#60 The Messenger

Summary

Heavyweight Podcast Episode #60: "The Messenger"
Hosted by Jonathan Goldstein – Pushkin Industries, Released September 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Heavyweight, Jonathan Goldstein untangles the decades-old mystery behind a short film called The Messenger—a World War II story that launched one young man’s dream and abruptly shattered it with a lie. Through a deeply personal investigation involving road trips, tough conversations, and reunions, Jonathan seeks the truth behind the film’s collapse and helps those involved confront the choices and consequences woven through their lives. At its heart, the episode explores how lies create walls—and whether it’s ever possible to dismantle them and move forward.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Michael’s Acting Dream and the Movie that Changed Everything

[02:46 – 08:38]

• Michael’s Backstory: Michael recalls his disappointment as a mediocre summer camp actor ("I wasn't very good." – Michael, [02:51]), always standing in the background, until an unexpected audition for a Cleveland film.
• Landing the Lead: The director, Quincy, sees promise in Michael, casting him not for his acting prowess but for his uncanny resemblance to the character in the storyboard.
  • "They were just like, you look like the kid we drew." – Michael, [04:23]
• The Messenger: A $100,000 short film based on the true story of young WWII telegram messenger Thomas E. Jones, whose delivery of Japan’s surrender message was delayed by a traffic stop.
• Rising Hopes: Amidst industry attention and rumors of meetings with Tom Hanks, Michael imagines a future as an actor.

2. The Staggering Disappointment: Exposure of the Lie

[08:38 – 11:16]

• Cancelled Premiere: Michael is crushed to learn (from a tearful Quincy) that the film will never premiere; Quincy had lied.
• The Big Fabrication: The actor playing "Thomas E. Jones" in post-film interviews was a random elderly man posing as the real (and very much alive) Jones.
  • "It seems Quincy had just found a random old man, slipped him into a gown, strapped him into a hospital bed, and christened him Thomas E. Jones." – Jonathan Goldstein, [09:16]
• Ripple Effects: The real Jones family finds out, leading to the movie’s cancellation and public embarrassment for everyone involved.
• Michael's Reflection: The debacle forces Michael to reevaluate his dreams, though it sows the seeds for a future career in TV writing.

3. Unraveling the Truth: A Search for Motive and Accountability

[11:16 – 20:49]

• Lingering Questions: Michael never understood Quincy’s risk—"Why did you lie?”—and seeks closure, prompting Jonathan to help.
• Contacting the Jones Family: Jonathan interviews Nancy (Thomas’s widow), Victoria (daughter), and Mike (son).
  • The Joneses are outraged by both the fake "deathbed" and the fabricated pancake-diner subplot, which falsely depicted Thomas as a slacker.
    • "We said, no, this is altering history." – Victoria Jones, [18:51]
• Attempting to Reach Quincy: Quincy refuses to talk—"I'm not interested in talking about that project anymore, he writes, and that's the last I hear from Quincy." – Jonathan Goldstein, [19:59]
• Showbiz Connections: A fortuitous chain-of-contact leads Jonathan and Michael to Pat Croce, the film’s producer.

4. Pat Croce’s Perspective: Betrayal, Growth, and Letting Go

[22:26 – 27:01]

• Pat’s Involvement: After a request by his pirate-loving friend Reef (Quincy's father), Pat enthusiastically backs the project, believing Quincy’s story unequivocally.
• Feeling Betrayed: When the truth comes out, Pat is incensed at Quincy’s duplicity and the damage to his own reputation:
  • "He's lucky he didn't cross my path or else he wouldn't be walking." – Pat Croce, [25:50]
• Spiritual Growth: A decade and a cancer diagnosis later, Pat claims peace with the past, seeing regret as pointless:
  • "The past to me is smoke off the end of my cigar." – Pat Croce, [24:32]
• The Door Opens: Pat offers to reach out to Quincy, who finally agrees to talk—with Michael, not Jonathan.

5. The Confrontation: Michael and Quincy Speak After Nearly 20 Years

[29:41 – 39:36]

• Reunion Call: An awkward but honest video chat begins, filled first with stories and laughter—"I couldn't drive stick..." – Michael, [30:44]—then turns serious.
• Quincy’s Shame: Quincy admits to years of guilt, saying, "I failed every single person. And then I became national news." – Quincy, [31:26]
• Why the Lie? Quincy says he genuinely could not find Thomas Jones, was misled by erroneous death certificates, and, obsessed with a cinematic ending, justified the ruse in his mind:
  • "I couldn't get away from that story." – Quincy, [34:20]
  • He cast a tour guide as Jones, never imagining the blowback.
• Pattern of Exaggeration: Quincy reveals a history of compulsive lying rooted in class insecurity, dating back to his elite prep school days:
  • "I felt this like, sense of just like always needing to exaggerate." – Quincy, [35:26]
• Personal Reckoning: The scandal forced Quincy to break free from lying—“That was the most important lesson, full stop period of my life." – Quincy, [36:26]

6. Unexpected Gifts and Letting Go

[37:01 – 39:51]

• Michael’s Gratitude: Michael credits The Messenger experience for showing him his path, leading to his career and even meeting his wife:
  • "I never got to just thank you...[that] invitation you gave me to be on set, changed the entire direction of my life." – Michael, [37:21]
• Quincy’s Relief: Quincy, surprised by forgiveness, is deeply moved—"I was convinced that it would ruin everyone's life because that's what I was feeling at that moment." – Quincy, [38:10]
• Pat's Words: A recent conversation with Pat Croce ("let it go") brings Quincy to tears, a final push toward healing.

7. Life Goes On: Art, Lies, and Second Chances

[39:51 – End (~41:34)]

• On Set in New York: Jonathan visits Michael and his wife on the set of a new film, reflecting on the power of shared illusion in film and storytelling.
  • "It’s all a lie, of course, but one that we’re all in on." – Jonathan Goldstein, [41:28]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "My mom says your singing is awful."
  – Anonymous camper to Michael, on early acting struggles [02:53]
• "They were just like, you look like the kid we drew."
  – Michael on getting cast [04:23]
• "It was all a fraud. And the guy who thought I had talent, also a fraud."
  – Michael, on the sting of betrayal [10:35]
• "We said, no, this is altering history."
  – Victoria Jones, on her family's reaction [18:51]
• "The past to me is smoke off the end of my cigar."
  – Pat Croce, on moving past regret [24:32]
• "I couldn't get away from that story."
  – Quincy, on his obsession with the film’s ending [34:20]
• "It took a lot of weight off my shoulders that I didn’t have to make every story 10% better."
  – Quincy, on breaking his lying habit [36:26]
• "I never got to just thank you....the invitation you gave me to be on set changed the entire direction of my life."
  – Michael to Quincy [37:21]
• "It's all a lie, of course, but one that we're all in on."
  – Jonathan, on the magic of movies [41:28]

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Conclusion

The Messenger is a story of ambition, self-sabotage, and personal growth. The episode takes listeners on an emotional journey: from a young actor’s hopes, through public scandal and career devastation, to hard-won maturity, reconciliation, and gratitude. Through candid conversations, it dissects the ripple effects of a single decision while revealing how storytelling—honest and otherwise—shapes lives. Forgiveness, Jonathan finds, is sometimes the greatest message of all.

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Transcript

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Pushkin.

[Victoria Jones]

Hi dear.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Happy birthday to me. Oh my God.

[Victoria Jones]

It was your birthday. It was your birthday last week, wasn't it?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It's kind of why I was phoning birthday.

[Nancy Jones]

I.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm sorry, buddy. It loses something when you have to call a week later to receive to get your own birthday wish from someone you know. It hurts.

[Victoria Jones]

Okay.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Honestly, I feel like your birthday's not.

[Nancy Jones]

That important to you. Am I wrong?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, it's not as important to me as the first night of Hanukkah. And the second night, not the third night. I hate the third night. You know what? As a birthday present to myself, I going to hang up on you. Happy birthday to me. Indeed. From Pushkin Industries. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, the messenger, right after the break. This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

As a kid growing up in Cleveland, Michael loved acting. The only problem?

[Michael]

I wasn't very good.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In fact, he stank in every summer camp show. He was placed in the back row in a children's production of the Hobbit, the musical. Backstage, a kid dressed as a dwarf told Michael, my mom says your singing is awful. But it didn't stop Michael. He nursed his acting bug all the way through senior year when one day he heard about a movie being filmed in Cleveland and the director needed lots of teens to be extras. Straight after school, Michael made his way to the auditions. He was shown into A room with the director and some of the crew. They gave him a script and he started acting.

[Michael]

And their eyes lit up. And I was asked to keep reading. And so we did the scene again.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

We did it again and again and again. And all the while, Michael was overcome by a curious feeling.

[Michael]

I was doing a good job.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Had you ever experienced this before? Like been in an audition where people were responding this way?

[Michael]

No, no, I. I was usually in auditions where they're like, we can make him a tree.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

At the end of the audition, the director told Michael that he was not going to be an extra. Michael was going to be the star of the whole movie. Why was he going to be the star of the whole movie? Was it his Brando esque brooding, his Shia LaBeoufian intensity?

[Michael]

They showed me the storyboard and I looked exactly like the kid in the drawings of the storyboard. I think that's the reason I got it. They were just like, you look like the kid we drew.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The film was called the messenger, based on a true story. And the true story it was based on was a little known World War II anecdote about a teenager named Thomas E. Jones. Jones was a telegram messenger in Washington D.C. on August 14, 1945, he was sent to deliver the telegram that announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies. But on the way to deliver the message, he got pulled over for an illegal U turn. And thus the end of World War II was delayed by 10 minutes. Michael played the role of Thomas as he navigated that fateful day.

[Michael]

I show up to set and I just was immediately involved in the magic of film. They had to fake the daylight by putting lights outside the window. And I remember being like, oh, you're not just like capturing a moment, you're creating a moment.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And the custodian of this exciting new world. The director of the movie was a 25 year old wunderkind named Quincy. Quincy took to Michael immediately. Throughout the production, he'd check in with Michael on the phone and take him out for wings. Michael looked up to Quincy to meet.

[Michael]

Someone who was orchestrating this giant production. And then for him to like, take time, talk to me, I felt part of.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Even after filming wrapped, Quincy stayed in touch, calling Michael with updates about the movie's release.

[Michael]

We were gonna premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival. I learned that it was a big production, $100,000 short film, which is a lot of money for a short movie. The executive prod was this man named Pat Croce.

[Pat Croce]

Pat, Pat, Pat.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

If you don't Know the name. Pat Croce was a media presence, an entrepreneur, famous in the world of sports because he owned the Philadelphia 76ers in the late 90s. Oh, what a play by Iverson. He was a motivational speaker.

[Pat Croce]

I get up, I slap my palms together. It's gonna be a great day.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

A noted pirate enthusiast.

[Pat Croce]

People ask me if I'm a pirate and I say yes, but 300 years too late.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And the kind of beloved pre. Me too, macho man who'd show up unannounced on the set of the local news just to scoop the anchor woman up into his arms.

[Victoria Jones]

Accident on the Jersey Turnpike.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

My God. Because when you have that much joie de vivre, what choice do you have? You know, whenever Pat comes in the room, you never know what's gonna happen.

[Michael]

He just doesn't have any rules because Pat Croce, because he's involved. The movie gets a lot of press.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

For a short film by an unknown director, the messenger received an unheard of amount of press. ESPN carried a story with footage of Michael on set. And there was a huge write up in USA Today.

[Michael]

My dad was flying that day. You know, he was in an airport. He picks up the USA Today, he flips it open and sees, you know, a two page spread with my picture on it. So the family's excitement, the friends excitement, everyone starts to just, this is a very big deal.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Michael was planning on college in the fall. But as anticipation around the movie grew, he started to reconsider.

[Michael]

Leading up to the Philadelphia Film Festival. Talking to Quincy, he's like, tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This is a real chance. This is a real opportunity. This is bigger than I imagined. I was like, maybe. Maybe I try and pursue acting.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Maybe Michael had been wrong all these years. Maybe everyone had been. Maybe he really was a good actor. And it took Quincy to discover it. Michael couldn't wait to walk the red carpet, see himself on the big screen, and enjoy a virgin Appletini with Tom Hanks. Did your parents come with you to the premiere?

[Michael]

Well, we didn't make it to the premiere. The movie was canceled. So the week before the Philadelphia Film Festival premiere, I got a phone call from Quincy and he was clearly crying. And he told me that the movie wasn't going to come out and nobody was gonna see it because it turns out that Quincy had lied and had told a really big lie.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The lie Michael's referring to had nothing to do with the historical anecdote itself. That part was true. But over the end credits, Quincy played Footage of the actual present day Thomas E. Jones being interviewed on his deathbed. The only problem, that guy was an actor. It seems Quincy had just found a random old man, slipped him into a gown, strapped him into a hospital bed, and christened him Thomas E. Jones. But there was one thing Quincy wasn't counting on.

[Michael]

Because the movie had received so much attention. Thomas E. Jones real family found out.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And Thomas E. Jones real family wasn't happy. Because as it turned out, the real Thomas E. Jones was very much alive. Breathing, eating, sleeping, and not on a deathbed, but just a regular old bed bed. And so Pat Croce decided to pull the movie.

[Michael]

I mean, it was crushing disappointment. I had the ticket to go, I had the suit, I had all the expectation I had in my brain, everything that could be possible after, and it's all gone. It's all, it vanishes. And then it's a wave of embarrassment because I have to tell everybody.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Michael had to go back to his friends, family, his grandmother who'd been clipping every article about the movie, and say, remember how I was going to be a big movie star? It was all a fraud. And the guy who thought I had talent, also a fraud.

[Michael]

And I never talked to Quincy again.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Michael abandoned his dream of becoming an actor, but his time on the messenger still had its impact. It allowed him to realize how much he loved being on a set, loved the magic of creating a whole world from thin air. And that pushed him towards a career in TV, writing for shows on Disney and Nickelodeon. Meanwhile, Quincy's IMDb credits have grown sparse.

[Michael]

I always wondered what happened to Quincy because I looked up to him. There was part of me that wanted to tell him that I've, like, succeeded, that I've pursued movies because of him.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But along with that, Michael has a lingering question for Quincy.

[Michael]

I never understood why you would take such a big risk like that to make such a big lie. It's like you've set up a film crew to film this guy on his deathbed and it wasn't him. Like, it just seems like a bad plan.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

As Michael has climbed the ranks of show business, this question has only gained in poignance. Why risk your reputation, especially when the story was good enough as it was?

[Michael]

Why did you lie after the break?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Searching for Quincy to become the Messenger's messenger. But first, the best messages of all. Promotional messages from our cherished sponsors. We really do love you guys.

[Nancy Jones]

Ew.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Too gross.

[Nancy Jones]

It's a little gross, eh?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Keep it in.

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[Quincy]

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

See capitalone.com for details. Why did Quincy lie? The more I think about it, the less sense it all makes. Why go to the trouble of hiring an old man and building a hospital set? Why not just use the real Thomas E. Jones?

[Nancy Jones]

Hello?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Oh, hello. My name is Jonathan Gouldsch. I've so far been unable to contact Quincy, so I reach out to someone else who might have the answer. I was looking for. A Thomas E. Jones.

[Nancy Jones]

He's deceased.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Oh, I'm very sorry.

[Nancy Jones]

Yes, I'm his widow. When he died, we would have been married almost 70 years.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Thomas widow Nancy is 89 years old. She says she doesn't know why Quincy didn't just go to Thomas himself. But we get to talking and she tells me the story of how she first met Thomas. It was through his work as a messenger. It turns out Nancy's father was Thomas's boss at the Telegram office. She tells me how in 1945, there was a dedicated telegraph machine standing by for the sole purpose of awaiting the Japanese surrender.

[Nancy Jones]

And when that machine started ticking, my father, he handed the message first to my husband, who was a bicycle messenger at 16 years of age.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Since a bike was too slow for such an important message, a co worker agreed to drive Thomas in his car. Unfortunately, he set out in the wrong direction. And thus the most famous U turn in American history. Or at least the only one I've ever heard of. And I've read my Howard Zinn. The U turn got Thomas and his driver pulled over by a cop.

[Nancy Jones]

Of course, they were saying, we've got the Japanese peace surrender message here. Yeah, I've heard a lot of stories. But the police realized it was the truth. They just tore up the ticket.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Wow. What a story. Yeah, and it's a pretty different story than the one in the Messenger. Not only were the Joneses angry about the fake Thomas, but they were also angry about what they considered the fake story. In Quincy's version of events, Thomas is in no hurry to deliver the message. He makes a casual pit stop at a diner where he hits on the waitress and enjoys a large breakfast of pancakes, all while the war rages on. The Joneses read about that scene in the media coverage of Quincy's movie Newspaper write ups with headlines like, Boys Pancake Breakfast Delayed the end of World War II.

[Nancy Jones]

Well, you know, my kids were just serious about that. We're not talking about kids. We're talking about people now 60 years old.

[Victoria Jones]

We were outraged. The kids were outraged.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Victoria Jones. She's one of Thomas and Nancy's six children, all of whom, when it came to the messenger, were in agreement, which.

[Quincy]

Was unusual for the six of us.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Thomas son, Mike Jones. He says that the only one inclined to let the whole thing go was Thomas himself.

[Quincy]

That was kind of my dad's attitude, like, oh, don't make a big deal. Don't get this person in trouble.

[Victoria Jones]

We said, no, this is altering history.

[Quincy]

It just kind of portrayed him like.

[Pat Croce]

As the slacker, you know, like, oh.

[Quincy]

The heck with that. I'm going to go and flirt and eat pancakes.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Victoria says that although Quincy never reached out to her father, he easily could have.

[Victoria Jones]

Just like you found my mother by getting a few phone calls. Quincy could have found my father, and he never tried.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

When she found out about the movie, Victoria messaged Quincy several times, but she says he grew defensive and eventually stopped answering.

[Victoria Jones]

And then when my father died, I sent him a message and said, my father is now deceased.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And he did not respond to that.

[Victoria Jones]

No, no, I should go back and look, he might have said, I'm sorry. And that was it.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I tell the Joneses the story about Michael and how I'm trying to reach Quincy myself.

[Victoria Jones]

Good luck with that one.

[Nancy Jones]

I'm sure he'll think this is a better Left a dead story, don't you?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It turns out Nancy Jones is right. When I finally get through to Quincy via email, his response is emphatic. I'm not interested in talking about that project anymore, he writes, and that's the last I hear from Quincy. What happens next is years go by unrelated to my failure to speak with Quincy. But you never know. Heavyweight is canceled and I lose my job. And while the story never entirely leaves my mind, without an ergonomic office chair and a long distance phone plan, there's not much I could do about it. And then one day, while trying to decide on a fun font for my resume, I receive a message from Michael. He says he has an important update to share.

[Michael]

Hey, Jonathan.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Hey, Michael. How are you?

[Michael]

Good. How are you doing?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It's been almost three years since Michael and I have spoken. You have a son now.

[Michael]

I've got a wife. I've got a son.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The whole family is currently in New York, where Michael's wife Katie is producing a movie. It turns out that Katie's movie is the reason for Michael's update, an associate.

[Michael]

Producer on the movie, his name's Dan.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Michael explains that while out for dinner with Dan, they started talking about the industry, by which I mean the show business industry. And one of the things people in the industry enjoy chatting about most is how they got into the industry. So Michael told Dan the story of the messenger, about the director, Quincy, about the producer, Pat Croce.

[Michael]

And Dan is from Philly. Dan's parents are family friends with the Croces.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You're kidding. Show biz connections. In this life, there's not a thing that doesn't come down to show biz connections. It's not what you know, when you know where you know it or why you know it, but whom you know. Pat Croce was the executive producer on the movie, the one who ultimately shut it all down. So with Quincy unwilling to talk, he's our best shot at figuring out why Quincy had lied. At some point, Pat had to have demanded an explanation from Quincy. Dan agrees to talk to his mom, who agrees to talk to Pat's daughter, who agrees to talk with Pat, who then agrees to Talk with me. Mr. Croce.

[Pat Croce]

Call me Pat.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Pat. Pat. Pat Croce.

[Pat Croce]

One thing I like to say about your heavyweight podcast is that it always inculcates a high vibrational frequency.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Can you say more about the high frequency?

[Pat Croce]

Well, in the realm of form, if we're going to transcend form.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Pat Croce has a white goatee that ends in a point at his chest. He's in the Zen den, a large room above the barn on his 53 acre estate. His walls are covered in Chinese and Tibetan calligraphy. He says that these days he seldom makes any media appearances. Is there any reason for that?

[Pat Croce]

It's a great question, you interviewer, you. Well, 10 years ago, something happened. My mind cracked.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Pat's mind cracked in a meeting for one of his restaurants. He owns several, among them the Rum Barrel, which is pirate themed.

[Pat Croce]

And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, what the hell am I doing here? I don't really give a shit about the next great grouper sandwich. This is just more. I always was seeking more. Another win, another standing ovation, another bestseller. Another, another, more, more. There was never enough. Never.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What Pat realized was that in spite of all his successes, he wasn't really happy. And so he tried to change his way of thinking, but it was a slow process.

[Pat Croce]

The ego in me was, if I can change my mind, that'd be another great bestseller. And I would go back on the speaking game, it was all ego, all commercial. But that's how Grace hooked me. Everything that unfolds is perfect. I have this adage, the past has served its purpose perfectly, but most people are cherry pickers. Well, I wish that would have changed. Or I wish this or no, the purpose of the past, Jonathan, there's only one purpose. To bring you and me right here and now.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay.

[Pat Croce]

The past to me is smoke off the end of my cigar.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

For me, the past is also smoke off the end of my cigar. Juicy wafts of precious smoke to be hysterically clawed at like a rabid raccoon attacking a helium filled garbage can. And so I ask Pat to go back to the past and explain how he became involved with Quincy, Michael and the Messenger. He says it all began in Key west at the pirate themed museum he owned that sat beside the pirate themed restaurant he also owned.

[Pat Croce]

And you get to know all the piratical personalities on that island, one of which was Reef. And Reef is a salvager. And he's really got a piratical nature. He would even dress as a pirate. And I really loved him.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

One day, Reef asked Pat for a favor. Could Pat meet with his son Quincy, who wanted to make a movie.

[Pat Croce]

And we got talking and he turned me on to this script that he has been writing. And.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And you liked it?

[Pat Croce]

Oh, sure. Are you kidding me? It's talking about this young boy who has an effect on the ending of World War II.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And you hadn't known that story? I hadn't known that story.

[Pat Croce]

Oh, no. I had never heard of.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What was your impression of Quincy when you first met him?

[Pat Croce]

Oh, I liked him. And so. And I believed everything Quincy told me.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

When Quincy's lie came out, Pat was furious.

[Pat Croce]

Prior to 10 years ago, before, you know, my mind cracked. He's lucky he didn't cross my path or else he wouldn't be walking.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You mean that? You mean that literally?

[Pat Croce]

Say no. Since this is being taped. I'm pretty street savvy. I couldn't believe that I got buffaloed like this as someone I thought was a friend. You know, a friend, a Key west friend. I was so hurt that I was angry. And when I'm angry, the old Pat Croce, the old corner guy, man, not only did I lose the money, but all the contacts that I made for him to get him in USA Today, I opened all these doors through all my relationships. And then all of a sudden, when I realized that it was a fraud, that it was phony, I mean, I had to go and apologize to everyone.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But Pat says that these days he doesn't have time for rumination or regret.

[Pat Croce]

And even though I am here at peace, my body has bone marrow cancer. I'm on chemo every 12 hours of chemo meds incurable. However, I don't regret that. I don't nothing. Oh wow, Jonathan. It's only my body. It's not me.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Before we get off, I ask Pat Michael's burning question. Why did Quincy lie? But Pat says he doesn't ask the why questions. Only Quincy, Pat says if he goes deep, can answer that. Pat and Quincy haven't spoken for decades. Their last interactions were angry ones right after Quincy's lie came out. All the same, Pat offers to reach out to Quincy. He contacts a friend who he thinks might have Quincy's phone number. I don't have high hopes, but Pat and Quincy do end up speaking. And afterwards, for reasons I can't discern, Quincy agrees to speak with Michael.

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

A video call between Michael and Quincy is arranged. And while we wait for Quincy, I ask Michael the opening question I learnt in J school. Are you in a bathroom?

[Michael]

No, this is our tiny little kitchen in our apartment.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It's late at night and Michael gives me a tour of his darkened New York apartment.

[Michael]

There's our Carson's little lunchbox.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Very sweet. Where is he right now?

[Michael]

Carson is asleep.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What a lazy bones. And then.

[Victoria Jones]

Hello.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Quincy enters the chat. It's been almost 20 years since he and Michael were together on set. Quincy was 25 at the time. He's in his 40s now.

[Quincy]

It's nice to see Michael's face. I haven't seen his face in a long time.

[Michael]

I know. It's good to see you.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Michael and Quincy begin by reminiscing about their time together, about making the movie.

[Quincy]

There were two scenes that really stand out for me. One is when all the kids were in the diner.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

They exchange memories from what feels like unfraught territory. Stuff like the casting and the fun of being on set.

[Michael]

My favorite scene was doing the U turn. You had me drive stick shift. And I lied when I auditioned. You were like, can you drive stick? And I was like, I can drive stick. I couldn't drive stick. I was really.

[Quincy]

Oh, I never knew that.

[Michael]

I know. And I was, like, stalling out, like, grinding the gears.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It feels like Michael is trying to make Quincy comfortable, show that Quincy wasn't the only one capable of lie.

[Michael]

I was like, I'm a fraud.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is disaster.

[Quincy]

Rented the car from was like, pulling his hair out to. I thought this kid could drive.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But it doesn't take long before the conversation turns to the elephant in the room, and it's Quincy who brings it up.

[Quincy]

I remember wanting to reach out to you in the years that passed. Yeah, I felt a lot of guilt because, like, this film, everybody had put so much sweat and tears into it, and it was just nothing. It, like, evaporated. And I thought, my God, I failed every single person. And then I became, like, national news. And then the blogs were writing about me.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Because the messenger got a colossal amount of press. When the truth came out, Quincy received a proportional amount of backlash, similar to how the tidal wave of the Messenger's success hit Michael. The bad news about the Messenger's failure hit Quincy. He was at the airport reading that day's newspaper over someone's shoulder, and they.

[Quincy]

Were reading the article about me and how I had lied. And that hit me like I'd say a ton of bricks, but a ton of bricks would have felt like a pillow compared to what that was.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

How are you coping?

[Quincy]

I was in denial. I kept going back to this, like, excuse of, well, the Titanic. Right, The Titanic. It's a fake movie. It's based on a true story. There was no Jack and Rose. And yet what I had done was totally different. I mean, I was literally trying to pretend that this other actor I had hired was Thomas Jones. And it took me a year or two to sort of come to terms and just be like, man, I really fucked up.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Which brings us to the question of why. Why swap a random old man for Thomas E. Jones? To explain, Quincy starts with how he came to the story of the messenger in the first place.

[Quincy]

I had been working that summer at the Truman Little White House in Key west. And sort of in my onboarding at that museum, they told us to read David McCullough's Truman biography. And it was in that book that I saw this one sentence about Thomas E. Jones and the Messenger.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And it was literally one sentence, one sentence in parentheses in the middle of a thousand page book.

[Quincy]

And I thought, God, what an amazing story.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But Quincy thought, you know what would make it an even more amazing story? If he could find Thomas E. Jones, interview him, and include that interview in the movie. And in Quincy's telling, he did look for Thomas Jones.

[Quincy]

I had hired literal investigators to go find this person. Two different guys, and they both said, like, you know, we can't find him, but we found these two death certificates that kind of match up.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

So the death certificates felt like enough. Quincy concluded that the Thomas E. Jones he was looking for probably was dead.

[Quincy]

And I didn't share that with anybody because in my head I just saw the story rolling out. It was like we were going to tell the story. And then at the end you saw the real guy and that I couldn't get away from that story.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And in the absence of the real guy, the next best thing was a fake guy.

[Quincy]

Oh, well, the deceased Thomas Jones will never know. And anybody that sees the movie, it's going to be so great and they're going to be crying and laughing at the end of it that they won't.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Care for this role. There was no casting, no auditions. In fact, the part of Thomas E. Jones wasn't played by an actor at all.

[Quincy]

He was actually a tour guide at the Truman Little White House.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Quincy had asked a work friend from the museum to do the job.

[Quincy]

And then the real Thomas Jones found me. And I certainly remember that feeling. It was like a disgust I felt for myself.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In the aftermath, Quincy left the film world for many years. He was fired from his job at the Truman Museum. He eventually found work clerking in a bookstore and making wedding videos. While this was the first time a lie of Quincy's had been so brutally exposed, he admits that the lying itself was something he'd been leaning on since his teen years.

[Quincy]

You know, I had come from a fairly poor family in Key west, and I had attended a very exclusive prep school up in Western Massachusetts called Deerfield Academy, where I Had no business being there. And so I felt this like, sense of just like always needing to exaggerate. People would be like, oh, I'm going to Paris for winter break. And I'd be like, oh, gosh, Paris, it's great. But didn't even know what country it was in. It was like a daily thing. Freshman year, someone had a picture of Jimi Hendrix, a poster. And I remember looking at his name and thinking it looked kind of French. And I was like, oh, I love Jaime Hendri. And I remember him looking at me and being like, what?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

For Quincy, Lies became a beautiful wall between himself and everyone else. Lies protected him, but also isolated him. It took the collapse of the messenger to finally get him to stop.

[Quincy]

And it was actually very relieving because it took a lot of weight off my shoulders that I didn't have to make every story 10% better. I didn't have to. As hard as that was, that was the most important lesson, full stop period of my life.

[Michael]

After we did the Messenger, I didn't take that as anything that stopped me.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

When Quincy is done sharing the effect the messenger had on his life, Michael shares the role it played for him.

[Michael]

Seeing the camera, seeing the crew, it blew my mind. I didn't know that this was possible. I didn't know that this is what it looked like. And I was in It's Quincy and.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The messenger that inspired Michael's career. But it isn't just that Quincy gave him a professional life. He gave him a life.

[Michael]

I married this beautiful person who she's a movie producer. And we have this amazing kid called Carson who's two and a half years old. And all of this life that I have, this partner, this career, this kid, it comes from this wild, weird, random moment in Cleveland, Ohio, where you decided to cast me in this short film. And it's all this to say, like, I never got to just thank you. I've always appreciated that door that you showed to me and allowed me to walk through that moment, that time, that invitation that you gave me to be on set, change the entire direction of my life.

[Quincy]

That means. That means a lot to me. I look back on that time with totally different eyes. It was one of the most difficult things in my life. And I can't tell you how meaningful it is to me to hear that someone had something good come out of it because it certainly didn't feel like that. I was convinced that it would ruin everyone's life because that's what I was feeling at that moment.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Quincy just assumed anyone involved with the messenger would still be furious with him. And so a few weeks back, when he saw Pat Croce's name pop up on his phone, he says he almost felt too scared to pick up. But when they spoke, instead of yelling at him, Pat told him it was time to let it go.

[Quincy]

As soon as he said those words, let it go, I just, I sat out in front of my house and cried for a good 20 minutes. I didn't know before we talked today actually genuinely what you were going to say today.

[Michael]

You know, I met you as this person I looked up to.

[Quincy]

You're gonna make me cry. I'm really, really genuinely happy for you.

[Michael]

Thank you for taking time just to talk to me. But really thank you for the life I got to have because of it.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Recently. I got to share in that life. One day, leaving our New York studio, Michael says he's off to meet his wife, Katie. Her crew is filming just a few blocks away and Michael asks if I'd like to come and I say sure. On the corner of 20th street and 7th Avenue, shooting is in full swing. The movie stars John Turturro as an aging pickpocket who ends up with a thumb drive containing a crypto wallet on it. Michael and I are waved past the protected perimeter and Katie gives me a pair of small headphones as I watch take after take of John Turturro slamming down a payphone and screaming fuck. In fake fury. I feel like a 10 year old on a field trip. All around us, the city bustles as normal while we are tucked away in our make believe world watching make believe things. Hands up. It's all a lie, of course, but one that we're all in on. And action. Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home.

[Michael]

Now that the last month's.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Rent is scheming with the damaged deposit, take this moment to decide if we.

[Michael]

Meant it, if we tried.

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Or felt.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Around for far too much. From Things that Accidentally Touch this episode of Heavyweight was produced by Khalilah Holt and me, Jonathan Goldstein, along with Mohini Madgaon and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Lucy Sullivan, Karen Shakurji and Nazanin Rafsanjani. Our production counsel is Jake Flanagan. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson and Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Blue Dot Sessions, Bobble Principal and Shanghai Restoration Project. Our theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast or email us at Heavyweight Pushkin fm. We'll be back next week with a new episode.

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

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[Quincy]

It's all right.

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

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