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Leverage Season 3, Episode 16, The San Lorenzo Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Marc: Hi I'm Marc Roskin, director of the season finale.

John: John Rogers, executive producer and co-writer of this part of the season finale.

Scott: Scott Veach, the co-writer of this part of the season finale.

Aldis: Aldis Hodge, actor, Hardison, yeah that guy.

Christian: I'm Christian Kane, I play Eliot Spencer.

Chris: Chris Downey, executive producer. And this is part two of our season three season finale, The San Lorenzo Job.

John: Starting with the brief flashforward, which I think has become the kind of signature of the season finale.

Christian: I like it.

John: The little jump forward, the little ‘this is what you're gonna see.’

Aldis: Yup, yup.

John: And this is the reset scene, this is the last time you guys are in the bar for the year.

Christian: Yup.

John: And just to remind everyone - cause we didn't know if they were gonna show them back to back - exactly what we're doing, what the stakes are, and why they're going.

Chris: Now the origin of this one was Scott, you came in with the one liner, where they steal a country?

John: Well it was two, because I had that saint story, remember when I was a kid?

Chris: Oh, right.

John: And Scott had come in nicely enough with the exact same he wanted to do, which was-?

Scott: Yeah, when I was a computer scientist, I had a friend from Nigeria, who told me that in Nigeria, when they were kids, one of the things they do is they sit around and argue about who could coup the country if it came to it.

[Laughter]

Scott: And they used twinkies, and they'd put twinkies down and argue over what the right pathways are. And I was telling John this and we were saying it would be great for Leverage to coup a country, and that dovetailed with something you'd already been thinking of.

John: That dovetailed with the saint story, the Simon Tepler story about The Revolution Racket, which I read when I was 12. And the whole idea of somebody taking over a country just because somebody pissed them off just stuck with me for 30 years.

Christian: Right, yeah.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: And so that was- alright, well that's insanely ambitious and impossible to write, let’s bang that out in a week.

[Laughter]

Marc: And you believe it!

Christian: Yeah, you do.

John: And that's the fun of having, you know, Scott is experienced in computer science and technology and I'm a conspiracy geek, you know there’s- we don't do anything in this episode that you couldn't really do.

Christian: So let me ask you a question, you're saying that someone actually stole a country before?

[Laughter]

John: It’s come close.

Christian: There you go, exactly that’s what I'm- yeah.

John: And then- it was picking the country, making sure we found it. What was great was we found- like, don't want to go Africa, can't shoot in Africa, can’t duplicate it. Can't go to Latin America, can't shoot the geography. So finding a European country, and it turns out I knew somebody who specialized in journalism of small countries. She had written about the smallest countries in the world, and so I knew there were some countries kicking around that were this small.

[Ice rattling in a glass]

Chris: And there was another source- piece of source material for this that was very helpful, which was a documentary called Our Brand Is Crisis. Which was a great- if you get a chance, a great documentary about how James Carville's team went down to Bolivia, I guess in 2002?

John: I think so.

Chris: And basically won the Bolivian election for an ousted president, and there were kind of horrible consequences that followed from it.

Scott: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Chris: And we got a lot of great stuff from that.

John: Yeah. And that's the trick is to just, you know, you don't really have to make stuff up, the real stuff out there, you just gotta dig deep enough. This actually is great- this is digitally treated, you just shot the footage.

Marc: Yeah. I mean every time you're in this room and you see these screens, it’s always green screen, so the visual effects department having to labor.

Christian: But it's great, it really shows the distance between us and him right there, you know.

Aldis: Yeah.

Marc: Yeah, we gave it that glitchy techno feel.

John: It was also nice how you dropped in, “At ease.”

Christian: Yeah.

John: That was I just-

Christian: Thanks man.

John: No, I noticed that, my brother would do that when-

Christian: You know, I used- I was talking to you, I used kinda a little bit of George Clooney in The Peacemaker for this scene. I just kinda-

John: You know what? Underrated movie, by the way.

Scott: Very true, very true.

Chris: That is, it’s true, it’s a really good movie.

Christian: Absolutely, absolutely, it's one of my all time favorites.

John: I love that flick.

Christian: And I just used the fact that it doesn't make any sense to- anyway.

Chris: It’s one of the first times we saw somebody from Eliot's past, and I thought- and we’ll get to it later-

John: Who's not dead.

Christian: Right.

[Laughter]

Chris: But the camaraderie, it was like it opened up the character in a lot of ways. I thought it was great.

John: Yeah, this guy met bad guys and good guys. It’s interesting, cause we wanted to crack open Eliot for this season, but the character doesn't lend himself to long bits of exposition.

Christian: Right.

John: So we had to do it through indirect means. And then we find out Hardison was a ninja next season.

[Laughter]

Christian: That's right.

Aldis: Yes we do.

John: Raised by his nana, his nana was like a shogun. No, that was all a nice beat. And considering you guys were all acting to a green screen that was very emotional, very nicely done. This staging was a bitch, by the way, cause you had three and two.

Marc: Three and two, and a lot of page count.

John: Yeah.

Marc: A lot of page count.

John: And it's tough because page count- shooting a lot of pages in here means it's not a place you have to go to that you have to light, that you have to shoot in a different way than you're used to, you know the set. But this set requires you to have five humans in it.

Marc: Right.

John: And so there's this sort of cancellation of the advantages. No, nice beat by Tim there, just “Oh, we fucked up.”

Christian: And by the way, Goran was nice enough to come in that day and sit over to the side; he's actually in the room with us reading.

John: That was his first day!

Chris: Yeah, I think that was his first day.

Marc: It was his first day during his wardrobe fitting.

Christian: Yeah.

John: Yeah, and we had not met him, and he came in and sat off to this side and did the mocking speech, and I remember thinking, “Ah that’s it! That’s it right there!”

[Laughter]

Christian: No, it was perfect.

John: You could actually see the whole cast like, “Oh, I get who this guy is.”

Aldis: Ahhh.

John: No, he's fantastic in this.

Scott: Yeah, he looks the part.

John: Absolutely you could do him with Saint.

Scott: Oh yeah.

John: Yeah, you could [unintelligible mumbling] absolutely.

Chris: Yeah, he hasn't really played bad guys. I mean the most-

John: No, this was his first real bad guy.

Chris: First real bad guy.

John: He said it was why he took it, so he could get a chance to do it. It's also nice why he said, “You used to,” to Eliot, just a reminder again to the audience of some history there, some past there. And, you know, kind of a center of gravity of emotion there.

Christian: Yeah. This was actually really tough.

John: Yeah, cause he’s not- he’s holding it in.

Marc: Yeah, cause you feel at fault.

John: No, it was a- Hardison kind of playing straight ahead, Parker not dealing with emotion well, and then straight to the “ciao.” And then the hatred. The hatred.

Chris: And we did it a bunch of times, too, cause I remember we did it a number of times.

Christian: Yeah, it was tough.

Marc: Beautiful San Lorenzo.

Christian: I didn’t want to screw it up.

John: Beautiful scenic San Lorenzo.

Christian: That was actually before the first episode- that was one of the first scenes up, it was like we just had-

Chris: Yeah.

John: It was a cold start.

Marc: See the digital background there, beautiful stuff.

Chris: And great music here, that we’re not listening to.

John: Yes.

Marc: Oh yeah.

Chris: But I've been hearing it in my head from Joe LoDuca.

John: What was really fun was that Joe LoDuca, because I said this was the Mission Impossible episode I always wanted to write-

Chris: Yeah.

John: He put a little Schiffer in the score here. It was really- he put a little 1960’s Mission Impossible in the score.

Scott: Yeah.

Christian: I gotta be honest with you though, her in that dress, I don't think people are gonna be listening to the music.

[Laughter]

John: You know the people who care are. And this is the Schnitzer Theater.

Marc: Schnitzer Auditorium.

Aldis: Yeah.

Marc: Downtown Portland.

Chris: Oh boy, does that look great.

John: And this was the location that kept on giving.

Christian: Yup.

John: We walked in here on scout and at this point the finale- this part of the finale was not yet written, because I knew- we'd done the rough draft, but I was up in Portland scouting locations. And I knew we had to do it- we had to rewrite based on what we could get, and that was the layout of the original script.

Scott: Yeah.

John: We were just so lucky to get that auditorium. And this was great, James Draper from Mad Men, kind of the vibe there, that was the name check.

Chris: Sure, and the suit is very much Our Man In Havana.

Scott: Yes, it really sells it.

John: Our Man In Havana is definitely- that's one of the movies we talk about that nobody ever has seen. Alec Guinness, Our Man In Havana is a great flick.

Christian: Again Nadien Haders, but I gotta believe Tim had a lot to do with this as well.

John: Yeah, Tim likes a hat.

Scott: He does.

Aldis: Likes a hat.

Marc: And this guy was great. Humberto.

Scott: He was amazing.

Aldis: Yeah, he was.

Marc: He was just fantastic. Again another tall guy between Alistar, Humberto, and Goran, Nadine went through every extra large dress shirt and coat in Portland.

Christian: Big and tall.

Aldis: Big and tall store.

John: About two days in I was like “Humberto, with 8 months and 2 million dollars, I could make you governor of Oregon.”

Christian: Yeah, right, exactly.

[Laughter]

John: He's got that- and he's a local Portland actor, he showed up for auditions it’s like, wow this guy has got it!

Chris: Well I think Lana had been sitting on him for a while, she was waiting for the right part.

John: And this was a ton of fun, this is of course, all the people who work on the show we’re taking photos of.

Aldis: Yup.

John: And also again, the two of them as peers, you know, planning it. We don’t show you what's on the screen, it’s horrible. Assume it involves half of a clown outfit.

[Laughter]

Chris: The wrong half.

John: What's the right half?

[Laughter]

John: And this was great cause when we were shooting this Tim was like, “What is this?” And we said “The Music Man” and he said, “Ahh, The Music Man.” And he got it, he really laid into exactly how to play this. Because it’s not mocking, he’s not joking.

Christian: Right, right.

John: He's gotta sell this guy on this.

Chris: Come along with me, I'm gonna take you.

John: Absolutely The Music Man in this scene, and Girl Friday in the later one.

Chris: Yeah.

John: When they're trying to get rid of Ralph Bellamy.

Scott: And it’s this guy's reaction that really sells it, too. He believes it so we believe it.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: No, and then the sort of pitying looks from Aldis and Gina are lovely.

Aldis: The sparkle in his eye.

John: There you go, now we make a dream in order to betray people. This is the most deeply cynical episode we've ever done.

[Laughter]

John: Even I was morally troubled by this episode.

[Laughter]

John: Because I realized about three quarters of the way through, I said, “Wait, we took the only decent man in the country and we corrupted him in order to get- to win this election.”

Christian: Right, right.

Chris: Watch the documentary, man.

[Laughter]

Christian: You know what, don't forget, though, we're still criminals. That's the whole thing.

Aldis: We do.

John: I know. I'm always the first to say the Leverage crew are not good guys, they are protagonists. But there are times even I am like, “Wow, I found this amusing, there's something wrong with me.”

Christian: Yeah. [Laughs]

Marc: This is the lovely library room in the Governor Hotel.

Aldis: Yup.

John: Beautiful ceiling.

Marc: Beautiful ceiling.

John: Comes dressed with books, nice.

Marc: And Alastair Duncan is just fantastic.

John: Oh man, and that was- we were really lucky, cause we were so focused on Vittori, and so focused on Moreau. This isn't a big character role, and he anchors it, he really nails it.

Chris: And I always love the “Just sign it.” That’s my favorite bit.

Scott: Oh yeah.

Marc: This was- if you remember John, this was a ten page day.

John: Yes.

Scott: Oh my god.

John: Yes, this was a ten page day. Other shows do not shoot ten pages. Movies shoot three.

Christian: Yeah.

John: But average on other shows is five, six?

Marc: This was just a bear. But these guys were all just so prepared.

Christian: You know, it was just one of those things where we said, “Ok look, we got the two scripts came together, we got the first- the first and second part of the season finale,” and everyone said, “Let’s just buckle down and knock this out of the park.” And everyone ran full speed ahead the whole time, nobody fell, nobody slowed up. For three weeks straight.

John: You guys absolutely proved yourself. And that's the thing the boys, Goran, Tim, and Alastair showed up with the blocking kind of in their heads, cause we had that room-

Marc: When you get to that moment I said, “How do you want to do this? Tim, do you want to do this in pieces?” And he said, “Let's do all five pages.”

John: Yeah, so we shot like a play.

Christian: Yeah.

Marc: Yeah, so each take was five pages.

John: And just shot from different coverage. Yeah, incredible.

Marc: It was brilliant.

John: No, great local actors. By the way, I like to say, this is some of the best extra acting work I've seen in a television show.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: All the extras are fantastic.

Chris: And here's a pairing I always enjoy.

John: You love a good Parker and Eliot.

Chris: You guys together.

Christian: Yeah, it's fun.

Marc: Another high angle on the tombs, another great set that we built.

Christian: Like Hardison just makes me mad, but she actually, like, annoys me.

[Laughter]

Marc: This is the Frankenstein set reconstructed.

Aldis: Oh, yeah.

John: And she enjoys annoying him. Actively.

Christian: Yeah, that's it.

John: Hardison doesn’t, Hardison doesn't realize what he's doing to piss you off, she actively enjoys annoying you.

[Laughter]

Chris: And you'll tease her, that's what I like, too.

John: And the funny thing is the off screen thing is reversed. No one makes Beth crack up like you do, because I was there when you shot that god damn fashion thing.

Christian: It’s true, it’s tough for us to do a scene together, we always end up laughing.

John: And that was the little frustration bit where she doesn't understand humans can't crawl through steam.

Christian: Right, right.

John: Very nice beat. I forget where the bit that she can tell how deep she is by echo came from, but-

Scott: Right here, oh yeah.

John: It's one of those bits that I think we threw as a joke in the room and then it wouldn't go away.

[Laughter]

John: Like no, no, that's how she works. She's not totally human. She's got some manticore DNA in there. Exactly.

Scott: Echolocation.

John: She's got some echolocation going on.

Marc: This is a great scene. I loved how you guys wrote Sophie just getting more involved and involved in playing a part.

John: Watching someone-

Christian: Sophie always gets over involved in everything!

John: But this is unique in- we talked about when we were plotting out the scene, it wasn't just the rescue. It was the idea that this actor and this character had to be super sympathetic, but also when you're someone who can win strangers over, watching someone do it this badly is like watching someone play solitaire and not seeing the red ten.

Christian: Right.

John: You know, it's like how can anyone suck this much, and that’s what really sucks her in.

Christian: Right, and that's why everyone loves Sophie, is the simple fact-

Aldis: She has a heart.

Christian: That like- it's like Angel, it’s the vampire with a heart. She's the world's best grifter, you can't be a grifter and have any sort of a heart, and she has a heart. And it's a beautiful character.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: Goran plays this perfectly. This is a great pairing, Alastair doing the comedic sort of classic British character actor thing.

Marc: Right.

John: And Goran starting to play the chess game. Starting to realize something’s wrong. This was lovely. Just this little- and we tried to figure out what would she do that isn't overly intimate, that's just right?

Marc: Enough to give you a sense.

Chris: And they have really nice chemistry together.

John: They have great chemistry together, great chemistry. When he calls her “dear” later in the script you totally buy it, that he’s just sucked into the con.

Chris: Yeah.

Marc: And this is, of course, Moreau-

John: Nice crane up there.

Marc: Yeah, realizing that something’s up.

John: And it's interesting, cause we'd originally put them way farther back in the room, remember? So you had to pick them out. But that close up actually works better, cause it just announces to the audience that the game is on. And this again, this is our fable, okay? This is us taking every element of real elections that we don't like and exaggerating them that little bit more. But the idea that they would fixate on the beautiful girl touching him? Absolutely believable.

Christian: Right.

Chris: Oh, yeah.

John: And the fact that you could sweep up a media by announcing, sort of, a glorious engagement? Absolutely believable.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: You know, it’s all about controlling news cycles.

Marc: That’s my first toilet shot.

[Laughter]

Christian: Nice.

John: First one?

Marc: Yeah, very clean toilet.

Aldis: Is that a first for Leverage as well?

Marc: Yeah, I think so.

Aldis: Congratulations, Roskin. Boom.

John: That was also a lot of fun, is we designed the tombs, and then realized we hadn't figured out any way to get stuff back and forth.

Christian: Right.

John: So yeah. But that's always the better way to start, write backwards. He's great, by the way, absolutely fantastic.

Christian: He's great.

John: And believable as a military man, and somebody that he could have known.

Marc: There's just a subtle moment here that's just so great. You know, when the general says, “Would you leave your people behind?” And this exchange between you and Beth, it just- my eyes always well up, right here. Just, she has no idea what's being said, but it’s just so effective.

Christian: Wow.

John: Yeah, you should do this for a living.

[Laughter]

Christian: I know.

Aldis: You awed yourself, didn't you?

Christian: I did, a little bit, yeah.

Aldis: Do it again, dammit.

Christian: I hadn't seen this yet, and then she comes in.

John: And also you've forgotten. I mean that’s the thing, these things ran at ten pages a day, sixteen hours, it's blinding.

Christian: Yeah, that's exactly it.

John: And her play there, that- the little scene out on her, just she’s bugged.

Christian: Yeah.

John: That is not the Parker from first season.

Christian: No, it’s not.

John: Beth’s done a really great job of modulating Parker forward through all three years.

Scott: Without losing the core, which is always tricky.

Aldis: She has some of the best facial reactions, too, to express her character.

John: Yeah. It's never not Parker, but you can see Parker evolving.

Scott: Evolving, yeah.

John: This is fantastic, he's so hapless.

Marc: And Gina did a great job here.

John: With the accent and just dropping it in.

Marc: Yeah. “We're getting married!”

John: And look how delighted-

[Laughter]

John: And the extras sell it. They really do, like, “Everyone loves a wedding!”

Christian: That's so great.

John: “It’s so delightful, that nice boy is getting married.” You know, it absolutely works. Love the smiles, love those people.

Marc: What I love about a lot of this episode is the pairing between Tim and Aldis, and not having him in a van.

Aldis: Thank god!

Christian: Yeah, absolutely.

Chris: Yeah, there was no van here.

Aldis: Thank god.

Marc: There are so many great moments-

John: You're in a suit looking fine.

Scott: Yeah, yeah.

Aldis: That van, boy.

Scott: An expensive suit.

Aldis: Rented it out for the day.

John: And this was a lot of fun, too, was the controlling information through the phones, through the screens people got their information from.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: And it actually was started because Bill Cosby had been announced dead on Twitter for like the third time. And for, like, four hours I was going, “Oh god, Bill Cosby's dead!”

[Laughter]

John: And I realized like, “Wait no, Bill Cosby’s not dead.”

Christian: Right.

John: But he is actually, for all intents and purposes, dead to everyone who's reading those.

Scott: For those four hours.

Christian: Yeah, wow.

John: For those four hours, until he makes the announcement.

Christian: Wow.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: And that's really what bore part of- the birth of part of this episode.

Scott: Well he even has that line: “I only need them to believe it for a few hours,” or something.

John: Yeah, exactly, that's why we threw it in. We only need it for ten minutes. And this speech is fantastic, and this is- Goran did a lot of work on this speech.

Marc: Yes.

John: And this is also one of the reasons I love you guys is, this is not fancy directing. This is just park on the actors, and let them work.

Marc: But of course we had to have a crane to reach them.

[Laughter]

John: Well, that's not my problem.

Aldis: Oh that's right, you guys were downstairs while we’re upstairs.

Chris: Well there's the crane, that's right, that’s right.

John: Yeah, because you had the crane up from that shot up to him, and then you shot it with that, oh wow.

Marc: We got it.

John: And just Nate running an enormous bluff here.

Marc: Yes.

Chris: And also, this is a rare episode because it’s two adversaries in the show; usually we’re in the shadows, we’re undercover, we’re playing somebody. Here it's just out in the open a chess match.

Marc: Yup

Chris: Between these two people. Which is not something we’d done before.

John: Yeah, the first one, they stayed under until they could get the Davids. The second one, he got busted by Shepard, but he was playing from an underhand.

Chris: Right.

John: Yeah, this is the first time it’s like, yeah this guy could serve us our lunch.

Christian: That's what I was saying; it was very strange for me, because I came up to John I was like, “Dude, what am I gonna- how do I play it?” Cause he knows Eliot’s in town. He knows what I do ‘cause I used to do it for him. He's gotta be scared a little bit, and that's what- Goran was and his character was not. And he knows we’re there, and it's very much out in the open and we've never done that before.

Scott: And we always called it a chess match, but what's kinda cool about it is that when it's out in the open it kinda has the flavor of a slug fest, too.

Christian: It does, exactly.

Scott: Toe to toe, just taking swings.

Christian: That’s exactly what it is, a street fight.

Chris: But the great thing is we had a political campaign. So we had rules, we had a clock, I mean, it gave us a structure for the whole con.

John: Yeah, I love that acting beat there. Just the little look away, the down- also I like that hat a lot, I'm not gonna lie.

Christian: Yeah.

Marc: And the campaign’s growing, we have more posters and people.

John: We had a very specific timeline on the campaign room. We had three phases: the despair phase, the growing phase, and the triumph phase. And we had to make sure- because we have ADs, first ADs work hard. They have to pack that room to make it look different each time. Yes, and this is Girl Friday. He's Ralph Bellamy, and he's just gonna be pushed around and manipulated.

Chris: That's a great line.

Christian: Wow.

John: And again, the campaign promise: “How is a campaign promise not like a lie?” “It's complicated!”

Aldis: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Deeply cynical, deeply cynical stuff.

Chris: Great comic timing on that.

John: Yeah well, Tim’s a funny guy, That’s why we’re very blessed, all you guys can land a joke. You know, that's- you don't get that lucky all the time. And then the little snarky look from her. And again, that attitude that character would not have had first or second year. Really both the characters, and the actors have driven the characters. This is what- by the way, what he's- the rough estimation he’s doing is called the Fermi Problem, something that I was taught back in my physics days, is you just do order of magnitude guesses.

Scott: Right.

John: And it allows you to just make good, order of magnitude guesses without having to grind out the actual math and boring the audience. Like I am right- now!

[Laughter]

Marc: Yeah, exactly.

Chris: And now you've hit stop, and now you're back in it.

John: There's some physicists out there in their underwear just freaking out because I said Fermi Problem.

[Laughter]

John: This was a ton of fun. That was a street in Portland!

Marc: This is all exterior Portland, yes.

John: Yeah that's done on Ankeny. That's fantastic! That's done on cobblestone! That's fantastic, yeah. And just putting up posters. And we got a lot of photos of the Italian elections actually, and used those as the models for the poster style and density and stuff. And this was Aldis working hard, second unit.

Aldis: Yes, indeed.

John: “Now loosen the tie, it's later!”

Aldis: Yeah, small little room, dig it.

Chris: And there's his- what's in his cabinet? Incoming cabinet?

Marc: Yes, incoming cabinet.

John: Yup, doing the JFK short sleeve thing. It was great, it was a ton of fun.

Christian: Was that supposed to be me putting that poster up?

John: No, no, no, that is the locals who are so filled with joy at the chance to be liberated.

[Laughter]

John: It also had a really pretty light cause we ran out of light and blew it out from the side.

Marc: This is a great graphic that Derek built for-

[Laughter]

Marc: For the campaign.

Aldis: Light it on fire!

John: What's crazy is it should be over the top, but if you looked at this year's election, it wasn't!

Scott: Yeah!

Marc: It wasn't as bad!

Chris: No, not at all.

Christian: I was just gonna say it's totally, exactly what's going on.

Scott: Not even this year’s election-

Chris: This is very restrained.

Scott: Yeah, like even the 60’s there were the nuke- the kid- the little girl with the flower ad.

John: The daisy ad, only aired once.

Scott: Yeah, and then the nuclear bomb explodes, it’s crazy.

Chris: Oh, and child labor!

John: By the way, that was great casting, that kid. “Alright now look sad, now look like they beat you! Alright, that's perfect.”

[Laughter]

John: No, we're not gonna beat him, no, sorry.

Christian: Such a beautiful shot, by the way, Roskin.

Marc: Thank you.

Christian: And again were back in that-

Chris: Oh, that made me laugh.

John: That's a great joke.

Chris: That made me laugh very hard.

Aldis: That kid had fun that day.

John: That's a lovely joke.

Marc: And Alastair plays that well.

John: And this was a ton of fun, figuring out exactly what Parker and Eliot were up to, their two cons.

Christian: Yeah.

John: And I'll give Chris- Chris was the one who came up with the scandal, this scandal right here. Cause we couldn't figure out what this scandal could be.

Scott: Yeah.

John: The conversation between Vittori and Nate is basically the conversation we had in the room. And then Chris said, “I got what’s worse than sex.”

Chris: What’s worse than money or sex?

John: Yeah, the only thing that America can't forgive.

[Laughter]

Scott: That's right.

John: And this puppy was found on the street, right?

Christian: Yup, yup,

John: And then was - rubber glass by the way - and then was adopted-

[Laughter]

Chris: You don't see it bouncing.

John: Yeah, you don't- yeah.

Christian: Yeah.

John: This is a great scene. Goran is- what I love is Goran-

Marc: The Canadian accent is really nice.

John: [Doing a Canadian accent] It was really nice, oh jeez.

Scott: This got a huge reaction in the screening.

Christian: Did it really?

John: Yes.

Marc: Huge.

John: Well because it’s-

Christian: Such a good little puppy!

[Laughter]

John: Just the boldness of it, just the sheer stones of it, yeah.

Marc: And the reactions of either of the guys playing on the other side.

Chris: When you put the glasses on, I always have fun playing with the glasses.

John: Well, what I love is Goran is playing it actually kind of amused at the move that's being made.

Christian: Yeah, cause he's well he's looking at Eliot!

John: While Alastair is freaking out. Yeah, he's like this is actually-

[Laughter]

Scott: This is great, that's great.

John: Yeah. “I think I hate you.” “I'm ok with that.” No Nate is- Nate Ford is not a good man. We've said this. And this was actually Goran’s favorite piece.

Marc: Yeah, this was like great. This was like ok, it's a game of chess match, but here are the questions to all the- yeah, this was great.

Christian: You gotta feel like he’s- you gotta feel like Moreau’s like, “Wow, after all these years, an adversary that's worth the fight.”

Scott: Yeah.

John: That’s kind of it, you know.

Christian: You know, like how many times he's just run over people, all of sudden: hey, we get to fight.

John: That's what he says to Nate, he says, “Make it interesting.” He's kinda looking for this.

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

John: It's not until it starts to go against him.

Christian: Out of sheer boredom of the other people he's just rolled over.

John: I adore this scene.

Chris: I love this scene between these two so much.

John: They play it so well. You could do a series with these two, absolutely.

Marc: Yes.

John: You could do a series of the American con woman who helps the guy get elected and then helps him run his tiny European country.

Scott: Oh yeah, let's go sell that!

John: We’ll sell that, done!

Chris: And John where did the whole handshake bit come from? Cause I know I had written it a bit differently, that opening- but the handshake paid off so well. Where'd you come up with that? The western gesture and all that.

John: I had read a book by an FBI- this is what you do on Leverage. I had read a book by an FBI profiler, and he also did some hostage negotiation. And it- in the book it talks about always gesturing with an open right hand. Because you just trust it, you know, and it always just stuck with me.

Chris: It plays so well here as a, you know, getting the guy up scene. And it paid off so well at the end.

John: Yeah, it really- big applause when he does it at the end. We did a live screening, which is when we talk about applause.

Chris: And this obviously is our homage to the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960.

[Laughter]

Scott: Yeah, right.

Chris: Which was famous.

John: If we could've had him sweat, we would've.

Marc: Again in the Schnitzer Auditorium, same building.

Christian: Yup, late night.

John: Yeah that was the last night of shooting, right?

Aldis: Yeah, it was.

Marc: And Alastair again, is just fantastic with this.

John: Bailing this.

Marc: And so is Humberto. But him playing the- taking the effect of the nicotine cream was just classic.

John: And the list of ways to kill people, don't do that. If you ever think about doing that, the nicotine thing, don't. That’s very dangerous.

Christian: Yeah, very dangerous.

John: Leave it up to people who are very good at almost killing people like Eliot Spencer.

Chris: Would it kill you?

Christian: Oh god, yeah.

Chris: Too much- the nicotine?

John: Oh yeah, fuck yeah.

Aldis: Oh, yeah.

Chris: Wow.

John: Absolutely. This- we probably should have changed this a little more.

[Laughter]

John: We usually change it in the show. This one we were kinda moving kinda fast, we should've done-

Marc: Look at that crowd there.

John: How many people are in that crowd?

Marc: About 80.

[Laughter]

John: And we turned them into 2,000; that’s Mark Franco, doing visual effects.

Marc: Doing some tiling.

Christian: That's not our biggest one, our biggest one was the baseball game.

John: Yup. Biggest one, we filled it with like 30,000 people.

Aldis: Oh, yeah.

Christian: Baseball game in season two.

Marc: “Vote for me!”

[Laughter]

John: So delightfully cheesy.

Christian: Parker.

John: And then the match cut over, that’s nice.

Marc: Yeah.

Aldis: Eliot almost killing a guy with nicotine.

Marc: He's got rubber gloves on, though.

John: He does, because he's careful.

Chris: That's right.

Marc: This is my favorite look.

Scott: He plays this perfectly.

John: And again it's one of those, one of the reasons doing the television is, you're moving so fast the actors have to create a lot, and there you go!

[Laughter]

Chris: “Wait who's that? I wanna talk to you later.”

Christian: Hey c'mon man, that's my move!

John: He’s charming, you know, but that’s- having a charming bad guy, ‘cause you need to like him for the end.

Christian: Oh, yeah.

John: No the- and this local, again local- almost all local actors in this one.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: That’s fantastic.

Chris: And they had to make up an accent for a non-existent country. Which folks, for an actor, is not the easiest thing in the world.

John: Yeah we actually wound up- I'll say it, we wound up basing it on Malta, which was a British colony until the 60’s, and really filled- the government structure filled a lot of requirements for us. But we made it Italian, because it's kind of a good European accent. So we made it close to Italy.

Chris: Oh, this is great.

John: Yeah, this is great. Huge- tell me you couldn't make that guy governor.

Christian: Oh absolutely.

John: Absolutely, maybe that'll be my hiatus project.

[Laughter]

Scott: Why do I think you're not kidding?

Christian: “Listen, we've got another job for you.”

John: No, this- and him storming over. Now it’s not fun anymore, now he's gonna kill you people.

Marc: Yes.

Aldis: Ah, he's breaking the rules

Scott: Yup.

John: And wow, without that staircase? What a great set.

Aldis: It was all right there.

Marc: Chandelier, staircase.

John: That looks like Europe. And then it had the matching mini balconies here to shoot across, it was great.

Marc: Yeah, it just gave us so much. This was just the- I love this, just the unspoken-

John: He's not gonna threaten them.

Marc: Just “I'm here.”

John: Just- and that's what also is kinda fun is when we talk about Hardison wanting to run his own crew sometimes, he's still being schooled; these are the rules we play by.

Christian: “Hey, how's it going.”

John: “How's it going? Sup!” Now these are the rules you play under. Nate is trying to tell him if you're gonna run a crew, these are the stakes.

Aldis: Yeah.

Christian: Look at how beautiful that is.

Aldis: That is. Where are those actually captured from?

John: I dunno, that's stock- from Stocksylvania.

[Laughter]

Scott: Stocktopia.

John: Sanstockington. Yeah, no, and this was a ton of fun. And of course the UN is always this effective when they monitor elections. They are pretty tight, actually, when they do it; they're pretty effective.

Marc: Yeah.

John: And this sort of walk by. Yeah, that's not a friendly look.

Aldis: “I'm still gonna kill you.”

Marc: Campaign’s growing.

John: Yeah, phase three, this was great. And this was also kinda the- we had to show that Sophie was genuinely interested, she wasn't just game invested.

Scott: Right, yeah.

John: She's actually come to like the country and really believe in this guy. Cause he- and we lucked out, the actor was really super charming; Humberto was fantastic.

Scott: And this fits perfectly with her ambition; she easily could've been a princess of a country in an alternate life.

John: And then we establish in the backstory.

Chris: Well we play her, we play aliases of her as princesses, so yeah.

John: Backstory explained she was married to royalty at one point; she knows this world better than he certainly did. That's the first time you see Moreau pissed off. And the president actually, he's a results-oriented guy.

Chris: Oh I love this shot. This is just great, the two of them, the expanse of the office.

John: This looks like West Wing.

Scott: Yeah, it really does.

John: It's gorgeous.

Christian: People have to understand- and this is the scariest moment because if he starts losing it, he starts pulling triggers. It’s a very, you know, Moreau doesn't lose it. He's losing it.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: And that's when he realizes, “Oh, I know how to handle this.”

Marc: Dave Connell did this beautifully.

John: Yeah, the- and this was a lot of fun. Also tracking exactly what information Hardison leaked at any given time. We had a whole timeline of who knew what, and when the people of San Lorenzo knew, when Nate knew it. Not quite as complicated as some of the other ones, but pretty brutal. And here we go, I love the starting gun.

Marc: That's a oner! Pressed for time.

John: Just the- we stuff on the TV, we see the reaction, and then Nate steps in the foreground.

Marc: Boom, we told that story.

John: Yup, that's all the information you need to know. And peek around, and just- and again, it was important in the writing - reset to the audience what every character's goal is, and where you see them next so you don't have to do the math.

Christian: Right.

John: And “age of the geek.”

Chris: In the story development process, at one time they won the election, and part of the episode was them governing. And John, I think what you struggled with in kinda figuring it out, was making the election the ultimate end.

John: Yeah, the election was a big enough story and that's something we hit every now and then in the writers room. You don't know how big the story actually is until you actually outline it. And then you have eight acts worth of cards up there and then you go, “Oh, alright.” The story has told you how long it needs to be. This was a ton of fun, the idea that he'd be doing press conferences from in prison - that delighted me to no end.

Marc: Right.

Chris: And very Mission Impossible.

John: Very Mission Impossible.

Chris: All the scenes with him, every time I see that, it takes me back to Mission Impossible.

John: I'm not gonna lie, this is our Mission Impossible episode, absolutely. And yeah, he's venal, this- Alastair is great.

Marc: Alastair, yeah, this is the bad side of Alastair, really bad, you know, take them all out.

John: And this was part of the fun was figuring out how the ending unrolled, was the chess match of what would a bad guy do to control information? And how would you use control of information against them? Using your opponent's strength against them is great. And by the way, big ups to these actors who were working background here, because the little look he throws, just a reminder this is not a good thing. It's a nice choice, nice choice picking up the single on that.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Oh and this was a ton of fun. Whenever you have- I think a lot of the Leverage audience knows at this point, whenever you see people and you can't see their faces? We’re in there somewhere.

Scott: I think we need to do a double reverse reverse, just to reset the clock.

Chris: We may need to go the other way on it.

John: Yeah, maybe in season four.

Chris: Oh and once he brings Nate in here, this- the scenes with the three of them coming up are some of my favorites in the whole two part finale.

John: Well again, that was right there when he says, “We're not gonna release the results.” You have to set up each time, you know, exactly how the mechanism of the con is gonna work.

Marc: Here Sophie's first instinct is to call for Eliot for help.

Aldis: Boom, ting!

[Laughter]

John: There you go, I've actually seen somebody knock the top champagne glass off a stack of champagne glasses with the champagne like that.

Christian: Oh, yeah.

Aldis: Wow.

John: And we had a big discussion that day of exactly how this would happen, exactly how she would do it. And we were like, “We'll just put the cork in the dude's eye and swing to him.” And it looks great!

Christian: It does look great, absolutely.

John: And then she just brains the dude, no elegance on the second one.

Marc: And now we're back to our opening scene.

John: Yup, which is- you know, there was a time we talked about doing every episode like that.

Chris: I- you know I like it when it’s the finale, I like when we make it special.

John: Yeah, for a while we kinda did that jump.

Chris: You see it a lot, it's in The Hangover, it’s in, you know what I mean? It's done a lot now.

John: Yeah, but you know there is something for promises.

Christian: I enjoy it, like John says, it’s become a signature for the finale.

Chris: Yeah, I think so too.

Marc: This was a great speech. The writing on this was great, and she really delivered it.

John: That was Scott, that was the writing- he was the one who really dug in on who her character was, you know, while I was mucking around with plotting.

Scott: And taking over Oregon?

John: Oh, yes.

Scott: I mean San Lorenzo.

John: San Lorenzo. While I was doing my how you would actually take over a government thing. He was doing the- well you were the one who came up with the whole idea of she's Avita.

Scott: Yeah, right.

John: And that's exactly how she would go about winning their hearts, and what speeches she should make.

Scott: Yeah, cause having the chance to be Avita, that seems like the one thing that would be a true draw for her.

John: The one thing she wouldn't be able to resist.

Scott: Yeah, right.

John: And this is- now of course the audience knows she's not dead, but the fun of it is playing it out.

Marc: And these three just killed this scene.

Chris: So you said- you did all- all of this- all five pages?

John: We pretty much did the entire half act in one take, every setup.

Marc: Every set up. They went through five pages of dialogue each take.

Chris: Wow.

Scott: That’s crazy.

John: Just- and that's why you have such great coverage of this. You just kept parking the camera, moving it around and parking it. And they found this, I mean we got in there at lunch that day, and just walked the scene.

Christian: Oh this is the one you were talking about where they had their blocking down when you got there?

John: Well they had a good idea, and then they saw the room.

Marc: But it was really- you know, instead of- we do so many bits where we break things up in our show, cause we’re always cutting away to somewhere else, but you know, Tim said, Let's go through all five,” and these guys were like, “Alright, I'm in.” And they just fell into stride.

John: That was kinda those great actor- cause actors are all a little competitive. So when Tim said, “Let's do all five pages,” you saw Goran and Alastair look at each other like, “Alright yeah, yeah, we’ll do all five pages, yeah we’re prepped.”

[Laughter]

John: “We don't need sides, I'll see your five.” It’s great, and it really comes across in this scene. And that little smile.

Scott: Isn't that the speech that got a huge spontaneous applause in the screening?

Marc: Yes.

Scott: Yeah, that was awesome.

John: The- oh no it's coming up, the “I have the guns, I have the government, I have the-”

Scott: No, “I bought an election.” Isn't that coming up?

Marc: Yeah.

John: The- yeah, the “I have the guns, I have the government.”

Marc: Right here.

John: It’s like “No, no, I have a 24 year old genius with a smartphone and a problem with authority.”

Scott: That’s it! That’s it.

John: That got a giant applause break.

Aldis: That guy! This guy!

Scott: Who is that? Oh it's you.

Christian: Nice.

John: And I'll say actually, it's heavily influenced by Cory Doctorow's book, Little Brother.

Aldis: Oh.

John: About teenagers in a near future America who are oppressed by Homeland Security and strike back by using teenage geek culture and technology.

Christian: Wow.

Marc: It’s like our own little book club here.

[Laughter]

John: What do you guys think I do?

Chris: Read books.

John: What do you guys think I do? While you’re off touring the fucking world with your guitar, meeting beatiful girls. And you’re off doing your own thing?

Christian: Yeah, I get real quiet when all that stuff comes up.

John: I fucking read all the time, that’s my job.

[Laughter]

John: Some of us have homework forever, that's our job, that's our life.

Christian: I read two books, which is Call Of The Wild by Jack London and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

[Laughter]

John: That was it.

Aldis: Everybody’s read The Alchemist, it's a great book.

John: Well there you go, there's your books from them.

Aldis: I'm rereading it for like the third time!

Scott: Marc, what did you think of The Alchemist?

Marc: I loved it.

John: No, this was a ton of fun.

Aldis: Age of the geek!

John: Age of the geek. You know, as we established, there's only, you know, X number of people in the country; it's not that hard to email all of them.

Chris: Right.

Aldis: Yeah, no.

John: Particularly since these small countries have controlled ISPs. Or governmental ISPs. This is a great show down. And sitting Tim here is actually great staging, cause it gives you three levels, three eye lines. Playing with information, playing with access to information is a crucial part of this. Alastair’s turn here, by the way, as he starts to slowly panic is kind of what anchors the scene.

Christian: Yes, he did such a great job.

Marc: Now it's like, “Where the hell did he come from?”

John: Yeah “Oh hey, yeah I fucked you.”

Marc: “Oh, and we stole your security.”

John: Now this was tricky, cause this was a series of nested flashbacks, and the first time we did post, we put the flashback process on the big Guillermo scene.

Christian: Oh yeah?

John: When he does the speech after Sophie’s been assassinated.

Christian: Oh, right.

John: But it made- it took all the emotional weight out of it.

Chris: Right, cause it felt like it already happened.

John: So it's actually one of the few times we do a flashback without this filter on it.

Chris: Yeah, that's true. And it works.

John: Yeah, it absolutely works. And also the line from season one: “We be the cavalry.” You're giving it, like, an Eliot signature here.

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

John: Something that Eliot says all the time. That's the fun of season three is you get to start to fill out the previous lives of these guys that they've had in the past.

Chris: And down.

Christian: That’s awesome.

Aldis: If you're asking, we hit them really hard.

Christian: Yeah, we did, we hit them really hard.

John: Yeah, you beat the hell out of the stunties.

Chris: You hit them hard?

Christian: We hit them hard.

John: Well they were wearing those things!

Christian: They were wearing helmets, and if you hit them softly you couldn't see the movement. So I said alright- they can't see it coming, so I was like, “I'm gonna have to hit ya.” And they were like, “Alright.”

John: Oh and this is Gina, by the way, wearing the pack.

Christian: Yeah.

John: Gina took the squibs.

Scott: Oh really?

John: Yeah, that's why she has the dress on, and that's why we could do it in closeup. Cause if it was a stuntie, we could do it with just the dress, but with Gina we could put the packs under the sweater, and we just ruin the sweater.

Christian: Yeah, she did the stunt, I was very very proud of her.

Scott: And those hurt, right?

Christian: Oh yeah.

John: Yeah those things are scary.

Marc: This was a great speech.

Christian: You turn them around, you’re dead. People don't realize that, that's actually a bullet coming out.

John: No, Gina was a fucking trooper. Yeah, this was a great speech, he nailed it. The slow push in on him. We were joking the night we were shooting this, like, “This scene will be recreated on San Lorenzo television, like, 20 years from now.”

[Laughter]

John: With actors when they do the documentary. And there will be people like, “You know Rebecca Ibanez wasn't alive.” “Oh you're one of those people are you?” “She wasn't a real person!”

Chris: This guy has a real arc in this show.

John: Yeah, he does.

Chris: This is not something we typically do.

John: This was the thing, it's like and now he is complicit in our crime. We’ve taken the only-

Chris: No, no, but it takes the fact that he has this arc, that he's become worthy of the office that we've manipulated. I think it really takes away from the fact that the mark in this episode are the people of San Lorenzo. That's the difference!

[Laughter]

John: But we’re doing it for them!

Chris: It's not right, but we've given them a worthy leader.

John: We were actually joking about the fact that after he did that scene, I said, “Michael Vittori’s reign of genocide began that night.”

[Laughter]

John: “Oh, oh we didn't think this out at all.”

[Laughter]

John: “20 years of terror.” “Oh, that was a bad move on our part.”

Chris: Well, watch the documentary.

Scott: Yeah, exactly.

John: This is great, this was the chess match.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Where it literally became Alastair is the chessboard, and the two of them squaring up on him.

Scott: Yeah.

John: And the two windows behind them.

Chris: And there you go! there’s the shot, what's he gonna do? Who’s he gonna go with?

Scott: Bachelor number one or bachelor number two?

[Laughter]

Marc: “How big of an estate?”

John: “How big of an estate?” No really, I've been watching a lot of noir lately and he's just doing it perfectly, he's just doing a throwback to a 40’s character actor here. Just playing- really underplaying it.

Chris: Yeah the, “I'm shocked! Shocked that there's gambling in this going on here!”

John: “Gambling in this establishment!” He's absolutely playing Casablanca.

[Laughter]

John: He could not be more Claude Rains at this moment. No, and then the flashback to the very beginning of the episode to set it up. This law was in place in the United States up until the 1830s, by the way.

Marc: There you have it.

John: James Madison actually considered using it at one point. Seizing the assets of his political opponents.

Scott: Really?

John: Yes, absolutely.

Scott: Very useful law.

John: Not one we have now, thank goodness. Very useful law for us.

[Laughter]

John: And that moment kinda blows by, actually.

Christian: Yeah, wow.

John: “The guys coming in are honest, so I need a corrupt man.” The entire plan depends on using the most corrupt man.

Marc: Bye!

Chris: Waving goodbye.

John: This is great. And what I love also here is they're playing it like, “We will gun your ass down if you don't give up the desk.”

Christian: Yup, it’s strong arm, it is.

John: What I also love here is the moment, like, “Wait, did we just spring a war criminal in order to win?”

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, kinda. But he's our war criminal.

Scott: Yeah, he's a good war criminal.

John: Yeah, exactly. The blood on the shirt is a nice touch. Nadine really killed that.

Marc: Yeah.

John: And the reveal. And now the gloat, the crucial gloat.

Marc: Bad guy has to suffer.

John: Bad guy must suffer, our guys must gloat, we must see the victims rewarded. She looks great in that shot, that’s again, very classic 1960’s.

Aldis: When does she not look great?

Scott: I was about to say, unlike usually?

John: Well just, you know, she looks very exactly that 60’s spy vibe there, you know.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: Also fun, we stumbled across that last line of, “Damien Moreau will never leave San Lorenzo.” I think we actually wrote it on the set.

Chris: Well she says it in the garage.

John: Yeah she says it earlier, and I think we were on set going, “Oh wait.” And we tossed it out, yeah.

Marc: This is our first scene we shot with Goran, and that's what we see.

John: We locked him in a cell.

Christian: For some reason I'm just unconvinced that a little cage like that is gonna hold Damien Moreau, I'm just saying.

Chris: Nooo.

John: What? No. By the way, this- I love this. This is just so over the top and perfect and right.

[Laughter]

John: I was actually in New York when Princess Di died, and I remember going-

Chris: But look how much information you pack in one shot here.

John: Yeah, exactly. You know she's been sainted.

Chris: You have a shrine to her, everyone knows she's dead, you have what's happening in San Lorenzo, we pan up and-

Aldis: Yet again, she's at her own funeral.

Scott: Yeah that's a great one.

Chris: And we begin our scene. I mean that is a great shot.

John: That is a great shot.

[Laughter]

John: And there she is, in the ridiculous hat.

Christian: Wow.

[Laughter]

Christian: Really a great shot.

John: That’s- well that's the trick, we expect the audience to keep up on these episodes.

Aldis: Yeah.

Christian: She has a habit of showing up at her own funerals, doesn’t she?

Aldis: Yeah she does, bad habit.

John: It’s a character trait now; it's a feature, not a bug. No, and it's a lovely speech.

Christian: It's the actress, it's the old off broadway actors. “Do they like me? Do they love me? Who showed up?”

John: Exactly. This was great, by the way, was finally take the sting out of the relationship, only to utterly subvert it 30 seconds later. But the two of them are such good friends, and the characters had come to a new parity this season, they really acted the hell out of this. She's wonderful in this.

Aldis: By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, there goes Tim's hat again. Another hat.

Marc: And again a oner.

John: And a oner.

Scott: Yeah, that's right.

Marc: Gary Camp walking backwards.

Aldis: Yeah, the work that Gary Camp actually does.

John: Yeah, we should pay him more than you, is that what you're saying?

Aldis: Nah, I'm saying the audience-

Christian: I'm pretty sure he does.

Marc: This is a great line.

John: The “I don't travel with luggage.”

Marc: “I don't travel with luggage.”

John: All right-thinking men don't travel with luggage. Luggage is for women. Men buy shit when they get there, I'm just saying.

Christian: Oh Parker does.

John: Yeah this was a ton of fun, figuring out what everyone's tie up for the season was.

Aldis: Yeah.

John: Of course Parker stole shit, she's Parker! Not gonna leave the country and not-

Aldis: Kinda a shame that Hardison didn't steal gold bars.

John: Actually in the original version of this we were at the estate.

Chris: Yeah.

John: When we originally broke it, we wound up going to the estate, and then we realized we couldn't find an Italian estate in Portland, that was a little tricky. Ton of fun, was this just a random room? This was a meeting room we made a bedroom.

Marc: Yes.

John: And at one point we had Gina outside the window.

Marc: Yeah.

John: That was not such a good idea.

Marc: Well.

John: Well there's a tiny ledge out there.

Aldis: Ahaha, and wait for it, wait for it!

Chris: Oh this is a classic.

Aldis: Boom! Knocking the boots! [Sing-songy] Bow chicka bow bow.

John: The little zoom in there you go.

Christian: Bwooooo!

Aldis: Bwooo!

[Laughter]

John: And fans across America scream.

Scott: Yeah.

John: That’s great. No, they didn’t have sex, they just cuddled.

Christian: Right.

Aldis: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.

Scott: Didn't you tell me she read that and she thought it was a joke, she didn't think it was real?

John: Yeah she thought we were giving her a fake ending.

Chris: Oh c’mon.

John: Like nope, you guys did it!

Aldis: You did it!

Chris: Season three, we’re moving on.

Christian: Season three! Thank you so much guys, some of the best writing, the best directing I've ever had man, it's just unbelievable.

Aldis: Thank y’all for staying until the finish.

John: Marc, you directed the hell out of those, that was fantastic.

Chris: Yeah, these are-

Christian: Awesome!

Marc: Had a lot of help.

Aldis: Roskooni!

Chris: These are -

John: Alright, season four coming up.

Christian: Come on!

Aldis: Peace, people!!

Marc: Stay tuned.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Devereaux #Season 3 #Episode 16 #Season 3 Episode 16 #The San Lorenzo Job

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Mekakucity Actors Audio Commentary #5

Act 5 – Kaien Panzermast

Translation of the second audio commentary that comes with the DVD/Blu-ray of Mekakucity Actors. Raw version here. Please consider purchasing the original copies and feel free to message me about possible corrections. If there happens to be any issues with the link, please contact me on my main blog!

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Jin: Hello to everyone listening to the audio commentary of “Mekakucity Actors Act 5 – Kaien Panzermast”. Eh, I’m the creator and screenplay writer, Jin.

Hoshii: Yes! Aaand... eeeh, I’m the voice of Seto Kousuke, Hoshi Souichirou. Pappy~!

(T/N: For those unfamiliar with it, “pappy” is Hoshi Souichirou’s catchphrase. He’s been using it as a greeting since the late 90’s.)

Jin: ‘Ello~!

Hoshii: ‘Ello!

Suzuki: And I’m the process supervisor this time as well.

Hoshi: Oh!

Suzuki: I’m Suzuki Kenta from Aniplex. Please take care of me.

Hoshii: Counting on you for it!

Jin: Please take care of us!

Hoshii: Yes~!

Everyone: *claps*

Suzuki: It’ll be a pleasure.

Hoshii: Yay! For sure!

Suzuki: We have Hoshi-san with us.

Jin: He came over!

Suzuki: Actually, no, you made me come over!

Everyone: *laughs*

Jin: So that’s where we’re starting from? That’s where we’re starting from?

Suzuki: Nope, nope, nope.

Hoshii: Not really. I think the listeners don’t know what we’re going on about. Welp, thank you very much.

Jin: Anyway, this is disk is the fifth volume.

Suzuki: Yup!

Hoshii: Ah, wait! It’s been a while.

Jin: It sure has! Ah, ‘cause the recordings are over, right?

Hoshii: Yeah. After they ended, I became like this.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: Like this?

Hoshii: Is that okay? Is it? Hum, about Seto-san in the main story...

Jin: You’re the one who voices him!

Hoshii: For the people who know him, this must be one hell of a sudden change.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: That’s okay! It’s okay! This is a corner where we can enjoy more and more of these things.

Hoshii: ‘Kay!

Jin: All right! We’ll be in your care.

Suzuki: We’re in your care.

Hoshii: My! Ah, I’m so nervous. We usually do these things with fellow cast members.

Suzuki: That’s right.

Jin: Yes, yes.

Hoshii: When it’s between cast members, the topic can get dumb.

Jin: Yes, yes!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: But if we’re with the creators or directors, as expected, they explain the story very properly, so I get super nervous and clam up.

Jin: Nah, nah, nah.

Hoshii: Therefore, I guess I’ll keep quiet today too.

Suzuki: No, no, no. It’s best to do things like you usually do.

Jin: Do it like you always do! Seriously! I have been invited to all the other four volumes do to the audio commentaries.

Hoshii: Yep!

Jin: And we’ve hardly had any chance to do any proper talk!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: Basically, the topic disconnects all of a sudden and then we go, “Ah, time to wrap up! Byeee!”

Suzuki: Aaah, true. There’s no difference. Hoshi-san, you should act like you usually do.

Hoshii: Ah, but actually, right before this audio commentary started, I talked to Jin-san about this.

Jin: We had a general discussion.

Hoshii: There was a little bit of wait time, after all.

Jin: We’ve already asked what we wanted to ask at large.

Hoshii: We had a separate talk.

Jin: I already asked what I wanted to ask.

Suzuki: But if there’s a part of it that we can deliver to everyone, that’s good too. If you could talk about it once again...

Hoshii: Yup, yup.

Jin: The cast-off skin of it.

Suzuki: The “cast-off skin”!

Hoshii: “Cast-off skin”!

Jin: Like, the evil part of it.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: We’re hoping to hear about it from you!

Hoshii: All right. So, how did you like Mekakucity’s—erm... fifth episode?

Jin: Yes, fifth episode.

Suzuki: We’re in the fifth.

Hoshii: How was it for you?

Jin: About the fifth episode... the previous one was precisely “Kagerou Days”.

Hoshii: The rumored one!

Jin: Exactly – the one that happens within a sort of mysterious place.

Hoshii: Yes, that one.

Jin: It became a bit serious but the scenario has changed once again to the protagonist, Shintarou-kun.

Hoshii: Now it’s a peaceful everyday life, huh~!

Jin: Yes, a peaceful everyday life. Ah, here’s Ene-chan. She shows up in this one. Anyway, it’s a slice-of-life episode. Everyone’s frolicking about.

Hoshii: And then... hm? Seto had a pretty normal amount of lines in this episode, I guess. Didn’t he?

Jin: Probably, in the third episode, when they went to that department store—

Hoshii: Ah, the third episode?

Jin: They all went there together.

Hoshii: Ah, that’s right! Yes, yes, yes!

Jin: He did have lines back then, but this time, his cute side is on display.

Hoshii: So he has a cute side, huh?

Jin: I hope the people listening to this audio commentary will have expectations for Seto after this episode.

Hoshii: Oh! That’s great.

Jin: It’s kind of a goal. I want them to enjoy him.

Hoshii: That’s right.

Jin: We’ve ended up talking about this earlier, but...

Hoshii: We did.

Jin: Seto-kun is not only in the anime, but also in the novels, music and other mediums.

Hoshii: Yes.

Jin: Yet he doesn’t show up much.

Hoshii: He doesn’t?! Aaah!

Jin: He doesn’t.

Hoshii: I see. If I were to say it, I guess he has less appearances than the other characters.

Jin: That’s right, he’s a bit retreated to the background.

Hoshii: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jin: He’s kind of—oh, it’s the opening sequence.

Hoshii: He’s at the side.

Jin: We did things like, for example, right there on the anime’s title, the first syllable, “Me”, is painted in his theme color.

Hoshii: Yup, yup, yup.

Jin: Hum, in the anime, we’re...

Hoshii: Ah, so you’re sort of—

Jin: We’re sort of... lifting him up a little as a character in the anime, so to say.

Suzuki: I see. You were trying to make him stand out.

Hoshii: Ah, as expected, this green color is pretty nice.

Jin: “It’s pretty nice”! Well, we’ve already talked about this earlier, but as a character, he’s kind of like a big brother.

Hoshii: That’s right!

Suzuki: Aaah...

Jin: He’s a character who has it together and who goes “there, there” when something happens, and yet...

Hoshii: Hm?

Jin: ...he’s a character that doesn’t come forward much.

Hoshii: He doesn’t play dumb too often, huh.

Jin: Exactly, exactly! We can’t make him act dumb that much. He’s the one that has common sense.

Hoshii: Yes.

Jin: Now, as for the opening song that’s playing at the moment...

Hoshii: Yes?!

Jin: ...I just recently released a CD with it. And there were autograph sessions for it.

Hoshii: Autograph sessions!

Jin: I went around to some areas of the country to give out my signature.

Suzuki/Hoshii: Oooh!

Jin: And, hum, when I’m writing down autographs, well, I feel like chatting.

Hoshii: With each person that comes, right?

Jin: This time, I keep throwing them the question, “Do you have a favorite character?”

Hoshii: Eeeh~?

Jin: And it turns out...

Hoshii: Yes?

Jin: ...nearly all of them answered “Seto-kun”!

Hoshii: For real?

Suzuki: Oh! What a surprise.

Hoshii: That makes me happy.

Jin: Seriously, there were so many Seto-kun fans that he’s by far the decisive favorite!

Hoshii: Even though Seto-kun is so inconspicuous!

Jin: Despite that!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: I wonder what it is that—it’s probably the way he makes people feel.

Hoshii: Heeh? Aah, he’s comforting to them.

Jin: He is.

Hoshii: Ah, indeed, just looking at him heals you. He can comfort people even without talking.

Jin: He can!

Hoshii: *laughs* As long as there’s an artwork of him. Just an artwork!

Jin: You can heal just from looking at it.

Suzuki: So Seto is popular, huh?

Jin: Absurdly popular.

Suzuki: Heeeh~?

Hoshii: Ah, I’m so glad.

Jin: Therefore, I wanted to report this huge popularity of his to you.

Hoshii: Aaah, thank you! I’m so happy!

Suzuki: That’s wonderful.

Jin: I thought of using this occasion for it, but I ended up revealing it earlier, actually!

Hoshii: Ah! Yeah, I heard about it just now.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: No, but it’s okay, hearing it twice. Two, three times even.

Jin: You’d wanna hear about Seto-kun’s popularity two, three times!

Suzuki: Because it’s a good topic.

Hoshii: It’s a good topic. I wanna hear it as many times as I can. And next time, too, I wanna hear it as many times as I can.

Jin/Suzuki: *laugh*

Jin: So in the sixth audio commentary too?

Hoshii: Oh, but speaking of Seto-kun, at the beginning...

Jin: Yes?

Hoshii: I honestly had no idea how to go about him.

Jin: Ah, I see, I see.

Suzuki: Oooh...

Hoshii: During the recording of the first episode, the art wasn’t in very good condition, you know?

Suzuki: Ah, that’s right.

Hoshii: Which is normal nowadays. That’s the state that the recordings are in lately.

Jin: My deepest apologies!

Hoshii: But for some reason, even though this most certainly never happens, there were no facial expressions on the characters!

Suzuki/Jin: *lose their shit*

Hoshii: Is this a thing?!

Jin: It’s not!

Hoshii: Just impossible, isn’t it?

Jin: Impossible.

Hoshii: The facial expressions are decided in much earlier stages!

Jin: Right.

Suzuki: *still losing it*

Hoshii: There were no expressions on the characters, so I looked at the illustrations of the original work and other such things for reference.

Jin: Ah, geez, I’m so very sorry for that...

Hoshii: But to be frank... at first, I was just fumbling around.

Suzuki: Oooh...

Hoshii: Like, “Whoa, what should I do?”

Jin: Hmmm...

Hoshii: But when I watched it on air, surprisingly, it matched.

Jin: Ah, that’s right!

Suzuki: As expected!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Suzuki: You’re amazing!

Jin: Yes, amazing!

Hoshii: I was relieved. Glad that I went for that approach.

Jin: Ah, so something like that happened?

Hoshii: It did!

Suzuki: Hoshi-san, you did ask about it later, didn’t you?

Hoshii: Ah, right, right.

Jin: I was like, “That’s exactly how he should be!”

Hoshii: I’m glad. Well, I was sort of uncertain about it.

Jin: Yes, yes, yes.

Hoshii: So I asked the sound director, Tsuruoka-san, “Is it okay like this?”

Jin: Yes.

Suzuki: Ooh...

Hoshii: I did it after confirming that with him.

Jin: Yes!

Hoshii: So, well, I thought it wouldn’t be too out of place.

Jin: Yes.

Hoshii: But... but, you see...

Jin: Yes?

Hoshii: Something I was at loss about is that, right after this, we recorded a promo.

Jin: That’s right!! The... the one for the CM.

Suzuki: Yup.

Hoshii: Well, I did record it, but... his personality was different.

Jin: *laughs*

Hoshii: I was like, “Eh, is this okay? He’s a completely different character!”

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: It was pretty quick.

Jin: That’s right.

Hoshii: When I thought about it, I got a really bad feeling.

Jin: I see.

Hoshii: I was like, “Could it be that it’s okay for him to act like this in this situation?”

Jin: Yes, yes.

Hoshii: Like, “Will he go this way or will he go that way?”

Suzuki: Oooh...

Hoshii: It was the hardest time I’ve had amongst all of my job experiences until now.

Jin: Ah, I see!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: The possibility of you getting a terrible job!

Hoshii: Yeah! In regards to stamina, I thought to myself, “I’d hate if this job turns into a hassle” and had such a bad feeling, but when the series started, turns out he was an uplifting character.

Jin: Ah, that’s right.

Hoshii: Maaan, I sighed in relief.

Jin: I’m sure.

Suzuki: He might’ve been the character that shook you off the most!

Jin: He just might!

Hoshii: Back then, y’know, I kinda... on Nico Nico... Nico Nico...

Jin: “Nico Nico Douga”.

Hoshii: On Nico Nico Douga, they were writing terrible things about me!

Jin/Suzuki: *laugh*

Jin: Just like that?!

Hoshii: Honestly, even though I did so much for this character all on my own... it was the first time I got such horrible comments!

Jin/Suzuki: *still laughing*

Jin: I’m truly very sorry.

Hoshii: No, no, no! Well, the result was just fine in the end, so it’s okay.

Jin: Yes.

Hoshii: But, hum, everyone made me super anxious. *laughs*

Jin: They were like, “‘Deer’? ‘Deer’?”

Hoshii: Indeed.

Suzuki: The promo was supposed to be like a series of character studies.

Jin: Yeah, that was the plan. And, well, also to promote the anime.

Suzuki: Going by order, Seto was... hum...

Jin: Erm, if I’m not mistaken, he was the eighth.

Suzuki: The first ones had already done their promos properly, but the ones that came later were gradually... *laughs*

Hoshii: I mean, I wasn’t told anything! Especially about his attitude and such.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: I didn’t know when the episodes would be coming out.

Jin: True.

Hoshii: And hadn’t done any publicity for it before.

Jin: Yeah. Especially the “It’s a deer! A deerrrr!” part was rather...

Hoshii: I turned all of the fans of the original work into my enemies.

Jin: Eeeeh?!

Suzuki/Hoshii: *laugh*

Jin: It’s not like that! The fans of the original were like, “Aight. It’s okay like that.”

Hoshii/Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: Me too! Hum, when I watched it on TV, I went to Twitter and such to see how it went, and it was just... all about this “deer” thing!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: My timelines in my social media were all like, “deer”!

Suzuki: It was trending!

Jin: It became a trend!

Hoshii: Ah, but Mekakucity trends a lot with every episode, doesn’t it?

Suzuki: Yeah.

Jin: That’s right. It’s a mess in many ways when it becomes a trending topic, though.

Suzuki/Hoshii: Weeeell...

Jin: But it does trend.

Hoshii: Maaan, I’m so happy that I voice such a popular character...

Jin: Ah, hum, you had your worries, but now that the recordings are over, turns out you voice the number one favorite character!

Hoshii: My, my, thank you very much. So this is what “godsend” means.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: That’s right. And the people who come to the autograph sessions are, as expected, very hardcore fans.

Suzuki: Oh...

Hoshii: Ah! Must be.

Jin: They not only buy the CDs but also want them signed, after all.

Hoshii: I heard that the fans of this work are incredibly hooked into it.

Suzuki: Yuuup.

Jin: Ah, true!

Suzuki: They’re very passionate.

Jin: I’m very thankful for that.

Hoshii: Ah, crap! What should I do? I ended up saying these things in the audio commentary...

Suzuki: Oh?

Hoshii: It might be too late to ask, but should we have gone with this route?

Jin: Eh, what?

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: What’s gotten into you all of a sudden??

Hoshii: Maybe the people who didn’t know about it would be like, “Eh, he’s different from what I’d imagined” when they listen to this.

Jin: That’s not gonna happen! Not at all.

Suzuki: If it’s now, you might still have a shot at taking it back!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: We only talked about good things, yet you want to redo it?

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: Like, “Okay, anyways—”

Hoshii: If I do that, I might be able to hear from the autograph sessions again.

Suzuki: Ah, that’s right.

Jin: Ah! So that’s what it was about!

Suzuki/Hoshii: *laugh*

Jin: “Seto is so popularrr!”

Hoshii: Ah, I’m so happy.

Jin: You are? Thank you very much!

Suzuki: Hoshi-san has been recovering his HP several times by now.

Hoshii/Jin: *laughs*

Hoshii: Like, “Oh, is that so?”

Suzuki: Just flat-out.

Jin: Just flat-out! *laughs* But, well, Seto-kun is a memorable character for me.

Hoshii: Aaah, thank you so much for creating him.

Jin: Hum, I couldn’t flesh him out much in the original work, so I hoped he could have lines in several parts of the anime at the beginning.

Hoshii: He didn’t appear much, but at the end, it was pretty good.

Jin: It waaas!

Suzuki: Yuuup.

Hoshii: That’s what I thought. But it’s hard to get him out there.

Jin: It is!

Hoshii: Yep.

Jin: But that’s because I think he’s one hell of a fine man.

Hoshii: He really is. And surprisingly big, isn’t he?

Jin: If I’m not mistaken, he’s two—I mean...

Hoshii: Two meters tall?!

Jin: Ah, no, no! The second tallest of the Mekakushi Dan.

Hoshii: You said “two”!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: You said “two”, so...

Jin: The way he’d be viewed in the series would change a lot.

Hoshii: If he were two meters tall?

Jin: He’d be in the basketball team or something.

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: The character named Konoha is probably the tallest one.

Hoshii: Ah, yeah. You’re right!

Suzuki: Hmmm...

Jin: And the second is Seto-kun.

Suzuki: Ah, I see.

Hoshii: But Konoha is voiced by Miyano-kun, so it’s no shock that he’s huge. However, the mic is positioned too high up when Miyano-kun is there, so I can’t go into the booth with him!

Jin/Suzuki: *laugh*

Hoshii: Gotta avoid that spot at all costs!

Jin: If I’m not mistaken, this happened on this episode too. With Kaida-san, I guess.

Hoshii: Yes.

Jin: Hum, her shoes—Ah, no, it was Nakahara-san, maybe? She said that the mic is too high up when when Miyano-san is around.

Hoshii: It is!

Jin: So she puts on high-heeled shoes for it. She said something like that.

Suzuki: Ooh, I see, I see.

Hoshii: But Kaida-san is quite tall too, so she can fit.

Jin: Right.

Hoshii: It becomes Miyano-kun and Kaida-san’s mic.

Jin: Aaah, man!

Suzuki: I see, I see.

Jin: A mic for two people.

Hoshii: And I go to the shorter people’s side. Hum, like... Hanazawa-san’s mic.

Suzuki/Jin: *laugh*

Suzuki: To that side?

Hoshii: Ah, but, when it comes to conversations between Seto and Mary, we gotta avoid that.

Suzuki: Ah, that’s right.

Jin: Right.

Hoshii: Like, “Whose turn is it now?”

Everyone: *laughs*

Jin: “Should I go to the right? To the middle?”

Hoshii: “Whose mic should I go to?”

Jin: “Whose mic”! “The middle one, maybe?”

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: Ah, this is it. Speak of the devil, the tall Konoha-kun has come up.

Hoshii: Yep! Man, this one was terrible for Miyano-kun.

Jin: It sure was!

Suzuki: It was the worst.

Hoshii: The result was good, but he had a hard time.

Jin: It was horrible for him...!

Hoshii: Sure was.

Suzuki: He had to voice three characters with different personalities, after all.

Hoshii: He did. Man, I’m so glad I didn’t get Konoha!

Everyone: *laughs*

Hoshii: Seto is great!

Jin: And on top of that, the characters didn’t have facial expressions! Yet it’s three characters!

Hoshii: Right??

Jin: He must’ve been so busy... Ah, but, about this episode... for example, during the promos and the main story, a lot of characters come up.

Hoshii: Yup!

Jin: I was very uneasy as to whether or not I’d be able to explain to you guys what each of them are about. And I was wondering if you wouldn’t find it super difficult to understand, no matter how much I explained.

Hoshii: Aaah...

Jin: But it was amazing how, on the first try, all of you performed the characters exactly the way I imagined they’d be like.

Suzuki: Hmmm...

Jin: Yes. So I’m very sorry about that and, as expected, I wish I’d explained properly!

Hoshii: No, no, no! The way you did it was enough!

Jin: But, aaah, it was wonderful! I was like, “It’s perfect like this!”

Hoshii: I see.

Jin: Yet, in contrast, Miyano-san was like, “Is this all right?”

Hoshii: I guess we actors do get iffy about it, like, “Was it really okay?” because we didn’t yet have a proper image of how it was going to turn out.

Jin: My, it must’ve been truly hard. And it was over in a blink of eye.

Hoshii: Exactly.

Suzuki: Yeah.

Hoshii: The songs were also finished in a blink of eye.

Jin: They were.

Hoshii: It went by so fast.

Jin: It did!

Hoshii: I kept looking forward to it every week.

Jin: Ah, thank you very much, really!

Suzuki: Thank you so much.

Jin: I also kept looking forward to it every week.

Hoshii: Hm!

Jin: Oh, here it is. The scene we were talking about earlier. The one that’s kinda cute.

Hoshii: Ah!

Jin: It’s coming up. The one where Seto-kun...

Hoshii: That’s the one I did for the audition.

Suzuki: Aaah!

Jin: *laughs*

Hoshii: That was the one.

Jin: This... This... Hum, yes, yes. We had you do it in the audition and for the radio commercials. It was exactly this scene.

Suzuki: Right, right.

Hoshii: Yeah. So, since he’s different from his usual calm self in this scene, I was wondering if it was okay like that.

Jin: Aah.

Hoshii: I might’ve performed the wrong side of him.

Suzuki: Hmmm...

Hoshii: So I was like, “Are the people who like the comforting side of Seto-kun going to be okay with this?”

Jin: Well, the older female audience was like, “He’s so cute~!”, so...

Hoshii: Yeah... but he leaves!

Jin: That’s right!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: He offs to somewhere! Like... he goes away to see some nature.

Jin: He kinda fades out.

Hoshii: Yeah.

Jin: Hum, after this, in the eighth episode, everyone goes back to the hideout and there’s a part where they’re talking.

Hoshii: Yes.

Jin: In it, he says, “I’m gonna go looking for him” and just like that...

Hoshii: He leaves.

Jin: ...he goes away.

Hoshii: That’s right...

Jin: During the course of the main story, both in the anime and the novel, he’s always like this.

Hoshii: Hmm...

Jin: In some way or another, even when he should be there in the novel, everyone’s like, “He isn’t here right now because he has work today.”

Everyone: *laughs*

Jin: All the time, it’s like, “He’s got work so he isn’t here.” *laughs*

Hoshii: Well, there are people like that.

Jin: He doesn’t show up at all!

Suzuki: *laughs* No, but maybe it might be best to keep people in suspense about him.

Jin: Right.

Hoshii: Like, to make them use their imagination?

Suzuki: Exactly. Like, “What’s he doing behind the scenes?”

Jin: I wonder what.

Hoshii: “Went out to see some deers, maybe?”

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: If he did go out to see deers, people would say he isn’t around but in the joke kind of way. There are fans who enjoy this gag.

Hoshii: Yes.

Suzuki: Hmm.

Jin: On the other hand, since he’s so absent, some people are like, “Isn’t he the mastermind behind all of this?!”

Hoshii: *gasp* Reading between the lines!

Jin: Like, “Isn’t he the leader of the bad guys or something like that?!”

Hoshii: Reading too much between the lines!

Suzuki: I see...

Hoshii: That kind of thing is possible.

Jin: They conclude that it’d be bad to put him together with everyone else.

Hoshii: It happens sometimes.

Jin: So maybe he’s a villain.

Hoshii: It happens, it happens.

Jin: But that’s not his case at all!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: Let me borrow this space to say it – he’s not like that at all!

Hoshii: There was no such thing. I’m so glad! I’m so glad that he was a good person!

Jin: He is.

Hoshii: I’m also glad that he wasn’t killed in the end!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: He almost got killed, though.

Jin: He almost did.

Hoshii: Also, during that flashback about the past...

Jin: Yes?

Hoshii: ...I voiced one of the villagers.

Jin: Ah! The villager! The villager!

Suzuki: Aaah...!

Hoshii: I think a lot of those people were just villagers.

Jin: Yes, yes. I believe they were ordinary villagers.

Hoshii: Even so... I was asked to voice one.

Suzuki: You, Hoshi-san?! *laughs*

Jin: WAS THAT OKAY?!!

Hoshii: No, it’s fine! I’m okay with it!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: It’s nothing much! I can do it! I can voice a nameless character, no problem. I can, because he does have a relation to Seto.

Suzuki: Everything here has a proper reason behind it.

Hoshii: He’s related to Seto-kun, everyone! Think about it for a second.

Jin: Looking at the character name “Villager C” must’ve been the worst!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: Their faces look alike, don’t they?

Jin: Yes, yes. They look exactly the same.

Hoshii: Don’t misunderstand, everyone.

Jin: That’s right. That was, hum... something like an ancestor.

Hoshii: Yeah. Is it okay to reveal that?

Jin: It’s totally okay! So, this was an ancestor and—

Suzuki: Like I said, everything has a proper reason behind it.

Jin: Yes, yes! I also thought this was in order.

Hoshii: Thank you very much.

Jin: But for some reason, I felt like being playful when writing the screenplay, so I granted Seto’s voice to Villager C.

Hoshii: Right?!

Jin: I should’ve made it Villager A.

Hoshii: *laughs* Indeed!

Jin: I put him in a sort of low position on purpose.

Hoshii: Aaah~!

Suzuki: I see, I see!

Hoshii: Eh, but there’s no helping it. A is the leader, as you’d expect.

Jin: Yes, A is the leader. And B is the second in command.

Hoshii: No helping it.

Jin: Hence, Villager C.

Hoshii: I can totally voice just a Villager C, though!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: That’s riiight!

Suzuki: As expected, there’s a proper meaning to it.

Jin: Yes, yes.

Hoshii: Right.

Jin: But when you do an audition and people instruct you on how to voice a character, it’s not so that you can be “Villager C”!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: That Villager C really did have a meaning to him.

Hoshii: No, hum, thank you so much, really! Speaking of auditions... I only did it for Seto.

Jin: That’s right.

Hoshii: For these kinds of things, you usually get, for example, the protagonist... some sort of main role.

Suzuki: Ah, that’s right.

Hoshii: And only then do you get another character. So this pin-point was kind of rare. Was it like that for everyone?

Jin: Ah, erm, I created the images of all the characters from the very first chapter of the original work.

Suzuki: Hmm.

Hoshii: Oh!

Jin: I did a lecture expressing how each character was supposed to be, like, “This is how I imagined them.”

Hoshii: Heeh...

Jin: I also had the names of all of them.

Suzuki: That’s right.

Jin: Yes, that’s how I asked them to perform.

Hoshii: Hm.

Jin: Back then, I also had several discussions with Tsuruoka-san – hum, the sound director, Tsuruoka-san.

Hoshii: I see.

Jin: And ultimately, we decided to have Hoshi-san do it, by all means.

Hoshii: No, no! Thank you.

Jin: That’s how it went.

Suzuki: So actually, Jin-san, you and the others had the image of the characters so clear in your heads that there wasn’t a single person who messed up.

Jin: Ah...

Suzuki: Each and every one of them did well.

Jin: No, but it was hard for them, wasn’t it?

Hoshii: For real...

Suzuki: Hm, indeed. But it paid off, right?

Jin: Yeah...

Hoshii: Honestly, it was the first audition that I passed in a while, so I was very happy.

Jin: Eeeeh??

Suzuki: No way!

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: For a moment there, I was kinda like, “Ah?! Ah!!”

Suzuki: That’s not possible.

Hoshii: It’s true, it’s true! To tell the truth, I don’t get approved very often.

Jin: Ah, is that so?

Suzuki: Aaah...

Hoshii: It’s because there’s actually a lot of people who take part in auditions.

Jin: Ah, thought so.

Suzuki: Hmmm...

Hoshii: So I hardly pass them.

Jin: But Hoshi-san, as expected...

Hoshii: I was happy!

Jin: Ah, geez, thank you. And yet, you got Villager C! It’d make anyone go, “Hey!!”

Hoshii: *laughs*

Jin: I’m really sorry.

Hoshii: No, no, no! It’s okay, really.

Jin: But, well, other than the Villager C, Seto-kun had quite a few appearances in the anime.

Hoshii: Ah, well, I was always there for the recordings of the latter half.

Suzuki: Yuuup.

Jin: Right. But if we’re speaking about just Seto-kun as a character, there was also a mini-arc in the past where a small Seto-kun had a lot of screen time.

Hoshii: Ah, that’s right! But voicing a small Seto-kun would’ve been difficult for me...

Jin: Well, yes. We did a voice switch.

Suzuki: Yeah.

Hoshii: I didn’t do an audition for little Seto or anything like that!

Jin/Suzuki: *laugh*

Hoshii: It’s not like I auditioned and failed! I didn’t audition for it at all!

Suzuki: Indeed.

Jin: Tsuruoka-san had decided on from the very beginning.

Hoshii: Yeah, yeah. Although, depending on the anime, they use the original voice actors for that.

Suzuki: Oooh...

Hoshii: There’s actually a ton of problems with that, but they’re like, “Can you do it?”

Suzuki: I see, I see!

Jin: Hum, Hoshi-san, I have watched some of the works that you’re in. There’s one that has several episodes set in the past. It’s a series that I’m quite fond of.

Hoshii: Ah, I see! That one. That one, right?

Jin: Everyone performs in the flashbacks just like they do in the present! *laughs*

Suzuki: Aaah, I see...

Hoshii: Well, how should I put it? This way of doing it is also a thing.

Suzuki: Hm, hm.

Hoshii: It’s like a gag.

Suzuki: Hmmm.

Hoshii: It doesn’t go the realistic route. So it’s okay like that sometimes.

Suzuki: Yep.

Hoshii: But man, this series is so mysterious. The atmosphere of it, that is.

Jin: Ah...!

Suzuki: Hmmm...

Hoshii: I also feel that Director Shinbou’s direction matched it very well too.

Jin: Indeed, that’s right. Not even I thought it’d turn out like this.

Hoshii: Right?!

Suzuki: Yuuup.

Jin: Hum—Ah! Anyway...

Hoshii: Ah, it’s over!

Suzuki: The ending song...

Jin: The ending arrived in a blink of eye!

Hoshii: In a blink of eye!

Jin: We really couldn’t talk about the main story at all!

Suzuki: *laughs*

Hoshii: We did, a little.

Jin: At least till the part where Seto gets startled.

Hoshii: And leaves.

Jin: That’s right.

Hoshii: Aah, it’s going to end.

Jin: It is.

Hoshii: But there’s still more.

Jin: There’s still the C part.

Suzuki: There is, at the very end.

Hoshii: Speaking of the ending, LIA-san’s voice is so graceful that it heals you.

Jin: True.

Suzuki: Ah, that’s right.

Jin: The song is mine, by the way.

Hoshii: Ah!

Jin: I think I managed to create a good melody with it.

Hoshii: Yup! That’s right!

Suzuki: As expected!

Jin: But y’know, hum, we always cut right through the story every single time and arrive to this point.

Hoshii: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jin: So the image I have of this song is always like, “Eeeeh?!!”

Hoshii: Ah, I see.

Jin: It’s become a song that makes me go, “It’s already here???”

Suzuki: *laughs*

Jin: It’s unbelievable... So, we have reached the ending theme song of the episode once again. About the people who watch the series, I wonder how they do it. Do they listen to the audio commentary right after watching the episode?

Hoshii: Ah, but it might be like this, for example – when they buy the DVD, they first of all watch the series. I feel like that’s the majority.

Suzuki: Ooh...

Hoshii: Like, they watch the episodes on TV first.

Jin: That’s right. Maybe that’s it.

Suzuki: Yeah.

Hoshii: That’s probably it.

Jin: Indeed. Well, with that being said...

Hoshii: Yes?

Jin: Hum, if there’s anyone who’s going to watch the series once again after listening to this, we’re sorry for not elaborating on the contents of it!

Hoshii: Yeah!

Suzuki/Hoshii: *laugh*

Suzuki: Well, time has gradually come.

Hoshii: Yes.

Jin: Yes!

Suzuki: We’re going to be doing this over again, but please, do leave a message.

Jin: All right!

Suzuki: Could Hoshi-san go first?

Hoshii: Yeah! Eeeh, I’m happy to have participated in “Mekakucity Actors”! Eeeh, it really was a blink of eye, but as expected, I myself would like to get involved with Seto-kun even more.

Jin: Aaah...!

Hoshii: And with everyone else. I wanna get involved with them, so I’ll do my best. Jin-san, too, by all means, please take care of me from now on too.

Jin: Ah, thank you very much!

Hoshii: Everyone, thank you for your support!

Jin: Thank you so much!

Suzuki: Jin-san, you too.

Jin: Yes! Well, let’s see... Just like Hoshi-san said, I would like to have everyone gather up once again after this.

Hoshii: Yes.

Jin: If there comes a chance for it, I’d love to do it too.

Hoshii: Yes!

Jin: Is this really something we should be saying at this point in the game?!

Suzuki/Hoshii: *laugh*

Jin: But we already said it, so...

Suzuki: No problem, no problem.

Jin: ...I want to do my best till this opportunity arrives!

Hoshii: Yes!

Jin: So anyway, thank you very much.

Hoshii: Yes.

Suzuki: Thank you very much. And this C part also has a meaning to it.

Hoshii: That’s right!

Suzuki: If you keep it up – if you keep watching it like this, you should be able to tell.

Hoshii: At the beginning, I really didn’t get it, so I watched them all in sequence.

Jin: Ah, thank you very much.

Hoshii: It piques your interest, doesn’t it? When you don’t understand something.

Suzuki: I hope people will watch it over and over.

Jin: That’s right.

Hoshii: Yeah.

Jin: I want them to watch it lots of times and go, “I see, I see.”

Hoshii: Yep, exactly.

Suzuki: Well, that being said...

Hoshii: There’s lots of fired-up songs in it too.

Jin: Yes!

Hoshii: Waiting for everyone.

Jin: Please keep looking forward to what’s to come as well!

Hoshii: Yeeah!

Jin: Yes.

Suzuki: Thank you very much. Well, this has been the audio commentary of Act 05.

Everyone: Thank you very muuuch!

#kagerou project #kagepro #mekakucity actors #kagerou daze #seto kousuke #hoshi shouichirou #jin #seiyuu #audio commentary #suzuki kenta #my translation

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