00:00I think I've always been in some group of male friends and there's sort of this unspoken
00:05hierarchy play going on of, you know, who is the most important and who has the power
00:13and who's sort of playing second fiddle and who's competing for advancement, you know.
00:22And I think typically, I feel like that kind of thing has been explored like in Mean Girls
00:29for women, but I wanted to make Mean Boys.
00:34That's such a valid explanation.
00:38I wanted to make Mean Boys, and this is the cast that plays them.
00:47Regina George is definitely Archie, who plays Oliver.
00:52Oh, you said in real life, the answer is the same.
00:58In the movie, it's definitely Oliver, played by Archie, and in real life, it's definitely
01:03Archie as Archie.
01:05I'm looking forward to it.
01:08I'm coming in for a shoot.
01:11Caddy.
01:12I don't feel like Archie would tell somebody that they can't sit with us.
01:15No, I never would do that.
01:16I don't think he would say it.
01:17He wouldn't have to.
01:18He wouldn't have to.
01:19Somebody would say it for you, I think.
01:20He would just give it a little look.
01:21That is such an untrue description of who I am.
01:28You are very polite.
01:30I'm from Atlanta, so it's the same thing there.
01:33You're all in packs of rappers, and it's like, who's the leader here?
01:39Who's B?
01:40Who's C?
01:41So, yeah.
01:42I felt like that in elementary school.
01:45I haven't really in my adult life, but for sure, while shooting the movie, I was like,
01:50this feels like when I was 10.
01:54Those power dynamics of like, you're friends, but then one day you're not going to be the
01:57friend.
01:58You're going to be the one that's on the outside.
02:00This kind of possibility of always being put aside, ridiculed, but then kind of brought
02:06back in feels very, yeah, my experience with it was really when I was a kid.
02:14That has continued in certain dynamics, especially, I think, in the art industry, I have found
02:20in adult life, especially, I think, I went to drama school, and there's this constant
02:28kind of competitive nature, I think, that some people can have, and there's a feeling
02:33of that, of wanting to be seen, and who's doing good work, and who's exciting, and Oliver
02:40in our film kind of rules that, and everyone kind of floating around him, trying to impress.
02:46That dynamic, I think, that we learn as kids, that starts in school, it continues in different
02:51spaces, and I think maybe we're not as conscious of it always, because we start putting ourselves
02:57in pecking orders, and sometimes we feel quite comfortable in that position, and so we're
03:02not always aware of the dynamic as it's playing out around us, but it was really interesting
03:08for me, even though these people have described me as Regina George, I didn't, that's not
03:14how I feel in my day-to-day life, and I found it really difficult, and for me, a real challenge
03:21to have to play someone so outwardly confident in their position in the group, it's so much
03:26easier to play someone so much more introverted and insular, I think you just want to kind
03:31of disguise yourself, so to play someone who is so self-assured in that pecking order was
03:36fun.
03:38I think that there's an interesting, complicating factor, though, in this film, which is fame,
03:42which I think makes all of these dynamics that you experience when you're younger, it's
03:46just another lens to look at the same thing, but in a way that you can name more easily,
03:51it's like popularity, all of these power dynamics, it's brought into another scale, that I think
03:56is ridiculed as well.
03:58It's kind of removed from now, so it's not in the TikTok generation, where we live in,
04:03where everyone is so close to wanting fame, and it feels so accessible, and it feels so
04:09quick, but we did grow up in that time where you were able to look on Tumblr and see people
04:17that you felt cool and felt, but also felt touchable and felt realistic, and so the idea
04:23of then coming into contact with those people, and feeling like it was in grasp, that is
04:30our currency now, weirdly, everyone, no one really wants to work, people want to be famous,
04:35there's the line in the film where it's like, how do I get, like, what do you do, and they
04:39can't even answer, it's just like, people just want to be famous, people are just stoked
04:44about the idea of being liked and being known, and yeah, I think the film plays with that
04:50in a really interesting way.
04:51Something I'm asking everybody who comes in is, if you remember the first time you were
04:54starstruck?
04:552016, I was with the homie Thundercat, and we went to Asanabo in North Hollywood, I had
05:02like $10, I think I was wearing like Tom's or something like that, I was super broke,
05:07I'm the brokest person in all of LA, right?
05:11He'd take me to this restaurant, we went, two members of the band King, they were like
05:15princes, like protégés, pretty much, so it was four of us, right?
05:19So we chill in there, the restaurant about the size of where we at right now, only like
05:2320 people in there max.
05:25I see two Secret Service looking dudes with the wire in their ear pop in behind us, and
05:33I'm like, oh shit, Obama, right?
05:36Jay-Z walk in, right?
05:38They sit him at the table right behind us, this restaurant's like a closet, you know
05:42what I'm saying?
05:43And then I was like, oh shit, this is crazy, like Jay-Z's behind us, and then two more
05:47Secret Service guys walk in, and Beyonce came in.
05:52And then she came over to the table, and she knows Thundercat or whatever, so she was like,
05:57you know, bigging him up on his work, and she said to our homegirl, I love your hair,
06:00and she just busted out and started crying.
06:03Like somebody died, and she's like, oh, that's so real.
06:07Beyonce held my hands and sang Halo.
06:10What?
06:11Sorry to talk, but.
06:12Damn.
06:13Hold on.
06:14Okay, Regina.
06:15Exactly.
06:16A friend of mine rigged a competition so that, she was a radio presenter, and she rigged
06:26a competition, so me and my sisters won tickets to her album launch, so it was like a really
06:31intimate thing.
06:32So we were right at the front, and I'm so tall.
06:34Well, Beyonce, kiss my dad.
06:35And she came to the front, and she kept singing to me, and then she came down and held my
06:41hands, and then I remember her body, I was frozen in time, I was like, I felt like the
06:46power of, I don't know, eternal life was being given to me, and then I didn't want to let
06:50go, and her bodyguard came over and just went, chop, and chopped my arm away.
06:54I was like, cool, done.
06:55But yeah, that was pretty big.
06:58But I do think that that's a big part of the film as well, is how we view celebrity and
07:03people who are like, what position do we give them?
07:07Totally.
07:08And there's this space of, they really, for a lot of people, become godlike figure, and
07:12I think that in this film, for Matthew, there is a big aspect of that, of there is nothing
07:17above that, and that's why it's so incredible and a one-time opportunity that you can't
07:25miss and that you have to go all the way with, because that will never happen again.
07:31It's too big to enter that world in that way, to have such access to someone who is truly
07:39viewed like a god.
07:42So it's, yeah, I think they're really taking the place of religion.
07:49It has, well, it has in our very, people have their own personal religions, but in our general
07:57society, it's a lot less god-focused than it has been back in the day, and so where
08:03people-
08:04Let's go back.
08:05People, people, let's go back.
08:06We need that.
08:07Back with the deities.
08:08I mean, Nicki Minaj has her own defamation league.
08:11She is.
08:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:14Oh my god.
08:15Like icons, that word is really, it's not for nothing, like an icon, it comes from religious
08:21figures.
08:22Totally.
08:23It's also so interesting to think about what people think they will be getting out of proximity
08:27to that person.
08:28Well, you could get nothing.
08:29Right, it's like Icarus and the sun, a bit, too, right?
08:31Totally, it is.
08:32But that's exactly what this film is also, like he really kind of gets disillusioned
08:35being in such proximity, like it's like, oh, it's really not that complicated.
08:40I can, I understand the mechanisms of this, and I understand that everyone around you,
08:45they're not angels, they're just people kind of putting you and protecting you to stay
08:51on that level.
08:52Yeah.
08:53I feel like it's like that part in the Bible where somebody was like, I forget who said
09:00it, but they was like, talking about Jesus, he was like, if I could just touch the hem
09:04of his garment, like, dang, you need to stand up, like, if I could just touch his drip,
09:09like, that's surprising.
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