Actress Gina Carano joins The Ben Shapiro Show: Sunday Special to discuss her firing from The Mandalorian, why it happened, and what it means for the rest of Hollywood. The show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. If you don t like big tech and the government spying on you, you should check out my friends at Express VPN. They do awesome stuff, and you should definitely check them out. Thanks to ExpressVPN for sponsoring the show! To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers Use the promo code: CRIMINALS at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase when you enter the offer. The offer ends on December 31st, 2019. All other promo codes must be redeemable by Dec. 31st at midnight US Eastern Standard Time. Our ad-free version of the show is available on all major podcast directories, including Audible, iTunes, and Podchaser. We post polls, questions and thoughts on all of the social medias, and the results are featured on the episodes as well. Send your voice messages to sws@whatiwatchedtonight.co.uk and we'll get them on the show. Thank you for listening and sharing your thoughts on our podcast! Thanks again for listening Ben Shapiro - Sarah Cradock Music: "Goodbye Outer Space" by Haley Shaw "Outer Space Warning" by Fountains of Sane (featuring "Gina Carano) and "The Good Lady" by Sulli ( ) "Good Morning America" by Vaynerchuk & "AstroTurco (featment "Thank You, Thank You, Good Morning ) " by Fade ( ) (c) & "Gage Carano ( ) & "Peece (Good Morning (Goodbye, Good Night, ) " Thank You (Good Luck, Good Blessance (Good Night, Blessings) " & " & # & Good Morning, Good Luck, Thanks, Thank Me & Good Blessings, Good Love, Good Review & Good Love & Good Review Good Morning & Good Night & Good Rest, & So Much So So Much & Good Effance, Thank So Much, Good Effence, Thank Good Night
00:00:21.000Trained in Muay Thai, and with an impressive 7-1 record in mixed martial arts competition, Gina Carano is seen as the face of women's MMA, paving the way for fighters like Ronda Rousey and Amanda Nunes.
00:00:33.000In 2009, she left professional fighting, but the reputation she carved out led to Hollywood action stardom.
00:00:38.000From her front-and-center role in the knockdown drag-out thriller Haywire, to a superhuman with incredible strength and invincibility in Deadpool, and most notably, as crowd-favorite Cara Dune in the hit Disney Plus show The Mandalorian.
00:00:50.000Gina also happens to be a conservative, but she sure isn't shy about it either.
00:00:54.000Having been very vocal in 2020 on masking mandates, voter fraud, Black Lives Matter, and a particular note right now that's silencing an outrage for those with different views, there was heat from the Twitter mob, repeatedly, often using the hashtag, FireGinaCarano.
00:01:07.000The hashtag swung back around last week.
00:01:11.000Gina has since been fired by Lucasfilm, which is owned by Disney, and has been removed from their flagship show, The Mandalorian.
00:01:16.000Their statement reads, quote, for social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.
00:01:24.000She was dropped by UTA, the talent agency, The Raptor.
00:01:27.000She joins us today to unpack this unbelievable move and Hollywood's hypocrisy.
00:01:31.000We discuss how things escalated to this, if you should be cancelling your Disney Plus account, which trended to the top of Twitter when the news of the firing broke, and whether or not this is the story that will finally break cancel culture's grip on American society.
00:03:20.000And he took me through all of the concept art.
00:03:23.000And he was like, we were here to cast you as a part in our new Disney Plus series, The Mandalorian.
00:03:30.000And how quickly was it apparent to you that politics was going to be a problem either in the production of the show or on set or in any way?
00:03:38.000The interesting thing I think about this whole political thing and me is I've never... I'm not like you.
00:03:47.000I've never been really interested in politics.
00:03:50.000And then as soon as I started seeing what was happening, I guess in 2020, I started looking at like, well, maybe the adults don't have it under control.
00:04:25.000Well, because, you know, I was really upset about the shutdowns.
00:04:28.000I know what it's like to Can you take us through sort of the controversy over the transgender pronoun?
00:04:33.000I know the depression that comes with not working, because my job has been on and off its entire life.
00:04:40.000You know, you got a job and then you sit out a year, and you got a job and you sit out, and not having a job and not having purposes, it's devastating.
00:04:48.000You know, you go through a depression.
00:04:50.000And I think I do good with consistency.
00:04:52.000Can you take us through sort of the controversy over the transgender pronoun?
00:04:56.000Because that was the first time you started really trending on Twitter for politics.
00:04:59.000I ended up putting beep bop boop in my Twitter bio.
00:05:04.000And 100%, it was 100% to go to the Twitter mob that was telling you what to do.
00:05:12.000And it had zero to do with trying to go after the transgender community, because I would never do that.
00:05:19.000I'm not, just me personally, I'm not trying to target anybody or go after anybody.
00:05:24.000And so as soon as I saw people started taking that wrong, you know, I put right after that, I was like, no, Bebop Boop was like me just saying, I literally said to my friend, I was like, you know, Let's put something in my bio just to show I can put whatever I want in my bio, just like they put whatever they want in their bio, like Trash Panda and all this stuff.
00:05:44.000So I just put these noises in my bio, and then there was this crazy meltdown.
00:05:51.000It was just a big, massive meltdown, and all the fear and all of the stuff goes straight through your skin.
00:07:19.000And so I walked, I watched their documentary and I got on the phone with them and they basically were, you know, just two very gentle people and they were like, We're sorry, you know, like you stepped in what they call a gold, a landmine.
00:07:35.000And we can tell, you know, you're not you're not cured against us.
00:07:39.000And they actually reported back to Disney and Lucasfilm.
00:07:43.000You know, they thought it would be a bad idea if they canceled me, you know, or if they let this affect anything.
00:07:51.000Because, you know, I got on the phone with them and I said, hey, I got on Zoom with them and I explained, hey, I just, you know, I don't have any hate in my heart for anyone.
00:08:02.000You know, I just I stepped in the line.
00:08:06.000And and after that, you said before that the the Disney Lucasfilm folks said that you weren't basically to do any press after that for The Mandalorian.
00:08:26.000I wrote out like this massive thing that said, I mean, I have it and everything that I read through it and I was like, oh my gosh, if I put out this statement now, it'd actually be very enlightening to how I was feeling a year ago.
00:08:46.000I think, you know, they thought, you know, I was already taking too much attention off of The Mandalorian, which I, it was not my intention, you know, because I know how hard everybody works on it.
00:08:56.000Because I, I mean, we got down to this like statement within like two words, like almost like two words, this ridiculous thing.
00:09:04.000And they were like, and they just said it was not apologetic enough.
00:09:08.000And I was like, I, I mean, it was shocking.
00:09:16.000They wanted me to get—and all these Lucasfilm employees are railing me on their websites.
00:09:23.000I mean, one of them, a creative director, had a GoFundMe, and in the GoFundMe bio, it was like, this is because our ignorant actress and, you know, and like, it was like, you're—so they wanted me to get on the phone with like 40 of their LGBTQ community.
00:09:43.000And I felt like all these people, all your employees are slandering the hell out of me right now.
00:09:50.000You think I want to get on a video where they can then film it?
00:09:54.000You know, and I felt very kind of insecure about that.
00:09:57.000So what I offered them was, you know, the restaurants at the time had, you know, started opening back up and I was like, let me take, you know, four or five of them out to dinner and it'd be, you know, a person to person.
00:10:08.000You can look me in my eyes, I can look you in your eyes, and let's have a genuine conversation.
00:10:12.000And I think it's also a bit abusive that you want me to talk to 40 people and hear 40 people that have been slandering, and maybe not all of them have been slandering me, but a lot of them probably had.
00:10:28.000And it was just like, wait, I don't feel like I really deserve this, you know?
00:10:38.000I mean, don't you guys see what's happening online?
00:10:56.000And I actually asked the LGBTQ community leaders for the trans section.
00:11:01.000I was like, why don't you guys address that?
00:11:04.000It might be healthier if you address what's happening, the aggressive push.
00:11:10.000And they didn't really have an answer to that.
00:11:12.000So in a second, I want to ask you about how that ended up playing out over the subsequent few months, because we're moving through the sort of timeline here.
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00:12:28.000Alright, so let's talk about what happened next.
00:12:33.000So, you had this run-in with the higher-ups with regard to LGBTQ issues.
00:12:38.000That was essentially solved, but at the same time they told you not to go on the press junkets and they didn't want you speaking to the press.
00:12:45.000And then things, it seems like we're pretty quiet up until about November.
00:12:48.000And The Hollywood Reporter later came out and they reported that Disney Plus and Lucasfilm were thinking about a spinoff for The Mandalorian where you would have a big role.
00:12:55.000They're going to present that to investors.
00:12:57.000And they decided that they were essentially going to kill that based on a couple of social media posts that you put up in November, particularly one with regard to voter fraud and then one with regard to masks.
00:13:08.000So can you talk a little bit about that?
00:13:30.000And I asked her, I'm like, do you think you can take off your glasses so we can I can look you in your eyes and so we can have a conversation?
00:13:36.000Because, you know, she was like, ready to hate me, I think.
00:13:41.000And then, you know, we went and we then sat down on the couch and we had a lovely conversation.
00:13:46.000And she said, look, you you offered a logical answer to an emotional response.
00:14:15.000You know, my logical answer was, you know, you guys kind of misinterpreted that and there also is this massive mob out there that's just bullying people left and right.
00:14:25.000So I had a great conversation with her and she left beaming and I, you know, it was a great conversation.
00:14:39.000And that really is, even according to the sources that have talked to the Hollywood media, essentially what happened is that they were still getting ready to feature you in the Disney shareholder meeting and all of this, and then decided that they were not going to do any of that.
00:14:56.000And according to people speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, they decided months in advance that they were essentially looking for an excuse to get rid of you.
00:15:04.000Or how did you find out that they had decided not to bring you on for more at Disney+, and Lucasfilm?
00:15:12.000You know, like boxers headhunt sometimes and they forget to go to the body.
00:15:15.000I feel like Disney or Lucasfilm or whoever it is, maybe Just certain people in that company.
00:15:25.000I feel like I've been being headhunted for the last, I don't know how many months.
00:15:31.000And you can feel it, you know, like just a couple weeks ago, Lucasfilm asked an artist that they employ to erase my character and put a different character in place.
00:15:44.000And, you know, he proudly announces this on Twitter and erases my character and puts, you know, another character in place.
00:15:52.000And all of the fans of Paradoon were just outraged.
00:15:56.000They're like, why didn't you just add the character?
00:15:59.000Why did you have to take off the character?
00:16:13.000It's not like I mean I'm not the only one that's ever been bullied by this company and I know that I know that so deeply that I could share a story and it would turn things around in the media but I can't do that because it would be selling out.
00:16:34.000A friend that I don't really have the same views as, but I'm not gonna, you know, sell out somebody to take the attention off me.
00:16:44.000So if that person says something about how hard I went to bat for that person, it would change things.
00:16:56.000Everybody's afraid of losing their job.
00:16:58.000So they announced publicly that you're not coming back after this post that you put on social media.
00:17:04.000And we'll get to the contents of the post in just a second.
00:17:06.000Did they ever come to you and ask for an apology?
00:17:07.000Did they ever come to you and coordinate with you in any way?
00:17:10.000Or did you just essentially pick up a newspaper one day and you read that you were no longer on the show?
00:17:15.000I looked on the Internet and, you know, you check your Twitter and I'm trending and the fire Gina Corona hashtag worked.
00:17:24.000So, Disney never contacted you and asked for some sort of back down or some sort of explanation.
00:17:28.000It was just, you're done and you find out essentially the same way everybody else did?
00:17:33.000I mean, I saw somebody from the company accidentally sent me a conversation that they were tracking the Fiery Gina Crono hashtag on content that had nothing to do with me.
00:17:48.000It was actually, like, had zero to do with me.
00:17:52.000All of a sudden, I always get thrown in the mix.
00:17:54.000Like, okay, so this is trending, but let's put her in there.
00:18:05.000I knew that there were some people that went to bat for me.
00:18:10.000But I know that they didn't really win out in the end.
00:18:13.000So let's talk about some of the controversial social media posts, because I think it's good for you to be able to explain exactly what you meant by this, since people have deliberately misinterpreted nearly everything.
00:18:27.000There was the one right after the election in which you essentially said something that I think virtually all conservatives believe, which is if you want to stop voter fraud, you need a voter ID.
00:18:33.000We need to tighten up the voter procedures.
00:18:35.000For some reason, people found this very controversial.
00:18:38.000So that one seems fairly self-explanatory to me.
00:18:41.000Yeah, well it was my, this is not something I say with pride, but it was my first time voting.
00:18:45.000I have never voted before, and I know I'm late to the game here, but I just, I never really thought that it counted, and I really I just, politicians had never really turned me on, and so I don't pay attention to things that don't really turn me on.
00:19:05.000I pay my taxes, and I pay a lot of taxes, and so I just figure, okay, I'm doing my duty, and I'm just going to keep on fighting.
00:19:12.000What I've been trying to do is just get my career going, keep on, like, plugging through to where I can get, you know, this bigger opportunity.
00:20:00.000Like, this is an important thing that I'm trying to do right now.
00:20:02.000I'm actually like, I want this to count.
00:20:05.000And so that was very confusing for me.
00:20:09.000And so when the election, you know, happened and everything was, I was just like, wait, Why like I feel like there's a lot of outrage about this and I don't I think this is confusing to me as a newcomer into this and so I just I just thought well the experience I went through is like there was no ID there was no cameras it was on the beach actually it was like in this little like hut on the beach and it was very you know I just
00:20:38.000I thought that this could be a positive thing and we should probably jump on this now if this would ever be a future.
00:20:43.000You know, because people in 2016 were talking about it.
00:20:47.000So it's not something that nobody was ever talking about.
00:20:50.000And so I was like, well, let's get to the point as a nation where we don't have to really question this anymore, because I think that's a really dangerous thing.
00:20:59.000And I wanted it to be like, OK, this is your new president or this is the remaining president.
00:21:03.000And let's get past it and join and go.
00:21:06.000And it didn't stop at, you know, it didn't stop from there.
00:21:10.000And I wanted everything to stop from there.
00:21:11.000And so that's why I put out that post.
00:21:13.000So as I say, that one was, to my eyes, very uncontroversial.
00:21:16.000Then you put up one that, again, was fairly commonplace thought in conservative circles.
00:21:21.000You put up a meme about taking the mask off your eyes so you can see what's really going on.
00:21:25.000And the way I interpreted that, and virtually every other conservative I know, was all you were saying is that a lot of the stuff that's been presented about COVID has been exaggerated or not based on science or based on politics.
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00:24:12.000Let's talk about the social media post that brought the world down around your ears.
00:24:16.000This is a social media post in which, essentially, you were making the argument that bad things, the way you treat your neighbor, can slide over into actual oppression of your neighbor.
00:24:25.000So there's a picture of a woman, a Jewish woman in the Holocaust running away from Germans, and the caption essentially made the argument that Nazis didn't start by killing people and common Germans didn't start by going along with the Holocaust.
00:24:39.000This all started by people dehumanizing people who lived next door to them.
00:24:42.000And the reaction to this was that somehow you were attempting to downplay the Holocaust or that you were comparing Republicans to Holocaust victims or something like that.
00:24:51.000I want to give you a chance to sort of explain what you were thinking and what you meant by that.
00:24:54.000I am so inspired by the gentle spirit of the Jewish people going through that time.
00:25:03.000I think I watched this older Holocaust survivor, her court case, and they found this old Nazi man, and he was old, and they rolled him in on a stretcher and really played this up.
00:25:56.000The Post never said anything about Republicans or conservatives.
00:25:59.000It doesn't say anything about that in there.
00:26:01.000It was more about like, you know, people tearing each other apart.
00:26:05.000And I thought it would be more of a thing where, you know, bring people together.
00:26:09.000I was like, oh, this is like, you know, bring people together.
00:26:12.000But now after hearing so much, you know, and I'm actually grown through the experience of just knowing that You know, that's, it's not fair to the Jewish community to, to, you know, just throw this out here so much, you know, like when you say the word Nazi and when you call someone a Nazi and, and, you know, you need to have a little bit more respect on it.
00:26:44.000But it was in no way my intention, you know, I've got every single big publication saying she's comparing conservatives and Republicans to this.
00:26:53.000And that's not really what I was doing.
00:26:56.000I was saying we as a people, because I still am very fresh to this political spectrum.
00:27:40.000But I have a big problem with bullies and I have a big problem with, you know, I don't have a problem with power.
00:27:46.000I have a huge problem with abuse of power.
00:27:50.000Well, I mean, it was obvious to everybody, and I said this to you when we first spoke, that it was obvious that this had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
00:27:58.000The Post obviously was not anti-Semitic.
00:27:59.000You'd have to completely twist the Post backwards in order to get to the idea that it was anti-Semitic, since it was specifically decrying the treatment of Jews.
00:28:07.000It was saying, what happened to Jews was evil, and this should never happen again, and that's why you should be careful about how you treat your neighbor.
00:28:14.000The Jewish community is, I think, properly very sensitive about Holocaust comparisons.
00:28:17.000And so, you know, I myself on my show said that we have to be careful about when we invoke the Holocaust.
00:28:22.000Disney Plus and Lucasfilm don't care how you invoke the Holocaust if you happen to be of a different political persuasion.
00:28:28.000I pointed out on Twitter right away, as soon as this broke, that Pedro Pascal, who is your co-star in The Mandalorian, the lead in that show, that Pedro Pascal had put out a Holocaust meme in 2018 in which he not only Got the facts wrong.
00:28:42.000He actually posted a picture from not the American border in 2018 and called it America 2018.
00:28:46.000He then compared the treatment of migrant children in 2018 to victims of the Holocaust in 1941, which is absolutely absurd on every level.
00:28:56.000And of course, Disney Plus and Lucasfilm had no problem with that whatsoever.
00:29:37.000I know he's said and done some hurtful things.
00:29:40.000I don't think that posting anybody's number on social media is okay, but I know that, you know, he thinks a lot of the stuff that I post, you know, like, but there's so much love there still, you know?
00:29:53.000And we had an agreement after we realized we were a little bit politically different.
00:29:59.000We had an agreement that first and foremost, you're a human being.
00:30:47.000Well, I don't think anybody thinks any different.
00:30:49.000I think that the disparate treatment is the part that was kind of shocking.
00:30:52.000It was like one meme that invoked the Holocaust to say we shouldn't treat each other badly is fireable.
00:30:58.000And the other meme that compares Americans, you know, trying to deal with a problem of migrant children at the border to the Holocaust, that is perfectly acceptable to Disney Plus and Lucasfilm.
00:31:08.000And then you saw the back-filled sort of post-facto explanation, because it became very clear to even a lot of members of sort of the traditional liberal camp that what had just happened to you was wrong.
00:31:16.000You had people like Jonathan Chait, who is a traditional liberal, saying that this is like McCarthyism.
00:31:20.000You had people who are traditionally liberal saying that this is, it's a mistake, the censorship of a particular point of view, and that it was pretty obvious that you were being Silenced and cancelled because you were conservative.
00:31:32.000And so at that point you saw the left swing into action and start resurfacing old media posts and then declaring those anti-semitic.
00:31:38.000So this is when they resurfaced a December 2020 post that was a meme of essentially a bunch of old men, no distinguishing anti-Semitic features, which we'll discuss in a second, sitting over a Monopoly board.
00:31:51.000And the meme said something like, and the Monopoly board is sitting on the backs of people who appear to be slaves.
00:31:56.000And the meme says something like, if they stand up, if we all stand up, the game is over.
00:32:00.000And the implication was made that this was an anti-Semitic meme and that you had known it was an anti-Semitic meme when it was posted.
00:32:06.000So I want to give you a chance to explain what you were thinking when you posted that meme.
00:32:10.000Because just for those who don't know, the history of the meme itself, it was a meme that was posted by allies of Jeremy Corbyn, essentially in Great Britain.
00:32:18.000The original meme had very Semitic featured people who's fairly obviously anti-Semitic.
00:32:22.000It had, you know, characters essentially from Der Sturmer, the Nazi newspaper with the hooked noses and the EDIs and all this.
00:32:28.000This version that you posted didn't have any of that.
00:32:30.000So if you were not very deeply into politics, it's very difficult to imagine that you would even make that connection.
00:32:35.000And so, so usually I like to post, I like to post think pieces.
00:32:40.000And what I found is those, those are what get me in the trouble the most, because that's when everybody starts putting their opinion out there.
00:32:47.000It's like, you know, like the last post, they're like, Oh, look at, look what she said.
00:32:51.000And I was like, Why don't you guys do your homework a little better?
00:32:55.000Like, it doesn't say Republican and Conservative in that post, you know?
00:33:00.000And so when people started saying that that, the game, where everybody would just stand up, I thought that, once again, I thought that was something that we could all join in on.
00:33:11.000And I had no idea, obviously no idea, that the original one had been Like, I didn't know who those men were, but then I saw what they were saying, and then I saw the post, and I saw the picture, and they were two different pictures.
00:33:34.000Like, do I take that down when it's not the same picture, but the origins were?
00:33:40.000Because the idea in itself is that if we all join together, once again, like my other one, we all join together and stand up.
00:33:48.000If you really go through what I'm posting, I post something because I want people to think, you know, and I want to hear what people have to think.
00:33:58.000And when people People are calling me, I've been called so much, I've been called racist, I've been called transphobe, I've been called homophobe, I've been called now anti-semitic, and I'm like, I don't take those lightly.
00:34:16.000Like you're calling me my soul, the blood that runs through me.
00:37:37.000That's the wrong thing to procrastinate on, because if you wait too long, it is Absolutely too late.
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00:38:06.000So in the middle of this, obviously, we here at Daily Wire had been foraying into the film industry.
00:38:11.000We had released our first film a little bit earlier this year, Run, Hide, Fight.
00:38:15.000And when we saw that you were trending, My business partner Jeremy and I, we thought, the first thing we thought was, number one, somebody should reach out to Gina because she's getting maligned unfairly.
00:38:26.000But number two, we should reach out to Gina because this is an opportunity for conservatives and people who think differently to say to Hollywood that you're not allowed to just cancel whomever you want.
00:38:36.000And I mean, I have to say that I was amazed at how readily you were willing to jump into a project with Derelicts like us and willing to get involved in one of our projects because it is a unique thing.
00:38:49.000I mean, in Hollywood, typically the advice is keep your head down, make an apology.
00:38:53.000Maybe in three, four years, you can sort of wheedle your way back into the industry.
00:38:57.000You were basically ready to go from the moment I gave you a call.
00:39:00.000Wanted to get your perspective on that.
00:39:01.000Well, because, you know, and my newfound, you know, finding my political voice, you're actually one of the people I found, as well as a bunch of, you're actually, your book was the first one I read.
00:39:14.000And it just really kind of, it was so simple that it really kind of explained like the events in such a, you know, in such a good way to where it was like, it just felt logical.
00:40:38.000But the thought of this happening to anybody else, especially like somebody who could not handle this the way I can, no, they don't get to do that.
00:40:53.000They don't get to make people feel like that.
00:40:56.000And if I buckle, then little girls and little boys who are not getting a good, fair shake at growing up right now, if I buckle, it's going to make it okay for these companies, who have a history of lying, to be lying and to do this to other people.
00:41:22.000And I'm not going down without a fight.
00:41:25.000Well, we couldn't be more excited to be working with you, obviously.
00:41:28.000And you can see that the left is creating a whole new cottage industry for us, because as they keep canceling people for no good reason, we are perfectly happy to work with talented people of every stripe, especially after the left decides that they are terrible by having differing points of view.
00:41:42.000So I want to backtrack here a little bit and talk about how you even got into acting in the first place, because you have the most unique acting story that I know of.
00:41:52.000You started by hitting people in the face.
00:42:13.000Oh, well, definitely not by my family's approval.
00:42:18.000My family actually did everything they could to make sure that that first sanctioned fight in Las Vegas for a female women's MMA match did not happen.
00:42:28.000And so I was having to go through all these extra tests, and I found out who I love so much, my Papa Don, who passed away, and my dad, who's still around, had called the Athletic Commission.
00:42:39.000And my dad used to serve on the Athletic Commission, so they were So I was going through some extra tests because he did not want me to be a fighter.
00:42:46.000They wanted me to really go to school and become a doctor, a lawyer, and my family is the type of family on both sides.
00:43:25.000I am able to walk away from a fight, but when I realize it has something to do with somebody else, and there's this hot blood that goes through me, then things happen.
00:43:38.000But so, yeah, I just started fighting and I loved it.
00:43:42.000It's like all of the bad things I was doing and all that.
00:43:45.000I've had friends shot in the head and left in the desert.
00:43:48.000I have been stabbed in the head and left in the desert in Las Vegas.
00:44:15.000I'm actually like, it's hard for me, you know, performing or talking and having things.
00:44:21.000But I think I'm getting a little bit better at it.
00:44:25.000So I will admit, although you probably couldn't tell, being that I am such an Adonis-like figure, an amazing Greek god of masculine power, I'm not a person who's done a lot of fighting.
00:44:43.000In any case, what is it like to be a professional fighter?
00:44:46.000That's always been fascinating to me because as somebody who went to Jewish day school and basically fights consisted of people randomly wailing on each other without any sort of real form.
00:44:58.000Let's put it this way, no one from my Jewish day school ended up as a professional fighter.
00:45:02.000So what is it like being a professional fighter?
00:45:05.000What's it like walking into a ring and knowing that you have to beat the hell out of somebody else in order to win?
00:45:08.000Well, I think it starts in walking into a gym.
00:45:12.000And the most beautiful thing about walking into a mixed martial arts gym is It doesn't matter what color you are, what religion you are, if you're a cop or if you're not, it doesn't matter who you are.
00:45:24.000You get into that gym and you start training together and it's the full, it's everybody in that gym.
00:45:29.000And, you know, you get humbled every single day.
00:45:32.000And then you learn how to, like, be a part of a team.
00:45:35.000And then you start taking care of each other.
00:45:37.000And then you start seeing, I mean, you see all the weaknesses of, like, you know, the ego flare-ups and then, like, you know, wait, okay, so, you know, you really have to balance your ego.
00:45:54.000I love genuine and I love real human beings.
00:45:57.000And so that was like a place of like, everybody in this, you know, everybody belongs here.
00:46:04.000And the fighting part, that was, that was hard.
00:46:07.000But there's nothing like facing a fear, you know, and it's very intimate.
00:46:14.000It's like I'm attracted to intimacy as well.
00:46:18.000So when you look across a ring and you're looking at that person's eyes, you know this is all about to get very real and it's only going to be me and you and there's going to be a genuine interaction.
00:46:43.000I just, since I had been in fights growing up, I have an incredible, I have an incredible chin.
00:46:53.000I'm like my nose, I think, you know, it's just like it takes if I bleed, you know, I'm hurting because I'm not a bleeder and my chin is just good.
00:47:03.000So I have this special little talent that I have.
00:47:07.000I hit pretty hard and like I've been like I've been very complimented on how hard I can hit.
00:47:19.000And so I just became addicted to it and I still have a little bit of an addiction to it.
00:47:26.000Do you still do MMA in your spare time?
00:47:29.000My whole garage is like, my whole life I have so many friends that are fighters and they're so real.
00:47:36.000Like you point a camera at them and it's like effortless because they haven't sold themselves, you know?
00:47:54.000Like being a part of Hollywood, you know, people are stabbing you in the back left and right and people are willing to cut your throat just to get another job.
00:48:01.000And you're like, whoa, like I've never been that way.
00:48:35.000And so, like, I kind of just, like, exited, like, the tryouts and I jumped in my Impala and I drove, was driving back to Vegas from L.A.
00:48:43.000And the producers were calling me up and they always I keep in touch with them sometimes and they're like, aren't you glad we made you do that?
00:48:49.000And I finally picked up and the producer was like, Gina, please come back.
00:49:08.000And I was like, okay, but I still don't really want to do it.
00:49:12.000And it took them four phone calls in order for me to like, you know, I showed up the day of filming and they hadn't even gotten an outfit for me and I showed up and like, they ended up using me for almost everything, like physical, like the wrestling and the pyramid and everything.
00:49:30.000You know, just because you got muscles doesn't mean you'd be so athletic.
00:49:32.000So I was, it was such a fun job and I'm glad I did it.
00:49:35.000So what is your sort of daily workout regimen like now?
00:49:40.000Well, for the last week it was a little bit of prying in bed.
00:49:42.000I mean, I do want people to know that, you know, this, this has not been easy.
00:49:52.000And I think, you know, I have, I'm a human being.
00:50:08.000And so that's been a very large realization.
00:50:12.000So I do think when this does happen to people, it's like, you know, being canceled might become trendy one day.
00:50:19.000But don't think that when it happens to you, it's going to be easy because it's not.
00:50:25.000It's going to be maybe possibly one of the hardest things that you've ever been through.
00:50:29.000But I think, you know, each day that goes by, You kind of stand up and you find your legs again and you stop feeling sorry for yourself and you show up.
00:50:41.000You show up to an awesome opportunity with people who want you to sit at their table, you know?
00:50:48.000I think it was Nina Simone that said something along the lines of, you need to understand when love is no longer being served at the table.
00:50:59.000So you need to understand when to leave.
00:51:02.000And okay, I'm not going to shove myself down anybody's throats.
00:51:12.0002020 was a very emotional year for a lot of people.
00:51:17.000Okay, I'll get up and find another table and hopefully invite more people to that table because I'm about love and real, true diversity.
00:51:29.000What was it like to move from MMA to Hollywood?
00:51:32.000How did that transition actually happen?
00:51:34.000So moving from LA to Hollywood, I had just lost the biggest fight of my life, which that was another time where I was kind of feeling like staying in bed for a week.
00:51:42.000There was some controversy around that fight, no?
00:51:44.000With regard to the person who you were fighting?
00:52:32.000I love putting out things where it's like, think about it.
00:52:34.000and new because I being an athlete it's like you always have to be yourself out in front of everybody and I've always been really attracted to art because I think art really does change the world you know I love art I love putting out things where it's like think about it and everybody sees it differently that's Everybody feels it differently and everybody finds different movies and shows and art and they find them at different points in their life and it's their expression of who they are.
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00:55:06.000And they understand that it is a challenge to the Hollywood system, not just because we're making entertainment, which they're excited about, but because it really is a challenge to the monopoly that Hollywood has where they get to decide who can work and who cannot.
00:55:17.000And people are excited to be part of the fight.
00:55:18.000What's the response that you've been getting?
00:55:20.000The response has been basically that's that's why I think I've been in tears, you know, like this overwhelming People sending me, I mean, when I am at like my lowest, people are like pulling me up in droves.
00:55:43.000And, you know, so many people are like, they're contacting me.
00:55:48.000They're like, you know, Gina, you're so brave.
00:55:53.000And I just think, oh man, you should be more afraid that you're being made to feel afraid for what you think.
00:56:03.000That's what should make you feel afraid because we got, I got two new nieces and one on the way.
00:56:10.000I don't have any children, but that sets in for me.
00:56:14.000You know, I got to make this place a better place for these kids.
00:56:21.000So many people are contacting me in these people's companies.
00:56:30.000So it's not necessarily, by the way, it's not necessarily like who you think it is.
00:56:36.000It's people that you might not think it is.
00:56:39.000And, you know, so don't start going for everybody that might have been supportive for me because You'd be surprised how many people are into this.
00:56:50.000The fans and people have rallied behind me and spoken with their voice and made their voice heard.
00:56:57.000And I am I'm I feel so stripped in a way of like, like I feel so down.
00:57:04.000But at the same time, I have this the biggest fire inside of me because I feel the need for this.
00:57:13.000For people, they're drinking it like it's water.
00:57:23.000And just like, you know, I've been saying, like, you know, it's gonna suck, but you defend one person, you see how they treat you, you understand what people have been going through that are getting canceled, especially people, you know, that maybe probably didn't deserve it, you know.
00:57:43.000You'll experience it for yourself, and then you'll be a better person for it.
00:57:47.000Because I have to get to the end of my life, as we all do, and I have to meet my maker.
00:57:54.000And so when I get there, like, now that's more, like, I want to be able, when I show up there, I can be proud of that.
00:58:04.000So, you know, that's my life goal now.
00:58:58.000I have a lot of friends who work in Hollywood at the highest levels.
00:59:01.000And when I get together with them, we have a rule, which is that we used to get together at the Coffee Bean on the corner of Coldwater and Ventura Boulevard.
00:59:09.000And we wore baseball caps and we'd go early on a Sunday morning because the idea was that if we were ever spotted publicly together, then these people would be canceled.
00:59:18.000Somebody new to the political world, I mean, I'm sitting there thinking, I'm listening to a lot of you guys, and I'm like, you guys were making the most sense to me, that was all.
00:59:28.000You guys seemed intelligent, well-spoken, you're speaking some truth, you're calling out hard truths, and that's why I was like, okay, that's why I kind of have found myself on this side, I guess.
00:59:43.000But I would go down to a barbecue on the beach in California and all these people are like, hey, we agree with you.
01:00:01.000That is certainly the attitude in Hollywood.
01:00:04.000I mean, it is overwhelming in Hollywood.
01:00:06.000And the number of people who are in positions of real power in Hollywood who agree with us on politics is not insignificant.
01:00:13.000There are a significant number of people in power, but they also understand that their career is on the line and they're deeply afraid that their number is going to get pulled next.
01:01:06.000You know, I just, I felt that what was happening, the silencing that was happening, the fear of having open conversations that was happening.
01:01:17.000I feel like that was insanely wrong, and I don't want people to be afraid.
01:01:49.000The crew and me are always the best friends.
01:01:52.000Well, and that's the point that I was going to make, is that, you know, when they cancel you, you're a top-of-the-line person and you have a lot of name cache, you're very famous, you're very popular.
01:02:00.000And so for us to make a move with you made a lot of sense.
01:02:03.000But our goal here is to build something that's big enough where if somebody who's below the line gets canceled, That person has a place to go, because those are the people who, first of all, are disproportionately conservative.
01:02:11.000A huge number of people who are the actual people who make things go on a set are conservative.
01:02:15.000And those are the people who also have the most to lose in a way, because those are the people who, if they get canceled in Hollywood, it's not like they can necessarily walk across the street to a nascent startup and make that happen.
01:02:25.000Hopefully we can build something where those people don't have to live in fear that one day they might be caught listening to the wrong podcast and get booted off the set and they're just the grip.
01:03:56.000Well, it is, again, amazing that the same company that has decided that you are too much to work with is thanking the government of China in a province where they are committing genocide against Uighur Muslims at the end of Mulan.
01:04:09.000So clearly they have the double standard is extraordinarily strong.