Chapter 1: What is the premise of the Heavyweight podcast?
Hi there. Here at The Moth, we believe in the power of storytelling to reveal something essential about the human experience and all the moments, the highs and the lows, that come with it. And we know that moments from our past have a way of sticking with us, leaving us wishing we could have a do-over.
If you've ever found yourself replaying a moment from your past and wondering what could have gone differently, we think you'll enjoy a podcast that explores that very question. It's called Heavyweight. Host Jonathan Goldstein sits down with people to revisit a defining regret, lost connection, or unsolved mystery from their life.
Maybe it's a friendship that ended without closure or a mistake that never received an apology, and he tries to help them make it right. The stories are funny, heart-wrenching, healing, and often make you laugh and cry in the same breath, largely like the stories we share here on The Moth. In this preview, you'll meet Michael, who loved acting as a kid.
When he was a high school senior, he got his lucky break, the chance to star in a big budget movie. Shooting wrapped, a premiere date was set, and then he found out that his success was all based on a lie. Michael wanted to know, how did it all go so wrong? All right, here's the episode. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
And if you love hearing personal stories told with vulnerability, humor, and authenticity, we think you will. Find Heavyweight wherever you get podcasts. New episodes release on Thursdays. Thanks for listening. Pushkin.
Hi, dear.
Happy birthday to me.
Oh, my God. It was your birthday last week, wasn't it?
It's kind of why I was phoning.
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Chapter 2: Who is Michael and what was his big acting opportunity?
We did it again.
And again and again. And all the while, Michael was overcome by a curious feeling. I was doing a good job. Had you ever experienced this before? Like been in an audition where people were responding this way?
No. I was usually in auditions where they're like, we can make him a tree.
At the end of the audition, the director told Michael that he was not going to be an extra. Michael was going to be the star of the whole movie.
Chapter 3: What shocking revelation did Michael discover about his movie role?
Why was he going to be the star of the whole movie? Was it his Brando-esque brooding? His Shia LaBeouf-ian intensity?
They showed me the storyboard, and I looked exactly like the kid in the drawings of the storyboard. I think that's the reason I got it. They were just like, you look like the kid we drew.
The film was called The Messenger, based on a true story. And the true story it was based on was a little-known World War II anecdote about a teenager named Thomas E. Jones. Jones was a telegram messenger in Washington, D.C. On August 14, 1945, he was sent to deliver the telegram that announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies.
But on the way to deliver the message, he got pulled over for an illegal U-turn. And thus, the end of World War II was delayed by 10 minutes. Michael played the role of Thomas as he navigated that fateful day.
I show up to set and I just was immediately involved in the magic of film. They had to fake the daylight by putting lights outside the window. And I remember being like, oh, you're not just like capturing a moment. You're creating a moment.
And the custodian of this exciting new world, the director of the movie, was a 25-year-old wunderkind named Quincy. Quincy took to Michael immediately. Throughout the production, he'd check in with Michael on the phone and take him out for wings. Michael looked up to Quincy.
To meet someone who was orchestrating this giant production, and then for him to take time, talk to me, I felt part of it.
Even after filming wrapped, Quincy stayed in touch, calling Michael with updates about the movie's release.
We were gonna premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival. I learned that it was a big production, $100,000 short film, which is a lot of money for a short movie. The executive producer was this man named Pat Croce.
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Chapter 4: How did Michael's audition lead to unexpected success?
Hey, Michael. How are you? Good. How are you doing? It's been almost three years since Michael and I have spoken. You have a son now? I've got a wife. I've got a son. The whole family is currently in New York, where Michael's wife Katie is producing a movie. It turns out that Katie's movie is the reason for Michael's update.
The associate producer on the movie, his name's Dan.
Michael explains that while out for dinner with Dan, they started talking about the industry, by which I mean the show business industry. And one of the things people in the industry enjoy chatting about most is how they got into the industry.
The industry.
So Michael told Dan the story of The Messenger, about the director, Quincy, about the producer, Pat Croce.
And Dan is from Philly. Dan's parents are family friends with the Croces. You're kidding.
Show biz connections. In this life, there's not a thing that doesn't come down to show biz connections. It's not what you know, when you know, where you know it, or why you know it, but whom you know. Pat Croce was the executive producer on the movie, the one who ultimately shut it all down. So with Quincy unwilling to talk, he's our best shot at figuring out why Quincy had lied.
At some point, Pat had to have demanded an explanation from Quincy. Dan agrees to talk to his mom, who agrees to talk to Pat's daughter, who agrees to talk with Pat, who then agrees to talk with me. Mr. Croce? Call me Pat. This is Pat, Pat, Pat Croce.
One thing I like to say about your heavyweight podcast is that it always inculcates a high vibrational frequency.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Michael face leading up to the movie premiere?
And I remember looking at his name and thinking it looked kind of French. And I was like, oh, I love, chai mai hen chai. And I remember him looking at me and being like, what?
For Quincy, lies became a beautiful wall between himself and everyone else. Lies protected him, but also isolated him. It took the collapse of the messenger to finally get him to stop.
And it was actually very relieving because it took a lot of weight off my shoulders that I didn't have to make every story 10% better. I didn't have to just, as hard as that was, that was the most important lesson, full stop period of my life.
After we did The Messenger, I didn't take that as anything that stopped me.
When Quincy is done sharing the effects The Messenger had on his life, Michael shares the role it played for him.
Seeing the camera, seeing the crew, it blew my mind. I didn't know that this was possible. I didn't know that this is what it looked like. And I was in.
It's Quincy and the messenger that inspired Michael's career. But it isn't just that Quincy gave him a professional life. He gave him a life.
I married this beautiful person who, she's a movie producer, and we have this amazing kid called Carson who's two and a half years old. And all of this life that I have, this partner, this career, this kid, it comes from this wild, weird, random moment in Cleveland, Ohio, where you decided to cast me in this short film. And it's all this to say, like... I never got to just thank you.
I've always appreciated that door that you showed to me and allowed me to walk through. That moment, that time, that invitation that you gave me to be on set changed the entire direction of my life.
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Chapter 6: Why was the release of The Messenger ultimately canceled?
Special thanks to Lucy Sullivan, Karen Shikurji, and Nazanin Rafsanjani. Our production counsel is Jake Flanagan. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, and Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Blue Dot Sessions, Bobble, Principal, and Shanghai Restoration Project. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Follow us on Instagram at heavyweightpodcast or email us at heavyweight at pushkin.fm. We'll be back next week with a new episode. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Heavyweight. If you did, find new episodes of Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts.