Hi, I’m Gaten Matarazzo, and this is my last meal. Every person has exactly two things in common. We all gotta eat, and we’re all gonna die. Today’s guest has played a monster hunting teen on Stranger Things, a nerf herder in Lego Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy, a barber murderer in Sweeney Todd, but most notably a coconut tree in a second grade adaptation of the Jungle Book, Gaten Matarazzo. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Did I say that somewhere? I have no idea where we got our information from, but what people want to know. Nobody cares how Stranger Things ends. It’ll figure itself out. We’ll figure that out. Are you reprising your role as coconut tree? It was a really avant garde, weird production. All blacks. It was just like, T-shirt. Yeah, it was just, you know, what was on the page we delivered. There was no shtick. So you’re not bringing it back? You’re finally? I’m not bringing it back. I’m gonna let that ship sail and just let it live in that moment of time. I think that’s kind of beautiful in a way, it’s like, the confidence of an artist. You know? We don’t need to turn it into a franchise. They could. They could make an extended universe. I think maybe there’s a chance where it could live. I will say my whole thing was that I kept bragging, like, it’s a bigger part than it sounds, because he was also kind of like the narrator. He sang, like, little motifs here and there. He was the roots of the Jungle Book, you could say. Gaten Matarazzo, everybody. Gaten, have you thought about your last meal before? I have every now and again, but I only ever thought about it in context of being on death row, of, like, what would I have done to be faced with the situation of eating a last meal? That’s interesting. Because you are closer to being a child than any other guest we’ve ever had on this show. Is that so? You’re the least far removed from it. I remember when I was a kid, I had certain irrational fears. Like, one, I was convinced that I was gonna fall into quicksand and not know how to get out. I think every child had that fear. Bermuda Triangle’s another one. The other one is that I would do something to wind up on death row. I always thought, like, inadvertently, I’d be framed for something. How often do you think about death? You know what? Decreasingly so. Interesting. Decreasing from when? From when I was quite young. I think, like, the concept of being aware of it being a thing is jarring when you’re young, you start to learn. It’s like, not gonna live forever. Those little conversations when you’re young and you don’t really know what the implication is. And then, of course, you lose relatives over time and people are older, and then you’re faced with it, and then there’s a very intense, like, realization. And then over time, I think I’ve just, like, increasingly come to more of a peace with it at the ripe old age of twenty-two. But I know that, like, if I was ever faced in the situation, that peace with it would definitely dissipate aggressively. So, I’m sure. But not very often do I think about it. It’s not something that overtakes my mind constantly, which I’m grateful for at the moment. I think you got a long time until you’re gonna have to think about it. We’re gonna try and shorten your lifespan. With a lot of foods. Let’s do it, a lot of dairy, I’m sure. Gaten, for the first course of your final meal on. Already so unhinged. So unhinged. You have mom’s egg salad sandwich and the chocolate churro Turtle Chips. A great combo. This, you sitting there with the plain egg salad sandwich in front of you, it does look like a serial killer. Yeah, for sure. This is the serial killer’s last meal. But tell me about it. It’s just something my mom used to make that I thought was just, like, wonderful for some reason. I was in second grade, and apparently I had gone to my teacher and I said, Miss Growl, this is the best day of my life. And she said, Gaten, I’m so happy to hear that. Why is it the best day of your life? And I told her that it’s because my mom made me egg salad for lunch. And that is kind of what encompasses my vibe as a second grader and maybe into the continuous part of my life now. May everybody be blessed with a child as low maintenance as you Gaten. My God, happiness from eggs and mayonnaise. Yeah. I understand how nasty the concept of this is. No way. I hope we have. I’m very, very excited to. Dig in. May I? It’s hefty and wet. Cheers. How egg salad should be. What’s better than that? Nothing. I understand fully that everyone’s gonna go, oh, he’s a psychopath. The glasses don’t help with that either. You look like you’re auditioning for. We’re getting closer and closer to more of like, a Dahmer vibe here, but. Yeah, it’s just. I think the rest of my list is less weird. Milky. This is why. We were saying, there is more dairy on your list. Tell me about these Turtle Chips. Because these are. Okay. This is a new thing. I got it on my lap. That’s the best part. My girlfriend bought these. Because they kind of looked good on Uber Eats. And then we came to this epiphany as we tried them, and just, like, one after the other, after the other, and the bag was gone, and then we bought three more. I couldn’t stop eating these if I tried. It’s got the most pleasant. They’re light. Oh, my God. They’re crispy. They’re, like, not overly sweet. No. It’s almost like if hot chocolate could be a chip. It literally tastes like they took Swiss Miss cocoa powder and just dusted it. Dusted it. Especially with the eggs. With the eggs, weirdly enough. Should I, like, just go for one bite? If you do it, I’ll do it. I feel so bad that this is how I’m representing the way that I eat food. I promise. You’re about to shed your mortal toil and travel on to the next world, brother. I want everyone to know that this isn’t, like, my day to day diet. There’s a reason that this is on my last meal list. It’s because I’m embarrassed to eat it at any other point. And if I’m gonna die, I don’t care what people. Let your freak flag fly. Don’t recommend that. There’s a war in my mouth. Those are a. That’s a separate food right there. Hey, man, talk to me about Lego Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy, because you are a massive Star Wars fan. Playing a massive Star wars fan. Indeed. In the Star Wars universe, in the show, you say, I’m just a guy the knows the stories. Which Jedi Bob responds, this time, you are the story. Gaten, what does it feel like to be the story? I remember I got the initial offer and read the script and was, like, kind of. I was like, but this isn’t real. This is a small part. This is a cameo. This is, like, not that big of a deal. And then I got in the room, and I started reading it, and it was just. I think they just captured my reaction to what they put on that page in real time, which is just me freaking out about every little reference that we’ve always wanted. Of course, Darth Jar Jar was, like, the biggest deal ever because I was a huge contributor to that lore in my personal life, and everyone was like, you’re crazy. I’m like, I’m not crazy George Lucas said it. That Jar Jar is the key to everything. I had bedsheets, backpacks, lunchboxes. I watched every movie, every show. I have a drunken tattoo on my arm. Oh, my god. Of the Tatooine skyline. There are worse drunken tattoos. That looks really cool. That looks very artistic. It’s cool. Yeah, they messed the lines up like. It’s okay. It’s the best thing about getting a tattoo drunk. Because you can’t tell when they mess it up. What is your most prized custom lightsaber in your collection? It’s like a sleek staff style hilt, like a long one that’s, like, silver with gold trim. It’s really simple. Kind of like Qui-Gon’s in Phantom Menace or Obi-Wan’s. You know, it’s like, sleek, almost ceremonial, like, not designed for battle yet. But then you notice as the Clone Wars progress, they needed to start knighting padawans quickly so they could get generals out there. I did notice that. And so you noticed that the lightsabers, the hilts, get increasingly janky and more focused on performance rather than design. And I kind of wanted to go for that type of vibe. But always blue. Always a blue blade. Have you always been the type of person that just, like, really focuses all one hundred percent of your energy deep into things? I think so. It comes in phases like that, but Star Wars has been one of those that has remained consistent throughout my life. I think that’s what a lot of us are chasing, though, right? Is just doing that thing that you’re passionate about. You have been doing the thing that you’re passionate about acting since just after you actually gained consciousness as a human being. A little bit, yeah. Right. You were only Les Mis when you’re, what, ten years old? But you started auditioning when you were seven, which is a very adult thing to do that I don’t think we give kid actors credit enough for facing rejection from such a young age. Sure. Did you understand the emotional weight of the stuff that you were going through at the time? I got good at being very much okay and not taking personally the concept of rejection and being okay with the concept with, that someone may be better for something than you are in that situation, so I’m very grateful for that. But also, it’s made it hard to stand up for myself in certain aspects of that. I remember there was an audition that I was in when I was probably around that age where someone was like, what’s up with the teeth? And I explained I was very proud. I told them I have cleidocranial dysplasia. I have a condition. I showed them my shoulder trick that I do. I was always really excited to show people. Because it freaked them out, and I thought it was funny. And then he just was like, well, unless you can get it fixed, this is probably not an industry that’s for you. Oh, my god. And I was like, all right, thanks. Have a good day. It was nice to meet you. And I went on to the next one. Have you now reprocessed that experience through an adult lens? Because, like you said, it was so normal, but then now you can look back and say, that was incredibly cruel, and I didn’t deserve that. Sure it was. I think it’s something that’s so interesting is that there are some people in the industry who are really, really good at, like, navigating that this is a weird situation for kids to be a part of as a whole. And there are a lot of kids that I know even now who have been doing it since they were that age who just don’t have a love. They’ve just been, like, really good at getting good at it from a young age. I’m really lucky that I’ve been able to consistently, like, work and consistently do it, but also consistently maintain a love for it. That’s really rare. So that always makes up for all of that. Do you think that’s one of the key differences? And who, say, gets, like, swallowed up in the industry? Who can actually keep a level head? Is that genuine love? Because when I was seven, if I chased what I loved, I’d be a professional skateboarder and Pokémon trainer, and I don’t think I’d be. There’s plenty of work for that. Come on. I can always make the pivot. I was really lucky because my parents were very big on making sure that I maintained that love, and if I didn’t, we did not have to do it. It was every single. And at the time, it was frustrating because every week they’d be like, are you okay? Are you having fun? Do you want to do this? We don’t have to. I was like, yes, I’m having fun. This is great. I’m liking this. Please leave me alone. But, like, I’ll forever be grateful for that. They never did look elsewhere than whether or not it was something that was filling me with love and passion. And I just, like, always had a drive to keep it up, and that’s never stopped. And if it does, I’m still gonna take their advice and realize that if it does stop and I stop loving it, I stop doing it. Your entire sort of development into adulthood has been caught on camera in some way. That’s a heavy time. There’s something called, I think, the Hawthorne effect, where a subject will act differently upon knowing that they are being observed. Do you think that’s affected the way that you have sort of thought about the industry and your future in general? I’m sure of it, and I’m sure that will actively unravel itself as I get older. And I know that, like, because I have a good support system around me, that if that does happen, I’m in a safe space to express that and deal with it and process that as I will. So it’s not something that, like, fills me with a lot of anxiety. I do acknowledge, though, that that’s definitely a factor and probably why I articulate my feelings around it the way that I do, probably because it’s just the way I would like to feel it. So maybe if I, like, vocalize that, then it’ll be true. Hey, man, you’ve convinced me. I think you should keep saying it. Okay, cool. I’m gonna. It feels good doing that right now. Gaten, for course number two, we have a duo. Not one, not three, but two Macs in cheeses. Now we have the Kraft mac and cheese cooked to your specifications. Al dente, heavy butter, light milk. That is the way I’ve always done it. This is my specialty. This is the one thing that, like, that’s my, like, my unlocked boyfriend food. Every boyfriend has one thing that they can make to perfection that, like, should just be the normal thing, but I’ve just mastered it. Standards have really dropped from what you get in a romantic partner these days. And then we have your mother’s mac and cheese. If there is any visual representation of the cooking skills of one generation to another Dig in. So this is so great. I will say, I forgot to text them the recipes of the food that was specified as family recipes until this morning. That was very rude of me. We did adjust. Because we got it late, but we did adjust. We were already really, really close. Shout out to your mom for using dried mustard powder. Yes. That’s always the key. If I were to pick one thing off of this menu, if I could have one of these, I think I’d pick this. Incredible. Blue box, the way I make it. Kraft, for the love of God, give this man a sponsorship. Because it’s for me. Yeah. It’s by me. For me. And everyone else can get the hell out of the room. I was gonna say. There’s the repressed anger for being media trained since he was seven. Yeah. This is good. Can we start? Please, jump in, man. Thank you so much. I’m on your time, man. So excited. See how al dente our chefs in the kitchen got these noodles. That’s thick. That’s thick. That’s quite thick. That is. I mean, it is delicious. That’s dense. The epitome of comfort food, especially thinking back to childhood. I gotta ask you about Stranger Things season five, Gaten. It’s finally coming to an end. You have said that you wouldn’t mind if your character, Dustin Henderson, died. I would not mind. What’s your ideal death, though? How do you wanna go out? I’ve got this. I pitched it. So he’s known as a fun loving, kind of, like, you know, goofy. You wouldn’t expect, like, something. You wouldn’t expect. You wouldn’t expect this character to die. So it’s gotta be a thing where we’re all in danger. Gunshots are flying everywhere. Things are going crazy. We’re running down the hallway. Everything’s about to go to shit. But we make it. We’re fine. The door closes behind us. We all look around. Everyone’s like, we good? We’re good. There’s that celebration. And then the camera pans over, and it’s me and I go, guys. And then you see the blood reveal on the shirt, and then you see he’s been hit. That’s my way. That’s the way I’m going out. If they write it. If they don’t write. If they don’t write that in there. Which, Duff bros. That’s what we call a. Duffs. I’ll write the erotic fanfiction version. It doesn’t have to be erotic, but if we want people to read it, it’s gonna have to be. It can be erotic before that. Correct. Yeah, yeah. Develop, like, a really healthy sexual relationship with this character, and then it’ll be so much more earned and rewarding of a death later. That’s what I’m saying. This man understands. Keep eating the mac. I want to get into your mom’s mac. I will say this looks incredible, and this is purely my fault when I say this. My mom always does breadcrumbs. Oh, God. So. Dude’s walking on set. I told you he’s a diva. We knew this. This is my fault for not specifying, but I will say this is the way to do it. I love it very, very much. And also, it looks very similar on the inside. That’s warm. You’ve mentioned that acting when you were younger on Stranger Things had a lot less anxiety to it because you didn’t have to worry about where your next role is coming from. You weren’t worried about bills or the arc of a career. Do you remember a singular moment where that anxiety of adulthood really took hold in your bones? Going into season four, when I graduated high school. Because there was. Because school was still, like, that safe place outside of that work. I love my work very, very much. I love doing what I do aggressively so. And even when I was in school, forgive me, even when I was in school. Thank you. I was, like, put off by it. I was like, I wanna go and do what I love to do. And I would tutor when I was filming, and I would go back to my public school where I was in the town that I grew up in. Thankfully, they let me stay enrolled so I could stay a part of that school system, which is very nice of them. So I’m really grateful for that. But once that ended, then it was like, okay, it’s just like a career focus. Yeah. And there’s nothing anchoring you to, like, the quote unquote normal world of that time. It seems it’s just out into the deep end. That’s up to you now. That’s up to you to maintain that. Because there’s nothing like, it’s not like your parents can be like, go to bed, nine o’clock, you have school in the morning. That’s like, you know, living, like, on your own, like, doing the day to day, living out of state. Because I film in Atlanta. It’s so funny. Because you’re at the point in your life now where most people were sick of getting asked the question, what are you doing after college? And it’s like, Stranger Things is your college. It’s college. You know, it’s like, you majored in Dustin. Yeah. What do you want to do? What you want to do? Yeah, it’s very much like that. And that’s a fun question to be asked. But also, we’ve been talking about the end of the show since they announced the last season, which was three years ago, they announced that five would be the last one. So I’ve been consistently, like, in the mindset and answering questions and people be like, how’s it feel to be wrapping it up? I’m like, we still got a lot of time left devoted to the show. It’s a literal, never ending story. It’s a literal, never ending story, but it’s now ending. What is the thing that you’re actually most afraid of? Right? Because anxiety, a lot of it, says the guy who’s had, like, two CBT therapy sessions, but a lot of it is like a fear of the unknown. You don’t actually know what you’re afraid of, right? Yeah. Is it, like, the loss of potential money? Is it the loss of an identity? Is it the loss of so much time hanging out with people that you have spent all this with? Or is it just simple fear of the unknown? I guess I’m more worried about, like, what I will potentially not obtain. Like. maybe the things that, like, I am, like, actively trying to pursue that just may not work out the way they have before. That’s always, like, really, really scary and inevitable. So I’m sure that something that’s gonna come by and, like, the anticipation is gonna be way worse than I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be quite refreshing, I hope, at least. Are you afraid of getting back to the place, being a seven year old auditioning for? Like, are you afraid of those feelings? No. I love auditioning. Nice. I love auditioning. Because I like to feel as though I’ve earned the role that I got to book. That’s part of that process and figuring it out and that there’s chemistry between me and not only the scene partners, but also the creatives that, like, want you to be there. That’s always a really fun process. But also this show ending, Stranger Things ending is going to be an opportunity for me to go and do that. Whether that’s. And maybe I’ll hate it, maybe I won’t. But I’m actually more looking forward to it than anything else at the moment. Gaten, can you tell me why you used to sleep inside a small cubby backstage at Sweeney Todd? This group? Is it a metaphor for you being safe and back in the womb? I think this was just fun because no one else could fit in the cubby and I could. Because I’m a whopping five foot five. You look so peaceful. I felt peaceful. You know, this is a jarring thing to look at. Because I didn’t realize how. Look how happy I am. You used to be so happy. I really did have so much fun here. And consistently. Even on days where it was like a struggle physically, I never walk. I like it was a weight lifted off anytime I walk into that building. Very reminiscent of me being a wee lad in the figurative womb that is the theatre. You can take that home and frame it. Thank you so much. Gaten, for course number three, we have cheese tortellini alfredo. I understand the abomination that this is. Continue. This is the third mac and cheese. This is just mac and cheese. But there’s cheese inside the mac this time. There’s cheese inside the. Oh, man. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m not. I’m just like, because. And then we have meatball pizza. Very similar to a sandwich, but different. John’s of Bleecker Street. We also have all the fixings back here. You gotta get all the fixings. How do you dress your, like, New York slice? Parmesan, garlic powder, sometimes red pepper flakes if I’m feeling a little spicy. I never usually do oregano, because usually there’s oregano in sauce, but I don’t think that John’s puts a whole bunch in based on the way that I taste. So I’m gonna go for pretty much all of this. Please, help yourself. I’ll knit you up some cheese tortellini Alfredo. Thanks. So this is also a childhood thing. My uncle and grandfather both had pizzerias growing up. And for some reason, this was just, like, on the menu. And I don’t know why. Because it’s like, you should. If you’re having cheese tortellini, you should have meat tortellini. You shouldn’t have. Like, you have to balance it out a little bit. Usually you would go with, like, a marinara. That’s fine. Take mine, take mine. Or like, here’s what I can do. I’m just gonna go ahead. It’ll just sop some of it up. Wait, give me. It did, it worked. But now you’re still eating. I stole your meatball. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. This is good. This is great. Isn’t this why vikings used to clink their mugs together so that, like, their drinks would hit each other? So they knew they weren’t poisoning each other. You know more than I do. Did you think we poisoned this pizza? I heard that, but, like, that’s like a. It’s like a custom. Normally I’m the fun facts guy, so now I am taking. You know? That could also be so not true. I knew they’d shake wrists because they were wiping their butt with their hands. Is that right? Or no? That was to see if they had a weapon on them. Okay, so one of them has to do with poop, and the other has to do with the dagger. Wait, maybe both. Maybe both. I don’t know if you noticed when we met each other in the green room, I was making sure that you didn’t have. I hadn’t had shit on my hands. Okay, cool. I wipe with paper. So you’re not a bidet man? If it’s there, I’ll use it. It’s startling, especially when you have hemis. Well, something. Oh, are you a hemi? You’re a hemi guy. If you got hemis. Preparation H and Kraft come together in this conversation. So this is called pizza? This is pizza. Pizza, interesting. This is my favorite slice in the city. This is a meatball slice from John’s on Bleecker. They have, like, a really spicy pie. I forget what it’s called, but, like, they know what you’re talking about when you order the spicy pepper pie and it, like, it rips your mouth to shreds. It is hardcore. But this is just perfect. We did get this flown in from New York. Did you really? No way. Sorry. I got a. No, no, no. Here. At any point, can we institute a rule here? Where at any point either of us are allowed to just raise our hand and yell time? We get three per episode. Right. It’s like soccer. And then we can just sit and eat for thirty seconds in silence. That works for me. You wanna call it officially? Time. You gotta do it well, you gotta raise your hand. And you gotta yell, time. Time. You gotta do at the same time. Time. And then you gotta wait for a producer reaction. I gotta look to the field. Munch time. Thirty seconds on the clock. Everyone shut up. Thank you. You have a condition called cleidocranial dysplasia. I do. Gonna come out the gates after time. Go for it. You talked about casting producers telling you you didn’t have a shot in this industry. Who are the people telling you that you did? Who are the people that actually gave you that encouragement? Every role that I had stumbled across that I actually booked was because of it. Where they liked the fact that I didn’t have teeth cause I looked youthful, because, like, I was nine playing six. And that’s hard to do and also cause it’s hard to work. It’s hard to work with nine year olds, I’m sure. But it’s also, like, it’s very hard for a six year old to learn lines and go on stage. All of that jazz. So that helped in my favor. Les Mis was the same thing. And then with Stranger Things, they just wanted something distinct. They didn’t want somebody who wasn’t relatable, in a sense. And they wanted something that felt real and vulnerable and distinct. And I remember during the chemistry reads and before a take, I was with Finn, who plays Mike in the show. And this is when we were first getting to know each other. We hit it off instantly. And he’s still a very very good buddy of mine, one of my best friends. And, we were getting ready to do our first read together, the scene, the Dungeons and Dragons scene. It was just me and him. Ross Duffer read Lucas and Will’s lines and I stretched before the take and I did my shoulder. It was a stretch probably just to kind of show off that I could do it as a trick. It is sick. And they were like, what was that? And I told him, cleidocranial dysplasia. Eventually I would go on to book it. They were writing it. Dustin was a pretty underdeveloped character and they wanted a reason. This is a good. They were very sensitive about approaching the topic and they were really responsible about it, kind about it. Collaborative. This is a good thing. And it would felt really good the way they approached it, but they needed, like a reason for the school bullies to pick on me. And they were like, we’ve been there. We know that, like, sometimes when you have presenting differences, you get picked on as a kid, especially back in the eighties, bullying was like, made more like, push you now. It’s, you know, it’s all in the mind. It’s like basketball peaked in the nineties. Bullying really peaked in the eighties. Bullying really peaked in the eighties. The Jordan of bullying. Yeah. And that’s the one they used, you know what I mean? I was thirteen years old. I didn’t have my front teeth. It was apparent I had a lisp. And so it was something that they approached me about and I was like, absolutely. Then come to find out that that would be what propelled the platform for people with cleidocranial dysplasia for the first time, which was really exciting. Yeah, talk to me about your work with CCD Smiles and how much that means to you. Yeah. Helped to co-found an organization called CCD Smiles. Time. Oh, so CCD Smiles. I’m so sorry. You’re good. CCD Smiles is an organization I’ve helped to co-found with a very, very good friend of mine who has cleidocranial dysplasia herself named Kelly Wosnik. Doctor Kelly Wosnik. She’s been trying to get an organization started to raise awareness for people with cleidocranial dysplasia in a time where there was no platform. And after the show came out, I talk about the condition openly. She comes into contact with me and she’s like, I don’t think you realize what’s happening. What do you mean? And then we looked online and Facebook groups or like Reddit forums would be like, hey, did you hear about this condition that the kid from this show has anybody else have this? And then, like, little groups were forming, and there were groups in the UK, there were groups here in the states, and we were like, oh, my gosh, we have an opportunity to finally get a baseline of a community of people with this condition together for the first time. Later that year, we get a group of a whopping nine people with a condition, which is the most we had ever known of being in a room together, finally seeing each other, talking about our experiences. Then next year, because we had helped grow the organization a little bit more, we had a conference in Salt Lake City, where Kelly is from, and had a hundred and twenty-eight people with the condition. And it’s just been growing ever since. We had a conference in the UK to get people together, and that’s what the organization was basically about, was building that community and getting a sense of comfort and family. And now, because we have the platform, our main goals as we go into the next step of building it up are going to be about setting up and funding research projects so we can get a baseline, a blueprint of what treatment can look like for people with CCD, so that medical professionals, dentists, orthodontists, orthopedists, physical therapists can know what to expect when they get patients with it, who to send them to, where the specialists are. There are a lot of craniofacial specialists in Utah, so we’re really, really stoked about the next step. And I can’t wait to keep working on it. It has been, like, the true passion of my life. I can’t wait. It’s so awesome just to hear you talk about that so passionately. Like, you can actually tell when somebody’s eyes light up talking about something they love. And the stat that people always said was like, that’s one in a million. Right? But are you finding that? That’s not true. Right. We almost regret making that. Because when you say one in a million, it’s hard to get the baseline. It’s hard for insurance companies. They look at that and like, ooh, we’re not gonna drop down cost for your treatments. If it’s a really rare condition, it can be really hard, because a lot of times, insurance companies, oh, it’s a dental issue. So you go in and like, oh, but this is based on your genetic condition. So this is a medical issue. So you go back and forth and back and forth, and eventually they come in the middle and they say, the cosmetic surgery, so you have to pay thirty thousand dollars. And so there’s strength in numbers here. Like, the more people we get on board, the more likely and more confident we’re going to be getting that people will be able to consistently get treatment. Fair treatment, cheap treatment. All right, Gaten. We got your Aunt Kathy’s pumpkin loaf with cream cheese icing. We got your grandma’s pudding pie, and then we got. How are you related to Jeni? This is just delicious, and it makes me happy. Delicious. Jeni’s peanut butter chocolate fleck ice cream. Like I said, again, my fault completely. I didn’t send the recipes. So this is gonna be a very loose. I’m sorry, Grams, like, I should. Like, she’s gonna be like, that’s not what I make. It’s a good impression of your grandma. Also, I’m sorry for that impression of you. You don’t sound like that at all. I love you. I wanna go for this first. Because I’m excited to see what you’ve done with this. We did craham cracker crust. We did cool whip on the top, the Maraschino cherry. We did a swirl of chocolate and vanilla. That’s interesting, because she always goes chocolate. But recently at a family gathering, I think it was thanksgiving, there was also a vanilla variety that had, like, Nilla Wafers instead of graham cracker. And I think it might have been banana pudding or it was just vanilla pudding. It was delicious. So this is like those combining forces. Cheers. You know what? That is really similar. It is like, really. You did a really good job. It tastes a lot like yours, Grams. Tell me about Aunt Kathy’s pumpkin loaf. So this is Aunt Kathy’s on my mom’s side of the family, but the big, tight knit group in Jersey is where my dad’s from. And that’s all my dad’s side. That’s his parents and, my aunts, his sisters, and all of our cousins in that unit. And my mom is also a very, very close family, just not as large. And they live in Connecticut, so we would always get so excited when we got to take holiday trips up to see them. And she would always bake for us, and she still does. And this is one of the things that she always did. It was between these and her snickerdoodles. But I decided to go with this because we are entering pumpkin season. We certainly are. I’ve never done this with cream cheese frosting. Would you put straight cream cheese on it? Straight. Interesting. Philly cream cheese. When you wrote that, we were like, certainly, he means cream cheese frosting. Straight Philly cream cheese. Yeah, that’s how it is. Note for next time. No, for real. But this is also. I’m super excited. This is gonna be delicious as well. You wouldn’t think that cream cheese would go well with a pumpkin loaf. Craziest I ever heard in my life. It’s striking. It’s striking. From the creator of Kraft mac and cheese, al dente, heavy butter, light milk. -Gaten, you’ve already proven yourself to be a culinary maverick. You know, I believe you on the. I don’t want to brag or anything, but. This is really similar to hers. This is really good. Thank you. What makes Aunt Kathy’s hugs the best? It’s a real firm, loving, long hug that feels just like. Like she, like, wraps you up as if, like it’s the last time she’s gonna hug you. And it is enough to make you cry. But I try to hug like my Aunt Kathy, and my mom says that I do. I hugged you in the green room, and I don’t know what Aunt Kathy says, but I felt the. I felt it there. I will always say she’s the best hugger I’ve ever met. Have you dealt with a lot of death in your family before? Have you had to go through the whole grieving process? I remember my Uncle Augie passed away when I was very, very young. It was the first time I ever dealt with death, and that was the first time I saw my dad cry. First time I had ever really, like, been confronted that the adults don’t necessarily. They can feel the same exact way you do about that. And that’s the striking thing to figure out. I’ve also recently, unfortunately, dealt with unexpected death from some younger family members. My cousin Joey passed away in a car accident when he had just turned nineteen. And that is. That’s Earth shattering. That’s against the rules. It’s not supposed to happen. And it sucks that, like, it’s weird being older than him when he. Well. Cause we were very close in age, but I was always younger than him. He was always my older cousin. And being twenty-two and realizing it’s been crazy. It’s been four years already, he died right at the beginning of the pandemic. And that’s especially becoming, coming from a very, very tight knit family unit. Like, every single piece of us is integral. And so then there’s just that missing puzzle piece. As beautiful as it is, those holidays are always harder, and they’ll always be just. It’s just going to be different indefinitely. It’s going to be different. How much you love is, how hard you grieve often, too. It’s commensurate. And when you have such a big, loving family, you sort of do open yourself up to that possibility more. You live every day with him in the back of your mind or in the forefront of your mind or wherever he needs to be for you that day, but he is always there, which is comforting. And it’s so lucky that we’re at least in a family that’s so close together that, like, he aggressively lives on day to day. I miss him very much, always will. Do you think that is. Oh, eat. Wait. The second half, but if you call. Time. Not together, not together. Don’t do that together. I love both of these things. This is so. This is the saltiest ice cream I’ve ever had. It’s so good. It’s amazing. It’s so good. It’s so good. Because usually to peanut butter ice cream, you think it’s gonna be over sweet. What makes peanut butter delicious is not how sweet it is. You’re at the perfect age where you should have very hard and fast opinions about the most difficult subjects in the world. You’re twenty-two. I am. That’s about when it sort of happens. What do you think happens after you die? Are you a spiritual man? At the moment, I’m not. And that’s, I think, why I’m not afraid actively of death. When I used to be a very spiritual person, a very religious person, it was a constant. What flavor of religion? I grew up. Methodist church is where I grew up going, to just, you know, small town American Protestant is kind of like the vibe of how it goes. Baptized Catholic, Italian family. But my mom was more the driving force of going to church, more so because she just liked her friends and singing in the choir and thought it was a good opportunity for us to, like, make friends in Sunday school and have that community, which I get and value and loved as a kid very, very much. But then as you get older, you start to ask yourself these existential questions. And I know people that have beautiful, wonderful relationships with their religion, and I applaud that like crazy. And wish I did. I didn’t. It just scared the shit out of me. Yeah. Everyone knows, like, the stories that, like, protestant kids hear, they’re like, you better believe this or things are gonna happen. And that. It was the original source of my first panic attacks. Really? Yeah. It was. Like, straight up the rapture? Yeah, the rapture. The concept of an eternity of hell. You know what I mean? When you’re ten, you’re like, oh, my god, I just found out what death was, and you’re telling me that this is an option. Not only an option, but probably, like, the most prevalent option. The most prevalent option! You’re most likely going there. It’s terrifying. It is, truthfully. And it, for me, was just not healthy. It was the original source of just, like, the. And it was also in a time where I couldn’t necessarily articulate what a panic attack was or that I was having real struggles with anxiety because I was very young and most people don’t expect. This also comes in the fact that, like, I would later understand that I had an anxiety disorder. Like, it’s like, it’s. It wasn’t just, like, it was just what happened with my. It was the way my body and brain funneled that was, like, through that outer thing that was like, oh, I can blame that on this. And that’s kind of where I’m at personally. I bet people are gonna love that answer. Where does that leave you in regards to thinking about your own death and mortality? When the lights go out, it’s just night night? You’re done? You’re toast? Yeah. It’s one of those things where it’s, like, the one thing that really did it for me was someone said I was like, but what about it? Like, it can’t just not exist. And so it says, what were you doing the millions of years before you were born? Chilling. Chilling. Straight chilling. It was like, oh, if it’s that, what am I afraid of? The only thing I’d be afraid of is not taking advantage of my ability to be conscious here in the universe right now. Because that is a remarkable thing. I don’t deny the intense spirituality or intense spiritual sense of, like, the fact that this universe exists and the fact we’re on this tiny little ball and in this ever tiny blip of time space. Of space time. And it’s, like, pretty remarkable to be able to comprehend that. That’s terrifying, but so cool to me. And I think that just makes me, like, want to spend every day to day trying to experience that to its fullest extent and not worry about what’s happening after, because I have no control over that. I have no way of knowing that. So right now, I think focusing on this right here is the best thing that I could do with my time. I think it’s really healthy to just thank the miracle of existence every single day. It’s pretty remarkable. How, like, point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero one percent of human history, Jeni’s salted peanut butter and chocolate flex has existed, and you are on this Earth. You are in my mouth. I get all the antinatalists who are like, the world is burning. I’m not gonna bring any souls in. I’m just like, we get to. We get to eat this, though. We get to eat this right here. And nobody else. This is crazy. We’re very, very lucky to be in the situation. A feudal lord would have killed for the taste of this. Thousands of. I think it’s a beautiful, Gaten, you ready to get in the lightning round? Yeah. Let’s do it, man. Who’s the one person, dead or alive, you would want to share your actual last meal with? My cousin Joey. Yeah. Yeah, I’d love to just chill with him again. What song do you want to be played at your funeral? The Cheeseburger song from VeggieTales, which is ironic cause it’s a religious kid show. Ushers you into, your last ditch effort to get into heaven. That’s my one outreach. If you’re there, just remember this is where I started. If the show Kid Nation was rebooted, would you consider? I love this show Gaten, are you gonna host? No, because it’s the most cruel thing to have to watch kids do and force them into this situation. But good God, was that the craziest social experiment? How did that get greenlit? I’m still obsessed with it. If you haven’t watched it, watch it just so you can just learn about the fact that, like, what producers came together to make that? Those poor children. But also, wow, is it interesting. We need to co-produce the real Kid Nation. Buy a real island. Maybe with adults. I guess that’s Survivor. I read the. Oh, yeah. Survivor, genius. I think they’ve already come up with it. Who’s your dream eulogizer at your funeral? Can I come back to that? Yeah. The first pass in lightning round history. What’s your favorite Lego set you ever built? The one that I got to be in the new Lego Rebuild the Galaxy set. The dark Millennium Falcon, which I’m actually, my figure’s not in that one, but that’s still my favorite one that I got to build. I think you can just put your own. I guess I can put my guy in there, which works. Glue it on. So then we can take it off. That’s smart. That’s smart. What’s your biggest fear? Solitude. That’s when the bad thoughts creep in. What’s the one show you’d want to see do a Stranger Things crossover? Can’t be Kid Nation. Scooby-Doo. Oh, come on. I would love. We had, like, a Scooby-Doo arc in season four. I would love for the gang to have a crossover with Shaggy and the rest. What’s your greatest regret in life? Not focusing on being a kid while I was one. Because I was kind of thrust into a situation of, like, accelerated adulthood. So maybe a bit more of being a dumb little kid out of a public situation. We’re gonna go ahead and come back to your dream eulogizer. Snoop. I think you could get him. He’s doing a lot these days too. I think he. I don’t know if he likes my work, but I like his. Snoop Dogg, if you. I feel like Snoop is gonna outlive us all. You think Snoop would? Maybe Finally. Are you happy? Yes, I am. Gaten, I am happy too. I’m happy that you have joined me. Thank you. Thanks so much for this, Josh. If you wanna stare into that camera right there and deliver your last words. Oh, I forgot to use the bathroom. Time! Everyone, make sure to check out Gaten on Legos Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy out on Disney Plus. Gaten, you got anything else to plug? I’m doing a fifth season of a show I do called Stranger Things. It’s a soft G? I’ve been saying “Stran-ger” Things. That was funny. That will release after we finish filming and editing. I’m very excited for that, man. I’m really excited just to watch your career, the work that you’re doing with CCD Smiles. You are an absolute mensch. I mean that. Incredibly wise beyond your years. That’s very nice. Going to get wiser. Thanks, Josh. I really appreciate it, man. I’m stoked to be here. Face the reality of mortality head on with our new Last Meals hat and tee, available now at mythical.com