An Alternative Walk of Fame | Brett Cooper | EP 448

47m read

·Nov 7, 2024

From the beginning, I sat in the meeting with Jeremy and Caleb and the whole team, and we pitched Comment Section. We had produced a pilot, and the marketing team and the social media team were developing it. They brought me in; I could have been fired at any moment. If they had not greenlit the show, my job would have been gone. I had nothing else to do; my show would have been axed, and I would have been next. I sat in this meeting with Jeremy. We played the pilot, and he got through it; we watched all three. Looking back on it, it's a terrible, terrible pilot, but he looked over at me, he was silent in his normal Jeremy way, contemplating things, and looked at me; he said, "I don't understand this show, but I know other people [Music] will."

Hello everybody, I'm talking today to Brett Cooper, a YouTube phenomenon, but in the prepared manner that many people who are explosively successful are prepared. Brett started acting when she was very young; she was very dedicated to her pursuit of her artistic career. She was aided in that by the efforts of her mother, and so she had that working for her. By the time she was 10, she had a pretty decent CV in acting behind her. She spent a fair bit of time in Hollywood, expanding her abilities, protected from whatever toxicity that environment might offer by the aforementioned commitment of her mother. Then she got a stellar opportunity, but also had set that up with Daily Wire. She had worked with Dennis Prager and some other conservative organizations, making short-form social media content and learning how to do that; and that's a real skill in and of itself. She got the opportunity to expand that into something longer-form with Daily Wire. She was hesitant and afraid about that; she felt at 19—because that's when the offer came in—that perhaps that was beyond her, but took the plunge and has produced, out of whole cloth, a spectacularly successful YouTube channel with about 4.5 million subscribers that's been built up in the short span of a couple of years, and also has a plethora of exciting acting opportunities arrayed in front of her as a consequence of her partnership with the Daily Wire. So, join us for all that.

So, you've made a big splash in recent years; that's what I've been told.

Yeah, why do you think that is? What are you doing that's working?

I think I'm filling a niche that I myself wanted and that I was lacking growing up. I didn't have influences online that I felt spoke to me and shared my values, like a common young person with more traditional values. I did not see that, especially growing up in Hollywood. So, when we created the comment section, when I came to Daily Wire, I wanted to reach young people in general, but I specifically wanted to talk to young women.

Is that fundamentally your audience?

No, it's growing; it's becoming more female-oriented, but it's always been more male-dominant. I think that's just because more young men are on YouTube.

Well, that's a big thing to fight against, so to speak. I think the last time I looked, a couple of years ago, like YouTube was 80% male-dominated. So, it's hard to not have a majority male audience. But my female audience continues to grow, and when I meet fans in public, when any of my audience comes up to me, obviously I'm thrilled to meet all of them, and they're always such kind and interesting people. They always share interesting stories, but the people that speak to me the most are the young women where I see myself. They tell me they thank me for sharing their values on such a public platform. They thank me for showing that it does not have to be scary to espouse common sense and traditional values. They say, "You feel like a big sister that I never had," or "like a little sister," or "you give me hope for my daughters." It's incredibly touching. I was just talking about it while I was getting my makeup done, but I am incredibly blessed and incredibly grateful to have been given the platform that I have.

Great, I'm honored. When you grew up in Hollywood, let's talk about that a little bit. I understand that you were emancipated at the age of 15 to pursue acting.

Okay, so let's start with that. I don't think we have to go any earlier than that. Now, did you—was that the point at which you moved to Hollywood?

No, I moved to Hollywood. Tell me the story. I moved to Hollywood when I was 10.

When you were 10? Start from where?

From Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Oh yeah? Okay, then I guess you have to start. I have to go back a little earlier. Well, I would say, how was it that you—and I presume your family—decided that it was a good idea to move from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Hollywood? Like, what was behind that?

The short of it—and I'll get into the long of it—but the short of it was me. I felt like I needed to perform, like I needed to breathe. I loved telling stories; I loved being on stage.

And you had been on stage in Tennessee?

Yes, in a community theater. So, my first production that I ever did—and I started in theater—love musical theater—was being a munchkin in my brother's high school production of The Wizard of Oz. They needed a couple of younger siblings to get up on stage, do a little munchkin dance, and be in this high school production. One of my mom's friends, whose children also went to this private school, said, "You know, Brett's six; would she like to come and be in this?" I was terrified. I was deathly shy. One of my brothers had passed away the year prior, and it had absolutely wrecked my family—just absolutely cracked this open—and I was reeling from that. My family dynamic was completely different, and I just shut down and did not want to get on stage; I had no interest in doing it. I remember we were doing construction on our house in Chattanooga, and I would hide in like a cabinet, like that, and I would get in cabinets and hide. I just, like, "I don't want to be seen; I don't want to be heard." My mom was noticing that and was making a conscious effort to push me. "Go in and speak to somebody in a gas station by yourself; here's $5, go buy a candy bar." So, when I was just absolutely, "I don't want to get on stage; I don't want to do this," she was like, "Well, no, I think that this is something that you should do if you're afraid of it." I got on stage and have never felt that way, and she said that me being on stage, I just came alive. That's how I felt even at six years old.

That was at six.

Okay, and so what performances did you undertake after that?

I did multiple at that high school; then I started doing community theater productions, and then I was begging my mom to do more. I was like, "Let me find other things; can I do a community theater production here?" She was originally from Atlanta, and Atlanta was two hours away. "Could I go do Annie? Annie is being produced in Georgia. Can I audition?" Because I really wanted to play, you know, the little orphan Molly in Annie. The Atlanta Symphony and Opera, I started doing singing lessons; they were doing La Bohème, and they had a children's choir. Please let me go audition for this. My mom would put me in the car, and we would drive two hours, and she would sit outside while I would be in rehearsals and dance classes, and I just came alive. There was nothing that I loved more.

What did you—why did you like performing? What did it do for you?

It gave me an outlet to express things I didn't feel comfortable expressing at all.

What kind of things?

I think it was less of a specific emotion, and it was more of I was just able to be completely openly me. I was able to put myself in other people's shoes. It's like that Atticus Finch quote where you know you get to put on somebody else's shoes and walk a while—not walk a mile, on the road he says—in To Kill a Mockingbird. It gave me the opportunity to put myself in character circumstances that were completely unlike my own. It was an escape in a lot of ways.

Well, it is play, you know what I mean? Kids love to play, and even though we don't really let them anymore, that’s why they—I think that's why they play so intensely when they go off to university, I'm sure, and switch roles and transform identities.

Sure, yeah. I think most of it's repressed play—not most of it, much of it is repressed play.

Yeah, well, you have to play a lot of roles before you find your part.

Yeah, right, and that's what kids are doing; that's what they should be doing between the ages of about two and a half and, like, well that really intense play period lasts probably till around 10 but then there are variants of it in adolescence as well as people find their way and find their role. What you were doing was a very structured variant of that. And I think I needed that because so much of it was suppressed at home. I think I was constantly trying to make myself as small as possible to not rock the boat my entire life because of things—because of how upset things had become. Yes, and in the aftermath, particularly my brother's death, my parents, their relationship was not great from the beginning and they stayed together for me. My brothers are all older than me, and so the death in the family just broke that open even more. I knew from a very young age, I was very self-aware; I knew that they were staying together for me was very uncomfortable, and I just wanted to cause as few problems as possible. Ironically, that turned into then me traveling around the country doing theater—clinging to logistical problems.

Right, well, those are, you know, those are better problems than pointless and horrible problems.

Yeah, they were fun problems—they were adventurous.

Okay, so you accrued quite a lot of experience by the time you were 10.

Yes.

All right, and then your family up and moved—

To my mom and I did.

Your mom and you did.

My parents' relationship, I would say, was already on the fritz, like I said, and I had been working in New York a little bit while I was 9 or 10. And actually, I don't know if I've ever told this story on a podcast before, but I desperately wanted to play Jane Banks in Mary Poppins; it was a musical that was on Broadway in the early 2000s. Desperately, the show had been running for a couple of years, and I would sit on my mom's big desktop computer, and I would avidly watch YouTube videos of all the girls who were playing Jane Banks, this, you know, 12-year-old character. I learned who their managers were and who their agents were, and there was one guy, and he managed four of the different girls who had played Jane Banks over the course of three years. I wrote him a letter—a handwritten letter—and I said, "My name is Brett Cooper; I love performing; these are all the things I've done; I'm attaching my resume; my biggest dream is to play Jane Banks." And then I painted a photo of me as Jane Banks on Broadway, and I mailed it to him. I got an email back somehow, and he brought me out to New York, and I auditioned there. So, then I started working more in the big leagues, I would say. I started auditioning for Broadway shows, doing workshops of Broadway shows.

And how old were you then?

Nine.

Okay, okay. So this is still prior to—

Yes, prior to. This is in New York. So, you did all that research when you were what, eight?

Yeah, eight or nine.

And it was completely self-directed. I hit my growth spurt very young, and on Broadway, if you are under the age of 18 and you're playing a children's role—if you're playing a 12-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 15-year-old—they want you under a certain height limit so the people in the back of the house can distinguish an adult from a child on stage. For Jane Banks, the specific role, and for most of the young roles at that time, it was 4'11". I had auditioned for Jane Banks time and time again; the national tour, the Broadway show—somebody's, you know, a girl is being replaced because you know you have like a six-month contract. I finally got to one where it seemed like it was going to happen, I was pinned, and they said, "Come back in two months; it's going to be you and a few other girls." Over those two months, I hit the biggest growth spurt of my life, came back, and I was way too tall. I remember sitting up there, and they literally measure you before you can go in an audition, and I was like, "Let me shrink myself as much as possible." They said, "No, we're not going to hire you," not because of my talent or anything like that, but you are just too tall.

So, you were a victim of sizeism, I would say.

Definitely, I was a victim of sizeism at 9 years old, that's right. It was heartbreaking; it was crushing at 9 years old. One of my best friends at the time got the role of Michael Banks, so he played Jane Banks's brother, and it was crushing because I saw him, you know, traveling around the country on the national tour. My management team, I ended up signing with the guy who had represented all of those actresses; I was with him for 10 plus years. I adore him. He said, "You basically can wait until you turn 18, and then you can play adult roles, or you can go to Los Angeles and do film and TV." My mom said, "Absolutely not." She was originally born in California; my brothers were all born in California. She said, "I'm not going back; that industry specifically, film and television, is disgusting; I don't want my child in it." I just begged, begged, like this is all I want to do. I was homeschooled at the time already just for academic reasons. I laid it out for her and said, "We have the flexibility; you don't even want to be in Tennessee; you don’t really want to be in this marriage, basically, and I, like, this is all I want to do." So, she said, "Let's go and try it," and so we went there for three months. She said, "We'll see if you like it," and I loved it. Things started taking off, signed with an agent out there, and then we would do three months on and then three months off with my father, and he would drive across the country with us and get us to the apartment. Then I'd stay there for three months and then go home. I think at 14 was when we permanently moved out there.

And then you emancipated—you meaning you and—

And others?

Again, yeah. So, what were you doing in Hollywood between 10 and 14?

Auditioning and doing small roles on different TV shows and short films and training. That's the biggest part of being an actor is that you are in acting classes four times a week, you are doing singing lessons, you are dancing; you're building your skill set. I remember, you know, I had to do a—I was on a TV show and I had to learn how to fence, so you're in, you know, fencing classes. In addition to that, I think this is important, I had a lot of things outside of acting that I think kept me more well-rounded so that my identity did not completely get wrapped up in this industry that is very vapid and it is very based on vanity, selfishness, and fame. I was, you know, a horseback rider, and I was a ballet dancer for 15 years; I did gymnastics; I played tennis; I was very, very involved in school. I went to an online private school, incredibly, incredibly academic, and my—I'd say my identity was honestly more wrapped up in my education at that point in my life than it was in acting. Acting was just something that I got to do.

Was your mother facilitating all of this? Was she helping you out?

Yeah, right.

So, you enjoyed your time in Los Angeles between 10 and 14?

I loved it.

There's been a lot of rumors about child actors in Hollywood recently. What do you make of all that?

A lot—it's all true.

So, what happened? What did you escape unscathed?

I did. I saw a lot of it.

What did you see?

For example, I worked on a children's TV show on a major network, and one of the writers, after we wrapped on the show—after the show was canceled—had incredibly inappropriate relationships with young women, like me, who were on the show. Young women in my age group.

How young?

Okay, and to my knowledge, this was not sexual, but it was objectively grooming. It was inappropriate relationships between an adult and minors because Hollywood goes ahead and blurs the lines between what is appropriate between adults and children because you're working with adults constantly. My entire childhood, I spent more time with adults than I did with children. My management team, they were all adults, obviously; agents, managers, directors, casting directors, producers, wardrobe assistants—you're surrounded by adults constantly, writers in this case. Those lines get really blurred. If a writer on a TV show that you worked on invites you and one of your co-stars out to lunch to talk about another TV show that he's working on, your parents go, "Oh, okay, yeah, well, you've worked with him for two years at this point; let's take you to lunch." And then you're sitting here with this girl who's a year older than you, and he starts talking about the lesbian fantasies that he has about you and your friend. Nothing happened, but the fact that he thought that that was appropriate—the fact that he…

Well, that's testing behavior.

Yeah, and then the fact that later, we're walking around the restaurant, and he puts his hand in my friend's back pocket, who's 15 years old. I just, you know, I'd get me out of here—completely inappropriate.

How many of the young people in Hollywood are sold into that, so to speak, by their parents? Now, you characterized your mother as someone who was loath to take you on the Hollywood adventure, but there's no shortage of parents—is it more common among mothers?—probably the Cluster B type mothers who use their children to their own advantage, come hell or high water.

Yeah, JZ Jennings, for example, speaks to mind, right, in the most brutal and horrible possible manner. Right, but there's a you can see a lot of this on social media. Parents pimping out their children, transforming them, you know, and then proclaiming their moral virtue in consequence of the transformation. You know, my child is very, very deviant, but I'm such a wonderful person that I still love them deeply. Right, right. Minor pushed them in that direction in the first place, and then you might say so.

Yeah, and I think another example—did you read I'm Glad My Mom Died by Janette McCurdy?

No, I haven't read it.

Fantastic, and that, I mean, that I think is the most incredible example of what a lot—Janette McCurdy, she's—you haven't talked to her on your podcast?

No, I have not.

I believe she talked to Michaela, Michaela, okay.

It was just an incredible book. I remember sitting—I read it last year when it came out, and I was just, I mean, full tears reading it because these are the stories of the people that I grew up with. They’re the things that I saw but was protected against. My mom was very wary about me being involved in this industry and, sharp, she set firm boundaries; she was always watching; she was always within eye shot; I had a guardian.

Oh, yes, right.

And the other thing that I think was incredibly important that she did was again, like I said, I had so many other things going on in my life so my identity was not wrapped up in this industry. I never connected it to money at all because my money was put in savings accounts; my parents never touched it, my mom never touched it. The state takes 15% of whatever a young actor makes and puts it into your coogan account, so if you are in a situation where your parents are exploiting you, at least by 18 you have some money. Never touched any of that and never wanted me to connect Hollywood and making money because I would see, she saw people in my circle, these kids, they would do an episode on a TV show, and then their parents would go out and buy six American Girl dolls, and they would buy a fancy new car for the family, and the parents would take a huge vacation that the kid at eight years old paid for. Right, and my mom always wanted to ensure that I stuck in this industry because I loved it, because I couldn't live without it, because I loved telling stories. At least once a month, she would say, "Are you sure you want to do this? Because if you ever want to stop, we'll stop. I don't care how much money we've invested in your acting classes and your dance classes; if you want to stop, if you want to go home, you'll pack up and move to Tennessee."

What made her so sensible?

She's just a brilliant woman. She's incredible; she's one of the most resilient people I've ever met. She’s been to hell and back a million times. Her first husband passed away; her child then passed away, my older brother, in light of my brother's passing, has severe mental illness. He's permanently in a psychiatric facility for schizophrenia. Very, very hard marriage with my father—very, very hard upbringing where she was often the black sheep. She is very comfortable being nontraditional and doing things that would be considered unconventional in whatever circumstance she's in.

How did you end up with traditional values, then?

Because she's very traditional. But I realized that as I said that I contradicted myself. She is willing to be unconventional in the given circumstances. So, in Hollywood, we’re so—she’s daring; she’s daring. And the majority of people that we were surrounded by were parents pushing their kids into this; she was willing to be the one that said, "No, my kid is not doing that; my kid isn’t doing this kind of project; my kid is not going out for this project that is run by a producer that we know has a bad track record." Incredibly involved.

Well, fundamentally, I mean, the case you're laying out—that it's always useful to look at situational determinants of unfortunate outcomes, let's say. The first thing you said was, "Well, there are kids working with adults," and so the lines are blurred. And, okay, so that sets the stage, and then you can imagine that within those relationships, there's no shortage of people whose ability to obtain intimacy, like in a relationship or sexually, is stunningly compromised. So, those people, at minimum, are going to, like, just as a consequence of their inability, they're going to be looking for opportunity, and maybe not even that good at distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate opportunity. And then there's the ones that are really bent because they're resentful and because they're isolated; they're actually looking for innocence to subvert and destroy. Those are the more—that tilt more in the explicitly narcissistic and sadistic direction. Your circumstance was such that you had a mother who was watching out for you and so that instead of a mother who was complicit and exploiting you, who turned a blind eye...

Yeah.

Now, you said you had a growth spurt when you were how old?

Nine.

Yeah? So, how physically mature were you by the time you were 14?

Relatively. I always looked older for my age, so that's another thing that blurs the lines, of course, right?

Yeah, and if you're around adults and you learn to act like an adult, you're going to also present yourself in a more mature manner.

Yeah.

And if you physically look like one, I mean...

Yeah, yeah.

Well, that makes it very, very complicated. However, it also—it just shouldn't. What did you—what did you do? Do you think that so often girls—bully victims in general—girls who are subject to exploitation are not very good at subtle signaling? They don’t know how to say no; they don’t know when to say no; they don’t know how to broadcast no, like right from the initial interactions.

Well, how do you think you conducted yourself so that—because I know you said your mother was protecting you—but did you conduct yourself so that nothing got going?

Yeah.

Okay, how?

I would say, just intrinsically, I'm very self-aware and have been for a long time, and I think that is because I had to grow up very quickly in terms of my family. I was just very aware of everything that was going on. You also said you didn’t want to cause trouble.

Yeah, um, unnecessary trouble. Yes, unnecessary trouble. But I don't think that means that I was not willing to stand up for myself because in situations that were this severe in terms of my safety, my innocence... Anyway, I think that I was very self-aware; and then it goes back to my mother again. When we moved out to Los Angeles, she knew everything—all the rumors about Hollywood; the casting couch. She put me in women's self-defense against sexual assault classes when I was 10, and I did those classes until I—and that was useful—the most incredible thing I’ve ever done, hands down. I was put in situations. I started out doing group classes, and you learn how to fight against a male opponent that is bigger than you because you can do jiu-jitsu, you can do karate. I think that those disciplines are incredible; they often do not translate to real women. We hold our strength in different parts of our bodies. When you are dealing with an assault, you know, situational awareness is so important; your voice is so important. Just being able to scream 'no!' It was incredible.

And so, I mean, I was put in situations in these classes where a man comes up behind you. My instructor comes up behind you, holding a knife to your throat. Knowing how to get out of that, holding a gun to your head...

You were at least run through situations.

I was run through, but I think this situation you described in the restaurant where this writer, I think you said was a writer, slipped his hand into the back pocket of this of your friend—you said she was a little older than you.

Yeah, she was 16.

Why didn’t he do the same thing to you?

He tried to, and I moved away and said, "That's weird; don't do that."

Okay, did she do that?

No, okay. So, so that—that's the perfect example.

Yeah.

Well, that's exactly my point; those are the micro-no's that stop things from proceeding.

Yes, right, and so—and I credit a lot of that to these classes that I did because, as you said, and as you brought up again, I was unwilling to rock the boat; I was a doormat in my family, and still, that's something that I'm still working through as an adult now. I'm being very, very nervous about that in my immediate family just because of the way that I was raised. Are you an agreeable person? Do you like to please people?

I do.

Uh-huh, right? Right. Well, you can also see the complexity because if you're an entertainer and you're on stage, you're obligated, as part of your role, to be magnetically attractive, charismatic, and all of that, and to capitalize on that. Drawing the line—Marilyn Monroe, she said she could walk down the street as Norma Jeane or as Marilyn, and if she walked down the street as Norma Jeane, no one paid any attention to her. But if she walked down the street as Marilyn Monroe, then she was magnetically attractive. Right, and so those are obviously—well, she was a master of that seductress role. She's still iconic because of that, and it's like 70 years later—that’s really quite something, and it certainly destroyed her.

Yeah, right, because that was too much.

Well, if you're an actor, an actress, then you have this can—because you're rewarded for your attractiveness, you're capitalizing on your attractiveness, you’re among adults, but you have to hem that in so that you're not exploited.

Yeah, right.

Well, when exactly are you being exploited and when exactly are you exploiting yourself? It's not like that's obvious. So, it's a very good thing that you had your mother along with you.

Yeah, of course. It's too—that's interesting because you were at least placed in frightening situations and you were at least alert to the fact that those sorts of things existed. How do you think what you learned in the courses translated into changes in your day-to-day behavior?

They addressed my doormat behavior, they addressed my agreeableness because more than any of the physical fighting that I was doing, and that was fun and it was an energy release that made me feel powerful emotionally, I held myself differently; my confidence skyrocketed because for the first time in my life, I was given permission to say no. I was given permission to draw a line in the sand, and I think that is what my mom wanted more than anything. I think that obviously she wanted me to be able to defend myself, and as I got older, that’s when we started doing more of the—you know—date rape simulations and begun like we weren’t doing that at 10 years old. What she wanted me to learn, because she had watched me grow up and be very, very shy and refusing to get on stage.

And I think that she knew that I had this desperate urge to perform, that I wanted to tell stories; she did not want that mixed with my doormat behavior to then open the door for exploitation.

So, women are more empathic, compassionate, agreeable than men on average, and from what you’ve told me, you tilt more in the agreeable direction. The problem with being agreeable—one of the problems with being agreeable is that your agreeable people feel the pain of others quite acutely, like literally. So, I'm an agreeable person, so if I'm watching you in pain, the same circuits that are mediating your pain are active in me. Now, if I’m not so agreeable, that doesn’t happen, and that makes it easier for—what does that mean?—well, the downside is it makes it easier for me to be selfish because I don’t give a damn about my effects on other people. But the upside is I can tell you to go to hell when it’s necessary, and I don’t care what your response is.

Now, I worked with a lot of women in my clinical practice who were like sequentially abused, and one of the things I noticed about them was that—well, first of all, they were generally very badly socialized, and so had no idea where to draw those initial lines—and that's what continually got them into trouble. But they’re also very unwilling to reject and to say no; and the reason for that is obvious: like if you reject someone, if you say no to someone, if you stop their advances, you’re definitely going to do something, like offend them or hurt their feelings, and so... and if you’re an agreeable person, that’s a very difficult thing to...

The worst thing you could do.

Yeah, exactly! A disagreeable person will say, “Screw off!”

A disagreeable person will just say, "Well, no, and I don't care what you think about it or feel about it; like, screw off!" Yeah, right, and you need that—especially if you’re attractive, especially if you’re charismatic or especially if people are coming at you for a variety of reasons. There are kind of two main reasons why people go to therapy. One is to deal with negative emotion, let's say depression and anxiety. The other main category is to learn how to stand up for themselves—that's why—learn to say no.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. And how are you at that now?

I'm much better.

How are you at contractual negotiations?

Much better.

Yeah? How do you do negotiating with Daily Wire?

I think I did pretty well.

Did you do great?

I think I did pretty well; I've gotten better since then, and it's good to surround yourself with sharks as long as they're not like gnawing on you.

Yeah, but it's been a... Have you had good agents?

I've had great agents.

That's good; that's good. So you've had people other than your mother that have been on your side?

Yeah.

Long-term relationships with them?

Yeah, oh yeah, that's a good deal. And I think one thing—and I think we’re going to talk about this later—but another thing is my now husband, I think, has probably been the most influential in that.

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Um, how long have you known him?

Two years.

Mhm, influential in what way?

In encouraging me to stand up for myself. I am very agreeable, and I think that was something that I didn’t want to be for a long time, and I think that it was important that I learned how to control that because I think that it can be used really beautifully and to your advantage, and I think it makes me a very empathetic person. If you started crying, I would start crying right now.

Great with infants.

Yes.

Well, that—but dead seriously, like it's great with infants, and so, you know, that’s—that’s the place where agreeableness most appropriately manifests itself. And it's partly because—think about it this way. When you have an infant, especially in the first, let's say nine months, it's not quite that long, but it’s certainly the first six—you have to agree with everything, right? Every single demand that new creature makes, you are obliged to say yes to, right? And so if you're agreeable and empathic and compassionate and responsive, then that’s a perfect match for that relationship.

The problem is that the relationship with infants isn’t the same as certainly not with predatory adults.

Right.

Those are very different.

You, yeah, yeah.

Well, it makes it very, very complicated. However, it also—it just shouldn’t.

What did you—what did you do? Do you think that so often girls—bully victims in general—girls who are subject to exploitation are not very good at subtle signaling? They don’t know how to say no; they don’t know when to say no; they don’t know how to broadcast no, like right from the initial interactions.

So how do you think you conducted yourself so that—because I know you said your mother was protecting you—but did you conduct yourself so that nothing got going?

Yeah.

Okay, how?

I would say, just intrinsically, I'm very self-aware and have been for a long time; and I think that is because I had to grow up very quickly in terms of my family. I was just very aware of everything that was going on; you also said you didn’t want to cause trouble.

Yeah, um, unnecessary trouble. Yes, unnecessary trouble.

But I don't think that means that I was not willing to stand up for myself because in situations that were this severe in terms of my safety, my innocence—anyway, I think that I was very self-aware. Then, it goes back to my mother again. When we moved out to Los Angeles, she knew everything—all the rumors about Hollywood; the casting couch. She put me in women's self-defense against sexual assault classes when I was 10, and I did those classes until I—and that was useful—the most incredible thing I’ve ever done, hands down. I was put in situations. I started out doing group classes, and you learn how to fight against a male opponent that is bigger than you because you can do jiu-jitsu; you can do karate. I think that those disciplines are incredible; they often do not translate to real women. We hold our strength in different parts of our bodies. When you are dealing with an assault, you know, situational awareness is so important; your voice is so important. Just being able to scream 'no!' It was incredible.

Yeah, she was 16.

Why didn’t he do the same thing to you?

He tried to, and I moved away and said, "That's weird; don't do that."

Okay, did she do that?

No, okay. So, so that—that's the perfect example.

Yeah, well, that's exactly my point; those are the micro-no's that stop things from proceeding.

I do.

Uh-huh, right? Right. Well, you can also see the complexity because if you're an entertainer and you're on stage, you're obligated as part of your role to be magnetically attractive, charismatic, and all of that, and to capitalize on that.

Drawing the line—Marilyn Monroe, she said she could walk down the street as Norma Jeane or as Marilyn, and if she walked down the street as Norma Jeane, no one paid any attention to her. But if she walked down the street as Marilyn Monroe, then she was magnetically attractive.

Right, and so those are obviously—well, she was a master of that seductress role. She's still iconic because of that, and it's like 70 years later—that’s really quite something, and it certainly destroyed her.

Yeah, right, because that was too much.

Well, if you're an actor or an actress, then you have this can—because you're rewarded for your attractiveness; you're capitalizing on your attractiveness; you’re among adults, but you have to hem that in so that you’re not exploited.

Yeah, right.

Well, when exactly are you being exploited and when exactly are you exploiting yourself? It's not like that's obvious. So, it's a very good thing that you had your mother along with you.

They addressed my doormat behavior; they addressed my agreeableness because more than any of the physical fighting that I was doing—and that was fun and it was an energy release that made me feel powerful emotionally, I held myself differently; my confidence skyrocketed because for the first time in my life, I was given permission to say no. I was given permission to draw a line in the sand, and I think that is what my mom wanted more than anything. She wanted me to be able to defend myself.

As I got older, that’s when we started doing more of the you know date-rape simulations and those weren't done at 10 years old. What she wanted me to learn, because she had watched me grow up and be very very shy and refusing to get on stage.

And I think that she knew that I had this desperate urge to perform, that I wanted to tell stories; she did not want that mixed with my doormat personality to then open the door for exploitation.

The worst thing you could do.

Yeah, yeah exactly! A disagreeable person will say "Screw off!"

A disagreeable person will just say, "Well, no and I don't care what you think about it or feel about it; like screw off!" Yeah, right, and you need that—especially if you’re attractive, especially if you’re charismatic, or especially if people are coming at you for a variety of reasons. There are kind of two main reasons why people go to therapy: one is to deal with negative emotion, let's say depression and anxiety. The other main category is to learn how to stand up for themselves—that's why—learn to say no.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. And how are you at that now?

I'm much better.

How are you at contractual negotiations?

Much better!

Yeah? How do you do negotiating with Daily Wire?

I think I did pretty well.

Did you do great?

I think I did pretty well; I’ve gotten better since then, and it’s good to surround yourself with sharks as long as they’re not like gnawing on you.

Yeah, but it’s a pleasure.

Is there anything you want to touch on with how we got here? I mean, your channel grew like mad.

Crazy. Yeah!

Yeah, yeah, had a million subscribers in five months, right?

Yeah, and you’re up to about 4.3-something like that now on YouTube in two years.

Right, right, right. So obviously you could do it.

Yeah, right, right! Well, so that's extremely interesting, and I will say, and it wasn’t just... I think that we found an important niche, but I also do believe, as you said, I did put in the time.

Yeah!

I had 10 years, and so I think it's a combination of that, and I also think we are, again, finding the right timing right.

So, you’ve been incredibly successful. What makes your audience so engaged? What do you think it is that resonates with them?

I think it works because, like you said, I do approach things with a positive attitude—I think a lot of content online right now is incredibly angry, especially things that are, you know, I don’t want to just say political, but also cultural commentary. It’s very angry; it’s very intense.

With my positivity and humor, I think I'm able to reach people more effectively; I take my work very seriously, but I try to keep things light-hearted and engaging, knowing humor plays a big part in connecting with my listeners and audience.

So the kind of tone you create allows people to engage in a joyful exploration of the topics I'm discussing rather than feeling overwhelmed or triggered by negativity, so I try to keep it encouraging and inviting.

It's a show that I would want to watch. Kind of like I said, at the beginning when we sat down, this is something I did not have. I knew that this needed to exist.

Because I would look around, and I'd like—I watched your YouTube videos; I would watch Michael; I would watch Ben debate, you know? I would have his line about, you know, in that debate… I don't remember where it was; it might have been UC Santa Barbara or something where, you know, that kid said, "Well, how do you know that girls can't be in Boy Scouts?" He’s like, “It’s in the name!”

I watched all of those. I was constantly consuming that. I didn’t see myself represented, and it’s weird for me to say that because I will often critique Hollywood, always saying you need to be represented, you need to be represented, but in this case, I do believe that it was important because I did not see...

Well, that you occupied that. Look, there are two ways of looking at that: you can whine and complain about the victimization or you can see that that’s a market opportunity because the niche hasn't been filled.

Right, well, the social media landscape is pretty new; it's not surprising that all the niches aren't filled.

Yeah, and so you filled—and this is why I compared you a bit to Candice earlier—is that you filled a relatively rare niche, which is young female conservative commentators who are entertaining and engaging...

Well, you know, that's a lot of combinations of... that's a lot of rare traits combined, and I also think more on the right—whether you’re a Libertarian or conservative or classical liberal—the women that I saw were either—and this is not talking down to any of them whatsoever—it just wasn't me. I either saw, you know, the Trump intern type girls and their pencil skirts—the D.C. politicos, right? Or I saw, you know, the hunter-creator conservatives.

Those are very rare creatures. I saw, like, the outdoorsy hunters; I think that they're amazing, but that wasn't like... I was in a weird box where I just felt like I'm a normal girl and why do, I not have anybody to watch that's sharing my values that has a take on things that I can relate to that I feel like I'm—

I don't like, I'm not crazy for the things that I believe! And so I think that is one of the primary reasons why it just took off immediately because young people...

Well, you hit the target!

I did, right! There was a gap there, and, yeah! I think the humor in my personality, and I really—I care about it, and I care about my audience a lot; I genuinely care about them. I genuinely want to make good content for them; when I meet them—yeah, that's really important!

It is, and I see myself in them, and I still do—I don't look at them as like, "Oh, you were me a few years ago," like I am creating things that if I wasn't doing this, I would want to be watching, and I would want somebody to care about me!

How's the Daily Wire being to work with in that regard?

Incredible! Yeah, I’ve had the same experience.

Yeah, they—there are two things they do for me. The first is they leave me the hell alone.

Yeah, well, the thing is, if you hire someone who's on a journey, let's say a creative journey, and you box them in, then that's the end of them.

Right.

I struggled with this continually at the University as it degenerated because I love my job, I love doing research, I love being a professor; I very much enjoyed being a clinician, but I wanted to be left alone so I could do it. At minimum, at minimum, just don't get in my way when I'm doing the job you hired me to do; like that’s the minimum requirement. There’s another requirement too which is, well, how about I bring you a creative idea and you jump on board?

One of the things that’s really characterized my relationship with The Daily Wire is that they’ve said yes to preposterous projects, and like right away, and backed them. They did that with the Exodus seminar I did, which is a very high-risk project. We did a Gospel seminar and a western civilization project; these were complex projects. They whipped them up very quickly!

Very, very quickly—I was stunned. Not only did they greenlight them almost immediately, and then we went ahead with them right away, but they also edited them extremely professionally, produced them extremely professionally, and did that all rapidly too, and enthusiastically.

So, we're in a fortunate position with that car because we're in a growth phase of that enterprise, and they're—like, you know, they're—they, as far as I can tell, not only do they put their money where their mouth is, but the people there are fully and enthusiastically and non-rent and efficiently on board, and so that's very, very helpful. Even when they don't completely understand it, they're on board.

I mean, just from the beginning, I sat in a meeting with Jeremy and Caleb and the whole team and we pitched Comment Section, and we had produced a pilot, and the marketing team and the social media team were developing it. They brought me in. I could have been fired at any moment if they had not greenlit the show.

My job would have been a—I had nothing else to do; my show would have been next. I sat in this meeting with Jeremy; we played the pilot, and he got through it. We watched all three—and looking back on it, it's a terrible, terrible pilot—but he looked over at me in his silence, his normal Jeremy way, contemplating things, and looked at me, and he said, "I don't understand this show, but I know other people will."

And I think, you know, he was willing to take that risk on me. I mean, when they hired me, I was 19 years old, right?

Yeah, I just graduated college.

Oh. It’s no wonder you were nervous!

You should be nervous!

Nervous! Yes! I was 19; they were giving me all—I wouldn’t say they were giving me a platform; they were helping me with a platform, but we were starting with zero. They gave me resources and an incredible team, and they took a chance!

Yeah, definitely. And even when Jeremy watched it, he said, "This show is not for me; I don’t get the memes; I don’t understand the TikToks that you’re talking about; the lingo you’re using, but I know it's important because I know…”

He had confidence to allow people to generate autonomous projects.

Yeah, yeah, which is also the hallmark of a confident and creative manager. And also something that makes that group a pleasure to work with—they're a genuine pleasure to work with!

Let's talk about your other projects as well. So, um, we're circling back into Hollywood four years later; okay, so you have—um—Mr. Burum, yes, the Pendragon cycle, and Snow White and the evil queen, right? So is that a good order to discuss them in?

They are, yes! So let’s start with Mr. Burum. Mr. Burum is coming out very soon, and what is that?

Mr. Burum is an animated comedy. Here’s a look at the trailer for Mr. Burum: when I was a kid, men were men. Now everyone's wrapped up in finding real men stuff, feelings, down with red meat, cigarettes, and violence; you and the geriatric Girl Scouts will be basted out in an hour. Burum! Bur—Mr. Bur—B B—Richard Burum. Let the record show I’m a dick!

Watch Mr. Burum, an all-new animated series from Daily Wire Plus, now streaming! It is inspired by a character that Adam Carolla has been doing on his radio show for years. He’s a this a series—a TV series.

Yeah, um, he is, you know, he is a cozy shop teacher—like wood shop teacher in schools—who is incredibly traditional, incredibly, you know—everything he does is tangible; it’s about as traditional as you can get—working with, you know, tools and wood. And he’s watching as the world just changes around him, as things get more technologically advanced, as the world gets more progressive as the school is trying to push him out.

Yeah, um, saying, "Your job is not as important," and so it follows his...

And what role do you play?

I play his daughter.

I see, I see. And what’s the character of his daughter?

Uh, she’s incredibly—she actually reminds me a lot of myself. She’s incredibly precocious, um, very smart, very close with her father.

And who’s the target market for it?

I think the target market is people that have felt abandoned by comedy, who watch, you know, animated TV shows—who are adults—who want comedy that is truthful, that is not afraid to pull punches. That I think the common man will relate to it has some s—I wouldn't say that it is satire—but it has many satirical elements to it. The writing is incredible; they brought me on, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I had done voiceover a lot, but had not done it in a few years, and that was always interesting because you record this whole series.

I play a very significant role in it—I have not met Adam yet. I’ve never met Megan Kelly yet; I’m meeting her next week for the first time, but you record all of this remote, and so I only got to see bits and pieces of it. I knew that the scripts were fantastic, and then I started to sort of see the...so when does it launch?

It launches this month.

Oh, it does? Yeah, okay, and that’s on the Daily Wire? That'll be on Daily Wire, okay. Let’s talk about the Pendragon Cycle.

Yes, so I—there's a huge enterprise for Daily Wire; they poured a tremendous amount of resources into it.

It's the biggest swing we’ve ever taken.

Yeah, yeah, Jeremy ever.

So walk through it. I talked to Jeremy a bit about it on my podcast, but let’s hear it from your perspective.

So Pendragon Cycle—and I’m sure Jeremy told you this—it is his favorite book series. From the beginning, I mean, he has wanted to create this TV show for 30 plus years. This is something he's thought about, dreamed about, has physically written scripts for, and it was finally the time when we had the resources; it was the cultural moment. He was able to step away to direct a majority of it; he was the showrunner, he produced it, he wrote a significant portion of it. This truly is his—I mean, I can’t speak for him, but in speaking with him while we were there and seeing him work, this is probably the most important thing that he’s ever done.

And we went to Hungary—I was there for 5 months; he was there for seven months.

Were you recording your podcast during that like while you were—

Well yeah, yeah, so we—I was the only Daily Wire host that is in the show.

What role did you play?

Um, I play Merlin’s wife.

So it is an art of legacy—the tale of—and it follows the rise of Christianity through the lens of an Arwen, like not speaking—I mean not legacy.

Um, and so I play Merlin's wife.

And is she a good wife?

Very good. She's a good character; she is.

Yes, she’s a very, very fun character to play. She has a really beautiful balance of being incredibly strong but also being very feminine and very empathetic—very sympathetic for Or's very unique experiences. And it was—it was just a very, very fun character to play, and I saw a lot of myself in her. I got to do stunts that I’ve never done before.

It was amazing; it was fantastic; it was a lot—it was very, very hard work because...

How long did you do it for?

Five months.

So, right; and how many hours were filming—you know—for the for the final series, any idea?

What's going to come out of it? I have no idea yet, and I know that they’ll probably—they'll have a first edit and then they’ll cut it down.

Kind of do you have you seen any of the edits?

I haven’t yet. Jeremy protected—they’re in full post-production now. I think that there is already a first round of edits that are finished, and now they’re—we have so much VFX that is going to go into this, so many VFX. Um, there’s just a lot of post-production that has to be done, but the very cool thing is, even though we are using some VFX, we did 90% of everything that you will see on the screen practically—we physically did it all. There was a—the series starts with an incredible sequence with Spanish bull leapers, and they were physically jumping over these bulls. One of my best friends, who played the lead in Pendragon, Rose Reed, she was in the arena with these bulls; she trained for months to be able to look like one of these bull leapers. She was having to navigate around the bulls.

I was on horseback with a spear jumping over streams, you know, chasing a boar. Um, we were physically fighting; if there was an explosion that you see on screen, we felt the fire. There’s a scene where I’m, you know, running through putting out a fire—I was basically covered in fire protection, which is like a goop that you put on so that you can’t be set on fire, running through fire as people were being fully set on fire on it.

It was absolutely incredible; there was—I mean, they did not hold back.

Good thing you said yes to the Daily—we're kidding because it's also—it's very special because it's very full circle because I get to go back and do what I love more than anything, which tell stories, but I get to do it with people who I love and trust, who I know are not exploiting me as a child actor, who share my values, and are genuinely creating content for the betterment of other people.

Right, well that’s a good deal.

It is because I would read scripts that I would be sent in Hollywood, and I would—I would look at it, I'd say, "I don’t want to watch this." Like, these are terrible characters, they're sharing terrible messages; I don't even want to be a vessel through which this gets out to the public.

Right, right.

And I knew that again, and you had—not—didn't have that feeling with the Pendragon. It’s an incredible story. I haven't had that feeling with anything that I've done with say. I think Mr. Burum is incredible; I can stand behind that completely.

The Pendragon Cycle is a perfect mix of something that is meaningful in terms of its values and what it promotes and the values of the characters that you will fall in love with while also being something that is beautiful and that people objectively can enjoy. You're not going to sit down and say, "Oh, I'm watching a Christian TV show."

You're going to enjoy it because it actually is very good, but you can know that the people who made it, the hours that were put in... I mean, Jeremy barely slept for seven months, but I’ve also never seen him happier because this was, yeah, I gained massive respect for him watching this take place—and he did it masterfully.

And so, you can feel good watching that, and it’s incredible being an actor in that environment and being a vessel because you really are a vessel. You go there, you stand, and you mold yourself to the character, and you lose a lot of yourself in doing that if you hate the project, and if you hate the character you're playing, but if you’re able to love the character, if you're able to love the production and the story you're telling, it makes it so much more meaningful and you feel like you're actually part of something that can impact audiences, can impact the culture in a really important way.

So let's talk about—even as your final project—Snow and the Evil Queen. So you were picked to play Snow White, yes?

Yeah.

Once upon a [Music] time in time a prince would [Music] come once upon a time, but now that time is [Music] gone.

So, we announced it when we announced Ben Key, which is our Children’s Division. I think a lot of people assume that we had already filmed the movie when we released the trailer; it was very backwards. We did not do that—I was—we were maybe a week into filming Pendragon, and I get a text from Jeremy; he just goes, "Where are you?"

I'm at my apartment, and he says, "I need you to meet me at the Pray; can you be here in five minutes?" and that was maybe an eight-minute walk.

Like, "Yes, if you DM me and ask anything, you say yes; I'll be there!"

I sprint out of the apartment, I get to the lobby of the Pray; I sit down, and he says, "We want to do something that could be—it might be impossible."

And this was at the time that everything—it was during the SAG strike, but everything was going viral about Disney's Snow White, everything.

Disney perversion of the social order and the demolition of the narrative—what? Of the traditional narrative.

Let’s just rewrite this—it’ll be great!

Every time!

Oh yeah, yeah! We’ll improve it!

Yeah, yeah!

This so-called secret gay agenda.

Um, and so that was in the middle of all of this happening, and I had obviously been following it; I had done episodes about it.

No—the gay agenda is a mask; it’s just a destructive agenda.

It is! It’s just a de-it’s a demolition agenda with all traditional values!

We’re pro-inclusion—that’s the mask.

That’s the mask—the mask!

So that if you attack it, you sound like a bigot.

Yeah, then you can—it’s their wall!

No, no, we’re just bringing in the marginalized; it’s like, yeah, wait till you invite the real monsters out from underneath the rocks.

And you’re bringing in the marginalized; we'll start to see that happen already!

Yeah, yeah! The maps!

The maps! Oh no, there’s worse monsters than them, right?

No, no, no! No matter how bad!

There’s no limit to what people are capable of doing!

Right.

And so, as you see one extreme emerge, you can be absolutely 100% sure that that new margin has a multiplicity of more extreme margins on its fringe, and there's no end to that.

Well, the end is that everything collapses! That's how this has happened historically, yes.

So okay, so Snow White, where are you with this project?

We are in pre-production.

You went to see Jeremy, and he—oh yes! So I went to see Jeremy, and this was as everything with Snow White was happening, and people were very disappointed, very upset about the way that Disney was rolling out this project—the way that they were—they picked such a fun actress too.

It was—and I’m—you know I—you’ve now heard me speak for I don’t know how many hours we’ve been talking about my love of literature and stories, and I grew up reading classic literature; I grew up reading the traditional stories, I grew up reading Grimm's, and I love the stories underneath these fairy tales.

And so as somebody who is more traditional and has a love and appreciation for stories, it’s very—it’s sad to watch these stories be completely destructed for that agenda.

So I had been watching this and commenting on it, and so Jeremy brings me in and says, "Luckily, luckily they fail; they do!" Because they’re dull and preachy and obvious and transgressive in the casual manner, not in the creative manner.

Jeremy said, "We want to do the impossible, and we want to do our own Snow White, and we want to do it in line with the values with which it was written."

We want to honor the story, and we want you to play Snow White.

And Jeremy had been watching—no audition.

Well, I think my audition had been in the first month of Pendragon—understand your audition.

But he hadn’t even really seen me act before that; he had, you know, watched my TV shows and that kind of thing, but he really saw me during Pendragon.

Uh-huh, right, right.

And so, this was about a month into Pendragon, or so, and he said, "I’m going to keep you updated; we're working on a script."

At that time, I think he had a very ambitious goal because that’s when Snow White was still going to be released right around this time.

He was like, "Let’s try to film it during Pendragon."

And I was like, "Okay, well, we’ll see how this goes."

That did not happen, and I’m very glad that it didn’t because I think we will do the story justice—yes, with the right amount of time in the prep.

I got back from—no, actually, I’m skipping over the story of how we created the trailer, but Jeremy started working on music, and he had this idea for the trailer—knew that we were going to be announcing the rollout of Beny and, you know, the hundred episodes of children’s content that we had on the platform.

He wanted Snow White and the Evil Queen to be the first feature film that we do on Beny, and so I got a call probably at four in the afternoon, and he said, "I want you to fly to Trento, Italy, tomorrow," because that's where we had been filming Pendragon that week.

We jumped back and forth between Italy and Hungary. “I want you to get on a plane, and you’re going to fly out, and we have a costume that's being worked on for you; they’re going to finish it in the next six hours on the plane with you, and you’re going to fly out to Trento, drive—you’re going to fly into Milan, drive four hours up to Trentino, wake up the next morning, and you’re going to come up onto a mountain, another hour of drive, and then stand in this forest and sing.”

And Jar was sending me, “Oh gosh, I still have the recordings on my phone; one day I’ll leak them to the public,” but it’s Jeremy on his—on a piano app on his phone, and it’s what you hear in the trailer, and he’s singing it; he has an amazing voice, and he’s an incredible musician.

So he sent me the lyrics; he sent me the song, and he said, "Can you have this ready by tomorrow?” I said “Sure,” and this man, he—I have never had to sing this high before, and I'm a soprano, but I'm not that soprano!

I texted Jeremy; he was not going to—you know, I sound like Tweety Bird, and so we went back and forth, and he sent me one in a lower octave; I said, "This is much better!"

And he was all nervous; he was going, “The breath; this sounds really low," meanwhile I’m thinking, "This is still really high!"

So, I get up to Italy; we record it—we record it in the middle of shooting Pendragon—so, in the middle of a scene, some of my other Pendragon cast is six feet away, and at this point, they don’t even know we’re doing Snow White because it has not been announced to anyone. Jeremy said, "Do not tell your mom; do not tell Alex; do not tell anybody; we have like three people who know that this is happening. Nobody can know."

So, I’m sitting here in this princess dress, thinking this is really not the wardrobe that everybody else is wearing; they’re going to know. I’m, like, huddled up literally hidden; the rest of the cast is over doing something else. Jeremy says, “Hey, we’re going to film a little commercial for a Daily Wire thing that we have to do," gets the crew to turn around, points the cameras on me, and we film this teaser.

Then I fly back to Budapest, keep going on Comment Section, and keep going on Pendragon, and then I wait to hear what we’re going to do with it.

Then it launches with Beny—with a Beny rollout.

It's a huge success and then I keep—I just sit and I wait; I’m like, all right Jeremy, when are we going to film this?

Got back to Nashville; we wrapped Pendragon; it was a raging success. I truly think people are going to love the series, and then we’ve now rolled into pre-production for Snow White and the Evil Queen.

So, I'm in voice lessons, you know, three to four times a week. I was classically trained as a singer when I was young, but I moved more into pop when I was older and have not sung seriously in many years, so I’m retraining that muscle.

I’m in dance classes every week; it’s a musical. We’re super excited about it, and that's what I can tell you.

There are a lot of people that I see comments every single day, and they’re like, “What can you tell us about X, Y, and Z?” It’s all coming soon; we’ll be able to share more soon, but it is an incredible adventure, and it’s just always a joy and an honor to collaborate with Jeremy specifically.

I mean, he’s incredibly creative; he takes incredible risks. I think I’ve learned even more about risk-taking by working for him and working with him.

That was one thing that I felt incredibly comfortable with and excited about when I came to Nashville and I came to Daily Wire was I could not have asked for better mentors in the people that I’m surrounded with.

I mean, I again—I told you I got this show when I was 19, and I walk into a room, and I was with Jeremy Boring and Dallas Sun who was one of the—one of the greatest producers to come out of Hollywood in recent years has just an incredible story.

Um, Michael, and Matt Walsh, Ben—you know, Candice—I mean just you—I mean just the fact that I remember meeting you when we were about to announce that you were joining Daily Wire, and you were doing a photo shoot, and I was in my studio, and I think you would ask, could I meet the YouTube girl?

I about just like fell out of my chair!

But I’m—I just could not have asked for a better group of people. They, you know, they encourage me; I grow every single day—not just in my career, but I learn from all of you emotionally and spiritually and in my personal life, and that's just an incredible, incredible gift typical of a Hollywood story.

All right, well look, that's a good place to stop this part of the discussion. I think what we’ll do for everyone watching and listening—what we'll do on the Daily Wire side is talk about women.

Sounds great!

Yeah, because we haven’t done that, and marriage because you’re newly married.

And, um, the—well, the conception of women in the modern world as it is, and perhaps how it might be if it was tilted in, let's say, a more conservative direction, and what attraction there might be in that, and what obstacles there are in the way of communicating that to young women.

So that’s what we’ll do for half an hour on the Daily Wire side. If you who are watching and listening want to continue to join us, that also enables you to throw some support, um, the Daily Wire way, which—well if you’re happy with the state of the world, then there’s not much point doing that, but if you think that things are a little unstable and that some additional voices on the side of something approximating tradition and reason might be useful, well you know, they're fighting a pretty good—they're putting up a pretty good scrap, so—

And so, also, to all of you who are watching and listening, thank you very much for your time and attention; it's always much appreciated and hopefully never taken for granted.

And to the film crew here in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is where I am today with Brett—thank you very much for coming in today to do this!

It's a pleasure to talk to you; you're a very entertaining character.

And congratulations on having enough daring to play the fool.

Thank you.

Yeah, no kidding! Well, seriously, yeah! You know it takes a lot of daring to throw yourself over the edge.

It's true!

Yeah, yeah! Happy to be here!

Y'all, all right everyone. [Music]

An Alternative Walk of Fame | Brett Cooper | EP 448

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