Here's the interesting thing about today's movie. The life of an NPC, a non-player character,

is categorized as boring, and it is boring. And it's an awakening story for our hero who realizes

that there's more in life to going through the same boring routine every single day. But you

know what? What if I told you that I would actually not be against being an NPC occasionally and just having

a well mapped out boring day.

And like, I would play a game where I could go do something boring.

And sometimes I do play games that are actually boring.

But I would be all for being an NPC sometimes and just turning my brain off and letting my programming take over.

So I might have just pitched you the sequel, Free Guy 2.

Howdy, I'm Jeff Goldsmith, and this is the Q&A.

My agenda is simple.

Each week I plan to bring you in-depth insights into the creative process of storytelling.

Okay, fine.

I know I'd get bored after like five minutes of being an MPC, but you know what?

It's not the worst thing to occasionally turn your brain off.

But I had to keep my brain on for today's episode because we were talking to Zach Penn,

the co-writer of Free Guy.

It was absolutely great to sit back down with Zach again.

The last time he was

in the screening series and podcast was for Ready Player One, which was another really fun episode.

And you know, one of the interesting things about this episode is we actually recorded it on

the day of Halloween. And I was thinking that I was going to get so much done that I was going to be

...