Mandy Kaplan:
Hello everybody and welcome to Make Me a Nerd. I’m Mandy Kaplan, a mainstream mom whose mission it is to explore the world of nerd culture I’ve been missing out on and afraid of my whole life. If you’re new here, this is what goes down. I bring some noob energy and questions, and I bring on a wonderful guest who is a passionate nerd, and they bring their energy and their expertise, and we try to figure out why this thing matters. And this thing today is Wonder Man. So I of course have made my name Wondermandy, because I cannot resist.
Matthew Fox:
Very fair, very fair.
Mandy Kaplan:
It’s probably the only reason I agreed to watch Wonder Man. So I could make Wondermandy puns.
Matthew Fox:
Okay, okay.
Mandy Kaplan:
And you all probably recognize the voice of my incredible returning guest. They are the host of Superhero Ethics. They are the host of Star Wars Generations.
Matthew Fox:
Correct?
Mandy Kaplan:
I got it right.
Matthew Fox:
You did, well done.
Mandy Kaplan:
They are a new dad. They are an incredible person and somebody I frequently get to podcast with. Welcome back, Matthew Fox.
Matthew Fox:
Thank you so much. And I have to admit, and this is what we’ll talk about, I feel like this week I am cheating. Because as you say, normally you get to be the noob and we’re talking about a show that is super geeky and that I will be able to help inform you about. But part of why I love Wonder Man is I think this time I am the noob because this is a show that is first and foremost about a struggling actor working in Hollywood. He happens to have a superpower and exist in a world where Captain America and the Hulk exist.
Mandy Kaplan:
It is indeed.
Matthew Fox:
But part of why I love the show is that’s not what the show is about. The show is about going to auditions and being an actor, and Mandy, I think that’s more your world than mine.
Mandy Kaplan:
It hits so close to home.
Matthew Fox:
I’m sure.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh God. So how did you come to Wonder Man? And I already have a question, because you mentioned Hulk and Superman or no, Hulk and who’d you say?
Matthew Fox:
I think it’s Captain America.
Mandy Kaplan:
But they’re not in this. There are no other superheroes in this unless I missed them.
Matthew Fox:
There they very much are not. It is set in the MCU, the Marvel Universe. And there are other characters who have been introduced in other things.
Mandy Kaplan:
Those are a lot of my questions.
Matthew Fox:
Okay. So just I’ll hit that first. Travis Slattery, who is kind of the best friend of our main character, Wonder Man, who he’s not called that yet, but that’s the character he’s going to become in theory eventually.
Mandy Kaplan:
Simon Williams, aka, yes.
Matthew Fox:
Simon Williams. Trevor Slattery is known to fans of the MCU because he is an actor who in Iron Man 3 was hired to pretend to be this faux terrorist called the Mandarin.
Mandy Kaplan:
So that’s real, or that’s pre-existing, because to me it was just brand new for Wonder Man.
Matthew Fox:
Yes. Well, and I think honestly that’s part of why this show is so good, and I want to hear what you thought of it.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes.
Matthew Fox:
I’ve certainly heard from a lot of people who don’t like superheroes, don’t like comic books, don’t like the MCU, knew none of this stuff going in, and still thought it was a great show.
Mandy Kaplan:
You just described me. One of my questions is, do die-hard MCU superhero lovers like this show? Or by episode three or four were they like, where are my cool special effects and all of my fights? This is about a struggling actor.
Matthew Fox:
So I think it’s mixed. I think for the most part people really enjoy it. There are definitely those people who are like, well, I want my superheroes. I want big fight scenes. Why don’t we get that? There’s also, of course, some part of it who are, I just don’t like a Black man being the star of a show.
Mandy Kaplan:
No boy.
Matthew Fox:
And a lot of them are hiding behind that first one.
Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. Well, they can go fuck themselves. I just, okay.
Matthew Fox:
But my sense is, and granted I haven’t asked everybody, but from the polls I’ve seen and the online discussion…
Mandy Kaplan:
You haven’t asked all the racists, just a smattering.
Matthew Fox:
I’ve tried. They want to tell me whether I ask or not. But no, from asking just Marvel fans and talking to Marvel fans I know and interacting online, the terms superhero fatigue and comic book fatigue were definitely ones that were being thrown around a lot. And I think part of it was that especially Marvel, it felt like there was a template, a format that their shows were falling into that everyone was getting kind of bored of. And one of them was you set up someone in this interesting situation, and they have the moment of, well, I have these powers, and I could stop my interesting situation and go become a hero, or I could not. And every time they decide to become a hero, and every time that means the big villain shows up, and then there’s an episode of getting ready to fight and getting my costume and getting all of this stuff. And then there’s a big fight scene that’s probably very CGI’d. And then we have an epilogue where I’m sad that I can’t go do my other thing, but I’m okay being a superhero. And we ride off into the sunset.
And I kept waiting for that shoe to drop with this show. And forgive me for spoilers, it simply never does.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right, this is all about spoilers. If you have not watched all eight episodes of Wonder Man, please pause, go do that, and come back.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. The episodes are about 25 to 30 minutes. I think we watched all eight episodes in four hours. It was a very easy kind of binge, so.
Mandy Kaplan:
Now have you watched once or, when you threatened me that if you didn’t get to come on my podcast and talk about Wonder Man you would never speak to me again, duly noted. But no, did you re-watch for this?
Matthew Fox:
I did because I watched it originally to talk about it on my own podcast. Hopefully there’ll be a link to that episode.
Mandy Kaplan:
Superhero Ethics, yes.
Matthew Fox:
With two awesome guests who do a Marvel podcast. And then my spouse was really interested in watching it. So a couple weeks later, also knowing that I had this podcast coming up, she and I watched it together.
Mandy Kaplan:
So you’ve watched it twice.
Matthew Fox:
That’s correct, yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
If you did not have to podcast about it, is this something you would rewatch?
Matthew Fox:
I expect I will watch it at least two more times before the year is over.
Mandy Kaplan:
Let’s break down that psychology because I just simply don’t do that. And I don’t necessarily understand it, but that is part of the nerd mentality.
Matthew Fox:
Sure.
Mandy Kaplan:
I love it. I want to watch it again and again and again and see what I missed or come at it from a different angle or I read an article and now I have to go back and watch it again. Does that describe you in general?
Matthew Fox:
Yes and no. I think the purely watching it to have a reason to watch it, that is not me. There are some things that I, it used to be, to be sure. But in the last 10 years, we’ve had such an explosion of content. It feels like there’s always something new to watch. And there are times where I want a comfort show or I want something on in the background, but it’s rarely going to be one of these Marvel shows.
But when I say I’m going to watch it again, there’s two reasons why I will often re-watch something. One is that I love introducing someone else to something that I love and getting to not only watch it again with them, but therefore to kind of also see it through their eyes and talk to them about it. And there’s a number of people in my life who I think I would love to do that with. Part of being polyamorous, it’s a fun part. You have lots more people to cuddle up and watch things with.
The other thing though is that I don’t know all the details and Marvel has been a lot more up in the air in this than they used to be, but although this character does not want to become a hero, a number of the plot things that are introduced in this show are I think going to become relevant for upcoming Marvel stuff. And I’m definitely a person who will say, oh, is ten minutes of that four-hour show going to be relevant for this thing that I might want to watch coming out next week? Yeah, could I find those 10 minutes and watch it? Sure. Would I rather just use it as an excuse to watch all four hours? Hell yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
I love it. I really admire that. That’s dedication. I am way too lazy and too scattered. I will find that 10 minutes. If that, or I’ll fake it when I watch the next thing. But I love that dedication and just that joyful, almost childlike, I want to watch it again. It’s wonderful.
Specifically about Wonder Man, I of course did thorough, thorough research. And by that I mean I went on Wikipedia for about a minute.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, sure, that’s enough.
Mandy Kaplan:
What I saw is not what I was watching. I was watching a very real, gritty, no-costumed guy, and Wonder Man prior, can you explain who Wonder Man prior to the show was in the MCU?
Matthew Fox:
So he had never been in the MCU before. He had been in Marvel Comics. This is the first time he’s appeared.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, MCU is what? Only the movies?
Matthew Fox:
So the MCU is the on-screen universe. It’s TV, it’s movies. I think there are some comic books that have been written specifically for it, but it’s the world that started with Iron Man, with the Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. So yeah, it’s all of that world.
But from what I know, and again, I did an episode with two comic experts, and you have your Make Me a Nerd, I have basically my make me a comics nerd with those guys, same exact thing. They did what you would do, I did what you would do. As they explained it, he was very much a kind of zany, off-the-wall character who would rarely get his own comic strip, but would often sort of show up in other people’s comic books. And as far as I understand, this show didn’t come about because they were like, oh, we’ve always loved that character. Let’s tell that character’s story. I felt like instead they had a feeling of we want to tell a whole different kind of story, but we don’t want to create a completely new character. So let’s find a character who’s basically a blank canvas.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, that’s the vehicle.
Matthew Fox:
And that’s the vehicle. And my sense is, and I don’t know for sure, but there’s two factors that I think really go into this show being made. One is, as I said, the comic fatigue, the superhero fatigue, and people weren’t quiet about that. There was a lot of discussion of we’re getting bored of the same format. We want something new, we want something different, we want something that’s not fights-based.
But also at the same time, a number of other shows, The Boys I think being the best example, but a number of others, have started to more and more ask the question of, well, if superheroes are just a part of the world and everyone knows they exist, how is that going to change the world? The Boys talks about how the Olympics would be totally different because the limits of who’s the fastest person, it’s all gonna be superpowered people.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right.
Matthew Fox:
And I think this show was basically saying, okay, let’s play with that and let’s say what would happen in Hollywood.
Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
And I think they answer that question in a kind of cynical but fairly legitimate way, the idea of people using powers in Hollywood to be better actors, better stunt people, or whatever, would be pretty awesome right up until the point something goes wrong. At which point the insurance agencies, who probably have a lot more power than any of us want to admit, would come in and say, that’s a huge liability. You just can’t do that anymore.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, of course you come at it from the global ramification of it, or how would it affect all of Hollywood. And I approached it as somebody wanted to tell the story of Simon Williams.
And in the pilot, the whole thing starts with Simon Williams, played magnificently by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Simon Williams bombs an audition because he’s overthinking. And then he tries out for the lead in Wonder Man. And then he meets a fellow actor, Trevor Slattery, Ben Kingsley. And Trevor helps him audition and they strike up a friendship.
But what this episode was to me was this down-on-his-luck guy who just self-sabotages. He has a part on, I forget what. No, it isn’t. It’s a real show. Oh crap, I can’t think of what it was. But he gets fired because he’s like, can I call the writer in and question why my character with two lines would… And it’s like, get out of here, you.
The way they are portraying Simon Williams and a lot of these actor characters is painfully real to me. I don’t do much acting anymore, but as an actor and being in this world that I am in.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
They did it with respect and it was realistic and it reminded me of one of my mainstream things. Have you ever listened to Smartless?
Matthew Fox:
No.
Mandy Kaplan:
The podcast with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes. And the reason I stopped listening is because they were so goddamn out of touch. And they would make fun of out of work actors. I’m like, what, are you gonna get your headshots redone, Sean? You’re gonna go to the valley and sit at an audition? And they were mocking it all the time. And I just thought, just because you all got very lucky, why are you mocking it? This show doesn’t do that. And Simon is maddening. I mean, you just want to throttle him or give him tons of therapy. But you’re rooting for him and his world is very real.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
So I come at it based on seeing it through Simon’s eyes, and you’re coming at it seeing it through the world’s eyes.
Matthew Fox:
Well, I think it’s both. And that’s part of why, again, I wanted to really have you. I’m gonna make you a nerd, but you’re gonna make me a struggling actor. Because I do think that’s such a great perspective. And you’re right, what really makes the show is that you care about Simon and you’re rooting for him.
And he’s not like, it’s one thing to root for a person who is just so clearly so talented, but just cruel, evil Hollywood won’t look at him. That’s too easy. Making him be self-sabotaging, because that whole time, it felt so meta in that moment. He’s auditioning, he’s on some somewhat paranormal show. He’s supposed to get his head bitten off, so it’s clearly something not like Law and Order, it’s more X-Files, whatever the show was. But clearly it’s still supposed to be something for the mainstream.
But think about what us nerds do. Us nerds will watch a show where a character has two lines. And we will go so deep into the lore and we want to know all of it. And so to me, when it started, I was so excited that the actor cared about all that. And then had the realization of, oh, but he’s not supposed to, because he’s just driving everyone crazy. The writer doesn’t care about that, the director doesn’t care about that because he’s gonna say two lines and then have his head bitten off by the big monster lady. That’s what matters.
Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
And so I felt like that was almost kind of a meta joke, but then also you’re right, you care about him so much. And then skipping ahead somewhat, when we get to the struggle, I’ve always said that a character I love is one where science fiction is saying he has a problem I could never imagine, but the problem looks a lot like a problem I can imagine.
An actor who has a superpower that they have to keep hidden in order to get a job, well, I don’t know anything about that. But I have friends who 20 years ago had to keep hidden the fact that they were gay, who had to keep hidden the fact that they were actually not white, but they were white-passing. I think that story of an actor who has a secret and who will only make it big if people understand he is that, if he can pass in some way or another, is a story I think lots of us can relate to. And the way that they did the superpower story that was so clearly a metaphor for that, not just in Hollywood, in any kind of job or work or relationship situation. It was just chef’s kiss. That to me was such a great way of making his struggle my struggle and everyone’s struggle.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. And I understood the metaphor, but hearing you phrase it that way, immediately I want to cry. And this is your superpower, is coming on my podcast and making me cry every time, I think, without fail.
After this, we’re gonna move on to episode two, Self-Tape. So in episode two, Trevor’s recruitment as Simon’s spy comes to light, which was confusing to me. But this actor, Trevor Slattery, played by Ben Kingsley, has been taken in. So I wrote, Agent Cleary looks familiar. Does he exist in other MCU movies? And is this the same Bureau from Legion? I was all confused as to who this Bureau was that’s hunting anybody with superpowers.
Matthew Fox:
Where you’ve seen that guy before, did you see Ms. Marvel? Okay, so in that show, I think he may have appeared in one or two other movies as well, but in that we’re introduced to this group called Damage Control, which is a government agency that is kind of sort of sketchy and pretty problematic, but its job is basically to protect the rest of the country and maybe the world from superheroes and thus try to register them and just make sure that we know about them and all these kind of things that sound perfectly fine but are actually terrifying and are based on an idea that we can classify all an entire group of people by its most dangerous members. This doesn’t sound familiar to Americans and me in Minnesota at all.
But so that’s what that group is, and that’s where he comes from.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right.
Matthew Fox:
And then Trevor Slattery, just to give some more background, as I said, he was acting as though he was this terrorist, basically to help an actual terrorist do the terrible things he was doing. He didn’t really know that, but the federal government still kind of looked at him pretty badly. He went off and kind of had his own adventures because it turned out that this character, the Mandarin that he was pretending to be, is a real person. And so in the movie Shang-Chi, he gets kidnapped and has all these crazy adventures, often in this mystical land. I think it’s Kunlun, or it might be a different place, but it’s definitely a place that is not on this earth.
So he’s had all this kind of weird, crazy adventures. He’s now come back to the real world. He’s come back to California. And found out that the law is still remembering, oh, you were connected to those terrorist attacks. We want to chat with you. And so that’s why they have this power over him.
Mandy Kaplan:
They recruit him.
Matthew Fox:
Right. And I think he has as much of a character journey in this as Simon. And for me the real key, it’s so…
Mandy Kaplan:
He’s so beautiful. It’s a beautiful performance because he’s on assignment trying to spy on Simon, and you know it’s tearing him up because he genuinely falls for Simon. There’s a genuine love between them.
Matthew Fox:
I think there is, and I don’t think it’s romantic, I don’t think it needs to be. It’s a definite, but it’s a love, it’s a brotherhood. And for me, the key in that second episode though is that when they recruit him, they do this big speech about, well, you could go to prison or you could do this terrible thing. And he’s just immediately like, I’ll do that other thing.
And so he starts from a place of I don’t care who else I hurt as long as I keep myself out of prison. And that makes his eventual story where he literally volunteers to go to prison to protect him just so much more powerful.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. Because after his initial “I don’t care who I hurt, I’ll do whatever it takes,” pretty immediately everything he does is motivated by his not wanting to hurt Simon. By trying to protect Simon, by trying to help Simon get parts, by trying to help him heal his relationships with his family. I mean, Trevor just cares. He sees himself in Simon and he cares for him deeply. And it’s really beautiful.
And shout out to my episode on The Goonies where I admitted that I had a weird crush on Joey Pantoliano. Joey Pants. Let’s call him that. When I saw Goonies as a kid, Joey Pants, I thought he was cute. And then he popped up on episode two of Wonder Man. So it’s all like a Make Me a Nerd MCU situation.
Matthew Fox:
All connected, all coming together.
Mandy Kaplan:
He was very funny. I wanted more of him. Did I get my wish? Keep listening. You’ll have to find out.
But yeah, so this is where we get to know Trevor’s backstory and then they do a couple of episodes. There’s Pacoima, which is going back to Simon’s childhood home and his mom’s birthday party, and Trevor worms his way in there. It’s one of those episodes that you could pull out. There wasn’t a ton of link to the overarching story, but it was a beautiful episode because I fell for this family. I wanted in that party, that food, that warmth, that energy. I absolutely fell for Simon’s family. And it made me frustrated with Simon even more.
Matthew Fox:
And I think that episode is exactly the kind of thing that so often we don’t see in MCU projects because there is that sense of we’ve got to get to the plot. We’ve got to tell you about the villain. We’ve got to tell you about the problem. And people I think often are very frustrated that there isn’t enough willingness to say, we’re gonna take a full episode and just not care about any of that stuff. We’re just gonna character build.
Because at the end of the day, I was talking to someone about it, there really isn’t much of a plot to the show. It’s fairly simple. A guy is having trouble getting parts, a guy gets a part. Something threatens his ability to get that part, his friend steps in and takes the fall for him, the guy gets the part, and the guy at the end helps out the friend who took the fall for him.
Mandy Kaplan:
Ta da da ta da da ta. Right, it’s very, very simple.
Matthew Fox:
That’s it. You do that in a 20-minute episode. It’s a character study. It is a character study of these two men at this difficult time in their lives.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, it really is. And then episode four called Doorman. I often make note of the blurb about the episode for my listeners and for me to refresh. So this is the blurb from this episode, if it helps everybody. Ding dong.
Matthew Fox:
That’s it.
Mandy Kaplan:
That’s all they wrote. That was the whole episode description, but it makes sense once you watch it.
Anybody out there, Matthew, I don’t imagine you were a Days of Our Lives fan through the early nineties.
Matthew Fox:
So I know what you’re going for is that I wasn’t a soap opera person. I’m just gonna say I grew up in a Dallas household. You want to ask me about the adventures of JR and Bobby Ewing and the dream sequence, the dream season and all that, I’m with you. But we were not a daytime soaps family.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, this episode starts at a club, or when it flashes to the club and we get to know Damar. His boss is played by Charlotte Ross, who was legendary on Days of Our Lives through the late 80s and 90s. And she still looks 30 years old. Anybody who’s a Days of Our Lives or soap insiders, really exciting to see her. And she was very good in the episode. She didn’t have a ton to do. And then Josh Gad enters the bar and the episode with a vengeance. He was fantastic. He was mocking himself to an extreme.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.
Mandy Kaplan:
And this episode is a total departure from Simon, Trevor, the story, Wonder Man, gone.
Matthew Fox:
It has nothing to do with any of it. It’s so brilliant.
Mandy Kaplan:
Like when the Golden Girls had a neighbor played by Rita Moreno and her husband was Paul Dooley and they were having some marital troubles, we were in their house and the Golden Girls were gone. And I think back in that day it was like, oh, they’re trying to make a spinoff starring Rita Moreno and Paul Dooley and it didn’t go.
That was my take. But yeah, this was a complete departure into Damar the Doorman and his superpower is that you can go through him. And therefore you can go through a door or a wall or whatever. That’s his superpower.
Matthew Fox:
And part of what I, there’s two things that I really loved about this. One is, and it’s just a production choice, but it’s so brilliant. 99% of the episode is black and white. And part of it’s because we’ve heard reference to the doorman clause, in terms of why is it that you can’t have a superpowered person working in Hollywood? And they talk about the doorman clause. And so pretty early on in this episode we realize we’re getting the backstory of that thing that no one has any idea of what they’re talking about.
And also I just want to talk about the Josh Gad-ness of it all, because one of the shows that I really enjoyed when I was younger, that I still really enjoy on some level though it has not aged well, there’s a lot of homophobia, there’s a lot of misogyny, but is the show Entourage. And part of why I know it is because one of the stars, Adrian Grenier, I was actually a friend of his and in a theater class with him when we were kids.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh great.
Matthew Fox:
So if I hadn’t lost touch with him, I could have been part of the actor’s entourage. But in the show, one of the best parts of it is that a number of Hollywood people play themselves and often play parodies of themselves. And so Bob Saget is this prostitute-obsessed neighbor of his at one point. And James Woods is this ridiculously angry person who is so furious about how many tickets he gets for the premiere of the movie that he’s starring in opposite this guy.
Mandy Kaplan:
Doesn’t feel so exaggerated.
Matthew Fox:
Well, fair, fair. In truth there is art. But so seeing Josh Gad, as you said, playing a parody of himself, living into the stereotypes, into the bad press he gets. It’s not made up entirely, but I’m sure it’s much worse than…
Mandy Kaplan:
Josh Gad gets bad press?
Matthew Fox:
I think my sense is that this is the sort of take the little thing someone’s ever said about Josh Gad and blow it up to a thousand kind of stuff.
Mandy Kaplan:
I respectfully disagree. I’ve never heard a negative thing. And I think this was his way of saying, my reputation can handle playing myself as a total douche because everybody knows he’s not. That’s my interpretation of it.
The movie Josh Gad is making is brilliantly called Cash Grab. And it’s a quote heist movie, but calling it Cash Grab is so self-aware and so meta and I love it.
Matthew Fox:
If you search MCU and the words “cash grab,” you will find that exact phrase used to describe an awful lot of the Marvel properties that have come along. So yeah, it is so meta.
Mandy Kaplan:
All right, good to know. Do you know that they did a social media campaign? I was on Facebook promoting my cabaret and there were headlines, “Josh Gad, actor, missing.” And I was like, what? Is it, oh my god? And then obviously two seconds in, they’re like, this is not real. This is to get your attention, clickbait. But that added to the whole meta layer upon layer. It was just really fun and clever that he goes missing in the movie and, oh, I really liked it a lot.
Matthew Fox:
I joked to my spouse when I was watching it with her that because the MCU does love to bring in things that were set up in one project much later in another project, and as you said, Josh Gad disappears and never reappears. And I know something about theatrical conventions. I looked at her and said, do you realize we now have Chekhov’s Josh Gad? Because you can’t have him disappear in one thing, and he has to, sometime he will appear. And I’ll be like, look, it was Chekhov’s Josh Gad. There he is.
Mandy Kaplan:
Brilliant. And I get the reference. I’m proud of myself. But that’s my kind of nerdery.
Matthew Fox:
There you go.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, I just, this episode was all about how the world got so excited about Damar, the Doorman, and he got his own show, and he got brand deals and he became a megastar because he could literally let people walk through him. It was very cool. And then pretty quickly, society turns. Well, he’s just a one-trick pony. Is that all he does? I’m sick of the Doorman. And they want to move on to the next big thing.
And of course he squanders, is that the right word? He doesn’t handle his money well, he doesn’t handle the fame well, he’s got a gross agent quote unquote helping him, but not really. And it’s so on the nose for how we are as a society these days about influencers and fifteen minutes of fame and even scandal. You can just ride out a scandal if you get in trouble. Sometimes you can become president and stay president despite scandal.
Matthew Fox:
Right? Didn’t VH1 or one of those shows have a whole “where are they now” thing that was often about these one-hit wonders or people who had one big thing that made them famous? And then people got bored of it. And then 20 years later, where’s Vanilla Ice now? He’s doing weird reality shows.
Mandy Kaplan:
Home reno.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. Where are these people who did something and became famous and then 20 years later, or even say now six months later, what are they doing?
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. And it’s so gross because you admired this. You wanted more of this, and then you got more of it, and then you got bored and turned on it. And oh, what is wrong with us?
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. It felt very much like an indictment. It is both like, it’s written by people who feel like they have been Simon and they have been Trevor. And so it is both sort of lovingly sending up Simon and scathingly sending up the industry that he’s trying to break into.
Mandy Kaplan:
In the first episode they joked about actors pretending to be agents to get auditions. That is absolutely real and my friends did it.
Matthew Fox:
Really?
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, absolutely real. I’ll call the casting office for you, and I’ll claim that I’m your manager, and then you’ll call for me an hour later. And then we’ll both get an appointment. And it’s like they did it on Friends and people probably thought, well, who’s dumb enough to just blindly accept, oh, you’re Lucinda from the Smith office? Sure, come on, send your actor in. But we used to do it.
And I actually never did it because it made me feel icky and I’m not a good liar. My voice gets really high and I start talking really different when I try to lie. So if you ever hear that, Matthew, you’ll know.
Matthew Fox:
Good to know, good to know.
Mandy Kaplan:
Then I’m lying.
You know who never lies? Pete, right? No, no, no, he’s not a liar. He is just the producer of Make Me a Nerd. And this show is a production of TruStory FM. He’s the engineer, he is peerless, I love him and appreciate him. My theme song is Wonderstruck by Jane and the Boy. Don’t know them, but I love and appreciate them.
And if you would all be so kind as to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, that does a lot of good to help other people find the podcast. Write a review, comment, question, make suggestions. I will give you a shout out on a future episode. And if you’re feeling extra, extra supportive, please, please go to makemeanerd.com/join. Hitting that button will get you your episodes ad-free and early and my eternal gratitude.
Episode 5, Found Footage. Simon’s caught on camera using superpowers while defending Trevor from drug dealers. Blackmailed by the videographer, who’s a kid, he’s forced to raid an illegal Samoan candy operation. Comedy erupts when the duo infiltrates the home-based business. Not my favorite episode.
Matthew Fox:
I think I would agree with you. And I think it’s because it’s the closest to being a traditional superhero episode. And again, they put in like, the focus is still, if it’s in any kind of genre of action adventure, it’s buddy cop. And buddy cop is not often what we get in the MCU because it’s a little more self-aware, it’s a little more self-mocking.
And I think in the overall story, we needed a chance for Simon to explore: can he use his powers for good? And also, what are the consequences of using his powers? The whole point is that he got caught and now he risks losing this chance. Because one of the setting-up ideas of this is that as a kid, he went to see these incredibly cheesy movies about a character called Wonder Man with his father. And when Wonder Man is getting made, it’s just the part he really wants to play.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
It’s everything he’s always wanted. He somehow managed to actually do halfway decent in the auditions, although the whole audition process is nutso, and that’s something we can discuss. Because again, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. But yeah, and that’s at risk. And so I think it does a helpful part of the story, but yeah, it just does feel the weakest. And I think part of it’s because they’re trying to do the action adventure part, and it’s not part of the character study.
Mandy Kaplan:
And they take the focus off of Simon and Trevor and put it on Jayden the blackmailer and Esteban the candymaker. And I don’t care about those people. I care about Simon and Trevor. And for what it’s worth, I care about Simon potentially getting the job that’s going to make or break his career, or getting discovered by Damage Control and taken off the streets and tortured in experiments done on him for the rest of his days or whatever they’re planning on doing.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Mandy Kaplan:
I don’t know. But I will say that Trevor has a line that made me cackle. This is the most inside baseball I will get on Make Me a Nerd. Somebody comes over to him and says, you don’t remember me? And Trevor says, did we do a play together? Was it Hurlyburly? And the bad guy says no, and he goes, American Buffalo.
And if you went to school when I went to school, those were two very popular, cool, zeitgeisty plays that everyone was doing scenes from, Hurlyburly or American Buffalo, in the 90s when Trevor would have been doing off-Broadway or off-West End or whatever.
Matthew Fox:
Oh wow. Yeah, that’s a good one.
Mandy Kaplan:
It was so, that joke 30, 40 years ago wouldn’t have read like a joke to me. It would have been like, right, he’s done Hurlyburly and American Buffalo. Good for him. And in this day and age, it made me laugh. So that’s for all my theater nerds out there. I love the reference.
Matthew Fox:
Well, and I love that because to me, I love a joke that is a deep cut for those who get it but still works for everyone else. Because to me I thought it was possible they were real plays. I also thought it was possible because Trevor is really, really good at bullshit. That’s a part of what makes him do it. And his ability to make up out of thin air two things that sound ridiculous, but also sound like they could be the names of plays, as a way of kind of testing, like is this person gonna go, oh yeah, I was in Hurlyburly with you. That’s where I know you. And Trevor now knows this guy’s full of shit because I just made up Hurlyburly.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. And the joke works on another level. Oh, I’m so sorry I interrupted.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, no, go ahead.
Mandy Kaplan:
He said Hurlyburly, the guy, clearly a menacing figure, says no. So rather than Trevor saying, oh shit, I’m in trouble, he says, American Buffalo. Like just, that’s like a third way the joke works.
Matthew Fox:
It’s so good. Now, is that the episode that has the second part of the audition in the director’s house or does that come later?
Mandy Kaplan:
That’s episode six, the callback.
Matthew Fox:
Okay, we’ll get to that then.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, well, I think we’re there because the whole drug bust, but they’re really only making candy, and then the cops and everybody likes the candy. It just didn’t do it for me.
Matthew Fox:
You’ll notice I left that out of the plot description because it’s pretty irrelevant to all of it. It’s pretty forgettable.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. But then they go to Von Kovac, that is the quote unquote legendary movie director who is directing the Wonder Man movie. They go to his big palatial home for a callback and it’s Simon and Trevor. And then when they arrive, they realize there’s three guys up for Wonder Man and three guys up for Barnaby, these two characters. And this feels utterly real, I gotta tell you.
Matthew Fox:
Really, okay.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, you get in situations as an actor where they’re like, we’re gonna do some improvising, throw the script away, everybody get on the floor and pretend you’re being birthed again. That was like freshman year of voice and movement. Hopefully this will deter my son from wanting to major in this. But yeah, actors do some weird, self-important shit. And I could see an actor being like, come to my home and I’m gonna make you uncomfortable and see what makes you tick. Yes, that feels totally real.
Matthew Fox:
This is so zany and over the top but also like maybe something, some believability to it. So I love that it rang true like that because it was perfect. And especially because Simon is clearly so uncomfortable, and the director is pushing them so hard to be like, I want you to take risks. I want you to do something crazy.
And so Simon goes there and he really does something crazy. And the director’s like, what were you doing? I didn’t want that. And it’s just, you get how frustrating it must be to be in that environment where you’re supposed to be crazy, but you’re supposed to go completely off script exactly along the lines of the script that the director has in his head that he won’t tell you about.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. Which is just the unfair nature of all of it. But he gets put in an improv situation and immediately starts this pretty emotional speech. And three words in, mainstream mom alert, I was like, oh, this is Pretty Woman. Oh, he’s doing Pretty Woman. And he was.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
And it was a fun nod. But it also let us know that Simon is not the kind of guy who can go to an emotional place like that just on a whim because some director demanded it of him. So his brain just went to, pull a monologue that you know from something. Don’t really let yourself go there.
And is that because he’s afraid he’ll lose control? And as he ends up doing, he falls asleep and we don’t know that, and he punches some guy through the face, which was an amazing special effect. It ended up being like papier-mache when he punched through or something like that. It was fantastic. But I wonder why Simon’s safety net or his comfort zone was, I’ll just quote this and I hope no one knows, instead of actually going to an emotionally raw place with an improv.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, no, it’s an interesting question. And I guess it makes more sense that the director’s like, come on, I expected more from you. Because yeah, and I think it’s again, it’s a really powerful narrative. It’s a really powerful metaphor of, for most people, the idea of just let yourself go, let yourself, let go, and just do whatever makes sense. And it might be very hard, might be very embarrassing.
But for folks who, hey, if I let myself really have one crazy night, it means I’m gonna take my first drink in 20 years or I’m gonna let my anger go and hurt someone. Something like that where there are folks who are really struggling to be in control of things that aren’t the best if they’re not in control.
Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
And yeah, it just works so powerfully.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. Yep. And I was disappointed that Joey Pants wasn’t one of the Barnabys called back. I thought for sure when they arrived and they were like, oh, join the rest in the living room. I was like, oh, I know he’s gonna be there. And then he wasn’t, and I was a little disappointed.
Matthew Fox:
I mean, maybe he’s just so busy being the reminder to women of the crush they had 30 years ago, that I admit I have no clue who you’re talking about. But he’s busy doing that role that he couldn’t come back for a second episode.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, on the show he talks about real estate and I love that. He’s like, I’m the best actor in the world. I can do whatever I want, but you gotta get into real estate because real estate is where it’s at. It’s just a fun self-deprecating, fun plot point that I really enjoyed.
Then we are on to episode seven, Kathy Friedman, played by Lauren Weedman. So the guys have gotten the roles of Wonder Man and Barnaby. They’re going to be on set and they’re going to be interviewed. And they are hilariously nervous. Simon is hilariously nervous because he knows he’s gonna say something awful and he does.
This episode started with a flashback of his dad taking him to see Wonder Man when his dad was alive and Simon was a little kid. It was gut-wrenching. I actually wish we had seen it earlier in the series. More of Dad and more of Simon as a kid. We saw a little bit, but I really like seeing him as a kid. And then they hard-cut to Simon acting like a kid in his trailer. He’s in this beautiful trailer and he’s all amped up because he got Wonder Man and here he is on set. It was a really lovely bit of storytelling there. Actual 10-year-old Simon to 35-year-old Simon acting like a 10-year-old.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. And there again, I think, most of us are never going to get to play our childhood hero on the screen. We might get to pretend to be them at Halloween or for our kids or something like that. But I do think there is something really magical that a lot of people feel about a character you loved when you were 10 years old, just going to see that character on the big screen for the first time.
I think that’s part of why these things matter so much and why, unfortunately, I think sometimes people get too into their feels and angry if it’s not what they think it should be. And that’s obviously a whole problem that we’ve talked about in other episodes.
But still there is this sense of childlike wonder and magic. And that can be about sports. It can be about tasting food that your mother made for you when you were 10. It can be any of those things. It transports you back to that childlike feeling. And seeing Simon getting to feel that was just magical and beautiful and it made it so upsetting that therefore that letting go that he gets to have finally is what is matched by people coming after him for it.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, he’s his own worst enemy because he’s already acting like a douche on set. I just say thank you, Simon, but he doesn’t. Somebody gets him a smoothie and he’s like, oh yeah. He’s not appreciative. He’s a very frustrating character to me.
Matthew Fox:
So why do you still like him?
Mandy Kaplan:
I can’t put my finger on it. A lot of it I think is the actor. I just think he draws you in and he makes you care and makes you root for him.
Matthew Fox:
I think that’s very true. I think for me part of it is that, and again, I don’t mean to keep harping on the idea of this guy with a secret, but it feels like he is someone who is always passing. Who is always having to be, I’m trying to be what other people think I am, in this way that happens with race, with sexuality, with all these things, and for him with a superpower.
And so I guess I took those scenes a little bit as not, okay, now he’s a big shot and so he’s acting like a jerk. But now he’s a big shot and he thinks he’s supposed to act like a big shot. And what he’s seen, and that doesn’t excuse it because that still means, oh, you think therefore what we’re supposed to do is these things that hurt other people, like have some more empathy. But it feels to me like what he’s doing there is, I’ve been the lowly actor on a soundstage with the really big hotshots, and I’ve seen them be jerks, so I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do now.
Mandy Kaplan:
It’s the same mentality that I think of when I think of rushing or pledging a fraternity. And you get abused and you’re miserable. I mean, it’s criminal what I hear about in hazing. And then you turn around and do it to the next pledge class. And I don’t understand that. I’ve never understood that. It drives me crazy, different subject.
But I would get to sophomore year and be like, hey, we’re not gonna do hazing anymore. We can make them clean the house and do embarrassing funny things. Great. But oh my God, I don’t understand wanting to turn around and treat others like that.
Matthew Fox:
But we talk about Stockholm syndrome and there’s discussions about whether it is an actual psychological thing that happens in the very specific sense, like you’ve been captured by criminals and turned into criminals. But I think in the more pop culture sense, the general idea of you’re abused and treated in terrible ways in a situation that you’re supposed to feel good about. And nostalgia and your memory will take over enough so that when you survive it, A, you feel proud for surviving it. B, you don’t want to remember just how horrible it is because you’re supposed to feel good about the family member or the fraternity member or the boss who put you through it. And so now you’re like, oh yeah, it’s not so bad. And so you can do it to others because your empathy, you kind of block your empathy by telling yourself it’s not so bad.
And then even 20 or 30 years later, you can be like, it’s not a big deal. I don’t know the details, but I know that a video of some fraternity hazing recently went online and a lot of people are chiming in and saying, oh, I went through this 30 years ago. They’re fine. People are just so weak today. And it’s the same thing. It’s exactly what you’re talking about.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yep. And this is the worst thing I’ll ever say. We are nearly out of time, which is crazy, because we are at the last episode. And it is the most superhero-y one because now Trevor has sacrificed himself and claimed he blew up the building. A building blows up on the soundstage because Simon loses control. And that’s what happens. And Trevor takes the fall, goes to jail, and Simon goes and busts him out.
And it is all action-packed and there’s chicanery because Simon has to pretend he’s studying for a role to get into the jail. I really loved this episode. I love that they started the whole series with Midnight Cowboy, a screening, and then they ended with the song from Midnight Cowboy. It was a satisfying journey beginning to end. I’m sorry that I have to rush through the last episode.
Matthew Fox:
Well, no, and I’ll just hit a couple quick things. One, just the fact that Damage Control is worried that this guy might be a danger. And in their attempts to harass him and prove if he’s a danger, they are 100% what pushes him over the edge to make him a danger. So I think that’s very important.
And again, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to have this, okay, I can’t be an actor, I have to be a hero. He’s not. Part of the heroism is about yourself and you go after the people who are most in danger. In their world, as in our world, a former terrorist assistant who wasn’t really meaning to be a terrorist but was, and is now in jail for helping out his friend, is not the highest person on my list of who needs to be broken out of jail to bring justice to the world. But he’s Simon’s friend. Simon has decided…
Mandy Kaplan:
No, it’s personal. It’s a personal story. It’s not about the greater good. It’s about my friend.
Matthew Fox:
He’s not becoming a selfless hero, and I don’t want him to be. He’s saying, this guy took a fall for me, so I’m gonna help him. And we’re gonna walk off happily into the sunset together because I made a great movie alongside someone else who annoys me, but we’re just making it work.
Mandy Kaplan:
And who replaces Trevor Slattery when he gets thrown in jail? Joey Pants!
Matthew Fox:
Oh, that’s Joey Pants. Okay, now I get it.
Mandy Kaplan:
He’s back. Yes, yes.
Matthew Fox:
Now I get it. Okay.
Mandy Kaplan:
So that was also satisfying. Matthew, I’m sorry that I have to race through this. It is always so wonderful to have you here. Tell the people where they can hear you.
Matthew Fox:
TheEthicalPanda.com, there you’ll find Superhero Ethics, which Mandy has been a guest on, as is the esteemable Pete Wright. Star Wars Generations, where we’re getting ready for the new show that’s coming out, we’re gonna have a lot of fun with. And a podcast that Pete runs that I’m just a guest on, The Marvel Movie Minute. Right now we’re doing five minutes at a time of Captain America: Winter Soldier, which is a movie about Americans realizing that their government is slowly being taken over by fascists who want to hunt people down because they have the wrong ideas. And so it’s fun to live in a fantasy world that has no connection to our own.
Mandy Kaplan:
If you dig this conversation, I’ve done other MCU episodes. I did Agatha All Along, I did Captain America, the original one, and Thunderbolts, all on Make Me a Nerd in the library. Go back and listen to past MCU episodes and you can hear Matthew Fox’s past episodes. Matthew Fox is the one that got me addicted to The Penguin. That happened.
Matthew Fox:
Oh, that show was so good.
Mandy Kaplan:
And we did The Orville, which I loved, and we did Last of Us, which I couldn’t handle. Okay.
Matthew Fox:
And I know that once again, Mandy is playing the part of someone who is not quite as much of a nerd as she actually is. I’m sure that she actually knows that the show is called Agatha All Along. But I’m sure that she said…
Mandy Kaplan:
What did I say?
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
All the Way? Oh, of course.
Matthew Fox:
So I’m helping.
Mandy Kaplan:
No, that is a genuine mistake.
Matthew Fox:
I know it’s what you really meant.
Mandy Kaplan:
I’m adorable. Alright, thank you all for listening. Matthew Fox, thank you for joining me. Until next time.
Matthew Fox:
May the force be with you.
