What do you think he sees in Carrie that the others don't?

Well, I think he sees before him a student who is enthusiastic and bright eyed and full of hope and aspirations.

I think that Carrie represents hope.

um this sense of wonder especially in mike flanagan's work like there's like this real beauty about carrie she comes into school and so i think what he what he sees in her is a kid with unlimited untapped potential who just needs to get past this moment of being bullied and i think that as grail and the administrator see this kid We just want what's best for her.

And sometimes, like, you have to defend yourself.

Like, you've got to take that wonder and put it in your back pocket and rise up and protect yourself, right? And so I think he's just hoping that she finds the strength to push back to allow her to be the student that's clearly there.

deep

question.

Very talented

... an incredible storyteller.

And what he's done, I think in a really great way, is that he's given everyone a very distinct point of view, and nobody's wrong, and nobody's right, right? It's all, like, everyone is doing their version of the best thing for themselves and for the people around them.

Yeah

... really have an opportunity to shine as an actor.

I feel like she's been brilliant in a lot of Mike's work.

Um, but this is a moment where she gets to be, uh, as powerful as she is as an actor, gets to do all the things.

It's different than what people will expect.

[laughs]

... circus of incredible people.

Um, and then they surprised me by bringing it up.

Everyone knew except for me.

And I was really emotional because, to me, it was the first movie I'd ever done and I was...

I looked at him as a father figure, and I was like, at the end of the movie, I was like, "I will see you next month 'cause we're gonna play chess," 'cause we played chess every day.

And he said to me in that moment, "I won't see you next month.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Listen, to me it, it's like this, it's this history.

It's this great history of my life, and so those friends, those memories, those moments, going to dinner, hanging out, waking, you know, rolling back into the hotel at like-

Yeah, she is

... just like a, she is a gift.

And she, like, in the great wide world, of all the people they went to see, and there was thousands of tapes that they saw, to find her was like a small act of God.

She is extraordinary.

And the way that you guys incorporate everything we're talking about right now as parents, as people that are observing how we raise young people, it's fascinating.

yeah it's a complete modernization of a tale that everyone knows we have the skeleton set pieces like you have pigs blood at the end you have carrie in the shower um but what happens is that you get this delicious eight episode arc where we're digging into the the depth of characters the relationships between the faculty and parents and social media and kids but at the end of the day It's a tale as old as time.

It's a kid who's on the outside looking and who grows into her own power.

And I think that there's this really exciting retelling of a story that people

I was going to say, do you deal with any negativity on social media?

Oh, yeah.

You do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the reality is that my life is chaos and beautiful and nerdy and geeky, and I try to represent that to be this voice of, like, humanity, 'cause I feel like that's what people really are.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, look, I, I do think that there, there's all k- I, I ha- I, this is not, I don't wanna make this about me, but there is definitely, like, I have very human moments that sometimes get caught on film that I have to account for.

Uh, uh, t- talk to me a little bit about him, and, uh, boy, he's just kind of the catalyst for everything, isn't he?

Yeah.

I don't know, I don't know if he's a catalyst as much as I do think he's at the center of the storm, right? I do think he's trying the best he can to usher through all the kids in the community without, with as little collateral damage as possible.

Um, you know, being... uh, one of the great things, I think, that for both of us and the entire cast is that working with Flanagan a- a TV show-

Mm

...

I think you're gonna get great storytelling.

I think the people will be amazed that they have an expectation of what Carrie is, and then what Mike Flanagan does is he goes out and changes the whole thing.

Um, is it the same? Is it just a job? What goes through your head?

Um, good question.

I don't really...

To be completely candid, if I was worried about results, my whole life would be tied up in energy that I can't control.

So for me-

Yeah

... what is drawing, what draws me to a project is, am I going to have something great to work on? Who is the community I'm working with? And then, is it gonna help feed my kids? [laughs] I mean, those are really the three things.

It's something like this, I think if you ask any of us, what draws you into this is Mike Flanagan.

This is what I want to know.

Yeah.

And the reason, you know, one of...

This guy, Todd Stashwick, who's a very famous actor, and every time I tell the story, he- I give him credit.

He said the Venn diagram between Dungeons and Dragons players and, and drinkers, whiskey drinkers, is a perfect circle.

Right? And so we built this whiskey in honor of that community.

Each book has a chapter of an ongoing saga that lasts across four years.

[gasps]

What made you even think that?

Uh, you know, somebody came out and at a convention, you know, Skeet and I do these conventions a lot, and somebody called us the first husbands of horror, and I think Skeet really held onto it, 'cause I think he brought it up a couple more times.

And then collectively, just organically as we sort of do, like, you know, at some point when you're doing, you have 10 Q&As a year, you sort of, like, find the things that land with us that we deliver to people.

And so the reason the husbands of horror thing really stuck is because, you know, we, we do know that we are iconic characters.

Um, and we certainly know we're iconic characters in the gay community.

And so for us, you know, and it's important, it doesn't mean anything to us in terms of being the first gay husbands of horror, but what it does mean a lot to us is that there's a kid out there somewhere struggling with accepting his own queerness or trying to find his way and, and find his own power, her own power, their own power in their journey.

I will sip my vodka as you think.

That I've never said before.

actor's life, right? Do you, at this point in your life, feel like you're valued by Hollywood as an artist?

Oh,

God.

No.

Why?

Not really.

I mean, look, I think that people who know me, people I've worked with are like, oh, I get the value.

I will sip my vodka as you think.

there? Stop it.

It is that thing.

It's that there's a community.

Look, as actors, the thing that people may not really understand is that you're always out there hustling for a job.

And that's a really difficult life, right? Because you may not work for years on end.

You may not work for months.

You are always in the back of your mind, like, am I ever going to work again? Yeah.

But how do you like reflect on that and like think about that moment in time?

Oh, wow.

When we got there, we had w- we had three and a half week, a month of rehearsal before the start of Carrie.

The first time we walked into rehearsal, Mike Flanagan said, "All right, we're gonna do these scenes.

The idea here is that you get to know each other, but we get to do them on this f- uh, we get these scenes on their feet." He's like, "Okay, in this scene," like, we, the first time we worked, he's like, "We're gonna shoot it on this day.

The time that we're gonna shoot it is between this time and this time.

On this, on these first five lines, I'm gonna be on this take, and then I'm gonna reverse here.

You're gonna be sitting there, and I'm gonna...

Yeah.

So Matthew, what does it mean for you to take on such an iconic role and iconic piece that we all know, but you've spun it and twisted it and modernized it in a way that we're all gonna be screaming all the way to Halloween?

Um, yeah.

I mean, listen, when you're invited to do a project with Mike Flanagan, you're gonna jump in.

Um, he is an incredible storyteller, and you've got a story that people think they know.

It's eight episodes, right? We all know set pieces.

There's eight episodes, and I think that Mike Flanagan digs in.

And if you get the chance to sit in front of the show first two episodes, you will be sucked in across the entire journey.

What, would you be a scary principal? Were you a scary principal in this? What, what kind of principal did you, are you, Matthew, in this film? I'm serious.

Yeah, how did you guys all feel like your characters expanded in this one?

I don't know if they expanded, but I think there's a lot more jump scares.

There's a lot more set pieces.

How about you, Matthew?

Can you...

Okay.

[laughs] What are we allowed to say? [laughs] I, Cupcake, 'cause I know that that's a lot of-

So when Dario approached Matthew about joining the MCU, he jumped at the opportunity.

You know, he knows the actor I am i- in general, in the worlds we've worked together with him and I.

You know, they give me, like, a really great base to build off of, and they allow me, in a lot of ways, to sort of play.

Not every show out there likes to let an actor like me loose, and Dario's like, "Man, I want you to do you," which to me means, "I want you to plus this up, have fun," and sort of I think what the result of that is that Mr. Charles becomes this character that has an energy base all his own that's different than everything around him, and I think that makes it super fun to play.

That creative freedom really comes through in his performance, especially when Mr. Charles faces off with Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk.

There's such a, a yin-yang relationship between Mr. Charles and Fisk, because he has this base.

He has this stillness and this power, and when you work across from him, you're like, "Oh my God, it's intimidating." But when you approach the work, especially work like this, you come in with a really strong sense of what you wanna do and, and how you're approaching it and your point of view as a character.

Every single time you sit across from a great actor like Vincent or Charlie Cox or everyone else on the show, you are given more information.

Sure.

And having great hair was one of the rules.

That's how you become a great actor, have great hair.

But yeah, the physical stuff, I'm just trying to think.

There's definitely things around being emotional.

Listen, I always think that...

This idea that you just said earlier, which I really loved, which is electric guitar.

so

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, "Well, what happens when you get in the cut and you find that you don't have any choices?" And he looked at me, and he, like, kind of looked, "I would've changed the script," and looked at me like I was the dumbest man on the room (laughs).

Mm-hmm.

And I didn't really know anyone on that floor, so I just kind of went and took a look around.

And upstairs, amongst like 10,000 kids, is Clint Eastwood and his driver, and they're just watching the game.

And none of these kids have any idea who these old dudes are.