JOHN WILSON Talks Concrete, Getting Jumped, and Avatar
2026-10-07 22:33:00 • 1:09:30
The festival that I was set up a concrete walking tour of Warsaw and we went to this one
neighborhood.
You know, this is a Jewish neighborhood and it was leveled and when they rebuilt it, they
used the ground up bones of the Jews to make the concrete.
But then they added another really off-color comment where they were like, rumor has it
that people live in these buildings.
We'll often see the ghosts of Jewish people when they're going to sleep, but only if they're
late on the rent.
What?
This is like the most classic anti-semitic.
Why are there are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are are
My guess this week is filmmaker John Wilson. John's new film The History of Concrete is in theaters now.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, user NET says five stars. Avatar, colon the way of the water, is pure cinematography.
The visual effects, the setting, the action for me is perfection. Definitely one of my favorite movies.
Sadly, Ms. T has yet to review The History of Concrete.
But Annie, take this as your sign to watch the film. It's great.
And if you're in Denver, Colorado, please come and see me at Comedy Works Downtown, the 22nd to the 24th of October and next month.
November 13th, I'll be at Town Hall, New York Comedy Festival, the big one.
Please enjoy my conversation with John Wilson.
Film maker, documentary, John Wilson.
Oh wow.
How are you doing?
Just like that. We're starting, like that.
Yeah, I guess so.
Okay.
If you want, we do a bababoo-y kind of like interviewing, like Howard on E.
Okay.
We follow you down the hallway with the camera.
Oh no, that's okay.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't think we need that.
I don't want to start here, but you obviously have a connection to Great American tragedy,
Terris tragedy.
It's my story, which I believe is...
I can't believe you're bringing this up.
Is the greatest story anywhere I'm telling.
John, John, the way you told me the story too, I forgot where we were.
I've, John and I've met numerous times, like, you meekly said, I was a victim of the Boston bomber,
which is the best way to phrase it.
Well, by, like, one of his good friends.
It wasn't Tamerlin, Sornaya, if I thought.
Yeah, his, I mean, yeah, I don't know where you want to start with this story.
To back up, John says...
Yeah, what are you saying happened?
He says, I was a victim of the Boston bomber.
I said, you were in the Patriots' day bombing, and you said, no.
I was assaulted by...
I was assaulted by his best friend in 2009, 2010, maybe.
Yeah, it was very odd.
I was like living in Cambridge in, you know, Massachusetts at the time.
And I was just out for a night with a bunch of friends.
And then we were in a 7-Eleven parking lot.
And this guy got out of his car because one of my friends hit the back of his car
because he almost hit us.
And then he got out and just started beating all of us up.
You know, it was like...
There were two guys, but the main guy...
Of course, he was a trained boxer, so I'm just putting...
Yeah, he was an MMA.
We later found out that he was like a really big MMA guy.
But...
Oh, Tamerlin's friend.
Tamerlin's friend.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he punched me in the face and then punched another friend, gave him a fat lip.
And there were just like eye glasses everywhere.
It was, you know, embarrassing.
But then the cops...
The guy in 7-Eleven calls the cops on him.
And then the cops come immediately and pull him over like a block away.
And then he tries to assault a police officer and then they pepper spray him and arrest him.
And then I'm getting like...
calls from the Boston Police Department...
Cambridge Police Department for months afterwards asking if I want to like press charges against him.
And you drop the charges.
And I said, no, I don't care.
So it's you.
And...
No.
But then like the final call I get from the cops is that the case has been dropped because the guy that beat us up was murdered.
And they couldn't tell us anything else, you know.
And then fast forward like a few months later.
And it turned out that he was murdered by Tamerlin, certainly I have...
Oh, allegedly, you know.
Like, throat slit.
And him and his friends in this, you know, I think it was in Watertown maybe Massachusetts.
And their bodies were covered in money and weed.
It was like kind of an, it seemed like kind of an honor killing.
Kind of like a Goondok Saints.
Yeah.
Orders on their eye.
Yeah.
It felt like ritualized somehow or like.
But then again, I'm condensing a lot here, but then it turned out...
Yeah, they found out that Tamerlin murdered that guy right before the Boston bombing happened.
And I don't know.
And then through the butterfly effect in my head, I feel like...
Had I maybe pressed charges against this guy?
I don't know.
Or maybe, like maybe there was like a lot of heat on this guy, Brendan, who beat us up,
like because of the 7-11 incident.
And then Tamerlin, like...
Just kind of marked him.
A lot of this is just like speculation.
But there's a whole book just called...
His John's Fall.
Yeah, called His John's Fall by Marty Walsh.
No, Susan Zalkin's journalist in Massachusetts, she wrote this book called The Brothers.
And I think I mentioned in there at one point, but I haven't seen that part of it.
But yeah, I was like even published in like a book, this weird story.
Total Wim, John Wilson.
Hasn't glass.
Has knocked off in a...
His glass.
7-11 parking lot.
And I also got like a big fat lip.
I have a photo from that, from right after it happened.
I can send you.
It's pretty funny.
Okay, let's relate this to your work.
Like, when you have, I think, especially making you how-to,
and like, I think by extension, the new film, The History of Concrete.
Let's get that out.
Sure.
Very good.
Very good.
I watched the last night.
I would highly recommend it.
Do you feel like there are convergences or serendipity has a positive connotation?
I think there are the weird things that happen to you when you're out and about that kind of like the nexium thing.
Yeah.
And you being at an optical, and it being related, you know, like turning out that it was like run by cold.
Nexium, great.
Gruming seminar.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I, yeah, I mean, you could look at it in kind of a forest gump, Mr. Bean, kind of way.
But I think also, I don't know.
Yeah, I do feel kind of strange sometimes.
It almost feels like these things happen.
Like in very close proximity to me sometimes.
But I just think when you're just like breaking your routine in general, like weird stuff just kind of happens to you.
And I don't know.
Not everyone makes it into like a into into into into into a memoir or yeah, or yeah, things that it has anything to do with the Boston bombing.
But yeah, it happens.
I don't know.
Probably should seven of you should seven us.
That was a funny night that we had the best night of my life.
We shared.
Listen, it was you for it.
You and I are both rational gentlemen.
We believe in facts and logic, right?
It's not like I don't like it when people talk about the secret or the universe providing, right?
I think that's all bubbqus.
But I was convinced that night that the magic of Mr. David Blaine is real.
They're not illusions that it's real magic and John.
I and I'm with you.
I felt it was enchanting.
It was kind of crazy what he did to us.
We met David Blaine at an event.
First of all, he doesn't stop doing magic.
No.
That's the thing.
You're just kind of like you with the camera, right?
Right?
You are the man of a code.
Yeah, I'm just like, yeah.
You're kind of like Blaine.
But I asked him, like, I would, like, throughout the night I was asking him questions in between tricks.
Right?
And I'd be like, how much do you think about magic?
He's like from the mold when I wake up.
I'm thinking about magic.
Yeah.
That's a good impression.
But I don't know if I told you, but I think at the end of the night he was like, let me give you my nombu.
Really?
Really?
Was that a trick?
It was a trick.
He's never responded.
I've texted him.
I would love you to come up with my talks.
Damn.
I mean, there was that one moment, like near the end of the night where like, you know, my good friend and producer Clark Villio, we were just sitting in a standing in kind of a, he was standing in kind of a semi-circle around him.
And he just had a wine glass, you know, that he had been drinking out of and then Clark just said to him, here, eat this glass.
And then David just took it and ate it right there.
And then Clark ran up to me and was like, put this in your bag.
And it was like a, it was like a jagged piece of glass of unfinished wine glass.
Do you still have it?
No, I threw it out.
I'm not going to bring...
I thought you like collecting autodes.
No, I don't want to, I'm not going to like put a bunch of jagged glass in my tote bag to bring back to my house.
It's just like...
You're guessing like step on glass.
Yeah, I don't like...
Sorry, it's playing.
I don't know.
I mean, I think, I understand his excitement around.
It felt like a holy object in the moment.
But then once you kind of like remove this story from it or anything, it's just like, what is this?
You broke in glass in your backpack.
Yeah, it's like...
Yeah, it's like the piano teacher.
The moment...
The moment my mind was blown, I think you're going to remember it.
Because I think we text each other the next day.
I was like, it's real magic.
It's real, I guess something you've had.
The moment my mind was blown, my one partner Nick Mullin was there.
And he asked us to take a group selfie, right?
And then after the group selfie, he asked someone to choose any card from a deck of cards.
And then he was trying to find the card and he couldn't do it.
He was like, wait a minute, hold on a second.
Check that group picture that I took.
And he asked someone to hold their wallet with the ID sleeve, with the ID taken out.
And in the picture from before we had selected the fucking card, was the card in the prison's wallet.
Yeah, it was crazy.
In How To, you uncover a phenomenon that my dad experienced,
which was my dad went into a depression after he saw out.
Oh really?
Oh wow.
I was worried you were going to say he cut his nuts off.
Yeah, my dad cut his dick off.
I said, how to cut your dick off episode?
Which I thought was an incredibly bad taste.
And also the most linear episode.
Wow.
You were like, I want to cut my nuts off.
Yeah.
You don't really meander at all.
You don't really talk to anyone.
I know, that would be...
Yeah, you're really...
That was a really radical.
It's three and a half minutes long.
I can't believe...
How did you get it past standards and practices?
You know what they just like the shorter stuff sometimes.
Yeah, they're like this...
This is the one episode we understand John.
Yeah.
The rest of your stuff is so high for loot.
Well, you...
Wait, he sank into a depression after Avatar.
My dad saw Avatar, I'm X3D, and he got bombed out for like a month or two.
Really?
I think that like it was the first time he wasn't living on this planet.
And he felt immersed in another world.
And then the credits rolled and then you go back to this crappy place.
Yeah, it is really like...
I don't know.
I think it's a confusing message.
It's like, you know, I'm like...
Especially like you have this kind of wheelchair in the movie.
And he is able to become this able-bodied, like kind of tall creature by the end of it.
Yeah, it's like a hot...
And then, you know, it ends.
And you're kind of like...
You're given this vision of this utopia and the, you know, also like escaping whatever physical problems you have.
And it offers kind of...
It offers no kind of option for us as like people living in like a fixed reality, you know, outside of the Avatar, not the world.
And I don't know.
It's like I watched the Avatar fire an ash on a plane recently.
Exactly like James intended.
Yeah, with the sound kind of off.
And it was cool.
I loved it.
I just want him to stop making Avatar's just so he can like...
So it's like a finite experiment, you know, of his and like he can get...
And I don't know, maybe he can make something...
Well, I mean that Billy Eilish, like documentary.
James Cameron made a Billy Eilish documentary?
Yeah, it's called like Heart and Soft or something.
Heart and Soft.
I forget what it's called.
What is that reference to?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But the hit me, hit me soft.
I just...
I just...
The heart and...
The bust and...
Whatever James's brain came up with.
I'm just kind of mad at Avatar.
You're mad at Avatar?
Yeah, because...
And I'm glad you brought me here so I could talk about this.
But Avatar kind of fucked up movie theaters.
A lot of theaters converted to these digital projectors to play it.
In this like, you know, whatever 3D...
Digital thing he had going on.
And I feel like it was a real kind of like extermination of a lot of analog kind of 35 setups in a lot of movie theaters.
Yeah.
And I mean, you know, that...
A lot of see kind of like brought back...
I mean, I think like, is Nolan the last guy that's actually using film?
I don't care.
You don't care.
I don't really care.
I don't really care.
I don't really care.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't...
The camera seems as heavy and hard to use.
I haven't seen it.
I haven't seen it.
Yeah.
So let's talk about it.
I'm waiting to go on a play.
I saw a rip of it, like a French camera rip of it.
And it just seems like a lot of faces, I don't know.
Have you ever done a cam...
Cam thing yourself that seems a very Wilson?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I recorded anyone but you that Sydney Swini movie.
Really?
Yeah.
I'm going to go on power.
Really?
That's not on Christmas Day.
Okay.
The most recent one.
Was that on Netflix?
It was in theaters.
Oh, you waited to the theaters.
Yeah.
Did that feel like it's aversive act?
Yeah, it was thrilling.
But it's funny, you know, because sometimes you'll go to...
I'll go to Williamsburg Cinema and they will...
They'll look in my bag before I go in and I'll have a huge camera.
And they'll be like, okay, that's fine.
Yeah.
And it just like, it doesn't seem like piracy is like...
Like as much of a threat.
I don't know what they're looking for.
Yeah.
I want to back up, just get into you a little bit.
Like you're born in the city, you grew up in Long Island.
Yeah.
When did you get your first camera?
14, 15.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was my dad's 40th birthday, I think.
And my mom gave him a camera.
And I just kind of took it immediately and became my camera.
Was it a handy cam?
Yeah, it was like a Sony handy cam.
Yeah, we all had that.
Yeah, it was great.
I don't know.
I just do jackass videos on those.
I got a concussion because my friends...
Oh really?
Yeah, because we were doing a like shopping cart thing.
Yeah.
I think a lot of us heard our penises and heads because of jackass.
Yeah, I was jumping into a lot of bushes at first too.
Yeah, stuff like that.
But it's cool.
Does that qualify as documentary?
Yeah.
Jackass.
I think, I don't know.
Everything is...
Some kind of document, I don't know.
You definitely have developed kind of like your own aesthetic and also like style.
Like, how did you like get there, I suppose, for like jackass videos?
Yeah.
Boring question.
No, no.
I mean, I feel like I spend a lot of time just experimenting, making like skit tight.
Things are...
I mean, the largest span was...
When I was a kid was making movies, you know.
Yeah.
But they all had John in the title.
Like Space John or, you know, Robo John, you know.
Space... John was a parody of Space Balls?
No, Space Jam.
Space Jam.
Yeah.
Of course.
But yeah, and then I kind of just like...
I think these kind of comedic things for a little while, but, you know, with friends.
But when I reached a certain age and I was doing like festival stuff with them, like I just...
would make them...
And then I would have nothing to say about them.
You know, it would just kind of be this like...
this skit, you know.
And I kind of just like wanted to stop down and think about like what the purpose of making this stuff was.
And I kind of just like accidentally fell into this like memoir tutorial type thing.
Just because like...
I kind of...
I always just like hated the sound of my own voice and my kind of like written word.
Like I was really scared of writing and I kind of just wanted to like do it all in the same kind of container just to kind of like get over that.
Yeah.
And it makes it personal too because like how to becomes...
Like I think...
I saw it in an interview you said you start with the title, right?
Yeah.
But a lot of it is about you are like trying to understand the world through them from the vantage point of your camera.
Is that fair?
Yeah, sure.
Who is the character John?
Is the character John 100% you or does it feel like it's like a...
is it a 10% Borat?
I mean I think...
I mean it's all really tongue in cheek, you know.
There's like an...
Yeah, there's an elevated aspect of you, right?
Yeah.
It's honest still but...
Yeah, it's like dripping with irony but it's also like extremely honest, you know, about how you actually...
I mean that's what I think that's how it does a lot of the time.
Yeah.
But like...
Yeah, I am...
I feel a bit kind of like straight-jacketed sometimes.
Like, conversationally.
And it's just like I wasn't really able to say the things I wanted to say.
Like, in the company of others sometimes and I just wanted to just have a place to say all this stuff that I was thinking.
And just like...
Not necessarily even for an audience just to like...
to deposit it somewhere just so it like...
it like...
these thoughts had a home and then...
you know...
Yeah.
I don't know.
Is it because like your subjects are disclosing personal things so you feel like you have to like match that or something?
Yeah, I think I...
I... I... I film a lot of people in public.
I film a lot of people, you know, and really intimate environments, you know,
whether they're like naked on their own bed or something like that.
And...
Or, you know, revealing some personal tragedy that they're living through.
And it's kind of like...
I do feel like there is a bit of a scale and...
and like...
tossing...
myself into the mix.
I try to do it sparingly because I don't want it to be like so...
like ham-fisted.
Yeah.
But I do...
like you're saying.
It is like this thing that...
it's the where I feel like almost an equal measure need to kind of put my own like personal life into it.
Like to match the...
You call me Ruler?
Yeah.
It's not always necessary, but I think that like...
I try to keep it pretty generic also because like...
it allows, you know, like in this concrete movie I'm talking about like...
you know, I speak in the second person as a way to...
you know, help you identify with what you're seeing a bit more.
And like...
It's like...
I say like, oh, your house has a problem.
Your house is leaking.
I was going to ask about the second person.
Yeah.
I feel like that's like a universal problem.
But then like when you...
when it becomes not universal and so hyper-specific that it is only me...
I'm still talking broadly.
I think there's something really funny there about like...
Right.
You're trying to relate to the audience, right?
Yeah.
Is it having a conversation with the audience?
Right.
Yeah.
And you think that this is something that happens every month?
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's like obviously...
I think the comedy there is like...
is...
you know, partially...
what you identify with even though I'm telling you that this is all happening to you.
And that this is you...
Yeah.
When it's like...
You know, some of it might be.
But, you know, other parts...
It's like...
Lapable.
Does it feel confining?
Sometimes like you're trapped in a character or like trapped in a...
I saw you talking to Louis through.
And like...
I'm also like a massive fan.
I've seen everything, right?
Yeah.
And like they stop being funny at a certain point, right?
Hands.
I think his stuff, right?
Like there's still funny moments.
But like...
At first they're like really like...
They're really cheeky.
Yeah.
Really cheeky.
In that sense, do you feel like, you know...
as you evolve as an artist, does it feel like a confining or do you feel trapped ever?
Like in a certain voice?
I...
No, I feel that.
I love the voice.
I love the show and your work.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I...
Yeah.
That was something I was just thinking when I was like watching the documentary last night.
Well, yeah.
I mean, it is the same old shit, you know, which I think is kind of interesting within the...
you know, within the film because it's like everyone kept wanting me to evolve, you know,
like my, you know, my agent and then like other people were pitching the movie to.
It's almost like they wanted like something different, you know?
And I...
I don't know.
I didn't arrive here because I just thought it was like kind of interesting.
I just think this is the right way to do a lot of things, a lot of like individual components.
I think are like...
or just how I think I like to do them.
Also, you get better, right?
And you get better.
But yeah, I mean, I also...
I...
I hear you with like evolving like and maturing over time.
And...
Well, I wasn't like accused of where I was just like...
like there's like a comedian that like had a character of like a Puerto Rican transvestite.
And they got so big that he was opening for the character, right?
And like at a certain point like he...
like I imagine he felt trapped.
Right, yeah.
No, no, no.
People don't want...
It seems like people don't want me to do this anymore.
Is that true?
I don't know.
I mean, it's...
I think that was part of the struggle of making the movie.
It's like they...
they wanted like it to be something other than how to, you know?
And it's like...
I totally get that.
And I, you know, I have problems with change, like change in general.
But, you know, I wasn't getting any support, like...
or the kind of support I was with the HBO show.
So I was just like...
I'm just going to do it the way I've always done it.
And, you know, but I think the work...
I think this film is more...
I think mature politically in a lot of ways.
I think it kind of like...
It's more going in a direction that I...
I want it to go...
where it's not...
Yeah, it's not like Louis is like...
you know, through his early stuff where he's like...
look at this.
What's going on here?
Yeah.
But yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Because I think people were introduced on a larger scale to you in the How-To series.
But when you go on Vimeo and you watch your early stuff,
like this has just been something that you've been doing throughout.
Right? And something that you've been refined,
like a format that you've invented and refined throughout.
So like...
That's what came across to me watching the documentary.
It's like you are like...
like...
I guess, perfecting this thing that you've invented or this voice that you've created
and this format that you've created.
Yeah.
And...
And you never will be printed, right?
Well, that's the thing.
I think the whole format was just born out of this idea that like...
I think being an expert on anything is funny.
Like calling yourself an expert is funny.
Like anyone...
I don't know.
Like the world is a confidence game in a lot of ways.
And you know, it's just like the people that are really overconfident.
I feel like I end up having a lot of influence in spheres that...
that it become kind of scary sometimes.
And I just like...
I...
I take myself down like, you know, a couple of pegs, like whenever I make something like this.
Or I try to make people rethink what they...
what they're certain about, you know, where it's like...
I think it's just a really funny one, someone super confident about anything, you know.
I think I...
I don't know.
I just...
I think that like...
Self-doubt is like really important.
And when people have like zero self-doubt in them, you know...
Well, even as an artist, like anyone that makes something in there, like this is the greatest thing ever,
they're usually a Charlotteson, right?
Like anytime you go back and watch anything you've made, you're gonna have a million problems within and say,
I would change this, this, this, this.
Yeah.
And it's like...
I mean, there are certain things like you could talk to a concrete expert who knows how the mixture is made, you know.
And I feel like that's something that, you know, I wouldn't say that person's the Charlotteson, you know.
But I think that like...
with like certain lifestyle coaches or, you know,
you just watch YouTube and I just...
The confidence sometimes that people have in, you know, how to...
How to fix a stove or, you know, some weird like domestic thing,
I think is really funny.
And, you know, I...
I wanted to see initially what it was like to throw in like really...
Like kind of agonizing self-doubt into something even as like simple as that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you find like a John ending?
Right? Because like, from what I understand, like you, you have...
You create me from where you start with the name, right?
And then, you meander, like the character John is this confused guy, like communicating the world,
and meeting all these people and also like...
You don't exploit people in a sense where like...
You meet them in earnest, right?
There's like a heart to the show, right?
And like, there's a...
And especially to an ending.
There's always like a sincerity and like a heart to your work.
I imagine you have to be sometimes in the middle of a project
struggling to find that ending.
And like, is there an anxiety around it?
And...
Wait, does it feel like you've...
In a satisfactory way, found kind of closing the narrative arc?
I think that's where like...
I'm like a nervous wreck, like for most of the production of anything.
It's like...
You know, and...
You know, like my collaborators, like...
I give...
I thank them so much and like give them so much credit for like kind of dealing with me sometimes,
and what I'm just like...
I think you're just staring in front of this like...
Sidoku puzzle that just feels impossible, you know?
And you're just like...
I don't know.
I find that like...
It's good to just start with like a title, like, you know...
How to find a parking spot or something like that.
And then you...
Kind of just like...
You talk to people that, you know...
That...
Have something to do with the title.
That is something to do with the original, like subject matter.
And then...
You kind of like...
Follow that.
And then...
You have like...
Multiple things that you're shooting that have in like a structure to them,
Like whether it's a contest or like some kind of event.
I was like, okay, we know these are things pre-existing out in the world that have like a structure.
And then you can kind of like...
Lean on those if you want to.
But, you know...
And it all just depends on what reveals...
I think something really interesting or, you know, like maybe even takes you farther away.
And then reveals something more illuminating about like the issues of the original title.
But like...
I don't know.
I mean, working with Fielder at first in the beginning of how to, you know...
His criteria in the first season was just like...
We'll stop when we've captured something that the audience...
Cannot believe we captured, you know.
And I...
I feel like I still kind of do that or try to in a way where it's like...
You know, in the ending to this movie, I don't want to give anything away, but it's like...
When that happened, I was like...
What?
How does this...
What does it have to do with anything?
You know, but then you just like think about it for a while and it's like, oh...
There are themes in here that it kind of like...
Attaches to.
And it actually...
And then you kind of go back and take inventory and then you...
Re-shape like the beginning and like first and second acts just to kind of like...
To maybe like...
T up...
T it up like a little better, but like not so much that people see anything coming really.
Which is how filmmaking kind of works, right?
You find things in posts that are like...
Or cohesive, right?
Like...
Sure.
I don't know how other people do it.
I don't know fucking how I live.
But have you ever been stuck and like just been unable to find?
I know that you tell that story about Burning Man, which ultimately...
Yeah, you're...
The Burning Man in Doc is out right now.
Is it out?
The one that stopped us from...
Which were the next-dem people too.
Yeah.
Well, they took next-dem classes.
They took classes.
Okay.
To back up, John, in the how to find a bathroom.
Yeah.
You go into Burning Man.
Yeah.
How long did you...
You spent an entire week in the beating son filming to porn?
It was awful.
Poor the boys.
I was hanging out with deceptic people.
Yeah.
You know, because I just wanted to see with the infrastructure that was like there.
And there were always like...
You know, it was really dramatic.
There were people begging them to remove the shit from their RVs.
You know, all this gray water and like all this like terrible stuff.
And yeah, to schedule it, they were very strict.
I had...
I don't know.
All those guys...
And it's just those guys are the ones that are going to end humanity.
Yeah, that's the thing.
It's like...
They're talking about the singularity and the issue.
Just watching their shit like watching it.
It was like...
I don't know, man.
So...
The place is not for me.
I feel like...
I have...
You have more freedom on the sidewalk in New York than you will ever have in Burning Man.
Do you think that we should just hit it with maybe an intercontinental?
A ballistic missile?
I didn't say it.
Okay.
Just to conclude, John did that and then there was another documentary crew who ironically
were also the team behind the HBO Next-Eom documentary, which ironically John was at an
Acapella.
This is just like your life is.
You are a rambling man.
You are a fool.
You are a borer.
I'm a borer.
You're a borer at gop.
Yeah, yeah.
Borer at gop.
But like...
Yeah, but they said that they had the rights to...
Exclusive rights.
They petitioned or paid for the exclusive rights.
And they did let this poor gentleman just film the...
Just film the feces.
The crap.
The crap.
All the crap.
Yeah.
I was trying to explain to them.
Like, tell you were actually still pissed off about it.
Yeah, I don't know.
But you know, I was in a prison of my own design.
It's like I go to Burning Man.
It's like what I think was going to happen.
Everyone there is a little cop.
And they just like are all about these insane rules that like don't exist anywhere else in
the world.
Could you verbally explain some of your favorite, like, selects from that week?
There was one guy riding around with a Trump Pence flag.
I thought that was kind of interesting.
Because there's a no like branding thing.
Yeah, I mean, I brought a city bike there.
I shipped it all the way to Nevada.
I found it on the street in Soho.
And I wrote it all around Burning Man.
And it was the only bicycle out of everyone's bike that didn't get a flat.
Over and in.
Like was actually...
Yeah, so shut out to city bike.
You guys can handle...
City bikes can handle extreme desert conditions.
Yeah.
But I don't know.
I mean, I mean, my favorite part was the Lost and Found.
Because you had all...
I was like, they're filming for such a long time.
Because like people...
Who is all mostly water bottles.
People like...
Like an image of their driver's license on.
Oh, print it out and put it on a water bottle for some reason.
Like because of how, you know, scarce resources are there, I guess.
But the phone retrieval system was...
I've never seen anything like it.
Where like it's this kind of district nine kind of computer setup that they have.
Like covered in dust and they just have an endless grid that you scroll through of the lock screens of phones that...
Like you and you have to find your phone in this grid.
And people...
There were just like hundreds and hundreds of lost phones.
And just watching people deal with like the kind of post office.
Yeah, all the bureaucratic stuff of that was like...
And I basically wanted to make an episode of cops in Burning Man,
like where I film all the police officers as they respond to like, you know, like all of the...
But like the cops were really uncooperative.
All the volunteer kind of security people there were super uncooperative.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was like...
It's not for me.
Yeah, it's not for me.
I don't like sunlight.
Are you good to sleep, sideings?
No, no good to sleep, sideings.
Yeah, it was just...
I don't know.
I don't think I'll be back.
We gotta go, dude.
You wanna go?
I'll go back.
But now I'm getting so much Burning Man content on my phone right now.
Yeah, just like...
Because I guess it's happening like...
You know, like around now.
Yeah.
Because people are just constant.
I know, yeah.
It is kind of like...
They're ending the world.
Yeah, and it's just like...
Well, that's the thing.
It's like they were blocking us from filming.
And like...
But they are...
Like I can understand that people on privacy maybe don't want to have this experience documented.
But it's like...
They're just...
They're doing that in a way worse way, you know?
Yeah.
Like...
And...
I don't know.
It's just such a bloated...
Whatever.
I saw on YouTube there's a Q&A you do.
You did with the late...
Frederick Weisman?
Yeah.
It might have been the last one he ever did.
You might have been the last one.
Which is crazy.
And he was being a little cagey.
I mean...
Yeah.
Weisman is like really impossible to do a Q&A with.
Which is why I kind of love him.
Because like every Q&A I've ever seen, like of him in person, he's always like really difficult with the Q&A person.
Yeah.
Do you take inspiration from Weisman though?
Like a lot of his films are about institutions and like public institutions.
And I saw a lot of that in your new movie.
Yes.
Yeah, I mean I love Weisman stuff.
Is he your goat?
Who's your goat?
He might be my goat.
Borat, maybe.
Yeah, he's my borat.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, the stuff The Weisman does is like, it's just so smart.
You know, and he just like...
I mean, it's like a dream career.
Even though he didn't always have the money to make stuff.
It just like to spend your life documenting these institutions and like having them just go on PBS.
And then, you know, you make another one.
And it's just like, I just thought it was so cool.
And, you know, obviously like formally his stuff is so amazing.
But I just love all the in-between stuff.
You know, there's like the large set piece kind of moments in his movies.
And then all the stuff where he's like kind of scene setting and like establishing the environment.
Right.
Like it's always...
That's just like candy, you know?
Yes.
And it was just kind of like, you know, partially I'm just like, you know, what if that's like all it is, you know?
You said that for history concrete, the biggest inspiration was Claude Landsman's Shoah.
Was that correct?
I haven't seen it.
You haven't seen it. It's the best documentary of all time they say.
Shoah?
It's nine hours. It's about the Holocaust. Come on, brother.
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's one thing as a documentarian.
Is that like people always come up to you and tell you that they have footage from the Holocaust.
Oh, okay.
Or something. You know?
Or they're just like...
Like family photos?
Yeah.
And then like at the common dance.
I don't know.
It seems like people just assume if you make nonfiction that like you want, you will eventually be making a movie about the Holocaust.
I think people just think you do it.
Yeah, that too.
I think that's because like you aesthetically present Jewish.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
You're an Irishman.
I learned it from you guys.
No. Yeah, I'm an Irishman.
I wish in check.
In check.
Yeah.
What do you... What side do you like better?
I don't know. I went to Warsaw for the first time recently.
That's not in either place, but continue.
But it was the closest to Czech Republic that I've ever been.
And I don't know.
I thought it had never been Ireland.
So I feel like...
I think Gaza is a lot like Warsaw.
Yeah.
Well, not pure Warsaw.
Warsaw. They were like kind of...
The anti-Semitism in Warsaw was really interesting.
They really rock with it still.
I've never seen so much like...
They were like welcome to Nazis.
Like, let's get...
Let's get it going.
I had a really good time there.
But...
You did a nice criticism?
Just...
Yeah. Well, they gave me...
You can let it rip finally.
Especially working in Hollywood.
You definitely have a pent-up.
Yeah, exactly.
Like guys...
Yeah, no.
Yeah, I can't...
Boys' group stop collaborating with you guys.
But the...
No, the funny thing, they...
The festival that I was set up a concrete walking tour of Warsaw.
And we went to this one neighborhood.
And...
They were like...
This neighborhood was actually leveled.
And, you know, this is a Jewish neighborhood.
And it was leveled.
And when they rebuilt it, they used the ground up bones of the Jews to make the concrete.
Okay.
And...
Why didn't you put that in your movie?
I wasn't recording it.
I was already done.
I was showing...
I was there to show the movie.
Well, you could have added it.
That would have been good for the movie.
Well, this is it.
Okay, good.
Well...
Just when you're watching the movie, think about the ground up bones of the Jews in the concrete.
But then they added in another really off-color comment where they were like...
Again, this is like a tour guide in front of a bunch of people.
And they were like...
And rumor has it that people living these buildings will...
Often see the ghosts of Jewish people when they're going to sleep.
Oh, no.
But only if they're late on the rent.
Oh.
That's a good job.
And like everyone...
That's a good job.
And I was just like...
What?
I was like...
This is like the most classic, like anti-semitical...
I just know I was like...
Man...
I don't know.
It was a nice tour.
But yeah, it was like kind of funny how casual it was.
What was the like scariest place you've been?
Fieryest place I've been.
I felt like your safety was like not like...
I don't know.
It would be cool if...
How to you just like find yourself in Sinaloa province, Mexico with the cartel.
Yeah.
Well, that's what I remember a bummer.
How to go to a party.
So I decided to go fight for cocaine.
Yeah, I work cocaine as born.
I don't know.
I usually have people around me that help me feel pretty safe.
But I don't know.
I mean, the most unsafe I felt was like in college when I was making this documentary about balloon fetishists.
And they...
Like, I was started by making this documentary about a strip club.
And then I found these balloon fetish parties that would like happen there.
And then, you know, people who like...
We're attracted to the inflation and popping of balloons.
But then when I started to pivot to make it more about the looners,
the strip club got really upset with me and like locked me in a room.
And like, tried to basically...
I don't know, man.
It was...
Yeah, they wanted me to make it commercial for them basically.
And they got really, really upset.
And thankfully, the balloon fetishist that I was covering, like, knocked on the door and kind of came and took me out,
like before things got too heated.
Anyway, that was the scariest thing that comes to mind.
And the owner of that strip club was Muhammad Ata from the 9-11 attacks.
Full circle.
No, that strip club is now gone. It's leveled.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I went there recently.
It was under a highway in Binghamton.
It was very, like, since it was really kind of cool looking.
What was, like, me young?
Just like, shack under a massive overpass that, like, you know, girls, girls, girls, kind of, you know, thing.
Is amateur pornography that documentary?
Devent.
I don't know.
Because the acting side...
What are you watching?
Whoa.
Why are you thinking about it?
You don't watch any of that.
And it's too contrived.
I think it can be.
I don't know.
I feel like pornography.
Yeah, it can go either way.
Do people assume you're a pornographer?
Or is that when the cameras go off?
Like, right before I started the concrete movie, I was going to make a movie about the Atlantic City Convention Center
and go to every single event, like, over a course of a year.
And I was like, all right, day one, I'm going to go down.
And I drove down.
I didn't know what the event was.
And I just show up.
And I buy a ticket.
And then I walk in.
And it's like this, like, tween, like, cheerleading competition, you know.
And I had my camera up just like...
And I was like, I wanted to film the venue, you know.
And then within four or five minutes, all of the dads in the...
All the dads that were there were just like, all right, we found the guy.
The guy, he's finally here.
The pervert, like, we found the pervert.
And they all, like, came up to me and kicked me out.
And so I ended that project.
But it's like...
You still gave it the college try?
I had driven all the way down to A.C.
It's true.
I was like...
You know how to raise the gas?
Yeah, and I was just like, all right, I'll just shoot...
I'm going to shoot some employees that work here or something like that.
But like, yeah, I mean, I shouldn't have known.
But it's just like...
I don't know, yeah, they've got all angry at me for not having a kid there or something.
But it's like...
He's being so righteous.
Like, yeah, it's like what you guys are doing is weird.
Yeah, it's just...
Like, this is disgusting.
Like, I am...
You should've made the documentary about them.
I don't want to get it the other way.
The dads of Pajankirls, yeah.
I don't want to do that.
I don't want to, like, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't touch that stuff.
Rapid fire, what's your favorite place in New York City?
For what?
I don't know.
Pass.
What's your favorite building?
My favorite building?
Um...
My own?
Really?
I don't fucking know.
Is better than the Chrysler building?
I... they don't let me in there.
I mean, it just looks amazing.
Looks great.
I like that with no windows in Tribeca.
They're like...
That weird...
Oh, the Verizon one?
Yeah, that Verizon building.
The people think the CIA run?
Yeah, that one's crazy.
Um...
I don't know.
I really thought about it.
My favorite place in New York is the shade.
The shade.
Yeah.
Yeah, how do you...
On the street shoot so much with Irish skin?
Um...
I just...
I'm like...
I'm magnetized to the shade.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I try to just shoot with even light.
So that ends up being in either harsh sunlight or all shade.
A lot of the time.
Like a war...
A war...
Yeah, like a war...
A car driver.
Yeah, a war photographer.
Would you go to a war ever?
No.
What if you were trying to find out...
I don't believe that.
I'm a pacifist.
Yeah, but what if you were trying to find out like how to...
Like...
How to dress cooler and then you fight...
I don't know.
I don't want to never say never.
I just like...
People...
I'm glad that I don't need to make money or like art about like stuff that is like...
War based a lot of the time.
Yeah.
I just...
I mean...
I obviously credit to the people that do, but I just like...
You know...
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't like to shoot that.
You recently teamed up with Mayor Zoron.
Oh, yes.
Fellow friend...
Friends...
Friends of them.
Oh, yeah. He was on this, wasn't he?
Yeah.
That's cool.
Yeah.
And now it's recently...
You affected public policy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You want to say why?
Which one, the BQE?
The BQE and the scaffolding.
I can't say credit for the BQE, but the scaffolding.
Yeah, I think...
Yeah, I...
I think I might have had something to do with that.
I still don't...
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, he wants to take it down.
I think that's cool.
I'm still just trying to figure out what the whole plan is really...
To the BQE.
Yeah.
It's terrifying.
Like, I think it's really courageous of him to kind of put his finger on it, because like...
I think like it's been in such a quagmire for so long, because once you kind of touch it and say like,
this is my project, then you're kind of responsible.
Yeah.
And especially with all the kind of nimbism, like if I go around it, it's like...
It's impossible to please everybody, but you kind of need to be a bit kind of iron fisted about it.
Yeah.
But like...
I don't know.
I don't know if like...
Just to explain, you might explain like what we're talking about with the BQE.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a portion in my concrete movie about the BQE and the...
You know, specifically the triple cannelly resection in Brooklyn Heights area.
And how that is is very close to disaster, you know.
And it seems like...
You know, from what I was reading about the plan, I think they want to rehabilitate it,
build a temporary highway kind of near Furman Street or something like that to take a lot of the traffic.
But...
I don't know.
It's like, are we cursing that area for another 60 years, you know, with like the worst traffic in the whole city?
And I don't know what the solution is really, because that's where so much, like, afraid,
and you know, a lot of goods coming in out of the city or like through the tri-state area,
like have to go through there in some like nasty way.
So I don't know.
Yeah, again, I'm not like a civic engineer or I don't like...
I'm just like a schmuck with like a camera under the BQE talking to people.
Yeah, wasn't it that it was supposed to take the weight of like 10% of the amount of traffic
or some... I don't know if it's 10% of the right number, but like the amount of traffic that it has every day.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's like...
It was only rated for so many years.
Like it's well beyond its kind of expiration date, like 30 or so years beyond it.
And people are constantly using like overloading trucks to drive through it.
You know, it's like there's usually like supposed to be a weight limit.
And people just, you know, obviously, violate that.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can see why it was so hard to get this movie.
Finance.
Really?
At the end of cinema, right?
With the hands of movies and TV.
Yeah, exactly.
Do you feel like you're making work at the end of the world?
No, I don't want to think about it like that.
I think it's kind of... I think it's crazy that we're all born now.
Yeah.
I think it's a crazy time to be alive. I think it's cool.
Yeah.
You know?
I kind of do miss like just going to the movie theater and just seeing whatever crap they give us.
Yeah.
Like I just go see like the scorpion king with the rock and just because they gave it to us.
Soul plane.
But this is going back to the Avatar thing.
Yeah.
Where I think movie theaters got too big like and kind of all congealed into these like AMC type things.
Yeah.
I like the Wally seats.
I don't like to fall asleep.
When I go to see a movie, I don't know.
It just like puts me out.
Yeah.
I feel like we just need to open more small movie theaters.
What do you want to give a little plug?
Not trying to give a plug.
I'm just saying...
A little plug.
Why are you giving a little plug?
We'll sell some tickets.
Run, don't walk to low cinema.
That is a nice small movie theater that has character.
It's got personality and original programming that will knock your socks off.
Yeah.
And regal Essex.
Regal Essex is also cool.
I support...
That's nice.
I know I said I support all kinds of venues.
That's my...
Well, the best theater in New York City was Court Street.
I don't know if you remember Court Street.
Yeah, I saw.
It was an anarchy.
Yeah, I saw some big ones there.
Yeah, yeah.
I remember I saw one of the John Wicks there.
There was a lady who just had like basically like 12 Tupperware's.
Like she had Thanksgiving, basically that she brought into the theater.
Yeah.
And she...
The first time he kills someone, she goes,
Okay, video.
And then so I started laughing.
And then Lawrence Fishburn shows up like a 10 minutes later.
And she goes,
And they got more fias.
Wow.
Or I think she said more fias.
I saw John Wick in that same theater with Nathan.
Yeah.
At the premiere and... or John Wick 3.
I think it was John Wick 3.
Were you there?
Kiana was there.
I know, I didn't hear you.
No, you were there for that.
No, no, no, no, no.
I was a big...
That was like right when we were making the first season.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a great theater.
Yeah.
So as for the new film,
what was it like first of all,
working with Kim Kardashian,
huge, I heard that.
Kim K.
The Lever.
What was that?
Was that...
Was that fun?
She's...
She's as fire in real life as she is on the silver screen.
Ravishing.
Ravishing.
Yeah.
Did you form any type of relationship?
Do you think she's going to see the movie?
I don't know if she'll see it.
I'm kind of worried about what's going to happen when this movie comes out.
Really?
I don't know.
I don't think I have anything to be really scared of.
But there's like, you know,
there's stuff in it that like, you know,
there are public figures in there that, you know,
that may not know that they're in it.
Yeah.
You know.
That'll be good for the movie.
I don't even know if I should say that.
Yeah.
But yeah, I don't know.
If you're like a public figure,
you're at a big event.
Other people are filming.
It's like usually fine.
Ray Jay.
You heard her last year.
Yeah.
She...
Jacobalore, do you?
Yeah, he's in there.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's just like a...
It was a freakish kind of environment, you know.
I don't know what I was doing in there or why I had like a name card
and why I was sitting one seat away from Chris Kardashian.
Or, you know, Chris...
Yeah, Kardashian.
Jenner.
Chris Jenner.
Yeah, I don't fucking know.
Yeah.
That's the mom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you like make any connections?
Did you bring your card at least?
No.
John Wilson, HBO, movie theater, movie theater, or whatever.
I don't know.
I mean, I didn't really want to network when I was there.
I think I just wanted to take in the scene.
I've just never seen an uninterrupted shot of Kim Kardashian before.
And that's why I was just kind of excited to capture that.
And I think that's going to sell some tickets.
I think that's going to sell some...
If you guys want an uninterrupted shot...
uninterrupted raw.
Oh, I think it was.
It was great in the eye.
The one thing that really hung with me after movies over,
what part do you think that was?
Tattoos.
The tattoos now.
No, okay.
The judge.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's that with you?
Oh, I was still thinking about it.
It's really interesting.
That's the thing I was talking about where it's like...
I fell in with that guy for like a year and a half.
And I really did genuinely just meet him in the liquor store.
And like...
You know?
But he was like a great swimming buddy because he was super positive all the time.
And you loved it.
Yeah, he loved everything he was doing.
It was really sweet relationship.
It was really nice.
Yeah.
But then this thing happens in his life that is just like...
I'm kind of like, how does this...
What does this mean?
Is it spoiler to...
Yeah.
Yeah, it's spoiler.
Okay, we're not going to say it, but like...
That's all I'll say.
I do...
And we cut this if you want.
But my favorite line from the movie is a line that you deliver...
With that.
Related to the aftermath of the judges, you know, whatever.
The thing that happens to the judge.
Can you guess what line that is?
Oh, what advice would you give to an aspiring young Asian judge?
That's what I mean.
My girlfriend was in the other room and she like walked and she was like, what?
I was like, I screamed like...
It's the best line of the whole movie.
But yeah, I'm glad you like that.
That was like...
I was just like so...
I had no idea what I was doing in that room.
And I was just like...
That's the product of like the most insane boredom.
And kind of...
Like it was genuinely the only thing I could think of to say.
I was like trying to relay with anybody there, but it was like, I didn't speak Mandarin.
It's the best decision I've had.
Character, John.
Which is like you're in a room full of people that you are...
Or clearly like because of language barriers and because of like cultural barriers.
You're an outlier.
And you're trying to relate to someone by saying, what advice would you give to an aspiring young Asian judge?
Yeah.
Okay, but...
He didn't really have a name.
You guys can figure this out.
I like the little Easter eggs.
You guys can figure out what that means.
I guess in conclusion, like a lot of the new film is about your struggles to find people to back the new film and like to find us the new film and to make the new film.
In your career itself, like what is the thing that's propelling you and motivating you?
Like do things occur to you or is there like I still haven't done this?
I have two big things I'm working on right now that came a lot easier so far.
It has nothing to do with competition.
Two big questions.
Yeah, two via.
No, I just...
I don't know.
I don't leave much of the imagination in the concrete movie about how I came up with this concept and why it was so difficult.
And I think there is something really masochistic there.
Like if I had to pitch...
It's just something I like about doing that.
It's like what's the hardest possible thing to make funny and interesting to people in certain ways.
And it's like if I had to pitch any number of the out two episodes as a standalone movie, I would have had the same problem.
And it's like...
I don't know.
So I kind of...
I understand how to work within what people want.
I think it's two degree now.
And I kind of...
I want to experiment within that universe a tiny bit to be really big.
Well, it's a fantastic movie.
I don't want it.
I'm looking for everyone to go see it.
It's great.
I was thinking we could go all the way with it.
I was thinking we could close on one thing.
What?
I'm going to try a call-play and see if he picks up.
Call who?
Blade.
Okay.
He said at the end of the night, he was like, take my number.
And I was like, wow, he wants to be friends with me.
Because I was asking him questions all the night.
It wasn't some kind of magic number.
I don't know.
I hope it's just...
Alright, let's just try.
I see he picks up and then we could just leave him a voice mail.
It's calling David Blaine.
I can't wait.
Let's just...
I know he left an impression.
Leave him a voice mail.
I'll just say, like, how much...
I'm just thinking like...
I don't know what...
You just say what I have to...
Maybe he just appeared.
What is voice mail?
Telephone number 3x4.
Telephone number 3x4.
No!
At the tone, please record your message when you finished recording.
Simply hang up or press town for further options.
Hello, David.
My name is Adam Frile.
We met like a couple of years ago.
I'm with my friend John Wilson, who I was with when we met you.
And we were just...
Your ears must be burning.
We were just talking about how phenomenal it was to meet you.
John just wanted to say hi.
He's a filmmaker.
And he wanted to send you his new movie.
His new movie.
Oh, yeah.
History of Concrete.
Yes.
Hello, David Blaine.
This is John Wilson.
I really would like you to see my new movie, The History of Concrete.
I think you'll really enjoy it.
It's a magical film.
And being a magician yourself.
I think you'll really relate to it.
And I am also surprised that your mailbox is not full.
So I hope this is your real number.
I think it's your real number.
I mean, it's...
Okay.
Anyway, I hope this message flies you well.
If you want to...
My number is 702.
It is...
You can say your number.
On Tuesday, afternoon.
And I'm getting married next month also.
I don't know why I said that.
Okay.
All right.
I don't know.
I should work.
Wow.
John Wilson, everyone.
Thank you.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.
I'm going to be a little bit more creative.