I love your quip at the start of Taipei 101. You're like, be bold, start cold. Is that the standard for you?

Did I actually, did I say that at the bottom of Type 1 101? I think so. Yeah, that's what... Like on the broadcast? Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. I say that all the time because I mean, that's like every time I leave the car, like start hiking in the crag, you're like, be bold, start cold. I'm the opposite. I'm such a ween. I'm like, I'll just stop five minutes in and change, but it's kind of hard to do when you're stilling a skyscraper.

And that's why you don't... like be bold start cold. I'm the opposite. I'm such a weaning. I'm like, I'll just stop five minutes in and change, but it's kind of hard to do when you're

still in a skyscraper.

And that's why you don't set as many speed records. Yeah, it's true. So is the choice often, the black technical pants and the red tea? Yeah. t-shirt when you're slightly chilly is I mean that's boldness you just go for it honestly at the

bottom of type of 101 I was quite conflicted I'm like do I wear my When you're slightly chilly is, I mean, that's boldness. You just go for it. Honestly, at the bottom

of type of 101, I was quite conflicted. I'm like, do I wear my fleece? Do I wear a layer on top? Even though I'm in the sun and it is kind of warm, but it's windy. It's going to be cold, but you're going 1,700 feet up this building. You're like, I don't know. So you went with what you new. They've never let me down me down before the north face has you covered discover gear designed to take you to new heights at the northface

dot com Alex i'm curious uh if you were ever able to see the cinematic genius that is vertical

limit on the big screen like i feel like you probably would have been a teenager when that came out

i'm not sure when it came out but i never saw it in theaters i think that's not the kind of thing my family went to watch. I don't think. But I've certainly watched it on my laptop since. I mean, it's so insane with the friggin nitro and like things blown up and jumping like hundreds of feet across crevasses with ice axes and things. It's totally insane. It's funny seeing climbing on the big screen

these days. You realize how far its depiction has come. I'm most of the way through the Dark Wizard

HBO docu-series. There is no way something like that would have been made even 10 years ago, I feel like.

And people just understand climbing a lot more.

Yeah, I mean, I think that to watch a show like The Dark Wizard, you need some basic understanding of climbing,

and I feel like the last 10 years have really given the mainstream public a primer on climbing.

I mean, between films like Free Soul on the Don Wall and even like the Alpinist and Meru and all these other films and just the growth of gyms. Like everybody has tried climbing at some point now

and the Olympics and everything else. But now it's like you can show deep niche climbing

content and people still have some sense of what's going on. What do you think of Dark Wizard

in general? Oh, I mean the Dark Wizard is amazing. It's like, I'm glad they made it. I mean, regardless of any opinions about me being cast as a villain and all that stuff, I mean, I think that, I mean, Dean was such a hero of mine and really the whole generation of climbers, and it makes me slightly sad that people that get into climbing now will have never heard of him because, you know, he died in 2016. And so it's nice to sort of remember his legacy in some way. On the Dark Wizard stuff, too, I just like, out of curiosity, like, was it strange to be cast as the villain? Like, did you have mixed emotions about all that? I mean, kind of. Yeah. I mean, we did like 12 hours of interview and they basically took all the most extreme stuff and like turned into like deeply competitive, hates Dean, you know, and you're kind of like, oh, it's like slightly annoying. Yeah. Did you have ill will towards Dean? No, no. I mean, I mean, obviously like, you know, competitive in the same way that I was competing with literally everybody else in the Valley, you know, but no, I mean, I didn't have any particular. I mean, Dean was like my childhood hero, you know, I was like, what a dude. But, you know, then at a certain point you realize that you can do all the things that your childhood hero's doing and you're just kind of like, hmm, you know, like, cool, I'll do all those.

Because the climbing's been so sort of mainstream, right, if you're going to make a fictional version where climbing somehow fits into a plot, the rest of the world knows what it's supposed to look like.

Or at least a little bit. They know a little bit how it's supposed to look like.

Yeah, it does seem like you need to bring a certain level of expertise to filmmaking like that now.

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