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Horror as a Mirror: What Netflix’s MONSTER Makes Us See · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: The new controversial Netflix series Monster, the Ed Gein story,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: offers a window into the devouring mother archetype, a transformation
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: fantasy gone horribly wrong, and the human capacity for monstrous behavior.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Gein's crimes inspired the Hitchcock movie Psycho, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: and Silence of the Lambs. It challenges the audience to
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: confront its fascination with evil and begs the question, where
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: do the monsters hide in our own psyche? To help
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: us wrestle with these questions, we're joined by Joey Polari, actor, musician, director, editor,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: and the man who plays Anthony Perkins in the show.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: We'll explore how intimacy with darkness affects a performer, how
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: public persona and private pain intersect, and why we continue
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: watching when the camera reveals what we'd rather not know.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Trigger warning, this episode discusses violence, death, and conversion therapy. So, Joey,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: how did you find your way into Jungian work and
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: your interests and all of that?
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: I think it must have been my older brother who,
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: he studied psychology in school. And then because I've been
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: an actor since I was a kid, it was always
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: sort of natural to be interested in psychology in general.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: Then I started reading some books. I can't remember which
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: is the first that started it off. But I started
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: reading some books about Jung. I had Man and His Symbols.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Then my dreams changed. I had done dream work and
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: I read the book and Sure enough, the dreams change
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: in accordance with that.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: You started having Jungian dreams.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: Yes, there's anima and animus all over.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It's very gratifying.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: Very. And then I started listening to the podcast. I
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: was a big fan. I'm a big fan of the
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: podcast and was just into talking about these things in
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: a more symbolic way, which I don't find that is
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: usually as rewarded in daily conversation.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, do you find that kind of holding a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Jungian perspective or being interested in your inner life and
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: dreams and stuff, how does that intersect or interact or
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: support your acting?
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: That's a really good question. Well, certainly, psychology is always
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: first and foremost when approaching a character. Maybe even deeper
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: than that, intuition. To me, There's something like prep, which
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: is psychology or understanding your character or something like that.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: If you choose to have prep, some people don't. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: then there's the intuitive aspect, which I think I found
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: the most in Jungian work, where there is, and you
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: have spoken about it on your podcast, there is some
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: sort of like call from inside the house. There's a,
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: like the word like daemon, like pulling you forward. has
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: usually found itself to be very prevalent when I go
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: to work.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: So, like, as you're working, you're guided by that?
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't want to talk too, you know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: sort of out, but it's about intuition and acting is,
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: you know, okay, acting is reacting. It's about intuition. To me,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: there's something that you can plan all you want, but
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: until you're in the room and you're there and they
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: say action, hopefully you're trying to discover something there. And that,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: I think, is something close to listening to the spirit
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: of your own intuition.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: So when you were preparing for your role in the
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Netflix series Monster, I'm imagining you're learning about Anthony Perkins
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: because you're playing Anthony Perkins, who is playing Ed Gein,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: the famous serial killer. So you've got like two masks,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: in a sense, over you. It's a huge amount of information,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: both about Perkins and about Ed Gein. And it's a
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: very selective art to decide which bits of that information
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: you will take into yourself to allow to change you,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: to form the character around. So I am curious. What
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: parts of Perkins' story and Gein's story did you take
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: hold of to build that character?
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: There was a book I had read about Anthony Perkins
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: called Split Image that was about Perkins in his private
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: life versus his public life. And then eventually his taking
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: on of Norman Bates and the way that that sort
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: of marred his career. He was so identified. with that
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: character that he basically fled to Europe to make films
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: and was called back over the course of the rest
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: of his career continually to return to that role for
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: better or for worse. He eventually directed a movie sequel
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: to Psycho. So that sort of tension between private and
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: public is I think the show's interest in Perkins. So
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: that felt extremely important. And then sort of the general
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: arc of trying to take on, okay, he's playing Norman Bates,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Hitchcock in this scene in the house is telling him,
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: you are like Dean, you can portray this role. Certainly,
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: I'm taking my own personal history of coming out to
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: that experience. I'm remembering what it's like to feel negative
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: feelings towards myself. And then to sort of ever-present question
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: as an artist between private and public life.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: When you were reaching into that monstrous aspect, Norman Bates
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: does monstrous things, of course, inspired by Ed Gein's monstrosities.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: How did that change you? I mean, you're imagining these things.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: You're talking to yourself. You're creating a subtext. You're altering
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: your body in subtle ways. You're taking that stuff in.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: You're metabolizing it. I imagine that affects your psyche.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: You know, I have never been one to really have
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: a lot of runoff. I always thought the best way
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: to get to it was to almost be laughing and
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: talking and then... Huh, that's interesting. I found over my...
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've been doing this for 25 years. There's
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: something about the intense prep, the intense, I'm going to
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: do this, that tends to bung up the work. Yeah.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I get it. I like that term too, runoff. You know, like, yeah.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know that this is an apt comparison,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: but sometimes people will say, I don't know how you
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: do what you do all day. But I think I'm
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: just sort of relating because I, you know, I go
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: into session and I'm 100% there and I'm listening no
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: matter what, and then I'm out. And I'm not saying
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: that nothing ever stays with me. I mean, obviously, there's
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: times it's like, you know, oh, God, I have to
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: start a horrible story or that's so upsetting or I'm
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: thinking about someone. But in general, the reason I can
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: do it is because I go in and I'm in
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: and then I'm out, you know?
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: And I think there's something it's probably different for someone
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: like Charlie Hunnam, who's in that role and committing acts
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: of violence for a long period of time. And I
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: think he's spoken publicly about his experience with staying with
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: that character. But probably true to your experience as well
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: is that the thing that really affected me the most
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: or felt like the most weight was just the weight
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: of a true story of his experience, which is being painted.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: It's not a documentary. We are condensing quite a bit
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: of time into this one period. But you, I mean,
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: you want to do justice to someone or, I mean,
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: I loved Tony Perkins for a long time. So it
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: was a real gift to portray him, but I wanted
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: to try and at least access some part of what
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: I saw in him, which was a deep love for
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: art and a deep protection for his private life and
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: his public life. Really wanting and fighting for the right
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: to live an independent life. versus what the public saw
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: him as.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I hadn't known anything about Perkins before watching this film,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and I got really interested in it. I mean, obviously,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: one of the sort of questions that is raised by
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: the series, I guess not a film, it's a series,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: is who is the monster? And of course, Hitchcock was
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: kind of a monster, and you really get that in
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: the series. You know, Hitchcock was really monstrous, particularly to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Tippi Hedren when they were filming The Birds. But in this,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: you see him, he's just like, he's peeking into, you know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Lee's dressing room and he's just kind of horrible, you know?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: So there's the director who's bringing you this violence and
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: this horror. Is the monster the gay person because it's
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: aberrant or whatever? Is the monster the serial killer? Is
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the monster the person who looks on and kind of
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: enjoys it vicariously like the Adeline character? Or is the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: monster us because we're watching it and enjoying it? And
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I think my favorite moment in the whole series is
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: when you're there with the Ed Gein character and he
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: turns to you and says, You're the one who can't
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: look away. And I was like, yeah, there I am,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of cinema that has been
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: about our participation in watching something like this. And certainly
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: the question of who is the monster. And I think
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: in Perkins' story is, you know, the belief that one
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: is a monster because they are doing something that is
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: aberrant or believe that it's aberrant. But it's an interesting
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: question the show takes. It's very meta in that way.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Very, yeah. I loved that about it. It's all these
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: layered stories, you know. But I mean, from our perspective
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: as Jungians, of course, that question, who is the monster,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: is very pertinent. Because the truth is, we all are
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: monstrous or have monstrous aspects of ourselves, and we call
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: that shadows.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: From the psychological perspective, watching the show, even the episodes
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: I'm not in, I mean, you see the sort of
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: interjected voice of his mother that does not have a
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: place and needs to commit acts of violence. So, yes,
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: in his shadow, I mean, there is this sort of like,
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: first of all, a person that was never allowed, at
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: least in the show's terms, never allowed to be himself.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: And the rage that goes outward is so much to
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: do with his mother's voice and for repression, which seems
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: to be a large theme of the show as well.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I want to say like maybe the biggest
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: monster in the whole show is the mother. And every
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: mother in the show pretty much is a monster. Yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Every interaction between, it's just that, so, yeah.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: The interesting aspect of watching the show, like you said,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: through all those mother experiences is, There's something in the
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Adeline character that has been, I'm like now thinking of
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: young game books I've read, like I'm thinking of Marianne Woodman.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about the sort of like something is safeguarded
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: from the child in terms of their best interests. Some
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: sort of reality is kept from the child. Love is
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: withdrawn from the child. And then they go out into
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: the world and sort of seek out the darkness that
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: was maybe repressed. in the home. I know Marian Woodman
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: talks about this a little bit in her book, Addiction
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: to Perfection, which I was a huge fan of when
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I read it. Something in us is drawn towards this darkness.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: And if it's coming from the voice of a parent
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: who says, you can't do this, or you won't be this,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: or you won't be that, at least in some cases,
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: it leads to this sort of fascination with the deep.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that the Hitchcock character gives his Freudian interpretation.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: talking about how Gein's thwarted sexual instinct then goes underground
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: and drives him crazy and then looks at Anthony Perkins,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: you know, in this very grotesque way that Anthony also
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: has a secret that's making him sick, that's distorting him
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: in some fashion. So there is this moment of kind
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: of psychoanalytic theory that just plants itself right in the
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: middle of the series in case any of us didn't
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: catch it.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, in Go and Watch Psycho, it's the most
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: Freudian thing imaginable. The Norman Bates character is clearly drawn
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: towards these women and must murder them before he can
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: betray his mother by making good on those sexual impulses.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: It's directly lifted somewhat from the Geed story.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: So one of the moments in the series that I
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: found very moving was when you were playing Anthony Perkins
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: with his analyst.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: That was devastating.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: And the several different levels of feeling that play across
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: your face is so substantive. And of course, the additional
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: mother is the analyst. Mm-hmm. I mean, she's another mother figure.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And watching your character go from being sad and frightened,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: then you hide your face for a moment, then you
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: hide your lips, you look around, and then there's a
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: moment where you glance left as if you're seeing someone,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: which I'm thinking, huh, is Ed Gein somehow there in
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: the corner? And then there's this moment where you move
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: from horror into this charming smile where you then just
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: align with her and say, yes, I want to. I truly,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: truly want what you want, which is to cure you
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: of this homosexual fornication issue that the analyst puts forward.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: So watching you dance through all of that and then
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: finally come forward with that mask of a smile, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: then we're in that realm of shadow and persona, as well,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: and what you're willing to do in the character to
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: please that mother.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes, thank you for that. Yes, you characterized the
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: scene so well. Yeah, there is this deep need for
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: the Perkins character to satisfy both the need to live
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: a life maybe as a movie star or live a
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: life that he imagines he needs to, and When I
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: remember doing the scene, I remember thinking, it's not so simple.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: It's not just mask or persona, like you say, and
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: especially in the analytic environment, you know, he's feeling extremely
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: vulnerable and the desire, the wrestle between those two feelings
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: of I want to be myself and I don't think
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: I can are coming up against each other in that scene.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: And that wasn't definitely the plan when doing it, but
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, It wasn't the plan before, like
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: I was saying, before you just start in it and
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden feeling, oh, this switch is going here.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: I always think of acting as like a river and
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: either you're on the river, you're watching the river, but
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: when it's good, you feel like you're on the river.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure any artist or even maybe working, as
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: long as you're working, you feel that thing. You know
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: what it's like to really listen.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And it's that moment where the individuation is thwarted. I mean,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Anthony is with Tab Hunter. there's a relationship, it could continue, maybe.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And then this intractable tension between the superego, the culture,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: telling him, but you better be this way, but he
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: knows himself to be really something else. And the collision
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: between those two things that all of us experience in
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: different ways, and that Perkins carries into the making of Psycho,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: So I'm imagining that his own tortured internal experience is
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: also present in the Norman Bates character. And I think
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Hitchcock's casting is brilliant in that way, that Perkins doesn't
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: have to fake that alienation from himself.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And there's something I really relate to, which is
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: that Hitchcock looks at Perkins in the show and says,
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: you're like him. You can do this. And this really
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: speaks something to me about casting, about what we... I
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: used to have an acting teacher who would do this
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: exercise where people from the class would get up one
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: by one and sit in a chair. And she would
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: turn around and go, what do they get for free?
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: What do we see in this person? What roles do
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: we just by their plain face? And It was amazing
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: the consensus that came up person by person. You just
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: have a certain, you know, there's a certain strata of
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: roles that you inhabit. I have always played, sometimes I've
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: played in comedies or this or that, but in the
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: drama roles I've played, I've played a lot of people
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: who are deeply conflicted and really trying to figure it
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: out where they need to be in life. A lot
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: of I mean, and that's my, that was my personal
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: experience for 18 years before I came out. So.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Thank, thank God I can use that and I can
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: portray that. And I don't feel that way about myself now,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: but wonderful to be able to make art with it.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. To be on the other side of it and
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: have access to it.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Do you feel that that, that tension inside of yourself
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: has been resolved?
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: Into the psychoanalytic. At least that tension, yes, has resolved.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: And that's been a lot of work. I mean, I
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: remember dreams of mine, even into my early 20s. I
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: kept a dream journal for 10 years. And those dreams
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: were much more nightmarish than they are now. I feel
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: like they've gone full avant-garde at this point. They were like, okay,
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: you want to pay attention? I'm going to throw you
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: some curveballs. That tension though, yes. And I also, I
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: did this movie called Love, Simon. And there was part
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: of this, there was a gay, you know, 20th Century
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: Fox is going to do this gay rom-com. And something
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: in me was very, very resolved that I needed to
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: come out publicly. No one was asking me to. But
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I couldn't imagine a life torn apart between private and public.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: I couldn't imagine it. I didn't know how someone could
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: move forward and do that. And people do, of course.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: But for myself and looking at those dreams, every warning
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: sign was saying, do not hide. Do not hide.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So your dreams have guided you.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: A lot. A lot, and not always with a great
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: amount of understanding on my part. But I look back,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: I was recently going through a dream journal entry from
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: 10 years ago, or even eight years ago. My father
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: died when I was 23, and I remember the dreams
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: of that period of time. Wow, I couldn't believe the
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: amount of conflict and conflicted energy was there compared to
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: some dreams now. That was always a home point for me.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: And I took a lot. I do other art as well.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: I make music.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I write.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Those have always been a good access point of actually
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: looking at what's really going on.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just sitting here imagining that you have sort of...
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I'm imagining you have a very well-functioning ego self-access.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: That is... I hope so. I sure hope so.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I promise.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: All this work, all this time. Certainly looking at dreams
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: now is there's not the such common dream formalities like
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: someone's coming into the house. The house is getting uprooted.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: There's a tornado. You know, I've heard friends dreams. People
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: tend to call me for their dream interpretations.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Wait, wait, what?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: You got to say more about this.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: You're that guy.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: I'm that guy. I know everyone says, like, okay, I
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: don't really like what's named a dream, but wow, they
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: are just so fascinating.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Aren't they so interesting?
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: So interesting, especially, like, the attitude of the person who
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: had the dream.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Joey. You might have a second act
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: as an analyst.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: That's right. I don't, one of my good friends just
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: became a therapist and I was listening going, I don't
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: know if I'm cut out for that, but I will
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: happily listen to a dream. And I started doing more
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: dream work during the pandemic. I had a roommate, she
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: and I were talking about our dreams every morning. Both
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: of us unemployed trying to, I don't know, just talk
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: about what's going on. And then she was like, you
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: should host a dream interpretation party. People were calling me
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: about Dreams, I was apparently very vocal. I don't remember
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: being this vocal about loving dreams. But I'm sure I
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: talked about your guys' podcast and what was, I just
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: found like really interesting about dreams. And then people would
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: call me. I mean, I remember getting FaceTimed from people, Joey, Joey,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: we're in Florence and I'm with my friend. Hey, tell
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: them what your dream is. You know, I'd be like, okay,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: I had this dream, you know, so I was like
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: in this hotel and the hotel's like, the elevator doesn't work.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: And I'm on like the sixth floor is where I'm
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: meant to be going. And like, I don't know, like
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: I've got this friend from childhood who I haven't talked
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: to in a while. And there's this sort of like laughter,
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: you know, all this stuff. And then they realize I'm
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: actually taking it dead serious. Okay, your friend. Okay, can
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: you tell me some qualities about this friend, et cetera?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, what would you say?
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: Oh, give me three. I mean, I always start with,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: give me three adjectives about your friend. Just don't think
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: about it. Who's your friend? How do you identify as that? Okay,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: it's better. And then I just start, okay, so you're stuck.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: You want to go upwards. Okay, there's a lot of
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: things about going up. You want to get to this level.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Once you're on that level, there's something part of this.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: This friend you described is maybe more nerdy or nitpicky.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: They're a little bit more type A. Do you identify
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: as that? No, not really. I feel like I'm pretty
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: go with the flow. So I was always taught by
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: my brother, you know, as if you are every person
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: in the dream. Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Your brother did a good job.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: He really did. So, I mean, I hosted a dream
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: interpretation party and I told people, write down, we had
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: a sign up sheet. And I was like, I don't
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: think I'm the right person to do this. And my
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: friend's going, no, you're so good at this. It'd be
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: so fun. But I said, but these are, you know,
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: they're kind of revealing in this way. And people would
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: choose whether they wanted to do it in front of
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: people or.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: So it's sort of like a karaoke, but with dreams?
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I mean.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: I'm sure this is horror to analysts everywhere, but... Not
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: at all. Are you kidding?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I'm like taking notes.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: It was like karaoke. It was like, okay, who's next?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: So people would stand up and share their dreams.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: It was just a party setting and people would go...
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: I would... Some people wanted to come into this very
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: bedroom and they'd sit down and they'd tell me a dream.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: I'd go, okay, all this stuff, whatever. And then they
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: would leave and they would have a sort of look like, okay, cool.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. And I'm like, yeah, of course.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: And we'd go out and find the next person. And
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: I would say, do you want to come into my bedroom?
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Do you want to talk? And they would go, no.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: No, no.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: I can be right here. Let's everyone listen up to
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: this crazy dream.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: And always this attitude would reveal the most revealing dreams.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: This sort of like, oh, this doesn't mean anything to me.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: This is such a silly dream. That is always I
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: know when it's going to be really juicy.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: You got that part right. I remember one time there
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: was a journalist who contacted the podcast and she had
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: this dream and I think she thought she knew what
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: it was about and she wanted to talk about it
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: with us. And So we did this thing or we
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: recorded this thing. She was very lovely. But we spent
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: some time on the dream. And boy, it was not
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: what she thought it was about. And she just kind
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: of called us up. She goes, you know, I don't
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: think I'm going to run that.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: The same feeling here was, hmm, I'm not so sure
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: about that interpretation. But all the information was right there.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: And you could sense this sort of foolish feeling. Like,
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: I can't believe I... thought this dream was nothing. I
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: can't believe I was just openly at this party talking
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: about this dream. No one was ever meant to feel
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: any shame. It was actually a great amount of fun.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: People said we should do this again. But it was
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: really fascinating to just involve it in such a lighthearted
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: way and then find that there's actually quite a bit
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: of depth in that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: And do you find.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: That you have the same facility working with your own
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: dreams as you do working with other people's dreams?
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Absolutely not. It is somewhat one-way glass. I have read
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: so many books over the years. Wow, just like a
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: bunch of Jungians and there are books that were, I guess,
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: were for therapists. And it reminded me of that thing
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: where it's like you read a book and it's meant
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: for therapists and the therapist is like, oh, just so
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: you know, it's kind of like, Not so fast. You know,
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: you may be able to analyze others, but you really
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: have to take a lot of work to look back.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: So my own dreams are often totally mysteries to me.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I feel like that was kind of
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: our focus with DreamWise was really like getting around that
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: one-way glass of being like, because I mean, Marie-Louise von
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Franz says somewhere, you can't see your own back. And
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: understanding your own dream is a little bit like trying
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: to look at your own back. And so when we
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: were writing Dreamwise, we were really like, how can we
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: help people? How can we give them the mirrors that
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: will allow them to see their back? Yeah.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: It's hard.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's really hard.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Yes. Something about what you're saying reminds me of what
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: is difficult about acting in some respect or making art,
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: which is that you have to be very careful how
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: much you claim to know yourself. because there's something that
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: will come forward if you're really good at sort of
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: closing one eye and looking the other way, where you
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: can actually reveal something you didn't intend to reveal. But
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: it's hard to look at that directly. It's hard to go,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: I'm going to reveal my shame in this scene. I'm
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: going to be in this scene with Anthony Perkins, and
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: I'm going to reveal X, Y, Z. It tends to
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: close up, like I was saying earlier. It tends to
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: go as if you are not getting anywhere close. But
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: if you sort of dawdle and sort of just talk
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: around it and you can find a way to actually
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: access those things.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It's like if you use your peripheral vision, Joseph, it
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: kind of reminds me of the exercise that you have
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: instructed us to do sometimes by using your peripheral vision.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: But also I was thinking that, you know, when you're
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: looking at a starry heavens, there are some stars you
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: can only see through your peripheral vision. You can't see
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: them by looking straight ahead.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Wow. Yes. And there's something, I mean, I'm a huge
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: fan of the Medusa myth. I'm, very interested by the
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: fact that you can't really look at something directly in
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: the eyes. That's something that overwhelming. I think you guys
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: have talked about this on the podcast before. Great books
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: written about that as well. The sort of like Icarus
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: trying to get too close to the sun. Medusa staring
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: at you have to look at it through. I think
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: that's Marian Woodman, the silver mirror, you know, like Hercules
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: has to look through the mirror, Perseus, and look through
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: and see Medusa. But staring directly at Medusa just tends
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: to freeze you up.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: And the Medusa myth coming full circle to the start
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: of our conversation is all about sexual splitting.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: It reminds me of the, oh, I don't know if
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: I can say this on your podcast, but this quote
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: by Gertrude Stein is like, if you try and write
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: a poem about two dogs fornicating, you'll end up with
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: a poem about two dogs fornicating. And there's something about this.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: You try and have this aim for something. And that's
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: all you will do. That's all you can complete is
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: this thought. You set out to write, like I have,
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: an album about the grief of losing a father. If
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: that's all you try to do, it will end up
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: with just that.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: So what you're saying is you have to make sure
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: that it's not sealed tight. You have to leave room
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: for the unconscious to come in.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Could not agree more. That's why I was working with
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: dreams when I make art or work with the intuition feeling,
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: the daemon. I like that language as well, but there's
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: something that is, I'm going to pay homage to. I'm
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: not going to seal everything tight. I'm going to do
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: my prep. I'm going to have an intention. And then
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: once it's go time, I'm going to follow the river.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: I'm going to try and get on that river and
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: see if it will lead me to where maybe I
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: didn't intend for it to go. But it always has
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: a way of coming back, always has a way of
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: informing the intention.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Joey, do you know your typology?
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: You mean an Enneagram?
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: No. Are you an ENFJ?
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: An INFJ.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: You're an INFJ. Oh.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Enneagram. Got really into that recently. Enneagram stuff.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Because the way you're describing your method is so congruent
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: with that intuitive feeling function.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, and I did not operate that way for a
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: long period of time. I used to be very thinking
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: much like I needed to really bat down the hatches.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: And I didn't actually have proof of that working in
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: my life as much. Every job that I booked, as
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: an actor over the last 20 years, I would say
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: 70% of them included a last-minute cold read. That's four.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: They give you sides, give you a scene when you're there.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: You had prepared two scenes for the audition. They go,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: here's about this third, and just look at it. You
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: don't need to think about it. And that panic goes up.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I didn't have time to prepare. That
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: was always my magic. Some of that dream work, my
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: grief work after losing my father was all about trying
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: to tap back into that intuitive feeling that had guided
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: my life in a way that I was not aware of.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember when we interviewed Kelly Bulkley on
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: the podcast and he's written all these books about dreams.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And I said something, he's like, yeah, yeah, my muse
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: is very good to me. And I loved that. Yeah.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: So your muse is good to you.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: And I use that language. Yeah.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: She shows up.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: She shows up. They show up. I've been really lucky
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: with not only those experiences, but in writing or making
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: music that when I say what if, or I put
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: on the mask of some genre I want to play in,
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: it tends to be really beneficial. I haven't been as
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: blocked up. I don't feel because of some of that,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: like this is how it needs to be. It's this
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: or bust. The muses tend to really like that invitation. Oh,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: what if I just made this Lou Reed record? I
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: love Lou Reed. And I'm going to try on that thing. Well,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: you'll never be Lou Reed. Even Lou Reed was changing
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: as Lou Reed. But the thing you get if you're
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: not so airtight, not so different, is that you can
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: get away with somewhere in the realm and it's something different.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: So my muses have taught me that as well. It's
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: more you just aim the arrow and land there. Great,
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: but if not, it's fun where you land.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: How I would describe that is to ponder something and
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: to ask how it affects you rather than pondering something
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: and trying to be it.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Wonderful. Yes, I really agree. I mean, it's sort of
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: what you just said reminds me of Harold Bloom has
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: a book called The Anxiety of Influence. in which he
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: lays out steps for the poet to get away from
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: their influence. Of course, I'm sure you both are, that's
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: so psychoanalytic, the influence of parents or life. And what
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: he says, I love, and this really gave me a
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: lot of solace, is that great poets get away from
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: their influence, from that anxiety of influence, by misinterpretation. They
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: misinterpret their influence. favorite artists, they pick up this quality
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: of Lou Reed that they love and they make that
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: their thing. So again, that sort of that metaphor you
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: were using, that language you were using, Lisa, of airtight,
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: sealed tight, it's not so much like that and it
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: tends to reward.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I was thinking a little bit, I mean, just wanting
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: to translate it into what I do. You know, Jung
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: was pretty much anti-technique. You know, he was pretty careful
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: not to discuss really techniques other than, you know, maybe
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: you could say active imagination was a technique. But otherwise,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: there's no psychoanalytic technique anywhere in Jung proper. And in fact,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: he has this great quote, know all the theories, you know,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: and then we're sitting in a room with someone, forget
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: them all and just be another person. I'm paraphrasing, but
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: it's a really great quote. But I'm in this, I'm
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: getting a doctorate and I'm in these case conferences with
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: psychoanalysts from other schools. And we were doing this case
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: once and other schools, some of them really have like technique,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: which I'm like really curious about, right? Because I think
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: like a little technique could be like a good thing.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes you need some technique. So I'm really
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: curious about what they're doing and I'm listening. And at
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: one point I said, well, with this person, I would
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: have done this. And everyone goes, why? And I was like,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: what do you mean why? It's just like what my
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: intuition tells me. It was like the craziest thing. I
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: was like, well, just because my intuition tells me to
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: do that. You know? So, yeah.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Yes, it's the same or a similar thing in acting.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can read every book. You can read
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: what Stanislavski wrote, what Adler wrote. But until you're there
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: in the moment and you're listening... What you've really got
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: is your own intuition, your own listening, your own good instincts.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: And there's a great many extremely technical actors that are
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: wonderfully proficient. You love watching them, but maybe don't stir
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: your soul. And then every once in a while, there's
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: a movie featuring some person who has never acted before
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: in their life. No technique whatsoever. And we are stunned
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: into silence by their level of truth. So both things
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: can work. You mentioned typology. Maybe you need to know
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: what works for you. But as a fan of bringing
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: back Lou Reed again, I have a picture of him
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: over here. That's why I'm keeping it. Is, you know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: sometimes primitive is a good way to get to feel
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: like primitive playing is a good way. Sometimes most technically
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: proficient players Musicians don't move us. Sometimes they know how
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: to do both. But a little technique I have always
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: felt is good, and I keep that in mind. There
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: are things to know when you act that maybe you
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: can't do if you're not aware at all.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: A little technique's a good thing.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: So as an INFJ, and I have probably 80% of
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: my practice are INFJs, INFJ men, actually. It's kind of
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: this corridor thing. you know, me and the INFJs and
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: I'm an ENFJ. So I'm kind of the extroverted version
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: of it. Um, I'm impressed by your extroversion and your expressiveness.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: And as an INFJ, I would guess that that comes
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: at a great cost to you. So you're out there
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: in front, you're vivacious and charming and expressive that way. But, but,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: how does your introversion react to being out front all
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: the time?
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: It's a really good question. I think the introversion must visit,
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: I'm very studious. I like to spend time alone. There's
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of It must also visit via paranoia, like
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: how did that go? What was that really like? Did
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: that work? Was that working? Et cetera. But I'm working
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: on currently trying to work on how to metabolize that
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: better than paranoia or questioning or questioning so much that
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: the rug is pulled out from underneath me. What is
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: meaningful questioning about My external extroversion experiences out and vivacious
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: or trauma, any of these words. I don't know if
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: that answers your question.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's in that realm that most of
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: the INFJ creative types I work with, that they gestate
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: something rises up inside of them. It's very intense. It's
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: often much more intense in them than it is when
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: it comes out. But as that creative process moves out
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: in front of them, they experience this loss of virtue.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: That's like something, they've given something to the creative process,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: but something is lost inside of them. And it's that
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: the creative process is accompanied by a kind of grief,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: which they're accustomed to, and melancholy. And it's just an
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: inevitable process of taking the inside and putting it out.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: So I imagine that may be something you experience.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Well, certainly that word melancholy used to be the dominant
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: force of my life. When I was in my early 20s,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: I thought I would be a lifelong depressive. The death
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: of my father did not help, of course. Yes. It
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: really took me down into that world of the underworld
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: that I had always sort of been drawn to. I
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: had an acting teacher who used to call me the
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: boy by the well. Oh, you're sort of watching the
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: world pass by. Well, that is so an INFJ. That
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: is so a type four, as a Richard Rohr would
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: call it. as he would describe a type four, that
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: used to be such the dominant way of operating through
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: the world. As Richard Rohr says, if they're not counted out,
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: they will count themselves out. So deep is the need
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: to be on the outside looking in. The melancholy, I
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: don't know how that really transformed, but I think eventually
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: I got sick of my own melancholy. I remember having
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: certain conversations with friends where I said, I have to
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: stop myself. I am, I know this problem four ways
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: from Sunday and clearly understanding is not helping me whatsoever.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: I had just drawn the four corners of my castle
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: or my prison and there's nothing else to do but
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: to move.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: God, I love that. I'll rest. Analysis is not really helping.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, at least for me in those circumstances. Why, oh,
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: why do I feel this way? Why, oh, why? Well,
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: I understood quite a bit. And then there was sort
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: of attachment to not leaving. Totally. I'm very aware.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: It's a beautiful misery. It is.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: Most beautiful misery that's ever existed. And what? Okay, what
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: are you going to do? Do you really want to
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: go do that thing? What choice do you have? It's
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: a thing I always battle. So it's not like it's
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: beyond me, but I'm pretty aware at this point of
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: what is my, what things kind of get at me.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: And it's always, okay, that's wonderful. And it's good. We
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: process those things. I still do processing on my own.
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: But ultimately there's the act. I think that's why on
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: some level I chose to be an actor because From
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: a young age, I knew that this would help me
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: as much as it might enact things. I knew this
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: would help me choosing music to share it because the
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: INFJ is sort of happy to just make art alone
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: in their room and not put it out.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: There is an interesting arc to the evolution of melancholy.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: I think that when young, melancholy can get mixed into depression.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: which often is because INFJs can be wounded so easily,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: particularly as young folks, because you're so much more sensitive
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: than most people would realize. But that I think that
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: when the melancholy can separate out from the depression and
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: lift up into the artistic process, it creates an exquisite
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: and almost unbearable intensity in the life. And that becomes
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: a kind of poetic stance, and it's a kind of
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: agony that most INFJs wouldn't trade because it makes them
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: feel so alive. And that makes the arts a perfect
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: place to live, to plant your flag.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, I really resonate with what you're saying on
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: so many levels, especially in that realm of If you
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: can externalize that thing, that conflict inside, and you can
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: actually display it, it's wonderful. That's the artist I like.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: I don't know if Joni Mitchell is an INFJ, but okay,
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: I'll be listening to that. There's comfort in melancholy, as
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: she says on her album Hijira. There's something beautiful about
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: that if you can find a way to actualize it.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: My 20s were a great deal of wondering how to
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: actualize that.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: Your fourth function is extroverted sensation. Because you're an I, N, F,
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: and then J, and that puts your sensation as your
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: fourth function. And the fourth function is the primary gate
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: through which the unconscious and the self speaks. So for
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: you to take your inner experience and then turn it
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: into a body state, to turn it into a physical activity,
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: that that is actually the gate between the ego and
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: the self is the fourth function. So you discover that
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: all on your own. And yes, it would be the
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: place where the medicine happens from the soul, but also
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: it completes the circle so that you're not constantly feeling alone.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Because INFJs suffer from that agonizingly. But when you can
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: open up that fourth function, live in your body and
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: let your body do things that surprise you, the companion
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: that has actually ever been with you begins to make
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: itself known.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: That is how I feel about acting when I'm doing
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: it well. Wow.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: That is when I think I am doing something right,
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: is when It enters the body. The body is choosing
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: what to do. It's purely sensing. It's not an intellectual exercise.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: I am genuinely in the moment responding. That's me at
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: my best. At my worst, I'm very intellectual, but I
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: have realized over time is what, quote unquote, the camera
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: is looking for.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: It's the crack where God comes in. Yes.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: Yes. Those are the times where my artistic practice has
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: felt the most spiritual to me. Intuition is a word
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: for that, but also when I was preparing to do
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Anthony Perkins, and again, we're not making a direct documentary.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: How do you really.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Embody a person?
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: Also, all the clips I'm playing on my TV, all
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: the movies I had watched, there's not many clips of
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: him being interviewed. So you have basically his screen persona
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: to base. the performance off of okay there's this wonderful
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: clip of tony speaking french somewhere uh he's so charming
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: okay that's an interview portion but otherwise it's very green
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: even the microphones are picking up the tinniness of the
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: voice versus maybe how it actually sounded all these things
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: like how am i going to genuinely show up how
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: am i going to be able to do this thing
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: and i i I don't mean to talk any way
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: of overstating my own performance or people may have their
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: own judgments about how that appeared, if they think it's
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: truthful or not. But for me, moments like the ones
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: you described in the therapist's office is the moment where
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: I'm going, well, I am trying to head and D
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: him so badly. And it's, I don't know if it's
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: really working, but the moment I would sort of let
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: go and go, just trust that it will show up.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Is when I watch it and go, Oh, Anthony Perkins.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: So that's a contrary lesson that is hard, I think,
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: especially to learn in your 20s, but it's a hard
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: thing in general to learn how to get at that
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: thing that you really desire is often kind of, as
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: you said, Joseph, it's kind of like the fourth function.
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: It's the fourth thing that you need to draw on
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: to get it there.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: It's like having a dream and there's suddenly an extra
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: door in your living room and you open it up
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: and you're like, my God, my house is twice the
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: size I thought it was.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: You start walking around inside of it.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Yes. That is definitely the theme of my life right now.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: That's a great, that's a great place to be. That's
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: a great place to be.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: Scary place to be, you know, I mean, the moment
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: you step out every year, Every voice inside goes, but
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: are we really sure we want to step out? Are
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: we really? I think he actually wanted to make me
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: think about this a little bit more and just get
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: back to. So it's almost like being led by the nose,
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: like one of those cartoons. You're like, oh my gosh,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: I'm going outdoors and then I'm turning back. And all
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: of a sudden, I was like, how did I turn
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: my back? I've got to get back out. I read
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: this book. It's hard to keep talking. I read this
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: book called Archetypal Defenses of the Spirit. I think it's
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: called The Inner World of Trauma.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, Donald Calshad. He's our buddy.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: I read this when I was in Southeast Asia. That's
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: where I went to after my father died.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Wow. God, you're like 24 and you're in Southeast Asia
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: and you're reading Calshad?
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Jesus. Insufferable. No, that's a deep book.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: It's profound.
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: It was a profound experience for me. I remember just
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: highlighting it so endlessly. Um, but that's what I think
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: of right now. I think of those defenses of the spirit,
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: the thing that wants to come forward. Any acting class
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: worth its salt will tell you about your blocks.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of what we do in analysis.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: Um, when I would read therapist books or books that were,
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: you know, very analytic, I was like, Oh, the ties
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: here are so close. Um, so again, it's like, what
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: was a, a reason to step back indoors, but not
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: as good of a reason as to step out. I'm
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: still learning that lesson, though.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: I think that the most common struggle for INFJs, I
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: don't know if it's true for you, is resentment. And
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: resentment means a very specific thing. And our friend John
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: White did a wonderful paper on this, that what happens
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: is that the child or the individual has a set
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: of reasonable instincts and needs, and they bring it to
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: a caregiver. And the caregiver displays the ability to meet
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: the needs, but does not meet the need. And so
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: the child is then cast back into themselves, sitting there,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: looking at the one who didn't meet their needs, imagining
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: that they're withholding and plotting their revenge. And INFJs suffer
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: greatly from that. They have this intuitive sense of what
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: the other person could give them whether or not it's
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: actualized and by the way my advice to intuitives is
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: never fall in love with someone's potential because you have
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: no idea how many decades it's going to take for
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: them to actualize it and the 20 years in between
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: are going to torture you.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: I know this with every fiber of my being i
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: remember one of the uh some version of this. I
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: don't think I learned this lesson for many years and
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: still probably have more to learn here. But my father
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: and I always had a very bad relationship. I always
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: thought that he was not really a good father or this, that.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: And I always wanted him to be different, to have something,
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: et cetera. So later in life, I was probably 17.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: My dad got diagnosed with ALS. I'm thinking, how am
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: I going to, Well, I didn't have a lot of
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: feeling when he told me. I don't remember having a
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: lot of feeling. But there was this looming, okay, what
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: is going to happen? He was given three years. He
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: extended his life ring via a lot of health methods
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: to go five years. And some part of me went, well,
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: there's only now. I've only got right now to establish
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: a relationship. Every person in my life, not out of mouths,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: but every person in my life said, well, your dad's
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: going to have to change he's going to have to
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: shape up and I remember thinking there was something really
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: validating about that until one December it was probably a
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: year before he died and I had a wonderful conversation
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: with my mother about this she talked me through a
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: conversation I was going to have with my father again
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: about what kind of text to not send what kind
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: of conversations we could have etc and I can't remember
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: how it exactly came to be, but we both realized
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: that if I wanted the relationship, it couldn't be based
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: on the potential that he might change. And he was
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: always going to be who he was. And then he
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: and I ended up squaring away our friendship way more
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: in the last.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: Just because I had, I do think, really kind of
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: given up what I thought he should be. That work
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: had repercussions and... effects in my grief journey. But it
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: was so crucial to, even for a moment while he
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: was alive, go, wow, I'm sitting here resenting him for
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: what I think he could give me. But he's dying
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: and there's time is a ticking. It's now or never.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: And that was a real blow to the ego of like,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: what do I deserve?
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: So you gifted yourself with a narrative that you could
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: live with after it was all over by being so
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: generous to him.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. And it was the gift that, you know, it
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: gave him something and it gave me something as well.
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: The last few months of his life with the time
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: we spent together was deeply meaningful. And I could sense
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: that this sort of conversation or giving up in me
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: gave up something in him that he wanted out of
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: me as well. It was the sort of like symbiotic thing.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: It was not a perfect relationship. It was not a,
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: he didn't become everything I wanted him to be. And
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: I'm sure not for him as a song. I'm sure
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: I didn't. But there was such respect there at the end,
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: at least of our shortcomings, that what you said about resentment,
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: That is the lesson I continue to come back to. Well,
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: you did it once, Polari. You looked at someone once
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: and saw as they were. So you've got to be
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: able to do it again.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think so many of us go through
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: life sort of with low-grade resentment because we're wishing things
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: were other than they are. And that's why, you know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: just to pass this thing that he says on the
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: podcast that I just love, which is reality is medicinal.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: If you can just look reality square in the eye
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: and accept it, like you said, Joey, it's a blow.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: It's a real defeat for the ego and the ego's
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: agenda that I want what I want. Well, it should
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: be this way. Yes, sweetheart, but it's not. So this
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: is what you got.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: It's a real coming to terms. And I'm sure I'll
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: be greeting that gate many, many times over the course
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: of my lifetime. It's just an endless amount of greeting
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: where you are and looking reality in the eyes. The
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: grief journey for me was squarely in that realm. Okay,
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: but it's not like you thought. And I had huge
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: wells of rage at that time after my father died.
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: And I remember the phrase I had was, it's going
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: to have to be okay. Like at this point, it's
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: going to have to be okay that you're waking up
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: with your fists clenched in Southeast Asia all by yourself
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: at the age of 23. It's going to have to
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: be okay because surely the sort of pushing down of
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: what's going on is really not going to work. And
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I have to learn that lesson every time I go
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: to act as well. It's the same thing.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: I was going to say that the key that unlocked
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: your acting is the same key that unlocked your relationship
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: to your father, which is that you can't go in
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: that it's supposed to be a particular way.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: Yes. It's the theme of my life at this period
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: of time, following intuition. But it is kind of a
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: general rule of life. It tends to show up that way.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: I always think that art or acting or music or... Anything,
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: even my friend as a therapist is relating when we
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: talk about the artistic practice. If you just show up
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: and are really there and see what's there, it's going
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: to be much better than all your plans or this
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: and that. Not to poo-poo about planning, but.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: Well, it depends if planning is your strong suit.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: Or if you're a thinking type, then planning and crafting
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: and being a Stanislavski-styled actor where your pinkies are under
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: your control and every eyebrow is planned... I mean, if
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: you have a talent for that, then it'll be beautiful.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: But putting a unicorn in a rhinoceros outfit and trying
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: to teach it to dance like a rhinoceros is a
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: tough thing, rather than just being the unicorn that all
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: INFJs really are.
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: Yes. A fun thing about acting is that if you
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: do get cast in something that has a character that doesn't,
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: It's not the normal things that you access. That can
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: be really fun because you think of yourself as an X, Y,
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: Z person. Um, but this character requires only instinct. This
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: is pure id. And, uh, I don't live that way.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: I'm a very considered person. So it's like, okay, what
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: are the things I need to do? Do we access that?
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: And that kind of in some ways brings us back
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: to shadow because, I mean, I've always looked at actors
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: and really admired them because the craft kind of forces
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: you to get to know aspects of yourself that you
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: might not otherwise want to know about.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: Yes. And it's no guarantee. I mean, surely you could
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: be in contact with these parts of yourself and still
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: be XYZ type person, still be someone who's cool, etc.,
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: So it's not a guarantee, but it can. I'm hesitant
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: to say that acting can teach you a lot because
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: it tends to be funny how it's like it's sectioned
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: off or some people I think feel like a great deal,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: like they really learned something from acting. Others don't or
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: their art or this or that.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking about.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: You know, for example, if it's something that's really kind
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: of ego alien, really something that you think you're not,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: and then you have to find it in yourself, even
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: just for that moment. You know, that's, that's, I mean, I,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: there are good times when I was like, oh, I, I,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not that. I couldn't imagine being that. And then
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: some life circumstance happens. It's like, holy shit, I am that.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like, God, you know, it's never ceases
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: to be humbling.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: It's that sort of nothing human is alien to me
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: sort of experience.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Playwright Terrence.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: That's quoted in the show. The Adeline character says that.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: I think Capote said some version of that.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: It comes from the Greek playwright Terrence. No human experience
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: is alien to me. And that was part of his
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: philosophy about writing his plays.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: Yes. It's hard to do something as an actor with
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: a great deal of judgment. That's for sure. So if
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: you can just sort of sidestep it, it can be nice. Joseph,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: aren't you an actor?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting, but
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: I left the industry and became an Alexander Technique teacher
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: within 24 months.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: Really? Okay, I've never done Alexander Technique, but I know
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: friends who have.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I think you'd love it from the standpoint of it
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: makes the body the primary object of curiosity, and that
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: would play into that fourth function for you. But It's
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: careful because some Alexander technique teachers can create a kind
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: of rigidity in the actor. And so I did a
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: lot of teaching in universities and the acting teachers were like,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: oh my God, you're going to ruin everyone because there's
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: a method about how to move. And so the actors
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: would be on stage practicing the Alexander technique instead of
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: practicing their characters. So in that way, that was complicated.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: But if they really understand it, it's remarkably freeing.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: I would imagine the class I went to for a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: while was derived from Stanislavski, and I don't do this now,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: but there was a whole realm of the class called relaxation. Okay,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: everyone's going to, you know, up and down and try
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: and just, and oh, and say what you feel, you know.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: Get it out. People would look at each other across
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: the room and say their feelings about one another. I
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: love you. I want to kiss you. I've thought about,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's sort of like anything goes instinct in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: the realm of instinct. People would be crying or laughing
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: or whatever. And that, can it doesn't always like you
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: said it can't help you as an actor or it
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: can really you can watch someone and again they're like
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: technically just thinking about oh I have to be present
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: you know okay you know.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: It's a subtle dance with your body your nervous system
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: with your unconscious because you can't choose emotions you can
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: indirectly prompt your unconscious to generate or remember a feeling
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: but the unconscious is going to do its own thing.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, and that is the great aspect of it and
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: the big risk. That is, you're in front of all
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: these people in public and you've got to try and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: get at something that doesn't feel that great or is taboo.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: I think the show has a lot to... It's sort
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: of working in the realm of taboo.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: Very much so, I would say. The box of vulvas
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: being one of those things.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: one in that house of horrors and you're trying to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: like you know you've got your own parental taboos or
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: why can't I access my anger or what's stopping me
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: from doing that that's not just an acting thing that's
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: a real life thing as well what is blocking me
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: from feeling this thing I should be grieving but I'm
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: instead making cakes or why what messaging did I get
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: where And.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: That whole movie is about blocking. I mean, Ed Gein's
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: House of Horrors are all ways to not experience things. Yes.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: I think all three of the monster series are, to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: me and my interpretation, about repression. These people took their
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: repression to a new level. Yes, as you said, like blocks.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: And the horror of us watching it is... I think
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: the show is trying to invite your questioning about your
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: own participation and watching it or where you too, I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: think the Perkins story is to try and locate it
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: in the audience the most, perhaps.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: He's the most human.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: Yes. Maybe other than that, the Adeline character was sort
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: of like stepping in for mass culture, being sort of
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: obsessed in a casual way. Yes.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: With evil, with depravity. Um, but those two characters in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: a way are like that.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: You feel sort of implicated watching it. You know, you feel,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: you feel like you've participated in something that is, is
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: a little, is a little shadowy because you've enjoyed this,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm, I'm not much of, I have to
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: say that some of my psychoanalyst friends sent me just,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: you know, texted something about the show and said, Oh,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: we should all watch it and talk about it. And I, I,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: I Googled it and I was like, Oh, no, there's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: no fucking way I'm watching that.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: I'd like to watch it with a group of forensic psychologists.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: That would be interesting.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but then I loved it. I thought it was
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: so interesting, but it's not my usual fare. I'm not
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: a big horror person, yeah.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: I used to be, when I was a teenager, I
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: used to be obsessed, maybe it's some sort of like
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: male bonding thing, like watching the most horrific things.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, of course.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: Not video games, but like I used to find lists
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: of the most horrific movies ever made and watch them.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: And then I kind of hit my limit. I really did.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: It was like something clicked in me, especially after some
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: very smart people told me about articles about ethics in
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: cinema or how people had approached certain issues in displaying
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: horror or this book, The Art of Cruelty. What kind
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: of cruelty?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: Expands our awareness and what kind of cruelty in art
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: seems to be sort of closed lid like you had
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: said but i'm getting i never i don't watch a
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: lot of horror if i do there's certain things i
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: can't watch absolutely not um and i sort of i
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: want to turn it off or i do turn it
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: off but recently i've been watching some and that like
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: allure of the shadowy side.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned this before. You're talking about sort of
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: like the desire for darkness and why do we seek
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: it out? And I think we seek it out for
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: different reasons. I think in kind of an innocent way,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: it can be a way to sort of test ourselves
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: a little bit. And, you know, we know there's something
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: important there, especially if we've been if we have sort
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: of the too good mother. We have the too-good-holding environment
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: where we've been protected from the darkness. We want to
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: go toward it. We want to understand it. We sense
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: there's something significant there. And if you think about it,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, in a way, horror and the experience it
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: gives us is kind of like a debased religious instinct
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: because it lets us know that there is something darkly
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: numinous in the world. There is something that we can't
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: turn away from. There is something that is beyond our
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: ability to imagine. I mean, that's the way I felt
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: watching this. It's like, oh, I couldn't even imagine that.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: You know, and so it unsettles us in the way
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: that an encounter with the divine does, just in a
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: sort of dark way.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, definitely. the polarities of that experience. It's also a
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: thrill to hear you say the word numinous after hearing
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: it on the podcast so many times. It's awesome.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: Can we also say like circumambulate?
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: Ding, ding, ding. It's, it's true. It's, it's baked into
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: these plots as well. You know, it's like, we're watching
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: these horror movies and we're going don't go in there
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: but we need them to we need them to enact
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: our own a reversion and drawn towards it.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: I know i was like don't why are you going
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: in the basement?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: Stop it.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, I can't look.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: Don't go in the basement.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: It's kind of like if they said no, the movie
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: would be over. And it relies on that. It relies on,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: and it plays with our desire to see what else
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: is out there.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: You know, and you see this in fairy tales too, right?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Because always, I mean, like the kind of the classic
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: example is Fitcher's Bird, which is just one of my
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: favorite fairy tales. And it's, um, It's the Grimm's version
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: of Bluebeard. A lot of people know it better as Bluebeard.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: But it's like, you can go anywhere in the castle.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving you alone. Here are the keys. You can
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: go anywhere you want except that one room. So what
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: do you do? What do you do? You go in
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: that room and then you find the vat that's filled
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: with bloody body parts. I mean, there's Ed Gein right there.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: And you have to do that. You know, you have
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: to transgress.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: And it is because you want to know, you want
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: something to come into consciousness. That I think is the
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: meaning of it. It's like it's something, talk about repression,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: something we don't want to know about. We've got the
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: cut up bodies in the room. We think we don't
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: want to know about them. But always in fairy tales,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: when you break that rule, like something is brought into consciousness,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: it seems like a tragedy at first. You know, so
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: if you think about, you know, the seeing springing lark
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: or something, which is the Grimm's version of Beauty and
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: the Beast, it's like the thing that makes her lose
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: him is he's not supposed to be exposed to any daylight.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: And so she locks him in this dark room, but
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: the wood is new and it cracks and there's a
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: little bit of light that gets in and then she
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: loses her beloved, you know, she has to go in
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: search of him. Or it's Psyche and Eros too, right?
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: She lights the lamp and a little bit of hot
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: oil lands on him and he sees and then that's gone.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: So it seems like a tragedy, but then ultimately it's
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: about bringing something to consciousness. So you don't want to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: go in the basement, but you need to know what's there.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: You need to know that stuff.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, it reminds me of Orpheus and Eurydice. He's told,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: don't look back. And in that look, Loses her. It's, yeah,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: something lost and something gained by looking at that too long.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: And I like the scene quite a bit in the
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: house where Hitchcock is guiding me through because there's this
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: like forced look at it. And then he leaves and
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: I like the way the show plays with fantasy a lot.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, it's so brilliant. It's like, wait, did that
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: really happen? Or was that, you know, yeah. And you
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: never quite know. You know, like the shower scene with Adeline,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: with you and Adeline. And I was like, oh, my God,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: she's dead. It's like, oh, no, she's not, you know,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: but it's just it's just it's it's the fantasy. And
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: and then the way our fantasy are fed by and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: enacted in film. So we see a film and it's like, wait,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: did that happen? You know, but. It's just so great.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: That was just a brilliant thing.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: I like the way that they metaphorize what it might
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: have felt like to watch Psycho at that period of time.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: She's not nude in that movie, but here we're watching
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: this with her nudity, and it's almost like, yeah, this
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: is what it would have been like to have watched
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: this thing. The too muchness of it. The too muchness
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: of it, yes. And there's a long history and we're
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: talking about movies like, you know, like Pasolini or even
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: someone like John Waters where it's like, okay, we're going
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: to show depravity for different reasons. Divine in Pink Flamingos
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: is like, I'm the filthiest person in the world. I
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: will not be stripped of my title of the filthiest
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: person in the world.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: Will be filthy. I will eat, you know, dog poop.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: Dog poop.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: And she really does. The actress really does it. Yeah.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, really?
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: It's really happening.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: Joseph, I saw that at a midnight screening recently with
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: a packed audience and people were screaming at the top
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: of their lungs.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: Isn't that amazing?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: It's amazing. And on the other side of that, someone
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: like Pasolini has got 120 Days of Sodom, a very
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: disturbing movie, but all for political metaphorization of what it's
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: like to live under fascism. And those people are forced
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: to eat poo as well. And you see this kind
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: of like total, at two poles of the experience, one
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: that's meant to sort of like enliven us to the
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: sort of darkness of depravity, I'm disgusting or whatever. And
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: this other thing, which is, wow, the depravity of human
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: life under fascism is metaphorized here.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: The thing is about that is that one, there's a
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: choice to do it and the other, then that makes
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: all the difference.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, a great point. Exactly. The work with John Waters
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: seems to be sort of like originated on like the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: desire to transgress, you know.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: I would say he'd agree. So I'll tell you a story.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: I auditioned for John Waters. This was another experience where
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm in the wrong business. So he's
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: casting for Hairspray, and it's in Baltimore, so I go,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: you know, for a short reading, and he sits down,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: and he and his, I'm not sure if it was
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: the casting director, he was there, and they're talking about it,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: and he goes, you do look very young, but if
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: I put you next to real high school students, you
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: won't look that young. And I looked like 15 years
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: younger than.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: My age, maybe.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: And so then he goes, well, you know, there is
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: this role of the the singer at the prom who
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: has the guitar, and maybe I could consider you for that.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: And so I looked at him in my brow first,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: and I say, Mr. Waters, but I don't know how
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: to play guitar. And then, like, this ice descends into
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: the room, and I'm just frozen. I'm like, I think
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: I said something really wrong. And John Waters leans forward
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: with this total dead expression. He goes, that's why they
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: call it acting.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: Ha ha!
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: And I thought, I just need to leave this whole venture.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: I wish I could have seen you in that, Joseph.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: That would have been next level. You know, it's all
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: going to be dubbed later.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: Easy.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah. He has some great stories about working with non-actors.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: Like there's a woman who's in, can you remember her name?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: She's in Pink Flamingo. She's also in Polyester with the Vines.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: And John Waters has director's commentary where he's like, she
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: couldn't say anything. I mean, she could remember a line
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: for the sake of God, but we got her on
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: the one good day she could get a line out
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: and make it work. And she's like one of my
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: favorite parts of that movie, Polyester. Every line she says,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: every reading is insane. But he's willing to work with
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: her lack of line remembering and make it work.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: Joseph, I don't think I've ever heard that story. That's
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: really just, that's great.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: Death by a thousand paper cuts, and then I became
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: an Alexander technique teacher and experienced some success.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: Well, death by a thousand cuts is this business, for sure. Yes,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: the amount of rejection that you endure is a lot.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: Yes. I felt like I was being tutored by the universe,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: and I took the lesson, and I'm much happier for it.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: You went in that direction. I remember certain auditions I had.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: I remember One time I was in a director session,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: this is maybe 10 years ago. It's a comedy. The
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: director is a famous comedian and a big, you know,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 4: casting agency. And he's like, I just want you on
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: this next one to really go for it. And my
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: character got, I think like kicked in the gonads or something,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: you know, and it's like screaming at the end of
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: the scene. I'm like, sure, I'll go for it. That
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: sounds great. And there I am in the middle of
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: the audition room, screaming at the top of my lungs.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: And they go, They just stared at me.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. I will leave now.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: Great to be here. Thank you so much. So one
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: humiliation after another is usually the way this goes.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: So what's it like for you now? I'm sure you've
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: sat and watched the series. What does it do to
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: you to see those eight episodes again?
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: Well, it makes me, I always feel this way. I
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: do just feel the crew behind the camera. That's my day-to-day.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: That's those of the people I think about hair and
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: makeup and I think about the grips and camera and
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: I think about the director. It's really cool to watch
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: a thing come together and see how much handiwork has
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 4: been put into it. Okay, I had conversations with Charlie.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: I know how hard he worked on that or Where
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: this came from or talking to this movement coach over
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: here about their experience with this actor. You just, all
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: the things that make the thing itself.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: Much wider story going on that we don't see as
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: populates your imagination.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: Yes. That is what I normally feel. It's really cool
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: to watch it because I was only in three episodes
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: of it. One brief appearance in the third episode. So
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: I had no idea where it was really going. it's
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: nice to watch and see the way that things slot in. Oh,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: I'm curious how this sort of dream sequence of me
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: as Mrs. Bates looking at Gein will fit into the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: larger fabric of the show. Oh, wow, the show actually
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 4: has a great deal of fantasy and dream sort of
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: energy in it throughout.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: Well, and it's like, it's a hallucination, right?
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: It's a psychotic process, yeah.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: Yes. But, like, actually watching my Self is odd. It's
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: not bad or good or anything like that. It just
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: feels sort of like, I don't know if the word
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: is ontologically different than my experience. Here I was on
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: set experiencing it and now I'm just watching like a
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: finished product of it. But it changes for me when
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: I watch it with friends. That is when it becomes real.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's nice. That's nice.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: Once I'm with people and they're talking about it with
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: my friends, that's when I go, ah, it's a real experience.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: And I really appreciated the editing on the film. There
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: was so many masterful communications between different parts of the movie.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: And I love that scene where Ed Gein's mother is
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: tearing into this Cornish hen, and then it's echoed again
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: as Hitchcock is tearing into a Cornish hen in the
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: restaurant as he's telling the story. But the one uncanny
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: thing just keeps coming back to me is that the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: Hitchcock actor, and I don't know if this was conscious,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: but His whole character is designed around being a whale,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: if you think about it that way. So you see
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: his eye pressed against the hole and it's kind of
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: moving around and it looks like a whale eye. And
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: then when you step back and you actually look at
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: how huge the forehead is and how totally expressionless his
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: face is, but he actually kind of looks like a fish.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know, throughout the whole thing. So I don't
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: know if the idea just contaminated my perception or that
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: was an acting choice. but he really does.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: It's the show, you know, watching art is that you've
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: got some version of it or this or that. I mean, I,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: I know there's certain elements in the show that I go, God,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: it feels so close to this piece of art for me, or,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: or I wonder if they were thinking about that. And
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: sometimes I do know what they were thinking about. Um,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: but it is sort of, um, yeah, really fun to
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: watch and get our interpretations.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: So the last impression I just want to share with you,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: I know we're coming up on time, is during our
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: whole interview, you've had a vase up and above your
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: head to your left ear. It's been poking up here
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: the whole time, kind of waving. And so I've just
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: been thinking about that symbolically and thinking about it as
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: an apt symbol that you experience yourself as kind of
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: an open vase. and that contents are poured in and
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: poured out, and it is kind of a mystery, but
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: as long as the vase holds itself in the right way,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: that you can tolerate this inflow and outflow of so
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: much as an actor. It just seems apropos.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: Wow, wonderful. Thank you. I will never look at this
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: painting ever again. You might have a different interpretation of
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: the other.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, that would have been a different story.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: It couldn't be this portrait of a guy when looking
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 4: over his abstract art. Yes. I will never look at
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: it the same way. I really appreciate that.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: It's been a delight.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: For our listeners who may not have seen it, Monster
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: the Ed Gein Story, now on Netflix, getting a lot
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: of buzz, hearing a lot of people talking about it. Really,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: really fun and thought-provoking. And so, so great to have
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: you with us today, Joey.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If
• 1:23:22
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• 1:23:25
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