WEBVTT 00:10.418 --> 00:15.100 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, as Chris Hansen might say, why don't you take a seat, script-apart listeners? 00:15.620 --> 00:23.023 [SPEAKER_00]: Because today on this podcast about the first rough secrets of great movies and TV shows, hosted by me, Al Horner. 00:23.744 --> 00:38.250 [SPEAKER_00]: Primetime screenwriter, a Jones sing is here for a conversation about the riveting 824 drama and the uneasy intersection that it spotlights between justice and spectacle on our TV screens and telephones. 00:39.457 --> 00:48.185 [SPEAKER_00]: Directed by Lance Oppenheim, who is of course the co-director of the astonishing you can see everything, which is also in cinemas right now, a big year for him. 00:48.826 --> 01:00.657 [SPEAKER_00]: Primetime tells the story of the 2000s reality show to catch a predator, in which online groomers would be caught and confronted as part of these big elaborate sting operations. 01:01.838 --> 01:09.621 [SPEAKER_00]: It tells the story of the morally complex date line NBC reporter who created and hosted the show, played here by Robert Pattinson. 01:10.562 --> 01:17.205 [SPEAKER_00]: And inevitably, it also tells the story of one of the most infamous events in American media history. 01:17.225 --> 01:26.429 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about to catch a predator's controversial final episode in which Carnage reigned and awkward questions were posed. 01:27.189 --> 01:32.770 [SPEAKER_00]: Questions like, how and when can a righteous cause curdle into something darker? 01:33.530 --> 01:36.971 [SPEAKER_00]: What does it mean to turn criminal punishment into entertainment? 01:37.631 --> 01:48.574 [SPEAKER_00]: And if we punish those who commit the most terrible crimes imaginable, not just in the courts, but through a process of media humiliation, do we corrode some part of ourselves? 01:48.894 --> 01:54.295 [SPEAKER_00]: Is that modern form of the medieval stocks a debasement to be avoided? 01:55.651 --> 02:03.159 [SPEAKER_00]: These are questions I've thought a lot about since they saw Primetime a couple of months ago, in part because of its contemporary relevance. 02:03.599 --> 02:06.322 [SPEAKER_00]: Primetime you see is not a period piece. 02:06.782 --> 02:11.807 [SPEAKER_00]: It's arguably the origin story of a certain cruelty that's taken us over since. 02:12.768 --> 02:26.793 [SPEAKER_00]: Just this month, for example, plans were announced and then thankfully abandoned for the government sanctioned live-streamed execution of a convicted murderer in the U.S. Retribution broadcast over the internet. 02:28.033 --> 02:35.417 [SPEAKER_00]: In the conversation you're about to hear, the show and I get into the echoes of prime time in our everyday life in 2026. 02:36.338 --> 02:45.503 [SPEAKER_00]: We talk about how he approached this portrait of a man who, I suppose, is technically doing the right thing, but potentially doing it for the wrong reasons. 02:45.904 --> 02:52.568 [SPEAKER_00]: There's an inference here that Hansen's doing all this to beat lost the TV show lost in the ratings. 02:53.088 --> 02:55.910 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not exclusively about protecting children. 02:56.990 --> 03:11.117 [SPEAKER_00]: We get into the supernatural flourish that takes the film to strange new places in the movie's latter stages, and the meaning of that song from rent, song at the most chilling and devastating moments in this tale. 03:12.205 --> 03:14.406 [SPEAKER_00]: Every spoiler detail, we unpack it all. 03:14.846 --> 03:16.906 [SPEAKER_00]: A big thank you to Azure and for joining me. 03:17.106 --> 03:18.366 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a great conversation. 03:19.527 --> 03:29.809 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks also to our subscribers over at scriptapart.substack for signing up to that recently launched newsletter where I've been dropping exclusive interviews and essays. 03:30.109 --> 03:36.711 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you want more scriptapart in your life beyond these episodes in your podcast feed, that's the place to head to. 03:37.751 --> 03:42.734 [SPEAKER_00]: and a big thank you also to everyone I've been working with recently on script coverage. 03:43.494 --> 03:54.201 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a draft of a screenplay that you'd like comprehensive feedback on, including actionable tips for fixing anything you're unhappy with, and generally taking that screenplay to the next level. 03:54.481 --> 03:56.942 [SPEAKER_00]: Hit me up by visiting script apart.com, 04:04.393 --> 04:07.956 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, with all that out the way, let's just jump into things. 04:07.996 --> 04:10.217 [SPEAKER_00]: Shall we enough of this intro nonsense? 04:11.318 --> 04:13.760 [SPEAKER_00]: My name's Alhona, you're listening to Script Apart. 04:14.300 --> 04:19.303 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a Jones sing, discussing the first rough secrets of primetime. 04:20.264 --> 04:21.305 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here guys. 04:21.485 --> 04:23.406 [SPEAKER_00]: I really do appreciate you tuning in. 04:23.726 --> 04:25.628 [SPEAKER_00]: And I hope you enjoy the conversation. 04:32.214 --> 04:34.115 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing great, better now. 04:34.936 --> 04:36.737 [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks. 04:36.938 --> 04:38.038 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me throw a quote at you. 04:38.879 --> 04:41.361 [SPEAKER_00]: So you were once asked about your approach to storytelling. 04:41.641 --> 04:47.626 [SPEAKER_00]: And you said, When I write, I'm just trying to understand what I believe in and sort through the noise of the world. 04:48.907 --> 04:51.609 [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think you're trying to understand as you tackle prime time? 04:53.736 --> 05:09.366 [SPEAKER_02]: I think in recent years I've come to some sort of understanding that I'm not going to understand bold, but by observing it and kind of spotlighting things and just examining those things I'll get closer. 05:09.926 --> 05:14.830 [SPEAKER_02]: So a big part of this project was like, there was this massive show in 2005, 2006. 05:17.171 --> 05:27.056 [SPEAKER_02]: that captivated American audiences and a big part of it was punishment and like public humiliation of these, you know, online predators. 05:27.557 --> 05:39.863 [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really interesting that it was so successful that it really, it felt like almost like a gladiator fight, you know, it's like where people are all tuning in to watch these guys basically be eviscerated on television, 05:41.224 --> 05:50.068 [SPEAKER_02]: I never intended with the script to pluralize about like whether the thing is good or bad, but on the dumbest level is just how strange is this? 05:50.748 --> 05:55.490 [SPEAKER_02]: Like how strange is it that this exists and that people care so much about it? 05:56.310 --> 06:12.375 [SPEAKER_02]: And what does that say about, you know, our culture and, you know, all these questions, you know, of course it's a good thing that, you know, Chris Hanson is getting online predators off the internet and off of the streets, but the style of kind of entertainment and calling it entertainment. 06:12.835 --> 06:36.312 [SPEAKER_02]: you know it's a very challenging subject and it's it's really strange so I think strange is the big bold underlined word for why I even chose to write this movie and what if I ever do kind of true stories in the future it'll be about like what the fuck happened here you know why did why do people respond so you know so rapidly towards this thing um yeah that's the short of it 06:37.140 --> 06:39.160 [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned, obviously, it captivated America. 06:39.180 --> 06:46.922 [SPEAKER_00]: How about few on a personal level, like, 2004, 2007, like, was this show on your radar with you tuning in or what was your rush? 06:46.982 --> 06:49.602 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, my story is actually very strange. 06:49.802 --> 06:53.663 [SPEAKER_02]: My mom used to watch Daylight. 06:53.683 --> 06:55.143 [SPEAKER_02]: What's up, my mom is a immigrant, right? 06:55.183 --> 06:55.984 [SPEAKER_02]: She's from India. 06:56.724 --> 07:02.225 [SPEAKER_02]: And she would watch a Daylight NBC and a big segment on Daylight NBC was to catch a predator. 07:03.885 --> 07:11.952 [SPEAKER_02]: I was probably what nine, eight, nine, ten years old at the time, I couldn't grasp, you know, what an online predator was, the crimes being committed or alleged or whatever. 07:12.852 --> 07:24.742 [SPEAKER_02]: To me, it was like a prank show, like these guys, they think, one thing's going to happen, that and then this, you know, big personality with this sort of transatlantic accent, like walks out and you like, 07:25.262 --> 07:30.068 [SPEAKER_02]: you know, you pranks them on national television and I thought it was so funny. 07:30.408 --> 07:45.725 [SPEAKER_02]: So when I was like a kid, I would really laugh and I would like memorize all of these screen names because I thought they were so funny, you know, like meat rocket or like red, you know, there's red BD, I mean, but there are a bunch of really funny ones that I like, I memorized at the time. 07:45.766 --> 07:46.046 [SPEAKER_02]: So like, 07:46.246 --> 07:49.848 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, fast forward all these years later, it kind of like started to sink in. 07:49.868 --> 07:55.491 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, with the show, it was actually a ballot, but that's kind of like my first personal introduction to it. 07:56.552 --> 08:05.817 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, when will the producer first kind of asked me, you know, if I'd seen the show, I was like, it was my favorite show of the 2000s and I wasn't kidding. 08:06.838 --> 08:10.100 [SPEAKER_02]: It was the thing that I would watch over and over and then I would watch YouTube 08:16.043 --> 08:19.725 [SPEAKER_00]: That's fascinating, and yeah, that's something that kind of occurred to me, too. 08:19.765 --> 08:30.912 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, the theater of it all, which we'll talk about across this conversation, it is kind of akin to like a darker punked with action cuts, like it's strange. 08:31.032 --> 08:40.138 [SPEAKER_00]: But I've got to ask though, because it sounds like you had quite a straightforward relationship with it when it was first on, but there is such kind of like, 08:40.798 --> 08:45.782 [SPEAKER_00]: discomfort, I feel present in the script and present in the execution of this story. 08:46.663 --> 08:48.124 [SPEAKER_00]: When did that start to creep in? 08:48.324 --> 08:55.650 [SPEAKER_00]: Was there a time where you started to reappraise what this show was and some of the kind of moral murkiness within it? 08:55.670 --> 08:58.532 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that was always at the front of 09:08.054 --> 09:21.631 [SPEAKER_02]: trying to approach it in any honest way, you're naturally going to be like, what is the moral kind of, of course what he's doing and you know, in general, you know, I'm very fond of things that get, um, 09:22.152 --> 09:24.114 [SPEAKER_02]: you know child predators off the internet. 09:25.235 --> 09:34.164 [SPEAKER_02]: But the entertainment aspect is the question more like, you know, and even now you have all these copycats now and like TikTok and like Instagram and whatever. 09:34.184 --> 09:40.070 [SPEAKER_02]: So the the merciness of it has always existed for me and every draft of the script. 09:40.730 --> 09:41.971 [SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, 09:44.101 --> 09:53.612 [SPEAKER_02]: and maybe we'll get into it, it's like once we started bringing, you know, robbed into the conversation, I started viewing the character in a very different way, like that Chris Hanson character. 09:53.672 --> 10:02.061 [SPEAKER_02]: I think the first iterations of that character was almost like Judge Jerry and Executioner style, like he was like kind of like, um, 10:04.179 --> 10:21.882 [SPEAKER_02]: he was like a shark or something like he had you the whole time you think he offers you these like glimpses of hope you know that you're going to get out but those it's never real right it's one phrase that Lance and I would use a lot is the unwinnable game 10:22.763 --> 10:30.024 [SPEAKER_02]: it's the sky who basically, he gives you this, you know, a big part of the show is that he's like, you're free to leave, right? 10:30.064 --> 10:30.765 [SPEAKER_02]: He says that. 10:32.105 --> 10:40.026 [SPEAKER_02]: And these guys are like, thank you so much, you know, sometimes they're like, uh, relieved, you know, okay, I'm on TV, that sucks, but at least I'm free to go. 10:40.046 --> 10:44.487 [SPEAKER_02]: And they walk outside and they're pummeled by police officers, you know? 10:45.708 --> 10:47.708 [SPEAKER_02]: It's all of this is this kind of like, 10:48.208 --> 10:53.492 [SPEAKER_02]: It's all a part of this entertainment apparatus, which is like really fascinating. 10:53.532 --> 10:59.436 [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, you know, my moral stance on the show exactly, I'm still sorting through. 10:59.476 --> 11:03.939 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I will be sorting through it for the rest of my life because, you know, it is complicated. 11:04.019 --> 11:07.602 [SPEAKER_02]: But I've always been trying to spotlight in every version of the draft. 11:08.567 --> 11:14.269 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so funny you'd bring up the kind of copycats because there's someone from the UK to the best of my knowledge. 11:14.289 --> 11:16.370 [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have the show on TV or at least it. 11:16.530 --> 11:18.250 [SPEAKER_00]: It absolutely wasn't on my radar. 11:18.751 --> 11:36.877 [SPEAKER_00]: So my first kind of encountering of this sort of behavior and this sort of entertainment format has been like on Instagram being served like these videos where these copycats they're taking part in the kind of ritual humiliation and kind of punishment of these people. 11:37.337 --> 11:59.020 [SPEAKER_00]: and it is a conflicting feeling because on one hand like of course you want these people to be apprehended but on the other hand the transaction that's taking place here where they're wrapping it up into sort of social media spectacle and they're kind of doing it in part for kind of online clouds like it's there's a kind of ikiness inherent in it and it's um 11:59.681 --> 12:00.641 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we can talk about that. 12:00.821 --> 12:07.823 [SPEAKER_00]: I think like it does lead us on to like an interesting question of like the kind of relevance of this today. 12:07.943 --> 12:23.466 [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the story takes place in 2004, but like the movie as it's hitting cinemas into sex with this time for us, where there is this cultural fascination with and fury towards predators right now, like after the Epstein list. 12:24.366 --> 12:33.431 [SPEAKER_00]: That whole conversation is at fever pitch, and I'm curious for you how conscious you were of all that as you sat down to write this for a release coming out in 2026. 12:34.788 --> 12:56.637 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think that is also like my philosophy on like screenwriting in general is you cannot write for the moment and I didn't write for this moment frankly like when I started writing the script years ago, the Epstein stuff hadn't even started popping back into the discourse yet or into a, you know, public sort of discourse and like 12:57.397 --> 12:59.678 [SPEAKER_02]: Even these copycats, I was not familiar with them. 12:59.858 --> 13:03.639 [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like they were kind of popping up at the same time as I was starting to write it. 13:03.979 --> 13:21.126 [SPEAKER_02]: What I do believe is like maybe there's something that goes on and like the subconscious sort of like the collective subconscious where everyone is starting to think about these things at the same time and then they pop at the same time, but at no point was I, you know, sort of conscious of like, oh, you know, 13:21.706 --> 13:35.681 [SPEAKER_02]: Catching, you know, online predators are catching, you know, petophiles and government is, this is like a extremely like hot topic and I should write about it because I think one of the big problems with that in general is that 13:36.702 --> 14:04.192 [SPEAKER_02]: this business moves pretty slow and if you try to react to the marketplace like that or the news like that often times you're already late by the time the movie gets made and released you know you're already behind the the culture has already moved on and we've seen that happen you know time and time again so I think there is an immense amount of serendipity and like total coincidence that has to happen for this to feel so relevant and I can't 14:04.932 --> 14:07.914 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, it makes me sort of spiritual or religious at times. 14:07.954 --> 14:09.795 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, how the fuck did this even happen? 14:10.096 --> 14:12.737 [SPEAKER_02]: Where it's like, everyone is talking about the Epstein files. 14:13.097 --> 14:15.419 [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is talking about these like, at least in my world. 14:15.719 --> 14:22.003 [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is like, you know, reposting or, you know, showing me these like copycat, you know, Chris Hansen guys online. 14:22.424 --> 14:25.686 [SPEAKER_02]: It all feels so, so random, but so aligned. 14:26.546 --> 14:27.747 [SPEAKER_02]: And I can't really explain it. 14:27.907 --> 14:28.468 [SPEAKER_02]: But, um, 14:29.348 --> 14:35.273 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, to even talk about the copycats online, it literally makes Chris Hanson look very decent. 14:35.473 --> 14:42.559 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the things that these guys do to these online predators now, you know, whether or not you agree with them, they're way tougher. 14:42.579 --> 14:51.366 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I saw one video of Guy is pouring cayenne pepper into one of the guys eyes and like, you know, some other videos where they just knock them out. 14:51.426 --> 14:53.168 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like really hard for a stuff. 14:53.208 --> 14:57.451 [SPEAKER_02]: So Chris Hanson almost looks like a statesman, you know, 14:58.912 --> 15:18.765 [SPEAKER_02]: did his program now in 2006 and, you know, that's been really weird to ingest, it makes you kind of like, again as I'm starting to contemplate or not starting as I'm deep in contemplation about like, you know, how I feel about all this, you know, and of course I started as a fan, like I said, and I still, you know, 15:18.985 --> 15:23.151 [SPEAKER_02]: I still watch the clips I had to watch them all the time for while we made this movie. 15:23.671 --> 15:26.175 [SPEAKER_02]: And I listened to it firsthand since podcast and all these things. 15:26.235 --> 15:30.781 [SPEAKER_02]: And my feelings are complicated, but at the end of the day, I am a fan of the show. 15:30.841 --> 15:33.645 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's been interesting to grapple with. 15:34.428 --> 15:55.264 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things I kind of contemplated after watching the film last night was the degree to which like, although it only ran for three years, we're living through the end point of the culture, almost created or not necessarily created by to catch predator, but the show certainly contributes towards it. 15:56.265 --> 16:04.727 [SPEAKER_00]: the new form of entertainment that the show represents in retrospect, like the kind of like lurch into true crime, the lurch into reality. 16:04.787 --> 16:15.930 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it kind of struck me last night when I was thinking about it, that like this show, it kind of like encapsulated a moment and there are genies that escaped the bottle during this time frame. 16:15.970 --> 16:22.552 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm curious for you what your reflections have been on that and the degree to which, as I say, yeah, we are living in a post to capture 16:24.112 --> 16:37.022 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how much of that I blame on, right at her in Chris Hanson, you know, a not sure, but I blame that a lot on what algorithms sort of praise on, and algorithm, you know, the social media algorithms prey on a reaction. 16:38.603 --> 16:47.289 [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes by showing people the most upsetting things, oftentimes, you get the, you know, the most feverish reactions. 16:48.430 --> 16:49.130 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, 16:49.931 --> 16:58.476 [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, to catch a predator was like, one of the highest rated things on television, you know, so it's like, it's definitely touching on something there is a shock and all value. 16:58.576 --> 17:02.158 [SPEAKER_02]: It makes great entertainment, but I feel like now it's on the internet. 17:02.178 --> 17:05.480 [SPEAKER_02]: We've like, we're so far from even what feels like entertainment anymore. 17:05.500 --> 17:09.062 [SPEAKER_02]: It feels like, you know, it's very graphic. 17:09.722 --> 17:11.523 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's, some of the stuff is really ugly. 17:11.583 --> 17:13.524 [SPEAKER_02]: It's almost as if, you know, I grew up 17:15.385 --> 17:25.278 [SPEAKER_02]: And like, like, uh, our gore, he had on Reddit where like, people would send you just the most horrific stuff if you'll like a lot of that is like mainstream now. 17:25.338 --> 17:31.847 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like commonplace and like, I'll just be scrolling my algorithm and I'll see some the worst thing I've seen, you know, in months. 17:32.347 --> 17:48.669 [SPEAKER_02]: And it'll just be like part of it, but the problem is the fact that I don't quickly swipe away because I'm so, you know, hypnotized by the video tells the algorithm hey like this guy wants more of this so I end up just getting you know flooded with all sorts of just awful awful stuff. 17:50.451 --> 18:02.259 [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm partially to blame, but also I think we live in a culture that is rewarding, engaging with this sort of material, you know, it's like, it's really, it's, it is unfortunate, yeah. 18:02.439 --> 18:08.422 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, it's a, it's a product of demand, like we have a implicit in it because we tune in. 18:09.583 --> 18:18.707 [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of like the different genies that did escape the bottle as I say, like the whale of this story, Bill Comrade, the district attorney, district attorney, district attorney, that's right. 18:19.107 --> 18:28.191 [SPEAKER_00]: Like for me growing up, you know, there was this idea of certainly like, predises exist, but it was kind of more couched in a sense of like, stranger danger. 18:28.851 --> 18:30.952 [SPEAKER_00]: And now like the 18:31.852 --> 18:39.395 [SPEAKER_00]: fear and the paranoia around pedophilia, you know, it's, it was queuing on and now it's the absteen list. 18:39.996 --> 18:46.819 [SPEAKER_00]: It is this kind of operational on the society that like we fear are engaging in this sort of behavior. 18:46.999 --> 18:55.703 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting, again, as someone from the UK, I don't have the context, was, was Bill Conrad, was that like a sort of stepping stone? 18:56.503 --> 19:10.701 [SPEAKER_00]: on route to that shift like the way that kind of like we fear the shadowy elites engaging in this behavior now was this kind of a big turning point and moving away from quote unquote stranger danger and kind of getting us to where we are today. 19:12.107 --> 19:14.109 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. 19:14.129 --> 19:29.163 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, truthfully, I think people in power have been abusing their power as long as civilizations have existed, you know, I think what's happening right now, I think is that we're just, it feels like society is sort of like standing up to it. 19:29.923 --> 19:31.485 [SPEAKER_02]: Or what feels like the first time. 19:31.985 --> 19:33.586 [SPEAKER_02]: And it feels like maybe we have like, 19:34.367 --> 19:39.389 [SPEAKER_02]: the information to do so, and we have the ability to sort of band together. 19:39.409 --> 19:53.114 [SPEAKER_02]: In some ways, that's bad because we can be preyed on whatever media conglomerate wants to influence the public, but also you have this ability to band together and say, hey, 19:54.715 --> 20:10.527 [SPEAKER_02]: we do not accept that politicians, you know, should be able to act this way, or they should be able to have these sort of behaviors, or should be able to skirt crimes that they commit, where other people, you know, have to serve them in their entirety, serve their sentences entirety. 20:10.967 --> 20:17.812 [SPEAKER_02]: So many of these people commit the most heinous crimes, and, you know, they never see, you know, any sort of prison time for it. 20:18.773 --> 20:21.335 [SPEAKER_02]: I think there is a collective outrage that is righteous, 20:21.695 --> 20:22.276 [SPEAKER_02]: in all of this. 20:22.436 --> 20:25.278 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's really what I feel is happening right now. 20:26.018 --> 20:32.263 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, you know, in the past I suppose there have been revolutions where, you know, kings have had their heads locked off. 20:33.024 --> 20:35.346 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure what that looks like in our modern day. 20:36.747 --> 20:44.873 [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think like the amount of connectivity has also benefited people in order to to organize around these particular issues. 20:44.993 --> 20:46.574 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that is a good thing. 20:50.237 --> 20:52.380 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's jump into the script itself. 20:52.620 --> 20:59.788 [SPEAKER_00]: You may be about to tell me I'm overthinking this, but I have sat with the opening lines of this story. 21:01.330 --> 21:05.374 [SPEAKER_00]: Ever since I watched the movie, this film begins with this repeated refrain of 21:05.995 --> 21:08.135 [SPEAKER_00]: I will undress you, you will undress me. 21:08.916 --> 21:21.098 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's Chris kind of like practicing his sting, if you like, and what he's going to say, but you've zeroed in on that particular line from the correspondence between a predator and a would-be child. 21:21.718 --> 21:31.480 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting, and the poignancy for me, I think, is the fact that like, this is a story in which Chris Hansen will expose would-be sexual predators. 21:31.820 --> 21:32.700 [SPEAKER_00]: But in doing so, 21:33.420 --> 21:38.082 [SPEAKER_00]: something is also going to be exposed and stripped naked almost about Hanson. 21:38.543 --> 21:47.247 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I find that really fascinating in it, lends the whole film, the whole beginning of the film, especially this poignancy, like it really announces what this movie is going to do. 21:47.267 --> 21:54.991 [SPEAKER_00]: What was that the intention for you, or yeah, but tell me through what that opening line that we hear again and again. 21:55.071 --> 21:56.012 [SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean to you? 21:57.312 --> 22:15.019 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I had, you know, the bird in, I would call it, of having to read all of these chat logs, which are mostly publicly available, so I would read these chat logs that these, you know, alleged online predators would have with the, you know, the decoys. 22:16.980 --> 22:34.787 [SPEAKER_02]: those those first of all those lines are really from that character married and looking from and married and looking for fun 31313 which which I was like you know while I was sort of sifting through those transcripts I was like you know I had this sort of option to like 22:35.997 --> 22:55.006 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I could choose something a little more mundane or I could choose something that is it's true first of all and you know you point right at it it's kind of tells us what the whole movie's about you find those moments in screenplay as you can't fight them they write themselves I guess but yeah and and you know the fact that you know 22:55.266 --> 23:13.042 [SPEAKER_02]: It was really important to me, and I think it's really satisfying in the movie where you're citing these things and then he gets to say them right to the guy, you know, only a few minutes later, he says the same exact words, and he says it on his, you know, his stage for lack of better term. 23:14.023 --> 23:16.345 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think that's exactly right. 23:16.645 --> 23:18.067 [SPEAKER_02]: I think you pointed it out exactly right. 23:19.147 --> 23:34.595 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me about approaching the sense of theatre about the stings, like it, this is a very tiny detail and I'm not sure if it was Lance's contribution or if it was something that was on the page, but the sound of the switch of the curtains as Chris reveals himself. 23:35.115 --> 23:47.522 [SPEAKER_00]: It is so theatrical to the point of pantomime and I'm curious for you how you approached that in that opening scene where we're seeing him at work and we're seeing what this show was all about. 23:49.360 --> 24:03.168 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think we absolutely, we always talked about him as like this just phenomenal actor like whether or not Chris Hanson views himself as an actor, we think like there is this beautiful preparation that goes into it. 24:11.653 --> 24:17.974 [SPEAKER_02]: I think they really made, you know, they really were very particular about how to make those moments feel very alive. 24:18.275 --> 24:30.057 [SPEAKER_02]: But we always talked about it like a stage, you know, these moments where he's like in the green room, you know, he's in the back, like kind of someone before opening night, you know, of their big performance, you know, on Broadway. 24:30.877 --> 24:36.099 [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about these same things, even like kind of the way his, his feet sound on the wood, you know. 24:38.079 --> 24:47.825 [SPEAKER_02]: And in some of the things, it's like, I think there's an incredible attention to detail, I think Lance really, you know, he really focused on stuff like that and he really brought it out. 24:48.825 --> 25:04.254 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it was always there from the start, this idea of like performance and what it means to be a performer and of course that comes in with the Dan character, most of all, because he actually views himself as an actor and then Chris says nothing I do is acting Dan, you know, later on. 25:04.634 --> 25:14.352 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like kind of these two conflicting perspectives, I guess, but the switch of the curtain is a great detail and it's really, it's really funny. 25:19.142 --> 25:25.486 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, this is Al, just jumping into a mind, the writers among you that scripted a part offers screenplay coverage. 25:26.167 --> 25:30.250 [SPEAKER_00]: Meaning, if you've got a script in a wondering, hey, what about this is working? 25:30.510 --> 25:31.931 [SPEAKER_00]: What's perhaps not working? 25:32.151 --> 25:36.494 [SPEAKER_00]: And what are the actionable steps I can take to make it the best it can be? 25:37.154 --> 25:45.160 [SPEAKER_00]: I've got you covered, I've worked on over 150 projects, many of which are now in development at Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV and more. 25:45.820 --> 25:47.385 [SPEAKER_00]: But don't take my word for whether it's good. 25:47.726 --> 25:51.618 [SPEAKER_00]: This is what people who've 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time is scriptapart.com forward slash coverage. 26:40.534 --> 26:42.636 [SPEAKER_00]: Or you can click the link in today's show notes. 26:43.676 --> 26:45.538 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's get back to the conversation. 26:47.668 --> 27:01.348 [SPEAKER_00]: We don't find ourselves in this plain scene that's really clever in terms of a vehicle for exposition that feels really natural like Chris has been spotted by someone who has seen him on TV and views it as righteous work. 27:02.409 --> 27:05.610 [SPEAKER_00]: this very revealing exchange between the two of them. 27:06.890 --> 27:11.011 [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of significant I think that Chris is participating in this conversation. 27:11.051 --> 27:13.832 [SPEAKER_00]: He's almost relishing the attention of it all. 27:15.393 --> 27:19.894 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's also something really fascinating that I think is kind of key to the film. 27:20.774 --> 27:26.236 [SPEAKER_00]: The guy asks him, do you not just want to kind of paraphrase and do you not want to 27:31.063 --> 27:37.787 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't you ever want to bleed them and he replies, the punishment essentially is worse than killing them, they're being televised. 27:37.807 --> 27:37.967 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 27:38.368 --> 27:41.269 [SPEAKER_00]: And again, that's going to come back later in the film. 27:41.349 --> 27:45.212 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a line that Chris says about how they used to be a pillory in every village. 27:45.412 --> 27:47.814 [SPEAKER_00]: Now there's a television, every living room. 27:48.754 --> 27:57.860 [SPEAKER_00]: He talks to me about that strain of the film, and yeah, the kind of like, it's not just a case of handing them over to the cops. 27:57.920 --> 28:06.125 [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that they are being televised, the public humiliation of it all, it does have almost ancient roots. 28:06.145 --> 28:09.947 [SPEAKER_00]: This is something that societies have done for as long as society 28:15.533 --> 28:33.801 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, that conversation that he had is actually from his book, but a big part of his mission is trying to understand why, you know, these online predators do what they do or a child predators do what they do. 28:34.442 --> 28:39.844 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not sure he's still come to a conclusion, I think he has like ideas, but 28:41.445 --> 28:56.378 [SPEAKER_02]: I think the idea of like humiliation versus just brutal punishment is, in fact, what we were just talking about now with the TikTok of it all, you know, it's like now we're seeing both sides of it, we're seeing kind of like the, the, the, 28:56.898 --> 29:15.644 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, sort of the polished version and we're seeing the true like don't you ever want to bleed it a bleed in version And you know that the pilloring every town That's one of my favorite scenes in the whole film because whether or not you believe this is a good thing It's happening and it's always happened 29:15.864 --> 29:19.887 [SPEAKER_02]: and it's a part of human nature to look towards the pillory. 29:20.287 --> 29:32.655 [SPEAKER_02]: And to, you know, there's a reason pillory's work, or there's a reason, you know, public executions used to work is because they were effective at getting people's attention, you know, and people would show up and they were almost like this sort of event. 29:33.916 --> 29:37.438 [SPEAKER_02]: There is something really, you know, profound about that. 29:37.658 --> 29:40.760 [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I'm still trying to unpack exactly what it means, but, 29:42.401 --> 30:06.348 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was hoping in that scene to really captivate that this is not like this new thing that we're experiencing and I'm trying to capture that this is not exactly this new thing that we're experiencing and culture, this is like something that is almost built into like the DNA of human beings and you know, are we supposed to fight that and like how are we supposed to, you know, fight that part of ourselves are we supposed to give in. 30:08.692 --> 30:10.453 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's, that's the short of it. 30:10.693 --> 30:26.698 [SPEAKER_00]: It does strike me though that there's, there's another version of this story that kind of lionizes Chris in a much less complicated way where he's a more straightforward hero where perhaps we're seeing the origins of his crusade against these predators. 30:26.738 --> 30:32.259 [SPEAKER_00]: He's out of no reading and then newspaper a story and he gets infuriated and that's the kind of 30:35.120 --> 30:45.295 [SPEAKER_00]: but but this story doesn't seem interested in that necessarily like there's never an explanation for his like urge to do this work and instead 30:46.280 --> 30:58.007 [SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of kind of motivation seen in terms of his relationship with stone Phillips and these other kind of petty rivalries that are kind of driving him. 30:58.567 --> 31:00.028 [SPEAKER_00]: So how did you calibrate that? 31:00.068 --> 31:14.917 [SPEAKER_00]: How did you work out like the degree to which you wanted to acknowledge that this is something he yes cares about and wants to, you know, he wants to take predators off the streets, but at the same time he's also kind of motivated by something less righteous and more selfish 31:18.011 --> 31:25.314 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, we were trying to, like, walk online, like we don't exactly just want to build it. 31:25.334 --> 31:26.334 [SPEAKER_02]: We don't want to villainize Chris. 31:26.354 --> 31:29.055 [SPEAKER_02]: We just wanted to present him as a complicated person. 31:30.495 --> 31:35.757 [SPEAKER_02]: And when you have a show that's doing well on national television, 31:37.300 --> 31:41.003 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you have this urge to you want to dominate. 31:41.163 --> 31:50.691 [SPEAKER_02]: Like there is this part of you that is, you know, industrious and he calls it an enterprise journalism. 31:50.731 --> 31:54.314 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think he views himself as sort of like someone who like, 31:55.460 --> 32:10.063 [SPEAKER_02]: is doing the right thing, which is, you know, to his credit, maybe he is, but he's also, I think he is an end guy, like he works in journalism and he knows how ratings work and, you know, I think he's a very smart person. 32:10.484 --> 32:18.525 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think what we were trying to play with is like, look, maybe he started out in the film as like this guy who's like, you know, fuck we need to kill loss. 32:18.545 --> 32:21.886 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've been given this, you know, directive to go kill loss. 32:25.587 --> 32:50.762 [SPEAKER_02]: And then, by the end of the film, he's so overwhelmed by all of these different forces that play in his life and his personal life and his professional life that he starts to remember this sort of, you know, story that he's told, you know, or that he's about the wolves in India and like this idea of an ancient evil, and it's not actually about Stone Phyllis and it's not 32:55.405 --> 33:15.094 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and he will fucking do it like he believes that and I think that's kind of the idea of like we're trying to show him go from maybe This is a version of you know a dramatized version of Chris Hanson, but he's going from a version that is sort of petty going and cares about ratings to someone who believes that he can rid all of the evil and 33:16.134 --> 33:26.579 [SPEAKER_02]: And then he has that power, and that was a big part of my conversation with Rob, which was like, we wanted to make him feel like sort of an angel, an angel of punishment by the end of the film. 33:26.939 --> 33:33.202 [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's captivated by, you know, or he's so motivated by like these things that you cannot control in life. 33:33.623 --> 33:44.768 [SPEAKER_02]: Like the idea of even like saying that you want to conquer evil is such a vague sort of like, but our character believes that, you know, he is on the path of something great and the wolf is there. 33:45.088 --> 33:46.409 [SPEAKER_02]: and the wolfman is the whale. 33:46.489 --> 33:48.369 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like all of these things. 33:48.389 --> 33:50.330 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a monster, a demon, you know? 33:51.931 --> 33:55.633 [SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, that was kind of the fun that we tried to have with it. 33:55.653 --> 34:05.237 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, how do you take something that starts out fairly relatable and small and just crank it to the most extreme version of that journey? 34:06.797 --> 34:14.781 [SPEAKER_00]: the supernatural flourish of that monster and how many times we see him and the different locations in which we glimpse him. 34:15.842 --> 34:17.062 [SPEAKER_00]: Was that always in the script? 34:17.142 --> 34:25.406 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a swing for the fences and I loved it but I can imagine there were some conversations presumably about like how it sat within this story. 34:26.857 --> 34:34.099 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it was once Rob Lens and I started working together, it was immediately in the script. 34:34.139 --> 34:43.842 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it was something that I had found this article from the 90s from the New York Times, and it was basically about these child disappearances in the Pradesh, India. 34:44.742 --> 34:47.205 [SPEAKER_02]: and I became so taken by this idea. 34:47.265 --> 34:49.848 [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, what if we put these two worlds together? 34:49.868 --> 34:56.396 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I thought it was profoundly relevant in many ways as, you know, you see in the film. 34:57.537 --> 35:01.101 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think actually with the reversion of the film that had a lot more, um, 35:02.022 --> 35:06.426 [SPEAKER_02]: of that and then there were versions where it was really paired back and I think we found a good balance. 35:06.746 --> 35:23.581 [SPEAKER_02]: At this point I'm pretty pleased with the way it's functioning in the film because it's supposed to motivate basically the final stretch of Chris's character as this, you know, I'm trying to think of the term because we've used a kind of this angel of punishment is like the 35:26.806 --> 35:47.997 [SPEAKER_00]: Interesting fact to hear that there is this poetry to the fact that Chris of course is being pursued by the National Inquira during all this because he's had enough air and he's about to be publicly humiliated with a glee and a relish over his transgression in a way that kind of echoes what he does. 35:49.097 --> 35:53.158 [SPEAKER_00]: And that is just a fascinating piece of poetry that kind of lifts this story. 35:53.178 --> 35:58.139 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it like, it lends to a sense of who watches the watchments or this. 35:58.479 --> 36:06.501 [SPEAKER_00]: There is, and the fact that the connector tissue between Chris and Bill Conrad, you know, that is fascinating. 36:06.521 --> 36:13.563 [SPEAKER_00]: You have these people and at some point it's set allowed in the movie, this idea that like the people who are supposed to catch the predators themselves, 36:14.383 --> 36:22.493 [SPEAKER_00]: are flawed and, you know, they are engaging in different tiers of elicit behavior, but elicit behavior on all the same. 36:23.294 --> 36:32.025 [SPEAKER_00]: Key told me about like knitting that altogether because he is being pursued, as I say, and it's kind of threatening to topple him as he kind of chases his own way. 36:34.329 --> 36:51.889 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, to kind of add on to what we were talking about before, it's like, Lanes and I would talk endlessly about how to create as many external forces on Chris to get him to that final point, or he is so, um, he's like a mythological beast in them. 36:51.929 --> 36:52.370 [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, 36:52.950 --> 37:01.717 [SPEAKER_02]: He sees himself on this sort of mythological, you know, voyage, and I think the inquire was one of those ways. 37:01.998 --> 37:11.746 [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the inquire did, you know, he has his history with the inquire, and that's, you know, there, you know, a publication, you know, it states that many people have strong opinions about. 37:12.846 --> 37:21.353 [SPEAKER_02]: But we did find it interesting, like, as one of those pressure points, and we would call it, like, you know, they were really pressure points of these different things that 37:22.254 --> 37:33.434 [SPEAKER_02]: push brisk to some sort of brink, you know, and, you know, it's, it's, you know, it, I think there is a commentary in it. 37:35.235 --> 37:38.277 [SPEAKER_02]: that you are highlighting, that is sort of interesting. 37:38.317 --> 37:47.143 [SPEAKER_02]: But also, Chris, on Dateline NBC, is just objectively on a more serious news network. 37:47.784 --> 37:53.968 [SPEAKER_02]: And then being pursued by someone who does more tabloid work, I think was also a part of the conversation. 37:54.028 --> 37:58.631 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like understanding, you know, he even calls it in the movie, it's a hatchet job, you know? 37:59.532 --> 38:13.643 [SPEAKER_02]: They just know I'm going to do something big, it's like, I think it's how this person works through all these different, you know, sort of, these forces, whether he believes that they're from evil or from, you know, just flawed humanity itself. 38:14.824 --> 38:20.546 [SPEAKER_00]: For that commentary, I mean, you mentioned Dan, a real-life person, Dan Shrak, in the film it's Dan Plum. 38:21.747 --> 38:34.712 [SPEAKER_00]: That commentary you mentioned, that's alive in his story as well, because, um, well, this is, the show is ostensibly about stopping the exploitation of young people, and yet he himself as a young person is exploited. 38:35.512 --> 38:37.713 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a moment where Andy, the producer, 38:38.573 --> 38:43.777 [SPEAKER_00]: tool extents and purposes drugs him after his encounter with that guy who puts whipped cream on his penis. 38:44.077 --> 38:48.280 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that is borderline, predatory behavior. 38:48.300 --> 38:52.683 [SPEAKER_00]: I know it's not of the same kind of like extremity as the people they're catching on the show. 38:53.263 --> 39:03.310 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's something shady and dark and uncomfortable and grubby about that and it feels like it's in conversation with what we're 39:05.892 --> 39:28.513 [SPEAKER_00]: It feels like you add this all together and it does feel like this film is trying to explore in some part this idea of he who casts the first stone and I'm curious for you like what the intention was there and and yeah whether there was I know you don't write from a place of message and you were writing this as piece of exploration about your own feelings about all this stuff but yeah how do you reflect back on that component of the film? 39:30.107 --> 39:45.702 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the first thing is I, I always imagined that was at Adville, so I don't have as, you know, I don't view it so as darkly as you seem to, but it's interesting that you, that you view it that way. 39:45.882 --> 39:48.565 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, in the film it's like, I get stressed migraines. 39:48.885 --> 39:50.507 [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's absolutely readable. 39:50.567 --> 39:52.148 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a an act of, um, 39:53.029 --> 39:58.917 [SPEAKER_00]: an act of kindness, but my partner suffers from migraines and the drugs she takes. 39:58.997 --> 40:01.401 [SPEAKER_00]: They, you are, you are very serious. 40:01.541 --> 40:02.722 [SPEAKER_00]: You're zonked afterwards. 40:02.762 --> 40:03.023 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 40:03.303 --> 40:09.752 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's why I read it that way, but perhaps it's a bit more innocuous and maybe it is even an act of kindness, as you say. 40:09.892 --> 40:13.674 [SPEAKER_02]: No, I have terrible migraines as well. 40:14.494 --> 40:18.056 [SPEAKER_02]: So I've definitely had experience with all sorts of stuff. 40:18.096 --> 40:19.757 [SPEAKER_02]: But Adville is my go-to. 40:19.777 --> 40:33.063 [SPEAKER_02]: In that moment, however, it is interesting because the dance rack character, or rather the Dan Plum character, which we kind of created as a composite of all of these different decoys that we read about. 40:33.103 --> 40:36.165 [SPEAKER_02]: And we were really just kind of trying to understand 40:38.946 --> 40:44.430 [SPEAKER_02]: and being thrust into, you know, this is, you know, supposedly his big break in his career, right? 40:44.450 --> 40:48.412 [SPEAKER_02]: He's been, he's done toys, our us commercials and all of these things. 40:49.253 --> 40:53.515 [SPEAKER_02]: But this is his first opportunity to kind of be a national television. 40:53.535 --> 40:55.477 [SPEAKER_02]: He's getting paid five grand per episode. 40:56.217 --> 41:03.522 [SPEAKER_02]: And for us, it was really about like, what happens when your dream isn't playing out exactly like you thought it would be? 41:04.742 --> 41:14.475 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and then throughout the course of the, you know, the film, this character has opportunities where he's like, all right, maybe this is the dream that I always imagine. 41:14.796 --> 41:20.684 [SPEAKER_02]: Not sure what this is, but maybe this is the opportunity and he starts practicing and he gets really good at it, you know. 41:22.184 --> 41:39.851 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, you watch some of the decoys in the show, they're fucking great, they're really good at what they do, they're incredible improvisers, they have these opportunities to really showcase their talent as actors, which is really bizarre because the people they're playing against are true online, you know, alleged predators. 41:40.291 --> 41:41.012 [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, 41:41.772 --> 41:54.023 [SPEAKER_02]: The whole experiment is really, really strange, but we were very concerned with this idea of this character trying to rise to the occasion of this big performance, which you get at the end, you know, with the character wrestling dude. 41:55.485 --> 41:58.608 [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I think I would just leave it at that. 41:58.648 --> 41:59.589 [SPEAKER_02]: It's about a dream. 41:59.929 --> 42:05.594 [SPEAKER_02]: It's about, and having to confront, you know, when the fantasy of that dream 42:08.860 --> 42:09.520 [SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting. 42:09.760 --> 42:12.142 [SPEAKER_00]: Dan, well, a couple of things. 42:12.622 --> 42:14.723 [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, the film ends with Dan. 42:15.043 --> 42:16.224 [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't end with Chris. 42:16.624 --> 42:18.045 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's significant. 42:18.685 --> 42:28.270 [SPEAKER_00]: It's also interesting that he extends the kind of like, the most humane behavior in the film, like he's kind of like the moral heartbeat of it in a way. 42:28.470 --> 42:36.114 [SPEAKER_00]: And at that, in that horrible final moment with Bill Conrad, like he sings some seasons of love from rent, 42:36.474 --> 42:54.657 [SPEAKER_00]: and it's just a real moment, but it feels almost like an active kindness and a sort of a mission of regret, almost, but that all feels so significant, taught me through all of that, taught me through the necessity of that song in that moment and why you decided to end the film not with Chris, but with Dan. 42:55.061 --> 43:15.928 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think it kind of, it's a carry on of the last question, which is like, again, I was personally, you know, I can't speak for Lancers and the other people involved, but I was more concerned with the dream, you know, and he's sitting there and there's this giant police operation taking place with a, you know, a political figure. 43:16.971 --> 43:19.753 [SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, what am I doing here? 43:19.873 --> 43:22.695 [SPEAKER_02]: Like there is this question of like, I'm an actor. 43:22.755 --> 43:26.718 [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to be a musical, you know, Chris says different worlds. 43:26.738 --> 43:32.442 [SPEAKER_02]: So here in the film, but it's like, he has this opportunity that's supposed to be his biggest stage now. 43:32.522 --> 43:36.085 [SPEAKER_02]: The biggest moment of his life, you know, Chris says show time, you know? 43:36.745 --> 43:37.226 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, 43:38.801 --> 43:48.166 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he knows what what the fuck to do, like he just starts doing the thing that he always dreamed he would do, which is saying on state, on some sort of stage. 43:48.966 --> 43:58.531 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's crushing for him as he realizes that like, you know, this is not going to be the thing that gets him to the promise land of his career. 43:58.551 --> 44:01.213 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's devastating. 44:01.233 --> 44:06.115 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why that's seen as so emotional for me, for that character. 44:07.876 --> 44:16.764 [SPEAKER_02]: you know, me watching it is like it's it's someone kind of coming to grips with something with a loss of something in that moment. 44:17.604 --> 44:21.888 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I think that very final moment is that, you know, 44:25.591 --> 44:27.051 [SPEAKER_02]: as the dream truly left. 44:27.372 --> 44:32.973 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like you moved on, you know, you look a little scruffier, you're hiding behind the door a little bit, you're like, who are these people? 44:33.013 --> 44:34.473 [SPEAKER_02]: Who's this person at my door? 44:35.294 --> 44:40.875 [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, you're given this opportunity from that heavens, this, you know, sad card. 44:41.835 --> 44:47.077 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, are you an actor, you know, that final question, I think it's like, 44:48.022 --> 45:13.164 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's though the reason we ended with that is like that is kind of like the great question at the end of the film it's like again this is about like is this about a performance is this about entertainment is this about crime what are the intentions behind all that you know I don't really even have the answer but that was the question I felt like Lance tonight agreed that would probably be the most fitting for the end of the film you know. 45:14.623 --> 45:19.766 [SPEAKER_00]: and to tell Dan's story as well as you do, although, of course, somewhat fictionalized. 45:19.786 --> 45:24.288 [SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose also to tell Chris's story, like, you clearly did a lot of research. 45:24.308 --> 45:27.690 [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned earlier, you were kind of in the weeds with the transcripts and things like that. 45:28.310 --> 45:36.534 [SPEAKER_00]: Did you get a chance to speak to any of these people, like who from the real life show were you able to speak to in that research phase before you put PentePaper? 45:37.583 --> 45:53.376 [SPEAKER_02]: No, I think we did so much freedom and we listened to Chris's podcast, you know, we basically studied them so much, but we are telling this dramatized version that, you know, truthfully I think we had. 45:54.176 --> 46:05.841 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we needed, or at least Lance and I felt that, and we wanted to create composites for a lot of these characters, and we wanted to kind of observe them from afar, I think, in a way too. 46:06.982 --> 46:12.404 [SPEAKER_02]: So, we never did, but the research part of this process was extensive. 46:12.424 --> 46:15.826 [SPEAKER_02]: I did research for months and months leading up to even. 46:16.126 --> 46:20.768 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's my process generally as I do research for months, and I outline for months. 46:21.168 --> 46:24.410 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I can I've usually write the script in like two two weeks. 46:24.910 --> 46:32.954 [SPEAKER_02]: So even for this film I did so much work up top that, you know, the actual writing of the script was pretty quick. 46:34.335 --> 46:39.077 [SPEAKER_02]: But of course, the editing process and the redrafting process, you know, takes ages. 46:39.117 --> 46:44.400 [SPEAKER_02]: And but thankfully, because of Rob schedule, we had the opportunity to really turn on the 46:50.622 --> 47:00.526 [SPEAKER_00]: And just finally, um, you spent a lot of time staring into that quote, unquote, ancient evil that Chris describes in terms of the subject matter of this movie. 47:00.826 --> 47:08.469 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's trying to answer an unanswerable question of why people do this and what the right way is to kind of put a stop to it. 47:09.050 --> 47:16.913 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you're also working, I believe, on a spiderpunk movie, was that kind of working kind of like concurrently to this project or, um, 47:17.153 --> 47:31.013 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it must be nice to have the escape of that which, although I'm sure we'll have like serious themes and kind of resonance in like it must be lighter, it must be kind of a nice escape after doing something that involves such heaviness. 47:32.435 --> 47:59.823 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I mean, there was a point where I was like, you know, I went to my girlfriend and I was like, oh, I think about these interviews with these predators, you know, these alleged predators, I was reading their transcripts for hours and hours and I found it so heavy that when Spider Pump came, in fact, it was Daniel Kuluya who reached out to me first and he was the person that was basically like, he had read an early draft of to catch a predator and a prime time and he was like, 48:02.023 --> 48:05.965 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, he said, remember he was like, I can tell you not to miss behaves. 48:06.465 --> 48:11.927 [SPEAKER_02]: He said that, and I was like, bang, so I was like, that was the best compliment I've ever received as a writer. 48:13.207 --> 48:17.629 [SPEAKER_02]: So he and I, you know, I think we connected really quickly. 48:17.689 --> 48:27.493 [SPEAKER_02]: And it is nice, but a lot, you know, there are a lot of shared things and an interesting way, like the character of spider punk is, you know, harshly anti-authority and it's like, 48:28.513 --> 48:49.303 [SPEAKER_02]: he is punk and like I feel like this movie prime time is punk in a lot of ways it's like it was ill-advised you know many people told us it wasn't worth our time and it feels like now you know we have the world at our back you know if we we we feel so supported and you know it's the positive but yeah to answer your questions by the punk with the nice escape 48:49.763 --> 48:58.486 [SPEAKER_02]: But it actually came in right as I was like finishing production on prime time, so it was a nice way to, you know, transition out. 48:59.346 --> 49:00.486 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm looking forward to it. 49:00.526 --> 49:04.527 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to all your future, Miss Behaviour, as Daniel Kulu would say. 49:04.547 --> 49:08.769 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks so much for coming on this show, Man, and congrats again on this movie. 49:09.209 --> 49:10.229 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Great. 49:10.369 --> 49:12.810 [SPEAKER_02]: It was so great talk, and thank you. 49:15.336 --> 49:21.786 [SPEAKER_00]: There you have it, that was my conversation with a Jones sing, discussing the first rough secrets of prime time. 49:22.827 --> 49:30.099 [SPEAKER_00]: I know I say it every week guys, but thank you so much for listening in and listening all the way to this message at the end, that's commitment right there. 49:30.979 --> 49:41.545 [SPEAKER_00]: I do appreciate it, I will be back in a couple of days with another new episode, Rashida Jones, and Wilma Kormack on my next guests discussing the invite. 49:42.206 --> 49:43.747 [SPEAKER_00]: So be sure to look out for that one. 49:44.547 --> 49:52.392 [SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't already signed up to our Substack, head to scriptedpart.substack.com for exclusive interviews and exclusive essays, 49:53.172 --> 50:00.597 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're off to script coverage, comprehensive notes on your screenplay, head to script part.com forward slash coverage. 50:02.058 --> 50:06.921 [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time guys, take it easy out there, thanks again once more for being here, and I'll catch you soon.