Mailbag for October 6, 2023
Small-op complications, non-megawatt actors, Jodie and Joshua, golf gossip drama, and more
Dear Squawkers,
We launched The Squawk a month ago tomorrow and we hope it’s been a fun ride for you because it’s definitely been SO rewarding for us. As promised when we started our Substack, this is a place for extended conversation about what we’re covering on LaineyGossip and, for those who are interested, more inside baseball about not just the industry but on how we get our work done. So, on that note, you may have noticed that LaineyGossip is dark today. We actually weren’t planning on it, but here’s what happened:
Emily, our site manager, celebrated her birthday yesterday, Thursday. Happy Birthday Emily! So, she had previously requested to have today, Friday, off. Monday is a holiday in Canada so she’s getting an extra-long weekend. Emily does all the posting on the site and the photo editing and general site management and when she’s not around, Jacek is responsible for posting. Sarah and I have no idea how to get articles onto the site. I barely know what the program even looks like. We just write and we send off a Word document and we move onto the next thing. So without Emily and Jacek, nobody is reading anything we write.
Jacek, then, was supposed to sub in for Emily today. But… on Monday he started feeling a bit shitty. And on Tuesday he felt even more shitty. And on Wednesday morning he tested positive for COVID. As I write this, he’s been fighting the fever and the aches, and he hasn’t gotten out of bed in 48 hours. So, obviously, he can’t work… except he’s actually the one who just sent out this email blast because, again, Sarah and I don’t do the tech.
This is our small operation that is vulnerable to illness and other unforeseen occurrences. Which is why, more than ever, we appreciate your support here at The Squawk in helping us keep it going. Now onto your questions this week.
Question from Rachel T:
How can non-megawatt actors afford the upkeep on, well, being an actor? Agents, managers, lawyers, PR/social media reps, assistants, glam squads, clothes, trainers, beauty treatments/procedures. Plus living in expensive cities. Even with the endorsements and side hustles? Are those expenses tax deductible? How much of it do studios even pay anymore? Do brands pay them to fly out for fashion shows? I remember Sydney Sweeney saying she HAD to work back to back and do endorsements. My guess is you have to make at least $5M a year to break even on all that. It feels like every red carpet appearance maybe costs like $2-5k? Would love any insight on the income vs expenses math for actors, and how much this profession costs to maintain.
Sarah’s answer:
The short answer is, they don’t. SO many aspiring/jobbing actors are in credit card debt (often on top of student debt). The cost of auditioning—gas to get to casting offices and lighting/cameras/etc for self-tapes and/or Zoom auditions adds up—the cost of clothes, hair, and makeup to go to events when you’re not important enough to warrant a stylist, flying yourself to New York or LA, sometimes now Atlanta, to audition for a role you might not get, paying your own way to work on a project you believe in but isn’t paying you a living wage (a lot of actors have at least one of these on their resumes from their early days), it’s SO expensive to become an actor, never mind the insane cost of living in New York, LA, London, Toronto, the places (English-speaking) aspiring actors are most likely to live.
This is why we’ve seen so much attention paid to nepo babies lately. People understand nepotism happens in every industry, but it’s becoming so prevalent in creative industries because regular people are being priced out of even trying to become an actor, a musician, a writer, et cetera. We are at the threshold where if you don’t have a family wealthy enough to foot at least SOME of your costs while you’re trying to break through, you won’t be able to sustain yourself long enough to make it. The push back on nepo babies is really about pushing back on an obviously broken system that basically says creative industry is only for the rich.
Lainey’s Answer:
I’ve told this story before but it’s relevant here, so I’ll tell it again – a few years ago I interviewed an actress who’d been styled by Law Roach but she wasn’t working with him for this particular appearance. She looked so fucking good (no surprise) in the Law looks and she really, really wanted to keep it going but as she said, “He’s so expensive”. Law’s fee is his fee. That’s what he’s worth. I’m not having a conversation here about him being expensive. Look at his track record: he SHOULD be expensive.
Anyway, when the actress was working with Law, it was when she was promoting a big budget, big studio film. And fees for styling and makeup and hair etc are often built into those press tours and paid for by the studio. I will always appreciate what Zoe Saldaña said, TEN YEARS AGO, in The Hollywood Reporter’s Power Stylist issue:
“Having insinuated themselves into the national conversation, stylists also have become increasingly valued for their impact on a movie’s bottom line. Says Zoe Saldana, whose stylist, Petra Flannery, is No. 2 on THR’s list, “We’ve managed to convince a lot of directors who now have respect for what we put together and for Petra’s essential place in a huge press tour like Star Trek or Avatar.” When Saldana takes a memorable turn on the carpet, “Those directors are like, ‘Oh my God, Petra really knocked it out of the ball park,’ and you’re like, ‘Yeah, she did.’ She killed it, which is very important for me and for her and for selling a movie.”
I know we all, or more of us anyway, appreciate this now, in 2023, but in 2013, which was around the time Instagram was exploding, people in general weren’t as appreciative to the fact that what celebrities wear is a business advantage – not just to themselves but to their projects.
Having said that, not everybody has the budget of a big movie studio and when I was interviewing that actress, she was promoting a book. Definitely not in the same ballpark for expenses. She might not have been going out-of-pocket on her glam, but even if the publisher was paying, it’s a whole different level of bank account.
So how do the non-superstars afford the upkeep? At the beginning of their careers, a lot of them go into debt – they have to pay for acting classes and headshots and beauty and transportation and etc etc etc. And they take any job they can get. This is why it’s been so insulting to so many non-famous actors over the last few months, especially the background actors, with this whole conversation over A.I. There are people chiming in online or “sources” who are friendly to the AMPTP or the tech industry all like – likeness in perpetuity isn’t a concern, all they need is to review it with their lawyers in the contract!
When the day rate for background actors is only between $100-$200, how are they fucking affording a lawyer who charges three or four times that (at least) to look over their contracts and besides, they don’t get contracts, really, duh.
But even with the big budget studios, Hollywood budgets are getting smaller, period. There are many reasons for this, but one of the reasons is conglomerate ownership. The massive corporations that are owning so many of the studios now – they claim they care about art but the first priority for them, as it is in any corporate environment, is share price and how big of a cut the shareholders will get. And they will cut and cut and slash and cut some more in order to make more billions for those board members.
This is why so many celebrities are looking to endorsements. Yes, brands will fly them places, put them up in the best accommodations, pay for their styling, and their assistants, and send them a cheque on top of it. Which they need. So that they can go out-of-pocket when they have to on their other appearances that aren’t brand related. And also be able to handle the mortgage and the payroll for their staff.
But this doesn’t necessarily just apply to the mid-range actors. Sometimes even the big names run into lean years. Remember what Jennifer Lopez told Rolling Stone last year? Here’s the paragraph:
“In fact, one of the defining features of Lopez’s fame is that, despite the wealth and luxury it has provided, there is still that disconnect — between where Lopez came from and where she is, but also between where she is and where she thinks she could be. One year she was on the cover of 46 magazines. Her music has helped make Latin pop mainstream. But she never won that Golden Globe. Nor was she nominated for an Oscar despite near-universal consensus that she should have been. It wasn’t even that long ago that she was basically broke. This was when her twins, Emme and Max, were toddlers and she was in the process of divorcing Anthony and her label had dropped her and her album sales were lackluster, and she was over 40 and no one would cast her in their movie and she wanted to trade in a car. “And my business manager was like, ‘Nope, you can’t do anything right now,’” she says. “I was like, ‘Really?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s not make any moves right now. Let’s just wait until you can work again.’”
And then she signed on for American Idol. Which, to be honest, I totally side-eyed at the time. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. But that’s why it’s always a mistake to underestimate JLo. American Idol was exactly what she needed, and it made her more famous than ever. But from that experience, you can appreciate why she hasn’t stopped. We can get more into this with the next question.
Question from Laura Gamboa:
Do you think we'll ever know what really happened with Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson? Like, is it really possible for a celebrity couple to keep their private lives totally private, even in this world where everyone can become an informant and leak information? Because with this couple, I really want to know! They really seemed perfect for each other.
Lainey Answer:
Maybe one day one of them will talk about it? And if they don’t? Sure, it IS possible for a celebrity couple to keep their private lives private. Moving out of New York or LA definitely helps. I live in Toronto and there are a lot of celebrities coming in and out of this city and, in general, I’ve found that shit doesn’t leak out of here. There are a LOT of people who know a LOT more about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s early days in Toronto who haven’t run to the Daily Mail; there’s a certain leak culture in LA and New York that hasn’t quite travelled into other cities.
But it also depends on the couple. If we’re talking about Jodie and Joshua specifically – I’m going to take this in a direction that leans more on the business side of gossip and what we were just talking about with the finances and budget question above. Jodie only broke out in 2019 in Queen & Slim, which was her first feature film. I remember I wrote about how she was credited in the trailer for the movie: “Introducing Jodie Turner-Smith”. That’s only four years ago and while we might all know who she is now, she’s still relatively new to the game when you consider that two of those four years were spent during the pandemic.
Jodie and Joshua met in 2018, they were married the following year, the same year as Queen & Slim. She was so good in that film. There was even early Oscar buzz. And then…what happened? What’s the next starring role in the next film? Jodie, for sure, has worked on a few projects since then, but on screen, in film and television, she wasn’t riding momentum the way Scarlett Johansson did when she broke out after Lost In Translation. Or Jennifer Lawrence after Winter’s Bone. Or Emma Stone after Easy A, which was her first leading role. Or Rachel McAdams after The Notebook.
Hollywood wasn’t throwing jobs at Jodie Turner-Smith, and that’s an embarrassment on Hollywood. At the same time, a lot of people were meeting her for the first time as Joshua Jackson aka Pacey Witter’s girlfriend-then-wife. So as shitty as this is to say, some of her celebrity is related to being part of a celebrity couple. Which they then leveraged with a few endorsements, a big one being J.Crew.
But then, what she did, brilliantly, is use fashion to build her celebrity identity beyond her marriage. (Zendaya and Law Roach also used fashion to kickstart her ascent.) We now look forward to Jodie’s appearances, we look forward to the looks. She has established herself as a red carpet star.
To go back to your question though about privacy… you can be more private, I guess, if you’re not doing endorsements and you’re not generating work through your appearances. But some actors don’t get to choose “just acting” as their job. And the way Jodie has strategised her career over the few short years she’s been famous, she’s had to make the moves that were available to her, some of which involved leveraging the public interest in her personal life.
With all that in mind, let’s bring it back to why she and Josh broke up. My unscandalous theory is that it has to do with career management, and the fact that her public identity has changed since the beginning of their relationship. She is, arguably, more culturally relevant than he is now. Part of her work is being at the fashion shows, being on the red carpets, and that might be a difference in their individual lifestyle preferences. It’s not the sexiest speculation, gossip-wise, but that’s the direction it seems to have been moving in over the last couple of years.
Question from Rachelle G:
Meant to put this in for this week, but Lainey and Sarah help clarify why late night and daytime talk show hosts like Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore who, I would imagine are SAG-AFTRA members, are able to return to hosting but not be considered scabbing now that the writers’ strike is over?
Sarah’s answer:
The talk shows were never off-air because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. They were off-air because of the WGA strike. Yes, talk show hosts are members of SAG, but they’re covered by the “network television code”, or “net code”, which is a separate contract from the basic agreement between the union and AMPTP. The net code is currently intact, so the hosts can work without scabbing. Same goes for SNL cast members, who are covered by the net code, not the basic agreement. SAG actually just released a statement about SNL being under the net code and thus cleared to work.
The basic agreement covers “dramatic” work like films and scripted television, while the net code covers “non-dramatic” work like talk shows, variety shows, and reality programming (when it comes to reality TV, the net code protects people like hosts, judges, and other industry professionals, such as the pro dancers on Dancing with the Stars. It doesn’t cover the individuals who feature in shows, like the real housewives, who are not unionized at present). Drew Barrymore was in hot water for crossing the WGA’s picket line and intending to work with non-union writers during the strike, not because she, herself, was on strike. She was actually never on strike as she is covered by the net code.
Question from Myra:
I wondered if Lainey and Sarah could recommend their favourite Substack sites? I feel lost here and have no idea how to find anything good. And I haven't seen anything I like on Substack Reads. Thanks!!
Sarah’s answer:
Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study, the Fug Girls’ Drinks With Broads, Hunter Harris’s Hung Up, Allie Jones’s Gossip Time, Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas, E. Jean Carroll’s Ask E. Jean, Vince Mancini’s The #Content Report, Michelle Lee’s Go Ahead, Try Me.
Question from Betts:
I’m curious for your take on how podcasts fit into the celebrity ecosystem now. It seems like everyone in Hollywood outside of the few Movie Stars has at least one podcast now. Are these just an easy revenue stream or do they actually translate to other opportunities? How lucrative are they really (outside of the juggernauts like Smartless or Archetypes)? What’s your take on the oversaturation and if we will hit a threshold at some point?
AND RELATED…
Question from Stephanie C
Hi Sarah and Lainey, I saw that Patrick J Adams deleted a post with old pictures of Suits because of the SAG strike and on Smartless, they won’t even say the names of movies or shows but The Office Ladies pod is still seemingly creating new episodes about The Office. I’m curious what difference is? Are Patrick and Smartless being overly strict, and the Ladies are not?
Sarah’s answer:
Treating this one as a two-fer. At the top tier, podcasts fit into the celebrity ecosystem the same way liquor, lifestyle, and beauty brands do. It’s just another revenue stream for rich people. In general, celebrity podcasts are awful and uninteresting, as most celebrities are deeply boring people (the ones who ARE interesting, don’t podcast). Smartless, for instance, drives me nuts. It’s only fun listening to Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes grind each other’s gears for a few minutes. Beyond that, they’re bad interviewers. And do those guys need the money? No. It’s just an easy, additional revenue stream for celebrities, which so far, isn’t translating into more acting or filmmaking work in their real career.
Which is where my biggest issue with celebrity podcasts comes from—they don’t need it, and other people DO. The podcast bubble was driven by companies over-investing in podcasts primarily from celebrities, whether from Hollywood, the world of politics, whatever. They overpaid on the top end and destabilized the industry for a lot of normal, non-famous people who have the skills and personalities to become successful hosts and turn an idea they had into something that sustains them.
It’s especially egregious because industries like liquor and beauty require a lot of startup capital, which is where celebrity names and access can bring value, to open those doors and raise capital for initial operations. But podcasting? Relatively low up-front costs. Theoretically, anyone can do it. And if you’re talented and interesting and you put in the time, you might change your whole life talking about true crime or ghosts or maritime disasters or whatever niche thing you’re into. But the celebs just HAD to get at it again, and seriously jeopardize an entire economy that was growing nicely to support middle-class creators.
I will add, pursuant to the previous discussion about how aspiring/gigging actors afford life, the celebrity podcasts that irk me are the ones hosted by A-listers and B-listers who have a lot of other opportunities for earning income that doesn’t involve tanking a growing industry for people who DON’T have that kind of access. Everyone made a big deal of Spotify ending high-profile deals with the Obamas and the Sussexes, but a lot of middle-class podcasters lost their deals, too, and they’re not famous, and they don’t have anything to fall back on. Celebrities have to be careful when they enter new industries that they don’t even accidentally tilt the economics away from the middle, which is what happened to podcasts. For now, anyway. I do believe it will rebound and there will be less celebrity podcasts when it does.
As for The Office Ladies and other watch-a-long podcasts, or behind-the-scenes industry podcasts, my impression is those all recorded and banked episodes pre-strike. It’s another loophole-ish situation, where they probably shouldn’t be posting new episodes at all, as shows like The Office and Parks & Rec are struck work, but TECHNICALLY they can because they recorded before the strike(s) began.
Question from Rainy Beth:
For Lainey (and Jacek!) how often do you golf? What are your handicaps and who are your favorite golfers and why?
Lainey’s Answer:
Thank you for asking this, even though nobody else cares, LOL. But I fucking care and I love playing golf so I’m going to answer this but turn it into a media analysis first. So, if you’re still reading but don’t fuck with golf, KEEP READING because this is important!
There was some controversy this week coming out of the Ryder Cup about Patrick Cantlay and why he didn’t wear a hat during the tournament. Seriously, they created all this fuckshit about a fucking hat. And the US team was losing badly. Anyway, it all started with this tweet:
And then it became a thing with fans on the course taking their hats off or something to taunt him. Which didn’t work because he played lights out and drained some crazy putts coming in. But anyway, the US Ryder Cup team has denied the hat rumour which is now known as “Hat-gate”.
Again, THIS IS A RUMOUR OVER A HAT.
But my bigger point is this…
To the people (mostly men) out there constantly scoffing at what we gossip about where celebrities are concerned and how frivolous it is and how sports have so much more gravitas…
Bullshit. Because you told on yourselves with this mess with the hat. Hat-gate and the way people analyse Taylor Swift’s clothing choices and whatever necklace she’s wearing or whatever colour of dress some Housewife of Whatever City wore to the reunion show to send a message to whoever she’s fighting with that week? It’s the SAME. It’s GOSSIP.
So the next time some asshole tries to get all superior about sports, throw the goddamn hat story in his face and tell him to shut the fuck up.
Now, to get back to the question…
We golf every weekend in the summer. So far this season I have played 31 rounds of golf. Jacek has probably played a couple more than me, but we are each other’s most regular playing partners. He’s not having a very good season (sorry Jacek), so his handicap is 8.7 right now. When he’s having a strong season, he’s around a 5 handicap.
My game has been improving steadily over the last few years. I’ve broken 100 more times this season than I ever have over my career. And Jacek thinks that by next season I might even be sub-95. My best score this season is 96.
My favourite golfer right now is probably Rory McIlroy. That said, I don’t love Rory as much as I hate the golfers that I hate. I hate more golfers than I like golfers. I hate Phil Mickelson the most. I hate Bryson DeChambeau. I hate Patrick Reed. And I used to hate Brooks Koepka but now I love to hate him because he’s such an entertaining prick.
By the way, none of this hate has anything to do with LIV Golf. I’ll save my thoughts on LIV for another time, but for now, what I’ll say is that I don’t hate them because they play on the LIV tour. I hate them because they’re assholes and they were assholes before LIV.
Thank you for letting me talk about golf because Sarah would hang up on me if I tried it with her.
And on that note…
Once again, thanks for being here and letting us ramble and chatting on all the threads and adding so much more to our gossip.
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
So Emily has the same birthday as Travis Kelce. And I, someone with -50 interest in the NFL, knew that without having to check. What a time to be alive.
Also, sorry, one more - the "hidden" costs are so interesting to be b/c that is the part of the nepo baby discourse that never comes up. It's WAY easier to get a dress for an event if you are, say, Maya Hawke then Jane Doe. It's not just the social capital to know the right people, it's the financial resources to do all of the things you need to do to be in the rooms.