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LISTEN | The importance of chatting with strangers:<\/p>\n
The Current9:54Jax Irwin\u2019s \u201cbest wrong number\u201d she\u2019s ever called<\/p>\n
Paul Matthews was at home washing blueberries in Brigus, N.L., last month, when he got a call from a woman he didn\u2019t know. He told her she\u2019d called a wrong number, but then they started chatting \u2014 and Matthews stayed on the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d Matthews told The Current on Friday. \u201cI’m just picking through blueberries and life is good and I’m just relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman said her \u201cchubby fingers\u201d must have dialled the wrong number \u2014 but that was a fib. On the other end of the line, it was really Jax Irwin, a broadcaster who makes viral videos cold calling phone numbers on the East Coast, just to chat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On that particular day, she was calling random numbers to film a promotional video with the cast of a new Netflix show, Below, filmed and set in Newfoundland<\/a> and starring Josh Hartnett, Charlie Heaton and Mackenzie Davis.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to stay true to calling completely random numbers,\u201d Irwin told The Current.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMackenzie and Charlie and Josh, they’ve spent, obviously, a lot of time in Newfoundland. So they were equally pleased, excited, and also familiar with how lovely folks from Newfoundland can be.\u201d<\/p>\n I couldn’t have asked for a better person to pick up the phoneJax Irwin<\/p>\n Matthews delivered. They chatted about Brigus, its beautiful rock walls and winding paths. He told her he used to be the town\u2019s deputy mayor but was getting older now. When Irwin called him a mover and a shaker, he said these days he\u2019s \u201cmoving slower and shaking more.\u201d<\/p>\n But Matthews had his own surprise in store. He\u2019d heard an interview with Irwin on The Current<\/a>, just the week before.<\/p>\n \u201cI was listening to CBC Radio and they had this lady on and she does this as a sort of a hobby, she cold calls people,\u201d he told her that day, prompting a stunned Irwin to respond: \u201cCan I tell you a secret? That’s that lonely woman who calls people, calling you right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised,” Matthews replied.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Irwin told The Current she \u201ccouldn’t have asked for a better person to pick up the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Netflix released the video of their call on social media this week, where it\u2019s already racked up almost 900,000 views across TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n Matthews said he\u2019s had a lot of calls and texts from family and friends who\u2019ve seen the video. He joked he might need to hire a publicist.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I am on second nine of the 10 seconds of fame,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n Newfoundland has its ‘own type of magic’<\/p>\n Below, which premiered this week on Netflix, stars Hartnett as a fisherman in a small Newfoundland town that is terrorized by an unknown sea creature.<\/p>\n
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