You’ve already had a chance to meet Patrick Hinds and Gillian Pensavalle, co-hosts of the hilarious podcast True Crime Obsessed. We’ve asked them to answer the Socialite Seven and you may be surprised by their answers.
Who has been your biggest influence?
Gillian: I’m going to say my parents, and here’s why. My Dad has the best work ethic on the planet and I get that from him and they are the best party throwers that I’ve ever met and they opened me up to this great world of piano parties and the queer community when I was younger. So I think that I get this balance of working my ass off and partying my ass off from a combination of what they’ve taught me.
Patrick: I will say something that’s a little bit cheesy. I will say Broadway actors. I use to make a Broadway podcast and I got to interview hundreds of Broadway actors and I will say that they are the hardest working people. They create their own opportunities They are incredibly hard-working but they are incredibly funny and kind and there’s a whole lot of compassion and kindness. I will say that over the years of making my Broadway-themed podcast and meeting all of those Broadway actors, I really learned how far you can go if you believe in yourself and work hard.
How do you choose what to cover on your podcast?
Gillian: One, it has mostly to do with the length of the documentary, if we’re just talking logistics. But, two, we try to have a little bit of a flow. Like, we won’t do two cults in a row. We break it up and we have to talk about it in a very cut and dried kind of way, not like we don’t have any compassion, but we have to say, “We just did this really terrifying home invasion, so maybe can we do like a diamond heist next, just to not be so miserable for a recording?” We just try to base it on the crime itself and try to mix it up as best we can.
Patrick: I’ll just add that we do also try whenever we can to shine a light on lesser-known cases. People of color we’ll try to cover or cases involving the LGBT community – so we’re not just talking about dead white people.
What three things would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?
Gillian: My music collection, my dogs and my husband.
Patrick: I would take my daughter, my husband and a bottle of vodka.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Patrick: I think about this all the time. I think the advice I would give my younger self…it would be a whisper in the ear and it would be, “It’s all going to work out. Just relax, try to have a little fun. It’s all going to work out.”
Gillian: Yeah, I agree. I would say the same thing, for different reasons. I take the same answer. I’m stealing it.
If you had to write your autobiography, what would the title be?
Gillian: We joke about this on the podcast all of the time. When someone says a phrase that relates to them, I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, the Patrick Hinds story.” I’m constantly screaming “the Patrick Hinds story.” I think mine would be, and it’s a little bit of a reference to the other podcast I make, the Hamilcast, but I have no chill whatsoever and everyone says I’m on “Team No Chill”, so it would be something like “Team No Chill: How to Live Your Life without Chill.”
Patrick: The one that I’ve been talking a lot about lately is called “Life at Eleven,” but I’m afraid that comes off like life at eleven o’clock but what it really means is that most people go from one to ten, but I’m at an eleven.
How has doing this podcast changed you?
Patrick: For me, we found real, bonafide success with this podcast, so it has changed me in a lot of ways. I live in a nicer apartment, I am able to support my family, my husband is able to work for the business. I found a brand new, great friend – which is such a rare thing to do at 40 years old. Without sounding like a cheesy cheeseball, I would say that it has shown me that success is possible if you’re willing to really work for it.
Gillian: I agree. We sort of created this job for ourselves and it’s been really eye-opening and I feel a lot of gratitude and pride for what we’ve accomplished. We kind of didn’t know what we were going to do until it was in front of us and we took it and made it something that works really well for us and people are enjoying. Its woken me up in a lot of ways about what I want, what I can accomplish, what is in front of me, what came behind me. It’s been a very eye-opening and welcomed experience. It’s hard freelancing for 100 years. We did it and it’s amazing. The gratitude is very real.
Patrick: I want to add that, the gratitude is so real, that people listen to our podcast and they share it with their friends. They get excited about it and they love it. Our mutual friend Tommy Kail, who directs Hamilton, will say that the reason musicals are more successful than plays is because you tell your friend about going to see a play, but you bring your friend to see a musical that you love. In that sense, True Crime Obsessed is like a musical. People want to listen to it with their friends. They want to listen to it with their kids. The gratitude is real….That’s the name of my autobiography!
What’s the weirdest question you’ve been asked?
Gillian: We were at a convention, and someone asked who we thought we were the perfect victim for. Like, of all of the big serial killers, who would have murdered us.
Patrick: It’s kind of an inappropriate question because it’s taking the fact that we all like true crime to a level that’s a little inappropriate.
Gillian: We stand very firmly behind a certain line. We do not glorify these people. We don’t think its cool. We’re terrified. These documentaries actually give us nightmares. I had nightmares about Ted Bundy trying to break into my home. It’s not fun, we don’t glorify it. We don’t think it’s glamorous in any way. So, questions like that, who would murder me? Hopefully nobody! That’s why I’m here because I’m scared every day that it will be my last at the hands of some crazy person. That question made me think and feel a lot of things that I didn’t like.
Patrick: The most inappropriate question I’ve been asked isn’t podcast-related. Somebody asked me about the ethnicity of my daughter. It was like “What breed is she?” I’ll just say it this way, we get a lot of weirdly inappropriate questions about how we acquired our daughter, where she came from, who her “real parents” are…we get a lot of that stuff.
What is your favorite Broadway musical?
Patrick: That’s easy for me. The Who’s Tommy is the musical that changed me forever. I still think of my experience as life-changing. But I will say my modern favorite musical, the musical that might now be my most favorite musical of all time is Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. I’ll never forget my experience seeing that show.
Gillian: I’m going with Hamilton because it changed my life and the Hamilcast has changed my life. Three and a half years later and it’s still going strong and I’m still talking about it. The experiences I’ve had because of that show…the gratitude is real. I’m stealing that too.
Listen to new episodes of True Crime Obsessed every Tuesday wherever you get your podcast fix and bonus episodes are released on TCO’s Patreon every Friday. Follow the show on Twitter and follow Patrick and Gillian too!
