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This week, Louis is joined by TV writer and podcaster Brandon Kyle Goodman to discuss the latest episodes of The Traitors, The Pitt, and their favorite sexually liberating movies and shows. Louis is also joined by Bill Skarsgård to discuss his new film Dead Man’s Wire.

 

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TRANSCRIPT

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel And we’re back with an all new episode of Keep It. I am Louis Virtel and we are still stuck in Alan Cummings mansion. I think we have 35 more weeks until we figure out who is or isn’t a traitor. And by the way, do we even want to get rid of the traitors? I want someone to just sit down and figure out the strategy of the show, but we’re going to get into that today. We have somebody who is just amazing at podcasting. I’m thrilled you’re here. It’s Brandon Kyle Goodman, who is also a VO artist extraordinaire. Love hearing you on Big Mouth, et cetera.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Talk about it. Tell me more things. Tell me things you like.

 

Louis Virtel What a fabulous performer, et cetera. Are you a Trader Super fan or fan at all? I am, since you-

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I am. Since season one, I was obsessed with it and now I’m really excited to see where it’s gone. I always say that I love two parts about it. It’s the game, but also the fact that you’re watching people come to either redeem, resurrect, elevate, or establish their careers. And I think Pedro Parks really set us up with that.

 

Louis Virtel No, that’s a master class. Yes. Because I’m not a Housewives person. But I am like a big brother person. I am. Just reality shows where people are vindictive to each other and want to win. Absolutely. That’s what I want. Which is Housewives. Yes. But that’s the thing. It’s like Housewives is that. And you realize those people speak this language even better than survivor contestants a lot of the time. I mean,

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I mean, that’s why we loved Phaedra so much because she was able to really actually play the game better than the gamers, quite honestly, because it’s all about talking. How do you talk? How do position yourself? How do present yourself? It’s everything.

 

Louis Virtel And marketing a personality too. Like I feel like survivor people, it’s all about trickery and like one-on-one deceit, whereas the housewives people save half of their game for facing us.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman It’s about the confessional. I mean, quite honestly, if I’m honest, I really could do away with the missions on Traders. I’m there for the round tables and I’m therefore like them buzzing around the kitchen and also obsessing over salmon. They love that salmon. Yeah, right. Every morning they’re like, where’s the salmon?

 

Louis Virtel I do have to say though a breakfast bread does speak to me like that would keep me satisfied in the house. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So, Traders, we’re now headlong into the season. And if you haven’t seen the episodes yet, maybe fast forward through this. But honestly, again, what is wrong with you if you’re not watching this up to the minute? Come on.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Come on. Absolutely.

 

Louis Virtel We finally got rid of Michael Rappaport. What is our postmortem on him? Are you traumatized? This is somebody who would just speak and speak and speak, often screaming. And eventually it was screaming only at Colton Underwood. Now I’ve wanted to do that, but not like this.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think that Michael is an interesting character. I think he actually is very entertaining, and he was a great villain of the season. It was his time to go, because it was starting to get uncomfortable, I think, for the audience and for the people in the castle. You’re like, I don’t like how uncomfortable everybody is, so he needs to go. But if it wasn’t for his personality, he was actually quite smart. Like he’s the one who called out that it’s one of the hunks, right? And it is Rob as a traitor. He’s the ones that I feel like was kind of picking up on who the traitors were, but he just didn’t say it. Are also. Some of the things he said, if a housewife said it, it might’ve actually came off funnier and better. I think he’s supposed to be on Housewives.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no, you’re right. I mean also it’s just like he didn’t know when to stop Yes, like it like he never got to the end of like his statement We all quote like a housewives. They know how to keep it clippy like copy

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, yes, he wants to keep going but he’s like if I can compare him There’s an Angie Kay on Salt Lake City and when she starts to see red she don’t stop she keeps going She keeps going she and Michael is very much that but it feels much more abrasive on on Michael Like I say, I like my white man my straight white men quiet and in therapy, you know, of course He’s he’s not any of those things. He needs to do that now.

 

Louis Virtel No, I also feel like he really is an actor where he’s kind of searching for he just needs to be given lines. Yes. You know what I mean? Where he keeps he kept like restating himself like 30 different times.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Commiserating commiserate commiserated.

 

Louis Virtel And it’s like and you also don’t know what that means. Oh my god to be called out by one of the traders I’m grammar Dog walks by a love Island cast

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Dragged by your scalp, loved by your edges. I will say, speaking of actor, my introduction to Michael Rappaport was Boston Public, which was one of my favorites. Him, Sean McBride, Loretta Devine, Shannon Leal, like that was one my favorite shows. And I loved him on that, but I don’t know what he does. What does he do now?

 

Louis Virtel No, I think he’s sort of adjacent to the Housewives universe somehow.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes. I mean, iconic Kenya and versus Michael on the watch what happens live was an iconic moment. But I’m like, what is your job? Is he like a sports commentator? Like, do we know what he does?

 

Louis Virtel Do we know what he does? No, yeah, right. Jiffy lube. I have no idea. I have not guess.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think he came here to redeem his career or resurrect it is what I’m saying, but he was also a little too into the game.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no, but I mean like now we need like a good actor without that personality to come in and do the same thing Yes, because it’s just entirely uncomfortable and also the other cast members really had no choice Like they couldn’t get anything done at the roundtable because of him It was like a hired chaos agent to make sure the game didn’t move any direction

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Absolutely. Even at the end, you saw that Alan Cummings seemed very exhausted by the end of that roundtable. Yes. He was like, UGH! Time is over! And you’re like, Okay, cool. You’ve pissed off the host. I think you gotta go, love.

 

Louis Virtel What did you make of Michael’s play on Colton Underwood, where he basically said, oh, you’ve kept a secret for 29 years, therefore you’re the least trustworthy person here. Honestly, a little funny.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Honestly, okay, that’s what I’m saying. If it came from a housewife, a good read, and if it wasn’t a confessional, a good read. But in this situation, it felt so cringe. But I’ll say this. Michael’s from New York. I’m from New york. And I do know that sometimes shit talking just goes a little too far. But I don’t want to excuse it, take accountability for it. But it’s like it felt like just some good street shit talking. Like riffing. Yeah. And like, you know, Colton could have came back with the jab. Not that that was his responsibility. But I think if it were another New Yorker, you would just come back with a jab. Or if it was a housewife, y’all would just be jabbing each other back and forth. But it was the wrong time, didn’t read the route. What I did learn from that, which I didn’t consciously recognize, is that that entire table is gay. Or gay icons. So I was like, oh baby, this is the wrong room to do this in.

 

Louis Virtel And he is the least gayest person imaginable.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman The least gayest person at all.

 

Louis Virtel You’re right. I’d never even thought about it. You’re right. There is a lot of There’s a lot of queerness on that table.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There’s a lot of queerness on that table. When they went around saying things like, oh yeah, you’re gay, you make your money from gays, you’re like, it’s just, he really, he fucked up.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Also, speaking of queer icons, I just want Kristin Kish to be right one time. Oh my god, lovely woman, great host of Top Chef. Never been wronger. Never been wronger.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Her and Tara. Tara won’t say nothing. Tara don’t know what’s going on.

 

Louis Virtel That surprises me a little bit. Tara Lipinski seems very shrewd and funny on the spot, and then this season she’s just like hanging in the background being like no idea what’s going on.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman She has no idea. Can I tell you my Tara Lipinski, Donnie Weir story? Please. I was on their show, Wedding Cake, whatever. My husband and I had to compete-

 

Louis Virtel I’m gonna believe this exists, okay.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman They hosted a show on I think TLC or something where bakers competed to make wedding cakes. So my husband and I were on that show and that’s how I met Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski. We chose a cake. I hated the cake they chose. It was all produced. It was like, ugh, I wanted this cake, but they needed that person to get eliminated. It was wild. But they were the lovelies.

 

Louis Virtel Wait, does that mean at your wedding you had a cake you didn’t want?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman No, we didn’t come home with us

 

Louis Virtel Are you saying, are you saying television is fake?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’m so sorry, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, it’s all fake, it all for dues.

 

Louis Virtel I have to say, Johnny Weir made me laugh twice less this past episode. When he walks up the stairs and he goes, he turns to the night statuary and he says, good night. I was like, what are you, like a British character actor? Who’s doing this?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think he’s so funny on the show and I want more screen time for him and Tara. And I want them to come back together a little bit.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I also maybe think people should be able to play as a duo.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Ooooooooooooooo

 

Louis Virtel Ooh, that’s a new pitch! Because like, I just, because both of them are like, they’re solo entity. I want them just like, you know, they are like Statler and Waldorf on the Muppets. You can’t have one without the other.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, yes. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Imagine just Statler. Oh my God. That’s so sad. So sad. You’d be like, oh, his husband died.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You need them together. You need together. Also, I love the, I think it’s a Tara’s interstitial where Johnny’s a framed photo. One of them has a little framed photo, which I think is so cute.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, no, no. It’s nice. They are like the preeminent fag and hag we have. Yes, absolutely. Now that I think about it. Put that in the caption on the episode. Something that is really bothering me, though, is the way people are turning on like a character like Ron Funches. Just because, so he got one of his accusations wrong. I understand that that is like lightly suspicious, but that wouldn’t necessarily make me think somebody is a traitor. Let’s say, what does a trader actually do? It’s three people who are just talking with each other and deciding who to eliminate. They’re not going to go out on a limb in the roundtable and pick somebody and get all the attention on them and then look like an asshole when eliminate the wrong person.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Agreed.

 

Louis Virtel So the idea that people aren’t sitting around and immediately thinking, it’s got to be one of the quieter people in this room, or people who are steering the conversation or whatever. It’s not going to be people who, imagine Ron Funch is in as a trader, you think he’s telling his two other conspirators, I’m going to wildly go after somebody and be wrong and then risk it all, so I can be eliminated in the second week. Nobody’s doing the 3D chess to realize he’s probably not a trader even though I’m a little bit mad at him. Finally, though, Colton Underwood is on to Lisa Rinna, and I have to say the logic was the best I’ve heard this season.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Absolutely, because she does usually, she is overacting. And I’ve been saying that every time she walks into the breakfast, I’m like, it’s a little too much. And she’s, this is what a lot of them do. They like use their profession as a reason to say, oh, like Eric was like, I’m a musician. Lisa’s like, I’m an actress and they use their professions to kind of validate their position. And it’s like don’t do that because you’re actually going to screw yourself. What I do want to say about Ron though, I think Ron actually highlights a bias on the show. The show actually does, I think is a study in playground politics because Colton’s been wrong, but he’s still able to rally the troops. Ron has been wrong. And I think it’s because Ron is not a tall, pretty white boy. You know what I’m saying? There’s something about Ron just being genuinely a little nerdier that they’re not trusting him. And I also think that Ron is genuinely there to play the game because everyone else is a gamer or they’re a housewife, whereas Ron is a genuine comedian.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman And artist. So I think he’s actually think Ron’s a little too sensitive to be on the show. I think he came in thinking, oh, we’ll have a good time and I’ll be on, but like they’re, they’re all there playing reality show.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman And Ron is an artist. And so I think it’s.

 

Louis Virtel And he doesn’t have natural allies in that way, too. Like, he’s not on the same shows as any of these people. And he also is, when confronted, miffed. You know what I mean? Like, He comes back with, like, he is not retaliatory, but he is like, there’s some angst there that I think is rubbing people the wrong way, where it’s like, He is a smart comedian. He could be using his isolation to his advantage and endearing himself in a way, you know?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman But I think he feels, like you said, isolated, but he feels on edge because to be in a house with some housewives and some gamers 24 seven, and they’re always playing to the camera.

 

Louis Virtel No, totally I’m sure it’s like an inhuman

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I couldn’t even imagine Candice eating it up

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman He just loves it.

 

Louis Virtel I was initially feeling bad for Lisa that she was footing all the responsibility of having a personality this season, but Candice has been great. The casting of the Traders is actually the best part of this season so far.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman 1000%. They’re great traders. And I think Candice, again, again when I say redeem, resurrect, elevate, establish, Candice wants the Phaedra treatment. Candice left Potomac, she’s back and she even said in first episode, it’s called Traders. I’m giving you main character energy and she has delivered. Which is why I think she’s always talking. It may be a little too much, but…

 

Louis Virtel No, and again, it’s like people like this, I do usually feel like the faithfuls figure it out. Like they will settle on, oh, actually four different times you steered us to the person we eliminated and you had no real reason for it. Yes. Yes. You know, so. What?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman So she’s playing it smart, staying with Ron, kicking out Ron. How’d you feel about the Tiffany of it all?

 

Louis Virtel Tough. I mean, that show is my people. Tiffany’s from Big Brother.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman See, I’m not a gamer. I don’t watch any of those shows, so tell me.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Well, it just, I really admire the diplomacy it takes to survive on that show. And like, it’s so long lasting. I mean, you’re in that house for months, like 90 days plus. So it’s not just Alliance building. It’s figuring out what to do with the hang time of nothing at all occurring. So, it’s really maddening.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman It’s like no funds in there either.

 

Louis Virtel No, no. And again, I have nightmares about being in that house. I’ve literally had nightmares about I joined the Big Brother house and forgot to tell work.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman HAAAHAHAHA

 

Louis Virtel So it’s like lodged in here.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I love that.

 

Louis Virtel And then additionally, I have nightmares about not having access to Wikipedia.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Uh, I gotta know what’s happening, love!

 

Louis Virtel You know, like, oh my god, you know, who won that Teen Choice Award in 1999? I’ll never know. I have to wait till I get out of the house and Julie Chen Moonves will not tell you.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Waking up in the middle of your night cold sweats.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Oh, good. It was whatever. Gretchen Maul. I don’t know who was around that. But it actually requires a lot to survive on that show. And it’s so much longer lasting than Survivor. But when people all agree on one person being a little bit suspicious on Traders, they have no choice but to go for them. Because again, there are no clues. So the only weapon you have in your arsenal is agreeing with people for no reason.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman One thousand percent, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You know, so once the tide was turning against her, I was like, how on earth can she survive?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman She couldn’t survive it also when Eric said I’m a musician and I listen to pitch I mean it was like you you actually got the wrong black person because it was You know, you didn’t hear laugh and it was Candice But you know, it was really tough and I do I will say this I think because they all turned on her and she’s She was so vocal about needing the money. I think they should all cut her check. Sure I think it’s all just write her a little check. Just take a little Venmo My man we got you out here’s the money, you know

 

Louis Virtel But also horrible show to be on if you need the money because everybody is eliminated for no reason. Stop pretending you can earn it

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman 1000% isn’t it kind of makes it like the Hunger Games to me is like you you come on these shows Because you really need money and that’s I think a reflection on us as a society. No

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean like truly go on Wheel of Fortune where if you win one round, you at least get $2,000. Yes. You know what I mean?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Just, we need to do better.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, this episode, we have a lot going on. I can’t wait. First of all, we’re gonna get into The Pit, which I don’t even remember the last medical drama I watched very seriously. I did watch Grey’s Anatomy once upon a time, and I watched ER before that starring, of course, Noah Wiley. We’ll talk about why this show is so addicting. I can imagine turning on this show and not watching it till the most recent episode.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman 1000 you know what I mean I can’t wait

 

Louis Virtel Elsewhere, we’re going to talk about being liberated sexually in TV and film, a specialty of yours.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That’s mine! Yes! I love to talk about that!

 

Louis Virtel So we’ll talk about like which titles speak most to us in terms of interesting depictions of good sex, sexual exploration, et cetera. I will take us back to the 60s and 70s because I don’t know where else to take it.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Get away. That’s just who I am your expertise. Okay, great

 

Louis Virtel And our interview today is with the bone-chilling, but excellent actor Bill Skarsgard of the Skarsgård clan. His dad, of course, Stellan Skarsgaard, just won the Golden Globe for sentimental value. And we’ll talk to him about his new movie, Dead Man’s Wire, directed by the fabulous Gus Van Sant. And then, how about we’ll just hang out and have fun.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think that’s a great idea.

 

Louis Virtel And we’ll do that right after this on Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD]  .

 

Louis Virtel The Emmy and now Golden Globe winning drama, The Pit, is back for another day in the ER. Last season was sort of a sleeper hit, but Brandon, when did you join The Pit Hive, if ever? Because I have to say, I’m getting pretty obsessed again.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Three days ago, love. Oh, you did? Three days because I was coming here and I wanted to watch it. I love a medical drama. I’m a Grey’s Anatomy Girlie down. I haven’t watched in the last couple seasons, but that has been a big show to me and I wanted to the pit, but there’s a lot of TV and so I just hadn’t gotten around to it. And so this weekend I was like, I’m going to sit and I’m gonna watch all 15 hours See you soon, oh And I did it! Eight o’clock my time, it was eight o’ clock their time. I felt very bonded, trauma bonded with them, if you will. So I’m obsessed. Also, Pit High, they need a better name for them, right? Is it Pit High? Pit Crew? The Pitties?

 

Louis Virtel I need them not to pit out, but…

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, yes. When did you join the

 

Louis Virtel Well, no, I had heard that the pit was so good that you had to watch it was like adolescence like I just watched it immediately I read the critics I like knowing what allegedly matters and then I will go and either disagree with them or honestly usually

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Agree, yes.

 

Louis Virtel So I watched The Pit in real time, episode to episode as it aired before. And I just want to say, it’s a show I didn’t know I needed, but my favorite thing about it, and I wish I’d come up with this myself, but I just saw an article over the weekend that brought up this term, competency porn. What you want to watch on this show is people who are not just good at their jobs, but like, I think the thrill of The Pit is things like traumatic moments or messing up or failure. Are still wrapped into the day-to-day lives of these people, and they’ve incorporated it in a human way into the way they work. It’s just part of their lives. So not only are they good at their jobs, they’re good at being bad at their jobs. And so I think that makes the world feel like a safer place. When you’re like, these adults do the hardest work on the planet, and yet they even know how to fail well.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, the student teaching of it is a really beautiful element because you can see the degree or the range of knowledge in the space and also people becoming their best selves and also understanding that even people who are great will fuck up, which I think is a beautiful reminder for ourselves as viewers that even if we’re great at something we might fuck up and that’s okay. It’s how you bounce back. So

 

Louis Virtel Totally. Yeah. And the student doctors, as you said, they come in with some knowledge, they’re just done with medical school, et cetera, but you’re watching their brains be molded into how the rest of their lives will be. And that’s also interesting because they think they know a lot. They’ve been told they know about their, whatever, Ivy League grads, et cetera. But they’re now like fish out of water suddenly and you’re talking to that patient about this once difficult issue and seeing that the, I’m an intellectual, but I still have to learn something in a really like person to person way is very engaging.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah!

 

Louis Virtel And in a way, one of my best girlfriends at home, Rachel Fields, has this complaint about rom-coms, which is, do we have to get to the problem? Like, can’t we just have a good time and watch these two people enjoy each other? I kind of like on the pit, like on first season, I liked it way better before there was the mass shooting. Like, I kind just wanted it to be, you know, we’re doing our jobs and that alone is engaging, etc. Even just seeing the day-to-day, minute-to minute work of these people. You just want to be there with them, I don’t know. It’s weirdly comfort viewing, even though it’s also so gruesome.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman It did eventually become like Love Island where it can kind of play in the background and people are just kind of talking like, oh, this is like interesting. But I also will say it gave me so much respect for the doctors because the amount of jargon, the actors and the doctors, because the about of jargons and acronyms and words, I’m like, I would never… You do not want me to be your Dr. Love. I would be never be able to remember any of this. Yeah. Mr. Coppola says they’re the P-P-Polarsis? What the f-

 

Louis Virtel And it just like falls out of them like auctioneer style.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I mean, the cast alone deserves Emmys for the fact that they can memorize those lines and memorize all those diseases and illnesses and the acronyms. It’s wild.

 

Louis Virtel I think a part of the comfort of the show also in regards to that is you never watch somebody think too hard about what they have to say Yeah, like they always just have it. It’s right there Like I’m I assume in real life a doctor may take an extra beat or two to like deliver the extremely long jargon They have to deliver not on this show like even like the students like there’s kind of a beat or something, or somebody interrupts with what they have to say, so it all feels like a fast moving play at all times, even though that’s obviously not how real life is. My best friend who is a heart surgeon says the one thing that is, or the two things that are not realistic about the show is when they do CPR, like you have to go so much harder than what they do on the show because you cannot fake that. Got you. You know, like as actors, you cannot like.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You can’t break somebody’s ribs for real. I guess not.

 

Louis Virtel Not yet.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Soon, soon.

 

Louis Virtel The Shandaverse will figure out a way to break that sound.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Set. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel And then also he goes, nobody’s writing anything down. You know, it’s just like people standing around a gurney, like yelling things at each other. And it’s like, well, this is pretty important. Maybe we should. Though this season they introduced like an AI system that’s like taking notes.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Dr. Al got that AI system that kind of fucks up a little bit, so I’m excited to see where that goes.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, and also it’s like the fact that it fucks up at all like maybe we should just not use it Maybe we should just not use it.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I mean, we should not use it at all. Yeah. Yeah. Who’s your favorite character?

 

Louis Virtel I am figuring that. I mean, I have to say, I grew up watching ER. I watched the live ER episode when it happened. Oh my god. I’m sorry, the live ER? There was an episode where you watched it live in real time. Oh. Oh yeah. Okay. I’m 100,000 years old.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There he is!

 

Louis Virtel Um, uh, but on that show and the thrill of that show is similar to this one. You are watching just competent people do their jobs well. And then on the side, there’s some romantic drama actually prefer the pit to ER in that way. There’s way more soapiness on ER than there was on this show, I think.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman E.R. Grey’s Anatomy and I may have that soapy like outside life. Quite. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Quite. Yes. Yes, namely, especially Grey’s Anatomy.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That’s actually great, they always fuck in.

 

Louis Virtel But I didn’t realize how much I love Noah Wiley. Daddy Wiley? Because he never won the Emmy on that show. He was nominated a few times, but the storyline rise was always more about George Clooney, always about Julianna Margulies and Anthony Edwards, but he is fabulous on the show.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman He’s incredible on this show and like I call him Daddy Wiley because he has the perfect amount of receding hairline, the perfect amount of grays. Also to me, he’s like a soft Chris Maloney. Chris Malone is like Dom Daddy, Noah Wiley’s soft daddy. I’m here for it all. We need a chart. We need a chart.

 

Louis Virtel We do need a charts.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah, with all our daddy

 

Louis Virtel The range of softness. Yes. Yes, I guess Chris Maloney does go pretty hard. Oh my god You ever see him in a movie called white bird in a blizzard. No by Greg Iraqi. Anyway, he has like a This is a spoiler. The characters revealed to be gay in a very shocking way at the end. Go ahead and see that

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That might, that might turn me on. Okay, thanks.

 

Louis Virtel A sequel to sort of his Oz days. You know anything about that? There we go. Yeah, so I do love him. Honestly, I miss the doctor they don’t have anymore. Which one? Tracy, a feature from last season? Oh, Heather Collins. She’s so good. I don’t know what it is about that actress, but there was something about her resting energy that like set the tone for the show in a way.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There was, to use the word again, there was a softness about her where you felt comforted. I felt like she was in control and I like that she was kind of his antagonist a little bit, but also not quite like she supported Dr. Robbie, but also was kind of a pushback to him and I liked their dynamic.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, but it wasn’t so adversarial that it was, like, not believable. Right. Like, she was still professional, et cetera. I, of course, love Catherine Lamaza as the charge nurse.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh, she’s great. Okay. I was watching Dana

 

Louis Virtel Dana is her name Dana by the way, I literally know none of these characters names. It is so painful to have to remember them

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I was watching my husband goes, she sounds like Dorinda. And I was like, oh my God, she does sound like Dorina.

 

Louis Virtel It also kind of has the this thing going on, you know?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, yes, yes. No, I love her. And I also love Dr. Mohan. I really love that they’re giving you these light storylines that address kind of hospital bias or… That the show has such a multicultural cast, but it’s not… The storylines aren’t rooted in that. But they do have these little moments where we get to talk about those things. And I really like that. They just kind of let these characters be who they are and be smart. I’m also obsessed with Dr. McKay. I don’t know why. Fiona, I don’t remember her last name.

 

Louis Virtel Fiona Dourif, who you might know from the Chucky movies because her dad is Brad Douriff, who is Chucky. Wow! Oscar nominee for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You better know all these things. You are my pop culture guru. May I call you my Louver? Might I call you my Louver?

 

Louis Virtel I have to tell you, I’ve gotten that before. Okay, here we go! I’m gonna call you Louver for the rest of the show. Oh, you know what? Let’s go. Yeah.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah, I’m obsessed with her and this season her hair is a little darker this season. Yeah, which I’m like, is that a plot point? I’m excited

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. I’m excited. She has just the right amount of, did something crazy happen with you at one point? Yes. Because she’s like, she seems like she’s gotten it together, but it could all unreal.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman All unravel in a moment’s notice. I’m very excited to see if it does. Also, she literally says in episode one, like she needs to have sex or something. I’m like, okay, something’s happening. We’re gonna plot something in these 15 hours.

 

Louis Virtel You know one way the pit is not like ER though? Tell me. How about that fucking dick that just pops out? That dick! Excuse me. First of all, original recipe alien. Like flying up. I couldn’t believe they showed it. Also, it’s like, I know it’s clearly fake, etc. Yeah, but they’re holding that thing. I suddenly became like Rick Baker, like makeup guru. How did they create this thing?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman 1000% I was like, what’s the prosthetic? How are the conversations? What’s the intimacy coordinator? Like what, like all of, I want to know all of the politics around this dick that won’t go down.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, this guy took a whole bunch of Viagra or something and it was up for hours and hours. Or something, and it was like up for hours and hours.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’ll tell you a story. I once took TRI-MIX because I was out. Oh, huge in the gay community. Huge in the, you know, so like that injection in your dick, and I was terrified that it would not go down. It didn’t go down for quite a few hours, but eventually it did. But that, the show unlocks fears for me, because I’m like, that could happen, that could happen. That’s what it looks like. I had no idea that they would have to drain you for like hours.

 

Louis Virtel Oh excuse me, that was my favorite phrase, bone-chilling. You watch all of this blood go into a pit and suddenly it’s like the lava in Bowser’s Castle. It’s rising and rising. It’s like we have that much blood in us, let alone there. In there? Yeah. In that? That’s crazy. I was like I know nothing about the human body.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I have no idea. We’re not doctors. I didn’t know. I had no idea that that was in the day.

 

Louis Virtel Trimix is something where like every time you’re like whatever at some gay pool party or whatever five different people have stories about how like You should or you shouldn’t or whatever. So it’s like this like we’ll get into that some other on your podcast What other medical dramas medical shows have you ever been into

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Honestly, I’ll be— It’s really just great. It’s great with my introduction. Because I don’t like horror, but I will watch you cut somebody open, you know, if you’re going to save their life. Otherwise, I don’t want to see it. Like, saw— I saw Saw once, and I will— I’ve never been the same.

 

Louis Virtel I wish I could relate to horror people. I mean, like, I like classic horror, like I love like Halloween and Scream or Rosemary’s Baby. Yeah, but like anything where it’s just, the bloodshed is even apart. Like, I don’t even like David Cronenberg. Like, why?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I don’t want any of that. I’m alive and loving it. And I’m always like, people are like, you should watch it, you’re not going to hold me in my dreams, so please respectfully back off, you know? So I want the joy or I want you to cut them open and save their life.

 

Louis Virtel Which reminds me, I just heard the song, do you know the Billy Ocean song, Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Into My Car? But sing it for me. Okay, well, I unfortunately don’t have the timber, but I was just thinking that is an awesome thing to say to Freddie Krueger. Get out of my dreams, get into my car!

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Just like that, yeah

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, that’s how I asked Freddy Krueger on a date. My producers are committing suicide. I did watch Grey’s Anatomy, namely during the main Izzy moment, like right at the beginning.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Can I say something? I fucking miss.

 

Louis Virtel It’s Katherine Heigl. I-

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I was just thinking that, like a couple weeks ago I was like she was actually quite incredible and I don’t know what happened, you know, all the drama around it, but she was quite an important staple of that show and was brilliant on it.

 

Louis Virtel We kind of gave her like weird rom-coms after that. Yes, 27 dresses. Yeah, is anybody really living for that? I don’t know. But she kind of had the Julia Roberts thing of she was relatable, but there was like an undercurrent of angst all the time.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, yes.

 

Louis Virtel Please, can we have that person back?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Just like kind of nice because you’re like, oh you’re not perfect like there’s a relatability, but also she’s like she smokes a little bit You know, there’s that energy

 

Louis Virtel I think, years and years ago, I was in Internet Magazine, and there was some, for the advocate, it was an anniversary party, and she was there, it was the height of Grey’s Anatomy, and I watched her smoke. That is how smoking is done. I believe it. Be a hard platinum Marlena Dietrich blonde, with a cigarette, a La Cienega, being like, where is my Range Rover?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I believe it! Yeah. I feel like she has stories. And I can’t wait for her to get a little older so she can really write a book and tell us the story story.

 

Louis Virtel She does feel like she’s due for a book.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You know, just like a, I don’t know, a tell-all or like that, just that era of her, what happened.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, we stuck her on suits for a second, if I’m not mistaken. Oh, did we? Yeah. How’d that go? I don’t know. I don’t like to lose people to the USA network, you know. Her moment back in the sun will come. Who was your favorite? Back on train?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Back on Traders maybe. Maybe she comes back on Trader, redeems herself, resurrects herself. Resurrects herself.

 

Louis Virtel Now that’s too exciting. She would be too perfect. It’s a pitch. I also feel like I would be disappointed, like she wouldn’t be able to build alliances and I’d be like, God, this is just like show business.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman They would they would hold the whole thing against her. They were like, you did that one thing one time and we can’t talk to you no more.

 

Louis Virtel Right, who is your favorite Grey’s Anatomy cast member?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You know, my favorite was always Sandra Oh. Oh, of course. Of course. I met her a couple of months ago, just very briefly, and she touched my sweater. She said, I love your sweater. And that was like, that was a moment that I’ve been waiting years for. But I had this dream that, remember Dr. Burke, Isaiah Washington? Of course, yes. So I had his dream of one day coming on the show and I would be looking for my father, Isaiah, Dr. Berke, who’s gone.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, so you’re writing your own? I’m writing my own.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman And Dr. Christina Yang is there and she takes me under her wing and makes me a great doctor like her and then she leaves and I replace her. Now, obviously that didn’t happen, but I did pitch it to Shondaland once when I met with them in general. I said, you know, I have a storyline if you want to squeeze me in love.

 

Louis Virtel I just want to say you were pitching getting rid of Sandra Oh, really. I have a great idea.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’m bold, bold. Goodbye, Sandra. Hello, Brenda. You don’t say it. Whatever.

 

Louis Virtel No, one of the great travesties in Emmy world is that she never won for that show.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman For the show, yes. She’s brilliant on that show. One of the haunting scenes is her in that wedding dress trying to get it off of her.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God, yeah. Oh, brilliant. She also is like the Catherine Lanasa of that show, like the woman on the pit where it’s like a huge part of why I’m watching this show is not only do you kind of have everything under control and even though a couple other things go wrong, but I need someone to trust on this show. And you’re the trust of the show.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman How are you feeling about season two so far?

 

Louis Virtel The pit. Yeah. Great. Again, it’s like, I hope they don’t get to an overarching thing like a shooting where it’s, like, we queued this up with a couple of references early in the episode. Now this has become a traditional TV show. Yeah, because I kind of just like the minute to minute operations.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I wonder what the big, I’m sure there has to be a culminating event, I wonder what it will be.

 

Louis Virtel Well, that new doctor looking at that baby and being like, what the fuck is this baby?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh, Dr. Al, yes! And then they quickly got away from that, and then somebody brought it up really fast. Yeah, I’m like, there’s something, that baby…

 

Louis Virtel Something something is going on here. It was a little lol though when the baby appears and she stands there like she’s in a horror movie

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman she’s like moving on. Yes, didn’t she read a note or something or something that came with the baby? And then there’s that woman in the in the waiting room that they keep zooming in on.

 

Louis Virtel Yes

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman who I’m assuming is the mother. Because, like, all of a sudden, like the sound went out and then they pulled out the baby.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, they made a huge directorial decision, they’re like, notice this one.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Notice this woman. Notice this women. She might be important.

 

Louis Virtel But also you know what I think also like keeps me like propelled into the show is like there are no Recognizable actors from other things really and so it’s like I kind of believe the world more

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Sure, but can I shout out that Tracy Velar from the Steve Harvey show who played Sofia Ortiz is Lupe on the show She’s the front desk woman. Oh, yeah, I recognize her voice immediately. I was like, that’s my girl from the steve harvey show That was my show. That’s such a deep cut

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I don’t think I ever watched the Steve Harvey show. The Steve Harvey Show? That’s one of those shows that went probably for like 35 seasons.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Literally, it was with Steve Harvey said with entertainer WB. Yes, the WB absolutely was I remember that he would do the dance with the top hat. Showbiz. Showbizz! I don’t know if the show holds up, but I loved it.

 

Louis Virtel No, I missed when we all sat down and watched like half hour television together.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Absolutely. What was your favorite like back in the day?

 

Louis Virtel Uh, I mean like I was a big TGIF watcher.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Okay, so like The Family Matters, Sabrina. And I love The First Prince of L.A. Of course, what a great show.

 

Louis Virtel And what are we doing with Karen Parsons, AKA Hillary? We used, here’s-

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman for people who don’t understand.

 

Louis Virtel On every half hour sitcom, we used to always have a character whose whole thing was, my hair is amazing. And all the comedy revolved around that.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel And when she was like supposed to be independent one episode and she went grocery shopping in her parents’ fridge, so good.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman So good because she lived in the the pool house for a little bit. Yeah, she lived it. Yeah. Yeah right I will say this about like hillary alfonso tatiana like or urkel those actors deserved every me Because they were to play a carlton banks or to play hillary banks to play steve urkel And at their age when they were doing that was just brilliant quite honestly, it’s brilliant

 

Louis Virtel Also, Tatiana Ali, gorgeous.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Stunning, still stunning. Yes, looks the same. Yes, it looks the the same, I was on Abbott Elementary with her, in fact I was in Abbott with her and we were shooting across from the pit, and I didn’t know what the pit was, all these fucking people came out bloody as fuck and I was like, what’s that? And they said, oh what’s the pit? I said, what the hit? HAHAHAHA

 

Louis Virtel By the way, elsewhere on television, the show industry is back and this is a show, it’s in no way like Schitt’s Creek, but in that Schitts Creek people liked and then suddenly they were obsessed with it on season three or four, I feel like that’s what’s happening with industry and I’m way behind.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman 1,000% because I watched a bit of the first season and I was like, eh, I can’t do it. So I hopped out and then it became this big craze. And so I was, like, all right, I’ll go back to it. I did this with Succession, too. I watched, like the first two or three episodes of Succession and then I was not for me. And then I went back and you know what was the key difference? I put on the subtitles. Oh. Baby, you put on them subtitles? Because with the British accent and all the lingo, I was just like, what are they saying? But now with the subtitles, industry, I’m hooked. Succession obviously also hooked. But it’s so good. Yasmin, Marissa Abella, she is brilliant on the show.

 

Louis Virtel She was great this year and if you saw the movie Black Bag with Cate Blanchett and she also was really good as Amy Winehouse until the singing. Damn. Yes. But everything else was great.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman They made her sing live? Anyone else?

 

Louis Virtel I know they were going for the Renee Zellweger as Judy thing, which they didn’t know that lightning struck. Like literally maybe lightning has struck Renee Zelleweger, we don’t know. But she was otherwise good and a very difficult assignment.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman No, but she’s incredible on the show, Mahala is incredible on this show, I love it because they’re all villains. And so like there’s no, no one’s really a good person on this show and so there’s something just like interesting about getting to watch people in finance be as nasty as they are.

 

Louis Virtel And it also seems like all the audiences agree we don’t really understand what’s happening.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I can’t even explain what the show’s about, quite honestly. I just know that they’re cheating and they’re lying and they fuck in and they are in the most extreme versions of wealth are present and it’s just really exciting. And the ensemble is just really strong.

 

Louis Virtel I think one of the reasons we come back to episodic TV, actually reality TV too, is we want to see people connive well, you know, have something over other people. Because I think that’s like the dream we all live with. Like I just wish I had one edge over like the people around me in some way. And who really does? You know, but TV characters often do.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman TV characters can. I know, it’s like I could never sleep at night if I did half of what they’re doing on these shows. At all. So I like to watch it. It’s like, I’m living vicariously through these characters on screen. Also, I love that Myhala is like this American who shows up inside of this, you know, UK bank situation. And here’s what I really love about Myhalo. Is that it’s a black female character who is so flawed and so powerful and so fucked up and so strong. I think it’s, we don’t always get to see that character on TV for sure, especially not as the lead of the show.

 

Louis Virtel I think that’s my next project to catch up on this whole show.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Please do subtitles.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it also feels very just like for adults like a good show that like doesn’t feel like it’s condescending or like pandering to the least common denominator, you know

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman They do not care if you understand or not. They’re gonna keep going. So that’s why I say, captions, watch it.

 

Louis Virtel Anyway, we came to the pit to discuss Alfonso Ribeiro. I’m glad you could have joined us. All right, we’ll be right back with more Keep It, but before that, some quick housekeeping.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel This week’s guest is a singular actor known for the IT films, Nosferatu, Barbarian, and several other films that go bump in the night. He’s currently starring in Dead Man’s Wire, which is in theaters now. Please welcome to keep it Bill Skarsgård. Welcome.

 

Bill Skarsgård Thank you so much.

 

Louis Virtel For having me, man. How you doing? I am excellent. First of all, there’s a lot to talk about with this movie, but I had never heard of this real life hostage situation before and I did not know there is a ton of footage of this very memorable man that is highly quotable, highly erratic, and highly rewatchable. When you get a script like this, which is full of authentic dialog from a real person we can watch, and yet he’s also not a household name, what kind of creative license do you feel you’re allowed to take when putting this guy on the silver screen?

 

Bill Skarsgård Yeah i mean even the first time i read the script austin the writer had put in links to the actual footage uh as you were reading the script right so you would read the scene where tony is capturing his mortgage broker dick hall and he calls 911 and there’s a link to the actual recording of that phone call and this stuff that he’s saying in the scripts is in what he said in the actual phone call. And the script was just kind of littered throughout the whole script, reading it, to reference this to the actual case. So for me, initially, I mean, it was impossible to separate the guy, the character in the movie, the characters in the script, and the real life guy, and I’ve done some transformative performances before, but I was like, I don’t know if I can be this guy because we don’t look anything alike, you know, he’s. Probably a foot shorter than me and looks about 20 years older, even though we are much closer to the age, but you know the phenomenon if you go back in the 70s and look at 35 year olds and 40 year olds they look like 80. But I was wrestling with it, I was like researching him so much and listening to his voice so much, and tried to find his sort of cadence and the way he spoke, and because the words were verbatim, the that he said, it’s like it’s not dialog that’s normally written, right? There was a way he said them that I thought was great and I wanted to use it as much as possible and then I ended up getting like sort of in my own way I was like I can’t separate the two and I just felt like I couldn’t like 100% be this guy you know and of course I can but in my mind I was that’s the only way I can do it and you know I had conversations with wonderful director Gus Van Sand, and it got to a point where he was just saying… You know, all right, I think he was never worried and was just kind of let the real guy go and he gave his blessing of me using my own sort of creative freedom. So I wasn’t blocked in impersonating or mimicking. This was all in the prep, you know? So once we came to Louisville and we were gearing up to shoot, I was still kind of discovering him, but it wasn’t until the first day of shooting where I was like, okay, here’s. Our guy, here’s my guy, who’s heavily inspired by the real guy, but he is also at the end of the day a fictional character in a movie. So it wasn’t easy, it’s a great question because it was something that I had to kind of come to terms with, but it was important for me that you could feel the spirit of the real Tony Kiritsis in my performance, without it feeling… You know, contrived or fake or anything, that it felt like a real guy that you meet the first time you see the movie. But see the film first, and then you can go into the YouTube rabbit hole of looking up the real case, because it’s very fascinating, and the guy is very fascinating.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I think his authenticity shines through. There’s a there’s a bone-chilling and also just I’ll call it quirky quality that you definitely capture about this guy. But also in general, at this point, you are so used to dealing with unsettling material. When you read something that is either creepy or weird or just shocking in a script, do you immediately think, oh, this is an exciting moment for me as an actor? Like what is hard for you about translating unsettling material to the screen.

 

Bill Skarsgård I don’t think unsettling is something that really is a big driver for me. I’ve done things that are obviously very unsettling, but that’s not like reading a script and I go, oh man, this character is so scary in this scene, or unsettling. Or that’s not really what motivates me as much as. The complexity of the character itself. I do like the transformative aspect of performing. So like, okay, here’s something that isn’t even alive or it lives in the imagination of children and he eats them. So there’s like, whatever that is, it’s just like sort of a mental gymnastics of trying to figure out something that is that abstract and then what would that thing sound like? You know, how does a 350 year old zombie vampire move and speak and, and that stuff is just for me creatively so inspiring cause it’s just so much to do there, you know and discover and so many ways it can go wrong but also, you now, so many of just like, okay I hope that, you you know when you watch Nosferatu for instance I hope you don’t know that I’m in the film, you in transforming myself as much as I humanly can, you know? So that’s fun. And in the sense of Tony, it’s sort of an effective thriller in the since that, you have the Chekov gun in the first five minutes and it’s literally wired to the hostage’s neck. So it’s just good tension and thrill in that. And then the character, yes, it’s very unsettling. If you view the thing from the perspective of Dacre Montgomery’s character of like, holy shit. But from Tony’s perspective, he’s just really pissed off and feels like he’s reduced to this violent behavior because of life and how life has mistreated him and how these greedy motherfuckers have treated him. And he feels that, you know, in some way that the whole system is rigged against him and people like him. This is his 15 minutes of fame of just standing up on a soapbox and yelling at the top of his lungs how angry he is. And that I can sympathize with and certainly understand. I don’t condone kidnapping someone with a shocker on, but…

 

Louis Virtel Another treat for movie fans in this particular film is it’s set in the 1970s and it has so many Just the look of it like takes you back to not just that time But like movies of that time like the the the color palette like the drabness of that Time it just feels like you know, like network or dog day afternoon and we’ll get to Al Pacino in a second But I was wondering if on the set of this movie you had favorite 70s ish Props that were around because it’s really a feast for the eyes in terms of just that that drab, dank 1970s feeling.

 

Bill Skarsgård Yeah, I mean, production designer did a great job with a wonderful costume designer and Peggy and it was amazing working with her. I mean everyone involved, it’s one of those things when you work with a seminal filmmaker is that they can basically get whoever they want, you know, to work for them. So it was also we had a great, great crew of really talented people that were excited to make a Gus Van Sant movie. You know, I’d say that like, I mean, this was a very ambitious film. We shot it in only 19 days, you know, so everything was very sort of super quick, super high pace and that lent itself to this kind of kinetic energy of the story, that it is, you know, handheld to cameras. It’s very sort of scrappy visuals of the era we shot with these Ikagami cameras who or the actual… Tv cam recorders video recorders that they had from the 70s so when you watch the movie it’s you know it’s intercut with with this footage that looks like it’s a tv reporter’s footage of us in character acting it out so so that was very cool and you know as we were shooting at one point Gus was like maybe we should shoot the whole film and it got me i’m like oh let’s not go that far. But it was It’s a great group of people and when a great group of people come together, even though it’s budget issues and a short shoot, everybody just steps up to create that kind of 70s feel, scrappy feel.

 

Louis Virtel You also just brought up Gus Van Sant. I have to tell you, I was just looking over his filmography and there are certain people like Ang Lee or Mike Nichols where you look at the breadth of what they’ve done. And frankly, it just doesn’t make sense, the level of range. Like, you look, you wonder, you know, how can the guy who did Drugstore Cowboy be the guy that did Finding Forrester or Milk and now this movie? I was wondering if you could help understand. His versatility and what goes into what inspires him. Because if you just look at his films in the abstract, it’s like, I guess you’re inspired by everything.

 

Bill Skarsgård Yeah now knowing Gus and having worked with him it says a lot about the man you know like there are filmmakers that are almost artistically specific with their films in two frames you can go okay I know who made this you know whereas I think Gus is a very curious man and he’s curious about a lot of different things and I think that sort of the way he works is that there’s something about. The story that inspires him. Sometimes he writes it himself, and sometimes it’s a script that comes to him. So even that in its own right, some filmmakers only do their own written material and some never do it, you know, but he does both. And there’s something about the story, that activates something in him and he goes, okay, now I’m attached. And with this script, I mean, it was, he said it where it was like he was reading the script the first time and it came to him, like, really late, you So The first conversation I had with Gus, you know, he was like, I just read the script. He said to me, like a couple of weeks before, I was like wait, where they wanna shoot it in a month? So it was like everything about this movie just kind of came about very rapidly and sort of true to the kinetic energy of Tony, I guess. But yeah, so he pressed the link and heard the archival recordings of the 911 call and was like. Okay this guy is very fascinating and then that was his in so and it’s hard for someone to go like what’s the type of project that you’re inspired or like wants to do or like to your point if it’s like oh it’s unsettling i can’t put it into words you know what i mean like it’s just like that feeling that you get almost like kind of this like butterflies in your stomach of like oh man this is i’m getting excited about what i’m reading and that’s kind of It’s an indescribable thing. But for him, of course, it needs that. So Gus only follows what activates him. But then how he works as a filmmaker is like, he’s very calm. So his kind of Zen-like approach to life is also how he approaches filmmaking. And Decker and I would just have ideas and like this and this, like when we’re both very opinionated actors, then we got along really well, but we both have thought and prepared a lot and we bring that to the table. So a lot of the rehearsals was just like us kind of. Ranting about ideas of what the scene is and it could be this it could be that and he was sort of like calm and even like us finding the blocking he would never interfere with it and towards sort of when we were running out of steam he would kind of go okay well i think that is good and i think that in kind of gently steering it a little bit but never forcing it and he Was also discovering the movie as we were all discovering the movies i was discovering the character you know so like after the first scene that we did which is the scene where i walk into that. Meridian mortgage and I, you know, there’s this cute secretary, but she’s not the secretary that’s usually there, which is thing that we kind of improvised on the day, but it was just immediately it was like, okay, I didn’t know that Tony was going to be this funny. And then Gus didn’t really either. And he’s like, Oh, I guess maybe this is a comedy. And I think it is a comedy, I think, it’s a dark comedy, but I was, you know and it takes a lot of experience and self confidence to approach filmmaking that way, where the movie discovers itself, it finds itself, but he’s not a filmmaker that forces it into something. So it’s an organic way of the film discovers itself. And if you approach that way every movie is going to be different. And it’s very cool, it’s like I was very inspired by it.

 

Louis Virtel We’re just coming off the Golden Globes where we saw that your dad won the best supporting actor Golden Globe for sentimental value. And I have to say about that performance, that’s like the only performance this year where when I think back on it, even just the look on his face throughout that movie is so astonishing, like conveying so much about the fucking character. That’s like heartbreak. It’s just, it’s so real. It doesn’t feel like acting. It feels like you’re watching this guy live his life. And I was wondering what was going through your head watching this movie and watching this performance, if it surprised even you.

 

Bill Skarsgård Yeah it’s an interesting experience watching it because like last year i worked more than i think i’ve ever worked it was just on so i missed so much of like all the premieres even premieres of my things and i just missed a lot of it and then i just view i just see like all this footage of like alex and the salad just like having the time of their life together both promoting their films and I’m like stuck in, you know, some film set somewhere. But watching the movie, so I hadn’t seen it, everybody else had seen it except my other brother, Sam, who’s a cardiologist, by the way, and nobody speaks about Sam, but he’s the real pride of the family, saving lives. So Sam and I went and saw it together in Stockholm. And it was very sweet watching it with your brother as well, because obviously the film is so much about fatherhood and having a successful creative father and the daughters. I spoke to my dad when he was doing it and I spoke after he had done it and he came out of that production so energized and so kind of excited. My dad, he keeps saying, one of the greatest roles I’ve ever done, he’s done some amazing performances, you know what I mean? But it’s for sure up there, but it was a while ago where he got to just act and act in this way, you know what I mean? It’s a very different thing doing like Dune or Andor to like a Joachim Trier film, you know, where it’s like, not too unsimilar to Gus, I think, but Joachims, it’s all about the performance and acting. So it seems to me like there’s, in terms of an actor’s director, he might be the best one we have now, you now? So, you have such a great experience on it and me watching it with my brother, and there’s all this kind of meta. My dad is like, I know this has been kind of a running joke, my dad is nothing like this guy. Even though my brother Gusso called them up as soon as he saw it and he was like, do you recognize yourself? My dad was like no. But I didn’t see Stellan. I saw, I really saw the character he was playing. Like my dad was not that guy. I mean, my dad has eight kids and it’s like family is so important to him. So it wasn’t that, but there’s obviously elements in it. And then it’s just elements of like, you know, I have two daughters and like I’m working, you know. So there’s all of that, you being a self-obsessed creative is part of being a creative. You know what I mean? So that balance of like okay, don’t let your passion get in the way of the most important relationships in your life, obviously. I’m very proud of his performance. I love that a Norwegian film is just sweeping the awards the way it is, and him winning the Globe. I mean, it’s just cool, man. It’s just like, you know, cinema should be a global thing. And you know for very many reasons it’s like the Oscars and the Globes and that’s sort of the center stage of the world. But you know it’s an American thing, really. So, seeing movies from all over the world. Contending at that stage is just great because you know people should watch more films from all over the world. I think so

 

Louis Virtel I was thinking about receptions of movies and how fabulously they were taken in by not just the audiences who go to see these kinds of movies, but people who would normally not watch them. And when I think of Barbarian, the way people talk about that movie, who didn’t know what they were getting into going in and still came out loving it, even though it’s a very risky, one-of-a-kind movie, I was wondering what particular place of pride that movie has in your filmography for you.

 

Bill Skarsgård Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was one of those films that was like, Zach Kregger had written the script and he was so excited about it. We were like, shooting it in Bulgaria for no money whatsoever. And, you know, it had Roy Lee producing it, who’s sort of a titan in the horror genre. So it’s one of the things where it’s like, oh, you know, like, it’s a low budgeted movie shot in Bulgaria. And I’m like, no, you don’t Like, the script’s great, and they- it’s so effective. So I wasn’t surprised by the success of it, you know, and, but it felt like Zach’s thing. And he wrote this thing and we had fun. You know, I had, for me, it was just basically like six, seven days of work, you know? Like we shot, it felt that we shot a short film and, and of course the movie establishes the creepiness and the unsettlingness of it. But from my perspective, my character’s like kind of a really nice guy. It was just. Framed with the lens of like spooky music in the background but like what and i just love that like you like the first time you watch it you’re like oh no he’s gonna like do horrible things to this poor girl and then at the end it’s like no he was like just like a really nice guy so like re-watching it you know i don’t think my performance except for like the sound design and the way they shot it of like creating creepy atmosphere which is sort of the general state of Georgina’s character, but. But for me, it was just like, no, this is a sweet guy, and this is an awkward situation, and it’s almost kind of like a meet-cute, and then something horrible happens. So I had a lot of fun with it, and then the success of the movie really launched some of the producers, like JD and Raffia Boldelite, like it launched them big, and Zach massively launched him. So it’s always cool that you’re just a part of something that just kind of really launches great people and creative people, you know what I mean? Because like. That movie overperformed so much that like, you know, obviously Zach just did weapons that crushed it as well. And like, I mean, he’s just at the top of his game right now. And yeah, it’s always fun being part of a journey that new creatives get to launch their careers off of.

 

Louis Virtel Well, thank you so much for being with us here today. I hope people watch, one, watch this movie, but two, also watch you bring the human origin to Pennywise on IT: Welcome to Derry, which is a real pleasure to take in.

 

Bill Skarsgård Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, appreciate it.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel Now, Brandon, you are obsessed with sex and relationships, and even though my Midwestern nature prevents me from speaking about that thing, quote Lauryn Hill, I’m going to, as the kids say, match your energy so we can discuss our favorite sexually liberating watches. Brandon, first off, how do you define sexual liberation and are you liberated?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Ooh, I love that question, yes and yes. I define it as, compassionately giving yourself permission to explore your desires without shame or judgment. I think that people think sexual liberation is like, you know, getting a train ran on you or exploring all these kinks. But I think, you now, I redefine the word ho. I spell H-E-A-U-X on my side of the internet.

 

Louis Virtel How very Jasmine Sullivan. Yes

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, thank you. Thank you. And I say that it’s a hoe is someone who commits to the liberation of themselves and others by thoughtfully interrogating their relationship to sex using curiosity, communication and compassion. So in my world, I believe that you could fuck everybody in a room and not be a hoe. You could be asexual and be the biggest hoe because sexual liberation isn’t about penetration or fucking. It’s about your relationship to your body and giving yourself permission to explore your body. And find the desires that you want. And also create your own blueprint. Cause I think our society really wants to box people in on how they should have sex or how they relate to their body. And so liberation is saying, fuck that. What works for me, works for my. And what does work for me. I’m gonna be curious enough to discover that.

 

Louis Virtel That’s also an interesting kind of conundrum for gay men, I feel like, because when they’re all together, it’s sort of like the vibe is we all want the same thing, but it’s not.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, but it’s not but it is not

 

Louis Virtel And it’s sort of like, there’s not, it doesn’t feel like there’s much space to just say to yourself, no, but I want this one specific thing and it doesn t involve what these 99 other people may want.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes. Yes. It’s having the courage to not go with the tide, right? And to say, oh, I might want something different and that’s okay. If you want to be at a big sex party, great. Well, you might just go to the sex party and realize, I just want a watch. I don’t want to do anything. Or you might go, I actually don’t like sex parties. I prefer one-on-one. And giving yourself permission to go, oh that’s OK. Or even, I have this right now. Like when it comes to winter, I don’t like to have sex as much. And I used to, I guess, be critical of myself. Like, oh I should want sex. I should be having sex more often or whatever it is. And it’s like, no, you’re. Your libido may waver and that’s okay. You’re in eras where you’re like, I’m super horny and that okay. And you’re in areas where you like, I’m not horny at all and that also okay. I think it’s again taking away the shame and the judgment and allowing yourself to just let your body do what it wants to do.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. There’s never going to be a moment where someone’s like, actually, we checked all your notes and you’ve done sex wrong.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, exactly! But that’s what we’re all afraid of. We’re all afraid that we’re doing it wrong or that the other person is judging us or critiquing us or being critical of us. And if they are, fuck them, you know what I’m saying? But at the end of the day, it’s like, what do you want? And I think especially for queers, femmes, for women, we’re not taught to care about what we want inside of the bedroom. And so sexual liberation is really important for those demographics.

 

Louis Virtel Now, when you’re watching movies and TV shows about this subject, do you find yourself often satisfied with what you see or is it rare that you kind of get like a triumphant moment in this way?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think that there’s a lot of sex on TV, but a character that is sexually liberated, I don’t think there are as many. In one of the old school, I would say Blanche from Golden Girls.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You know, she was always freely… Yes, definitely. Absolutely, right? She was always really talking about her sex and the girls would like say whatever, but it was understood that she was a quote unquote, oh or whore, but she never had shame about it. She was like, yeah, I’m going to fuck. Samantha from Sex and the City, same thread, like she was the most sexually liberated of that group and she never any judgment or shame. I think there’s that one episode where Carrie walks in on her second dick in her office and then she felt shame about that. But for the most part, we understood that Sam… Was not ever ashamed and wanted to fuck as much as she could.

 

Louis Virtel I think you can’t get around sex in the city in this conversation because truly the four of them I mean obviously charlotte had more shame to work with I guess but like the four of them were working it out like literally the show was about like I was wrong that time I can do that again I’ll try that again you know it was like a sort of like finagling your way through sexuality and not, not just relationships, you know, like they obviously. Cynthia Nixon, Miranda, obviously in that show and just like that has gone through maybe the biggest. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, what even compares to that, you know, on television?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman It’s I think one of the greatest examples of it and truly as well because there’s community in it. Like that’s a big part of sexual liberation is that when you’re doing it by yourself, it can feel far more daunting. But when you are allowed to talk to the people that you’re close with about, I want to try this or I’m thinking about this or, I did that. Like Samantha says, I just taste the funkiest spud or whatever it is. Funkiest tasting spud. Yes. So the ability…

 

Louis Virtel Put it on my tombstone, yes.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman The ability to be able to feel comfortable enough to say that with your community, with your friends, is part of what allows you to feel that sexual liberation, and allows you explore that much more. One of my favorites, I would be, I think, killed if I didn’t say it was Big Mouth, which is the show that I wrote on and voiced on.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no. A fabulous show. I mean, allow me to speak on your behalf. It’s one of those shows where I can’t believe we haven’t had an animated show just about adolescence and like the chaos of it and the beauty of it. And how it all mixes together and like, you know, the person you become afterwards. We were really behind as a culture until we That’s how I think

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think so too. And I joined season four, so I was a fan before I joined the show. And one of the episodes, I think it’s episode three, that really hooked me was, Am I Gay? And it’s where Andrew, our lead, Andrew Goberman, played by John Mulaney, he watches the trailer of The Rock’s new movie as Paul Bunyan and gets a little turned on. And now is not sure if he’s gay and spends the episode kind of exploring whether or not he is. And the beauty of our hormone monsters is they never judge. They’re like, okay, maybe you are, maybe you’re not. How can I help you discover this? Which is part of that sexual liberation. At the end, obviously he discovers that he’s not gay, but the fact that the show even had an episode like that where they made it normal for a teenager to explore whether or not he’s queer, even if he finds out that he is not, that is incredible. I think it’s incredible for obviously those characters, but also us as an audience going, it’s okay to explore yourself.

 

Louis Virtel Do you have a favorite moment in the VO booth on that show?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes. One of them, I think, was when they introduced The Love Bugs, I got to record with Pam Adlon, and it was right before COVID. So it was like, it was my last time recording with somebody in a booth. Other than that, we were all very, very solo, but getting to play opposite Pam was just…

 

Louis Virtel She seems rad as fuck. Oh my gosh.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Coolest just like the dopest so that was my favorite

 

Louis Virtel And her daughter is popping off right now and I love L.A. And Marty Supreme.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes! Tell me any sexual liberating movies for you that you like or a TV show.

 

Louis Virtel You know what’s interesting is like well, I’m very obsessed with older movies Okay, like I love like the origins of finally getting sex in movies like in a realistic way Especially as it pertains to like a woman controlling the story. Yeah Absolutely. There’s a movie in the late 60s called Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Okay, I don’t know it.

 

Louis Virtel Which is Natalie Wood at, I mean, it’s crazy to say at her most gorgeous, but she’s so stunning in it. Diane Cannon, who’s a great actress, still with us. You can watch her on Instagram, sort through the sweaters in her closet right now.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I want to.

 

Louis Virtel But it’s a sex comedy basically about like musical chairs between these two couples sexually. And all I’ll say is it’s such a brilliant script and so both comedic and very dramatic, both Diane Cannon and Elliot Gould were nominated for Oscars, that when the movie ends with them playing what the world needs now is love, it is not too cheesy. I really, really recommend it. What’s it called again? Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. And the director of that movie, Paul Mazursky, is I think the number one most underrated director in the history of Hollywood. He also eventually did An Unmarried Woman starring Jill Kleberg in the late 70s. Another movie basically about sexual liberation, but it’s about a woman being divorced suddenly, like shockingly, and her figuring out what to do. Great movie. But he’s done a bunch of other fabulous movies like Enemies, a Love Story, just for example. But, I love that. People even made the stabs to say, here’s what’s going on in a woman’s head during these crazy moments where like her sexual liberation is at stake, her livelihood is at stakes. And it’s just brilliantly put on screen and thank God we had the caliber of actors we had at that time. Jill Kleberg is just one of the greatest actors we’ve ever put in a movie like that.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman The power of TV and movies is a representation because sex, it can feel so daunting and scary and so solo. And you’re like, no, we’re, we all are here because somebody fucked. Yeah. So we might as well talk about it and like own it and reclaim it. Did you watch Dying for Sex?

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I was gonna bring that up. We had Jenny Slate here talking about it once upon a time. What I love about that show also is it’s about Michelle Williams finding out she has this terminal diagnosis and then being like I have some sexual things to figure out about myself in the meantime and so she goes about it and then at the end of the show she basically learns about the dying process which like the show takes a turn again and is like revelatory in that way too. I loved her on that show because she was so You know, Michelle Williams has that resting sense of melancholy about her in most roles. But in this one, it’s sort of like she got, because her life was ending soon and she knew it, she got to be frank with herself in a way that was fun to see on screen, and realistic, I thought.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah, you know, why I love that show so much is one of, I think, my favorite examples of sexual liberation because to me, sex is the candy to talk about your body and your relationship to your body. And so like she has this terminal cancer and suddenly is like, what is this body and how do I bring this body pleasure? And so I think that’s the journey that you follow her on is it’s not just about her discovering, you now, if she had Dom with her neighbor, Rob Delaney, but also just like, What is my body and how can I use my body? And how can I beat in my body before? It’s gone. And I think that’s, that to me is my prayer for all of us, is that we know this thing you carry around with you all day and people don’t know if licking your ear turns you on, if rubbing your nipple turns you, like to not know what your pleasure points on your body is, I think robs you of getting to fully enjoy your existence. You got one life, one body. I think Dying for Sex does a really good job of displaying that and reflecting that.

 

Louis Virtel And I also think these shows are about like, to stop denying your self-awareness about things. It’s like, no, I do know what turns me on. And I can just indulge that or I can cherish that as opposed to being like, allow me to sort of adapt myself to something else, whether it’s a standard or another person or whatever.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman It’s needing to release the shame, needing to release the judgment. There’s so much shame happening outside of us. A lot of us, I know me personally, like come from religious trauma and religious shame. And so it’s like, at some point, when do we get to wake up and go, that is not mine. This, this body is mine and I do not need to be ashamed of it. Whatever it looks like, whatever it feels like it’s mine and I get to enjoy it. I get, to indulge with it, I get to explore it. Um, and I should, it’s your right. It is your birthright to enjoy and explore your body. You don’t. It’s not for somebody else. It is for you.

 

Louis Virtel Do you have particular movies you love in this?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman American pie. What, you know what?

 

Louis Virtel I like that answer because it is about like the adolescent exploring, I mean, it’s obviously very zany and like slapstick.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman One thousand percent, but it is, but they’re exploring, they’re figuring it out, you know, and they’re trying to do it without shame, but I think it’s one of those movies that did it for me. For me, I will say, one of my personal big sexual liberation moments was the Ax body spray commercial.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Do you remember that?

 

Louis Virtel Well, also just like has has like have pecs been more chiseled than in an s-body straight and have the bathrooms been cleaner

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Never. And in that black and white, I was like… It could be an operating room. Literally. Listen, I want to eat off that nipple. It was, it was, that was an awakening for me. And as well as, we talked about it earlier, but Steve Urkel becoming Stefan.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me, baby. Well, the number one thing I miss about old television is entire studio audiences going Like the audience must have been literally waving handkerchiefs or panties or whatever. Throwing panties, throwing panties. I assume that role was Jaleel White’s idea. Of course it was. He’s like, what if I was really hot?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I cannot be a nerd all the time, and it worked, it worked for me, but yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. What was the sexual awakening for you? Oh, let’s see. I mean, like everybody my age says this, but Ryan Philippi in the locker room in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Sure. Where he’s wearing like a chain. I literally, I’m wearing.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’m wearing this chain. You’re wearing this change. I’m wearin’ this chain! Um. Yes!

 

Louis Virtel I mean like he just had that like

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Cruel Intention

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. I came late to that, and also, that would have probably been more instructive to me because there was something kind of gay about that character.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There’s very gay things happening in that movie.

 

Louis Virtel Even in Dangerous Liaisons, like John Malkovich’s choices playing the same role are like, actually I’m a big bitch. There’s something kind of Samantha about the two of them.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh my God.

 

Louis Virtel And of course, this is, I was like 18 by this time, so it’s like a little late, but still resonates with me. Jesse Metcalf on Desperate Housewives. Really dark haired men with big eyebrows. That’s like theme in my life. Gardening, yes, doing some yard work. Baby, because I hate the yard. Get off the shears.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Lord knows, I can’t do nothing in that yard, so when you do it, love. Yeah, Jesse Beckham was fine as fuck. I remember the, there was such a craze around him.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. What’s he doing? It was exactly 2004. Yes, and he had a… Yeah, John Tucker must die. Thank you! And then he must die!

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Then you must die. Damn, oof. Shout out to Jesse Metcalf, wherever you are.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god. No, no. That particular one. Traitors! Bring it back to traitors! No kidding. He also had that look like very hot, like real-world cast members at the time. People named like Dunbar. You know what I’m saying?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That’s exactly what you’re saying.

 

Louis Virtel Particular 2000s kind of metrosexual hottest. Remember when we threw that word out there?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That is a wonderful word for a time.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I think Ryan Seacrest is still living it down.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman He’s holding it up on Wheel of Fortune.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh my god

 

Louis Virtel But if you belted your, like, hard guest jeans, you were a metrosexual.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman If you were in those skinny jeans with some good Chelsea boots. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, do we think the skinny jeans are actually coming back this year? People keep yelling at us.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I really hope not because they’re so tight and I really like to breathe.

 

Louis Virtel Literally my entire college experience was wearing jeans that felt like sheet metal.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman From, literally, like mine from Urban Outfitters and American Apparel were particularly sk-

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no, you could see the veins on my thighs. And by the way, my body was like all elbows. I had no business wearing skin tight anything.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There was no room for the ass in any of those jeans, but we were obsessed with that. They were borderline jeggy.

 

Louis Virtel And then jeggings did come out. Oh, please. No, jeggigs were a word I said seriously once in a lifetime. I have to put them on. If I’m going to be in society, I have to wear this jeggigings.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh, what a time. There’s also, I think Noah’s Ark does a great job. I mean,

 

Louis Virtel really have held on to that show.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah, it’s there’s a cult following around that show and I came out I think right after Sex and the City and kind of some vibes like four friends but black gay men um and the movie came out, I think at the end of last year and I had the uh the chance to interview Patrick Aiden Polk and there’s just some beautiful like again there’s never any shame around their sexuality or sexual orientation and there are some beautiful I think sex scenes as well where I’m like oh wow this is they’re exploring themselves they’re curious about themselves and they’re not uh Again, not judging it, not being shameful about it. So I think Noah’s Ark is a good one as well.

 

Louis Virtel You know what I think is maybe a little underrated in this regard, even though if you ask any cinephile they’ll put it in their top 10 movies of whatever the last century or whatever is. Do you ever see Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I have not, but I want to.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, well, it has the vibe of movies like The Piano or something where it’s a lot about being near a gray beach and And like lingering desires and like what’s going through, you know, it’s just like that these things we kind of associate with foreign films You know, there’s like difficult like there’s a mist between us all And what yeah, what is love etc. It is so fucking good. The acting is what makes it so important I think both of these actresses are just if you will on fire in this movie and where it ends up is obviously devastating, but by the end, I think what makes it an important sexually liberating movie for me is that you know both of them by the ends. I think that’s like the ultimate goal of like why we are obsessed with this world. It’s like, I want to get to know these people. It’s important. It makes them feel like complete people once we understand what makes them tick in this way. And that’s what makes is so devastating. It’s not just that this happened to a character, it’s happened to this person. Whom I have a whole catalog of information about, and there’s a composite that feels like an entire person to me.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, you know, I love that lived in

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Yes.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You feel very

 

Louis Virtel Very rewatchable too, even though it, again, you will leave in shambles.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman So I’m going to have to watch that one along with Bill, Alice, Ted.

 

Louis Virtel Almost. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Also, sex education. Oh, of course. Yeah, that’s a great one. That’s a great one.

 

Louis Virtel We just had Julian Anderson here. Oh, amazing. That’s an amazing one.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh, amazing. And that’s another great one. Obviously, there’s something about adolescence, because obviously that’s where it begins, this exploration. So those shows that I think normalize that adolescents are allowed to talk about sex, I think is always helpful and liberating and exciting.

 

Louis Virtel And allowed to know themselves, you know what I mean? Like they’re like little adults in a way, you know?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah, the youth.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Let’s see. I want to bring up regarding the late Diane Keaton. There’s a movie from late 70s called Looking for Mr. Goodbar, where it’s actually a pretty polarizing movie. And the very last scene of it, which is gruesome and sort of horror tinged, is a shame based ending. I would say that they should regret the ending of this movie. And it’s based off a really popular book too. But in the movie, it’s basically just about a woman living her life. Like she’s a teacher and then at night happens to out happens to have sex. And the casual nature of it, I thought was pretty fucking fabulous when I watched this movie. And it’s like, there’s something particularly good about it being Diane Keaton because there’s an aw-shucks quality about Diane Keeton in most movies, even in the Godfather movies, weirdly. But in this movie, she’s still got to have that quality of like, unassumingness while being proactive about seeking out a sexually fulfilling life. And it just like, that really felt novel to me because I feel like most characters in movies and TV. Who actually have the balls, the guts to go and have sex or like have a lot of sex or whatever, have a particular vibe. You know, they just are like, and I’m aggro, I’m alpha, whatever. But she wasn’t. She was, it was a casual part of her life. And to see that was fucking cool.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I love that call out that we oftentimes think the person who’s sexually liberated has to be, for lack of a better term, like aggressive with it as opposed to like anybody can be like, your grandma could be sexually liberated. And there is a, there can be a casualness and I think that it’ll be great when we accept that there should be a casualties about it, that it should be part of our everyday conversation that everybody should have access to fucking how they want, you know? Chewing gum is another one that I love for. Because I think it tackles the religious trauma, but also her exploring her own sexuality. She’s so horny. Michaela Cole playing Tracy. I forget Tracy’s last name. What?

 

Louis Virtel What are we doing with Michaela Cole right now?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I think that she likes to go away for a little bit and then she’s going to come back with something brilliant. I think it’s all on her timeline, which I respect, but she is quite the brilliant.

 

Louis Virtel We call that Phoebe Waller bridgering, you know what I mean? Yes, yes. She’ll be back when she wants to.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman She’ll be back when she wants to be back and I respect that because when they come back they come back with some solid shit.

 

Louis Virtel Have you had any particularly fabulous conversations about these topics on your podcast recently who have been your favorite guests?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Oh my goodness. Well, one of my standout guests is Emily Nagoski, who was a consultant on dying for sex. She wrote the book Come As You Are. She’s an educator and professor around this stuff. She was the one who said like, you shouldn’t be ashamed of the sexual being that you are. And that was a really important piece of advice that you should be able to embrace who you are as a sexual being. Cause I think that that’s where a lot of our trauma comes from. Lena Waithe has been on the show. We talked about, we don’t want to be parents. We want to childless. And talking about the difference between being a parent. Versus wanting to have a child and those are two very different things.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, because my thing is I don’t want a dog or a child, but I do want to name them.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman You need a Tamagotchi.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, see, but like the idea of having a dog that I call Vanessa Redgrave because I want to have an actress named dog sounds so fun, but then the taking care of it because it lives. But then the taking care of it because it lives.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman It’s different because it needs to live. It’s very different. I hate it. It’s so stupid. I have a dog. Every morning, I’m like, this is so stupid, but I love him.

 

Louis Virtel Also, you had Katya on for a fabulous conversation about how she works out at the gym with Dodo in her ass.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman With our butt plug

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me, and then it like fell out one time, like prop comedy.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Her butt plug falling out in front of her sister and her being like look away and grabbing it incredible wild

 

Louis Virtel I don’t know if I’ve ever said this in the show, Trixie and Katya, all their work, they are so astoundingly funny. Those two and Willem are the funniest people who have ever been on the show.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman We had Willem on the show, Willem told us about. Willem is unbelievable. Unbelievable, so funny.

 

Louis Virtel He’s like, he’s like a stand-up. Willem could give this all up, all the makeup, whatever, and just do stand-ups.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman And kill it. Yeah, she told a story about somebody putting a big toe in her and her thinking it was a dick and then being like, Oh, it’s a big toe, that’s okay. And then I just had Trixie, that episode will come out next week, but finally I got to chat with Trixy. And with all of the drag queens are not, I wouldn’t say intimidating for me to interview, but like I’m just in awe and I forget that I’m interviewing. Because I’m like, yeah, give me your bits. Can you like talk to me?

 

Louis Virtel Well also, Trixie has done a couple of bits over at Kimmel with us and I’ve covered those bits and I just forgot, amazing talker, period. Period. Not everybody can like talk well anymore. Oh my god. I live in Los Angeles where it’s sort of, you can just stand in a room and look at nothing. Literally. You know?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman And be in your corner and whatever. Trixie walked into the door and started talking immediately. We were like, turn the mics on. We didn’t have an official action. She was just talking and offering and everything was… Talking is one thing, but like talking and being funny? Yeah. Girl.

 

Louis Virtel And also but not monologuing either like listening and responding it was really like fluid and rad

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yeah, she’s brilliant. She’s brilliant

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god, I’m so grud, they’re that amazing, they really are.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Jealous jealous

 

Louis Virtel Okay, what are your favorite sexually liberated TV, movies, music videos? I could have gone- Does the angel-

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There’s the Angela music video!

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god, may he rest.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Rest them co-

 

Louis Virtel How does it feel?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’m good, I’m funny! Baby, let me look you up. We realized that that video- Madonna, express yourself, okay. Oh, good. D’Angelo, that video is just him with a black background, like, just rotating in a circle and we were all like, yes, play it over and over and over again.

 

Louis Virtel I want to know who pitched it was he like he’s like get this guy’s I’m so hot what if I stood here

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman What have I just done here? I touched myself. Yes. Good idea. Good idea! Yes. Let’s do that.

 

Louis Virtel Yes! Let’s do that. It’ll play on VH1 for 100 years.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman There’s a producer going, that’s a good budget. Yeah, yeah, right. And it costs 10 cents.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, please. I’d be thrilled to hear about that. We’ll be right back with Keep It. And we’re back with the snarkiest part of the episode. It’s Keep It. All right, hit me. What are you pissed off about? What are your railing against?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Well, you know, we’ve been talking about the sexual liberation, and so I’m going to kind of keep it in that world, which is I was thinking about one battle after another and Tiana Taylor and everyone talking about this character being too hypersexual.

 

Louis Virtel Right

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’m going to read the quote because she had a Vanity Fair article that just came out where she responds to it. And she said, another person interviewed me and mentioned something about, do you realize the first thing we see of Prophitia is her having a gun to a guy’s head and he calls her sweet thing? Are we watching the same film? And this idea of the overly horniness, and I think it’s actually a lazy critique of it. And so I want to defend Tiana a little bit on this, which is that…

 

Louis Virtel And by the way, I hope she wins that Oscar, she is the supporting performance of the year.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman She’s brilliant. And I think that to reduce her performance to just being hypersexual is really code for here’s a woman, particularly a black woman who’s owning her sexuality and who can use her sexuality. And, I think whenever we see a woman who knows that she wants to fuck, we start to get scared and we want to police it. And don’t think it’s just men that do it. I think it all of us do this because we’re uncomfortable by people who don’t need your permission to want to fuck. Like, and also it reduces the character because I was like going into the movie being like, oh, is it just going to be her fucking? And it’s like, no, she’s fucking, she blowing shit up. She becomes a mom, she has postpartum. She’s like there’s the comedy, the character.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, she’s in major trouble and has to figure her way out of it.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman The character is so complicated and so I think the reduction of it is actually, again, lazy and is an opportunity for us to look at our own relationship to our sexuality because that’s what I’m actually hearing is that we are afraid of how embodied Tiana is and Profidia is. And Tiana, by the way, is very sexy. But I think that in her own career, she owns it. But also if you look at her career, she’s played a range of things. We have a thousand and one, all’s fair, straw. Can you see straw? Draw a range, straw! That bouncy wig, love. So like to reduce her to like, oh, she’s only ever sexual is like, that’s not fair. And I think this is actually a chance for us to look at ourselves and be like, hey, why am I so triggered by somebody else’s? And hypersexual, I have a definition of hypersextual, right, is a proposed medical condition that’s said to cause unwanted or excessive sexual arousing, causing people to engage in or think about sexual activity to a point of distress or impairment. Which is not what’s happening with perfidia, right? And that it’s acting like she’s fucking on a playground in front of some kids. It’s like, that’s not what happens. She’s fucking, you know, near a bomb.

 

Louis Virtel She’s fucking Leo when she has the time.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Which is time. And so, yeah, so I think that, and the comparison to Halle Berry around it, it’s like if we want to have a larger conversation about black actresses only being awarded for being sexy, sassy, or the help, I’m happy to have that conversation. But that is a Hollywood conversation. That’s not a conversation, I think, for the actor or for the character. One Battle After Another has a lot of different representation of black womanhood in that movie, from Regina Hall to Jason Benedy. To the nuns, like, but because Tiana is getting the accolades, I think we’re now hyper-focused on that and wanting to call her hypersexual, and I think it’s—I think it is bullshit.

 

Louis Virtel I did think I did want more of the nuns. I have to say. I wanted more of them too. I thought we were going to get it too. Yeah, yeah. But of course I wanted to more of Tiana too. Yeah.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes, absolutely. I thought Channel was going to be more of the movie, which I would love, but also like Judy Dutch was in eight minutes of Shakespeare in Love. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, you don’t have to educate me, please.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Oh, no, you don’t have to educate me, please. No, Beatrice Strait. We could go on and on.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Come on, let’s give Tiana all her things. I really want…

 

Louis Virtel Watch Jovan Fleet in East of Eden. She’s in it for like six seconds, and she’s like, I’m really mad at you, James Dean, and we gave her the Oscar.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Come on! So give Tiana her fucking things, uh, for the culture, period.

 

Louis Virtel I also, there’s a lot of critiques about whether the movie is making fun of revolutionaries or activists. But honestly, I kind of thought Paul Thomas Anderson made them activists because he just wanted to pick a job where if you fuck up at it, it could be on your family to have to pick up the slack. Like I don’t think it’s really about the ins and outs of being a revolutionary or an activist.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I don’t think it is. I mean, I feel like this is another critique which I think like the movie feels like can come off as a message movie But I’m not really sure. No, it was just entertaining. Honestly, that’s it. It was just

 

Louis Virtel It’s sort of my, I don’t want to say problem with Marty Supreme too, but it kind of feels like it’s going to be about something, like ego or whatever. But it’s like, it’s really just an entertaining movie, you know, a thriller kind of, yeah.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman A little suspense. Yeah, it’s about the action. It’s about, the things blowing up, but it’s not, um, I don’t think you’re supposed to like leave it and be like, oh, I’m going to be a revolutionary now.

 

Louis Virtel No, right. Yeah. Yeah, it’s not like substance in that way.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That’s not the movie that’s going to do that to you.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. My Keep It is about another awards darling whom I think we can fairly like we’ve loved her and everything. Amanda Seyfried gave a quote about Oscar season and whether or not she is excited to win an Oscar. Amanda said that winning an Oscar is not important to her. She said, do you remember who’s won in the past 10 years? It’s not the win that’s important. It’s the nomination. It does thrust you forward. That’s a fact. Now do I need one in a week or two or whatever? No, of course I don’t. Would it be great? Of course it would for every reason, but it isn’t necessary. First of all, all I remember is who won in the past 10 years. I can basically rattle it off like a rap, okay?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I don’t remember, no nominees left.

 

Louis Virtel She has to understand at this point that there are people like me, faggots, lingering around, and this is all we live for. So don’t minimize what I do with my spare time, which is memorize your name because you were nominated for an Oscar. That said, she was nominated for the movie Mank, and I don’t think anybody remembers that. So I don’t think the nomination is necessarily always that important. I also just want to talk in general about… Can we decide what level of standing we’re gonna do for Amanda Seyfried? Because she’s really good in this movie, The Housemaid, directed by Paul Feig with Sidney Sweeney. Sort of a traditional thriller. It reminds me maybe of the movie Obsessed with Beyonce.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Beyonce how dare you bring that up? You know, I love that movie

 

Louis Virtel Ali Larder, we speak your name.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman Yes!

 

Louis Virtel And of course, she’s also in the testament of Anne Lee right now, which I feel like isn’t getting enough buzz as an awards contender. There’s like Amanda sort of lingering in the fifth, sixth spot for best actress potential. And I feel a problem here is like Rose Byrne, we can’t just agree we are obsessed with her even though she’s a constantly working actor. It’s a little bit like Michelle Williams. She gets to be in everything, but does she have a ton of fans? And I can’t explain really why.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I overstand this though. Yes, I know what you’re saying. Like we know who they are, but like, is there a fandom around them?

 

Louis Virtel I’m just like, like, Kate Blanchett, for example, like I think we’re all like gung-ho like that like You know, let the lesbian lady conductor beat everybody with a baton like we love it

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman We love that. We want that.

 

Louis Virtel Whereas Amanda Seyfried, I think maybe the problem is she’s kind of good at everything, like she can do like a light comic role, a horror movie, a drama, and because of that, we don’t, like Julianne Moore, we don t have a sense really of the person as much.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman She’s too good at her job. Yeah, I guess.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it’s easy to admire her skills while maybe not like loving the mechanism she brings or something. I don’t know. I don’t know.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That’s interesting. It’s like.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like everybody likes her in all these movies, and that’s it.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman And that’s it. They’re not trying to give her the award. They aren’t trying to take stand her. I mean, she will forever be mean girls for me. I mean I know her other things, but that range she has that you’re calling out is actually quite obvious now that you are saying it. It’s incredible.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, and also it’s like people love Megan Fox and Jennifer’s body, but she’s a huge reason that’s a cult hit. You know, like the way she plays the character literally named Needy. You know. No, I’m a big fan of her in general, and I think more people should see the testament of Ann Lee. So.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’m gonna say that.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Written by Mona Fassvold and Brady Corbet, who last year had the triumph with The Brutalist, and then this year we’re sort of like, oh, you already had a triumph or something. We don’t care anymore. What’s your favorite movie this season? Honestly, my favorite movie that I’ve rewatched a few times this year is It’s Never Over Jeff Buckley, the new documentary about Jeff Buckly. I can’t even say I’m a huge fan of his music, but he’s a truly… Mystifying and difficult and strange person, so it’s like a traditional music documentary, but it gets to be fascinating because he truly is fascinating. But otherwise, I think Marty Supreme might be my favorite movie. I wouldn’t say it’s a banner year for the Oscars movies.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I’ve watched a few, not all of them, but I did love Sinners. Oh, Sinners was great. I’m excited about it. I watched it early in the morning because I don’t like scary things that I said. I don’t like if you’re going to cut me open and save my life. But I did watch it at 8 a.m. On like a Tuesday morning on my couch, and I really loved it.

 

Louis Virtel I do think that movie on purpose is three different genres, and I think I like certain genres better than others, but I love the experimentation and I love look of it. I also think Michael B. Jordan still doesn’t have an Oscar nomination. What are we waiting for?

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman He’s so pretty.

 

Louis Virtel Fruitvale station alone, yeah. I’m so sorry, he’s so talented. They’re in a pretty category, unfortunately. Maybe soon. Maybe soon, maybe soon. You know what, if the Oscars know what’s good for them, maybe they should have a pretty categories.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman That’d be wild. We would all tune in for that.

 

Louis Virtel Now, where can we find you if we want to seek you out in the world on Instagram, etc? On Instagram, et cetera.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman If you, on Instagram, Brandon Kyle Goodman. On Substack, BrandonKyleGoodman.substack.com or my podcast, tell me something messy.

 

Louis Virtel It has been so fucking awesome to have you here.

 

Brandon Kyle Goodman I have loved talking to you, LuRu!

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god, welcome to the Lurusical!

 

Louis Virtel There we go. Playing all the hits. And that’s our episode this week. Thank you to Bill Skarsgard for joining us. We’ll be back next week after the Oscar nominations. We’ll see you then. Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can also subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Bill McGrath. Our associate producer is Kennedy Hill. And our executive producers are Louis Virtel, Ira Madison III, and Kendra James. Our digital team is Delon Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, and Rachel Gaewski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Jirek Centeno. Thank you to David Tolls, Kyle Seglin, and Charlotte Landes for production support every week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroot. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.