074 The Masterclass Act transcript (Philip Seymour Hoffman)

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Michael Warburton: [00:00:00] This is Michael Warburton you're listening to Famous Gravy, life lessons from dead celebrities. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael Osborne: This person died 2014, age 46. His mother is a former family court judge. His father worked for the Xerox Corporation. His parents divorced when he was young.

Friend: That's so young. Um,

okay. Of course, I can't think of any dead people. Um, Winston Churchill.

Michael Osborne: Not Winston Churchill. 46, but a great guess. The New York Times once said, quote, He does terminal uncertainty better than practically anyone.

Friend: That feels like a comedian. Okay, I'm going to say Glenn Rogers.

Michael Osborne: Not Glenn Rogers. Who's Glenn Rogers?

Friend: I don't, he's not a comedian. Isn't he like a cowboy? Is that a person? I think he's like a showy cowboy. person?

Michael Osborne: I'm gonna have to, now you got me wondering who Glenn Rogers is. Not Glenn Rogers. Okay, yeah. He was a sleepy looking man with uncombed hair who favored [00:01:00] rumpled clothes.

Friend: I do feel like it's a comedian with wild hair, but I don't know his name. He yells. Like, he yells a lot.

He like, talks like this! Like, um.

Michael Osborne: Oh, Gilbert Gottfried?

Friend: Yes, that's who I'm thinking of. See you live.

Michael Osborne: Not Gilbert Gottfried. Okay. He was perhaps the most ambitious and wildly admired American actor of his generation.

Friend: Wait, I think I was just talking about him last night. Is this Philip Seymour hoffman?

Today's Dead Celebrity is Philip Seymour Hoffman.

PSH: Sometimes I'll set things up for myself that I don't know if I'll be able to achieve. Meaning I'll create a crisis, ultimately, with a part I'll take or with a job I'll take. And that's really just, a lot of other people say it's a risk. Because all of a sudden you're in a crisis moment, because you have to actually come through with it.

And then you're actually gonna have to have the will to actually do it, to actually fail and look like an ass in front of people. You're gonna have to actually do that in order to be good. You know, you [00:02:00] actually have to go in and start humiliating yourself sometimes, right there in front of people, in order to get to the good stuff.

Michael Osborne: Welcome to Famous Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Michael Warburton: And I'm Michael Warburton.

Michael Osborne: And on

Friend: this show, we're looking for ways to make life better, and we want to know what celebrities can teach us about ourselves. So on each episode, we choose a famous figure. At the end, we answer two questions. One, would I want that life?

And two, what

Michael Osborne: might this person say to St. Peter at the pearly gates? Today, Philip Seymour Hoffman died 2014, age 46. So

Friend: before we get started, a quick programming note for regular listeners of our show. My usual co host Amit Kapoor is away. Working on a number of side projects, including some very exciting updates for Famous Gravy.

So for this episode and the next few we've got planned, I have lined up an all star list of guest hosts. Today, I'm joined by my friend Michael Warburton, a [00:03:00] seasoned actor living in the UK and someone who if you are into pop culture

Michael Osborne: history, you have to follow him on Twitter, X,

Friend: and Threads. That's where he and I first met.

Michael

Michael Osborne: Warburton, how you doing? I'm okay. How are you? I'm excited and scared about this episode, because this is a hard episode in some ways. On one hand, young deaths are always hard, but the

Friend: other thing that I realize is I am still grieving this guy. Like, you were talking the other day, the fact that it's been ten years

Michael Osborne: since he died, it doesn't feel like ten years.

It really

Michael Warburton: doesn't. It's very, very weird. You know, a lot of my Twitter feed is about, about legacy and it's about people and keeping their memory and their work and their craft and their talent, uh, alive. And some of them, you know, it feels a while ago, but Philip Seymour Hoffman, it feels like three or four years.

That's what it feels like to me. One of the things, again, you and I have spoken about, um, many times in the past and it's really interesting to me in terms of Twitter is the feedback I get on [00:04:00] people, films, in terms of the love out there. I end up getting a huge amount of information on what degree of love for what person is out there.

And so it's almost like I've ended up with a love poll, if you like, for great artists. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is way up there, way up the top. Top five, top three, could be even in the top two. It's insane.

Michael Osborne: He doesn't feel dead in a funny way. He doesn't feel dead. And, and I think that, um, I don't know. Uh, let's get into it.

Okay. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Philip Seymour

Friend: Hoffman. Perhaps the most ambitious and widely admired American actor of his generation, who gave three dimensional nuance to a wide range of sidekicks, villains, and leading men, on screen, and embraced some of the theater's most burdensome

Michael Osborne: roles on Broadway, died on Sunday at an apartment in Greenwich Village.

He was renting as an office. [00:05:00] He was 46.

Friend: Your initial reaction to the first line of

Michael Osborne: his obituary, Mr. Warburton. Well, it's

Michael Warburton: kind of like a lot of things to do with Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's heavy. It's full of portent. It's full of drama. It's dark. It's, it's got gravitas, everything around this guy, you know, even his addictions.

And again, we'll talk about later, you know, everything's got gravitas. Gravitas with this guy. And I think that's why, or one of the many reasons why, it feels like to do Philip Seymour Hoffman justice, his memory, his work, everything about him, it feels as much of a burden as maybe his life and his career was to him.

In its, in its own way, if you know what I mean. I

Michael Osborne: totally do. I mean, just to point out some of the words here, most ambitious, widely admired three dimensional nuance. I mean, there's like so much effort to try and capture his his greatness. It's almost like they're throwing the frickin thesaurus at this first line of the obituary.

Let me point out something that really struck out to me wide range

Friend: of [00:06:00] sidekicks, villains and leading

Michael Osborne: men. One thing that stands out about the guy is his versatility.

Friend: He's good guys, he's bad guys, he's the main guy, he's not the main guy, he's a small character, he's a scene

Michael Osborne: stealer, he's a cameo, like every time he shows up he's

Friend: almost

Michael Osborne: unignorable.

They're

Michael Warburton: throwing the kitchen sink at it, as you say, but I tell you what, I think, uh, they know they need to do him justice and I think they've done a fair job with that opening, yeah.

Michael Osborne: Yeah. What do you think they're referencing when they say most burdensome roles on Broadway? I

Michael Warburton: think they're re relating or referring rather to the fact that this guy had courage.

This guy was courageous. Yeah. This guy, he would take on anything

Michael Osborne: You're talking about burdensome here. Like what? Why they used the word burdensome and

Michael Warburton: he, he used that, Michael, he used that word quite a lot. Yeah. You know, it was a hell of a burden to get to the point of greatness that he knew he had to.

That is a hell of a burden. Directors that worked with him. They all talked about the fact they could see the burden that he put upon himself. Part of my

PSH: job is actually that it's me. I'm not a [00:07:00] painter, I'm not a musician, I'm not these things. We're actually, I'm creating something that then I can distance myself and you can actually experience it.

I'm actually the one. It's me, my body, my head, my mind, my voice. It's right here, you know, and there is something about people criticizing that or failing in that realm and it's actually you they're talking about. That is, uh, that's hard. That's hard to take. And I do fear that, definitely.

Michael Osborne: Most burdensome roles.

I assume they're referring to Death of a Salesman and probably True West as well. I mean, I don't know the theater as well as you do. And I guess those are roles that are You know up there for like, oh, that's a challenging one. Well,

Michael Warburton: yeah I mean anything after miller's challenging, but you know that the roles he took on broadway There's been some directors who said that with regard to for instance death of a salesman It was a classic case of he took it home with him He lived the part every actor got their own method, but he knew how to get to where he needed to get to And he was prepared to pay any price for that just a quick sidebar when I was in my 20s I remember saying to myself [00:08:00] Michael, would you be prepared to pay any price?

Would you be prepared to do anything for a character or for a role? And I surprised myself with this internal conversation by, by saying no, um, that changed that's changed a little bit over the years, but I think from the get go Philip Seymour Hoffman, um, would have been, yeah. Whatever it

Michael Osborne: takes. Okay. It's so interesting.

You asked yourself that question. You had that conversation of like, are you willing to go to any lengths? And that question is not simple, but that's sort of the question that you felt was before you as an actor, and that's before anybody who wants to achieve greatness like Philip Seymour Hoffman. Well, look,

Michael Warburton: you know, I've said, um, for decades that, um, when you do it right, acting at its best is actually very dangerous because, you know, pardon my Swedish, you know, you're fucking about with his psyche.

You know, you're screwing about with your own psychology, your own mental health, and sometimes

Michael Osborne: your soul. Yeah. There's a surrendering. Yeah. That is dangerous. I think we're going to get into it as we go, because I do think that his art and his addiction are really intertwined in complicated, [00:09:00] interesting, and mysterious ways.

Okay, let's do this. Let's grade the first line of the obituary. I have my score. I'm going to give this a 10 out of 10. I think that this is actually kind of perfect. The more I look at this first line of the obituary, the more I love it. I love ambitious. I love three dimensional nuance.

Friend: I love the range of roles.

I love the nod to theater

Michael Osborne: and Hollywood. They mentioned kind of as a side note that he died in an apartment he was renting as an office. Usually when they have that kind of Qualifier at the end of a sentence. It says something tragic and unexpected happened So this first line of the obituary frankly is doing a lot of work for me.

I'm giving it a 10 I don't have any problems

Michael Warburton: with it. No, I don't either. I don't either. I think it's suitably respectful I think it suitably honors him 10 out of 10. I think it's an excellent first line. All right,

Michael Osborne: let's go on category two, five things I love about you here. Michael and I are going to come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the [00:10:00] first place.

What do you have, Michael? Well,

Michael Warburton: the first one really is originality, which is really important in art to push the boundary. You know, just try and create something new sort of everything, you know, I think so, you know, audiences need to see something new, something original and he was that and I think he was original for lots of different reasons.

Firstly, courage. Yeah. Secondly, his intelligence as an artist. So, for instance, so many of the characters he played were weird, creepy, odd, difficult, repugnant, evil, yada, yada, yada. Um, and a lot of actors, even really good ones will say, right, that's where I'm going with that. Difficult to get to, and I'll do it really well, but I'll get to that level of evil, repugnant, awful, weird, creepy, whatever.

But the great actors, and Philip Seymour Hoffman was absolutely one, what they'll do is add a level of humanity, a level of humility. Empathy! Empathize with him, exactly. Because whatever this hideous or appalling strange character was doing, you were fascinated. And this is [00:11:00] another one of the reasons why today is, is so tough doing Philip Seymour Hoffman because he's extraordinarily complex and he brought all that complexity of, of, of him and whatever he'd learned in his life thus far to every character that he played and audiences appreciate that.

They so appreciate that.

PSH: What I learned was that these people that I was going to play were not me. The thing I had to look at was, how were they similar to me and how were they different from me? And I had to cover those bases so I could understand what makes them different and what makes them similar and therefore I could create this person that's not living my life, it's living someone else's life.

And so that's just how I've approached it, and I guess that maybe people call that character acting, but that's just how I approach acting, period.

Michael Osborne: I, you know, okay, I got a couple things I want to ask about on this, because I've certainly been thinking about it a lot, in terms of like what he did that does seem In that sort of master class next level.

Holy cow. How does anybody ever do this? One, you know, I saw him [00:12:00] say a few different places. Our job as actors is to defend everyone you play Which means you have to show the ugly side of them, which at first sounds really smart But then it's like confusing you would show, you know, these unbelievably vulnerable moments I think One that sticks in everybody's mind is in Boogie Nights where he tries to kiss Mark Wahlberg's character and then is beating himself up in the car.

I'm a fucking idiot.

Friend: I'm a fucking

Michael Osborne: idiot. I'm a fucking idiot. I'm a fucking idiot. Fucking idiot. Fucking idiot. Fucking idiot. There was a like willingness to go there. If you really look at that quote, our

Friend: job as actors is to defend everyone you play, which

Michael Osborne: means you have to show the ugly side of them.

What's confusing about that is oftentimes when you see the ugly side of somebody you're turned off,

Friend: you're repulsed, you're scared, you know? And [00:13:00] one thing that he

Michael Osborne: did that I think speaks to that originality is

Friend: go there, but not lose you, even in his villains, you're still drawn in, compelled, and

Michael Osborne: I don't necessarily want to say rooting for.

But,

Friend: but it would be so easy for it to

Michael Osborne: go the wrong direction. And somehow he like walked right up to that line where you're still holding empathy for him. And that to me seems like a superpower. Yeah. It's

Michael Warburton: like he had a permanent umbilical cord connecting him to humanity and vulnerability and all the key elements that would seem Diametrically opposed to the character if it's, if that character is evil or awful or appalling or creepy or weird.

He would not let go of these key attributes. It's always about, look, whatever this person is or isn't, they are still a human being. A language, when we describe serial killers or the Nazis or whoever, About them being monsters. They're not monsters at all. They're human beings Really as an artist, I can't stress enough how [00:14:00] courageous he was I mean like like for instance as you said with boogie nights, you know He's he's laying it all out there and he knows and feels deeply the physical unattractiveness of himself It's a really unselfish thing to say.

I will humiliate I will debase myself for this character for my personal pursuit of greatness But that's what i'm going to do as an artist and I don't give a shit That's

Michael Osborne: amazing. That's actually a really good segue to the thing number two that I had. I said humility. And I think one of the things that's hard about doing this episode is that, you know, Philip Seymour

Friend: Hoffman was very

Michael Osborne: careful never to reveal much about himself.

I can't tell you how many interviews I watched with him where I was just sort

Friend: of looking to get a little

bit

Michael Osborne: of insight beyond his experience as an actor and these wide range of roles he played. And it's, it's Hard to find that every

Friend: interview I saw him with, with very few exceptions.

Michael Osborne: He does look rumpled.

He's wearing short sleeve flannels. He's not like fashionable in a way, you know, and he's got a kind of stocky body and, you know, a little on [00:15:00] the heavy side, quick side note on this. He actually looks a lot like my older brother. My brother once told me a story. He had to bust out his wallet and show his driver's license to somebody in an airport to prove to them that he was not.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Um, so like every time I see him, there's like this just unbelievable familiarity. And I think that's my own personal bias. All of this is to say, while

Friend: I think he was proud of his himself and his work, I see some real

Michael Osborne: humility. I was actually really struck by that. How much in conversations and in interviews appeared just incredibly relatable.

And so I guess maybe I'm saying humble and relatable. Those things are linked to me, but they really stood out.

Michael Warburton: Yeah, well, I you know, I like the fact that he didn't give a shit about you know What clothes he is wearing whether he was fashionable how he looked because that's the antithesis of vanity and especially the sort of Hollywood vanity and especially the sort of hollywood vanity that Normally goes with A listers,

Michael Osborne: which he was.

Yeah. One thing that's been really [00:16:00] interesting to me in getting ready for this episode, you know, we just did an episode on Oliver Sacks, the neuroscientist who, in the first line of his obituary, it mentions his understanding of the human condition. I found myself in the Philip Seymour Hoffman research

Friend: feeling like this guy in art, as an actor, understands the human condition as well as

Michael Osborne: anybody.

There's something so well embodied in him about a struggle that represents all of us. I think he was

Michael Warburton: fiercely intelligent, I think. I think a lot of actors are actually, by the way. Yeah. And that's not to sort of big, big up, you know, my, my brethren. Yeah. You know, but he was also an overthinker. I think, you know, again, in a lot of the, the research I've been doing, he was able to see as many sides as possible in anything, or any one in a relationship, in anything but.

You know, it's very difficult to switch off the overthinking. And as a result, the need and the desire to escape from thought, from thinking, from understanding, is, um, maybe one of the holes that he was left with into [00:17:00] which his, um, addictive qualities, um, moved.

PSH: You don't drink. No, I don't. In fact, you went into rehab at a fairly early age.

Sorry about that. Uh, yeah, I, uh, yeah, I did. I did. I went, uh I got sober, uh, I was 22 years old. So this was drugs or alcohol or both? Ah, yeah, it was all that stuff, yeah. It was everything I could get my hands on. Yeah, yeah, I liked it all. Yeah. And why did you decide to stop? You get panicked. You get panicked.

It was, um, I was 22 and I got panicked for my life. It really was. It was just that. You know, I don't want to sound too dramatic and I don't want to make more out of it than it was, but I definitely was, whatever I was doing made me worry, uh, if I was going to be able to do the things I wanted to do with my life.

Friend: All right.

Michael Osborne: What do you have for number three? Number three thing you love about Philip [00:18:00] Seymour Hoffman? Well, I, I think

Michael Warburton: it's, it's that he, he did fulfill his promise. Um, you know, we, we've referred earlier to the burden that Seymour Hoffman put on himself. But one of the other things of course, is that once you achieve a level of notoriety or let's say greatness, that can be a burden in itself.

It's one thing for instance, if you're a, an athlete to win the gold medal, it's another, if you're at a soccer team or football team to win a title, it's another to win it in itself. The next season is another to get a gold at the next Olympics. It's it's quite the thing to stay up there. It's one thing to get there, which is hard enough.

Yeah, it's another to remain there. And his inexhaustible search for greatness kept him there and would only have kept him there had he lived and had he gone on. So I think he did fulfill his promise. But I really believe and this is part of the loss and the grieving that so many of us still feel. So Um, and I think we'll always feel, and I still think, despite fulfilling his promise, maybe the best was [00:19:00] still to come, which is an incredible thing to say about Philip Seymour Hoffman, but anyway, I really

Michael Osborne: admire that.

Yeah, and I,

Friend: I, look, in terms of what our show is about, we talk about the upward staircase, and I think, like,

Michael Osborne: an idea in there also is, like, reaching one's potential, and while he died young, And while he died prematurely, and while there, you know, were, undoubtedly, in another world, great things to come, a lot of people don't ever quit.

Fulfill their potential and there is something really desirable in that about him. So I love that

Michael Warburton: Just one other thing actually. Yeah, um his partner Mimi O'Donnell actually wrote a piece for Vogue and yeah It's a really she was a really well written piece I have to say she's a terrific writer and she said that there Came a time where she seemed to recognize in her partner her life partner and the father of her three kids that Philip Seymour Hoffman knew he wasn't going to lead a long life And that he knew he had to cram as much into what whatever years he was going to have with us all and she started to [00:20:00] recognize that and see that it obviously tragically came to pass that that was true.

Yeah, you know, he was able to achieve so much within, you know, 46

Michael Osborne: years. That's interesting. It's a, it's a really great segue into my thing. Number four, because it's very related. I heard him say, almost in an offhanded way, in a conversation, that his love of sports. He, at a young age, at, you know, when he was a teenager, had, had, was really into wrestling and baseball.

He suffered an injury that his mother ended up encouraging him to go into acting and, uh, and then, you know, found his life pursuit. And the rest is sort of history. But the thing I wanted to point out was,

Friend: There is something like what you were just speaking to in terms of fulfilling

Michael Osborne: greatness. There's clearly a self competitive element in

Friend: his psyche.

And

Michael Osborne: you see a similar sort of display in next level athletes and great athletes. Uh, you know, Michael Jordan comes to mind. Um, Philip Seymour Hoffman said as much in an interview. I think they're the

PSH: same. What it takes to be a great athlete is the same thing as what it [00:21:00] takes to be a great actor, I think.

That kind of concentration, that kind of privacy in public, and that kind of unselfconscious kind of, uh, experience, um, are very similar. And that kind of pressure of the people watching and finding privacy in front of them, all that stuff. So, you know,

Michael Osborne: I find it very similar. Like he draws

Friend: this parallel between what great athletes do and what great actors do That's not

Michael Osborne: about the entertainment industry so much as it is about the striving

Michael Warburton: for greatness Yeah, I mean as a visual I literally see an exploding volcano.

I think it was a rage within him almost Yeah, I think he was Obsessively

Michael Osborne: competitive, but I think it's competition within, right? I don't think he's like trying to beat out other actors necessarily. Maybe that showed up sometimes and I'm sure his ego, you know, and temper flared wherever, but I really felt like he understood that to be a war within himself, not a war with the world necessarily.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's a

Michael Warburton: really, you're right, Michael, to make that distinction. It was all [00:22:00] internal. It's one of the reasons why He's so incredible to watch because so much of, of his acting, so much of how he's connecting with us stems from everything he's doing internally within himself as the character.

Yeah.

Friend: Yeah. Okay. Uh, for number

Michael Osborne: five, I, this is something that you and I talked about ahead of time because we both kind of came to this for thing. Number five. His dedication to remaining mysterious.

Friend: He was really, really

Michael Osborne: careful around how much he talked about his personal life and his family. Saw this in a few different places.

One, I, I, there's a quote where he says, I'd rather not talk about it because my family doesn't have any choice. If I talk about them in the press, I'm giving them no choice. So I choose not to. But I also saw him say the less, you know, about me, the more interesting. My work is I think it's a real hard line to one identify because I think it's hard to have a clear eyed view on just how famous or well known you [00:23:00] are and his trajectory into fame was in some ways gradual.

I mean, it was. There are key parts that I think we could talk about that move him into a new category, but somewhere along that line, he had pretty good self awareness that if I'm going to be a great actor, you need to not know too much about

Friend: me, even though it is me that I'm bringing to. All these parts.

So there was something around the protection of

Michael Osborne: privacy that I found really admirable and desirable because there was a kind of like sanctity of self in there. And I think he did that on behalf of his family. I also think he did that on behalf of his art. Yeah.

Michael Warburton: I think it's very difficult to get the balance right when you, when you're an A lister and when you're, when you're an A lister that's so enigmatic that, that the public and the media really do want to know.

And feel like they need to know more about you. I think he got the balance right. And so many actors don't, the audience has more, more of a chance of believing who you are in that particular film or that particular play, [00:24:00] you know, you're more of a blank canvas because you haven't told them everything about your life onto which they can project what they want to project.

And I think the final thing on that is that I think Philip Seymour Hoffman on many occasions said that, um, one of the things he missed most keenly was anonymity.

PSH: You're born with the right of anonymity, you know what I mean? You're just born into it. It's something that you know, you're just anonymous.

People who have never had that change in their life don't think about it, don't even question it, it just is. But when that changes, it's a huge one. And it might be the artistic side of you that's fighting against that, that wants that privacy so you can still exist in the world and feel safe to, you know, express what you want to express.

It's fighting against the idea that, uh, your privacy or who you are is not your own anymore in some

Michael Osborne: way. Let's recap

Friend: real quick. So, number one, you said originality. Number two, I said humility. Number three, you said, uh, fulfill this promise. Number four, I [00:25:00] said sports and self competitiveness. And number five, together we said

Michael Osborne: dedication to remaining mysterious and protecting a sense of self with privacy.

That

Friend: is

Michael Osborne: one hell of a list. Let's take a quick break for advertisements.

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Okay, the next category we're going to do is family life. I think one of the reasons you and I decided to do this category is that I think people are just curious. You know, and there's not a lot of information out there. But there are two important data points that I think are worth talking about. One is he was essentially raised by a single mother.

And there is a very moving moment when he accepts, uh, the Academy Award for Capote where he, he thanks his mother. And it, like, I watched it the other day. It brings me to tears. She took me to my first play and she stayed up with me and watched the NCAA, uh, Final Four. And, uh, my [00:27:00] passions, her passions became my passions.

And, uh, You know, be proud mom because I'm proud of you and we're here tonight and it's

PSH: so good.

Friend: Thank

Michael Osborne: you. His parents split when he was around 10. His mother at age 37 decides that she's going to go back to law school and she eventually ends up becoming a judge. She runs for office and he even campaigned for her.

The other bit of information is he did have a life partner. We've made reference to her a few times, Mimi O'Donnell. They have three children, uh, which of course is very tragic given his young death. And when he talks about his kids, he sounds like a very involved father. They never married though. So I guess the thing I really want to talk about with you is the marriage thing.

And I think the reason it's interesting is because there is all of this pressure in society. To find your soulmate, and that is codified with a ring on your finger and standing before a God you may or may not believe in and saying, I do, I really

Friend: like these [00:28:00] examples. And I don't think we've done anybody else on

Michael Osborne: the show where somebody had really what looked like a life partner.

And it has all of the qualities of what a marriage is, but they're not actually married. I kind of love that about him in a way, but I don't know. I mean, what's your take on this? What does it tell you, I guess, is the question. Yeah, I

Michael Warburton: think it tells me that maybe, I don't know, this is just off the top of my head, I think maybe the, the character of being a husband, I know which parts of that I want to play and I know which parts of that I don't want to.

So you know what the part of a husband in terms of being loving and caring and generous and all the good things you should be to your partner or wife as a father, I'm going to be. In their committed, I think they both agreed very early on that the family shouldn't be a part for any more than two weeks at any one time.

And I think they kept to that.

Michael Osborne: Yeah. I saw that. Yeah. And he was insistent about that. I mean, he dragged them to, you know, fricking Winnipeg or wherever he was on. Like, it's like, we need to be together. I think

Michael Warburton: there were certain parts of the [00:29:00] husband character that he was, um, that he got behind and was maybe even more committed to than most people, especially in an industry where you're

Michael Osborne: moving around a lot.

You referenced it earlier, that piece that his partner Mimi wrote for Vogue in 2017 or so, years after he died. I mean, like everywhere you see them talk about each other, love is unmistakable. And to go back to like his upbringing and his parents getting divorced, I mean, one thing that I think you and I agree on, there, there's no information that I saw in his biography That unlocks this guy.

He remains mysterious to me. He remains both really relatable and also fundamentally unknowable. I think some of this biographical information begins to help us understand it, but I think most of the reason he is so confounding has to do with his addiction and the disease of addiction that he suffered from.

And I thought Mimi captured this well in that. Vogue article, his addiction was bigger than him, and there was no love, there was no [00:30:00] family component that was going to be strong enough or big enough to overcome that, and that's a hard, hard message, and I think it's a, it's a truth for a lot of families that suffer with somebody who is an addict.

I guess all of this is to say, I saw in this guy an unbelievable amount of love for his family, his mother, his partner, and his children. And I don't think that the fact that he ended up dying prematurely from an overdose can or should diminish that. But it's also really hard to talk about that, because there is this very natural tendency to say, then why didn't he live?

Michael Warburton: It's really, it's, I find it, if I'm really honest with you, Michael, I find it, In some areas, maybe to do with the art and stuff, I find it very easy to talk about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Still challenging, because he was so complex and so rich. His partner Mimi, obviously, is still here, and, you know, he has, um, family and friends and people that knew him, and I, and I never did, sadly, and, um

Michael Osborne: Even if we feel like we did, right?

Even if we

Michael Warburton: feel like we did. [00:31:00] So, and of course, with his addiction, again, in that terrific article, his partner Mimi said that it took her a long time. Even she didn't realize until very later on. It was always close to the surface, and she didn't realize how

Michael Osborne: close. Yeah, and I think it's a good segue to the next category.

Control Z is where we look for the big do overs, the things you might have done differently, potential regrets. So, at some point, in around 2012, and I read one article, it said it was at a wrap party for the master. Decides to take a drink again, after A couple decades of sobriety. You and I were talking about this beforehand.

I haven't talked much about this on the show, uh, and I want to be a little careful about how I do, but I'm a recovery guy. Uh, I've got 10 years of sobriety and I'm somebody who, you know, goes to groups and tries to stay involved and participating. I bring it up because I, I'm hopeful, Michael, that I can Say something that might be helpful to somebody [00:32:00] else.

I do think that all other things being equal, you look at somebody like Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he's got so much going for him in life and art and family. And like, why would it ever, ever, ever, ever make sense for this guy to say. I think I'm ready to drink again. When he knows himself to

Friend: be an addict and alcoholic.

What was rehab like?

PSH: It's a lot of things. It is a lot of things. But, um, I wouldn't really get into it too much. But, uh, it changed you. It did, yeah. Yeah, it did. Meaning it was a respite. It was a break. It was something about it that I remember it just, it just so drastically pulled me out of my life. If someone came and just grabbed me out, put me over there, and forced me to deal with a bunch of people that I have not dealt with since.

And, um, create intimate bonds and relationships with those people. And it did. It did change something. It made me see [00:33:00] things differently. It made me see things differently. It gave me this idea that those things you want to do, Phil, those things you want to get done, you can do them.

Michael Osborne: There's not one thing you can point to that that helps explain the cunning, baffling and powerful nature of addiction such that one day you wake up and say, I'm ready to try drinking again.

I do think it sneaks up on you. Definitely imagine, though, that one of the things that is very, very important for sustained recovery is connection with others, is fellowship, is feeling like you can walk into a room, share about your problem, and feel connected to other people in that room, and feel humbled, and not feel alone.

I have to imagine, and I think this happens a lot with celebrities, as their fame grows. As their anonymity

Friend: fades that the

Michael Osborne: ability to go back to shared experience and commonality with others Like that's harder and harder to sustain I [00:34:00] think that must have been harder and harder for him to sustain And it sounded like in some of what mimi had to share that happened with him I can't know, none of us can know what led him to say, yeah, you know what?

I'm just going to try drinking a little bit. And then two years later, he's found in an apartment with a needle in his arm and, you know, heroin, coke in a system and so forth. But I do think this thing sneaks up on you. Um,

Michael Warburton: that's really, really interesting stuff. Actually, um, I, there's so many things, as we said, you know, we cannot know what is very interesting what we talk about in terms of fame and how fame can, you know, can distance an actor from the people in their lives, from people generally, um, from themselves.

Yeah. There's all sorts of, there's all sorts of stuff around that, but I just wonder, I, it's just my opinion that I think was becoming more important to him towards the end of his life, and therefore I think may have, just [00:35:00] may have, a high or reasonable degree of relevancy to his life coming to an end, um, so prematurely and so tragically, is that If you're an artist like Philip Seymour Hoffman and it is about greatness and doing whatever it takes to get there, in other words, there's a very, very specific, highly demanding outcome in play here, which is I will, I will do whatever it takes.

I will achieve greatness with this role and all the burdensome stuff that goes with that. It's very much outcome driven. And I think I can only imagine if you're a father, again, so much of your life has to be outcome driven. We've touched on, you know what, we're not apart from each other as a family for more than two weeks.

He had a really, really, for him, a defining or much better understanding of what love is, which is a pretty big thing in any human's life. But I just wonder at the end, Michael, whether he went, you know what, too much outcome, whether that's art or my family and my children. Just too much. I need some release.

The [00:36:00] best I can come up with is that there's something about outcome surrounding him at the end of his life that led to his life ending as early as it did and the way it did. That's the best I can come up with. I think at the moment.

PSH: Uh, what's the hardest thing you ever had to let go of? Um, outcome, you know, uh, any, any plan.

Cause it's when I think. Any plan I thought I had about where my life was going to go, I've had to let go of.

Michael Warburton: And maybe none of us will ever know, Michael. We won't.

Michael Osborne: You know, we won't. But I'll, I'll, I'll say, to your point about love, you got me thinking about one other thing I wanted to Say about sobriety and recovery.

One thing that I've seen is a lot of people get really hung up on the idea of the solution to addiction being spiritual, not religious. And I think that that distinction between spiritual and religious is fundamental, but a lot of [00:37:00] people get tangled up in and lost in that. And this comes up for me a lot.

The people I know in recovery, they have a really wide and frankly, open understanding of higher power. Right. Sometimes, uh, it is rooted in religion, but there's no shortage of Buddhists and atheists and agnostics and people who are living really deeply spiritual lives.

Friend: I would imagine, if you're somebody of

Michael Osborne: his empathetic powers and his success, who's experienced the outcomes, that, like, what does spirituality, however you define it, look like?

For somebody like that. There is a part of me that does believe that that pursuit got away from him. I don't think it's about finding God. I think it's about the willingness to look. And I think one thing that's confusing about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Is that I do see him as a searcher, but I do see him also [00:38:00] Maybe a little bit exhausted by that search and that's something along his spiritual path Something got thrown off and somewhere that idea got lost for him

Michael Warburton: Which is interesting, because I kid you not, I was about to say that it was Tennessee Williams birthday this week and created a little meme from a quote, and it's a great quote, and it occurred to me yesterday that, you know what, it really might be applicable, might be applicable to Philip Seymour Hoffman, but Tennessee Williams once said, you know, why did I write?

Because I found life unsatisfactory and I, and I think there's, um, either some or a lot of that playing around all the time throughout Philip Seymour Hoffman's life. I've no idea what specific moment triggered that. No idea. And maybe, you know, it doesn't even matter. The fact is, you know, we all find parts of life unsatisfactory.

But I think when you're an artist, when you're working at exalted levels, when you. can't switch off thinking and feeling and suffering or whatever. If you're one of those sorts of people, if you [00:39:00] find life unsatisfactory, it's a, that's a spiritual thing. Yeah. That's a spiritual thing. That's like, well, there's no God to save me

Michael Osborne: from this.

You know, uh, I do think it is, and this is why this sort of whole higher power idea is both important and confounding because there is no answer to that, but it is. But it is also the thing that, that saves you. And I just think that's what this whole human condition question is all about. And that's why it's like, we're never, we're not going to land on anything satisfactory to my mind in coming away from like, what can I learn about this man?

I. personally had the experience of I am reminded that the seeking is the thing I need to wake up every morning and do. If I'm looking, not finding, but if I'm looking, then I'll be okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's where I'm at, man. I don't know. I don't know if that connects her or It

Michael Warburton: does. It does. And I think what it connects to, uh, maybe I'm becoming more convinced of this as we talk about it.

But I, I think [00:40:00] part of what faith and spirituality is about part, we want to know the outcome of this, of this thing we call life. The sadness is there. It's there within me. It's there within you. It's there within so many others out there. What was still to come, that burns away. Inside of me and you know Incidences like this people can also say oh god, how selfish was this guy?

Didn't he care enough about himself or his wife or his partner or his kids or his

Michael Osborne: his siblings? It's not the

Michael Warburton: logic you can apply. Yeah, I don't I don't you know, if you want to great, you know,

Michael Osborne: but it's it's tempting It's tempting and that's sort of I think the point is that that you know, it's it's tempting.

Okay, let's move on Cocktail, coffee, or cannabis? This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them we are most curious about.

Given what we just talked about in terms of, uh, drugs and recovery, y y y you know, we we [00:41:00] do approach this que this category with, like, Let's set aside any addiction. There is a part of me that wants to have a drink with him and get into the good, honest, like sort of depths of humanity and complexity kind of conversation.

I think even despite all that, I'd like to have a cup of coffee with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and I don't even know exactly what I want.

Friend: to talk about, although

Michael Osborne: I am actually very curious about his own taste. Honestly, like you, Michael has exceptional taste, I think. And one thing I really enjoy about you is what a good job you do of reminding me of how much great art is out there and and drawing my attention to moments that I might have forgotten about.

I'd like to have some of the kind of conversation with Philip Seymour Hoffman. I'd like to sit down and You know, on, on a fall afternoon next to Central Park or something, maybe in the West Village, who knows where we sit down and just talk about art. You know, talk about movies. Talk about, like, who he sees as other great actors, what he sees in them as greatness.

For all the interviews I [00:42:00] watched with him, I didn't hear quite enough about that. And I have real curiosity, because he's got such aptitudes for acting. I want to know more about his taste. So, uh, that's my answer for coffee, cocktail, cannabis. Where'd you go? What do you think? What do you want to do? Ah,

Michael Warburton: interesting, interesting.

So, um, we're going for coffee and that's something, that's one of life's greatest pleasures for me, going for coffee with a friend. Um, I like one on ones. I don't like groups of two, three, or twenty five. I like one on one. Let's fucking drill down. Let's talk turkey. Let's just get on the level here, reveal ourselves and

Michael Osborne: open up.

What do you imagine talking to him

Friend: about? How does that, you know, if you just play with a thought

Michael Osborne: experiment, where would that conversation go? Well, actually,

Michael Warburton: I'll tell you what, what I Would have asked him is this and this is kind of Some people will say this is really stupid thing to say but as is a hypothetical and presuming that he trusted me I would honestly want to ask him, dude, what are your holes and why do you have the holes that you have?

I, [00:43:00] I just really want to know because I think they can help me understand so many other things about you. In other words, what shape and size are you? Is your uncomfortability Now that's heavy. That's you know, I mean and it would have

Michael Osborne: yeah, you gotta ease into that conversation Oh,

Friend: man,

Michael Warburton: it's not the first thing you say, you know, for god's sake.

It's hey, man. I love you You're fantastic and you're great and how's your

Michael Osborne: coffee and no, but it's what you want to get at I mean that you know, we're talking about recovery

Friend: a second ago.

Michael Osborne: They talk about this in the in the rooms a god sized hole You know, God sized hole that sort of literal in some ways, there's no drug, there's no experience, there's no woman, man, there's, there's no person that that fits, I think, in some ways, the question is like gratitude, like what, what brings you joy and what gets at that experience of love and gratitude, because that's ultimately the same thing as the God idea.

Maybe, you know, I think

Michael Warburton: I, by the way, and this is maybe slightly ago, but I think I'd stand a reasonable chance of getting some kind of answer [00:44:00] out of him where he capable, because when I meet up with people, it really is for the most part one on ones, because that's how you get a proper conversation going.

Sure. And people seem, people seem to trust me and they're right to trust me. And I like to think that he would have, you know, got from what I was saying, what I wasn't saying from my energy, that he could trust me and that he would have told me because Jesus God, if I've got Philip Seymour Hoffman in front of me, one of the, Most enigmatic artist ever in terms of acting and film acting especially Can you give me some kind of rough guide to what makes you you in any kind of regard?

I just want to understand you a little bit better because in doing that and maybe this is ultimately selfish I don't know. It was rotten of me. But by doing that i'll understand Why I feel what I feel about you and I think that's a really interesting thing with those of us who love Philip Seymour Hoffman.

I want to know why I feel what I

Michael Osborne: feel about you. It's a mystery in me. It's a mystery in you. I feel the same way. There is something relatable, [00:45:00] compelling, enviable, scary, but there is something that I don't understand my reaction to you and your art that I felt like if I knew that a little bit better, I'd know me better.

And that's kind of the point, you know?

Michael Warburton: Well that's also the point of an act. We are meant to hold up a mirror to the world. It's like, hey, this is us. This might be you. This might be a bit of you. And if I've got them there in front of me with a cappuccino

Michael Osborne: That's what I'm going for. Yeah. Fuckin A. Yeah.

Alright, Michael, we've arrived.

Friend: The final category,

Michael Osborne: The Vanderbeek, named after James Vanderbeek, who famously said in Varsity Blues,

Friend: I don't want your life. Based on the

Michael Osborne: conversation we have, do you want this life? This is always hard with a young death and an unexpected death. And I want to try and remove that or zero that out because something you said in five things about fulfilling his promise, reaching his potential has really stuck with me as we've been talking about it.

Certainly as you've been. Talking about legacy. If you're given 46 [00:46:00] years on this planet, that does feel like a young death, and it's truncated, and that's awful. On the other hand, there, there is a depth and richness to what he did with his 46 years. What are your thoughts? Firstly,

Michael Warburton: we have an obsession, in my opinion, with being on this planet for as long as we can.

So what is 46 years? Is that midlife? Is that a short life? He was tragically young in terms of this human being and their capabilities and their talents and genius levels and what more they had to give us that could have informed and educated and entertained and enlightened us about ourselves. Yes, I think in that sense it was tragically young, but I think I would love to have lived his life.

You know, you were, um, open, honest earlier about recovery and stuff. I'll tell you this. I still am yet to understand and feel unconditional love. Uh, that goes to my family, my ex, uh, yada, yada, yada. I'm still yet to feel that. Philip Seymour Hoffman had that. He had that with Mimi. So he totally understood, I think, before he [00:47:00] died, and totally experienced what love is.

Artistically, I think he fulfilled that. His promise to himself as well as to us in the audience So I think he experienced things as an artist as an as a creative and therefore as a human being I look at what he achieved in his life as an actor and I just go wow to have lived That and experienced that no matter the burden no matter how difficult no matter that it kept him awake at night Even with all of that I would have wanted his life.

That was a special life, and, uh, that's where I am on it, I tell you. Yeah.

Michael Osborne: No, yeah, I, I, look, you make a very compelling case. I, I want to pick up on this, this idea of love, because we talked a lot about outcome.

Friend: As the conversation's going on, I've been thinking about, what do we mean by outcome? Outcome may be How our relationship plays out or how our lives play out.

But I think a lot of it is tied in with our [00:48:00] creativity. It's our creative output, right? And

Michael Osborne: when you look at Philip Seymour Hoffman and you see. Creative greatness, as you said at the top of the episode, like thoroughly

Friend: original this like umbilical cord of empathy

Michael Osborne: that he is able to bring you into all these characters, good, bad, evil, weird, you know, creepy sometimes, but you are along for the

Friend: ride like that is his creative output, right?

That's what he did in this life. I'm thinking now, how does that relate

Michael Osborne: to this question

Friend: of the ability to give and receive love?

Michael Osborne: I think that that's a really complicated question. I remember.

Friend: I've never quite looked at it this way before, but part of what we are doing in our lives when

Michael Osborne: we put ourselves out there

Friend: creatively is trying to express a need for love.

Is that part of your answer? Is it about giving love or receiving love or something

Michael Osborne: like that? I'll tell you one

Michael Warburton: of the things that can be the case with a lot of actors. Pretty certain it's the case with me. How do I put it? [00:49:00] The things in terms of love, the things in terms of emotions and feelings that I either can't express or have huge difficulty expressing in real life, art's the outlet.

Creativity is where I can find the outcome. Seymour Hoffman's spoke in an interview once about his kids and he was talking about how he watched them play and how much joy he got from that as an observer, as their father. He then spoke about the moment when they're playing where they let their dad in and he would join in.

and become part of whatever they were doing. I

PSH: love them unconditionally, I can safely say that. But I do say, in the moment of where they're enjoying each other and they let me enjoy them, there are moments when something else creeps in there. Mm hmm. And, and I'm not conscious of the love, I'm conscious of something else, which happens to be my own childhood.

So like, when they're loving each other and they let me enjoy them, all of a [00:50:00] sudden, it's almost like they're taking me back, and I'm going, oh God, it's so good. To be young and enjoying each other. Being a kid always takes you back to being a kid somehow. And they really are showing me a child that I might not have had in some way.

Right. By head. And I think that that's what happened to kids and it feels good. Meaning it does feel. So it is love, but it's also something else. I mean, it's love encorpses all those things I'm talking about, but if something else creeps in with it, with the children, it's, it becomes a different kind of reflection, which is of your shortcomings, your inadequacies.

You know? You're, you're, uh, you're, you're, um, in capabilities, you're, you're powerlessness, and on and on and on, which wickeds up a whole other thing.

Michael Warburton: That kind of made me think, in real life, we're great at observing, we're great, great at deducing things that we can use in our art. But it doesn't necessarily mean that we are able to use those things in real life, in everyday life.

There is a division, a split [00:51:00] between our creative imagined selves and our real selves.

Friend: Yeah, that's so interesting. I hadn't thought about it like this, but what you're describing there is a sort of interesting metaphor between performance and audience, right? You watch kids play, and then children

Michael Osborne: are great at simplifying.

Friend: The experience of being human and to hear him describe that. I mean, he, he moves from being in the audience

Michael Osborne: to sort of being a participant. I mean, let's not forget who we're talking about here, right? We're talking about somebody who

Friend: seemed to bring that division, that separation. You know, as close to

Michael Osborne: the blurry line between audience and performer as possible.

So it's an interesting moment to

Friend: draw attention to, because I do think

Michael Osborne: it's like, okay, how do I experience love then? Is it

Friend: as an observer, as a

Michael Osborne: participant and, and where am I in all this? And I think that question is hugely important when it comes

Friend: to Philip Seymour Hoffman,

Michael Osborne: because part of what this hole that's inside of him is a [00:52:00] God sized hole.

that you want to

Friend: fill with love somehow. And

Michael Osborne: how does he do that as a father? How does he do that as a, an actor? I

Michael Warburton: had a, I had a teacher at drama school, a fantastic guy. He taught the likes of Danny Deleuze and all sorts of people. And, uh, he used to say in his thick sort of Prussian accent, he used to say, he, um, all right, so you must watch children play.

You must watch them play because they play for the sake of playing. Um, and it was true that that's what children do. They just play for the sake of playing. Now I don't, I, now that's very difficult to do and we lose that obviously as we grow older. I think Philip Seymour Hoffman played his entire life.

Uh, but I, I think he did it through his art. I don't think he did it, As much as he wanted to, he just couldn't in real

Michael Osborne: life. And so despite all that, you're still a yes? Oh,

Michael Warburton: massively. His life was rich, and it was intense, and it was bold and courageous. A really great life should be as dichotomous and eclectic as [00:53:00] possible.

This guy had his troubles and travails, and some of them on an epic scale, but he didn't have Boring. His life truly was a life lived as every life should be, but fundamentally and for the most part isn't. So would I want a life like that? You bet I would. Yeah, yeah. Um, what about you? Would you? Want Philip Seymour Hoffman's life.

It's

Michael Osborne: a really, it's a really, really hard one. You look at the young death and I said, you know, zero that out. You know, I think I want to try and bring in the framing of the upward staircase that we talk about on this show. Because let's say that Philip Seymour Hoffman had not OD'd. Let's say that he had died in a plane crash.

You know, I would have said, this man climbed the upward staircase. Does the nature of his death, and the fact that, you could call it a death of despair, does it change my interpretation? It does, and it's hard not to. As somebody in recovery, and [00:54:00] somebody who thinks about what's going on. The god sized hole and the role of higher power and all that.

I have a very, very hard time removing that. There's a part of me that looks

Friend: at this life and sees, let's just say,

Michael Osborne: on the upward staircase there's a hundred stairs. I

Friend: feel like this man raced to the top. to the ninth

Michael Osborne: floor really quickly and hung out on the ninth floor for many

Friend: decades. I feel like his rocket ship of experience and creative output and of an ability to receive love and give it was of an order of magnitude that very few people ever reach.

There's something to me very

Michael Osborne: hard about the fact that

Friend: he gets to a place

Michael Osborne: where drugs and alcohol again make sense to him. What I really wish I saw in this life was A second chapter. I don't mean necessarily more movies or more roles on Broadway,

Friend: although it could have been that it's more that

Michael Osborne: I want

Friend: to [00:55:00] see that there are still stairs

Michael Osborne: to be climbed, that there are still new heights to be reached and that the disease doesn't win out.

And that's not what happened here. I really tried to not look at the nature of how someone

Friend: died on this show. In this case, it's a little too front

Michael Osborne: and center. For me to ignore. So, while I

Friend: take everything that you said to heart, and I love what

Michael Osborne: you had to say about watching children play. And what the experience of love looks like

Friend: there.

I think I'm a no. I think I'm a no, I don't want your life,

Michael Osborne: Philip Seymour Hoffman. So, I think that's where I'm at. Hmm, very hard, it's very hard. Let me say this, so, you know, you're, you're a yes, I'm a no. And on the subject of love, and how we receive love, and friendship, I think if you're, uh, a creative, like what you and I both are, Some of how we experience love is, is through how people react to [00:56:00] our art, our creative output.

And when we do that, your ass is on the line, your ego's on the line, that's what made Philip Seymour Hoffman courageous. But I also want to say, I'm really glad you and I have become friends, man. And, uh, when I was drunk, I used to be an I love you man kind of guy. Our friendship has become one of the things that is, uh, just such a surprise at this stage of my life.

And, uh, I really appreciate you making time for this conversation and for making time for me. It

Michael Warburton: really is, and you really are, um, a pleasure in my life, bro. You know, um, as soon as I can, I'll be getting on a plane and hightailing my hairy British arse over to America. Um, and I'm gonna hang out with you.

And I cannot wait for that. And I love, I also love something as stupid and daft and idiotic as social media. Um, and that particular platform has brought you and I together. It can happen. There aren't many of them,

Michael Osborne: but it's not many

Friend: of them, mostly, mostly destroying our humanity. But yeah, but [00:57:00] Osborne,

Michael Warburton: you're one of them.

You're

Michael Osborne: one of them. Thanks, man. Thanks, man. It means a lot to hear you say that.

Michael Warburton: Michael Osborne. You're Philip Seymour Hoffman, you're at the Pearly Gates, St. Peter is there, what do you

Michael Osborne: say? I'm gonna try and make this short and sweet.

Friend: I guess on some level, this is maybe more of a Buddhist idea, but I do think that we're all

Michael Osborne: suffering. But inside all of us is a raging volcano of emotion and confusion and fear and love.

My job, as I understood it, is to help. was to show just what a universal experience that is for everybody. I did that through the parts I played, and I went as far as I could go to stay present, to make that pretend exercise truthful and authentic. And I think in so doing, I provided [00:58:00] some sense of comfort, however temporary, to audiences around the world and for a generation.

transcript Emily Beynon I think that's what I was put on this earth to do, and I hope for that you'll let me in.

Friend: Thanks again to Michael Warburton for that conversation. If you're interested in supporting Michael Warburton, which I highly recommend you

Michael Osborne: do, you can do so on the platform Ko Fi. That is K O F I. I'll link to it in the show notes. Michael Warburton spends a lot of his time posting things on social media, and this is a way to support somebody who, overall, is trying to amplify the arts, and to be something of a pop culture historian.

So, we're really big fans at Famous Gravy, and we encourage you to support him there.

Friend: Famous and Gravy listeners, we want to hear from you. We need people to participate in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity. You can email us [00:59:00] at hello at famous and

Michael Osborne: gravy. com.

Friend: If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends.

You can find us on Twitter X Facebook, LinkedIn, and threads.

Michael Osborne: Our handle is at famous and gravy. We also have a newsletter, which you

Friend: can sign up for

Michael Osborne: on our website, famous and gravy. com.

Friend: Amos and Grevy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Megan Palmer. Original theme music by Kevin Strang.

Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time.