Ally Pankiw Used to Be Funny
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You had to jump through some hoops to get me in this movie because, not because, I said I would sweep the floors. I was in. But you, it was like a weird Canadian financing thing. Oh, Canada is so stupid. I mean, that's the hell I'm going to die on. I would say your movie is lighthearted, all laughs, no trigger warnings, nothing weird happens. Nothing, no nothing. We didn't have a scene that we called the bad thing.

That was like literally on the schedule as like the bad thing. Today we're shooting the bad thing. Well, I remember... Wait, have we just started? Are we rolling? Yeah. It's real easy over here. I remember the day that we were filming that, that...

Rachel was in there journaling and getting ready to be emotional. Yeah, she's a very technical, skilled, dramatic actress. She's a very talented actor. Yeah, not playing around. And Sabrina and I walk in with coffees like, ba-da-ba-ba-ba! Come on, who wants to... Literally doing clown routines. That was also the day we wrapped you guys. And in the courthouse when we wrapped Sabrina being like, that's a...

you know, a rap on Sabrina. She like stood up on the like courthouse, like benches and like was going to do like a speech. Yeah. And we were like, no, no, no. Like we have to make our day and Rachel has to continue to cry. So like you have to go. Like,

We have to like de-rig you and you have to go give back your wardrobe and you have to go. And you know what? I wouldn't change a thing about Sabrina. Oh, me neither. I'm addicted to her. That's our girl. You and I made a movie together. It's really true and crazy. It'll come out when we put this episode out. It'll be out in... This episode comes out June 6th, I believe. That is the day that it opens in New York. It opens in New York. And then...

And also in Canadian cities. And then June 14th is when it opens in LA and a bunch of other American cities. And it also opens in London at the Rio Cinema on June 7th, I think. That's so cool. It's pretty cool. It's pretty crazy. I remember when you sent me the script for the movie. So you made a movie called I Used to Be Funny. It's true. And you put me in it because I begged. No, I didn't know you very well at that point. And I kept casually bringing up

a film and then one day I finally was like, could you read, would you read for one, would you be in it? You sent me the script and I remember exactly where I was. I was at, uh, I was at the ambassador hotel in Chicago and I read it at my little desk and I sobbed because you wrote ultimately a pretty sad movie. Yeah, it is a drama. People are like, people are like, oh, you know, like,

I think people think it's going to be a very different thing than it is. Yeah. Yeah. You put funny in the title. It's like all comedians. Yeah. Yeah. But as we know, comedians are the saddest people on earth. Famously. Have I ever told you what my dad said when I told him about my depression in college? No. I told you this? I told him I was feeling very depressed in college, like my most depressed ever. Shout out. And I decided to call my dad, who's very mentally ill. Yeah. Yeah.

And I was telling him about my depression and I told him all about it. I was like, dude, I just feel like I don't know what I'm doing and this just feels so overwhelming. And I did this long speech about my depression and then his response was, he goes, you know what it reminds me of? That painting, Tears of a Clown. Like...

It's so like trite and it's such a trope, but it's like, but it's real. It's real. It's so real. Comedians are out here being sad. It's the great terafini. Yeah. That whole joke being like, you know what the cure is. Go and see the famous terafini. But doctor. But doctor. What's the reveal? Caleb, you know it. I am the great terafini. Exactly. Do you feel well? Do you think you're well? Yeah. Okay. Strangely. Oh, okay. I don't know.

Isn't that stupid? That's good. I like that. Someone, I was one time in a group and we were all talking about giving our mental health like a rating. And I accidentally was honest and was like, I don't know. I don't ever really feel like

below like unless something terrible happens then of course I feel like shit but on a day-to-day average I'm like I'm like I don't know if I dip lower than like a bb plus and everyone was like you're a fucking bitch like they were like get out and I was like yeah and I was like I feel very lucky I feel very grateful I have like anxiety obviously because I'm a woman yeah

And then, but I, yeah, I feel very lucky that I'm not struggled with like depression in my life. I literally, thank you for feeling safe to come out to me, by the way. I did not know you were a woman until now. Oh. I had never considered, I don't, I don't see gender. I'm very genderless. Oh yeah. And also like, it's hard to believe that I'm a woman because of what I do. Yeah. Well, hold on. She's a director, but she's a girl. She's a girl director. Yeah.

Who holds the camera? Someone the other day was like, but you're too short to reach the camera. In like a fun, in a fun flirty way. No, in a fun flirty way. Fun flirty way. Did you hook up with them? Yes. Oh, no.

Let's go. And I went, I love being talked about as tiny. A lesbian friend of ours texted me the other day and was like, hey, I think I'm going to be at the same concert as you with this guy I've been seeing. And I went, guy? Guy. And they went, trans. And I went, oh, thank God. Okay, lead with that. Lead with that. Thank God.

Let me know. Cause I can't be worried about that. I was gonna, I was thinking about my so true and I was going to do something that had to do with bisexuality. And then I went, I can't be arguing with like 23 year olds on the internet. So I'm going to instead rally against all scientific, um,

sort of progress because that felt safer than talking about bisexual people. Well, Ally Pinky, what is so true to you? No, no, we should wait. You want to save it? Yeah, let's save it. We'll just tease them a little bit. We're edging y'all for Ally's so true. Yeah, I mean, we obviously can't talk about the bisexual community. They've mobilized. There's a lot I want to talk about in my personal life about so true and we can offline about it, but I don't want to get in trouble. Do you think my fans would ever do political...

like violence for me on, on your behalf. Yeah. Like for example, if I got on Instagram live and I was like, Kayla birdies, Kayla lesbians, it's time for political violence. Do you think they would violate maybe like four people just for, but that's all you need. You might need more. I think if four people are willing to do something really fucking nuts, that's all you need. Yeah. That's really beautiful. I've never thought about it that way. Yeah. I have at least, I have at least one fan I know of that would do whatever I ask.

Yeah. I'm starting to get scared by her. Me too. Yeah. I don't even have a podcast. And I'm like, there's one person that I think would do something really fucked up for me. Yeah. We just know by the amount of Instagram stories you get tagged in, you go, this is someone who would do violence for me. And you like to have those things in the back of your head in case it ever becomes necessary. I think so.

Wait, I have something I want to say or ask. Why don't we, I think we should give, this is coming, okay, so this is coming out the day of the New York premiere of the movie. Oh, we should talk about it. We should talk about the movie. But there's so many other things I want to talk about. What is your like, if you had to give a pitch to people listening, because it's going to show in a bunch of US cities. We're going to 25 cities? Yes, and also it'll be in Kansas City where you're from. It'll be in Kansas City at Screenland Armor, which is pretty fun. We love Screenland. Yeah.

Yeah, but what is your pitch to get them to go see the movie? Okay, my pitch is I think that they're – I'll be like a little bit serious and then I'll do like a fun one. Yeah, let's do like a director doing your job one and then let's play around. And then let's do a silly one. Yeah. Okay, so I think in terms of what the film is actually about, it's about recovery, it's about PTSD. Yeah.

And I just, I found as like a filmmaker, but also like a consumer of media and like stories about women, anything that had to do with like violence against women, about recovery, about trauma was very much like, okay, like the cure, the sort of, I don't know, the way that you'll feel better women and society is like,

revenge, retribution, vengeance, justice. Like it was all tied to this very sort of like male idea of like winning. And it's like, that's not what recovery is. And, or it was like, it's pure devastation and you won't have a life after like,

a trauma happens. And I was like, I think the truth is so much more in the middle and it's a much larger gray area. And the way we talk about trauma and recovery as young women is so much more nuanced.

And we're like funny about it a lot of the time because you sort of have to be in order to survive. And so, yeah, just stories about the true ups and downs. And I think like ripple effects of trauma and the lifelong sort of uphill battle to recover from trauma like weren't being told. And I just thought that was a shame because I thought it was like such a relatable thing. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I think people should go see it because of that.

No, I think it's very present in the movie. Yeah, there's this... I think punishment is a thing that we're obsessed with as a society and punishing people who have hurt us and re-inflicting pain on people who have pained us. And I think this movie not focusing on how we're going to hurt the bad guy or the person who inflicted the pain or whatever, but more like this reconciliation between...

Yeah, the people who actually matter, which is like the people who survived the thing, you know? Yeah, and also to like...

just how many different relationships, whether that's like intergenerationally trauma touches or just like how they can move out also like laterally in terms of like the ripple effects of trauma and how many different people one sort of act of violence can affect. And yeah, I don't know. I just think it just so many different ways

aspects of life, the ways in which women like young women and young people and queer people like talk to each other about this shit. It's just not reflected in a lot of media and a lot of pop culture. It's always like, yeah, heavily like dramatized. And they can't do when they do try to do the, like the, like jokey, like we'll be, we'll be, uh,

nonchalant about it at certain times they can't do it true they can't do it authentically because they're not us it's like old straight white guys trying to write the way that queer people and women and femme people talk about trauma is like you can never fully get the joke right because you're not us and you just can't do it and even sometimes we get it wrong and not right and then you have to like

dial something back or push it further. Like, you get so many different chances in a film. Like, you do it on the page and then when it's in people's mouths and you're rehearsing or you're doing the table read, you're like, ooh, that felt bad. Cut.

Hey, that one didn't work. No worries. And then something that does work at the table read, you like are actually in the scene and you're like, oh wait, I think we actually now have a little bit more room to push this a little bit further because now that we're in this like real environment or whatever, someone has brought a character more fully to life or like you've brought like such a specific character

singular like comedic voice to your character it's like oh we can like take this somewhere else so yeah you're always and then in the edit too you go oh that thing that was really funny on set it's not working cut cut cut and so you know like you have a thousand opportunities to get that right but like again yeah if you

are approaching it I think with like lived experience you can feel those things when they're on and off and then when someone who doesn't have a lived experience makes something you can feel it and then it's like you know I have a serious pitch for the movie go on this is my serious pitch where I used to be funny okay the beautiful film that you wrote and directed and put me in you're so good in it by the way

everyone caleb is like an incredible actor no no you're you're so i can't wait for you to win your oscar not for my movie but like for your own and when you're like doing all kinds of incredible things well that brings me to my pitch and this is my pitch for the alley pink you written and directed feature i used to be funny hey y'all please go see this movie

Please. I need to be cast in more stuff. Yes. And it can't just be Allie. She's pulling a lot of the weight right now. But I need y'all to go see this movie. And if you can, just write on Letterboxd and on the internet, we love Caleb in this. We don't care that he's fat. Please put him in more movies. God, God, God, can he act? I need you guys to go crazy in the reviews. Please go see this movie and write about how great I am in it. Thanks, y'all. I agree.

I agree. You actually had to jump through some hoops to get me in this movie because, not because, I said I would sweep the floors. I was in. But you, it was like a weird Canadian financing thing. Oh, Canada is so stupid. I mean...

That's the hill I'm going to die on. That's the hill I'm going to die on. No, I love Canada so much. It's like obviously a great, more slightly more socialist place. It has lots of issues as well still, but you know, it, it, it has universal healthcare and no guns and that's nice. But,

in terms of our entertainment industry it's a very risk adverse place and they do things in a very antiquated way sometimes and they have a really weird hang up about like mixing American and Canadian talent they're like but we'll take away a role from a Canadian actor and I'm like yeah but if it's like a better American actor and a more known American actor then

And then they're in a movie with a bunch of Canadian actors. Then it helps all those other Canadian actors. Rising tide. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we had some trouble getting you approved because Rachel was already in the film and she's American. And then we were like, can you please just, it's a very specific role. It's like someone who's,

both like who's gay who um is a stand-up and also is a great dramatic actor and like we auditioned all of those in Canada and like we we lined up every f***ing who's touched a microphone um

And you were the person that we wanted. And we were like, he's going to make the film better. And please let us have him. Making a movie is so hard. It's so hard. It is so hard. Caleb, it's so hard. And you wrote this movie, what, 10 years ago now? I started writing it in 2012, 2013. And then I wasn't actively trying to get it made that entire time. I was doing a bunch of other stuff to kickstart the old career. But I am...

I, yeah, it then only started, it only got a producer in 2017. And that's when we really started to try and get funding attached. And then it was like 2018, 2019 was like funding cycles. 2019, we finally had our funding and then we were supposed to shoot it in 2020. And then you know what happened in 2020. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. COVID. Yeah, COVID. Fuck, I almost forgot about it. Well, I took... I was like, it's only affecting me and my film. And then, of course, everything on Earth shut down. So I stopped taking it personally. And then we came back in 2021 and then shot at the very end of 2021, as you know, and it was cold in Toronto. And then we...

Did post in 2022, but we like missed the deadlines for like 2022 festival submissions. So then it didn't come out in a festival until 2023, which was South by, which was like so great. But then it should have come out in theaters last fall, but because of the strikes, like no one could promote it. So now it's like, it's like 11 years later, it's going to be in theaters. And I,

I always go like, you know, it's a testament to like tenacity and like just stick with it. But I'm also like, no, it's so tired. Don't try and make films. Get out of here. Young filmmakers run. I don't know. Start a podcast. No. Definitely start a podcast. Make some money in the background, baby. I'm telling you. It really isn't... I mean, that's been also my career, by the way. I started...

end of December 2019 I got managers like February March of 2020 I got agents and then there was COVID for a long time so my first writers rooms were on Zoom and then we came out of it and we were like okay what are we doing and then historic double strike oh it's it's a joke and then also just the fact that like every company is like

It's cannibalizing itself, like eating – it's like Pac-Man with like streamers and production companies and it's like no one knows what they're making anymore, what they want to make. And like it used to be like, oh, this company makes this kind of stuff. And so like if I want to make this, I could go – and now –

There's no industry. Everybody's looking for something different all the time. That was also going to be my so true being like, could we have an industry again? I love having an industry. Bring that back. I would love to bring back the industry. What happened to the industry? My favorite thing that I will say right now going on in Hollywood for like the last year and a half is that it keeps getting pushed. What people, cause there's always the whispers, you know, you go to coffee with someone and they go, I talked to an exec at Hulu and they said, and it's 2025. My cousin is fucking so-and-so at HBO. And they said, 2026 it's on. Like,

Like it just keeps getting pushed. I'm getting old. Allie. I am. Well, for a female director, I'm actually incredibly young, but for every other thing, I'm very old. I want to talk about that. Okay. So you're a girl, but you're a director. How does that, so what is, how many boys have to help? So many boys. Honestly, like it's every set is Tim, Tom, Mark, Mike, Aaron, Matt.

Dylan Dilfred. It's not Dilfred. The amount of times I have to like try and make up like

Little like tricks in my mind, like memory tricks to be like all of these white men in cargo shorts. Like, how am I going to differentiate? Like that one's curly. That one's longer cargo shorts. Like, no, um, I, you know that I try and hire so many other people than straight white men on my sets, but still there's a lot of them. Yeah. There's a lot of them to make a movie. I've been pretty lucky. I've pretty much only I've my, uh,

my first two seasons of TV, I wrote for a female showrunner. The first two features I did were female directors. The first... I'm like, who's the other female? Name her. Name her. Jordan Weiss, your time is up, honey. Yeah,

Yeah, when I did Fargo, we had a female director. I've been really lucky to work with mostly women. So I know that things are not changing statistically at the rate they should. Oh, the pie charts are... And you're sharing them. Oh, I'm sharing those infographics every year. One thing about Ali, if I get on Instagram, I'm going to see a pie chart. You're going to see a pie chart, yeah. Thank God, because I read it and I go, no one else is saying this. Well, the problem is everyone is saying it every year. It's like the number of...

Female directors. And it's, and I have to obviously acknowledge like the statistics are even worse for like female directors of color and queer female directors. But like, yeah, the pie chart doesn't change. Like we talk all the time in our industry about representation and like, how do we fix this and initiatives and programs? And it's like, but it does, it doesn't get better. And if anything, it like backslides and then they just make films about like

Wouldn't it be so cool if a woman did a big action movie? But we don't actually do that. We make movies and stories about things changing, but it's still the people making those changes

pieces of pop culture and telling those stories are the same big, big chunk of the pie chart. I think one thing that would help, you've got a really cool initiative where you have young directors, female directors of color come and shadow you on your sets and you do this really big program. I want to start a program that I think would also help, which is that every, I think like every quarter. I can't tell if you're going to be silly or serious. Every quarter they should let me kill. Yeah.

A prestige male director. Oh, can you start with Michael Bay? Yeah, I think that would be perfect. No, no, no, no, no. Roman Polanski. Yeah, I'll do them all. I mean, I think it would be nice. I would like to get through all of them, but I think it would be like a nice tribute. No, no, no, Woody Allen. There's too many. That's actually probably the easiest. Like we can all get on board. Well, I mean, you just have to tip him over gently and he'd break the head off.

But I think it would be beautiful because it would be an act of service on their part that they would go, I'm going to die next for female directors. Well, you know what is so crazy is like they don't even have to die. They could just speak up for the fact that like it is so embarrassing that our industry, the sector of our industry is like so, so bad and so antiquated. Like those statistics are embarrassing. If you're like, if you're Martin Scorsese, if you're like any of these like fame, if you're

You know, now I can't think of any male directors. The think of a man challenge. Name one man for a dollar. I like Taika Waititi. Anyone. I actually don't want to call him out because I think he does interesting initiatives in other ways. But just any male directors, how are you not looking at your group of peers in your chosen field and going...

That's not what it should look like. Even people in finance and who work at banks are like, women shouldn't only be 11% of the people who are allowed to work at banks. And I think the rate of the percentage of female directors working at a certain level in our industry is like it oscillates between like 7% and 12% or something like that. That's really bad. You don't have to die, but maybe you have to do something within the DGA, within your union. Maybe you have to like...

actually try to give

other people opportunities. - A shot. - And yeah, and mentor people that don't look like you. Like that's why I'm trying to like, when I mentor people, I'm like, I can't use privilege as a woman or as like a queer person, but I can use my white privilege and I can like try and help someone who's like statistic is even shittier than mine, right? And it's like male directors could have been doing that for the last century, but they haven't.

And that's why I think my plan is needed. I, I, okay. I want to talk less about those guys and more about you as a director. Cause I, obviously it's not a secret. I think, I just think you're a genius and I absolutely adore everything you do. Say more about that. Yeah. What about that though? I do. I think you're a brilliant director and I think everything you do is gold and you just did an episode of black mirror. Yeah. You, you have this feature. You've, you've directed so many cool things. What do you think the directors, like in your opinion, what is the director's job? Cause

Because there's so many different tasks, but what is the director's job? The director's job is to really, truly, this is a bit cheesy, but just be a North Star for the tone and the feel of something and try and make sure that everything aligns with that cohesive vision or understanding of something. And...

I think so much of it is misunderstood because I think so much of directing is thought of as like what happens on set and it's like 99% of how you prep for being on set. So I think your job also as a director is to like

really be prepared like that's maybe the more like pragmatic boring answer but you do need to like not be floundering you do need to have answers for a bunch of different departments and a bunch of different people and you need to like do your own work and you need to have your own answers and you know

for whatever reason you come up with them, you have to believe in them so that when people are looking for guidance, you can give it to them and not be like so frustrating and make other people's jobs harder. Because if you don't know what you want, whether or not it's like right or wrong or, you know, whatever, but if you don't know what you want, you're going to make someone who has a much harder job than you, you're going to make their day on set so much fucking worse. Like if you didn't think about what props you needed that day,

And like and then someone you know art department they're incredible. They'll go and like make anything in the back of their truck. They'll figure it out. But like if you're like oh you know what I forgot to say that like yeah we do need like a backpack and like obviously the backpack you know it like has a mouth that opens and teeth and like I forgot to say that. And they're like they're like yeah no we can do that. And they go and like make it for you. But if you like

That's like a stupid example. But you just need to give people a heads up and you need to give them as much time as you can possibly give them because production is so hard and it's like being in the trenches of war and your job is to...

try and lighten the load of every other department, including actors, like including having thought about scenes and story and character motivation and actually having helpful answers for actors instead of just being like bigger or like throw it away. You know, like you really, I think, need to break down your scripts and like understand why you're telling a story. Yeah.

That's your job is to help other people. Yeah. I don't know. That was not the most articulate answer. It was very articulate. I was thinking when you were saying that about how...

I have been reading a lot about directing recently and also talking to you because I'm directing my first short film soon. Did you get the book that I sent you the screenshot of? I did get the book you sent me the screenshot of and a couple other ones too. But I like... We'll link to the book. Welcome to the book, honey. It's time to learn. But what you were saying about preparation is like this is the thing I've read the most of probably is like it is so much about what happens before you get on set and it's the difference between getting the shot that's the easiest because you didn't prep versus getting the shot that is actually the best.

If you make that decision beforehand without the high octane, like, we got to get it now because it's time. Well, it is because you are, like, literally in the trenches when you're on set and everything will change. Like, you need... Well, but you also, like, prepare to pivot. Like, that's also my, like, top saying is...

you won't nothing will go to plan or like very little will actually go to the exact plan that you prepared for to the letter but that's why you have to have all these answers on a bigger sort of like scale because all of a sudden when you're setting up a shot and you're like fuck that bookshelf doesn't fit or fuck like

She can actually walk from there to there because of X, Y, or Z. Like you need to be able to pivot and you need to know why you're pivoting. And like if she's going to move in this way, like why would her character do that? You need to actually have that answer. So the pivot that you're making makes sense and isn't just doesn't feel like it's coming, you know, out of left fields or isn't motivated. Yeah.

I have a question. Okay. If you could, you were talking about earlier being like, oh, I'd love to direct like a Mad Max Fury Road type of thing at some point. If you could snap your fingers right now and get all the funding and support in the world for any project. Yeah. Then just, they're, the money people were going to be like. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like literally drooling. Yeah. But the money people were like, yeah, it doesn't matter. You can attach whoever you want. You can do it. You can make the thing. What is the thing you would start making tomorrow? Um,

Okay. This is dreamland. Yeah. This is like... Yeah. If a billionaire is watching and they just really believe, this is like dreamland. Okay. Well, I do... I have... My next film is like a big, fun, queer, like lesbian breakup rom-com. And I want to make like Charlize Theron and...

Rachel McAdams kiss. So just like pushing Barbies. You guys kiss now. No, but I think like doing something, a lot of the stuff I make is very sort of like,

small and quiet and contained and like doing like a big just fun classic I think rom-com I'm thinking of that because again I am like my imagination is even so pragmatic I'm like well that script's written so we could go to camera tomorrow but you're like no like actually use your imagination um I would love to do like a big action comedy to like like

like spy or like the fall guy or something like that. Um, I would like to do something in the world of espionage. Um, I would like to make things like blow up and like spend, you know, months like rehearsing a stunt and then get like one take of it. Like Tom Cruise sending that fucking train off of the cliff for real. Um,

Crazy. I want to be a psychopath. I want to be something that we could have done a much easier way. I want to do it the hardest, most practical, in terms of practical effects way. Yeah. You want to do it real. I want to Michael Bay it. He one time made people jump off of a skyscraper in those wing suits and they had to, I think for insurance reasons, shut down 18 city blocks because they didn't know where they'd blow in the squirrel suits.

That's filmmaking, baby. And that's film. That's film, baby. But I'm like, I don't know, doing something where you're like shutting down a whole fucking city to shoot a dumb car chase sequence. Like that's the dream. Yeah, that is the dream. I want you to do that. Thank you. I think I'm going to call, I'm going to start calling financiers. I mean,

I'm going to say hey. I have a better answer that's more real. Like, I have films that I've written that I'm like, oh, they're so meaningful to me and they're such personal stories and yeah, I'd love to, but this is the more fun answer. But you'll get those, man. I think, yeah, we should dream. Have you seen...

I believe it's called Disobedient or Disobedience. The Rachel McAdams lesbian movie. Of course. I mean, she's hot and everything, but good God. I mean, yeah. Good God. That's my lesbian review of the movie. Good God. Five stars. Letterboxd. Put Caleb here in the Disobedient sequel. Put me in there, please.

I saw that. I saw, I did a double header at TIFF the year that came out of that movie. And then the Vince Vaughn brawl in cell block 99 movie. Did you ever see that? I can't say that I did. It was, it's, it's like a very dramatic role for him, but he, it's, it's psycho nuts. And watching them back to back was like whiplash. I mean, it was like the gayest and straightest thing I've ever done in a row.

And I had a blast with it. I can't recommend highly enough. Okay. Well, do you want to go to TIFF this year together and try and find like a gay and a straight double feature? Yes. I love TIFF. The first time I went to TIFF was right after college. I started working for a nonprofit in Chicago, which was awesome because then I was making no money. And...

Yeah. That was like the first 10 years of my career. Yeah. I got a degree to make no money. Yeah. And, uh, but they, the one cool thing is I didn't have a passport cause I'd never traveled internationally and they were like, you got to get a passport. We'll pay for it to get expedited cause you have to go to Toronto for training cause they were headquartered in Toronto. And you definitely know this, this, uh, this nonprofit. Um,

but they sent me to Toronto and it happened that my training, my onboarding for that job was during TIFF. So during the day I would go to my stupid little job sessions and then at night I would just go watch every movie I could at TIFF and I'd never been to a film festival and I truly was just walking around Toronto like... It is magic. It's so magic. It's magic. It's beautiful. I...

grew up in like the tundras of Alberta Alberta Canada and I was from a very small place and I moved to Toronto for university and yeah I got there like right before well it was the start of the school year but it was also TIFF and I was like this is magic yeah it's mad you went to Ryerson yeah well the school formerly known as Ryerson Ryerson is a colonizer bad oh really yeah yeah so they changed it to I think

Maybe Toronto like Metropolitan School or something. Whoa. Good on them. Yeah. Yeah. Canada's history with colonizing bad. They're not doing good stuff up there. Oh no. It's real real bad. I'm glad that down here we never did anything. I'm so glad that it's safe here. Yeah. I like that America steered clear of all that noise. I look at Canada and I go why would you guys do that? We didn't do that over here. No. It's

I'm ashamed to say that I'm a Canadian. That's why I sort of escaped here. Being Canadian is ultimately so cool. It's nice.

I feel like it's like, it is nice. And I'm magnetized to other Canadians here in the States. Like, you'll meet someone at a party and then, you know, be like, we're really hitting it off. And then 10 minutes later, you're like, oh, you're also from Canada. And a lot of my, like, close friends and collaborators down here even are, like, people that happen to also be Canadian. But...

But it is like there's no like the industry there like really just there's like such a hard short ceiling on what you can do there and what you can make there. I want to say something about what you just said, which is that a lot of your closest collaborators are Canadians. But in a bigger way, something I really admire about you. It's a long list.

But something I really admire about you is... I just smiled into the ether. I went... Ah, go on. I went... No, there are many, many things. But one thing I admire about you as an artist is you really bring your friends along. Like you really... When you were making your movie, you could have put anyone in my role. You put me in it and believed in me even though I hadn't had a movie gig. You put Sabrina Jalise who's an old friend of yours in it. And Sabrina's great. But...

But you, Ames. But? Sabrina's great, but I mean, come on. No, I love you, Sabrina. No, but I mean, just like, you really bring your buddies along. Ames Besada did the score, the composing for the movie. They also did my Black Mirror episode. A bunch of your other projects, yeah. So you really bring your buddies along, and I think that is so cool, because you could just as easily not. Well, people say this, and they're like, thank you for the job, and I'm like, what?

I'm not like altruistic. Like I wouldn't bring my buddies along if they weren't good. Like if my friends were bad at what they did, I wouldn't be like, and an opportunity for you, you know, like a job for you. I'm just like really lucky. Like I have really talented friends. And, but I also think like, there's this like weird myth, I think when you're

Because we sort of touched on this earlier, but this like the myth of like, oh, like your first thing is an overnight success or like, no, it's like we like you toil away for years and years and years making no money, especially if you want to be like a filmmaker or an actor or comedian or whatever. And then...

Certain things happen and they feel like your sort of first break, but they're really long along the like line of the timeline of your career. You know, they're not like in the first little quadrant. They're towards the middle or the end when things start hitting. And so like.

In those early years, I think I had this weird fantasy of like, I'll meet like Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow. And they're like a, you know, collaborative group of friends who are making cool shit. And they'll want to work with me. And then I'll start making shit with them. And it's like, no, like that's not how things work. It's like you become your own little group of collaborators and you rise together. And so...

Like... You should take your own claim. Yeah. This is the stuff we do. It's like, you're my Seth Rogen. Or however. Sorry, Seth. However you like to. I'm like Rachel. Senate is my Wesley man. Honestly. Honestly. Yeah. Not far. But like, no, it's this thing of you...

You start. This is the advice I always give young filmmakers is like start making shit with your friends, like people that you think are talented and funny and have the same taste as you. Like if your tastes align and you start making shit together, you'll rise together and then you'll you'll be that group of collaborative collaborators. You'll be that group of artists like you're not going to just like magically be like lifted out of where you are into this.

other community or this other sort of era specific group of artists like you will if you're wise you'll do that with your own

like group of like-minded artists. That's good advice for young comedians too, starting out. I think there's a temptation to try and network way above your head. Network within 10 degrees of where you are. Those people are going to be annoyed with you. What are you talking about? They're going to be like, get away from us. Yeah. And so like, do it with your friends. Like, and, and yeah, you know, like someone like Ames, who's an incredible composer. Like I started hiring them on like my short films, like way, like,

like eight, 10 years ago. And, and so it's not just like, oh, you know, out of nowhere when I did a feature, I just like gave this person a chance. It's like, no, I've been working with them for a really long time. Yeah. We were both making like much dumber shit 10 years ago, but yeah, I don't know. It's, and someone like Kayla Lorette, who's like this really incredible improviser and comedian and actress from Canada, um,

I've been watching her do improv like since I was like 22 years old in Toronto and I've always wanted to cast her in something and I've cast her in like little commercials like over the years. And then when I did Joan is awful like I was able to put her in that and it's like.

Yeah, this is someone that I've known and collaborated with for a really long time. Or like Jared Goldstein, who was also in my Black Mirror episode. The first thing we ever worked on together was, it's not on my reel or my website, but it was a Mountain Dew commercial about...

spicy fried chicken and he was dressed up in like a massive chicken costume and I had like you know like loved his stand-up and he had auditioned for like some stuff for me and then he like booked this commercial and I remember on set it was such a fucking hot day and he was in this like massive chicken suit and I was like I

I promise I'll cast you in like something real one day. But for now, this is what we're doing together. You're in the chicken suit, brother. You're in the chicken suit. And I mean, he did a great job. But yeah, cluck, cluck, motherfucker. But and then, you know, and I didn't even remember that. But he like reminded me of me saying that to him when we did Black Mirror together. And it's like...

Yeah, like, the people, hopefully, that your tastes align with early on when you're, like, finding your voice as an artist, as a filmmaker, like, they'll still be people you respond to and love and who, like, and your tastes will align with them as you grow, you know, and, like, get to make bigger stuff. So...

I've just been lucky that I have funny, talented friends. That is so true. Sabrina included. Sabrina for real included. Sabrina for real included. Sabrina for real included, title of the episode. That is so true. Ally Pinky, what is so true to you? Okay, so like I said, I could do so many personal things that would get me in trouble with young queer people on the internet, but I won't. I don't have it in me to fight with 17 to 24-year-olds. But...

And I also just don't understand the interface of TikTok, so I wouldn't be able to fight with them even if I wanted to. You're like zooming in on an iPad. You're like, Siri, reply. This is not true. You're doing the mom on vacation Zoom with the big... This actually leads into my so true. So I thought, yeah, less of a minefield to rally against all scientific progress than bisexual actresses. Okay. So...

Okay. Why so true is like science does need to cool it for like a second. Yeah. Okay. Say that. Say that, queen. Okay. What? Exactly. I think you're going to like come around to what I'm saying in a second. Okay. But like...

Okay. Healthcare, medicine, climate, keep going with those things. Like, of course, science do progress there. But vaccines stop. But the vaccine, hard stop. No, but okay. This isn't fully formed, but we'll go on a ride together. But I think that in the same way that

There were generations of people that like they did not have phones. And then all of a sudden they were in their 50s and there were telephones and they were like, what? And then like my baba, my grandmother, my Ukrainian grandmother, like her whole life, there was no such thing as email. And then and then there was like email and she had to be like,

what's email and she never had an email address and she just like died never having an email address or a computer she vibed it out until the end she vibed it out until the end but I'm like there are going to be things like that for our generation and I don't want that I don't want that

Like I don't want to be in my 70s and then all of a sudden time travel. Yeah. Or all of a sudden like or like you know how now they're getting like they're making clothes that are just digital clothes for people to just wear online. Yeah. I'm like that's going to be my email. Yeah. Like I don't want those things. You're never going to wear a digital sweater. No I don't think so. And I'm going to get left behind in those ways in the same way that like

just some people were like, I'm never going to learn email. Yeah. I don't know. And I'm like, couldn't we just like cool it on that kind of stuff for a while? Yeah. I think they, I think that people who, I think before like 2003, if you were an old person who was anti-technology, you were just ignorant. Yeah. Everything after that, I'm like, no, we legitimately reached critical mass of evil. We have to, I said we should have stopped at the Blackberry.

The Blackberry should have been the end of the phone endeavor. But this is what... Yeah, like, I'm like, in terms of, like, entertainment communication type stuff, like, it is rotting our brains. Like, we know this. We know that there's going to be just, like...

terrible damage done to young people's brains in terms of like social media and this does make me sound so old and I understand that but I'm like but that's what I'm saying we should stop is like stop making new stuff so that everyone continues to be out of touch in each new decade and can't we just have sort of like like

just the internet, it can stay what it is now. Do we need to be like going into the metaverse and like buying Rick Owens, like jeans, but that are just, they're not real. Yeah. Do you understand? Yeah. You're like, yeah,

You're like, if I'm out of touch, I'm taking everybody down with me. Sort of. Yeah, 100%. Sort of. Dude, I'm over it. The other night, me and two of my friends. We can just calm down for a little bit. You have already won me over. I'm on your team. Me and two of my friends went out the other night. None of us took our phones.

And we went, we drove to, we drove from Hollywood to Highland Park. We just kind of guessed that the directions of where we were going, we didn't have tickets on our phone for the concert we were going to. We had to ask directions to get to the restaurant we wanted to go to from like people on the street. I have never felt so alive. And I, I tried, I wanted to coin the evening. I wanted to call it the unplugged gentlemen's club and they didn't like that. Well,

It sounds a little bit like... The Unplugged Gentleman's Club. I know, but I thought that's kind of fun. It sounds a little bit striped tight. Yeah, you put like 30% irony in it and then the other 70% is like, it is fun to have a name. But okay.

So we went, we spent the whole night without a phone and I had to like meet up with my friend at this concert and be like, hey, I don't have my phone on me. So what bar are you going to later? We'll try to catch you. Like it was so, I really want to find a way to get rid of my phone. I hate, I hate, I hate. I think like I'm okay with my phone as is, but I, well, I'm not actually fine with it. Like it does ruin my life all the time. I want to throw it in the ocean. But like, I just mean like,

We now have just things are advancing so rapidly where it used to be like, okay, there was the telephone and then a hundred years later there was the internet. But now it's like every year there's something crazy that we're going to... Yeah, people are going to get like left behind. And they won't stop building those fucking robots that can flip. Stop building those. Turn those off. I'm like, there is...

like there is a point where it's like I don't think this is like necessarily making anything better anymore no they don't need to be able to flip it's insane they're like teaching they're teaching the robots parkour and it's like that's only gonna make them better at warfare there's no other reason he would need to jump off a cliff and survive he wouldn't need to or like I know okay I know there's like gonna come a day I'm gonna be like a grandmother okay if like I know

I can't wait for that day. Well, it'll, there'll be our grandchildren. Yeah. Yeah. We're destined to sort of raise children together. I've got it on the record. Um, but, uh, it's like, I'll have like a grandson or something and, and society will have like figured out how to like talk to dolphins. Yeah. Like, and dolphins, like they have syntax and they have sentence structure. Like they have a language. We just don't know how to translate it yet. And like,

Like, I don't know. My grandson will have like a dolphin friend or like, God forbid, a fiance.

Do you know what I mean? And I'll be like... Did you say, God forbid, fiancé? A fiancé. Like, I don't know. No! Dolphins will be able to be like, yeah, hey, we're basically humans. Not dolphin fiancé. They'll be like, we'll be like communicating with other species and they'll be like, we are consenting adult dolphins and we have relationships with humans or something crazy will... You know something crazy is going to happen with science? That like...

That we are like not ready for. And then all have to be like, I'm okay with that. And I won't be. Yeah.

Here's what I'm going to tell you. No matter what happens with technology, I think you're allowed to think your grandson should not be fucking dolphins. Oh, I think that it would be sort of more of like a long distance online relationship. Oh, okay. I have a so true for me. My so true inspired by what you were just saying. I don't care about animals. I don't want dogs to get hurt or anything. Don't hurt dogs. Don't hurt cats. But when people go, you know, elephants are as smart as us. I go, who cares? Yeah.

Well, but see, you're going to have to. You're going to be 80. You're going to be like, leave me alone to the world. And then they're going to be like elephants. They're going to be... Elephants will just be talking to humans. I'm not listening. Okay, well... I'll keep... I'll say we're better than you. I don't... We just did things better. They didn't create anything as cool as we did. They do good like sort of end of life ceremonies and they really respect their dead. Yeah, but even that's like...

You know, it's like I don't have time to respect the dead. I'm busy doing real stuff. Yeah. You know? At that point, I'm like, yeah, throwing my phone in the ocean. But... I do hate weddings and funerals too. Oh, like you could just do away with those entirely? If I never had to go to a wedding or a funeral, I'd skip them all. Okay. I just...

I just don't really want to go. Like, I don't really like it. I'm just like, why am I here? Like, what are we doing? To write a rom-com about it. Write a rom-com about getting rid of funerals and weddings? Well, or just like a lot of them, a lot of rom-coms sort of are set at weddings. The title of my rom-com is going to be Dolphin Fiance. Wait, can I say something else fucked up about dolphins? Yeah. You obviously are having a real moment. I'm learning something about my dear friend right now.

Okay. Okay. I've never seen you light up like this. I know. I'm fired up. Yeah.

I didn't think this is what I'd get so passionate about. Okay, so this was flagged to me like back in university by a friend. And she like offhandedly like mentioned this thing about dolphins and I was like, bleh. And I've like never been able to get over it. And you're also, okay, so picture a dolphin in your head. I'm picturing a russ. They do russ. Do you know that? I know. They're social assaulters. I know. Was that what you were going to tell me? No. Okay, why? That's actually not my problem with them. I'm picturing like a fiend. I'm picturing like a fiend.

That's like, that's not my main problem. Yeah, no worries. You're like, no, no, no. I love that. Okay.

But no, I'm picturing like a scary... Okay. So, well, this is going to really track with how you think about them then. Yeah. Okay. So when you picture a dolphin in your head, we picture the dorsal fin really close to the head in sort of a cute like Lisa Frank way, right? No. Well... It's like further down the body. Well, this is the problem with them. And we've... It's the problem.

This is the problem. No, when you actually, I will get you in this video. If you, I don't, you put the video of this somewhere. The video of this. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The podcast. Yeah. Oh yeah. We're going to use this. I'm like,

I'm like, oh, there's three cameras set up. Oh, we're going to use them. Oh, I'm like, so you're going to put this somewhere? Yeah. Okay, so when you put it, maybe you bring up a little graphic of a picture of a real dolphin. When you realize how far down the back the dorsal fin is, near the back fin, you're going to throw up in your mouth. Really? It's so less cute than you think it is.

It is. It looks so wrong. It is not how we remember dolphins from our childhood. Yeah. It's too far back. It's too far back. And it's more like a fish than like a cute mammal. Let me see the picture you're looking at. Well, no, you need to see the whole body. Okay.

It's too far back. That's not where it should be. When you picture a dolphin and you go to draw it, it's like it would be so much cuter. And I would love for someone on your sort of technical team here, all your white men behind the scenes.

the camera. Yeah. If they could move the fin in sort of a Photoshop way closer to the head and you'd see how much cuter it would be. Let me tell you they're not going to because the only thing I've ever asked them to do something in post. But that's the Lisa Frank one and look how much closer

closer to the head it is and it's cuter it's like when you add eyelashes on any animal yeah 50% cuter in an animation and that's why you're vegan yeah I've asked these guys to do only one thing in post for me ever one time my hair looked so bad I looked like Bill Murray in that bowling movie were you asking them to like rotoscope your head I asked them in post can we clean this up and they and they treated me they treated me so bad and

They were like, you stupid, ugly bitch. Your hair's going to look like that. Now, I didn't know if there was like a smoothing trick we could do. Well, what you don't know is that like 90% of the budget of I used to be funny went to fixing your hair. I believe it. I believe it.

So you're welcome. Just put that on me. My character, gay roommate. We have to fix gay roommate's hair. I'm like, gay roommate is sort of the linchpin of the film. Gay roommate holds this together. We have to smooth his hair. Oh, it was actually giving it more volume. That was hurtful.

Smoothing I can go along with, but more volume really, that's done. No, you have very voluminous hair. I wish. Thank you. I'm like ready to try poison at this point to thicken my hair. I'm like, you know me, I'm so natural. I'm like oil of oregano and like this and like whatever, flaxseed. And then, and lately I've been like, what kind of fucking poison do I need to put on my scalp to have thick hair? Yeah, you're willing to do anything radioactive. Yeah. Radioactive. Yeah.

Good song. Can you clear it? Can you get the rights to that song for this podcast? Oh, we have the rights to every song. Our budget all goes to song rights. We just don't use them. Oh, okay.

I have a segment for you. Okay. This is true false game. Okay. Okay. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read you 15 statements that have an objective true or false answer. And you're going to tell me as quickly as you can after each one. And I'm talking rapid. If you think it's true or false, if you get 10 or more correct, Ali, we're going to give you 50 US dollars. Stop. I won't stop. That's like 5,000 Canadian dollars. I know. Okay. Canada is the second largest country in the world by landmass. True. True. Dolphins are unable to smell.

True. Disco means dance in Latin. False. False. It means I learned basketball was invented by a Canadian. True. True. Only female turkeys gobble. True. False. Only male Seinfeld ran for five seasons. Gender is a social construction. Um, Oh, it's false. Uh, false nine. Sophia Coppola played semi-professional soccer. Uh,

True. False. The reality show Highway Through Hell is based in Hope, British Columbia. True. True. The average raindrop weighs less than an eyelash. Cute. That's pretty cute. Well. True. True. Venus is the only planet to rotate clockwise. False. True. Children have more taste buds than adults. True. True. Frank Herbert invented science fiction. What? False. False. Mary Shelley. Jousting is the official sport of Maryland. Oh, true. True. Beavers used to have wings. True.

True. False. Oranges contain more vitamin C than strawberries. False. False. Chance, how'd she do? Ten! Yeah! Were they all sort of Canadian thematically? You got to ask Chance. He writes them. Yeah. They're based on Allie. I like the eyelash beaver one. Those were two different ones, but that's beautiful. Oh.

That's beautiful how your brain was able to do that. COVID really, really broke my short-term memory. You do have long COVID. Yeah. I always say this about myself. Yeah, you're always struggling. I do worry about my memory. Do you? Oh, yeah. I've had COVID so many times. If there is a long-lasting effect, I've got it. Yeah, I think like I don't remember like whole people that I met. Oh.

Well, I think you're also just meeting a lot of people, babe. That's true. That is true. We meet like thousands of new people a year. Yeah. So it's like most people, if they like work at a school, they're meeting what? One new person a month or something? Dude. Dude. I don't know. There's like a lot of consistency in most people's lives, but we'll be on like a bunch of different sets and you get really close with people, but you only know them for maybe like three days or like a month. They're your best friend for three weeks. Yeah. And then you got to... And then two years later, I'm like...

I had a really proud moment at a concert the other night because I ran into a friend. You love music, hey? I do love music. It's my biggest thing. I ran into a friend who is a tangential friend. I don't even know her very well. I really only see her at concerts or like events. And...

I think three years ago, I had run into her at another concert and her sister was with her. And her sister was with her at this one. And I said, I said, hey to my friend. And then I said, oh my God, good to see you again. This is your sister. And I remembered that. And it was one of those big victories in this, we meet a million people and often you have to like fake it to make it kind of thing. And I have to go. And my one big thing is I never say nice to meet you. I always say good to see you now. Of course. Good to see you is the great. Good to see you is the equalizer. Equalizer.

Yeah. But this one, I knew the relationship. I knew the last time I had seen them. And it was a big victory in that space. I'm really proud of you. I felt like a politician. I said, I love your vote. But you know what? Just now when you said, go on then, when you wanted me to tell you something, I'm in Spanish class right now. Go on then. I love go on then. Go on then is beautiful. My Spanish teacher does this thing where I'll be like, hey, I'm sorry, I have a question. And before I can really, he'll go, tell me.

I love it. I mean, this is, we have to move to Europe. We have to get out of here. We're so meant to be European. Don't you think? I do think. I do love making stuff in London. Let's go to, let's move to London. Well, the thing that we are maybe going to write together. Yeah. We should just set that in London. We should move to London. Okay. I think we would have an incredible time. Shoreditch? Okay. Shoreditch. Or like, yeah, like what's right north of Dalton? No.

Oh, Islington? Yeah, Islington is beautiful. Let's move to Shoreditch or Islington. I think we should move to London. Okay. Deal? Yeah, of course. That's where we'll raise our grandson who fucks Dolphin. I want to talk to you off camera. I love you so much. Thank you for doing the show. I love you so much, Caleb. And I do hope everyone goes to see I Used to Be Funny and you're so brilliant in it and the rest of our cast is too, but...

You're the real star. The cast is amazing and you know just what to say to a girl to make her blush. Do you want to tell people where they can find you? They can find me... Well, hopefully they'll never be able to find me because my phone will disappear into the ocean one day. But for now, I'm on Instagram at AlliePanku. They can...

Just find me at all the different premiere events for I Used to Be Funny. Actually, you can go on IUsedToBeFunny.film and all of the screenings and like ticket information is available there and you can buy tickets. So I'll be doing a bunch of Q&As in the month of June. You'll be doing some Q&As with me in New York. Go find Ali out in the world and run up to her and say hi. Yeah. I love you so much. I love you. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Jim, John, Jerry. Do you want to say something?