Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast
Ep 595 - The Man Who Saves the World? (feat. Gabe Polsky)
22 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
wild wild west all right we're live gabe polsky man thanks for coming yeah thanks for having me thank you for coming i uh i wanted to bring you here i i saw your documentary a while back i got a little little screener copy honestly i said i'm not just fluffing you it was what i thought was one of the best things i'd watched in a really long time so the man who saves the world that's it yeah question mark not the man who saves the world no question mark that's about a guy who
didn't drop the nuclear bomb or something yeah yeah that that's another film yeah yours is the man who saves the world question mark which dude it's i swear to god i like i uh brandon our mutual friend from rafael sent it to me and i was like all right you know and i'm i'm like i'm pretty like precious with my time so someone's like hey do you want to watch this two-hour thing i'm usually like yeah yeah yeah i'll watch it but i read the tagline i'm like dang that sounds kind of cool
Dude, one night I just, I saw through it. So congrats on that.
It's awesome. It's 85 minutes. Cause I know that, you know, the two hours, two hours scares people, but.
Dude, now I feel like now documentaries are six hours.
Yeah. It's murder mystery doc. Everything's long.
I know, but the murder mystery doc, I'm telling you, man, I don't want to start by it on a negative note, but like, dude, I would really like to move back from the six hour twisty murder doc. It's like, just, I don't need to watch this for six hours. Just give me an hour and 20. Hit me with a twist at the end.
I agree. I'm the same way. It's like a full work day. Yeah.
I'm signing up to watch this lady get murdered. It's like, dude, hit me with the facts. I know. Give me the facts.
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Chapter 2: How did Gabe Polsky get inspired to create 'The Man Who Saves the World'?
But no, I thought your documentary was honestly fantastic. And just to like... I don't know. I don't want to give the whole thing away. But just to recap, I try to explain it to people. I always sound crazy. It's about a guy who, by the guy alone, could have been... What's his name? Patrick McCollum. Patrick McCollum. I mean, obviously, you could have just done one on that guy alone.
His life is crazy. He was a peacemaker. He just does everything. But he got convinced somehow that he was the center of some ancient indigenous prophecy that he was going to... Was it save the world or bring everyone back together and thus save the world by saving the Amazon?
That's right. I mean, the second part, yeah. So basically, these indigenous elders from the Amazon came to this guy at like a peace gathering in India, and they said to him, you know, we think you're this guy in our prophecy that we've had for...
know hundreds of years so different different tribes of the amazon they all kind of got together and identified this guy and said you know we think you're this guy and you know initially he's just like i don't know what you're talking about i i'm just kind of a regular guy i don't think i'm the guy and they basically for eight years kept coming to him and and and saying you know when you're going to come and fulfill this prophecy of ours is going to come and unite the tribes of the amazon and essentially save the amazon and restore the earth and
After many years, he's just like, all right, I guess I'll do what I can and go down there.
First of all, that's crazy he was able to fight that off. I would immediately be like, yes. Getting hit with the chosen one is my personal fantasy, so that's crazy he got to live that out. And it's nuts that he was like, no, no, no, no, I'm not. Which, obviously, you're the chosen one.
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Chapter 3: What unique perspectives does the documentary offer on indigenous wisdom?
If you're going to be like, no, I'm not the chosen one, it's like you're definitely the chosen one. Yeah, exactly right. But dude, but then you've, so I'm like, okay, that's, first of all, that's a, that's a kind of a wild concept. Then you get into that guy's life and it's like, he, it's, that guy was, I've never even like heard of or seen a guy like that.
Yeah, I mean... Most talented guy I think I've ever seen. Yeah, no, that's kind of what drew me in. Honestly, the prophecy part of it was just to me just so bonkers that I was like, this guy's a bullshit artist. This is crazy, you know. And I was, you know, incredibly skeptical of it. And then ultimately, you know, first of all, I started doing a lot of research.
I hired a private investigator, you know, to look into this guy. You know, he was saying he's best friends with Jane Goodall. And I didn't really believe him there.
I forgot about that. He was buddy-buddy with Jay.
Yeah, and then I, you know, reached out to her personally and got an interview and she said this guy's the most fascinating guy she's ever met and, you know, and so obviously that vouched for him. But really what kind of drew me in was how weird and amazing this guy's life was. He was like the most fascinating guy I've ever met. He's, you know, he was a Carney.
He was a jewelry designer to, I guess, you know, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Russell Crowe. He was, you know, a piece of me at first, a Carney. So he basically at, at 12 years old, he like joined the carnival for like four years. Cause his,
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Chapter 4: How does the film address environmental issues?
His brother got cut in half. Yes. Okay. Yes. And his parents. It's crazy. Yeah. I don't want to laugh at his brother.
But yeah, his brother got fucking cut in half.
Yeah. And so he, his parents had to go basically take care of his brother. So he was left kind of on his own at 12 years old. And so what he decided to do was join the carnival. And there he kind of met all these freaks and married a prostitute, which isn't in the film, but, and, and, and then.
He's like a mythical guy.
I swear to God. It's mythical. It's like Forrest Gump. It's like Z-Leg. It's like the guy has literally done everything. Yeah. He's. And so, yeah, I, I just felt like him alone was, as a character study, I don't know if you, you sort of like character study of movies or documentaries, you know, just a fat, just him alone I knew would be kind of fascinating.
And then on top of that, you've got this whole prophecy, you've got, you know, indigenous, you know, going into this sort of indigenous world that, you know, most people have no idea about, you know, and learning about, you know, their wisdom and connection and all that.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Gabe face while creating the documentary?
And then having this guy kind of fulfill this prophecy, it's just like, The strangest story I've ever heard.
Yeah, and you kind of followed him around more so kind of like fact-check the guy, which I could pick up on towards the middle, towards the end of the doc, was pissing the guy off when you were fact-checking him, and he was just like, well, you don't believe me, dude? You don't believe me? I'm the chosen one to save the world.
So, yeah, I don't want to give it too much away, but it was, dude, the documentary was fantastic. So... So how does that work? Like when you want to do a documentary, you just I guess you just got a hot tip somehow. And then you got to go like you just follow the guy around. Like, what was it like? I mean, I guess you weren't with him all day, every day.
When I when I see a documentary, for some reason, I imagine you're just like living, eating and sleeping. in the same quarters with the guy. I was gonna say sleep with the guy. You're sleeping in the same quarters with the guy, but it's like, you're just kind of popping in, recording, popping out, you know, going back and forth. What is that like after a certain time?
Do you guys become like super close or is it just kind of like all biz?
Yeah, well, everyone is different. I mean, this one, I actually really did sleep at his house twice, which was pretty wild. I mean, his house, he's got, He's got two places, one in Moraga, California, and one in New Mexico, and they're both kind of really wild. But yeah, I mean, in this instance...
you know, it was kind of on and off and, and, you know, you, you, you just, you know, I, I was kind of documenting him and following him, but it was, it was really kind of on and on and off, you know, so I would shoot with him for, for a few days and then, and then like, you know, maybe a couple months would pass. I would sort of shape the story a little bit more than know what, uh,
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Chapter 6: How does Gabe's background influence his filmmaking style?
you know, something else is coming up. Then I would go and shoot that, you know, until I kind of, you know, was trying to wrap it all up and say, where is this going? When is this going to end? You know, that was actually the most. And you filmed for how long you said? About three years, you know, on and off.
Dang. So yeah, that's gotta be nerve wracking, especially if you're filming, filming, filming, you're like, all right, come on, go meet these guys, go do the stuff. How did you handle kind of like trying to keep them on a timeline with that?
Well, I would constantly ask, is this happening? What's happening next? Is the prophecy going to be fulfilled? Because in our culture, we're constantly, we want results. And plus, I don't want to be shooting this for 10 years. I've got other things to do and whatever. So yeah, I would be... you know, putting a little bit of pressure on him about where is this going?
And that was kind of the most nerve wracking part of this particular documentary that I made was just that it was so unknown where this was going. And I had no, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you get involved in something, you have just no idea where it's going and you think you're crazy. Why am I doing this? I couldn't even. Like a marriage or something?
Like a marriage?
Yeah, exactly.
You have a little idea?
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Chapter 7: What insights about psychedelics and personal growth are shared?
No, a project like that would be, it would drive me insane to not know.
I was literally on the verge of insanity.
Yeah, especially because I don't know if you've staked it yourself or you have financial backers, you're doing this, and it sounds awesome, and you're like, fuck, dude, come on.
Well, this one I was kind of on my own because as you said earlier, you know, pitching this story to like Netflix and HBO and places like that. I mean, it's just so far out and so weird. They're not making this kind of stuff, you know? I haven't seen anything. Yeah. I haven't seen anything like that before. And so I, even going to investors, you know, they're just look at me like,
what the hell are you talking about? This is too weird. You're crazy. And so I, I, I was kind of on my own at a certain point when I decided to commit to this, you know, I realized that I was kind of going to be on my own here. So that, that put a lot of even more pressure on the financial. Also like one of my biggest fears is like wasting my time, you know? Yeah.
if you spent three years of life, like what have you been doing? You know, you talk to your friends and family, like, well, what are you making now? I'm just like, yeah, this guy, he's in the middle of a prophecy. They think they're like, dude, dude, you're, you're out of your mind and you gotta go see somebody, you know?
And so, uh, it's been, it's been hard to kind of, but I did see a vision, you know, about this film, no matter how crazy it was, I knew that somehow I could weave all these really interesting things together into something really meaningful and funny and really bizarre. It's like a trip. This whole thing's like just going into like a psychedelic kind of weird trip
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Chapter 8: What are the broader implications of the documentary's themes?
that also i think you know gives you a lot to think about afterwards yeah and especially yeah again it kind of does too and i'm actually reading a book right now speaking of the amazon about the first conquistadors who like sailed or like went down i guess in the canoe or whatever navigated the entire amazon river and the author went down there because he always likes to visit like the historical sites or whatever he's writing about
And he did say, he said the Amazon in particular is like, he's like, it's literally like a magical world. And he's like, you know, there's obviously a lot of it's been like destroyed. But he was basically saying that if we, if we do lose like the rainforest, we're kind of, we're kind of fucked.
Yeah.
Cause it's like, it like retains moisture. And if you knock down the trees and plant different trees, they don't retain the same amount of moisture and it gets hotter and blah, blah, blah. But so hopefully it's true. Hopefully he does the thing. Cause it's like, I don't know, again, no spoilers, but I was like, you watch it and you go, Maybe he did.
Yeah. Maybe he did the thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, that was the whole thing. I mean, I would go to these gatherings, you know, where he was essentially uniting tribes at the Amazon, you know. And, you know, there would be these sort of smallish gatherings. You know, there'd be tribes from various parts of the Amazon and, you know.
well, let's just say about a hundred people, you know, and, you know, I'd be looking at this and they'd be doing, you know, indigenous ceremonial things with feathers, with fire and all kinds of things and connecting with spirits and so on. But from an outsider perspective, you're just looking at this thinking, you know, What the hell am I looking at? You know, this is so weird.
This is about saving the world. Is he uniting the tribes here? But then I started thinking to myself, how does any business deal or any, even Jesus Christ, for instance, when he was doing his sermons and starting out and talking to people, it probably didn't look like
anything it's just him talking to people and doing about some weird stuff and you know no one no one would have said this is the guy he's gonna yeah that's just happening everything happens even on a big things that end up having these ripple effects that huge they start off really small and they probably don't look like anything that special yeah well that that was you guys started your podcast you know it's just you guys in a room and then it becomes yeah far from glamorous like
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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