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Killer Thriller: The Side of the Unabomber Almost Nobody Knew · Legally Brunette

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Killer Thriller with your host, Alisa Donovan. Hey, everybody.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Alisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller. Today, we
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: are going inside the mind of one of America's most
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: notorious killers, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. The film Ted K
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: takes us inside the Montana cabin where Kaczynski lived in
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: isolation while launching a bombing campaign... that killed three people
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: and injured nearly two dozen more. Using his own writings,
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: the film explores his rage at modern society and his
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: evolution from recluse to killer. Our guest is Sharlto Copley,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: who starred as Kaczynski and also produced the film, immersing
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: himself in Ted's writings and filming on the actual Montana
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: land where his cabin once stood. Sharlto, welcome to Killer Thriller.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for talking with me today.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: I really, this movie is sneakily very, very compelling. And
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I appreciated so much of it, which we'll get into.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: But I'm curious if the filmmaker intentionally.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Made this film very, uh, the pace very slow at
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: the start. So we're actually really feeling like we are
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: in nature and in the environment that Ted, you know,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: sort of what he was fighting against, kind of like
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: what he was leaning into, you know?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: Um, I think that was Tony's approach the whole time,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: you know, right from the beginning, from the get go
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: was to sort of make it like a documentary.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: And to really just let me live in the woods.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: It was pretty crazy that we managed to get the
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: actual land that Ted lived on and they built the
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: cabin back on the actual.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Feet where his cabin was.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: So it was very much, the idea was to very
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: much immerse the audience into his world and in a.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: More, I guess, arthouse movie manner, just live with the guy.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: And to feel the environment was, obviously, the two characters
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: are Ted and the environment in the moon.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: It's very powerful in that way. And the idea that
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: you were literally physically on the plot where he was.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, I get, you know, this is for a
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: different podcast, but I feel like very... you know, from
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: a spiritual perspective and an energetic perspective, that is super intense.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: So we don't have to go there, but I just
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: feel like I need to say that out loud.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, it was because there were still cans
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: of food that he'd been eating. You know, he had
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: his cans that he kept in one particular area. I
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: was looking at the exact stuff he was looking at.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: His garden hose system that he had was still there.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: His vegetable patch fence was still there.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Wow. there was like, I don't know what you call
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: those things anymore.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: The American term for it, but like where you, where
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: you basically make a little underground place to keep food
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: and vegetables.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: He had one of those that you crawl into. Um, and, uh,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and that's, was still there.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: It had his old shirts that he'd used to kind
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: of seal it up with, but I was amazed that
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: that stuff was still there, but I guess, you know,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: the FBI was done with it. They didn't remove every
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: single trace. And, uh, You could definitely, you know, there
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: was definitely something going on. That's just the most method
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: poem I've ever done in many respects.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: So you've said that when Ted Kaye first came to you,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: your reaction was basically not, you know, another serial killer.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do it. So what did you
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: read that completely changed your mind?
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It was... Two things.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was reading the manifesto because I didn't,
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: I remember something I was in South Africa at the
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: time when that was happening. And I remember he made
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: international news. I remembered something about the Unabomber, but I
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: couldn't remember what he was. I just thought he'd like
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: blown up a plane or something, but I, I didn't
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: know anything about him. And so reading the manifesto changed, obviously, well,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: not obviously, but changed my whole view on him and,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: And I realized this isn't a normal serial killer, just
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: crazy psychopath who's just gone mad.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Although he was portrayed that way by the media for
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a long time. Just this madman. You don't need to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: hear anything more about him. Like we got him. Goodbye.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Let's let's not talk about him anymore.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: But when I read it, it certainly made a lot
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: of most of it made a lot of sense to me.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: And I thought, well, this is an interesting story. And
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: then I watched him speak. And what was interesting about
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: him speaking, one of the main reasons I got the
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: role is I could kind of pretty accurately imitate the
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: way he spoke and his voice and his way of speaking,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: which is very.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Unusual. It's not what you sort of expect from the cliched,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: quiet serial killer who's really standing and looking at you.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: He was this high-energy, nerdy guy who was actually quite
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: interesting to listen to, to talk.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So I thought, okay, that's... That's interesting.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: He was quiet and solitary, but also was able to
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: speak if you gave him a microphone. Right.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Is there something bizarrely seductive about that? Because he is
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: so smart and just exactly what you said, sort of
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: contrary to what we would think. And you've described his
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: diaries as extraordinarily self-aware. What did Ted admit about himself
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: that most surprised you?
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: Well, I guess the things that there were so many
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: things that surprised me about him. The real stuff that
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: was the most revealing, I guess, was his desperation for
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: female companionship and company.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: So there were.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: Things like he so desperately wanted female energy in his
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: life that he sometimes when he was masturbating, he would
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: imagine himself.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: As a woman.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: To try to feel femininity within himself.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Uh, it was stuff like that where you sort of went,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Oh wow. That's yeah. You really do need a date, bro.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Like you do.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there were a lot of things, you know,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: actually I've, I was quite, and Tony Stone, the director
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of the movie knows this. I was a producer of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the film. I helped it, you know, I helped raise.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: The money and I really wanted to back Tony to
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: do his version at the end of the day. But
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: I was personally a little frustrated because I felt, and disappointed,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: because I felt we didn't really do justice to portraying
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Ted as I got to know him and as we
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: got to know him in the movie. And there was
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: definitely the opportunity to go more into the humanity of
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: the man than we did. And we shot it and
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: I played it, but it didn't wind up in the
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: final movie for whatever reason, I think, whatever Tony's reasons
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: were of not.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: wanting to show that side of him. But there was
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: a lot more to the man.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: I think our movie basically portrays him still within the
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: lens that most people see him, and most other projects
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: that I'd seen, seen him in. But for example, there
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: were things like when we went, we were shooting in Lincoln, Montana,
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: and we met people who had met him.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And most people were like, he was weird, he was creepy,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: he was quiet.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: There was one person who was his friend who was
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: the librarian and she, she really liked it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I think her name was Sherry. We met her.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: And had fascinating conversation with her.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I said, what did you, what did you like about him? What,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: what do you remember? What did you miss? He said,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: she said his sense of humor. He was one of
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the funniest men I've ever known. And we would sit
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and we would tell, he would tell jokes and we
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: were talking, we would laugh for hours together. I was like, okay,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: this was part of the research. So we shot all
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. He could compose classical music. So
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: he did that. He could draw.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: He had a sort of real renaissance man aspect to himself.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: He was kind of a, I would joke, he was
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: kind of a wilderness nerd.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: You know, my girlfriend would probably call me the same thing.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So he was kind of this like weird alpha wild man,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: but also a complete.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: you know, nerd boffin with a, what was it, 169
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: or something crazy IQ.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: So that, I mean, there's just so much in what
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: you just said.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: First of all, I do feel like there is, you.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Portray a full person and it's very poignant at moments
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: and I feel the deep, deep loneliness of this person. And,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm sure there's a fine line, there always
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: is a fine line between kind of glamorizing and exploitation
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: and really, you know, sending a different message. And I don't,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: perhaps that's a part of it, like the fear of
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: kind of making him too human or something. But I
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: feel like you really do. There's that feeling of just
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: such deep, deep, extreme loneliness and how that is such
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: a part of, of humanity to be alive. Like we
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: deeply need to be connected to other people and, and,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: It does feel like this is a very extreme direction
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: for a person to go, but it does show that
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: that's what can happen.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was interesting.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: I've always found it interesting that actors love to talk
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: about politics and who you should vote for and what
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: policy is a good policy or not or whatever. But
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: I don't really think we qualify to talk about that
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: too much, but I do think actors are qualified to
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: talk about human nature because kind of your job is
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: like learn about humans you studying humans right you're doing
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: a case study on human and.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: My experience of playing somebody and.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: Really going to live as this guy as best I
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: could is it was quite profound playing somebody with an
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: IQ of like, you know, nearly 170 and living.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: In his world, reading his diaries.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: And you start to realize that one of the revelations
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I had, and I'll come to a point of like
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: connecting with people. There's a huge difference in the human
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: brain across people. We all kind of feel like we're
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: the same, you know, we're all very similar, but If
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: I say to you, for example, there's a Kenyan marathon
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: runner just ran the London marathon in.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Under two hours. The man is running almost 22 kilometers
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: an hour. I don't know what that is in miles.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: It's basically a maximum sprint for most people. A good
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: majority of people couldn't even sprint that fast at all
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: for five seconds. He's doing it for two hours. And
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: if you're an athlete or if you ever, you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: most people would, would lose to him on a bicycle
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: if it was a flat surface. And we accept the
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: fact that there's a huge difference in physical capability amongst
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: homo sapiens, but we struggle myself included with the idea
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: that perhaps a guy who has that kind of IQ,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: these massively high IQ individuals are living almost a different
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: life from us. They experiencing things differently. They, they, they
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: are seeing themselves as above us because it would be like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: you know, it's sort of like you're reading an article
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: about what you think about Ted or somebody says what
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: they think about Elon or, you know, and it's kind
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: of like, well, from his point of view, it's like
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: he doesn't care because he's in a different space. It's
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: like me giving advice to Sebastian Sauer.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: On like how he should run. You know, it's like, well,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I really appreciated how you ran in the beginning, but
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like you're being a little bit, you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it's like, whatever, man.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: Like Ted, when you get into Ted's head, that's what
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: you see. You see a person who is smarter than
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: most people around him, probably more right than he is
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: wrong most of the time.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And this is true with smart people. Of course, the
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: flip side of that is the one time you wrong
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: can be absolutely devastating.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: But, you know, he's smarter than most people. And so
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: that difference, you know, that ability of, you know, his
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: brain is running the marathon in under two hours is
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: separating him from people.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Yes. And you hear this with people like Elon Musk
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: talking about I'm unhappy. I'm not a happy person. Death
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: would be a relief, you know.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: And it's like with that genius, with these giant people
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: that come along, from time to time. And I do
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: see Ted as that sort of person. They do struggle
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: to live quote unquote normal life and form quote unquote
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: normal relationships. They have this mammalian desperate drive and Ted
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: more than most understood that drive. He was desperate to
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: find his partner.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: He talks about it. He went to a.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: Female friend of his and he made a little dossier
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: asking her, what am I doing wrong with women?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Why can I not get a girl? And we shot
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: all this, by the way. That's why I'm kind of
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: frustrated that it's not in the movie. But it's heartbreaking.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It had this sort of almost like Charlize's movie, Monster.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: It had this thing of like, oh, God, there's a
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: human being under here. He loves the environment. He loves nature.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: He sees this danger happening. He wants to fight for it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: and he can't connect with people, especially connect with women.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: And, um, yeah, it was, uh, he really had those,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: he had those conversations with the friend about like, so the,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: the character in that's in the film that is she,
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: she's meant to be the librarian friend of his.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. But then some of those things are fantastical. They're
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: his imaginings right in the movie.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, that was Tony's version of like just showing, you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: in the film that he really was seeking this.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: He was, his real dream was, and then, you know,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: if you know, he started, he had.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: A relationship with a partner when he went to jail.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: So he actually had, he dated while he was in jail. Ironically,
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: this act of his, you know, brought national attention to him.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: And some woman said, I actually respect what you're trying
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: to do. And they formed a relationship.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is the fascinating thing about him. I
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: was going to bring this up later, but we're here now.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Did you find yourself, because I find myself, it's a
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: very uncomfortable place to... There are a lot of things
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: that he was talking about and fearful of and trying
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: to make people understand that I happen.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: To agree with. But of course.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: the extreme nature to which he took those ideas and
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: is obviously wrong. But how do you, how did, did
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: you find yourself at moments being like, we should have
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: listened to this guy?
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I had a worse time than that because I was,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I was playing him.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: I had a more conflicting stuff than you because, you know,
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: you start, I started with, look, he's, he definitely, he's.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Got a good argument. Like, and already at that time,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: when we.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Were working on the movie, the mainstream opinion was turning
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: into like, this guy was right about most of what
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: he wrote in his manifesto. Like that wasn't, that wasn't
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: a politically incorrect view or anything. It was like, well, but,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: but exactly as you said, but you know, he was
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: very smart. He knew what he was doing, but he
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: went about it the wrong way.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Obviously, you know, he didn't know what he was doing there,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: but he knew what he was doing about the other stuff. And,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, and that's how I went in.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: I was like, okay, you know, and then segueing back
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: into my thing of how do you deal with someone
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: who's a lot smarter than you? There I was going, Ted,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: you know, if only you had just, you know, started
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: a little political party or gone to talk to people,
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: because he spoke about that in his records. He's like,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: I thought I'm either going to, you know, fight the
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: system or I'm going to start a movement. I'm going
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: to try to start a revolution. And he was the
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: kind of speaker that actually probably could have led people ironically.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: So he's not the normal serial killer loner. He didn't,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: he lived alone. He was a complete loner, but then
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: there was absolutely an aspect of his personality that if
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: you'd given him the pedestal and said, you can be
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: the leader of this revolutionary environmental group, he would have
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: taken that up. You know, that was his other option.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: And he was considered, he considered those. And so as
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: I'm learning this, I'm like, ah.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Ted, you know, why don't you go for that version?
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: And then as he keeps.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: Going, his whole thing was the violence is the point.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: And this is the non-PC part. This is the tough
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: part to wrestle with.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: This is where everybody at our sort of average IQ
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: levels are going like, yes, but you shouldn't kill. And
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: he's going, the only way that will actually have.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Any impact on this technological system is that people would
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: have to become violent because it is the.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: One thing that the technological system cannot do. And I
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: was like, wait, what? Say that again. I'm like, just
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: He's like, he's like the technological system needs to make
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: you into a sheep.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It needs to make you.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Nonviolent because as long as you are nonviolent, you can,
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: It can control you. The only thing it cannot control
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: is mammalian violence. So, like, gangs are a problem. He
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: goes into all of this. This is why society can't
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: deal with gangs. The main thing they need to do
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: is get you to be like, we understand you're unhappy
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: about this, sir, but, you know, you're only going to
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: get this much money in Social Security.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Please be nice. Or whatever it is.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: It's like, we understand you're frustrated at the bank, you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: and you don't have a jet, but.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: you know, this is how life is going to work
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: for you.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: And everybody just be peaceful and be calm. So he
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: makes this leap and then he struggles. And we also
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: don't show this in the movie.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He struggles to actually commit violent acts because he has
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: been so well brought up, quote unquote.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: With being a middle American, well-behaved, typical family. You don't
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: scratch someone's car.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: You don't.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: And he talks about that, like the difficulty of, in
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: his diaries, he talks, he reflects about the difficulty that
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: it took to vandalize somebody's property and then talking about, well,
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: afterwards I felt actually.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Very satisfied, you know?
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: So there's this kind of like emotional component and there's
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: a rational component on top. So it was, it was,
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: it was extremely, it was extremely confronting to answer that,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: that question of really looking and being, you know, I
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: guess judgmental of him in the sense of saying, oh,
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: you were smart, but you weren't that smart. And then
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: reading his article and he kind of goes, And he talks,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: you know, I think we had it in the trailer
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: even where he says, you know, a lot of people
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: say violence isn't the way to solve problems. And he's like,
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: as a matter of fact, you know, it's often very effective.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: And history shows that that's often what happens. And so
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: I guess he's living at that reality where he's like,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: this is actually, there's a layer of the world that
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: is totally run by whoever's got the biggest guns.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can just turn on the news and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you see that now.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: So it's like we have this veneer of civility, but
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: actually who's got the biggest gun is actually controlling everything.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: And he's talking at that level and he's saying the
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: technological system is never going to fold and it's just
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: going to increasingly turn you into a domesticated.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Cow and you're not going to be able to do it.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a deal with it. You can't talk nicely to it.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: It's not going to work to say, I'm only going
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: to use my phone for two hours a day.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: It's going to get you.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm literally feeling nauseous as you're saying these things.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I mean, it's disturbing. It's not what you
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: were expecting.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: But it's very, you know, this is very timely. It's
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: important to what is happening right now. I mean, we
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: don't even need to talk about AI and all of
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: these other things that there are these pretty clear and
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: deep parallels. And there's a fascinating contradiction with him this
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: so far. This is a man who he deliberately removes
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: himself from society, but he also seems so desperate for
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: human connection. Did you come to believe that Ted actually
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: wanted to be alone?
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: He wanted to be alone with a woman. So he
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: found most people were sort of idiots. He wanted to be,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: but he desperately would have liked to be, or he
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: would have liked to live. He was a big fan
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: of indigenous American tribes, native American Indian tribes. He loved
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: that hunter-gatherer mindset. His whole way of thinking was, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: this is quite a popular idea, I had been interested
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: in this before I came across the project, about how
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: I'd been interested in writers like Desmond Morris, who wrote
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: The Human Zoo in the 70s, and was talking about
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: how Basically, society, technology.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Has developed faster than human biology.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: And we're designed, so it's this theory, as you might
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: have heard of, there's lots of versions of them. You know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: we're supposed to be living in the wild with tribes
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: of 75 to 150 people.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: We knew everybody.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: We did something every day that helped everybody stay alive.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: That was human satisfaction. Human happiness biologically was I did
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: something every day to keep me and my tribe alive.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: He was very much in line with all of those
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: types of thinking. So, I mean, in all this, obviously,
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: as technology is going up, the suicide rate goes up.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of evidence to show that
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: this is correct. The human brain is malleable and adaptable,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: but it doesn't particularly dig what's happening to it right now.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: It's probably going to freak out, if I don't know
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: if I'm allowed to swear in the podcast, but if
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: Elon's theory, for example, is right that, you know, no
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: one will need to work, or do anything in the
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: future because of AI, humans are going to struggle with that.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: It's like, we don't care. You know, you can be
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: here and have fun. We don't care what you have
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to offer. We don't need you. Oh, you sing. Oh,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that's sweet. But I'm listening to my AI singer. Oh, look,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: she sings, you know, like you can, you can build stuff.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: It's fine. My robot builds it. It's cool.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: We don't need you. Let's just go sit on the
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: beach guys. You know, it's like, go, go have another cappuccino.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: You know, what are we going to do this morning?
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: Let's go do our nails. You know, let's go, go
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: to the gym guys.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: Like whatever, whatever it is.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I think there's this. So he would have
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: liked to live like that. So that was a long
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: answer to your question.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: He would have liked to live with 50 to 150
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: people in a tribe.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And I think he would have liked to be the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: leader of that tribe. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: So you filmed the movie, as we said, on the
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: actual Montana land where Ted's cabin once stood. And you
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: shot there over the course of different seasons, yes, and
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: spent significant time living in that environment. Did Montana itself
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: become part of your understanding of Ted? And what was
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: it like when you stood there for the first time?
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: It was deeply peaceful.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: It takes you into the present moment again.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: In an absolute way. I've always loved being in nature.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Uh, and this film we shot in a way that
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: we had a small crew and a way that allowed
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: me to basically while I was filming sort of live
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: mostly like I was him during the day. So at
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: the end of a take, the guys would just come
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: in and go like, okay, Ted, we're just going to
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: set up here.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: And I would just wander off. I wouldn't speak.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: I would just kind of wander off and I'd go
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: and sit. I had a little tent if I needed it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: I thought I'd just go sit by a stream while
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: I was setting up the next thing for an hour.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: And then I would just sit there by myself, just.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Watching the stream and like watching butterflies and watching the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: grass move. And then someone would come and go, Ted,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: we ready for you? And then I would just walk
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: back to the thing. It's the only time I've ever
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: been called by my character name. I wasn't like methoding.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I wasn't like, you have to call me Ted.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: I wasn't into the whole thing. It happened sort of
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: organically because it was very serious. It was very in
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: the moment and people would just be sort of, it
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: was quite a reverence happening.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: We were just kind of.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Like, And people were sort of gave me a bit
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: of a wide berth most of the time until the.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: End of the day. Wow.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, so for people who are listening that don't
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: understand what a film set is like, it is not
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of people. There is a lot of movement.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: There are lights.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: People are like picking at you and telling you where
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: to stand. And then you're like, there is just a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: lot that is going on. So that is pretty extraordinary.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: And you're retreating on a normal set to a trailer.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: You've got your condiments. You've got everything. You're getting snacks.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: People are serving you. You're doing what you're doing. whatever
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it's you, you treat it way too nicely. But, but yeah.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And the amazing thing was I, I would start to,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I spent so much time quietly in the environment that
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I genuinely would get annoyed when I heard a plane
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: come over or something. It actually started to, I was
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: living in that space so much, especially when we did
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: some of the hiking stuff and you would just be
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in this absolute bliss.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: And then you just hear this like, Oh, And it
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: was weird. I was like, wow, this is, I'm really,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: this is getting a little method. My friends would tease
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: me and be like, please don't mail anything.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, don't worry. I'm fine.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I was honestly, my next question was going to be,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: did it, you know, that was literally going to be
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: my question. Did you start to understand on a visceral
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: level why those intrusions enraged him so much?
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I really did.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: And I, the thing is I had one point of, difference.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: And I wrote to Ted, he never wrote.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Back because I knew he wouldn't, you know, before the movie,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I had sort of already researched him enough to know
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: the odds of him writing back as tiny or tiny.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I had one question that I wanted to ask him
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: if I'd ever met him, which was, I buy everything
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: that you're saying in this. And I even understand it
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: His main argument, for example, no, he actually didn't make
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: this argument.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I think I made this argument for him. That's right. See,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: now I'm getting my arguments and he's confused. But when
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I was talking to people, I said, listen, he killed people.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But in his mind and his actual writings, he was
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: absolutely going to war for the sake of the environment
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and humanity. He was prepared to kill for that reason.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Now people kill for gold, for another 20 feet of territory,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: for a little bit of oil, for, you know, of
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: the reasons to go to war for the environment and
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: for the betterment of humanity.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: So they're not enslaved by machines.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: Isn't it, you know, any worse than I want the
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: gold or I want another feet of, you know, I
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: want more territory because my ancestors had it or something.
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: It's like, I was like, well, it didn't go crazy
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: and just rape and kill women.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? There was an actual logic.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, I am going to war. I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: have a cause.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: I'm going to kill for that cause. Innocent people will die,
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: but I'm prepared to do that. So I bought all
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: of that. I understood it. I personally, Sholto, couldn't understand
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: that because I was like, or couldn't get behind that.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Firstly, because I'm not interested in sort of warfare. I'm
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: an artist.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: I have the luxury of other men and women fighting
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: and protecting and keeping me safe. which I acknowledge, but I,
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: I felt the question I would have asked him would
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: have been, wasn't, isn't what's happening still evolution. So if
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: you take a homo sapien and a homo sapien makes
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: plastic bottles and throws, if I had a little ant
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: farm and the ants suddenly started making plastic Coke, metal
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Coca-Cola bottles, I'd be like, Oh, look at this little
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: nature reserve.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Like that's so weird. They throw their little Coke bottles out.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: You know, it's, I don't think you can remove yourself
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: from evolution and say, that's my question that I would
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: have had to him. I'm like, are you saying that
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: the entire design of the universe, whatever has made evolution
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: happened is somehow gone wrong and we need to try
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: and turn back its clock and humans should stay the
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: way they were, you know, And when they were hunter gatherers,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: cause like it seems blatantly obvious, it seems manifestly obvious
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: that for example, AI, you know, knocking down trees and
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: building buildings is part of an evolution. It's just, unfortunately
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: from a certain perspective, and I think it's somewhat unfortunate,
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: but also it's nature. It's still nature. It's like you
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: build a steel building and you know, car it's still.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: on this planet naturally happening? So that's what I would
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: have asked him. And that's why I could never get
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: behind the idea of why would you be fighting against
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: evolutionary impulses.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: On the planet? I mean, I.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Think he would have loved to answer that question.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I feel like he would have had a lot to
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: say about that. And it's also, you know, his whole
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: endeavor is really quite what struck me when you were
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: describing all of that is that it's really, it's quite
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: a selfless intention. I'm doing this for maybe a little megalomaniacal,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: but still like selfless for other, you know, it isn't
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: really for his own satisfaction, it seems, you know?
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: There was both. I think the fair answer to that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: is both.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: I think he, what took him over to the edge is,
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: was that he personally got angry.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: So he often spoke about this.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: If you had just left me alone, he went to
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: live on the edge of society in Montana. And really
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: what started the whole thing was that a logging company,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: a mom and pop logging shop started up on a
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: nearby farm right by his land that he bought. So
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: he would listen every day to me. Now this is
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: the worst. He's literally like, okay, I'm out of the system.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Just leave me alone. And so that's the first stuff
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: he starts vandalizing. And we went and met those people.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And he... So he gets.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Furious himself.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: And then snowmobiles come, you see this in the movie,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: snowmobiles come during the holidays and they snowmobiling around him
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: and he gets angry and he starts vandalizing the snowmobiles.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: He just starts small. He starts personal angry, like you're
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: coming to me. So he was an angry, frustrated man.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: There was definitely a, it wasn't, you know, a virtuous,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: I've thought about this. I'm going to, as much as
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: he would try to present that, As part of it, underneath,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: if you look at the diaries, he was an angry
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: man and he lashed out, firstly at individuals, and then
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: he thought, well, I'm going to make this a bigger cause.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I might as well actually devote myself to this. And
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: all of those bigger arguments of I'm doing it for society,
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: et cetera, all then come into play. But the seed
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: is he's personally angry. If he'd just been in quiet
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: and he'd had a girlfriend, I don't think we would
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: be talking about this today.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Right, right. That's my personal opinion.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Did meeting the people who actually interacted with him change
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: anything about the performance that you gave?
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Only meeting the librarian, only meeting the librarian, because the
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: others did describe him pretty much as the cliched version
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: of he was quiet.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: He was he didn't speak much and he was antisocial.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: The librarian's whole description of him was like you're describing a.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Completely different person.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: He would tutor her child because he was super bright.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: He would offer to help the kids. He had just
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: another whole side of his personality. And it seems that
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: if he trusted somebody.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: He would reveal that. If he didn't, he would stay
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: very closed off.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Not to sound too reductive, but that is pretty heartbreaking
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: when you think about it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: It's just.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: It was incredibly heartbreaking.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: And I, like I say, the part that's missing for
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: me and that, that was always a little bit painful
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: with the finished film was that, that those, all of
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: those scenes and we shot like most of them weren't
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: included in the film, you know, and even while we
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: were going, Tony was shooting these moments and we were
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: sending them back to investors and people.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: And everyone was like, this is so moving. I did stuff,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I was trying to pick up a girl
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: at a, at a, at a garage sale.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: And, you know, he's trying to make conversation and he's trying,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: it was, It was just brutal. But, yeah, it's definitely
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: sad at a certain level. It's obviously sad for, you know,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: very much the families and the people that he killed.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. You know, you can't justify still, for me, like,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: as I say, even as I think I'm one of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the people who would justify him the most, having played him,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: having understood it, I still, like I said, my own
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: view of, like, you know, where are you going with this? Like,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: why do you think you can stop evolution in its
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: tracks is what made me go like, I can't justify
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: what this guy's doing. If you could have convinced me
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: somehow that you could have saved us, it may well
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: be that we are going to become domesticated cows or
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: we're going to be, we're going to go extinct and
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: an artificial form of intelligence, what we call artificial comes out,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: but that's nature in its own.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: It used this species to make this thing. It's not
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: impossible that that's the case. I mean, I find that depressing, but.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Did doing this film and playing the Unabomber actually change
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: the way you use technology?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I've always had a love-hate relationship with technology, which I
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: think lots of people have. And I think I just have,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I have that same love-hate relationship.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: I miss the fact that when I was shooting the film,
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: I used my phone the least that I've ever used it.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: But I would have to say, no, it ultimately didn't.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: And that's Ted's whole point. It's like the technology has you.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: It's almost, I mean, I think he would say the
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: other way around. Technology uses you. you know, and the
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: techno-industrial system uses you. And even at– there's obvious levels
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: where that's happening. You're posting on Facebook. You're posting on TikTok.
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: The algorithm is using you. The corporation is using you.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: You think you're getting the benefit.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, look at me on TikTok.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: Even if you've got lots of followers. But the corporation
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: has you. Like you don't have a say. You don't
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: get to– delete your account you don't get to go
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: like I'm not going to answer my phone you know
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: you serve the phone when the phone needs you you
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: answer that thing and it's like it's becoming increasingly like
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: that and it's a strange time I mean it's a
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: fascinating time to live in I you know we're getting
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: to see what.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Happens we sure are I mean if we're paying attention
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: at all Was there a moment in his writings where
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: you could see the line being crossed, like from a
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: man who's furious about what was happening around him to
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: someone who was willing to actually hurt and kill strangers?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he writes about it. So he goes on a hike.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: He used to hike.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: He would spend hours hiking and often just for food
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: was the most common reason.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: He, in his diaries, you see the.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Life of that, by the way, of a person like that.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, it takes you seven hours to go get lunch.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. And then obviously how satisfying that lunch is,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: that's totally different from the drive-thru. Yes.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: Anyway, so he goes on a hike and there's a
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: trail that he likes to do. And the one time
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: he goes out there and he gets to a spring
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: that he would always stop and sit and drink at.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: And the one day he goes, there's a road that's
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: been constructed by right by the spring or right through
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: this land that was like the most sacred place that
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: he used to go to and by his spring. So
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: he writes that, and this was his defining moment in
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: his diary, I went and I said a kind of
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: prayer to the spirit of the spring and I vowed
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: that I would take revenge for what was happening to
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: the planet. And that was his moment where he decided
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: I will start bombing, I will start attacking people. Before that,
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: he was just vandalizing stuff in his area. Then in
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: that moment, he decides he's going to defend the environment
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: and he's going to fight for the environment and he's
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: going to kill, if necessary, attack, you know, maim whatever
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: other people. So that was, that is clear. He makes
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: a clear definitive decision at that time.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It's very chilling.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: So after, uh, After all of this, reading thousands of
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: pages of his thoughts and living on the land and
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: making this film and seeing the world through his eyes
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: for months, what do you think the rest of us
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: still fundamentally misunderstand about Ted Kaczynski?
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Probably some of those things I was touching on earlier,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that he was desperately seeking female affection and love and
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: trying to work out how to get it and what
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: he was doing wrong. One of the reasons we can
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: talk about that. One of the reasons was that he
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: was too honest in how he would speak to women
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: early on, which was fascinating.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: He was, he was much more of a Renaissance man
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: in terms of his ability to make music, draw art,
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: high level art, write comedic satire.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: And he was a funny guy to some people. They
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: really experienced him as very, very funny. Like, like hilariously fun.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: Like my favorite thing about Ted is how much he
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: makes me laugh. When you go like, what are your
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: favorite things about Ted? Oh, it's how much we laugh
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: together and how funny he is like that. I think
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: the society doesn't know.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I certainly knew none of those things about him.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: And he, it was, it was another interesting part is
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: just a, just a interesting experience because, The other thing
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: I would have asked him, maybe I would have asked
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: one other question, but I know the answer to this.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: He gets caught because there's a bomb under his bed.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: He literally left a bomb that he was making under
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: his bed. But they've been chasing him for 17 years.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And what he had been doing for years before that
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: is he would hike about eight kilometers away from his
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: cabin into deep, thick bush.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: And he made another cabin. And that's where he had
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: all his bomb stuff. and he used gloves and he
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: used everything. So if they come into his house, this
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: is big ways back to my open opening comment of,
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: you know, you have these hyper intelligent people. If you
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: make one mistake, if you, if you, if you, you
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: become so sure that you are so smart, he becomes smart.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: So sure that he's so much smarter than the dumb
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: FBI trying to catch him, that he becomes complacent and
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: he just leaves his bomb making stuff in his cabin.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Cause he's like, these guys are never going to get me.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: His original plan was incredibly smart. So what would have
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: happened is they would have gone to his cabin, suspected him.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: He would have gone, I don't know what you're talking
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: about officer.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: If they'd even found the cabin, which they might never have,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: but let's assume they do now. There's no trace of
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: his prints or anything. There's no proof that he made
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that stuff. So he had developed, he'd burned every, after
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: he'd made it, he'd burn all the pieces. He was
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: unbelievably meticulous. He's painstakingly meticulous.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: His diaries have like every single component he uses in
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: a bomb, how you get rid of that so that
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: there's no trace. And he writes all of this in
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: a code. Like it's complicated. It is unbelievably detailed. He
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: was very, very detailed. He would always win competitions regularly.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: for like spotting spelling mistakes in something or whatever.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: He had a ridiculous ability to focus on detail, but
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: he leaves the bomb under his bed, you know, and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: it's that one thing where you, you thought you, you
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: got so smart that you could just, you know, just
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: make your bombs at home now. They're never going to
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: get me. So that was, you know, just a little,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: a little interesting thing that I, that I noticed, you know,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: playing him.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this Charlton, this has been so fascinating. I,
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: I just, I'm so thrilled that I got to speak
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: with you. And this movie, again, it's called Ted K.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: It is streaming online and it's really, I always feel
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: strange saying things are beautiful when it's about something so,
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: you know, disturbing, but it truly is.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful. And, and your work in it is beautiful.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for talking with me today.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's been a good chat. And
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of like life, isn't it?
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: It's beautiful and horrific at the same time, this whole
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: human experience, you know?
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: That is correct. That is correct. We have to take
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: all of it.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I wish you the best. Thank you. I hope
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: we cross paths in person sometime. Me too.