Episode
“The Hangover” Producer Who Walked Away From Hollywood to Fix America's Prison System
- Podcast
- The Hidden Third
- Published
- May 13, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3019
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-hidden-third-7538391/episodes/the-hangover-producer-who-walked-away-from-hollywood-to-fix-america-s-prison-system/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hidden-third-7538391/the-hangover-producer-who-walked-away-from-hollywood-to-fix-america-s-prison-system.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
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 first human contact this man had had in over 30 years. Today, because of policy reform Scott fought for, he is free and working with the homeless population. CODES: Limited Time Offer – You Need Fiber. Yes you! Boost your fiber with Huel today using my exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with my code MARIANA at https://www.huel.com/MARIANA. New Customers Only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show!Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MARIANA at https://www.oneskin.co/MARIANA #oneskinpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices