Junkets 101: Oppenheimer, Argylle, Dune, and Fashion

The Show Your Work of the junket experience from the reporter's perspective

Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Austin Butler attend the 'Dune: Part Two' film photocall in London on February 14, 2024 (David Fisher/ Shutterstock)

Dear Squawkers,

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I’d been planning on writing a newsletter about junkets and hadn’t yet gotten around to organising my thoughts. Then a subscriber called Emma sent in a great question about junkets in last week’s mailbag that really helped me shape this piece – so thank you Emma and a note to all of you about your mailbag submissions: they’ve been such a spark for me in my writing, a jumping off point from which I can build out my perspective. In other words, please don’t stop contributing to the weekly mailbag requests, they are so valuable to us!

Here was Emma’s original question:

Lainey, are you still planning to write about the junket experience? The Dune 2 cast have been all over my YouTube feed this week and I’d love to know more about junkets from the media perspective. For example, how is the schedule determined (ie. what order the different media outlets get to go in)? Do you have preferences, like is it better to go in early when the subjects are fresh, or later when they’ve warmed up? As interviewers, do you give each other a heads-up on the energy in the room, or if a certain question bombed, or a star seemed moody? What I’m perhaps most interested in is how you decide the questions and how much latitude you have in this? As a viewer, it’s obvious when actors are asked something they haven’t already answered a bunch of times that day, and I notice they often respond best to really thoughtful questions about their movie - but how do you reconcile this with any pressure to create viral moments or something more clickbaity? On that final point, has the rise of things like Hot Ones, Buzzfeed Puppies, Wired Autocomplete, etc. had any impact on the traditional junket model?

Again, thank you Emma. I’ll try to address each in the order you asked.

I don’t know how the schedule is determined, exactly, since I’m on the media side and not on the studio side but sometimes it’s just logistics, like what time a reporter is flying out. Junkets typically begin at 10am and are divided into pods. For example: the 10am – 11:30am pod, followed by the 12noon – 130pm pod; followed by the 2pm – 330pm pod.

We are required to arrive at the junket an hour before our pod start time. So if I’m in the 10am pod, I get there for 9am. I understand why they insist on this, because they want to make sure everyone is there, and ready, so that they can move through the interviews efficiently. This also applies to red carpets. At TIFF, for example, we are expected to be on the carpet at least an hour, if not more, before the stars show up so that they can hold us behind the red ropes well before the celebrities get there. Which is why it’s so fucking annoying when the stars get there late and blow past the press line. Nothing makes you more aware of your lowly status than having to stand around for an hour and then have to pack it up because Adam Driver didn’t feel like speaking to the media.

Anyway, we were talking about junket and pods etc, and this applies to small domestic and international outlets, and as a Canadian outlet, even though I work for a major Canadian network and our show, ETALK, is the longest-running Canadian entertainment show, we are still considered “small”. This does not apply to, for example, The Hollywood Reporter or Variety or etc.

I prefer going in early, like the 10am pod. None of us ever wants to be in the last pod because by then celebrities are often grumpy and whiny and they’re just trying to get home. That said, I never, ever want to be the first in the room, right at 10am because the celebrities usually need an interview or two to get into a groove, especially when they’re paired.