Josh Peck and Ben Soffer Defend Timothée Chalamet, Celebrate Michael B. Jordan, and Get Honest About Cancel Culture

Cancel culture gets treated like it’s either completely fake or the end of the world and there’s rarely any middle ground. On Good Guys, Josh Peck and Ben Soffer get into all of it, from defending Timothée Chalamet to Peck’s own experience being dragged online after the Nickelodeon documentary. It’s funnier than it sounds but it also goes to some surprisingly real places. Here are the takes that landed the hardest.

The Timothée Chalamet thing is so overblown

Chalamet has been getting dragged for weeks after saying “no one cares” about ballet and opera during a conversation with Matthew McConaughey. The comment got clipped, went viral, and snowballed into responses from the Met Opera, Misty Copeland, Doja Cat, his own high school principal, and eventually Conan O’Brien roasting him during the Oscars.

Peck is over it. “I am done with this man being joked about for the most innocuous comment,” he says. “If you really hear the entire conversation, he literally said nothing.” Soffer thinks the real issue isn’t even the comment itself, but Chalamet’s relationship with Kylie Jenner. “They don’t like his choice in women. The Kardashians are never taken seriously. It doesn’t matter how many legitimate businesses they build.”

Michael B. Jordan deserved every second of that win

Jordan took home Best Actor at the 2026 Oscars for playing twin brothers in Sinners, beating out Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke, and Wagner Moura. Then he went straight to In-N-Out on Sunset Blvd, Oscar in hand, and the internet lost its mind. 

Peck actually knew him from a celebrity basketball league when they were both around 20. “He had just done The Wire. To watch him climb up the ladder, have a godsent in Ryan Coogler, what talents.” They debate whether In-N-Out paid him for the appearance. Soffer doesn’t think so. “I’ve never seen In-N-Out influencer marketing. I’ve never seen a billboard…It’s just the ultimate word of mouth delicious burger.”

Sean Penn skipped the Oscars and went to Ukraine instead

Penn won Best Supporting Actor for One Battle After Another, his third career Oscar, and didn’t show up to collect it. He was in Kyiv meeting with President Zelenskyy instead. Kieran Culkin, who presented the award, told the Dolby Theatre crowd: “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening, or didn’t want to, so I’ll be accepting the award on his behalf.” 

Ukrainian Railways later presented Penn with an “IronOscar” made from rail metal damaged during the war. “It’s particularly bada** when you show up to a cause that’s meaningful to you,” Soffer points out. “That is a considerably better use of his celebrity than showing up with a pin that you don’t understand. So, shout out to Sean Penn for sure.”

Peck got dragged during the Nickelodeon documentary and remembers exactly who showed up

When the documentary about Nickelodeon came out and the internet’s anger spilled in Peck’s direction, he says a few people immediately stepped up. Drake Bell publicly spoke out. “He saw it all and immediately spoke up and was like, ‘Guys, you’re getting this wrong.'” Soffer’s wife Claudia went on her podcast to defend him after running it by Peck first. 

“You’ll always remember who reached out to you,” Soffer points out. “The people who are dead silent, they better be texting, because if they’re dead silent online and they’re dead silent texting, they’re not calling, then that means this is a purely transactional relationship.”

The Nev Schulman quote that reframed everything

Peck shares something Nev Schulman said on his first podcast that clearly stuck with him. “When the internet comes after you, your life becomes your defense. And how you’ve lived for every minute prior to the internet getting mad at you either fuels their feelings or is a rebuke.” Meaning your track record either speaks for you or it doesn’t. “Maybe they are guilty of saying the wrong thing and maybe they were human, but everything leading up to this shows the history of a good person. So maybe we calm down and don’t completely ruin them for what was a human moment.”

Check in on people even when they were wrong

Soffer shares that they both know someone who was cancelled and was genuinely in the wrong, but he still reached out. “Even if you’re wrong, it doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to hear ‘I’m sorry that this is happening to you’ because it still stinks.” He also points out that most cancellations don’t actually end careers anymore. “When you’re canceled, you’re fine these days. It’s not like your whole life is over. But it’s not pleasant.” 

Checking in on someone who’s going through it costs nothing and says everything about who you are.

Listen to the full episode on Good Guys with Josh Peck and Ben Soffer, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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