Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

understood what he was doing but I think these disciplines I mean it is like if somebody was doing uh wrestling in Japan there is an adjustment period to come here sure there's an adjustment period uh in any of these disciplines so going from movies to television which is the what what I've done or going um writing for different purpose they're different beasts and so sure I can think oh I I know what I do but you guys have to put a show on Monday night you got to put a show on Thursday night you got to set up the live event you got to set up the house show even though not nearly as many you gotta you gotta set up all sorts of things and um and every time I think oh you know hitting a referee out of the ring in a false count I've seen it too many times until I see it the next time and it works on me and it gets me mad sure okay yeah and then it's like you know what do they got me yeah and and I think it's really hard I think it's just really hard um to I think it's very hard job to be a writer and I think that Paul and the guys both Pauls and the guys do it great and I think maybe the best thing about uh Unreal is how it is both truly I think the most shoot element of it is how uncomfortable it makes Heyman I I think I love that the camera's been turned on that room so uncomfortable yeah like he did my when I used to do a podcast my my own pod Paul and I did like a two and a half hour pod and it was like one of the first maybe the first time he ever really truly dropped the character and it was so hard to get him to do it and so rewarding when he really spoke honestly about his childhood and now he's more comfortable doing it but that's way easier than getting him to really let you see people making script decisions I can feel how uncomfortable it makes him yeah because he's a carny at heart well too he uh I think he's conceded to the idea that oh yeah these are good ideas and this is a good grid and this is a good map but the magic now and I I don't think he'd be offended to me telling you is he sits up in gorilla in the corner of gorilla he looks at what's on paper and he adds legitimate magic to it I just spoke to somebody I said let's let's let's put this together first then go there love it then go there let's bring him ours and then go there because if we go there first we're we're not we're not even challenging ourselves as artists he's the cheat code and I need the cheat code some nights okay that's a really important so when I wrote you that note it was because I thought your uh episode with Cena was like an incredible I would tell anyone who wanted to break into any part of show business almost any business to listen to that because John really chose your show to lay out his entire philosophy and he also at like eight in the morning yeah with a live round uh yeah Christmas suit that David Allen made him that was so nice and he he he said I want you to have my first words at

In terms of long-term storytelling and when you develop characters for your worlds, is there any time you have pulled from pro wrestling or have a similar approach to maybe how a pro wrestling angle or storyline function in terms of your process creating a character?

I mean, I'll answer it really honestly.

Wrestling is so deeply ingrained in me from watching it and reading those magazines that there's no way I wouldn't be.

But I will say my process, if you're really asking the question, like I'm not very analytical when I do that stuff.

As a writer, as someone working as an artist, I'm really trying to get to a state of flow.

I'm not trying to think, how can I put these elements together? I'm trying to get to a place where my imagination is just flowing so that when I'm coming up with a character or I'm thinking about what a character would say or feel or think, it's so connected to like, I'm just, you know, there are so many processes I have in place to do that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, your first big, I don't even wanna say big break, but the, the, the first thing that I guess you became known for is, did you discover Tracy Chapman?

Yeah.

Through student activism on my campus, we were doing a protest.

Back then, schools were investing their endowments in companies doing business in South Africa, and we felt like apartheid was a really bad thing.

I think it needs to be restated again now.

Apartheid was indeed a really, really bad thing.

So we were staging protests, and a friend of mine told me that there was a singer I should get to play at this protest.

So, like, what advice do you have for me in, in, in, for the audience? Like, how do you keep going, and how do you do it in a way that is, uh, enlivening?

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Love that.

Love that.

I didn't wanna go backstage.

I didn't wanna...

I- locker room.

I wanted to come like the kid that I was and sit in the blee- like sit in the fucking bad seats and watch Bruno get inducted.

And so I had a Bruno Sammartino T-shirt, and I, we took the s- the train here and, uh, had decent seats.

Uh, you know, I sprung for decent seats it turned out.

Went and saw them, actually, in Vegas, yeah.

It's a really special team, even regardless of what happens in the finals, and you have to come on and talk about it," so you're here.

Yeah, we made, we made the finals.

We're not about to.

We made the finals.

It's very exciting.

I didn't wanna come on 'cause I don't wanna, I don't wanna jinx it.

I really just wanna be the, uh, uh...

We have, we have the right vision in place

Yeah

... and led me into this first, the first stage of my c- career until David and I wrote our first script.

I, I would say, um, the lessons that were the most important lessons that I took from that, and these are broadly applicable to anyone listening, is I was young enough not to believe experts when they told me that, uh, I was wrong, [laughs] that Tracy's music could appeal to many people across many different demographics.

And, uh, for me, I was, at 19, I had spent a lifetime in recording studios, even though I was young, 'cause my dad was in that business, so I knew about that business.

So I had a certain amount of, um, knowledge, a certain amount of reps thinking about things like what makes somebody a great songwriter.

You know, what makes a song, um, a great song? What makes a, an entertainer incredibly compelling? But I was young and innocent enough to not think that the monolith of an industry, um, knew better.

Because all I thought was, "Well, if this moves me to tears, and I'm not an easy cry, if this makes me, uh, stay up all night lost in what this music is, then other people are gonna be like me, and they're gonna feel the same way," you know? Um, and then, so I had all these experiences, Michael, where I would, uh, Tracy would perform, and an expert from a New York record company or an LA record company would come that we'd arranged to come up there, and the guy would be crying during the concert and say, "Can I..." A concert, you know, she's playing for 200 people.

Right.

It's funny.

And a guy said that in the room.

Uh, and I, I remember just going like, "Holy shit, this is the movie." And I called my part- Dave, who's my best friend, and I said, "I know what we should write about." And then, then starting the next morning, we started writing Rounders.

And we spent a long time researching it and going to the clubs and writing stuff down and, you know, lines of dialogue, ways people looked at one another, fights that happened, and we just started putting together the, this story.

And then we met every morning for two hours before I'd go to work.

Dave was tending bar.

And, uh, I guess before he would go, you know, he'd finish his thing, come over to my apartment.

Sure, sure

Right.

And, no, seriously, dude, right? You were a kid who was at this school.

Like, you'd gotten there.

Y- y- yeah, you didn't grow up with nothing, but you didn't grow up like a lot of the other people who got into the media landscape, right? And, and, like, you had an idea like Dick Goodwin does about, like, "Well, I think that I can...

I don't know.

Let's get in rooms with these people and see if I'm, see if I know what I'm doing and see if my way is right and, and see if I can be smarter than them and outthink them." And, like, and I know the rooms that you were in, and I know the condescending way people spoke to you and, like, talked about you.

And, like, a- and, and to me, like, the brilliance of this movie is you get Dick Goodwin, and he's not like...

Yeah.

No.

... um, kind of a guy, in Redford's c- case, who has always had the ability to be competent.

I mean, Condor is a great example where at first he seems incompetent, but by the end, he's a guy who can ...

He can figure it out.

He played smart really well, and especially a guy people could think, oh, they think he's dumb 'cause he's so handsome, but really he's smart.

Really he can think.

Maybe not the fastest thinker, but a good thinker.

Yeah.

Heidi Fleiss in the '80s?

...

I think it's the thing, I think it's the scene that pulls back...

If you're watching that movie and you just are kind of going along thinking, oh, it looks like things are all right, I think that's the scene that really shows you that you're living in one of those futures that is super fucked up and dark and that very few people have any rights at all.

And like, not in the, um, it...

I think the point they're trying to make in that, in that really, so fucked, first of all, everybody's on these super designer drugs that probably were barely invented, some combination of Quaaludes and, uh, molly, and they're all taking them and passing them around and, uh, kind of drifting into this place you describe James Caan's performance as being.

But each of those women and men are just kind of describing that the- the women were kind of shuttled to the men, kind of ordered to be with them and nobody...

Oh, the androids thing, with the eyes? Yeah, that, that, they might all be androids.