Ira and Louis discuss Dua Lipa’s new album Radical Optimism, the Met Gala, The Idea of You, and Zadie Smith’s New Yorker essay. Ira explains the Kendrick and Drake rap beef. Sarayu Blue joins to discuss her new series Expats and acting opposite actors like Nicole Kidman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and more.

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TRANSCRIPT

 

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Ira Madison III And we are back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison the third.

 

Louis Virtel I’m Louis Virtel. And how is everyone’s radical optimism today? Is it up? Is the glass half full of, you know, ketamine? Because that’s what this music reminds me of yet again. It’s my only musical comparison anymore. I’m sorry.

 

Ira Madison III You know what? It is a very funny contrast, to having been at Dua Lipa’s Met Gala afterparty last night.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, pardon me. Should I leave? You can just talk about this yourself? Okay

 

Ira Madison III  Which was play the Untz. Okay. Like it was. It was actually not the kind of afterparty you’d expect. It was kind of like giving rave vibes.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, weird.

 

Ira Madison III And I was like, well, girl, if you like rave so much, it’s talking about basement on Las Culturistas, where is it on this album?

 

Louis Virtel It is a very sunkissed album and therefore a little bit sleepy, which, by the way, is part of the languor we associate with Dua Lipa. I’m somewhat happy to get it, but otherwise, and we’ve waited a long time for this album. The album itself is just not calling to me to replay it again and again, and I keep like prompting myself to do that because I want this to be as addictive an album as the last one. There are a couple songs I love. These Walls, is probably my favorite one.

 

Ira Madison III That’s a great song.

 

Louis Virtel And, end of an era, which is the first song on the album, but otherwise it’s okay, I don’t know, it’s in the it’s like a B minus for me, maybe a C plus.

 

Ira Madison III She kicks off the album with end of an era. Really good, the same way Future Nostalgia was like a great start to the the album. The title track.

 

Louis Virtel Which by the way, is a radical opinion on both of our lives that we both love that songs, and it seems like people hate the song Future Nostalgia. But I love that song.

 

Ira Madison III This album feels very. I don’t know. I found it to be a very safe album for her in a way, because it’s, it’s Danny Harle producing, and he does, like, hyperpop shit, you know, like he’s worked with Charlie X. Yeah, and all those people. And then you also have Kevin Parker, Octave and Paula. And it’s just what I think of those artists. I’m always thinking of parties. I’ve been to raves have been to, music festivals like Primavera Sound in Barcelona, where it’s just you’re having fun and you’re just sort of going crazy on the dancefloor or in a crowd. And I don’t know the, the extended versions of like, Houdini, trading season. They feel funny. They have a little funk to them and extended breaks like dance breaks or whatever, but the album just doesn’t feel like she was letting loose enough. You know, it feels like it was trimmed down.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I like her vocal on the album. Like, I think it suits the kind of swimming ness, of the vibe. That said, I would say this album to me is like, what Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape is compared to love Angel music, baby, which is there are fewer hooks. It feels like it’s related to that album, but at the same time it feels like the second tier of ideas below what we got previously. Like, maybe this is just all outtakes from her previous sessions, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s, it’s sort of similar in a way, to tortured poets in that, I like quite a bit of the songs on this now, but it truly has happened by it’s a vibe album. Obviously. It’s got this is going to be an album that.

 

Louis Virtel I’m not shutting it off right. For example, if I’m at the Ace in Palm Springs near a pool and I’m like, doing my Little Mermaid, choreography in the pool, sure, keep it on. You know.

 

Ira Madison III It’s definitely got to get play in Fire Island.

 

Louis Virtel Right. They’ll play anything there. Not much of a compliment. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III They’re not playing everybody.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I guess. They’ll remix anything into submission. Who cares?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but, I don’t know. It’s it’s definitely. I’ve gotten into some of the songs like French Exit.

 

Louis Virtel I think that’s okay.

 

Ira Madison III And but I’ve gotten into it because the album has been on repeat. And so while I’m doing chores at home, it’s definitely, a good writing album for me because I’m the kind of person who cannot really write in silence. And sometimes I’ll what I’ll play is an album or a song like on repeat and what I’m familiar with so that it just sort of blends into the background. Got it. And I’ve heard French Exit enough where I’m like, I like it.

 

Louis Virtel That’s where the compliments end. Like a stunted I like it. Got it.

 

Ira Madison III It’s so weird talking about this. And maybe we’re being hypocritical, but I don’t know, I like her.

 

Louis Virtel Oh no.

 

Ira Madison III I think that that is going a long way toward me wanting to like the album because I like her. And I guess in contrast to Taylor Swift’s album, she was everywhere, you know and do, actually. We constantly talk about the bitch being on vacation all the time like this. She she was absent post Future Nostalgia, you know? And now she’s back in. I wonder if she’s just really going to shift into one thing people always forget about her is that she’s a British right? And I think we kind of always expect just because she had this big sort of, new rules moment. And then future nostalgia was huge that she’s one of our artists, right. But she could just very well be big in the UK and not really give a fuck about the US anymore in the future.

 

Louis Virtel Interesting. I will say, my final note on this album is it’s the kind of thing where I’m listening to it, waiting to get a sort of adrenaline rush, and it pushes me back towards the music that did give me that. Like, I’m obsessed with that kind of woman. Off the moonlight. Future nostalgia, that album.

 

Ira Madison III She released 90 versions of that album.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And then there was the there was Club Future Nostalgia that had a version of that song. It’s got me listening to Love Again. It’s got me listening to half the songs on Future Nostalgia.

 

Ira Madison III My favorite song of hers.

 

Louis Virtel Love Is Religion, I really love. So, I’m a big fan of the catalog all together, but I don’t think any of these songs crack my personal top ten of Dua Lipa. And by the way, do you know what one of the best things she ever did was that Elton John song you couldn’t escape for a long time. I still think that’s one of the best things she ever did.

 

Ira Madison III I think maybe she’ll do like a mini tour here or something. I think maybe some of these songs will sound better mixed in with the catalog.

 

Louis Virtel And obviously she’s about to become a sketch comedian based on what I saw her do on SNL.

 

Ira Madison III She was really good.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t know about that.

 

Ira Madison III I just love this woman. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Gorgeous, talented girl. Love the Barbie song. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I give her so many points. We’re going to talk about how just the the sight of someone who’s hot and gorgeous and famous can make you sort of change your opinions about them, because we’re going to talk about the Met Gala.

 

Louis Virtel That’s right.

 

Ira Madison III This episode, and I definitely deleted a tweet where I made fun of someone’s outfit because I saw that person in person at an after party last night and they were so hot.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, it is interesting to think about how these things translate in person as opposed to in the Getty image. Just like like like Kylie Minogue came wearing like something that was beaded with like millions of Swarovski crystals or something. Whereas on camera, to me it looked basic, like it didn’t look like that handiwork was in it, but in person, I’m sure it was like straight up chandelier shit.

 

Ira Madison III Rita Ora’s, her beads that she was wearing. You know, the dividers in your grandmother’s home when you go from the living room to the kitchen. They looked good in person.

 

Louis Virtel And she’s the one who was gave the comment about the beads she was wearing. Said they were from, like, the first or second century. And she said that makes them older than anybody living today. Woof. Math and celebrities open the schools or homeschool her. Taika, I don’t know what’s going on there.

 

Ira Madison III Also, she paid me dust.

 

Louis Virtel Really.

 

Ira Madison III My friend introduced me to her and she was like, oh. And I’m like, she remembers tweets of mine.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. She’s like, I’m gonna do a back handspring out of this situation.

 

Ira Madison III Where’s a gun?

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of guns, we’re also going to talk about Drake versus Kendrick. I’m gonna explain some rap beef to you.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, thank God. This is like the miracle worker. Like you will guide my hand toward the faucet as you explain this.

 

Ira Madison III My favorite thing of the comments over the weekend were people constantly saying, I wonder how Louis is going to relate this rap beef to us? Is there some old Hollywood feud that feels reminiscent of this?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay, we’ll get into the Fontaine de Havilland of it all. I’m sure there’s.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, where’s where’s an old Hollywood feud involving a, biracial Canadian and a black Israelite?

 

Louis Virtel You know what? There are only a few of them, but I’m sure it was backstage on, you know, some stark movie.

 

Ira Madison III And today we will also be joined by the actress Sarayu Blue, who is in Expats opposite Nicole Kidman? She’s fucking fantastic.

 

Louis Virtel Also, I have not seen Nicole this perturbed in a long time. This is it goes in the great Nicole perturbed performances canon.

 

Ira Madison III Hugh Grant didn’t perturb her.

 

Louis Virtel I’m I’m sure he’s one of the great pertubers of our time. I don’t mean to say he didn’t.

 

Ira Madison III All right. When we’re back, more Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD]

 

Ira Madison III All right, let’s talk about beef. Louis, I am not talking about the Netflix limited series.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God. I had my Ali Wong photo album already. God damn it.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, she is always fighting.

 

Louis Virtel Right? One time I did a stand up night, and she was supposed to, show up and perform, and then we’re all waiting backstage, and she showed up, and then she said, I can’t perform and walked out. I’d never seen anything like that before. Anyway, it seems like a nice girl.

 

Ira Madison III At least she showed up.

 

Louis Virtel I know that was what was baffling. It was so strange. This was like seven years ago. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III So this involves Drake and Kendrick Lamar.

 

Louis Virtel Now, what is that? I’m kidding. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Obviously over the weekend, Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been trading trading beefs. Trading, distracts. And I spent a lot going on, and, I’m gonna try and attempt to explain why they hate each other so much.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. And you believe you understand why?

 

Ira Madison III I do understand why. Because here’s the thing. A lot of people do not like Drake.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yes. And I feel like that’s been a growing unrest over the years, too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. It’s interesting because I think we’ve called him the the male Taylor Swift before on this podcast. You know, he’s very he is the music industry in a way. When you think of like a male who’s dominating it, it is truly him. Aside from like a Harry styles, you know, it’s, they’re also very prone to like she has what the tortured poets department recently like with these two AB drops, these bonus track albums, you know, they are both very much. We’re dropping 30 songs at once and we’re going to dominate streaming. We’re going to dominate the charts. You know, he’s always sort of at the top of his game.

 

Louis Virtel And I feel like a part of this is also that. I think there’s a sense that Drake peaked a while ago, like, I feel like everything sense is sort of like mid tier compared to, like, his Imperial era.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I feel like the tipping point for a lot of this was the fact that when the music was good and he was at the top of his game, people were just like sort of whatever. Like, what do you do to like the number one person in the game? Yeah. When people started feeling like the albums were kind of bad. I mean, For All the Dogs, his recent album has, what, one good song on it, and it’s the song with Scissor and Sexy Red. People were sort of like, okay, now we can take shots at him because he’s fallen off.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it feels like we’re longing for the days where he was at the club and also sad, which is, you know, a relatable combination.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So basically Drake and Kendrick Lamar have worked together before. Obviously, they’ve done tracks together. And then there was a Kendrick Lamar song called control, that he was on. Or basically he raps about wanting to be the top of the game. You know, he names a bunch of rappers and the vibe is, these are all the people who are hot and I want to be better than them. Got it?

 

Louis Virtel And it’s like me going like Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett. They’re all going down.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, that’s a top of the game. Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Aaron. Gloria. Ryan. Yes. Okay. Sorry.

 

Ira Madison III I’m here. And there we go. But Drake, once again, comparison to Taylor Swift cannot take a joke and takes himself far too seriously. And I feel like most people, you think if another rapper is name checking all these people that they want to be better than what, did you sort of be happy that. Oh, I’m included in this? He thinks that I’m one of the people who’s at the top of the game. He wants to beat me like it’s friendly competition.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I will say, if you get a compliment and there’s even a hint of something backhanded about it, like, oh, you’re really talented, but I could be better than you. I feel like that is the kind of comment that barbs somebody the most. You know what I mean? Like, oh, like it was almost, flattering to me, but instead, I feel lately there’s a light deprecation about it, so I’m kind of relating to him for now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The Drake, of course, responds to this. There’s an interview where he says, listen, I’m at the top. Anybody wants to come for me, they can. I don’t see it happening.

 

Louis Virtel I’ve done the forecast.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And so it was friendly competition before. But then when Drake decides to actually take this personally, then it sort of Kendrick it’s like, okay, well, maybe I didn’t like you in the first place, bitch. And so this is why we now have a back and forth between them. And it’s happened like on a bunch of tracks, but most recently on his awful album For All the Dogs. There’s a song, First Person Shooter, with him and Jake Hall on it, and Jake Hall talks about, you know, the big three in the game, and he mentions Kendrick, and Kendrick does not like this. And he responds. To it. And basically at some point, J Cole decided he did not want to be a part of this entire beef. And he just sort of, he apologized. I think you mightrillionemember when he liked a public apology, and said, I don’t want to do all this fighting. He he was basically, I don’t want to say around this, I’m just getting into this business.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Right.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. It was Effie and Dina. We’re going back and forth.

 

Louis Virtel Brother. Brother, what’s going on? By Marvin.

 

Ira Madison III Gaye? Yes. And so he, did not want to be a part of that. And. Then we got basically a weekend where it was. I have never seen. Just like tracks drop like this in a weekend where it’s your minding your own business, you’re at the grocery store, you’re picking out some Kraft macaroni and cheese. Yeah, the Hamburger Helper. I don’t know what. Whatever you do, you live in 1988.

 

Louis Virtel Correct? Okay. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Pick it up. Some longitudes. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel A Fig Newton or two.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And these tracks just. They kept dropping.

 

Louis Virtel Them. No, it was never the end. It was an avalanche.

 

Ira Madison III Basically. It started with Kendrick Lamar jumping on future and Metro Boomin song like that. Where he said it’s time for him to prove that he’s a problem about Drake. Because basically most people’s problem with Drake is. Obviously he’s biracial and we hate mixed people. You know, mulattos are evil. Okay. I’m kidding. But, it is the problem that he grew up in Canada. He is a former child actor. You know, he’s Degrassi. He’s the kid from that wheelchair, right? You know, and when he raps, he really sort of gives this vibe of I’m a gangster. And it’s not true.

 

Louis Virtel Right? You’re. You’re from Toronto, where they sell Reese’s peanut butter cups and packs of three. It’s a safe upbringing.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And so a lot of people have a problem with him in that respect. They also have a problem when you think about the fact that he wanted the weekend assigned to his label at one point in the weekend, didn’t signs was labeled. So basically he did a bunch of songs with the weekend and then sort of really just made him his. He has this thing of any sort of competition he sees in the industry. He likes sort of like, well, collab with that person or snatch up a song of theirs and sort of like make it his own.

 

Louis Virtel Feels very. Regina George keeping your enemies closer. I am so sorry to make a mean girls. Right. I swear I am above that.

 

Ira Madison III Also, he’s a sneaky. How in the way that art is in challengers. Because after that he went after the Weeknd’s girlfriend when he was dating Missguided, if you recall. You remember ASAP Rocky. What is it? Rocky was first involved with Rihanna. Drake was going after Rihanna as well. He sort of has this thing where he is also always going after his friends or people in the games, significant others.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t feel like that’s a winning business strategy ultimately.

 

Ira Madison III And so the tracks that happened were Drake finally responded to the Metro Boomin track like that, which, by the way. Is is has stayed on the hot 100. Yeah. Right.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Cédric is doing very well on the hot 100 right now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The other thing about the Kendrick tracks is what? He’s dropping them. They are charting. And that is also, I feel like the biggest blow to Drake at in this moment, because when Drake was releasing his best music, he was always on the hot 100. He was always in the top ten. And now disc tracks about him are charting in the top ten, and it’s sort of giving the idea that it’s not just people in the industry who hate him, it is people at home, right?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. The podcast listening population.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. So he entered the fighting ring with his song called Push UPS, on April 19th. And, you know, he rapped about Kendrick saying, pipsqueak, pipe down. You ain’t in no big three. But think about rap is that people are constantly ranking rappers online. Like for decades. You know, there’s always been who’s the big three, you know. Right. And even going back to like grade school, I remember people would always be like, well, who’s your big three rappers? You know, that? It’s just sort of this thing, you know, who you consider to be the big three at any given point in time. And that is why people are just always sort of going back and forth to each other. They’re like, who is the big three? You know, which I love.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, that’s very film bros to me. You know what I’m saying? You know, like name your top three of all time letter box. They do this. What’s your top four? All the time.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Personally, none of these people were Jay-Z, who was in my big three Kanye before he died. And had that brain transplant. Right.

 

Louis Virtel Which is crazy to get the transplant after you’ve passed away.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, some Days of our lives passion shit. So push ups is where Drake referenced the fact that Kendrick Lamar, has songs with maroon five and Taylor Swift.

 

Louis Virtel All right.

 

Ira Madison III If you recall Bad Blood, the video, I know it’s, it’s a hard memory to.

 

Louis Virtel Relive, and I believe that video of the year winner.

 

Ira Madison III Have you ever watched that video recently?

 

Louis Virtel It looks like I created it. I mean, it’s like the vision of it is so ridiculous. And like, Mariska Hargitay is in it. Everybody’s in it. Of course.

 

Ira Madison III When if you rewatch that video, it is shocking to step back into that time of Taylor Swift’s, squad, as it were, as she constantly called it. The people who were in that that she was collecting like Pokemon.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no, there was there was no rhyme or reason. It was just everybody she had heard of, basically.

 

Ira Madison III Lena Dunham, Zendaya in it before Zendaya blew up and became Zendaya.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my gosh, truly a moment in time because it’s over.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So he references that. And by the way, the funny part about all of this is that Drake has a song with Camila Cabello on Camila Cabello upcoming album, and he has been allegedly keeping her from releasing it. Amidst the whole Kendrick beef. And of course it would be embarrassing. But when we get to the other Kendrick songs, we’ll find out. That’s maybe the least embarrassing thing. How about Drake this week?

 

Louis Virtel I’m going to say Moana come.

 

Ira Madison III Release the Camilla song. Okay. It might help. So that he released a song, Tailor Made freestyle, which was. One of the wildest things I’ve ever heard because it has a I. Vocals from Tupac was Tupac’s family was not happy.

 

Louis Virtel About you don’t say and.

 

Ira Madison III Also Snoop Dogg who is.

 

Louis Virtel Alive. Yeah. He’s around also by the way, call him up. He’s like, yeah, I’ve got an extra ten minutes, I’ll come in.

 

Ira Madison III But also Snoop is an LA based rapper just like Kendrick Lamar. So he’s obviously not going to be on Drake’s side. Right. So, he uses AI and it gets pulled from streaming services because Tupac’s estate was like this. What are you doing?

 

Louis Virtel That’s what the state says. I’m like, by the way.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Then Kendrick dropped this track just like a week later on April 30th. And this was this past weekend where the shit just started coming. This one was called euphoria. And this one, by the way, is. Either this 1 or 6 one six in LA. I believe he drops just like another track right after that. One of them was produced by Jack Antonoff. Strange. So that is a direct reference, obviously, to Drake bringing up Taylor. And we know that Drake and Taylor have a friendship with each other, like they were posting photos together all the time and everything, but it seems just so funny to get Jack Antonoff involved in this. A rap beef right between the two of them. I love that Jack Antonoff just wants to be involved in everything.

 

Louis Virtel And he fucking is. Jesus. We’re going on like you’re 40 of him just producing every single thing. He’s like our Quincy Jones. I still haven’t put it together yet.

 

Ira Madison III But. And also, what are you trying to figure out? The Madame Web of all of this is just like Drake and Taylor being friends, and it’s like, well, maybe Taylor’s upset with him now. Or maybe Jack just did it and doesn’t really care about Taylor’s relationship with Drake. But Taylor obviously has a relationship with both Drake and Kendrick Lamar, so there’s just a humor to me and Jack Antonoff hopping into the studio.

 

Louis Virtel It’s a huge question mark. It’s really strange. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III On 616 in LA, he goes after the OVO record label. He says, have you ever thought OVO was working for me? He calls Drake a fake bully. Says, I hate bullies. You must be a terrible person. Everyone inside your team whispering that you deserve it.

 

Louis Virtel Interesting. So it’s like everybody’s laughing at you and you don’t even know.

 

Ira Madison III There’s a mole.

 

Louis Virtel Season two coming to Netflix soon, by the way. I’m really excited about that.

 

Ira Madison III And so Drake then makes a song called Family Matters. Great show.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. Kelly Chenin Williams as Laura. Underrated comedy performance.

 

Ira Madison III I rewatched Family Matters recently and let me tell you, if you showed someone the pilot A Family Matters and then showed them the series finale of Family Matters, they would wonder if you were showing them a different show.

 

Louis Virtel No, it’s like it turned sci fi. It turned every other genre. It was Urkel.

 

Ira Madison III So not even in the pilot, by the way.

 

Louis Virtel No, they made a complete 180 once Urkel appeared as a guest player. They’re like, what if the whole show was about this? Sorry, Judy Winslow

 

Ira Madison III So Drake song Family Matters, makes. Allegations that Kendrick Lamar has beaten up his wife.

 

Louis Virtel Right. This is what this whole thing is seriously scandalous about. Like both these people making abuse allegations at each other.

 

Ira Madison III And so right after Family Matters, he released meat the grams, which is sort of a, over six minute response, where Kendrick Lamar talks to Drake about his family, including his son Adonis and his parents and an alleged 11 year old daughter who Drake has not claimed publicly.

 

Louis Virtel Truly, you should be following up family matters with step by step and then hanging with Mr. Cooper. If you want me to listen.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And then he lays out rumors that Drake takes ozempic the pettiness.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, it’s just 90% of Hollywood isn’t as epic at this point.

 

Ira Madison III Which, by the way, when you break up the fact that everyone sort of hates Drake, this takes you back to Megan Thee Stallion song. Here’s where she had the line, about people hating on bbls, but they’re walking around with the same scars. She talks about someone pretending to be bad when they’re not really fake acts, you know, like post it up in other people’s hoods. And this started making everybody online sort of realized that this was probably a Drake diss track and had nothing to do with Nicki Minaj.

 

Louis Virtel And you need to be really clear about that, because Nicki, shall we say, easily activated what we call a landmine.

 

Ira Madison III She’s listening. She’s Frasier. Crane radio was firing. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Right now they use a crank to start up.

 

Ira Madison III So the reason that Nicki Minaj probably thought that this was about her because, you know, she has the line, these hoes, they’ll be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law. Ooh. Which is, which is the reference to, you know, you have to sort of alert people where you are when you’re a sex offender. Yes. In regarding children, Kendrick Lamar alleges that Drake is basically a pedophile.

 

Louis Virtel He says the word pedophile several times.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. First it was that Drake likes going after young women. But then really, he’s like him and Harvey Wise. He should be in a cell for the rest of their lives. He’s got sex offenders on his record label, OVO that he keeps on a monthly allowance. And so then the following evening, Kendrick Lamar releases not like us when you think all this shit is over. I was truly at a dinner, with someone enjoying, like, some Mexican food, Cinco de Mayo weekend, etc. and I am walking home from the East Village, taking my time, and the track is just like I see the tweets where this track is dropped, and then I get home and I play it on YouTube. I was like, the way this shit just kept dropping. It’s truly unheard of.

 

Louis Virtel This guy is following. Chicken little has been summoned.

 

Ira Madison III He had alluded to grooming allegations before, but now he’s like, Drake, I hear you like them. Yeah. You better not ever go to cellblock one. Basically. Just sort of like there’s been things online before, by the way, about Drake preferring women who are younger.

 

Louis Virtel Like the Millie Bobby Brown.

 

Ira Madison III Thing. Yeah. The Millie Bobby Brown thing was always weird.

 

Louis Virtel That’s what’s interesting to me about this is like it seems to be playing on the public knowledge about that, while also implying there’s something else going on that we don’t know about. But is there I mean, it could just be all about that.

 

Ira Madison III There’s also been like a video circulating of him and an old card, sir. What? I think he was like 20 something and like, kissing a girl on stage who’s 17, you know. So what do you think.

 

Louis Virtel Dancing Queen is about? I’m sorry, I don’t. I don’t mean to tolerate that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Listen to the lyrics. It’s right in the chorus.

 

Ira Madison III I love rock n roll. Jones. That said, he must have heard about 17. Oh, what’s going on here?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s interesting. And she’s also, plying the jukebox with dime. So it was actually the 19 tens at the time.

 

Ira Madison III She’s Fonzi. Yeah, she’s Fonzie’s brother. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel The origin story.

 

Ira Madison III That’s the spin off series, then. I don’t really know how to explain this track. The heart six that Drake dropped in response, but when someone alleges that you are maybe a pedophile, maybe you should not release a disc track response. That’s sort of like you think I’m a pedophile because you were molested as a child, and that’s why you’re focused on it.

 

Louis Virtel That truly feels like something said in the first episode of Pen15, where the girls absolutely blow up their social like, didn’t that happen? They’re like your dad’s dad or whatever. They screamed at that, oh, that’s so bad.

 

Ira Madison III It’s like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia sort of insults. This is that. It’s like. And then he alleges that I’m too famous to be a pedophile. I’d be in jail.

 

Louis Virtel There’s a few of them from you.

 

Ira Madison III Sounds like you’re a Lord order SVU.

 

Louis Virtel Speaking of Mariska.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, this is the final act. You are yelling in an interrogation room. I’m too famous for that.

 

Louis Virtel So I mean, like, how deep can they make these allegations at each other? It seems like they’ve already gone to the ends. Like how how much further can you possibly go?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I feel like you’ve already said enough about each other. And it’s all this stuff that I mean, we’re at this point now where obviously people have been enjoying the rap beef, but the shit got dark very quickly. And now there was a Drive-By shooting outside of Drake’s place and a security guard was shot.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, this is a literal shooting.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, yeah. Literal shooting. And so this is giving like real Tupac Biggie beef vibes. And it’s, I don’t know, also just going back and forth about people being molested, which by the way. The whole thing about Drake’s response is it seems a bit cold from tweets and threads online. He’s a very online person because the whole molestation thing, if you even listen to the song mother, I sober off of Kendrick Lamar’s most recent album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. He wasn’t molested himself. His mother was. And that’s why she was sort of extra careful around him and other relatives so that it wouldn’t happen to him. So it’s going off information, like from completely reading a song wrong.

 

Louis Virtel Confusing and dark still.

 

Ira Madison III And so much of the other stuff, you know, there’s a whole thing about, like, he maybe has another secret child out there, like an 11 year old daughter. And Drake alleges that he leaked this information to Kendrick’s crew so that he would release a fake diss track. Girl. But truly, what are we doing here?

 

Louis Virtel And also, what would be the good of that? Okay, now he’s about to make a joke about you having an extra kid. And now a lot of people believe it. Like you didn’t win.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So basically the back and forth is that. His song Not Like Us. Granted, he does keep calling Drake a pedophile. And it is a little dark in lyrical content, but man, that is our club track.

 

Louis Virtel I was going to.

 

Ira Madison III Say.

 

Louis Virtel Listenable music. I mean, there’s a reason it’s charting. And also I’m sorry to like, I truly don’t think awards are what’s most important, but you can hear the Pulitzer in some of these lyrics, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Why would you fight with a Pulitzer Prize winner?

 

Louis Virtel Right. I’m not up there being like Doris Lessing. Come on down and forget what it was, asshole.

 

Ira Madison III And I think the bigger just sort of takeaway in this is a lot of people do a lot of shit about people within the industry, I guess. And it gets, I guess, to serve you to be an asshole to everybody. Because once Drake was an asshole to everybody and then his music fell off. Then people were like, okay, well, you know what? Now we can come after you.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right. Though again, it is my dream for Taylor Swift to give up on the fandom and relate abilities she has and just be a fucking dick and, like, maybe ruin her entire empire. But, man, what a way to go.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Are we also headed towards a Drakes reputation era?

 

Louis Virtel His whole fucking career has been the reputation era. I feel you know what? We get out of it for a while. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It’s always. I don’t know what I want from both of them. I will say I have enjoyed this sort of energy from Kendrick Lamar. Yeah, it’d be nice to have him making music again that I. I feel bad about this. It’s just like I’ve always been a Drake fan.

 

Louis Virtel You’ve said before that Kendrick is just not your style.

 

Ira Madison III That’s not really my style. Yeah. You know, I’m not. I’m barely conscious most of the day. I can’t listen to conscious rappers.

 

Louis Virtel Right? It’s overcompensating.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, yeah. Let me layer by casket. It was my hotline. Bling turned my brain off.

 

Louis Virtel It is just nice to see somebody be, like, pugnacious in terms of releasing music. You know, like, we’re so used to, like, a slow rollout of music. So for somebody to just take a week and be like, actually, I’m going to keep hitting this button and keep releasing is like, I don’t want to say life affirming based on how grim this feud is, but it’s just nice to see someone work and work hard and be, you know, the best.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, get your fucking ass up and work.

 

Louis Virtel Kim Kardashian.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, he also released a tracks quicker than it takes us to record this fucking podcast.

 

Louis Virtel No, look how slow we’re going. Shit, we’re not getting anything done anyway.

 

Ira Madison III It’s all been fun. But then there’s also, you know, the darkness of trading pedophilia allegations and abuse allegations, which I don’t think any serious reporter has sort of really dug into yet. So this is all just sort of like conjecture on both sides. But I waiting for someone to so we can have real facts about them.

 

Louis Virtel Because you know who’s going to weigh in soon as lawyers. I mean these allegations are very crazy.

 

Ira Madison III So and also I’m not too semantic yet, but you know, like there’s a difference between Drake like a younger girls, which is creepy in and of itself. And then when you throw out the word pedophile, particularly in this world that we live in now of, you know, like, Pizzagate and shit like that, that turns into, okay, Drake and OVO and everyone related to him is running a secret pedophile ring, right?

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III And then that turns crazy people online into crazy people IRL who start killing people.

 

Louis Virtel Right? There’s a disquiet about the whole thing. I don’t like where it’s going to end up. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. He should call up Chrissy Teigen. Remember when they were Pizzagate her? Oh, my God, she seems fine now, right? She seems okay now, to be honest, every celebrity attached with that like it was horrendous saying that. Like, I couldn’t respond to a tweet of hers without someone being like, what are you doing talking to this? I’m like, girl, calm down, Martha in Idaho, okay?

 

Louis Virtel I mean, think of like the things that have been said about Hillary Clinton when what people should really be talking about is if she wins a Tony for this stuff’s musical, which she’s a producer, she will be three quarters of the way to Egot.

 

Ira Madison III Well, let me tell you something, Louis. Some say when. No, Tony.

 

Louis Virtel Don’t you see.

 

Ira Madison III That?

 

Louis Virtel You know what’s tough? The word soft. I do not like to hear it.

 

Ira Madison III Shout out to Travis Hellwig, who’s a producer on it, though.

 

Louis Virtel We love him.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, him and Jen Statsky.

 

Louis Virtel We used to hang out in this very room.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, you too could go from crooked Media to producing a Broadway musical.

 

Louis Virtel We should make that instructional video as we’re stuck here in this room. Still, the carpenters live.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right, when we are back, we will be joined by the fantastic, Sarayu Blue.

 

Ira Madison III [AD]

 

Ira Madison III This week’s guest. It is an honor to have on the show. I mean, the three of us have followed each other a lot for years and is finally meeting. She has been in Hollywood for over two decades, most recognizable for her tremendous work. And I feel bad. Never have I ever. And blockers. And if you somehow didn’t love her from all of that, you’ll definitely adore her. In her latest role opposite Nicole Kidman in the mini series expats. Please welcome to Keep It, Sarayu Blue.

 

Sarayu Blue I mean, that is incredibly generous and kind, and I’m the you’re truly your biggest fan. That’s not true. I can’t say that because you have so many big fans. I’m just very excited to be here.

 

Louis Virtel We’re thrilled to have you here. And also, I loved watching Expats, which when this show starts out, these are some of the most perturbed characters I’ve seen in a limited series. And sometimes I was like, oh God, will I be able to get through this? But it’s the drama of it is fabulous. What did you think when you first, read Expats? Did you know Nicole was going to be involved? But was your whole history with the project?

 

Sarayu Blue Yes, I definitely knew both Nicole and Lulu were, involved and part of the project. And when I auditioned, I hadn’t seen the scripts yet, you know, which is pretty common with something of this caliber. And at my level. And I was reading the scripts and I remember just over and over again going. Oh my God. Oh my God. Like it’s such rich material. I don’t just mean rich because the people are rich. I mean, it’s so nuanced and layered and really just, such a wildly, wildly deep world, you know? And then I guess for me to be a part of it felt really surreal, too, because, you know, as you know, from some of the projects you’ve listed, I sort of got known for doing comedy. And so often, once they decide you can do one thing, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to veer into a different direction. So the whole thing felt really surreal.

 

Ira Madison III I love how much people have really just sort of enjoyed this series and sort of like really just taking it on and giving it its own life and you for your whole career after this too. I just sort of feel like there was a moment where all of a sudden everybody was talking about this show and you. So how did that feel to just, like, sort of go from I mean, we’ll get to it. Obviously, you know, how we do on the show talking about your previous credits and things that we love, but you have been in so many things and it feel like, was this show, did it feel like a tipping point for you, for your career in Hollywood?

 

Sarayu Blue You know, it feels kind of like one of these things where you start believing in the tipping point, right? Like you sort of are like, there’s no big break, there is no thing. You just kind of keep showing up and keep going, which is if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, you get to keep showing up and keep going. But I feel like with this it felt so monumental. I mean, the, the, the scale, the scope of it just felt so big. And so it was kind of like, how could it not feel as big? I mean, to finally feel an ounce of its emotional to to feel like people get to see what you can do. So few of us get that shot, you know, this moment that you get to go, yeah, I have these other muscles that haven’t just gotten to be worked in a while, and they’re they exist. And to have people sort of acknowledge that was really moving. And I felt really thankful, to be honest.

 

Louis Virtel I am sorry for us that we’ve not had Lulu Wang on this show, and I’m always curious about her as a creator. What was it like working with her on expats?

 

Sarayu Blue Lulu was amazing. She was really, you know, she was, first of all, one of the main reasons I had this shot. She really believed in me. She wanted me for the role. She championed me. So did Nicole, which is what it takes, you know, it takes people really fighting for you, and particularly when you’re not in, aim for them to go, well, why would we want to give that person this enormous lead role, you know? And so, that was really incredible. And then to work with her is really fun because I always say she has these instincts that are just so sharp. And so you’d had these moments with her on set where both of us were kind of like, why is this not working? Let’s find it. And she just kind of go, you know what? You don’t need that line. I don’t like that word. Like it’s all just this intuition. And suddenly, you know, sometimes I’d even resist it. We all have moments where we’re like, I don’t know, is that what it is? And then I would just sort of go, you know what? Just trust her. Because she knows this. She knows it down, you know, on a cellular level. And every time I would it was just there was the take. There was the entire scene right there. It’s just she’s really, really. And she’s very generous too, in the sense of like, if I had those really raw moments, like in the hospital scene with my dad or in the elevator episode, the set’s really quiet and she’s like, okay. And then she’ll kind of let you do a few takes, and then she’d kind of come over and she’d tiptoe and be really gentle with it, and then she’d go, how about this? And we’d go again. And there’s an incredible sensitivity there, which I really appreciated.

 

Ira Madison III If I’m thinking about, you know, just your, your muscles as an actress, you’re doing this series, obviously, but, you know, you’ve been on bones, you know, you’ve done Big Bang Theory, you know, you’ve been in so many forms of just television, you know, different genres from multi-cam, to regular comedy to drama is sort of how do you keep yourself, I guess, able to do all of these things. Is the one that you prefer?

 

Sarayu Blue I think I’m able to keep myself in the game because I love it too much, and and it’s a problem. And I wish I could break up with it all the time. Like I always say that the acting industry is like that really shitty boyfriend who just keeps giving you the bare minimum. And you know, every time you’re like, that’s it, I am done. We’re not doing this shit anymore. He comes back and he’s like, baby, baby, please. And you’re like, you know what? He looks so cute when he says those words and you just keep, you know, and it’s that for me. And so I stay in the game because there’s, there’s also this element of like, I painted myself into a corner. What am I going to do now? I can’t pivot now. You know, like I stayed with him so long. Yeah. And then, you know, as far as, like, what I love the most, I will always love comedy. I love it, I love it. I think there is such a dance to it. There’s such a rhythm to it. There’s such a making. People laugh is what keeps me moving. Get out. Keeps it waking up in the morning. However, what I loved about expats was getting to play a role that I could dig in and have so many layers and give you this really dimensional, complicated, flawed woman. And that’s exactly what I loved about it. I feel bad. She was petty and flawed and a mess, and so was Hillary. So there is this just deep connection even between the two.

 

Louis Virtel I must ask about Nicole Kidman for a second, because I’m always when I think about, how people have received her. Once upon a time, Joan Rivers described her as one of the silliest people she had ever met, and to me, that doesn’t read almost ever. Even though, you know, we just we were talking about her career last week, actually, because of her AFI award. I said, she has this like, Liv Ullmann quality where it’s just like a porcelain vulnerability. It’s like, how can that person also be silly? What was your experience working with her? And I assume there must have been some museum exhibit quality to watching this person work and wondering how her process is, etc..

 

Sarayu Blue Yeah, I mean, it’s funny you say that because silly is literally a word I described her as in one of my interviews, like a few months ago.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Sarayu Blue And I remember my friends being like, silly. And I was like, no, I know it’s the word. Trust me, it makes sense. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s because she has this disarming ability the minute you meet her to just being like, hi. And you’re like, oh, okay. So we’re. We’re going to do it this way where it’s just like, we’re just two people, just like pretending that we’re the same doing our jobs. And it’s great because you kind of have to be able to have that quality. I mean, I do, in order to be able to do my job with her, I cannot play her best friend in a series and also be mooning over her in the sink. Right. Like, that’s just not.

 

Louis Virtel That’s how I would go. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Sarayu Blue Well, that’s just not quality storytelling. That being said, in the noodle shop state, I will never forget she’s doing this really riveting monologue. And, you know, in her just like, just Uber intense but so compelling and like, human way. And as she’s delivering this monologue, there’s just a moment where I was like, oh fuck, I got to be in the scene. I can’t be sorry. I have to be like it. I and you know, I’m confident that that coverage they couldn’t use exist somewhere because it is really that magnificent to watch her. I mean, she’s on another. She’s not even human. It’s above humanity. It’s like ethereal, you know.

 

Louis Virtel It’s does feel like we watch Nicole Kidman to sort of aspire to the kind of humanity she brings. Like, it’s just not. It’s very uncommon.

 

Sarayu Blue It’s so, I don’t even know how to explain. It’s so magnetic. Like even at the AFI thing, watching the the breadth and the history of her trajectory and range, and you just see it from when they played that clip of her at what was it, 14, 15? She was like, it was her first movie ever, ever. And she’s equally brilliant. Like, somehow she didn’t need to go to grad school like the rest of us. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty incredible, I have to say.

 

Louis Virtel Which reminds me, you and I are both University of Iowa alums, which is mind boggling to me.

 

Sarayu Blue And also, we were all Midwesterners because Ira, Wisconsin right?

 

Ira Madison III I’m from Wisconsin. Yeah. Madison, right.

 

Sarayu Blue I’m from Madison. You’re from Chicago.

 

Ira Madison III I’m from Milwaukee. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Wow, it’s a Big Ten circus up in here.

 

Sarayu Blue Listen, we’re just a few Midwesterners really living the dream.

 

Louis Virtel Of a few big football fans doing our best out here. But I was curious how acting education continues to influence somebody who is now just working nonstop. Do you find yourself going back to what you’ve learned fundamentally in school, ever, or is it just embedded in who you are and you have those tools at your disposal now?

 

Sarayu Blue I think it’s I’m constantly going back to what I remember coming out of grad school. And one of like the people who had graduated a few years ahead of me was like, you’re not going to get it for like another, you know, seven years. And I was like, you know what? Fuck you. Like, I just did, like four years of grad school, and I’m good now. Like, I got it. You know, I didn’t actually think I was good yet, but there was this element of, like, I don’t need your condescension. And then now being out for as long as I have been, which is longer than for four years. And there are so many times that I remember something an acting teacher said, or I have a moment of, God, I can’t figure out this scene. How do I how do I, like, connect with it? And again, I’m using some old tool that I had, you know, packed away in a file box in the garage for, you know, a while. So it is it has proven really valuable. However, there’s also a part of me that’s like. I personally have found there are times where there’s like a little, like too much training for me. I’m not going to speak to anyone else’s process, but we’re like. I don’t want to get so. Deformed and obsessed with somebody else’s system. Like, I always want to be able to be free to play and trust my own instincts. Because for me, if I’m constantly trying to like, just get it, get down, Grotowski or get down, you know, Stanislavski or just really nail one of these methods. Sometimes I leave myself out of the process, so I kind of have to be like, are you like, what do you think? What feels right in this? Do that. I don’t care if anyone else thinks it’s right. Just do that.

 

Louis Virtel I’m always curious about that because it feels like acting is so intensely personal. And when people can take on a process that’s so outside what they are and so, you know, just words on a page that somebody else has written sometimes over 100 years ago. I’m really awed by that. And, you know, it just like to internalize it.

 

Sarayu Blue I think it’s there’s something about it I love. I mean, I can nerd out about theater way too much, and it’s not extremely sexy, but I can do it. But it’s one of those things that it’s like, I love it. I will talk about acting. I will talk about theater all day, every day. And I really had to release it in order to get good at it. I just had to be able to let it go.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, grad school, it’ll do a number on you too, you know? Yeah. And it’s I truly remember it’s there’s just something about being in this space where you’re being creative with everybody, and you are feeling like whether you’re good or not or whether you’re feeling great, it’s just sort of you’re in this microcosm that is it the industry. And it’s like, I remember people being like, oh yeah, you’re good. You know, thinking, right, this person is going to get a job. Like immediately I’m like, I moved to LA and then it took seven years, you know, and people who are people who are worried about being get a good job before that were like getting staff like in a year, you know, and it’s that stuff happens.

 

Sarayu Blue It’s so random. And the problem is you’re in the microcosm but you think it’s real. Yeah. You’re like, you are like, nobody told you you’re living on Big Brother. Everyone.

 

Ira Madison III Exactly.

 

Sarayu Blue Everyone is operating. Like if you’re doing it here, that’s how it’s going to be out there. Yeah. And then you get out there and all your friends who are so insanely talented, for whatever reason, didn’t land an agent right away and some moron did, you know, or somebody who you never expected got the like, lucky ticket. And so you’re like, oh, wait a minute. It was all bullshit. And people can tell you that while you’re in the in the microcosm, but you don’t believe it until you live it.

 

Ira Madison III And, I mean, I went to school, I been drinking game for keep it NYU in New York, but it’s like it’s also different to be in that microcosm in New York, where you’re in the city being creative, and then you get to L.A. any time you go to acting or whatever school, and then you move to L.A., it’s a whole different ballgame.

 

Sarayu Blue Well, and I went to act in Cisco, and what I did love about Act was they weren’t they taught a bunch of methods so everyone would could kind of find what felt more right for them. And I did appreciate that. I will say, yeah, we weren’t like, we only do Stanislavski.

 

Ira Madison III I want to ask now, you’ve been on so many TV shows and so many of them that I have. I mean, I’ve watched so many of them. I just want to know, is there a particular, like, guest spot or some show that you were on where you’re just like you do? Think back on that really fondly and maybe you learn something from, I don’t know, the set of Franklin and Bash or something, you know, like what’s something where you like, you could maybe look back at and you’re like, you know what? That was a great experience that has kind of informed things that I continue to do as an actor.

 

Sarayu Blue Yes. And it was Veep. I mean, I want to say I loved doing Franklin and Bash that crew. They were all so kind. I mean, I love that show. It was so fun. And Mark-Paul and Breckin had such great chemistry. They were insane together. I loved doing it. I loved working with Camille and like, but Veep was one of those experiences where, you know, it’s unreal to do this role opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus. And I mean, I play opposite. I was like a small little doctor role. It was not like a major, but there were so many heavy hitters on that show between, you know, like, I, I’m now I’m Gary Cole and like, you know, I mean you just it was like I, it’s Sam Richardson and and and Oh my God, I’m forgetting Timothy Simons. You know what I mean? Like, it was just heavy, just geniuses upon geniuses. And I remember her doing this scene with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and all of them in the hospital. And I pitched a joke. And I remember doing the rehearsal and, you know, because it’s all like so many oners and like single cam or whatever. So they’re really just doing everything continuously so you cannot miss a beat like this. It’s like one day guest star I had, I better not miss a fucking moment. And I remember like doing the rehearsal and she goes, I can’t remember who had the line. Somebody was starting to say a line as she goes, wait, you’re gonna you’re gonna make that joke, right? You’re gonna say that one line about the burgers. And I was like, yeah. And she goes, okay, say it. And I. And I did. And she goes, okay, did she goes, that’s funny, by the way. And and like the way that I hold that to my heart and it lets me just feel like, okay, maybe I could say acting.

 

Louis Virtel I love how that is both a compliment and terrifying. Yeah. Like in that moment. Yes. You did nail it right now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. It’s funny, by the way.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Sarayu Blue It was so cause she cause her instincts again. Like, she knows what works. She knows what she hasn’t done to a science. So like it’s like just a you know you did get that right. Let’s keep it moving. We don’t have a lot of time. You don’t like it. So it was an amazing moment truly.

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean I work for Jimmy Kimmel and like you’ll put a script in front of him, and he will. It seems like he’s only doing a passing glance at it, but he’s already made, like, six decisions. Like some people at the top of their game are operating at a level that is just extremely fast.

 

Sarayu Blue Yeah, it is one of those moments where you’re just like, oh, you really you’re what they call a pro. Yeah, yeah, I understand now. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel So Julia Louis-Dreyfus comes up. Are there any other actors you’ve had comedy scenes with that you remember particularly enjoying?

 

Sarayu Blue I mean, there’s so many. I loved working with Paul Edelstein, and I feel bad and and mother Joffrey, who played my mom, who played this like thanks to Amy Poehler in a scene. Bartra, who, you know, created the show. They like a scene really wrote this character of this Indian mom who was so. Gangster. I mean, she was so funny and just ridiculous and edgy and just all the things I think of for a South Asian mom that is rarely embodied. That’s rarely what we see. You know, like, I feel like that was one of my favorites and also not comedy, but working with Alfred Molina on Monday morning. He was somebody who really showed me what it looks like to be the leader of a set. I mean, he knew everybody’s names. He never was laid. He knew every line. And I remember he had this huge monologue one time, and afterwards, you know, he had finished his coverage and we were breaking for lunch or whatever turning around or something. And we were walking away and he just kind of turned behind. He goes, was that all right? And I was like. Are you asking me? This is my first series regular. I’m fighters, I don’t know, I’ve I it seemed great. How could you not be great? You’re Alfred Molina. You know, it’s just one of those moments that you really realize nobody ever feels like they nailed it.

 

Louis Virtel Also, by the way, that’s a David Kelly show, correct? Yeah. I’m always curious about him, because for somebody who has made that much television, he is an enigma to me. Like, you know, you’re Mr. Michelle Pfeiffer and you created Big Little Lies and every other TV show. And I don’t have a sense of you as a personality.

 

Sarayu Blue Yeah, well, he likes to be enigmatic. I mean, he really is, like, if it’s up to me, none of you know who I am, but I guess you’re gonna have to know my name. So that’s all you get? That’s all you get.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you so much for being here. I also have to say, like, obviously, I mean, I said, I’ve seen some of these shows I really loved  you are the Real O’Neal’s. That was a show that I was obsessed with.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, a fabulous show.

 

Sarayu Blue And then you had Martha on recently?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. We did. I loved that show.

 

Sarayu Blue I loved it too, and it was a great set. And I can’t believe it didn’t keep going. Yeah, I mean, I can.

 

Louis Virtel Martha needs to stay on TV. She used to be one of my favorite movie stars, and she was great in mass a couple of years ago, but she nails every TV role to have left her on raising hope. ET cetera.

 

Sarayu Blue Yeah, she’s just truly a genius. I remember seeing her in libertine with John Malkovich at, the Libertine at Steppenwolf. I mean, she and John Malkovich, man, what a couple of actors.

 

Louis Virtel Intimidating people. John Malkovich wooo?

 

Sarayu Blue Yeah. Like, I don’t think I could actually be on a set with John Malkovich. I’d probably crumble. I would not survive that.

 

Ira Madison III I would just have The Malkovich for Big John Malkovich stuck in my head the whole time.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Bring puppets around him etcetera.

 

Ira Madison III Malkovich in my head the whole time, I would be able to do nothing.

 

Sarayu Blue That’s it. That’s. There is no. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Well, we’ve literally just taken ourselves out of any Malkovich project single handedly. Listen, thank you so much. I just adore you.

 

Louis Virtel I hope we see each other in person sometime. Yes. Please go, Hawkeyes, etc.. Yes.

 

Sarayu Blue Yeah. Ecetera. Exactly.

 

[AD]

 

Ira Madison III Fashion’s biggest night was last night. Louis. And I do mean fashion’s night out.

 

Louis Virtel Did you sound like three e correspondents at once?

 

Ira Madison III Do you remember Fashion’s Night Out?

 

Louis Virtel Kind of. What is that?

 

Ira Madison III It was where? Sort of like the designers of things would have. Just like parties with the. The city, I believe, was in New York. And it was in L.A., too, circa like 2009 to 2011.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Where we came of age. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. But no, the Met Gala was last night, the one day a year we all gather to ask Rihanna about something other than the album we’re never getting from her. Right.

 

Louis Virtel We will get you do get a nice dress from her every two years or so.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Yeah. This year’s dress code was the garden of time. And also, Sleeping Beauty’s fashion reawakened. Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and also Chris Hemsworth were the co-chairs, and I teased it earlier. I was making fun of Chris Hemsworth for, you know, just his regular suit or whatever.

 

Louis Virtel It was a cream colored suit with black shoes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I was like, all right. What? I saw that man in person at this party last night. Dancing to. I think it was like Wang Chung or something.

 

Louis Virtel All right? And nothing wrong.

 

Ira Madison III Everybody had fun today. It was. The matter is so hot again.

 

Louis Virtel Australia is not messing around. They print out these specimens that are, you know, sun dappled and extraordinary.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So. All right, the Met Gala. First of all, it wasn’t picketed. Interesting because. I think that everyone who has sort of been stalling this whole, Condé Nast union thing was like, oh, maybe we should come to a decision and give these people what they want before they strike at the Met Gala, because I’m sure they were like, given the writers strike. And then the SAG strike, there were plenty of actors and people who probably would not have crossed that picket line.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Oh, certainly. Definitely. But, mostly all the Met Gala regulars showed up. You had Nicole Kidman wearing, I’m going to say, at my least favorite gown she’s ever worn to a Matt gala. Or maybe ever.

 

Ira Madison III Really?

 

Louis Virtel The thrill of the dress was supposed to be. It was kind of full in the front, like it looked kind of pregnant looking. So she had to kind of hold the bump as she walked around. That was her one available pose. I don’t know if sometimes avant garde is avant garde, and that’s what that was to me.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, speaking of pregnancy, Bob, there was Leah. Michelle.

 

Louis Virtel Love her new project. Yeah. Which I can rarely say, you know.

 

Ira Madison III I want to talk about people who I did really enjoy. Before we get into sort of the night. But there’s a day, of course, who always fucking stands on a carpet. I feel like she needs secret sleeping beauties, especially. Is a long nap.

 

Louis Virtel She is out and about and promoted on any continent.

 

Ira Madison III Dude challengers this like in the red carpets. Tired of her.

 

Louis Virtel Right? I and I will say I feel like she’s kind of working at a deficit right now because her look at the Dune premiere, that metallic kind of C-3po sex god outfit, was so spectacular and so state of the art that everything that’s following it now is, you know, pretty and presentable, but not giving me that verve I got from that outfit and her two looks this night. She was she wore two different kind of flowery arrangements, and the first one had a real, black swan sort of makeup presentation. Seemed sort of like standard for her. I didn’t think they were extraordinary.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah I mean the first one was Margiela Couture and then the other one was given she, we’ve seen so many amazing moments like you said from Zendaya. And you know when you get a fabulous moment like Rihanna at the Met Gala, it’s always Rihanna is shutting down the Met Gala and it’s iconic. Right. And present day it’s been girl you’ve been having to give us iconic every other day.

 

Louis Virtel And so simply not that many things can be iconic. It’s just not how the brain works.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I always just love seeing her in general, so I can’t be mad at it.

 

Louis Virtel Can I say something about the Met Gala in general? There’s a category of tweet I cannot stand, and I will read one right now. Every year a bunch of celebrities go to the Met Gala dressed as wind chimes or whatever, and we all tweet incredible while we try to figure out how to get health insurance. Why do people only have revelations like this when like a celebrity event involving women happens? They never have this thought when like the Superbowl is going on, I feel like people are always dressing this condescension towards women getting attention basically as some some important stance when really it’s like, guys, there are plenty more garish corporate middle of pop culture things. Again, I’m gonna bring up the Super Bowl again. People are paid $500 million to catch a ball. You understand that, right? I mean, whereas also it’s like, I get that these are famous celebrities and they’re walking around in pretty dresses, and that’s the thrill for a viewer. It also is art a little bit. There also is something to criticize. There also is some, I don’t know, pleasure beyond mere watching rich people be rich. And I feel like people act really dense about that and want to have a huge point about what are we doing with humanity when there’s all this crap going on in the world. I’m sorry, you need two different brains here. I think prettiness has a place in the world, and I think shaming people for, you know, I don’t, I don’t know, wearing a fancy dress and going out in public. It’s like, so would you prefer that not to exist at all ever? Would that make the world better for you? I just can’t stand that kind of condescension. I think it’s generally a misogynist.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And I mean, speaking of things going on in the world, there’s a lot of interesting outfits on the carpet because a lot of them were, John Galliano.

 

Louis Virtel That’s a problem. Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And, you know, Anna had originally wanted it to be, it was leaked or that they had wanted it to be an exhibition of John Galliano work. But I think if you recall, in 2011, he was fired from Dior for being, a little anti-Semitic. You know what you described saying I love Hitler, and people like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be fucking gassed to a group of Jewish diners at a Paris bistro. Would you consider that anti-Semitic?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, just really ambiguous statement. You have to really interpret it to get to the meeting. They’re unbelievable.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So, I mean, John Galliano designed Kim Kardashian’s dress. You know, a lot of people were sort of once they found out that the intended idea was to sort of honor him in the first place, but then they didn’t do it. A lot of people were just sort of wearing Galliano.

 

Louis Virtel There’s also a lot of people just wearing whatever the fuck they wanted, because I feel like at the Met Gala, people just abandon the theme altogether. They get sick of it. J.Lo just wore a standard, unbelievably silver J.Lo thing, which I kind of applaud when people go off theme and just do their because whatever, like wow us whatever way you can. Like the theme is not necessarily important. I would have liked that she tried a little bit. I don’t know if felt like she could have worn that to anything.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I think that at a certain point, the sort of vibe last night and from people online and from people just sort of at parties that I went to after were, I don’t know, this year felt very, not good in terms of people and their looks. And it’s just sort of, I don’t know, maybe just pick a designer or maybe pick some other theme, like, like camp. That was fun. At least, you know, you got to see people try and attempt camp.

 

Louis Virtel And then you got to scream at them for doing it wrong. That was really exciting. Yeah, lots for us to do. Yeah. I just I felt like in general, this year’s Met Gala felt standard, like what we had seen, we had seen versions of this opulence before. Versions of like people are always kind of wearing floral things. So it didn’t really feel like much of an occasion to center it around that look.

 

Ira Madison III Also, florals for spring.

 

Louis Virtel Exactly. The ground is not broken, shall we say?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it seemed like it could have been a red carpet for anything.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Right, right. I did appreciate how Tyler looked, that I thought was one of the most sumptuous looks of the night. It was just this very form fitting, kind of beige, oatmeal look, and and also, her makeup was just so stunning, too. That was like the appearance of a new celebrity. I also want to say that cola scholar who, fresh off their run in Oh Mary at the, Lortel Theater, is now moving to Broadway. Cole appeared in Just shock. Wyatt looking kind of like a ghost, as in a Scooby Doo episode.

 

Ira Madison III Hahahahahahahaha.

 

Louis Virtel It was exactly right. It was so fabulous. You kept being like, who the fuck is that? Who is who? Who? Has the nerve to wear something like that, and it was somebody who was legitimately exciting. I love when people use the Met Gala to illustrate that there is actually something exciting about them, and not just that they are wearing exciting clothes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, a lot of there’s a lot of people wearing Tom Brown and it can sort of be, okay, we’ve seen this before, but they’ll call really bated their own. Yeah. It was, it was sort of I think you had a tweet about that too. Just sort of we’re used to getting the biggest stars at the Met Gala. But it’s so much fun seeing someone like Cole, who is becoming like, known entity in their own right, just sort of do a turn at the Met Gala. It’s like I could also serve. And you’re serving better than people who should know better.

 

Louis Virtel And who serve for a living, right? So yeah, to show up and and just kind of stand in your space that you’re finally being given and say, well, isn’t this interesting? Again, the fabulous thing about events like this is it is an opportunity to be fascinating. We can be fascinating with you, especially Sarah Jessica Parker, who literally wore a fascinator.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, I don’t think like she pulled that out of the air just like that said.

 

Louis Virtel Right. It felt like she could have gotten married in that outfit in one of the sex in the city movies. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Honestly, the best part of the Met Gala for me is just sort of how it takes over New York. And it’s sort of fun to go to parties afterwards. Obviously, if you’re a big celebrity, you are walking the carpet. That’s sort of the point of going to the Met Gala for be, to be honest. You can buy tickets and plenty of people do. Obviously there’s, you know, business people at other sort of executives and stuff or whatever they have, do tables, etc. there. But I just feel like unless you’re on the carpet, you’re not you’re missing the fun of it. So it’s sort of I like the fact that there are parties and you get invited to them, and then you can go there and like you’re with your friends who are sort of either in whatever industry it sort of feels like. Not sort of feels like Oscar Emmy night in LA, L.A., you know, when there are multiple parties going on and you’re sort of hopping back and forth to them, but these are sort of a little easier to get into in New York if you at least are connected anyway. In nightlife, you know.

 

Louis Virtel I like that it’s a formal occasion, but also it’s about frivolity, too, like like, you know, there’s like always a layer of and you can be subversive or you can be loud or you can be classy, like there’s lots of opportunity to express actual personality.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So I went to the boom boom room where Twitch always has a party. Last year it was Janelle Monae. This year it was FKA twigs hosted, party sponsored by Hennessy. And I was like, I don’t know what this ethereal bitch has to do with Hennessy, right? I loved it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but you fit right in.

 

Ira Madison III And, she was, instead of doing, like, a performance, she had, some would come up, and doing, like, shouts on the mic, and she was basically, like, inviting anybody who knew how to vogue to come down, to the dance floor and vote for her. And she was just dancing, having a fucking great time.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, so Vanessa Hudgens came right up.

 

Ira Madison III It was sneaker night.

 

Louis Virtel Sneaker night as a met gala theme. Please, God, I don’t feel like we have ever really talked about Sneaker Night on this show. Guys, if you do not know this single from Vanessa Hudgens, which is truly a song styled around the fun of wearing sneakers.

 

Ira Madison III Basically what we’re going to do is dance. It’ll come easily when you hear the beat.

 

Louis Virtel Basically as the first word in a chorus. The nerve, the nerve.

 

Ira Madison III The way she starts that song out with the sort of call to arms puts your sneakers on. It’s that is a work of art. Honestly. My favorite memory of Sneaker Night is when we writing in the Q force writers room. I think that Gabe Lieberman had never seen it, so we sort of just stopped the day to watch the Sneaker Night video.

 

Louis Virtel And do you ever really recover from that? It’s such a mind blowing. Like I would say, the vibe of the song is Chester Cheetah in a commercial. That’s. Anyway.

 

Ira Madison III That party was fun. The weird thing about these parties is that basically there were a lot more this year because celebrities loved to, get a check. We’re doing about that. Sure. So there are all these things all over the city. But I went from that. What? That I want to do a lipas party. She had one last year. This year was fun, but this one was really more of a like I said, it was untz vibes. There was sort of fog. So this one, you really couldn’t tell what celebrities were sort of there. I mean, I saw like, Alex Edelman, coming out of the fog, leaving at one point, but he’s at every fucking party.

 

Louis Virtel Also honorary Tony winner. We should congratulate Alex Edelman.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Special. Tony.

 

Louis Virtel I also want to say, I enjoyed the idea of a fog at a party, though, when guests get to act like, you know, Kate Bush whirling in a video, that’s fun. That’s kind of what being a celebrity should be.

 

Ira Madison III But when there’s too much fog at the rave, it doesn’t. It feel a little bit like, like a battlefield in a war movie?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right. It also is slightly giving the coconut grove, like, should I be getting out of this room? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III The best what I went to the was, I was just with our friend Ty Sutherland. And we all ended up at this spa, the Mulberry, and Christian Siriano loves that bar. Some there with him and his boyfriend Kyle. And basically, it just seems like, oh, the night’s over. I’m just there with my friends were hanging out, and then people start arriving. I’m talking high enough. Jeremy Harris, Jodie Turner, Chris Hemsworth.

 

Louis Virtel Jodie Turner looked amazing at the Met Gala.

 

Ira Madison III She looked fucking amazing.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Chris Hemsworth, Matt Damon.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God.

 

Ira Madison III Rita Ora, Taika Waititi. And this was sort of a really fun after party vibe because I feel like, you know what it’s like when you go to, like, one of those big parties and it sort of everyone can be there. And there’s other industry people, and celebrities always feel like someone’s got to come up to me and ask for a photo and be annoying, you know? And this one, I feel like everyone is really just in the vibe of dancing and having fun. And I think that when you have that mix of the parties actually fun and people are just sort of having fun themselves, they’re not busy standing around looking for, oh, who’s there? There were I mean, like I said, I was dancing and didn’t even realize it was him until I turned around and saw this very tall, hot Australian looking back at me.

 

Louis Virtel No. I mean, it’s nice that you can feel chill around people of that caliber, which again, I sort of have to credit to New York City itself. It’s just a quality, I guess I ascribe to that city.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I had an extended conversation with Jody Turner, and she is fucking fantastic, to be honest. Gorgeous. Even more gorgeous that you can imagine in person.

 

Louis Virtel I love her in that movie after Yang, which sort of came and went, it had Colin Farrell in it, but it was sort of an awards contender at the time. People should revisit that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Anyway, basically I. I fucking enjoy the Met Gala, and I think it’s fun, and I think it’s one of the few, like, big moment things like this where it just feels like the point is to be goofy and the point is the frivolous ness, you know? So just like, lean into it and.

 

Louis Virtel There’s no formal winners so you can have just fun with it. It’s not like the Oscars where you’re waiting, you know, am I the best, am I not, etc..

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, there are no speeches. Yeah. Or if there are, I don’t know. And it’s probably talk to him. Well.

 

Louis Virtel When you’re serving Bob, you’re often serving a speech to.

 

Ira Madison III All right. When we’re back, keep it. And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. It is. Keep it. Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III What’s yours?

 

Louis Virtel I watched this Anne Hathaway movie. The idea of you over the weekend with Nicholas. Let’s see. And she plays a woman who just celebrates her 40th birthday, and she ends up falling in love with this pop star. Her daughter was once obsessed with it is now basically too old to care about. And they meet at Coachella. Here’s what’s interesting about this movie Anne Hathaway is fabulous in it, which is not exactly novel. She’s an awesome actress, but I want to say in this era of any anyone but you being this breakout sensation, I feel like people really want a return to form for the rom com. And I think what we really need is to keep the ROM and keep it to the com, because there is no comedy in this movie. Basically, it’s it’s like a kind of sad ish romantic drama that takes place in LA, and I really liked it better that way. If there was a lot to sink your teeth into. All I can say is it’s a really adult movie that is also very light, and I feel like that’s a really rare combination nowadays. You know, maybe in the 90s you would get romantic movies like that, but it felt like a specific throwback, and there’s just no sideshow comedy to distract you from what’s happening. Like when I think of anyone but you. The two leads, I guess, did have some good chemistry, but really, there was such broad comedy stunts going on that were just not savory like half that movie could have had the America’s Funniest Home Videos theme playing behind it, you know? Oh, we got dropped in the water. Oh, you’re naked and have a leech on you or whatever. You know, it was just way too broad. Whereas in this obviously to me, I would still describe it as a light movie. Like if you’re watching at home, it’s a movie where every once in a while you stop vacuuming and keep and look even harder at the screen. But it’s just it’s a pleasant movie and that the stakes are just this relationship. It’s not, you know, it’s not a pretentious movie in any way. And I really enjoyed it. Like, it also felt kind of real to me, and that I feel like a 40 year old woman could get into a relationship with a 20 something person, be sort of not not care about the celebrity he’s acquired or like the mania around him, and just be navigating her emotions in regards to who he actually is. It felt real to me. I was I was really pleased with this movie.

 

Ira Madison III I really liked this movie a lot too, and I felt that I also was glad that it was not giving rom com, which by the way, I need everyone online to just sort of learn what a rom com is, right? Because not everything with romance in it is a romantic comedy.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, and also it’s like the thing we really are longing for in terms of rom coms is something almost specifically that Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers brought, which is the comedy is about the witty dialog. It’s not about, oh, we drove this car off a mountain. Oops. Or whatever happens in anyone but you.

 

Ira Madison III Even. What do you think of my best friend’s wedding?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, stealing the truck at the end or whatever like that is as wacky as things sort of get, you know, there there aren’t all these stupid gags, like the jokes in rom coms used to be the characters.

 

Louis Virtel Totally. Yes. It was a character based movie. I will say in My Best Friend’s Wedding, that character should go to jail because she was breaking into computers and it was a bit too far.

 

Ira Madison III She was definitely like Sammy Brady from Days of Our Lives. She was she some manipulative bitch.

 

Louis Virtel Holding, holding a gigantic smile as she breaks into a mainframe.

 

Ira Madison III We did more movies like that again. Give us, give us movies where the character is fun and likable, but also this bitch is crazy.

 

Louis Virtel No, right. Drawn into psychosis by the love of man. That I understand.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. This movie, by the way, Idea of you was produced by Gabrielle Union.

 

Louis Virtel Friend to Keep It.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Love her. This movie is fucking great. Michael Showalter directed it.

 

Louis Virtel He did direct the best actress winning The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

 

Ira Madison III Jennifer Westfeldt wrote the screenplay.

 

Louis Virtel That was on my mind the entire time because Jennifer Westfeldt, who is a Tony nominated actress, and she wrote the movie Kissing Jessica Stein. If I’m not mistaken, she is the ex-wife of Jon Hamm. And in this movie, this woman, who is now in her 40s, talks about a difficult breakup with a guy who seems like a douchebag, all things considered. Anyway, I felt like it was promo for the fact that Jon Hamm might suck a little bit. I have no idea.

 

Ira Madison III Also, I did not realize until maybe halfway through the movie that that was the actor from Veep.

 

Louis Virtel Reed Scott, whom I love. Yeah, he’s great on Veep. Yeah, he’s one of those people that never got an Emmy nomination for Veep. And I think the reason is too many other people were getting nominated, but he would have been worthy. He was always so funny on that show.

 

Ira Madison III It’s also, by the way, based on this book written by, actress Robin Lee, who starred with Gabrielle Union in the movie Deliver Us From evil. In 2003. So a sort of a reunion for both of them.

 

Louis Virtel Look at all the IMDb thing we have done just on this one movie alone. Jesus. This is the work we put into our podcast.

 

Ira Madison III These are these are the things you need to be thinking about when they’re watching movies, by the way, because I know you have been playing cinema tricks on vulture.

 

Louis Virtel It is a disease.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah it is. I love that game. That it is. If you haven’t played this game, there’s like a grid where you get three actors and then there are three categories that you sort of have to fill out. If you go to even today’s, the actors are Paul Dano, Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Thomas Anderson, director. And then it’s Oscar nominated Best Picture. Which of them? Release date 2005 to 2014 and two work title.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s so fun.

 

Ira Madison III And the fun thing about this game is you get higher points. If you get a movie for one of the categories that, a lower percentage of people playing the game have picked.

 

Louis Virtel Which, by the way, reminds me, I like to play this game midway through the day when more people have already played. So you’re actually going up against like, the correct percentages of people like the Family Feud survey has been filled out, so to speak.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. If you do it in the morning, you’re basically competing with no one.

 

Louis Virtel Or like or like the most zealous people who know everything about movies.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And, it is really fun to sort of test your knowledge of, do I remember, like an obscure movie of someone’s from like 2000 to 2009, instead of just, like, picking the first movie that comes to mind.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Like a two word Paul Thomas Anderson movie would be Hard Eight, starring the wonderful Gwyneth Paltrow.

 

Ira Madison III And what what were like the two movies you mentioned online where you said, people need to remember these because every actress in these movies.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, this. Yes. What’s great about this game is you get to use movies like Woody Allen’s Celebrity, which has every celebrity like Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron. It goes on and on. And therefore, when you need an obscure answer, you can really use it in that case. Or like the player movies with just a gigantic cast that maybe not everybody remembers well.

 

Ira Madison III I’m still waiting to use Lions for lambs, a movie that I’ve never actually seen, but I’ve always been obsessed with the title and the poster for it from 2007. And our guest, Sarayu Blue is in it.

 

Louis Virtel I’m always interested in the weird morass that was 2000, Meryl. She was in some of these amazing movies and then, like strange movies, she took every project.

 

Ira Madison III This cast has Robert Redford, Tom cruise, Meryl Streep, Andrew Garfield, Michael Pena, Derek Luke, Peter Berg. What’s going on here?

 

Louis Virtel Just everybody. Yeah, it’s a party. And Ira, what is your Keep It this week?

 

Ira Madison III It is with a very heavy heart that I deliver this. Keep it. Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no.

 

Ira Madison III This Keep It is to a friend of the pod.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God.

 

Ira Madison III We love her work. But Zadie Smith.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, a fabulous writer, generally speaking.

 

Ira Madison III Zadie Smith penned an essay for The New Yorker, titled War in Gaza, Shibboleths on Campus. And it was basically about the, you know, sort of outbreak of protests that have been happening across campuses in America, about Palestine and Gaza. And first of all, there’s been a lot of talk about her fiction versus her nonfiction. And I feel like when she’s in the nonfiction sphere, it’s a little very verbose and hard to weed her way through. But the crux of this was basically when you’re students and you’re putting, you know, things onto cardboard when you’re holding up signs or whatever, like those are essentially weapons of mass destruction confusion. Basically, it’s we’re sort of in this weird point now where I feel like a lot of people are critiquing just the act of students protesting and saying things and having public political opinions, in a way that feels very, I don’t know, ahistorical to me.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, I’m sorry to say that when Bernie Sanders spoke up and said, you know, you’re doing great. Keep going. I was relieved to hear someone say that, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. As this thing that happens with I mean, it happened with, happened with Ferguson, you know, it happened with, in 2020 with those protests. It’s just there’s always something where protest sort of happened and it’s younger people protesting, and each time it’s sort of like memento, we get amnesia and there’s people, there are pundits hopping on line, or other politicians, and there are people on CNN or whatever going, what are these people doing? And that’s not the right way to protest. You know, you go stand in this free speech area where it’s better for you to say what you actually want to say, but, like, do it where we can’t hear it and don’t disrupt things. And it’s, do you fucking know what protest is for?

 

Louis Virtel And also, it feels very crazy to generalize all protesters. That this thing with the same sort of sentiments or whatever, you know, and I felt like a lot of this dialog is getting away from why people are protesting, which is a lot about divesting university funds away from things that fund Israel, etc.. You know, the coverage of this I have found to be mind blowing and disorienting and saddening.

 

Ira Madison III Overblown.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Overblown coverage of this when there’s so much other shit happening.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, absolutely.

 

Ira Madison III It’s just it’s. I hate when, like, the news goes, like, latches onto something that’s very sensationalist and it’s, we’re going to cover this, like, front to back all fucking day. And it’s, this is like a fraction of actually what you should really be reporting about. And just on the Zadie Smith tip, it’s just it always feels weird to be when someone who’s sort of, I don’t want to use the word like elites, you know, but it’s like someone who was so far removed from what is actually happening. Writing about it just feels so navel gazing.

 

Louis Virtel I would like to hear personally more from people entrenched in it. Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And I get that you maybe have an opinion on it, but do we need to hear it?

 

Louis Virtel I felt that way about half of the tortured poets department, you know, like maybe there’s a song she had to write, but I don’t know that they needed to be received necessarily.

 

Ira Madison III You know what? Did Dua Lipa have to write? Radical optimism.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t know. You know, she had like 150 tracks ready to go, and these are the 11 she picked. It’s just surprising. I’m surprised she picked this.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but you know what? Maybe once summer hits, maybe this is like, she just like to travel. Yes. This is music for my daughter. And I’ve never been in America. But once I get there, maybe I’ll love it.

 

Louis Virtel The song Falling Forever, that is sort of like the best of Eurovision. It’s as good as Eurovision can be. Which, as you know, is a B-minus.

 

Ira Madison III She’s headlining Glastonbury, so.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, that’s. I’m excited for that. Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m sure there’ll be a lot of flags.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, absolutely.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Anyway, that’s our show this week. I covered a lot.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No kidding from Dua and then back to Dua.

 

Ira Madison III Well thank you to Sarayu Blue for joining us. That was so much fun.

 

Louis Virtel What a fabulous woman.

 

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

 

Louis Virtel Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are Chris Lord and C.J. “Seige” Polkinghorne are executive producers are Ira Madison, the Third, Louis Virtel, and Kendra James. Our digital team as Megan Patsel, Claudia Shang, and Rachel Gaieski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to Matt DeGroot, David Toles, Kyle Glenn, and Charlotte Landes for production support every week.