Author 'Adnan Virk', Cinephile, Joy of Cinema

0:00Adnan VirkYou know, from there it was J.K. Simmons, Miles Teller. The holy grail for me was Robert De Niro. I got to meet Bob. You know, his name is Robert De Niro, but nobody ever calls him Robert. Everyone I've ever known calls him Bob. But when he turned the corner, I said, "Oh my God," it's like a surprise party almost where it's, "Oh my God, get down, here he is." And he came in, and honest with you, Jawed, he was so sweet. He just had a big smile on his face. I asked him about the documentary he did about his dad, and I said, "Again, for a guy who's so private and so famously remote, you know, you really dedicated a lot of time to telling the story about your dad. It's a fascinating documentary on HBO, and your dad was a famous..." In the past, you'd have these mid-tier pictures. You know this as a director. You'd have these quiz shows and ordinary people, and now it's either a $2 million movie or a $200 million movie. You know, when I made the movie, I realized it wasn't very good, and, you know, he was very kind about it, but it wasn't, didn't have any visual flair or panache, and I was very humiliated.

0:54Jawad MirGood afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, the making of stories. I'm your host, Jawad Mir. Today, my guest is Adnan Virk, who is a TV host who has worked on ESPN, MLB. He's had a podcast on movies over the years, as well as an author now who has come out with his most recent book, Cinephile, which is a collection of interviews that he's had with people like Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and a whole bunch of others, along with his own personal stories from podcasts, the knowledge and the information that he gained during that podcast, and how he just loves films. And I had a great time chatting with him because, you know, I'm in a similar boat. I'm, I'm a film director but also doing a podcast because I love movies. I love talking about movies. So it was a really cool conversation, great personality, full of energy, full of life. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Adnan Virk. We'll get to your book, we'll get to your podcast. I would just love to know your origins in terms of, you know, you're obviously in the ESPN world and TV and all that.

1:57Jawad MirWhat prompted you, that moment in your life, whether it was as a child or a young adult, that put this bug in your head that this is what you wanna do?

2:09Adnan VirkWell, I always just loved movies. So when I was a kid, I thought it would be so cool to be a director. You know, I adore Martin Scorsese. There's an entire chapter in which I went through all of Scorsese's 26 feature films. Of course, he's done marvelous documentaries as well, but I went through every single one of his movies, and, you know, that to me really felt like when I got hit by a lightning bolt when I first got to watch Goodfellas when I was 12. And…

2:28Adnan Virk... I wanted to be like a Muslim Martin Scorsese, you know? I wanted to go make movies. But I realized being the son of immigrant parents, that was gonna be a tough sell. They're not gonna pay, at the time, $40,000, you know, for film school. So what I thought I would do is I went to school for radio and television arts, because one of my favorite books is Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, a great book about the directors of the '70s.

2:46Adnan VirkAnd Robert Altman actually started in television, then went and made MASH and his other movies. So obviously Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, that whole generation. So I said, "Okay, I'll do what Altman did. I'll direct television and then segue into movies." So what happened was in my second year there, I did a short film with, one of my favorite teachers, Billy Nobles, who's a great guy, and we got along well. He'd call me Hollywood Virk 'cause he'd make references that only I understood. Like, he talked about the tracking shot in Touch of Evil, which I'd actually seen, of course, the great Orson Welles movies. But, you know, when I made the movie, I realized it wasn't very good, and, you know, he was very kind about it, but it wasn't, didn't have any visual flair or panache, and I was very humiliated. And I realized that to be a director, you have to have that visual sense, right? You walk in a room, you know where you're gonna block, where you're gonna cut, editing, all that kind of stuff, and I just didn't have it. But I'm a very verbal person. You know, obviously I love to write, so I said, "That might make more sense." So, my backup plan was since I love sports so much, I said I could be a sportscaster, and I got an internship at TSN, which is the equivalent of ESPN in Canada. And in fact, my guidance counselor, I have to give him great credit, Dennis Shula, when I was looking for places to go, I went to a very small high school, 800 people, small town, Odessa, Ontario, 5,000 people in, eastern Ontario.

3:52Adnan VirkHe said to me, "You should go to this school, Radio and Television Arts, because you like media, you like all those types of things, and from there you can kind of find your path." The only other place I applied to was Carleton for journalism. So he said, "You know, you're a verbal person. You're really great with public speaking. You're a good writer. Like, you'll find something in that venue." So I'm always grateful to Mr. Shula for suggesting that. And like I said, I interned at TSN, worked two years there behind the scenes, finished college, worked there for a couple more years, sent out my demo tape. Familiar story for many people. Lots of rejections along the way. Eventually, just like an actor, you just need one, and eventually I got one, and, it was Bollywood Boulevard, and I told the guy running it, Stanford Falk, I said, "You know, my family's Pakistani, but I really don't know much about Indian movies." He said, "No, you'll be fine. We have a guy who's from Bombay, from Mumbai, Nalin Bakhle. He knows these films. He can help you with the pronunciations in the movies and stuff." I talked to some people at TSN. They all said, "You're a great guy. You really know your stuff." I did that for a, year and a half, and then, a floor director named Nick Chione, I'm always indebted to, he said to me, "What's your deal? I don't understand why you're here. Clearly these people... It's like a multicultural channel.

4:53Adnan VirkThere's, like, the Polish division, the Italian division, the Greek, the South Asian. Like, you're not here because of Bollywood movies. You're clearly, like, a broadcaster." And I said, "Yeah, I wanted to be a sportscaster, but I, you know, I applied to six jobs," however it was, "and I never got a sniff." So he said, "My cousin's starting a job. His name is Anthony Chione. He's starting a 24/7 sports network. It's the equivalent of Headline News. It's called Headline Sports." So Anthony called me and said, you know, "I saw some of your stuff. It's okay. I think you need a little bit of practice, but Nick says you're a great guy, so let's keep in touch." A few months later, Anthony called me, said, "I think you're ready." Did an audition, got the job, and away we go.

5:26Jawad MirAmazing. Well, I'm from Toronto as well, so the TSN and Sportsnet and all that stuff is very relevant to me, and it's really cool to hear that how, you know, you're, there's certain people that were guiding you, because that's always very important. I think that happens throughout your life, not just as a kid, but even, like, you know, in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. There's always some force that needs to sort of pivot your direction in case something is not going right. So good for you, man. I, that's, that's a really fascinating story. That's really cool to hear.

5:57Adnan VirkYeah, you know, people often ask you, "Who's your mentor?" And I'm like, "There's not, like, one specific person." There's just been so many people who were helpful along the way, and it doesn't always have to be somebody who's, you know, in a position of power or leadership. Like I said… Nick Ciccone's making, you know, 12 bucks an hour. He just happened to see somebody who was perhaps wondered how he could help him. You never know where help is gonna come from. You know, I, when people ask me for feedback for young aspiring broadcasters, I always say, "You never know where help will come from. Be nice to everyone. Treat everyone with respect. Remember people's names. And, you know, hopefully with a little bit of hard work and good luck, things will come your way."

6:29Jawad MirDefinitely. So now that you've become a broadcaster, you've done this over the years, and when did you become an official, like, on ESPN? What year was it?

6:39Adnan VirkYeah, so 2004. 2002 I was on air at 5 Over Gold on Omni. I started at The Score, which is the sports network that I was talking about in '03, and then I was there until '09. So six years I worked at The Score as a sportscaster, primarily doing the Raptors and doing basketball. But I covered all sports. I've always loved all sports.

6:57Adnan VirkAnd then went to MLSE, which is Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. I did the Leafs and the Raptors for a year, and from there I got my big break at ESPN. So that was 2010. I was 31, married, just one son at the time, and then I worked at ESPN for nine years. So May of 2010. 15 years ago now.

7:13Jawad MirNice. You think, Leafs will ever win the playoffs?

7:17Adnan VirkI don't think so. I, it's funny.

7:19Jawad MirI don't think so either.

7:20Adnan VirkOh, it's such a great, passionate fan base and they love their hockey so much, but, when the playoffs come, it's like the pressure gets a little too much for them, and even the last couple years, like, they've been the underdog. Like, Florida is a better team.

7:32Jawad MirYeah.

7:32Adnan VirkBut the, sometimes, as you know, the Toronto's been the underachiever, and it's... You know, the difference between winning and losing is so fine in hockey, and, unfortunately since 1967 they've been waiting, and I think they're gonna have to wait a little while longer.

7:43Jawad MirYeah. I used to follow it like a religion in the mid to late '90s when Sundin, Kaberle, and all those. And when they lost with North Carolina, in game six, I would…

7:55Adnan VirkRight

7:55Jawad Mir... Right? But yeah, it was like literally I would pray. Like, I would say, I would do Nufail and all this stuff, right? But now after that, after the lockout, I just lost interest. And I picked it up again couple of years ago, but again, it's the same thing, right? You're just losing…

8:09Adnan VirkYeah

8:09Jawad Mir... The same rounds just like the same time before, but.

8:14Adnan VirkYeah, there's the diehard fans who don't miss a game, don't miss a second. There's a next level who are just fans of Toronto, right? They wanna see the city do well. And then there's those as you call them bandwagon jumpers who will, who will get on once they get good. So you're probably in the ca… in the category of three now. Once you guys actually…

8:28Jawad MirYeah

8:28Adnan Virk... If you can get to a semifinal, if you get to Stanley Cup all, then I mean, that's what I say. I tell people, I said, "It's not even..." 'Cause as you said, Carolina, that was a semifinal, conference final.

8:37Jawad MirYeah

8:37Adnan Virk... '93 and '92, those were conference finals. Just to even make the Stanley Cup final, like Toronto has not done that since 19…

8:43Jawad MirYeah

8:43Adnan Virk... Even if they lost the Stanley Cup final, just to see the city, I wish they could at least have got to experience that, 'cause it's, it's like no one else.

8:50Jawad MirI remember when they defeated Ottawa by, I don't know what year it was. It's, I would like to guess early 2000.

8:56Adnan VirkYeah.

8:56Jawad MirThey were down 3-2 in the series, and they won 4-3, and I was coming from Ryerson. I was taking some film courses. And I was walking to Union, and that's when the game finished, and the amount of people that came out of Union just because of that series…

9:09Adnan VirkYeah

9:09Jawad Mir... Was crazy. I mean, imagine when Stanley Cup victory happens, right?

9:13Adnan VirkThat's what I tell people. Forget about if you win or lose, just the anticipation of the Toronto Maple Leafs are playing in the Stanley Cup final game, and it's game five or game six, what downtown Toronto would be like. I mean, I couldn't even imagine. And then God forbid they actually win. I mean, pe… people would lose their…

9:28Jawad MirYeah

9:28Adnan Virk... Years you've been waiting, right?

9:30Jawad Mir100%. So after ESPN, what got you into movie podcasts?

9:36Adnan VirkSo it was fall…

9:36Jawad MirThis was 2016, you said?

9:38Adnan VirkIt was fall. It was out of ESPN. So I was out of ESPN from 2010 to 2019, and then I was filling in all the, ESPN radio shows. And, my friend Dan Stanzione and I would always do a lot of shows together. He's a great producer. He's still there. And I said, "You know, maybe I should pitch them on a podcast." He said, "Yeah, all the stuff that you're interested in, you know, you love baseball, you love hockey, you love tennis, movies, et cetera." And I said, "Why don't we just do movies?" He says, "Okay, that sounds like a good idea." And I threw around titles and I said, you know, "Maybe Movie Geek, Movie Freak." He's like, "Yeah." And I said, "Cinephile." He goes, "Oh, that's great. Cinephile's a good name." So Pete Genoscia I'm always indebted to. He was one of the executives there at ESPN Radio, and Dan and I just did, like, a pilot episode, and it wasn't great. I was kind of rushed, but Dan goes, "No, let's just do it, put it out there and see what happens." And Pete said he liked it. He gave a little bit of feedback, but he thought it was pretty good. So, as you know, whenever you're in a big corporation, you know, the most important thing is to kind of use the, resources that are available to you. Meaning, because of the four letters of ESPN, I was able to attract a lot of talent and a lot of interviews which are now in the book. So that wouldn't be available to me if I was just podcasting as I am right now in my basement. When you're at ESPN, because it's ESPN, you're gonna get certain actors who are gonna speak to you.

10:41Adnan VirkSo, 2016 we started it, and of course, we have great talent bookers, Katie Mirval, there's so many others, who would pitch these publicists, you know, "Would you like to come on this podcast?" And, you know, it's 15, 20 minutes of their time. As you know from the junkets, you know, they're doing a bunch of these anyways, so you just add ESPN to the list. Sure. And that's really the crux of the book that I wanted to go back to, a lot of those interviews in 2016. Will Arnett was my first guest, speaking of the Leafs, obviously giant Leafs fan, fellow Toronto guy. You know, from there it was J.K. Simmons, Miles Teller. The holy grail for me was Robert De Niro. I got to meet Bob, interview him. Pacino I met separately. That wasn't related to Cinephile, but I adore Pacino obviously. And then Margot Robbie and all these other great actors. So, it was really because of ESPN's access I was able to do it. I did 78 episodes of Cinephile for ESPN, lost my job, went to Cadence13, which was a podcast company, and said, "Can I continue the podcast?" And they said, "Sure. We actually need someone to host an NFL podcast. If you do the NFL podcast with a guy named Michael Lombardi, we'll let you do the movie podcast." So 78 episodes at ESPN. I continued on with Cadence13 for another 100 plus, I think.

11:43Adnan VirkSo I'm really grateful to them. Great team over there. And then this podcast ended because Mike ended up getting a job. He's now with Bill Belichick running UNC Football. So GM Shuffle ends, NFL podcast, Cinephile no longer has a home. My friend Dan Lebatard, who I worked with at ESPN, now he's running his own company called Madolark Media. He says, "I'd love to hire you." I said, "Great." So then the final 100, two, maybe almost 200 episodes I did for Metal Arc, and then the podcast ended last September. Dan called me last May and said, "I got bad news, buddy. Unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to keep your podcast." I said, "No problem." He said, "We're, we're basically getting rid of a lot of these podcasts. We're just really streamlining it down to my show, a couple other shows, and that's it." So my agent looked around for a home elsewhere, couldn't find one, so I said, "All right, it's been..." I did it for a few months, actually. Dan said, "If you wanna keep it going, I can't pay you, but if you just wanna keep the podcast going for fun so you can end it on your own terms," which I thought was nice. So I still got to interview some sportscasters who I really like, Joe Buck, Ian Eagle, et cetera, and a few other actors along the way. So last September of '04 was my final episode, so 336 episodes over eight years, three different companies. So I'm really grateful, and I thought the book would be a nice thank you to all the fans who listen to the podcast.

12:45Adnan VirkAt one point, there was 40,000 listening. You know, I thought it'd be nice for them to be able to go back and read some of these interviews. And even I have close friends who have no idea about some of these interviews. "I didn't know you talked to Willem Dafoe," or, "I didn't know you spoke to Mahershala Ali." So I included all those in the book, and, I hope people enjoy it.

13:00Jawad MirThat's amazing, man. And would you ever reconsider down the road going back to that podcast?

13:06Adnan VirkProbably not. The only way I would do it, my main aversion to it, I just don't think movies are as good as they once were. Now that I don't have to do the podcast, like when I was doing the podcast, I always felt there was an emphasis to have at least one new movie every week. Then I'd have an old movie, and then I'd have a wild card. So I'd have a guest or whatever interest I had. So the pressure became, like during Oscar season, it's, it's great. I'm a member of the, Film Critics Association, Broadcast Film Critics Association, so I get the screeners sent to me, physical copy or via email. So at that point it's easy, right? I can watch three movies a week. I can watch The Brutalist. I can watch, you know, any of these films that are coming out. It's easy. But in the summer months, I found it to be a real drag 'cause a lot of the films just weren't interesting to me or appealing to me. And I have found in the last year of not having to do the weekly podcast, it's really been great, 'cause I get to go watch all these great films on Criterion. I get to watch movies on HBO Max and a lot of movies from the past. You know, Gene Hackman passes away, and I can go watch Night Moves, which I'd never seen, which is a really cool movie from the '70s. I can indulge in, you know, The Royal Tenenbaums or French Connection, whatever it might be. So that's really a family. You know, I've, I've got four kids. I don't have a lot of time.

14:06Adnan VirkObviously, I have an actual job with MLB Network, NHL Network. I have a part-time job with Amazon as well, doing hockey for them, Amazon Prime, where I travel to Canada every Monday during the hockey season. So I'm pretty busy. So, my free time, I think it's nice to be able to go back and watch There Will Be Blood or, you know, Serpico or any of those great films I love of the past. I just don't have the inkling to watch new movies. I will on occasion. I just went… I love Spike Lee, so I just went and saw Highest to Lowest, the new Denzel Washington movie. I liked it a lot. Again, it's a remake of Kurosawa's High and Low which, as you know, is one of the great movies of all time, so this is a tough movie to remake. And I just watched High and Low again before going to see it. But I enjoyed it for what it was. It's great to see Spike and Denzel together again. But generally, yeah, most new movies I'm, I'm just not that interested in. And people, listen, within movies know that. In the book, I talk about that. Barry Jenkins said to me with Moonlight, in the past you'd have these mid-tier pictures. You know this as a director. You'd have these quiz shows and ordinary people, and now it's either a $2 million movie or a $200 million movie, right? That they make less movies. A lot of them are tentpoles. A lot of them are IP. So I just don't have much interest in a lot of new movies. The only way I would revamp Cinephile is if I could do what Bill Simmons does.

15:07Adnan VirkHe very smartly has a podcast called The Rewatchables in which he talks about old movies from the past, and they rewatch them. So if someone said to me, "You could do a Rewatchables-type podcast, and you can discuss these movies you're watching," that's really the only way I could see myself wanting to do it.

15:20Jawad MirAnd I completely get that because when I started this podcast, for the longest time it was all, like older films, specifically targeted DreamWorks, and then it kinda became like everything else. Here and there I'll talk about the new stuff, like Jurassic World that came out. I had the production designer on. But 99% of the time, the connection that I have with the older films, and I think you would appreciate that, is something like it's, it's kinda like ingrained in you. You know? Like, you've grown up with it, and you've turn, come to love all these films, and there's different types of storytelling involved, right? The characters and actors. And yeah, the new stuff, I mean, not even for the podcast, like in general, like, okay, I'm not, I'm not interested. But, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen the… I've never seen Yellowstone, but I just saw the spinoff of it, 1923, which if you haven't… Have you seen it?

16:11Adnan VirkI haven't, but here's the other issue. So back when we were growing up, people used to always say, "What's the last movie you saw? What are you gonna go see this weekend?" Now what they say is, "What show are you binging? What's good on Netflix?" Another reason that I'm so disconnected from what people are doing, because I never watch Netflix. I don't watch shows. Now, there's exceptions, of course. I love The Sopranos. I love Breaking Bad. I like Succession. But generally, I don't watch these shows. I just don't have the interest, and it's for a very simple reason. Since time is scarce, I'd rather watch a two-hour movie rather than an eight-hour limited series or, God forbid, 20 episodes, whatever it may be. I just find that more satisfying and appealing to me. I played tennis with a friend of mine the other day, said, "You have to watch The Waterfront." I said, "What's that?" I looked it up. I said, "No, there, no chance." "Why?" I said, "It's an eight-episode limited series. That's eight hours of my time. I'm not gonna do that. I could just watch a two-hour movie. I could watch Do the Right Thing again, and I'd feel great. I d… I don't have the time." So I just don't have the time or the inclination, I should say. So my wife is younger than me. She'll watch shows. She binge-watches. I know that's the way the world has gone. But oftentimes this happens. People tell, "You should watch Yellowstone or watch this show," and like I just, I just don't have the interest. I don't have the bandwidth.

17:12Jawad MirRight. No, fair enough. And I'm not a much of a TV show watcher either, but 1923 is something that if you do get a chance to watch some, like, it's, 15 episodes. It's an amazing series, extremely character-driven, super long scenes. You're completely involved from the first episode until the last episode. But yeah, I mean, I, like five seasons, I think the last series that I ever watched was more than one season was Better Call Saul. That's about it.

17:40Adnan VirkYeah. Great.

17:40Jawad MirAnd Breaking, and Breaking Bad, right? But yeah, no, I get it, man. I totally get it. So in your book, you know, you talked about your interviews with, Robert De Niro, with Al Pacino, and then you talked about other, actors. Can you talk, would, can you highlight some of the conversations that you had with any of the actors… From a two point of view, is A, just the excitement as a movie fan of being able to talk to these people. But out of these conversation, what did you learn something that was about yourself that you didn't know before existed?

18:17Adnan VirkWell, the De Niro one is fascinating. To me, it's one of the centerpieces of the book. And again, the book is available wherever, books are sold, so go to your Barnes & Noble, Mango Publishing, wherever you like. What I found interesting with De Niro was, you know, I was at the Little League World Series doing my actual job at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, this is about a five-hour drive from Connecticut. And again, one of the talent bookers, Katie, got ahold of me and said, "De Niro's coming. He's promoting a boxing movie called Hands of Stone." And I know De Niro's not much of a sports fan, so I said, "Okay, he's only doing this because it's a boxing movie, ESPN, et cetera." So I said, "I'll be there." So I worked until 7:00 or 8:00 that night, and then my wife and I, we had two boys at the time, we have four now, we drove back. I remember my boss saw me in the hotel and he starts laughing, "What are you doing?" Like, he just sees me and my entourage, and I said, "What? We're gonna go interview De Niro." He just starts laughing, he said, "Have fun." So we drove back five hours in the middle of the night, and the main thing I kept saying to myself was, "You know, his name is Robert De Niro, but nobody ever calls him Robert. Everyone I quote is calls him Bob."

19:05Jawad MirBob.

19:06Adnan VirkMr. De Niro sounds a little too formal, but I don't want to just call him Bob out of the gate. So my friend Tim Kurkjian, who's a fellow broadcaster, who does a great job on ESPN on baseball, said, "You can just ask him." I said, "That's a good idea." So I got back, and then the next morning my wife and I get up, and she loves De Niro like I do, so, we dropped the kids off at the neighbors and went into ESPN. And you know, obviously there's lots of butterflies, lots of emotion, you know, it's like talking to somebody who you deeply respect and admire and, you know, I have some ideas in my head, I always jot down a few things. You know, I had a five-hour drive, so I got to think of different things I wanted to ask him. But again, it's 15 minutes, which as you know, they definitely fly by. But when he turned the corner, I said, "Oh my God," it's like a surprise party, everyone sort of says, "Oh my God, get down, here he is." And he came in, and honestly, Jawad, he was so sweet. He just had a big smile on his face. As I described in the book, he was very avuncular. You know, he just, he's just like a very sweet guy resembling an uncle. Fl… flowing hair. And I think, you know, De Niro's famously taciturn. When I said to him there was no camera, I think he loosened up a little bit. Like, I think he was appreciative of that, like a podcast that's just me and him. We didn't have any…

20:03Jawad MirYeah.

20:03Adnan VirkAnd, basically what I found is I wanted to ask him questions he wasn't going to be asked. 'Cause somebody that day asked him, you know, "What's your favorite movie of yours?" And I said, "That's the worst question you can ask an actor or a director or a screenwriter." 'Cause I said, "Every project is so personal to them." Like…

20:19Adnan Virk... You can phrase it a different way and say, "Which project are you fond of?" Or, "Which one did you have a real personal tie?" Like, that's okay. When you say your favorite movie, like, I don't know, like, they could come to different reasons. By the way, he did answer the question. He said, "I like Raging Bull and I like Midnight Run," which is pretty funny. He, I know Raging Bull is one of his favorites, but I'm glad he included Midnight Run, which is obviously a great comedy. So I said, "Okay, I'm not gonna ask him that stuff. I don't wanna ask him the generic stuff. I have to ask him about the movie which he's promoting, which I watched, which was okay." It was Robert De Niro's an Italian-American, Irish bloodlines, what does he care about Pakistan?

24:11Adnan VirkBut he read this article, he remembered it. Very cool. The article, by the way, if you wanna look it up, it's called The Lost Tribes: The Hindu Kush. Very cool.

24:19Jawad MirI will. I will. That's such a cool story. I mean, I've heard some great things about Robert De Niro. Obviously he's a fantastic actor, but, you know, to me personally, he's done some amazing work, but I think the one that stands out for me the most because, in my opinion, the most different is King of All Comedy by Martin Scorsese and Jer… with Jerry Lewis. I don't know if you have seen that.

24:38Adnan VirkI'm so glad you mentioned it. So I've seen it, don't worry. I've seen every single Scorsese movie. So, I said to him, that was one of the interviews, w… you know what? We actually didn't talk about Goodfellas. We did talk King of Comedy, and I told him how much I loved it, and I said, "I love the scene where Jerry Lewis is on the phone, and then, he's walking and the woman asks him for his autograph. He says, 'No, I can't right now.' And she said, 'I hope you get cancer.'" I said, "Such a funny line to me that's so expressive of the way people can be." And De Niro said, "Well, that actually happened to Jerry." And so he ad-libbed that and told Marty we should put it in the film. And as Bob said to me, he goes, "Oftentimes it was the films that I wanna make, I would bring them to Marty, and those are the films that Marty would bring to me." King of Comedy was a film that I wanted to do, and it worked for us because they were really famous after Raging Bull. You know, prior to that, people knew who they were, obviously movie people. But now it's like, Raging Bull was nominated for Best Picture, De Niro had one Best Actor. He now won two Oscars. A very rarefied air. So he said, "Now we were being treated as celebrities and being treated a certain way, and they just loved the dark comedy and really resonated to it." And again, Bob doesn't use words. He's not very expressive. Marty's obviously much more expressive and they use their camera to tell their stories.

25:38Adnan VirkBut, I told him King of Comedy's one of my favorite, De Niro/Scorsese movies, and I think you're right. At the time, you know, Marty's told the story, in '83 the movie did not do well. It was a big bomb. He said he was going out to a New Year's Eve party with Jay Cox, his dear friend, and he said Entertainment Tonight was on. They said, "Now it's time for one of the biggest bombs of the year, King of Comedy." And he said, "Oh man, I can't escape this movie." But over time, people really do love the movie, and particularly people with a good sense of humor, comedies. And matter of fact, a film that I hated, Joker, is highly influenced by the movie. Todd Phillips basically said it was mashing up King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, and that movie made a billion dollars, and Joaquin Phoenix inexplicably won an Oscar for his rampant overacting. But th… that's an example of a movie where, hey, years from now that's impacted filmmakers from today. I'm sure Todd Phillips is a good guy. I love The Hangover as much as anybody. But my point is that's a movie to your point. Not that... You're, you're right to say to me, "I don't know if you've seen it," 'cause not enough people have seen it, but those who have really love it. Scott Rogowsky's a dear friend of mine. He's a great comedian. When I asked him favorite Scorsese movie, immediately he said King of Comedy. It's a great film, and I agree with him.

26:36Jawad MirYeah. I mean, definitely in Joker there was, even De Niro was in it…

26:40Adnan VirkYeah

26:40Jawad Mir... You know, with that little kind of like, tribute.

26:44Adnan VirkOh.

26:44Jawad MirBut I'm just curious, I understand why people didn't like Joker 2. Why didn't you like Joker?

26:49Adnan VirkI just thought it was so derivative of the originals, like the Scorsese movies. To me, it just felt like so obvious that he was cribbing from, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. It didn't have anything original to say.

26:58Adnan VirkAnd like I said, I thought Phoenix's overacting was particularly notable. Like, I don't like when actors... And as I always used to say, it's called Best Actor, not Most Actor, and I just thought he was doing a lot in terms of the idiosyncrasies and the tics, and there was, there was zero subtlety to the film, and I really, I thought it was a very unpleasant experience. I had that also with a movie called Split, which a lot of people liked, the M. Night Shyamalan movie. Again, try to r… support him like you and me. He's brown, but I remember hating Split and just thinking, "Man, this Macklemore guy's doing way too much."

27:25Jawad MirSo…

27:25Adnan Virk"A thousand... " I mean, it felt like…

27:27Jawad MirI mean…

27:27Adnan Virk... He's doing like 20 different roles, and I go, you know, I like it when an actor's a little more measured and subtle. You know, a… and the book, I have a great chapter on Paul Giamatti. He's one of my favorite actors. Like I love Paul Giamatti. I love Philip Seymour Hoffman. Like, I love those character actors, right?

27:40Adnan VirkOftentimes they're not the leading stars. But yeah, I really, I really didn't like Joker, which I know is an unpopular opinion. Obviously it won an Oscar for it. It made a billion dollars. I have like one cousin who said to me, "I'm, I'm really happy you dislike Joker 'cause I did, too." But I know most people did like the movie.

27:52Jawad MirI think for a lot of people, including myself, the whole thing with Joker was, aside from those references, was it kind of showed how, a person goes from something being normally decent and then being bullied and bullied and becoming something completely evil, and I think that's kind of like how The Godfather was. You know? Like, they show the human side of the dark side, and I feel that's what people resonated with. You know, you talked about Split. I wasn't into Split until the last scene, like when the music kicked in and I've seen that scene so many times, how his personality splits from one mirror to another to another, and then the reveal at the end, and that's what did it for me. Like, other than that, the movie was okay, but that ending completely made up for the film because, not because he's brown. M. Night Shyamalan, like, you know, Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs…

28:42Adnan VirkPretty fun ones

28:42Jawad Mir... The Village, Happening. It was all just…

28:45Adnan VirkI really like his, I liked his first three out of the gate. Like, I really liked Sixth Sense, obviously. Unbreakable I probably liked even more, and I like Signs. Since then, I can't say I've loved any of his movies. I thought I hated The Village.

28:54Jawad MirReally?

28:55Adnan VirkI thought it was terrible. It was just so ponderous. So then you get to the ending and you go, "Okay, yeah, guess what? We're not in 1830s. These are present day." I've just, he's been too much of a one-trick pony for me. And I was really excited. He had the one, I think, what was it called? The Visitor or something like that? The old people. It was supposed to be really good.

29:10Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

29:12Adnan VirkIt's okay. He had the one on the beach. I thought it was terrible. Like, now I've just accepted, like, I don't know why I keep watching the movies. I'm just gonna…

29:17Jawad MirI kind of stopped with him, I would say, The Happening…

29:22Adnan VirkYeah

29:22Jawad Mir... Which I know a lot of people didn't like. I did, and then the recently Sandra Bullock film that came out during the COVID. What was it called? Where they have to wear a blindfold…

29:34Adnan VirkI…

29:34Jawad Mir... Which bor… which borrowed, pretty much everything from The Happening. Li… literally, it was just like a different concept, but everything was the same.

29:44Adnan VirkI'm curious sometimes, because this happened to me. I really liked Lady in the Water…

29:49Jawad MirYes

29:49Adnan Virk... And no one liked it. I thought maybe it's just because I love Giamatti so much. He was the lead role. And then I tried watching it again and I couldn't get through it. So I don't know if it's actually good 'cause I liked it when I saw it, or I was, everyone else is right and it's a terrible movie. I'm not sure. But I did like it at the time.

30:03Jawad MirBut I will say this, his most recent film with, the one with the serial killer at the concert, I mean, absolutely garbage.

30:10Adnan VirkI didn't s…

30:10Jawad MirOne of the, one of the biggest mistakes he made, and I... He casted his own daughter as a singer, and she did not know how to act. Like, aside from... Like, she, it was just terrible. Aside from, r… the ending, how it was revealed okay was okay, but that, her... And she had a major role. She was, like, almost, like, a supporting actress. It was not that she was singing. She's a singer by profession, but she was acting, and it was just, it was a disaster. I don't know why he went that direction, maybe launching her, whatever, but still, it ruined the movie for me.

30:41Adnan VirkThat's interesting. I'll note that point. Her name is Selaika Knight, and the movie is called Trap, which came out last…

30:45Jawad MirTrap, yeah. Came out last year. And you know, you won an Emmy. Tell me that story. When the nomination happened and when you won, like, that feeling and was there a sense of surprise at the nomination and the victory and, you know, just the hum… the emotional element of it, how that went through?

31:04Adnan VirkSure. So I tell the story about working the Oscars, so me and Ben Lyons, who I'm so indebted to, Ben was the one who wanted to work with me and got me the Oscars. We won an Emmy for our Oscars coverage. So basically what we did was a second screen experience. So if you're, you're watching the Academy Awards, as everyone is watching with Jimmy Kimmel hosting, remember, if you went to Facebook Live or oscar.com, you could see me and Ben and Sofia Carson, who's gone on to a wonderful career. She actually sang at the Oscars a couple of years ago, and Troy Gentile, who's a great guy who was on the show, The Goldbergs. So the four of us are talking throughout the show. So whoever the award winner would be, Best Supporting Actress, Sam Rockwell, we'd be talking about pre-billboards, that's in Ebony, Missouri, Rockwell Square, et cetera. So for that one, we won an Emmy, and honestly, it almost sounds like a made-up Emmy. It's like, you know, best technological insight within a creative whatever. Like, and so we didn't... We won the Emmy, but, like, it's a piece of paper. It's not, like, a physical Emmy, but we did win it. The next year we were nominated, didn't win it. So the Emmy that's actually behind me, which I did win it for, is for MLB Network. So, you know, 2019, I lost my job at ESPN, got hired by MLB Network and just owned. And so MLB Network at that time was, you know, obviously a great network if you love baseball, and they'd had success in terms of winning Emmys, particularly for this flagship show called MLB Tonight.

32:11Adnan VirkSo the first nomination I got was in 2020, which is the gold banner. So I was there, I think my second year when we got nominated, which was great, and, then I was there a couple of years later, we got nominated for the second one, and that was the one which was two years ago, and I said to my boss, I said, "Listen, I've, I've never won an Emmy, a true Emmy. I'd love to go to the awards." And he says, "We're not gonna win. We've won in the past." I think MLB Tonight won six times over a 12-year span. He said, "But people's perceptions change, things change. You know, now it's NFL shows that are dominating more than baseball. ESPN might win for SportsCenter. But if you really want to go, you can go." So I said, "Great." So I get to put on my tux, which I still fit from my years ago working the Oscars with Ben back in 2016, and it was great just to be able to be there with my friends and all the producers that worked on the show. So what the category of which we were nominated was Best Daily Studio Show, and the other nominees were all ESPN shows. And, while there, I got to catch up. My buddy John Fisher, who's a great researcher at CBS, I got to see him. I got to meet Joe Buck, who's one of my favorite broadcasters, now works at ESPN, at the time was working at FOX. So it was nice just to hop, drop, say hello.

33:12Adnan VirkIan Eagle, I'm a huge fan of at CBS. I got to say hello to him, meet him and his son. So as far as the awards ceremony, I'm sure you've been to awards ceremonies. Now I realize why everyone is so annoyed and why they're so happy to be hammered at the Golden Globes, although they don't drink. It's because it can be rather long and laborious. You're just waiting for your moment. And MLB Network was only nominated for two categories, one of which was ours. So they're going through it, they're going through it, and I, at one point I turned to Chris Rolenbeck, my friend who worked coordinating producer, and I said, "If we don't win, this has been a colossal waste of time." Like, I'm glad I'm here to, I'm glad I'm here to do this once, but I said, "God, this is, like, three hours. I could be at home with my kids. I could be working. I could be at a movie." Like, this is just, like... And it's very specific, much like the Oscars, you know, Best Live Action Short, nobody cares or has seen the film.

33:53Jawad MirYeah.

33:54Adnan VirkGenerally, this is a sports Emmy award, so it's, you know, Best Teases, Best, Post-Production, Best Super Bowl Editing. Like, it's very specific stuff. And most speeches are fine, everyone goes up there, but again, you really don't care unless it's involving you. So our category was the second last of the night, because obviously it's a sports profession. So I, we get up there, and they do the nominees, and, at that point I was resigned that we weren't going to win. I'd been praying so hard, like every salat I was like, "I'm gonna get, I gotta get one of these. I gotta..." I kept praying ever since we got nominated. But in that moment, I said, "No, it's gonna be NFL Live." And I kinda had the expression on my face, like my hand on my cheek, like I was ready to applaud. Again, I know all those ESPN people. They're all my friends. Laura Rutledge is the host. She does a heck of a job. Scott Van Pelt was there. He is one of the hosts of SportsCenter. So I said, "Okay, it's probably gonna be NFL Live or SportsCenter. I'll be happy and I can go home after this." and he actually messed up, the host. He's a great guy, the Kid Mero, who's a very funny comedian. Him and Desus do that sketch comedy show. The Kid Mero, you're supposed to say, "The Emmy goes to..." He said, "The MLB goes to..." It was a dead gi…

34:52Jawad MirOh, sh…

34:53Adnan VirkYeah, it was a dead giveaway that we won because we were the only MLB show. We were the only baseball show. So he said, "The MLB goes to..." And I yelled. I'm like, "Yeah!" I let out a big scream, and then he opens it, "The MLB Tonight, MLB Network." And I gave a fist bump, and he's reacting to me, if you see the video, 'cause I'm the one screaming, yelling. He's like, "Yeah!" Kinda laughing. And then Mark Kaiafa, my boss, came down. I gave him a hug, and we all walked down together. And, a few of my friends had said, "Are you gonna talk?" Or my wife. I said, "No." I said, "The talent always gets to talk. I get to talk every day on television. I want everyone else to talk." So my boss got to talk, Mark Kaiafa, who's a phenomenal guy. He loves Scorsese like me. He loves Goodfellas. It's his favorite movie. So Mark talked for a few minutes, and then one of our producers, Chris Rolenbeck, who's been there forever, he spoke. I said, "I just want to be on the stage," which they allowed me to do. So I have a nice picture of Mark talking on the stage, and then I'm standing there with a couple of producers. So I said, "I just want to be on the stage. That's enough for me." And, obviously the adrenaline is pumping through our veins. It's a career highlight. If you work in television, you work in broadcasting, you dream of winning an Emmy, just as an actor would dream of winning an Oscar, and it's, it's very nice because it wasn't individual. It's for our entire show. So that's the producers, the directors, the lighting people, the audio people, the makeup, the analysts.

35:56Adnan VirkSo it was a really team effort, and, backstage we were so thrilled. We just kept hugging and grabbing each other and jumping up and down, and, Mark kept laughing. He said, "It's like the Stanley Cup. Each buddy gets, each person gets to hold it for a minute, and we give it to the next person." So then I called my wife and, FaceTimed her. I said, "Hey, we won." And she was like, "Oh my God, oh my God. Alhamdulillah, I can't believe we won." I was so happy. And I was overjoyed. You know, for forever now when people, I go on shows, introduce me, they always say Emmy Award winner. Every time you smile, every time it's nice. And I joke to people, I said, "You know, you think that you're in this just for the award itself, but y… you love the external recognition." I mean, of course, who wouldn't wanna have one? There's a great book by, his name is Kay Smith, I'll remember it. It was basically interviews with, like, 25 different Oscar winners. And I can't remember who it was, might have been, who it was now, but she said, like, she willed it to happen, and I felt the same way. I was like, "You know, I just kept visualizing we're gonna win, we're gonna win, we're gonna win." Then we won, I kinda felt like, yeah, we were, it was kinda destined to happen. It was bound to happen. Meryl Streep tells a great story. She has three Oscars, as you know. She said, "I always keep one in the main room, because when people walk in, they always say, 'Where are your Oscars?' And I show the first one right there, and they always wanna grab it, and they always wanna make a speech."

36:58Adnan VirkAnd I said, "Yeah, of course, go ahead, make your speech." A lot of actors keep it in the bathroom for the same reason. They go out, they wanna grab it, make a speech to themselves in the mirror. I'm like, "Yep, I totally get it." So it's, it's a really fun thing. I have it in my office. I'm scared the kids will break it, but I keep it here, and, like I said, it's a team effort. It's something I'll always appreciate. I'll never forget. And I'm proud of the other nominations, by the way. We didn't win last year, but we still got nominated, so I still have a plaque for last year's nomination. Last year we did lose to NFL Live, who we thought we'd lose to two years ago, but the fact I've got, three nominations and one win, I'm obviously so grateful. And, I don't know, that's all worked out. You know, post-ESPN, I never won an Emmy at ESPN, but I've won one since then, so it's been really cool.

37:33Jawad MirThat's cool, man. That's really good. Good for you. Where do you get all your energy from? I'm just…

37:38Adnan VirkYeah, well, it's funny. My, eldest son, Yusuf, always laughs 'cause people ask him, "How much coffee does your dad drink?" And I say, "No, I don't drink coffee." And they're like, "What?" He's like, "Yeah, you know, I don't like co…" As you know, being brown, we like a good cup of chai.

37:49Jawad MirYeah

37:49Adnan Virk... I only have that, like, at the masjid. I never have chai at home. I never drink tea. Generally I'm just fired up and ready to go. I don't know what to tell you. I try to get to the gym, exercise regularly. That burns off some energy, gives you some energy.

38:00Jawad MirYeah.

38:00Adnan VirkAgain, with four kids I'm always pretty amped up. I've always got something to do, always running off to the next thing. But yeah, no coffee, no stimulants, just, high on life, as they say.

38:08Jawad MirNo, that's good, because, I mean, going to the gym helps, but obviously there's a natural personality and tendency about you that sort of sits and resides in you. And I'm sure you have your down times, but it's good to see that, because that energy really, I mean, and especially what you do…

38:23Adnan VirkYeah

38:23Jawad Mir... You know, it's, it's mandatory, right? It's absolutely mandatory. It's, so it's kind of a nice marriage between your personality and what you do.

38:31Adnan VirkOh, it's a great point. As you said, you've talked to actors, directors, writers, production designers. Like, I think it's a surprise sometimes for people who are not in the business that, oh, that actor was quieter than I thought or more reserved. And I'm like, "Listen, you can't be at a 10 all the time. Otherwise you'd be insane." So there's, but I, but I agree with you. There has to kinda be in you that you're able to flip the switch if need be. So, you know, before I go do a show four or five days a week, it's not like it takes me so much energy to ramp up. It's like, no, it's just a little bit of a click of a dial, so to speak. I mean, I've been on TV now for 23 years, so at this point it's secondhand.

38:59Jawad MirYeah.

39:00Adnan VirkI'm really amped up. And a… and as you know with anything, for you as a filmmaker, for you as a podcaster, the first year is always the hardest, right? That, the hardest part is kinda just finding your voice, finding your way, what your kinda…

39:10Jawad MirYeah

39:10Adnan Virk... Is. And you know, a friend of mine, Steve Koozie, said years ago, he said, "Ernie Harwell's a great broadcaster. So is Troy Aikman." He said, "Whenever you start something new, you're always gonna get criticized. The other guy was better. This guy stinks. He sucks. But after five years, it doesn't matter if they like you or they hate you, they just get used to you." So that's kinda been my motto, too. Like, I'm sure there's people, and I appreciate the compliment that say, "Oh, I like your energy. I like your style." I'm sure there's other people who say I find him grating or overbearing. At the end of the day, you do it for long enough, doesn't matter if they like you or hate you. They just get used to you.

39:39Jawad MirThat's, that's all it is. It's about doing it for yourself and doing what you enjoy, and that's it. I mean, at the end of the day, there'll be people who will criticize you nevertheless, and that's just life. That's just part of it.

39:50Adnan VirkYeah.

39:50Jawad MirYou know, and now that, you know, you've, your career has spanned over so many years with, you know, so much success, and I hope it continues, have you ever considered going into writing or directing a film?

40:07Adnan VirkSo it's funny, a friend of mine, I'm not even gonna call him a friend, just somebody who'd, who'd kinda reached out to me on Twitter. He was, he was a big fan of the podcast and I found, he said, "I wanna send you a script." And I said, "I don't, like, I'm not, Robert Towne here. Like, what do you wanna be a script doctor this thing? Like, it's shot. Like, I can't do that." And he said, "No, you must have written a script before." I said, "I've never written a screenplay." He said, "Really?" I said, "I think I wrote a teleplay back in college for Oz, which was one of my favorite shows." Like, that was interpreting class, but I'd never written, like, an original screenplay, adapted screenplay. I said, "I just, it seems like a ton of work. It seems overbearing and overwhelming, and I don't know how to do it. I'd have to, I'd wanna take a course and kinda figure out how to do it." So the only dream that I had for years was to write a book, which I've now done. So that's done. I wrote a book of fiction, which has long been a passion project. I wrote that back in 2014. I feel like Stanley Kubrick working on this thing for 12 years, but I've, you know, chipped away, and I chipped away, and I chipped away at it. Eventually that book will come out. Those are really the two big things for me. I wanted to write one book about Cinefile. I wanted to get this fiction book published, which is about a Muslim baseball player, which like I said, I really poured my heart into. And who knows? Maybe it'll come out and five people will read it, but that's okay.

41:08Adnan VirkBut I'd never had any inkling of wanting to make a movie or write a screenplay. The only thing I will say, and I put this in the book, people often ask me, you know, "If you could make a movie, what would you make?" So I always say, "If someone just gave me $20 million and I can make a film, the fiction film I'd make would be about Roberto Clemente, the great Pirate superstar, Puerto Rican." He was the first great Hispanic baseball athlete, but really was known as a humanitarian. There's a reason why Roberto Clemente Award exists. It exists to that player every year who extends themselves on a humanitarian level. Roberto Clemente, for those who don't know, again, was the first great Puerto Rican baseball player. Played for the Pirates in the '60s and '70s. But more importantly, he died in 1972 because he flew on a mission after there was an earthquake in Nicaragua to ho… help give supplies to help those in need. And, the plane unfortunately was not found. Clemente's body was never found. So in addition to being a pioneer for Latin baseball players, and you see how the Latinization of the sport right now, it's, it's incredible how many great Latin players and fans there are. But Clemente was that first great player, and I always feel like if I could market it, there's a huge Hispanic population in America. I could reach out to Puerto Rican friends I have, et cetera, market it a certain way, and it'd be a great baseball movie, but also a great humanitarian story.

42:13Adnan VirkAnd the nonfiction film I'd always make if I had any sort of money would be called Places of Worship. And I always thought as a religious person, you know, religion can get denigrated and made fun of in Religulous, the Bill Maher movie. Other examples, as you know, of negative p… portrayals of Islam. The Apostle's one of my favorite movies. I mention it in the book. The great Robert Duvall movie. I met Duvall briefly in '98. I was in college, second year at Ryerson. He was there throwing out the first pitch of the Blue Jays game. One of my friends had tipped me off. He said, "I know how much you love The Apostle, dude. He's gonna be at like Planet Hollywood." I mean, it was literally a three-second exchange. I think I literally just shook his hand. I go, "I love The Apostle. You're, you're a great man, great filmmaker, great actor." Obviously, Tom Hagen is one of the great actors of all time. But, what I love about The Apostle is that Duvall showed that like a religious person can be a normal person, a flawed, three-dimensional, but like it's an extraordinary movie. And, I talked to Billy Bob Thornton about it. That interview is in the book, and I told Billy Bob how much I love The Apostle. He's like, "Yeah, I love that movie, too." It's one of those that are kind of like for you with King of Comedy. Like not enough people have seen it, but if they see it, they go, "Oh, yeah, The Apostle's a great movie." So anyways, places of worship, I think it'd be a great documentary to go to places of worship in the world.

43:16Adnan VirkLike go to a gurdwara for Sikhs. You know, go to see the Pope. Go to see Jerusalem and talk to rabbis. And of course, end up in Mecca and obviously talk to those who are... Like I think it would be amazing to just make a film which is like embracing religion, embracing commonalities rather than separation. That's really the movie that I always wanted to make.

43:35Jawad MirThat's incredible, man. That's incredible. It's interesting. You know, I was, for the last four years I developed this little project, but it was not like specifically on all religions. It was more about pillars.

43:45Adnan VirkYeah.

43:45Jawad MirYou know, the five pillars of Islam, and just kind of like worked around a story around it for a documentary series. It's been five years of trying to get it off the ground. But you know, that whole thing of religion I think is so necessary, not because necessarily, you know, you have to worship somebody or that. That's fine. But it's just more about after you hit a certain age in your life, and I don't care who you are, you feel something inside you that you never felt before, whatever the reason for that is.

44:12Adnan VirkYeah.

44:13Jawad MirAnd it's, it's very necessary for your own growth and existence.

44:16Adnan VirkJulia Phillips, who was the great, crazy producer, won an Oscar for The Sting, co-produced Taxi Driver. Eventually her career flamed out 'cause of way too much cocaine and way too much partying. Wrote one of the all-time great Hollywood books. It's called You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. And in it she talked about after she'd gotten over the drugs and she was trying to get back into Hollywood and produce films, she said she noticed that everybody who was partying as she was in the '20s and '30s, they had done one of two things. Either they'd done what she had done, and she was vigilantly anti-religion but went into more therapy and self-help, et cetera, or they had found religion. She goes, "They either do one or the other." She goes, "After you've been through all of that, either you go, 'I turn myself to God,' or you do..." what she had done, which is, "I turn myself to self, but on a healthy level, existential, whatever that may be." So whatever you wanna call it…

44:58Jawad MirYeah

44:58Adnan Virk... You kind of basically have to kind of find your way to that once you're done with doing all the other stuff.

45:03Jawad Mir100%. So last question, what's the next m… mountain to climb, if any?

45:07Adnan VirkThe big one's just to get the fiction book published, like I said. 'Cause I started it in 2014. I did three drafts I sent to a handful of editors, much like my sports casting journey. Got turned down by a bunch. Maybe 12 agents. I think one liked it, Josh Getzler, and he had actually owned a minor league baseball team of the Yankees. He's an Orthodox Jew. And he said, "Something I really liked about your book is you said, you know, Jews have Sandy Koufax, who's a great baseball player. Muslims don't have one, so I'd invent one, and I thought that'd be a really interesting book." So Josh was really helpful. He said, "Let's get into the book. Let's work on it." You know, I paid somebody a bunch of money to help edit me on the book. He sent it out to 12 different editors. Six said, "I really like the idea, I just don't think he's a good enough writer." Six said, "I think he's a really good writer, I just don't think the idea's very good." So there's no, unanimity. Couldn't sell it. COVID happens. Kind of lost touch with Josh. And then my friend Scott Spainley, who works at MLB Network, told me he self-published a book. I told him about the book. He said, "There's no reason you can't self-publish this. You've got 107,000 followers on Twitter. You've got people on Instagram. You're on television. Like, you can just self-publish it." He goes, "I self-published, and I got 1,000 books sold, so I'm just a random guy, so you don't need to have Simon & Schuster do it."

46:13Adnan VirkSo I got back in touch with Josh couple years ago, had dinner, said, "What do you think?" And naturally, one would be cynical and say because he's an agent he's said, "Don't self-publish," 'cause obviously he can't get any money out of it.

46:22Jawad MirOf course.

46:23Adnan VirkHe said, "Let's, let's, let's do one more pitch on it." So I paid somebody an exorbitant amount of money to edit it again for me. He's a very bright guy, Mark Tavani, but it was more money than I wanted to spend, but did another draft of it. You know this as a filmmaker. You do seven, eight, nine drafts.

46:36Jawad MirOh, yeah.

46:37Adnan VirkYeah, so I think we're onto draft five or six. I'm not sure what it is. I think it's in pretty good shape now. Josh sent it out in February. Have not gotten a yes. Haven't got a lot of nos, which Josh somehow seems to feel like, "Well, it's kind of lingering." And I said, "Eh, I think if it's been this long, they're not really interested." I mean, if someone…

46:53Jawad MirYeah.

46:54Adnan VirkSo I might have to do what Scott told me, which is self-publish. I have to set up Mango Publishing, 'cause they're the ones that published Cinephile, and they did like this fiction book. I said to him, he goes, "No, I think it's good." Their only concern was they do primarily nonfiction, not fiction. But I think they did a good job promoting this book, and I, they might actually end up being the ones publishing. But honestly, if I can just get that book published, that would be, a Herculean accomplishment at this point for me.

47:18Jawad MirWell, I hope that happens, and I hope that happens sooner than later, because I completely understand what you're trying to do. And you know, you talk about baseball. It's one of the things that came to my mind. I'll send you the link. You know the film, 42?

47:30Adnan VirkYeah, of course.

47:30Jawad MirBased on... Yeah. So I had, I've had the guest several times, Don Burgess, who's a cinematographer. He's worked with Robert Zemeckis over the years, and I spoke to him about 42. You'll enjoy it. It's, it's a great conversation. You're really based on…

47:44Adnan VirkWell, I love the fact... No, I love the fact with your podcast you're not just interviewing actors, directors, front-facing talent. Like, I think those people are oftentimes the most fascinating. Like, I talked to a guy named Sam Wasson, wrote a book about Chinatown. It's an unbelievable book, and Sam is like hyper energy. He's very exuberant. He's not what you think of as a writer, somebody who's dour or solemn. Like, Sam is awesome. He had great stories about Nicholson and Polanski and Robert Towne in Chinatown. And Barry Sonnenfeld's obviously very wacky, great director, gave us Money. But I remember talking to Jack Fisk, who's a legendary production designer. I love Killers of the Flower Moon, as I told you how much I love Scorsese. I couldn't get Marty. But I got Jack Fisk, and I'm like, "This was a blast." Like, he had such great stories. He worked with Terrence Malick and all those great movies like Badlands. This was his first film working with Scorsese. I talked to Ella Lewis, who worked on casting for Killers of the Flower Moon. She also cast Goodfellas. She's cast like seven Scorsese movies. So I applaud you for not just necessarily talking to the big names, the production designers, the cinematographers, the casting directors. They're fascinating people to talk to. They've all got great stories.

48:39Jawad MirThey do, and I find so far, and I d… as I'm not trying to generalize, production designers…

48:45Adnan VirkYeah

48:45Jawad Mir... I find have very cool stories, especially, I forget his name, he worked on the new movie Horizon by Kevin Costner. He worked on, The Wild film. And I had him on for n… 70 minutes. I probably spoke for three minutes.

49:04Adnan VirkWow.

49:04Jawad MirLike, he was just... And I love that, because, A, I don't need to talk, because it's not about me, it's about you. And the fact that he had so many detailed stories is so cool. And one thing that I have learned, I started this podcast two and a half years ago, 356 episodes. I have…

49:22Adnan VirkDerek…

49:22Jawad MirI mean, I... Sorry?

49:24Adnan VirkDerek Hill is the guy's name?

49:26Jawad MirYes. Thank you so much. Yes. I always knew this, I mean, you know, over the course of last 15, 20 years, that filmmaking is a collaborative effort. But I truly believe that one of the reasons I ended up doing this podcast, kn… knowingly, is learn how much more collaborative it is than I actually anticipated, because it is, everything is about fricking teamwork.

49:48Adnan VirkYeah.

49:48Jawad MirEverything.

49:49Adnan VirkYeah.

49:49Jawad MirRight? And that's one of the things that, best thing you can do, is you learn something from something that you're enjoying doing. And I absolutely love l… l… listening to these stories, and people love, you know, being on the show, and win-win situation.

50:02Adnan VirkYeah. I'm trying to look. I'm scouring quickly. I don't think I see among your books William Goldman, of course, the legendary screenwriter. I finally read his two books, which are very famously, so legendary within screenwriting circles. And the one thing he says in there is that nobody knows anything, of course, because when it comes to these films, you never know how it's gonna work out. And, you know, he won an Oscar for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

50:20Jawad MirYeah.

50:21Adnan VirkThe Princess Bride. But like all, The Princess Bride was an exhausting process. It was very difficult. He's had the good fortune to work with Redford and Paul Newman. Mysteries of Ray movie. He talked about doing other films like Polanski, some of them work, some of them don't. But to your point, he really craps on the, tourist theory. He has this whole page where he goes, "You know, I hate this, tourist theory that the French New Wave did." And a lot of people who are not in movies, they give an exorbitant amount of credit to the director. They always think the director this, director did that. And he goes, "There's 70 people in any movie. If you want to give them credit, it's the actors, it's the writer," of course it's the writer, Goldman's gonna push for them, "it's the cinematographer, it's the production designer, maybe it's the score, and the director." He goes, "Those are the six or seven." He goes, "I get so tired of saying, 'Oh, it's such a Spielbergian film.'" He goes, "No, maybe it was Janusz Kaminski, the cinematographer," you know? They always mention this person. Maybe it was John Williams. So he goes, it's of great frustration, I think, to people in movies, unless you're a director, 'cause you're happy to take all the credit. Th… as you say, there's way too much credit given to them. So I'm with you. It's a collaborative process. Anybody in the movies definitely knows that and appreciates that.

51:22Jawad MirAnd, you know, being a director myself, one of the things that I, again, like I'm, I'm working on a fiction that we're trying to get off the ground. It's called Whispers in Time, a short film about Palestine and Israel. And one of the things that I have come to learn, again, I knew this, but the director's job is only to talk to actors and that's it. And lead, obviously lead the team. Like, and other than that, if he doesn't know or he or she doesn't know anything technicality, it's okay. It's fine. If he, if he or she knows, that's good, too. But just to be able to make the actors comfortable, that's the director's job, and get the br… best, get the best performance out of them, and lead the rest of the team. Everybody else is so, you know, casting, costume, production design, they're just so into it, and they... And when I talk to these people, it's like the detail they talk to me about, it's like, again, I knew this, but it just blows my mind away that how much of effort it takes to fricking make a movie.

52:15Adnan VirkYeah. Well, think of your effort. You, as you said, it's been five years working on this documentary, trying to raise funding. I mean, there's no money in documentaries. I've talked to these documentary filmmakers, and like, they're a little... Errol Morris, I've talked to a couple times, The Thin Blue File. Talked to Gabe Polsky. Like, these guys are just so dedicated. But there's something about nonfiction storytelling that it draws them to it. You're not in it for the money. You're in it for the truth-telling and the passion of it. So kudos to you and all those that do it, 'cause it is certainly not easy.

52:38Jawad MirThanks, man. I appreciate it. Well, listen, it's been a pleasure talking to you. If you're in Toronto anytime soon, hit me up. We can get together for lunch or something if you have time. That'd be really cool.

52:49Adnan VirkYeah. Sure, that'd be great, man. This was a ton of fun. Thanks so much for the support and, again, congrats on all you're doing. It's good to see another brown face who's, as passionate and zealous about movies as me.