Director Jason Woliner on 'Paul T. Goldman' and 'Borat' Sequel

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

Jason Woliner has directed episodes of Parks and Recreation, Nathan for You and The Last Man on Earth. In 2020, he directed his first ever major motion picture: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. His latest project is really interesting: it's a documentary series, a project he's been working on for the last ten years. Paul T Goldman is a documentary series about a man who calls himself Paul T. Goldman. Goldman claims, among many other things, that his former wife stole money from him and ran a human trafficking ring. It's a wild, funny and at times touching show that is just as much a comment on true crime documentaries as it is a true crime documentary. We'll talk with Jason Woliner about Paul T. Goldman, and the meta nature of the show. Plus, we'll dive into Jason's time directing Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and the way things became very dangerous for him on set.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:16.9	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.
0:18.8	My first guest this week is Jason Walliner.
0:22.1	Jason is a director, mainly.
0:24.8	He was the behind the camera member of the sketch group Human Giant alongside performers
0:31.1	Paul Sheer as he's on sorry and Rob Hubel.
0:34.4	Jason directed episodes of Parks and Rec, Nathan for you and the last man on earth.
0:39.8	And in 2020, he directed his first major motion picture, Borat Subsequent Movie Film, one
0:46.8	of the biggest comedies of the decade so far.
0:50.1	It was a sequel that improbably lived up to the original Borat.
0:55.5	Pretty incredible, I'll talk to Jason about that, but that's not really why Jason Walliner
1:00.4	is coming on Bullseye today.
1:02.5	For the last ten years of his life, Jason has been working on a different project.
1:08.5	It started when he got a tweet from a guy who called himself Paul T. Goldman.
1:14.3	Paul, according to his telling, had really been through it.
1:17.9	A sham marriage, a bitter divorce, a private investigation that, again, this is according
1:23.1	to Paul, uncovered a massive human trafficking ring.
1:28.3	It's extraordinary, unbelievable stuff, so extraordinary that Paul T. Goldman wrote a
1:33.8	book about it.
1:35.6	Then he wrote a screenplay for an action film based on the book.
1:40.7	Then, as I said, he tweeted at my guest, Jason Walliner.
1:47.5	He tweeted at literally hundreds of people who work in Hollywood, but my guest, Jason
	...

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