Original subtitles

Hey, I'm Nev. I'm here with Rel and Henry.

We are here to talk about funny stories and things relating to the film.

Ariel, Rel.

Henry... Henry, Henry.

(BOTH SNICKERING)

Okay. So, we have question cards to ask each other.

| have a good one to start. "Please explain why you chose this title."

That is a good question.

Nev, do you want to tell us about how many other title options we had?

Oh, man. Yeah, we had a lot of... We didn't have a title for a long time,

and basically, we were not... We didn't want to give anything away with the title.

We always knew that.

And for a long time we kind of thought something with the word "Facebook" In it

might be good.

Facebook Family or Friend Me, question mark.

Or It's Complicated? Well, right.

One title that we really wanted to go with was It's Complicated,

IN reference to the relationship status.

But then shortly after we kind of started leaning towards that,

the movie It's Complicated with Alec Baldwin and...

Rom com. Right. The rom com came out.

So, we couldn't do that. That was out.

That was quickly nixed. Right.

We flirted with the title Michigan Impossible.

For about 13 seconds. Right.

Naive Nev. Naive Yaniv. Yaniv's Internet Girlfriend.

That was the first title. | like that one.

That was the working title for a long time. Nev's Internet Girlfriend.

But then we showed an early cut to a fellow filmmaker and friend.

Ben Younger. Ben Younger.

Ben Younger. Walt, together...

Ben Younger. Ben Younger.

And he saw It and immediately, right away he just said...

"Catfish."

... YOU guys got to call it Catfish.”

And we were like, "Ben, you're crazy!"

He said, "You guys will come around.

"You'll come around. Just give it a couple of months."

Catfish?

But when we submitted to Sundance,

It was called It's All Downhill From Here. Oh, yeah.

And then it was a day before Sundance and we had to...

We had to literally write In the title.

Yeah, they called us and they said,

"We're printing the program. You guys need to decide on a title."

We had a late night powwow, went through the list

and we all just said, "Fine, Catfish. Just call it Catfish.”

Because at least It's one word and it's mysterious.

| mean, everybody likes movies where

you don't know what the title means until the end, right?

It's like a little bonus. Dessert.

Yeah. Like The Wizard of Oz.

Like the... Exactly.

Okay. Another... Next question.

"How did they convince you to keep going

"once you knew something was off and Megan wasn't who she said she was?

"You had already formed a deep attachment to her..."

Okay, well... So...

Basically when | first was suspicious about the music,

when we found the songs online and saw that

they weren't in fact music... Songs that they had recorded,

| called Megan, she didn't answer, and | left her a voicemail

that was very upset.

| actually remember. It was pretty funny.

Yeah, | remember that.

| said, "Hey, Megan. It's Nev. | want to talk to you about this song and

"I'm a little curious and upset about something,

"so why don't you give me a call?" And | left my number and | said,

"My number is 917... (BLEEP) L-I-A-R," and | hung up.

And they looked at me like, "Whoa. That's crazy.

"You just called her a liar on her voicemail.”

Because | was upset...

And then | quickly understood that being upset and

negative was not going to get us anywhere because

Rel and Henry said, "Nev, look.

"We don't know what's going on with Megan, but

"wouldn't you like to find out? Don't you want to know what's up?

"And not only that, but also with Abby and her art and...

"There's so many different things here, don't be...

"Kind of quit on the whole story."

Don't throw a grenade on the whole thing.

So, | decided, like,

"Okay, yeah. | do want to find out what's going on. | want to meet Megan," and

It became more about the idea of following through and

sort of going In head-first, taking a dive, an adventure, a mystery,

and being a part of a team.

And It was really the team vibe and the feeling that

we were working on something together and going, all of us,

out of our comfort zone to discover something we didn't know about

that trumped my feelings of uncertainty and nervousness

and a little upsetness with Megan.

And in a way, the making of the film delayed your reaction.

It did. It did, actually. | think.

| mean, it wasn't until after we came back from Michigan and...

| was back at home and the trip was over, and | realized,

"Man! That sucks!" You know? This girl that |, kind of,

was in love with turned out to be a

40-year-old mother with

a very strange, dark reality.

And then | realized that | was sad and lonely.

It was tragic. Anyway...

Okay.

"One of the scary things about social networking IS what people present

"and how much Is true. Shifting identity.

"The you presented In everyday life

"and the you on the Internet. Same person.”

Question mark.

NO. NO.

Definitely not. No. Definitely not.

| would say definitely not.

| would say we each present...

Yeah...

A Facebook profile gives you the ability to present yourself

In the way you would like to be seen by other people.

Which is really different from real life.

It IS.

And actually a lot of people have asked me,

"How do you feel about being out there for everyone to see,

"having this film about you and this thing that happened?”

And secretly, up until now,

I've withheld from saying, "Well, you know, the movie was edited

"just the way that your online profile IS edited."

And | thank our editor every day for making me a sweet,

charming, friendly, caring person because...

Yeah, that stuff's all true, but I'm also other things that may not be as...

Like what? Well, | can get...

| can be irritable and say things that are a little Insensitive occasionally.

Accidentally, perhaps.

| get cranky when I'm hungry.

Tired.

That's not in the movie. All that stuff isn't in there,

but it could have been.

So, that's the reality of media. It's not a 24-hour webcam.

It has to be... There have to be cuts.

And It's the same thing with a Facebook profile.

You don't put every picture of you from last night's party because

one or two of them suck, and you look terrible.

It's true. | actually do, consciously, put up some of the really sucky ones

to prove that | am not vain and that my Facebook profile Is objective.

Equal opportunity.

Equal opportunity for all photographs. Good and bad photos.

But there Is an Interesting point here,

which 1s that we all lie a little bit online.

You put your best foot forward.

You put a foot forward, and so

by choosing a foot, you're ignoring the other foot.

| always thought it was funny how there's one scene where

they're cooking breakfast for the four or five of us, Vince included,

and Angela asked Nev to take care...

Take the responsibility of half the meal.

He's like, "Well, Angela. | don't really cook much.”

And she's like, "What do you mean?

"I thought you said you love cooking.”

He's like, "When did | say that?"

And she said, "Well, it's on your Facebook profile.

"It says, 'Cooking. | love cooking.™

And you're like... (EXCLAIMS)

She's like, "Oh. You just said that to get girls, right?”

And you were like, "Yeah."

| think that speaks more to her obsession with me

than it does to our friendship, but...

You lied about cooking.

| lied about cooking.

"Angela created this living novel with Nev as her main character."

Nice. "Did you ever feel used?”

You know, it's interesting.

Through... During the experience

and while | was interacting with the family,

It always felt very inclusive.

There was so much going on, there was so much Interaction between them,

with each other and then with me and some of my friends and my family,

and | was just grateful that this entertaining, daily

sitcom was happening and | had access to it

and | could tune In and tune out and

be a part of it and Interact and really just enjoying it and,

sort of, escaping through It.

And then we got there and It became very clear that

It wasn't at all that upbeat, cheery, fun-loving, artistic group of people.

| Immediately focused on Angela and

the reality of who she was and what was going on in her life, and

we developed a friendship with her, and this...

The nine months leading up to that quickly evaporated.

| completely forgot that | had been dealing with all these things, and it...

The focus immediately became what was really there and who Angela was

and this family that she had.

And It wasn't until almost a year later,

when the film started to take shape and | started watching it

and | started noticing my...

How | had been manipulated and how much she had led me on

and how many feelings | had had that | had Kind of blocked out.

And yeah, | guess | felt like | had been misled, obviously, and

not necessarily used,

but | was amazed at how deep she had brought me In to this world

and how easily | had let myself go down that rabbit hole.

But | think we both used each other.

She represented a fantasy that | had

of a different lifestyle, In the country,

living on a farm, working with my hands, being more outdoors.

And for her, | was the New York City lifestyle.

The art and culture,

the fast-paced metropolis lifestyle.

So, we both used each other, | think, equally.

The big difference being that her reality was totally false and mine wasn't, but

online it is like the equalizer because what's the difference?

There's no way to prove one's real and one's not.

The Internet acts as this

leveling scale where

reality and deception just meet and

new things sprout out of that.

Yeah. Had we never gone there,

we would have never found out that she was lying.

You could have remained In that perfect fantasy forever.

Online is a limbo of truths. Yeah.

| think about the... The idea of a living novel...

It was really only after we got back

that we started looking at all the correspondence In detail

and all of the wall posts and the characters.

And it was then, reading through all that a few times,

and there were thousands and thousands of messages and voicemails and chats,

that we realized that it really was like a living novel.

It was this thing that she created that

adapted to Nev and adapted to how he was feeling and when...

For instance, when Nev's interest was...

Flagging?

When Nev's interest was... Waning.

Waning. That's when Megan started sending naked pictures.

And everyone Knows that that's a good way

to get a 24-year-old guy Interested again.

And there was a jealous boyfriend character,

and there was a rival photographer character.

And then there was actually Joelle.

Joelle, right.

Who was another girl, Megan's age, who was Abby's babysitter,

who was this, sort of, very forward, provocative girl who was also very pretty,

sO she had this strange relationship with me where she teased me

and led me...

She tested you. She tested me. Yeah.

She'd, sort of, give you the skinny on what Megan was really feeling.

Right. And Alex would give you a hard time

If you weren't calling Megan back.

Yeah. Right.

It was fascinating.

It was like a soap opera

starring... Created for you. Right.

Which you could... You had front row seats.

And it went on for hours and hours every day.

Yeah. It was a living soap opera.

The Truman Show.

Yeah. It's sort of like The Truman Show.

Schulman Show.

The Schulman Show, just for you.

This doesn't have a card, but is It true?

We... Yes.

A lot of people have asked us,

"Is the film real? Is It a real documentary?”

Because... Did you fake anything?

Right. Was anything shot intentionally or after the fact...

Or anything staged?

Staged.

Did you know It was her and did you go In...

Did you guys know more than you let on early and then you kept going

because you knew it was going to be Angela in the end?

Yeah. And the answer to all these questions is...

The answer IS no.

What you see Is what actually happened.

And it's strange, too, for all of us because... Especially for me.

When | hear people say, "I don't think it's real," or,

"How could that have really happened to you?"

| don't know how to answer. | basically just say, "Well, look. It happened.

"I went through that. | didn't think | was particularly vulnerable or

"a target for deception.” But | was.

And flattery and

flirting and... Well, yeah,

those two things played a big part in It.

And It's amazing how far those things can take you

when you're getting positive attention.

Who wants to give that up? Who wants to question the reality?

So, yeah. | got duped. | got totally suckered Into something, but

It was something that | was looking for

and wanting and hoping was real, and so

| let myself go and... Yeah. It happened. And so...

These guys just happened to be aware of It.

I'll sign up and say that | got duped, too.

| have nothing... Yeah. We all did.

Yeah. I'm not ashamed of that.

I'm actually kind of proud of it because we were open-minded

and maybe we were naive and maybe we thought...

Maybe we weren't defensive enough, or...

Cautious. Suspicious enough.

But cautious. We made it out alive.

We have new friends to show for It.

A story to tell. | would...

Yeah.

One of the things | think we discovered was that

when you really want something to be true,

you're willing to overlook any detail that does not agree with that.

And It's easy to go back and look at it in detall and In hindsight, but

at the time, you really wanted that girl to be real.

And you were willing to overlook what now seem like

very obvious details about why she wasn't.

ARIEL: Yeah.

And people always ask us, "Well, were you guys suspicious?

"And were you pushing him on knowing that

"there was something twisted behind that door?"

And the answer to that is no, but we were seeing him

where you were at your happiest.

Because you wanted her to be real so badly

we wanted her to be real so badly for your sake because

you'd never been sO happy before.

There was the possibility of living on a farm with a beautiful girl

that thinks you're the best. Yeah.

And anytime we had doubts, it was...

We were talked out of it by Nev.

Yeah. | was completely... And also,

Angela anticipated any doubts we could have had, | think.

To her credit, we were never completely suspicious because

there was always the exact right proof or evidence

of a question that was hatching in our minds.

Right? Yeah.

If it was, "That painting IS by an 8-year-old.

"Yeah, right. How could she paint that?"

Next day, time lapse video of Abby In front of the painting.

| should do it this way.

Of that painting coming to life.

There you go. Suspicion assuaged.

Nev, are you sure this 1s not about money somehow?

Then Nev gets a check for $500.

There's a scene that we took out of the movie at the end,

right before we went to Sundance, which was

Abby had won a local competition with a painting she did from one of my photos

and insisted, or Angela insisted on sending me half of the $1,000

as a thank you, | guess

for letting Abby paint from...

As part of the deal.

Right. And also, any paintings

that Abby sold that were from my photos,

they were going to send me half of the money.

And that was the first time that there had been any money, and so

they, sure enough, sent me $500 and so...

Right.

At that point | was like, "They're not trying to scam me, | guess.”

So, it's not a financial scam. Right.

It's not an art scam because we see the little girl painting.

| mean, which was proof enough.

What other kind of scam...

A romance scam?

Well, that doesn't exist. With 15 characters?

It turned out to be the thing you don't think of, which is just someone reaching out

and wanting a connection with another person. That's It.

It's just emotional.

Yeah.

And Facebook just allowed it to snowball.

That's right. Right.

Because, even Angela said, "| didn't mean for it to get this big.”

And that she just started making new characters

when she thought | might be losing interest.

Right. And you can see,

or | could see when | was there that this is,

while that is not something | probably would do,

you can see how one little lie turns into a bigger lie

and then you have to support this huge world.

Right.

And there are only two options.

You either make it more complicated or you tell the truth.

Question is... Great question.

How did you handle Angela...

Comforting Angela as... Going in to this knowing that you were going to

ask her to reveal all of these lies?

Well, the big conversation that | had with Angela,

where she told us the truth about everything,

came on, | think it was day three or four.

It was one of the last days we were up there.

At which point we had spent a lot of time with Angela,

Abby, Vince, their sons,

some of their friends... And had really developed

the beginnings of a friendship.

And | saw who she was and why she was doing what she did, and

there wasn't any anger anymore, or

| didn't have any negative feelings towards Angela, as a person,

because | had just met her and | saw her life and met her family and

they were a wonderful family.

And so, | really was just now curious and looking for an answer

as to why she had done this.

But again, people forget that

| wasn't meeting the woman who had lied to me and deceived me and

led me down this dark, twisted. nine-month relationship.

| was meeting a woman | had never met before.

She happened to be this creative, strangely deceitful woman who

made all these characters, but the characters were their own people.

They were real to me still.

And It was too fresh to really understand that those people didn't exist.

They were still real people, and | still talk about them,

and Angela was a new real person.

And | didn't have any negativity towards her.

You actually knew her better than... Yeah.

Better than you realized.

Yeah. And it kind of became clear that

all of these characters that she created were pieces of her.

And | immediately sympathized with her

and subconsciously understood that

what she was doing was, In a sense, what | was doing, except

she was on one side of it and | was on the other and...

But we were both looking for a connection and had found one with each other.

The romantic side of it, the friendship side,

the creative artistic collaboration side,

those were all real to me and still are,

and that was there and | couldn't ignore that and be angry at her.

Those were real feelings that | had, and

It would have been difficult to be angry at her.

So, | just tried to stay neutral and let her tell her story because

| knew that it was important to hear and she had something important to say.

AS soon as she came clean at Abby's riding lesson,

where you first confront her,

you say, "Okay. We know something IS amiss here.

"Just come out with it." Everything became so relaxed.

Do you remember? And everyone was just like...

Great tension had been lifted.

Yeah. (EXHALING)

And we all just started hanging out. Yeah.

Because | think she recognized...

Because If we ever had a plan going in,

the plan was like you say in the movie, "Let's treat them fairly and

"not accuse anyone of anything." Right.

And gently enable her to...

Tell the truth.

Tell the truth, and

it was pretty interesting because we were still filming, obviously,

and It was very clear that you and Angela had a chemistry,

sort of like an old friend chemistry,

as If you guys had reunited

but yet had never met,

which was weird because you actually did know her very well,

she knew you better than you realized,

but It was through the guise of all these characters.

And like you said, she Is all these characters.

Right, and you'd talked to her on the phone for...

Hundreds of hours.

Yeah. You guys had a real friendship,

which was interesting. Yeah.

"Any regrets? What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

"Anything you would have done differently?"

| agree. | agree. Yeah.

| think that's the... That's what the Catfish story Is about, too.

It's about these people who you think are negative people In your life at one point

turn out to be positive people

and they keep you on your toes.

The hurt and the pain. That's the good stuff.

| mean, if you had just met Megan and...

Well, had you guys fallen in love and had she been real,

that would have been great. Sure.

And had you moved on to her horse farm and gotten married

and had a whole coop of chickens,

then that would have been better.

But if it's hard and painful then it's probably more human and dramatic.

It might say more to more people about what it means to be alive.

And so, that... So, it did make us stronger, right?

And we met someone that has a totally different lifestyle than us and

we became real friends.

Yeah. That's right.

| guess what | hope most when people watch the movie is that

they look at their real friends,

decide and understand who they are

and make an effort to really go and have a more

personal and a real connection to who their real friends are.

Sharing the story, my story, this story, our story,

Angela's story, is important.

JOOST: All we really hoped for this film was just that

It would start great conversations for the people who watched it, so

we hope that you continue the conversation we've been having for a long time and

enjoy the film.

Hi, Mom.