Interview with Real Life Superher0, Phoenix Jones on His Documentary at SXSW

This week saw the release of South by Southwest's most spellbinding documentaries: Bayan Joonam's Phoenix Jones: The Rise and Fall of a Real Life Superhero, telling the story of one of Seattle, Washington's most notorious local figures. Considering himself a crime-fighting vigilante, Ben Fodor patrolled the streets as Phoenix Jones for over a decade before retiring for a career as a delivery driver. After the premiere of his documentary, I was lucky enough to sit down with the one and only Phoenix Jones himself to discuss his career, legacy, and the cost of being a real life superhero.

Rua: "Good afternoon Mr. Jones, thank you for speaking with me today and congrats on a successful premiere!"

Jones: "Thank you, I just gotta sit down for a second. I was hit with a big piece of steel."

Rua: "Oh! All part of the job I assume. Now, as someone who was familiar with your story, I can confidently say that after seeing the doc, that was only the tip of the iceberg. This film is very honest and it shows you warts and all, not only your career as a superhero but your life as a father. I have to ask, at this point in your life, are you proud of the legacy you have created for yourself?"

Jones: "You know, I don't know. That's a hard question. I think if you could take your life and segment it into blocks, right, then yes, but the fact that you can't, it makes it hard. Because all of the good stuff I did bleeds into some of the crazy stuff I did, and then it makes it hard for me to judge it as a whole...piece. I mean, I won five world titles that's awesome, right? I saved a lot of people, I've done a lot of, in blocks, yes, but as a whole piece, I still think that there's some atonement to do for just really being emotionally negligent for some parts after getting injured. After the death of Nicole Westbrook, I really was just emotionally negligent. In terms of the Rain City Superhero Movement, I could have cared more about the human person and less about just making sure that things were financially covered. That's where I think I really fucked up at the end of my career and sort of what I'm fixing now. I was about helping people with results, but I wasn't about helping them understand what those were."

Rua: "Well, your story's not over, you have time to make things right. Speaking of the Rain City Superhero Movement, in this documentary you are frequently referred to as a 'family,' and as a big believer in chosen family I was wondering if you could expand on that?"

Jones: "Man, that's the best thing about it. Certain people are a tight family unit, but it limits where you can go because you can't do certain things with your mom or your little brother or your cousin that you can do with your good friends. For me, my closest friends have been closer to me than my biological family ever could have been and have showed me things that they never could have showed me."

Rua: "I grew up kind of the same way. Tell me, do you hope to see more real life superheroes pop up across the United States?"

Jones: "No!"

Rua: "No?"

Jones: "No, no, no. You know, as weird as it sounds...the emotional cost of fighting crime is too high. But at the same time, the emotional cost of being a police officer is too low. I went to the police academy but then at the end they do this thing where you have to swear an oath to the fraternal order of police. And I was like, 'yeah, no, fuck yourself!' And they were like 'well, you have to do it or you can't graduate,' and I was like, 'well, I don't graduate then because that makes no sense.' Why would you swear an oath to a fraternal order of organization and not an oath to protecting the people of the city? It doesn't make any sense. It seems like it shouldn't even be legal. So that was a whole thing and now I'm not eligible. But I think that as a cop you can do things because they just give you free immunity. And what no one seems to remember from this thing is that I arrested 350 people, right? I got sued 27 times and won all of them. All of them. I have never ever spent one day of jail for anything violent. It was only for drug stuff and for property damage, but cops are killing people. You know, I took out seven gunmen and never used a gun. It's like, how am I held to this level of accountability when the people who do this every day are supposed to be professionals aren't? So there has to be somewhere in the middle. Being a superhero is not the answer because you're going to get in a lot of...it's just...pain. But being a cop is not the answer either because there isn't enough pain. You should find somewhere in the middle where you're responsible for your actions, but at the same time, you're not the only one out there in a suit with rubber injustice."

Rua: "That's a very interesting take. Lastly, I was wondering if you could briefly tell me your favorite comic book of all time?"

Jones: "Nightwing #44."

Rua: "That's one of my brother's favorites! Well thank you so much for talking with me today, you've always been like a cryptid to me, I can't believe you're a real person."

Jones: "Thank you!"

Thanks once again to Mr. Jones for speaking with us today and giving us one hell of an interview! Thanks for tuning into Cinemasters.net, our coverage of SXSW 2026, and remember to never stop watching!