Ira and Louis discuss Taylor Swift’s latest album Midnights, Leslie Jordan and how we respond to celebrity deaths. Plus, Jacob Anderson joins to discuss the television adaptation of Interview with the Vampire and why, for some reason, he’s a fan of Keep It. And in honor of Jacob’s appearance, a discussion of our favorite vampires in film and television.

TRANSCRIPT

Ira Madison III [AD]

 

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

 

Louis Virtel 251 episodes in. And I don’t know if that’s a prime number. I don’t know what we can do with that. I’m Louis Virtel. I don’t do math.

 

Ira Madison III Well, if you were Miss Jean Brodie, you know.

 

Louis Virtel She was not a math teacher, but that’s all right.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I never read it.

 

Louis Virtel Her job in that movie, she’s a teacher. But mostly what she does is she’s come back from Italy, where she was over the summer, and she tells her students how fabulous and sex heavy her time was there and they idolize her for it. And so I think ultimately she was right. She’s also a fascist, which is a complicating factor of her character.

 

Ira Madison III Well, we love fascists. Adidas doesn’t, but we.

 

Louis Virtel Do say they’re around right now. So they’re having a moment, shall we say?

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, once again, it’s a slightly sad episode. I need people to stop dying.

 

Louis Virtel I know. Also, I mean, like, in a way I like when somebody’s beloved, I don’t want to say dies, but, like, we get to talk about them and Keep It. But after the Angela Lansbury death, which is about as like prepared as you can be for someone to pass away now we’ve lost Leslie Jordan in a what we assume is a medical mishap that led to a car accident. And it’s just so sad. I was saying to somebody the other day, there’s that Angelyne TV show where Emmy Rossum plays her. But anyway, Leslie Jordan is like the cool version of Angelyne and that you would see him all over West Hollywood where he loved to be and he was as full of life as he was on Will and Grace in person. And there’s just no second one of him. It completely sucks.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I famously loved his billboards that were always around.

 

Louis Virtel Always posing on a car. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. No. Leslie Jordan was, you know, lovely. And I feel like there have been a lot of posts from people about how he helped get them through early stages of lockdown, because that’s when most people reverted to making online content. Not all that successful. But for him. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel No. Also, it’s like he popped off immediately. Yeah. It took like, like one or two posts in lockdown and people just agreed. Oh, yeah. You’re you have a kind of guileless effervescence about life.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. And that also makes it feel like it was just coming from themselves, you know, because I feel like if you did it, early stages of lockdown, you were just doing it from a need to connect with people. Obviously, once, you know, like a he took off once I feel like Zoé took off like other people started taking off. Then it became, well, how are we going to use our camera to, you know, sort of get successful and get a lot of eyeballs on it while everybody is at home. But that it just felt so very pure and natural. And also, he’s so funny.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. No, the line deliveries and also these stories he would tell. He’s somebody like a Kathy Griffin and not many others these days, a celebrity who had a story about every other celebrity. And he loved to tell them there was just a, you know, a chatty vibe about him. And I feel like people are maybe afraid to say the wrong thing. So you don’t see as many celebrities like that anymore. But he famously told a story about being on the sitcom. It had to be you in the nineties where the lead actress was Faye Dunaway, who if you know anything about Faye Dunaway, maybe one of the more difficult people to work with in Western civilization. And he told a story about how she said, Oh, Tennessee Williams is the only person who would ever call me Dorothy Faye. And he said, Can I call you Dorothy Faye? And she said, No. And then he goes, What a crazy bitch. It was just so fucking hilarious. It’s such a specific gay, an out gay person. They’re just they’re so rarely people that have been out that long, too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And I think that, you know, one thing that a lot of people would be remembering, obviously, is Will and Grace, where he and Megan Mullally were just the reason to watch the show.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. I mean, everybody on that show is master class, but the two of them were specifically fabulous. I was very touched by Meghan’s post about him. And I also just want to say that I looked through the the comedy guest actor nominees because of this, because he won once for Will and Grace. Did you remember that, Eli Wallach, as in The Ugly from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly was nominated for Nurse Jackie at the age of 95.

 

Ira Madison III Um, I think you’re assuming I watched Nurse Jackie.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I get it. Of course, Nurse Jackie could still be on, but. We have no idea. But Eli Wallach, we were putting him on Showtime at 95? I just had no idea. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III A lot of things happened on Showtime. Okay. I mean, I see. I feel like when you. When you wonder where someone’s been, they’ve been on Showtime. Actually, we during the interview today, we’ll talk about who’s on the show in a minute. The guests and I were wondering where Jane Kaczmarek is. And I was like, well, maybe she’s on Showtime. She’s not actually she actually has no credits since like 2019.

 

Louis Virtel I remember Jane Kaczmarek after Malcolm in the Middle did some either a season of a show that involved a courtroom. And then otherwise, I was completely baffled. But she I mean, she was. You wanted more of Jane Kaczmarek.

 

Ira Madison III She’s a great celebrity Jeopardy! Player. What do you think of Matt Rogers?

 

Louis Virtel All right. He was just on the other day, I watched that with all of our friends. And Matt Rogers was supposed to be there, but he had to go shoot something else. So we watched him. We had a viewing party for him without him, which makes you feel so desperate as a friend, I just want to say. But but he did great. It started off. He like had a couple of missed questions at the beginning and I was like, I know you’re going to pull out of this. And then he did. He almost won it. He almost beat John Michael Higgins. And now Joel Kim Booster fellow, keep it alum, will be on, I believe, next week.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, wow. They are. They’re going through the gays. They’re going through the streaming gays, is what they are doing.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yeah John Early watch out or whoever’s next.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah well John Early is busy being in Taylor Swift videos and we will we will get to that today because it wouldn’t be Keep It if we didn’t talk about a new Taylor Swift album. And I actually have no idea what you think this time.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, good. I mean, I barely know what I think either, but. So we’ll see. We’ll we’ll discover it together.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So we’re going to talk about Midnights and then also. Our guest this week is a Keep It fan and also the star of Interview with the Vampire, Jacob Anderson.

 

Louis Virtel He seems like a doll. I could not be there for the interview, so I will listen later and of course, send you my notes. But this led me to rewatching the old Interview with The Vampire, and this dovetails with our other topic, which is which vampires and werewolves we actually care about in pop culture. And I know you’re going to have a bigger list than I do. Because I have one that really comes to mind for me. But you will, I think, take me on a larger, fuller journey.

 

Ira Madison III I will. I will. I’m excited to talk about vampires. I was I was watching a classic vampire film last night, which I will reveal when we get to our segment. But before we do that, since you weren’t in the interview, I tried to do an impression of you for.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God.

 

Ira Madison III Jacob.  because.

 

Louis Virtel I’m going to go ahead and call GLAAD right now. Okay, go ahead. Lambda Legal, please help.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, but. We’re going to deal with that after the interview.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III And see if I got it right. Okay. Very good. So we will be right back with more Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel <A.D.>.

 

Ira Madison III Taylor Swift’s 100th album, Midnights, came out last Friday and everyone is talking about it.

 

Louis Virtel She’s like Pearl Jam.

 

Ira Madison III Truly.

 

Louis Virtel There’s like a 7000 songs. She has her own Sirius channel. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Well, with this many fucking versions of her albums, at this point, it might be 100 Midnights Taylor’s version, Midnights, Reloaded, The Re-Up.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III It’s a lot going on.

 

Louis Virtel Like Shania Twain’s Red version. Yeah. Rockabilly version.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So she released Midnights at midnight. Thankfully, I’ve been on the West Coast for the past week, so the album came out at 9 p.m. for me, which let me tell you something is is a beautiful blessing when things drop like this. Like I was on the West Coast when Renaissance dropped. I love a 9 p.m.. Listen, midnight is stressful.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I feel the same way about when we get TV shows that that hour too. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Except except Netflix though.

 

Louis Virtel I’ve had this problem with The Mole. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Had to wait till midnight. And then when I was going to press play on the final two episodes of The Mole, Taylor dropped Midnights, the 3 a.m. version with seven bonus tracks, which is the definition of mole behavior. No.

 

Louis Virtel She would be a good mole, honestly. Also, that was kind of a cool marketing thing Taylor did. I have to say the Midnight drop is familiar to everybody, but to add a little something a couple hours later when people are already up and stirred up in the moment, I was impressed by that.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Now, are you impressed by the album?

 

Louis Virtel Wow. Real Masterpiece Theater cadence there. Alistair Cooke joining us. Well, I will say this. I’m surprised to hear people say that they are getting sick of Jack Antonoff, because to me on this album, he establishes what I would call now a core Taylor Swift sound. Like in a way to me she doesn’t sound like anybody else but herself. Whereas previous albums, you know, Red sounds like a bunch of other singer songwriters. 1989, she’s getting more specific, but on this album he combines a lot of the elements of those albums, like the zappers of 1989, the, you know, the kind of warehouse pound of reputation and the kind of soft vibe of Evermore. And so I would describe this album as a kind of wintry 1989. It’s sort of like a small, pulsating snow globe. But I really like the production of it. The songwriting. I’m sorry, what is she fucking talking about anymore? I’m. We’re. We’re. We’re still on fucking Karma. We’re still on I’m the villain, we’re still on I’m a monster. It’s like it’s an album about boring perceptions of Taylor Swift, and I need her to get a hobby.

 

Ira Madison III There was a very funny story where someone wrote in her thirties still making first breakup music. Go sell some drugs.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right. It’s very stunted to me. And again, now we have this one of the music videos for not Anti-Hero, Bejeweled where she’s it’s a Cinderella. Oh, God work your post grad school please move along. Stop.  It’s. Oh, God.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like that has been one of my complaints about the visuals for Taylor’s work for quite some time. It’s almost regressed at this point, because when we got Willow and then Antihero is very basic and, you know, and then it’s also Alice in Wonderland, you know, like this big Taylor in the house, drinking and trying to.

 

Louis Virtel With two references.

 

Ira Madison III There’s two of her. Yes, yeah, yeah. There’s it’s Disney and she’s the villain, you know, and then Bejeweled, which is, you know, the Cinderella and. Girl, who who kidnaped Laura Dern and put her on that set?

 

Louis Virtel It was not normal. I mean, like, yeah. She’s there with the Haim sisters. And Taylor wrote that dialog, right? Like she wrote the video?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Just needed a punch up. Like it wasn’t giving hilarious. I think, like, Laura could have given you hilarious, too. But. But then, of course, the video kind of gets totally away from the Cinderella thing. But by the after the part.

 

Ira Madison III Well, then she’s just the Silver Surfer. Yeah. Walking through space. So that part I liked.

 

Louis Virtel Also Dita Von Teese in that video. The second first thought casting of Dita Von Teese in the past two months. Because we all remember. Don’t Worry, Darling. I like where that video goes, but just and we’re getting a whole album of this, right? These these videos are like coming up, C-minus for an album where you would think like every video would be kind of crystal and perfect.

 

Ira Madison III I also want to point out that this album is very much Taylor, returning to the pop charts. Very much Taylor, I want to be played in commercials, in movies and stadiums again. You know, she wants children singing these songs at graduations, weddings, funerals. Yes. And so it’s very much going back to that, you know, base point of  Lover, of 1989, of Reputation. It feels like you said like a mash of that where I don’t know. I feel like, yes, we have a signature sound for Taylor, but it almost feels like we were getting something different with Folklore and Evermore. And I was ready for her to give us something different again. The album, to me, as someone who is admittedly a Taylor Swift fan, feels non-essential to me because it’s like I’m the.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like a mix of the previous ones. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And well and even like with newer stuff, like, I love Glitch, I love, um, Lavender Haze. And these are songs that she also made with Marc Anthony Spears, who is Kendrick’s main producer since his first album, you know, so like she went to some hip hop for her hip hop songs and those are good. But aside from could have, would have, should have. Which is an Aaron Dessner song and he’s from The National and I’ve loved her work with him because I feel like he gets her voice very well. Aside from that song, none of the other songs would crack even my top ten Taylor songs. And so I feel like the album is pleasant to listen to. I’ve like, I’ve made like a playlist of my favorites until like a nice EP, but I don’t think it’s going to be largely remembered as a standout Taylor album. You know, it’s just sort of it’s interesting thinking about an artist releasing an inessential album.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, well, I mean, I would kind of say the same thing about Evermore, though. Like, none of those songs to me stand out as like her top ten or whatever. And on this album I can think of a couple hooks I like, but I don’t know. It’s almost like she doesn’t as much as you say she wants to return to the pop charts. I’m not hearing, and it doesn’t have to be like the huge pop hook of We’re Never Getting Back Together, but I’m not even really hearing like the a line of a song like style, which is just completely, you know, a song you almost glide along as it as it hits the radio.

 

Ira Madison III Bejeweled is probably the biggest pop wise.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Bejeweled is like a a pretty good song. I don’t know. You’re right. It doesn’t have this, like, giant earworm moment for me either. Even like Anti-hero, which I feel like is the song most people are getting behind. It was obviously the first video and stuff.

 

Ira Madison III Like, I like Anti-hero a lot, but the lyrics.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. It’s verbose. Like it’s just and by the way, I’m an Alanis Morissette fan, so I love when I love a song when it’s like six syllables too deep. I love that. But it’s just like, it’s like a little bit, like, clunky. It’s it’s just not the kind of, you know, I feel like J.K. Simmons and Whiplash, like the tempo we love. I do also have to say, I am extremely sick of how every ninth Taylor Swift song is now about how she’s an outlaw. Like the the Karma thing, the Vengeance song. Like the dressing for revenge.

 

Ira Madison III The vigilante shit.

 

Louis Virtel You have three album of the year Grammys. What? What? Stevie Wonder did not put out an album in 1978 where he’s like, and by the way, I’m the villain. What?

 

Ira Madison III I think that this is her like Scooter Braun moment. Like she’s angry with him and that’s where vigilante shit is coming from. But it’s also, girl, you’re winning.

 

Louis Virtel Right? You’re right. Let’s move on to another topic, please. I heard you.

 

Ira Madison III You’re not an underdog.

 

Louis Virtel No.

 

Ira Madison III It’s like you truly haven’t been one since Kanye took that award from you on the stage. And even then, you were an underdog for maybe 10 minutes until Beyoncé gave up her time on the stage for you. When Beyoncé gives you stage time.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III That means you are not the underdog. Beyoncé doesn’t even give her fans stage time, okay. I don’t know who that bitch is powerful in Paris or somewhere where we’re waiting for visuals for Renaissance. Come on. Yeah. The whole antihero. Like I’m the villain, you know, like. And I’m tired of being put in this 1950s perception of what people think a woman should be is okay, but all of your videos put you there.

 

Louis Virtel Right? You like that in a way, you know? And the.

 

Ira Madison III You liked the Victory project.

 

Louis Virtel Any time the album reminded me of Reputation, I was like, This is a six year old sentiment. Like, I just feel like you expressed it. All right. And let me just say, even songwriters, I’m obsessed with return to specific motifs. For instance, Aimee Mann, for example. I was just really like almost on every album she puts out, there’s some reference to being split in two and your and your halves don’t cohere again. And that’s just a part of like the mental illness thing she’s obsessed with discussing. I have no problem with like returning to certain motifs, but in this case, it’s like she’s referencing a way we once thought about her that is in no way true now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, The Weeknd is always rapping about cocaine and white bitches, so you know that that is a motif that I’m really happy he returns to. All of Michael Jackson songs like there were constantly songs from him about being an outlaw. And while, you know, I was like he was constantly in court.

 

Louis Virtel So that’s just legally true.

 

Ira Madison III That made sense.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Yes. Fits the definition.

 

Ira Madison III Janet Jackson is always making songs about orgasming. And you know what I believe she does a lot.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right now, if you’re looking for a 36 second interlude where she coos three times and then there’s an orgasm, Janet is exactly who you should be seeking out.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but whereas Taylor, we’re we’re past the Kanye and Kim stuff, you know, and the Scooter Braun thing, as we said, you know, like you won. So I just don’t get this perception that she’s the villain. But you know what? She is a Sagittarius. So, you know, she is constantly living in Three Days of the Condor.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Right. Well, I was.

 

Ira Madison III Just what they do.

 

Louis Virtel I think a problem I think a problem she has is is it is just an obsession with relate ability, which many artists at this level have a problem with. It’s like how Barbra Streisand is constantly bringing up her childhood in Brooklyn, because that’s one thing. Everybody has a childhood, you know? So it’s like, Oh, yeah, me too. I’ve had one of those.

 

Ira Madison III Lady Gaga is like, I’m just I’m just an Italian girl, you know, from New York City.

 

Louis Virtel She’s from Yonkers, right? I think that’s just said that was really a favorite lie about her.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, she’s in. Hello, Dolly.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. That’s what Lady Gaga is. She’s probably going to be Dolly at some point, by the way.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my.

 

Ira Madison III I’m just putting that out there.

 

Louis Virtel I can’t believe you said that now, because now the dominoes are going to fall and that’s going to happen way sooner than it should have before. Hello, Dolly. How old is that character supposed to be? 104. Like, anyway, moving on.

 

Ira Madison III She’s older than the oldest profession. Yeah. Dolly is the H.R. department at.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III For the oldest profession. Okay, so that’s how old she is. I would love for Taylor to get a little you know, to give us a little Lindsay Lohan, you know, get a little bit more personal, raw.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes. And whenever Lindsay does that, by the way, it’s extremely worrying. So I wish she wouldn’t. But yeah, go ahead

 

Ira Madison III Tap into some stuff we don’t know. One song I thought is fucking brilliant is Masterminds because that.

 

Louis Virtel I think that’s my favorite song on the album.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, once and once I got to the end of the album, I was like, Okay, you made us wait for this one. This song is about you know, it’s about her relationship with Joe Alwyn, who is, you know, a perfectly sweet boy. They’ve been together for six years. He’s a fine actor in.

 

Louis Virtel Loved him in The Favorite.

 

Ira Madison III These Stars that Stars at Noon is good. You know with that opposite, that girl who’s in the Tarantino movie who doesn’t like to wear shoes. But he was he was he was lovely. I get it. But this song was basically about how, you know, like she manipulated, like the romance, you know, like how like she was the mastermind behind it all. Like, you know, the, like, meet cute and like the things like that. And I’m like, I like that song because it feels like her perception of herself that isn’t distinctly tied to what she thinks we think about her. I think it perfectly actually kind of distills who she is with, how she, you know, thinks about the charts and how she thinks about Grammy’s and how she just wants to win all the time. The bejeweled song Getting the It’s Video Next is even part of that because when you looked at all the songs that were charting, Bejeweled was separated between the other songs at the top of the charts, I believe, by Steve Lacy’s Bad Habit, and like Kim Petras’ Unholy. And so, of course, she released the Bejeweled video, so it jumped up over those two songs.

 

Louis Virtel Wow. She’s Machiavellian because she cares or whatever that lyric is.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Which actually I kind of liked that moment on the album. Also, did you notice in the the video for Bejeweled, there’s a part where the buttons on the elevator have colors associated with them, and fans decoded that it has to do with what albums she’ll release next. And it turns out the next album is her 13th album will be Taylor’s version of Speak Now, which I actually am curious about because that is, I think, my least favorite album of hers. So I’m wondering what she’ll do with it.

 

Ira Madison III I like a few songs on Speak Now, but I don’t return to it.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III At all.

 

Louis Virtel I actually liked Mean at the time, but.

 

Ira Madison III I like Better Than Revenge too. You know, it’s like I don’t give a fuck about her slut shaming a woman.

 

Louis Virtel Right, no.

 

Ira Madison III Come on.

 

Louis Virtel The way she slut shamed Abigail in 15. Never forget. Also again, Better Than Revenge. This is a topic she is still obsessed with. 175 years later. Who are we getting revenge on? Moving on.

 

Ira Madison III I would love to hear honestly about. Not that. Not that I think an artist should talk about their failures all the time. But, you know, it is a thing that you you know, a well that you go to as an artist. She keeps trying to act.

 

Louis Virtel Right? I actually thought she was fine in Amsterdam. I thought she was fine in Amsterdam. Mind you, it was a 30 second role.

 

Ira Madison III You saw her?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I did.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, I’m sorry that you saw that film.

 

Louis Virtel It waes long. Everybody was doing their Ye Old Barbershop quartet act. And I sat there for, I believe it was 5 hours long.

 

Ira Madison III And only. I’m sure it was longer for the actors having to spend any time on set with David or Russell. But that movie Cats, she was in Valentine’s Day and they all are like spectacular disasters.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And you didn’t even bring up The Giver, which is one of the worst literary adaptations ever.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, because it wasn’t giving, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Lois Lowry’s comment was it’s not giving.

 

Ira Madison III The Giver, give her something else to do, but not in film. So you don’t buy what is what is drawing her to that? You know, is it just want is just just because like I’m famous or I guess I should be in a film like, you know, my my team says do this film role or does she really want to be an actress or, you know, like, I just I want to know more about that. You know, and she she loves romcoms or romantic dramas, at least she’s talking about like Kramer versus Kramer and shit at the film festival when she was talking about the film she was watching before this album, which, by the way, this album doesn’t even feel like Kramer’s Kramer Kramer versus Kramer marriage story. Like it doesn’t feel like any of those things.

 

Louis Virtel No, absolutely not. No. She definitely still thinks she is living in a free form original dramedy about a high school romance. And I just want to say it feels like that was canceled in 2016. Let’s move it along.

 

Ira Madison III Now I’m thinking of what such a pregnant American teenager, The Secret Life.

 

Louis Virtel The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Molly Ringwald’s  own. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The Secret Life of Taylor Swift is the TV show. And we are on, what, season 17.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right. No, the original cast has moved on now. Yeah. Etc.. I can’t stop thinking about her watching Kramer versus Kramer. That means she knows who Jane Alexander is. And that makes me uncomfortable because Jane Alexander is for us. Watch Testament next. That’s about nuclear apocalypse, right? About right. An album about that.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I think we fully exhausted our Taylor conversations.

 

Louis Virtel I like the production, by the way. I think her voice sounds really good on it, too, and I think her voice continues to sound better and better per album. I just I’m not interested in what these songs are about anymore. I think she continues to return to this pool of I don’t want to say melodramatic topics, but just like the same three things she’s been writing about since like album one. I truly just would like, like literally just write a psychological profile of somebody who has nothing to do with you. I just find that to be more interesting than the let’s obsess over this weird Y.A. universe I still continue to live in. Just doesn’t do anything for me.

 

Ira Madison III Well, that’s why I like, you know, the ones like Folklore and Evermore exactly like she was writing stories that weren’t about her.

 

Louis Virtel Right. There were a couple in there.

 

Ira Madison III Last great American dynasty, you know.

 

Louis Virtel But then she buys the house in that, too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, that’s true. You know, she she inserts herself into the story, but like all true artists do. I do lastly want to shout out another album that came out this week, which is not, you know, not getting enough attention. But Meghan Trainor.

 

Louis Virtel Shut up.

 

Ira Madison III You know, a potential mother. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel I want to say about the Carly Rae Jepsen album. To me, it’s a 3.5 out of five. I love a certain songs on it, namely Shooting Star, which is I’ve always called Carly Rae Jepsen, Smiley Minogue, and now it just sounds like Kylie Minogue that that album, that.

 

Ira Madison III Shooting Star.

 

Louis Virtel Looks like it’s from X. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It’s an epic song. I love I love she like instantly. I love that song. I would give it probably that too, because I feel like the songs that I love on it are some of the best songs that she’s ever made. But the ones that I skip are really boring.

 

Louis Virtel And I’m I’m surprised because I feel like she’s just is best when she’s super bubblegum poppy. And I’m surprised she still wants to live in this sort of lazy river space, which Western Wind sort of hinted when she put it out. But like talking to yourself, I love I love Surrender My Heart. And I and her vocals sound great on it, too. I, I really regret that I didn’t get to see her recently. Mysteriously, I went and saw Jessie Ware in concert, who was awesome, but I didn’t get to see Carly Rae Jepsen.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, good. Ending your Jessie Ware vendetta.

 

Louis Virtel I didn’t say that. I think the album is still a little slow. I still think it’s playing in the bathroom at the disco and not at the actual disco, but live on stage with the choreography. It was a slay.

 

Ira Madison III I thought Jessie was fucking fantastic. I thought Carly was fantastic. It was truly a tough week. There was there was there was a lot of there’s was a lot of tetrissing that needed to go on if you were gay, because Carly Rae Jepsen was Tuesday night, Jessie Ware was Monday and Tuesday. Lil Nas X was that was Tuesday and Wednesday I saw all three. But it was a it was a lot of it was a lot of choreography, as it were.

 

Louis Virtel So. And I assume Rehab next. So a lot of that coming up for you.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah, I’m actually recording this from Promises.

 

Louis Virtel Does Promises still exist. I think of that as such a 2007 destination.

 

Ira Madison III As far as I know, Promises is still around so.

 

Louis Virtel Also Promises, a phenomenal Kylie Minogue song from the album Body Language.

 

Ira Madison III We love that album.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Taste.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Anyway, when we’re back, we are joined by Jacob Anderson from Interview with the Vampire. And believe it or not, he really loves this podcast.

 

Louis Virtel You know, certain people are just wrong and he’s one of them.

 

Speaker 1 <A.D.>

 

Ira Madison III You know him from his breakout role as Grey Worm in Game of Thrones. And now he’s back as the star of the fantastic new series Interview with a Vampire. I’m thrilled to welcome to Keep It Jacob Anderson, who for some reason listens to the show.

 

Jacob Anderson I love this show. I’m very nervous. I’m very vulnerable. You have all the power here. I just go. No, seriously. I absolutely love you guys. And I listen to this show every week. I’m just sad that there’s one episode I’m not going to be able to listen to now. The middle section. This one.

 

Ira Madison III Do you not like. So do you not like listening to yourself or watching yourself back?

 

Jacob Anderson I.

 

Ira Madison III On TV.

 

Jacob Anderson Like I like to watch myself back. And it’s not just I think it’s not just about me. It’s is when you’re on a set and you see how hard everybody’s working, it just feels very rude to not like to not watch it back.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Jacob Anderson But it can be quite excruciating sometimes. I don’t like listening to myself back.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. You have such a lovely voice.

 

Jacob Anderson Oh, thank you.

 

Ira Madison III Well, maybe it’s because. Well, there’s this voice, okay? Maybe it’s just because I’m American. And so, you know, a British accent always sounds better to us.

 

Jacob Anderson I feel like you’re always in in England, though. I don’t know if I’m right.

 

Ira Madison III I was at a wedding in Oxford this year, so that’s. And it was. It was like a couple of weeks that I was there. So maybe that’s why it seems like I’m always in England.

 

Jacob Anderson You’re just like a European king. You just travel around Europe. You are very European ways.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe it’s like vampire sensibilities.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I am actually going to. I’m going to Prague for Thanksgiving. It’s the first time going there. So have you been?

 

Jacob Anderson I’ve never been. I hear that alcohol is cheap and the buildings are pretty. That’s what I know about Prague.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right, good. I will look forward to old buildings and cheap liquor. So let me ask you a bit about this series Interview with The Vampire, which is great. And also people are loving it online, too.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah. Yeah, it is. Um, I don’t like, I don’t really know what to do with like people have been really nice about the show but don’t really know what to do now. My instinct is I go what to be defensive about something and I’m like thinking there’s nothing to be defensive about. People being really nice and I’m very proud of it. I got interviewed the other week and and I did the, the thing. I got asked what it was about. In fact, it was the interview where I talked about this show and, um, and I was like, I feel like the way that I can describe this show is it’s just a vibe, which is never a way to describe a show, especially on a press tour.

 

Ira Madison III And a lot of shows are just vibes though, I will say, and I don’t mean that as an insult, I mean it like like Insecure was a vibe.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, a lot of shows, it’s not there’s not a lot there’s no a plot going on. It’s not Rings of Power. Um, you know, or even Game of Thrones, where I have to remember, like, there is so much going on. Who are these people’s names? It’s like you tune in and it’s this is what you’re going to get each week. And I love the vibe of I know it’s New Orleans and it’s, you know, it’s vampires. You know, there’s this is just feels fun to watch and it’s been a while since there’s been a vampire thing on TV that I feel like I’ve cared about maybe since True Blood.

 

Jacob Anderson Wow. So this is would you say this is this is the one that you like best since True Blood or have you seen.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, there’s like and it feels very True Blood. You know, there’s like a lot of gay shit going on. There’s just people floating. There’s a lot of murder.

 

Jacob Anderson We we do be floating. We can give you that.

 

Ira Madison III How do you prep for a series like this? You know, like, have you been to New Orleans before? What’s it like to work on this accent?

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah, I know. I swore I’d never been to New Orleans before, but we’re doing as soon as we. As soon as I touched down, I was like, there’s just something very familiar about this city and it really where I’m from. Do you know a place called Bristol? In the UK?

 

Ira Madison III I’ve heard of Bristol, but describe Bristol for me.

 

Jacob Anderson So Bristol is it’s a very artistic city. It’s the home of like Banksy and Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Okay.

 

Jacob Anderson Trick he’s from Bristol.

 

Ira Madison III Trip Hop City.

 

Jacob Anderson So it’s a yeah Trip Hop City is a it’s a baby city. It’s. It’s, but it also there’s like a lot of it like slavery was was prevalent in that city. It’s like a port city. So there’s a lot of ugly history there, but also like a lot of a lot of black people. And and just it’s it’s weird. It’s like a joyful place that has kind of quite a not quite this very sinister history behind it. There’s a lot that people just are choosing to to live on and and celebrate each other. So I felt really at home in New Orleans. But in terms of prepping for this job, I was kind of like, I don’t know how you really prep for this. Like, apart from learning lines. I just like I made sure I learned the I learned the Interview all the way through. What I do? I did a lot of running. Because we did because we did nights. The whole thing was nights. I was like, I need to hang my stamina up. So I thought running would really help. I was going to try like the the Mathew Knowles, the Mathew Knowles training camp, like running on the treadmill and saying my lines at the same time. But it’s it’s harder than it sounds. And the accents, really because it was 1910.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Jacob Anderson I spoke to a few people that had ideas about what the accent should be. And it was. It was like this sort of French Creole thing where it was, like, made up because nobody really knows how anybody sounded in 1910. So I just listened to people. Like, I just I listened to, like, cabdrivers and people in stores and and just soaked it in like that because I feel like I wanted it to be recognizable to people now in New Orleans as well.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I hate a night shoot, for the record. Which I feel like you’re really doing. If you’re doing a show like this, though, you have to you have to sign up for it. You know, I was just like, vampires can’t be in daylight, so it’s always going to be a lot of night shoots going on.

 

Jacob Anderson I think I didn’t quite bargain for what it would actually mean though, to make a show. Like it was. I think we did like 80 something nights, consecutive nights barring Sundays. And yeah, I think I was like, Oh, we’re going to do stuff inside and that’s going to be on stage. And that would be okay. We’ll do that during the day. No. No. Nights.

 

Ira Madison III So are there a lot of stages or are there are you shooting in homes there? Like sort of what’s the setup like in New Orleans?

 

Jacob Anderson It was a mix. The Pointe du Lac estate is a real place, which is now used for, I think, weddings and events and stuff.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Jacob Anderson I’m not sure if it is a plantation house. I mean, my guess is that it is so.

 

Ira Madison III I’ll ask Blake Lively if if it’s where she got married, I’ll ask her. Oh, she. She’s got a list of them. It is really weird wandering around there and just seeing, like, beautiful homes and then being like, oh, no, this was also just a plantation.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s it’s a constant feeling of being like, Oh, wow, the majesty. And then seconds later, you’re like, Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Going to walk on. I don’t really want to look around. But, you know, we shot we shot a lot in New Orleans, in the city. And then the stages were just outside in Chalmette. And they built it like they built two blocks of city streets outside what used to be not King Clothes. I’m not very good at my American stores. It was like one of those big like department stores. It used to be.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Jacob Anderson Begins with an L. Is this interesting?

 

Ira Madison III It’s interesting. It’s just. Louis would have better probably department store knowledge than me. I don’t know if that’s shady. I feel like he I feel like he would he’d at least recall it. Shooting this show, how is this different than it was shooting Game of Thrones? Like, what was the process for that show where there were 7000 more people in the show? But I feel like your scenes within Game of Thrones were very contained.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah. What are the differences? I think, yeah. This this was, Iterview with the Vampire was much more intimate. It was because really, for a majority of the time, it’s just me and Sam or me, Sam and Bailey doing these kind of very domestic scenes which are also loaded with all of this, like vampire murdering shit.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Jacob Anderson Not not to undermine the whole thing. All of that vampire murdery shit, um no, it was yeah, it was all quite domestic. So I guess that was quite different in terms of scale. Game of Thrones was always like every day the scale was was mad. But we, we really bonded. We had like a little, you know, we had a little crew with Natalie and Amelia and then Conleth. And it was it was nice. It was yeah. It was just it’s just everything was pretty hectic on Game of Thrones all the time, whereas this was hectic. It was like internally hectic and it was 3 a.m. every day, all the time.

 

Ira Madison III Tell me a bit about working with, you know, your costars. I mean, you have Sam Reed who is fantastic as Lestat, and then you’ve got Eric Bogosian who has been in everything.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III So, you know, and those are the two people you’re opposite the most. So you know what? What is what is, what are they like working with?

 

Jacob Anderson Well, Eric is amazing. He’s like, Eric he would start talking to you about that can be like, oh, I did this movie with Steven Seagal and and you’re like Under Siege 2. I know. I mean, he  would throw out these these sort of flippant references and allusions to things he’s done to you. Like, Yeah, I know what talk radio is, Eric Like what? And he’s just so casual about it. And he’s just one of those people that, like, he, he has a story for everything. He’s met everyone. There’s a, there’s a Basquiat in, in one of the rooms in the show. And his and his on Eric’s first day he came and sat down on the sofa and just went, Oh, I met him. I met Basquiat. Yeah, he a cool guy. I was I was hanging out with Debbie Harry and Basquiat and in New York and, you know, they couldn’t keep up with me, those kids. And you’re like. Who is this? What’s going on? He’s so surreal, so bizarre. He’s like a real life vampire, and he’s just, like, very charming and brilliant and and I love him, and he’s kind of like a surrogate father, slash grandfather, let’s say father. Let’s be kind. He’s actually become that. He’s very. Yeah. And Sam is just like my partner in crime. And I feel so lucky that I got to spend every day with him like we. We had to do a lot of stuff in this show. Like, when I say a lot of stuff, I mean, like, those nights are no joke, like no in those scenes and and working on those scenes together at that hour. But you can only do that with somebody that you like. Even if the even if that the scene calls for like tension, you I think you would just kill each other if you didn’t like each other. It would be the most recorded, the most recorded amount. I don’t know. There’d be a book. Somebody would have written a book about about whoever played those parts, if if you hated each other. I don’t know actually. Maybe there already is a book.

 

Ira Madison III I, I always feel for him because I don’t know, whenever you do a period piece, you know, it’s like how I also feel for like people on Game of Thrones too, right. Except for your character because you got to be bald. You like, you forget like how hot some of these people are in person because the wigs and everything that’s on them, I’m like that. You know, he’s got that hair every episode, but, you know, it looks good on him.

 

Jacob Anderson It is now Sam’s hair. He now has that hair.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Jacob Anderson He’s grown and he.

 

Ira Madison III He grew it out.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah. And sometimes it’s a little bit alarming. Sam, are you in there? And now he ties it up and it looks cool. But, yeah, the the the head, the hair is, is crazy in this show. I mean, I have a conk I never I never thought in my life I would have my hair conked for anything. And it was a it was a process, but I got my hair’s healthy. It’s it’s all good now.

 

Ira Madison III It’s another thing I really appreciate about the show, too. It’s like it starts out with your family. So it it really takes, you know, these Anne Rice novels, which, you know, are very, you know, southern, white, heavy with all this Christian lore in it and then sort of makes it about you and this black family in New Orleans and, you know, sort of what happens to you when you’re ripped away from that world? And it discusses, I feel like, you know, race and things in a way that the books didn’t before. Were you familiar with, if not the books, the original film and like did you have opinions on. Interview with the Vampire or, you know, just vampire stories in general and how they’ve sort of always been told.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah, I so I haven’t read any of the books before I auditioned for the show. I but then I’ve read the first and second book just before this year and I read I read the first book after I read the script, I was sure I was very shocked to learn that Louis in the books is a a white plantation owner. And there’s some there’s some stuff in the in the book that I was a little uncomfortable with. But then but reading, reading the script and I think before I read it, I think I was like, I was just a little bit worried that it was going to be a case of like, okay, we’re remaking this this film that’s based on a book and there’s like ten of them on TV at the moment, and and then they’re kind of going, well, the difference is going to be that that the lead character is black or a person of color, but they weren’t going to change anything about the story. So I kind of had the fear of colorblind casting and we just like was really pleased to see that it’s it’s a part of what makes this interpretation so rich and, and so truthful, is that it leans into it and it’s like, well, what? I don’t think it changes the character an awful lot, but I think it just imbues it with more and more texture. And it also is the time that the story is set. I think if Louis wasn’t black, it would be weird because this New Orleans back in the 1910s. And yeah, in terms of getting to know the family as well, it’s like. You need to really understand what Louis has lost when he becomes a vampire. And I. Yeah, this is this is maybe one of the more incomprehensible interviews I’ve done, Ira. I’m really sorry. I’m, I’m, I’m just slightly tripping out.

 

Ira Madison III This is.

 

Jacob Anderson That I’m talking to you.

 

Ira Madison III It’s great. Oh, my god. All right.

 

Jacob Anderson I have to be honest with you. Rather than I’ve just go and and yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And how did you first.

 

Jacob Anderson When they see it they are not going to be happy with this though. Like, Jacob what were you talking about?

 

Ira Madison III Like, they’ll be. They’ll be fine. I got AMC plus for this. So, you know, I gave the I gave them a subscriber and I don’t know what else I’ll watch. Ought to probably just rewatch Mad Men.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah. Well yeah. What else do they got? Well back on. What other brilliant shows do AMC have to offer?

 

Ira Madison III You know what I’ve been meaning to watch Better Call Saul, so I can  do that.

 

Jacob Anderson Better Call Saul is great. It’s great.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah okay. It’s it’s a blind spot for me. I have never seen that show, but I’ve loved I loved Breaking Bad.

 

Jacob Anderson So it gives you a similar thing. But but he is it is a different beast and it’s kind of, there’s something comforting about knowing that, like knowing where he’s going, having like, oh, you’re like, oh, this. I’m going to like this sleazebag. Rather than, I like this. I like it’s the dad from Malcolm in the Middle. Oh, no. None of.

 

Ira Madison III You know what? I always forget that he was the dad on Malcolm in the Middle.

 

Jacob Anderson I never forget.

 

Ira Madison III You know, that was.

 

Jacob Anderson I watched it initially.

 

Ira Madison III I love Malcolm in the Middle. But I would say that, you know, I always think about just Jane Kaczmarek.

 

Jacob Anderson She’s she’s so brilliant in that show. Where is she? Was she I want to watch her now. I want to see her in anything.

 

Ira Madison III Jane Kaczmarek seems like she might have stopped acting a bit. She was in the show Mixed ish. She sounds like a bunch of, like, just kind of like a bunch of guest appearances up to 2019. And the last one of the last movies she was in was I kept I was I was literally talking about this movie with my friend last night of C.H.I.P.S.. She was in C.H.I.P.S. Oh, the the movie version of the.

 

Jacob Anderson DAX Shepard’s.

 

Ira Madison III The yes. Yes. And Michael Pena of the 1970s TV show C.H.I.P.S.. Why I was talking about C.H.I.P.S., I have no idea. I truly don’t, it just came out in conversation and I was trying to remember what C.H.I.P.S. stood for. And that’s we started talking about this film, but she was in that.

 

Jacob Anderson What did C.H.I.P.S. what did you find? What were your findings?

 

Ira Madison III Was chip, C.H.I.P.S. means Coastal Highway Patrol,. I’m sorry, California Highway Patrol. And I was then baffled that the I and the S mean nothing.

 

Jacob Anderson They’re not incorporated into the name.

 

Ira Madison III No, They’re not. So

 

Jacob Anderson They should. Of course.

 

Ira Madison III It’s just a cutesy title, so I won’t be revisiting C.H.I.P.S. to see Jane aKaczmarek’s work, but I hope that she is. I hope she’s well. And I hope she is, you know, doing something else.

 

Jacob Anderson Oh, so everything is an acting. I’m sure she has a rich life outside of outside of that show and outside of everything.

 

Ira Madison III Malcolm in the Middle was on TV for years. She probably has a very like actually rich life. You know, she’s got money.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah. Literally. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And it’s still on, by the way. Malcolm in the Middle is still syndicated. Yeah, I will like I’ll I’ll turn on like TV sometimes that I will see it on. So she’s she’s doing well. Jane Kaczmarek is doing well.

 

Jacob Anderson Shout out to Janw Kaczmarek.

 

Ira Madison III That a way to find out what she’s up to. She’s exactly the kind of person who would be on this show. So I thought last night I lost what I asked that. How did you discover Keep It and what critiques do you have?

 

Jacob Anderson What critiques do I have of what do I have? Like critiques of Keep It?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. of Keep It. Of us.

 

Jacob Anderson Oh, this is a big question. Well, I found it because somebody else told me about Love It or Leave It. And there was a mention of Keep It on that. So I went back to it. So I, I had started listening to Keep It during the first part of lockdown.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Jacob Anderson And all was dark and cold in the world. And I. You guys were just like a bright and consistent light in a in a very dark and gloomy tunnel, and.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, thank you. That was. That was like. I feel like that was our rennaissance. You know, once once we got Jane Fonda on the show, then.

 

Jacob Anderson That was the moment. It was it was pretty good to be fair. I like I went back and listened as well to everything that I had missed. So I was I was all the way up to date. And then just joined on after that. And I, I don’t think I have any criticisms. I think you guys are doing the Lord’s work. I think it’s just like you have a real way of of being open and honest about how you feel about all kinds of pop culture fuckery. But I also feel like you you have a level of commentary and knowledge that you and Louis have that you feel like you’re learning as well. Like I, I don’t really enjoy social media. I just don’t know how to do it.

 

Ira Madison III And I don’t either.

 

Jacob Anderson I did. I don’t.

 

Ira Madison III Either. But I’m drawn to it.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am off. I occasionally go in and, like, creep in and I’m like, No, no, no. I need to leave. I need to leave. I need to get out of here. So I don’t like I’m some outside of that. I’m outside of that that like instant thing. I don’t get like the instant gratification that most people get when they, like, look on Twitter and they know exactly what’s going on in pop culture. But I was like a heavily latchkeyed kid. I, I was like completely brought up watching TV and movies and listening to music. And so I have this kind of, like, innate thing that that wants to know what’s going on. And I want to see everything and I want to know everything. And you guys just have, like, a perfectly balanced way of articulating not only how you feel about what’s going on, but it feels fair. Even when you’re harsh, it always feels fair and deserved. And I just really enjoy it. You guys are. I mean, we’ve never it is the first time we’ve met, but I feel yeah, I feel very connected to you. And is this weird? Is this the weirdest, the guest appearance?

 

Ira Madison III No. No, it’s not. Well, also, speaking of music, like you have two albums and they’re quite good.

 

Jacob Anderson I do. I do. Thank you. I appreciate that.

 

Ira Madison III You should sing in more things.

 

Jacob Anderson Do you think? But I’m not like a sing, I am not a belter. Do you know what I mean?

 

Ira Madison III Just, you know, you don’t have to be Cole Porter, but, you know.

 

Jacob Anderson It’s like I love singing, but I love singing as a means to like to like exercise myself with an o exorcize myself. I mostly just get all of my shit out of my brain and then I just sing it because I don’t really want anybody else to sing it. It’s more that kind of that kind of thing. Well, I’m sure. Well, I hear.

 

Ira Madison III Your album is like trip hoppy, too, you know? So is that because you’re from where like Portishead and Massive Attack was from? Is that what you listened to? Is that what you grew up on or.

 

Jacob Anderson Maybe some.

 

Ira Madison III Or was that just how you were feeling?

 

Jacob Anderson I think it’s just like I feel like Bristol is the kind of place where nobody’s ever going to, like, call you out for being black, for wanting to make music or wanting to be an actor or do art or whatever it is that you want to do. Nobody’s going to find it strange that you mix genres. And I feel like trip hop just seems to be like like a Portishead album, for instance, is really difficult to categorize. And it sort of feels like something that could only not only come out of Bristol, because I guess these people are doing that now all over the world, but I just never really stuck to a genre. I like all kinds of things, and I think that’s like reflected in how I write songs and my taste.

 

Ira Madison III I heard, well, you know, Oh, Kari Grant’s from Bristol.

 

Jacob Anderson Kari Grant is from Bristol. He’s got BLEEP.

 

Ira Madison III There’s a plaque in the city for Cary Grant.

 

Jacob Anderson There is? Yeah. See, I bet Louis is sad that he missed this now.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, because, you know.

 

Jacob Anderson We could have talked about Cary Grant.

 

Ira Madison III Let me let me let me try and pretend that I’m Louis for a moment. Oh, you know, Cary Grant, one thing about him is he’s just like he’s he’s a very has an intense sort of face, but he’s so funny at it and is really one of the funniest sort of leading men that we started with in the golden age of Hollywood. And then he, you know, say something about how great he was with Katharine Hepburn and bringing up Baby and Rosalind Russell and his girl Friday. And I would be like and I would make a joke about his girl Friday because I always reference his girl Friday on this podcast for some reason, and people have called me out about it, but I love bringing up Baby even more. And I’d probably make a joke about, you know, like the dinosaurs that they are, the dinosaur bones that they climb on at the end of the film, and then they fall and catch each other, which is one of my favorite endings of a rom com. And but then I would talk about how much I love him in his Hitchcock era because like Suspicion and Notorious like to Catch a Thief and North by Northwest is iconic. So we would probably have like a Cary Grant off and then you would just, you know, be amused with us doing our annoying thing in person.

 

Jacob Anderson It’s like he was in the room.

 

Ira Madison III And I would I would try to I would try to surprise him actually with a random Cary Grant film, because I always like to, you know, like throw one out that he wouldn’t expect me to bring up. And I’m like, which one is that? You know, because I’m mostly mostly a mostly a Hitchcock Cary Grant person. But I would say really.

 

Jacob Anderson Good base knowledge of Cary Grant.

 

Ira Madison III I do. It’s An Affair to Remember with Deborah Kerr. Oh, yes. Yes. I would bring that one up. And he would probably tell me some other films that Deborah Kerr is in when he knows everything about her, but that’s where we’ll leave it. Jacob, this was wonderful. Thank you for being here.

 

Jacob Anderson Thank you so much, Ira. And honestly, I speak for everyone, for all of the listeners when I say thank you. Thank you for the music.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, thank you.

 

Jacob Anderson Songs you’re singing. Thank you for the joy you’re bringing. No, honestly, it’s like. It’s a real bomb for me listening to this show. And I appreciate it.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you. And it’s a joy watching you on Interview with the Vampire. It’s really such a lovely show and I’m glad that you’re on it and that I got to watch it and I got to keep watching you.

 

Jacob Anderson Yeah, thank you. I probably should have told people to watch it a little bit more here, but.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, you know what? It’s fine. It’s good. Interview with the Vampire on AMC. Interview with The Vampire is out now on AMC.

 

<A.D.>.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, Louis. So in the interview with Jacob, I brought up Cary Grant because he is from Bristol, England.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, of course.

 

Ira Madison III So, yeah. Yeah. So he’s from Bristol, just like Jacob is. And so I brought up, you know, first I brought up his rom coms that I love Bringing up Baby and His Girl Friday because one, I’m always making a Rosalind Russell reference on this show for some reason. And then I talked about Katherine Hepburn and their chemistry, and I talked about him and, you know, the dinosaur bones at the end of Bring Up Baby, which is one of my favorite moments in cinema.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. There’s a Philadelphia story. Penny Serenade. I love him in. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. And then I talked about obviously, like the Hitchcock films that he was in, because I feel like you would have talked about actresses he was opposite and I would have talked about the Hitchcock films. But then I also brought up I tried to bring up a film that I felt like would be a curveball that I like. Sure. And that one was Sherry, the one with Deborah Kerr. An Affair to Remember.

 

Louis Virtel An Affair to Remember.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, but I could not remember. I remember now, obviously, I could not remember what else Deborah Kerr was in. And then I was like, Oh, after we were quiet, I was like, From Here to Eternity.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. And The King and I and you know, she’s one of those people who is really beloved by classic movie fans. She never won an Oscar, but just had a dependable, regal presence. It’s like if Greer Garson had a soul. That’s a that’s a deep cut for the kids out there. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Who would you have brought up in terms of Cary Grant?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God. Well, I would have brought up Penny Serenade. Ah, let’s see. As an actress, as he costarred with?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I just think. What would have come to mind it if he said he was from Bristol, England? And then I said, Oh, Cary Grant’s from there.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, well, I mean, I could have read you the entire Wikipedia. I would have brought up how his name is Archibald Leach, and he was a circus performer.

 

Ira Madison III So I did not know that about him.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. All right. And also, he lived in with the fame. He lived with Randolph Scott, this guy, for, like 15 years. And they were just they were known as like bachelors together. And everybody wonders if they’re gay. But then also he was married long after that. To Dyan Cannon, who is still with us, two time Oscar nominee and in fact, also one of the rare actresses who was nominated in another category besides acting, because she directed a, I think a documentary or a short or something that was nominated. I have to double check.

 

Ira Madison III I’m looking her up and I have seen Bob and Carol and Tim and Alice.

 

Louis Virtel And one of my favorite movies. Yes. Yes. Beautiful actress. She used to be at Laker games all the time. It’d be like Jack Nicholson and then also Dyan Cannon.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. I knew that name because our friend Sam Grossman, who loves the Lakers, would always point out Dyan Cannon to me when we saw her.

 

Louis Virtel So she’s around.

 

Speaker 1 Anyway, in light of Jacob Anderson joining us this week, I thought it might be nice to revisit some of our favorite depictions of vampires in film and television and books and whatever. And, you know, I have a bunch, so I want to hear yours.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Well, I’m going to go real simple. My favorite vampire is Original Recipe, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, which I feel like people know is a reference and can kind of summon the vibe and maybe even a couple of the lines of the Bram Stoker adaptation. But when you watch it, a couple of things are great to me. First of all, Dracula is or Bela Lugosi is just a straight up regular looking Hungarian dude. There’s not there’s no real, like, intrigue to the way he looks. He doesn’t look like a classic film heavy or villain. He’s just sort of like, I don’t know, a normal guy looking, except in this case pale and wearing a vampire costume. But when he’s interacting with Renfield or Van Helsing, he is really, really scary. And they really the timing of the horror and those movies like when he’s waiting to lunge or turning away once Van Helsing flashes the cross at him is very sophisticated. I know they’re like huge fans of horror movies in the time, the universal horror movies and stuff, but I really think it’s underrated how chilling those movies are. I mean, this is from like 1931. This is like eight years before Gone with the Wind, for example. So for them to nail it so early on in cinema feels like a crazy feat to me.

 

Ira Madison III You know, he does a lot of hands work as Dracula.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Which, by the way, again, that’s very.

 

Ira Madison III A lot of. A lot of.

 

Louis Virtel Faggy. That’s faggy.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So, you know.

 

Louis Virtel And I feel like there should be an element of, like, the queer going on with a vampire, you know what I mean?

 

Ira Madison III Well, that is interesting that, you know, I brought up like the ham thing, the queer thing, because I rewatched Blacula this weekend.

 

Louis Virtel And how did that go?

 

Ira Madison III Which honestly, it’s fantastic. You know, even though it is a blaxploitation film from the seventies and the plot of it is that an African prince visits Count Dracula and demands that Dracula help him stop the slave trade.

 

Louis Virtel This is a documentary.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Dracula says no slaves might think it’s barbaric, but the people who owned the slaves like it. So.

 

Louis Virtel It stands to reason. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And so he turns the prince into a vampire and locks him in a casket for centuries. And then he’s awoken in the seventies by two fagot interior designers.

 

Louis Virtel Come on the seventies. That’s exactly what we want.

 

Ira Madison III They are swishing about in Dracula’s castle, talking about how this is the find of the century. They get the. You know, I take it back to Los Angeles and then Dracula rises and kills them. Blacula rises and kills them. Also, I want to say that when he turns into Blacula, Dracula bites him and puts him in the coffin and he says, you will be cursed with, like, you know, an eternal lust for blood. You’ll never be able to have it because you’ll be trapped in this coffin for eternity. Which is interesting, because I feel like if you didn’t have blood for an eternity, like you just wither and die at some point, you know? But he says you will also carry my name with you wherever you go. And he doesn’t call him Dracula, which is his name. He calls him Blacula. So Dracula comes up with the name. Very interesting.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, Dracula should work in advertising. He’s like, Yeah, look at this pun I’ve come up with.

 

Ira Madison III And then he starts, obviously, you know, like chasing this woman around the city who looks like his lover from, you know, the 18th century, which always happens with Dracula, right? You know?

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm. Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Doesn’t understand lineage and descendants. And, you know, as soon as he sees someone who looks like his old lover. Well, that’s a wrap. I mean, that was Winona Ryder in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Coppola, which is a gorgeous film and beautifully directed and so boring.

 

Louis Virtel I was going to say, Do you know what I find boring? Interview with The Vampire. The original one I like. I love Tom Cruise in it. I love his performance. Anything that’s like deliciously kind of Norman Bates is such an unexpected move from him. I think it really pops out in his filmography as a strange choice for Tom Cruise to make. But and of course, Kirsten Dunst is exceptional, actually, Tandy Wayne Newton gives a great performance in that movie. But otherwise.

 

Ira Madison III Shout out to her husband, by the way. Old Parker.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III What a name. But he he directed the fuck out of Ticket to Paradise.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yes. Which I still haven’t seen yet.

 

Ira Madison III But you know what? It’s it’s pure, innocent fun, and it’s just a fun time. It was a it was a fun Sunday afternoon and gave me nothing more, nothing less than I expected. And I thought it was a perfectly fun time at the movies.

 

Louis Virtel Now, does that mean like what? Let’s compare it to another three star Julia Roberts movie like Notting Hill. Is it worse than that?

 

Ira Madison III Well, yes, it’s not Notting Hill.

 

Louis Virtel See? Okay. That is important to note. So you have to accept that you’re getting a level of schlock, but it is worth it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just it’s so fun seeing her and George Clooney on camera again. You know.

 

Louis Virtel I  am loving their interviews recently. They did a thing for TCM where they were talking about their favorite old movies. And in fact, at one part, they’re asked what movie of each others could you watch over and over again? And Julia Roberts goes, Oh, Syriana, so funny. Julie Julia is that bitch. I do not want anyone naysaying Julia ever again. She is the top.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I want her curly hair back.

 

Louis Virtel She is. It is laying a little flatter these days. You’re right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Now they’re fucking amazing together and honestly. And Lucas Bravo is very funny in it, too.

 

Louis Virtel Hmm.

 

Ira Madison III So Billy Lloyd doesn’t get a lot to do, unfortunately.

 

Louis Virtel But. And she was in Scream Queens, which reminds me of vampires. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I.

 

Ira Madison III Which is also coming back, by the way.

 

Louis Virtel When we’re rebooting Ryan Murphy projects, I feel like we’ve fallen off the edge a little bit. I don’t know.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, like with Beyonce and people like, you know, like what a pop star blanks out there, social media pages and upstate stuff, right? Apparently scream queens did that, but removed Fox from its bio. And I’m like do we need a scream queens reboot in our lives?

 

Louis Virtel Also, that’s a show that secretly had quite a few seasons, right? Not a lot, but like three or.

 

Ira Madison III So it only had two. Had two.

 

Louis Virtel Oh really. Because we added Kirstie Alley to that. Right.

 

Ira Madison III And Julie Christie. Yeah. Kirstie Alley. Jamie Lee Curtis was there from the beginning. We added Kirstie Alley and Uncle Jesse.

 

Louis Virtel John Stamos.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, yes. That’s his name.

 

Louis Virtel Shocking miss from you right there. But yes.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. You know what? Rebecca Romaine and I have blocked his name out.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, okay.

 

Ira Madison III That’s the rest. Let’s run.

 

Louis Virtel Let me rest is still so fucking funny to me. Anything happens in the news, you just get to respond. Let me rest. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III That is me with the. And I’m sorry if you were a person who is still tweeting at me and Louis to discuss the Don’t Worry, Darling press cycle. I’m done.

 

Louis Virtel Also, my God, we put out an anthology. Jesus Christ.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, and now the fucking nanny is releasing her  diaries. I do not.

 

Louis Virtel Call Scarjo.

 

Ira Madison III I do not. Like, it was fun hearing the story about Jason Sudeikis, you know, jumping in front of Olivia Wilde’s car. It was funny hearing about her secret dressing recipe. That’s really just Nora Ephron’s dressing recipe from heartburn, allegedly.

 

Louis Virtel But a basic vinaigrette, by the way. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. There is. There’s too much going on. I do not need to keep hearing about what’s going on in these people’s lives. Not unless there’s a movie attached.

 

Louis Virtel I think in the next week for Halloween, something I’m going to see a lot of is that Florence Pugh purple outfit with the Aperol Spritz. I think we’re getting a lot of that costume this year.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And you know what? It won’t be. There won’t be Valentino. No.

 

Louis Virtel No, no. It sure won’t be. No.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Unless it’s like Heidi Klum doing it at that annual Halloween party that she always has.

 

Louis Virtel And that’s when I have my yearly nightmare about the assistants who work for Heidi Klum. And they’re putting together like, oh, I need to call blank. I need to call up Moschino so she can get her fucking fishtail, tailored or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III Make it work. And then they do a fake laugh with her and they’re like, Shut up, bitch. It’s not funny anymore. How many times do you think she said, Make it work to Seal before he was like, I’ve had enough. Well.

 

Louis Virtel I would love to know if that’s how it went down. If she was trying, if she also graduated from onscreen talent to producer like she did on Project Runway and she was trying to produce the marriage and it all went awry, which arguably is what happened on Lifetime.

 

Ira Madison III I would say to get back to our topic. Oh, yeah, obviously, you know, we know how much I love, you know, like a Buffy, etc.. Yes, we talked about that. We talked about True Blood before. But I think that one of my favorites that I don’t think we talk about that much is The Lost Boys.

 

Louis Virtel I have never seen it.

 

Ira Madison III Oh. Okay. You don’t like Kiefer?

 

Louis Virtel I love Kiefer in Stand By Me, where he is menacing and bomb chilling as the older brother of Wil Wheaton. But no, I’m not that educated on Kiefer. My icon from that era is Martha Plimpton. If Martha Plimpton is in a movie from that time, I’m really into it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Both icons of Fox.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. She raised.

 

Ira Madison III You know, all of us. And we got to see an entire day of Kiefer Sutherland’s life right now. Oh, there’s that.

 

Louis Virtel No, I have a question. Wasn’t there one good Twilight movie? I forget which, Eclipse, maybe?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, I. I think it was the third one because I which I went to see the third and the fourth one in theaters because at that point it had become like everyone was psychotically talking about Twilight. And so I went to see them. So I saw the last two films and. They were insane. Yes. But I never saw the first two.

 

Louis Virtel It really seems unforgivable. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It’s unforgivable that this was fanfic. No way. This wasn’t fanfic.

 

Louis Virtel 50 Shades of Gray.

 

Jacob Anderson 50 Shades was Twilight fanfic. And then that became a phenomenon, too, until I feel like the movies just sort of petered out.

 

Louis Virtel Right. I just. Twilight is just we talk obsessively about how Avatar is a phenomenon that had no legacy, even though we’re about to get another one that everyone’s about to see.

 

Ira Madison III But we’re probably at 50.

 

Louis Virtel I feel like Twilight has also fallen off. It lasted for so long and they won every MTV Movie Award insight and Kristen Stewart, I think would like dissolve into a puddle if you brought up that that movie series to her right now but like it lasted for the longest time and now it would be so gauche to discuss even like who’s sitting around still obsessed with like they’re still obsessive Harry Potter fans, you know, but there’s not, I don’t think, an obsessive Twilight contingent.

 

Ira Madison III Louis baby, the Twitter lesbians are going to come for you.

 

Louis Virtel Well, they’re already after me after this Taylor review. So don’t you fucking worry

 

Ira Madison III Worry that you’ve got to watch.

 

Louis Virtel Army. They will find me. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III They love Twilight. I think they. They love it.

 

Louis Virtel And the next thing they should love is themselves because it’s not good.

 

Ira Madison III I also would be remiss if I didn’t mention Blade, so.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god. That was almost like my idea of what a vampire was for a long time that came out when I was playing nine or something.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The, the shower scene in the club with, like, the blood falling down while everyone’s dancing is, like, brilliant still. So, I mean, even Bebe Rexha paid homage to that in her Sacrifice video. Silly ass couldn’t even say that with a straight face. I could do that with a straight face.

 

Louis Virtel But by the way, again, this goes back to my problem with Taylor. That’s at least like an interesting reference. Make like if you’re going to make a reference to something pop culture, I’ll find something that isn’t mind to death. You know, like Bebe Rexha. I applaud you in this regard.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. I’m sure other people will share their favorite vampire films with things that we missed. You know, someone’s going to be like, you didn’t bring up Vamps. And I’m like, I sure the fuck didn’t know.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, guys, we went. We’re over here trying to give Amy Heckerling credit. We’re not trying to tear her down.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Yeah, but I don’t know. There’s from dusk till dawn, you know, if.

 

Louis Virtel John Carpenter’s vampires, which I was watching when I found out Aaliyah died, that puts you at a moment in time.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, Queen of the Damned.

 

Louis Virtel The Queen of the Damned. Yes. Which you know who I always call Queen of the Damned Ricky Martin, because he at that VMAs who said the winner is Alaya. And then she died the next year. And I was like, I believe you cursed or you’re the queen of the damned.

 

Ira Madison III Let’s not forget the many Dracula adaptations like Dracula 2000 starring Vitamin C.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes, Nickelodeon, music, exec or whatever she was for a long time. She might still be, but I don’t.

 

Ira Madison III No, she was a Nickelodeon music exec. But I believe she now is like an interior designer.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, damn. I thought she was still like soundtracking. Whatever reboot of Rugrats we had.

 

Ira Madison III That’s the one whose life story we need to dig into on this show. We need vitamin C on Keep It. I have a lot of questions.

 

Louis Virtel Vitamin C and Bonnie McKee. Are they the same person? Check in next week. We’re going to do that research.

 

Ira Madison III And does cortisone cream get rid of the itch that vitamin C had really done?

 

Ira Madison III Thanks for that.

 

Ira Madison III Sure. Have another one. And is she still friends with the people she graduated with? Because friends forever. Right. I’d like to Now.

 

Louis Virtel I got to say, in retrospect, I have to be honest, I’m doing the math. Seems like a lie. We tell her, we tell ourselves lies in order to live, you know? That’s not what Joan Didion said, but that’s what she meant.

 

Ira Madison III She was talking about Vitamin C. She wrote that. Obviously you’re.

 

Louis Virtel Oh. Oh, my God.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Aha!

 

Louis Virtel We are sorry.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, yeah. Play it as it lays in the sun and gets soaks up all that vitamin D right up.

 

Louis Virtel Slouching towards back in Bethlehem because of that scurvy.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right, we’re back. Keep it. And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel Me, Louis. I’ll go first. My Keep It goes to something I saw on Twitter a lot, especially as it pertains to the death of Leslie Jordan. People would begin their tweet of remembrance with I’m not usually affected by celebrity deaths, but first of all, what a what a big masculine man you are. Wow. I can’t get over.How amazing your emotional strength is that you simply if a celebrity dies, you feel nothing to brag, that you feel nothing great. I don’t know what that instinct is to, I don’t know, shame people for liking celebrities or thinking they relate to them or like shaming the idea of a parasocial relationship, which I just did with Taylor Swift and her fans, of course. But I don’t think that’s completely normal. To be like the lives of celebrities, if I’m a fan of them, doesn’t affect me at all. Like, I don’t think by saying that you’re emphasizing that the real relationships in your life actually matter to you, which is, I think, what they think the implication is to me, it just sounds like you’re callous and want other people to think you’re callous and there’s a certain strength in that, and I just don’t believe that. And also, it doesn’t add strength to your remembrance of the person you’re remembering. Like, I don’t read that and then read your what you have to say about Leslie Jordan and think, Oh, your emotions are so amazing and intact and well articulated. To me, it’s you need to be congratulated for not feeling much of anything, but in this case, you’re going to make an exception. Well, thank you so much for deigning to express a real sentiment like the rest of us functioning human beings.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, it’s sort of like this thing where it feels like I’m cool and I’m above it all, you know, like, I don’t care about celebrities at all, but this person, like, really affected me at all. So I’m also letting you know that this is the one celebrity that I think is cool and worth caring that they died. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh, so you suck. Great. Thanks for the keen insight on the human condition, you fucker.

 

Ira Madison III I just want to point out the morbid thing of passing by where Leslie Jordan died.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, which is right in the middle of town. It’s Hollywood, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s like it’s my route to the gym. So like the street was shut down. I didn’t know what it was. And then later, I’m checking Twitter, and I see that that’s where he died in a car accident. And I was like, that’s just very dark to know.

 

Louis Virtel Well, also, it was weird. Like TMZ reported it first and I remember reading it, it said he died in a car accident Monday morning and it was still Monday morning. Like, I understand that’s the world we live in and we’ve been living in it for a long time. Still weird to be like, Oh, I guess I’m just going to pass it now or whatever. I work in hard with myself. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, yeah. That’s that’s that’s that’s that’s one of the things and this is this goes into my Keep It, I guess, you know, I guess we’re just bad at social media this week. Sure. One of the things I saw this week was basically someone writing they hate when TV and film. They can tell that that dialog in it was written just to be screenshot and shared on social media. And all of the examples in this thread are just quotable pieces of dialog. And I want to know what do you think writers do right?

 

Louis Virtel They want people to think it’s funny.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, we did. Or like, they want people to think that it’s, like, meaningful, you know? Do you think that people just came up with quotable pieces of dialog when social media was created, like you just referenced earlier? Um, you know, we told you, we tell each other lies in order to let you know, like Joan Didion was like, can’t wait til that’s on Tumblr.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, that is a little bit puzzling. I guess the implication is that it feels to them like somebody who does ad copy came in, wrote some jokes and then laughed. You know, a Twitter strategist came in and wrote their idea of humor, interrupted the flow of what was going on and left. But obviously, writers want people to think the thing is funny. And so if they write sort of in a in a voice, in a popular voice, but not just make sense.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I feel like it maybe goes to what we talked about with Paul Reiser last week, too, about the idea of how mad about you. He said that they didn’t sometimes put a joke in because it felt a little too jokey and, like, not something that the characters would actually say, but dialog has always been quotable and I feel like it’s people who grew up on social media now thinking that people are writing specifically for things to be on Tumblr or to be a gif. And I’m like. In a way, yes. Because you want people to remember the things that you write. But like I we were in high school when people were like sitting around lunchrooms, like quoting anchormen and Seinfeld episodes. You know, like, people have done this for years. People always quote dialog or like a quote or something that they like and like that didn’t come to fruition with social media.

 

Louis Virtel No. Oh, I think remember half the men I knew in my life up until the around 1999, I was in middle school. Your entire personality could be quoting The Simpsons. Well, that was your entire sense of humor. Please. I’m still recovering because, by the way, The Simpsons is a show where a lot of the very funny lines in that show need the context of the very specific nature of that show. Like, if people would just like putting something in a character voice, I’m like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Like, is that funny? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

 

Ira Madison III But purple monkey, dishwasher. What does that mean?

 

Louis Virtel And that’s what I’m saying. Yes. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Also, shut out the straight boys in high school for making me think that Boondock Saints was a good film.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, we cannot go down this path because the amount. Excuse me. I was an RA from 2006 to 2008. This is a little bit after what you’re talking about. And I would arrange movie nights for the guys on my floor to be nice, you know, to pretend like I did my job, but these fuckers would have me sit through. First of all, Boondocks ranks. Second of all, Smokin Aces, bitch. Do not put me in front of Alicia Keys in a thriller again. Do not.

 

Ira Madison III I think I’ve defended Smokin Aces on this show.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. Well, I block that out from our mental health. Chantel Fuck.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of Alicia Keys, you know, she’s got her whole, you know, like, no makeup thing. Yes. But people were making fun of her this week because she tweeted bout to make my vegan gluten free dairy free sugar free pancakes and them things are good don’t hate and people are like, you’re about to eat a blueberry. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel That reminds me. There’s an.

 

Ira Madison III Awesome.

 

Louis Virtel I’m actually about to be the middle school version of myself and quote Daria Quinn, the younger sister on that show, she she has the fashion club over. I think it’s her who says that she goes, oh, my, no fat, no butter, salt free popcorn is ready. And all the other girls go.

 

Ira Madison III Hm.

 

Louis Virtel Very funny. Honestly, anything Tiffany in the fashion club said would be, like, spinning into hysterics. Yeah, yeah. Tiffany, such a good catch. Well, I love I, of course, love Sandy, who is one of the true cons of television.

 

Ira Madison III Too, when.

 

Louis Virtel You actually are going to be wearing that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Also, I mean, we always talk about the teacher with the bulging.

 

Louis Virtel Mr. DiMartino.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Mr. DeMartino But I want to shout out to the principals. Principal Lee Oh.

 

Jacob Anderson I love Angela on that show. Drunk with Power is.

 

Ira Madison III Truly drunk with power. And I remember one of my favorite episodes was a season premiere where she had the school sponsored by a soda brand. Yes. I mean, the sort of brand was everywhere. Truly, she everyone everyone on Daria was, like you said, like a lot of them were just can’t and they were so funny.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I know. Angela, the principal of Lawndale High, by the way, has enough been said about the fact that the fashion club and that show grafts perfectly onto the plastics and mean girls like Sandy is Regina, Stacy is Gretchen and Tiffany is Karen.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t think they I don’t think we have really I mean, I’m sure it exists somewhere. Someone that someone at Wesleyan wrote that paper.

 

Louis Virtel I’m I don’t know that I’ve never, ever put that together before. I feel bad for me.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, Daria still still one of the funniest fucking shows on TV and probably where I got a lot of my sense of humor from.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. I mean, Daria was. Garfield for closeted gay middle schoolers? I think that’s just the truth.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And I think that goes to one other thing that I would tweeted was just sort of. So there’s always someone tweeting something like referencing like an old film or like an old scandal. And it’s like social media would have gone crazy if this if like, if it were around when this thing came out and it’s. Have you heard of the phrase watercooler show before? If people used to discuss.

 

Louis Virtel People, people talked about television.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The television films, other things that like celebrity scandals, like we talked about them with each other in person.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it wasn’t just a quote tweet sent out into the ether. Fucking Chad.

 

Ira Madison III But like it could be because you could talk about something. Like at a party or at school or something. And then the amount of people wanting to chime in because they want to talk about it too, with like minded people was like, astounding. Like, I truly remember in high school, The O.C. debuted with, like, eight episodes in the summer. And then when we came back to school, there was a math class. So, like, I went to an all boys school, too. You know, like, there are there are football players in the classroom talking to me about Ryan and Marissa because they wanted someone to talk to about it.

 

Louis Virtel Right. It’s weird to think about being behind on shows at that time, what you would have to do to actually catch up with them. Like that’s around the era when like things would be released on DVD. But even before that, I’m not saying, for example, Seinfeld, you needed to see every single episode, but like if you wanted to see all of it, I guess you just waited around for reruns. It’s really shocking.

 

Ira Madison III Wait around for reruns or you just wouldn’t watch it. You know, I feel like that’s why we had previously on so that’s why they used to really be useful if you missed something. Because I feel like people were I mean you look at ratings for like some of the most popular shows on TV, like a Melrose Place or something. And people would, you know, just miss an episode if they had to, you know? Yeah, but you would just watch it in two weeks when it was on, and maybe you’d catch the one you missed during the summer. But it wasn’t that big a deal. I feel like. Previously on for TV now. Ah, because of shows like Glee or like a House of Dragon or something where like so much fucking shit happens in an episode that the next week you have no idea what happened last week.

 

Louis Virtel Right. It’s not connected at all. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Previously on such and such show. Really used to be for the people who, like, didn’t see last week’s episode. But we’re tuning in this week.

 

Louis Virtel That really helped me during my obsession with Lois and Clark. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. The Adventures of Lois and Clark. The original.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Teri Hatcher, by the way, was just in a, I think, North Hollywood version of The Addams Family, as in the musical The Addams Family. And I want you to know that I will go to my deathbed regretting not fucking seeing that.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Well, I’m very angry at my friend Chris for not telling me that Teri Hatcher was in this. I would have gone to North Hollywood to see Teri Hatcher in Addams Family, the musical. I just thought he was seeing some school production that a friend of his was in.

 

Louis Virtel And you know what? It might have been, but it had Teri Hatcher in it.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Well, now I’m sad. Anyway, that’s our episode this week.

 

Louis Virtel Hope you enjoyed the fangs coming out for Taylor Swift.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you to Jacob Anderson for joining us this week and Jesse next week. Keep it as a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Kendra James. Our producer is Chris Lord. Our executive producers are Ira Madison III.

 

Louis Virtel And Louis Virtel.

 

Ira Madison III Our editor is Charlotte Landes and Kyle SeglIN is our sound engineer.

 

Louis Virtel Thank you to our digital team, Matt DeGroot and Nar Melkonian and Delon Villanueva for our production support every week.