Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Heavyweight Presents: The Messenger

Transcript

Heavyweight Presents: The Messenger · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to share an episode from one of my
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: longtime favorite podcasts, Heavyweight, a new addition to the Pushkin
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: slative shows. Heavyweight is hosted by Jonathan Goldstein and creates
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: space for difficult conversations and resolving long standing regrets and
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: unanswered questions, balancing humor and empathy. Host Jonathan Goldstein that
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: helps his subjects pinpoint the moment things went wrong and
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: joins them on a quest to make them right. The
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: episode was sharing today features Michael, who, as a high
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: school senior, got his lucky break the chance to star
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: in a big budget movie shooting Raped. The premiere date
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: was set, and then he found out that his success
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: was all based on a lie. Find Heavyweight wherever you
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Hid Happy birthday to me.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: It was your birthday last week, wasn't it.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: It's kind of why I was phoning I.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry, buddy.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: It lose to something. When you have to call a
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: week later to receive to get your own your own
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: birthday wish from someone you know, it hurts.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Okay, honestly, I feel like your birthday is that important
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: to you?
• 1:28
  Speaker 6: Am I wrong?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not as important to me. As the first
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: night of Kranuka and the second night, not the third night.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: I hate the third night.
• 1:39
  Speaker 7: You know what.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: As a birthday present to myself, I'm going to hang
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: up on you. Happy birthday to me. Indeed from Pushkin Industries,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's episode The
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Messenger right after the Break. As a kid growing up
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: in Cleveland, Michael loved acting. The only problem I wasn't
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: very good. In fact, he stank in every summer camp show.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: He was placed in the back row in a children's
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: production of The Hobbit the Musical. Backstage, a kid dressed
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: as a dwarf told Michael, my mom says, you're singing
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: is awful. But it didn't stop Michael. He nursed his
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: acting bug all the way through senior year, when one
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: day he heard about a movie being filmed in Cleveland
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and the director needed lots of teens to be extras.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Straight after school, Michael made his way to the auditions.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: He was shown into a room with the director and
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: some of the crew. They gave him a script and
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: he started acting.
• 3:04
  Speaker 8: And their eyes lit up and I was asked to
• 3:08
  Speaker 8: keep reading, And so we did the scene again. We
• 3:12
  Speaker 8: did it again.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: And again and again, and all the while Michael was
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: overcome by a curious feeling.
• 3:19
  Speaker 8: I was doing a good job.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Had you ever experienced this before, been in an audition
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: where people were responding this way?
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: No?
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: No.
• 3:29
  Speaker 8: I was usually in auditions where they're like, we can
• 3:32
  Speaker 8: make him a tree.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: At the end of the audition, the director told Michael
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: that he was not going to be an extra. Michael
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: was going to be the star of the whole movie.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Why was he going to be the star of the
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: whole movie? Was it his brando esque brooding? Is shia
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: la buffi in intensity?
• 3:55
  Speaker 8: They showed me the storyboard and I looked exactly like
• 4:00
  Speaker 8: the kid in the drawings of the storyboard. That's the
• 4:04
  Speaker 8: reason I got it. They were just like, you look
• 4:07
  Speaker 8: like the kid we drew.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: The film was called The Messenger, based on a true story,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: and the true story it was based on was a
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: little known World War II anecdote about a teenager named
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Thomas E. Jones. Jones was a telegram messenger in Washington, DC.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: On August fourteenth, nineteen forty five. He was sent to
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: deliver the telegram that announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: but on the way to deliver the message, he got
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: pulled over for an illegal U turn, and thus the
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: end of World War Two was delayed by ten minutes.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Michael played the role of Thomas as he navigated that
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: fateful day.
• 4:49
  Speaker 8: I show up to set and I just was immediately
• 4:52
  Speaker 8: involved in the magic of film, and they had to
• 4:55
  Speaker 8: fake the daylight by putting lights outside the window. And
• 4:59
  Speaker 8: I remember being like, Oh, you're not just like capturing
• 5:02
  Speaker 8: a moment, You're creating a moment.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: And the custodian of this exciting new world. The director
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: of the movie was a twenty five year old wonder
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: kid named Quincy. Quincy took to Michael immediately. Throughout the production,
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: he check in with Michael on the phone and take
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: him out for wings. Michael looked up to Quincy.
• 5:22
  Speaker 8: You meet someone who was orchestrating this giant production, and
• 5:26
  Speaker 8: then for him to take time talk to me, I
• 5:30
  Speaker 8: felt part of.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Even after filming wrapped, Quincy stayed in touch, calling Michael
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: with updates about the movie's release.
• 5:38
  Speaker 8: We were going to premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
• 5:42
  Speaker 8: I learned that it was a big production, one hundred
• 5:45
  Speaker 8: thousand dollars short film, which is a lot of money
• 5:48
  Speaker 8: for a short movie. The executive producer was this man
• 5:51
  Speaker 8: named Pat croche Pad pad.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Pad if you don't know the name. Pat Crochey was
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: a media presence, an entrepreneur famous in the world of
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: sports because he owned the Philadelphia seventy six ers in
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: the late nineties. He was a motivational speaker.
• 6:10
  Speaker 7: Get up, I slap my palms together, It's going to
• 6:13
  Speaker 7: be a.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: Great day, a noted pirate enthusiast.
• 6:16
  Speaker 7: People ask me if I'm a pirate, and I say yes,
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: but three hundred years too late.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: And the kind of beloved pre me too. Macho man
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: would show up unannounced on the set of the local
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: news just to scoop the anchor woman up into his arms.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Accident on the jersey term, I could.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: My god, because when you have that much jouas de viva,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: what choice do you have? You know, whenever Pat comes
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: in the room, you never know what's gonna happens, because
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Pat Crochey, because he's involved.
• 6:51
  Speaker 8: The movie gets a lot of press.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: For a short film by an unknown director. The Messenger
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: received an unheard of amount of press. ESPN carried a
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: story with footage of Michael on set, and there was
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: a huge write up in USA. Today.
• 7:05
  Speaker 8: My dad was flying that day, you know, he was
• 7:07
  Speaker 8: in an airport. He picks up the US head Today,
• 7:10
  Speaker 8: he flips it open and sees a two page spread
• 7:13
  Speaker 8: with my picture on it. So the family's excitement, the
• 7:17
  Speaker 8: friend's excitement, everyone starts to just be like, this is
• 7:19
  Speaker 8: a very big deal.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Michael was planning on college in the fall, but as
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: anticipation around the movie grew, he started to reconsider.
• 7:31
  Speaker 8: Leading up to the Philadelphia Film Festival, talking to Quincy,
• 7:34
  Speaker 8: He's like, Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This
• 7:38
  Speaker 8: is a real chance, this is a real opportunity. This
• 7:41
  Speaker 8: is bigger than I imagined. I was like, maybe maybe
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: I try and pursue acting.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Maybe Michael had been wrong all these years, Maybe everyone
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: had been Maybe he really was a good actor and
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: it took Quincy to discover it. Michael couldn't wait to
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: walk the red carpet, see himself on the big screen,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: and enjoy a virgin appleteini with Tom Hanks.
• 8:07
  Speaker 8: Did your parents come with you to the premiere? Well,
• 8:11
  Speaker 8: we didn't make it to the premiere. The movie was canceled.
• 8:20
  Speaker 8: So the week before the Philadelphia Film Festival premiere. I
• 8:25
  Speaker 8: got a phone call from Quincy and he was clearly crying,
• 8:31
  Speaker 8: and he told me that the movie wasn't going to
• 8:35
  Speaker 8: come out and nobody was going to see it because
• 8:40
  Speaker 8: it turns out that Quincy had lied and had told
• 8:46
  Speaker 8: a really big lie.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: The Liemichael's referring to had nothing to do with the
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: historical anecdote itself. That part was true, but over the
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: end credits, Quincy played footage of the actual present day
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Thomas E Jones being interviewed on his deathbed. The only
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: problem that guy was an actor. It seems Quincy had
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: just found a random old man, slipped him into a gown,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: strapped him into a hospital bed, and christened him Thomas
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: E Jones. But there was one thing Quincy wasn't counting on.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Because the movie.
• 9:22
  Speaker 8: Had received so much attention, Thomas E Jones's real family found.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Out, and Thomas E Jones's real family wasn't happy, because,
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: as it turned out, the real Thomas E Jones was
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: very much alive, breathing, eating, sleeping, and not on a
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: deathbed but just a regular old bed bed, and so
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Pat Crochey decided to pull the movie.
• 9:46
  Speaker 8: I mean, it was crushing disappointment. I had the ticket
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: to go, I had the suit, I had all the
• 9:52
  Speaker 8: expectation I had in my brain, everything that could be
• 9:56
  Speaker 8: possible after and it's all gone, it's all it vanishes.
• 10:01
  Speaker 8: And then it's a wave of embarrassment because I have
• 10:05
  Speaker 8: to tell everybody.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Michael had to go back to his friend's, his grandmother
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: who had been clipping every article about the movie, and say,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: remember how I was going to be a big movie star.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: It was all a fraud. And the guy who thought
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: I had talent also a fraud.
• 10:22
  Speaker 8: And I never talked to Quincy again.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Michael abandoned his dream of becoming an actor, but his
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: time on The Messengers still had its impact. It allowed
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: him to realize how much he loved being on a set,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: loved the magic of creating a whole world from thin air,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: and that pushed him towards a career in TV, writing
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: for shows on Disney and Nickelodeon. Meanwhile, Quincy's IMDb credits
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: have grown sparse.
• 10:48
  Speaker 8: I always wonder what happened to Quincy, because I looked
• 10:51
  Speaker 8: up to him. There was part of me that wanted
• 10:52
  Speaker 8: to tell him that I've succeeded, that I've pursued movies
• 10:57
  Speaker 8: because of him.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: But along with that, Michael has a lingering question for Quincy.
• 11:02
  Speaker 8: I never understood why you would take such a big
• 11:06
  Speaker 8: risk like that to make such a big line. It's
• 11:10
  Speaker 8: like you've set up a film crew to film this
• 11:12
  Speaker 8: guy on his deathbed and it wasn't like it just
• 11:14
  Speaker 8: seems like a bad plan.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: As Michael has climbed the ranks of show business, this
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: question has only gained in poignance. Why risk your reputation,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: especially when the story was good enough.
• 11:27
  Speaker 9: As it was?
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Why did you lie? After the break searching for Quincy
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to become the messengers messenger? But first the best messages
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: of all promotional messages from our cherished sponsors. We really
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: do love you, guys ill two gross.
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: It's a little gross, eh.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Keep it in. Why did Quincy lie? The more I
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: think about it, the less sense it all makes. Why
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: go to the trouble of hiring an old man and
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: building a hospital set? Why not just use the real
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Thomas E.
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: Jones?
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Hello, Oh Hello, my name is Jonathan Golds. I've so
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: far been unable to contact Quincy, so I reach out
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: to someone else who might have the answer. I was
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: looking for a Thomas E.
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: Jones.
• 12:37
  Speaker 9: He's deceased.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm very sorry.
• 12:41
  Speaker 9: Yes, I'm his widow. When he died, we would have
• 12:46
  Speaker 9: been married almost seventy years.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Thomas's widow, Nancy, is eighty nine years old. She says
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: she doesn't know why Quincy didn't just go to Thomas himself,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: But we get to talking and she tells me the
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: story of how she first met Thomas. It was through
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: his work as a messenger. It turns out Nancy's father
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: was Thomas's boss at the telegram office. Tells me how
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: in nineteen forty five, there was a dedicated telegraph machine
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: standing by for the sole purpose of awaiting the Japanese surrender.
• 13:17
  Speaker 9: And when that machine started ticket my father, he handed
• 13:23
  Speaker 9: his message first to my husband, who was a bicycle
• 13:26
  Speaker 9: messenger at sixteen years of age.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Since the bike was too slow for such an important message,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: a coworker agreed to drive Thomas in his car. Unfortunately,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: he set out in the wrong direction, and thus the
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: most famous U turn in American history, or at least
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: the only one I've ever heard of, and I've read
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Mike Howard Zinn. The U turn got Thomas and his
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: driver pulled over by a cop.
• 13:51
  Speaker 9: Of course, they were saying, we've got the Japanese piece
• 13:53
  Speaker 9: a render message here. Yeah, I've heard a lot of stories,
• 13:56
  Speaker 9: but the police realized it was the truth. They just
• 13:59
  Speaker 9: pore up the ticket.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Wow, what a story is. Yeah, and it's a pretty
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: different story than the one in the Messenger. Not only
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: were the jones Is angry about the fake Thomas, but
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: they were also angry about what they considered the fake story.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: In Quincy's version of events, Thomas is in no hurry
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: to deliver the message. He makes a casual pit stop
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: at a diner where he hits on the waitress and
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: enjoys a large breakfast of pancakes, all while the war
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: rages on. The Jones Is read about that scene in
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the media coverage of Quincy's movie, newspaper write ups with
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: headlines like boys pancake breakfast delayed the end of World
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: War Two.
• 14:42
  Speaker 9: Well, you know, my kids were just serious about that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: Sports talking about kids, We're talking about people now sixty
• 14:50
  Speaker 9: years old.
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: We were outraged. The kids were outraged.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: This is Victoria Jones. She's one of Thomas and Nancy's
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: six children, all of whom, when it came to the Messenger,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: were in agreement.
• 15:03
  Speaker 7: Which was unusual for the six of us.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: This is Thomas's son, Mike. He says that the only
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: one inclined to let the whole thing go was Thomas himself.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: That was kind of my dad's attitude, like, oh, don't
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: make a big deal, don't get this person in trouble.
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: We said, no, this is altering history.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: It just kind of portrayed him like as the slacker,
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: you know, like, oh, the heck with that, I'm going
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: to go and flirt and eat pancakes.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Victoria says that although Quincy never reached out to her father,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: he easily could have.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Just like you found my mother by getting a few
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: phone calls, Quincy could have found my father and he
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: never tried.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: When she found out about the movie, Victoria messaged Quincy
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: several times, but she says he grew defensive and eventually
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: stopped answering.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: And then when my father died, I sent him a
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: message and said my father is now deceased.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, and he did not respond to that.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: No, I should go back and look. He might have
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: said I'm sorry.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: And that was it. I tell the Joneses the story
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: about Michael and how I'm trying to reach Quincy myself.
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: Good luck with that one.
• 16:15
  Speaker 9: I'm sure he'll say this better left of dead story
• 16:19
  Speaker 9: out too.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: It turns out Nancy Jones is right. When I finally
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: get through to Quincy via email, his response is emphatic.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not interested in talking about that project anymore, he writes,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: And that's the last I hear from Quincy. What happens
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: next is years go by, unrelated to my failure to
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: speak with Quincy. But you never know. Heavyweight is canceled
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: and I lose my job. And while the story never
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: entirely leaves my mind, without an ergonomic office chair and
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: a long distance phone plan, there's not much I could
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: do about it. And then one day, while trying to
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: decide on a fun font for my resume, I receive
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: a message from Michael. He says he has an important
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: update to share. Hey Jonathan, Hey Michael, how are you good?
• 17:20
  Speaker 8: How are you doing?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: It's been almost three years since Michael and I have spoken.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: You have a son.
• 17:25
  Speaker 8: Now I've got a wife, I've got a son.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: The whole family is currently in New York, where Michael's wife, Katie,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: is producing a movie. It turns out that Katie's movie
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: is the reason for Michael's update.
• 17:37
  Speaker 8: An associate producer on the movie, his name's Dan.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Michael explains that while out for dinner with Dan, they
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: started talking about the industry, by which I mean the
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: show business industry. And one of the things people in
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: the industry enjoy chatting about most is how they got
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: into the industry industry. So Michael told Dan the story
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: of the Messenger, about the director Quincy, about the producer
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Pat Crochy.
• 18:02
  Speaker 8: And Dan is from Philly. Dan's parents are family friends
• 18:08
  Speaker 8: with the Crochees.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: You're kidding. Show biz connections in this life, there's not
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: a thing that doesn't come down to show biz connections.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: It's not what you know, when you know, where you
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: know it, or why you know it, but whom you know.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Pat Crochy was the executive producer on the movie, the
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: one who ultimately shut it all down. So with Quincy
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: unwilling to talk, he's our best shot at figuring out
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: why Quincy had lied. At some point, Pat had to
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: have demanded an explanation from Quincy. Dan agrees to talk
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: to his mom, who agrees to talk to Pat's daughter,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: who agrees to talk with Pat, who then agrees to
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: talk with me. Mister Crochy, call me Pat. This is Pat, Pat,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Pat Crochy.
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: One thing I like to say about your heavyweight podcast
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: is that it always inculcates a high vibrational frequency.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Can you say more about the high frequent see well.
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: In the realm of form, if we're going to transcend form.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Pat Crochy has a white goatee that ends in a
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: point at his chest. He's in the Zenden, a large
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: room above the barn on his fifty three acre estate.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: His walls are covered in Chinese and Tibetan calligraphy. He
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: says that these days he seldom makes any media appearances.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Is there any reason for that?
• 19:33
  Speaker 7: Ah, it's a great question, you interviewer. You well. Ten
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: years ago something happened. My mind cracked.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Pat's mind cracked in a meeting for one of his
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: restaurants he owned several, among them the Rum Barrel, which
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: is pirate themed.
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: And I'm sitting there think it to myself, what the
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: hell am I doing here? I don't really give a
• 19:55
  Speaker 7: shit about the next great grouper sandwich. This is just more.
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: I always was seeking more, another win, another standing ovation,
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: another best seller, another another more more. It there was
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: never enough, never what.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Pat realized was that in spite of all his successes,
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: he wasn't really happy, and so he tried to change
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: his way of thinking, but it was a slow process.
• 20:21
  Speaker 10: The ego in me was, if I can change my mind,
• 20:25
  Speaker 10: that'd be another great bestseller, and I would go back
• 20:28
  Speaker 10: on the speaking gain. It was all ego, all commercial,
• 20:31
  Speaker 10: but that's how Grace hooked me.
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: Everything that unfolds is perfect. I have this adage the
• 20:43
  Speaker 7: past has served his purpose perfectly, but most people are
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: cherry pickers. Well, I wish that would have changed, or
• 20:49
  Speaker 7: I wish this or no. The purpose of the past, Jonathan,
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: There's only one purpose to bring you and me right
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: here and now. Okay, The past to me is smoke
• 21:01
  Speaker 7: off the end of my cigar.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: For me, the past is also smoke off the end
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: of my cigar, juicy wafts of pressure smoke to be
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: hysterically clod at, like a rabid raccoon attacking a helium
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: filled garbage can. And so I asked Pat to go
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: back to the past and explain how he became involved
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: with Quincy, Michael and the Messenger. He says it all
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: began in Key West at the pirate themed museum. He
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: owned that sat beside the pirate themed restaurant he also owned.
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: And you get to know all the piratical personalities on
• 21:35
  Speaker 7: that island, one of which was Reef. And Reef is
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: a salvager and he's really got a piratical nature. He
• 21:42
  Speaker 7: would even dress as a part and I really loved him.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: One day, Reef ast Pat for a favor. Could Pat
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: meet with his son, Quincy, who wanted to make a movie.
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: And we got talking and he turned me on to
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: this script that he has been writing.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: And you liked it?
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: Oh? Sure? Are you kidding me? It's talking about this
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: young boy who has an effect on the ending of
• 22:03
  Speaker 7: World War two?
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: And you hadn't known that story. I hadn't known that story.
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: Oh no, I had never heard of it.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Your impression of Quincy when you first met.
• 22:10
  Speaker 7: Him, Oh, I liked him and so and I believed
• 22:12
  Speaker 7: everything Quincy told me.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: When Quincy's lie came out, Pat was furious.
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: Prior to ten years ago, before you know, my minecrack.
• 22:21
  Speaker 7: He's lucky he didn't cross my path, or else he
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: wouldn't be walking.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Do you mean that you mean that literally?
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: Uh, let's say no.
• 22:35
  Speaker 11: Since this is being taped, I'm pretty street savvy. I
• 22:48
  Speaker 11: couldn't believe that I got Buffalo like this as someone
• 22:53
  Speaker 11: I thought was a friend, you know, a friend, a
• 22:55
  Speaker 11: Key West friend.
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: I was so hurt that I was angry. And when
• 23:00
  Speaker 7: I'm angry, the old pack croa cheap the old corner
• 23:03
  Speaker 7: guy man. Not only did I lose the money, but
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: all the context that I made for him to get
• 23:10
  Speaker 7: him in USA. Today, I opened all these doors, through
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: all my relationships, and then all of a sudden, when
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: I realized that it was fraud, that it was phony.
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: I mean, I had to go and apologize to everyone.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: But Pat says that these days he doesn't have time
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: for rumination or regret.
• 23:29
  Speaker 7: And even though I am here at peace, my body
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: has spell marrow cancer. I'm on chemo every twelve hours
• 23:38
  Speaker 7: of chemo mets incurable. However I don't regret that I
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: don't nothing. Oh wow, Jonathan, it's only my body, It's
• 23:49
  Speaker 7: not me.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Before we get off, I asked Pat Michael's burning question,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: why did Quincy lie? But Pat says he doesn't ask
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: the why questions only Quincy. Pat says, if he goes deep,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: can answer that. Patt and Quincy haven't spoken for decades.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Their last interactions were angry ones. Right after Quincy's lie
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: came out all the same, Pat offers to reach out
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: to Quincy. He contacts a friend who he thinks might
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: have Quincy's phone number. I don't have high hopes, but
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Patt and Quincy do end up speaking, and afterwards, for
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: reasons I can't discern, Quincy agrees to speak with Michael.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: A video call between Michael and Quincy is arranged, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: while we wait for Quincy, I ask Michael the opening
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: question I learned in jayschool. Are you in a bathroom?
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: Now?
• 25:05
  Speaker 8: This is our tiny little kitchen in our apartment.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: It's late at night, and Michael gives me a tour
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: of his darkened New York apartment.
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: And there's our Carson's little lunchbox.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Very sweet. Where is he right now?
• 25:18
  Speaker 8: Carson is asleep?
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: What are lazy bones? And then hello? Quincy enters the chat.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: It's been almost twenty years since he and Michael were
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: together on set. Quincy was twenty five at the time.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: He's in his forties now.
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: It's nice to see Michael's face. I haven't seen his
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: face in a long time, and.
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: It was good to see you.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: Michael and Quincy begin by reminiscing about their time together
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: about making the movie.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: There were two scenes that really stand up for me.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: One is when all the kids are in the.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Diner and they exchange memories from what feels like unfraught
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: territory stuff like the casting and the fun of being
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: on set.
• 25:56
  Speaker 8: My favorite scene was doing the U turn. You had
• 26:00
  Speaker 8: me drive stick shift and I lied when I auditioned.
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: You're like, can you drive stick? And I was like,
• 26:07
  Speaker 8: I can drive stick. I couldn't drive stick. I was
• 26:09
  Speaker 8: really I never heard that, I know, and I was
• 26:13
  Speaker 8: like stalling out, like grinding the gears.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: It feels like Michael is trying to make Quincy comfortable,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: show that Quincy wasn't the only one capable of lie.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: Into the car from like pulling his hair out to
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: I thought the kids could drive.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't take long before the conversation turns to
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: the elephant in the room and it's Quincy who brings
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: it up.
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: I remember wanting to reach out to you in years
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: that past. Yeah, I felt a lot of guilt because
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: like this film, everybody had put so much sweat and
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: tears into it, and uh, it was just nothing like evaporated.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: And I thought, my god, I failed every single person,
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: and then I became like national news, and then the
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: blogs were writing about.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Me because the Messenger got a colossal amount of press.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: When the truth came out, Quincy received a proportional amount
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: of backlash. Similar to how the title wave of The
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Messenger's success hit Michael, the bad news about The Messenger's
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: failure hit Quincy. He was at the airport reading that
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: day's newspaper over someone's shoulder and.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: They were reading the article about me and how I
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: had lied, and that hit me like I'd say a
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: ton of bricks, but a ton of bricks would have
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: felt like a pillow compared to what that was.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: How are you coping?
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: I was in denial. I kept going back to this
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: like excuse of well, the Titanic, right, the Titanic, it's
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: a fake movie. It's based on a true story. There
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: was no Jack and Rose, and yet what I had
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: done was totally different. I mean I was literally trying
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: to pretend that this other actor i'd hired was Thomas Jones.
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: And it took me a year or two to sort
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: of come to terms and just be like, man, I
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: really fucked up.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Which brings us the question of why why swap a
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: random old man for Thomas E. Jones. To explain, Quincy
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: starts with how he came to the story of The
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Messenger in the first place.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: I'd been working that summer at the Truman Little White
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: House in QS and sort of in my onboarding at
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: that museum, they told us to read David McCullough's Truman biography,
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: and it was in that book that I saw this
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: one sentence about Thomas E.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Jones and The Messenger, And it was literally one sentence,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: one sentence in parentheses, in the middle of a thousand
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: page book.
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: And I thought, God, what an amazing story.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: But Quincy thought, you know what would make it an
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: even more amazing story if he could find Thomas E. Jones,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: interview him, and include that interview in the movie. And
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: in Quincy's telling, he did look for Thomas Jones.
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: I had hired literal investigators to go find this person,
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: two different guys, and they both said, like, you know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: we can't, we can't find them, but we found these
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: two death certificates that kind of match up.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: So the death certificates felt like enough. Quincy concluded that
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: the Thomas E. Jones he was looking for probably was dead.
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: And I didn't share that with anybody because in my
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: head I just saw the story rolling out. It's like
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: we were going to tell the story and then the
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: end you saw the real guy and that I couldn't
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: get away from that story.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And in the absence of the real guy, the next
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: best thing was a fake guy.
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: Oh well, to decease Thomas Jones will never know and
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: anybody that sees the movie, it's gonna be so great
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: and they're gonna be crying and laughing at the end
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: of it that they won't care for this role.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: There was no casting, no auditions. In fact, the part
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: of Thomas E. Jones wasn't played by an actor at all.
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: He was actually a tour guide at the Truman Little
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: White House.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: Quincy had asked a work friend from the museum to
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: do the job.
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: And then the real Thomas Jones found me and I
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: remember that feeling. It was like a disgust I felt
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: for myself.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: In the aftermath, Quincy left the film world for many years.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: He was fired from his job at the Truman Museum.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: He eventually found work clerking in a bookstore and making
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: wedding videos. Well, this was the first time a live
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Quincy's had been so brutally exposed. He admits that the
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: lying itself was something he'd been leaning on since his
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: teen years.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: You know, I had come from a fairly poor family
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: in Key West, and I had attended a very exclusive
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: prep school up in western Massachusetts called Deerfield Academy, where
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: I had no business being there, and so I felt
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: this sense of just like always needing to exaggerate. People
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: would be like, oh, I'm going to Paris for winter break,
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: and I'd be like, oh, gosh, yeah, Paris, It's great.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: You know, I didn't even know what country it was in.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: It was like a daily thing. Freshman. Someone had to
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: picture Jimmy Hendrix a poster, and I remember looking at
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: his name and thinking it looked kind of French, and
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I love gy My Hendrye. And
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: I remember him looking at me and being like what.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: For Quincy. Lies became a beautiful wall between himself and
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: everyone else. Lies protected him but also isolated him. It
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: took the collapse of the Messenger to finally get him
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: to stop.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: And it was actually very relieving because it took a
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: lot of weight off my shoulders that I didn't have
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: to make every story ten percent better. I didn't have
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: to do as hard as that was. That was the
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: most important, lesson, full stop period of my life.
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: After we did The Messenger, I didn't take that as
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: anything that stopped me.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: When Quincy is done sharing the effect The Messenger had
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: on his life, Michael shares the role that played for him.
• 32:13
  Speaker 8: Seeing the camera, seeing the crew, it blew my mind.
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: I didn't know that this was possible. I didn't know
• 32:20
  Speaker 8: that this is what it looked like. And I was in.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: It's Quincy and The Messenger that inspired Michael's career. But
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: it isn't just that Quincy gave him a professional life.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: He gave him a life.
• 32:33
  Speaker 8: I married this beautiful person who she's a movie producer,
• 32:38
  Speaker 8: and we have this amazing kid called Carson who's two
• 32:41
  Speaker 8: and a half years old. And all of this life
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: that I have, this partner, of this career, this kid,
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: it comes from this wild, weird, random moment in Cleveland,
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: Ohio where you decided to cast me in this short film.
• 32:56
  Speaker 8: And it's all this to say, like I never got
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: to just thank you. I've always appreciated that door that
• 33:05
  Speaker 8: you showed to me and allowed me to walk through
• 33:09
  Speaker 8: moment that time, that invitation that you gave me to
• 33:13
  Speaker 8: be on set changed the entire direction of my life.
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: That means a lot to me. I I look back
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: on that time and totally with totally different eyes. It
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: was one of the most difficult things in my life.
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: And I can't tell you like how meaningful it is
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: to me to hear that someone had something good come
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: out of it, because it certainly didn't feel like that.
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: I was convinced that it would ruin everyone's life, because
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: that's what I was feeling at that moment.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Quincy just assumed anyone involved with the Messenger would still
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: be furious with him, and so a few weeks back,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: when he saw Pat Croche's name pop up on his phone,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: he says he almost felt too scared to pick up,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: but when they spoke, instead of yelling at him, Pat
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: told him it was time to let it go.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: As soon as he said that those words let it go,
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: I just sat out in front of my house and
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: cried for a good twenty minutes. I didn't know before
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: we talked today, actually genuinely what you were going to
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: say today.
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: You know you were I met you as this person
• 34:38
  Speaker 8: I looked up to.
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: You're gonna make me cry. I'm really, really genuinely happy
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: for you.
• 34:48
  Speaker 8: Thank you for taking time just to talk to me,
• 34:50
  Speaker 8: but really thank you for the life I got to
• 34:55
  Speaker 8: have because of it.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Recently I got to share in that life. One day,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: leaving our New York studio, Michael says he's af to
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: meet his wife Katie. Her crew is filming just a
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: few blocks away, and Michael asks if I'd like to come,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: and I say sure. On the corner of twentieth Street
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: and Seventh Avenue, shooting is in full swing. The movie
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: stars John Taturo as an aging pickpocket who ends up
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: with a thumb drive containing a crypto wallet on it.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Michael and I are waved past the protected perimeter and
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Katie gives me a pair of small headphones. As I
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: watch take after take of John Totruro slamming down a
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: payphone and screaming fuck in fake fury, I feel like
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: a ten year old on a field trip. All around us,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: the city bustles as normal while we are tucked away
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: in our make believe world, watching make believe things. It's
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: all a lie, of course, but one that we're all
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: in on.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: And how good now that the fern ures Riff turning
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: to its.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: Goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is scheming.
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: With the damage to posit take this moment to dissolve.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: If we ment, if we tried to.
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: Remember felt around for far tis.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: From things that accidentally.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Khalila Holt and
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheeney mcgauker and Phoebe Flanagan.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: Special thanks to Lucy Sullivan, Karen Schakerji and Nazanin RAFs
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: and Johnny Our production council is Jake Flanagan. Emmamonger mixed
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Sampson and Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Blue Dot Sessions,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Bobble Principal and Shanghai Restoration Project. Our theme song is
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: by The Weakerlands, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast or email us at Heavyweight at
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Pushkin dot Fm. We'll be back next week with a
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: new episode.