and um and then part was joe black who uh puppeteered the doll and um and did the voice of the doll so to speak so a lot of that was just kind of um you know organic during the making of the film i mean wouldn't you say mark as opposed to what was on the page i mean there was always some humor in the in the script but it was a little I think what we ended up with was a little more humorous and stuff than was originally intended.

Yeah, I would say that for sure, that when you first gave me the script, you know, I read through it and, you know, you were certainly right about...

it would be something that I would like and be up my alley.

Yeah, when I was reading it, I was also thinking about how we would actually portray the doll, you know, whether the doll would be like an actual creation, like a puppet, or whether it'd be like a half CG.

half puppet it's been augmented but as you say i think it really did develop once we started getting into the logistics of making the movie itself and how we were going to handle certain sequences and it just say it just became like almost some natural evolution that it would have a almost like a black comedy aspect to it um more than yeah taking it very seriously because especially with the doll, because the doll for me was something that was definitely like, even though it wasn't puppeted like with strings, it was puppeted, you know, by Joe.

You know, Joe was puppeting the doll itself.

So that also gave me an impression, as I'd mentioned to Jeff, there was an old...

Yeah, Mark, you can take that if you want.

Yeah.

Yeah, there were many challenges.

Like I'd also say the doll we had was a little bit of the equivalent of Bruce the Shark.

He was kind of a nightmare to deal with because, you know, he'd been made, you know, a caricatured version.

The first version of him was more photorealistic, like looking like the real dumber or the real actor.

But then we exaggerated it.

But then the doll himself was actually pretty fragile.

Brock Samsonite, so what does this retelling of Jeffrey Dahmer's story have that others don't? Because there's a lot of them, so how do you set yourself apart? I think the puppet is one thing.

But in general, it was a healthy home, healthy family.

And Wade, I had the opposite.

I grew up in a broken home.

My parents divorced when I was two.

And that ended up being quite a traumatic experience for me personally, just that I believed and lived with the rejection of my dad that he pursued this other relationship and raised kids there.

And I didn't hear from him until I was an adult.

My mom lived with and then eventually married a man who was very uh just very dysfunctional lots of abuse in my home uh physical and emotional abuse and actually uh sexual abuse was a part of our my story and so um I but as a kid, I fantasized about me and when I'm free of this family because it's nuts, I'm going to have and I had this fan fantasy idea of what my future family would look like.

oh for sure

No.

But I had been noticing that Jill, things were starting to be different in her, and when I first saw it, I didn't trust it.

I felt like she was manipulating me, trying to suck me b- back into the vortex.

And, but I saw the longevity of it, and part of my dilemma was my relationship with Jill wasn't working.

My kids were devastated.

This other relationship was falling apart.

I couldn't satisfy anybody, and really my intent at that moment was I need to divorce.

He pushed it to me.

... which was his most logical, oh, that's, somebody there needs this.

Right.

And so he goes in and says, "Hey, I wanna write a check for 15,000 to a family that needs this." And they were like, "We don't have anybody." And he was just devastated.

He got back out in the car and was like, "Lord, did I miss you?" And just was so discouraged.

Got home, and he goes to his mailbox in discouragement, gets the magazine, reads your article, then reaches out to you and-

... around us.

He is.

Let me pray.

Yeah.

You know, I'm sure somebody stole them out of my grocery cart.

no there was one time though I was staying you needed a spice yeah This is classic Mark.

I was standing there reading it.

I'm like, yeah, this is it.

Somebody came up and started talking to me.

Mark, haven't seen you for a long time.

then we encourage them to actually write down what their partner asked for forgiveness for, work through it, and then come back to them when they can actually offer that

Yeah, that's good.

Because it wasn't rolling out.

You know, when you adopt a kid who's, you're lifting him out of just a tragedy and you think, I'm gonna help change his life.

And he really has gone back to the very thing that we rescued him from.

He's just in another country.

And that was hugely disappointing.

I had to grieve that.

Right.

And I am going to just let that be satisfying for me and not expect it from him.

Yeah.

You know, as you were talking, Jill, I think of how many places we get these unrealistic ideas.

We're taught them.

It's emphasized.

It seems to be validated through data, but yet it's so unrealistic.

Like I think of there was a big men's movement years ago that really emphasized that you're like your wife is your soulmate.

And I didn't do anything in that moment with