rob]

We have that many kid listeners, David.

[David Farrier]

We've got a few. I met a kid in New Zealand with their mum who was like, yeah, I listen. And I felt a bit nervous because like their mum was there and I'm thinking, should you be listening?

[Rob]

Yeah, they're gonna love next week's episode on drugs. Oh God.

[David Farrier]

Listen your parents, kids, but just email us. What was the game that changed your life? Super curious about that. A lot of feedback to catch up on because I've been in New Zealand and so we've been missing out on some of the feedback to recent episodes. A lot of people from New York wrote in about New York trash saying, New York beautiful. We deal with our trash. Look at all the people we've got here. We do it in a wonderful way. Is someone from New Zealand. I say that some bullshit. It's dirty sorted out.

[Rob]

I guess I will concede to the fact that maybe it could be much worse.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, that's what's always the way.

[Rob]

And that maybe they are doing a great job and the version of it that exists is the best version of

[David Farrier]

what it could be.

[Rob]

But I have higher could be worse. I feel like they could do better. And this is not a criticism.

[David Farrier]

Okay to be critical. And New York I'm going to be there.

[Rob]

I'm going to be there in a week and a half.

[David Farrier]

So check in on the rubbish situation. Tell me if they've started to instate their plastic bins.

[Rob]

It's also so hard because New York's so big. I'm sure you can go to different pockets where it doesn't feel that way.

[David Farrier]

I stick by my assertion that New York is disgusting and dirty.

[Rob]

You like to double down.

[David Farrier]

I like to double down. A lot of people also wrote in about just Justin Timberlake. I talked about how his dance moves were lagging a little bit. A lot of people pointed out he is battling a Lyme disease diagnosis. He has said publicly that he has massive amounts of nerve pain and crazy fatigue. All this therefore makes me feel incredibly guilty about on Justin Tim Blake's dancing ability on this recent tour. A lot of feedback to one of our Wisconsin episodes supper clubs where I was shocked shook that children were allowed to drink at bars. As a New Zealander, I found this abhorrent awful. I thought this is an example of how America has lost the plot in many states. A lot of people wrote in from New Zealand telling me that it's also the case in New Zealand. Which is. Which was perfect feedback. Thank you for everyone writing in Duck wrote in Duck is a great name. You've probably had a flood of these emails already but New Zealand allows parents and guardians to supply alcohol to minors. When I was little, still in primary school but nearing intermediate, about 8 years old, my dad would pour a beer and pour me a little shot sized beer mug to match. I was so stoked to share a drink with my dad. I didn't actually drink much of it at all. So I'd have maybe one sip and be thrilled. I'd also try different types of wine or beer. A tasting sip at a pub or restaurant. If my parents were around and interested, they considered it no big deal for me to taste it, much like trying a bite of their food. Cheers Duck. So look New Zealand and America, we have more in Common than David knows. Than David knows. And it also explains why sometimes at restaurants in New Zealand when I was a kid, I would also get given alcohol by my parents. I just thought they were being incredibly naughty. It's legal.

[Rob]

Wait, so you partook in this?

[David Farrier]

My parents would sometimes slip me a little dribble of a drink when we were out. I thought it was them just being a bit cheeky and naughty. Didn't know it was completely legal and okay at the time.

[Rob]

Did your parents drink a lot?

[David Farrier]

No, not a lot. My parents would have like a wine at dinner or a beer.

[Rob]

Every dinner?

[David Farrier]

Not every dinner.

[Rob]

Every. Okay.

[David Farrier]

No, I see what you're getting.

[Rob]

I'm just.

[David Farrier]

Was your mother drinking a lot while you were pregnant? No, this is all coming together.

[Rob]

My parents didn't drink at all really. So that was why I was asking.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, no, my parents did. Alcohol wasn't a big deal and they would give me a little sip occasionally. I think just with the idea when I was a kid that this would destigmatize the whole thing. And it did. So I feel like when. When I was older and a lot of kids at my school were out getting crazy, my attitude was sort of.

[Rob]

I've been doing this since I was four.

[David Farrier]

Since I was one.

[Rob]

Yeah, my. It wasn't. It wasn't a big deal. Like my. We had like an aunt and uncle that would drink wine all the time. But yeah, my parents.

[David Farrier]

All the time, non stop

[Rob]

often. But my parents didn't drink like almost ever. I don't remember being a kid seeing my dad have a beer or my mom have wine, which I feel is.

[David Farrier]

I wonder how common or rare that is here.

[Rob]

Although church you have wine, which.

[David Farrier]

But it's just juice.

[Rob]

Sure. But they're not explaining that to kids. When you're going up to have wine at mass. That was a weird.

[David Farrier]

I was talking to my Catholic friend Dan when I was in New Zealand and he pointed out the fact that because I would have communion in my Baptist church and it was just, you know, a bit of juice. But in the Catholic belief system, according to my friend Dan, you actually believe that it transforms into the body of Christ physically inside you once it is like gone down your throat.

[Rob]

Well, tears the body and the blood.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I thought it was symbolic, but apparently in some types of Catholicism the belief is that it actually changes. Might just be my friend Dan, but that was. I was shocked. I was like, what? You've got bits of like human flesh inside you and blood at one point from the bread and the wines that

[Rob]

year, that smell and taste of communion wine I still remember very distinctly.

[David Farrier]

I loved it.

[Rob]

I loved hers too.

[David Farrier]

Oh, didn't have wafers now we had little bits of bread. Like that was like.

[Rob]

The bread was really good too. On like certain holidays they'd bust the bread out.

[David Farrier]

What also just be. I'd be so bored sitting in there. It was something different for me. It was, oh, we get to have like a little drink.

[Rob]

I. I love the wafers though I

[David Farrier]

don't what it was. You can sweet a wafer.

[Rob]

No, they were.

[David Farrier]

I've never had.

[Rob]

I don't know if I want to admit this.

[David Farrier]

Admit it.

[Rob]

You can get communion wafers on Amazon.

[David Farrier]

Wait, you've got that.

[Rob]

You've done it. I've done it once and I. I realized you could order communion wafers and I love the taste of it. I mean they're little cracker things, but pretty flavorless too. But it again was just like the nostalgia of communion wafers.

[David Farrier]

I love the idea of you being like watching a sports match in your garage or something with the boys in front of Doritos and you've got your little dry wafers of Amazon.

[Rob]

I have any Christians or Catholics out there listening. I don't think they hold any weight until they are blessed anyways. So at that point it's just a snack.

[David Farrier]

I fucking love this justification so much at this point it's just a snack.

[Rahul Kohli]

Oh my God.

[David Farrier]

It's really good. A lot of feedback about drinking actually with kids. Camilla wrote in I'm Danish Scottish. When I was two years old, I believed all fizzy drinks were called beer. So I would loudly declare at many opportunities of thirst that I want beer, much to my nice middle class mum's horror. But it did allow us to jump the queue in a few instances. When I started my chant, I apparently loved beer and did develop a habit as a toddler, which was picking up empties to take the last swig or share it with the family dog. That's wild. Danish drinking culture is fairly relaxed. And as much as me, Drinking beer at 2 obviously wasn't encouraged. It was never a big deal. More a funny story. Tamsin loved the O.C. rachel Bilson episode. Your recent episode with Rachel Bilson brought back such core childhood memories for me. I'm from South Africa and attended an all girls boarding school. We were completely obsessed with the oc so it was a truly global phenomenon. Every week, one of the day scholars would tape the latest episode of the OC on the VHS and bring it into school and all of us boarders would gather together in the evenings and watch it in our common room. It brought a sense of home and community that we would otherwise not have had. All the soundtracks would be played on repeat at all the girls CD players throughout the dormitories. Now I'm feeling quite ancient, but thanks for the blast from the past. A lot of OC fans seem to enjoy that epi. A lot of people enjoyed the jokey nature between you and Bilson. I also enjoyed it and I think I might start watching the show.

[Rob]

You should.

[David Farrier]

I hear it's quite good. Lauren wrote in about LifeSpring cults. I love your show. I did several LifeSpring courses and workshops in the mid-80s. Listening to your episode on LifeSpring had lots of details coming back to me. I've done so many workshops over my life starting at 18 years old with EST, which my mum got me into. I have so many stories to tell about these experiences. I can't estimate how much I spent on these, but at one point I spent almost $75,000 on something that was promised to have a lot of value but turned out to be just cult recruitment incidentally. And it goes quite dark here. Trigger, warning, et cetera. Incidentally, a friend of mine lost her life along with two other people in a sweat lodge at that organization. So many people emailing in with either spending a shit ton of money. Some people were emailing in saying they got a bit out of it and then some people saying incredibly dark stuff like a friend went off the edge or in this case died full on. Specifically about Landmark, which is in New Zealand, it's in America. This is from Laura, My sister in law started taking Landmark classes. She was texting me about how amazing they were and how much she was learning. In April of 2023 she texted I was doing the Landmark forum in Seattle 13 hours a day. It was amazing. In October of 2023 she texted I'm taking another class with Landmark and I think I'm starting to understand this concept of creating new possibilities in our lives. I would like you to hold the following image of me when you think of me. Here is my mantra. Listeners. You can chant along to this if you like. I am at ease, I'm at peace. I have lots of time and all is well. I'm at ease. I'm at peace. I'm in excellent health. I am creating wealth, I am prosperous and I am happy. I have a beautiful home and a beautiful marriage, both more beautiful than anything I have ever imagined. I am loved. I have an abundance of dear friends and family. I am prosperous and I am happy. I learned in my class this week that the fastest way to manifest new possibilities in our lives is to enlist others in those possibilities. This means to inspire others to be part of those possibilities. So I thank you for seeing me having and being these new possibilities around me. I know you love me, so I'm asking you to hold these new possibilities as something I'm already. Oh God. It goes on. I'm gonna stop reading. Anyway, her sister sent her a big mantra and wanted to enlist her as well in their muck. I just found the mantra really full on.

[Rob]

Was she married or was that all?

[David Farrier]

Don't I hope so.

[Rob]

I think.

[David Farrier]

I think the manifestation fitted her life a little bit. I couldn't use that manifestation though, because I am not married.

[Rob]

You can try it. Maybe you will become married.

[David Farrier]

Maybe I will become married.

[Rob]

If I say it enough, I think that's manifesting. David.

[David Farrier]

I have a beautiful home and a beautiful marriage, both more beautiful than anything I've ever imagined. Beautiful. Rendon wrote in spelt like Brendan, but with no B. I just want to know Rob's thoughts on his beloved Chicago Bears potentially moving to Hammond, Indiana.

[Rob]

Rob? Yeah, we'll see.

[David Farrier]

Is it complex or are you holding it complex?

[Rob]

And it's, it's weird and political in Chicago where I think they're trying to get the city to pay for some of it. And so the organization keeps threatening to move. They, they bought like racetrack near where I grew up and we're going to move to Arlington Heights at one point. And now the threat is that they're going to move to Indiana. The threat, I, I don't fully believe that the Chicago Bears will move to Indiana. That's my response to it.

[David Farrier]

I, when it comes to sport, I tend to believe what you have to say, you know, a lot more than

[Rob]

I do and I hope not. I mean it would be devastating if the Chicago Bears moved out of Chicago.

[David Farrier]

Clip that put it in every aggregate, put it in every headline. Benay wrote in like Renee, but with a B In regards to our live show episode recently. Holy shit. Bat guy rocks. She's referring to Marilyn Tuttle.

[Rob]

We got a lot of positive feedback.

[David Farrier]

Merlin Tuttle, it was amazing getting him on that show. He just come back from a massive expedition he's getting on in years now and just getting him there was pretty friggin incredible. And yeah, if you want to meet someone that loves bats, meet Merlin Tuttle. He's friggin incredible and he's Got a documentary coming out soon. Finally, Sarah writes in about our Titanic panic episode. Number one, she's got a bullet point list. These Titanic superfans are very real. I went to college with one. He was more a friend of a friend. But I still follow him on Instagram because every year he celebrates Titanic Day by sharing a detailed step by step timeline of the sinking on his Instagram stories. It's honestly quite interesting, informative, so I thank him for his service. Number two, you briefly talked about the phobia of deep water. There's a sort of related phobia called submechanophobia, which is the specific fear of man made objects that are either fully or partially submerged underwater. Think mechanical things, statues, that kind of thing. I personally don't have this, but watching videos about it does make me feel a bit icky. So there you go, submechanophobia. If you wonder why you're fearful about seeing and thinking about the underworld's sunken objects out there, that's what you might have you and Rob, this is point 3. Discuss briefly the idea of seeing certain images or topics at a young age that get sort of ingrained in your psyche or really change your worldview. I. E. Kate Winslet's boob in Titanic, the movie species, the Holocaust, etc. This list sounds quite deranged, but if you listen to that episode, those three

[Rob]

things makes a little bit of sense.

[David Farrier]

Those three things, there's context. Context is everything. Mine is seeing that famous image of the cross section of a slave ship that used to be in every textbook ever known as the Brooks diagram for reference. Seeing that image for the first time completely blew my mind in the most shocked and horrified way. I just couldn't fathom how people could do that to other humans and how anyone could survive that journey. This somehow recently came up in a convo with my husband and he had the same exact formative experience. So I assume this might be common one for students learning about slavery in the U.S. did that come up in your timeline, Rob? Cross section of a slave ship.

[Rob]

Yeah, I remember.

[David Farrier]

That was around. Yeah.

[Rob]

That wasn't in the image.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Holy.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Katie. Katie starts by writing. My name is Katie and I live in Bentonville, Arkansas.

[Rob]

Oh.

[David Farrier]

My great grandparents, along with a pair of their friends, lived in Ireland and had tickets to board the Titanic. Luckily for them, and for my family line, their friends fell ill prior to the day the ship was supposed to leave and they all decided to stay by. Which is also the plot to the first Final Destination movie, Titanic, with A plane instead of the Titanic where a group of friends go to go on a doomed flight. They don't go on. But then in their case in the film, death comes back, stalks them. Yes, it appears in that particular story, death has not stalked them because they are. The lineage is writing to me right@flightless breadchatmail.com. any parting words? Rob presents.

[Rob]

Trickling out gifts. Right.

[David Farrier]

Oh my God. Okay. All right. Just quickly from New Zealand. I think I've given this to you before. Whittaker's Hokey Pokey Crunch. It's the best Whittaker's in my opinion.

[Rob]

Thank you very much.

[David Farrier]

Tim Tams Tams. One of the best biscuits from down under. This is a packet of the original Tim Tams.

[Rob]

Love Tim Tams.

[David Farrier]

Dunk it in a hot drink and suck the drink up via the Tim Tam. Like a straw. That is a very famous thing we do down under. It's delicious because the center is chocolate. It will melt. The biscuit will keep the structure of the so called straw fucking beautiful.

[Rob]

Have you done that with a Twizzler before?

[David Farrier]

No. Can you do that with a twins

[Rob]

like you Bite, bite the ends off and then.

[David Farrier]

Holy shit. Same thing with Tim Tams.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

Suck your matcha up through that. This is special edition. Dark Tim Tams, slightly darker chocolate. Yum yum.

[Rob]

Natalie will love these.

[David Farrier]

I was at Hayden's birthday party. There was a Vales concert happening.

[Rob]

I sent you tour dates twice.

[David Farrier]

You did. You said, are you going to the Vales?

[Rob]

And didn't respond. And then I sent it again and was like, like, David, are you going?

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And I said, I have Hayden's big birthday party. Hayden, friend of the show. You'll hear him droning on at the beginning of this episode. For instance, it was his big birthday. I couldn't do both. I picked Hayden over the veils. But the concert was happening a 10 minute walk away. I did something I've never done before. I walked into that venue.

[Rob]

Is it that close to Hayden's party?

[David Farrier]

Comically close. Comically close. Literally around the corner at a venue called Power Station, one of my favorite venues in Auckland, New Zealand. I did something I've never tried before and I don't know if this will always work, but I'm keen to try it again. About halfway through the show, I turned up at the venue. I went up to where you get the tickets from or on the world call. I said, I don't want to see the veils, but I want to get merch from my friend Rob, can I go into the venue, buy merch and then leave? Security can watch me do this.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

She said, go for it.

[Rob]

This is like my popcorn move at a movie theater.

[David Farrier]

This is.

[Rob]

That's where you learned it.

[David Farrier]

I walked in there and I bought the merch. I admit, I stayed for one song. I filmed a bit of it. I sent it to you. I left, said thank you to security, went back to Hayden's birthday. I got you this T shirt. Look at this.

[Rob]

Thank you.

[David Farrier]

Beautiful veils. T shirt from their latest tour. And I also got you a long sleeve. And the veils.

[Rob]

I like that.

[David Farrier]

I'm also going to hand to you. And I got you their record of their latest release, Fragile World. It's a wonderful record. This is it on vinyl. Because I know you love vinyl.

[Rob]

Do love vinyl. So very kind of you, David.

[David Farrier]

Oh, my goodness. I'd like to thank the staff of the power station. Also deeply curious if I could go to a. A Beyonce show, say we're at a Taylor Swift show and say, hey, it's to go at the beginning and say, hey, I'm not here for the show. I don't have tickets, but I'd love to go in and buy some merch. Will you let me in?

[Rob]

I think the size of the venue is gonna play heavily into this Beyonce or Taylor's show. There's long security and you think my plan might not.

[David Farrier]

I thought I might have found a hack to get into every concert for free from now on.

[Rob]

I do think most smaller indie shows, you can probably go buy merch.

[David Farrier]

And I would. Musicians are doing it pretty hard at the moment. I would encourage you to buy merch if you're at a show.

[Rob]

Yeah, I'm. I think you should pay for tickets and go to the show if you

[David Farrier]

want to sneak in. And like.

[Rob]

I don't. Yeah. I don't think this is a move to get into shows for free. No, but.

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

If you do want to buy merch.

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rob]

At a show.

[David Farrier]

For the record, I think if you can find a way to sneak in for free to a Taylor Swift concert, do it. She has enough money. She's a billionaire. If you have a band that is much smaller, you pay for that ticket. You buy merch, because, God, smaller bands are doing it hard right now.

[Rob]

I am a big proponent of buying merch at shows, especially because I don't often have to pay for the show.

[David Farrier]

You've got friends coming in or whatever.

[Rob]

So then in turn you pay. Buy lots of merch. I have lots of T shirts also.

[David Farrier]

I feel like concert tickets for a venue are split up so much, going to the venue and to the promoter and all that stuff. Whereas I feel that merch is much more of a direct route to the artist. The person selling it will get a little cut, but the artist gets most of it. So merch is.

[Rob]

It's the most direct line.

[David Farrier]

It's the most direct line. Or just fling cash at your favorite band while they play.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Might be a bit weird, but give it a go. All right. Flightless breadchat gmail.com. we will see you next week.

[Rob]

See you next week,

[Rahul Kohli]

Sam.