Mailbag for April 12, 2024
PEOPLE's strange covers, Cillian Murphy's fashion and silence, improbable names of 'Near or Far', terrible theatre sound, will Netflix original films improve, on Emma Stone and Austin Butler, and more
Dear Gossips,
PEOPLE Magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary with a special issue this week and, seriously, no snark, good for them. In the current media landscape, making it to 50 and still in print is an achievement. Although…and here’s where the snark comes in… these covers…
I’m not talking about the stars who agreed to participate and be on the cover – these are all big names, and it’s definitely a testament to the fact that PEOPLE still has some clout that they were able to secure them. But not together. So I appreciate that they were forthcoming about how they created the two covers that have been released in this post where they explain that the images are a composite and that the stars were not in the same space when they were shot and, LOL, that the actual “scene” that’s depicted – a garden party – didn’t even exist. I mean… it’s kinda obvious it didn’t exist.
While I know that the creative team of course worked hard and were probably also working around celebrity and practical constraints, the end result… is… well, let’s talk about this. Do you think that it’s delivering on the “here’s how important we still are” vibe that they’re after? The colour is SO dull. Everything looks so washed out and flat. And to me the trees in the background look parched, but I’m not a garden girl so I’m ready for you to tell me that that species of tree is supposed to look like it needs to be watered. Were they going for Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue and missed the target?
Or, maybe, was this intentional? It’s not like PEOPLE doesn’t know its reader, it is the magazine of the MiniVan Majority, and these covers are definitely giving MiniVan Majority. In that sense, I suppose these images are… comforting? It’s 2024 and PEOPLE continues to cater to the demo that is keeping them here.
To go back to their whole article about how they put the composite together, like how much detail they gave, emphatically making it clear that, yes, WE HAVE EDITED and this garden party never happened, you know where my mind goes, right? I’m sure your mind might have gone there, too? We’re living in a post-British royals Mother’s Day photo era. Is this going to be a new standard of disclosure?
Mail time!
Question from Bo: I always find award season so exhausting yet fascinating especially when it comes to the glam prep of it all. For instance, I loosely follow some celebs and to see their glow up this awards season has been quite a trip and I'm wondering how does it all come together? If for instance you're a contender like say, Cillian Murphy (as an aside, he wasn't really featured as much on Lainey especially after his Oscar win or after being named a Versace legend, whatever that means? Is he and or his outfits just too boring? Just curious) does he and his stylist and glam squad get priority with fashion houses like YSL, Versace, etc.? Does his PR team work overtime campaigning and securing a lucrative fashion contract? How far in advanced does he and all contenders plan their award season fits?
Lainey’s Answer:
The reason there hasn’t been as much Cillian Murphy coverage on LaineyGossip since the Oscars, apart from my post about his Versace campaign images is because Cillian Murphy is really low profile. He hasn’t been papped since the Oscars and I just did a cruise through his photo archive, and I don’t think he was on a single red carpet or attended an event for the whole of 2022 because I just searched through our photo agencies and nothing is coming up when you type “Cillian Murphy 2022”. Same goes for 2021. If he did show up anywhere barely anyone noticed. The fact that Cillian was so present during award season must have been so fucking weird for him given that, well, that’s not really his life. But that also means that during award season, given that we did end up seeing a lot of him, he was willing to campaign and really go for it.
And going for it, yes, means that he and his stylist, Rose Forde, would likely have had access to any fashion house for anything they wanted. He was the Best Actor Oscar frontrunner and eventual winner – Cillian had his pick. We now know that he eventually went with Versace because the deal was in place for him to become a house ambassador and that would have been in the works at minimum several weeks before the Oscars, and as for how far in advance they figure out what they’re wearing…
It's definitely not last minute. I interviewed Chelsea Handler the second week of December and she hosted the Critics Choice Awards three weeks later. When we talked, she told me that she’d already been doing fittings and that they were pretty close to finalising her looks. The holiday season factored into that but there are definitely calls being made ahead of time. And yet, the decisions are often made in consideration of what’s available and when. There are so many fashion weeks that happen during award season from Paris to London to Milan, there may be a situation where they end up wearing something that was just shown on runway. In Zendaya’s case – OBVIOUSLY – as she told Vogue in her Life in Looks feature just this week, she was wearing pieces in her Vogue spread that actually had not been sent down the runway yet. And we haven’t even gotten to custom pieces, which require lead time and fittings etc etc etc.
Beyond the actual clothing though, it’s what you asked with respect to a lucrative fashion contract. This is why Oscars and being in the Oscar discussion matters to these people. When you’re on the award season circuit, there are so many opportunities that open up for artists – and that includes Cillian. We all know him to be an exceptionally talented actor, but he’s far from being one of the richest actors. And for the most part it’s not like he’s getting blockbuster superhero movie paycheques. So no doubt they leveraged his exposure from being the Best Actor frontrunner into money making opportunities outside of acting. Perhaps so that he can work on smaller projects that don’t have huge budgets because he’s getting paid somewhere else.
Those are the bonuses that the Cillians and the Jessica Chastains and the Austin Butlers etc of the industry get to enjoy when they are nominated for and/or win an Oscar. But it’s important to remember that this doesn’t happen for everyone. I haven’t heard about Da’Vine Joy Randolph getting a fashion contract. Andra Day was nominated for an Oscar nomination three years ago, she’s not getting signed to these kinds of deals and while we’re here, why the FUCK isn’t Andra Day getting more work?
Sarah has written about it multiple times, Da’Vine said as much during her Oscar speech – some people win an Oscar or are nominated for an Oscar, and they reap allll those benefits. And other people, well, you know the story.
Question from from Laura: I was immediately struck by the main characters’ names. Lauren and Sadie. Knowing how much names mean to you, Duana, how much yours has impacted you, I was curious that they were… kinda bland(?!) names?
I now see that this is based on a story by another author, they were her choice. Did you have input on the names? Or was that non-negotiable?
Duana’s Answer:
I was so excited this week to get to tell everyone here at Laineygossip and The Squawk about my new show, NEAR OR FAR, which you can watch on CBC GEM or on Youtube (new episodes drop Saturday and Sunday!)
And so many of you watched! And sent amazing, supportive messages on the Squawk, and clearly are on the same page I am.
This question made me so happy, because when I’m watching a show, these are, the kinds of things I wonder too...
So. A little background. NEAR OR FAR, the show, began as a partnership between CBC Gem and Wattpad, seeking stories about people separated from someone they love. Emma Rose Szalai, a prolific Wattpad star, wrote a story that resonated with everyone – because the loves in this case were not lovers, but twin sisters. You can read the original story here. CBC Gem entrusts the property to a producer, I come on board, we start developing – i.e., making everything bigger.
The fun of adaptation, to me, is in the ‘yes, and’. Every project is different, whether you’re making a series from a short story, or fictionalizing a true crime – but no matter what, the point is to expand the world – to take Emma’s short, evocative story and find the clues that could spark a whole season of stories, characters, and conflicts, creating people who weren’t there but might have been, and puzzling out the why of it.
So, over several years(!), as the producers and I discussed and added or changed elements – Lauren went to a different university in the story, for example, and obviously, the characters’ surname is Mustafa, not Stafford – I wanted to maintain the elements that we all loved in the first place, because that’s what made it Near or Far. We endeavored to keep as much as possible – and, though we did ask Emma how involved she wanted to be, she was happy to let us do our TV thing and take it wherever it went.
Yet, Lauren and Sadie are… not necessarily the first names that come to mind when you talk about Arab-Canadian children of immigrants. But they were Sadie and Lauren, at the same time.
So. Officially, the characters are named (in birth order):
Lauren Sameera Mustafa and Sadie Akilah Mustafa.
Their older brother, Saul, is officially Tarik Salim Mustafa. The explanation for how those improbable names came together happens in Episode 4 – also the first episode I directed(!) and I’m proud that it not only explains the names, but deepens some questions and backstory we need at that point in the season. It feels true for me, now, and hopefully makes viewers go “oohhh, of course!” – as opposed to, say, something like this.
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Question from Isabel B: Maybe this is more of question to be answered in the comments not the mailbag, but I am dying to know if it is a technically documented thing that the sound in movie theaters is terrible now??? The last couple years when I’ve gone to movies, it’s either so loud my ears hurt or I can’t always hear what they are saying. Is this me getting old (I am 32 haha) or is the fault of movie theaters, or of the sound mixing at the production studios????
Sarah’s answer:
“Technically documented” as in, there is an official report? Not that I’m aware of, but yes, everyone knows there’s a problem with sound in theaters. It’s a combination of factors. Occasionally, it’s a filmmaker’s choice to deliberately fuck with the sound mix. Christopher Nolan is famous for not doing ADR, or additional dialogue recording, which is used to clean up sound and create clear, crisp dialogue tracks for the film’s mix. He says it’s because he wants to capture the “real” performance on the day on set, but…they’re professional film actors. ADR is part of the job. So maybe it’s just that Nolan doesn’t want to do ADR himself? Like that’s a whole workflow he can cancel, though I’m not convinced he NEVER uses it. He just likes fucking muddy sound the way some directors like dark as shit nighttime scenes. (Alex Garland also uses a turned-down dialogue track in Civil War, though that is more specifically used to show how hard it is to hear when guns and bombs are going off around you, adding to the chaos of the moment.)
Mostly, though, it’s a problem with the theaters. If you’re ever wondering why it’s so fucking loud, that’s definitely a theater problem, not a filmmaker problem. Back in the celluloid days, theaters employed professional projectionists who were hands-on every time a movie screened, resetting the film reels to 1 and making sure the sound levels, called a “rack”, were set correctly for that film (filmmakers will frequently send specific directions for racking their film’s sound). But with digitization came job loss, and now a theater employing a full-time projectionist is rare, basically something you only find in repertory theaters like the Music Box in Chicago.
With everything digitized, there is still a sound rack, but because there is no specific person whose job it is to go into the booth and make sure the levels are right, they just turn them up and leave them. It’s basically a loss of expertise. I SAW the letter Quentin Tarantino sent for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, explaining how to rack the sound for the film across multiple formats (35mm, Dolby Atmos, RPX, etc), and yet, the theater left the film on the same levels they used for Avengers: Endgame. The reason? No one at the theater knew how to rack the sound. Tarantino accounted for the specs on every specific format, but he maybe didn’t realize there would be no one on the other end who actually knew how to adjust the equipment. It’s really sad when you think about it!
Question from Sherry: I just read about Dan Lin taking over Netflix's film division. I feel like Sarah hasn't been a huge fan of Netflix's original films--I can only sort of remember The Glass Onion and The Old Guard catching her eye, but I do have a terrible memory--what does she think of the change in management? Can we expect better films, or can we just expect fewer expensive-ass films?
Sarah’s answer:
Netflix original films are pretty terrible! Sometimes they lean into it, like with most of their holiday rom-com output, but a lot of the time they’re shooting for “good” and land at “mediocre” at best. (Glass Onion is exempt because it came from Knives Out, which began life as a traditional theatrical release.) But hiring Dan Lin might be a step in the right direction. Lin is best known for producing the LEGO movies, the recent two-part It adaptation, and he worked on The Two Popes, easily one of Netflix’s best originals, like, that’s a proper movie.
Lin is already at work, restructuring the film side of Netflix, which includes organizing the unit by genre. I’m intrigued by this approach, mainly because Netflix wants to provide a little bit to a lot of people, so focusing teams on specific genres might work well to meet the business demands of the company while also satisfying the tastes of the filmmakers and the audiences. Also, he says he’s going to pull back on their productions, which is ALWAYS a good call. Make less better stuff, not more worse stuff. I am cautiously optimistic Lin might be able to improve Netflix’s reputation with original films, though the broader problem is that their problem is now everyone else’s, as audiences have come to associate “straight to streaming” with “direct to video” aka garbage. Can you make a streaming movie feel special the way, say, Avengers: Endgame or Barbie or a new Tarantino movie feels special? I truly don’t know!
As for The Old Guard 2, it still does not have a release date despite being completed last year (filming was complete in 2022). Am I worried? A little! Part of the issue might be that the production company Skydance is currently engaged in trying to buy Paramount. I sort of wonder if David Ellison is thinking he might be able to leverage The Old Guard 2 into theaters if he owns Paramount. Like it’s certainly not even a Top 10 thing he’s thinking in his current effort to buy a whole ass legacy studio…but I bet it’s a bullet point on a list somewhere.
Question from Betsy: I would love to know if Emma Stone is as normal as she seems to be. She presents as beautiful and extremely talented of course, but also seems like she leans in to being a bit of a nerd and not being afraid to show her fangirl side (and not being too cool for school). Is this just me hoping she is as she seems, or is she a normal person in Hollywood?
And…
Question from Kathryn L-B: OK this is a shallow-seeming question but, how is Austin Butler as nice a guy as it seems he is?? The guy is a tall, attractive, white male who grew up as a child/teen actor. I feel like that is a BLUEPRINT for a**hole behaviors. (I am not a huge fan or anything. I ask this just as a follower of LaineyGossip. Haven’t even seen Elvis. But in all the interviews I’ve seen, he seems fairly present and centered.)
I also ask this question in the context of recent conversations around child actors. How do some seem to turn out OK? What are the guardrails or infrastructures that seem to allow for that?
Lainey’s Answer:
Both Emma Stone and Austin Butler were child actors so I’m putting this all into one answer because I think it’s related. Austin had been working for a long time but, as we know, Elvis really was the film that took him to the next level, and he was almost 30 at the time. Which does matter, because it’s humbling. For a long time, he was dating someone much more famous than he was – Vanessa Hudgens was the bigger name when they were together, through basically all of his 20s. In my opinion, that is definitely a factor in why he’s not a shithead. Or at least there hasn’t been any gossip about him being a shithead.
Also, and this is very, very sad, Austin’s mother died when he was 23 years old, and she was sick for some time before that. He’s spoken about spending the last year of her life with her, and that after she passed, he considered quitting acting. Eventually he found passion in the work again, but my point is the perspective he had to have gained with that monumental loss. Perspective about the industry, about what matters, about people who aren’t in show business but who do the most beautiful work caring for those who are fighting for their lives. I don’t know him, so I don’t mean to be out here psychologising him, but Austin’s “child star narrative” isn’t the one we typically talk about.
As for Emma Stone… well… what’s “normal”? And what’s “normal for Hollywood”? She’s not active on social media – some people might consider that abnormal in Hollywood these days. Our impression, then, of Emma is that she’s not a famewhore. But then again, does Emma Stone have to be a famewhore? Sarah touched on this through award season…
There is no shortage of opportunity for Emma Stone. And it’s been this way since BEFORE she won her first Oscar. It’s been this way, basically, for almost 15 years, maybe longer, because I’m counting since Easy A and others might count from Superbad.
You know who’s the same age as Emma Stone? Vanessa Hudgens. Who, in comparison, is doing the most. And has had her stumbles, sure. But that girl has been hustling. Musicals, TV movies, Hallmark movies, Netflix rom-coms, hosting red carpets, commercials. Some might say, oh, well Emma Stone is a few-in-a-generation talent but to those people I say …Rizzo! Vanessa Hudgens is talented, too. But sometimes it just breaks a different way.
So. To go back to “normal”? Sure, Emma Stone doesn’t have a reputation of being a dick, but she also can afford, given the fact that she’s among Hollywood’s elite, the advantage of choice – the choice to be relatively unknowable in these times of incessant self promotion by necessity. It’s not like I’m trying to tell you to allow for the possibility of her being a horrible person, all I’m saying is to consider that she can afford to be seen as normal, if normal means that she pops out during promotion and award season for quirky interviews but then gets to bounce and disappear for extended stretches so that that’s your last hit of her instead of showing up the next day on Instagram telling you about her sourdough starter. Which is smart. And strategic. But is it… normal? Who’s to say?
What I’ll end on is this: Emma Stone has been in the seventh room for at least a decade, if not more. There aren’t a lot of people who are in the seventh room – some get there but they don’t stay there. She has stayed there for a while. She is 35 years old, and she has TWO Best Actress Oscars, and she has another film coming with the director who just directed her in the film for which she won her second Oscar. She has multiple films in production or pre-production including Ari Aster’s next project co-starring – get this – Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler. LOLOLOLOL. This isn’t normal, not even among her peers! Like her good friend Jennifer Lawrence, a measly one-time Oscar winner, has never had the kind of sustained summit stay that Emma Stone has had.
This doesn’t mean that Emma Stone is or will become a monster. It just means that professionally she spends time in extremely elite company.
Sarah’s answer:
Just one more thing, she says in Columbo voice. Emma and Austin have something in common—their parents. Their parents never pressured them to be the breadwinners. The outcome of a child star has a LOT to do with the parents, and what kind of pressure they’re putting on their kids to succeed in the industry. If you really want to make yourself mad, watch the 2011 documentary The Hollywood Complex, which follows several kids trying to make it in show business. Their parents are almost uniformly revolting.
But the word on Emma’s parents has always been that they’re supportive, but they never NEEDED her to succeed (there’s a rumor they’re rich in Phoenix? I’ve never looked into it, but it would track with a hands-off approach to her Hollywood ambitions). Ditto for Austin. During his come-up I spoke to a few people who worked with him in the Disney/Nickelodeon days, and it was the same story. Supportive parents who never counted on him to support them. Any time you’re asking how a child actor turned out normal(ish), look at their parents for the answer.
Thanks for your questions! Thanks for all the love you showed Duana and her new show, Near or Far, this week which, again, you can watch on CBC GEM or on YouTube.
We are so proud that a member of our family is out here showrunning and directing and generally just crushing it! And we are also so grateful for you, the Squawk community, for all your support. Please keep sending in your submissions for the mailbag. Looking forward to next week.
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah (and Duana)
The section on Emma Stone and Austin Butler and their parents is interesting, and had me re-read the section of the Vogue interview with Zendaya where she talked about the being the 'breadwinner' for her family, and how she wished she could have gone to school. Zendaya has clearly avoided the classic child star problems, but it made me wonder about her relationship with her parents.
Lainey don’t leave me hanging on the seventh room. Please do a deep dive on who you think is currently ‘in’. Also, who has been downgraded.