Learn Amazing Facts About Historical Escapes with Arturo Castro

Arturo Castro has some questions for Violet Jessop. The actor—who you might know from Broad City, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, The Menu, or “that time I played a tastebud in [that] one commercial about toffee”—featured the nurse and stewardess on his podcast, Greatest Escapes. She’s the subject he’d most like to meet, because she managed to escape not one, not two, but three shipwrecks, including the Titanic.

“I want to ask a few questions—mainly, ‘Why did you get in another ship?’ ” he says. “It just feels like after the second time, God or the universe is trying to tell you something.” But that’s not the only reason: “She also seemed like such an empathetic person … She was all about helping other passengers get out to safety, which I think takes a lot of character, you know, especially if you’re in fear [for] your life.”

Greatest Escapes just wrapped up a run of 15 episodes, covering escapes from the Elizabethan era to the swinging ‘60s and beyond. (You can read all the episode transcripts .) Castro joined us on the latest episode of Amazing Facts With Mental Floss to talk those escapes and more—he says he particularly liked learning about the Elizabethan era through Jesuit John Gerard, who ran afoul of Protestants and ended up getting tortured in the Tower of London before making his escape.

“I wouldn’t like to be in that era myself,” he says, “but I’ve enjoyed exploring sort of the nuance of … why [people] were in prison and [the] religious persecution. It’s interesting to me that it was, you know, people of the same religion sort of infighting as to whose … version of that religion is best—which happens to this date, of course—but seeing the origins of that or early examples of people being like, ‘well, I read the same book and I have a different interpretation, which means that you should die if you don’t think this exact way.’ It’s mind boggling to me.”

You can listen to Greatest Escapes here. Watch the full episode of Amazing Facts above, and read on for more from our interview with Castro that we couldn’t fit into the episode.

1. On which of his characters would be the best—and worst—and escaping:
2. On the place he’d be the most scared to have to escape from—cave, jungle, or ocean:
3. On the escape he wanted to cover on Greatest Escapes but couldn’t:
4. On what he’s learned from doing the podcast:
5. On his own greatest escape:

On which of his characters would be the best—and worst—and escaping:

“I played Pablo Escobar once, for the Weird Al Yankovic [movie], and he was pretty good at escaping captivity for a long time, until he wasn’t—until he died a horrible death, like the mass murderer a**hole that he was. And who would be the worst?  … I played a lot of characters that would be the worst. But Mo, who I played in Road House, he’s just such an earnest character. Him and Jaime [from Broad City], I think, would just be the first to be like … ‘I am so sorry. I cannot do this anymore. This is too big. Please come find me.’ … Those two would be caught within three minutes of having escaped.”

On the place he’d be the most scared to have to escape from—cave, jungle, or ocean:

“Spelunking terrifies me. Particularly because I saw the story of this man who got caught in a hole while spelunking [at] such an angle that they couldn’t—he was upside down with his feet up, but they couldn’t rescue him. … Speaking about it right now that gives me such anxiety that I could die. But also the ocean. I mean, the ocean is just kind of like, ‘oh, like there’s just no chance.’ The jungle, I think you have a chance. … I’m just saying, I’ve watched enough Naked and Afraid to know that I would be afraid fully clothed. But I could figure something out in the jungle.”

On the escape he wanted to cover on Greatest Escapes but couldn’t:

“[Tsutomu Yamaguchi], who survived both atomic bombs in Japan that I believe Hiroshima was first. And then he took a train to his house in Nagasaki, and then another bomb hit. I would love to just know the thoughts in his head—besides the horror, obviously. Do you think you’re cursed? Do you think you’re blessed, you know, because you escaped twice? … What does that do to the psyche? I’d be fascinated to cover that.”

On what he’s learned from doing the podcast:

“The resilience of the human spirit—that’s something I’ve learned over and over again, doing the podcast that I do. There’s something about us as human beings that we strive for a few things that we don’t feel are a right until they’re taken away from us. And that is safety. That is freedom. That is the right to live. And when any of these are threatened, a lot of human beings get activated in the most superhuman ways.”

On his own greatest escape:

“There’s been a few. I drowned once for a brief moment. I was maybe 8 years old, and playing underwater wrestling with a buddy of mine. … I came up for air … and he didn’t see that I hadn’t taken a breath when he decided to push me all the way down. And so I’m thrashing because obviously I’m drowning. But he thinks that we’re just horsing around. … And I remember the sense of panic … and then suddenly I felt this peace … almost like [I was] going to sleep, you know, and I was like, ‘oh, this isn’t that bad.’ And then he pulls me up and I keep breathing again. … [jokingly] Anyway, I made it through and with very, very little damage to my personality or charisma. So great. I’m here.”

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