Peak Humanity: Why Darren Aronofsky's Heroes Don't Wear Capes

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Get out of my neighborhood.

I'm like, this is my fing neighborhood.

I am 99% sure I've been here longer than you, motherfucker.

Get off my street.

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The 50 Simply Bet.

Delicious.

This is the 50th ever.

It's 1970.

So, wow.

So I got this shit during the pandemic.

Oh, wow.

No, so I put this in the middle of this.

Do you understand what that means to me in that place?

I'm not an idiot.

So I've owned this shirt.

I wear this shirt a lot.

Oh, my God.

I'm not just doing it.

I'm like thinking what I can trade for that shirt.

We might have a deal.

By the end of this episode, we might have a transaction.

So, let me explain to you what roll roasting means.

So, should I put these on?

How's that work?

Let's do it.

So, roller roaster is,

let's see.

I don't know if I want to even hear my voice, but if you don't want to, we can take them off.

It's kind of sexy.

No, I'm all right.

You can wear them.

I don't care.

So, I grew up like

a bird's eye shot, I guess they call it, maybe half a mile from there.

The original Roll Roast in Sheepsa Bay.

At Roll and Roaster, we take just a to us was like the place.

Like, you know, two o'clock in the morning, you come and you get the roast beef with the the the the cheese on top of it cheese with a z the cheese with a z no cheese which by the way i don't i don't think i'll tell you exactly what that cheese is you know what it is so first of all back in the day all the waitresses were like the most beautiful women so again i'll show you the illustration on oh yeah yeah yeah there you go exactly so they were always they were the most beautiful women so we'd always go in there but we were like little geeky guys and so you know we had no play so when i was a like i think my freshman right before i started freshman uh college at harvard i'm bragging because it's part of the story

i wanted to get a job there

cleaning tables at roller roaster and the motherfucker turned me down

a couple of things that the universe is doing to us right now but then the other thing is so then i now i live in the east village and they try and when i moved in the east village they turned There was a roller roaster on across the street from the movie theater on 11th and 3rd, and they tried to, which was a few blocks from where I live.

Yeah.

And it didn't work.

But it was kind of amazing that I didn't know they franchised.

They tried.

They tried.

They weren't shit.

But that's the bomb.

And I love that.

Oh,

it's a special thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Rolled Roaster.

So the thing that I, so I from Manhattan.

Yeah, how'd you find out about it?

I would go to like Coney Island and I'd get a car.

Oh, wow.

And I would drive around

with my friend and we get whatever.

We'd, we'd, so.

So you just stumbled on Rolling Roaster.

I knew of it.

Oh, wow.

But the reason why this place blew my mind is because you look at the menu and there's the roast beef and they claim, by the way, that this is a key to like longevity.

There's a part of the menu.

I want to quote the menu here because one of my favorite New York things is like the you know, the true like native New York energy when it says,

what a delicious way to lose weight exclamation point.

And they go on to just sort of proclaim 100% trans fat free.

And then you look at the menu up top and it's like standard stuff, standard stuff.

Okay, like cool.

I got roast beef.

They're really into that.

Then you can get the champagne.

Oh, I don't even remember.

Do you know what?

Actual, actual out, they have an alcohol license.

You can buy $59.95 Morouette champagne.

And it's like...

That's new.

That's post my time.

So I'm like, what is this place?

Like genuine reaction.

It's real Brooklyn.

And it's delicious.

So I've been.

It's delicious i mean the bun the buns are great i won't i won't give away what the cheese is because that's like a big secret but um i mean roast beef with cheese and destroy the secret i mean you know look it's all rumors but there was lots of conversation growing up it's such a huge part of my lore and it's funny because when i shot caught stealing the new movie yes yeah we do a sequence out in the water which didn't make the movie but we launched our

platoon of boats across the street and my crew was there and they were i was like guys you got to go check out Rolling Rose.

And they're like, what's that?

And it was literally like two stores down.

I was like, go check it.

And then suddenly they were like trucking it in throughout the shooting.

I was totally addicted to it.

And so it's crazy that it never got much bigger, but it really,

it's in a far corner of South Brooklyn and it's really at the bomb.

So I just got to jump in here to point out that I had never met Darren Aronofsky, who was one of the most provocative and surrealist and unapologetic filmmakers in all Hollywood, until he walked into our studio.

We'd reached out to Darren because for a very long time I had been fascinated by what seemed like his thoughtfully contrarian approach to storytelling.

He's the guy who cooked up Requiem for a Dream with Alan Burston and The Wrestler with Nikki Rourke and Black Swan with Natalie Portman and Mother with Jennifer Lawrence.

And none of those movies allowed the audience a happy ending.

But speaking of predictability, it is also clear now that Darren Aronofsky had no idea that we share one brag in common.

It's a joke to the point where we will put up days since Pablo has said he went to Harvard on the wall.

You actually went?

Yeah.

Very cool.

What year were you?

I graduated in 2007.

Okay, so you now once again, you have mentioned that you went to Harvard at the time.

Darren Aronofsky made me do it.

But the other thing Darren enabled a couple weeks ago was a ticket to a screening of his aforementioned new film, Caught Stealing, out August 29th.

And I knew absolutely nothing about this movie walking into it.

I had no idea that Caught Stealing's main character would be a former Major League prospect named Hank, played by Austin Butler.

And also, given Darren's larger catalog, which I had ingested in advance,

I did not foresee the very special kind of surprise

that I wound up being.

There's a lot of surprises in it.

I don't think it's even when you know what it is a bit, it's

it gets people.

I've been, we just started some screenings.

We went down to Puerto Rico and did our world premiere, and that was in Mexico.

It's like

hearing people gasp was pretty cool throughout it.

Yeah, yeah.

Discovering bad bunnies in this.

Our friend who is sat in that chair, Action Bronson, is in this.

Action's the bomb.

I had no idea when I was interviewing him.

Yeah.

Is this good?

And then I listened back and I'm like, this is, I think, the greatest conversation I've ever had, maybe.

It's out of controls.

We were just doing a little press with him.

He's been really generous with his time because he's not the type of guy that does that type of stuff.

No, no.

Sweetheart.

You know, they're asking on camera a bunch of questions and they're like, okay, what's your favorite crime movie?

And I think Austin says, heat.

Austin Butler, yeah.

Austin Butler, yes.

And Zoe Kravitz says true romance.

And then, you know, action takes that like totally long pause, way too long, and then goes, Schindler's list.

And the room just didn't know to laugh, to smile, or what.

And he was actually kind of right.

Oh, no.

As far as a crime.

I mean,

show me the lie.

Exactly.

This is a thing that is relevant to the film, but it's a baseball metaphor.

It was like catching a knuckleball talking to him.

I'm like, I don't know where this is going.

Am I an idiot?

That's so rush.

That's so right.

That's right.

It's sort of going all over the place and then it comes right across the

place.

There's so little spin that it's the most spin you've ever seen.

That's true.

But I say all that to say that I didn't know this was a sports movie in a real, again, not entirely, but meaningfully.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is good.

There's a lot of stuff in it that only sports fans will get.

I mean, there's so many things we did that are like deep sports.

Oh, yeah.

I was like checking like the baseball reference page and I'm like, did this?

Oh no.

We actually changed the year of the movie because we wanted the Giants to be having a better run.

So it was like, I think in the book, it's set in 2000 and we moved it to 98 because there was the wild card.

And so that was kind of an interesting backstory for the film.

Are you yourself a self-identified sports fan?

It's been a long time.

Like I was as a kid.

I grew up in South Brooklyn, so it was like the Mets and the Jets who were both playing at Shea at the time.

And so, and also I was born in 69, so that was a victory year for

those teams.

And I did see Joe Namath on the field as a boy,

and Tom Seaver and Kingman.

And so I saw some of that.

But like in the 70s, then it's like Reggie Jackson time.

So it was really hard to resist and stay a Mets fan when everyone's selling out to become a Yankees.

It's hard to peak at the year of your birth.

Exactly.

And then have to wait till what was it, 86 to have another victory.

Yeah, yeah, a more cocaine-y,

but follow-up

championship experience.

I started watching a little baseball for this movie and sort of got caught up on some of it, but I didn't get deep.

The thing that I experience as I'm going through this film and I'm watching Austin Butler,

having watched, again, in a weirdly compressed amount of time, Pie and Reckon for a Dream and the wrestler and Black Swan and Noah and Mother,

I go into this film and I'm sitting there and

it ends.

And I'm like, did Darren Aranofsky just like make a romp?

Is this the sort of thing where you say like, this is madcap?

Caper.

Caper's the term.

But I'm like, this was not just fun yeah yeah yeah but it was thank you there was something in it and i don't know if you'll take offense at this when i say it but there's a hero yeah yeah oh gosh how dare i

how furious are all of the xenophile herbs

you know look it's funny uh i i just it's just something i felt it's like there's a lot of um seriousness going on in the world and uh everyone's screaming at each other.

And I think one thing that

movies do and stories do is they kind of unite people.

You know, they bring people together.

I mean, the act of watching a movie, it's an exercise in empathy, but and you've heard that before, but it's more meaningful than that because basically you are forgetting about yourself.

In a really good movie, hopefully, you're in someone else's shoes.

Literally, you're like in their head.

Because one of the great inventions of the 20th century that's overlooked is is the close-up.

And what the close-up allows you to do is you can look at Austin Butler up close without being self-conscious, that he might look at you or he might judge you or you could just look at him deeply and you can study him and you can actually kind of really connect with him and really go through the experience with him.

And I think that is like...

a super important thing that people are doing less and less of when they're when they're scrolling.

You're not really separating yourself.

You're usually jealous or, you know, all different types of thoughts are going through your head.

But in a movie, you're going on a long emotional journey with someone else.

And that's a deeply human act.

And so I think it's super important to get as many people as we can to watch these movies because I think anyone on any political spectrum, they come together and hopefully they're going to dig Hank.

Because Hank is kind of just like an American hero.

And I think we miss that.

There's a lot of American heroes, but they're usually superheroes.

And I kind of wanted to do like put out an American hero out there who's just a guy that a lot of us can relate to, that a lot of us can hope for, and then just connect with him.

And it doesn't matter where you're coming from.

Typically, though, because you are a master of the close-up, you're invading the interiority of your protagonist.

Yes.

And you are showing us what it's like in there.

And typically, I would say your catalog is defined by that being.

almost as traumatic for the audience as it is for the person that we're meeting.

Yeah, yeah.

And this,

this, I like Hank.

Yeah.

I was rooting for Hank.

Absolutely.

This is not the anti-hero antagonist dynamic.

Did you take, I took a class at Harvard as this

the resetting of it.

Yeah, exactly.

Um,

the class I took was uh

it was derided, but it was concepts of the hero and Greek civilization.

Is that heroes for zeros?

That's how they derided it.

Exactly.

I never, you know what?

I never took heroes for zeros, but that was a huge mistake on my side because it took me another 20 years to discover Joseph Campbell and become a total addict of it.

And I could have gotten it back when I was walking out of college because that's actually a huge tool for me in filmmaking now, the hero's journey.

But it did take me a long time to find it.

So, so finding it in terms of you learning about the hero's journey, but also you now in this film doing something that feels more classical

to that point.

Yeah.

Was it fun?

Was it more?

How do you describe your process?

I always have a good time.

I mean,

the filmmaking process for me is never that different from Pi with whatever it was, $20,000 to this movie and all in between.

They all have their own challenges and stuff, but the process is very similar.

But there was something nice about

getting my crew together.

And basically, I've been working with a lot of the same people

since the 90s.

And

they've all become incredible masters of their craft.

And then

bringing that all to like make a solid genre film.

Like not, because if you think, I've never really done clear genre, like Pi is not really sci-fi, Requiem.

My biggest letdown just to talk sports was on the wrestler.

Yes.

ESPN would not allow me to go for the best sports film of the year because they were like, wrestling is not a sport.

And I was like, God damn it,

someone yesterday, by the way, also called Black Swan a sports movie, which I thought was interesting too, because it is in many ways.

Golf is a sport ballet.

Absolutely, it's an athletic movie.

So this is kind of the third sports film, but they're similar except that it's like it's very clearly a crime caper.

That's what we wanted to do.

So bringing together that team of like masters that I surround myself with and be like, you know what, let's make the best

genre film we can and have a great time.

In 90s, New York.

90s New York.

Which is my childhood.

Okay.

Oh, very cool.

Oh, so yeah, so you're a teenager in that time.

So it must have sparked a lot of

visceral memories.

Frankly, it was like, oh, if I was cooler, I could have gotten down to the city.

I'd be around there.

I grew up, you know, in Murray Hill, which is...

Yeah, it's not that far.

I'm sure you guys wandered out a little bit.

My mom is discovering that I wandered out a little bit in this very conversation.

Exactly.

But also just, man, the nostalgia for that era.

What do you miss the most about that?

Well, of course, there's just so much.

In many ways, it isn't that different, but of course, it's so different.

And the main thing is like the social media aspect of it and just like the communication aspect.

Like back in the day, and you probably remember this as a 13-year-old, hey, meet me on the corner of blah, blah, blah, at blah, blah, blah.

And you were there.

And if you were late or you missed the person, you didn't talk to them until you got back to your house and had a telephone, unless you had a beeper or something.

So

it was a whole different way of communicating and interacting with each other.

And I think there's also an immediacy back then

of being in the present of being what's happening right now that we've lost because the reality is we're spending seven hours inside of our telephone and our machines at this point.

We are basically these cyborgs and we're gone.

And I'm not saying, I'm not judging.

I'm not going to be like Elvis, don't sway your hips type of guy, because I think it's interesting.

Like I'm all leaning into all the new stuff, but it's different.

And that's kind of interesting.

And I think there is a FOMO, like you just had,

even as a city boy, that you wanted to get downtown.

Yeah.

The 90s in New York, in downtown, I call it peak humanity.

Cause like the Soviet Union had collapsed.

Our biggest problem was Y2K.

Everyone was just talking about did Bill Clinton have sex with that woman.

That was our biggest controversy with our president.

Scandal at that time is so funny.

If you watch the West Wing now, you're like, whatever.

It was like school uniforms.

Like, how dare they?

That was a real problem America was grappling with.

Exactly.

So it was like, everything was like the temperature was a lot lower.

And, you know, pre-9/11, it was a very different world.

Pre-9-11 is the era.

And then musically, it was like hip-hop was booming and going international, which as New Yorkers was exciting.

Grunge was kind of over by 98, but was still important.

Electronic music was just starting.

Musically, there was just so many still new forms.

There was still an underground, which is like hard to have at this point.

So I feel like a big part of this film is the FOMO of the 90s.

Like you want to see what it was like, like, you know, come home.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Like, the idea of

America being so optimistic that to be cynical felt radical.

Well, I had that a lot because back then, so I'm making Requiem for a Dream and Pie and all these kind of more underground films then and finding a little love, but it was hard because Paris Hilton was queen.

Letterman was cynical, and that was that he had a bite, but was distinguished by the zag that's right he was making.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and

Requiem, which I had my experience with that is that high school, college, I just remember being like, why are people chanting ass to ass?

So, whatever you need to do now,

ass to ass.

As

And I then was like, oh, oh,

and so we could revisit it.

And I'm like, what, what genre do you, for people who somehow haven't seen it?

Yeah.

I mean, I guess I would ultimately say it's a horror film where the monster is addiction in a certain way.

It's invisible, but it's kind of horrific, the film, but it doesn't really fit into a genre.

Right.

But that guy, by the way, did you catch him in the movie?

Did you see him in Caught Stealing at 92 years old?

No, wait, wait, wait.

The Gil Hodges line.

Oh, my God.

The studio begged me to cut it, by the way, because they're like, no one in the world knows who Gil Hodges is.

And I'm like, you know what?

Me, there's a bunch of Brooklyn boys.

This

podcaster knows the legend of

Gil Hodges, Brooklyn Dodgers.

That's right.

Of course.

Yeah, and he just wrote me recently, Stanley Herman is his name.

That's like what he's he's known for, and he gets recognized, and he might actually put on his tombstone.

Ask to ask.

Exactly.

I was like, you know, more people will come visit you.

Stanley Herman.

I met him actually.

I was a film student in the early 90s in L.A.

And he came in and I was like, hey, so I've got this one role in this little short I'm doing called The Pervert.

Will you do it?

He's like, definitely.

And so he's been the pervert in every movie, pretty much, except in the new movie, he's a Brooklyn Dodges fan.

I want to explain ask to ask for people.

Really?

Welcome to Pablo Tory.

Fuck it.

Can you describe it?

I don't want to summarize it.

I want to know how you would explain it to someone who's never seen just that scene.

Basically, when we put the movie into the world, the MPAA, which is the censorship board for Hollywood,

they wanted to give us a X rating.

for

mostly for that scene and what happens in that scene.

And other things, of course, in the movie.

There's a lot of drug use in it and a lot of profanity and it's terrible.

You know, it's a pretty tough film.

Oh, it is like a,

I want to laugh about this in the context of this movie will change you.

Yeah.

Because it's real in a way that is just rare in cinema.

Well, it's funny.

So this is the 25th anniversary and there's...

big screening at the Triangle Film Festival and they're re-releasing a DVD any moment type of thing that with has all these things on it.

But for the for the Toronto Film Festival 25th screening, I got Ellen Burston to come out in 92 as well.

And she was like, I'm watching it.

So I was like, you know, I haven't seen it in years.

So I was like, okay,

I'm going to sit next to Ellen and watch this because I think the last time we watched it was at the world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival

in 2000.

How'd the French react?

We had an incredible reaction in France.

It was insane.

It was like, it had started at,

we were a midnight screening because they thought it was too rough to be earlier.

But the movie before us went too late.

So we started at 1 a.m.

And it finished at 3 a.m.

And the applause went on.

Like, you know how they talk about these applause, but it was

in my career.

I've never seen anything like it in any other film, not even my own.

It was like, it was crazy at 3 o'clock in the morning and it was very emotional.

But we still had no idea that it would be this thing people would be talking about 20 years later and the impact of that film on young people.

And now young people that are actually making films.

It's a beautiful thing.

And it just had just like a bunch of, I guess we were like late, we were probably 30, bunch of 30-year-olds just, just trying to do everything we could and just make as good a movie as we could.

So it was a great, it was a great, um, it was a great experience.

And then, but sitting next to Ellen during the screening, I mean, she was just slapping me the whole time.

She's like, shame, shame.

And I was kind of shocked.

I was like, wow, you know, it's definitely the film of a 30-year-old, not the film of a 56-year-old.

So, you know, it's a different movie for me.

Well, that brings us back to the

ratings and the question of what do you do with the scene that is still being

talked about.

Yeah.

So at that point, not having an R rating,

there was huge problems.

I think there still is.

Like, you can't advertise in newspapers.

But the studio stood by me because

I was like, look, this film is about what addiction can do to you.

And if we shave back anything, we're undermining the whole purpose of the movie.

So the movie has to go there because it's showing you how dark it can get if you kind of allow yourself to be ruled by addiction.

So it's like McGruff, the crime dog, was like the standard mode of warning people about drugs are bad.

I was doing a Q ⁇ A and there was a woman who stood up and said, thanks for requiem.

It made me sober 25 years ago.

And the guy who wrote it, Hubert Selby Jr., a great author who wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn famously, he was an NAAA sponsor for 30 years, and the amount of lives he saved with this and with the film and with the book, it's an amazing accomplishment.

Thursday night football is back, and it's only on Prime Video.

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If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Veeen Champain, a 14 alcoholic volume, reported by Remy Control, USA, Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738, Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

So I just got to go back to the concept of the hero's journey for just a second here.

Because as Darren Aronofsky said, he came to it regrettably late in life and I've been thinking about this because as much as he became critically acclaimed for being this weird and abstract and disturbing auteur who was bootstrapping low-budget but highbrow movies it turns out that Darren has toyed with the idea of making a film that is not just about a hero but a superhero and he's been thinking about this for a while now Around the year 2000, Warner Brothers originally hired him to develop the movie that eventually became Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

Ten years later, he was then attached to direct Hugh Jackman in The Wolverine, and Darren dropped out of both of those projects, obviously.

But he was intrigued,

and I wanted to know why.

I've always been interested in that because I do think like

there's always interesting to do with certain of those characters.

I kind of had a, had a, like, I was attached to Batman for a while and Superman and The Watchmen because I've always, I wasn't a crazy comic book fan as a kid,

but I got into graphic novels when I was in college.

Actually, my roommate was an animator, and he turned me on to The Watchmen and gosh, the Frank Miller,

yeah, what's it called again?

The series, anyway, The Dark Knight, the Dark Knight series.

So, I read all those, and they were like real literature, those, those things.

So, um, but I wasn't really a big superhero fan, and then I got,

you know, when I got the call about Batman, I was in the edit room on Requiem, and it was kind of before they would take all these young directors and stick them on big franchises.

So it was kind of a new idea.

And I was kind of intrigued, but I've always felt like an a need to author some stuff and not necessarily just do someone else's character.

So

I've been very lucky that I've been able to do my originals first.

So when Batman came on, I really wanted to make the fountain.

And that was this kind of really big, expensive, experimental movie.

And

I felt like if the studios saw me as a superhero director, maybe they would let me do this crazy thing.

And eventually they let me do the crazy thing instead.

You know, and then Chris Nolan had the launch of his career off of it, which is great.

And he did it in such a smart way that I don't think I would have ever done.

I would have probably made it small and edgy type of version.

Or more dildos.

Not that dark.

I don't think I would have gotten away with that.

And then I've been lucky because after the fountain, you know, I was able to go small and do the wrestler and black swan.

And I've always been able to do the ones I want to do.

So there are some interesting things in the superhero universe, but I think most of that stuff has been visited.

And kind of where I am now is like real human heroes that can unite people.

I think that's my sweet spot and where I'm looking to like do stuff is like bring people together with stories and characters that kind of remind us of how great our lives are and like and like and be positive towards the future.

Cause it feels like

things are getting ripped and torn apart.

It says something, and from a macro perspective, of course, you're right.

If you're to trace the arc of history from, as you yourself have made films about the origins of the human condition and also like humanity as a concept, if you're to trace that, things have undoubtedly gotten better over time.

But in the present tense, it feels miserable to the point where to go and do the inverse of what we observed before,

things are so overwhelmingly cynical that optimism feels punk rock.

That's where I am.

Exactly.

And it's funny, I'm hearing that from other filmmakers too.

Like, you're going to see a lot of the kind of indie-edgy guys people are starting to lean into that because, you know, I've been talking about it.

Like, if Hollywood can do anything right now, it's like shut up and dance.

Like, let's entertain.

Let's entertain.

Let's do what we do great, which is we make great movies that capture the world and remind, you know,

things about the human potential and where the world can go.

it's not a dystopian future like where is the protopian future where's the gray future ahead of us or where's the great human characters that have grit that just sort of power through part of what i think you would have i mean clearly you've thought about this what you would have hated about superhero filmmaking is being beholden to a canon that was not your own and a community of policemen

who would have hated yeah yeah where you push the edge a bit the choices and and the interpretations yeah yeah i mean and some and look, and it's not something it's impossible to do because, again, Christopher Nolan totally a gothic Batman.

That was incredible.

But the policing of your work from people who feel like they are the actual arbiters of the content.

Well, now I'm about to be policed, as you said, by people who are like, well, this isn't a real Aronovsky film.

And that's my point.

It's like, you have now made this subreddit of

when you, I don't want to give too much away, but when you actually think of the content and how many people live, how many people die.

I should be very clear.

I'm grading on a Harvard-level curve.

Exactly.

The gentleman's great inflation.

The gentleman's A of, man, Darren only had this many people shot in the head.

He's gone soft.

Exactly.

So there's so much of that, obviously.

But on the scale of Requiem.

Yeah, yeah, it's a different world.

It's a different world.

But I love it.

But again, it's just like, but that's part of what I found so delightful.

Yeah.

And the question is, can we bring the same level of attention and filmmaking to a different kind of genre?

That's been fun to breathe life into other types of stories.

Yes.

Speaking of life,

so good at segues.

Your sort of field biology,

sort of that section of your CV.

Part of what I, one of my favorite things in life that I do in my show, I talk about quite a bit is just like how the ecosystem of New York City is underrated.

But you're somebody who like went abroad to

in your teen years, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Could you explain what you did?

And just, I want to sort of bring that back to where we are.

Yeah, I mean, I've always had, I'm from like the southern, southern part of Brooklyn and like two houses away from a concrete parking lot that leads to Manhattan Beach, the actual beach, like the sand and the oceans right there, like

real nature.

And, you know, being in the southern tip of Brooklyn, you know, there were two types of people growing up in my Brooklyn, not today's Brooklyn.

People who wanted to get to the big city and people who were never going to get the f out.

And

I was always like, I want to get to the big city.

And then very young, I really was into travel and like, you know, seeing the world.

The other great thing about

growing up.

down in South Brooklyn is there was the New York City Aquarium where a lot of my friends would intern because if you intern there, you'd get a t-shirt that would let you go on the cyclone in Coney Coney Island as many times as you want.

We would go on the cyclone 40, 50 times a day.

We would just ride it all day until like our brains were like.

That's insane.

Yeah, exactly.

We have what's CTE?

What does that cost?

Exactly.

You and the NFL have a number of things in common.

And while there, one of my friends stumbled on this kind of brochure for this program that took kids and trained them as field biologists around the world, a group called School for Field Studies.

which is still around, training ecologists of the future.

I'm on the board now.

And

so I went with them to Kenya and I studied ungulates, which are animals that stand on their hooves.

Like giraffes.

Anything, yeah, gazilled, zebra, anything.

And then the next year I went with them to Prince William Sound in Alaska and studied thermoregulation and harbor seals.

And just like being in crazy nature when you couldn't find all that stuff on Google.

totally blew my brain.

And definitely, you know, I became a scientist, you know, and the way I look at at the world is through the scientific method.

So

what I am sort of connecting with you about when it comes to the optimism is like a fundamental sense of like truly like nostalgic wonder.

And in New York, the thing that has blown my mind is whales.

There are whales in New York Harbor.

I have not heard about this, really.

Yeah.

Because they're driven up north from the, from climate?

It's a multivariate equation.

Right.

But there's been a cleaning of the harbor.

Are you humpbacks?

So what's yes?

Wow.

So, like, you can, dude, there are photos, and these are real.

Really?

In which there are humpbacks breaching.

No, in the background, it's a cyclone.

Oh, really?

Oh, wow.

I have not seen this.

Oh, my God.

Oh, so that's actually out on my beach.

Yes.

Down in South Brooklyn.

Yes.

Oh, wow.

So send me that.

I actively will.

Okay, good.

I will spam you with my pro-whale propaganda.

New York to me, right?

So it went from a place of growing up, and this is the pre-social media era, obviously, pre-cell phones.

It was part of my nostalgia, I realized, oh, this is,

it felt like

a small town in a way.

Like now, New York is so fragmented because phones have fragmented everything.

Right.

And there are a zillion New Yorks for people.

And there's a TikTok New York and sub-genres inside of that.

Interesting.

When I was growing up, it just felt like, oh man, everyone's talking about Rudy Giuliani.

Right.

Everyone is sort of dealing with this.

So even like a blackout to me growing up was amazing.

Right?

Amazing.

I had a lot of fun on the blackout.

Everyone's talking about the same thing.

Right.

You don't feel that connection in New York still?

I just think that because we are seeing things through our phone,

there's just less of it.

That might be true.

It's an interesting thing.

I don't know.

I mean, shooting, caught stealing in the East Village.

We shot on the corner of 6th and A,

where Benny's burritos used to be.

He's living in 10th and C.

Okay, you know exactly where I am.

But it was a freaking circus.

I thought I was on Bourbon Street.

I was kind of grossed out by like what the East what the East Village.

I was like, oh, this is.

Alphabet City was a place my parents warned me against.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, Alphabet City was Alphabet City was hardcore.

Absolutely.

I don't think it's so scary anymore, but it was very, very intense.

I moved there to the point.

It was very intense.

But, um,

and it seemed like people were having a good time though.

So like at first, like Friday night, I was super pissed off because I thought I didn't realize the type of crowds we were going to have to be dealing with and people screaming.

You know, people screaming, get out of my f ⁇ ing neighborhood.

And I'm like, this is my fing neighborhood.

I am 99% sure I've been here longer than you, motherfucker.

Get on my street.

But then I realized people were having fun.

And then I, I did, I've gone out a few times in it because I had to go check out bars and scout bars.

And there was a lot of life going on still in New York.

It felt alive

in a real way.

One of my takes about New York that I feel as a true, like, you know, you know, New Yorker and the question of like when do you get to claim that?

Do you have a standard for that?

Does anyone get to claim that if they're not from here?

Not from here.

I mean, we all know when it's all my second question, where are you from, New York?

Second question, where'd you go to high school?

And I was like, oh, we moved to Long Island when I was seven.

I was like, okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

No, we're total snobs.

Total snobs.

No, I mean, because we did pay dues.

We did pay dues.

And, but beyond the whole like

look at what New York used to be like, yeah, what we grew up with.

Which is our favorite conversation as New Yorkers.

Absolutely.

That or I was like, I could have got bought that building for blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The whole thing of like, I've been, I found a rent control department that I'm still, just like the whole lore of

where to live, how to live, all of that.

Part of what I feel walking around to what you just described is just knowing what's been here before

reduces, I think, the anxiety lots of people feel around how intimidating.

Yeah.

Like, oh, this street, even like walking through, so one example.

Yeah.

Like walking through a busy street in like the West Village and it's like all of these very attractive people and it's like they're all, you know, watching you and all of that.

I'm like, none of you people used to be here.

No.

Like you are new here.

Like that confidence is like what to me, you have to, that's like accumulated decades of just like not like you.

Like I'm not, you can't, you can't intimidate me off of this street.

But I love that New York is always changing.

Like

it used to be, I used to really complain like, oh, that used to be like this, but I find it exciting that it's like a living, growing, changing city.

And like on my corner where the rolling roaster is, I don't know what they're they're putting up, but they took down everything.

And it's going to be something ugly.

But I'm like, it's going to be a weed store, Darren.

It's going to be illegal.

We asked for legal weed and we got it and it sucks.

Yeah, but at least that shrunk too.

That was like everywhere.

Now it's Bodega.

Now it's being and now it's like, now the ones that have the license seem to know what's going on a bit, but it's yes.

You get everything you want when you no longer want it that much.

Correct.

Like my friend

Ari Zablotsky built his bar Zablotsky's in

Williamsburg, but it, you know, he built it when I was like 36.

And I'm like, dude, I got a fing baby.

I'm going to bed at 10.30.

I was like, where were you in the 20s when we needed a fing dive bar that we could drink for free?

So you always, your friends get, at least for me,

I'm always, it's always 10 years behind what I needed.

I have a friend who just opened a bar and I'm like, I am not going to be there.

I may not ever go see you.

I am not going to hang out.

Exactly.

You will never see me there.

Maybe, you know, if it's your birthday, I'll come by for her.

That's literally what I did.

and i was there and i shook his hand and i'm like i gotta go i have a five-year-old exactly um but but the the other thing i the most authentic like just like feeling about new york that i have is the wonder not merely that there are whales here suddenly yeah yeah speaking to the changes of things but that there are places that are just so close to me that i've never even walked into that one day i do yeah after decades of ignoring it and i'm like this has been here the whole time there are always discoveries and things are always changing.

That's, it's, I just went to that thing.

Um, I met this guy.

Um, his last name's Digital, but he's this artist, Kevin Kezzen.

I can't remember, but he built this like observation thing that's inside of,

it's all covered in mirrors.

Have you seen this thing yet?

It's like this new observation tower, like around

Grand Central Station.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, the Vanderbilt, one Vanderbilt.

Yeah, yeah, one Vanderbilt.

Yeah, the observation deck.

Yes.

It's sick.

Did you go inside?

It's actually worth checking out.

Can I tell you you what I did?

So I bought a ticket for me and my wife.

And Penso digital, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's right.

So I bought a ticket and the line was so long that it snaked into the subway.

I'm like, I'm not waiting.

I could hook you up.

I met the guy.

So next time you go, it's

a good thing.

He's actually cool.

I was like, oh, this is, it's like an artist's interpretation of an observation deck, and it's like a lot of fun.

So to me, the fact that there are these like, you know, in that case, a literal, almost like funhouse mirrors scenario

up in the sky.

I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm also, another one of my just beliefs is New Yorkers, real New Yorkers also should do some tourist shit sometimes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's actually, oh, guess what?

Central Park is cool.

Yeah.

Oh, Central Park's a tourist thing now?

That's scary.

Am I breaking the news to you that it's largely European?

I haven't been above 56th Street in like 30 years.

It's been a long time since I've been up there.

I mean, I drive up the FDR and pass it, and I'm always like, oh, there's people there too.

I always like wonder, like, who are these people like north of 50?

I mean, there's big buildings with like lots of people in them and stuff.

I have no idea who those people are.

Nothing up there.

But that's also what's great about New York City.

Yes, exactly.

There are countries, there are republics.

Yeah, they're whole countries.

It's just like, literally, it could break off, and I would not even need a passport to get in because I have no interest.

And to be clear, some are.

luxury towers largely owned by uh like

chinese billionaires who never show up that's the weird thing when you like

when you're coming in from wherever

JFK or whatever, and you look at the land, I have no idea what that is.

It used to be I knew every

skyscraper and I have, there's these little thin things and I'm like.

But thin things are, that's what's over.

They're confusing.

There's many of them and they're all over the place now.

And it's like, what is that?

I feel like we've become, at the end of this podcast, Statler and Waldorf just complaining about skyscrapers.

Oh, you're welcome to be a New Yorker.

Yeah, no, it is.

Should we talk about Shea Stadium?

Oh, my God.

I mean, I'm, so I grew up a Yankee fan.

Okay.

So part of my.

Have you ever been to Shea?

Of course.

Okay.

I don't know how you got.

No, no, no, no.

I mean, how dare you?

Yeah, exactly.

But old Yankee Stadium, even more than Shea, but Shea as well.

Yeah.

What I miss, of course, is that feeling of like, you walked in because all these places are now the equivalent of a billionaire's skyscraper, City Field, as well as the New Yankee Stadium.

Which is nice.

City Field's pretty nice, though.

They're both.

Beautiful, yeah.

I haven't been to the New Yankee Stadium, which is embarrassing.

I got to go see it.

City Field is better than New Yankee Stadium, if I'm being objective.

But both feel so much less.

I mean, Yankee Stadium, I'll speak to because that's my experience growing up, going to the bleachers, McDonald's, and just like yelling at outfielders.

Yeah.

Truly, like Raul Mondesi, we just like, we just yell at him.

He's like on the team.

We're just like, I don't know.

We just, this is what we do.

It's less intimidating.

Yeah.

It's less.

There used to be like a home field advantage.

was actually a meaningful competitive advantage.

And now it's just less because all the things you've described about New York and its changingness,

the glory of it, but also like the

sanding down of those edges.

Yeah, it's true.

It's true.

Yeah.

I remember when

the Subway series, and I was like, I want it, I want tickets, whatever it's going to take.

And so I was, I had just made pie.

I had a few Hollywood connections.

I was like calling anyone.

I couldn't get tickets.

And I was on a fifth floor walk up in Hell's Kitchen where I lived.

And suddenly my door knocked.

And Morgan, who lived on the third floor, she's like, you know, you want tickets to go see the games?

I was like, and I forgot you work for MLB,

like a neighbor in New York.

So I had tickets.

And I was like, well, how many can I get?

She's like, how many do you need?

I was like, I'd like 10 tickets to the bleachers.

So I had 10 tickets to the bleachers of every Subway Series game.

And I brought all my boys.

And

one of the worst experiences talking about Home Advantage was being at Shea, I guess it was.

Was that still Shea?

Yeah, it was Shea.

At Shea

when the Yankees won, and there were more Yankees fans than Met fans, and the Yankees were booing.

The fans were booing the Mets at home.

And I was like, eat it, Aronofsky.

It sucks.

No, it sucked because you guys had money and you bought all our tickets.

I was so angry.

I was so

disrespectful to come to someone's house and piss all over it.

It was sucked.

Sorry that capitalism

exists.

I want to quote something from you.

Okay.

Because I want to geolocate where you are now with regard to this.

Okay.

Quote: I don't give a f about the test scores.

My films are outside the scores.

10 men in a room trying to come up with their favorite ice cream or going to agree on vanilla.

I'm the Rocky Road guy.

Jesus.

How old was I when I said that?

That was yesterday.

Exactly.

You know, I totally tested this movie because

2014.

Yeah, it was a different world.

I totally tested this movie because,

you know, Charlie Chaplin famously would tour his comedies around the States and he would go to bum f ⁇ wherever just to see.

Barnstorming.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so I was inspired by that because there is comedy in this and there's like like violence in this and there's like shock moments.

And I wanted to see how they were playing for different audiences.

And I really enjoyed it.

I learned a lot from it because once again, it was a, it was a different exercise.

It really was about making something fun and entertaining.

And I wanted to reach people in that way.

And so you learn a lot from it.

You learn a lot.

And you learn things unexpectedly.

You get shaken up.

Things shake up.

Because you're like, okay, for some reason, something's not quite clicking.

How do you get that to click?

And so we did a bunch of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a different, different Darren.

The whole notion of, because you're how old now?

56.

At 56, you're like, the whole thing of

what people

have always wanted from me, which is to listen to them.

Right.

There's now a point at which that's creatively interesting.

Definitely, definitely.

Yeah, I think, look, my mentor, Stuart Rosenberg, this great director, he did Cool Hand Luke and Popa Grange Grange Village.

He'd always say he had a sign on his desk that said, where is my audience now?

And I think that's always true.

And I've always believed that.

Like, even when I was making films that were more weird or abstract or disturbing, I am always thinking about it because you want people to like understand what's happening, even if it's not the most pleasant understanding of what's going on.

I don't know.

But, you know, I've done this before.

The Wrestler is a similar film where you have a hero that you're rooting for who just can't get out of his own way.

And Austin Butler really

was able to do that, was able to take a beating down to the mat, but always kind of dust himself up, stood up, licked his chops and put up his dukes and started fighting again.

And so it was kind of fun to do that.

Did you know that you want, and

forgive me if this, I'll give a big spoiler alert.

Yeah.

Did you know that you wanted to do something with this one that you,

I don't recall you doing, which is actually give people what feels like a happy ending

uh it's a mixed happy ending to be fair but i yes i felt um

you know it's a tough ending and a lot it's a hard ending to land it took us a while and and i think that i wanted people to leave with a positive feeling into the world because i think um the character is on an upswing but this is the first of three books and in many ways it's setting up a lot of things that happen later i have no idea if that will happen.

The film works as its own piece and has a very, very good ending,

but it's a complicated ending because the character has gone through a lot, and it's like a lot to, there'll be a lot of like unpacking in the next few years of his life.

Yeah, I mean, in the last, some of the last scenes, a literal unpacking.

There's a review, exactly.

That's funny, right?

Oh my God, yes.

Yeah,

we'll end it there.

Thank you.

But the whole thing of,

I think you just, what I found out today is is that Darren Aronofsky is finally, you're developing a cinematic universe.

D-A-C-U.

Dare I say,

like Roland Roaster,

you might be attempting a franchise.

Exactly.

Well, hopefully, we'll do better in Manhattan.

Man, thank you so much.

I enjoyed this conversation.

Oh, my God.

And when did you graduate Harvard?

2007.

Oh, that's right.

Click.

Oh, God.

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metalark media production,

and I'll talk to you next time.