“If You Still Think of Actor Ben Mckenzie Only As A Guy Who Knows His Way AROUND The BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE OF THE OC or Mainly As the Star of Cw Series Gotham, Think Again. Since The Pandemic, He Has Become a Vocal Critic of Cryptocurrency. His Book Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and The Golden”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
McKenzie Wrote and Directoned the Cinematic Exposé on the World of Cryptocurrency and Produced It With Giorgio Angelini. Three Years of Filming Took The Star to New York, Austin, Miami, London, and El Salvador.
The Documentary Includes InterVudes InterViewies with Crypto Poster Boy Sam Bankman-Fried, Conducted Just The FTX Founder Was Indicted On Fraud and The Fraud and Related Charges, Anna Alexe, Anne Alex MONTED ON FRUD, Anne Alex MONTED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAUDED ON FRAud on Fraud On Fraud On Fraud On. BankRupt Cryptocurrency Lending Platform Celsius Network, As Well As Celebrities and Numeros Victims of Crypto Fraud. No surprise then that film screens in a sxsw London Strand Called “Collisions.”
“One May Be Skeptical WHEN READING THAT A FAMOUS ACTOR SLASH FORMER Teen Heartthrob Did A Big Career Pivot Into Cryptocurrency Stereotype, “Highlights a sxsw London synopsis of the film. “The Result is not on only Hugely Informative But Wildly Entertaining and A Galvanizing Takedown of the Crypto-World.”
McKenzie Calls The Film “A True Indie Movie,“ Explaing: “There’s No Studio, There’s No Finance. I’M The Financier.” Sales of the Movie Are Being Handled by Amy Beecroft at VERVE. This Week, The New Multihyphenate McKenzie Will Get To Unveil It To The Public in London.
Ahead of the World Premiere of Everyone is lying to you for moneyhe discussed with The Hollywood Reporter How He Made the Film, Its Tone and Key Messages, Who He Called The Crypto Industry “The Largest Ponzi Scheme in History” in his testimony and the role of celebricies in supeporting cryptocurrency.
I Read You Have an Undergraduate Degree in Economics, But You Are Most Widly Known As An Actor. WHEN AND How did you get interested in the topic of cryptocurrency?
IT WAS PANDEMIC BOREDOM, MAINLY, AND A SLOW-MOVING Midlife Crisis, Perhaps. I was Super Happy with My Personal Life. I’D MET MY NOW-WIFE [Morena Baccarin] On Gothamand we’d started a family, and i was woss trying to dill out what the next chapter of my career was going to be. I’d Made a Lot of Television, Three Different Shows for 15 Years, And I DID A PLAY ON BROADWAY. I was getting my mojo back. But The Play Closed On March 2, 2020, and The Next Week, everything shut Down. There was a pilot i was going to do that wnt away. I was having an existential crisis that i though so many of US were having. And then a buddy of mine reaured out to tell me that i should buy bitcoin because it was going up and was in the news.
And you said?
I WAS LIKE: “I’M NOT Going to Buy It, But Tell Me More.” IT WAS A CONFLUENCE OF THINGS. I was look for someting new to do. I had all this time on my hands. I had this [economics] Degree That Was 20 Years Old That I Hadn’T USED, AND THEN I Just Became Fascinated by It. Hopefully, What Will Come Through in the Film Is That Is Not A All About Technology, Because The Technology of Crypto is Actually Quite Old. IT’s a human story about trust and Belief Systems.
Crypto is Really Just A Story, I would argue, ratioer than a real Thing. There isn’t any physical, Material World in Crypto. I Just Pieces of Code On Ledgers Called Blockchains. SO IT’S REALLY A HUMAN Story About My Obsense, The People That I’ve Met, The Lying and the Cating, and the Sam Bankman-Frieds of It All.
Ben Mckenzie Courtesy of gavin bond
WHY DID HE EVEN AGREE TO TALK TO YOU FOR THE FILM?
Yeah, I was fascinated that Sam Bankman-Fried Agreed to An Interview Like That, Even Thought He Must Have Known that Jacob Silverman and I Were: IT WAS IN OUR TWITTER PROFILES. I Couldn’t Really Figure Out WHY HE AGREED TO IT. That’s Either Extreme Confident or Extraordinary Stupidity, or Some Combination.
The Way i’ve Sort of Come to Understand It, and I’ll Never Know, Of Course, But I’M Talking About This in the Film: Fraudsters Don’t View Themselves the Same Way As. Other Criminals Who Commit Violent Acts Are Perhaps More at Ease With Their Moral Failings. Fraudster Perceive Themselves As Legitimate Businessmen. They rationalize their behavior. And so i though sam, at the time, had convinCed HimSelf that what he was doing was totally. WHAT YOU SEE IN THE INTERVIEW IS THAT I Challenge Him Just A Little Bit. “What does crypto do? Explain to me what it does!” And his thing kind of just collapses in on ittself. It’s Funny and Sad at the Same Time, and Sort of Uncomfortable. Because and Had Worked My Way Up The Chain and Talked to EveryBody – Regular Folks, Other Ceos, Alex Mashinsky, Who Is ALSO in Jail Now – and No One Had Explaled Crypto. SO, I Figured, Well, Now I’M at the Top – Sam Is Sort of the Mist Public Face of the Whole Thing, Surely He Can Explain It to Me. And it was about as hollow as it can get. Talk About A Post-Truth World. IT’s A VERY AMUSING EXAMPLE OF THAT.
Whenever I Talk to People, The Majority Bough Crypto Because its friends Boughht It, and they Saw It Going Up, and Maybe they have some kind of Money, and they. People I have Talked to Almost Always Say The Same Thing IF they’re not into crypto: “I don’ne of understand it, and it Sems Kind of Scammy.” And i’m Like: “It’s Not You. It’s The Crypto. You’re Not The Crazy One.” If it dosn’t make Sense to you, it’s because It have the language of a multi-level Marketing Scheme, WHERE The WORDS THATE USE DON’T MEAN WHAT theyings in regular english. Stablecoins Aren’t Stable. Currencies aren’t currencies. Decentralized Means Centralized. It’s to Sort of Indoctrinate You. IT’s Going to Self-Select. The Number of People Who Are Going to Keep Going and Believing in It Are Going to Belve in It No Matter What, and The Rest of Us Are Are Going To Be Like: “This is WEIRD.
Are you arguing that crypto is a self-perpetuating model and nobody’s to blame? And How do you see the role of celebrities who have endorsed crypto? You have been cryitical of them.
There’s Plenty of blame to go around. I don’t the celebrities are the root of the problem. I View them As The Megaphone that’s Necessary. As the Ponzi Scheme Gets Bigger and Bigger and Bigger, You Need More and More Famous People to Keep Selling It. WHEN I ENTER The FRAY IN 2021, 2022, That Was The Crypto Super Bowl, WHERE EVERY AD WAS A CRYPTO AD. In the doc, there are plenty of famous folks who get lightly roasted. I DON’T ascribe Intenation to their Participation in What I View As A Ponzi Scheme. I Think for the MOST Part, It’s Depressingly Simple. They Were Paid in Real Dollars to Convince You to Take Your Real Dollars and Turn Them Into Something Else. They’re not paid in crypto, they’re paid in US dollars. And what was so unseetling to me at the time was that Celebrities have always shown products. There’s nothing wrong with that. My Wife Has Done It. CELEBRITIES HAVE SOLD PRODUCTS SINCE THERE HAVE BEEN CELEBRITIES. It Makes Sense. I totally get it. But Crypto is A Different Kind of Thing, Because It Financial Product. This isn’t soap, this isn’t cloting. This is someting that you’re supeped to make money on. It’s An Investment, and The Celebrities Didn’s Understand What What They Were Selling, In My Opinion. MOST OF THEM DIDN’T UNDERSTAND Anything About It. They Listed to the BoilerPlate Talk and Learned Their Lines, Basically. But You Couldn’t Convince Me that Gwyneth Paltrow Knew Anything About Blockchain Technology, or Matt Damon, or Any of Them. So yeah, there is some light roasting in there.
IT WAS Kind of Lonely. I was the only one of my celebrity colleagues – maybe there were a couple of orders, but i was the most Vocal, Saying: “This Sems Bad, Guys, Don’t Do.” So, is a way of showing what i was up against at the time.
DID YOUR Book Co-Author Jacob Silverman Work on the Film with You?
No, he pivoted to his new book, which comes out this foll and whoh i’m very excited about. It’s Called Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and The Radicalization of Silicon Valley.
How did you decide on the Balance Between Likely Dry Financial and Technological Explanations and Entertainment Elements in the Film?
That was probably the key challenge: How do we keep the story entertaining and not devilve into a lacture or a bunch of charts and a lot of econ dork stuff? I would love that stuff, but i don’t through the general public does or should. SO we figured out how to do it Through Humor. The Film’s A Comedy. I MEAN, IS HILARYUS THAT I’M THE ONE DOING IT. The Guy from The OC Is The One Trying to Take Down This Trillion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme. WHETHER I SUCCEED OR NOT, WE ALSO KINO OF JOKE ABOUT.
I DID EVERYTHING I COURCE, Got Some Attmentation, and Maybe Didn’t Really Have Much of An Effect at All. Maybe People Still Just Did Whatever they wanted to do. That’s Funny. We Live in an absurd Time.
SO we kept it playful. If You Walk Away from The Film Having Been Entertined – It’s An and A Half, So You’re In, You’re Out – And You Learned That Crypto Is Dumb, Great! Yeah, It Was Super Fun. Some Graphics We used are 1980s Video Game-Stryle Rater Thanks to Explain Crypto to You. That’s whter i THINK THINGS GET LOST, BECAUSE IS NOT REALLY About What It Is. It’s about the story.
WHEN I Wrote This Book, I Was Recorder My Conversations As I Was Reporting Out The Story. And I HAD Other Pieces. But WHEN I FINISHED THE BOOK IN ’23, I NEEDED TO SWITCH OVER to: How Do I Turn This Into A Proper Film with A Narrative Structure? And that’s what we have fun with my trip down the rabbit hole and morena’s view of this. I Think is One of the Things That’s Notted About Enough in Crypto Is Just How Much Women Hate Listening to Men Talk About Crypto. Guys Will Just Drone on and On and On About It.
You have meentned the Word Ponzi Scheme Again in Our Chat, Just Like In Your Senate TESTIMONY. In Case Someone Doesn’T Know The Exact Definition, Who Do You Like Using That Word For Crypto?
I USED IT at Senate Hearing to Communicate The Message As Simplay and As Clearly As Pesible. SO, I WANTED TO USE A WORD EVERYONONE’S FAMILIAR WITH: PONZI SCHEME. The reasonson it accounty desCribes it is that there is no reproduct with crypto, there isn’t a Thing, is not an actual currency [physical assets]. If money is trust, these Things are trustless. They’re bassed on code. You Know That Saying, “If You Can’t Figure Out What The Product Is, You’re It!” It’s Sort of Like Social Media – Your Attic Is The Product.
Ben McKenzie Testifying in the US Senate in ‘Everyone is Lying to You For Money’ CourTesy of ‘everyone is lying to you for money’
I interviewed people who were victims of one of the scams, celsius. And what was interest about it was hearing their stories and finding common ground, but also aso asking them at the end of the Film, “Do you still Believe in Cryptocurrency?” Somes of these people have lost their life savings. But every Single Person Still Believes in It. Every Single Person Who Was A Victim, Who Voluntered to Be In TERVIEWED, SAID THAT. It Varies Person to Person, But They Can Acknowledge that Celsius Was A SCAM, But BELIEVE THAT BITCOIN IS DIFFERENT. I Think that’s Really Interesting. It’s Really More of A Story About Belief.
How Much Do You Discusses Definitions and Issues of Bitcoin Versus Crypto in General in the Film?
I Talk About It in the Book, But It’s Too In The Weeds For the Film.
I Interesting that people have clung to bitcoin. I Think in Part that is Because the Other Stories have Fallen Apart. I mean, the Trump coin is a perfect example of just how’s shady and awful the whol thing is. The New York Times Reported on this: About 800,000 People Have Lost Money in Their Wallets on It, But 50 People Made $ 10 Million or More. That’s exactly how Crypto Works. It’s like you’re gambling, and you Might Win, But You’re Probably Going to Lose – You Are Very Likely to Lose. And the people who make the money are USULY INVOLVED IN THE ENTERPRISE. It’s Just Rife with Fraud and Abuse. And that’s Really The Story That I Wanted to Concentrate On.
Since You Mentioned The Financial Benefit of A Small Group, I Want To Ask You About Technology Oligarchs, or “The Tech Bros,” Suc as Elon Musk Various Countries, Including the Us Howly Is Your Film Given Debates AROUND THAT Issue?
It is Timely. I Feel That’s Bad for the World, But Good For the Film. I was worried that i was going to be too late by the Time I’d Finished the Film, Since All These Crypto Guys Hadten Arrested, and A Lot of Them Were in Prison, and The Price Had Crace Had. But then, in a way that i Never Could have predicted, Trump was re-elected. He’s Embrated Crypto Fully, and so on’s Back Up, and Is Back in the News.
How did you enjoy wRITING AND DIRECTING THE FILM? Could We Seie You Do More of that Sort of Work in Addition To Acting?
IT WAS ACTUALLY MUCH, MUCH HARDER THAN I TONOUGHT, BUT I DO LOVE IT, AND I WOURT LOVE TO DIRECT AGAIN. I Plan to Direct Again. There is no specialized plan, but a goal. It’s Been Really Reward to Watch Both the Book and the Film Start with Just An Idea and Go All The Way Through to the End.
Ben McKenzie and Family in ‘Everyone Is Lying to You For Money’ CourTesy of ‘everyone is lying to you for money’
Is there any things you would like to Highlight?
I Think The Film Is Timely for All The Reasons We Mentioned. But at itts core, is about trust, and it’s about human beings. There’s this fantasy that we can replace something that is inherently human, trust, with technology and with computers and with these fictitios currencies. That’s a lie. We Can’T do it because it doesn’t work that way. I can’t trust this computer. IT’s A Piece of Machinery. I can trust you. I can trust the people that built the machinery or not, and so at the end of the day, i think it’s real -about coming together and finding common ground and finding and rebu.
We’re so divideed, or at least that’s the appearance online. My Experience Meeting Folks in Person, Even People That and Completely Disagree with On Crypto, Was That MOST OF IT WAS ENTIRELY PLEASANT. I THINK THAT’S RELALLY WORTH REFLECTING UPON. That’s Something I Reflect Upon A Lot. Let’s Get Outside of Our Information Silos! Let’s Get Out! Let’s Get Offline and Into the Real World and Take Care of Each Other!