"The Rehearsal" Is a Sports Profile, with Mina Kimes

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Rehearsal" Is a Sports Profile, with Mina Kimes

Podcast Information:

• Title: Pablo Torre Finds Out
• Host/Author: Pablo Torre, Le Batard & Friends
• Episode Title: "The Rehearsal" Is a Sports Profile, with Mina Kimes
• Release Date: June 20, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of "Pablo Torre Finds Out," Pablo Torre engages in an insightful conversation with esteemed sportswriter Mina Kimes. The discussion revolves around Nathan Fielder's innovative series "The Rehearsal" and its implications on traditional sports profiling and journalism. Through a deep dive into the show's mechanics and its reflection on modern storytelling, Torre and Kimes explore the evolving landscape of narrative in sports and media.

Exploring "The Rehearsal"

"The Rehearsal," created by Nathan Fielder, is described as a groundbreaking continuation of his earlier work, "Nathan for You." The show delves into the intricacies of human communication and the challenges individuals face in real-life interactions. Fielder employs elaborate simulations and reenactments to allow individuals to navigate awkward or confrontational situations with the aid of actors.

At [00:00], Pablo Torre introduces the episode's focus, setting the stage for a comprehensive analysis of "The Rehearsal." The conversation quickly shifts to discussing the show's premise:

[10:24] Mina Kimes: "The Rehearsal is based... people really struggle with awkwardness in real life and awkward situations and confrontation."

Kimes elaborates on the show's second season, highlighting its concentrated focus on commercial aviation disasters. Fielder attempts to uncover patterns in plane crashes by simulating cockpit dynamics and communication barriers between pilots and first officers.

[12:28] Mina Kimes: "He comes up with this idea of, like, let's apply the Fielder method, the rehearsal, to this specific problem."

Comparison to Traditional Sports Profiles

Kimes draws parallels between "The Rehearsal" and traditional sports profiling, emphasizing the dual-tracking nature of both approaches. She shares her experiences in sports journalism, where profiling athletes often involves balancing objective reporting with interpretative storytelling.

[25:17] Mina Kimes: "Every profile has to have a point. Then you have to be open to also that point being challenged."

Torre reflects on his own work, citing his profile of James Harden for ESPN Magazine as an example of this dual approach:

[26:30] Pablo Torre: "The second track ended up being like this question that was inverted by the end, which was... who doesn't want to be like him?"

Ethical and Artistic Considerations

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the authenticity and ethical implications of blending acting with real-life storytelling. Both Torre and Kimes grapple with whether the artifice inherent in "The Rehearsal" detracts from its underlying messages.

[19:08] Pablo Torre: "If he is Nathan Fielder, what I know in my mind is me getting these questions wrong is the best thing for this scene."

Kimes echoes these sentiments, pondering the balance between performance and truth:

[20:58] Mina Kimes: "The result... is a topic of conversation, such an insane, bizarro, unhinged piece of art, I'm just happy that that's happening and that people like him are doing stuff like that. But regardless of how much of it was him playing a role versus being himself."

Impact and Relevance in Modern Media

The conversation shifts to the relevance of in-depth profiles in today's fast-paced, content-driven media environment. Kimes highlights the challenges faced by journalists in securing access to high-profile athletes, a dynamic that has been exacerbated by the rise of social media and athletes' control over their personal narratives.

[40:06] Mina Kimes: "It's a tough sell now... helping people understand him, it was kind of the only thing that's been done on him in that fashion."

Torre reflects on his experiences, noting the decline in traditional profiling opportunities and the shift towards self-produced content by athletes:

[34:17] Pablo Torre: "But when it comes to, like, what athletes need from what they want, what they could use from a magazine or certainly magazines are less and less the thing."

Conclusion

In wrapping up, both host and guest acknowledge the transformative nature of projects like "The Rehearsal" in redefining storytelling standards. They stress the importance of ambitious, creatively driven projects that push the boundaries of conventional media, even as the landscape becomes more fragmented and ephemeral.

[44:00] Mina Kimes: "But what I feel about both these things is I'm just really glad they exist."

Pablo Torre succinctly encapsulates their discussion, emphasizing the blend of art and journalism:

[45:03] Pablo Torre: "The ultimate compliment is that I want to be more like... more like The Rehearsal."

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Notable Quotes

• Mina Kimes [10:24]: "The Rehearsal is based... people really struggle with awkwardness in real life and awkward situations and confrontation."

• Pablo Torre [19:08]: "If he is Nathan Fielder, what I know in my mind is me getting these questions wrong is the best thing for this scene."

• Mina Kimes [20:58]: "The result... is a topic of conversation, such an insane, bizarro, unhinged piece of art, I'm just happy that that's happening and that people like him are doing stuff like that."

• Mina Kimes [25:17]: "Every profile has to have a point. Then you have to be open to also that point being challenged."

• Pablo Torre [26:30]: "The second track ended up being like this question that was inverted by the end, which was... who doesn't want to be like him?"

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Final Thoughts

This episode of "Pablo Torre Finds Out" provides a compelling examination of "The Rehearsal" and its place within the broader context of sports journalism and storytelling. Through an engaging dialogue with Mina Kimes, Pablo Torre articulates the challenges and opportunities presented by innovative narrative forms in an ever-evolving media landscape. Listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the delicate balance between authenticity and performance, and the enduring value of deeply considered storytelling in capturing the essence of individuals beyond their public personas.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Mina Kimes]

Even your burns are so convoluted.

[Pablo Torre]

God damn it.

[Mina Kimes]

I was gonna say he looks like the guy from Shrek. Lord Farcroft. That's what I was thinking. I was like, ooh, here's one I got for you, Pablo. Hit him with this.

[Pablo Torre]

The Shrek image right after this ad.

[Mina Kimes]

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[Nathan Fielder]

And breathe.

[Mina Kimes]

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[Mina Kimes]

It is hot in LA today.

[Pablo Torre]

What we. What are we talking about?

[Mina Kimes]

Actually, haven't looked, but I'm going to Nashville where it's hotter because there's, like, a heat wave on the East Coast. This is Nino's first flight since he started walking, which is a long time ago. So we haven't flown very much. And I am preparing for the apocalypse.

[Pablo Torre]

What's your strategy in the event of the apocalypse?

[Mina Kimes]

So context is he is not only walking, he is incredibly squirmy and does not like being confined and is, like, very hard to wrangle. I feel like a high school football team that's going up against the perennial state champion and knows they're gonna lose. So I'm pulling out every trick play possible. I have done so much research into ways to entertain your toddler on a plane at this point that I'm arguably overprepared for this trip.

[Pablo Torre]

The best play available in my. In my playbook, which has 100% success rate, is just give him an iPad. Are you willing to do that?

[Mina Kimes]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, please I am not one of those. Oh no, I'm too good for iPads. The problem is he is a little bit under iPad age. So he is 21 months. Right. And I actually started training him on the iPad for this trip about a month ago. Like, I started giving him limited Elmo.

[Pablo Torre]

Just like you've been microdosing him with Elmo.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, like Little Elmo to the point where he now thinks he thinks the iPad is Elmo and he thinks the TV is basketball, because that's the only thing I ever have on when he's allowed to watch it. And so I've been giving him like little 10 minute, 15, 20 minute increments of Elmo, also training him to wear his little headphones. And I think I've created a little enough demand to where he can probably get like maybe an hour, maybe not all at once of iPad. It's a four hour flight. So if he was a little older, I'd put him on that thing the entire flight.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah, we're giving Violet that in any, any even vague emergency situation. Do you realize, though, and this is maybe germane to what we're going to do at some point in this episode, are you aware that you've been Nathan Fieldering your son? You've been rehearsaling Nina.

[Mina Kimes]

Oh my God. I have not put that connection together. Yeah, you're right. I have been. We have been rehearsing, rehearsing this flight, essentially. And Nathan Fielder and my son probably have the same level of social skills. So makes sense.

[Pablo Torre]

Before we get into what we're here to talk about today, which I think is going to be. I've been meaning to do this just you and I talking to each other in a way where we can like fully brain dump. But I do, because of Cortez, I do want to play something. Because speaking of toddlers, I have not seen this clip yet, but I am told that I should see it and maybe address it. So could we please cue whatever Cortez queued up now? All right.

[Bill Simmons]

I was at. When I couldn't hear, I was having to keep myself occupied. I was reading the latest glowing Pablo Torrey profile in the New York magazine.

[Pablo Torre]

So Pablo is featured in.

[Mina Kimes]

In a very prestigious publication.

[Bill Simmons]

I had not heard this New York magazine. And as you could guess, it took 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 13 words before the Peabody's were mentioned. And so that was good, by the way. But it's. Speaking of featured, I did think it was nice that Pablo kind of. Because I didn't like Pablo and Bill Feuding I thought it was nice that he went on the pod with Bill and stood his ground. To his credit didn't back down. And if people didn't hear it I we did a kind of super cut of it for him so they could hear the 90 minutes Pablo and versus 60 minutes Pablo and Bill spent hashing it out. Two podcast legends go play. Play it for us if you could.

[Pablo Torre]

Murrow and Peabody Peabody's Peabody Nominated Edward R. Murrow Award Peabody Award nominated Peabody Peabody Award Nominated Peabody Peabody's Peabody Peabody and Edward R. Murrow word Murrow and Peabody.

[Bill Simmons]

I imagine I have the relationship with Pablo that Pablo has with Larsa Pippen where like I'm. I don't have anything against him. I'm kind of fascinated by him. I don't totally understand the, you know, the big deal but there's no ill will.

[Mina Kimes]

He got your ass. He got your ass. Let's just call.

[Pablo Torre]

Has come to my attention that in. In my attempt to re establish what would have been called into question which is my journalistic credibility in general, I maybe overdid it. So sniped.

[Mina Kimes]

Sniped some misleading editing there. I don't know but I can I can I see something? By the way, I just did a panel and one of the questions at the panel was if I really hate Nick Wright and I. This actually ties into what we're going to talk about with the rehearsal. I could not believe that people didn't understand it was a joke. Nick Wright is like a friend of mine. I really like and respect him and yeah, we're going to talk about the rehearsal.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh yeah.

[Mina Kimes]

In depth.

[Pablo Torre]

What's fact? What's like.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, right.

[Pablo Torre]

What's hard to tell? It's hard for me to tell. Is Nick Wright still banned from ptfo? I think the answer must be yes.

[Mina Kimes]

Well after that.

[Pablo Torre]

And also does Nick Wright have something in common with Larsa Pippen? I would say yes. Yeah, I would say they're both almost clinically obsessed with Michael Jordan. That seems to be, that seems to be a through line. So yeah, you Nick Wright.

[Mina Kimes]

I thought he was a LeBron guy.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, he's obsessed. He's obsessed in the way that, you know, he can't stop thinking about Michael Jordan.

[Mina Kimes]

It's okay, get take some time. You know, we're gonna maybe do a few rehearsals of you going after Nick Wright. Just we gotta guess call. I'm a neutral observer. I'm not a neutral observer. I'm team Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

Thank you.

[Mina Kimes]

However he got your s. I'm sorry, I have to Call it like I see it. He got your s.

[Nathan Fielder]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Mina Kimes]

Cocktails take 12 buzzballs just dropped their biggest blue balls.

[Pablo Torre]

Script says biggies Blue balls. Lonzo take 13 blue balls just dropped.

[Mina Kimes]

Their biggest buzz balls. Let's try a vocal exercise. Buzz Balls. Biggies Blue Balls. Buzz Balls. Biggies Blue balls Just drop.

[Nathan Fielder]

Get blue balls.

[Mina Kimes]

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[Pablo Torre]

Please drink responsibly. Buzz Balls available on spirit wine and.

[Lonzo Ball]

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[Pablo Torre]

So what we actually came here to discuss is. Is a thing that I just finished. So today I just finished watching all of it in.

[Lonzo Ball]

In.

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In.

[Pablo Torre]

In the last hour, I finally did something that I got mad at myself for waiting so long to do. Because now that I have watched the rehearsal, I just want to tell you that I think it's one of my favorite things I've ever seen.

[Mina Kimes]

Okay. Unequivocally, love is your. Is your. Your review with.

[Pablo Torre]

With questions and concerns. But my reaction, the.

[Mina Kimes]

The.

[Pablo Torre]

The greatest compliment I can pay it is that I think I'm going to be thinking about this for a very long time, and it made me reflect on, like, how to do what I do better.

[Mina Kimes]

We should probably just explain who Nathan Fielder is, if any. Although if you're listening to this and you haven't watched any of his work, that's kind of amazing. I guess the original show that kind of catapulted him to fame was Nathan for you.

[Lonzo Ball]

My name is Nathan Fielder, and I graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades. Now I'm using my knowledge to help struggling small business owners make it in this competitive world. This is Nathan for you.

[Mina Kimes]

This went on for multiple seasons. It kind of, I don't know if I would say hit a wall because he became too famous, but a lot of those stunts were predicated on the idea of people not knowing who he was. And I think he has become a little famous. So then he launched a show called the Rehearsal. And season one, this is season two that we're going to talk about. But this the rehearsal is based. It's a kind of a continuation of the same through line, which is people really struggle with awkwardness in real life and awkward situations and confrontation. And some people struggle with it more than others. What if we created these elaborate recreations, simulations of real world issues, conflicts, whatever, that allowed people to reenact these tense moments with the help of actors. Things like raising a child all the way up to, like, having a confrontation with a family member. So that was season one. Season two was much more focused.

[Lonzo Ball]

I've been studying commercial aviation disasters sort of as a hobby.

[Mina Kimes]

Okay.

[Lonzo Ball]

And I've been staging my own recreations of these disasters to better understand what's really going on. And I started to notice a disturbing pattern in the causes of these crashes.

[Mina Kimes]

The idea was this theory that he came up with, this is revealed in the first episode, that a lot of plane crashes are caused by a lack of communication between pilot and the first officer. First officer not being willing to speak up, the pilot shutting them down. Again, the through line is, you know, all of his work is about human communication and why it's difficult. So he comes up with this idea of, like, let's apply the Fielder method, the rehearsal, to this specific problem. He goes on a journey of trying to recreate it, trying to get people in positions of power and the government to care, but it keeps hitting walls. And then ultimately it results in this finale where he himself flies the plane so he can get inside the cockpit.

[Lonzo Ball]

How do you feel about me landing this thing? I'm confident. Yeah.

[Mina Kimes]

How about you?

[Lonzo Ball]

Are you?

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Lonzo Ball]

Based on what?

[Mina Kimes]

I don't know.

[Lonzo Ball]

I feel like you can kind of tell. This lands the same as the sim, right? The simulator.

[Mina Kimes]

What?

[Lonzo Ball]

This lands the same as the simulator, right?

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Nathan Fielder flies an actual commercial airliner filled with human actors who are playing passengers. Does it successfully?

[Mina Kimes]

We learned that he's been training as a pilot for two years simultaneously.

[Pablo Torre]

It's just a production question, which, again, I'm always fascinated by, like, structuring it, how you structure a thing like this. At every moment, he is simultaneously proposing something and reenacting it in order to prepare for some execution that he is going to try and do. Seemingly in what would count as the present tense of the rehearsal.

[Mina Kimes]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

That alone is so interesting to me because the sort of threading of you seeing him hiring the actor as well as the person who the actor is going to portray, all of it is intuitive enough to follow, but it's so complicated that I understand if people are also just like, this is trying really Hard. And I don't quite get it.

[Mina Kimes]

So a lot of the complexity of it, I think, and that introduces like some mixed feelings in some ways, is it's a mix of actors and real people. I think about, like the episode where he has these sort of awkward, sweet, endearing pilot who has struggles asking women out on dates and working up the courage to kiss them. That's a real man.

[Lonzo Ball]

So this scene will be mostly improv. And your character is named Captain Powers in this.

[GMC Ad]

Okay.

[Lonzo Ball]

A little funny, right? Yeah. And he's called that because he actually has a power, which is that every date he goes on, he has no problem asking for a kiss and then doing it. Okay. And the other character is named Jennifer. Kiss me. And Jennifer will be played by Emma. Okay. Okay. Who's an actress, as you know.

[Mina Kimes]

Yep.

[Lonzo Ball]

All right, well, let me go get your scene partner then. Okay.

[Mina Kimes]

And then he's putting actors in the situation with them, and one of those actors is then being asked to just be themselves, but she's still an actor. And I think Nathan himself is the ultimate, like, kind of patheosis of that, which is he is both an actor and he is himself. And I think something that's really tricky to unpack in all of this and it comes to a head, I think, at the end too, is like, how much of this is the real Nathan versus how much of it is him playing a role, which is to say it's presented, it's just a six episode series as like a fact finding mission. Like you are being taken on this journey with Nathan where one thing leads to another. He like, hits a wall. So he tries another path that opens up something. He finds out all these people on the Internet are obsessed with him being autistic. That leads him down another pat. Ties in at the end. All of it ties together.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Sully Sullenberger is in there too, by the way, as like there's a whole.

[Mina Kimes]

The third episode is like this insane, unhinged thing where he recreates the life of Sully Sullberger. But the episode is presented as one thing leads to another. Come along on this journey with me. But that to me is all. It's all structured. This is all pre bleached. That is not reflective of reality, which is what makes the finale, I think, such an achievement, like artistically, because the amount of work and planning and production to make all of these things feel like they weave together naturally and organically is insane. Insane.

[Pablo Torre]

Also very clearly, like, I have to imagine that he started. He worked backwards. Right. And so In.

[Mina Kimes]

In. In.

[Pablo Torre]

In storytelling, in magazine journalism, Mina, you know that, like, if you're going to evoke the first person, there is this device you can use where it's like, so I tried this and that didn't work. So then I did this. And the presentation of it, I mean, it's sort of. Ethically, you are beholden to your own code of honor, right? Like, it could be easy to say this happened and didn't work, or this happened and did work, and therefore this next thing happened. And you sort of put it into a chronology that makes it the most, let's just say, fun, palatable version of the complicated story you want to tell. I have to imagine that what Nathan Fielder is not showing us is in fact, that part of, like, we gotta land the plane. Literally.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And to get there, how do I get there? And so that's. There's so much cleverness there, but it's.

[Mina Kimes]

Also artifice, a throughline. The autism community on the Internet has become, like, fans of him in this show because of complicated reasons, I think. Like, it. There's. They like that. It mimics this idea of, like, masking is the term they use, right? Like, hey, if you learn to just kind of enact these emotions in social cues, you can start doing it in real life. They also believe, some of them, some people believe Nathan is autistic. And, you know, this is introduced partway through the show, and then it becomes a through line, and it becomes a tension point when he's confronted with, like, am I. Do I have to disclose this possibility to fly the plane? And then at the end, you said, he decides the interiority doesn't come. Doesn't matter. What matters is how I'm being received in my interactions with other people. Right? Like, this is the big conclusion. But, like, that's not how it happened. Like this. I'm sure, you know, he's known about this forever. I'm sure in working backwards, he thought it would be an interesting thing because of the connection to the, you know, conflicts between people in the cockpit, the challenges of flying a plane. And that leads me to a question, Pablo, which is like, so there's this moment where he takes a test, or he's in an office with a woman, a doctor, I believe, an expert who explains to him, like, oh, you know, people who are autistic have trouble, like, differentiating between, like, the emotions shown in other people's eyes. So she's like, for example, and she's showing it to him, and he is like, he gets it wrong twice. Which one would you choose?

[Lonzo Ball]

So you're saying these people have trouble with this. You're saying.

[Nathan Fielder]

Yes.

[Lonzo Ball]

That's the point you're trying to make.

[Mina Kimes]

That's right.

[Lonzo Ball]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah. Choose what you think on this one.

[Lonzo Ball]

Yeah. Terrified, maybe, at least. Yeah. Okay.

[Mina Kimes]

Okay.

[Lonzo Ball]

So upset.

[Mina Kimes]

But this is a very difficult test because it's very, very subtle.

[Lonzo Ball]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Mina Kimes]

And even, like, we would disagree perhaps on this.

[Lonzo Ball]

All right.

[Mina Kimes]

He's acting, right? So, so, so. But is he? I don't know. I. I thought. This is a man who's definitely acting. This is a comedian. He knows it's funny if he kind of, like, shies away from it. But if he's acting, does that at all diminish the inclusion of the issue?

[Pablo Torre]

Exactly. Does it diminish? It is the thing that I. I'm grappling with. Because what I see in comedy all of the time is a convenient retreat to comedy when it comes to. Wait a minute. You're lying to us or you're not taking this seriously, or you're not living up to the implicit premise of this all being real and true. And it's like, no, I'm just. I'm just. I'm just a comedian or. No, just an actor. Right. This is a bit of Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. This is also a thing that feels like a docu style examination of human behavior that is actually, on some level, a theatrical production. Um, and so you're right. If I am Nathan Fielder, what I know in my mind is me getting these questions wrong is the best thing for this scene.

[Mina Kimes]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And so in a world in which elsewhere in the show, I believe it was episode two, I wrote this down because they're little like winks. They're kind of obvious, but maybe I think they're worth highlighting anyway, where Nathan Fielder says, quote, I've always felt that sincerity is overrated. It just ends up punishing those who can't perform it as well as others. Which I think speaks to some of the. Certainly, like, reading of social cues. But also, I think is a meta commentary on, like, am I lying or not? Am I performing or not? Am I the greatest performer of sincerity, or am I somebody who cannot do it? And I think he benefits from being the guy who is guileless and also the most Machiavellian. Right. He is both seemingly a victim of the thing he is examining as well as the greatest practitioner of it. And that's where it's especially, I think, tense.

[Mina Kimes]

It's so slippery. Do you Think it's had interesting things to say. Like, do you think. Because I think that's what I'm wrestling with is whether the ultimate theses and the themes and the points are undermined by the artifice and the fact that he is ultimately acting for most of the show.

[Pablo Torre]

That's a really good question. I think it is undermined by the cleverness and the artifice because I'm thinking about, like, what did I find out while watching the show? It was entirely about the craft of making it. To me, like, that's what I. Again, we just spent a whole conversation talking about, like strategy, ethics, structure. The way in which this is not something that is fundamentally about a journalistic or truth centric enterprise is that by the end, the whole thing of, like, Nathan finds out that communication with his fellow pilot is the thing that you need more of to successfully land planes and avoid crashes is, Is. Is so far in the rear view in the service of fundamentally an amazing stunt, which is, I flew a plane and landed it.

[Mina Kimes]

I've been agreeing with you. I think it was much more about art than like any particular underlying message. You know, his, like, the conclusion he comes to at the end, which is like, the results of this test don't matter. It doesn't matter if I have this diagnosis because I was able to do this incredible thing and I was received a certain way by people. And it's actually these interactions with others that can be rehearsed and role played that define who we are much more so than what's in our mind. There's certainly some truth there to that. And I think you can look at examples of, you know, like some of the rehearsals and some of the more heartwarming examples. Maybe the pilot did earn a little bit of confidence by role playing, like a guy asking for a kiss. I don't know. But I did feel that message. I was like a little bit like, yeah, but you're not. You don't really mean this. I didn't. Like, you didn't really realize this. You're just putting a button on your.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, so. So on that note, thank you for pointing that out. Because what I think Nathan Fielder would say is that what he really found out is that. Is that part what you said, like, what you need can be found in other people in ways that again, maybe you misunderstood at the outset of your journey of self discovery. Like, that's basically the point, which is a lot like saying, what I found out was the real championship was the friends we made along the way.

[Mina Kimes]

Put.

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[Mina Kimes]

I think you're on mute.

[Nathan Fielder]

Workday starting to sound the same.

[Pablo Torre]

I think you're on mute.

[Nathan Fielder]

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[Pablo Torre]

I think it naturally brings us to the next part of I think what I want to discuss. And we can sort of like jump back and forth through all of this if that's cool with you. Because the question of like how you tell a story in, in sports journalism, in magazine writing, to just focus on like what we used to do and really pride ourselves on doing it was always about what's the bigger idea here? You know, like there would be a profile, but then ideally you would find a bigger idea, something bigger to say that the profile subject or the feature subject would allow you to kind of engage with. And I actually, I don't want to presume that I always aspired to that. Was that something that you were hunting for when you wanted to do a piece on someone else? Like, what is there beyond famous person is like this.

[Mina Kimes]

So yeah, we both used to write sports profiles for magazines and I'm interested in also talking to you about kind of like whether or not those are still a thing to the same degree, which has come up like amidst the NBA Finals.

[Nathan Fielder]

Right.

[Mina Kimes]

We need to tell more stories about these guys. But profiling, I was thinking about it while watching the rehearsal a little bit. I always felt like you had to kind of dual track it.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Mina Kimes]

When I was spending time with someone, I genuinely wanted to be open to the possi, like learning new things at every step of the way, not just the beginning. Learning things through being around them, observing them, reporting and whatnot. But at the same time, while I was doing that, I was also looking for a thesis, a point. Every profile has to have a point. Then you have to be open to also that point being challenged. Sometimes I would go into stories with a belief of what the point was and it would change completely. I can think of a few examples like that honestly, over the years. So it Was I always found kind of you had to have two ideas in your head at once. Probably not too dissimilar from what we were just describing.

[Pablo Torre]

Exactly, exactly. No, I mean for me, look as so the best. The things I'm most proud of were dual tracked. One track was I am reporting and meeting somebody that I do not know otherwise. And I've researched and I'm open to, as you say, like finding out all the things that I could not pre write. The second track, I'm always on guard for, like, what is this actually saying about anything beyond the narrow vantage point of you care about this guy because you're a sports fan. So the example I'll use briefly is just one of the things I. I really enjoyed doing, even though it was very hard, was a profile of James Harden that I did for ESPN the Magazine. But this piece, part of it was like this question. And again, James Harden was not a good quote, not a good interview. He was dating Khloe Kardashian at the time. I went to Houston incidentally to visit them and she was hanging around, went to his basket camp. You do the stuff that makes you feel like Nathan Fielder, right? Like you're just like creepily following somebody with a laptop strapped to your chest. Figuratively speaking, like taking notes and creeping around and just like watching and observing. And so I related to that part. Right. There's some journalistic kind of vibes in, in. In the rehearsal as well.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

But in this case, sort of the premise ended up being like, James Harden was just signing this giant Adidas contract, a nine figure contract with Adidas. He was now like the face of the Rockets. And there was this question of like, who actually likes James Harden? Who wants to wear his shoes? Who wants to be him? Right? Like, he seems like this, you know, he's this guy who like has a beard, but that seems engineered. Like, what is his deal? And by the end, like the dual track thing, like, so one track was profile gonna tell you about him and how he got to be this way. But the parallel track ended up being like this question that was inverted by the end, which was, look at the way the attention economy has been structured. Look at how people are competing to be famous and to get rich and to again, manipulate algorithms in all these ways. The better question for James Harden is actually who doesn't want to be like him? Because he is a guy who has every lever of like, again, dating a reality star, growing his beard for branding. You could argue flopping to. To get points and more money. Like he is exploiting every rule available to him, including those of the Internet, the attention economy, as well as bas ball itself. So second track, comment on like what the is celebrity now? First track, who the is James Harden?

[Mina Kimes]

Did you feel like there was a point in your reporting where you pivoted a little bit?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Yes. Because when the guy that you, you sort of like show up to a profile, I think, and you're hoping that the subject just gives you everything and is just like very reflective. And at a certain point you realize, and this is I think where I'm curious for your take. Like at a certain point you have to wonder when am I gonna micro dose like a think piece, you know, like, when am I gonna be the person who's observing stuff in a, in, in a. Sort of like here is my view, my perspective personally on what's happening here versus here is a story in which there is a plot and I am telling you what I've seen as opposed to I am interpreting what I'm seeing. And so when James was not a great quote, it sort of like shunted me to prioritize that second track more. And I think it made sense for him, but it doesn't. I'm sensitive though to the way in which you can overdo the second track as well.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah. I think you're describing something that I used to encounter a lot with profiles, which is how much you actually show of a person is constricted by access, how much you actually get to see them and be around them, which has dramatically changed over the last 10, 15 years. And also whether they have something to say. Right. Like if you're around somebody who's like incredibly soft spoken and uninteresting or maybe just not, not open, you end up having to over index Another thing you have to do right around them. You have to interview you to do outside reporting. And also you are more likely to kind of not vamp but like explore ideas versus like I, I think my own experiences. There were stories like that, but there were also stories like I was around, I did a lot of football player profiles. I was around Martellis and Michael Bennett. Very little me required in that story because they were just so funny and weird and interesting guys. So I was like, let me just spend like a few days with them and what it's described to be what and all, you know, I had some theses about how unique they were and why it worked, but it was mostly just like, hey, this is what it's like to be about these dudes. Jalen Ramsey Was a similar one where I spent three days, I think two days with him in Tennessee and ended up just being like, here's what that was like for the most part, because he was just so interesting and funny and whatever, versus, like a guy like Justin Herbert. I went into that thinking that was one of my last profiles. I went into that with a thesis and a theory about what the story would be about. And it kind of ended up being what the story was about, which is what is it like to be an introvert as a quarterback in the NFL? And boy, was he an introvert. So a lot of it. And that was one where I had a ton of access. He just is not a talkative dude and is very private. And that was reflected in the story. And so I think you have to be kind of open to where the reporting takes you a little bit. But it's definitely a product of like, what actually, like, you know, the person and how much of them you get.

[Pablo Torre]

I remember talking to you about this when both of us were towards the end of our runs as like, full time magazine writers and effectively begging for access is really depressing.

[Mina Kimes]

Oh, my God. Stories I could tell.

[Pablo Torre]

How would you describe? So you can anonymize it if you want, but, like, how would you convey to someone who doesn't know what it's like to try and profile a celebrity athlete? Like, what it's actually like? That's not in the piece.

[Mina Kimes]

I don't have to anonymize this one. When I went to, I did the profile on Luka Doncic and I went to Spain and I was there for four days and I spent three of the days just waiting to see Luka Doncic to the point where, like, I had to basically, like, jump into his car in Spain to, like, because I was like, I need time. I need to see this guy. So much of being a athlete profile writer was like, I think it's gotten way, way worse now. Well, maybe it's flipped around and I don't know. I actually can't speak to it with terms of access. But like, we were writing from like 2008ish 7ish through 2016ish or whatever. And it was. It's kind of like a turning point, I think, in how athletes are covered and written about generally. Which is to say, before that, access profiles were everywhere. It was just a thing. It was like part of being a famous athlete was like a big, you know, capital J. Journalists would come, write about you and spend time with you. And then around that time I think some athletes thought, well, do I really need this? Cause I have my own social media. I might have my own documentary company. I'm in charge of production. Why do I want to make myself vulnerable to this annoying, you know, kid from Harvard who's talking about his Peabodys when I can just put out my own?

[Pablo Torre]

Why is this investigative journalist from Yale who used to do things about, like, you know, serious financial crimes, asking me how many nachos I eat?

[Mina Kimes]

There was a NFL player who flaked on me in two states. I was supposed to hang out with him in one state. Just ended up sitting there in a hotel room. Didn't write back. Then they said, okay, well, he's in this other state. Flew to the other state, dipped on me then. I mean, it's humiliating.

[Pablo Torre]

The boxers were the best. Boxers were the best because they're sort of like, constitution was naturally to sell. And they had no concern about PR because they were basically effectively uncancellable. Like, boxers didn't give a shit. It was great. Although I did get thrown out of a gym by Floyd Mayweather once, which was, I think, just a generally sad experience. A waste of, a huge waste of my time. But when it comes to, like, what athletes need from what they want, what they could use from a magazine or certainly magazines are less and less the thing. But just from a profile writer, it does occur to me that, like, the real estate on, on, on a publication really was a utility that they could monetize.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And benefit from. Now it's sort of like it's all tiles on their Instagram page, you know, So I don't, I, I, it's hard for me to blame them for being less and less open to this stuff.

[Mina Kimes]

It's a tough sell now for the reasons you described. And I still think there's a lot to be gained by letting someone else tell your story and presented in a, like, deeply considered fashion. You see that with some documentaries for sure. Still, I think that's kind of. Although there's now a lot of. That's the one field where a lot of it is athlete made. And that's a whole other thing. But Herbert, who I mentioned like, that obviously was not his idea. His marketing people were like, hey, would you want to do this? And I would argue it's like the only real glimpse people have gotten into Justin Herbert. It made a lot of people understand him and talk about him and like him in a way, because he's just extraordinarily quiet and private. And I think, you know, the Goal is not to do propaganda for them or whatever, but I think in terms of, like, helping people understand him, it was, you know, kind of the only thing that's been done on him in that fashion.

[Pablo Torre]

Correct.

[Mina Kimes]

But that's a tough sell. Like, hey, like, yeah, you can market me in commercials and you can post and you could do podcasts, but if you really want people to like you, let somebody think about you for a long time and write about it, that's a tough. That's a tough pitch. I get it. I'll tell you what. He did not like being interviewed, and he did not like having me hang around. I went to his. He had, like, a golf tournament, so I spent time in Oregon for the piece. And his family was so lovely. And I got to, like, there was. You know, I talked to a lot of his teammates because I was like, all right, this dude's not. Not really like, a talker. Let me talk to, like, Keenan Allen and stuff. And he. Herbert himself did not like being interviewed. But he. Whenever he would see me interviewing, like, his teammate, he would be like, the shack hiding behind the telephone pole, trying to figure out what was going on. This, like, 6 foot 6 quarterback. I'd be like, it's fine, Justin. And he'd be like, why did he say that? And I'm like, dude, you could talk. It was very funny. But, yeah, you're giving up control in a way that I think is scary.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. I think the most you can hope for is. And this is sort of like the pledge, and maybe this brings us back to Nathan Fielder towards the end, which is just that, like, you kind of hope that the person you entrust with your vulnerability kind of sees your story the way that you do, and you hope that they represent it ethically. Like, that's kind of, you know, like. Because, look, as. As anybody who is telling a story, there are two. Two things. One thing is. One thing is, is don't talk about your Peabody nomination. That. That will come back to bite you. The second thing, though, is be extraordinary. I mean, this. If. It's sort of like, if my mom called me up one day and was like, guess what? I just got a call from the New York Times or from GQ magazine and they just talked to me for an hour. I'd be like, oh, God, no. Right? Like, you don't want. He. I would. I would. I would advocate always, like, discretion, unless you have done enough thinking where, like, you're strategic. Like, I don't. I don't blame people for being careful. Right. Like, I just. I get it. Because what I'm trying to say is the storyteller's foremost obligation is to the best of story. And so all you can really hope for ethically is for them to hear your side of the story, such that you influence truthfully as the subject, the story that you want told. And maybe you'll get there and it'll be perfect and great. But sometimes you are playing defense from the start and that is something that it's hard for me to spin. It's just. It's kind of just how it works.

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[Mina Kimes]

Let me ask you one more question about profiles. And this is kind of from the perspective, I guess, of the athlete as we talk about like why they're a dying thing and they really are. Right. Like we, we should start there. Like, there's less and less of these written all the time for a litany of reasons. Starting with people don't read anymore, by the way.

[Pablo Torre]

And also like links being deprioritized on various platforms like Twitter that used to.

[Mina Kimes]

Well, that's. That, that's. That's what I'm actually gonna ask you about is like can they still make an impact though? Like I. Because that's kind of, you know, what's impact I feel like during. Yeah, that's, that's the other question. Because I think definitely you don't see profiles take over the Internet in the way they did 10, certainly 15, 20 years ago. Right. Like you. It's not. It did feel like 15 or so years ago there'd be like a big story coming out and everyone was talking about it like, oh my God, did you read JR Moehringer on Alex Rodriguez or whatever? And that doesn't feel like the case anymore. And I don't think it's the fault of. It's definitely not the fault of the writers or the athletes. I think even it's just that's the Internet has changed. So in a world where people don't read and people don't talk about things on social media to talk about stories, I certainly know why we think they should still exist. But do you think like from the perspective of athletes and sort of this industry, there's a. There's a. There's a case to be made for them.

[Pablo Torre]

So doing this show has made me think about this because we basically try and pre aggregate ourselves where it's like, what do we think the clips are going to be? Let's make sure that we send them out. Because really what you're doing. What does impact mean? Does it mean that you got aggregated by like NBA Central, you know, does it is is at Legion Hoops or whatever are they. Does getting to the aggregators mean that you made a sound like is that actually what sort of like Internet currency feels like?

[Mina Kimes]

MLF football misrepresents you while you're blocked. Does. Do you still get the.

[Pablo Torre]

Does Dove Kleinman want use your writing to fund an entirely fraudulent Internet empire? If so, then maybe there's hope for us yet in the world of profiles. But it's look it. It's also telling to me that when it came to the rehearsal that this was two years to do six episodes, you know, I.

[Mina Kimes]

More than two years, probably more.

[Pablo Torre]

But at the very least was training to fly a plane for two years. It does feel like the incentives of everything are leading us to, you know, outside the genre we're currently speaking inside of. In which we are chained to the furnace of content. If you want to do this ambitious, sort of creative, arty, like we're telling stories kind of stuff, you're doing it less often, but hopefully more impactfully. Bigger swings, but fewer of them. Precious big swing projects like Nathan Fielder, like Wright Thompson, by the way, who just had this Aaron Judge profile we didn't even get to. But like he's still doing it at a really high level in this way. X times a year, A couple times a year. And then there's what do you do inside of a world in which you're always on. And that's where we are Living, you know, in various media. And that's how we try to, you know, I guess the answer is, like, do meta commentary. That's how you can still keep profiles alive.

[Mina Kimes]

I think where I come down on the rehearsal, I know we talked for a long time, and certainly where I come down on pieces like the ones Wright did, which is really excellent. People should go check it out. Speaking of, we didn't even get into. We talked about profile writing. Aaron Judge, not a great quote.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah, you can.

[Mina Kimes]

It's a great story.

[Pablo Torre]

He falls into the command F Judge said or Judge says. You'll see how much access Wright got.

[Mina Kimes]

But you learn a lot about him and what he means to the organization and baseball and the pressure of it.

[Pablo Torre]

And the history of.

[Mina Kimes]

And yeah, yeah, it's great. The part about him honing his swing I thought was so interesting, and his perfectionism is really interesting. So anyways, people should go read it. But what I feel about both these things is I'm just really glad they exist. That's kind of how I felt after watching the rehearsal. Like, you know, so much of what you make now is so ephemeral and requires such low effort. The effort to impact proportions of making art have never been worse, and I'm complicit in that, too. You know, I put out dumb clips all the time, so to see someone make something that took such an obviously incredible amount of effort and then to see it resonate with people the way it has to be a topic of conversation, such an insane, bizarro, unhinged piece of art, I'm just happy that that's happening and that people like him are doing stuff like that. But regardless of how much of it was him playing a role versus being himself.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good way of putting it. And I guess what I found out today brings us back to where we started, which is that. Yeah, I mean, look, I think you're right. I need to workshop this Nick Wright metaphor. Nick Wright's like saying, you know, it's a real Pablo Torre, Lars Pippin dynamic. I think it's actually to circle everything back to its most symmetrical sort of conclusion. I just think that Nick Wright and I are both jealous of people who are more ambitious and more creative than us. And that's how I feel about the rehearsal, and that's clearly how he feels about this show. So the ultimate compliment. The ultimate compliment is that I want to be more like. More like the rehearsal.

[Mina Kimes]

I think even your burns are so convoluted.

[Pablo Torre]

God damn it.

[Mina Kimes]

I was gonna say he looks like the guy from Shrek, Lord Farcroft. That's what I was thinking. I was like, ooh, here's one I got for you, Pablo. Hit him with this. The Shrek image. You've been spending this entire episode thinking about how to get back at Nick, right? And meanwhile, I'll just quote, tweet him with, like, the, the Shrek guy in a loop. People will go crazy.

[Pablo Torre]

That's, that's, that's, that's, that's also a better strategy. Pablo Torre Finds out is produced by Walter Averroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tuminello RStudio Engineering by RG Systems. Our sound design by NGW Post. Our theme song, as always, is by John Bravo. We will talk to you.

[Mina Kimes]

Sat.