Is Making Kids Famous Child Abuse? with Avan Jogia

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know – "Is Making Kids Famous Child Abuse?" with Avan Jogia

In this compelling episode of "Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know", hosted by 186k Films, two-time Peabody Award-winning comedian Hasan Minhaj engages in a profound conversation with actor and author Avan Jogia. The discussion delves deep into the complexities of child stardom, the impact of fame on personal development, and the evolving landscape of celebrity culture in the digital age.

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1. Introduction to Avan Jogia’s Early Career

Timestamp: [00:02] – [01:47]

The episode opens with Avan Jogia recounting a surreal experience from his early days in Los Angeles. He narrates an incident where he arrived at the wrong location for a teen magazine photo shoot, only to discover that the intended venue was being used for an entirely different, inappropriate purpose.

Avan Jogia [00:18]:
"Because they shoot gay porn at this house for a gay porn magazine when they're not shooting, as I'm going to say again, the children's magazines photo shoots now before the conspiracy theorists, like, jump out of the woodwork."

This anecdote underscores the often-hidden and troubling realities behind the scenes of the entertainment industry, especially concerning child actors.

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2. The Duality of Fame and Personal Struggles

Timestamp: [02:37] – [08:28]

Jogia discusses his latest book, "Autopsy of an Ex Teen Heartthrob," which serves as an introspective examination of his experiences with fame, drugs, sex, and nostalgia. He reflects on the pressures of being a teenage idol and the dissonance between his public persona and his private struggles.

Avan Jogia [04:20]:
"As it has happened to me. And I think we sort of are able to share in that sort of disappointment because when I was a kid on the show shooting it and they were kids watching it, there was sort of a hope of how this was all going to shake out."

Jogia emphasizes the "addicted to nostalgia as a sedative," highlighting how both he and his audience grapple with reconciling their past with their present realities.

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3. Navigating Identity and Breaking the Mold

Timestamp: [08:28] – [15:03]

The conversation shifts to Jogia's struggle with typecasting and his efforts to redefine his identity beyond his early roles. He candidly shares his frustrations with the limited avenues available to him post-Nickelodeon and the challenges of breaking out of the "teen heartthrob" image.

Avan Jogia [10:19]:
"As a young man, I was looking for seriousness, looking for purpose, for what I was doing in my art."

Jogia discusses the lack of diversity in the industry and how it affected his career trajectory, making it difficult for him to find roles that authentically represented his multifaceted personality.

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4. The Exploitation of Child Fame in the Digital Era

Timestamp: [24:43] – [37:25]

One of the most poignant segments of the episode revolves around the question: Is making kids famous a form of child abuse? Jogia argues that while the traditional system of child stardom had its flaws, the current landscape—dominated by unregulated digital platforms like Instagram and TikTok—exacerbates these issues.

Avan Jogia [34:08]:
"These children who have no choice and are not choosing to be a part of this, having their personhood stamped into the tapestry of our society."

He critiques the commercialization of children's lives online, where moments of vulnerability are exploited for profit, leaving lasting digital footprints that can impact their personal development and privacy.

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5. Reflections on Celebrity Culture and Personal Legacy

Timestamp: [37:39] – [48:08]

Jogia delves into the broader implications of celebrity culture, questioning the value and impact of fame in modern society. He reflects on how the essence of being a celebrity has shifted from admiration based on talent and character to superficial notoriety fueled by constant media exposure.

Avan Jogia [42:01]:
"What am I supposed to do with all these Dutch francs that I have? Like, I don't—you know, I mean, like, it doesn't make."

He touches upon the futility of fame without meaningful contributions, emphasizing the importance of creating work that holds personal significance over chasing fleeting popularity.

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6. Addressing Personal Identity and Public Perception

Timestamp: [48:08] – [49:25]

In the concluding part of the episode, Jogia offers heartfelt acknowledgments to his parents, recognizing their unwavering support throughout his tumultuous career. He reiterates the importance of maintaining one's identity amidst external pressures and the often skewed public perceptions.

Avan Jogia [49:25]:
"We have. We know the ones that don't spin out have great parents. And I have the best parents."

This moment serves as a testament to the foundational role of family in grounding one's sense of self amid the chaos of fame.

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7. Closing Thoughts and Final Reflections

Timestamp: [49:33] – End

As the interview wraps up, Jogia emphasizes the necessity of authenticity and selective engagement with fame. He advocates for building genuine connections with a niche audience rather than seeking widespread but superficial recognition.

Avan Jogia [44:35]:
"I don't need everybody. I don't need everyone to like me. I don't need everyone to even interact with my work. But what I do need is that to find my people who do enjoy that, and it be enough people that I can have an ongoing conversation with my audience."

This philosophy underscores the core message of the episode: prioritizing meaningful work and relationships over the empty pursuit of fame.

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Notable Quotes

• Avan Jogia [10:19]:
  "As a young man, I was looking for seriousness, looking for purpose, for what I was doing in my art."

• Avan Jogia [24:43]:
  "These children who have no choice and are not choosing to be a part of this, having their personhood stamped into the tapestry of our society."

• Avan Jogia [42:01]:
  "What am I supposed to do with all these Dutch francs that I have? Like, I don't—you know, I mean, like, it doesn't make."

• Avan Jogia [44:35]:
  "I don't need everybody. I don't need everyone to like me. I don't need everyone to even interact with my work. But what I do need is that to find my people who do enjoy that, and it be enough people that I can have an ongoing conversation with my audience."

---

Conclusions

In this episode, Avan Jogia provides a candid and introspective look into the often-unseen challenges of child stardom and the broader implications of fame in today’s digital landscape. Through his personal anecdotes and thoughtful reflections, he highlights the importance of self-identity, the pitfalls of unchecked celebrity culture, and the need for supportive structures to protect and nurture young talents in the entertainment industry.

Listeners gain valuable insights into the psychological and emotional toll of early fame, the struggle to redefine oneself beyond a public persona, and the critical examination of how modern platforms can both empower and exploit young individuals. Jogia’s narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the human cost behind the glittering facade of celebrity life.

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Note: Advertisements and non-content segments from the transcript were excluded to maintain focus on the core discussion.

Transcript

[Avan Jogia]

Lemonade.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Can I ask you about a crazy story in the book?

[Avan Jogia]

Sure, yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

You have this one story about when you first got to LA and you were supposed to do a photo shoot for a team magazine.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

You show up on the wrong day.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What happens?

[Avan Jogia]

So I was supposed to do this photo shoot for one of the teen magazines. We have the Tiger beats and the J14s and the pop stars and all this stuff. And they're. And you know, they're weird photo shoots. Anyway, you have to sit there and, like, have a rose and, like, have like a chocolate box. Yeah, yeah. And be like. And also it's like the sacrosanct sort of smile that you're supposed to do. Like, it's sort of semi religious. It's like. It's like a. It's like a brand of photography for children's magazines. And those are the magazines you read when you're at the grocery store. So I go to do one of these photo shoots and it happens at this sort of weird, like a big house, like in the Valley in la. You're with your mom and I'm with my mom. And we're driving and we get to this house and this guy shows up and he has a little clipboard and he's like, why are you here? And we're here. Like, we're here for the shoot. And mom was. The man with the clipboard was like, no, you're not. And we're like, I don't understand that. And so he took my mother back into the house. He said, I have to stay in the car. He goes inside the house and it's just dicks on the wall. Just so many dicks. Just like they're comparing dicks, dick sizes, dicks. Because they shoot gay porn at this house for a gay porn magazine when they're not shooting, as I'm going to say again, the children's magazines photo shoots now before the conspiracy theorists, like, jump out of the woodwork.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Right.

[Avan Jogia]

And you know, I have to.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. You're about to get a call from your publicist.

[Avan Jogia]

Very separate. I wasn't supposed to be there. Like, they're very separate world. And then I went to the photo shoot the next day, and it was a. It was a teeny bopper photo shoot and everyone was. All the dicks were gone. All the photos, the furniture was all rearranged back in.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay, listen, young millennial women, I see you. You clicked on this link because you fell in love with Ava Jogia when you were 12 and you watched him on Victorious. And even though Avan is engaged to Halsey now and officially off the market, you are here for some of his sultry Internet boyfriend energy. But I am sorry to disappoint you, because if you think we're gonna do some dumb bit where, I don't know, I get him to speak sexy French phrases directly into the camera, well, guess what? It's not gonna happen.

[Avan Jogia]

Je doors un vec, un protege dans.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And not just because that bit didn't work. We just had too much real shit to talk about. Okay. Because I read Ovan's new book, Autopsy of an Ex Teen Heartthrob, and it is a fascinating examination of drugs, sex, fame, and nostalgia. So we sat down to talk about all of that and also why putting kids in front of the camera might not be a great idea. Now, be warned, it's gonna get dark. But I learned a lot. Or as they say in French, fau d'un moi quo l'est l'caut de toilette.

[Avan Jogia]

Hurry. Right away. No delays. Stop there.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Make your daddy glad.

[Avan Jogia]

You have had such a bad.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I don't know, if you look at these, like, Instagram nostalgia accounts. Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It'll be like hristmas in the 90s or whatever. It'll be all these photos from the 90s or early 2000s with music, and it'll just be like, you know, the song will be Christina Aguilera, Jeannie in a Bottle.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

In the comment section will be like.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. It'll be like, this was music. This was music. It'll be like a. Photos of, like, lockers or like, like jellies, sandals. Just like these sort of moments, these aggressive flashes of nostalgia.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

That, like, they. And as a person who was around for a lot of them, it does. You're like, oh, I remember that. I remember when you used to threw the. Throw the thing under the. In the ceiling, the hand. And it would stick.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And it would stick.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And. But what is, like, profoundly depressing is the top comment that'll be pinned will always be with the most upvotes, will be like, this is when we were a real country.

[Avan Jogia]

It's the heroine of yesterday. It's this addicted to nostalgia as a sedative.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yes.

[Avan Jogia]

And I feel like I've been able to experience it more than anybody else just because I represent generationally, like a cozy, warm cup of tea. For a lot of kids who grew up with. We're not kids anymore. They're like in their 20s at rallies, getting their, you know, heads bashed in, you know, What? I mean, like, they're, they're fighting. The world is happening to them.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Correct. Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

As it has happened to me. And I think we sort of are able to share in that sort of disappointment because when I was a kid on the show shooting it and they were kids watching it, there was sort of a hope of how this was all going to shake out. And I think we have to deal with the reality of what it actually is.

[Unknown Interviewer]

There's a couple poems. Slime mouth is one of them. But you say, don't idolize your childhood. Don't succumb to the sedative of nostalgia. You talk about people pulling up at you on like a. In a CVS parking lot, rolling their window down and kind of just like yelling things at you. Like you represented something to me way back when. And then they just drive off. Is slime. Is slime mouth directed at those people? Is that.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, yeah. This whole book, I think, is a conversation between me and, and. And the, and the audience. The. The people who enjoyed the show and, and enjoy me as, as an entity. Yeah. And whatever. The sort of like teen heartthrob, fantasy idolization thing. Thing that was sold to them in a real way. And I was saying this the other day. It's like it's a toxic sale. But I also would have liked to have been the thing that I was presented as, because what I actually was was like insecure. Coming from poverty, you know, coming from, you know, like a lower class family, coming from Canada. My mother was dealing with sickness. My life was very real.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And I sort of was presented as a fantasy to kids.

[Unknown Interviewer]

There's something so powerful in the beginning of the book. You talk about, I arrive in la, you are quite literally, you're plucked into stardom. And then simultaneously, mom is going back to Canada because she has ovarian cancer. In the two sides of that coin is just like.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, it's weird to have those two things.

[Unknown Interviewer]

So just like heart wrenching.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Happened at the same time. And I think that's the, the erasure of humanity is what allows for idol worship to exist. Because also the job of the teen idol is to be able to be projected upon sort of an erasure of my personality as well. It's like it's better if I'm just here and I speak to Cameron and no one understands what I'm saying. And it's like, you know what I mean? It's sort of this attractive guy who you can project your preferred personality onto.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Rather than this sort of neurotic misanthropic, grumpy guy that I actually am.

[Unknown Interviewer]

There's this one line that still stays. Yeah. We've hung out for, like, six minutes. You're a pretty, like, upbeat, lovely guy.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, yeah, yeah. But this is just like. It's like, you know, like when you listen to circus music. Yeah. Okay. And you're like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. But, like, there's this sort of underlining of, like, like, not, this is not okay, and this is going to be bad.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

That's what I feel.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Oh. That's what it was like being victorious and living during that period of time in your life.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh. Just everything. Like, I'm always constantly like. And it's like. It's like I feel even now.

[Unknown Interviewer]

In your 30s?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, bro. Yeah, man.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay.

[Avan Jogia]

You read the book I just wrote?

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. No, no, no. It's. It's heavy. But there was this line that stuck with me that I. That I really loved, where you talk about, hey, I get it. I was this moment in time in your life. You would watch me on TV and you were at home and you had to babysit your little brother.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And sometimes I feel when people see even some of my work that they saw when they were in college or when they were teenagers, you represent a simpler time in their life.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And it's actually not even the art itself that meant something to them.

[Avan Jogia]

It's a moment in time.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It was just the simplicity of that moment and maybe the chaos of the present of their life in adulthood. It's like, yeah, man, you don't feel a certain way about me. You just have two DUIs and a divorce.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Yeah. No, Right. Your life got more.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And you're living through it. Right.

[Avan Jogia]

Your life got more complicated, and it.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Just got more complicated and more real.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. I say a lot of these kids, it's like your life got complicated after you were a child and watching the show and you were able to be in this sort of nostalgic, glowing, warm time in your life. And then I also grew up, and we both. We both had life happen to us.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And I feel like that's that for me, personally, I think that's sort of how I'm able to reconnect, I guess, with a lot of these kids, we can be on the same page again for the first time.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Do you resent being this little toy and their childhood shoebox?

[Avan Jogia]

No, I think it's. I mean, like I said, like, I was a serious kid when I was like 15, 16. I was just a serious kid. I wanted what I was doing to be serious and have meaning. And I couldn't find it, really. Shooting a kid's show. I was like, the art itself doesn't have any meaning to me. I don't really. I don't. I'm not getting purpose out of this. But what gave me purpose was thinking two things. One, one, I was an escape. I was the toy for these kids that they could be like, wow, look how perfect life can be. And my life might be shit and terrible and I'm getting bullied in school, but I can flick on the television and look, here are my friends and they all like me. And then the second thing was being able to be as a brown person just on television and not being. Being seen as like a cool character.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

So as a young man, I was looking for seriousness, looking for purpose, for what I was doing in my art.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And not finding it in the material. Because we're doing a Nickelodeon show.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

So I needed purpose. The purpose came to me in what it was affecting and how it was affecting kids.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Did that happen after you leave the show? Did you get that?

[Avan Jogia]

No. I knew that immediately.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Really.

[Avan Jogia]

Because I was immediately frustrated.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Oh.

[Avan Jogia]

And wanted. I almost got fired off the show. Yeah. I got first year. I almost got fired off the show because I wasn't good at the musical timing. Probably what comedy. I wasn't good at, like the multi camera.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Really?

[Avan Jogia]

I come from. I was like acting. I was like, oh, you were dropping. I was do. I was doing, you know, I was doing like all this internal work on. On a multi camera show. And they were like, no, no, pick.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It up, pick it up.

[Avan Jogia]

Got to hit your cues. You know what I mean?

[Unknown Interviewer]

You're going full method.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. They're like, no, this music. What are you talking about?

[Unknown Interviewer]

That's.

[Avan Jogia]

I'm like, no, but I'm playing the actor on the show.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Got it.

[Avan Jogia]

And I'm like, but your comedy's actually.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Gotten better because you drop. You're actually. Your tiktoks are very dark and very fun.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, thank you.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay. You dropped this TikTok back in 2020.

[Avan Jogia]

Yes.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay. Go super viral.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

The music is OMC's. How bizarre the text goes. What? You don't remember when you don't remember the plot line to a single victorious episode, but you remember going out partying every night. What did your parents say when they saw that?

[Avan Jogia]

I think, well. Cause you know, my parents. Bless. I was Canadian, so I was like. At the time, I was 18 or 19 years old. And they're like, that's the time when you go out and you're a legal drinking agent. You go and you party. Right. For them, they were like, what? What? And for America, I think it's like, it's a puritanical sort of place. Right. And they're like equal parts. Like, everyone should be, you know, absolutely professional and cold sober. But also colleges for binge drinking. So they don't have, like, there's no middle. So. And I was.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Wait, wait, are you saying Canadians are more. They're more lax when it comes to.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Because we don't have the. We don't have, like the. All the. The. What's the word I'm looking for? The. The sort of puritanical Judeo.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Christian.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Like, Like. Yeah. Shackles. So we don't lose our mind.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I'm going to cross check this statement real quick. Scott, our producer who grew up in Ottawa, is this true? You were getting wet and wild and crazy and drinking age is 19?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, I think it's.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Oh, it checks out okay.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Because. Because we have it a little bit earlier. Yeah. 18. NBC, we have. We have drinking a little bit earlier. But anyway, to sort of get to your point, which is that, like. Yeah, this. This TikTok was viral.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yes.

[Avan Jogia]

And it's. I think it's because people were curious about the sort of, like, dual life. Right. Their experience with me on the show and the idea of there being a secondary experience that are trying to coalesce these very disparate.

[Unknown Interviewer]

They were dialed into every plot line of season two, episode six. Absolutely.

[Avan Jogia]

And I was like, I am out at clubs. I am outside.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, you're really outside?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, I'm really outside.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Every other poem in this book, you're either drunk or high.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

How did you accomplish so much being blasted out of your mind?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Well, listen, I think a lot of my observations of myself come in those moments. I think I see myself a little bit more honestly, in those moments. And then every third poem, as you'll find, is about wanting to kill myself.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

So pretty fun stuff. Go get yourself a book.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It's very happy. The book. The book. The book is legitimately incredible. It's, it's, it's. It's great. There's like, page 11. You talk about confidence. I was an incredibly confident child, annoyingly so by all accounts, it powered everything I did. I was so sure I was gonna be an actor and that I would be a writer and director and that I deserved to if you will forgive me, put my fucking dreams in action. Why didn't you go the normal path of confident children and just become a bully?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, see, that would have been the move. No, no, no, but politician.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. Or politician, but man. I'm reading this and I like, I just, I go, how did you have the internal confidence at that age? You're growing up in Canada, biracial, you.

[Avan Jogia]

Know, like already shouldn't be confident growing up in Canada. You're producing over.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But like, but to write this and you, and you, you, you get how crazy it is. You're like, forgive me for even believing this, but yeah, I thought, yeah, I could really do this.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What made you think that you could manifest your own dreams that way? It's a really powerful thing.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, that's, that's the big question. Right? Because now as I, you know, as I've. The kind of bravery of naivete is an interesting thing. And now that I've, you know, I have a bunch of baggage and luggage with me. I'm not a young man. It's not the naivete of being a young man. It's now. Now I have, I know too much and I have to refind and reclaim bravery as an older person. That's something that has to happen to you again once this sort of, that initial power wears off. You have to sort of reclaim and refind your bravery. And I think that you had this.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Poem about kind of the bravery of failure.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. Can you.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. The idea of like, like, I don't think it's very. I used to really admire young and confident people when I was one. I'm like, yeah, this is great. This is. Wow. I know about what I want. I know what I want to do with my life. I know immediately how to get it done and I want to do it now. I have less. To be brave once you know everything and to maneuver around all of the knowledge of what it feels like to fail, to get hurt, to be in love, to not be in love, to want success and not get it. Once you and have ambition and have that ambition fail once you are able to find bravery again after working around all that stuff, that to me is way more impressive. That's a mark of a truly brave person. It's like a 47 year old guy who was, you know, had an accounting job for 20 years and then he got fired and he did the really brave thing of like, I'm going to make a woodworking, I'm going to start building chairs and he'll build a Chair business. And his chair business, you know, kicks off. That's like a brave thing.

[Unknown Interviewer]

You also talked about kind of the bravery in maintaining grace, even in the minutiae of the small act of holding a door open and all that stuff. Was there. Was there something that you notice? I feel this way sometimes when I go on set and I look at everything that goes into building a small set or even a large set to. From the sandbags that go on that C stand to the lights and the grips, like, was that something you were referring to? This is the thing about poetry. There's so much subtext that maybe I'm.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, those are reading into.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I could be wrong.

[Avan Jogia]

You can infer, I think, with that poem. For me, it was just like. I think that, you know, I live around a bunch of people in, you know, in living in LA as long as I have, I have lived around a bunch of people who are always so grateful for what they. What's happened to them. And they should be. And they're graceful, actually. They're really easy to talk to because life has worked out for them. And so they're. They're not. They're easy to talk to. They're not stressed. And then the people who I grew up with had life happen to them. And the ones who are able to find grace within the sort of context of living, not having things work out, having worked a 12 and a half hour a day for nothing back, and working for these large entities that don't care about their personhood and they still have the ability to have grace and explain to their children why the sun rises and falls when they might lose their house. I think that, to me, that was.

[Unknown Interviewer]

A really beautiful line.

[Avan Jogia]

That's grace.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, that was really beautiful.

[Avan Jogia]

It's easy to have grace when you're like, I've diversified my portfolio. I've got three hours a day to meditate, Right?

[Unknown Interviewer]

Totally.

[Avan Jogia]

Totally.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Is that grace? Is there a part of you that. And the reason why you do film stuff, you do TV stuff, the reason why I wanted to sit down with you for the book stuff is I feel even in my own career, you feel pigeonholed at times. Oh, you're this thing.

[Avan Jogia]

Absolutely.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And did you ever resent the feeling of being just on air talent that is only to be seen on one side of the screen and not your ability to write, your ability to, like, articulate emotion with real pathos and understand character in a deep way.

[Avan Jogia]

I think it's hard. Yeah. I just think it's hard for people to break out of Their pattern of thinking. And it's really hard when their pattern of thinking has been the sort of character that has been projected onto them by a large company that had nothing to do with me. Their projected version of me is this sort of teen heartthrob guy. And so now I have to work backwards from that and try to work myself out of that particular pigeonhole. And then that's really hard to be like, hey, I'm also a legitimate writer and I dress my second book. Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Handwritten, the feature. Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Like, it's hard to try to break that initial, you know, Like, I'm sure you had the same experience in your life. It's like how you permeated. And this is how it is in life for actors and people who make stuff, is how the public experiences you at first, when you first penetrate that sort of public consciousness.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And then you do a bunch of stuff that doesn't really break totally in the same way.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

That's just life. And then it'll happen again.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And you'll. Whatever that will be with the new. The new you break the, you know, the sound barrier of the incessant unending noise that. How can anything that is digital media.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Avan Jogia]

You know, like, there's just nothing can penetrate in this sound room. And then you try to. So my whole thing is trying to figure out what I want to have be my next thing that penetrates. And just. Honestly, being gamblers, you just gotta stick at the table.

[Unknown Interviewer]

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[C]

Hey, Julia, Louis Dreyfus here. If you listen to me on my Wiser Than Me podcast, you probably already know that I'm an investor and an evangelist for the Mill food recycler. There are a lot of reasons to love mill, but for me, it's all about the impact. Keeping food out of the garbage is one of the most powerful things we can do to help the planet every single day. We're talking banana peels, carrot tops, old takeout. When that stuff heads to the landfill, it becomes a huge driver of climate change. If you already compost, great. But of course, there's the smell, the flies, the running to the curb every day with a little leaking compost bag made of cornstarch. That's where mill comes in. It makes keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it in. It can handle nearly anything from a turkey carcass to like 20 avocado pits. It works automatically while you sleep. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never ever smells. Mill makes dry, nutrient rich grounds that you can use in your garden, add to your compost, feed to your chickens. Or mill can get them back to a small farm for you, but you kind of have to live with mill to really get it. And that's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Something you do that's so awesome in the book too is your ability to kind of analyze what the television industry is and kind of the kids TV pipeline. You're a child star in Nickelodeon. You're part of this well established franchise. There's this system and I don't know if they, you know, me and Scott, we were talking about this yesterday as we were prepping for the interview. We were like, is there like a menu that they give you where they go, okay, you go, you do kids show.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Teen pop star, a 24 movie. If it doesn't work out, only fans foot month.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, that's right. That's actually. You've nailed them. I've got a five on WikiFeet.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Sure. Oh, you do?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, man. I'm telling you, if all this. If this. Basically, if this book doesn't do well, I'm on the wikifeet. I'm getting to that point.

[Unknown Interviewer]

You got a couple poems, by the way, about, like, that get pretty dark about where. Where this thing could go.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, yeah. Always. No, because I think that's the fear that we all have.

[Unknown Interviewer]

So from the beginning, were you skeptical of that pipeline? Was. Were you aware of that pipeline?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay.

[Avan Jogia]

I think I bucked it also very early, like, and almost to my detriment, because there was, like, a couple stages where there's, like, romantic comedies and stuff that you can do.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

That I was just like. As soon as I was off of Nickelodeon, I was like. And also, I would like to see and not to be. Because, you know, this is the world of DEI being erased and all this stuff going on.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Sure.

[Avan Jogia]

But I. When I got out of Victorious, the show, there wasn't, like, an industry waiting for me. The diversity hadn't really permeated the. I was still a strange option as, like, the lead guy. You know, I had done some work on the show to, like, change that trajectory.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

But I wasn't like. It wasn't like, I got off the show and it was like there was, you know, this. The. The Shia LaBeouf, like, path. Path for me, that didn't exist.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Did you. Did you. Obviously, our careers are very different, but did you deal with what I dealt with in a. In a different way? Which was. I see myself this way. You don't see me this way. And there's this disconnect and there is this gap between these two things.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And sometimes that gap is huge.

[Avan Jogia]

Massive.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. So, no. And there. And. And. And it's like, especially in those early days because, again, I've been doing this for a long time. Doing this for 17 years. In those early days, they were like, well, as a brown person, you serve this in the story. And then they would try to have me do that, and then they would be like, that's not what I wanted. I wanted it a little bit, you know, a different version of that. And so when I got off the show, there wasn't even parts if I was gonna be. I had to be ethnically ambiguous. There was really parts for brown guys.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[Avan Jogia]

So I had. I mean.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I mean, you literally had to almost hide that part of your heritage.

[Avan Jogia]

Well, yeah, it just did. There was no place for it, you know, especially. And then.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And then, you know, how I became familiar with you. This is how you're a part of my life.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I became familiar with you because you, you did some interviews and music with your brother.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And that's how. That's so funny. Well, because my algorithm is, is South Asian art and artists.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, of course.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And what's interesting is the time that I've spent now touring in the uk. I would call it just kind of brown. Diaspora talent is, it's very tight knit.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

So what, what Riz and Dev and Daniel Kalua and what. Michaela Cole, like all that cohort of talent kind of came up together, but they were able to celebrate their identity in a way that I didn't experience in the States.

[Avan Jogia]

No, no, no. In America we didn't. Yeah, we didn't have that.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Did you. You've gotten a chance to travel more and I can sense that some of your travels. Is that expressed in the writing? Like, did it shape the way you look at your career?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, I mean, I, I've always wanted to. I love the uk. My father's English and I love, I love London and I love the way that we're expressed. I mean, we're, I mean, people of color. Yeah, yeah. Expressed in British media, actually. I think it's awesome.

[Unknown Interviewer]

No, South Asians have been there a.

[Avan Jogia]

Very long time for time. Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I was talking to Riz Ahmed about this and he was like. And I've been spending more time there. And he goes, it's like Harlem for us.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

If you're black and you go to Harlem, you, your history is, is around, literally etched into the, into the performing buildings and the culture.

[Avan Jogia]

You have Langston Hughes. That's one of my favorite poets of all time, since we're talking poets. You have Langston Hughes, you have, you have the Harlem Renaissance. It's like etched into the very, like, yes. And you know, with, with, with South. South Asian people in the UK and especially in London and, and even the Midlands, where my family's from. Yeah. Where it's just, it's, it's by, it's a, we're part of the habitat, we're part of the biology of the place. And I, so I, I, I, I, Yeah, I, When I write specifically, I'd see. Now that I'm writing screenplays more. I, I'm really interested in that part specifically my dad's childhood, you know, in the, in the, in the, in the late 70s, mid-80s.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Wow.

[Avan Jogia]

Like, what an interesting time. And, and totally the Diaspora's history.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

So fascinating. Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

There was an opening kind of passage in this book that still haunts me and stays with me. You talk about this. This image of you were like, I'm 17 years old and I'm running towards fire.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What. I still don't know what that. What we. Were you running towards self destruction. Were you running from something?

[Avan Jogia]

I think.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What was this? Running. Running towards fire.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. I think for that poem. And I think it's just like, I felt like the br. You have to the heat. Life gets hard, and it's in front of you, and you have options. You can stay out of the heat of life and the fire, or you can run right at it. And I think as a child, I ran at it without even knowing what I was doing. And then I got out. I got burnt, and I got out of the fire, and I was like, that was intense. And so I think. But then I went back in.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And then I went back in and went back in and went back in. And so I think that, for me, is what that represents.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Were you. Were you trying to hurt yourself or were you trying to test the limits of how far you could go?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, I think for me, like, it was naivete and curiosity. I think what, you know, to your 20s is for trying to figure out about everything.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And then your 30s is. Is removing all the stuff that you tried and you didn't like.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And then being honest about what you actually liked. Like, I took up sailing.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay.

[Avan Jogia]

In the 20s. My 20s, because I was like, I want to know how to do, like, rich, rich white guy stuff. Like, I want to. I'm going to sail.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Got it. You saw, like, a J. Crew catalog.

[Avan Jogia]

Absolutely. I'm going to sail. I'm going to be an equestrian. Like, I got into all this stuff. None of it stuck because I just didn't. I didn't. It wasn't. I didn't care.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Writing stuck. I'm the biggest hermit in the world. I don't go out and do anything. I go to restaurants with my family. That's what I do now. Legit. Yeah. My 20s were just me exploring life. And then. Then it's about cutting out what doesn't actually resonate with you.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I want to. Here, let me just do. Let me do this last one, bro. Yeah. Page 220 and page 221. I'm on set getting yelled at. Yeah, man. It's very heavy and dark and. And obviously, I'm sure you're alluding this as a reference to Dan Schneider. And you have this line that says, never give someone who was bullied in high school power. And it just describes you getting yelled at and berated while your paycheck is dangled over your head. And how have you processed that almost 17 years later now?

[Avan Jogia]

Well, I think, like, I've always thought that two things can be true at the same time. Like, and, you know, and when I thought about this story, I thought of myself as an adult the whole time I was in that moment of. No, of the whole time I was shooting the show, the whole time I've ever been a kid. I never really felt like a kid. I felt like an adult my whole life. But in that moment, I felt like a child. And I remember feeling like a child at the time. And I think that for me was the sort of like the, huh, lights on moment of like, that there was a responsibility to know that even though we're all professionals and the people that you've hired, these kids that you've hired are adults and they talk like adults and they walk like adults, but they're not adults. And in that moment, I feel like I was aware that they weren't really aware that we were not adults and we were kids. And again, like I said, like, I think two things can be true at the same time. And I think you know this. Cause you do. You do this. It's a really high pressure job, what we do. You know, you want to deliver, you want to do the best job you can. You have to deliver. And so the reason going into the respect thing is I have a lot of respect because it prepped me for an industry that wasn't. When I. When I wasn't a kid, it wasn't like it was gonna be more forgiving, it was gonna get less forgiving.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Right.

[Avan Jogia]

You know, so it trains you up. And I think there is like a soft glove approach to everything now. And actually some things are hard and they take a hard. They take. They take us a real strength to be able to do, you know, to be great at. To be really good at. So I think it prepped me in that way.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But I'm reading this.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What I wanted to ask you was, is that whole system exploitive in and of itself? You have grown adults making children do things that are somewhat obtuse, obtuse at best, inappropriate at worst, that we come to find out. I was talking to another producer on the show and he wanted me to ask you. He just goes, is making kids famous in and of itself a form of child abuse?

[Avan Jogia]

I think that's an interesting question. I think that's maybe the question. And I think that it's only getting worse. Not Getting better.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Like. Like adults can't properly handle it.

[Avan Jogia]

Oh, yeah. I think it's actually getting worse. I think it is. It's not child abuse in a clinical way or understood way, but I think it's actually. I don't think there's enough education for someone who's saying yes to this sort of thing, and I don't think you can. There's no guideline for being famous. I think Kurt Cobain said that, actually. There's certainly no roadmap for a child. But these are the problems of yesterday, because this system is gone. Doesn't exist anymore. Kids. Television stars that are kids, that doesn't exist anymore. What is even worse and more nefarious to me now is Instagram kids, celebrity Instagram kids, completely unregulated. They're being pushed to be in front of a camera for their parents to make millions of dollars on Instagram doing reels and stuff like that. The family TikTok stuff. Mommy TikTok. These children who have no choice and are not choosing to be a part of this, having their personhood stamped into the tapestry of our society. Say one of those kids, and this is sort of a small thing, but say one of those kids really wanted to be like. Like a very cool, like, I don't know, like a DJ that, like, covers their face or something like that.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Okay, sure. Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

But he's a nasty digital footprint of, like, doing, like, putting on bow ties and, like, having a cowboy hat and, like, yodeling and shit.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Sure.

[Avan Jogia]

That are. You know, that was a decision was made for him when he was 6 years old by his mother or father. Yeah, you've completely. You've just. You've completely ruined that child's ability to dictate for themselves how they want their life to go and how who they want to be as a person. And so I think that as. As. As. As hard as it was at how unregulated and really not thoughtful my era of children's television was and teen idol worship was, I think this is even. This is. We're, like, dealing on a magnitude that is unimaginable. And I don't know how you could ever race.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It's funny, you're almost describing this. You're like, I was a kids film star.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I was in the motion picture.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, I know. It's like, I'm talking about.

[Unknown Interviewer]

You were the last one to generate this, like, tiny little hole.

[Avan Jogia]

Absolutely. I wanted to be there to a certain extent.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Like, I wanted to be there. I wanted to be an actor. So at least there's like a 50% in arriving at the table. There is a 50% desire on my side.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Like with these kids on Instagram who are just being exploited for comedy, their worst moments, their tantrums, being exploited for like they're human personhood. Like, it's not like they're doing a bit. A lot of these kids, some kids are just like, I'm frustrated and I'm angry and I drop my ice cream and I'm crying and it's like, I'm like, scroll. Yeah, you know, I'm like, you know.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But it's like etched in amp.

[Avan Jogia]

It's etched in their legacy of their personhood. It's absolutely etched in there forever.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Did you watch that doc and have any. Did you reprocess anything?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, when I watched it, I was like, I don't know. There's this frustration that I have about the media in general where it's gossip mongering and tragedy porn masquerading as sympathy.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Oh yeah, bro. You know, holy shit.

[Avan Jogia]

Like, we're not. We're like. I think the lie that we're telling ourselves is we're like, oh, we really care about those kids. And wow, it's so glad that more is being said about what happened to kids in these different scenarios. But what was actually happening is this sort of tragedy porn where yet again, there's a company exploiting the tragedy of people. And then also the audience doesn't get to learn more empathy. What they actually learn is the dirty little thing that they get to sort of. It's a. Whatever. It's like a piece of pop culture titillation. You know, they don't actually care. It's gossip mongering masquerading as sympathy. It's not real sympathy. And so I'm untrusting of the sort of click baity performance of that sort of thing. What it is, is just. Yeah, it's just preying on false sympathy.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Scott. I think. Did we lift it? Can you give me the page of that? Like it was like. It's called. From the. I think it's called Voyeur. Was the poem. Oh, voyeur, page 95, man. I mean, just to like, I should.

[Avan Jogia]

Have put a table of context in this content in this book. Right? Because my publicist was.

[Unknown Interviewer]

How wild is this? You have voyeur and then the sex joke during the J14 interview back to back. But wait, let's not. I don't want to lose this thread because what you're talking about is which I think is really interesting. And tell me if I'm not picking up what you're putting down. What you're saying is you're like. And correct me if I'm wrong, hey, all of you guys are trying to assign this righteous moral indignation at this bad thing that happened, but I don't think you are doing that with the intention to make the present any better or the future any better or to even enact or seek out justice for what happened then. Yeah, you talk about this in voyeur, you know, as you partake in this non consensual masturbation of watching us fail. Freak. And who are you to watch? It's not just us naked you want to see. You want to see our tragedy, our pain? You sadists. You love to watch. Just wait until it's you. Just wait until they take your search history and use it against you. Just wait until they gather up all your sins too. That may not be in reference to what we were just talking about at the show, but that idea of the joy and the pleasure.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, oh, yeah. And you're dealing with. You're sort of like, you're constantly watching sort of gleeful pleasure being just. Just barely contained behind sympathy. And again, it's like, you know, we gotta sell magazines. You gotta. You have to. You have to. You know, you have to have people click on YouTube videos. It's important. It's. It's the commerce. It's important. But yeah, it's. It's. I find all of this to be re. Traumatizing for the people who went through it, I would imagine. And also just. It's exploitative.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What message are you. Do you think you're trying to send through that poem Voyeur for me? I literally wrote down at the end of it, I just wrote, civilians are now celebrities and this celebrity shit is cooked. Yeah, that's how it made me feel.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Well, listen, for me, I feel like as a celebrity and I actually get the joy of being sort of like not big enough that I am a full participant. Like, I'm not a huge celebrity, but I'm not. I'm not outside of it enough. I'm outside of enough to be able to be an observer. And I feel like the whole celebrity thing is like having a bunch of currency in a. In a country whose GDP is like, plummeting.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Sure.

[Avan Jogia]

You know, it's like, great. What am I. What are we supposed to do?

[Unknown Interviewer]

What am I gonna do with all.

[Avan Jogia]

These currency, these Dutch francs that I have? Like, I don't you know, I mean, like, it doesn't make. You know, it doesn't. It's. It's a currency that I don't think has value. And I've. I've thought of. I thought I felt that way for a number of years and so. Which is why you felt that way. Oh, I think probably since 2019. I think that celebrity has been on a kind of a steady decline since 2019.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Wow. You hit this realization even pre pandemic.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. I think it's got something to do with the absurdity of a Trump presidency, the absurdity of a television personality. It's the idiocracy aspect of life where it's like, well, if that's possible, then what has value? What is class? What is. Why? What is. What is worth? The whole concept of celebrity, although it's wrong, is to have people to look up to that. You're like, wow, look at that.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Right?

[Avan Jogia]

You know?

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

I admire their talent. I admire their. Their. Their class, their grace. I admire the way that they hold themselves, and I admire how honest they are. All of that disappeared. And so.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Can I ask you a very blunt question? You obviously are a public figure. You have. You are engaged to a very public figure as well. I just wrote this. I'm like, after reading the book, I felt. I just wrote down, ovin, if these are your dreams, are you saying it's not worth it?

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, it's a good question.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. And I don't have the answer to that.

[Avan Jogia]

I think that what I'm saying is that in a world where I think celebrity is a dying concept, and I think fame is completely toxic, and so without value, I think the only thing to do is to make things and create things that you're proud of. And fame is a vehicle as a delivery system. Sure. The only advantage I can see to fame is that it's a delivery system. So that this book that I worked really hard on can get to people that might be interested. And I'm a radical. The idea of being radically niche, I don't need everybody. I don't need everybody's to be.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Don't say that. Your agent.

[Avan Jogia]

I post this on the phone. It's like, I don't need anybody. I don't need everyone to like me. I don't need everyone to even interact with my work. But what I do need is that to find my people who do enjoy that, and it be enough people that I can have a ongoing conversation with my audience. So they read mixed feelings. And so then we had, you know, that was a conversation that we had. And then this is the next conversation where we had.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I think Mixed Feelings was just a great way for you to really stand 10 toes down and for you to process your identity and place in the world. And start there.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Start the conversation there.

[Avan Jogia]

No, I've actually accidentally been doing autobiographies.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

Cause like, I think Mixed Feelings is about my life growing up in Vancouver, growing up in a mixed household, growing up Indian, trying to enter the film industry as an Indian person or brown person. And then we stop and then this book picks up for whatever is my 20s. And there's nothing worse and more conceited and self involved than doing autobiographies.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But there's.

[Avan Jogia]

What a waste.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I want to say it is a waste. But actually, yeah. There's something really you. I mean, you know, you talk about being on Instagram and we watched this, this four year old kid's worst moment.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And you're like, that's just a piece of content for all of us. This, this private moment for this poor preschooler.

[Avan Jogia]

Developmental moment.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

And like just into the meat grinder, just like throw it in there and out comes. You know.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But you've, you've clearly had ups and downs and I think the. There is something, maybe there's something powerful about you going through these painful moments and maybe. Let me set this up for you as a question. In voyeur you write, what a fun time to watch your teen idol fall. What fun to watch their flaws and their feelings as someone who has gone through that. And now there's going to be an entire generation of kids where their worst moments are etched into amber.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

On the Internet.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What do you say, what would you say to them after going through something like that?

[Avan Jogia]

I think that the democratization of that experience between, like that there's such a thing. Only that happened to celebrities for a long time and now it's happening to everybody.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah. Costco, Karen.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Like person has meltdown.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. And now you have to. I think that you have to take your. And this is so like cliche, but you have to take a step back and not see yourself as a cardboard cutout of yourself. You are a full human being. You have good moments, you have bad moments, you have moments that you were short and moments that you had the grace for people. I think headlines is one of the things that really, as opposed poem that really exemplified that for me. It's like I was concerned about like, okay, so when you die, if you've done whatever in your Life. Right. You've done whatever you like.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Sure.

[Avan Jogia]

If you die, the headline reads, for me it's like X teen heartthrob or like guy from Victorious. That's the headline.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Right.

[Avan Jogia]

And am I okay with that concept?

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. He does a whole poem on this.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And it's basically like your in memoriam.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah. Like what that means. Right. And I think what I would say to those people is that, remember that your life is more than just a one aspect of it. You know, you were. And you know, if I get to the end of my life and I was a good father, a brother that my brother could rely on, a partner that could support my partner through hard times, that is a better amalgamation of who I am as a person. And that's what I'm putting my value on. I can't change the way that I'm perceived publicly. Nor should you try.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Alright, we're gonna do one last one. I want to give this as an ode to your parents. You know, on page 95 there's this poem where you write. There's two types of kids that get into acting on children's television. Church kids and tiny little freaks. Go ahead and guess which one I was.

[Avan Jogia]

So you were a tiny little freak.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But you had great parents.

[Avan Jogia]

I had great.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Avan Jogia]

I was very lucky. Yeah. And I think the reason why tiny little freaks don't spin out is because we have. We, you know, the ones that. The ones that don't spin out have great parents. And I. I have the best parents.

[Unknown Interviewer]

That's awesome, man. Shout out to them.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah, they.

[Unknown Interviewer]

They really on, you know, in all these interviews and all these. They don't get enough credit and I never met your parents, but. Shout out.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Like truly.

[Avan Jogia]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Thank you for doing this, man.

[Avan Jogia]

Thanks. I appreciate that. Thank you, buddy. Yeah, cool.