One hour of nonstop laughs with good friends and energetic equals, Tony director Matt Johnson and star Stavros Halkias.
Topics covered include: Flat hierarchies, having little child liar’s brain, plausible deniability, the golden era of TI-83 calculators, Stavros’ first script “Greek Town,” creative interpretations of The Odyssey, spending three years developing a standup special, the magic of capturing something you can’t repeat, first impressions of Dominic Sessa on set of Tony, real life dynamics mirroring the film's cast, being as invincible as a Clorox bottle, Leo Woodall’s pitch perfect performance, and finding Antonio Banderas mid-shoot playing piano and singing for his hosts in Provincetown.
Stavros Halkias: Hi, I'm Stavros Halkias.
Matt Johnson: And I'm Matt Johnson, and this is The A24 Podcast. This is my theory about planning in movies, okay?
Stavros Halkias: Yes, hit me with it.
Matt Johnson: It is so intimidating to go in with a plan, especially if you're from a comic sensibility, that if... And I feel it all the time. It's actually how my whole career kind of started, which is that standup must be so different because you go up and you basically just say what it is and either they like it or they don't. With movies, it's like you need to arrive, and people are expecting to hear what you want. And there's nothing more vulnerable than saying, "Okay, I want you to say this, I want you to do this, and then all you guys do this." And then all it takes is one person to be like, "Really? That's what you want?"
Stavros Halkias: Fucking sucks, dude.
Matt Johnson: And then your heart breaks, and you're like, "I don't know." And so I think it's why it is so addictive for, especially modern movies, to go in with no plan, so that the ego of the creator can't be castrated, literally.
Stavros Halkias: Well, you know what it is? Then you get to make all the decisions with no one there because you just make whatever the fuck happens, and then whatever's there, you have to do it. And then in the edit, there's no actor you have to…
Matt Johnson: …please. Nobody's judging you. And then you get to pick the best of it. The problem is that, I mean, as rightfully so, movies need to come together. You know what I mean? It needs to have an intention. And so it's finding that sweet spot in the middle of having at least a notion of the direction of where the movie is. And I would think, most importantly, "Why are you making the movie?" And if you can't answer that, then you will never find that on set. You need to at least know why you're fucking doing it.
Stavros Halkias: Do you get any joy from being “the guy”? Cause there's also-
Matt Johnson: No, I hate power, and I love flat hierarchies. This movie is about flat hierarchies. I actually hate it because I myself hate being told what to do.
Stavros Halkias: Oh.
Matt Johnson: I hate it. And I hate it so much that it created the kind of nonstop lying that I found myself doing when I was a young person. It was my way of rebelling against just the expectation around me. I hate being told what to do.
Stavros Halkias: So you did nonstop lying because you didn't want anybody to know who you actually were?
Matt Johnson: No, it's way more complicated than that. It was that I would always be asked questions by my mom and my brother, which I knew they knew the answer to, and because of that, I felt like-
Stavros Halkias: It's a deposition. They're just trying to get it on the record.
Matt Johnson: Actually, no, because it wasn't even about trouble. It would be things like, "Who are you talking on the phone with?" They know I'm talking to Steve Boss. He's my only friend. I'm in grade two. I'm in grade two, you know who I'm talking to. And in my complicated adolescence-
Stavros Halkias: Great name, by the way.
Matt Johnson: Steve Boss?
Stavros Halkias: Steve Boss?
Matt Johnson: His father was Charles Boss.
Stavros Halkias: Chuck Boss?
Matt Johnson: Chuck Boss.
Stavros Halkias: Come on.
Matt Johnson: He was a nuclear physicist. Amazing guy. His mom was a law librarian. This was an amazing family.
Stavros Halkias: Chuck Boss dropping bombs on you.
Matt Johnson: You want to know how he answered the phone? By listing his own phone number. So you would call him, and he would list... That was the opening salvo. His phone number. Apparently, it's very common in Britain.
Stavros Halkias: Just to make sure you didn't dial a wrong number?
Matt Johnson: I never asked. I was six.
Stavros Halkias: Britain. So your best friend is in Britain?
Matt Johnson: No, no, no. They moved.
Stavros Halkias: They moved to the Commonwealth.
Matt Johnson: They moved here. Yeah. Yeah, to the Commonwealth. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: They sent them to get things in order. Yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: But because I knew my parents, my brother and mom, knew who I was on the phone with, I felt like I was almost being put in a place by being forced to answer a question I knew the answer to. It was almost like a way of controlling me. Of course it's not. That's just my own ego getting all mixed up. Really, I think it was just their way of starting a conversation, and now I realize that, right?
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: But in my little piece of shit brain…
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: ... I'm like, "I'm going to lie, and I'm going to say I was on the phone with somebody else to make them then admit-"
Stavros Halkias: "Your move."
Matt Johnson: Yeah, "Your move!"
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, "Now what are you going to do?"
Stavros Halkias: "I see what you were up to."
Matt Johnson: "I see what you're up to." And then I became so addicted to this game. And I say "addicted" in the negative sense. "Addicted" like you'd be addicted to drugs.
Stavros Halkias: What do you mean "the positive sense"?
Matt Johnson: Well, you know how you can get addicted to ping pong.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, but nobody... That's a fun turn of phrase. It is the negative sense. Yeah.
Matt Johnson: It became a huge problem that then morphed into just a way of life where I was just lying about everything all the time.
Stavros Halkias: That's really interesting. I lied a lot, but only to get out of trouble.
Matt Johnson: That's the other reason men lie. To either inflate their own status or to avoid consequences. Well, that's what the movie is about.
Stavros Halkias: We’re two different guys. Yeah, we're each the different... And that is really interesting. Do you remember a time you got caught that was really like... I do remember my first real bad getting caught because I had a nice racket going in second grade. It was like second or third grade, where I... Because I was a good student the whole time.
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: And then one time, I forgot my homework at home, and it was like bullshit reading homework. And my teacher took my word for it and didn't even bother to check, because I was a kid who did his homework, right? And then I realized, "I can just always say that?"
Matt Johnson: You discovered a superpower.
Stavros Halkias: I can always say it's at home? And then for a while, I was saying to my mom... I stayed after school at the rec center to play basketball...
Matt Johnson: Basketball, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: ...or soccer. And I was like, "Yeah, Ma, I stayed after school and did my homework." And there was like two months where I was... Like every day, I told my teacher that I left it at home, and I told my parents that I did it at school. And then there was a parent-teacher conference, and they were both in the same room, and it was the first time I was like, "Oh, fuck."
Matt Johnson: "I'm fucked."
Stavros Halkias: I was like, "Oh, what the fuck? This could happen? Why the fuck didn't anybody tell me this could happen if you lie?" I thought it was just an awesome thing you do to not have to do bullshit homework.
Matt Johnson: "I thought I had a superpower."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. And then I was like... The two entities I'm most scared of at this point in my life, my teacher, because I was a very, like, "I need to get good grades" kid...
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: ... and my parents, and I was like, "I am fucked."
Matt Johnson: And were you?
Stavros Halkias: I was. I think I was able to... I don't remember. Honestly, I just resisted the urge to lie to make myself sound better. So, I was about to tell a story about how I cried. Literally, that's what popped into my head.
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: A complete fiction. And I have no idea, but let's be honest-
Matt Johnson: Liar's brain. I've got it too.
Stavros Halkias: It was literally liar's brain.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, I've got it too.
Stavros Halkias: Little child liar's brain. I don't remember what happened, but I remember, from then on, the lesson was: Hide your lies better.
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: The lesson wasn't: Stop lying. The thing I took from that was like-
Matt Johnson: Never get caught.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. You got to have a backup plan. You got to have plausible deniability. You got to have... And then I just started kind of getting into cheating and doing my homework late and just kind of bullshitting it on the way to stuff. But there was a real rebellion in me of being the actual good kid, which I just could have been.
Matt Johnson: Isn’t it so funny how I bet you it would have been less effort?
Stavros Halkias: Much less effort. Much less effort. But it is all the learning disability shit that you don't know about. I really just couldn't... I just hated doing homework. I just hated doing boring bullshit. I mean, not that any kid loves it, but I don't know what it was. And I just got into just... Because all success was just to appease my parents.
Matt Johnson: You're right. It had nothing to do with your own self-worth. Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: And good grades was never about learning. I didn't give a fuck about learning. I learned about stuff naturally that I liked. I was a big mythology kid. You know what I mean? Greek mythology was like... I wasn't a comic book kid, because Greek mythology was like my comic books. And I was into... The stuff I liked, I liked. When I found comedy, I was watching Sandler movies pretty young, whatever. And I didn't care about getting good grades. I didn't care about learning anything in school, but I had-
Matt Johnson: You thought it was going to have no application to your adult life, whatsoever.
Stavros Halkias: I just didn't even... It never occurred to... What I thought the point was was to get good grades so people would think you're smart.
Matt Johnson: A game.
Stavros Halkias: And that's all it was. And I got really good at that. I cheated so good, I got into AP US History, the advanced one. And then it just turned out I was awesome at history, by accident. And then I got a scholarship because I went to college because I cheated into the thing. If I had just done my homework, I would've done great.
Matt Johnson: God's looking after you.
Stavros Halkias: You know what I mean?
Matt Johnson: That's literally the exact ending of our movie.
Stavros Halkias: You're right.
Matt Johnson: That Tony is like, "I'm going to cheat out of this thing." And then at the end, Antonio Banderas goes up to us and says, "Thank you. Thank you." I have a very similar story about cheating in OAC Calculus. It was so brutal. I was like a class clown, I'd already gotten into film school, and so once you've got into university, it's like, "Oh, my grades don't matter at all, what the fuck do I care?" Calculus was so difficult because-
Stavros Halkias: Particularly calculus. It's crazy to even take that when you're going to film school.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, well, you're telling me. And so here's how it goes. I'm not sure if you know this, but there's regular calculators that are the simple ones-
Stavros Halkias: TI-83.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, right, right. But they-
Stavros Halkias: You're talking to a guy who-
Matt Johnson: A master cheater. Okay.
Stavros Halkias: ... programmed his entire... There was, I think, a physics test where it was multiple choice, and it was written, right? And it was math problems, and then it was multiple choice. And I copied the entire study guide, word for word, into a TI-83.
Matt Johnson: Oh my God.
Stavros Halkias: You know how it had the programming function?
Matt Johnson: Of course. Exactly.
Stavros Halkias: And so every multiple choice one where the study guide had the answer, I got 100%, and I got a zero on the math part. And I got 50%.
Matt Johnson: Now, your teacher didn't restrict those calculators? Because that's where my story's going.
Stavros Halkias: No, no, no, please. I'm sorry, go ahead. Tell me your story.
Matt Johnson: Well, I'm so happy you know the literal exact technology because they had these calculators in our school. We were not allowed to have them for these... It was an examination. And so, it's antiderivatives, which, I don't know if these are-
Stavros Halkias: I don't even... Yeah.
Matt Johnson: For somebody who didn't study and didn't do any of the coursework, it is like a special kind of hell to try to solve.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, I can't even-
Matt Johnson: But I know that I can solve all these things just by typing them into this TI-83, and it's going to do it all for me. So I sneak into the math department. I have such a good relationship with the head of the department, a guy named Mr. Milke. I'm like, "Hey-"
Stavros Halkias: Mr. Milke?
Matt Johnson: He's a great guy.
Stavros Halkias: Chuck Boss and Mr. Milke? These are fake. These are cartoon names.
Matt Johnson: It was a German name. And he's a wonderful guy. He was a real role model to me, actually. But I say, "Hey, I need one of those TI-83 calculators because..." And he just trusted me. He was like, "Of course." He's the head of the department. He knows I've got an exam in Ms. Leanders' class. And so as soon as I got the calculator, I'm like, "Hmm, I wonder if this is going to catch up to me, but probably not." So I go in to do the exam, and I'm doing it. No problem. I'm typing in the things and the answers, I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is like stealing candy from a baby." And then, I kid you not, I'm noticing everybody in the class is starting to look at me. And they're looking at me in a kind of odd way. I'll give you the look. They look at me like this. And it's not just one person doing it. It's everybody. And then Ms. Leanders... Sorry, at the front, starts looking at me the same way. And I'm like, "Oh my God, everybody knows I have the calculator. Everybody knows I'm cheating, and they're all waiting to pull the rug out and humiliate me. And it's finally..." Here's what I'm thinking, Stav: "It's finally going to be over." I'm like-
Stavros Halkias: "I'm finally free."
Matt Johnson: ... "Well, that's it. It's finally going to be over. They're going to realize that I am just a loser, liar, fake, and they're going to expel me."
Stavros Halkias: Oh, wow.
Matt Johnson: Because it is, in some ways, an expellable offense. You're cheating on an exam. Anyway, I start sweating, and I start pushing the calculator so I can hide it. And then I drop it into a bag, and then I close the bag.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, fuck.
Matt Johnson: And I'm like, "Okay, okay. Well, now at least, I can say that I didn't have the calculator at the time." But people keep looking at me, then they start laughing. Literally, they're starting to laugh while they look at me.
Stavros Halkias: They're like, "Oh, this idiot thinks he got away with it."
Matt Johnson: And I'm like, "What the hell is going on?" And so then I finally go back to the exam, and I keep writing, and I get to a question where Leanders has written the question with me as a character, and I'm doing all this goofy shit in a math problem. That's what everybody's laughing at.
Stavros Halkias: Oh my God!
Matt Johnson: That's why they keep looking at me for a reaction. And I'm like... And I can feel God looking at me like, "That's the one. But if you ever do this again, you're fucked, kid."
Stavros Halkias: That's crazy.
Matt Johnson: And then, of course, I get like a D.
Stavros Halkias: Of course. Even cheating.
Matt Johnson: I've lost the calculator. No, the calculator's gone because I put it away-
Stavros Halkias: Right, you hid it.
Matt Johnson: ... until I finish it, like this. And I'm like, "Okay, all right." It was the most Scared Straight moment.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, of course.
Matt Johnson: But of course, it's so low stakes, but-
Stavros Halkias: But that's really funny that the whole way you even got the calculator, which is being the kind of kid who has-
Matt Johnson: Who you could entrust with this.
Stavros Halkias: ... who you could trust, who the head of the department knows and has a relationship with, that's what also stopped you from cheating because having that personality made you the kind of guy who's a perfect target for a little comic relief in the thing.
Matt Johnson: Bingo. And everybody knew me.
Stavros Halkias: But you were the class clown to such a degree that you almost got to... It's like in The Wire when Stringer Bell becomes the bank. It's like, you're so untouchable.
Matt Johnson: Yes.
Stavros Halkias: Through just being a class clown, you were so good at it that now you can wash your hands of the criminal enterprise.
Matt Johnson: I have a very similar story about somebody a year above me who was the valedictorian, a guy named Jeff Garcia, who stole a movie from me and presented it as his OAC Art exam. And it was dead to rights. He had a VHS tape that I'd given him, and he just took... Literally, a student film that I did. This isn't high school stuff. And he presents it as his OAC final. And I go to the teacher, and I'm like, "This is crazy. He stole it and presented it." And she looked at me, and she was like, "Jeff's very popular, and we can't-"
Stavros Halkias: What?
Matt Johnson: "... we can't bring this up." And she was right!
Stavros Halkias: Are you kidding?
Matt Johnson: She was right! It would've been such a disgrace for it to come down.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, because he was the valedictorian.
Matt Johnson: He was the literal valedictorian.
Stavros Halkias: He was too big to fail. He's Lehman... Not Lehman Brothers, but-
Matt Johnson: And he's a good guy. Looking back on it, they made the right call because, I'm serious, Stav-
Stavros Halkias: He stole your fucking movie?
Matt Johnson: Oh, no.
Stavros Halkias: He didn't even plagiarize? He didn't-
Matt Johnson: No, no, he didn't play it as is. It was plagiarized.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, okay. I thought he took your fucking VHS and played it.
Matt Johnson: And pressed play?
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, I really did. I really thought that was what you were telling me.
Matt Johnson: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It wasn't that egregious.
Stavros Halkias: Okay. He at least... Got you, got you.
Matt Johnson: He'd done his own artistic interpretation on it. And I was just ripping off Fight Club, so how much-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah. That's so funny.
Matt Johnson: Like, who's who?
Stavros Halkias: You're like, "He's-"
Matt Johnson: I was just ripping off Fight Club, so how much-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, that's so funny.
Matt Johnson: Like, who's who?
Stavros Halkias: You're like, "He stole my whole idea," and it's just a Tyler Durden character, of course.
Matt Johnson: Literally, it was Tyler Durden's voice over top of some music and commercial images of people in a mall that I put the negative artwork.
Stavros Halkias: Isn't that awesome how smart you think you are when you're a teenager?
Matt Johnson: I was a genius. I was a genius.
Stavros Halkias: You're like, "Dude, society's actually fucked up." When you're fucking 17, and you're doing black-and-white montages talking about, "You can't listen to what they tell you. It's all a lie."
Matt Johnson: I always say to film students, "Get that out of your system as soon as you can."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: Because you have to do it, you may as well do it before you are in the adult world. Everybody has a couple ridiculous movies in them.
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: That they need to get out. Get those out young.
Stavros Halkias: The first script I wrote, it was called Greektown.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, I can imagine that actually not being so bad.
Stavros Halkias: Well, it was the themes I want to do one day, but it was just on the nose. It was just a fucking awesome guy and his fucking parents just don't get how fucking sick he is. You know what I mean? It's like, shut the fuck up.
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: You're a piece of shit. First of all, clearly, it's just me... I'm too much of a coward to have this conversation with my dad, so I write a script where I'm cool.
Matt Johnson: How old are you when this is?
Stavros Halkias: This is like...
Matt Johnson: Seven years ago?
Stavros Halkias: This is like six months ago... Actually, I'm waiting for your notes. Yeah. I emailed you. I haven't heard anything, dude. I thought this was the day.
Matt Johnson: Greektown.
Stavros Halkias: I think that's what you're doing after this. After Magic: The Gathering, we're doing Greektown.
Matt Johnson: We're doing Greektown.
Stavros Halkias: Honestly, there is an actual... Okay. Should I even? You know what the actual movie is?
Matt Johnson: Are you ready for this pitch? Are you ready for the-
Stavros Halkias: Here's what the actual pitch is: I want to explore the immigrant shit the same way, but I thought it'd be really awesome to do the character being a... There's this whole world of Greek wedding entertainment. And not wedding... Like baptisms, just Greek festivals. Dude, I've been playing these casinos, and sometimes it's the biggest acts of all time, which is hilarious that I'm in the same places as literally Earth, Wind & Fire. But then half the people that are at these huge casinos, these are like 2,000-seaters, are like Prince cover bands. And there's a real way to make a living touring as a cover band. These people, essentially, do that on a much lower level. They play Greek festivals and baptisms and weddings and all those kinds of things.
Matt Johnson: Are these people Greek?
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, they’re Greeks.
Matt Johnson: Oh, hell yeah.
Stavros Halkias: And it's Greek ethnic music. It's like bouzouki, and it's like folk, but modern. They do a whole range of it. It's just like they're playing the hits, right? And they have this ego about them, of course, because they are performers, and in their little world... And in that inconsequential world, they're fucking superstars, right?
Matt Johnson: They're somebody. Those are the best characters.
Stavros Halkias: Because there was a version of that with standup where there were guys who would do very... You know ethnic humor. It's like everybody does their... And listen, do I do my mom's voice once in our special? Yes.
Matt Johnson: “Yes, I do.”
Stavros Halkias: I do do my mom's voice, but it's not every punchline, right?
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: When I first started comedy, people were like, "You should come do standup at the church." Because what they're used to is like, I told my mom I was dating an American woman, and she started crying. She was whatever. She was like, "How dare you?" Whatever. And I was like, "How do I fix this?" So then a week later, I go back. I was like, "Mom, I'm dating a man." And she's like, "Why don't you date an American woman instead?"
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: You had to trick.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, right.
Stavros Halkias: There's homophobic that the only... This level of joke, right?
Matt Johnson: Sure.
Stavros Halkias: But I just think that would be so fun to just play again. The low level, the king in his little castle.
Matt Johnson: Of course.
Stavros Halkias: And it doesn't mean anything. And then that's a way to explore, what are you doing with your life? You're in entertainment. You know what I mean? That's just a way to do it in a fun way.
Matt Johnson: It's been a long time since My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which was a phenomenon.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, yeah.
Matt Johnson: And so a part of me thinks that you're due. And hey, look, The Odyssey is now.
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: These old stories are becoming relevant again.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. Very similar. Same scale, same scope of the story I'm talking about. Since you brought up The Odyssey, let me just get this out here now. I reread it because again, I was a big mythology guy as a kid, but I hadn't reread the whole thing since, maybe, in my mid-twenties. And I was like, let me just actually sit down and reread it. The funniest part about The Odyssey for me is, so Odysseus leaves for the Trojan War, and the Iliad is the first 10 years. They have 10 years of war until the Trojan Horse. Then The Odyssey story, it takes him another 10 years-
Matt Johnson: To get home.
Stavros Halkias: To get home. He spends seven of those years on Calypso's Island as a sex slave. And the book starts, there's a chapter of the book where he's crying after fucking Calypso all night and having sex with a goddess and being fed whatever, ambrosia.
Matt Johnson: Lotus.
Stavros Halkias: Lotus. Lotus, exactly. We see Odysseus on the beach weeping because he's getting too much good pussy and snacks.
Matt Johnson: Get real. Get real.
Stavros Halkias: The Odyssey's three years because he had a seven-year vacation where he got to a fuck a goddess and have the best food of all time. I couldn't believe that... Because I wanted to get the timeline right going into the Nolan movie.
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: Because I just don't... I remember the scattered stories, and it really happens much... It's a much shorter, it's much more truncated than you think.
Matt Johnson: I think they did that because they didn't want to create the feeling you're talking about right now, which is big whoop. Bro, I'd love to take that odyssey myself.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, exactly.
Matt Johnson: You know what? It gets at something which is true that I bet you, you can relate to at a certain level, which is, you like smoking cigarettes? Here, smoke the whole pack.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: You're going to go smoke the whole box.
Stavros Halkias: Of course, of course. I guess it's nice that you're crying because you miss your wife, but...
Matt Johnson: It shows you have a moral center.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. Even though Odysseus in the book, it really is like... He is a piece of shit.
Matt Johnson: This is what I remember from way back when I was a kid and didn't understand the text at all. I had to read both of those, and it was so over my head, but I loved the hits. I love the hits. The myth that I know well is Gilgamesh, which is similar, but different. Gilgamesh goes on his own odyssey, which I can tell briefly. And as soon as you hear this, you'll be like, "Oh yeah, you're just making that movie over and over again." And this is the story. So the first time-
Stavros Halkias: In the story, Gilgamesh is secretly in love with his hotter friend.
Matt Johnson: Bro.
Stavros Halkias: Really?
Matt Johnson: Wait. Wait. Wait.
Stavros Halkias: Okay, hit me with it.
Matt Johnson: So he's got a best friend who dies. That's the first half of the myth. And Gilgamesh is the king of this gigantic palace.
Stavros Halkias: Yes.
Matt Johnson: He's like the man, but his friend is dead. And so he goes, "You know what? I fucking hate it here. I'm getting out of here. I'm going to go try to figure out how to live forever." And so he leaves his palace, which he's so sick of, and he's like, "This is the worst place ever. This is a prison to me."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, right.
Matt Johnson: And so he leaves. And he goes and tries to basically meet the gods and challenge them. And it's a lot like Hercules or The Odyssey.
Stavros Halkias: Right.
Matt Johnson: And he's given all of these impossible tasks where it's like you got to stay awake for seven days, and he stays awake for three and then falls asleep. You got to do this. And he almost makes it every single time. And the last one is, you got to dive to the bottom of this lake, grab this vegetable at the bottom, bring it back up and eat it, and then you'll live forever. And he makes it almost all the way down and just can't and comes back up, and he's like, "I can't do it." And he walks home to his palace a failure. And as he crests the dune, he's just like, "Oh, fuck my life. I can't believe it. I'm coming back, and I've done nothing but waste my time." He sees his kingdom as he comes over the dune, and he looks at all of it, and he starts to cry at how beautiful it is.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, wow.
Matt Johnson: And he's like, "I'm so lucky that this is mine." And it's a message of renewal through failure that I've, for whatever reason, it's the message of my life because, as you witnessed on set daily, all I do is fail. And I'm met with things that I can't possibly do. And I tell myself a lie that, you know what? It's going to be okay.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: And I will figure this out later. You and I were like this on the set of your special.
Stavros Halkias: Absolutely.
Matt Johnson: You went through this.
Stavros Halkias: Oh dude, I completely understood it. Where it was like we had our first show was literally the worst hour of my life for maybe the last 10 years.
Matt Johnson: I remember that's exactly the first thing you said when you came off stage.
Stavros Halkias: Because this special, too, I've built up so much. I've been working on it for three years, and I was supposed to do it, and then I broke my arm. And I'm just like, I just want people to see me as a top-level joke writer. I don't want people to think of me as just a crowd work comic.
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: I want people to understand I'm a five-tool player. I can do everything when it comes to standup. And the week of, I start to lose my voice. The week before my back-
Matt Johnson: Gives out completely.
Stavros Halkias: Gives out. I need cortisone shots. I injured my back the week before Tires started in January, and I broke my arm the week we were supposed to do the special originally, and the week before it, and then right after that I was going to go do this Apatow movie. And so before every production, I break my arm, or I throw my back out.
Matt Johnson: Or you lose your voice.
Stavros Halkias: And then I lost my voice. The silver lining for breaking my arm was, I was going to have the Tune Up Tour on the West Coast, and I was going to get every word perfect, every odd and every loose end. And I get so sick the day I'm going to do four cities in four nights, five shows. The day that starts... In a different city every night riding a bus, that's the day I get sicker than I've been. And so I'm prescribed steroids for my voice to get through it. And I'm not working on anything. I'm just trying to not-
Matt Johnson: Stay alive.
Stavros Halkias: I'm trying to stay alive. What I should have done was cancel the shows.
Matt Johnson: But it already happened.
Stavros Halkias: I was already there. What the fuck am I going to do? And it's like I've already canceled a lot of stuff and lost a lot of money canceling things. So I'm like, all right, fuck it. The first show was so bad. We got the lighting wrong, got the energy wrong. And it was the first time I'd spoken in two days because I was on vocal rest. So the first words I have, I say... That's supposed to be this culmination of three years, and I'm bombing. And you guys, from a technical standpoint, were able to get it looking right. You fixed all the problems you had to do. And then on the second show, we get a lot of stuff done. And I'm like, wow. I'm actually set up to... What is about to happen is this special's going to look incredible. They're going to be like, Matt Johnson's a genius. Everyone-
Matt Johnson: You think I'm going to get all the credit?
Stavros Halkias: No, no. But not just you. The lighting... What I think is going to happen, because I was really set up there for a second to be like... Because you guys fixed all your tech. The camera looked incredible. Everything looked... and the set deck. And it was going to be like Stav tried to buy himself a classic. He got this great director. He got the best people.
Matt Johnson: Oh, I see, I see, I see.
Stavros Halkias: He got this beautiful theater. He clearly spent money on set deck. We're trying to get this awesome song, right?
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: Everything around it is marquee special, but he fucking sucks at standup.
Matt Johnson: Oh, so you were going to expose yourself even more.
Stavros Halkias: Not only did I do just a mediocre job-
Matt Johnson: But you put a bullseye around yourself.
Stavros Halkias: But now, I've put all... And the only thing that's going to be bad is the standup. So that's what I'm thinking is like, “Not only am I just going to blow it, I'm going to blow it in a way that people think I'm the worst. I'm the biggest fraud on earth.”
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: And I'm a loudmouth piece of shit. You know me, I fucking think I'm the... When it comes to standup, I talk. People sometimes have a problem with how arrogant I come off just because I've dedicated my life to this. So there would be people very happy if that happened.
Matt Johnson: For you to fail publicly.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right.
Matt Johnson: Especially on a throne.
Stavros Halkias: Yes.
Matt Johnson: That's regicide to the finest order.
Stavros Halkias: Yes.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, of course they want that.
Stavros Halkias: And I was so angry fucking going into even the second show of the first night before we even got anything. I was like, "All right man, that's what you're up against." In a fucked up way, though.
Matt Johnson: Oh, it helped. You know Michel Gondry's got this great line on Block Party with Dave Chappelle where he's on a conference call with all the musicians saying how they're going to put on this show and there's not going to be any prep and they're just going to do it. And Questlove says, "Well, okay, we're going to try. I mean, it's not going to be perfect, but we'll do it." And Michel Gondry says, "Yeah, no, no, no, but it will be better than perfect because we won't have any idea what we're doing, and so we will transcend perfection." Which is what you want, right?
Stavros Halkias: Yes.
Matt Johnson: Nobody wants to see something perfectly prepared and executed. Well, I won't put it that way. I'll say that what gets people up on their feet screaming and going, “Oh my gosh,” is when they see somebody at the brink of failure, but they pull it off.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: Because that's so much more exciting.
Stavros Halkias: Listen, that's what this special is. We literally, after the first one, I was like, this fucking sucks. My life is fucking... I made a big bet on people taking me seriously as a standup, and I fucking lost. And it wasn't a good bet, right? It was like I got horrible odds. You know what I mean? It was like you have to bet $1,000 to make $1,002, right?
Matt Johnson: Yeah, right, right, right.
Stavros Halkias: I bet everything on a sure thing.
Matt Johnson: You just get your money back.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. I bet everything on a sure thing, and I still lost?
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: Because it felt like a sure thing, right? But we figured it out. When they see the special, they will see a man on the brink because most of what we used is that second show, which is me back against the wall. We just had the worst show in the world.
Matt Johnson: It's so final.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: But you must recognize this from all performances. It's like, the kind of easy: just do your line, get it right, and have the director go, "Okay. Yeah, you got it. Great, great, great." That's not what you want. Right?
Stavros Halkias: Sure.
Matt Johnson: I'll talk about myself. I want to feel out of control, and I want to feel like when it's done, I will never be able to do that again. And when I'm looking at performances, you remember when Leo punches Antonio?
Stavros Halkias: Yes. One of the most electric moments.
Matt Johnson: And I'm watching Dom through the camera as he's watching these guys. It's the only one-take where Leo throws Dom at the wall, and Dom hits his back.
Stavros Halkias: No, I remember that.
Matt Johnson: And the door closes, and I'm watching it being like, "Oh, is Dom okay?" And then Dom watches these guys scream at one another. It's only one take of it. You could never ask him to do that again. And you're watching it like, "All right, well, this is it."
Stavros Halkias: No, but that's the beauty. Okay, so that's what I've actually loved about camera acting, right? That, to me, makes so much more sense because you are trying to capture this lightning in a-
Matt Johnson: Something that you couldn't repeat.
Stavros Halkias: That you couldn't repeat.
Matt Johnson: And standup is so the opposite. You're so right. You're so right.
Stavros Halkias: Stand up is all getting it down. And in fact, I think I am very proud of what we did, obviously, but I really do wish I had just one week to be physically healthy. I wish I had one week off to just be mentally and physically there. But the other thing you realize is when you're trying to do something really great, I mean, the... We were never going to be able to do it again. There was no way we could postpone it a second time.
Matt Johnson: There are a hundred people there just setting it up.
Stavros Halkias: And this is the hubris of wanting to do a really big level special. There's 2,000 people at each show. We're going to get them to buy tickets three times?
Matt Johnson: It's a third time. I know.
Stavros Halkias: And you're about to do fucking eight movies. And we have Jared, we have Kurt and Bobby.
Matt Johnson: Well, it was never going to happen again.
Stavros Halkias: It was never going to happen again.
Matt Johnson: It had to happen.
Stavros Halkias: So it was this thing where it's like, all right man, there's no perfect anything. Even though you've been working on this for three years, you're not going to... Some of these jokes are not going to be photographed. They're not going to be remembered in time the way you want.
Matt Johnson: The way that you want them to be. Exactly.
Stavros Halkias: Right. But there are other things we did that are even better. So that's the trade-off you have. And I'm thinking about this so much because in the midst-
Matt Johnson: We're about to deliver this in a few days.
Stavros Halkias: We're in the midst of the final cut. And I've been wrestling with these things where it's like, what can I live with? What can I not live with? What am I okay with? What am I not? And it's like, at the end of the day, that's the beauty. It still is at the same time, it's not exactly what I wanted, but it's a different and better artifact, I think. And what I loved was just collaborating with people who, this was really cool working with you on it. I'd never had anybody whose creative vision I respected to do different stuff on this because I would never... That honestly for me was a big thing because standup, I'm such a control freak over standup. But doing Tony, I was just like, I really... The way you directed was so... It was so communication based and so “We are in this together” based. There was no dictatorial– It actually really amused me because the way you direct is like, if you showed aliens and you're like, "Hey, who's in charge here?"
Matt Johnson: They would not say me.
Stavros Halkias: They'd be like, "I think that's everybody's assistant. I think somehow this guy is... Everyone is his boss." That's what it feels like because you really want to set people up and you really also want them to be heard. And that's why going back to the very beginning when you said you hate hierarchy.
Matt Johnson: I hate power.
Stavros Halkias: You hate power and you want a flat hierarchical system. It's a very interesting way because I do think most people who hate that, you become the thing you hate. And I think I have this problem where it's like, I hate being told what to do. And that manifests itself sometimes in me being a control freak and being like, "No, I know what the fuck is going... Shut the fuck up." Which is bad. Until you said that right now, I had never even considered that the way to rebel against authority is to create a system that has no authority. You know what I mean?
Matt Johnson: Now, that only works if you're working with people that really do want the best for one another because that goes bad really quick as soon as someone's got an ego and they're like, "No, no, no. My idea has to win because it's my idea." And that's when you're fucked.
Stavros Halkias: Totally, totally, totally.
Matt Johnson: And so any type of collaborative fraternal system like I'm always trying to make goes south quickly. And I've been in those situations where you realize one, two people are feeling, oh, they haven't had a pitch go through in a little while. And because I'm in some ways pantomiming that I'm not in charge, that becomes infuriating when you're the person who's never getting their idea through and there's no boss.
Stavros Halkias: Or actually, on some level it's like, it's not that there's no boss. It's that you don't have the decency to admit you're the boss.
Matt Johnson: Bingo. It's almost a corrupt evil.
Stavros Halkias: Yes, you don't want to be like someone's got to-
Matt Johnson: It's cowardly. It's cowardly.
Stavros Halkias: On some level it is a little cowardly.
Matt Johnson: Hugely. And I recognize that. And the way that I've tried to protect myself is to be around people who I love and would really do anything for. You met Kurt and Bobby.
Stavros Halkias: What I was just going to say is working with you guys on the special is literally what I strive to do on a collaborative thing. Because you guys were so open with each other. And sometimes what would read as straight-up mean, but it wasn't mean. It was like, we don't have enough time to even fucking talk about this. I need you to shut the fuck up. But then the same person who said that four seconds later would say something else and you'd be like, "You're a fucking genius." You'd be kissing him on the mouth. That's such a beautiful idea. And there was just such freedom to truly no ego and truly you moved as a real unit. It was like it felt you, Kurt, Bobby, Jared felt like and Power Rangers were their separate-
Matt Johnson: The Megazord.
Stavros Halkias: The Megazord. It felt like you guys felt like the Megazord.
Matt Johnson: It's a great feeling. And the truth is, there's a Steve Jobs quote about this, which is that if you work with great people, you realize very quickly you work for them. I've just found that it's not just that it's a true idea, that's just reality. I need to keep them interested. I need to keep my collaborators involved and invested more so than they need to impress me. Because at any moment, these guys are so talented, they could leave and do anything they want. They could do anything they want, which is so challenging for me because we'll think about it. So you call me, you say, "Hey, Matt, guess what? You're directing my special." Remember what I said at first?
Stavros Halkias: I don't.
Matt Johnson: I said no.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Matt Johnson: I said, "No, I don't know how to do that. I don't want to." And you said, "Unfortunately you are." And that's really all it took. We're close enough that that's all you had to say.
Stavros Halkias: Well, I was always like, dude, this is not... Because here's the thing-
Matt Johnson: Well, yes, you lied to me as well. And said there was going to be no work.
Stavros Halkias: It's going to be easy. But I also, I knew that lie would work because yes, there's a version of a special.
Matt Johnson: I could have phoned it in completely. Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: But I knew you would never do that. I knew you were good. You don't work on anything-
Matt Johnson: You manipulated me.
Stavros Halkias: I did. I manipulated. And look, I was like, no, really what it was, if this motherfucker just gives me some long lens. If we just shoot this interesting at the baseline-
Matt Johnson: That's enough. I remember you said that to me as well.
Stavros Halkias: And that's what I told you. I just want this to look different at least. But I think what we did, but I had a hunch. And here's the funny thing. I had a hunch something magical would happen. But at the same time, the thing you pitched, I thought would never work.
Matt Johnson: I remember.
Stavros Halkias: I was like, "All right, dickhead. Sure." We can't just interview a hundred lunatics in Toronto until we get one guy.
Matt Johnson: My technique. Yeah, of course.
Stavros Halkias: I was like, "We need to come up. We need to find a magic, random person. We only have four shots at it."
Matt Johnson: And we need to find him in the first two shows.
Stavros Halkias: And realistically, it has to happen in the first two shows so we can like, whatever. We have this whole idea and watch the special. I don't want to suck us off too much. But I do think we pulled off-
Matt Johnson: We did what we thought we could do.
Stavros Halkias: What we thought might be possible.
Matt Johnson: Exactly. And so you got to imagine my perspective when I go to these guys who I work on everything with and I say, "Hey, so I'm going to go direct this Stavros special. Do you guys want to come do it?" And then of course I'm in the position that you were just in, which is they're like, "Well, why would we?" And I realize, of course, I need to do work that is worth their time. And it's the promise I make. I mean, you tell me how you feel about this because it's so different for a stand up comedian, but you too have a group of people who are supporting you. And in some ways they work for you, but you owe them.
Stavros Halkias: That's your family. In a fucked up way, my family are my employees and that my best friend, Eldes is my podcast producer and my tour manager. And until very recently, my assistant was my best friend growing up, Christina - me, Christina and Eldes lived in Astoria together. They had real jobs. They subsidized my life. They let me live in the corner of their apartment for 500 bucks a month when I was dead broke. And these are people I can trust. And Ben O'Brien, who we go way back.
Matt Johnson: Unbelievable guy.
Stavros Halkias: The best in the world. The best in the world.
Matt Johnson: But you see what I mean when I say that when you have a responsibility for you to do well, to do well by them. And so when I'm pitching Kurt and Bobby and Jared, "Hey, do you guys want to come make this special for Stav?" I need to make it worth their while. And by extension, when I'm making a deal with any collaborator, and if that's like a member of the crew of a movie or an actor, I mean, it's the deal I made you. I said, "Hey, listen, you have no reason to really trust me, but I promise that if you do, and that if you..." What's the word? It's not that I asked you to take a huge risk, but if you risk embarrassing yourself, I promise you, I promise you, I will be the one in the end who makes sure that this is maybe not the best movie ever made, but it's the best I am capable of making.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right.
Matt Johnson: And I'm not going to give up on it ever, ever, ever. And I will be the person who's fighting with the studio, with anybody who's telling me that we actually need to change something. And I feel like more than anything, that's the role I provide to people on these projects, which is that, yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm kind of stupid. I don't have a great idea of how movies even get made, but I promise that in the end, I'm willing to die for this to be good.
Stavros Halkias: And I believe you. Yeah.
Matt Johnson: Maybe even too much.
Stavros Halkias: Too much. I do think too much sometimes.
Matt Johnson: And that I think allows people to then go, "Okay, so then I can commit everything to this."
Stavros Halkias: 100%. And listen, it was such a no-brainer when you called me to do... Basically the call was like, "Hey, can you come bully Dominic Cesso for two weeks?"
Matt Johnson: And do you remember what you said? You said, "I have a lot of things I could say to him."
Stavros Halkias: I know. I know. I mean, I don't know. I said this at a different interview. I think we did so much press yesterday, but I really, really was like... I didn't actually want it, but a part of me was like, "I hope Dom is a piece of-"
Matt Johnson: I hope this guy's a piece of shit. Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: Because look, my whole life, the villain in my story is a handsome guy.
Matt Johnson: Handsome guy who gets everything handed to him.
Stavros Halkias: And there's a way to look at Dom when you don't know him.
Matt Johnson: Easily. And you don't know his story. Private school kid who gets cast in an Alexander movie.
Stavros Halkias: And he's good.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: And that's the most fucking annoying part. He wasn't just a pretty face that they put in the background while Paul Giamatti did all the heavy lifting. This motherfucker acted his dick off on that movie. And it was like, where did this kid come from? I didn't even tell Dom this story, but it was like when I watched that movie, I watched it with a girl and it hit me so hard emotionally and I'm trying to be cool. And she's just like, "Oh, this is a pretty good movie." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's pretty good." And I'm just trying not to start crying. But that's how effective. And so yes, handsome, model good looks.
Matt Johnson: Effortless.
Stavros Halkias: Effortless. Gets handed a, not just movie career, but leading man career at 20.
Matt Johnson: I think within six months of that movie coming out, he was on the cover of GQ.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right, right. And so part of me is like, "Yeah, I can go destroy this kid on camera."
Matt Johnson: God sent me to humiliate him.
Stavros Halkias: Yes, yes, yes. But then Dom is the best kid and he was trying so hard. He was putting himself into it. And it's interesting because what does try even mean? Because what you've told him was like, I just need you to react.
Matt Johnson: Basically I said, don't do anything.
Stavros Halkias: Don't change a fucking thing.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, don't do anything.
Stavros Halkias: And in some ways that's harder because there's no homework to do. There's no exercise. There's no-
Matt Johnson: It's like hearing you're going to war.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. And it's like good luck.
Matt Johnson: That's all you do is just wait in the boat.
Stavros Halkias: Just wait for somebody to hand you a rifle and then, all right, action. You know what I mean? And so when I met him, he's the best kid of all time really, and I loved him immediately. And it actually made it harder to hit him.
Matt Johnson: I remember that day.
Stavros Halkias: That day was like fuck, I feel bad for this kid. The guy I'm playing is a blue collar. He's not going to come up with an in character insult about this Tony Bourdain kid. He's going to see a gawky guy and he's going to say, you look like a fucking-
Matt Johnson: You look like you're wearing women's clothes. Exactly.
Stavros Halkias: Going to call him a gay giraffe.
Matt Johnson: Bingo.
Stavros Halkias: You know what I mean? That's the level of insult that he's-
Matt Johnson: Things that he probably is more sensitive about than if you were to talk about his psychological issues.
Stavros Halkias: Exactly. Just pure surface level roasting. And I literally, I was like, this is the worst– These are the worst circumstances for roasting. It's a target I don't want to hit in a completely silent movie set.
Matt Johnson: And Antonio Banderas is watching.
Stavros Halkias: Yes, yes, yes. And it was pretty early. And I was like, and dude, more than I gave a fuck about the movie, I was like, I need Antonio Banderas-
Matt Johnson: I need Zoro to like this.
Stavros Halkias: Truly, that's all I gave. And we got there eventually, but he was the man. Somebody who's that legendary, if he was-
Stavros Halkias: Somebody who's that legendary, if there was a lunch break and a helicopter came down and picked him up for 40 minutes-
Matt Johnson: Nobody would've blinked.
Stavros Halkias: Of course. And he doesn't even land.
Matt Johnson: He does a circle, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: He eats lunch circling our green room. Great. Makes it too windy and hot. And I'd be like, "Thank you, sir. It's an honor to eat in the wake of your helicopter."
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: "Your helicopter wind, sir. Thank you." But no, he was there. He was fucking hanging out. He was the man.
Matt Johnson: He was so graceful.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: I'm sad he couldn't make it to the premiere. I literally miss Antonio Banderas. I miss him more than members of my family, easily. If you told me I could have one day with Antonio Banderas or a year with my elderly aunt.
Matt Johnson: Or, say, another healthy year, another healthy year.
Stavros Halkias: A healthy year in my life? Yeah. Oh, easy, dude.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: But I need a full day. I need a full day in Malaga. For a year in my life, I need-
Matt Johnson: And he treats you as a peer.
Stavros Halkias: Exactly.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: He takes me to the little restaurant he only knows about, get me the freshest paella, you know what I mean? We go out dancing. I want to go... You know?
Matt Johnson: Did you see him dance?
Stavros Halkias: No.
Matt Johnson: He's unbelievable.
Stavros Halkias: Of course he is.
Matt Johnson: He's unbelievable.
Stavros Halkias: He's unbelievable at everything.
Matt Johnson: The first day on set, we were shooting the scene where I had to send him and Dom out in a boat with these fish, and of course, boat doesn't work, ran out of fish. And he rightfully on mic says to Dom, "Hmm, I've never really been in this situation before." And Dom's looking at him, he can't defend me. I'm back on the shore, and I'm like, oh yeah, well, I really fucked this up. Antonio Banderas thinks I'm a clown and the movie's done. Anyway, he comes back after we finish the scene, and he's staying in a local person's house, just somebody in Cape Cod, because we have no green rooms, we're in the community.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: And he's in their home, and they've graciously said... I mean, how graciously. They said, "Antonio Banderas is coming to your house." They said, "Of course." I go in to talk to him, because I'm going to apologize, I'm like, "I'm sorry things have gone so badly." I walk in and I can hear piano music. And I walk in, I'm like, what's going on? Him and the entire family, they're all around-
Stavros Halkias: The family?
Matt Johnson: They're all around the piano. He's playing and singing traditional Spanish music, and everyone is dancing. And I look over, I go, "Antonio?" And he looks over at me like, "Hey, one second."
Stavros Halkias: It's like he's an X-Men whose superpower is: everyone you meet will fall in love with you.
Matt Johnson: They love him.
Stavros Halkias: It's insane. It's insane. And he chooses the type of love. He chooses platonic, romantic, whatever it is.
Matt Johnson: Agape.
Stavros Halkias: Agape. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: Every different type of love. He can choose what type, but if he sends his little laser beams on it, you're toast.
Matt Johnson: Eros.
Stavros Halkias: It's Eros.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: Exactly.
Matt Johnson: I would say that's his real secret weapon.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: He was, yeah, truly the man.
Matt Johnson: Yeah. I loved him, and he gave us such a gift by coming to be in this film. I don't know how he even did what he did, because it's not like he and I had a plan, where I was like, okay. I mean, I made the character Roman Catholic. I gave him as much biographical information that was pertinent to him as I could. But that was all him. He was like, "I'm super humble. I never raised my voice. I've got a problem with taking the Lord's name in vain."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, look, I've been lucky to work with some good ass actors, obviously, with barely acting myself. But he was doing so much heavy lifting in that kitchen, because we all... What was awesome about this movie was that the real life dynamics just mirrored the movie.
Matt Johnson: Almost identically, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: It was kind of insane how exactly perfect the casting was for where everybody was in their lives.
Matt Johnson: Oh, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: And yeah, our characters are taking their cues from Chef, but also, every actor in there is like, "Whatever the fuck Antonio Banderas does, I'm getting on that wavelength."
Matt Johnson: Bingo.
Stavros Halkias: "If Matt says that's wrong, I don't fucking care."
Matt Johnson: Thank god-
Stavros Halkias: "I'm doing what Antonio Banderas says."
Matt Johnson: Thank god that didn't happen too much, because that would have been-
Stavros Halkias: No.
Matt Johnson: ... a real problem.
Stavros Halkias: It really didn't.
Matt Johnson: I remember the only time it ever got testy was when he was absolutely convinced his character needed to make a shrimp paella. Do you remember that? Where he was like-
Stavros Halkias: I do.
Matt Johnson: "It's important. My character must make one." And I was like, "Antonio, it's not on the menu."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: "You're in Cape Cod."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: And then, this was the compromise, he said, "I'm going to do it anyway, and you just don't shoot me." And I was like, "Deal." What am I going to say?
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: Like, "Yeah, you got it."
Stavros Halkias: No problem, boss.
Matt Johnson: You got it.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: And then, so for that... And do you want to know what scene that is? That's the scene where Leo comes in and punches him. So when you watch that in the movie, watch what Antonio's doing at the beginning of the scene.
Stavros Halkias: Oh my god.
Matt Johnson: He's peeling shrimp for a shrimp paella-
Stavros Halkias: That's so fucking funny.
Matt Johnson: That I guess it's just for family meal-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Which was another big part of it. But yeah, it led to my favorite scene in the whole movie. And I loved that reaction from you. God, it's one of the few things that I had in my head when I'm putting the movie together. I was like, man, the expression that Stavros can have watching Antonio Banderas get punched, which is... Because you have an attitude, both in real life and in the film, of just try it, you know?
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: I'm ready for anything.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: I will never be surprised.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: In fact, it's one of your gifts.
Stavros Halkias: Right. I can literally roll with the punches, right? Yes.
Matt Johnson: Whatever happens, you'll be the first to laugh.
Stavros Halkias: Yes, yes, yes.
Matt Johnson: You're gifted in that way. It's almost like you're unflappable. There's a great term in a John Updike book, you're as invincible as a Clorox bottle, and it's true. It's very hard to imagine you seeing something that makes you panic. And I thought if Leo punching Antonio can get a rise out of Stavros-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: ... then the audience is really going to know this has really crossed a line, right?
Stavros Halkias: I know what you mean.
Matt Johnson: Crossed a line that is scary.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. Because particularly my character in this, he is the guy who's like, "All right. Shut the fuck up." For a sports analogy, he's almost like Draymond Green on the Warriors. You're a basketball guy?
Matt Johnson: I don't follow this reference at all-
Stavros Halkias: Okay.
Matt Johnson: But I will play ball.
Stavros Halkias: Anyway, whatever. Let's just make it more general, where it's like, he's not the best player on the team, and I'm not a good chef, I'm not whatever, even in the story, right?
Matt Johnson: That's not why you're there.
Stavros Halkias: That's not why I'm there.
Matt Johnson: Yes.
Stavros Halkias: But I do a really good job, the intangibles. I kind of do feel like, in many ways, my character was sort of like the locker room guy, the backbone, almost like the family backbone of this.
Matt Johnson: Of course. You set the culture of the place-
Stavros Halkias: Right.
Matt Johnson: ... more than anybody.
Stavros Halkias: The heavy lifting I'm doing is not– You don't see it, but it's, yes, let's all get along. They definitely used to go out. They would go out drinking and I would organize it. We get a little piece of that at the-
Matt Johnson: During the family service, yeah.
Stavros Halkias: -the family meal stuff. And also, there's a guy who's been there for 10 years in my head, and so if he's like, "Oh, fuck."
Matt Johnson: This has never happened before.
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: Because I even remember... And I never... I was like, we'll do anything. I don't give a fuck. The one thing I was on the page, that scene, I think I told you this already, where I was like, I just feel like my character would get in the mix.
Matt Johnson: I remember you telling me this.
Stavros Halkias: I remember feeling like... And truly, I never had a single note, mostly because it was always every time I got on set, we kind of decided what to do.
Matt Johnson: Right.
Stavros Halkias: There wasn't much. But that was such a crucial scene, where we were going over it and I was like, "Dude, it feels right to me." And right before we were shooting, I was thinking that, even to the point where I was like-
Matt Johnson: That you would need to break up the fight in some way.
Stavros Halkias: Right. Or even that it wouldn't feel right not to get in the mix earlier. And then, this is such a testament to Leo, where it's like the way he acted, the way his character behaved, it legitimately, I was like, oh no, I would be fucking scared to get in this. This is just way above this dickhead's pay grade.
Matt Johnson: Yeah.
Stavros Halkias: And that was also a moment where I was like, oh, fuck, there is really good acting. You know what I mean? There are moments of how the last couple of years have gone where it's like, I hate how much actor-y bullshit is getting into my head. You know what I mean?
Matt Johnson: But it works.
Stavros Halkias: Talking about energy. You know what I mean? Talking about shit like that. But, man, I straight up was getting goosebumps. Leo was so fucking good that it felt different in there, and I was like, this is the perfect performance. He's acting so well. Background acting is hard when you're not a real actor, when you're some guy that they bring in to say insults, right?
Matt Johnson: Yeah. Right.
Stavros Halkias: But that was like, I just felt like... And again, that kitchen felt like a kitchen. It didn't feel like a set at all.
Matt Johnson: Right, right, right. You could relax.
Stavros Halkias: It was fucking insane how much I felt like I was at work.
Matt Johnson: I was going to say, how much do you want to bet-
Speaker 1: Three minutes.
Matt Johnson: How much do you want to bet that the whole reason that I find your reaction in that scene so powerful and why for me it makes the scene is precisely because you believed that you would never not step in?
Stavros Halkias: Oh yes.
Matt Johnson: How much do you want to bet-
Stavros Halkias: You're so fucking right.
Matt Johnson: That it's your expectation being broken in the moment-
Stavros Halkias: Holy fuck.
Matt Johnson: That then for me watching it as an audience member goes, "Oh, something has happened here that was not planned."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: There must be a relationship between those two things-
Stavros Halkias: No. You're so fucking right.
Matt Johnson: Because why are you feeling so strongly the other way? And, I mean, I have no expectation. Had you, by the way, gone in and been like, "Guys, guys, guys, fucking relax." In fact, there is a moment, and when you're watching the scene, you'll hear it, you hear your voice, and it's in the scene, I'm in a closeup on Leo, and you hear you go, "Guys." And you say it with that tone of voice that I've heard you say-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: ...when you've witnessed an argument in real life, where you go-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: "Guys." And Leo turns to you, we don't even see you, and he goes, "Shut the fuck up." He screams in your face.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: And that's the last time we hear you.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Because he's so in the pocket.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was, he was.
Matt Johnson: And we're just improvising.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: The scene is just happening. And nobody breathed a word after that, because I don't want to get beat up by Leo Woodall.
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: And he took it there.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, he really did. No, he was at 10, for sure.
Matt Johnson: I had a fantasy early on when I'm writing that, where I was like, oh, and then they should bring out knives and they should fight and I'll have Zorro fighting.
Stavros Halkias: Right. There was a knife fight that we cut.
Matt Johnson: You're knife fighting, and then-
Stavros Halkias: You're right, you're right.
Matt Johnson: And then, it was Antonio who came up to me and he said, "Do you think I'd really bring up a knife to this guy?" And I said, "Why do you say that?" He said, "Don't I love him?" And I went, "Oh wait, that's the whole scene."
Stavros Halkias: Oh, fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: That's the whole scene.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: Of course, you would never try to hurt him. You love him. And that's why this scene becomes, what do you mean?
Stavros Halkias: No. It's-
Matt Johnson: How could I punch you? I love you.
Stavros Halkias: It's Leo completely, completely tearing up the constitution of that kitchen-
Matt Johnson: And then-
Stavros Halkias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Johnson: ... having it thrown back in his face, because the brilliance of it is, of course, the first half, where he throws this punch and you go, "Hey, guys. Everything's changed, and this is no longer a safe place." And then, he says to his father basically, "Okay. Well-"
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: ... "We're finally going to do this. I hate you, you hate me, so let's see who the real man is. I think it's me."
Stavros Halkias: Right.
Matt Johnson: "I bet you think it's you."
Stavros Halkias: Right.
Matt Johnson: "So let's go."
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: And then, Antonio Banderas is looking at him, and he's kind of flummoxed, almost crying, and he goes, "I like you."
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: And then, of course, Leo is so crushed by the realization that, oh wait, this guy wasn't my enemy, he was my friend, that he has to run away-
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: ... and basically swears revenge.
Stavros Halkias: Of course.
Matt Johnson: Because what else are you going to do? It was so my experience, where my whole childhood, I'm like, oh, my mom hates me, she hates me, and that's why my life is like this.
Stavros Halkias: Holy shit.
Matt Johnson: And, okay, fine. She hates me. I hate her. Easy.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: I know how to play that game. That's why I was put here, and that's why she was put here to torture me, and I was put here to try to get out from under her thumb. No problem. And then, my first step into adulthood is realizing, come on, she's acting this way because she cares about me.
Stavros Halkias: Right, right, right.
Matt Johnson: She loves me more than anybody will ever love me in my life. And I had it so backwards.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, fuck. Yeah.
Matt Johnson: And there's nothing more painful than that.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: That sent me reeling for years.
Stavros Halkias: That's your Gilgamesh right there, bro.
Matt Johnson: Oh yeah, right.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. That's the foundational understanding of what you had.
Matt Johnson: Yeah. I'm still making movies about it.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah.
Matt Johnson: Yeah. Next one, we'll make about your dad.
Stavros Halkias: Oh, that's going to be a good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I do think-
Matt Johnson: Greektown.
Stavros Halkias: Greektown, baby. Let's do it. Fire it up. A24, hey, we're on the podcast, can we get a little-
Matt Johnson: Wait a minute. I think they might actually own it.
Stavros Halkias: Yeah. Oh fuck.
Matt Johnson: I didn't sign shit.
Stavros Halkias: I think they might own the movie. Anyway, thank you for tuning in to the A24 Podcast.
Matt Johnson: That's right.
Stavros Halkias: It was wonderful. I'm Matt Johnson here with Stavvy-
Matt Johnson: Oh yeah. Let's introduce ourselves.