Rorschach Test
John Wilson on Anxiety, Ridgewood, and Rent
ByInterview
Photographed byLee Manning & Lee Mary Manning
September 17, 2026
John Wilson, photographed by Lee Mary Manning.
Concrete is, by John Wilson’s own admission, one of the least sexy subjects imaginable, so he made an entire film about it. Following three seasons of How To with John Wilson, the new film is exactly the kind of meandering, deadpan meditation he’s built a career on. Starting as an attempt to sell a documentary using a Hallmark movie formula, The History of Concrete spirals into something stranger and much more personal. Wilson, who we shot at his Low Cinema mini–movie theater in Ridgewood, Queens, offers up some carefully considered thoughts on watch parties, e-bikes, jury duty, and why he’ll never touch A.I.
WATCH PARTIES
“I watched Game 4 of the NBA Finals with [Zohran] Mamdani. It was kind of bleak for the most part, but it was really euphoric at the end. The excitement is seductive. A feeling you really can’t get anywhere else.”
HEAT WAVES
“I tried to open up the cinema as a cooling center one morning when I saw a man on a bench looking really hot. I played a movie just for him, but then he started rubbing himself and asked if we had any pornographic films, so I had to skip right to the end.”
ANXIETY
“I try to mitigate it through a social outlet like the cinema. I have a lot of social anxiety about what to talk to people about, but the terms are very clear in an environment like a movie theater, where you’re just serving people concessions. Anxiety drives a lot of my art, I think, and art in general.”
RIDGEWOOD
“A lot of the old-guard places have figured out how to adapt to the new influx of people, but something like Wonder, that food place, really pisses me off. That’s a bad sign. I’m not about to protest outside, but it’s not what cities are for.”
E-BIKES
“The difference between the blue and gray Citi Bikes is the difference between heaven and hell—the easiest, breeziest experience versus this agonizing, clunky, heavy thing.”
“It should be affordable. In my new movie, I give very specific facts and figures on what I charge in rent and where I think it should land for people to afford living here. I think about that Onion headline all the time: ‘Landlord Forced to Raise Rent Due to Thinking of Bigger Number,’ because that’s how it feels—arbitrary.”
PARADES
“I don’t like to be in an environment with a ton of cops telling me where to go. I have no interest in that.”
JURY DUTY
“I was in a pool of jurors a few years ago. They didn’t pick me because I was too opinionated.”
POTHOLES
“I was filming them for a while, just watching them grow.”
SUBURBIA
“Growing up on Long Island made me really resent suburbia, but I’ve come to fall back in love with it. Going back as an adult feels inspiring in a different way. I can appreciate all the little cultural nuances, and it’s way more freakish than the city in a lot of ways.”
CLAUDE
“I have never used A.I. Partially because I just don’t care, but most of what I see is from bad actors, and right now it feels like a tool of the fascist class.”
STRANGERS
“One day I was out filming a pothole, and I went into a liquor store. I met this promoter and ended up spending the next year and a half with him for my movie. He was a stranger—I’d probably passed him a handful of times over the years—but someone can stop being a stranger very quickly if you just ask them questions about their life.”
ZOHRAN MAMDANI
“It’s been very cool seeing the energy in the city get elevated to this degree. I didn’t really think people would feel this good about New York politics in my lifetime.”
NATHAN FIELDER
“He came to the cinema recently to do a Q&A after Sully, and we talked about bird deaths by plane. I owe him so much. He took this small idea I had and knew how to turn it into something truly resonant and artistic. He’s got a really brilliant mind.”
FITNESS
“I haven’t been to the gym in a couple of years because people started talking to me there, which is my worst nightmare. I don’t want to make fans feel self-conscious for saying what’s up, but when I’m working out I want to be the most invisible ever.”
AMAZON
“I don’t like that guy.”
PIGEONS
“I have two above my bed. One is real and one is not.”
Grooming: Dani Francis using First Aid Beauty and Bumble and Bumble.
Location: Low Cinema.
