Jacob Tierney

This week on It’s Open, Ilana sits down with Jacob Tierney. Best known as the writer and director of Heated Rivalry— the TV adaptation of Rachel Reid’s hockey romance that positively rocked the culture in 2025— Jacob is a staple in Canadian television. He created the beloved series Letterkenny and its spin off Shorsey, and now Jacob discusses his personal career journey from Canadian child-actor through his teenage years, against the dark backdrop of Miramax in the 90s, to the present, where his professional prowess and creative energy is impacting the culture. He and Ilana discuss writing queer stories in the industry today, the yearning of a weekly release, and his submitting to the connectivity of the universe. 

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Host: Ilana Glazer
Producers: David Rooklin, Annika Carlson, Madeline Kim, Kelsie Kiley, Glennis Meagher
Video Producers: Lexa Krebs, Louise Nessralla
Audio Producers: Nicole Maupin, Rachel Suffian, Rebecca O’Neill
Lighting Director: Kevin Deming
Editor: Tovah Leibowitz
Graphics: Raymo Ventura
Outro Music: Don Hur

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to It's Open with Alana Glazer. Oh my God. I am lit up for the conversation I just had with the creator, writer, director of Heated Rivalry, Jacob Tierney. He's so many things. He was an actor as a kid. He's a healthy person, also. And he made the show Letterkenny, but damn, Heated Rivalry shook up the damn world. And I get to talk about it with him here today. So come on in. It's open. Jacob Tierney. Oh my God. Jacob, like you you created heated rivalry. You wrote it and directed all of it. It literally changed the world. People are fucking losing their minds.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Have lost their minds over heated rivalry, but in a way that like also almost like melted away layers that of programming that they like found themselves. Women found themselves through heated rivalry.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Yeah. Did you like did you know it was gonna be so I don't think you can predict this kind of thing, right? Like I I can now say after uh you know a few months of of having lived through this, like I I get it. Like it is one of those shows that like took over the conversation for the time when it was out, like a you know, like a squid game or like a baby reindeer or something like that, where like you're like, why is everyone talking about the same thing? Like it it does. I get it that that happened with this show, but like I I I never I truly what I thought was I was like, it'll be kind of like the way that the book was a hit and like this kind of like culty people being like, Have you seen this? Have you seen this thing? Um I never expected us to dent the mainstream at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

When you say Squid Games or Baby Ranger, it's like full of violence.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Right, trauma, yeah. Right. And like people being like, oh god, I can't look away from this. And I relate to it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

And Baby Ranger was like about masculinity, like in a new way. But he did rivalry is so joyful.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yes, yeah. I mean, that's I think that's part of why it would never have occurred to us to think that this would happen. You know, like I don't think I think there is something about the timing of it, of like the world being fairly bleak, um, and uh and and like putting something that joyful into the world, because it it it is, it is that is that was the point, you know. The point was the joy. Um, the point was the happy ending. Like that's what we were the whole thing, it's always moving to a happy ending. And that's what I I mean, that's what I fell in love with about romance in general, was I was like, this is so nice. Yeah, you know, like this is so and and it and it when and when it's done well, uh like in books, I've always found I'm like, this is so satisfying. Like there's something, and I did not, I had I was not a big romance reader. I did not know the genre especially well before I did. And it really does do a thing to your brain that you're like, I did not know I needed this.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

That's how I felt about the show. I'm not much of a reader. I mean, like, and I I haven't like, I don't know, I haven't indulged so much in romance. The last one I'm thinking of is um Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Did you watch that movie?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah. Yeah, but that's but it's like traumatic.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, yeah. You know, but like this, uh you're right. I love I love the way you put that. It really was like, I was like, damn, I needed that. And that final shot, you know, those like French overs and then them looking at each other. I was like, shit, I like this, there's a hole in my heart.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I I'm I have so much love in my life, but I think it was um, I think it's about there's something about the world and watching uh this what I'm you know, hoping is this final gasp of the patriarchy just destroy everything.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Like I'm hoping the final gasp of the world. It's like let's not go there.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

I I I hope not, but whatever Mother Earth decides, I honestly expect.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

That's up to Gaia. Yeah, I don't make the rules. Fully on Gaia.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Um but uh I think it was, yeah, the tenderness between men that the reflection of that in the world. And then also the fandom, I think everybody became fans of the audience in a way, like um so excited to be part of it together. And it's like it was it's not only like an if you know you know thing, but it was like just something to celebrate.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yes. I I think that it I think that what was interesting about it was that I think the feeling of joy makes you want to be part of a collective. You want to be able to share it and spread it and talk about it. Um and I knew that, you know, what's interesting, what I what I did know is that romance fans, I learned this from Book Talk. They are evangelists. Like they want to talk. They want to go, have you heard the good news? You know, like they love what they love and they want to go, you know, they they want it, they want to spread it. And uh it was it was crazy to watch that happen in real time. Like I uh I'll admit, we also I've never had a show, like I made other shows before, but I've never had a show drop weekly like like the way TV used to used to be. So it was to watch it happen, to feel it happen, was was quite quite overwhelming for me, if I'm being honest. But it was also, it was very, very beautiful and to watch people connect over it and to watch people kind of like come together and form this pack of of um Yeah, over a collect over a collective shared experience was really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

That was part of I think what was so moving about it was having the time to process as a collective.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

As a comedy writer, um, when when your comedy show drops like six episodes at once, there's something really hard about being like, there's that joke in episode three that I really like. It's like no one's ever gonna say you know, or like it'll take years or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

You know, it's like it you're you're robbing a slow built and an actual climax and a processing afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

I mean, it really does help when the show, when the topic of a show is yearning. It helps to be able to yearn, you know. Because I did, it was funny when we talked about it with the network initially about like how to release the show. Um, there was a part of my brain that was like these books are beach reads in the sense that like people consume them really quickly and then they reread them. Like that's what they love to do. So I was like, there is a version of life where I don't mind the idea of it all kind of landing at once, especially because with Heater Rivalry, there is a there's kind of a bait and switch with the first two episodes, where like the first two episodes are uh very sex-forward, very like prelude to a romance, kind of, because it is about these young guys who don't know how they feel and they are not expressing themselves and they will not stop fucking.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I even felt like at first in the first episode, like the sex was so hot, and like, oh my gosh. Although I was like, I'm older than these people. How do you think I felt? You know, in your head, you're like, I'm 24, 25. And then I was like, no, I'm like a clear quarter generation older than these people.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

And I'm like Oh, I could biologically be their fathers. Like it would be, it would be a lot if I was, but like biologically, yeah, that's possible.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I was like, I part of it was I was like proud of them and was like, this is sweet. But then, like, truly as a viewer, like I was so I was so touched by the tenderness between men. And like, not not even in the love that followed, but like to see them have because they were like unashamed in the sex they were having in the first two. Holy shit, they're fucking. They were so unashamed, like looking into each other's eyes, even if they were closeted and not tender with each other.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

That was very specific in the sense that I what we always talked about, and what I told them was I was like, the sex is when you can be honest. The rest of the time you're not being honest. The rest of the time is full of blustering and obfuscation and and you know, male pageantry kind of bullshit, all the stuff that goes with being like in a kind of alpha nonsense environment like hockey. But the sex is when you can actually just be yourselves. And that is where all of that, not just tenderness, but kind of character is loaded, you know. Like that's when I get, that's when you get to know each other. That was what I loved about the book, was the reason that I, the reason that I, because you know, it's a series of books, and this is the second one. And the reason I wanted to start with it is not just because I think it's the best book in the series, but also because the sex tells the story. So it doesn't, it never felt gratuitous to me. The sex is character development, the sex is what is moving this relationship forward and watching it change over time. Um, I think for any of us that have been either in a long-term relationship or had that kind of relationship with somebody where that's how you know them, like a fuck buddy kind of thing, too. Of being like, and you realize that the sex we have at 22 is not gonna be the sex we have at 28. Like it's things have changed. What I I know myself better, especially when you start that young, right? When you start at the age they're 18 when it starts, it's like and I uh people would always say to me, like, well, Ilya's really experienced. I was like, he's 18. How fucking experienced can you be, right? Like, I mean, he's so he sucked one dick before. Like it's not this is not a Lothario. He might carry himself like a Lothario, but like he's not. Nobody is at that age, right? Nobody actually knows what they like yet, right? Like that is a that is a process of self-discovery, too.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

But it was also it was so beautifully shot.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Are you a Shane or an Ilya? You don't have to be either. I get asked.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I honestly think maybe a sh a Shane.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

That doesn't surprise me. I feel like that's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah, I think I present as an Ilya.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm it's very the introvert-extrovert thing, right? Where you're like Shane. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

How about you?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

I mean, I'm you know, it's weird because I I when I wrote them, I have to I do when I write, I have to be them all. Like that's the way I have to do it for them to make sense to me. But I think in my heart of hearts, I'm probably a Scott.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Let's talk about Scott.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Let's talk about Scott, baby.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

That was I that was just so I'm like getting ficlempt right now. That was so beautiful. And also to see um, what what was the character's name? Who's his partner? Kip. Kip, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

To see Unfortunately. If I could have picked a name, I wouldn't have picked Kip. But God bless Rachel.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

He he really um he was giving Kip. He he he committed.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

He was full on Kip.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

He can pull it off. Robbie can pull off being a kip. Okay, so in a way that I I I I pity the fool that comes next who wants to be a kip.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Robbie, what's Robbie's last name?

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Robbie G.K.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Robbie GK. This actor was so fucking cute.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

He almost he was the first actor I cast in the whole show. Yeah, I loved him right away. He was one of those things where you see a tape, and you're I was like, nope, that I was like, I want that.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Perfection. He almost represented the masculinity of the entire show, being so almost uh conventionally masculine in his like you know, like muscularity, but then being like femme and soft and sweet and vulnerable. He was so complex and complete in his masculinity. Yeah, I it was so much of your show was shocking in such a tender and human way. But I was like, I don't see gay guys that femme go we don't go deep with these characters.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

We they're often like comedy characters doing a feminine gay guy line at the end of the thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

As gay men, we are I think it's I think maybe it's different for younger people, but certainly for my generation, we are accustomed to being a punchline. So that's I mean, that's a big part of my desire to do this too, was to not do something, right? Was to like, you know, you know, we talk about building to the happy ending, but it's like you're actually building survival. We're building what I'm trying to build is the collective queer imagination of like we can survive and we can thrive, we can be happy. And that is not a vision that is uh common in in gay and queer media.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

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SPEAKER_02 13:50

No, I don't. So keep but I like that your Sigmund Freud is like a little bit Sylvia Sidney. Like, I love that. My segment, this is my segment, Freud. I've got my dummy. Yeah, my sick name. Look at that giant building. It's a boner.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

That's literally a joke in my last standby power. That high-rises are boners in the sky. That is so funny. This is who I am. Nailed it. Literally fucking nailed it. But then there's um this guy, Donald Winnicott, who's the godfather of child psychology, who was like the first person to treat children as people and babies as something different than they're not just annoying people, they're babies. It's a different thing. They can be both. Let's be real. They certainly are. They're multitudes. Yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

They contain all the multitudes like the rest of us.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Um, you know, the point being that like to to his goal was to illustrate a picture of health. And this is what um Heated Rivalry has done. And for you, you are presenting so healthy, and you've created something so healthy. You've injected like medicine into the culture. And what's shocking about you is that you were a child actor.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

So it's all a lie.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

So to be, I mean, but to honestly, like you can't, you can't, you cannot fake the health that you've um embodied and exemplified to get here. Like, how can I I don't even know how to get into that? Like, how what is your like journey to such health? What and and you were Canadian too? I'm like, was it um you can't do that on television?

SPEAKER_02 15:30

I was not on that, but yes, that is Canadian.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

That was it Canadian. Alanis Morissette was on that. There was something about that show. I was a little young, and I was like, I had like early sexual feelings because it was like tweens, and I was like, I'm like one of them. I don't know. I remember being like weirdly like horny as a kid watching. Oh, you can't do that on television. With Alanis. Yeah, yeah. Fully Shane in that moment. Put me in that locker for sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Um that's your like bully me. That's your bully me instincts.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Bully me. Yeah. Um, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Um I don't like it, but I love it.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, yeah. Um, sub is dom. Anyway, um, so what's how the fuck did you get into acting and how'd you survive being a child actor in the 90s?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

My father was a pr my father's past, but he was a producer. He was a pretty big producer in Canada, but he wasn't when I started acting. So my parents, it's kind of a weird. My parents were teachers. When I was like 18 months old, we moved to China uh and lived there for like uh for a minute, like almost two years. He started writing for a British film uh like magazine, like long form kind of essays about Chinese cinema while we were living in China. And they got published, and um, and then he started working as a publicist when I was a kid. Like he was teaching film briefly, but then he worked as a publicist and then as a marketing guy, and then kind of moved up in one company in particular that made children's films. So he had friends in the industry, and so the first gig I ever had was uh doing a favor for a friend of my dad's. Uh, I was four. I did a yogurt commercial, Yo play, if you must. I was the banana kid. Yellow had to eat banana. I was in yellow, had to eat banana stuff. And I loved it. I loved the camera, I you know, that kind of thing. And then when I was six, I when I was six, I got my first like actual partner thing. And I grew up in Montreal, which is a largely French city with a very small English minority. Um, and yet it was a tax shelter place where people come and shoot all kinds of what was then called Euro pudding garbage, like largely garbage, but co-production stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Um Euro pudding? Euro pudding is what people called it, because it would be like it'd be like a little money from Italy, a little money from Germany, a little money from England, let's shoot it in Canada. And it's like families where it's like Marcello Mastraiani is the dad, and the son is like the guy from Chariots of Fire. And the fact that they don't speak the same language doesn't seem to bother anybody.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

And they'll dub someone later, right? Like it's like a lot of that. Uh and um and so I was listening, I was like the kid in a lot of those things. Right? You need a son, you need a uh usually, let's be real, a child to be kidnapped. That's often what happens to you in these situations.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Setting you up to for queer cinema and television. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

I have been I I wrote this into you for for Sophie and Elise for Rose's character to say, like, I had also Sophie, I was like, how many times have you been kidnapped in movies? She was like, Oh, I don't think that many. Four times. I was like, that's a lot. Just so you know, that's a lot of times. And she was like, Why? How many times do you? I was like, Well kidnapped and trafficked. I don't know, we're in like it's happened. Like, it's happened a few times. It definitely happens more if you're a girl in these things. But then I so then I just worked all the time, and I ended up just working a lot and a lot, and I did a bunch of TV shows. I was on a French soap.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Wow. Um, and then did you do like tutoring?

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yep. I mean the laws relaxed back then. This was the 80s. So we'd do tutoring, people would try to shoot in the summer. There was a lot of like, you're good, right? You're a smart kid. A lot of that kind of stuff. You're a big reader. Keep reading, big reader.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

When I was 12, I got the lead role in a studio movie. And so then that kind of changed my career. If you can call a 12-year-old having a career, a career. And then I started working out of LA more, and I did like a you know, I did a kind of variety of things, uh, movies, none of which were wildly successful, but like, you know, some interesting things here and there. But I was a teenager in those Miramax years in the 90s, and I did a a few of those. I was in that world. And the hard thing about being a teenager in the business is that adults sexualize you and you don't see it coming because you think you're a kid, and then they're trying to fuck you, and you're like, I don't even know what this means, you know. And like by the time you realize what's happening, you're already in a pretty sticky place.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

And like women are um in this situation in the industry, outside of the industry, in any context. Constantly any context. And I um in the past few years, I've been like sort of noticing uh men in my like my peers who were actors as kids, uh, seeing that experience reflected in them and that sensitivity toward women heightened compared to men who are not placed in that situation.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

I I think it does happen to actors in a way that boy male actors in a way that doesn't happen to the general male population. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

That's right. Um, so you said you made your first film at 21 or 22?

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, 22.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Like this sounds like perhaps maybe I'm idealizing it, but it sounds like this vehicle out of that child actor realm.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, it kind of was. It was like me taking some kind of control, right? It was like I I didn't want to, I didn't act in it, didn't want to act in it. Um, and yeah, made it for like 60 grand.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Uh left LA, moved back to moved to Toronto. I'd never lived there before. I'm from Montreal. And yeah, we made it, it was called Twist, and my roommate, uh, who I uh who was my my closest friend at the time, Nick Stahl, who's a brilliant, brilliant young actor, uh starred in it. We went to Venice, which was really cool. Like it did really well for a very bleak little little movie. That was $60,000 by the way. You know, $60 grand.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

And uh Strand released it, which was very cool. Like it was all very, but like no work came of it in that sense. And then, and then yeah, I just tried to make my living writing and uh writing and directing, which is not easy in your early 20s. Nobody will hire you. Kind of like it doesn't matter. Like, I I got, you know, we got the the it's funny to call them the Canadian Oscars, but I guess they are. We got nominated for like I was not best adapted screenplay when I was 23, and like, but nobody would hire me to write anything until a friend of mine did uh named Semi Chalice, brilliant writer, um, who would go on to be the head writer of Mad Men. But she had her first show and she hired me to write an episode of her uh she had a show called Um The 11th Hour, which was about like a newsroom. Um, uh one of those like kind of sexy procedural, early twenty two thousand procedurals. Like, we gotta break the story. Like, I mean, it was really it was good, it was fun, and I learned a lot. Um, and then I made another movie when I was in my later 20s called The Trotsky, which got me like more attention. It was a comedy, and then I started getting work. Like I directed a few pilots in Canada and I started getting some writing gigs, and then Letterkenny came along, and that's kind of my trajectory.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Being that you didn't go to school, how dare you? Literally, how'd you learn how to write? And and write.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

I just read a lot. Yeah. I read a lot. I'm a huge reader. I learned And just a lot of scripts? Like, how'd you learn how to write scripts? Oh, I mean, I just read it. All I knew how to read was scripts. Like I had been reading learning lines since I was six years old. Wow. So like by the time I was like writing scripts, I think I must have read thousands of scripts.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Wow. And also, when you made Twist, was were you like, I'm done acting?

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Was that your No, because I had to go back to acting because nobody would hire me after to do anything else afterwards. Then I did like a bunch of movies after that and a miniseries. But I I wanted to be. I wanted to be done auditioning. Auditioning to me is torture. And even when it goes well and when I liked it, and I was like, God, that feels great. I was like, this is humiliating. I don't like doing it now. I don't like to do it with actors. I like to see tapes and then I like to talk to people. I don't want to audition people in person. It makes me cringe. I don't mind doing like a chemistry read where there's two actors and they're doing a thing because it feels a bit more like a workshop. Though I'm acutely aware of like, I don't also want to ask people to work for free, right? So it's like this is like great, in, out, get out of here. Thank you for your time. And that's it. Because I definitely know people that fucking wildly abuse that too. Like, let's do this for six hours. It's like, go fuck yourself. This is a job. How dare you work an actor for six hours for free? Like, no. Learn your mind, you know what I mean? Like, learn what you want. You don't get to do that. This is, I'm really, I think the best thing that comes from being a child actor is I'm like, this is a workplace. This is a work environment. I am not interested in treating it any other way. It's a work environment for everybody involved. And it should be safe and it should be respectful, and there should be absolutely no abuse, and nobody should be the circumstances under which somebody should be overworked should happen once in a blue moon. This should never be regular, it should never be normal. We shot 10-hour days on heater rivalry. I do not, I like if we any second we go past 10 hours, I'm like, what did I do wrong?

SPEAKER_01 24:20

What's happening?

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Because we need to have a plan in our heads. And I also say this this is a thing from my dad, a great line in my dad's, too. Yeah, too. You look at a call sheet and you'd be like, This is what we're doing today. The amount of time it takes is up to you. And I love that. I'm like, he's absolutely correct. Um, but also it was like the set is not a time for a philosophical conversation about anything. It is a time for execution, right? And I always say to actors, everybody, to cinematographer, whoever, like all the creative elements of the show, like, I want to talk to you about this as much as you want to talk to me about it, but not on the day. On the day we're there to do it, right? And we can have little logistics, like, don't get me wrong, where do I go? How fat faster, slow? It's a time for faster, slower. It's not a time for like, why am I in this room? It's like, are you fucking serious? You're uh no, get in the room.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah, yeah. Yep. Oh my God, that's so nice. And you're really like, by clarifying the health of it, actually, it you the the abusive experiences in my mind are like flooding.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Don't they? That's what I do too. I think of like the thousands of times I've been like either treated like garbage or worse treated with neglect or like watch dumb things happen for hours and hours where you're like, we're just sitting here. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

The abusive time, I would say, is the number one abuse onset.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Because it acts like it, it's the it's combined with the idea that the director is God, which I fucking hate, and that there's a genius at play. P.S. There almost never is. Uh it's like it's like this isn't where I come to work, where it's not where I come to witness your extraordinariness.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

That's exactly how that's exactly what I'm thinking. Because also, like as a stand-up, you know, the stage is the analogy for life. People have dreams. I'm on stage naked or whatever. And like, you know, I see this analogy all the time. And when a set is someone's stage to act out the genius they think they are, it is so exhausting. Everyone's held hostage under their performance, and it's really abusive.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

You're so right. And it is, boy, is that a good word for it. What a performance. Cameras aren't rolling, but we're performing. Guess what?

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Cameras are pointed that way. Oh, yeah. Why are you performing here now? Yeah. What's your healthy practice? And do you stop working? Are you a fa like are you able to stop and pause and so lately?

SPEAKER_02 26:31

No. I don't have the time to stop working, but I do try healthy practices. Uh two years ago, I stopped drinking. I went into recovery. And uh part of my healthy practice now is is sobriety. Like that's a big part of trying to be healthy for me and the lessons I learned there, which were really good. My drinking was pretty out of control. And uh therapy is part of my healthy practice. Um walking my dog, which I know sounds silly, but is actually very therapeutic to me. Reminding myself that I do need alone time. Like I live with my boyfriend, but I I also I require recharging alone time. It's what I need for my soul. But yeah, I I really like I don't think I was great at it. Uh I think that rehab really helped me. I did an outpatient where I just went into essentially a group therapy three times a week, and it was incredibly helpful. And the most helpful, I'll tell you, the most helpful thing that I learned about uh the lesson that I learned in that was um de-centering yourself. Because one of the big things that I think people have problems with, with like AA and stuff like that, is God talk, right? And I and I get that. I I I'm not a believer in literature. Literal God talk? Yeah, like there's a lot of God. There's a lot of God in it, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

In AA?

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Oh yeah, yeah. There's a lot of God. Oh there's a lot of God. One of the steps is giving yourself over to a higher power, right? And so I tried to use my my uh deeply, as you pointed out, uneducated brain. Uh my brain that barely has a high school diploma. But um, so I was like, God, I'm I was like, I don't know that I'm gonna believe in God. But what is the function of God in recovery? Like, what is the what is this doing if this was a short story? It's a game I play a lot with myself. If this is a short story, why would I have mentioned that, right? Like, I and I like short stories because the premise of that to me is that every word counts, every moment matters in a short story. There's never filler, there's never fat. You don't just do a thing with a character. You're like, no, no, everything has to matter. And so the idea to me of what God does in that sense is God is the act of decentering yourself. You can't be the center of the universe if you believe in God. You have to join the firmament. So you have to acknowledge that you are one of many and that you are not the focal point. And that does a thing to the brain that I think is actually really uh really important and really powerful. And it does require, I think, like most good lessons, you have to remind yourself of this all the time. Like I feel like I learned the same lessons writing every time I write, and then I feel super stupid where I'm like, I knew this, and then I forgot because in the middle of writing, I was like, no, this is perfect. It's definitely not. Uh and yeah, and that and that helped that has helped me enormously.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

What's next for you? I mean, more as much or as little as you can say.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

More more heated rivalry. Um, and yeah, it's been announced I sold a show I sold another show to uh the good people at Netflix. Um Straight to Production. Straight to production. Yeah, a show called What is it, the 20s? Jesus Christ. Straight to production because it's a vaudeville show. We've been practicing for years. Copyright, Netflix. Uh yeah, it's about it's a joke. It's called Alexander, and it's a show about uh Aristotle tutoring Alexander the Great before he becomes king. And the Aristotelian method of science is still I mean, they're they're still in practice. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

That's so cool. It's like the fucking Bible when you put it like that. Yeah. Thousands of years old and kind of pre-Bible.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Damn. No offense, God. Nice draw, God, am I right?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Dunkin' on God over here, but after the success of heated gravelry. After the success of heated gravelry, you can say that.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

That's right. I can. You just see my deal. I have a first look with God. And an overall with Aristotle.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

But you're also your knowledge of sports is heated right.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

It's hockey. Anyway, it is hockey-based. I do actually have a very serious knowledge of hockey.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Copy that.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

End of list.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Canadians do, right? That's like I think especially people from Montreal.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

We are like, it is our religion. The first the article that made me option these books was a Washington Post article, Heat of Rivalry. I'm I'm back to that. Uh was a Washington Post article about uh romance and books. And it was like romance is a billion dollar industry. It was a Washington Post article. Romance is a billion-dollar industry. Why doesn't anybody take it seriously? And then the sub-headline was, and why are hockey romances the most popular, uh the best-selling uh romance sub-genre on Amazon? And then the first paragraph had featured the joke of hockey, America's eighth favorite sport, and which is a hundred percent true, right? Like nobody here gives up. I mean, I think there are pockets of there are pockets where it matters in the Northeast, maybe the Great Lakes areas, if you're from Minnesota or Michigan or places like that. But like in general, the hockey team is not, you're not in danger of recognizing most members of the Dallas Stars when they're in Dallas. It's like that's a football town, right? Like or a basketball town or baseball. Like there's just so many other big options before that.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

That article made you take on Heat of the Bank.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Maybe option it because I was like, oh my god, are they gonna talk about my book? And they did. And then I was like, if somebody else options this book, I'll feel crazy.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Uh-huh. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

I was like, because then I'm gonna end up auditioning for this job and being like, I should be the guy to make it, instead of me being like, I should just have these books.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Sexy. You just have been um since before he did rivalry, during after you remain this person with such uh like sharp spear of knowing yourself and knowing what the art needs to be. It's fucking incredible to witness and be a part of. I'll stop there. Thanks so much for talking to me today. What a treat. Thank you for having me. Oh my god, Jacob Tierney is a beautiful genius. A beautiful genius. Wow, I'm just all lit up. Oh my gosh, my heart, my mind, incredible. So this has been an exclusively human-made production. This is a Star Pix production. I want to thank my creative producers today, and that is David Rokland, Annika Carlson, Kelsey Kylie, Glenis Mahar, and Madeline Kim. I want to thank the people who made this episode look and sound so damn good. I'm talking Louise Nestrella. I'm talking Kevin Deming and Julia McGill. It's not okay. I'm naming you Julia McGill. And uh Ramo Ventura made the opening musical sting and these beautiful freaking graphics. And Tova Liebowitz is our editor who fucking rocks. And uh the outro music, Don Hur is one of my favorite bands right now. Check them out. Listen, if you like this show, subscribe if you are watching this show because it's so beautiful. Uh, like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, it makes a difference. And um, have a good day. Love ya.