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Louis Virtel is joined by Guy Branum to discuss the optimistic space epic “Project Hail Mary” as well as the comeback of HBO’s “The Comeback” starring and co-created by Lisa Kudrow. Lisa Ann Walter joins to talk all things “Abbott Elementary,” “Celebrity Jeopardy” and her long-awaited stand-up special coming to Hulu this spring. They also delve into Lisa’s prep for her off-Broadway debut in “Heathers: The Musical” on April 27th.

TRANSCRIPT

Louis Virtel [AD]

 

Louis Virtel And we’re back with an all-new ghastly episode of Keep It. I’m Louis Virtel. We have with us today, not just one of my colleagues, not just a standard of Keep it, but just one my favorite people. It’s rare they’re all three, you know? It’s Guy Branum, welcome back.

 

Guy Branum Good to be here, Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Umm…

 

Guy Branum I’m so lucky that you wanted into my life at akbar so many years ago

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And I was, I guess one of the few times in my life, I ever did any networking. I was like, you should know me. Like I was arms akimbo. You instructed me that we should be friends and you were right. Yes, right. And then we went to, one of the first things we did was we went the Palm Springs together with a bunch of your friends. Yes. And you introduced me to a game that has not been played since, I have not played it since, which was called Guy Ball. Yes. Which was, you had like a tic-tac-toe grid.

 

Guy Branum That’s not guy ball, that’s Guy Branum presents Guy Branum’s Squares.

 

Louis Virtel Allow me. So it’s a Hollywood Squares grid, and you would go around in a circle, putting a celebrity name in each of the boxes, as in like, what would be the ideal Hollywood Squares board? You know the game show Hollywood Squares? Think of that. And then afterwards, Guy would not be a part of the putting the names in. Then afterwards, he would simply pick the three in a row he liked the best, and then also who was the secret square in the game. You turned me into who I am.

 

Guy Branum You’re welcome.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Um, uh, today we have a lot to talk about. Uh, first thing we’re talking about is Project Hail Mary, which feels like a trick being played on me in that it’s a huge hit, but then also everybody, you know, has read the book, but they’ve never brought it up before.

 

Guy Branum I mean, I think there is this weird unspoken hunger for competence porn, for stories about people being, I mean but it’s not just competence porn. It’s also a story of a person being re-energized to take on a problem and solve a necessary problem. And I think that that’s a space where so many of us are. And I just think like so frequently when I’m in an emotionally bad place, I will just read non-fiction. I will read a big book about the history of Prussia just to sort of like soothe myself. And I there’s something about a book like that about like. Problem getting solved that is really satisfying.

 

Louis Virtel Well, also it’s like, so I’m not a video gamer at all, but I do understand the going on YouTube and looking at people defeating a video game without ever making mistakes. Yes. Like that is deeply soothing, especially if it’s games I once played or something. I’m like, oh please, I wanna see the Tomb Raider never get into a bad encounter with a Bengal tiger. She just mows right past it.

 

Guy Branum Yes, I mean, thinking about somebody knowing the right path, just wanting to know that somebody knows the right path, and I think we’re in this very interesting, there’s nobody coming to save us kind of situation. And that really is the journey of Project Hail Mary. But it also comes with this other story of meeting people along the way and learning to value them.

 

Louis Virtel You know, so Project Hail Mary stars Ryan Gosling, uh, as this guy, Rylan Grace, who is a reluctant, he’s a school teacher and he’s reluctant to be sent out on this mission to go and basically save earth because the sun is dimming. And there’s some sort of thing called an astrophage. He can collect over in Venus or something. And if he does that, maybe that’ll solve our problems. But the, the catch is, um, he, there won’t be enough, whatever fuel to get him back here to earth. So basically it’s a suicide mission and they’re using him. Um, uh, to get this world saving thing done. And who’s waiting for him back on earth? The fabulous Sandra Huler from anatomy of a fall and the zone of interest. I’m always obsessed with when somebody makes such a big splash in the prestige world, we have to do something with her mainstream. Like we just did this with Carrie Condon and Banshees of Inisheer and she was just an F1 in train dreams.

 

Guy Branum You never bet on it when it’s somebody from a foreign language film. What’s the one about her and her dad having a weird relationship? Oh, Tony Erdmann, yes. Like that she was in this like weird, three hour long German comedy. And we all, like Europe fell in love with her enough to be like, let’s put her in these other great movies. And then we were like, well, I guess we have to do something with her. But there was that interesting way, like back in the eighties, like you would be in Das Boot, and then you would come and be a bad guy in a couple of action moves.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right, the Klaus Maria Brandauer effects, yeah. You’re an out of Africa, and then also an octopussy. That’s how it works. No, but before we get into the movie, I want to say about her, you would not recognize Sandra Huler from the other two movies she did a couple of years ago. This felt like a complete, this is like true chameleon of an actress. Like I am currently re-energized. My awe for her is re-nergized Well, the thing is, is I would like

 

Guy Branum opportunity for her to be light in English because she’s like her first film was a light comedy it was in German and no one feels light in German. No, right.

 

Louis Virtel The way the syllables hit alone.

 

Guy Branum Right. And you know, like, uh, in an anatomy of a fall, she was just never giving us anything, but like, crystallized ice picks of lines. Yes. And I, I want to see, you know. It makes me wish that we were still making large ensemble comedies and she could, you know, dive in and fall in love for a 15th of a movie.

 

Louis Virtel Fat chance that will not happen. Yes, that’s it bygone era, but this is also one of those movies where Ryan Gosling really is in a way the sole star the person propelling the movie and I like when we get finally

 

Guy Branum Finally, a gravity for men.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, no, that’s right. Um, it, it sort of gravity is the obvious sort of predecessor to this movie, but we’ve had a few of these over the years, like all is lost with Robert Redford, where he’s just on a boat that’s sinking and you better get off those old knees and figure this out. Yeah. You know, um, sleuth from the seventies, which is just Michael Caine and Lawrence Olivier, and they’re sort of stuck in a house. That’s another one.

 

Guy Branum Well, and I mean, another ancestor is Apollo 13 because this is a film about all is lost unless we can get it all together, you know? And like that feeling and that sensibility is so present and like it’s a really interesting character for Ryan Gosling because it is sort of like kind of a goofier guy than you normally see in this kind of film. And so it really is able to capture those things that we love about Ryan Goslin, but also take him on a journey. Like I think it is interesting for a man who played Ken. To figure out, in a very kind of Sandra Bullock-y way, what is the thing that he can win an Academy Award for? And like, his signature comedy role in a supporting category was great, and it didn’t win. And I think this is something that even though it’s being released early in the year, might have some traction. I mean, it’s gonna make a good deal of money. Oh.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, it’s crazy how much money it’s already I again everyone every year. I’m sort of convinced. Oh, we’re done Making money at the movies, but I also sort of think that after the Oscars people get excited for other movies They’re like, let’s bring on the new stuff

 

Guy Branum Also, we want monoculture so bad. We want monokulture like as a main course or maybe as a bento box with all of our niche culture, like we want to have that thing that we can talk to people about. And it is, it’s so funny that you’re like this story of people have all read this book and it’s a huge bestseller, but aren’t talking about it. And like, we to have discourse, not just online with these things, but with our friends.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, you know also I want to say like based on just casually surveying people about the book the way people love it I feel like the movie is a bit sillier and more comedic than the book. Yes Which is fine, but I feel the awe that people have attached to it You do get that in an IMAX screening of it because there’s a lot of visual splendor In fact, the most impressive thing about the movie. Is how it looks how he travels through this gravity gravityless sphere Um, and, and how much comedy is wrapped up in that, like, you’ll bump up against things really casually and it’s, you know, it’s really funny. Uh, the two directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, I do think add a greater comedy touch to the, uh, the book than is previously there.

 

Guy Branum Yeah, these are the guys who gave us the animated Spider-Man movie. So it’s people who are, like, thinking about the world and space in a dynamic way, but people who understand how to get jokes and fun into something. The novel, I believe, is by the same author as The Martian. Yes. And so, like it really is giving you, like a similar journey of process and lack of hope and all of that, but like on a bigger and sort of more conceptual screen.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. I would also just say that it feels a little bit more Spielberg-y in this movie, and that it kind of feels more rated G, too.

 

Guy Branum There’s also, the first time I saw AI, I was very bored and annoyed by it because like, I was like, it went so far to give you a happy ending. Yes. That I felt annoyed with it and then I watched it later as a full adult and like was like oh guys, that was the point. Like the point is, is that human-ness is the ability to imagine so hard that you’re gonna get there eventually. And I think that it did have that kind of Spielbergian optimism which can you know, felt saccharine and distasteful when we were all full up on it in the mid-90s. But I think now is something we’d like to see. Like somebody has to start imagining how this world can work again. And this is a film that is like, I mean, in a big way, it’s very on point because it’s talking about like environmental disaster and having to solve that problem if we’re going to keep human beings alive on this planet. But more immediately it’s about how do we believe in. Science and institutions and expertise enough to get ourselves moving forward.

 

Louis Virtel But also this is very much a buddy comedy because what happens for most of the movies, he meets an alien in space. And I just wanna say, if I get sent on an intergalactic science journey and most of my time is spent meeting somebody from the Jim Henson creature workshop, I don’t know if my skills are being utilized to the best of their ability, but I will say, so he meets this like kind of crustacean looking creature who looks like- A little rock man? Yeah, he is dubbed Rocky. I have to tell you, and by the way, I believe a lot of it is practical effects. It’s just puppetry used to make this creature occur. Through whatever science we finally can hear Rocky talk back to him, they have normal conversations or whatever, I do have to say, sometimes the creature looked to me like the dancing chickens from the Peter Gabriel slash Hammer video, and I could not get a, but it is sort of like claymation-y vibes.

 

Guy Branum I loved that we got just enough arrival in this movie. Just a soup son of arrival. But I believe- Not the whole Forest Whitaker, just a tree. I believe that we, again, 1990s into 2000s, got too good with our cute child technology.

 

Louis Virtel Mm-hmm.

 

Guy Branum And it was overclocked and stories never felt real because everyone was a Muppet. And also with our like, adorable little sidekick characters, they were a little too much. Give me a Mushu and Mulan any day. But I thought that Rocky really was like, not too cute and thus very cute, you know? It was like the thing I loved most about Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret, is they found a little girl who you fell in love with but did not seem like a cute, adorable little child.

 

Louis Virtel She was great in that movie.

 

Guy Branum Yes. And like Rocky felt very similar to be like adorable. And by the end you do want to hug him.

 

Louis Virtel I think he’s adorable, but at the same time, I do think he is a bit cliched as a character you meet along the way and that like, he’s got his robot feelings where he’s like, what is this feeling coming over me? It must be love. And additionally, he, you know, like half the characters in Star Wars who are droids, he’s a little English idiom challenged. So it’s like that same kind of like perfect strangers-y vibe.

 

Guy Branum We gotta get comedy in the script somehow. Yeah, that’s true. The thing is, right now the problem with comedy is that it is hard to pitch tone and character. It is easy to pitch plot. And I think little things like that are things that let the studio know along the way, yes, we are going to be having good times here. Yes, okay. Well, you fucking loved this movie. I really did. Yeah. I was amused, yeah. I just had, having a nice communal experience, I also just saw. Pizza movie from the guys who made Britannic. It is, it’s a TBS comedy. Oh, okay. I mean, it is a little bit- What we call a Bride Wars. It’s a little more raunchier than that, but it’s TBS Comedy. And that communal experience of watching something that is not a horror film and isn’t a respectable drama is really, really satisfying to me. And I was surprised by what a sense of joy and optimism I had about the movie. And also, like. I just think it’s very political in a way that isn’t partisan or politicized.

 

Louis Virtel That is true. I also want to say that comedies are basically the only movies I prefer to watch with other people in theater. When I go to the movie theater, to me, it’s like seeing August Wilson on stage or something. I’m dialed in to only the actors, nobody around me exists, et cetera. I want to know what I think of what’s happening on screen, I don’t need to share that opinion, I want come out of the theater and be right about what I thing.

 

Guy Branum You are reminding me of watching Tar with four other people in the middle of the afternoon in San Francisco. Yes, right.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right. You mean heaven? Yes. But a comedy like I like hearing the laughs reverberate and, you know, being a part of that.

 

Guy Branum Well, unfortunately, Pizza Movie is only gonna be on Hulu, but I would say, like, it is something, this isn’t about Pizza Movie, but invite friends over.

 

Louis Virtel It’s a good time. Okay, okay. I’m sure you’ve already seen Project Hail Mary, but please let us know what you think. Here’s what else is happening this episode. First of all, the fabulous Lisa Ann Walter is joining us from Abbott Elementary, but from so many other things. Parent Trap, she is a former standup. She started in standup and now has a standup special coming out. We of course have more Abbott elementary from her and she also happens to be the Celebrity Jeopardy champion from the first season of that show.

 

Guy Branum In comedy people winning celebrities. So far it’s been Ike, it’s Lisa, and it’s Kamau. Yes. Like, that’s a good run for comedy people. Take that CNN. No, like- Kamau is on CNN. Yes, right, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Like 16 years ago, the finals for the big tournament they have were Michael McKean, Jane Curtin, and Cheech Marin. Again, comedians have it going on in this way.

 

Guy Branum This is just like the golden age of celebrity poker when like dude bros came and were like, I’m Ben Affleck, I’m gonna win. And then the ladies of MADtv fucking ate them.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I was just with uh uh Nicole Sullivan last week. She’s such a doll. A doll. And a good friend of Ike Barinholtz is of course from uh uh MadTV. Elsewhere in the episode though, another triumph for humankind is here. The comeback is back for its third season over what technically 22 years or something. So we’re gonna get in why this Lisa Kudrow uh uh enterprise is first of all so beloved by gay men. So beloved by gay man, but in general just a boon for the comedy world Isn’t that a boon for television? And the first episode just aired. I would call this basically a prolog episode for what we’re gonna get later in the season. So yes, we only have one episode to review right now but we’ll just talk about Lisa Kudrow in general and write little poems about her I assume.

 

Guy Branum She is, to me, the greatest proof that God exists that we have on this planet. Oh, good start, okay. Like, it is a level of- You’re like Blake, oh my God. It is like a level of nuance and talent that I think is so profound. Like, I recently, like a couple of years ago, went back and rewatched All the Friends, and Lisa Kudrow inhabited this character that should have been ridiculous and someone you couldn’t have a relation. Like- who was out in space and she always grounded her in space. And I think that that is the fun with Valerie Cherish is that no matter how big she is, no matter much she is embodying our worst cliches of a mid-level actress, you know her and you love her and you know that she and Marky Mark love each other. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right. No, she’s flighty, but with gravitas. That’s something that connects both those characters. And actually that’s also sort of true of web therapy too, which was like more experimental than totally successful. But Fiona Wallach was a very memorable character too. Anyway, all that and more during this very, I’ll say talky episode of Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel Lisa Kudrow has graced us with the return of Valerie Cherish on HBO’s The Comeback airing on Sundays. The series, which began in 2005, oh my god, think back to that for a second. Kelly Clarkson’s emerging, we’re still wearing too low of jeans. It’s tough. Anyway, The Come Back is back and it follows Cherish as she manages rehearsals for a staging of Chicago, acting on an indie movie set and recording her own podcast, First Off Guy, for the children who might not know the importance of The ComeBack. Let’s catch them up, and based on the premiere episode, are we on board?

 

Guy Branum So the premise of The Comeback is, in the original show in 2005, Valerie Cherish was a washed-up 1990s sitcom actress who had been successful, but not successful enough that she was set for the rest of her life. And she has the opportunity to be on another multicam, to have back the money and the fame that she had missed so much. But along with that part comes the necessity. The network is also requiring that whoever gets this role Also has to do a reality show about their comeback And it’s about this person who is used to the veneers of Hollywood, like being able to protect herself behind, you know, the idea of glamor and really wants to embody this glamor and this sense of being saved and protected by your famousness. Untouchability of it. Yes, who is forced to undergo the greatest humiliations in front of an audience. To recapture the thing that she once wanted. Like you can get the thing you want, but only by giving up everything else that you want. Right.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I will say when I first watched the comeback, like in 2005, I thought I was just going to hate it because it was so rude to her. Everyone was so rude to here that I thought the entire joke was watch this self-absorbed idiot go down hard all the time. But as the show goes on, it becomes more about the resources she secretly has to survive these horrible indignities. And also the comedy of the show is that all of Hollywood, basically no matter who you are, but especially in her case, is one indignity after another.

 

Guy Branum Yes, the original review in the New York Times of The Comeback is a joint review with Entourage. And it says, Entourage is the fun, playful version of this show, but it’s too hard and uncomfortable to watch this show that it also thinks is about us trashing this woman who we think is bad. Like, it is this very straight Gen X irony understanding of what that show could be because we just didn’t have the technology at the time to understand. We didn’t have snatch game. And like, and like Valerie Cherish is the greatest snatch game performance of all time. It is like Lisa Kudrow being able to inhabit a character with a bunch of ridiculous, terrible ticks and bad habits and like Gen X improprieties, but also loving this person and understanding that they are, you know, they are a genius at the dumbest thing.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right. Which reminds me, by the way, when I watched Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway, I would say the real wrinkle she added to that character is within the song, with one look, you get the sense that she was an amazing actress. Whereas in the original Sunset Boulevard, it’s like, maybe she had a moment of being really good, but she’s totally lost that ability. And I feel like that’s part of what I end up loving about this show, too, is the sense that even though she is this flighty. Completely not clued in woman, there is some technical ability there at the end of the day that is undeniable.

 

Guy Branum There are a couple of really great sequences from both of the previous seasons of the comeback, but one of the iconic ones is like Valerie Cherish wants to lose weight because she’s gonna be on TV again. And also she has like only one line in an episode because she isn’t young and sexy enough, they’re essentially writing her off of the show. And so you watch like static cam footage in her kitchen of her continuing to eat portions of a cake that she shouldn’t be eating. While just practicing the line, I don’t need to see that!

 

Louis Virtel And it gets more and more exaggerated and strange and accidentally horrific as she keeps going.

 

Guy Branum But then she fucking gets the laugh. Like then she gets the laughs and she lands it. And I think like the show is really challenging you to ask like, what is the line between, it’s a show about cringe. It’s a about cringe with heart. And I it will be interesting to see how, I don’t know how much Gen Z is watching prestige HBO television, but at a point in time when the children are scared of cringe more than anything else, How will they? Be able to embrace Valerie Cherish.

 

Louis Virtel I also think, by the way, this show is almost in danger of feeling watered down now because since the advent of this show, so much of TV is about the cringe comedy. Every mockumentary we’ve gotten since then is about awkward pauses and that person revealing themselves with a line that they didn’t mean to sound that stupid or whatever. But honestly, the take on Hollywood is so fucking bleak and dark in this that it’s undimmed.

 

Guy Branum Well, it’s like there is no infrastructure left for her to cling to. And like one of the really delicious things about the first episode is she and Mark have moved to a condo. And she’s very excited about it, but you can tell that this is a couple who are having to downsize because the entertainment industry isn’t what it once was. And that felt very real and relevant. But then there was just one moment, I don’t remember what it was, where I just got maybe. My first belly laugh in a while from a TV show, and it was just her ability, like, with line delivery, with performances, with these things that Lisa Kudrow learned on the set of God damn mad about you. Yes. But applying it in these real naturalistic situations that just fills me with joy and fills me with love for this character.

 

Louis Virtel Also one of the hugest laughs of this episode, and maybe of just television this year so far, is you see the poster of her on Broadway in Chicago, and the look on her face is like, I’m gonna try to imitate it now, which of course you can’t hear, but it’s like, it’s between smiling and gasping and looking horrified, but it’s completely unflattering to her. She eventually leaves this production of Chicago, but not before getting into a fight with the cast where she asked them she’s like why would you have me in this i can’t sing or dance and somebody goes i guess they just got to the v’s

 

Guy Branum It’s so brutal. No, it really is. Truly, 10 years ago, right after, I mean, not long after the first season, she was at Chelsea lately, and she was talking to my friend, Heather, who she knew from the groundlings, and she like, this idea of Valerie Cherish as Roxy had been sort of with her for decades, and she trying to figure it out. But it really that, you know, the way that, Casablanca was a movie about everybody who, like, uh, the wretched refuse of Europe that had been scraped off during World War II, like Valerie Cherish is that like ultimate survivor, but al- like, but necessarily refuse of this entertainment industry.

 

Louis Virtel I also worried this show wouldn’t catch on anymore because it’s like, what actor is honestly too cringe for social media anymore? Like there’s no bottom, you know what I mean? Like influencers are so shameless that in a way like she not only fits right in, there’s a rusting dignity to her that she even does social media at all after being by the way, an Emmy winning actress. Okay.

 

Guy Branum Well, first of all, I just wanna say that this morning I watched Jennifer Garner, a actress whom I am on record as having previously hated, but I have so fallen in love with her through social media and her baking. She played like my sunny Valentine for Reese Witherspoon on a saxophone for Reese witherspoon’s birthday. And it’s just like, you were the- What? She is the best at social media. Okay, yeah. She really-

 

Louis Virtel This is why I love, this is how I feel about Valerie Bertinelli, where she just gets up and she goes, I’m having a terrible day.

 

Guy Branum Valerie Bertinelli, we talked about this when we interviewed her on this show. Interviewed Valerie Bertonelli. Yes, like, she has a level of sincerity that allows her to host a cooking show, which I think is the greatest level of sincerity required for any form of entertainment. For life, yes. Yes, but the thing is, is like, that is the deeper story of Valerie Cherish that has been present for now 22 years in Lisa Kudrow’s life. Like, this is taking, I think one of the best types of comedy is the person you almost were. I really love when Gilda Radner, um, uh, did Rhonda Weiss and the, and the Rondettes, like, sort of like this cliche of a Long Island Jewish princess. And what did the world want me to be when I was growing up? And Lisa Kudrow, since the beginning of the comeback, has been saying, I am an actress over 40. This town wants to be rid of me. And is there something ridiculous about me wanting to stay? Is there something rediculous about me not opening a pottery shop in Taos and just saying… Like, I don’t need the struggle that is required to maintain this. And this is a celebration of the power of Valerie Cherish’s delusion. And the second season ends with, for the first time ever, Valerie Cherush leaves the cameras that are following her. There is a moment at the end where she’s nominated for an Emmy, but her longtime hairdresser is in the hospital. And they’re about to announce her award and she leaves. And goes to her husband from whom she was separated at the time and she sees Mickey. The actor who played Mickey is no longer with us and that is one of the very sweet and very beautiful parts of the first episode is seeing these tributes to the person who really was the embodiment of her heart and the embodiments of… Just the sparkle of her life basically. But also the storied relationship between ridiculous too much women and gay guys who do hair.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right, right. Which by the way, I don’t believe I’ve seen it in anything else before. So it’s like, it’s still novel in a way. No, it, it it’s a very funny first episode, but we haven’t gotten into the fact that she’s about to embark on a sitcom that is written by AI. I did think it was unrealistic though. Dan Bukatinsky, who of course has been with the show since the beginning, co-created it, is her manager and just says to her, You don’t even have to deal with writers this time. It’s just AI. I don’t think a shitty manager would approach her that way. I think he would literally trick her into a meeting with people who like are going to throw her on an AI sitcom. That to me felt a little bald faced.

 

Guy Branum Managers are really good at being sold on stuff from a studio and are really good at telling you the thing that they only half believe.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah

 

Guy Branum trying to see if it will work on you. But in, like, the first and second season, the relationship between Valerie Cherish and, like… The first season was scary to me. The first is still a little bit scary for me to watch because it was, like a two-boy Harvard writing team who had previously written for the Simpsons who were the guys who made up this town in 2005. They were, you know, the source of power and they were very intimidating to me and I had had bosses like that.

 

Louis Virtel Just like pure click, you can’t get into it’s just about them, you know. And so like someone like Valerie Cherish, they have open contempt.

 

Guy Branum And like the greatest embodiment of male comedy by men, for men, cannot imagine women being anything but a straight man or an object of a joke. And that relationship is so like real and complex and present in the first season. And then the second season is very much about Valerie, like the guy who had tormented Valerie most, explaining that he had like a heroin addiction and a sex addiction at the time. And he does a prestige show to sort of like process that out. Valerie starts to understand his complexity behind the veneers and facades of, of success in Los Angeles. Like the great, one of the great things about Valerie Cherish is that she believes Los Angeles, she never, she never looks behind the facade because

 

Louis Virtel A very Joan Didion.

 

Guy Branum Right, right, and like it will be interesting to see what this season is without that relationship or positioning that relationship differently with this like AI thing.

 

Louis Virtel By the way, this show, which is, you know, vaunted among people like you and me, still makes me realize that there is a show that remains so underrated that actually was a reality show about this, which was Kathy Griffin, My Life on the D-List. Which I think, in the way that the comeback is bleakly honest, that show also peeked at the bleakness of Hollywood, except still made it funny. It still did the thing you just said, which she believes in the power of Los Angeles, even if even if the indignities are like tripling when she leaves.

 

Guy Branum Two things. The first one is just that my life on the D list must be read along with the comedy specials that Cathy was doing at the time, because those were her crystallized sort of like comedic takes on the experiences that you had gone through with her. And also my life in the D-list did feature that relationship, but between Fabulous Too Much Woman and the gay guys who write for her until Cathy fired them. Yes. Um, but like one of the things that you and I have both very responsibly avoided talking until about until now is the fact that This thing that is understood, Valerie Cherish, this performance that is understood as one of the great television performances has lost the Emmy for best actress.

 

Louis Virtel Both two, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, New Adventures of Old Christine, and Thee.

 

Guy Branum A seventh of nine Emmys for Veep. It is just sort of like, why? And the thing is, it’s like, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has no projects this year. And so it’s, like, well, this is her time, except for the fact that we just found out, well, you guys just found it out, because I write for Hacks, that this is the final season of Hacks. And Gene Smart has won the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy every year that Hacks is on, because look at what Gene Smart is doing. And so… This really is gonna be a battle of the titans this fall. Wha-

 

Louis Virtel Well, I will say Lisa Kudrow is what I would call the Christine Baranski position, which is imagine thinking she is anything less than a genius. She’s a standard of comedy. And yet we only gave her one Emmy in the mid nineties. And we just thought that would be sufficient basically, even though her work has gotten better and deeper and, you know, and she’s the star of the show now. But at the same time, I think what you’re also pointing out is that Veep was also a show for your dad. You know, that was a boy show. There was one in the middle of the boys. Right. Hacks.

 

Guy Branum She’s very endearing written written by a Harvard guy who had been a Seinfeld and I believe Simpsons writer Yes, and had been part of a two-boy writing team, right?

 

Louis Virtel Right, no, we’re discovering the parallels as we do this. But I do feel like the comeback is in the hard position of people don’t understand, a lot of people don’t why this character is somebody you would follow. Because in addition, I mean, it’s understood that she’s like dogged by how annoying and unfair and misogynist Hollywood is, but she also is so relentlessly self-absorbed. There’s a scene in the first episode where she’s at the writer’s strike, and she’s preening for a picture alongside Brad Drescher. I mean it’s like Miss Piggy shit. No, I mean It is truly.

 

Guy Branum It is, I mean, do we need Miss Piggy and Valerie Cherish to go be in Omeri? A hundred percent. I think what could, because like the comeback has never gotten like a continuous season, like the year after it was made, because it was never a real success.

 

Louis Virtel And that, and that way,

 

Guy Branum doesn’t gain awards momentum either. Right, but I would say one of the differences between 2005 and now is 18 seasons of Drag Race. Okay. I think that the institution that is Snatch Game, the institution is watching brilliant, delusional people be brilliant and delusinal alongside people who are brilliant and less delusational but just as fabulous has helped America understand camp enough to understand dislike our icon of 21st century camp.

 

Louis Virtel But I also think there’s just a general well-being feeling for Lisa Kudrow because she is this groundlings person who approaches everything with the joie de vivre and whimsy that comes with being an improv comic, which is like, I’m developing this character. We’ll see what works, we’ll see, what doesn’t. She’s not self-serious. And I feel like the general love for her, which has snowballed over time, could help her here.

 

Guy Branum Also, the relationship that new generations have with Friends, and also, like, her press campaign for this has been really, really good. But Lisa Kudrow talking about, for the first time in her life, being able to watch Friends, apparently it was, she has talked about the way that after Matthew Perry’s passing, she started watching the show and then recently was telling, I think, Conan, that now she just had run through all the good sitcoms and she wants to watch an episode or two of a sitcom before she goes to bed, and so now she just watches Friends because she kind of doesn’t remember it. But we also have to bring up the fact that she is one of the great talk show guests of all time.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, and by the way, her interviews with the Television Academy, I’ve brought this up before, are so fabulous. She has such a great memory for like her auditions and episodes of the show and stuff, so I much recommend it.

 

Guy Branum The best story, her being fired from Frasier is one of the great stories. Her kind of hatred of the greatest multicam director of all time, James Burroughs. I don’t know that it’s hatred because they did work together on Friends for 300 episodes, but she did believe that he tried to tank her in the pilot of Friends and it’s hilarious. But also, formerly dated Conan, knew him from the groundlings and their interviews, previously on Conan’s Late Night Shows, but now on Conan podcast, are just delicious. This Amazing comedy performer removes an additional layer of self-censoring when she is around Conan, and it is beautiful to see inside.

 

Louis Virtel I have truly loved her interview. She’s somebody who’s just so smart. And also the story specifically of trying out for friends where she’s like, they didn’t like, Jim Burroughs watched her perform and goes, no notes. And she goes, that could mean no notes, like you were great or like you’re not even worth dealing with. After she had finished.

 

Guy Branum After she had previously been fired on the Frasier pilot, which he also directed. And so she assumed, like, this is all going again. He told her to deliver Phoebe’s monolog from the first episode from underneath the table. And then apparently, Marta Kaufman came up and was just like, why did you do that? It is really a clear sign of the importance of having female showrunners. That instead of having people be like, she’s crazy, Marta Kauffman was just like, what’s going on?

 

Louis Virtel Also, that’s true. I mean, I literally think a woman being there probably was instrumental. Who knows, who knows. But yes, this season of The Comeback will feature some uncharted stuff because we’re not living in the timeline yet where actual AI is writing our sitcoms beyond what’s on, I think, verticals. By the way, that a part of pop culture I won’t be invited to and I won’t accept the invitation once I go.

 

Guy Branum Louis Virtel, you’re behaving as though we don’t live in a world where that’s the job of every very attractive 24-year-old gay guy or heteroflexible. How are you not having conversations with these people at bars?

 

Louis Virtel I’m too busy talking about people like Sandra Huler. Do you see? I live a cloistered, rarefied existence, like you. Come on, don’t pretend you’re not me, stop it. Okay, anyway, we’ll be watching. We’ll be right back with more Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel We’re thrilled to be joined by our guest, who is a hilarious comedian and actor, who has wowed us not just in Abbott Elementary, but also in entertainment pillars, such as Celebrity Jeopardy, where she ruled, and 1998’s The Parent Trap. She’s also booked and busy. You can see her in season five of Abbott elementary on ABC. Her standup special streams on Hulu this spring and starting April 27th. You can her off-Broadway in Heathers, the musical. Please welcome the great Lisa Ann Walter.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am so excited. You know I’ve adored you.

 

Louis Virtel You for so long no we followed you you you make me

 

Lisa Ann Walter that Twitter is fun which is of course a lie. I haven’t been there for a while. I know. I’ve got but now I’m following you on Instagram on other platforms that are run by evil empire geniuses.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, one tier less of evil or something, or evils we don’t know yet.

 

Lisa Ann Walter 100%.

 

Louis Virtel Um, but anyway, we’re here with Guy, who I guess you hung out with recently.

 

Guy Branum Can I tell you my meet-cute with Lisa Ann Walter? Please do. Chelsea Handler book party like a decade ago. I walk in, I see her, I’m thrilled because I loved her as a standup and I loved your sitcom on ABC, Life’s Work, and so I went up to her and was immediately like, that show was so good. Larry Miller, it was so smart, it was witty, it so fun. I told her how much I loved it, we had a beautiful moment and then I went off. Leah Remini was also there and also your friend, I forget her name. Elaine Hendricks, Rosa Blasi. Rosa Blasie. Rosa. Rosa Blasy was also here and I went to Leah and Rosa Blase and I started telling. Leah Remini, how much I had loved, Living Dolls, her spin-off of Who’s the Boss? And Lisa sidles up and is like, which of your old shows is he saying he loves now? It was just, there’s nothing better than having a great comic immediately roast you, immediately take you down. And since then, like one of the glories of Los Angeles these days is anytime you run into the crew from Abbott, it’s always a good time. You guys are such a success, and you are like on top of network television. But every time I see any of you, it is only warmth and joy that I am getting.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Oh, you’re so kind. Well, I mean, I think all of us feel very lucky to be in the position that we’re in and we’re, we’re nice people. And I, that was purposeful. I think Quinta hired who she thought were going to, going to be kind to each other on set. I think that’s everybody from top to bottom in our crew. So there isn’t anybody that isn’t nice. It’s one of the things that I’m proudest of on the show. Obviously the show is good. I think so anyway. But also when people come and visit and are guest artists on our show, they say there’s no place that they felt more welcome. So that makes me feel good. That makes me feel good.

 

Louis Virtel I was just at the GLAAD Awards recently and you guys were all there because Quinto was receiving an award and I could immediately observe the vibe. It was just like, oh, these are people who hang out.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, we like each other.

 

Louis Virtel You know

 

Lisa Ann Walter Sometimes we gossip. I purposefully have to not sit next to Janelle at award shows because we will

 

Louis Virtel Well, by the way, I just wrote the SAG awards and Janelle was so dynamite. She was my favorite presenter of the entire night. Yes. Like made it actual, like some people, you forget that like pattern is an art form. She comes up there and I was like, no, now it’s all yours. It’s like I didn’t write it at all.

 

Guy Branum Yes, exactly. She’s such a great stand-up comic. And for such a long time, women who were great stand up comics didn’t get ours, didn’t to truly break through and become icons the way that the dudes did and found work as writers or found work is actors. And I was so excited to find out that you were doing a comedy special. What was that? Most people, like a lot of people don’t know that you were a stand up. What was the journey like?

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, that’s wild. First of all, I want to say, going back to how you opened this, that it was really meaningful. I was being a smart aleck, but it was very meaningful when you said to me, I’d like to show, I watched your show because I co-created the shows that I was given based on my standup personality. And they were really important to me because it was a representation of the women of my generation who were taught you have to do it all. Like at the time we’re little, you got to The closing bit in my act was about, you gotta raise a family, find a cure for cancer, have a flat stomach, can’t do it all, this is why we’re bitches. But that idea of balancing work and home life had not been on TV. There was either family shows or work shows. And you’d always see like a woman with a briefcase going, oh, today was a beast. And you be like, what’d she do again? And I said, that’s not the experience of anybody I know. So when people found that show and responded to it, It meant a lot to me because I created it. So thank you for that. I wasn’t trying to be a smart aleck when we met.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I give you permission to be a smart out to guy. Okay. All right. Well then, yeah.

 

Guy Branum Keep it going. One of the things that truly amazes me is like, cause your show followed Roseanne, right?

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yes, we were on after Roseanne and, and by the way, Roseanne in those years was she was top 10 show every year for a decade, right?

 

Guy Branum And you held the audience very well.

 

Lisa Ann Walter We actually built on her audience for a number of weeks that we were on.

 

Guy Branum And it’s just really amazing to me that Abbott has now been on for like five seasons and we have not seen that companion, the ABC be able to produce that companion. You know, like another show with a comic, a show from one of your guys’s writers and stuff, like. I think Scrubs might do it. Oh, that’s.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, because I mean doing and following Tim Allen show is I think where we are now I think coming up in this season. We’re gonna follow scrubs. That’s the reboot of scrubs, which Tonally is different from ours, but it’s enough of a kind of a weird vibe and it’s funny Yeah, I think I’ve watched the new one and I think it’s good. So

 

Louis Virtel We like that combo. How much is watching comedy a part of your media diet? Like, do you find yourself needing to, like, be like, who else is out there? Like, who else is out there?

 

Lisa Ann Walter Like, half-out comedies or, like, comics? Anything at all.

 

Louis Virtel Like anything at all, but really TV comedy.

 

Lisa Ann Walter This is wild because my ADHD brain is like I have to finish the thought that was over here But it ties in what you were saying. So watch this.

 

Louis Virtel Ha ha ha ha

 

Lisa Ann Walter Next. I should have done a stand-up special when I first got to LA when I was first like, oh, she’s the next person we’re going to offer a show to. I used to joke and say like, oh, they’re handing out shows to comics like Tic Tacs at the airport. Not true. You were very lucky if you got that brass ring to create your own show. And I had like an hour and a half solid, Not an hour and a half of fumphering. Like an hour and a half that I could plan on where I knew where the applause breaks were, where the standing ovation breaks were. I got to standing o halfway through my show when I couldn’t stand up back then. I should have done one then. But, and like I got be friends with Whoopi Goldberg after I did a movie with her. She introduced me to Caroline at HBO and was like, we need to give this girl, we need strong women doing specials. And I’m sitting there like, ha ha ha, you know, whatever. I should’ve. I shoulda said, yes, we should do that. Because I was one of the top women at the time. And people now don’t even know that I did it right right, so I didn’t do it back then 10 female comics in the country that people knew their name. Right? Right. There was like, besides the- Paula Poundstone.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, Margaret Cho, yeah.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Margaret was kind of along the same timeline as me. Jeannine Garofalo got to be known because then she did movies.

 

Louis Virtel Sandra right now

 

Lisa Ann Walter Who else was there? Cedarburn Heart. There was like, not that many. Right. So getting one was really a big deal, and what I was doing was different from what almost every other female comic, besides Roseanne, was doing, because I was talking about having kids and being married and trying to make a long-term relationship work and all that, you know, happy horseshit.

 

Guy Branum Rounded and cerebral.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Thank you. And also, you know, ended with a bit about a blowjob to a hairy guy. You know, wasn’t that cerebral?

 

Louis Virtel That’s exactly what I get in my head

 

Lisa Ann Walter It was a thoughtful bit about a hairy blowjob.

 

Guy Branum Well, OK, one thing I find fascinating about your career is because I’m a little bit older and so I didn’t connect with it. But the way that, like, for millennials, there is just an immediate love and adoration of you from Chessy and the Parent Trap.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah.

 

Guy Branum And I just what is that like negotiating a world where so many people when they were seven were like, I wish I had a friend like this

 

Lisa Ann Walter Oh, it’s so funny and people will come up and immediately start apologizing. The apology comes first. I’m so sorry. And then I know it’s going to be something beautiful. Yeah. And then they tell me their story or I get it a lot of times, you know, on social media, I didn’t feel connected. I was gay, I was different. My parents divorced, I was unhappy and you made me feel loved. And I thought if I could just get a hug from you, everything would be okay. And i’m gonna make myself cry. I want to manipulate myself. But I would say you I don’t want to bother you and I know you’re doing your thing, but and I’m like you would be surprised at how not bothered I am by that like I have kids to ignore me This is fine. I love the love and it makes me feel wonderful I think any actor if you are lucky enough to get a role that has Impacted people. Uh-huh. Well, I’m not trying to say I’m Gandhi like I’m You know, I did something that made people feel a little bit better Which at the end of the day, when I got on stage the first time, I made people laugh and cry in the same show. I’m like, this is what I wanna feel forever. I wanna be on the stage looking at people and making them, seeing that I made them feel.

 

Louis Virtel And also, by the way, clearly, this role does have an iota of you in it, like the empathy factor. So it must feel extra proud. It’s like you do see something about me in this.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Oh, 100%. And like the stuff, I think people respond very much to the scene where she says, I am Annie, and the response of Chessy to her and the immediate love and yeah, and I’ll give you a behind the scenes secret about that. We were doing that scene for over the course of I think three days, I did 72 takes.

 

Guy Branum Uh huh.

 

Lisa Ann Walter And there was a lot of different direction that they gave me. What they wound up with, I love. I mean, I appreciate the fact that Nancy Meyers was like so meticulous and brought it around to what it became. But there was minute there where I thought, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And I was doing all of this actory stuff, like before the threshold stuff, where you sit and you get yourself in a place of where you could be vulnerable to that moment. And all I could think about was leaving my daughter when I was on the road as a standup. I worked up until I had already had a son. I started doing standup when he was like a year old. And then my daughter was four years later. I worked until three days before I had her. I went back to work when she was five weeks old because we had bought our first house, $175,000 in Jersey. So I’m telling you, it was a nice house, I should have kept it because I could be making bank renting it. But I missed her so much when I would go on the Road. I mean, I was still nursing her when I left. Pumping into a Ziploc bag and putting it in the freezer at the comedy club. Like, this is shit that guys who are like complaining about their bad Denny’s breakfast will never deal with. I was on stage, like in the first time I went back, it was at Comedy Connection in Rhode Island. And I’m on stage and I’m talking to the audience and I was talking to them about having a baby. And I was like, I’m peeing right now. I was literally incontinent, leaking milk and peeing. Like everything was liquid. Um, but I did that because, you know, I had bills to pay, but when I would have to leave her, when I got home after being away for five days or four days, I would walk in the door and immediately smell her because we’re mammals. So I’m like, where is she? And I would smell her and run to her and smell her head and like breathe everything about her in. And that was the place that I was in before I would shoot those scenes for that scene, at those takes for that scene. And so that idea of missing this thing that, because I think Chessie is, those are hers, those babies are hers. And when one of them goes away, she misses it like it’s one of hers. She raises the other one like it was her daughter, right? So that’s where I was. So when people respond to it, it’s because what I was doing was real.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, you put it on the line. Jesus.

 

Lisa Ann Walter That was way too long a story, I’m sorry.

 

Louis Virtel I’m sorry you like

 

Lisa Ann Walter Bitch, we got 10 minutes. So let’s go.

 

Louis Virtel No, it was a fabulous story, fabulous story.

 

Guy Branum So how much have you been able to do stand-up over the last 20 years?

 

Lisa Ann Walter I did stand up, of course, when I got to LA and you have to do showcases and then the networks want to do a TV show with you, whatever. And then I was doing the show, like Quinta’s doing this. That was me. I was writing. I was on stage for every scene. If I wasn’t actively producing the show I was out promoting the show. I was flying to New York. I was going gigs all over the, not comedy gigs, but doing promotional gigs. And I had two kids. So I was busy. And so I did not do Stand Up then and I should have. I should’ve never let that dip at that time because then it was always a question of coming back into it and working up the material. Because my material was always based on where I was in my life. And to me, Stand Up is funny complaining. Like the comics that I loved when I was a kid were the people that were truth tellers like Richard Pryor. Like I didn’t respond to, first of all, there weren’t any female comics that you got to see. There was like… There was John Rivers and Phyllis Diller, and they weren’t talking about stuff that sounded real to me, right? So I gravitated towards the truth teller comics, and that’s what I always did. So when I got to a point in my life where I was like starring in a TV show, it was really hard for me to do standup that I thought was relatable.

 

Guy Branum Yes

 

Lisa Ann Walter I’m not talking about a regular life. This is a weird ass life I’m living. Then my husband came out to me in between the first show and the second show and he didn’t want the kids to know. He didn’t wanna our son to know because he was not comfortable yet with who he was, right? So he didn’t want him to think differently about his father and I couldn’t really talk about my life and avoid that entire part of it.

 

Guy Branum Yeah.

 

Lisa Ann Walter So I didn’t do it for a long time. I started—.

 

Louis Virtel Oh interesting

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, I started to do it again. And then I got with the father of my twins. And he didn’t think I should do stand-up because he thought it wasn’t feminine. Oh, God. Yeah, and told me that. And if I showed you a picture of him, you’d be like, okay, I get it. I get why you were a moron. That’s right. Yes, sir. You have a question about why this is a comedic voice that I connected with in the 90s. This is becoming very clear. I’m gonna show you a pictures when we’re done with this. And you’re gonna be like. I’m going to give up my comment.

 

Louis Virtel For good. I get it more. Yeah, exactly.

 

Lisa Ann Walter And he said, I should be doing standup. I’m the funny one. And I’m like, tell one joke on stage.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that reminds me of my rule I have about supporting comedians which is make me laugh once. I can’t root for you unless you make me laugh one time. Thank you.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Thank you. Yeah, exactly. Like I realized

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Yeah, that I remember.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, exactly. So, um, so I didn’t do it when we were in that relationship. And I also had twins and we were, I was doing, um a show, an hour long show in Vancouver and you know, hour long, it’s just, it’s a bigger day. It’s like, you’re gone for like 12 hours. And then I’m coming home and nursing twins. Like I just didn’t have the time in my life. Since then, I’ve never stepped out of it. I’ll do it more, I’ll, do it less, but I’ve, never stepped. Out of it, Sherri Shepherd was the one who liked dragged me back into it and said, come on, we’re going out, you’re going to gigs.

 

Louis Virtel That doesn’t surprise me. She has that real like workhorse like let’s work every day on something energy.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah. And when she was starting, she was a baby, baby comic, like had done only a few gigs. I met her at a charity event, um, in 98, 99, like really young. And she got my number and stayed in touch with me and like called me for advice. And then we wound up doing a show together, a little NBC show and we stayed friends and went through divorces together and, you know, all this stuff with, um her getting the job on the view and So we stayed friends all the way through. When she moved back to LA is when she like said, you taught me how to cook.

 

Louis Virtel You would be such a good view panelist. You’ve got the exact energy. I would be. And also you’re actually up on things and get ready for this know about things. Oh my God. How about that? Yeah. Right? Which brings me of course to, we have to talk about Jeopardy. Guy and I were talking about before we got into the room that first of all, if you’re not aware, at least Anne Walter won the tournament of Celebrity Jeopardie, which qualified her to play in the actual tournament of champions, which is by the way, I mean some of the hardest trivia ever on television.

 

Lisa Ann Walter I’ve never seen a harder show than that tournament of champions game that I played.

 

Louis Virtel Never. The actual game you played was extremely hard. Thank you.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Because I don’t think I’m the smartest person in the world. My dad was a NASA physicist. Like, there are smart people in the world that I don t know anything near what they know. And some people have those brains where they remember everything. That’s not me. I know stuff because my mother was a teacher Stuff. So I know about music and all this. I traveled, I know about art. I don’t know that stuff. But I watched Jeopardy. And I can win a regular game of Jeopard, no problem. Yeah, I’ll get the final Jeopard when all the those smart people get it wrong. That game was bullshit. Yes, that was bullshit and also I’ve never seen a I’ve never seen a heart again.

 

Louis Virtel Very little pop culture, too. None, none.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah there was a map category

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, which by the way, this is a hard take. Math is not trivia. No, thank you. It is academic in a way that is not trivial. No, that’s a formula. Yes, dang. We were talking before you came in about how the celebrities who have done best at Jeopardy are all funny. It’s like, back in the day, like Michael McKean, Jane Curtin, and Cheech Marin were the big Jeopard player, and recently is Kamau Bell, you, and what is it about, Ike Barron-Holtz, of course. What is it about being funny that makes somebody a good Jeopardly player?

 

Lisa Ann Walter I think that it’s the other way around. I think smart people are good comics, because you have to pull, if you’re a good comic, your references are pulled from everything. I say stuff on stage all the time that I know nobody knows. I’ve had people go, nobody’s gonna get that reference. I’m like, that’s on them. I explain it in the joke, contextually they’ll get it. And then if they still don’t get it, I’m, like, and I know that because I’m a Celebrity Jeopardy winner. I think when you’re smart, you’re quick. And you’re already, your brain is already, maybe it’s a little bit to do with ADHD. There’s, you’re pulling from the wealth of your information all the time, right? As you’re thinking up tags and references and literary connections and as a writer, you do that. But I think that that is what makes for a good, quick, funny voice. And so then you, of course, do well in jeopardy because you’re all ready smart.

 

Louis Virtel But it’s always like dramatic actors feel fucking thrown up there. They’re like constantly startled they’re in a game, whereas someone like you is like next. Yeah.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, and also if I’m going to be crap at the game, which I was, I had two killer lines. I had to really good laugh lines, but I don’t know if they kept it because I can’t watch the episode.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah, I lost my episode and I did pretty well in it and I can’t watch that. Yeah. Yeah

 

Guy Branum Ken is an amazing broadcaster, and it is so delightful to watch how good he is at that job, considering that his performance experience is just being on that show a bunch.

 

Lisa Ann Walter 100 100% I think what makes him good at it is he has the gentle nature That Alex Trebek had a little bit, you know Just funny enough but not trying to be all quippy breaks and funny or or more interesting than the gameplay and he has a Love I think for the people playing it. He’s been there. So

 

Louis Virtel He is unusually rad. Like, I just like his politics, I like where he’s coming from. And also it’s like, it’s the rare case of like Charlie getting the chocolate factory, right? And so it’s just like so amazing. Like, when has that ever happened in pop culture? You know?

 

Lisa Ann Walter Never! You like root for him.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Guy Branum We are in this moment of like getting to so much else is bad that we’re just so happy when a nice thing happens like everyone is just so happier for those heated Rivalry boys, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my good, new stars, Imagine

 

Lisa Ann Walter Imagine. Look, they came from nowhere. The week before, the guy was waiting tables, was he? Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right, yes.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, so you’re just like, yes, good, and stay famous.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Yeah, keep it up.

 

Lisa Ann Walter And keep wearing the sheer shirt. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Now, Lisa, we have to talk about Heather’s the musical.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Oh, please do.

 

Louis Virtel I, of course, I assume you are a huge fan of Heather’s The Movie. Of course, yes. I am, of of course Winona Ryder, filled when it comes to little women. Heather’s secondarily. Tell us about this take on Heather’s, how it evolves the story from the, I guess, 1988 original.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Geez, you know what, I haven’t, I’d be talking out my butt if I was trying to say what made it different, because I haven’t seen it. Oh wow. I haven’t seen it, I’ll see it the first time live. I mean, I’ve seen portions that they sent me for my character, but I will see the whole thing all together when I show up from the start of my rehearsals.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, wow.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, so I don’t have a take on it yet, but I mean I read it. I read the book I read that script and it was You know was interesting because I remember the movie very well because it was so different.

 

Guy Branum Yeah.

 

Lisa Ann Walter It was so different from anything that we had seen. You know, we all saw movies that were like, you know, oh, this is a mean girl teenager, and this is the one we root for. We all saw those movies. Cruel Intentions, a little bit different. Heathers comes out, and you’re like, these people are homicidal. Like, then it became wild. But the facts of what happened in that movie, and the accidental death, and then they’re gonna take a play on it, and then the guy that you root for in the love triangle turns out really dark, and then you’re wondering why is he dark, Peace out. You know, you’re rooting for them, even though it’s really bleak and, you know, it was different from anything that we saw. And then when I read the script for the musical, I went, this explains it to me so much more than what you, it basically said to me. There is damage all around. All of us are dealing with the damage that other people don’t know about. You don’t why that bitchy girl is that bitch girl. But I bet you a funny uncle touched her in a bikini area. You know, something happens somewhere that turned that person. And our job is to try to lead with our own heart and kindness. And I just, and that people are ridiculous. Because my character is ridiculous. But you root for the kids to win, and I think that that’s what speaks to, from what I understand, is a rabid young audience that goes to see the show. Because they’re dealing with stuff I didn’t have to deal with growing up. I didn’t have school shootings when I was growing up, we had nobody paying attention to us, that’s who we had. We had me running through a field with a bumper bottle of Old English 800, my mother didn’t know where I was. And cops would watch me, just like, eh.

 

Guy Branum Look, Gen X periodically we got abducted, but, you know…

 

Lisa Ann Walter We made it home!

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Yeah, you guys invented the term strangers for me to learn. I’m a millennial. I can get taken.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yes, exactly. My mother did warn us, but that was pretty much it. She was like, don’t do this. She never smoked, but I’m going to do a smoker voice because it’s funny. Don’t go with that guy because you’ll never come home. And then you just spend your whole life going, okay, I guess that’s what sex is.

 

Louis Virtel Now, my last question for you, and this is a holy question, I don’t ask this to just anybody. What’s your favorite actress performance ever? If I asked you to name a movie performance you constantly go back to, what is it?

 

Lisa Ann Walter I think, um… Jesus now I can’t remember the name of the movie Peter O’Toole’s the king Katherine. Oh have a lot of winter Why winter Katherine Hepburn in lion in winter?

 

Louis Virtel 68 best actress, a tie. Thank you. With. Barbra Streisand.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Cate Blanchett in the first Elizabeth movie. Yeah. Yes. Is magnificent. I’m going to, you know, what’s going to happen is I’m gonna leave here. Yeah, yeah. And think of 20, I mean.

 

Louis Virtel Well, Catherine Hepburn in the line in the winter, that line about it’s 1066, we’re all barbarians or whatever, 1185 or whatever.

 

Guy Branum You do give out, give up, give in!

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, I’d hang you for the nipples, but I chuck the children. I can’t. I mean, there are newer movies that I love the performances. Tell me one of yours that’ll make me think of one of mine.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I’m obsessed with Sandy Dennison, who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, and also Elizabeth Taylor, who is afraid of the Virginia Woolfs, and Maggie Smith and the Prime of Miss Jeanne Brody is my favorite one.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Fun fact, when I was a kid, we used to go see drive-in movies. That’s what you would do with your family. They’d make a big bag of popcorn in a brown paper bag and you’d take that and eat it, because we were cheap. And there would be two movies. There would be a movie that they played first that was like Song of the South or something by Disney. And then you were supposed to have an intermission where you played on the swings at the drive-ins, and then you’re supposed to go to sleep, and then another movie would come on. The first boobs I ever saw in a movie was the private Miss Jean Brody. And I was supposed to be a slave. I watched every movie I shouldn’t be watching in between the cracks of the car seat. Remember there were two seats that would go down like this so I would watch in between cracks because I didn’t want them to know I was awake. I watched a bunch of movies like that. Oh God, who was the other one? Who was the another one? There was another historic movie that I absolutely loved.

 

Louis Virtel Ooh, I feel like I can suss it out. What would it be? Maria Falconetti, a passionate Joan of Arc.

 

Lisa Ann Walter No, but that’s a good movie. Oh, I like your taste.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Oh, please. Yeah, that’s all I have.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Modern? What about a modern one? What’s your favorite modern one. What’s your favorite modern one?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, uh, Cape Luncheon and Tar, probably. Yeah.

 

Lisa Ann Walter That was raw. That was wrong.

 

Louis Virtel And a lot. Yeah, she was a lot that movie is a beast.

 

Lisa Ann Walter She’s probably my favorite actress in American, not American, she’s Australian, but favorite actress working in English today. I told her that. I got to meet her and I told that. And she was standing next to Bill Nye. Not the scientist, Bill Nighy. Oh yeah, they were in no time.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, they were in no time to scandal together.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yes, and they were standing talking, was at a bafta tea, and I saw her and I went, I never approach people. I’m always embarrassed. I think they’re going to be like, and that happens occasionally. De Niro did that to me. I was heartbroken.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, he seems so friendly. And- I’m kidding.

 

Lisa Ann Walter He had just been talking to Sheryl Lee Ralph. And Janelle needed help with her dress. We were at the Critics’ Choice Award. Janelle need help with the dress, so I wasn’t able to get over when Sheryl was talking to Nidhi, because they played together in Mistress, right? So I thought, if I get there, then she can introduce me and it won’t look weird. But I made it after Sheryl left. So I had to go, I’m in the show with Sheryl. And he was like, and? But I don’t approach people. I did approach Cate Blanchett, and I said, you’re my favorite actress. You know, working today. And then, of course, I had to look at Bill Nye and go, you’re great, too. Which is ridiculous. He is, he is great, he’s one of my tops.

 

Louis Virtel But not the favorite. Was that movie Living? Yeah, he was great in that. Yes. No, that was a very qualified answer. You seemed so terrified to answer it, and you answered it brilliantly.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yes, and she does other like she played Kate Hepburn in the aviator and she does American accents really well which a lot of them think they do and they don’t. You know there’s a lot a Brits that are you know everything is theirs like every vowel is elongated to kingdom come. We don’t all talk like that. Take it easy.

 

Louis Virtel I wish there was a way to do a podcast with working actors about the actors they cannot stand, but there’s no way to it. Like, you know, it’s like you can’t out yourself. It’s like, oh, they suck every time. No.

 

Lisa Ann Walter And I don’t even know if there is anybody I feel that way about like I always look at it like I mean, maybe there’s a couple but most people I look at them and go They’re that’s not their fault. Yeah, right. No, like they shouldn’t gotten hired for that or they got

 

Guy Branum direction or whatever. Hepburn in the early 80s talking shit about Meryl Streep is hilarious. Wait, wait, wait.

 

Louis Virtel Is she the one that runs the gamut of emotions from A to B?

 

Guy Branum No, no, no. That was Dorothy Parker. That was the Dorothy Parker about, uh, about Catherine Hepburn. That’s what I’m talking about. Catherine Hepburne. No, she was like, you can see all the gears moving all the time.

 

Lisa Ann Walter I got to tell you something. Let me tell you a little something. Here’s a favorite performance of mine. Miss Meryl Streep, who cries in every accent.

 

Louis Virtel I know what it’s gonna be.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Everybody loves-

 

Louis Virtel I knew it, I knew, I said it, yes, yes.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Anyway, I hate you, I can’t stand you. The performance! I watched that, and I’m like this. Meryl Streep with the crying. You lost your kid, the dingo. I get it, okay, yeah, whatever, out of Africa. On and on and on, and on. I could not be less interested. I’m, like, she cries pretty. Beautiful, she’s got a patrician nose, great. She does she-devil. I’m this. Bitch, get out! Fucking 88, we didn’t know that she could do comedy. Like we had, we had. And not just comedy. Physical. Yes. Insanity. Yes. Just unhinged, and the accent, the weird, the character within a character, because you know that’s not her. Right. The crazy, she’s Jersey playing, she’s Martha Stewart, I guess, or some version of that. But it’s just, it’s a performance beyond.

 

Louis Virtel It’s also one of the rare Meryl Streep performances where you can picture the other people they would have like organically chosen, like someone like Goldie Hawn, or Beth Midler, or something. And then you see her do their thing, but like bizarreed the fuck out. So it’s just like, there’s a lot of, we’ll say 4D chess going on with her fucking brain. It’s like she could zoom into any role in any movie and be like, watch this, you know?

 

Lisa Ann Walter And then after that, she did Postcards from the Edge, which is one of my favorite books. That was a Carrie Fisher book, for those of you who don’t know, about her dealing with rehab and getting clean and sober and everything. It was beautifully written, very funny and dark. And Meryl Streep played the shit out of that too. And Shirley MacLaine, as basically Debbie Reynolds.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no surely it has two movies she should have gotten nominations for and didn’t that’s one of them and being there is the other. Yeah

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yes, yeah, we’re falling off the bed masturbating hilarious. I mean also it’s like

 

Louis Virtel What other movie is like that? And she is like essential to the tone of it. Let’s do more movies. Do I have to leave now? I know it sucks. I know.

 

Lisa Ann Walter I mean, we should have been doing this, but we were doing all that boring stuff about my career at the beginning.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, oh god, but you brought up the line of winter damn it look

 

Lisa Ann Walter Look, this is a good movie, right? Did I pick a good one? Oh, yes.

 

Guy Branum This is really fun, but the important thing is, we are getting Lisa and Walter stand up in a special.

 

Lisa Ann Walter We are.

 

Guy Branum 30 years after I thought I wasn’t getting any more of it. And that’s really exciting. That’s really exciting.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Thank you, Guy. Thank you. I appreciate that so much.

 

Guy Branum And also, let me just say that, like, the counterpoint to you meet Deniro and it’s not great is 15 years ago, I walked up to somebody I admired and I said something to them. And then you have been like a friend to me every time I have seen you since. And I like, it really is magical when this town is good, you know?

 

Lisa Ann Walter You know what, I so badly want to say something else, but that was such a good button. That was such bring it home moment. I’m not going to step on it. And thank you.

 

Louis Virtel Lisa Ann Walter, thank you so much for being here. Check out Abbott Elementary Wednesdays on ABC, in case you haven’t heard of it. And on Hulu the next day, her stand-up special is also on HULU this spring. And if you’re in New York, check out Heather’s The Musical starting April 27th. That’s coming right up.

 

Lisa Ann Walter Yeah, I don’t like to sit down.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no, brilliant. Correct. We’ll be right back with more Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD]

 

Louis Virtel It’s time for the saltiest part of the episode. It’s keep it. Guy, what’s rankling you?

 

Guy Branum Ummm in honor of Lisa Ann Walter, saying, they probably don’t want to do stand-up anymore. You guys can keep it. For so many years, there have been amazing stand- up comics, like Michael Patrick King, the creator of Sex and the City and The Comeback, the co-creator of The Come Back, people like Lisa Ann Walter, so many great comics who were women or queer, who there wasn’t a space for in stand-ups, who didn’t have, like Margaret Gomez, who is still doing amazing solo shows in the Bay Area. But who got to seven minutes on television and then they didn’t know a next step for a lesbian Latina. And like so many of those people, there was just the assumption, oh, she’s happy now, she has a writing job. Oh, she is an actor now, she like, she happy doing that, she doesn’t want to do stand up anymore. And so many those people were great comics and I did not get to see comics like me. I didn’t get to the comics who inspired me go all the way, the way that the straight dudes got to because those people were tired of fighting. Too much of a fight and had another way of making money. And like ended up like doing that because it was the thing that this industry had for them. But like saying, oh, this is probably their preference. Like, let’s not do that. And let’s keep our arms and heads open for the people who are doing it. And in honor of that, I wanna say Jackie Cation has a new special on YouTube. It’s called Altercation. And it’s so much more political than Jackie Cations has ever been because this world demanded it ever. And a prodigal daughter by Taylor Tomlinson is on Hulu, I believe. And she is somebody at a very different point in her career, but she is someone who made the conscious choice to give up industry success, to be able to focus on and double down on standup. And I love, and I’m so proud of both of them, and I love and I am so proud of Lisa Ann Walter for saying, this is part of my artistic journey. This is a part that is unfiltered through somebody else, and I wanna do it. NO!

 

Louis Virtel I mean, I routinely call comedy, this sounds self-pretentious, but it’s just true, the blues of comedy, which is just like you get up and you have to expose something and hopefully the truth resonates or whatever, but it is very intimate. Even if you’re playing a character to a certain extent, it’s still like a mano a mano version of comedy and it is like speed dating or something.

 

Guy Branum Right, and comedy, acting, so many of these other things where we’re more comfortable seeing women perform, it isn’t about their unfettered perspective. We don’t adore unfetter perspective from women, and also we have been weird about it from queer people, and I hope, but now that we do have successful queer standups like Mateo Lane, I really, really hope that people like John Rigi, who wrote on the comeback and was a great standup, like if he decided, like in his third act to drop an hour, I would be thrilled.

 

Louis Virtel I do feel like in general there needs to be more respect for the other comics though. You know, it’s like there’s some lingering thing that like stand up as a young person’s game that they have to have that Eddie Murphy feeling of just like erupting out of nowhere, pissed and brash. You know where it’s, like, I think, I mean, I don’t want to call people weathered, but I think like earned experience makes stand up a lot better most of the time.

 

Guy Branum Yes, it’s like, I love Maria Bamford, and every time she has like a major life event, I’m like, we’re gonna get something amazing out of it.

 

Louis Virtel Do you know what I honestly think about a lot is Maria Bamford gave a commencement address one time where she talked about all The shows she’s been fired from and one of them was like hot in Cleveland Yeah, and I just remember thinking what on earth were you fucking doing in the hot and Cleveland writers room? But this is what you’re talking about like we don’t know what to do with certain people and they’ve got to work And it’s just like this whole like finagling of where do you put your weird motherfucking voice and sometimes you have no choice But to like strike out on your own

 

Guy Branum But also a misuse of the people who weren’t weird enough and could fit themselves into that system that Carol Leifer was the equal of Jerry Seinfeld and always has been. But she ended up in Reiner’s rooms and Jerry Seinfeld got to be one of the biggest comedy stars in the world.

 

Louis Virtel One of the biggest Pop-Tart cinematic universe creators we’ll ever have. And now it’s time for my key pit. Keep it to whatever is happening with this fucking Chappell-Rone situation. I am on record as saying I think people treat celebrities horribly. I think that people are resentful of the fame of celebrities and when they get the chance to meet a celebrity, what’s going through their mind is I know who they are and they don’t know who I am, and I’m gonna change that for good. Like there’s literally a resentment of the perks that fame has, that they get to walk through life being known while the rest of us are stuck in the dungeon or whatever. Anyway, so this story has emerged that this soccer player, I’m going to say his name is Jorginho, I don’t watch the sport, I don’t watch. I played super soccer on SNES in 1992. That’s the last time I clocked in with the sport. Anyway, his young daughter and this guy were at a hotel in Sao Paulo. The daughter who’s 11 years old sees Chapelrone, has a titter about her, is a big fan, allegedly maybe runs by the table to see if it’s Chapelrone for real. And then moments later, a security guard, who Chapelrone says is not related to her security tale, goes up to her and says, stop bothering the celebrities, gets up in her face. And also, by the way, this woman is, this 11-year-old is actually Jude Law’s daughter. So she. Wanted to go meet Chapel Rowan and instead she encountered a cold mountain of a man. You knew he would get there guys, you knew he was like this is a long walk and why. Anyway, a celebrity having a security guard who says something rude to you should not affect what you think of the celebrity. I’m sorry, be smarter than this. You’re 11 years old. When I was 11 years, old I knew not to meet Madonna. Do not meet Madonna. If you love Madonna and what she stands for, what she says to you one on one DOES NOT MATTER!

 

Guy Branum But also your dad is Jude Law and your other dad is a huge soccer star in parts of the world that care about soccer, like maybe understand a little bit more, like, and also this is somebody who has access of a sort that most kids don’t of being able to like walk up to her breakfast table and stuff, but also it’s an 11 year old. Like you understand why she was sincere in that moment. And I really, really enjoyed Chappell Rhone’s like video. Uh, explaining the situation from her hotel bed. And like, people get really upset about the way that this very young star has been managing her fame. Um, but I really thought that a moment like that was really sincere and lovely. Shows like the fact that she can manage this stuff.

 

Louis Virtel Also, it does seem like a weird situation. I kind of can’t tell who knew what the entire time. Right. But the amount of people who have come out of the woodwork to be like, well, it’s fame, you have to take the good with the bad. No, you fucking don’t. No you don’t, you can be like I don’t want to deal with this. And it’s like maybe you risk certain people feeling alienated. But it’s, like, again, I think people underestimate how familiar people feel with celebrities because of social media, because of the world we live in. If you wanna recoil from that altogether, I think it makes perfect sense. And just because she’s the only one speaking out about it, doesn’t mean she’s only one who feels that way.

 

Guy Branum It’s weird because I do think, you know, being able to deal with the public, you have to manage those interactions because you understand them better than this person who’s really, really excited that they’re getting to meet somebody from the other side of the screen. You know, but also, and I am, let’s be fair, barely famous in any way. But years ago when I was on Chelsea Lately, I was at WeHo Starbucks, the one. Yes, the Leslie Jordan Starbucks, yes. Openly weeping about a boy, openly weep about a boy, and then somebody comes over and is like, God, I love you and Chelsea lately. Can we take a photo? And there’s that interesting moment of like, do I take the photo with like snot coming out of my nose and my eyes all red and just sort of like have this moment, which is what I ended up doing, or do you say like, not right now? And- But even the not right can set people up. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You know what I mean? I just think like, again, I said, when people go up to a celebrity, they feel like they don’t know who I am. I’m gonna change that. And also they think like if this doesn’t go where I can lord it over them. I think that.

 

Guy Branum That’s part of what they think. I think it’s hard. And I think, it’s really like setting into relief this moment of like, they’re a big deal and I’m not. And if I can make them like me, if I create an impression, good or bad, that sort of like puts me into the constellation with them. And I understand that instinct and inclination, but also like, Chaperone has to lead a life. And I Think our understanding and relationship of people who are particularly racist. God, I’m worried for those heated rivalry boys.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I feel the same way like

 

Guy Branum They have almost.

 

Louis Virtel Get them actual Secret Service.

 

Guy Branum And they don’t have a ton of money. Like, they did a Crave Canada show. All of the money that they have gotten has been from upscale clothing brands having them put on their signature jockstrap. But I worry about, and everyone is treating them like they own them. And I really hope that they, having each other and having good, solid Canadians around them will be able to manage them through this. But it does feel. Like dangerous territory.

 

Louis Virtel I also just want to say I want to specifically direct my keep it at this soccer guy. It’s like writing in all caps on social media at Chapel Rowan, stay losing. Stay losing at everything you do. You’re not a fan of this woman and yet you’re directing a mob at her because she didn’t have precisely the interaction your daughter wanted to have with her. Fuck off.

 

Guy Branum Because this is an interaction between a random fan and Chappell Rowan. It’s an interaction between like a celebrity adjacent’s person not getting the thing that they want out of it.

 

Louis Virtel Right, it’s an ego hit for him. Yeah. Yes, that’s part of what it is. Anyway, glad we settled that. I’m sure everyone will agree with me on social media. Can’t wait to meet new friends.

 

Guy Branum Also, I just want to say if I am weeping in public, come over, let’s talk about it.

 

Louis Virtel You won’t believe what I’m thinking about. I mean, it could be the 1980 best actress, right?

 

Guy Branum But it’s the thing about being our level of famous is that, like, it’s not meaning you can’t get through the airport, and when somebody comes over, they probably do have a good story.

 

Louis Virtel Also, I feel like for someone like you and me, again, whatever we are, like H-, I don’t know what number it is, but it’s like people usually want to come up to me and talk about pop culture, which is different than like there’s an aura about you and I just have to be in it, which what these people have to deal with.

 

Guy Branum You want to know what I’m already always ready for? What your book meant to me? Like anytime anyone is like, I read your book. I’m like, so I guess I owe you 12 hours of community service because you spent 12 hours listening to my audio.

 

Louis Virtel By the way, guy’s book, if you’ve not read it, fabulous, my life is a goddess. When’s the sequel, sweetie?

 

Guy Branum Uh, we’re working on it, babe.

 

Louis Virtel Oh I love having a snotty interaction with you. That was almost Andy Cohen-ish. I enjoyed it. Our greatest journalist. Oh no, I mean he has a vibe where there’s certain people like Howard Stern when celebrities sit across them and then stories they’ve never brought up before just fall the fuck out.

 

Guy Branum Get stuff out of people that no one else could. I want him to go back to his Today Show roots and just do one political interview and then go back because he really does, he understands.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, and he’s always a fan, but never impressed. Yes. I’m trying to discern what that energy is that gets those stories out of people.

 

Guy Branum The thing is, he’s involved, he knows everything, but he’s not always charmed by it or he’s charmed what he wants to be charmed. I really do think that him getting the Housewives to Housewife on a Traders reunion while nobody else is is very important.

 

Louis Virtel No, I, again, I feel like Margaret Mead when I watched that shit. I’m like, what, what spider dance is happening here to make this occur? Anyway, we can dissect that some other time. Guy Branum, thank you so much as always for joining us. Thank you for having me. Anything else you want to recommend right now, since you’re chock full of recommendations these days.

 

Guy Branum Well, you know, uh, my solo show be fruitful is going to be part of a Netflix is a joke on May 9th. So if people want to get tickets for that, wouldn’t it be nice to sell out? Wouldn’t it’d be nice just have people at Netflix? Oh, Guy sells things out.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Okay, exactly. Let me just mumbling that in my sleep. I would love to. Thank you for joining us and thank you to the terrific Lisa Ann Walter for joining us as well. We will see you next week on Keep It. Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can also subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Keep It is a Crooked media production. Our producer is Bill McGrath, and our executive producers are Louis Virtel, Ira Madison III, and Kendra James. Our digital team is Delon Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, Rachel Gaewski, and Jay Banks. Thank you to David Toles and Charlotte Landes for production support every week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroot. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.