‘The Truman Show’ With Bill Simmons, Glen Powell, and Chris Ryan

Summary

The Rewatchables — ‘The Truman Show’

Host: Bill Simmons | Guests: Glen Powell, Mallory Rubin, Craig Horbock
Date: November 4, 2025
Film Discussed: The Truman Show (1998)

Overview:

This episode dives deep into The Truman Show, analyzing its prescience, emotional power, and how it has aged in a world obsessed with reality TV and social media. Actor Glen Powell joins regular Rewatchables hosts Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Craig Horbock to discuss the creative vision, uncanny predictions, Jim Carrey’s performance, and the film’s lasting legacy. The conversation weaves personal insights (Powell’s movie night rituals, his acting career) with a thorough dissection of the movie’s craft, themes, and cultural impact.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why ‘The Truman Show’? [05:04]

• Glen Powell chose The Truman Show for its "collective universal emotion", describing how it taps into manipulation, surveillance, and our desire for meaning in modern life.

  "For being kind of like a really messed up premise... it's a movie that has so much joy for people... We've all had that feeling of being manipulated, the idea that like being watched, like that same sort of feeling... it's kind of built into humans." [05:04]

• The conversation explores the film's flexibility as genre—how it can read as sci-fi, drama, horror, or even religion, depending on the viewer.

Jim Carrey’s Career-Defining Performance [07:14]

• The hosts marvel at Carrey’s shift from "goofy" 90s comedy to layered, dramatic acting.

• Carrey’s “tightrope walk” in the role is praised:

  "This movie could be played as a horror movie... The fact that he lives in this blissful, silly world... until something drops out of the sky and shakes him out of it—Jim Carrey, the way he plays it, is probably the strongest way." – Glen Powell [07:25]

• Carrey's run from 1994-2000 is considered among the strongest of any comedian-turned-actor, rivaling even Robin Williams.

The Film’s Development & Casting ‘What Ifs’ [08:20, 72:07]

• Peter Weir’s unique, measured approach—waiting a year for Carrey to be available, deep-diving on character backstories.
• Alternative leads and directors discussed: Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, Dennis Hopper, Brian De Palma, Terry Gilliam—highlighting how crucial Weir & Carrey were to the film’s final tone.

Prescience: Predicting Reality TV & Social Media [12:22, 29:03, 31:27]

• The hosts recall how ‘Truman’ pre-dated the explosion of reality TV (Survivor, Big Brother), and EdTV’s similar plot but lesser impact.
• Mallory Rubin: "Reality television being a novel idea... when you would have seen this movie in 1998, this would've seemed incredibly far-fetched. And now it seems like, oh yeah, isn’t there a Truman Show on Channel 236?" [43:03]
• Modern equivalents like Jury Duty and social media “life streamers” are compared to The Truman Show's core premise.

The Nature of Surveillance, Manipulation, and Fame [31:09]

• Powell connects his own celebrity experience with Truman’s constant observation.
• The group discusses society’s relationship with watching others vs. living authentically—then and now.
• Glen Powell: "It's been an interesting adjustment... you have these moments where you look up and you're like, oh, this is... everybody... it is a little bit of a paranoid thriller sometimes." [31:27]

Production Details, Easter Eggs, and Direction [11:27, 20:00–23:51]

• Praise for Weir’s production design—hidden Latin quotes, subtle background details.
• The deliberate pacing and structure, keeping emotional focus and giving satisfying narrative reveals (revealing the show to the audience 50 minutes in).
• The nuanced direction, with Powell comparing Weir to Linklater as a master at drawing performances rather than deploying “director’s tricks”.

Oscar Snubs & Reception [32:49]

• Only 3 Oscar nominations (Weir, Ed Harris, screenplay)—a point of passionate disbelief for all.
• Jim Carrey’s lack of recognition is laid at the feet of Academy bias against comedians in dramatic roles.
• Discussion of the fiercely competitive 1998 Oscars.

The Ending & Legacy [48:03]

• The ending is lauded as "one of the greatest"—the wish-fulfillment/laugh-cry moment that leaves audiences both elated and aching.
• The film’s final shot and its philosophical parting words (“You never had a camera in my head”) highlighted as one of its iconic takeaways.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Carrey’s Performance:
  “He became Andy Kaufman for like four months... Cr, is he the most talented comedian we’ve ever had for... to cross over?” — Bill Simmons [28:02]
  “Between him and Robin Williams.” — Mallory Rubin [28:21]

• Glen Powell on Genre & Wish Fulfillment:
  “Whenever I try to choose a movie, I always try to think about what the universal emotion is... and I feel like with Truman Show, we've all had that feeling of being manipulated.” [05:04]

• On the Movie’s Prescience:
  “It’s crazy—Truman show comes in 98 and it’s like, this whole world is coming...” — Bill Simmons [12:30]
  “That’s modern Truman Show… the idea that everybody’s in on except one guy.” — Glenn Powell on Jury Duty [14:25]

• On Peter Weir’s Process:
  “Waited for Carrey for a year... spent a year thinking about the movie, storyboarding, writing character backstories for every cast member.” — Bill Simmons [24:50]

• On the Impact of Reality TV & Fame:
  “I would argue, though, like you're legitimately famous. Your life is a little Truman Showish every day…” — Simmons to Powell [31:09] “I think that's been an interesting adjustment—you still walk through the world the same, then sometimes you look up and you're like, oh...” — Powell [31:27]

• On Oscars (Jim Carrey’s Snub):
  “In my opinion, it's a little bias... Robert Downey Jr got a nom for Tropic Thunder. Johnny Depp for Pirates is kind of a comedy role. But those are dramatic actors doing a comedic thing and are sort of honored. I think it's different for someone who's a true comedian...” — Powell [33:16]

• On the Ending:
  “Perfect. Perfect. I think the bow at the end, the wish fulfillment of it, you get that thing I love in movies, which is like the laugh cry…” — Glen Powell [48:14]

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |---------|-----------| | Intro & Glen Powell's Movie Choice | 02:22–05:04 | | What makes The Truman Show resonate | 05:04–07:14 | | Jim Carrey's role & approach to acting | 07:14–08:20 | | Casting & film’s origins | 08:20–10:23 | | Preceding reality TV trend | 12:22–14:59 | | Being watched, fame, and social media | 31:09–31:44 | | Oscars discussion (snubs & context) | 32:49–34:34 | | Most Rewatchable Scene discussion | 38:17–42:41 | | Most 1998 Thing / What Aged Best | 42:41–48:14 | | Screenwriting structure / pacing | 48:43–51:11 | | Nitpicks & Suspension of Disbelief | 76:02–87:03 | | Unanswerable Questions & Legacy | 92:01–98:37 | | Who Won the Movie? | 95:06–95:45 | | The Truman Show’s influence on influencers and reality TV | 96:11–98:37 |

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The Legendary Scenes and Structure

Most Rewatchable Scenes

• Opening with Kristoff’s reality-show meta monologue [38:17]
• Truman’s flashback to “Lauren” [38:38]
• Radio frequency scene when Truman starts to figure it out [38:53]
• Bus escape, Truman with Meryl, culminating in his attempted escape over water [39:16]
• Hospital and Fiji ticket sequence [39:16]
• Secret ‘set’ discovery and camera reveals [39:45]
• Truman’s reunion with his dad [40:01]
• Sailboat adventure and climactic escape – "one of the most iconic endings" [40:45–41:19]

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Flex Categories, Nitpicks, and Awards

1998 Essence & What’s Aged Best

• Travel agent scene, product placement, young Paul Giamatti, causal product/recap show synergy [42:41–44:24]
• Accurate predictions about social media, surveillance, and personalized content [44:47–45:24]

Weak Links & Pacing

• Marlon and Truman’s dad considered underdeveloped [56:57–58:11]
• Some wish for more real-world consequences/context or longer runtime [84:16–84:41]

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Hypothetical/‘What Ifs’

• Hanks as Truman?

  “I do think this movie could have potentially been really good with Tom Hanks.” – Glen Powell [63:28]

• Brian De Palma, Terry Gilliam, etc., as directors [72:07]
• Sequel ideas: Truman’s child born after he escapes; 'Return to Seahaven' with the next generation [87:50]

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Enduring Legacy & Final Thoughts

• The Truman Show stands as a canny, funny, emotionally stirring warning about surveillance, manipulation, and the boundaries between authenticity and artificiality.
• The film’s template has only become more relevant in the age of streaming, influencers, and 24/7 content creation.
• “We all have our things...” – Bill Simmons, tying in his own “Truman Show” of watching 14 hours of football every Sunday [98:37]

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Who Won the Movie?

• Jim Carrey receives unanimous votes as the “winner”—for the career-defining, transformative performance that married comedy with poignant drama and positioned him in the “most powerful actor” tier of the late 1990s.

  “I think Carrey wins.” – Glen Powell [95:24]

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Memorable Final Word

"You never had a camera in my head." – Truman [54:38, as cited by Mallory Rubin]

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Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. Get ready to go back to where it all began. From the director of it comes a terrifying new series set in 1960s Derry, Maine, exploring the unsettling beginnings of one of horror's greatest villains, Pennywise the Clown. The new HBO original series, it welcome to Derry is now streaming on HBO Max new episode Sundays at 9pm Today's episode of the rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast network. Where you can find my podcast, you can find Chris Ryan's podcast, the Watch, you can find Craig Horbeck's podcast. We're in a fantasy football show. Fantasy Football Week 10.

[Craig Horbock]

I know.

[Bill Simmons]

This is where the strong become the strong and the weak become the weak.

[Craig Horbock]

That's right. It's nut crunching time for fantasy.

[Bill Simmons]

You like when we have celebrities on the rewatchables? Because it just throws a chainsaw into the hot tub for the podcast.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah, and I gotta say, the secret's out. We have Glenn Powell. He set the bar pretty high for celebrities on the rewatchables.

[Bill Simmons]

I was gonna say, I think we learned some things in this episode. It's good when the celebrity has listen to the podcast and knows the ringer and knows who we are. It's good when they suggest the movie and they really care that we did it. And I don't know, this was also a great movie that you'd actually seen, even though it came out in the 1990s.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah, this is a classic. I've seen it many times. Glenn has seen it many times and you can tell based on his performance.

[Bill Simmons]

People are upset that we don't do a lot of Jim Carrey movies. But I've been saving it for Jim Carrey month and yet we just haven't done Jim Carrey month. So at some point I can't wait for Ace. Yeah, we have a bunch of ones anyway. Rewatch was coming up next. The Truman show with Glen Powell. This episode is presented by PayPal. Let's talk holiday shopping. Make the most of your money with PayPal. They give you the flexibility to pay in four no fees, no interest. Save the offer in the PayPal app to get 5% cash back when you pay later. So whether you're shopping for an ugly sweater party or work gala or whatever else, PayPal helps you make the most of your money. This holiday expires 1231. See paypal.com promoterms subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com payinfor PayPal Inc. NMLS 910457. All right, all right. We've been talking about this pre Top Gun Maverick.

[Glenn Powell]

We have.

[Bill Simmons]

Because you said you like this podcast.

[Glenn Powell]

We like this podcast. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And we were like, we got to get Glenn Powell on CR and then Covid. Top Gun Maverick. You started making movies left and right. And it took five years, but now we're here.

[Glenn Powell]

It was worth the wait.

[Bill Simmons]

It's worth the wait.

[Glenn Powell]

This is honestly, like, the perfect moment. I really, like, there's a lot of comps between the Truman show and Running man. And just, like, the fact that I've gotten a lot. Like, I've had a long time to, like, watch Yalls podcasts and watch you guys do what you do. It feels like we've earned it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Now, are you a big rewatcher? Do you have, like, a stable of movies that you're pumped, like, you kind of, like, cycle through over and over again?

[Glenn Powell]

I love hosting movie nights at my house. So, like, like, everybody knows me to, like, you know, cook some dinner for people and, like, host a movie night.

[Bill Simmons]

Cook some dinner for people.

[Glenn Powell]

Drinks and dinner.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. Making some brisket.

[Glenn Powell]

Like. Yeah, Just. Just, you know, I love man and a grill. So. So what we'll do is we'll just have like, a little, like, a little theater thing in my house. And so what we do is we just, like, kind of, you know, choose a movie that a lot of people haven't seen. Basically, what you guys do here, and we talk about it afterwards. So, like, kind of the same debrief. We do, like, a rewatchables version.

[Mallory Rubin]

Nice.

[Glenn Powell]

And it's like. It's like, you know, sometimes it's like, cool, serious movies, but sometimes you're like, hey, let's watch Three Ninjas, you know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

And, like, like, you know, I remember.

[Glenn Powell]

It doesn't hold up.

[Bill Simmons]

What was your rom com that had set it off?

[Glenn Powell]

Set. Set it up.

[Bill Simmons]

Set it up.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's set it off.

[Glenn Powell]

I'm sure. I'm sure it's another movie that's a movie.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I remember when that hit.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And we were all happy because it was like. And it was like, right as Netflix was really emerging.

[Glenn Powell]

Like the movie. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And it was like, oh, our guy. Because we liked you. Everybody wants some. It's like, oh, it's happening. And then you got Top Gun Maverick.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. Right after that.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. And Miles had. I remember I had Miles on my podcast running there, too. And it's like, Top Gun Mavericks could be huge.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And how many months did it get delayed? Like 18.

[Glenn Powell]

Because, like, it was like almost two years.

[Bill Simmons]

So.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, it had been 2020, and we released summer 2022. So it's been a long time.

[Mallory Rubin]

I did like a trailer reaction in like, 2019.

[Glenn Powell]

Somebody asked me. They were like, sitting there like, you know, like sometimes when iPhone, like, does, like, remember when throwback photos. I mean, that was like seven years ago we started shooting that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Unbelievable. Yeah. I've never seen a scenario like that where then it belatedly comes out and then it's huge. It was great for you. It was great for Miles. But we're going to talk about Truman Show.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We asked you for a list.

[Glenn Powell]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

You sent us a list of 10 movies. Yep. They're all pretty good choices. We hadn't done any of them, by the way.

[Glenn Powell]

We've already done writing for somebody bigger than that.

[Bill Simmons]

Three Ninjas. Yeah, that'll be like, the Three Ninjas.

[Glenn Powell]

Is the one no one saw coming.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we're doing that. But you said Truman show was like, near the top or maybe the first one. And I was like, oh, my God. Yeah, that'd be amazing. So why, what was it about? Truman Show.

[Glenn Powell]

You know, the Truman show is, you know, for me, it's one of those that. For being kind of like a really messed up premise. If you really, like, spend time thinking about it, it's a movie that has, like, so much joy for people. Like, it was like that moment in the 90s. I love 90s movies, but I just, like, think it was like a perfect role for Jim Carrey. There was like a wish fulfillment, I think. Like, whenever I try to choose a movie, I always try to think about what the universal emotion is. Like something we've all felt, but something that, you know, we're not tapping into. So it feels like there's a collective. A collective feeling around it. And I feel like we've all had that feeling of being manipulated. The idea that, like being watched like that. That. That same sort of feeling. I feel like it's. It's kind of built into humans for sure. And. And what's so interesting is such an ambitious movie that's actually made in kind of like a way that doesn't feel like too sci fi or like too, you know, too far in the future. Like, it feels very much of this world, which makes it like a very kind of almost like. Almost like a religious experience rather than a science fiction experience. It's like. It's a very interesting movie, but I find that everybody I show it to can talk about life. It's like one of My favorite things to do when I watch movies with people, it spurs conversations. Like, you talk about the movie and everyone has such a different read on it. I mean, you could literally go back to, you know, ancient Greeks if you wanted to. When you're talking about this movie, you could talk about religion, you could talk about, you know, where we are with reality TV shows and like, you know, how society sort of likes to control people. Like, you know, like how we check into someone else's reality, but we're not really living in our own. Like, there's. There's so many cool things to talk about. So I find that it's a movie that really.

[Bill Simmons]

Jesus, host the pod.

[Craig Horbock]

I just, I just.

[Mallory Rubin]

I just go rewatch Celtic Sixers.

[Bill Simmons]

I really let Jim Carrey instead. It was like a lot we talked.

[Glenn Powell]

About dumb and dumber. Like, I love, you know, Jim Carrey. This was also one of his movies that I love because it kind of tapped into like a. A dramatic side to him. It still used his, like, superpower. Yeah, but. But didn't hold onto it too tightly. It allowed him to do some other things.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have. So, like, this is just a great part. So when you're watching this, you're an actor, you're always thinking about projects like, you must see a movie like this and be like, fuck, what a great part. I would have loved to have played Truman.

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, I think there's a lot of different types of actors that could play this role in the fact that I think it's a very well written part. But I do think when you, when you take on a role, you sort of have to figure out what the sort of guiding attribute is. And this movie could be played as a horror movie. Yeah, it could be played. It could be played a million different ways. And the fact that he sort of lives in this blissful kind of like silly world, like the stakes of his world are low stakes until something drops out of the sky and kind of take shakes him out of it. So it's something kind of that actually Jim Carrey, the way he plays it, I think is probably the strongest way.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what's cool too, is that this movie had such an interesting development history, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And like, there were different permutations of the script. There were different directors up for directing it. There were different actors up for doing it. And each one of them, you're like, oh, that would have been cool. That would have been interesting. But something about Peter Weir and Jim Carrey and what they chose to do with it. You're like, that's timeless. Like.

[Glenn Powell]

Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

You can't change a note of this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

It really was the most Robin Williams part ever that he didn't do.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, it totally.

[Bill Simmons]

And ironically, he was not to step on casting what ifs, but he was, like, kind of mentioned and circled a little bit before they decided on, I think, a lot.

[Glenn Powell]

I think pretty much none of this cast was, like, the original. No, the original.

[Bill Simmons]

Wait, since we're talking about parts and being jealous and circling, have you picked your part in he too, yet? Which character?

[Glenn Powell]

Seems like everybody's in that movie except me.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. You're not. You're not in those stories.

[Glenn Powell]

No, man. I looked at the storyboards. I'm not in them.

[Bill Simmons]

You're in the Miami Vice remake ones, though. I saw those. You and mj. Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

You know what's really a fun. A fun thing that's happening right now? It's like the first time in my life where a casting announcement comes out and it's like, there's no. There's no truth to it. But, like, everybody congratulates you on it. I'm like, I'm just gonna let it.

[Mallory Rubin]

But are you ever like. That's pretty sick.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, look, Sonny Crockett, you know, honestly, it's. It's a. It's a very. It's a very funny moment in life, in my career, because, like, you. You do, you know, get to sort of retread, like, even. Even with Twisters, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

What a fun road, like, as a. As a Texas boy who. You know, Tornado Alley and, like, that was such a seminal movie, you know, Bill Paxton was such a. You know, he's a Texas Film hall of Fame guy, you know, and he's like, what. What they did with that movie was really, really special. And so to kind of retread, you know, that ground was, like, really fun to do that with Top Gun, you know, it was. Was. Was amazing. So I, I, I. That's one of the favorite parts of my career, is as, like, as a fan of movies, I get to sometimes get to revisit these.

[Mallory Rubin]

What do we. Kilmer's part for him, Shaherlis. He's already got the short hair after the haircut.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, can you. Can I rock a pony pony or a real pony?

[Glenn Powell]

I was born for a pony.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So I honestly don't rule out Sonny Crockett.

[Glenn Powell]

I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

What are your cigarette skills?

[Glenn Powell]

It's nonstop.

[Bill Simmons]

The cigarettes are huge. Yeah. No, I could see him Doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you. Could you fake Florida? What? Could you fake Florida? Could you fake South Florida?

[Glenn Powell]

I don't think you fake Florida, do you? You don't fake.

[Bill Simmons]

Can Texas fake?

[Glenn Powell]

You just get 10.

[Bill Simmons]

What's the problem?

[Glenn Powell]

I just want to make sure one spray tan away. That's what Florida is. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Truman Show Y. What else is on? It's one of the last lines of the movie the old guys watch.

[Glenn Powell]

I love that movie. Those are my two favorite. That's. I mean, we're going to talk about the Dion waiters of it all.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

But. But I personally. And there's other great choices, but I think those guys are the best. Exposition. Sneaky exposition.

[Bill Simmons]

So basically, this movie is foreshadowing everything that's about to come, which is why it's such a fascinating rewatch. But it was great in the moment. I remember when it came out, I saw it in the theater. I had an illegal cable box in Boston in the late 90s, and they would rerun the pay per views, so It'd be like 12, 2, 30, 5 o'. Clock. And I just kind of got sucked into Truman show for like a week. And there's so many little Easter eggs and little things in there. And the more you watch, you're like, fuck, this is like this movie's kind of fucking me up. And then you start like, are there cameras here where. You know, it's one of those. Where you start like reevaluating. Just like walking to Dunkin Donuts, getting a coffee.

[Glenn Powell]

No, it's. It's kind of amazing. I mean, even just watching it the other night, I, like noticed some like, they are very good. I mean, Peter Weir especially is just very good with production design and like the little Easter eggs that they put in there. Even like I saw in like this one little arch in the scene when sort of like, you know, Truman is kind of like, you know, having his freak out with the bus in the public, where he's literally kind of starting to put it all together on the arches. It says, you know, it said. I looked at. It was all this Latin stuff and I was like, I wonder what that is. And it says it translates to all for one, one for all.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

And I thought I was like, oh, that's cool. Just like, just. I love when there's intention and purpose.

[Mallory Rubin]

Behind, but it's like they don't basic. They don't foreground that.

[Glenn Powell]

No.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, hey, if you notice, you notice like there's a bunch of little things like that where it Actually will answer some of the questions you might have about how they would pull this off, but they don't make it a major element of the scene because the point of the scene is the emotion or this guy's journey or whatever.

[Bill Simmons]

So in my head, like, as the years passed, I thought, like, oh, reality tv. There was this huge boom. Truman. Like just. I just kind of forgot how early it was.

[Mallory Rubin]

Before Survivor, isn't it?

[Glenn Powell]

Before this kind of weirdly kicked it off like this predated by a year or two.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I went through. I did the. The origin. So apparently the first reality show was called Nummer TV on Dutch television. I don't know if you guys have the dvd.

[Mallory Rubin]

I have the box set.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. I only.

[Bill Simmons]

That was the first putting people in a house. Real world was 92. I feel like the OJ trial was kind of a reality show. No, it wasn't. It was like Road Rules on MTV was 95 and that's it. So Truman show comes in 98. And it's like this whole world is coming where anybody can be famous. Anyone's like day to day life can actually be something. And they were making EDTV at the same time with McConaughey.

[Glenn Powell]

Was EDTV before or after? After, after.

[Bill Simmons]

So it was kind of this moment. But then survivor, Big Brother 2000, then Bachelor comes and, you know, the only.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thing I was gonna compare this to was the. Did you ever see the Michael apted movies, the 7 up, the series where they follow these kids from 7 on and he makes them like every seven years about. And that is like a little bit like these kids, their whole lives exist within the framework of these movies, but they're. The crucial thing about Truman is that he doesn't know he's participating in something that everybody else does. Whereas all reality shows, people are like, yeah, I did this to be on. On camera, you know.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it shifted really fast. I remember when I was working for Kimmel show, the first year we. Our lead guest for one episode was the lady that got voted off second to last on Joe Millionaire.

[Glenn Powell]

Oh, my God. Wait, what's her name?

[Bill Simmons]

Sarah. Something I want to say.

[Glenn Powell]

Okay, okay. No, no. You know, like I had our Joe Millionaire dating era, for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

But yeah, but that Joe Millionaire was being watched by Sarah Kozer. Sarah Kozer. Way to go get 20 million plus people. I remember that show Millionaires.

[Glenn Powell]

Huge.

[Bill Simmons]

It was a huge deal. Yeah. So it's just like something shifted. Truman show saw.

[Glenn Powell]

Dude, what's a real. I don't know if you guys have seen this show. Jury Duty.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

But I realized, like, that is. That is Truman Show. That's modern Truman Show. Yeah. Like, the idea that everybody's in on except one guy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Guy. I never really thought about that with Drew Duty, but I love that show.

[Glenn Powell]

It's a great show.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Jimmy did a movie for a Comedy Central called Windy City Heat, where they just prank this one guy with all these. This is probably like 2002 range and the same kind of premise. He was the only one who didn't know what was happening. This Truman show was, I would say, a little more elaborate because they had. I can't wait to do some of the nitpicks, the number of actors and extras.

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, as a first ad, I was literally thinking, like, sometimes I like. I like to like, you know, look at a movie, you know, and kind of go, okay, like, what is. What is the production designer's job? What's the first AD's job? Like, what, do they stay up at night? But, like, what keeps them up at night? Yeah. The first ad on the Truman Show. It's a nightmare. Just 24 hours unravelable, 24 hours a day.

[Mallory Rubin]

They would have people breaking. We can get into it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, Top Gun Maverick was probably. That was probably the biggest, most amount of people movie you made.

[Glenn Powell]

Most amount of people movie just behind.

[Bill Simmons]

The scenes, like, people doing shit.

[Glenn Powell]

I think it was the. The amount of. I would just say, like, institutions that were involved, you know, Because, I mean, you're dealing with, like, the United States Navy, you know, you're doing the government. Like, you're dealing with $80 million aircraft. And you're flying them, like, not how they're normally flying them.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

You know, and so there's a lot. I mean, we would have to give briefs in front of the actual Navy every day before we flew. Like, I had to tell them, altitude. Here's my airspace, here's gonna be my coordinates, here's the sun position. If this plane's moving at this, you know, like, you and I had to give a brief every morning of exactly what we were doing. And you're doing it for the.

[Bill Simmons]

The.

[Glenn Powell]

The production. Like the. Yeah, like your production department heads. So they're aware of what's happening. So it matches up in the edit.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

So you're saying, hey, if I'm looking, you know, at 3 o', clock, is the plane going to be there? Is at 4 o' clock or 5 o', clock, so it all cuts together. Or am I looking down on this plane like, where? And you're doing it with little plane sticks and acting everything out. So it was like. But you have to remember, like, we are. We are. You're not like fake planes. Like, we're. We're dealing. We're like putting civilians flying like 100ft off the ground. It's 500 miles an hour. It's like, it's a big deal.

[Bill Simmons]

Push a deal with our guy Cruz, the rewatchables leader by like four movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he's got a four movie.

[Glenn Powell]

Lead over every Denzel and run in the 90s. Was.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think was done all of them except for like Far and Away at this point.

[Glenn Powell]

No.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's 90s movies.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, there's some Meat on the Bone Chris.

[Craig Horbock]

Is it really?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah. We got some Mission Impossibles left.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, that's true. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think we've done all the right moves. There's some 80s stuff. Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

All the right.

[Bill Simmons]

Don't worry, Tom Cruise. We got you. The comedian. Who doesn't want to be a comedian for a movie movie. Hollywood staple.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill Murray, the Razor's Edge. Adam Sandler, Punch Drunk Love.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Will Ferrell, Stranger Than Fiction.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

They always have to have that one where they're like, I can do more than this in a good way.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you think Good Morning Vietnam is Robin Williams dramatic turn?

[Bill Simmons]

World According to Garp, I think was.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, I guess that's right because he's.

[Bill Simmons]

Coming out of Mork and Mindy just like, hey, I'm not just like goofy.

[Glenn Powell]

Was that Pre Goodwill or. Or what was the one he did with Insomnia?

[Bill Simmons]

That's later.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's Nolan.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Craig Horbock]

What?

[Mallory Rubin]

And then Awakenings is when.

[Glenn Powell]

Awakenings.

[Bill Simmons]

Awakenings was early 90s. That was another one when he. When he was like, I also have serious Robin Williams. I can do that character. How many. How many sides do you have? How many you have, Rob? Action, Glenn Powell.

[Glenn Powell]

I'm trying to cover my big board right now, honestly. You know what the fun part about this moment in the job is? People give you a very long leash.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Right. And they only basically say no when you've proven that you can't do it. Right. And so what I'm like, really trying to do right now is like, really just like all the movies that kind of inspired me to do this job, like, all the things that we're talking about, like, as just movie fans, I'm kind of going, you know, I don't really think of it from like a me side as much as just like a. The types of movies I want to make. And then you always want to know what you're good at. You always want to know, like what you're doing. You don't want to, you know, take on something that is like, just not a fit. But like at the end of the day, like going into something that kind of scares you is a good thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he's got some sports movie mortality. Like you're. How old are you now?

[Glenn Powell]

37. Just turned 37 two days ago.

[Bill Simmons]

But maybe a 10 year window now for sports movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's chucking it in. Chad Powers.

[Bill Simmons]

I know you got Chad Powers. Yeah, everybody wants some. I feel like there's like an end of the career baseball movie. Maybe it's like a comedy drama a little.

[Glenn Powell]

Like I may or may not be building one of those. Yeah. Trust me. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Because you were good at baseball, like for real. Thank you.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

What about the Val Kilmer part from Heat? He moves to South America, plays winter ball in Panama, you know, Heat three.

[Bill Simmons]

That's how they find him.

[Glenn Powell]

But yeah, It's a really weird 400 in Mexico. Tonally, we have to shifting in the first act.

[Bill Simmons]

What. What are your other sports?

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, I would say that like lacrosse would be like fun. A fun one. Lacrosse, you know, nobody. There's not really any lacrosse.

[Bill Simmons]

No lacrosse movies.

[Glenn Powell]

That would be really fun.

[Bill Simmons]

Aging lacrosse guys.

[Glenn Powell]

I just feel like base movies that for me, like, obviously Link later is like a guy that will team up, you know, many times over. But he talking to him about baseball, it's hard not to like go, oh, what's a. A great baseball movie? Because he's one of the only guys that I would say directors out here that really know the sport.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

And like understand what makes it kind.

[Bill Simmons]

Of undefeated with movies, they never stop, they keep coming out.

[Mallory Rubin]

I wanted to ask you. So, Peter, we.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, kind of. You know, I was thinking about this last night. Kind of reminds me of Link later in that there's not like an overbearing visual style that you're like, that's that guy's movie. You know, it's like a Scorsese shot or a Chris Nolan shot. But he gets incredible performances like all of his films. This is a third or fourth Peter Weir. Like we've done Dead Poets. We've done.

[Bill Simmons]

We did Witness, Witness. We will do Master and Commander and.

[Mallory Rubin]

Master and Commander at some point. What is it about, like the actor's director, like when you're working with Linklater or something like that? Like, how does he get such naturalistic and human performances out of people. And do you see some of that?

[Bill Simmons]

That's a really good question.

[Glenn Powell]

That's a really good question.

[Bill Simmons]

His friends on his game today.

[Glenn Powell]

You know. You know, what's interesting about Link is that you, you can tell when a director. I always like. I always kind of like, sniff it out with a director and kind of. You kind of feel, what are they paying attention to? Right. And a lot of times you can feel when a director is, like, doing things where it's like, obviously there's always a million things to do. And when they're paying attention to the background artists, they're seeing how things fill up a frame. They're looking at light, they're looking at camera movement or whatever. Linklater is the first guy that will call out bullshit on performance. He's like, he's like, something's not reading here. But. But we do a lot of the, the rehearsals to make sure that we're all on the same page. Like, he's a guy that as an actor, there's nothing better than when a director, you, you know, something's. And then a director goes, hey, I just didn't buy it.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Like, oh, I'm taking care of.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. Interesting.

[Mallory Rubin]

And got your back.

[Glenn Powell]

He's got your back.

[Bill Simmons]

Authenticity. Turns out it matters in Hollywood.

[Glenn Powell]

But. But is it. But as an actor, like, a lot of times, like, you work with a filmmaker and you're like, they're great shooters. They know how to work the camera. Like, they know how to shoot, you know, all these different, you know, action or, you know, they're. They're great with, you know, creating tension or thrilling elements. But then you realize you're on your own performance level. Yeah, that's when you're kind of living at the monitor, making sure, you know, I, I do that anyway at the beginning of a movie to. Just to see how it's sort of reading with all the elements. But at the. But it's really nice to have some. A filmmaker who is looking out for you in that way, because then you can just play, you know, then you're. Then you're. Then you understand that the edit's going to take care of you.

[Craig Horbock]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

You know, you don't have to. You don't have to edit yourself.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, I was. I have all these premier magazines from the 1990s, and they wrote about Truman show in 98, and it was a long interview with Peter Weir, and they asked him, like, how. How are you so good at these characters? And he said, because he. He was making movies in Australia in the 70s, right. He made like Picnic and Hanger, like all those ones. But he said they had no good screenwriters in Australia.

[Glenn Powell]

Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

And you kind of, if you were a director, you also had to like revise all these shitty scripts and like, so that really got him when he was younger to learn how to like work with dialogue with actors. And he's like. In a weird way it like worked out for me because I was always thinking about this when I was a young director and then as it translated when I got older, that's why I can work with actors so well. I was like, oh, that's really interesting.

[Glenn Powell]

How to make it work. Yeah. You realize that there's a lot like as an actor, like I always appreciate it, especially in this movie when certain things are happening for, for Truman in a weird way. And like you only get so many buy ins in a movie. Like there's a lot of buy ins that you have to, you know, buy into here about like what he's aware of, what he's not aware of. Like how many lights that have fallen down from the sky that didn't start unraveling his sense of the world. Like there's a few things like. Yeah, to build a history of Truman is a very interesting thing and like sort of what you have brush under the rug and sort of what you have to kind of honor. And I just thought that you could tell that Peter Weir and. And Jim Carrey were really on the same page with. With like what. How to react to certain things.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

Like to, to react like kind of like comedically to it and then like kind of move on with your life.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

You know, not let it, not let it marinate too long because then the audience is going to marinate on it too. You know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Because he's the audience surrogate. Even though we are. Even though we are have more information than Truman, if he's thinking about it too much, the logic police start kicking in. And you do not want that for this.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I mean he does something weird is something really cool where he both identifies exactly what somebody's good at. So like Cary has all this like physical. Yeah, he's so gifted at moving. Like he's almost like Gene Kelly in this movie. He's like gliding through these scenes. But he also like knows when to like whether he knows or Carrie knows to when to take it down 5% so that it doesn't turn into the mask at any moment. Like, or it doesn't turn into like kind of a more Comic over the top performance. And I think it's what you're talking about. It keeps us connected to him because he seems just enough like a real guy to buy him in this completely unreal situation.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I like that he waited for Carrie for a year, and then they decided he was doing it. He was like, this has to be the guy. And he's like, well, I got to make cables. Guy in the Liar Liar. They're like, all right. So then he. Apparently Weir spent like, a year just thinking about the movie storyboarding, and he hadn't done a movie since fearless in 93. So he. He wanted backstories for all the cats. So he went, like, deep dive. I'm gonna create. Like, who's Marlon? What's his backstory? How did he grow up?

[Mallory Rubin]

And he's the Dead Poets characters. Like, all the actors on Dead Poets were like, we had us do our own biographies for every character. Like, we would write our own biographies and rehearse them and talk about stuff that wasn't even going to be in the movie. But he was like, it was just that level of care.

[Bill Simmons]

We're going to do. Glenn's going to do that for Miami Vice remix. Sonny Crockett autobiography. You guys do a sub.

[Glenn Powell]

A subcategory for Sonny Crockett Best ponytail award. The. The. The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The.

[Glenn Powell]

The interesting part about Truman show, in terms of also what you're talking about. Backstory.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Every single character in this movie. I always love, like, the category of, like, the rack focus movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Like, where you're like, oh, if I rack focus to Laura Linney's character, how did she get cast in that show?

[Mallory Rubin]

Absolutely.

[Glenn Powell]

What does that look like? Like, even the contract of, like, her marrying a person and being like. Like, what is that? What does that Conscious.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, right.

[Glenn Powell]

She get days off. Like, what does that look like in perpetuity? Like, you know that. And I just think that there were so many characters like that, because this is sort of like an. You cannot make this premise bulletproof. So allowing you to, like, rack focus to different characters. You know, even Marlon, like, you know, even the dad, like, the way he comes back, I'm sitting there going, I have so many questions, but everybody's really interesting. And when you have a social experiment like this, I was like, this is a world in which you can kind of constantly rack focus to cool people.

[Bill Simmons]

So we got Laura Linney, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich, fresh from the Beautiful Guys set. Yeah, that's singing. Neil Diamond, Peter Krause, Paul Giamatti, Philip Baker, Hall.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I like lollipops in my. Where's the butter? In my ass. Lollipops in my mouth. This is what I like.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is right around the same time, too.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, right. He goes macaloon. Is that how you say it? Yeah, just looking great.

[Glenn Powell]

How do you say it?

[Mallory Rubin]

McElhenn.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, looking great. Holland Taylor, Harry Shearer. Carrie's the star, obviously. And Carrie's in this heater from 94 to 2000. This is a seven year run. I think it's probably the best that you could argue for any comedian ever. And it's in the running for best actor run ever. Ace Ventura, the Mask, Dumb and dumber, Batman Forever. Ace 2, Cable Guy. He hosts SNL during Will Ferrell's first season. And it's probably one of the four best episodes of the history of the show. Liar, Liar. He has the Larry Sanders cameo in the last show where he jumps on the desk and sings to Larry Sanders, man on the Moon. Truman Show. Me, myself and Irene and Grinch stole Christmas. How the Grinch stole Christmas. In seven years.

[Mallory Rubin]

When's the turtle Sunshine. Eternal sunshine. Is that like after? After?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, this is. He. He started the 2000s. He slowed down a little bit, but I mean, that's like.

[Glenn Powell]

That's a pace, by the way.

[Bill Simmons]

That's crazy.

[Glenn Powell]

That's a crazy pace.

[Bill Simmons]

Seven years in all kinds of different performances and. And you know, even like he became Andy Kaufman for like four months.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, that documentary is wild.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Like, he really like kind of lost his mind a little bit. But this is. I don't know. Cr. Is he the most talented comedian we've ever had for. For to cross over?

[Mallory Rubin]

I think it's probably between him and Robin Williams, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think so.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I mean, Eddie had a huge box office. I don't know if he's ever had like this diversity of parts, but Robin Williams and Jim Carrey would probably be my.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Eddie Murphy could have gotten there, but he had the. He had a similar unbelievable seven year run, but he never figured out the drama side in the same way. That's like the.

[Glenn Powell]

Did he ever.

[Bill Simmons]

What did he do?

[Mallory Rubin]

Drama Dream Girls. And I mean, Boomerang is a rom com, but is pretty.

[Bill Simmons]

Boomerang's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He. He dabbled, but it never. He never kind of landed it. But Carrie was just. It's like you look at the IMDb and it's like, what the hell?

[Glenn Powell]

Like seminal movies.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, Jesus, how did you do all that? Andrew Nicholl wrote this movie in 93. We mentioned that.

[Mallory Rubin]

Can I throw out quick nickel facts here? So I. This quote that he had in a recent enough, like, 2023 interview with the Holly Reporter was actually, like, the best summation of, like, why this movie works. Is he. They were asking him, like, what was your idea for the movie? And he goes, as children, we often think the world revolves around us. I thought it would be interesting if it did. And then he goes, it was that along with my lifelong inescapable paranoia that we are being lied to. And it's. So you basically take Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock and you put it together, and that's what this movie is.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, so.

[Glenn Powell]

Wow, that's great.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So they did 16 drafts. We were wanting to be a little funnier. And then reality really started to tick off a little bit, too, and made it a little bit easier. Is it better if you don't know reality TV is coming or if you knew reality TV happened, like, as an experience of watching it. Craig later. Yeah, watching it, knowing that Survivor and Big Brother and the Challenge and all these fucking crazy shows are coming, I personally love.

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, look, this movie came out. I was. I was really young when this movie. I was 10 years old when this movie came out. But I. But like watching it now as an adult. I actually get so much joy out of, like, knowing that reality TV is such an interesting social experiment and the. The like, why people watch it, the lengths people are willing to go to watch other people go through things and, like, how we define reality and, like, just, like, just the mercy that we have for people in these scenarios. It's, like, a very interesting thing that I like watching it now. I think as an adult. I appreciate it because it feels like it's possible. Like, I know it. And I think there's, like, you know, the real estate question of how you actually build, like, something like this, how you control something like this. But I think on a level, if it were feasible financially or practically, a network would do this in a heartbeat.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, illegally.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, illegally.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, if it were feasible, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I would argue, though, like, you're legitimately famous. Like, your life is a little Truman Showish every day because you walk around this world, but when people see you and wherever they're like, hey, yeah, which is a little like, what this movie's doing, but the people can't. They. They kind of. You can just see their body language change when they see it. But it's a little similar, right?

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. I mean, I. I think that's been an interesting adjustment is you still walk through the.

[Bill Simmons]

The.

[Glenn Powell]

The world the same. And then sometimes you have those moments where you kind of look up and you're like, oh, this is okay, everybody. You know, it is a little bit of a paranoid thriller sometimes.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. Something. I know. It's.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's brutal.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. We're gonna take a break, and then I wanna talk about the Oscars with this, which I was fascinated by. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Life's full of decisions, big and small. Sometimes you can make one that you really stand behind, like the Rewatchables. We felt like there was an opening in 2017 for a podcast directly devoted to movies. Cause we had done it on the BS podcast. In 2015, we did a 20th anniversary podcast about Heat, and it felt like that was an idea for a bigger podcast. We stuck to our guns. State Farm gets it. Making confident choices can make all the difference. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create an affordable price for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility very by state. All right, so how many Oscar nominations do you think this movie got?

[Glenn Powell]

All right, Edhurst. Winner. Get nominated.

[Bill Simmons]

Nominated.

[Glenn Powell]

Nominated. I'm sure Peter Weir had to get nominated. I'm sure Script got nominated.

[Bill Simmons]

That's three.

[Glenn Powell]

I'm going to go production design now. We're done. No, we're done. That's it. Three. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Only three.

[Mallory Rubin]

Carrie. No.

[Bill Simmons]

Carry Travis.

[Glenn Powell]

You know what, though? The Oscars, like, there's a different. There's a different path for a comedian getting to that stage.

[Bill Simmons]

In my opinion, it's a little bias.

[Glenn Powell]

I don't. I don't. I think you earn it in a different way.

[Bill Simmons]

Like in the NFL, you have to be a 1 or a 2 seed to win the MVP, or else they don't take you seriously. Dak Prescott. Exactly.

[Glenn Powell]

He's having a hell of a season.

[Bill Simmons]

It's got to go 13 and 4. So, Craig, were you shocked that he didn't win, that he didn't get nominated for this?

[Craig Horbock]

Yes. 100% needed to get nominated. I thought he was nominated in the past. Like Robert Downey Jr got a nom for Tropic Thunder.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Craig Horbock]

I mean, Johnny Depp for Pirates is kind of a comedy role.

[Glenn Powell]

Got nominated, but Those are dramatic actors that are doing a comedic thing and are sort of honored. I think it's a different thing for someone who's a true comedian.

[Bill Simmons]

Bias.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. Coming to that stage.

[Bill Simmons]

Rod Williams eventually got over it because I think Good Morning Vietnam was a big one for him.

[Mallory Rubin]

This was a wild Oscar.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, Benigni wins for Life Is Beautiful, Hanks, private Ryan, Ian McKellen, gods and monsters, Nick Nolte, Affliction, and then Ed Norton, American History X.

[Glenn Powell]

Really true. For a good year.

[Mallory Rubin]

Year.

[Bill Simmons]

The two handed year. The two handed dunk. That's what.

[Glenn Powell]

That's.

[Bill Simmons]

But, but yeah, it's. If you do it over again, I think Carrie's one of the five.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's certainly one of. I think one of his two or three best. Would people say eternal. Eternal sunshine over this?

[Craig Horbock]

I would.

[Mallory Rubin]

I would have this over.

[Glenn Powell]

Eternal but tough role, in my opinion.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I think Eternal Sunshine is a brilliant premise. That's like a really emotionally driven, brilliant premise. I think this one, the. As an actor, you go into a role and you know sort of how high that that tightrope is off the ground is a really high rope.

[Bill Simmons]

So Weir got nominated. Spielberg won for Private Ryan. And then. And then the, the, the script, I think it was Shakespeare in Love and up on him. So There you go. $60 million budget made. $264 million. We used to go see movies. Well, that was coming back.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's the perfect return on it. Like, right. Yeah. 60. We're not over our heads here. 200 and whatever is like a huge hit.

[Bill Simmons]

We didn't have Hollywood Reporter back then go in. It still hasn't made the money back. They spent 271 million.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. It really is a whole thing where you sit there like, who cares? I'm just like a big believer in cheering for everyone in this business. I think, like, that's a. That's a thing that it's really hard to take big swings and have big wins in this business. And like when a movie wins like one battle after another. I freaking love this movie. And I was like, I'm cheering for that thing to win. I hate when people yuck your yum. And you're like, well. But it didn't.

[Bill Simmons]

They did Sinners too, which was so dumb. Siskel and Ebert gave this movie two thumbs up on tv. And I don't remember seeing this before. An on air apology to Jim Carrey because they said after Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, which they hated, they said he would never have a movie career.

[Glenn Powell]

You're kidding.

[Bill Simmons]

And Four years later, they love this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

People hated Carrie when he, like, my dad was a film critic, like these guys. And like, I just remember him like sitting through the farting and him just being like, I can't do this. And like, this guy's such a joke. And then like five years later, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Zenai's Ventura cutoff line is probably like 45 somehow. I'm way over it and I still think it's hilarious. But a certain type of older person thought it was like the worst thing that had ever been inflicted on man.

[Mallory Rubin]

Two year old haggard film critics were like, I can't.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's just like, I'm done. Just shoot me in the head right now.

[Glenn Powell]

I don't know if it's nostalgia. I mean, it really. That is. That is one of those things that. That is the dumbest premise. And it only works because a full commitment.

[Craig Horbock]

Yes.

[Glenn Powell]

To creating jokes out of nothing.

[Bill Simmons]

Can I ask you a question? You're either going to laugh at that or you're not.

[Glenn Powell]

You're not playing and talking.

[Bill Simmons]

You're either going to hate that or love it. That's it.

[Glenn Powell]

Anyway, the rhino in When Nature Calls, I think it's still one of the greatest physical gags of all time.

[Bill Simmons]

So. Ebert, four stars. Absolutely loved it. Talked about how it brought in focus the new values that technology is forcing on humanity. Because we can engineer genetics, because we can telecast real lives. Of course we must. Right. But are these good things to do? The irony is the people who will finally answer that question will be the very ones produced by the process. Raj saw the world coming, but Gattaca, which was the other one Nickel wrote, was fascinated in this world too. What's going to happen when technology takes on?

[Mallory Rubin]

And he was like, two movies are basically related.

[Bill Simmons]

For me, the good news is technology is fine now. I think it's going great. Super good, man.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Nothing on the horizon to worry about.

[Bill Simmons]

Sounds like there's big scary companies or anything.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's going.

[Glenn Powell]

I'm sleeping tight. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's time for one of our favorite segments, the Most Rewatchable Scene. And it's brought to you today by PayPal. When you want to make the most of your money, head to the PayPal app. Save the 5% pay later offer before you check out. They give you the flexibility to pay in four. No fees, no interest. All right, we're doing the categories. Thankfully, Glenn has listened to the podcast and he's excited. Most Rewatchable Scene is the start. I'm just going to throw out the ones I Had. And if I missed any, tell me. But the opening, how it opens the show.

[Mallory Rubin]

With Kristoff.

[Bill Simmons]

With Kristoff. You're like, what's going on? I thought Peter Weir directed this movie, but he has that thing where he says, I like how it's a reality show. Convincing people that it's real life and that's better than acting. Meanwhile, nothing at all is real. And it's like, okay, yeah, like this.

[Glenn Powell]

Like the sit down interview.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I'm in Truman's flashback to being in love with the other girl in high school.

[Craig Horbock]

With Lauren.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And that whole sequence, the way she looks at him. I like movies when you get an actor to look at another actor like that with like, just real love and affection. I think it's underrated.

[Glenn Powell]

She gets the most bang for her buck for probably having fewest lines in the movie and being literally over the whole movie with just looks.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes. Truman starts to figure it out. The radio frequency in the car. Love that hospital. Spotting the Fiji ticket with the makeup bib. The lady still forgot to take the bib off. The bus breaks down. So we got that. Truman tries to escape with Meryl.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Finally drives over the water. They catch him. Now you know it's bad. Quickly, the moko Coco scene when he's.

[Glenn Powell]

Talking to.

[Bill Simmons]

She's just doing that thing. Marlin's heart to heart with Truman.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is.

[Glenn Powell]

If I'm in on it, everyone, you know, if everyone's in on it, it means comeback.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

But also Kristoff giving him the lines and him kind of being like, yeah, God damn.

[Bill Simmons]

Big reveal. So they don't reveal this. It's like the 50 minute mark of the movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's incredible.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's like. And now we wide back. There's a crew watching. And we're like, holy shit. This was. This is what we're doing. Like, it doesn't really set in. Right.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. That's how it all works.

[Bill Simmons]

Whole universe watching Truman's crying when he sees his dad.

[Glenn Powell]

That's a good moment. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a theory he's crying because he knows that his whole life's been a lie. Oh, he's not crying because he's happy to see his dad again. He's crying because he's like, holy shit. Because right after that moment, he's on to everything.

[Glenn Powell]

I would love to ask Jim Carrey that question.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe he played it both ways.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Weir's like, yeah, dude. Truman escapes in the basement. Little Shawshankish.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, for sure.

[Craig Horbock]

Dark.

[Bill Simmons]

Truman's Sailboat adventure with Kristoff going, heel.

[Glenn Powell]

The great wave going Old Testament. Yeah, he was.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Do it up. Put it up to the danger. I want to point out the score, how good the score is in this movie and especially the scene. And then when he hits the end.

[Glenn Powell]

Of the world, it's the best.

[Bill Simmons]

You're like, wait, what happened?

[Glenn Powell]

Maybe most. One of the most iconic endings to a movie ever.

[Bill Simmons]

Truman says goodbye. I. I don't know there are any other ones you would throw in.

[Glenn Powell]

No, I. Bringing up score. I think the. The moment that he's kind of discovering things like where he's turning on that street and then he's like, he's stopping the bus and he's starting to kind of put it all together. There's the score behind that. I realize that I go, oh. I think in any other director's hands, they start playing it, like a little bit more paranoid and kind of built in tension. Yeah. He played it triumphantly.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

It was an interesting thing where it makes you like, root for Truman.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Glenn Powell]

Like, almost. Almost like, oh, he's putting it together. And we're like on the page of going, oh, let's go, Truman. Like, he's putting it together.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's like, that's Philip Glass, I think Glass, like.

[Glenn Powell]

But I just thought it was a really brilliant musical cue because it trains the audience to root for him rather than.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's do that with the Miami Vice remake. The three. When the three of us. Yeah. Hash it out.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So what do you most rewatchable.

[Glenn Powell]

Most rewatchable. I think that scene. I think that scene is the most rewatchable scene. Is. Is. Is him putting it all together.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's right. Yeah. That's when he discovers the set. It goes through the revolving door and then he just is sort of like starting to like. Yeah, he's starting to see the ones and zeros.

[Glenn Powell]

It's the wish fulfillment of the whole movie, in my opinion.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I've seen this movie multiple times and it still takes me back when he hits. When he hits the end.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You're like, oh. Today's edition of the most rewatchable scene was brought to you by PayPal. This is big. Bigger than the 12 foot snowman on your lawn right now. You can get 5% cash back when you pay later with PayPal. So whether it's a must have toy or a tiered cheese board, PayPal helps make the most of your money this holiday. Save the offer. And the PayPal app expires 1231. See paypal.com promoterms Subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com Paying for PayPal Inc. NMLS 910457 what's the most 1998 thing about this movie? Did I prepare you for this one?

[Glenn Powell]

Yep. Most 1998, I think the travel agent.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great one. Let came prepared. Glenn said the high bar for any future celebrity.

[Mallory Rubin]

I had a very negative experience with a travel agent today, and I was just like, how is this happening? Like, I've called you once in 10 years.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

You can't work for me.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have for 98?

[Mallory Rubin]

Reality television being like a novel idea. Just so the idea that, like, when you would have seen this movie in 1998, this would have seemed incredibly far fetched. And now it seems like, oh, yeah, is there, isn't there a Truman show on channel 236 that I don't know about?

[Bill Simmons]

That's a good one. I had young Paul Giamatti. I don't know, it just jumped out to me.

[Glenn Powell]

He aged the. Wait, wait, aged the best?

[Bill Simmons]

No, just that it made, Seeing young Paul Giamatti made me feel like I was in the mid-1990s because he was in private parts with Howard Stern and my best friend. That version of him.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's the bellhop in My Best Friend's Wedding.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. He just, he had this whole that guy run in the 90s before he became Paul Giamatti.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he did the wine movie that we've already done that I'm blanking on. But yes, he did Sideways and he became Paul Giamatti. But for 10 years he was just like, he was stuck on like, weird facial hair and some. Anyway, what's age the best? Well, what do you have?

[Glenn Powell]

Because I have a. Let me see. What, let me see what I've seen.

[Bill Simmons]

I'll do a couple where you're looking up.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I like movies when adults play high school kids in flashbacks and I actually feel like they're in high school.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Because people, they usually mangle that I actually, like, believed like Laura Linny was like when they all met together.

[Mallory Rubin]

30 is a good age to go.

[Bill Simmons]

Like you can get away. Carrie actually looked young enough. So I was buying that.

[Glenn Powell]

He, you know what I wrote down? For what age the best.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Product placement.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I, I, I think they sort of like, they just, they, they kind of brushed it under the rug of the, the, the product placement. But how many, how the entire world.

[Bill Simmons]

Product placement and post game shows for TV shows. Like recap shows? Basically.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

This Movie. This is probably for a different category in a lot of ways. Like, predicts Amazon, because when you're watching an Amazon show, they're also like, you can buy whatever anybody's wearing in this.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what I mean? Or you can buy, like, the stuff that they're using. So it's kind of the only thing.

[Bill Simmons]

I missed out on. Gambling content. Like, we didn't have Truman making a. Same game as Relay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

You know what? I thought about that? Like, there was, like, this one bar. Like, have they keep. I never noticed the.

[Bill Simmons]

The. The.

[Glenn Powell]

The sort of aprons before, but it's not just a bar. It's a Truman Show.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. It's like Bubba Gump shrimp.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, that kind of took me out of it a little bit. I kind of wanted to feel a little more universal. But I thought about in that bar, you have to have some gambling in that bar.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, he does do 2 to 1 odds on. He's gonna. He's like, the bartender does do like. I'm taking odds on him getting out of this. Getting across the ocean here.

[Glenn Powell]

You should never see the act.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I was gonna do this later. I'll just do this now, since you brought it up. So people are going to the bar. They're just having drinks and food at the Truman Show. Truman Shows on. Are they allowed to talk about anything else?

[Mallory Rubin]

You say that, but if I opened a bar called Miami Vice, where Miami.

[Bill Simmons]

Everyone's dressed like Miami, and we just.

[Mallory Rubin]

Added mojitos.

[Glenn Powell]

It'S not a terrible idea. This is what. This is what. What was the one that Stallone and Bruce Willis opened? The Planet Hollywood.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Right.

[Glenn Powell]

You know, there's like, I always loved the Rainforest Cafe. I love. I love a themed restaurant.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

You know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

I think there were some people that went to the Truman Bar and were like, I'll go to the Truman Bar. I'm not fucking talking about the Truman show about anything else.

[Glenn Powell]

It's got great ribs. They got great ribs.

[Craig Horbock]

Product placement could have been a little more subtle.

[Glenn Powell]

That's. That's my one knock is I think that they. They could have been like, there was the. The twin guys that they push him against. I'm like, he would have figured that out. Laura Linney's, like, kind of really selling it.

[Craig Horbock]

Like, in the middle of that very intense moment, she has to promote Moco Coco.

[Glenn Powell]

You don't have to do that right now.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought the best Seacrest idea for what's Age the best. No cats, just dogs.

[Mallory Rubin]

Seahaven.

[Bill Simmons]

Seahaven, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

There is no cat right there.

[Bill Simmons]

Seacrest. There are no cats.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's a cat in the control room.

[Bill Simmons]

Very dog friendly, though. No cats.

[Glenn Powell]

Very interesting thing to notice.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting. I just. I'm only saying this for Mallory Rubin because she works with us and she's going to be furious that I enjoyed a world with no cats.

[Glenn Powell]

When I was shooting Expendables 3 in. In Bulgaria.

[Bill Simmons]

Say no more.

[Glenn Powell]

What is.

[Bill Simmons]

What a start. There was. There was. There's a city.

[Glenn Powell]

So the city of Sofia, Bulgaria, is like overrun with dogs. All dogs.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

And then there's a city called Plovdiv that is overrun with cats. And I visited them like, like. And I was like, what a weird thing to have.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, do they have any sharks and jets?

[Glenn Powell]

That's what I was thinking. I was like, this is gonna be a war that happens when these two cities.

[Bill Simmons]

We said Mallory there for fact. The what stage the best. The poster, which I think is one of the best posters from this decade. It was done by an artist named Rob Silverman. Hundreds of carried things that he just worked on forever and they paid $75,000 for it.

[Glenn Powell]

75.

[Bill Simmons]

That's it.

[Glenn Powell]

Wow, that is a great. That is a great. Would you say it premiered the poster or the. No, the. The. The actual movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I don't know.

[Glenn Powell]

Was it at a festival or was it like a. I think it just.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think it was just a regular.

[Bill Simmons]

I think they pushed it because they wanted it to go for Oscars.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah. It premiered in June in LA.

[Glenn Powell]

In LA.

[Bill Simmons]

It was supposed to be 97. And then the Titanic literally was this big boat coming for everybody and they were like, let's go. 98. Better chance for the Oscars. What else do you have for what's age best?

[Glenn Powell]

Age the best. I do. I do think that the. The. The ending. The ending is. Is perfect. Perfect.

[Mallory Rubin]

One of the great endings.

[Glenn Powell]

I just think. I think. I think the. The bow at the end, the wish fulfillment of it. You get that thing that I love in movies, which is like the laugh cry.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Like, you cut to the world, like the guy in the bathtub just like slapping the wall. Like, you kind of have that emotional reaction where you're like simultaneously sad it's ending, but also like, so happy for a guy.

[Bill Simmons]

That was Chris last night with vj. Edge comes and the end of Joel Embiid's career at the same time. Is that a laugh cry for you?

[Mallory Rubin]

The laugh cry in the tub.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have anyone stage the Best.

[Mallory Rubin]

I got a bunch. This movie passes the Raiders of the Lost Ark screenplay test that I'm inventing. Not inventing, but I like, like, I think every 10 pages or 10 minutes of this movie, something really important happens and it makes you so engaged, like on a kind of almost subconscious level with it. You anticipate it almost like a thriller, even though it's like this drama comedy. But I was just. I. I was realized this last night. At 10 minutes, he can't get on the boat. You're like, why not? 20 minutes, we meet Lauren. 30 minutes, he discovers the set. 40 minutes, he sees the fingers crossed wedding picture.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep.

[Mallory Rubin]

50 minutes, the cop says Truman's name. When he's like, no problem, Truman, or whatever. Thanks, Truman. He's like, what the fuck? And then at 60, he gets reunited with his dad. And you see Kristoff in the control room. And then it's like the last 30 minutes, which is just crazy, but the way that they have that rhythm to discovery in this movie, it's just kind of disorienting enough.

[Glenn Powell]

And then you're like, oh, it's paced out well. I heard that there was a version of the script in which we don't even realize that Truman is in a simulation until the midpoint.

[Mallory Rubin]

See, this is what I wanted to ask about is like whether or not you guys think that's time to drop it. Opening 30 seconds or two minutes of the movie, it's is what makes it rewatchable because you're like, I kind of know just enough about this being weird. But if you just have it play like a Sixth Sense twist, it's. It's different. You know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. People are stupid. I think you have to cater to that a little bit. You kind of have to hold their hand every once in a while with something like this. I think that's why. What else do you have?

[Mallory Rubin]

I had them doing T. Rex 20th century boy as like a 1950s sock hop jam because, like, you know, what is music in this world? And like, how would they have, like, what does he know about, like, rock and roll or whatever is time stop in the 50s? And so, like, the fact that they're covering a 1970s glam rock song that's obviously very popular, but making it sound like Chuck Berry or something like that.

[Glenn Powell]

Oh, that is interesting.

[Mallory Rubin]

Is a kind of interesting idea about what they would do for, like, to keep this guy, like, engaged with culture inside of this world.

[Glenn Powell]

They just, they just didn't want to pay for the rights.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, you.

[Glenn Powell]

Know, what's funny, though is I actually flagged. That scene is actually, I think, one of the best directed scenes in the whole movie.

[Bill Simmons]

The dance.

[Glenn Powell]

The dance. I think that dance is like poetry.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I'm. I. It is done with looks. It's fun. It's. It's paranoid. It's like. It's got a sense of the world to it and it, like, it does so much heavy lifting in a very short amount of time for a movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a. Don't get freaked out. Deaths at sea in movies, oh, I think are always riveting. And I was. I almost wanted to do like my. My top tier, best ones ever. He did super weird because Ordinary People has a great one. Yeah, this one has a really good one.

[Glenn Powell]

Perfect Storm.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Perfect Storm. But the one where you're like, just hold on. And the guy's. Yeah, I can't fall back.

[Mallory Rubin]

Titanic is probably visually.

[Bill Simmons]

Titanic's another one. But visually it's. It always works.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's always a home run. It's like, oh, he's not gonna be able to hold on, is he?

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, that's where the movie takes on a really dark.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Dark thing. You're like, oh, what they're willing to do to keep this guy here.

[Bill Simmons]

So what happens? So he goes under and what do they have, like a scuba dash? They show a clip of it.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, they show a clip of like, he's like, I think maybe I'm making this up. But it seemed like the dad was, like, upset with being taken off. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's in the montage when Kristoff does his interview.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And they show the dad being, like, upset about it.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. Yeah. His storyline was.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

The divers are in the water getting the dad right.

[Bill Simmons]

Quick ones. Big huna burger. Word. Best use of food and drink. The moko, cocoa, coffee. She come back.

[Mallory Rubin]

I had Chef's palace, dicer, grater and peeler.

[Bill Simmons]

All that's good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Yep. I think those are the two. I mean, the Moco Coco, I think is maybe the most iconic.

[Bill Simmons]

By the way, bad name for a coffee.

[Glenn Powell]

I mean, they could. They could have honestly paid for this movie with the amount of product placement they do within this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Great shot, Gordo. Most cinematic shot. What do you have for Sierra Truman.

[Mallory Rubin]

Going through the revolving door, like, with the kind of like, realization that something is changing or the last shot of the movie of him walking into this. The black, black doorway when they, when.

[Bill Simmons]

They finally stop the storm and they go the. The over the boat and he's like, this. And you don't know if he's dead or not. And then I don't know. I just thought that looked cool. With the sun come up, I loved.

[Glenn Powell]

I loved Ed Harris touching his face on the, the screen. I thought that was a very, like a moment where you started seeing this like, father, this like really messed up father, son thing happening where it's like he's obsessed with his creation. I was like, like that was a moment that's like a very cool visual moment that like kind of sums up the whole dynamic.

[Bill Simmons]

Chess, Rockwell, Brock. Lantern is the word for best character name. I, I. Kristoff's really good. It's such a douchey. Obviously this guy would devote his life to tormenting Truman. His name's Kristoff. He's the last name.

[Glenn Powell]

It's a, it's the backwards beret. Yeah. With the glasses.

[Bill Simmons]

Full douche on us.

[Mallory Rubin]

Truman Burbank is pretty good.

[Bill Simmons]

Truman Burbank's good. Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Truman Burbank. I mean, Kristoff, by the way, it's the whole, the whole thing that, that they talk about is like, Christ.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Kristoff, that he's playing God is the voice of God, you know, and he's like a one name guy, you know, Truman true man. You know, like there again, there was like a lot of intention and all that. But I, I think Truman Burbank kind of like, I don't know. I could have had a second draft. Yeah, it.

[Bill Simmons]

Truman Burbank sounds like the left tackle on The Jaguars. Yeah. C.R. you have a flex category. This is a category that's not normally in the rundown, but Sierra has carte blanche to pick any category.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I am Choos in honor of Heat. It's a book about medals award for belatedly best quote or exchange. The one that sticks with me the most because it gets overridden by Truman redoing good afternoon, good evening, and if I don't see you good night or whatever. I love when he's like, you never had a camera in my head, the way he says that. And like the idea that there has to be a limit to like surveillance or like the way that, how much you can know somebody. And I thought that was like such an incredible, like, grace note to go out on. So I always liked that.

[Glenn Powell]

The, my, my, my favorite was with the two security guys where, where you see them, like, you know, they're about to, you know, the husband and wife are about to get intimate and you basically cut to the security guards. It's like you Know, they never show it. You know, he's like, you just. You just cut to the. The curtain. They blow a little bit. He's like, they never show it. It's my favorite way to, like, get plot out. Like. Like to. To literally go like, hey.

[Bill Simmons]

Just like.

[Glenn Powell]

You're like, we are. What are they showing? What are they not showing? But it is also one of my favorite. Like, my favorite. I'm like, I want to live with these guys. Brilliant line delivery, too.

[Bill Simmons]

I have a bonus category, the Ed Norton reverse dunk award for. Did this movie need a random sports scene? Like, could there have been a double. A baseball situation going on?

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a really good question. Is. Does Truman get Yankee scores or something? Or did they create, like, a fake baseball league for him to follow?

[Bill Simmons]

Was there a whole sports staff just writing fake stories about players that didn't exist?

[Glenn Powell]

It's actually a really fun. I mean, this is. This is where the first ad comes in. That's a whole props department conversation.

[Bill Simmons]

They're making a full newspaper every day. So what's in.

[Mallory Rubin]

So is there a newspaper?

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, well, their newspaper seems to be. Just to cover up their own plot holes. Right. Their newspaper seems to be very reactive to things falling out of the sky.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right. Airplanes, they've mastered.

[Glenn Powell]

But I always thought about that in terms of, obviously, they're trying to mimic the real world, so they're trying to not, like, create a new reality. So people that are watching the show obviously want to see, like, their reality reflected in a weird way. But also, the more you do that, the more you're sort of looking to the outside world, it creates, like, a. Right. A sense of longing that there's something outside of Seahaven that I thought was, like, an interesting.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe lacrosse could have worked. Sure. They got the helmets. You know, you never would know who the players are.

[Glenn Powell]

That's true.

[Mallory Rubin]

That would be funny if. If he comes out of the studio and he's like, so, like, what's going on in the world of lacrosse?

[Glenn Powell]

Like, the writers are just, like, scurrying.

[Bill Simmons]

The Butch's Girlfriend award for weak link of the film. What'd you have for this, Glenn?

[Glenn Powell]

I know a lot of people are probably gonna. I bet you somebody's gonna say, marlon.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't have marlin.

[Glenn Powell]

You don't have marlin on there? No, I think it could.

[Mallory Rubin]

There could. So go tell me why I.

[Glenn Powell]

Look, actually, I actually don't. I actually don't think marlin's the weak link of the movie. I find that. I find the dad Storyline. I think I could have been better. Okay. In my personal opinion, I think he's sort of like, we could have, we could have, we could have cast the net a little bit wider.

[Bill Simmons]

In the research, they said there were extra marlin scenes that made him like just a little deeper of a character.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like more nefarious or like.

[Bill Simmons]

No, like he tries to actually help Truman at one point.

[Glenn Powell]

I could totally see that. The reality is it's, it's a very one dimensional character. Like, I like the idea that they built this entire backstory that he's known him since seven. But the thing that I kept being like, really interested in is like, how did that 7 year old get cast?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

What does his life look like?

[Craig Horbock]

Right?

[Glenn Powell]

What is the things that he's been living with? Like, how is this actor? You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. I'm like, he's a child actor too. He's sort of in this different experience. Like, he signed up at 7.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I was like, really interested in what.

[Mallory Rubin]

That.

[Glenn Powell]

When, when your best friend in the whole world is going through this crisis. Like, what it actually looks like. I was like, that's cool.

[Bill Simmons]

To prequel.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, that's.

[Craig Horbock]

You know what?

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm kind of surprised that. Well, we'll get to that.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have for weak link?

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't have a weakest link, really. I think that I, I hear you about the dad. You know, it's like I, I wonder whether or not like if that had been like Dennis Hopper.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Does that interest hair? Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Even more emotional. I feel like that, that storyline. Because I feel like that storyline inherently is a, is a one that opens up a whole can of worms plot wise. Like, how does he sneak back onto the studio? What's the conversation of getting him back on? Like, if he's already having second thoughts about this, like, that's a, that's a whole other thing. But I go, if you had somebody that was like, really like someone that already had all this, like, empathetic or, you know, empathetic nature. We had a history, like a Hanks or like a Hopper, somebody that we've trusted before. I think you, you engage with that role differently.

[Bill Simmons]

I had, I don't know what was fun about watching this TV show for 24 hours a day. I think I would have, I would.

[Glenn Powell]

The curtains blowing.

[Bill Simmons]

When I just think at some point, I'm like, all right, let me guess. He's gonna wake up, say hi to the neighbors, drive to work. Yeah, I'm good.

[Mallory Rubin]

They present it like there have been moments on the show that are as big as the Princess Diana Prince Charles wedding.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And that like, people are at like make doing like Live Aid sized crowds to watch Truman get married. And I get it because, like that's the obvious nod that they're making. But it is sort of like, what are you doing on Wednesday at 9:30pm When Truman's like cutting his nails? Are you at the Truman Bar being like, riveting.

[Bill Simmons]

Truman has diarrhea today. What's age the worst?

[Glenn Powell]

I'll say this the CGI to pull off the Princess Diana wedding shots to establish the outside world.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I personally think that the what's aged the worst is like number one, the CGI of the actual bubble. Right. That, that I was like, okay, we could have, we could have designed.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You could almost like redo that for the criterion no.

[Glenn Powell]

100. We could just spend a little bit more time on this thing because it's kind of like one of the. The wish fulfillment things of the whole movie. But I just think the cutbacks to the real world, I would have wanted to see a little bit more ripple effects of the real world.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Interacting.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was mine.

[Glenn Powell]

Limited.

[Mallory Rubin]

What's the. Like, I. Honestly, even in, even in 1998, like, like it would have been cool if they got a little bit more into the ethical and legal entanglements that this thing would have inevitably. I guess it is cool that it's like this is just such a runaway hit that even these few naysayers who try to disrupt it, they just become part of it almost. And like when he's talking to Lauren on the. During the interview and he's like, no, no, no. I love reconnecting with cast members. Even though she's. She's saying that he's a liar and like evil. But I do think it would have been cool. Like what's.

[Bill Simmons]

What's.

[Mallory Rubin]

What's like the what what is like the Supreme Court think about like a child being born to a corporation.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, Lauren would have been. We should have had her on Wet stage. The best. As somebody who's now devoted their life to like now online, it'd be so much easier to be like, totally come to my website. Here's my Truman podcast. And you'd have nine things there is.

[Glenn Powell]

Something really fun about. Also the fact that like that. That was one of the things where I'm like, there the fact that you took a kid, raised him in this bubble and lied to him in this whole thing. I'm like, There would be a lot of people trying to break into this.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Glenn Powell]

This place.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

You know what I mean? That's why I was like, when the.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dad likes presidents running on it. And I will shut down the Truman show day one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. What stage? The worst. They filmed all the Saints of Truman's house at a residence in Florida that was Matt Gates's childhood home.

[Glenn Powell]

Oh, I did hear this.

[Mallory Rubin]

I did not know that.

[Bill Simmons]

So Ed TV. I just like McConaughey. That was just a tough beat for him to follow. This movie with a similar premise. It's where the agent could have maybe been like, no, no, no Carrie, Peter Weir thing. Let's stay away from it.

[Glenn Powell]

It's always happened over the course of time. It's like you release like White House down and then you release like Olympus is falling down.

[Bill Simmons]

Two.

[Mallory Rubin]

Steve Prefontaine.

[Bill Simmons]

Prefontaine was the best one ever. The two. Two in a row and then one was awesome.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Without limits. My last Wood stages were so, so Meryl, Laura Linney's character. So professional escort. Well, like an actor who has a fake marriage with somebody that she's clearly having sex with.

[Glenn Powell]

And this is.

[Bill Simmons]

What's her next job after this?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Because at 34. And presumably she might have had a child with Truman by this point. But if they're like, look at 35, we can just get you divorced and you can move out of Seahaven or whatever.

[Glenn Powell]

She'd drown you in the Seahawn.

[Bill Simmons]

What are the late 30s looking like for her for that? You know, the Truman show got.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

What does the next job look like after the Truman Show?

[Bill Simmons]

Having sex on camera. A little weird. I never, never understood that.

[Glenn Powell]

She thinks her career is going to look a little different after the Truman Show. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm going to be in like out of Africa.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. Ruffalo hand Ruben of Cartridge Overacting award. Did you have one?

[Mallory Rubin]

I. Philip Baker hall makes the most out of. I mean, he's still always you and I've seen, but he's just like the network. I'm the president of the network.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. That's a good one. All right. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest take award. Did you bring a hottest take?

[Glenn Powell]

I'll tell you my hottest. I, I, I love Jim Carrey in this movie. My hot take is I do think this movie could have potentially been really good with Tom Hanks.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's good. You got to go for the head there. That's great. So go talk us through it.

[Bill Simmons]

The you almost said Tom Cruise or You said the Tom. I was like, Cruz.

[Glenn Powell]

No, no, the thing with Cruz, it turns into the. The, you know, Minority Report. You know, it's like what you don't want to do is you don't want to feel like a paranoid thriller. The reason Jim Carrey is so good in this movie is it takes it. It brushes all that away. It's a guy who's grown up in a, you know, a very manicured existence. I will say that for me, Hanks represents the everyman that you sort of root for. Like, he sort of feels like a guy. Like, some of these moments would just be a little more subtle. I don't know if they'd be as much fun to watch. But I would engage with the movie, I think, with the Tom Hanks in a different way because he doesn't feel like an everyman like you. Again, we talk about only get so many buy ins of the movie. I feel like the buy in is that now you have a normal guy who's realizing that he's not normal. Jim Carrey is so over the top as a person. Obviously his existence has been manicured, so you could justify that. But I find that Hanks would represent a little bit more of an everyman who's realizing that he represents something to the world. And that debate of do I leave this existence or. Or stay here. I think. I think it'd just be a different. It would be a different movie. But I would love to see what that movie looks like.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruz. Definitely. They add a running scene over the bridge.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. Sailboat scene at the end would just be.

[Bill Simmons]

He's definitely hanging from the sailboat.

[Glenn Powell]

No, he's hanging from the moon, man.

[Bill Simmons]

He's filming his own sailboat scene. He said, no, no, this has to be an actual sailboat accident.

[Glenn Powell]

This is going to be the actual moon.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I want you to hit me with real waves. What do you have for out of steak?

[Mallory Rubin]

Kind of similar to what Glenn said. I would have. The first director attached to this movie was Brian De Palma. Oh, and I would like to see these sex creams. Paranoid Truman's cutting up magazine pictures of women and trying to recreate Lauren. Like, we get maybe Melanie Griffith playing Meryl. You know, there's like just a lot more like, I think of the sort of debased psychology of this character.

[Bill Simmons]

They definitely have sex on the beach.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I mean, it could have come out that way, and I just think that would have been amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. Mine's a little complex. I think 1998 is in the running for the greatest. Checking all the boxes. Movie year we've ever had. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to give you all these different categories that I created five minutes ago. All these different types of movies that can come out in a year.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Drama. Saving Private. Win. Provocative drama. American History. X. Foreign Life Is Beautiful. Beloved movie. Nerd movie. Out of Sight. Guys. Movie Rounders. Great comedy. There's Something About Mary. Cult comedy. Big Le Baskin. Goofy Comedy. Wedding Singer. Conspiracy. Enemy of the State. Political. Primary Colors.

[Mallory Rubin]

War.

[Bill Simmons]

Thin Red Line. Sports Movie. He Got game. Horror. Halloween. H2O. Action. Armageddon. Well done for me. And cr. Action. Ronin.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, you are. Sci Fi. Truman Show. Sci Fi. Horror.

[Glenn Powell]

Blade.

[Bill Simmons]

Rom com. You've Got Mail. Black Rom Com. Stella Got Her Groove Back. Corny drama. Patch Adams. High School. Can't Hardly Wait. Fucked up indie movie. Your Friends and Neighbors. You seen that one?

[Glenn Powell]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a fucked up indie movie. TV turn movie. X Files. Animated. A Bug's Life and Kids. Parent Trap. That's a damn good movie if you use all that. Like, think about how many categories I just listed. And we have an awesome one for each one. Let's get. Let's go back.

[Glenn Powell]

It was 98. It was 98.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Let's make this happen again in 26.

[Mallory Rubin]

It would be amazing if Fennesee had been here and he was like, actually, it's 1934. Tucky Barnums. You know, But I just.

[Bill Simmons]

I felt like we had so much more variety. I know TVs ruined some of this. And some of this stuff goes scripted. Like if you did Chad powers.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

In 98, it just would have been a 90 minute sports movie.

[Glenn Powell]

Well, I think one of the things that we talked about is. Is potentially doing it as a movie. But what you start to realize is we. The way that I conceptualize it is I was like, do I want to see the Breaking Bad movie before the Breaking Bad show? No. You want to watch Walter White.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Incrementally make decisions that change. You know, you want. You want to be with him on every single one of those things. It doesn't have as much satisfaction if you.

[Bill Simmons]

But in 98, you don't have that choice. They're like, no, you have 100 minutes max.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's $14 million and you can have two stars.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. Go.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's also like, this is. You go back to those years and you look at, like the. The calendar of releases. Like you were at the movies once a week, if not two or three.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what I Mean, that'll come back. We had a lot. This was an awesome movie year. And it feels like, like, yeah, feels like we're, we're climbing back.

[Glenn Powell]

I also feel like when, you know, people always think that, like, tick tock or Instagram, like, you know, siphon, you know, eyeballs away from movies, I also feel like it also connects us into those cultural moments that really resonate. Like, I feel like those things say, like, hey, this thing's awesome. I just think you can't. There's like this era that I feel like people just accepted that people went to the movies. There's like the 98 where you're like, all those movies are killer movies.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

And now that there was like a thing where like, oh, we, we just, we just accepted that people go to the movies and there wasn't as much like, like artistry or intention behind it. And I think we're coming back to where it's like the only way you open a movie is when it's really damn good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, right?

[Glenn Powell]

The word of mouth plugging Running Man, November 14th.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, we're getting.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's.

[Glenn Powell]

But it's like, but that's the only way you actually get to people to go to the movies. Because, like, ahead of time, like two, three weeks ahead of time, you know, if it's a stinker or not.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, you might. With Running man, you might just have to be like, gotta see in the imax. That just seems to work now. Like rewatchables episode with Glenn Powell. You got to see the imax.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what?

[Bill Simmons]

It's totally different.

[Mallory Rubin]

The second time I saw it one battle, I just saw it like, you know, in a, in a relatively half full, like regular AMC theater. And I was like, this is still awesome. You know, like, you know, it's like you don't always have to like, go to the greatest possible experience.

[Glenn Powell]

I will say when we, when shooting, like, it always bums me out when people tell me like, they saw Top Gun on an airplane. I'm like, bro, you just missed out on the whole, like, I'm up there. You know, there is puking and passing out in jets and like, you know, we shoot it all in imax. You. You invented cameras for things. There was like so much and I'm like, like, to experience that movie in IMAX was such a blast. Like even. It's like, it's like watching dudes were.

[Mallory Rubin]

Saluting the screen in theaters.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, that was. That was like the first welcome back to movies theater movie in in a while. Let's take one more break and then we got to zoom through the rest of this. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. Figuring out your next career move isn't always easy. That's why LinkedIn connects you with the people, ideas and resources that help you move forward with confidence. Whether you're exploring new paths or leveling up, LinkedIn is here to support your journey. It's the world's largest professional network for a reason. Because when it comes to your career, having the right tools and connections isn't just helpful, it's essential. Whether you're after your first job, looking to grow your professional community or gain expertise, LinkedIn can help you grow your career with confidence. Visit LinkedIn.com, discover the tools and features that will help you develop professionally wherever you are in your journey. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Without Internet, you wouldn't be able to hear my beautiful voice right now and businesses wouldn't be able to stay connected the way they need. So what if I told you you can get free business Internet forever with Spectrum Business? Just add four mobile lines. Get business Internet, advanced wi fi and security shield for free for life. No contracts, no added fees. All you have to do to find out how you can get free Spectrum Business Internet [e-mail] freeforlife. That's where you go. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

[Mallory Rubin]

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[Bill Simmons]

Casting what ifs Carrie's price tag was 20 million a movie at the time, 10 less than Glenn. But he took 12. That's a little discount. And he said it was the fastest he'd ever accepted a role. There's some stuff about they talked to Sam Jackson about my shit detector went off. I didn't believe it. Gary Oldman was the other one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Gary Oldman they did screen tests for.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but I don't think they actually offered it to him. Yeah, as a Carrie fallback. Dennis Hopper was supposed to be Kristoff and was Kristoff and filmed two days of Scenes.

[Glenn Powell]

And then they talked to Ed Harris about this. I shot a movie with Ed Harris, and he said he got cast, like, a couple days before he shot this.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's crazy.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So Hopper said he got fired after two days because Weir and Scott Rudin, the producer, didn't like him. Hopper leaves, they try to get Jack Nicholson. Nicholson's buddies with Hoppers, like, I can't do that. So they end up with Ed Harrison. And Brian De Palma turned it down, as CR mentioned, which is a different movie, to say the least.

[Mallory Rubin]

Terry Gilliam and Barry Sonnenfeld were also circling.

[Glenn Powell]

Interesting.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Terry Gilliam would have made a very.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting film out of this Best that Guy award. It can't go to Giamatti because he's now Paul Giamatti. But the Asian guy from Karate Kid 2. The bad guy. Of course I was.

[Glenn Powell]

Wait.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, the guy Daniel San fights in the end, the evil guy.

[Glenn Powell]

What are you talking about? Snyder. Oh, oh, the big guy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

You're talking to the big guy.

[Bill Simmons]

No, the guy Danielson, Karate Kid 2.

[Glenn Powell]

Wait, he's in this movie?

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah, he's in the family.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Table watching. Yeah, that's. That's him.

[Glenn Powell]

You're kidding. Yeah, I totally missed that.

[Bill Simmons]

He. He regrouped after Daniel kicked his ass.

[Mallory Rubin]

And got really into Truman Show.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Yeah. Dion Waiters award. Are we giving this to Natasha?

[Mallory Rubin]

No, this goes to Gati. Gatti's in like, four scenes. He is ridiculous in this movie. Like, this is a nothing, nothing burger part.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it really is.

[Mallory Rubin]

And when he's just like, he doesn't even care if he drowns. I'm like, oh, my God.

[Glenn Powell]

It's very grounded. It's a very grounded performance for knowing that he probably shot. Got two days on a sound stage.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And you agree with Giamatti.

[Glenn Powell]

No, you know. You know what? I. You know what a role is? The.

[Bill Simmons]

The.

[Glenn Powell]

The woman who's next to Giamani.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yes. Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

I find what's really, really funny about that performance. Chloe.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think her name is Chloe.

[Glenn Powell]

She. They shoot her. I don't. I wonder what happened in the edit, because they shoot her like she's a super important character in several of the most pivotal moments.

[Bill Simmons]

But she never says that.

[Glenn Powell]

But she never says anything. Like, you know what I mean? So I was like, something happened.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think they just cut her part out. Yeah. You know, it's like.

[Glenn Powell]

Like something. Like a bad fallout in post or something. I don't know what happened, but there's.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, I'll show her.

[Glenn Powell]

Do you ever see, like, in like in movies sometimes where like all of a sudden you see like somebody like that's framed up important, like they. They have a really good. It's like deep focus, like perfect. And you're like that, that is.

[Mallory Rubin]

That character happened to you like on your coming, like coming up days, like.

[Glenn Powell]

Cut out of stuff before. But, but. But I always just notice it in movies where I'm like, like, oh, that thing is framed importantly. And she was framed.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

In all the climactic moments. She's a. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Recasting couch director city as Marlon. Can I. Can I test drive Sam Jackson for you guys?

[Mallory Rubin]

It's interesting.

[Glenn Powell]

Test drive away. What? Why?

[Bill Simmons]

Just. I don't know, just volatile, you know, Little more of. Maybe I just wanted a little extra from Marlon and I'm not sure what I wanted, but some sort of. Whose side is he on? I just felt like there was more there. There's more meat on that bone.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know who the actor, but that was one.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought, yeah, we could have been. Maybe he could have been the cross the street neighbors that Truman's always greeting. Good morning.

[Glenn Powell]

Sea Haven is so intense.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, you have flex category.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah. So, you know we have the Vincent Chase award for. Are we sure this character is actually good at his job? I want to. I want to nominate the opposite award. And now we're calling it the Kristoff Truman show award for the character who is unbelievably good at their job.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Craig Horbock]

Truman. I mean, Kristoff threw a perfect game for 35 years. Fucking Jerry Bruckheimer. I mean, pretty much just him in this room sniffed out the fact that Truman was. Was faking sleeping. He's feeding lines to everybody live. Like the guy is cooking at the Highest level.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

24 hours a day.

[Craig Horbock]

24 hours a day. It's just him.

[Glenn Powell]

He's like the best instincts ever that if we're talking about. They were talking about the GDP of this economy, that booth had to be bigger than that. I know. They really. They got. They got the. The studio called and cut the budget last minute. On. In a few. On a few.

[Mallory Rubin]

So the implication though is that they. They have put a dome over Burbank, California, basically.

[Glenn Powell]

Right. And they show the continental United States is huge.

[Bill Simmons]

Are we doing this? Yeah. I mean, this was obviously the biggest nitpick. How big was this place? How did they have all the water? How did they have all the electricity? How did nothing ever go wrong?

[Glenn Powell]

That's one of my Even like the.

[Bill Simmons]

Staples center has had four accidents in 20 years.

[Glenn Powell]

Like the sphere on steroids.

[Craig Horbock]

It's basically like Disney World or something. Yeah, yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Well, also, one of my nitpicks was that I was like, are lights falling from the sky? Are isolated thunderstorms happening? Are the frequency things happening? Why is this happening now?

[Mallory Rubin]

Right, right.

[Glenn Powell]

That I could have just used a little external pressure to understand why. Why things are going wrong now. Because you're right. Kristoff is throwing a perfect game.

[Craig Horbock]

I mean, my God, 35 years he's been doing this.

[Bill Simmons]

35 years. The radio frequency. If that doesn't happen, maybe there's a. Yeah, yeah. Half asset center research. Just quickly. This was filmed in Seaside, Florida, which is a master plan community in the Florida Panhandle. I have no idea what that means. What is master plan?

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, it's like a planned community.

[Glenn Powell]

Manufactured home.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Disney was gonna do that stuff. Like, where it was like, you would have, like, these towns that were like, they do.

[Craig Horbock]

Disney has one in Palm Springs.

[Glenn Powell]

Very manicured. Like, nobody's building their own house. It's like, here's the floor plan. Or look cool.

[Craig Horbock]

Disney has one called Cotino in Palm Springs right now.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this what they were doing in succession in the. With. This was Kendall Roy's thing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

The living with the old people could have media and people coming to visit them. Laura Linney studied read Sears catalogs from the 50s to develop her poses. I thought that was interesting. Greta Gerwig consulted Weir for Barbie because she wanted to create that world, which made total sense when I saw that before the boat stops, we see the number 139 on its sail, which is, I guess, for some Psalm 139, some interesting stuff in there. And then Carrie improvised a bunch of stuff, including the True Mania bit when he was drawn on the mirror. Last thing. There's this thing called Truman Syndrome. Are you aware of this? That started in the 2000s with people who have some version of schizophrenia where they believe their lives are reality television shows. And the writers said. Andrew Nichols said, you know, you made it. When you have a disease named after you. These people constantly think they're being filmed.

[Mallory Rubin]

I have two more. One is another nickel thing, which is. The original script is set in Manhattan. It's an alternate alternative Manhattan. And it was much darker. There was an innocent passenger attack on a subway that was supposed to test Truman's courage, which is, well, Truman show death wish, kind of like that. And Truman had a platonic relationship with a prostitute who he dressed as Sylvia. That would have been the De Palma part.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow, that sounds amazing.

[Mallory Rubin]

And Then Peter Weir, when this movie was like. I think after the movie came out, he said he had a crazy idea at one time which was impossible technically. I would have loved to have had a video camera installed in every theater the film was being seen in. At one point the projectionist would cut the power and it would cut to the viewers in the cinema watching the movie. But I thought it would be best to leave that idea untested.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's one of those. Great idea. Kane. Actually.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah. Yeah, That's a bit much.

[Bill Simmons]

We get podcasts pitched to us like that. Well, what if we're hanging out upside like an NBA game and we're in the next to the Jumbotron.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Doing a live broadcast of it. It's like, sounds good. Apex Mountain. Jim Carrey. I'm gonna say yes.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, this is Apex Mountain for Jim Carrey.

[Bill Simmons]

I think this is right in the middle of this crazy run that he had. 1998. He's got. He's had all the success. This is his first drama. It's well received. Liar Liars around there. I think he's like the most powerful actor in Hollywood other than maybe Hanks and Cruz. But Cruz is doing Eyes Wide Shut.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's also a movie where you're like, well, you can do anything.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, you're actually right.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

Because this is like. Yeah, you're right. This is the end. There's. This is like not the end of the run, but it is the third act of that. That crazy seven year run that you're talking about.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think it is. Laura Linney. Not yet. Ed Harris.

[Mallory Rubin]

What is Laura Linney's Apex Mountain? Just out of curiosity. City.

[Bill Simmons]

Which she's had a bunch of them. Probably somewhere in the early 2000s. All right. When she does, you can count on me. And she just becomes one of the most respected actresses.

[Mallory Rubin]

Is that when Primal Fear is Primal Fear 6?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's somewhere in here.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Ed Harris. I don't know. Probably early 90s.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is like when he's doing action movies and stuff like that. He's in a couple of Michael Apollo 13s.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Hidden camera movies. Yeah. Yes. Deaths at Sea. I still think Ordinary peoples.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, you made that category up.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You get kind of weirded out. I thought you'd be with me. You're like, what's going on with you?

[Mallory Rubin]

But it's just one of those things where it's like, I. I have no idea.

[Glenn Powell]

I don't have an opinion quite yet. I got to think about these things.

[Bill Simmons]

Peter we dead poets. Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

You think this over Dead poets.

[Glenn Powell]

You know the thing about I, I, I, I think this is a way more complex. I think the vision of this movie is way more complex than dead.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay. Okay.

[Glenn Powell]

I think, I think even, even just the way the, the camera angles of like where you hide things, how you build this thing, it's. It's much more of a world building thing. I think this is a very tough movie to direct.

[Bill Simmons]

Moo. Coco Coffee. Definitely.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Noah Emre probably still beautiful girls. It's a big scenes. He learned the guys. He learned the guys that the Mac down characters getting the shit kicked out of him. I don't know. Reality TV warning movies is definitely. That's all I had for Apex Mountain cruiser. Hanks. We said Hanks. Scorsese or Spielberg? Spielberg.

[Glenn Powell]

Spielberg. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffen have played, Marlon? Truman's buddy Marlin. He would have shoot easily. I think he was probably too young in 98.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

That's a great casting though. That's.

[Mallory Rubin]

He could have played the Peter Kraus role like the guy who works in the insurance agency with him.

[Bill Simmons]

What if it was Marlin? But he played it exactly like Freddy and Count Mr. Ripley. Hey, true. How's the peep? The peeping picking nits. So in. I'm not even talking 98 when Truman's a kid. Were the cameras and wi fi really this good? No, like in like 1981 we were.

[Glenn Powell]

Able to do this Hardwired. Yeah, everything's hardwired. You're right.

[Bill Simmons]

I was carrying in high school in the late 80s carrying around like, you know, this giant video camera that would like sink your shoulder after 10 minutes.

[Mallory Rubin]

They shot 20 cameras on like DV cameras that were really small. Like I don't know when that comes out like 2001 and that you can barely watch that movie now because of like the film quality.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I don't think Truman show realistically would have looked like this. Obviously.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We mentioned how did you pay all the actors and extras and was this just their job forever and what was in it for them? If you really want to be is. Would you have wanted to be an actor in this for 10 years?

[Glenn Powell]

I mean in your 20s? It depends where. Like, you know, one of my favorite scenes is, is when he gets on the bus and the guy like pretends to like, like to stall out the car and whatever. It reminded me. Like it felt like we were in the far corners of the universe where like he wasn't expecting this to happen. All the, all the background on the bus, like, just kind of get up and like, move. Like, nobody's like, has like their own life. They're like, oh, this. Nobody thought the C team was really gonna make it on screen. Like, I did sort of like that world creation. It felt intentional that nobody felt real.

[Mallory Rubin]

It brings up a really good thing, though, because on the bus, the little girl breaks.

[Craig Horbock]

Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

And is looking at him and is like, is that him? Is that him? How would you get kids to behave themselves on the show? You know what I mean? Like, how would you get a bunch of children to not be like, I watch your TV show. Yeah, exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

You wouldn't. But that's why this movie. We forgot to mention this. The Wood stage. The best Craig, hour 41.

[Craig Horbock]

Now, I would argue in the. This is one of the rare cases where I could have taken 10 more.

[Bill Simmons]

Minutes in this movie. Craig's very passionate. No movie should be more than 100 minutes unless there's an incredible reason.

[Craig Horbock]

Two hours occasionally. But I do.

[Glenn Powell]

Oh, wow.

[Craig Horbock]

There was a moment. I just, you know, I love a quick movie, but I There like the. The woman they introduced to like, be his new love interest. That's not unexplored at all. You probably could have taken a scene of that. I could have seen him unraveling a little bit more. Trying to figure things out a little bit more.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know.

[Craig Horbock]

I could have taken 10 more minutes. Hour 43 is tight.

[Bill Simmons]

We've done rewatchables where Craig just looks the movie up and it's like 89 minutes. And he's like, yes, sir. We knew what we were doing way.

[Craig Horbock]

Back in 80s movies, man.

[Bill Simmons]

What? Any more picket nits for you?

[Glenn Powell]

You know, I mean, just the idea that Kristoff, like, goes full old Testament on him at the end and no one is like sort of stopping. Like, I thought that was like an opportunity to really world build. Show the chaos of a man who's, like, desperate to keep this, his creation alive. Like, I thought that. I thought it felt too calm up in the. In the.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, it's also just like, what's the plan? If he's like, okay, I'll stay. And Kristoff now has a TV show that costs like $500 million a year.

[Glenn Powell]

The amount of money. Also, like, he's not the only one. Like, there's clearly a giant machine invested in him not getting out of this thing. I just thought. I thought there was interesting ways to explore that.

[Bill Simmons]

So one picket need I had. So he was just going to kill Truman. What happens If Truman died in the.

[Mallory Rubin]

Boat, I think he was trying to. Okay, So I think that's left to. Pretty risky to the audience to decide. But I was interpreting it as he is trying to traumatize this guy so much in the water that he turns around and goes back and never tries to leave again again. And they can sort of, like, now we can try to fix this, but I don't know if he was ever going to murder him. Although he does say he was born on camera. He'll die on camera kind of.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Glenn Powell]

Like me. It's like I created you. Like, you know, like that.

[Craig Horbock]

That.

[Glenn Powell]

That's what. That's what feels very Old Testament, like, where it's like, I created you. I can take you. I brought you in. I. You know, everything that you've experienced that's any sort of value, I have been a part of. I thought it was a very. I think it's a very, very. That. That was one of my favorite parts is the. The conversation that happens to the moon, like, right before he leaves. It's such a.

[Mallory Rubin]

You can listen, you can speak, Truman. I can hear you.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, it's so good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Speaking of that, my one picking it. It's basically the reverse of the overacting award.

[Bill Simmons]

If.

[Mallory Rubin]

If I have lived my entire life and found out that it's been a television show, and then I sail a boat across the sea and it runs into, like, a piece of drywall. I'm freaking out. Like, I'm losing my mind. It's like Jack Waltz with the. With the horse head in his face.

[Craig Horbock]

I'm like.

[Mallory Rubin]

There'S no. Like, oh, weird. I'm going to try to find a door. I am losing my mind.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a great point. Truman jerking off, having sex, all that stuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, that's.

[Bill Simmons]

I know they just went to commercial or whatever they did.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, they never cut to commercial.

[Bill Simmons]

Taking a dump. There's a lot of stuff that, if you don't know you're being filmed all the time, maybe wouldn't have been great for Truman. I don't know.

[Glenn Powell]

Also never showing a second shift in the moon.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Glenn Powell]

Same cast of six characters in the moon 24 hours a day for 35 seasons.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's a tough gig.

[Bill Simmons]

Sequel, prequel, prestige TV all by cast are untouchable. We. You talked me into a prequel.

[Glenn Powell]

Nope.

[Bill Simmons]

Them as kids. Prestige tv, maybe. But I think this is an untouchable. I think prestige TV would have been an interesting approach.

[Craig Horbock]

Can I pitch you on a sequel?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Craig Horbock]

So he has a kid with Laura Linney, he impregnates her. And then while she's pregnant, or maybe even before he knows she's pregnant, he escapes. The new baby is born into the.

[Mallory Rubin]

New world, new Truman, and is now.

[Craig Horbock]

The new young Truman. And it's now him trying to infiltrate to get back in. Oh, to get his son out.

[Glenn Powell]

Solid. That's a solid movie. I'm into that. I'm into that.

[Bill Simmons]

Glenn just signed on, bro.

[Glenn Powell]

Are we doing this?

[Bill Simmons]

He's dropping from 20 to 12.

[Glenn Powell]

Sorry, I just got to drop out of Miami Vice room.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this movie better? The Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treo, Mad Dog Russo, Doris Burke, Buffalo Bill, Sam Jackson, Nell. Nell would have been interesting in this community. Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth.

[Craig Horbock]

Do you know who Nell is, Glenn? Cuz I still don't.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you know what the Jody Foster character, Nell.

[Craig Horbock]

Do you know what that means? Cuz I don't.

[Glenn Powell]

In what movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Foster made a movie called Nell where she lived in the woods and talked her own language. And I think she got nominated for an Oscar. Yeah. And it's now a comedy I've never seen. She just like does that for.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's like her and Liam Neeson and Liam Nes like I will help you learn English. Now she's like, you know what?

[Glenn Powell]

I kind of.

[Bill Simmons]

It's really something.

[Glenn Powell]

One of my, one of my kind of fans.

[Bill Simmons]

We, we, we.

[Glenn Powell]

We have a, a production office on the Universal lot. And one of my, my, my, my fantasies is to create fake movie posters with some of my like actor buddies and just see if people lie like they've like actually seen. You know what I mean? Like Nell would definitely be like that. You remember, like she's in the woods, she's doing the thing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Are you with me?

[Bill Simmons]

Like it's really bad. We'll send you the trailer.

[Mallory Rubin]

We didn't actually do it. Do you want to do Collinsworth?

[Bill Simmons]

No. You were you going to do.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'll do. I'll do. Say this is what would have happened if Wayne Jenkins. Did you ever watch We Own the Sea with John Bernthal? This isn't gonna hit as hard.

[Bill Simmons]

Then he gotta do it. He was a crazy Baltimore cop.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bernthal was playing the Peter Krause part. God damn, Truman. I didn't know I was working with the BTK killer. You better start cutting. You better stop cutting pictures of ladies up from those fashion magazines or they're gonna be making a Ryan Murphy limited series about you. Now get him the fuck outta here. So he plays a Baltimore cop in this show? Yes. Where he Basically does that speech.

[Glenn Powell]

But can you add that to my development as well?

[Craig Horbock]

Thank you.

[Bill Simmons]

Ryan Murphy. Definitely.

[Glenn Powell]

I did find that. Not in one moment. That movie. Did the cut up magazines look like a human face?

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Glenn Powell]

I could have. I could have used. If he spent all this time, every day, I could have used like, it.

[Bill Simmons]

Was a really good, really disturbing vehicle to show like how in the head he was getting from this whole.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you think, though, there is like first take take for the Truman Show. Like, there's sports talk shows all day where it's like, Truman needs to step up. He has not gotten promoted at Sea Haven Insurance for a long time.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And we're starting to wonder if he's still got it.

[Glenn Powell]

You know, Can I tell you that that is like where I was like.

[Bill Simmons]

Like if you.

[Glenn Powell]

That's where, like, for me, like the real world stuff, when we cut to the guy in the bathtub or the bar, like, I was like, oh, we could have gotten so much more world building in such a smaller section sense. Like the people that like have talk shows that are literally built around this guy, like analyzing what's happening.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, what was that guy's name? Mike Michaelson.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, he was like the post game.

[Bill Simmons]

Host, air shares guy. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

But like, why can't we have Jim Rome come on for a second, just be like, you're in the jungle. We're talking truly.

[Bill Simmons]

Just one Oscar. Who gets it? I have Weir. I think. I actually think there was the best case for him. I thought this movie was so well.

[Mallory Rubin]

For Saving Private Ryan.

[Bill Simmons]

No, but I think if only one got it. Yeah, I think he has the best case.

[Glenn Powell]

I agree.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought the way it's filmed, it was really ahead of its time. It feels like a 2015 movie almost since 1998.

[Mallory Rubin]

Andrew Nickel, only just because I just think this is one of the great original screenplays of that decade. And it just seems like so cool that he went from this is like a dark thriller set in New York City to I can. I can just rewrite this over and over and over again until we get it to where it is now. I know there's a lot of improv and probably other stuff going on, but still.

[Glenn Powell]

Did Andrew Nickel write this draft, the Sea Haven draft, or. He drafted New York.

[Mallory Rubin]

He. He said he wrote like 12. 12 versions of this. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Unanswerable questions. Was. Was Kristoff evil? I think is a good one.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, was he actually like an evil guy? I. Leaning toward yes, but he might have just been deranged. I don't really Know the answer because he becomes kind of evil as this movie goes along.

[Glenn Powell]

You also. I always love how people justify their ways in the world. Like, like with all great villains, like, they don't look at themselves. You can like pop into the. Those, those moments and go like, oh, wow, this guy's like what he did. But like he's sort of like looking at himself as a father figure. He's like, the way he's justifying his place, he's protecting him from the evil outside. Like, he's like almost nurturing this. This guy that he truly loves. Like, that's, that's his mentality. That's why it's like he doesn't. I mean, I think you could definitely get into the politics of kidnapping a child and raising him in a bubble. But. But I think, I think, I think for him, I think that's one of the great performances. I love how committed Ed Harris is to the.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what I didn't notice until this most recent watch is Harry Shearer when he's interviewing Kristoff goes. And I know you really guard your privacy. Can you imagine the irony of this guy being a guarded person? But he's like, this guy has to be on camera all the time. It makes it that much more like profound what he's doing.

[Bill Simmons]

I think for an answer role you get to move in the Zwatne Award for what happened the next day. What, what. What were Truman's next 24 hours like.

[Glenn Powell]

Great to be California Pizza Kitchen.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like, oh my God.

[Glenn Powell]

Burbank.

[Bill Simmons]

It's coming on out here. Yeah. So he's in.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, we figure he's in the TMZ bus.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

We think he's in California.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's in Burbank.

[Glenn Powell]

He's in Burbank.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Foster's freeze.

[Bill Simmons]

So he's just kind of wandering down Hollywood Boulevard, just doing this.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just like a lot of guys on Hollywood Boulevard.

[Glenn Powell]

I think they say it's Burbank. I think it's more Van Nuys. I think it probably bleeds a little bit at a Burbank just to get a.

[Craig Horbock]

The he walks down hole are he's like, I'll go back in the dome.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So I don't know where he.

[Mallory Rubin]

I met Spider.

[Glenn Powell]

This is a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

Kristoff, you're Batman. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie?

[Glenn Powell]

I'm going Kristoff Beret.

[Mallory Rubin]

Really good. Really good. I guess I would take the. The. The dicer peeler greater than that that.

[Bill Simmons]

Lenny had That's a good one. I was thinking his ring, but actually what I would want is the original poster that the guy made like. Oh, yeah, first edition.

[Glenn Powell]

Oh, interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's the prototype of the poster we're going to use. I think would be.

[Glenn Powell]

Oh, that's cool.

[Bill Simmons]

Coach Finstock award, best life lesson. What else is on?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Or just was like, yeah, we spent 35 years with this guy. Hey, change Santo. Cool.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get me.

[Bill Simmons]

Right? Best double feature choice. The Matrix.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, that's interesting. Would you. I would go Gattaca under scene. Other. Andrew Nickel, he directed that one. Pretty cool.

[Glenn Powell]

I'd go the Game.

[Mallory Rubin]

The Game, yes. Good call.

[Bill Simmons]

Glenn's like, I'll go. The running man.

[Glenn Powell]

Premiering November 14th. Honestly guys, great double feature. I'm just saying, who won the movie?

[Bill Simmons]

I think Carrie, sir. Peter Weir case.

[Glenn Powell]

What was it?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it is Carrie, but I think the, the Peter Weir, like he needed this one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Master and commander is like the next one after this, I believe.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

So I don't know if he did. I don't think that means he won it. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think Carrie. I think Carrie wins.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's Carrie. Craig, what do you got? Craig? Now, had you seen this movie?

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah, many times.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Craig Horbock]

This is one of those movies that I don't know when is the first time I watched it, but just kind of always felt like one of the first few movies my dad showed me when I was growing up. It's like, oh, you gotta see the sandlot. You gotta see Die Hard, you gotta see Truman Show. It's just like always been in the lexicon.

[Mallory Rubin]

I feel like the Truman show.

[Glenn Powell]

So.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah, I haven't seen it in a while though. It's just one of the all time concepts. Like the first five minutes of the film, there's no way you're turning it off. It's incredibly rewatchable and it's only getting aging better and better. It's so prophetic. People do like there are YouTubers now or influencers. There's like Emma Chamberlain who's at Spotify, or like Kai Senate. Those people will literally stream their lives 24 7. Like Emma Chamberlain and Kai Senate will film themselves sleeping every night.

[Bill Simmons]

Geez.

[Craig Horbock]

So I mean, we're kind of living in that reality where people are willing to do this, which is pretty crazy.

[Mallory Rubin]

The closest thing I ever get to that is like there's a guy who has a YouTube channel, but he edits These. But it's like he goes camping with his dog and he like, cooks like these really gourmet meals.

[Craig Horbock]

I believe he recently. He shut down. He stopped doing it.

[Bill Simmons]

Did he?

[Craig Horbock]

Yes, but I know exactly who you're talking about.

[Mallory Rubin]

But it was like, oh, like, this is really relaxing to watch this guy like, set up his campsite, make a, like a T bone with like a bunch of sides. His dog's kind of hanging out. And I was like, this is beautiful. But like, I. It's like they're like 30 minutes. They're not like 24 hours or something like that.

[Glenn Powell]

I think there's always like, like from. From the beginning of like, entertainment. I think, like, people crave truth and crave reality. The irony is like, on this one, it's like all manicured. It's all fake. So, like, there's a whole commentary on like, what we're being fed in terms of reality shows and what actually is real. But I do think the Kai Senate thing, the reason are so engaged is like, that thing does not cut.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah, yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

And he's doing nothing.

[Craig Horbock]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

And people are engaging just on the idea that they're experiencing something real. Even if it's.

[Craig Horbock]

Exactly. There's a bit of a. There's a kind of a pushback, like a boomerang effect now where we've kind of been in the. In the 21st century media world for so long and everything has been manicured. We're so aware of that that now things are turning the other way and we actually want that kind of raw material. And the influencers are. They know that. And they're like, yeah, I'll film myself 24 7. Like, you can watch me get up in the morning.

[Mallory Rubin]

Morning.

[Craig Horbock]

And it's interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

I wonder if part of it is like, it's just a more lonely society post Covid. People are let. People maybe aren't around each other as parasocial relationships. Yeah, you have like this. Oh, Kai's my guy. And that's like your friend that you've never met.

[Glenn Powell]

It's also interesting in Truman show. Like I was thinking about again, it's the rack focus movie of looking at the old women with the Truman pillow, the guy in the bathtub, the bar. It's like there's a sense of power that people get. Get being like a little omniscient. Like, you know, a little. A little like having like a place of, like, going, well, at least I'm. I'm more aware than this, like, person. Like, at least my life's not this like, or whatever it is, like the fact that they're not partaking in life. They're glued to those couches and they're watching a guy live a fake reality, but it represents real reality. Like, this is the reality they're living in. I think it's a very fascinating, you know, study of how we engage with the world. Like, it's the people that are technically providing US content on TikTok. You meet them in real life. They are glued to their phones. They are not participating in. And it's like, it's just a fascinating, you know.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I can't say anything because I watched the NFL for 14 straight hours on Sunday, literally from 6:30 to 8:30. Yeah, 14 straight hours that at one point I went on the treadmill for 45 minutes just to feel like I.

[Mallory Rubin]

Was doing something flowing in the lower.

[Craig Horbock]

Half of your body.

[Bill Simmons]

So, you know, we all have our things.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But, yeah, it is, it, it is. We talked about the reality TV angle, but the social media angle of this movie, I think, is definitely the 2000s. Did you guys.

[Mallory Rubin]

So is Running man is your. Without giving too much away, is your Running man set a little in the future or is it kind of like, how did you.

[Glenn Powell]

Where did you guys see the original Stephen King book, takes place in 2025? Or. Which is. Which is wild. Yeah. I didn't know the original Running man book. Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King Rhodes, it, I believe in 82 and it's set in 2025, where all of this stuff, like, in terms of, like, you know, deep fakes and sort of where we are with reality TV and how sort of the, the blood lust of the world, all that stuff is like, it's all already baked into the book, which is, which is crazy. We. The world looks. We. We don't really specify a date, but it's. It's a, it's a little five minutes in the future.

[Craig Horbock]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then. And with Edgar, like, were you somebody who was like, I'm watching Hot Fuzz like once a year, pretty much. Like, had you been a fan of his forever?

[Glenn Powell]

I've been a fan of Edgar my whole life. I mean, Edgar Wright movies for me are some of the most well crafted movies of any filmmaker out there. And he's played in all these different genres. And I think the thing that when you look at like, Hot Fuzz, when you look at, you know, Baby Driver, you're like, this is an action director. A guy that can, like, literally, even though it's a comedy, Hot Fuzz you watch and you're like, you're kind of parody, you know, you know, Michael Bay shots, you know, these sort of crazy parallax shots, these big, big, slow mo shootout things. But they're undeniably amazing action sequences. And, and so getting to watch Edgar on this movie, like, truly unleash and like, take that weapon and just like, send it. It was just awesome. It was just awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

You're high in this movie. I could tell. We can usually sift through the.

[Glenn Powell]

Yeah, yeah, this movie rocks. Like, when I tell you it rocks. Like, I got to watch it with all the theater owners the other night, and it played like a rock concert. They were like they were losing their minds.

[Bill Simmons]

It's, it's.

[Glenn Powell]

It's. Again, not to say like, we should watch this podcast in imax, but you should also watch. Yeah, you should also watch Running in imax because it's like, it's like one of those. That was, like, it plays in a big screen format.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's really cool.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, would Cruise be proud?

[Glenn Powell]

Cruz is going to see it. I get to show it to him in a little bit. Yeah, yeah, he's. He's going to love it. Honestly.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you lean on Cruz? Do you ask him advice and stuff?

[Glenn Powell]

He's like one of those guys, like your guru. You know what's really great about Cru is think about his, like, education, like the 90s that you're talking about. He's played in all these different genres. His skill set and his education is so singular.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Glenn Powell]

There's very few people right now in this phase of my career I can ask like, a question to that. I'm like, hey, when you're getting blown off a bridge and they're about to light this thing up, like, what do you. What are you thinking about? Like, you know what I mean? He's like, he's.

[Bill Simmons]

Hey, I'm thinking it sounds great.

[Glenn Powell]

You know what I mean? Like, when you start talking about, like, certain, certain stunts, when I'm just like, hey, like, running. You know, running. Whether it's running on camera or like, how to sell an action movie properly to an audience, like, what you're thinking about, like, in the general architecture, what your role within it is. Like, there's very few people you can ask over the course of time that have done it at a certain level. So, yeah, like, you don't. I don't necessarily do it on every movie, but on, on this one, like, this was. It was a huge resource.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then are you ever like, what the hell is up with the ending of Eyes Wide Shut.

[Bill Simmons]

Glenn Powell, true pleasure. Thanks for doing this.

[Craig Horbock]

Thank you guys.

[Bill Simmons]

See our pleasure as always. Thank you to Craig Orlebeck. Thanks to Gahal and Ronick as well. And we'll see you next week. Good luck with the Running man. Thank you.

[Glenn Powell]

November 14th yes sir. Save over $200 when you book weekly stays with Vrbo this winter. If you need to work, why not work from a chalet? If you haven't seen your college besties since, well, college, you need a week to fully catch up in a snowy cabin. And if you have to stay in a remote place with your in laws, you should save over $200 a week. It's the least we can do. So you might as well start digging out the long johns because saving over $200 on a week long snowcation rental is in the cards book [e-mail].