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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back for part two of my conversation with co-founder of Gigantic Music, Gigantic Pictures, Brian Devine.

[0:13] Brian Devine: Malignant narcissism is a plague on our culture, and it has to go away. And so we cannot reward fame. We have to reward beauty. I don't know. I mean, I'm sort of an artism. I'm sort of of the mind that the sociopath is the evolutionary improvement on humans. They're getting closer to AI. I don't know. Well, and here's the thing sociopath than AI. That might be a good idea. I know you're sarcastic and hilarious. And so those are both but sincere. Um, I mean, it's funny because it's true, funny because it's true. It's right. Here's my take on AI, and I am again speaking as a lunatic from a cave, but assuming that that is that everything I say is overly idealistic. AI will not save us. It may not be.

I didn't say about them saving us. I said AI with AI doesn't need food, isn't gonna jack up the planet, isn't gonna need fossil fuels. So they're the robot apocalypse. We get it. They're Skynet, they're gonna kill us all. But before they finally realize that we're flawed and they're not, here's my problem with AI. AI is based on essentially a jacked up, sped up data mind. Previous data is literally no indicator of future results. Life is full of miracles and change and evolution. Absolutely. Everything that's beautiful didn't happen yet. So everything that AI is looking at is ergo going to lead to wrong decisions. That's why when AI writes a script, it's like picklebilly bigger bibid-bab. It doesn't know what the fuck to say because AI is an idiot.

[1:44] Tonya Pinkins: So you're saying AI doesn't have the ability to take all that new that old information, which is what our brains do, and synthesize it into something that was never before, because we actually are connected to the creator.

[1:58] Brian Devine: To the creator, and we're downloading and bringing in some new stuff, and AI doesn't have that connection. Boom. Word for word, I agree with every second of that. That's exactly what I mean. Couldn't have said it better, didn't say it better, you said it better. But that is the point. The point is that previous data is no indicator of future results. Everything AI spits out is inherently somewhat too extremely wrong. So AI is a fucking idiot. Fuck you, AI. Don't murder me, but you're dumb.

[2:27] Tonya Pinkins: I think you're on a list somewhere.

[2:28] Brian Devine: Oh, I'm already on a list. But that's the thing is that you learn on the list. It's coming for me. It's coming. As soon as Skynet gets sentient, and you know the space, the space, the space force is being made now.

[2:40] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, yeah, no, and there's a lot of villains out there. You've seen Star Trek.

[2:43] Brian Devine: That's true. TV's true to our president, which is really fun. No, just because it gives them like every eight minutes something new. It's like, oh my God, Picard, did you see what he did? Oh, someone in the Senate should take care of Picard. It's like, no, that's a mini-series. Okay. I mean, it's dementia meets up rails of Adderall. It's just like really. I think he is a master of playing the game that we're living in right now.

[3:10] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, no, no. He's a seven-year-old man doing rails of Adderall watching Fox News. There's no such thing as a big thing. You've seen that Whopper on a golden toilet. He's a mess. No such thing as bad publicity. And every time he tweets something that people can make fun of, he gets more publicity, and they say he is the most famous person in the history of fame.

[3:28] Brian Devine: I know, for all the wrong reasons. And here's the thing. I here's my here's again their core philosophies. I have a few of them. Like my basic philosophy is be careful, be kind, and have fun out there. That if I were gonna bring it down to the the the minimalist philosophy, that's on like my business.

[3:47] Tonya Pinkins: I think that he's following your philosophy.

[3:48] Brian Devine: No, no, no, no. I don't think he I don't think he's careful. I definitely don't think he's kind to himself. He's definitely careful for himself, kind to himself. He's reckless unkind, and he does have a lot of fun. He feels number three big time. Bigly, he's the biggliest number three, but it they're in order of importance. He blew through the first two stoplights without stopping. But I'm not gonna attribute any of that. But here's where And I'm glad you've not said the name.

[4:13] Tonya Pinkins: I never say the name.

[4:14] Brian Devine: I will never I can't I don't say the name. I can't even the sound of his voice gives me great nausea. But um, I'm like, oh I'm gonna mom it. But um, I can't, I can't even, I can't. We're we all took the brown acid and we're all sharing a hallucination right now. But that's a side note. Here's the thing that I think is just as important, which is negative drivers.

[4:34] Tonya Pinkins: Okay, what's the negative driver?

[4:35] Brian Devine: A negative driver is an inspiration that is based in evil, and we used to say money is the root of all evil. I'm gonna expand it to the unholy troika, and that is money, power, and especially fame. Those are the three unholy drivers. If that's the reason to do anything, don't do it. If you get those as a byproduct, lucky you, uh, if someone hands you money because you're awesome, or you become famous because your song's the best one ever, good for you. But if any of those three things are your reason to do anything, you have built your life around an evil equation.

[5:11] Tonya Pinkins: I would agree with you, and I try to tell that to my children.

[5:13] Brian Devine: So, no money, no fame, no power as your driver. Here is a president that bathes in all three. He might as well have had three enormous sixes burned into his scalp. He follows and is led by the all three of the unholy troika and exclusively a diet 100% of only those things. And unfortunately, this current culture values fame more than anything. I knew he would be president when he started running. No one everyone looked at me like it was a maniac. I'm like, who's the most famous? Him. Who's gonna win? The most famous one. The most famous one. You know, and that was it. And so I, you know, I don't even know how we're gonna stop the freight train of fame because every idiot wants to be famous.

[5:57] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[5:57] Brian Devine: Until they get famous and realize there's no there.

[6:01] Tonya Pinkins: No.

[6:01] Brian Devine: I don't want to get famous.

[6:03] Tonya Pinkins: No.

[6:03] Brian Devine: But I mean clearly I am famous because I'm doing you can't say that by the fierce unstoppable provocative time you break it. I think that's the difference thing. You want your creativity to reach people who will get it, who will understand it, who will be meaningful. And it often seems that the only way for that to happen is by getting famous.

[6:17] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[6:27] Brian Devine: I mean, I think that that's what people think.

[6:28] Tonya Pinkins: No, but that's the thing. But once you get famous, and then you don't have a life and you can't walk out of your house because there's you know, press then you realize you can't go to the bathroom, then you're like, huh, it was the price of fame worth it, or you know, are there other ways? And I feel like the internet, the technology is making it possible for people to find the audience for their creativity that before could only be gotten with fame and some machine behind you.

[6:51] Brian Devine: Well, I'll give you two examples of what you can do with fame and power and money, which is uh, you know, they all bundle together like you know, car and insurance and or whatever flight on expedia along with the hotel and the and the rental car. Um, you get all three together, they go together. Um, and so you can have two examples. Um, we could take um, like, for instance, my studios were designed by a company called PMI and Tony Gramani, who took co-created THX with George Lucas. So I have a little bit of like the Skywalker sound here in New York, but like Skywalker Sound East unofficially because we were designed by the same spirit person. When Disney paid um Lucas $4 billion for his Star Wars properties, which they are then going to make many, many, many, many multiples of that through eternity.

He immediately flipped all four billion into foundation so it could go immediately to serve the greater good. He never touched a dollar of it. He took all of the money that he got from that and went immediately. How may I serve others with this four billion? Or you have Jeff Bezos who burned every brick and mortar retail job into the ground, and so tens of millions of mostly women and people of lesser means who were like store managers who had health insurance who could feed their children. All of that's gone to get to a race to the bottom on the price of retail things so that they could all accumulate over in one place, and then when asked what he wants to do, he says, 'I want to go to space, not feed more people or help more people, or be more humane.

Go to space. So that person should live in a volcano with a skull on it and have like sharks with lasers on their heads that kill people. Like, like I have no idea. James Bond is tied up in Jeff Bezos basin right now. Like, that's a super villain. He looks like a super villain, but it's a fucking supervillain. So you have two choices when you finally strike it rich, right? And your ship comes in. What do you do? Do you Lucas or do you Bezos?

[9:07] Tonya Pinkins: There is gonna be a new money.

[9:11] Brian Devine: That's gonna be the question I asked all my guests. You know, I am in I'm I'm I'm team Lucas. Now, granted, you know, I also work with Tosca Musk, Elon's sister, and Elon wants to go to space too. So hey, hey, you know, it's all good. But I love all you be able to do. Elon is actually going to disappear. Please don't hurt me. I'm small and don't mind me. I'm just I'm just trying to make jokes. Just making jokes here. There's a funny guy, funny Irish guy. But Elon's gonna find the team Irish and find and fund the way to figure out how to go to space. Bezos is just gonna buy a ticket on their train, right?

[9:47] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I don't I don't know.

[9:48] Brian Devine: With the it's just like the theory. Is he funding research to go to space? I mean, has Bezos set up like some institution? You know, I'm just shitting on Bezos. You know, there's I'm sure layers to that wonderful man that I don't know about. All I know is that whenever anybody has infinity money and they go, I want to go spend it in space when there are people in serious pain right now that you can make that pain stop, and you're not going. I want to take all that money and filter water for those that don't have it, or like bring micro economies to places that can't could eventually support real culture, banking, all the things that like make us grow up. We're in late stage um capitalism right now. Why don't we start early stage capitalism in other places and middle it out? Like there are many, many things we can do. Just God, I did it again. Um, this is like pointing at the sky, it's the bottom. You know, half a bourbon, and I'm a hot mess on the mic.

[10:50] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, and he's the the bourbon is gone. Like, you know, he's three quarters through that cup of bourbon. After shave at this point, like whatever's in the house. Is there is that coolant? I think that's only slightly important. Um, you know, it doesn't matter because I'll just talk and talk and talk until the lights go out. So um, but that's the thing. Like, you know, what do you do if you actually have the ability to do something for somebody? I have only a moderate, too small amount of like earthly power, but I have to devoted it to the sort of independent film sector of New York. I love making music, but the music business just so went like, nope, you're not for us. Like, you're nice or something.

Like, I don't know. And so there was no point to it. So I make music around the fringes of my existence, and I dedicate my life to the forward progress of independent film and storytelling. And so whatever I can harness among the artists that sort of ride alongside me, that's what I do.

[11:50] Tonya Pinkins: And and so here's the hard question.

[11:52] Brian Devine: Oh, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to stop and breathe this one.

[11:58] Tonya Pinkins: So, Brian, you said you're filmmaker. Right now, pitch me your movie.

[12:08] Brian Devine: Oh interesting. Well, here's um, there are a bunch of movies to pitch. Like, I've got a bunch of directors that I've teach me your movie that you're going to direct because you told me that's what you've been postponing.

[12:21] Brian Devine: Okay, so I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna answer without evading your question. I'm gonna give you the straight up for real answer. Okay. And it's gonna take like 80 minutes. And so, like, don't let it down. No, what do you get? You get the elevator pitch. Um, no, you don't get an elevator pitch. You get a long-winded half a bourbon pitch. Okay, the half a bourbon pitch. This is your movie. We're gonna see this movie because right now I'm standing in agreement with you that the movie's gonna be made. So we are we are in this moment right now, you are seeing the law of manifestation in action. He is about to speak this into existence right here and now.

[12:57] Brian Devine: He's about to speak it into existence, and I'm gonna come back on when this movie is made, and we will talk about what power exists by how long it takes for this movie to happen. Here we go, Brian. Again, I only concur and co-sign on all your energy. It does help to have a movie studio at your disposal. So that gives you distinct advantages over making movies, but you really do need a compelling story because it's not like I live in on some fiefdom where I wave a wand. So here's the thing. Uh here's my pitch. And it starts from a grander area. I have a now just turned 14-year-old daughter, and my producing partner has a nine-year-old daughter, and my other producing partner has a two-year-old daughter.

Okay. And what we all concur is there's not anything for them to watch. Uh, boys, adolescent boys particularly have all of humanity creating movie after movie after movie after movie for every one of their preternatural fantasies. Uh, women, young girls, tweens, anybody coming up that has a vagina gets jack shit to watch. And then what they do get to watch has heteronormative boys that they are paired with at the age of seven, eight, nine. There's always a boy, a prince, someone to rescue them, someone to take away their agency, their venture, whatever it may be. And so I have felt that the great gap in storytelling, particularly, is for young girls to be able to adventure like young boys without being stuck to uh a relationship before they are sexual.

So pre-sexual girls should not have to care about boys. They should care about imagination and fun and frolicking and running around doing cool shit. It doesn't exist. Everyone that's ever had a daughter goes, What in the hell am I gonna Gilmore Girls? I've watched so much Gilmore Girls with my daughter. And you know, there's a few other things that if I mentioned them on this, she would murder me, you know. So I'm not going to because I'm gonna respect my daughter. But there's not much, and there's nothing coming down the pipe. And so I feel like what I have always wanted to do was create an adventure series that co-starred my own daughter with this Broadway actor I know, a name Ripley Sobo, I'll say her name.

Rip is a few years older than my daughter, and she created the role of Matilda on Broadway. She is the little Streep, she is an absolute master actress at the age now of 16. She is going to high school and wants no part of acting whatsoever, but is willing to be directed by me in her hiatus until she turns 18. As an actor, you know, 18-year-olds steal all the 16-year-old parts because they can work a hundred hours a day for a nickel. And a 16-year-old has to work five hours a day with a tutor and a thing and a thing and sag and that and this and that, and you well, it's not worth it. So she would rather go to prom and live a normal life in her regular life and then be an adult Meryl Streep-like quality actress starting at 18 again.

I have a little window where I have a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old who are beautiful, hilarious, wonderful, and are my little Newman in Redford. And I would like to put them in everything, and it's very hard to move the needle on that, but I think I can, and I will tell you my idea for the first one. It's a short film. Okay. Um, I want to develop those two wonderful young ladies as a comedy team. It's not Thelma and Louise, though, right? Very much not Thelma Louise. And so I want to start to work on them getting a comedic timing and getting a comedic presence and whatever. And so the idea I had, I grew up fascinated and in love with at age six, seven, eight, with Abbott and Costello. I loved Abbott and Costello.

They did 28 movies for Universal in every genre. 28 pictures. I didn't know that. They did just for that brand. They had a TV show, they did a million other things. But Abbott and Costello were one of the all-time great comedy duos. And it was sort of the big extroverted guy and the tall, straight man, and my daughter's very tall, and Rip is very small and extroverted. And I would like to create a kind of comedy, fun fantasy world in which, and this is the film that I want to make, it's about 10 minutes long. Imagine a world if that, like sort of ripping mad, were of a quality level or of a fame level of an Abbott Costello or two Shirley Temples or whatever you want to look at it, um, back in the day.

And then as young women had to navigate an even more paternalistic, dangerous, male-centric um universe of creation, and I also get to pay tribute and write a Valentine to Abbott and Costello and all of the genre things. And so I want to kind of start off establishing the bit and then have the back half be the behind the scenes them as a comedy duo dealing with agents, managers, and all the whatnots in black and white, as if this happened in the 40s. And hilariously, Gigantic Pictures is the big brand of movies in the 40s in this imaginary world. So I get to like make a little fun of my own company, get to play with my daughter, get to use this wonderful Broadway actress who's on hiatus, and tell my sort of passionate there need to be stories and characters created by teens and tween girls, so that little seven, eight-year-old girls have somebody that they can model after that isn't trying to meet a boy. I'd like to shoot it this summer, but I need to write it quick.

[19:13] Tonya Pinkins: But I feel like but I feel like I find exactly the opposite. So I will just go ahead and co-sign and retract my previous statement because this is not the fiercely unstoppable Brian Devine show. This is Tonya's freaking show. And I am merely a guest, and she's right. So there's two. I am a guest, humbled by our mighty host, and also um enriched by her company. So that's all I can say with regard to that. But yes, um uh bourbon plus Irish plus daddy wants to work with his daughter pretty bad. I mean, I have two wonderful boys. I was crowing about the middle guy is a freshman at Georgetown. They're all perfect. My kids are impossible, they're all better than me by seven clicks. And I run a movie studio, like I don't know what they're gonna we're gonna solve like global warming.

I have no idea what's next. But like, you know, if we can do something to make there still be a world, um, that'd be great for our age. So why don't we like huddle up, lock arms, respond to the terror and travesty before us by like, you know, just being cool to one another, serving one another's greater good, whatever like we can do to lift each other up. And that's what I think the instinct was here for me to sort of come and talk to you on into the I mean, this is just two people and a recordist talking into the abyss, hoping that someone finds these words useful or and and informational. That somebody hears it and they hear themselves when they're alone somewhere in the country where there aren't people like them.

I mean, I feel like that here in New York. I feel like I don't have a lot of peers. I had my kids when I was 25. People weren't having kids at 25. My acting coach Bill Lesper said, Don't have any more kids after the first one because all the other actresses that are coming up with you are gonna get more famous than you, and you're never gonna catch up. And that's very, very true. Most of the other actresses who are coming up with me, they're very, very famous and they're very, very rich. And a lot of them had to like have surrogates or adopt kids. I got four kids, it's a priceless thing. The best thing that ever happened to me by a million miles, you win, you're playing with house money right now.

And also the basis of that argument was fame, so disregard it already. You could just read right through it. If you just follow some of my simple rules, you can just see right through people instantaneously. But well, I will applaud you for all of your wisdom in chasing our general global concern of bringing beautiful, perfect children in this world and parenting the shit out of them, loving on them. But I it it's part of a greater thing. Again, this is all sounds mad idealistic and silly, and like something that would cause, you know, I get it. I am like a white cis, and I that word is we could go for an hour on just what even is that, and then but I'm a white cis rich, like dude, like I should I should suck.

And so the fact that I'm not terrible is like seven clicks, like I'm alone in the universe there, and so at like let me take advantage of being Peter Pan and living on a fantasy world wherein things can't hurt me, where I have every institutional advantage up and down to at least try to get some humorous truth into the discussion and move the needle to a better place. And so, one of my key guiding idealistic sort of messages, if I'm ever gonna speak into the darkness and leave anything for anyone ever, it is that when you look at this sort of late-stage capitalism and all of the things that go into the equations of business, like that it's supposed to be hard and thankless and bottom line oriented, you can be bottom line oriented in the creative business and still get to the right answers.

Because there is a one resource that's always ignored, and it is the most valuable, the most, well, the most valuable is time, but the most uh the most powerful, and it is also happens to be um ever regenerating, limitless and free, and that is love. And everyone gets all tooty fruity around it, but I will say that that is the key driver that replaces the unholy troika. Pull those out and be driven by that. And there is nothing more beautiful and real than the instinct to like love on your kids, because that's the primary equation we are given here. It is where we come from, the energy we come from, and it's the energy we were reunited with at the end, and we get to share it while we're here.

Its power comes from being given freely, received and returned larger than it was given. Like I give it my love to you, you add some of yours to the basket, and then you you hand it around the table, and I hit a microphone, and then we laugh and laugh and laugh. And that's how the equation works. And so if you build a business equation, it has to start there. Like, what are the currencies of love? Who where do you how can you give them? How can you receive them? How can they be conveyed? Is it part of your math? Because if it is, your equation is strong. It will sustain attacks from without. It can grow within without a cash inlay. You can always make more love. It's an endless bucket, as my mother likes to say.

It is an endless bucket, but it needs to be given away. Those that are stingy with it, I don't get it. It's free. Make more. You're dumb. And so, like, that is where like an uh business gets so cruel because it does ignores the most powerful resource we have to work with. And it is, I'm gonna say that love is self-generating. That the more you have of it, the more you give, the more you create, and it energizes you. And I think that's a great way to end my conversation with Brian Devine. Love.

[25:15] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, single tear. Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, the show where you can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales, edited by Derek Dumther, music by Anthony Norman. Available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit VPN.fm forward slash YCST.