Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is Talk Easy.
Speaker 2: I'm studing FGOSO. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by actor, writer and director Dan Levy. In
Speaker 2: his early twenties, Levy began his career as a television
Speaker 2: host on MTV Canada, but throughout his nearly decade long
Speaker 2: stint on television, he always harbored other more creative aspirations.
Speaker 2: I think there was always a part of him that
Speaker 2: wanted to do the work he saw his father doing
Speaker 2: throughout his childhood. His dad, of course, is the great
Speaker 2: Eugene Levy of SCTV fame, and so eventually, together Dan
Speaker 2: and his dad would create the hit program Shit's Creek.
Speaker 2: The series, following the once wealthy Rose family as they
Speaker 2: navigate their descent into poverty, arrived on the CBC and
Speaker 2: Pop TV in twenty fifteen. Six seasons later, it gained
Speaker 2: widespread recognition and went on to make Emmy history, winning
Speaker 2: a total of nine awards, the most ever for a
Speaker 2: comedy in a single year. But now, Dan has recently
Speaker 2: returned with a new project called Good Grief, in which
Speaker 2: he plays an artist grappling with the loss of his
Speaker 2: late husband. Together, along with his two best friends, he
Speaker 2: ventures to Paris to try to start anew Here's a
Speaker 2: clip from the trailer.
Speaker 1: I've been reading that the brain is like a muscle.
Speaker 1: That's why getting over a death is so hard, because
Speaker 1: your brain has been trained to feel things for a person.
Speaker 1: When they go away, your head is still operating under
Speaker 1: the impression that it should feel those things for that person,
Speaker 1: like muscle memory.
Speaker 3: I think the hoodef on the wheel for today.
Speaker 1: Do I look older to you? I feel like I've
Speaker 1: aged a lot. Yes, your husband just styed your load.
Speaker 1: My gosh, couldn't love you anymore.
Speaker 4: You've become m ceiling.
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you both for this year. I
Speaker 1: would like to take us to Paris for the weekend.
Speaker 1: We all deserve some joy. Yes, thank you. Where are
Speaker 1: we staying? Scene? Missis sexy? You must miss him? It's complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: love is that way.
Speaker 2: That was from Good Grief, now available to stream on Netflix.
Speaker 2: It marks the directorial debut for Levy, who began working
Speaker 2: on the picture after the death of his late grandmother
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one. We talk a lot about the
Speaker 2: inspiration behind the movie. At the top of this conversation,
Speaker 2: we also discussed the seventies films that inspired it, the
Speaker 2: importance of friendships in your thirties, how he worked to
Speaker 2: find his creative voice at a series of different jobs
Speaker 2: and a whole lot more. This is Dan Levy. Dan Levy, Hi,
Speaker 2: nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling. I'm feeling really nice. You know.
Speaker 1: I think going out and promoting something like this is
Speaker 1: always like takes a lot out of you, which is
Speaker 1: at the end, like of a thing. It comes from
Speaker 1: a place of gratitude. But I'm always struggling with like,
Speaker 1: are people tired of hearing my voice? Like? What's going on?
Speaker 2: Well, it's the first time your voice has been on
Speaker 2: this show.
Speaker 1: I know, and I'm thrilled. I'm so happy to be
Speaker 1: here because I listen. So it's you listen to the show.
Speaker 1: Oh what do you think? Well, I'm here. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: give you the notes after, but I'm very happy to
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, can we start with this new movie? If
Speaker 2: you are sure, it's called Good Grief. It's your directorial debut.
Speaker 2: You also star in the film. You wrote the film.
Speaker 2: But I want to pinpoint the origin of this movie
Speaker 2: because my understanding that sometime in the pandemic, I think
Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty one, the beginning of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two.
Speaker 1: I have no concept of time, but yes, I'm going
Speaker 1: to trust you on all of these days. I have
Speaker 1: your datebook right here.
Speaker 2: It was around them that you found yourself on a
Speaker 2: long walk at night in the snow, and suddenly you
Speaker 2: take out your phone, open the notes app, and an
Speaker 2: idea comes to you. What happened?
Speaker 1: It was a feeling. I had lost my grandmother in October,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't feeling the sort of totality of emotions
Speaker 1: that I thought that I would the impact of it all.
Speaker 1: And for a long time I was being very hard
Speaker 1: on myself for what I wasn't feeling. But I was
Speaker 1: also aware that I was in this collective grief that
Speaker 1: we were all in during the pandemic, which kind of
Speaker 1: numbed us to so much much because the headlines were
Speaker 1: so disturbing, and we were in this thing that we'd
Speaker 1: never experienced before, and trying to isolate my sort of
Speaker 1: experience with my grandmother in the wake of this huge
Speaker 1: you know, surrounded by like outdoor morgues and I mean
Speaker 1: weird things that we should never have really, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It was a weird time. I remember
Speaker 1: that I'm glad and it was now December, and I
Speaker 1: was taking my dog for a walk, and it was
Speaker 1: one of those beautiful nights in Toronto where the snow
Speaker 1: was slowly falling huge snowflakes. It was all very cinematic
Speaker 1: and beautiful, and there was something about the imagery that
Speaker 1: was really moving to me. There was something about the
Speaker 1: fact that in the wake of all of this loss,
Speaker 1: there was still beauty all around us, that the Earth
Speaker 1: was still continuing her journey. I don't know. I felt
Speaker 1: like very small, and I felt in a way everything
Speaker 1: came into context and everything was also kicked up in
Speaker 1: the air, and I knew that there was something to
Speaker 1: the curiosity that I was experiencing around grief that could
Speaker 1: make an interesting movie. What did the paragraphs? Oh, they
Speaker 1: were stream of consciousness.
Speaker 2: In the notes of what did they sound like? It
Speaker 2: was like, when was the last time you looked at it?
Speaker 1: I don't think I have I know, we should get
Speaker 1: my phone. Can we do it? If you want? I
Speaker 1: would love that, Okay, would you mind? I don't even
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm gonna have to find it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there.
Speaker 2: Michael or Noah Can someone bring it?
Speaker 1: Can someone try to? I have to even figure out
Speaker 1: what the date was. Okay, it would be twelve. Here
Speaker 1: it is, did you find it? Yeah, but so I'm
Speaker 1: going to read it and then you know, we'll see
Speaker 1: it's long.
Speaker 4: Okay, read as much or as little as you like. Okay, Wow,
Speaker 4: this is vulnerable. For the first time, I was watching
Speaker 4: Halt and Catch Fire and the dog was barking, so
Speaker 4: I took him for a walk outside. It was snowing,
Speaker 4: but there was something about the snow that unhooked something
Speaker 4: in me. I felt unwillingly disarmed. There was an innocence
Speaker 4: or a kind of naivety to the way the flakes
Speaker 4: were clumsily falling, slowly gently. They were soft, They couldn't
Speaker 4: be disputed or repressed. They couldn't be killed or infected,
Speaker 4: and yet they were kind when they could be smug.
Speaker 4: The flakes varied in size and respected each other's space
Speaker 4: as they fell, with a sort of purposelessness that begged
Speaker 4: for even a gentle wind to provide some guidance. I
Speaker 4: didn't know why the sight of them moved me. Maybe
Speaker 4: because they were offering such a stark contrast to my
Speaker 4: phone or the television I was watching. Maybe it was
Speaker 4: because it reminded me of being a kid, which reminded
Speaker 4: me of this collective loss of innocence. Maybe it's because
Speaker 4: it offered me sweetness in a year that took away
Speaker 4: my nana. And yet because of the enormity of it all,
Speaker 4: the sheer scope of this angry chunk of seconds and
Speaker 4: minutes and hours, the weight of their passing felt shrunken,
Speaker 4: or disrespected, or improperly acknowledged, inadequately mourned. Maybe it's because
Speaker 4: I looked back at the childhood home I had just
Speaker 4: left and saw a place that encse this emotional sediment
Speaker 4: that under the falling snow, felt both nostalgic and unfamiliar.
Speaker 4: Maybe nostalgia is something I thought I was learning to
Speaker 4: handle better, when in fact there's no such thing as
Speaker 4: handling something better. It's just the act of moving things
Speaker 4: from one drawer to another. Or maybe it was simply
Speaker 4: the falling snow defiantly whispering not all things are corruptible
Speaker 4: that brought me to my knees. I don't know if
Speaker 4: any of that even makes sense.
Speaker 2: You wrote that in your notes, app Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: that is like strikingly good.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. Frankly, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, So let's hold it for a second. Okay.
Speaker 2: That line that stuck out to me was I was
Speaker 2: unwillingly disarmed. That's what you wrote, unwillingly disarmed make this
Speaker 2: film to turn that grief of losing your grandmother, then
Speaker 2: that same dog that you were on a walk with
Speaker 2: and died a month later, putting that into a script.
Speaker 2: Did you have to willingly disarm yourself to do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, or at least just go back to
Speaker 1: that moment and be okay with it, be okay with
Speaker 1: kind of accessing it. But in a way, there was
Speaker 1: a safeguard of it not being my life and my story,
Speaker 1: so there was a kind of comfort. There was a
Speaker 1: safety net of knowing that I was telling other people's
Speaker 1: stories through which I was telling my own, And I
Speaker 1: think that helped in a way. When you read that note, Now,
Speaker 1: what did you think of I forgot that I was
Speaker 1: watching Halt and Catch Fire, which is a great show.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it makes me want to
Speaker 1: do that more. Frankly, I don't There was something in
Speaker 1: that moment that really compelled me to write it down
Speaker 1: because I thought I'd be upset with myself if I
Speaker 1: didn't try my best to encapsulate that feeling. That feeling,
Speaker 1: and that feeling is what created this film. That feeling
Speaker 1: is what created the confusion of it all.
Speaker 2: So, now that the film's out in the world, some
Speaker 2: people have seen it, some people listening haven't. How would
Speaker 2: you describe the movie from that note.
Speaker 1: To this, Well, it's a story about somebody who is
Speaker 1: also trying to make sense of a catastrophic loss in
Speaker 1: their life and turning to their friends, as I did
Speaker 1: during that time, to make sense of it all. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it resolves, but I think there's clarity,
Speaker 1: and I think in a situation like that, that's all
Speaker 1: you can hope for. I don't think it.
Speaker 2: Does resolve the inciting incident that can't be resolved, that
Speaker 2: can't quite be resolved. How would you explain that to people?
Speaker 1: My character loses his husband and spends a long time grieving,
Speaker 1: and then in the process of grieving a version of
Speaker 1: his husband that he loved very much, he discovers a
Speaker 1: twist in the history of their relationship, or a kind
Speaker 1: of betrayal that changes his perspective of what he had
Speaker 1: with his husband and also his relationship to the grief
Speaker 1: that he's experiencing for his husband, and therein grows a
Speaker 1: whole new conversation of can you grieve the person you
Speaker 1: knew versus this other person that you are now discovering.
Speaker 1: Does what you had with a person mean something or
Speaker 1: is it permanently tainted by something they've done that has
Speaker 1: led to a kind of feeling of betrayal. And so
Speaker 1: it kind of explores that within the conversation of friendship,
Speaker 1: which to me is really important. Your character Mark loses
Speaker 1: his husband, then you and your two best friends go
Speaker 1: to Paris, go to Paris. They leave London, they go
Speaker 1: to Paris. Under false pretense. I have taken them to Paris.
Speaker 1: I have kind of discovered something about my husband that
Speaker 1: I am now going to Paris to try to solve.
Speaker 1: And yet I don't have the I'm too shamed to
Speaker 1: admit to them that that's why I'm doing it, So
Speaker 1: I pitch it as a friend's trip, friends trip, which
Speaker 1: I do genuinely want it to be, and yet it
Speaker 1: catches up and kind of forces a kind of crack
Speaker 1: in the friendships.
Speaker 2: There's just an ulterior motive.
Speaker 1: There's an ulterior motive shimmering under the surface. The focus
Speaker 1: on the three friends in their mid to late thirties,
Speaker 1: it's not something we see a whole lot of reminded
Speaker 1: me of that movie An Unmarried Woman, where the friends
Speaker 1: are so much a part of that lead character's life
Speaker 1: and in fact ends up becoming the loudest voice in
Speaker 1: the film.
Speaker 2: Why did you want Well, I am an unmarried woman.
Speaker 2: Did do you put that on your dating profile?
Speaker 1: Unmarried woman? Yeah? Sure, But people who get the reference
Speaker 1: are actually, that would be a great that's a great
Speaker 1: dating hook.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. You're going to be married in like two years,
Speaker 2: and oh.
Speaker 1: It's going to be great. I'm going to come back
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read you some stream of consciousness
Speaker 1: around the time that I met my husband. Beautiful. I'm
Speaker 1: glad we're going to get you back on the show, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, I love my friendships. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: that's something that has to do with the importance of
Speaker 1: friendships as like through the history of my life as
Speaker 1: a gay man. I think when you are in the
Speaker 1: closet and you're trying to understand your life, like female
Speaker 1: friendships in particular, for a lot of gay men are
Speaker 1: really important. But I've always kind of grown up with
Speaker 1: my close friends as a kind of second family, as
Speaker 1: a kind of community and a source of encouragement and comfort.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, being unmarried, childless in your thirties
Speaker 1: forces a kind of depth to friendship that was not
Speaker 1: there in your twenties. And I just the love and
Speaker 1: the complexity of that love, and the fact that a
Speaker 1: lot of friendships in our thirties are created like relationships,
Speaker 1: and yet movies don't give friendship the spotlight in the
Speaker 1: way that I think it deserves. So I knew that
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell a story about a love, story
Speaker 1: about friendship, if nothing more than to speak to my
Speaker 1: own experience.
Speaker 2: I like that one to be close friends with someone
Speaker 2: in their thirties forces a depth to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think in your twenties everything's fucking great,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I mean, it's not. It's drama all
Speaker 1: the time, but the drama is surface. You haven't lived
Speaker 1: enough of your life to get to like, you know,
Speaker 1: with every new decade comes an extra layer of life
Speaker 1: that's been lived, and it does force deeper conversations and
Speaker 1: it forces, you know, confrontation between friends when bad habits
Speaker 1: start forming over decades and decades, it's different. You have
Speaker 1: less accountability for each other in your twenties because there's
Speaker 1: less history, because there's less history, and there's frankly like
Speaker 1: your brain's still developing. Would be very curious to come
Speaker 1: back when you're at the end of your thirties and
Speaker 1: ask you about your friendships and how they've changed. That
Speaker 1: would be a decade from now. Uh huh. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll do like a link later thing and just continue
Speaker 1: this conversation over three decades.
Speaker 2: Are we gonna check in every year through the thirties?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, Well, it's a commitment you haven't agreed to,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 1: Have, yes, and I'll make my decision that you into this. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've heard you.
Speaker 2: I've heard you describe the process of making this movie
Speaker 2: as quote, the most cruel I've ever been to myself.
Speaker 1: What the hell does that mean. I'm like a very
Speaker 1: self critical person and I have standards for myself that
Speaker 1: are I think, like impossibly high, and it's something I'm
Speaker 1: working through and through the experience of making this movie
Speaker 1: where I'm where I have to hold myself accountable, not
Speaker 1: just as an actor, But as a director and a
Speaker 1: producer and a writer. That's four different paths that I
Speaker 1: can be critical to myself. On the one hand, like
Speaker 1: you're directing a movie, you can't let it affect moral
Speaker 1: on set, you cannot let it affect your fellow actors.
Speaker 1: You have to kind of internalize that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I take things personally because I care. But it's been
Speaker 1: an experience that's been really informative for me in terms
Speaker 1: of I have to find better tools. When you say
Speaker 1: you take things personally, Yeah, what does that look like
Speaker 1: on set? It doesn't look like anything on set. It's
Speaker 1: all when I go home. It's all on the weekends.
Speaker 1: It's all in the conversations that happen in advance. So
Speaker 1: Saturday and Sunday, what does that look like? You know,
Speaker 1: it's just a lot of like analyzing the week, What
Speaker 1: could I have done better? What can constantly be improved?
Speaker 2: Is it always about what you could do better? Or
Speaker 2: is it sometimes about what other people can do better?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm way more empathetic to other people than
Speaker 1: I am to myself. And why is that? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I cared so much and I care so
Speaker 1: much about the people that have shown up, the crew
Speaker 1: and the cast. I do not want to let them down,
Speaker 1: and I'm hyper aware of that. And there's also a
Speaker 1: constant desire to make everything okay all the time, and
Speaker 1: accepting the fact that that's simply not how making a
Speaker 1: movie works. You don't have that kind of control. It's
Speaker 1: required a lot of additional skills that I did not
Speaker 1: have before I walked into that experience.
Speaker 2: The cost of caring. It can be a lot, especially
Speaker 2: when directing something and you have to manage all these
Speaker 2: people in a whole bunch of personalities. At the heart
Speaker 2: of this movie is the loss that you've been talking about,
Speaker 2: the loss that inspired the film, and then the loss
Speaker 2: of your character endures. And I just want to pinpoint
Speaker 2: this moment because the film begins and ends in London.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of Paris in between, but London seems
Speaker 2: to have always been a place where you've processed loss,
Speaker 2: where you've gone to find yourself. Because twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: when you were in film school Ryerson University, you fled
Speaker 2: Toronto to London after a breakup and what you've described
Speaker 2: as an eat prey love situation. What did that heartbreak
Speaker 2: feel like? And what did that time in London do
Speaker 2: for your grieving process.
Speaker 1: I think when you come out of caring for somebody,
Speaker 1: but the level of care is not necessarily reciprocated. This
Speaker 1: is the person you were dating. This is the person
Speaker 1: I was dating, which was sort of my first boyfriend,
Speaker 1: my first love, first love, but I don't even know
Speaker 1: if it was love, because I want to say that
Speaker 1: they always had a foot out the door. And I
Speaker 1: knew that I just found myself shrinking. I'm a very
Speaker 1: sort of anxious person and a socially anxious person, and
Speaker 1: I found myself shrinking even more to the point where
Speaker 1: I was fearful of picking up the phone. All of
Speaker 1: these kind of very basic life things that I knew
Speaker 1: that I needed to have to be a successful adult,
Speaker 1: I was were slipping through my grasp a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I knew that I had to do something to
Speaker 1: pull myself out of the situation I was in, to
Speaker 1: force myself to be a more outward facing person, to
Speaker 1: force myself to be a little bit more confident and
Speaker 1: self assured. So I went and I got a job
Speaker 1: at ICM at ICM, which was a talent agency. So
Speaker 1: talking about a socially anxious person, like I really jumped
Speaker 1: in headfirst into the deep end therapy. This is a yeah,
Speaker 1: this was wild and it forced me to pick up phones,
Speaker 1: and it forced me to have conversations, and it forced
Speaker 1: me to talk to people in ways that I was
Speaker 1: not talking to people before.
Speaker 2: So you were basically an assistant for agents. I was
Speaker 2: an assistant for agents in London.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At ICM, when the phone ward ring and you would
Speaker 2: pick it up, did you have like a standard line
Speaker 2: that Dan.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I had to say like ICM, like Dan speaking,
Speaker 1: and then people would be like who is this? Because
Speaker 1: I was new to the office, so I had to
Speaker 1: deal with like famous British actors a wondering who this Canadian?
Speaker 1: But who this like quote unquote American voice was on
Speaker 1: the other end of the line.
Speaker 2: So Ian McKellan calls h huh and is wondering who
Speaker 2: I am? And can he speak to his agent? And
Speaker 2: I would try my best to navigate the system of
Speaker 2: like patching calls through. It was anytime the phone rang,
Speaker 2: my heart would drop because I knew that I didn't
Speaker 2: quite have a firm enough grasp on the logistics of
Speaker 2: the phone system. Put them on hold, make the connection
Speaker 2: somehow patch them through. I was never comfortable when you
Speaker 2: signed up for the job. Were you just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: i'll take daily panic attacks.
Speaker 1: I had no idea really what I was doing. I
Speaker 1: just needed a job in London to survive. So it
Speaker 1: came along and I said, great, I will do that.
Speaker 2: Since you did the job of assistant and you man
Speaker 2: the phones, huh, are you really nice to work for now?
Speaker 2: Because I'd understand how hard it is to do that job.
Speaker 1: I would like to think that I'm incredibly empathetic when
Speaker 1: it comes to the jobs of assistants.
Speaker 2: It'd be great if you're like, no, I actually I
Speaker 2: have I'm a pea.
Speaker 1: Shit to everyone. And also it makes my understanding of
Speaker 1: how agents work a little clearer. And how would you
Speaker 1: say they work? Well, it's interesting because when you are
Speaker 1: the person that takes the call and you look over
Speaker 1: and the agent is saying like I'm not home yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have to get back on the phone and
Speaker 1: say I can't get them right now. Can I have
Speaker 1: them call you back? And then you actually get to
Speaker 1: a place where you're the person calling yeah, and you
Speaker 1: have the assistant say I can't get them right now.
Speaker 1: I have to call you back. Does that happen to you?
Speaker 2: Of course, even after all the Emmys. Oh no, I don't,
Speaker 2: I don't. I guess now that you said that out loud. No, well,
Speaker 2: they renamed the Emmy Awards the Levy Awards.
Speaker 1: Did you know that I was not aware that I
Speaker 1: wrote that dad joke this morning? Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's good and I thought it's so dumb, but
Speaker 2: I thought you would enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think it probably would hit harder,
Speaker 1: like two and a half years ago, just in terms
Speaker 1: of like coming fresh off the winds. Well, I asked
Speaker 1: you to come on the show two and a half
Speaker 1: years ago and I declined. You said no, yeah, yeah, profectly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that was my head was inflated by all the Emmys.
Speaker 2: Right, so, and you were still going over all the
Speaker 2: notes you wanted to give the program exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I said absolutely not. We'll wait till he gets
Speaker 1: better at this. Yeah he's not quite exactly yet. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we got to train him hard.
Speaker 2: At the end of the six months of manning the phones, I.
Speaker 1: Was offered a job right at the agency.
Speaker 2: And you said about that job, it forced me out
Speaker 2: of my self consciousness at twenty years old. What were
Speaker 2: you self conscious about? Because you don't strike me as
Speaker 2: a self conscious person. I had just come out of
Speaker 2: the closet I had. Your mom asked you at lunch.
Speaker 2: My mom asked me at a lunch and then she said,
Speaker 2: do you want me to tell your dad for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And you said yes, yes, And then he, I think
Speaker 2: took it pretty well.
Speaker 1: He took it. He was very emotional and wanted the
Speaker 1: best for me, and everyone was very loving and accepting.
Speaker 2: It sounded like exactly how all of us imagined Eugene
Speaker 2: Levy would responded.
Speaker 1: Me what it actually was. If you can picture him
Speaker 1: being just a gentle, kind, warm person in response to
Speaker 1: his son thought about fifty years exactly. It's it's that
Speaker 1: it was lovely, but you know that's nineteen years of
Speaker 1: living a life that was not true. Right. So self
Speaker 1: consciousness comes from that. Anxiety comes from that. It also
Speaker 1: comes from bullying. It comes from most of your life
Speaker 1: being sort of made to feel different because you were
Speaker 1: slightly more feminine. I suppose, if I were to reduce
Speaker 1: it to something like which I guess is a fear
Speaker 1: for young straight boys like slightly feminine acting other boys,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And then there's also a life of
Speaker 1: growing up with a parent who was a public figure,
Speaker 1: and I didn't take that kind of public awareness. Well.
Speaker 1: I would always hide. I didn't like the fact that
Speaker 1: people would stare at us when we were out for dinner,
Speaker 1: or stare at us when we went to a baseball
Speaker 1: game or whatever. It would bother you, It would bother
Speaker 1: me a lot, to the point where I would often
Speaker 1: avoid it. And my dad and I actually had a
Speaker 1: really lovely conversation about it, like a few years ago,
Speaker 1: just about those early days, because I think he saw
Speaker 1: that as me not wanting to be around him, when
Speaker 1: in actuality, it had nothing to do with that. It
Speaker 1: had everything to do with the attention we were getting
Speaker 1: anywhere we went. I say, you know, like went to
Speaker 1: summer camp and some kid in the cabin sent me
Speaker 1: a letter and said, like under my pillows, saying the
Speaker 1: only reason anyone here is friends with you is because
Speaker 1: they know who your dad is. So you grow up
Speaker 1: as a closeted gay person, but also as someone who's
Speaker 1: being made to feel sort of scrutinized for something that
Speaker 1: was completely out of my control. It didn't result in
Speaker 1: a ton of confidence.
Speaker 2: So when you eat, pray, love your way through London
Speaker 2: head back to Toronto. Yeah, kind of reborn, but some
Speaker 2: kind of confidence. Yeah, you auditioned for this job at MTV. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're looking for a new host.
Speaker 1: I think it was.
Speaker 2: And you said right when you got the job that
Speaker 2: the thing that was on your mind was how do
Speaker 2: I start my career as a television host without people
Speaker 2: holding my dad's career over my head.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell anyone when I auditioned who I was,
Speaker 1: so I would show up and I would I never
Speaker 1: talked about my family. I never talked about my relationship
Speaker 1: to my dad. It was very independent of that, and
Speaker 1: I never spoke about it when I did get the
Speaker 1: job for years. So but it did hang over you
Speaker 1: in what sense it says here that you didn't invite
Speaker 1: it to the shows. Yeah, that to me sounds like
Speaker 1: a conscious effort. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course it is because of the kind of
Speaker 2: scrutiny you got out of camp or something. Well, no,
Speaker 2: and also because of the reality of the situation that
Speaker 2: we live in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still read people posting on social media,
Speaker 1: you know, the only reason he had success is because
Speaker 1: of his dad. And I think, well, are you okay, Like,
Speaker 1: can I answer that? Yeah? No, okay, of course it's
Speaker 1: a weird thing. But I think whatever people need to
Speaker 1: do to make themselves feel better, and if it's easier
Speaker 1: to say, this person earned their success for no other
Speaker 1: reason than being the child of a person. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of conversation about nepotism. There was a New York
Speaker 1: magazine article that detailed everyone's lineage. I don't really care
Speaker 1: about that, neither do I frankly. What I want to
Speaker 1: hold what matters, Yeah, at least to me, is how
Speaker 1: you figured out. How you began charting your way at
Speaker 1: MTV as an entertainer.
Speaker 2: It started even before that.
Speaker 1: It started in high school when I was like, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a drama department in our school, so my
Speaker 1: friends and I would write, produce and star in all
Speaker 1: the school plays. And my dad, from a young age,
Speaker 1: would ask if I wanted help with that, and I
Speaker 1: would always say no. So it's been in me for
Speaker 1: a long time to push him away when it came
Speaker 1: to my own creative outlet.
Speaker 2: When it came to the job as host and interviewer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's fascinating because you did grow up in a household
Speaker 2: of comedians and actors. Was there something about that job
Speaker 2: as host that felt different enough, or was there something
Speaker 2: that you liked about it that you didn't like in acting.
Speaker 1: I want to say there was more to it than
Speaker 1: just opportunity. Up in Canada, when you're a host on television,
Speaker 1: you're also producing and you're also writing. And that excited me,
Speaker 1: the fact that I would have this all encompassing experience
Speaker 1: that was not just the interview part, but it was
Speaker 1: also everything around it. We were a music television channel
Speaker 1: on a talk licensed network, so we couldn't actually show music.
Speaker 1: We had to talk about me talk about it. It
Speaker 1: was very weird. I think in a way it was
Speaker 1: continuing this test of like, okay, well, now that I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a little bit more socially confident, what
Speaker 1: if I took it one step further. It started with
Speaker 1: answering the phones at ICM, and then it was like,
Speaker 1: well what if I went on camera and started to
Speaker 1: talk to people. It was all opportunity based, It was
Speaker 1: all yeah, I guess it was experience based. It was,
Speaker 1: and those experiences, particularly up in Canada, didn't happen that often.
Speaker 1: And I think for someone like myself, some of us
Speaker 1: have desires of wanting to do things and feeling capable
Speaker 1: of doing things, but our fears stand in the way
Speaker 1: of us actually pursuing them. And so in this particular situation,
Speaker 1: it was another example of I think I would be
Speaker 1: good at that job, but am I actually going to
Speaker 1: show up to this audition and go through the processes
Speaker 1: of putting yourself out there. At that point I had to.
Speaker 2: What was the fear at that time? Is it a
Speaker 2: fear of failing, of not being good enough?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose it was like a fear of exposure,
Speaker 1: like a fear of like putting yourself in a vulnerable
Speaker 1: situation that was at the mercy of someone else's kind
Speaker 1: of jurisdiction and doing something that was uncomfortable. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, psychologically, I don't know whether it was because
Speaker 1: I'd lived a lot of my life feeling uncomfortable that
Speaker 1: like adding to the discomfort was probably not something I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. But it got to a point where
Speaker 1: I realized I had I had to do it if
Speaker 1: I wanted to get to where I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like we should watch an example of
Speaker 2: you doing it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. On the program do you have that?
Speaker 1: Or do you have that? Oh?
Speaker 2: No, this is from two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: What are we watching?
Speaker 2: This is you on MTV two thousand and nine. This
Speaker 2: is are you doing a kind of Devil Wears product
Speaker 2: bit as a kind of makeshift intern at the fashion magazine?
Speaker 1: All right, here we go.
Speaker 2: Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 1: Well? We ran into problems already and I've been there
Speaker 1: for about forty five minutes. I had to go and
Speaker 1: pull shoes at holt Renfrew, but they only had two
Speaker 1: of the three shoes. Then the guy like gave me options.
Speaker 1: Should I have just made the executive decision to pull
Speaker 1: a third pair? Probably not? Oh I think they were
Speaker 1: also the most expensive pair. Well, I'm in the cab
Speaker 1: on the way back. I pulled the third pair, so
Speaker 1: they told me to take the subway. Hello, listen, I
Speaker 1: wore worse outfits than that, so I'm at least glad
Speaker 1: that I was, like in a nice blazer and a
Speaker 1: no no, the we picked the we picked the clip
Speaker 1: where you look cute? I looked good.
Speaker 2: Shockingly, you look the same. Well, now, thanks the exact
Speaker 2: same well, you know, fifteen years or fifteen years ago,
Speaker 2: twenty five? Yeah, to forty How do you look the same.
Speaker 2: Have you seen my dad? I know he's really the.
Speaker 1: Man is seventy six years old and looks like he
Speaker 1: has never looked better. Yeah, so I do turn to
Speaker 1: him in those moments and think, if this is what's
Speaker 1: in store for me, great, I think it is shait
Speaker 1: we'll see. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean on a performance level, on a comedic level, I.
Speaker 1: Could have done more, for sure. I was definitely playing
Speaker 1: a passive role when I should have, as a television presenter,
Speaker 1: been a little bit more in control. Right. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that was or how it made it onto
Speaker 1: TV because frankly, like, if we are putting this on
Speaker 1: a scale of like one to deeply compelling, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: find that in any way interesting. Where would you put
Speaker 1: that on the one? The ten? I will sheolve that? Also,
Speaker 1: there was a point where my glasses just got bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger, comedically large. Was that on purpose? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think it was a style thing. At the time. There
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it was like the.
Speaker 2: Birth of like hipster fashion, and you wanted to be
Speaker 2: the face of that. And I clearly wanted to be
Speaker 2: the face of that. And my mom would constantly ask
Speaker 2: why I wore the things on television that I wore
Speaker 2: And you would say, and I would say, you know what,
Speaker 2: self expression, mom, lean in.
Speaker 1: I want to be the face of hipster. I want
Speaker 1: to be the face of urban outfitters, hipsterdom.
Speaker 2: Okay, So at some point you move on from this, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you have. I was there for I think eight and
Speaker 2: a half year, eight year. So tell me, at the
Speaker 2: end of eight and a half years of being on MTV,
Speaker 2: do you remember the exact moment where you knew you
Speaker 2: needed to do something else?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was hosting. We were asked to host the
Speaker 1: Red Carpet for the MTV Movie Awards, and I did it,
Speaker 1: and I was so on comfortable and I might have
Speaker 1: cried after what because it was so overwhelming for me
Speaker 1: and I was so bad at it and the pressure
Speaker 1: was so intense. If you're a Red Carpet person, you
Speaker 1: get a binder of every single person that is going
Speaker 1: to walk the Red carpet, and you have to research
Speaker 1: every single person that is walking the red carpet. You
Speaker 1: have to know what they're there for, what they're nominated for,
Speaker 1: are they a presenter, what's the film they have like
Speaker 1: coming out? Basically Tony hale En Veeb absolutely except for me.
Speaker 1: When my nerves activate, I forget everything, and so my
Speaker 1: co host ended up having to like do most of
Speaker 1: the questions because I was a mess. I always knew
Speaker 1: that hosting television was not for me. I accepted the challenge.
Speaker 1: I had received some success from a television show that
Speaker 1: I did up there, a talk show that became quite
Speaker 1: big up in Canada. The show, Yeah, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: there was the after show and then there was the
Speaker 1: Hills after show. The after show was essentially like a
Speaker 1: watch what Happens Live? I want to say before watch
Speaker 1: what happens live? So we would just like dissect popular
Speaker 1: culture and talk about it through the lens of like
Speaker 1: two twenty somethings who wanted more for everybody and you
Speaker 1: like that, and I did. But it was something in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind. I knew that this was
Speaker 1: not it for me. I knew that I was not
Speaker 1: in a comfort zone. That made me super excited. I
Speaker 1: appreciated it all. I appreciated the freedom and the fact
Speaker 1: that we were able to produce things and write things.
Speaker 1: I think so much of what I ended up doing
Speaker 1: after that, I can sort of link back to that experience,
Speaker 1: but it just stopped being fun and I knew that
Speaker 1: it was not what I wanted to do for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. And sure enough, and sure enough
Speaker 1: I left. And when you leave, yeah, you start to
Speaker 1: develop this idea for what would become Shit's Creek. I'm
Speaker 1: curious because you start to think of your dad as
Speaker 1: a potential partner in this project. Over three weekends in
Speaker 1: a row, you go to his house and the two
Speaker 1: of you start working out what this show would be.
Speaker 1: What did a Dan and Eugene Levy writer's room look
Speaker 1: like In those early stages we were in, I would
Speaker 1: go over to my parents' house and we would sit
Speaker 1: in the living room and we would start brainstorming. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of yes and thing. It was a lot
Speaker 1: you know what. It was actually a lot of character work.
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad is like an incredibly thorough person
Speaker 1: and moves at a much slower pace than I do.
Speaker 1: So instantly you look at a situation like that and
Speaker 1: I am like, let's go, let's go, let's go, and
Speaker 1: he's saying, no, we have to go one step at
Speaker 1: a time. And it made sense, and I didn't quite
Speaker 1: understand it at the time. But now I do, and
Speaker 1: I think it is the most important thing I've learned
Speaker 1: from him in the course of writing something was sitting
Speaker 1: in those early days and really figuring out who your
Speaker 1: characters are, So what did that look like. We would
Speaker 1: go one character at a time. We would start at
Speaker 1: the very beginning. Where did they go to school, What
Speaker 1: was their high school experience? Like? What were they like
Speaker 1: as kids? Where did they get jobs? Answering their entire biography.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it was the Second City of
Speaker 1: it All or the work that he did with Chris
Speaker 1: Guest that really forced a kind of meticulousness around character development.
Speaker 1: And funnily enough, from those early couple weeks when we
Speaker 1: were really diving deep into each of those characters, so
Speaker 1: many jokes storylines ended up on the show from those
Speaker 1: pieces of paper that we were, like loose leaf paper
Speaker 1: that we were writing on. And it's now the only
Speaker 1: way that I can work.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that you went from ten years prior not
Speaker 2: inviting him to your shows at MTV to being comfortable
Speaker 2: enough to go, actually, I want to make this thing with.
Speaker 1: Him, to let it go. There does come a point
Speaker 1: where it's important to do something for yourself, but also
Speaker 1: I do have someone who I respect and you know,
Speaker 1: like growing up Best in Show and waiting for Guffman.
Speaker 1: These movies were like defining movies for me as a fan,
Speaker 1: not just someone who was the child of someone who
Speaker 1: made it. You could love those movies. I can love
Speaker 1: those movies for what they are, even though it's your father.
Speaker 1: I can look at those movies and say they are
Speaker 1: hugely important contributions to the world of comedy.
Speaker 2: After the break, we get into all things Shit's Craig with.
Speaker 1: Our guest Dan Levy.
Speaker 2: So when the two of you get into a room
Speaker 2: and you create this show was part of Shit's Creek's
Speaker 2: premise born out of all the time you had spent
Speaker 2: in the past eight years prior thinking about the Hills
Speaker 2: and the kardash So in reality TV I had.
Speaker 1: Is that where it came from? Yeah? Oh yeah. I
Speaker 1: had been steeped in culture for eight years. We were
Speaker 1: starting to understand through popular culture how wealthy people lived.
Speaker 1: I feel like a decade before and you could you
Speaker 1: could watch like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and
Speaker 1: that was the only access you had to the way
Speaker 1: that very very rich people lived. Now we feel like
Speaker 1: we have access to it because the front doors to
Speaker 1: their homes are quite literally opened and cameras are now
Speaker 1: inside in documentary style ways, for better and worse. For better,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, i'd say worse, I would say it's
Speaker 1: not helped us. Yeah, most of those television shows are
Speaker 1: rooted around conflict over the smallest little thing. So I
Speaker 1: have a theory that that actually affects our psychology. So
Speaker 1: to me, a television show that took advantage of this
Speaker 1: collective consciousness that we have of like how people live
Speaker 1: and explored the fallout of what would happen to these people,
Speaker 1: these families, these personalities when money was not the defining
Speaker 1: factor in their life felt compelling.
Speaker 2: Basically, if those reality shows continued to open the doors
Speaker 2: long after they would ever let them stay open.
Speaker 1: And yet, given how gross some people's desire to seize
Speaker 1: on capitalizing on people's sadness, I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: that actually happened.
Speaker 2: On one hand, you're subverting our collective sickness and dependency
Speaker 2: on reality TV. On the other hand, the show has
Speaker 2: a kind of evergreen, timeless quality where it feels very
Speaker 2: much in the spirit of the Honeymoon or Beverly Hillbillies
Speaker 2: or Maybury. But hill Billy's and Maybury ended in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one. Honeymooners ended in nineteen fifty six. You are
Speaker 2: a spry, fresh face forty year old right now who
Speaker 2: was not around for those programs, but was using those
Speaker 2: shows as touch points as reference points. Was it your
Speaker 2: way of bridging the kind of generational divide between you
Speaker 2: and your father in a way?
Speaker 1: I think, Listen, I grew up watching I Love Lucy.
Speaker 1: I grew up watching the Beverly Hillbillies. There are television
Speaker 1: shows that were so formative to my sense of comedy,
Speaker 1: and it was because I would watch the Beverly Hillbillies
Speaker 1: at my grandparents' house. It would be on all the time,
Speaker 1: Beverly Hillbillies and Mash and then Nick at Knight would
Speaker 1: run I Love Lucy and the joy that they brought
Speaker 1: and the deep laughs that they brought. So, you know,
Speaker 1: my dad obviously had a much clearer reference to all
Speaker 1: of those older shows. Did he like those shows? He
Speaker 1: did very much? Yeah, I mean the Honeymooners was like,
Speaker 1: is something he talks about. There's a Christmas episode that
Speaker 1: he'll try to put on every holiday which is incredibly moving. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's really beautifully written and performed. You said he tries
Speaker 1: to put it on some years were feeling more sensitive,
Speaker 1: and we'll say yes, but it was. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what the show really ended up being was nostalgia
Speaker 1: with my sort of younger contemporary cultural references overlapped over top,
Speaker 1: and then the clash of what that is. And that's
Speaker 1: what I think made it feel so inviting for people
Speaker 1: of all different ages.
Speaker 2: When you look back on this chapter that's now closed,
Speaker 2: but the show very much still lives on in people's
Speaker 2: hearts and minds. How do you understand the sensation it became?
Speaker 1: Does it make sense to you? No, it doesn't, And
Speaker 1: in a way, I don't want to understand it. Because
Speaker 1: making the show was so special. We were so kept
Speaker 1: out of that cultural conversation because frankly, people didn't really
Speaker 1: start watching the show until we'd finished it. We were
Speaker 1: able to make eighty episodes of television up in Canada,
Speaker 1: completely on our own, with little to know network notes,
Speaker 1: with the complete support of the CBC in Canada and
Speaker 1: Pop Network in America, which was the former TV Guide network,
Speaker 1: which meant that I think it was something like ninety
Speaker 1: percent of our households were still in standard definition in America,
Speaker 1: so the show was airing on TVs in standard definition.
Speaker 1: That's how low stakes this show was. I look much
Speaker 1: better nesty it does do wonders for the skin. So
Speaker 1: we had nothing but ourselves to use as an audience.
Speaker 1: And obviously, like you know, the Canadian audiences that we're
Speaker 1: finding the show, but the numbers are small. Did that
Speaker 1: bother you? Not at all? For me, it was about
Speaker 1: the smaller audience. We knew that it was going to
Speaker 1: be a small audience because we weren't on NBC. You know,
Speaker 1: they passed because of the name.
Speaker 2: Oh shit's Griggs. Yeah, I thought you meant the Levy man.
Speaker 2: I thought, all it's a good well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was. You know, my dad has a horrible
Speaker 1: reputation in this industry. Yeah, So our expectations were low
Speaker 1: and it really came down to please, let us have
Speaker 1: another season to continue to tell the story. Right. It
Speaker 1: felt so special to be doing this away from the
Speaker 1: pressure of ratings and sweeps week and celebrity cameos and
Speaker 1: all of these things that are required by a lot
Speaker 1: of American television to keep and hold ratings, and the
Speaker 1: fact that it succeeded in the way that it did
Speaker 1: is an indication of the fact that we need to
Speaker 1: give people, creators, writers, television shows space and time to
Speaker 1: grow because it is the ultimate slow Burn Shit's Creek.
Speaker 1: It took two full seasons of the show before our
Speaker 1: family even said I love you to each other. And
Speaker 1: yet all of the emotional impact and all of the
Speaker 1: emotional connection that fans find that feel for the show
Speaker 1: come from every moment of sincerity being earned, and that
Speaker 1: I think is where the depth of emotional connection comes from.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the slow Burn, it runs from twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty, and for so many people it was
Speaker 2: this beacon, this light in a pretty dark area.
Speaker 1: It was grim.
Speaker 2: Not that what's followed has been much better, but the
Speaker 2: other part of it was because it imagined a world
Speaker 2: that was softer, a little kinder, free of homophobia, and
Speaker 2: I think people grabbed on to that. I think they
Speaker 2: saw it as aspirational. And so, to bring us back
Speaker 2: to the beginning of this talk, how do you see
Speaker 2: this new film in relation to shitz Creek. Is it
Speaker 2: an extension of the world you were building? Is it
Speaker 2: a kind of bookend? Is it a snapshot of what
Speaker 2: you feel life is like. Having lived through the pandemic
Speaker 2: on the other side of Shit's Creek, how do you
Speaker 2: see that?
Speaker 1: I think the one thing that we weren't scared of
Speaker 1: when making Shits Creek was sincerity. This is also coming
Speaker 1: off of an era of TV where you weren't considered
Speaker 1: edgy comedy unless you were making fun of someone or
Speaker 1: being incredibly sort of vile or you know, there was
Speaker 1: this world of edgy comedy that really came at someone's expense.
Speaker 1: It was mean spirited, it was hard, and it's It
Speaker 1: was the lack of fear around being soft that I
Speaker 1: think really contributed to this new wave of feel good TV.
Speaker 1: You know, you look at like the success of ted
Speaker 1: Lasso that came off of everything that we had sort
Speaker 1: of done, that really kind of was a great sort
Speaker 1: of next step in the storytelling of kind TV. They
Speaker 1: give you residuals for that, right, Yeah, we receive a
Speaker 1: ton of residuals from Apple from Apple. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: this film has that fearlessness when it comes to touching
Speaker 1: on sincerity and earnestness and warmth and honesty. I could
Speaker 1: have gone down a path where I wanted to make
Speaker 1: it edgier, and I wanted to make it more kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, hard, but that wasn't my experience, and so
Speaker 1: it emboldened you to make the film emboldened me to
Speaker 1: tell a story that was rooted in something very sincere
Speaker 1: and not be fearful of that sincerity, even though oftentimes
Speaker 1: it's criticized.
Speaker 2: I think for context, we should maybe sit with the
Speaker 2: scene in the film. Okay, that does offer the sincerity
Speaker 2: that you're talking about, and to me, maybe the strongest
Speaker 2: scene in the movie. That is an amalgamation of all
Speaker 2: the projects.
Speaker 1: You've worked on.
Speaker 2: So why don't we take a look at this. This
Speaker 2: is from your film Good Grief. It comes toward the
Speaker 2: end of the picture and it features you sitting across
Speaker 2: from your financial planner as the two of you are
Speaker 2: having a heart to heart as Celia Imory.
Speaker 3: So the stratage you called to say they'd like to
Speaker 3: list the London house next week, Okay, you're okay with that?
Speaker 1: I am, Yeah. That house isn't mine, it's always his.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're not into this idea.
Speaker 3: My opinion is of little relevance here.
Speaker 1: Well, you manage my finances, I'm selling my house your
Speaker 1: opinion isn't irrelevant.
Speaker 3: I trust you're not running away.
Speaker 1: From him.
Speaker 3: I mean, my wife died twelve years ago this month.
Speaker 1: I ran.
Speaker 2: From her from us.
Speaker 3: Physiology has a clever way of protecting us from what
Speaker 3: we perceive to be a threat to our bodies, which
Speaker 3: is why the more we close ourselves off, the less
Speaker 3: we feel. At the time, that benefited me. I got
Speaker 3: on with it, went back to school, studied finance, built
Speaker 3: up a successful business, nice house, good clothes, never having
Speaker 3: desired any one else. And you can't survive that way
Speaker 3: until the usualness of it all starts creeping in and
Speaker 3: the new life you built as a refuge begins to
Speaker 3: feel lack of void because it turns out to avoid sends,
Speaker 3: it's also to avoid love.
Speaker 1: That's a heavy one. Mm hmmm. Where does the land
Speaker 1: with it? I don't mean for this to sound like
Speaker 1: in any way self congratulatory or like arrogant, but there
Speaker 1: is this amazing thing when you write something and you
Speaker 1: get the honor of watching an actor like Celia Imrie
Speaker 1: take words that you've written transform and lift them to
Speaker 1: places you had no idea they could sort of live.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's I mean, watching it. It's more
Speaker 1: just about her performance than anything else. But you know,
Speaker 1: that was a hugely kind of clarifying moment for me
Speaker 1: as a writer to write that scene and it just happened.
Speaker 1: It was just on the page at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. There wasn't a ton of thought behind it.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like, oh, I know what's going to
Speaker 1: be impactful for an audience. It was just it was
Speaker 1: a very cathartic sort of day of writing that resulted
Speaker 1: in something quite concise, I think in terms of its intention.
Speaker 2: In some ways, is it not the cleaner, clarified version
Speaker 2: of the notes app message to yourself?
Speaker 1: I suppose it is now that I've reread it. It
Speaker 1: was the closest I could get to understanding that feeling.
Speaker 1: That feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of remarkable that it turned into that. Listen,
Speaker 2: it's it's an amazing thing. I like, you know, I
Speaker 2: feel very lucky that the words came to me from that,
Speaker 2: because sometimes they don't.
Speaker 1: They often don't. Yeah, they often don't most of us.
Speaker 1: But I don't think I could have said that as
Speaker 1: a person. Yeah, it's a different thing. Sometimes I have
Speaker 1: to write things to people because I'm better at articulating
Speaker 1: myself when I'm writing things down.
Speaker 2: But you needed to pause, halt, and catch fire. You
Speaker 2: needed the snow to hit at the right moment. But
Speaker 2: your dog that had to pee pandemic, that was creating
Speaker 2: a kind of madness insign all of us. All the
Speaker 2: conditions that produced the note that we started the show
Speaker 2: with delivered us here to that scene. It's pretty cool
Speaker 2: the line, the more we close ourselves off, the less
Speaker 2: we feel. To avoid sadness is also to avoid love.
Speaker 2: I've seen the film a couple times, and I've watched
Speaker 2: that scene a bunch, and I was thinking, as we're
Speaker 2: sitting here towards the end, not just where those lines
Speaker 2: landed with you, but they feel like a reminder for yourself,
Speaker 2: something to hold on to on the other side of
Speaker 2: having made this movie, having put the film out into
Speaker 2: the world, and I wonder if you've been able to
Speaker 2: hold on to that sentiment, Have you been able to
Speaker 2: hear those words?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think in a way it's like those
Speaker 2: kinds of affirmations and reminders are important, and I think
Speaker 2: oftentimes like we revert back to old tendencies and ways
Speaker 2: of coping. But you know, I think that's especially now
Speaker 2: that it's out and it's always it's a strange thing
Speaker 2: to like make something really personal and then realize that
Speaker 2: it's also for public consumption and public judgment, and like
Speaker 2: that's like a side of it that I wish I
Speaker 2: could just kind of fast forward through. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, it takes a lot for me to acknowledge
Speaker 2: that I'm proud.
Speaker 1: Of myself for this experience. That still takes a lot.
Speaker 1: It still takes a lot. Yeah, I think it'll always
Speaker 1: take a lot. We're working through it, though, So that's good.
Speaker 1: At least you and I are, well, yeah, or do
Speaker 1: you mean the royalty? The royalty and you and I?
Speaker 1: This has been immensely therapeutic, this conversation. How has it been? Though?
Speaker 2: But in the film out you're talking about reviews that
Speaker 2: are positive. There's reviews that are negative.
Speaker 1: Huh. I've read some beautiful ones. Yeah.
Speaker 2: My friend Alissa Wilkinson wrote a review on The Times
Speaker 2: that I thought was just excellent, absolutely meant the world.
Speaker 2: You know, you put a movie out about grief, and
Speaker 2: you put a movie about out about loss and people's
Speaker 2: relationship to it. It's not something that has you know,
Speaker 2: I expected it to be a polarizing experience for people.
Speaker 2: You're either going to get it or you're not right,
Speaker 2: and it's okay if you don't get it, and if
Speaker 2: you do get it, that's great. I think the letters
Speaker 2: that I've received since this movie has come out have
Speaker 2: have really encouraged me to keep going. When you see
Speaker 2: people outside of journalism, when you actually have human beings
Speaker 2: writing to you say I haven't been able to articulate
Speaker 2: my feelings around the grief that I'm experiencing, and I
Speaker 2: watched this movie and I found great comfort in it,
Speaker 2: and thank you. That's a wonderful thing. Grief doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be an isolated experience that everyone around us, everyone
Speaker 2: in every space that we walk into is grieving something
Speaker 2: we just don't talk about it. So the more that
Speaker 2: we can and the more that we do, the more
Speaker 2: I think there might be comfort for people who are
Speaker 2: experiencing grief and not feeling like there's anyone around them
Speaker 2: to help. As we're talking about people's responses, I just
Speaker 2: thought of something we mentioned the critics response, the audience response,
Speaker 2: but this is the first film that doesn't involve your
Speaker 2: father that is inspired by the passing of your mother's mom.
Speaker 2: And I'm fascinated because when you were on the set
Speaker 2: of Shit's Creek and you and your sister were in
Speaker 2: a scene, I'd heard that when your dad was at
Speaker 2: the monitor, he would mouth all the words that the
Speaker 2: two of you would be doing in a scene. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he probably he was like dance momming after this, like
Speaker 2: an excited soccer dad watching their kid play. And so
Speaker 2: with this film, when the two of them watched it,
Speaker 2: what did they say? How did they hold it?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's dedicated to my grandmother. The gallery at
Speaker 1: the end of the film is named after my grandmother,
Speaker 1: so she's kind of all through it. For me, it
Speaker 1: was the greatest expression of kind of love that I had.
Speaker 1: It's all I could do because in the moment, I
Speaker 1: wasn't feeling what I wanted to feel. So I think
Speaker 1: they were. I mean, they were very moved by it.
Speaker 1: I think they were caught off guard. I didn't tell
Speaker 1: them anything about it. They went to the premiere not
Speaker 1: knowing even what the movie was about. So I think
Speaker 1: they were really overwhelmed by what it was and what
Speaker 1: it was saying, and how close it was to home.
Speaker 1: And I think they were impressed and my mom's a
Speaker 1: real tough critic, like, yeah, I respect it, but she'll
Speaker 1: tell it like it is, like she doesn't sugarcoat stuff.
Speaker 1: And so to feel like I had impressed her was
Speaker 1: a really sort of special thing. She said, you did
Speaker 1: a good job. She said, what did she say? The
Speaker 1: movie end and she goes, well, she was crying a lot,
Speaker 1: and she said, this is like all my favorite movies
Speaker 1: from the seventies, Like you've made something that reminds me
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies, and that was a married woman
Speaker 1: kind of movie. Yeah, just a time when pace was
Speaker 1: not at the forefront, when our attention spans were a
Speaker 1: little bit more generous. And they've now watched it many
Speaker 1: times at home. The movie theater at the end of
Speaker 1: their block was playing the I think they went to
Speaker 1: see it a couple times. In the movie theater. There
Speaker 1: was photos that they were taking with like fans, so
Speaker 1: great to add with like in the movie theater. They
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's nice and I'm happy that I
Speaker 1: was able to do something for my family, to make
Speaker 1: something that celebrated like one of our family members in
Speaker 1: a very sort of indirect way, but was to me
Speaker 1: the greatest expression of love that I had.
Speaker 2: Well, it took two seasons of Shit's Creek for the
Speaker 2: family to express love to each other, and I'm glad
Speaker 2: it didn't take as long for your folks to say
Speaker 2: the same in this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. We have a very different family than
Speaker 1: the Roses. I'm sure far more loving for Warmer. That
Speaker 1: will be the second podcast we did together, exactly.
Speaker 2: And yes, grief is not something people want to talk
Speaker 2: about on a podcast, and yet we've done it.
Speaker 1: So we've done it.
Speaker 2: This is the time if you have any notes, though,
Speaker 2: this would really be the moment.
Speaker 1: I never have notes. You listen. You know how good
Speaker 1: you are at your job. You don't need to. I
Speaker 1: could just keep talking, but just at this point, I
Speaker 1: think I'll just keep doling out compliments and then just
Speaker 1: cut me off, go straight to an ad. Yeah, we'll go.
Speaker 2: I will say, uh yeah, I'll do the link later
Speaker 2: pod stuff with you. I agree to the terms and conditions. Okay, great,
Speaker 2: we can keep checking in photo proof photoproof. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: until then, I thank you for this time. It's meant
Speaker 2: a whole lot. It's meant a lot to me. Dan Levy, thanks,
Speaker 2: take care you too. And that's our show. If you
Speaker 2: enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us five stars
Speaker 2: on Spotify, Apple, wherever you do your podcasting. If you
Speaker 2: want to share the program, you can tag us at
Speaker 2: talk easypod, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. All of this really
Speaker 2: does help new listeners find the program. I want to
Speaker 2: give a special thanks this week to the teams at
Speaker 2: forty two West and Netflix. I also want to thank
Speaker 2: Michael Diamond and our guest today, Dan Levy. His new
Speaker 2: film Good Grief is now available on Netflix. If you
Speaker 2: want to check it out, you can visit our website
Speaker 2: at talkasypod dot com. If you want to hear other
Speaker 2: conversations with actors, writers, directors, I'd recommend Quinta Brunson, Chris Elliott,
Speaker 2: Abby Jacobson, Stephen Young, Bob Odenkirk, and Steve So To
Speaker 2: hear those and more Pushkin podcasts listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 2: or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow
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Speaker 1: At talk easy Pod.
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Speaker 2: Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer
Speaker 2: is Jennick sa Bravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden.
Speaker 2: Today's talk was edited by Caitlin Dryden and mixed by
Speaker 2: Andrew Vastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations
Speaker 2: are by Christia Shanoy. Our photographs are by Julius Choue.
Speaker 2: Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Gaberzac, Ian Jones
Speaker 2: and Ethan Sineca. I also want to thank our team
Speaker 2: at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Stars, Kerrie Brody,
Speaker 2: Eric Sander, Jorn McMillan, Cure Posey, Tara Machado, Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 2: Justin Lange, Malcolm Gladwell, Gretacohen and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sam Fragoso.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to another episode of Talk Easy.
Speaker 2: I'll see you back here next week with a new
Speaker 2: episode until the Stay Safe and so on.