Mailbag for October 11, 2024
Anne Hathaway's quick PR, Kristen Bell's sneers and wins, Nobody Wants This many cooks in the kitchen, shifting landscape of production, the Canadian Star system, I'm in Vanity Fair (!), and more
Dear Squawkers,
Entertainment reporter Kjersti Flaa first went viral back in August when she posted an old video of Blake Lively meangirling her in an interview. Everyone, at the time, was already hating on Blake for how she was dressing on the It Ends With Us press tour and what she was and wasn’t saying and why she didn’t seem to be getting along with director and co-star Justin Baldoni. So the conditions were perfect for Kjersti to share that footage of Blake being rude to her all those years ago.
This week, Kjersti went back into the archives for a clip of Anne Hathaway, during the press tour for Les Misérables, not really playing along with where Kjersti was trying to take the interview. You can see it here.
Anne was … cold. At the end she gave one-word answers. It’s uncomfortable – not as blatantly rude as Blake but also definitely not engaging; she clearly wasn’t playing and the contrast between how lively and accommodating her co-stars were (Hugh Jackman, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried) and Anne’s energy is, well, obvious.
Kjersti has since revealed that Anne wrote her to apologise, and explain that she was going through some shit at the time. And that story is now making the rounds which, in turn, is making Anne look good. So in the end, my judgement is that we’ve broken even – or it might even be a win for Anne because she and her team dealt with it quickly and productively. This is good PR strategy. Anne’s longtime publicist is Stephen Huvane who also reps Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julianne Moore, and more. We’re dealing here with people who are experienced, who’ve been in the business for a while. But who are still expected to keep up. And it looks like Anne and Stephen are keeping up, learning from Blake’s mismanagement of her situation and quickly shutting down this one before it blew up into something much worse. This will not hurt Anne. In fact, it came and went so fast, a lot of people might not remember it by the end of the month.
As an entertainment reporter myself, it’s interesting to me that Kjersti – who makes other videos that aren’t about her awkward interviews – is becoming known for these kinds of interviews. I’m not sure how often she’s junketing these days but for those of us who are still junketing, still assigned to interviews all the time (I did three junkets this week), it would probably compromise our access if we were putting out this kind of content. I actually covered the Les Misérables junket for ETALK back in 2012. It was in New York, and I was so excited because Les Misérables is my thing; I remember screening it with a friend of mine who happened to be in town from London and crying afterwards because I loved it so much. So I interviewed the cast around the same time as Kjersti. And to be honest, when I look back on that junket, like an asshole, my thoughts are first and foremost about the hotel. It was December, just before the holidays, in NYC. And the studio put us up at the Mandarin Oriental. This is the main thing that comes to mind for me, LOL. That was the one and only time I’ve ever stayed there (studio budgets are smaller these days) and I made the fucking most of it.
As for the interviews… all I have are memory-feelings. I don’t have flashbacks from exact moments of conversations, specific things that any of the actors said, but I do know, in my bones, that the interviews went well and that I brought back good work for our team. Which is why, given that I’m blanking on the particulars, I went to Joanna, who is basically like a computer for this kind of thing, to confirm that my memory-feelings were right. She was the producer who cut several stories at ETALK that we used during that award season because, of course, it was so obvious that Anne was going to win. And we got a lot of mileage out of my interview. But she only had memory-feelings, too.
So she ended up going into the vault and pulling up the raw tape of that junket and we watched it back and our memory-feelings did not betray us. The Annie who I spoke to back then was not the Annie who was talking to Kjersti. Don’t get me wrong, I’m telling you this not because I’m here to nah-nah-nah-nah Kjersti that I got a better interview, my point is that… well… all these years later… my interview with Anne is not newsworthy! We talked about ugly-crying, and hairstyles; we talked about bringing Catwoman Selina Kyle confidence into her audition for Les Misérables; we talked about all the hype about her winning the Oscar. If I posted it on my socials, it would get very few views. It served its purpose in its time and will probably no longer have much purpose in future times. Kjersti’s interview with Anne, though, maybe what we can say about it is that its value to Kjersti was ahead of its time. Somehow, 12 years later, she found a way to use it that generated way more attention and a much wider audience than what she would have gotten had the interview gone smoothly. Probably many more views than my interview that did go very smoothly. Um, is that the silver lining?
Time for questions…
And the first question is kinda staying with the theme of celebrities not being nice, so this isn’t a question from any one person but a general question that comes up often about which celebrities haven’t been very nice to us and which ones are dicks. I use that word because our newsletter this week, written by Duana, was about Kristen Bell and how playing dicks is her talent.
Here’s how that piece came to be. Duana and I were texting last week, and I’d just finished two episodes of Nobody Want This, so I messaged her tell her how annoyed I was that the show is good (at least in the first half of the season) because I really don’t fuck with Kristen Bell. If you’ve been reading LaineyGossip from the early years, you might remember this, but it goes back to Sundance 2007. I was with our producer and cameraperson at an event, interviewing celebrities as they arrived. KBell shows up, looks at us, sneers, and keeps walking. We call out, “Hey Kristen, just one question?” She stops, stares us dead in the face, sneered again, with pleasure. Like she was enjoying it. And her expression said it all. As IF I would ever talk to you, as IF you deserve my time, you are beneath me, and the best part of my day is letting you know, with my face, how unimportant you people are. I was enraged. My producer was enraged. And it’s the kind of rage that stays with you. The way she looked at us that night is seared into my brain.
Cut to a few years later, the 2013 Golden Globes, and we’re doing our best and worst dressed recaps. Duana wrote this Kristen Bell post. And she opened the post by declaring that she’s a Kristen Bell crusader but that she could not defend KBell’s dress that night. It was at the top of her worst list. Kristen Bell read that post. We know she read the post because we got yelled at by her fans and she may have mentioned it on Twitter because when someone alerted me to it and I went to check, that’s when I found out she had blocked me. I don’t think she’s on Twitter anymore and if she is, well, maybe she’s unsearchable for me because, again, LOL, blocked. But I still watched The Good Place and Nobody Wants This, so… you know… she wins.
Speaking of Nobody Wants This, it was announced yesterday, Deadline exclusive, that the series has been renewed for a second season. And related to this…
Question from Jen in the daily chat:
The details of this are interesting, perhaps a mailbag question. Was Erin Foster the show runner for season 1 or no? Why does a show like this bring in new show runners? And apparently, they greenlit it before the release and positive performance - what makes a streaming network decide to do that?
Lainey’s Answer:
Erin Foster is credited as the creator of the show but not the showrunner of season one who was Jack Burditt. The Deadline article referenced above, reported by Nellie Andreeva, that broke the news about the season two extension explains it as follows:
“[Erin] Foster and Nobody Wants This executive producer Craig DiGregorio were announced as co-showrunners when the then-untitled series was officially ordered by Netflix in March 2023. Less than two months later, the WGA strike started, lasting five months. When it was over by the end of September, Nobody Wants This was on a very tight schedule, with filming slated to begin in January so the series can meet its delivery date.
Because of that, I hear it was all hands on deck, with [Steven] Levitan jumping into the writers room for a stint, and comedy veteran Jack Burditt, one of Levitan’s top EPs on Modern Family, was brought in to help. Amid some behind-the-scenes turmoil, Burditt eventually took the reins as a showrunner of Season 1, sources said. Foster’s priority remains writing for the series, which will continue to reflect her vision.”
If you read between the lines, this sounds like a sanitised version of whatever happened behind the scenes. They were in a time crunch, and the “behind-the-scenes turmoil” is that there were too many cooks in the kitchen. The co-showrunners were originally supposed to be Erin and Craig DiGregorio. Then Steven Levitan, who was initially just supposed to produce, entered the creative chat. Steven Levitan is Modern Family and Just Shoot Me!, a veteran of network television. So now you have so many voices in the writers room and competing visions.
You remember my aside above about “the first half of the season”? This is what I mean. I enjoyed the show overall. But there are a lot of inconsistencies in tone over the episodes. Some ideas are hinted at and then dropped or hurried. For example, the dynamic between the sisters, Justine Lupe’s character and Kristen Bell’s, is underdeveloped and then rushed. Too much time is spent on their parents, and it doesn’t go anywhere. They were starting to get at a deeper connection between Esther and Rebecca – which would have given both characters more dimension and perhaps addressed the criticism of the show’s portrayal of Jewish women – but they ran out of road. All of that makes sense now that we have this information about what was going on in the writers room.
Interestingly, Duana sent me this – here’s a screenshot of a comment that was left underneath the Deadline article in question, from an anonymous commenter who claims they were in the room:
It’s of course possible that this was submitted by a random, a troll, someone pretending to have inside information. But the details are… pretty insider. I’m not saying I totally believe it, but I’m having a hard time brushing it off.
The good news, though, is that it all seems to be sorted out. I know it sounds confusing that two new co-showrunners have been brought in, but it might actually be for the better. Erin Foster may not be suited to showrun. Yes, this is her story – but a good writer isn’t always an effective leader, and a showrunner is both a creative AND a leader; she will still have an important voice during the writing process in the writing room; and this might be what she’s now come to prefer.
They’ve brought in two people with experience, Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan from Girls. That’s a series that is much closer in tone to Nobody Wants This than Modern Family. They’ve been showrunners before, they can create, and they can lead. Which sets the show up for a much more organised, much less messy ride than what it may have been during season one; and with a more structured writers room, they’ll be able to fix the story issues that made the show feel a bit sloppy.
Question from Lexi:
I’m wondering about who decides what links to embed to other articles. On Monday, Stephanie’s take on empowerment post-divorce had a few links to specific articles and culture events from times gone by. Does the author of a piece include the links for Emily to embed, or does Emily have an amazing memory whereby she recalls such examples while editing?
Lainey’s Answer:
The links in Stephanie’s piece earlier this week were all articles that she chose. For the most part, each writer chooses their own links. There are occasions, however, like after an award show, where I will add social media links to another writer’s post, in editing, that I think might work to make their point – particularly when it involves showcasing a look. In general, though, the individual authors attach their own references. What I’ll do on the days that I’m editing is decide whether or not to link to them or embed them, like a tweet or an IG post. Stephanie, for example, often just links to reaction tweets to make her point and I prefer to put them right in the post instead of having you click on them because I think it adds to the reading experience for you to see them.
That’s not to say Emily doesn’t have an amazing memory. But her strength is in sending links to me (often from Instagram) when I’m having an uninspired day. My girl is a secret weapon!
Sarah has some thoughts on this, too…
Sarah’s answer:
For me, it’s basically college essay rules. If there’s a quote, direct or indirect, or facts/figures/times/dates, link to the source. If a thought is jumping off someone else’s original idea, link to the source. If there is an inside joke to be made, link to the source and see if anyone gets it (I have a long-running link-joke in this vein I’m not sure anyone cares about, but no, I will not stop).
I am terrible at checking social media, though. Like I’m proud of myself for remembering to check Instagram for my Lupita post and putting in my own links. 99% of the time, though, Lainey and Emily are putting social links in my pieces for me.
Question from Elizabeth MacLeod:
A question for Sarah - lots of actors have producer credits on their work, but would you agree that many actors of the millennial and Gen Z cohort, 35 and under especially compared to the older generation, actually produce, develop and are involved in the nitty gritty of many of their projects? With the way the industry has shrunk especially in the last 15 years no one outside of the A+ list is being given or sent projects, so the younger gens have to develop their own stuff and hustle. Also, I think it’s much more normalized to be involved on a project on multiple levels than it was in the past?
Sarah’s answer:
Well, everyone still considers it a point of pride to reach the “offer only” level of success, meaning they’re not auditioning, they’re getting scripts and given the choice of accepting or declining at will. But joining that benchmark is reaching a place where an actor is taken seriously as a producer, like Margot Robbie’s star as an actor rose right alongside her star as a producer. Her company, LuckyChap, has cool clout and a top-tier reputation since they’ve put together multiple projects that have gone onto Oscar nominations (most recently they produced the excellent coming-of-age dramedy My Old Ass).
The shift does fall along a generational line, but I think that has less to do with age than it does economics. The older actors had a chance to make huge fortunes off residuals and royalties which the younger actors have now missed out on. So as the economics of the industry have shifted, there was less need for older actors to jump into producing as a bulwark against that sea change, though some, like Reese Witherspoon, did it anyway. But you also see younger actors who got famous as kids, who slipped in before the residual door fully closed, also not necessarily diving into producing.
For instance, Scarlett Johansson. She’s been famous since she was a kid, she got in right under the wire before the residual system collapsed with the advent of digital/streaming in the late 2000s. She has a handful of producing credits to her name—including a couple executive producer credits with Marvel—but we don’t talk about Scarlett Johansson: Producer the way we talk about Margot Robbie: Producer. It just wasn’t a necessity for ScarJo, at least until more recently. She’s approaching 40, that’s when women typically take more control of their careers in Hollywood, making work for themselves when Hollywood stops offering. To that end, ScarJo is currently directing her first feature.
And yes, to your last point, I think it IS more normal now for actors to be involved behind the scenes. People used to consider actors with producing credits purely a vanity thing, but now you have to stop and actually check if the actor contributed to the project in development and so forth. Vanity credits still exist—getting a producer tag can be part of someone’s compensation package, you can pay people differently when they’re listed as producers and not just actors—but I think the balance has tipped to where actors credited as producers typically have done some level of real work on the project, such as developing the material. Things HAVE changed in the industry, and I’ve said for as long as I’ve written for LG, it does not behoove younger actors to sit around and wait for job offers, it’s much better to be proactive and make the work you want to do.
Question from Carrie:
I’d be curious to hear the Lainey / Sarah view points on Canada’s Star system. Over the weekend with a born & raised US (from the South) friend we chatted about that aspect. No idea on our pockets of Canadiana. Shawn Desmond, Keisha Chante, Friendly Giant, Blue Rodeo, Mitsou. She claimed it was like US regional differences, I see it was more than that.
Lainey’s Answer:
Your American friend, from the South, had no idea about “our pockets of Canadiana” but, honestly? How many Canadians are super into our Canadian entertainers? The truth is, the Canadian star system just isn’t that strong. This is a conversation we’ve been having forever. Maybe it’s our proximity to the United States that results in so much of our domestic pop culture being overshadowed by American films, television, music. Maybe it’s inherently Canadian to not get super hyped about our own stars until, frankly, they get validated in America.
I was actually thinking about this over the last few days because I saw a headline out of Korea. There’s a film called I, The Executioner that opened in South Korea on September 13 and just topped the box office for the fourth straight week, beating out Joker: Folie à Deux on its opening weekend. I know, I know. Joker was a flop. But that’s a fourth week film against a first week film, a Hollywood film.
I, The Executioner has now grossed almost $50 million at the Korean box office, from a cumulative audience of SEVEN MILLION VIEWERS. I know you’re tired of me talking at you about Korean drama series. And you’re tired of me talking at you about K-pop. But Korea is productive in all three areas – film, television, and music and that work is supported at home. They certainly have their share of problems, but this is a much more robust star system than what we have in Canada.
I work within the Canadian star system. It is shrinking, and this is terrifying. Because there is so much talent here, but the infrastructure is contracting. Yes, as always, everywhere, there isn’t enough funding. But it would also help if there was more interest from the home audience. So, never mind about Americans not knowing us. Do we even know us?
Question from barelypink:
This might be more of a Sarah question, but I'd love Lainey's take too. I love a good repeat actor/director collaboration, especially when you know they love to work together and bring out the best in each other. But hearing that Emma Stone is yet again starring in Yorgos Lanthimos' new film (their fifth movie together) felt like a big huge yawn to me. The excitement is completely gone. So I'd love to know what motivates actors and/or directors to collaborate together more frequently. What actor/director pairings are your favorite (both currently and historically) and which ones should really take a break from each other?
Sarah’s answer:
Laura Dern and David Lynch, Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz, Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio (he gets the best work out of Leo), Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst, Nora Ephron and Meg Ryan, Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant, Hitchcock and Jimmy Stuart, and Hitchcock and Grace Kelly, though I generally feel bad for blondes in Hitch’s vicinity. Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon, that’s a fabulous duo for the ages. It’s sad they apparently had a falling out because I don’t think Will Ferrell’s comedies since he stopped working with Adam McKay have been as good, but the other side of that is Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, who have made some truly bizarre and funny movies together.
The key to a lot of these collaborations is letting time lapse between projects together. The issue for Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos is that they’ve made five movies together in less than a decade, with Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness coming out back-to-back and now Bugonia which is currently in production. The rapid-fire repetition is what makes it feel stale. If I hadn’t just seen Emma in Poor Things, would I have noticed her performance in Kinds of Kindness felt less than fresh? Probably not. I would have had time to fully process and put away Poor Things. Which is why Yorgos should work with Barry Keoghan again. It’s been a minute, those two should get back together and see what they’ve got in the tank.
Question from Annie S in the JLo thread this week:
Ok, may the Universe help Jenny from the Block get out of her own way, as we all should, and truly land in a safe, stable, adoring place with a person one day.
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY!! LAINEY!!!! VANITY FAIR! Is that a lace catsuit with a mesh overlay? Sorry if this is on your Instagram already (will go check) but could we see the whole thing? Those shoes!
In closing, fuck Ben Affleck forever.
Lainey’s Answer:
THANK YOU!
For those of you who missed this, I am featured in the October 2024 issue of Vanity Fair (with Selena Gomez on the cover). The print version and the online version are a bit different. The print version, which you can see on my IG embedded below, is basically a “My Stuff” questionnaire: beauty products, style favourites, homewares, etc. The online version, which you can see here includes all of “My Stuff” at the bottom of the article – a carousel to click through – plus an interview.
I have bought an embarrassing number of copies of the magazine – some for my ma because she’s been sending them across Asia, haha, and some to keep; they will live on the coffee table in our living room forever and ever and ever. In ten years, when someone comes over, they’ll see an old copy of Vanity Fair, because when am I ever going to be in VF ever again?!
I am indeed wearing a lace catsuit, but the top part of the fit isn’t mesh, it’s a tulle dress with a drawstring waist. Here’s a full body shot.
There were two outfits that I wore on that shoot. Vanity Fair selected the white look, but here’s the alternate. Please note, this is the first time I’ve shared this photo, so would it be OK if we kept this here?
Credit to my stylist, Simone Faloona, for both looks. And Caitlin Cullimore and Nikki Strachan for hair and makeup.
But mostly, credit to YOU! All of you who’ve been reading LaineyGossip.com all these years and keeping us around for two decades, omg, to the point where the people at Vanity Fair know the site and …maybe… even a little bit respect it?
I know we say this a lot but please know how grateful we are. We hope to keep this going with your support!
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
I feel like Anne took a bullet there for nothing just to avoid having it blow up. Personally, I think this reporter was a bit out of line. She tells her she's going to ask her to sing, Anne isn't into it, and she does it anyway when the cameras are rolling? What about adjusting on the fly and reading your subject. To me this is a bit of a publicity grab by the reporter and Anne is in a no-win position.
What really gets me about this Kjersti Flaa woman is how she's using her past work as a way to remould herself into an obvious right-wing baiting outrage machine. Her videos are all styled like "anti-woke" crap on YouTube and mostly seem to be mean towards other women (she was also posting a lot during Amber Heard's trial about how Johnny Depp was SUCH a gentleman to her so obviously he's not a bad guy, which tells me all I need to know about her.) I'm sorry that Anne felt the need to apologize to her, but then I remember that the Les Miz era was when she was treated like a pariah for "caring too much" about what people thought about her, so I don't blame her for wanting to nip this in the bud.
As for actor/director collaborations, my personal favourite is probably Antonio Banderas and Pedro Almodovar, if only for the sheer range of drama and sensuality they created together. Find someone who loves you as much as Pedro loves Antonio.