3x Daniels enjoy Cheesecake Factory takeout and talk potential for a Swiss Army Man revival on Broadway and the relentless optimism of Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Other topics covered include: navigating the technical logistics of the Butt Plug Fight Scene, child stunt doubles, Kwan’s mom’s meatballs, overblown headlines, Radcliffe’s karaoke track of choice (“The Real Slim Shady”), the Equus poster in his parents' bathroom, hating school but loving learning, hyper-specific personal email addresses, the influence of anime, the history of birds being witnesses in murder trials, and nominal predestination.

Episode Transcript

Daniel Kwan: All right. You go first.

Daniel Scheinert: Hello, listeners. I'm Daniel Scheinert.

Daniel Kwan: And I am Daniel Kwan.

Daniel Radcliffe: And I'm Daniel Radcliffe.

Daniel Scheinert: We're all named Daniel.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's easy.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: This is our podcast.

Daniel Scheinert: No, this is the A24 Podcast.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yes. We are talking on the A24 Podcast. So, now we're in a studio in Highland Park. I skated here. Did you bike here?

Daniel Scheinert: I drove. I was running errands.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay.

Daniel Scheinert: But normally, I bike everywhere.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. This is just down the street from where we live.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, nice.

Daniel Kwan: Thank you for coming to our neighborhood.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, no. Thank you for... It's very close to where we're filming.

Daniel Kwan: Cheesecake Factory was brought to the table.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes. Thank you for that.

Daniel Scheinert: Are you a fan of that restaurant?

Daniel Radcliffe: Huge. I feel like –

Daniel Scheinert: What a surprise. I didn't know that when we got our friend to buy cheesecake and bring it to the interview.

Daniel Radcliffe: I feel like it's one of those things that Americans see as... I don't know. People enjoy it ironically or something, and people are kind of weird about it or think it's... I'm like, "It's fucking amazing." It's got the biggest menu in the world.

Daniel Kwan: Yes, this is true.

Daniel Radcliffe: It has cheesecake the size of your arm. Yeah. I love it.

Daniel Kwan: Sometimes you meet someone, you're like, "Oh, this person's like me. We're of the same world. We have a very similar sensibility," and then you said one thing that just made my antenna go up like, "Wait a minute." We were talking about ordering burgers, and you said, "Well, we got to have American cheese on the burgers," and that's totally the opposite of my household. It's like American cheese is disgusting, and we put cheddar cheese on them. I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting." So, that was the beginning of me realizing slowly –

Daniel Scheinert: You love American cheese.

Daniel Kwan: I mean, I love all cheese. My wife is –

Daniel Scheinert: You love junk food and fancy food.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly. I do everything. I don't discriminate, but my wife is so anti-American cheese that we never have it in the house, and I thought, "Harry Potter, very fancy. He would never want American cheese." Someone on your team let us know that your favorite restaurant was Cheesecake Factory because your birthday was coming up, and Jon Wang, our producer, was like, "I got the best gift idea. We're going to give you a VIP tour of the tasting kitchen, the experimental tasting kitchen at Cheesecake Factory." Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Did you do that? Did you go to the tasting kitchen?

Daniel Radcliffe: No. I did not know that was a thing.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, man. They tried.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, they tried.

Daniel Scheinert: Wait, there was a whole behind-the-scenes thing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and honestly, I like eating there. I don't know if I would need a whole tour, but that was...

Daniel Scheinert: It probably got vetoed before it even got to you. They were like –

Daniel Radcliffe: Somebody was like, "Nah, he just wants to eat a lot. No, he doesn't need all that."

Daniel Kwan: That's it for me.

Daniel Scheinert: I think we've told a lot of people over the years –

Daniel Radcliffe: That I went there?

Daniel Scheinert: ... that you definitely went. Fake news.

Daniel Radcliffe:That's pretty funny.

Daniel Scheinert: So, you heard it here first. That's a lie.

Daniel Kwan: But now we have to make another movie together so we can all go to the tasting kitchen because personally, I actually really want to know what they're working on.

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, I would go with you guys. Yeah. If it was a private tour for my birthday, I would just feel like, I don't know, that level of attention would be weird walking into a room.

Daniel Scheinert: Okay. Guys in the booth, cancel the tour. Just call the driver, say it's off. Oops. We got to find something to talk about because we're not going to Cheesecake Factory now.

Daniel Radcliffe: So, this is also the first time I've seen you since I saw your movie. Congratulations. It is truly one of the best things I've ever seen, and it made me so happy, and it's weird to have what is now one of my favorite films made by people I know, but it's really cool.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Scheinert: Thank you.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. It was such a pleasure.

Daniel Kwan: I don't know how to respond to that in a genuine way on audio.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, no.

Daniel Kwan: I feel like –

Daniel Scheinert: Just go, "Mmm." That felt good.

Daniel Kwan: No, but it's really beautiful that people we respect like you have been responding to the film this way, but at the same time-

Daniel Scheinert: Also, knowing you, it's –

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. It makes sense because –

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. We made it being like, "People like our buddy Daniel are going to love this."

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: But the most confusing compliments are ones that come from places we don't expect like middle-age women who are like, "Finally, a menopause story that I feel seen by," and we're like, "Whoa, cool."

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. Good, good.

Daniel Kwan: For a little context, a journalist actually saw the movie and responded to it by writing an article about how... They were like, "Basically, I know this is not what the director's intention was, but watching it as a woman going through menopause, this is menopause on the screen, and I'm so here for it." So, she wrote this whole article about that.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's amazing. I feel like what I love about that movie and what I love about Swiss Army Man and just what you guys do is that you do stuff that deals with the biggest ideas that you can deal with, but it's fun. There's no reason that it doesn't have to be fun more or less the whole time. Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask about the butt plug fight scene. Just in terms of the logistics of talking that through with the stunt guys for the first time, how well did you know them? How well did they know what they were going to be doing before they got to set? I want to know.

Daniel Scheinert: Well, we can spend the whole next hour.

Daniel Kwan: I know. First of all, you were in Swiss Army Man, so you kind of know what that's like. Everything –

Daniel Scheinert: Did you ever feel like we really sprung things on you? You're like, "Put that in my mouth?"

Daniel Radcliffe: Not really. Not particularly. I feel like when I talk to people about working with you I always say that every day I would get to set with a question of how are we going to do that, and then every day it was a delightful discover of what the answer to that would be.

Daniel Scheinert: That was fun, that we didn't tell you how we were going to execute it. A lot of times, we usually weren't sure until right up until it. But yeah, that was always fun.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. It definitely never felt sprung on me as much, because also, there's no... With that character as well, it felt like we were all finding it all the time and working out what it was or should be all the time.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. We made that molding that you referenced earlier. Was that sprung on you? Did you know we were going to come in there and ask for that?

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, I knew it was... I've done molding processes before, and I don't think this ended up happening, which I did get a little sad about, was that originally... We're talking about a mold that was made of my butt, for anyone that is wondering, and the-

Daniel Scheinert: So that we could blast inhuman amounts of air through a realistic butthole. Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Right, but at one point it was talked about that there would be an actual engine put inside it. I feel like that was referenced maybe at some stage.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, right. We tried to make a rideable corpse because there was self-driving surfboards out there, and we were like, "Can we get one of those and put the corpse around it and actually make a rideable one with a butt out?"

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. It did not work.

Daniel Scheinert: It didn't work out, no.

Daniel Radcliffe: But then, I'm kind of glad that didn't work because maybe then I wouldn't have got to do as much as being actually in the water as I did, which is still one of the favorite things that I've ever done.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. That one shot was kind of magical, especially because we had the music blasting from these big speakers. I don't know if you remember, but music, and Paul was shouting on top of you, and it was actually a little scary because there's a couple moments where I'm like, "Oh, no. Are we going to drown Daniel Radcliffe?" Sometimes the wave would just hit you just right.

Daniel Scheinert: You guys were really bouncing.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly. Sometimes you'd get pulled under. I'm like, "Oh, God."

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, or Paul's going to bounce up and then land on your head.

Daniel Kwan: That was what this movie was with the... I call it the trophy fight where the... For the kids at home –

Daniel Radcliffe: Sure. Okay, sorry. I'll start referring to that way.

Daniel Kwan: No, it's okay. There's something kind of performative about the whole thing where you're like, "Okay, we have to do this very silly thing," but it takes a lot of effort. You're fighting entropy. You're spending a lot of money. There's a lot of bodies that have to be working together and collaborating to just make sure that this fight works, and you start to just forget that it's funny. It's like you start-

Daniel Scheinert: Right, and look over at the people who aren't working that hard, and they're all dying laughing, and you're like, "Oh, right. This is funny."

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, that's reassuring. Yeah, it must be. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Because it's a very technical fight scene as well –

Daniel Radcliffe: Right.

Daniel Kwan: ... on top of it, so we're like, "Okay, safety's really important. How do we create harnesses that create the right angle or the illusion of the right angle while they can fight comfortably, and if they accidentally fall, they're not going to hurt themselves?" A lot of –

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. Our props master just kept having follow-up questions about the trophies when he first came on, Josh, and we were like, "There's a lot of props in the movie. Can't we talk about something else?" and he was like, "No, this is the most complicated scene in the movie. If I get this wrong, someone will get hurt."

Daniel Kwan: Hurt. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: He was like, "There can be zero sharp edges. I need to make a trophy that looks like wood and marble that is all rubber, so we need to..." The first week of his job he was like, "We got to pick the plug so I can go make doubles," which was... It was so funny. He read it and immediately saw it was going to be hard.

Daniel Kwan: We promised ourselves we wouldn't talk too much about our own movie, but –

Daniel Radcliffe: No. I came here today with questions and stuff.

Daniel Scheinert: This is allowed.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and it is... What was the other thing I was going to ask about? Did they have any... Were they stunt guys, or were they actors as well?

Daniel Scheinert: So, Andy and Brian with the trophies in their butts are the fight choreographers, so we–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: ... found them on YouTube when we were trying to find someone to do the fight choreography because we really wanted it to be unique and Hong Kong-style, and that's what they do. They have a fan page where they –

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: ...they and their friends in Orange County just make kung fu movies.

Daniel Radcliffe: Awesome.

Daniel Scheinert: So, we brought them on and started doing the fights and fell in love with them and their work. They're so hyper and funny –

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: ... and weird. So, then we were like, "Guys, we wrote a part for you." We literally wrote that scene pretty late in the process –

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, great.

Daniel Scheinert: ... and they were like, "Oh, my god." We're like, "You're going to fight Michelle Yeoh," and they're like, "Oh, my god." We're like, "You got big butt plugs in your butts for the whole fight scene," and they did not laugh. They were not excited. They were like, "What?" They weren't sure if we were pranking them, but this is weeks in advance. You know?

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and then they spent so much more time choreographing that fight than any other fight because they were so excited about their scene. So, the final scene is... Once it's two of them, it's one minute of fighting, but the longer previews they did, it was like six minutes. They just kept... Over Christmas break they were like, "We hung out with friends. We came up with more stuff," and they sent over an even longer version of the fight, and we were like, "We have to spend a month to shoot all this."

Daniel Radcliffe: How much of what you did as well in the action of that movie is only achievable because you had stars that could really do it? Because it's awesome.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. I mean, it definitely made it more fun. I mean, I guess you could try face replacement and body doubles, but –

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, God. Yeah, but no. You'd have to be cutting so much. Yeah. It's just so cool to watch.

Daniel Kwan: That was always from the beginning... We're like, "Let's only cast people who are physical in some way," which is... Ke Huy Quan, we looked him up and we're like, "Oh, he's a black belt in Taekwondo. This is going to be perfect.

Daniel Scheinert: Which is all kicking.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: We were like, "It's sort of like nunchucks," and he's like, "I have never..." We're like, "Sorry. There's no kicking."

Daniel Kwan: Radcliffe, do you know martial arts?

Daniel Radcliffe: No.

Daniel Kwan: Okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: Not at all.

Daniel Kwan: Have you ever wanted to do one of these kind of movies?

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, if there could ever be a role for me in it-

Daniel Kwan: I feel like you're very physical.

Daniel Radcliffe: I throw myself around so happily.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: We know that you're... So, you're good at getting beat up, I guess.

Daniel Radcliffe: I'm really good at getting beaten up. I said that to somebody. We were doing a fight scene at the start of the season of Miracle Workers, and we were coming in for it, and I said to the stunt coordinator, "I love being on this side of the fight. I love getting hit. I'm really good at it," and he was like, "Okay." Then we did the first scene and he came up to me after and was like, "You were not lying. You really enjoy getting hit." One of my best friends on Potter was my stunt double, and so we hung out at lunchtime pretty much every lunchtime, and we would just do hit sells and learning how to do all that kind of stuff, and flips off... He was having me jump off porta cabin roofs and stuff –

Daniel Kwan: What?

Daniel Radcliffe: ... and do stuff that he probably shouldn't have done, but it meant the stunt department trusted me to do stuff that I don't really get to do anymore because most stunt coordinators wouldn't let... When I look back and realize what stunts I did as a child, I also realize how weird it is that I also had a child stunt... Davy was my stunt double, and he was 17, but I also had a stunt double that was the same age as me.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: He was a young gymnastical toddler

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... which, again, I don't think I've ever seen that since.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. I've never seen that. That's kind of amazing, but yeah. We said earlier that this is the kind of movie that someone like your brain would totally just love, and I think the reason why we say that is because you're a very unique person on set, or you're a very unique person in general, but the way that you... You're so curious, and you also... The way you talk, you can also keep up with me and Scheinert. We talk too fast, and there's too many ideas or whatever, and you're one of the few people who are on that level where you have so much curiosity and so many questions and whatever, which is –

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool.

Daniel Kwan: The pace of this movie is that, and...

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. Everyone kept talking about how rapid the movie was, and I didn't find it that way. The whole time I was, oh, no, it doesn't seem... Because it is, but you also do much... You know what's going on at every stage. It's such clear storytelling, and it's... Sorry. I'm going to stop talking about you, but it is also –

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. We're going to come back to it.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I mean, it's just like I like to think of myself as quite an optimistic person, and it is despite... But also somebody who realizes that life is meaningless.

Daniel Kwan: You see how awful... Yeah. You see all the awfulness, and yet, and yet.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and just the... You made a film that is, I think, the greatest case for optimism that I've seen made, and the funnest case for optimism that I've seen made, and it's the same thing with Swiss Army Man. When you get to be a part of telling a story... The way I felt about Swiss Army Man at the time was when you get to be a part of saying something about the world that you believe, but you could never have articulated in this way, that's the dream as an actor.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: Getting to be a part of telling that story that you couldn't honestly tell yourself is... Yeah, that was it.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: I really appreciate that compliment. Do you remember–

Daniel Radcliffe: Do you remember when everyone walked out of the film at Sundance?

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. Let's talk about that.

Daniel Kwan: Whoa.Can we… Have we... Yeah.I just said that. Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, because I'm just like, how did you feel about that? Because I was in my head going, "Wait. I didn't expect this." But I'd forgotten that we'd made a weird movie, I think.

Daniel Kwan: Yes. That definitely happens to us. I love that you forgot. That means you really... We brainwashed you, that means.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, but I think you just... When you see so much in something, you just expect naively that everyone will see the same things that you do.

Daniel Kwan: No, we were in a similar place where we could hear the screaming at the farting corpse moment was happening at the beginning of the movie. I could hear people yelling and screaming and laughing, and it was just all the animal noises that humans make because literally no one at Sundance knew that it was a comedy. We pitched it... We stupidly were like, "This is a drama. It's a Sundance drama with two actors you love," and then we kind of pulled this massive prank on this indie festival, and I remember being like, "I wonder, are those good sounds, or what are..." My sister even told me... My sister was sitting two seats next to me, down from me, and she was laughing, but also looked scared for me. She was screaming and laughing, but it was genuine. It wasn't like she was just forcing a laugh. She was screaming, laughing, scared all at once. I was like, "Wow. This is why we made the movie, I guess."

Daniel Kwan: I had a really hard time sleeping for the next couple nights, and I remember we were doing Q&As because, of course, you have to go through a bunch of screenings while you're at a festival, and after a Q&A, an older gentleman who was maybe in his sixties, maybe even a little bit older, he had white hair, he came up to us and I was like, "Oh, boy. What's he going to say?" and he's like, "Hey, I read all the press and I saw the headlines. Then I was so curious because I was like, what is this thing? I thought it was just going to be a silly thing, and I watched it, and I was like, this movie is about loneliness, and this movie's clearly..." He's like, "I'm listening to you guys talk at the Q&A. Clearly, you guys care about this movie," and basically, he pointed at us and was like, "Don't let the press take the movie away from you. Fight back and use your words to try to sell the movie for what it is."

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. I think he specifically liked a speech you had just given in the Q&A where he was like, "The way you talk about the movie is important."

Daniel Kwan: Not how the press... Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: So, then Dan was off to the races and he was like, "I'm going to talk about the movie my way."

Daniel Kwan: Exactly. Well, because going into the process I was like, "Let the movie speak for itself," and we tried that, and it was failing, and this guy inspired us. So, I stayed up all night that night just writing essays, just different responses, different things that I could say that would in a kind of obnoxious way make it just very philosophical and pretentious, honestly. I was like, "How pretentious can I be about this?" Because it's all real. It's all true. We really thought about all the philosophical implications of the movie, and it was fun and weird, and then slowly, things started to change, and we sold to A24, and then we won the best directing award, and it didn't make any sense to people outside of the festival, but it was kind of like... I don't know. What was your experience that week? That was–

Daniel Radcliffe: It was so clear to me that there was stuff in there that was obviously silly, and there's fart jokes, but it was so obvious to me that there was such a beautiful film in there as well that was also just fun and crazy and like nothing I had ever seen, that I was just certain, not that everyone would like it, but that it would find enough people in that room, and then I remember the day before, a couple of days before going to the festival, there was an article in Vanity Fair that was like 20 Movies from Sundance That You'll See At the Academy Awards Next Year, and we were on that list.

Daniel Kwan: Wait, what?

Daniel Radcliffe: I was like, "You don't know what kind of film we've made," because we made a really cool film, but this is not a film that the Academy is going to be like, "Cool."

Daniel Scheinert: They're not usually into boner compasses.

Daniel Radcliffe: Although naively, throughout the entire press tour, and to this day, I maintain that the soundtrack should have been nominated.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, that was the–

Daniel Radcliffe: It's one of the greatest movie soundtracks I've ever–

Daniel Scheinert: You and the soundtrack sure did a good... But the band singing this soundtrack-

Daniel Radcliffe: But Andy and... Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Andy, Robin, you.

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't know of a soundtrack that more informs a film and goes... But anyway...

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. But I just wanted them to perform it live at some award show somewhere, and for you to come out, and for us to ride you into a theatrical production of the opening number or something. You know?

Daniel Kwan: Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: That would've been... One day.

Daniel Kwan: One day, the 50-year anniversary.

Daniel Scheinert: I don't want to make a sequel, but I would put it on Broadway.

Daniel Radcliffe: Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: If financiers out there–

Daniel Radcliffe: Want to see a Swiss Army Man Two on Broadway?

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Man.

Daniel Scheinert: It's going to be like Gallagher. It's going to be like you get messy. Front row seats are a mess. It's gross.

Daniel Kwan: Actually, that sounds great.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: With the original cast. Oh, okay. This is good.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. Smell-O-Vision.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, no. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: But so haunting.

Daniel Radcliffe: But yeah. No. Then after that, I think I had... I don't remember at what point... I remember there was a midnight screening, and you guys came back from that and were like, "That was the crowd." People dug it there.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't know if that was lies to make me feel better, but that was–

Daniel Scheinert: No. There were two midnight screenings that both went great, but one of them was an unforgettable screening because an hour before the screening... Because the movie starts at midnight, so the Q&A's at 1:45 in the morning. Kwan was top five drunkest I'd ever seen him 30 minutes before the Q&A.

Daniel Radcliffe: Amazing.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and Zoe Kazan was interviewing him. We were hanging out with her and Paul.

Daniel Kwan: It was practice interviews while I was drunk.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: We were like, "Let's see how drunk he is," he she was like, "Daniel, what's your favorite food?" Do you remember what you said?

Daniel Kwan: I only remember because you've told the story so many times, but I said–

Daniel Scheinert: Well, you don't remember because–

Daniel Kwan: ... "My mom's meatballs."

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, but you were like, "My mom's meatballs," and–

Daniel Kwan: But my mom doesn't even make meatballs. I don't even know where that came from.

Daniel Scheinert: It was just you just liked how it sounded coming out of your mouth.

Daniel Kwan: I guess so.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. So, our manager Josh was like, "He can't do that Q&A. Nope, nope, nope. You got to."

Daniel Radcliffe: Did he?

Daniel Scheinert: So, I went and talked to Dan. I was like, "Hey, I think I'm going to do Q&A by myself," and he's like, "Okay, yeah. Makes sense."

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, at least you were not an unscrupulous drunk being like, "No, I must do the Q&A."

Daniel Scheinert: No, except two minutes before the Q&A–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, no.

Daniel Scheinert: ... Dan walked up to me and was like, "I feel better," and I was like, "What's up?" and he was like, "I feel a lot better," and I was like, "Tell me more," and he just very articulately described how he was feeling, and I was like, "Let's do it, bro." So, we still did the Q&A, and he did great except–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool.

Daniel Scheinert: ... he stared at the floor the whole time.

Daniel Kwan: I thought in my head, I was like, "Oh, man. I totally killed that," but then I saw a picture of myself where-

Daniel Scheinert: You're just slumped.

Daniel Kwan: ... I'm literally just... My shoulders are higher than my head. It just doesn't make any... I'm like–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, that's so funny.

Daniel Scheinert: The stress of that week was taking its toll on us in different ways.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, yeah, and then I just remember it finding people and getting the impression that the people that were loving it absolutely fucking loved it.

Daniel Scheinert: I mean, immediately, because of the backlash, it was the hardest ticket to get, which was flattering. It was just hard to know if that meant that the financiers were going to make back none of their money, and we'd never get to make another one. But I knew that people would go. I don't know. I was less depressed, but it was so confusing.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, gosh.

Daniel Scheinert: I have a new bit information that I want to put out into the world–

Daniel Kwan: Wow. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: ... which is that–

Daniel Kwan: Hot take.

Daniel Scheinert: ... my mom–

Daniel Kwan: Oh, sorry.

Daniel Scheinert: ... missed the premier.

Daniel Radcliffe: What?

Daniel Scheinert: Her flight got delayed, and so she got there 40 minutes late and just sat in the lobby listening, and watched people leave–

Daniel Radcliffe: Christ.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Scheinert: ... from the lobby.

Daniel Kwan: Jesus.

Daniel Radcliffe: Brutal.

Daniel Scheinert: I've always known this, and it's always been so sad to me. It's like, my mom just sat and watched the walkouts instead of watching the movie.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, man. That is really painful.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and by her count, it was 12 or 15 people.

Daniel Kwan: Hey.

Daniel Radcliffe: But she arrived 40 minutes late, so she missed the mass exit.

Daniel Scheinert: Well, I don't know.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's the thing. I'm sure it did feel bigger in our heads.

Daniel Scheinert: I think it wasn't that many. I think it was–

Daniel Kwan: Well, because the Eccles Theater can hold 1,300 people.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. There were 1,300 people, and she saw 12 leave, and I was like, "What?"

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: So, I think it was an overblown headline that just was viral, and that's fine.

Daniel Kwan: It worked for us.

Daniel Scheinert: People walk out of every movie.

Daniel Radcliffe: Honestly, now, I was saying other than Harry Potter, which is obviously its own special circumstance, Swiss Army Man is undoubtedly the film that I feel in the world most affecting people's lives the most out of everything I've done.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. People talk to me about it all the time, and it's about loneliness, and it's about love, and there are so many people that have referenced it in conversations to me that it's cool to go on that journey with something so quickly.

Daniel Kwan: My favorite kind of reaction to our movie is when people who loved Swiss Army Man are really disappointed in Everything Everywhere All At Once. It's a very strange–

Daniel Radcliffe: Does that person exist?

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: They're out there. Yeah. They're going to comment–

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: ... in the thread.

Daniel Kwan: There are a lot of people who love... Because Swiss Army Man's a very specific movie, and the right people, it just hits them in the are frequency, so it's... Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, that is an incredibly specific person.

Daniel Scheinert: Then there's others who because of the new one are revisiting Swissy, which a lot of times on second watch is a lot less of a shock value experience, and that's interesting to read about.

Daniel Radcliffe: My favorite reaction to it was that I think it was performed on the Russian version of So You Think You Can Dance?

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god. It is so good.

Daniel Scheinert: That's a gorgeous YouTube video. Listeners, Google this. It's a really beautiful dance piece too, which is part of–

Daniel Radcliffe: It's everything.

Daniel Scheinert: ... the Broadway experience. It's going to incorporate that kind of-

Daniel Radcliffe: It'll have to.

Daniel Scheinert: ... dialogue-free long stretches of dance. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: The reason why I've been reflecting on that night is because four months ago we just premiered our movie at South by, and it's kind of bizarre. I don't know. Radcliffe, maybe you've experienced this feeling, but I've never felt this way before. I felt so complete as a human being the night of the premiere, and it's bizarre. You're always searching for distractions, or you're always searching for something that isn't right in front of you, and we live in the age where that get puts onto the phone, so now we use the phone to scratch that itch, and it was one of the only nights in a long time, maybe my entire adulthood, where I did not look at my phone a single time. We watched the movie. It felt great. We did the Q&A, and then the rest of the night, I was just floating, and my brain kept saying, "Everyone that matters to me is here."

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: My family was there, my crew was there, and the movie did great, and I felt so alive and so... I was like, "This is peaking. This is what that feels like," and I didn't even read the reviews. I didn't know what the response was necessarily, but I was so proud of the film, and I don't know.

Daniel Scheinert: When in your career have you felt that? Have you been there yet?

Daniel Radcliffe: No, I never have. I've absolutely never had that.

Daniel Kwan: Whoa. Okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, 100%. Yeah, but that's awesome.

Daniel Kwan: What about the last Harry Potter?

Daniel Radcliffe: No, no.

Daniel Kwan: I keep bringing up Harry Potter.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, because I was a 21-year-old.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Eight movies.

Daniel Radcliffe: I was so far from a complete person then, but also, I think you experienced fulfillment, and artistic fulfillment in a way that you... I don't think it's necessarily possible for an actor to in the same way because you are communicating something to the world of your deepest self, and sometimes that happens in acting, but when you have generated the idea and told this story in this specific way, and you're feeling like the world's seeing that and receiving it in the way and getting something out of it that you wanted, and I think I have come close to that feeling. When you see your work affecting people in a positive way, it does have that, but I think knowing that one can write and direct things, I don't think I'll ever... I think I might feel that one day if I do that, but I don't think yet.

Daniel Kwan: We should talk about that later. Yeah. I want to talk about the Radcliffe directing path one day.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah. Hopefully, soon. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah?

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Well, because... Actually, before we get there, Scheinert, what was your night like then?

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Because I'm just curious now. This is fun. It's so indulgent.

Daniel Scheinert: Mine was weirder.

Daniel Kwan: This is so indulgent.

Daniel Scheinert: The premiere was great, but I was kind of shellshocked afterwards, and the Q&A was weird, and then the after party was weird again, and for me, we're going to brag about South by a lot, but the night after the premiere, we had people still in town come over to our shared house, which we did again like we did it for Swissy, because we were like, "That was so nice, to have a place that wasn't public." It was like, "Great. Let's just have people over." So, we were able to do that again, and it was pretty low-key. We had a very emotional conversation we Michelle that night, and then Ke Quan showed up with saké and–

Daniel Kwan: Five bottles of it.

Daniel Scheinert: ... he had already established this tradition where he loves to have people give speeches and drink a little bit of saké.

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: So, we were like, "Oh, we'll do that. We'll do that again." We'd done it before, but this night, very quickly the speeches got so emotional, and everyone just took turns giving emotional speeches and crying, and it felt like a wedding for a movie, except Dan and I never gave speeches. So, it was just like we were the married couple.

Daniel Scheinert: We were the bride and groom, and then everybody else. So, Jon Wang, our producer, just started sobbing, talking about how much the movie meant to him and his dad, who the movie's dedicated to, and then Steph Hsu gave a speech about what it felt like to know that little girls like her would see... I'm stealing their speeches. Nevermind. Fuck it.

Daniel Radcliffe:Do all of their speeches.

Daniel Scheinert:Anyway, but it was fucking insane. I was like, "I've never had a night like this," and there were three or four people there that night who didn't work on the movie, and they looked so confused.

Daniel Kwan: So awkward.

Daniel Scheinert: They were just like... But all the rest of us were like, "I'm so happy."

Daniel Kwan: You say it was a wedding, but it felt a little more like a frat party, which I know is a lot of bad connotations, but the way that people were chanting for people to cry, they'd be like, "Cry, cry, cry, cry!" Because it was a safe space, and everyone knew each other, that we could just be aggressively–

Daniel Scheinert: Larkin came in and gave a speech, and he showed up–

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, but he was sober. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert:He showed up sober at the door. We're like, "Come in." Everyone chanted, "Speech," and he didn't even know it was supposed to be an emotional speech night, and then he teared up at–

Daniel Kwan: Immediately.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, immediately. He was like, "I'm proud of you guys." I'm going to do an impression of–

Daniel Kwan: He said three words and started crying.

Daniel Scheinert: It was so–

Daniel Kwan: I was like, "What the fuck is this night?"

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. You just could feel it.

Daniel Kwan: Anyways–

Daniel Scheinert: So, anyway, that was, I feel like the artistic highlight of Swiss Army Man was at the end of the very first week of shooting there in Half Moon Bay, when we all went out to karaoke, it was like I couldn't believe–

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god. That was so fun.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, that's so funny.

Daniel Scheinert: I couldn't believe that we were shooting the movie. I couldn't believe it had actually happened, that you guys had showed up and we'd shot. That you'd barfed water, and it was like week one we got a lot of the weirdest gags of the whole montage out there, and I was just like, "This is real?" and the whole crew was trauma-bonded from how hard it was that week, but also, we weren't too tired, which by the end of the shoot we were like shells of ourselves, and this Friday night was–

Daniel Kwan: But we found this pub that was British-themed. Perfect.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, right? We were like, "Oh, Radcliffe doesn't like to drink. He's going to hate this British-themed pub–"

Daniel Kwan:

And doesn't want to do karaoke.

Daniel Scheinert: "... and doesn't want to do karaoke. This is going to be a terrible thing," but it ended up being–

Daniel Radcliffe: It was awesome.

Daniel Scheinert: ... so nice, and we were crowd surfing people, and you did Eminem?

Daniel Radcliffe: I did Eminem.

Daniel Scheinert: You did a rap song.

Daniel Radcliffe: Then Erin also did... I have such a distinct memory of Erin doing The Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang, and there was an old guy who ran the karaoke bar who also viewed it as his duty to... Whatever the bracketed lyrics on the karaoke were, the backup, he would do that. So, he just did all the, "I'm getting horny now," asides in the song, but incredibly deadpan throughout, and not in the energy that Erin was bringing to it.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was really–

Daniel Scheinert: I love that.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was great. It was a really good night.

Daniel Scheinert: Right, and Paul and I did Summer Lovin'.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

Daniel Kwan: No, but that was a real gift because I remember, Radcliffe, after you did it, the crew went crazy. The whole bar was like, "Holy shit. What is..." We were in the middle of nowhere, and then you sat down, and I was like, "Do you do that often?" and do you remember what you said?

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't. I dread to think.

Daniel Kwan: You said, "No, I never do that, and that was a decision," and you even said, "I know that's going to be a headline. I know this video's going to be all over the internet."

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes. I did suddenly realize I was being filmed when that happened. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah. But you said before you went up, you made a conscious choice like, "Okay, this is going to be worth it. I am going to go up there, and I'm going..."

Daniel Radcliffe: It was a lot of, not to get too deep, and I don't want to talk about this, but particularly, I was still... No, it wasn't early, but I'd been sober for a while then, and a lot of being sober, particularly going to bars being sober, is proving to yourself that you can still have a good time and do things that are enjoyable that you used to do when you were drunk, but you can do without now. So, I think that sometimes you have to be like... I definitely was... That's why Erin was up there with me, actually. He was like, "I'll go up and do that," because also, in The Real Slim Shady, of course it's long. There's a lot of repetition. It's awkward on your own.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, yeah. She danced really well.

Daniel Radcliffe: Then she was like, "I'll get up there with you."

Daniel Kwan: She's a good hype man. Yeah. No, but I thought it was a really sweet gift. It was like a weird sacrifice. Something was paid.

Daniel Scheinert: It was like a gift to the crew and the movie and–

Daniel Radcliffe: No, it was not. It definitely was not. That's the thing.

Daniel Scheinert: It was surreal.

Daniel Radcliffe: The other thing I'll say about your sets and why Swiss Army Man was one of the best experiences, was that you... The bullshit hierarchy of the industry and the way... You're good people. Everyone feels like they can contribute. Everyone is treated well. I mean, it's a special thing to get to work on something like that because you can feel that everyone loves it, and I've been very lucky in my career. That is a feeling that I get to experience a lot, and also, I'm a very enthusiastic person, and I-

Daniel Scheinert: Totally.

Daniel Radcliffe:... get to be lead on a lot of things that I do, so that–

Daniel Kwan: It trickles down. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: You set that tone. Some of that's your fault.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, it's a little bit, but I think it's just also like people are so used to... This sounds, I don't want to talk to the actors, but I think people are used to actors being over it sometimes, and so I'm just... I really, really like my job, and you guys also love getting to do it, and I feel like it just... The whole crew feeds off that, and it was a really special experience. Yeah. Yeah. I hope we get to do it again at some point.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, don't worry.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, all right.

Daniel Radcliffe: I'm still very annoyed that I was doing a play when you were doing Everything. I will curse that stupid play forever.

Daniel Scheinert: People have asked what the role was, which we can put in the podcast, which was it was to squirt the ketchup and mustard into Sunita's mouth. It was to be the hotdog dancer in the musical.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, was it? Oh, no. Oh, man.

Daniel Scheinert: Because it was one day of shooting. It'd have been so easy and fun to be like–

Daniel Radcliffe: That would've been great.

Daniel Scheinert:... "Oh, great. The incredible song on dance man." It would be so fun. You'd look on TV and you're like, "Oh, look at this musical in this world."

Daniel Radcliffe: That's the thing. If I'd even been doing the play in New York, we would've been able to I think probably work it out because the structure of time off is different. You do the same amount of shows, but you get the Monday off, so I could've flown or probably... But yeah. I was doing a very, very depressing Samuel Beckett play in London.

Daniel Kwan: I remember. That's okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: Next time, It will not happen. I will–

Daniel Kwan: We are young. We are young.

Daniel Scheinert: I have an idea for part two of the podcast.

Daniel Kwan: Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: Do you remember doing warmups every morning?

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, vaguely.

Daniel Scheinert: I thought we'd do a warmup and then part two begins. Let's cut it out if this is boring.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: Let's see if you remember shaking it out. This is when you.. This is going to be so interesting for listeners at home.

Daniel Kwan: I was going to say, this is terrible for audio.

Daniel Scheinert: No, it's going to be so great. They're going to be like, "Wow. Listen to them jiggle."

Daniel Scheinert: So, you raise your right hand, count to five, and jiggle it five times, left hand five, right foot five, left foot five, and you do it four times, four times, four times, four times four times.

Daniel Kwan: All right. I'm going to stand further away from the mic so everyone doesn't-

Daniel Scheinert: The idea is just get the blood flowing. I'm feeling kind of lethargic today, so I've just been thinking I want to shake it out.

Daniel Kwan: I know. Yeah. Also, you just did the whole damn thing.

Daniel Radcliffe: I'm doing it yeah. I'm doing the whole thing. You guys are just stopped.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, wait. Okay. Here we go. You have to count when you go.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah..

Daniel Scheinert / Daniel Radcliffe /Daniel Kwan: One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two. One, two. One, two. One, two. One, one, one, one.

Daniel Radcliffe: I had forgotten that.

Daniel Scheinert: I feel better. Thanks for indulging me.

Daniel Kwan: No, that was great.

Daniel Radcliffe: I feel like we got off track with the butt mold. We mentioned it very, very early on, but then have not been back to it, and I think that was the first time that we met in person, maybe.

Daniel Scheinert: I think so.

Daniel Radcliffe: You came to my apartment in New York, and then I bent over a box and got my balls in a sock to avoid the silicon catching onto hairs or the hair and skin.

Daniel Kwan: Yep, of course.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and then just assumed the position for, I guess... How long does it take to try? Not that long, 15, 20 minutes.

Daniel Scheinert: Do you remember who applied the Vaseline?

Daniel Radcliffe: Jason Hamer, or no. I don't remember who, but I assume it was Jason, wasn't it?

Daniel Scheinert: No.

Daniel Radcliffe: Who was it?

Daniel Scheinert: Because I remember–

Daniel Radcliffe: Was it you?

Daniel Scheinert: The way I remember is we asked–

Daniel Kwan: Was it you?

Daniel Scheinert: No.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, no.

Daniel Scheinert: This might be another apocryphal story. You're going to fact check me right now. But I remember us being like, "We don't have to do this. We can just mold a butt," and then you were like, "Well, whose butt?" and you were like, "It should be mine," and we were like, "Rock and roll. Let's do it." But Erin was there.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, great. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: So, I think the way I remember it is that Erin came in to do the Vaseline.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, I think–

Daniel Scheinert: That way, Hamer, who was our effects makeup guy on the very first time he's working with you didn't have to–

Daniel Kwan: Get too into it.

Daniel Radcliffe: Get right in there.

Daniel Scheinert: ... get right in there.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

Daniel Kwan: That's for the next movie. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and I was like, "Nice to meet you, Erin. Here's your job for the day."

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, so funny.

Daniel Kwan: I remember two other things about that. I remember above your toilet in your bathroom was an Equus poster, which I thought was very funny, and then the other thing–

Daniel Radcliffe: For context on that, I used to live in that apartment with my parents, and they're very proud of me.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: So, there's a lot of Daniel Radcliffe stuff in that apartment over the years that is not in my new place.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. But see, your parents had a sense of humor to put the Equus poster right above–

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't think it was thought that way.

Daniel Kwan: I feel like your parents are really smart, though. I think one of the things that we're so–

Daniel Radcliffe: Everyone's got blind spots, though.

Daniel Kwan: I feel like one of the funny things about you as a human being is... Everyone talks about child stars and how that is such a tricky thing to navigate, and somehow your parents understood that because your dad's a lit agent. Is that right?

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes, he's a literary agent.

Daniel Kwan: I almost feel like that's something that we've been thinking a lot about more recently, is just the ways in which process and the structures and the incentive structures that we've built in our own industry, how can we make them kinder, more human processes, and especially–

Daniel Scheinert: Well, it's like the way we treat directors can sometimes incentivize being a butthead.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: The way we treat actors and below-the-line people can be so frustrating.

Daniel Kwan: So, I have a lot of respect for your parents for knowing the dangers and then specifically carving out this is how I want my child to move through this pipeline or through this system, and it's unfortunate that that hasn't been codified. That's not a thing that's expected, in some ways.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and there's no blueprint for how to grow. I do see myself as incredibly lucky, not just with my parents, but also with the crew of the Potter films that became like a second family. I was incredibly lucky with who they were and the people I was around that were brought.. That's the thing. Film sets have a really bad reputation as places for kids to be, but in my experience, and I know in the experience of definitely some other people that I know, they found it incredibly broadening. You are introduced to a much wider range of people, certainly, than I was in a middle-class upbringing in England.

Daniel Kwan: It can be like a summer camp–

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and that's–

Daniel Kwan: ... which is what we try to set the tone for everybody, but especially kids where we're like, "You're going to learn something."

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, that's what it should be all the time. Even on serious films, there is no... Obviously, there are scenes that are intense and require... Somebody's process might require them to not be incredibly cheerful for that day or whatever, but generally speaking, we are in a fun industry and we have cool jobs, and people who go out of their way to ruin that or make the lives of people, especially... A lot of actors I don't think realize, and a lot of directors probably, I don't think the people who are at the top of the hierarchy on sets a lot of the time realize how huge an effect they can have on people's lives, because if you're with somebody for a month to three months, you can dramatically affect somebody's happiness, but if you are a dick to them every day, that will affect them, and there are...

Daniel Radcliffe: I've been really fortunate in my career to not work with too many of those people, but you hear stories a lot of the time, and it's just... Yeah. It's so frustrating because there's no need for it and it makes no one's... Yeah. It just makes no one's world better, and I don't think that... After we finish the press tour, I don't sit down and watch stuff I did back, ever. The thing you're left with is the memory and the experience–

Daniel Kwan: The experience, yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... that you had. That's ultimately the thing that you'll be thinking about on your deathbed or whatever. It's not like, "Oh, I was really great in that one scene. That was totally worth making that other person's life hell for that day."

Daniel Kwan: Totally.

Daniel Scheinert: I was just thinking about... I'm super nervous about kids on set, and then the more I've thought about it lately, I'm like, I think maybe the worst part is the press tour, not the set sometimes–

Daniel Radcliffe: 100%.

Daniel Scheinert: ... and that we just have ideas for movies, and I'm always like, "But what effect will it have on the kid to be in this movie?" and then I'm like, "Oh, the hardest part is that they're going to go back to the real world afterwards."

Daniel Kwan: School, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: I'm pretty sure I can make the set fun, but then–

Daniel Kwan: How do you protect them once they're–

Daniel Scheinert: ... when they're on–

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, in that way as well, that's why I was so lucky with Potter, was because I didn't go back to... I mean, I did go back to school occasionally, but I was always going back to filming. So, there was actually a lot of consistency, whereas if you're some other child star who is incredibly famous in one thing and then they're like, "Okay. Now you're on your own." But that's a different thing altogether, and that's really hard.

Daniel Kwan: So, you're saying either no movies for child stars, or just–

Daniel Radcliffe: Or 10.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Or they're just like a coal miner's schedule. Don't let them go home.

Daniel Kwan: Air horn.

Daniel Scheinert: Keep them working seven days a week.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I think that the press tour is the unnatural part because that's where you're developing your own identity as a kid, and suddenly you're getting this other identity that you are just getting reflected back at you from the world that you're going, "Wait. Should I be that? I'm not that. Am I that?" That's the part that'll mess you up.

Daniel Kwan: I can't imagine. It's unfair for any... Even nowadays, we're directors who made an indie movie that some people know about, and I'm feeling that as a 30-something-year-old man. I can't even imagine doing–

Daniel Scheinert: He likes to keep his age a secret.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly. I'm very self-conscious. I don't want people to think I'm old. But I can't even imagine doing that as a 12-year-old, 13-year-old. That's the thing that feels really unethical and strange.

Daniel Scheinert: Do you have takeaways for–

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, tips, hot tips for my son when I put him through this.

Daniel Scheinert: Either for the filmmakers or for the kids of, oh, this worked and is really valuable, or this doesn't. I have friends who–

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I don't know if I had to-

Daniel Scheinert: Just have a cool daddy and cool mommy?

Daniel Radcliffe: Just have a cool mom and dad. Obviously, it's easy to speak in broad terms, but treat them like your kid and not like an actor, because actors are treated in a way that is insane. So, you should not pamper that much, but be honest with them if they're being a dick in a way that a kid can be a dick. Tell them that.

Daniel Scheinert: Timeout.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, or just-

Daniel Scheinert: It's an expensive timeout, but you got to send them to timeout.

Daniel Radcliffe: Got to do it. I mean, I remember there were some... I'm trying to think if any other advice, but that's the thing. I always enjoyed it. That's the other thing that's a key, is I feel like a lot of young people get started in it and then get to a point where they're like, "I don't really like this anymore," and then some of them are in a position where they've become the breadwinner for their family, essentially, at which point there's a pressure to continue, which I never had. So, my mom and dad asked me between every film, basically, "Are you still enjoying it, and do you want to go back?"

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: I was always like, "Yes. I hate school."

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, that's great.

Daniel Kwan: I hate school.

Daniel Radcliffe: I hate school so much, and I get to not be there with.

Daniel Kwan: This is so funny. The funny thing about you is I feel like anyone who gets to know you knows you love to learn. You hate school, but you love to learn. You're so curious. You're always thinking about things and telling us fun facts.

Daniel Scheinert: My grandmother was like this.

Daniel Radcliffe: That makes me sound so annoying, telling us fun facts.

Daniel Kwan: No, no, no. No, no, no.

Daniel Scheinert: Literally the first call we had with you, we just went off on tangents about space and history facts.

Daniel Kwan: You're right. You're so thoughtful about that stuff in a way that I find striking. I won't share your email to the world, but I remember your email was so specific, and we're like, "What does that mean?" and then you told us this whole elaborate story about a historical thing.

Daniel Scheinert: Astronauts.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly. We're like, "Whoa, cool." Fun fact buried in your email.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, great.

Daniel Scheinert: I mean, about-

Daniel Kwan: Dinosaurs.

Daniel Scheinert: ... cool dinosaurs.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: It was a story about dinosaurs.

Daniel Radcliffe: All right, great. Cool.

Daniel Kwan: But I feel like to me, when I think of Radcliffe, I think of someone who loves to learn, but you happen to hate school, which–

Daniel Scheinert: It makes me think of my grandmother on my dad's side, step-grandmother, but she didn't finish high school. This sounds like an insult, not a compliment. She didn't finish high school, joined a traveling country band, and then always felt somewhat insecure about that, and it led to her just being a word nerd and loving learning, loving talking about what she's reading lately, and as a kid I was like, "Man, she's my smartest relative."

Daniel Radcliffe: I think I have... So, a teacher at school called me stupid when I was younger than you should call a kid... I mean, you should never call a kid stupid, but–

Daniel Scheinert: Was it on set?

Daniel Radcliffe: No, no. It was not. It was at the school.

Daniel Scheinert: You were in school-school.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was before I'd done anything. It was when I was eight or nine.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: That definitely, I think, was a bit of a positive–

Daniel Scheinert: You were like, "I'll show you."

Daniel Radcliffe: ... chip on the shoulder for a while. I'd be like, "I'm going to learn as much as I can. Fuck you, man."

Daniel Kwan: Drop some names. Who are we shaming? Just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Daniel Scheinert: What's this teacher's name? Let's list our least favorite teachers.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Scheinert: No. I'll talk about my favorites.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us a fun fact.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. What are you reading lately?

Daniel Kwan: What are you chewing on these days? What's something that you're just like, "Oh, God. I wish the whole–"

Daniel Scheinert: Are you deep into a podcast?

Daniel Kwan: Okay. We have a big audience here today. What do you want the world to know? What's a fun fact?

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't know. You asked about Erin's dad and how he is into anime, so I'll share a fun fact about Erin's dad, which is that he has a piano in... He plays piano downstairs, and one year on his Christmas list was a bunch of anime soundtracks.

Daniel Kwan: Whoa.

Daniel Radcliffe: We were like, "Okay, sure." We had to order them all from Japan. They're not available anywhere else.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was on CD at a time–

Daniel Scheinert: That's great.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... and he plays along to them. So, he'll on the piano just improvise it and play along the anime soundtracks, which is like–

Daniel Scheinert: Whoa.

Daniel Kwan: But do you know the story of how he got into it? Because a 65-year-old man in America–

Daniel Radcliffe: How did he get... I think he's just always been... He's a huge comic book fan, and I think eventually that just led to him hearing about some animes that he'd got into and–

Daniel Kwan: That was the gateway drug, and now he's really... Okay. That's great.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and now he's into... Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Me and Scheinert are watching Neon Genesis Evangelion right now. Have you seen that?

Daniel Radcliffe: I do not know that.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: It's like Power Rangers. It's kids piloting giant ships kind of thing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool.

Daniel Kwan: But it's about the trauma of having to carry that weight as children and-

Daniel Scheinert: It's really artsy.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. I feel like a lot of our work is so inspired by anime, which is probably why your dad connected to the movie. Yeah. I don't know if we're ever going to do an animated movie, but everything we do is basically something that should be animated, but we decided not to do. I don't know. But now-

Daniel Scheinert: What are you enjoying learning right now?

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Fun fact.

Daniel Scheinert: We all spend the podcast bragging about how we're all nerds and we're like, "Actually, we just watch–"

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yeah. No, no. No, I have one. I have one. I have one. Okay. I just sent this to... So, our friend Julia Pott, who's also British, she's a–

Daniel Scheinert: Do you know her? She's from that island.

Daniel Kwan: There's only a couple of you. But the one thing that's funny about her that makes me think of you is you guys are both American nerds, if that makes sense.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: You guys are very, in the same way that we have anglophiles here, you had... What would a USA lover be?

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, God.

Daniel Kwan: I don't know.

Daniel Radcliffe: Don't even know.

Daniel Kwan: She's obsessed with American pop culture. Anyways, me and her, we always joke that her love language is sharing fun facts. That's all she does. She's always reading and finding things–

Daniel Scheinert: During COVID, she started a weird Zoom date with a bunch of friends, and everyone would take turns giving five-minute TED Talks.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's fun.

Daniel Scheinert: It'd be like, "What are your facts for the night?"

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: It was great.

Daniel Radcliffe: Useful.

Daniel Scheinert: Very useful. Life-changing five minutes.

Daniel Kwan: No, but on the other hand, there's also incredible... Someone did a presentation about the history of birds used in murder case trials-

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, right, talking birds.

Daniel Kwan: ... as witnesses.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, wow.

Daniel Kwan: Because the birds could repeat things.

Daniel Scheinert: It was like, "Stop. Don't hit me."

Daniel Radcliffe: But also–

Daniel Kwan: Sounds like Radcliffe knows a lot about this.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, not about that, but just specifically animal trials, we can go down a whole... At medieval trials, all the animals are one of the funniest fucking things I ever... We did one in the second series of Miracle Workers, but it's like a very... So many pigs were tried for murder. They would excommunicate plagues of rats there would be, and they would do them all in absentia, but it would go through a court. So, there were court documents about–

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... them. Yeah. There's some very funny stuff.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Now I know what our next movie's going to be. This is really–

Daniel Scheinert: I've only just started reading this book that's A History of Sex, and it's all the weird tales about sexuality throughout history, and I just was skimming one chapter that was about impotence trials where women could only get a divorce if they could prove that their husband couldn't get it up.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: So, there was a whole thing where someone would have to come in, and she'd have to do a really sincere job trying so that–

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: ... a legal person–

Daniel Radcliffe: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: ... could sign an affidavit and be like, "Nope, doesn't work. She needs a new husband. They can't have babies."

Daniel Kwan: That's so interesting.

Daniel Scheinert: I was like, what a traumatic–

Daniel Radcliffe: That is incredible.

Daniel Scheinert: ... but hilarious–

Daniel Kwan: It's so rare that historical law is making the man feel shame. That's very fascinating.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. You don't hear about that often.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. It's very not often that way around.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. It's usually the other way around, so that's–

Daniel Scheinert: Totally.

Daniel Kwan: Your fun facts are more fun. I was going to do one about Singapore. So, Singapore has these zoning laws and this ordinance where basically, any time you build a new building, no matter what it is, whether it's a skyrise or a school, 40% of the land has to be dedicated to green spaces, which I'm just obsessed with this because LA's just like this desert, and I'm like, man, I wish that was something that we could actually do here, but you get these amazing skyrises that are just covered in greenery, and it looks beautiful, because it's all based on science where green spaces make you mentally happier, healthier, and then also cools down the whole city. It's one of the only ways–

Daniel Scheinert: Happy, healthy employees do better work.

Daniel Kwan: Sorry. Also, it feels like the only way that the urban lifestyle can be sustainable for the next 100 years or whatever. So, my whole thing I'm thinking about is, okay, if I become rich, how do I make LA, at least my neighborhood in LA, very green? Can I make this without using all the water? Because that's the other thing where it's like... So, anyways, that's where my brain is at. It's so boring, but zoning laws are so exciting.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, it's great.

Daniel Scheinert: So boring. We're like, how exciting can you make that? How can you sneak that into our next action movie?

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah. We got to just use the vegetables.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's the thing. I remember one of the most insane things you ever said was you said when we were making Swiss Army, you were like, "I hate fart jokes. I hate body humor. We hate acapella singing. We hate the song Cotton Eye Joe," and I was like, "Why did you make a movie that is just comprised of all of those things?" and you said, "Because then we know we have to make it really good for us to like it." I was like, "Wow. That seems just like the most insane way to try and do something."

Daniel Scheinert: Good luck, guys. I'm onboard, though.

Daniel Radcliffe: But great results. Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. The new movie, early on when we were writing Everything Everywhere, we were like, well, Swissy... Trying to make people cry at a fart was a really good challenge. It kept us busy and engaged the whole time. So, we're like, "This time, can we make them cry at taxes?" The first draft had a lot more taxes because we're like, "What if the audience just feels the way they feel when Rocky screams Adrian, but it's filling out the W-2 properly and having it organized and sharpening your pencil and going through the receipts, and your husband crying as you–"

Daniel Kwan: But just finding that receipt that was necessary to get that write-off that brings you down to the next tax bracket down that would save enough money so that you can actually save your apartment. You're like, "Okay." So, I read two or three books–

Daniel Scheinert: Then we follow the money, go into the local economy and the tax dollars get spent on good things like schools, and the kids are learning facts, and the audience is just sobbing as taxes make everything better.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah. It didn't work, so we scrapped that.

Daniel Scheinert: No, it never quite... Just not yet.

Daniel Radcliffe: But it's a good task, and you still... The laundry and taxes line is the line that I'm sure I speak for many people listening when I say that that's the line that broke me in the film–

Daniel Kwan: Oh, man. Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... in the best way, in a lovely way.

Daniel Kwan: That sequence... I'll say this, and then we'll stop talking about our dumb movie. But that sequence is the only sequence that I've ever... Because we love to edit as well. That's a big part of our process, and so during the pandemic, between the three of us, us two Daniels and Paul, our editor, we just took turns editing different scenes, and that scene was one of the first scenes I chose to edit because I'm like, "If this scene doesn't work, then the rest of the movie's not going to work. So, I got to make sure this works." I was just bawling, which is–

Daniel Scheinert: You just texted Paul and I. You were like, "What the fuck? I'm crying while editing," and we were both like, "What?"

Daniel Kwan: It's never happened.

Daniel Scheinert: I'm like, "Now I'm excited."

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, but it was also because the pandemic had just happened, and also, we went through four years of... There's a lot going on, and I was editing this thing, and I was like, "Fuck." Also, they were doing... The big thing was Ke and Michelle gave such a good performance that I had... It was so indulgent. I would hold onto these shots for so long and just cry and be like, "Oh, this is great."

Daniel Radcliffe: He is amazing in the movie.

Daniel Kwan: Yes.

Daniel Radcliffe: I know everyone's amazing, but what he does in terms of showing what the story is early on, the practicalities of being people from different universes, it's so good. It was so cool to watch.

Daniel Kwan: I mean, he was our Daniel Radcliffe on this set, which is a very–

Daniel Radcliffe: I will take that compliment.

Daniel Kwan: But I mean that because you were our first feature film, and on set you were this bubbly... Mascot's the wrong word, but–

Daniel Radcliffe: No, I'll take mascot, absolutely.

Daniel Kwan: ... you were at the core of the energy where every... Because the first day on set, you came up and you memorized everyone's name. You knew more people on our crew than we did, actually, which was-

Daniel Scheinert: By day two.

Daniel Kwan: By day two. You knew their names better than we did, and you were going around just chatting everyone up, getting everyone to know, and-

Daniel Scheinert: We were in the woods and you'd help carry things, and people would be like, "Well, I'm going to carry... I'm not going to complain."

Daniel Kwan: So, Ke was kind of like... Ke and his wife Echo, the two of them were sort of like our spirit animals who just made everyone just feel good, giving people gifts, and Echo would cook soups and bring them to set, and it was like–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, my god. Wow. Yeah. Well, I never cooked any soup.

Daniel Kwan: I know. Exactly. Yeah. That's why we did not bring you back. But you should meet Ke because I think you guys would have a really great time. He's the sweetest.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. He is a lot like that in person. He's very similar to his character.

Daniel Kwan: Well, I do want to ask one thing just because we alluded to it. You said as an actor you will never feel that full fulfillment. I'm just curious, two questions. Where do you find that fulfillment outside of the work, and then the other things is what are your plans for if you are going to do a movie, and what are your goals with that?

Daniel Radcliffe: So, I want to–

Daniel Scheinert: Pitch it to us.

Daniel Radcliffe: I want to write and direct something. I think I've never experienced the type of fulfillment you were talking about specifically, which is, I think, creative. I think I get a similar feeling from an insane day at work, and actually, the more chaotic the days... There were a few days on the Weird Al movie–

Daniel Scheinert: Can't wait.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... that was one day where we were doing a bunch of musical numbers, and it was insane, and getting home feeling like you've done a good job and that you have maybe done something that... If I'm good... I'm never going to look at my acting and be like, "I'm the best," but the thing that I think that I am good at is being on set and being able to-

Daniel Kwan: Totally.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... go in. If you have a really demanding day, I will not be the thing that slows you down.

Daniel Scheinert: And you care about the story that's being told.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

Daniel Scheinert: Like you were saying earlier, you're invested in–

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and I do care about the end product. As much as I think it's important that everyone has a nice time doing it, what it turns out like is very important to me, obviously, and so I think from feeling like you've done something that used all the skills you have, and doing it in a very intense way.

Daniel Scheinert: Can you spoil one gag from the day that was the most exciting?

Daniel Radcliffe: They weren't really gags. Yeah. No. It was all just like it was–

Daniel Scheinert: There was one gag you told me about in Austin, but no. That's just been stuck in my head, you coming out of an egg, but it-

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Censor, bleep, bleep, bleep.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bleep, bleep, bleep. Something cool.

Daniel Scheinert: I'm a huge Weird Al fan. I can't wait.

Daniel Radcliffe: You're going to enjoy it.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I just want to direct one day because I feel like I love film crews, and I love being on set, and I feel like being a director and getting to lead a set and getting to make a crazy decision every second of the day seems really exciting.

Daniel Scheinert: Swiss Army Man wouldn't have worked if you and Paul weren't so smart. You guys just–

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, Paul is ridiculous. Yeah. Paul's insane.

Daniel Scheinert: The four of us were... But you guys came in and you were like, "We're going to help."

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, man. That's really–

Daniel Scheinert: That's so valuable.

Daniel Radcliffe: I did not–

Daniel Scheinert: It makes so much sense that his movie turned out so wonderful and that yours is also going to.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, thank you. We hope so.

Daniel Kwan: Well, I think actors have this great advantage, which is why you're seeing so many actors and actresses become directors and doing a great job, is they get to see 10, 20 different directors work and see the differences, pick and choose what they think works best for them, and directors don't get to do that. I don't get to see what other people are doing. It's like kind of cheating. I'm just kidding.

Daniel Radcliffe: Not just with directors, but with every department. Actors are actually the best located person on set to learn about everyone's job, more or less, and they don't.

Daniel Scheinert: Except editing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Except editing, yeah, and the production side. You're right. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: My friends who are actors, once they get in the edit, they're like, "What is this? What do I..."

Daniel Radcliffe: What now? Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: I will say just before you go do your feature, do one short film just so you can see what the ripple effects are of certain decisions on set, how it effects the edit, because I think that's one of the biggest things that will save you time and emotional–

Daniel Radcliffe: Exactly.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: Or just go and ask Eric to let you just edit some of Weird.

Daniel Radcliffe: Weird.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. You're like, "I need to learn this." Let's do a warm-down exercise.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah. How does that go?

Daniel Scheinert: So, how about three second in through the nose, three seconds out through the mouth, and we're going to do it three times.

Daniel Radcliffe: Okay. It's going to be great.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. No laughing.

Daniel Radcliffe: This is going to be so creepy in people's ears, guys.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, I know. Now really close to the microphone.

Daniel Kwan: They should add some really nice sound bath music here.

Daniel Scheinert: One last breath. Now see who can eat the cheesecake fastest. Cool.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Scheinert: Thank you.

Daniel Radcliffe: Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Scheinert: Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Kwan: This has been–

Daniel Scheinert: Daniel, great job.

Daniel Kwan: Thank you. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Scheinert: It was really nice talking to you, Daniel.

Daniel Kwan: All right. Well, until next time, on our next episode of... What do we call this?

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, you wanted to call it Nominal Predestination.

Daniel Kwan: Nominal Predestination.

Daniel Scheinert: We didn't do that talk. We have a whole podcast where people with the same name would meet and talk to each other about their similarities and differences.

Daniel Kwan: Nominal Predestination. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: But we'd have to have the same last name.

Daniel Kwan: Speaking of fun facts... Okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: Nominal Predisposition is a fascinating thing.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Imagine all the other Daniel Radcliffes–

Daniel Scheinert: Teaser.

Daniel Kwan: Sorry.

Daniel Scheinert: Cut.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. The end. Bye, guys.

Daniel Scheinert: All right, bye. Goodbye.

Daniel Radcliffe: That was a natural wrap-up.

Daniel Kwan: Very natural. I think the story too is we should hang out way more often.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

3x Daniels enjoy Cheesecake Factory takeout and talk potential for a Swiss Army Man revival on Broadway and the relentless optimism of Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Other topics covered include: navigating the technical logistics of the Butt Plug Fight Scene, child stunt doubles, Kwan’s mom’s meatballs, overblown headlines, Radcliffe’s karaoke track of choice (“The Real Slim Shady”), the Equus poster in his parents' bathroom, hating school but loving learning, hyper-specific personal email addresses, the influence of anime, the history of birds being witnesses in murder trials, and nominal predestination.

Episode Transcript

Daniel Kwan: All right. You go first.

Daniel Scheinert: Hello, listeners. I'm Daniel Scheinert.

Daniel Kwan: And I am Daniel Kwan.

Daniel Radcliffe: And I'm Daniel Radcliffe.

Daniel Scheinert: We're all named Daniel.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's easy.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: This is our podcast.

Daniel Scheinert: No, this is the A24 Podcast.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yes. We are talking on the A24 Podcast. So, now we're in a studio in Highland Park. I skated here. Did you bike here?

Daniel Scheinert: I drove. I was running errands.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay.

Daniel Scheinert: But normally, I bike everywhere.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. This is just down the street from where we live.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, nice.

Daniel Kwan: Thank you for coming to our neighborhood.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, no. Thank you for... It's very close to where we're filming.

Daniel Kwan: Cheesecake Factory was brought to the table.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes. Thank you for that.

Daniel Scheinert: Are you a fan of that restaurant?

Daniel Radcliffe: Huge. I feel like –

Daniel Scheinert: What a surprise. I didn't know that when we got our friend to buy cheesecake and bring it to the interview.

Daniel Radcliffe: I feel like it's one of those things that Americans see as... I don't know. People enjoy it ironically or something, and people are kind of weird about it or think it's... I'm like, "It's fucking amazing." It's got the biggest menu in the world.

Daniel Kwan: Yes, this is true.

Daniel Radcliffe: It has cheesecake the size of your arm. Yeah. I love it.

Daniel Kwan: Sometimes you meet someone, you're like, "Oh, this person's like me. We're of the same world. We have a very similar sensibility," and then you said one thing that just made my antenna go up like, "Wait a minute." We were talking about ordering burgers, and you said, "Well, we got to have American cheese on the burgers," and that's totally the opposite of my household. It's like American cheese is disgusting, and we put cheddar cheese on them. I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting." So, that was the beginning of me realizing slowly –

Daniel Scheinert: You love American cheese.

Daniel Kwan: I mean, I love all cheese. My wife is –

Daniel Scheinert: You love junk food and fancy food.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly. I do everything. I don't discriminate, but my wife is so anti-American cheese that we never have it in the house, and I thought, "Harry Potter, very fancy. He would never want American cheese." Someone on your team let us know that your favorite restaurant was Cheesecake Factory because your birthday was coming up, and Jon Wang, our producer, was like, "I got the best gift idea. We're going to give you a VIP tour of the tasting kitchen, the experimental tasting kitchen at Cheesecake Factory." Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Did you do that? Did you go to the tasting kitchen?

Daniel Radcliffe: No. I did not know that was a thing.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, man. They tried.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, they tried.

Daniel Scheinert: Wait, there was a whole behind-the-scenes thing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and honestly, I like eating there. I don't know if I would need a whole tour, but that was...

Daniel Scheinert: It probably got vetoed before it even got to you. They were like –

Daniel Radcliffe: Somebody was like, "Nah, he just wants to eat a lot. No, he doesn't need all that."

Daniel Kwan: That's it for me.

Daniel Scheinert: I think we've told a lot of people over the years –

Daniel Radcliffe: That I went there?

Daniel Scheinert: ... that you definitely went. Fake news.

Daniel Radcliffe:That's pretty funny.

Daniel Scheinert: So, you heard it here first. That's a lie.

Daniel Kwan: But now we have to make another movie together so we can all go to the tasting kitchen because personally, I actually really want to know what they're working on.

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, I would go with you guys. Yeah. If it was a private tour for my birthday, I would just feel like, I don't know, that level of attention would be weird walking into a room.

Daniel Scheinert: Okay. Guys in the booth, cancel the tour. Just call the driver, say it's off. Oops. We got to find something to talk about because we're not going to Cheesecake Factory now.

Daniel Radcliffe: So, this is also the first time I've seen you since I saw your movie. Congratulations. It is truly one of the best things I've ever seen, and it made me so happy, and it's weird to have what is now one of my favorite films made by people I know, but it's really cool.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Scheinert: Thank you.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. It was such a pleasure.

Daniel Kwan: I don't know how to respond to that in a genuine way on audio.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, no.

Daniel Kwan: I feel like –

Daniel Scheinert: Just go, "Mmm." That felt good.

Daniel Kwan: No, but it's really beautiful that people we respect like you have been responding to the film this way, but at the same time-

Daniel Scheinert: Also, knowing you, it's –

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. It makes sense because –

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. We made it being like, "People like our buddy Daniel are going to love this."

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: But the most confusing compliments are ones that come from places we don't expect like middle-age women who are like, "Finally, a menopause story that I feel seen by," and we're like, "Whoa, cool."

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. Good, good.

Daniel Kwan: For a little context, a journalist actually saw the movie and responded to it by writing an article about how... They were like, "Basically, I know this is not what the director's intention was, but watching it as a woman going through menopause, this is menopause on the screen, and I'm so here for it." So, she wrote this whole article about that.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's amazing. I feel like what I love about that movie and what I love about Swiss Army Man and just what you guys do is that you do stuff that deals with the biggest ideas that you can deal with, but it's fun. There's no reason that it doesn't have to be fun more or less the whole time. Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask about the butt plug fight scene. Just in terms of the logistics of talking that through with the stunt guys for the first time, how well did you know them? How well did they know what they were going to be doing before they got to set? I want to know.

Daniel Scheinert: Well, we can spend the whole next hour.

Daniel Kwan: I know. First of all, you were in Swiss Army Man, so you kind of know what that's like. Everything –

Daniel Scheinert: Did you ever feel like we really sprung things on you? You're like, "Put that in my mouth?"

Daniel Radcliffe: Not really. Not particularly. I feel like when I talk to people about working with you I always say that every day I would get to set with a question of how are we going to do that, and then every day it was a delightful discover of what the answer to that would be.

Daniel Scheinert: That was fun, that we didn't tell you how we were going to execute it. A lot of times, we usually weren't sure until right up until it. But yeah, that was always fun.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. It definitely never felt sprung on me as much, because also, there's no... With that character as well, it felt like we were all finding it all the time and working out what it was or should be all the time.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. We made that molding that you referenced earlier. Was that sprung on you? Did you know we were going to come in there and ask for that?

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, I knew it was... I've done molding processes before, and I don't think this ended up happening, which I did get a little sad about, was that originally... We're talking about a mold that was made of my butt, for anyone that is wondering, and the-

Daniel Scheinert: So that we could blast inhuman amounts of air through a realistic butthole. Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Right, but at one point it was talked about that there would be an actual engine put inside it. I feel like that was referenced maybe at some stage.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, right. We tried to make a rideable corpse because there was self-driving surfboards out there, and we were like, "Can we get one of those and put the corpse around it and actually make a rideable one with a butt out?"

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. It did not work.

Daniel Scheinert: It didn't work out, no.

Daniel Radcliffe: But then, I'm kind of glad that didn't work because maybe then I wouldn't have got to do as much as being actually in the water as I did, which is still one of the favorite things that I've ever done.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. That one shot was kind of magical, especially because we had the music blasting from these big speakers. I don't know if you remember, but music, and Paul was shouting on top of you, and it was actually a little scary because there's a couple moments where I'm like, "Oh, no. Are we going to drown Daniel Radcliffe?" Sometimes the wave would just hit you just right.

Daniel Scheinert: You guys were really bouncing.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly. Sometimes you'd get pulled under. I'm like, "Oh, God."

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, or Paul's going to bounce up and then land on your head.

Daniel Kwan: That was what this movie was with the... I call it the trophy fight where the... For the kids at home –

Daniel Radcliffe: Sure. Okay, sorry. I'll start referring to that way.

Daniel Kwan: No, it's okay. There's something kind of performative about the whole thing where you're like, "Okay, we have to do this very silly thing," but it takes a lot of effort. You're fighting entropy. You're spending a lot of money. There's a lot of bodies that have to be working together and collaborating to just make sure that this fight works, and you start to just forget that it's funny. It's like you start-

Daniel Scheinert: Right, and look over at the people who aren't working that hard, and they're all dying laughing, and you're like, "Oh, right. This is funny."

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, that's reassuring. Yeah, it must be. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Because it's a very technical fight scene as well –

Daniel Radcliffe: Right.

Daniel Kwan: ... on top of it, so we're like, "Okay, safety's really important. How do we create harnesses that create the right angle or the illusion of the right angle while they can fight comfortably, and if they accidentally fall, they're not going to hurt themselves?" A lot of –

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. Our props master just kept having follow-up questions about the trophies when he first came on, Josh, and we were like, "There's a lot of props in the movie. Can't we talk about something else?" and he was like, "No, this is the most complicated scene in the movie. If I get this wrong, someone will get hurt."

Daniel Kwan: Hurt. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: He was like, "There can be zero sharp edges. I need to make a trophy that looks like wood and marble that is all rubber, so we need to..." The first week of his job he was like, "We got to pick the plug so I can go make doubles," which was... It was so funny. He read it and immediately saw it was going to be hard.

Daniel Kwan: We promised ourselves we wouldn't talk too much about our own movie, but –

Daniel Radcliffe: No. I came here today with questions and stuff.

Daniel Scheinert: This is allowed.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and it is... What was the other thing I was going to ask about? Did they have any... Were they stunt guys, or were they actors as well?

Daniel Scheinert: So, Andy and Brian with the trophies in their butts are the fight choreographers, so we–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: ... found them on YouTube when we were trying to find someone to do the fight choreography because we really wanted it to be unique and Hong Kong-style, and that's what they do. They have a fan page where they –

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: ...they and their friends in Orange County just make kung fu movies.

Daniel Radcliffe: Awesome.

Daniel Scheinert: So, we brought them on and started doing the fights and fell in love with them and their work. They're so hyper and funny –

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: ... and weird. So, then we were like, "Guys, we wrote a part for you." We literally wrote that scene pretty late in the process –

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, great.

Daniel Scheinert: ... and they were like, "Oh, my god." We're like, "You're going to fight Michelle Yeoh," and they're like, "Oh, my god." We're like, "You got big butt plugs in your butts for the whole fight scene," and they did not laugh. They were not excited. They were like, "What?" They weren't sure if we were pranking them, but this is weeks in advance. You know?

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and then they spent so much more time choreographing that fight than any other fight because they were so excited about their scene. So, the final scene is... Once it's two of them, it's one minute of fighting, but the longer previews they did, it was like six minutes. They just kept... Over Christmas break they were like, "We hung out with friends. We came up with more stuff," and they sent over an even longer version of the fight, and we were like, "We have to spend a month to shoot all this."

Daniel Radcliffe: How much of what you did as well in the action of that movie is only achievable because you had stars that could really do it? Because it's awesome.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. I mean, it definitely made it more fun. I mean, I guess you could try face replacement and body doubles, but –

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, God. Yeah, but no. You'd have to be cutting so much. Yeah. It's just so cool to watch.

Daniel Kwan: That was always from the beginning... We're like, "Let's only cast people who are physical in some way," which is... Ke Huy Quan, we looked him up and we're like, "Oh, he's a black belt in Taekwondo. This is going to be perfect.

Daniel Scheinert: Which is all kicking.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: We were like, "It's sort of like nunchucks," and he's like, "I have never..." We're like, "Sorry. There's no kicking."

Daniel Kwan: Radcliffe, do you know martial arts?

Daniel Radcliffe: No.

Daniel Kwan: Okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: Not at all.

Daniel Kwan: Have you ever wanted to do one of these kind of movies?

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, if there could ever be a role for me in it-

Daniel Kwan: I feel like you're very physical.

Daniel Radcliffe: I throw myself around so happily.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: We know that you're... So, you're good at getting beat up, I guess.

Daniel Radcliffe: I'm really good at getting beaten up. I said that to somebody. We were doing a fight scene at the start of the season of Miracle Workers, and we were coming in for it, and I said to the stunt coordinator, "I love being on this side of the fight. I love getting hit. I'm really good at it," and he was like, "Okay." Then we did the first scene and he came up to me after and was like, "You were not lying. You really enjoy getting hit." One of my best friends on Potter was my stunt double, and so we hung out at lunchtime pretty much every lunchtime, and we would just do hit sells and learning how to do all that kind of stuff, and flips off... He was having me jump off porta cabin roofs and stuff –

Daniel Kwan: What?

Daniel Radcliffe: ... and do stuff that he probably shouldn't have done, but it meant the stunt department trusted me to do stuff that I don't really get to do anymore because most stunt coordinators wouldn't let... When I look back and realize what stunts I did as a child, I also realize how weird it is that I also had a child stunt... Davy was my stunt double, and he was 17, but I also had a stunt double that was the same age as me.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: He was a young gymnastical toddler

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... which, again, I don't think I've ever seen that since.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. I've never seen that. That's kind of amazing, but yeah. We said earlier that this is the kind of movie that someone like your brain would totally just love, and I think the reason why we say that is because you're a very unique person on set, or you're a very unique person in general, but the way that you... You're so curious, and you also... The way you talk, you can also keep up with me and Scheinert. We talk too fast, and there's too many ideas or whatever, and you're one of the few people who are on that level where you have so much curiosity and so many questions and whatever, which is –

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool.

Daniel Kwan: The pace of this movie is that, and...

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. Everyone kept talking about how rapid the movie was, and I didn't find it that way. The whole time I was, oh, no, it doesn't seem... Because it is, but you also do much... You know what's going on at every stage. It's such clear storytelling, and it's... Sorry. I'm going to stop talking about you, but it is also –

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. We're going to come back to it.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I mean, it's just like I like to think of myself as quite an optimistic person, and it is despite... But also somebody who realizes that life is meaningless.

Daniel Kwan: You see how awful... Yeah. You see all the awfulness, and yet, and yet.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and just the... You made a film that is, I think, the greatest case for optimism that I've seen made, and the funnest case for optimism that I've seen made, and it's the same thing with Swiss Army Man. When you get to be a part of telling a story... The way I felt about Swiss Army Man at the time was when you get to be a part of saying something about the world that you believe, but you could never have articulated in this way, that's the dream as an actor.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: Getting to be a part of telling that story that you couldn't honestly tell yourself is... Yeah, that was it.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: I really appreciate that compliment. Do you remember–

Daniel Radcliffe: Do you remember when everyone walked out of the film at Sundance?

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. Let's talk about that.

Daniel Kwan: Whoa.Can we… Have we... Yeah.I just said that. Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, because I'm just like, how did you feel about that? Because I was in my head going, "Wait. I didn't expect this." But I'd forgotten that we'd made a weird movie, I think.

Daniel Kwan: Yes. That definitely happens to us. I love that you forgot. That means you really... We brainwashed you, that means.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, but I think you just... When you see so much in something, you just expect naively that everyone will see the same things that you do.

Daniel Kwan: No, we were in a similar place where we could hear the screaming at the farting corpse moment was happening at the beginning of the movie. I could hear people yelling and screaming and laughing, and it was just all the animal noises that humans make because literally no one at Sundance knew that it was a comedy. We pitched it... We stupidly were like, "This is a drama. It's a Sundance drama with two actors you love," and then we kind of pulled this massive prank on this indie festival, and I remember being like, "I wonder, are those good sounds, or what are..." My sister even told me... My sister was sitting two seats next to me, down from me, and she was laughing, but also looked scared for me. She was screaming and laughing, but it was genuine. It wasn't like she was just forcing a laugh. She was screaming, laughing, scared all at once. I was like, "Wow. This is why we made the movie, I guess."

Daniel Kwan: I had a really hard time sleeping for the next couple nights, and I remember we were doing Q&As because, of course, you have to go through a bunch of screenings while you're at a festival, and after a Q&A, an older gentleman who was maybe in his sixties, maybe even a little bit older, he had white hair, he came up to us and I was like, "Oh, boy. What's he going to say?" and he's like, "Hey, I read all the press and I saw the headlines. Then I was so curious because I was like, what is this thing? I thought it was just going to be a silly thing, and I watched it, and I was like, this movie is about loneliness, and this movie's clearly..." He's like, "I'm listening to you guys talk at the Q&A. Clearly, you guys care about this movie," and basically, he pointed at us and was like, "Don't let the press take the movie away from you. Fight back and use your words to try to sell the movie for what it is."

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. I think he specifically liked a speech you had just given in the Q&A where he was like, "The way you talk about the movie is important."

Daniel Kwan: Not how the press... Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: So, then Dan was off to the races and he was like, "I'm going to talk about the movie my way."

Daniel Kwan: Exactly. Well, because going into the process I was like, "Let the movie speak for itself," and we tried that, and it was failing, and this guy inspired us. So, I stayed up all night that night just writing essays, just different responses, different things that I could say that would in a kind of obnoxious way make it just very philosophical and pretentious, honestly. I was like, "How pretentious can I be about this?" Because it's all real. It's all true. We really thought about all the philosophical implications of the movie, and it was fun and weird, and then slowly, things started to change, and we sold to A24, and then we won the best directing award, and it didn't make any sense to people outside of the festival, but it was kind of like... I don't know. What was your experience that week? That was–

Daniel Radcliffe: It was so clear to me that there was stuff in there that was obviously silly, and there's fart jokes, but it was so obvious to me that there was such a beautiful film in there as well that was also just fun and crazy and like nothing I had ever seen, that I was just certain, not that everyone would like it, but that it would find enough people in that room, and then I remember the day before, a couple of days before going to the festival, there was an article in Vanity Fair that was like 20 Movies from Sundance That You'll See At the Academy Awards Next Year, and we were on that list.

Daniel Kwan: Wait, what?

Daniel Radcliffe: I was like, "You don't know what kind of film we've made," because we made a really cool film, but this is not a film that the Academy is going to be like, "Cool."

Daniel Scheinert: They're not usually into boner compasses.

Daniel Radcliffe: Although naively, throughout the entire press tour, and to this day, I maintain that the soundtrack should have been nominated.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, that was the–

Daniel Radcliffe: It's one of the greatest movie soundtracks I've ever–

Daniel Scheinert: You and the soundtrack sure did a good... But the band singing this soundtrack-

Daniel Radcliffe: But Andy and... Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Andy, Robin, you.

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't know of a soundtrack that more informs a film and goes... But anyway...

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. But I just wanted them to perform it live at some award show somewhere, and for you to come out, and for us to ride you into a theatrical production of the opening number or something. You know?

Daniel Kwan: Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: That would've been... One day.

Daniel Kwan: One day, the 50-year anniversary.

Daniel Scheinert: I don't want to make a sequel, but I would put it on Broadway.

Daniel Radcliffe: Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: If financiers out there–

Daniel Radcliffe: Want to see a Swiss Army Man Two on Broadway?

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Man.

Daniel Scheinert: It's going to be like Gallagher. It's going to be like you get messy. Front row seats are a mess. It's gross.

Daniel Kwan: Actually, that sounds great.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: With the original cast. Oh, okay. This is good.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. Smell-O-Vision.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, no. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: But so haunting.

Daniel Radcliffe: But yeah. No. Then after that, I think I had... I don't remember at what point... I remember there was a midnight screening, and you guys came back from that and were like, "That was the crowd." People dug it there.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't know if that was lies to make me feel better, but that was–

Daniel Scheinert: No. There were two midnight screenings that both went great, but one of them was an unforgettable screening because an hour before the screening... Because the movie starts at midnight, so the Q&A's at 1:45 in the morning. Kwan was top five drunkest I'd ever seen him 30 minutes before the Q&A.

Daniel Radcliffe: Amazing.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and Zoe Kazan was interviewing him. We were hanging out with her and Paul.

Daniel Kwan: It was practice interviews while I was drunk.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: We were like, "Let's see how drunk he is," he she was like, "Daniel, what's your favorite food?" Do you remember what you said?

Daniel Kwan: I only remember because you've told the story so many times, but I said–

Daniel Scheinert: Well, you don't remember because–

Daniel Kwan: ... "My mom's meatballs."

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, but you were like, "My mom's meatballs," and–

Daniel Kwan: But my mom doesn't even make meatballs. I don't even know where that came from.

Daniel Scheinert: It was just you just liked how it sounded coming out of your mouth.

Daniel Kwan: I guess so.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. So, our manager Josh was like, "He can't do that Q&A. Nope, nope, nope. You got to."

Daniel Radcliffe: Did he?

Daniel Scheinert: So, I went and talked to Dan. I was like, "Hey, I think I'm going to do Q&A by myself," and he's like, "Okay, yeah. Makes sense."

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, at least you were not an unscrupulous drunk being like, "No, I must do the Q&A."

Daniel Scheinert: No, except two minutes before the Q&A–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, no.

Daniel Scheinert: ... Dan walked up to me and was like, "I feel better," and I was like, "What's up?" and he was like, "I feel a lot better," and I was like, "Tell me more," and he just very articulately described how he was feeling, and I was like, "Let's do it, bro." So, we still did the Q&A, and he did great except–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool.

Daniel Scheinert: ... he stared at the floor the whole time.

Daniel Kwan: I thought in my head, I was like, "Oh, man. I totally killed that," but then I saw a picture of myself where-

Daniel Scheinert: You're just slumped.

Daniel Kwan: ... I'm literally just... My shoulders are higher than my head. It just doesn't make any... I'm like–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, that's so funny.

Daniel Scheinert: The stress of that week was taking its toll on us in different ways.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, yeah, and then I just remember it finding people and getting the impression that the people that were loving it absolutely fucking loved it.

Daniel Scheinert: I mean, immediately, because of the backlash, it was the hardest ticket to get, which was flattering. It was just hard to know if that meant that the financiers were going to make back none of their money, and we'd never get to make another one. But I knew that people would go. I don't know. I was less depressed, but it was so confusing.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, gosh.

Daniel Scheinert: I have a new bit information that I want to put out into the world–

Daniel Kwan: Wow. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: ... which is that–

Daniel Kwan: Hot take.

Daniel Scheinert: ... my mom–

Daniel Kwan: Oh, sorry.

Daniel Scheinert: ... missed the premier.

Daniel Radcliffe: What?

Daniel Scheinert: Her flight got delayed, and so she got there 40 minutes late and just sat in the lobby listening, and watched people leave–

Daniel Radcliffe: Christ.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Scheinert: ... from the lobby.

Daniel Kwan: Jesus.

Daniel Radcliffe: Brutal.

Daniel Scheinert: I've always known this, and it's always been so sad to me. It's like, my mom just sat and watched the walkouts instead of watching the movie.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, man. That is really painful.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and by her count, it was 12 or 15 people.

Daniel Kwan: Hey.

Daniel Radcliffe: But she arrived 40 minutes late, so she missed the mass exit.

Daniel Scheinert: Well, I don't know.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's the thing. I'm sure it did feel bigger in our heads.

Daniel Scheinert: I think it wasn't that many. I think it was–

Daniel Kwan: Well, because the Eccles Theater can hold 1,300 people.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. There were 1,300 people, and she saw 12 leave, and I was like, "What?"

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: So, I think it was an overblown headline that just was viral, and that's fine.

Daniel Kwan: It worked for us.

Daniel Scheinert: People walk out of every movie.

Daniel Radcliffe: Honestly, now, I was saying other than Harry Potter, which is obviously its own special circumstance, Swiss Army Man is undoubtedly the film that I feel in the world most affecting people's lives the most out of everything I've done.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. People talk to me about it all the time, and it's about loneliness, and it's about love, and there are so many people that have referenced it in conversations to me that it's cool to go on that journey with something so quickly.

Daniel Kwan: My favorite kind of reaction to our movie is when people who loved Swiss Army Man are really disappointed in Everything Everywhere All At Once. It's a very strange–

Daniel Radcliffe: Does that person exist?

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: They're out there. Yeah. They're going to comment–

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: ... in the thread.

Daniel Kwan: There are a lot of people who love... Because Swiss Army Man's a very specific movie, and the right people, it just hits them in the are frequency, so it's... Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, that is an incredibly specific person.

Daniel Scheinert: Then there's others who because of the new one are revisiting Swissy, which a lot of times on second watch is a lot less of a shock value experience, and that's interesting to read about.

Daniel Radcliffe: My favorite reaction to it was that I think it was performed on the Russian version of So You Think You Can Dance?

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god. It is so good.

Daniel Scheinert: That's a gorgeous YouTube video. Listeners, Google this. It's a really beautiful dance piece too, which is part of–

Daniel Radcliffe: It's everything.

Daniel Scheinert: ... the Broadway experience. It's going to incorporate that kind of-

Daniel Radcliffe: It'll have to.

Daniel Scheinert: ... dialogue-free long stretches of dance. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: The reason why I've been reflecting on that night is because four months ago we just premiered our movie at South by, and it's kind of bizarre. I don't know. Radcliffe, maybe you've experienced this feeling, but I've never felt this way before. I felt so complete as a human being the night of the premiere, and it's bizarre. You're always searching for distractions, or you're always searching for something that isn't right in front of you, and we live in the age where that get puts onto the phone, so now we use the phone to scratch that itch, and it was one of the only nights in a long time, maybe my entire adulthood, where I did not look at my phone a single time. We watched the movie. It felt great. We did the Q&A, and then the rest of the night, I was just floating, and my brain kept saying, "Everyone that matters to me is here."

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: My family was there, my crew was there, and the movie did great, and I felt so alive and so... I was like, "This is peaking. This is what that feels like," and I didn't even read the reviews. I didn't know what the response was necessarily, but I was so proud of the film, and I don't know.

Daniel Scheinert: When in your career have you felt that? Have you been there yet?

Daniel Radcliffe: No, I never have. I've absolutely never had that.

Daniel Kwan: Whoa. Okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, 100%. Yeah, but that's awesome.

Daniel Kwan: What about the last Harry Potter?

Daniel Radcliffe: No, no.

Daniel Kwan: I keep bringing up Harry Potter.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, because I was a 21-year-old.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Eight movies.

Daniel Radcliffe: I was so far from a complete person then, but also, I think you experienced fulfillment, and artistic fulfillment in a way that you... I don't think it's necessarily possible for an actor to in the same way because you are communicating something to the world of your deepest self, and sometimes that happens in acting, but when you have generated the idea and told this story in this specific way, and you're feeling like the world's seeing that and receiving it in the way and getting something out of it that you wanted, and I think I have come close to that feeling. When you see your work affecting people in a positive way, it does have that, but I think knowing that one can write and direct things, I don't think I'll ever... I think I might feel that one day if I do that, but I don't think yet.

Daniel Kwan: We should talk about that later. Yeah. I want to talk about the Radcliffe directing path one day.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah. Hopefully, soon. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah?

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Well, because... Actually, before we get there, Scheinert, what was your night like then?

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Because I'm just curious now. This is fun. It's so indulgent.

Daniel Scheinert: Mine was weirder.

Daniel Kwan: This is so indulgent.

Daniel Scheinert: The premiere was great, but I was kind of shellshocked afterwards, and the Q&A was weird, and then the after party was weird again, and for me, we're going to brag about South by a lot, but the night after the premiere, we had people still in town come over to our shared house, which we did again like we did it for Swissy, because we were like, "That was so nice, to have a place that wasn't public." It was like, "Great. Let's just have people over." So, we were able to do that again, and it was pretty low-key. We had a very emotional conversation we Michelle that night, and then Ke Quan showed up with saké and–

Daniel Kwan: Five bottles of it.

Daniel Scheinert: ... he had already established this tradition where he loves to have people give speeches and drink a little bit of saké.

Daniel Radcliffe: Cool.

Daniel Scheinert: So, we were like, "Oh, we'll do that. We'll do that again." We'd done it before, but this night, very quickly the speeches got so emotional, and everyone just took turns giving emotional speeches and crying, and it felt like a wedding for a movie, except Dan and I never gave speeches. So, it was just like we were the married couple.

Daniel Scheinert: We were the bride and groom, and then everybody else. So, Jon Wang, our producer, just started sobbing, talking about how much the movie meant to him and his dad, who the movie's dedicated to, and then Steph Hsu gave a speech about what it felt like to know that little girls like her would see... I'm stealing their speeches. Nevermind. Fuck it.

Daniel Radcliffe:Do all of their speeches.

Daniel Scheinert:Anyway, but it was fucking insane. I was like, "I've never had a night like this," and there were three or four people there that night who didn't work on the movie, and they looked so confused.

Daniel Kwan: So awkward.

Daniel Scheinert: They were just like... But all the rest of us were like, "I'm so happy."

Daniel Kwan: You say it was a wedding, but it felt a little more like a frat party, which I know is a lot of bad connotations, but the way that people were chanting for people to cry, they'd be like, "Cry, cry, cry, cry!" Because it was a safe space, and everyone knew each other, that we could just be aggressively–

Daniel Scheinert: Larkin came in and gave a speech, and he showed up–

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, but he was sober. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert:He showed up sober at the door. We're like, "Come in." Everyone chanted, "Speech," and he didn't even know it was supposed to be an emotional speech night, and then he teared up at–

Daniel Kwan: Immediately.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, immediately. He was like, "I'm proud of you guys." I'm going to do an impression of–

Daniel Kwan: He said three words and started crying.

Daniel Scheinert: It was so–

Daniel Kwan: I was like, "What the fuck is this night?"

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. You just could feel it.

Daniel Kwan: Anyways–

Daniel Scheinert: So, anyway, that was, I feel like the artistic highlight of Swiss Army Man was at the end of the very first week of shooting there in Half Moon Bay, when we all went out to karaoke, it was like I couldn't believe–

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god. That was so fun.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, that's so funny.

Daniel Scheinert: I couldn't believe that we were shooting the movie. I couldn't believe it had actually happened, that you guys had showed up and we'd shot. That you'd barfed water, and it was like week one we got a lot of the weirdest gags of the whole montage out there, and I was just like, "This is real?" and the whole crew was trauma-bonded from how hard it was that week, but also, we weren't too tired, which by the end of the shoot we were like shells of ourselves, and this Friday night was–

Daniel Kwan: But we found this pub that was British-themed. Perfect.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, right? We were like, "Oh, Radcliffe doesn't like to drink. He's going to hate this British-themed pub–"

Daniel Kwan:

And doesn't want to do karaoke.

Daniel Scheinert: "... and doesn't want to do karaoke. This is going to be a terrible thing," but it ended up being–

Daniel Radcliffe: It was awesome.

Daniel Scheinert: ... so nice, and we were crowd surfing people, and you did Eminem?

Daniel Radcliffe: I did Eminem.

Daniel Scheinert: You did a rap song.

Daniel Radcliffe: Then Erin also did... I have such a distinct memory of Erin doing The Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang, and there was an old guy who ran the karaoke bar who also viewed it as his duty to... Whatever the bracketed lyrics on the karaoke were, the backup, he would do that. So, he just did all the, "I'm getting horny now," asides in the song, but incredibly deadpan throughout, and not in the energy that Erin was bringing to it.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was really–

Daniel Scheinert: I love that.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was great. It was a really good night.

Daniel Scheinert: Right, and Paul and I did Summer Lovin'.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

Daniel Kwan: No, but that was a real gift because I remember, Radcliffe, after you did it, the crew went crazy. The whole bar was like, "Holy shit. What is..." We were in the middle of nowhere, and then you sat down, and I was like, "Do you do that often?" and do you remember what you said?

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't. I dread to think.

Daniel Kwan: You said, "No, I never do that, and that was a decision," and you even said, "I know that's going to be a headline. I know this video's going to be all over the internet."

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes. I did suddenly realize I was being filmed when that happened. Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah. But you said before you went up, you made a conscious choice like, "Okay, this is going to be worth it. I am going to go up there, and I'm going..."

Daniel Radcliffe: It was a lot of, not to get too deep, and I don't want to talk about this, but particularly, I was still... No, it wasn't early, but I'd been sober for a while then, and a lot of being sober, particularly going to bars being sober, is proving to yourself that you can still have a good time and do things that are enjoyable that you used to do when you were drunk, but you can do without now. So, I think that sometimes you have to be like... I definitely was... That's why Erin was up there with me, actually. He was like, "I'll go up and do that," because also, in The Real Slim Shady, of course it's long. There's a lot of repetition. It's awkward on your own.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, yeah. She danced really well.

Daniel Radcliffe: Then she was like, "I'll get up there with you."

Daniel Kwan: She's a good hype man. Yeah. No, but I thought it was a really sweet gift. It was like a weird sacrifice. Something was paid.

Daniel Scheinert: It was like a gift to the crew and the movie and–

Daniel Radcliffe: No, it was not. It definitely was not. That's the thing.

Daniel Scheinert: It was surreal.

Daniel Radcliffe: The other thing I'll say about your sets and why Swiss Army Man was one of the best experiences, was that you... The bullshit hierarchy of the industry and the way... You're good people. Everyone feels like they can contribute. Everyone is treated well. I mean, it's a special thing to get to work on something like that because you can feel that everyone loves it, and I've been very lucky in my career. That is a feeling that I get to experience a lot, and also, I'm a very enthusiastic person, and I-

Daniel Scheinert: Totally.

Daniel Radcliffe:... get to be lead on a lot of things that I do, so that–

Daniel Kwan: It trickles down. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: You set that tone. Some of that's your fault.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, it's a little bit, but I think it's just also like people are so used to... This sounds, I don't want to talk to the actors, but I think people are used to actors being over it sometimes, and so I'm just... I really, really like my job, and you guys also love getting to do it, and I feel like it just... The whole crew feeds off that, and it was a really special experience. Yeah. Yeah. I hope we get to do it again at some point.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, don't worry.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, all right.

Daniel Radcliffe: I'm still very annoyed that I was doing a play when you were doing Everything. I will curse that stupid play forever.

Daniel Scheinert: People have asked what the role was, which we can put in the podcast, which was it was to squirt the ketchup and mustard into Sunita's mouth. It was to be the hotdog dancer in the musical.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, was it? Oh, no. Oh, man.

Daniel Scheinert: Because it was one day of shooting. It'd have been so easy and fun to be like–

Daniel Radcliffe: That would've been great.

Daniel Scheinert:... "Oh, great. The incredible song on dance man." It would be so fun. You'd look on TV and you're like, "Oh, look at this musical in this world."

Daniel Radcliffe: That's the thing. If I'd even been doing the play in New York, we would've been able to I think probably work it out because the structure of time off is different. You do the same amount of shows, but you get the Monday off, so I could've flown or probably... But yeah. I was doing a very, very depressing Samuel Beckett play in London.

Daniel Kwan: I remember. That's okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: Next time, It will not happen. I will–

Daniel Kwan: We are young. We are young.

Daniel Scheinert: I have an idea for part two of the podcast.

Daniel Kwan: Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: Do you remember doing warmups every morning?

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, vaguely.

Daniel Scheinert: I thought we'd do a warmup and then part two begins. Let's cut it out if this is boring.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: Let's see if you remember shaking it out. This is when you.. This is going to be so interesting for listeners at home.

Daniel Kwan: I was going to say, this is terrible for audio.

Daniel Scheinert: No, it's going to be so great. They're going to be like, "Wow. Listen to them jiggle."

Daniel Scheinert: So, you raise your right hand, count to five, and jiggle it five times, left hand five, right foot five, left foot five, and you do it four times, four times, four times, four times four times.

Daniel Kwan: All right. I'm going to stand further away from the mic so everyone doesn't-

Daniel Scheinert: The idea is just get the blood flowing. I'm feeling kind of lethargic today, so I've just been thinking I want to shake it out.

Daniel Kwan: I know. Yeah. Also, you just did the whole damn thing.

Daniel Radcliffe: I'm doing it yeah. I'm doing the whole thing. You guys are just stopped.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, wait. Okay. Here we go. You have to count when you go.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah..

Daniel Scheinert / Daniel Radcliffe /Daniel Kwan: One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two. One, two. One, two. One, two. One, one, one, one.

Daniel Radcliffe: I had forgotten that.

Daniel Scheinert: I feel better. Thanks for indulging me.

Daniel Kwan: No, that was great.

Daniel Radcliffe: I feel like we got off track with the butt mold. We mentioned it very, very early on, but then have not been back to it, and I think that was the first time that we met in person, maybe.

Daniel Scheinert: I think so.

Daniel Radcliffe: You came to my apartment in New York, and then I bent over a box and got my balls in a sock to avoid the silicon catching onto hairs or the hair and skin.

Daniel Kwan: Yep, of course.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and then just assumed the position for, I guess... How long does it take to try? Not that long, 15, 20 minutes.

Daniel Scheinert: Do you remember who applied the Vaseline?

Daniel Radcliffe: Jason Hamer, or no. I don't remember who, but I assume it was Jason, wasn't it?

Daniel Scheinert: No.

Daniel Radcliffe: Who was it?

Daniel Scheinert: Because I remember–

Daniel Radcliffe: Was it you?

Daniel Scheinert: The way I remember is we asked–

Daniel Kwan: Was it you?

Daniel Scheinert: No.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, no.

Daniel Scheinert: This might be another apocryphal story. You're going to fact check me right now. But I remember us being like, "We don't have to do this. We can just mold a butt," and then you were like, "Well, whose butt?" and you were like, "It should be mine," and we were like, "Rock and roll. Let's do it." But Erin was there.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, great. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: So, I think the way I remember it is that Erin came in to do the Vaseline.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, I think–

Daniel Scheinert: That way, Hamer, who was our effects makeup guy on the very first time he's working with you didn't have to–

Daniel Kwan: Get too into it.

Daniel Radcliffe: Get right in there.

Daniel Scheinert: ... get right in there.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

Daniel Kwan: That's for the next movie. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, and I was like, "Nice to meet you, Erin. Here's your job for the day."

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, so funny.

Daniel Kwan: I remember two other things about that. I remember above your toilet in your bathroom was an Equus poster, which I thought was very funny, and then the other thing–

Daniel Radcliffe: For context on that, I used to live in that apartment with my parents, and they're very proud of me.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: So, there's a lot of Daniel Radcliffe stuff in that apartment over the years that is not in my new place.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. But see, your parents had a sense of humor to put the Equus poster right above–

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't think it was thought that way.

Daniel Kwan: I feel like your parents are really smart, though. I think one of the things that we're so–

Daniel Radcliffe: Everyone's got blind spots, though.

Daniel Kwan: I feel like one of the funny things about you as a human being is... Everyone talks about child stars and how that is such a tricky thing to navigate, and somehow your parents understood that because your dad's a lit agent. Is that right?

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes, he's a literary agent.

Daniel Kwan: I almost feel like that's something that we've been thinking a lot about more recently, is just the ways in which process and the structures and the incentive structures that we've built in our own industry, how can we make them kinder, more human processes, and especially–

Daniel Scheinert: Well, it's like the way we treat directors can sometimes incentivize being a butthead.

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: The way we treat actors and below-the-line people can be so frustrating.

Daniel Kwan: So, I have a lot of respect for your parents for knowing the dangers and then specifically carving out this is how I want my child to move through this pipeline or through this system, and it's unfortunate that that hasn't been codified. That's not a thing that's expected, in some ways.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and there's no blueprint for how to grow. I do see myself as incredibly lucky, not just with my parents, but also with the crew of the Potter films that became like a second family. I was incredibly lucky with who they were and the people I was around that were brought.. That's the thing. Film sets have a really bad reputation as places for kids to be, but in my experience, and I know in the experience of definitely some other people that I know, they found it incredibly broadening. You are introduced to a much wider range of people, certainly, than I was in a middle-class upbringing in England.

Daniel Kwan: It can be like a summer camp–

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and that's–

Daniel Kwan: ... which is what we try to set the tone for everybody, but especially kids where we're like, "You're going to learn something."

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, that's what it should be all the time. Even on serious films, there is no... Obviously, there are scenes that are intense and require... Somebody's process might require them to not be incredibly cheerful for that day or whatever, but generally speaking, we are in a fun industry and we have cool jobs, and people who go out of their way to ruin that or make the lives of people, especially... A lot of actors I don't think realize, and a lot of directors probably, I don't think the people who are at the top of the hierarchy on sets a lot of the time realize how huge an effect they can have on people's lives, because if you're with somebody for a month to three months, you can dramatically affect somebody's happiness, but if you are a dick to them every day, that will affect them, and there are...

Daniel Radcliffe: I've been really fortunate in my career to not work with too many of those people, but you hear stories a lot of the time, and it's just... Yeah. It's so frustrating because there's no need for it and it makes no one's... Yeah. It just makes no one's world better, and I don't think that... After we finish the press tour, I don't sit down and watch stuff I did back, ever. The thing you're left with is the memory and the experience–

Daniel Kwan: The experience, yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... that you had. That's ultimately the thing that you'll be thinking about on your deathbed or whatever. It's not like, "Oh, I was really great in that one scene. That was totally worth making that other person's life hell for that day."

Daniel Kwan: Totally.

Daniel Scheinert: I was just thinking about... I'm super nervous about kids on set, and then the more I've thought about it lately, I'm like, I think maybe the worst part is the press tour, not the set sometimes–

Daniel Radcliffe: 100%.

Daniel Scheinert: ... and that we just have ideas for movies, and I'm always like, "But what effect will it have on the kid to be in this movie?" and then I'm like, "Oh, the hardest part is that they're going to go back to the real world afterwards."

Daniel Kwan: School, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: I'm pretty sure I can make the set fun, but then–

Daniel Kwan: How do you protect them once they're–

Daniel Scheinert: ... when they're on–

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, in that way as well, that's why I was so lucky with Potter, was because I didn't go back to... I mean, I did go back to school occasionally, but I was always going back to filming. So, there was actually a lot of consistency, whereas if you're some other child star who is incredibly famous in one thing and then they're like, "Okay. Now you're on your own." But that's a different thing altogether, and that's really hard.

Daniel Kwan: So, you're saying either no movies for child stars, or just–

Daniel Radcliffe: Or 10.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Or they're just like a coal miner's schedule. Don't let them go home.

Daniel Kwan: Air horn.

Daniel Scheinert: Keep them working seven days a week.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I think that the press tour is the unnatural part because that's where you're developing your own identity as a kid, and suddenly you're getting this other identity that you are just getting reflected back at you from the world that you're going, "Wait. Should I be that? I'm not that. Am I that?" That's the part that'll mess you up.

Daniel Kwan: I can't imagine. It's unfair for any... Even nowadays, we're directors who made an indie movie that some people know about, and I'm feeling that as a 30-something-year-old man. I can't even imagine doing–

Daniel Scheinert: He likes to keep his age a secret.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly. I'm very self-conscious. I don't want people to think I'm old. But I can't even imagine doing that as a 12-year-old, 13-year-old. That's the thing that feels really unethical and strange.

Daniel Scheinert: Do you have takeaways for–

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, tips, hot tips for my son when I put him through this.

Daniel Scheinert: Either for the filmmakers or for the kids of, oh, this worked and is really valuable, or this doesn't. I have friends who–

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I don't know if I had to-

Daniel Scheinert: Just have a cool daddy and cool mommy?

Daniel Radcliffe: Just have a cool mom and dad. Obviously, it's easy to speak in broad terms, but treat them like your kid and not like an actor, because actors are treated in a way that is insane. So, you should not pamper that much, but be honest with them if they're being a dick in a way that a kid can be a dick. Tell them that.

Daniel Scheinert: Timeout.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, or just-

Daniel Scheinert: It's an expensive timeout, but you got to send them to timeout.

Daniel Radcliffe: Got to do it. I mean, I remember there were some... I'm trying to think if any other advice, but that's the thing. I always enjoyed it. That's the other thing that's a key, is I feel like a lot of young people get started in it and then get to a point where they're like, "I don't really like this anymore," and then some of them are in a position where they've become the breadwinner for their family, essentially, at which point there's a pressure to continue, which I never had. So, my mom and dad asked me between every film, basically, "Are you still enjoying it, and do you want to go back?"

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: I was always like, "Yes. I hate school."

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, that's great.

Daniel Kwan: I hate school.

Daniel Radcliffe: I hate school so much, and I get to not be there with.

Daniel Kwan: This is so funny. The funny thing about you is I feel like anyone who gets to know you knows you love to learn. You hate school, but you love to learn. You're so curious. You're always thinking about things and telling us fun facts.

Daniel Scheinert: My grandmother was like this.

Daniel Radcliffe: That makes me sound so annoying, telling us fun facts.

Daniel Kwan: No, no, no. No, no, no.

Daniel Scheinert: Literally the first call we had with you, we just went off on tangents about space and history facts.

Daniel Kwan: You're right. You're so thoughtful about that stuff in a way that I find striking. I won't share your email to the world, but I remember your email was so specific, and we're like, "What does that mean?" and then you told us this whole elaborate story about a historical thing.

Daniel Scheinert: Astronauts.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly. We're like, "Whoa, cool." Fun fact buried in your email.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, great.

Daniel Scheinert: I mean, about-

Daniel Kwan: Dinosaurs.

Daniel Scheinert: ... cool dinosaurs.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: It was a story about dinosaurs.

Daniel Radcliffe: All right, great. Cool.

Daniel Kwan: But I feel like to me, when I think of Radcliffe, I think of someone who loves to learn, but you happen to hate school, which–

Daniel Scheinert: It makes me think of my grandmother on my dad's side, step-grandmother, but she didn't finish high school. This sounds like an insult, not a compliment. She didn't finish high school, joined a traveling country band, and then always felt somewhat insecure about that, and it led to her just being a word nerd and loving learning, loving talking about what she's reading lately, and as a kid I was like, "Man, she's my smartest relative."

Daniel Radcliffe: I think I have... So, a teacher at school called me stupid when I was younger than you should call a kid... I mean, you should never call a kid stupid, but–

Daniel Scheinert: Was it on set?

Daniel Radcliffe: No, no. It was not. It was at the school.

Daniel Scheinert: You were in school-school.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was before I'd done anything. It was when I was eight or nine.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Radcliffe: That definitely, I think, was a bit of a positive–

Daniel Scheinert: You were like, "I'll show you."

Daniel Radcliffe: ... chip on the shoulder for a while. I'd be like, "I'm going to learn as much as I can. Fuck you, man."

Daniel Kwan: Drop some names. Who are we shaming? Just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Daniel Scheinert: What's this teacher's name? Let's list our least favorite teachers.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Scheinert: No. I'll talk about my favorites.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us a fun fact.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. What are you reading lately?

Daniel Kwan: What are you chewing on these days? What's something that you're just like, "Oh, God. I wish the whole–"

Daniel Scheinert: Are you deep into a podcast?

Daniel Kwan: Okay. We have a big audience here today. What do you want the world to know? What's a fun fact?

Daniel Radcliffe: I don't know. You asked about Erin's dad and how he is into anime, so I'll share a fun fact about Erin's dad, which is that he has a piano in... He plays piano downstairs, and one year on his Christmas list was a bunch of anime soundtracks.

Daniel Kwan: Whoa.

Daniel Radcliffe: We were like, "Okay, sure." We had to order them all from Japan. They're not available anywhere else.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: It was on CD at a time–

Daniel Scheinert: That's great.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... and he plays along to them. So, he'll on the piano just improvise it and play along the anime soundtracks, which is like–

Daniel Scheinert: Whoa.

Daniel Kwan: But do you know the story of how he got into it? Because a 65-year-old man in America–

Daniel Radcliffe: How did he get... I think he's just always been... He's a huge comic book fan, and I think eventually that just led to him hearing about some animes that he'd got into and–

Daniel Kwan: That was the gateway drug, and now he's really... Okay. That's great.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and now he's into... Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: Me and Scheinert are watching Neon Genesis Evangelion right now. Have you seen that?

Daniel Radcliffe: I do not know that.

Daniel Kwan: Oh, okay. Okay.

Daniel Scheinert: It's like Power Rangers. It's kids piloting giant ships kind of thing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, cool.

Daniel Kwan: But it's about the trauma of having to carry that weight as children and-

Daniel Scheinert: It's really artsy.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. I feel like a lot of our work is so inspired by anime, which is probably why your dad connected to the movie. Yeah. I don't know if we're ever going to do an animated movie, but everything we do is basically something that should be animated, but we decided not to do. I don't know. But now-

Daniel Scheinert: What are you enjoying learning right now?

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Fun fact.

Daniel Scheinert: We all spend the podcast bragging about how we're all nerds and we're like, "Actually, we just watch–"

Daniel Kwan: Oh, yeah. No, no. No, I have one. I have one. I have one. Okay. I just sent this to... So, our friend Julia Pott, who's also British, she's a–

Daniel Scheinert: Do you know her? She's from that island.

Daniel Kwan: There's only a couple of you. But the one thing that's funny about her that makes me think of you is you guys are both American nerds, if that makes sense.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Kwan: You guys are very, in the same way that we have anglophiles here, you had... What would a USA lover be?

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, God.

Daniel Kwan: I don't know.

Daniel Radcliffe: Don't even know.

Daniel Kwan: She's obsessed with American pop culture. Anyways, me and her, we always joke that her love language is sharing fun facts. That's all she does. She's always reading and finding things–

Daniel Scheinert: During COVID, she started a weird Zoom date with a bunch of friends, and everyone would take turns giving five-minute TED Talks.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's fun.

Daniel Scheinert: It'd be like, "What are your facts for the night?"

Daniel Kwan: Exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: It was great.

Daniel Radcliffe: Useful.

Daniel Scheinert: Very useful. Life-changing five minutes.

Daniel Kwan: No, but on the other hand, there's also incredible... Someone did a presentation about the history of birds used in murder case trials-

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, right, talking birds.

Daniel Kwan: ... as witnesses.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, wow.

Daniel Kwan: Because the birds could repeat things.

Daniel Scheinert: It was like, "Stop. Don't hit me."

Daniel Radcliffe: But also–

Daniel Kwan: Sounds like Radcliffe knows a lot about this.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, not about that, but just specifically animal trials, we can go down a whole... At medieval trials, all the animals are one of the funniest fucking things I ever... We did one in the second series of Miracle Workers, but it's like a very... So many pigs were tried for murder. They would excommunicate plagues of rats there would be, and they would do them all in absentia, but it would go through a court. So, there were court documents about–

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... them. Yeah. There's some very funny stuff.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Now I know what our next movie's going to be. This is really–

Daniel Scheinert: I've only just started reading this book that's A History of Sex, and it's all the weird tales about sexuality throughout history, and I just was skimming one chapter that was about impotence trials where women could only get a divorce if they could prove that their husband couldn't get it up.

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: So, there was a whole thing where someone would have to come in, and she'd have to do a really sincere job trying so that–

Daniel Kwan: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: ... a legal person–

Daniel Radcliffe: Wow.

Daniel Scheinert: ... could sign an affidavit and be like, "Nope, doesn't work. She needs a new husband. They can't have babies."

Daniel Kwan: That's so interesting.

Daniel Scheinert: I was like, what a traumatic–

Daniel Radcliffe: That is incredible.

Daniel Scheinert: ... but hilarious–

Daniel Kwan: It's so rare that historical law is making the man feel shame. That's very fascinating.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. You don't hear about that often.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. It's very not often that way around.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. It's usually the other way around, so that's–

Daniel Scheinert: Totally.

Daniel Kwan: Your fun facts are more fun. I was going to do one about Singapore. So, Singapore has these zoning laws and this ordinance where basically, any time you build a new building, no matter what it is, whether it's a skyrise or a school, 40% of the land has to be dedicated to green spaces, which I'm just obsessed with this because LA's just like this desert, and I'm like, man, I wish that was something that we could actually do here, but you get these amazing skyrises that are just covered in greenery, and it looks beautiful, because it's all based on science where green spaces make you mentally happier, healthier, and then also cools down the whole city. It's one of the only ways–

Daniel Scheinert: Happy, healthy employees do better work.

Daniel Kwan: Sorry. Also, it feels like the only way that the urban lifestyle can be sustainable for the next 100 years or whatever. So, my whole thing I'm thinking about is, okay, if I become rich, how do I make LA, at least my neighborhood in LA, very green? Can I make this without using all the water? Because that's the other thing where it's like... So, anyways, that's where my brain is at. It's so boring, but zoning laws are so exciting.

Daniel Radcliffe: No, it's great.

Daniel Scheinert: So boring. We're like, how exciting can you make that? How can you sneak that into our next action movie?

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah. We got to just use the vegetables.

Daniel Radcliffe: That's the thing. I remember one of the most insane things you ever said was you said when we were making Swiss Army, you were like, "I hate fart jokes. I hate body humor. We hate acapella singing. We hate the song Cotton Eye Joe," and I was like, "Why did you make a movie that is just comprised of all of those things?" and you said, "Because then we know we have to make it really good for us to like it." I was like, "Wow. That seems just like the most insane way to try and do something."

Daniel Scheinert: Good luck, guys. I'm onboard, though.

Daniel Radcliffe: But great results. Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. The new movie, early on when we were writing Everything Everywhere, we were like, well, Swissy... Trying to make people cry at a fart was a really good challenge. It kept us busy and engaged the whole time. So, we're like, "This time, can we make them cry at taxes?" The first draft had a lot more taxes because we're like, "What if the audience just feels the way they feel when Rocky screams Adrian, but it's filling out the W-2 properly and having it organized and sharpening your pencil and going through the receipts, and your husband crying as you–"

Daniel Kwan: But just finding that receipt that was necessary to get that write-off that brings you down to the next tax bracket down that would save enough money so that you can actually save your apartment. You're like, "Okay." So, I read two or three books–

Daniel Scheinert: Then we follow the money, go into the local economy and the tax dollars get spent on good things like schools, and the kids are learning facts, and the audience is just sobbing as taxes make everything better.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, yeah. It didn't work, so we scrapped that.

Daniel Scheinert: No, it never quite... Just not yet.

Daniel Radcliffe: But it's a good task, and you still... The laundry and taxes line is the line that I'm sure I speak for many people listening when I say that that's the line that broke me in the film–

Daniel Kwan: Oh, man. Yeah.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... in the best way, in a lovely way.

Daniel Kwan: That sequence... I'll say this, and then we'll stop talking about our dumb movie. But that sequence is the only sequence that I've ever... Because we love to edit as well. That's a big part of our process, and so during the pandemic, between the three of us, us two Daniels and Paul, our editor, we just took turns editing different scenes, and that scene was one of the first scenes I chose to edit because I'm like, "If this scene doesn't work, then the rest of the movie's not going to work. So, I got to make sure this works." I was just bawling, which is–

Daniel Scheinert: You just texted Paul and I. You were like, "What the fuck? I'm crying while editing," and we were both like, "What?"

Daniel Kwan: It's never happened.

Daniel Scheinert: I'm like, "Now I'm excited."

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, but it was also because the pandemic had just happened, and also, we went through four years of... There's a lot going on, and I was editing this thing, and I was like, "Fuck." Also, they were doing... The big thing was Ke and Michelle gave such a good performance that I had... It was so indulgent. I would hold onto these shots for so long and just cry and be like, "Oh, this is great."

Daniel Radcliffe: He is amazing in the movie.

Daniel Kwan: Yes.

Daniel Radcliffe: I know everyone's amazing, but what he does in terms of showing what the story is early on, the practicalities of being people from different universes, it's so good. It was so cool to watch.

Daniel Kwan: I mean, he was our Daniel Radcliffe on this set, which is a very–

Daniel Radcliffe: I will take that compliment.

Daniel Kwan: But I mean that because you were our first feature film, and on set you were this bubbly... Mascot's the wrong word, but–

Daniel Radcliffe: No, I'll take mascot, absolutely.

Daniel Kwan: ... you were at the core of the energy where every... Because the first day on set, you came up and you memorized everyone's name. You knew more people on our crew than we did, actually, which was-

Daniel Scheinert: By day two.

Daniel Kwan: By day two. You knew their names better than we did, and you were going around just chatting everyone up, getting everyone to know, and-

Daniel Scheinert: We were in the woods and you'd help carry things, and people would be like, "Well, I'm going to carry... I'm not going to complain."

Daniel Kwan: So, Ke was kind of like... Ke and his wife Echo, the two of them were sort of like our spirit animals who just made everyone just feel good, giving people gifts, and Echo would cook soups and bring them to set, and it was like–

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, my god. Wow. Yeah. Well, I never cooked any soup.

Daniel Kwan: I know. Exactly. Yeah. That's why we did not bring you back. But you should meet Ke because I think you guys would have a really great time. He's the sweetest.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. He is a lot like that in person. He's very similar to his character.

Daniel Kwan: Well, I do want to ask one thing just because we alluded to it. You said as an actor you will never feel that full fulfillment. I'm just curious, two questions. Where do you find that fulfillment outside of the work, and then the other things is what are your plans for if you are going to do a movie, and what are your goals with that?

Daniel Radcliffe: So, I want to–

Daniel Scheinert: Pitch it to us.

Daniel Radcliffe: I want to write and direct something. I think I've never experienced the type of fulfillment you were talking about specifically, which is, I think, creative. I think I get a similar feeling from an insane day at work, and actually, the more chaotic the days... There were a few days on the Weird Al movie–

Daniel Scheinert: Can't wait.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... that was one day where we were doing a bunch of musical numbers, and it was insane, and getting home feeling like you've done a good job and that you have maybe done something that... If I'm good... I'm never going to look at my acting and be like, "I'm the best," but the thing that I think that I am good at is being on set and being able to-

Daniel Kwan: Totally.

Daniel Radcliffe: ... go in. If you have a really demanding day, I will not be the thing that slows you down.

Daniel Scheinert: And you care about the story that's being told.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.

Daniel Scheinert: Like you were saying earlier, you're invested in–

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, and I do care about the end product. As much as I think it's important that everyone has a nice time doing it, what it turns out like is very important to me, obviously, and so I think from feeling like you've done something that used all the skills you have, and doing it in a very intense way.

Daniel Scheinert: Can you spoil one gag from the day that was the most exciting?

Daniel Radcliffe: They weren't really gags. Yeah. No. It was all just like it was–

Daniel Scheinert: There was one gag you told me about in Austin, but no. That's just been stuck in my head, you coming out of an egg, but it-

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: Censor, bleep, bleep, bleep.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bleep, bleep, bleep. Something cool.

Daniel Scheinert: I'm a huge Weird Al fan. I can't wait.

Daniel Radcliffe: You're going to enjoy it.

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, my god.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yeah. I just want to direct one day because I feel like I love film crews, and I love being on set, and I feel like being a director and getting to lead a set and getting to make a crazy decision every second of the day seems really exciting.

Daniel Scheinert: Swiss Army Man wouldn't have worked if you and Paul weren't so smart. You guys just–

Daniel Radcliffe: I mean, Paul is ridiculous. Yeah. Paul's insane.

Daniel Scheinert: The four of us were... But you guys came in and you were like, "We're going to help."

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, man. That's really–

Daniel Scheinert: That's so valuable.

Daniel Radcliffe: I did not–

Daniel Scheinert: It makes so much sense that his movie turned out so wonderful and that yours is also going to.

Daniel Radcliffe: Well, thank you. We hope so.

Daniel Kwan: Well, I think actors have this great advantage, which is why you're seeing so many actors and actresses become directors and doing a great job, is they get to see 10, 20 different directors work and see the differences, pick and choose what they think works best for them, and directors don't get to do that. I don't get to see what other people are doing. It's like kind of cheating. I'm just kidding.

Daniel Radcliffe: Not just with directors, but with every department. Actors are actually the best located person on set to learn about everyone's job, more or less, and they don't.

Daniel Scheinert: Except editing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Except editing, yeah, and the production side. You're right. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: My friends who are actors, once they get in the edit, they're like, "What is this? What do I..."

Daniel Radcliffe: What now? Yeah.

Daniel Kwan: I will say just before you go do your feature, do one short film just so you can see what the ripple effects are of certain decisions on set, how it effects the edit, because I think that's one of the biggest things that will save you time and emotional–

Daniel Radcliffe: Exactly.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scheinert: Or just go and ask Eric to let you just edit some of Weird.

Daniel Radcliffe: Weird.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. You're like, "I need to learn this." Let's do a warm-down exercise.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, yeah. How does that go?

Daniel Scheinert: So, how about three second in through the nose, three seconds out through the mouth, and we're going to do it three times.

Daniel Radcliffe: Okay. It's going to be great.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah. No laughing.

Daniel Radcliffe: This is going to be so creepy in people's ears, guys.

Daniel Scheinert: Yeah, I know. Now really close to the microphone.

Daniel Kwan: They should add some really nice sound bath music here.

Daniel Scheinert: One last breath. Now see who can eat the cheesecake fastest. Cool.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Scheinert: Thank you.

Daniel Radcliffe: Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Scheinert: Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Kwan: This has been–

Daniel Scheinert: Daniel, great job.

Daniel Kwan: Thank you. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel Scheinert: It was really nice talking to you, Daniel.

Daniel Kwan: All right. Well, until next time, on our next episode of... What do we call this?

Daniel Scheinert: Oh, you wanted to call it Nominal Predestination.

Daniel Kwan: Nominal Predestination.

Daniel Scheinert: We didn't do that talk. We have a whole podcast where people with the same name would meet and talk to each other about their similarities and differences.

Daniel Kwan: Nominal Predestination. Yeah.

Daniel Scheinert: But we'd have to have the same last name.

Daniel Kwan: Speaking of fun facts... Okay.

Daniel Radcliffe: Nominal Predisposition is a fascinating thing.

Daniel Kwan: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Imagine all the other Daniel Radcliffes–

Daniel Scheinert: Teaser.

Daniel Kwan: Sorry.

Daniel Scheinert: Cut.

Daniel Kwan: Okay. The end. Bye, guys.

Daniel Scheinert: All right, bye. Goodbye.

Daniel Radcliffe: That was a natural wrap-up.

Daniel Kwan: Very natural. I think the story too is we should hang out way more often.

Daniel Radcliffe: Yes.