[Penny is talking to Hyman about ‘ships’ and ‘characters’. Hyman says his ‘iconic’ quote about finding a hetrosexual, white, male hero very reliable. He calls Quentin the ‘Duck’s Nuts’ and Penny says that can’t be something people actually said]


CLARA: It really can’t. 


Hi everyone and welcome to Physical Kids Weekly, episode 304! This week’s episode is called “Be the Penny.” I’m Clara.


DANI: And I’m Dani.


CLARA: And we’re thrilled to have Arjun Gupta with us again this week, to talk about this very Penny-centric episode. Welcome back, Arjun!


ARJUN: Thank you! Thank you for having me. What’s going on everybody?


CLARA: I have to say, I really really loved this episode and a huge part of that is just going into this season, I had no idea what to expect from your storyline, from Penny’s storyline, since he’s not in the books for the quest. And for me, it’s really gratifying to see the writers seize this as an opportunity to expand your character instead of sidelining him.


ARJUN: Thank you! First of all, thanks. I’m thrilled to hear that you loved the episode because it was such a fun episode to do and obviously, I agree. I’m really grateful to the writers also that they’re expanding cuz that’s actually something that I feel like I just had the honor of getting to play Penny, I kinda had the fortune for that because he is kinda in the books in and out so like in little moments for the books, we’ve really gotten the opportunity to flesh it out through the seasons and that’s really just an extension of that. 


But just a little behind the scenes info for you all–


CLARA: Yeah! Give it to us!


ARJUN: What made this episode special for everyone: this was Shannon Kohli’s first episode directing our show and she was our camera operator and she’s a brilliant filmmaker in her own right and she’s been making shorts and independent films a while, but she’s been our A Camera operator, a fucking rockstar, for the last few years and it was such a thrill to watch her step into this new role and be our director. It was just really incredible and we had a blast. And I was so grateful that I had the pleasure of working with her so much during this episode because she’s great.


CLARA: Ugh, I really love hearing all those stories and seeing what a supportive environment it is for everyone. For cast, for crew, for anyone who’s involved in the show. 


DANI: Yeah.


ARJUN: Yeah, I mean for me personally, I’ve been really fortunate. There’s a lot of news in our industry at this moment and a lot of it is true. Our industry is quite heinous in quite a lot of ways. But when its done right, it can be really magical. And unfortunately it’s not done right a lot of the time. In fact, most of the time it’s sadly not, because egos get in the way, money gets in the way, and then ego gets back in the way [Laughs]. And so that’s always unfortunate. But I was always fortunate to have– well I can’t speak for the rest of the cast obviously, but I know they all feel similarly about the collaborative spirit that’s required to make something special and great.


But I had the fortune of working with Edi Falco and Eve Best and Anna Smith and Merritt Wever and Stephen Wallem and these incredible New York artists in Nurse Jackie and I was 23 when I started that job. It was my first real gig and to be on that show was my grad school. And even though I’d like to believe that I act now the way that I would have always acted, the truth of the matter is that I was really young there, at that time, and really impressionable.


Edie was the model of how to lead a set and the grace in which she did that, and does that, and the compassion and the collaboration and that attitude of… there’s no ‘ I’m above’. Edie doesn’t act like she’s above anyone. She’s like in there, blue collar, let's get the work done. In with a smile, the first one there to rehearsal, never late, always prepared, and all that stuff was really, really important for me to learn, and I hope that I’ve been able to carry on as I’ve had the honor of being one of the lead actors on this show.    


CLARA: That’s great to hear. I just wanna go back really quickly, because I think we skipped over this, and say, Shannon, you said her name was? The director for this episode?


ARJUN: Yes, Shannon!


CLARA: Major props, Shannon! This is an amazing episode and it seems so hard to act, and so hard to direct, like this not an easy directorial debut, so I just wanna throw some extra props out there.


ARJUN: Yeah!


CLARA: Good job.


ARJUN: No, I mean, you’re talking about this episode especially, you had to film things, you had to be really clear as the director and kinda edit ahead of time. Like, when are we seeing Penny? When are we not seeing Penny? When are we through the lens of Penny’s eyes? When are we seeing him in the background? And just helping us as actors know. I mean, it was easy for me because I was playing Penny who got to see everything all the time. But for the other actors, helping them to make sure they were on the same page about when to listen to Penny, how to do that. They had to shoot a lot of scenes multiple times, with me, then without me. It was very ambitious, an ambitious episode for sure.


CLARA: Yeah. Well we should get talking about it but I think first we have some questions about your other work this year. Dani?


DANI: Yeah, we know you had a busy year. Tell us about your new film, The Hungry. 


ARJUN: So The Hungry actually dropped on Amazon in the US on January 5th. So if you haven’t watched it, fix your life [Laughter] and watch it now. It was a film I did right after we wrapped season 2. I went out to India and shot this film that was a joint UK/Indian production and it was an indie flick, very different than the kinds of films that have been coming out of India for the last 20 years, but inline with this new independent movement that’s happening there. It’s really really exciting to me. 


It’s called The Hungry. It’s an adaptation of Titus Andronicus. It’s a brutal take on humanity, but an important take on humanity, and an important insight on who we can be. Because it’s truthfully part of our humanity, right? For me, on so many levels, on a professional level, it was a great experience. On an artistic level, it was an incredibly fulfilling and such an opportunity to stretch. This character is very very different, you know? I play this character Sunny, the black sheep, very emasculated. He’s kind of– well I’ll let you all watch it and see what you think. But he’s a very different kind of person than Penny.


CLARA: Yeah, really different. 


ARJUN: Even though they both struggle with some of the same things, they’re very very different.  So artistically to stretch into that--and I was terrified of that part, because for me it was a big stretch and it felt really exciting to do. It was just exciting to go and work in another country and see how people work, to see how Indian actors work their craft. And Naseer Shah, you know is like our (and I say our, I mean Indians), he’s like our Pacino. He’s a fucking legend and he’s so cool and such a fun–


CLARA: He’s incredible in it too.


ARJUN: Yeah, he’s something else. He’s a special man. And then personally, you know some beautiful things happened for me through there in that I fell in love with the costume designer and we’ve been dating since. It hit all of these amazing levels for me and I’m so truly grateful for it.


DANI: That’s really great.


CLARA: You were talking before– I’m just gonna say this because we’ll probably reference it– So we tried recording this episode once before and had a little bit of a technical failure, so I might mention a couple of things we talked about before. 


You mentioned that the budget was really tiny on it. Now I’ve actually seen it all the way through. I caught it right before The Magicians started tonight.


ARJUN: Oh cool.


CLARA: And its incredible! It’s really– you would not imagine this was a low budget film. It’s shot beautifully. It’s lit beautifully. It’s acted spectacularly. Everything about it is rich. 


ARJUN: Thank you. Yeah, we did– there’s a word in Hindi, jugaad, which isn’t really translatable, but it’s kinda like, it’s kinda what McGuyver does. You know, usually without the life or death stakes, but it’s just making shit out of nothing, making shit work, which is a real quality in this truthfully. So watching our director pull that peacock together, watching her pull those flowers together, watching the costume team pull together those outfits and working with people to find those outfits, find those jewelry, and like using the fog. It was like, okay the fog’s here! Let’s go run and catch it and shoot kinda deal. It was this kinda film. 


CLARA: So it was like real fog.


ARJUN [laughing]: Oh yeah, oh yeah. We were fortunate. We were shooting that in this little… I mean most of you are listening… Let's just say it was near Delhi. It was near Delhi in India in December, and that’s like the heavy fog time in the north so a lot of that shit was real. 


CLARA: Do you feel like filming in India and doing an Indian film changed your relationship to India?


ARJUN: Yes, 100%. I’ve lived in India. I go back to India a lot. India has always been very important to me. I’ve traveled through India myself. I feel very comfortable in India. But now that I’ve worked in India, it’s just another level of feeling a part of that nation. And reconnecting with that nation– or connecting with that nation on a different level– was on a deeper level for me. Because it wasn’t a US production that was out there. It was an Indian and UK production, it was an Indian production, man. All them motherfuckers were Indians. You know, it was beautiful. So yeah, 100%. And then, you know, it’s hard to place the personal side of things obviously. That’s also affecting my relationship with India as well. [Laughs] In a positive way, I would say. Sometimes the negative is irrelevant, but you know, in a way. 


CLARA: Yeah, that might be a good way to segway into your podcast, American Desis.


ARJUN: True.


CLARA:  You wanna tell us a little bit about what you did with that this year? For those of our listeners who may not be familiar with it, give like a one minute intro to your podcast. 


ARJUN: Sure. American Desis was a project I started with one of my closest friends Akaash Singh who’s a comedian in New York, funny dude check him out. We started a few years ago just cuz we wanted to do some shit together honestly. The conversation we wanted to explore centered around our Indian-ness. Because we always came back around to, how does our Indian-ness affect our American-ness, like what does it mean as a product of two lands? How do we exist in this space? So we started talking to people and for a few years that was just the podcast, talking to people who were like us and just exploring. 


After about a hundred episodes like that, after that long, truthfully we kinda burnt out a little bit. Both of us– I was running a theatre company, he was hustling, and I was shooting multiple things and traveling across the world. It became a lot to then be doing a podcast at the same time, as yall know. 


[Laughter]


ARJUN: Podcasting, it’s work. And you know if it’s not your full time hustle, it can get tough. So this year, what we decided we wanted to do was [that] we wanted to make it more manageable for our plates. And as we were looking around for what we wanted to talk about, we just felt like health and wellness was a theme we wanted to discuss and so we did an arc where we looked at health and wellness topics: emotional, mental, and physical wellness from an Eastern perspective and an American perspective. It was our way of still saying true to the theme of this show while focusing on this topic. You know fortunately we added an incredible woman, Sandhya Simhan, to our team this year who has been an amazing producer, helping us be organized and be a little bit tighter with the show. Just helping us take it to a little bit more legit level. So shout out to her for joining. 


CLARA: Sounds awesome.


ARJUN: I hope you all check it out. It’s not– it’s a podcast where I feel at times people might feel as if they’re not South Asian or of South Asian descent, they can’t enjoy it. But the truth of the matter is that everything we talk about is really universal. A thing I think about in art a ton is [that] we see the universal through the specific. And so for us while being really specific about our community, we’re still talking about universal things.


CLARA: And I can attest to that. I don’t listen to every single episode, but I listened to a couple this season. I think I listened to one that was on… I think it was reclaiming yoga and one that was on mental health, which I know is like a really big topic for you. 


ARJUN: Yeah.


CLARA: You wanna talk to us about where your passion comes from around mental health?


ARJUN: I think my passion for mental health it stems from a whole passion I have around self-care and that really stems from what its done for me in the last eight, ten years of my life. I started therapy eight years ago and back then--I know as a society we’ve changed a lot in our understanding and attitude towards seeking mental health help, seeking therapy or professional counseling of some kind. But I do think back then and we could go further, to recognize and I was fortunate, I didn’t have a big trauma that I was processing or nothing that anyone would have said was necessarily that dramatic but I recognized that there were obstacles that I was putting in front of myself that was stopping me from being the person I wanted to be and I needed help. And I was really fortunate to have a community around that supported me and actually enjoyed the idea of therapy or seeking help. Like that was invaluable and I’m forever grateful to those people. 


I think that [Sighs] There’s this quote, a Marianne Williamson quote, which if anyone’s listened to me in the past, I bring this up almost all the time that I speak to anyone, but it’s a quote that I find is my guiding light and it’s “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. And as we unlock our light, we unconsciously give those around us the permission to unlock their light.” 


I’m paraphrasing a little bit, apologies Marianne, but I really do believe very deeply in the truth of all of our lights. I have an immense, immense belief in the potential of humanity. I have skepticism in our execution of that potential at this moment, but I have an immense belief in our potential and I think that self care is one of the ways where we can unlock that light and I think that mental health is one of the ways we can unlock that light.


CLARA: Well yeah, go listen to that podcast. 


[Laughter]


CLARA: Unlock your light.


DANI: Yeah, I’ve only caught a couple of episodes, but I definitely think that people can enjoy it that aren’t necessarily of your same culture. Like, I think that there is room for everyone to enjoy other people’s perspectives. Like I know a lot of people enjoyed the movie Coco this year and they weren’t necessarily of Latino descent, but I thought that that was interesting, that movie because I’m Mexican and it really reminded me of my culture and that was really cool. 


ARJUN: I think everyone understands the culture of American-ness, to be founded by immigrants. I think that even the people that argue for American-ness as a small sliver of white-ness, even for them, on some level I think they have to understand that they weren’t from this land. And so I think for all of us, experiencing other cultures is deeply American because that’s how we were founded. I mean the railroads in the west were built by the Chinese. You obviously have African Americans who were brought, not by their choice, but still they had a profound impact on music and culture in many ways. And the Latino culture, what they’ve culture, and now the South Asians are doing. I have issues with the whole ‘melting pot’ idea because I think that it implies a losing of culture into a formation of another. An interesting argument because I was just in Cuba where I think they do that--where they are Cuban first before their own whatever they came from before. But here, I think that we’re more a salad, you know? A salad where everything’s not been blended together or melted together, we are just all these different things that come together to make a hopefully delicious meal. 


[Laughter]


ARJUN: I mean, again, it’s an interesting time, not to get too policial on this podcast cuz it’s a podcast about The Magicians. [Laughter] But it’s an interesting time to be American, to explore what that is right now. Yeah, I don’t have all the answers. Actually, I don’t have a fucking clue. [Laughter]. 


CLARA: Well I think one of the things I appreciate about your podcast is that you tackle these hard questions and hard conversations, and not just ones about race, ones about sexuality and gender identity, and ego, and all sorts of widely variating topics. And the big thing that I think you both go into it with is “let’s be compassionate and figure this out together and fuck up and then learn and aplogize and move forward.”I think that’s the nicest thing for me as a listener.


ARJUN: Yeah, I mean look, we often think that we wanna ask the questions nobody thinks they can ask, that they’re too afraid to ask. Like, we’ll take that heat, let’s do it. Because the truth of the matter is there’s a lot of ignorance in the world about everything, you know what I mean? I’m ignorant about Iceland. I’m ignorant about Argentina in some ways, or Chile, or the ways the two [differ]. Like I can’t tell you that much about Japanese culture. I can’t tell you that much about Chinese culture and the difference thereof. 


Like, there are things in which I am ignorant. And if someone shames me for it, it doesn’t help me learn. It doesn’t help me grow. And I know it’s often difficult because those of us who feel marginalized in many ways, it becomes on us to educate, and that can be tiring and difficult. And I don’t know the answer to that. And I understand that concern, but I do think that compassion is important and I do think that compassion to those who are ignorant is important. Now it needs to be met with a willingness on the part of those who are ignorant to listen and be open, right? 


But yeah, that’s been really important to both Akaash and I. Akaash has a thing where he says it all the time. He says, liberals are the most close minded people out there. And a lot of time that has become sadly apparent. That the left really, hopefully been opening their eyes, and I had to do this to myself, and recognizing that my righteousness turned into judgmentalness– that’s not a word– turned into judgement. And it became a space where I thought I was above these other people. And the truth is--and I don’t believe in it, but whether you believe in it or not is irrelevant because it’s not in service of finding solutions. And I think that we need to turn to start focusing on solutions. So at the end of the day, it all goes back to compassion for me. And compassion to self and compassion to others as much as possible.


CLARA: Well it shows. Dani, I think you had one more question, right? 


DANI: So what’s this we hear about a book deal?


[ARJUN laughs]


ARJUN: Well, it’s not a book deal per say. We just started tweeting about that shit and talking about it maybe a little prematurely. There’s a beautiful man who says goodness, like oh my goodness, which I can’t get over it. Eric Smith, shout outs to you, brother. He reached out to us and he was interested into turning American Desis into a book. And so that is something we are actively exploring and putting together different ideas. Akaash and I were very new to the podcast world and now the book world is even more new for us, so its definitely something that’s taking its time, but it’s something we’re working on and excitedly.


I’m also going to put this out so maybe I can be held accountable cuz I haven’t really started working on this. I have an idea for a children’s book that I wanna do and so now that I’ve said it out loud, y’all can help me make sure I do it. 


CLARA: Well we’ll be on you to beta read that.


[Laughter]


ARJUN: There ya go!


DANI: I’ve been trying to write a children’s book for like five years.


ARJUN: Dude, yeah! You just gotta open that Microsoft Word, Dani. Okay, we’ll hold each other accountable, man. 


DANI: Okay.


[Laughter]


ARJUN: There ya go. And the funny thing is my nieces are four years old and I read books to them all the fucking time and Chris’s daughter Poppy is three years old and I read books to her. Man, it takes like 400 words. That’s all it requires. [Laughter] To make a children’s book. Like c’mon man.  C’mon, I tweet– like when I’m live tweeting with everybody I probably put a thousand words into tweets. I can handle 400 words, it’s just like, fucking get on it.


CLARA: See, that’s why it’s hard. The fewer words there are, the more polished they have to be. 


ARJUN: Sure, but that’s different Clara. It’s not like I said I started and I have ten drafts of it and I can’t find the final draft [Laughter]. I haven’t put the words on fucking paper yet. 


CLARA: You should write ten drafts of that 400 word story.


ARJUN: See? Remember the compassion I was talking about– 


CLARA: Yeah, no more excuses for you. 


ARJUN:-- That I haven’t given myself


[Laughter]


CLARA: And you’re convincing us not to give you it to you. Ugh, Arjun.


ARJUN [Laughing]: I know. I guess that’s partly why I’m so hypersensitive to compassion because it's actually been something that’s been very hard for me to cultivate. Self compassion is incredibly difficult, definitely.  


DANI: It is.


CLARA: I think it’s hard for everyone. 


ARJUN: Yeah, it’s strange. There was a moment where it really clicked for me a few years ago. I was like, wait a minute. If anyone else in the world was saying this to me, like if I was hurting from a breakup or whether I felt insecure about something or whether I was in pain for whatever reason, if someone else was saying it to me, would I treat them the way I treat myself? And the answer was always always, no. I always found that I treated myself worse for saying something than I would treat someone else. I don’t know if that’s something other people find, but if you do, start being aware of that. Because it’s really strange and just good to notice.


CLARA: My therapist is big on that one. She always talks about my best friend Anna, like if Anna said that to you, what would you say to her? And then I make faces and admit that I would be nice.


[Laughter]


ARJUN: Right, it’s a great practice. That’s what I love about meditation– yeah, I know, we’ll get to The Magicians everyone, don’t worry. I have full faith that we’ll get to this amazing episode, episode four, but hold on, here me out. I’m on a soapbox; I’m on a role.


Meditation. My thing about meditation is that it gives us space to process things. My meditation teacher said “start using the language” because I study insight meditation where you bring your awareness to one of five spaces: your breath, your body, your emotional life, your thought life, or sounds. So I tend to bring it to breath, that’s my personal preference. And invariably your mind will go somewhere else because that’s what your mind does. Mine will go to thought. It’ll go to, oh shit I gotta go grocery shopping. Oh shit I gotta remember to write that email. Or it’ll go to some fantasy about some judgment I was feeling--Oh my god I can’t believe that thing happened yesterday, whatever. Wherever it might be. So the practice then is to just notice, oh I went to planning, oh I’m feeling anxious. 


So what I love is my meditation teacher, Jon Aaron, who we interview on the American Desis, said, start using the language– don’t say I am anxious or I am thinking. Say thinking is happening; say anxiety is happening. Because we have a tendency to personalize these frankly involuntary actions of thinking and feeling and then we give them so much power that they start controlling us. Our thoughts control us, our feelings control us, when in fact we are not our feelings, we are not our thoughts. 


And meditation really gives us the opportunity to have a little bit of space to choose what to do with the thoughts and feelings we see. Oh okay, I’m scared that if I go for this audition I might get rejected. Okay, that’s a fear. Do I wanna listen to that fear? No, I don’t. Oh, I feel scared because something about that road doesn’t feel right and I don’t like the way those people are looking at me. Okay, do I wanna listen to that fear? Maybe [chuckles]. That might be a fear that’s useless to you. So… I don’t really know what started that, but I like it so there you go. 


[Laughter]


CLARA: Well we like you and I think everyone loves hearing you on your soapbox. So busy year was an understatement. [Laughter] I feel like we just covered every single possible way to be involved in media– wait, you haven’t told us that you started painting yet, but we’re getting close.  


ARJUN: Yeah, no. 


CLARA: So thanks for taking the time out to chat with us and now I think we should make you regret that decision. [Laughter] So when we were putting together this episode, we thought it might be fun to try something new. Did you see the teaser trailer Syfy put out, “Royal Advice with Eliot and Margo”? 


ARJUN: Yeah, actually. Yeah, I saw them.


CLARA: Okay, well Eliot and Margo are great.


ARJUN: I haven’t watched them to be honest. They are. They’re fantastic.


CLARA: Summer and Hale are fantastic, but I think we really need to get some advice from Penny. So we’re gonna do a segment called “Penny for Your Thoughts.” The way this will work is that Dani will read some questions from our listeners and Arjun, we’d like you to answer them as Penny. 


ARJUN: Great. [Splutters] But can I do them as both? Can I do them as Penny and Arjun? Can I do it like Penny voice and then Arjun voice?


CLARA: Yeah!


ARJUN: Alright. 


CLARA: Yeah! Absolutely, but you gotta tell us which is which, otherwise you’re gonna get yourself in trouble. 


ARJUN: I really hope it’s gonna be apparent, but I will clarify for you all.


CLARA: Alright Dani!


ARJUN: Hit me, Dani!


DANI: Okay, the first one comes from NOT A LADIES MAN. They want to know, “How do I talk to girls and how can I get them to like me?”


ARJUN:Umm… you take your dick out of your purse and go talk to them.


CLARA: Oh shit.


ARJUN: You fucking–you go talk to them and you do it. You just do it. If that was unclear, that was the Penny advice. 


CLARA: Oh we all thought that was Arjun!


[Laugher]


DANI: Just do it.


ARJUN: The Arjun advice would be, first of all, where are you trying to meet people? Because you’re trying to meet people out, just at a bar, why? I mean sure, it’s an option, but why don’t you find an activity that you love and when you go and do that activity you’ll meet other people and you'll already know there’s a shared likeness so it’s a space you can meet and its more organic. 


And then, in just any way that you’re trying to connect with someone, listen. Just listen. Because that’s really what connecting is about. It’s about listening and responding. So if you’re really listening to someone, connecting and having a conversation with someone will be really easy. Because you’ll hear what’s interesting to them and you’ll ask questions and you’ll wanna find out more because you’ll wanna connect. 


So if your desire is to just talk to ladies and put up ladies, then go listen to Penny. If your idea is to connect, then try what I suggest.  


DANI: The next one comes from DREAMER. “I have a complicated relationship with my family, and they don't want me to pursue my dreams because they're worried I'll get hurt. What should I do?”


ARJUN: Yeah, yeah. Fuck your family. Fuck your family; live your life. That’s Penny. [Laughs]


ARJUN: Actually, my advice isn’t… Family’s tough. Family is always tough. Family is tough because it’s mixed just... this love and boundaries are blurred often times and weirdly because you guys are so close, its harder to be vulnerable in a strange way. It’s harder to be real; it’s harder to talk sometimes. 


But my advice is man, you gotta live your life. You gotta live your life so that is important and I think that if you have a passion, you must follow it. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to the rest of your life to follow it. I also have a deep belief that if you are living from your place of passion, you’ll work harder, you’ll work better, you’ll with a smile on your face. And that will, whether you believe in the laws of attraction or not is irrelevant, will make your daily life better and the results will be better because your daily life is great. 


Regarding your family, I can’t speak to the complicated relationship you have outside of this, but I would say that maybe try to really talk to them and really talk to them from a place of understanding and a place of understanding that their fear is coming from that they don’t want you to get hurt. That’s a place of love righ? And their love might not be the kind of love you need right not, because the love you need is support, but if you can come from a place of empathy, of understanding that they love you and that they are just scared, you can help them ease their fears. You can say, ‘hey listen, I got this, I can handle this, I can handle what happens if this doesn’t work out because I know what I’m capable of but what will help me do it and what will help me succeed is having your support’. And using that kinda language to talk might help. Might help.


DANI: Solid advice. The last one comes from IN TROUBLE AND OUT OF TIME: “HOW DO ASTRAL PROJECT. CURRENTLY STUCK IN MIDDLE OF EARTH. SEND HELP.”
 
[Laughter]


ARJUN: Umm… I think first, stop wasting your time emailing us and get out of the middle of the Earth. For this one, there’s not gonna be a Penny or an ARJUN for this one because actually I don’t know [Laughter] I don’t know man. Maybe like, read a book? And practice? That’s what I got for you on that. [Laughter] I should start a Dear Abby column, both as Penny and as Arjun, shouldn’t I?


DANI: Yes.


CLARA: So we have a Tumblr that we started trying this on, then we forgot about it for like six months. But if you want it, I have it on good authority that the owner would be happy to hand it over to you. 


ARJUN: What?


CLARA: The ‘Penny for Your Thoughts’ dot Tumblr dot com. 


[Laughter]


ARJUN: Oh look at that. Oh word. That’s more typing that you’ve asked me to do, Clara.


[Laughter]


CLARA: Yeah.


ARJUN: I wanna do some Frazier style columns. I’m not qualified at all–


CLARA: Well you gotta talk to Trevor about that.


[Laughter]


ARJUN: Yeah, I know! Oh Trevor. I love Trevor. I don’t know if Trevor’s gonna listen to this, but shout outs to him. I’m so glad he’s here. Yeah, I mean having Brittany and Trevor added to an already strong cast has been lovely. 


DANI: Yeah, they’re amazing.


ARJUN: Not added. Sorry, I mean, I should clarify: They’ve been here before, but having them there in a more consistent [way]


CLARA: Regulars.


ARJUN: Yeah, as regulars. 


CLARA: Amen to that. On that note I think we should probably start talking about the episode, so you can get back to your parents at some point. So I’m going to start by asking Dani our usual question and of course Arjun feel free to jump in: what did you think of “Be the Penny”?


DANI: It is my favorite episode of the season thus far. I should put that out there. I’m excited for more, but I always like the Penny-centric episodes, but this is a very strong episode. I just thought it was a very good blend of very fucking hilarious and kinda deeply serious.


CLARA: Yeah, I’m with you there. This is also my favorite episode so far. It is, I think, one of the strongest in the series. If not the strongest.


DANI: Yeah, of the whole show.
CLARA: It's for all the reasons that we sorta mentioned briefly at the top. It's really ambitious. There's a lot of stretch work for everyone. For actors, for cast, for crew, for this apparently debuting director, and I really love when the writers kinda -- literally-- go off book and start doing things that take more creative license. I came to this show because I love Lev's books and I originally had that orientation towards it that a lot of book fans have towards adaptations, which is 'oh shit, are they gonna mess up my book? it's not gonna be a faithful adaptation'. but now that we've been with it for now this is the third season, I've come to really... I think I fall more and more in love with the episodes that are totally original. I think that that's where the writers really shine. They get to be wacky and creative and take liberties. So for all those reasons, love this episode. 
DANI: Yeah. It's kinda like your favorite fan fiction.
CLARA: Yeah
[Laughter]
ARJUN: That's thrilling to hear. That's thrilling to hear that this episode, that you guys are responding to it this way. We had fun doing this. [splutters and chuckles] It's hard not to sound vain in talking about this episode or being positive about this episode because I was in every shot almost, but reading it, it jumped off the page as one of our strongest and I think it was tight. 
It was ambitious and it was bold in that it really--they fucked with the structure of The Magicians, you know? We've never had an episode... we never really had a point of view. Quentin at the beginning of the show, kinda was our way in and he was the ‘main character’ quote on quote, but it's been an ensemble show for a long time. And with that, to switch point of views to one character is really interesting. And I was honored that they let it be with Penny. And I also feel that Penny's a good one to do because the frustration that anyone feels...I feel like the other characters might turn really internal about that frustration and that fear of 'where am I, how do I connect?', but for Penny [laughs], he goes really out. He becomes very external a lot, especially in the beginning and it was really fun.I kinda got to play Penny as if he was the audience, if he were you guys. You know, he got to be y'all watching the show. He got to be the audience watching a horror movie. Like, what the fuck are you doing? And that was really fun. 
But yeah, I think that the writers this season, and I've said this to all of their faces, I felt like in the second season... in the first season they were trying to be the books-- not be the books, but really trying to live up to that pressure of adapting the books. The second season they were, I feel, finding their voice, but still a little scared to really drop into it. I think there was a little bit of straddling the fence, SLIGHTLY. This season, what's been really thrilling, and from the first episode I feel like, they unapologetically know who they are. And they're not trying to cater to anyone except, this is our show, this is what we're doing. And they've been doing it and I think the results are pretty excellent. And I think that there will be many episodes that you will love from here on out. 
CLARA: It's funny that the more you try to play into what you think your fans want, the less successful you are at it, and the more you do your authentic thing and get creative and be yourself and use your voice, the better people respond to it. It's a funny thing, someone should study that.
ARJUN: Well I think its the difference between result-orientated-thought and process-orientated-thought.  And I think this is something I really learned in acting and also in life, but I'll speak mainly to the acting thing since I've done a lot of life talking today. When you start focusing on the result you want, you think 'okay I'm supposed to be anxious in this scene' or 'I'm supposed to have a heartbreak in this scene' or 'I'm supposed to be something, some result that I'm looking for in this scene'. If I start focusing on that then I'm fucked.  Because you start focusing on the result, you're not in the scene. You can't allow anything organic or truthful to come. 
If I stay focused in the process, if I stay locked into the process-- which is acting is what's happening in the scene, the circumstances of the scene, how I'm listening and how I'm responding– I look out for the result to come forth. The result has to be a byproduct of process. If you're thinking about fans reactions or the audiences reactions, you're fucked. Cuz you're playing for something. If you're steeped into the process and the fan reaction is a byproduct, then you have a chance, you know? Because the truth is, these results are often influenced by so many other factors that are out of your control, you know? And so why focus on it? Why even think on it? And I mean, I get why we think about it. It's our human nature, but the more we can get away from it, the more process-- and in this particular instance we're talking about the writers and their process and the actual process of writing the stories--the better off we all are. 
CLARA: You're going real deep here today, Arjun. [Laughter]
ARJUN: I'm with it.
CLARA: I can't believe an hour ago you were like, flirting with half the internet. [Laughter]
ARJUN: Yeah man, you know. You know, well. It's the dichotomy. Dichotomy, the duality is real. Let me ask you this. Were you guys surprised by the end of episode 3 when Penny died? Was that a surprise to y'all? You probably talked about it in the episode, but I haven't heard the episode because I don't think you guys recorded that--
CLARA: We haven't recorded that one yet.
[Laughter]
ARJUN: Were you surprised? And what did you think of taking Penny into this astral plane? What do you guys feel about that? I'm curious to hear what this astral plane means to you guys. I'm curious to hear about the suit. I know you guys LIKED IT, but I'm curious to hear what-- were you surprised? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me things!
CLARA: Dani, do you wanna start?
DANI: We do talk about the suit in fashion, I believe. 
CLARA: Later in this episode we talk about the suit. 
DANI: I don't know if I was necessarily completely shocked. I both was and I wasn't. I was kinda just like, where is this going? Episode three was a big loss because not only do we lose Penny, but also lose Alice's father as well. I don't know. I was surprised. I was definitely surprised, but in a good way.
ARJUN: Fair enough.
DANI: I think it's interesting. I don't think there's anything like it. [Inaudible 46:40~] followed that trope, but not exactly like The Magicians. It's like, you are now forever an astral plane projection. That's scary. 
CLARA: Yeah, I think like Dani, I don't think I was surprised. I mean, I definitely wasn't shocked. I might have been a little surprised that the writers actually followed through on it. But it was more... I still found it really interesting and I think I found it interesting because of what it opened up for other characters and because-- well there were two things. First of all,  I thought the whole scene around it was really really interesting, with the whole demon dude and the kinda timing and all the complications around the battery and finding ways to use magic when there is no magic were really interesting. So I think the execution was more surprising than the fact of it itself. 


What I love about this episode, and speaking to your question about the astral plane, is that sending Penny to the astral plane forces him to be in this position of listening to everyone and it makes you realize, like what you said before, that we've been seeing everything from a different point of view and we haven't really been questioning that that's a point of view. We've just kinda been assuming that that's the default. And now we get to see it from a different point of view and that sort of reminds us that we were always seeing things from a point of view. Wow. Super articulate, Clara. 
ARJUN: No, but you're right. It's like, what is the point of view of this show? Like all of a sudden, you really question that.
CLARA: Yeah! It makes you realize that you have assumed that Quentin, who is this white dude who is, I think in a lot of ways, a generic-- like on a generic hero's journey makes you realize that you've thought this was normal and it's not, it's still a point of view. So I thought that was really interesting and I thought it made me realize how little Penny DOES listen to other people before this. And I think part of that is he's not a sharer either. 
ARJUN: Right.
CLARA: So it makes you realize, like when he's forced to just sit there and listen and also see how other people see him, it really makes you aware of his limitations and makes him aware of them too. 
DANI: Yeah, even Kady was like, shit I didn't even really know him.
ARJUN: Yeah.
CLARA: That was a brutal moment. 
ARJUN: Yeah, I mean, it was thrilling and fun and it was really fun to do, but I think you're right that Penny's on such an arc of growth and I think that what we've watched in the few episodes is really watching him learn how to be an adult from a standpoint of accepting and taking accountability and I think that that carries through. And I think that this experience of being on the astral plane...you know, I think that Penny gets a rap that he doesn't give a fuck and he doesn't listen and he isn't really present, but I think that he is. I think that he chooses to be as involved as he can handle. But I think that everything he does has been...very little of what he has done has been for himself.
CLARA: I think that's true, yeah.
ARJUN: I mean, you could argue that... You know I have a really interesting thing about the Kady/Penny relationship that we'll talk about in a minute, but let's put a pin in that. This sends him on another journey. This sends him on another level of journey in learning about how to do for others, what he should do for others, and what he needs to do for himself. And so its a really big catalyst for him this whole episode. And you see it at the end when--
CLARA: When he ‘bes’ the candle.
ARJUN: When he takes that decision. When he realizes he's causing suffering for others and he doesn't like this vulnerability of being in other people's hands, so he takes it in his own. He makes the choice for people and I think that's being a man right there. He's being his adult version; he's not a boy anymore and I think that's interesting to watch. 
CLARA: Yeah, seeing him grow up. 
ARJUN: Yeah.
CLARA: You said you had some thoughts about the Penny/Kady relationship.
ARJUN: Yeah, I think it's a really unhealthy relationship and I see it on Twitter a lot that Penny and Kady are relationship goals. And I find it really interesting because I think that it's a really toxic and dangerous relationship, one that's based on obligation and debt to one another rather than partnership. You know, they don't really listen to each other and he signed a contract even though she didn't want him to because he thought that was his only way to save her, because he thought it was his responsibility was to save her and do something for her because he owed some debt. 
I just don't believe in partnership of that nature. I think that it's unhealthy and that it sounds ‘romantic’ quote on quote. I mean we wanna hear that someone would die for us, but isn't it better if they live for us? I feel like the relationship between Penny and Kady is so much about them solving their own shit through the relationship and I think that's a normal journey in relationships is to have that, but I am curious to know what their relationship is after this. If there is one, for both of them. 
CLARA: Yeah.
DANI: Do you ship Penny with any particular character?
CLARA [whispers]: Alice
ARJUN: At this moment, yeah, I think I did. I always had this theory in the book that it was kinda similar to Snape and Lily and James. In Quentin, Alice, and Penny. Where Penny is Snape obviously. Minus the evil double agent stuff, because that's hard to really analogize. But I think that... I don't know if I ship [that] in our show. In the book, I would do Alice. In our show, where Alice is, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Alice has gone to a place I'm not sure is really good space for Penny. I mean, it would be interesting to watch Penny and Margo together. I think that would be interesting. But from a -- [sighs] who do I ship Penny with? 
DANI: I'm going to go with Brakebills teacher for myself. I don't remember her name. What's her name?
ARJUN: Sunderland. I mean, yeah. [Laughs] That would be a fun ship, but I mean, who would actually be a good partner for Penny? Like an actual good partner for Penny? The closest would probably be Alice, you know, but it would be interesting. You know, Julia is an interesting possibility. It'd be interesting to see what they are like together.
DANI: They're both selfless people who are also pretty selfish at the same time.
ARJUN: Right, that's what's hard like these people are so emotionally stunted at this moment, like finding a partnership. I don't know. Some of your people I'd like to hear. So answer that.
CLARA: I have never thought of Penny and Julia before, but as I'm thinking of it, having just watched the first episode again, timelines are weird. This is going to be the season of time travel for us. I don't mean in the show, I mean on our podcast cuz we're recording out of order. But in that first episode where she has that conversation with Josh and when she has a couple conversations with Quentin, Julia is really good at cutting through other people's anxiety and bullshit, so that might be something really good for Penny.
ARJUN: Yeah, man. I think that Penny does that as well in an interesting way for people and I don't know. Alice is the most logical selection, I think. But it's obviously open. I have that perspective on Penny and Kady, and if you listen, if you watch the way they even react to the death...
DANI: Kady's was really sad and scary.
ARJUN: Yeah and I think it's natural, you know. Is it partnership? Are they really being partners to each other? I don't know. 
CLARA: They do seem codependent sometimes in that way.
ARJUN: Yeah I definitely think there's a co-dependence and just for me, what I kept learning, it's always been about debt. That's my perspective. 
CLARA: Do you think that Penny's death is going to bring Alice and Kady together? Like as friends. 
ARJUN: Ah. Oooo. Well, we see them together at the end of four in an interesting way. Without spoiling too much, I think its safe to say that this death does not go too well for Kady. So I'm not sure how much space she has for friendship. I feel like we're watching Penny and Kady go in opposite directions at this moment with one opening up and coming to a place of acceptance and one falling deeper and deeper into survival mode and deeper and deeper into defensive mechanisms so it's gonna be interesting to watch it play out. I obviously know how it plays out, but for y'all, it'll be interesting how it plays out. 
CLARA: Ugh, such a tease. 
[Laugher]
CLARA: So DaniI, wanna talk about the next one?
DANI: Yeah, so another traveler spirit --
ARJUN: Aw yes! How have we not talked about him yet!?
DANI: Hyman. Yeah.
ARJUN: Hyman. Dustin Ingram who is just a joy and I love, I love this man. I love you, Dustin. I don't know if he's listening. I'm probably going to text him and make sure he listens to this five weeks from now, four weeks from now. But he is a gem of a human, an incredibly talented actor, so funny. I mean we were just DYING throughout this filming. The scene where I pull him in from watching Julia and I throw him on the bed and I turn into the penny and I walk away and I need something bigger to control? That whole scene we shot as one scene. It was just the most fun I think I've had on this entire show in all three years because he's a theater guy, I'm a theater guy. We just had fun; we just played. It was just a fucking joy. And I wanna give a lot of props to him. It's not easy being a guest star when you come onto a show and have a big part like that, when you're navigating a new culture, navigating a new set, navigating just making sure you know your own shit. And he was just incredibly prepared and had his choices--
CLARA: He fits perfectly. He's so great.
DANI: He's hilarious.
ARJUN: And he's also just... he's so smart and he's so funny. I can't say enough things about him. I love him. That's it. I'm gonna shut up.
DANI: I just wanna say the cardigan, the Brakebills cardigan that he wears, I want it. I don't know how, but I want it. 
[Laughter]
DANI: I don't care how I get that, but I want it. 
ARJUN: Well for the last two years I have lived with the costume designer, so I'll see what I can do.
DANI: Yesss!
[Laughter]
DANI: Yeah, I loved it. But he's hilarious. I think he's such... just not at all like Penny.
ARJUN: Oh yeah. Their mix of energies was really fun, you know?
DANI: He also just seems like he's been trapped there for like, how many years, and he still doesn't really know what's going on. 
ARJUN: Yeah.
CLARA: I love that he was like-- there was this one scene where he's talking like, 'if they find the keys then... something happens.' Like he's super invested in their story, but not enough to actually pay attention to the plot.
DANI: Yeah he's like a skimmer, like a book skimmer. Like, kinda paying attention, but not really invested though. 
CLARA: Arjun, you were saying that Penny's like the fans in the episode. [Hyman's] the other kind of fans, the worst kind of fan.
[Laughter]
ARJUN: That's interesting. I never really thought of it like that, but that's probably true. [Laughs]
CLARA: So I wanted to ask a little bit more about that choice that Penny has to make, like he's the one who has to destroy his body.  He's at his own funeral for like most of this episode. That's the kinda trope that it twists on, but that's a really interesting choice. He's the one who ultimately destroys his chances of coming back and burns his body. Which is ROUGH, I can't imagine.  
ARJUN: Yeah, I think that for him, it was two things. I mean it ultimately became about 'how do I protect myself' and I think he saw being sent down into the Library and being under the thumb of the Library as an untenable choice. And so I think a large part of it was 'if I'm going, I want to be free' and so I think that was part of it. And part of just making the choice was I think he was watching what it was doing to Kady and the suffering that it was. And I think he said 'I gotta do this, I gotta take care of this, I gotta handle this' and so he does. 
It was pretty crazy to film too. Because our props department was incredible. They had like this wire and the special effects people... it was all filmed real. There was nothing fake about that, man. Except for the body cuz that was not me. Oh, but there was a scene where she opens the body bag and that is me, so I was just chilling there in a body bag pretending I was dead and she just rolled up and opened it. It was SUPER weird to just be laying in a body bag like that.
CLARA: I bet. 
ARJUN: Yeah. Some weird shit we do, man.
CLARA: What's the weirdest thing you've done on the job?
ARJUN: The weirdest thing?
CLARA: Yeah, what's the weirdest thing you've done as an actor?
ARJUN: I'm flashing right now to the White Lady and having a scene with someone who looks like that because that was obviously its own thing. And then the blood coming out of my hands. I hate working with blood. It gets everywhere. It's messy. It's hard to get off. It's annoying as fuck. It looks good and Sera and John really love it so we do it. The weirdest thing I've done? Maybe that. I don't know. 
CLARA: Okay so Penny destroys his body and then almost immediately afterward Eliot shows up and grabs the truth key and suddenly it seems like maybe there was a chance after all!
ARJUN: Yeah, but what is that chance of though?
CLARA: Yeah.
ARJUN: That's the question. What does it mean? What is the chance of? Yeah, it's a fun episode man. What's fun about it is that it still leaves so much open. 
CLARA: It really does.
ARJUN: It doesn't close doors, it kinda opens new ones and that's really exciting. 
DANI: It was a crazy episode. We were handed four episodes and we're left with the biggest fucking cliffhanger and I was just like, well. Okay then. 
ARJUN: Yeaaaah, no. You gotta wait a little bit.  [Laughs]
CLARA: I jumped to the finale of the Sopranos cuz it also cuts to black and [this episode] feels exactly like that. You're like, 'what the fuck?!"
DANI: I really hope that when The Magicians ends it doesn't have a really fucked up end like that because I think people are still talking about the Sopranos ending, which is a good thing, but also a terrible thing.
[Laughter]
ARJUN: I think that ending is kinda brilliant. 
DANI: You like the ambiguity? 
ARJUN: I don't think it was ambiguous though. I don't really think it was THAT ambiguous. It was only ambiguous if you don't want to handle what it was trying to say.
DANI: True.
CLARA: Fair. I think a lot of people probably didn't want to. 
ARJUN: I mean no one wants their character you've been investing eight years of your life into to die and to be killed like that, you know what I mean? But you also don't... you know when a book ends, I at least hope the epilogue is happy and lovely. You want the ends tied. We don't like, as humans, loose ties. We don't like it. But when he gets shot, the ties of the whole family, like not like what actually happened, like did that happen, the loose tie of mentally did that happen? There's a loose tie of what the fuck happens to the whole family now.
DANI: Yeah.
ARJUN: And it's like, wait! I need to know. And so the impulse to believe that its not makes a lot of sense, but I kinda love it. 
DANI: I have a love/hate for it because I feel like sometimes there's not enough answers in some epilogues and some epilogues we get too much information, like with Harry Potter. 
CLARA: Okay, so I was gonna ask, while we're on the subject of epilogues: Deathly Hallows epilogue, good or bad, go?
DANI: I hate it, but I also hate what they've done post-epilogue more so.
ARJUN: I liked it. I liked... I'm a sap. I liked seeing... I wanted the story to continue so it was nice to know the story was continuing and people were solid and that people had moved on to some space of stability. I think that was nice and there was something about the cycle of life and things ongoing. There was something nice. And it was also nice-- I became a really big Snape fan and I thought that character became the most interesting to me throughout the books. I had a big argument on Muggle-something, the podcast.
CLARA: Muggle-Net? 
ARJUN: Yeah, about this. Cuz people were hating on Snape a lot and I was like, maaaaan, what? How you still hatin' on Snape?So, I liked that moment, you know? That there was some sort of redemption for him. 
DANI: I like the final book as a whole, but the epilogue,just 19 years later.
ARJUN: No, I meant not just redemption for him in Harry's eyes, but redemption for him in everyone's. Like obviously Harry made it public.
CLARA: The naming.
ARJUN: So yeah. I liked it. I mean, it's hard. There's no...I'm really curious because I'm a big Game of Thrones fan. Endings are HARD. Endings are HARD. So I don't think, especially for shows that are iconic, so. 
DANI: You can't please everyone with endings. Like I know that the last Hunger Games book is my favorite and a lot of people hate it so. I've gotten in a lot of arguments about that one. 
ARJUN: Yeah, it's interesting. I have to reread that one because when I read it, I was like a lot of other people, I didn't like it but when I watched the film I felt like it was pretty faithful to the book. I loved it. I loooooved it. So I wanna revisit it. I just kept being struck by this is young adult? Mother fuckers, what? Shit is DARK.
DANI: Yeah, it's very political.
ARJUN: Shit is DARK. That's why I kept being like, yoooo
DANI: Yeah.
CLARA: For real.
ARJUN: Also like, why were those mother fuckers white?
[Laughter]
DANI: That's a whole other topic and conversation.
CLARA: To bring us back on topic ever so slightly, I do have to say, I think the end of The Magician's Land is one of the best endings of all time. I love it so much.
ARJUN: That whole book is stunning.
CLARA: It's gorgeous.
DANI: It's beautiful. It's so hard for me to pick up a favorite book from them, to be honest. I go back and forth because I love the second one a lot, which we're currently basically be showing in the most part in season three.
ARJUN: I think for me, honestly, as a piece of literature, the third one is the best one. 
CLARA: I'm with you there.
ARJUN: The way he found his voice. The way he dropped into it. Story-wise and character-wise the second one, especially the way he gave voice to Julia's story, is stunning. But to me, the third book is just... is out of control. And just the scope of where it goes to and the world that we go in. And I think that's where we get Janet's journey, isn't it?
DANI: Yeah.
CLARA: In the third book, yeah.
ARJUN: Oooof. Sit DOWN. Sit DOWN
DANI: I can not wait to see Summer do that, if it happens.
ARJUN: I know. Again, I'd be curious to see how they make that happen, if they choose too. But yeah.
CLARA: They better give us some of her backstory because ummm...
ARJUN: You know backstory is an interesting thing, I mean, I don't know. Kady's really the only person we've gotten much backstory on. I mean Quentin and Alice, yeah. And Julia, yeah. A little bit with her sister now that I think about it.
CLARA: And Eliot! A little bit with his...
ARJUN: Oh yeah, now we know. But we don't really get... Sure you're right. Actually that is backstory. I guess I wanna see more of that relationship obviously because that's important.
CLARA: Okay so we're getting dangerously late, but Dani do we have time for one more question about the episode?
DANI: I know you can’t reveal anything too spoilery, but does this mean Penny’s going to help out with the rest of the quest? 
ARJUN: Help out for the rest of the quest?
DANI: That's the question right?
CLARA: So Eliot shows up and it seems like we can see and interact with Penny again. Does that mean he might help out?
ARJUN: I dunno. [evil laughter] Oh yeah, he's involved. He's involved. Yeah, I can tell you yeah, he's involved. How he is involved and how he can communicate and all that sort of stuff and what it means to communicate will be answered starting in episode five. But yeah, Penny's a part of the quest, for sure. I guess he wasn't, you're right. I guess he wasn't until [episode] four. I didn't really think of that until... [Laughs] Yeah, for the first three episodes, he's really not involved  with any of this shit.
DANI: He's too busy dying and working for the Library.
ARJUN: Yeah, for the Library. It's interesting how the quest kinda works on people. The quest kinda frames everyone, whether we're consciously working on it or not.
DANI: I did have a question. So in the episode when we see Eliot kind of in the Neitherlands [(n)eye-ther lands] or Neitherlands [(n)ee-ther lands], whichever I always forget how to pronounce--
ARJUN: Neitherlands [(n)eye-ther lands]
DANI: Neitherlands, okay! It seems like the Library is gone now?
ARJUN: So if you remember, we moved from the Library over to the satellite branch--
DANI: Oh, okay!
ARJUN: So yeah. All Libraries in the Neitherlands and anywhere where magic is, we escaped from... I'm not really sure why. 
DANI: I don't know. I just remember in the last episode of the second season there's just chaos.  Chaos is happening and magic is being turned off and Penny gets dragged away.
ARJUN: The story is that we've all left. We've abandoned the Libraries to go to the satellite branch and that's where we're staying. I am, and as we've met, the other traveler-- I don't exactly know how many travelers there are working in the employ of the Library-- but at least the two of us are travelling with books and that's it. 
DANI: So the head librarian is still alive and has not been eaten by cannibals? That's all I wanna know.
ARJUN: You saw her in the first episode. We had that scene together.
DANI: Yeah, but the cannibals were there and I was just like--
ARJUN: Ohhhh yes yes yes. No librarians have been eaten by cannibals... wait, no that's not true.
CLARA: Well one has, but not one that we care about. 
ARJUN: At least one, but not one that we know really. 
CLARA: Alright, okay, so we can go on talking about this episode for hours, I think but if we did that we would never get around to fashion. And I know especially with you, Arjun, you love our fashion report. Love to talk about how folks on the show are dressed. So yeah, let's move on.  There’s been a lot of talk about Penny’s suit in the lead up to this season. It’s a new look for him, buttoned up. Did the change of outfit change the way you thought of your character at all?
ARJUN: Yeah, I think it did, and it was a really interesting process when Magali and I initially before the season started were doing our fittings and doing kinda our idea of it. We kinda Penn-i-fied, if that's a verb. We Penn-i-fied the suit. So we made it ripped and had the shirt out and it was oversized and loose and very flunky with it. And Magali sent it off and this is, costumes is usually where Sera is really the one who gets involved with that stuff and John McNamara stays out of it, but this was the... he dove in. He was very specific about what he wanted and he really wanted the suit and it was referenced from Cary Grant in North by Northwest and its--John McNamara really knows suits, which is not something I know a ton about. I like wearing suits occasionally, but it was interesting. 
When I first... at first, I'll be honest, I was a little resistant to the idea of the suit because I felt like it was such a drastic change into Penny, but then as I really kinda sat with it and exploring it, and as I was reading the first few episodes, it really coincided with the story where we were taking Penny. And I think that what we're seeing is someone that... I feel like the big growth for Penny, as we talked about it, is the accepting and the accepting of being accountable for yourself and those around you and this form of acceptance. And one of the things is, look man, you signed a contract. Part of the contract is you gotta wear a uniform, so you gotta wear the uniform. That's what you DO. That's the adult thing to do. When you sign a contract, now you live up to it. And I think that's where Penny's starting to go. And I think we still add in our own flares to it. Penny's still Penny so there's little [things], like the tie, the way that he knots his tie. He knots it in a different way. We put a couple... he probably chose the shirt that had the little bit of flare on it, right? So he still finds his way to be Penny, but it's still like, look man, I signed a contract. So I have to live up to that contract.
DANI: That reminds me of Eliot in the books. He refuses to wear the uniform for Brakebills as it's supposed to be--
CLARA: Oh yeah.
DANI: And he adds all of his little Eliot things to it.
ARJUN: Right. But Penny in the past, when you saw Penny at Brakebills South, he ripped apart the uniform and it was a way of... it was subversive and it was dismissive and it was disrespectful to the uniform. Whereis what Penny's doing now is, this is the uniform, this is what I gotta do. 
CLARA: He's a lot more accepting. 
ARJUN: And he's an adult and I think that that is the story of what he's doing. And like we talked about earlier, it's evident in the way he's dealing with his own death verses the way that Kady is. You know he's not fighting things as much and that's really quite a remarkable thing to see. I mean in this episode he starts fighting again because he's dead, so let's cut him some slack. I mean the growth is not linear, but that's still the overarching sort of goal. I'm curious, I mean we're recording this before the season pops so I'm very curious to see what people's reactions are to the suit. As you guys will be my sort of sample size audience, I'm curious as to what you guys, what that was. Did that bother you? Was it even that surprising or was it not that big of deal to y'all? 
DANI: To me it wasn't that surprising just because I kinda recognized where they were going in a way, just that it was part of the uniform and he had to wear it for the Order. So it wasn't really surprising. It's just so weird to get used to though. Like, huh, this is weird. But I do have to say you look good in a suit, Arjun. 
ARJUN [Laughing]: Thanks.
CLARA: That's absolutely true. You wear a suit well. For me I think, like Dani, I don't think it was a surprise here. But I do think like here in this episode with Penny being stuck on the astral plane, it seems like when you get stuck on the astral plane you get stuck with whatever you died in, that was a little bit of a surprise to me. Like the idea that we might only have Penny in one outfit for the rest of his existence is a little... that's a little intense. I don't know about that. 
DANI: Well Olivia was stuck in her outfit all last season too, so. 
CLARA: Yeah, but that was only one season, right. Her body didn't...well....
DANI: True, true.
CLARA: Her body stuff is more complicated, we'll put it that way.
DANI: Yeah!
[Laughter]
ARJUN: I wore a suit for a loooong loooong time. [Laughter] I got really used to putting on that suit for sure. And I'll be honest, it took a minute to get used to getting that on every day. It felt weird for a second. It definitely felt weird for a little while to be in a suit as Penny. It was definitely a change, but it was fun too because you see moments where you start seeing-- as we start calling him Astral!Penny-- where he's like playing with the tie and it won't come off. Playing with it kinda became really fun. 
DANI: How many copies of that same suit did they make?
ARJUN: Well they always make extra ones for the stunts, for the stunts that we do. I don't know how many there was. Probably like five or six suits, for sure. And the shirts there were probably even more. I don't know the answer to that. I'll find out though. I'll let y'all know. I'll tweet at y'all. 
[Laughter]
DANI: Sounds good.
CLARA: So is there anything about the suit that we might have missed that you would find notable? Like I know the costume department likes to play around.
ARJUN: Well everything in the suit, there's always edges of books, trying to hint at the Library, so the collars of the shirt looked like corners of a book, like old school book tips where they would kind of add a different color right there. So there's that.  For me again, it was the way I tied the tie with something, but if you look at season two with Howard and if you look at Mageina who plays the Head Librarian, Zelda, you see that her pants are supposed to be like pages of a book. For Howard his armband is the spine of a book. And when you see--and it's hard to see this sometimes-- when you see the background, they would make details like the pin, like the lapel pin that you'd see on the suit would be cut from pages of a book and would look like a little book. Like little details like this would be made that the costume department used are pretty remarkable. 
CLARA: That's really cool.
ARJUN: Yeah. I asked them to sew the shirt to my boxes so that it wouldn't get untucked too much I was in it all day, but that became really difficult cuz the first set of boxers that they gave me didn't have the little hole for if I wanted to pee, so that became complicated if I wanted [to pee] I had to get fully naked to go to the bathroom because everything was tied together. And then they gave me different boxers so that's just a little behind the scenes thing about what we do.
CLARA: That's very behind the scenes.
[Laughter]
ARJUN: There ya go. 
DANI: I've made mistakes of wearing one pieces to bars, so I know how that feels. 
ARJUN: Yeah, it's like a whole... you think it's gonna be like, Oh wow, I gotta go pee, oh but we don't have the time... alright, gotta hold it. Gotta rock it out, man. 
[Laughter]
CLARA: Alright Dani, wanna take the next question?
DANI: Alright... If you could steal any character’s wardrobe, whose would it be and why? 
CLARA: Any other character on the show. 
ARJUN: Besides my own? Because Penny's wardrobe is the best...
CLARA: Yeah, besides your own. 
DANI: Yeah, besides your own. 
ARJUN: I mean, if I could pull off Margo's... What they do with Margo's is... I mean what they build is Out. Of. Control. And wait until you see this season. It is OUT. OF. CONTROL. 
DANI: Summer's spoiled. 
ARJUN: Summer looks amazing, but I love what they do with Eliot's. One of those two. I mean, not to play into gender roles, but I think I would fit Hale's clothes a little bit better than Margo. Also, very selfishly, they would be less exhausting to put on. [Laughs]. So I guess I would with Eliot.
CLARA: It'd be cool to see if they like, took Margo's style and tried to make an outfit for Penny. I'd be down for that. 
ARJUN: Yeah, I mean that would be interesting. Actually, I hope at some point Penny and Margo get too... that was one fun moment--
CLARA: Like a body switch episode?
ARJUN: No, no, just get to have more of a [relationship], I think they're both such interesting energies put together because I think they're so similar in some ways and then SO different, but it would be interesting. There would be interesting fireworks with those two. 
DANI: Yeah, I cracked up when she was like, man I thought we were gonna bang, and like, me too, girl. 
[Laughter]
ARJUN: Yeah, that was, that was fun to do. 
CLARA: The Margolem was also a really good moment for that. I mean I know that that's not like full-on Margo, but it was cool to try to see her try to pull off, even a little.
ARJUN: I made the mistake of watching them film that scene and I think I fucked up two of their takes because I was laughing SO HARD. 
[Laughter]
ARJUN: It was AMAZING. What she was doing, the physical work she was doing, was HILARIOUS. 
CLARA: How did she do that with her eyeballs? I'm still [Laughs]
ARJUN: Yo, this is the thing about Summer Bishil, it's like magic for her. You don't know where it comes from. I don't think she knows where it comes from, but it's there man. When she just opens and she commits, I mean she commits SO [Laughter]. When you get to the last episode and you gotta bring me back on, I'll tell a story. I'll tell that story in like April or whenever the fuck the season. Because that day was LUDICROUS.
[Laughter]
CLARA: Awww. Well I think that's all we had for fashion, but were there any other fashion things you noticed in this episode? Anyone's outfits you wanted to point out?
ARJUN: Nah, I think it was cool to have Dustin in a somewhat period [piece] and coming from that world.
DANI: Oh yeah.
ARJUN: That was a cool little paintbrush to add. You know it was interesting to see Hale--not Hale, sorry-- Eliot's father. And seeing the visual image of how different they were, told by the clothing, the wardrobe, was really fascinating. 
CLARA: Yeah, and to have him, the first thing he says is, 'what are you wearing?'
ARJUN: Oh yeah. Such a good point, yeah. But other than that, I think everyone's in their similar stuff right now. I think I'm the only one who's really making a drastic wardrobe change so far.
CLARA: Alright then we will move onto MVP then. I think I can speak for--Dani, tell me if you disagree-- but I think I can speak for both of us when I say you were clearly the MVP for this episode, Arjun. I can't even imagine how hard it must be to act alongside people who aren't even supposed to see you. Like for them too, but like, you had both. You're in both worlds. You have people who can see you and people who can't.
ARJUN: It was a big episode, like I said, it was an ambitious episode, and I'm thrilled. I'm honored for the MVP. Where my trophy at? Where my trophy at?
CLARA: Oh we'll get you a trophy, don't you worry
[Laughter]
ARJUN: No, it was really fun and it was a beautiful challenge. It was a beautiful challenge. 
CLARA: So since we have you here and I know you really like to lift up your fellow cast members, I'm going to ask you who you were most impressed by this episode, who your MVP is. 
ARJUN: Dustin. I really gotta say, it's not easy to come into a new show as a guest star and have a part that is that crucial and that big. And the way that his energy coming in and he was just so about the play, about the sense of play that makes our show really exciting. He was so specific in his choices, so prepared, and really knocked it out of the park, and really impressed the hell out of me, and I got to know him really well and I'm fortunate now to call him a friend so yeah. He's my MVP. 
DANI: Do we get to see more of him in this season?
ARJUN: I can't tell you shit. I can't tell you shit.
[Laughter]
CLARA: No spoilers. 
ARJUN: I'm gonna MVP the whole set for a minute--
CLARA: You're such a cheater.
ARJUN: -- just because it was Shannon's episode, first episode. And she was incredibly prepared and did an AMAZING job cuz again, it was an ambitious episode, but it was also amazing to watch the support. And there's not one sense, not one iota, of ego that came and was like, 'wait she got promoted?' None of the shit existed. Everyone celebrated, everyone was so excited for her to get that opportunity. And it was really warm and that was really special and that was a really special part behind the scenes of what we went through that episode. 
CLARA: That's great. That's really nice to hear what a family you all are. 
ARJUN: Yeah. 
CLARA: Okay so I think we're at ratings time. 
ARJUN: Rate it! Rate it!
CLARA: Dani, how many Pennys are you rating this episode? [ARJUN laughs]
DANI: 10/10 Pennys.
CLARA: A dime!
ARJUN: This episode was a dime!
[Laugher]
CLARA: Anything you want to add to what you said so far?
DANI: I just hope we see episodes that are like this. Very risky. Very different. I'm excited for the rest of the season. Like I said, we were left on a pretty big cliffhanger for this.
CLARA: Sopranos level cliffhanger.
DANI: Yeah. Of course by the time everyone hears this we'll probably have seen the next episode, but I'm stoked. I'm stoked for the whole season. It looks like a really amazing season.
ARJUN: Yeah. It's been our strongest season so far. Without a doubt. 
CLARA: That's good to hear.
DANI: The Magician's King is an amazing book and since it's taking that quest storyline from it, I'm pretty excited.
ARJUN: And we definitely use that as our landmarks and we go. It's definitely John and Sera's interruption of that for sure, but I think from a quality standpoint, I think what's interestingly paralleled that Lev kept finding his voice more and more as the it aged better, the books, and I think that our show, I do think this is our strongest season. And just to tease, episode five has five of the most beautiful minutes I have ever seen on our show. Episode eight is SO risky and SO exciting. I think that's the episode I'm most excited about. Episode nine is ludicrous and our musical's gonna be crazy. Episode eleven is shocking in its own right.
CLARA: Shocking? Ohhh.
ARJUN: Yeah, I think. Maybe not, shocking. Maybe I hyped it a little more. I don't think people are gonna see this coming.
CLARA: It's risky, yeah. 
ARJUN: And then our finale is quite its own shock. And so I think the ride is just getting started. The ride is just getting started. 
CLARA: I feel like now that you said that, I want to give this a 10/10 too, but if you're as excited about episode eight, maybe I should dial it down a notch. 
ARJUN: You can have two dimes in your pocket! You can have two dimes in your pocket!
CLARA: That's true! Then I have twenty cents. Still can't buy a cup of coffee.
[Laughter]
CLARA: Arjun, do you wanna rate it?
ARJUN: Umm... I don't know that I can. Rating is hard for me. I'm really inside it. I can talk about favorites, but having an objective enough viewpoint to say objectively this is a 9/10, 10/10, I don't know that I can. But this was definitely one of my favorite episodes to be a part of.  It sounds really vain that I'm saying that because I got to do so much, but it was also just the energy, it was also just so fun. It's a really funny episode and I enjoy being a part of that stuff. 
CLARA: Well thank you SO MUCH for your amazing performance in this episode--
ARJUN: Thank you.
CLARA:-- and for joining us today, Arjun. It's a pleasure as always.
Okay, listeners, thank you for being here with us for Season 3. Remember to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. We're really sort of punching that up this season because the more positive ratings we get, the higher we show up in search results, and that means more fans can find us. So pretty please, give us those Itunes ratings.
ARJUN: Yeah, rate that shit!
CLARA: Yeah, rate that shit! Exactly! 
ARJUN: There ya go.
CLARA: And as always, you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook @physicalkidspod on both so yeah, that's it. Bye!
DANI: Bye!
ARJUN: Thank you guys, bye.
[At the end of the episode, Arjun raps a Magicians parody of ‘My Shot’ written by Logan Van Horn. It’s hilarious, check it out, honestly]