Ira and Louis discuss the Emmys, Louis’ unfortunate Emmy loss, and the debate over The Bear being a comedy. Mackenzie Davis joins to discuss her new film Speak No Evil and why she’s obsessed with Bachelor Nation and Real Housewives. Plus: Trump’s Taylor Swift hate tweets, Diddy’s arrest, Tate McCrae’s new single, fall pop music, and Pharrell’s dissolved friendships.

Go to votesaveamerica.com/vote to check your voter registration and make sure your friends do too!

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Ira Madison III And we’re back with an all new Keep It. I am Ira Madison, the third. And you are? What’s that, Louis?

 

Louis Virtel I mean, I’m Emmy loser. Louis Virtel. I have to say, it really does get you hungry to win. Like it once you like, found out you lost. I think I was sitting in the ceremony, like. Okay, quickly. So I lost the Emmy and we lost to Alex Edelman. And I believe I read you can agree with me, we jinxed ourselves by having him on the show. I mean, what was what were we thinking? Just having the competition right in my midst. It’s like witchcraft or something. But anyway, me and that writing team for the Oscars, we lost the variety special writing Emmy. And I have to tell you something. We’ll get into the Emmys. The entire episode is about the Emmys today. When you lose at a ceremony like that, your brain does not shift back to I’m just at an award show and can enjoy it. Like, I can’t believe that entire audience just sits there and is like, well, now comes the time when I root for hacks. Like just I don’t have that philanthropic brain.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. What’s it like sitting there waiting for your category?

 

Louis Virtel Well, I’ll say this. I don’t know why we had this insight. We knew what time it would be on. So I kept waiting for 6:02. So up until then, I could just absorb, like, Meryl Streep is in the theater, you know, or Kathy Bates is here or whatever. So I was mostly just thinking about that. That said, once you get to the category, well, I mean, I’ll talk about this in regards to the Emmys as a whole. It’s not like the Oscars or the Grammys, where it really. Those are full of spectacle. You know, there’s performances and like circus-like theatrics. You can be absorbed in. The Emmys is really just one award after another. A quick introduction from the hosts, who did a great job, Dan Levy, Eugene Levy. And then otherwise, it’s a rollout of awards. It’s like the opposite of the VMAs, which is just pure performances. And did we even throw an award in there? Who knows?

 

Ira Madison III The time stamp is so funny because remember when I was in L.A. to get an AMBI and I took Tyson along with me and we were looking at the program, I’m getting this award, so I’m not stressed out about it at all. I look at the program, I am the second to last person getting this award. So you have some choreography that, you know, you have to sit through the entire fucking bag, Right?

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yeah. So it’s. Yeah, it’s all building up to you. Yeah. Ours was like midway through the ceremony, but I don’t know. It’s cool to be there. I will say this about the Emmys, though. You can’t leave during the commercial breaks, right? They don’t want shots of people in the aisles or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III What RuPaul’s Drag Race did.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Yes. We’re supposed to be mad at them for going to the bathroom.

 

Ira Madison III For getting drinks. Yeah, they were untucking.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Quite. Also, by the way, seeing those queens there, including Plain Jane and that very outrageous get up really makes it’s interesting. You’d think, they look out of place. I had the opposite reaction there. They look so amazing. Everybody else looks stuffy and uncomfortable. I was like, God, I wish I were a drag queen here. I’d feel like an actual, like, bad ass as to oppose as opposed to everybody else here who just know or address that.

 

Ira Madison III Kind of is how I felt watching not just the show, but watching Instagrams and watching the red carpet roll out because of the way culture has sort of shifted. And we’re used to celebrities sort of dressing up more on VMAs or other premieres, you know, like Zendaya’s and things like that. When I saw the Queens, I was like, this looks like a fun awards show. Yeah. And then you see everyone else and you’re like, you’re not having any fun.

 

Louis Virtel No, this looks like 1992 over here. And then these people actually put some creativity into what they were wearing. But no, they looked fantastic. That said, I think that must have been a pretty in terms of leading up to awards and anticipating and wondering if you’re going to win or lose Drag Race. I feel like probably knew the ball was going to stop rolling on their awards wins once. Sooner or later. I’m sure it finally did for the traders, which let me say this and we love the traders and have discussed it at length and I do think Alan Cumming is an unbelievable host, so I want to congratulate him on winning that or whatever. Traders is not a better show than RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s just it’s the game is broken. The contestants are what make it work true.

 

Ira Madison III I will say, though. Was was this recent season of Drag Race that followed. This was the Plain Jane season.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Okay. That’s the one they were nominated for. Okay. I did really enjoy that season, but I also enjoyed traders maybe more.

 

Louis Virtel I definitely was talking about traders more. You know, I guess like they sort of culminate at the right point anyway. This is this all should be in the episode anyway.

 

Ira Madison III It should be. I forgot that I enjoyed this past season of Drag Race because All Stars came on right after it and I stopped watching it right now.

 

Louis Virtel That was a and I rarely stop watching All Stars with Big Brother. I just up and stop at any time because you know I have to save my sanity and you know I my brain whatever drag race when I stop watching a season, something is the matter. We should preview what’s happening in this episode before we get further into the Emmys.

 

Ira Madison III So we’ve got the Emmys, this episode, obviously, and we have a fantastic guest this week. A quick Linsey Davis.

 

Louis Virtel This woman is amazing in everything. I remember the first time I saw her, which we’ll get into. She’s also the star of the fabulous Halt and catch Fire. This this woman’s bounce. She’s one of these Andrea Riseborough. People like, sometimes you can be so talented it actually makes you a freak.

 

Ira Madison III I would write in for her to get an Oscar nomination.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Okay. Precisely. Yeah. You you’d call up Frances whatever her name is and be like, get on the dial, get the girls going.

 

Ira Madison III But before we get to all of that, Lewis, I saw one of your tweets the other day.

 

Louis Virtel Which one?

 

Ira Madison III The one where you tweeted, I hate Taylor Swift, but.

 

Louis Virtel I forgot to mention after I lost the I mean, I needed to pick up some freelance work. And the president, the former president, 45, said is, are you in the all caps business? And I said, I can I can I can try it.

 

Ira Madison III Not the all caps business. I know. I love what he goes there is very cognac.

 

Louis Virtel There is cognac, which.

 

Ira Madison III When we liked him, he’s tweeting about tweeting about being on airplanes.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Or just all caps. Art is the best or whatever he was.

 

Ira Madison III So this has been such a fun saga that I did not know would unfold into more for us to actually have something to talk about after last week because we recorded the episode and then the debate happened and Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris. And this was a coordinated effort, obviously, because Taylor Swift’s endorsement came on Instagram and it was a PR statement. Obviously it didn’t really reference anything in the debate. Right? So it was written before and Harris walked off the stage to the song The Man, not my first choice.

 

Louis Virtel Not my 50th.

 

Ira Madison III And then they were selling Harris was friendship bracelets on the website. So this was a three pronged attack.

 

Louis Virtel Right? And then, of course, Tim Walz wore a denim minidress with thigh high boots.

 

Ira Madison III The two of what we should have predicted was this was going to send Trump into a tizzy.

 

Louis Virtel The tasiast the tizzy bitch of all time. Yes, more.

 

Ira Madison III Than a tizzy. Well, you need to know about this is before all of this Britney Mahomes. I want to think of her as sort of a Amelia Bedelia type, as a friend to Taylor Swift because she follows Trump on Instagram, but she also apparently follows Biden and Harris, too. She’s she’s all over. She’s one of those undecided voters probably, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Got it. And I keep thinking about them for some reason. Wait, because they’re shoved in my face. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III So she likes a post by Trump. And this leads to people pointing out online that she liked the post by Trump because we’re now in this sort of standard industry where there are apparently people who have nothing to do all day. So they track what random celebrities like on Instagram all day. This is how sometimes you’ll see on Instagram, so-and-so has followed so-and-so. I don’t know who has the time to figure this out, but they figured out Britney liked this post. Trump found this out, and then he started going on and on about how he loves Britney Mahomes.

 

Louis Virtel Likely thing for him to do. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Someone did point out online they firmly believe that Trump thought this was Britney Spears.

 

Louis Virtel I know what you.

 

Ira Madison III Really British married to a Patrick Mahomes.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. But Britney Mahomes obviously is associated with the football family that we all care about. Right. So he might have been familiar with her.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe. But he’s also demented.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yeah. Yeah. I’m not trying to get this isn’t the so I’m not trying to get into the brain. And I understand that now.

 

Ira Madison III The house and the Wicked Witch and Toto are all flying around up in there. Okay. So after this, Taylor endorsed it. He goes on this nasty rant saying, I hate Taylor Swift. And then he also puts on his website. I don’t know if they’re still up. I don’t know if Tree Payne has had him arrested. Yeah, drawn and quartered. Yeah. Yeah. But he put on his website Trump a Trump era store shirt.

 

Louis Virtel Baffling. I mean, like down to like, the coloring is all the same. Like, it’s clearly a reference to the Taylor Swift ERA’s tour merchandise.

 

Ira Madison III Which is so funny because it’s the it’s the funny, contradictory nature of Trump because you hate her, but you’re also posting merch that looks like her merch slash. You were also very excited for an endorsement from her when it was an endorsement.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yes. Yes. He used her image in a tweet that he retweeted. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III So, anyway, now you have Republicans and conservatives hating Taylor Swift, including Megyn Kelly, who for some reason keeps crawling out of the mud.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me, I I’m sure I’ve said this before. Again, to bring up an old Internet term that is now dead but much beloved is anyone in the history of the world more pressed than Megyn Kelly? She whatever she tweets, it’s like it’s not just that she’s angry. Old Megyn Kelly from whatever she is does on Fox News. It is truly as if there are flames behind her while she tweets, she is scorned and used my favorite Michael Jackson word. Devilish.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Remember when Charlize Theron played her?

 

Louis Virtel I’m not used to being upset with Charlize Theron. The movie Tully is about to come up today with Mackenzie Davis. This time I was pissed with her. What was that fucking movie? It didn’t teach us anything other than John Lithgow. Put some prosthetics on him, put some Rick Baker ass make up, and he can be a big, creepy Fox News guy.

 

Ira Madison III I want to say that the Megyn Kelly thing was also on her YouTube channel that she runs from whatever bunker she currently lives in. I don’t know if I was reading this newsletter that I follow this morning, popular information. And Meghan Kelly apparently went on some rant about how Taylor Swift in supporting Harris now supports, you know, kids being taken away from their parents and transgender surgeries and saying Walsh supports this, which is a blatant lie. By the way, the law actually gives rights to parents. But when has Meghan Kelly been known to care about the truth?

 

Louis Virtel I’m sorry? Her saga, when we gave her that talk show and she said, I’m sick of politics. Yes. And then three weeks, then the ratings were dipping. She was like, what if I did politics again? And then that didn’t work out either. And then we paid her, asked to go away, which, by the way, thank you, Rumplestiltskin, for making that dream come true. But she keeps coming back.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, The whole point of the money to go away means that you’re supposed to go away.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right away. Stay there. We keep talking about how people just don’t go away. Like if they have a Twitter account, they’re like, I’ve got to get back into it.

 

Ira Madison III You know who is going away, though? Diddy.

 

Louis Virtel He is going the A-list. He’s. He. He’s away Travel. He’s going to pack himself in a little rat pack and fly away.

 

Ira Madison III Never have I had so many texts from people this morning saying that they were reading an entire indictment. The entire unsealed Diddy indictment was released today. It was 14 pages. I read it in bed this morning. And it is. It is wild. This is Scarface shit. This is Stefano de Mer shit, this is this is a Rico case. Basically, it’s racketeering, It’s sex trafficking. It’s money laundering. It is drugs.

 

Louis Virtel You sound like a Maya Angelou poem right now. Jesus Christ. Gwendolyn Brooks. more like actually, no, it’s extremely disturbing, as all the allegations already have been. But I mean, like sex trafficking rings where there’s like a term for the actual thing he’s making them do. It’s like so.

 

Ira Madison III Freak offs.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Freak offs where you are filming people filming women have sex with male sex workers who’ve been trafficked into New York City and then plying them with drugs so that they can keep performing while he’s watching. The wildest thing in this was that they were recovering stuff from hotel rooms and they’ve recovered a thousand bottles of baby oil and lube.

 

Louis Virtel Jesus Christ.

 

Ira Madison III What are we doing here? The slip and slide at family double dare?

 

Louis Virtel Do not invoke Marc Summers at this time, my good man. In a suit and Reeboks.

 

Ira Madison III Bring that show back. Adult double dare.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Adults. You are correct. It should be adult. I enjoyed the version we had with Liza Koshy, the reboot of it. But that to me would be a lot better.

 

Ira Madison III You know what, actually? Big Brother is kind of double dare.

 

Louis Virtel Right? They are shameless about.

 

Ira Madison III That’s how.

 

Louis Virtel People should.

 

Ira Madison III Be. Yeah. You you watch this show that is intense gameplay and strategy. And then when you tell a friend to watch it, they watch someone. Singing and dancing in janky world in a back yard and making pizzas.

 

Louis Virtel It is embarrassing to to bring people into because you just have to fall into the trap of it. Otherwise your intellect, you know, steps in and says danger.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Anyway, shout out to Ben Affleck, who is no longer J-Lo’s most embarrassing ex.

 

Louis Virtel No shed. Jesus Christ. He’s deeply off the hook and I hope he’s okay.

 

Ira Madison III Also, this indictment starts from 2009, which means I don’t believe that she will be called as any kind of witness.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, good. You know, she’s got enough going on right now. You know, this is me moving on. You know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III Shout out to my girl. Shout out to J.Lo and Ben for keeping the love alive.

 

Louis Virtel Or whatever they’re doing. They had to reunion every two seconds. They accidentally, like, jumped on each other and made out. We all been there.

 

Ira Madison III Staying in each other’s orbits. I kind of love it. It’s J.Lo Summer, and we’re just living in it.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true. Before we move on with this very discombobulated episode, I just want to say that it is also voter registration day right now. I have this T-shirt on to remind you in case you’re more of a visual learner. Go to vote. Save america.com/vote to check your voter registration and make sure your friends do, too.

 

Ira Madison III All right. We’ll be right back with more. Keep it.

 

Louis Virtel [AD]

 

Ira Madison III The 2024 Emmys were held over the weekend, which showed on the bear and baby reindeer dominating the awards. But I think I know what Lewis wants to talk about the most, and that is Laraine Newman.

 

Louis Virtel My God. Of course, the most underrated cast member of the original. Not ready for prime time players on SNL. Laraine Newman, the mother of Hannah Einbinder of hacks, love Laraine Newman. And of course, she was Lawanda and problem child too. Never forgets.

 

Ira Madison III Never forgot. We should have asked her about that.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Let’s talk about cinema for a moment. Can we? Yes. Out of nowhere, Laraine Newman tweeted all caps. Fuck. Period, period. Bear. Period. And by the way, I believe that was before Hacks won the best comedy Emmy. I assume she’s what I assume she.

 

Ira Madison III Would have lost.

 

Louis Virtel I got it. I assumed I was because the bear had won all the a lot of the acting Emmys up until that point. And so I she I assumed it would win the big award. I think.

 

Ira Madison III She tweeted that because I had a lost to Liza colonizes in the bear.

 

Louis Virtel Right now. This has spurred more conversation about what the bear is in regards to making anyone laugh ever. I will say this. I think a couple of people I saw video including Bowen, Yang and Joshua Jackson stepping up.

 

Ira Madison III For me was response was really good.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, saying that like it is highlighting absurd situations and maybe not. Maybe it’s not farcical, maybe it’s not, you know, a sitcom, but it can qualify as a comedy in certain ways. But I was actually more taken with arguments online saying that it’s really in the acting categories where comedy needs to be properly rewarded. Like Jeremy Allen Way, obviously fabulous on the Bear belongs in that role. Whatever. Is he the best comedy actor we have? I think that’s probably where Emmy voters should have voted for somebody else.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And listen, this whole conversation about the bear I get is exhausting. You know what has not exhausted me? I muted the word the bear a year ago.

 

Louis Virtel It’s so easy. And I have to say, it’s one of the more popular animals. So you’re missing out on a lot of National Geographic conversation you could be a part of.

 

Ira Madison III I know. I mean, and I don’t even know what the Berenstain I have been up to lately.

 

Louis Virtel Jesus. Is it still sister and too much birthday pink overalls? Where can I get them? Anyway, moving.

 

Ira Madison III On. We always have this debate of category fraud. You know, someone at the Guardian also accused Shogun of this because Shogun was originally supposed to be a limited series and then got expanded to a continuing dramatic series. And it’s who gets a vote.

 

Louis Virtel And also, they’re just in the correct category. Then they are in drama series. I will say this about voting for the Emmys. When you get like shows that win a ton and it doesn’t seem like any of the other shows exist, it just feels like voters saw one show or two shows or whatever. Because if you see everything, I think it’s extremely unlikely you will vote for just one show. Yeah. You know, so it’s almost like we need to arrange screenings so that people can, like, sit down, take an afternoon the way we do with like the, the shorts at the Oscars or something where we rent out the Arrow Theater and you can watch all of them in an afternoon. I feel like there should be screenings of just these nominated episodes that we can be sure that people are absorbing all of them. And also, again, that’s a hard ask because an actor will be nominated for one episode of a show, but then direction could be another episode. So it ends up being a lot to have to watch. But you know, when when something like the bear just wins again, again, again, again, again, it just. It feels like we’re not absorbing all the TV that we have to offer. And as you know, there’s quite a bit of television out there.

 

Ira Madison III There’s quite a bit. And I feel like from our own media diets, you know, there was a time when I used to watch everything. Yeah. And now I watch very little unless I have to.

 

Louis Virtel It’s one of those things where the way TV used to be delivered to us, where you’d be flipping channels, obviously nobody flips channels anymore. You are likely to see things you weren’t automatically interested in. And now, just algorithmically things are given to you and you never watch anything on accident. So it feels like viewing habits are really set in stone. And we’re just talking with different sort of isolated fan camps about the in the voting as opposed to just everybody is watching everything.

 

Ira Madison III We don’t even see trailers anymore. I was talking with a friend last weekend about how maybe they’d never seen an episode of, I think, E.R. or something, but because of what they used to watch on NBC as a kid, they saw the trailer every week for each E.R. episode. So it feels like they knew what was going on in the E.R..

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. And you can probably even judge, you know, a performance in an episode based on what you see in a preview. You know, you at least have some window in, you know, to that show. But you’re right. I mean, like if there was ever like a brilliant the good doctor. Advertisement. I did not.

 

Ira Madison III See it there. There were a few. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I’m sure they cleaned up at the whatever OBS or Clios. Wherever you get those Clios. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I like the good doctor for one season.

 

Louis Virtel I do like the clips they post that the Internet angrily posted of him doing his little flip outs.

 

Ira Madison III But I will say I love when a medical show always has a crazy death for somebody. Because you remember House M.D. where Kal Penn killed himself. Yes. And Noah Galvin’s character on The Good Doctor was killed. I think he stopped a fight between somebody at a hospital and then the person followed him and hit him over the head with either a brick or lead pipe or something. And he died. And that’s how he exited the show.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I love a strong, you know, the classic L.A. law. This is not a medical drama. The falling down the elevator shaft. I love a swift exit from a show like. And they are not coming back.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. So before we get into some of the other awards that people won, I want to backtrack to you at the Emmys where there was was there anything else that you sort of noticed there? Was there any tidbits that you want to share with us?

 

Louis Virtel Well, I’ll just say arriving at the Emmys, you before you get to the carpet, you’re at sort of this pre carpet just gliding early from space. Yeah, pretty early. I was there probably at like 245 or something in the ceremony was at five. This thing happens where if you or your people check in at the front desk, right, as were everyone standing, you can tell them if you’re a nominee, you’re you’re there. And then someone gets on a loudspeaker like you’re at a carnival and says, Kathy Bates has just arrived. And you hear just again and again, like you’re at the grocery store and someone’s announcing a sale or whatever, blank has arrived. Just co-writers on Jimmy Kimmel Live did that. I hear Jesse McLaren has arrived. I’m like, if anybody look twice, I mean, God love you, Jesse McLaren, you’re my friend. I would have been shocked, you know.

 

Ira Madison III But I always forget that. Jesse, you work with Jesse. I used to work with Jesse back.

 

Louis Virtel BuzzFeed, Right, right, right. And he is magnificent at bringing Internet culture onto the show. And these are two very separate worlds, I have to say. Yes is fab. But when I walked in, the first person I heard was Kathy Bates has just arrived. And I have to tell you, that puts me in a stressful space. Yes, Lady Matlock. Yes. Because I wanted to go up to her and say, I’m obsessed with come back to the five and dime. Jimmy Dean. Jimmy Dean, which was her, I think, movie debut in 82 with Cher, Sandy, Dennis and Karen Black. And I absolutely know nobody else was going to bring that up to her. But I decided not to to follow my commandment of leave celebrities alone.

 

Ira Madison III You know, it’s very funny about come back to the five and dime. Jimmy Dean. Jimmy Dean. I was just thinking about that because yesterday in New York, there was an invite only reading of a new musical based upon that. Excuse me. Yes. And in the reading was Mary Testa and Shakira and Laura Marcus. Maria Torres. Anyway, that’s all I really know about it. But there is an invite only industry reading of a new musical based on that movie. My God. New York.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, it’s a pretty it’s a it’s a talky drama. I think it kind of should be a musical. So that sounds very exciting to me.

 

Ira Madison III Also, you should have found her because did you see that interview with Kathy Bates? Where? She said that she’s retiring after Matlock. This is her last role.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Which we didn’t agree to that. Excuse me. You seem spry. And with it, you should be doing this well into your 90s Cloris Leachman style.

 

Ira Madison III That’s why she’s been taking the same role over and over again, like Harry’s Law. This. I mean.

 

Louis Virtel That one. The marijuana. Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Maybe she actually knows that this is only going to be on for two seasons. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel When you say this is your last role, it’s not really a good omen for the show. Really? It’s not. Doesn’t sound like you’re going for blue bloods like.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone else on set is like, what is she now?

 

Louis Virtel The preview I saw. I mean, it doesn’t remind me of the other Matlock at all, but it sounds down like she’s doing great. It was lovely to see her, I will say, for a split second. And the weather’s been getting more normal here in L.A.. I did not do the red carpet because it suddenly got blazing hot. I can’t believe people stood out there. So I just went inside. And by the way, the venue this is at, which I already forget, is gigantic and clearly a place where there’s concessions that you had to buy. Excuse me? I bought concessions. Yeah. So there was like, I bought popcorn. I got like a Dodger dog style hotdog and like stood upstairs and ate it. And literally people would come up to me, you know, friends, whatever. And I looked like a hoarder at a baseball game. I mean, it just looked insane.

 

Ira Madison III That’s so cheap at the Academy.

 

Louis Virtel I’m it was very shocking to me at the parties afterwards. Obviously, their drinks and stuff that are, you know, free for everybody, but not ahead of time, not at this venue. I ran into Benj Pasek on the red carpet, who had been briefed that I called him and E got with two teams.

 

Ira Madison III And yes, he was he texted me about it the the same day, actually. Yes. So either he’s listening or there’s a snitch. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I think I’m sure we’re both still on Tinder, so we’re both still acquiring that second he got. But he is a as I said, a recent you got winner. He won for writing a song from Only Murders in the Building and are thrilled to see him. What other gay people were there? I saw Billy Eichner afterwards. A mensch I always enjoy. It’s been eight years since I wrote on Billy on the Street. Still probably one of the funniest shows your.

 

Ira Madison III Mother.

 

Louis Virtel Accessed. Yes. Yes, my dad, Billy. Billy Eichner.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. And it was cute to see Ben’s and Alex Edelman’s separate photographs. You know, two best years. They both got their Emmys this year.

 

Louis Virtel Right? If you think it’s cute when I lose, which, you know I do. Upsetting. Yeah, right. I bet you do.

 

Ira Madison III I bet you actually.

 

Louis Virtel Alex gave a really good speech, too. Not that Jimmy wouldn’t have given a wonderful speech on behalf of the Oscars writers, but I think Alex’s was more in the spirit. Like what you want out of an Emmys speech. It was just.

 

Ira Madison III For us, you.

 

Louis Virtel Know. There we are. Yes, exactly. A lot of the speeches at the Emmys this year were kind of solemn and just about thanking people on the team. And people seemed sort of confused and didn’t come up with something witty. There were a couple of exceptions, like Jessica gunning from Baby reindeer. And by the way, that was the slam dunk win of all time. She was amazing. I baby reindeer and the guy who created baby reindeer, he came up to the mike several times. Very funny, but otherwise lacking in signature speech moments. I thought, which is something this ceremony really needs because again, there’s nothing to distract you. There’s not musical performances, there’s not, you know, really fancy montages of TV, past, etc. I think there’s only just introductions to speeches and speeches.

 

Ira Madison III Can I say I thought one, most of the banter introducing the speeches was funny.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it was cute. And yeah, and the like. The TV moms, TV dads and stuff.

 

Ira Madison III However, the speeches thing, I think the problem here is that people in Hollywood let me prepare for this.

 

Louis Virtel Let’s go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III And lower my glasses. People in Hollywood feel things about the world and politics and whatever, and they kind of sometimes want to say things, but they don’t want to say things, you know, And so they don’t want to talk about Gaza and Palestine and they don’t want to talk about Trump. They don’t want to talk about Kamala, and they don’t want to wade into all of that. And so they felt the need to be solemn and be serious. But that sort of just amounted to a boring I’m just going to thank everybody on the team.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yeah, I concur with that. I think they want to feel like they’re rising to an occasion and meeting the moment in history. But at the same time, it’s not like anybody said anything that met the moment in history they just talked about.

 

Ira Madison III And that’s also not why we’re watching. Know you’re there to be entertainers. You’re there to entertain us. So entertain.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, when I think of the Emmys, one of the images that comes to mind is when Alan Alda won an Emmy. Once he did a cartwheel on the way to the stage. Right. Like, it’s exciting. I didn’t the. The vibe of many of the people there was not excited to win. Or like maybe they were overwhelmed that there are a couple of speeches where people seemed a bit overwhelmed. But they didn’t. It’s like they stopped being entertainers. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

 

Ira Madison III And when we’re back. More Emmys. So the big categories, first of all, hacks. I was shocked that hacks won for comedy because of, you know, the entire narrative of whether or not The Bear is a comedy. And people kept expecting Bear to sweep entirely. And honestly, I feel like that narrative sort of may be shocking. Win for hacks, even more fun and sort of a la la land moonlight sort of way.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. I mean, I think the deal is the Bear had its worst season, like everybody agreed. It just wasn’t the show. It was in the previous seasons. And that probably helped tax. That said, when Jean Smart appeared at the Emmys and when she she won for hacks, that was one of the few standing ovations of the entire night. Like the goodwill specifically for her, I think is at an all time high. That’s somebody that, you know, even a casual TV watcher going back. You don’t really have to even know her from designing women like you saw or you saw Samantha who or one of her myriad movie roles. And for her to culminate with this show, I think is just everybody. Everybody has been along for the ride on her, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, No, everybody loves Jean Smart at this moment. And I think that I don’t know. She’s so good on that show. I mean, the show the show just feels like, ah, it feels like a. Career best for her, you know, which is wild because she’s had so many career highs. But this really feels like a show that is being written for her specifically and really just plays to her strengths. And I want to shout out. Jen Statsky, Paul Downs, Lucia Anello for their great acceptance speech. That was really funny.

 

Louis Virtel Also, it was our friend Guy Branum. Andrew is now an Emmy winner for producing. Yeah, Andrew Lau, fabulous friend of ours. No, I mean, that is got to be one of the queerest staffs. Yeah, Pat Regan’s on that show. Yeah. Ever like a for, like a major comedy. So that’s incredible. And I also just, of course, want to highlight about Jean Smart. You got to watch the Brady Bunch movie and see her as their nasty neighbor and that.

 

Ira Madison III Charlie’s.

 

Louis Virtel With Michael McKean. One of my favorite duos ever in a movie.

 

Ira Madison III Louis, you’re shocking the girls this week. I. Problem child to Brady Bunch movie. Come on.

 

Louis Virtel Welcome to the Criterion Closet. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III You know, the Criterion Closet is supposed to be traveling around. The U.S. this summer, I mean, this fall. But I kind of don’t want to go into the mobile closet. I don’t want to be in the Criterion Closet unless I’m invited. You know.

 

Louis Virtel No, excuse me. It’s not. Closets. Don’t move. Excuse me. No. Go. Let me go to the real one.

 

Ira Madison III You’re out of the mobile closet. I don’t know what the fuck’s in there. All right.

 

Louis Virtel You mean a video store? You mean a bunch of DVDs?

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Although, I will say the Criterion Closet is kind of making me want to build my art. And maybe this is just like an Internet sketch or something. Or maybe it’s a keep it thing. I wish we had, like, a blockbuster closet bring back.

 

Louis Virtel Just actual, like, nasty movie titles. Just like first Gear. Yeah. Little Giants. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III There’s 40 Amadeus. It’s here. Which one do I pick?

 

Louis Virtel There’s 175 Titanic. And we are missing the second VHS for a few of them.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, sure. We actually really should just bring back video stores.

 

Louis Virtel There on Big Brother the season. There’s a video store clerk who has since been eliminated. But I whenever I see him, I’m like some somebody is keeping the good operation going. I so miss. Had such great video stores. Once upon a time, I used to live on the east side and I was basically my next door neighbor. I miss that so much video.

 

Ira Madison III I think there was a great Twitter thread the other week from someone who used to work at a blockbuster. The one on Sunset, I believe. And it was after Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice came out and when we were talking about how much when not a writer is such a film buff and they said that Winona used to come in there all the time and she was sort of quiet and kept to herself. But sometimes when you were chatting up about a movie, she would just like, keep talking about movies. Like you really love talking to people about movies.

 

Louis Virtel It’s I saw a clip of her talking about Barbara Stanwyck on TCM from a few years ago. It’s like she’s been doing this for a while now. This isn’t just her new things. She’s suddenly into What.

 

Ira Madison III Are we going to do with her? With that, let’s let’s get her hosting something.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, with love. That would love that. Speaking of. But back to the Emmys. I will say something else that I think made this ceremony a little bit languid, is that you had and this is just the nature of the Emmys. And I like this about the Emmys, but you had plenty of repeat winners. You know, just we already know that these people are good. When you get like a Billy Crudup winning for the morning show. You know, first of all, that show winning Emmys, as is, you know, controversial and strange. I don’t know that I need to see it. He is obviously a genius. I think he’s an amazing actor. That said, his plug mid speech for his wife, Naomi Watts, was not not really strange. Did he call her like an immigrant who did something and something? I was like, well, right. She’s nominated for a couple of Oscars. We all definitely know Naomi Watts.

 

Ira Madison III Do we do okay.

 

Louis Virtel Maybe this was proper.

 

Ira Madison III PR? Yeah, I feel like I feel like of our Australian imports as much as some of us film buff days love her for Naomi Watts you got to go to a lay person. The ring.

 

Louis Virtel yes, right. Yeah, maybe. No, I guess you would have to go to the ring Birdman.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe call on.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, there’s some of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she hasn’t really had. Yeah, Yeah. The lay person probably did not watch Feud, Capote versus the Swans, did they? Did anybody I you know, I tried and I watched some of it, but then it turned out there wasn’t much of a feud at all. And it was actually just women drinking quite a bit.

 

Ira Madison III I think the James Baldwin episode is grounds for being tried in The Hague feud.

 

Louis Virtel The audiences versus Ryan Murphy woman.

 

Ira Madison III Yet when you talk about repeat winners, there’s also John Oliver won again.

 

Louis Virtel Imagine him not winning. We always do a bit backstage at Kimmel, where Guillermo interviews the winners, and I did not cover it backstage this year. My co-writer Trey Walker did. But backstage, John Oliver comes by every year. And I have to say extemporaneously, he is so funny and I love that he’s funny. With Guillermo, I it’s like, I cannot get fucking rid of this man. I mean, he just he’s fully around and winning no matter what he does.

 

Ira Madison III Did Evan Moss Barack win last year?

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean. The man is lovely.

 

Louis Virtel And he has funny moments on that show too. So I’ll allow a comedy win.

 

Ira Madison III Never seen it, but I adore him, so.

 

Louis Virtel It’s not like that. Jamie Lee Curtis also won for guest actress on the Bear and I. I watched her performance on that. It was fabulous. I do believe we should boycott her getting awards after that Oscar for everything. Everywhere, all at once. Excuse me. Excuse me. Absolutely not. Not ever. My girl Carrie Content. Not that year.

 

Ira Madison III And so I and Hiroyuki Sanada, I won for Shogun and I know I keep saying this and I’m finally going to watch this goddamn show.

 

Louis Virtel I saw half of the show and I thought it was fabulous. It’s so easy to lose track of just a TV show now. I feel like if it’s not a conversation that is taking up all of your time, it’s like I felt like like, for example, Mare of Easttown when that was on, everybody was talking about it every week. That’s what kept me involved, even though I loved it, you know, Otherwise it’s easy just to lose track of these shows because nothing is screaming at you to watch them, you know, like you have to be in the streaming service in order to see it.

 

Ira Madison III This was becoming a bit of a word of mouth show with my friends, but I think the season was already sort of basically over. There were 1 or 2 episodes by the time people kept telling me, You got to watch it, got to watch it. And I feel like there’s going to be a big influx of people. Obviously, with the Emmy wins and all the buzz for season two. So I’ll probably end up watching it sometime before season two or I’ll catch up on it later this fall. But I am really excited to watch it. I just sort of, you know, whenever I am writing, I sort of like take a big mental break from anything that’s sort of smart and safe.

 

Louis Virtel That’s the safest version. And speaking of Kathy Bates, I saw on the red carpet, she apparently went up to Anna Sawai and was very complimentary about her work on Shogun, which was very touching to Anna. So why I am needing more moments like this where one actor for no reason at all, sticks out their neck in support of a show or a movie or something and says, I’m thinking now of Anthony Hopkins about a decade ago wrote a letter to the cast of Breaking Bad and the creator, Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad. So it’s just extraordinary things. And there’s something so touching about that because these are just two worlds that don’t interact at all. Anthony Hopkins being an utter, you know, movie. King Breaking Bad. Being on AMC, it feels like something to me mentally means those two things never mean for him to say this show matters to me and these people are so good on it. Naming everybody in the cast is so memorable and so cool. Like, why not just if you’re like an esteemed person, stick your neck out for something that’s so cool to see.

 

Ira Madison III So also, Anna was in this girl group called Fakey, I believe F-k Why? And basically she wanted to be able to act as well as sing at the same time. And they wouldn’t let her. So she left the group. And then joined Shogun, and now she’s an Emmy winner.

 

Louis Virtel Wow. A risk. Sometimes it feels like there’s only one possible job for you in show business. So it leaves like, a sure thing, like a J-pop group. And then take this show is amazing. Good for her.

 

Ira Madison III Miss Jodie Foster got her first Emmy and also thanked her wife.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And then they kissed. Also, I have to say, ten years ago plus, when she made that Golden Globes speech where she was like, I’m coming out as possibly skiing with a woman, at times I did not expect to actually get something like blatant proof that she’s a queer person. Now, obviously, in the past few years, Jodie Foster has been a different story. But yeah, coming off the Nyad nomination and into this, I am a super fan of hers in a way I kind of never thought I would be. If you haven’t seen her crazy ass movie she did in the late 70s called the little Girl who lives down the lane, lived down the lane. I forget the turns on. That is so strange. She is a girl in a big house out in the Northeast somewhere. And Martin Sheen plays a pedophile who visits her. I cannot explain why this movie existed or who pitched it or if I was involved. Even then. I have no I have no idea. Who were her.

 

Ira Madison III Parents doing at that time? The taxi driver?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. They were just like, go ahead, be a prostitute also. Also in this movie, a little girl who lives down the lane, her sister, her I think her older sister does a nude scene in a stunt double way for Jodie Foster. Really baffling. Just go ahead and check it out.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. She is also very good. And Alice doesn’t live here anymore.

 

Louis Virtel My God. Is that punk kid who for ordering around Ellen Burstyn’s kid? Yeah. A real asshole. Love it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Great movie. And one of my favorite Scorsese movies. One of his women films.

 

Louis Virtel And that’s it.

 

Ira Madison III The Departed is for the ladies.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me. Yes, I remember Vera Farmiga being in that for 11 seconds.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. A funny thing I want to bring up to you that you definitely haven’t seen is Beatty’s some source did a post about the winners.

 

Louis Virtel Did they?

 

Ira Madison III They posted other Blackberries, obviously. They posted a photo of Will Smith and it said, We’re there for Slow Horse now. And of course, the winner for writing for a drama series is Will Smith, a very different Will Smith than The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

 

Louis Virtel All right. And I have to give this Will Smith credit because, again, I’m sure it wasn’t just Guillermo from my show, but Guillermo asked him. I can’t believe you slapped Chris Rock or whatever. I’m sure he gets this all the time. The man just has a name. We all have a name. His happens to be the one that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has. So he seemed to be taking that in stride and with some dignity and and indulging and gracing everybody else.

 

Ira Madison III So another show that I promise to watch. Keep it listeners. I’m a big spy drama. Then as most of you now shut up to salt.

 

Louis Virtel Right and salt to back in the business whenever that comes out.

 

Ira Madison III Back, back, back and back in the babushka. You know, a lot of people have been in my dreams or tweeted at me that I love slow horses. So I am finally going to watch it, even though it does sound like that Katy Tunstall song. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel But of course, in the Cherry Tree, not suddenly. I see you slowly horse.

 

Ira Madison III Territory, but I assume black horses are fast.

 

Louis Virtel Just in general, I like in the ring. Have you ever seen a faster horse? Please?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So Black Beauty.

 

Louis Virtel Right by Anna Sewell. Not Anna Sawai. Anyway, I don’t. Why am I like Jason Morales today? I’m like the king. I’m eight and Mr. Eight is him. My word.

 

Ira Madison III That’s why you were on Jeopardy! Mr. A to Z.

 

Louis Virtel I am crazy. Pretty clever. No, I will say that now, normally at the Emmys, there aren’t musical performances. There was one for the In Memoriam sung by Jelly Roll. Now, well, can we just break down what Jelly Roll did here? He goes on stage and he says, Now I’m going to sing a song about how it’s okay not to be okay. The first line of the song is It’s okay not to be okay.

 

Ira Madison III First of all, if you’re going to write a song.

 

Louis Virtel It’s as if he were saying, Who needs subtext? Second of all, it was like, Why are we doing a song about It’s okay not to be okay for people who have simply passed away. The vibe was that the people in this roll out like James Earl Jones.

 

Ira Madison III Bob Newhart, Great to be.

 

Louis Virtel Dead, had killed themselves. I mean, that’s what was.

 

Ira Madison III So it’s okay to be dead. It’s. It’s. Let’s just.

 

Louis Virtel Say that. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Go ahead.

 

Louis Virtel Be Damn.

 

Ira Madison III My favorite moment of that was Michelle Collins tweeted, If I die, please do not let Jelly Roll signify evermore. She posted a screenshot of Jelly Roll retweeted.

 

Louis Virtel By Brow, at which that’s very frightening when celebrities do things like that. You know, I’m reminded of Kathy Griffin, my life on the days where she made fun of Renee Zellweger number and Zellweger sent her flowers. It’s like, is there poison in this? You know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III Shout outs a little more and more us for finally getting an Emmy. Even though most of the Internet agrees. That should have been for The New Girl.

 

Louis Virtel Which was a delightful show that I really resisted at first because I thought the whole A Dork ability quotient would be too much for me to handle. But everybody was really good on that. Max Greenfield, Also good. Jake Johnson.

 

Ira Madison III Remember when remember when Prince went on that show just because he loved it?

 

Louis Virtel Prince in his weird world of what he was obsessed with and who he reached out to, should just be studied.

 

Ira Madison III He’s very there is a very funny quote that someone had online recently about Prince and Matt Damon.

 

Louis Virtel My God. So good because there was a big meme recently asking people to reply with their favorite celebrity quotes. And Matt Damon at one point asked, Prince, you live in Minneapolis, right? And Prince responded, I live in my own heart, Matt Damon, which to me says he has given that response before. He was prepared with that.

 

Ira Madison III Absolutely. Yeah, I live it. I live in my own heart.

 

Louis Virtel Which is so Diane Warren lyrics. Where did you come up with that?

 

Ira Madison III As she’s somewhere hitting herself. But she didn’t come up with that.

 

Louis Virtel And then he went back to playing one of his 100 favorite instruments. Like you could play the ferryman and a bassoon at the same time. Also, I forgot that Jimmy Kimmel Live lost in other places. We lost to The Daily Show as Best Talk series. Jon Stewart hosts that show once a week. Why did this win? I would like to know.

 

Ira Madison III If.

 

Louis Virtel I can just be nasty, right? I’m a loser by definition. I’m nasty.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. Remember when he retired?

 

Louis Virtel Right. And then, by the way, which reminds me. Pat Sajak is now back to host some celebrity episodes of Wheel of Fortune. I don’t know if that’s a contract thing or Ryan Seacrest couldn’t do it or ever, but he gave his big farewell and now he’s back telling Banner what to do. I thought we were done with this. It’s very can.

 

Ira Madison III Be given share.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, that’s that’s one thing about Pat Sajak that is giving share.

 

Ira Madison III I, by the way caught a bit of Wheel of Fortune recently.

 

Louis Virtel Did you have a good time?

 

Ira Madison III With Ryan Seacrest.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And I thought Ryan was pretty good, actually, so.

 

Louis Virtel And again, I said it last week. It seems like he’s hosted at 100 years. He never has something unless he feels absolutely encyclopedically knowledgeable of it and appropriate for it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Is that it? For our award show?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I guess that’s our take on the Emmys. Again, as I said before, I am hungry to be nominated again. And when Pop Culture Jeopardy, which I wrote on, comes out in December, I know this and I was shocked to find this that when something is nominated for best game show at the Emmys, the writers are also nominated. So if we sneak into that category and it’s not a gigantic category, there’s not tons and tons of game shows out there. I will be back just now.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Okay. Wait, is that. That’s not competitive game show, though.

 

Louis Virtel It would be competitive. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Is that against the traitors, though?

 

Louis Virtel No, no, no, no, no. That’s. It’s. That’s what I agree with. It’s usually regular Jeopardy is what wins that category. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. They would probably give it to something new, like pop culture Jeopardy.

 

Louis Virtel Right? But yeah, especially with you’ll see what we’ve got whipped up.

 

Ira Madison III You’ll see. So now that the Emmys are done, we are about to embark on our regular awards season. The one that keep it is the most hopelessly devoted to this is Oscar season.

 

Louis Virtel That’s for you, Olivia Newton-John. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And I am terrified at the prospect of a campaign from not only Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, but also Ariana Grande, all vying for best supporting actress.

 

Louis Virtel That is going to be tough also. I mean, like Wicked to me is one of the big question marks of the season. Like, I don’t know how that’s going to play because not only I mean, how is the movie going to be? How are we don’t know, but it’s also part one of two. So do you save awards for like the second version? Like, who knows? Also, I am excited for that Selena Gomez movie, Who she is.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel She picked up the big award at Cannes with her costars, and we already had her nominated for best Actress at the Emmys this year. So it’s feeling like a nice arc of prestige. For her.

 

Ira Madison III Also. I thought she was very funny in her clap. Well, she didn’t win. There was a side by side of her. I guess she was on Jimmy Fallon and she practiced the clap. She was going to do what she lost.

 

Louis Virtel She’s so funny.

 

Ira Madison III And she did the exact clap.

 

Louis Virtel That is really funny. Okay, good for her. I also didn’t see that clip. I’m shocked at myself.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, she is really funny with Steve Martin and Martin Short.

 

Louis Virtel Also Martin Short. Whenever he comes on our show, he has like a ready made packet with hundreds of jokes that like he has done over the years that he uses again and again. He is truly like the stickiest, most vaudevillian guy we have. And he really shines in moments like that. And also, of course, he did a tribute to Lily Tomlin when she won some award. And it was a hilarious speech. And in the in recent years. So look that up to him.

 

Ira Madison III Obviously, I don’t think all three of those women will be nominated for Oscars this season. Hopefully one of them will. And we get some star power at the Oscars. But there’s a chance that at least two of them could be nominated for Globes.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Well, the Globes, I mean, is just.

 

Ira Madison III Even though all three of them, to be honest, Salena Gaga and Ariana at the Globes, I’m sure the Hollywood Foreign Press is edging.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. And that’s going to be a well lubricated with alcohol ceremony. So wafer sloppy. And also this year, we got Nikki.

 

Ira Madison III Three hot dogs.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Nikki Glaser is hosting this year, which is such a good choice for that award show. She’s also being funny and so like of the moment and yet also old school, you know, like she’s writing a joke that has a beginning, a middle and end. And there’s a devastating moment at the end when she really, like, lays into somebody. You know, we kind of thought the twins roast style humor had gone away because, you know, a lot of that humor just like sucks now or is offensive. And I feel like she really finds a way to dig in and meanwhile make everybody feel good, like want to hear those jokes.

 

Ira Madison III All right. When we’re back, we are joined by the divine. Mackenzie Davis. Our guest today is the kind of actress who can turn a seemingly quiet moment into a powerhouse event. You know her from Halt and Catch Fire Station 11 happiest season. And now the hit new thriller Speak No Evil. We are thrilled to welcome to keep it the dynamic and mesmerizing. Mackenzie Davis.

 

Mackenzie Davis God. Thank you for that intro.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, you deserve it. You are truly are mesmerizing. I mean, I am I’m friends with Angelina Burnett who worked on Halt and Catch Fire. And I remember when she first got that job. I told her I was like, I love this show. And we talk about how great you are all the time.

 

Mackenzie Davis That’s so cool. I love Angela and I’ve spoken to her, I guess, since the show ended. But yeah. Any episode that she wrote was a very good episode for Cameron.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, We got to start with Speak No Evil Witch. First of all, I’m fascinated by how this is different from the Danish movie it’s remaking from 2022 because this is a psychological horror film, but there are also like moments of humor and other unexpected things as opposed to the bleakness. That was the 2022 movie. What do you see as the differences? And also just talk about being in this movie. What a bracing experience.

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah, I mean, I saw it the last Tuesday at our premiere and it was kind of a laugh riot. I wasn’t.

 

Ira Madison III Expecting, like the.

 

Mackenzie Davis Forest jokes to take hold in quite the way they did. But I thought it was really fun. I mean, it’s a really, really, really tense movie in a way that I think is quite satisfying to just be like edging for two hours or I mean for an hour and a half. And yeah, in the midst of that you can either break tension with like a scream or with laughter. And I think a lot of our tension is broken with laughter. And it’s just funny to watch people misstep socially and, and like fail to recover elegantly. They are like my the couple I’m in with scooping Mary and our daughter, Alex West Leffler We don’t know that we’re in a horror movie, so we’re just like trying to navigate like a minefield of of social calamities, not like trying to, like, save my family, which I understand is frustrating to watch horror characters not like smarter, but we don’t know that we’re in danger. And so it’s quite funny to see them fail to to know that.

 

Ira Madison III And James McAvoy, I mean, I’m not shocked that it’s a laugh, right? Because he’s so he’s so funny and is so charming in every interview that you see him in. But also in recent years, he’s just taken on these intense, creepy roles and sort of like, what’s that like seeing him on set in that character and then seeing him offset where he is a completely different person.

 

Mackenzie Davis I it’s it’s like watching somebody who is not only supremely talented and then has like years of experience to buttress that talent, but who also really, really fucking enjoys it. He is having so much fun. And I think that’s really evident when you watch the movie that he’s like going wacko, like he’s having such a good time doing whatever he’s doing and he’s so not focused on himself, just like really kind of inventive and exploratory. I use. I’m like, I don’t know. I mean, he’s a very unusual actor. He he seemingly has no ego about his performance other than he just wants it to be like the the best as in the most inventive, the freshest, the most exciting to himself, which is not exciting to the audience. But he’s not like kind of protecting himself against. Making a fool out of himself, which I think you find a lot with stage actors, but not so much a film actress because you don’t have any control over the edit and there’s only like one shot and you want to make sure you’re kind of controlling what’s being handled after the fact. And and yet he’s just so free with it.

 

Louis Virtel New to me are one of these Toni Collette people where if I look at all the credits like these things have nothing to do with each other. It seems crazy that there would be even any link in between all of these things, but you are the link between them. Is your taste as varied as the parts you play? Or are you much likelier to veer towards one type of movie or TV show to watch?

 

Mackenzie Davis I famously only watch reality TV.

 

Louis Virtel Fuck yes. Mackenzie Davis, welcome to the Life. Yes, I know.

 

Mackenzie Davis Actually, I’m really hoping that we were going to have like a conversation about career, but could instead talk about opinions. And maybe that’s where we’ll say, Let’s go.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, we will.

 

Mackenzie Davis I’m so excited for Salt Lake City to come out. I cannot wait.

 

Ira Madison III Like I love.

 

Mackenzie Davis On the edge of my seat. I wasn’t a Bravo girl. I was always a bachelor girl. And and part of that was because I knew that I had to addict of a personality to go into a whole other streaming network. I was like, The Bachelor already has The Bachelor, The Bachelor in Paradise, Bachelorette. And then me looking at their Instagrams, which is like and then listening to podcasts about it, that’s like a full time job. And then Scandal of all happened. And I proceeded to watch all of Vanderpump Rules backwards. And then I watched all of Beverly Hills backwards, which I have to say is a really like, like episode one, season ten two to finish, and then episode one, season nine. You know what I mean? Not to episode backwards.

 

Ira Madison III But you watch the seasons backwards.

 

Mackenzie Davis I watch them backwards. That’s right.

 

Ira Madison III Wow. That’s that’s wild. What do you think that you’ve got, particularly from the rules and from Beverly Hills watching them backwards? Because it’s so it’s I know a lot of people watched the current season of Vanderpump when scared of all happened and then they went back and were like, okay. I can’t wait to see how this is all unfolding. But it must be I mean, it’s like you were doing a weird pincer play watching all of this unfold.

 

Mackenzie Davis I mean, it’s a classic gateway drug where I kept thinking I could stop it. I was like, well, I’m going to need the context for this season, so I’ll just go back. And I was like, Well, I need to have the context for Lisa Vanderpump. So I went to and then I and then I finished. It was like, Well, I will need to know what Salt Lake City is all about. I recently watched The Real Housewives of DC the one season. Have you seen that?

 

Louis Virtel Michela Salahi. I remember it well. Yes.

 

Mackenzie Davis I can’t believe that that happened. I can’t like what a moment in time to capture and that I remember. I remember the McGillis lawyer thing happening. I mean, I don’t know how old I was, but like, not invested in, like, gatecrashers at a state dinner in Washington. But remember, like the figure in the sort of cut of her jib, as it were. And then to go back like that, it’s a miracle. And I understand why they couldn’t go forward with it because it was, I guess, too inflammatory and like legal risk for Bravo. But wow, what a document. And those. Sorry, I’ll stop in a second. Are, I think, some of the finest drawn characters I’ve ever watched in my life in Real Housewives of D.C. pre pre knowledge, a sense of being on a stage but not quite aware of what that stage was. So there’s like a clumsiness with how they’re there. I mean, all the grapes stomping with the grapes from Ralph’s like just the just so many good moments.

 

Ira Madison III I really I think you really touched on it with the clumsiness that comes from this bit of knowing you’re entering reality TV, but also not knowing what you’re doing. Case in point, you know, we’re excited for Salt Lake to come back, right? But last season, the whole Monica thing was she knew what show she was going to be on. She was fans of these people. She was stalking these people to get on to the show. And now you’re in this sort of post-modern reality show world where everyone knows that they’re on a reality show and it’s even been got now. Have you started a Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?

 

Mackenzie Davis No, I’m starting that. I just read the article in The New Yorker on it. Okay. Starting with like, I’m going to have to cut this short.

 

Ira Madison III But that is that is like, I think the next sort of bastion of reality TV because you have you’re always having these people who are thirsty to be on TV, but they sort of are hiding it. Right. But you can sense it. And this is these people were part of Montauk, which means they were on tick tock. They were trying to be famous. And now you are filming these women talking about their brand deals and what they want to be doing and who they want to represent themselves as, and the scandal that happens with their brand deals. And it’s sort of now just peeking behind that curtain of the like a lust for fame.

 

Mackenzie Davis Which I think is also a really in. Interesting aspect of it, like. So what I really loved about The Bachelor when I first started watching it was that these are people who had like internalized the economics of the game of like falling in love, like the game of love in real life had had become a game show. It was like vulnerability gains you access to this thing. And then at this point, you need to play this card in order to have like a trauma bond and yada, yada, yada. And then you have sex, which like brings it to the next level. Like it’s and then they’d internalize that so much that they knew what game that they were playing. But they, and they and they wanted to manipulate it, but they weren’t good actors, which actually I felt was more revealing of like a, a humanity, like a sort of sad humanity, like it felt quite exploitive, but really interesting to watch people, like try and fool me, the viewer, when they weren’t good at wearing the suit that they they had chosen to wear. And I thought I found that, like the most interesting performance in the world, where now or I guess outside of competition, shows people are a lot more savvy, but there’s still a little bit of that. But I’m interested in the like the adaptability, like how they’re like the evolution of the characters. I sort of lost the plot. That’s the plot of Towards the.

 

Louis Virtel End of the show and of course, how transparent it is, what people are doing, you know, I mean, shows that that said, what, like bachelor contestant or bachelorette contestants are the ones that like have stuck with you. Like, do you like, stand these people or is it really just general interest in the world of being on The Bachelor and doing your best to work on this show?

 

Mackenzie Davis There were a few. I mean, I always thought Kaitlyn Bristowe was just such a breath of fresh air and she was fun. I don’t really follow her anymore, honestly. Baby Becca from our season, she was the girl. The first rose the pixie cut on the show. She was 22 years old and she had she’s a really interesting character because she was she was a very much like I’m not like the other girls, kind of a girl. And she had internalized some lines. She was like, God, she had such an amazing line when she said. I’m no trouble. I have fun and I like fast cars or something like that. Like just the sexy line that you would say in a movie. But she was really cool. And after the show, I she’s the only person I still follow. She’s like, not at all trad wife, but like an organic farming mom and like Jason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, she’s very cool and empowered and, like, shave her legs and is she’s like a great mom. And I like watching her Instagrams. But her her evolution has been very interesting where she she felt very aware of the machine and like young and susceptible to it and then turned it a bit and was able to look at it in an interesting way.

 

Ira Madison III That’s another thing that is also I think I don’t know, that’s like reality has seeped into sort of social media and how we present ourselves in general. You brought up trad wise. I feel like that’s another thing that is a performative esthetic because every person who presents themselves as sort of this trad wave esthetic online, right? It’s not really the trad wife as you would historically know it, because these women are all the breadwinners in their family.

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah. Yeah. Which I read is an element of the Mormon Tik-tok.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So it is like all these women, there’s that there’s a moment in episode two where they’re talking about whether or not they’re going to be doing a brand deal to make 20 K for using a vibrator. And some of the women are like, I wouldn’t post that 20 K, you know, and someone’s like our poster and they’re all going around. They’re like, Which one of us are the breadwinners in their family? And they’re like, We all are.

 

Mackenzie Davis But they’re still being controlled by their husbands.

 

Ira Madison III Aren’t they still being controlled? Yes. Yeah. So it’s weird.

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah, Yeah, it’s interesting. Try to get me to watch this show.

 

Louis Virtel This also. This also says to me that, like, I last weekend, a friend of mine asked me like, you want to go out to see a comedy show? And a part of me thought like, I don’t need to see that. Like, I’m working at it all the time. Like, do you actually resist watching, like, dramatic acting because that is your job and you don’t need to see more of it?

 

Mackenzie Davis No. I mean, maybe. I think I watch TV. I really like good movies and TV. I feel a little I see this as I’m shooting a show that’s for TV is good for months. Really good. I find. I find, like, Pedigree TV a little exhausting sometimes. Like, there is a lot of, like, signifiers of what makes it valuable that I find can can feel almost cheap like that, I think are less convincingly employed in film. Maybe because you don’t want to invest in film in the same way, weirdly. Like it feels like a bigger investment to watch a two hour film than it does to to watch like ten hours of a TV show. I guess I watch TV too, like turn off and I watch films to to tune in. Yeah, I just get different things out of them. And and I’m sure there are some TV shows I would like to watch, but it hasn’t happened in a while.

 

Louis Virtel I do feel like people just kind of touched on something are exhausted by the thought of something being really good or prestigious. Like when this is no shade to this movie, which I actually haven’t seen, but that Blake Lively movie that just made $200 million or whatever, I really feel like when the Metacritic score of 59 comes out on that movie, people think, this is for me. Like, I will actually go and see this thing. That’s only kind of good, you know what I mean? Or critically kind of good, you know?

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah. And it’s not like asking. Well, like, I don’t know. Yeah, I. I understand that deeply. Yeah, I lost my train of thought, but I fully agree. You want something that’s, like, comforting? I think so. Like. So there’s a really popular TV show that everyone loves right now that I tried to watch a few episodes of. It’s great writing, acting, everything wonderful. But I was like, I want to fucking kick up and relax. Two people yelling at each other for like three hours. And it’s like everyone is so stressed. It’s great. It’s unimpeachable. Great. But it’s not like, pleasurable for me to do that. I, I guess maybe to link it back to horror. Like, I don’t get any catharsis out of that at the end. I just get, like, bad news and then I’m like, The bad news was very good. But I don’t like I don’t get to participate in it in a way that like, gets me off in any way. So I don’t I don’t like it.

 

Ira Madison III That’s true. And I think that catharsis thing, too, is really just this idea that now that we have so much to watch, you know, there’s so much television, there’s so many films. I think that there are so many things that sort of are geared towards a specific set of people. And I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m like, I love television and I can appreciate very good writing, but I’m also like, there’s some things I’m just not choosing to watch. And I’m like, I don’t need to participate in that conversation. And I love that my friends are watching it. I love that people are writing articles about it. But personally, I’m like, I am really getting nothing out of the show beyond if I’m watching it, I’m like, This is good writing, and I would talk to people about it, but I’m not personally getting anything out of it. At the end, the last show me, you know, succession, was that where I really enjoyed that? I was loving it week to week. I had to watch it each week. Unless the show was doing that to me. I’m not going to keep watching something just to yeah, just because it’s good. You wouldn’t do that with a case in point before there was TV. You know, when we were all just sitting around reading books by candlelight. Right. Would you keep reading a book that’s 900 pages if you weren’t entertained by it? Yeah, right.

 

Mackenzie Davis I did just do that. But I was doing it at all times. It was like as a person, somebody cared if I read it. And I kept being like, still getting to the end. Yeah. I felt the exact same way. I like would love to be in one of those shows.

 

Ira Madison III Like.

 

Mackenzie Davis Please, I would love to be in a prestige show. I won’t watch it and I feel like I would love to have like laurels that are accompanied with.

 

Ira Madison III Them. So many of the very things that you’ve done. One thing I really want to see more of you in is action, because I fucking love Terminator. Dark Fate. Yeah, absolutely.

 

Mackenzie Davis It was really hard.

 

Ira Madison III Really?

 

Mackenzie Davis That was very much like, Do I like these movies? No, I don’t like. Like. Like I don’t have a personal connection to these movies, but, like, am I going to be at any age in the future and think it was cool that I played like a super human robot from the future that like lands on Earth naked and then fights like that feels like a good investment in the memoirs, you know, like do things for cause that’s a very life experience. Those hard people really invested in. Like, that’s what I signed up for in, like, my body and, you know, my diet was just like unseasoned meat for six months and I never slept. I don’t know, it felt like kind of unhealthy in the end just because I but I think it’s so, you know, I cannot tell you how often I drop it into a conversation. I’m like, Well, and of course, when I did Terminator, I just like as a point of reference so that people are like, You did. I’m like, Yes, I did. But I don’t. Yeah, it’s really exhausting. But maybe something where I was fully clothed all the time and I could be like strong, but in a different way. I would like.

 

Louis Virtel What I so I like the diet, of course. And the preparation for the scenes are exhausting. Are the actual scenes themselves that exhausting? Like, do you have to do certain things like 50 times in a row that are physically taxing?

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah, it’s like my yeah, my schedule would be like I’d wake up at 4 a.m., drive to work, work out from 430 to 530, then do make up from like 530 to 8 and then do like intense physical, like rope climbing for four hours and then another like it was just it was just a lot. And I’m really, really glad that I did it. But I wasn’t left with like, ooh, I can’t wait to, like, jump back in that pool again.

 

Ira Madison III You weren’t Tom Cruise, you know, You were like, I want to dive off this cliff every day.

 

Mackenzie Davis I don’t care. Like, I’m that way about all sports where I’m like, Girl, good for you. You did it. As soon as I start. Like, I don’t need to challenge myself further. I’m just proud. To myself for doing it. And yeah, I think the acting was, was difficult just because it’s something that the Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis and so many of these these people who’ve made their name in action films are so good at these incredibly potent, you know, three word pieces of dialog that communicate, you know, urgency, stakes, emotion like everything in this one. But then, you know, you only get to do that. You don’t get to speak ever. Like, you never really get to explore other things. And then, you know, once every few months you’d have a scene that you could do a little bit more. But yeah, like, again, I’m not saying that sort of fear or whatever. Like, it was such a fun, great experience. I loved doing it, but it didn’t, it didn’t fill me up with a desire to do it again because I was tired.

 

Louis Virtel It just sounds like your life goes away, too. Like your entire life is this militaristic, like build up to doing the work?

 

Mackenzie Davis Well. The most valuable thing I took out of it, as you know, a woman who grew up ever and wanting to constantly have a different body is that I had every thing at my disposal to have a perfect body. And I was in peak physical condition and like all of my colors and everything, were trapped. And while I was miserable, but two of my boyfriend was there with me at the time, if we went out and had like a Saturday where we had a latte, like I had dairy, I immediately ballooned and sucked up all of the water weight and all. Like my body just disappeared underneath it. And I was just this sort of big thing. And so I was like, this is just a horrible life long term, too. And again, I loved it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Otherwise, it was a holiday. No. Yeah. When you’re a physical condition, you’re always teetering on not being in peak physical condition, you know?

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah. Yeah. And I love a glass of wine, and I love to eat. And I. Those things give me pleasure. And they were all not available to me. And if they were, it was it with, like, laden with guilt and a sort of perverse rebellion. So yeah.

 

Louis Virtel A movie role I have to ask about is this a very underrated movie you were in called Tully, written by a friend of our show, Diablo Cody. And in in the movie you play this nanny, put it broadly, who kind of makes everything all better for the Charlize Theron character who’s like motherhood is kind of killing her. And people who’ve seen the movie know what the twist is, But how do you play a role that turns out to be really a two dimensional figure, ultimate all together? Who is there to provide a purpose for this other character? Was that challenging or not challenging? Because you just have to make decisions that sort of make everything else go away.

 

Mackenzie Davis I guess I felt like it was. I mean, if you know the twist, then this has a bit of irony, I guess, but like, it felt quite maternal actually. Like my job was to like, sort of take care, take and like, nurture and help, like, raise this woman out of this crisis point. And I was, you know, just without any acting so besotted by Charlize Theron and getting to sort of like bask in her glow that I was so happy to do it. And I think I just got a lot out of having a really singular purpose, like the purpose was to love somebody. And I think that’s an underrated type of drama to like really like love somebody is is hard to pitch and it’s hard to to sell to somebody else. But it’s a lovely thing to perform and it’s, you know, very high stakes in your own life. And I just really enjoyed it. I found it really fulfilling.

 

Ira Madison III I absolutely love that movie. I love Diablo. And then I must ask, of course, I brought it up earlier and catch fire. I’m sure you are still asked about this show all the time, which is crazy because I felt like I kept telling people, You’ve got to watch this show when it was on. I feel like Cameron was one of the coolest characters on TV.

 

Mackenzie Davis Like ever, too. I know it’s so fun.

 

Ira Madison III And I didn’t know that show. I felt like it went through a lot of different iterations, too. I mean, I feel like it started one way and then it kept unfolding. So like, what was that like playing a character who, you know, you were getting different bits of her each season as the writers were changing, you know, what they wanted the show to be about.

 

Mackenzie Davis I mean, I, I was a pig in the shed, but I didn’t know how to write because I hadn’t done it before. So, like, I had, I couldn’t have been happier yet. I still didn’t realize what an exceptional experience I was having. One for the creators of this show to to change course in the way that they did and to have a network that was like, yeah, let’s just do not a Mad Men ripoff. Let’s just take a hard left and do this other thing now. And then the next season sort of reinvent itself again and reinvent itself again. I don’t know. It really runs counter to all of my understanding of how the industry works because I find a lot of comfort in the coldness of the industry and that we’re human stocks and that’s how you get jobs, that it’s not personal. It’s like, are you a rising stock or are you a dropping stock or are you a steady investment? Whatever it is, that’s how things happen. And the same with shows. And yet no one watched the show like no one watched the show I’d like it was in the the like low thousands of seasons or so of episodes and AMC just kept renewing it and letting us do this thing. And I just can’t imagine having that sort of I mean, from their side, that artistic freedom to reinvent yourself into, to like tell this longform story about a pack of ultimately like losers in the, the, the history books. Like they don’t get mentioned, they’re just sort of footnotes and and I yeah the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve been like God I’d like to do that again. It was just such a beautiful experience.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, the Christophers were so good. And the music on that show also.

 

Mackenzie Davis I know are part of their record, The Mutiny record. I know I learned so much about the 80s.

 

Louis Virtel So before we let you go, I want to return to reality TV for one second. My final question is, who is your the greatest reality TV character performer of all time in your regard?

 

Mackenzie Davis Okay. I think Mary Cosby is a dangerous person.

 

Ira Madison III Isn’t she?

 

Mackenzie Davis But. But fascinating figure. I think Michaele Salahi is an outrageous sketch of a person like I can’t believe that she exists or the sort of timbre of her voice. I don’t know, I. You know who I think is really interesting? And maybe. I think. Sorry. I was going to say I was going to do a little diatribe or like, loving conversation about about, my God, Kyle Richards. Because I think it’s interesting. I can never tell if she’s acting. I find her like I really like her. It’s Lisa Rinna. Lisa Rinna is my favorite person I’ve ever seen on screen. I think she is outrageous and inventive and like such a hustler. And even though I know that she’s manipulating things and she’s a producer, she’s she feels so authentic. And I just I love her. That was an interesting thing, watching back to be like, the fans seem to not like this woman. And I still don’t understand it. I think she’s amazing.

 

Ira Madison III You know, I was watching backwards. You probably got such a better peek into Lisa Rinna, to be honest, because I think that the, you know, increasing ness of that sort of behavior, of producing and sort of just like overall darkness of Beverly Hills as it was becoming, was just like too much to bear. But now I feel like I miss her.

 

Mackenzie Davis What do you think about the Kathy Hilton, Lisa Rinna encounter in the.

 

Ira Madison III She definitely did. She definitely said it.

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah. Okay, great.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, she definitely said it. I think that’s.

 

Mackenzie Davis The thing with Lisa is I’m like, I think I don’t know. I mean, I think what she did to Denise was fucked up. Definitely. Yeah. But, like, but then I think she is, like, really thrown it all out there. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what her secrets are, but she seems pretty happy to capitalize on anything. So I feel like we know.

 

Ira Madison III I think that a friend had my friend Ray Sadie had this very great I had this very great concept about the fact that Beverly Hills used to be the show about the secrets about the find China, about like what you didn’t bring up on the show. They had a lot of secrets about one another and they sort of like they always bubbled up, but they didn’t really talk about them like the early seasons. They didn’t talk about Adrian’s surrogacy, like even when they were suing Brandi. It was never really brought up that it was a surrogacy on camera. And so I think even last season, you know, like it was never brought up on the show. But Lisa Rinna was the first person to break that vagina. She came stomping in and her bringing up all the stuff about Kim and alcoholism and everything and just like exposing things that these women thought that we weren’t going to talk about on the show. Yeah, I think that’s what sort of made her a mess and a lightning rod.

 

Mackenzie Davis And I like her, hurt her. Like I’m just asking questions. Like I love that sort of vibe of shit starring as being like, I don’t know, like, is she could it be Munchausen? I don’t know.

 

Ira Madison III Like it. But on the flip side but on the flip side, a person like that. Never lets you ask questions about them. You know, like the. Let’s talk about the husband. Like what’s going on? She said, what? But yeah, but.

 

Mackenzie Davis But she she provoked it. You know who I think is the darkest person? And I say this with fear that I will never be invited to Villa Blanca or Villarosa because Lisa Vanderpump is, I believe, that person I’ve ever seen on reality television. Goodbye, Karl. See yourself out is what echoes in my head.

 

Ira Madison III There’s like, he’s in that pond. In that moat. There’s bodies.

 

Mackenzie Davis So she ditched. Kyle haunts me. It’s just really, really, really sad.

 

Louis Virtel Lisa Rinna When I moved to L.A. and would cover red carpet events or whatever, just anything like but the opening up like I’m forever 21, whatever. Lisa Rinna was always there, like she I don’t know how she got there, whatever. But it’s like that hustle. It’s like you never thought they would find a match on any kind of TV show, right? Just like a person who wants to be seen. And literally the match could not be more perfect. It’s the rare case of somebody finding it’s not the show. And you have to. Yes, exactly. Like they just exactly perfect for each other.

 

Ira Madison III The hardest working people are Hollywood. Lisa Rinna, Rita Ora. Okay. They are everywhere. Rita was front row at the Emmys. Basically, they are everywhere. Okay. Well.

 

Mackenzie Davis I don’t know as much about that, but I am interested and I’ll do my research.

 

Ira Madison III Please do. List of the Who weekly. They talk about I’m scared.

 

Mackenzie Davis I think I was on his weekly one, so I’m scared to listen to that.

 

Ira Madison III No. I love you. Yeah. But I want to say lastly, because it’s coming back when this episode is airing, it will be premiere Night of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Mary Cosby having seen bits like they released like the first clip of the first episode, she is such a fascinating character to me because she is dark. She obviously Mare was in this creepy relationship with her step grandfather and her religion, etc., and maybe she’s running a cult and maybe she was brought up in a creepy called, but.

 

Mackenzie Davis She is running a cult.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III But she seems so dark and angry at these women. Right? And the way she sort of lashes out at them at in random ways is sort of scary. But she’s always done that to Whitney. But this season, she’s full time again, and she seems like she’s playing ball again. It seems like she really did miss being on the show and she’s just having fun.

 

Mackenzie Davis I can’t wait because I don’t like it when she pops out too much. I don’t want her to get too savvy in the way that we’ve spoken about, but I don’t think she can because I think there’s something about like she has the the she has the reactionary vibe of like someone with unchecked power that is like like, to narcissist in like the clinical sense that like, suddenly they’re confronted with an opposing force and they like no matter how soft that opposing forces, they they just like, really, really violently. And I don’t think you can undo that. But, God, I’d love to see her on a girls trip. I mean, she’s such a little girl. Yeah. A lover.

 

Ira Madison III And one of those are the kind of people who, like even a small act of kindness, like, will make them all of a sudden, they love you. Case in point, it opens where she loves Angie now, and it all hinges from at the reunion. Angie told her, you have some lipstick on your teeth. And then when Andy asked her at the reunion, Who do you like on the car, she’s like, Well, I like Angie. Yeah. And now she’s following through on it. She loves her.

 

Mackenzie Davis And also misunderstands things that get so mad in a way that is irreparable because she just didn’t hear. So like Lee, my friend saw her get this in a the lobby of a really expensive hotel in Oxford. I live in Oak. He was in Oxford. And it’s the mystery of my life why she would be in that town. And I just that’s actually the end of my story. I just know what she was doing there. And I really want to know. And I want to see if she’ll come back.

 

Ira Madison III Wait, hold on. Was she. Was she on the traders?

 

Louis Virtel Know is and recently.

 

Mackenzie Davis Pre prison they were filming while so I’m shooting a show that was in Scotland they were shooting while they were in Scotland. If she was on the traitors the Oxford trip is pre traitors by a while.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Mackenzie Davis I’ll figure it.

 

Ira Madison III Out. Okay. Mary Causeway, Oxford. Where were the cameras?

 

Mackenzie Davis What would bring her there? Why was she there?

 

Louis Virtel This is all we can.

 

Ira Madison III Say about that. Yeah.

 

Mackenzie Davis Yeah, yeah. It’s just. There’s something like really significant about her being in this university town in England, and I need to get to the bottom of it.

 

Louis Virtel I bet it’s not an advanced degree, but that’s not what it’s about.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Mackenzie Davis No, it’s not. Thanks for letting me talk about this for so long. That’s all I ever want to do.

 

Louis Virtel My God. Thanks for bringing all that you are. Thank you.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you for being here. All right. When we’re back. Keep it. And we are back for our favorite segment of the episode. Louis. What is your keep it to?

 

Louis Virtel Okay, well, I had a bunch of girlfriends in from my hometown of Lamont, Illinois, this weekend, and they were driving all over L.A. And I have to say, for tourists, they had a pretty good weekend. Like I brought them to the Love It or Leave It show with Jane Fonda, whom they got to sit right next to. So that was shocking. They we went to Nobu in Malibu, and I said to my friends, I was like, I really don’t see celebrities hanging out at places like this. So I doubt we’ll see anybody. The first person we saw was Paul McCartney, who walked by the number one celebrity alive. Absolutely. Number one. But also in the rides back and forth across L.A., a sign would come on that just kept reminding me that summer is deeply over and I actually have to tell this song to go away because it takes me. So back to Fire Island and Summer. Good times. Keep it to us. Surprise. So I can’t hear it anymore. I can not hear the song anymore. It takes you back to Palm Springs. It takes you back to being zonked and like 4th of July parties and barbecues and, you know, summer fling, summer romances. It just is not a song that I think will transfer into fall all that well, even though she performed it really well at the VMAs recently. That was a fun miss.

 

Ira Madison III I know you hate it fall.

 

Louis Virtel I’m I am preparing for the death that is fall. Fall to me is not a season. It’s simply the death of summer. A time when we enjoy ourselves and celebrate and live in the light. When people say to me things like Halloween, That’s really my time, baby. Take off the mask. Walk towards the sun. How about.

 

Ira Madison III That?

 

Louis Virtel The light is inviting to you. God’s here. Come and say hi.

 

Ira Madison III Well, not how long we can take it off. What about the men in the Iron Mask?

 

Louis Virtel I didn’t even think of him. Or the late Leonardo DiCaprio. Still not getting Oscar nominations. Yes. And he was like, I’ll wait till The Aviator. He did have the Gilbert Grape one, but he was a teenager. It’s different. Anyway, no, just espresso comes on and it just immediately transports you to a place we will not be able to get back to for nine more months. So I will continue to listen to Taste by Sabrina Carpenter that will continue to listen to Bad Can still may be my favorite non single off that album. And I also love Don’t Smile on that album. I think that’s a good this romance is over song so maybe I’ll switch to that vibe when I can in the car. Actually, I’ve had quite a bit of a Chapel Road renaissance too. You really are right about super graphic ultra modern girl. I think that is that one of the most Bang arena songs on the album?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s it’s really sort of American life, I feel like.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. And also I feel like it. Maybe it’s the most kind of Brat summer sounding track on the album too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I want to do a keep it to the teens of social media who are now attacking drag queens for impersonating Chaperon, who are saying that it’s misogynistic. There was recently a clip of someone doing Red Wine Supernova and they opened up their dress and it was almost like there were a bottle of franzia and they were pouring out red wine into glasses. Like there was mostly mostly women attending this brunch. And obviously it’s hilarious. And these people commenting, Chapa would hate this. This is disgusting. You’re making fun of women. And it’s she literally shouted out drag queens at her VMA performance. She’s always talking about Sasha Colby. She has drag queens, local Queens open for her on her tour. I trust you. She’s seen it all.

 

Louis Virtel Please. No, She sounds comprehensively like a fan of drag queens. Also like railing against drag queens for being misogynistic. Maybe. Do you like sounding like a Republican? Shut up.

 

Ira Madison III And also just speak to people who are young, are not of legal drinking age yet, have not been inside of a bar, have not seen real drag yet. Yeah. Only. Introduction of drag is Drag race.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Which I guess I don’t think of the drag on Drag Race is particularly anesthetize, but you’re right, in bars, there’s more rowdiness, more like stuff you are physically screaming at while they are performing. So you’re right. I think people are probably undereducated about street level drag. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III There’s some grosser drag, etc., gag humor. And also, even if the show isn’t sanitized, the fandom is because you can’t be mean on that show anymore.

 

Louis Virtel But you sure fucking care. my God. The wit. I mean, like, we talk a lot about how people come after pop stars. I’m not saying they don’t come after pop stars. Something is very concentrated about the way drag queens are targeted after they go on Drag Race. And whatever their arc is, people feel ownership over that show and saying one person was right and one person was wrong. And it sounds extremely traumatizing.

 

Ira Madison III So speaking of summer, though, what do you think about? Tater tot.

 

Louis Virtel Ms.. Macrae.

 

Ira Madison III Ms.. Macrae. It’s okay. I’m okay. Her new single. Which is some controversy.

 

Louis Virtel The song led you to the song. The video. I like that. It’s a little dicey because I don’t think of her as that dicey. Like, it’s like salacious and she’s near naked in it and like, she’s thrown up against a cop car, I guess. But by the way, don’t put a cop car in a music video unless. Unless your formation. Please don’t.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, It’s like, I’m being arrested and I’m running away from the police. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. What do you.

 

Ira Madison III Think of blackface, Juju? That’s right. That’s what I mean.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like I just wouldn’t open that can of worms.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I enjoy the song. I cannot understand a single word she sang.

 

Louis Virtel That’s not the point of tape. No.

 

Ira Madison III No, it’s not. It’s.

 

Louis Virtel The voice is an amalgamation of all the rug rats. Okay. Googoo Gaga. And she’s thrusting around. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I will say there’s a lot of controversy from a tweet that compares her to Britney Spears and says that she’s delivering it. She is this generation’s Britney Spears. And there’s a lot of debate happening about this right now, especially her wearing a lot of Britney’s outfits like she did at the VMAs recently. Here’s the thing. She’s not this generation’s Britney Spears. Okay. They’re doing very different things. She’s paying homage to Britney a lot. She’s paying mortgage to Britney Spears quite a bit, but she’s not really giving Britney. And the hits aren’t there yet for her to be Britney to be, right?

 

Louis Virtel No, no, no. The hits of Britney are I mean, a level I’m actually sort of shocked to say that nobody has really hit that level of one after another. Just classic, classic. I mean, it’s like like Thriller, the album type size singles. I do like tape McRae singles, generally speaking. But no, I would say, as I tweeted recently, she’s more will afford got into Juilliard.

 

Ira Madison III You know, also that video is definitely giving outtakes from When I Grow Up Again.

 

Louis Virtel And in 20 years, she will be eligible to be a Pussycat doll. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Robin Anson is watching closely.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, Right. Seeing if she’s got the pole moves, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. So might keep it this week. This is devastating to me. No, I keep it. This week goes to 400.

 

Louis Virtel Oscar nominee for the song Happy. What’s wrong with him?

 

Ira Madison III The song doesn’t make me happy, for one. But this isn’t about that.

 

Louis Virtel It’s a lie.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So Ferro had this interview in The Hollywood Reporter, which is just churning out a lot of bon mots.

 

Louis Virtel Quincy Jones style interview,

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah, A lot of them are wild. Girl, I don’t like Pharrell. Remember when you weren’t annoying?

 

Louis Virtel What were these quotes?

 

Ira Madison III Okay, one of them. I don’t do politics. In fact, I get annoyed sometimes when I see celebrities trying to tell you who to vote for. I’m one of those people who says, What the heck? Shut up. Nobody asked you. Now, people are quoting this with Pharrell in 2016 on the Ellen Show telling people to vote for Hillary Clinton and him in MTV’s Vote or Die campaign.

 

Louis Virtel So he just disagrees with himself now. Okay. I mean, I’ve been there.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. There is also apparently a rift between him and his Neptunes partner, Chad Hugo. And this is like this is Hall and Oates level. Devastating to me, Lewis.

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean, I agree. It’s like if the Daft Punk people started, like, throwing magnets at each other. Is that what they do in that big group? I have no idea.

 

Ira Madison III They control space and time. Lewis, are.

 

Louis Virtel An occasional problems involved? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Your Neptunes partner, Chad Hugo, whom you met in seventh grade, recently filed a lawsuit claiming you were trying to monopolize the name of your duo. How are you in Chad right now? I always wish him the absolute best. Is that him voicing his character in the movie? Yep. Are you guys on speaking terms now? No, but I love him and I always wish him the absolute best. And I’m very grateful for our time together. Are you kidding me?

 

Louis Virtel That sounds.

 

Ira Madison III That sounds look close. Yeah. That’s the Neptunes are going the way of Pluto.

 

Louis Virtel Who’s going to be relegated to minor planet status?

 

Ira Madison III Yes, that’s. That definitely sounds like you talk about somebody that way when you are not friends anymore.

 

Louis Virtel No. You’re watching the crypt descend into the ground. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And that’s tough.

 

Ira Madison III And that hurts. But part of me wants to feel like it is for our spot because. Sure. Let me bring out something from the same interview on police. Now, two years ago, Beyonce removed the interpolation of Cleese’s milkshake, which you wrote and produced with Chad Hugo from her Renaissance track. Energy. After police aired her grievances on social media, did you ever speak about that with police? Makes a no sound. Have you and her talked at all? Makes a no sounds? No. Makes a no sound. I wish her the absolute best. Wow. I wrote this song. You’re saying you don’t have to get her approval to do anything with the song? Not on Milkshake. It was me and Chad who produced it.

 

Louis Virtel Brings all the hateration to the art.

 

Ira Madison III I wish them the absolute best. Is so nasty and so rude. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I also. It’s just like I understand that Achilles didn’t write that song, but, you know, like, understand where she’s coming from. Like, Beyonce is obviously a massive performer. Like she’s being referenced on the song. It’s her song. Like, I could understand saltiness about it. For Pharrell to be like mystified by that feels like he’s being purposely dense.

 

Ira Madison III Also, even if you wrote it. Her name is on the credits. Yeah, as a writer. Which means that at some point you had an agreement to put her name on it so that she could continue to earn money off of it as a writer, which I’m sure that’s why Beyonce removed it after Carly’s was mad about it. Because what Beyonce does is everybody who’s involved in the process of creating a song with her gets credit it so that everybody eats. So if you did that in the past with Carly’s. It just seems disingenuous for you now to be like, Well, fuck her.

 

Louis Virtel Alright, well, the time is now to tout the underrated hats of colleagues. Can we talk about Blindfold Me of Police was here. Now that was a banger with a video. I love when she is that big. Gross. Gross beat. Gross beat. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Everything about that song is that album, by the way, is Carly’s was here. That is Blindfold Me. That’s Bossy, that the wheels fall off.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III What’s that right there?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Love that song. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Trilogy. This is. This is like. And shit. Like this. This is that album in 2006. Ran college for me.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, I literally remember going to there was like a bar in the University of Iowa. I think it was called One Jakes, which had stairs. You could easily fall down that I didn’t.

 

Ira Madison III I did not one I Jake’s.

 

Louis Virtel I know, I know. I feel like at the time they mostly played rap music, I think. And I remember upstairs, but like, you know, you could kind of dance there to sort of be kind of like gay guys and then more like rap focus people there. And bossy would bring both sides together because you got the two short rap and then you’ve got like the sassy bossy quotient. So props to Bossy for making 26 what it was for me.

 

Ira Madison III If you are a listener who went to Loyola, Chicago, maybe in, like, the twins, please remind me of what the straight bar was that was literally right next to campus because that was the same kind of vibe. They would always play that kind of music. And that was 26 was that was an era.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, like we were sort of waiting for like someone like Lady Gaga to appear and give us hard pop music. But up until that time, you know, we did have our flow right, us and our Kelly Clarkson’s like we got we got to hear just fine in college. Sierra Exactly.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, yeah. I mean, also we went into college with Tasty Kalis Of course, if you want to talk about Underrated Coleus, I mean that album is sort of milkshake, so define but trick me in public. Millionaire like these are sugar honey iced tea. These are all classic fucking songs.

 

Louis Virtel We haven’t even brought up her earlier hits. I Get Along With You. Love that song caught out there.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And nothing goes off and afters. As I learned at our after parties in Fire Island this summer. Like acapella.

 

Louis Virtel Great song that was remixed almost to death. I’m glad we did so much with it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Acapella and 4th of July. So shout out to Carly’s. I love her.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. And you keep cooking and selling nail polish or whatever it is your main thing is now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And also, I love the Neptunes and I’m sorry that their partnership has died, but I’ll remember them the way I remember hollowing oats. I just. I love that partnership. I loved when they were producing music. They were producing hits recently at a friend’s birthday. I was just plugging songs in to the Q and it turns out that all of them were Neptunes produced songs. I wasn’t even planning to do it, but I was putting in like Mariah Carey Say Something, and it was all these songs. I was like, wait, these are not two songs. Of course. It was just.

 

Louis Virtel They’re a fabulous collaboration. Yes. May they rest or get back together or whatever they need to do.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, that’s our show this week. So thank you to Mackenzie Davis for joining us. And. Shout out to the Emmys. I. Fuck the Emmys. We should have won.

 

Louis Virtel That’s the one. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Fuck them. We will see you next week. Read more. Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

 

Louis Virtel You can also subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.

 

Ira Madison III Keep it as a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Chris Lord and our associate producer is Kennedy Hill. Our executive producers are Ira Madison, the third, Lewis Virtel and Kendra James.

 

Louis Virtel Our digital team is Meghan Patsel, Claudia Shang and Rachel Gaieski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to Matt DeGroot, David Toles, Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landes for production support every week.