#20: How To Become Incredibly Good At Storytelling - Hayden Croft

Hayden Croft has got it all: he’s a screenwriter, director, and a novelist. Oh, and when he’s not working on his next successful film, he’s also cranking out poems and short stories about Los Angeles, the city that he’s adopted since his move from Phoenix, Arizona.

In this episode we discuss his life as a screenwriter and director, together with his debut novel, NoHo Confetti, a dark comedy that revolves around some of the tragic characters that frequent North Hollywood. 

Perfect for movie enthusiasts and creators everywhere. Not to be missed. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Okay, everybody, welcome to another episode of What the Haze. I'm here with my guest, Hayden Croft, who is a novelist, screenwriter, director, and a poet. All around fantastic guy, I think, to be honest. Okay, welcome, Hayden. Thank you, Wolf and Dun. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, can you tell me a little bit uh about yourself, please? Just like your you know your general background and you know where you're coming from and the kind of project, some of the projects you're into right now?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah, so I am originally from I live in um Los Angeles right now in North Hollywood. Um I'm originally from Phoenix, Arizona. My dad is a professor, uh well, he was for 35 years at ASU of Russian languages and literature. My mom's also a PhD uh degree in sociology she taught for many years. Um they actually, interestingly, ran a drug testing company, very big anti-drug crusaders, both of my parents are, all through the 80s, 90s. And so I have a lot of former students of my dad's that I've been friends with over the years, some of whom here in LA, and my mom too, actually, she's been she takes classes sometimes at like, you know, uh the adult college, the Scottsville Community College or wherever, just for fun. And you'd be surprised at the connections that my mom uh will be able to make. She's uh she's a very sociable woman, and people really like her. I think she's even signed up to be on your group chat.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, let's wait.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yeah, so yeah, tell me about like your your writing career and like especially screenwriting. Like I'm really interested in the screenwriting bit as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Great, yes. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so I moved I did I I'm always been interested in writing. That's always been my main goal. I thought like I was gonna, you know, write books was the exact thing that I wanted to do. I majored in I majored in a a lot of uh writing-centric majors, journalism, uh, uh I think just I mean, just uh anthropology, whatever just the regular English is, you know, that you could take in college. I'm not even sure. I mean, I ended up going through uh film, um sociology, anthropology, journalism, history at one point. Actually, that's all of them. But, you know, that it kind of like bounced around until I ended up just getting the two degrees. Then I moved to LA when I was 24. Immediately I got a job uh writing a short film called Eleven, probably the darkest thing I've ever written. It wasn't my story concept, it was the main actors, and then my good friend who I lived with at the time directed the film. Very big production, big thing for it's like a 23-year-old to get. And so that kind of got me a few more other writing jobs in the next couple years. Really important event that happened in my sort of like professional career was going to Sundance in 2016, not with a film, just like at to go as a guest. I had had somebody else that I knew how to film there. And so, anyway, I I went and I saw a great, awesome film called A Reasonable Request, and I would highly recommend anybody look it up. It's on YouTube, it's it's like five or six minutes. It's just two people sitting in a booth in a restaurant talking. And I've always been very into dialogue and writing dialogue, and it's sort of my specialty, and so I had written scripts, a lot of them in Hollywood up until this time, but until that sundance and seeing this movie, I was either doing other people's concepts or like a web series or basically nothing that I wanted to do. And when I would write a script, and because I knew directors, they would see them and it would be a little bit too different or unique, or the concept would seem on the page weird. You know, like I did like my first film, so I came back from Sundance, uh, and I I I wrote a film called New Age Old English that uses very unusual speaking. It's sort of like a prosaic dialect. I don't know, it's very art articulate, yet prosaic. But anyway, I directed it. I ended up having to direct it because like three directors passed on it, even though I was friends with them and like they knew that like my stuff usually did pretty good and they they like my writing, but they were like, nah, it's just weird. Like, I'm sorry, man, but like to be real with you, you know. And so I directed it, ended up directing it. I had had so I had some money saved at that time, and my parents helped me out a little bit, like with the rest. It was a small budget thing, but it ended up being like 14 minutes, and got into the Sherman Oaks Film Festival, which was the first festival I ever played at. Made a great friend of the founder or the guy that runs the festival, Jeff Howard, who does Discover Indie Film. That was the first year that they were up. Uh, he just he really liked the film, and I loved his festival. That, you know, uh the affirmation because it really that film really did well, you know. And it was the thing where like when when we finally got to the set and we cat we had had it cast already, and the guys were like reading it, a lot of people in the script, or a lot of people in the crew had read the script and had sort of expressed, like, you know, not none of them but three had said, like, this is weird, or this like been so blunt, but kind of expressed reservations. And so, like, but then after we had been filming for about like three hours, they each came up. Like, if several people came up and said, Oh, I s I get it now. Like, I now that I hear them saying it, like I understand. Sorry, Wolf and I don't want to just be talking the entire time. If you want to, like, I don't, you know, go ahead and I I'm I could just keep going. No, it seems fantastic. You want to be going?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

When I'm listening, I'm thinking, yeah, well, like, what's it like to be a director? Like, how does it feel? Because it's just something that's completely like out of my experience. It's like compl it's so alien to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

But it's a great question. It's a great question because a lot of writers and screenwriters especially uh never get to find out, and so it's like it gives you a perspective. It is all the responsibility in the world. It is all it seriously drove me almost to a nervous breakdown on like second and third films that I did, especially the third, The Last Wish and Four Junkies. Like, it just I mean, I know I I'm you know a little bit of hyperbole there. I didn't quite almost go to a nervous breakdown, but it's just I mean what I mean to say is that you kind of are the I mean, in addition to when you've also written it, that's you know, which was the case on all of my films, but you're sort of the person that's in charge of everything, and yet mainly dealing with the actors, you know, that's ultimately the directors, because that's it aside from that, some directors focus more on the shots and the camera and the angles and the lighting and the you know everything. Then some directors are more performance-oriented and they want to, you know, talk and they'll let the DP the or the cinematographer like take care of that. That's more my style, tell you the truth, because I came into directing as somebody that acknowledged that, like, look, I'm having to do this because nobody else will. I'm a smart person, I think I can get this done, but like I, you know, I never went to film school for this. It was never really my aspiration necessarily to direct, but sure, like I'll do it. And so that movie did very well. It was very dialogue-based. It's two guys mostly in a car, it's a hitchhiker sort of serial killer thing, it's a fun, you know, horror comedy. So then after that, then the next one I did after the success of that, I did Last Wish, which was very much more of a conventional written style, just to kind of show people like I don't just write like that, you know, I can write normal, like every day, just like regular talking to. And so that one is about like that's actually my most successful film of the three films that I directed. It's the most sort of conventionally palatable, even though it's very much like controversial. It's it includes uh interracial homoeroticism is a occurring theme. As you've seen in some of my work, uh Alonso's annex.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

It was my my one friend and the guy from the first movie that starred in it, and he was the producer, J. F. Domoski, who directed actually the first film, Eleven, but he starred in the Dual England and also Last Wish with my new roommate Kevin Lewis White, who is in the poster, and he had just moved to town from Hawaii, where he had worked for the US Navy doing Chinese. He spoke Chinese, and so he did like the translating and stuff like that. Right. Most interesting guy you've ever met. Now he's doing he's probably MMA fighter now. But he was like an actor here for like three years, and so he's in one of my movies. Actually, two of my movies, because then he was in Four Junkies. But anyway, Last Wish went to Edmonton, it went to Atlanta International, those are both Oscar qualifying festivals. New Age Old English went to LA Shorts, which is Oscar qualifying. Let's see, and I I've had you know a lot of other films that that have like just gone to very good film festivals, they just can't all be Oscar qualifying. And then honestly, after COVID, because we basically finished War Junkies and had it do kind of the rounds right when COVID hit, but we had sort of gotten in like about half of what we were thinking about doing as far as like just this whole circuit. So that was a bummer, but we got more than most some people did that were you know in 2020. But then after that, one of the people who was uh a former student of my dad's had gone to started going to USC, the master's program. And so after COVID, he called me up and he said, because I had always tried to include him on my projects, and you know, you kind of try to there's a res reciprocity here you kind of try to go into. And uh he invited me, he said he wanted he wanted to work with me, and that like his professor at USC had specifically assigned them to not write the thing themselves as you know, because they would be directing, so find a separate writer. And so we ended up I the f I actually the first script I I wrote, this is all gonna be like deep cut stuff, I'm telling you, one day, is called Raided Noir because it's a very short short. Sort of like if anybody's seen Ari Astor's The Turtle's Head that he did in 2014 before like hereditary and midsummer and stuff like that, mid summary. It's that's like the movie I was kind of modeling it after. It's a very comedy thing about like a P private eye kind of like a modern day thing. So that's what I did that we didn't end up making that because I heard that because the my this guy Tim, who was my dad's former student, told me that there was this French guy at USC who was like, he doesn't think it's doable with the way that you wrote the scene here, as far as like getting the right angles. I'm like, well, what does this French guy know? Who's he, you know? And so uh I ended up what I ended up happening was I wrote another script because this guy, Tim and I are big gangster movie fans, like uh good fellas, departed, you know, all that kind of stuff. Scorscate Scorsese, big time. So, or like Martin McDonough, Seven Psychopaths. We sort of modeled the this short film called Hammer Time on the beginning of Seven Psychopaths. It's like these two killers waiting for a guy to get home in his apartment. The boss wants him dead, he's got something that they're supposed to get. There's like a beeping, they don't know what it is. Like they think it's like the smoke detector. It's a great it's it's one of the favorite, honestly, things I've ever done. But that that film, when Tim then went and showed it to his class, like opened the door for everything that followed, essentially, as far as uh I work with Tim on one more project we did together. Let me shut my window, sorry. And uh I can hear it talking, it's okay. It's kind of funny. That film was called Simple Deceptions, and you're gonna see that title in No Hoke Confetti is because I was doing that at the time that I was writing it with Tim. And you're gonna see also see Rated Noir as the name of like the first film that Sands wrote, and that was that first script that I wrote then at the time. You'll also see Raphael Fitzroy, who's a private detective. I named that guy after I had just met, after just starting to work with Tim. We went to see the film The Northmen by Robert Eggers with Alexander Skarsgard. Uh yeah. It's 2022 at the Chinese theater on right in Hollywood. And so he brought his friend, the French Raphael Boisson. Uh it was the first time I think I ever met him. And honestly, didn't really take to him right away. I didn't, I he wasn't like uh you know my favorite guy right away. But we saw that movie. I put I needed a name that had it started with an R for that character, so I was like, why not Raphael? You know, I put it in. So anyway, cut to then like that was 2022, so that was Hammer Time and Simple Deception. I did that year. 2023 was the most productive year, I would say, of my life, as far as I I at the very end of the year finished No Ho. I did uh Tax Time with Raphael Wasson, which one of my most successful short films. I wrote it, he directed it. Outstanding acting in the film. It's it's it's one maybe one of the best examples of acting of any of my lines, especially this the one. If you ever see the film Tax Time, you'll know which person we're talking about. There's three guys in it. Then I also did I'll do there, I'll come to Boys Club Blast. I did uh Tax Time, did I had my book, I did Oh, The Optimist. I started filming. That's Raphael Bassan's feature project that he had had in the works. He had about 40 minutes of the film already filmed because they were doing it in sort of chunks, and um it was it's it's about a man and woman of about you know 30 to 30 to 40, like in LA, just kind of trying like struggling with life, although both very like successful people. And so, you know, Raphael's idea, his previous concept, but like he did a lot of voiceover, and so we wanted more, you know, scenes where they're talking, and so you know, again, he calls me for the dialogue. That was a great experience for me because one thing that I'll come back to, you know, uh it's a thing I recommend as a writer to other writers in screenwriting and novel writing, in anything, basically, or anything where it ever is necessary to write a character or characters, you know. Yeah, and that you meet a lot of characters, you know, you have to do things, you have to go out in the world and almost seek out adventure to a certain extent, you know, like obviously within the bounds of like safety and all, of course, but like you know, pa in a positive way, like you're looking for inspiration, you know. And so when I'm doing a lot of these films, it's with all these different actors who are from all over the country, if not the world, men, women, all races, ethnicities, anything, you know. I and I I'm talking to all of them because I they usually would find it kind of neat to tie to the screenwriter. If like, you know, the screenwriter's not afforded a hell of a lot of like respect on the set, as far as like, you know, you can't really tell you anybody to do anything, he's just there as like a kind of a courtesy, or she. But like, you know, the they usually it's the actors think it's cool, and the actors will are the ones that appreciate it, and that's cool, and especially when they do a good performance. I always say there's nothing uh as magic as when you hear somebody do your words and and just it's good and you can tell. And like I remember the first time that was for that movie 11, you know, and I I had no business having written that, like I just come and landed that film as as quickly as I did. But I mean I did a good job, like and but it wasn't subject matter I like, but I just remember hearing the actors say the things that I had written was thrilling, you know. I mean, it was like such an honor. I mean, it was it was like a privilege, it was just the people fell in love with it. So anyway, sorry, yeah. Well, I was gonna say just I'm almost even caught up here. So then Boys Club, I also did that, was separate of any of the USC people, and that's a very interesting case, too, that I'll tell you about real quick because it's a piece of satire. You know, there's a very big culture here in LA of politics, is what we tend to call it. Uh white guys most of the time. And what that generally means is that they're, you know, they're looking to diversify at film festivals and in mainstream entertainment, as well as they should. You know, it's been white men's game for a very long time. And so I'm all for that, you know. I think everybody should have a square go. I think it should be honestly sort of more of a little bit more of a meritocracy, you know, squarely, but whatever. I'm I'm these are the times. Um I try to be a man of the times, you know. So but anyway, what I decided to do was work into it, lean into it. And I just I thought, why can't I make a movie with say a black woman, you know? And it furthermore, the idea came to me, the concept came to me, and it's like, of course, I could work with a black woman, I have a lot a lot of black female friends, but this is the how I'm framing the little setup. I had the idea, because I had just been having this conversation with somebody, that like, well, what if, you know, you just took a script that you had written intending it to be like mostly like white men and you know, maybe a couple women or something, and then just switched the characters out for black men or even like black women, you know, and but just had them read the same lines. That would be kind of funny. And then I so I started thinking about seriously like doing that and like finding a pre-existing script. I because I write a lot of like short scripts and I have a lot of them on my computer, but then I was kind of thinking that the story would need to be reflective of the satire then within it. You know, you can't just pick anything and then it it works. But so I wrote a new script where the premise and I wrote it exactly as though I was writing it for like four men in their like 40s, 50s, you know, like madmen kind of like era type men, and like big shots. So anyway, yeah, like I wrote a script specifically, you know, I like that so that means like, well, what because I had this premise before I even thought about uh specifics writing a script, you know. So I was like, well, like this is part of the writing process now, like what can I do? I big saying of mine of writing is that especially I say it of screenwriting because it's usually more applicable there, but I think all writing to it is that constraints breed creativity. If you're put under a certain like a deadline, or you have to include this element, or you know, it has to conform to this and I'm not a big like structure and like I like a like a stickler for everything has to go by like the you know the formulas and everything like that, but I I I definitely am somebody that believes in like beats and pacing, and that there's a way that you have to do things. So anyway, what I came up with, long story short, is it would be fun to do a thing about like these high-up producers who are at the top of the totem pole at like the in the movie studios, going to the basically the Academy Awards and talking about how the reason that their film is now up for best picture and up for all like best everything is because they diversified the cast. And they are like they're picking up this one guy who's like the last, and then mind you, they're all being played by two black women, Asian woman, and a white woman. And the white one I had worked with before, she had acted in Simple Deception. The black woman who was the main actress was the director, who I met through a mutual friend, another ex-housemate of mine, Brad Tryon, who was then the producer. He had also gone to not USC, but like a California community college in the LA area film school. And so he met some people there, one of whom was uh Alexis Janae, who became the director of Boys Club and like just like a good friend of mine, and we're still friends on, you know, social media and everything. And uh so it was very much a cool as she cast like two of the she knew one like the two of the other girls, and then I knew Savannah, and sh she also knew like a DP and a c you know, so it was like sort of a mixed group of like. Friends from different people, but it was really a great instance of getting to work with you know, like together as we're like we all kind of profited from it. And Alexis was 21 at the time, and just out of films, like I didn't know she was quite that young when I first liked it, you know, and then having to act in the lead role and direct, it was a lot, and so it's like she was even asking, you know, can I kind of like take some of the responsibility here just because I had done you know the three other things? So I was like, sh of course. But she honestly directed the vast majority of it. She's right to be director, you know, as she is. Uh, but I did have to do kind of a lot of the production type, producer type work. I'm very proud of that film though, just because for several reasons, it was such a piece of like kind of cutting satire that like almost nobody that this was another one of vision. People read this thing, they just did not get it. And like there was about four, five, six times where it really seemed like the thing was gonna die in the water, like Alexis or Brad, or one of the other people were gonna back out. I had to like really push them. Like, look, this is the deal with my scripts. A lot it's been said before, blah blah blah blah blah. Please trust me. And so eventually we finally shot it. It was very fun, it was a good shoot, or you know, positive, or everything like that. We had to rent a limousine. I didn't, I don't know if it's just just in the back of a limousine. I like to because I'm always thinking budget too, you know, when I write these things, I have to be thinking in terms of realistic filming. So I was intending it to be, I think, about 12 minutes, you know, which is about a 12-page screenplay. I think it ends up about like eight or nine. And it's an in another the final interesting thing I'll say about it, it's you know, and the fact that it's won more like awards and nominations than almost any other, like it's the second most out of almost any of my films. But it's a film that was saved by the editing, and it really, really gives me a lot of appreciation for the editor. I've always had the same DP cinematographer, director of photography, and editor. Luckily, they were the same guy on all three of my films. Andrew Baxter, a dear friend of mine, too, it was that it was at his wedding last year. And the editor that I was working with on Boys Club just didn't couldn't pull it off. And I mean, it was even to the point of being like, I thought it was gonna be a total loss because it I wasn't gonna send it out like that to uh have my name on it. But I gave it to my good friend, and he in three and a half hours, just kind of like as I'm sitting there with my mouth open a gape at how he's doing just like you know, a conductor essentially. He's like doing a just a symphony on this, just saving things. He's he's pulling all these tricks of the trade that are just like so smart, and it shows you how much of movies is where the cuts come in, you know, the sound design, like even just very basic things that that that an editor themselves without even going to a sound engineer or like a just having a score done, can very simply do can be the difference between a total loss and a movie that got that gets eight nominations and nine wins across like various festivals the world over. And then Alexis has that now on her resume. We all went, you know, we all left happy. So that was 2023. Then 2024, I did Optimus finally came out. That was the first feature I did that was released at Groman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, which is very cool, uh, at a film festival with Raphael there. That was that was great. Then we also did a film called Jousters from a script that I had written that Raphael really liked a lot. Um, oh not all my films are just dialogue films, but like a lot of them, I mean most of them are gonna have a good amount of dialogue. And this one was kind of one of those, about 15 minutes long, a little bit on the longer side for like what our short projects were tending towards, but it came out and I mean it really did great. It didn't actually get into the Sherman Oaks Film Festival or my friend Jeff, who's read the No-Ho book, as uh, you know, I which I honestly I sort of appreciate because like he doesn't just take all my stuff and just you know, like it's all great. Like he's not a yes band, so I oh I trust this his word very highly. But it got in just about everywhere else, and it was a great filming experience. We filmed it on the 11th floor in downtown Hollywood in like a kind of an old, like a classic Hollywood building, which for here is like 80 years, you know. But I mean it's really it's a it's a cool, it's a different vibe. You get it, it's made like in the 30s or something. Um, and it's it's it's just it's it's like a great case of the direction, it was excellent. Raphael completely like took my story and just made it like of like his visually and put an aesthetic to it. And you know, it was his choice of location, it was his friend that we were allowed to like shoot in the house of, and he found the leading actor who was just great, and the actress too, who's like honestly, it took it sometimes. An actor will be uh will do will work in something, and I won't love them like the first or second time, uh, but then I'll like come to like on the third or fourth time, I'll come to an appreciation. And that's what happened with this with her, and I'm now I'm just like she's the best actress in the in the in the whole movie. Like it's it's a real mind game thing, it's like a phone call, it's kind of like scream a little bit, but like totally inversed, like the inverse of scream. So it's like a woman calling a man with ill intent. I do a lot of that. You'll see a lot of the theme of like women getting a one up on a man at the end, or winning kind of somehow in the end through like a clever strategy or something, or saving perhaps like a male lead, or it's I like it's nothing even that I tried for either. I just realized it at a certain point that I kind of keep doing this one, like I usually put women in like either savior the trickster, like in a dominant, like a I got you type of way, or you know, some other way of like preying on the male character, essentially. You'll see a little bit of it in almost not everything, but like a few. That this is a but jousters is like the main one for that, though. Um it's called jousters by the way. So interesting, to be honest. It's called jousters by the way. Yeah, because well, mainly because the main character's name is Lance. And I thought, you know, that made me think of it. Oh, yeah, I get it, I get it. Yeah, that's kind of really all you need. And then it's like after that, you know, that's a case of like when I was kind of like, well, they're sort of intellectually jousting, you know, if you think about it. And people are like, yeah, I guess. You know, like you can't really just like tie, it's not wrong. I mean, you could say anybody's intellectually doing anything that's like a competition, you know. So But yeah, like I hadn't heard it before, and it's kind of a thing that like people would then be like, jousters, what's that like gonna be like horse riding to people jousting? Then they see it, and they're like, Why is it called jousters? And you hear his name's Lance, and like a few people would be like, you'd even in the theater, I'll be like, Oh, haha, Lance, you know, like so it's it and then we had a very much like and this was another choice of Raphael that I had nowhere in the script. This was all him, of like horse aesthetic and like a knight chess piece, or the is it a knight? The one with the the the horse. Yeah, uh yeah, yeah. And so that became then the poster. You see it like I I sent you is the poster, but like we there's a lot of shots in the film where you'll either see like a chess piece is in the foreground because the guy has a chess set and is like for no reason because he's dumb. It's like a dumb, good-looking guy, you know, who like got a very lucky life. And it it it's it's it's the guy then is it it in the script that I'm writing now, the under the pendulum, which I'll I'll I'll get there, but there's a character named Lance who I want the guy that played Lance in jousters to now come and be Lance in this film because we all liked him so much. His name was Dallas Schaefer, he's a really fun guy. So that's okay. So then so that was yeah, I mean, that's pretty recently, that was just in 2024. Nothing really came out of mine, like as far as released last year, because I was been so consumed writing under the pendulum, and then I I did get kind of get another job that I've been doing on like a bigger sort of project thing. It's that's a like an NDA type thing, and it's not like as sort of central to my writing and everything as everything else is anyway. But yeah, I've got a few irons in the fire essentially, just things that I'm kind of generally doing. And so there are there are longer format projects though, so and as opposed to short films that can come out like you know, that same year, you even sometimes a couple or three if you mix it up or whatever. It's it's I'm investing in some longer stuff now. And you know what? A lot of it too is Raphael Boisson that I'll give the credit to for in getting me to start writing it. This this thing, because he's read my book, all like he's read both my books. He's great, you know. I mean, he's a really great friend, and he's gone. I mean, he read the book of short stories before he read No-Ho, and his favorite one was Under the Pendulum, which is the longest story in my book of short stories. And it's one of my it's I I like I would yeah, I it was, you know, I'd say like it's probably I went through, I was like, okay, yeah, like and he was saying, let's do a feature, man. Like, we gotta do a feature. He had just very recently graduated USC, like I think the summer, or well, after like the late 2024. So he's like, yeah, in 2025, let's go with the movie. Like we thought we were gonna be filming it, you know, at like the end of the year in like March, you know, about 10 months ago or or something, April. Little, little did we know. It would, you know, I would I've run I've done so many drafts, draft after draft after draft. I finished my first draft of the script in August, last August. It did like and I'm this this is not uh in any way talkie. This is in fact praise for Raphael Basson as a director because we I tell you what, we have been bickering and arguing and snipping at each other, and like it's negatively affected our friendship. However, we're artists and like this is gonna get done. And then like after that, we're gonna be good. You know what I mean? Like it's just we we have to go through this and whatever else, like it's can the script has continued to improve. Whereas I wanted it to be, I thought it was ready in not in August. I was showing him then a rough draft, not like what I considered to be like the finished product, but started over, I you know, and so now I've showed him about six drafts where I was like, look, this is the end, dude. Like, I can't do this anymore because it's free. I'm not, I mean, this is just him and this is me and him working together. It's not like this is me contracted for a thing. Like, he's a guy that I do projects with, like, because I he's my friend, and because he's I think he's on, you know, clearly a very talented person, and and and we like to we've succeeded so but it gets hard when honestly, money's not the thing for me. I'm not the person that's like real driven by money. I write every single day a lot. I might as well I might I have to be doing something, you know, and I've really I got it, I love this script, I've written it's great, but you come to a point with collaboration when it's at when it's required at this level where you sometimes will think like, look, we're just trying to make two different things here. Like, I have an author, uh, an author's like like my I have a voice, you have a voice, you know. They kind of clash, like a bit, like at that's what I was thinking like earlier on. Like, I was like, does it you know mean anything for like maybe it was just this project, maybe it was just whatever. Like it it he very much has one kind of style, I have another, but he keeps pushing me to do it, and he keeps giving me counsel on the story and things that he would like to see emphasized and downplayed, and the pacing needs to be quicker, and and you know, this scene should be longer, that should be shorter, we need this many more. Always kind of this administrator's and he's never sat, he's such a perfectionist, this guy. He graduates a a semester early from USC with like a four-point, which is like very unusual to graduate early from the masters there. But it's like I told everybody, because I wrote like three of the four last films he did when he was there, that he just were like he's doing film after film after film when I everybody else I knew there was like had done one, or maybe two. He had done like four or five, right? And so, you know, he's just he wore it, he's an insane work a holic, and he's a perfectionist, which is a thing that kind of very much clashes with my sensibility as well. But whatever else else he is, he got he's gotten me to this point, and this script is gonna be amazing. I absolutely promise through Wolf and then it's gonna be like that really very cool.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Sounds fantastic. Now, I believe as well, Hayden, you've written this new novel. It's not published yet, but it's with the publisher. I think there's they've got an option on it. Hopefully it'll come out soon. It's called No Ho, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:51

I usually call it No-Ho just for shorthand because like I by the way, I didn't know this was it was such an unold thing, but it seems to be with everybody. No-ho is North Hollywood. It's kind of like how they do like South Houston is like Soho in New York or London originally. But then I think there's North Houston too, though, and I think they do say no-ho too, it's just not as prominent as Soho. But we do that anyway. They don't say Soho for South Hollywood, it's really just no-ho for North Hollywood here here in L. It's not a great part of town. I I I moved here from Burbank in 2019, and so I've been here, you know, for seven years now, and I really have kind of fallen in love with the with the city in a strange way, gloriously sleazy though it is, is, you know, I feel like a lot of writers kind of have some area they're associated with. I mean a lot of the greats sometimes do, you know, like Faulkner or uh you know, Hebidway or I don't know. I they'll have like their Mexico City or their uh uh like Puerto Rico, the rum diaries or something like that, you know, just an area. And I mean, I I when I first moved here, and I mean like to California and I lived in Burbank was a lot better of a neighborhood and everything. You it's close to North Hollywood though, and that would be the place that you'd always like have to kind of like watch your wallet and stuff when you go there, you know? And don't walk out at night in North Hollywood. So I ended up moving there because you were always having to drive through it, like it's very central in the San Fernando Valley, and which is very handy, of course, you want a centralized location, and it's really like the parts of this area that are the most dangerous and like criminal are kind of this uh we're in a weird eye of the storm in this, like in this area that I describe in my book as the arts district, which that is, I mean it is called that, it's like the center of the nexus of like the whole thing, and so it's kind of there's so many like bars and clubs and like you know, like establishments where that attract a lot of people that there can't really be so much crime because there's a lot of people out like on the streets or drive, you're just driving down Magnolia, and you know, of course, there are a lot of still homeless drug, you know, dealers, sell users, everything in the Ralph that's a grocery store right next to me, and it's heavily featured in the book. The guards are armed like to the teeth. You will constantly be seeing scenes with you know, I either homeless or kind of similarly affiliated people like having tug-a wars with their purse or bag or whatever, because they've stolen something and the guard is trying to get it back, and then sometimes it turns into a fight. Sometimes it I've I've seen a lot of wild stuff at that Ralph, I'll tell you what. And you know, I mean, it just kind of occurs to me, like you don't really hear, I mean, everybody knows Hollywood, of course. Everybody knows Hollywood, like and and if I lived in Hollywood, I wouldn't really think of like, okay, like Hollywood, I'm gonna make Hollywood, I'm gonna put Hollywood on the map, right? Like, yeah, but like no, you know, but North Hollywood is a thing that I don't think many people outside of like LA area and whatnot know about. That is a cool kind of like platform, figuratively speaking, for a place to live. It's right here in LA. It's very much like I always say, like, when I get the like the big, big, big, big bucks, I want to keep the apartment I had when I first got here. I would like to get it back, you know, and like just kind of keep it again. You know what I mean? I I and then I'd go there and write. Because I wrote so many of my great uh works there, it would become like my my office, you know. That would be that's a fun goal of mine for the future. Or like, and then hopefully the place I would be living would be one of those very nice apartments that I told you about that they do have here. So I could cut keep the North Hollywood thing going. And I mean, it's it's I always say like people will ask me, like, how dangerous is it, like really? Because I mean, I do play it up a bit in the book. Like, there aren't if you go to the train station, there aren't just hookers like walking openly around. That's a lot there are hookers. Yeah, you can find them, and they are walking, but not just like as I depict it, quite so open-air, and there aren't just people that are selling drugs, just stand, you know, like out the it it's like I've walked all through this area, I've known a wide variety of people, and I mean, some of these people are former addicts, some of these people are like the homeless. Like I say, I'll get to know some of them and develop a rapport and get a sense for kind of like after enough time where they're sleeping, like what do they do for you know, to like if you're like you're shaving, and if you're uh because I like this one guy, he would always be like clean shaved, and like oh you know, every time, and I'm like, how is this it's and it was like just a thing of his. He's like, I gotta be clean shaven. And it's but anyway, like it's interesting though, too, and I there's a element of this in the book, the industry that you'll sometimes see these the people, at least I don't know if all of them are homeless, but on the street go to for busking or artistic purposes. They'll either be playing music, they'll be playing, like you know, flipped over, like bongo, like sort of like stomp type deals, or like juggling things. This one guy started juggling on the corner here. He got up to learning how to juggle like five balls at a time. It was crazy. Like, I I I watched the progression of it too, because at first he started with just three, and then one day I saw him and he was doing like the thing where you'd have to do practice with four, and then like I don't know, a long time later I drive by and he was just pro, like five of them, like you see it at like Cirque du Soleil or something. It was incredible. And so I actually I went up, I parked my car, found him and talked to him, and like got it. You know, I was like, hey man, like I'm just I'm a writer. I kind of like I've been passing here for many years. I've seen you. I would, you know, I'm just wondering if I could kind of just like what's talk to you just for he's like, yeah, yeah, it'd be great, you know, he was really cool about it. And um yeah, because the thing was this is so interesting. He wasn't like really asking for money or anything like that. He didn't have like a, you know, a lot of them will put like a sign up and then have something like a hat or a open case guitar case or something. And as far I could never see he was never asking for money. And so I was like, why? Basically, that was the main thing. And he told me that he wasn't actually homeless, even though he would be there. No joke, from like the early morning, like sometimes when I would still be up, like the walkie, he would be in the dawn, to I would see him doing it until like, you know, then when the sun was going down. It was it'd be like he would leave. So his dedication to this juggling, I mean, it was I could not figure it out. I couldn't get to the point where I could just say to him, like, look, this is weird as hell, man. Like, how you know, but he seemed perfectly like eloquent, like normal, like it it it it was, it's very strange. So you can see like the conductor prophet in my book is kind of like a representation of this culture of like unlikely kind of people that have become homeless and who might have like amazing discipline or you know skills in this area or that area that just for whatever reason, and a lot of times, you know, it's not drugs or booze or whatever, it's like it's some mental illness that like they just cannot help. And you you see a great deal of that, and it doesn't always have to be like schizophrenia or the ones that we very commonly associate with that homelessness, it could be something just like severe obsessive compulsive disorder or Tourette, or you know, I mean, because if if you don't have access to good medical care, I mean, you know, if you have like an anxiety disorder, it could spin out of control if you just, you know, never uh or terrible depression, if you just never get it treated, bad things can happen, you know. So it's it's it's not a world that like I didn't what I didn't want to do with Noho is like tug at anybody's heartstrings by showing the plight, overt plight, of any like one person, you know, like like I you see, and there's almost what some people have commented on almost seems like a deliberate blasé attitude of at least of sand toward the narrator of the book towards homeless because he's like sort of literally stepping over homeless at various points. I mean, not going out of his way to do it, but like, you know, it's it's it's a thing that you will actually encounter at some points. It's kind of unavoidable. And of course, when I wrote that, I was just trying to write. I was also having him dodge talk, you know, a taco truck that was right there that had orange bulbs, and a massage parlor that closed that used to do hand jobs, you know. Like, so I there was all kinds of things he was and the kangaroo with a fedora and a monocle jumps up to him because he's so sleep deprived he's having psychosis. So one more one more thing that's happening is that he steps over a homeless person. I didn't mean it in a mean way, but as you can see, it it it kind of like depersonalizes a certain population among them because I yeah, again, like I didn't want to make the book about those people that had the OCD or the Tourette's or the thing, you know what I mean? Like, this was gonna be more of like a story of the excess of it and the too much, like not the not enough. And you know, I mean, I almost felt like for this story to go even into that would be anathema almost to the whole tone of the rest of it.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Yeah, I mean as you as you're talking, I'm thinking about the story as well, because I've been you know, for everyone out there, I've read about I'm reading on my Kindle. So I've read about 25%, about a quarter, maybe a third. And yeah, the main character Sand, he he he comes across first of all, he's a very interesting character, actually. A lot of as you're reading him and you you're following him and you're watching him, because you it it it is and you you mentioned him obviously about you know being a director and screenwriting, you do feel like there's a camera over him, and that's kind of what you're following, actually. Yeah, it's very, very intriguing, and uh and and I it is the excess like he's in in the in the book, he keeps saying he's going to rehab, I think it's the next day or or or 36 hours later or something. And it's like as I'm reading it, I'm like, dude, do you not realize this? It's like yeah, it's very odd. This this this element of excess as you're talking of a stepping over homeless people, is because he's not from that area, he's like a voyeur, or he's like a dark tourist. It's this is tourism for him, like tourism. Yeah, there's an aspect of like like like in the nine at the end of the 19th century, there was a lot of like like slum tourism and like slum charities and stuff. He reminds me of that a little bit, but at the same time, there is something a little bit maybe more than a little bit charming about him. Like he's not he's not evil character. I think and that's one of the best things I think about Bucks. I think most characters in Bucks are neither evil nor saints, and they're all these in-between, and I don't know how it's gonna end. Don't don't don't tell me, don't give me clues. I am gonna finish it soon. And it's like I I want him to do better, but I'm not sure he will, and I'm okay with that because that's life. For for for you know that this part of obviously Hollywood, and I I've been to Vancouver in Canada and I've seen a similar situation there. These people exist, these issues exist, these problems exist, and guess what? They're not going away. It's not like they exist today, or these exist they exist this year, and next year homelessness is cured. So, yeah, no, I I I find it such at the moment such a immersion I want to use the word immersive, but it's a very immersive novel. It's very much a novel of place because the place is a character, I'd say. I'd say the place is a story, you know, because you know, as you you've talked about some of the uh the spots there, like the uh the bar, the not the bar, the liquor store. And it's like a character on its own, or it's like a plot on its own that I think then directs the plot. And I'm and and I find it again, like I I mentioned like I feel like I it's immersive. I'm there when when you you're writing about you know the the the main character Sand going into the liquor store and walking behind him, and walking behind him can I can picture everything, I can picture everything. It it's and that to me in a way it's just thrilling, to be honest. And I've said to you before, it reminds me that a lot of aspects about pulp fiction, like the um the parts of pulp fiction that are about I want to say drugs, but I don't mean it like that. I mean like the more domestic scenes in pulp fiction as opposed to the crime scenes, which are of course very good. Yeah, you know, a little bit about train spotting and it it's it to me it it it it's so interesting, so interesting. And I want to say as well, a huge thank you for giving well not giving me showing me allowing me to read this this copy of the book because it's not available yet. And I I feel privileged I'm gonna what's up? I will get you a copy of the book, believe me. Okay, well, I'll I'll I'll ask you I would I would appreciate it, but thank you so much. I already think about 15 books as well.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

What's up? I love I I just I thank Wolfenden. I mean that means the world that when anybody reads it, it it's always I'm always grateful. Just that, you know, I mean, even if they've heard it's good or what they haven't, it to read somebody else's book, it's a it's a it's a big thing, you know, and I respect it a lot. And so I it means a lot that you did it, and it it just makes me so happy to hear when people uh like it, you know, and because like I really do too, and I I god I just worked so hard on that thing, as I'm sure you could imagine. Like, I feel like it's the best thing I've made in my life, you know. I feel like I as of this point in my life, that book is my legacy. I don't think it will, you know, I'm going to top it for sure. But like I would say, I think the best character I've ever written in my life is in this new screenplay, under the pendulum, I'll say that. But I like Sand a lot, though. Sand is a very complicated character. You're right. I mean, he's definitely he is very charming, you know, he's very eloquent, articulate, he's a very smart person. And so, but you know, he he's just and and it almost seems another thing I've got that's not quite I don't know if it's critique or it's just feedback, but is that it it they did they're worried, you know, people are telling me what like I'm worried that the marketing or that the the publishers might see it like this kind of thing, is that they're saying like there's it's almost a depiction of successful drug use or something like that because the guy because Sand has this sort of he only mentions it a couple times. It's not a big story element, but a lot of people like this hone in on this, is that he has this system where it's like only one month out of the year does he like binge this much and do like all these drugs to this extent. I think we could pretty safely assume he probably drinks a lot most of the rest of the time and everything. But like it's usually not fentanyl, you know. But I actually like when I first started it, one of the things I was toying with the idea of doing that I never really all went all the way with, but I never lost either, was the idea of sort of almost self-flagellation a little bit with him and doing this because it because of I mean, just you know, from a lot of content I've ticketed, just a lot of input of the experience of withdrawal, you know, it's just it is we see like Chainspotting, for example, has a great scene of it, you know, that that thing, it's almost like he's trying to induce this in himself every so often, and there's a part of him that's it's it's very masochistic, you know? It's it's he's directed outward, but it's it's a part of him is like sort of thinks that I guess maybe I and this is never articulated either, but it's almost like a sacrifice to for his success or something. Oh, it's like an an offering to hubris or something. I don't mean to keep saying or something, I did really think that out, and yeah, it's sort of like you know, he he he would justify it, Sand, like or like just like how he justifies his like smoking cigarettes, for example, like the rest of the year, where he would be like, Well, you know, by smoking cigarettes, I'm essentially what I'm doing is I'm not saying I'm in complete command of everything in life, and that, you know, that I that like I'm just the master of my every fate. And I it shows that like you know, I'm putting my life and my health in God's hands and hoping that I'm a person that's more resistant to cancer and stuff. Like the same justification like that, but I don't know if anybody has like a that justification that that's why they're really doing it, you know what I mean? I think whenever it's a drug or alcohol or substance thing, like gambling or whatever, people will come up with just about anything to to you know rationalize and justify.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

Yeah, for me, it should be up to and is up to the reader to decide what they think. Do they think like as I'm following the character Sand, do I do I want to go out and take a load of drugs? Hell no. Because like it's like I want to say addiction, but it's not what I not the word I'm looking for. Like he he's I I'm I'm reading it and I'm like, dude, why didn't you just go to bed? Like he hasn't slept for like 36 hours at this point. He's trying to find fentanyl, can't find it, and he uh keeps going on and getting little bits of other stuff. And I'm like, dude, why don't you just like sit down? And so the point I make is you you don't have to say that's negative, but you're showing it's negative, and it's up for the reader to decide. I mean, the idea of like like positive, not positive drug use, but the idea of should we say neutral or non-negative drug use? The fact is, in reality, in our society, it happens. There's lots of people that take drugs and don't get that bad that they're going to rehab. And I'll I'll just use as an example the the UK band Oasis. Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher took cocaine for decades. Okay, maybe two decades, and then they stopped. This is another thing. They just Noel Gallagher, I forgot what he gave an interview about this, and he just said, you know, I woke up one day and I and he was like, I'm not gonna be an ass. And he just stopped dead. The point I'm making is, but he didn't self-combust. But don't get me wrong, other people do. It's just like it's still a reality, and I'm very wary of writers, directors, screenwriters, whatever, being told, no, if you're gonna talk about this societal issue, you do it in this way that we already agree with. I think you have to you shine a light on it, and then people can, you know, a bit like a bit like Forrest Gump's chocolate box, we have to pick at it and go decide what we like, maybe what we don't like. This is the thing. People are free to read it and dislike it and go, oh, this is too maybe alien, too alien for me, too, too much like real life. But these people exist. You you've said that. I I don't have a problem with it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Well, you know, and the thing is like when these movies like Train Spotting or Requiem for a Dream or like Spun or Go or like, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s kind of like drug films, I guess you'd call them, or like half-baked show. That was at a time when there actually wasn't such a terrible drug problem, or at least not an o uh opioid epidemic in the United States. Then now that there is, it seems like now is when they don't want to have any of that type of content. Like I can't remember the last sort of like really drug-oriented movie, a spe or a movie that deals with the homeless, or like I like I've been I was telling my mom this actually just recently of like an idea that I've had in my head for a screenplay for a very long time that would be very but budget practical too, and actually I might direct this one if I wrote it, is I would do it in a tent, like encampment, you know, like a sham uh city, a little one of those really larger kind of tent gets like grows, and it would be like a love story between like a man and a woman because you see that, and that's Max and Mari in the uh book, and you see it a lot, and a lot of times, like you know, I've known even a couple of these couples because it's like in the apartments I lived at, you know, they were pretty cheap apartments, and you can't control your neighbors, and so but they were great. Like this one couple was very friendly, but I they were kind of pretty sketchy people, but they were always very nice. I would talk to them a lot. You you there's there's this very sort of like sweet, bitter, almost like bittersweet, I don't know what you'd call it, like love despite this circumstance, this shared misery that they both have of this this monkey on their back and this terrible addiction. But like what I wanted to do with Max and Mari, who are the you know, an addict couple in this in my book that are doing very, very well as far as uh drug dealers could be concerned. Their tent is by far the grandest, it's like a castle among the other smaller tents, and it's like an army officer's former tent. You know, they've got like a temp rapid mattress, and other tents in there, they've got flat screen TVs, they do artwork and spray paint, and they, you know, on all the all kinds of stuff. So they have a really cool vibe going on in there, and it's very actually it's it's Sand, the main character, likes it, and he's been spending time there this October. And so he kind of keeps finding excuses to go there, and a real kind of romance develops with him and Max, the or the main aka the maniac, who like the Mexican mafia affiliated, you know, drug dealer that lives in this tent with his girlfriend. Ed Sands get like he bring like Sand brings out the sort of intellectual like side of Max, who you could tell he's a smart guy and he's like red and stuff, but he just can never show that side of himself. And then so Sand is kind of allowed to then show his more sort of like direct and like street kind of like smart self that he never can show with like the in his professional side. So they book and then Mari, the girlfriend, sees this and she really starts to you can tell through the story. She builds, she's resents Sand, who they they know is Aiden, it for taking she feels like he's gonna run away with her boyfriend, and like she's like she like not really, but like, you know, she just like has that thing. Like sometimes I've had friends where like their girlfriends won't love me, or somebody, somebody, because they feel like the guy, you know. But it's and then there's it like people interesting fact about my book there are more main female characters than there are male. Because it's mostly on the male side. There's Sand, there's Max, the drug dealer, there's Greg Gaines, who's Sand's nemesis, who's been trying to kill him and abduct him over the course of this weekend. And as far as guy, there's the detective, there's the conductor prophet, there's the guys at Riverton. I don't know if you how big you count them as. But anyway, as far as like women characters, though, we have Olive, huge character in the story. We have Mari uh from Max and Mari in the tent. We have Vanessa Chu, uh, the I don't think you've gotten there yet, the uh NBC correspondent. We have Claudia Barrera, the police officer. Uh we have Yeah, got to have a bit, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's a great one. I like I like Claudia Barrera a lot. She's a favorite character of mine, and he has a different Sand has a very different relationship with each of the women. What like two of them hate him, and you can very much tell. Then one of them likes him, but it's like the resentment that's Mari. Like, you can tell Mari kind of like would like, like, they get along. It's just the thing with her him and Max. And then, but Barrera, Claudia Barrera, you know, she's very she's a lesbian in the context of the story. So it's not, you know, there's no uh because Sand is always sort of I don't know if like I I put this in there on purpose, but you know, the rest of the women are sort of close to him in age, and I'm imagining him being like about 31, 32, you know, and then Barrera is like you know, mid-40s and everything. So it's sort of a more just person the person like communication in this world of where at everybody, every other woman up till now has been somebody that Sand has been attracted to, or like you know, an otherwise perhaps attractive person. So it's like I would like somebody like a woman who I'm not gonna be talking about, like house fans looking at them like and like gauging their boobs and every you know their hair and everything like that. So and then celebrity culture is another thing that it's like you haven't really gotten to this part of the book as much. But I and this is another recurrent theme that you'll see throughout, and it is it's very much a big part of under the pendulum of people filmed on like security cameras or caught on tape doing something sort of extraordinary, blows up and gets big and makes an opportunity for something for somebody, which is usually then a story. Um it need not always be the main, you know, inciting incident, catalyst thing, but it you know, something uh at some point in the story. And so it kind of starts to happen with Sand, and Sand has this thing that he does where he put he does an X with his forearm, and uh he started doing it during the pandemic. Yeah, like that. Uh during during the pandemic is a like a Japanese bow. He explains this later in later in the movie like that. And so uh yeah, specify not like this either, like which people, but like specifically like that. And then oh, also the thing I came up, I guess I guess handshake things are sort of a th or like is our are uh recurring theme too, because the thing I came up with for under the pendulum is like a secret handshake. I show I showed Raphael the other it would go like this with you you put your you walk up to somebody your arm like this, right? Like and Yeah. You know, so it's pendulum. Anyway, he was delighted when I showed him that and it's in the movie, so But anyway, the X thing is it kind of blows up because he does it on camera a few times after a couple of incidents I want to tell you about. But and this sort of weird movement starts to kind of happen because you have to remember it's how we're going to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:16

Yeah, I that brings up it's kind of funny. And that what I want to say about the buck is we we're talking about, you know, this this part of Hollywood that's really depressed and downtrodden. There's some serious social issues, homelessness, drug addiction. But the bar, it is, it's it's like what's going on, a dark comedy, a black comedy. It's funny. Like the main character, Sand, he he goes into that bar, not bar, liquor store, and he he uh the there's uh the the black, what we call it, server shop assistant, that's it. He's being threatened racially by this this homeless guy, and the main character Sand comes in and just knocks him out. And as a result of this, because he's he's he's he's like a drug addict, alcoholic, he's looking to score, he gets a free bottle. I think it's a free bottle of vodka. This is what made me laugh. I was like, oh, okay, good, good score. And then later he comes back, and because like the the main, oh, is it the the the the shop owner was able to sell the footage to the the news company for if it's a five hundred dollars, he then gets another free bottle of alcohol. And I just I I just found that so funny. I just said, wow, yeah, go on, good, good score. And and he's just the shop owner doesn't realise he's already got another free one. And he's just little things like this, and I find it really funny. You know, I mentioned about that there's a scene where there's like a a pornography scene where he's got to do something, and as I I was reading it, and I'm again I'm following the character, I'm going, Well oh, what's this gonna be about? But it's actually really comic, and it's like it's it's a for people out there, it it it's it's a gay porno, but it's like they're trying to say it's not, and and the reader knows it's not, and it's that that sense of like dramatic irony. I I realize the conversation's actually in there. It it was not one to spoil it for the reader, but you know it went uh sand he he he's sick, and it it in some ways it almost spoils it because the conversations are fantastic, it's so fantastic, and you're like I'm and I'm picturing the scene, and I'm like, this is this is so surreal, and that's what reminded me a bit of train spotting. I could just imagine a scene like that in train spotting, you know, because you can imagine him trying to do that to get the yes, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

But it's very, very fun. That's one of that's probably one of the favorite chapters in the book, one of my uh favorites, and then scene within the chapters once he goes upstairs with Ray Ray, the direct they're making a psycho-sexual art house movie. It's kind of like when the the porn makers get kind of caught up in like the story side, you know what I mean? It's like they're gonna really they're gonna be the ones who are gonna make it like art. And but like the guy is serious about it to to be uh but but it very clearly is still pretty much it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

But the seriousness is the joke. It it I think he's I think he says in the book that he's just the guy filming it is just graduated from you know, was it at you know film college or whatever it is? Yeah, yeah. And it's like and I'm thinking like that, and and this is the first movie you do. It's just so funny. It was just it just seems like this is yeah, it's so much so much so much fun. I'll be honest.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Oh I know for sure. And the thing is too, is is that like I mean, as a from being a screenwriter myself, there's some a couple other things with like movie-related um, you know, like where I'll have to say something about a camera or a sound setup or something like that. So it was very useful to have that, and then just to know like some of a director's priorities. So I actually gave this guy like really very intuitive and and and serious. I I I I keep feeling like what I want to say is that like I a hundred percent want to be on record as saying that like absolutely this book is funny, you know. I I think it is a serious book about a serious, you know, something that's absolutely not funny. But I mean, as Wolfenden says, you know, dark comedy you know that like this is a book about of extremes. And once you sort of make your peace with that, there's not anything that's so like like super violent or or there's swearing, there's drugs, and there's some sexual descriptions. Not all homo erotic either. There's some straight sex coming up, also.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

Yeah, I mean like I say, I I found it very funny. Another thing was like about that this scene, this did was like psychosexual gay porno. Was like there's a guy with like the sound mic, and and and and and I'm reading it, and I'm like, there's a sound mic, it's just like they're taking it so seriously. It was just that the element of where the the way you wrote it, where the it's again, I use that word immersive. The the reader is immersed in this and and and and is invited by you to say, hey guys, don't you think this is just so silly? But it's good, it it it it's it's one of the standout scenes actually so far.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:41

Would it be possible, Wolfenden, if I maybe read uh through like a just like a page somewhere? If you want like a di I could do the dialogue, because I do the voices very well, and like I feel like nobody is gonna get the quality of the dialogue unless I may maybe do a page, or if do you do we not do that? I mean I I actually know you want to do it now? You want to do it now? No, not I mean whenever, but just like while I'm here. Yeah, right now, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:08

Yeah. Sure. Well, yeah, whenever it's up to you. Yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:11

What a great example. Uh yeah, I'm just uh well, I'm kinda well, I I don't know, maybe this wouldn't be the best one to do on your podcast, but I mean I was probably not the Ray Ray Sand talk. I'm gonna try and think of something, uh what's the best conversation in the movie? Or I mean in the book, sorry. I was gonna say as well that that people would ask me a lot is like, well, are you gonna write a screenplay out of it, you know? Because you're a screenwriter. And I've tried, and I do have many of the scenes in script format. Of course, now with the the sale, I can't do a lot of the stuff. I can't basically do anything. But you know, it I it it didn't a lot, so much of this book. I feel like you're gonna come for the dialogue, but stay for the prose in a certain way. You're gonna stay for the dialogue as well, but like your prose is really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:04

Actually, I I've not I've not mentioned your your your writing style, the language. It it's it's hard to explain. It it it it flows really well. You use a lot of good, witty, witty, well thought out, well-executed prose. I like the stuff about Sand, and he he he's a poet as well. And he writes what he he wr I forgot the style of poems, and he writes alliterative with with alliterative poems. So, like for example, back for people back home listening to this, if he he's gonna wrap uh he reads out loud sometimes, poems beginning with F, but he'll he'll do it in the context of the story, and it it it is absurd, but it again adds to this this element of dark comedy, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

One of my favorite ones of those is you said you're at the interlude, the inferno. He's uh he's like, he goes, he's I know you haven't gotten there, but it's just like right at the beginning of the night, but haven't got started it yet. He says that well, the first thing before he goes down is the damned and doomed all dance down here, their desperate lives and decay, denied the delights they once devour, disgust their they disgust their disgust with dismay. So Yeah, so the guy's like, oh no, no, no. Uh well that's what he says when he's down there. I'm sorry. What he says before the tedious tendency of toiling through trenches translates to terror that transcends dimensions. That's the closest two he ever says to each other in the whole thing, and he's like, they may I think more of more he's not just doing that all throughout the book. It's like, you know, there's about like maybe five or six in the whole thing. But yeah, I do a lot of those. Um so it was a good chance that because I have a lot of letter allusions. Like there's 26 chapters, the number 26 come up quite a bit. I was originally gonna do a thing where because I knew I wanted to do it out of chronology, even though I originally wrote it in chronology, where I was gonna have letters correspond so that people could do it chronologically from like the table of contents by just oh, I'll find A, B, C, you know, like have kind of, but then I got you just to me, everybody along every step of the way was like, that's confusing as hell, you know. Like just to it. The people will they can do it from you the times, you know. It's just the only thing is when I was rereading it recently, of course, I know everything is not fair, but like the tendency, I guess, is to sort of skip over the time, and you just kind of you want to read the title of the because the chapter titles are pretty funny in themselves, and just then get into reading it. But it's like because the first few chapters are kind of pretty much for the most part in chronological order, you don't really start getting these jump aheads until you're uh you know at about like chapter six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And then they start to be more frequent, and then you it I start to there's a pattern to it that starts to develop, or you it starts to I optimize your expectation of like you're gonna be like, oh no, like don't end, don't end here. And then we go back to you're like, oh, but I forgot about that. Okay, yeah, I want to see what happens with this too. So, like I said, it started out layering with one guy just wandering around North Hollywood looking for drugs because he was a drug addict. Then it became a guy, he was also, you know, why not make him a screenwriter? Because I'm a screenwriter and I I know how that job works. Like he doesn't have to be successful, he could just be right. But then later I was like, what if he was successful? And then, like, you know, it all just it it develops. And then I one girl that I kind of had dated for a little while, her name was Olive, and she didn't live on the street or anything, but she kind of was like a little bit of a snob and kind of uh a little bit on like uh I kind of based the character a little bit on on her, and uh it was like everybody's not necessarily based on a real person, some of them are our makeups, uh are made up, but a lot of my best characters are based in part on somebody, you know? Like I don't need to yeah, yeah, you find that. Um do you I I would like to yeah, ask about about your writing, Wolf. Did do you are you a big dialogue guy?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:21

Do you uh yeah, pretty big, yeah, pretty big. I think I'd say uh I would yeah, I think pretty big. I think I I take dialogue really seriously. I think it's a big part of writing novels again for everyone out there. I write young young adult middle grade novels, and so for me, I yeah, I I want characters to just come alive to pop, and I think I think dialogue is maybe a great way, or maybe the best way to do that, to be honest. And the last book I wrote that I'm now sending off to agents, I really paid a lot of extra attention to the dialogue, like in the editing phase, even just like just no, I'm just gonna cut that word out, or they're just gonna say a little bit more. It was always little things like that, but I think it can be hard because you want characters to sound normal, uh, to use like the language that that we we either we would use in daily lives or you would expect them to use, but then you don't want them to just come out with cliches all the time. It's trying to get that that balance between like a I'm a big fan of when I'm writing, I'm like I'm looking for original language. I don't want to write something and go, oh, that's a cliche, or someone else wrote that. I might twist what someone else wrote, you know, and and for my own purposes or something. Like an idiom, for example, I'd twist it for my own purposes. But yeah, dialogue, yeah, why not? It's I think I think Stephen King said this: if if if you want to write good dialogue, you you've got to actually go out there and you've got to be able to speak to people, you've got to socialise, even though you do need to write and and read and and stay at home, you still have to go out, otherwise you're just gonna miss lots of things. You know, you could be the smartest person, smartest writer in the world, but if you don't understand social cues, those are not gonna be in the novel, you know. Like I'm always a big fan of interruptions, you know, or not finishing sentences because that's normal, that's what we do normally, you know. I think I think I I think as well, I like dialogue for like you know, I think it's good to show. I think if it's great to impart information, but then again, there's that danger of date data dump. You know, I I did read a book recently, there was a lot of data dumping, and I hadn't hadn't considered it as a thing, I hadn't realized it was a thing that that writers do. This is a publisher, this is a very successful novel, by the way. I was like, uh it's just it's just okay. I was I was it's a good premise for a book.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:58

What was the context of the data dump? Like what was the person who read it so uh that they said all the stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:04

You might have heard of the book, it's getting very famous, it's an American book, it's called Dungeon Crawler Carl. Oh yeah, I haven't read it, but I've heard So it it it I give you four out of five stars. A friend recommended it. I really like the concept, and so the the the these like info drops are like because he's like he's playing this game that the aliens make him play, and so like it's like he's in this dungeon and like lots so it's almost like it's like life mix with a computer game. So when you're playing a computer game and you see your character goes into a room, you get say a pop-up box appearing, right, with all this information. So this is happening in the book as the character's moving through the game or through life, but like the the the data dumping is happening sometimes every two pages where it's just like blah blah blah. But at the start, it's it's it's original and it's new and it's fresh. And by you get to the end, you're like, I I want less of this because I can't focus on it. It's does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:07

Who's dating the expository lines though? Like, is it just the right is it the person, is it in the prose, or is it a dot is it a character speaking? It's a bit it's a bit of both, it's a bit of both. Okay, that's yeah, that's unusual at that level. You don't see that that much. One you know, like I'll I'll read things like like Ready Player One, say, or like The Martian, or then Project Hail Mary. Actually, Project Hail Mary is fantastic. I love the book.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:36

I've heard that. I'm I'm I'm gonna get his books next. I've seen the movie The Martian, of course, but yeah, I've heard a lot of good things about those books, so uh I'm definitely gonna check those out.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

Well, Andy Weir, I think, the author of Martian and he got better at dialogue between Martian and Project. He was he clearly worked at it because you know, sometimes I would read I didn't think Martian was actually great for dialogue, but I mean you know, you'll read some books, it's not the strong point. But like in Ready Player 1, for example, I love I think it's a great creative as hell just fun book that was a really good example of like this guy comes out of nowhere as just like an enthusiast of like, you know, nostalgia, 80s nostalgia, he does a fantastic book. The dialogue is is god-awful. But I mean it's such a good book that it's great and you have a good time. And it's like I don't try to get in my head, like because I'm a per, you know, with like, oh, this is I just can't enjoy it or whatever. I'll just be like, okay, I accept this, but it's just because it's almost like what you were saying. Do you want your people to be talking? There's a difference between realistic dialogue and good dialogue, and then good realistic dialogue. Yeah, I mean, there's there's a balance, you know. It's like like w what Quentin Tarantino does, for example, people don't talk like that. I've never heard anybody talk like that, like his characters do, but you don't care because it's so fun and cool, and like there's it's such good lines that it's just like, you know, every line is like some kind of classic. And it's it's it's you're yeah, you're just thinking of it. He'll say, like, for like there'll be things that resound. Like I the best example I can think of of this, and I mean, when I first ever heard Quentin Tarantino, I have to think that it, and I mean I'd say this with no comparison whatsoever, but like you you have to think it's like what anybody that's good at like a music uh or like a composer when they first heard that music, you know, the or like the instrument they would go on to play. I I it I mean, I've heard a lot of people say that about just how his dialogue sounds different, and it but like you know, most don't go on to understand dialogue then as much as I have. And yeah, definitely. It's it's it's like he's a savant, you know. I mean it's very weird kind of prodigy skill that kind of happened to be bestowed on a man that was naturally ha you know, or or smart enough to lure as became a fantastic director, too. You know, but I think Tarantino's first and foremost skill is writing. And I mean, his like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the novelization is fantastic. It's not just what happened in the movie, it's almost it's none of what happened in the movie. Oh and cinema speculation is just him talking about movies he likes and his voice, and it's fun. It's fun to read, you know. It's you can there's something about the way he Yeah, it's like hypnotizing or something, you know. I don't know. It's it's uh nobody else can touch it really. Even there's good, very di there's great dialogue writers out there, but nobody else does it quite like him.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:01

Oh sorry, Hayden, were you able to find your the the excerpt from the the box?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:07

Oh sorry, I forgot about that. Yes, let me. You know, I I think if I could go to that scene, I am gonna read that scene, and if there's any language, I'll just leave it out. I just wanna go to the because there's the goldfish, you know, and the uh it's very like Wolfenden is saying, it's very sort of surreal. I mean it's it's it's it's very over the top. And just it uh to put everybody at comfort here, these guys really do think that they're making a Kafka-esque, bleak arthouse film about the dual nature of sexuality. So, whether Porto or not, they have good intentions, these men, artistic intentions. And so the the setup, because I don't want to, as just as I find it here at last minute, is that the main character Sand has been offered a bunch of free pills if he will agree to be the white dick can I say dick dick, probably right? Well, I've said I'm gonna say it. He said he agrees he agrees to be the white dick in this. They need one because okay because that you know they're doing a thing and they can't, they're all black up there, so they need a wall. Okay, here it is, here it is, here it is, okay. Okay. This is uh when San first initially walked into the room and he's just scoping around the room, so I'm just gonna describe the room like uh Wolf and then said he is red. So, okay. There were four black men, Ray Ray and another guy, that were looking into the camera that was pointed at Antonio. Antonio's the goldfish. One man was laying on the bed naked, and the other was doing something on Alonzo's computer. They had a modest lighting set up with a bounce board propped against the wall and a boom mic leaning next to it. The camera didn't look like anything special, but Ray Ray and the other dude were studying it with total avidity, whispering to each other and fiddling with the lens. Ray Ray turned to look at me. Okay, so what you say your name was? I told him, yes. Okay, he said, holding out his hand, I'm Ray Ray. We shook hands and I nodded over to Antonio. What what are you doing with the fish? Oh, we doing uh time-lapse photography kind of thing. Gonna speed up the film. Antonio's a big part of the movie. Don't say nothing to him though. He in character, he chillin'. Got it. I said, and I'll try and stay out of his eye line. And hey, just to let you know, I'm straight. Alonzo just said it would be head, that's right, right? Because if it's any more than that, I'm I'm not into it. Nah nah, he said, just ahead. It'll only take a few minutes. We don't doing sort of a bleak, Kafka-esque nightmare scene. This guy on the bed is just sucking his boyfriend, but all of a sudden it shifts, we gonna do a cut. Then it's a white dick instead of a black one. You feel? It's a callback to something we mentioned earlier in the film. Wow, I said, it sounds like you guys are going really deep with this. Or I mean, so to speak. Haha, yeah, man. I got a master's degree from the film program at UCLA, homie. This thing. No porno either, if that's what you was thinking. That actually is what I was thinking, Ray Ray. Nah nah. It's a psychosexual exploration piece about the dual nature of sexuality itself. Sexuality is an entity. So the black and white cocks thing, well, it fits right the fuck in with the steam, you feel? I do feel, yeah. He looked down at my shoes. And them kicks you got on is perfect. Ha! It fits the fuck right in. Why you wearing those? I'm making a bit of a statement about duality myself. He nodded seriously. Word. Well cool, we all set up then. Where do you need me? Let me see your cock right quick, homie. Cut it, I'll stop there.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:38

Yeah, great example, I think. Great example. Great example.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:42

So, you know, I mean, where's where do I get this stuff? Um I always say there's a very big movement among a lot of the European people that I work with who are also a little bit younger for the most part, like, you know, six to eight years younger. I I think I'm part of like almost anybody from 19 to to 1990 or before grew up when TV was a thing where we all watch TV, you know, and there was like common shows that everybody saw, like The Simpsons was on when I was a kid, and like South Park, Family Guy, all this kind of stuff. Now everybody's streaming a billion different things, and it's in a you know, it's hard that we don't nobody has a unified let's all watch this kind of deal. And I just feel like I can't, you know, comedy is so big in America. I know we talked about this, it's kind of bigger in Britain. It's just a different sensibility, and but even not even to do with comedy, just dialogue specifically. A lot of the trend now among the people is more towards less dialogue. They like the, you know, like the revenant or films where you can tell like the beginning of There Will Be Blood, where you can tell a great deal of story with just a person walking, doing things. And I have all the respect in the world for that, you know. I think that's great. I would love to do I could do that too, you know. I mean, that's a big part of also what I do. It's just not like sort of my specialty, but you know, but it is sort of like difficult when it's like, okay, well, you've you've gotten me, I like you contacted you that you guys want me to write this script. You know my style, you've seen my work. Obviously, it's gonna be dialogue heavy, you know, also because budget being a problem, usually it's it's not so expensive to have people talk. You know, it's it if you want to have a car chase, now that's like that's now you're talking money, but talking it's it's it's really not that bad. And so it's just it's it's striking a balance, you know. It's I've had to cut the script down so much, and I had to do this with the book too, because it was about 600 pages, I think a hundred and forty thousand words, and it's eight, it's seventy-eight thousand, you know, current, like as a out, which is pretty much like the best like length I wanted it to be when I very first started out, but it just was so much work of cutting so much love, there was so many good scenes.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:11

Right now it flows really well, and I I think the pacing is on point. Like you mentioned 78,000 words. I feel like when I'm reading the book, it's ticking along, your scene is sticking, you're moving along. I I think you've got the pacing right. I don't know what I've not seen, of course, the original edit, but I mean for me as a reader, it's definitely working, to be honest. Yeah, congratulations, it's really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:37

Thank you, Wolf. And then I I I'm so glad we got connected, and you know, thank you to Threads for sort of facilitating all I think a lot more people, writers and sp in particular, are able to get together and everything. And so I've yeah, this has been awesome. I'm just thrilled that we'd to meet you and that you like my work. I'd uh I would like to read something of yours if you would ever like anything read or you know, want something whether published or not yet, whatever. Anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:08

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll send something your way. I'm just editing at the moment, re-editing. I've d I I keep going back every now and again, every few years, Colt Jack Strong and the Red Giant. It's my first like middle grade novel, and I'm I'm going back and I'm just I've I've just done a few, just very brief edits. Just you know, I in some areas I was just telling too much, or a few run-on sentences, but I'm just just checking out the story as well, a little bit as well. I can always send that your way, or my my latest novel, which is like a young adult novel as well. Which is America, actually. What's up?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:44

I just said my latest novels I'm sorry, I just said I loved R. L. Stein when I was growing up. He was young adult, kind of whory. I've you probably know who he is. I uh read a whole series. I love young adult. I have a really special place in my heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:59

Yeah, and just the the last few books I've written are actually set in America. I I've traveled to America and Canada, and maybe it was COVID as well. You we talked about that with with you know your book and how and your like screenwriting and directing and how that's impacted on you. And because I couldn't travel the same, I started experimenting with well, I want to go to Canada and America, and I can't go. I'm gonna write a book in in Canada and America, and I'm going there every time I write it, basically. And I've carried on with that, and that the latest book is like a like a partially sunken Manhattan, and about the these these two characters that wake up, and they're all these like really big animals, something's happened, and it kind of links into and it's like one of the girls is like she's recovering from a trauma, and she has to kind of deal with this over the course of the novel in order to survive. And then at the end, it it's very zeitgeisty because, like, you know, like all the stuff with Epstein, at the end, you get rescued by this like caretaker figure who has this like island, and like it's this perfect island, it's luxurious, you know. Considering this dystopian world, it's luxurious, there's all these other guests, but it there's a dark like side to it and a dark secret, and like the caretaker's like one of the main bad guys, but the the the main character, it's a bit dark, I'll be honest, and that that as I'm sending it off to Asians, it's something like maybe it's too dark, I don't know. But like the main character, she was when she was a gymnast, she was abused by her coach, and so it's modelled on the characters modelled on Jerry Sandusky, and there was a British paedophile called Jimmy Savile, and it's kind of mould on both of them together. And this character when I when I was planning the book and I started writing it, this character was supposed to be dead, like you know, in the past, but then I realized no no no no no no I've got to keep on like testing the girl, but I've gotta like she's got to the only way she can get over this character is by meeting him again, and so he comes back because this main guy, the caretaker, he's he's he's doing something else, there's another plan going on, and it's all about that confrontation, and then outside of this world you've got all these big monsters and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:14

So there are is it pretty good fantasy? Is there like there's supernatural elements?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:20

It's kinda it's like a sci-fi dystopian. Sci-fi dystopia. I tend to go I I tend to do a lot of sci-fi, big fan of sci-fi.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:28

I like uh like I yeah, I like well Ender's game, that's like the what just came to my mind if you when you say like youth and then sci-fi, but or like the Divergent series is pretty good. Um not like my favorite. Do you have like a favorite children like uh the Hunger Game series, like a favorite series, I guess, not rather than a book, but like of you know, whatever, uh something I might not like know, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:53

Yeah, the I mean to be honest, when it comes to things like younger dolls, I'm when it comes to my reading, I mostly read like more adult stuff, like sci-fi, fantasy.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:06

Yeah, I mean I guess you would. I you wouldn't read it. But I but I mean you have to be familiar with the market to some extent though, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:13

Exact exactly. And to be honest, that's that's an aspect that I need to improve on. Like I need like like I I'm reading like I read I read uh you know a few young adult books every year, but I think I should read more, to be honest. I I'm always finding things through this process where I'm like, do you know I'm not doing that enough, or I could be better at that. You never know, maybe I maybe I don't need to improve, but you should try, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:37

You know what? I I love the authored. I mean, we might have touched on it. Joe Abercrombie uh does the First Law trilogy, and uh he has Stephen Pacey does the audiobooks, my favorite living voice, you know, author, uh voice actor. He did a Joe Abercrombie did a young adult trilogy that like a lot of people don't really know about. I know I know which one you mean, but I can't remember the name of it. Half a world, half a king, half a war. Um those are the three. I read each one of them as they were released. It's good. You know what? It's way, way better than most. Yes, it's good. It's very it's very good, to tell you the truth, but it's not first law. But you know what though? It's pr like you were saying, it's pretty darn violent and like adult content world. I mean, not like first law, I guess quite, but Okay. Not not far.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:40

You know. We'll check it out. Listen, I think like younger we're talking, you know, we're talking going back to talking about, you know, you know, your work as well. Like for me, like young adult fiction, middle grade, I think I always believe they have to push boundaries. I'm a bit wary of it's it's too easy to get sucked into propaganda or like you know, when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I smoked and I drank. So not to have characters that don't smoke and not that I have this year characters all the time that smoke and drink, but sometimes they swear. In my first book, Jack Strong and the Red Giant, there's there's a bully in there who says unPC things. And what when the when I first sent it out, they people say, Oh, that's a bit oh, that's a bit strong for a mid or grade book. I'm like, I said, Yeah, but this is an actual person. When I was a kid, people said far worse things. Oh, yeah. And they still say far worse things. If we're if we're deliberately not representing how young people are today, you know, it to me it's crazy. It it that's just um so I'm very wary of like, you know, getting sucked into kind of a a more of a propaganda way of doing things, just to sell books and and you know. And I understand the market, it is a market, but we've got to get the balance right.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:58

So well, there's just I mean, I I guess I sort of understand it to a certain extent with like language and stuff or or their adult situations, but with like the political kind of things and like the elements, it's like almost with some stuff, it's like we can't even have a dialogue or a conversation anymore. And and like, you know, I'm a very liberal leaning person. Most people out here are. It's like you gotta be real careful what you say. I mean, even if you're trying to talk about it in the right way to address, you know, these certain social issues, or like, you know, the issue of like that, you know, you want diversity in your film or whatever. It's I mean, that's not you can talk about that, but you gotta be careful, you know? And it's just like none of us are, we all know that like I'm not racist, you're not or sexist, or you know, none of us are, but we just you we live in a culture where everybody has a phone, everybody can record, everybody can film, everybody can quote you and misquote you, and everything like that. So yeah, I mean, kids are growing up in that world, and to not represent that like for for it's almost irresponsible if it's not, you know, for I don't do because less and less kids read, I think, but the ones that do are all the more important, and we you know, those are the ones that are gonna be re uh the world's one day.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:17

But I it's a very interesting interesting topic, I think, really. It is hard. You're gonna find the balance. There is a balance. You can't you can't have a book just full of kids smoking and drinking, for example. I I get it, I get it. I I don't think I've really it's smoking and I've really I've really done it that much. I've just done I have had I had one character in one book that smoked and drank because he was suffering from trauma, and that's there was a reason. And the book's about him actually stopping that. So it's about addiction, stopping that, all these things. Right, Hayden. I think we can end it there, okay? Sure. Yep. Okay, but absolutely fantastic discussion. This is easily the longest podcast we've we've we've done, which is fantastic. I honestly, it's just a joy just just listening to you. Honestly, I can just picture everything you say, and I'm really enjoying you know the book and your short story collection. I think it's on Amazon. I'm gonna check it, I'm gonna download that as well. We can do this again sometime. You're a great guest, absolutely fantastic. Great to talk, really, to be honest. I feel like I learned a ton, you know. I'm learning a ton from this, so thank you very much. Thank you. I'd love to be here. You're perfectly welcome. Please keep me updated with you know, obviously, your career and what's going on, particularly with you know movies. And I do need to check out the the the movies as well. That's something I'm gonna do. It's on my plate, and I'll let you know what I think about the novel. I should probably finish that within the next week or so. But if you want to come on my podcast again, always welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:48

Great, awesome. I will, I'm just sure I will. Right, great.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:51

I'll see you later, okay? Okay, all right, bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:54

Bye.