Hollywood actor and director Josh Margolin has a very wonderful relationship with his grandmother, Thelma,

his 104-year-old grandmother, Thelma.

So a few years ago, when Thelma was the target of a grandparent scam,

well, Josh took it to heart, especially because the criminal pretended to be Josh,

said he'd been in a car accident and needed money.

So Josh turned the experience into an award-winning movie called Thelma,

and the movie recently won an AARP Movies for Grownups Award as the best intergenerational movie.

In the film, it's fiction but based very much on the real Thelma's experience.

Thelma, played by June Squib, is manipulated into sending money to a criminal, who pretends

to be her grandson named Daniel. That's really Josh in real life. Then, after Thelma discovers

it's a crime, she enlists an old friend and

his fancy mobility scooter in a secret, zany effort to catch the criminals and get her money

back. Anyone who's ever been a crime victim is rooting for Thelma and that scooter, I can tell

you. Here today to discuss his film, his grandmother,

and the emotional impact of scams, this Josh Margolin. I just fell in love with this movie.

It was fantastic. The best compliment I can give you, I think, on the perfect scam here. We tried

to do something a little similar to what you did in the movie. Instead of doing a story about a crime, we do stories about victims and try to get you to know each victim. We do

this once a week. But you did such a great... I fell in love with Thelma in 10 seconds. Oh, thank you so

much. Oh, no, the whole thing is so warm. The grandson is such a great character. But what I really

want to talk to you about is what we try to do on the podcast is educate people

about why these scams work so well and why blaming people is such a terrible thing and how these

moments occur.

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