i'm just, fucking, tossing bikes in the river, bruh

INT: You've been doing this for 20 years. Presumably the two of you personally have grown and evolved and had events in your lives in those intervening years; have you diverged from the characters, or do you still feel that they're pretty close to the real Matt and Jay?

JAY: I can always access the Jay that is the Jay in Nirvanna the Band. It's basically just tapping into your deepest, darkest instincts and allowing yourself to just be impulsive and vulnerable, and it's fun to do that. And I think right away when we started this, even when we were kids, we knew how to kind of be vulnerable like that, and we found it very funny, that when it felt very sincere and real, it was contributing to what we liked about shooting the show. Because we liked the sincerity of it.

And I guess, yeah, we've grown up, we've gotten better at making music and films, but we keep each other honest when we shoot it still, even at this age, to sort of make sure that we're still being quite naked with each other. [laughs]

INT: Matt, do you still feel that connection to the Matt character there?

MATT: My answer's slightly different, I feel like the older I get the more I become like that. I think the archetype, it acts on me in the same way that l act on it, because it is very much a shadow of myself. In the same way that Peter Pan chases his own shadow, like that's a pivotal part of that myth, I witness this happening to me. And it's a gift, because it means the older I get, the more connected I am to this adolescent moron, in a way. And I use that term with all due respect, because the ignorance allows this character to be so foolishly optimistic about his own future, the chances of success, gives him the confidence to pitch wild-eyed ideas that really have no basis in reality, yet, again, just might work.

INT: Do you ever feel like the characters hold you back from real-life growth? That as you enter maybe relationships, or financial things, do you feel the Nirvanna Matt and Jay on your shoulder telling you, “That's too...”

MATT: No, it's the exact opposite. Because, I mean, again, it's The Picture of Dorian Gray! It's like the movie versions of us get to die and make these mistakes and do these insane decisions so that we don't need to do them. Right? It's the same as lying in bed and imagining a bad decision and running it out like a video game, and then going, “Yeah, maybe I shouldn't do that.” We get to exorcise our demons!