Shifting Priorities: Creating Art without Suffering for It with James Thoo

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,600 Hello, and welcome to Every Moment is a Choice. 2 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:12,580 I'm your host, Erica Behl, and I invite you to join me on a transformative journey to 3 00:00:12,580 --> 00:00:17,720 uncover the extraordinary potential that lies within every single moment of our lives. 4 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:23,360 From the choices we make in our relationships, careers, and personal growth, to the mindset 5 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:28,600 we embrace in the face of adversity, this podcast will empower you to embrace the notion 6 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:33,640 that every moment holds a choice, and it's up to us to seize it. 7 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:38,080 Join me as we engage in insightful conversations with thought leaders, experts, and everyday 8 00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:43,640 people who have harnessed the power of choice to achieve greatness, overcome obstacles, 9 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:46,280 and create extraordinary lives. 10 00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:50,880 If you feel inspired by this episode, please read it and consider subscribing. 11 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:54,200 I'm keen to know how it's impacted you. 12 00:00:54,200 --> 00:00:55,760 Hello. 13 00:00:55,760 --> 00:01:02,020 My guest today is James Tu, award-winning screenwriter, author of Palooka, 12 Rounds 14 00:01:02,020 --> 00:01:05,960 to Fatherhood, and one-time pro boxer. 15 00:01:05,960 --> 00:01:11,160 He recently wrote, directed, and staged his play Trouble Came to sold out shows here in 16 00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:12,440 Singapore. 17 00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:16,440 Shortly after his show wrapped, James had this to say about it. 18 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:21,280 I quote, I worked my ass off for four months on Trouble Came. 19 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:24,560 I put on a production with no institutional support. 20 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:27,360 I sold my sneaker collection to raise the money. 21 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:29,280 I cast only my friends. 22 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:34,820 I hired only crew that had zero professional experience, and we still pulled it off. 23 00:01:34,820 --> 00:01:39,800 But I personally think it is much, much more important to look at things I didn't do. 24 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:44,840 Even though I wrote and directed and was a producer and did the set and did sound design 25 00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:49,680 and art direction, I didn't miss a single Friday date night with my wife. 26 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:52,720 I didn't miss a morning taking my kids to school. 27 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:57,800 I didn't get less than seven cumulative hours of sleep every 24 hours. 28 00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:00,960 I didn't stop picking my kids up from school. 29 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:04,440 I didn't sacrifice a single Saturday with my family. 30 00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:09,320 Over the last two weeks alone, my wife and I rewatched two seasons of the OC together. 31 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:12,920 I didn't stop training jujitsu every day, Monday to Friday. 32 00:02:12,920 --> 00:02:15,760 I didn't yell at anybody in the cast or crew. 33 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,040 I didn't pressure anybody in any way. 34 00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:23,560 I didn't say no when my wife said she had a miracle reservation at FICO the exact same 35 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:28,400 time as our final rehearsal before moving into the venue for the media show. 36 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,520 I really worked my ass off on this production, truly. 37 00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:35,040 And you need to be prepared to as well. 38 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:37,160 But you also need to remember this. 39 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:39,080 It's just a play. 40 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:42,240 Some people are going to violently disagree with this, and that's cool. 41 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:46,540 But if you ask me, it's just a fucking play. 42 00:02:46,540 --> 00:02:47,540 It's important. 43 00:02:47,540 --> 00:02:51,280 And the easiest thing in the world to romanticize. 44 00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:56,160 But it's nowhere near as important as your health or your family, your friends, how you 45 00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:57,840 treat people. 46 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,240 It's just art, man. 47 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:04,100 Don't contribute to the pernicious sentiment that conflates hard work with compromising 48 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:07,560 your health or happiness or someone else's. 49 00:03:07,560 --> 00:03:08,920 Be a good person. 50 00:03:08,920 --> 00:03:11,240 Bring positivity to the process. 51 00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:13,160 Respect people. 52 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:15,560 It's just a fucking play. 53 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,500 And take from this the lesson that you can do anything you want to. 54 00:03:18,500 --> 00:03:21,500 Take the lesson that you can do anything you want to without killing yourself or those 55 00:03:21,500 --> 00:03:23,320 around you to do so. 56 00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:30,600 Trouble Came was a piece about mental health on the stage and before we even got to it. 57 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:32,160 End quote. 58 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:33,600 Wow. 59 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:34,600 Welcome, James. 60 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:35,600 Hi, Erica. 61 00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:36,600 Thanks for having me. 62 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:38,520 Powerful stuff. 63 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:40,040 Let's get into it. 64 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:41,040 Sure. 65 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:44,320 So it's just art, right? 66 00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:49,360 An intriguing statement from someone who admittedly worked his ass off for four months to bring 67 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:51,640 his writing to stage. 68 00:03:51,640 --> 00:03:53,520 So what compelled you to write this? 69 00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:56,280 What compelled you to have to clarify this? 70 00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:57,280 The post? 71 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:02,160 I mean, it's obviously not to denigrate art, which is, I think, extremely important. 72 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:06,840 It's really important to me and to millions of other people out there. 73 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:11,000 But I think it's more, there's a particular line in what I wrote, which was that it's 74 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:12,920 the easiest thing in the world to romanticize. 75 00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:17,800 I think that's the really important part that I felt like I needed to say something because 76 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:24,440 I think that it's very easy when you're making the thing to think that the thing's really, 77 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:30,440 really important and so important that it's worth damage, I guess, and trauma. 78 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:35,080 If we think about who the kind of people that become directors are put in these positions, 79 00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:40,360 there's always kind of a minimum requirement of skill or expertise or knowledge, but there's 80 00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:47,560 almost never a minimum requirement of character or patience or anything like that. 81 00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:52,800 And a lot of the time, the people that are put in these positions are not necessarily 82 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,600 adequately adept at taking care of people. 83 00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:00,080 And the people that are in the productions, because they're so enamored with the process 84 00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:04,640 and they make the art this huge thing, feel like it's necessary for them to do whatever 85 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:05,640 it takes. 86 00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:10,240 And I've been on productions, I've been in plays and in rehearsal spaces where I feel 87 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:14,800 like I have seen directors kind of take advantage of that power and it was very important to 88 00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:16,640 me that I didn't do that. 89 00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:21,280 And so that was always kind of top of mind for me in the process that everybody be taken 90 00:05:21,280 --> 00:05:24,680 care of and everybody have a good time and just a positive experience working on the 91 00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:25,680 thing. 92 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:31,680 And then as soon as it was over, it was important for me to be able to say, yes, it is possible. 93 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:35,840 Especially because when you're making something, regardless of how small it is, when it's art, 94 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:37,640 it's very easy, like I said, to romanticize. 95 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,640 And so I think everybody in the back of their mind often kind of buys into the notion that 96 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,560 maybe they're making Citizen Kane and nobody ever thinks they're making Transformers or 97 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:46,560 something like that. 98 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:50,320 But the reality is you're probably not even making Transformers. 99 00:05:50,320 --> 00:05:55,000 The thing that I made Trouble Came We Sold Out and so like 500 people came to see it. 100 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:56,920 Maybe half of them were still thinking about it the next day. 101 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:59,760 By today, they're probably not thinking about it at all. 102 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:04,640 And so the cost of the trauma for that is I really don't think it's worth it. 103 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:08,760 I think maybe the counter to what I'm saying, the people that would violently oppose the 104 00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:14,880 notion would be if you spoke to Stanley Kubrick and he'd say that if he hadn't abused the 105 00:06:14,880 --> 00:06:17,960 cast on The Shining, then maybe we wouldn't have that. 106 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:22,040 And maybe the horror genre itself or maybe Stephen King's adaptations, maybe all those 107 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:25,800 things would never happen and we wouldn't have art that we have today. 108 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:27,920 And maybe he's right. 109 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:28,920 I don't know. 110 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:32,240 I guess the counter to that argument is that Orson Welles felt the other way, which was 111 00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:38,320 that he cast his friends and he spoke often about how he had made mistakes with casting, 112 00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:43,600 but that he would do it again because to him, loyalty to art was not a worthwhile loyalty. 113 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:46,960 Loyalty to people was more important and he did make Citizen King. 114 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:51,040 So I feel like it's a fairly solid position to be in. 115 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:52,040 Yeah. 116 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:53,040 Yeah. 117 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:59,520 So you're clarifying, you know, how you made it was just as important as what you made. 118 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:03,320 And you mentioned that Trouble Came was about mental health. 119 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:05,880 What did you want people to take away from it? 120 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:06,880 Two things, I guess. 121 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:12,960 I mean, the obvious one is the Shakespeare, in Hamlet, he writes, the play is the thing 122 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:15,120 that will catch the conscience of the king. 123 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:19,600 So this is the thing that's going to get the people, they don't know that they're there 124 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:20,960 to learn something. 125 00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:24,480 The play is the thing that's going to kind of open them up and without them even realizing 126 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:29,720 that they're being encouraged to think about something like this condition, then that's 127 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:31,240 hopefully something that they take away. 128 00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:35,720 At least I'm not trying to make a value judgment over how you should treat people with any 129 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:42,000 kind of mental health condition, but just at least to think more openly and more understandingly 130 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:43,440 about it. 131 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:48,240 And then the second thing is just to think that I fucking did it. 132 00:07:48,240 --> 00:07:49,360 I wanted to do it and I did it. 133 00:07:49,360 --> 00:07:54,280 You know, it was, it was at the time I was on holiday with my family. 134 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:58,200 We were in Europe and I just had written this film that we were in pre-production for and 135 00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:00,800 then the lead actress, she got another job. 136 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:03,600 And so I wanted to wait for her to be able to do the show. 137 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:04,600 So I said, okay, go and do that. 138 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:06,520 Because it was paying more than I could pay. 139 00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:08,740 And I didn't want to just do nothing. 140 00:08:08,740 --> 00:08:13,920 So I just made the decision to do this play, wrote this play and then four months later 141 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:14,920 we staged it. 142 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:17,960 And it was, you know, by most metrics, a pretty strong success. 143 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:21,280 We actually turned a profit, which is pretty rare in Singapore. 144 00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:23,240 Well, okay, to be totally fair. 145 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,640 We would have turned a profit, but maybe like a week before we opened, I kind of made a 146 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:31,960 decision to reinvest a little bit of the money in the future of independent theater, I guess. 147 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:36,320 And so we hired people to record the show and to do some kind of behind the scenes documentary 148 00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:39,580 work to just, just for kind of archival purposes. 149 00:08:39,580 --> 00:08:44,400 And so with that cost, maybe we broke even, but either way, you know, just we wanted to 150 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:49,360 do a show or I wanted to do a show and maybe cast and crew altogether was probably like 151 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:52,520 18 people, maybe something like that. 152 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:53,520 None of us had ever done it. 153 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,640 Well, I mean, the actors have been in some theater, but none of the people who actually 154 00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,560 made it happen, the logistics and the admin stuff had ever done any theater. 155 00:08:59,560 --> 00:09:01,040 And so we just did it. 156 00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:05,320 So I hope that people can take that lesson that, you know, if you're sufficiently passionate 157 00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:08,520 and willing to work hard, then you can do that too, you know, because I think that's 158 00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:13,560 something that's not as prevalent here as it is in other parts of the country because 159 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:16,240 the perceived barrier for entries is pretty high. 160 00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:17,240 Yeah. 161 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:19,560 And I mean, you're saying that there was a documentary made of it. 162 00:09:19,560 --> 00:09:23,480 But maybe more people will get to see about what TrelloCane was about. 163 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:29,720 But if you were to synopsize, if that's a word, synopsize it, what was the plot about 164 00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:30,840 for our listeners? 165 00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:37,000 The plot was, it was a girl named Julia who was an actress and she was quite seriously 166 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:38,000 depressed. 167 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:42,640 And her boyfriend had dumped her for being a drag. 168 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:47,280 And so she runs away to her sister's house, moves in with her sister and her sister's 169 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:52,680 husband who are both kind of aggressively happy people who don't really believe that 170 00:09:52,680 --> 00:09:53,680 depression is a thing. 171 00:09:53,680 --> 00:09:54,680 Aggressively happy. 172 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:55,680 Yeah. 173 00:09:55,680 --> 00:09:59,240 Aggressively and condescendingly happy and don't really believe that depression is a 174 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:00,240 thing. 175 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:05,040 And it's kind of based on this old story about Hemingway that I don't think it's actually 176 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:10,200 true, but the story was that he, in learning to write, he would take out a typewriter and 177 00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:14,080 he would write Shakespeare by hand, the full works. 178 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:18,040 By doing that, he would learn what it felt like to be a genius and then he would write 179 00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:20,600 his own work with that feeling. 180 00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:24,480 And so she endeavors to do the same thing with them where she's like, okay, I'm just 181 00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:28,400 going to act like these people in their day to day life and in the process of doing so, 182 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:31,840 I'll learn why they're happy and then I'll take that and then I'll be happy. 183 00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:33,800 And so she just does that. 184 00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:37,760 And it's kind of, you know, like when somebody, no matter how cool you think you are, if somebody 185 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:42,280 holds a mirror up to you and you see what they think you are and it's not as cool as 186 00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:43,280 you think. 187 00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:48,400 Then she becomes happier and they become less happy and that's kind of the opening conceit. 188 00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:49,400 Very cool. 189 00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:54,440 So this was your first time, like I mentioned, like you said, even in your post, I sold my 190 00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:55,480 sneaker collection. 191 00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:58,120 You had to kind of produce this whole thing yourself. 192 00:10:58,120 --> 00:11:04,200 And this was the first time that you've actually staged one of your own works and fully directed 193 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:05,200 it. 194 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:06,200 You kind of produced it. 195 00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:07,200 You did a lot of it. 196 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:10,960 So it was kind of like a really driven endeavor for you. 197 00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:16,240 What made you feel like, I mean, you mentioned the timing aspect of why this felt right at 198 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:20,920 this time, but what kind of drove you to bring it to the stage yourself? 199 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:25,920 I didn't want to have to compromise creatively. 200 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:32,100 It was important to me that if the show is good, it's because of me and it's all my decisions. 201 00:11:32,100 --> 00:11:35,040 But if the show is bad, also those are my decisions and I want to live by the sword 202 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:36,960 or die by the sword, you know. 203 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:42,520 And I'm kind of at an inflection point, I think, in my career where if I kind of, I 204 00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:48,040 don't think the word is necessarily apt, but resign myself to just being a writer, that 205 00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:55,760 forces me to be in a way beholden to the industry forces because they're the ones who are going 206 00:11:55,760 --> 00:11:59,440 to decide if they buy my script, they're the ones who are going to decide if they make 207 00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:00,600 it. 208 00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:03,120 And I don't think that's a great place to be. 209 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:07,000 So I'd always been content with that because the arrangement worked fine for me. 210 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,800 I had a good age and I could go like that. 211 00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:15,360 But now I have kids and the responsibility is there to be all I can be. 212 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:20,000 And so I feel much more energized to really kind of push the envelope and see, can I do 213 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:21,000 more than that? 214 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:24,920 And I did feel like maybe I could be a good director and I wanted to know how far could 215 00:12:24,920 --> 00:12:25,920 I push it. 216 00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:29,940 And even though that seems like a kind of a leap to go from just writing to then directing 217 00:12:29,940 --> 00:12:33,360 and producing and all the stuff that I did, that's not actually the end of the story. 218 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:39,160 Like I want to go further into film and this is just the first kind of step on that ladder. 219 00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:43,120 So that's the reason why I needed to see if I could actually do the things that I wanted 220 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:44,120 to do. 221 00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:48,960 Because I would find out pretty quickly if I couldn't and that would be freeing to disappointing, 222 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:49,960 but also free. 223 00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:55,000 I think lusting after a dream that's not really within your reach is also kind of dangerous. 224 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:58,560 And so I wanted to be disavowed of that notion. 225 00:12:58,560 --> 00:13:00,160 And instead you sold out shows. 226 00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:01,840 Yeah, yeah, we were fortunate. 227 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:02,840 Yeah. 228 00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:04,520 A lot of people support it, so it was good. 229 00:13:04,520 --> 00:13:06,000 That's amazing. 230 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:10,520 So for the listeners, I was chuckling a little bit when you were talking about wanting to 231 00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:17,280 have that control, I guess that creative control and everything because James has run workshops 232 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:22,940 for young writers in the past and he has kind of mentored writers writing their first screenplay. 233 00:13:22,940 --> 00:13:26,160 And I remember I attempted mine. 234 00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:30,080 And one of the things I remember you saying to us was like, that's the director's job. 235 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:35,280 Stop putting in all the detail, all these kind of notes saying you want it this way 236 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:36,840 and this way because that's a director's job. 237 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:37,840 Like you're the writer. 238 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:40,160 I remember you saying that. 239 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:44,440 But now it seems like you also, at least in this case, did something that you felt you 240 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:46,280 wanted control over as well. 241 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:47,280 That's why I was chuckling. 242 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:49,720 Yeah, I mean, I still feel that way. 243 00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:55,340 The control that I was actually referring to was more, I mean, I think you figure out 244 00:13:55,340 --> 00:13:59,280 about people, what they prioritize when it comes to story. 245 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:02,080 David Fincher's famous for prioritizing information. 246 00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:05,820 For me, the control I was actually talking about was rhythm. 247 00:14:05,820 --> 00:14:12,760 It's very difficult to assess the merit of dialogue if the rhythm that it's delivered 248 00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:16,800 in is completely contrary to what it was intended to be. 249 00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:21,140 And I think to varying results, because I've only ever been a writer before, I've seen 250 00:14:21,140 --> 00:14:26,160 it done numerous ways and I've always had a very specific rhythm in mind and a very 251 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:29,600 specific kind of metronome for the... 252 00:14:29,600 --> 00:14:34,040 There's a piece of dialogue at the end of Trouble Came and we were in a rehearsal fairly 253 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:37,560 late on and I was having a conversation with my stage manager and I could hear the actors 254 00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:43,080 rehearsing behind me and one of the girls said her line and I knew it was wrong. 255 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:44,080 I said, that's wrong. 256 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:45,740 Can you look at the script, please? 257 00:14:45,740 --> 00:14:49,520 And I heard her say, well, James knows every line in the script. 258 00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:50,760 I didn't know what the line was. 259 00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:54,680 I just knew that it was wrong because it was the wrong number of syllables and the rhythm 260 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:56,540 of the line was wrong. 261 00:14:56,540 --> 00:15:01,680 That's just really important to me that the rhythm is correct and I think that affects 262 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:02,920 comedic timing. 263 00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:06,480 It affects everything. 264 00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:07,480 The rhythm. 265 00:15:07,480 --> 00:15:08,480 It's just the rhythm. 266 00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:10,640 The color of the table, I didn't give a shit. 267 00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:13,960 If there was condiments there, what the fridge looked like, I couldn't care less. 268 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:14,960 I'm colorblind. 269 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:15,960 I had to do all the lighting. 270 00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:17,200 So I had to paint the set. 271 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:18,960 I bought one tub of paint. 272 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:19,960 It was white. 273 00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:23,080 And then we had to get a blue and I couldn't care less about this stuff. 274 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:26,560 But the rhythm of the show was really important to me. 275 00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:27,560 Understood. 276 00:15:27,560 --> 00:15:28,560 Understood. 277 00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:34,920 So you talked about the technical craft of writing and kind of the flow of the play and 278 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:37,080 everything and the subject matter. 279 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:45,640 I mean, you're talking about in this synopsis, envy, perhaps, you know, the grass is greener 280 00:15:45,640 --> 00:15:51,880 or the effect of things like social media and viewing everyone else's lives is perfect 281 00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:54,760 and comparisons, I guess. 282 00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:58,240 So what made you want to write about this now? 283 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:02,280 Because I mean, social media is just the latest manifestation, but hasn't there always been 284 00:16:02,280 --> 00:16:05,400 a kind of comparing yourselves to other people? 285 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,720 I mean, was it the social media aspect or was it the more personal aspect? 286 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:10,240 No, that's absolutely true. 287 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,640 It has always been a thing. 288 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:19,800 I think it's an old Faulkner quote where he said that memory knows before knowing remembers. 289 00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:25,480 And I think like the difference between now and then is that there was so much other stuff 290 00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:30,280 and you could see something that you envied or that you lacked and then you go home and 291 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:31,600 you forget about it. 292 00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:39,060 And whereas now social media is arguably the world's number one pastime and it's just there 293 00:16:39,060 --> 00:16:40,440 constantly in your face. 294 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:45,480 And it's something I was saying to my dad fairly recently, because when we grew up, 295 00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:48,400 we were really poor and then he got this job. 296 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:53,420 And when I was like 10, we moved to Malaysia and we suddenly had like a little bit of money. 297 00:16:53,420 --> 00:16:57,160 And he was telling me how fortunate I should feel that he got that job. 298 00:16:57,160 --> 00:17:00,360 And I was explaining to him, I mean, I was fortunate and I am still fortunate, but I 299 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:05,040 was explaining to him that I never felt as poor as I did then before, because when we 300 00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:07,780 were really poor, everyone was really poor. 301 00:17:07,780 --> 00:17:12,440 So we were just saying and you would see stuff that you knew you could never have. 302 00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:13,920 But that was nobody could have it. 303 00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:14,920 It was ridiculous. 304 00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:15,920 It was like richy rich shit. 305 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:17,980 But then when we moved to Malaysia, we had a little bit of money. 306 00:17:17,980 --> 00:17:22,520 We went to international school and international school in Malaysia is populated only by rich 307 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:23,620 kids. 308 00:17:23,620 --> 00:17:27,840 And so then all of a sudden, everyone had everything and I had nothing. 309 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:33,820 And it's that ever presentness of the envy that I think is so, you know, when you watch 310 00:17:33,820 --> 00:17:38,440 a movie and if you see the severed head, it's not that scary because when the movie is over, 311 00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:40,800 you go home and you just never think about it again. 312 00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:43,640 But if you see this ever head and then every time you turn on your phone, you see this 313 00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:44,640 ever head again. 314 00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:47,840 And I think it's just it's the reinforcement of it and the constant reminder. 315 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:52,680 And it's it has this push and pull because you want to open Instagram because there's 316 00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:53,760 interesting stuff there. 317 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:55,880 But it's also the stuff that hurts you. 318 00:17:55,880 --> 00:18:00,160 And it's I just think it's more difficult to avoid now and more easily welcome. 319 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:03,360 I'm saying that the play is the thing that will catch the conscience of the king. 320 00:18:03,360 --> 00:18:04,520 The Instagram is that too. 321 00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:08,440 It's disarming you thinking you're going there for something positive, but it's actually 322 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:09,440 giving you that too. 323 00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:13,560 I mean, there are positives to it too, but you're opening up yourself to that constantly. 324 00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:16,760 So I think it's more the repeated bludgeoning of it than that it's a new thing. 325 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:17,760 I don't think I agree. 326 00:18:17,760 --> 00:18:18,760 It's not a new thing. 327 00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:19,760 Yeah, yeah. 328 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:20,760 Wow. 329 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:25,800 So when you talk about the subject matter here, right, you feel strongly about it. 330 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:30,600 And if you go through because you've written a lot, you know, you've you're an author of 331 00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:35,360 a book, you've written plays, you've written screenplays. 332 00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:40,120 So you've explored not only mental health, but some other interesting and edgy subjects 333 00:18:40,120 --> 00:18:42,980 in your writing through many different viewpoints. 334 00:18:42,980 --> 00:18:47,160 So what was Juggler Vane about women kind of comparing? 335 00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:49,280 Was it also a comparison? 336 00:18:49,280 --> 00:18:57,680 It was about four women at a bachelorette party that kind of devolves into a cat fight. 337 00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:04,560 It was kind of a modern bitchy version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, I guess. 338 00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:08,400 That was a different process in the sense that it was devised. 339 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:14,680 We had four women and it was kind of pitched to me as we have these four actresses who 340 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:20,280 are really good and really passionate and for whatever reasons are not getting the opportunities 341 00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:21,360 that we feel they deserve. 342 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:22,840 So let's write something for them. 343 00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:24,240 And that was what that became. 344 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:31,240 In terms of the subject material, to be honest, all I wanted to do was to A, give them opportunity 345 00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:40,000 and B, to write something that was, I guess, would normally be kind of masculine and let 346 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:44,720 them say things that they weren't usually able to say as women on stage, especially 347 00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:47,760 in places like Singapore, and let them swear at each other. 348 00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:51,680 And I mean, I can't remember exactly the dialogue, but some of it got pretty colourful and just 349 00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:54,800 like just give them an opportunity to play the kind of roles that only usually men get 350 00:19:54,800 --> 00:19:55,800 to play. 351 00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:56,800 Yeah. 352 00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:57,800 That's very cool. 353 00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:01,640 You've written from the female perspective a few times, in fact. 354 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:06,640 And is there another screenplay or a script that you've written around a woman who is 355 00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:07,640 going deaf? 356 00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:08,640 Yeah. 357 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:14,120 So that was the film that I was in pre-production for that collapsed. 358 00:20:14,120 --> 00:20:19,360 And so we did the play instead, which is called Queen of Limbs, which is about a girl. 359 00:20:19,360 --> 00:20:22,240 She's a ballet dancer who's going deaf. 360 00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:23,240 It's been a while now. 361 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:27,200 I forget the name of the condition, but she has a degenerative hearing condition. 362 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:34,480 And just kind of her dealing with that because that kind of was born from a similar to jugular 363 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:39,000 in the sense that it was somebody that I wanted to write for. 364 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:44,200 So is this girl Tess Pang, who's an actress here and a really close friend of mine. 365 00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:48,840 And I think she's a really wonderful actress and also a wonderful dancer. 366 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:54,720 And it was an opportunity to let her demonstrate her shit, I guess, in a way that she wasn't 367 00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:56,480 really getting opportunity to. 368 00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:01,160 And it was just at the same time I had watched Sound of Metal, which was a Riz Ahmed film. 369 00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:06,920 And it was a really good film, but the film is about a drummer who's going deaf. 370 00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:13,720 And the way that the subject is dealt with is the opposite of the way that I like to 371 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:15,920 deal with subjects, which is not to say that they're wrong. 372 00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:16,920 Maybe I'm wrong. 373 00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,840 But for a personal preference thing, when I was growing up, we didn't have any money. 374 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:23,640 And growing up Asian, my dad had this thing. 375 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:28,680 My dad's whole thing when I was a kid was why people are lazy. 376 00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:29,920 My dad's Chinese. 377 00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:31,240 Why people are lazy. 378 00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:37,780 So my thing is I'm going to only live in places where there are no Asian people because then 379 00:21:37,780 --> 00:21:41,080 I can be the most hardworking person they've ever seen. 380 00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:42,960 And that's how I will succeed in life. 381 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:47,600 So we just moved from blue collar town to blue collar town, and what it means if there's 382 00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,080 no Asian people there is that these people have never seen Asian people either. 383 00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:53,320 So if someone's going to get the shit kicked out of them, it's going to be me. 384 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:54,960 So I never had any friends. 385 00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:59,880 And that kind of manifested, I guess, this interest in people that only exist on the 386 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:04,960 margins and don't necessarily get the mainstream support, I guess. 387 00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:09,040 And so in Sound of Metal, he loses his hearing and then he finds a community who support 388 00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:11,280 him and work through his condition, which is really cool. 389 00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,440 But what I wanted to explore was what if the opposite was true? 390 00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:15,560 What if you got no support? 391 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:19,760 What if you're on the outside of the situation and you had to deal with that yourself and 392 00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:21,240 to look at it from that perspective? 393 00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:24,000 And so, yeah, that's what that story was about. 394 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,640 It's really interesting to me that you're talking about. 395 00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:31,960 It wasn't kind of a story that you had in mind and it didn't really matter who played 396 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:32,960 it. 397 00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:37,960 You are deliberately, at least in some cases, you know a person. 398 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,000 Do they almost serve as like a muse to write for? 399 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:42,000 Sometimes, yeah. 400 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:51,800 I guess the truth is that I think in my heart that I'm really good at writing, I guess. 401 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:54,760 And more... 402 00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,440 I think the world agrees, so it's okay. 403 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:02,380 I really believe that I can execute on any idea to a decent level. 404 00:23:02,380 --> 00:23:12,000 And so rather than kind of selfishly kind of plow these directions on my own, it's 405 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:13,000 like with trouble. 406 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:18,560 Like the reason why I cast only people that I knew, we didn't hold any auditions and the 407 00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:23,400 lead actor, this guy Stephen, was one of my students at the time and he was an older guy. 408 00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:29,240 He's a white guy in Singapore and he was an actor first and he came to Singapore and then 409 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:34,000 developed an interest in acting, but either the time had passed him by or whatever it 410 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:36,720 was, just being the demographic he was, he just wasn't getting any work and he would 411 00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,920 always come to class early and he wouldn't bitch about it, but he would mention he was 412 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:42,300 getting frustrated. 413 00:23:42,300 --> 00:23:47,000 And so when it came to do my own play, he was one of the first calls that I made because 414 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,040 I wanted to give him an opportunity. 415 00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:51,800 It's the thing where like... 416 00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:55,600 Because the cast, there was one day before one of the shows, the cast were talking about 417 00:23:55,600 --> 00:24:00,320 how theater works in Singapore and a lot of them were saying that theater companies... 418 00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,520 The notion was that theater companies cast the same people, they have their preferred 419 00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:08,560 cast, but then it was understandable in the sense that it's because they have a working 420 00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:11,840 relationship, they can trust these people and it's just not worth the hassle and all 421 00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:13,840 that kind of stuff, which made sense. 422 00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,520 And somebody said, like the same what you're doing, James, with your thing, but that's 423 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:19,800 not at all what I was doing. 424 00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:24,960 What I was doing was because I believe in myself, I believe that anything that I do 425 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:31,840 will be at least good and I don't want strangers to reap the benefit of my goodness. 426 00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:36,600 I would rather my friends or people that I care about or want to give opportunities to. 427 00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:42,120 And so I'd rather we all come along and enjoy the fruit of the work rather than random people 428 00:24:42,120 --> 00:24:43,120 that I don't know. 429 00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:45,200 So I guess that's what that's about. 430 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,680 And I feel like I don't know, I managed to get touched by people who are... 431 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:54,760 Somebody made fun of me for always supporting underdogs, but I think I do. 432 00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,080 In the arts in Singapore, there are a lot of underdogs. 433 00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:58,960 So I think the best actually that I don't... 434 00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:03,160 I kind of minimize my circle and so I don't keep collecting new underdogs and just stick 435 00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,640 to the ones that I have. 436 00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,720 You'd have a whole queue of underdogs waiting at your door being like, just make a film 437 00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:10,360 about me. 438 00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:12,060 I'm ready. 439 00:25:12,060 --> 00:25:16,620 So you're talking about underdogs from what you shared about your own childhood. 440 00:25:16,620 --> 00:25:18,040 Did you feel like an underdog? 441 00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:21,080 I never really thought about it, I guess. 442 00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,320 I mean, I must have. 443 00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:31,920 I think how I got my break, I guess, in the industry was I was at university and I applied 444 00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:38,120 for a writer's job at this film website called joblow.com, which was like a long time ago. 445 00:25:38,120 --> 00:25:41,840 It must be 20 years ago before blogs or anything like that. 446 00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:45,040 And so there were only like three or four film websites and at the time the readership 447 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,840 was like 600,000 people a day or something like that. 448 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,720 Somehow I got that job and I was doing it. 449 00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,640 But I was doing it, so how film journalism worked then probably still now to be honest 450 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,960 is that those websites don't have journalists. 451 00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,960 The only people who have journalists are Hollywood Reporter and Variety. 452 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:05,720 And what the websites do is what your job is, is when you're on staff, if a story breaks, 453 00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:10,720 you steal that story and then repurpose it for your own website. 454 00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:11,720 That's how the industry works. 455 00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:13,960 I assume it still works like that now. 456 00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:20,120 And so that was my job was to take news and then our website joblow was like, it was positioned 457 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:24,480 in the market as like, I think it was like the frat bro of film websites. 458 00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,140 And so I had to kind of develop this kind of frat bro persona when I was reporting the 459 00:26:28,140 --> 00:26:32,900 news and trying to be funny and lust over the actresses and stuff like that. 460 00:26:32,900 --> 00:26:34,280 And so that's how I started. 461 00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,720 But when I was doing that, I lived in a tiny town in England and just like the furthest 462 00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:42,080 thing from Hollywood, you know, and I must have felt that way. 463 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:48,440 But I don't remember ever actually kind of ever kind of stewing on that or anything like 464 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:49,440 that. 465 00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:50,440 It was just exciting. 466 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:51,440 It was like the magic of film. 467 00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:55,680 I think because film kind of it came to me kind of late, I guess. 468 00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,440 And it's like it's really hard when like the only exposure you have to film is your dad, 469 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:04,400 who's like Bloodsport is the greatest movie of all time. 470 00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:09,840 And then to at 18 realize actually you're really interested in film and try to watch 471 00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:14,240 or even let you try to watch Death of a Salesman and you're like, cool, I wonder what he dies 472 00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:15,240 of like ninjas. 473 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,120 And it's just like it's so difficult to. 474 00:27:17,120 --> 00:27:21,280 And so that whole world was just I don't know, it was just so exciting. 475 00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,400 And I never remember ever feeling like I was an underdog. 476 00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,240 I remember feeling like frustrated, obviously, at times. 477 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:32,440 And then even then when I finally kind of got my break as a writer of scripts, I was 478 00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:37,240 in Malaysia at the time and just really far, just really far from Hollywood. 479 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,440 But I think I was always I always felt lucky actually as a kid. 480 00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:41,440 I always felt pretty lucky. 481 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:42,880 Yeah, I always felt I don't know. 482 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:44,120 I don't feel that way anymore. 483 00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:48,280 I feel like I used all my luck as a child. 484 00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:49,480 And then now I have none. 485 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:54,200 I do very vividly remember feeling very blessed when I was a kid and never feeling like I 486 00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:55,920 was an underdog. 487 00:27:55,920 --> 00:28:01,440 I think also I was very quick to identify that I was not good at something and then 488 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,800 just not do that thing anymore and just go find something else. 489 00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:09,160 And I remember I remember when I was in high school, no, not high school, primary school, 490 00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,600 like on sports day, I remember there was the sprint, there was egg and spoon race and there 491 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,240 was the skipping race. 492 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,320 That was three. 493 00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,640 And obviously everyone wants to be good at the sprint. 494 00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:19,200 I was not good at the sprint. 495 00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:20,400 Nobody wants to be good at the skipping race. 496 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,800 So I decided I'm going to be the fastest at skipping. 497 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,960 And so I just went and won that I was very good at like being like, no, no, no, that's 498 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:26,960 you. 499 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,720 I'll be that thing. 500 00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,000 In primary school as well, everyone want to be on the football team. 501 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:33,400 I was not good at football. 502 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,540 So I was like, I'm going to be basketball. 503 00:28:35,540 --> 00:28:36,540 That's my thing. 504 00:28:36,540 --> 00:28:37,540 And it was England that we play basketball. 505 00:28:37,540 --> 00:28:39,880 So it's very easy to be like, that's my thing. 506 00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:45,000 So I was just a hero in my own world. 507 00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,240 So when, when did you find out that you were good at writing? 508 00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,520 Like when, when did writing enter the picture? 509 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,080 To be honest, I always wanted to be a writer. 510 00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:58,040 Even when I was living this same time, my egg and spoon race time, I was still, I really, 511 00:28:58,040 --> 00:28:59,040 really loved writing. 512 00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:03,520 I think that's another thing that's born of poverty, I think is creativity. 513 00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,760 I've had so many books and I know, I know I always like to learn. 514 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:12,320 I think I always like to read and when you don't have friends, reading is often the only 515 00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:13,320 refuge that you have. 516 00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,640 And so I was, I was always a pretty voracious reader. 517 00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:20,600 My parents were both big readers and I mean, okay, so I didn't, I didn't know I was good 518 00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,440 then, but, but I was always very passionate about it. 519 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:28,480 I guess I, I guess I didn't know that I was good until maybe towards the end of high school. 520 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,160 When I was in high school, I wanted to be an academic. 521 00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,080 I wanted, I wanted to be a historian. 522 00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,920 And so I went to university to study history, Russian history, and the goal was to go and 523 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,880 learn Russian and go and get a PhD in Russian history. 524 00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,800 That was when I kind of figured out, I guess, or started to think that maybe I could be 525 00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:47,800 good at writing. 526 00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:49,920 Cause all I wanted to do was just write about the Russian revolution. 527 00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,960 And I felt like I had really interesting things to say, which I definitely did not, but at 528 00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:54,960 the time I did. 529 00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,720 And, and, and then, and then that was around the time when I applied for Joblo. 530 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,280 And I guess that was, you know, things just kind of crystallized for me. 531 00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,160 But even then, I don't think I was good then. 532 00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,000 Like looking back, I sucked actually. 533 00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:13,960 But I think what I did have was, I was definitely derivative and I had no original thoughts, 534 00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:21,200 but I had, I guess, at least an innate kind of understanding of structure of how to, how 535 00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:22,840 to tell a story, I guess. 536 00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,280 And I had a voice. 537 00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:29,400 I think the reason why I got that job that I applied for was not because I was a great 538 00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:30,400 writer. 539 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:35,280 I didn't try to hide my uniqueness of voice. 540 00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:37,680 And so that was what was important, I think. 541 00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:42,760 And I think, you know, there's someone who's always talking about what he thinks that everything 542 00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:47,560 when it comes to being a good writer can be taught except for an ear, for language or 543 00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:48,560 a voice. 544 00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,640 And I think that's what I had. 545 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,360 And maybe a lot of other people that applied for the job had it too, but they felt the 546 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:59,980 need to maybe quieten it and kind of conform a little bit because it was, it was still 547 00:30:59,980 --> 00:31:01,760 paid professional journalism. 548 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,120 But for me, I didn't give a shit about that. 549 00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:04,440 I just wanted it to be me. 550 00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,800 And so I think maybe that's, that was the beginning, I guess. 551 00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:09,880 Right. 552 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,920 So then how did that transition into things like screenwriting? 553 00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,280 So I would report on the news. 554 00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:21,920 And one day I got an email from this guy who was working for Doug Lyman, who was a film 555 00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:25,880 director who made The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. 556 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:29,320 And he'd been working on this film called Jumper, which was this Hayden Christensen 557 00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,120 thing where he can like teleport and rub banks and stuff. 558 00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:38,600 And the email said that something that I had written had helped them get extra time to 559 00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:39,600 reshoot. 560 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,560 He wanted to reshoot and the studio gave them the time because of something that I'd written 561 00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:45,680 and he wanted to show appreciation. 562 00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,640 And that was kind of how I got that in. 563 00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:52,760 And then I guess the voice that I was writing in was appealing. 564 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:59,840 And then just kind of got sucked into doing rewrites and helping doctor scripts like that 565 00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:01,520 just because of the voice that I was... 566 00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:03,800 At that point, I was really settled in my voice. 567 00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:09,320 And it was really like, like if you're writing for 600,000 people a day, six or seven articles 568 00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,440 a day, and most of the people who read that site want your job and think they should have 569 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:18,360 your job, you are forced to kind of refine your style pretty quickly. 570 00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:25,660 And so at that time, I was really settled in who I was as a voice and not at all intellectual. 571 00:32:25,660 --> 00:32:33,400 It was mostly sarcastic, mostly lusty. 572 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:35,360 I could be quite biting, I think. 573 00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:37,200 There were certain directors I really didn't like. 574 00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:41,040 Like I had this ongoing feud with Eli Roth, who eventually was responsible for me being 575 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,420 fired from the website. 576 00:32:44,420 --> 00:32:50,800 At this time, he was just like every day there would be a new project, oh, Eli Roth's going 577 00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:51,800 to direct this. 578 00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:53,400 And it was like, come on, dude. 579 00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,240 He was every day I had to report. 580 00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:56,840 And it's so tiring. 581 00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:00,040 It's so difficult to come up with six new jokes a day as it is. 582 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,160 Six new jokes about Eli Roth every day. 583 00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:03,160 It was just exhausting. 584 00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,000 And so at some point I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. 585 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:06,400 And I just started making up stories. 586 00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:11,680 And I was just like, a source told me that he was dealing drugs to kids. 587 00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:15,200 And I definitely saw him like flying kick a nun off a bus or something like that. 588 00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:18,400 And I was just like, oh, that's nonsense. 589 00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:19,400 And you got fired for that? 590 00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:24,400 There was a movie, Grindhouse, that was coming out that he had done with Quentin Tarantino. 591 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,440 And I can't remember if he was in the movie or he directed some shitty fake trailer in 592 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:29,440 the movie. 593 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:35,800 And they threatened to withhold media collateral. 594 00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,520 And that was the end of me. 595 00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:39,520 Good story. 596 00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:41,680 Good story, by the way. 597 00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:43,400 So I think that's so cool. 598 00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:47,560 Not to get too off track, because I want to talk a bit more about your writing, but the 599 00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,460 thing you said about being your own unique voice. 600 00:33:51,460 --> 00:33:57,520 It doesn't have to be the best, but it has to be unique and yourself. 601 00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,080 Not everybody is trying to be a screenwriter. 602 00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:05,000 But if you think about today, everybody's trying to do your personal brand on LinkedIn, 603 00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:06,400 on Instagram and everything. 604 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:12,080 And there's people who sell freaking courses of how to write hooks, how to grab people's 605 00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:13,440 attention. 606 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:18,960 And I think that a lot of that it boils down to is the same thing you just said of be unique. 607 00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:24,000 There's a thousand and one people selling shit on Instagram or in your profession, right? 608 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:25,080 In LinkedIn or something. 609 00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,880 But how can you write and portray yourself so that you're a unique voice? 610 00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:30,280 Yeah, absolutely. 611 00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,660 And it's never been harder than it is now to be unique. 612 00:34:33,660 --> 00:34:39,440 Because I think at the time, it was a lot rarer that you heard people have a voice now. 613 00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:41,440 A lot more people are more comfortable with their voice. 614 00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,480 And I think there was a shift. 615 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:48,920 Even with the book, with Palooka, I think at the time when the book was written, it 616 00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:54,800 wasn't anywhere near as culturally acceptable to confess to that kind of thing. 617 00:34:54,800 --> 00:35:00,480 And then quite shortly afterwards, it became very popular to be honest about your shortcomings 618 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,160 and stuff like that. 619 00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:03,880 And the world is just kind of pivoted. 620 00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,880 And being unique now is really difficult because there are so many... 621 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,800 I always tell my students, they're way funnier writers than me on Twitter. 622 00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:16,040 16 year old girls are way funnier than I am all over the place on TikTok or wherever they 623 00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:17,040 are. 624 00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:22,060 It's just, can you differentiate yourself or do you have the discipline to kind of 625 00:35:22,060 --> 00:35:26,400 channel that creativity or that funniness into something productive? 626 00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:29,560 Even now, some of the students that I get, and I can see that they have really great 627 00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:34,440 voices and they write dialogue really well, but I don't think it's as much of a commodity 628 00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:36,920 now as it was for me. 629 00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,840 It was really hard for me back then to break in because the industry was... 630 00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:40,840 There were so few opportunities. 631 00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,120 Now there are more opportunities, but you're in a bigger ocean of talent. 632 00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:47,360 So it's not easy, I think. 633 00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:50,920 And I was reading this, there's a really good paper that was published a few years ago called 634 00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:52,920 The Reaction Economy by William Davies. 635 00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:58,840 And he was talking about how even just a search for an honest reaction to anything online, 636 00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,960 an honest feeling, is almost impossible now. 637 00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:07,920 So you've got your unique voice and you're saying it's harder to differentiate yourself. 638 00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:08,920 Very true. 639 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,840 So you have mentioned Palooka. 640 00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,360 Let's get into that because you mentioned it was something that people don't talk about 641 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:20,080 at the time, but it has a very, very interesting premise and topic. 642 00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:21,800 So tell us more about Palooka. 643 00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:27,400 Yeah, Palooka was a book about my lifelong desire, I guess, to be a dad and the complications 644 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:32,120 therein, and so what happened was we found out that I had abnormally low mortality of 645 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:33,200 my sperm. 646 00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,240 And so it was going to be very unlikely that we could get pregnant. 647 00:36:36,240 --> 00:36:42,560 And so it's kind of the first-hand male account of dealing with infertility in the pursuit 648 00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:48,480 of becoming a father and the various feelings and things that you have to do to get through 649 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:49,680 that. 650 00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:52,160 And it's written in that distinct voice. 651 00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:56,640 Yeah, I mean, the whole point, I think, was to bring some levity to the situation. 652 00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:03,200 And again, yeah, just to be honest, and I think what I found was that there is pretty 653 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:09,840 significant community of people talking about the situation, about infertility and the difficulty 654 00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:17,440 with trying to conceive with modern medicine and the difficulty that they have. 655 00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:24,760 But the community is very young and not yet, I think, to the point of being able to reflect 656 00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,280 humorously on the situation. 657 00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:33,920 And I think that being self-deprecating is one of the things that I've always been quite 658 00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:35,320 good at. 659 00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:41,600 And I felt like I could, because I fucked up a lot of stuff, just by sharing all those 660 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:43,360 things as candidly as possible. 661 00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:48,240 It felt like there was an opportunity to kind of provide comfort, I guess, and that all 662 00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:51,760 the stuff that you're struggling with, we're all doing that too. 663 00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:56,320 And before it was published, it was taken to a different publisher, which was a Singaporean, 664 00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:00,040 and they came back to me that they wanted to publish, but that I needed to make it more 665 00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:01,280 Singaporean. 666 00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:05,200 And I declined, because the whole point is that it happens to everybody everywhere, not 667 00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:11,240 only here, and the location is not, it's nothing to do with what the book is about. 668 00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:14,600 And so I was just trying to approach that subject, both on the male side, which is also 669 00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:21,080 less talked about, and try to, again, you know, like with the art, it's not that big 670 00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:22,080 a deal. 671 00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:27,200 I mean, it's a huge deal, but it's not worth kind of torturing yourself about, I guess, 672 00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:29,240 especially in silence and alone. 673 00:38:29,240 --> 00:38:30,240 Yeah. 674 00:38:30,240 --> 00:38:31,240 Yeah. 675 00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:35,800 So really personal subject matter told in a very hilarious way. 676 00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:40,560 I mean, I remember I've not read the whole book, shame on me, but I have heard you do 677 00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,600 some readings from it, and it's absolutely hilarious. 678 00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:47,520 I mean, a funny story about how the book came to be is that actually wasn't a book. 679 00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:49,200 It was just we were going through it. 680 00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:53,280 And you know, because for me, the only thing that I really know how to do at this point 681 00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:54,280 is to write. 682 00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:58,640 And so the only way I knew how to deal with it was to just write down what was happening 683 00:38:58,640 --> 00:38:59,640 and how I was feeling. 684 00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,720 And I had just been doing that. 685 00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:04,520 But I had no notion of being a book because I'd never written a book. 686 00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,520 In fact, writing a book was very intimidating to me. 687 00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:08,160 So I just had never thought about that. 688 00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:10,120 Yeah, it was really intimidating. 689 00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:14,000 And I thought at best maybe it could be a series of essays or something like that. 690 00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:15,000 But I didn't know. 691 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:21,040 But there was one day I was teaching and one of the students was this lady and she clearly 692 00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:22,360 knew how to write. 693 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,600 But the stuff that she was bringing to class was really it was just at a distance. 694 00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:27,880 It was just very bland. 695 00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,600 And when she spoke in class, she was really interesting and really had a sense of humor. 696 00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:37,560 And I kept trying to push her to be more kind of herself, I guess, in what she was writing. 697 00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,120 And she just had such a resistance to it. 698 00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:44,440 And so I ended up sending her a couple of things that eventually became Palooka to show 699 00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,120 her like, this is how personal I can get. 700 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,200 I'm not saying you have to go anywhere near this, but you can certainly get a bit more 701 00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:51,800 than where you are now. 702 00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:57,720 And it turned out that she had been really high up in SPH and she had just left her post 703 00:39:57,720 --> 00:40:02,040 because she was kind of disillusioned with the way that artists in Singapore were treated. 704 00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,640 And so she decided that she didn't want to do that anymore. 705 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,400 And she was going to start her own thing. 706 00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:10,080 But she was just looking for a writer that she kind of believed in, I guess. 707 00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,760 And so she read the thing and she was the one who said it should be a book. 708 00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,200 And she was the person who eventually published the book. 709 00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:17,200 Wow. 710 00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,400 So for those that don't know SPH is, is it Singapore Press Holdings or something? 711 00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:21,400 It's a publishing... 712 00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:22,400 Yeah, I think you're right. 713 00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,240 I think I was gonna say something else, but I think you're right. 714 00:40:25,240 --> 00:40:26,960 I said the Politico Rego. 715 00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,040 Okay, so did your luck really run out when you were a kid? 716 00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,400 I mean, you mentioned before you used up all your luck, but that sounds kind of lucky. 717 00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:36,480 Or serendipitous, at least. 718 00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:41,240 It's like weird stuff where I just like the feeling of like, oh, I like that girl. 719 00:40:41,240 --> 00:40:44,400 And then, you know, I don't know how it was for you where you grew up, but when I was 720 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,320 growing up, it was like, the girl would never tell you she liked you. 721 00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,120 Like her friend would tell you that, oh, do you know that Rachel likes you? 722 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,720 I just remember just like a streak of being like, oh, I kind of like Tracy. 723 00:40:54,720 --> 00:40:58,440 And then like the next lunchtime Tracy's friend would be like, you know, Tracy kind of likes 724 00:40:58,440 --> 00:40:59,440 you. 725 00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:00,440 You like Tracy? 726 00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:01,440 I'm like, holy shit. 727 00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:07,360 And I just remember this happening for years until I was like, I don't know, 19 or something 728 00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:08,360 like that. 729 00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:12,840 So that was going on for a few years, I was like, oh, I'm so lucky. 730 00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:16,000 And then at the time I moved to Malaysia, I was 11. 731 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,860 And suddenly we had like two bathrooms, which was amazing. 732 00:41:19,860 --> 00:41:22,400 And then we went downstairs and there was a swimming pool because we lived in a condo. 733 00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:24,080 And I was like, I've never been to a swimming pool before. 734 00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:27,760 And it was just like, holy shit, I am Richie Rich. 735 00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:32,840 And then I think I was good at sport when I was high school. 736 00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,880 And if you're good at sport, that makes life really easy. 737 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:42,320 And so I just kind of lived, I guess, a fairly charmed existence until I left high school, 738 00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:44,840 left my parents' house and had to kind of fend for myself. 739 00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:49,120 Then reality hit me and then I no longer felt like I was lucky anymore. 740 00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,920 So you moved on from skipping into different sports. 741 00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:52,920 Yeah. 742 00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:57,520 Yeah, I want to ask you because the name Palooka, is that boxing or is it just the 12 rounds? 743 00:41:57,520 --> 00:41:58,520 Because there's definitely the boxing element. 744 00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:03,280 No, Palooka is an old kind of, it's an old boxing term for a journeyman who's like somebody 745 00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,920 who's like, okay, but they're never going to make it. 746 00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:09,240 But there's definitely like a boxing theme. 747 00:42:09,240 --> 00:42:10,240 Yeah. 748 00:42:10,240 --> 00:42:17,060 So at the beginning of every chapter, there's kind of a short anecdote about a boxer going 749 00:42:17,060 --> 00:42:18,060 through hardship. 750 00:42:18,060 --> 00:42:25,880 And the idea is that being a boxer when I was younger, kind of, I guess, because the 751 00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:27,960 whole book is about not giving up, basically. 752 00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,400 That's the kind of theme that runs through the book is that no matter what happens, we 753 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,880 just don't give up on the dream of being a parent. 754 00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:40,000 And the idea is that there are all these anecdotes of boxers who went through way more impossible 755 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,240 situations than we were going through. 756 00:42:42,240 --> 00:42:45,520 And having that knowledge of just being a comfort to this, you know, things can always 757 00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:47,840 be worse, you know? 758 00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,760 And did the interest in boxing come from your dad? 759 00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:51,760 Is that? 760 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:52,760 Yeah, I mean, it probably started that way. 761 00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:55,480 My dad is an unhinged maniac, I guess. 762 00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,120 And he's just like, he's my dad is tiny. 763 00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:01,160 My dad is like five foot or something like that. 764 00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,480 And he's one of those angry small people. 765 00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:07,840 And he just, he just wants to fight everybody my entire life. 766 00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:09,960 He just wanted to fight everybody. 767 00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,960 Even I wouldn't say in the last few years, but certainly like a couple of years ago, 768 00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,720 he was starting fights with people in the supermarket for standing too close to him 769 00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:22,000 in the queue or like someone says too close to me on the train, he'll cock his hand. 770 00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:26,920 It's just, it's just, he's just a maniac and he would always get into fights all the time. 771 00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:30,480 And my brother is also an unhinged maniac. 772 00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:35,800 And so if I was also a maniac, we would probably all be dead now or in prison. 773 00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,720 And so somebody has to be the more kind of measured one. 774 00:43:38,720 --> 00:43:40,920 And so that became me. 775 00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:46,000 And then my brother, my brother, so, so we were always kind of, and my dad, my dad will 776 00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,920 tell you now if you ask him that he always told us that violence is not the answer. 777 00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:50,920 Bullshit. 778 00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:56,880 You can say all you want, but I can see you choosing violence as the answer. 779 00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,880 My entire life is it, you say what you want. 780 00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:05,560 So definitely the initial exposure and interest in fighting was from my dad. 781 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:09,160 But how it happened was my brother was just getting into me fights. 782 00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:12,720 And so, and in England, most of the time you're getting fights from playing football for some 783 00:44:12,720 --> 00:44:15,240 reason people who play football always want to fight. 784 00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:16,800 And he was playing football and he was just getting all these fights. 785 00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,200 And so somebody told him that he'd go and learn how to box so they could actually like 786 00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:21,720 know what he was doing. 787 00:44:21,720 --> 00:44:22,720 And he did. 788 00:44:22,720 --> 00:44:29,240 And the reason why I got into boxing was because I just wanted to be able to help. 789 00:44:29,240 --> 00:44:35,340 And I think just having no friends, it just made me feel like I could kind of, I've always 790 00:44:35,340 --> 00:44:37,680 felt like if I wanted to learn something, I could learn something on my own. 791 00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:38,680 Because I never had anybody to help me. 792 00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:40,560 And I've just always had that notion. 793 00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,680 So when he said he was going to learn how to box at the time I wasn't around and I wanted 794 00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:45,800 to be able to help. 795 00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,920 And so I decided myself that I would also learn how to box. 796 00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,040 And then once I learned that I could also help him. 797 00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:53,600 And then that was how I got in because of my brother. 798 00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:55,120 Briefly you were a pro boxer? 799 00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:56,800 Like how did that all happen? 800 00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:02,760 Yeah, I mean, so I was training and then I stopped writing for a while because my mom 801 00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:05,960 passed away and I just like I didn't know what I wanted to do. 802 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:07,800 And I'd followed this girl to Malaysia. 803 00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:11,720 It's just a terrible decision. 804 00:45:11,720 --> 00:45:16,360 Well, I can't say that because everything led me to where I am now. 805 00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,820 But at the time just a horrible decision in isolation. 806 00:45:18,820 --> 00:45:19,820 And I was just in Malaysia. 807 00:45:19,820 --> 00:45:21,040 I didn't know what to do. 808 00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:25,400 And this is pretty honestly, probably pretty depressed at the time. 809 00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,440 And just found my way back to boxing, I guess. 810 00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:35,560 And I met this guy who had a belt in Malaysia and I became his main training partner. 811 00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:36,700 I was a bit smaller than him. 812 00:45:36,700 --> 00:45:40,320 They just asked me if I wanted to fight and then I just got on the cards and just started 813 00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:41,320 fighting for a while. 814 00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,200 And that was it. 815 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:48,000 I only stopped actually because I met my wife and she hated it. 816 00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:49,920 And she told me that I had to quit. 817 00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,040 And well, okay, it was probably that but also it was like my brother was way better than 818 00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:54,040 me. 819 00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:55,040 He wanted me to coach him. 820 00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:58,440 So he was going to move to Malaysia so that I could coach him and he was going to pursue 821 00:45:58,440 --> 00:45:59,720 this career. 822 00:45:59,720 --> 00:46:04,480 And so I stopped so that my wife would keep going out with me and so that I could coach 823 00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:05,480 my brother. 824 00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:06,480 And that was why I stopped. 825 00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,840 And then I went back to writing, I guess. 826 00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:09,840 Yeah. 827 00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:11,840 So that's what precipitated your return to writing? 828 00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:12,840 Yeah. 829 00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:14,120 I have no skills. 830 00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:15,120 I have no skills. 831 00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:16,120 Writing and boxing. 832 00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:17,120 Writing and boxing. 833 00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:18,120 And skipping. 834 00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:19,120 Yeah. 835 00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:23,640 So tell me, was that around the time? 836 00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:28,560 Because one of the projects you worked on that I wanted to ask you about was Jarum Halus, 837 00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:32,480 which I understand, I mean, you can obviously explain a bit more, but I understand is like 838 00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,480 a remake of Othello, but set in a Malaysian context. 839 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,200 And which won some awards. 840 00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:40,880 So tell us about your experience with that. 841 00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:41,880 Okay. 842 00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:43,760 The experience was really exciting at the time. 843 00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:44,760 I was pretty young. 844 00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:47,960 I must've been in my early twenties, I guess. 845 00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:52,360 And yeah, it was a really cool opportunity for me to write something about where I was 846 00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:53,840 from or where I'd grown up. 847 00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:58,960 Actually, it was really cool for me because my dad, I think one of the probably one of 848 00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:03,180 the worst things that ever happened to me in the larger scale of my life and determining 849 00:47:03,180 --> 00:47:08,880 who I became is that the reason why my dad got the job that brought us to Malaysia was 850 00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,080 that he worked as a petrol pump attendant. 851 00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:14,160 That's when we were poor before. 852 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:18,840 And Petronas in Malaysia, they decided they were going to start their own kind of chain 853 00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:20,740 of petrol stations, but they didn't know how to do it. 854 00:47:20,740 --> 00:47:25,120 So they were going to hire someone from their affiliate in England to go and teach them 855 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:26,120 how to do that. 856 00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,220 And so they approached my dad's boss's boss and he heard about it. 857 00:47:29,220 --> 00:47:32,400 My dad's boss's boss ended up declining the job. 858 00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:37,120 And so my dad took it upon himself to go and really campaign for this position. 859 00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:41,580 Obviously they declined because he was just a petrol pump guy, but he just kept going 860 00:47:41,580 --> 00:47:44,960 over and over again and fighting for this position. 861 00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:46,880 And eventually he ended up getting it. 862 00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:48,240 And that changed our lives. 863 00:47:48,240 --> 00:47:49,240 That brought us to Malaysia. 864 00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:53,240 Now suddenly we had some money and it's really, really cool. 865 00:47:53,240 --> 00:47:55,880 The reason why I say it's probably the worst thing that ever happened to me in a sense 866 00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,200 is that before that, I was an awesome student. 867 00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:04,120 I was at this school called Queen Elizabeth's High School, which was the top secondary school 868 00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:05,440 in England. 869 00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:09,400 I don't think they have it anymore, but in England there used to be public schools, private 870 00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:11,200 schools and grammar schools. 871 00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,480 Public schools were where everybody went to the comprehensive, there were private schools 872 00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:15,480 where you paid. 873 00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:19,640 And grammar schools where there were only a few of them and you had to score over 95% 874 00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:23,520 in this thing called the 11 plus, which was an academic exam to get in. 875 00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:28,500 And so I did that and I got into this school and I was doing well at this school. 876 00:48:28,500 --> 00:48:31,000 Then my dad does that. 877 00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:32,920 He gets the job and we move. 878 00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,440 And what I believe happened, I think my dad will argue, but what I believe happened was 879 00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:42,080 that what I learned from that is that my dad's biochemistry degree was absolutely worthless. 880 00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:47,240 The thing that actually changed his life was his ability to grind somebody out and convince 881 00:48:47,240 --> 00:48:53,120 them of a story, which is that he is the right man for the job, not the other person, me. 882 00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:56,880 And I really believe that that changed the way that I saw the world where it made me 883 00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:01,280 think that my education is nowhere near as important as my ability to convince somebody 884 00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:02,280 of a notion. 885 00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:04,560 And I didn't even care about my education after that. 886 00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:09,840 All I cared about was sport, which made me popular and girls that the popularity brought. 887 00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,040 That was all I cared about. 888 00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:16,360 But the reason why that was cool for Jaram Halas was because the reason why I got that 889 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:18,240 job is because I was from Malaysia. 890 00:49:18,240 --> 00:49:23,040 And so it was like a mirroring in a way of like, I got to do the same thing that my dad 891 00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:24,040 did. 892 00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,280 I didn't really petition as hard as he did, but I got it for the same reason. 893 00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:27,960 I got to do kind of the same thing that he did. 894 00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,080 So that was really cool. 895 00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,520 It was an important lesson for me, I think. 896 00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:39,520 It's like, there's a line in Lolita Nabokov writes, he says, I had fallen in love with 897 00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:42,960 Lolita forever, but I knew she would not forever be Lolita. 898 00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:47,240 And that was how I felt about writing where it was never always going to be as pure as 899 00:49:47,240 --> 00:49:49,040 I thought it was going to be. 900 00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:54,160 And so I still love the writing, but it was no longer this pure thing. 901 00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:55,760 It was now an industry thing. 902 00:49:55,760 --> 00:50:00,200 And my stuff was being rewritten and parts of this voiceover was being added that I didn't 903 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:04,400 write and I was having to write around scenes that the director wanted that I didn't necessarily 904 00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:06,200 feel like fit into the script. 905 00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:10,160 And it was difficult for me at the time, but maybe you could say it was only difficult 906 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,520 for me because I was too idealistic at the time. 907 00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:15,440 Looking back, it wasn't awesome, but it happened. 908 00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:19,240 So at the time it kind of sucked, but it was a necessary education for me. 909 00:50:19,240 --> 00:50:22,240 And I'm glad it came as early as it did really. 910 00:50:22,240 --> 00:50:25,920 And maybe I'm jaded now, but I think you'd be very lucky if you never have to go through 911 00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:27,360 a situation like that. 912 00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:32,920 That's just how the industry works and at least I was getting hired. 913 00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:33,920 So it was fine. 914 00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:36,920 It was okay. 915 00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:37,920 Okay. 916 00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:40,920 That's a telling fine. 917 00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:42,800 So is that how the industry works though? 918 00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:43,800 I mean, did you... 919 00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:44,800 Okay. 920 00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,800 So my question is, did you just get used to that or did you find that not all productions 921 00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:49,800 have to be that way? 922 00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:52,920 So I'm choosing not to be involved with those types of productions. 923 00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:55,080 I think it's difficult for me to say one way or the other. 924 00:50:55,080 --> 00:51:00,080 I can only say my attitude, which is that there are stuff that's for me and there's 925 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,120 stuff that's for money. 926 00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:07,680 And so the stuff that's for me, I'll fight to the death over what I want it to be, especially 927 00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:12,520 in terms of how my family are shown to be. 928 00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,880 That's really all that matters to me, to be honest, is like, does it reflect poorly on 929 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:16,920 my family? 930 00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:18,000 Does it reflect poorly on me? 931 00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:21,840 It doesn't really bother me, but it does in the sense of like... 932 00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:25,160 And not for any selfish reasons, but I do want my kids to have a positive impression 933 00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:26,160 of their dad. 934 00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:29,920 So in that regard, yeah. 935 00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:33,800 But when it's just a project that's for money, I will tell you what I think. 936 00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,840 And if you really don't want me to do that, if you really want me to do the stupid thing, 937 00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:39,520 then I'll just do the stupid thing. 938 00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:45,480 Before the pandemic, I had sold a script and it died because of COVID, but just recently 939 00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:50,200 it was re-optioned and they're going to try and get it going again. 940 00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:56,920 And on that project, I had written this character who was just a minor character, but then they 941 00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:59,520 had found out that somebody with a name had wanted to play the role. 942 00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,400 And so they asked me if I could make the role bigger, which to me didn't make any sense, 943 00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:03,400 but fine. 944 00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:04,400 So I did that. 945 00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:08,120 And then I had given them a backstory where they had this elderly dad who was sick or 946 00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:09,120 whatever it was. 947 00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,760 And then they had come back and said, yeah, sick old people is kind of a bummer on set. 948 00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,120 Could we get like maybe like a hot younger woman or something? 949 00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:16,120 Can you have a daughter? 950 00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,400 I'm just like, all right, man, whatever. 951 00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:20,840 This is just, this is money. 952 00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:23,480 And so I just do that shit and it doesn't really bother me anymore. 953 00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:24,680 So I think that's the approach. 954 00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:30,920 It's like if it's something that really, like with trouble, that had to be all my decisions. 955 00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:32,400 Not to say I didn't listen to people's opinions. 956 00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:36,840 I definitely rewrote stuff based on some people had thoughts and I would consider what they 957 00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:39,880 had and ultimately I make the final decision. 958 00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,440 But if it's just work, then you pay for my counsel. 959 00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,960 If you don't want the counsel, then I'll just do what you want. 960 00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:46,960 Right, right. 961 00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:51,200 So is that something that most writers or most creatives have to do is kind of the stuff 962 00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:53,640 for money versus the stuff that's your own personal passion? 963 00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:55,240 Yeah, I mean, that's why I say it. 964 00:52:55,240 --> 00:52:57,120 I think it's hard for me to be the one to say. 965 00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:01,560 I think maybe the reality might be that I'm lucky that I get to do any of the stuff for 966 00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:02,640 me. 967 00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:03,640 I think it's hard to say. 968 00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:08,640 I think it's certainly, I'm sure easier to make a career of just doing the money stuff 969 00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:10,520 and not really caring. 970 00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:14,600 It's just a matter of are you able to be okay with that? 971 00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:19,720 And I think like any advice for young writers would be that you probably should be. 972 00:53:19,720 --> 00:53:25,360 I think the early days of Netflix kind of proved that point where Netflix, when they 973 00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:29,200 first started and they decided they were going to go into film, they were an unknown commodity 974 00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:33,040 as a film studio at the time and they didn't have theatrical release. 975 00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:37,920 All the films would go straight to television, which is not really sexy for a big time director. 976 00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:42,520 So the only way that they could attract the film directors or the legitimate directors 977 00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:46,920 was to offer them kind of a blank checkbook and total creative control. 978 00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:50,880 And so what happened was directors would go there with these passion projects that they 979 00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:54,200 wanted to make, but that they'd never been able to get made because the studio had excessive 980 00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:58,400 notes or didn't like the script or whatever and they made them and they all sucked. 981 00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:03,000 Stuff like Bright and all these unsuccessful movies. 982 00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:09,240 And in a way to me at least proved the point that when writers complain that studios interfere 983 00:54:09,240 --> 00:54:14,480 too much with their notes, maybe not always the case. 984 00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:15,960 I'm sure there's a balance there. 985 00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,360 And it's the hardest thing in the world is to edit yourself. 986 00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:21,920 Going back to what we said at the start, the thing that you're working on yourself, your 987 00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:28,000 own story, it's very easy to romanticize and think that it's really great and really important. 988 00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:31,240 Did we talk about that? 989 00:54:31,240 --> 00:54:37,800 I know that's one of the first things I learned when I was trying to write something is that 990 00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,240 nobody is as interested in your story as you are. 991 00:54:40,240 --> 00:54:44,560 And so you really have to find that kind of edit yourself down and find what will resonate 992 00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:45,560 with people as well. 993 00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:46,560 Yeah, absolutely. 994 00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:48,600 So, okay, very cool. 995 00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:53,640 So when you talked about your personal self and how your family is portrayed, obviously 996 00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,000 some of the stuff you're writing is very personal in nature. 997 00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,960 It's kind of like, it's about stuff you're going through, obviously with your book and 998 00:54:59,960 --> 00:55:01,040 everything. 999 00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:04,880 What type of things do you look forward to doing next? 1000 00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:09,840 I mean, you mentioned a project that you're not talking about, but other personal stuff, 1001 00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:12,600 like what else do you feel needs to be told? 1002 00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:16,160 I push back on that terminology a little bit. 1003 00:55:16,160 --> 00:55:20,640 The terms needs to be told, not because I think it's wrong, but because I personally 1004 00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:24,000 don't like to get into that state of mind. 1005 00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:28,140 Because I feel like if I feel like a story needs to be told, then entitlement is going 1006 00:55:28,140 --> 00:55:32,360 to seep in where I start to feel resentful of anybody who doesn't get it, if they don't 1007 00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:33,360 want to support it. 1008 00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:37,520 Then it makes me feel like, it's going to make me angry because the story needs to be 1009 00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:39,400 told and you don't want to let me, what's wrong with you? 1010 00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:40,400 This is a problem. 1011 00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:41,720 And I don't want to feel that kind of entitlement. 1012 00:55:41,720 --> 00:55:45,520 I feel like if you have that sense of entitlement, it's going to dull the writing because I'm 1013 00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,920 going to focus less on how to convince you or how to tell you a good story. 1014 00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,120 I'm going to coast on the notion that the story needs to be told. 1015 00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:57,200 So I would push back on that a little bit and say that there are just stories that I 1016 00:55:57,200 --> 00:55:59,000 want to tell, I guess. 1017 00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:00,800 And I don't know actually at the moment. 1018 00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,400 There is this other project that I just recently started working on, which I'm really excited 1019 00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:08,280 about, but it's going to be, the play was the first step. 1020 00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:14,520 So this is a film and it's going to be a question of, can we raise the funding? 1021 00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:20,920 And so we'll see where that goes because I want to direct again and yeah, we're not sure. 1022 00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:23,320 But I definitely want to tell Singaporean stories. 1023 00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:31,280 I want to tell Singaporean stories that can travel beyond Singapore and not make fun of 1024 00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:33,080 Singapore as a source of comedy. 1025 00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:37,760 That was something that really worked really hard to not do on Trouble, which was a comedy 1026 00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:43,920 set in Singapore, trying not to use Singapore as a butt of the humor, trying to not defer 1027 00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:47,880 to caricature, try to write humor that could travel beyond Singapore. 1028 00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:54,880 And so that is something, because now I live in Singapore, I have a PR, my kids are Singaporean, 1029 00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:55,880 my wife's Singaporean. 1030 00:56:55,880 --> 00:57:00,680 As far as I'm concerned, I would love to be Singaporean if these guys would have me, but 1031 00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:03,800 it's not as easy as that and we'll probably be here forever. 1032 00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:09,600 And so raising or at least helping, trying to help to elevate or at least just try to 1033 00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:13,640 help what the Singaporean industry is, is pretty important to me and telling Singapore 1034 00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:19,640 stories in a way that just kind of opens the mind of people who are conceiving of these 1035 00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:20,640 stories. 1036 00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:25,040 And like with Trouble, it was really important that we told a story that had a very heavy 1037 00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:29,240 topic, which is mental health and depression, but not present it in a way that was heavy, 1038 00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:35,320 not make you feel like shit after the play because somebody close to you might be depressed 1039 00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:36,780 and you haven't thought about it. 1040 00:57:36,780 --> 00:57:41,280 It was to show that we can address these topics that are heavy, but you can also have a good 1041 00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,480 time and because I don't want to scare people away from theater as well. 1042 00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:49,440 I think it's important that we kind of not allow this laceration where people are like, 1043 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:52,280 if I want to have a good time, I'm going to watch Netflix, I'm going to watch a movie. 1044 00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:56,640 If I want to torture myself for an hour and fucking like have to think about some shit, 1045 00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:58,040 then I'm going to go to the theater. 1046 00:57:58,040 --> 00:57:59,960 I don't want it to be like that. 1047 00:57:59,960 --> 00:58:07,640 So yeah, so Singaporean stories, stories about heavy or more kind of serious topics, but 1048 00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:09,120 hopefully presented with some levity. 1049 00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:12,160 I think that's what it is. 1050 00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:13,880 And you mentioned your kids. 1051 00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:14,960 I mean, they're young. 1052 00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:18,720 They're way too young to be reading your stuff at the moment. 1053 00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:20,800 You said you want them to be proud of you. 1054 00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:23,800 I think you mentioned and what their dad has done. 1055 00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:27,800 What do you think they will think when they read your stuff eventually when they grow 1056 00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:28,800 up? 1057 00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:30,860 Yeah, I don't know. 1058 00:58:30,860 --> 00:58:31,860 It depends. 1059 00:58:31,860 --> 00:58:34,880 I think my wife and I are so different. 1060 00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:39,920 And if they're like me, then they'll think what I wrote was cool. 1061 00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:47,640 If they're like my wife, they'll think this is needlessly vulgar and revealing of our 1062 00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:48,640 personal lives. 1063 00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:56,040 So I want them to be proud of me in the sense that all I really want is for them to have 1064 00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:58,800 a healthy expectation for their own lives. 1065 00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:01,360 And so a part of that life is their partner. 1066 00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:08,200 And so I want them to have a positive impression of what a partner should be in their lives. 1067 00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:13,960 And so not somebody who didn't do anything, somebody who was working hard at a craft and 1068 00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:15,540 trying to help people. 1069 00:59:15,540 --> 00:59:18,620 And so it's more, it's not I want them to think I was a great writer. 1070 00:59:18,620 --> 00:59:21,160 It's more I want them to think that I was doing something positive. 1071 00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:24,480 And so that then when they go out to find a partner, hopefully they find they look for 1072 00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:25,480 the same thing. 1073 00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:33,240 And finally, James, what would the world look like if every artist followed your advice? 1074 00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:39,040 The first question that you asked about why I think it was important to write that post 1075 00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:40,440 or say those things. 1076 00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:46,660 I think I forgot to mention something, which is that I think one of the things that's not 1077 00:59:46,660 --> 00:59:52,280 maybe treated with as much respect as I think it should be is that when you're in a position 1078 00:59:52,280 --> 01:00:00,040 of let's say power, which you are as a director on a show or a teacher or maybe a producer, 1079 01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:03,640 I'm not sure, but there's an amount of responsibility that comes with that. 1080 01:00:03,640 --> 01:00:08,520 I think that it makes you a patron of the arts, you know, and it's your responsibility 1081 01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:14,560 to grow that interest and passion for the arts rather than kind of dull it by harassing 1082 01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:17,700 or like overworking people and taking advantage of them. 1083 01:00:17,700 --> 01:00:23,840 And that's why I think it's an important thing to consider because you have the responsibility 1084 01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:28,920 of encouraging people to make more art or making them quit and not ever want to make 1085 01:00:28,920 --> 01:00:31,160 art again because the experience was so arduous. 1086 01:00:31,160 --> 01:00:37,880 And so I think you could make the argument that art would be less spectacular if we remove 1087 01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:44,680 Stanley Kubrick and, you know, Roman Polanski and other directors who ran a much more authoritarian 1088 01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:45,680 set. 1089 01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:50,200 But I think you could counter by saying there'll be more people making art because there would 1090 01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:54,040 be less people dissuaded from the process by terrible experiences on set. 1091 01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:57,480 And I think that's something that's worthwhile too. 1092 01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:02,520 And just to urge people, I guess, to take that responsibility seriously. 1093 01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:08,680 And like equally that the people in the audience that might be their first and only show that 1094 01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,160 they come to see and to take that responsibility seriously. 1095 01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:15,920 So yeah, that was the only other thing I was going to say. 1096 01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,560 Thank you for listening today. 1097 01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:21,840 I hope this has been a useful investment of your time. 1098 01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:26,560 If you feel inspired by this episode, please read it and consider subscribing. 1099 01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:28,520 I'm keen to know how it's impacted you. 1100 01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:42,040 Now go out there and seize those moments.