In This Episode
Ira and Louis discuss Eurovision, Cara Delevigne’s behavior, Jack Harlow’s new album, Grindr, New York City Center’s Into the Woods revival, and more. Plus, legend Sissy Spacek joins to discuss her new series Night Sky, her iconic roles in Carrie, In the Bedroom, Coal Miner’s Daughter, and more. Also, Ira and Louis visit some of their blindspots in her career from David Lynch’s The Straight Story to Robert Altman’s 3 Women.
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TRANSCRIPT
Louis Virtel: [AD]
Ira Madison III: And we’re back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison, the third.
Louis Virtel: I’m Louis Virtel and on Zoom today I am wearing for some reason a white sweatshirt I bought at some bar event. It has MGM on it, but the lighting here is also bright white. So I looked like I’m in some I’m trying out for some low budget Emily Dickinson movie or something.
Ira Madison III: You always look like Casper.
Louis Virtel: Okay, but today it’s looking like literary Casper. So I look like I’m writing poems to myself that I’m shoving in a cabinet.
Ira Madison III: All right. Emily Dickinson today. That’s you. That’s you.
Louis Virtel: Yeah.
Ira Madison III: You know what?
Louis Virtel: But not not not an Emily Dickinson that gets on Hulu. Is that what networks that’s on?
Ira Madison III: No, it’s on Apple, baby.
Louis Virtel: I truly am not good at getting those organized.
Ira Madison III: Dickinson’s cue. It’s Hailee Steinfeld. I’ve seen season one.
Louis Virtel: She’s a fucking great actress. Yeah, yeah. I saw season one also. Yes.
Ira Madison III: And, you know, it’s it’s just trippy. I, here’s the thing. I’m not I’m not really watching anything on Apple. Unfortunately.
Louis Virtel: Can I tell you something?
Ira Madison III: Unfortunately.
Louis Virtel: I because I don’t know if this is just because of the sheer amount of television there is. So many shows. I just need one season of. Like I will watch Girls 5 Eva, but it’s sort of like I got what I wanted out of the show already, so I don’t need to continue with it. This is a mental block I have with a lot of television right now. You know, you get the initial logline, which you can tell why it sold and it’s very good. And then you watch the show and then we’re done. You know, I guess this is why we have the advent of the limited series.
Ira Madison III: Is that because you think that these shows are too half serialized. Like, they’re not there. They’re not like, if Girls 5 Eva was just sitcom each week. Like, it was the same thing. Like a Frazier. You know, like, I feel like we have I feel like we have a dearth of those shows on TV.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. And of course, then we’ll just get those rebooted, too. So there’s too much of everything.
Ira Madison III: Okay. No, I mean, I think I’ve said this before. I miss I miss the era of you just tune in, you laugh. I feel like that’s why people like Abbott Elementary. It’s, you know, it’s, you know, its lightly serialized.
Louis Virtel: You don’t have to keep up with a narrative.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Louis Virtel: Yeah, uh huh yeah.
Ira Madison III: You could. You could sort of just pop in, whatever, you know. Uh, and I think, I think we need literally more sitcoms. It’s what I miss.
Louis Virtel: I just want someone to say bazinga at me, and then I go to sleep from 7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m..
Ira Madison III: Yeah, you know, we just need Neil Patrick Harris pretending to be straight making misogynistic jokes.
Louis Virtel: Can I say something about Neil Patrick Harris? I root for his actually evil turn where he hosts like an Ellen’s game of games type thing. And it’s like because I feel like he’s one of these people who gays in particular are like, all right, we’ve had enough of you or whatever, and I would like him to revolt against that and just become like like a nightmare gay in pop culture.
Ira Madison III: Well, so, you know, I was a writer and producer on Neil Patrick Harris, his upcoming show, Uncoupled, which is Darren Star’s new show. This is his first time playing gay and stayin alive. Okay. If you’re.
Louis Virtel: A Multi-Hyphenate, a multi-hyphenate.
Ira Madison III: If you’re on an AIDS show, that virus is like Ghostface. All right. You get a phone call and it’s like.
Louis Virtel: What’s your favorite scary movie? Longtime companion.
Ira Madison III: The normal heart. Absolutely terrifying. Yeah.
Louis Virtel: Julia. Julia slayed in that movie.
Ira Madison III: So it’s not his first time playing gay. But, you know, he’s playing gay in a romantic comedy sitcom, you know? And I think people will be interested in how good he is in it and just sort of how like it’s something new for him. He’s he’s also, by the way, very good in Into the Woods, which I saw this weekend. At New York City Encores.
Louis Virtel: Oh! Right! Of course he’s in it. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: It was only a two week run, which I feel like people always forget about New York City Center Encores, because it’s always just sort of like a two week run of, you know, a revival of sort of like a show that we haven’t seen, you know, in years or something like. Billy Porter directed a revival of The Life, which felt like the death. But um Into the Woods.
Louis Virtel: I love when you become somebody who wrote for Variety in 1949. Anyway.
Ira Madison III: Baby the the show the show the show should’ve stayed dead. Let’s just say that.
Louis Virtel: Okay. There we go. The box office was not bodlow, yeah.
Ira Madison III: The Life, I saw no signs of it. I don’t I’m gonna I’m gonna stop beating this show to death.
Louis Virtel: I wish you would beat it to life! Yeah. So on today’s show, we’re going to interview for the hell of it, another fucking legend. Sometimes when these people pop into the zoom, Ira and I basically exchange a look, which you can’t really do over Zoom. But Sissy Spacek showed up and it was like, What is happening? Sissy Spacek is here. Oscar winner, legend, Coal Miner’s Daughter. I mean, there’s plenty of things we can say about Sissy Spacek and we get into those today. We also, for the hell of it, investigate a couple of Sissy Spacek blindspots we have. I watched The Straight Story and Three Women. What did you watch, Ira?
Ira Madison III: I watched Badlands and.
Louis Virtel: Oh, great.
Ira Madison III: Wildly enough. I watched In the Bedroom for the first time.
Louis Virtel: Oh, I’m sure you lived.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. I did.
Louis Virtel: Woof. There are some moments in that.
Ira Madison III: I did.
Louis Virtel: And of course, we get into In the Bedroom of Sissy’s, too. If you’ve not seen Todd Field’s 2001 masterpiece recently, you will be doing that after this podcast. And then also we’re going to get into Eurovision because, you know, gay people be talking.
Ira Madison III: And singing.
Louis Virtel: And singing. You said that like Michigan *inaudible*
Ira Madison III: Coming up next. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Courtney Cox.
Louis Virtel: But first, a jig. Yes.
Ira Madison III: All right. We’ll be back with more. Keep it.
Ira Madison III: On Saturday, the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 held its final performances in Italy and the winner was Ukraine with the song Stefania, performed by PaRappa the Rapper.
Louis Virtel: But did you know that it’s the first song ever with quote unquote hip hop elements to win Eurovision, which sounds like when you hear, oh, there’s finally a female Latin cast member on SNL. Like, how is that possible?
Ira Madison III: Hip hop elements. I’m using air quotes because this truly was like Cypress Hill-esque 90s, white men rapping.
Louis Virtel: I was going to say, that is that is actually generous. I was going to say Snow – Informer. It was giving a licky boom boom down.
Ira Madison III: *laughs* Ugh. The UK, Spain, Sweden and Serbia rounded out the top five and let’s just get this out of the way. Spain.
Louis Virtel: Sure.
Ira Madison III: Was robbed and I have had it.
Louis Virtel: Okay that that girl was on fire.
Ira Madison III: Chanel?
Louis Virtel: Her name, ugh yeah Chanel.
Ira Madison III: I have had it with pussy poppin gay anthems getting to the top three on Eurovision and not winning.
Louis Virtel: I feel the same way about Eurovision that most people allegedly feel about the Oscars, which is the thing I love never wins. Like, I’m watching it and I’m like, Oh, we’re all we all love this, you know, gay ass pop music, right? And then gay comes in fourth.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Louis Virtel: You know, I get upset.
Ira Madison III: And then. Then, then then it’s this weird reminder that, like, straight Europeans love Eurovision, too.
Louis Virtel: Which is sick.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. And so they’re not voting for the best. Um Chanel. I mean this is.
Louis Virtel: We should say about this Chanel woman. So Spain’s entry is this woman who is mostly an actress in Spain. And she, of course, like maybe most of Spain entries in Eurovision is dressed in like a spangled leotard with like a light matador touch in the coat. You can picture it. And the song itself is giving ugh Pussycat Dolls.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Louis Virtel: It reminds me of. It’s like if they had a follow up single to React, which of course, they didn’t.
Ira Madison III: Yeah, COVID sort of killed the Pussycat Dolls didn’t it? Like they.
Louis Virtel: Right.
Ira Madison III: They like Oliver and Company. They’re out in the streets.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. Curiosity did not kill the Pussycat Dolls. It was Covid. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: I’m actually friends with this Canadian pop singer, Maggie Szabo, who wrote the song for Chanel.
Louis Virtel: Oh.
Louis Virtel: And um it is. It is an anthem. And it reminds me, you know, the last Eurovision contest, Eleni Foureria for Cyprus who had that song Fuego, if you remember that song.
Louis Virtel: Yes. Great song. Mmmhmm
Ira Madison III: It’s like the gays keep getting songs to be obsessed with. And yet, we’re denied.
Louis Virtel: Toy by Netta That was one that one that was for us. There are occasions know and of course Waterloo by Abba is the definitive Eurovision winner.
Ira Madison III: Toy is a very good gay pop song, but also Toy beat Fuego. So, you know.
Louis Virtel: They can’t all win.
Ira Madison III: I’d rather have the pussy popper than, you know the song with the message behind it, which is I’m not your Toy, not your Toy Oy, which, you know, we learned about that in grade school.
Louis Virtel: And I would rather have both of those than a pussy parapper which we just explained earlier.
Ira Madison III: Cool.
Louis Virtel: PaRappa The Rapper. What an amazing reference from PlayStation 1. Waterloo. The lyric in it The Finally Facing My Waterloo, as in just the idea of of this person I’m obsessed with is my Waterloo. It’s such a sweet sentiment. It’s such an all time great analogy. So I think it’s a good definitive winner for Eurovision to have. Sweden this year. Speaking of which, the girl who performed got in the top five or so and her song was fine and catchy. She herself was so styled exactly Swedish and yet also was a hybrid of Julianne Hough and Kaley Cuoco that she was exactly unmemorable.
Ira Madison III: It is worth mentioning that the same writer from the UK actually topped the jury scoreboard but was overtaken by the Ukraine when the public votes were added, which this was kind of expected. To be honest, I thought Ukad was going to win Eurovision anyway because I mean, they’re being invaded.
Louis Virtel: Yeah.
Ira Madison III: By Russia.
Louis Virtel: And so it’s not that the song is unlistenable, like un catchy or anything. There are good pop music elements to it, but I thought it was a very competitive year. Otherwise, you know, the top five all stand out in certain ways, even like Serbia I enjoyed. Yeah. So it’s just it’s interesting if we’re talking about the best of the best, it’s weird that it ended up at number one.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. I mean, not to be crass, but it’s giving sympathy and payola.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. Payola. My favorite word.
Ira Madison III: Um, it’s also this also was the year where they decided that I guess they’re going to start overhauling the jury vote situation next year because there were a bunch of votes that were off screen. What always happens is that when when the announcements come in and there are, you know, the 40 countries that are competing, there’s always, um, you know, a representative from that country who gets on the screen to say how many points they’re awarding, like who’s going to get their 12 points right. Like Courtney Act represented Australia. And it’s usually just a parade of people in weird outfits and fun accent.
Louis Virtel: Right, taking too long to say hello before they get to all of that.
Ira Madison III: By the way, I am obsessed. Ah, and. And they know this probably just like I’m like an American joke about how like Europeans speak. But I am obsessed with how especially the announcers, like they always sort of like say a weird statement that’s almost sort of a joke, but is it really? And then they followed up with. Okay. Wow. Oh. You know, or it’s like, okay.
Louis Virtel: Right. No, they almost have a quick and then there’s a long pause and then they get to the rigamarole of the points, which always takes too fucking long. Oh, right. Again, don’t know. 40 questions and just a tally, yeah.
Ira Madison III: So. All right. Let’s get to the points. It’s like, alright, we coulda. We could have done that first job. But um.
Louis Virtel: From the country of Mario Kart here is, yeah.
Ira Madison III: There are several who weren’t on the screen because I guess there was a scandal about countries promising to vote for one another in an effort to, I don’t know, like keep another country from winning, which I feel like happens every fucking year because it’s Eurovision countries are competing against one another and I wouldn’t think that alliances between countries would vanish in the midst of a song contest.
Louis Virtel: No. Even though I guess, you know, spiritually that’s what’s supposed to happen. Like, let’s just get together and love pop music and pick the best. But absolutely not. That’s not what happens. Like Greece and Cyprus are always voting for each other and stuff. Yeah, I just want to say also that always somebody on Twitter will be like, what’s Eurovision? Some gay guy will do that. You can’t play dumb about Eurovision anymore. We have a whole Will Ferrell movie about it, so stop pretending you haven’t heard of it, which it’s a big, stupid, expensive X Factor finale. And we invite Croatia. Okay, that’s what it is.
Ira Madison III: And we tried to replicate it this year. With the American Song Contest, which I did not watch.
Louis Virtel: Oh, my God. Well, that makes you anybody.
Ira Madison III: But Michael Bolton was it it?
Louis Virtel: Macy Gray was in it.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. So congrats to everyone.
Louis Virtel: They tried
Ira Madison III: A K-Pop song wom.
Louis Virtel: Oh, okay cute. Good job
Ira Madison III: And that’s as much as I know about it, Kelly Clarkson hosted it. And listen, I support her, but I largely do not know what she does with her day. If you ask me what happens on the Kelly Clarkson show, I’m like, I don’t know. She probably sang a cover of a pop song from three years ago and then talked to somebody.
Louis Virtel: That’s exactly right. No, because I’m friends with Matt Rogers. These clips are funneled to me as if I’m in a subscription service and I’m not. Just yesterday, I watched Kelly Clarkson perform with Ann Wilson of Hearts and Wilson, and they sounded great. Wonderful. They always do an abridged version of the song, which upsets me. But Kelly Clarkson hosting the show, I’m always obsessed with somebody having a hit thing they do. And then for one year, they’re also stuck doing this other thing that’s not a hit for a while. Ryan Seacrest hosted this game show called Million Second Quiz, where people played trivia all night. You could watch it all 24 hours a day and he would host the primetime hour of it. You know, meanwhile, he’s hosting American Idol two or whatever. And it’s just, girl, what are you doing? And you’re on with Regis and Kelly. I mean, I don’t know if he was on with Regis and Kelly then with Kelly Ripa then. But it’s just so funny to watch somebody who’s successful do something contractually that is not successful.
Ira Madison III: Speaking of Eurovision, America’s Eurovision was this weekend, The Billboard Awards.
Louis Virtel: My favorite award show because it’s not about votes, it’s about sales. Well, have you seen the charts recently? We’re just going to they’re going to put that we’re going to put an award in front of that. It’s the Good Job Awards.
Ira Madison III: There’s always like a controversy with like people being like, Oh, I wish this person would win. And people being like, well, you know, it’s because of sales.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. They literally can tell them beforehand who won.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Louis Virtel: Just based on what’s on whats on the chart.
Ira Madison III: You know, who’s not winning. Lord. Doja cat’s winning. Everything.
Louis Virtel: Right. By the way, can I just say about Lorde, that clip of her going viral like someone put together a smash was a supercut lol of her shushing the audience as she sings either a cappella or saying something in a concert and they’re trying to sing along. So she’s shushing them. Why don’t more people in concert do that? I assume when people are singing all the words at you, you can’t hear what you’re singing. I’m surprised to see she’s the only person to do that.
Ira Madison III: I mean, Donna Summer said, “shut up faggots” and everyone called her homophobic for decades, so maybe that’s why people stop doing it, Louis
Louis Virtel: Oh okay. People really misinterpreted that as homophobic. It was supportive.
Ira Madison III: She was like I can’t hear the lyrics to Bad Girls, okay?
Louis Virtel: I can’t hear God, my one true ally, yes.
Ira Madison III: Umm. Actually I would say that like I see Rina Sawayama in concert like a couple of times and she does a funny bit where she’s like, Are you ready to slay? Like at the beginning of the concert and then, like, the audience is like, Yeah. And then she goes, Shut the fuck up and goes into her song. Shut the fuck up.
Louis Virtel: Oh, that’s cool.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Louis Virtel: All right. No, Madonna used to be hostile with her audiences too.
Ira Madison III: Yeah, I know. She didn’t turn the AC on.
Louis Virtel: Oh that.
Ira Madison III: So only came 3 hours late.
Louis Virtel: Over the years, it became torture. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: The bitch is later.
Louis Virtel: She’s like you can’t eat, you can’t know where your friends are. Yeah
Ira Madison III: Yeah. That bitch is later than me to a lunch date. For her own concerts. Okay. You’re just sitting there, and it was even. It was even worse when she started locking up our phones like she did for the Madam X. tour, you’re like, I don’t even know what time it is. Is it four a.m.? Am I still waiting for Madonna? The Billboard Awards are only memorable, truly forgot that they were happening, They’re only I feel like being talked about now because Megan thee stallion was stalked by Cara Delevingne.
Louis Virtel: What happened?
Ira Madison III: Have you seen the clips?
Louis Virtel: Oh, that’s right. I saw. First of all, Cara Delevingne, I understand this is what makes her a model. The resting look on her face really is demon. I mean its just like a demon.
Ira Madison III: I think Kerry O’Donnell tweeted that Cara Delevingne needs an exorcism.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s just journalistically accurate.
Ira Madison III: She it is it is wild to me that this woman has had so many wild moments in like pop culture and still just sort of like, does she still model?
Louis Virtel: Right or act? She was in that one movie.
Ira Madison III: She was a suicide squad. Which was.
Louis Virtel: Suicide squad.
Ira Madison III: One of the. Which is the worst acting I’ve ever seen. In my life. And she was. She was in a um. Let’s see. She was in a relationship with Ashley Benson, the pretty little liar slash also, she used to play Abby Deveraux on Days of Our Lives, which is why I love Ashley Benson so fondly. But they were, like, engaged at one point. And I remember during COVID, they were they were caught bringing, like, a sex swing, like a sex bench into their house. Um.
Louis Virtel: Naughty. Ok great.
Ira Madison III: You know, naughty lesbians. But um
Louis Virtel: I instinctively root for any woman who brings me Christina Ricci eyes because she was so formative to me. And I believe in that, you know, resting angst, which is important in actresses, I feel like we haven’t had as much of that recently. But the the the thing that went viral, which is her standing around a corner, peering at Megan thee stallion and then later sitting behind her.
Ira Madison III: Sitting next to her.
Louis Virtel: During the show and talking to her. Sitting next to her.
Ira Madison III: She’s peering around the corner, like on the red carpet at Megan. And then she comes and, like, grabs the train of her dress and is throwing it up in the air. I guess so the photos look better. It also wasn’t clear whether or not she came with Megan as her plus one.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. Which that’s an interesting duo.
Ira Madison III: Which I think maybe she did. And then she was like, Oh no, this bitch is crazy. Because the, the the wildest part of the video is when they’re sitting next to each other. And like Megan’s having a conversation with Doja cat who’s sitting in front of her, and the camera pops into frame. And then you could hear Doja cat say, like that woman’s full government name. She’s like, “Oh, my God. Hi, Cara Delevingne.” which is how you address someone where you are absolutely terrified by their presence.
Louis Virtel: Yeah, it’s a fearful reaction. Yeah. And of course, Cara is darting her neck out in that, like, you know, a attentive alley cat way.
Ira Madison III: And she um there’s also video of her, like crawling on the floor, taking, like, angled photos of doja and the people. This is where I was just like this woman was slithering all over the Billboard Music Awards. And it reminded me of. Last Halloween in New York. When I went to this party thrown by the Miss Shapes at the Box, it was Azealia Banks was one of the hosts of it, and she performed on stage and Cara Delevingne appeared on stage, wasted taking like a mike, like trying to sing along. The two, one, two didn’t know the words and then started like Lip.
Louis Virtel: A song that is very wordy.
Ira Madison III: Yes. And then started licking like Azealia’s boots.
Louis Virtel: That’s too bad.
Ira Madison III: Azealia Banks doesn’t deserve that. She is the poet laureate of our generation.
Louis Virtel: Right? Yes. And one of the few, I would say intimidating celebrities.
Ira Madison III: I love her.
Louis Virtel: They’re just certain people like Megan. Megan Fox, I’m afraid.
Ira Madison III: I love how she’s I mean, I love how she sounds just like white gays into a tizzy, whenever you try to have an argument with, like a certain type of white gay about her, it’s always um she called us the KKK. And I’m like, I’m sorry, but she called you the she said, the LGBT community in parentheses GGGG are like the gay white KKK’s get them some pink hoods and unicorns and let them rally down Rodeo Drive. How can you not cackle at that?
Louis Virtel: Also, I can just picture it. I mean, it’s a vivid image.
Ira Madison III: To be insulted by Azealia Banks is a gift. To be like in the list of like beefs that Azealia Banks has is truly a gift. And I’m honestly, you know, kind of sad that like the the reason that she blocked me on Instagram isn’t public knowledge.
Louis Virtel: Right. Ugh
Ira Madison III: We talked about her on the show once and she DM’d and was like “aren’t you that faggot who was talking to talking about me on your podcast? In parentheses, the brokest is a form of media.” Which is funny.
Louis Virtel: Yes. Well, I mean, it’s not the richest form. Yeah. I mean, you do have to root for honestly any celebrity who is extemporaneously, super funny and not copying anyone. It’s not contrived. Like her sense of humor is very ingrained in her. And even though it’s extremely rowdy, that’s also what makes it interesting. I don’t know. It just like she has a real point of view, is what I’m saying. So you can’t not root for that. I guess she I mean, as, of course, a bit messy and of course, I think still has zero albums. But I root for her.
Ira Madison III: I root for her. I don’t care if you called me a nobody, Azealia Banks. I am a nobody. On the brokest form of media. Unblock me.
Louis Virtel: The brokest form of media. *laughs*
Ira Madison III: Unblock me. All right when we’re back. We are joined by the legend Sissy Spacek.
[AD]
Ira Madison III: You will know her from many things, from her iconic role as Carrie to her Oscar winning role in the Coal Miner’s Daughter. And you can see her next in the Amazon original series Night Sky. We’re absolutely thrilled to welcome to Keep It the legendary Sissy Spacek. In this and I feel like in so many of your works, you’re portraying, you know, a marriage going through something, you know, there’s this on this In the Bedroom, Missing, which I guess you weren’t married, but how have you been able to, I guess, make each relationship that you portray on screen feel different and fresh, especially considering I know you met your husband while making Badlands and you’ve been together ever since. So I feel like that must also come into play when you’re, you know, portraying a character.
Sissy Spacek: Yes. And that that’s kind of was my prototype, my relationship with Jack. Because you know that you go through so much together in all that time that you’re you know, it’s a really deep and abiding love, but you also want to pinch their heads off sometime. So its takes you to understand you can still love somebody and want to strangle them.
Louis Virtel: When I think about many of your roles, it’s not just that they’re like incredible to watch and that they’ve stood up over the test of time. I would really call a lot of these performances risky. Like when I watched Carrie, it’s like, I don’t know that I saw it. I can’t compare it to a performance that came before it, for example. So I felt like if like if I were cast in that role, I would think I basically have to invent something new for the screen in order for this to work. Do you do you consider a lot of what you’ve done to be risk taking in any way? And do you have any particular favorite risks you’ve taken?
Sissy Spacek: Carrie was certainly a risk. I was very young then, and I would send my scripts to my parents and just let them read, see what I was doing. And they were they were a little stunned. Like you know, but they didn’t want to interfere. And who knew? I mean, it makes you work really hard because you think we all thought working on Carrie that it would either work or it would be the end of us. And that’s there’s some fear can be very motivating.
Louis Virtel: Mm hmm.
Louis Virtel: Mm hmm.
Sissy Spacek: But I loved that. I learned a lot, you know, because my husband, Jack Velasco, I met on Badlands, was also the production designer on. On Carrie. And I got into his research and. And studied the Dore etchings of the Bible. And so, you know, came up kind of copied all of those facial expressions and melodramatic facial expressions, expressions of lions eating people. And so, you know, it was fun. It’s fun to do things that are a little bit bigger than bigger than life. Whereas I don’t know if if this is like if night sky is is the core of night sky is that relationship and that. So that’s where we started from. And then we just hope that the other would. Unfold.
Ira Madison III: Mm hmm.
Sissy Spacek: And we’d know it.
Ira Madison III: Well, I mean, speaking of working with Jack on Carrie, I mean, I know you worked just you’ve mentioned that you worked briefly with him on Phantom of the Paradise, which was De Palma as well. Just from that experience and knowing De Palma, like on set. How did you. Did you have any were you happy to be going into Carrie? Were you sort of like, oh, that movie? I guess it wasn’t as well-received as Carrie was as well. Did you have any trepidation about doing this role, or were you just very excited to be taking on, like the Stephen King novel?
Sissy Spacek: Well, because I worked on Phantom of the Paradise, I worked as a set decorating, and I may have been. My heart was in the right place, but I was like, oh, my God, this is hard. I was not set decorator and Brian, but he thought of me as a really bad set decorator. And so it wasnt his idea to be doing Carrie. And I got a commercial that for that same day of the tests, the film tests, and I called him and said, Brian, what should I do? I got I got this commercial and but I want to try out for the film, he said “Do the commercial.” I think like a few expletives. And that really motivated me. I read the book the night again the night before the test. And, you know, it was an interesting experience, but yeah, he held that against me. He didn’t think of me as an actress. He thought of me as the world’s worst set director.
Louis Virtel: It just so happens, looking back like literally reading through these Wikipedia is that you and basically like five or six other actresses who have since become like the definitive movie actresses of our time are born within the same couple of years of each other. It’s like you and Sally Field and Jessica Lange, and I think Meryl’s in there, Sigourney Weaver and Glenn Close. And I was wondering, did you throughout your career feel a particular sense of camaraderie with these people, even though routinely you were nominated against them for Oscars, etc.?
Sissy Spacek: Very much so. Very much so camaraderie, because there you know, now there were actors everywhere. And it wasn’t such a large industry then. And I, I didn’t I don’t think we felt because we were all so different. We didn’t feel a competitiveness. And I think, you know, when you either on a roll or you don’t, and if you don’t own it, then it you know, it belongs. It will find its it’s like water finding its way down the creek. And I and we were all very good friends. I played softball with Sally Field back in the day, you know, in the years in Los Angeles and yeah. So I love being listen. Put in that group of of artists. I really do. Thank you.
Louis Virtel: Oh, my God. Of course. Imagine if you imagine not putting you in that group. Come on. Yeah. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: Actually, as a side note, Sissy, I wanted to tell you that I’m friends with Ronan Farrow. And when I mentioned that I was doing this interview, he brought up that you are one of Mia’s favorite actresses to watch on screen like she absolutely adores watching you and anything and has for years.
Sissy Spacek: Oh, my God. And she’s one of my favorites.
Louis Virtel: I will say you both actually have a kind of comparable thing where like you appear on screen. And then I feel like some sort of transformation generally happens, but you kind of get to shock us with power at some point.
Sissy Spacek: That’s. That sounds good. Yeah.
Louis Virtel: No, I like to watch that so.
Sissy Spacek: She’s. She’s really. She’s really wonderful, wonderful actress. We’re not working enough now, but it’s it’s hard. There is not as many roles when you’re not an Aunjanue.
Louis Virtel: Are you somebody who ends up seeing, like all the new movies coming out, or are you somebody who likes to keep up on everything? Or do you kind of dial in and out of Hollywood from time to time, since I know you rather purposefully went away went away don’t live in Hollywood most of the time.
Sissy Spacek: Right. I, I dial in and out. Mostly out at this point. I have grand children now. I’m preoccupied. But that’s why I was so excited about Night Sky because of the relationship. It is so rare to have a whole series to develop the characters and develop a relationship with someone that you’ve supposedly been married to for 50 years. But you’ve known each other for 10 minutes when you shoot your first scene, it’s very bizarre, but wonderful.
Ira Madison III: Well have you found at this point in your career that it is more just sort of exciting for you to do something like a night sky, like a bloodline, you know, like a homecoming, like a television series where it feels like you’re doing a lot of character work in multiple episodes. And then it it’s sort of done as well at it’s less, I guess a big thing like a film.
Sissy Spacek: Uh, you know, that’s i i it’s. It reminds me of the seventies in film. It was, you know, low budget films. The director ruled it was, you know, the art of it. And it was really magic time in in filmmaking. And I think this is a really wonderful. Time for for television, especially for older actors, because now films have to be just giant event. They need to be to get people out of their their bedrooms and their living rooms. The worst part about television is streaming. Television. Is that your work he’d give every episode just. All of your blood. You just you just give it everything you’ve got and then you, like, finish it. You’re excited about certain things, but you never get to, like, talk to anybody about it because then you get the new script and you can you carry on. So it’s grueling physically, but other than that, it’s, it’s wonderful. It’s, it’s wonderful that it’s come at this time in my career because I’ve found so many really interesting roles.
Louis Virtel: Speaking of that, there’s this video by this woman who goes by the name Be Kind Rewind, and she goes through biopic, acting and movies and specifically Coal Miner’s Daughter. But she talks about how in your career and I think this applies to your new TV show, too, you have found projects that split the difference between mainstream and auteurist stick. You know, where like you get to, you get to really convey like a director, strong and strange and different point of view, but it happens to a big audience, gets to enjoy it. When you’re picking a script, do you look for both of those things, like a strong kind of who’s the director? Who’s going to be doing this? How strange will it be? And yet accessible in a certain way?
Sissy Spacek: Well, you know, in in television. In film, yes. Because it’s all about the director. But in in television, it’s really about. The writers and the creators of the show. They’re there. They’re your fearless leaders. They’re they’re the ones who go from there. They’re they know everything. And you have new directors coming in that that can be a little unnerving because you’re having to you have two weeks to do. An hour episode and you’ve got to work out all the kinks and you’ve got to develop a relationship with a new director. And it’s it can also be wonderful because it can. It can kind of shake things up a little bit. But you don’t want it to shake things up so much that it. Throws you off your. You track it? I really love it because. You get to know people so well, you know, in a film. It’s like six weeks, if you’re lucky. Unless it’s a big image like my husband does on the big one. And you have. And particularly with people with masks on, you know, the end of the show, people take their masks. Hi, who are you? Well, I guess you just kind of have to roll with it. You end. You know, I’m I’m just I’m grateful to still be working and working with interesting actors and interesting filmmakers and, and in different genres. I, I had that experience with, with Carrie, you know, I thought, oh my God, this is going to be the end of me. And it wasn’t. And it’s, it’s still around here, like 100 years later. There’s always there always. tormented teenagers.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Sissy Spacek: I think it’s made me the success of that made me a little braver. To do things that’s kind of, you know, that’s going to be a reach. I don’t know the sci fi. How do I relate to that? How do I how do I. You know what? In my life can prepare me for that. Oh, I’m a human being. I’m just an ordinary human being who finds this thing in her backyard. And so I don’t have to do anything. I just have to experience it. So I don’t know. I don’t know. What was your question?
Louis Virtel: No, I thought that explained it well enough. Yes.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. Yeah. Louis brought up Coal Miner’s Daughter, and I just recently saw this interview with GQ you did where you were revisiting your iconic roles and you talked about how that role really sort of stuck with you because you like doing the set. You had the bands around. You really sort of loved being Loretta Lynn and it was sad when it was over and you couldn’t go back to being her. Were there any other roles in your career where you felt like once you were done with the movie, you were like, Yeah, but I still want to be her or like they really stuck with you after you were done filming.
Sissy Spacek: Yeah, that was the hard one to let go of, but I didn’t want to be that person that was like hanging on after that. I’ve seen footage of me in interviews and stuff after Coal Miner’s Daughter and I, that accent, i, i it was really hard to shake. You know, it was hard ge rid of to let go of. They were different. I didn’t have that same experience on any other film that I can think of. But I had. You know, I was changed by different films. In the Bedroom was one that really affected me deeply. And, you know, they’re they’re like your children, you know, you love them all and but they’re different. I loved working with David Lynch.
Louis Virtel: I love The Straight Story. I wish people talked about that movie. It’s such an unusual movie for him, too.
Sissy Spacek: Yes. Such an un I said, David. Do I have to cut my hair here? I can wear a wig. Like, no Sis, you got to cut your hair. I had these great teeth. Oh, my goodness. That was really that was really fun.
Louis Virtel: I’m happy you brought up In the Bedroom, because among my friends, that’s a movie where, like, the power still sticks with us. Like your your iconic scene, which I believe is part of your Oscars clip, too. Just like I don’t even I mean, like, we see tons of fights with people on screen, but there’s something about that movie where it just nailed it. Like, you’re really in that family’s dynamic and I don’t know. Can you talk about filming that movie in like Todd Field? That was his first movie. Like, how did this all come together and be so amazing?
Sissy Spacek: So brilliant, you know that I think that movie cost $1,000,000. And I remember one of the first days we were in a. We were. Our dressing rooms were in a motel. Motel rooms? I remember, like, getting dressed, and I was like, reached under the bed who’s socks are these? We were using the crew’s. You know, it was really like we’re going to put on a show. But Todd is brilliant. And he was he was just such a joy to work with. Oh, my God. He was so and and. The actor Tom Wilkinson. Oh,my god.
Louis Virtel: Tom Wilkinson, of course. Yes.
Ira Madison III: Yes.
Louis Virtel: The great Tom Wilkinson.
Sissy Spacek: Unbelievable. He’s a theater actor. He could have, like, twisted me up and broken me in half and. He was so calm. And we had that big fight scene where Todd had to start in the kitchen and throwing dishes and then we go through the whole house. And it was just so. Right at the height of our. Explosive fight. The doorbell rang and it was a Girl Scout selling candy. And of course, he stop. We stop the fight. And he would do go by the candy. It just was. And Marisa Tomei. Oh, my God, what an icon. Wonderful. And I had to slap her or I got the slap. Like what? I was slapping her with a backhand, which is just horrible. Just, you know, so dismissive and. I took my rings off. I didn’t want to hurt her, but, God, she was spectacular. And Tom. Tom Wilkinson, if you’re listening to this. I forgot your name because I’m old. And I’m ashamed.
Ira Madison III: Of the. We all obviously you know like doe so many of your iconic roles. But I feel like people are always stopping you to talk about, you know, like, you know, Carrie or, like, you know, film parts like Love in the Bedroom, Coal Miner’s Daughter. Are there roles of yours that you feel? Is there any particular film that you feel like you wish? People were still talking about this film now because you had such a great time on it. You thought it was such an interesting film that maybe didn’t get the attention it deserved when it came out.
Sissy Spacek: Um. The Straight Story maybe. That was a, that kind of fell through the cracks.
Ira Madison III: Mm hmm.
Sissy Spacek: But, you know, every film kind of finds its audience finds its place. You know, working with Terrence Malick on Badlands was a really was like a real life changer for me because I realized that film could be art and. He was so passionate about. Every frame and the. It was like a fire inside of him. And that’s where I met my husband, Jack Fisk, who was art director, production designer on Badlands. And we fell in love. And so was this kind of wild, passionate love affair while we were making this film that was about to change both our lives and. It really made me understand that. It’s really not about the actors. It’s about. The director. It’s about the script. It’s about everybody. Everybody working on the. On the show and. And that was a great thing to learn so early in my career. And that’s when I realized it’s about the director. And so and that was a really special time in Hollywood in the seventies, where it felt like a smaller film community. And maybe it was because it was just more films that studios didn’t really care that much about. So they didn’t keep an eye on us. And they, you know, this sales. It wasn’t a big loss because there wasn’t much invested in it. Most of the film, those films were independent that I did then and and the directors like Scorsese and and De Palma and Spielberg and were all friends. And so it was just some neat time, you know, it wasn’t there wasn’t so much pressure. It was really just about the work. And that was, you know, like, hey, we’re going to put on a show. Mickey Rooney That’s the thing. And the other thing is that nobody’s really watching. So you have a freedom to try things and mess up and try things again. And it’s when people start to notice you that you start to think, Oh my God, you know, how did I do that? I don’t know how I did that. Can I do it again? I don’t know. Maybe not. So it was really like it’s. You know. It’s like starting over every time you work on something, and I’ve kind of brought that along with me. Unfortunately, it’s like, okay, how, how does this work now? But it works differently because you’re working with different directors and they bring out different things and you it’s. Fairly exciting. What was your question?
Ira Madison III: No you got it. You got it? Yeah. I mean, you’ve worked with truly some of the best directors and some some of my faves, you know, I mean, I’m a huge De Palma fan and I’m a huge Lynch fan. Controversial as he is. I love an Oliver Stone movie. And you’re fantastic in JFK.
Sissy Spacek: Oh, thank you. Thank you. What a trip. That guy was in my my agent said, okay, now Oliver’s a little different, so just be careful. He’s going to he’s going to try to throw you off right away. So just watch it. But watch out. So I went and I had a great meeting with him and I came back. My agent said, Well, how did it go? It was great. He said, Well, did he try to? Pull the rug out from under you to pull anything. And I said, no. Said, Well, what happened as well? He said, So what was the first thing he said to you? Hi, Sissy. I hear you want to rewrite the script. And I said “No, just my part.” So I think we got along great. He was hee hee hee hee hee. I didn’t know enough to be intimidated. And I think that was, you know, maybe. Maybe that was it.
Louis Virtel: Well, I will take your I will take your word for it that the directors are running the show on a movie. But when we have talents like you, it’s really hard to believe you don’t run the whole thing and that the all the light in the room doesn’t just bend towards you naturally. So thank you so much for being here today with us.
Sissy Spacek: My pleasure. I enjoyed it so much.
Louis Virtel: And I love the show, too. And I love you and J.K. together. What an awesome pairing we get.
Ira Madison III: Yeah.
Sissy Spacek: He’s quite an individual.
Louis Virtel: Oh, yeah.
Sissy Spacek: No matter what the scene calls for, he’s like, he’s in it to win it. He’s great. Love him, and I’m so glad you enjoy the show. Thank you.
Louis Virtel: Of course.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. I mean. It must be. Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing this point in your career still getting to work with, like, exciting actors who you haven’t worked with before, like J.K. Simmons. So congrats. It’s a great show. Nice Sky premieres on Amazon Prime Video on May 20th.
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Ira Madison III: To prepare for our lovely interview with the icon Sissy Spacek. We went back to watch some of her films and discovered some of our own blind spots in her filmography. I love when we do a Blind Spot segment because I always get to watch a movie that I’ve either randomly missed or something that I’ve always been meaning to watch. And my blind spot is so weird because it’s in the bedroom, which I would have thought I’d seen in 2001 when it came out specifically because I was in high school then and I feel like in the bedroom was definitely maybe for our age group, maybe you had this similar sort of situation happen to Lewis, but I felt like the kids who were like into films at my high school, like this was a movie that they started talking about. Like there were certain films between 2000, 2004 that like, you know, like the kids who are like, not just like I’m going to the movies to see a movie. The kids who are like, I like cinema with like start.
Louis Virtel: See, I did not know anybody like that. I had to invent that for myself.
Ira Madison III: Oh really?
Louis Virtel: In 2001 I went with all my friends to see things like Rat Race or Too Fast Too Furious or whatever was happening that year.
Ira Madison III: I went by myself, but then like, you know, the, the art, the art nerds that I was friends with like on the weekend, like we would watch Pi.
Louis Virtel: Oh, but by the way, okay, this is a specific memory. Now I’m thinking of my girlfriend, Elise, but people our age would have DVD collections, you know, that were about 15 deep. And they all at least I’m I’m thinking my friend, but this is something I would see over and over again. But they all had this, like, moody, dark whimsy about them. It was movies like Pi and Donnie Darko.
Ira Madison III: Yes.
Louis Virtel: And Requiem for a Dream.
Ira Madison III: Requiem for a Dream.
Louis Virtel: And Virgin Suicides.
Ira Madison III: Was.
Louis Virtel: Yeah.
Ira Madison III: Constantly being watched by fucking people. And I was like, by the fourth time, someone was like, Let’s put on Requiem for a Dream. I’m like, This movie makes me want to slit my wrists.
Louis Virtel: It is not a fun time. I am not the same after watching what happens to Jennifer Connelly in that.
Ira Madison III: Yeah, it’s.
Louis Virtel: Anyway In the Bedroom is In the Bedroom is one of two movies directed by Todd Field. It’s That and Little Children, which is a masterpiece. These are both, quote unquote, domestic movies. They take place in smaller towns. And Sissy Spacek gets a yeah. I would compare it to Esther Rolle the smashing the plates on the ground sort of version of cacophony and it it really is a fabulous drama.
Ira Madison III: It really is. And I would say that drama is the correct word for it. This is this is like drama that feels a bit more realistic than, you know, sort of like what I’m drawn to, like like a melodrama. It’s not given, sir, you know, it’s not giving. Todd Haynes, this is it feels it feels more quaint. It feels more lived in. And even though you can sort of see that like something, you know, something something bad is about to happen. It has like the melodramatic turn, you know, of Nick Stahl getting shot in the head by Marisa Tomei’s baby daddy. But. After that, you know, it doesn’t go into sweeping melodrama. You know, it’s still you just get sort of like the human element of this tragedy. And I actually did not see that coming. I actually thought I actually was thinking maybe it was going to veer more towards, like, a melodrama. I thought if there were a melodrama, they would have killed the abuse of baby daddy. And maybe I thought they were going to call the abuse of baby daddy. And then, like Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson were going to help cover up a murder.
Louis Virtel: And I watched 9 to 5 recently. So that’s basically it, yes. They don’t murder him in that but anyway.
Ira Madison III: But this was wow. It was really, really fucking good. And I’d seeb I’d seen Little Children before so I’d seen Todd Field’s work and. It was just really sort of a beautiful film. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what else to say about it, besides the fact that it’s just, like well-written, well-directed. They, Sissy and Tom Wilkinson said it just sort of like an amazing duo. And that we were talking about that when we interviewed her, you know, sort of like how great she is with the leading men that she’s gotten to work with over the years. You know, like a Tom Wilkinson, you know, J.K. Simmons on Night Sky and I have enough class that I did not ask her about working with Christopher Walken on the film Blast From the Past. But I really wanted to.
Louis Virtel: Oh, my God. A movie. Again, a movie I’ve seen, like 30 times. And I can’t explain why. I watched The Straight Story, which is a movie directed by David Lynch in the late nineties that feels very out of step with a lot of what David Lynch does, which is it’s never going for absurdity in any way. It’s not even like The Elephant Man, which has a sort of gothic feel to it, but it does tap into David Lynch’s transcendental meditation, breathing and in fact goes. It’s about a guy who takes a trip on his lawnmower through Iowa, up to Wisconsin, to see his dying brother. And it’s it’s really as simple as that. Richard Farnsworth, who also great in the movie. A Jane Fonda movie called Becomes a Horseman in the seventies. He is the star of this. And Sissy Spacek plays his daughter. Who is she? She has like a sort of speech impediment where she talks in a sort of hiccuping cadence and they say she’s intellectually disabled, but they don’t really get into it. I mean, first of all, as somebody who was the University of Iowa, no movie set in Iowa is more beautiful. And I’m looking at your field of dreams. You’re in second place. They they really sell you on the beauty of that state and as they should. Because I think people think of Iowa as just flat and, you know, drab looking when. No, no, no, no. That’s the rest of Illinois, because Illinois has Chicago in it. We really give that whole state a pass. No, Illinois is not cute. Iowa gorgeous.
Ira Madison III: I actually don’t think of Iowa.
Louis Virtel: Okay. Well get on it. But um the music in it is so lovely. It’s just one of those things where we made a really autistic, strange guy make a kind of conventional movie. And because he’s so committed to his brand of artistry, it ends up being this transcendent film. It is so, so good. It might be. It’s not my favorite David Lynch movie. That would definitely be Mulholland Drive, but just excellent performance.
Ira Madison III: Would be weird if it was. Yeah. I mean, I fucking love David Lynch and Angelo Battlement. He did the score for this and they’ve worked together on The Blue Velvet. And it’s so weird to know you’re watching a David Lynch film and to hear Angelo’s, you know, score start up, you know, which is evoking Blue Velvet, it’s evoking Twin Peaks and then come into this film. And even the beginning of the film seems like, okay, you know, like it’s it’s not, you know, there’s not grotesque characters in it, but the characters feel more, more human than sort of, you know, Hollywood fare. You know, like they they seem like real people from the Midwest. So you’re like, oh, you’re going to get some, like, Midwestern oddities and you get a bit of that, but you really don’t veer into anything that you sort of really know. David Lynch for edits.
Louis Virtel: Now, there’s one character in this movie who he runs into while he’s driving the lawnmower. This woman hits a deer and she gets out of the car and she starts screaming, This is the 14th deer I’ve hit in three weeks or something. And it’s meant to be, I think, a shocking, a jolting early comic moment, which does remind me of Twin Peaks a little bit. But even that it seems like a real person. Her exasperation is real. You don’t leave it thinking like, oh, that was, you know, bizarre camp in the way that you would feel about a Twin Peaks cameo.
Ira Madison III: And, you know, it’s. And what’s interesting about it is that it’s actually, you know, like a biographical film, you know, it’s based on, oh, it’s real, it’s based on a real story. And I think that maybe that’s what makes it so different. You know, when Lynch’s oeuvre, you know, is just sort of him respecting the actual story and what happens and not putting his own spin on it. I really like to read more about, you know, what he thinks of this film now. I mean, it was nominated for the Palme d’Or. You know? Yeah. And it’s also the first positive review that Ebert ever gave a film. He gave it four out of four stars.
Louis Virtel: Interesting.
Ira Madison III: Was that Ebert will like trash and be like, you know what? Had a good time. Three out of four stars. Or you’ll see a movie like a Blue Velvet on Eraserhead. And he’ll be like, What the fuck is this?
Louis Virtel: Yes, I do love. I was just missing Roger Ebert recently. Like if I’m watching a movie from, you know, 2000 or whatever earlier, I tend to read his review again and. There’s the zest of his writing, the unpretentious gist of his writing. But I do love his weird sticking points, like his whole thing about video games, how they could never be the level of art that cinema is for certain strange criteria he put together. But I like a casualness about my film critics.
Ira Madison III: I think it was Disturbia, the movie that I saw in theaters with Roger Ebert. I need to recall which one it was. I need to look it up in our school paper. But one time I reviewed a film for Loyola University like School Newspaper. At the screening I was sent to downtown was one of the same screenings that Ebert was at in the front.
Louis Virtel: Oh, my gosh.
Ira Madison III: I spent most of the movie looking at Ebert.
Louis Virtel: No. I am sure he had no reaction whatsoever. He’s so used. You can’t shock him at a movie? No. One time I was at Century City and I passed Leonard Maltin walking in.
Ira Madison III: Your King.
Louis Virtel: As you know, I have a disease where I can recall the star ratings Leonard Maltin gives most movies because I would get the book he put out every year. And I went up to him and I said, This sounds so crazy, but I have an incredible memory for these star ratings you’ve given movies over the years. Like if you said a movie, I would know. Like I know Bravehearts three and a half. I know you know, I know you gave two and a half to Forrest Gump. And let me tell you, it’s a two and a half star movie. You were right to do that. He responded with Thank you and walked away like I was a GD goblin. Which I understand.
Ira Madison III: Have you ever interviewed Maltin?
Louis Virtel: No, I know his his daughter reached out to me one time. She had heard that I had this Jones for his rating, and she told him. She said he was delighted, but I know he’s scared. And that’s fine.
Ira Madison III: This is your misery.
Louis Virtel: Yes.
Ira Madison III: You hold him captive. You’re like, I need to know what you think of these recent movies, Leonard.
Louis Virtel: Code is a two and a half saying.
Ira Madison III: My other Blindspot was Badlands, which was Terrence Malick’s directorial debut.
Louis Virtel: Yeah, put him on the map.
Ira Madison III: You know? Yeah. I mean, it’s wild that, like, your first feature film, like, puts you on the map, you know? But it’s really a gorgeous film. I mean, when you you talk about how The Straight Story like Iowa looks so gorgeous, right? Like this is about like Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek play a couple that go on the run after he shoots her father and then they burn the house down and go on the run. And he’s sort of like in his twenties and she’s 15. It they go they go on the run across America and it is so gorgeous. You know, it reminded me, you know, it’s sort of like like nomadland, you know, like it was just it was like so beautiful and lush and seeing, you know, just sort of like what this of the American landscape looked like in 1973. Like, you know, like the swamp and the marshes and the woods that he shoot said, it’s just it’s so beautiful to watch. And it really is sort of like a meditation of a film. Like it would be classified as a neo noir, but it’s not really very salacious. Yeah, it’s not Queen an Slim for white people, you know.
Louis Virtel: Which I’m always I’m always needing. I’m like, can we get the queen as white people? I want to say also about this story in the in the movie, it’s about the killer, Charlie Starkweather, which has he’s probably most famously chronicled on the Bruce Springsteen album, Nebraska, which there’s there’s a whole song about him. And it’s like that album is about the, you know, the grimness of being in Nebraska in the middle of the country and, you know, being alone with your disturbing thoughts and things like that.
Ira Madison III: Baby, he put, Springsteen was in his bag on Nebraska. Okay.
Louis Virtel: Oh, fuck. Yeah. Oh, no. You know, he’s like, oh, you think I’m just writing, like, big anthems for for your uncle? Absolutely not. I’m un-fuck-wit-able shall we say. It is a that album. That album is not a joke.
Ira Madison III: I love hearing you say un-fuck-wit-able.
Louis Virtel: You know? You know I’m a Springsteen fan. Reason to believe on that album. Does it get darker? And I love Aimee Mann’s cover with her husband Michael Penn.
Ira Madison III: I didn’t I don’t know why I didn’t play that this was inspired by the Starkweather case. But I know the Starkweather case inspired Natural Born Killers as well.
Louis Virtel: Yes, of course. Mmmhmm.
Ira Madison III: Which is definitely a film.
Louis Virtel: Right.
Ira Madison III: I don’t love Natural Born Killers the way that I think that some people do. It’s like it’s one of my lesser known stone films. And I do like Oliver Stone.
Louis Virtel: No. Oh. As we discovered in our sets the interview you will discover on our sets the interview if you haven’t listened to that part yet. The other movie I watched was Three Women, which can I just say something about the films of Robert Altman? You basically have to be taught to seek this man out because with the exception of Gosford Park. Over the past 25 years. There’s just you. It’s just somebody that, like the Criterion Channel points you out and you need someone to say, Watch all these movies. This movie is so good. And I cannot believe we had a movie starring Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall. I mean, the the eye size in this movie is just unprecedented. I that we would put them both together. And as my friend said, I was telling a one of my girlfriends, Can you believe that? Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall, arguably the definitive eyes of the seventies. If they added Karen Black, it would have been perfect. And she goes, Wait, she goes. Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall. Were they nightgown salesmen? Come on, that joke. Yes, I’m going to say I’m going to say nothing else about that movie other than watch. It says his performance and her turn in it. Slay
Ira Madison III: You know, I think that I would also sort of classify Terrence Malick as sort of one of those directors. I mean, I know he makes a lot more films.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. Oh definitely.
Ira Madison III: You know, Their.
Louis Virtel: Days of Heaven, another movie that is gorgeous to look at from the 70s by Terrence Malick.
Ira Madison III: Yeah, they’re both sort of directors from that era who, you know, you need like you like the real film buffs of the Criterion collection holders to be talking about. And they’re always people who are sort of like mentions when people, you know, want to only talk about like Scorsese, you know, I’m talking about films where they’re not actual film buffs, but Malick.
Louis Virtel: I wouldn’t know, film Twitter hates my ass so I don’t see much of them.
Ira Madison III: We know they hate both of us. Terrence Malick and Robert Altman are really like, I feel like they are directors who you sort of have to be like, I’m going to sit and watch this movie. You know, you sort of have to I agree with you. Are sort of the teachers up to watch them? I mean, like I saw recently, a hit in Life by Malick, which is, you know, about, you know, an Austrian farmer who refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War Two. I watched it because one of the actors in it is Franz Rogowski, who’s just in this great gave them that. I just watched Great Freedom. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. That movie was about how it was illegal to be gay in like post Nazi Germany and, like, people would be locked up for it. And it spans him over decades of being locked up repeatedly and sort of like developing relationships with different men in prison. It’s beautiful. And I think he’s regarded as like one of the sort of best. German actors sort of ever. He’s great. So what’s in life if you haven’t seen it? But Altman and Malick are definitely people with a lot of blood spots. I have. I actually haven’t seen three women.
Louis Virtel: Oh, my God. I mean, also, just like Shelley Duvall, just as a beguiling one of a kind presence. Obviously, people know her most from The Shining, but she’s a ton of Altman movies. She’s, of course, in Popeye.
Ira Madison III: Was this before or after The Shining?
Louis Virtel: Before The Shining.
Ira Madison III: So before she was emotionally wrecked.
Louis Virtel: By Stanley Kubrick. Yeah, I. Can we get the just the definitive account of how horrible he could be to actors. I mean, it couldn’t have just been that movie. You know, we talked to Alan Cumming quickly about the amount of time he put into filming Eyes Wide Shut, the 30 seconds. He’s in that movie, and it sounded like he lost two years of his life.
Ira Madison III: So we need a film like that. Hitchcock which was, you know, supposed to depict his relationship with Janet Leigh. Just I would like to see Kubrick. Who would play Kubrick? Adam Driver.
Louis Virtel: Now you said it. Wait for it.
Ira Madison III: He’d gain weight for the role. Definitely.
Louis Virtel: Yeah. true.
Ira Madison III: I feel like he has the, like, steely face, you know, and, like, the. The wispy sort of hair.
Louis Virtel: The intensity, too. Yeah. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: Or Leo.
Louis Virtel: No. Adam. Adam Driver. You know, he’s going to have to two Oscars in I’m going to say 15 years.
Ira Madison III: Okay.
Louis Virtel: Check back with me then.
Ira Madison III: I would say him or Leo.
Louis Virtel: Oh, well, I mean, if Leo wants to do it, then he’ll do it.
Ira Madison III: Who plays Shelley Duvall?
Louis Virtel: Oh. Now that we should be able to figure out. Mia Goth. Done.
Ira Madison III: Hmm. Okay.
Louis Virtel: I love it when I nail it. There we go.
Ira Madison III: And you know what? She’s perfect for the role because, you know, she’s expecting a child with Shia LaBeouf. So I think I think she’s.
Louis Virtel: Expectedly haunted.
Ira Madison III: Think she’s been through her own shining.
Louis Virtel: Right, right, right, right. She’s she’s done some running through some hedge mazes, if you will.
Ira Madison III: Her mind’s in Disturbia to bring up the movie I talked about earlier.
Louis Virtel: Disturbia. Can I just say about Disturbia quickly and then we’ll move on. I love a movie that is just Rear Window. It is, I think, entertaining enough. Shia LaBeouf is really good in it. Does that bastard that they’re that they’re whose house they’re looking into. Does he not have fucking alligators in a pit or something over there? Come on, you can’t do. What is it in here? It’s like devil in the white city. It’s also like a discovery zone, like what is happening in this house.
Ira Madison III: First of all, devil in the white city. I worked at Borders in Chicago when we were in college. Yeah, the chokehold that that book had on people, everybody was reading Devil in the White City. I can’t believe an adaptation has come out yet.
Louis Virtel: I think there was supposed to be one. I forget if it might have even been Leo that was attached initially, of course. Can you believe it? Like psycho intense guy. He signed up.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. I mean, it’s just one of those books where I feel like even people who don’t really read books that often, like, everybody was fucking reading Devil in the White City.
Louis Virtel: But no, people would just show up to a Border’s and shrug and say, This is the book I’m supposed to know? Yeah.
Ira Madison III: And as someone who worked there, you know, like, you’d always get different variations of the title White Devil in the City. I’m looking for the Devil book. You’re like.
Louis Virtel: Babe, babe, white devil in the city, yes. my favorite white devil babe.
Ira Madison III: Next week, we’ll talk about how Babe was a white supremacist pig.
Louis Virtel: The sheep pig. Yeah, I guess. Guess what? Guess what wool he was wearing. It was a robe.
Ira Madison III: The great farming theory is what Babe wants to teach you about farming. By the way, the evil neighbor in Disturbia was David Morse.
Louis Virtel: Right! Crazy role for him.
Ira Madison III: Who I just saw on stage in How I Learned To Drive. He plays the uncle who sort of, you know, like molests Mary-Louise Parker in Paula Vogel’s How I Learned To Drive.
Louis Virtel: By the way, I’ve decided about Mary Louise Parker. That one. I will be seeing this production. Two, when she is in a play. I like follow her around the country fish style. I think she is that one of a kind and worth it.
Ira Madison III: She is she I mean I feel like she is the. She’s a it’s weird that she and Sam Rockwell are both on Broadway at the moment because I feel like they’re very similar as actors, like at least to me in my heart, you know, they both have a weird quirk. And I would also follow them both to the ends of the earth, you know? You know how many fucking movies I’ve watched where Sam Rockwell plays a white supremacist just because I love him. I watched that movie with Taraji and that wig.
Louis Virtel: Oh, my God I forgot all about that movie. No, no. Mary-Louise Parker is like the Yale of Sandy Dennisons, who is in a poster behind me. You know, they’ve got the tics, they’ve got the neurosis, but it’s also soulful and also fucking real. Like there’s just something about the way she expresses herself where you’re getting a full person immediately. And also, of course, it’s a Pulitzer Prize winning pleasure to see it.
Ira Madison III: Well, they just extended it, so you should go see it.
Louis Virtel: Exactly. Yeah. All right, New York. I’m coming. So.
Ira Madison III: Watch out.
Louis Virtel: But I’m always obsessed with on Twitter when they people like they make fun of gays who say they aren’t ready for us this summer and then, oh, they’re not ready for you in your shorts and honda civic. Always so funny. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: Thai tea is not ready for Louis.
Louis Virtel: It’s specifically ready for me, everybody looks like me.
Ira Madison III: All right, when we’re back. Keep it.
Ira Madison III: And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It. Louis, why don’t you go. first?
Louis Virtel: Yes. I’m sorry. I’m being like David Lynch and I’m just meditating on mine for a moment. My keep it pertains to Grindr, which I did a rant on Grindr on Kimmel last week. Maybe you saw it. I sort of gave a PG 13 rundown of what happens on Grindr. You know, for people like my mom who are perpetually, you know, clutching at their collar like the white guy and the baby got back video. So I’ve decided to pick a classic Grindr happening to critique from I keep it this week. My Keep It is to people who message you and instead of saying hi or just being nice, they immediately criticize how you handled your body hair. The amount of people who are like, Oh, that’s too bad that you shaved that or It’s too bad that you didn’t shave that. It’s like, Girl, I didn’t realize I was fucking artwork for you to critique. It’s such a strange, pernicious thing that I feel like all of my friends have experienced where people just decide, you want to hear grooming tips from a complete stranger. Now, obviously, there’s a lot of overstepping of bounds in lots of directions. Lots of people on Grindr still post things like whatever “no Asians” or just straight up, blatantly racist things. So there’s worst, worse things occurring on Grindr. But this as a particular nuisance is so strange to me. I wonder what it is about. Body hair that makes people think you want to hear the correct answer about how to handle it?
Ira Madison III: Hmm. You know. I’ve always thought that you were a piece of art to critique, Louis. I think of you as my um Venus de Milo.
Louis Virtel: Oh, as in you want to rip my arms off.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. I don’t know. I have a very hairy chest, so I’ve never experienced that.
Louis Virtel: I, I feel like people are. There’s always been this line of thought like, oh, real men are hairy or something. Meanwhile.
Ira Madison III: They are.
Louis Virtel: Get a fucking. Meanwhile you get a fucking haircut, don’t you? So what it does. Why would any other hair be different than the hair on your head?
Ira Madison III: Because Samson lost his power when he cut his hair, but his chest hair remains intact and gave him the power of being a man. I don’t know where I was going with that.
Louis Virtel: No, you wrapped you wrapped into evangelicalism in a way that made me think of someone like Iyanla.
Ira Madison III: Criticizing body hair? Not on my watch.
Louis Virtel: What a great celebrity. I miss her.
Ira Madison III: Where is she? You say that like she’s in the gulag now.
Louis Virtel: I don’t know where she is. I feel like I haven’t heard from her recently.
Ira Madison III: That’s your Keep It this week?
Louis Virtel: Yeah. That’s it. Be nice to each other on Grindr. Also, everybody needs a picture of some kind. I don’t care if it’s not your face, the blank shit? That’s got to go.
Ira Madison III: You know, they are creepy. My biggest pet peeve is like, I will get a message from someone with a blank, like, no profile, and they’re like, How’s it going? And I’m like, I’m good. And I’ll always respond to something with, like, stranger or like mysterious, mysterious person with no photo, and they’re like, laugh it off and keep talking, or they’ll just go silent.
Louis Virtel: No. Nobody wants to get deeply unidentifiable texts. You ever seen the movie Personal Shopper? It’s bone chilling.
Ira Madison III: Yeah. I mean, have you ever seen Confessions of a Shopaholic? Also, bone chilling.
Louis Virtel: Yes.
Ira Madison III: I don’t know.
Louis Virtel: But very grittily, real. Yeah.
Ira Madison III: But Grindr is featured heavily in that movie.
Louis Virtel: I’m sure it’s not so.
Ira Madison III: It could be. Have you ever seen it? Let’s visit that Blind Spot, Louis.
Louis Virtel: No, I’ve seen Confessions of a Shopaholic.
Ira Madison III: Isla Fisher’s greatest work.
Louis Virtel: Ira, what’s your Keep it?
Ira Madison III: My Keep It this week, unfortunately, goes to my Vanilla King, Jack Harlow and his new album, Come Home. The Kids Miss You.
Louis Virtel: The Vanilla King, period. I mean, who else is even competing with him at the moment?
Ira Madison III: Yeah, I feel like I always have a new one, though, you know, like it. Like it used to be Charlie Puth. Now its Jack Harlow.
Louis Virtel: Well, if he’s not going to put out that album, he’s not our Vanilla King, so there ya go.
Ira Madison III: Well, and here’s my thing. Jack Harlow shouldn’t have put out his album.
Louis Virtel: Oh, I see.
Ira Madison III: Maybe. Maybe Charlie Puth is the superior vanilla king because he is not putting out his work for scrutiny. Jack Harlow’s new album, Come Home The Kids Miss You is adequate. I listen, it’s literally the definition of I like the beat. Because, listen, Pharrell is doing some crazy shit on this album. You know, like, Justin Timberlake is on the album. And you know what? I’m also coming out of Justin Timberlake fan witness protection. I can’t I can’t I can’t do it anymore. I like Justin Timberlake. I’m sorry. I listen to 20. I listen to 20/20 constantly. I do. I felt like I really had to hate him because of what he did to Britney and to Janet. But um I like him.
Louis Virtel: Okay. The fans are now flipping through the hundreds of episodes talking about our disdain for Justin Timberlake. So this reversal is feeling a little haunted to me.
Ira Madison III: You know what? Maybe that’s my real keep it. My real keep it is to having to hide the fact that I like Justin Timberlake music. I don’t like him.
Louis Virtel: The man in the woods. And I wish you. I wish you would disappear into the woods. That’s where you belong now.
Ira Madison III: I don’t like him, that much. He can be very annoying. But the music, baby. The albums are great. Two perfect albums. Two perfect albums.
Louis Virtel: Wait, Future Sex, Love Sounds?
Ira Madison III: Future, Sex, Love Sounds and Justified.
Louis Virtel: Oh, early ones. Okay, well, let me say something about future sex love sounds, but continues to bother me about that album as he was clearly copying the naming structure of Speaker Box The Love Below. But the deal with that album was it was two albums. So him taking the slash is just senseless and contrived.
Ira Madison III: All right.
Louis Virtel: Next album. What’s up now? Disappoint me.
Ira Madison III: But anyway, like the get getting back to Jack Harlow. I think a album, specifically by a rapper, should sort of tell you something about them. And I don’t feel like I really learned anything about Jack Harlow on this album. It sort of feels very blank. Like it like like anybody could have rapped this, you know, like I thought he was so interesting as like a rapper who hopped on Lil Nas X’s industry baby song. Like, I love to hear, like, what he thinks, you know, about, you know, being thrust into, like, gay culture like that. You know, I mean, he has a song called Dua LIPA on the album which, you know, I was like, has the line Dua LIPA try to do more with her than get a feature, you know, which so you’re attracted to Dua LIPA. Cool. Who isn’t? What else is going on?
Louis Virtel: Yeah, right.
Ira Madison III: Yeah, there are a couple of songs I like, but overall, like, it’s sort of forgettable and that’s unfortunate because he was one of the like most exciting new rappers to sort of come out recently. Anyway, getting back to the fact that we’re not living in a post me admitting I love Justin Timberlake world.
Louis Virtel: I know. I feel shattered. Yeah, I think. Well, it’s going to be jail time for you. Me? I will continue doing what I do, which is getting ice coffee.
Ira Madison III: That’s our show this week. Thank you to Sissy Spacek for joining us. And we’ll see you next week. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Kendra James. Our producer is Chris Lord. Our executive producers are Ira Madison, the third.
Louis Virtel: And Louis Virtel.
Ira Madison III: Our editor is Charlotte Landes and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
Louis Virtel: Thank you to our digital team, Matt DeGroot, Nar Melkonian And Delon Villanueva for our production support every week.
