The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2022/the-billion-dollar-episode).
**John August:** Hey, this is John. Heads up that today’s episode has just a little bit of swearing in it.
Hello and welcome. My name is John August. This is Episode 575 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. One billion dollars, that’s the cost for entry for today’s How Would This Be a Movie segment, where we take a look at stories in the news and ask ourselves, huh, is this something I could watch on the screen somewhere?
Who is this we? We are down one Craig. Luckily, we found a comedian, actor, writer, podcaster, and very experienced host to fill in. You might know him from Fire Island, I Love That for You, or as one half of the Las Culturistas podcast. His new Showtime special, Have You Heard of Christmas, stream started December 2nd. Welcome to the program Matt Rogers.
**Matt Rogers:** I am so happy to be on the program. Thank you, John. I’m a massive fan, which I think I told you the first time we interacted over direct message, which is exclusively how we’ve known each other up to this point.
**John:** It’s so weird, because as we were starting to record… Do we know each other? It’s a real 2022 question, because we chat on direct messages on Instagram. That’s the extent of our relationship up until this moment.
**Matt:** I also guess it just matters how much of ourselves we put into our work, because if you’ve put a ton of yourself into your work, which I’ve seen many, many times… I often cite Big Fish as one of my favorite films. It’s in my top five again and again and again. Then I feel maybe I know you quite well, but this will be an opportunity to heighten that.
**John:** I also have a bit of a parasocial relationship with you because of the podcast you do with Bowen Yang. Obviously, you’re putting a lot of yourself in that podcast every week. I hear you, and I feel like I know you through that, because you’re talking about your ups and your downs and all the stuff in between. It’s a strange way that we know each other.
**Matt:** I think probably I share about 90% of my reality on that podcast. 10% you gotta keep hidden, which I think is a good rule of thumb.
**John:** That sounds like the iceberg motto, yeah.
**Matt:** Exactly. In a world where 90% of icebergs are above the surface, that’s the Las Culturistas podcast. Maybe for Bowen it’s 70/30.
**John:** Absolutely. We’ll see if we can just sink the Titanic with this. On this podcast, I want to talk to you about your origin stories or how you got started, because I think of you as a performer, but you’re also a writer too. You wrote on The Other Two. You wrote on Q-Force. I want to talk about balancing being a performer and being a writer on other people’s stuff. We have obviously a bunch of billion-dollar stories to talk through. Megana also picked out some listener questions I think are going to be perfect for you to answer.
**Matt:** Awesome. I’m ready, locked and loaded.
**John:** Let’s get into this. Let’s get into some origin story stuff.
**Matt:** Cool.
**John:** You went to NYU. Were you always a funny person who wanted to perform? When did you start to find your lane?
**Matt:** As a kid, I grew up on Long Island. I grew up in a very sporty atmosphere. My father was a varsity football and baseball coach. I think ever since I was a young child, I definitely wanted to participate in those types of activities, perhaps to impress him and make him proud, like any kid with their dad. There was always this thing in me, I think around the 1997 Oscars and the Titanic fever, when I was like, “What’s going on here? What’s this world? What’s this industry?” I was very susceptible to that Hollywood environment. It really hooked me just through the television. Then I think I realized, oh, maybe there’s something inside me that wants to perform.
By the time I got to college, I felt like I was distant enough from the atmosphere where I had to be very, very closeted on Long Island, and I was. I went to NYU and I think did a year there in a general studies program, and then I transferred into Tisch, truly willing myself into Tisch.
It’s true that basically I always wanted to be an actor and a performer and a comedian by the time I got to New York and was around 19 years old, but I just didn’t have the confidence in myself to go into Tisch and audition with a monologue, because I had never acted before. What I knew I could do as an AP English student, I was like, “I can write 25 pages of new material,” which was the requirement to get into dramatic writing at Tisch. I did that and got in.
I thought, “Great, I hacked the system. I’m in Tisch now. I can find a way to perform and act while being in this school.” Lo and behold, I realized I had a passion for writing, a talent for writing, and I basically was able to find performance as well through sketch comedy. I joined my sketch comedy group at NYU, which was called Hammerkatz, which was a legacy sketch comedy group at NYU. Its alumni are Donald Glover and Rachel Bloom. Those are just a couple of the names. They’ve obviously gone on to become these-
**John:** Titans of industry, yes.
**Matt:** … celebrated multi-hyphenates in their own right. I would even say I was addicted to writing and performing sketch comedy. It was my entire reason for living. It was really what propelled me forward in terms of… I was all of a sudden this prolific person. I would come into the sketch meetings with… If people were required to bring in two new ideas or two new sketches or even two new one-pagers, which is what we call it when you bring in just the first page of a sketch just to get the game out, I would bring in five. I was just always feeling like volume was going to get me to a place where I would produce something good. I always said, when I was directing the group, “If you have 10 ideas, one of them is good, so bring in volume.”
**John:** What is this schedule for this? Was it weekly meetings where you’d have to do this and then you’re putting up that show later on that same week?
**Matt:** Correct. We did monthly shows. We did new monthly shows. Probably there was 10, 11 sketches in the show. We would have writers’ meetings on Monday evenings. I eventually became the head writer and director of the sketch group. Sudi Green was my assistant, who went on to become a writing supervisor of Saturday Night Live. We ran the group together. We really, really, really took it seriously. It was also around this time that I met Bowen Yang, when he was in the improv group at NYU. We became this coterie of students of sketch comedy and also participants in the New York comedy scene very young.
I was not only doing that, but I was studying writing. I did get my major in a concentration in television writing at NYU Tisch, but also took screenwriting and playwriting. I had a really well-rounded writing education by the time I left, but really my passion was writing and performing sketch comedy. I paired that with taking classes at UCB.
Then all throughout my 20s, I found musical sketch comedy. I was the artistic director of a musical sketch group with Sudi and Bowen called Pop Roulette. We were an indie group in New York for several years. Then started performing on my own. Before I knew it, Bowen and I had the podcast, which started in 2016. All of a sudden, it was apparent to me that I didn’t have to hide in sketch anymore. I could also use my own voice for comedy. All of that in my 20s coalesced to create the me of now.
Now I have Have You Heard of Christmas, which takes all of those things and puts them together. It’s all original music. It’s stand-up. It’s sketch. It’s very much a narrative piece, actually. It’s not just a person up there singing cabaret songs. It’s actually a narrative piece. It almost feels like a book end, like I started and ended, and I have this. It feels almost like a love letter to myself all through my 20s when I started. It’s this thing I have at the end of my 20s and the end of my time in New York that I get to share with people now.
**John:** You fast-forwarded through a part that I actually want to dig into more deeply-
**Matt:** Sorry.
**John:** … because transitioning from you’re working at this sketch group at the university, but then having to move beyond that to actual professional spaces where you don’t have the excuse that, “I’m just a student.” Was UCB a crucial part of that? How did you move from being a student where you have that protection to you’re out there in the real world? You must’ve had a job. What were you doing to pay the bills while you’re trying to figure out how to make a living as a writer/performer?
**Matt:** I was waiting tables. I waited tables for a decade in New York. That was not my favorite thing to do. This is actually funny. When I was very young, I went to a Screen Actors Guild screening of the movie Zero Dark Thirty. Jessica Chastain was there. I’ll always forget… I’ll always forget.
**John:** Always forget.
**Matt:** I’ll always forget what she said. I’ll always remember what she said, which was, “Do one thing every single day that reminds you why you’re an actor,” is what she said. I said, “I’m going to do one thing every day that reminds me why I’m a comedian actor/writer.” I made sure to always keep an anchor on something, even if it was something as small as sending an email that would further my career or something.
When it came to transitioning to professional situations, that really didn’t happen, because everything was very self-start-y all throughout my 20s. I did not get a job in the industry until I was hired as a writer on The Other Two in 2019, so for the second season of The Other Two, which was a huge wake-up call in terms of how the industry works and how a writers’ room works. If I had a note for NYU dramatic writing, Tisch, it’s they should think about how a writers’ room actually works, which they have to know, because they’re all adjunct professors.
The industry had changed so much from the time I had graduated to the time I was hired on that show, because I graduated in 2012 where they were still teaching spec scriptwriting, so I left school with a Modern Family, which is something that no showrunner is going to look at and consider as a worthy sample for their writers’ room in 2019 when I’m hired on The Other Two. By that time, it was more about reputation, and it was more about original work. It was really interesting the way that it changed very quickly.
What I did get out of my time at NYU were my connections and my friends and my eventual colleagues, because I’ve continued to work with all of them. It was being seeped in the environment of New York City, of creatives that really was the thing I took from school. I know this is a frustrating answer for some people who they’re more comfortable simply just putting stuff on the page and then sending it out or having themselves represented on the page, but it really was more social connections and maintaining and watering those connections I had with peers, lifting people up myself, that ultimately resulted in me getting hired, because I knew Chris and Sarah, who created The Other Two.
**John:** They came from Saturday Night Live, so they were part of that whole environment.
**Matt:** Right, and they had become fans of the podcast.
**John:** Great.
**Matt:** Then I had them on the podcast, and we really hit it off, and so they put me in their room as a staff writer. That was my first job in the business.
**John:** Now, during this time where you’re waiting tables, you’re doing other stuff, were you also submitting packets for late-night shows? What were your goals? Ashley Nicole Black has been on the show talking us through that process, and it seems crazy. You’re trying to put together the best packet, but clearly there’s also a who you know to even know that they’re looking for packets.
**Matt:** Absolutely. It was a fool’s errand for me when I was submitting late-night packets, because I didn’t know anyone at the time. I was 23, 24, 25. Eventually, I just realized this is not my skill. I always thought, weirdly enough, it’s just not what I… Even though I’ve written sketch, I wasn’t good at the monologue jokes of it all. I really couldn’t stand writing in the voices of some of these hosts, just because they were not my voice.
It’s really difficult when you have a packet, and these are 10 monologue jokes that will go in Jimmy Fallon’s voice or Jimmy Kimmel’s voice or any Jimmy really. That was not my skill, because it’s also a lot of times coming up with centerpiece bits that people can do and less sketch ideas for people. It’s some sort of thing where Jimmy can go in front of a green screen and something behind him is surprising. It’s more creating bits than it is doing, and this is going to sound shady, it’s not, actual comedy. It’s more responsive to the environment and the ecosystem of what’s happening, which doesn’t necessarily have to be hard jokes.
Everything I wanted to do was writing television, being in television, and doing sketch. Ultimately, I did end up sending several packets to SNL. That never went forward. I did screen tests for SNL and did the whole thing, actually alongside Bowen. They had us both on hold for six months. Ultimately, they cast him, and I was released. Then I moved to LA and worked on The Other Two. I went as far as you possibly could in the SNL process without getting hired.
**John:** When you go in for one of these final things at SNL, are they going to bring you in as a performer, a writer, or both? I know Bowen was really more of a writer before he was a performer.
**Matt:** It’s interesting the way it works, because if you are screen testing, they can decide to do whatever they want with you. You sign a contract before you even get on that stage. It basically says we can put you in the writers’ room, we can do whatever. Bowen was put in the writers’ room first, but that’s not because they didn’t want him to perform. It was a thing of, let’s see how he does in the atmosphere of Saturday Night Live before we move into cast, which I think was almost a good thing, because then you’re not thrown to the wolves as a featured cast member, and sink or swim. He also did get to do a bit with Sandra Oh on the show.
That’s the way it works there. It’s a more holistic thing. It’s less like, oh, you auditioned for a performer, and so we’re only seeing you for that, or we saw your packet and so you’re only going in the room. It’s much more of a chaotic process that makes a lot less sense than you would ever think.
**John:** Circling back to late-night, I think one of the trends I’ve noticed over the last few years is that more late-night shows are using some of the people that they bring on as writers and as performers to actually be themselves on the show, like Louis Virtel, who gets to be himself, or Amber Ruffin. That is a great thing too is recognizing that not every writer is going to be able to write for that white male host, and the white male host is not going to be able to deliver every joke to every audience. I hope that we continue this trend where you might actually have one named host, but you see a lot of other familiar faces on the screen who can be specific in their comedy because they’re part of a group.
**Matt:** Yeah, definitely. I know Lou has a great time doing that. He’s a dear friend of mine. I obviously adore Amber. To see her spin off into her show, which is so great, that’s so awesome. In fact, Bowen and I actually, we did our segment I Don’t Think So, Honey on The Tonight Show, and it was supposed to be a recurring thing. The second time we went to do it, we got cut because Aretha Franklin had passed, and they needed to make time for Ariana Grande to come out and sing Natural Woman. J-Lo was on the show. Aerosmith was on the show. It was this really crowded day where they cut us, and so we were never invited back.
**John:** You’re going to blame Ariana Grande for the rest of your life. Aretha and Ariana screwed you over.
**Matt:** I have beef with both of them, in life and death. Just kidding. I’m good with them both.
**John:** Let’s get into our main segment here, which is How Would This Be a Movie. We do this every couple weeks where we talk through some stories in the news or history and think about how would these be converted into quality filmed entertainment, either 2 hours long or 10 hours long, as we tend to do these days.
**Matt:** Everything’s too long.
**John:** Everything’s too long.
**Matt:** Cut 40 minutes out of every fucking thing. That’s my note. Every single thing.
**John:** Most 10-episode things could probably be episodes, because there was padding.
**Matt:** Oh, darling, the way The Vow is back with another 10-episode season, I know that’s not even narrative, but I’m like, essentially, yes, it is, because we have to watch it, and we’re being told a story. You gotta get this done in four.
**John:** I don’t even remember what The Vow is. That’s how much TV there is. What is The Vow?
**Matt:** It’s about the NXIVM cult. It’s on HBO.
**John:** I love me a cult, but I don’t have 10 hours to watch it.
**Matt:** Love me a cult, but I understand what a cult is, and you don’t need to explain it to me again and again, episode to episode. It’s actually not that different from the other cults.
**John:** Speaking of cults, we should let the listenership in on our main point of bonding on Instagram was talking about great Elizabeth Mitchell was on Lost.
**Matt:** Oh my god, yeah, one of my favorite TV performances of that era.
**John:** She is the cult leader I would follow anywhere. Forget Ben. Elizabeth Mitchell in any role, I’ll watch her do it.
**Matt:** She was so great on that show. I remember she played Juliet. They missed the opportunity to give her any Emmy nominations while she was on the main cast, but then they threw her a guest nom the year after for I think the final season, which was too little, too late.
**John:** A hundred percent.
**Matt:** She’s so great on that show.
**John:** Yeah, so great.
**Matt:** They so did that character dirty. It sucked.
**John:** I know, but they did everyone a little bit dirty.
**Matt:** They did themselves dirty, or the network did them dirty.
**John:** A lot happened there.
**Matt:** It’s not Damon’s fault. He’s made good on it.
**John:** Let’s find a way to catch Elizabeth Mitchell in all of these projects that we’re going to discuss here. We’ll start off with FTX and Binance. As we’re recording this, the company’s imploding. I’m going to try to give the quickest summary possible, so if you have to talk about this at a cocktail party, this is what happened with FTX.
There is this company called FTX, this giant exchange where you can buy and sell cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. It’s sort of like a bank. You can put your money there. It’s the second largest of these exchanges in the world. It’s founded by this guy named Sam Bankman-Fried, who we call SBF, everyone calls SBF. You’ve seen pictures of this guy. Do you know what he looks like?
**Matt:** Yeah, I have.
**John:** He’s sort of like a young Jonah Hill-ish type.
**Matt:** It’s giving schlub.
**John:** He’s giving schlub. Binance is the second biggest of these exchanges. It’s founded by Changpeng Zhao, who everyone calls CZ. The general portrayal is that SBF is like the Luke Skywalker of the story, and CZ is like the Darth Vader. They’re like the good guy and the bad boy of crypto. Their relationship starts off well. They both become billionaires. They both form these giant companies. When SBF starts cozying up to regulators, things get frosty.
Last week, an article by CoinDesk showed that internal accounting at FTX was basically… They were all magic beans. There was nothing underneath there. That starts a run on FTX, which can’t pay out, ultimately agrees to sell itself to its rival, Binance, run by CZ. Then Binance looks under the hood and says, “Oh wait, no, we don’t even want to buy you.” FTX declares bankruptcy. FTX has lost $15 billion of its $16 billion, and this all happens in a few days. All of this cascades down. Matt Rogers, as you look at the story of FTX, what are the interesting things to dramatize? Who do you think the funny characters are? What kind of movie or TV show would you watch out of this or want to make out of this?
**Matt:** Picture this. I’m going to go a completely different way with it.
**John:** I want to hear it.
**Matt:** It’s actually a queer romantic comedy. It stars me and let’s say Bowen Yang.
**John:** I could see that.
**Matt:** It’s about two men who instantly have a connection, but one of them understands what the fuck you just talked about and one of them doesn’t. I play the one that doesn’t get, for a single second, what any of this is. When someone says the word crypto to me, I go absolutely black in the eyes and in the mind. Basically, we try to make it work, but it’s the very difficult, complicated love story, that really gets cute at the end, about a crypto gay and me, because there are crypto gays out there. I have questions for them like, what? I have questions for them like, huh? I don’t understand a single thing.
For the listeners at home, they send the outline. You’re to prepare, based on the outline. I said, “This is not the project for me to story break.” I’m going to be a joke writer on this one. I’m actually going to sit in the room and participate in the way where it’s like, I’ll pepper you with jokes, but this is me checking out in the plotty part of the room, which is what I do when I’m in the rooms I’m in. Once they get too plotty, I’m like, “Yeah, and then they go to Burger King.” That’s where I’m at.
**John:** You snipe in there with a joke, a funny line there, but not the web and plotting.
**Matt:** Yeah. Then basically, someone can be like, “You know, SBF.” I’m like, “SPF?”
**John:** “What?” Yeah.
**Matt:** “Yeah, we should all wear SPF. I totally agree.” He’s like, “No, SBF.” I’m like, “I don’t know.”
**John:** Matt, I think a lot of times you need to find some other template for what the story could be. That’s why you reach for Shakespeare, you reach for Romeo and Juliet, you reach for a rom-com. I think the template for this might be Showgirls.
**Matt:** Now we’re talking.
**John:** You have Nomi, who comes to Las Vegas, and then you have the Gina Gershon character, who is the bad girl, who teaches her the ropes of things. Ultimately, they’re going to be vying for… There’s only one featured dancer, and it’s all going to come down to this. I think that could be the SBF-CZ competition, because they have their moments of bonding at the start, the dog food conversations, but then fundamental values get involved there. The turning of the two of them on each other I think could be fascinating, like who’s pushing each other down the stairs.
**Matt:** Could it also be a little horny between them?
**John:** You know what? It can be a little horny between them. Why not?
**Matt:** Or are we going to have a hard time selling that?
**John:** Oh. I don’t know. I think as long as they don’t actually touch… I think straight audiences love when there’s tension but it’s never consummated.
**Matt:** We all know the big problem with Bros where they didn’t cast Chris Evans, so of course we get Chris Evans for this. Maybe we de-glam him. We turn him into a Seth Rogen type. Maybe Seth Rogen plays the other one, because now he’s shedding the pounds.
**John:** There’s some homoerotic tension in there, a little bit like… You think back to 40-Year-Old Virgin, I Love You, Man. There’s a thing about that that is fair [crosstalk 00:21:43] go far. It’s a comedy, I think, because it’s gotta be that way.
**Matt:** I think it has to be, because I’m telling you, if I’m writing the script, I’m bailing on anything in plot, and it’s becoming really silly and stupid, because I do not have the human capacity to understand Bitcoin. I just don’t. I feel like life is too short for me to try.
**John:** I think so too. I get that. I like that choice for you.
**Matt:** Look. Listen. They say write what you know. Write what you know. I’ll never forger, when I was in school, my teacher, his name was Paul Selig, he was my craft of writing teacher. He had us all come in at the end of the semester, and he sat us down. He was going to give us advice, individual advice. He said to me, “I just think you need to go out and live more life.” He goes, “I think you need to go out and get your heart broken, because I think you’re a real writer, but you don’t know anything yet.” I was like, “Okay.” I know that I don’t know about Bitcoin, so I’m going to pass this one off.
**John:** I love it. This will become a movie almost definitely, because there’s already a Michael Lewis book being written about it, so Michael Lewis who did Moneyball and did other famous books about real life things. He was already embedded with SBF when this all crashed down. The hubris of this kid, this 30-year-old billionaire, to say, “Oh, you know what? I want this famous biographer just to follow me around while I create this massive fraud company that’s going to completely disintegrate.” There’s something about that that’s fascinating too.
**Matt:** Listen, God bless Jonah Hill on his third Oscar play. That’s wonderful that he will ultimately have that, because I guess you’re right, it really is that for him, huh?
**John:** It is. It is.
**Matt:** Probably has to dye his hair back from Malibu blond, which it is right now.
**John:** That’s fine. He’s willing to do it for the art.
**Matt:** He can do that.
**John:** He’ll do that.
**Matt:** Of course, and wigs.
**John:** Wigs. Come on, with the wig craft these days, it’s unstoppable.
**Matt:** Truly.
**John:** You know nothing about cryptocurrency. You probably know a little bit more about Twitter. Is that true?
**Matt:** A little bit more.
**John:** A little bit more about Twitter.
**Matt:** A little bit more.
**John:** We’re recording this on a Tuesday. Who knows what’s happened to Twitter by the time this episode comes out next week.
**Matt:** I hope it’s over. I have such a burn the world mentality about it. I hated it to begin with, and now that it’s run by a demon, it’s just like, let’s just burn it down, for me, personally. I hope by the time this is out, this whole thing is moot.
**John:** This is the first project in a while where even before it was on this outline, I got an email saying, “Hey, would you want to do a Twitter movie? Would you want to do a movie about what’s happening at Twitter right now?” Some people reached out to me like, “Hey,” sort of thing. There probably is a thing, but it’s the question of where are the interesting boundaries of this, because Elon Musk is going to be a character in this. Great, you can find some way to do Elon Musk, but are the other characters in it… Who? There’s Grimes. There aren’t a lot of other names you can put to it. There’s just faceless employees who get fired and that sense of-
**Matt:** Jack Dorsey is probably the main character.
**John:** Jack Dorsey, sure.
**Matt:** I would say Jack Dorsey’s the main character of this, because honestly, he’s the center of it. He was there for the rise and the fall. You’d need that in this narrative. He saw it and then failed with it. Now he’s watching it from afar, probably with overgrown facial hair, watching Elon burn it down. I do think that Trump has to play into this narrative too, because I think he broke Twitter.
**John:** It’s a question of do you want to do The Social Network, where you’re looking at the launch of the thing, or are you doing some very small slice? I just saw the movie Margin Call, which is great, Demi Moore is in it, which is just focusing on 24 hours and everything falling within that.
**Matt:** I’d rather see grandeur.
**John:** I like grandeur.
**Matt:** I’d rather see grandeur.
**John:** Big vision there.
**Matt:** Big vision, I think. Let’s see the rise and fall. Let’s tell the story, because you really can. I don’t think it’s too complicated. I think that that’s the most compelling thing is to see something enter the consciousness, change the world for the better, then the worse, and then cease to exist because of ego, which I think is so much a part of Twitter too, that you can log on there and say anything you want, and that you’re going to not be held accountable for it. Then comes the accountability in a major way, which is the digging through of old tweets, etc. I almost think you could do a Don’t Look Up style, many characters in many different environments situation. It could be very big, many different people and how they respond to it. Maybe this is a limited series, to be honest with you.
**John:** I’m wondering if it’s a limited series too. It feels like a lot.
**Matt:** Like a Mrs. America type. It’s definitely a lot. There’s a lot to tell. I do think it’s an open and closed, season-long, let’s call it six, seven-episode narrative.
**John:** People will push for 10, but you say no, we’re going to keep this short and tight. This is going to be Chernobyl. It’s not going to be one of these other things that keeps going on and on forever.
**Matt:** It’s Andrew Garfield’s limited series lead actor Emmy and hearkens back to the Facebook of it all. I think he’d be a great Jack Dorsey.
**John:** He would be a great Jack Dorsey, absolutely.
**Matt:** He looks like him.
**John:** Yeah, he does. That’s great. [inaudible 00:26:43].
**Matt:** So do I, kind of. Actually, I take it back. I want to play him.
**John:** Very good. What are you doing here? You’re pitching this movie, and you’re not even pitching yourself as the lead in it.
**Matt:** I know, as if Andrew Garfield needs more. He’s got it all, and now they released those pictures of him today where he looks hot. Did you see those pictures of him in GQ?
**John:** I saw those pictures. It’s him in leather pants on a sand dune and apparently falling or something. He looks absurdly hot.
**Matt:** Do you want to know some tea?
**John:** I want to know all the tea.
**Matt:** We share a makeup artist. We share a groomer. I asked what he was like, and she told me he’s amazing, so nice, very emotional, often a laugh away from a tear, a very emotional, grateful, sensitive person, to the point where sometimes he’ll get emotional, and they’ll have to redo his makeup. He needs a lot of touch-ups, because he’s very grateful, emotional, right on the skin, water sign type. I would be really interested to find out astrologically what the situation is.
**John:** Matt, my guess is that you are often close to a tear too. I guess that you are an emotional person. Is that fair?
**Matt:** Oh yeah, I’m a Pisces, rising Pisces, Cancer moon.
**John:** Oh my god.
**Matt:** If you say one thing to me [crosstalk 00:27:49].
**John:** I have no idea what any of that means, but Megana, she’s [inaudible 00:27:51].
**Matt:** It means I’m a dripping wet water sign, which yes, to answer your question, means I’m emotional. I’m in the right business.
**John:** Always good.
**Matt:** Sort of.
**John:** Circling back to you didn’t cast yourself in this movie to start with, that is a rookie mistake. You look at Seth Rogen, Seth Rogen isn’t setting up a thing, saying, “Oh, but there’s no part for me to play.” No, Seth Rogen’s like, “No, I’ll be in there.” [Crosstalk 00:28:14] figure out like, “Oh, there’s a role for me in this movie too.”
**Matt:** I know who I play. Exactly. I respect it. I respect the hustle, always. He’s like, “Oh, there’s a romantic comedy with me and Charlize Theron? Of course I’m the lead.” That is the confidence we should all aspire to.
**John:** Seth Rogen levels of confidence.
**Matt:** I liked that movie actually.
**John:** I did too.
**Matt:** Long Shot.
**John:** It’s good stuff. Finally, we’ll end on maybe a happy note. This is the billion-dollar lotto. $2.04 billion was awarded this last week. The winner hasn’t come forward yet, but the store owner is potentially a good character. His name is Joel Chahayed. I didn’t realize that the store owner gets a million dollars for having sold the winning lotto ticket.
**Matt:** I didn’t know that.
**John:** Yeah, that’s wild.
**Matt:** Really?
**John:** Kind of great. This guy is a Syrian immigrant from the 1980s. He said, “We are excited. We’re happy for California, happy for Los Angeles County, happy for the city of Altadena, and we’re happy for the schools that are going to get more money.” He’s saying all the right things. This little, small store owner gets a million dollars just for the luck of having sold a lotto ticket. What do we feel about lotto? Is lotto culture?
**Matt:** You know what’s interesting about lotto? It’s actually something that specifically was discussed in writing school about what a cop-out it is to have someone win the lottery. Then I’ve seen it happen a few times, where I was like, “I buy it.” I guess if you like In the Heights at all, you have to like the lotto of it all, because it’s the whole movie by the end. Is lotto culture? Yeah, it’s culture. Everyone knows what it is. It is monoculture. Buying a lottery ticket and potentially winning or losing and how it might change your life. It hearkens back to Rosanne, that sitcom that everyone was watching in the ’90s. That is monoculture. Of course lotto is culture. I’ve been told it’s hack narratively.
**John:** I think it’s hack unless it is actually the fundamental premise of the thing. You get let’s say one coincidence in your story. If that coincidence is the inciting incident, great. Otherwise, the lotto feels like too much of a wild thing.
**Matt:** The lotto can come in and change the world of what you’re doing. If it does, it probably has to be the center of it, or it’s a heightened musical. I’m actually an In the Heights apologist. I don’t think it got what it deserved.
**John:** I a hundred percent agree with you. I loved In the Heights. First off, I’ll acknowledge that I’m watching it on the Chinese Theater, and the huge screen, and the first movie I’ve seen on a big screen post-pandemic, or mid-pandemic. The big pool fountain sequence in the middle of it-
**Matt:** Amazing. That was so great.
**John:** Blows me away.
**Matt:** Jon Chu is great.
**John:** Jon Chu is great.
**Matt:** I actually have a lot of faith in Wicked. I love Crazy Rich Asians. He’s really, really good. He can put a set piece together. Also, everything tracks. I thought In the Heights really fleshed out those female characters too, especially if you have seen the stage musical. Vanessa is not fleshed out enough, which is interesting, because they had such an amazing actress, Karen Olivo, playing her on the stage. In the movie, it’s this whole fleshed out thing. I thought the ecosystem of the world felt very full. It’s got that great performance by Olga Merediz as the grandmother. Anthony Ramos was amazing. That was a great movie, so I didn’t mind the lotto of it all.
**John:** It needs more love, for sure.
**Matt:** It needs more love. It was bizarrely ignored.
**John:** Let’s talk through our billion-dollar movies here. The FTX movie or something will get made, because a book happened. There’s no love for Matt Rogers in this thing. You’re not going to watch it. [Crosstalk 00:31:55].
**Matt:** I’m not going to go see that. I’ll go see it if I have to go see it. If at the end of the year, they’re like, “You all have to see Jonah Hill’s tour de force,” then I’ll be like, “Okay, I’ll go see Jonah Hill’s tour de force, I guess.” I’ll always try to put my own personal biases aside if there’s an actor tour de force. I try. Sometimes it just can’t happen for me. I cannot sit through a horror movie. If Bitcoin is less of a horror in this film than I think it is to me personally, I’ll sit through it.
**John:** Did you like The Big Short?
**Matt:** Yeah. I’m actually a bigger fan of Adam McKay than I think a lot of people in my coterie are. Some people drag him.
**John:** People got annoyed by Adam McKay as the public figure, I think.
**Matt:** I actually saw a DGA screening of Don’t Look Up. It was the first screening in LA actually. Adam was there. Leo was there. Jennifer Lawrence was there. Meryl was there. They came and did a talk-back after. I remember watching the movie, and my immediate response that I felt was, this was funny, but it also needed a joke punch-up bad, and also, it’s obsessed with the lesson it’s teaching you, which I think is a little bit lol when you consider it’s Leo, who does do a lot of good things but is also a massive hypocrite when it comes to the environment. We’ve seen the yachts, to say nothing of the age of the girls on them.
It’s just bizarre to me, the finger-wagginess. I just know that when Hollywood waves a finger at everyone re: climate, it’s like, okay, but… I actually liked Vice more, to be honest with you, because I thought it was more knowing and surreal. Then I say that about a movie where an asteroid hits the earth.
**John:** Funny, that. Did anybody ask about Jennifer Lawrence’s wig work in that movie? I think that was a crime.
**Matt:** The wig work? I actually thought she was the strongest part of it, to be honest with you. I thought Leo was great. He’s an amazing actor.
**John:** I think a good performance despite wig. The wig sometimes elevates the performance. It just makes the person, “Oh, I see what that is.” Nicole Kidman is transformed by a wig. Jennifer Lawrence I felt like was just-
**Matt:** Not everyone is.
**John:** She was trapped under that thing. Whatever that was, I don’t understand it.
**Matt:** They were giving her a cool girl haircut. They were giving her the little bangs and the whole thing so we knew that she was alt and a scientist, but cool scientist, young scientist, and willing to speak truth to power. I did love her joke about [inaudible 00:34:28]. I thought that was the strongest part of the movie. I thought the movie needed more of that. I don’t know. It just needed a punch-up.
**John:** Agreed, a punch-up is needed. Finally, we’ll get to the billion-dollar lotto. We’ve learned from Matt Roger’s teachers that lottery tickets are lazy is what we’ve learned.
**Matt:** I don’t mean to be a snob about that shit either, but you can always do better than that.
**John:** You can do better. You can do better. Do better, Hollywood.
**Matt:** Do better.
**John:** We have some listener questions I think are very appropriate for you to be answering here. Megana, can you help us out?
**Megana:** Yes. I also have one of my own questions for Matt.
**John:** You can start with that if you want.
**Megana:** A lot of our listeners, I feel like coming out of film school, they have a question of what is their next step. Hearing you talk about your origin story, it sounds like you were doing so many things and just putting your work out there. Did you have any sort of guiding principle? You’d gone to school for television writing, but you weren’t afraid to do sketch and do different performance things. What was your guiding motivation throughout that period?
**Matt:** I just wanted the work to be good. All I wanted was for the work to be good. I took every opportunity to try out what I had written. Like I said, I had this sketch group, and I was the artistic director of it. I steered where it went comedically and musically and artistically. I always felt like if I tried something and it didn’t work, at least I had put a ton of work into it in preparation. Everything was always really well rehearsed, rewritten, punched up, etc. Then if it didn’t work, it was just because it didn’t work, but not for lack of trying. I just always wanted to make sure that I was doing work that I at least felt was good. Nothing was ever not ready, even if it was a little bit show. I always over-prepared.
I think that all throughout my 20s when I was doing comedy and the stakes were so low because no one was watching, it actually taught me a lot, because in my over-preparedness, I think sometimes I lost a little bit of that spontaneity and the magic that comes with doing live comedy and discovering things on stage. You don’t want to be so married to something that the littlest thing throws you off, which can happen in live performance. Again, that is how I developed. I’m speaking more to people that are more on their feet doing the work. I’m talking more to comedians with this.
I guess my global note for something like that is, if you’re going to send something out, if you’re going to present something, at least stand by it, because I always think it’s better to wait on capitalizing on a connection that actually can move you forward than present something to that connection just because that connection is there.
Don’t be stressed out that you don’t have a manager or an agent at 23, 24, 25. I think I got one at 26, 27, and I felt really stressed about that. When someone who you’re meeting with says they can advance your career eventually or represent you eventually, that’s not necessarily a frustrating or bad thing. They know, from being professionals as well, who’s ready, who’s not. It’s not a bad thing to be told you’re not ready yet or, “Keep going,” or, “Keep sending me stuff.” Just make sure you’re proud of what you’re presenting.
If you don’t know yet what is good or bad, go out and see things and gauge your own reactions. Expose yourself to things. If something makes you feel a certain way in any regard, ask yourself why. Journal about why. Really follow the careers of people that promote a gut instinct in you, I would say.
**John:** Love that.
**Megana:** That’s such good advice. Our first listener question is from To Drag Or Not To Drag. They wrote in, “I was invited to participate in a Zoom pitch festival later this month. The pilot I’m pitching is about a queer masc-presenting, assigned female at birth person who’s also a drag queen coming into her femininity while her girlfriend, a high-femme and very glam trans woman, is realizing she may identify more as nonbinary and taking back her masculine side. This show works through questions and issues about gender presentation, ongoing issues trans people face in using shared/public restrooms, identity, what it means to be a woman, etc.
“I work with drag queens at my day job and learned to do drag makeup during the pandemic. I haven’t performed but have gone out in female drag with the queens I know. What I’m wondering is, should I consider doing my pitches over Zoom in drag, or is that way too schlocky and gimmicky? I realize that I can instead talk about this in the, quote, ‘talk about myself and how my background, experiences, and point of view led me to write this specific script’ portion of the pitch.”
**John:** Matt, what do we think?
**Matt:** I think there’s a couple things I think based on this person’s question, which is, I think it’s always great to stand out in your pitch. My special, Have You Heard of Christmas, I did it in full Christmas garb. I pitched it in the summer, and I had a red sweater on and a bow tie and everything. It’s always important in a pitch to stand out.
I also think the pitch that you’ve described, while it sounds interesting, is complicated. I think that you need to try to think about how you can distill what you are presenting to the most simple thing. I honestly almost feel like you doing the presentation in drag would help simplify it and center in on the joy and the relationship of what is happening between your characters in the pitch, and less on identity, because me, even as a part of the queer community, has heard this pitch in your question, and I’m a little confused as to who’s who. I think we need to pare it down, make it about relationship and character. I actually think that you pitching in drag could help that, because we immediately understand what it is.
I don’t know how good your drag is. I would not look like a person in a wig on Zoom. If you’re going to do drag, let’s get the drag together and make sure that we have a really solid landing spot for the people that you’re pitching to, because I think clarity is going to be really, really important in any pitch, especially because a lot of them happen over Zoom, where people are less in tune off the top. Clarity, comedy, and-
**John:** Some other C word.
**Matt:** Beat your face right.
**John:** What I would say to our listener is that a pitch is a performance. When Matt was going out to pitch his show, he’s giving a performance. You are going to be giving a performance, regardless of whether you’re in drag or not in drag. The fact that you’re not a seasoned drag performer makes me nervous about whether you’re going to be able to deliver fully in drag. I think the way you’ll know is just to try it. The good thing about Zooms is you can do some with it and some without it. Maybe use one of your less important ones, try it in drag, and see what it is and see how it feels there and whether you’re able to land and connect the way you want to connect.
I guess I do worry about that it’s going to feel like you’re dressed up and that you’re not actually performing, that you’re not actually able to be authentically the writer pitching this thing, that you’re just going to be a guy dressed up, and they’re not going to see… They’re going to be too focused on figuring you out that they’re not going to be able to figure out your pitch, unless you’re good. If you’re Trixie Mattel, do it in drag, but you’re not Trixie Mattel yet. That’s my question.
**Matt:** I guess that’s the thing is we actually don’t know, and again, this is going to sound harsh, but the quality of your drag.
**John:** Exactly.
**Matt:** Immediately, if it’s looking shitty on Zoom, they’re going to be like, “This is looking shitty on Zoom.” Then it’s going to distract them. I would say if you have the opportunity to have an actual drag queen or drag makeup artist do your makeup, then sure, but you have to be really confident too, because that’s another thing about drag is you can’t hide in drag. When you look shy or silly in drag, apologizing for being there, that defeats the purpose of doing the drag. If it’s something you’re really confident about and feel really good about and like it’s going to extend your clarity and make it a simpler, more visual, easier pitch to go down, then I would do it, but you have to be honest with yourself.
**John:** Matt, my nightmare scenario is that it’s going to feel like when Ru says, “Okay, you have 10 minutes to get into quick drag for this thing.” No quick drag. This is going to have to be good.
**Matt:** Get it together or just don’t do it. You could also get the drag across by using visual aids. It doesn’t have to be you. That’s another thing. You can also just make sure you look fucking great, so that in presentation of yourself, you give the vibe of, oh, this is someone who aesthetically knows what’s up. Get your lighting together. Ain’t no shame in putting up a ring light.
You can present someone who’s part of the queer community and really knows how to put themselves together without doing drag, because we’ve now actually seen, especially people that are in the industry, that may assume it’s easier than it is, because they see it presented on a television show where these people are in the Olympics of drag. These are the best makeup artists in the country, sometimes in the world. They’re also lit by professional, Emmy-winning technicians that make Ru look like the most beautiful human being possible. Understand that the tolerance for bad drag is now really low. You should see some of the ways that the Drag Race fandom drags these queens who are capable of things these people that are commenting never could be. Just understand the bar is very high when it comes to something like that.
**John:** Megana, next question.
**Megana:** Small Client asks, “In the year since I signed with my agent, he’s become a bit too big for me. He’s moved up, become a partner at his agency, and reps writers who are much, much more prominent than myself. As a result, he puts minimal effort into representing me, as in I haven’t had a successful last few years. We have something of an unspoken agreement. I don’t bother him, and he keeps me on as a client. While that may seem sad, using his name as cache has been hugely helpful over the past few years and has helped me generate some recent momentum. I’ve got projects going out, and I recently signed with a new management company. The managers there are more engaged and interested than my agent.
“Here’s my question. Now that I have a little bit of buzz, is it prudent to go ahead and cut ties and find a better match, or should I let him know that I don’t think his representation has been up to snuff and ask him if he’s willing to do better? I actually like him as a person, and he always responds promptly when I contact him, but he doesn’t put me up for any work.”
**John:** If Craig were here, he would say fire your agent, but I’m not going to say fire your agent. I’m more curious what Matt Rogers thinks about this situation.
**Matt:** I would be curious what agency he’s at. That’s I think missing information here, because firing your agent is actually not the worst thing in the world, because then it’s less people to pay. Then it really feels tough when you’re paying someone that actually did no work. I will say sometimes it is worth it just to be able to say, “I’m at UTA,” or, “This is my agent.”
My agents did not pay attention to me until I made money, period. That’s not really the job of your agent. Your manager, which it sounds like you have good managers, are there to be on the ground floor with you and help cultivate your career and your connections. That’s the job of a manager. It’s the agent’s job to broker deals. If there are really no deals there, then your agent doesn’t have anything to do.
I know it sounds weird, but I was told when I signed with UTA at 27, where I had friends tell me that they were expressly told we don’t really do anything in the first 10 years. It takes a long time for people to build their type of cache in the industry. Then your agent starts popping off when there’s stuff to do. If there’s nothing to do, and it sounds like things are percolating because your management is good, then I wouldn’t fire your agent, because then you’re leaving the agency. Then you burn a bridge with the agency. There’s nothing to burn down yet, so don’t burn it down. That would be my opinion.
**John:** I think that’s the right opinion. We don’t have any information about this agency, but we said this agent became a bigger partner, so it’s big enough that there’s that.
**Matt:** Which feels not good to be ignored.
**John:** There may be some other junior agents there, younger people, not partners, who are a better fit for what you need to do. I would talk to your managers about the situation and see what they say. It’s entirely possible that they can interface with some other agents that they know at that agency, because you’re represented by that agency, not just that agent. If you’re trying to do TV staffing, just have some conversations about the things that this agency could be doing for you, or at least who they can put you in rooms with and where they see it fitting.
**Matt:** It feels like the mistake that this person is making is that they have this weird relationship where they don’t communicate. I don’t think you can expect anything to ever happen where you don’t communicate. Also, this is another thing I’ll say, because this is a lesson I wish I had learned earlier. Don’t be afraid of your reps, because they work for you. They work for you. You can communicate as much as you want. Don’t worry about being annoying. They’re not going to not respond to you anymore because you were annoying.
I was having an issue at my agency where I realized there was really no one on my team to send me out for auditions. I made it very clear that if I’m going to be in Los Angeles and an actor, I need someone on my team that’s dedicated to sending me out on auditions. Then they added that person, and my life completely changed. I booked a pilot within I think 18 months.
**John:** Great.
**Matt:** It’s about asking for the opportunity. If you don’t ask for the opportunity or if you don’t express the things that you think are wrong, then you’re fucking yourself. Also, at the same time, when there are no opportunities yet, or there aren’t opportunities that someone that’s at the level of your agent usually meddles in, then try to see if your managers can make that happen. They probably can, because oftentimes it’s very amorphous what a manager does and what an agent does. We don’t know what the management company is or the agency is, but you can probably get a lot of the things you want from your agent, who’s now a big deal, from your managers, and that will cultivate more going on for you that maybe your agent [crosstalk 00:48:50].
**John:** Managers can get you into rooms to meet with people.
**Matt:** Absolutely.
**John:** Agents can do that too. It’s going to be meeting with people that’s ultimately going to get you some work. Then when it comes time to negotiate how much to be paid for that work, then your agents could be excited to get back involved in stuff and see you’re a person who makes money.
**Matt:** I think that there’s this misconception because of the way that agent-client relationships maybe are depicted in film and television or the way that we may think of things on a simplistic level, that people are close with their agent. They’re not. You could be. Maybe if you were a big deal and they’re one of your only clients, or you’re one of their only clients, then maybe that situation happens. People are much, much closer with their managers than they are their agents. That’s certainly my reality.
**John:** Another question from Megana here.
**Megana:** Adrian asks, “I’m an aspiring writer who just hit his one-year mark in LA. Since I’ve been here, I’ve bartended, day-played, and just worked on the TV show as an art PA that wrapped in September. It’s been a struggle to say the least, but I think I’m making progress. I’m out of work now, but I’m hoping my luck will change soon. My question is, how am I doing? I know you’ll say good job, keep it up, but what should be my next step? I know there’s no right way, but there’s always a better way. Any advice at my one-year mark? What should I be doing now besides writing and submitting a thousand fellowship applications?
**John:** We’ve both been there, where you’ve been doing this for a while and it’s not clicking and you’re hoping it’s going to click. What advice do you give to Adrian in a situation at the one-year turning point?
**Matt:** He has to be persistent. He has to be persistent. I think it’s probably really difficult in LA to hit the one-year mark, because everyone’s doing the same thing. You will, if you don’t already, have those people that are popping off in areas, and you’re going to wish that that’s the same for you. There’s really not much to say besides you have to keep writing and keep making connections. I think that is the most important thing is that the connections are going to be what gets you the work. That is just true. I don’t know if you’re also a performer, but try to be as well-rounded as possible. I would just always try to maintain a situation where you are as ready as possible and really keep up to date about who’s working in what rooms, what’s staffing, what’s been picked up.
When I heard the Q-Force animated series that I wrote on was picked up, I literally said to my agents and my managers… It was really my managers actually, just to hearken back to the last question. I said, “Please be on that for me,” because I knew the showrunner, and I knew it would be a cool project. They were on it for me. They got me a meeting based on a sample that I had, not a spec script, an original sample, which I’m sure this person has. Then I got the meeting, and it went from there. I did get hired.
It’s about giving your representatives enough time to procure those opportunities. You’re going to be able to do that by being really aware. Pay attention to that group chat of writers that you’re in, which I think is also a really good thing. Have a hub socially where people talk about this type of thing. I understand that it can get to be a little much, because it feels like in LA that’s all anyone is ever talking about is the business, but those people also work. Really keep your ear and nose to the ground, and don’t be afraid to send a deadline article to your reps and being like, “This.” I’ve done it many times, and it’s worked out for me several times.
**John:** It feels like Adrian may be pre-reps, so he may not have a manager yet or anything like that. He definitely has people in his or her life that are out there trying to do the same kinds of things. Matt, let’s talk just for a second about good networking, relationship building versus gross network and relationship building, because I definitely have encountered people who I just felt like, “You don’t actually give a shit about me. I’m just a contact that you’re just trying to mine and keep fresh in your Rolodex.” As a performer and as a writer and growing up and working up through New York, how did you keep people engaged and keep up with people in a way that felt like it was positive, like everyone was coming up together, versus, “I’m using you.”
**Matt:** The thing is, people do talk about it when it feels like there’s a person like that around. I would say make your relationships about the other people. Don’t make it about their connections. Make it about like, “I respect your work,” and hopefully they respect your work too. “You made me laugh. I wanted to tell you that.” This is maybe not easy for everyone. It’s not always easy for me. I’ve really had to learn this skill. Being social is really important. This is a very social industry. Sometimes it means it’s genuine interest and not fake interest. If all you have is fake interest, understand that people can see that. Go to therapy. Find other things in your life that you care about. This cannot be the only thing, because if it is the only thing, you do feel and seem sharky.
Also, if you are going to be like that, then be up front about it, because there are other people like you. That’s another thing is you can’t expect to go up to someone and be like, “Hey, you should consider me for this,” and have everyone respond to that. If that’s going to be the way that you go about it, there will be some people that do. I’ve seen some people become extremely successful that do that. That’s not what has worked for me. It hasn’t been what I respond to. Genuine interest, be a nice person, and be around.
**John:** Be around. It’s being around so that people can remember you exist, and then following up with the people you think are actually genuinely talented people who down the road, you can help them, they can help you. That’s one of the good things about going through my film program, and it sounds like for your film program too, is you met a bunch of people who were trying to do the same things you were trying to do, and you all rose up together. Adrian’s not in a film program, but he’s going to meet people trying to do the same thing. See if there’s a way you guys can all rise together and enter into the business.
**Matt:** Also, one year in LA is nothing. You have time before you even have to worry about the question, what am I doing wrong or what’s next. You have time.
**John:** Agreed. It’s come time for our One Cool Things. This is where we recommend things to our listenership. My One Cool Thing is a game called OnlyBans. It is a web game, nothing to pay, just click through on the link. It’s created by this team of sex workers and allies. It’s this interactive game that shows what it’s like to be a sex worker working on OnlyFans and the obstacles and challenges you run into. It’s like Oregon Trail but with nude pictures. There’s no actual nudity in the game itself.
I think it’s a really smart way of showing the frustration and hassle and stuff, what it is to try to make $200 in this business and how it all fits together in a way. Reading an article, I wouldn’t really get a sense of it, because you’re not doing it first-person. Click through this thing, OnlyBans. I thought it was just a really smart presentation of a difficult situation faced by sex workers in the US.
**Matt:** Love it.
**John:** Love it. Matt, do you have a One Cool Thing to share?
**Matt:** I have One Cool Thing to share. If you are in New York or you’re traveling to New York, some of the best theater I’ve seen maybe in years and years is a show called Titanique. It is in New York. It transferred from what was the old UCB Theatre. It was in that space. It’s now at the Daryl Roth Theatre. From November 20th on through February, they’re going to be performing there. This is on 15th Street.
Basically, it is a parody musical using the music of Celine Dion to tell to the story of Titanic from the perspective of Celine Dion, because she claims she was on the Titanic. Marla Mindelle, who’s an absolute genius musical theater actress and comedian, plays Celine Dion. It was co-written by her, Constantine Rousouli, who plays Jack, and Tye Blue, who also directs. This is a really amazing cast. It’s incredibly funny.
**John:** That’s great.
**Matt:** It’s also really camp and dumb. The music of Celine Dion is also so camp and dumb and big, but it feels so good, especially with these truly incredible musical theater performers singing it. I’m telling you, when I hear parody musical, I of course have a certain reaction to that. I’m like, “Oh, come on. Is it going to feel like off-Broadway in not a great way?”
**John:** [Crosstalk 00:57:49].
**Matt:** This is so funny. It’s the real deal in terms of how much you’re going to laugh and how much you’re going to enjoy it. It’s a truly holistic theatrical comedy experience. I’m so excited that they have such a hit on their hands. I went to go see it. That’s one of my favorite things about having the podcast Las Culturistas is I get to share what I truly like with everyone and encourage everyone to indulge in these things that I think everyone that listens to my podcast might like. This is one of those things. I’ve not received one piece of feedback that was like, “That sucked. Why did you suggest it?” Everyone that’s gone is so happy when they’re leaving.
Honestly, it made me excited about New York theater again, because I had seen this on the heels of seeing so much bullshit on Broadway. It’s really in bad shape. If you’re going to New York, one of the nights you have to have out on the town is to see Titanique from November 20th through to February at the Daryl Roth Theatre.
**John:** Very excited. As we wrap up here, I want to make sure we don’t miss out on another musical comedy experience, which is Have You Heard of Christmas. Megana and I are going to see your show in Los Angeles. Should we also see the Showtime show or should we wait?
**Matt:** Let me make this very clear. You should stream the show on Showtime, absolutely, to everyone wondering. When I do the show, it’s going to be a concert version of what is really like an original album.
**John:** Great.
**Matt:** Don’t worry about spoilers. It’s a completely different thing. There’s a whole narrative element in the special that’s not in the live show.
**John:** Great.
**Matt:** Basically, what it is, it’s a documentation of me trying to become the pop prince of Christmas and join Mariah Carey as Christmas royalty so I can forever be synonymous with the season and make money in a capitalist sense. It’s a fully original album I co-wrote with my musical director, Henry Koperski, who’s also my ex-boyfriend, which is explored in the show. It is ultimately an incredibly dumb and what I hope is fun show. I’m really proud of it. It’s definitely something I can point to and be like, “Yep, that’s me in there.”
**John:** We are streaming. By the way, we are not only just streaming to watch it. We’re just going to keep clicking the stream so it just streams a zillion times. We’re never going to stop streaming it.
**Matt:** A hundred percent. If you don’t have Showtime, honey, you better get that 30-day free trial, and you can stream I Love That For You, all eight episodes as well.
**John:** A hundred percent. Also, if you’re a Paramount Plus person, it’s just a little add-on to it.
**Matt:** Hulu too.
**John:** Hulu too.
**Matt:** There’s ways.
**John:** No excuses.
**Matt:** There’s ways. Also, please come see me on tour in 14 cities all throughout December. You can go to www.mattrogerscomedy.com or go to my Instagram, and there’s a Linktree there, @mattrogersvo. Please come see me on tour.
**John:** Love it. Of course, listen to Matt and Bowen every week on Las Culturistas, another very good podcast.
**Matt:** Of course.
**John:** By the way, that was actually the first time I think you were referenced in this show is because I think-
**Matt:** I remember.
**John:** We did a thing about how people actually really talk versus normal dialog, and we used a snippet of it.
**Matt:** Yeah, with that Ben Platt episode.
**John:** The Ben Platt episode.
**Matt:** It was really cool.
**John:** It was fun.
**Matt:** Thank you for doing that. It taught me something too, because you’re right, it’s rare that you see something like that depicted, but that is three excited gay men talking. We do talk over each other. Sometimes it’s interesting, because when you’re recording a podcast in person, that happens, especially when you all really like each other and are excited to talk about these things. It can feel a little rude listening. It’s not one of those podcasts that’s like, “I’ve said something, and now you said something.” That really is just me and Bowen’s friendship on paper, or on recorded podcast paper. It was really interesting to hear you call it out like that. I was very honored.
**John:** It was a pleasure to have you on this podcast officially.
**Matt:** Thanks for having me.
**John:** Of course. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao, it’s edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Owen Danoff. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter, I’m @johnaugust. Matt, you’re on Twitter at the moment, right?
**Matt:** You can follow us on Twitter @lasculturistas.
**John:** That’s better.
**Matt:** Bowen and I share it. I’m not individually on Twitter, no. It’s hell.
**John:** It’s hell. Obviously, you’re @mattrogerstho on Instagram.
**Matt:** On Instagram and TikTok now.
**John:** And TikTok now. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing. We have T-shirts. They’re great. You can find them at Cotton Bureau. You can sign up to become a Premium Member at scriptnotes.net, where you get all the back-episodes and Bonus Segments like the one we’re about to record on the culture. Matt Rogers, thank you so much.
**Matt:** Thank you, John.
[Bonus Segment]
**John:** Matt Rogers, you are an expert on the culture, because you host a weekly podcast on the culture, Las Culturistas. What is culture?
**Matt:** I think culture is everything. It’s so funny, because we ask the question of all of our guests, what was the culture that made you say culture was for you. The answers vary from just a musical artist or a scene in a movie or the attitudes of people where they grew up. Culture is I guess a holistic thing. I love the fact that high culture and low culture is blending nowadays. I love talking about the fact that there’s going to be a Super Nintendo theme park in the same breath as Tár. I think it’s whatever affects you and moves you to think, create, whatever, perform, anything that moves you to express your own opinion or your own take.
**John:** I like that as a definition. It’s whatever you’re experiencing that makes you want to participate in it. For me, that moment of culture was, I remember as a child watching Wonder Woman spin and turn into her new outfit, so when Diana Prince would spin and all those transformations. I did not realize that was culture. I realized that other people had the same response about it that I did. That’s culture. It’s like, oh.
**Matt:** That’s another important element of it is it’s something that connects. It’s something that we all can observe and react to and then discuss. In that way, it’s a really, really broad thing, but yet you can get so specific with it. I think that is such a specific answer to what was the culture that made you say culture was for you, specifically her spinning, not Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman spinning and changing. That is actually very much a queer answer.
**John:** It is.
**Matt:** It was a powerful woman changing into the protector and the warrior. That is very indicative.
**John:** Very much. I would posit though, so much of what we talk about the culture is what is interesting to the gays, basically what is it that they are going to be discussing. I don’t think it’s just because we’re two gay men and of course we’re looking at everything through our eyes. There’s been a way that the gay eye defines, not just in fashion, but like this is a moment, this is a thing that we’re going to talk about, is it worthy of discussion independently of its place in normal society. There’s just something about whatever the gays find fascinating is culturally relevant.
**Matt:** I think it’s any minority group that’s pushed to the side of what is widely popular or whatever media at the time is telling you is monoculture, which caters to I think a heterosexual white audience. I think what happens is those other groups either can see that culture very clearly for what it is and make their own estimations and opinions on it, or they create their own cultures, which then thrive in such a way because there’s such a specific energy to them that then those things get co-opted and become mainstream culture themselves. It’s really interesting for you to say that, because I would say that yes, gay people and queer culture and queer communities, they do dictate what is en vogue, but also, that’s often taken from the Black community, which were the most pushed to the side-
**John:** Of course.
**Matt:** … and have obviously been pioneers in terms of everything that is quote unquote gay culture now does have its roots in that. You see that even in popular music. Obviously, rock-and-roll was a Black invention. Obviously, hip-hop is a Black invention. Then you see it appropriated and marketed and capitalized on in the society, and there’s not enough questions asked about why that happened, because the answer is very ugly, because people felt like they could make money on it, because what they’re really good at is finding ways to make money based on things. It’s an interesting melting pot that we have in America. It’s important to understand that it was those communities that are pushed to the side that actually set the tone.
I think the other thing about queer people is because we communicate through this common interest of pop culture, because we’ve all been pushed to the side and forced to see it very clearly, it’s one of those things that connect us. Because we are unabashedly interested, that translates to us being trendsetters and oftentimes gatekeepers of culture. It’s a very interesting phenomenon. I think if you look at the past 60 years, it’s been a really interesting journey in terms of how culture is decided upon, discussed, and ultimately sold.
**John:** I have some questions for you, a speed round about is this culture. I just want your honest reactions. Shania Twain, is this culture?
**Matt:** Absolutely, 100%, important culture, revolutionized women in country, created country pop in many ways.
**John:** Yeah, a hundred percent. The Gap?
**Matt:** The Gap is culture. Everyone needs a basic, and that does not necessarily mean you’re basic. The Gap, it’s a place to begin.
**John:** A place to begin. Forest Gump.
**Matt:** It’s absolutely culture. It also directly responded to culture. That was I think one of those big ’90s movie, where it felt like nostalgia was almost starting in the ’90s. I think because of what was going to become the internet and the fact that we were now able to access the past in a quicker way made us more interested in the past. Forest Gump, literally, this is a man who has interacted with all of the important cultural events of his lifetime. That’s because there was an interest in culture to begin with, and then that movie became culture itself, because it was well-performed and let’s say iconically written.
**John:** We have the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company thanks to Forest Gump.
**Matt:** Absolutely. Bubba Gump Shrimp is culture in and of itself. Of course it’s culture.
**John:** Absolutely, movie-themed culture. White copier paper, 8.5 by 11 white copier paper. Is that culture?
**Matt:** Yes, it’s culture. It’s office culture.
**John:** It’s Dunder Mifflin.
**Matt:** That is culture. Office culture is the basis of so many things. Yes, of course we have pieces of pop culture that interact specifically with offices, because again, working in an office is monoculture. We all understand it. What’s more important than paper? How would we write without it? Of course it’s culture, which we use to write things.
**John:** Are treated as culture.
**Matt:** Exactly.
**John:** Not being able to believe someone hasn’t seen Tár.
**Matt:** That’s becoming culture.
**John:** I heard you on Lovett Or Leave It. I had two issues there. I was wondering, when do you go for one specific person experiencing a thing to it becoming a cultural meme. I do wonder if we’re going to get to a place where not just Tár, but being obsessed with someone not having seen Tár becomes a thing.
**Matt:** I think I just want the best for everyone, and so that’s why I react so strongly to someone not having seen Tár, especially a very tuned in… I would imagine a lot of queer people in that audience. I’m telling you, you couldn’t see it, because podcasts are not a visual medium famously, but there were about five people in that audience of a packed Dynasty Typewriter that had never seen Tár. I was like, “This is crazy.” Lovett himself had never seen Tár, which to me feels very odd-
**John:** It does.
**Matt:** … because it’s been out for weeks now, and we’ve been saying it’s one of the, if not the performance of the year, and I think so far, my favorite film of the year, up there with Everything Everywhere All at Once.
**John:** A slip of paper in your playbill that says, “At this performance, the role of blank will be played by:” Is that culture?
**Matt:** Someone else. That is culture. It’s disappointment culture. Ultimately, it’s opportunity culture.
**John:** It is.
**Matt:** It is of course interacting with the culture of theater. That idea, that ideology of the show must go on, the idea of the understudy. You mentioned Showgirls before. It is an opportunity for someone to appear. Of course, we are reminded of Sutton Foster in Thoroughly Modern Millie, an understudy, and then so stunning when her opportunity arose that she became not only a Tony winner and a success in that performance, but a bona fide Broadway star, which are few and far between. That little paper had to appear in that playbill for that to happen, John.
**John:** I think the lesson I’m taking from you is that everything is culture.
**Matt:** It is
**John:** I tried to stump you with some of these, and you were able to find ways it was just culture. Both everything is culture and you’re also very good at improv and thinking on your feet, which are two crucial skills.
**Matt:** I’m very good at bullshitting, and also I genuinely believe what I say.
**John:** The best bullshitters do believe what they’re saying.
**Matt:** Here I am working in this industry. I obviously was able to fool a lot of people. I’m an excellent bullshitter and a major talker.
**John:** Fantastic. You’re a fantastic fill-in host. Matt Rogers, thank you so, so much for doing this.
**Matt:** Thank you for having me. It was a genuine pleasure.
Links:
* [Matt Rogers](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4410278/) on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/mattrogerstho/?hl=en) and [Tiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/@mattrogerstho)
* [Have You Heard of Christmas?](https://www.sho.com/titles/3518900/matt-rogers-have-you-heard-of-christmas) December 2nd on Showtime and on tour, [buy tickets here!](http://www.mattrogerscomedy.com/)
* [Binance Pulls Out of Deal to Acquire Rival Crypto Exchange FTX](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/ftx-binance-crypto.html) by David Yaffe-Bellany for NYT
* [Michael Lewis FTX Book](https://theankler.com/p/hwood-ftx-frenzy-as-michael-lewis?sd=pf)
* [Billion Dollar Lotto Ticket](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/winning-2-04-billion-powerball-ticket-sold-in-altadena/)
* [OnlyBans.com](https://www.onlybansgame.com/v2/v2.html)
* [Titanique](https://titaniquemusical.com/) Musical in New York
* Dialogue episode where we sampled Las Culturistas [Scriptnotes Episode 438](https://johnaugust.com/2020/scriptnotes-episode-438-how-to-listen-transcript)
* [Las Culturistas](https://twitter.com/LasCulturistas) on Twitter, listen to the podcast [here](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/las-culturistas-with-matt-rogers-and-bowen-yang/id1092361338)
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* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Owen Danoff ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by [Megana Rao](https://twitter.com/MeganaRao) and edited by [Matthew Chilelli](https://twitter.com/machelli).
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/575standard.mp3).