Mailbag for June 14, 2024
Bowen Yang on letting go, Katie Holmes and other favs, Lady Whistledown is a bad gossip, hugs from Jin and a Coldplay collab (?), and authentic celebs (but only the right kind of authentic)
Dear Squawkers,
I’ve just read The Hollywood Reporter’s latest roundtable featuring the “Comedy Kingpins” (John Goodman, Kelsey Grammar, Anthony Mackie, Ricky Martin, Theo James, and Bowen Yang) and these are my first three thoughts:
I LOVE John Goodman so much, he’s a treasure, and are we OK to add him to that list of people I mentioned the other day in What Else? I was talking about Julia Louis-Dreyfus and how she, like Dolly Parton, Keanu Reeves, and Celine Dion is one of the most unpolarising celebrities. We all fuck with JLD and Dolly and Keanu and Celine. And I think the same is true of John Goodman. Unless I’m not remembering something shitty about John Goodman and if that’s the case, I’m sure you’ll remind me.
Next… Bowen Yang… is kinda on his way to being on that list? He’s not on that list yet, I think, because he’s still young, his career is still in its ascendancy, but we all adore Bowen, right? There’s nobody out there who passes on Bowen, is there? Unless they’re monsters?
Anyway, Bowen says something during this roundtable that is going to keep me up at night. It’s in response to a question about letting go a bit this season on Saturday Night Live:
“I think I threw out any preconceived notions that I had about myself because I was absorbing other people’s expectations. I was playing a lot of campy, loud, broad characters for a while. It’s a sketch show. There’s room for that. It celebrates that more than anything else. But we were talking about Sylvester Stallone — a purely loving tribute — and I was like, “I think I’ve got a Sly.” I’m not going to do it here, but, at the table read, I think people were like, “I didn’t know you could do that.” People are locked into an idea of what any of us as performers can do. Letting go this season has meant building from scratch again. I never thought I’d have that reset. It’s not comfort. I think if you’re comfortable at any place, if you’re comfortable at SNL, then that’s probably not a good sign.”
Sorry, sorry, sorry…
Run it back, what?!
Bowen does a Sylvester Stallone?! Did I miss this on the show? I’m pretty sure I’ve watched every episode and I do not fucking remember Bowen doing Sly – and if they haven’t put it in yet, please, please, please, Lorne, for fuck’s sake, let us see this before the apocalypse of November 2024, please. It’s the 50th anniversary season starting in September. Give us something beautiful before we are plunged back into hell.
Speaking of hell, though, the third point is my personal hell. Kelsey Grammer definitely does NOT belong on the beloved list, and I never, ever, ever thought I would have anything in common with him, but I’ve just learned that I do: we share the same view of emojis. At the end of the roundtable, the actors are asked what emoji they use the most. Kelsey goes last and says:
“I refuse to use them. I find it diminishes our ability to communicate.”
You’ll recall, I basically said the same thing in a mailbag here at The Squawk back in February. And now I’m rethinking this position, a position I’ve held since emojis were invented, I have never used an emoji. But I’m seriously considering changing that because Kelsey Grammer has given me an identity crisis!
While I continue pondering all my life choices, let’s get to some questions.
Question from Myra: Do you have a celebrity crush that you have always rooted for, who’s not necessarily A list but whose career you followed forever? Mine is Katie Holmes, her birthday is two days away from mine. I find her fascinating, I love her style and that she always remains somewhat uncomfortable and guarded in interviews despite all her years of fame.
Lainey’s Answer:
You mention Katie’s style and while I can’t say I love it like you do, I feel like over the last couple of years, she has elevated...although, have you noticed, once in a while she’s good for a record scratch. Like a crazy ass pair of shoes that are so nonsense it’s gotten to the point where I actually look forward to those moments now. Also, staying with Katie’s style, she wore an outfit about a month ago that I did not get a chance to post about but it is SO good. Look at this dress, like a Fair Isle sweater and a caftan had a baby.
It’s Pucci, if you’re wondering, but I’m not sure it’s available yet because it looks like it’s for fall. It also looks very Babe Paley, another reason I love it so much.
So, about your question, and who’s my Katie? I have two people:
Gemma Chan. Pretty sure I don’t have to justify Gemma on the style front – she is unreal on the red carpet and she’s lovely off the carpet, and so talented, and yet… still… she doesn’t get as much work as I would like her to. Maybe she’s not working all that much by choice. But, to me, that seems unlikely. She quit law to be an actor. And I can’t imagine any actor at Gemma’s level being all like, nah, I don’t want a lead role. Because that’s what we’re dealing with here. We have yet to see Gemma in a leading role and it makes no sense to me.
Same thing applies to Simone Ashley, and I’ve written about this before: she was one half of the lead couple of season two of Bridgerton. Since Bridgerton Jonathan Bailey has worked on several projects and won awards for them. We’ll soon see him in the Wicked movies. Why isn’t this happening for Simone Ashley?
So I’m rooting for Gemma and Simone. And I would love to recruit you too!
Question from Catherine Woodiwiss: This question might be better for the 14th or 21st mailbag, after Bridgerton S3 pt II - with the promised Whistledown drama - airs, but ... Just how good of a gossip *is* Lady Whistledown? Is she savvy, ethical? Or a TikToker for the ton? I'd love to hear Sarah & Lainey's analysis of what Whistledown does well & poorly! And if she's not It, or even if she is, are there other great fictional gossips you love to watch/read about?
Sarah’s answer:
Lady Whistledown is a bad gossip! Season three deals explicitly with Penelope facing consequences for the harm she has caused people over the last few years via Whistledown, and the Bridgertons have every right to be furious with her. I know she feels she “saved” Colin from Marina Thompson, but she also did a lot of harm to Marina! There was a way to handle that that didn’t involve wrecking Marina’s shit, like behind closed doors, with as few people involved as strictly necessary. Instead, she put Marina on blast, and I KNOW that being pregnant and unwed is untenable in that society, even in Bridgerton’s loosier-goosier version, but STILL. Penelope often uses her pen to settle scores in a way that does real damage.
To be fair, though, we get much less Whistledown in the show than we do in the books. Every chapter in the books begins with a snippet of Whistledown, over eight books, that adds up. Also, there is no Marina Thompson in the books. She’s just Sir Phillip Crane’s dead wife, Colin never meets her, there is nothing to “save” him from, which drastically changes Whistledown’s relationship with the Bridgertons. More than one Bridgerton is sent running to the altar for fear of what Whistledown does or does not know, but there’s never an instance where she deliberately ruins someone.
If anything, the Whistledown of the books, and by extension Penelope, seems to realize how she can subtly support certain people in critical moments, but in the show, Whistledown is pretty much just a destructive force. If Whistledown was in our world, she would 100% be a TikTokker into lip reading and body language experts, and she would spread unverified gossip/nonsense like DeuxMoi. The best use of gossip in Bridgerton remains Violet organizing with her lady’s maid, Mrs. Wilson, to deliberately spread the info about Lord Berbrooke’s unacknowledged child so as to make him ineligible to marry Daphne. That gossip ended up in Whistledown, but it only got there through Violet and her staff’s efforts.
As for other gossip I’d like to see, I don’t think anyone has done justice to Marie Antoinette and the affair of the necklace. There’s a movie with Hilary Swank, but it’s bad. We need a do-over on that, specifically to show how that incident essentially tarred and feathered Antoinette’s reputation FOREVER. Similarly, you can make a case that the political propaganda spawned by the Beast of Gevaudan situation teed up the French Revolution. Basically, anything to do with 18th century French politics is ripe for adaptation.
And of course, there is the legendary feud between Hollywood gossips Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. There’s a 1985 movie, Malice in Wonderland, starring Elizabeth Taylor as Louella and Jane Alexander as Hedda, but it’s not very good despite the star power. We NEED to revisit that! And NOT in a Ryan Murphy Feud season, I want to see someone with a REAL appreciation of gossip history tackle it (Murphy only likes it when beautiful women of a certain age hurl insults at one another, he’s not actually interested in the relationships or mechanics of gossip). There are so many possible ways to imagine this project, but one way is with Cate Blanchett as Louella and Kate Winslet as Hedda, and Kristen Stewart as Harriet Parsons, Louella’s daughter. And don’t hold back, these were deeply flawed women who often used their platform for ill. We need this movie!
Question from Laura: Lainey do we think Jin might be a Coldplay special guest at Glastonbury in a couple of weeks? It would be nice symmetry to his last concert being with them and his first one back.
Lainey’s Answer:
You’re ARMY so I’m sure you saw all the footage from the “light hugs” event? LOL FOREVER. He gave out something like a thousand hugs in an hour and apparently looked disappointed when it was over, I am crying.
But also kind of… appalled? Like, for sure, he’s sweet for doing this and loving on the fans so much but it could not be me, sorry, I am not a hugger. As much as I appreciate him, watching this makes me uncomfortable, I guess I am a monster and belong in a category with fucking Kelsey Grammer.
The show that came after, like his mini-concert variety show, is much more my speed. Because, like, he literally, actually, got out of the military five minutes ago! And immediately went back to work with the livestream and what was probably rehearsal, right? I know it wasn’t intense choreo but there’s still sound checks and vocal practice and hitting his marks with the backup dancers and, again, the man JUST GOT DISCHARGED.
So to your question about Glastonbury and Coldplay? One hundred fucking percent I believe it that Jin could show up in Glastonbury. Wootteo has been touring with Coldplay – and this is corny AF but also, wouldn’t it be so fucking cute if Jin came to Glastonbury to bring Wootteo home?
I wasn’t joking the other day when I said I was unhinged seeing that photo of OT7 after Jin got out and also the footage of the other five members greeting him at the base. RM with the sax became instant legend, and suddenly the words “Hello. This is BIGHIT Music.” don’t seem so scary anymore – in fact, they’re not scary at all. Now we WANT those words because we’re going in the opposite direction now.
“Hello.
This is BIGHIT Music.”
Is how BTS’s label begins their press releases. And, well, for a year there, those press releases were meant to inform us that the next member was going into service. Jin’s completed his, j-hope will be next in the fall, so we should be getting another “Hello. This is BIGHIT Music.” at the end of the summer about him, and then, exactly a year from now, all of them will be discharged and we can go broke buying tickets for the tour.
Until then, though, Jin still has some time. And, sure, he could release more solo work, but this could also be an opportunity for him, while the others are still serving, to explore other artistic experiences. Like acting or maybe hosting? Jin studied acting and originally wanted to be an actor. He said back in 2022 that he had no immediate plans to act but that was a few months before he enlisted so it was true at the time but may not apply now. I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be offers and he just happens to have a clear window to do it, should the right role come up.
Question from Annamaria: Probably too late for tomorrow's mailbag but maybe a future one. I would love Lainey and Sarah to go into a deep dive on celebrities that are excellent at playing "themselves" in real life not in a hyper-mocking or satire roles. Sarah's article on the Jake G profile particularly the line his best role might be as Jake G... instantly brought to mind the Elizabeth Moss quote on her ex husband Fred Armisen and how his best impression is that of a "normal person". (But her status as a scientologist makes me question her everything.) There is such an online discourse (or witchhunt) on who comes across as authentic or inauthentic and I just wonder how these celebrities come across to people in the real world. Is it usually men who get away with it? Like Nicolas Cage or Jared Leto? Are they playing themselves or are they just kind of terrible caricatures of themselves from living in the Hollywood sphere? Has Lainey's spidey sense been pinged on anyone else over the years?
Sarah’s answer:
The obvious answer is Tom Cruise, he has perfected the role of “Tom Cruise”. But Julia Roberts is also great at being “Julia Roberts”. The celebrity persona is sort of inherently inauthentic, though, because a good celebrity persona is a limited sample of what the real person is like. It’s just a collection of their best traits and tendencies, all the bad stuff is edited out. I think Jake G has gotten better at being “Jake G”, and I think Ryan Gosling has gotten better at being “Ryan Gosling”. You can tell because both went through their shy phases where they bolted from the limelight, seemed sort of surly and put out in interviews—Lainey knows that one firsthand from Jake—and generally seemed uncomfortable being as famous as they are. Now, though? Both men have nailed the art of the interview, they seem much more comfortable with where they’re at professionally, and they don’t flee from attention, they’ve learned when to court it and when to disappear (both are great at going to ground when they want to).
There does seem to be a generational divide, though, where it flips over from enjoying the persona to demanding total authenticity from celebrities, which only hurts celebrity. Yes, social media (and reality TV) has taken a lot of shine off celebrity, but it started before that, with “stars: they’re just like us!” features in the tabloids. I hated those features because I never wanted stars to be just like me, celebrity is an escape from mundane reality!
But somewhere along the line people started wanting more authenticity, and it probably has something to do with increasing wealth disparity and a feeling like…you might be famous and fabulously rich but at least I know what you look like without makeup and that you’re miserable (just like me). But that does set up this weird cycle where people demand authenticity from stars but when they are authentic, they get dinged for seeming fake (see also: Austin Butler getting yelled at for liking old movies). It’s like, be authentic, but only in the very specific way I want you to be authentic, which might not actually be authentic to you. It circles back to “stars: they’re just like us”. There’s a demand for authenticity but only the right kind, the accessible kind. If a star’s authenticity highlights a way in which they are not like us, no one likes it. Free celebrities from the tyranny of relatability!
I will say this for Nicolas Cage. I have never met the man, but I have been in two of his houses. Based on his interior design, the man is deeply, truly, incurably weird. I don’t think it’s an act. I think “Nicolas Cage” is 100% the result of growing up in a wealthy creative family that supported and encouraged his every whim, combined with possessing an abundance of genuine talent, and getting so famous young enough to never hear “no” in any kind of meaningful way. He’s the kind of weird we would all be with unconditional love and support, worldwide adoration, and wealth. It’s a dangerous combination! We should all be glad he’s just into dinosaurs, Superman, and ghosts. Imagine if he was into murder!
Aaaaaaand… on that pleasant note, let us be grateful that Nicolas Cage is not into murder and we hope that none of you are into murder although that reminds me, about a month ago someone told me that a woman currently on trial for murder was following me on Twitter? I checked at the time and it was there and today I can’t find the account but whatever, I’m not naming the name but if you’ve been online, you may have come across the story because the trial has been batshit and all of it reminded me, again, about the invisible connections that exist online and how we can and should be more responsible with them. We haven’t always been at LaineyGossip, but we are trying!
Thanks for sticking with us. And thanks for your questions and your squawks. The chats have been particularly active this week – and have given us so much comedy. Like the Bradley Cooper beard chart, one of my favourite things to have emerged from this community.
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
John Goodman is an international treasure and I am truly baffled that he's never been nominated for an Oscar. Coen brothers, fix that already.
Yes to Gemma and Simone! Cast them in all the things.