#103 - A Chat with Michael Berryman

Okay, full disclosure: I went into this expecting yet another dry industry interview, the kind that sounds like it was recorded in a sterile boardroom with a PR handler nodding along in the background. Wrong. Berryman’s voice—raspy, gravelly, and carrying the weight of decades in the sunless pits of exploitation cinema—immediately disarms you. He’s not performing here; there’s no posturing, no name-dropping for effect. Just a guy recounting the time he nearly froze to death in the Utah desert for a shot, or how he’d sneak into theaters to watch his own movies because he couldn’t afford tickets. The narration (attributed, oddly, to ‘Unknown’) serves the material perfectly: unadorned, conversational, with just enough roughness to sell the authenticity. My one gripe? The audio quality is inconsistent—some sections hum with clarity, others sound like they were recorded in a tin can. And while Berryman’s humor is a highlight, a few tangents drag when he veers into side stories about other actors that feel like asides meant for a longer cut. Still, by the time he gets to his infamous *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest* audition story, I was 100% hooked. This isn’t high art; it’s the audio equivalent of a late-night diner booth, and I loved every squalid, weird minute of it.