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Ira and Louis discuss Anne Heche’s legacy, Nathan Fielder’s new series The Rehearsal, Megan thee Stallion’s sophomore album Traumazine, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, Madonna as a businesswoman, and Marlo Hampton’s disappointing season on Real Housewives of Atlanta. Plus, Connie Britton joins to discuss The White Lotus, revisiting Spin City, and her Broadway aspirations.

 

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

 

Louis VIrtel I’m Louis Virtel and I made the quaintest, cutest mistake this morning. Are you ready to hear it? I ordered some groceries, and instead of ordering five bananas, I ordered five bunches. It looks like fucking Donkey Kong country in here.

 

Ira Madison III You’re Chiquita.

 

Louis Virtel That’s me.

 

Louis VIrtel I have no choice but to be Josephine Baker for Halloween. I’ll have my cute banana peel skirt already for the boys.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t even get through five bananas.

 

Louis VIrtel Honestly. It’s a mysterious fruit to me because I feel like it’s the kind of thing you eat because it’s a fruit with some integrity, so it, like, fills you up. But at the same time, is it just sugar? Like, does anybody get, like, ripped because they ate four bananas a day? I don’t know. Again, it feels like Dee Dee Kong behavior.

 

Louis VIrtel I love a banana, but yeah, I truly feel like bananas for me are the metaphorical representation for attempting to try something new. I feel like you will buy a bunch of bananas and you’ll have you’ll eat one and you’ll be like, Oh, that was actually good, I do like bananas because I love the taste of bananas. And then you’ll have another one. The next day, maybe you’ll have it. By the third day, you just got dead bananas and fruit flies.

 

Louis VIrtel No, that’s interesting because I was actually wondering if anybody has ever loved a banana before or if they simply eat them because it’s the fruit that’s around.

 

Ira Madison III I love bananas. I love bananas. And I also used to make banana bread pre-pandemic.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, my God. That had never been done. You were the only one. Wow.

 

Ira Madison III I loved my grandmother’s like banana bread recipe. Not banana nut bread. Pure banana bread. Okay. I don’t want any mistakes in relation with my banana bread.

 

Louis VIrtel Wow. Now we set it up. I also. I like banana bread. Okay. This is such a strange topic to start on. It’s not pop culture. But anyway, bananas are my mind. I also have a friend who is obsessed with apparently in the sixties when Candy was banana flavored, it was based off a different variety of banana that’s not everywhere anymore. Like now we have the Cavendish banana. That’s the one. That’s if you had a banana today, it’s a Cavendish banana. But she found the I’m going to call it strain of bananas. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know what species of banana or whatever, and tried making them in her backyard because it has a different kind of sweeter taste than what you’re familiar with now. And I don’t think she’s successfully recreated that. Like she’s Luther Burbank, but.

 

Ira Madison III More of a pajama flavor to the banana.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes.

 

Louis VIrtel The first banana. That’s the originators of Bananas Inc.

 

Ira Madison III Australian icons, by the way.

 

Louis VIrtel Also, I mean.

 

Ira Madison III They had no idea that they were Australian when they were beamed on to our television sets when we were kids. Like did they have, do they have Australian accents.

 

Louis VIrtel I, I don’t actually know what their whole thing was to me. They felt like if you found Teletubbies too intellectually stimulating, try the Bananas in Pajamas because they’ll Keep It simple.

 

Ira Madison III Republicans would definitely come after Bananas in Pajamas today.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, yeah? Well, what are they up to? Get naughty. You know, the also they’re matching. We find that a little suspicious.

 

Ira Madison III And what do they do, when they unpeel?

 

Louis VIrtel That’s right. Wow. I that reminds me, by the way, here’s another tangent. Speaking of bananas, you know, the album The Velvet Underground and Nico with the banana album cover?

 

Ira Madison III Of course. Of course.

 

Louis VIrtel I was just listening to that recently. They are the weirdest case of a band or that album specifically that has that is queer and nothing is gay about it. Like they’re really hard bitten, straight men with a lady vocalist singing about things like heroin and, you know, being disillusioned with life or whatever’s going on in that album. But it’s the proximity to Warhol that makes everything. They do seem kind of cool in a queer way. Anyway, it was boggling in my mind recently.

 

Ira Madison III I think it’s I think it’s also that’s a 1967 album and like, I think that like a lot of that counter-culture moment.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Jinx I think the counterculture moment is what really sort of inspired a lot of queer shit anyway. There weren’t, there were big delineations then, you know, every where was shooting up in New York.

 

Louis VIrtel Correct. You can see the path to burning. Yeah, right. Yeah. That, that was your option for creativity.

 

Ira Madison III Heroin was for everyone.

 

Louis VIrtel I’m so glad we can come out and just take a stand on this podcast. It’s such a nice feeling.

 

Ira Madison III We have a fantastic show today. But before we get to it, I do want to mention the sad passing of a friend of ours, Kimberly Eaton. We met her in West Hollywood, where I feel like thousands of gay men met her.

 

Louis VIrtel She was unmistakable. If you met her once, you remembered her forever.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. She truly was the white horse of West Hollywood, Studio 54.

 

Louis VIrtel I mean I mean I mean, I’ve lived in L.A. since 2009. Kim was just one of these pop culture superstar people. And in fact, you may have seen her pop culture knowledge at work. She was on VH1’s World Series of pop culture in the 2000s, where she was on the Almost Perfect Strangers team. And there were two seasons of that. And there was a team called that on the first season and the second season, I believe she’s on the first season. But just the kind of person you would run into at a gay bar and utterly ebullient, full of life. And she just had the thing as it pertains to this podcast. She understood the humor in pop culture. She understood the seriousness of it. And she understood how. It was such an amazing tool to get to know other people. And like you could, you would run into her and talk to her about anything. It could be, you know, an old Faye Dunaway movie or it could be just an episode of TV you saw last night. And when I when I think of just the people I’ve had amazing times, you know, reflecting on pop culture was she’s just she’s been up there. In fact, when we were putting this podcast together, we.

 

Ira Madison III Talked about her.

 

Louis VIrtel We were like, It should be her.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis VIrtel She’s just somebody who knew everything.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The perfect person to run into on a Sunday when you’re at a bar, you know? And I feel like the actually the last time I did see her was two weeks ago at High Touch, which of course, you know.

 

Louis VIrtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III And we talked about.

 

Louis VIrtel That’s the last time I saw her too. It was at gay pride.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. We talked about Renaissance. You know, so of course, I got one last piece of pop culture through her. But she was a very good friend and also produced that black people like Freeform series that I did last year. So yeah, so incredibly smart and talented and it’s sad, but I wanted to make a point of mentioning her today because she loved listening to this podcast as she would text me all the time to about the shit we said on it. So even was even to agree and disagree of course.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, right. No. Which, by the way, again, is like, I appreciate your pop culture friends, the ones who not only know their ship but are like, actually, here’s where you’re fucking wrong. You know, it’s just like that’s like the thrill of a lifetime. There is not a second one of this person. So think of who the Kim Eaton in your life is. And if it’s us, well, that would be incredibly flattering because she fucking ruled.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of people who were fucking amazing. Who we’re talking about this week and Anne Heche.

 

Louis VIrtel I can’t. I mean, like the I mean, I hate to follow up that conversation with another conversation about someone being, like, one of a kind, whatever. But, man, we’ll get into it. I find the Anne Heche death utterly overwhelming. I’ve been watching her old movies somewhat obsessively again, and I hope you guys have too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, we will get into Anne Heche. We’re also going to revisit a segment that we always enjoy just where we’ll talk about what we’ve been consuming lately. That isn’t Renaissance. I’ve managed to do something beyond listening to the Beyonce album. I promise.

 

Louis VIrtel Wow.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis VIrtel You’ve exceeded expectations.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I’ve even gone back to scripted television, let me tell you.

 

Louis VIrtel I did, too. And by the way, I think I’m less likely to do that than you are, so.

 

Ira Madison III So we’ll get into that. Plus, our guest this week is really an icon who I’m shocked we have not had on the show yet. But Connie Britton is joining us today.

 

Louis VIrtel I feel like any time you turn around, one, Connie Britton is doing something new and two, always exceptional. My God, I know we are both Spin City viewers. Like it could have just been that alone. And yet here we are, you know, decades later, loving her on the White Lotus, for which she is nominated as she is Emmy nominated.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. There there’s this is that this is going to be another one of those people where we will get DMs about things we didn’t bring up because Connie Britton has literally done so fucking much.

 

Louis VIrtel Right? No, she was in This Is Where I leave you with Jane Fonda and Tina Fey. We could just talk about that the entire time. And yet we will talk about the many projects for which she is award nominated.

 

Ira Madison III I could ask her about The Fighting Fitzgeralds with Brian Dennehy.

 

Louis VIrtel Right? Yes. The Brothers McMullen. I mean, should we just list or credits? Is that our podcast now?

 

Ira Madison III Is it that we’re just doing interviews anyway?

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Here, we went to your Wikipedia. And here’s what you’ve been in. Cool right?

 

Ira Madison III Now let’s move on to the scandal section.

 

Louis VIrtel Well, and with personal life. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III All right. We will be back with more Keep It.

 

<A.D.>

 

Ira Madison III All right. I think it’s time to check in on what we’ve been consuming lately, because as I said before, I finally gone back to scripted TV. I think that the beginning of the pandemic, the first time we got lockdown, March 2020, I was reading. I was like, I was all up in Criterion. Like I was I felt like I was consuming culture. I was doing foreign films. I was like, I really thought like, okay, if we’re going to be here for a little bit, I might as well like get some things taken care of that I’ve always meant to read or watch. And I felt like I was really like. My synapses were going off with like things to talk about. I thought, like, we had, like, lovely conversations about culture.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Around the time that that happened. And now.

 

Louis VIrtel I’m picturing you’re wearing a beret as you do all of these things, by the way. A foreign film, reading a book.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, I love running through the streets with a baguette sticking out of a brown paper bag. That’s just my vibe.

 

Louis VIrtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III But lately. All I do is watch Bravo.

 

Louis VIrtel I would say I had just been watching Big Brother. And Jeopardy on Pluto, Pluto TV, which, by the way, continues to be a vortex into which I am sucked.

 

Ira Madison III I do still watch Days of Our Lives every day as our listeners know, but I don’t consider that scripted TV anymore. It’s just I feel like I feel like the actors who show up and say lines that they’ve been saying for 30 years and somehow it melts into a story.

 

Louis VIrtel I yeah. It’s like church to you. Yeah, it’s a ritual. You know, you go there to get a sacrament or two and then you move on. You don’t you don’t ingest it as a credible storytelling.

 

Ira Madison III Except now I’ve finally been able to consume TV that’s been written by actual smart people. Well, some of it I have been watching Pretty Little Liars Original Sin.

 

Louis VIrtel Which every time I read that title I’m like, Who dipped into the Cinemax universe? Who determines the Harlequin Romance universe?

 

Ira Madison III I like Krista Allen should be in it with someone rubbing like ice over her breasts.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. The amount of eyes on breasts. And not just Cinemax, but like on Oxygen network late at night. You’d see something at 1 a.m. where it’s like, Ooh, this robe slipped off me. And you can see the hint of an aerial if you squint at the right hand corner of your screen.

 

Ira Madison III Can our straight listeners, let us know if that’s a thing or?

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Or, you know.

 

Louis VIrtel Softcore? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, like, like do do or you know, like there are any of our like female listeners as well, you know, like do do, do you get off with people rubbing ice on your nipples? Is that a thing?

 

Louis VIrtel It’s very it’s very body of evidence, very erotic thrillers of the early nineties.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like one time I tried the Ricky Martin Livin La Vida Loca candle wax, right on a chest thing. And I don’t think that goes over well.

 

Louis VIrtel No. I mean, also, there’s something about the lighting in that video where it just candle wax fits into the sepia Latin moment there, whereas normally wax is just something hot that you shouldn’t be holding in your hands.

 

Ira Madison III Pretty Little Liars Original Sin was my gateway to scripted TV, so I had been watching other things. But I do want to shout out the fact that if you’ve been following people online, sort of memorializing Riverdale because it’s coming to an end this year, and this is also created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who is sort of like a rad, listen to me sounding like Louis, sort of a rad like gay playwright. And I used to see his shit in Chicago back when we were in undergrad. He had like this really funny play called Like Satan I Love You, which makes all the sense now when you see Riverdale and this show, but it is just as bonkers as you thought.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, I was going to say you said gay playwright. And I thought Terrence McNally, Terrence McNasty. That’s what Riverdale is.

 

Ira Madison III Then I want to describe a scene in this show. It is. It is. So it’s so Passions-esqe in that it sets up.

 

Louis VIrtel This is Pretty Little Liars are talking about.

 

Ira Madison III It so Passions-esque in that it has weird like cliffhangers within dialog where you think a person’s got to say something but they say something completely else. And I feel like that is the hallmark of camp writing.

 

Louis VIrtel Sure.

 

Ira Madison III There’s a ballet teacher named Madam Juri, of course, for the Phantom of the Opera fans who’s working with this, like black ballet dancer. And the ballet dancer is like flirting with a boy in her class. And I want to tell you that Madame Juri pulls her to the side and she says. If you’re going to be a dilettante, you’ll never get into Alvin Ailey. And then the black dancer says, What makes you think I want to get into Alvin Ailey? Is it because I’m black? I want to go to ABT and then Madame Juri with boards? No, I don’t think ABT would accept you if they knew the truth about your scoliosis. That may flash back to this young like black girl with like a like thing. Like, harness is like they strapped around her as a kid to reveal that she is battling scoliosis.

 

Louis VIrtel I love the idea of the the board at Alvin Ailey sitting around and be like, oh, she doesn’t have scoliosis does she? Fuck that. Or pardon me, at American Ballet Theater or whatever. Misty Copeland is like, oh, don’t try me with that scoliosis. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, it’s a fully, fully ridiculous show. And it was just sort of what I needed to snap me back into watching non reality TV.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh yeah. Did you also watch The Bear? I watched about six episodes of that.

 

Ira Madison III I have not. And people are going insane over it.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah, they’re wild. I mean, I’ll say that I was sort of pressured into it because it’s set in Chicago and it’s about the rigor of running a little Chicago restaurant. And the guy who runs the restaurant has like a bit of a dark past that they keep piecing together. His his demeanor is very Casey Affleck in Manchester By The Sea. Like there’s a softness to the hardness here. But we don’t know where both of those come from.

 

Louis VIrtel And he’s burned his kids alive.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Well, actually, there is like a fire storyline. So anyway, you never know what’s going to be happening there. But he runs this restaurant Iota Beary starts working there and she’s like.

 

Ira Madison III She’s amazing, by the way.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah, she’s really good in it. She’s really good in it. I will just say this, having being from Chicago, the accents don’t really remind me of Chicago. I feel like they could have done more to get the really aggravating things we do. And I’m talking about like the way I say the word college or cafeteria or the way like milk turns into milk sometimes like that. I think we could have paid more attention to that. But otherwise this show, which is very tense in a soft brother’s way, I call that soft fat acid heat when I was texting about it with friends. But for for it being that tense, I found it went down pretty easy. And I think it’s because they’re half hour episodes and I’m always for a half hour drama. I don’t know when we wrote the rule that dramas have to be an hour long, but so far I’m enjoying it. And there’s like fun little cameos in there, which I guess the show is obsessed with not spoiling. They’re not so radical that you wouldn’t believe it. It’s not like, Oh my God, you know, whatever. Sandra Bullock is the you know, the the James Beard scholar who’s there or whatever. That’s nothing like that.

 

Ira Madison III Isn’t Molly Ringwald, one of them?

 

Louis VIrtel Yes. Molly Ringwald’s in it. She, I’ve only seen her on, I think one scene so far, but she was great.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, she’s been in Riverdale, so.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes, nice tie in.

 

Ira Madison III At this point you’re not breaking new ground Hulu.

 

Louis VIrtel But that’s also a cute cameo because obviously she’s associated with Chicago tinged cinema through John Hughes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Well, I feel like that show is mostly populated with a lot of New Yorkers and sort of like Boston accents. And I feel like if you’re shooting a show set in Chicago, half the cast would be populated with people from like Steppenwolf.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. I want people who have been burned by an acting exercise with Gary Sinise. I want to know. I want to see them.

 

Ira Madison III And maybe they’re all on the Chicago PD at this point, actually.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. No, Chicago, they are 80 of those that probably still exist, you know, Chicago Delicatessen or whatever they’re on now.

 

Ira Madison III Tracy Letts is turning out the scripts. Okay.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, yeah. Remember when he wrote Superior Donuts? What a weird little life. Tracy Letts is out.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of acting exercises in general, the thing that has actually been encompassing my weekend has been The Rehearsal.

 

Louis VIrtel Okay. Which I. Here’s the thing about me, and I don’t know that I’ve ever said this on the show. We’re obviously in a universe where a lot of drama comes from, quote unquote, cringe, like that’s a part of scripted television we love and unscripted television. I can handle so fucking little of it that when even Nathan Fielder appears in front of me, I can’t be guaranteed I won’t jump out of my skin within seconds. And so I put it off. I don’t know if I’ll be watching this show, but I know I kind of should.

 

Ira Madison III So I also can’t stand things that people would call cringe. I never even use that word. But like I.

 

Louis VIrtel No, I hate that word.

 

Ira Madison III I’m the kind of person who would get attached to a character and something uncomfortable’s happening to them onscreen. Like, I have to look away. I fast forward it sometimes because things like really do make me uncomfortable and especially like I can’t watch. Like Scott’s Tots,  that Office episode that’s so fucking uncomfortable. Like, shit like that like, does not appeal to me. But this show, maybe because it’s so weird, is how it also manages to be like, very sort of like sweet and heartwarming because I see it as I initially thought that it was just this weird sort of acting exercise. And the premise of it is that Nathan Fielder of Nathan For You, which I actually never really watched.

 

Louis VIrtel I’ve seen a few episodes with my brothers and I have to say, I was laughing so hard, I. I’m ashamed. It was like it was pouring out of me. It was like it was in a way like you had been stabbed in laughs fell out of you.

 

Ira Madison III I’m going to actually visit Nathan For You now because I’m obsessed with the series, but the concept of The Rehearsal is that, you know, he’s helping people do something that they’ve always wanted to do with their life, but they rehearsed the process with actors who look like the people they’re going to be talking to before they do it. And the extra layer of that is that before he talks to these people, he rehearses every possible interaction he could have with that person before he even meets with them. So it’s, it’s, it’s like layer.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh my god.

 

Ira Madison III On layer of that. And it’s so weird, but it’s also like it’s also very moving. And I mean, I know we did talk about Kim earlier this episode. I was like, maybe that’s why I was in the right headspace for this. I mean, I was full on sobbing at the end of the first episode.

 

Louis VIrtel Jesus Christ.

 

Ira Madison III And I think the first episode would appeal to you because it is the concept is there’s this man who is really good at trivia and he’s in like a bar. He’s at a bar trivia team. When he met them, they were all they all had master’s degrees. And he just went along with that and said that he had one, too. So he’s lied about having a master’s degree for years and like a friend, like, keep sending him like job posting, but you need a master’s degree for it. And he feels like he’s just been lying to these people for years and he wants to come clean. And that’s what the pilot is.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, wow.

 

Ira Madison III But I would say that this show is not what you expect. It’s this is really a spoiler, but it’s serialized in the sense that the next episode is this woman who wants to experience motherhood. And so over the course of two months, she’s raising like real people’s babies who are, like, swapped out like every other night for another child that’s aged up. So she’s experiencing like birth to age 18. But

 

Louis VIrtel It’s a little bit Billy Madison going through all the grades.

 

Ira Madison III But he gets involved in it and then as he’s doing rehearsals with other people, he keeps coming back to this and it twists into more about being a show that’s sort of about like him trying to learn how to have real human interactions with people.

 

Louis VIrtel MM Because he has a very puzzling sort of demeanor when he’s talking with people that feels like there’s no emotions entering the fray. He’s, he’s entirely zero’s he’s, he’s broken down social interaction into zeros and ones.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. It’s really sort of like breaking down the Truman Show and turning it into a like it’s like a comedy where like Truman, though, is the one running his own series. I would say the highlight of it is episode four was I completely blew my mind and might be one of the best things I’ve seen on television all year. It is him in an acting class with actors who are going to be playing people, in the rehearsals.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, okay. That which that kind of reminds me of episodes of Nathan For You, too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis VIrtel Like there’s. Yeah. So. Okay, that’s. I’m thrilled to hear it. First you were the person wearing the beret, then you brought up the Truman Show. And now Ed Harris is wearing the beret. Classic look, if you could win a supporting actor Oscar for just like being perched on your hand with a beret, it should have gone to Ed Harris, but. Now I assume you have consumed, since we’re using the word consumed, which makes us sound like monsters, but I’m thrilled by that.

 

Ira Madison III We’re Suzy Ormond.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes. Right. Yes, yes. Wow. Good reference. The Megan Thee Stallion album.

 

Ira Madison III I have. I have. I love it. I love the album as much as I am confused by the title.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. It does feel like. Like maybe she had 75 potential titles and this was about the 60th one and they settled with that.

 

Ira Madison III Who’s Traumazine and who?

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. Yeah, Traumazine, not really a successful pun. And also trauma as it pertains to pop culture should only be uttered by Jamie Lee Curtis, who I think is the only person who has ever pronounced it correctly.

 

Ira Madison III I have been listening to this album and I really enjoy it. I enjoy the fact that it.

 

Louis VIrtel Is very straight forward.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis VIrtel Like she picks like like she’s like, what’s the lyric on one of those songs, on this song, Anxiety, which is about exactly that. And she’ll say things like Even bad bitches have a bad day. And it goes through that. It’s, it’s very pedestrian. Sounds like I’m dissing it, but it’s straightforward. It’s her being like, here’s this problem I have. I’m not overselling my devastation or whatever trauma, if you will. But just saying, here’s something that sucks and I love the nonchalance of it. Weirdly, I’ve never thought this about her before, but obviously, even though the way she raps is like extremely hard hitting, like spitting rhymes at you, there’s like a laid back quality that reminds me of, like, older rappers that reminds me of M.C. Light or something.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I, I remember when Plan B first came out, she debuted at Coachella as we were in the audience listening. Everyone around me kept saying like that felt like old Little Kim.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. uh-Huh.

 

Ira Madison III And even, like, there’s even, like, you know, like a Biggie sample on this, on Consistency. One of my favorite songs on it. Yeah, I just really like that this feels like this is her second studio album and it feels like a little bit like Lindsay Lohan second studio album, a little more personal, raw.

 

Louis VIrtel Wait. Now, what’s on that one, is that I Want to Come In First.

 

Ira Madison III Daughter and father.

 

Louis VIrtel from Herbie Fully Loaded. Oh, Daughter and Father, oh, my God, we really just kept giving her the mic for, like go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Um.

 

Louis VIrtel I want to come first from Herbie Fully Loaded, I am sure I brought up how disgusting that line is. But anyway.

 

Ira Madison III I also love that everyone is in a dance music headspace because she has her fantastic new single. Her, has a hilarious chorus where it’s just lyrics, just her saying I’m her her. Her, her. I’m. She. She, she, she. Which is. Which is pandering to the gays.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Right. I can think of several opportunities in which I will be using that to express my own feelings. Also, of course, on this album she has that collaboration with Dua LIPA, which I’m a fan of that song. I like that single, it’s pretty good. Not like.

 

Ira Madison III You like the beat?

 

Louis VIrtel Not like top tier dua. Yeah. I’m not turning it off. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III But you’re not trying to get on either.

 

Louis VIrtel See, there we are. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III That’s actually most of the post future nostalgia Dua LIPA. For me, I feel like we haven’t started a new era yet, so it’s a lot of okay. Like that song with Calvin Harris.

 

Louis VIrtel Potion. Yes. Mm hmm. And by the way, I love the idea of potions. Yeah, I should. I was like the ideal customer for this song.

 

Ira Madison III Of course, that’s number one. All right. You prefer number nine.

 

Louis VIrtel Right? To get back to Sandra Bullock? Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, the album’s good. And, you know, I’m also excited that she’s writing hooks finally.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes. The album. Were you concerned about that?

 

Ira Madison III You know, she’s always been great at spinning. She’s always had like a really funny, like, hard hitting line. But I feel like, you know, as far as songs like The Hooks weren’t always there. And I feel like this is more of a fully formed Megan. She’s maturing on this album, which is what you always want from an artist. And this is also, you know, in the midst of like her dispute with her label, 1501 Entertainment. And I believe that this is the last thing that she owes them. So I always love when an artist is like feuding with their label and they’re like, Well, here’s some shit that you can have. Prince.

 

Louis VIrtel Slave on the cheek, please.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Madonna which, by the way, for people who aren’t of a certain age, like, like us before, before streaming, when an artist had contractual obligations to release albums for their label, that is why so many of our pop stars of yesteryear have 5000 greatest hits albums.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, right. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III There’s no need to release that.

 

Louis VIrtel We kept collecting them.

 

Ira Madison III There’s no need to release a greatest hits album now because it’s all right there.

 

Louis VIrtel No, which I feel bad. But I used to like having a greatest hits album in a way, like, especially if if it added something extra, you know, Madonna Immaculate Collection, you got, like, Justify My Love and Rescue Me here on Design of a Decade by Janet, you got Runaway, which is my favorite Janet song. But there was just something about like, getting up. Sometimes the greatest thing an artist puts out is their greatest hits. I’m a huge fan of Til Tuesday, the Aimee Man Band from the eighties, and their greatest hits is basically all you need, even though I like all three of their albums. But that’s just it. They released only three albums, so why wouldn’t you just want the greatest hits?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, it sort of was the precursor to the This is Spotify playlist for every artist that’s up there. Yes. Right. You know, like it was it was a playlist, basically. But that’s how I got into so many people as well.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, no, please. I have such fond memories of, like, strolling through Best Buy and being like, All right, I’ll pick up the best of this is the name that’s coming to mind, Laura Nyro. Well, I end up liking her. Yes. Now I’ll buy six of her albums as my eyes as I remember once my brother Mark, he bought The Immaculate Collection. I was an obsessive, you know, Madonna fan my whole life. He’s like, Whatever, I’ll dip into this. And then he goes, Wait a minute. I just learned these aren’t the original album versions. He goes, Looks like I’m buying those, too. Yeah. His quote was, You’re telling me Like A Prayer doesn’t have lasers in it?

 

Ira Madison III Oh, I love a Greatest Hits remix album, too.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Well, that’s what she’s served us. She’s like, I’m not giving you the originals. Please. Those albums are still out. Speaking of new music, though, what do you think of the new Rick James sampling Nicki Minaj song?

 

Ira Madison III As a barb, I plead the fifth.

 

Louis VIrtel Wow, that bad? I was kind of into it, at first. But it’s one of those things where. And I did feel this way about Anaconda. Well, I don’t know, actually, in retrospect.

 

Ira Madison III In retrospect, Anaconda.

 

Louis VIrtel The original song is so much better than this. I just like Rick James, Super Freak is one of the slays of all time. Like when he came up with that song, it was so raunchy and so like, I don’t know, irreverent feeling in a way. Like, that mix was very new. It sort of, you know, it was around the beginning of Prince, too. And it’s that kind of feeling like it could be this raunchy and this good and funky and funny. So to hear that song again is great. Yeah, I don’t know that she added to the song.

 

Ira Madison III I will say that I appreciated Anaconda only. And in retrospect, I love it even more now. I think it’s one of her best singles because she was reclaiming Baby Got Back.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah, there’s a wit to that.

 

Ira Madison III As you know, it became a white song.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. A traditional white celebratory anthem.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, with Baby Got Back is stuck on a Caucasian jukebox with This Is How We Do It and Return Of The Mack. Okay, like we’re .

 

Louis VIrtel Do you think Return of the Mack got claimed?.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, we’re never getting those songs back. Which is.

 

Louis VIrtel You’re right.

 

Ira Madison III Because This Is How We Do It,  is actually a very bad song.

 

Louis VIrtel I don’t know about that, but I see what you mean. Also, Baby Got Back really became White Lady Karaoke. Yeah. You know, it just happens sometimes.

 

Ira Madison III And like listen, a friend actually produced that Super Freaky Girl, and I enjoy it. I heard it out in West Hollywood and I enjoyed it more. You know, it’s fun for the clubs. You know, it’s, um exactly what you want to hear when you want to hear the sample. And then you, you know, you want to hear like a Nikki beat over it. It’s just sort of like, okay, cool, this is fun. But in terms of her career, it’s not moving the needle. It’s just sort of there. And I can’t. And I feel like she’s released a lot of singles lately, and I’m wondering if an album is coming or if we’re in some weird stasis where one of these has to hit and become number one, and then we’ll get an album.

 

Louis VIrtel Mm hmm.

 

Ira Madison III Because as a Sagittarius.

 

Louis VIrtel It’s up to us.

 

Ira Madison III As a Sagittarius pop star. She is obsessed with the charts.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. I, I want to say, just in general, I am generally appreciative of celebrities and artists who are obsessed with stats. And this isn’t quite an entertainer, but Serena Williams and that profile that just came out talking about how she was obsessed with like one by one beating like all the names that come up in that article. She’s like Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, that each one of those increments meant something different to her. I just loved the I mean, there’s no we don’t have another word for this. And I’m not using this in a derogatory way. It’s something I would say about myself in terms of an obsession with statistics, pettiness, you know, just like it means something to beat that person, to mean something different, to be that person, you know, keeping score, if you will.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, well, she’s earned that.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. No. Right. By all means, don’t do it. We love it, you know? It’s so different than, like, interviewing an actor. It’s like, well, talk to Connie Britton. I’m sure she’s like, I don’t even know who I’m nominated against this year. Like, you never talk to an actress nominated for an Oscar. And she’s like, Well, I’m so fucking glad I beat Vanessa fucking Redgrave or whatever. You know, it’s just it’s it’s different in sports.

 

Ira Madison III I honestly wish more actors were like that.

 

Louis VIrtel Your lips to God’s ears, please come on this podcast.

 

Ira Madison III Please come and talk about who you still fucking hate.

 

Louis VIrtel yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III widem 1983.

 

Louis VIrtel No, actually, I can think of one quote that makes me think of this, which was I think I was reading a magazine. This wasn’t a quote that I saw  wide online, but Rooney Mara talked about the the year she was nominated for Carol. So that would have been supporting actress. And she lost to Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl. And that was a year where Alicia Vikander won everything. And she said regarding that Oscar run, she goes, It’s like you’re celebrating somebody else’s birthday for months. Like, Wow, yeah. That’s what I wanted to hear. That makes sense to me.

 

Ira Madison III Alicia Vikander Not my Tomb Raider.

 

Louis VIrtel Is she  your Irma Vep? Is she Irma Vep?. That’s kind of a fun show.

 

Ira Madison III You know what, that’s next on my list.

 

Louis VIrtel Okay. I will say Maggie Chong is the erm of up, but Alicia acquitted herself nicely.

 

Ira Madison III I had a whole conversation about the series with our friend, Chris and I.

 

Louis VIrtel He won’t shut up about it.

 

Ira Madison III I mean. Yeah, it’s. It’s. It’s his carpenters.

 

Louis VIrtel Right? Okay. Well, all right. I’ll just put down this carpenter’s memoir I have next to me right now.

 

Ira Madison III But I realize in him talking about like it’s it’s based on  a thing, based on another thing. But I’ve seen the original thing that Irma Vep is based on the French from the thirties, the French film, The Vampires. Yeah. So, you know I’ll ease my way into the Irma Vep cinematic universe.

 

Louis VIrtel Which is apparently deep. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right, well, we’re back. Connie Britton joins us.

 

Speaker 3 <A.D.>

 

Ira Madison III She is the star of such iconic series as Friday Night Lights, American Horror Story, Nashville, a personal fave of mine, and White Lotus, for which she is nominated for an Emmy. We are thrilled to welcome to Keep It the legendary Connie Britton.

 

Connie Britton Aw, Thanks, what a nice introduction.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, my god. We’re so thrilled you’re here.

 

Connie Britton Legendary.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah, that’s you. Oh, no, Connie, we just had Jesse Tyler Ferguson here recently who was nominated for a Tony. And he did end up winning that Tony, but he was nominated against everybody he was in this play with. And I was wondering, you’re nominated for the White Lotus. I’ve never seen somebody nominated against so many people they are in the same fucking thing with.

 

Connie Britton Me neither.

 

Louis VIrtel And my question is, is that thrilling or are you worried like somebody else in the cast will have to win? And then do you have to fabricate an especially proud face for that moment if somebody else wins? Like what’s going through your head?

 

Connie Britton You know what? I’ll tell you. First of all, I’ve never been in this situation either. But it’s so it’s like, oh, my gosh. But it’s and, you know, you could you can ask all kinds of questions about like, it seems like maybe they left some people out from some other shows. You know what I mean? Like, I’m like I’m like, that doesn’t seem quite fair. But at the same time, I’m also like, you know, we’re the ones who get the benefit of this, like just gifts of these award nominations. And the truth of the matter is, I love every single one of these cast members. I root for every single one of them. Like, it doesn’t feel competitive to me. It actually feels like truly it feels like a testament to the show and to the real nature of the show, which was so collaborative. You know, it was just we were all in it together in such a major way. And and honestly, anything, at least in my experience, anything that’s good is that. It is a true collaboration like that. And you just like get in with each other and under each other’s skin and live there, you know? But I really see the, the being in the same category with my fellow cast members, as a real way of honoring the collaborative nature of what this show was and is. And I will be not fabricating, but truly, truly ecstatic for whichever cast if a cast member ends up winning. I mean, we also have two other excellent actresses in that category, and I’ll be thrilled for any of them. And that’s the way I always feel, honestly, about being nominated. Like, listen, I’ve been in this business long enough to know. We are all out there doing the best we can and really working hard and. I have found it is so much better to support my fellow actresses and to know that we all have something to contribute than to be competitive with them. So also, quite frankly, every time I’ve ever been nominated, I get there and my shoes are so uncomfortable, I suddenly dread like, what if I win? I won’t be able to walk up on stage. So there’s that, too. But I really I really feel like it’s it’s just it’ll be it’ll be exciting. And it’s kind of like my goal in life is to support my people. And even if it’s not myself, you know, somebody from my cast still my fellow actresses and the actors from our show, too, for sure.

 

Ira Madison III Well, talking about supporting other actors you’ve worked with, too, I feel like you’ve had this distinct sort of like career where you’ve worked with a lot of younger actors, you know, specifically for like Friday Night Lights and then also, you know, working with Hayden on Nashville and now this, you know, what is it like working with younger actors where you can do you sort of sense like an actor who’s like really going to like take off and like they really have sort of like a spark when you’re in a scene with them. Because I feel like so many of the younger actors from Friday Night Lights became like stars after that, you know, and then you’re on White Lotus, right as like Sydney Sweeney is like exploding.

 

Connie Britton Right. I know. I know. You know, I. Yeah. The first time I really had that experience was on Friday Night Lights, and that was kind of the first time that both Kyle and Chandler. Kyle Chandler and I realized like, Oh, we’re are the old people. And these are the young people. I had always we’ve always been young people, you know what I mean? Like we’d always been sort of or like the ingenue or whatever. So it was the first experience of, Oh, we’re the ones who I guess have the quote unquote wisdom, and they’re kind of just fresh out of the gate. And I remember having a conversation with Kiefer when we were doing Friday Night Lights and him saying, Boy, I would not want the pressure of being this young and having this kind of role and this kind of exposure out in the world. Like, I don’t I don’t envy that for any of these kids. Like, that’s a lot to carry. That’s a lot to manage. And so in in the case of Friday Night Lights, like, it was a great it was a great environment for it because Kyle and I really like we’re very intentional and also that’s just how we are. But we were like, we’re keeping it real. We’re like, we’re the focus is on the thing that we’re making, the thing that we’re doing, and it’s not. We were so far removed from like the Hollywood and the business of it all. And I just think that really helps a lot. But it’s it’s interesting, you know, for instance, comparing that experience to the White Lotus experience, because when I met Sydney on this, I mean, it’s like this generation, they’re so like capable at such a young age. Like she, I had never seen anything like it. Like she, she’s so kind of empowered and already has so many ideas going and irons in the fire and focused, you know. And it was a different kind of. And yet at the same time she was so reverent to me like, oh my gosh, I’m so excited to be working with you and whatever. And I’m like, Really, girl, because you got your shit together, you know what I mean? Like, I was like that. I was, I sort of felt a little bit like, I have nothing to offer you. I have things to learn from you, you know? But I but I also really appreciated sort of her that she still has her her innocence and her youthfulness and her connection to home and all those things that are really important to keep you grounded. But it’s funny, I remember we were shooting the scene in White Lotus where the girls are. Sydney’s character and Brittany’s character are like doing drugs, like in the hotel room. And they, like, had to ask Mike White how to do the various things that they were doing. And he’s like, What is wrong with your generation? You’re supposed to be off doing drugs and instead you’re becoming moguls like, what is wrong with you? And I thought that was so interesting because I was like, Wow, man, that’s really different. Like, they just have a really different headspace. But it’s also exciting because they’re they’re going to they’re going to hopefully take over the world and with any luck, let’s hope they make it better.

 

Louis VIrtel My question about the White Lotus promoting it, is it a nightmare to promote something where you can’t talk about what happens on it? Because now when I look back on the White Lotus, all I can think about is what the I mean, aside from, you know, the great performances and stuff, what the ending finally ended up being. Like that’s when I talk about the show like, Oh, can you believe that happened? Whatever. Is it daunting to do press when the slightest misstep can give away the entire reason we’re watching the show, for example.

 

Connie Britton Umm. I don’t know. It’s funny, I. I never really feel that way. I think the important thing is to have it be made really clear, like what you can say and what you can’t say and what what is, you know, being exposed out there amongst critics or whatever. The more the more I know about how that marketing is working, the more comfortable I feel about it. You know, and it is hard, but I, I don’t I think I’ve always kind of had a relationship with the press and sort of with the public anyway, where I’m like, I don’t I don’t try to do this. I don’t want to disclose too much personally. I don’t want to disclose too much in terms of story. You know, I love I think I think mystique and mystery and and/or privacy are really valuable and are are very strong currency across the board, you know, and I think that includes when you’re promoting a show. And so I, I actually like, I kind of enjoy that. Um, you know, it’s funny, like. I was with Sydney the other night and she was being asked about this new Marvel thing that she’s doing and she was like, I’m so stressed out about it. I can’t say anything. Like, I’m literally afraid if I say one single thing about it, you know, I’m going to get in so much trouble. And I. And I thought to myself. Well, that’s that’s not a world. I mean, I’ve never been in that situation before. That’s a whole other level that I have not had to deal with before, but that’s a lot. And going back to your other question about sort of the age/youth thing, it’s like I do think that if I were in that situation because I’ve kind of come up in a world where I, I was never disclosing that much anyway. You know, I didn’t come up where we, where we had so much social media and the internet and all that. So now like that’s the other thing. These kids, you know, they think that they have to expose everything about themselves and everything about what they’re doing. And so to be put in a position in Sydney’s case like that Marvel movie, it must feel very stressful because she can’t see, she can’t expose that. And for me, I’m kind of used to it. You know.

 

Ira Madison III I want to ask about one of my favorite roles of yours are Spin City, which I used to watch. Yeah, like iconic show.

 

Connie Britton That’s an oldie but goodie.

 

Ira Madison III Truly iconic show that I used to watch it, you know, like every night as a kid because it was in reruns. At a certain point, I don’t even know that I saw the show as it initially aired.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh I did.

 

Ira Madison III But reruns, I really got addicted to it. Do you look back like fondly on that series? I feel like, you know, working with Michael J. Fox at that time, too, must have been such a joy. But then also, you know, you were the last role, you know, before he had to take a break because of his Parkinson’s.

 

Connie Britton Yeah. Well, thank you for asking about that because gosh, that, you know, that was the first that was my first real TV job. And I had done I’d done a guest star on Ellen on The Ellen Show. Remember The Ellen Show? She had a sitcom. She had it was a sitcom. And then I got Spin City, and that was my first sort of like regular. And I was so green. I mean, I hadn’t really even worked in front of the I, all my background was in theater, so I hadn’t really worked in front of the camera even before. But I was I grew up watching sitcoms. And I also because I came out of the theater, I’m like, it’s going to be just like the theater. There’s a live audience, which, of course, it wasn’t. There are also three cameras and walking in a whole different a completely different beast. But I that was I look back at that as such an incredible, you know, education for me in terms of just working with the best of the best and working in front of a camera and working in comedy and working on film, you know, and and, you know, to be able to do that with Michael J. Fox and that incredible group of actors and Gary David Goldberg. You know, they were the greats. And I really look at that time as my the time where I got to learn so much on the job about about acting in front of a camera. Because I’d never done it before, really. I mean, I had like, I did this movie, The Brothers McMullen, which was this tiny little independent film, which is sort of my big break. But like, that was like my my real sort of education. And being in front of the camera and working with such that group of actors is will always be, you know, they really for me, they set the bar on what it is to be in an ensemble and what it is to be and truly, truly collaborative environment. And I think, you know, especially because we were working with Michael at the time and he kept it secret for for several years on that show. And then when it finally, you know, he finally told us that he had Parkinson’s and working, you know, being a support for him through that and all of us sort of coming together because it’s like this was his burden, but it was something that we all wanted to share with him and support him through. And it really, you know, it just it just created a lot of my values working on that show. So I was I will always be so grateful for it.

 

Louis VIrtel There are obviously still are a few, you know, popular multi cams out there, but there really is something about the art form itself and Spin City where it’s like every single one of those cast members, including you, like radiates, like positivity, like, I don’t know, like it’s like the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Like, every single one of them needs to be my best friend on a different day. And, like, how do you think you create that? Like. Like, I think of Barry Bostwick, and, like, I have a smile on my face, you know?

 

Connie Britton Oh, my gosh, I know. I seem like I still like Michael Boatman. Do you guys remember Michael Boatman?

 

Louis VIrtel Also on Celebrity Mole, also on Celebrity Molewith Kathy Griffin. Yes.

 

Connie Britton Really? Okay.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes.

 

Connie Britton Yeah. You know, I still get his I haven’t seen them in years, but he his kids have been sending still send me their graduation. I just got the his his graduation announcement with the picture and it’s so cute because like, you know, he had those kids after or maybe they had one like while we were shooting the show. But anyway, it’s like, you know, children are now grown up, but these are just those. You’re right. There was something that’s a great point, like because there was something about all those sitcoms growing up that that really that was what raised me. Mary Tyler Moore. I Love Lucy. That Girl.

 

Louis VIrtel Marlo Thomas, of course.

 

Connie Britton Marlo Thomas. You know, those shows were my inspiration for wanting to become an actress. And so, you know, and it when I kind of came up and started getting into the business, you know, there was a lot of like, oh, you don’t want to do. You know, there was still a very big split between film and television. And it’s like, you know, TV was somehow less than but I never felt that way. My dream was to be on a sitcom. So, you know, I, I and I think that you’re right. There was something about the the hopefulness and the joy and, you know, a certain perspective on how, you know what, it’s fucking humor, guys. We don’t have it. We’re not making we are not making comedy like we used to. And we need it so desperately. And I don’t know what has happened in the landscape. I mean, obviously, so much has happened in the landscape. I mean, back when we were making Spin City, we had, you know, upward of 20 or 25 million viewers a week, you know, because this was network television. That’s all there was. You just don’t have that many people, that many eyeballs on one show at one time ever anymore. Ever. And I don’t know what’s happened. Now we’ve got algorithms and all the rest of it, and somehow comedy is really taking a back seat. And in order to have comedy now, it’s got to be super edgy and super light or dark or, you know, and.

 

Louis VIrtel And cutting.

 

Connie Britton And it’s really, you know. Yeah. And it’s like because I, I have a production company and I really want to try to get more comedy out there. And like I also grew up watching romantic comedy films as well. And it’s like they don’t make them anymore either. Those, those amazing, you know, Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase romantic comedies. They’re just it’s just so rare to find something like that now and. Gosh. We need it more than ever. And maybe, maybe that should just be my goal is let’s just create a resurgence, like let’s get it back. We need to know that there’s still heart and soul and we can still laugh because how else are we going to get through these times? My gosh.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean it’s also I feel like a nice coincidence to that spend city was on ABC and if you like ABC is like the one network that’s sort of done that with Abbott Elementary. I mean everyone I feel like I feel like people enjoy that so much because it is a classic sitcom that feels spread city of that way. It’s like you love every character of the show and it’s not, you know, it’s not a dark cable comedy at all.

 

Connie Britton Right. But it’s also yeah, I totally agree with you because but it’s also representing something that like we really want and need to see and it feels very representative of a to a big piece of culture, you know, and and I think that’s important. And I think Abbott Elementary is reminding us that we have the opportunity to, you know, portray. Big aspects of culture that haven’t necessarily been shown on TV before in this way, but do so in a heartfelt, funny way. And I’m so happy that that show exists. Because you’re right. And expensive. He was sort of doing that from the political standpoint to, you know, trying to kind of get under the sort of silliness of New York politics.

 

Ira Madison III Rewatching, a lot of those stories are like the the top the topics that that they do cover are very sort of like they’re about actual politics. So I love rewatching the show.

 

Connie Britton Yeah, I love that I should rewatch it. I didn’t seen it in years.

 

Ira Madison III You should, you’re great, everyone’s great. But I have a question. I have a question about your theater background because it’s interesting that, you know, like, you know, when you go to like look at your credits online, you have your film, you have your TV, and then it’s also like you were on what, like 15 albums because you did Nashville and you know, is, is that is singing and like performing something you really enjoy. And would you want to do that again? Like and maybe something like in an on stage form? I want to say that also like I adored Nashville and especially one of my very close friends, Angelina BURNETT is T-Bone BURNETT’s daughter and Callie Khouri is her step mom. And so when the show when the show was first starting, Angelina was constantly telling me that this show is going to be it, it’s going to be great. And, you know, I think like the first season of Nashville is like one of the perfect first seasons of television. And just like the music, the stories and everything was just really great.

 

Connie Britton Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. Well, yeah, no, I it’s funny, I’ve been having dreams about singing on stage lately because it’s it’s it’s very scary for me, I have to admit. Like, that was I’m so grateful that I had the experience of doing Nashville for so many reasons. I mean, it really to have the experience of working with T-Bone BURNETT and and all the other amazing producers that we worked with, an incredible songwriters that we worked with, all of these Nashville based songwriters who were just I learned so much from them. And it was really for me personally wonderful to be able to challenge myself to to sing like that and to learn how you record a song, which I’d never done before and and then performing on stage. And what, that’s how, how you, how you really, really do that. But I have to say, it also made me really just have such even more enormous respect for the people who just do it brilliantly. And I’m kind of like, I don’t know that I’m I think there’s a there’s a there’s a there’s a world where I do it. I can do it well and I can do it from a real story storytelling standpoint. But I just have such regard for the ones who just can get on stage and like make music come to life and are just like and this this voice just comes out of their body and I’m just like, huh? So to answer your question, all that being said, that’s all my fear. I would still love to do it again if it was just the right circumstance. And, you know, I’ve actually been offered a few musicals. I what I really, really want to do is to do a Broadway show. I’ve never done a Broadway show in my whole life. Never, never been on Broadway.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh.

 

Connie Britton And I want you so badly. I mean, that was really always such a dream. And then I kind of veered into TV and film. But, you know, I really, really want to have the opportunity to do that.

 

Ira Madison III And we would be seated. We’d be there.

 

Ira Madison III you would?

 

Ira Madison III Yes, we were. You would, you’d be selling out tickets. Okay. Oh.

 

Connie Britton Well, I mean, from your lips to God’s ears, you know, I think I just and I did actually get offered a few things that were so exciting to consider doing. But it was at a time it was kind of right after Nashville. And, you know, I have I’m I’m a single mom of a my son. And it so it really would mean kind of displacing him and figuring that out. So I kind of I think I’m not going to do Broadway. I don’t know. I have to figure it out because he’s in school now, he’s 11. He’s got his you know, now I’m working with this whole other agenda. But, you know, maybe I’ll get back there. I mean, I know not. Maybe I will get back there. I’m just not sure when.

 

Louis VIrtel Now, this is not me asking what you will do once you get to the stage. But do you have a particular favorite Broadway show?

 

Connie Britton Well, I always wanted to do. I always wanted to play Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

 

Speaker 3 And we were just talking about Paul Newman. It’s such a fun movie.

 

Connie Britton I Know. I mean, that was always my dream. And now I’m like, Am I too old to do that now? I might be too old to do it, but I’m not sure I can still hold the dream. But that would be, you know. Or anything like Tennessee Williams, you know, like I love all that, you know?

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, we love you. Getting into a Geraldine Page moment. Yes, let’s get some Sweet Bird, etc.. Yeah. Summer and smoke. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Connie Britton Yes, exactly.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I am also intrigued, too, you know, by your how much you’ve worked with, you know, like Ryan Murphy, like in the American Horror Story universe. Do you enjoy horror as well or is this something where you’re like, this is just like a fun diversion? But I don’t really get into all of this because the first season of American Horror Story Murder House is terrifying.

 

Connie Britton Terrifying. Are you kidding? No. I don’t like horror. I don’t watch it. I don’t. That was another one. I don’t know. I always I really do. I always try to sort of, like, challenge myself in some way. Every every every role that I choose, I’m like, okay, where’s the challenge here? But you know that one. It’s not that I like horror, but I really appreciate Ryan Murphy’s way of taking a genre that we all know and recognize and have seen over and over again, and making it feel like it’s something we haven’t seen before or it’s something that we haven’t ever seen quite like this. And so what was exciting to me about that, because I’m not particularly a huge horror fan, was being a part of something where Ryan was literally reimagining what or imagining for the first time, because I don’t think we’ve ever really had a horror TV show quite that that had quite that sort of style to it. And it’s exciting to be a part and, you know, doing the first season with him of that because it was really just watch it watching and also helping to create his brainchild coming to life. And that was really cool. And I’m like, Oh, so this is this is how or can be and this is how horror can look on TV and sort of like stretching outside the box of what had been done in the past in terms of horror on television. Yeah, but then and I think he I think Ryan does that with everything that, you know, that’s why I’ll always want to work with him, you know? I mean, listen, now he’s so busy and he’s got so many shows on the air, I feel really grateful that I was able to hack in. It’s because in that moment he’d just finished doing Glee and American Horror Story was his next big like, he was so excited about it, and he was like his new baby, you know? And so it really, really felt like we were part of something just beginning and the real creation of it. And now, you know, Ryan has got so many things going on. I just wonder, you know, I wonder if it all still feels that it has that much that much of his, you know, sort of like brain and vision in it, you know. But I, I think he still keeps making amazing things, and I, I just love that about him. I think that he’s so prolific and and always has really exciting ideas.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. Your first season also was opposite my favorite TV actor, by the way, Dylan McDermott. I mean, speaking of.

 

Connie Britton Oh, I love Dylan.

 

Ira Madison III Did you know him from that? Because The Practice was on ABC when Spin City was.

 

Connie Britton No. But you know what? We had not I don’t think we had ever met and. You know, what people don’t know about Dylan is that he’s hilarious. Like, he’s so funny. And, like, you think, like, oh, he’s this, you know, handsome, handsome, sort of smoldering dude, you know? But he’s a really, really funny guy, and we ended up having such a good time on, and, you know, it’s also, again, going back to humor, which I think is just always the baseline most important thing and everything. But like especially doing horror and some of the like really kind of bleak subject matter that we were dealing with on that show to be able to like to work with somebody who at, you know, has always has a twinkle in his eye and is always, you know, and always has a sense of humor, makes all the difference and I think makes the intensity of the horror on this better because you can like you can you can go there because then you can always go to the other side as well, you know.

 

Louis VIrtel Well, I just want to thank you once again for being here. I want to thank you for absolutely roasting Alexandra Daddario in that scene on the White Lotus, which was unforgettable. And that’s, by the way, a former like blogger and writer myself, like I was Alexandra Daddario in that scene. And I was like, here comes somebody reading my list. I wrote about them being like, Oh, I remember what you said.

 

Connie Britton Oh taht’s so funny. I bet. I bet I know. See. Be nice people.

 

Ira Madison III People absolutely fucking love that scene. And lastly, I just want to ask like Mike White is another creator who I think is an icon. I mean, first of all, Louis and I are big Survivor fans, too, so it’s weird that he’s great at two things, but his.

 

Louis VIrtel Seemingly unrelated. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III His mind is just from enlightened to, you know, the, you know, canceled series, I always bring up on this show, Pasadena, which I love, but like this show, what was it like getting inside of, I guess, just Mike White’s mind and his like, what’s his sensibility like when you’re working with him and creating a character?

 

Connie Britton Well, I mean, that’s that was the reason why for sure. Like I, I had worked with Mike before on Beatriz at Dinner, so I had already had the opportunity and then and Miguel Arteta directed that and they, they had collaborated before. And so even though Mike directed all of White Lotus, but even even working with Mike as writer and Miguel as a director on Beatriz at dinner, it still felt like because Miguel and Mike are so closely connected, it felt like we were still really getting inside his brain and it is such, getting being able to work with Mike White and really, really get, explore and give dimension to his characters. It feels like it makes you smarter. Like it feels, it feels as though he allows for the opportunity to, he, like, adds another dimension to the world. He adds another dimension to the world. And he adds another dimension to human characters, I think. And I just think because he is so he has such a gift for observation. And so. Like he just every every single character. And by the way, I think that’s why so many of the actors on White Lotus were nominated, because every single character is is written with such detail. And and there are so many you can look at each character from so many different perspectives. And each character has its own individual place in the culture and is is recognizable in some way. And it’s it is very rare to really, really be able to do that with every single character and then to do to actually have the whole overview of the show also have so many different levels and so much dimension to it. And so I think, I think what Mike is able to do is extremely rare. And as an actor, I just will always jump whenever he wants me to, whenever he gives me the gift of like saying I see you for this role, and for audiences, I think. Like he’s Mike White is always going to have something to say and he’s not going to spoon feed it to you. He’s going to show you. He’s going to show it to you in really incredible ways and with these really incredible characters.

 

Louis VIrtel You know what? I it’s not that I want anything from Laura Dern’s performance in Enlightened to be different, but I would have liked to see the Connie Britton take on Enlightened. I wonder how that would have gone?

 

Connie Britton Me too, by the way. Me too. Me too. Laura is amazing, but I that is that was a great role. And again, like, you know, we’re just fortunate when I feel so fortunate whenever I get to work with somebody and I’ve been very fortunate in my career who has that kind of vision, you know?

 

Louis VIrtel Well, again, thank you so much for being here. You know, we don’t we don’t always just get icons in our midst, you know, but every once in a while, they come on through and now.

 

Connie Britton Oh my gosh.

 

Louis VIrtel And they throw us as much as we know they can throw us. And you have certainly done that with this conversation. So thank you so much.

 

Connie Britton You are so sweet. Well, it is so my pleasure. And I just love being able to talk about all this stuff because, you know, I wake up every day and I’m so grateful that I get to do what I got to do and I’m so happy about it, you know? So I love being able to talk to you guys and thank you for appreciating it so much.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you for being here. Yeah, the White Lotus is out now on HBO, Max, and watch the Emmys on September 12th because, you know, we’ll be talking about them. Up next, discussion about Anne Heche.

 

<A.D.>

 

Ira Madison III Anne Heche passed away over the weekend at age 53 following a fiery car crash a week prior. Her family released a statement. We have lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul, a loving mother and a loyal friend.  Anne will be deeply missed, but she lives on through her beautiful sons, her iconic body of work, and her passionate advocacy. We’re here to talk about her iconic body of work and honestly, Anne Heche, I feel like as a person we brought up before obviously, but it wasn’t until the accident a week ago that I really started thinking about, you know, her filmography and it’s really fucking good, even if it feels weirdly like we didn’t get enough of her.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Well, she’s somebody who had like a a short but productive vogue period where she was in movies like Donnie Brasco and Wag the Dog and Six Days, Seven Nights. Like, we really got a lot out of her in a short period of time. And she was in lots of good movies after that too. Like Birth. That’s a performance I’m sure we’ll get into here.

 

Ira Madison III But I know you didn’t leave out I Know What You Did Last Summer.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, please. I think she’s the best performer in that movie.

 

Ira Madison III She is.

 

Louis VIrtel But not that anybody is coming out of that movie is anything other than a Saturn nomination. But she no, she really is like a frightening it’s a good character because they happen upon her and they want information about the brother. Right. And we’re like, what does she know? Is she onto them? And Anne Heche has that routinely in movies, has that uneasy, tense feeling. Fingers outstretched. I think I’ve said before on this podcast I called her acting, don’t touch me acting, where, you know, there’s just a feeling of like general radioactivity about everything she does and a tenseness that I happen to associate with seventies actresses. You know, somebody who they have a resting rage and a lot of what they do frightens me of Jane Fonda and a lot of her best movies, for example.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, she’s very, Anne Heche she’s very the embodiment of an actor who grew up watching Klute.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes. Right. No. And that’s the that level of drama and urgency in whatever she does. Actually, bizarrely and I haven’t thought about this in a long time. I, I when I was a reporter, I can’t believe I got to call myself was a reporter. But that’s what I was a blogger, a pardon me for a movie website. I went to some event some time and Anne Heche was one of the people walking in. And, you know, at these weird, you know, PR laden events, you get a couple of questions with people and sometimes they’re, you know, fun. I mean, like, you write it up and it turns into nothing or turns into something, you know, it’s like a crapshoot. But anyway, Anne Heche was there and, uh, we did a segment at my website called My Favorite Scene where we would ask people what their favorite movie scene was. And a lot of the times it was actually pretty illuminating. Like, people always come up with something right away. For instance, our friend Kyle Buchanan, who has guest hosted on Cape at a number of times, once interviewed the cast of American Idol from that year, which was the Adam Lambert/Chris Allen year. And he said to me, he goes, I’m going to get one question with the cast and I’m going to ask about their favorite movie scenes. And I know Adam Lambert is going to say his favorite movie scene is in Velvet Goldmine when that singer is dancing on stage, pretending to jack off with sequins. And lo and behold, he was fucking right. He literally got it. So anyway, it was like this weird litmus test for, you know, celebrities. Like, what do they retain? And I was talking to Anne Heche.

 

Ira Madison III We should steal that, by the way.

 

Louis VIrtel Isn’t that great?

 

Ira Madison III Movie lines’ dead.

 

Louis VIrtel It’s certainly not around.

 

Ira Madison III They won’t know.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. Freelance articles for it or whatever and Anne Heche takes a moment and she goes Ellen Barkin in Sea of Love. And a couple of things strike me about that. One, what a totally Anne Heche performance in a movie that is pre Anne Heche’s time, so good on Anne Heche. And two, that’s obviously a movie that stars Al Pacino and then later Anne Heche gets this star making moment in Donnie Brasco. So I was like super happy for her that that was the movie she had picked. But ah, well, obviously talk about her performances now. There have been so many awesome recollections of Anne Heche.

 

Ira Madison III Wait, What’s yours by the way?

 

Louis VIrtel My favorite movies. Honestly, it’s really hard routinely if it’s like from high school up until like ten years ago, I would probably say my favorite scene is when Grace Kelly in Rear Window decides she’s not going to be just like Jimmy Stewart’s little henchmen anymore. And she decides to climb up into Raymond Burr’s apartment herself, and she becomes like the Tomb Raider bad bitch we didn’t know she could be. You know, that to me is and like I have lots of opinions about that, but it’s a very Madonna moment, right? Like your eyes are fixed on me anyway, well now I’m going to control the narrative. Now, I’m not just your sexy plaything. I’m now going to run the whole show, anyway. It’s Grace Kelly is obviously amazing in that movie as our Jimmy Stewart.

 

Ira Madison III I lovethat. I love.

 

Louis VIrtel What would you say?

 

Ira Madison III That’s very you. I love that. Mine is um, mine is the end of Heathers when Christian Slater, when Christian Slater blows up and you’re like, you know Veronica, Winona Ryder has been through all this shit with him. And as soon as the bomb is strapped to him, she pulls out her cigarette. And then when the bomb goes off, it lights the cigarette and she just smoking it. I love that scene.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes. Oh, I also like Winona was somebody where if you cast her for the exact right thing she was supposed to do, she was utterly irreplaceable. And that’s totally one of them.

 

Ira Madison III And then you go right to the Shannon Doherty with the like, Veronica, you look like hell. Thanks. I just got back and then she takes Shannon Doherty’s.

 

Louis VIrtel Great line.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Then she takes Shannon Doherty’s red scrunchie, puts it on. Perfect. Perfect.

 

Louis VIrtel You’re right. We don’t really have a second one about that as much as we have tried. I rewatched the movie Six Days, Seven Nights a couple days ago. Have you seen it?

 

Ira Madison III Iconic film. Ivan Reitman.

 

Louis VIrtel Isn’t that bizarre? It is. Ivan Reitman The several things about this movie shocked me to be reacquainted with. On, Allison Janney is a key player in it when you know, this is when she’s about to come up in West Wing and be in every movie. And this was the start of that. But it’s what’s crazy to me is Harrison Ford is obviously the, her romantic interest in this. He is stranded on an island.

 

Ira Madison III He is so good and that is also so hot.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, he’s hot.

 

Ira Madison III I love Harison Ford in this movie and Hollywood Homicide with Josh Hartnett. I’ve mentioned that on this show before, too, but I feel like these are two, like iconic, underrated Harrison Ford films.

 

Louis VIrtel I’m going to throw in another one. Do you know what he’s fucking awesome in? The Age of Adeline.

 

Ira Madison III I have not seen that yet, but it just got added to Netflix.

 

Louis VIrtel You to not fucking believe. You will not fucking believe what that movie is. And I mean, all you need to know about the craziness of that movie is that Blake Lively plays Ellen Burstyn’s mother.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. Are you in it?

 

Ira Madison III I’m going to go start it now. Actually, you could finish this on your own.

 

Louis VIrtel Okay, great. But Harrison Ford in this movie, it’s so crazy to me. That role would so one year later be Matthew McConaughey. And you don’t think of them as people who are like trade-offy actors, but really it’s the same kind of charm, the rakish ness, the ruggedness. But Anne in that movie, you play somebody who is, you know, too uptight and like everybody in the late nineties works at a magazine, and she know she has to, like, figure out how to get along with this ne’er do well man. And it’s, it’s so hokey, but they play it so well. And she’s just somebody whose energy is so strange for a rom com because she is so spiky and so perturbed seeming. And to see that in a leading performance is just a rare treat. You know, it’s she’s not going for charm, ever. She’s she’s letting her sort of gruffness shine through at every moment.

 

Ira Madison III No shade. But the bad version of this film would start Tea Leone.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Well, also, that’s that’s it. Speaking of spiky, let’s talk about haircuts, while we’re at it. They are in the same universe there. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III But one thing I was revisiting was some scenes of Anne Heches from her first big role playing twins, Vicky Hudson and Marley Love on the NBC soap opera Another World, which used to air alongside Days of Our Lives. And when you watch her on this, first of all, she’s playing twins and she is playing in scenes like opposite herself a lot. And the way that they feel like two completely different people but yet, still Anne Heche. One of them is more like reserved and sort of like has their life together. And the other one is sort of like, you know, like a spoiled rich girl who’s always scheming and trying to steal her sister’s man. But she is so good in the series. And what I loved about it.

 

Louis VIrtel I have never seen this. I have to watch it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. She’s so good in it. And also, like, got so many accolades while she was on the series. And then, like, obviously, like, she left to become a star, but she’s also a person who, like, never looked down on that era of her career and like always sort of like revered Another World. And I believe she even, like, came back once.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, right. I think that’s correct. There was an awesome recollection of somebody who worked with her on the show, Men In Trees saying like.

 

Ira Madison III Great show.

 

Louis VIrtel I never seen it. I don’t I barely even remember it. I know Anne Heche was on it. But this actress was talking about how she routinely was asked what it was like to work with her. And there was always an air of suspicion and tee-hee about the question when people ask and she goes, Anne was a fucking genius. Never missed a cue like the way she talked about her was and almost had a photographic memory like she never missed a line, was always prepared and always kind. In fact, I posted something about Anne Heche on Twitter recently and somebody replied to me that they were on the set of something she filmed, a thing for television, and an actor was having a panic attack because he couldn’t nail a scene with Anne Heche. And the director was yelling at the actor and Anne Heche diverted his attention, just said, We’ll get it. You’re just with me. Don’t worry about him. And to know that there is just that layer of kindness and understanding about her, it breaks my heart, honestly, because so much of the narrative around Anne Heche over the years was that she was crazy and was that it was mainly funny. In fact, I remember when 911 happened, get ready, Jay Leno when he finally came back on the air, because obviously all those shows took time off, Jay Leno said, can you believe that before this the top story in the news was Anne Heche? And, you know, that was her talking, but probably her memoir at the time, Call Me Crazy. Obviously, her break up with Ellen was, you know, all over the headlines at the time. But we really treated her like, because she had mental health issues, like she was taking up too much space and basically didn’t deserve to be famous. And it’s just so it’s so strange. It’s just a narrative I don’t associate with any man, first of all. And then secondly, she just went so underappreciated for strange reasons. And by the way, she brilliantly articulates so much of what she has gone through in her memoir, which includes a unbelievably painful childhood. She was abused by her father, who eventually died of AIDS. Her brother was killed in a car accident, I believe. And she’s just one of those people who persevered and persevered until, you know, she didn’t. And I, I can’t believe she had the grisly end she did, but it does not change what I think of Anne Heche, which is that she fucking ruled. And there’s no there’s nobody else who gave performances like that so consistently. I’ll add one more thing to that, which is, you know, we talk a lot about being obsessed with actors and actresses on the show. And sometimes what we like about them is that they’re chameleons that, you know, like somebody like Meryl will play one thing and then she’ll play the opposite of that thing, and then she’ll play something else, even stranger. But there’s another kind of actor, kind of like Sandy Dennis, who’s on the wall behind me, where they always bring a certain quality and they can’t make up that quality and they can’t disavow that quality even if they tried. And you want to see that again and again because it’s rare. And Anne Heche was one of those people, whenever she was on the screen, there was like, you couldn’t write this thing into a script. You just bring it and I will miss that thing. She was so consistent and generous in giving it to us.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, honestly, I’m grateful for her television era, like Men in Trees. I watched that. I watched Hung. She was great on Everwood, Nip Tuck, like, you know, Ally McBeal, you know, like she was just great in those shows too, and sort of elevated.

 

Louis VIrtel The Tony nominee, too. Yeah

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, what I watched for the first time after she passed was Catfight, her film with Sandra Oh.

 

Louis VIrtel With Sandra Oh.

 

Ira Madison III Which is amazing actually.

 

Louis VIrtel Tell me what it is.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So from Onur Tukel, like a Turkish-American director. And it’s it’s this weird sort of like black comedy where Anne Heche is a lesbian and she’s involved with Alicia Silverstone, who gives an amazing performance in this too. Anne Heche and Sandra Oh both knew each other from college. And Sandra Oh is sort of like this rich trophy wife now. And her husband does like military contracts. Her husband is Damon Young, who played Lisa Kudrow’s husband, on The Comeback.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And he’s so good at playing sort of like a character who’s funny on the outside, but you realize he’s sort of, like, kind of an asshole to his wife.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. Yeah. No. You literally brought up that character, and I, like, shuddered a little bit.

 

Ira Madison III But anyway, he’s like, he does, like, military contracts. And Sandra Oh is wealthy and he is a struggling artist, and they run into each other at this party that Anne Heche is catering for Sandra Oh’s husband and they sort of go back and forth about their lives because Sandra Oh’s son wants to be an artist and she, like, degrades that every time, every chance she gets. And she’s like, oh, you’re still doing that to Anne Heche. And basically, like said, they end up in a hallway in the apartment building and, like, punch each other in the face and it turns into a full out brawl. And, you know, the first twist is that, like, Sandra Oh gets knocked out. Good. And then the film jumps to two years later where Sandra Oh wakes up out of a coma.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, my God. Okay, I need to watch that. It’s insane that I haven’t seen this.

 

Ira Madison III There are three intense cat fights in this film, and it’s it’s so fucking funny.

 

Louis VIrtel And it’s pre killing Eve, Sandra Oh, yeah. So she was sort of warming up.

 

Ira Madison III It’s funny, but also they’re both actors like this, right? Like, you know what you’re going to get from them. And it’s this, this, this weird ability to just sort of like, take on a role that’s sort of like both of these women are unlikable, but they have this weird sort of ability to make these unlikable women relatable and funny. And Anne Heche has never been more, like, intense and like, you know, emotionally, just like there than she is in like, this film. And, you know, like there’s a moment, you know, where, like, she’s poor and struggling, but then she gets to play rich and on top of the world and just like, really she’s like, really gets to be a cunt in this film, basically. And so to Sandra Oh, they both play like cunts very well in this film.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, that’s so thrilling. Yeah, we brought up Birth before, which is if you know any Nicole Kidman’s stan. Birth is sort of like what Black Swan is to Natalie Portman in that it gives you as much intensity as possible. It’s a strange movie, kind of a thriller. You’re kind of wondering what’s real and what’s not. And Anne Heche has a supporting role. And and all I can say is she almost steals the movie from Nicole, who is downright devastating. And if you’ve not seen that, I would almost call that the definitive Anne Heche performance. So check that out. I just want to say also, Anne Heche was like on Dancing with the Stars a couple of years ago, this has the feeling of the Whitney Houston death and that you sort of thought the worst of it was over. But then, you know, like we thought she had, you know, Whitney gets the comeback album and then we see her and she seems, you know, up on her feet. But then, of course, you know, things get in the way or things change or whatever. And it just there’s that extra heartbreak to it. Like, Oh, God, I thought we had seen through the worst of it, but.

 

Ira Madison III And by and by the worst of it, of course, you mean playing Marion Crane and Gus Van Sant’s Shot by shot remake of Psycho?

 

Louis VIrtel I mean, not a bad casting idea for Marion Crane, but what I was just looking at stills from that recently.

 

Ira Madison III A weird ass film.

 

Louis VIrtel He put William H. Macy in that he plays the Martin Balsam character. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Vince Vaughn.

 

Louis VIrtel Why Vince Vaughn?

 

Ira Madison III As Norman Bates.

 

Louis VIrtel Why Vince Vaughn? Yeah

 

Ira Madison III So weird? And it’s especially weird coming from a fagot, like Gus Van Sant. Because it’s like it’s like, what were you trying to do in this film? I like I have I have so many questions about the film because, you know, it’s actually. I feel like I saw this Psycho first.

 

Louis VIrtel Which is possible because it was certainly extremely hyped at the time.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. It came out in 98.

 

Louis VIrtel I just want to say about Gus Van Sant in general. Routinely in a movie, he’ll make a couple of choices where I’m like, Why? Namely, I saw Good Will Hunting recently, and in it, like, you know how Elliott Smith songs go throughout that movie. Okay. This is a movie about rowdy men getting into fights and occasionally, occasionally having a sensitive moment. To hear Elliott Smith’s moody ass like between scenes makes no sense. I don’t know why he chose them.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. He’s he’s he’s a he’s a he’s a director I love. But also, like, weird, baffling choices sometimes. Like Elephant.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah, I like. All right. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway.

 

Louis VIrtel Promised Land. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Also, one last thing about catfight. Dylan Baker’s in it as, like, the combat doctor, and he’s so fucking funny in it. And that just reminds me that during our what we were consuming thing, I neglected to bring up the CBS show, which now Paramount show Evil, which is.

 

Louis VIrtel People love that show.

 

Ira Madison III Which is one of the best fucking shows on TV. So people should watch that, too.

 

Louis VIrtel All right. All right. I’ll get on that.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway. Anne Heche. Great. One of a kind.

 

Louis VIrtel Thank God we had her. My god

 

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

 

Ira Madison III And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It, Louis. What’s yours?

 

Louis VIrtel Well, as you know, I’ve only heard of two pop culture topics. Jeopardy! And Madonna. I’ve chosen to talk about one of them. As we record this. It’s Madonna’s 64th birthday. It’s also, of course, whose birthday? Who’s 64th birthday?

 

Ira Madison III Angela Bassett’s.

 

Louis VIrtel Very good. See, you would be on pop culture Jeopardy!. Happy 64th to them both.

 

Ira Madison III I’m sure they’re celebrating together.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. Yeah, I guess I’m trying to think of a reason they would have to interact. Maybe they were at some Oscars at some point together. At any rate, Madonna’s birthday. I thought I would do it. Madonna themed Keep It. Keep It to people who can still only stand to say about Madonna, she’s a good business woman. You may as well call her a liar and a thief. I’m sorry. It’s it’s just not a compliment enough for what she has done, for how active she has been in shaping pop music, for how active she has been, in reshaping the idea of being a celebrity. Truly, you know, we had people like Elvis Presley before her, but nobody took the reigns of what it is to be famous and say, oh, I’m actually going to do this, this and this with this level of fame. Also, I’m also going to continue to be as provocative as possible, as in-your-face and articulate about what I’m doing as I titillate and occasionally patronize the men around me. I continue to say about Madonna that the greatest and gayest thing about her is that she loves men and laughs at man, and that she did that on such a gigantic scale, you know, that she could be that Mae West-like in such a, you know, an MTV environment, an era awash with images. She still pop with how truthfully rad and righteous she was at all times. Obviously, she has some, shall we say, missteps in recent years, but like it was never always going to be on the rails with Madonna. And I appreciate that, too. So I just want to say, when you call when you say that somebody is like a good businesswoman, first of all, you did not come up with that compliment yourself. You heard that from like some VH1 special from 25 years ago. So stop pretending. It’s like something it’s like when people say about gay men, well, they have such good taste. Yeah, I know. You heard somebody else say about. I want to know what you think, though. And at any rate. It’s just not that deep a compliment. It’s not that impressive to say. And she’s way more important than that.

 

Ira Madison III Louis, who called Madonna a good business woman? Stop reading Fast Company.

 

Louis VIrtel It just feels like something that men say begrudgingly. Wow. She really, like, controlled her image and really made some good decisions. No, she fucking ruled. And we like watching her. Come on.

 

Ira Madison III Speaker. Yeah, I mean, we talked about Nikki already and us up. Is that their their song, I Don’t Give A, off of MDMA.

 

Louis VIrtel Which I just listened to recently.

 

Ira Madison III Horrible album.

 

Louis VIrtel Nobody’s best moment.

 

Ira Madison III Horrible, horrible. Horrible, horrible. But my hot take is that I think that Hard Candy has aged better than MDMA.

 

Louis VIrtel I definitely agree with that. I also feel like Hard Candy is maybe an album where all the songs are basically just given to her because it doesn’t feel like it does. I’m not sensing Madonna authorship on the lyrics, and I’m just going to say, you know, when you’re getting that.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, they they sound like Pharrell and Timbaland’s like blackout B-sides.

 

Louis VIrtel Yes. Right. That’s exactly. Yeah. I’m sure it’s what it was.

 

Ira Madison III But on the I Don’t Give A, that’s where Nikki reuses the Jay-Z line. Like, I’m not a businessman. I’m a business comma man. And on that one, Nicki says, I’m not a businesswoman. I’m a business. I’m a woman. And I’m known for giving bitches the business, woman. Iconic line, on a Madonna song.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah. No, by the way, she sounds great on that song. I mean, Nicki obviously has countless underrated versus even her. I enjoyed her Super Bowl antics, too.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, UV\ Madonna?

 

Louis VIrtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. So my Keep It this week goes to Marlo Hampton on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

 

Louis VIrtel Okay. So I have seen a couple episodes of, go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III I’m getting back into reality. Now enough talking about scripted. But yeah, Marlo Hampton is she’s been a friend of the Real Housewives of Atlanta for years, you know, and a friend of a someone who’s not in the main cast. But they show up from time to time. You know, it’s always says, like friend of Nene, you know, like that sort of like how she started initially on the show. She first actually came on because she was dating a football player who was one of Nene’s exes. And so she was there to like to create drama. And she’s always given us, like, iconic moments on the show, but never had a peach a peach on the, like the thing that, you know, all the housewives hold something in their opening credits and Atlanta, they hold a peach, obviously. She never had it until this season and I think that this is the unfortunate thing of be careful what you wish for, because she always created conflict when she was a friend of on the show, and now she’s on the show with a peach and she’s just creating like unnecessary conflict with people without creating genuine connections. And it’s sort of boring. And it’s also one of the darkest storylines I’ve ever seen because she, you know, has taken in her two nephews on the show because her sister is incarcerated. There’s a certain period where she like it becomes too much for her and she gives her nephews to her other sister to take care of. And characters who do question you know her like giving away her nephews get snapped at and I just it feels sort of dark and almost like she used her relationship with her nephews to get on the show to make herself seem more three dimensional rather than just, you know, a fashionista with mysterious ways of getting money. Everyone on the show for years has sort of insinuated that it’s just like rich, old white men who give her money. And she’s brought a couple on the show before. But the nephew started out as a really sweet story, and then she gave them away. And it’s it’s weird seeing her, like, get Aston Martins for a group trip. So, you know, like, be like living it up in Jamaica on this cast trip right now. And it’s really things where it’s just like, okay, like her nephews, you know, have like the problems that most teenagers do. They’re not doing their homework, you know, or they’re like, you know, like talking back. And it’s, you know, it’s just if you weren’t ready to take in your nephews is one thing, but if you did it on a national scale and now I feel like it’s given a lot of embarrassment to them publicly just for a storyline. So I’m not happy Marlo got her peach and I need it snatched back.

 

Louis VIrtel I feel like uncomfortably dark is a tone that Real Housewives can not handle. I would prefer they stay away from that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis VIrtel The awkwardness of two. Yeah. We’re here for, like, some light laughs, generally speaking.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, stay away from Beverly Hills then.

 

Louis VIrtel Right. Yeah. Or the fucking Utah one.

 

Ira Madison III There’s been or there’s been suicide and abuse.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And oh, Salt Lake City. Yeah, I am. I am also just constantly baffled by the fact that, like, I still find Jen Shah likable and she swindled money from old people. Like, literally preyed on them and admitted to it. Now, she, you know, she pled guilty. But I was I’m also part of me is also like, you know, who do those old people vote for?

 

Louis VIrtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Let’s find that out. I’m sure she swindled some bad old people.

 

Louis VIrtel I’m trying to think of a Georgia celebrity who should be on Real Housewives of Atlanta. Well, once upon a time, you know, Jane Fonda lived in Atlanta when she lived with Ted Turner. And let’s see if she joined that cast. You know, I mean, like Jane still up and doing projects and having a good time. I mean, I think she would slay on that show.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, listen.

 

Louis VIrtel I think she’s still eligible.

 

Ira Madison III Jamie Lee Curtis appeared on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I’m sure you’ve seen that clip.

 

Louis VIrtel Oh, right, yes. Yeah, I’ve forgotten. I have.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And honestly, this is this is a random tangent I was thinking about how like these shows especially like an offer, like a second life for, um, you know, a formerly famous woman or like, they would catch them at the right moment, like in a scam. Oh, like, Jen Shah. Like Erika Jayne, Teresa Giudice. Tammy Faye Baker. If Real Housewives was around back then, would have been the perfect person to have joined the cast after her husband went to prison.

 

Louis VIrtel Well, that’s an interesting conundrum, because I find that Tammy Faye Baker is so innocent. But also, I mean I mean, within reason, as far as we know. But like, I wonder how she would interact with, like, people who are legitimately sassy. Would that break her immediately? I mean, I’ll tell you what she would do is she would cry.

 

Ira Madison III She would probably be she’d probably be the Kim Richards of, to be honest.

 

Louis VIrtel Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III She is she she wouldn’t be able to take it and she would probably just, like, combust on TV.

 

Louis VIrtel Also, by the way, I want to say something that you just reminded me of. Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the few people that I would compare to Anne Heche, in that there was like they in the nineties, they were both given movies to front, occasionally romantic leads. And there was just like a, you know, a crispness and a, a curtness to the way they handled things, which I don’t know. Again, I don’t think we have that person anymore. I had not thought to compare those two until you just brought up that name. But anyway, I think that’s a good ancillary for her.

 

Ira Madison III You know, it’s so interesting thinking about Jamie Lee Curtis, too, as like a Scream queen and then her nineties career, mostly because obviously when women age in Hollywood, they’re sort of like put out to pasture. And she’s continued to have a healthy career thanks to also being a Scream queen and Halloween. But, you know, like I think of the I think of Scream where, you know, they’re watching the scene in Halloween there. And, you know, it’s like they’re talking about do we get to see Jamie’s breasts? You know? And it’s like it’s while remembering True Lies Jamie Lee Curtis, where it’s just, like, sexy, like the. I mean, it’s not funny, that weird striptease scene in it that she was made to do. But it’s like that was Jamie Lee Curtis then, just like hot, right?

 

Louis VIrtel Nope. She did every kind of movie, you know? I mean, she was in A Fish Called Wanda, you know?

 

Ira Madison III And then, of course, her best role as Knives Out. Of course.

 

Louis VIrtel Which you’re a bigger fan than I do enjoy it. But I just my favorite performance tonight is Chris Plummer.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, yeah, obviously, iconic. Anyway, that’s our show this week. Thank you to Connie Britton.

 

Louis VIrtel It was a lot of show.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Thank you to Connie Britton for joining us. We’ll see you next week. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Kendra James. Our producer is Chris Ward. Our executive producers are Ira Madison III.

 

Louis VIrtel And Louis Virtel.

 

Ira Madison III Our editor is Charlotte Landes and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

 

Louis VIrtel Thank you to our digital team, Matt DeGroot, Nar Melkonian and Delon Villanueva for our production support every week.