Paul Giamatti is the everyman kind of celebrity where even though he’s an actor who has worked in big films amongst big stars, he will still go to In-N-Out Burger to celebrate an awards win. During the pandemic, when Zoom communication skyrocketed, Giamatti found a peer in Stephen Asma, an author and philosophy professor at Columbia College Chicago. Giamatti sought out the professor after being intrigued by his lectures about imagination and consciousness. He explained, “We were Zooming when Zoom was a new thing. It was nice to chat with this guy, and we found each other having these longer and longer chat. Stephen jokingly said, ‘We ought to do something with this.’ ”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Giamatti followed suit with his fellow actors who turned to podcasting, except Giamatti’s show would not feature co-stars or Hollywood friends to promote their projects, but instead have them dig deep into their geeky recesses. Last April Giamatti and Asma debuted Chinwag at SXSW with a live recording about monsters. Their show would discuss time travel with Tom Hanks, tell ghost stories with Billy Bob Thornton, discuss the topic of cults with Kathryn Hahn, dug into the concept of the Mandela effect with Patton Oswalt, had Amy Sedaris speak about Japanese subways, have Don Cheadle explain how he feels religion helps tame the ego, explored Jungian archetypes with Late Night host Stephen Colbert and spoke with Natasha Lyonne as she passionately explained her belief in extraterrestrials, ghosts and bigfoot.

Giamatti has expounded, “I know from being interviewed over the years that I often get most excited when the conversation goes off topic and I get to talk about something other than me. I get bored talking about myself, or a particular project, I gotta be honest.” Oscar Guido, one of the founders of the company that produces Chinwag says Giamatti’s podcast exploded with popularity, “The types of emails and socials that we get are long letters from folks saying not only that they love Paul and Stephen, but then diving into their own experiences of the supernatural. I’m talking like four- or five-page long essays. We’ve gotten fan art, we’ve gotten sketches, posters. I mean the engagement on this has really been through the roof.”

Giamatti’s passion for it doesn’t look to be going anywhere soon as he states, “I’ll be able to fully concentrate on it again soon, because for the past three months, my attention got completely taken away. Hopefully all these things will come to fruition in different ways.” 

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