Mailbag for December 6, 2024
Nicole Kidman's awkward campaign, Gwyneth's influence on Apple's reputation, what did Elordi do and who have we flipped on over the years, Slow Horse efficiency, why all the movie credits, and more
Dear Squawkers,
It’s your horny gossip, back again to talk about sex. That’s what Nicole Kidman’s been doing, or trying not to do, as she promotes Babygirl, which opens Christmas Day, THANKS GOD (not a typo, for those new The Squawk). Some counterprogramming to all the family friendly movies that dominate the multiplex during the holiday stretch.
Back to Nicole and all the sex-acting she performs in the film – it’s a delicate situation for her because she’s promoting it and, like, the sex in Babygirl isn’t incidental. Desire and pleasure and shame are literally the themes of the film. So, in theory, discussing the film and specifically her approach to her character’s relationship to desire and pleasure and shame and how sexually expressive she is over the course of the story, is on the table, again in theory, when discussing it.
Which is awkward, of course. Because it’s one thing to go there, go all in, as an actor evaporating into the skin of a character, and another as a real person who might not want to talk about all the fucking. Nicole covers the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, and at one point is asked “How did you figure out how to play the different types of orgasms in the movie?”
Her response:
“(Kidman covers her face with both hands.) I blush, still! That’s insane. But that’s a good thing, I suppose. I’m very interested in exploring those things, but I’m not that extroverted. I was so in character. To pull the curtain back on all of it, it’s too sacred.”
Because, of course, there’s an Oscar campaign happening right now. And she might actually have the most difficult campaign messaging in comparison to the other actors, across all categories. Timmy-Bob, as Sarah’s taken to calling him, is going to go on non-stop about the five years he spent preparing to play Bob Dylan. We’ve heard Angelina Jolie talk about how she found her own voice while trying to channel Maria Callas’s. Adrien Brody has already drawn on his experience in The Pianist (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar) all these years later, needing to extract everything he’s learned from a “lifetime of work” to be able to throw it down in The Brutalist. We’ve heard these talking points before from actors in contention year after year.
But it's not every year that an actor is asked about the different kinds of orgasms she has in her film. That’s a fine line to walk – because you don’t want to be all prudish about a film that specifically is trying to destigmatise women’s sexuality, but you also don’t want to put off those old fucking prude dudes in Palm Springs who vote on the Oscars. Or get them thinking about all the times a woman might have faked an orgasm with them and scare them off of having to engage with the subject matter entirely.
I was thinking about all this as I was reading Nicole’s interview with THR, and it occurred to me that the conversation I would most want to listen to is the one that should happen between Nicole and Ali Wong. Like the “Actors on Actors” thing that Variety puts on.
Because Ali loves talking about sex, in the most crass and hilarious (at least to me) way. When she’s performing standup, that is. She did it before the divorce and she does it even more now that she is divorced. In her most recent Netflix special, Single Lady, Ali pretty much opens with her telling the audience that she got divorced and all she wanted to do afterwards is get dicked down.
“Eat my pussy” is a phrase that comes up often during the show. Her pussy is basically the main character. It’s always been radical for me, as an Asian woman, to watch her so crudely describe her desires and also her dislikes. Not all the jokes work, of course, and sometimes her filthiness has a tinge of adolescent boy who’s trying too hard. But she does almost always get somewhere beyond pussies and cocks and taints. And where she’s going in Single Lady is that she presents her version of what post-divorce life is like for a woman in her 40s. Everyone who’s been in this situation is entitled to their own portrait of it. There is no right or wrong – but the point is, it doesn’t always HAVE to be shitty. It wasn’t for Ali. And while she acknowledges that it obviously sucks that what you originally hoped for went in a different direction, what comes after doesn’t have to be bleak or lonely and if you’re having fun in the process, you don’t have to feel guilty about it.
Now imagine Ali sitting across from Nicole, having an honest conversation about how they’ve both addressed sex and desire and guilt and shame in their work, through their art. Wouldn’t that be an interview orgasm?
Time for the mailbag.
Question from Amy:
Is the Apple Martin (and GOOP) bullying story/stories getting any traction in the wider media universe? Apple being a holy terror, as was Gwenyth, is an open secret amongst private school ppl (and many stories have made it online). I can't see that playing out well for Apple if she intends to try to enter the influencer space.
Lainey’s Answer:
Apple Martin is 20 years old. This is not young, but it’s not old. And I’ve seen the rumours that you’re referring to, but I also don’t want to start making assumptions about her character based on Instagram or TikTok comments because it’s hard out there right now on social media, especially for a generation of kids whose brains have literally – and terrifyingly – been shaped by it. So I hope it doesn’t get any traction in the wider media universe unless the actual people involved want to come forward and put a name to their lived experience.
I’d rather not dump on Apple here but redirect the conversation back to Gwyneth. Because here’s the thing – the video assumption that’s been happening about Apple this week, the way people are interpreting her behaviour…
It’s mostly, if not entirely, coloured by how people perceive Gwyneth, right? Gwyneth is haughty, one of the most high-profile Hollywood examples of privilege and elitism. Gwyneth’s image has been entrenched in the public consciousness for decades, even before the vagina egg and the pussy candle and whatever other crazy shit she has in her gift guides that no one can afford or should be spending their money on.
Gwyneth is the one who we believe to be out of touch, insufferable, condescending…
"I would rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup.”
"I am who I am. I can't pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year."
Every couple of years, maybe more often, GP makes headlines for saying something incredibly snobby and people get mad and/or roll their eyes, so my point is, all of that outrage over Gwyneth has, this week, spilled over to her daughter. Because this, really, is the first time that Apple has had this kind of international spotlight. The scrutiny over her behaviour and the assumptions that people are making about what she’s really like are, really, an extension of how they see Gwyneth.
So what’s interesting to me is that Apple might be among that first class of celebrity children growing up in the digital age whose identities are inseparable from their parents. This has happened before, no doubt, with kids of the stars, but not with the social media spotlight there is now. Not with millions of people weighing in on you in real time, in the same digital spaces where you also have to exist.
In the past, it was actually possible for famous children to have some anonymity. It was possible for them to be in rooms where they didn’t have to encounter what gossips were saying about them. Now those rooms are literally on your phone.
The whole nepo-baby discourse over the last two years has raised some valid questions about access, opportunity, resources, and more. I agree that these kids get a head start that’s not afforded to so many others. But I also think it’s worth acknowledging that, like, some of them are assigned a whole ass identity by the general public even before they know who they are because they’re so known, whether or not they even want to be. In a strange way, does that actually end up limiting their choices?
Question from Emily:
I have been wondering what Jacob Elordi did :) Is it just vibes or did he really say something and ran his mouth? But in all seriousness, it got me thinking about whether the wonderful authors at LaineyGossip ever changed their opinion about someone with that level of dislike/disdain, whether because they changed or your perception of them changed. It is said that it is easier to destroy a reputation than to build it. Who would those who changed your mind be and how?
Lainey’s Answer:
Thank you for asking this question because Jacob Elordi did say something and you may not be the only one who missed this post when we covered what he said, and now I get to revisit it and remind you all again what he said!
It was last year, during the promotional run for Saltburn. Jacob covered GQ and yes, he decided to run his mouth about The Kissing Booth, which is the movie series on Netflix that was super popular and gave him a fanbase from which to build his career. Were they good movies? Fuck no. Should he be shitting on them? Also no.
Anyway, this is how he described The Kissing Booth:
“I didn’t want to make those movies before I made those movies. Those movies are ridiculous. They’re not universal. They’re an escape.”
At which point the journalist actually tells him that most actors have to start with work that might not be the highest quality and also… that’s kinda like anyone with any entry-level job in any industry?
But Jacob has an answer for those who call him pretentious – in the same interview, still talking about teen movies:
“How is caring about your output pretentious? But not caring, and knowingly feeding people shit, knowing that you’re making money off of people’s time, which is literally the most valuable thing that they have. How is that the cool thing?”
The sanctimony in his answer is what grates. And it’s the disrespect for the audience of those movies that he’s disparaging which is mostly girls and women. There’s a way to express a preference about work that challenges you and challenges the audience without shitting on movies that other people have worked on. Like it’s not just you, motherfucker. You might have knowingly been feeding people shit but that doesn’t mean that an entire crew wasn’t working on the movie and not getting paid as much as you but was able to go home and pay their bills from it. There should be room for all of it – the prestige pieces like The Brutalist and the goddamn Kissing Booth and everything in between.
Jacob is young. He’s on a path that so many very pretty and talented actors have travelled before. And this is why I called him a cliché, because they’ve all said some version of this before, too, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Ryan Gosling to Robert Pattinson. So when he grows out of it, I’ll change my opinion. And he will grow out of it. Because, again, as original as he thinks he is, he’s just the latest.
As for the ones who’ve changed my mind…
The first example who comes to mind is Ariana Grande. If you were reading LaineyGossip ten years ago, like around the time of the donut-licking, I had no time for her back then. And now I love her. A lot of it has to do with maturity but, unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with tragedy. It was Manchester and then Mac Miller, both of which probably changed her, profoundly. As a celebrity though, the way she manages her own celebrity, and how she chooses to communicate, how thoughtful she can be, I really enjoy it. And of course, there’s my all-time favourite Ariana Grande quote. I think I’ll always be devoted to her, just for this:
“Like your hip hop yoga class can fucking wait i promise.”
Also, Post Malone - his set at Beychella was right before the Queen’s and I know I wasn’t the only one like hurrrry the fuck up, because that performance was kind of a mess. And at that point his appeal was all white bro Chet Hanks vibes.
But then he showed up at an Elvis tribute, played his guitar so sincerely, and really let out a more earnest side of his personality. Also who could escape “Circles”. I really, really do love that song. Somehow that turned into really digging Postie himself.
Question from Amy B from a daily chat:
It throws me that they can show clips of the next season at the end of this season. I watched the last episode of season 4 the day it aired so it wasn’t like the clips were added later. So are they filming the next season while one is in editing? And they have enough to share? Or are seasons all ready to go and they sit on them for months, so they could actually have 2 seasons ready but they only release 1. Seems odd somehow.
Sarah’s answer:
If you’re referring to Slow Horses, I believe they did start filming season four last year before season three was fully in the can, which does allow them to tack season four previews onto season three. In fact, they’re filming these seasons very efficiently, if not back-to-back then pretty close, because they’ve gone through four seasons in just two years—seasons one and two both aired in 2022. Seasons three and four also aired less than 12 months apart. Season five, meanwhile, just wrapped production a little over a month ago, so they were winding down filming as season four started streaming. Because of the overlap, and with a massive assist by weekly episode drops stretching out the season as opposed to a day-one full-season binge drop, the Slow Horses team had time to prep promos for season 5 as tags for season 4. This is what efficiency and weekly episodes gets you!
But obviously, this doesn’t work for most shows. If we’re talking prestige dramas, they typically take 6-10 months to film, so you hardly ever get more than one season into a year’s schedule. Someone at Slow Horses is super efficient, likely several someones, starting with showrunner Will Smith (not that one). It helps that the first five series of Slow Horses are based on books, so they have a clear blueprint for adaptation. Game of Thrones was a lot more efficient when they had completed books to work from, too.
Bridgerton has finished books, but they’re working at a much slower pace, in part due to the logistics of creating that world on screen. It takes hundreds of hours to produce the costumes alone, the craft teams need time to work, and well, that show has been through showrunner upheaval. And then you have something like Stranger Things, where they have to, you know, just make sh-t up. A lot of the time in between seasons for hour-long shows is just devoted to writing. But hat’s off to the Slow Horses team for possibly the most efficient production running in TV today.
Question/Discussion from this week’s chats:
Who should Sabrina Carpenter hook up with next? Gossip Genie?
Lainey’s Answer:
Most of you were in agreement that Sabrina Carpenter and Marcello Hernandez would be the most wholesome gossip, and I get it. Wholesome gossip isn’t always good gossip, though. So my Gossip Genie wish for Sabrina would be…
Harry Styles.
Seriously, the gossip mainframe would implode. It would be a new popstar supercouple. One that could, potentially, rival TNT. Easy, Swifties. I’m not saying that either one of them is anywhere near Taylor Swift’s level of power. But Taylor and Travis Kelce are not equal in status either. So if Taylor brought 95% to Travis’s 5% to the table on the level of celebrity, Sabrina and Harry could cover 50% each and match it. Or exceed it, at least on the horny factor. Because Sabrina and Harry are giving wayyyyy more horny than TNT:
“Espresso” + “Watermelon Sugar” = “Bed Chem”
Also? Sabrina has the personality; she can handle Harry’s toxic fans. The training wheels would have come off after that whole Olivia Rodrigo mess.
Question from LazyCat:
Every time I see awards show photos, people have full plates of untouched food. Do they ever get eaten? Does anyone drink anything besides water? It looks so miserable!
Lainey’s Answer:
Earlier this week, in What Else?, I talked about wanting to steal food from events, like bring a container or two and just abscond with the pasta and the potatoes and the shrimp and the cheese. I should have specified – I mean celebrity parties, like at TIFF, where oftentimes the media and the non-celebrities are the only ones eating the food. And the food is so good because they usually take place at smaller venues, like restaurants and fancy bars, and it’s being prepared for the special celebrities who almost always don’t bother.
This, however, is not the same as what happens at an award show like the Golden Globes where it’s hotel ballroom food and they’re making, like, 250 plates of the same food that has to be served at the same time. I mean, no, celebrities wouldn’t eat any of it even if it was the freshest sushi made by Chef Nobu himself 30 seconds ago. But also, at those award shows, it’s dry chicken or overcooked steak. I’m not trying to be Gwyneth Paltrow over here but, like, they’d do better with getting people to eat the food if they served fast food burgers. I would crush a McDonald’s quarter pounder or a Subway footlong tuna any day over a plate of hotel ballroom chicken and sad veg.
But the celebrities not eating isn’t just about flavour and weight. There’s also the live television cameras part of it. A lot of people, not just celebrities but regular degulars, too, have issues with eating on display. There are civilians who already have hang-ups about what they look like when they’re eating. This is why there are so many dating guidelines out there for people going on dinner dates and what to order. Google it. “What to order and not order on a first date.” “Don’t order salad on a first date.” So for celebrities at an award show knowing there’s millions of people are watching and millions MORE are waiting to meme the shit out of them, there might be some hesitation.
I worked on a daytime talk show for ten years, on camera. Part of my job, multiple times a week, was to be in food segments, trying the food. I personally don’t feel a way about it, which is why there’s probably 24 hours straight of footage of me in our archives with sauce dripping down my chin, or spinach in my teeth, and my lipstick smeared all over my mouth. Also, there was this one time I think I was eating a breadstick on the thicker side and a couple of days later I got a DM from a perv who screenshotted the moment I put my lips around the breadstick but replaced it with something else. Celebrities experience that on an exponentially much more disgusting level. All of that is a factor when you see them not eating during an award show.
Question from Lexi:
Through Sarah’s tutelage, we readers are becoming more aware of how the moviemaking business actually works. First, thank you for that, Sarah Second, I have been wondering about film title cards. Is there a methodology / standard to how these are written? For example, is “XYZ presents” the distributor or the filmmaking shingle, with “An XYZ film” being the converse of that? What do all these qualifiers mean?!?
Sarah’s answer:
Yes, there is a method to the madness. Like acting and writing credits, it’s dictated by guilds, in this case, the producers’ guild. And yes, the order of production logos/credits is usually set by contract, just like actors’ billing. Typically, the order of the credits does start with the distributor, then the financing partners, then the actual production companies that managed all or part of the production, exact ordering wrangled by lawyers.
For instance, Knives Out opens with three logos: Lionsgate, the distributor; MRC, the financier; T Street, the production entity created by Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman as the legal entity for the film (think insurance, payroll, permitting, etc). T Street is now the production company for the whole Knives Out franchise. (Under that banner, Johnson and Bergman have also produced other films, like Chloe Domont’s Fair Play and Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction.)
Production logos are starting to get out of hand, though, given that it sometimes takes a lot of financing partners to get a film made. I just watched a foreign film—I won’t name names because I’m not shaming them—that had NINE logos in front of it because there were so many financiers involved. I’ve been to more than one screening in recent years where people laughed at how many credits there are before a film, but it’s just representative of how many people it takes to make a movie, especially in the indie sector where producers are often scraping money together from many sources, from public funds to private investors.
But basically, “presents” is the distributor, “in association with” are the money people, and “a -blank- production” are the people who actually dragged that movie through development, production, and release, and they’re the ones who win the Best Picture Oscar.
Question from Kiki:
I don't have much time for tv lately with a toddler and a baby on the way but Lainey I am craving some k drama!! I loved Crash Landing on You. Can you give me 2 more recommendations?
Lainey’s Answer:
Since you watched Crash Landing on You, I’m assuming you want a Netflix recommendation, but if you have the streaming platform Viki, Lovely Runner is a really perfect cozy holiday binge.
If it’s only Netflix, though, my recommendations are based on why I think you loved Crash Landing and I suspect it wasn’t just the swoony romance but also because of how fucking hilarious it is, especially in the first half. Which is why I hope you’ll like Vincenzo. There is romance in Vincenzo, but it’s categorised as a dark comedy. One of the reasons it was so popular when it came out a few years ago is because it was spectacularly funny. But you need to grow into it, to get used to the style of the show. If you laughed at Crash Landing, you’ll laugh with Vincenzo.
For angsty romance – It’s OK to Not Be OK, I have mentioned this show so many times, because it remains one of my favourites. In Korea they call this a “healing drama”. So it fits the spirit of the season and it’s so beautifully shot and the soundtrack, in my opinion, is better than CLOY.
Finally, if you want to watch along with me… right now the show that has me in a chokehold is When The Phone Rings. The plot is bananas – but then again, she literally crash-landed on him in North Korea so… I feel like maybe you can tolerate bananas – but the chemistry between the leads is sizzling, and all the tropes are here but very, very well done. I’m actually angry that I couldn’t help myself and started it at the beginning because now I have to wait week to week for new episodes. And they just, last minute, postponed the next two episodes because of the political chaos happening over in SK so it’s another reason to hate that clown president Yoon Suk Yeol who is facing an impeachment vote tomorrow for issuing a martial law order and promptly being told by pretty much the entire nation and parliament and his own party to sit the fuck down.
And finally…
Last week we asked you to vote on the best time for an AMA and now we’ve set the date. Please join us, live, for the Ask Us Anything on THURSDAY 19 DECEMBER at 10pm ET. Please also bear with us over the next couple of weeks because we’ll be reminding you often! And if you’re a free subscriber and would like to take part, please switch to our paid subscription.
Thanks again for choosing to spend time here, for all your comments, and your support!
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
I'd forgotten about the catalyst for the Elordi scorn, so thanks for the reminder, and also for saying this:
"And it’s the disrespect for the audience of those movies that he’s disparaging which is mostly girls and women."
This is such a pet peeve of mine. There was some bro journalist in the Times the other day who said that he wouldn't have watched Wicked if his job didn't require it, because "it looked like it was for teenage girls."
So WHAT? I guess that means that anything geared towards this age group is frothy, vapid, bubblegummy, and ultimately pointless?
It kind of reminds me of Jonathan "Overrated" Franzen snidely insulting Oprah's Book Club so many moons ago by saying that his work was loftier than the Club's usual fare - as if authors like Morrison and Kingsolver churn out banalities. Okay.
Or how about John Kerry saying that Trump has the temperament of a teenage girl? I hope his wife and daughters gave him sooooooo much shit for that one. I'd have flicked peas at his face at the next family dinner if I were them.
It also reminds me of the 345345345 times I've heard guys speak disparagingly to each other by using feminization as an insult: "don't be such a girl", "you throw like a girl","you're whining like a girl", etc.
Anyway, I hate that, and now I hate Jacob Elordi as much as he should be hated. Thank you!
Babygirl is one of my favourite films of 2024 and I really hope Nicole pulls an Oscar nom out of the bag. She's truly excellent in it: funny, vulnerable, terrified, horny, and baffled by her own desires. It's a fascinatingly meta turn too: the perennial ice goddess getting brought down and loving every second of it (there's even a joke in it about the lead having had too many fillers, which feels like Nicole poking fun at herself.) And it is indeed super sexy: like Secretary if the two leads in that film had no effing idea what they were actually doing. It's a busy year for Best Actress though. She'll have to fight for that spot and take on Angelina, Cynthia, Sofia, Mikey, Pamela, Demi, Marianne, Amy, Tilda, and too many others to count.