Ira and Louis discuss the Super Mario Bros. movie, this week’s landmark Succession episode, Taylor Swift’s break up with Joe Alwyn, Kim Kardashian joining AHS, and dating app screenshots. Plus, Toni Collette joins to discuss her new film Mafia Mamma, some of her most iconic roles, and more.

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TRANSCRIPT

 

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Ira Madison III And we’re back for an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison, The third.

 

Louis Virtel I’m Lewis Virtel. I’m trying to fit all too well into an all wind pun, and it’s not working out for me. So it’s going to be a slow day here at Keep It.

 

Ira Madison III Wow. So Taylor Swift finally saw Stars At Noon, the Claire Denis film that Joe Alwyn’s in. And that is why they broke up.

 

Louis Virtel She’s like, It’s kaput now. Yeah, I just saw him last week when I rewatched The Favorite when we had Rachel Weisz here. But I have to say, in the 25,000 conversations I have had about Taylor Swift, most of them I unwittingly walked into like a character in a murder mystery, finding a trap door. This man has come up maybe twice. So it’s interesting that people that friends I have who are obsessed with Taylor Swift are now acting apocalyptic about a man I swear they have not brought up before.

 

Ira Madison III You know, he’s sort of like if Dolly Parton got a divorce, Right. We’d care.

 

Louis Virtel Certainly.

 

Ira Madison III But we’ve never heard of this husband.

 

Louis Virtel I literally cannot name him. All I know is that Jane Fonda claims she has met him. And I know that Jane Fonda would lie on behalf of Dolly Parton. So I’m on this case.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn broke up. That was the big that’s the big news this week. And just steps from my apartment.

 

Louis Virtel And that’s that’s the big news. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Let me do it like Wendy would do it. Taylor Swift broke up with her man this weekend. Clap if you care.

 

Louis Virtel Oh. I miss her now

 

Ira Madison III Taylor. You’re single. You’re hot. Go out there and get a different man or woman. Whatever you want.

 

Louis Virtel Wow. Okay. She is a singular force in the culture. We do need her back.

 

Ira Madison III Taylor stepped out for the first time since her breakup was announced, according to Grub Street two Villa Corona in the West Village to have some pasta.

 

Louis Virtel All right.

 

Ira Madison III But Grub Street, also in their Instagram post was like, called it Camp that she went to Villa Corona. And I’m like, Idon’t I don’t get it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Also, camp is just now the most over. It’s like vibes. We’ve we’ve, we’ve had our fill of this thing and we gave it to all the wrong people and now they think they know what it is. And I hate feeling like Susan Sontag having to explain it to everybody. So let’s stop that.

 

Ira Madison III I do feel at least a bit like you felt when you said that, you know, all of a sudden people are talking about Joe Alwyn. Joe Alwyn. Joe. Alwyn. I get it. People online sort of went into their hall. We should give Taylor privacy mantra. You know, like, that was some of the discourse that started to bubble up. And I was like, Don’t you people create Kennedy assassination theories for everything that this woman does? But no, something the break ups off limits.

 

Louis Virtel You’ve got Zodiac Killer numerology for everything she fucking does. And by the way, it’s actually warranted because she loves putting shit like that in all of our liner notes and teasers and things like that. No. And she replaced some song in her set with Invisible String, which was supposed to be a clue that maybe she had broken up with him. Anyway, more of the Riddler nonsense from T Swift.

 

Ira Madison III Do you think we’ll get a breakup album? Is she over that?

 

Louis Virtel That’s the other fucking thing. So this breakup happens, and then her fans are like, Imagine the music will get. You mean she’s going to write about rocky relationships and karma again? Wow, that’s. I can’t wait for her to finally get to those subjects.

 

Ira Madison III Can I say now that you almost predicted this?

 

Louis Virtel I did.

 

Ira Madison III Or at least manifested it when we talked about the Eras tour the other week. You were like, Guys, you missed Taylor’s era of writing about, like, a new band, writing about something specific happening to her. But she was Ben. She’s been with Joe forever in a boring, committed relationship. So we haven’t got that. Taylor.

 

Louis Virtel I would like her to follow her bliss again. Yes. So, yeah, because the goofy stuff I think just works best. Like, I think 22 is top tier Taylor Swift, which feels like a far right thing to say, but yeah.

 

Ira Madison III But yeah, I’m ready for her to go back to her signature era, whatever that means.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She’s also on tour, so it’ll be a while before you get anything from her. Actually, that’s not true. Knowing her, she probably has 60 things ready to go.

 

Louis Virtel I do have to say she is maybe the most productive superstar of all time. And I say that as a Madonna fan who her entire thing is marching against time.

 

Ira Madison III So I say that as a Prince fan, he has 80 albums I’ve never even heard.

 

Louis Virtel I was just talking about this the other day. I’m sorry. There’s got to be some unemployed psycho out there who can break into this vault. I’m sorry. It can’t be that hard, princess, in a round anymore. The guards, like, you know, aren’t on guard. You know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III Also, doesn’t Taylor strike you as exactly the kind of person who has already written breakup songs about this breakup with Joe? She wrote them before she planned the breakup with them.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like, how? Thank You, Next came out seconds after Ariana Grande does breakup. It’s like you couldn’t I absolutely know you, you know, lay down a couple versions of this track ahead of time. On the off chance you broke up with serial dater Pete Davidson.

 

Ira Madison III That seems so quaint now.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III You give Ariana MVP because he’s. He’s completely someone else now. Yeah, she’s she’s also she also took on the baton of marrying a man we’ve never heard of and stays out of the public eye.

 

Louis Virtel No. Right. He he’s like little. Right. Which is a clever. If you want a man to stay out of the public eye and make him, you know, Jiminy Cricket sized. Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III Well, speaking of icons.

 

Speaker 1 Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel We have done it again. Joe You have done it again or what is it? Michelle? Clown You have done it again?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The other one was. We did it, Joe.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I’m. I’m completing them all right now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, that. And that’s actually how Taylor broke up with them. She said We’ve done it, Joe.

 

Louis Virtel I would love it if she’s spoken names to her friends. Seems fitting.

 

Ira Madison III I hope she knows memes.

 

Louis Virtel She must, right? There’s no way this person is not extremely online.

 

Ira Madison III I would love if Taylor Swift were, you know, shading Olivia Rodrigo when Sara was playing and she was like, Joe, she’s singing off key on the record.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Joe was like sometimes you do too.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Sort of your thing.

 

Ira Madison III Now we have another icon in the building this week. We have the one and only Toni Collette on Keep It this week.

 

Louis Virtel I have to say, I love having guests where, you know, there are so many things they’ve done that you could do an entire interview about. But I was daunted, hoping to get so many of these credits in and I’m happy to say we did Jesus and she’s such a fabulous interviewee to Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Also claims that she’s sick this week but she was I’d like to see her when she’s not sick

 

Louis Virtel No. She popped right off and also still wowed us with the fact that she literally is Australian. This is somebody with an Australian accent and you never, ever hear it. I feel like that is psychologically wearing on a person.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, meanwhile, Nicole Kidman.

 

Louis Virtel She still can’t undoing that accent, you know what I’m saying

 

Ira Madison III Uh, no. But Toni Collette is here to discuss her latest film, Mafia Mama, which is a title that I’m obsessed with.

 

Louis Virtel Just exactly what it is. There’s a mafia. There’s a Mama. Okay?

 

Ira Madison III There’s so many ways that you could interpret this title, too. Like, is she the Mafia mama, or is someone telling her about the Mafia? Mafia mama?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. There is the ambiguous punctuation. You never know, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So we’ve got Toni Collette, and then we’ve got Super Mario Brothers, the movie that saves Hollywood again. I feel like Hollywood is saved every other week.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Also, the amount of money it made, it’s unsettling. I mean, the movie is perfectly cute in certain ways. It didn’t need to be Avatar level.

 

Ira Madison III And then we’ll get into the episode of Succession that everyone is talking about.

 

Louis Virtel Speaking of Australian accents, I can’t believe Sarah Snook did not come up during this interview, but she I mean, that’s one of the greatest performances I’ve seen on TV in the past year. So hopefully she has sprung ahead in the Emmy contenders list, even though it feels like Jennifer Coolidge is played, is going to take it again.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I see that for her.

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm.

 

Ira Madison III But you know what? These Australians might be trying to murder her, too. All right, Well, we’ll be back with more Keep It.

 

Ira Madison III Wahoo.

 

Louis Virtel Not a new accent and voice for you. I’m five years in. Lord, deliver me.

 

Ira Madison III The Super Mario movie had a peachy opening weekend and is now the highest grossing IMAX feature of all time. So what do we think? Let’s get into it.

 

Louis Virtel It got worse somehow. It’s really it’s almost touching in a way. Yeah. Do you know what this movie is like? You know, when you turn on a mario game and then you don’t press start and then some video starts playing? That’s what this movie is. You know, just there’s all your favorite characters being super. You know what? For like a 92 minute movie. And by the way, that’s the best thing about it. It’s 92 minutes and not really a moment wasted. You get all the familiar characters, you get cameos from the minor Mario villains and baddies that you want to see. Like, Oh, there’s the guy that throws the hammer, there’s, you know, bat coop, bowling, etc.. But I don’t. Afterwards, it just feels like you play video games for a half hour. It’s, it’s you’re in, you’re out, your kids screams maybe. And that was that. And I frankly cannot believe Anya TAYLOR-JOY signed on to be just the most boring princess imaginable. She’s good at her job. And by the way, she doesn’t even have a job.

 

Ira Madison III I’ve always said Princess Peach has always been boring. And I feel like, there’s no there’s no interiority here at all. I’m would say that maybe there’s fan theories. But I don’t know. She’s in a castle, your head. And most of the time she’s kidnaped.

 

Louis Virtel Right? And you have the toads that tell you, Oh, she’s in another castle. So you get the cute reference to the old game. I believe there’s a moment when you see Princess float for a second, a reference to her kind of supernatural powers She gets in Super Mario two, which is still, I believe, one of the queerer things ever in a video game. But the that the lady in the pretty dress has some extreme ability that puts her like makes her a little bit better or more special than the other characters in the game. So Chun-li and Street Fighter is a little bit faster than all the others.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like they really highlight it, you know, like girl power giving her, you know, she she was Kung-fu-ing.

 

Louis Virtel She could do the obstacle course.

 

Ira Madison III Everybody was Kung-Fu fighting in this movie. She she was great at the obstacle course. She was great at speed racing. She was going to be like Daphne in the Scooby-Doo movies. You know, like when all of a sudden Sarah Michelle guy was defeated. Like, do jiu jujitsu.

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm. Right. I’m glad that there’s a cinematic forebear to this important movie. Great.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, let’s take a women who were, you know, initially presented as dumb heifers. And now they’ve got stuff to do.

 

Louis Virtel From Hanna-Barbera to Hanna Barbarians. You are welcome.

 

Ira Madison III I’m a fan of Princess Peach iconography, even though she is, you know, kidnaped half the time.

 

Louis Virtel Right, uh, something that actually is good in this movie. Jack Black as Bowser. So he like you know I guess as as is tradition wants to marry Princess peach and the reaction of all the minions in his life is very funny. They’re all just like gross.

 

Ira Madison III That and I love how they make it funny and creepy. The the one the one scene where he’s like, proposing to Princess Peach, but he’s acting it out, like with a Koopa. Yeah, Very goofy. I thought I had a great time. I was also stoned as hell, so that helped.

 

Louis Virtel The. The marriage thing is giving Jafar in the best possible way.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, you know. Yeah, definitely. Queer coated.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, certainly.

 

Ira Madison III Bowser’s gay.

 

Louis Virtel Also, Jack Black, the only person giving a, like, like a Disney caliber voice performance. Like you’re actor. Yeah. Oh, it couldn’t be anybody else but him in that role. Whereas like Chris Pratt, nothing about that really spoke to me. Nor Anya TAYLOR-JOY.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Do we think that this movie did so well because the Conservatives went out to support Chris Pratt?

 

Louis Virtel I always forget that. That. Yeah. Because he’s he’s like the king of a certain religion. Or is he just normal Catholic, he and Katherine Schwarzenegger?

 

Ira Madison III I think he’s like super Catholic.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III That’s why he was good for Super Mario Brothers. Oh, yeah. He’s a super Catholic brother.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. It makes somebody type super into Google. And he came up and then they were like, he would belong in this movie about super things.

 

Ira Madison III Don’t you remember where he had that huge as a cross that was like in his yard for Easter Warrior?

 

Louis Virtel I mean, that sounds great for him. I mean, I remember the Like a Prayer video. Is it similar? No? Okay.

 

Ira Madison III You. Yeah, well, it wasn’t burning.

 

Louis Virtel Oh. Then I don’t remember it at all.

 

Ira Madison III There’s no black choir behind him.

 

Louis Virtel Have you ever seen the 1993 Super Mario Brothers movie?

 

Ira Madison III Of course I have.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Because I watched it recently on I’m going to say the shadiest YouTube channel of all time, like Disney. Whoever is in charge does not want you to see this. I had forgotten, one, I mean, it’s obviously bad, but it’s really a pastiche of all the kids movies at that time. Like there’s a gritty New York environment, a la Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and also like that movie, Everything is literally slimy. Why were we so obsessed with slimy ness in the early nineties? I want to blame Nickelodeon for this and the entire guac slime universe. But just like everything with posters. Yeah goes. But certainly it’s very Ghostbusters riffing. Also, so you have Bob Hoskins as Mario he gets the least to fucking do in this movie. It’s all about John Leguizamo, which I understand sexy John Leguizamo. But also these characters never once remind you of the video game. I can’t get over that. There’s not like they don’t bust open a block at any time at the end of the movie. They eventually do go down a tube. But by the way, in Mario, you’re only in the tube for a second. Then the game commences. Like it’s not really a game about sliding down a tube and ending up in a sewer that takes milliseconds in the game.

 

Ira Madison III I’m still thinking about sexy John Leguizamo.

 

Louis Virtel He is. Am I wrong?

 

Ira Madison III He is. He is.

 

Louis Virtel My unretouched Toulouse-Lautrec. Yes. Also, another thing about that movie, like the Lady Koopa person is played by Fiona Shaw, which is a fact that I believe is lost to time. Yeah. When you watch this woman on Fleabag or in any of her esteemed Broadway appearances, this is somebody who I believe was and Hedda GABLER before she was in Super Mario Brothers, Fiona Shaw. And I saw it with my own eyes, stabs Yoshi in the neck. What? And also, by the way.

 

Ira Madison III You remember Fiona Shaw from True Blood, don’t you?

 

Louis Virtel Of course.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Well, she was. She played that, which I feel like that’s the same kind of role where it’s, you know, let’s the rent is due. Let’s have some fun.

 

Louis Virtel Right. It’s a it’s I will charitably compare it to, like Judith Anderson and Rebecca. It’s a little bit of a Mrs. Danvers role. Yeah. Which she should be playing. Thrilling. Whatever. But God. Yeah, it is a dreadful. Also Samantha Mathis as Princess, they don’t they don’t give her a thing to do. But she was somebody who was on the ascent at the time, like she would soon be in Little Women. But she was in a movie before that called Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater, which is now kind of lost a time really good early nineties movie. And I feel like this member stopped her in her tracks.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like Pump Up the Volume’s lasting Pop culture relevance is because of Buffy. In the prom episode someone makes it creates these like hell demons to go and kill the students at the prom are any hypes them up by having them watch Pump Up the Volume.

 

Louis Virtel Well, that’s fascinating because it is also Christian Slater and like five really good movies in a row around that time. And I feel like that’s the one we don’t talk about anymore. But my God, also.

 

Ira Madison III Meanwhile, it’ll be remade with, like Noah Centineo in two weeks.

 

Louis Virtel Dennis Hopper is also in the Super Mario Brothers movie, and that is one of the crazier Wikipedias you can go down. I don’t know if you’ve read it recently. Did you know that he went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno around that time and started talking about how he got into a fight with, I believe, Rip Torn, who was supposed to be an easy rider or something. And then Rip Torn successfully sued him for making up a story about how he attacked him. But it is going on Jay Leno and lying. All right.

 

Ira Madison III Who does he think he is? Robert Pattinson.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, we haven’t had a good lie from Robert Pattinson in a while.

 

Ira Madison III I know.

 

Louis Virtel I was like, oh, I just blew up my house with the microwave or whatever, he said.

 

Ira Madison III I did sit in front of him at the Bo Was Afrai, New York premiere, though. He slipped in as soon as the lights went down in his baseball cap. His his. His Carhartt jacket, as usual.

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm.

 

Ira Madison III He’s always. He’s always like, he’s on the run. He’s in The Fugitive.

 

Louis Virtel I was at a Bo Was Afraid screening the other day, too, the L.A. premiere. And I always forget when you’re at a situation like that, when the lights go down, pay attention to the shadowy people who sneak in at the last moment because they’re important. I only caught a glimpse of Pedro Pascal. I didn’t like anybody else.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. Caroline Polachek was there, strutting down every A24 red carpet.

 

Louis Virtel Do you know what I love about her? She’s 38. And those girls, when they’re like, new and I haven’t heard them before, they always are 21. But in this case, she’s already Carly Rae Jepsen ified. So I appreciate that for her. As I grew up with my mortality.

 

Ira Madison III She’s been working.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Where did now? Did you grow up playing Super Mario at all? Does it is irrelevant to you? Because I am I am encyclopedic about these games, about the original games. The the first Super Mario Brothers came up to the third and then Super Mario world. We were a Super Nintendo family.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, it was a Super Nintendo family. We got up to those. I was so excited for the Donkey Kong section, you know, when they were when Mario was fighting Donkey Kong, because I was obsessed with the Donkey Kong games like the Diddy Kong cameo, there was a Daisy Card cameo. Donkey Kong Country two was my life. And I still write to the Donkey Kong Country two soundtrack.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. Just like Kurt Vonnegut. No, those games are fabulous. Mario Kart was the most played game in my house, but I loved that the personification in the movie of Cranky Kong. That was very cute. I also just love that his style of like an old person maybe on a sitcom in the early nineties. Like the grandma from Family Matters here.

 

Ira Madison III Fred Armisen played Cranky Kong. and it took me a while to place him.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I definitely didn’t. I assume this is one of those extremely high budget movies. I’m sure every single role was a famous person.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, Charlie, I thought Charlie Day was cute as Luigi. Luigi Luigi was not as hot as the Internet was pretending that he looked. But, you know, I was born to. I was born to Seth Rogen was Donkey Kong. But you know what? A lot of cute characters in here.

 

Louis Virtel I had for, like, the past 30 years of my life, I’ve had some theme song in my head that I kind of couldn’t place. And I looked it up. It’s the Super Mario World cartoon theme where there’s a sort of, I’ll call it reggae ish introduction to the show. But there are two other there’s a Super Mario Brothers three show, and then the Super Mario Super Show, which the opening credits has, is cartoon and live action. But it looks like it looks like Cleveland Public Access Television. I have no idea how this got on the air for us all to watch.

 

Ira Madison III That one I remember I feel like the other Super Mario ones.

 

Speaker 1 Were.

 

Ira Madison III Around the time when I was still maybe watching cartoons as a kid, but I feel like they were more me waking it up and over in college and seeing Super Mario on TV.

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting how video games I feel, like, really gave, like, gay kids opportunities to, quote unquote, express themselves. Like when you pick Princess in Super Mario Kart or something, going through your head is like, this is a single mom who needs this to make this whole life work. Sorry, am I projecting? That’s how I felt playing this.

 

Ira Madison III A little bit.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Well, that’s why you cosplaying. So you’re playing every other Halloween.

 

Louis Virtel By the way. Nothing wrong with how those ladies dressed. That is very current. The Sarah Connor style. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I feel like Sonia Blaine just looks like Laura Dern, Jurassic Park. Most of the time, the short shorts are tied up. Shirts, hair back.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Always pulled back. Underrated icon in this category is Sarah Bryant from Virtua Fighter which is a series that’s now lost to time.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean I was a big fan of video games as a kid and I feel like really has that translated to me being a video game?

 

Louis Virtel Adult No, I feel I feel like the main customer for video games has changed entirely. Like, there still are things like fighting games around, but it’s less of a diversion and more a lifestyle now, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it is. And it’s definitely, you know, like if you’re playing like a full live action game, you know, like it’s gone beyond Goldfinger. Or doom, you know, now it’s like. I mean, think of just the last of us, the last big video game adaptation we were talking about on this show.

 

Louis Virtel And I guess we say.

 

Ira Madison III Sorry, yeah, go to die. That is that is so immersive. Right. You know, like, if you like, it takes so much time. And I just want to I just want to shoot em up or, you know, beat a world.

 

Louis Virtel Right. To me, it’s like playing Scrabble or something. It was lovely for a second. And now I get to be mad at my mom.

 

Ira Madison III What would you. What other character from, like, this Super Mario world do you want to see? Like, get their own film? Because clearly it’s coming and made a shit ton of money.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I am, of course, obsessed with Bowser’s kids.

 

Ira Madison III Which. Okay. What do you mean? Playing the piano? It said, like Ludwig van Beethoven on it. And I remembered them fighting with Van Beethoven in the game. His kids are insane also.

 

Louis Virtel It’s just amazing. So those characters were invented in the early nineties, and most of the kids are pop culture parodies that are now incredibly dated, with the exception of Iggy Koopa, who is, of course modeled after Iggy Pop. But like Morton Downey Jr. Is the inspiration for Morton Koopa Jr. And that is a trash talk show host from the eighties who’s, you know, it’s not a name like Jerry Springer or even Jenny Jones that people remember now. It was just like it was this rowdy, terrible show they named Bowser’s kids after celebrities who are either, I guess just rockers, but they look weird. They picked weird looking celebrities to model these monstrous kids after like Wendy OKUPE as modeled after Wendy Williams, not Wendy Williams from the past. Maddox was like a punk icon. Roy Koopa is modeled after Roy Orbison. That’s sort of the most conventional celebrity of the bunch. But Lemmy from Motor had another kind of debt of reference. I’m not a metal had I don’t know what that came across, but I’m not.

 

Ira Madison III And yeah, and like, like I said earlier, Ludwig Van Koopa was always my favorite.

 

Louis Virtel Well, he had the hair like Marcel from Top Chef. So. Instant icon.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Yeah, I’d be interested in them. I’d be interested in them. But I also really want my Donkey Kong Country movie.

 

Louis Virtel So I think we’re going to get that. They’re too fun. Yeah, I absolutely know The Rock wants to do a voice on this. I absolutely know it.

 

Ira Madison III And we need more Yoshi.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Again, I just want to stick. I just want to talk about the 1993 Super Mario Brothers for a second. Which is one of these movies where. There’s a real budget on it, but it also looks extremely cheap. Here’s a reference I’m going to pull. If you’ve ever seen the movie Red Sonja with Brigitte Nielsen in the eighties?

 

Ira Madison III Absolutely.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Which is that which is basically an off brand CONAN movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger is in it playing a character who’s not named CONAN because they didn’t have the rights to it in it. It’s like it has a real budget. It has the budget of like Back to the Future. But the stats still look like they spent all their money at Joann Fabrics. And in the Super Mario Brothers movie, you’re kind of wondering where all the money is going. You know, the slime and all this stuff feels like, you know, lightly heightened Nickelodeon set. And then you see Yoshi and the CGI they’ve put together and it looks like a pretty real dinosaur, like it’s the Jurassic Park era. So they’re obsessed with that fact at the time. And I think all of the money went to that.

 

Ira Madison III Plus, dinosaurs are gay culture.

 

Louis Virtel So, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, one of my favorite Brigitte Nielsen roles is?

 

Louis Virtel Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Flavor of Love.

 

Louis Virtel I knew it was going to be that. I mean, her other role. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And I feel like it’s lost to your kids for generations that this is, Brigitte Nielson, who is in that famous clip from where? Like, she’s looking at a notepad as she laughs, she goes, Huh? That’s from Flavor of Love.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right.

 

Ira Madison III And it’s Bridget Neilson, Red Sonja herself.

 

Louis Virtel We don’t have anymore seven foot tall Danish celebrities anymore. And I think we’re a lesser culture because of it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, otherwise Gwendoline Christie would be getting a lot more roles in Hollywood. She would have so many more roles in, like, the eighties.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Definitely. When you could be extreme and sort of American Gladiator esque and be a big star, isn’t it? Arnold Schwarzenegger was the world’s hugest movie star for a long time.

 

Ira Madison III Like, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel It’s we don’t really I mean, I guess that’s the rock now, but we don’t really have an industry of that as much anymore.

 

Ira Madison III And now where have all the gladiators gone? Paul Mescal. Barry Keough, again, beautiful man. Beautiful, beautiful men. Two of my faves. But are these. Are these gladiators?

 

Louis Virtel No. Right. That’s the gladiators were getting.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Bring back American gladiators. Okay. Bring back America.

 

Louis Virtel I If I could rank my favorite American Gladiators players. I know it begins with ice on the ladies side

 

Ira Madison III Someday we’ll get to that.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Sure. That’s like our Matt Damon on Kimmel. But one day, Lewis will get to talk about American Gladiators.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Well, we’re back at Australian Gladiator joins us, Toni Collette.

 

Speaker 1 <AD>

 

Ira Madison III Our guest today is one of the most iconic performance of this or any generation. You know her from United States of Terror, hereditary Little Miss Sunshine ,Knives Out, so much more. From tormented and heartbreaking to aloof and hilarious, she truly does it all. And now you can catch her as an unwitting crime boss in Mafia mama. She is talented and incredible. Please welcome to Keep It. Toni Collette.

 

Toni Collette Oh, my God, you guys. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, thank you. You are a pleasure to watch on screen. Truly in everything. And I love when you you know, you switch genres so much, but I love when you do comedy. And in Mafia mama, you are truly giving your best comedy. You know, you’re working with Catherine Hardwicke again for a second time, I believe. So what was it like reuniting with Catherine for this film?

 

Toni Collette Well, I mean, it was amazing. I think she can truly do anything. This script was sent to me by Amanda Stares, who’s a producer on the movie. The is her idea. And when it was written, she sent me the script kind of saying, You can do whatever you want with it. You can produce it with me, you can direct it, you can be in it whatever you want. And at first I thought, Yeah, I’ll direct this because I’m starting to think about directing at the time. And, and then I just thought, tonally, it’s really very unusual. It is funny, but it’s kind of poignant and there’s action. And I was like, Oh, I think this is too big for me to do. And then when I started thinking about other directors, Catherine, Catherine was just it. I loved working with her in Miss You Already, ten, ten years ago, Well, ten years ago. Shit. And I feel like I got to work. We got to know her just on a different level on this film. I feel really lucky to have worked with her again because I feel like our friendship has deepened. But also I’m just so inspired by her because, as I say, I think she can do anything. She’s the most unbelievably creative person and so authentic. There’s nobody like her the way she thinks, the way she sees things, the way she expresses herself. She’s really exciting to work with. I find it totally inspirational and very, very, very collaborative.

 

Louis Virtel I think of you as such a searing actress, like the amount of scenes that come to mind where I’m like, Oh, I have to like clutch something as I watch this scene. It’s so bracing. That it feels it feels crazy to me that you could also want to be like a comedic actress when you have that kind of capability. But when you were becoming an actor, was it always like, did you always envisioned yourself doing like, like wackier roles in addition to these, you know, movies that, you know, traumatize viewers like me?

 

Toni Collette I, um, I just never I just never wanted to be pigeonholed or categorized or I think I think the beauty of being able to first of all, I can’t believe I actually have a career and that I get to do something that I love. But if you’re if you’re artistic in any way, surely you should have the freedom to do anything. And I just think as an actor, if I were to repeat myself or play the same kinds of parts, I would just get I’d get bored and then I’d want to do something else. So it’s literally just very selfish for me because then I can just keep myself on my toes. I get to kind of entertain myself with the types of stories that I tell, but also I have this weird and wonderful relationship with the with the work that comes to me. I find that no matter what the genre is, it somehow there’s always some correlation with my life, with some lesson that I have to learn thematically, you know? And I think that these these jobs come to me. But they’re not just jobs. They life experiences, you know, And they’re deep experiences for me, and I can’t work on them if they’re not. So it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what kind of story it is, as long as there’s some truth to it. And something that just really speaks to me and with Mafia, oh God, I love it so much. It’s like properly wet your pants. Funny. When I read it, I just was like, Oh my God, this is the best, best gift. It was so, like, so, like, pure joy, you know? And it came to me during COVID and I was like, Yeah, this is what I want. I want pure joy and I want to give pure joy. So making it was I kind of knew it was going to be special, but it just even exceeded my expectations. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

 

Louis Virtel Also, I just want to say that it really comes across in your filmography that you pick things specifically because they are not boring. Like even in like a traditional rom com, like somewhat traditional rom com, like About a Boy, like your role as a suicidal woman, like you pick like there’s always like a, there’s like a strange, unexpected jolt to what you bring to any given movie. And I guess my question is, what are the kinds of things that actually do bore you that you’re sort of sick of seeing in scripts? Because there’s I’m sure based on your versatility, you read almost everything.

 

Toni Collette Well, I mean, I don’t read almost everything, but it’s just when there’s no change within a character, they just has. And sometimes most of the time, to be honest, what I’m drawn to is an internal change, which is actually very difficult to externalize, to kind of show in terms of a story. But they’re the things that I think move me the most when someone has some kind of life realization or epiphany or, you know, comes to know themselves in a in a deeper way or finds self-love or just finds some self-respect or, you know, opens in some way when there’s a blossoming. That’s what I love. It’s a very basic thing. So I guess what I don’t love is just when there’s no emotional connection. If there’s no emotional connection, if I can’t connect to it, then the audience is not going to connect with me or the story. And there’s no point doing it because it’s all about connection. Storytelling is all about connection. That’s that’s what I. I mean, my relationship to making films has changed as well. I think when I was younger, it was just an incredible outlet for me to emote because I don’t think I knew myself very well. And I it was a chance to kind of just kind of knock on some doors that were closed within myself. And all of the characters that I played over the years have taught me so much about life and about myself. I’m so grateful for all of them, even the shitty experiences which are very few, but you know the great ones, man. You just you don’t. They live with you. I had to do this. I didn’t quite know what it was. I did this interview recently. It was almost like a retrospective going through a bunch of films. And I just I was blown away because I still sat there. They kind of showed different clips from different films, and they you feel every emotion still and it’s some, some of of the decades later. So I think once I’m connected to someone, it’s like love. It doesn’t go away, you know, it’s always there and you always feel it and always have that connection. So that’s a long winded answer. I can’t even remember.

 

Ira Madison III I mean to even get into, you know, figuring out an internal change in a character. Are there roles you’ve had where you’ve sort of seen something exciting on the page and then it becomes a bit more through, you know, obviously through like a collaboration with a director and then you sort of change it from how it might have been in the script because, I mean, I feel like you have to be sort of a godsend to directors because you just sort of take a role that we might see on page as just sort of like a character who’s existing within the world, but maybe not going to be this standout, dazzling character that we’re always going to be thinking about for the film. But then I think about you in films like Velvet Goldmine, where that character of Mandy. I just think that, like no one else could have played that character.

 

Toni Collette So it’s so funny that you use that as an example because at the time, I think prior to that I hadn’t really been given an opportunity to play a character that felt so far from myself, and sometimes I wanted to do that film so badly. I remember I had an audition with him at the Groucho Club in London, and I’ve just put so much pressure on myself and I just thought he was such a genius and the script was so kaleidoscopic, incredible. And I just love that period of glam rock music. And so I just had this like I kind of knew I was going to end up doing it. I had this experience when I was thinking about it while I was in Australia before I flew to London and I looked up and I was like, Is it going to happen? I saw like seven shootings. I was like, okay, thanks for the confirmation. But I was so excited that he that he trusted me to play that role. But I really felt like I was, you know, I was having this opportunity where I could sit with the cool kids at the back of the bus. But when I read something, I can tell pretty much immediately whether I should do it or not, or whether whether it’s mind like I can I can hear it, I can feel it, I can see it. And it is immediate. On a cold read. It comes to me very, very quickly. I never have to really reach very far to to kind of, you know, make it real. And I, I think I don’t know, part of me thinks it’s a laziness, but it isn’t. It’s just that I can connect with it. And if I don’t, then I’m not going to do the best job. And they should hire someone who really does connect with it because they’re clearly going to elevated or whatever. But when you get on set, what you can’t determine is the energy. Like every job is different. Everyone brings them their whole history and the, you know, everything about them. And it’s always a bunch of different energies thrown into the pot. And you can never tell how it’s going to balance out or what’s going to happen. And the most exciting moments are when. It’s kind of out of control. It suddenly becomes its own thing and takes on its own energy. And that’s where a kind of it is, a kind of magic as something takes off and no one has any control over it and everybody feels it and they’re like the best days at the office. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it when it does, it’s just like, Oh, that felt good.

 

Louis Virtel It’s interesting that you describe being so just game for, you know, whatever’s put in front of you if you connect with the character. But are there any types of scenes you dread filming? Again, I think of so many scenes in your filmography. I’m like, I cannot even imagine beginning to approach this material. It’s so either crazy or sad or wild, you know? Not of our universe. Is there any kind of scene you have dreaded filming in your filmography.

 

Toni Collette Or dreaded filming? Well, it was only fear getting in the way. To be honest, it was only of a fear of exposure or failure or. The most recent ones, I would say I did a film and really they were mostly about the accents. I had to do a very specific Dublin accent. It’s an area called Tala, and when it’s real and identifiable and people are from there and can see that you’re not doing it correctly, it’s so petrifying to me that that people will kind of see that I can’t do it or I’ve misrepresented them somehow, you know. So I did that film called Glass Lands Glass Land in Ireland, which in the it’s weird, in the end I have all this fear, but I, I don’t know how I somehow get there. I don’t know how I get there. Maybe I have to feel the fear. So I have some resistance, something to push against. I don’t know. And then I did this other film, which is very different tonally to glass. And glass is quite dark. I play this alcoholic woman with this beautiful son who’s trying to save her. And in in Dreamhost, this Welsh film is about it’s a real story about this woman who she’s just, I think, sick of her life and just kind of looking for meaning and purpose. And she decides she’s going to breed a racehorse and it’s an expensive business. She gets everyone in the village to put some money in. They save up, they breed this racehorse, and it goes on to become the biggest winner of all time. So it’s a big deal to that country, the story of this horse. And just literally just doing the Welsh accent and playing a woman who was still very much alive was like, Oh my God, this responsibility is too large. But, you know, also it’s the most collaborative of art forms. I work with so many incredible people and I have I, especially on Dream Horse, had the most incredible dialect coach this woman called me who became such a good friend. I really relied heavily on her. But in the past, emotional things have felt, you know, like, Oh, I can do that. I remember when I was very young, I did a film called Lillian’s Story, and I had my character tried to commit suicide, and she wakes up on the beach, you know, with cuts on her body and she has to walk. She’s kind of lost her mind. She walks home naked through her town after being abused by her dad. And he was very heavy. And I just literally was on the phone while I was in makeup that morning, like to my agent. I don’t want to do it anymore. Can you please you have to tell me. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. You have to get me out of it. She must have shot herself Anyway. She talked me around, but I just did not want to do that. I just did not want to do that.

 

Louis Virtel You also just put your finger on something that I’ve always been curious with about you, which is in almost everything I’ve seen you. And discounting something like Muriel’s Wedding, of course you are doing an accent. So as in putting one on, you know, you played so many famous American characters at this point where approaching a character, do you almost necessarily have to come? Does the voice come first to you, what they’re going to sound like? And does that inform the other decisions you make about the character?

 

Toni Collette I often do hear the voice. Yeah, like when I say I hear things clearly, I do. I hear it straight away. I hear exactly what they have to sound like and what they feel like. I can kind of feel how they move in an internal way, which sounds weird. Like with Mafia Mama. I had the question. I just had this idea. She just had to have this kind of high innocence, this high kind of vulnerability, this kind of girly, sweet quality to her voice. And I remember I was playing around with it in rehearsal when I got to Rome, and I remember I was so disappointed because Catherine was like, I don’t know about that thing you’re doing. The Voice. I don’t think, you know, we love you. We just want you to be you. And I was like, I’m going to take what she’s saying and I’m going to stick it in my little pocket, but I’m just going to continue on. And in the end, I think it is it’s in there. I think it’s a combination of things. But I definitely kept those qualities. Annie And she does you know, sometimes when I see little clips from the movie, it’s definitely, yeah, it’s not my way of speaking at all. And I just knew from the beginning that it had to be that. It’s just I don’t know. It’s just the way I work. I don’t really have to like, try and play and play to figure it out. It’s kind of comes comes at me.

 

Louis Virtel Which, by the way, brings up another issue. I am concerned that Australians are too good at American accents at any time anymore. I’m shocked because it’s never the reverse. You know, I can think of Meryl in A Cry in the Dark. That’s a great Australian accent. And then can you name the second one? I would love to hear it.

 

Toni Collette Well, she’s not American, but Kate Winslet does a very good one.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, was that The Dressmaker? Maybe. Was that Australian one.

 

Toni Collette The Dressmaker. She also did a film called Holy Smoke with Jane Campion, right? Yeah, she’s very good at that. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s because maybe when we grew up America is very self-sufficient and self kind of congratulatory in terms of its achievements and we just didn’t have a sense of self in Australia. We didn’t watch much Australian TV, we watched all American TV really backwards, kind of antiquated British TV like Benny Hill, like, Can you do that? So I just honestly, I was so saturated in The Sound of America and what you guys sounded like, that it was it’s always been pretty easy. I remember when I first came to America, I did a little film called The Clock, which is in like 1990.

 

Louis Virtel Love that movie, by the way. So do our Gay Men with Taste My God! By Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, a lot of you about We love that movie. Hmm.

 

Toni Collette Well, it was really fun to make. And I guess I worked with a dialect coach literally for an hour. And I, I never I mean, the thing is, I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. I don’t come from a family who does anything like this. It’s all just been following my heart and trying to figure it out as I go, putting one step at one point for the other. And I worked with this woman, I was like, This is interesting. I’m not going to work with her anymore because I just find it made me so self-conscious, like having to think about sound so acutely, like how can you possibly feel real to anyone if you’re of be in the moment if you’re thinking about that shit. So bless her. I mean, I’m sure it helped, but I just yeah, I, I tend to also, just like with the Sixth Sense, I turned up in Philadelphia, I didn’t have a real clear understanding of the accent, but I remember I drive around with the Teamsters. I get them to take me to the, you know, the local market. And, you know, he there to take me to get a Philly cheesesteak, whatever. And I just soak it up. And that’s how I that’s I don’t know. I think, you know.

 

Ira Madison III Um, I’m also really interested in how you prepare, I guess, for stage roles. I mean, if I’m talking about iconic things that Toni Collette has done to me, I’m always going to be thinking about the Wild Party, you know, And.

 

Louis Virtel On The Rosie O’Donnell Show. Yes, fabulous.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. You know, so like. And you have such a musical background, too. I mean, you’re in a band as well, and you’ve done so many projects, even like Velvet Goldmine, as I mentioned before, which has so many musical elements in it. Is music something that is very important to you? Is it something that helps you tap into a role easier? And then what’s it like, you know, preparing to do music on stage, you know, on Broadway?

 

Toni Collette Okay. So, yes, absolutely. Music is hugely important to me. I think it’s incredibly evocative and it’s so immediate when how it can kind of put you in an emotional space. I started doing musicals at school when I was 14, so I, you know, had dance classes and did musicals. And once I realized I could sing that I had a few singing lessons. And then I started in musicals as a teenager. And I, I, you know, that was my first experience of theater, which led to kind of more dramatic plays, which then led to film and some TV. So that was kind of that trajectory. But it started with music and this want and need to kind of sing, which I think is quite. I’m all at kind of frightens me a little bit because it comes from some place that I. There’s mystery I don’t understand. It comes from, you know, something deep, someplace deep. And so singing also, when you’re scared and you going on stage, you have to overcome it because it just immediately any fear, any anxiety affects the larynx. Right? So it suddenly is going to start closing things up if you become tense in any way. So there’s really having to work through that. In terms of preparing for a character. I mean, I don’t do it so much as sometimes I do, but I used to make playlists and I used to prepare like I’d be I’d listen to a lot of music before sentence to get me in a different, you know, get me into a certain feeling. Well, I don’t think I’ve done that in a long time, but I definitely make playlists just to, you know, create a little audio world that the result of the story or the film, whatever it is. But it’s so funny because I’m in New York right now, and I was just walking through Times Square last night and I was having so many memories about working there and just thinking about that time and how you just don’t know what’s going to. What opportunities are going to come your way in life. And so it was kind of a challenging one, but it was also incredible. I loved working with George Wolfe. I can you believe I got to work with Eartha KITT? I mean, bloody hell. And it was a new evolving piece. So working with Michael John Liquisa on the music and having that kind of evolve and change as we were rehearsing right up until we opened, it was very, very exciting. And it was a dream because I started in musicals to suddenly be, you know, on Broadway. Are you kidding me? This is like, this is the epitome of of of what this experience could be. It’s the highest high. And just you know, I did that how I’ll describe I think it was in 2000. Right So yeah.

 

Ira Madison III 2000.

 

Toni Collette Go and having those memories and feeling so grateful and thinking about life and how everything changes and keeps growing and changing and opening and you can never plan, you can have plans, but life has its own plan for you, I think.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. Do you remember anything from that time where it’s so interesting to me that there was also another Wild Party running?

 

Toni Collette Isn’t that weird? I know.

 

Ira Madison III The liquid version. Like, was there was there any, like a fun awareness of, like, the fact that, like, there are two wild parties going on in 2000 and it’s like pre-social media, too. So I feel like were there was there confusion amongst like people? Do you remember people being like, Which 1 a.m. I seeing that I see the wrong one? Or did you even get a chance to see it?

 

Toni Collette I didn’t because I was so busy doing ours. I had actually because I mean, I just love the story for itself and it would have been great just to have a comparison. But yeah, we were kind of inundated. I think there was a little bit of confusion and I think there was a little bit of like, Wow, this is cool and weird. And I think there was a little bit of a competitive nature around it. I think some people were like, I prefer this one. Well, I prefer that one. You know, you’re right. That did exist. Yeah, but I, I don’t know. I’m so happy with. Well, it’s weird to say the one I was involved with because it was just. Well, I don’t. I mean, I don’t believe in coincidences. I really do believe things happen as they’re meant to. And it was just the most incredible group of people. And it was very alive at the time. It just felt so alive, you know, It was just a moving beast, which is also representative of the time within that story. There was so much change in that time. So anyway, yeah, it was. It was. A great experience and. And a difficult challenge. Kind of. It’s intense, man. I take my hat off it. Honestly, at the time, I remember thinking it was like being. I don’t know. It’s like being really intense sports person. Like you have to be so physically fit and you have to be so disciplined and there’s so much work that goes into it. And thankfully you have. I think we had maybe six weeks rehearsal, which it was only one act, one act play, but musical. Sorry, but it was so dense. It was really dense that six weeks doesn’t even sound enough, to be honest. But I know now that’s considered a luxury. I’ve done other I mean, I haven’t done a play for a while. The last one I did here was the realistic Joneses, and that was, I think, 2013. And that was really I remember being told it’s a four week rehearsal and I was like, What? But you never you are never not ready. Whatever period of time you’ll given. It’s like everyone knows the line is over there. We have to get to it and you somehow get there. It’s like, I don’t know. It’s like magic.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Louis Virtel  I have one final question, and it’s extremely reductive. I apologize, but I’m thinking of two specific acting obstacle courses you have done. And they are United States of Tara or any given week. You had no idea what Toni Collette was going to throw at you, whether it was six characters or one brand new insane character who was going to like, warp your brain, whatever. So a lot going on there. And then also Hereditary, which I’m aware is not a TV series, but the amount of tumult in a single film I don’t think has been matched since and never will be matched. So I was wondering which of these experiences was more demanding of you?

 

Toni Collette Oh, definitely. Hereditary.

 

Louis Virtel Really?

 

Toni Collette Yeah. United States of Terror. I know that at the time everyone was asking me, Oh, do you find it difficult moving between the characters? And I just never did. I just never did. I knew what I knew, what it was, and it just flowed and I took such joy in it. It was such a joyous experience. All of the cast. I love every single cast member and I feel very close to it at the moment because only a few weeks ago my son had foot surgery. He’s about to turn 12 and he said he really wanted to watch it. I was like, Oh, are you sure?

 

Speaker 1 And it and you know.

 

Toni Collette And everything. And it’s really it’s intense. It’s deep and it’s dark and it’s also fun, but it’s full on, you know, especially for my son to watch his mother do all that. So it was really interesting to watch it again and to have grown and to be able to look at it, look back at it, and kind of understand my passion for it a bit more and understand just how important that story is and why we all gravitated towards it and loved it so much as a as an on screen family. We all really did love it and love each other and the crew. Such an amazing feeling of connection and collaboration and was. Yeah, really, really good one. I loved it. Hereditary.

 

Louis Virtel It was exactly that noise. Yes, That’s shudder. Yes.

 

Toni Collette Well, at the time, I. I got it when I was in Paris shooting the film, I was talking about shooting with Amanda, a French film called Madame. And I had said to my team, I guess I just realized that I, after doing You Already, which was my first film with Catherine, that I, after years of telling people that I really was fine, I don’t hold on to my characters. I don’t take them home. I don’t, you know, feel what they feel. Don’t be ridiculous. And actually, I was doing exactly all that. And so I kind of declared that I didn’t want to do anything heavy. I didn’t want to I didn’t want to challenge myself in that way. I just wanted to be light and joy and glee and have fun and make people laugh. So, you know, I did a couple of things. And then while I was shooting, you know, a couple of things of that nature. And then while I was shooting Madame in Paris, I got this call about this film hereditary. And they said, Look, we understand what you’re saying, but we think this is really incredible pace and you should at least read it. And when I read it, it was like the fact I have to do it. I just it was it was no choice. It was it’s very weird when it’s like that, when it’s like. I just know it’s just a knowing inside me that I have to do something. And I knew that it was going to take a lot. I knew that it was going to be a lot. I knew it was going to be heavy, but the great gift of it was it forced me as I was making it, because I knew going in what it was going to be and how challenging, challenging and how demanding it was going to be. I knew that I had to figure out a way. It’s like when you’re cooking clean as you go in the kitchen. So that’s what I did. I kind of each day I had a way of I started to figure out ways of cleansing it, shaking it off, getting rid of it, not carrying it. And it actually was a very smooth, satisfying kind of. I did have some fun on it because I was treating it. I was kind of considering myself more in the in the context of it, in the in the making of it. I think I was really happy. This might have something to do with me just coming to know myself as a person, you know, being more comfortable in my skin and knowing myself and more as a human that I just had more respect for my own well-being. And I took care of myself during that that shoot in a way that I never had before. And I continue to do that now. But that was the first job where I had and I maybe that’s why it happened, because I really appreciate it, because it forced me to have to figure out a way to balance out my experiences.

 

Ira Madison III I really have to commend you for that role. I mean, I mean, that is obviously Ari Aster’s feature film debut. But I mean, like you did so fantastic in that film, but I feel like it sort of ushered in him doing like great roles for just great actresses that are so weird and creepy. I mean, obviously, you know, there was midsommar I just saw Boas Afraid recently at the New York premiere and Parker Posey and like Patti LuPone in that film are just as scary and weird and intense as you are in Hereditary.

 

Toni Collette Parker We were making the Staircase, and Parker was telling me that she was working with Ari on the film. And I mean, we just looked at each other knowingly like, is it scary or is it just it’s.

 

Ira Madison III Actually not scary. It’s it’s more of a it’s more of a comedy. It’s very Albert Brooks, to be honest.

 

Toni Collette Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn’t watch he when I got to Salt Lake City to start on hereditary, he’d already, he’d already written Midsommar and he, he The thing is, Ari so frickin prepared, man. That guy is like his mind is incredible. He’s so incredible to work with. I don’t know where he comes up with that stuff, but I mean, it’s from him, right? And he knows it meticulously. How he wants to feel, how he wants it to look, how everything has to be like, you know, very specific. And so we sat down at dinner one night and he told me the story of Midsommar and where it came from. And I just said to him, Look, Ari, I think it’s incredible. I’m just telling you I’m never going to watch it. I just can’t live with the trauma of those scary movies. I just can’t do it. So I’m really happy to hear that. This one I’ll watch this one because it’s it’s it’s I’m sure it has moments that are challenging because he can’t not do that.

 

Ira Madison III But yes.

 

Toni Collette I think that gives any film depth when you when you have all kinds of you know, you can’t have light without the dark in anything in life. You have to have you have to have darkness. They coexist. So, yeah, but I watch this one. It sounds like I can handle it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, but speaking of that, I just want to say. And traumatizing scenes in The Staircase. I am God and watching you fall down the stairs. I do not want to see you fall down those stairs one more time. Oh, my God. That was very tough.

 

Toni Collette Eventful. Down stairs again in my life. I did it well. Weirdly, they had prepared several wigs, which got cut too short, so we weren’t able to do several takes. So a lot of the times I could only do one. So there was a lot of pressure on that one take to get it right. But yeah, having to die several different ways. It was I mean, it’s a true story. It’s just too gruesome. The poor woman, I mean, no matter what happened, it’s a horrible way to die.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And with that.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you so much for being here, and I.

 

Toni Collette We can’t end it like that, can we?

 

Ira Madison III All right, I.

 

Louis Virtel We got to ask a question about ABBA or something. Does ABBA follow you around in some any meaningful way these days?

 

Toni Collette It actually, you know, Dancing Queen comes on everywhere I go. It’s just like anything. I’ll walk into a place, any restaurant, any store. I’m like, Oh, my God. They follow me everywhere. But I love it. I mean, Muriel’s wedding gave me a life I could never, ever have anticipated or dreamed of. And that soul and that whole. God, that whole experience is just the best. So I do love it. It’s a it’s a bittersweet, but very lovely kind of hug every time it comes on, every time I kind of merge with it. And it happens so often. It’s weird.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, does it feel like it’s almost sort of like I have to imagine, one, when you go places, people notice you in general because you’re Toni Collette. But I’m like, if you if I were in the room with you and Dancing Queen was playing, I feel like I would turn to you and be like, All right.

 

Toni Collette Here’s your theme song. Get on the dance floor a little bit. It’s nice, though.

 

Ira Madison III Well, if overbearing, pretty vaguely be re ABBA. And also you always involved with the Mafia, Connie and Carla Mafia. Mama.

 

Toni Collette I forgot about that. And Connie and Carla. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You’re some like it hot.

 

Toni Collette Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You’re totally right. Yeah. I mean, wow. It’s really interesting. I mean, it was amazing being in Italy because it really exists, Right? And at one point, we contemplated shooting in Sicily, and we were like, oh, it’s it’s too close. Will actually have to kind of deal with that. You know, we’ll have to pay all of the fees to all of the people that you have to pay fees to to shoot in certain places. And then they’ll come along and say, yeah, now you have to pay us, you know, so many so many, so many versions of all kinds of color of colored tape. But yeah, after we finished Cat. Catherine Hardwicke had a short film that was playing in I think it was a women’s film festival in Termina, which is now obviously famous for what? White Lotus season two. And they all sat down and they’re at this beautiful hotel and they started the films, and then all the lights went off and it just got shot down. And they realized the Mafia did not like it happening at that hotel. And they got all the VIP’s and bused them over to their hotel where they continued the rest of the film as it was like, Holy shit, I just finished a movie about them out here, and now I’m literally being herded through oh, by them. How crazy is that?

 

Ira Madison III Well, thank you so much for being here, Toni. It was really a pleasure.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Jesus, what a fabulous interview. Thank you so much.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Toni Collette Thank you. Thank you. And caio.

 

Ira Madison III <AD>

 

Ira Madison III Is this turning into a Succession recap show?

 

Louis Virtel I’m about three seasons behind, so I better not. I did watch the last episode, though, because it was one of those things where if I do eventually watch the show, whatever the spoiler from this episode was, I knew if I saw it online it would ruin the series for me. So I just thought, I better see this episode just to watch it happen in real time.

 

Ira Madison III That’s fair. I love that you keep doing that with like each episode this season.

 

Louis Virtel They keep really me. Actually, I can’t think of another show that has done that. Like, I never even watched Game of Thrones in the last season when I hadn’t caught up.

 

Ira Madison III Oh. Well, let me tell you this, but if you’re listening, obviously spoilers for this episode of Succession. But I also feel like it’s very hard to spot on succession because it’s not really about the fact that Logan Roy died this episode. I mean, it is the subplot of the episode, but like, it’s not like it came out of nowhere. This is King Lear, obviously. That’s a King Joe adaptation. Not as good as our last King Lear adaptation as, you know, Empire.

 

Louis Virtel Or The Lion King. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III But if the series starts with, you know, him like, nearly dying, you know, and that is why, you know, it’s called succession. It’s about who’s going to be taking over the company. And it makes sense for Madison’s story, sense that he dies in the final season.

 

Louis Virtel So early on that. Yes. Correct. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III So we see it play out.

 

Louis Virtel Though. They still managed to make it shocking, like there was nothing in the preceding episode like that. When they start the episode and he’s just on the floor and they’re doing pumping his chest. You are aware it’s over. There’s no Shakespearean lead up to it.

 

Ira Madison III Right. And I love how you see him at first just with Carrie, like, you know, he’s he’s getting on a plane and then we hear about it. It feels theatrical to have the death offstage.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right. Look at you. Wow. Getting into your Tom Stoppard over here. All right. No, I also just. It was so cleverly done in the episode, how it was unclear how bad it was going to be, if he was going to die right then. And they and they believably credibly stretched it out so that each family member got a dramatic moment to react to it, you know, And they were the the kids were all apart from him. So they tried to talk to him on the phone. Each of them gets a moment. The Shiv is away for a second. And so they finally get the phone to her. She finally gets a moment, too. It really was. I’ve never seen. I’ve never seen guaranteed Emmy nominations set up like this before. Just one after another. Here’s who we’re putting forward. First, Kieran Culkin. Here’s. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It was it was an Emmy showcase, basically.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone got a moment. Wow. What? I. I just really. I love that you just, like, tuned in to the end to the end of this, because I’ve obviously, I’ve been obsessed with succession since season one. And I think that this is just another notch in HBO belt, you know, in that they have been the one network that I feel like has consistently. Been a part of the TV conversation for years.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I think other networks have sort of threatened to supersede them. Like I remember a moment where I thought FX was on top of the world, you know.

 

Ira Madison III Netflix had them shook for better because they were winning all the Emmys.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III For drama. But good ole HBO.

 

Louis Virtel Carrie Bradshaw did it. I believe she is single handedly responsible.

 

Ira Madison III Not Tony?

 

Louis Virtel No, no, no, no. Though I do think his kid is a good actor, I’m enjoying him.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, he’s quite good. I did not like the movie. I saw him in The Sopranos prequel. The Many Sins of Newark. Right. Awful movie.

 

Louis Virtel But good actor. Good actor anyway. Also, just like every actor, even the kind of ones are not in the main orbit on the show are all equally amazing. I have to say. It’s an actor’s showcase show, but I resist it since there’s, you know, a third of it. I resisted since, you know, it’s a man show, there’s men everywhere, even though I like them. Matthew Macfadyen is fabulous.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like I only hear women and gays talk to talking about this show. I mean, straight men really love it, too, but I feel like it’s it’s part of our culture.

 

Louis Virtel Do you know what is interesting, though, is they obviously just had their most watched show ever and that still was just 2.5 million viewers. But within a certain sector of the Internet, it feels like everybody has seen this show 25 times.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, well, I feel like that also is what I was describing to. So what about, say, like Ziwe being canceled. Which, you know, is so, you know, which is unfortunate. You know, shout out to Ziwe. I love her. But when you think about that show’s ratings versus either like a Girls or Mad Men, which had similar ratings to that show. I feel like you have to tap into a kind of show that is going to create a sort of buzz industry about it, you know? And for a show like that Ziwe Show, for instance where, you know, there were mostly just like clips online that people could see. But that show doesn’t lend itself to podcasts about it, you know, or white people doing recaps of it every week, you know and I feel like. Succession and then like Last of US one of its biggest shows you know it’s like that is where you’re going to have sci fi websites writing about it. I’m going to have people doing recap podcast, you’re going to have people talking about it on Reddit, etc. And honestly, the same thing has happened with succession. You know, people love talking about a prestige drama. And this one, I feel like it’s so fun that people enjoy recapping it, podcasting about it, you know, making memes about it, etc.. I feel like that can keep a show afloat because if you look back at the ratings, more people are aware of what Mad Men was as a show than actually watched it.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Right. I feel like the Ziwe Show is a similar model to Billy on the Street, where it really is about these viral little clips and that. And yet I say this as somebody who used to write on that show. I don’t know if I know anybody who literally tuned in to watch the full half hour of the show. And it was a half hour show, you know, on a couple of different networks. It’s just not how you intuitively think to watch a show like that. Maybe I think you should leave as a good beacon for the future in terms of these are, you know, short, punchy sketches. It’s presented in a punchy way, like the episodes are, what, like 16 minutes long or something. And then you get you get a handful of them and you move on.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I think that’s basically, you know, sort of the late night model now, too, although people do tune in for a full episode of like Jimmy Kimmel.

 

Louis Virtel They better not.

 

Ira Madison III Keep Lewis employed. These are but now people don’t people do still at least tune in for those types of shows, maybe because they’re on network TV. So and it’s easier to just turn it on and watch the whole thing. But I do feel like, you know, like even like SNL, you know, I watch clips more than I watch an entire episode.

 

Louis Virtel By the way, of Speaking of that, though, Molly Shannon was the host last weekend. That’s how you get me to tune in. I did not realize this. There are only seven former women cast members of SNL who have been asked back to host and I can’t believe it took this long for Molly Shannon to happen. But she brought back one of my favorite characters and lesser known characters of hers, which who is Jeannie D’Arcy? The She’s an eighties stand up and very dressed. The part. She has a kind of half mullet. She’s wearing a a very angular blue blazer. I believe she’s wearing a bolo tie much at the time.

 

Ira Madison III She wrote that character.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And her tagline is Don’t even get me started here. There’s a real like value affected quality to it. It’s a really low key character for her, actually, since most of her characters are, you know, zany and bounding all over the place.

 

Ira Madison III I love that character, though, and I feel like that was some of the earliest, you know, queer coding for for my kids our age. Because everyone watch SNL, like street kids watched closet it. Kids watched it. Girls watched it. Yeah. But whatever you quoted from SNL sort of like told me, if you were, you know, in a bargaining machine society member, you’re right. Right. And I used to love saying, like, don’t even get me started.

 

Louis Virtel On all of her characters. Licensed geologist Helen Matt. And I love it. I love it. I love it. And the Sally O’Malley. Wow. That was, by the way, the idea that if Molly Shannon were to play Sally O’Malley, she would be aged down now since Sally O’Malley was 50 years old.

 

Ira Madison III I’m 50. Maybe Sally O’Malley’s aged.

 

Louis Virtel That it’s possible. I would like to see that progression. 824. Let’s get on it.

 

Ira Madison III Although, isn’t that so very like late nineties that it was a character who’s 50, who’s like, Look at me. The whole joke is I can move.

 

Speaker 1 Right?

 

Louis Virtel And I’m an old broad. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I;m 50 and up my body still works.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yeah. I enjoy the idea of sex. Yeah. I definitely if I, if I were quoting somebody and I did quote SNL all the time because that was a stark difference from I feel like The Simpsons. Straight people quoted The Simpsons, you know what I’m saying? Whereas I got to quote Cheri OTERI characters, that was my specific brand.

 

Ira Madison III Of gay people. Quote Lisa from The Simpsons. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Did we really?

 

Ira Madison III We did. You didn’t even watch it.

 

Louis Virtel I know. As I as I’ve said when I was little, little ugly. For me, it’s too ugly. Who like yellow that much and dank yellow.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. It’s not like it was the Carol BURNETT scribblings. There weren’t those cavemen drawings that The Simpsons used to look like the end of eighties episodes. Who has it been invited back to SNL that.

 

Louis Virtel You’re waiting for? For? Well, I’m still waiting for Gilda Radner, and I think I will be waiting a long time. But she was supposed to host and they canceled the episode for I think there was a writers strike in the late eighties. But yeah, she didn’t get to and then she died soon thereafter. Tina Fey has obviously hosted a bunch of times. Amy Poehler has come back. Maya Rudolph has come back. But God, I guess who would I be waiting for? Cheri OTERI is, I guess, who I’d be waiting for, because, you know, she could still do it every once in a while. Andy Cohen wheels her out to do a Barbara Walters character. And in fact, she had a very lovely tribute to her once she died. And I’m actually not a Barbara Walters stand. And I think Sherry’s impression, which by the way, is not accurate at all. There’s not one thing about her that reminds me of Barbara Walters. So still so funny and more effective than Gilda Radner’s, which is at least playing with the way Barbara Walters speaks.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, just like Tracy Morgan, Star Jones. Was it really Star Jones?.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, that’s so funny. I am a lawyer. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I was rewatching clips of that recently for some reason, but it was our best ideas, allegedly. Yeah. I feel like that’s how I learned the word allegedly.

 

Louis Virtel In those sketches. The degree to which Debbie Matenopoulos would go down so hard, it really was true. So that’s something that is lacking from SNL now, is like obviously they’ll make fun of someone like Trump, obviously, and be, quote unquote, brutal. But really picking a random celebrity who is basically unproblematic and just hammering them.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, like that is what I even love from the comedies of the two twins, right? You know, like movies, TV shows, Like you watch something at a random celebrity, just whoever the writer’s room is thinking about at the time, we’ll just catch strays.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Oh, absolutely. ZIMMERMAN I’m reminded of I’m going to say in Pretty in Pink, Madonna comes up, who then is like a newish celebrity. And they’re like, oh, the music’s not really deep. Like Jesus Christ, who’s deep? Eighties and deep is such an eighties, nineties word. Like He’s not even deep.

 

Ira Madison III But I feel like we got away from being able to do that because of the internet. I feel like Perez Hilton shifted that we got.

 

Louis Virtel I wonder. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III He was such a demon that we have to shed. We had to shift back to being nice to celebrities.

 

Louis Virtel Oh wow. Well, he should be in the slammer for that because we had a good thing going for a long time.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And you had to you had to be nice to them, too, because they would hop online and be like, well, that’s me. It’s like, why are you even watching this WB show?

 

Louis Virtel Right? Right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. WB used to do that all the time.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. In Living color. No, no show is meaner to celebrities than in living color. Please look up how they drag Crystal Waters. Oh, my God. It’s a parody of Gypsy Woman. She’s homeless and she’s just saying, I have no talent the entire time. You’re so cruel.

 

Ira Madison III Keeps the part I was watching. Part of Scary Movie three the other day at Criterion.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, of course. And there’s a scene where Charlie Sheen is like, they’re reenacting the others and Charlie Sheen’s in a room and like, you know, this is like kid underneath the blanket holding the light, and then he rips it off and it’s Michael Jackson.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Well. It’s both good and pathetic. That’s what the 2000s were.

 

Ira Madison III But you see what happens when you try to be mean to a celebrity. Now, you know, Selena Gomez says hands off our kidneys.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh, God. This is all to say that succession is very good, by the way.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Please keep watching. I know.

 

Ira Madison III It’s also good because it’s VEEP, right?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone loves VEEP.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone is always quoting it. These characters are cruel and they are like, nasty to each other. And it’s funny.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III It’s funny.

 

Louis Virtel All my favorite lines in TV history are someone being either like Jenna maroney announcing a celebrity run in from her past. That’s horrible. Or like someone on Veep or a veep like show being cruel to another person, like, Oh, your breath smells like a Haitian porta potty.

 

Ira Madison III Uh. Do not let do not let gen-z discover Happy Endings.

 

Louis Virtel By the way, I had had it with millennials on that fucking shelf. There’s like 36 episodes, and you would think it went on for 55 seasons based on what people were saying about this. Like it was It’s Always Sunny.

 

Ira Madison III Which which is probably in its 52nd season.

 

Louis Virtel No. Right. And also, I think they produce a new episode every day. It’s like South Park.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I, I had like a dream once that I would get caught up on. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.

 

Louis Virtel You would. It’s like you would have to enter a monastery. I mean, how would you do it?

 

Ira Madison III I watched it for I watched it for at least ten years. So I’ve seen the first ten seasons. I was like.

 

Louis Virtel You’re almost a third of the way there or whatever. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III But yeah, I saw I saw South Park was I saw South Park had a new episode. It popped up on my Apple TV the other day and I was absolutely for it. That South Park is still on you.

 

Louis Virtel I’m sorry. If I remember when South Park premiered soon after Strangers With Candy premiered. Imagine if that show were still on. I mean, it’s just unbelievable how long ago that is. I was in middle school when this happened.

 

Ira Madison III Gay culture would be a lot different if Amy Sedaris had been on TV for several decades.

 

Louis Virtel All right. That’s the sliding doors reality we should inspect. I would be I would be happy to explore that sometime.

 

Ira Madison III All right, when we’re back, Keep It there. And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It. Louis, what’s your Keep It this week?

 

Louis Virtel This one’s too easy. I mean, everybody would say Keep It to this. But here we are. The upcoming 12th season of FX’s American Horror Story has a role designed for and now will be starring Kim Kardashian. I have bad news. I understand she is a popular television star. I understand she has a very followed Instagram person, guys. That does not make her interesting. Do not put this woman on a screen in front of me and make her speak. I remember the SNL hosting. She did a fine job. It can end there. We love the novelty of it. Let’s not let’s not bring the novelty into the serialized format. I will say about this season, it’s the first American Horror Story season that will be written and showrun by a single writer, Hailey Phifer, Which is great because if one person is running it, maybe that means they will, you know, plan for episodes four through the end. Instead of just saying we’ll fill time with like Jessica Lange performing David Bowie. We have no idea. Whatever. Or Stevie Nicks running around a piano or whatever happened in that season.

 

Ira Madison III Do not come for Coven.

 

Louis Virtel Would you say the whole thing was good?

 

Ira Madison III I don’t remember.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, that’s right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I remember. You remember moments? You know, the last season that I really watched was like the back to Coven season. The Apocalypse, where everybody was in it.

 

Louis Virtel Also. Yeah. I feel like the departure of Sarah Paulson marked my formal departure from having to care.

 

Ira Madison III I did see tweets from people who are like, Well, I’m not watching this season. And I’m like, Baby, if you think that Kim K’s bringing down the quality of American Horror story, I got something to tell you.

 

Louis Virtel No, because they’ve tried everything. In fact, it’s there should be just a season called American Horror Story. We tried everything.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, she can’t be worse than Adam Levine in insane asylum.

 

Louis Virtel I completely forgot he was on it and has tattoos that look like just the tattoos that are on the wall at the tattoo parler. He’s like I’ll take all those. The one of California. I’ll take that.

 

Ira Madison III He’s the Red Dragon.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m fine with him being. And she was she was great in that Tyler Perry movie.

 

Louis Virtel And which one was that? Yeah, sure.

 

Ira Madison III Temptation.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, you do remember? I thought you were bluffing. Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Temptation. Confessions of a Marriage Counselor.

 

Louis Virtel Now, I have to say, I am most thankful for Bravo-leberties. In this way, I feel like they have rendered the television importance of the Kardashians a little moot. You know, because these people occupy the same sort of sphere and they feel very obligated to be interesting. For real?

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. I, I still always it’s always funny to me when people refer to Kim as a television personality because I never think of her as that anymore. But I guess she does. They do technically have this TV show, which is the center of their universe.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Well, I first and foremost think of her as an attorney, and I’m upset that you don’t think of her and fellow attorney Amal Alamuddin as. But I love that period of time when people were insistent we didn’t care enough about Amal Alamuddin. I don’t know anything about lawyers. Stop pretending like she should have been on my radar. I should have an up to date on her cases.

 

Ira Madison III Well, maybe you should be reading my substack all about them all.

 

Louis Virtel And what happens there?

 

Ira Madison III You know what? I have daily updates.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. Amal. Amal still with us.

 

Ira Madison III It’s like my version of Liza Outlives.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right. Which, by the way, we’ll Keep It to that.

 

Ira Madison III I hate. I hate. I blocked it.

 

Louis Virtel Also. It’s just. It’s not funny. And it is cruel to Liza minnelli, the person it’s allegedly toasting.

 

Ira Madison III She doesn’t like it.

 

Louis Virtel No. And she herself has said the joke is that I should be dead. Like, it’s weird that I’m alive and stop treating Liza minnelli like she’s batty. Stop it. She’s full of character. Sterile Cuckoo, 1969. Underrated film. Ira, what is your Keep It this week?

 

Ira Madison III My Keep It goes to once again heterosexual dating discourse, which always pops up online.

 

Louis Virtel How do you keep seeing this? The algorithm is failing you.

 

Ira Madison III This was going viral, and I feel like specifically in New York, because it’s a very New York problem, but this woman, who’s like a student at Columbia, shared a message that she got on Hinge. And once again, I have to preface this with I loathe people who screenshot dating out conversations and put them online for content. I mean, have you tried getting a personality?

 

Louis Virtel No. Also, did you know that you can’t do that on Grindr anymore? You can’t screenshot Grindr conversations anymore?

 

Ira Madison III 80% of gays just lost all their content.

 

Louis Virtel No, it’s also it’s like you’re going for funny and coming up with mine every time, Almost every time.

 

Ira Madison III And it’s usually someone. I’m like, Yeah, I wouldn’t want to match with you either, because so many people, it seems like they’re just like waiting for the set up so that they can screenshot it posted online.

 

Louis Virtel Precisely. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Anyways, this guy asked her out on Hinge. Ah, and her prompt is, the best way to ask me out is by opening with a time and place. Let’s save the small talk for dinner. Okay? He responds. 730 drinks next Thursday at 456 in East Williamsburg. And she says. I’ll bet $100 that bar is down the street from your apartment in Williamsburg. And you didn’t give any consideration to the fact that I live on the west side of Manhattan. Jon Emoji and his response sounds awesome, he responds. You’d want $100 on the first part, but I took all that into consideration. I figured you probably don’t come to East Williamsburg too often. Next Thursday is going to be gorgeous and this bar has a nice outdoor sex shop. And who puts his number in case you change your mind on me being inconsiderate?

 

Louis Virtel Got it.

 

Ira Madison III She screenshots it and writes. He really thought he ate that. F for effort in asking me to travel an hour to have a drink with you at a place two blocks from your home. Drinks is so he can spend less money, but it’s nighttime so he can ask me back to his place after. And as if Manhattan does have doesn’t have patios. First of all, you’re doing entirely too much girl. Two, I love a date that is drinks. Because one who wants to eat in front of a stranger that you’ve just met and you’re locked into like a dinner for at least 2 hours.

 

Louis Virtel I literally still think about I went on a date once. That was Thai food, and it’s just a revolting feeling. We’re very close to each other. You’re watching my mouth move in ways that should it right now.

 

Ira Madison III Um, drinks are so easy you get and you get out. And baby. I’m just saying it’s so extra. And I also need to comment on the fact that she kept going on about how, like, you know, it’s so expensive to take an Uber. She just puts she puts photos of the nice outdoor section, which doesn’t look great, but it looks like unlike a place in East Williamsburg where the vibes could be fun on, like a summer night, you know? Right. And it’s I should travel an hour by train or $100 plus roundtrip for Uber. For this, I’m going back to sleep. And someone found her TikTok. And she lives in like Morningside Heights. Goes to, like, the Columbia. Takes an Uber everywhere. There was like a tick tock about how I. I don’t even know how much I spend on Uber has taken Uber to and from class, taken an Uber just before going back home from so far, I was like, Girl, it’s giving. Get out of the car. Take a walk.

 

Louis Virtel Also to somebody who is obsessed with getting the internet on their side when it’s not somebody being either insulting or demeaning or just like, what’s the upshot of this? Like, we love you. You’re right. You shouldn’t have to go in an Uber on a date. What’s like what was the best possible scenario here for her? I don’t know what it was.

 

Ira Madison III The best possible scenario is like either listen, you make fun of him and maybe he comes up with an alternative date if you really want to go out with him. But it seems like you’re already resigned to I just want to make content. So if you’re already in the I want to make content, then you’re not really even interested in dating anybody.

 

Louis Virtel I’m a little surprised this is a Columbia student. Is that a legacy admission? What’s going on there?

 

Ira Madison III Maybe she goes to Columbia House University.

 

Louis Virtel Columbia Night School.

 

Ira Madison III Columbia House University, where that you know, they just have those CDs and they send them out to people.

 

Louis Virtel Right? God, we really had it good with the penny CDs. If you really wanted We’re Up in the Wind by Garth Brooks. You could get it for under a nickel.

 

Ira Madison III The amount of CDs that I bulk ordered from Columbia House is like just how I filled in my CD collection. And then when that bill came, I never paid it. I’m sure I owe Columbia House thousands of dollars at this point.

 

Louis Virtel You’re going to be thrown in the Columbia house. Now they have a slammer. That’s where you’re going to live.

 

Ira Madison III What if someone came back for Columbia House right now. It just started like charging people.

 

Louis Virtel I would love. It’s like they waited 30 years like like a legal cicada emerging to get going.

 

Ira Madison III But anyway, yeah, my main complaint is people who post dating app things for content. Because here’s my thing. Unless someone’s being crazy, like in a message, for the most part, you are two human beings who don’t know each other and have different communication styles because we’re humans, you know, Like I know that the internet tricked everyone into believing that everyone’s going to sound like them because of their echo chamber and get like your jokes immediately and not have weird texts about them. But you’re two people who don’t know each other trying to come to some sort of common ground. So like a lot of the times, people will respond to something that like maybe isn’t your vibe or how you’d respond to something, but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently funny or ridiculous enough to, you know, for you to post online.

 

Louis Virtel And also, this may sound too sympathetic to the other side, but routinely people who aren’t the exact vibe you expect that you get from your friends or I feel like the people you and actually end up dating because there’s actually something novel about them, you know I Right.

 

Ira Madison III You know, so and if you can’t even get past like a, you know, a thing like that, like I would love to be called out and be like, you know, didn’t you just pick a place like two blocks from your apartment? It’d be like, you know, you’re right. Let me pick some other place in the middle or something, or all you had to say was, How about you pick a place in the middle? You know, it’s like. It’s not like you’d know everything there is to know about this person from this place that they pick.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Then you get to talk all about the middle and Maren Morris contributions to pop culture, of which there are maybe three.

 

Ira Madison III This is Jimmy Eat World erasure.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true. Are there other the middle middles We’re forgetting about Patricia Heaton right on prime time. Um they live in Indiana I believe.

 

Ira Madison III There’s a mid 2000s Ricki Lake movie called The Middle.

 

Louis Virtel I was just thinking about her and the theme song to that show and the end the phone number 1-800-Go-Ricki.

 

Ira Madison III Ricki I loved the nineties era where black people were so excited by someone doing something where they would just say, go and then their name.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Oh, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, Ricky.

 

Louis Virtel You go, girl, etc..

 

Ira Madison III Ricky. Like, just just chanting it. Like, I think about that all the time.

 

Louis Virtel Can I just say for a white woman, Ricki Lake really convincingly said the words Your man, a lot.

 

Ira Madison III She had swag. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Is that your man?

 

Ira Madison III Ricki Lake had swag. I’ve missed that show. Let’s bring back the Ricki Lake era.

 

Louis Virtel I think we tried a couple of times and it turns out we didn’t want it back. But I do love that show.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Because I feel like it was swag less.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Yes, you are correct. That is exactly what was missing.

 

Ira Madison III You need you need you need like you need a Ricki Lake. If it’s a white woman, it better be a Ricki Lake and better be  a Lisa Stanfield. Okay. Like, it had better be a white woman who could feasibly go to the Apollo Theater and get applause.

 

Louis Virtel I saw you posted that Lisa Stansfield performing All Around the World. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Really hollow theater performance that she does.

 

Louis Virtel It’s really shocking.

 

Ira Madison III And that’s what I that’s what I mean. The whole audience is going Go Lisa. Go, Lisa. They love her that she’s got she’s got, you know, her like, blazer on the the slicked back hair that every sort of white woman with, like, swag. And that era had like, almost like a Harlem renaissance.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. All the kind of Marcel wave kind of thing. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Of Lisa’s. And also Lisa Stansfield had a new album a couple of years ago. Really good, by the way.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I was listening to some of the rest of the album that, that single’s from. Like, she had hits. Yeah. So if you put those on, those are. That’s some sexy music.

 

Louis Virtel Been Around the World in Ubers that are so expensive.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Well, thank you to Toni Collette for joining us this week. That’s our show. Don’t forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. Plus, if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Kendra James. Our producer is Chris Lord and our associate producer is Malcolm Whitfield. Our executive producers are Ira Madison, the third. That’s me and Louis Virtel. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to our digital team, Matt DeGroot, Nar Melkonian and Delon VIllanueva for production support every week. And as always, Keep It is filmed in front of a live studio audience.