Episode
EP050 - We Follow the Heartbreak w/ Berndt Mader
- Podcast
- Doc Walks
- Published
- Apr 23, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4823
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/doc-walks-7327673/episodes/ep050-we-follow-the-heartbreak-w-berndt-mader/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/doc-walks-7327673/ep050-we-follow-the-heartbreak-w-berndt-mader.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
We mark 50 walks with business partner, co-conspirator, and professor of things cinematic—Berndt Mader, co-founder of The Bear and Ben's filmmaking better-half of nineteen years. Lady Bird Lake, placid gray spring weather, and Berndt tracing his arc from sandbag-slinging grip on David Gordon Green's GEORGE WASHINGTON to Austin's hybrid-film provocateur. The main event: the $2M Kid Rock documentary that was, until it wasn't. Berndt pulled Ben past "no way" and into Nashville, where Danny McBride's blessing got them into Bob Ritchie's house weeks before COVID locked everything down. Katie Steinbauer sewed a mask, Berndt drove up anyway, and they captured an apology scene where an aging rockstar says he's going to "try to sneak into heaven." Then June 2022 happened—a homophobic slur went viral, Roughhouse evacuated, Live Nation grabbed the hard drives, and MY NAME IS KID became a film that will never see daylight. We get into the art of directing real people through fake scenarios with BOOGER RED, Berndt's CLOSE-UP-inspired hybrid adaptation of Mike Hall's Texas Monthly exposé of the Mineola case, and how that story got a second life as the HBO docuseries HOW TO CREATE A SEX SCANDAL. Plus Werner Herzog impressions, the Pete Best of The Bear, a Richard Linklater dream collaboration, and the thesis statement for episode 50: "We follow the heartbreak." DISCUSSION LINKS: GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) | BOOGER RED (2015) | HOW TO CREATE A SEX SCANDAL (2023) | CHOP & STEELE (2022) | CLOSE-UP (1990) | THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) | COCKSUCKER BLUES (1972) | SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (1987) | A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON (1974) | WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE (1988) | APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) | 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) | MAKING A MURDERER (2015) | EASTBOUND & DOWN (2009) | THE RIGH…