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The Film Nuts Podcast
Your host Taylor D. Adams talks to artists, musicians, writers and others about their favorite films and shows, and asks them to share how they have been inspired or affected. Hopefully we can get to the root of why we love what we watch, why we’re crazy about a movie or *nuts* about a show…get it?
The Film Nuts Podcast
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN with Javier Leiva
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Have you ever been captivated by a criminal mastermind, only to find out their story was woven from lies? Join me as I sit down with Javier Leiva of the Pretend Podcast to peel away the layers of Frank Abagnale Jr.'s life, a story made famous by Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can. We grapple with the complex emotions of discovering that a tale we've rooted for might be a fabrication. Javier, who has faced Abagnale himself, shares his insight into the thrill of unmasking impostors, enveloping us in the enthralling world of those who deceive for a living.
Notey Notes:
Javier confronts Frank Abagnale Jr.
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Hi, I'm Taylor and welcome back to the Film. That's why guest a show about why we love what we watch. It's been a very nice break. I'm glad to be back talking about more of your favorite films and TV shows. So let's get to it.
Taylor D. Adams:We all love rooting for the Little Guy, the underdog, the character that has the odds stacked against them but ends up succeeding no matter the obstacles in their way. And we love it even more when these stories are based on true events. But what if that inspirational true story turned out to be completely made up? Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if you Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, tells the supposedly true story of teenage con artist Frank Abagnale Jr, who successfully poses as a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer and manages to cash millions of dollars in bad checks against big corporations. It's a fun cat and mouse caper filled with charm and wit. But my guest today is on a mission to reveal the actual true story of Frank Abagnale Jr.
Taylor D. Adams:Javier Leiva hosts the Pretend Podcast, a show about real people pretending to be somebody else people like con artists. Javier's show consistently ranks as one of the top true crime podcasts in the US, uk, canada, australia, and he even has an entire season of the Pretend Podcast dedicated to the actual true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. It's mind-blowing, trust me. But despite Javier unveiling that Catch Me If you Can is almost an entire work of fiction, it's still one of his favorite movies. Obviously, I had to know why, so I invited Javier here to the studio. Javier and I chat about the joys of recording in person if it's possible to escape through an airplane toilet and see how he actually physically confronted Frank Abagnale Jr. So let's see what all this fuss is about. Here's Javier Leva talking about Catch Me If you Can on the Film Nuts podcast.
Javier Leiva:You know I'd prefer to have everything in person, but I think it's after the pandemic and shutdown it really, you know, limited to who you could talk to and then Zoom kind of exploded and all these video chat services exploded. So I have a knack for hunting people down digitally instead of like in person. But I always pick one or two series a year that I fly out to do the reporting and all that. Yeah, because there's nothing replaces those little moments, little sounds that you get when you're out on the field.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, yeah.
Javier Leiva:You know I remember shooting. I went down to Mississippi once to interview this bounding hunter and he's flipping through all these warrants of people he has to arrest and stuff like that and you hear the paper rustling.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, the problem. You can't replace that Like the tactile. Yeah, you don't get that over Zoom, you know? Yeah, even if you put it in a post, it's just not the same. No, it's not. And now was that for Pretend Pod.
Javier Leiva:Yeah, yeah, and it's great because then you get to know the people in a deeper level, like I went to have lunch with him, we recorded, I just set the recorder down there we're eating waffles, the waitress knows him. You know what I mean. Like those little moments just can't get if you're just doing a remote interview.
Taylor D. Adams:So how did this curiosity and fashion fascination for con artists come about for you?
Javier Leiva:That's a great question, because I don't like true crime and I'm not. I am fascinated with con artists now, but I wasn't always. The quick story is that I had created this idea for a podcast called Pretend and it was really about performing arts and people pretending to be someone else, like ghost writers and standup comedians and, you know, people on in the theater. So it was never about con artists. But then I went down to Miami to visit my family for Christmas and everybody has a black sheep in the family. Are you the black sheep? No, but the black sheep of the family. His name, you know, it's my cousin, you know. And he was about to go to federal prison and we all were curious. We all knew he was the bad things, but we didn't know exactly what he did. So I sat down with him and I said, hey, do you mind?
Javier Leiva:if I record our conversation and he just told me for like two it seemed like two hours, maybe it was more he told me everything from the time he was a small time crook, breaking into cars, to breaking into houses, to then staging insurance fraud like accidents and then to buying a medical clinic, hiring a real doctor, writing opioid prescriptions to drug dealers that they could sell out into the streets. And I was just like are you kidding me? Wow.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah.
Javier Leiva:And I said OK, I said this is what the podcast is about. It's about con artists, because he is such a sharp and Cubans and the CHs and the SHS man. He's so charming and he could you know when you're around him. He's so friendly and he could just charm the pants out of you. And at the same time, this is a guy that was heading to federal prison. He's OK, by the way, now he's out of prison. He's an entrepreneur using all those con artists skills, but like for legitimate business, as far as we know.
Taylor D. Adams:Well, yeah, hope everything stays on the level yeah.
Javier Leiva:But he inspired the podcast and at that moment on I was like, ok, this is about con artists. And I was like it's such a flawed idea to like if I would have really thought about it, I probably would have never done this podcast. Because, think about it, once you do one episode about con artists and the show is called pretend that everyone you interview is going to know that you're interviewing them because you think they're a con artist. And I was like nobody's going to want to come on my show. No one's ever going to. And here we are, like 16 seasons later and I've talked to a lot of con artists and I'm always surprised that they come, they want to talk to me, they want to tell their side of the story and it's fascinating fascinating that this thing is still going.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah Well, congratulations. 16 seasons yeah, really cool and really impressive, as someone who's in the middle of his fourth.
Javier Leiva:I don't know how it happens, man, you just got to keep doing it.
Taylor D. Adams:Speaking of con artists. This is. This is wild to me, because when I asked you to come on the show and you're so gracious with your time and I asked you what movie you wanted to talk about, your instinctual answer was catch me, if you can. I knew you had done. Got it, the hard physical copy, that's right.
Taylor D. Adams:I know you had done a lot of work around the mystery of Frank Abagnale, yeah. So first of all, I'm curious as if, if this is One of your favorite movies, or is it a movie that has just consumed a large portion of your career life because of your investigation into the real Frank Abagnale?
Javier Leiva:Both Okay. Yeah, I loved the movie way before I knew the true story of Frank Abagnale. I still love the movie. I watched the movie, enjoy it, but in a different way. Right, it hits differently now that I know the truth about Frank Abagnale. But it doesn't take away from the quality of the movie and the acting and the way Steven Spielberg put it together. I mean it's still one of the best movies in my opinion.
Taylor D. Adams:And for our audience, who maybe doesn't know the truth about Frank Abagnale, can you I know you've got a whole season of podcasts dedicated to it Can you boil it down to like two paragraphs of what actually happened?
Javier Leiva:Well, I wonder if this says based on a true story. I don't know, but it was marketed as a true story. It doesn't say it on the, yeah, the extraordinary true story of a brilliant young master of deception. Well, everyone knows that if it's based on a true story, Hollywood has to fudge it a little bit. They got to, like, condense characters and consolidate them and then maybe console, compress a timeline. Some things are true, some things are maybe not true, but we generally think that most of the story must be true, right, and that's not the case with Catch Me, if you Can. It is completely fictional story. Okay, and that's because the guy, frank Abragnell, the real guy, he made up maybe 90% of that story, of his life story, like he never did any of the things that he says.
Taylor D. Adams:Because the movie's based on his autobiography. Right, right right?
Javier Leiva:yeah, exactly, it's not like Steven Spielberg saw this guy down the street. He wrote in the early 80s. He wrote an autobiography called Catch Me If you Can and it tells this wild story of Frank Abragnell posing as a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, a professor all while he was from the age of 16 to 21. And he's playing this game of cat and mouse with FBI. Eventually the FBI captures him, throws him in prison and then they get him out of prison and recruit him and he starts working for the FBI. He claims he wrote $2.5 million in bad checks. Just an amazing story, really.
Javier Leiva:But then you start thinking about it. How can a 16-year-old pull all this off? And when you start digging in and looking into his story, it turns out that some of it is real but most of it is completely made up. And there's a guy, an author, named Alan Logan and he wrote this great book about Frank Abragnell's real life story and it didn't get much traction in the media, like they wrote about it a little bit here and there. But this guy did this amazing expose, didn't get a lot of traction. I didn't really believe it at the time. And Alan Logan said listen, do your own research. Try to recreate my research, and everything that I found about Frank Abragnell is publicly available information. You could go right now and get it, request those documents and you'll see that the guy made up most of the story.
Taylor D. Adams:So he was challenging you to almost like recreate the research that he had done.
Javier Leiva:Yeah, it was crazy, and so I was like sure, I'll take you up on your challenge. And so I pulled a lot of the same documents that he did. He shared some with me, but for the smoking gun I was able to pull myself and it was a prison card, this little yellow piece of paper, and it says Frank Abragnell and has dates on it. And the dates are important because it proves that he was in prison from the age of 16 to 21, in and out of prison right.
Javier Leiva:Which means it's impossible for him to have pulled off the stunts that he claims he did. Ok, so then that's interesting, right, but what's even more interesting is what really happened, and that's where the story takes a wild turn, because not only is the story not true, but what he was really up to was just completely bonkers.
Taylor D. Adams:Well, let's see yeah. I don't want to like you to recreate your own podcast on this podcast, but like what are some of the things that he was up to?
Javier Leiva:Well, ok, so let's talk about the things that are true. Ok, some of the things that are true. He did pose as a pilot.
Javier Leiva:He went and got a pilot costume Not a uniform or a costume and he would take rides on other planes. So like, let's say, he was a Pan Am pilot and he would go on another airline's jump seat right, and so then he would get free rides that way. That is true. Ok, we know that, spoken to some flight attendants that have corroborated that, and we have pictures of young Abagnale dressed as a pilot. But here's where the story takes a left turn.
Javier Leiva:He was in prison most of that time, like I said, but every time he would come out of prison he would get this pilot costume and show up at different places. Ok, one of the places that he showed up was a kid's summer camp in Houston Texas, right outside of Houston Texas. All right, so this pilot shows up at a kid's summer camp. He's like hey, I was furloughed, lost my job, I need some work, can you guys hire me? And they're like sure you could work at the summer camp. We have pictures of Frank Abagnale at the summer camp and he worked there and he would drive all the kids around and this and that, and then he eventually stole a bunch of camera equipment from the summer camp and took off with all this gear. So he's like stealing from a summer camp, that's one thing.
Javier Leiva:At one point he was in Baton Rouge gets out of prison, shows up as a pilot, meets this lady named Paula Parks, befriends her. She's a flight attendant. They, you know, they, I guess they go out on a date or something, but nothing ever happens. She takes him home to meet her parents and he met the parents. Well, paula Parks, she's flying her all around the country. Guess who? Shows up at her parents' house while she's not there Frank Abagnale, dressed like a pilot. The parents take him in.
Javier Leiva:This guy is living at Paula's house. He's eating there for mama Parks is washing his dirty clothes and guess what? He's stealing checks from their checkbook yeah, writing checks to himself, and he gets arrested. You know, during that time he also shows up at a kids, you know, at a facility for disabled children working with children. He was always surrounded by kids for some reason. One time he got out of prison went to work at an orphanage, again with the whole pilot costume thing. So this is a guy with this pattern of playing, dress up and showing up where kids are.
Javier Leiva:And then I mean, if you want to keep peeling back the layer, the onion layers, I mean it turns out that the family tree is really interesting. His brother was a real con artist, but not a flashy con artist Like Frank Abagnale. This guy kept it all under wraps until he passed away. He faked his resume, worked as a therapist his entire career without any license. We spoke to his daughter. Frank Abagnale's father was known to have ties to the mafia and had, you know, some shady dealings. I think that was portrayed in the movie a little bit. So there it's. He's such an interesting character. It's just not the one from the movie.
Taylor D. Adams:Well, yeah, so yeah. Going back to the movie, though, like, do you remember the first time you saw this?
Javier Leiva:I don't. You know. I was trying to think of the first time I saw this movie. I don't remember it came out like what in the 90s, you know, early 2000s, in the early 2000s.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah.
Javier Leiva:I don't remember exactly where I've seen it, but I've seen it so many times. It's one of the few movies. You know that we that you go watch over and over again and just enjoy all the time. So I don't remember, but it's always been there. It's always been part of my life, right?
Taylor D. Adams:So, upon your, I guess, frequent revisits of the movie has, have you taken something different from it each time, or also go watching it multiple times? Have you also been going going through the research or finding out who Frank Abagnale really was, and does that? Did that change your opinion All?
Javier Leiva:Yeah, the only thing I still enjoy the film, but the only thing that bothers me now watching it. I can't help. But it bothers me because I know the real story is how they portrayed Frank Abagnale's mom, paulette, in the movie. They portray her as this adulterous woman, wife that you know. She's selfish.
Javier Leiva:That was, from what I could tell, far from the truth, in fact, court records show that, you know, it was probably Frank's dad who was having the affair and but that's just not the way the movie portrayed it. And for me, you know, I don't know. I guess I have a good relationship with my mom, but like, let's say, steven Spielberg wanted to make a movie about my life and and he portrayed my mom, as you know, almost like this, like and an unflattering life.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, I would have issues with that, and Frank Abagnale has never seen a movie like this before.
Javier Leiva:He's never spoken out about that, the real guy. He's only spoken out about the way his father was portrayed. But I would have. I would take great issue with Steven Spielberg portraying my mom, or any director. And it's just kind of weird. You know, like that, that's one issue from the movie that I think he would take issue with, but he doesn't.
Taylor D. Adams:So you talked about that. You do still enjoy this movie despite knowing kind of a real story. But can you go into more detail about how knowing the real story has affected your enjoyment of it?
Javier Leiva:Yeah, I mean, you know I watch it and first of all, I think that the fact that Leo looks nothing like Frank Abagnale, it's almost like I don't buy that. It's based on a true story. Once you know it's not based on a true story, it's a fantastic work of fiction, right? So it really doesn't affect my enjoyment of the film and part of the reason is that the Tom Hanks character he's based off of a real FBI agent, but there was no cat and mouse chase in real life. So that whole you know Tom Hanks chasing him around the world and stuff like that, that never happened.
Javier Leiva:So to me it just seems like almost like parallel universes and they don't conflict with each other because they're so different, you know.
Taylor D. Adams:I was thinking about that, that watching this movie. I remember I think I've only seen it like two or three times when it first came out in the theater. I remember really liking it like enough to be like, oh yeah, that's a good movie, like I will watch that movie again. And I rewatched it recently and yeah, I think because I binged your entire season, season 11, for 10. And I was very much bothered by it.
Javier Leiva:I was like couldn't get out of my head it bothered you.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, it bothered me because, but I think, thinking back on it, if they ever did some kind of like re-release of this movie and they just took out based on true events, I would have no issue, Right, Like I think that would be it. Like if I could erase from my mind that this was supposedly based on a true story, I would think it's a fantastic movie, but like art doesn't really exist in a bubble, Like it's influenced by it, I think the thing is that you know, I watched the Freddie Mercury movie or any biopic.
Javier Leiva:I haven't seen the Bob Marley movie or whatever it doesn't. Or I watched Lincoln and I don't go back and research. I mean I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, was that scene true? I'll go back in Wikipedia or whatever.
Javier Leiva:I think what bothers me about this movie being based on true stories, that we're celebrating a guy that not only he's not the savvy con artist that we think he is for the things that I was describing about going back, getting out of prison, going to seek the company of children. I'm not implying that anything wrong was happening there. I'm not implying that at all but this is not a very smart, savvy con artist. This is a guy that stole money from innocent people like Paula Parks' family. He stole money from investors with these like these investment deals, like doctors and real estate agents that still are old and tens of thousands of dollars that this guy has not paid. I mean he could just take the Rolex off of his wrist and pay back some of those loans, and the point is there are real victims still out there that lost a lot of money because of this guy and we're like celebrating him.
Javier Leiva:That's probably what you're feeling you know, that we're celebrating a guy that's not a hero. He's not even an anti-hero. He would write bad checks using his real name. Let's talk about that $2.5 million that he supposedly stole. It wasn't $2.5 million, it was a court record show that it was maybe a little over $1,500. And he would write checks using his own name. I mean, I'm not a brilliant mastermind criminal, but I would use somebody else's name. Exactly yeah, so it's tough to celebrate this guy's life.
Taylor D. Adams:So this is more of a very broad question, with the facts of this movie being very much fudged and in your line of podcasting work and you've talked a little bit about this on your podcast this idea of post-truth in this world that we're living in, how important is it that we, as an audience to media, live-spree, engagements, articles, whatever how important is it that we question whatever's being presented to us as the truth.
Javier Leiva:I mean, I think we should always question everything that, even things that you hear on a podcast. You should question it, because what we're doing is reliving somebody's memory or recalling somebody's memory, and memory is such a flawed thing to begin with.
Javier Leiva:So you know, like, if we kind of meet back in a month and try to recount what we just did today, it might be very similar but we might have different angles of it, and so you always have to question whether somebody's recollection of something is real.
Javier Leiva:I think the best way as an audience, if Steven Spielberg says that this is true, I think it's up to him to, and his team to really make sure it's semi-true. You know what I mean, like if you're gonna put that stamp that it's based on a true story. As a viewer, I think that if you hear something that just sounds too good to be true, just do a little bit of legwork. It actually didn't take that much work to find out the information that Alan Logan and I found out about this, and it turns out that there were journalists way before us that were looking into this. So you could do a newspapercom search and you're gonna find articles saying that this guy is probably not who he says, he is right and so. But I think at the end of the day, since Memories Flood, public records speak for themselves. They're like a little capture in a moment in time, and so if you have real documents to back it up.
Taylor D. Adams:I think you should trust that Such a weird thing to say. Like it seems so obvious that like, oh yeah, why don't you like find the core of like what actually happened and actually happened, yeah, but who has time for that right? Like we take convenience for granted, like much rather any information be presented to us as opposed to us trying to find out the real information. And sometimes, when we try to find out the real information on our own, then that information is wrong, right.
Javier Leiva:Well, and just like before we started recording, we were talking about the floods in Dubai. I started thinking to myself, what if that was like off-aik or AI or something? You know what I mean? And I just told you the story. I didn't fact check it, so now I just spread some information. Hey, there might be floods in Dubai, I don't know.
Taylor D. Adams:I don't know.
Javier Leiva:I'm gonna go tell somebody else that there's floods in Dubai, and that's how it happens, right? This, like this ripple of-.
Taylor D. Adams:That telephone game can kind of get out of hand.
Javier Leiva:Yeah, 100%, and I think we mean well. But there are some real bad actors out there. I mean foreign entities, you know, like China, russia. We're trying to influence our news cycle. There are people who are trying to spread misinformation for whatever personal gain that they have. But and a lot of us, we're just consuming it, right, and we don't even see it, we don't even know. Once we get funneled, we don't even know that we're in the machine, right.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, and sometimes we end up trusting we end up being too trusting sometimes of just anything we hear, and we don't even if the information is related to us in a non you know nefarious way. They're just relaying whatever they heard or read or saw, and then that's, you know the telephone.
Javier Leiva:But we live in that post-truth world, and so we have to know how to navigate it as consumers right.
Taylor D. Adams:With all the smack. We're talking about Frank Abagnale. Do you have a favorite moment or scene from this movie?
Javier Leiva:Yeah, oh man, I love. Well, first of all, can I tell you that my favorite scene is probably the title sequence.
Taylor D. Adams:Oh, so good.
Javier Leiva:John Williams score doonananananana.
Taylor D. Adams:I love that Such a great, such a great story.
Javier Leiva:And the animation I just for me grabbed new right from the beginning. I do love the scenes that were shot at that old airport in New York the name escapes me, but it's this beautiful architecture and their, you know, tom.
Taylor D. Adams:Hags.
Javier Leiva:You know like finally, like kind of catches up to him, and I just, oh, my favorite scene, hold on. Can we talk about the toilet scene?
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, you can talk about whatever scene you want to. I love that scene, yeah the toilet.
Javier Leiva:So the story is Frank Abagnale escapes, right, he escapes to Europe, right, and this part is true. The real Frank Abagnale does go to Europe at one point, okay, but like, that part is true, but that's the end of the real story, okay, but in the movie he gets caught, he gets thrown in prison and some French prison and Tom Hags comes, pulls him out of jail. They're transporting him back to the US, you know. They're on the plane, and Leonardo DiCaprio, you know, gets up and he uses the restroom. Frank, come on now, frank.
Taylor D. Adams:In my head I was rocking my brain of like what the inside of a plane looks like.
Javier Leiva:Well, according to Frank Abagnale and we have, he said this before that really happened. That wasn't just like Steven Spielberg pulling this out of nowhere. Apparently, he really escaped through the toilet. Well, the problem is that there are people that listen to these claims, people that actually are engineers and know how planes work and stuff like that. They're like no, it's actually impossible.
Taylor D. Adams:I was gonna say clearly there's gotta be yeah.
Javier Leiva:And what a nasty little thing to sneak out of, but anyway. So when he started realizing that people were questioning whether that was true or not, then he says he didn't escape from the toilet, he escaped from the kitchen galley or something. So the story kind of changed a little bit. So if you asked him today, he did not escape from the toilet, but if you asked him in the 80s he totally escaped from the toilet.
Taylor D. Adams:That's fascinating. So, yeah, that scene was like wait, it's not the drain, because that's why it was so. It's like the underneath of the toilet mechanism is somehow opened into the wheel well, of a plane. I was like that's crazy, yeah, doesn't make any sense, doesn't work like that. Yeah, and I don't know planes, so that's the problem. So I asked this question of our guests how would you recommend this movie to someone who hasn't seen it? And with all that we've talked about, is there any kind of caveat that you would give when you would recommend it?
Javier Leiva:Just watch it as if there were a work of fiction and you're going to love this film. I mean, it's a great film, but the problem is that if you had any expectation that it was real, you're going to be sorely disappointed. It is so not real.
Taylor D. Adams:So how has it been possible for Kind of a vague question, but how has it been possible for con artists to use storytelling as a weapon to like enhance their own lore of legend?
Javier Leiva:Yeah, I mean it's if you could grab somebody with a great story. People love stories. It's like we're like a moth to a flame, right? People love a good story. And if you are having enough charisma and you're on the Johnny Carson show and you're telling the world all these great stories, we want to believe. Especially a story like this, where you think that there are no real victims. You know that this was all innocent crimes. No one really got hurt. You're like, oh well, then we romanticize it right?
Javier Leiva:Con artists don't want to ever tell you that they really hurt people. That would not make great sales. Imagine a Ponzi schemeer telling you about all these investments he did wrong. No, a Ponzi schemeer is going to tell you about all these great opportunities, these amazing returns. They fill your head up with all this hope and. But they also do the opposite too. Like con artists could use fear as a way to motivate they. I've noticed this is a common thread with con artists. They disarm you by, let's say, they buy you dinner. They're always the first ones to pick up the check. They give you gifts and stuff like that, because when it's time to ask you for something, for money or whatever you're like oh yeah, they're good for it.
Javier Leiva:They bought me dinner right. Like they are always picking up the check, they're always giving me gifts. You know what I mean. So they've earned your trust, and so I've noticed that about like as a common thread to the people that I cover, at least.
Taylor D. Adams:So when you're watching this movie, do you find yourself identify now, identify or rooting for anyone? Yeah, as they're watching the movie.
Javier Leiva:Well, you know you're this movie. You're rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio, Frank Abagnale, you want him to get away with it.
Javier Leiva:And I think that that I mean it's the anti-hero stuff, right, like we rooted for Walter White in Breaking Bad, tony Soprano, you know? And don't you get disappointed at the end of the day when you start realizing, okay, so when you're in it, right, like when you're watching the Sopranos, you're so in Tony's gravitational force, right, and then the show ends and you're like, wow, that's the guy that I wanted to win you know what I mean.
Javier Leiva:Like isn't that weird, but you have to step away from it for a while. It's almost like the magnetism that a cult leader has. You know, while you're around it they smother you and so you don't see the danger that you're in until, like, you escape and then all of a sudden it makes a lot of sense. So I think that you know, when you're rooting for Frank Abagnale, you're caught up in the story and then the whole glamor of this, like this chase, and then you realize, well, the real guy. Why do you think he was posing as a doctor? You know what was he trying to do. What was he trying to do as an attorney? You know what I mean.
Taylor D. Adams:Like, when you start, like, realizing these things, yeah, and like, the weird part of the movie is that a my recent recollection of watching a couple of days ago was basically that he was kind of inspired to take on these different roles by watching TV.
Javier Leiva:Like, well, probably some of that. And then he'll also tell you that you know he was so heartbroken by his parents' divorce. You know he paints this dramatic picture that he's in the courtroom and you know they're like you know he runs out of this courtroom when his parents get divorced and he doesn't know where to go and he immediately, you know, gets the pilot suit and just goes. It's almost like this, like crazy fan, that he's living out this crazy fantasy. But yeah, every superhero needs some sort of motivation, right? Yeah?
Taylor D. Adams:that origin story, yeah that origin story.
Javier Leiva:He definitely created it. Now, the funny thing about Frank Abagnale is that the origin story, this whole, this folklore that he's created for himself it has, there's a point when it all starts to happen. That story wasn't always there. Okay, there was a point in time, remember, when he was at the summer camp, when he was doing all these things at the orphanage, that story didn't exist. There was a point where it was almost like a flip of a switch that this story comes to life and it's right around the time where he gets married.
Javier Leiva:And so a lot of people think that what did his wife have something to do with crafting this story? Did a local journalist Cause? The first time we hear the whole story about the pilot, doctor, lawyer, professor thing was after this article was written by this local journalist. And so it's like where did this fantasy come from? And it happened very quickly. It wasn't like he slowly added to the story. No, it was just like one day he's a small time crook, the next day he's this like brilliant con artist on the Johnny Carson show. It just happened, just like that.
Taylor D. Adams:Wow, some good publicity work.
Javier Leiva:Yeah, it is brilliant, and I actually spoke to one of the women that I think it was his agent or somebody that was trying to get him booked on the Tonight Show. If she would have never booked him on the Tonight Show, I don't think there would be a Frank Abagnale. I don't think there would be a. Catch Me, if you Can. It's actually Inadvertently created a monster.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, but apparently a monster, who then got turned into a character we all root for in a movie and a Broadway musical that I keep forgetting about that. That's wild, I think it's like that. That feels perverse to me yeah there is.
Javier Leiva:I just saw a posting on Newspaper like some sort of online magazine. They're looking for the part of Frank Abbott. They're auditioning for. Frank Abbott's mom, oh wow For for the musical and I almost want to tell them you know, Do you want to hear the real story about the mom? Because she's nothing like the way the movie portrays her to be. That's so wild.
Taylor D. Adams:Yeah, it's. You mentioned earlier, speaking of the, how the mother is portrayed. You mentioned earlier that you don't want Steven Spielberg to portray your mom in a way Right, and that's particular away. But I came up with this question I want to know who would play you in the movie about exposing Frank Abbott.
Javier Leiva:Okay, I my kids say that I look like Lin-Manuel Miranda or whatever so we're just gonna go with him and if he's not available, ray Romano or.
Taylor D. Adams:I, I haven't who would play. Who would play? Frank Abbott now.
Javier Leiva:Hmm, that's a good one. It would probably be like Seth Rogen or something you know like interesting. Okay, I don't see Leonardo DiCaprio at all playing Frank Abbott now I, but this movie needs to be made because this was the real catch. Maybe can't like nobody was chasing him back in the day, but Alan Logan and I have been chasing this guy for a couple years now.
Taylor D. Adams:I was doing some research before our chat Just on Frank Abbott, now looking up bunch of stuff I Immediately thought of, if that movie was about right now, like this time of exposing him, I think Henry Winkor could play a really good Frank Abbott.
Javier Leiva:Oh yeah, like the older abbeck, I love Henry Winkor. You make a great Frank Abbott.
Taylor D. Adams:Now that would be awesome you actually went to a Like confront Frank Abbott nail in person, right.
Javier Leiva:Yeah, you know, I couldn't do this whole series on Frank Abbott now without Frank Abbott now Right, like there's a lot of historical documents, so I reached out to him. Actually I reached out to him At the time I actually thought that this movie was real. So I I reached out to him that we all did.
Javier Leiva:I admired the story and I thought he's like the biggest badass Con artist of all time, and so I reached out to him and he said no. And then, if he would have said yes, I would have still believed the story. I would have had him on my show and just talk to him, right, and none of this would have happened. But he said no, and that's when I started looking into it, that's when I found Alan Logan. And here we are right. So he said no, but I could not do the series without him, right? So I knew that he was speaking at the MGM in Las Vegas. It's huge auditorium. He did this like our keynote speech. He's a great speaker. But I waited for him outside of the stage, you know. I had a feeling that here we go, right, you know. And so I met him out in the hallway and I made sure I had like the biggest, baddest microphone I could find, like a big boom mic.
Javier Leiva:So he could say oh, I you look official.
Javier Leiva:Yeah. I was like, yeah, like we're definitely recording this right, and so and you know, I had my camera in my pocket you know I looked very unassuming and I hit him with a softball question. I said hey, frank, your story is so unbelievable, can you tell me about it? He started, you know, giving me his canned answers and so I knew I didn't have much time, so I was a friendly reporter. Now second question was a hard one. I said Frank, how was it that you were posing as a pilot, doctor, lawyer, professor, if you were in prison the entire time? He goes oh, no, I think you got your dates and times wrong. I go no, actually I have your prison records right here. He's like, oh, and that's when, like, the people around him start realizing that this was not a friendly interview like his, like security detail.
Javier Leiva:No, it's just like the event organizers and the people, his posse I don't know who those people were, but anyway. So they things start getting tense and he answers my quite. He gives me like this BS response and you know, and the whole thing is caught on tape. I put it on YouTube. But yeah, I had to get him. And you know, the funny thing is that my series on Frank Abagnale ended but the but my listeners, they're still fired up about this. And when he does speaking gigs, my listeners are confronting him at these different events, really asking him like, hey, you know, if this is a lie, can you, you know, and and and it's amazing, because it's like people Feel like they've been betrayed, you know, buying this BS story.
Taylor D. Adams:I mean, you know, it's like finding out spoilers like Santa Claus isn't really.
Javier Leiva:Exactly, and that actually is. You should read my YouTube comments. 90% of my YouTube comments are people saying dude, leave the guy alone. It's a great story. He's amazing and you know he's had a very successful post Continent artist career or whatever. You know where he goes around and he says he's a security expert. Whether he's done all those things or not, I'm not sure, but he he comes across as a very knowledgeable guy and security and fraud and he's probably dishing out some really useful information. But these companies are hiring him to speak or as a consultant or putting him on his board under the premise that this was real. Okay, so yeah, he might be very knowledgeable about security and fraud and stuff like that, but but not because he did all these amazing cons. You know, it's like when you hire a hacker, you know, you know how like governments hire hackers. They're like try to hack into my right because they're talented and they know that. And no, they hire this guy because they recognize him from the movie, but he has no, it's cloud, right.
Javier Leiva:Yeah, but he has no real professional background. So, whatever, hey, I'll power to a man if all we want is to set the record straight, correct history and you go around doing your key notes, as long as people know that there's a giant asterisk on this film and on your book and the movie still good and even if even if it's not a true story.
Taylor D. Adams:The movie yeah, how you know, this is an agreement. This has been both so much fun. I'm so glad that we connected and I listened to you the real catch me, if you can, and then have you talk about the fake.
Javier Leiva:Dude, it's amazing, I could talk about this topic all day.
Taylor D. Adams:To me, the greatest con here was convincing us that Frank Abagnale junior story was real. But stories are such powerful things. An outlandish story about a teenager successfully impersonating a pilot can Inspire us to believe we can accomplish anything. A ridiculous tale about a kid getting hired as a supervising physician at a pediatric hospital can make us want to help people, and Hearing about someone ripping off a giant corporation by simply cashing bad checks feels vindicating what we see and what we hear affect us, even if it's bullshit. A huge thanks to Javier for chatting with me today and a Boeing 707 size. Thank you to you for listening and watching. Please take a look at the show notes for links to Javier show, pretend and some other goodies that have to do with the real. Catch me if you can. If you enjoyed the show today, please go ahead and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform of choice and if you happen to be listening on Apple podcasts, go ahead and leave a rating review. It helps us get noticed by more awesome people like yourself. If you want to help the show grow and get access to some really cool perks, please consider becoming a patron of the film. Those podcasts you can check out the links below or visit patreoncom.
Taylor D. Adams:Our theme this season is brought to us by the deep end. Our artwork is designed by Madunga Sipahudi, our director of production is Keaton Musk, and all episodes of the film, those podcasts are produced and edited by me, taylor D Adams. If you want to get in touch, you can email film that's podcast at gmailcom or follow us on Instagram, tiktok and Twitter at film nuts podcast. I'm not gonna call it X, I'm gonna keep calling it Twitter. And don't forget to join the nut house to sort community absolutely free, simply by checking out the link in the show notes. Thank you all, so so much for listening today and until next time. Here's hoping none of your checks bounce People's. People still write checks right.