Good Boy: An Interview with Ben Leonberg & Indy

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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today on Side Stories.

Now, many people would say,

many people,

my manager, my family, 30 people, a lot of people might say that when a broadcaster has found himself interviewing a dog,

that that would be the low point of their career.

Absolutely.

But

why is it my high point?

I got to say, I'm thrilled today to be joined with the wonderful, absolutely

good boy,

Dr.

Henry Indiana Jones.

It's so good to have you here.

Have you been?

How are you enjoying LA?

Have you gone out to, have you tried the vegan food yet?

Have you been to the chateau?

Ooh, you would do great at the chateau.

Have you gone to to the chateau?

Because honestly, I feel like that's like one of those things where the scene at the chateau would really suit you.

Yeah, it would really you would look good there.

You would be good there.

And if you wanted to, you can go to the bathroom and call it the chateau.

Nothing, huh?

Wow, so nothing on that.

I do puns.

Your father, Ben Leonberger, directed this film.

Do you feel that he, in many ways,

sort of, I don't know, because your dog might have skirted around some of the child labor laws.

Yeah.

Do you know that Ben

is actually, I hate to do this.

What?

Not your father?

Don't do this.

No, I mean, but he's not.

I mean, obviously, you're a dog and he's a man and you're not his son.

Ben is the father that stepped up.

Yeah.

So how do you feel about your stepfather?

So tell me, when you first got this script, how did you choose it?

Was it one of those where, like, you know, you've been auditioning for years and you're like, finally, like, this is me.

I'm in this film, right?

Or is it just because you needed the money?

Yeah.

And were you not willing to put on the weight for Beethoven?

Fucking nothing.

Jesus Christ.

Nothing, huh?

You know,

I don't know whether or not you're being paid by big government to be silenced.

Yeah.

But you got to understand that part of your job as an actor is to do promo okay yeah you got to hit the road you got to get out there and talk to people about your movie or no one's gonna go fucking see it nobody's gonna see it unless you press it

you know it's I this is like when we try to have Billy Bob Thornton yeah we had Billy Bob Thornton in one time and he literally showed up dressed as a French mime and he didn't speak on and you wouldn't even know it was Billy Bob Thornton he also ate his own shit yes which was like to me he said something that was about like he said human composting yeah he said that was his new diet or whatever have you ever met billy bob

hmm i'm just wow i just wonder if this silence has anything to do with some of those recent

are you in the pupstein files are you in the pupstein files are you in the pupstein files answer us where is it did you take pupine's plane

Were you on dog Lolita one?

Because it's legal for you.

There is no age of consent.

Dogs get pregnant before they're one.

Yeah.

So it's not even that big of a deal.

Now, now that you've like, you're an actor, do you still believe in money over bitches?

Yeah, now that you can get anything you want, any kind of treat that you want, any kind of, you know, you can get heart guard

sent to the house.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, what was your first expenditure?

Yeah, I get being being shy.

Yeah.

He wants to appear.

Like, you know what it is?

I get in a way that he wants to appear like he's still one of us.

I'm sure.

I'm sure.

Now, are you in SAG or WAG?

Non-union.

I'm going to talk about that with Ben.

Oh, non-union.

Non-union.

That's a

good look.

Not a good look.

Hey, baby.

Boes.

Oh, actually, no, they shot in Montana.

Oh.

So they don't care.

Interesting.

Montana doesn't care.

They just hoard water there.

They do hoard water.

Well,

if you're not going to answer our hardcore questions, I don't know what you're going to do when you go on access Hollywood after us.

Yeah.

I can't believe that Good Boy is a bad dog.

You're a bad dog.

Bad dog.

Bad boy.

Bad dog.

Bad boy.

I don't like being around you.

No, I know.

Don't do that.

No, that's not true.

You know it's not true.

He's very attractive.

He's the handsomest person in this room.

Yeah.

God, I bet you get all the bitches.

All right, let's try to talk to his fucking father.

It's not his father.

He's not your father.

Right from your grave.

Now, your lead actor was a bit difficult at the top of the interview.

Yeah, what up with that?

Yeah, I mean, he refused to read a script for the entire duration of the shoot.

He really doesn't understand that he's in a movie.

I cannot say that enough.

It's like him, Gary Busey.

When did the second chances start?

You know what I mean?

Like, when did, like, how often are we going to do this?

These guys that don't understand,

you can't pee in front of everybody.

You, the trick is figuring out how to make a movie around them.

Yeah.

Genuinely, that's what it takes: is that, you know, Indy doesn't understand he's in a movie, so you're going to be able to get a girl talking about Gary Busey.

Yeah, but I mean, he doesn't.

Yeah, that might be how it works.

Yeah.

You're like, here, Gary.

I'll say, here's the tennis ball, Gary.

Over here.

Aim the choppers over here.

We are sitting with the director of Good Boy, Ben Leonberg.

This is a, I will say, you have made a truly,

it's like, it's a monument to filmmaking.

It really is.

I'm pretty sure it's the first time this has happened.

There's been a few films that are centered on dogs.

There's a film, a French film called Baxter that is about a Les Air Bud.

Yeah, well, or Scare Bud.

That's the other one I've heard.

No, but like, I think having a dog be the center of a movie and be a point of view character, I think, you know, this is the way we did it is certainly unusual.

Well, because normally, like, I remember like the horrific stories about Milo and Otis where they burned through like eight pugs.

Yes.

They were just throwing pugs in the river and then just shooting it.

Why didn't you go that way?

Well,

Indy is my dog.

So

and he's the only dog.

I mean, certainly that strategy of like you have multiple dogs play the same character, which is genuinely impressive.

I mean, you joke about Erbud, but I watched that movie a lot trying to like figure out what did they do.

There's certainly things we can't do.

We don't have Disney money to make this film.

But there's shots in that movie where there's six different golden retrievers playing the same dog in the same shot.

It's kind of like incredible.

It's very impressive.

Now, the was like...

Did you have to worry about like the Humane Society or anything?

Like when the movie came out, we're like, did you have to prove that you didn't do anything wrong?

Obviously, you didn't, but.

Well, we did all of Indy's training ourself, and I think there's been like an enormous amount of interest in the question of not even Indy, how we made the movie, it's just does his character make it through the film?

Does the dog die?

There's a whole website dedicated to this.

Does the dog die?

We've been trending there.

But no, I mean, we did all of Indy's training ourselves.

And I think that's part of why the film seems so unique.

It was certainly not a normal production.

And I think that's why his performance stands out.

This is not a dog who's clearly acting for treats or for a tennis ball that's just off camera.

Yeah, dude, we just saw an example of it.

As our, I don't know if you noticed, the beginning of this interview was set up, right?

We did it like a

bad boy, but we got a little taste of what the process was like filming with Indy.

And to be honest, it was kind of like, it was really just genuine.

Like, but you could see that it definitely, you really have to be patient and in love with the dog.

Yes.

Yeah, for sure.

People ask, like, you know, how our relationship to Indy changed over the course of the the film.

I don't think we could love Indy anymore.

And, you know, it was just me and my wife on set for the entire duration of the film figuring out how to make this movie around him.

So all those little tricks of how can we get something from him that when put into the juxtaposition of all the other shots will look like a performance.

So it was kind of like we were joking about the idea that it was like boyhood or one of those things where...

Good boyhood.

Yeah, good boyhood.

Yeah.

Where you guys are just capturing it when you can.

Yeah, so Indy, he's not a traditionally trained dog actor, which I'm not even sure what that really means.

Well, you could almost tell in a way, it's kind of like, you know, when you got like a kid that they just pull off the street who ends up being an amazing actor versus like what they do to children in the entertainment mill.

Sure.

There's like, there's something deeply more vulnerable about Indy's performance in this movie than other animal performances.

Yeah, I mean, he can only be himself.

So at times, you know, I think his two superpowers, or at least that you see in the film, the way we made it, is that he's genuine, he's himself.

He has this relationship with the human act, the human character, Todd, who I stand in as Todd's body.

An actor does the performance, a la like Darth Vader, like James Little Jones giving the voice to Darth Vader.

To be very clear, Shane Jensen, who plays Todd, plays Todd.

I'm on camera.

talking to Indy, which are in lines that are not the movie.

But when I say the superpower we have is that, you know, there's scenes of genuine love and affection between Todd and Indy, which are real because Indy really loves me and he's my actual dog.

Yeah.

So that's

so cute.

It's like when they put, what's his name, with Sidney Sweeney and then they start an affair.

You know what I mean?

Like they put him in with a Glenn Powell.

Like, it's like one of those things, like, the chemistry's real.

Yeah.

You know, exactly.

It's so fun.

It's like, it's just so,

well, obviously, we were talking right before

anybody who has a a dog kind of like, you've experienced this.

The dog's barking at nothing.

It creeps you out.

You're stoned late at night.

What the hell?

How does such a relatable idea, like, in that term, like,

what made you finally decide I'm going to make this movie?

I mean, it came from exactly what you're talking about.

I think we've all wondered or worried why our dog is barking or staring at nothing.

Turns out in my house, it was rats.

Wait, probably usually is.

Yeah, yeah.

Froggers, like people living in the walls.

Froggers, I love that.

Have you ever heard of that term?

No, I just, I'm very familiar with the idea that people could be living inside your house, but no, that's a new one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Put that in a little fear file.

Yeah, that's great.

It'll be your next movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that actually, I mean, if a dog found out there were people living inside your house and those people were being, you know, treating the dog just fine,

that's an interesting point of view dog story.

It really is.

Just like a true figure.

Stop talking.

That's a good idea.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm saying this.

Well, yeah, continue.

Yeah, so, like, but why was this the one?

Like, because you've made a lot of short films.

Indeed, I've made a lot of short films.

I mean, even that was part of the process of figuring out how I was going to make this movie.

We made several shorts kind of just exploring that idea of a dog staring at nothing.

I think, like, the single, you know, most origin story idea I have is watching poltergeist for probably the millionth time.

If you remember, there's a golden retriever wandering through the house,

clearly on to that, you know, a haunting is about to start before the humans get the idea, which is just a cinematic version of that anxiety we all have about why is our dog staring at nothing.

Yeah.

Figuring out how to actually do it, you know, we have the idea, but then what does that script even look like?

Because it's not driven by dialogue or even the same kind of action that, you know, propels a normal script.

Yeah.

So what I first started doing was making these short films that were originally just based on existing scenes.

I recreated the room 237 scene with Danny from the Shining.

Yeah.

A ball rolls up, and then Danny looks up, goes to investigate the room, the doors open.

I shot a version of that in my backyard in Queens

with Indy, where I was just trying to figure out how does that filmmaking work?

How do you match the eye line?

How do you get the camera to tell the story through shots with this very otherwise neutral character?

We kept making these shorts where I was learning how to make a film around Indy, because again, he really does not know he's in a film.

One of them, which was based on a scene you see in the film, one of our jump scares won a short film contest.

Indy was nominated for best actor, which against other humans,

which is a tough beat.

Hey, you know, what are you going to do?

You know, I've been beaten by a lot of different things.

And when I, honestly, I'd prefer to be beaten by a dog.

Hey, Joni Foster is nominated for Nell, you know?

There you go.

She was braiding Nell.

Yeah.

But she didn't speak?

Nope.

But anyway, that really, you know, that kind of forced our hand.

Once, you know, people are calling out Indy's dog acting as a reason to watch this thing.

We were like, well, we need to work with this particular dog.

And by then, we'd kind of figured out what our story was going to be, how we were going to take the classic haunted house trope and spin it into a full feature.

It's very emotionally intense.

Yeah, I mean, I think it was funny because I worked with a co-writer throughout the whole film, Alex Cannon, and we were always trying to thread the needle of this is a horror movie first.

We didn't need to do a lot to kind of play on people's emotions.

People bring that to the film themselves.

Oh, yeah.

Indy's like that.

Indy's like a Zendaya.

Yeah.

Indy's bringing that thing where people are ready to cry.

Like, I'm afraid to show this movie to my wife because of how emotionally

overwhelmed she's going to be just watching the dog.

And nothing bad happens to the dog.

I mean it.

Nothing bad happens to the dog.

What's the spoiler first?

We all, no one wants anything bad to happen to the dog.

Yeah.

Right?

Universally.

Yes, no one wants anything bad to happen to the dog.

There are comments, which I'm very glad, you know.

Look, people are watching the trailer saying, if anything bad happens to the dog, I'm going going to go John Wick on the director.

So I'm very aware of like the personal risks here

in the filmmaking.

That was like the one thing I had to promise, Natalie, being like, I just want you to understand there is no,

hmm, how do I put this?

Man with a soul or conscience that would make a dog film starring the dog that would then murder the dog.

Although, I've just become aware that people are still scarred by Marley and me.

Oh, dude, that's so fucked up.

There's people, I mean, who are like, I'm not so sure I can see Goodboy because Marley and me killed the dog, which is just based on a true story.

Dude, they killed that dog over and over again.

That dog gets killed.

It's like electrocuted to just like, oh, it's like, what about Bob with the dog?

And I'm like, no one wants to see this.

Was that the movie about like the dog dies a bunch of times?

The soul keeps going.

Oh, no,

that's a dog's life.

That's a dog's life.

Yeah, you got

me.

Marley and me is the other one.

Marley and Marley.

No, dog's life is the one where it's like, one, the dog gets away.

You get dog the movie.

Yeah, the other one gets dog gets thrown into a threshing machine.

You know what I mean?

Oh, that's a great question for you.

Do you think a dog has a soul?

I mean, well, wow.

I've never put it that way.

I mean, people have asked, do all dogs go to heaven?

I mean, certainly.

I mean, I think dogs are better people than most people.

Yes.

So I don't know if that answers your question, but yes, I mean, dogs are.

Yes, dogs are wonderful.

I think of ghosts.

Man, I don't know.

I don't think so.

I'm just curious.

No,

I feel like my brain says no, but my heart says yes.

Yeah.

Which I don't know what to make sense of that.

It's because life would be cooler if it was true.

Yes, it'd be much better if ghosts were real and many other things were real.

But yeah.

Yeah, it would be.

So if ghosts are real, then dog ghosts can be real, right?

Yeah.

That's cool.

I'd love to get haunted by a bunch of of dogs.

Yeah, of course you would.

Yeah.

I mean, you're already trying.

You have an 18-year-old dog.

You have a dog ghost.

I have an octogenarian dog at home.

And he's seen a lot of death

also.

It's outlived three dogs and two humans.

Have you noticed your dog noticing anything that you can't explain?

A dog doesn't notice anything.

Okay.

I can barely get it to eat.

Yeah.

It's very crazy.

It continues to live.

You're making this.

So now, but I guess it's nice because you're getting a lot of attention.

People are ready for the movie.

but you started like you're a film teacher yeah so uh when i'm not making films

that's just like what an incredible like yeah i'm a player coach

but like talk about a way for even like now your students like obviously you get to be like peace peace school i mean no you mean who knows what with the future will hold but but the idea of like what an incredible way to exhibit storytelling with images.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, look, and it works really well with the kind of films that I use for teaching.

And this film, which I certainly love films that are driven by dialogue, but I teach directing using psycho as like, we're just going to be talking about psycho a ton.

You know, how does the shot progression and, you know, the framing and the small little changes of blocking, how does that ratchet tension?

That's exactly what I'm applying to Good Boy.

So much of the performance isn't coming from Indy, who I cannot say enough does not know he's in a movie.

He doesn't.

He's looking for tennis balls.

I love

Psycho because Gus Fan Zanz is a genius.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, shot for shot.

My favorite film

Zanz Psycho.

So you know what's kind of funny, though, is that, I mean, so that's a shot-for-shot remake that I don't think, you know, it does not iterate a lot.

There are entire sequences of Good Boy that are homages or in some cases, shot-for-shot remake of existing setups, jump scares, you know, tension-building sequences.

Can you give us an example or you don't want to?

Well, I can, but I almost like want people to find them.

Yeah.

And I will say, because I had to film it with a dog, just taking that blueprint, indie as a new ingredient, changes it so much.

Oh, yeah.

But there are sequences where I'm definitely pulling from this worked before with humans.

Let's add dog.

And what you get is so different just because he's an enormous X Factor.

I'm pointing to him like he's here.

The truth is, is that it's like having one of those, it's like, it's truly the difference between like a movie star and just some actor.

You know what I mean?

I usually watching nothing but Criterion movies recently.

It's ruining me.

I should stop.

I can see Good Boy getting on Criterion.

They got the donkey movie on there.

But I mean it.

But like in terms of that there's a distinct line that runs between Good Boy and what you did and a lot of those movies, which is those movies remember the old movies remember that there was something about

storytelling in and of itself.

That you can tell what's going on, even if it was silent.

Totally.

You can kind of feel what's going going on.

You know what's happening.

It's not necessarily, it's like the dialogue helps, but there's something about people who can just emote.

Like Humphrey Bogart said, like 12 words of movie, but himself stood for so much.

Where like you look at like Indy, because it's not a dog actor, because it's looking at you with genuine love, it's doing the thing that a real movie star does.

Well, and the other thing I've realized, especially about movie stars, Humphrey Burgart's a great example for this, because you're right, he stands for something, and we just kind of, brings himself or his character to the movie.

But then also, he doesn't necessarily do a lot in the movie.

Nothing.

And we project ourselves onto him.

And I think that's so much like we got a question all the time: how did you get Indy to look scared?

And we didn't.

We didn't get him to do anything.

He's just standing there with a neutral expression.

I'll go into film professor mode again.

Please.

Which is, do you guys know the Kulashav effect?

No.

All right.

So there's a classic example from

silent film where we're seeing a shot of a man's face who at the time was like a matinee star from like Russian theater.

And it's just a shot of this guy's face, then we see a shot of a bowl of soup.

And audiences say, well, that guy must be hungry.

If you show the same shot of that guy's face and then a shot of a coffin,

everyone's like, well, that guy must be sad.

The performance and the emotion is coming through the edit and the audience putting two and two together.

So in our movie, you have a shot of a dog looking past the camera very intently.

Then you show a dark, empty corner and the audience says there's something there

because they know they have their own relationship with dogs and dogs how they work in movies and they're saying that dog must be terrified.

He's not.

He's just being himself probably reacting to me or my wife going blah blah blah blah blah off camera.

And the filmmaking is telling you how to feel.

That's just, I mean, that it's like torn down to its very basic parts.

I like what you're saying, but the flaw is that when I'm hungry, I'm sad.

You see, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or when I'm scared, I'm angry.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, but that's different.

Again, that's for therapy.

Dude, it was so cool watching that movie.

I had a beautiful, it was beautiful.

I loved everything you did.

And I got to say, the one thing I kept being like,

how was he able to yell at the dog?

Like, I was just like, how were you able to?

Because I, you know, I feel so bad whenever I yell at my dog.

You know, like, it, like, it makes me, it makes me.

See, my dogs are so used to my, to me that they don't even respond.

Yeah, Yeah, yes.

I mean, the truth is, we don't yell at him, is we replace the voice afterwards.

So, there's a scene where the main character, uh, you know, as Indy is detecting more and more of the paranormal and something bad is going on with his human companion, the relationship almost frays.

And there are scenes of, you know, drama and intensity between the two.

What's happening actually on set is I, who I'm standing in for the person, I'm like, good boy, and moving him around.

And then an actor, and I would say this is like, I mean, so much credit credit to Shane Jensen who really plays Todd then adds the performance and you know the tension and the drama through this vocal performance with both has to fit into the scene and has to like feel like it needs to be a good performance yeah but it also has to match the physicality of what I'm doing which is not that

so it was like we had to have him do versions of lines where it's like do this line okay you've got it but now do it like you're laying in a bed or slightly setting up because when I did it I had to move to like tell tell Indy, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, and you have to put those words into that body and chest.

That's so interesting.

It was so, like, I mean, I.

That's how they just did the Toxic Avenger.

Is that right?

Well, that was the whole thing where they, I made it, I think it's a, uh, I think Peter Dinklich found a way to not be in makeup all the time, but they said they held up the traditional way the Toxic Avenger was made around the world.

I seasonal

where Toxic Avenger, where Toxie was in costume and someone voice acted it on top of it.

And and that's where Peter Dickledge was like, no, you see, it's traditional and then

somebody else inside of all the deep gunk and then he just did the voice on top of it, which makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

So you can see that this is a, you've done it.

I mean, we've done a version of that, which is that, so Todd is mostly played by my body, which sounds like a very dissociative way to explain how the film was made and my relationship to the character.

It makes sense when you see the movie because it's from the perspective of the dog.

Totally, yeah.

And I mean, just by virtue of the camera being 19 inches off the ground, because that's how tall he is.

It's Muppet Babies.

Oh, I love that you got the Muppet Babies.

Some people say Charlie Brown, but yes, it's.

I was at Looney Tunes is how I saw it.

It was like, yeah, it's just like, usually just the legs and stuff like that.

Yeah, totally, yeah.

Which also gave us the ability to, my wife, the film's producer, who

was not a producer before this film started to be made, she's a scientist, but

turns out you can teach a scientist how to make films a lot easier than a filmmaker how to science.

Yes.

I mean, I'm just going to say this.

we like to act like it's super mysterious process.

Oh, oh my gosh, yeah,

all us left-brained people, uh, you know, look, we can do this, but they can do this and that, and that, yeah, you just show up and then just do your entire job and their entire job.

It's kind of crazy, anyway.

So, what I'll say, I can only do this, you know?

So, she occasionally stands in for Todd as well, which, if you watch the movie closely, you will notice a few times Todd's jeans don't fit exactly correctly,

which is because

yeah.

No, but the thing you're saying about you know, uh, you know,

uh, so a left brain, right-brain split, some of the best ideas in the movie also came from her just over the duration of making the film.

One of my favorite jump scares, which I just couldn't quite figure out, um, she came up with just having watched me make the movie for several years, was like, what if we did it this way?

And I was like, yeah, it's totally going to work.

And it's one of the best jump scares in the movie.

It's just one of those.

I also wonder, too, if, like, are you guys movie heads?

Yes.

I mean, he is, of course.

But I feel like it's one of those where most, I feel like, how do you feel about the idea of many of our big, legendary, famous filmmaker icons didn't have film school in the, and then the beginning of it was like in the 70s, that's when the film school thing really kind of started, right?

There was more of those connections.

Like, do you feel like, what's the distinct difference between self-led, I watch a shit ton of movies education versus at a school.

I mean, I think it can,

they don't have to be mutually exclusive.

I think you have to see a lot of movies to, I don't, I think it's possible to be a good filmmaker without going to film school for sure, but I don't know how good at filmmaking you can be if you just have not consumed tons of movies.

Yeah, well, I think that's what we're in the middle of right now.

Yeah, totally i love a lot of people that are making movies that have never they don't watch yeah any it doesn't necessarily have to be movies i mean it's story in general i mean it's you know, stories.

I mean, people are bringing video influences from video games into, you know, movies and making things that we haven't seen before.

So I think you have to consume lots of story one way or the other.

I just like just feels like a prerequisite to me.

Yeah.

Like, do you feel like you, do you, or are you one of those where you judge movies by like the perfect screenplay?

Like, like, how do you feel about those?

Like, how do you feel like about those movies that break all those rules?

And

I think breaking the rules, I feel like as soon as someone can write a rule about here's how a movie is supposed to work, the moment you've figured out that can be put into a YouTube video essay or into a book, the rule is probably no longer true.

Yeah.

And I think like, I mean, my favorite films are the ones that break the rules.

Janet Lee should not die in the middle of psycho.

No.

That's a sin according to like every screenwriting book at the time, but it's the reason that movie, one of the many reasons that movie is awesome.

The thing I like to talk about in terms of, you know, the screenplay guidance books as it applies to Good Boy, have you heard of Save the Cat?

Oh, yes.

So Save the Cat Cat.

Explain it to me.

So Save the Cat is the idea that to make an audience love your hero, you need to have your hero do something akin to saving a cat in the first like 10 minutes.

Okay.

Yeah, you got to see his dream, see the hero's good spirit and good soul in the very beginning.

Even if they're kind of like a shit guy, exactly.

You have to see a thing in them that makes them great.

Yeah, something like saving a cat.

There's an enormous exception to that rule, which is if you make a movie with a dog,

you do not need to have them save a cat.

The way this film starts in some of the film festivals we've been to, first frame is a dog asleep on a couch, and the audience goes, Aww,

they're already on his side.

Yeah, we don't need to save the cat.

There's 20 minutes of movie.

We just don't need it.

Let's just start.

Dude, and honestly, it works.

It's an hour, 13 minutes long.

Was it 79 minutes?

70, just under 74 minutes.

Dude, it is perfect amount because we don't need it.

There's no human drama.

I want it all to be dogs.

Yeah.

I want every film to be made with just dog cats.

Yeah, when's the album coming out i mean christmas album of course right oh his christmas album yeah exactly

honestly i feel like

he might

he might get honestly kind of too expensive for you yeah yeah henry do you think does room run the podcast network for him yes

yeah

how does he feel about politics

politics please thank you yeah i mean he's uh blissfully ignorant of the fact he was in a movie or anything that's going on in the world.

What an incredible life he gets to lead.

Man, this was so friggin' cool.

So this comes out October 1st, correct?

October 3rd,

3rd VOD and theater.

Theatrical.

VOD to be announced.

Dude, that's fucking awesome.

How long?

So, and everywhere, right?

Or a bunch of places?

Yeah, it's opening wide.

So the trailer was so well received, they moved us from a limited to a wide release.

So hopefully in the theater.

I'm going to be at some AMCs.

Yeah, it should be in a theater near you.

Dude, I legitimately, like, I'll confess, I watched the first half an hour and I stopped it because I want to see it on a big screen.

Oh, amazing.

I got to see it because the, it's so well lit.

It's so well, like, the, it's like, you're doing the thing where I'm, I, I guess it's like, that's not that I saw what you were doing, but it was like, oh, yeah, this is like an, this is a pure,

like, it's stripped down all the way down to its parts.

It's just a pure ass, beautiful movie that tells a really strong, simple story with imagery.

And I was like, I got to see this in the theater.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Is this your COVID movie?

Like, did you make this during COVID?

Oh, man, what a great call.

The answer is yes.

That's how we started.

We'd originally been thinking we'd make it with a larger, you know, casting crew.

Yeah.

And the pandemic kind of forced our hand that we could, I mean, for practical reasons, which ended up being necessities that had nothing to do with COVID, the best way to make this movie was just with me, my wife, and Indy.

The house you see in the movie is is where we actually lived.

We decorated it to look like a haunted house.

I would spend the day setting up the lights, the camera, rigging whatever special effects were going to happen.

Sun goes down.

We roll the camera.

Sometimes I would roll and then run in front of the camera to act in it, which is not a way you should really make a movie, but it's the right way to make a movie with a dog.

And it worked with the resources we had.

That's fucking awesome.

I've seen a lot.

There's a lot of COVID movies that are starting to show up now.

And like, I got to say, this is the World of Warsaw.

Yeah, War of the World of the World's Without Cube.

If you want to get an education on how to make a movie, man, that movie is, I, I have never, to be honest, it's been a long time since I've seen a movie that's so bad that it's so deeply, utterly entertaining.

War of the Worlds is that movie.

I refuse to watch it.

I saw Good Boy.

I'm going to go see it again in the theater.

Dude, I appreciate the hell out of everything you guys did.

It was beautiful.

Also, the other dog

was, who's that, like, your friend's dog?

It's my parents' dog, yeah.

Your parents' dog?

Yep, yeah.

So, Indy, and uh, his name is Max.

He plays Bandit in the film.

Bandit, Max wasn't born when I started making the movie, so he had the name of a different dog.

But Indy gets to be himself.

He's Indy the character and the dog in reality.

Well, I think that he's got a bit of an attitude problem.

You guys are going to have to work on that.

But otherwise,

it seems lovely.

It seems like a really wonderful time you guys have.

And honestly, go check out Good Boy.

Please.

Not just that.

Just support

low-budget horror movies

as much as you can.

If you go and see this movie in the theater, then more movies like this will be made because that's what the world needs right now.

And Indy needs, honestly, a fund.

He needs treats.

Yeah.

That's what this is for, I know.

I know the money mostly goes.

Next time I see Indy, I want a Gucci leash.

I want a studded collar.

Yeah, dude, half his head shaved.

Yeah, yeah.

He's now all of a sudden the new fight.

He's the new fashion consultant for like Gucci or something.

Yeah.

You know, like a Jaden Smith.

Think Jaden Smith.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, look, like.

Is uh Indy fixed?

Uh, yes.

All right, so all you put on your dogs out there.

You can just let Indy go and go and go.

Which is nice though, because then it keeps him from getting canceled.

Right, right.

Yeah, because that's huge right now, honestly.

It's, you know, as long as it took to make this movie, I don't know how many other films can be made on his schedule, but he's ready to sell out to the right, you know, you know, dog food Super Bowl commercials.

You guys hear that?

Absolutely.

You hear that, Purina?

All right.

Ben Leonberg, director of Good Boy.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

This is a blast.

Thank you so much.

That's all you have, man.

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