Dear Squawkers,

Bruce Dern was celebrated in Cannes this week, and walked the carpet with his daughter, Laura, and her two kids Jaya and Ellery. Bruce is at the festival to promote the documentary Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern, directed by Mike Mendez. Dernsie is not his nickname. A “dernsie” is one of his signature moves, an improvised line or gesture that often happens when he’s on set that turns a scene that’s lacking something into…well…cinema. Jack Nicholson is the person credited with coming up with the expression.

Bruce is a storyteller. Considering he’s worked with almost everyone, for over five decades, and especially Hollywood in the 60s and 70s, of course he has “a crazy story about everybody”, which is how he’s described in the documentary.

The story that’s making headlines today is actually a story he’s told before, at least once publicly. I read about it the first time in 2021, when he was interviewed by Hadley Freeman for The Guardian. Here’s how he told the story at the time:

“Did you ever see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Do you remember when Brad Pitt comes in and tries to wake me up?” he asks.

You mean when Pitt (playing the fictional stuntman Cliff Booth) visits your character (a fictionalised version of the real-life George Spahn, who owned the ranch where the Manson family set up camp)?

“Right, right. So I wake up eventually and start talking. But Brad laughs, which he’s not supposed to do, and Quentin [Tarantino] yells: ‘Cut!’ and says to Brad: ‘What are you doing?’ Brad says: ‘He’s not sticking to the script!’ And Quentin says: ‘Brad, that’s why he’s here. No one can write the shit that comes out of his mouth.’”

So the basic details are that on the set of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, during the scene between Bruce and Brad Pitt, Bruce starts improvising and Brad breaks character and Quentin Tarantino is like, why did you stop, you have to keep going.

Five years later, this same story has become a PEOPLE.com “exclusive” but Bruce has put a little more sauce on it.

“When Brad Pitt wakes me up in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, I’m in the bed and I get up and I’m a little groggy and stuff and I just say, ‘I’m not really sure what’s going on,’” Dern described of the improvised moment. “I’m looking at him. [Pitt] cut the camera. He cut the camera. The look on Quentin’s face — I mean, he was insanely grave — and he said, ‘Brad, what did you just do?’”

Dern continued, “He said, ‘Well, I cut the camera.’ He said, ‘Never again in your life will you ever cut a camera, or you’ll be dead in this business. That’s my domain. Don’t stop behavior.’ So then we went on and did the scene, and all Brad did was say to him, ‘Well, that wasn’t in the script what he said.’”

PEOPLE.com turned it into a headline about Brad Pitt getting a “scolding”…which I’m not mad about. Bruce can tell his story however he wants to, the facts here remain the same. He’s Bruce Dern, he’s infamous for his “dernsies”, and he dropped a “dernsie” on his scene partner, a famous movie star for 30 years, who wasn’t ready for it.

Bruce Dern has exactly one scene in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Maybe in the original script he might have one or two more, max, but it’s obvious in context that the character was never meant for all that much screen time. That would have been the whole point of casting Bruce Dern (who stepped in for Burt Reynolds) – for maximum creepy impact. The dernsie was only ever going to happen in a very limited period of time in a fixed setting. Whether or not Quentin actually “scolded” Brad or if this has become embellished by Bruce doesn’t change the fact that the dersnie caught him off-guard. And now this anecdote is blowing up online because “Brad Pitt getting scolded by Quentin Tarantino – source: Bruce Dern” is just too tantalising.

So what have we learned here? That Bruce Dern is really good at gossip. Gossip, after all, is storytelling – and everyone already knew that Bruce has some great stories. What we may not have appreciated is that like all great storytellers, he keeps workshopping. This man is out here selling his Brad Pitt story like it’s a line from a script, changing up the delivery and the pacing whenever he gets the chance so that the next time it might land even harder. And this time it landed, with maximum impact, at Brad Pitt’s expense. Brad won an Oscar for his performance in a film in which he couldn’t keep up with Bruce Dern. Let that be the takeaway.

To the mailbag…

Question from Jen Ar:

I was going to ask about Lainey’s comment on the site today, that it’s not like Timmy is working less since being with Kylie. His “Upcoming” section of IMDB is looking pretty light - Dune 3 is done, Wonka 2 is in pre-production. Nothing else. Is this the norm for an actor of his popularity and calibre? Is he just being very selective with his next projects? Or has the twenty-something sheen worn off of him a bit? Will the next couple of years decide if he goes takes the Tom career path (he’s open about how much he loves Top Gun) or the Leo career path (who famously advised him against superhero franchises)?

Lainey’s Answer:

This is a good example to use to point out that IMDb is often incorrect and/or incomplete. Because there should be at least two more projects in Timothée Chalamet’s “upcoming” section on his page. And it’s kinda surprising that the more high-profile project isn’t there, considering that it was industry-wide news when it was announced last year.

Timmy plans to reconnect with James Mangold (A Complete Unknown) on a film called High Side about a motocross racer and his troubled brother doing bank heists. The reason this was a bigger news story than the usual film announcement is that there was a bidding war over the project, won by Paramount, and the first deal made by new studio co-chairs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg. They threw money at this. And then they threw even more money at Mangold a month later, signing him to an overall deal. The point is, there are a lot of people who are invested in making High Side happen, it’s a matter of where the script is at.

In April Jaime Oliveira, who came up with story and was working on the script, posted on Instagram that he’d turned in the last draft so now it’s a matter of whether or not it’s in good enough shape to proceed, or if another writer comes in for a polish, or major surgery, or if they start over altogether with another writer. All of these are possibilities in Hollywood. But even at this stage, this should be listed in IMDb, and it isn’t, so they’re clearly not on their shit.

As for Timmy working less – he’s said a few times during award season that he did not expect to be on a film set through 2026, which would be the longest he’s not been on a film set in something like four years because he went from Wonka pretty much straight into Dune 2; then the strikes stalled everything but he was in character prep for Bob Dylan, and he went straight into Marty Supreme from that film and then spent last year doing Dune 3.

Even without the backlash then, it would have been expected for him to take an extended break for a creative recharge and reset. And this is not unusual for an actor of his status. As for whether he’s being selective, and what path he’ll go on, Tom or Leo…

Dune might not be like an MCU superhero but it’s definitely a franchise. He definitely sees it as a franchise, and you could make the argument that the “hero” franchise he’s attached to is on a whole other level of subversion, considering where Paul Atreides started, with all that hype, and where he’s looking to be headed. In that sense, if I were a vain ego-stroking Timothée Chalamet writing my own career recap in 20 years, there’s a case to be made about his hero’s journey becoming a hero’s unravelling, linking his work from Dylan to Marty to Paul as the villain block of his oeuvre, following the softer performances that characterised his earlier work that was, now that I think about it, bookended by Wonka.

Going back to High Side, Deadline described the film as “Heat meets Hell or High Water, mixed in with one of those Bruce Springsteen songs about tragic brother relationship”. Those are two aggressively ambitious comps. Who’s the De Niro to Timmy’s Pacino, or vice versa? Who’s the Ben Foster to his Chris Pine? Or vice versa? Maybe it’s the Springsteen reference in the Deadline quote but I’d be interested in a Timmy vs Jeremy Allen White tragic brother situation, with JAW in the reverse role from what he’s done in The Bear. And Timmy also gets to ride motorcycles while working his thespian bone. Maybe that’s his Tom to Leo middle ground.

Question from Margaret:

Question for Sarah: Barry Hertz in the Globe and Mail wrote a fascinating article about the death of film festivals. He explains that studios no longer want the risk and expense of premiering at a festival. I was surprised to read that One Battle After Another did not make any festival appearances. We’ve seen what feels like a dip at TIFF which seems to get scooped by Venice. It seems to get harder and harder to get a world premiere. Thoughts on this Sarah?

Sarah’s answer:

For reference, here is the article Margaret is referring to. In the first paragraph, Hertz says: “Two weeks ago in Las Vegas, I witnessed the death of the film festival as we know it. Okay, that’s a mouthful of supersized hyperbole…”

So, he admits the premise itself is hyperbolic. But it’s not untrue that this year, Hollywood studios entered no films into competition at Cannes and yet CinemaCon remains a huge industry event. But they’re also not really comparable. CinemaCon has more in common with Comic-Con than it does a film festival like Cannes or Sundance or TIFF. CinemaCon is a marketing exercise about generating hype and convincing movie theater owners/managers to book films. Film festivals exist to 1) connect audiences with new films and emerging talent, and 2) sell independently made films to distributors.

The kind of movies that benefit from festivals tend to be smaller, independently financed, and/or weird. One Battle After Another, coming from an admired filmmaker and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, felt like a film that didn’t need a festival push. And in tone, it plays more like an action comedy than a “festival film”, so that calculation wasn’t entirely wrong. (The calculation that was wrong was Leonardo DiCaprio’s audience appeal, which might be waning.)

I do think there is a kind of fear-based math happening amongst studios right now, where they are spooked by fickle audiences and wary of big spending on movies that look even a little bit risky. Digger, for instance, uniting Tom Cruise and Alejandro Iñárritu, is apparently weird and high concept, and is reportedly going to skip the fall festivals before its October release. I do think executives are afraid of bad reviews/word of mouth from festivals ruining a film’s chances before opening weekend.

But I’ve been hearing this as long as I have been writing about movies on the internet. They’re always afraid of bad reviews, but they’ll stick that “certified fresh” ribbon on an ad faster than you can say “rotten tomato”, and they never talk about the movies that BENEFIT from festivals. In 2024, Mubi built a successful guerilla marketing campaign for The Substance from its inclusion in TIFF’s “Midnight Madness” programming. It’s a kind of selective blindness; they’ll talk about how bad reviews hurt a movie but never mention how good reviews HELP.

I’ve done this long enough to say: reviews don’t matter. If an audience WANTS to see a film, they will see it no matter what any critic says. Similarly, if a movie looks bad and/or dumb, they’ll stay away. It’s a marketing problem, and film festivals are not the enemy or at fault, but we have a class of executives with little to no background in film who are facing a marketing problem and treat it like a budgeting problem. Speaking of: sending films to CinemaCon is also hugely expensive. It’s just that at CinemaCon, everyone claps on command.

Question from Caitlin:

I was also going to ask a Jacob Elordi question but from a different angle: With Jacob Elordi skipping Cannes and then appearing on a beach with Kendall Jenner, do you think this will have any impact on future career opportunities? Will studios see him as unreliable and unserious, particularly about promoting projects, or is he already prestigious enough and a known quantity, so studios and execs won’t care about Cannes, particularly during a year when there isn’t much of an American presence? (I know he’s Australian, but the studios and execs tend to be, so maybe they will write this year off.)

Lainey’s Answer:

No impact whatsoever. Studios will not see him as unreliable and unserious because he is an attractive white man who is ostensibly talented. If he were a woman? Please. Imagine if Jennifer Lopez dropped out of Cannes because of an injury and ended up in a bikini on a beach with some young stud? TikTok would set her on fire. Then again, as if JLo would ever let a sore foot hold her back from the Cannes jury. Nobody needs to worry about Jacob Elordi, he will be fine. I know there’s that whole Kardashian-Jenner curse that people talk about but maybe Kendall’s strain of it isn’t as potent because look how Bad Bunny emerged from that relationship.

Question from Cherie:

Hey there! Was re-watching Crazy Rich Asians and I started to wonder about Awkwafina and her career so far. I know she’s not idle, but I feel she should be a bigger thing than she is?

Sarah’s answer:

Counterpoint: Awkwafina is fine where she is. She is not “not idle”, she is actively booked and busy. Not idle is like…Lily Collins. She has Emily in Paris, pops up in a movie you’ve probably never heard of every couple years or so, and that’s kind of it. No shade, she’s not idle, but it’s not overwhelming work, is it?

Awkwafina, on the other hand, has two major live-action movies out this year (The Man with the Bag and the next Jumanji movie), she’s voicing a character in Wildwood—which looks SPECTACULAR—and next year she is starring in Kaet Might Die, an adaptation of Kaet McAnneny’s memoir Boobs Gone Rogue (about being diagnosed with breast cancer at 27, check your girls, girls!), and Thumb, a comedy starring Milly Alcock and Kate McKinnon. On top of the feature film stuff, she does steady voice-over work and pops up on TV frequently (she was in episodes of Poker Face, Marvel Zombies, and Black Mirror last year alone).

Awkwafina is routinely doing high-profile work. Could she bank more starring roles? Maybe, but there’s a pretty good explanation for why she doesn’t get more leading lady parts, and it’s the same reason Constance Wu and Gemma Chan aren’t constantly headlining projects, either. I guess today is the day to just constantly be saying it point blank: it’s about race.

Things are better now than they were 20 years ago for women of color in Hollywood, but there is still a lack of headlining opportunities for women of East Asian descent (and Southeast Asian, and South Asian, Simone Ashley is experiencing the same thing). Headlining opportunities do exist; they just don’t come as frequently. Gemma Chan is not having Anne Hathaway’s year of a million starring projects, you know? Even Zendaya’s big year is made up of mostly supporting parts.

This is why Crazy Rich Asians was such a big deal, because it promised a franchise that could propel several women into starring roles, but the fact that we never got a sequel because screenwriter Adele Lim wanted to be paid in a way that reflected the success of the first film… Do we even have to say it? Warner Brothers would literally rather not make money than pay a woman of color what she’s worth.

If you see someone you think is talented and should work more, or have better/higher profile work, and you think, Why is she not doing better? The next question is: Is she white? If the answer is “no”, that is your answer. I’m sorry if that makes anyone feel some kind of way, but it IS about race. In a vacuum, we are talking about talented, charismatic, beautiful women who should not be struggling to book leading lady parts, but they DO. And there is only one thing all these women have in common, and it is being non-white.

We have backslid on the teeny tiny gains made in the 2010s, so actors like Awkwafina (and Gemma Chan, Constance Wu, Simone Ashley, Lupita Nyong’o, even Zendaya, who is so careful about choosing her starring roles because she knows she cannot afford to fail even once) now have to climb back out of the hole they barely peeked over last decade. This is a fair question, Cherie, but I’ve had a lot of stupid emails about The Odyssey in the last couple weeks, and more than anything, I think I’m just frustrated that we can’t even pretend race is a factor here.

Hollywood is hard for everyone, sure, but Awkwafina is working in a system built to disadvantage her more than some others, and she still manages to book a lot of high-profile work, even if it is mostly in supporting roles. Here’s hoping Kaet Might Die is a big success and helps her get more starring roles going forward.

Question from Alice:

I think you addressed this a little with a recent BTS post, but maybe it was projected earnings for the tour, so apologies if a little repetitive. The post about ZLH fever made me (hat tip to Nicole and employeeofmantu for the inspiration as well) wonder what percentage of their earnings (endorsements and otherwise) celebs in an “idol” talent system take home compared to Western celebs? So much of the idol system in less restrictive countries is still enigmatic, and I’m sure China is equally reticent about it, but I know they can be pretty reactive about to the perceived image of their entertainers who enter international awareness. *I’m just using ZLH as my jumping off point, I don’t know his personal situation in regard to management*

Lainey’s Answer:

Financials are hard to pin down in the Chinese entertainment system but here’s what we do know for sure where actor salaries are concerned – they’re making a lot less now than they were a decade ago from their dramas. Up until 2018, a top tier performer could earn as much as $25 million from one series. But after a string of scandals involving several actors and actresses (Fan Bingbing being the most famous example because it made international headlines but there were others) and tax evasion and double contracts (publicly signing one contract for one salary but secretly signing another for more money but not reporting it – allegedly), the government stepped in and ordered that from that point forward, the combined salaries of all the actors in a drama could not exceed 40% of the total production cost. And the lead actors’ salary could not be more than 70% of the budget set aside for the entire cast. The most, then, that C-drama actors are getting paid now per series is maybe like $6 or 7 million. Which, obviously, is still a lot of money but much less than before. And that’s not the total take-home. It’s either a 60/40 or 70/30 split for those who are under management. So the ones who are self-managed or who have founded their own management companies (Bai Jingting, Yang Zi, Wu Lei just to name a few) are in a much better position.

The salary cap is one of the reasons so many C-drama actors do all those endorsements. Especially since in the East, we don’t squick over celebrities and sponcon the way western audiences react. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a point of pride for fan armies when their faves are signing new deals.

Here’s something else to consider when engaging with C-dramas, at least in my opinion: the career windows are shorter. This is not to say that there aren’t any stars who can sustain career success through their 40s and 50s…but that, comparatively, it happens less and for fewer people than in the west. Almost all the costume dramas are about 20-year-old generals and/or princes and princesses! There are older actors in those series, sure, but they’re not the leads.

I imagine, then, that actors who have a surge in popularity, like Zhang Linghe at the moment, must feel so much pressure to capitalise on these short years as much as they can.

Taking it away from the money – I just want to say how thrilling it is for me that there is so much interest in East Asian entertainment and that The Squawk has become an English-language place to talk about it!

Thanks so much for supporting our work. Have a great weekend!

Keep squawking and keep gossiping,

Lainey and Sarah

Dear Squawkers,

It is absurd, I know, to bother acknowledging any anniversary having to do with dicks. Every day in the history of humankind has been Dick Day, how could we possibly narrow it down to one day when dicks win all the days of the week? It’s entirely unnecessary. There is, however, an anniversary coming up that I’ve been thinking about that has less to do with dicks, actually, and more to do with pop culture and perception. And it’s happening at an interesting time, but I’m still trying to untangle what it means, if anything. So this is not about dicks, but about an expression that has a dick in it (no pun intended), although a dick isn’t required to achieve it:

Big Dick Energy

Remember the year everyone was using Big Dick Energy, or BDE, in a sentence? The anniversary of Big Dick Energy entering the pop culture lexicon is June 8. This year, BDE turns eight years old.

Big Dick Energy, the expression, was introduced to us on Twitter, when it was legitimately still called Twitter, by Kyrell Grant, a Toronto-based writer who is under-credited for her contribution because, as is often the case, Black women give us so much good and never get anything back. Which, by the way, Kyrell has written about basically the entire internet creating content based on a phrase she invented, and profiting, and how she gained fuckall for her creativity. Kyrell is on Twitter @imbobswaget, on Instagram @imbobswaget and here on Substack @imbobswaget.

Kyrell was referring to Anthony Bourdain on that day in June 2018, when news broke that he had died.

Two weeks later, Ariana Grande responded on Twitter (since deleted) to a comment about how long “pete” is, meaning the song. And she posted, “like 10 inches?…oh fuck…I mean…like a lil over a minute”.

From there, another Twitter user then used Big Dick Energy to describe Pete Davidson, to whom Ariana had just gotten engaged. And the whole thing exploded. Everyone was talking about BDE. And everyone came up with their own definition for it and who did or didn’t have it…

Read more

Dear Squawkers,

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I am doing a 30-day skincare journey with The Ordinary (almost done now and really happy with how my skin is improving). Meanwhile, in The Squawk chats, we regularly have conversations about beauty, skincare, aging, and the beauty industrial complex. It’s a tricky topic for me, as a woman in my 40s who loves playing with skincare, because at the same time, I also don’t want to contribute to social expectations that women never age and always look like sexy babies, yet I am part of the problem! I am an advanced skincare user, and yet I am also resolved to aging “normally”, whatever that means in the 21^st century when even the non-invasive options can knock years off your face (I have had broadband light therapy and a laser treatment in the past). I do see the hypocrisy inherent in the system.

I also like to play with makeup. On daily basis, I don’t wear any, especially since switching to work-from-home post-pandemic, but I love to play with makeup the way some people have knitting hobbies. Like I will just spend a few hours in front of my mirror, trying different looks, even if I have no intention of wearing them out. This means I spend some time watching makeup tutorials online, looking for new things to try. While watching a video about blush placement by the fashion and makeup influencer Bonnie RzM, she said something that I have not stopped thinking about since. Toward the end of the video Bonnie says, “You should ask yourself what youthful means to you.”

Is it to look like a young person? Is it to participate in the trends the youth are creating, to be on trend like them? Or is it to look and/or feel good for your age?

For me, “youthful” means feeling good, being healthy and active and mobile—watching my parents develop mobility issues is really driving home the importance of maintaining physical fitness in middle age—and “looking good for my age”. Like it DOES feel good when people are surprised by my age, I won’t lie.

But at the same time, I am letting my hair go grey, I’m not going to do things like Botox (too scared, frankly), and I know eventually I will lose the fight with gravity and time and develop wrinkles. That’s okay. My aging lodestar is Michelle Pfeiffer, who has obviously had work done, but at the same time, she HAS aged. She just looks great for her age. I’m not going to look as good as her, but I will do what I can to preserve what I’ve got, and I will accept my wrinkles with grace. Eventually. Sometime later, lol.

So, Squawkers, my question for you is, what does youthful mean to you? And how far are you willing to go to feel and look it?

Onto the mailbag!

Question from Kristin:

What do you think is next for guys like Kimmel and Colbert once they’re done with late night talk shows? YouTube? Podcasts? I know Colbert is going to write a LoTR script, but I honestly can’t see someone like Jimmy Fallon doing something like that (he’ll probably end up as a game show host, and I can see Kimmel still hosting Who wants to be a millionaire). I worry about what will happen with John Oliver once the Ellisons get their hands on HBO. Obviously, networks fund their writing (and for Oliver, research) staffs, so unless they get backers it’s not like they can run to YouTube to keep going on. Does Prime or Netflix or Apple come in to offer them something? Do they even want to continue in this type of role? Part of the reason I love to watch Seth Meyers and Oliver and even Colbert is the insightfulness of their commentary and the way they dig into real topics (Oliver’s piece on non-lethal force actually being pretty deadly has stuck with me long after I watched it). What does the future look like for Strike Force Four (I refuse to count Jimmy Fallon in this - he’ll be fine; he always seems to fail up)?

Sarah’s answer:

I do like that we’ve collectively agreed to just not worry about Jimmy Fallon. He’ll be fine! Cockroaches always survive!

The obvious blueprint for a late-night host post-retirement is Conan O’Brien, who retired his talk show on his terms and moved into podcasting full-time (and hosting, he’s hosting his third Oscars in a row next year). Podcasting is definitely an option for any retiring late-night host.

Seth Meyers is already working on this, with his Family Trips podcast, co-hosted with his brother, Josh, and Seth also continues to nurture a standup career. Despite speculation, I don’t think he’ll go back to SNL when he’s done with late-night. I think he’s too much of a wife guy and family man, he won’t want those hours, especially since Late Night has the best hours in the business, they’re routinely home at a decent hour during the work week. I cannot see Seth giving up the work-life balance he has achieved.

John Oliver also continues to do standup—he and Seth co-host a monthly show at the Beacon Theatre in New York—so he might just go back to doing more comedy whenever his show ends. Like you, Kristin, I am worried about what will happen to Last Week Tonight when the Ellison takeover is complete. Surely, David Ellison knows how catastrophically bad it would look to interfere with John Oliver, but I also don’t think he cares. We will just have to wait and see.

As for Jimmy Kimmel, I can see him going in Stephen Colbert’s direction and moving into producing full-time, especially as he works with his wife, writer and producer Molly McNearney. I would not be the least bit shocked if they opened a true production shingle and started making movies and TV with their famous friends.

What I don’t really see for any of them is going onto another topical/talk show on a different network/platform. Jon Stewart already tried with The Problem with Jon Stewart. They put out 20 episodes across two seasons and then the show was cancelled. Granted, this was Apple TV+, which can claim few true breakout hits. Not many people are watching Apple TV+ on the regular. But the talk format is dying, I think as these shows wind down, the hosts move onto other projects, and don’t try to repeat their previous success elsewhere. Jon Stewart already showed how hard that is.

Question from Cherie via DM:

Hello! Just started getting into C dramas and my life is better for it! Do you find C dramas have a lot more sexual heat to them? Considering how conservative the country is I was pleasantly surprised that pre-marital sex is a thing there!!

Lainey’s Answer:

I just wrote a post at LaineyGossip about the C-drama invasion this year, so thank you for proving my point about the recent-ish and rapid popularity of Chinese dramas that we’ve observed over the last several months.

Hard for me to answer about C-dramas and sexual heat. Some personal background: when I was growing up watching Hong Kong dramas, obsessively, in the 80s and early 90s, there was very, very little – if any – kissing in modern dramas. At most, like one kiss in a 40–60-episode series. And in period dramas, no kissing at all, whatsoever. The equivalent of a kiss was The Embrace. I used to rewind and replay and rewind and replay those embraces until the VHS tape wore out, that was a satisfying amount of “heat” for my innocent pre-teen heart.

For the most part, through most of the 90s, romance remained modestly portrayed in dramas – but more explicit content could be shown in films, both in Hong Kong and mainland China, like Zhang Yimou’s acclaimed work from that period. Ju Dou is a good example.

Over the last 25 years or so, there’s been a sexual revolution in China, due in part to the fact that pre-marital sex was no longer illegal after 1997…which isn’t that long ago. There was a pretty famous survey that was released in 2014/2015 that revealed that 70% of respondents had had pre-marital sex, up from only 15% in 1989! For those of you who are interested, one of the other factors was the one-child policy (that was amended a few years ago to address population imbalance) because if they were restricting how much people could procreate they then had to relax some rules about fucking for pleasure, and that led to gradual changes in attitudes about sex. This, then, was also reflected in storytelling onscreen in terms of showing intimacy. Basically, more kissing.

But still. Kissing and a bare shoulder are pretty much as far as they go on television. Short dramas might be able to get away with a bare thigh, and BL dramas can push it to some tongue, harder kissing, and a thrust here and there…but in comparison to western media, it’s still considered pretty conservative.

Which is why they spend so much time on the slow burn and building the sexual tension. Western dramas do not linger on a scene with two people just staring at each other, or just breathing in a room together, the way East Asian dramas do – and to great effect. But C and K-dramas have to do this because it’s foreplay, encouraging the viewer to imagine the inner thoughts of the characters in those moments, engorging it with longing, yearning, desire. This is a storytelling technique, necessitated by cultural standards specific to their respective regions, that has become a creative signature.

But I have to say, as an avid C and K-drama watcher, one of the things I try not to think too hard about, because otherwise I’ll be taken out of the fantasy, is that it is implied in most of the more popular dramas that our lovers are virgins, and somehow they never fumble their kisses and if they do end up fucking (off camera), it is suggested that they’re champions at it. This is why I very much appreciated a drama that came out last year called Fated Hearts. They were both generals in their respective armies, nobody was pure and untouched, and they didn’t pretend to be. I mean it’s not like they were sharing their body counts with each other, but nobody went all wide-eyed at a first kiss like it was the very first time. She might have even been more aggressive than him, if memory serves.

There is major common ground between East and West where romance is concerned, though, even though it might not be delivered in the same way. The more mainstream C and K-dramas don’t allow for much heat, implicit or explicit, outside of the OTP. Not unlike (for the most part) the most mainstream romance novels and films and television shows in the west. And this is a big part of the draw for international audiences increasingly gravitating towards Eastern dramas – the traditional fantasy of The One is universal, no matter where you’re from.

Question from Elizabeth MacLeod:

Let’s do a career compare/contrast and prospectus of Adria Arjona and Eiza Gonzalez – both broke through around the same time in the early/mid-2010s and were up in the same types of roles, but from a birds-eye view of their filmographies and upcoming work it seems Eiza has made a niche for herself as a credible female action star while Adria is a little more versatile being in a mixture of dramas, comedies and some action and worked with a range of auteur/prestige directors. What is your two cents Sarah?

Sarah’s answer:

My two cents is that they look so much alike, it’s an obstacle for both of them. This happens sometimes; another case is Margot Robbie/Samara Weaving (who not only look alike but are also both Australian). It can be disadvantageous to have two actors who look so much alike in the marketplace at the same time. It makes it harder for audiences to figure out who is whom. For reference, here are Adria and Eiza side by side:

You might recognize Adria from films like Triple Frontier, Hitman, and Blink Twice, while Eiza has starred in Baby Driver, Hobbs & Shaw, and Ambulance. Eiza is also in with Guy Ritchie, and she is in this year’s I Love Boosters and Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (streaming on Hulu and a lot of fun). Adria, meanwhile, has some big stuff coming up next year with Michael B. Jordan’s The Thomas Crown Affair and the Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow.

They are both working plenty, they are both regularly appearing in solid-to-good projects. Neither actress is hurting in that way. Where I think they’ve been kneecapped a little is that one of them might be a bigger star if the other wasn’t around. In terms of public persona, they’re still entangled, I don’t think the average person really knows they’re two different people, though Adria, with next year’s double whammy of Thomas Crown and Man of Tomorrow might finally get enough mainstream attention to buy some breathing room. Let’s put a pin in this until late 2027 and see where Adria and Eiza stand in relation to one another then.

That’s it for this week’s mailbag! As always, thanks for reading and squawking with us!

Just keep squawking,

Sarah and Lainey

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During the segment, they announced an emergency Strike Force Five podcast episode which will be released tomorrow and will be an opportunity for them to…

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Dear Squawkers,

The Emmy Awards are still four months away but voting on the nominations starts in just over a month, followed by the announcement of the nominations on July 8, so this is definitely Emmy season.

One of the shows that’s been very visible on the campaign circuit lately is Love Story: John F Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette. Three of its stars were at the Met Gala on Monday night: Sarah Pidgeon, Naomi Watts, and Paul Anthony Kelly. So the Met Gala has become, for those who can manage an invitation, a stop on the Emmys campaign circuit. Constance Zimmer should have been there, too, because in my opinion both she and Sarah Pidgeon give the best performances in an otherwise medium-to-not-good series.

Entertainment Weekly published an early Emmys nomination prediction list this week and, according to their current rankings, all four of the aforementioned actors from Love Story will hear their names called. For Paul Anthony Kelly, this would be enough of a win since it’s literally his first acting role. That’s not the only reason he went a bit viral though. There was some controversy over his appearance at the Met Gala – it’s the way he answered this question about Beyoncé.

Some people online connected Paul’s tone and body language to a recent comment that Zendaya made when she was promoting The Drama. Z and Robert Pattinson were playing a game about wedding red flags. It’s not just about not knowing any Beyoncé songs, as Z elaborated, it’s about “going out of their way” to underrate Beyoncé.

She specifically says here that, you don’t have to know Beyoncé’s music, it’s about making a point to be, like, “I don’t know Beyoncé”.

Since I’m in the mood to get a little messy, my question to you is…

Based on Zendaya’s definition of red flag behaviour to do with Beyoncé, and people who go out their way to advertise their incorrect opinion that Beyoncé is too hyped, using those parameters that Zendaya just laid out…

It’s really not that serious. Please let’s not get too heated in the comments, LOL.

Now to your questions…

Question from Patty:

2 questions. 1. There are what appear to be blockbuster movies coming out this summer, which ones are you looking forward to? 2, I see Hailey Bieber at what seems like SO many events, does playing the Hollywood Circuit have as much pay off as it may have had several years ago? Some people seem to be everywhere , and others not so much. I assume the ones that don’t attend every event don’t really need to. Just like there are certain restaurants that are where people go to be seen. Or is everything reversed where events invite certain people, so that their event gets more publicity?

Lainey’s Answer:

The blockbuster summer movies I’m most looking forward to are the two most obvious ones, I guess I’m a basic bitch: The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I was devastated at the end of No Way Home when Peter was basically forgotten by everyone he loves. I need to know if he can rebuild those relationships! Also…the Zendaya and Tom Holland press tour, because they’re going back-to-back with each other with The Odyssey first and then Brand New Day.

As for The Odyssey, I took Greek mythology in university, so this movie lines up with all my shit. The discourse about the accents this week is sending me – and I’m not mad at it, nobody needs three hours of listening to Matt Damon speak in an English accent. Three hours? This is a Christopher Nolan movie based on The Odyssey, there is no way he’s bringing this in at two hours, no fucking way.

The press tour will be bloated, the movie will be long, the debates will be exhausting, and I’m here FOR ALL OF IT. Months and months and months of it. Because get ready for the Oscar campaign. This film will contend, it’s just a matter of how many categories it will contend in, and which actors will be categorised where. There are some people who are saying that Anne Hathaway might be going for her second Oscar, and wouldn’t that be some kind of cherry on top of her big year, with five movies coming out in six months. We can talk more about this later, no need to get a head start on something that will be interminable through the back half of 2026.

To your second question and celebrities going to so many events. Does Hailey Bieber go to a lot of events? I don’t really think of her that way, but I do agree that she’s visible – pap photos and promotional appearances for her beauty brand. And that’s what a lot of her appearances are for: Rhode is almost a year into its billion-dollar acquisition and she’s driving so much of the demand. This is the influencer-founder life. This is the influencer-to-founder pathway. You start by influencing, which means constant exposure, constant sharing, in the hopes that whatever product you develop will have an audience that becomes a consumer base. She did that better than most of them, but now she has to sustain it. In her case, yes, I would say it’s paid off. In fact, that might be an understatement; she’s worth more than Justin now.

In the reverse, where events invite certain people, that’s actually how it works most of the time. The events need the people who ride the Hollywood Circuit, as you call it, to show up so that they can get the photos, get the coverage, get the media impact value. It’s a transactional relationship; each side benefits equally.

Sarah’s answer:

I am looking forward to Boots Riley’s new film, I Love Boosters, as well as Kane Parsons’ Backrooms. I love that this is a 20-year-old kid turning his own creepypasta into a feature film that looks super cool and stylish and atmospheric. The kids will be alright!

I’m also looking forward to Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood. I am exhausted by Hugh Jackman and refuse to know any more about him, but like The Odyssey, the Robin Hood myth is ripe for reinvention and reinterpretation. I love Sarnoski’s work, so I am curious to see what he does here.

Finally, I think I am convinced that He-Man Masters of the Universe will be really fun. Like, dumb, yes, of course, but also fun. Summer is when we want big fun dumb movies!

Question from Charlotte:

So, Sarah, please tell us about your campaign to rescue Hera from thousands of years of misogynistic mythology. You have your work cut out for you, but I support your quest to take down the original shrewish wife trope.

Sarah’s answer:

There are so many myths and so many versions of those myths, but one Hera myth is that Zeus courted Hera, but she rejected him, so he transformed into a cuckoo and when Hera pitied the strange bird, she cradled it in her arms. Zeus then transformed back into a man and raped her, which resulted in her being forced to marry Zeus. So, really, Hera is Zeus’s first victim.

With that in mind, is she a shrew-wife, as the stories go, or might there be lost versions of all those stories of Hera versus Zeus’s many women—almost all of whom he assaulted!—that are about Hera desperately trying to protect women from her predator husband only to tragically fail time and again? Is Hera an unrepentant bitch, or have we lost a goddess-queen meant to protect women who was forced, instead, to watch her husband make women suffer?

What we know of Hera from archaeology is that she was IMPORTANT. All over the ancient Hellenic world we find MASSIVE temples to Hera, signaling her stature and importance among the pantheon. The Heraion on Samos was continually rebuilt over thousands of years; the Heraion on Olympia, where the Olympic flame rests, was once combined with a temple to Zeus, but eventually Zeus was booted out and the whole complex was dedicated to Hera. Within Heraions, it is very common to find offerings dedicated from across the world known to the ancient Greeks. People came from all over to honor and recognize Hera.

Excavated residences show altars dedicated to Hera, which makes sense as she was the goddess of marriage and protector of women in childbirth. A woman going into labor would pray to Hera, which means most women prayed to Hera eventually. Hera was integrated into daily life, she was incredibly important as a religious icon, but she is remembered mostly because of mythology, which depicts her as a jealous, cruel bitch. Because ancient Greece was a deeply misogynistic culture, literally they did not believe women capable of higher thought or complex emotion. Keep that in mind when The Odyssey rolls around.

Question from Monika T via DM:

(This is about interviews and interviewing people.) I wonder who inspired you or if it’s just a natural born gift.

Lainey’s Answer:

Definitely not a natural born gift, and there might be some people out there who were born with it, but in my experience, the best interviewers developed it as a skillset. Which means they practised and practised and practised. In my opinion, interviewing shouldn’t be like…I dunno…an athletic ability, in the sense that as much as I wish I could dunk a basketball, I will never be able to no matter how much time I spend training. (I could totally hit a major league baseball pitch though – this is not delusional! {comment from Jacek: this is ridiculous and she’s just baiting me - she wouldn’t even manage start the swing in time on a soft major league curve ball - we debate this all the time} But with interviewing, almost anyone who truly puts in the work should be able to do it well. Because listening is fundamental to interviewing, and we can all listen. We might not all be able to hear but listening and hearing are two different things. Listening is an “intentional cognitive process”, it’s actively engaging your brain as you take in the information that’s being relayed to you and measuring that information against what you have already learned, what you might have perceived, and everything else that you’ve gathered in your mental library as you approach the conversation.

When I first started as a reporter, I was a shitty interviewer – because I had no experience, I was too busy being nervous and focusing on getting from one question on the cue card to the next. I became a better interviewer because I was taught. This was the advantage of coming up in the business when legacy media was still dominant: I was surrounded by producers and writers and veteran communications specialists, and broadcast journalists, who trained me from the ground up. And I was willing to be trained in the sense that I was obsessed with their proficiency. This is why it’s so tragic what’s happening to media institutions. What corporations are losing in their shameless greed and relentless pursuit of profit are creative and intellectual natural resources of immeasurable value. If I’m a good interviewer, it’s because of them. And by the way, they never stop teaching.

One of them just sent me some homework the other day that happens to relate to your question and has its own gossip legacy attached to it. It’s the latest episode of the Revisionist History’s The Mistakes Series, featuring people revisiting some of the bad decisions that changed their lives. “Why Would I Do That to Jennifer Lopez?” is about Irv Gotti regretting the lies he told about JLo in a magazine interview when he had just produced two massive hits with her and could have gone on to more success. Briefly: JLo told the magazine that “Ain’t It Funny” wasn’t about Puffy. Irv Gotti said it was totally about Puffy and that she was lying…even though she actually wasn’t lying, Irv was just hot that day and ran his mouth.

This story would become a core part of the anti-JLo lore that her detractors remain committed to, and it was totally false. Irv tried to get the magazine to take that part out before publication, but they were like, no, you said what you said. And he also apologised profusely to JLo but their relationship would never be the same again, the trust was broken. Years later, before his death, he would say that that was his biggest regret.

The episode of Revisionist History expands on the regret though – because there’s so much more context behind why Irv lied on JLo’s name that day. And the analysis of this mistake also expands to the journalist who interviewed him…and whether the interviewer had fulfilled his journalistic duties in that moment when Irv came out of nowhere, riding a #1 hit with JLo, and proceeded to randomly call her a liar. The journalist did not probe it, did not attempt to unpack Irv Gotti’s position and while, yes, Irv said what he said and ultimately had to wear it, if we’re talking about good interviewing, and the importance of listening and remaining curious, should the journalist have attempted to understand WHY Irv felt that way about JLo? Because there was actually so much more to Irv’s state of mind when he was giving that interview, and with that context, the story becomes that much more compelling, way beyond petty feuds with exes and revenge songs.

It’s a really, really interesting lookback at the broken trajectory between two talented celebrities and the gossip that ensued – but also the disappearance of music and art that may have potentially been made had that series of events not occurred. Specifically, for those of us who are in the business of interviewing people and telling their stories, it’s also a lot to think about as we engage with our own work processes.

Question from Renee:

100% self serving query here - I need the deets on Lainey’s lace top/bodysuit that she wore on the ETALK Live coverage after the Met. Obsessed! As someone who doesn’t often let the girls/midriff out, I love that it wasn’t a pure crop top…anyways, any info appreciated!

Lainey’s Answer:

Thank you Renee, that was a fun outfit, and my ego appreciates your praise. For what it’s worth though, my answer is more than just an ego stroke. Renee is referring to this outfit that I wore on Monday night. Flip through the carousel below and you’ll see that my tits were out – which I don’t do often. Simone, our stylist, has been working with me for three years and this is the first time we’ve ever built an outfit around cleavage. It’ll likely be another three years, at least, until I do it again. But when I do it, it’s not subtle.

When I say it’s not subtle, that also applies to where I bought this bodysuit: at a sex shop. As far as I’m concerned, sex shops sell the best bodysuits, and this is one of the best sex shops in the world. The owner is Veronica Kazoleas, who worked in healthcare and is also a sexual health researcher and educator. For 20 years she’s been advocating for change in dialogue around female sexuality.

Her store is called The Nookie and, as she says, it specialises in pleasure products, not a sex shop but a sensuality shop. At The Nookie you will find toys and accessories but also lingerie. Beautiful lingerie, gorgeous bodysuits. I bought my bodysuit at The Nookie’s retail space in Yorkville in Toronto. Veronica recently announced, however, that she’s closing the physical shop, but the online shop will remain open and will also expand. The store in Yorkville is closing on May 21 so if you’re in Toronto, I encourage you to drop in not just for the sales but also to appreciate the spirit of the place. There might not be a lot of inventory and sizing right now in store and online since they are transitioning, but please continue to check out their website in the coming weeks and months. My bodysuit is no longer available since I bought it a few years ago but there are others, like this one. And I also have this one that I’ve worn under a suit and nothing else. Have fun at The Nookie!

Thanks for supporting our work here at The Squawk and for reading all our posts on the Met Gala at LaineyGossip and for your chats and shares and jokes and… gardening! Because that’s become a regular topic in the dailies too. This is what we wanted when the community first launched – a place to share and exchange and debate and connect…

Keep squawking and keep gossiping,

Lainey and Sarah

Hi and welcome to The Squawk Met Gala Live-Chat! Or, rather, the 2026 Beyoncé Gala Live-Chat – because she is definitely the most ‘main character’ of all the guests tonight and has managed to keep her presence in New York completely concealed. So Beyoncé will definitely be a major story, even if the night comes and goes and we get no information about act iii. And on that note, I do have a pressing question that has nothing to do with music…

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Just one year after securing their roles in Heated Rivalry, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams will be attending their first Met this evening. The two were seen making multiple stops in NYC over the weekend - you can see those photos here.

Also in New York, BLACKPINK’s Jen…

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Dear Squawkers,

I was in New York a couple of weeks ago to cover The Devil Wears Prada 2 junket for ETALK and I went there knowing that it would be the first time in my entire career that I would interview Meryl Streep. This was the major anxiety for me. Of course I was excited-nervous to talk to Anne Hathaway again, we had a great interview a couple of years ago when she was promoting The Idea of You – I wrote about that experience here at The Squawk at the time – and I have said many times, Anne Hathaway is a professional, she has great manners, there was no concern that she wouldn’t give me something I could use from the interview.

But there was some added pressure because I knew ahead of time that my interviews from the junket would be cut into a half-hour special on ETALK that actually airs today as the movie opens in theatres (produced by Joanna). Junket interviews are short and quick, five minutes tops in every room, and sometimes you get shortchanged in the room, five minutes becomes four minutes and 40 seconds because they’re trying to move through as many reporters as possible. And when you’re interviewing people in pairs, there are only so many questions you can ask, and you have to hope that one person doesn’t go long and eat up the time…

Plus, of course, the MERYL of it all. Not that I had any worries that she’d be an asshole, I just wasn’t going in there with any previous personal experience about what she responds to, how best to approach her, and obviously, since she’s MERYL STREEP, considered by basically everyone to the best of the best, there was the intimidation factor, and Miranda Priestley has nothing to do with it. In our business, no matter the role, what film she’s promoting, Meryl Streep is revered. Afterwards I was in the elevator with another reporter, who works for a major American news outlet, they get all the big talent, and she was basically levitating about having been in the same room as Meryl, as if she’d just spent time with a deity.

I chose that word, “deity”, because so many celebrities have implored the audience to remember that they are real people who experience real feelings – and this is more important now than ever given our digital existence and the parasocial relationships that are mutating into weird hybrid fantasy-reality simulations. Sometimes when we gossip, and we all do this, we strip the humanity from those who are famous and impose instead a set of expectations on them that are impossible to fulfill.

And I was guilty of this going into the interview with Meryl, I thought of her as an icon instead of a person, then was immediately disarmed the moment I sat down across from her because, and this is to her credit entirely, it was instantly apparent that she is not a god but in fact very tangible, very present, very human. The credit is hers because it was her energy, the way she chose to engage with me – and probably everyone she encountered that day – not as the most-nominated actor of all time and the standard by which they all measure themselves, but as a nice lady who just wanted to talk about whatever you wanted to talk about. Seriously, she could have been someone sitting next to you on a plane, happy to kill time on an international flight getting to know a stranger.

Yes, she is beautiful, she is regal, dignified, and elegant. But there was also none of the detachment that can accompany those qualities in a person. Instead, she radiates warmth, even familiarity, like talking to the kindest mom on the block in your friend group when you were growing up. She had that vibe throughout, sitting as far forward in her chair as she could, leaning in when I asked my questions, her eyes fixed on my face with just the right amount of interest but not so much that it bordered on intensity. She made me feel like everything I was saying was interesting. She moved closer when she agreed with my points, lighting up even more when I mentioned to her and Annie how much I enjoyed watching them on the East Asian leg of the press tour, embraced by cultures that don’t often connect to western stories and characters. Near the end of the interview, when I knew we were already over time, she started making another point, becoming more passionate as she emphasised that creativity could only come from human beings and not computers.

I suppose the cynical take here would be to note that, well, she is an acting legend, and she could have been giving a performance. Sure. I guess that’s possible. It’s not like I haven’t been fooled before. But I’d rather be fooled by a living breathing person sitting across from me using her brain to deceive me than a fucking set of prompts telling me that all my basic ass ideas are brilliant. If Meryl Streep was lying to me, at least I can say that THE Meryl Streep lied to me. I will go to my grave believing that it is better to be lied to by the real Meryl Streep and than lied to by a chatbot. Meryl Streep used a small fraction of her acting ability to con me into thinking she enjoyed our conversation? Thank you, I’ll take it.

Let’s get to the mailbag…

Question from Insomnia:

Why do top celebrities agree to co-chair the Met Gala? Does it actually boost their profile, or does attending have a bigger impact?

Lainey’s Answer:

The key words here, I think, are “top celebrities”. Only “top celebrities” co-chair the Met Gala. Over the last 20 years, which is when the Met Gala really went from a New York thing to a global thing, Anna Wintour has kept the Met Gala co-chair list pretty elite. To date, a Kardashian-Jenner has yet to co-chair. Probably only a matter of time before that changes, but my point is, one of the (many) reasons why top celebrities say yes is because it’s still an exclusive group of people.

That’s not to say that the Met Gala’s reputation hasn’t been tarnished, and especially this year with the Bezos of it all; and a few years prior you’ll recall that when everyone was supposedly anti-TikTok, TikTok was actually a sponsor, with their CEO Shou Zi Chew on the committee. Also in 2023, Karl Lagerfeld was posthumously honoured when the whole party was dedicated to him, even as many people brought up his problematic past. To be clear, I’m not defending these decisions and inclusions. All I’m saying is that for Anna Wintour and those who are supporting and going to the Met Gala, the Bezos cloud – for THEM, not us, but THEM – isn’t new, and in their minds it’s similar weather that will pass as soon as all the pretty dresses or, even better, the ugly dresses start arriving and social media starts popping off. Because we are squirrels.

Power to those, and I mean it, who have decided to avoid the whole thing and stick to their principles. Here at The Squawk and LaineyGossip, this is a challenge. We can avoid certain movies and television shows. We can avoid a particular premiere, specific celebrities, individuals we don’t want to platform. The challenge of events like the Oscars and the Met Gala is that a large majority of the celebrity ecosystem shows up. And our whole shit is celebrities. Almost 200 hundred of them will be there. And we are a small business. It’s just not an option for us to not cover it, I’m sorry, honestly.

But this relates to your question about why people agree to co-chair. Simply, they want the prestige of belonging to an exclusive group who has been invited to co-chair, and they love the attention and, in some cases, they leverage it to market whatever it is that they need to market. Does it boost their profile? I mean…it can. I would argue that shutting it down year after year at the Met Gala and then co-chairing boosted Rihanna’s profile which she then brilliantly used to build her fashion empire. When Lady Gaga co-chaired and pulled off that stunt with the multiple changes on the red steps in 2019, it was a victory lap after the A Star is Born award season run and also just ahead of the launch of her makeup line, Haus Laboratories.

It remains to be seen what Beyoncé gets out of it, if anything. If it’s not an announcement about act iii, I wonder if she’s trying to hype Cécred. But the thing about the co-chairs, as already established, is that they are often already such a big deal, they don’t necessarily need a “boost” to their profile. Sometimes it’s as simple as…they really want to throw down a sick look, and be where all the famous people are that night.

Question from Julia:

How much does it cost to get ready for an event? Simone Biles just said the fees for her stylist and hair and makeup artists totaled more than $20,000 for one event!

Lainey’s Answer:

I get it that for regular degulars like us, $20,000 for one event is a stupid amount of money. But I would like to approach this from the perspective of where that money is going, and what goes into earning that money. And it’s timely, because Vogue’s The Run-Through podcast’s latest episode is a GREAT Show Your Work conversation between Chloe Malle, editor of American Vogue, and stylist Leslie Fremar who I just mentioned in the mailbag two weeks ago. Leslie’s been styling Charlize Theron for years and she’s also the real life “Emily”, from The Devil Wears Prada. She’s the one who said, in real life, “a million girls would kill for this job”. The interview is 45 minutes and if you have the time and you’re interested in the inside baseball of fashion and styling, it’s worth your time.

(An aside, since part of this is about styling, LOL at the back of Chloe’s sweater, rolled back at the neck. Nobody at Vogue wanted to tell her to quickly fix it?!)

Anyway, there’s gossip here about Lauren Weisberger and the book and the movie, etc, but the reason I’m referencing this is because she also talks about her career after Vogue, styling celebrities like Charlize, and what goes into it. They were just on the Apex press tour, and she details what her day looked like: overnight travel, call time 5am, non-stop for 24 hours. And this is days and days of it. That doesn’t include what comes before, which is pulling clothes, making adjustments, the fittings, the organisation, and the schlepping. Charlize doesn’t have to worry about packing the garments, the shoes, the accessories, carrying them from office to car to airport to airport to hotel and the steaming and then doing all that in reverse when the day is done. After that, wake up, rinse and repeat.

And that’s the stylist; this doesn’t include hair and makeup. For the hair and makeup artists, they have their kits. The hairstylists I know travel with at least a dozen tools, plus at least two boxes of brushes and combs, plus accessories, plus product. Makeup artists move around with large suitcases, filled with brushes and product. The celebrity never has to think about how they get from the car to the plane and the hotel with all that gear. It is so much schlepping!

They all have to wake up so much earlier than the celebrities to actually get to wherever they’re needed (like the celebrity’s home or hotel room) and get set up. If they’re accompanying the celebrity (which is what’s expected for the A-listers), they then have to follow them around all day, carrying half their kit around, and there are no regular breaks because if the star needs you, they need you right now. On top of all that, they’re often assistants and therapists, providing emotional support, cheerleading…

The more successful and busy and booked stylists and artists have teams, their own assistants to help with their client list. Those people need to be paid, too. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never really heard of a stylist or a hair or makeup artist who is so wealthy they in a mansion and/or own yachts. Sure, some of them do well, but they’ll never make the kind of money that their clients are making, not even close.

So what I’m trying to say is that whatever their rate is? Trust me, they’re earning it. Trust me, they deserve it. Their jobs are so much more than what is shown on social media, like dabbing eye shadow for a few minutes. It’s the unseen effort (the schlepping, the packing, all the energy spent shadowing celebrities, anticipating their needs, starting earlier and ending later) that goes into it that also has value, tremendous value. And more people should be aware of their worth.

Question from Patty:

I am curious, why do shows spend so much on clothing when the characters in those shows are not supposed to have money? I am seeing designer clothes worn by Rue on Euphoria, a jacket that used to cost over $4000, I guess but now cost $2800. Nate is wearing a $6,000 shirt, I know Jacob is representing Bottega, but still why? Do designer clothes look better on screen? Are they going for a specific look and only expensive clothes can create those looks?

Sarah’s answer:

Like Sex and the City before it, Euphoria uses wardrobe to establish a particular look for the show overall. (Costume design in the first two seasons was done by Heidi Bivens and Angelina Vitto, in the current season it is by Natasha Newman-Thomas.) And Euphoria’s aesthetic is so distinct it’s become one of the signatures of the show. Remember the “dressing for a day at Euphoria high” social media trend?

@aarmanijones_The first is actually how I dressed in High School 🥲😅 #euphoriahighschool #euphoria #maddieeuphoria

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Sometimes, designer clothes make sense for a character. In Heated Rivalry, for instance, the main characters are millionaire professional athletes, and Ilya Rozanov’s wardrobe reflects this, as he wears a lot of designer pieces, including Rick Owens athleisure, vintage Jean Paul Gaultier, and I haven’t been able to pin it down, but I think Ilya’s All Stars Hawaiian shirt is vintage, too. But Ilya is rich, his collection of vintage/designer duds tracks with being a highly paid athlete—with great fucking style. Ilya is a peacock; he’s fancy and flamboyant and loves to preen, and his clothes reflect that. In contrast, Shane is a pigeon, his clothes are plain and unremarkable and help him blend in. All Shane wants to do is hide, all Ilya wants to do is stand out, and their wardrobes tell that part of their story.

On Euphoria, the wardrobe doesn’t make sense in a real way, but it DOES work as the show’s own aesthetic. I do think there is consideration for the clothes, that the fits are meant to enhance/reveal things about the characters wearing them, but within the traditional role of costuming as an expression of character, I also think Euphoria sacrifices fidelity to reality in favor of its “house style”. Could the characters reasonably afford what they wear? No, in most cases probably not, but the clothes still tell a story about that character in a way that makes sense.

Cassie’s wedding dress, for instance, was a collaboration between Natasha Newman-Thomas and designer Jackson Wiederhoeft to create a wedding gown to represent Cassie’s dream of being a princess on her wedding day, but she’s CASSIE, so the gown is tacky and over the top. The dress is a manifestation of Cassie herself, striving for classic and traditional beauty but ultimately a tawdry facsimile.

I bet they could achieve the “Euphoria house style” on a lower budget, but splashing out for wild fashion has become a big part of the show’s appeal. Though I do wonder what happens to the wardrobe after production wraps. Is it auctioned to recoup a portion of production costs (typical for the wardrobe department)? Is it archived? Does anyone have a clause in their contract that they get to keep their wardrobe? I would like to know where all the clothes go after Euphoria is done.

Question from Angie via email:

Lainey – ARMY to ARMY, what 5 songs are on your BTS surprise song list when you see them on tour?

Lainey’s Answer:

For those who aren’t aware, BTS has been playing two songs per show on the ARIRANG tour, like karaoke style. The songs are supposedly a surprise to them, chosen by the production team, and they don’t know in advance what they’ll be. So they’re finding out when the audience finds out. And then it’s a singalong, as they try to remember the lyrics and the choreo. The crowds have been losing their minds over some of the surprise songs – “Pied Piper” and “Bapsae” in particular.

“Bapsae” would be on my list, but since they’ve already done it, I won’t include it here. My list is as follows, in random order:

“Blood, Sweat, and Tears”

“Ddaeng”

“Home”

“Telepathy”

“UGH”

Please share yours in the comments below!

We will be LIVE-CHATTING the Met Gala arrivals here on The Squawk with our paid subscribers on Monday 4 May starting at 6pm ET. Please join us!

Keep squawking and keep gossiping,

Lainey and Sarah

Dear Squawkers,

The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens this Friday and while much of the press coverage has involved the lead cast members – Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt – there’s been some controversy over a new supporting character played by Helen J Shen.

The character is Andy’s new assistant, Jin Chao. Pretty sure it’s not a spoiler to say that Andy has returned to Runway and, as noted in the caption below, she was an assistant and she now has an assistant; the point here, at least from a storytelling perspective, is that the cycle continues. Or at least the way the cycle used to work, was supposed to work, in legacy media: you start as an intern, you get promoted to assistant, in the hopes that one day you’ll be writing your own features, maybe even editing.

So what’s the problem? Some Asian viewers are offended by Jin Chao’s…well…everything. Her name, her credentials, and even the way she’s dressed. Cruise through some of the comments under that post and you’ll get a sense of what people are bumping up against. Most if not all the entertainment news outlets have also covered it, including The Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly. If there isn’t already, there probably will be calls for a boycott.

A few people have written to ask me about the situation, but the message I’m highlighting came to me via DM from Cherie because it’s the follow-up question that resonated the most:

Hey Lainey! Any opinion about the Devil Wears Prada 2 controversy with Helen J. Shen’s character? Can’t tell if it’s actually something to be pissed about?

Like Cherie, that was my initial reaction – is this actually something to be pissed about? My answer does not represent Cherie’s, or any other person of East Asian descent who has taken issue with the Jin Chao character and how she is portrayed. To be clear, those who feel like the character is a stereotype have their reasons. At the same time, those who aren’t bothered by Jin Chao should also be able to enjoy the performance and her part in the movie without being accused of…

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Dear Squawkers,

With all the chatter lately about celebrities shilling AI—more on that in a bit—I’ve been thinking about a specific celebrity moment from the last few years that haunts me. As in, I will remember this moment and have to stare into the middle distance for a while before I can move on. I am speaking, of course, of the time Paris Hilton went on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and they talked about NFTs.

This, as the kids say, lives in my head rent free for a combination of reasons. One, it’s that Paris Hilton is a lousy spokesperson. She’s very good at being famous, but her bored affect and flat delivery make her a singularly unexciting shill. But really, it’s how you can FEEL the audience losing interest in their fucking stupid apes in real time. You can hear it, too, as applause becomes thinner, shorter, lighter, but the audience disengaging from the moment is palpable across wires and years. I periodically revisit this video just to remind myself that it happened, and it did. Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon talked about NFTs, and you can feel the general public turn against NFTs in real time.

I am thinking about this a lot this week, with celebrities dividing into camps over generative AI and its place in work and Hollywood, but I have also thought about it at other times, such as when Matt Damon, a man who certainly has over a hundred million dollars in the bank, did a crypto ad during the Super Bowl. I think about this moment anytime a celebrity, particularly one who is obviously rich, tries to sell the suckers—it’s us, we’re the suckers—a new technological doodad, the 21^st century equivalent of Dr. Solomon’s Secret Whizz Bang Headache Remedy which is actually just pure unfiltered cocaine in sugar syrup.

My great aunt Martila was an ancient dragon who whacked my shins with her mahogany walking stick whenever I displeased her, which was a lot. She didn’t care about scraped elbows or skinned knees or if I broke her teacup, she cared if I was stupid. Girl, she would snap, whacking at my shins like they were made of concrete and not little kid jelly bones, do not be foolish! That’s what she cared about the most. Don’t be foolish. Don’t be easily swayed, don’t be susceptible. If you can’t be tricked, you can’t be led astray.

I’m hearing her voice a lot lately, sitting in meetings or reading about the latest rich celebrity pushing AI on the masses. I want to reach through time and whack Paris Hilton’s shins, because the gen AI mess we’re in right now is a direct result of previous failed attempts to get the masses to buy into some dumb shit piece of useless technology meant to enrich the already rich. Every time one gambit fails, they move onto the next one. We’re now on mark 3.0 of this pyramid scheme, and celebrities are still trying to shovel it onto the masses.

You want a recession indicator? It’s celebrities jumping en masse onto a new grift as the entertainment industry contracts. In the 2000s it was lifestyle and personal brands as the bottom fell out of video rental and physical media. In the 2010s it was makeup and liquor companies as streaming cut into residuals. In the 2020s it’s a series of progressively dumber technologies that serves no one but the already wealthy as hyper-conglomeration means less work for everyone. Maybe what we need isn’t more technology, it’s less foolishness.

Onto the mailbag…

Question from Hannah M.:

Could I get something of a career prospectus on John Boyega post Star Wars? He’s got an Otis Redding biopic in post-production with Danielle Deadwyler, but it feels like his career was headed towards the stratosphere after The Force Awakens and Disney’s mishandling really screwed him (and arguably Daisy Ridley) over.

Sarah’s answer:

Well, there’s no question Disney/Lucasfilm burned John Boyega, just as they did Kelly Marie Tran. Studios really have to do better protecting people of color in franchises, just admit a portion of the fandom is toxic and adjust for it. But it’s not just a fandom thing, Boyega was served badly ON FILM as his character, Finn, was cut off at the knees. Clearly, Finn was supposed to be Force sensitive, probably at some point there was an intention for him to get a light saber and fight alongside Rey, and that all got shelved because that toxic fandom couldn’t handle the face of the Jedi being a Black man and a woman.

But overall, I would say Boyega’s career is fine. He is working, he’s producing stuff, including that Otis Redding biopic, Otis & Zelma, and he has a bunch of stuff in the hopper, so he will have one of those years in which John Boyega is everywhere because he has multiple projects hit at once. I’m not super worried about him right now.

It’s more that clearly Star Wars didn’t really work for anyone in the last round, except Diego Luna and everyone involved in Andor (which just won its second Peabody Award). I don’t think anyone—literally ANYONE—walked away from the sequel trilogy satisfied with their experience. And that sucks, because it took up so much time and effort from so many people, but John Boyega has done great work since (notably Small Axe and They Cloned Tyrone), and he’s got some good-looking work on the horizon. He’ll be fine.

Question from Janelle Nash:

I’m curious how makeup artists and hair stylists for celebrities get paid. Are they on retainer for a star (like a regular stylist) or hired and paid for prepping for one-off events? And are they paid by the celebrity or by a studio if they are helping prep for a specific film or an award show run?

Lainey’s Answer:

The more successful and high-profile artists are on retainer with the celebrities they have a long-term relationship with…but most of them are also freelancers, so it’s not like they can rely on the one star for everything. There are a handful of agencies who manage the most sought-after artists, so the agency also gets a cut from some of their bookings. Then there are the hair and makeup artists and costume designers who work on film and television sets. Those artists are unionised and when they’re working on a movie or a series, they’re paid from production.

I think your focus here is on celebrities who are on a press tour, or making appearances at events etc. When it’s a press tour for a film or a TV show, those fees are typically covered by the studio or the network…but mostly in the case of a major A-list star, negotiated as part of their contract. Not everyone is at that level. And if you are not at that level (like Zendaya or Margot Robbie or Anne Hathaway or Nicole Kidman), it comes out of your own pocket. Also, if you’re showing up somewhere but not necessarily attached to a specific project, it’s also coming out of your own pocket.

For example, if the Academy invites Halle Berry to present at the Oscars, because she is a movie star and an Oscar winner, but she doesn’t have a film in contention or a film coming out, she’s paying for the glam squad herself. Day rates for top artists are at least $1,500 on the lowest end, stylist rates are even higher, especially if we’re talking about someone at Halle Berry’s level who would be working with the best.

I know a few artists based in LA and on Oscar Sunday, they might be doing hair or makeup for two or three not quite A-list celebrities who are going to whatever Oscar parties. The celebrities at that level aren’t paying for the artist to be with them all night, just a face and go. So it’s less cost to them and less money for the artist, which means they need to fill up the rest of their day – so they’ll drive from one end of the city to the other to fit in two or three clients who are looking for services in the same range.

Of the artists I know in Canada, they’ve all told me that budgets are shrinking and, ironically, they’re making less money working on the more “creative” jobs – like hair and makeup for celebrities at events etc – and more money when it’s commercial, like online catalogues for fast fashion (budgets are getting smaller there, too, though) or a car or food commercial which is still where the best money is. The faces and hairstyle requirements on shoots like this are pretty evergreen (translation: not high glam, not all that imaginative, picture a car commercial, you get the idea) so it’s not a stretch of their abilities, not as “fun” in terms of getting to really experiment with different looks, but the money is so much better.

Question from Vitally Useless:

Now that Issa Rae’s production company, Hoo Rae has signed with TikTok to produce microdramas for the platform, is it time to discuss this type of entertainment? Issa’s deal isn’t like the traditional format since it will be ad based and on TikTok (although if it pivoted to a paid tier eventually I won’t be at all surprised) and the normal format relies on hooking customers with free episodes that hit a paywall when the action starts ramping up. The gambling mixed with the low quality of most of these microdramas (I would expect Issa’s would be of higher quality and again, not utilizing the same hook em and then ask for $$$ later) coming at a time when everything is contracting seems concerning but is it being blown out of proportion? It’s got its own microcosm of celebrities at this point. If The Comeback had waited a year to return, would it be about Valerie doing a microdrama?

Lainey’s Answer:

I don’t know if she would actually be doing a micro-drama but it would definitely be pitched. Micro-dramas, as you probably know, are a big business in China and everyone else is trying to catch up. The joke here, though it’s not really funny anymore, I guess, is that Quibi was ahead of its time. The reason I’m saying it’s not really funny anymore is because, well, at least with Quibi there was money invested in the productions. It’s heartbreakingly amazing, actually, how we can reassess Quibi six years later – sure, people were skeptical about it then, and it seemed like a problem THEN, but now? Quibi wanted to put money into their short-form content. They repeatedly talked about how the projects would be “expensive” and “creative-driven” and then the pandemic hit just before launch, people were forced to stay inside, for months and months, and for a while there, they were looking for longer programs to pass the time at home. By the time we all went back outside a couple of years later, Quibi was dead but the micro-drama would rise…but nowhere near “expensive” or “creative-driven”. Instead, micro-dramas are made on the cheap, I don’t think anyone would say with a straight face that they are “creative-driven” but now that there’s such a huge audience for them, there’s really no incentive to invest more in the production value. The audience clearly doesn’t mind.

I have watched a few Chinese micro-dramas, at first because I was curious and then for research, just to better understand the phenomenon. I’ve also watched a few western micro-dramas and all of them, in my opinion, are really fucking bad, not even bad in a good way, like I’m hoping Masters of the Universe will be. The writing is appalling, the acting is even worse, and so much of it (not all but a LOT) is basically fan fiction come to screen. Like the offshoots of Twilight/Fifty Shades over a decade ago in the self-publishing book industry that spawned all kinds of poorly written romances with tropes about billionaires or stepsiblings or crime bosses etc etc etc. I’m not saying there’s no place for guilty pleasures and silly stories but here’s the concern with the crazy ass volume of low quality shit that’s being produced…and Sarah and I have hinted at this in our writing: if this becomes the primary and preferred kind of reading and watching for a bigger and bigger audience, how does that shape the audience’s understanding of good storytelling? If someone calls themselves a prolific reader, but all they read is, um, bad books without editing, does that make them a discerning reader?

We’re seeing the effects of this play out on social media with the most frustrating amateur-hour takes on books and television and movies from people who complain about characters (mostly female) when they make mistakes, when they make bad choices…when they aren’t perfect. Or when they don’t get a happy ending. Because, frankly, there’s very little nuance – if any! – in micro-dramas. And whether we like it or not, they have the potential to shape an entire generation of viewers, not just young viewers but more mature viewers, too, since micro-dramas are designed to be addictive, to work their way into our brains and rewire them.

To go back to Issa Rae and Hoorae getting into the micro-drama business, then, I mean I don’t love it, but maybe there’s an upside. There are two words she included in her statement when this was announced that I’m hoping she and her team will adhere to. As Issa said:

“I’m excited about the opportunity to tell stories in a way that feels premium and elevated, but is concise and available to audiences directly.”

PREMIUM and ELEVATED. Issa started in the digital space, she broke out on YouTube before working in legacy media with HBO and Insecure. I truly don’t think she’s here to pump out shit on the cheap, I want to believe that she wants to make it good, quick but good. The second slide in the Instagram post below has a snippet from the trailer for Hoorae’s first micro-drama, Screen Time, and you will note, Hoorae is focusing on “creator-led storytelling”.

So there’s another angle here with Issa’s strategy. Hoorae’s purpose has always been to be a platform for BIPOC creatives, generating more opportunity for them in the industry. As we have seen, DEI is disappearing in Hollywood (and across most other industries). Executives don’t have to even pretend to care about diversity and inclusion anymore – so for Issa and Hoorae, they’ve obviously identified an opportunity in micro-dramas to tell the stories that the so-called mainstream networks and studios don’t have any interest in. If Hoorae can set the standard – a HIGHER standard – in micro-dramas and serve an audience not seeing themselves and their stories represented at the cineplex or on linear TV or streaming, the optimist in me hopes that that will encourage better quality in micro-dramas since, realistically, I don’t think they’re going away.

Question from Alison:

Reese vs Meryl on AI: what does this split say about Hollywood? Hiya laineygossip team, with all the recent conversation around AI in entertainment, I’ve been thinking about what feels like a growing divide in Hollywood. On one side you have people like Reese Witherspoon encouraging others, especially women, to learn and engage with AI so they’re not left behind. On the other, figures like Meryl Streep have been associated with a much more cautious or resistant stance toward AI’s role in creative work, especially given concerns about protecting artists. Do you see this as a real ideological split in industry, i.e. tech-forward pragmatists vs. protectors of traditional craft, or is it more of a generational, economic, or power-position divide? And how do you think this tension will shape the future of storytelling and labour in Hollywood?

And…

Question from Emma:

I’d like to piggyback off this question if I may...as I’m curious what the LG team makes of Reese Witherspoon’s AI posts. She says she’s not getting paid for it, but there’s no way I’m buying that a celebrity of her stature, who is BUSY and already has multiple business streams, just randomly decided to start an AI-for-women learning community with no commercial angle. So what’s in it for her? If we take her at her word and she’s not being “paid” for it, what’s the most likely agenda here?

Sarah’s answer:

This has been a hot topic in The Squawk chats for days now, and between online and real-world conversations, I don’t think the split on AI is just in Hollywood, it’s everywhere. For reference, Reese Witherspoon is worried women are getting left behind in the AI boom, and thinks women need to embrace the technology to avoid replacement.

But to my point in the opening, it’s hard not to see generative AI, specifically, as it is being sold to us right now—OpenAI/ChatGPT, Claude, etc—as anything other than the latest hype bubble rich people and celebrities are pushing as a kind of pyramid scheme. In this I agree with Ed Zitron, notable AI skeptic—it’s a bubble, they know it, and they’re trying to cash out before it bursts and leave regular people holding the bag. Just like they did with NFTs, just like they did/are doing with crypto.

Specific to Reese, she said she wasn’t being paid to shill AI, but no one believes her. She’s got money in it somewhere. If they’re famous and talking about it, they’ve got money in it somewhere. That is always the rule. If famous people like something, they invest in it, and then they expect to get their money back. In the larger conversation, Fast Company agrees that women are not adopting Gen AI at the same rate of men…but there is also a “competence penalty” when women DO use the tech, so you can’t fucking win, what else is new.

MY question to all these people worried about women’s future in the workplace is, do you pay a living wage, what are you doing to support working parents, what does your family leave policy look like, and THEN we can talk about fucking AI. But I want to see first principles devoted to creating equitable, safe workspaces for women. Show me you even care about having women succeed in your company in the first place, because if you’re talking about AI automation, I don’t think you fucking care about ANYONE succeeding in your company except the C suite.

Anyway. Maybe women aren’t adopting AI at the same rate as men because we’re fucking skeptical. Because we’re the daughters and granddaughters of housewives who opened doors to salesmen all the time, hawking the latest the wares. Because we remember the Tupperware, Avon, and Mary Kay parties, because we have sisters and friends who crashed out on LulaRoe. Maybe we just fucking recognize a scam when we see one. Maybe stop treating us like infants who need schooling and start asking yourselves if women’s skepticism is a sign that something doesn’t add up.

Specific to Hollywood, yes, there is an ideological split because there are elements of filmmaking that are highly technical (sound, animation, computer effects, editing) which are already benefiting from AI programs. Not generative AI, mind you, but process-related advanced programs that can genuinely streamline/shorten workflows. No one wants to talk about it openly because the process-based computing is currently entangled with gen AI bullshit, which is done purposefully by the AI CEOs who want to confuse it all to make gen AI, which has a much larger application base than purpose-built programs that only serve one faction of one industry, seem more important than it is.

I actually look forward to separating the wheat from the chaff, though, because I do think there are advancements in computing coming that can and will help average workers, but we DO have to be mindful of the human cost, because we could easily decimate so many jobs we compute into a full-blown economic depression. But first we have to survive the gen AI bubble bursting.

And on that cheery note, thanks for squawking with us about AI, work anxiety, and BTS’s tour!

Just keep squawking,

Sarah and Lainey.

Besides bringing back Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as Sally and Gillian, the sequel also has Stockard Channing and Dianne Weist returning as their eccentric aunts, and Sarah is excited about the addition of Lee Pace. Maisie Wil…

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Dear Squawkers,

As Lainey is traveling for work right now, I am in charge of the mailbag this week, and I thought I would take this chance to talk a little bit about what I’ve been doing the past few months and will be doing for the next few weeks, which is working on the Chicago Critics Film Festival. I have been a programmer for the festival for almost ten years, it’s a lot of fun but as the festival grows, so does the work.

Everyone who works on the programming team for the CCFF is also a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, and the festival is curated by us critics from films we see at film festivals around the world. For instance, I was a big fan of Tuner, starring Leo Woodall, at TIFF last year. I flagged it to the rest of the programming team as one to watch. Most films from TIFF will be distributed before our fest runs in May, but Tuner was held by distributor Black Bear for a summer 2026 release. As a result, we get to screen Tuner on Saturday, May 2 (you can see our full lineup here, it is GREAT).

Half the reason I have been so goddamned grumpy lately is that I am just exhausted from staying up until 2-3 AM on the regular, plowing through dozens of screeners for the festival, sometimes as many as three films a night. We have a weekly round table meeting to discuss the films we’re seeing every week from January until last week when we announced our lineup, and between festival screeners and commercial releases, I watched about 10 movies a week. I am MOVIED OUT.

Actually booking the movies is the most stressful part, though. Sometimes, the filmmakers are great and their enthusiasm to share their film with an audience goes a long to way to greasing the wheels with distributors—shout out to Canada’s own Matt Johnson, who loves our fest and we love him—but sometimes it doesn’t matter how much a filmmaker wants their film to screen with us, the distributor can, and often will, kill the deal. The worst for this is Netflix, when I say they do not want to be in the theatrical business, this is how I know. I’ve stopped keeping track of the films they’ve scratched.

But there are distributors who do their best to be accommodating, who are enthusiastic, too, about a local film festival. Black Bear, IFC, A24, they’re reliable because they want to have films in our lineup every year. This year, our opening night film is Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, with Wilde in attendance (thank you, Auntie A24). It’s already sold out and everyone is happy.

But with distributors, it often comes down to the politics of scheduling. They don’t want to play too close to SXSW or Cannes, we’re sandwiched in the middle. They’re holding this or that film for the fall festivals—which is actually a great tip for me to start keeping track of the Oscar potentials—or, as happens more frequently now than it did ten years ago, someone new comes in and shakes up the company, which can mean tanking a previously positive relationship. We used to have a much better relationship with Netflix, but a few years ago they “revitalized” their festival team and now we pretty much don’t get their movies anymore.

This year, though, the stars aligned and we got a killer lineup. Maybe my favorite lineup, ever, not least because I went to bat for some films this year, harder than I’ve done in the past, including John Early’s feature directorial debut, Maddie’s Secret.

The film reminds me a lot of that one after school special about eating disorders starring Calista Flockhart, iykyk. I fought for Maddie’s Secret alongside a couple of other programmers, the more senior members of the programming team begrudgingly put it in the lineup, mostly because we insisted John Early sells tickets. Maddie’s Secret is currently in our top three ticket sales. I do love being correct!

Onto the mailbag!

Question from Patricia:

This might not be for this week, but I would really love more insight into how Actors continue to make money when the roles dry up or they age out. What happens after a 6-year stint on a popular show but there is no work after? What avenues are available? Does SAG offer some sort of retraining to get them back into society with a different set of skills? Is there retirement offered by SAG? I have been thinking about this question for a while, but I am asking now because of this article in the Hollywood Reporter about the squeezing of the middle class in Acting.

Sarah’s answer:

Well, this is the whole problem of the last 20 years. Residuals used to keep actors afloat between gigs, but as those have dried up during the great shift to streaming, that has been harder to maintain as residuals are lesser now than they used to be. Remember the story of Geoffrey Owens, who starred on The Cosby Show and was photographed working at a Trader Joe’s in 2018. There is no shame in that, but that is what happens when the work dries up. You take whatever job still allows time to audition—Trader Joe’s is popular among the performer class for this very reason—that will also allow you to make ends meet. (Geoffrey Owens appeared in an episode of The Pitt this year.)

There is no SAG-sponsored retraining. If work for an actor dries up, they could try another avenue like teaching/coaching, but also, look no further than the podcast explosion among gigging actors. A lot of actors managed to supplement their incomes with podcasts, though now those, too, are being squeezed by bigger names taking up more money at the top. But a HUGE reason every actor suddenly has a podcast is because it’s “easy money” with a relatively flexible schedule.

SAG does have a pension plan, but again, the last 20 years have seen that cushion shrink, too. Studios and networks/streamers balk at paying “too much” into the unions’ pension and health care plans, which has hurt everyone down the line. As a reminder, these companies make billions of dollars a year, yet they act like there simply is not any money for the people who actually make the movies and TV shows that line their coffers.

So, really, the answer to “what does an actor do when the work dries up” is the same as it is for anyone who has experienced job reduction and/or loss—you do whatever you can to stay afloat and keep grinding in the hopes you catch a lucky break.

Question from Patty:

How does wearing designer’s goods for red carpets or events work? I will use Zendaya as an example. I know she is an ambassador for LV, but she wears lots of different designers, do they come to her, does she go to them, does she get any financial benefit from a designer if she wears their goods? She use to be a Bulgari ambassador, but is no longer , so now she wears different brands, is there a benefit for her?

Lainey’s Answer:

A few years ago, we interviewed stylist Leslie Fremar on The Social. Leslie is Charlize Theron’s longtime stylist, keeps a pretty low profile compared to some of the other stylists in the industry. Anyway, one of the things we talked about with her on the show was managing her clients’ fashion house partnerships and the expectations for when and where ambassadors represent the brands. Charlize has long been associated with Dior, but she also wears pieces by other designers at other fashion houses. For example, Givenchy – and she stepped out last year in a couple of killer Givenchy fits, like this one:

She even went to the Givenchy show back in October, to support Sarah Burton. This look is insane.

And for her appearance during the Olympics opening ceremony back in February (in her position as UN peace ambassador), Charlize wore Versace – choosing an Italian fashion house, naturally, for the occasion. What’s interesting about this Versace dress on her, though, and it is spectacular, is that while Versace was widely identified as the brand, there was no mention of who, exactly, at Versace designed it. Because that was just two months after Pieter Mulier was named as Versace’s new creative director…just eight months after Dario Vitale assumed the position (and his first collection was super polarising – a flop, in my option). Pieter doesn’t officially start at Versace until July and technically was still with Alaia up until March, which might be why there’s no clear credit about whoever it is that came up with Charlize’s dress.

Anyway, that’s a bit of a tangent but the point is, Charlize doesn’t wear Dior all the time, and sometimes when she wears other labels, she gets just as much if not more attention. But it hasn’t jeopardised her deal with Dior. In fact, just a few weeks later she was at the Dior show for Jonathan Anderson’s A/W 2026 Dior collection.

To go back to what Leslie said then, for someone like Charlize, there’s not necessarily an expectation for her to wear Dior all the time, but there is the expectation for her to wear Dior at the mega events, like the Oscars. And, also, to rep the beauty products and if you check her Instagram, those campaign shots are all over her page. Clearly, she’s doing what is specified in the contract.

You asked about Zendaya specifically and her deal with Louis Vuitton functions the same way. She did not wear LV on the Oscars red carpet – because she was in a white “something old”, the Vivienne Westwood, to promote The Drama – but she DID wear LV, custom, when she presented.

That was enough to satisfy the agreement, and of course even though she was in a variety of different looks by different designers for The Drama press tour, at the premiere in Paris it was another custom LV, the white dress with the extravagant black bow.

In terms of cold hard cash, LV is the ambassadorship that pays her. When she wears other designers, they arguably have more to gain than she does, given how obsessed we are with her style. The benefit to her might simply be that she needs a great dress, and she’s one of few celebrities who can pick any dress she – or, rather, Law Roach – wants. The actual financial benefit that she’ll capitalise on comes from her overall value when, say, she’s negotiating for a role, or another brand deal. Because she’s demonstrated over and over again that when she’s on a press tour, when she’s making the red carpet rounds, everyone keys in, in large part, to see the fashion. She and Law have made her style an asset, part of the work, and that work pays off: higher fees for acting opportunities, perhaps including expenses for her entire team, like styling, and more brand offers.

Like Rolex. This is one of her newest partnerships, and it’s a big one because of who Rolex typically signs – more athletes than actors. In the arts, they focus on classical performers and musicians. And their ambassadors who are associated with film are largely male directors. There are only two Rolex ambassadors whose work is primarily on camera on screen: Leonardo DiCaprio and now Zendaya. The rollout of her ambassadorship happened around the time of the Oscars last month, as Rolex was also an Oscars sponsor. She wore a Rolex that night and she was paid to – so much more, like exponentially more, than what she’d be paid for wearing whatever dress from a luxury fashion house for an event. This is the big picture vision that Zendaya’s been operating on. Chess not checkers.

Question from Monika T:

Does LG plan on using the new LIVE video function on Substack Squawk? If so, would you consider doing a segment called, “Ask my Boss Anything?” Maybe put Lainey in an elevator while asking her as many (high pressure) questions while holding a giant hourglass with sand as she’s going up 40 floors and has to answer before the sand is done? Or maybe even a more laidback live between sarah and lainey where they pick their highest trending story of the month and further discuss it live? Just a thought😊👁️

Lainey’s Answer:

We actually did a Substack live video here at The Squawk a few months ago, when Taylor Swift released The Life of a Showgirl. It was a joint live video with Heather and Jessica from the Fug Girls and Drinks With Broads…

Drinks With Broads

A Pop Culture Cocktail Served by the Fug Girls

By Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

It was on a Friday afternoon, and it flew by, we had a lot of fun. So thanks for reminding me because, to be honest, I kinda forgot that we did it and now with your question, I am – in real time – wondering if we should do more of it.

Not everyone wants to be on camera, though, so I’ll let Sarah weigh in on what bandwidth she has for the occasional livestream but, for sure, the highest trending story or even a special event would be fun. Like the Met Gala, only I have to be at work that night with the team so I’m not sure with scheduling how that would work. You have me noodling some ideas though, so I appreciate it.

As for your hourglass suggestion…LOL, thanks for the creativity, but this is not the kind of speed round I’m into. If, however, we’re talking speed rounds and answering questions…

And again, I’m now just throwing things at the wall, a live brainstorm which I promise I won’t edit out, what would be fun (for me at least) is some kind of trivia game. It could be celebrity trivia or just regular trivia, on a livestream, with our Squawk community. Now that I would be into. Which probably explains why my brain is rotten, because I have to fucking gamify everything. This, by the way, is why Duolingo never worked on me – I became a total psycho about scoring points and beating whoever else was “learning” each level of the language progression that I wasn’t actually absorbing anything.

But, um, group trivia on a livestream is different though…right? Because it’s a collective experience? Because we’re members of a Substack, not just randos, and we’re sort of exercising our knowledge?

That’s probably enough of my rationalising – I’ll leave it to you in the comments to offer your thoughts on what a livestream might look like here at The Squawk. Or not, you can also say you’re not interested, Monika won’t mind, I’m sure, and neither will I.

Sarah’s answer:

I’ve done enough podcast appearances that include video that I am mostly over how I look on camera. I don’t mind it. If we’re talking some kind of trivia night, though, I am the opposite of Lainey. I am not competitive and will just shut down and let the competitive nerds take over. So if I was going to do a livestream, I would want it to be a topic/format I would actually participate in.

Question from Jen Ar:

Sarah mentioned the other day in the Squawk daily chat that she is trying a full skincare routine from the Ordinary. As an aspiring skincare nerd, I would love to come along for the journey - before and afters, what products is she trying and how is it going so far?

Sarah’s answer:

I have been using Pacifica skincare for years and remain a big fan of the brand, but they have discontinued some of my superstar products recently, and they also don’t seem to be stocked in stores, at least around me, anymore. I try not to buy too much stuff online—bad for the wallet and the environment—so when I found out The Ordinary has a store in Chicago, I went to stock up and try a full routine. (The Ordinary store has been in Chicago for years, it’s not new, it’s just new to me.)

I have used various products from The Ordinary over the years and have almost always liked what I tried. Every once in a while, a product misses, but that is their whole deal—they have a bunch of different products and formulas, so you can really drill down and create a routine just for you. It is not a one size fits all approach.

I am 43 with combo/oily skin and my main skin concerns are congestion—I am prone to milia—and early signs of aging, particularly uneven tone and hyperpigmentation. I am also developing forehead 11s and am trying to avoid Botox/injectables. Two years ago, I did an intensive 3x broad band light therapy treatment combined with one round of Moxi laser which, I am not joking, took ten years off my face. But it was expensive, and I found the process unpleasant, so I am trying to maintain those professional results as long as I can before submitting to another round. I took this photo of clean bare skin at the beginning of my Ordinary journey a few days ago:

As you can see, I have no major complaints! I am mostly in preventative mode. But here is a closeup of my forehead, where I am most prone to milia. They are closed comedones that are basically gunk trapped under skin cells. They cause bumps but never come to a head. I have them professionally extracted twice a year.

All I am trying to accomplish at home is preventing buildup of milia and keeping my skin tone even so I can put off the next BBL treatment as long as possible. I got the following products from The Ordinary (note from Jacek: Sarah submitted these organically but if you all don’t mind, we’re going to affiliate link the following in case you want to pick any of these up and support us at the same time):

Glucoside foaming face wash—one of my favorite foaming cleansers of all time

Saccharomyces Ferment 30% Milky Toner—a non-acid exfoliating toner

Multi-Peptide Eye Serum—my go-to is Pacifica’s Time Shift Eye Serum, that is the product The Ordinary has to meet or exceed

Alpha Arbutin 2% + HA Serum—addresses skin brightness/tone

Niacinamide 5% Face and Body Emulsion—also addresses skin brightness/tone

Natural Moisturizing Factors + HA—moisturizer

UV Filters SPF 45 Serum—I have used this before and really like it. A good non-tinted face sunscreen

I also have been using Revision Skincare’s Radiance + Resurfacing serum, it’s a direct multi-acid serum I use a couple times a week. My esthetician recommended it recently to help stave off the dreaded BBL treatments. I think I need a little longer with it, since it is not a daily product, before I see more definitive results.

I got enough from The Ordinary for 30 days. They recommended 60 days to really let the products “sink in”, but I think 30 days is long enough to tell if something is working. I’ll keep you posted.

As always, thanks for squawking with us!

Just keep squawking,

Sarah and Lainey

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Dear Squawkers,

A couple of weeks ago—more? I am unmoored in time—Janelle Nash asked for a career prospectus on Dylan O’Brien:

Sarah, I’d love a career prospectus for Dylan O’Brien. He went from teen tv star to the lead in a dystopian franchise to recovering from a major accident to acting in a mix of genre films. He seems well liked and respected in the industry, but his choices are a bit all over the map. He’s pretty private and doesn’t seem interested in returning to ‘Teen Wolf’ nostalgia or big stardom. Where do you see him going next, particularly after recent positive critical reviews for ‘Send Help’ and ‘Twinless’?

Dylan O’Brien is an interesting case study because he has a lot in common with Jake Gyllenhaal 15 years ago. Their beginnings are different—O’Brien is a product of the post-Twilight YA craze—but O’Brien found himself in a similar place as Gyllenhaal post-Prince of Persia after Maze Runner did not make O’Brien a household name. (They made THREE Maze Runner movies, do you remember ANY of them?!)

Back in the 2010s, when his Movie Star dreams imploded, Gyllenhaal went back to basics, delivering a series of increasingly unhinged performances in indies and offbeat films, only occasionally dipping back into big Hollywood movies. He bounced around Broadway every other year or so, won accolades, and reestablished himself as a supreme weirdo performer—Jake G is who Jared Leto thinks he is…

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Speaking of Kim & Lewis and Kylie & Timmy, though - they were there, t…

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Dear Squawkers,

Yesterday at LaineyGossip, I posted about Taylor Swift, seen out with Jerrod Carmichael and also one of her closest friends, Ashley Avignone, both of them in outfits that were kinda sorta giving wedding party energy. Since the gossip ecosystem is so preoccupied with her wedding, that gave everyone an excuse to engage in another round of wedding speculation.

And now there’s a new rumour. But before we get to the new rumour, let’s talk about the previous rumour – not even two weeks ago, Us Weekly, with their whole chest, reported that Taylor and Travis Kelce were getting married on June 13, in Rhode Island. It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.

As I wrote in my piece about this at the time, even though they claimed it was an “exclusive”, Us Weekly didn’t have much detail. And everyone who’s been paying attention to the TNT wedding has long had that date and location circled and marked as a possibility, considering Taylor’s affinity for numerology and the fact that that estate seems perfect for the kind of wedding that would suit her tastes.

But I also said in that post that there were no consequences to Us Weekly being wrong and going ahead and putting it on the cover because…well…that’s where we live now – a fact checkless existence made that much more ironic in these parts by Sarah’s essay earlier this week commemorating the 50^th anniversary of All The President’s Men.

Now to the new rumour, this time courtesy Page Six late yesterday afternoon, claiming their own “exclusive”: that the TNT wedding is actually happening July 3, not in Rhode Island but in New York, and “save the dates” have gone out to guests. I’m writing this about half an hour after Page Six posted it to their website so I haven’t seen yet all the headlines and social media activity and TikTok takes their report will spawn. But I’m sure by the time you read this it’ll be one of the biggest gossip stories as we head into the weekend. What happens if Page Six is wrong? Nobody will remember. Just like few people will remember Us Weekly’s claim, we’re back to where we always were: everyone just making up some bullshit because nobody actually wants accuracy, they’re just here for the chase.

My position remains the same as it was a couple of weeks ago: I want all of these people to be wrong. And I would very much like to believe in my theory that she’s planting red herrings all over the place, maybe weed out a few traitors in the process as a bonus. Because it’s crazy to me that someone as controlling as Taylor, who loves to keep secrets like Taylor, who loves to gloat later about the secrets she’s been able to keep, would hand over her secrets to anyone else, let alone the tabloids.

You know what would be really diabolical though?

If she got married on the same day as the Met Gala. It’s the one day in the next couple of months when all of gossip media will be fixated on an event that draws the biggest names in the gossip business – when everyone’s looking at the red steps and the pretty dresses, TNT could take advantage.

Otherwise, now that we’re three weeks away from wedding season, it’ll be wedding watch, all agents on standby, every weekend until mid-to-end July when NFL training camp begins. There’s another reason, by the way, that we are so grateful to have this space. Because I am not giving up a summer weekend to be on high alert for when Taylor Swift gets married. That’s what the daily and weekend chat threads are for!

Come on, mailbag!

Question from kaybee:

I haven’t asked a question in a while, but I am always so curious about the goings on when celebrities change stylists. Like, do they have their assistants to the dirty work? Do you think someone like Carey Mulligan could have a mature conversation and say that they want to change things up and work with someone else for a bit/a new project? Do you think they change things up for specific projects or to land a new role/position themselves to land a brand partnership? Your post today has my wheels turning about how this happened and if it was all copacetic! “Carey was working with Andrew Mukamal, who styled her during award season a couple of years ago when she was nominated for Maestro, alongside his other client Margot Robbie. Andrew is still styling Margot, but Carey is now being styled by Danielle Goldberg, who works with Ayo Edebiri and Greta Lee.”

Lainey’s answer:

In the post you’re referring to, I wrote that it would have been great if The Hollywood Reporter, in their latest Power Stylist issue, would include more details about why celebrities and stylists part ways. Turns out they did, sort of, like a whole month before releasing the stylists issue, in a piece reported by Laurie Brookins right before the Oscars.

It is mentioned that Jennifer Lawrence is now working with Ryan Hastings instead of Jamie Mizrahi, which is why I wondered earlier this week if that would lead to JLaw returning to the Met Gala after eleven years. Carey Mulligan also comes up, along with Zoë Kravitz, also a former Andrew Mukamal client; Zoë, like Carey, is now being styled by Danielle Goldberg.

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t specify why certain celebrities change stylists so there’s no real tea here. But the piece does offer some possibilities that might explain it – one of them being that:

“If a publicist or manager is seeing that the star they represent isn’t getting the style coverage they should, they’ll start looking at stylists who are getting accolades for their work, and they may start pushing that conversation,” explains one agent.

I can’t imagine Carey Mulligan caring about getting style coverage but, then again, she made headlines when she was awarded her CBE last week because of the barrel leg trousers she was wearing. Vogue’s headline about her look was actually:

“Carey Mulligan Just Introduced King Charles to Barrel-Leg Trousers”

And that is definitely good media coverage. Which was a GREAT way for Carey and Danielle Goldberg to kick off their relationship. The outfit was so chic, and event appropriate. And by now, if you read LaineyGossip, you might be familiar with my obsession with a barrel leg and especially the Zara trouser that I’ve gotten a few of you addicted to here at the Squawk, way more affordable than Carey’s from The Row.

Again, this was Carey’s first look as styled by Danielle – and the impact was immediate. She followed that up at the Beef season two premiere with the Dries Van Noten look, with resulting coverage in British Vogue, W Magazine, WWD, and so many fashion-focused social media accounts. This, so far at least, has been a good business decision. And it IS business.

To go back to your question about how these changes are communicated and whether or not it’s chill between the client and the stylist, in many cases I assume they’re relayed by the publicist or the celebrity’s manager – because it’s business. And that’s how harsh Hollywood can be sometimes, we’ve seen it play out in so many inside baseball shows about the industry, how celebrities often abdicate the responsibility of communicating unpleasant messages to people so they can avoid being uncomfortable. Those stories aren’t fiction, they come from actual examples.

Question from Carrie Sullivan:

Hi - I just finished reading Gone Before Goodbye (meh, do not recommend it). It was co-authored by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben. My question - why would either agree to co-author a book? It is not a good read, no unique angle Reese can bring to it, neither are elevated by the prestige of being published. I cannot imagine the money is worth it. The book devalues both their reputations of elite taste. I am curious on what is the business or ego benefit.

Sarah’s answer:

Carrie is getting to the heart of why I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction and why I don’t trust most book recommendations. The whole thing is a scam. Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben’s collaboration, Gone Before Goodbye, was a New York Times bestseller, which is in no small part due to Reese’s Book Club recommending the book, and while Goodbye hasn’t been announced for adaptation YET, Witherspoon and Coben are in business adapting other works together. It’s a matter of time before Goodbye is announced for adaptation, I’m sure. Harlan Coben has his own sh-t factory on Netflix.

The money IS worth it to Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben, who are establishing a book-to-adaptation pipeline together, and unless one of them is seized by a sudden desire to either establish or return to literary bona fides, that content factory and the money it generates is the whole purpose. They don’t care if the book is actually good because no one else cares if the book is actually good. What matters is that the book moves enough units in week one (5K-10K) to be hailed as a bestseller, which can then be leveraged in adaptation negotiations.

Also…does Reese Witherspoon have elite taste? She’s a basic sorority bitch from the south. I grew up with dozens of her. I still know dozens of her, all their kids are named things like Oakley, Christen, Braylee, and Jet. Reese named her clothing company Draper James; I am 100% positive there are AT LEAST fifty Draper Jameses enrolled in Mountain Brook schools right now. We have got to stop conflating “blonde” with “good taste”. It happened TWICE (Grace Kelly and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy). Okay, three times, because Anthony Jeselnik is blonde and his book recs are dope as fuck. Although blonde men are different. Everyone knows blonde men are deranged.

Question from JPH:

Would Lainey consider writing about the Pursuit of Jade behind the scenes drama? I love her analysis on differences between eastern and western pop culture and would be interested in her take on the whole thing.

Lainey’s answer:

I don’t know the Chinese entertainment system nearly as well as I know how Hollywood works. And I’m also at a disadvantage because I don’t speak Mandarin – although I’m learning! Hopefully you’ve seen the posts in the daily chat that @employeeofmantou has been sharing with their insight on C-ent.

That said, where Pursuit of Jade is concerned, because it’s been so popular, I have been tracking the drama that’s unfolded (and starting to die down). The popularity is actually where the troubles started, even though the whole “foundation general” thing has been the dominant conversation. But here’s how I see the situation:

PoJ exploded out of the gate upon arrival, huge ratings in China. This led to a debate on Chinese social media about how legit these numbers were, followed by accusations that someone was out there doing shenanigans and inflating the stats; that the viewership figures weren’t actually as high as they were being reported.

In my opinion – and please let me know in the comments if you disagree with it – some of this was initially fan-driven, like rival fan-driven. Whatever fans of whoever their faves are felt… I dunno… threatened/jealous that another actor was getting so much hype. Trust me, it’s happened before. Fan wars are batshit in China, it makes the fan wars in the west look like child’s play.

The ratings controversy was already a hot topic in China during the early part of PoJ’s run. And then, about halfway through the broadcast schedule, the show cracked the top 10 on the Netflix global chart, hailed as the first mainland Chinese drama to achieve that distinction. Many K-dramas have done it, but C-dramas don’t pop on Netflix the same way…until Pursuit of Jade.

(As a sidebar: there are multiple reasons for this, including series length, non-Chinese users are sometimes scared off by how many episodes there are – often over 30, and the fact that not all C-dramas are dubbed and therefore not as accessible for Netflix users. It continues to baffle me why people are so averse to subtitles, I watch everything with subtitles, including English language programming, dubbing is horrible IMO.)

So the people who were already mad about PoJ popping off in China became even more incensed about its worldwide popularity. And then the leak happened – the final ten episodes of the series somehow leaked on Chinese socials and when that happens it could affect the ratings performance for the show at the end of its run. The broadcaster didn’t panic though and still seemed to adhere to the originally scheduled release plan and that’s when…conveniently?…the whole mess with Zhang Linghe’s face card started. Coincidence or conspiracy? While we’re here, though, let’s just enjoy that face card… (tap to jump to Insta for video)

As @employeeofmantou has said in the chats, there’s been a lot of toxic male energy directed at PoJ because it is, indeed, a series that more women are watching and obviously loving. In combination with the fan wars, Zhang Linghe became ripe for target. The criticism is over how pretty his character looked, and how unrealistic it was for him to look so pretty as a military general doing military general things. Which is fucking absurd because it’s standard operating procedure for C-dramas to be pretty. They are often judged on attractiveness by the fans themselves!

The reason this one became such a flashpoint is because of the noxious combination of problematic fans, problematic men, and of course the crazy virality of the show amplifying all this so-called “scandal”. To the point where the government had to step in and issue some kind of statement about accuracy in storytelling which could lead to stricter rules for productions going forward, since the Chinese government can’t make up its mind about how successful they want the country’s soft diplomacy to be, LOL. The situation seems to be blowing over now. Zhang Linghe is back to posting on socials and he wouldn’t be doing that if there was really a concern. His next series is a Republican drama called Overdo with Wang Churan and the visuals for this one were already super viral during production, especially since it’s adapted from a novel that’s mega angsty featuring a couple in a passionate but toxic relationship. I’m normally not a big fan of C-dramas set in the Republican era but the combination of Zhang Linghe and Wang Churan will definitely get me there. And given all that’s happened recently, the anticipation is now even higher.

Question from Patty:

How much does marketing and promo help a movie? I remember back in the early days of Tom Holland’s Spider-man that I was listening to a ringer podcast, and one of the movie reviewers says he was surprised that his wife wanted to go see Homecoming. She was not into superhero movies but saw Tom on Lip Sync Battle and wanted to see him in the movie. So that marketing, imo, was very successful, even to this day it is brought up. Zendaya has been promoting The Drama a lot, and good for her.

Sarah’s answer:

You have invoked the Internet Law Of Tom Holland: Lip Sync Battle has been mentioned, Lip Sync Battle must be watched.

Okay, now that’s that out of the way—the answer to your question is that marketing and promo matters a LOT. This was a huge lesson FOR THE STUDIOS during the actors’ strike in 2023. Staying in 2023, Barbie’s massive marketing campaign, which included an estimated $150 million spend—separate from the production budget of the film—and over 100 brand partnerships, turned the film into a cultural phenomenon. Definitely Barbenheimer played a role in that, but that boosted Oppenheimer more than it did Barbie (Oppenheimer added $5 million to its open weekend box office from people buying tickets after Barbie sold out).

You can actually tell when a movie is about to explode based on how dominant its press tour becomes in the culture. Rewinding to 2012, the tip that The Avengers was about to have a historic opening weekend was the cultural frenzy around the press tour. Certainly, this is all boosted by the internet and social media. Pre-internet and definitely pre-social media, red carpets were more laid back, press tours were shorter and less involved. Now, you’ve got to eat like ten pounds of chicken, perform five musical numbers, and get drunk on national TV with Jimmy Fallon to promote a movie.

But these are all studio movies with huge marketing budgets. What do movies without $150 million to chuck into the chicken shop fire do to sell their films? There are a range of possibilities among lower-budgeted films and indie films, but one consistent thread is a guerilla-style campaign. MUBI did this very successfully in 2024 for The Substance, building word of mouth through select advanced screenings, then running ads about how wild audiences found the movie, emphasizing seeing it with a crowd.

That worked to the tune of $77 million worldwide, for a film made for less than $20 million. Horror movies and other genre movies often use this “word of mouth” commercial strategy to not only raise awareness for the film but also turn it into a must-see audience experience. Think of all the horror movie ads done in night vision of audiences shrieking at jump scares. A tried-and-true method! For all that has changed in the film industry in the last 20 years, this has not—people will go see movies that advertising makes seem cool and interesting and fun/scary/weird. We would probably all like it if marketing mattered LESS, but in a post-monoculture world, it matters MORE.

Question from Charlotte:

I know this is probably too specific, but it would be SO amazing if Lainey can expand on this: “It’s not just in LA, though. Here in Toronto, I don’t trust anyone who only eats in the downtown core where they think is the ‘best xyz’ in the city. Those of us who are willing to go outside of what’s considered the cool borders of town know where the best flavours are, and also the Asian aunties. My ma would flip a table over at Sushi Park if she saw the prices and compared them to the flavour.” I’m in Toronto, so I would LOVE to know Lainey’s restaurant recs here, but maybe we can also have some suggestions for other places she visits regularly?

Lainey’s answer:

Let me keep it universal before I get specific. It’s a good time to revisit Freddie Wong’s extremely viral video from 2022 about Chinese restaurants and Yelp reviews.

@rocketjumpWhy I only go to Chinese restaurants with 3.5 star ratings

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It wasn’t just Chinese people who felt seen here, it was so many people from East Asian cultures. My parents don’t go to places with high Yelp reviews, and neither do their friends. Most of the places they eat line up with Freddie’s theory. And the reason I’m referencing my parents and the aunties is because when it comes to Chinese food, and probably Korean food, and Japanese food, and Vietnamese food, and Filipino food, etc etc, I trust them the most. They are gangster foodies, they have the best taste. Their opinion matters more than the 22-year-old on TikTok, NOT SORRY.

That said, I get it that some people choose restaurants not just for the food but for the scene – great, me too, on occasion. My issue in that post was about conflating the scene with the quality of the food. Like there are actually people (a lot of celebrities) who’ve gone on record in saying that Sushi Park is the best sushi, which is nonsense. Because oftentimes, if we’re just grading on quality of the food, a ranking of the best should also include places that aren’t part of the scene. Which brings us back to Toronto specifically…

There are people in Toronto, and I know many of them, who won’t venture outside of the trendy neighbourhoods. And I actually don’t even necessarily mean outside the downtown core – even in the downtown core there are spots with suuuuuucchhhh great food that aren’t considered cool enough. Yueh Tung restaurant and Hong Shing across the street, on Dundas, are not fancy at all in terms of décor but the food is affordable and delicious. Kimchi Korea House, also on Dundas, is a fucking legend as far as I’m concerned. The stone bowl bibimbap is dementedly good.

Outside of downtown, you will always find me and my family at every special occasion at Top Choice in Unionville. My uncle works in the restaurant business, he knows so many people working in the Chinese food industry in Toronto, and if he’s willing to take his big sister, my exacting and demanding ma, the Squawking Chicken, to Top Choice, then Top Choice is good enough for everyone. It’s just not glamorous, and they might roll their eyes or hiss at you if you take too long to order, or they might straight up tell you to your face that you won’t like what you think you want to order, but the deep fried oysters are among the best I’ve ever had.

Keep squawking and keep gossiping,

Lainey and Sarah

Dear Squawkers,

On April 9, Alan Pakula’s classic political thriller, All the President’s Men, turns 50 years old (reject the passage of time). Adapted by William Goldman from Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s book of the same name, All the President’s Men, which is now streaming on HBO Max, is a multi-genre classic. It’s a political thriller, it’s a neo-noir, it’s a journalism movie, it’s a workplace comedy about a couple’a young knuckleheads irritating their boss. All the President’s Men is summed up best as a “documents movie”, a movie about shuffling paper, thumbing through pages, stacking books, and endless sifting through events to piece together a story.

Watching All the President’s Men now, it’s incredible how timeless the blueprint of the narrative is…

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