Best Friends with Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata - Re-Release: Sasheer Is Now the Sleepy One with Penn Badgley & Nava Kavelin

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Hey Friends! Enjoy this re-release of Besting Each Other with Nava Kavelin & Penn Badgley! Nava shares her dreamy London day with Penn Badgley and his family, why you SHOULD use emojis when texting, and how Penn is good at keeping secrets (or just forgets the secret), and the perks of being a good neighbor. Penn shares how struck he was by Nava’s intelligence, purposeful friendships, and being on “do not disturb” maybe too much? Together they discuss Penn not setting Nava up, their company’s work to create fun education content for young people, their new podcast Podcrushed, and more.  Here is a photo of Chris Evans’ wig: https://twitter.com/cevansbuzzcut/status/1555586643716968450?t=uc_81EcY3X0Q_H6_xI1SyA&s=19 Email or call Nicole & Sasheer with your friendship questions at:[e-mail]424-645-7003 Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link https://siriusxm.com/friends and code FRIENDS.

Hi, friends. It's the sheer and Nicole here. This holiday season, we're taking some time off. So we're sharing one of our favorite episodes where actor Penn Badgley and Nava Kavalin play besting each other. It was such a pleasure to have them and we hope you enjoy it. hi sashir hi nicole how are you today i'm good I don't know. I feel like I came in too hot. My energy level's on a different plane right now. I understand. Did you rap super late last night? I rapped a few hours ago. I rapped at 8 a.m.

Girl! No! Sasha! My word. My friends working hard. They are working hard too hard. That wild it's wild yeah my body doesn't know what's happening i don't know what day it is i i like went to sleep at 11 and then woke up at 2 to go to work and then was like is it the same night is it tomorrow what is happening and then and then worked this is this is like that time we recorded and it sounded like i was in slow motion but you

don't sound like you're in slow motion and then we did our live show and i was like did we record a podcast together and you're like we sure did it was wild yeah now i'm doing what you did i'm doing night shoots and it's awful crazy it should be illegal it's too it's too crazy we're also filming at disneyland and so there's all these rules and we have to take a million shuttles and there's like so many checkpoints because it's just like crazy security there so it's like a lot of the times just travel getting in there have any of those mouse heads recognized you uh yes some people have been like filming on the side which is cute like they get to see a show within a show essentially oh that's fun yeah and then people it's funny it's also like um people are sweet, but they'll like scream while we're filming.

So people have been like, Carla! On the side. Oh, no. And then they're like, stop and like restart. But it's sweet. That's actually pretty funny. Action. Carla!

And it's like, please stop. You're ruining it today. There's not only that that but then there's also like just consistent sounds throughout the park there's just like music like it's a small world is playing in the background there's a train happening there's like it's welcome to in the in 15 minutes the fireworks are gonna there's like a million announcements happening so it's like i mean we have to stop a lot if the audio sounds fine which it probably will i will never hold for another airplane again yeah do you know what i mean yeah when they're like

we can't shoot this there's airplanes circling around it's all no if you can shoot in fucking disneyland where there's a hundred million sounds then why am I holding for one single plane maybe we're in a world where there's no planes maybe they want to believe there's no planes and whatever uh reality is in the show interesting it's funny to think about tv like once you're in it you're like oh so in tv there's no airplane we just don't um uh also there's no logos or there's very few logos no busy patterns no busy yeah you can't wear any like wavy things because it it more rays yeah it is interesting everyone has terrible wigs i can't get over the wigs on these

big budget things pretty wild they're terrible did you see the picture on twitter of chris evans in a wig where they cut it with what looked like gardening shears or something it was just like triangles it was just like up it was no i i was so confused i was like why did they do this why on earth i'll find it i'll find it and this is what people love about podcasting me holding my phone up to the camera for a picture they cannot see um but i did retweet it so you can find it real good okay look i really don't know what i'm looking at oh my god no hairline oh no no no isn't that wild i don't know but that's the picture not up close but isn't that nuts also why are we doing this to people it's also like you could

they could have edited that and they could have edited the photo like no they shouldn't have cut the lace like that on the wig but also no they could have touched that up yeah not only did he anger the hair department he also angered like we are not how do you do that at all. They were like, Chris, no, we don't like you here. Well, speaking of Hollywood and TV shows, we have, we have a person from one of our favorite TV shows. Yes.

The television show, You. Yes. We have Penn Badgley and his best friend, Nava Kavalin here to talk about their friendship and their production company and the work they've been doing together. And we're going to be testing their friendship and their knowledge of each other in a little segment we call Besting Each Other. Best friends today. Yep, you know it.

You love it. Best friends today. Yep. You know it. You love it. Best friends today. I think we're going to do Nava first. Okay. So now we are going to do a segment called besting each other, where we ask each best friend in the group about their other best friend. And first up we have Nava Kavalin and she's going to talk about her best friendship with Penn. Hi, Nava. Hello. Hi. Thanks for having me today. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. Okay. Are you ready for these really intense questions? Let's do it. I'm ready. I'm ready. The first question is, how did you two meet?

question is how did you do me? Penn and I met in New York city, uh, in my apartment. So he was, um, good friends, still is good friends with a girl I was living with named Martha. And he had gotten the offer for you. And he was really conflicted about taking the role. And I think he's talked about this in the press. I don't think I'm like outing him. And he was, he was basically had come over to like consult with her, like had was getting like different people's opinions and was getting her opinion as well. And sort of like, should I take it? Should I not? And I had just gotten home from the gym and my roommate Martha didn't give me a heads up that I like, you know, really cute celebrity was like going to be in our kitchen. And I walked into the kitchen and there was Penn Badgley. And I like oh in my head like oh my god but I just like didn't pretend that I knew him or acknowledge um that like I didn't pretend that I didn't know him but also didn't acknowledge that I did I was just like

cool like hey what's up and then went into my bedroom and thought about it the whole time like I really want to come back downstairs I really want to talk to him but didn't but then we like kept sort of naturally meeting after that okay so you're like in the same friend group yes we're in the same friend group and then we're both members of the Baha'i faith which is like a pretty small religious community so we would like go to a lot of the same events and we were involved in a similar like youth program like a mentorship program for youth so we would like see each other a lot through that yeah do you remember a moment where you went from just like casually being in group settings to being like, you know what? I like this person and like clicking. We had a road trip to Maine. So I worked at the UN when I was in New York and I was a researcher

for a UN organization. And one, like one kind of quarter, like a three month period, I was researching media, the impact of media on like youth. And I convinced Penn to go to a conference with me, mostly because he had a car and he could drive me and I didn't, where there would be like producers and actors and people thinking about like the positive impacts of film potentially. And so we ended up driving to that together with my roommate, Martha, who works at TED, TED Talks. And on that car ride, we were all, who works at TED, TED Talks. And on that car ride, we were all going through like something really difficult, really challenging. And we were like all like commiserating and like really bonded. And that's when he and I became really good friends. Yeah. That's cute. I love that. When you said TED, I was like, oh, what is this? What is TED? You're like TED Talks. I was like, oh, yes, I know that.

The Mark Wahlberg movie, Ted. Yeah. Oh, the teddy bear? Is that what you're speaking of? So next question. What is your favorite memory of traveling together? It would be that road trip. But I'm trying to think if there's another one. We haven we, we do. So Penn and I now have a production company together

and we do annual retreats. We do like two a year. Um, and this year I flew to London for one and it got, cause he's in London filming you. It got cut short. So we just had like a, I know he's not going to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. We had like a half day together in London and it was really cool just to see how people react to Penn in London. Like it was different than in the States. I felt like there was a bigger reaction. It was like whispers through the crowd. And I just like in the U.S. people are more straightforward.

They either know who you are or don't and they acknowledge it or they don't. They're not trying to like be secretive about it is my experience with him. You're both famous. You know what it's like. But in the U.K. it was like everything was like whispers and you could see like a whisper moving through the crowd. And I just thought that was like so fun and cute. And it was just really fun to have like a half day together in London, even though it was like shorter than what we planned. I loved that. So that's probably my favorite. Did you guys do anything with your half

day? We his wife was there and his kids and my sister was there and we all went to a really pretty park and we went to a bakery and we went to this like marketplace. We were in Notting Hill and I think there's like a famous marketplace. They sell like silver and like China, like a very UK marketplace. And we walked through that and that's where people were like whispering in the crowd was forming. Yeah, that sounds like such a cute day. It was. It was really fun. Yeah.

What's your favorite thing about Penn? My favorite thing about Penn is that he's super generous. Like to a degree that I haven't seen in many people. I'm his business partner. So I also like benefit from that in like a professional setting. But also as like a friend, he's just like he's incredibly generous. He's incredibly giving. So that's definitely my favorite thing about him. But another thing is that he's really funny, which I think a lot of people don't know and which for some reason he doesn't show often.

And I'm always like, man, you got to be funnier. I think even before this, I texted him. I was like, can you please be funny today? You brought a non-favorite. They probably wanted you to bring Chase Crawford, and you brought me, so you have to deliver. We'll see. We'll see how he does. But he is actually very funny. That's so funny to text someone. Can you be funny today? Yeah.

Okay. So if you could have to guess, what do you think Penn's favorite thing is about you? This is either his favorite thing or his least favorite thing, and it might be both. But Penn has told me many times that I'm the most straightforward person he's ever met. And like, you always know where you stand with me. Like, if I'm happy with something you've done, you know it. And if I'm not, you also know it. And I don't like dissimulate how I feel.

So I think he admires that I'm straightforward. And I think it also really annoys him that I'm like really straightforward sometimes. Can you think of a time where you were very straightforward and maybe he didn't like that? Yeah, I can think of many times. But there's like one project where I feel like we haven't met a deadline that we should. And I have sent him many notes about why I think that's like a problem pretty like directly. And I know that that like annoys him.

Cause I think for him in like Hollywood, there's a culture of like, it's casual. Like we say six months, but it's really 12 or, but I worked at the UN where it's like, it's not a minute later than you said. So like getting used to each other's different ways of handling that has,

has been like a point of tension a few times. Yeah. That's funny to think about. Yeah. And the industry, it very much is. The timeline is like, OK, we'll get you in six months. And then it's like two years later, the project's finished. You're like, hmm, it went a little long.

Yeah. OK, what is something you do that drives pen crazy i text him incessantly if he doesn't respond to a text from me i'll just like keep following up i don't know if he'll say that but i know it drives him crazy i don't know he's ever admitted to me that it drives him crazy that's probably one there's probably so many um and maybe just like being too direct sometimes i think he's like you could you could have sugarcoated that a little bit. What is something that Penn does that drives you crazy? He ignores my texts.

Also, on a smaller note, he hardly ever uses exclamation points and emojis. And I know that's so stupid, but sometimes it hurts my feelings. I'm like this was so sweet it deserved a little heart emoji or something so no I get that I love emojis I use them so much just like randomly too there was a point of contention with the Nicole's texting because she she likes to she's better at it now but for a while she would write in full sentences and add a period at the end of sentences and that feels harsh so sometimes you'd ask her a question and she'd be like yes period and i'm like oh my god what did i do yeah and i didn't now and this was a universal thing everyone had a problem with the way I texted

oh boy that's really funny very hard to hear and then sometimes I put a period at the end and then I'll delete it good for you I'm like I don't want anyone to think that I had a family but then if you do it deliberately now is it because you're mad and you like want them to know?

No, if I'm mad, I just like text a flirt. I'll do like a voicemail. Like, I'm mad. That's good. Like a full blown cartoon character. Okay. Between you and Ben, who would do better on the CBS television series that has been running for 97 seasons called Survivor? Has it really been 97 seasons?

No. That's a joke. No. Do they do like four a year? Yeah. Like for sure, Penn. He is like the famous rich one, but I am way more high maintenance. Penn is like so down to earth, so easygoing.

And he's like handy and I think would do well on that show and I would die on day one. Like I would not make it out alive, I'm sure. Have you ever watched Survivor? Was it the first season

that there was some insane guy named Richard who was like quite evil? I probably shouldn't say stuff like that. Here's the thing. Neither of us have watched it. I think I saw one episode because there was like quite evil or something i probably shouldn't say stuff like that here's the thing neither of us have watched it i think i saw one episode because there was like so much press about this guy being like awful but that's the only one i've seen do you think you'd have any skill with the like social aspect of survivor because there's like

surviving in the wilderness but there's also like a team thing going on and coming from the un i would want yeah maybe skills working with i can be diplomatic i can be diplomatic and i can keep a secret uh i have a good poker face so maybe yeah boy oh boy what's it like to keep a secret doesn't it beat you alive when we see someone you know who's like a mutual friend don't you just want to tell them i mean definitely, definitely, definitely want to. But if I have to keep the secret, I can. Boy, I can keep some secrets, but sometimes I'm like, I just got it. Oh, something Penn is really good at.

He is a vault. I think sometimes he also just forgets. But like with me, I will say you have to tell me not to tell because I'm very like open. I'm not super private. So you have to tell me not to tell because I'm very like open I'm not super private so you have to tell me not to tell other people and then I won't tell them if I know you don't want me to but if you don't tell them sometimes I just assume I can but Penn always assumes that it's private and he's like really private it's really good oh that's wonderful yeah I tell us to share everything about everybody and when people go don't tell anyone I cross my fingers and I go I I won't. And then

in my head, I'm like, no, I'm going to tell Shira. So I'm not lying. So Shira, do you tell Nicole everything? Yeah, I do. It should just be like, I understood. Well, Nicole's going to know this information anyway. Okay, we've reached the end. Oh.

What do you hope you're both doing 20 years from now? I'll start with Penn. I hope Penn is an award-winning director. I think that's a path. I think he'd be really good at that. I hope he gets to star in one of the superhero franchises. Just think that'd be great for him. I hope our company is still around and successful.

And I hope that he has two kids now. I hope he has one more. I think he wants one more. I hope he has one more kid. And I hope that one of his kids is like a really talented classical musician. And I have one more. And I hope that his side hustle

is being like a guest lecturer at USC because he got into USC, but he didn't go. And sometimes sometimes I think he regrets it and I think he'd be an amazing professor so that's I hope he has a very busy full he has a very full schedule yeah we can like pull that all off and then for myself I hope that I'm married and have kids that's my number one this is probably gonna sound really strange but I hope that I'm a really good neighbor I'm like really obsessed with the idea of like neighbors getting to know each other and like bringing each other cookies when you live on the same block and like having each other's numbers. So I hope that as like a family, that our family would be like a family that anyone in the neighborhood could come to. I really love that idea.

And I hope that our production company is really successful. That's so sweet. Thank you. Can you be more specific about successful? What, what would, what would happen in your production company? That's a great question. I think we're right now we have a podcast out and we have like two independent films that we're working on, but I think we'd love to have sort of like a little bit of everything like movies, TV shows. And then part of our ethos is like creating content that it doesn't have to be like positive or upbeat it

can deal with like heavy things but that shows like a like a bright side of human nature and it's really hard to sell that is what we found and so i hope that we're like successful in that way that we're not just like making dark stuff because that's what sells. So I hope that we're making like uplifting content that people enjoy and watch. I love that. I love that too. Thank you. Also now I want to bring cookies to my neighbors.

I've done it many times. Some, some are weirded out cause it's like not normal, but for the most part I've like made friends out of it. What'd you put in these cookies? But I think people like it. I should try that too. There's like, i'm surrounded by a lot of older people which is fine but they'll love cookies yeah but i'm like i should probably know these people i'm gonna be here forever

i like forgot because i i like spent most of my adult years in New York in apartment buildings. I'm like, I'm going to leave soon. So I don't even know who these people are. And then I moved into a house and then was like not making an effort to go meet people. And then I was like, oh, wait, I should probably know these people. Just like, I don't know, in case of emergency or whatever so I actually I lived in New York obviously before and I lived in Brooklyn and my roommate one of my roommates also was like really into that idea we went we went down our whole block I think we brought people dough donuts

from like that bedside donut place so good yeah and and we made friends and then the panda I had like just moved into that place and then the pandemic hit and we all like were able to rely on each other because we like had exchanged numbers. We had a WhatsApp group. And I was like, thank goodness we did that. Like we didn't do that knowing that a global pandemic was going to hit, but we felt so much safer knowing our neighbors and knowing everyone on the block. So you just never know. Yeah. I love that. Well, we're now gonna quiz all right excited nervous thank you you're welcome now we're on to the second part of besting each other we just talked to nava and now we're going to talk to her best friend pin badgley hello hello welcome thank you for having me welcome thank you for doing this he is we're gonna ask you some really intense questions so i hope you're ready that's great those are the only kind i Well, here's the first intense question. How did you two meet?

Yeah, it was in, well, we both think that it's likely we would have met at some point, maybe preliminarily before this, but like just very much in passing but um it was in her apartment because i was pretty close friends with her roommate at the time and i was sitting uh actually like in this little couch thingy talking to her roommate a friend of ours named martha who's also very close with nava shout out to martha she's listening uh and uh yeah i you know actually i was having a very intense conversation with martha because i was thinking about whether or not i was going to take this this job that was coming up and it was called you it was just the show i'm now on and uh yeah a lot of factors to think about and yeah and then nava came in and i think she just worked out something along those lines it was not not much to think about then later i would uh

see her again in that apartment because they would host these gatherings where they just pull people from all different kinds of backgrounds and conversations they'd had at work or whatever it is and they called it a meaningful conversations something like that and um i remember the first time i really heard Nava speak, I gathered that she was working at the UN and everything she said was really sharp. And I just thought, Oh, well, you know, who's, who's, who's this person. And then it would, uh, snowball. I mean, to be honest, you know, one thing I love about her. Well, you know, I won't go on too much right now.

I answered the question. And we can get into it. We're going to get into what you love better. Okay, the next question is, what is your favorite memory of traveling together? I mean, real travel. Like, we only have the one, which goes into actually what i was about to say is uh our friendship really has always had a like a purpose to it you know you don't a lot of people you meet circumstantially we really traveled together for the first and only

real significant time um on our way to this this conference um it was like a media gathering and so we you know and what she was doing at the un at the time was partly not all she was doing but she was part of her focus was studying the researching the effects of is it research it was it would have been gathering research because she wasn't conducting the research herself. So, so, so, you know, she was researching the effects of media on youth. And this was like a lot of what I was thinking about at the time because of the shows I come from, you know? And so, yeah, our first conversations were all about that. And then it was like a six hour drive, I think. And so I don't remember any of the conversations, really. I think she played me some music by the 1975, I think. And I think maybe we listened to my music too. And there were two other people in the car. That's funny. You're like, I really love that she let me play my music.

No, you know what? To be honest, I mean, it was on repeat. It was just, I don't want anybody to listen to anything else. But like, listen to it again. Let me know how you really feel. No, no, no, no, no, no. But I think what you didn't appreciate about that one. No, go back. Go back to the beginning. We got five hours.

No, I'm almost positive that somebody in the car would have asked me because I do not offer that up. That's like, that would be really, that would be, yeah, you don't believe me. All right, well, just carry on. Wait, I want to go back to what you said about like our friendship has a purpose. Oh, what do I mean? Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all,

we run a production company together and we have this podcast together, Podcrushed. And I just think that the reason that we've continued hanging out and working together is because it's always had actually a quite an explicit purpose like to make something of meaning you know we we started early on talking about a script that she was conceptualizing and that was about her experience as a middle school director she was she was not quite like a teacher but she was a she was a director and a

like a kind of almost like a vice principal and i was just fascinated like she she she comes from a background where she's so professional and competent in a way that i've never had to be and i'm very professional competent in my craft but what it does not require is like uh like organization and and like that sort of real world kind of competency and responsibility you know you could say there's a lot of responsibility on your shoulders if you're like on camera and like lifting up a show or whatever okay fine but I'm comfortable doing that there's stuff like a, the director of a charter school or like working in an organization at the UN, you know, that kind of professionalism, I've always just been like, wow, you know, and, and I really wanted to do something meaningful in, in media,

like make things of substance. And I just felt like this was, you know, I don't know if I saw, I feel like when she first started talking about this script and she was coming from no background in in media i was just like i've been working with showrunners and and people in tv and film most of my life really and i was like the second she gets some experience i know she can do that. And she should do that. She's the kind of person who should do that. You know, there aren't enough people like her doing that. And so that was kind of like, that was just the initial outset of us like having, I think,

any conversations past like these gatherings where, you know, we were just amongst other friends. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what is your favorite thing about your friend um i would say i just have a real respect and admiration for her for her mind and her soul like

she again it's this thing of purpose like she's always had it seems like everything she's done since she was able to be you know out in the world making her own choices she just she she means it you know she like does good things and means them and that's like a really incredible thing she's incredibly consistent you know what i mean and she's extremely honest about like if you're reflecting on something that you've done together let's say it's it's whether it's writing something or whatever it is she's she actually describes herself there's a word she uses which i wouldn't quite use but it's ruthless and it gets it gets there a little bit she's like she's very very but like the more you get to know her it's not i don't think it's like jarring or in any way negative because her her she's so

principled and so therefore like that kind of honesty and transparency i think is just like it's a great thing i love that if you could guess what do you think nava's favorite thing is about you i well it depends on which kind of if we're you know it's like there's the flippant funny things and there's the real things i know that once she said on several occasions that she thinks that one of the things that's best about me is that i'm generous you don't like that it's it's yeah it's like um i'm a miser i'm really just tight. No, I... The reason I remember it is because I'm like, oh, of the things that I think are great about me,

that's not one of the things that I would have thought of. But, and that stuck out, you know? And it's kind of nice when people can reflect back to you something that maybe you don't see as much about yourself. I'll go with that. All right. What is something that you do that drives nava crazy oh probably my lack of responsiveness on text that's got to be number one i mean that's

that's got to be it there's there's a number of things but i would say that's number one probably and do you just look at the text and go oh i'll just do it later or do you even just like you don't have like alerts or you don't like it's a confluence of things um oh that's a good i'd say yeah i'd say over the last year it has been genuine like max out bandwidth and there's just like if there's anybody i'm responding to she's in the top you know five it's just it's just like between having a a kid and um i've you know when i work on this show i'm it's a really really full-on kind of thing because i'm in like every scene and i directed an episode this season so it's just like there's just full full full-on and she's pretty understanding wait how many episodes

are we getting 10 but i but i directed one i directed one episode oh fun fun fun uh yeah and then also this this do not disturb function now that everybody gets to use let's just just leave that thing on for 37 hours yeah i've been seeing that where it's like so and so silence on dnd yes but is it like do not disturb or is it just putting their phone on silent no it's do not disturb specifically disturb so you don't get alerted there's no vibration you don't get phone calls but then i'll just show you that like someone called or someone texted you to like look for it i used to put my phone on airplane a lot and then i realized like i don't know that i was maybe too disconnected well yeah because then it just goes straight to voicemail and then the text yeah you don't get them until way, way later.

I heard you guys talking about leaving each other voicemails. Who leaves? Nobody that I know leaves voicemails anymore, really. Oh, I love a voicemail. Her mailbox is currently full. And it's not receiving any more messages. It's full because it's full of your voicemails. What about voice notes?

Do you use voice? Sometimes. Well, I've had to resort to that because I need to say things sometimes. Another podcast. You need another podcast. Yeah, truly. She has so much to say.

She has 16 podcasts. I have too much. I need another one. Needs to leave voicemails. She has a message to give. Okay. What is something that Nava does that drives you crazy? See, she's on the opposite end of something with responsiveness.

She's like, expects. I think when she was working at the UN, they had like a three-hour kind of window that they needed to reply to like all things you know there was rigor there was rigor there and i'm a little and sometimes i'm just like damn i mean come on like hey what were we gonna do if we didn't have phones guys people used to go to war you know what i mean they didn't hear from each other for months like family members like i suppose we balance each other out in that sense. One would hope. That's a funny thing to think about. Yeah.

How did everyone know when we were going to war? Yeah. Yeah. How did everyone know? And if you were on Do Not Disturb, did you get drafted? So weird. That's not really a great joke. The government was like, notify anyway.

Deliver quietly. Notify anyway. Okay, Penn, which of you would do better on the TV show Survivor? I think I'm the easy answer, but I think upon further investigation, it could be her. I think, you know what? She's actually, actually. i'm the easy answer but i think upon further investigation it could be her i mean i think you know what she's actually actually so we're so if we're talking about like hanging out in the woods like i think i'm a little more built for that but if we're talking about competing she's actually i think she's very competitive she's like quietly very competitive i think and i'm not like

actually if i'm engaged in a competition i start to shut down and i just like i'm just like fine you can have it whatever it's fine like it's really okay oh you don't like to win it's i think the the concept of losing it's like in like incapacitating for me or intimidating to me so i just sort of opt out of the of the competition you know what i mean it's not that like i love i love a bit of sportsmanship between men uh but you know i mean like i could play a friendly game of something but i think there's a there's a threshold beyond which it's just i'm like whoa you know yeah and that's but i think nava i think she's actually quite competitive that makes sense i like that yeah all right we've reached the end what do you hope you're both doing

20 years from now well you know the good answer would be we're making things we're making content making

I want to say making movies making shows making things podcasts well do you think podcasts will still be a thing it's been longer

than I thought it would be I think so yeah yeah I mean because we started out to do something of real purpose i think like um and it's not in terms of scale just in terms of meaning and substance i hope we're still making things you know the thing is is when you work together you you know we i'd say relatively speaking to be calling us onto a show called best friends

we've been friends for a short period of time like six years or so five or six years but then like working together for just about three but you know when you're working together you start to like different things happen and that and we've really been friends for for that period of time mostly that's where that's where our real relationship has been and so you. And I think the things that we've gone through so far, we could probably go through a lot more things. So here's to... And if we don't have a company, I'd like to say that we learned a lot. And we just have mad respect for one another.

And our kids hang out. And you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I like that too. Okay. Now we're going to bring Nava back and we're going to compare these. Oh,

you compare notes. Oh, geez. Yes. And then you guys log off and decide whether you continue. We'll debrief. So do you like paraphrase what we said or do you play it back? It's paraphrase.

Shira and I will read it okay and you can add if you want okay this is the fun part get into it yeah this is the whole thing's been the fun part no no this part is the fun part where we get to see how right or wrong you are about each other so the first question we asked was how did you two meet nava said met in new york city um in her apartment pen was consulting with nava's roommate martha who was very good friends with at the time whether he should take the job on you um and they would also see each other around while working in a faith youth group pen said do you want to do this once this year? No. We've never done that before. We haven't?

We haven't? Okay. This is the fun thing about me. I'll never remember how we do anything. Penn said, met Nava in her apartment. He went to see her roommate Martha. And they were having,

he was having an intense convo with Martha about taking you. And then Martha and Nava would host meaningful conversations in their apartment that he would attend. So you guys got that one right. Yes.

All right. One for one. One for one. Next we asked, what's your favorite memory of traveling together? and you both talked about the road trip that you took to this conference but nava also talked about the half day that you had together in london during your biannual retreat and you went to the park you

went to a marketplace together in notting hill very very cute. Penn described the road trip with more detail, saying that Nava played music from the 1975. He played his own music. He swears that someone asked him to play it. We're not quite sure

if that's true or not. That's right. Yeah, it's mother. Is that true? Isn't that true? No, that is true. I think it was actually on a trip.

Was it the 1975? It was, but that was our trip in D.C. with Ryan.? Isn't that true? That is true. I think it was actually, was it the 1975? It was, but that was our trip in DC with Ryan. I don't think that was Rhode Island. Cause remember the one to Maine, we were all so sad. I was sad about like a heartbreak. You and Domino.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. So when we went to DC, that was actually a really fun trip.

Yeah. Neither of us mentioned that. Can we change our answer? That was actually the best. Yeah. That was the really fun trip yeah neither of us mentioned that that we changed our answer that was actually yeah that was the most fun trip i do you remember that the most memorable moment was when we were all talking about aliens and ryan and we're like walking just on the street at night and and ryan goes guys you know the best thing about aliens and then we look at him and he's just like what do you think you're doing right now and then he does that thing he does that thing where you where you you put your hands on your knees and then you cross them back and forth.

You know what I mean? It's like he just did this dance and then we just watched him do this dance. And we've like lost it because it was so random. Yes, that was. Yeah, I think we both changed our answer. That was the best one. And that's when he played mother. And I played the 1975.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that, too. What do you think aliens are doing right now? Just dancing. It was a very human dance. Obviously a human dance from the early 90s. The next question we asked was,

what's your favorite thing about your friend nava said pen is super generous and giving also he's funny sometimes i'll text him hey be funny today pen said he has a real respect and admiration for nava's mind and soul she has a consistent meaningful purpose she's direct ruthless is the word she uses which sounds a little harsh but you know i think it's good we also asked what is your friend's favorite thing about you and when we asked nava she said that pin says nava is the most straightforward person he's ever met uh and she was like he might also hate that can't tell

as she reminds a double-edged sword as any sword is yeah she reminds him when he doesn't meet deadlines uh she said hollywood which is virtually every single deadline i've ever looked at um of any kind, really. Yeah. Both of you talked about how Hollywood has loose deadlines and loose timelines. And I was raised,

I was raised in the jungle. I was raised in the shadows. Super loose, you know? And then Penn said that Nava thinks that pen is very generous he thought that was that that's something that he would not put on his own list of things that he sees as good qualities about himself but he likes that you said that nice uh then we asked what's something you do that drives your friend crazy nava said uh she persistently calls texts and is very direct with pen uh pen says she can you know sugarcoat things sometimes

um pen said his lack of responsiveness to text but if you look at it so it's like the percentage is bad because of the persistence. But I'd say it's still regular because of the persistence. So you know what I mean? Wait, wait, wait. The scale has increased. If you just responded the first time, there'd be no persistence. Yeah, that's true. I also wonder if this would be, well, I was going to say, I wonder if this would be an issue if you guys weren't working together

like yeah no I mean that's what I said at some point I was like you know we have like a working relationship is also it's like an added full added dimension you know and you're just hanging out whatever whatever like yeah just sort of like that's

that's it's own thing but we're trying we're trying to make moves trying to make money wait a minute i thought it was a righteous purpose literally never said that and actually i would say that we're doing the opposite we like turn down lucrative opportunities like well let's just do this other thing where we don't make any money don't don't tell people that don't tell people that we are out here making cash we asked which of you would do better on the tv show Survivor? Pen. Nava said Pen. She's like, he's the famous rich one, but he is better at the nature stuff.

But Nava does believe that she can be diplomatic and keep a secret. How does that work on Survivor? Because there's like conniving strategy that happens. Yeah. Okay. And you have to like do alliances and stuff. Wow. All right.

We don't actually know. We've never seen an episode. We're mostly... We've gathered information from what other people have said about Survivor. Right, right. We just like this question a lot, even though we don't know much about Survivor. I like that, actually. I like that honesty there.

And then Penn actually said basically the same thing he's built for the woods but nava is very competitive that's funny do you agree isn't it see i don't experience her competitiveness as a as a friend i just feel like you've said that you're very competitive and i'm like yeah i think i've joked about yeah yeah i'm not competitive i'm not like athletic at all i just have the feelings of someone who is like i want to be like in it and like competing but i like will always lose but i'm like hurt by it even though it's very predictable oh that makes sense yeah yeah um i think we skipped what are you doing uh what's something your friend does that drives you crazy oops nov, whoops. Nava said, Penn ignores my texts.

He never uses emojis and exclamation marks. You gotta beef up that. That is so true. No, you know what I did, though? On her birthday, I sent her a bunch of emojis and then with like a laser effect. Oh. Like as though, you know,

I was just like really laying it on thick. That's pretty funny because like I love that kind of stuff so I'd be like well this is the new standard because we're always doing it with lasers now and then Penn said she's the opposite of Penn's responsiveness yes yes yes now the final questions this year.

Okay. We asked, what do you hope you're both doing 20 years from now? And Nava says, she hopes Penn is an award-winning director and he gets to star in a superhero franchise. 40 years of superhero franchises. 40 years of superhero franchises. She hopes that he has one more kid and one of his kids is a great classical musician and that Penn becomes a professor at USC. Wow.

Nava, you went in deep. I wanted all of you. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. I was very general. I was very broad. We know who the better friend is. And Nava hopes for herself that she's married, has a family, is a good neighbor.

And she hopes that your production company is successful and that you're doing movies and TV shows that show a brighter side of human nature. And then Penn said he hopes that we're making movies and content, TV shows, podcasts, if that's still a thing. And that if the company isn't a thing, that you still have respect

for each other and that you're still friends and that your kids still hang out in each other's lives. And I think that's nice. So, honestly, I think you guys

did a really good job. I think you did a really good job as well. You passed with flying colors. Has anybody ever failed? Oh, thank you. No one's ever failed. If they did, would you tell them?

Yeah. Oh, I'd absolutely be like, you've never met before. Not one time. Why did you agree to be on this show? What are you here to promote? You have never even met. What superhero franchise are you a part of?

How have we been tricked? Marvel. Penn, I can't believe you didn't wish for me to be married in 20 years. I did. No, I said she broke up. I said for our kids to be hanging out. Oh, okay. I was going she said for our kids, I said for our kids to be hanging out. Oh, okay. Okay.

He's going to say, come on, man. Come on. I love that. Why didn't you say I'd be married? Don't you want me to be married? Don't not manifest that for me.

I'm also constantly asking Penn to set me up with someone and he never has. Well, clearly. So hold on. So hold on. First of all, it's been a long pandemic guys. I'm not, I'm also not long pandemic guys. I'm not,

I'm also not a matchmaker. I'm not, I don't think I've ever, there's one, there's one, there's one friend and I would like to be, but I, I,

I'm not good at it. I just, I'm not good at it. That's what everyone says. Who's with someone. They're like, you couldn't possibly. And I was like,

well, how'd you get what you have? Why don't you share? Exactly. Share the secret. I identify with you nava thanks nicole so she asked me uh what's the first thing i would see if i could uh time travel and i was like i'd go see who my husband is the first thing you would do and i was like oh um, I guess see other stuff. Kill Hitler. Kill Hitler. Yeah, I was like, you're not going to save something in history or like look at where we are as a society.

You're going to find your husband? And I go, see him? What's he look like? Is he nice? You guys should listen to the episode back because you both said really nice things about each other that we didn't repeat, but you guys should listen to the episode back because you both said really nice things about each other that we didn't repeat but you guys clearly love each other and that's very sweet thank you yeah we should bring you guys into our podcast if you're open to it absolutely yeah if you're open to it no pressure see nava always puts pressure guys it's okay you don't have to you don't have to do it promise me you're gonna do it we're we're live tweeting this interview see our podcast

yeah well what are you guys uh working on next with your company what's happening um i mean there's just so when you're when you're when you're trying to really make things you're making a lot of things at the same time to see if anything sticks. You know what I mean? So it was quite a list. Nava actually just recently came up with a really great idea that I can't mention. Yeah, I was going to say, if you say that, I will actually kill you. Yeah.

So she just came up with a really great idea. We'll see. Can't wait to see it. Now I want to know. Yeah. Yeah. You'll just have to wait about seven years. Probably when you come on our podcast,

I'll tell you off there. Yeah. Ooh. Okay. See how she's, she's negotiating. I was like, well,

now we have to set up because I would like to know. No, but you're very good. I'm not even available to do that. No, we would actually love to have you on. But we have a couple, we have like two. A number of things. Yeah, a couple of independent films and a kids like family series that are like the most immediate things in the works.

Amazing. That's fun. I love that. Yeah, I like your friendship. It seems really nice and chill and like, yeah, so she said loving and i agree thank you it's many things you know chill is not is not i think if you took the company out of it it would be like when we were friends for three years before yeah no totally chill it's just that what we've been trying to do with this company is like the least chill thing which is

like succeed in a cutthroat industry and try to make something a substance and so we're always we actually have um i think when we laugh the most is when we're talking about like if we were just um if we if we were just like cool with buying into the whole just like nihilism machine of you know the hollywood movie making industry we could uh we could just we there's so many just like out left field crazy dumb ideas that we know we know would sell you know it's just like and so we like just laugh about the crazy things we could pitch that people would be like huh tell me more and that whereas whereas we're like now here's something we want to do we want to make something that's like uh moral and principles

for children people like you know that sounds great but it's a tough, tough business out there. Can I just say, I'm actually going to, I won't say who I like, I won't say which network, but the very first pitch meeting Penn and I ever had, we took two concepts, like a, like a family show and like a strictly kids show and the kids show was like educational, like no two ways around it. And we didn't take it to PBS, which we should have. And so the very first meeting we had the, like the someone in a very senior position who was there for the kids pitch,

I guess hadn't read the brief on what the concept was, but took the meeting and was making a joke about how in their network, they never make anything educational. And he was like, if you have something educational, you take that shit to PBS, don't bring it here. And literally right after that, I was like, all right, what'd you guys bring us?

And we all, I think there were five of us on the team kitchen and we all looked at each other like, what do we do? You know, it was like such a like, wow. Yeah. And needless to say, did not sell. Yeah. How wild. That executive is nuts. Some of them are truly.

Well, he was just, you know, he was honest. He was honest. Yeah. He was just being honest. Yeah, but like, we do not like smart kids. We want them dumb. We want dummies. We don't want them learning anything.

It's pretty funny. It's so funny. Yeah. Can you talk about the conception of Podcrush? Yeah. Penn, you want to take that one? I feel like I always answer that one. Sure.

Yeah, you're really good. So Nava's also incredible because of the work she's done. She'll hear like 17 different perspectives and then summarize them all. And everybody's like, yeah, that is what I said. Yeah, that was really good. So she's just really good at summarizing even ideas that I come up with and then I'm like Nava you get that?

yeah you get that so podcast basically is see this I'm already like how do I what am I doing all of my extra time with it's about middle school.

We're telling middle school stories and we're using those as a portal to actually really meaningful conversations, just like about all things, often identity and just a lot of what that incorporates. But in the beginning, we had these user-submitted stories. We'd start with those and and I'd narrate them.

But we've now put them at the end because people are here for the celebrity interviews, you know what I mean? But they're still there, and they're still good, and we have a few animated clips to go along with them. So it's basically kind of, like I was saying, some of our earliest conversations were about this age period and how meaningful it is for people in their lives and just forming who they are, you know, 12 to 15, around that. And so, I mean, it was Nava's idea.

She had this idea that she basically had heard somebody's middle school story. She heard somebody telling their middle school story and and um and just basically thought it was like she was just like dying laughing i guess like kind of like like in tears nava was her gut reaction was like what if there was a podcast where you just had people submitting like some of their their cringiest their worst their most embarrassing stories from school you know and and that was really the the the germ of it and then she told me about it um i was third in line too she went to she went to our friends sophie and david because sophie animates and david makes music and she was just thinking it was going to be this like small little podcast and not the giant success that it is now the juggernaut that need not be named because of

its omnipresence no and and but you know the second somebody like me gets involved in something it kind of shifts things you can't it's like you know so so she she mentioned it to me i thought oh that's cool and then and then i you know i wanted to contribute in some way we talked about me maybe narrating the stories and eventually i became a host of the thing and then because i have reps then you know they all want to eventually it's just like it's get their fingers in the pie and now it's like this podcast about middle school with two people we will have never heard of who bring down this value um yeah so that's so that's that's the that's the genesis of of pod crushed but it's you know i think what's cool is it like when you guys come on for instance um you'll see that it's uh no we

i think we have i think it is uplifting i think we have like really uplifting conversation that's something that that's something that we've we've wanted to do you know since we met is like think about making things that are they you know to me to me we've been exploring the dark side of things for a while and there was a point in time where that was really brave and new and interesting and i think it's i think it's maybe just not as new and interesting as it used to be and so to make something that is uplifting but it's also mature and complex I think that's something we see less of so that's what we're trying to do

I love that Well I can't wait to do it Yes, I'm excited Great Well thank you so much for being on this show this was so wonderful to hear about your work that you're doing together and your friendship Thank you, thanks so much for having us, this was so fun for being on the show. This was so wonderful to hear about your work that you're doing together and your friendship.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. This was so fun. Well, that's it. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.