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-