In This Episode
Louis Virtel [AD].
Louis Virtel And we’re back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Louis Virtel, the Oscars are upon us, and yet we have so much other pop culture to cover, which is so inconvenient for me, someone who would rather just talk about, you know, Olympia Dukakis, but we’re gonna get into actual pop culture of 2026. And I had this wild idea, what if we did it with Nina Parker?
Nina Parker Well, I mean you might as well
Louis Virtel Okay, yeah. You might as well. Make it a good time.
Nina Parker I feel like.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Nina Parker I think so.
Louis Virtel Chic, light-hearted, sophisticated.
Nina Parker I think, so listen, you gotta give the people what they want.
Louis Virtel Okay, well, that’s exactly what’s about to occur. Okay. Well on today’s episode We’re also interviewing the fabulous Alessandro Nivola who plays Calvin Klein on FX or Hulu’s love story the newest Ryan Murphy joint.
Nina Parker In a brilliant way.
Louis Virtel Yes, no. Also, he appears on screen and you’re like, that is Calvin Klein.
Nina Parker No, for sure, I was like, wait a minute now, did they get the real Calvin for this? And they just put the, you know, they put the little, the AI CGI that makes you look young, but it’s the real person.
Louis Virtel The Coachella hologram or whatever they do.
Nina Parker He did a great job.
Louis Virtel Yeah, no, he is fabulous on the show. Of course, he’s also married to the fabulous Emily Mortimer. Of course his son is the fabulous Sam Navola from White Lotus. But we want to talk about this show in general, since by the way, it seems like the world has wanted a heated rivalry-like obsession since heated rivalry. And I feel like this has taken the mantle for certain people, just because, well, a couple of things. One, people just want the grand romance, and it’s a romance they’ve heard of. They remember the pictures of JFK Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. But two… I mean, it’s like people want there to be a depth of romance on television again, you know?
Nina Parker Yeah, I agree. I just, I don’t know, this has made me incredibly sad. I’m sad the whole time watching it. And then I’m also, like, I was up till 2 a.m. Googling everything about these two. It was, it was sick. I was like, am deep dying. I was Googling her, her sister, the mama, the family. I’m too invested and I don’t know if I’m gonna finish it. Because it’s really sad.
Louis Virtel Oh, yeah, it is really sad. And also additionally, you know, it’s the kind of thing where I feel like I’m gonna go to the Wikipedia and find out 5,000 things aren’t true. Because this is a recipe for what Ryan Murphy does. I’m going to say, I don’t know about best, but the most, which is it’s a story people know, but the lore isn’t that famous. Like we only really know pictures of them fighting.
Nina Parker Right.
Louis Virtel So can we expand that into a television series?
Nina Parker And we don’t know, you know, the Kennedys are incredibly private and Carolyn’s family is incredibly private. So these like interworking conversations, a lot of us don’t really know. So we know he’s just kind of taking it and the problem is people are taking what they’re seeing with Ryan and I’m assuming that it’s true. And that is where we get a lot this fallout with, you now, the real people who are still here.
Louis Virtel Yes, right, Ryan is, as we used to say, wilding, okay? And on the show, I still say that. One of the people who has reached out to the world to say this is not how I am in real life is the very famous actress, Darryl Hannah, played in this show by a daughter of Mariel Hemingway, and I was just thinking about her, because if you haven’t seen the movie Star 80 with scary Eric Roberts, Go ahead and watch it. One of Bob Fosse’s low-key best, anyway. But on this show, Darryl Hannah, who is the person JFK dated before Carolyn Bessette, I mean, there’s no other way to put it. She is characterized in this show as a huge, crazy bimbo.
Nina Parker I have to say, Ryan must have big bodyguards because he would get all the smoke from me. If I’m still here and you do a movie and you depict me in a way that was completely untrue or at least you didn’t even call me, you won’t have to see me.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Nina Parker You don’t have to see me. And I don’t mean face-to-face, we might knuckle up.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Nina Parker Okay, it’s like, you’re not afraid to run it into her or like, of course we know he’s not gonna be able to be sued because, you know, he puts the disclaimer that this is fiction. Yeah, it is all fictionalized, whatever, yeah. But like, listen, let me just deep dive really quick to the people who’ve watched the show and know a little bit of the background. So famously, we know that he was in this relationship with Darryl Hannah and her dog was killed under his care. The dog went into traffic and was hit, unfortunately. And this is all real facts. We know that she was devastated and we know that they were in LA and we knew that his mother was dying from cancer and he was in LA. I don’t know if it was for the funeral, but he was LA. And they say that’s one of the biggest reasons of the breakup is that he had to go to LA for this funeral with her dog and he upset and there were firsthand accounts of friends hearing him say, why am I dealing with this dog funeral when my mom is dying? And so, they kind of took that and ran. And so you know, it don’t look good, Federa. But we don’t know the facts. We don’t if he volunteered. Like, we don’t know how this really transpired in real life. But these little footnotes that we’re getting doesn’t look great.
Louis Virtel Yeah. And also we know very little about Daryl Hannah. I just want to say in real life too, you know, like she’s with Neil Young has been for a number of years. There was a moment where she lived in a tree or something. But other than that, it’s like she was in the splash. She was in Steel Magnolias. She was a clan of the cave bear. And otherwise- Oh my God. You just threw me back. Oh, please, please.
Nina Parker She was in the- she was a cavewoman, you’re right!
Louis Virtel To the right.
Nina Parker That’s how I first was introduced to her as a child.
Louis Virtel That was like a big moment, yeah. And Darrell Hannah just wrote a New York Times editorial, which by the way is not embellished in any way. She’s just saying, this is not true about me. I never throw through cocaine ragers. She goes through lists of things in the TV show and how they don’t apply to her. But it’s the kind of thing that makes me feel extra bad because honestly, who is out here defending Darryl Hannah? You know, like, she’s like kind of this actress who’s always been around, like she’s not really like prestige-y, she’s somebody who inspires stans really. So it’s sort of like she was an easy target. And also. So it’s sort of like she was an easy target.
Nina Parker And also, like, pretty unproblematic. Like, they’re all in trees playing mermaids. Like, how you gonna pick on a fairy princess? Like, you know what I mean? I feel like she’s been pretty un-problematic, I think if there was signs that she was this raging, crazy person, we would have heard more stories about this. And maybe because this was in, you know, the 80s and 90s. It’s not easy to document this stuff. All we have is hearsay. Cause it’s not like we could scroll back on her Instagram and see, you know, she, Oh girl, you did have that party in Hollywood hills. Nobody can say, and we also don’t know if she’s telling the truth, right?
Louis Virtel Right, technically, yes.
Nina Parker We don’t know
Louis Virtel I assume if she reaches out and goes to this degree, there must be some truth to it. But yeah, I see. I agree.
Nina Parker I agree. I just think it’s tricky and, you know, I think Ryan Murphy has become quite the Hollywood villain. Sure. You know, like people have very strong opinions about him. They either, I feel like you’re not in the middle with him. You either like him or you hate him.
Louis Virtel Well, also the thing about him is the thing I’m accusing him of, which is like running with kind of a made-up story based on sort of real events that are sort of, but real people is that sometimes that can be good. Like his Versace show, there’s no doubt in my mind that almost none of that is real. But like the story that is told via Andrew Cunanan, the Jenny Versace’s assassin. Is very interesting. And we got a fabulous performance from Darren Criss, lots of people on that show. Judith Light has a one episode appearance on that shows that is fabulous. But this show, you’re watching it, and again, you get great performances again. Like Sarah Pigeon on this show who I know mainly from Stereophonic, the play on Broadway, the fictionalized version of Fleetwood Mac, is very good here and often has very little to do. Like sometimes a hair flip and just a sideways comment puts you you feel like you’re meeting Carolyn Bessette sometimes. And I feel like that’s sort of what’s captured people’s imaginations here, why people care about it. And I just want to say that no matter what you think of this love story, it cannot be any worse than the actual movie love story starring Ryan O’Neill and Allie McGraw, which don’t ever let a fucking Gen X or Baby Boomer tell you things were universally better once upon a time. That is the worst piece of shit you will ever see. And I love Allie McGrath’s center part.
Nina Parker I haven’t seen it as an adult, you know, this was something like, I remember my mom had the book. Yeah. Eric Sagal. And so, and we, the movie would play as I was a kid, but I don’t think as an adult I’ve actually watched it.
Louis Virtel No, there are two people who refer to each other as preppy and bitch, and you’re supposed to be endeared by that. And then they’re like, okay, well, it’s been 15 minutes, what about leukemia? And then she gets it.
Nina Parker You’re right, though. You’re right. The Ryan Murphy of it all is it’s, you know, it’s tricky because I do feel like, you know. Maybe he feels like my loyalty is to my viewers, not to actors, not which in a way is kind of the climate of the world, right? Like I feel like people are very anti-famous right now, anti-celebrity. So this really plays to what people seem to really enjoy the show.
Louis Virtel What do you think is the best thing Ryan Murphy’s ever done?
Nina Parker I mean, I really love the OJ Simpsons.
Louis Virtel I think that has to be the correct answer. And by the way, I want to say about Glee, every character on that show is specific to that show and one of a kind. I think just the characters on that show alone are worth praise, but I think the O.J. Thing, per performance, per performance. Episode per episode is the best thing he’s ever.
Nina Parker I watched it twice. I was just enamored with it. I was obsessed with it, so I thought it was really well done. I don’t think I’m gonna finish Love Story. I’m just too sad about it. It’s not even that I don’t think it’s good. I actually think it’ good. But a part of me is conflicted watching, especially now after, like, the Darryl Hannah of it all, because I was kind of putting it off while I watched other things, and then I started to watch it, and I was like, this just, first of all, it just is making me depressed. But also, you know, I feel like I’m a participant in hurting somebody.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right, including Naomi Watts. Is she supposed to be doing this accent as Jackie O? It’s like, you know what? It’s kind of good. Is it? It’s just not giving joy. And of course I know the woman is dying on the show, but it’s just, I expect a little vigor from my Jackie O performance.
Nina Parker First of all, I love Naomi. I love her. I love her.
Louis Virtel The Impossible, 21 grams, Mulholland Dry, we can go back and back. Actually those are the three hits, go ahead.
Nina Parker This is, sometimes I feel like actors are like, you know I’m good, girl, so if I’m not good in this one, just… Because we never talk about Viola Davis playing Michelle Obama. We’re just pretending it didn’t happen. Oh, my gosh. Right. Everybody has those little throwaway performances where I don’t think they go in with it, but I think at some point, maybe it’s the direction, whatever, but this is a throwaway performance because it’s like, this is, I’ve seen what you can do, so what is this?
Louis Virtel I hope they actually just whisper to like the director like this is one of my throwaways, you know, I get one every five years
Nina Parker Listen, we all, everybody’s dealing with burnout. Yeah. So if you don’t want to show up as your whole self Naomi, I understand.
Louis Virtel Yeah, because she was good on the Capote versus the Swans.
Nina Parker That’s what I’m saying. We know what you can do, so if you’re not doing it, there’s a reason. It’s either the director or you just overhear, you’re like, I’m just here so I don’t get fined.
Speaker 3 You’re right.
Nina Parker You know? Because sometimes, listen, sometimes we call it in. Actors are not exempt from this. Your favorite actor has a throwaway project.
Louis Virtel Right. And another project they’re thinking more about.
Nina Parker Let’s talk about Anne Hathaway on Havoc.
Louis Virtel Oh, please. Well, also, Anne Hather, can we just say something about her quickly? She hasn’t been nominated for a single award since Les Miserables, you know, when she like swept that award season. And I’m like, you’re one of our esteemed people. You know, you should be on the Amy Adams treadmill doing like, you know the awardee performances. Come back to us, Anne Hathaway.
Nina Parker I don’t know that whole run though. I think she was really exhausted. You remember that press run from was not the greatest with her.
No, I’m surprised she wasn’t assassinated.
Nina Parker Ha haha ha aaaah.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Nina Parker We were cruel to Anne Hathaway. I have to say, I disliked her very much for a really long time. You know how you have those celebrities where they’ve done nothing?
Louis Virtel Right.
Nina Parker But you just don’t like them?
Louis Virtel And they just exist in front of us too much.
Nina Parker And there’s just, I think everybody has a celebrity nemesis that they hate, but with no reason to, there’s no controversy. You just hate them and you feel bad, but you’re like, every time I see them, I start itching. And half the way was that, not anymore, but for a good decade, she was my nemeses. She didn’t know it.
Louis Virtel But I feel like the tide turned. Now she posts Instagram, and her hair is, you know, long and fabulous, and she has a sort of savoir-faire.
Nina Parker I don’t know who swooped in and took her place for me. Dakota Johnson.
Louis Virtel Wow, so interesting, even though she, you know, owned Ellen that one time. She did, despite that. Okay, still.
Nina Parker She’s on the list. I actually like Dakota Johnson’s interviews.
Louis Virtel Oh, I mean, I think she’s hilarious.
Nina Parker I just don’t like her acting.
Louis Virtel Well, some people are more vibe than range, you know, the Winona Riders, shall we say.
Nina Parker Oh, you’re going somewhere. Yeah.
Louis Virtel Yeah, but I think it’s important like we need by the people, you know
Nina Parker No, we talked about this with music, you know, so I agree and you know there are just some people and again, it’s not your skill, it is not you, I’m that for some people I’m sure. You know what I mean? Oh no please. We’re all that to somebody. Some of y’all this to your neighbors. Right. You know, you’re family members. They hate you for no reason. We all know what it feels like.
Louis Virtel No, think about who your imaginary enemies are. Like, both ways. You know, like, I hate that person, they’ll never know. And, you know, it’s like…
Nina Parker Let me look around and find the people. But they feel like a nemesis, like when you see them, you get the little, you get their little like goosebumps, like urgh.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right.
Nina Parker Yes. We all have it, I think.
Louis Virtel Yeah. I feel like I should have a better answer for you. Somebody who really grinds my gear. Somebody who just grinds your gear. No, I mean like certain social media people do, but like that’s not the same thing.
Nina Parker No, no, it has to be like an actor.
Louis Virtel Well, I’ll fucking say this. Say it. I just watched an old movie called White Hunter, Black Heart, which is based on an old Hollywood memoir, and it’s about John Huston filming the African queen and how he was like this macho guy who like, when he wasn’t filming, would like shoot animals. Anyway, like big macho guys, whatever. Clint Eastwood plays this person. How many fucking times did we let him just get on the screen and like… Mumble backwards to himself girl. It’s not acting and then two years later He gets to be an unforget make unforgiven and get nominated for a best actor Oscar and also by the way you suck He sucks remember when he was yelling at the chair. Oh, I remember it pretty well. And also it’s like so you’re a sketch comic now What? You on laughing get out of Joanne Worley’s bag
Nina Parker He was literally like the old man yelling at the clouds. I was like, okay, there’s a chair here.
Louis Virtel Except he didn’t even have the range for the clouds, he’s like, I have to yell right in front of me.
Nina Parker This is a good one for you.
Louis Virtel Yeah, I’m going to keep that. And also, of course, you know, he’s still with us. So I hope you’re doing well, Clint, but you know. How old is he? So mad. I’m so mad. No, no shade. Like 95, 96.
Nina Parker No!
Louis Virtel Yes. No.
Nina Parker That’s a long time.
Louis Virtel No, and he’d been making movies recently, too.
Nina Parker What?
Louis Virtel I remember when he made J. Edgar. Girl…
Nina Parker Oh, my gosh.
Louis Virtel Stay out of gay people’s business.
Nina Parker Ha-ha-ha!
Louis Virtel Bastards.
Nina Parker Facts! Okay. Well, I’m glad I brought this out of you. Me too. Oh my god. Do you feel better? Therapy over. I feel like you’re glowing. I think you feel better. And we haven’t even started the episode.
Louis Virtel As I mentioned, we have Alessandro Nivola here talking about a love story. We’re also gonna talk about the new Harry Styles album and just what we think of him in general. It’s time to check in. We’re getting back to Harry’s house. He left us a key, okay? So we’ll do all that right when we’re back on Keep It.
Louis Virtel [AD] .
Louis Virtel Harry Styles is back on the airwaves with his new album, Kiss All the Time Disco Occasionally. How cheeky. He makes his return to our ears after a period of soul searching in Italy and Berlin where he apparently realized the key to happiness is run more marathons? Nina, let’s start with your initial takeaways from the lead single, Aperture. What’d you think about?
Nina Parker I mean, okay, so I’ll say this, my take is, I’m not a big Harry Styles fan, but I’m against Harry Styles. I think we talked about a couple of weeks ago how you were saying you age out of things.
Louis Virtel Oh, please. I do it every day.
Nina Parker When One Direction came out, I was like, I’m way too old for this. So I didn’t even give it a try. So when he branched out, I just kind of had that same, you know, feeling. So when had these big singles, obviously I would listen, but I never have been like a huge Harry Styles fan, but I will say it’s very, it’s fine. My feeling about the album is it’s find. I really enjoyed like the first song and the last two were amazing. Like Carla’s song, like I really felt like,
Louis Virtel That was a little danceable, yeah.
Nina Parker Yeah, I felt like he was, I was like, oh, we just getting into it and you ended? Yes. The end of the album was better for me than the beginning, but it was a bop. I mean, it was low-key bop
Louis Virtel Yeah. I think he did himself a disservice by putting disco in the title, because that is often the last thing you’re getting on this album. And in fact, when you listen to his last album, Harry’s House, which won the Grammy for album of the year, rather controversially over Beyoncé, you get more disco on that in the first five minutes of that album. Whereas disco, to me, gets you out of your seat, and this puts me into a vibrating chair at Sears.
Nina Parker Does this not feel like a road trip type of, like you would listen to this?
Louis Virtel I said it’s like a night drive album.
Nina Parker I was going to say on my way to Palm Springs, I would listen to this.
Louis Virtel By the way, I love that drive. Yeah, me too. Let me just put on the hits of the 60s. Dusty Springfield, let’s go.
Nina Parker It’s a little therapeutic.
Louis Virtel Yes.
Nina Parker You know, once you get out of L.A.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. It’s very therapeutic. And then you passed that beautiful mall. Yes, exactly. Passed.
Nina Parker Pass them all, baby, I’ll stop.
Louis Virtel Yo, please, so yeah, we can get into that some other time. But yes, on this album, you know, I like certain songs of his and going back to One Direction, like What Makes You Beautiful, fine. Couldn’t be sung by anybody, but great. I have to say, my actual karaoke song is the One Directions, it’s a single, but sort of underrated, Night Changes. And I choose that song because it has no range whatsoever, I can stay right here. You know how like Iman talks, that’s how I sing. Just right down here.
Nina Parker You need those, you know, interestingly enough, my karaoke song is Bodak Yellow, but.
Louis Virtel Oh, exactly. Oh no, also women in rap, also I can do. Yes!
Nina Parker Yes, so I agree with you, like, you don’t need a lot of range to do this, but you know, I think, I think I’ve talked about this before, people want to, if people like you, they’ll be like, okay, fine. And I like Harry Styles. Yeah. I’m not a Harry Styles fan, but I like him.
Louis Virtel It’s also like, what is your thing actually? Like, he’s always dressed kind of cool. He looks like Mick Jagger, but I don’t really know what he stands for other than like, we all kind of want to have a good time, but I’m not gonna be super ebullient about it either. By the way, also, I have to go back to the word disco for a second. Can we stop changing the meaning of this word?
Nina Parker I don’t even know honestly what disco means in 2026.
Louis Virtel You know who I blame? Dua Lipa, because she had that album, Future Nostalgia, which is good, and a disco revival album, but also sleepy, right? Like she’s not moving too fast. And then we had people like Jessie Ware come back with a disco-tinged album, but that was also sort of more candles and incense than really like sweaty dance floor vibe.
Nina Parker Like, do it or don’t do it.
Louis Virtel Yes, right. Get off the pop. To me, a great disco revival song is Who Do You Think You Are by Spice Girls. We are up on that song. You are leaping in the air.
Nina Parker Isn’t disco supposed to be energy? Like it’s supposed to give you energy. I mean, let’s be honest, people were doing disco because they was doing drugs.
Louis Virtel Yes. You know what I mean? And I keep hearing they were better.
Nina Parker If I don’t want to do a little drugs, listening to this, I don’t think it’s disco. A little drugs. You know, just a little bit, but I feel like I want to, I’ve got to want to light up or something if I’m like, you know what, this song makes me want to get a little, you know, get a lil’ joint or something. Right, right. And if I don’t feel like that, then maybe it’s not the, maybe it’s not really disco.
Louis Virtel It’s just so light. And also on this album, it’s like, there are a couple songs where there’s like a little, a little rumbling of a dance floor, but for the most part, like even his voice doesn’t come out of the mix enough. It’s like all sort of like mixed together in a kind of like, I’m going to say meditative sort of sound. It’s very polite. Yes, yeah.
Nina Parker It’s a polite album. I mean, listen, it’s not gonna… And it doesn’t sound bad. Right.
Louis Virtel Like, every noise I hear is pleasant. But this album also sets a record for most times I forgot it was on. Listen, let me tell you something.
Nina Parker I was listening to it as I was like cooking and I listened a few times just like while I was getting ready and I was Like, oh, this is the next song
Louis Virtel Yeah, right.
Nina Parker You know, and like I said, it’s fine and if you’re a Harry Styles fan, you’re not gonna have a problem with it. But I will say, I don’t know if it would bring someone new to the fold. No, no, no. It didn’t capture me. I’m gonna be honest, I like three songs.
Louis Virtel I think I like about three songs too, just none of the melodies call attention to themselves, you know? Like it’s not, like the last album has like pop hooks galore, you know.
Nina Parker Yes. Yeah. It feels a little more mature, but safe.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Nina Parker And I’m kind of tired of safe. I would have rather disliked it for being too much than it to be just so safe. Yeah, right. You know, in a way.
Louis Virtel Because I’m kind of respecting recently. Have you heard the bizarro robin song sexistential?
Nina Parker I have not.
Louis Virtel Okay, Robin, I have to say, is not really my jam. It’s a little too alt for me. I can’t explain that. Yeah. Maybe I’m like anti Scandinavians. I have no idea. It’s this song where she is almost rapping and the rap is like, I don’t know if you should be rapping, Robin, but at the same time, it’s a big swing. And so I’m remembering it. And because of that, I actually had to listen to it a few more times.
Nina Parker See, I like that. I mean, I kind of like, is you know the meme where the girl drinks the drink and she doesn’t know if she likes it. And she’s like, mm. Yes, a lot of that. I love an album where I have to listen to it a few times. So I’m like, I didn’t like it. Now I love it. Yeah. I don’t know if this will get a ton of replay from me.
Louis Virtel No, it also feels like maybe he overproduced it, like listened to it too much, and now it’s sort of just this grayish oatmeal blend. Whereas you don’t have the sense that there’s an urgency to get out any one of these tracks. Do you have a favorite disco-tinged music that has come out since the main disco era, post Donna Summer, post Bee Gees? And by the way, I just want to say about them. Harry Styles, I have faith in you as a disco artist because when the Bee Geas came out and were straight white men and said, We’re going to do this really well. It was a hostile takeover, but girl, did they do it.
Nina Parker Damn it. If you’re gonna do it, you better take it.
Louis Virtel Yes. You better take the crown. They called the tragedy for a reason. They’re like, we know we don’t belong.
Nina Parker You know what? It was hard for me because my parents listened, they were playing Donna Summer and things in the house. So there was a very high bar. And when a new artist would come out, my parents were like, who the hell is this? So I think it almost shifted me to be like, if it’s not old school, then I’m just listening to something completely opposite because I could never warm up to these new artists because my parent’s were not having it. They were like who is this, uh-uh. So even when Beyonce, I don’t know, would we say that that was disco?
Louis Virtel As in, are you talking about, like, her self-titled, like blow or something? Yeah, like…
Nina Parker Yeah, like, I mean, this is like, you know, the whole era of, like…
Louis Virtel Oh, oh, Single Ladies, that’s not Disco. No, no, I think that’s just Dance Pop, I Think.
Nina Parker Yeah, but I guess for me I don’t really know the difference between dance pop and and disco if I’m talking about newer artists
Louis Virtel Yeah, I mean, literally disco just it has to remind me of like artists from the seven Like it has remind me if she or whatever makes you want to do a little dress that also. Yes Also, it’s like you know what artists today don’t like I don’t think they’re capable of making disco for the most part because people Are not uninhibited that music is uninhibiting. Yeah, you know when you hear um, Cheryl Lynn saying got to be real It’s like she is channeling something from within and with and it’s flying through
Nina Parker And also, originality is suffering right now. So, you know, people basically say music isn’t good right now because the artists aren’t artising like they used to, right?
Louis Virtel And they’re trying to blend together. They want to be a part of an algorithm, you know? So it’s all a little microwave.
Nina Parker It’s all Microwavey and then Tik Tok-y. It’s a weird, and I told you before, like a lot of times I keep just the old music playing and I won’t know who a lot of new artists are because I’m not impressed by it.
Louis Virtel No, it’s like the most MAGA thing about me. Like, well, I’m playing Carly Simon again.
Nina Parker Oh my God!
Louis Virtel Ahhh!
Nina Parker I’m glad you told me that. Yeah. Yeah, I’m just the same way. So I don’t know if I get in your car when I’m in here.
Louis Virtel Who is your favorite, I’ll say survivor, of a boy band or girl group? Ooh, good question. Obviously, you just mentioned Beyonce.
Nina Parker I mean…
Louis Virtel Let’s accept her from the conversation.
Nina Parker We have to put her to the side, because I feel like there are young kids who didn’t even know that there was a Destiny’s Child. I’ve been seeing this on Instagram where they’re like, oh, that’s Beyonce, and they didn’t know she was in a group. Well, this is my job.
Louis Virtel Well, this is my Joker origin story. How do you not fucking know that?
Nina Parker I don’t know if you’ve seen these, I literally have to put my phone down. They go to these college campuses and they ask, recently, there was one, we’re going to get into this. I’m sorry. I’m going to be retiring. You’re going to actually be mad. I can’t stand this. You’re gonna get livid. They had a picture. I actually am getting mad talking about this. Okay, no. They had picture of Whitney Houston. Help me. On a college campus. I mean, these kids are 18, 19, 20. Oh, sure. And said, who is this? And not. One person knew that it was when he said… And granted, it was a picture of her from the 80s, but it was very popular picture of here in the 80’s. One of her more popular decades. It was like, exactly. I mean, this was before Bobby. You know, like she was very recognizable. And so many of them were calling her Beyoncé. And one person called her Tyra Banks’ child. I was like… I said, get my belt. Get my belt! Cause they all knew whoopin’ and so do their parents. Because how do you not know? There are so many artists that were before my time that I know of because of my parents’ influence.
Louis Virtel And I like that. I love to know things that are before my time. I’m part of a timeline myself. What happened right before I got here?
Nina Parker Yes, exactly. And isn’t that the art of music and film is to go backwards a little bit? So I don’t understand this generation, but anyway, there’s this whole trend of going on these college campuses and asking these kids questions that we would know in an instant. And it’s made me so livid. And I now understand the people who were like, I just want to be on a ranch away from everyone because I hate all the young people.
Louis Virtel No, we’re Harrison Ford and Calista now. Goodbye, I’m headed to Sun Valley. No, but I will say, Whitney Houston died 14 years ago. I’m in denial of how much time has passed since then. So, if you’re 18, it just didn’t happen to you in your lifetime. But at the same time, whatever, I know Ella Fitzgerald and she wasn’t jamming while I was around.
Nina Parker But to get back to your question about the most successful, I’m trying to think about who, what groups, you know, because listen, like for me, I thinking of Salt and Pepper in Vogue, right? Like, but I don’t know if there were any-
Louis Virtel Can I say something about En Vogue? Sure. I think everybody, when I become the president, if you’re a musical artist, you have to have at least one album named Funky Divas. Okay? I don’t know when, it could be your first album, your ninth, but you have to get around to having an album called Funky Diva. You have to get around to having an album called Funky Divas.
Nina Parker They escaped the conversation a lot, but in Vogue, they were them girls.
Louis Virtel Oh, they still can sing their asses off.
Nina Parker Everybody, that’s the thing, those groups, people could sing individually. It wasn’t like a collective to hear, but I’m thinking from like the eighties and, you know, because if I, boys to men, I’m, you know, I like none of those groups had a huge, so I know there’s someone I’m forgetting, but.
Louis Virtel I know, me too. Go ahead! But I-
Nina Parker Michael Jackson and Beyoncé have to be exempt.
Louis Virtel I guess that’s probably true. I’m pretending like there’s somebody like I it’s like it wouldn’t be Justin Timberlake for me
Nina Parker I mean, I guess he, I mean we’re not saying if we like him, we’re just saying.
Louis Virtel Yeah, because I don’t.
Nina Parker Uh, I think Fergie counts, uh, you know, you know, she had a good run. Yeah, Fergie had a good run
Louis Virtel And she was styled like Bowser’s daughter, Wendy Okupa, and I have to support that every single time.
Nina Parker Yeah, Fergie, there’s got to be someone we’re forgetting because they’re so good as a solo singer.
Louis Virtel Yeah, Diana Ross, of course. Yeah, of, course. Okay, maybe that’s it. We’re saying of course to too many people who are great dancers. Diana Ross. It’s My House. Great song.
Nina Parker Yeah, I mean
Louis Virtel Love hangover. Now talk about sexy disco. We’ll talk about disco. Yeah.
Nina Parker Um, I am going to the Elton John Oscar party.
Louis Virtel Oh my god. Are you Madonna?
Nina Parker I’m wearing all sequins and big Diana Ross hair. So I’m very excited. So, you know, maybe I’ll run into Harry.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Nina Parker You know?
Louis Virtel Tell him about our conversation. I don’t want him to hear. Be like, we like you. Not writing that was much. I want to tell him that I…
Nina Parker I want to tell him that I said his album was fine.
Louis Virtel I just I can’t imagine this is the album he really wanted to put out after all these years. It’s just like, you know There’s nothing about it that like is like brimming with personality. And by the way again, who is he? What does he do as an artist?
Nina Parker This is what I’m going to say, and I don’t mean this to sound shady, but this felt like a contractual obligation, not an album he wanted to do. Like, I got to put this out because y’all need this by a deadline. It felt like maybe he got a two, three album deal, let me just put this up. And that doesn’t mean it’s horrible, but, you know, maybe he called it in a little like we talked about.
Louis Virtel Yeah, but like, I also just feel like I missed the moment where we were all falling in love with him, kind of. You know, like there’s an intrigue about this person that I just, maybe it’s just the male vocalist thing. Male singers, imagine finding a man having mystique. I don’t think that happens.
Nina Parker His personal life, he’s pretty low-key, I feel like.
Louis Virtel Nowadays, yeah, yeah.
Nina Parker Yeah, like these days, he kind of, is he still dating Zoe?
Louis Virtel I don’t think so.
Nina Parker They’re still dating.
Louis Virtel What, they are? I didn’t even know that.
Nina Parker Yeah. This is my job. After she left Channing, they called off the engagement. She started dating Harry Styles. Oh, OK. And mixed them together.
Louis Virtel Some people, I look at Zoe Kravitz and it’s like, oh, you’re a wonderful mother. Lisa Bonet, I love her. I’m like somebody’s grandmother.
Nina Parker We are really the aunties and uncles now, aren’t we? Like, squeeze her cheeks. Like, I remember you when you was a baby.
Louis Virtel By the way, speaking of the 90s, another British male artist who did good revival disco, Robbie Williams. So that’s also, I expect good disco from the Brits, actually. Yeah, you do. As you should. You know? As you would. British people don’t have a good time, you know? They drink too much beer for me. Yeah.
Nina Parker Yeah, I have to say, some of the best parties I’ve had have been in London.
Louis Virtel London is, I think, it’s between London and Mexico City for World’s Greatest City. I do love me some Berlin too.
Nina Parker Yeah. Well, listen, babes, I’m trying to be a dual citizen somewhere.
Louis Virtel So give me a list. No, find me a polite culture with a lot of walking. I don’t need a bicycle.
Nina Parker Yeah. I’m like, let’s take this show on the road, babes, because I need that second passport in my hand. So, you know, whatever, you know, somebody need a red carpet in Canada or something, let me know.
Louis Virtel No, I think it has to be Berlin for me, because then I blend in with the people who are just glowering all day. Actually- My brethren!
Nina Parker I was gonna say, I’m with these glasses on, you know.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. My mean architect vibe.
Nina Parker Haha! I love it!
Louis Virtel Yeah. Okay, well, we got to the heart of that. What did you think of the new Harry Styles album, whose six-word title is actually escaping me right now? What do you think about it compared to Harry’s House, which I listened to, and I don’t think it’s an album of the year, but I did like it quite a bit.
Nina Parker But you know what, his fan base, by the way, is still young, you know, like, you have a young girls or were clamoring over him like five years ago. Yeah. Did they grow out of his is that still his fan based like really crazy young like that’s a good question because
Louis Virtel Because I’m constantly baffled by Taylor Swift gaining more fans, but it’s like I guess they’re all exactly her age
Nina Parker Sure.
Louis Virtel But I don’t feel like that’s the case, like you have to be kind of worshiping him in a Tiger B way.
Nina Parker Yeah. I meant to tell you, a couple of years ago, mind you, I’m not a Harry Styles fan. Not a hater, but not a fan. A friend of mine worked at Madison Square Garden and he was, you know, he did those 30 days at Madison square garden a couple years ago.
Louis Virtel Are you like the Boston Philharmonic? Who can do 30 days?
Nina Parker It was a very strange, it was weird. It was like a residency at Madison Square Garden, basically. So a friend of mine called me and said, hey, I have sweet tickets for Harry Styles. Are you a fan? I was like, not really, but I’ll come and get some free food and music. Why not? So I went and I will say his performances were fine. It was great. It was 98% girls from 18 to 21. Wow. All with like feather boas. Baby, let me tell you, I have been to rap concerts in the middle of Inglewood. Where people haven’t been this aggressive. Do you understand what I’m saying? I have been to gangster concerts with gang bangers outside. They don’t got nothing on a 19 year old Harry Styles fan. And they was getting us out the way, babes. They was like, excuse you. I was like oh girl.
Louis Virtel Well, let me be clear, because these girls are also having some drinks. And then leaving? They’re off campus.
Nina Parker I literally felt like I was fleeing when it let out and they was just in the street.
Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.
Nina Parker They was banging, okay? I was like, it is time to go. Like these girls had, they had feather boas. Nobody in the New York streets could see them. It was insane.
Louis Virtel When the Madison’s unite, when the Katelyn’s spelled any old Mormon way, get together.
Nina Parker I was on a date with the guy, he grabbed my hand and he was like, we just gonna run. I was like let’s go.
Louis Virtel Well, thank God you got out of there.
Nina Parker Let me say, I was like, I have been in places in the bottom. Harry’s crack house. Yes, I say, oh, Harry comes with the fan base, so he will be just fine. Holy shit, okay. Then I don’t feel bad criticizing the album. Take that, Harry. No, but just know that these girls will find us.
Louis Virtel Oh, okay. They gonna be in the DMs. If this is my last week, it’s been great. Been great.
Nina Parker We’re just gonna see you in little some glasses and a feather bow, we ain’t gonna know what happens. I don’t know what happened.
Louis Virtel All the clues, yeah, yeah. Let us know what you thought about Harry Styles’ new album. We’ll be right back with the fabulous Alessandro Nivola.
Louis Virtel [AD] .
Louis Virtel Our guest today is an industry veteran you’ve seen in The Brutalist, American Hustle, and The Room Next Door. Think of the range of just those three movies right there for just a moment. You can now see him as Calvin Klein in the new FX series Love Story, John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. Please welcome to Keep It, Alessandro Nivola.
Alessandro Nivola Hi.
Louis Virtel Okay, I’ve been watching this show. I did not want to be sucked in. I honestly resisted it. I was like Ryan Murphy, I know the tricks. Watching it, like you can’t stop watching it. And also your performance in this, first of all, I know your career really well. I don’t think you’ve played many people I would know visually, like immediately. And Calvin Klein, when you come on screen as Calvin Klein. I am positive it’s Calvin Klein immediately. There’s something about even just the way you’re holding yourself, and it’s not just the denim shirt. So congrats on that. Thank you. What goes into playing somebody whom we all still recognize?
Alessandro Nivola Well, I mean, I go about it pretty much the way I would go about any performance, um, which is, you know, making all kinds of decisions about, you know, physical and vocal things and as well as psychological and emotional things and the, the beauty of it being somebody that you’ve, who’s famous is just that there’s somebody out there that You know, you don’t have to invent it, you can just watch hundreds of hours of footage of the real guy, because otherwise it just all comes from your imagination. I mean, generally, if I’m playing somebody who is not famous, I’ll usually fixate on one real person from my life or five real people from my live and do the same thing anyway. You know, vocal stuff is… A big, big thing for me. And I work with a dialect coach on every role I do, even if it’s somebody that doesn’t, at least on the page, have a voice that would be recognizably different from my own because I just think it is a kind of window into the soul and into a person’s personal history. And so usually we’ll find somebody, And if I’m playing somebody that is. Not known or is not a real person, I’ll get an idea of somebody I know or somebody in the real world who I think is, you know, a model for the voice and I’ll fixate on that and start like adopting those rhythms and speech patterns and things and I really work a lot on that often at the very beginning of my preparation. So to have. Somebody who’s given all these interviews and think, although the only thing I’ll say is that for as famous as Calvin Klein is and as famous is Calvin Klein’s name is, there isn’t as much of him in the public record as you would think. You know, at least from this era, there’s a lot of kind of Ted talky kind of stuff that he did sort of in the 2000s and on. Um, where he started making the rounds and talking about his career, looking back on it and everything. But in the sort of moment of his greatest success, like there’s only a handful of little, uh, key interviews and things, but those I watched over and over and over again and, and I had them kind of, um, the audio from them ripped off and was walking around listening to them. And so, yeah, everything that you were seeing was the result of weeks and months of studying his behavior and vocal stuff.
Louis Virtel Well, it’s really convincing. Like, do you have to keep doing the voice while you’re not on screen? Because I mean, like, the person I’m talking to right now does not sound like Calvin Klein to me.
Alessandro Nivola Yeah, first of all, his voice was so enjoyable to examine because it had so many influences and more than even most people, I think it’s a kind of map of his childhood and adolescence and young adulthood and development because he grew up in the Bronx, was the son of Jewish, Hungarian immigrants. Went to public school, actually the same public school as Ralph Loran, Ralph Lauren, formerly Ralph Lipschitz, who they were in the same, I think the same grade even in the public high school in the Bronx. But he then ended up working in the garment district and the sort of rough and tumble of all that. And then got into the whole kind of international fashion sort of cosmopolitan world. And so he had all these different influences on his voice. And I think he even tried to lose his bronze accent and it didn’t completely go, but he increasingly had this very knowing voice of somebody who had seen a lot of the world and had kind of refashioned himself, reinvented himself as somebody with great taste and sophistication and discernment. But all of those, you know… His neighborhood from where he grew up is, you know, remained in his voice all the way through. And so it was this kind of incredible mix of things that you could hear. And then also his sexuality, you, know, I think
Louis Virtel Oh yeah, he sounds gay to me, I have to say.
Alessandro Nivola Well, he described himself as bisexual. I, you know, he was obviously married twice. I don’t know if, if, if those marriages suffered because he was gay or if he was bisexual and had, you know appear, I don’t really, I’ll never know the kind of details of that, but I definitely know that he, even as a young person, I think had a way of talking that would have identified him as you know, not just being straight. And that that was difficult for him and in his earlier schooling days. And in fact, there was a monolog in the show at one point where he talked about that a little bit about, you know having grown up and learning to sew from his grandmother who used to do alterations for like Holocaust survivors who were, you know, living in the Bronx. And she would. You know, make these kind of broken women and to these kind, you know feel wonderful about themselves and he just idolized her and that’s how he learned to sew and got this passion. But he was of course like, you now, given a hard time when he was in school because of that. But anyway, all that stuff is in his voice. And so that was definitely the thing when they asked me to do the role in fact, like I didn’t even know what he sounded like. I mean, I vaguely knew what he looked like, but I’d never seen him. I don’t remember having seen him interviewed or anything. And so they offered me the role. And the first thing I did was sort of went on YouTube just to look up one of his interviews and I, you know, heard him start talking. The second I heard his voice, I was like, oh yeah, I can have some fun.
Louis Virtel I don’t know why I didn’t expect such a dramaturgical 23 and me on Calvin Klein, but my God, you know everything about this man.
Alessandro Nivola Well, I mean, you know, some of my sources, you know, may or may not be legitimate. So I don’t claim to truly be an expert. I made my best guesses from everything that I read and read and cobbled together. And, you can never really know someone. And so, of course, there’s an element to what I’m doing in the show that is my own invention. But I wanted to sort of mainly sort of strike at what I felt to be what his energy was, what his vibe was, that was the most important thing.
Louis Virtel No, it’s interesting. You just said that when they asked you to do the role, you still didn’t know what his voice sounded like. So what’s the process of getting cast is some magical. I’m going to suggest gay guy in the wings. I considered casting the gay superpower being like, who looks kind of like Calvin Klein, Alessandro Navola? Like, does somebody do that math or do you have to suggest it yourself? How does that come about?
Alessandro Nivola Well, so Ryan Murphy had asked me to do another one of his shows many, many years ago. And for a bunch of complicated reasons, I wasn’t able to do it at the time and the schedule didn’t work out. And so I think we’d wanted to work together since then and it just, I don’t know, the opportunity hadn’t come up. And so then out of nowhere that this offer came in. He thought of it. You’d have to ask him what it was he saw in me that he thought would be right for the character. I think maybe he’d just seen The Brutalist. He was a big fan of my performance in The Brotalist, I know, so I think he had, and he mentioned that to me. So maybe it was just sort of, I was top of mind at that moment because he’d watched the movie and really liked what I did in it and then said, I want to work with him. And maybe it’s that simple, but I don’t know. Maybe he’s done. That Calvin and I had a lot in common.
Louis Virtel You mentioned The Brutalist now, and I think people forget that movie has these tremendous amount of chapters that you go through a lot with the characters in the movie, but for a while in that movie, it’s just you and Adrienne Brody. And like that part of the movie could be a one act play itself. What was it like filming those scenes, which are some of the most incredibly beautiful in the move too.
Alessandro Nivola Yeah, I mean, I sort of see that story in the movie is like, it is like a 45-minute short film that is a kind of prolog to the rest of the film, and it sets up all the kind of themes and relationships that then reverberate through the rest of the story and keep coming back and back and back. And in a way, it’s kind of like, yeah, just like you described, like a perfect story unto itself. The character in a relatively short space was so well-defined and so clear to me from the first time that I read it that I was excited to play it. And it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had filming. I had, coming into it, I’d had a really kind of few years of feeling pretty cynical and Just depressed about being an actor. I’d starred in that Sopranos prequel that had just had gone through such a rocky time and we finished it just as COVID was starting and then the whole release of it got completely screwed by the pandemic. And then it came out when people still weren’t going back to the theaters and then it sort of had like a really mixed reaction. And I think a lot of the fans kind of hated it And. Even though I felt like it was one of my best performances ever. And I mean, I didn’t like pour over the response, but people seemed to dig what I was doing, but the movie just didn’t work for a lot of the fans and stuff. And so it, it just was a miserable time. And then a bunch of movies that I did after that, one after another, I just was like, my heart just wasn’t in it and each of them had had kind of for different reasons, I’d had tricky times on sets. And then This one came along and I didn’t know what to expect really. But I got there, Adrian and I, didn’t know each other, we had a lot of friends in common from New York. But weirdly, we’d never met or anything. And we met only at the sort of like meet and greet little cocktail party that we had a couple of days before we started shooting. But from the second that we started in, I don’t know, it was just one of those things where Sometimes, like with another actor, you get a kind of, I don’t even know how to describe it in words, it’s just a feeling off each other that it’s working and that your relationship is clear and that what you’re doing and what they’re doing are somehow complementing each other and is telling a story. And I mean, we never really talked about this, but I think we both felt that way. And there was also a kind you know, neither of us were kind of careful with each other and we weren’t tiptoeing around each other. Like our relationship was immediately very physically tactile and we were kind of like rough with each others almost like physically and he was into that and I was to that, and it just sort of is extremely free. And spontaneous and improvisational really. In fact, some of it was improvised, that whole scene in the kitchen there where I was dancing and then like sitting on his lap and all that kind of crazy stuff. Yeah, right. That was all improvised. Wild. And then Brady, you know, had so much confidence in the way that he was making the movie and the way he was setting up these shots and the that he telling the story with the camera. And he was just like, just let it rip. And so it was just every day I was going home, kind of walking on air. And it really kind of was a big reset button for me as an actor.
Louis Virtel Oh, I’m glad to hear that. You just talked about vibing with other actors. You’ve been a part of a number of fabulous ensembles. There’s one in particular I’m a huge fan of, but I was gonna ask, I wanna see if you can intuit it using mentalist-style energy. Do you have a favorite ensemble you’ve been a part in terms of just vibing with everybody on the set together?
Alessandro Nivola Oh God, I’m trying to think, I don’t know, maybe American Hustle was a fun one.
Louis Virtel Oh, there’s a lot of talented people in that one. Yeah, I was thinking Junebug, which is one of my favorite movies of the 2000s.
Alessandro Nivola Yes, you’re going way back.
Louis Virtel Everybody is amazing in that movie. I love M. Beth Davids, Ben McKenzie, you’re fabulous in it, and of course Amy Adams.
Alessandro Nivola That was really one of the best directors that I’ve worked with, Phil Morrison. I think that’s probably one of the most realistic portraits of the South that there is. And a lot of Southern people tell me that. Films are so prone to Southern cliche and not wanting to just like dispense with all of them. And it just had such a kind of clear. Unjudging look at these, you know, a particular milieu of people from that part of the world. And again, like that was honestly a real director’s film. Some movies are kind of driven by the actors and others are driven by a director. And usually the best ones are driven by the director and that was, that was one of them.
Louis Virtel Before I do research on who I’m interviewing, I like to go through my own head of like, just all the credits I remember of theirs. And so I’m going through, I’m goin’ like June Bug and you know, American Hustle, whatever. And I was like, he’s in Face Off, right? And then I was thinking, and I looked it up and it turns out, that is your first movie. That is the craziest first movie anybody could be in.
Alessandro Nivola Yeah. I mean, it was unbelievable. I was so lucky that it was my first movie because it established so many things for me. It set a precedent for so many things for the main one, I think was just like working with Nicolas Cage. Just he just encouraged me to do things that were, you know, you know maybe sort of outsized and that you don’t say. You wouldn’t think would be permissible in a movie. And, you know, I was coming from, you know, up until that point, I think I was 23 or four. And I, my whole life had been geared toward theater before that moment. And I had been, you know, in drama schools and summer theater work and internships and, and then Broadway work. I was starring in a play on Broadway with Helen Mirren when the casting director for Face Off saw me. That’s how it happened. So you know, you have this as a theater actor, everyone tells you, oh, you know if you’re going to make films, you’re going to have to sort of do nothing. Like, you can’t move your face, basically. Like, yeah. There’s that famous Michael Cain video where he says, yeah, don’t, don, don blink. He says, or whatever. And it’s like, yeah. The less you do, you know, less is more, you know, this is more. And Nick was just like, fuck that. You know, just, you know, more baby, more. I mean, I’ve mentioned this in other interviews, but I had been kind basing my character off of one of the Crumb brothers from the Terry’s Wygoff documentary about Robert Crumb, the psychedelic cartoon artist. And in particular, you had this brother named Charles who’s passed away, but who I kind of modeled the voice and the character on. And I had shown that video to Nick and he just got all excited about it. And so there was a real kind of feeling that we were inventing this relationship from scratch based on the Crumb Brothers. And really, once he saw what I was doing vocally and physically and stuff, he just got really fired up by it and encouraged me to go further with it. And if he hadn’t been the person who I had the main relationship with in that movie and who I was spending the most time with and who ended up becoming great friends with, especially for that period of time. You know, I might not have been kind of set on that path as an actor in movies. I might have been sort of more hesitant to make those kind of bold choices or to, you know, think of myself as a character actor really, and to push myself in all these different directions that I have ever since. So I kind of, you know, as much as that movie has a kind of cartoonish quality to it like it had like a pretty legitimately important creative impact on my life as an actor.
Louis Virtel Thank you so much for being here Alessandro, I always look forward to you on the big screen or small screen and I can’t wait to see where this series goes and I I can wait to learn more about Calvin Klein’s deep genealogical history as I’m sure you’ve illustrated on the screen.
Alessandro Nivola Well thanks a lot for having me really nice talking to you.
Louis Virtel Yeah What a pleasure. Thanks so much.
Alessandro Nivola Alright, well take care.
Louis Virtel [AD].
Louis Virtel And we’re back with our most down low and skanky part of the episode. It is Keep It. Nina, get nasty. What’s going on here?
Nina Parker I’m going to get nasty, you know what you can keep. The I love LA slash heated rivalry crossovers that we’re seeing in real life, keep it. Keep it. You’re not going to revive Jordan for me.
Louis Virtel He’s done. Jordan Firstman. Jordan Firstmen is done for.
Nina Parker So right now there’s Paris Fashion Week going on. So I think this is HBO publicity trying to, we know there was a beef between the shows.
Louis Virtel Oh, right. You’re familiar with it. Yes, Jordan Firstman said something like this, the sex scenes in Heated Rivalry are like not true to life or not true being gay or something. Right, right, and so.
Nina Parker Went after him and they have like a little beef. And obviously I think the beef was squashed because the network told them to, not because Hudson really wanted to end the beef. But Hudson to me comes across very kind.
Louis Virtel I have to say I agree.
Nina Parker Like, he comes across like a nice guy. He comes across nicer than Connor, who I love too. But Connor has a little bit more etch, right? And I am seeing a lot of behind the scenes at Paris Fashion Week with Hudson and Jordan. And Jordan’s being like a little shady. Like they were at a specific fashion show and he was like, are you wearing the designer? And it was just like, he’s trying to be cheeky but it just comes across bitchy. And I feel like Hudson is. Placating him and just indulging in, he’s like taking the high road. You don’t have to take the high row with Jordan.
Louis Virtel Yeah, I have to say you don’t have to do that. He’s purposely quite antagonistic. I have to say I’ve known Jordan a hundred years.
Nina Parker Oh, you ha- you dead. You dead. You do.
Louis Virtel No, literally, when you live in L.A. Yeah, right. There’s like 19 gay people all together. Yes, yes. But no, I think he- It could be his humor. To be frankly, yeah.
Nina Parker It could be his humor, which I think some people think being funny is teasing you, but you can’t tease people you don’t know like that. See, the key to teasing is being familiar.
Louis Virtel Mm-hmm.
Nina Parker And if you tease me before we’re familiar, then you just bein’ a bitch.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. There has to be a sort of sincerity quotient there. You can’t just be doing the best.
Nina Parker Because if you don’t like me and you tease me, you just a bully. Yeah. And I don’t liked bullies. He comes across as a bully to me, and there’s this little like punchy things that he’s doing that to me feel, it just feels like, okay, Conner and Hudson are getting this energy that I feel like I should be getting that I thought I was gonna be getting because I’m on this other hit show. But they’re, you know, they’re the sex symbols right now. It’s daytime. And I feel like instead of just kind of going with the groove, he’s kind of like showing us that he feels a way about it. And he might have a right to feel a way. I don’t know. But the energy towards Hudson, I don’t like. I just am being protective of my baby Hudson. And I fell like he’s being kind of bitchy to him. I don’t like it.
Louis Virtel I have to say, if I were like a gay actor, and I was around the heated rivalry people, I am so egotistical. I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to handle quite the level of fame they are getting. Because my philosophy has long been that gay men are not celebrities to each other. Like if I’m hanging out at a party. Because I see you all the time. Right, no, it’s very fraternal. Like if were at like a party with like 25 gay guys, and Elton John walked in, wouldn’t to be surprised. He’s gotta go somewhere. Sure, sure, of course. That makes a lot of sense, you know.
Nina Parker And I always say there’s two Americas right because I’m always like a lot of people who are just being introduced to black celebs I’m like we known this girl for 20 years
Louis Virtel 20 years. Exactly. So it’s probably the same.
Nina Parker So it’s probably the same energy, that being said, remember when you out in public, you know what I mean? You know what I mean?
Louis Virtel Oh, no, right. And what points are you making?
Nina Parker That or what? I just don’t think we need to push these two together like I’m sure they gonna see each other but like it feels very publicity to always have them next to each Like, let, just let them, let heated rivalry be its thing and live.
Louis Virtel And also if that is a contrived PR thing like bitch, I don’t even remember this story anymore I remember what you said or what you set or who’s gay enough or who isn’t gay or whatever But I will say again if I were a gay actor and again, I Don’t know really if Connor story is gay. I don’t know if Hudson Williams is gay Whatever the level of fame they are getting is sure pretty unprecedented for like like again like last year From Cooper Koch from like he was sort of ascending that way. These people have like gone over them out It’s unbelievable how famous they are It’s unbelievable how famous they are.
Nina Parker It’s unreal. It’s like Olandria, right? Like, she went to, I’m sure there are people on her cast who we know are jealous because, but I want people to get this jealousy shit under control.
Louis Virtel Yeah, oh, please.
Nina Parker Like somebody’s success, beauty, whatever, is not a reflection on yours, and it might not just be your time yet. Yeah. It’s like, calm down. And you still in the same building? Right. You on a network? Like, I don’t understand. I guess I’ve never been a hater. I’ve had opinions, but I’ve ever been a hate. And I think like some of this energy I’m feeling towards the heated rivalry guys is starting to turn into like hater energy, and I don’t like it.
Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Well, it’s also like, of course, like the pop culture upshot to we all liked you at one time. We were just talking about it half the way. You know, it’ like we become suspicious of people who get that much attention. Then we realize we feel like we feel swindled somehow like they took our time.
Nina Parker Totally. And the only thing I’m mad about is that he’d arrive or he’s not coming back till 2027.
Louis Virtel I know, right, right.
Nina Parker And you gonna give me six episodes.
Louis Virtel Because Canada works slowly and politely.
Nina Parker Clearly. I need something. They do need to do something for me. I don’t care. Get a podcast. Get something.
Louis Virtel I was saying, I feel like they are competing with each other to get on the White Lotus, you know? You think, yes. Because they can do naughty prestige, which is what the White lotus is. We don’t have any other format for that. Not a dry whistle. Who wants that? Oh, God.
Nina Parker But yeah, that’s my, you know, I don’t have any personal beef with anyone, but I just don’t like, I don’t think we need to see these casts mesh together unless it’s organic, unless these people are really friends. Y’all don’t need to keep trying to get I love LA, which I’m not a huge fan of the show.
Louis Virtel I love LA. The first three episodes I watched were amusing. It’s hard for me to come back to it. I almost feel like I’ve seen the show before, even though I think it is a rich, I think I just lived the show.
Nina Parker I’m around it. Agreed, I lived it 20 years ago. Yeah, you know, listen, I’m sure it has its fan base. Yeah. And it’s not a bad show. It’s just, you now, it’s purposely pointing out all the things you hate.
Louis Virtel About L.A. Well you know what also is? It’s my criticism of Brat by Charlie XCX, which is, I already knew 32-year-olds could be annoying. Sure. Right. This isn’t new to me.
Nina Parker Like, you know, I think we just, we seasoned, you know, so you get a little bit like, okay, is this for me? But you can enjoy it while it’s on. It’s not going to break any records. Yeah, there’s enough jokes. You know what I mean?
Louis Virtel There’s enough jokes. You know what I mean? It’s not like you’re coasting on the vibe of having to indulge or like bad LA types. It is quite funny, but I just, I don’t need a ton of it, you know?
Nina Parker I think you can take it in doses. And it’s definitely a show like, okay, I’m going to, I’m gonna take a look at this while my other show is getting ready for something else. So for sure, it has a purpose.
Louis Virtel But speaking of bitchy comments, my keep it this week is about Timothy Chalamet, Jesus Christ, the eruption this week over what I’m gonna call a snide joke he made, or maybe snide commentary, maybe he meant it to be sincere. But anyway, it’s been interpreted like John Lennon saying the Beatles are bigger than Jesus, like that level of like, how dare you, how dare, how do you? And what he actually said in a conversation with Matthew McConaughey, your first mistake, he was talking about how he didn’t want to have to represent movies and save movies by starring in them, which is to say, like, he wants the industry to be thriving anyway. He doesn’t need any one person like holding it together. And he said, I don’t wanna be like working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore. All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there. And then he added another snipe by saying, I just lost 14 cents in viewership. Now, here’s the thing. I don’t love the tenor of that comment. It’s not the way I would have phrased that comment, keep it to people out there who think he doesn’t deserve an Oscar now. That doesn’t affect what I think about Marty’s supreme or what I thing about this race, which by the way has been going on so fucking long. I feel like we are restless for anything to occur, for any Oscar to be given. Because we keep, it’s just been like seven months since we first started talking about Marty Supreme.
Nina Parker We’re ready for it to be over.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. It is definitely time and I will say we’re at an interesting point in the race Lots like Michael B. Jordan’s back in it. Yeah supporting actress is up in the air supporting actor is up-in-the-air
Nina Parker This is probably the most anticipated Oscars I’ve felt like it has tension in a good way, where everybody is excited. I think the viewership is going to be through the roof this year. Everybody’s excited to see what’s going to happen, especially because of the things that have happened outside, you know, the press run, the things that have happen with Michael B. Jordan and at the BAFTAs. Oh, the horrible BAFTAS thing. You know, Timothy making these comments, everybody’s kind of like, okay, what is going to happened and did this affect the voting?
Louis Virtel Right. But it’s like, it feels like there has been a resting resentment against Timothy Chalamet because he has sort of a, you know, like, I don’t want to say punk, but like, lightly immature energy and people can’t gel the fact that he can be like that and still also extraordinarily talented.
Nina Parker Yeah. And people kind of, I think it’s annoying that he’s talented because he’s a little obnoxious. Because he’s a little obnoxious.
Louis Virtel He feels like somebody who is overly confident about his talent when he’s not. He’s correct about how talented he is. Yeah, he is, and he is…
Nina Parker Yeah, he is. And he is talented. I don’t think you can take that away from him. But then, he, you know, acts like Zach Morris in real life.
Louis Virtel Yes.
Nina Parker You know, like, this is Zach Morris. Oh, it’s good to think about him. Like, imagine Zach Morris getting nominated for an Oscar. This is how he would act.
Louis Virtel Yeah, you know, a little chess, but yeah, hair perfect. Yeah. Time out. We had Mark Paul, Paul Gosselaar on the show, a delight.
Nina Parker I love that! We love him. He is a seasoned gem. Yeah.
Louis Virtel Yes. Yeah. But I have to say, like, the point he was making, I thought, was good, which is to say like, no, we want movies to be supported, a thriving industry, and we care about them as an art form, you know? And I think he was right by saying ballet and opera, he shouldn’t have said no one cares about them. What he should have said is a few people really fucking care about them and they should be supported in some way.
Nina Parker Yeah, who knew how many but you know what I think is throwing a lot of people is he’s hitting another industry that didn’t need to catch strays, that could potentially harm them by saying this. And also the flippant way of saying it, which by the way, people have found that he’s been saying this for several years. There’s clips of him saying the same comment actually, it’s a part of his shtick. He said this about three other times in other Q&A’s and it for whatever reason never got picked up. Probably people are just picking everything over with a fine tooth comb because of the Oscars.
Louis Virtel And I hope it’s secretly a center’s campaign strategy.
Nina Parker Right, right, exactly.
Louis Virtel I hope Moomi Misako is at the computer being like, you won’t believe what I found.
Nina Parker Exactly. I actually hope that, too. But yeah, I think people are also just a little shocked because his mother was… Worked in ballet. Worked ballet and Broadway, as well as his grandmother. So if he’s talked about growing up behind the stages and watching them dance and perform, it’s… I couldn’t imagine, like, watching my dad or mom be in an industry and shit on that industry at any time. At any time.
Louis Virtel But at the same time, maybe it’s that he’s so familiar with it that he feels a little entitled to say something about it. I’m not saying that’s a great answer. And it clearly has backfired against him.
Nina Parker It wasn’t a good thing to say, but that being said, I feel like people are really maybe too upset. They’re very upset.
Louis Virtel Well, it’s just like it’s turning into this whole thing of like I never liked him and he’s not talented or whatever I’ve seen a lot of people make jokes about how he looks it’s like that’s not what this is about Yeah, like it like it That’s the kind of shit that when I was like like 20 years ago almost made you feel bad for someone like Ann Coulter It’s like okay. You’re a hateful horrible person. No, no, no. No. It’s Like it would always turn into it’s only about her look
Nina Parker Right, right, and I think that’s the lowest hanging fruit, right, is to go after somebody’s looks and that’s when you know people are really pissed. You are really p***ed if you look at somebody and you’re like, you frog-eyed b***h, you mad. And so I understand the insults even, and this is the thing, like. Respect you. You’re not guaranteed respect, right? So, you know, if you say some stuff, you got to be willing to take all the hits. And some of the hits are going to be fair and some are going be below the belt. And this is why when you play to dozens, you better be ready, because it comes right back to you like a boomerang. So yeah, I mean, is it fair that people are attacking his looks? No, but I’m not, I let you, what That’s what you’re talking to, like, of course. Exactly. They gonna reach your ass, and sometimes it gets nasty.
Louis Virtel And you were nasty.
Nina Parker And he was nasty. And if I’m working, if I am a crew member that’s working 14 hours a day on a, you know, on a ballet and you say some shit like that, yeah, I might come for your neck a little bit. Yeah, sure. Or if my dad or I’m seeing somebody work hard and you could, what you say, because you are the celebrity with power and what you said affects the masses, like watch your mouth a little bit, you don’t have to care, especially if you have family members who are inundated for generations. This is kind of like a careless thing to say. By the way though,
Louis Virtel When you look at the clip, too, it’s like he’s realizing what he’s saying is coming off as too harsh, but then he goes a little harder, and it’s, like, I’m actually trying to figure out what he is doing in that situation, too.
Nina Parker Do you think he’s gonna do press, like, not press, but the red carpet for the Oscars and talk about this? Or is this gonna be something that’s gonna shut down? Well, you think I’ll talk about it?
Louis Virtel God, I mean, if, I’m gonna say yes. I also still think he’s going to win because this didn’t blow up until the last day of Oscar voting.
Nina Parker I don’t think it’s going to affect the voting in a major way because I do think a lot of these voters, I mean, they’re paying attention, but they’re a little delayed, right? So I think by the time it blew up, the voting was done because right now it’s a real big topic of conversation for the last few days with voting, you know, been done for a little bit.
Louis Virtel Also, I have to say, if the tides did turn against him and he didn’t win, and I think we can all agree he was the front runner for a long time, that would be pretty rare in Oscars history. I’m just saying, we gave Jared Leto an Oscar. You know, it’s like, there are people who have been way more dubious and strange, who still get away with getting the big prize, because by the way, it is about the acting. You know? It should be. I think that’s the reason the Oscars actually matter, is at the end of the day, even if I disagree with it, people are voting what they think the best is.
Nina Parker Yes. And I just, and again, it goes back to this, people liking you, you know? And I do think Timothy is a character. And again, he’s one of those people where you can really love or hate. You don’t really feel a middle way about him. And I think there is a little bit of oversaturation of him. So I think people are kind of like, I’ve been waiting to hate this motherfucker. Like, that’s how I feel like people like I’ve been waiting, I hate you. Thank you for giving me a reason. And he’s getting all the visceral.
Louis Virtel And I just want to reiterate, by the way, if he did end up losing, I honestly think that would end up being good for him because it’s too early to win an Oscar. In his career? I’m just saying certain people, they accelerate and on their seventh nomination when they finally get it, the heat for that moment is so much bigger. I’m saying it’s an investment in the future to lose sometimes.
Nina Parker Yeah, you think he’ll take it?
Louis Virtel Yes. Yeah. By the way, wouldn’t be mad if Michael B. Jordan took it. Please, somebody who should have an Oscar, certainly.
Nina Parker Yeah, I- I’m- again, I’m really-
Louis Virtel Wagner Morrow, lovely. I wouldn’t vote for him, but yeah.
Nina Parker Or you wouldn’t.
Louis Virtel I would pick one of the other two over him.
Nina Parker I’m rooting for Michael B. Jordan, but I do think Timothy is the front runner, you know? And like I said, I agree with you. I don’t think these comments are gonna hurt the voting. And would people vote in care? Maybe, I mean, I think if they care about the arts, they’re gonna care, but not enough to penalize it. I don’t think he’ll be get penalized.
Louis Virtel Yeah, Nina Parker once again a complete delight. Where can we find you on Instagram if we’re so slow? Not only did we not find a pen last week to write it down. We lost that pen Now we have just a we have our bleeding and we’re writing it down with our blood.
Nina Parker People from Keep It find me, okay, they have been finding me in my DMs and in my comments. And it’s been 90% lovely.
Louis Virtel Oh good. 90!
I have to say. 90%, there’s a couple 10% of who are very mad that I didn’t like Cat’s Eye.
Louis Virtel Oh, God! Oh right.
Nina Parker If I get one more DMV Cat’s Eye trying to turn me on to their music, I’m like, I I’m not your audience
Louis Virtel Can I just say, wouldn’t it be weird if Nina Parker were a huge fan of Cat’s Eye?
Nina Parker There were some cat’s eye stans that were not happy with me, but other than that.
Louis Virtel Alright.
Nina Parker It’s been a very pleasant experience with the Keep It fans, and they can find me at The Nina Parker on all platforms.
Louis Virtel Okay. I just want to say a shout out to my favorite Cat’s Eye member, Daniella. This has been Keep It. We’ll see you next week after the Oscars. You better have opinions, because I will. We will see you then. 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. Keep It is a Crooked media production. Our producer is Bill McGrath, and our executive producers are Louis Virtel, Ira Madison III, and Kendra James. Our digital team is Delon Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, Rachel Gaewski, and Jay Banks. This episode was recorded and mixed by Jerik Centeno. Thank you to David Toles, Kyle Seglin, and Charlotte Landes. For production support every week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroot. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
