Elijah Wood
Appearances
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
This episode is sponsored by 5-Hour Energy. 5-Hour Energy has a new flavor out. It's called Spicy Cinco de Mango. Yes, a spicy 5-Hour Energy shot, and it's only available at 5hourenergy.com. They just sent me a case of this stuff to try. I popped open a bottle, gave it a little taste test. It is legitimately spicy, also a little sweet, but mainly spicy, which is a very unique flavor palette.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Um, and it's funny, it's a funny thing. I mean, It's funny that, like, people think that because, like, it really doesn't get you very far telling these things, you know?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
There's a reason you guys have had to make a company specifically to give this type of material a home, you know? Yeah, you're right.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It was one of those conversations that got very deep very quickly and could have gone on for hours. I remember thinking, I wish I was recording this because it'd be a really good interview episode of Otherworld. I'm sure pretty much everyone is familiar with Elijah Wood from his long and incredible acting career. I mean, he played one of the most recognizable film characters of all time.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Did you, Elijah, did you feel, um, I don't know that I can, I can say that I felt anything. He was chilling, but I was, I was certainly, you know, listen, senses are heightened when it feels like it's happening. Um, And that you're actually making communication and you've done your own mental checks as to whether or not this is really happening or not.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So, you know, insofar as feeling that buzz of energy that's spread amongst three people around the board, sure.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I obviously knew who he was, but what I didn't know was how interested and knowledgeable he was in the paranormal and horror movies. These interests are what led him to start the company Spectrevision, along with writer Daniel Noah and some others.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Well, yeah, they had just, they described that they had seen it. They had seen something down the hall. So it was a classic, like they look like they'd just seen a ghost. Like they were, they were in a state because near seconds prior to us arriving, they had seen something and they pointed to where it was. And then we walked down the hall and sure enough,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
where they had seen the ghost was directly in front of the door for that room.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Which was pretty compelling. That is very trippy. But Elijah, at the same time, was there a part of you that was... I mean, you're a very famous and recognizable person. Was there a point that you were wondering, is this some elaborate... It's a horror conference, right?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Did it ever go through your head at some point?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Listen, it's possible, I suppose, but it felt very authentic. And the two people that we ran into, we'd not seen the whole weekend.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And they saw, so they had just seen a little girl outside of the room.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So this night, was this like a moment for both of you guys, kind of like awakening to this?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Spectrevision is known for producing some of the most beloved genre films of this era, like Mandy, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and Color Out of Space. If you haven't seen these movies, I highly recommend checking them out. They're really good. The company also recently expanded into podcasting with the launch of Spectrevision Radio.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It wasn't so much an awakening for me because I was already a believer. I wasn't coming from a place of disbelief. I'd been leaning in my whole life. You've been consistent. Yeah. And for me, it was just the most... Because I'd only done the Ouija board once or twice prior to that without any really compelling results.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So for me, this was, this was like the first time I'd done the Ouija board where it felt that there was something really compelling happening and that we genuinely had a conversation with a spirit. Um, so yeah, so for me it was just a kind of confirmation of what I already believed.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And Daniel, you've had a lot of experiences like after this, have you, have you seen things like what was the, what would you say is like the most extreme thing that's happened to you? Yeah.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
the most extreme, I don't know. Or most frightening, perhaps. Whatever has caught you most off guard.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I wanted to bring these two on because I know they've both always been fascinated by the paranormal, but not necessarily as a real-world phenomenon, more of a genre for storytelling. However, that changed somewhat recently for them, and I think the story behind that is a really interesting one.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I was going to say, I'm like, does this work out for you?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Very engaged now. Well, that's, I mean, well, Elijah, did you witness this transformation before?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
When we talked about this in person, I thought their journey into exploring these topics was so compelling that I needed to get them on the podcast officially to talk about it in an interview. I really enjoyed my conversation with these two, and I think you'll enjoy listening to it. This is my interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah. Okay, welcome to Otherworld.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Oh, yeah. I watched this in real time. Fascinating. And, I mean, thrilling. Because I was also one of the people in his ear about how it seemed like there were brushes. And I didn't know any of the sort of clairvoyant stuff that he'd experienced earlier in his life. But he would tell stories about
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
his daughter seeing something in the room, um, on, on more than one occasion and recount these stories like, isn't that funny? But it's, but, but not believing it at all. And, and, and I would, I would have the opposite reaction, which is, I think your daughter may have seen a ghost. Like I, you know, you're, you're, you're in such denial about what would he be saying about it?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, well, that's the thing. I don't remember what your explanation for those moments were. I don't either. You just didn't buy it, and I thought that was crazy.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I don't know. But you were the one telling him it was a ghost.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, that presented some evidence that there might be something going on. And the idea that children are more sensitive at a certain age than we as adults are. I've always found kids seeing ghosts really fascinating. And the veil being thinner, it seems, from when they're born until about two or three years of age.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And I've heard other, like I know other people in my life whose kids have also had similar experiences. I just find that really interesting. So I latched on to those stories thinking, well, that's really compelling and interesting. And he kind of wrote it off. So yeah, this process of like the unraveling of the skepticism and then like total embracement has just been really fun. Yeah.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It's fun to watch. And to the degree that he has gone beyond my own... I don't have much of my own personal experience with the paranormal. I'm fascinated by it. I lean into it. I seek it out. But I haven't had any... I've had minor experiences, but nothing that would create sort of what feels like a definition of sensitivity or anything like that for myself.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So I'm merely on the sidelines as a believer, watching someone who is, you know, going through kind of an extraordinary transformation. And it's fascinating. And as a result, you know, there's been... It's been a learning process for me, too, because there's so much of the paranormal. I think my...
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
my sort of paranormal purview tended to exist within the world of ghosts and, um, um, uh, you know, poltergeists, uh, maybe demonic entities, non, non human entities, things like that. Right. But my world has been kind of blown open as a result of the, the journey that Daniel has been on that has exposed me to, you know,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
various cryptids and sort of the the full spectrum of what the paranormal has to offer and and what what is really beyond the veil and i i i'm in some ways more fascinated than i've ever been and i get a really great researcher as a partner because i i just get i get so much of this information uh through both him and then colleagues that now work with us you know
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Well, I like the term various cryptids. Maybe I want to ask you, what is your favorite subcategory of all these strange things? What fascinates you most?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
A few things. I'm fascinated by... I'm fascinated by... cultural entities that seem to be locked to culture. So like, for instance, a djinn doesn't really exist in Western culture, but a djinn very much exists in Eastern culture and in the Middle East specifically. That there can be entities that manifest culturally and that there is actually a divide I find really interesting.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I actually spoke to someone I used to know went to Japan on a job and he had a paranormal experience at an apartment that he was staying at where the entity that he saw resembled the ghosts that are depicted in Japanese horror and in literature, the way that they're described.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And so that's, I thought, well, that's so wild that you would experience something that, I mean, was that his own mind putting those pieces together based on sort of where he was in the world or, you know, can entities sort of be locked culturally to a certain place and manifest in different ways? fascinated by that.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I'm also fascinated in the notion of inter-dimensionality, that some of these things aren't necessarily from a spiritual realm, but are in another dimension. You know, for the longest time, I don't think that that was even something I was aware of.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Wow. That's a very thorough answer. I'm very fascinated by all of that though. Especially the cultural thing. I mean, I kind of wonder, well, there's a few things to tackle there. Well,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
That story is terrifying and so unbelievably fascinating.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I am joined now by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah of Spectrevision. Welcome to the podcast, fellas.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Thank you. What a pleasure. We love your show. Do you? Yeah. That's amazing.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
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Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Or this was just an actual ghost running around Japan that inspired the ring movies.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So this is, which is like, I'm saying that in the form of a joke, but like, I don't mean it as a joke, actually. This is the third, the third, um,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah. Yeah. I'm very flattered by this. I mean, you have told me this, but it was shocking. I wasn't sure if you were just saying that to be nice.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
This does. Yeah. It sounds like very trippy stoner conversation, but you know, that is not that far off from what's being researched right now. And it's very fascinating to me too. It's, it's fun to think about that stuff. I, I often wonder that myself, especially with creativity and if consciousness is external or not contained within the brain, like, uh, Yeah, what does that mean?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Because everybody's different. I mean, we're all creative people here in this interview, but like everybody has their own process. But for me, I don't like – I've never like sat down and like worked on creating stuff. Like all my ideas, they don't come from me being like, okay, now it's time to write – I'm usually just walking around and something will just hit me out of nowhere.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Listen, Jack, I think you – I mean, I turned Daniel on to it, which is shocking considering that Daniel's paranormal tendrils reach far and wide, and it hadn't crossed his purview yet. And listen, I think it's a really notable show. What I'm really attracted to as far as the paranormal is concerned, certainly in podcast format, is just hearing people's real experiences.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I'm not even thinking about it. That's kind of my process. So it is fun to think about that coming from outside because it sort of feels like it sometimes.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It does. I mean, you certainly hear various artists talk about something just coming to them that feels fully formed. Certainly with songwriting, You know, hearing songs in a dream, writing it the next day, and it literally just was delivered, finished. There is something to that, you know, what that is.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of things were invented in very weird ways. Uh, also by people who were like experimenting with strange drugs and just thought of something. Um, and it's interesting how many things, uh, started as science fiction and then the books or movies, uh,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
eventually inspired people to actually make the things you know like artificial intelligence right like well i'm pretty sure it was an idea at first and then people decide to actually try to figure it out and here we are i could be wrong about this but i'm i'm relatively sure that tesla at one point or very tesla tesla would He would see his inventions fully formed in his head.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
He has this famous story where he got sucked into a dam when he was a kid. And that was the first time that he had it happen where he was able to see the blueprints and the schematics of the dam and swim out through this weird hole. that he saw in the blueprints and survived.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Interesting. I'm sure there's somebody listening right now that's really frustrated with a strong yes or no answer.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Oh, yeah. While working in Colorado Springs, I'm seeing this. Fascinating. That was also kind of before the boom of people even talking about aliens or UFOs or things like that.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And what you offer is a real deep dive into paranormal. a variety of different kinds of paranormal experiences as well, which often is not necessarily the case when there is an entity profiling the paranormal. It tends to lean pretty heavily into ghosts and well-trodden territory. And I think what I love about Otherworld is that it presents a really broad spectrum of
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
All right. We'll be right back after this quick break.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Daniel, you are clearly into this stuff now. Elijah, you've been into this. At a certain point, you sort of started telling other people about your experiences and had mixed reactions, I have been told. When did that occur?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, wait. Elijah, you knew him back then. What was he like? Let's just wait. I feel like we need an outsider perspective on this. What was he like with that? Was he actually that hardcore? Yeah.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, yeah. I mean, very, very dismissive. Very dismissive. What kind of stuff would you hear from him? It wasn't necessarily a topic that he was on any kind of rampage about. It wasn't a mantle or a flag he was flying. Just whenever it would come up that there would be That something paranormal would enter into his or our sphere, there would just be a sort of, you know, a disbelief of it.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I just knew him to be a skeptic. So, you know, which wouldn't manifest that often, really. It only really came up whenever there was someone offering.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Not at all. And I wouldn't have even said that it was like a self-defining aspect of who you were. It just was a part of who you were. And I think by virtue of the fact that we were engaging in, you know, occasional paranormal storytelling, given that we had a production company,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
that make horror films and that's very much adjacent to this world, it probably would come up more often than otherwise.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
But aside from that, like he said, he wasn't proselytizing. He wasn't sort of on any kind of, it wasn't a mission. Just knew that to be the case. So that when there was this sort of, these reactions based on these occurrences, which by the way, I was present for two of these and did not have the same experience.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I certainly had, I would say that our experience at Queen at, um, the Stanley hotel was the same as, as it was for everybody in that room. And, and a good friend of ours wrote, Jen Yamato actually wrote a pretty incredible, very thorough article about what transpired that evening that it feels very accurate.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And Meredith, right. So you can, you can read them. They, they, they are, they're online to read and, and they had, um, profound experiences as well. I was certainly witness to all of that and felt equally moved by the evening and the events of the evening. As far as the Queen Mary is concerned, these things didn't happen to me. I heard the banging.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
What the paranormal is and people's unique experiences. And they're incredibly human and relatable and fascinating, emotional, you know, which I think is actually what the real spectrum of being in a paranormal experience or having had paranormal experiences. They're not always scary. Anyway, I just think you provide a really wonderful platform for the full spectrum.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah. So Daniel, you start telling people about this stuff. How did that go?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Not very good press, by the way. I wouldn't want to go there.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I mean, I've met some horror directors who don't believe in any of it.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Wow. Thank you. That's a incredible compliment. That's exactly what I wanted you to come on and talk about today.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So, not to go back too hard on this, but you told me that... You told me it was pretty bad, like the reactions people had. Did you have some falling outs over this or something?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, I mean, I had a very – there were a couple – I was fascinated talking to you about this because you told me that when you started talking to people about how you've seen ghosts and stuff, that there was a – like it caused, it had negative impact in your social life. And I remember just saying to you, I'm like, what? Like, why?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And thank you for coming on. But no, you, you both, you're co-founders of SpectraVision, which has been around for a long time. It was rebranded to SpectraVision, but you guys have been working together on projects for quite some time. Well, how do you guys know each other in the first place? Let's, let's start with that.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah. Yeah. It's an odd, it's an odd position to take. I, um, I feel like it says more about the individuals than it does about, you know, uh, you, or, uh, I think that's an, it's just an odd. I think, you know, we all have, we all have different beliefs, even if we don't believe it.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So if I was a skeptic as your friend and I didn't believe anything that you, that you've experienced, I would still, I wouldn't, I couldn't feel compelled to invalidate your experience either. You know, I think like that, that because it's valid for you and whatever, whatever I personally believe about,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
What that was, I don't, I certainly don't know that I would, I would then become accusatory about, you know, the sort of hidden motive behind it. Because as we discussed earlier, you're not going to necessarily win a great deal of attention because you believe in the paranormal. I mean, it's a kind of a polarizing thing on occasion, certainly in the, in the grand, you know, sort of the mainstream.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
world so of all the lies to tell this is not really what is it like it's sort of a silly notion like to get attention for for something that is right that really polarizes people is just it's really it's a bit silly so yeah i just it's it's an odd it's an odd position to take you know we all believe different things there's plenty of things that people believe that i know you know friends that have belief systems that i don't agree with or that i don't share in that belief system but
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I don't invalidate their experience or I'm not angry about it. It's such a weird thing.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Unless you are deeply religious, of which a lot of Western culture is as well. So there's that side of the – Yes, but even a lot of organized religion is still –
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, we met on a project that never came to fruition that Daniel was writing. It was a road comedy that I attached myself to as an actor, and we were trying to get this movie made. And we're having kind of regular meetings over the development of the project over the course of, I think, almost a year. Right, Daniel? Something like that.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, the confidence of that denial is puzzling.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I will say – I mean you might not want to answer this, but is there anything in the realm of the paranormal that you do not believe in? Because I will say that it's funny. I read all the emails. There are some things I've just like never gotten a submission about.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I'm curious what you've not gotten a submission about.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It'll be silly when I say stuff like vampires. That's something that says a million stories and movies made out of it, but I've never received an email about it. Or anything close to it. Let me be clear, I'm not shocked that I haven't gotten a vampire story. Werewolves? I haven't gotten a werewolf. I've gotten like a wolf-like story.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
That is a very big answer to the question of do you believe in Dracula or not? But, you know, I've not received any emails about that. Well, you will now. I probably will, which is the thing. Or I know I'll probably get emails from people being like, vampire-like entities or something. Sure.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I've definitely gotten that, you know, but it's fascinating, like, how much folklore, old tales exist about things that are present and you see very often in real-life experiences and then some that just aren't to the point where it's almost like, well, where did that even come from? Yeah. Okay, I asked you guys about what you don't believe in. Like, what... What most fascinates you guys now?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And especially when it comes to like the movies that you're working on and the projects you have, like what, what fields are most interesting to you?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Well, when it comes to our films, I actually don't think we're seeking, but rather we are receiving. Yeah. I mean, that's the simplest way to articulate it. I think we're not ever really, we don't have an agenda that,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
in regards to the kinds of topics that we'd like to engage with, we are interested in receiving ideas from filmmakers and writers that elicit a response, that we feel like we can't deny that we need to be a part of helping facilitate. So yeah, maybe early on when we were starting our company, as we were...
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And over the course of these conversations, you know, we would also stray from the topic of the film we were trying to get made and talk about all of our other interests. And one that kept coming up was a shared love of, mutual love of genre and horror, particularly the kinds of genre and horror at the time that were not being made or facilitated, at least in the U.S. That's since changed.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
as the horror landscape was still very much being rewritten in the United States and the world, maybe we were a little bit more specific about wanting to engage with, you know, a ghost story or a possession story, but not really. I think we're just interested in hearing really great, exciting ideas in the genre space.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Um, and that, that elicited a response that we feel, um, we, yeah, we can't deny getting behind, you know? Um, yeah.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I have to ask a selfish question, but you guys both have listened to the show. Are there any episodes that stand out to you as favorites? Oh, for sure. Topics?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah. Go ahead. The gin episode really stands out, um, as being very scary and very real. Um, Yeah, go ahead, Daniel. I'm sure you've got that one.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I mean, dude, I spent a year on it going through that. Yeah.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And, like, a con for what, too? That's, like, what I run into a lot with. Yeah, for what? That's a running theme with this stuff where it's, like... A 10-year-long con for what? To ruin your life a little bit? Like, to be very difficult, you know? So that's... That was a... Yeah, that was an undertaking for me, just making the episodes. And the time I spent...
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
going back and forth, talking to all those people, you know, to an extent with those, with that series, I wanted to give people the experience I had going through that, like kind of ping-ponging around, but, uh, they said some things that like, you know, Jack, this might resonate for you, but what, what, something that I'm increasingly finding as, uh,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I'm sure you guys have heard a lot of weird stuff anecdotally that's not recordable from people you've met.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah. Yeah, Daniel has. I don't know that I've encountered anything directly. You've heard some of it.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
You've never heard any cool stories, Elijah? I'm not actually going to make you tell them.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I've heard loads of cool stories, but I feel like a lot of that also comes from Daniel, and I don't know that I've directly on my own been told a story that isn't something that I can talk about, you know.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
We're still in a kind of extended renaissance of horror and genre. And then also I think the idea of, I had been floating this idea of wanting to produce films, being a part of the development of something from the ground up and seeing it through to fruition, loving the creative process of filmmaking that I'd been engaged in for a super long time, but not from that side.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
No, no, no, no. Yeah, but the stuff you hear on the side is always interesting. I mean, some of the most fascinating things I've heard, I mean, maybe just because I'm curious and like...
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
rabidly persistent but they're the ones that like i haven't been able to do like or somebody to tell me like a a crazy story and then they'll back out you know they won't like what well one of them i don't want to one one was from like an actor like it was like a family friend uh
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
and uh i mean i can't tell the story but it's it's a very long saga and hopefully i could do it one day but you know somebody you meet out in the world and then they're like oh yeah i've heard like this crazy thing there's you know obviously the most tantalizing stories are the ones that people want to talk about sure sure which for the most part i feel like people are hesitant to talk about this type of stuff you know
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
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Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, in fact, it's funny, you know, going back to that notion of feeling like you can be discredited or that it's, you know, talking about it publicly can elicit, you know, responses that you don't want.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I don't know that I agree with that in regards to certain aspects of the paranormal, but when it comes to aliens, there is a stigma associated with it due to a probably fine design by way of utilizing individuals who do experience things or see things using that information against them to sort of discredit them as a means of keeping a shadow on what's really going on.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And I think there was also this idea of the notion of being producers that we found quite difficult to find. which are these non-transactional producers, producers that are there for the life of a project because they believe in it and have a heart response to both the filmmaker and the material and create kind of a reality around those filmmakers to ensure that their work is protected.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
So, yeah, the alien world is subject to the most amount of crazies. And I don't know that they're all crazy. I think that there's obviously a lot that we don't know that's being probably willfully hidden from us. And, you know, programs that I feel like have been uncovered in regards to, you know,
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
disinformation programs um and and you know stringing people along allowing them to be speakers of things that they have encountered or seen just enough real information uh to sort of to be to be able to string them along and then to invalidate them you know uh so it's it's an interesting it's an interesting space specifically for that reason
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
it clashes occasionally with new age sensibilities and new age ideas, which are more often than not, you know, stigmatized individuals who are, you know, labeled as crazy. In some cases they are, like, you know what I mean? Like there is a genuine clash of
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
elements that serves to invalidate almost all of it by virtue of the fact that it's this intersection of new age belief systems and mysticism and religion and
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
you know, psychedelia, it is such a crazy cross section that by virtue of it being this cross section, it kind of starts to like tear away at the, what is at the core, which there is that, that there is something really going on, you know, it's really fascinating. And like, you know, these sort of festivals that take place in Roswell or like conventions around aliens, like,
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Unfortunately, look at those people with derision and look down on them as these fanatical idiots. It colors the entire spectrum. Again, to define design, it works beautifully to obfuscate the viewpoint away from the thing that's really happening.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Whether that's intentional or not, I'd say that with all of this stuff, people want to have it be binary. They want it to be real or fake. In reality, this is a huge mess. With all of the paranormal, just scroll. Go on TikTok and search paranormal evidence. You're going to find millions of videos that are completely fake. Just nonsense. Or people believing in stuff that's just beyond nonsense.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Basically engaged in I don't know, like a form of role playing almost. There's a, there's a, with, with some stuff, there's, there's, there's things out there that just not even remotely grounded in reality. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's just fiction, right? Like, cause I think some people do associate this stuff with fiction, but yeah, within that there's very valid things and it's a big mess.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And I think the average person just wants to either say I'm all in or I'm all out. So I think that's the difficult thing with these topics.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
so it was just kind of like a combination of those things that we sort of started to realize that we had, uh, a similar interest in those elements. And, you know, I think one of us said, well, why don't we start a company? And it was me. Yeah. And we had no idea what we were doing, you know, um, we had no, no prior experience.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, and certainly as it pertains to certain aspects of the paranormal, it's very difficult to prove. Some of these things are not necessarily provable by the usual scientific means. And because of the fact that we need to rely on those systems to believe what's in front of us or to believe the world around us, then a lot of these things cannot be proven.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It's certainly if you take in the general sort of scientific means that we apply to everything else.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Well guys, thank you so much for joining me before we wrap all of this up. What are you guys working on now? What do you have coming up with SpectraVision that you guys are particularly excited about?
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
We are wrapping up our last season or the second season of Visitations. just the show that Daniel and I have together where we interview people in their homes and workspaces. And it's been really lovely to get back to that. We had, we had done that with shutter a number of years ago, um, with a little bit more of a, uh, sort of focus on fear in art.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And we were always really keen to revisit that format. Um, because it just, it, it, uh, it lends itself to really intimate conversations about life and the artistic process and, you know, our, our collective experiences and how that influences who we are and what we make.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Um, so I'm just excited that that's back in the world and that, you know, we're wrapping up season two, but, but very much looking forward to season three and beyond and thinking about, you know, future conversations that we can have with, with individuals. So that that's been really, I'm excited for people to keep listening to that.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Amazing. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on. It's been great to meet you so recently, and it's good to just have people around that do something similar to this weird job I found myself doing.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, yeah, man. And that night we had, the other night for Halloween, that panel that we did of ghost stories, I found that really...
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Well, Elijah, I want to ask you, I mean, spoiler alert for the audience. Daniel is, uh, very heavily involved in the paranormal and has no shortage of stories. So I will be asking you a lot about that later, best assured. But Elijah, how did you become interested in this stuff? Like, have you always been or?
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
really exciting and it reminded me of the thing that we've all talked about at varying times over this conversation is that thing of like being out in public and and having someone that you're that you're talking to engage you in a story that you know their experience of the paranormal and that's sort of what that felt like these people coming up and telling these anecdotes
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
It very much felt like it was the moth, but from paranormal stories. So I really hope we can do that again because it was really kind of electric.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Yeah, I was on a panel with these two for the audience who's not aware. Halloween. Well, actually, it was the night the Dodgers won the World Series. Yeah, that's right. Which is very funny. It was a very specific crowd there of people who are not watching the World Series in Los Angeles. That tracks, that tracks. But yeah, I went afterwards outside of my office.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
They're like doing donuts and blowing shit up. So it was funny. Yeah. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for coming on. It's been great to talk. And folks, thank you for listening. Thanks, dude. All right. Thank you so much to Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah for speaking with me.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
If you want to hear more from them, in particular, if you want to hear more about their adventures investigating the paranormal, you can check out the show Euphemet, which is a Spectre Vision radio show. In particular, episode 54, titled To the Queen, is about their adventures in the Queen Mary episode. and their long, complex relationship with it. It features Elijah and Daniel.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
By the way, the Queen Mary is a ship, a very old ship that's docked in the port of Long Beach that's supposed to be haunted. I don't know if we actually mentioned that. You can also check out the show Visitations. This is not a paranormal show, but it is hosted by Elijah and Daniel.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
In this show, they visit some of their favorite creators in their own homes and have intimate conversations about the relationship between their lives and their art. Thank you once again to Elijah and Daniel for coming on the show. You've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
This episode was edited by Hayley Pearson. Our artwork is by Cul-De-Sac Studios. Nikki Kate Delgado is our associate producer. Production help by Hayley Pearson. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about Otherworld. If you want to hear bonus episodes, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash otherworld.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
I mean, since I can remember, since I can remember, yeah, it probably goes back to, it probably goes back to when I was probably five or six. I have an older brother, seven years older than me. So when I was six and seven, five, six, seven, he was renting movies with his friends as like a teen. Yeah, as an early teenager. And they would more often than not be horror films.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Our social media is at Otherworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, Leah Reese-Dennis, Rob Morandi, Eric Donnelly, Matt Casey, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your story at storiesatotherworldpod.com.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And he would sort of sneak me into the room to allow me to watch these movies as long as I didn't tell our parents. So I was exposed to horror movies pretty early. And there was just this kind of gravitational pull towards it, partially because it's this thing you're not supposed to see. It's the forbidden fruit. It felt illicit and exciting and fun to see something I wasn't supposed to see.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And it was scary. So there's that pull. And then, you know, the older I got, the more the paranormal aspect of that became interesting to me. And some of that was through books initially. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was huge. Those books were massive for me, even Goosebumps to a degree. And then seeking out, you know, real stories. So those are obviously fictional ideas, but...
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
certainly inspired by the paranormal. And Edgar Allan Poe, I remember also really being attracted to. I was just kind of attracted to horror and horror-adjacent things. And the paranormal is obviously a major part of that and its depiction in horror cinema. So, yeah, it was kind of since the very early days of my life, pretty early on.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And then you just become fascinated with hearing individual stories, people's actual experiences. And I was always the one at social gatherings like,
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
like bending an ear to you know what have you experienced what have you seen um and just loving to be regaled with with true stories um so yeah always been fascinated by it and um you know a healthy sort of fear of it but but always kind of lent into it as well from a young age
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
And Daniel, what about you? I mean, what's your background and where did you initially come from on these topics?
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Oh, and one thing to add, I always believed in it. That's an important note as we delve into Daniel's story. I have always kind of believed in the possibility of everything. I'm not, I'm sort of the opposite of a skeptic, not, not quite opposite. Cause I'm not like a tried and true believer, but I'm, I am a, a, I'm a, I have a very open mind and believe I've always believed in the paranormal.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Um, so that, that's, that's just an important sort of note.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Just open to it. Um, Yeah, no, not a particular reason. I've had some minor encounters with the paranormal that were semi-direct, mostly indirect, but enough to lend validity to what was already a belief system.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Got it. Okay, Daniel, what about you? What was your stance originally?
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Well, were you always a believer or did this kind of like hit you? No, you weren't.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
You still are a writer, but you were more of a, a day-to-day cranking out.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Okay. I think it's time. I should just ask you about like when you first started experiencing things because.
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Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
This is a major reason why I've asked you to come on here and talk.
Otherworld
Interview with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah
Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. In this episode, I'm joined by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah. They're the founders of Spectrevision, hosts of the podcast Visitations, and two people I've gotten to know recently while working on Otherworld. When we met, we immediately started talking about the paranormal, our work, and the things that interest us.