Ira and Louis discuss the Barbie movie teaser, the Murder Mystery franchise, Married to the Mob, Succession, Daisy Jones and the Six, “Fast Car,” and a Harry Potter TV series. Plus, Rachel Weisz joins to discuss her new series Dead Ringers and adapting Cronenberg for TV. Then Ira and Louis fill in their Rachel Weisz blindspots with The Constant Gardener and About a Boy.

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

 

[AD]

 

Ira Madison III And we’re back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison, the Third.

 

Louis Virtel I’m Louis Virtel. I was looking at the cast list for Barbie and I think it will turn out we are in this movie based on everybody I’m seeing. The Barbie posters have come out. There are 24 of them. People I completely forgot were in the movie are in this movie Emerald Fennell as a pregnant Barbie, Dua LIPA as a blue haired mermaid Barbie. Though I have to tell you, I think there’s only one A-plus Barbie in the stack, A-plus Barbie poster. And it is Issa Rae, because this is what I thought the movie was going to be. She has a plasticine smile on it, says this Barbie is president, and then she’s wearing a sash that says president. Okay, satire. I’m there. Let’s do it. Oscar Wilde, Whatever. But the main slogan for the movie is she’s everything. He’s just can referring to Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. And I don’t know what that means. Is that like a dig at Ken’s identity? Are we exploring the, you know, dramaturgical beginnings of Ken? I want to know.

 

Ira Madison III It means women are everything, okay.

 

Louis Virtel As you know, I disagree.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, they are everything. They are the sun. They are risen up from the earth.

 

Louis Virtel What is this Gil Scott-Heron poem you’re doing?

 

Ira Madison III Some of the Barbies are very goofy. Dua Lipa’s Dua LIPA as a mermaid Barbie, that is is maybe going to be everything for me.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. So but some of these just feel like they set up a PR photo booth and people ran in and got photos like Michael Cera. I agree. That’s Michael Cera. He doesn’t look Barbie ready for this movie. But again, we don’t really know what is going on plot wise here. So it actually they do a good job teasing what will be, I’m sure, a surreal experience.

 

Ira Madison III I will say I’m very happy for my friend Scott Evans, whose poster I would say is very cute. You guessed it. He’s a Ken is at least a funny way to write Ken, and he’s just got like a tank top and a cowboy hat.

 

Louis Virtel And also knowing Scott Evans, it’s going to be a gay Ken So as opposed to these sort of teasing at gayness, things that are going on with the other posters, we have one who I’m sure is legitimately gay. No. Also seeing Scott Evans, I immediately think, Oh, is this a poster for a dodgeball meet up in West Hollywood? No, it’s a legitimate film.

 

Ira Madison III I also want to give a shout out to Hari Nef’s poster. Let’s saw the poster, which is fun, like all the other ones. But she put a post online about how, you know, transwomen, you know, going back to the ballroom community, refer to themselves as the dolls and how important being in this movie was for her. You know, like Barbie’s the ultimate doll, but about how what it looked like she wouldn’t be able to do the film because of a scheduling issue. When she was cast in it, she wrote like a note to Greta Gerwig about the importance of being in this film for her, and she reposted that today along with her poster. So I thought that was very lovely. But then there’s the teaser trailer which just dropped, and I think it’s really cute. I like I like that it went straight for kitsch.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, it’s very The Brady Bunch movie vibes, which is we are aware of what the source material is and we are going to hit this parody extremely hard and with the whitest pupils you’ve ever seen. So that is very encouraging. Ryan Gosling going for Broke. There is a gay entendre upon at the end of the trailer that I don’t know that I’m obsessed with that Simu Liu is leaning into. But you also get Kingsley Ben-adir, who is extremely good looking, and I haven’t seen much of him since One Night in Miami. Apparently he’s going to be on an Agents of Shield show or something, which means I will not see more of him in the future.

 

Ira Madison III Ah, I was I forgot that he was on this movie and I was shocked that he was one of the initial posters that dropped. He’s so cute, and I probably will see him.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, well, Agents of Shield, Kate McKinnon’s in there. She plays a Barbie who does the splits a lot. All right. Also, Greta Gerwig, I think is one of the few celebrities whom I’ve not heard even a dubious word about. She’s obviously just a brilliant writer, someone who’s probably, you know, it seems like someone who might have been bored with what she was offered actor wise. And now she’s creating this stuff that’s all fabulous right down the line.

 

Ira Madison III There’s one red flag. She’s married to Noah Baumbach.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s right. Yes. I never remember now, though. That said, I but I think I think we talked about I watched Mistress America recently, So good. That’s like a very underrated 2010s movie. And she gives a sterling performance in one of those movies where it could. Go awry because she’s supposed to be saying something kind of quirky at any given moment. But she there really is like a weird, believable kind of daphnis to the character that really works.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, I’m joking. I obviously do love Noah Baumbach, Squid and the Whale Hive.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. No, that’s the movie that makes you understand. Jesse Eisenberg.

 

Ira Madison III I’m just so angry. I had to watch White Noise, so.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh, I see you’re stressed about it. Wait. Can I say something else about Dolls that I just thought about? I just thought about this now. Sorry, I’m popping off. Do you know what album I listen to straight through the other day? PCD by Pussycat Dolls that look what we think about the album Teenage Dream should be thought about PCD. Every track bangerinis.

 

Ira Madison III Listen, The Pussycat Dolls were the ultimate dolls. PCD is maybe my second favorite. To be honest, I prefer Doll Domination.

 

Louis Virtel Well, there’s only two. So, I mean, you’re saying it’s their worst. It’s fine. Yeah. Doll Domination has, I Hate This Part. And When I Grow Up, I don’t know if it has anything else.

 

Ira Madison III It has. Bottle Pop. It has.

 

Louis Virtel That’s alright.

 

Ira Madison III What I think about that. It has Taken Over the World. Who’s Going to Love You? Magic, Halo, In Person. Whatchumacallit

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Just going to name all the tracks. Great.

 

Ira Madison III It has a cover of that  Jane Child song Don’t Want to Fall in Love.

 

Louis Virtel Jane Child’s to make it one of my favorite nose chained performers of all time.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of one last heads up before we start you. You said the word quirky and it reminded me. Do you know? There’s still people on dating apps who refer to themselves as adorkable.

 

Louis Virtel What the fuck? Are they 2011 Fox Employees?

 

Ira Madison III It’s, you forget that like words like that that get introduced into the lexicon. Like they really stick with some people and they’re like, You know what? I’m going to describe myself. Like they just grabbed Jess in New Girl.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Also, I think that’s a weird word where you’re not allowed to describe yourself with it. I think it has to come from something else. Somebody else. It’s like camp. Like if you’re calling yourself camp, then you’re doing it on purpose. And what are we even doing?

 

Ira Madison III That’s fair. Also, who would call themselves? Adorable in person. Maybe I would. I don’t want to be rude.

 

Louis Virtel I’m adorable. I’m here. Yeah. Not. Not ready to make friends are not here to make friends or whatever, I’d say that.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, um, we have a fun episode this week.

 

Louis Virtel I actually can’t believe the episode that’s coming up. I’m like, clutching my head.

 

Ira Madison III We have an actual icon here with us this week, and I know we say that all the time.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III But we’re not talking about like, you know, some off the street icon. Okay, This is this is this is.

 

Louis Virtel Off the street icon.

 

Ira Madison III She’s been she’s been in it. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel No, there are you know actors we love then there’s you know esteemed actors and then there’s a very rare class of people I would call goddesses. And this is one of those people.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. We have the wonderful Rachel Weisz here.

 

Louis Virtel Guys, can you believe Rachel Weisz is on this show? She shouldn’t even be looking at us. What is going on? It’s not right. I feel bad for her. And to celebrate Rachel Weisz, we’re doing a whole segment about blind spots in her catalog. Ira watched a little movie she did called The Constant Gardener, which she stomped to victory at the Oscars that year with that performance. And I watched About A Boy, which I had never seen before. And let me just say about.

 

Ira Madison III Which I cannot believe.

 

Louis Virtel Isn’t that weird? Because I fucking love Hugh Grant. I love I love actors who they do their one thing and you better fucking like it. And here he is being a bastard yet again. Something about that movie I didn’t realize. So Peter Hedges is one of the writers of that movie Oscar nominated, who’s the father of Lucas Hedges, and then also Paul and Craig Weitz, who are acclaimed in many respects. They are the sons of Susan Kohner. Do you know who that is?

 

Ira Madison III I do know that name.

 

Louis Virtel Susan Kohner was Oscar nominated for the Douglas Sirk Imitation of Life. She plays the mixed race daughter in that movie who has kind of a breakdown. Very unusual role in the 1950s. Mama. Yes. Yeah. Black now I love you.

 

Ira Madison III Saw they got a casket. That is a classic.

 

Louis Virtel I love that fucking movie. Right? That’s Anita moore. That would have been a great win. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III By the way, Internet, that’s what passing looks like. Okay, that’s better. This was a lot of stupid conversation for people who. What denotes, like, white passing or not. And someone referred to Halle Berry and I was like, Baby, Halle Berry is not crying on a casket because she denied her black mother her entire life. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel You’re saying that happens a lot. Okay, great. I just saw, by the way, put.

 

Ira Madison III It happened to me last week.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. I saw footage of Holly Barea at a drag brunch in West Hollywood. Fully, fully like MTV’s The Grind, grinding on some drag queen last week. I had never seen anything like it.

 

Ira Madison III She always seems like one of the most fun celebrities.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No, I think there’s a very good vibe about her. Yeah, right, exactly. No.

 

Ira Madison III Dorothy Dandridge has been introduced. And she’s sticking around.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, she’s playing bingo with the Queens.

 

Ira Madison III And then we’re also going to discuss what we’ve been watching. And unfortunately, it hasn’t been anything good.

 

Louis Virtel This is not one of those. It’s that weird time of year where, like, there’s not too many esteemed movies coming out. Like next week we got the Super Mario movie and at least there’s a lot of hype about that. So we’ll probably talk about them, but there’s just not much in the realm of I mean, I know you love Succession. We’ll probably talk about that, but there’s just not a lot going on that I care about right now.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. Well, we’ll get into all of that and more when we’re back with more Keep It

 

Speaker 4 <AD>.

 

Ira Madison III All right, Louis. I went into Criterion this weekend.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure.

 

Ira Madison III I watched two of the most important movies of our time.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Judging by the way you said that, you’re lying. But I can’t wait to hear what they are.

 

Ira Madison III You know what I’m setting you up for nonsense. I watched Murder Mystery and Murder Mystery 2

 

Louis Virtel Oh, right. So you’re exploring the chemistry between Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. And what did you come up with?

 

Ira Madison III Let me tell you something. You could rub two, stick together and you would get more chemistry than Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston have on screen.

 

Louis Virtel Not that I can think of any screen pairing he’s had that was rife with chemistry. Maybe Emily Watson in Punch-Drunk Love. I’m trying to think, but certainly no.

 

Ira Madison III Drew Barrymore.

 

Louis Virtel All right.

 

Ira Madison III In Fifty First dates, I would argue they have. A fun chemistry.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III This is the epitome of hot actress are married to comedian.

 

Louis Virtel Which is an affliction that occurs sometimes. Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III It is the thing that occurs. It is the thing that occurs. Famous comedian, though you know it never makes sense in the the world that they’re depicting.

 

Louis Virtel Got it.

 

Ira Madison III Is in this world. Adam Sandler is a NYPD cop. Love them. And Jennifer Aniston as a hairdresser.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, not this. That’s very like the next best thing where Madonna lives in a $25 million house and she teaches yoga.

 

Ira Madison III And actually, they could very well be from Chicago and not New York. I have no idea.

 

Louis Virtel Whatever

 

Ira Madison III Adjusted both.

 

Louis Virtel Part of the mystery. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I digested both of these movies this weekend and I remember very little about them. But here’s the thing. Ah, Jennifer Aniston was, you know, talking her shit this weekend in our latest interview where she did that thing where people bemoan cancel culture that hasn’t actually happened to them.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure.

 

Ira Madison III And she was talking about how you you can’t even you couldn’t make friends now.

 

Louis Virtel Not this again.

 

Ira Madison III Because people are because people are talking about how offensive it is online. And my question is who? Who is talking about friends being offensive online? Like who is taking time out of their day to write. Friends, man. Here’s all the offensive jokes in it. I feel like the one thing that people just always say is there’s all white people on this show.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And there are

 

Ira Madison III And that’s about it. But also, they were saying there’s a lot of white people in Friends in like 1995, so.

 

Louis Virtel Correct. Correct.

 

Ira Madison III You’ve heard this before.

 

Louis Virtel Also, first of all, just Jennifer Aniston. If she literally is bemoaning cancel culture again, tell me the person who was canceled that you’re upset about. These people never do that because what they’re skirting is having to name somebody who was unjustly criticized. And then that never happens anyway. Secondly, I feel like all we do is try to remake friends. Like, every comedy is like, here are these high people hanging out. You couldn’t make friends today. It’s all we do.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, just like Ray Charles, I had Aniston on my mind. So

 

Louis Virtel What? Okay. I know. And that’s how that song goes. Sure. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III So this weekend I was hungover and I logged on to Netflix. And truly, I was met with 1000 ads for Murder Mystery 2. And in every other category on Netflix, they were pimping the original Murder Mystery for me to watch.

 

Louis Virtel As if Agatha Christie wrote it herself. By the way, you would think I would really jump on these movies as they’re like whodunits, right? Can you solve them along with Adam Sandler?

 

Ira Madison III No.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that is upsetting. What am I doing?

 

Ira Madison III Here’s the thing. There’s a few characters and you can sort of figure out who did it. It’s very obvious who did it in. The second film, the first film, it’s very obvious who one of the culprits is. There’s two culprits in the first film, but they’re more capers than they are whodunits. Because what happens is someone gets like in the first movie. They’re going on their honeymoon 15 years later because they never had time to. And he’s broke. And I’m still wondering why she’s married to this man. But anyway, 15 years later, they go to Europe on a vacation, and while they’re on a plane, they meet Luke Evans, who’s the son of this billionaire, and he invites them on his yacht for the weekend.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, great.

 

Ira Madison III And the billionaire gets murdered. And then they get framed for the murder. And basically they’re being chased through Monaco trying to solve the murder as a killer is trying the murder that.

 

Louis Virtel I have absolutely no problem with that so far.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The problem is you’re not really figuring out who it is. It’s mostly just Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston running through the streets.

 

Louis Virtel Got it. Got it.

 

Ira Madison III Being chased. You know, there’s no real sort of investigation element. And then at the end, there’s a whole well, we know who did it moment. That is kind of fun. And listen, the movie is not good, but it’s not amazing. It’s just sort of there.

 

Louis Virtel I’m sort of digging the Romancing the Stone vibe of the movie, though, You know, it’s like, oh, they have to swing across some vines because, you know, we’re falling in love and thereafter as that sort of fun.

 

Ira Madison III The jokes are kind of abysmal and there’s like they don’t have the chemistry.

 

Louis Virtel I.S. comedy.

 

Ira Madison III Sort of just it’s sort of just there but I will say that Murder Mystery 2, sort of just ignores the fact that you even are trying to solve a mystery. And it’s just and it’s just pure fun. So I would say that Murder Mystery 2 is actually quite enjoyable.

 

Louis Virtel Wow. I’m shocked by this development to defend murder mystery two, I’ve never felt lower on it. And yet here we are, a sort of cable. You know what I watched over the weekend? I never seen before. Never seen Married to the Mob.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. You’re a rock star performance from Michelle Pfeiffer. I can’t believe I’d never seen this movie. First of all, it explains the beginnings of Mercedes Rule. Who will win in a supporting actress Oscar a few years later? Very important. But otherwise, do you know what else I didn’t understand about this movie? Look, I think speaking of Margot Robbie in the Barbie movie, Margot Robbie in Babylon, did she crib Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance in Married to the Mob? It’s like the same thing, too. And the same look.

 

Ira Madison III And the voice.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No, it very shocking. Again, it’s a movie that takes place in the thirties and she seems like she’s dressed and sounds like a madonna wannabe in Babylon. Very baffling. Anyway, I had never seen this movie. Dean Stockwell, former former child star, Oscar nominated in this movie, too. Great. Also Matthew Modine. Yet David Byrne did the music. Matthew Modine, who you know, is here and there and stuff. But he’s one of these James Spader eighties actors that I feel like has been largely lost to time. Really good in it too. I was really impressed with this movie. I thought it was fun and like unpretentious and also eye popping. Every actor is dressed to the nines in it since you know, it’s a gaudy mob movie.

 

Ira Madison III I cannot remember which play he was in for the life of me. But I did interview Matthew Modine from our college newspaper when I went to Loyola, Chicago.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, how nice. I could not land a single great interview. When I was in college, I interviewed Paula POUNDSTONE when I work for the Daily Iowan and other Oh, and Dan Savage, who was still Seattle sex columnist at the time. Otherwise, no one would talk to me. And can you imagine? They were like Iowa City. Not sure that’s real.

 

Ira Madison III You an intrepid reporter just trying to make something happen.

 

Louis Virtel That’s right. Oh, no, please. And that’s that same summer I went to, ah, between my junior and senior year, I went to Los Angeles, interned for The Advocate, and I just emailed Perez Hilton out of the blue, who was very popular at the time. And I was like, Can I tail you for a second? And he said, Yes. And then I went to a party with him and I was kicked out for not having the proper credentials. So that’s the kind of reporter I came. I just sucked.

 

Ira Madison III He set you up?

 

Louis Virtel That’s right. Yes. I was kicked out of this event. That was a Tori Spelling PR moment because they were kind of friends at the time. I had taken a bus to Malibu. I met the indignity.

 

Ira Madison III Well, to be fair, Tori Spelling probably took a bus to Malibu to get to her own event.

 

Louis Virtel The stars there just like us. Unfortunately, I haven’t thought about that a long time, but it crazy anyway. Also something I have watched that’s come out in the past year. Daisy Jones in the Six. Okay, This show was allegedly made for me. Too generic. It feels like a photo.

 

Ira Madison III Is not good.

 

Louis Virtel And the music is not good either. Even though I love Riley Keough, I’ve said this before the greatest gap in talent between granddaughter and grandfather in terms of acting ability is Riley Keough and Elvis Presley. It makes no sense that she is as good as she is. Elvis would be out acted by Ann-Margret, who, by the way, was not even a good actor yet in all of those movies. And Shelley Fabray and Mary Tyler Moore, that one time she played a nun. The movie is called Change of Habit. Don’t watch it.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. All right. Was it was it a precursor to A Flying Nun?

 

Louis Virtel Flying Nun would have been contemporaneous, so they would have been competing.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. A lot of nuns going on in that period.

 

Louis Virtel And yet not as good as The Nun’s Story with Audrey Hepburn recommended in 1959. Right. One of my favorites of hers.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t particularly love Daisy Jones, to be honest. But, you know, I’ve been you brought it up. I’ve been enjoying Succession yet, by the way. And I will say that my problems of last year are gone, which is that I really thought that they were sort of like spitting in place in season three and not a lot was happening to change the dynamics, but the dynamics of like completely blown up in the second episode of the fourth season here. And I feel like it really is ramping up to a conclusion and I’m excited that we’re in this era of shows getting to have conclusions again, since everything sort of just either goes on for too fucking long or it gets cut viciously before it’s supposed to end. But I will say HBO seems to be the one place that has always done this. Ever since we’ve been watching HBO shows.

 

Louis Virtel Hmm. Can I voice a complaint about Succession? I watched the last episode and I am not caught up. I had no business watching this episode. Some of the humor on this show runs a little repetitive to me. Like. Like one character says something and then somebody responds with. How about anything else? Or did you really just say that? That sort of stuff? And it’s like we had like a million seasons of Veep. We’re done with that now we need to advance beyond like Sadat Sardonic bastardliness.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean, the British are sardonically bastards.

 

Louis Virtel Okay? But they’re not British on the show.

 

Ira Madison III True, but the creator Jesse Armstrong is British.

 

Louis Virtel All right. Yeah. Just. I feel like the Kieran Culkin character is a little repetitive, but. But. But Matthew Macfadyen remains one of my favorite actors and the Pride and Prejudice from the nineties, his performances in all timer. So

 

Ira Madison III I feel like the the writing and dialog for me is really sort of some of the best on TV. I just love the wordplay. I love I love how the I love it, you know, I love watching smart people on TV again.

 

Louis Virtel You know, generally speaking, I do support also, Sarah. I mean, we we need to have like a full carcass one day about uncaulkable Australian accents because her real life accent is full kookaburra. And then on the show she is so convincingly American it’s disturbing. Why are they so good at this?

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, they spend all their time trying to escape the prisoner, the island.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure.

 

Ira Madison III The islnd from the prisoner. That’s what I that’s what I feel like Australia is, is the island from the prisoner. And so what else are they going to do?

 

Louis Virtel Did you know that Australia got rid of their national anthem and now it’s just vibes. Isn’t that crazy?

 

Ira Madison III I love that.

 

Louis Virtel It’s a soccer game there. At soccer game, someone just has just vibes and they just stand for a second and then the game commences.

 

Ira Madison III We should replace ours with that of Lil Uzi song, I Want to Rock.

 

Louis Virtel I think it should be When I Grow Up, by Pussycat Dolls. Now that you mention it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. America has been growing up for a while, Louis. When’s it  going to get there?

 

Louis Virtel I, right. Great. Thought you should write that for Salon.com.

 

Ira Madison III I’m going to send it to Pods of America. I think that should be their new slogan.

 

Louis Virtel Those boys always need help. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III All right. When we’re back. I still can’t believe it. We’ll be joined by Rachel Weisz.

 

[AD]

 

Ira Madison III And today’s guest is a true gift to cinema.

 

Louis Virtel Couldn’t be truer.

 

Ira Madison III She’s got an Oscar.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III A BAFTA. An Olivier. And she’s met an actual mummy. What more do you want from her? You could catch her next in the mesmerizing and chilling Amazon series, Dead Ringers giving us twice the Weisz playing twin identical doctors. Please welcome the Keep It, Rachel Weisz.

 

Rachel Weisz Hello. Thank you for having me. Thank you for that lovely intro. Goodness.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, thank you for this series. I was at the premiere last night and it was amazing. Truly, truly fantastic. I’ve been a fan of the original Cronenberg film and it was so nice to see this adaptation of it. Were you a fan of the original and sort of what inspired you to step into this world?

 

Rachel Weisz Yes, I was a really big fan of the original. I saw it possibly when it first came out. I was a teenager and I just never forgot it. And I think over the years it’s become such an iconic film and yeah, it just haunted me and it stayed with me. So I one day had a daydream. I was thinking about projects to produce and develop, and I was thinking about sisters as an interesting, like fertile ground for drama. And I thought, Oh, what if? And I said to a producer, Sue Nagle and a partner, I said, What do you reckon? Dead Ringers with two female doctors. And she said, Oh, that’s a that seems like a good idea. And yeah, we took it from there.

 

Louis Virtel Also, I just want to talk about this this movie. The original lingers in my head too, but. And of course, Jeremy Irons performance is fantastic. Genevieve Pujol Fabulous in it. It also sticks in my head because it is wildly disturbing. Just some of the images in this movie. You have to, like, clutch your face and look away. It’s so shocking. As you know, many Cronenberg movies have that quality. But are you comfortable with like, disturbing content? It’s just, to me, a crazy movie to bring back because it’s so singular and how honestly gross it is.

 

Rachel Weisz Mm hmm. Well, what interested me about the original film was the psychological complexity about the co-dependence between these brothers and how twisted that was. But also in the original film, they are having such fun in Manhattan. They’re the top of their game that brilliant, their careers. They always have a martini in their hand or at some party with another hot woman on their arm and they’re having a blast. And I love that mixture of. The idea of professionals who are flying high in the in their public careers but in their private lives, It’s it’s it’s dysfunctional and twisted. So they’re having a lot of fun until they’re not it’s not all gross and twisted. There’s a lot of joy, too, I think.

 

Ira Madison III Absolutely. But I would say what what’s also so interesting about, you know, the translation from Cronenberg to this version is that what becomes a lot of the what you would say is, quote unquote grotesque is just a lot of close ups. You know, the one particular scene in the first episode with a lot of childbirth happening, you know, and I think that that is so interesting to take and just thrust right onscreen because, you know, it’s this mix of the miracle of life, but also, you know, showing like what women’s bodies are actually going through, through the process. Did you feel like there was a lot of fun to be had with just sort of taking that and sort of taking it to like a sort of extreme, almost even sort of camp but dark horror vibe and also just the difference in having two women be the leads instead of the men. Because I will say that, you know, with Jeremy Irons, you know, having the time of his life at a fertility clinic, you know, and like the night is in there is sort of like a very, like, creepy element to it being from a man’s POV.

 

Rachel Weisz Yes. Yes. Was really interesting in everything you’ve just said. So I’m just absorbing and trying to like I mean, I think I think for the story line, Alice Birch, the the writer, creator, showrunner extraordinaire of this of this piece, I think for she and and and for me, it was very for her. And for me, it was very important to show what maternal. Health care looked like at this moment in time, because they both have these massive dreams like crazy big dreams of completely changing the world. Beverly and Lisa Elliot, Which would be the combo of them. Beverly In relation to. The way in which women give birth and clear in terms of the science of. Fertility and. They both have crazy big dreams. So before we went into the kind of more like bananas heightened operatic territory that the later episodes get into, we really wanted to make the case for, well, why that dream is even necessary. What’s wrong? What’s wrong with health care? What’s wrong with the way in which women give birth? So we showed all those stories for that purpose to then kind of go into these into the future episodes. And in terms of the childbirth scenes in that first episode, I think Alison and I were just really interested in seeing them. It’s something that neither of us had seen in stories before. It’s what the twins do. They they deliver babies. And Jeremy Irons, his character, as you pointed out, that they really work on just fertility gynecology. So these these two women deliver babies. So it’s what they do every day. It’s as ordinary to them as you and I are speaking to each other now. We’re just doing our jobs and they’re just doing their job. So we were just interested in and really. Just examining that from that point of view. But yeah, I agree with you there. It goes into a lot of different tones, you know, darkly humorous sometimes camp to quote you.

 

Ira Madison III And the second episode with the almost Sackler esque family is really sort of like really just like a searing satire. You know, it’s sort of like a Succession sort of way where it just like, really attacks a certain sect of rich, you know, people in this country.

 

Rachel Weisz Yes. Yes. And Beverly has this very ideologically pure dream. But she agrees to take money from this these Sackler like couple family. So. So she has a compromised she’s highly more come from. So there’s a lot of complexities like that in this script which is quite delightful, I think.

 

Louis Virtel I’m often too busy thinking of you as a quote unquote, powerful actress that I forget that you are also a hilarious actress. I mean, just like over the years, I think of like the line readings you’ve given. I mean, like, it is almost painful to think about the favorite and like, how deadpan you get and how cutting you are to the Emma Stone character. It’s just like, scream out loud, you know? Like Maggie Smith would be proud, that level of awesome, deadpan humor. And I was wondering, when in your career have you felt the funniest?

 

Rachel Weisz Best of all, thank you for the Maggie Smith shout out. That’s a that’s a very big deal for a British girl, as you can imagine. Ooh. Whenever I felt the funniest as well. I mean, I think that’s probably a very obvious thing to say. But when you’re being when people are finding you funny, it doesn’t feel funny to you. I think the more committed you are and serious you are that you mentioned the favor. I mean, I was I, I don’t even think I knew that it was funny. In fact, I didn’t. So I think if you are, then it can end up being funny, I think. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Thinking about the filming of that movie, did you try a whole bunch of different ways to convey the really lacerating tone that those characters have with each other? Did you did it take a long time to settle on the tone? Was it always apparent on the page how, you know, bleak the humor was and yet also powerful? Altogether, it is.

 

Rachel Weisz Well, Yorgos Lanthimos, who directed, he would just say, do it faster.

 

Ira Madison III Wow.

 

Rachel Weisz So he was he doesn’t ever talk about the scenes or the acting or the intention. In fact, one day I said to him, Am I doing something? I asked him a question and he just said, Rachel. I’m your boss. And I was like, Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry, I forgot. Yeah, he just doesn’t you don’t discuss things, so he’ll just tell you to go faster. So how he, he gets that tone that you’re describing is a kind of alchemical mystery to me. I don’t, I don’t know how he does it, but he does.

 

Ira Madison III I would also say that it’s it’s so surprising, too, that you have so many roles that have become. Iconic, just a queer people. Just not even from Dead Ringers. Where you have a relationship with an actress in the series. But you know you’ve got Rachel McAdams, like spitting in your mouth for disobedience. You’ve got the favorites.

 

Rachel Weisz I think I spat.

 

Ira Madison III Or you spat into hers

 

Rachel Weisz I spat in her mouth. Yeah, or.

 

Ira Madison III I had it the other way around. I mean, listen, I’d take either one. So.

 

Rachel Weisz Oh, no, maybe she spat into mine. Actually, I don’t remember now. Sorry. Sorry. It’s so small. Details.

 

Ira Madison III And then even the favorite and some of your other works. I mean, you know, like, um. What does it felt like just having, I guess, this reception from a large part of your fan base. Do you even get, you know, sort of that you have this large fan base of a queer variety and also, like, what goes into picking sort of roles like that for you?

 

Rachel Weisz Well, it is extremely flattering. What you’re telling me, and I have been told it a few times, but I don’t I’m not on social media or I I’m I’m not perhaps properly aware of it, but I’m extremely flattered. It’s lovely.

 

Ira Madison III Now it’s like you and Cate Blanchett sort of feel like sort of our preeminent sort of actresses who.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III It’s sort of like really intense sort of roles of women who are in relationships with other women. And it’s just sort of masterful work. And interesting to see from both of you.

 

Rachel Weisz Thank you. What a lovely, lovely news to get this morning in Brooklyn. You know what came into my mind as you were speaking, as I was thinking of of queer female icons like Bettye Davis came into my mind and I and I remember that. And she’s someone that I look up to very much as an actor. I think she’s brilliant. But she was in the first Dead Ringers film. There was a 1940 Black and white Dead ring is where Betty Davis played Two Sisters, right? They could never have them on the screen at the same time because the technology didn’t exist yet. But it’s really, really brilliant. And I mean, talk about campy that is really campy. And then that is a remake of a mexican film called Dead Ringers and in in Spanish. So this is a this is a homage to her. Homage to an homage to there’s lots of layers of remaking.

 

Louis Virtel You mentioned Bettye Davis. Are you somebody who’s likely to watch old movies a lot? Does that speak to you? Even though I think of you as such a like, definitively modern actor? You know, like, like in the old days, all of your lines would be delivered with a scream by somebody by like Betty Davis. But we get such a, you know, calm, assured, deadly tone from you that I feel like is very this century.

 

Rachel Weisz Well, thank you. And I. But I do watch old movies. Yeah. I love Betty Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I mean, Betty Davis is like, wow.

 

Louis Virtel Betty Davis is one of the few celebrities I can think of where if she didn’t exist, there would be like, a whole in Hollywood history, just the way she propelled through the decades, the like. I’m absolutely going to do it my way and nobody else is way. And then the amount of, of course, iconic roles we got from her, she has to turn Oscar nominations, I believe. And in All About Eve. Every time I watch it, there’s some line I totally forgot about. That’s an A-plus.

 

Rachel Weisz Mm hmm. Yeah, It’s just the most extraordinary film. Marilyn, as you well know, you’re more of a film historian than me, but Marilyn Monroe’s first screen appearance, well, she just has that. Two lines or something saying, Could you get my coat or something? I don’t remember what she says, But you were like, Who? Who’s that?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, She has to tangle with Addison DeWitt. It’s like, Oh, God, you’re too innocent for this. Marilyn, stop. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Have there been any. I mean, you’ve. We’ve gotten the chance to work with so many wonderful actors over your career. Like, have there been any people who you feel like you’ve had particularly sort of. A great time being with on screen or someone who you sort of like came away from the film or production being like you learn something new about yourself as an actor just from interacting with them.

 

Rachel Weisz Well, I mean, there were so many actors on Dead Ringers that I loved when I came in. I mean, Jennifer Ealy as.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Rachel Weisz Yeah. I mean, I find her performance in Dead Ringers pretty staggeringly good because she’s so I don’t want to say evil, but she has zero moral compass, shall we say. And you can’t take your eyes off her. And she’s just so cool and calm and collected and honest and doesn’t raise her voice. And she’s just the coolest cat, the coolest bad gal I’ve ever seen. And I loved watching her. And Emily Mead, who plays her wife, I just thought they were just the most bizarre couple. And if you watch Emily, I mean, I don’t think it was in the script. I think it’s just something she did. She’s always drinking a glass of milk with whatever she’s eating. She’ll have milk. It’s like a big baby. And I actually I love Emily’s performance as well, because you see a highly intelligent actress kind of playing dumb and you see, like, the workings of her mind behind the character. And you don’t know if it’s the character acting dumb or what’s going on. There’s so many layers there. So I love working with Jennifer and Jennifer and Emily and Michael Chernus, who’s Elliot’s best and only friend, and he was just wonderful. So I’m kind of thinking of the and the actors that I just work with. But yeah, I mean, yeah, they were great, but Olivia Colman is a lot of fun.

 

Louis Virtel What a performance. Yeah, yeah.

 

Rachel Weisz Yeah. She’s a lot of fun.

 

Louis Virtel Jennifer Ealy also really good in a movie called A Quiet Passion a few years ago with Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson. But yeah, must watch. Very good film.

 

Rachel Weisz I haven’t seen that. I must see is Terence DAVIES. Is that. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Rachel Weisz Quite, quite brilliant.

 

Louis Virtel Obviously, Brendan Fraser, your old costar, just won an Oscar recently. What was it like watching this like, extremely triumphant moment for him, just sort of ramp up out of nowhere? And he he didn’t he didn’t win the Oscar in a walk, but he like it was he was favored to win and he won it.

 

Rachel Weisz Yeah. I thought his performance was so brilliant. I love the film. I thought it was this intense operatic melodrama and it all took place in one room. And now he is unable to move on a couch at the center of it. And the world comes to him with these four, four characters. I thought. I thought he was extraordinary and moving. And yeah, I sent him a text as soon as I’d seen it and just was like, that was that was something else. And yeah, I congratulated him when, when he won and it couldn’t have happened to I know people say this all the time. It sounds like a cliche, but it really couldn’t have happened. Like the guy, he’s really a proper like, just like a sweetheart. A total sweetheart. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm. Obviously, you’re an Oscar winner yourself. How much does the ceremony mean to you in general? Like, do you look forward to the Oscars or do you think of it as, like, you know, work in a way, you know, like the season long campaigning, etc.? How much of it is fun to watch or witness and how much of it do you feel like, as, I don’t know, a circus or something?

 

Rachel Weisz Well, I think it’s definitely changed over the years. I think it’s become more maybe more and more how you just just described it. But listen, it’s it’s the biggest honor that you get as an actor from your community. So it’s quite surreal. It’s quite surreal to watch it live, to watch on the television, to be there and be nominated or to actually win. It’s sort of it’s so iconic. And the statue itself has such an iconic status. It’s almost like you’re in a an inside a fantasy. It’s so unlike anything else and so, so unreal. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. One thing I really love about Dead Ringers is that you sort of get to play two characters that are very opposite of one another, and they sort of mirror what I would say are a lot of the roles that you have had before. You know, you you have sort of a altruistic, sort of like nicer character in something like The Constant Gardener. But then, you know, there’s also you and Beautiful Creatures, you know, where you’re really more of like a sort of like a morally great character, you know, like sort of which ones do you find yourself more drawn to, or is there any character you’ve played that you feel like really feels more like your personality?

 

Rachel Weisz Well, I don’t really feel like any any of my characters, really, although. The contradiction is like when you play them, you have to show up. So they’re bits of you there probably, but it’s all filtered through or it’s all. It all begins with writing.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Rachel Weisz But it begins with writing. So Alice wrote these two completely distinct characters on the page. They’re psychologically complicated. They’re. They’re, as I said, like, brilliant at their jobs. But they have this highly dysfunctional, aberrant private life. They’re like big babies. I mean, they don’t know how to do the laundry or they have grafted eyes, making them their food, and that they’re they have a lot of contradictions to them. They’re both both brilliant and totally messed up. So when you get writing like that, it’s just I’ve never had writing as good as the writing for Alice that I did on this show. It’s I think it’s really exceptional. So you take away that writing, you know, you lock the door of your study, your room where you’re going to learn a lot wherever you are, and then you just start working on the lines and they speak to your imagination, and then you just start to like, cook up a character like you’d like, you know, there’s a recipe to cook a meal and you start cooking it and you start doing that in your imagination. So it’s not really I didn’t really have like a I can’t really say I’m Beverly. I will never choose between those twins. I love them both equally.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking a bit of even that process you of like locking the study, you know, like really getting to a character. Louis and I are always interested would we have actors are who are married to other actors you know like so what’s it like in a process where you and your husband Daniel Craig, are both maybe working on a project? Do you sort of confer with one another about the projects that you’re taking on? Do you sort of share like your process when you’re getting into a character with one another? I mean, and he’s such a fantastic sort of actor in sort of the same realm as you. I mean, I remember seeing him in Othello and really just sort of like loving that performance from him. And I just kept thinking, like, is Rachel seeing bits and pieces of this at home, you know?

 

Rachel Weisz No, his go was it was that was an incredible production. And in that tiny space in downtown Manhattan, it was like actors. You could touch them, right? You could like.

 

Ira Madison III He was delivering like a monologue like next to my face. And it was like, so such an intense performance.

 

Rachel Weisz Yeah, I was really that was and that was a brilliant, brilliant production. Well, I guess his, his, the door to his office closes when he’s working on his, on his characters is quite private. Yeah. It’s not something you really share I mean. Because it’s just to do with your imagination. So it’s it’s sort of. Yeah, not something you can really describe. It’s just like you’re in conversation with your with your daydreams, I guess. So, yeah, I no, it’s not something we, well, we try not to try. We have a family, so we try not to work at the same time. Uh, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. But yeah, it’s a. It’s quite private. It’s quite private. Yeah. It’s not secretive. It’s just that’s. That’s what it is. And we both know that. So the door’s close to the office and someone’s doing some studying. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I guess.

 

Rachel Weisz I mean, it’s like private school.

 

Louis Virtel My final. Our final question is, do you have a favorite Daniel Craig moment on screen where you were watching it and maybe it cut you off guard or you learn something about him as an actor you wouldn’t have guessed from, you know, being married to him.

 

Rachel Weisz Well, Benoit Blanc. In Knives Out and Glass Onion and it’s like, I don’t know where he came from. I’ve definitely. I’ve never met him. I’ve never met him around the house. So that’s, that’s like that. That’s him. And Ryan Johnson cooked up that that character. He’s so funny and so like, so interesting. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III This is one of his definitive roles, I feel like now. And I feel like were did you introduce Daniel to Ryan because you were in Brothers Bloom and you’re fantastic in that film? I absolutely adore that film.

 

Rachel Weisz Oh. Thank you. Thank you. No, I didn’t. I didn’t. Ryan. Ryan reached out to Daniel when he’d written knives out and offered him the part. I didn’t. I didn’t introduce them. But Ryan is talk about an imagination, you know, because he he had so much light wit and humor and then he loves that intricate. I mean, Brothers Bloom had it, too. And and, you know, the intricate plot that’s like a wind up puzzle box that has to slowly, slowly unravel. He’s he’s so brilliant, Ryan. But yeah, I think they love working together.

 

Louis Virtel Also, that’s the kind of guy you can sit and talk about Bettye Davis with for a couple of hours. Like Ryan Johnson. Just obsessed.

 

Rachel Weisz Yes. He’s he’s one of the most knowledgeable people. Have you met him on the show?

 

Ira Madison III Oh, yes. Yes, yes.

 

Rachel Weisz Oh, he’s brilliant, right? Just brilliant. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel So much fun. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, someone who reads murder mysteries, like for fun, Like it’s someone you want to talk to.

 

Rachel Weisz Yeah, he’s smart. He’s a clever, clever guy.

 

Louis Virtel Thank you so much for being here. My God. One of the few truths about, you know, cinema going forward is like, you know, in the future, we don’t know what we’re going to get. But when there’s a new Rachel Weisz project, we will be watching it. That is absolutely on the docket every time.

 

Rachel Weisz Oh, well, thank you very. That’s very honor. Thank you.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, This series is truly, truly fantastic. We have not like just saying this because you’re here. It’s I was saying it to Louis. I was saying it to friends last night at the premiere. People who had seen full episode, the full series were telling me like, I’m going to enjoy the rest of it. It is truly a mind fuck of a series when you watch it, listen when you watch it, like you’re just going to be taking it and you’ll be like, What is going on? But at the center of it is you watch such an incredible, incredible performance.

 

Rachel Weisz Thank you, Will. It’s done. We hope it’s ours and I hope it’s a ride. And as I said, it it begins in this kind of very grounded place. And then it gets more and more heightened and it gets into beyond what you’ve seen. It gets into the world of not sci fi, but near fi. So it’s sort of science fiction that’s just almost within our reach scientifically, and it gets pretty operatic and yeah, it gets quite bananas.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, describe the world Iran I inhabit as Near Fi. So I think, yeah, I think we’re on board. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you so much.

 

Louis Virtel Thanks again.

 

Ira Madison III For being here with us. Yeah.

 

Rachel Weisz I thank you so much. I wish we were closer on the Zoom box.

 

Ira Madison III But yes, I got I got to see you in person at the premiere yet but just to give you just were so wonderful.

 

Rachel Weisz So thank you so much. All right. See you later.

 

Ira Madison III Take care.

 

Rachel Weisz Bye.

 

[AD].

 

Ira Madison III After talking about Rachel Weisz, we realized that this is too big of a gift for one segment. So we’re going to give you a couple extra doses of Weisz and talk about a couple of her projects that we have not seen before. Now, Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III You watched About A Boy with Hugh Grant, my man.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Our man.

 

Ira Madison III I love. I love him. By the way, just before we didn’t mention this in the what What We’ve Been Watching segment, I just saw Hugh Grant in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. And he’s so funny in that. And it’s like it’s such a contrast to people being like he was being a dick on the red carpet, he wasn’t having fun, etc. And we’ve already discussed that. But I was just like, what? Hugh Grant is having fun. He is having fun.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III He’s he and Chris Pine and even Michelle Rodriguez is so fun to watch in this. And then, of course, Justice Smith is in it and we need a starring role for him immediately.

 

Louis Virtel I was asked to say about Hugh Grant that once upon a time I used to do a segment for movie Lincoln called My Favorite Scene, where we would ask people what their favorite movie scene was. Routinely, men would pick. Hugh Grant Dancing in Love, actually, Like there’s something about Hugh Grant that speaks to that. I think men in general, but he’s just so fucking fun. I think he’s he’s somebody who is self-serious because he is the talent is just on tap. He’s amazing. And you can’t keep your eyes in every movie. Like Four Weddings and a Funeral is a classic because of Hugh Grant. I talk about impromptu all the time on this, but that movie too, and an About A Boy man, again, he plays a character, first of all, that I don’t see, a lot of, which is first, he’s just a rich, well-off person whose dad has sold the successful Christmas single in the fifties, and he’s living off the royalties from that. And he is unapologetically still just a lout. Somebody who is just like walking around, has no job. He does lie to a couple of women and says he has a kid to, you know, woo them or whatever, But just like a single good looking guy, probably 40 or so and like, can we just see more of those? I would just like to. They don’t even have to be funny. I don’t care. But he is so witty throughout this movie. And by the way, it’s just crazy that there are two Nicholas Hoult Rachel Weisz movies and they are About A Boy and The Favorite.

 

Ira Madison III I like that you mentioned that he’s just sort of like has this body and just sort of gets to hang around because I feel like some of the best movies are when, you know, shout out to Nepo babies and, you know, intergenerational wealth or whatever. But some of the best movies are people were like, they don’t really have a defined job. They just have money and they’re hanging around and you just get to see the story.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Just, yeah, we want something nice to look at, you know what I’m saying? We want the house to look like the Sims live in large. We want to see the fun things.

 

Ira Madison III Nick Hornby’s work is sort of like I feel like Protonmail Nancy Meyers or Francesc Usk. You know, About A Boy is definitely that. High Fidelity also sort of like that, except he’s working at a record store, but also working at a record store and still has money. So, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Also this movie points out to me just the extremely weird track we have put Toni Collette on nowadays. You would only put Toni Collette basically as the lead in something. I know she was a minor character in Knives Out, but that’s like a pretty rare Toni Collette role these days. Once upon a time, it’s like when you realize Frances McDormand plays the sister and Something’s Got to Give. It’s like, what? Like you took that, Like you have like six lines or whatever. Obviously she’s great in many supporting roles, like almost famous, whatever. But Toni Collette in this movie is a hippie type who has lots of, ah, she’s very disturbed and potentially suicidal, which seems utterly too dark for a movie like this. And yet because it’s Hugh Grant who has a bleak new bleakness to his humor, it ends up working out. I don’t know. I never questioned it.

 

Ira Madison III I won’t say In this movie, um, Rachel is on my list because she’s at that dinner party scene. She’s like, I just think all hip hop sounds the same to me.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, excuse me. Somebody at the table says to her and they don’t explore the conversation. East coast orWest Coast rap? Who just throws that out?

 

Ira Madison III That’s such like a Nick Hornby script. It’s like, Yeah, that’s it.  And in the scene,  she’s sitting there and Hugh Grant is, you know, chatting her up. And the off screen conversation is the most interesting part of the scene.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, white people popping off.

 

Ira Madison III Did you like the film overall?

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I will. I think it started better that it ended because it ends somewhat conventionally with a scene where Hugh Grant is helping out Nicholas Hoult perform during a talent show. And, you know, they’re about to boo him and he comes in and accompanies him. It feels very familiar. But both of their performances throughout the movie, what a great kid performance from Nicholas Hoult, who is I think about 11 or 12 in that movie. And it’s nice to you think of Hugh Grant as somebody whose humor in films comes from the fact that he’s this dignified adult actor. But to watch a kid really match him tit for tat and be just as not just deadpan, but self-assured is really cool to see. I can’t think of another movie like that where a kid in an adult, you know, like maybe like Paper Moon or something, that’s a movie where you’re really just armed by what a good actor Tatum O’Neal is.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. That that now that now, like Leon the Professional is a Natalie Portman.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Nat, killing bitches.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She. She she holds her job in the.

 

Louis Virtel First great Natalie Portman performance. Yes. Though, as you know, I don’t really stan her, which makes me not like the other gays.

 

Ira Madison III All right, bitch. Though, I had forgotten that Nicholas Hoult was the lead in that, too. And he is one of my favorite, you know. Actors. To be honest, he was doing a lot of work in The Menu to make it watchable.

 

Louis Virtel I was overserved by Nicholas Hoult in the menu. You know what I’m saying? I might even show it now. I write puns. He was good, but I thought that movie was all about Janet McTeer. I thought she was the best in that movie.

 

Ira Madison III All right. So the film that I watched was The Constant Gardener.

 

Louis Virtel Which is an interesting movie to pick because, one, obviously, Rachel Weisz won an Oscar for it, but two, she really stomped to victory with that performance. She won most of the precursors. And now we never talk about that movie.

 

Ira Madison III Well, here’s the thing. I get why we never talk about it, because it feels very much like an Oscar film.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It’s you know, it’s it’s one of those it’s one of those heightened thriller films that is also about politics and what’s going on in the world. And so the thriller element is there, but it’s a lot of people talking about, you know, like other things that seem very much like, okay, this is a a thriller for adults, you know, but smart adults, you know, there’s no there’s no Ivanovich shit going on here. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right, right. I mean, that is sort of a genre of the time. It’s very Blood Diamond or something, you know?

 

Ira Madison III I mean, that at least is more campy than The Constant Gardner.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Leonardo DiCaprio was doing it entirely too much in Blood Diamond.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, as I’ve said, my favortite Leonardo DiCaprio performance remains Django Unchained because we actually made him play a character in that. And not just a rich, mean person. There was something else going on there that was exciting, and we didn’t even nominated for that. So strange. Anyway, what did you think of Rachel in The Constant Gardener?

 

Ira Madison III I thought, she’s so fucking good. You know, as I mentioned to her before, you know, she’s sort of like the opposite of some of the wicked characters that she plays, which doesn’t mean that she is, you know, like, sweet and meek by any means. I didn’t want that to come across when I was when we were talking to her. But because the character, you know, takes the role of, you know, a dead wife, that could just be. Dry as hell. She got nominated for like a boring version of this with, like, it would have been a bit like Claire Foy in the First man. You know, that that was that was sort of one of the most recent my wife roles where I was like, What are we doing here? Right. But Rachel has so much to do in this film, you know, from what she meets when she meets, Ray Fiennes in that sort of scene that she interrupts where he’s giving a speech, you know, about Iraq and everything. And then, you know, she gets to play the international intrigue of it all. You know, she gets to play losing her child. You know, there’s there’s so much meat in this role for her to play. And she’s only in about like 45% of the film.

 

Louis Virtel Also, Ray Fiennes pops up quite often. Not like, you know. It’d be weird if your went by and you didn’t get Ray Finds. We just talked about the menu, but I still feel like we’re due for, like, a proper ray finds appreciation moment. I mean, he’s nominated for a couple Oscars. Obviously, he has bone chilling in Schindler’s List. Great in The English Patient, a movie that I would describe now as underappreciated, like Seinfeld erased what was at the time like a groundswell of support for that movie. Juliette Binoche, of course, one of our fabulous best actors, too. But Ray finds in general, there’s just like something so watchable about like the glassy ness of his stare and like, you can just see the layers of of an intelligent personality there, which is really on screen in Quiz Show, where he plays a Charles Van Doren, who is at the time a Time magazine covering sensation, who goes on a game show, winds a whole bunch of times. And the big secret is the game is rigged. And he’s basically chosen by the producers as a successor to Herbert Stempel, played by John Turturro. Since since Ray finds his more watchable and alluring as a TV presence. But that remains one of my favorite movies.

 

Ira Madison III I love Quiz Show, and I also think that, yeah, he hasn’t gotten that much real awards attention. It’s for like the Golden Globe nomination for onThe Menu, probably since maybe the Grand Budapest Hotel.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And it wasn’t really about him either. He was just part of a giant, you know, Wes Anderson style ensemble there.

 

Ira Madison III But I really do love Ray Fiennes and I feel like.

 

Louis Virtel The end of The Affair so good.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it is still so weird to me, though, seeing him onscreen with J.Lo.

 

Louis Virtel That is one of those weird pairings.

 

Ira Madison III That is a weird ass pairing. Okay. Every time he’s in Made in Manhattan, I’m like, he’s going to kill her.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Most of the people she’s with have a kind of like, I don’t know, down home vibe, shall we say, you know, Ben Affleck you can hang with, whereas nothing about him is casual, even in the slightest. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I thought he was great in the film, obviously. But what I really loved was seeing Archie Panjabi in this film.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Archie Panjabi Is that, by the way, what are we doing with her? Where is she? Okay. Julianna vaporized her. I don’t know what happens. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She put a fatwa on her. Okay. Archie Panjabii has not been seen in anything. Said that split screen in the Good Wife.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I remember her in that Julia Anderson show The Fall for a split second. Otherwise, this is an Emmy winner. It’s like Anna Gunn syndrome. What did we do with Anna Gunn?

 

Ira Madison III And she pops up in the film and the way she pops up in the movie, it’s really just so and the way she pops up in the movie, it’s like, why aren’t we seeing more of this actress on in film? Yeah, like she’s so commanding on screen and, like, really holds her own with Ray and like, they have the great screen chemistry together. So it’s just like, Where is she.

 

Louis Virtel Now? I will not be able to let this question go. What a disturbing problem we have. You would think there would be roles aplenty for her, too. I don’t understand.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Although I will say Ray Fund’s may or may not have said that he couldn’t understand the vitriol directed at J.K. Rowling. But this was 2021.

 

Louis Virtel All right. You think he’s you think he’s done some reading since then? The British disappointment me.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like she’s only become more disfigured spiritually as a human being since then. So maybe like being around her, you know, I don’t know, like, the face is crumbling and what I write, Phantom of the Opera mask that she has on, you know, to make her still seem human is cracking or something. You know, I feel like in 2021 where she was sort of being, you know, like an enfant terrible. Yeah. So now 2023, where she is like a fool, like Milo Yiannopoulos, I guess it’s that someone’s opinion would have changed, you know?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t I do not mean to make light of the fact that she stands for something so vile now and says vile things, believes vile things. But it really did. Come on. I don’t want to say slowly. Once upon a time it was, Oh, she’s following a couple of dubious accounts on Twitter. Oh, she’s retweeting a couple of dubious people. And now it’s where it is, where she’s just the turf number one ranked fucking turf. It’s so wretched. It’s so wretched.

 

Ira Madison III Louis, I will let you finish, but I’ve got a lot more to say about J.K. Rowling when we get to the Keep It segment.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, all right. All right. Let’s get there. Let’s get there.

 

Ira Madison III All right. We will be right back with Keep It. And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It. Louis, what year is your Keep It from?

 

Louis Virtel I swear it’s from 2023, but in a way, also 1988, because let me tell you, it involves Tracy Chapman. Luke Combs, who that’s not somebody in my wheelhouse at all. Covered Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. It sounds great. I love this cover and my Keep It goes to actually all songs that are at this cover because you know what he does in the song? He keeps the lyric. Now I work in the market as a checkout girl, and maybe that’s just shocking to me because, you know, the tone of Luke Combs, his voice is very villain and Boys Don’t Cry. So it’s shocking that he can, you know, make such a bold choice. But then I realize, like, how for years and years have we had so many covers of, like women songs where they have to where men change the pronouns or whatever. It’s like, No, it’s their fucking song. Like, just sing it as is. It’s like there’s always been a weird pride issue with owning femininity from the perspective of the person singing the song I’m reminded of Once Upon a Time. One of my favorite covers of all time is Natalie Cole’s cover of Pink Cadillac by Bruce Springsteen, and at the time he did not want her to do that song. And his quote, I don’t know if this I don’t know if this came out only after the fact, but his quote was, it’s not a girl’s song. And to me, that’s one of the few things Bruce Springsteen has ever said that I find a little I don’t know about upsetting but jarring. Like, I didn’t expect that from him. And I don’t know. I think it’s just so lovely to hear a guy sing a song as it was intended in the first place and not needing to turn it into his story. I was pleased by and also kind of say in general, I think Fast Car is one of the few songs, particularly eighties songs that has not aged a single day. Not nothing about the production on that song Sounds like it belongs necessarily to the era of like Motley Crue or Bon Jovi or whatever was happening at the time. It just keeps gaining. Like there’s no like pop culture reference in the song that makes you think, Oh, it’s definitely from this one time. I’m just shocked by how singular that song remains. And now thinking of Marni, quote unquote, covering it in Girls on the last episode.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, Liz said it’s a bit because technology hasn’t caught up to where it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to be living like The Jetsons, you know? So cars are still. Cars are still fast. We’re still driving them.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true. Right? They’re not all self-driving, etc.. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know what? The keeping the check out girl line reminds me of? Do you remember the single by the group, the indie rock group, Black Kids, I’m Not Going to Teach your Boyfriend How to Dance with You?

 

Louis Virtel I don’t know the song.

 

Ira Madison III It’s like from 2008. It was like a pretty popular song, but it was like it had, like, the chorus. You’re that girl that I’ve been dreaming of ever since I was a little girl. And it was like an inside joke between him and his sister that they always used to say, ever since I was a little girl, since they were kids. But it was that was always like a line that stuck out to me on the radio when I first heard it, because I was like, Is this a cover? No, this is the original song. And it’s funny to them.

 

Louis Virtel So, by the way, I think just as a challenge in general, I think more songs should have the line. Now I work in the market as a checkout girl. I just like if in Stairway to Heaven. He just said, Now I work in the market as a checkout girl. I would be a huge fan of that song.

 

Ira Madison III I think we might even be moving to that because I feel like the way that straight people appropriate gay slang, I have definitely had at least and not like not like, you know, one of our straight friends who, like, hangs out with gays a lot. I mean, like, I’ve heard from other random, like straight guys where they will just say, like girl sometimes. And I’m like, are they starting to pick up on that?

 

Louis Virtel That both worries me and thrills me because it is funny in general to refer to somebody as girl or a thing as girl.

 

Ira Madison III But can you imagine like a very straight man, like being mad at you or like you’re in high school and like they’re bullying you, but they’re like using your slang that they’re like, Where are you going, Sis?

 

Louis Virtel That’s tough. Wow. Interesting. I will say at work, where I’m surrounded mainly by straight people, I will casually just call them girl or if I know them really well, maybe the F-word, which is funny to do to a straight person.

 

Ira Madison III All right, so my Keep It this week. I teased it a bit when we talked about J.K. Rowling.

 

Louis Virtel But yes.

 

Ira Madison III It has been rumored now that HBO is developing a series based on the Harry Potter books where each season of the show would be represented by a different book. And what I have to say to that is enough.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. It also just feels like there’s six IP objects out there that we are tapping again and again.

 

Ira Madison III Exact same ones.

 

Louis Virtel Like Resources and Settlers of Catan. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III What would a TV series of Harry Potter add to the canon that we do not already have, except for a bunch more money for HBO?

 

Louis Virtel You’re really getting to the heart of the industry right now. It really is all about money. It feels like. I don’t know. I’ve never had that feeling until right now.

 

Ira Madison III But what I do have to say about it is you can already see what would happen from a Harry Potter TV series. It would include, one, whoever’s writing it and creating it is going to have to do so much press about the fact that J.K. Rowling is.

 

Louis Virtel Who she is.

 

Ira Madison III A literal demon from the hell mouth now. Yeah. And so you’re going to have to talk about that constantly and explain why you’re working on a series that’s putting money into her pocket.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right.

 

Ira Madison III And then all the people who’ve been calling out J.K. Rowling for being a term, you know, and like just for generally being awful, you’re going to start watching and live tweeting the show? Because you know it’ll happen.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I am always surprised to see people I mean, I’m trying to even think of a comparison. It’s not like I’m out there being like, God, you know what, single still slaps? Beat It. Like, I’m just it’s not important for me to announce that I’m still a fan of somebody who is so, you know, wretched. But people really are out there being like, oh, talking about Harry Potter all the time. Even though the conversation, if you’re having an honest one, should go to What the fuck is wrong with this woman?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So I don’t want to see it. HBO is weirdly like consistently been great. They’ve had off moments, but I feel like Harry Potter series is not going to add anything to the HBO sort of prestige. You know.

 

Louis Virtel Just invent some other god damn wizard, can’t you? There ain’t nothing special about Harry.

 

Ira Madison III Or are they like, except for like the Game of Thrones thing, which, by the way, at least felt fresh because it was just coming from a book which hadn’t been adapted yet. HBO has done really well with like sort of like original material, you know, without sort of or even if it’s source material, you know, it’s something like a Mildred Pierce, Right. You know, like this just feels like a Harry Potter is done to death.

 

Louis Virtel Let it go. Yeah. I mean, it’s up there with like a Spider-Man or something. Like, I swear to God, I understand the story of this teenager shooting things out of his hand. I get it now.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, it’s like. It’s like. It’s like a it’s like a barista who just went through a breakup telling you to read bell hooks is all about love. Like we get it.

 

Louis Virtel Does that happen to you a lot?

 

Ira Madison III It does.

 

Louis Virtel You have better baristas than I do.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, that’s our show this week.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I’m going to go ahead and cool down from the Weisz situation. I was just again, some certain people should not be looking at lowly writers like us sitting here gabbing about projects.

 

Ira Madison III I already feel a type of way about having to have her remember whether or not she spit in Rachel McAdams mouth or Rachel McAdams spit in hers.

 

Louis Virtel No, she should have to think about that once a day. I disagree.

 

Ira Madison III It’s a good thing she does not have social media, by the way. I feel like there’s like Rachel Weisz, Cate Blanchett fanfic online.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, certainly. No. And Cate Blanchett is not online either. And for good fucking reason. She should be afraid of the queer community. We are scary.

 

Ira Madison III I feel. But I feel like Cate Blanchett more than Rachel sees it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, well, she’s yeah, she’s definitely been. Reporters definitely ask her about it all the time.

 

Ira Madison III So Cate seems like the kind of person who’s like, You’re hanging out with her and she sees you like scrolling Instagram or Twitter or something. She’s probably like, Let me see your phone for a minute. And like, will scroll through it and be like, Oh, that’s what’s going on here.

 

Louis Virtel Now. We’re writing Cate Blanchett fan fiction. See, watch us. We are the problem.

 

Ira Madison III They have not been in a film together.

 

Louis Virtel That is fucking bizarre. Can they spar? I want there to be an actual duel like Madonna versus Madonna and the Die Another Day video.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like dueling lesbians is a role we need to see.

 

Louis Virtel And they’re both so good at playing them. All right. Yeah, That’s for the universe to figure out.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. Thank you again to Rachel Weisz for joining us this week. And we’ll see you next week for more Keep It. Don’t forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. Plus, if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Kendra James. Our producer is Chris Lord, and our associate producer is Malcolm Whitfield. Our executive producers are Ira Madison, the third. That’s me and Louis Virtel. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to our digital team, Matt DeGroot, Nar Melkonian and Delon Villanueva for production support every week. And as always, Keep It is filmed in front of a live studio audience.