Ira and Louis discuss EuroVision and new music from our favorite foreign divas Kylie Minogue, Bebe Rexha, and Jessie Ware. Plus, Tom Cruise’s celebrity friendships, some light Jeopardy drama, how Ira is still avoiding Renaissance Tour spoilers, and Louis attending the GLAAD Awards. Return guest Lizzy Caplan joins to discuss her new series Fatal Attraction and whether we’re primed for a new era of erotic thrillers.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD]

 

Ira Madison III And we are back with an all new episode of Keep It. Ira Madison, the Third. And here in New York with me is.

 

Louis Virtel Louis Virtel. This is the first time we’ve recorded in studio together since, what, 2020?

 

Ira Madison III I think so.

 

Louis Virtel Really shocking. I’m so I remember at the time thinking, oh, this is going to really ruin things that we can’t record in the same room together. And now I’m back and I’m like, This is alien. What? Your laughs are hitting me in the face. I’m so distracted, I can’t think straight.

 

Ira Madison III It’s weird because we have a repeat guest this week, right?

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And the last time our guest, Lizzy Caplan, was on the show, we also did in-person with her. Yes. And it’s weird. I’m just like art, do Guess what I in person again, actually, we do have a guest coming up and I won’t reveal it.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true. We have two guests.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Yes. Two guests doing it in-person in LA. So we’ll figure that one out. But it is very weird. I’m looking at Louis, but also I’m trying to look at the camera because of our camera setup anyway.

 

Louis Virtel No, it really feels like watching Howard Stern reruns on E at like one in the morning. Like, how do these people do it? They just don’t look at the camera? Okay.

 

Ira Madison III But you’re in New York. You’re in New York for the GLAAD awards.

 

Louis Virtel I sure am. Oh, yes, which was over the weekend. I brought my friend Alex from San Francisco, who’s the wingman extraordinaire. And I mean, it was fabulous to be there because, one, you know, we just have so many friends who are up for stuff like, I have everybody involved with Fire Island and I mean, everybody was there. The grip was hanging with me.

 

Ira Madison III Yes The island was there. I was in Fire Island this weekend actually and all of the sand was gone from the beach.

 

Louis Virtel No, there’s no pantry because the pantry was receiving a lifetime achievement award. So, you know, it was fabulous to see all those guys. And then the thing I remember, most of the GLAAD awards, other than losing, which I’ll get to in a second. Idina Menzel performed, she did Defying Gravity, and then she performed her new song, which I can only describe as housewives pop. It’s a it’s like it’s like it’s like the Yale of Countess Luanne music, the Juilliard of Countess Louanne music. She was great. And also, you underestimate that when you dress her up as a pop star, like she suddenly becomes like Jessie J Like they’re sort of the same person when you call them up the same way. It was very disorienting.

 

Ira Madison III Watch out, Jesse.

 

Louis Virtel I got.

 

Ira Madison III It’s over for you.

 

Louis Virtel I guess. Yes, I was up for a GLAAD award for just one of the segments I do on Jimmy Kimmel. And I have to tell you, they played the nomination real, which you know, I’m living for as an award show fan. They’re here. I come in the real every clip before me in this category. It was like a bracing monologue by a queer person about coming out or like talking about trans issues or, you know, drag queens being maligned or whatever. And then me with my fucking stupid peppermint Patty, Velma jokes for Kimmel, and I like almost I didn’t feel embarrassed, but I felt like zany. I felt zany in that place because it was it was a heavy ceremony. There was a lot of, you know, unnecessary political talk. And people came prepared. The speeches were just like mind boggling. They were so vulnerable and real. And I’m so thankful to have seen them.

 

Ira Madison III That could have been your My Cousin Vinny moment.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yes. Wow. I never thought of myself as Marisa Tomei in this lineup against these radical Vanessa Redgraves Miranda Richardson.

 

Ira Madison III Right. You lost to The Problem, which.

 

Louis Virtel With Jon Stewart. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III You know, I have a couple of friends, Jay Jordan and Lucas Tim, who work on that show.

 

Louis Virtel Jay Jordan works on that show. I did not know that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Very funny comic.

 

Ira Madison III Truly one of like one of the last few people who tells jokes.

 

Louis Virtel It really jokes and then references and yes, things I value. Correct. It’s not about can you believe how weird I am. That’s a Keep It for another day.

 

Ira Madison III Hannah Gatsby.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I have to bring her up. In regards to the new Kylie Minogue single, you’ll see.

 

Ira Madison III No, it looks lovely. There’s a lot of you know, at least you were there. You know, I was also nominated for GLAAD award, technically, because of that Marvel comic that I wrote. Do you think Marvel invited me?

 

Louis Virtel I think the kind of flash they did a whole section where they just flashed through the categories they weren’t going to present. I think that was one of them.

 

Ira Madison III Comic books. Yeah. They were like, We don’t give a fuck.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right. It’s. It’s not a reading crowd. Okay, We’re gay. That’s a joke. Gays read sometimes.

 

Ira Madison III And what else have you done in New York City? Did you take in a show?

 

Louis Virtel I’m about to. I’m going to see the Oscar Levant show with Sean Hayes on Wednesday, which is exactly my brand. I love, like a mid-century mordant humor, occasional game show panelist type person. He plays him. I hear it’s one of the few plays where there’s a standing ovation in the middle of it. I don’t know how he achieves that, but I’m excited to see that. And I’m seeing Jessica Chastain in A Doll’s House tonight.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Louis Virtel Now, she is an actress, if you don’t know her.

 

Ira Madison III I’m seeing about tomorrow for a matinee.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, really? I wish. You know what? I guess I could still sneak in a matinee. I wonder if Jodie Comer is performing. Maybe I would do that on Wednesday.

 

Ira Madison III Sure. I love a matinee. I love a matinee. Tonight I’m seeing The Little Mermaid.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my gosh.

 

Ira Madison III So.

 

Louis Virtel What are your feelings going into The Little Mermaid?

 

Ira Madison III I feel like it looks deranged.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like it looks everything about it from, like, the lighting to these weird fish characters. It’s just like the whole thing about it is very weird. And then also the fight that was going on between the lead of Aladdin.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Deactivated his account because he was like, you know, we were.

 

Louis Virtel In some crazy tweets.

 

Ira Madison III We were we were the first Disney film where we actually had repeat audience goers. So we were actually really important and that got us over the 1 billion mark. But he’s clearly bitter. I mean, because, you know, like he was allowed and hasn’t worked since, which, you know, is racism in the industry.

 

Louis Virtel Sure.

 

Ira Madison III And also, maybe I don’t know, the movie’s bad.

 

Louis Virtel Aladdin is a very interesting experiment.

 

Ira Madison III Horrible movie. I mean, I would have stripped Will Smith’s you know, right to visit the Academy because of that.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Not because of slapping Chris Rock.

 

Louis Virtel Pick who you want. Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III When I saw him as that GD and I watched it on Delta, too. Do you know how bad a movie has to be for me to turn it off on a plane?

 

Louis Virtel Wow. I would say that’s where you shine, shall we say?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So, anyway, really.

 

Louis Virtel I have to say, though, I am I’m surprised not to see almost any of Melissa McCarthy in the advertising. I mean, like one of the definitive comic actors of our time. And I really don’t have a grasp on what she’s doing as Ursula yet, other than she is very devoted to the original movie and is obsessed with drag queens and loves Divine. So she’s the right person to play it for a number of reasons. I’d be excited to see it just for that.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like she’s been in pieces before.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, certainly. Please. Also, this is somebody who became famous a little bit later, which I always take to mean they have a very lived in life before. You know, like it’s like, what were the well, what if they weren’t constantly booking? What were they doing?

 

Ira Madison III You know? I mean, our guest today, Lizzy Caplan, brings up, listeners, we’ll see if you could guess which show I bring up with her that was canceled in the 2000s, that Zach Galifianakis was in. Yeah, like he’s another actor who like was I just doing bit parts in the 2000sand then blew up with the Hangover.

 

Louis Virtel He also had a show on VH1 called Late World with Zach, where he did some stand up to the crowd, but he would play the piano and talk to the audience, which is part of his general act. And I really thought he was going to end up being more of a Letterman type celebrity. Ultimately, he obviously became a very successful comic actor and still as a comic. But if you can find old clips of that, I remember there was an episode, maybe the first episode he took Natalie Imbruglia, who whom I cherish on a crane and just interviewed her from the crane for no reason, just like like be lifted into the air and spoke there and then went back down.

 

Ira Madison III I’m a little obsessed with, you know, like talk shows, daytime talk shows. Lately, I feel like it’s the Hall, maybe the Jerry Springer death. But, you know, it’s very much like and rewatching, you know, like Ricki Lake, Liza, you know, these things. So I don’t know. I find that’s fun. I absolutely fucking loved Between Two Friends.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no. I mean, like, there are episodes of that show where it’s one of those things where I almost felt guilty being laughing so hard because it does appeal to, I think, a broad demographic. Yeah, primarily. And of course, I don’t want to support them too much. You know, straight people don’t deserve to feel funny. That’s a power they don’t need to have.

 

Ira Madison III Sometimes we cross over, right? You know, sometimes the bros like the things that we like.

 

Louis Virtel But he really would find a way to dig into a celebrity in and around the corner way that was beyond clever. Just actually you have to grip the table while you’re laughing. It’s so mean and funny.

 

Ira Madison III The Obama episode.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right, Right. That was the beginning of the Obama we kind of know now. I think it’s like sort of pop culturally aware, kind of deadpan humor that he brings.

 

Ira Madison III Natalie Portman even.

 

Louis Virtel Heard Portman, Will Ferrell. Right.

 

Ira Madison III You know, speaking of that Obama, too. That’s the Obama that I like, though.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t like the one who’s, like releasing songs every year and like movies that it’s just really like. It seems like Time magazine.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Because I’m like, did you watch this shit? I want to know what Obama actually watched.

 

Louis Virtel I. Well, okay. I feel like he does watch it because he strikes me as the kind of person who reads 100 bucks a year and then probably has time to watch a million movies, too, or makes time for it. But there is something noticeable about the fact that he doesn’t say anything about the movies. It’s just like, here’s 14 movies and it’s like, Well, here’s the two you’re supposed to put in because you know, you want to you want the list to have a certain kind of dignity or whatever. But then the weird things he picks that to me is the most interesting part.

 

Ira Madison III That’s like me on Letterbox’d. When I, follow me @IratheThird, that’s me on Letterboxd when I just list a movie and don’t put a star rating for it. That usually means I know someone who works on it. And it sucks

 

Louis Virtel Let’s keep that between the listeners. Good luck to my friend is what is the comment?

 

Ira Madison III Baby, I had to wait until that Patti LuPone interview dropped for me to review Beau Is Afraid. And let me tell you, listeners, I hate that movie.

 

Louis Virtel I unfortunately hate it, too. You know what the problem with that movie is? One, I mean, it has the feeling I’m going to compare it to the movie us of a movie that’s telling you a long joke and you’re waiting to hear the punchline because like, so much is going awry. It’s like everything’s out of control. You’re sort of waiting for it to add up to something. And then the worst part of it is the ending. The worst part is the Richard Keynesian. Of course we love him. Yeah, but there’s no way Patti LuPone watched that movie and thought, Oh, this is my best work. Come on now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The only iconic thing about that movie was.

 

Louis Virtel Nathan Lane?

 

Ira Madison III Well, yes, he’s fucking great. But also he was Parker Posey.

 

Louis Virtel Parker Posey, yes.

 

Ira Madison III And the Mariah Carey scene.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. The movie, when the movie is was funny. I loved it. But then it was like, actually, no, it’s not a funny movie. We’re doing serious things. Okay, now fold your arms and watch the movie. I’m a girl. It’s 3 hours long. Get back to the funny.

 

Ira Madison III It also started very tense and horrific. Yeah, and funny. And I was like, okay, I was strapping myself in for, you know, a ride. I love Ari Aster.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, like, I love I love Predator, obviously. And I, I did not realize there’s a contingent of people who don’t like Midsommar.

 

Louis Virtel Oh. My brother is one of them. It’s come up before. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III All right, well, I think your brother needs to come on here.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Say it to our face.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, but I fucking love that movie. And maybe it’s because that. That those two are also pandemic movies. For me. I had never. I’ve went through, like, my whole like A24, like horror movie thing during pandemic because I never really watched them. I watched Like the Witch, sorry, I watched Hereditary, I watched Midsomer, but I watched them all within the same span of three days. So it was just fun. Yeah, I loved it.

 

Louis Virtel A clump of weird. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And I like Midsommar because it’s like. I think what’s scary about that, too, is it’s daytime.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, which is one of my favorite things in horror movies. I think my favorite setting in a horror movie ever is, is the midday parts of the original Halloween when she’s like walking home from school and like, Oh God, is there something behind the heads? Because, you know, in the middle of a suburb, there’s no noise. So there is like this weird, unexpected horror quality also just reminds me of growing up and being afraid of literally everything. I was one of those kids.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, Halloween, when Michael Myers is, like, behind the laundry.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Behind like the laundry line.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Watching her, the original scream, you know, where it feels like they’re being stalked even when they’re just like at the store.

 

Louis Virtel Which I think is one of the worst parts of the movie. Like Girl, why is he by the popsicles in costume? It’s 2:30 and there’s been a murder recently.

 

Ira Madison III That I watched that. And I’m like, with the mythology, I’m like, Is that supposed to be Roman Bridger?

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh, God, I love them. I just saw three and four for the first time in years with my friend, Elise, who’s obsessed with horror. And I think the worst thing about three is where it ends up the mansion where they’re like pulling a candlestick to go down a secret passage. Girlfriend, It’s going to be 13th Ghost is Scooby Doo, motherfucker.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, 13 ghosts. The worst one.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Oh, certainly. We put Vincent Price on there because he in the eighties was bought. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III 13th Ghosts of Scooby-Doo where they were, they were like, you know, we’re going to get rid of the dark fagot with the ascot.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right. Oh, yeah. We was just Daphne.

 

Ira Madison III Daphne and Scooby and Shaggy.

 

Louis Virtel They were like, What if the gang wasn’t all back together? Interesting question for nobody. Let’s do this episode. What’s happening?

 

Ira Madison III All right. We’ve got Lizzy Caplan here to talk about being in Fatal Attraction on Paramount Plus. And then also this little song contest just happened. Yeah, there’s a little this little known song contest called Eurovision.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it takes up one of the smaller continents.

 

Ira Madison III And then, speaking of Eurovision, a lot of our foreign pop divas have music. You know Kylie’s back.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Jessie Ware is back.

 

Louis Virtel Of course.

 

Ira Madison III And we will find out if you actually like this album.

 

Louis Virtel I have listened to it. We will see

 

Ira Madison III And Bebe Rexha, and we all know she is one of my favorites of the Kosovo three.

 

Louis Virtel And go, go ahead. Name all three.

 

Ira Madison III Rita Ora. Yes. Dua LIPA.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Wow. You would put Bebe Rexha over Dua LIPA.

 

Ira Madison III I said one of my favorite.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. Wow.

 

Ira Madison III Sorry. Not my favorite.

 

Louis Virtel Bold stance.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, One of my favorites. We know Rita’s number one.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. All right. Well, all right. So just. Okay, I’m doing the math on this. And you didn’t say anything. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III And that’s how we like to Keep It here on Keep It. We’ll be right back.

 

<AD>.

 

Ira Madison III If you looking for all the glam, elegance, and music that the coronation did not deliver, then you are probably watching Eurovision this weekend. Yes, that’s right. Rita Ora-vision as she named it, because she opened up the ceremony earlier in the week. And let me tell you something about Rita Ora and Eurovision. It was kind of great. Her her performance of Praise You, her, you know, like new version of Fatboy Slim Song, which I think is good because it’s not just some deejay remixing the Fatboy Slim song. Like he did it himself. Yeah. So I think that this is sort of like, Oh, I’m making a newer version of it. And I think it’s a really good song. And I loved her performance and she was doing her best Beyonce at the Super Bowl cosplay.

 

Louis Virtel No, it like, if you were just like, glancing out of the corner of your eye, he’d be like, Oh, we’re back at the Super Bowl. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Think that the laying on the ground thing that Beyonce did at the Super Bowl when she lays on like the glowing stage, I was like, girl, you grabbed her wet shaking, going from Parkwood and slapped it off.

 

Louis Virtel Do you know what I have to say about that song also, is that, you know, it’s always a good idea remaking a song where the original vocal is not meant to sound that good. Case in point When Mario did the Just A Friend remake, did you know that it sounds way better when someone can sing really well? Okay. No shade to the late Biz Markie.

 

Ira Madison III You, got what I need.

 

Louis Virtel You know what? You might have that impression.

 

Ira Madison III I know the premier Biz Markie impersonator.

 

Louis Virtel He really does. Part of his vocal in that song is like the old woman who swallowed a fly, like, Ooh, look up the Muppets on that one.

 

Ira Madison III That’s also. It also makes me like that song a bit more. I was there for a big Praise U fan.

 

Louis Virtel Me neither.

 

Ira Madison III It was everywhere.

 

Louis Virtel It was in 1999, which is of course, one of the great pop years and the great VMAs that year. So I think of it as part of this halcyon pop period. But yeah, and the video was really good. But it’s just it’s one of those songs like, what would I compare it to? I like this song a little bit better, but Dirty Vegas days go by where it’s just, Oh, you need to put a silly, moody song in the back of your Hyundai commercial or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III I would say that I like right here, right now as my favorite Fatboy Slim song and then maybe Weapon of Choice.

 

Louis Virtel Of course, that video is when I saw that video the first time and I knew what it was doing. And Christopher Walken is just jumping all over the place and a sort of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon way. It’s just like, God, they nailed it. It’s like an unforgettable video of that time.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Moby.

 

Louis Virtel But you know what Moby song I do like? We Are All Made of Stars with that video with, like, 18 celebrities in the ground. Jeremy is one of them. He just got, like, all these, like, surreal life type celebrities in a video.

 

Ira Madison III My favorite Moby moment is the weird beef with Eminem, where Eminem had, like someone playing Moby sucking his own dick in his video, right? Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And then Moby actually stormed out of the VMAs and you saw and the storming he did looked like a character actor playing Moby.

 

Ira Madison III Was like, is that really the last time I saw Moby? He was deejaying at The Abby.

 

Louis Virtel Our The Abby?.

 

Ira Madison III Our The Abbi for a Hillary Clinton fundraiser hosted by Jon Favreau of Crooked Media?

 

Louis Virtel I’m a that’s both amazing. And I’m going to be sick. Want to be sick?

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, Eurovision 2023 happened. I managed to tune in while I was on Fire Island. And let me tell you, Marine Tattoo pretty good, but pretty good.

 

Louis Virtel I do think that song, this is the one that won Eurovision Sweden now tied with Ireland for most wins, I believe. And she herself Loreen has won for representing. Yes, I do like it. I do think it has the feeling of a song that has won Eurovision before.

 

Ira Madison III Well, let me tell you something. I her tattoo. And I said, When is Abba going to see her in court? Because that song is literally the winner takes it all.

 

Louis Virtel Also, by the way, if you know anything about that hologram show, you know, they show a hologram of all the ABBA members now because they’re still alive. So watch your back, Lorraine. Anna Freid is ready to fight.

 

Ira Madison III My Friend, Chris Aragon and Chris Lichert, they’re both there. They just saw ABBA and Aragon wastexting my group friend about seeing ABBA at a hologram show. And everyone else who didn’t know about it was very confused. They were like, Abba holograms. Are they dead? No. They aren’t. They just don’t want Yeah, they just don’t want to tour.

 

Louis Virtel They’re like, We would love to make $1,000,000,000, but we’re lazy. We have to tend to our garden. So what if we figured out a way to not be there?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, the song is good, but it wasn’t even my favorite from the ceremony.

 

Louis Virtel No, I have to say the finish song, which I thought was going to take the whole thing and ended up falling into second. That was really good. I love I mean, like, I guess this.

 

Ira Madison III Israel was great.

 

Louis Virtel I loved Israel too. Generally speaking, I like when a Eurovision contestant goes for broke in terms of either silliness or at least personality, because the problem with Eurovision that I think maybe alienates a lot of American listeners, not that I care What they would think, generally speaking, is that there tends to be a sameness. Like there’s like they’re all an anthemic in the same way, or that the song like, becomes emotional in the same way. And so that song, which is pure, adrenalized bubblegum pop, really spoke to me. And I also fucking loved Austria’s song, which is called Who the Hell Is Edgar? And it’s a song about how the pop star is possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe and how, anyway, the lyrics are just like whiz bang and hilarious. And I just love a letter. Literary reference unexpected.

 

Ira Madison III Who the hell is Edgar is famously what everyone said when they read the cast of Montadito for the first time.

 

Louis Virtel A montiado

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel But it’s a cask of almadillo.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. I can’t pronounce words. I would also say that, yeah, a lot of the Eurovision songs tend to sound like. If you like, winning American Idol.

 

Louis Virtel Song. Yes. Or the single that doesn’t do as well. Yeah. I’m talking about Before Your Love by Kelly Clarkson. You know what I’m saying? No shade to the writer Kathy Dennis, who also gave us Toxic and Can’t Get You Out of My Head.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but, like, I don’t know. Remember, also, like, this is my Now.

 

Louis Virtel Every song at Eurovision is. This is my now. Yeah. Every song.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe Diane Warren is a hot one over to Eurovision.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Almost everything. Diane Warren writes The sentiments are at least the same as what competes at Eurovision. If you’re familiar, yes. By the way, I just want to say that on Jeopardy Masters recently there was a whole category about Diane Warren and the and the $2,000 clue was talking about this Robert Redford, Michelle Pfeiffer movie I wrote a song for. And none of these Jeopardy masters could identify Up Close and Personal.

 

Ira Madison III Wow.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Where is the education?

 

Ira Madison III Our schools are failing us.

 

Louis Virtel That’s what I feel.

 

Ira Madison III I thought Bush said, No Child Left Behind.

 

Louis Virtel Now we have to talk about the. I was going to say host of the ceremony, but it would be more accurate to say ringmaster because this woman is off the chain. Hannah Waddingham.

 

Ira Madison III She and Graham Norton were clearly drunk.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, they were they were clearly.

 

Ira Madison III Having the best time. I mean, speaking of like American Idol, you know, like, if you don’t watch Eurovision or you’re not familiar with it, you do remember American Idol, though, where like Ryan Seacrest and back when he even had Brian Dunkleman with him. Right. It would be the most ridiculous stalling tactics or like pushing to commercial, you know? Right. And we’ll tell you who’s in the top three right after these commercials. Right Now, imagine American Idol without commercials. And yet they’re still doing this. Yes. Every time they’d be like Hannah Waddingham was like grabbing the podium. Like when you find out who the top two is, it’s going to be crazy.

 

Louis Virtel Just freezing. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Constantly reminding you. And there are only eight countries left, and one of them is going to become the winner. I’m like girl, can we wrap it up? If everybody could have been 30 minutes.

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean, they make an entire ceremony out of the math they have to do to figure out who wins. Like you’re watching the numbers change on the screen and certain people who are in second are falling to fifth and people are rising through the ranks. And it is a little addictive to watch something so monotonous in the same way that it’s addictive to watch those YouTube videos where you watch all the the charting singles of a celebrity and it’s literally a moving bar graph or line graph.

 

Ira Madison III Those are fun.

 

Louis Virtel Where you see like, oh, baby, one more time up to number one. Now it’s falling, falling, falling. Here comes sometimes in you watch all celebrities pop singles and their charting run. It’s it’s really fun, really addictive and so stupid. You will come out remembering nothing. But Hannah Waddingham, she is basically what happens when you trap somebody in the West End for 20 years. I mean, the I mean, like my most overused word, zany. No one is zanier. And I don’t feel like we have any zany celebrities anymore. And she just loves to pop off with a huge smile, a huge laugh. I was reminded that she judged Drag Race UK and there’s somebody put together a supercut of her best moments on it, and she’s just giving devious looks at drag queens as they walk by sort of sensing a colleague, I believe. Really cool to see. And also just I just want to say also, when she won that Emmy for Ted Lasso, that speech is simply delirious. I have never seen anything like that at the Emmys. It’s one of the great speeches.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I truly do love her. I can’t wait to see what she does post Ted Lasso.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And Graham Norton was there, too, and I would actually say that. I feel like we have a lot of zany celebrities, but the sort of like US media landscape doesn’t allow that to come out because I’m always shocked when I see a celebrity who is so fucking funny when they go on the Graham Norton show. Oh, maybe it’s because they’re interacting with like other British celebrities or, you know, like taking the piss out or whatever, you know, like they don’t give a fuck about, you know, the appearances or whatever. And they’re just all just like, having a good time. You know, I was like, Nicki Minaj was great on that show, but she’s zany and crazy anyway.

 

Louis Virtel No, no. She’s in a league of her own, obviously. No, I have a real problem that we the closest thing we have to Graham Norton would be Andy Cohen show because he will at least put a couple of people together that you might not normally see together. And they get to share some moments. But even on that show, you can sense the guest typically like shying away from some of his like more sensational questions, you know, whereas on the Graham Norton Show, everybody is going for a laugh like Judi Dench, just like lets it all hang out. And when I’m sorry, when is she here, first of all? But second, it’s just like you get to see everybody having so much fun when you watch the Ocean’s Eight cast interview together. And Helena Bonham Carter goes, Well, you know, I’ve never been asked to the Met gala. And then Rihanna, not even thinking twice goes, It’s because you wear that dress. Jesus Christ. I mean, I say this with affection to my job. You’re not going to get that on Jimmy Kimmel. You know what I mean?

 

Ira Madison III We need to break. We need to get some sort of Graham Norton esque show in the U.S.

 

Louis Virtel He just rules. I love him. I love the energy he brings towards interviewing. I find that very like life affirming. And it needs to be a gay man.

 

Ira Madison III Also the Watch What Happens Live differences, you know, like not everybody knows about like housewives, right? Like.

 

Louis Virtel Correct is correct. Yeah. That show is always going to be more niche than it probably even wants to be.

 

Ira Madison III But it is really fun when, like, you know, a celebrity is on who. And we know like Jennifer Lawrence is famous for loving like Bravo and Housewives. But like when you get another celebrity on who for me at least, like when you don’t know that they watch it and they actually are obsessed with it. Yes. That’s really fun.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. That reveals something about them, too, because, like, why in an interview would you ask them about some show they watched? You know what I mean? So it’s nice that they have a kind of a conduit toward that in there. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of I’m I’m guest hosting for Andy next week on Sirius XM.

 

Louis Virtel Oh really?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Are you going to do an offensive impression of him? I actually dressed up as Andy Cohen once by my friends in SF had a a Housewives themed party, and I don’t know anything about the Housewives. So I just went as Andy Cohen and it was brilliant, cause then I got to be in pictures with everybody holding my little cards.

 

Ira Madison III And that’s really what you love anyway, right?

 

Louis Virtel That’s right. Yeah. I walked. I like spray painted my hair.

 

Ira Madison III It was cool being pictures. Being in pictures with little cards. Yeah, that’s how I would describe Louis.

 

Louis Virtel I’m like, Wink Martindale. You know what I mean? Throwing the break and asking you trivia of.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway. I guess it’s Eurovision.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, it really was so much fun to watch. I just love the weirdness of the ceremony. I like the Oscars. I love how long it is. So I like that it’s gaining some steam here and it’s up, you know, getting people like Rita Ora involved Madonna performance, It is one of her all time worst performances, if you want to look that up. Ooh. The song Dark Ballet.

 

Ira Madison III Oh.

 

Louis Virtel Oh. It’s like you punched me in the stomach.

 

Ira Madison III It’s also so much fun watching. People like from different countries, you know, having their countries cheering on for them, but then also waiting to hear the results. It’s stressful.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And they’re all sitting at tables that look like generic bottle service that you got at the Abbey.

 

Ira Madison III And there were lurid weds. And she has to do this long ass walk up to the stage, walked it through backstage. It was like, I don’t know. It’s like she was a writer at an awards ceremony.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right. No. By the way, if I had one of the GLAAD awards, you would the flo-jo set I would have had to do to get to that stage. Dancing through people, jumping over Idina menzel.

 

Ira Madison III I’m not saying cloud awards already know who’s going to win. Yeah, but most of the award shows that I’ve written for have been queer LGBTQ awards and have written speeches for winners.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah. No, I do seem to notice they were going right to the teleprompter. But some of those runs. Yeah, I don’t want to I don’t want to make any rash suggestions, but.

 

Ira Madison III And just like American Idol, once Loreen finally gets up there. They’re like, We’re going to let you go and get ready to perform your song one more time.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, you better be weeping as you sing this hard to sing song.

 

Ira Madison III Which reminds me lastly of just the the cruelest thing that we used to do in America in the 2000.s You know, I mean, sure, Guantanamo was bad.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III But.

 

Louis Virtel You sound like a real historian right now.

 

Ira Madison III Let me tell you. Kicking someone off American Idol and then making them. Oh, yeah, the song.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III That they got kicked off the show with again is a special kind of torture.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Routinely, they would be singing the last thing they sung. So it could be something specifically like Disco Night.

 

Ira Madison III You went out and then it’s like, Come on, sing, Turn the Beat Around again. You’re going home.

 

Louis Virtel With tears in your eyes. I bet Simon Cowell thought of that himself.

 

Ira Madison III All right. When we’re back, we are joined by the fantastic Lizzy Caplan, making her second appearance on Keep It.

 

Unidentified <AD>

 

Ira Madison III You know, we have an icons only policy when it comes to booking Keep It and today is no different. You know her from all of your favorite shows Party Down, Masters of Sex and Fleishman is in Trouble and now you can catch her in the thrilling and seductive Fatal Attraction where she will not be ignored. Please welcome back to Keep It The incredible Lizzy Caplan.

 

Lizzy Caplan Hi, Hello, hi.

 

Louis Virtel Lizzy Caplan, this is your second time taking over for a Best Actress nominated role in recent years. You were Annie Wilkes on Castle Rock, which is why you were here the last time you were here and now.

 

Lizzy Caplan It’s true.

 

Louis Virtel You’re jumping into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, and you’re not playing it the same way as her at all. So it’s crazy to even really compare the performances. That said, talk about the intimidation level. I mean, do you think like, oh, God. Like, did you did you worry about even like, the shape of your hair going into this performance?

 

Lizzy Caplan Funny that you mention that. I one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to have a perm. Not quite Glenn’s level of perm.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Like her achievemnet. Yes.

 

Lizzy Caplan It’s quite an achievement. I mean, I dig it, but, yes, I wanted, like, a little nod, so I got a perm for the first time in my life, and then I got COVID two days after. And then at the end of COVID, my hair was straight again. It was really.

 

Ira Madison III Weird. Well, luckily enough, they permed Joshua Jackson clearly in the series because his hair, those original flashbacks, was wild

 

Lizzy Caplan They gave him Michael Douglas.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah by Michael Douglas.

 

Louis Virtel I’m just saying there’s no such thing. You can’t have an erotic thriller unless at least one character has Gavin Newsom hair. There has to be a slick back quality.

 

Lizzy Caplan Yes, those were definitely the boys we were raised on, the men we were raised on in the erotic thriller sphere. But yes, the intimidation factor was obviously very high. The assignment felt a bit different than Castle Rock because that one, I really did want it to feel in line with what Kathy Bates did. But then the Fatal Attraction, you’re right, it’s so different. It’s set in a different place at a different time, and it didn’t make as much sense to fully steal as much as I could from what Glenn so impeccably did that.

 

Ira Madison III Were you a fan of, like the film before? Did you have to, like, rewatch it when you rewatched it? Maybe. Were you like, wow, I forgot this even happened in this film.

 

Lizzy Caplan I had rewatched it maybe a couple of years before. Just coincidentally, I love the film. I love the film. I think it really holds up in kind of a shocking amount of ways, considering how dated it also feels in other ways. But yes, I’m a huge fan of the film. I rewatched it after reading the pilot script for the show and I was reminded again how great and I just I love it. I love it. I think it’s scary and sexy and all of the things that you want it to be. And then I for Castle Rock, I watched it Constant. I watched Misery constantly after Fatal Attraction. I would just kind of dip back in every once in a while, but again, because it felt like it was its own thing. I kind of I kind of left it, but there were certain parts of it that I just wanted to remind myself of regularly.

 

Louis Virtel It feels like in general, there’s just a renaissance about erotic thrillers, like people are discussing. The more they’re more nostalgic for them. And why do you think that is? Was it what is it about this genre that people really want to revisit or that they miss?

 

Lizzy Caplan Yeah, I think culturally we’ve really moved away from that. It was such a thing in the eighties and the nineties and I don’t think we’re fully back there. I think we could use more of it. It’s this weird time where everything feels at once like kind of hyper sexualized but not particularly erotic. It’s, it’s weird. I’ve kind of touched on this before, but it’s like this from a very young age now. People are like sexualizing their own image, especially like young girls on social media, and yet it feels so removed. And every study is like, oh, kids, teenagers aren’t having sex in the same way that we were when we were kids. They don’t like smoke cigarets and have sex. Like, what are they doing with their time? And now I think that’s like they’re trying to kind of pull it back in that direction. But we have a ways to go. You know, these things, they’re cyclical and. I guess, you know, the argument in the eighties was the erotic thriller was trying to paint the career woman or the unmarried, childless woman as this dangerous femme fatale. And culturally, we’re very far away from that, which I think is a positive thing. But it’s also I don’t know, it’s weird. It’s like at once, like hypersexualized imagery time, but it feels also really puritanical. Like we’re not seeing as much of this type of content on TV or in films. And I don’t know, I growing up, I think it was like this seminal thing for every kid to, like, find yourself accidentally watching a movie that had some insane sex scene while you’re sat on the couch next to your parents.

 

Ira Madison III And just you.

 

Louis Virtel Should be traumatized watching Mickey Rourke with your parents.

 

Lizzy Caplan Right?

 

Louis Virtel Standard.

 

Lizzy Caplan We all went through it. Yes. It’s really it’s really true. Like there should be a word for that specific deep in your bones embarrassment that only comes from that scenario.

 

Ira Madison III Now, girl, mine Was Diane Lane, Unfaithful.

 

Louis Virtel Oh sure.

 

Ira Madison III With my grandmother.

 

Louis Virtel Another Adrian Lyne joint.

 

Ira Madison III With my grandmother High School put this on because we love these kind of thrillers.

 

Lizzy Caplan Oh, yeah, I love that one.

 

Ira Madison III We got to that sex scene in the hallway. I was like, I need to leave the room.

 

Lizzy Caplan I know. I know. Those sex scenes where I mean, yeah, very in line with with the Fatal Attraction once, just like they went there. They used to go there.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. It’s interesting that you even bring up, you know, the sort of move towards almost, I don’t know, like the puritanical with like these sort of characters in these sort of movies not being there anymore because I, you know, I think about this, I think about misery, you know, like classic horror movies, right? You know, And even the horror genre itself was very much, you know, you watch Friday the 13th, you look at the rules that they state and like the early scream, it’s about like if you’re having sex, you die, like you’re drinking, you die, You’re like, cigarets, you die, you know? And it’s like, well, if the teens aren’t doing that anymore, what are they being killed for in the horror movies? You know, And we have so many reboots which sort of, you know, are able to go into that realm. But, you know, you do have to ask the question, like, if they’re not being bad, why are we killing?

 

Lizzy Caplan I know, being bad in such a foreign way. Think playing too many video games, I guess that that kid dies in the new version of the war. I don’t know. I don’t know.

 

Ira Madison III Even mean girls. I would say it seems a bit more risque than. Yeah, you know, like a Netflix teen movie we might get now.

 

Lizzy Caplan Totally. Totally. And that always boggles my mind. That Mean Girls is something that still people talk to me about all the time and be this like rite of passage for every, you know 11, 12 year old girl to watch it for the first time. And I always am I’m always so curious about that. Like that version of high school doesn’t mirror the current modern high school experience at all. So the fact that people still get so much out of that movie, I guess it was just a really well-written movie.

 

Louis Virtel Well, also, it’s just it feels to me like people don’t even remember that many movies from the 2000s anymore. Like, it really feels like it always comes down to mean girls, maybe Eternal Sunshine, like the Notebook kind of comes up, but is strange. Like I like the nineties, I just feel like there’s tons and tons, there’s name recognition, etc. and I still am trying to figure out what it is about Mean Girls. Not that I don’t love the movie and I of course I’ve seen it 75,000 times, still holds up and is super relevant like, do you have.

 

Lizzy Caplan Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel What do you think is the most relevant thing about the movie?

 

Lizzy Caplan I think its core universal truth is that girls can be horrible to each other, will live on forever.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. I mean, you know, I went to an all boys high school, you know, but like the eighties movies and stuff was didn’t mirror my school, you know, I thought, like, rich boys stay the same, you know.

 

Lizzy Caplan The press.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, they stayed the same.

 

Lizzy Caplan Yeah, I’m in London right now, and the. I was just with a woman who’s Scottish, and she was talking about how she would beg her mom when she was younger to move to America because she wanted to be a cheerleader. And they just don’t have the same high school set up here at all. And yet they’re fed the steady diet of American teen content. And so they do have like I didn’t go to a high school that had like popular cheerleaders and football players, but I completely understand that trope.

 

Ira Madison III Mhm.

 

Louis Virtel I feel like this at this point. You now have a very diverse background in both drama and comedy and a lot of the comedy you do, I feel like is in line with the personality you’re delivering right now. There’s like a kind of casual, just drollness about your characters, generally speaking. What’s the funniest you’ve ever felt in a movie?

 

Lizzy Caplan Oh God, I have. No, honestly, I mean, I it wasn’t a movie, but I, I suppose comedically, I’m the most proud of Party Down just because I gotta feed off the genius comedy that was surrounding me, because they’re all incredible comedic actors and actresses. So I think I’d say that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, that is truly still one of my favorite television shows ever.

 

Lizzy Caplan Me too. You watch the reboot?

 

Ira Madison III I haven’t gotten to watch it yet. And you didn’t get to go back to it because you were doing, you know.

 

Lizzy Caplan It so good. It so good. It will not disappoint you. It’s like, Oh, it’s so. It’s so Chef’s kiss.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, well, that’s that’s. It’s a nice thing, though, that you got to watch it at least, you know, and like, of feel like you are back with the cast, but not really be with them.

 

Lizzy Caplan I know, but, you know, fingers crossed that there’s going to be an additional season. And then so but everything was well.

 

Ira Madison III I want to ask you a bit about Fleishman is in trouble, too, which, you know, I recently interviewed Adam Brody about that. And, you know, I love Taffy and her work. And, you know, what was it like? You know, you were in this and you’re also narrating, so, you know. Was this a fun sort of like dramatic experience for you as well?

 

Lizzy Caplan Definitely. It was definitely, definitely in the group of like Unforgettable Jobs, partly because I’m just so proud of how it turned out. I think Taffy is such a ridiculous talent and everybody in that show is so incredible and it doesn’t always happen. You know, you have you really have very little control when you’re just an actor on a thing. You know you don’t know. You could cut it into anything. And whatever you think you’re doing on set on the day could have you could feel like none of that when you’re watching the finished product. And Fleischman felt very in line with what we were making, as well as the reception that it’s gotten. It’s just been received in the spirit that it was intended, which just doesn’t happen very often. I’m just I’m still kind of pinching myself over that one. I love Fleischman.

 

Ira Madison III Beyond such a great cast.

 

Louis Virtel Also, by the way, it just is like a simple concept that I haven’t really seen done on television before. It always kills me when something simple hasn’t been done before. Like, what have we been doing with all this TV beforehand? But I know this is a minor spoiler, but the perspectives on that show change and you end up figuring out where everybody else is coming from. What is it that you think is the most kind of salient takeaway from Fleischman is in trouble? Because I think, first of all, by the way, it just attacks modern day relationships in a way that I don’t know that I’ve seen previously. It just felt like this belongs in this year. I should be seeing this right now.

 

Lizzy Caplan Totally. And I really feel like it was reminiscent of so much stuff that I remember watching when I was younger. I remember watching so much stuff about adults talking about adult things, and then that has just kind of disappeared from the landscape. And I think there’s a place for it where all this age we want to see stories that are about people our age thinking about things that we’re thinking about. And so it had this it felt almost revelatory. But I think it actually just reminded me of some bygone era and the amount of conversations I’ve had with friends and like people from my deep past who came out of the woodwork to to talk to me about it, because I think it really hit a nerve with a lot of people. And if you happen to know somebody in it, then you want to talk to that person like about that nerve that was hit. So I got like, I mean, numerous emails and texts and calls. And so I’ve talked about it with people at length, and it does feel like there’s something in there for everybody that’s this age. And I’m always pleasantly surprised to hear like which like between which rib that we stuck the knife because it’s different for everybody, like some people who’ve had, you know, a traumatic birth story, they really, really identify with the Rachel Fleischman character with Claire Danes or, you know, somebody who has really focused on her career over her family and all of the guilt and shame that’s placed on women who make that choice, which is still a viable choice for men. And then the Libby, my character, her breakdown is not as the volume is not turned up as high, but it’s something that so many people that I know are going through and feeling like, how am I this age? I swear I went to sleep and I was like 29. And then I woke up and I’m in my forties and I’m in this life, and it’s a life that I’ve arrived at based on all of the choices and decisions that I’ve made. And I stand behind those choices and decisions, but. Why do I feel so stuck in this moment in my life? And it’s really fucked people up in a great way.

 

Ira Madison III I want to do a little sliding Doors question with you for a minute, because I was looking at, you know, so much of your, you know, filmography and things that you’ve been on and obviously, you know, a lot of them were like series of the 2000s that maybe did not continue or, you know, you guessed it in for a bit. Is there something from this era that you sort of like remember fondly and you were like, Man, I wish this show actually had been on for like six years or something because I. Really did like this goofy show Tru Calling. Mostly because I love the lives of.

 

Lizzy Caplan I have not heard that one before.

 

Ira Madison III I love Haylijah Scoop from Buffy, obviously. And so I watched every episode of that. And then once Jason Priestley joined, too.

 

Lizzy Caplan Oh, yeah. And like, it’s crazy that Zach Galifianakis was like the the nerdy mortuary guy. Like before anybody knew that he was like, such a hilarious comedian. Yeah, I do. I remember very little from that time. I remember working with Eric, Christian Olsen and Zach a bit. But yeah, that’s, True Calling is not one that I would pick necessarily the last. But I was, you know, I was only in one season. I was like a guest star. I don’t know. I feel. I guess lucky that looking back at things, even if they were very it was very devastating at the time when they were canceled or ended feeling like, no, I can’t imagine a life that doesn’t include this over many years. But in retrospect, it always kind of happened the way that it was supposed to happen. I did this show called The Class that was like poised to become this massive deal, and it certainly did not even become a little bit of a deal like most of it. But it was one of those casts that, I mean, similar to the party down or Fleischman, where everybody was just like, so bonded and it was so fun every single day. And the idea of doing that for like ten years, I’m sure we would have had a good time, but I don’t know better. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jon Bernthal, Andrea Anders Like it was a cast of heavy hitters and we all still talk to each other. But that was just one of those special ones that it felt like if. If something was going to become as big a deal as they kind of promised us. It felt like a very safe group of people to go through that with because it’s actually like kind of a traumatic experience, I think, to be on something that changes your life completely. And so I think that doing it with them would have it would have felt safer. But, you know, again, happens where it’s supposed to happen.

 

Louis Virtel Again, you have such a specific cool adult was a word you just used in describing a certain type of conversation in movies., sense of humor, and I’m wondering, do you often, when you’re reading a script, feel like, Oh, this person gets me completely, I get like, Do I just feel like you have such a specific type of humor that it would be fun as a writer to write to it and write to a type of person like you. Even if I didn’t know the project was going to go to you. When have you seen yourself on the page? Most.

 

Lizzy Caplan I mean, Fleischman, most recently and again, probably Party Down. But yeah, I remember people telling me, like in periods of time where I felt like I couldn’t get a job, that there were things written as a Lizzy Caplan type, but it, like, never came to me.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Lizzy Caplan It’s rare when that happens. And I think one of the great things about an ongoing television series, I haven’t done one of those in many, many years, but they start to write more to your strengths and that’s always really lovely when that symbiosis happens.

 

Louis Virtel I admit I did want you to say Bachelorette a little bit, but what I find to be one of the most underrated comedies of that decade.

 

Lizzy Caplan Agreed. I love Bachelorette, and I will say at that particular point in my life, yes, maybe it’s cleaved closely.

 

Ira Madison III Um, you know, you’re doing Fatal Attraction now and you know, you’ve done so much different, you know, sort of like comedy stuff. You know, like what do you feel like you want to maybe conquer next? Like, is there some sort of project that you’re like, no one sent me this, you know, or, you know, what are you hoping to do in the future?

 

Lizzy Caplan I mean, I think I would like to be surprised by what that is like. It it will feel like, Oh, man, I never thought that that would be something that I want to do. My my M.O. has always been as varied as possible, skipping between genres for as long as they’ll let me do it. And right now, just like television in particular, it’s just so elevated and everybody is firing on all cylinders in that arena that when you can find something that kind of walks the line between drama and comedy, that’s the sweet spot that I’m always looking for. I think Fleischman was a perfect example of that.

 

Louis Virtel If I may, I think the next best actress nominated role you should step into is Jill Clayburgh, an unmarried woman. I feel like that hits all the all the hemispheres of maturity and adult conversations and heartbreak and also big city kind of Fleischman level vistas.

 

Lizzy Caplan I haven’t seen that so long. I need to rewatch that and yeah, set it up. Pitch it. Pitch it.

 

Louis Virtel Joe Clayburgh. We’re praying to you. Shine down.On us.

 

Lizzy Caplan I’d do it. Look.

 

Ira Madison III Uh, I mean even speaking of that movie. And, you know, you were talking about you had watched Fatal Attraction, you know, sort of like by happenstance, a couple of years before you even got it. Like, what kind of movies do you just sort of like sit down to watch? You know.

 

Lizzy Caplan I’ve had to fly a bunch. And, you know, sometimes you end up on a plane that has, like this incredible library of films. So in the past couple of weeks, I rewatched Most of The Eternal Sunshine, which you brought up. What a movie. Holy shit. Like, obviously. But it had been a minute since I watched it. I’ll always watch Grosse Pointe Blank. Always. Oh, yes. I just rewatched one of my all time, like top five faves also on a plane, and I was, like, fully sobbing openly. Terms of Endearment is one of my. I mean, like.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. Please. Debra Winger Forte is today.

 

Lizzy Caplan Oh, my God.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Louis Virtel You said the magic words.

 

Lizzy Caplan What I wouldn’t give just to, like, be in the same room as that woman. I love that movie. I love her so much. And then, like, for whatever reason, it’s like a double feature in my head. Terms of Endearment and Postcards from the Edge. Like, are we making those movies anymore?

 

Ira Madison III Mhm.

 

Louis Virtel No joke. Also, Shirley is so fabulous. And both of them. Shirley has an amazing scene on the phone in Terms of Endearment. And I have to say, I know that like we still find ways to insert these kinds of scenes into TV shows, even though they are less realistic nowadays. But man, do I love amazing phone acting, please.

 

Lizzy Caplan You know, real skill. Yes. Yeah. When my husband and I were we when we first started dating, I was talking about those two movies and we had gone to see some art exhibit where a woman just did pencil drawings of the backs of women’s heads, like their hair. They’re really gorgeous. And he got he’s like, I’m going to. You wanted to commission this art piece. You took Screengrabs from those two films, and the artist was like, No, they don’t really work. I can’t really see. So we got a hair person and like two actresses to come. And he this woman did their hair like Shirley MacLaine in both movies and then Meryl Streep and Debra Winger. And then he took photos. And I have these like this triptych of Shirley MacLaine and both and then Debra Winger and Meryl Streep. It’s like my prize thing.

 

Ira Madison III What a gift.

 

Louis Virtel I, I can’t. I can’t think of a better.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You really. I’m, like, holding. That’s so awesome. That’s so specific.

 

Ira Madison III Just good. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here.

 

Lizzy Caplan Thank you, guys.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I feel like I need to go. I want Valerie to know what’s going on.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes, Shadowlands. So good, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I’m also a fan of Shadowlands.

 

Louis Virtel Also, we rarely have repeat guests on here and unfortunately, Lizzy Caplan, you will be coming back a third time. So just be aware.

 

Lizzy Caplan Jill Clayburgh and.

 

Ira Madison III Unmarried Woman. Yes, that’s exactly right.

 

Lizzy Caplan Thank you guys.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you.

 

Louis Virtel Thank you.

 

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Ira Madison III Don’t call it a comeback. Kylie Minogue announced a new album. Rita Ora performs at Eurovision. Beyonce is back on tour. The pop Divas are returning this spring in honor of them. Let’s get into the State of Pop. What we’re listening to now, starting with Ms. Kylie. Finally, it’s coming back. I say finally. Even though Disco dropped during the pandemic, but it just really feels like that album is lost in time. Whenever I listen to it, it feels very weird.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, it slams me right back to, Oh, you’re hanging out in a silent house, but you’re with your friends. The only four people you’re allowed to see. Yeah, she had some good performances in that time. She did a I guess on Zoom or whatever via satellite performance on Kimmel during that time of Say Something, a song I still really love. So check that out. By the way, I just want to say about that period of time, it’s crazy how much TV material we made during the pandemic that no one will ever watch again, like people interviewing people over Zoom. Like I’m telling Ryan. Anyway, the snippet of the song I’ve heard and I’ve heard a leaked version of this song, too, that got everywhere and it was lo fi. Didn’t that feel so bizarre to you having a leaked lo fi snippet of a new song? It’s called Prampram and it is a.

 

Ira Madison III Cover of Edith Piaf song.

 

Louis Virtel No.

 

Ira Madison III Which, sidenote, when I was on Fire Island, one of my friends had another friend who was visiting from Amsterdam and he was like, you know, he didn’t know like the specifics of like American culture enough to wear like if he got Reese Witherspoon while playing celebrity. Right. Like, what does he say? You know, okay. But he put in celebrities.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III And me and one of my other friends were the only people who got there. So he put in Edith Piaf.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, how did baby on Rose?

 

Ira Madison III Come on. I know. But the.

 

Louis Virtel Little sparrow Le Bon.

 

Ira Madison III I got it was on set. La Vie en Rose. But I was like. But who else were you expecting here to get you out of here? Right in this group of gays.

 

Louis Virtel The first time I ever played Celebrity, which, if you don’t know, is a game where you put a bunch of names in a bowl and then you describe those names to your friends as fast as you can, that gets them right. And then there’s another round where you put all those names back and you can only use one word to describe them. And you’re remembering what names have already been said. And then there’s a final round where you just act them out. And it’s very funny because how do you act out? Edith Piaf, for example. But the first time I played that, the If It Believe is my friend Brad Butler, he said to the room, and no NPR celebrities. It’s just it really is telling what kinds of names go into the hat like that your friends put in. It’s like telling about who your friend group is. But anyway, we talk about Kylie Minogue a lot on this show, and I just think there remains something so consistent about really the shakiness she brings. There’s something about like there’s a sense of dignity that she brings to pop music. There’s an effervescence to her voice. And I also think based on the live recordings I’ve heard it, she did like a live version of her country album of that, of that tour. She sounds like she’s it. She sounds so great live, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m really excited to see her live with this tour because I have it.

 

Louis Virtel You know, I met her once at the New Now Next Awards in 2012, which sounds like community service, but I did. She was awesome. And I’m like, one foot seven.

 

Ira Madison III Was she being held at gunpoint? Is New Now Next still around?

 

Louis Virtel I think there’s a version of it because.

 

Ira Madison III What a name for a website. New Now Next.

 

Louis Virtel It’s so it’s so like the name of a news organization on the other two.

 

Ira Madison III Put it up. It sounds it sounds good. It’s classic Kylie. I love that her new album title is Tension.

 

Louis Virtel I love the album title. The camp intensity of Tension. It also sounds like like a high pressure game show from the eighties, like Welcome to Tension, Lightning Strikes. And now here’s your host, Jim Perry. Love it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And she’s holding like a diamond on the cover. Like she looks great. This woman is 54 and turning 55 soon. She looks fucking great. Cancer survivor.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, she she’s one of these people who is truly Madonna. Janet level in terms of versatile types of pop. She’s brought over the years, you know, like Madonna with bedtime stories. She even has an R&B album that you and I both love, Body language. She has had that like her moody nineties era before she got into her resurgence with Can’t Get You Out of My Head on the Fever album, Love at First Sight. I can’t turn on that song without crying it all of the dance dance revolution I once did.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And thank God for the Internet, you know, because one, it’s how I discovered Kylie as a kid. And two, I feel like now you could talk to other adults who listen climbing out, whereas it was just me listening to body language and fever and my adjustment in high school, knowing that nobody else at school was listening to that.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no. When I think of college, I think of walking around with body language on a Discman man, because that came out in 2004 or maybe even a little bit before that. But that’s when I started college. Also, she’s the definitive example of I would walk into a Borders when I was in high school and you couldn’t find her old music like on CD anywhere because it’s like, you know, like I can’t really picture walking into a Best Buy and you would get like, like an old Kylie album, like, enjoy Yourself or something. But at Borders, they always had import albums. So I bought her two disc eighties to early nineties Greatest Hits stuff. And it’s just the best of bubblegum pop, you know?

 

Ira Madison III I Should Be So Lucky as a hit.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. And they wrote it in 10 minutes. They were like, Oh, she’s coming in. We should really have a song for her. And they cynically threw it together, named it, I Should Be So Lucky. Like, you’re really going to get a song in 10 minutes from us. And that became her first match.

 

Ira Madison III The bootylicious of the eighties.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. But do you think Beyoncé really listen to age of 17 and decided to write Bootylicious sound off in the comments?

 

Ira Madison III Well, Louis. Ah, I really do love Stevie Nicks and my horrible.

 

Louis Virtel I’ve got to say that sounded a little bit like Michael Jackson hiding out as the big bad wolf.

 

Ira Madison III I really do like Stevie Nicks as a 17 year old.

 

Louis Virtel Now, what do you what do you think of the Bebe Rexha situation right now?

 

Ira Madison III Can I say, that it’s been a while since this has happened. You know, where I really felt like a music influencer. But the amount of friends who sent me a text and said, they’re listening and loving this Bebe Rexha album because I wouldn’t stop talking about it. And it’s good.

 

Louis Virtel Correct me if I’m wrong. She’s also written a lot of stuff for other people that maybe goes under the radar. What else has she written?

 

Ira Madison III So yeah, Bebe Rexha started out writing. She wrote on Monster, the Eminem Rihanna song.

 

Louis Virtel Jesus.

 

Ira Madison III Are a Selena Gomez song like a champion Tinashe All hands on deck. Iggy team. Nick Jonas. You know, so like, she has written for people before and I don’t know, she was in this weird sort of space where I feel like, you know, to shout out our friends who weekly, you know, Bebe Rexha was a who.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III You know, like when she would first come out, it would be like you would hear songs of hers like that Florida Georgia Line song, right? Like you’d hear it in Target.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Did you know who this bitch was?

 

Louis Virtel No.

 

Ira Madison III Did you ever know what she looked like?

 

Louis Virtel No.

 

Ira Madison III Now I really feel like she, like, pushed herself a bit more into an arena that works for her. And it sort of. I mean, it’s very sort of like. What I would have liked from Golden, to be honest. Oh, I kind of was golden. Or, you know, Miley’s recent album, you know, it’s sort of like disco country.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Which is a good lane. I always enjoy it. No, Bebe Rexha is somebody who, thanks to that Florida Georgia Line song once, actually. What’s that song, If it’ll if it’s meant to be meant to be. Is that the name of the song? Because of that song she was actively on the Billboard Hot 100, but she really feels like spiritually one of these quote unquote, bubbling under billboard artists. And can I just say bubbling under, which is a real Billboard chart, has to be the shadiest designation of all time. The Billboard Hot She’s drowning chart.

 

Ira Madison III She’s wearing that Survivor challenge. Yeah. You’re holding your nose and trying to survive in the water. One of the darkest. Bebe Rexha story is that I remember hearing, too, is that he hit that song Make Me with Britney Spears. Right. And so they performed that at the VMAs. But then because he also has a hit at that time with me, myself and I. She does a bit of me myself in high on the stage and Bebe Rexha. The writer of that song. And that’s like her big, like single, like one of her big introductions to the world. Sitting there in the audience was Britney saying her dibs on that. Is top lip sync to her damn song? Yeah, It’s like I couldn’t go up there.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. And also, it’s not like we would be. I’m sorry, overwhelmed with vocals if both you and Britney were up there. You know what I’m saying? There was room.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. But anyway, I just. I don’t know. I feel it’s weird to feel, like, proud of somebody you don’t know. Yeah, she seems like she’s, like, worked really hard to get where she’s at. And the album, I think, is really good. I was putting it on this weekend for brands and they were like, Who the.

 

Louis Virtel Hell is this? I feel the same way about the Jessie Ware album she has is sort of hyperbolically rising in in queer spirits. I feel like.

 

Let’s get to it, bitch.  Because now back to the bitch that  had a lot to say about What’s your Pleasure, Louis? What’s good?

 

Louis Virtel Okay, I will still say. Here we go. I like this album a little bit better. I think it’s a little bit more amped up. I think she’s very sophistication oriented and almost like adult contemporary, really. So it’s going to have a pacifying vibe. Mm hmm. That said, you can’t be too pacified when you’re, you know, wanting to roll tits and dance. So it’s still, to me, feels like it belongs in the lounge at the club or the lounge of the hotel, and not really on the dance floor. But I do like certain songs on it. I like the humor of it so much. And by the way, because she’s so funny, when you listen to her on her podcast, it’s like, Oh, she’s this like, knock around girl.

 

Ira Madison III I still would say that I think that her music is even loungey. I think it’s so horny.

 

Louis Virtel It is horny in the way that a lounge should be.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So even when you say adult contemporary, I’m like the good adult contemporary. Yes. No, not like now.

 

Louis Virtel That I’m not talking about, like, Kathie Lee Gifford’s attempt at an album or whatever it.

 

Ira Madison III Or the fact that like, later, later era Backstreet Boys albums are now all of the adult contemporary charts.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III No, I’m talking about like the adult contemporary that we grew up with.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III That our parents were listening to. It was just people being horny with with horns and piano. You know, it’s very, you know, Caught Up in the Rapture vibes.

 

Louis Virtel I would maybe compare it to the album erotica or something, which is supposed to have a kind of cabaret. Yeah, Loose adult vibe.

 

Ira Madison III I love it. I mean, I really feel like Jessie Ware is another person who, you know, started out in one lane and then really sort of like found her way to a groove that works for her. I feel like, What’s your pleasure was. Louder. You know, like just trying a lot of different things. And I feel like that feels good. Really sort of feels like she’s comfortable in this arena now, you know, like it’s it feels like a more.

 

Louis Virtel Less like an experiment and more like this is bringing along.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. I just I really enjoy I just love listening to a Jessie Ware album from start to finish like it’s fun and she’s so great in concert.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yes. No, I, I saw her live and she had, I think just like four dancers with her. Actually, the setup was not much different than what I saw of Janet’s new tour. Yeah, you know, just like a couple of dancers. And it’s not like the most athletic movement I’ve ever seen, but it was, like, captivating. You did not look away from what she was doing and she was working hard, and those dancers were fucking amazing.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And I mean, she’s coming out there just like she works. And it’s hard to, you know, like she has a long dress on, you know, and like, but she’s movin and, I don’t know, maybe it’s just the drugs I was on, too. But, I mean, when one of her dancers, just, like, holding a disco ball and dancing with it, I was like, And there’s just, like, this black, like, curtain behind them. I was like, this It feels You said it really feels chic.

 

Louis Virtel I will also say this is the only person maybe whom I subscribe to the idea of mood or vibes with. You know, it’s just like as in when you it’s not just a. It doesn’t just feel like an Instagram filter. It feels like lived in sensuality. It’s a it’s a sensual vibe. We’re missing sensuality, as we discovered in our interview with Lizzy Caplan.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, look at her husband.

 

Louis Virtel Please.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, look at Jessie Ware’s husband. How could you not be sensual? Okay, Freak Me Now. She’s writing about him. Go look that man up. Okay. That is a hot white man.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t know if I’ve seen him. I will.

 

Ira Madison III As for obviously, you know, Beyonce is on tour and I am still I am still in hiding.

 

Louis Virtel Meaning?

 

Ira Madison III I am avoiding everything to do with the Renaissance tour, which is very hard to do.

 

Louis Virtel Because everybody is filming that and everybody’s posting.

 

Ira Madison III Everybody’s filming it. Everyone’s posting about it, whether or not they were even there yet. And I’m just like, Whatever happened to mystery?

 

Louis Virtel And also it’s just like, really, the whole thing will be spoiled for you. It’s like a Broadway show. You know what I mean, like it happens in a specific order. They’re not substituting things out. Taylor Swift does that a little bit, but that’s even just a song, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Now she has been dropping some songs from the setlist. I don’t know the setlist, but my friends said I would be pissed if these songs were dropped just because of the stadiums letting fans in late or something. So let’s get it together. Okay, Let’s get together. I need to get the whole setlist when I’m in Amsterdam.

 

Louis Virtel I hope my month, my, my, my prayer is that she still does a bit of Soldier, which which I love more and more as the years go on. I think it’s the best Destiny’s Child song.

 

Ira Madison III It’s a really fucking good song.

 

Louis Virtel The sexiness of it. Kellie is so sexy in the song. Michelle is so sexy in that song.

 

Ira Madison III I will say I have seen a couple clips, not a performance of some chicanery.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, meaning.

 

Ira Madison III First of all, the gays attending in Brussels. This is video going around of someone smoking meth out of a pipe in the audience.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me, just.

 

Ira Madison III Dancing like in the crowd video themselves. And then you see the mouth pipe. What are we doing? You’re smoking, Tina. In front. In front of me. Miss Tina was at that show. You’re smoking Tina in front of Miss Tina. I hope Julia shot them.

 

Louis Virtel I need to put my organs back in order. I can’t believe that. Yeah, Beyonce hates the drug. You know what I mean? Like, you know if, if you’re, if you’re on TV, I you know what? I don’t have an opinion about that level of drug. It’s very crazy. So I’m I’m sorry to all those who are around that, I guess. I hope everybody had a nice time. God help you. Church works for people. Go to church.

 

Ira Madison III Anyone else you’re listening to?

 

Louis Virtel Well, you know who we had on this show a few months ago, and I still think this song sticks with me. And I’m surprised to keep returning to it. And also, somebody keeps playing it at Barry’s. So I hear it all the time. Can’t Tame Her by Zara Larsson is a fucking great song.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, She got a new one coming out?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Do not sleep on that song. Listen to Can’t Tame her.

 

Ira Madison III Also, Ryan Beatty, who’s like this queer songwriter singer, he had collaborated once before with Tyler the Creator, But the vibe is very like male. Um, Ethel Cain.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Ethel Cain, nominee at the GLAAD Awards. She did not walk away with it. That would be Miss Dove Cameron.

 

Ira Madison III Was she there?

 

Louis Virtel No. They flashed through those categories.

 

Ira Madison III Are you going to see Miss Ethel Cain this weekend? Actually, she’s opening for Caroline Porter.

 

Louis Virtel Boygenius. They performed on Camille, and I snuck into the audience to watch rehearsal. You’re not always supposed to do that, but you know, I’m naughty. God, I love their energy. They’re so fun.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, they’re really fun. Which is. Which is. Which is interesting because. I listen, I’m a fan of all three of them individually. But I have, you know, two friends who stand Phoebe Bridgers. So I’ve seen a bit too much of Phoebe Bridgers in concert. And the third time I was like, okay, you know, I’m ready to go to sleep. It is very tranquil.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, right. You have to really be zoned in to the. Yeah. The kind of sleepy conscience of Phoebe Bridgers.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but let me tell you something, Boygenius is, you know, that’s barnstorming music.

 

Louis Virtel But when you’re a carnival barker from Oklahoma, which is actually often I forget.

 

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. All right, Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Shall I?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel In.Person. My first in person, Keep It in years. Legendary. I also realized I haven’t been looking to the camera the entire time, so I’ll say some of it this way. Anyway, My Keeper is related to Jeopardy! Which, as I already said earlier, is having a Jeopardy Masters competition. Six former major champions are coming back to play again and again against each other. It’s a point system and then eventually one will be declared the winner at the end. I actually interviewed two of them at a little USC panel. Amy Schneider, Emeterio Roach They are so awesome and also great on social media. Go ahead and follow them. They’ve added one wrinkle. Two Jeopardy! Games on the Jeopardy! Jeopardy! Masters Tournament that I find disturbing. Before the round begins, Ken Jennings says. Now we’re going to tell the viewers at home where the daily doubles are. Look away if you don’t want to see girl. There is no suspense to knowing where the daily doubles are. People that pick clues at random. They’re acting like they flipped the script with us throwing daily doubles. It’s always a weird part of the show and like, I guess I’ll close my eyes. So I don’t know where the Daly doubles are. It’s one of those things where I’m all for, like, changing up formats, etc.. By all means, tinker with Jeopardy, which I think is doing really well in the primetime ratings. But this ain’t it. There’s just nothing going on with the daily double that that fascinating. And by the way, they always almost uncover it in 2 seconds because these people start at the bottom of the column where the daily doubles are and then find them and then they’re over. So just so it’s it’s chuck off would be like the drama isn’t there.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. I don’t  think the drama was here in that Keep It either.

 

Louis Virtel If you’re looking, sometimes during this segment, we specifically want to go viral. We want people to pick it up on social media. This is not one of them. Let me. This is me giving you a peek behind the curtain, Ira.

 

Ira Madison III It’s just nice to see you hand movements again.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes. Do you know whose hair movements I’m obsessed with? And I brought this up recently. Roger Ebert’s when he’s talking to Gene Siskel. Gene Siskel says something he agrees with, and then immediately Roger Ebert is like this in the movie. There’s something going on. It’s like, are you a tree?

 

Ira Madison III Are you a tree?

 

Louis Virtel That’s my hands in mid-air for people who can’t see me. Ira, what is your. Keep It? Save us.

 

Ira Madison III My Keep It goes to my father.

 

Louis Virtel Oh.

 

Ira Madison III Tom Cruise.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I see. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t know what the fuck he’s been doing lately. But first of all, there’s the story coming out of Tom Cruise and Shakira hanging out in Miami at, like, a Formula One race. I don’t know what the fuck that is.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, Dark vibes, if you will. I don’t like that.

 

Ira Madison III I think maybe he likes racing because he did Days of Thunder.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III . Good movie.

 

Louis Virtel I disagree with that. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Actually, it is a bad movie. Good. Good movie for him. Looking hot. Good movie for Nicole Kidman’s legs.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, Good movie for Nicole Kidman being like 22 and a doctor. I would love to understand how that came together.

 

Ira Madison III Ah, listen, some of her best roles are when? She’s a doctor. Okay. Yeah. Dr. Chase Meridian.

 

Louis Virtel Look it up.

 

Ira Madison III And then I don’t know what else she played a doctor in.

 

Louis Virtel The Interpreter, I believe.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, is that a doctor?

 

Louis Virtel I believe so.

 

Ira Madison III Doctor of signs? Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Right of interpretation.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Dr. Hieroglyph? Yes. So, anyway, there’s a rumor that Tom Cruise was romancing Shakira in Miami, and a lot of the responses to it were. Get a job. Get away from her. And let me tell you something. Shakira and Tom Cruise. I think that would be a sexy couple.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, It would also be the world’s shortest couple. It is giving Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman mother fucker.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone was like, Let’s get away from the Scientology, whatever. Yes, I get that, But. She has some taxes to pay. Right.

 

Louis Virtel And I do have to say, if he has one thing, it’s money and he can help her out the next time they come courting. And I’ve got news for you. It’s probably going to be soon.

 

Ira Madison III Right. Also, Tom Cruise was just recently hanging out with Janet Jackson. He went to the tour.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Which is hilarious to me.

 

Louis Virtel Do we know why they would have known each other ahead of time or if they did?

 

Ira Madison III I think they’ve known, well, so the weird story, too, is that people try to say that, oh, Tom was like enamored with Shakira and wanted to date her and, you know, Shakira’ss team was like, they’ve known each other for years.

 

Louis Virtel Hmm.

 

Ira Madison III They’re just celebrities. And, you know, at a.

 

Louis Virtel Certain level, it’s like you end up on David Geffen’s boat together or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like Tom Cruise would have definitely was probably friends with Michael.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that makes sense.

 

Ira Madison III Also and became friends with Janet through that. You know, I mean, I feel like if you. I feel it’s very weird if you are. A megastar from the late eighties and early nineties, and you haven’t met one another because that’s the era where, like, you’re still too famous to like, you can’t go to the grocery store.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right.

 

Ira Madison III You know.

 

Louis Virtel I just want to say in this picture, Tom Cruise has luxurious and long hair. And you forget sometimes that with the jeans he chooses to wear. Tom Cruise is often dangerously close to looking like he’s the lead singer of Fuel or Life House.

 

Ira Madison III He’s always dressed like Amanda Bynes. And she’s the man, right?

 

Louis Virtel He dresses like the manager at The Buckle who never left, still managing his Buckle.

 

Ira Madison III Tom is also actually now that I think about it, you know, he’ll probably introduce Tom Cruise and Janet Jackson? Oprah.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Now, that’s a very firm connection. I’m not saying he and Oprah have much in common anymore, but once upon a time.

 

Ira Madison III They were besties.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Right.

 

Ira Madison III I wonder if they still talk.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, well, I mean, like. Well, he just seems so much more docile than he was in those days. Like, he’s jumping off of airplanes and things like that, but not, not in a delirious way. It just feels he goes very movie oriented, like, got to make the movies. I’m the king of the movies.

 

Ira Madison III Very movie oriented, but also very like, I don’t know, like niceties oriented, manners oriented.

 

Louis Virtel Every time people meet him, they’re like, he’s unbelievably polite and generous and all these things.

 

Ira Madison III Or people who’ve worked with him or something, it’s always like they get like a birthday cake or like something delivered from him every year. So and I feel like that’s like, that’s very like Jackson’s celebrity. That’s very like Beyonce. He does that like one thing one day because he’s going to do is send somebody a flower arrangement. Yeah, I always like congratulations queen to someone. So I don’t know maybe I Keep It is really to Tom Cruise hanging out with everybody but his own son.

 

Louis Virtel I do worry about the strings in that family and who’s being attended to and who isn’t.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I don’t know. I love you, Tom.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. One of the weight things about me.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Right. You know.

 

Do you know when he always comes up, my friend, Justin McBain, and I actually my friend Andrew Wasniewski, is also obsessed with this. We’ll just set each other to celebrities and ask, who’s older? And you have to guess it. And then you sit there and reason through it, Tom Cruise is his baseline celebrity. He always compares other celebrities to him because he knows Tom Cruise was born in 1962. So if you’re comparing him to like Vanna White, you’re like, well, Vanna White started in the early eighties and Wheel of Fortune. So she’s probably born in like 57. I’m kidding. I’m positive. I know she was born in 57, but this is a game I play with my friends.

 

Ira Madison III So, you know, it was Deborah Wiggins birthday today. Okay. Yes. That’s just one thing. You know.

 

Louis Virtel I’m really, really, really good at knowing celebrities ages. That’s really I’ve really primed my skills. And in the past couple of years.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I know because Tom Cruise turned 60 last year.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Tom Cruise is a cancer. And despite I remember because despite being in the film Born on the 4th of July. Right. He was actually born July 3rd. Oh, really?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Wow. A day before. That’s so strange and deceiving in a way that I would expect of Tom Cruise.

 

Ira Madison III Tom, let’s change your birth date to match this for the interviews. Right. We can’t make it the fourth. That’s too obvious, right? Well, make it the third. Okay. So that he could show it could be like I just missed it. Right?

 

Louis Virtel I love the Marcel Marceau like gestures you accompany that with.

 

Ira Madison III Also, Tom Cruise would be a great interview. I know we couldn’t ask a single thing about Scientology. Right, But. I think we’d get a lot of interesting things if.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true, if literally, I think sometimes those guidelines that, you know, certain superstar handlers have about interviews. I think sometimes they’re helpful because like I mean, I and not that I’m disinterested in that stuff, but I am more interested in just talking about the movies, like let’s talk about the color of money or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III This is in Dateline.

 

Louis Virtel Right, no.

 

Ira Madison III . So I want to ask him about Jerry Maguire.

 

Louis Virtel Right? This isn’t to catch a Valkyrie, you know what I’m saying? We just want to ask about Valkyrie.

 

Ira Madison III And actually. Well, speaking of like my very few Tom Cruise blind spots, Valkyrie is one of them. I didn’t watch it because, you know, I hate Bryan Singer.

 

Louis Virtel Well, also the twins. I mean, just like you, you skipped over certain things.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Not even like personally Bryan Singer for being demonic just because I think he’s like a shitty director.

 

Louis Virtel Not never was my vibe.

 

Ira Madison III Like that fucking Beanstalk movie, too. Who’s gpomg tp watch this?.

 

Louis Virtel No, not climbing nothing.

 

Ira Madison III The Color of Money was one of my blind spots, and I still need to watch it. Oh.

 

Louis Virtel It’s good. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. I think in that movie, you think she’s poised to be the next Julia Roberts. And then, of course, Julia Roberts happened.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Only. And I had never seen it because I had never seen The Hustler. Mm hmm.

 

Louis Virtel Which Piper Laurie is still with us. Best actress nominee.

 

Ira Madison III And I love the Hustler. Now, I watched it on a Delta flight. Great film. Oh, yeah, very. Very interesting for a movie of that era. Yes, very. Just very like muted. Very. It almost feels like a stage play.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, yes, yes, yes. Jackie Gleason. Fabulous.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So I wanted to watch The Hustler before I watched The Color of Money.

 

Louis Virtel All right, well, get on it.

 

Ira Madison III But I’ll watch it when you come on, Tom.

 

Louis Virtel All right. Lizzy Caplan, thank you so much for being here.

 

Ira Madison III And we will see you next week. 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.

 

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