“The Hangover” Producer Who Walked Away From Hollywood to Fix America's Prison System
About this episode
Scott Budnick discusses his journey from Hollywood producer to criminal justice reform advocate.
Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Scott Budnick produced some of the biggest films in Hollywood — Old School, The Hangover, War Dogs. Then he visited a juvenile detention center in Los Angeles, and it changed the trajectory of his life. He walked away from Hollywood and started going into juvenile detention centers every week — teaching, listening, showing up for kids the system had written off. That was 22 years ago. He still goes every week. Along the way, he built the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) — a name suggested by Robert Downey Jr. — fought for sentences to be overturned, and watched people walk out of prison and build lives nobody thought were possible. And then he came back to Hollywood — this time to make films with real social impact, including Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan. In this conversation, Mariana and Scott talk (a little bit) about Hollywood, but mostly about America's broken criminal justice system, why it fails the people it was supposed to correct, and what real change actually requires. Plus: the story of a man in solitary confinement for decades — Scott slipped his pinky through the cell bars to reach him, the…
People in this episode
Host: Mariana van Zeller
Guest: Scott Budnick
Topics covered
- criminal justice reform
- Hollywood
- juvenile detention
- social impact films
- recidivism
- personal transformation
Sponsors
Huel
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Anti-Recidivism Coalition
Books & works: Just Mercy, Old School, The Hangover, War Dogs
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