Ira and Louis discuss The White Lotus finale, John Mulaney and talk shows, Val Kilmer, RHOA, and the best movie franchises. Marsai Martin joins to discuss G20, working with icons like Viola Davis and Regina Hall, and more.

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Ira Madison III And we are back with an all-new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison III, and my co-host does not speak German, but he can if you like.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, I still really don’t know how to say the name of that Lady Gaga song and I won’t even attempt it. Shiza? Is that it? Anyway, I’m Louis Virtel. I’m back from my nine-day trip to Berlin and I want to say that I took the time off just for vacation, but I think in actuality, I took it off so that Jay Jurden could handle the emotional burden of discussing Morgan Wallen. Thank you so much, Jay Jurden. Really a vacation for me. Wow, what a stupid pop culture subject. That just… And also, you know what, it wouldn’t be fair for me to talk about that because I myself was out of God’s country during that entire time. There’s no God in Berlin. No, let me tell you, I investigated and he is nowhere to be found, or she.

 

Ira Madison III And while you were gone, Val Kilmer passed away.

 

Louis Virtel That also was not good pop culture news. Val Kilmer, I first experienced in the movie Real Genius. I think people underestimate his comic abilities, but it’s interesting because once upon a time, Val Kilmer’s definitive project would have been when he played Jim Morrison. And now I feel like that’s less the case because the name Jim Morrison has fallen out of sort of monocultural omnipresence. Like, do children know who the doors are anymore? I do have to say I’m a bit concerned. I do think, meanwhile, that the movie Heat has picked up over the years, and that now is maybe his definitive movie, aside from the Batman stuff.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like people know the doors only in the context of reading Joan Didier.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, which they still do, and she’s still perturbed about kids doing drugs in 1969, which she should. Why are the babies doing LSD? Well, she’s dead child. Right, you know, she sitting like in a cardigan in the casket, still like leaning up. But a very versatile actor, when you hear all these other, his co-stars talk about him, it’s clear that it was very apparent to them he was an unstoppable force on the silver screen.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I feel like I got introduced to him in Batman forever.

 

Louis Virtel That was the first time I saw him in the theater.

 

Ira Madison III theater, for sure. Yeah. So I’d probably see in like clips of Top Gun or Real Julius on TV, but it was Batman Forever that really introduced me to him. And of course, he’s in that movie with Nicole Kidman.

 

Louis Virtel Which is not as juicy a role for her as you would you would think especially since during that time she’s doing really interesting stuff That’s when she’s getting into the death to die for years, etc

 

Ira Madison III It’s so funny because I remember interviewing her and I asked her about Batman forever and she was like It wasn’t just for a check, you know, it was because like I enjoyed those movies like I get to kiss Batman you know that was the pull quote from it and now I Wouldn’t be shocked if she did a Batman movie because she just does anything

 

Louis Virtel No. What did she do with Aquaman? Like, teach him to fly? I don’t know what Aquaman does. She’s like Aang Lee in that she’s kind of inspired by everything.

 

Ira Madison III It’s time for the intervention.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no kidding. I saw Holland’s. Oh my God. Which by the way, Nicole Kidman, you’ve already done eight projects where everything seems so perfect from the outside, but could it really be? Nobody thinks everything looks perfect from outside. What is this framework on these like big little lies like show that does not exist? Everybody is suspicious of everybody else all the time. That’s what makes life a good time. It’s why we are into the white lotus.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, maybe we need the reverse of that. Finally, they actually everything is perfect on the inside

 

Louis Virtel That’s what I want. Yes, like this suburb seems very eerie and actually, you know, they go to church a little bit often, but that’s it, you now.

 

Ira Madison III I really love this old 9096 article about Val Kilmer, by the way, in Entertainment Weekly, because it was titled, The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate. It described him as a difficult person to work with. Which, by the, what a fun cover story to have back in the 90s. Like, backward cover stories were interesting. It’s just Entertainment Weekly is, everybody hates you, let’s talk about it.

 

Louis Virtel And there’s like an X factor quality about it. It wasn’t like a death knell type situation, even though in the years since, he eventually played Mark Twain, right? Yeah. He got into some more interesting facets of his performing hood ultimately. But I mean, you and I of course, lionized the era of that Entertainment Weekly of movie line magazine where you would open it up. And I mean truly, this is just a 90s thing. Snark was king, you know, like all the comedies from that time, which are maybe dated now. all of them have kind of snarky, bastardly humor. I thought about this when I was watching the opposite of sex recently. It was unusually nasty, you know, but that was de rigueur, you now? Like the cleanest comedy might have been something like, you know whose line is it anyway? You know, but everything else had like a kind of bastardly standup male comic effect to it.

 

Ira Madison III What’s funny too is he’s called chronically eccentric by Robert Downey Jr. Chronically eccentric.

 

Louis Virtel That’s like something you say about, you know, crisp and clever.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, you know, wiping his strand of hair away.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it’s something you say about somebody who is sweating for no reason.

 

Ira Madison III I, of course, also loved the documentary, Vow, from 2021, where he had just been filming himself for years, apparently.

 

Louis Virtel Right, yes. And then he, of course, appeared in Top Gun Maverick, too, in a, I’m going to call it a strange performance. I kept, when I was watching that, I kept thinking of like, who navigated what to put him in this place in the movie? And then, he passes away in the movie. And it’s like, I would say it’s the most uncomfortable portion of the film.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, not not the ending when they’re on that bike and you hear Hold My Hand

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes, I forgot that Stephanie was a big part of that project, yes. And also Monica Barbaro, I forget she was in that movie too until we were reacquainted with her via A Complete Unknown.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, anyway, Val Kilmer, there were a lot of beautiful tributes to him from Tom Cruise, who’s gonna be making the very last movie ever, I feel like. Mission Impossible, the trailer for that movie looks like the final movie ever a friend of mine said. And I agree.

 

Louis Virtel yeah and you know what maybe we’ll go out on that note at this point maybe we’d be cutting our losses ultimately

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of cutting our losses, we got to talk about the White Lotus finale.

 

Louis Virtel I think we have a lot to uncover and a lot of dead reckoning.

 

Ira Madison III mission impossible also we’re going to talk about this new live comedy show from John Mulaney on Netflix.

 

Louis Virtel I can only be thankful to a man who wants to reinvigorate the late night format. I read a headline recently about somebody saying that obviously late night comedy, which is by the way where I make my living, is headed the way of the dodo and the person who said it was my own boss, Jimmy Kimmel. So we’ll take what we can get here.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe he means you’ll be taken to a secret island and hunted like the dodo birds.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure. Yeah, we’re headed right to Mauritius is what he meant. Yeah. Where we will thrive until the 1600s and then it’s over.

 

Ira Madison III We’re also joined by the very delightful Marsai Martin this week who was in G 20 The new Viola Davis action movie I’m sure you have all seen the poster on your morning commutes of her in a red dress holding a fucking semi-automated

 

Louis Virtel just like in my dreams. It’s great when things like this turn into reality.

 

Ira Madison III We’ll be right back with more Keep It.

 

[AD]

 

Ira Madison III Season three of The White Lotus aired its big finale on Sunday. The episode was 90 minutes long, and about 20 of those were worth discussing. Now that everything has been revealed, we’re going to get into the desks, the standout performances, and all the discourse of where the show should go from here. Let’s just say we weren’t fans of this season of The white Lotus a couple weeks ago, and the girls were mad.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, well, here’s the thing. I think people really want to defend this show in principle, because it’s the pacing of it is so, I don’t know how else to put it, adults. Like they want you to like stick around and use your intuition to put these storylines together to predict things, to be mad at certain characters. I think we compared it before to Mad Men. It’s a show that specializes in giving you very specific characters and leading them into unexpected places that are ultimately very justified. So there’s a lot of chance and potential. for the show to be amazing.

 

Ira Madison III And it’s deliberate too, the pace is deliberate. They always want to defend the fact that Mike White says, this is a deliberate pace, you know? He had a quote recently when people called the show too slow, he told people to stop being bossy bottoms and to get out of his bed because that’s the pace he was setting. First of all, didn’t know Mike White was a top.

 

Louis Virtel Nor did I know he had contempt for Bossy Bottoms, who, by the way, sometimes get the show on the road. I just want to say, we’re thankful for them around here.

 

Ira Madison III The show is deliberately paced and I feel like that was my anger with the responses to our commentary on the season so far because there were people who accused us of having TikTok adult brains, which, fair.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, that’s you, bitch. I am never on TikTok. So guess again, motherfucker.

 

Ira Madison III We watch slow shit all of the time, okay? First of all, Lewis loves a movie where a woman is staring outside a car.

 

Louis Virtel Ding, girl, I’ll put on Anne of the Thousand Days right now. That’s three hours of Anne Boleyn scheming her way into, you know, still being beheaded.

 

Ira Madison III But this is HBO, okay? It’s like the slow pace of an HBO show that is a massively watched popular television show that is beamed constantly online. That is just remedial watching something slow paced, okay. You’re not reading Dostoevsky here.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Also, it’s like, again, like we, the pacing, et cetera, is why we’re invested in this show. Like why we want to talk about it. It is an interesting show, but to continue Mike White’s quote, he said, I’m world building. If you don’t want to go to bed with me, then get out of my bed. I’m edging you enjoy the edging. If he don’t wanna be edged, then, get out of my bed. Funny thing about edging, edging is fun. This show, slow headed nowhere, not like edging edging culminates. Um, and I, I think my big problem with this season ultimately is that he set the chessboard. He put the players out there and then didn’t move them around the board. It was a very static season. Edging is such a generous way to, to discuss what he had actually done with the characters. He was idling. I’m sorry. There are characters on this show who are having conversations in episode six. They could have had an episode two and the show still would had a slow deliberate pace. I can’t believe Jason Isaac’s like stuck in some like migraine commercial or something where he has to gulp and do nothing else for episodes at a time. I like felt bad for him acting on this show. I think to start with pluses though, the three women storyline, which was Michelle Monahan, Leslie Bibb, and Carrie Coon, we did get a nice moment of catharsis where Carrie Coone explained that she was just grateful to be at the table with these two women who she’s experienced a lot of life with that her life had meeting because of the time spent. But at the same time, when she says to Michelle Monahan, I’m happy you have a great face. That’s what you say to your friend you appreciate. Bitch, can we get a rewrite on that? What?

 

Ira Madison III Wait, she tells Michelle, you have a beautiful face. And then she turns to Leslie Bim and says, you have beautiful life.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Which is, okay, that I feel like is intentionally funny and interesting. But also, Leslie, but does she have really a beautiful life? I don’t know. Interesting. And then that was like the note we left off on them, even though later they witnessed a shooting and run off from it.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, I think that at a certain point, the enjoyment of this season of The White Lotus has largely come from the internet factory associated with it. Whether you’re reading memes, whether you’re in Hunter Harris’s comments on her sub stack, which I love to be in. I think at this point, the show has crossed over into, at least for this season and bits of last season too. the show has crossed over into you’re enjoying it because you’re enjoying talking about the show and making jokes about the show. The show itself isn’t that entertaining or provocative to be honest or provocative you know I mean it’s funny to talk about the fact that all these people got on a boat and didn’t give a fuck that there was a mass shooting on the island.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III You know?

 

Louis Virtel Just moved right along.

 

Ira Madison III Does that make sense for the story?

 

Louis Virtel Another thing that bothered me about this scuttlebutt about this season is I’ve seen a lot of people somewhat defensively say they’re not into the mystery of the show, that it’s only about the character development and the interesting interactions, whatever. That to me is some bullshit. One, what we’re really discussing when we discuss the show is the mystery, generally speaking. And then two, the mystery is a culmination of all the interesting other things about the show. Like the mystery culminates all the entitlement and the privilege. And it answers poetically, it’s saying that when you put all this like bubbling under kind of grossness, whiteness, etc, something bad will happen. So to me, the murder is a clever Agatha Christie like way of still discussing the central themes of the show. So for that to feel not as interesting is like a huge left out on the show and I think that’s ultimately why I would say this season is like two star out of four as opposed to seasons. one and two, which I’d put in the three and a half, maybe even four range. I mean, there are so many amazing characters. Every storyline on season two was amazing. I mean like F. Murray Abraham, that was the worst storyline on that show. He was fabulous. Of course he would be nominated for an Emmy. Whereas this year, and I said it again, aside from Carrie Coon and maybe Sam Rockwell for a monolog that I have to say I am already forgetting, I don’t know that I would nominate anybody on the show.

 

Ira Madison III I would say, too, that I think where we reach a point, people forget that we used to have these points in TV shows where you get to like the second or third season slump, you know, you’re just figuring things out and then you have to mix it up again. I really think that this show, a lot of the characters did seem listless. They weren’t really connected. We talked about this before where even the construct of sticking them all on that boat just felt so, well, here they are, because… The show felt very claustrophobic this season. The characters barely interacted in some really fun and interesting ways that made sense, as opposed to the other seasons where they all kept zigzagging and interconnecting. Even the shooting at the end seemed very happenstance with, oh, here these people are.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, oh, Amy Lou Wood happens to be walking by and now she’s going to be shot too. That’s another thing, the Amy Lou Wood, Walton Goggins storyline. Actually, like several storylines this season, made me feel like I had missed an episode because I couldn’t even figure out why they were supposed to be interesting. Walton Goggins has set on this path to meet this guy who you would have to be an idiot not to know was his father. And there was like no suspense there. We were sort of just meant to like kind of. study that downtrodden exhausted face and like hope for nuance, but there just was no story there. Anything involving Sritala I thought was like super boring.

 

Ira Madison III I would say the big surprise for me this season, actually, is that Patrick Schwarzenegger, I think he can act.

 

Louis Virtel I think he was compelling.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I think, to be fair, he got one of the best arcs, too. Yeah, he’s got the best arch, I thing, in the season. That moment at the end where he’s watching Walton Goggins get that embrace on the beach, that I thought was a beautiful, like, pained moment from him. What’s funny is that, you know, like it ends up not being, you, like they don’t give a fuck. Like the emotions are all on his side, but it’s all about what he’s perceiving. Um, so I love that aspect of it. regarding the three women, I want to feel like the commentary is on sort of white women friendships, to be honest, because this, I’m just happy to be at the table, crying, fake, felt very much like, why are you putting yourself through this relationship? You know? And it’s just, I just happy be here, it’s like, no girl, get some friends who like you. I felt very in that scene, and I don’t feel like people were reading this online, but… I feel like these women are never talking to each other ever again.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. And also that’s specifically a storyline that I think could have benefited from interacting with the other characters more. Like they had the thing with Valentine like the sleeping route, but Carrie Coon sleeping with that guy last episode, you’re telling me we couldn’t have gotten to that way sooner. It just wasn’t an interesting development for her. What this season needed way more of was I think the best scene on the entire show, which is in season one when Connie Britton confronts Alexandra Daddario and they’re having that conversation about that puffy she wrote. And it starts as this docile, you know, vacation-paced conversation and then turns into her reading her to filth and like the both of them, and then Alexander Dodario leaving really puzzled, things like that I really wanted, which were, because that scene is both, one, believable, I could see that Connie Burton character doing that, and two, surprising, which is again, the nexus of surprising and believable. is where I think Mike White thrives the best and I just didn’t get that kind of X-Y factor.

 

Ira Madison III If anything, I feel like there were so many interviews about how they were cutting scenes from the season because there wasn’t time, et cetera, whatever, which is comical because there was so much time this season. All they had was time this last episode. All they have was time. But the three women, I really felt like that was who Mike White gave a fuck about, you know? And it was almost like… he needed to create a series about the three dynamic women again interacting with each other. Like he maybe missed that from Enlightened and like writing about Tanya, et cetera. And that’s what the show was craving. I felt like there were interesting stories between like that and like the two brothers, right? You know, that were very shoehorned into a season of White Lotus when maybe they would have been better if he’d like written a play about any of those characters.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, speaking of the Patrick Schwarzenegger family, first of all, the daughter’s storyline is exactly what was wrong with this season. We spent seven episodes listening to this girl being like, I need to move to Thailand for reasons you don’t understand and I don’t understand and the family doesn’t understand. But we’re going to keep pretending there are stakes behind this and that it would matter that she would upset Parker Posey, who is upset anyway. And then she makes the decision that she’s like- too princess-like to ultimately go through with it. That was a bit of a satisfying moment with her and Parker Posey and Parker Posey feeling satisfied to know her own daughter and what’s good for her. But ultimately, then we get to Lachlan almost being poisoned, and of course we knew that was coming. They had the poison berries in the fucking blender. We know those two things are going together no matter what. Check off’s blender. If you will, if you will. Going off in the third. Getting off in, getting off in second with his brother. Anyway, then Lachlan justifies his weird behavior in the jacking off his brother during that one sex scene by saying, I just want to please people. Bitch, you were like lingering over his naked body in the first episode. That has nothing to do with pleasing people.

 

Ira Madison III I like the bait and switch with the younger brother sort of jerking him off and then him being stunned by it and having sort of this revelation, but what is this whole thing then with him being like creepily sexual with his brother and sister early on in the season?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no, it just was ultimately a question mark. And of course we have to talk about Belinda, another person who had nothing to do the whole fucking season. You’re telling me her entire season was about one conversation with a guy we knew that would be happening with. It could have easily happened in episode four where this creepy guy, Tanya’s ex, pays her the five million dollars. And then we’re just supposed to believe, like in a John Grisham thriller, everything is going to go well for her and she’s just going to fly to Fiji and live or whatever. She wrote the Pelican Brief and she is gone now.

 

Ira Madison III And then he’s just gonna have a bacchanal at his pool because he really wants to give his girl a threesome.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it just wasn’t interesting. I don’t know. I mean, like maybe when her son, Zion, was trying to do the negotiating on her behalf and then she revealed that she was a bit smarter than he had expected, like Zion maybe revealing himself as sort of a secret villain of the season is sort of interesting, but at the same time, not really. I expected way more from that.

 

Ira Madison III By the way, Zion was giving, “I got a black-skinned friend looked like Michael Jackson.” And he sounded like him too. His energy of this dumb bro in the final episode was very disconcerting.

 

Louis Virtel Attractive man.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I do wanna say by the way, I don’t give a fuck that Belinda left the island. It didn’t have the same feel that it did of Tanya screwing her over.

 

Louis Virtel Right. This is not a one-to-one comparison either. Like, she was always kind of dubious about Pornchai.

 

Ira Madison III So he got sex.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, she put it down for him. He got something.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, exactly.

 

Ira Madison III Lastly, I want to say I just discovered that Sam Navola, the twink, was Emily Mortimer’s son.

 

Louis Virtel Bitch, I was on this from day one.

 

Ira Madison III And Alessandro Nivola.

 

Louis Virtel The great Alessandro Nivolo, who was just awesome in The Brutalist, but is in every fucking thing. I love Emily Mortimer.

 

Ira Madison III And Craven the Hunter, where he plays the rhino.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, Emily Mortimer was also on Doll and M, an adorable show with Dolly Wells, one of my favorite underrated actresses.

 

Ira Madison III Did you see the Vandy Fair interview where, Vandy fair or variety, what are the V’s? Sure. V for magazine. Where Sam asked the cast to guess which actor inspired him to become an actor and it wasn’t his parents.

 

Louis Virtel No, and whoever plays his sister on the show jumped up and goes, Julia Binoche. I was like, all right, Sam Navola, come on, keep it. I’m peeping your game. Yeah, I saw what you did. Also, name the Julia Banoche projects. Is it more a damaged thing? Is it the red, white and blue movies? I want to know.

 

Ira Madison III Also, I feel like Parker Posey or someone recently, there was an actress recently, I’m forgetting who, who named the Juliette Binoche films, the Red, White and Blues, the Kieslowskis, as part of their letterbox for.

 

Louis Virtel Ooh, I’m sure Parker Posey has a good answer to that question, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it were her. By the way, can I just say, when people are not prepared for the letterboxed four questions-.

 

Ira Madison III Come on! They’re like stalking you at this point. They’re like the Manson murders, okay?

 

Louis Virtel No, they’re at every fucking red carpet and this is why you have a publicist to be like here I’m gonna push a DVD copy of Wanda in front of you. You can name drop this if you need to

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, to wrap up, I got the show Passions before, and I did get some comedy out of the blender, the poison blender. It reminded me of someone eating poison guacamole on Passions once before, but it really was just a lot of goofiness that I feel like is designed for people to laugh about and make fun of online, which there’s not a problem with that, but when the memes are funnier and more interesting, You know What are we doing?

 

Louis Virtel He is funny as hell. And by the way, Parker Posey got way too broad this season. I was sort of dubious people celebrating her dialog when she says Taiwan instead of Thailand. It’s like, oh, so she’s an idiot. It’s a bridge too far. And also, you just brought up the Jason Isaac storyline. I think the note it ended on was particularly bad, where it’s just, actually things are gonna be all right for this family. Who decided on that? No, it’s not.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I think it’s going to be abysmal, but I did love the tweet coming back to life with a whole rent, sort of like I saw a bright light, and then I saw Angel, and he said, turn around and listen to that boy’s song. And then his eyes just wake up and his dad’s there. Yeah, right. Parastroika shit, yeah, what is going on? Also, last comment. people are so obsessed with being a part of the conversation on the show. I’m not expecting we’re hiding spoilers and things, but I’m like, I saw someone put on their Instagram, like story, just like a screenshot of him drowning in the pool. And I was like, who the fuck does this serve? We all know you’re watching it.

 

Louis Virtel Well, it’s like the same people who have to yell congratulations at the drag queen who wins drag race milliseconds after it occurred. It’s like, actually, they’re not waiting to hear from you. So you can actually just not do that.

 

Ira Madison III All right, well, we’re back. We are joined by the delightful Marsai Martin, but before that, some quick housekeeping.

 

[AD].

 

Ira Madison III This week, we are joined by a true mogul. You know her as an actress from projects like Blackish and Little, but she’s just as involved behind the camera. She executive produced the Disney Plus series Saturdays, and when she was just 14 years old, she became the youngest ever executive producer for her work on Little. Today, she’s here to talk about her latest film, G20, which drops tomorrow on Prime Video. Please welcome to Keep It, it’s Marsai Martin.

 

Marsai Martin Hello, everybody.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, wow. This movie is the kind of thing Ironite Dream will exist. We just want Viola Davis to be kicking ass and centrally in the movie. She’s obviously been in action movies before, like Black Hat and Woman King, Widows, et cetera. But here, I mean, she’s at the height of her powers, I will say. Talk about working with her, first of all, and just, she is the kinda person I feel like I would just be picking up crazy details about how she operates in every single sector of a movie.

 

Marsai Martin Yeah. No, she is amazing. And I mean, I always saw her like ever since I was little through different events or even mutual friends. But to now have worked with her in this high intense project was insane and amazing. And you know, I was fully convinced that she was going to be like a butthole in my head, because it’s like, when you’re a legend like that and you have all these accolades and you got a whole bunch of stuff under your belt, you ain’t got to be nice. So in my hand I’m like, okay, I’m prepared, I am prepared. But no, it was like literally the complete opposite. She is so kind and so down to earth. And how I get my advice is normally being very observant. I will never ask anybody like, please give me like tips, tricks, or whatever, because… Most of the time I probably low-key won’t remember or make sure I’m really locked in to make sure that I understand what you’re saying, but watching her craft and watching how she perfects it and the little techniques that she does to get prepared for a scene and all the training that it takes to do things like this and the team that she constantly has around, like we had the same team that we had in the Woman King. So she pretty much had that same preparation for that project just as much as what she had for G20. So seeing that whole process was incredible and very surreal and just inspiring.

 

Ira Madison III I need to know the process behind rehearsing, filming, there’s this big set piece in the film where you two are in a helicopter. Yeah. And so what was it like filming that?

 

Marsai Martin That helicopter scene was a lot. It took a week to shoot and it was the last week of filming the entire project. So reading the script, that was the one I was most nervous about because I didn’t know how they were gonna do it, how they’re gonna film it, if it’s gonna look weird or corny or tacky or like whatever that looks like because I’ve never seen it myself. And then being with, you know, Ms. Viola and Antony, who is… also great at being very psycho and a villain. It was like, how am I put in this crazy triangle? It’s insane. So I couldn’t believe that I was even a part of something like that. But yeah, from day one all the way to, I mean, weeks later and then having to strike and then coming back. I was still thinking about that one scene and seeing how it was gonna happen. And it was fun. It was exciting and it was a lot and challenging, but when you look at it, it was very worth it. All the ADR, all the things that came into it, all the preparation and stunt work that we had to do and all the safety meetings that we have to have for it, it made sense at the end.

 

Louis Virtel Now, of course, Anthony Anderson is in this movie. You worked on Black-ish for many, many years. I have a question. Do you prefer to leave people on past projects behind so that when you go to a new thing, it can just be your new experience and there’s nobody there with the expectations of what you were or are? Or do you like having people you’ve worked with previously on newer projects?

 

Marsai Martin That’s hilarious because I toss back and forth with it. I think as an actor, you always want to have that like new experience. But at the same time, I wanted to have a person that was like my The Rock to my Kevin Hart, like just kind of doing every damn thing and just seeing what that looks like. But I don’t know. I loved it with Anthony though, because it felt so new to me jumping into it. I mean, we were in Africa. That was my first time in Africa, new terrain, new space, new directors, and working with material that just felt so new that it doesn’t matter how much preparation that I had to do with it, I was still gonna feel somewhat unprepared because it was all new. But having Anthony there to have some type of familiarity on set and for us to go band for band on different scenes and going back and forth and to know his techniques and for him to know mine. It felt comfortable, and I felt completely safe, and that was fun to do, for sure. Actors are actors, so I think there’s a few, like a handful of people that I would definitely go back and forth on movies with, like Regina Hall, I would gladly do a movie with her again. I mean, Viola Davis, of course. So, I mean there’s some people that’s just like an immediate yes to whatever project you’re a part of.

 

Ira Madison III Now, speaking of people that you’ve been on projects with before too, you know, this little where you start in with Issa Rae and it’s so funny thinking about there was one of her first big movies too, and you’re both coming from the sitcom world, but she was like this HBO insecure and you were coming from Black-ish and you’d been on it weirdly, you know even being younger than her, a couple like two, three years before she was even doing Insecure, you now? So what was that like? coming to set, both of you working together, I guess you were like the veteran at that point.

 

Marsai Martin I mean, yeah, it’s funny because me and my family, we say I’m a veteran in this a lot of the time, but no, I mean it was great because I already loved Issa and the work that she’s done and knew the things that were coming up for her and just how she is so grounded with where she came from, and having that pretty much be … the core of all of the things that she has, I mean, coming to fruition. And I mean she’s truly an inspiration to me in that regard too, like now with her having a restaurant and her beverage line and so many other things. I mean the record label, it just, it all fits and that’s what I love and I think more creators should branch off from traditional TV and film and just kind of create where they want to. I mean, there’s no boundaries in this and. When a lot of people say breaking boundaries and changing narratives and all that, they normally think like in TV and film, like this traditional way of doing it. But there’s so many different lanes of different business ventures and entrepreneurial ventures that have not been tapped into, especially with black women. So, I mean, she’s truly an inspiration in that regard. And yeah, I continue to do the same things within my core stuff and then jumping into different lanes as well.

 

Louis Virtel We mentioned earlier that you were the youngest ever executive producer on a movie on Little. I want to be clear, you’re like 20 years old now. Little is now like a number of years old, so like do the math everybody. Yeah. Did you anticipate that kind of milestone for yourself? Like are you shocked to find yourself the youngest-ever producer or was that always sort of in your playbook from the beginning?

 

Marsai Martin No, definitely not. I mean, none of this was in my playbook. I mean, let’s be let’s me really like my family knew because you know, like, you know, in black families, they’d be like, I knew she was gonna be like you know they be having of the baby at eight months. But um, yeah, it was it was kind of like it was kind like that. But for me, I was just having fun. I mean, I started acting as a hobby, like things that I would do after school, back in in Texas. And that’s pretty much how. I take most things on is having fun with it first. If it’s not fun for me, or if I don’t have passion behind it, then I’m just not going to do it. And that’s always what it’s been. And I mean, the accolades are great. The title and the world records are very, very nice, and I’m beyond grateful because I know that’s God’s plan. But for me I feel like I’m putting myself at a limit if I decide, oh, this is the I want this, so I’m going to get this, because I mean, no one knows what God’s plan is going to be. So I don’t want to put myself at a disadvantage trying to do something for something that I don’ know if it’s going to happen or not. So that was exactly what Little was. I just wanted to create a story that hasn’t been seen in this light, especially from a Black- woman perspective, and that’s just kind of the things that came with it.

 

Ira Madison III I have to imagine being this young mogul, being this producer at this age, and then still working in other projects with people your own age who maybe aren’t doing that, do you find yourself being asked for, I guess, business advice by people who are sort of your own age, or do you like doling that out?

 

Marsai Martin Yeah, all the time. A lot of people ask me about it. And it’s kind of funny for me because I’m still trying to learn my own dang self. So for me, I’m like, I don’t know. I’m just out here. So you do you woo. But yeah, a lot of the time I’ll go talk at schools or even just see somebody on the street that will ask either me or moms asking my mom about advice and- Even my dad, so it’s a lot for all of us as a family, but I mean, as long as we know who we are to our core and know what we stand for, it’s kinda just like, you know, it God’s plan for everything and what’s for you is what’s you, and you just go from there.

 

Louis Virtel Blackish obviously ran a number of years, you know, as, as it progresses, I assume when you build that kind of family unit, a lot of things become easier. But I was wondering after a while, is there anything shooting a show like that after a while that actually becomes more difficult that you are like unforeseen challenges that come up from, you knowing, doing the same project year in and year out.

 

Marsai Martin I think probably the challenges that I had to tackle the most, I can probably think of two. One of them was definitely not getting stuck in that character. I think oftentimes when you play a character for many, many years and then you jump into another project, it’s really hard not to think of it as Diane or as this is just other, you know, quote unquote sassy, witty, with glasses type of kid. And, you know, I mean, oftentimes, like, in the industry, that’s the reason why they want you, right? It’s because they saw you as Diane or they saw, you do this, and then they’re like, all right, now do that again, but for this. And that’s kind of not what I really want to be on. But yeah, growing up, it was hard. It was definitely hard for me to kind of break the two, but I think with a lot more studying and kind of learning different tips and tricks that I had to. kind of prepare myself to get ready for a certain project, like creating her backstory or what makes this character different for then Diane and why is this important for people to see and for people understand and what makes her her and what make her human. I think all of those are questions that I constantly ask myself with any character that I portray. So I think that was definitely one of the more tougher things that I had to learn, especially when I was little. And I think being on a show… You kind of get, I mean, in ABC, you are an ABC person, so jumping into different projects was always really hard because I was always on set and I only had a hiatus for like probably two months, but do I want to work in those two months? Probably not, but that was the only time that I had to jump into other projects, so I had really choose like, okay, am I going to stress myself out by working all year long or take this break and then just. still keep doing this same show for many, many years. And that was a lot too. So those are the two challenges that I had to face growing up.

 

Ira Madison III What kind of stuff do you find yourself returning to that you watch, you know? I mean, you work so much. Like, do you like watching sitcoms with the same kind of step you’re on? Or do you have, like, completely different tastes that we might be shocked about?

 

Marsai Martin I like Adult Swim. I normally put Adult Swims. I like the Bob’s Burgers and the Boondocks of the world. That’s my show. And then I like reality shows. I like Love is Blind. I like Million Dollar Secret. That was fun. I don’t think a lot of people are talking about that, but that’s new.

 

Ira Madison III The new one on Netflix? Yes, the new one. Yes, yes, Secret Billionaire. I am watching it.

 

Marsai Martin Okay, what do you think?

 

Ira Madison III I love it. I love. I always get stuck on one of these like Netflix. They had one like that last year too, where they had Money in a Box, The Trust or something.

 

Marsai Martin Saw that but I didn’t I wasn’t that interested in that this one like I was like, okay

 

Ira Madison III I’m interesting. So the concept of this show is that there’s like 12 people, each of them go into this mansion and one of them finds out that they have a million dollars in a box. And then they have to lie to everyone else but then there are other clues to try and figure out who the millionaire is. I like the twist that you’re able to trade the money if you accomplish something into someone else’s box So you can basically get the heat off yourself. But I thought it was very dumb that that woman revealed to everyone that she was the millionaire

 

Marsai Martin That was so I get I get why cuz like I mean she was probably very emotional She probably thought she was kind of out of that whole situation and people were gonna love her more for it and trying to like keep her in but no those people are ruthless

 

Ira Madison III You live for three days.

 

Marsai Martin You lied for three days, but also at the same time, that’s the goal of the show. Right. Why are you mad that she lied? That’s the reason why she’s here.

 

Louis Virtel No, you watch The Traders, of course, right, where people get very emotional that somebody lied to them. It’s like there’s literally no other way to play the game. You have to lie.

 

Marsai Martin Maybe that’s why you’re on the show. You got a lot. You’ve got a lie to kick it. I’m sorry. But I really do love that show. Oh, wait, I can’t spoil it. But Sam, the most recent one is, I think she’s been the best millionaire so far. And I love, I love the advantages that you have to like do and get in. I love it. I love. I feel like I would do good on that show or somebody in my family.

 

Ira Madison III It’s a good test of also just how you interact with people. That’s what I love about reality shows, like seeing how people act on them and how we pick up different personalities for people because there are tasks on the show where you have to give everyone a hug. That’s in the first episode, you know, to accomplish your goal. But then you think about when you’re in an environment like that, or even in the real world, it’s are you going to think the person’s weird for hugging everybody? And things are just heightened.

 

Marsai Martin When that guy left because, or yeah, they kicked him out because he held their hands while he was praying and thought that was an advantage and was like, you’re the millionaire. Get out. It’s like, no, you just pray when you hold everybody’s hand. Like, this is what we do. I’m like, yeah, that’s not what. Yeah, it’s it’s cool. I love that show.

 

Louis Virtel This has also been a really good advertisement for the show. I now have to watch this. It sounds like the traders too, when they have like little physical challenges.

 

Ira Madison III It is the traders actually, but the rules make a little bit more sense for the traders.

 

Louis Virtel That is the crucially dubious part of that game.

 

Ira Madison III It’s actually the trader, the liar is at some points, a little bit more disadvantaged than the traders are where they have too much power, I think. And the money switches hands too. If you get the millionaire, if you get like the person out, then the money switch us to someone else next time. And so someone who is like a faithful, as you would think could become like the trader the next day.

 

Marsai Martin I say exactly but it’s the money doesn’t really count until like towards the end So that’s why everyone’s like I don’t want the money right now because it’s gonna move right But I wanted I wanted when it actually counts when I’m close enough to being the winner and actually being the millionaire So it’s pretty fun

 

Louis Virtel My last question, you already brought her up. Can you talk for a second about Regina Hall, who was on this podcast before, and in person, she is very normal. Like she’s like a chatty, down, cool person. And then of course I watched her on screen and she is one of the scariest and most hilarious and weirdest fucking people you will ever see. What was your interaction with her like and watching the difference between her performing and not performing?

 

Marsai Martin It’s funny because her humor, humor-wise, I can’t tell the difference. It’s like, she always just catches me off guard and I’m like, girl, wait, hold on. But I’ve known her for such a long time. She also worked on Blackish as our babysitter when I was, I probably had to be like nine, 10. So she’s known, I’ve been around her for a minute to like understand like what it is with her. And she is so funny and so sweet. And that’s also one of the actors that I love, kind of like what she has done within her career and the characters that she has chose to like portray and be a part of, because you have seen her scary, but you’ve also seen her like just super funny, but different layers of humor. There’s sitcom humor and then there’s like dark humor and you know, like it’s really hard to make somebody laugh, but she knows how to make somebody laugh in multiple different ways. So I just think she is. so sweet and I would do millions of projects with her and yeah, she’s awesome.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you so much for being here.

 

Marsai Martin Thank you for having me. Thank you guys so much.

 

Louis Virtel God, what a pleasure. Yeah. Come back and hang. We’ll all watch a reality show and then like debrief and like compare notes and stuff.

 

Marsai Martin And then Debrief, this is its own show, guys. Yeah, we could definitely do that.

 

Louis Virtel Our recap podcast we have going on here.

 

Marsai Martin Yes, agreed. Well, thank you guys.

 

Louis Virtel Thank you, thank you.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you Marsai for joining us and remember G20 drops on Prime Video tomorrow.

 

[AD].

 

Ira Madison III For the past few weeks, John Mulaney has been trying things his own way with his new Netflix series, Everybody’s Life with John Mulaney. Louis and I have finally tuned in, so we’re going to discuss whether Mulany is adding anything to the comedy landscape or if he’s missing the mark.

 

Louis Virtel Fuck him. No, I’m kidding. It’s good Uh, the first thing I love about this show is he announces that it’s at Sunset and Gower, which is such a nondescript location in LA and in fact It’s where I like go and eat salad every night after the gym. And so it’s in the pit of LA, unpretentiously

 

Ira Madison III Isn’t he just shooting Nickelodeon or something there?

 

Louis Virtel Yes, yes, yes. Several things have been there over the years. I want to say I was on a game show one time. No, that was Sunset in Las Palmas, but same stretch of just bland, like that part of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset is like storage spaces. So it’s just, it’s funny to have like a high octane TV series there. But also I do love about this show that he assigns a topic to each episode. And in the most recent one, it was just squatters. So they have to sit there and just talk about squatters the entire time. I love that. I love that they just pick something. and newspeg it as opposed to having to talk about whatever’s happening on the news every single day. Because somehow over the years we’ve given everybody the idea that talk shows are here to kind of calm us away from how bad the news can be and why? There’s just no reason for that. It can get especially stale after a while. I say that as I just got done writing 10,000 Elon Musk jokes. He’s in space, right? Right. He loves it up there. And we’re going to do our best to keep him up there with his fellow cosmonaut, Katy Perry.

 

Ira Madison III By the way, we will be talking about that next week. I’m just doing that as a brief aside. The ladies are going to space. We’re gonna talk about it. There’s been one person in our YouTube comments every fucking week being like, when are you gonna talk about them going to the space? What the fuck do you want us to say? They’re not there yet.

 

Louis Virtel There they go. We just look up like in the movie. Don’t look up. We just do that.

 

Ira Madison III Obviously, it’s fake feminism, like Katy’s album, but there’s nothing else to say yet.

 

Louis Virtel Also, you know I enjoy the song smile by Katy Perry. So sometimes if you want me to get in here and defend the worst of Katy Perry, just to let you know, I may do it. But back to the show, the last episode, he just started with this monolog talking about how he was supposed to book bone thongs in harmony for this comedy bit they were doing and why they fell apart. And at first it was like, I enjoyed that he was being just straightforward with the audience about something that was happening behind the scenes on a talk show like this. Then I was like, is this mean to Bone Thugs in Harmony? And then it ended with him realizing he may not have even been talking to the real manager of Bone Thugz in Harmoney. And I have to, things like that, I found it entirely refreshing and strange and really unexpected from him since he’s a standup. And I expected just to be kind of clippy jokes that are the same pace as Dave Letterman or Conan or Kimmel or whomever. And he really took his time and it didn’t feel like too much time. So I think that’s a awesome way to handle a talk show.

 

Ira Madison III I think that the talk show too feels in a way, obviously there’s the 80s Hollywood esthetic of it. I love the feel that it feels Los Angeles, but like the fun part of Los Angeles from the vintage movie era, not the influencer era of Los Angles, like the kind that’s in the movies.

 

Louis Virtel Like American Jiggle-O or something.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, American Juggler, or that sequel to X.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, oh, oh. The Mia Goth one. Yeah, the Mia Goth series. Yes, it’s in the 80s, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Right. Yes, it is. It feels a lot like a show that would be a talk show on a sitcom or comedy. It feels like we’d only see funny clips of him being like, we’re going to talk about funeral planning this week, or we’re gonna talk about cruises. But you actually do get the conversations, which I find interesting. I feel like there interesting things that you would hear on a comedy podcast. more so than you would hear on a talk show. And it’s bringing back that weird, fun element of what a talkshow can be. I love the cruise episode.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, me too. Also, I just love like, if you watch old episodes of Dick Cavett, or I mean, a number of talk shows like this, but specifically that comes to mind, he’d have like Janis Joplin on, talk with her for, you know, 30 minutes, be like, you have about 10 minutes left to live, Janis. And then the next guest would just come on and sit and talk with them all. And it was like Gloria Swanson, like people that have nothing to do with each other. That’s what I love. Yeah, something specific about this show is nobody is cast just because they have a project coming out. In fact, none of these people had something like that coming out, Like John Waters was there. with Wanda Sykes, great, let’s put them together and talk. Joan Baez. Joan Baez, who was great on the show and was like, did a stirring call to action as Joan Baize would. Honestly, if I had to change one thing, I would get rid of the audience because the show is so weird on purpose that kind of listening to a conventional talk show audience respond to the comedy beats makes it feel a little strange to me. And I just think like having a silence after something completely droll and strange occurs is a little bit funny.

 

Ira Madison III I think that you and I have definitely talked about this before with talk shows. The missing element of all of the guests of that episode being on the couch together is what I definitely miss from talk shows, and it seems to have gone away. I guess with just the scheduling of shooting, and also I feel like publicists are probably behind that too. You don’t want your client sitting here with some other random person, you know? because they could just say anything.

 

Louis Virtel Especially if they’re there to promote a project, like does that mean like they get less time to talk about the thing that they’re to talk about? Obviously somebody we love who handles this really well is Graham Norton, but there’s just something about the UK and talking that is so much more advanced. They just won’t allow themselves to sit and sort of stretch out and they can count on the natural wit of each other to make the conversation appealing and we just We cannot do that over here.

 

Ira Madison III They go to have fun on Graham Norton too, you know? I mean, I think you know this from working on a talk show and we know this, I mean interviewing people, this is a talk-show.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure.

 

Ira Madison III You really just cannot get past the whole, this person’s here to promote something, so you have to talk about it.

 

Louis Virtel You know? Right, right. And it’s weird because it’s like, you don’t want to like, the people who book it, you don’ want to disappoint them. They book all sorts of other people, et cetera. And obviously, you want the conversation to go well and be listenable, and you want to be a part of the business with all these people, but it is a little fraught that way when it’s about promoting a project and you to tap into the humanity of this person outside of just whatever they just made 10 minutes ago.

 

Ira Madison III That’s why you like, you know, the older talk show moments where it’s, this person’s been on this show like multiple times, you now, like friends of the family who just seem to like, celebrities who come on all the time, they’re just dropping by.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. We don’t have a lot of that anymore. You know, recently on the Jimmy Fallon Tonight show, I was always sort of intrigued by the fact that Fran Lebowitz would come on and be friends with them because they do not seem like they’re part of the same New York, really. She’s seen them at the bar. Yeah. Okay. Perhaps. But like they had an interesting rapport there that was unexpected that took me back to, you know, the Amy Sedaris, Dave Letterman or the Terry David Letterman. Actually, you know who is one of the best? David Letterman guests of all time is Julia Roberts. Every time she was on that show, she was like, woof, you won’t believe who was an asshole to me the other day, Nick Nolte. You know?

 

Ira Madison III That’s another thing where the podcast has sort of taken away for people. Obviously now people go on podcasts to promote things, but there are a lot of fun celebrity podcasts or even just comedians doing podcasts or like our early days of when we were doing this, right? And you just have friends stop by. They’re not promoting anything. They’re just talking. And I think that that is what people miss about talk shows in general. It’s what you miss. in the industry that would create stars, to be honest. Because if everyone is just coming there to talk about their fucking project, people zone that out a lot, you know? They’re like, okay, either I’m gonna go see it or not. But what they remember is the personality. They remember Julia Roberts coming on and being angry about something. I think your show, Kimmel, still sort of has that element whenever Matt Damon comes on.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, and most talk shows have the benefit of being on for years and years too, so you can harken back to old versions of the show, change it as you will, but it’s still very dependable. But you’re right, the meat of the conversations on these shows, I think, has the greatest potential to change and be more interesting. Even though, by the way, on this show, John Mulaney as a conversation proctor, he’s Funny? He’s not particularly speedy, like Graham Norton will like get you to a joke fast, like throwing it down, like he makes it a little bit urgent. There’s something about gayness that really lubricates that conversation. Whereas on his show, I’m sort of fascinated that he’ll leave things a little awkward. I don’t know if I like personally living in that space as a viewer, but I do think it makes it an interesting feel. You know, there’s almost something kind of Nathan Fielder about how he approaches it. Yes, honestly, that would be a fun talk show. Well, he is so frightening.

 

Ira Madison III His version of a talk show, he is terrified.

 

Louis Virtel The haircut alone, first of all. And then secondly, how he operates. I mean, like, and you know, he’s like really cool and with it, like you know Emma Stone’s obsessed with him. She’s like weirdly a person I really trust in this space. You know, if Emma Stone is producing your thing, I’m on board with you. But yeah, like he has that kind of creepy, what is on his mind energy, even as he sort of is staring you straight in the eye, kind of boring holes in you.

 

Ira Madison III You know, what I’m really enjoying about this too is it’s like it says, it’s promoted as a live Netflix comedy show. You know what I think Jay was talking about this a lot last week too with just needing to stop giving bad Netflix specials to unfunny people and just sort of really just branch out into different avenues of comedy and build up a comedy repertoire for Netflix, you know? I feel like there used to be more funny things that I’d want to watch on Netflix And now it’s just sort of, um. Secret Millionaire.

 

Louis Virtel Right. By the way, you know what else could stand to be revamped? The idea of a comedy special. We’ve had a couple of things over the years, like Rathaniel, or things that mix it up a little bit that have interstitials that are strange. But ultimately, nothing surprises me more. Growing up, I really thought stand-up would be the bread and butter of what I did. That would be format in which I presented jokes, et cetera. And now, I just don’t crave it as much.

 

Ira Madison III I wanna see your comedy special.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I mean, like, you know, I’m just going to like, take people to like a gallery of like golden age Hollywood stars and explain them to you. By the way, when I was in Berlin, I stayed in Marlena Dietrich plots, brought that up to everybody I met.

 

Ira Madison III Do they have a gorilla suit there?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I wish I came out with like the top with that, you know, the Madonna Top hat and like tails every time I went out. I would have been sweet Tyrone Power is my background on my phone And of course he was in his final movie with Marlena, Witness for the Prosecution, which I’ve talked about in every fucking YouTube video I’ve ever done for crooked. So look it up

 

Ira Madison III That gorilla scene, by the way, I mean, speaking of Batman, remember the poison ivy scene where Uma Thurman came out paying homage to the Marlena Dietrich scene. And then remember when Taraji Henson did that on Empire.

 

Louis Virtel No, I did not see that, excuse me.

 

Ira Madison III That, that. Season two of Empire, wow, taking it really back because the first season of that show was so good and then it dropped off so quickly. With Season 2 of Empire… Starts with, of course, a Black Lives Matter protest because the black show had to do that.

 

Louis Virtel Right, putting me at the exact moment in time. Here we are.

 

Ira Madison III Taraji P. Henson in a gorilla costume, beating her chest during the Marlena Dietrich, revealing herself under it.

 

Louis Virtel Thank you, Empire. I can only be thankful for that. Thank you Lee Daniels. Marlena Dietrich is a name that people don’t know anymore, so I’ll take any sort of renaissance we have.

 

Ira Madison III She’s in the Vogue song though, right?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. No, I would say if people know her through anything, it is the Vogue music video, which is mainly a tribute to old Marlena Dietrich photoshoots. If you haven’t seen her in Morocco, her nominated movie, really good. Mark Harris was talking about that recently. It’s a really good movie from 1930. Pre-code.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of precode, I just want to say quickly, we’ve gone on so many tangents here.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, sorry.

 

Ira Madison III We’re gonna talk about it in a few weeks when we have our theater preview again and talk about what’s out there, but I’m wearing a Betty Boop shirt. I saw Boop on Broadway.

 

Louis Virtel I’m so fucking jealous.

 

Ira Madison III And it is so fucking funny.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, thank God.

 

Ira Madison III The book is hilarious.

 

Louis Virtel Betty Boop, been that bitch. I don’t know if people are unfamiliar. You watch the cartoons, you’re cooking right there with her. Yeah. You follow her on the journey, which she always has.

 

Ira Madison III And some of those were pre-code, so they’re a little racy.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right. I already talked about Nancy comics recently, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yes, you did talk about Nancy Comics.

 

Louis Virtel I’m still on the Nancy tip. Nancy and Sluggo and I, we were vibing.

 

Ira Madison III Nancy the musical coming soon.

 

Oh my god. She’ll be pissed. It’ll be like Mama Rose shit.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, John Mulaney, I really enjoyed the show. I think that Netflix is doing something fun here by having a talk show that is just a little strange, it’s a little weird, and I think that they should make more of those because they have the money for it.

 

Louis Virtel Also, Richard Kind is on it, and they really just picked the strangest celebrity we have. I missed him on TV. Spin City was a good show. That was one of the last hard punchline multicams that I really enjoyed.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, the whole Spin City news radio era of comedy.

 

Louis Virtel Working with Fred Savage. Love that show.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I forget that Richard Kide was obviously on Curb Your Enthusiasm for years, but yeah, it felt like I haven’t seen him on TV in forever. It was just nice seeing him. All right, when we’re back. And we are back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It. Louis?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Actually, Ira, you go first this week. I’m still back from Berlin. I’m disoriented. I’m sleeping like 10 and a half hours a night. Up is down. Make it easy on me.

 

Ira Madison III Poppers aren’t banned there.

 

Louis Virtel No, oh, they sure aren’t. That became my favorite food.

 

Ira Madison III My Keep It this week goes to Bravo and the Real Housewives of Atlanta.

 

Louis Virtel It’s a bad week for you when these people are doing you dirty because this is your community, as we say.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, you know, we’re a family, like a giant tree.

 

Louis Virtel Yep. Okay

 

Ira Madison III We’re the Dream Girls.

 

Louis Virtel You’re Sheryl Lee Ralphing this week. Why?

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean, this week was a nightmare, girl.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, I’m there. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III So this is the week that Kenya Moore, you know, icon of Bravo. She’s been on Housewives for years. She left the series this week in a very traumatic episode for viewers if you’re a fan of her backstory. This season, Brit Eady, a new housewife joined the series and she used to date Rick Ross. Now she’s dating a light-skinned man who’s kind to her and who lets her eat lobster tails for dinner and lunch. It’s a thing. She started a beef with Kenya this season over the fact that Kenya made a reference to a ring that she was wearing. Just because she’s asking about her marriage, she’s talking about her ring, she’s commenting on her ring. It’s maybe a light, shady joke. It’s may be a question. They keep flashing back to this as if this is the reason for a beef, but really like this woman just sort of was clearly going after Kenya this season to start a storyline. Anyway, they get into an argument over the course of the season and last week during their fight when Kenya told her, I don’t speak to peasants, et cetera, Britt says, maybe you shouldn’t play with me because I got pistols.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Good reason not to mess with somebody, to be honest. Good reason to mess with somebody.

 

Ira Madison III The next week, Kenya responded, unfortunately, by using the launch of her hair spa to show photos of, I guess, a sex tape that Brit had made in the past.

 

Louis Virtel Interesting promotional technique.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, interesting to do it at the launch of your own new company, especially one that you’ve dedicated to your daughter. I was very mad at Kenya for doing this. I was really mad at Bravo for not sort of reprimanding and kicking Brit off in the first place for threatening someone with a gun. I think that there’s just a lot of mess that’s going on here and the fandom is in turmoil.

 

Louis Virtel And yeah, where do we go from here? I say this as somebody who will never ever watch the show.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, can you sort of ruin this herself? It was just disappointing to see her go out like that. I guess my Keep It is mostly to her because I feel like you’ve been in situations like this before. You knew that doing what could technically be considered revenge porn is going to get you kicked off the show, at least for the season.

 

Louis Virtel Also, what do you mean, technically revenge porn? It is revenge porn.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Well, I think that there’s a legal thing that’s going to be fought. You know, if it was widely available, is it revenge board? If you just reprinted it.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. Sometimes I’m reminded that I’m not a lawyer, you know, sometimes I remind I don’t know or I forget, you

 

Ira Madison III Well, I’ve got Patty Hughes on speed dial.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God. Oh, speaking of Patty Hughes, um, Guy Branum, friend of Keep It, who’s been on many times, was on Regular Jeopardy as a contestant and he got second place. He did nothing wrong. He was great. There was just a guy who beat him a couple of times to the buzzer, but there was a question about damages. Namely, the answer was who was Glenn Close. To watch Guy get beaten to the bazaar on that, more emotional than the entire White Lotus finale. It was so sad to see that. By a gay? No, I don’t think so. He did get in on a Barbra Streisand question, at which point he actually winked at Ken. Good. That’s what I want to see.

 

Ira Madison III I’m glad he got a little wink in, because I’ve interacted with a lot of Jeopardy! gays recently for some reason, not just on the floor, I’ve interact with some other Jeopardi! gais, just IRL.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, they’re around and

 

Ira Madison III A lot of them got beef with you.

 

Louis Virtel Me, Louis? Oh. Why? Because of iconography?

 

Ira Madison III A lot of these Jeopardy! gays have won the game

 

Louis Virtel Which I consider tacky.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, no one remembers them in one of their words. No one remembers me because I didn’t do a snap.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, is that so? Maybe you should have thought of that. As I sit here like Marlena Dietrich looking absolutely fresh on television.

 

Ira Madison III And I did say, well. It is a TV show.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Nothing was stopping you. You just can’t be a nerd. I just want to say, by the way, some queens have gone on since and they’ve tried to do it, baby. Good try. In the words of Alex Trebek, sorry. People have tried to snap. Oh, they’ll like do a little move or something. And it’s just like, guys, I can’t explain this rhythm. I’m, you know, I got it. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I also learned there’s like a jeopardy gay like Facebook group.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, uh-huh. I’m in there.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. They’re all in there. One of them in there is a trader.

 

Louis Virtel Are coming for me? Good for you, yeah. Wow. I would love for them to get started on tarnishing my legacy. It’s flawless and platinum-like still, thanks.

 

Ira Madison III You’d think Pop Culture Jeopardy would be this, but I’m like, can we have some sort of competition where just all, like a quelling, like in The Hunger Games, where all the Jeopardy gays are back?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Jeopardy Gay All-Stars.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I also sincerely want there to be a trivia show that just gets as niche as possible. Like, people know all sorts of insane things. That should be tested in some way. But anyway, I’m so glad this conversation about the Real Housewives of Atlanta turned into a Jeopardie conversation, as I planned. Anyway. I mean, what do you want to talk about? Revenge porn more? No, I don’t. Yeah, I have a Salon.com essay in me about that. Sorry.

 

Ira Madison III All right, Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, my keep it this week. So on the way back from Berlin, which was a wonderful time, truly a wonderful time, if you’ve not been to Berlin, it’s a spectacular international city. The best thing about an international flight is you watch 10 movies. So I had never seen About Schmidt, which was I think the only Alexander Payne movie I had not seen, really good. Jack Nicholson, I think a little, not quite dim-witted enough to play the character. The casting to me, and that was a little strange. Kathy Bates is great. Hope Davis, what happened to her? She was great. But. My keep it is to people who get into fights about the greatest movie series of all time, in particular my friend Andy Heron, who I know is listening right now, so I can say this. Scream. He will pick Scream? Bitch, you are fucking crazy. If you think the best movie series all time is anything but the Before Trilogy. That is the best movies series of time. I only had time to watch the first one before sunrise. which I think is probably considered on a Metacritic scale the worst of the three since before Sunset, I think it’s the one people like, think is the best. And then the last one before midnight, you know, they’re married and a whole bunch of other problems they’re dealing with are super interesting. These movies are just unbelievable. And to be honest, I don’t understand how Julie Delpy has remained this underrated. She co-wrote two of the later movies. She is entrancing in this film as an immediately believable character. Ethan Hawke is, of course, fabulous too, and I love how he kind of seduces her off the train at the beginning of the movie. It’s a really great scene. But she also wrote other movies like Two Days in New York and whatever, like, awesome. Just like really great material. And I just, there’s no movies like these, which really surprises me because, you know, you would think we would just get more movies about great conversations that are a movie length long. And there are a couple like my dinner with Andre from the early 80s. This is so much better than my dinner with Andre, which is insistent upon its own intelligence, whereas this, it’s like two people who realize in their connection how much experience in their lives now matters even more, because they get to share it with this person. I just think it is like a spiritually moving and rad. And like in my social life, I’m in it for these types of interactions. I’ve like meeting somebody and just like figuring it out whether or not it’s romantic and just like solving it with like intense, interesting, interested conversations. And so I just can’t imagine saying any other movie series is as good as this.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, well, there are only three of them, so, you know, a trilogy is a little bit different than I feel like a series, you now? Okay, okay, sure. It’s very easy, it’s very to do a trilogy.

 

Louis Virtel You know and this and you’re saying yet. There’s less room for error like there wasn’t a fourth or fifth

 

Ira Madison III This is for the era, okay? I love Scream, but I certainly wouldn’t say it Scream. What would you say? Because I’ve seen Scream 4.

 

Louis Virtel Actually, no, Scream 5. Scream 4 is good. Scream five is the worst, is the worse. Scream four, the ending makes no sense, but up until then, it’s great. Yeah, I would say it’s Mission Impossible. Oh, okay. But like, aren’t there a couple of those that aren’t that good? Like Mission Impossible 2, babe.

 

Ira Madison III Only Mission Impossible 3.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, which I haven’t seen. Who’s in that one?

 

Ira Madison III Oh wait, or two. Whichever one John Woo did.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I think that’s two, right? Those two, yeah. Right, right, right. Like late 90s, yeah

 

Ira Madison III Otherwise, I think it’s pretty flawless.

 

Louis Virtel I will say. Tom Cruise doesn’t make mistakes. And Vanessa Kirby is just, she’s got that Rosamund Pike thing of like, oh, you looked at me and I realized I’m with the craziest single person who ever lived. Something’s up with you.

 

Ira Madison III Julie Delpy, you know what we kind of need? We need one of those like book club kind of movies, but for the French bitches. Julie, Juliette.

 

Louis Virtel He’s a bear. Like… Charlotte Rampling kind of French, people like that. Yeah, Catherine’s not invited. Yeah. Wait, is this because of Indochine?

 

Ira Madison III They probably just don’t like her.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, you never know. I mean, like with French actresses, I don’t want to get too deep into the interviews. I feel like they’ll say the wrong thing, you know?

 

Ira Madison III But no, let’s get all the French ladies together for something.

 

Louis Virtel That would be lovely. Yes, I concur. Le L’Eve Club or whatever. It’s been ages since I took French. I’m so sorry, Madame Marcoli.

 

Ira Madison III Ha ha ha ha. Le Patate Chocolat Club.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, Le Chocolat suck. I cannot believe that is Juliette Binoche’s only fucking best actress nomination.

 

Ira Madison III Wow, you hate Chocolat?

 

Louis Virtel Of all the things in the world to make her, a chocolatier is not what I wanted.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. I mean, I think it’s so sexy.

 

Louis Virtel Maybe to Harvey, not to me. The rabbit? Yeah, no, this has nothing to do with Mr. Jimmy Stewart. All right, well, that’s our episode this week. Oh my God, thank you to Marsai Martin for being here. What a delight. I would have her back most weeks.

 

Ira Madison III And G20 is very fun.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, totally fun. Exactly the movie that should be coming out this time of year too. Like gives you something good to see and Viola is perturbed as fuck. In an interview she was like, I can’t do Oscar bait all the time. Dang, we love to hear it.

 

Ira Madison III She wants to check.

 

Louis Virtel And Tony’s don’t pay the bills, you know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III They certainly do not. Otherwise, Whoopi Goldberg, she’d own a mansion.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And as you know, she, we think she’s poor.

 

Ira Madison III She lives at the view.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Oh, I see. She’s just in the studio. Got it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Alright. We will see you next week And 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.

 

Louis Virtel Keep It is a Crooked Media Production. Our producer is Bill McGrath. Our associate producer is Kennedy Hill. And our executive producers are Ira Madison III, Louis Virtel, and Kendra James.

 

Ira Madison III Our digital team is Delon Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, and Rachel Gaieski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Jarek Centeno. Thank you to David Toles, Kyle Seglin, and Charlotte Landes for production support every

 

Louis Virtel Our head of production is Matt DeGroot and Madeline Harringer is our head of programming. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

 

Ira Madison III And as always, keep it as filmed in front of a live studio audience.