I'm sure you guys have heard this a lot today, but I just loved the movie so much.
I know. I know. You guys go back a little while.
It must have been so much fun making this film together.
Yeah, it was.
I think it spoiled both of us for a long time to come.
I think, like, I don't know.
Neither one of us has really been the lead in a movie.
Before, right?
And then to, like, be a lead in a movie with my best friend is like,
it's it's it really sucks for every movie that we do
moving forward, you know, I mean, it was a big reason
we wanted to do the movie at all, honestly.
You know, it was I think conventional wisdom says that, like,
we probably go in for a lot of the same parts, but would we?
I don't think we ever either of us thought we would co-lead a movie together.
And so this is really a dream come true.
If you're worried about how this might impact your relationship
with cinema going forward, you just have to make a sequel.
Then you get. Yeah.
So true. Yeah.
I mean, Howie's such a great character.
I mean, Joel, did it feel a little bit like you were giving Bowen
a gift with this because he's such a great coach
and a great project and was a chance to showcase this remarkable
talent of a dear friend almost to like you were saying here, this this is me.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, I don't necessarily know if I see this as giving him a gift.
It it's a quite difficult part, but I was really I'm proud
to have given him a platform to show just how much range he has as a performer
and what he has to offer because like,
I think, you know, everyone loves the iceberg.
I love the iceberg. Everyone loves the iceberg.
We know he can do that.
But I think he gets to show so many different sides of himself in this movie
and prove that he is like an actual, like, triple threat powerhouse star.
I can't dance.
But yeah, but then, you know, I only see it as a gift
for the exact reasons that Joel just said.
I mean, I feel like all he wants as a performer or as an artist
is just to, like, show some something resembling, like, your complete self.
And I feel like I think that's what I was given.
And Joel and Andrew [Ahn] both kind of shepherded that so gracefully. And,
I mean, I was I was very held for lack of a better word.
I mean, I think I loved about this was that kind of combination
between comedy and pathos.
And it just was so seamless,
the kind of balance between the two remarkable balance.
Does that come quite naturally to you both, do you think, or is it
something you had to kind of be
quite consciously aware of as you were making this?
I think it's something that is really ingrained in what I've done
for as long as I've been writing and as long as I've been doing comedy.
Like I started as a playwright. That's what I studied in undergrad.
That's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to write write plays, and I wanted to work
and I wanted to be in the next the wire room or something like that.
That's what I wanted.
And then slowly, like as I was writing you know, from the time I was in college,
people were like,
This is actually really funny and deeply fucked up at the same time.
And so the combination of the two has always been really interesting.
To me as both a writer and then as a stand up comic too.
I think I,
I like, I enjoy sort of mixing the two and exploring the two at the same time.
I mean, obviously, you know, visibility is so important at the moment.
You have teenagers who are gay who are wanting to know what the world hope.
It's a great help in letting people know they're not alone.
Was that part of the reason why you guys were so keen to
to put this story out into the world?
Yeah, I mean, it definitely is.
It's one of those things where it's like a sort of
nice fringe benefit of of making the movie.
I really did make this movie sort of selfishly so that I could be
in a movie with my best friend and, you know, get to do that.
And everything that comes out of that
is just it's icing on the cake, really.
I'm so happy if people see themselves in the movie, but
I just really wanted to tell this story so that I could do it with Bone.
Yeah, but I think maybe what the movie is kind of modeling for people is
you know, clear friendship sort of in person.
I feel like
you're not queer without community, you're not queer without connection.
And I feel like as two people who are still terminally online,
I think we still have been very in touch with the idea
of being in the same space as each other or with people that we love
and I think hopefully this this kind of like
gives some sort of blueprint to like, what a friendship looks like as queer people.
And just very finally, I mean, I remember even just I love to even just to start
the playing around with the 20th Century Fox theme song
reminds me of my favorite YouTube video,
which is someone playing it really badly all that kind of stuff.
So I just wondered, I always might go to video
whenever I'm feeling a bit crap, I just go, it's a huge waste.
Like 20 seconds.
What's your favorite quick go to?
Oh, I know what it is.
I know you wait.
What do you think it is?
I think it's, it's a news blooper.
It's a news blooper from the US where the, the anchor is talking and she says,
next up, we have this man who
climbed the climbed the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.
But he's gay.
He's gay. I'm sorry. Excuse me.
He's blind. He's blind.
So we were just we were really I think we we recite at multiple times on set.
Yeah, but yeah, check it out is one of the funniest videos online.
Literally going to go do that right now.
Thank you so much for your time today, guys.
Much appreciated.