‘The Studio’ Episodes 3-8: Midseason Awards, A-List Cameos, and Best Fake Movie

Speaker 1 This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel.
It's called Ringer Movies.

Speaker 1 If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck because every episode of The Rewatchables in the big picture now on YouTube.

Speaker 2 Like Bill said, Ringer Movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, The Rewatchables, as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history, and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities.

Speaker 2 Search Ringer Movies on YouTube and experience the joy of Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera.

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Without internet, you wouldn't be able to hear my beautiful voice right now, and businesses wouldn't be able to stay connected the way they need.

Speaker 1 So, what if I told you you can get free business internet forever with Spectrum Business? Just add four mobile lines, get business internet, advanced Wi-Fi, and Security Shield for free, for life.

Speaker 1 No contracts, no added fees. All you have to do to find out how you can get free Spectrum business internet forever at spectrum.com/slash free for life.
That's where you go. Restrictions apply.

Speaker 1 Service is not available in all areas.

Speaker 2 This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Carvana makes car selling fast and easy from start to finish.
Enter your license plate or VIN and get a real offer in seconds, down to the penny.

Speaker 2 If you accept, Carvana will come pick up your car from your driveway, or you can drop it off at one of our car vending machines. Either way, you get paid instantly.

Speaker 2 It's fast, transparent, and 100% online. Car selling that saves your time.
That's Carvana. Carvana.
Pickup fees may apply.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Press East TV podcast. I'm Sean Fenny here with Craig Horlbeck.
Craig, this is our first time recording a pod together. How do you feel? Is that right? Just me and you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, definitely. Just me and you.
We've had you on the fantasy pod. Yeah.
Talking jets. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm sort of the Matt and you're the Sal in this equation, right? I was actually wondering if you were going to say I'm the Sal or the Quinn. Thank you for saying Sal.

Speaker 2 You are the Sal. We're talking about the studio.
This is a bit of a catch-up episode. Me, Bill, and Joanna did talk about the first two episodes and some of the third episode.

Speaker 2 At the beginning of this season, this is a new Apple TV Plus show that is produced and directed by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg.

Speaker 2 And it is a massive parody, satire, loving homage to the absolute inanity of working in Hollywood. And the show, I would say, has broadly been a huge critical success.

Speaker 2 And I have absolutely no idea if people in the real world beyond our LA and New York denizens are engaging in it. Well, it's number two on Apple.
I don't know what that means. Me neither.

Speaker 2 But it's been consistently number one or number two, which is a good sign. It just got renewed for a second season.

Speaker 2 Also a good sign, right? Absolutely. Yeah.
I think also you are the first person in my life who came to me and said, have you seen the studio? Yeah.

Speaker 2 When we first got screeners for this show, you, of course, are the producer of The Town. Yeah.
And the host of The Town, Matt Bellany, makes some cameo appearances on this series. Yeah, no spoilers.

Speaker 2 No spoilers. The town podcast has been in, I think, the first episode or the second one.
So we could say you're in the pocket of the studio in some ways. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm angling to get in season two. Oh, you were not invited to this season?

Speaker 2 That's too bad. Okay.

Speaker 2 But this show is, it's fascinating. The conversation that me, Bill, and Joanna had was, I think, defined by this, like, who's paying attention? Who's this for? What's this about?

Speaker 2 In the aftermath of stuff like Larry Sanders and the player and this long history of Hollywood self-satirizing.

Speaker 2 To me, this show is working really well as both a broad comedy and an insider story. Do you feel the same way? Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm probably too in the bag for this show to be objective because this is like everything I've ever wanted in a television show. So I really love it.

Speaker 2 When you say that, what do you mean? Not only do I have I wanted to work in media or Hollywood, I've always found it to be,

Speaker 2 the glamour, the sexiness of it has always been very attractive to me. And it's everything you want Hollywood to be in the best and worst ways, which is why I really like it.

Speaker 2 It shows you like the backstabbing and the self-importance and the vanity of it all, but it's also very glamorous and sexy and cool it really is to me kind of a it's honestly just kind of a workplace comedy that looks awesome yes and it is less i think going in i thought there was going to be more arcs more narrative build and there kind of isn't i'd like to explore that with you a little bit um matt remick is the seth rogan character he at the beginning of the series was named the head of the continental studios which is clearly a large historical movie studio but maybe not quite at the top of the heap in terms of Disney and Netflix.

Speaker 2 It feels like it's more in the vein of a paramount.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it feels very closely modeled on real world events. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But the energy of the show is complicated.

Speaker 2 And I think one of the reasons some people have had a hard time hooking into it, but I think feels very true to the experience of working in Hollywood is there are no heroes on the show.

Speaker 2 And in fact, Matt, the lead, is kind of a tragic dipshit and has not through eight episodes really turned that arc around in any meaningful way.

Speaker 2 In fact, he keeps kind of digging a deeper existential hole for himself, despite the fact that he is, in theory, in one of the five key jobs in movie making. You know, he is incredibly powerful.

Speaker 2 He has the ability to green light films. He can work with his favorite artists if he wants to.
And yet he's kind of a miserable schmuck.

Speaker 2 I see. Yeah.
And it's because I think this show is tapping more into curb. than it is hacks where there's conflict and this resolution and character growth.

Speaker 2 It kind of is just, let's tune in this week to see the misadventures of a Hollywood executive crew at a studio.

Speaker 2 And that's the only criticism I've heard is that people thought it was going to be more

Speaker 2 honestly like serious in terms of its growth and the character development. And it's kind of just like

Speaker 2 Seth and Evan wanting to tell people that

Speaker 2 the behind the scenes of Hollywood is just as chaotic and embarrassing as you think, but we also kind of love it. And it's really funny.

Speaker 2 And it's just as funny what's going on behind the scenes as sometimes what you're seeing on screen. Yeah, I think it's a fascinating show, too, about

Speaker 2 essentially, it's not just that the studio executives are buffoonish in some ways and that they think that they are creative.

Speaker 2 And in fact, they are actually impeding the creative process of movie making, but that when you are a boss and in charge of a creative endeavor, it's basically hard to seem cool or good in any way.

Speaker 2 There's not really like Matt Remick, in theory, aspires to not just making meaningful movies that make him feel great great about the work that he does, but to do a good job at this job.

Speaker 2 And he wants people to like him. And he wants people to like him.
And a lot of the show is how quickly people abandon their integrity when it benefits them. Yep.

Speaker 2 And that's like every character in the show. I mean, the Ron Howard episode, episode three is a perfect example of this.
Everyone is like, I'm single-handedly saving film.

Speaker 2 And then one of them has to deliver a negative note to Ron Howard, and they're like, actually, I'm never going to do that. Yes.
Because I want Ron Howard to like me.

Speaker 2 The passing of the baton is really interesting.

Speaker 2 I had heard that Ron Howard was the very first celebrity who signed on to appear in the show, which is very interesting because it tells you a lot about how this show is constructed too, that they need these critical names to make the show make sense.

Speaker 2 And it does the same thing that a show like Curb does or a show like the Larry Sanders show does, where they take famous people and they portray a kind of darkened version of themselves.

Speaker 2 Or it takes a famous person and they play a character that exists within this world that is created around it.

Speaker 2 And it's a very clever delineation between who gets to be themselves, who gets to be a character.

Speaker 2 This is a world where Seth and Evan don't really exist, which is kind of an amusing way to think about this.

Speaker 2 But it is also a world where Olivia Wilde, for example, is a successful but complicated and maybe deeply flawed filmmaker, which is something that most people who follow this stuff somewhat closely might know just from seeing the trail of press around Don't Worry Darling.

Speaker 2 And they managed to convince somebody who incurred all this negative press about the making of that movie to do something somewhat similar in The Missing Real, the fourth episode of the show?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I always think it's a good look when a celebrity plays into a stereotype about them. I think

Speaker 2 it's a humble move. I think it's a great play for your ego.
And

Speaker 2 I also think a lot of the reason why this stuff works, and

Speaker 2 it's probably why a lot of celebrities and people agreed to cameo is, and I'm curious what you think. The show doesn't really tap into any macro major issues in Hollywood.
Like

Speaker 2 it kind of hints at them. It points to them.
Yeah. But they're not really getting into streaming.
Like the word streaming might not even be uttered in the show, maybe once or twice.

Speaker 2 AI is not a huge part of this show. There was a point made about it in episode seven in casting, in the, in the Kool-Aid casting episode.

Speaker 2 It became a point of rejection and revulsion at the end of that episode, but it wasn't really explored.

Speaker 2 It was just the same thing you hear over and over again, which is AI bad, taking jobs away from people. And that's basically it.
But then it ends. And then the next episode begins.

Speaker 2 And that's no longer, you know, each episode is its own. You can kind of just jump into the show and watch an episode and kind of have an idea of what's going on.

Speaker 2 But like the theatrical decline, franchisification, that stuff is all kind of floating around it, but none of it is actually driving the story.

Speaker 2 I guess the Kool-Aid of it all is a major plot point. But even that, again, it's not like people are really

Speaker 2 Like the Kool-Aid thing, Matt's character is not really being hurt by that throughout the season.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, in fact, I had, it's interesting that they even brought that film back into the center of the story three or four episodes since they had last really discussed it, because it felt like the show had become this self-contained situational comedy where each episode was just a different problem that they had to deal with in that space.

Speaker 2 It isn't a serialized drama. in any of the ways that we come to expect with a show that looks this good from a big, fancy streamer and big stars.

Speaker 2 That's why it's so confusing, I think, to some people is they're like, this looks maybe better than almost, and this looks better than some movies. The filmmaking is amazing.

Speaker 2 My favorite episode of this show is still the second episode, which we talked about the warner and the filmmaking style and the location shooting and all that. It's just remarkable.

Speaker 2 Like it's just really, really high-level stuff. And they're just using one camera, one lens.
It's like a 35-millimeter lens, and they're shooting everything on it.

Speaker 2 And it honestly sounds like it's incredibly laborious to execute on this show. I think Seth said on average, it's 16 takes per warner shot.

Speaker 2 And I would say each episode, it can have, I don't know, 10 to 15 wonners. Yeah, that's, it's just a tremendous amount of work that they're putting into what usually doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 I think part of the success of the show, too, is even though it's not a serialized show, it is a deep character study.

Speaker 2 And there's a lot of time spent, not just with Matt, but with Sal Saperstein, like Baron Holt's character.

Speaker 2 We're getting some time with Chase Sue Wonder's character and seeing what it's like for someone who's kind of on the younger side of the executive stage.

Speaker 2 Catherine O'Hara's character, who's sort of the Amy Pascal stand-in.

Speaker 2 So you are like, you're building a relationship with the characters in the series, even though their lives doesn't feel like they're being charted in a linear way.

Speaker 2 It feels like we're kind of like dots on a map that are moving all over the place. And it's not really emotional.
It's more, it's more professional.

Speaker 2 I would have said that all the way up until the end of the Golden Globes. Yeah, when he sat in the limo.
I mean, he's sitting alone in the limo and Matt, I was like, oh, this is a tragedy.

Speaker 2 I didn't realize that this show was a tragedy. Now, you've seen Ahead, I haven't seen Ahead.
We won't spoil anything about episodes nine and 10.

Speaker 2 Maybe I think you and I will come back at the end of episode 10 to do another pod about this.

Speaker 2 But again, like I said with the end of the other episode where the next one begins and the conversation about AI has just ended, It's kind of the same thing.

Speaker 2 I don't want to spoil nine, but like the sadness that Matt feels at the end of eight doesn't really carry. Like they are more contained.
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 Do you feel that that is like reflective of the life of people that you are close to in the business?

Speaker 2 There is an epic sadness inside of Matt. Yeah, it's funny though, because there's a perpetual anxiety and sadness and stress in everybody.

Speaker 2 And then the next day you wake up and you just kind of start all over again and you try to win again the next day. And that's kind of what this show is.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's an interesting exploration of people who get into a job that is literally in the city of dreams and they think that they're pursuing their dream.

Speaker 2 And their dream is just a mechanical bureaucratic shame factory. Yeah.
And it looks gorgeous on purpose. I mean, the Continental Studios is like the coolest building I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 2 Seth himself, Matt Remix character is the best dress character I've ever seen in a show. It's immaculate.
And all the other characters look great too. Yeah.
It's a fantasy inside of a nightmare.

Speaker 2 It's fascinating. It's a surrealist show in a lot of ways, even though it feels very real.
This is also on purpose. They don't get into the personal lives of really anybody.

Speaker 2 We do see a couple of moments where we see Chase Dewey Wonders boyfriend, and there's like kind of a sex scene. You know, we see that Matt.

Speaker 2 That scene jumped. Did that kind of the sex scene kind of like stick out? It did, but it also felt

Speaker 2 real to me like this is what happens with 30-year-olds in these jobs living in dingy apartments in Silver Lake. You know, I was like, there's something real about about what's happening here.

Speaker 2 I used to be one of those 30-year-olds, you know. Did this happen to you? Not that sexy specifically, but you know, this lifestyle.

Speaker 2 I think that there's like a lot of wisdom in the real experiences of the people, but it's pitched at a level that is like

Speaker 2 anxiety-inducing, I would say. A lot of the show is very dependent on Matt's anxiety and the anxiety that filters down from him to all the people that work with him.

Speaker 2 And we haven't even mentioned Catherine Hahn's character. She, too, is like a speedball of rage and exultation in every episode that she appears in.

Speaker 2 It's a really odd show. I can't.
It is. It's not.
Larry Sanders and the player are not the comparisons for this show.

Speaker 2 I think it's more Veep. It's more Veep.
That's exactly what I was going to say. And then one of the creators, Alex Gregory, worked on.
Worked on Veep. And that same sense of desperation and panic.

Speaker 2 And we all fucked up today, but tomorrow's a new day. Yeah.
And like, this is what it's like at the top. It's stupid people having stupid conversations in beautiful places.
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, LA is more beautiful than D.C., but yeah, your point is taken.

Speaker 2 Any other thoughts on the show?

Speaker 2 I mean, the most recent episode is the Golden Globes episode, which I thought was kind of masterful and seemed like it was incredibly hard to pull off because there's so many famous people in this episode.

Speaker 2 That sounds like it's easy to do when you're making a TV show, but it's not, to get somebody to come in and work for two days. Especially when every shot is, every take is five minutes long.

Speaker 2 You got to get Adam Scott to hit his mark and Dave Crumholtz to then hit his mark and then it cuts to the hacks creators on stage and Rami Youssef then comes out after. It's extremely impressive.

Speaker 2 I spoke to somebody who worked on the show and they were like, yeah, Apple basically just recreated the Globes. It felt like you were at the Golden Globes.
It's an amazing achievement.

Speaker 2 They're just the Beverly Hilton. Yeah.
And the show is, every episode is incredibly propulsive because of that filmmaking style.

Speaker 2 And I thought this episode was quite funny because it was a real exploration of why Matt will never be happy and that the thing that he thinks he wants that will help him.

Speaker 2 He's pursuing it in a way that is more desperate than any normal person would.

Speaker 2 Like what happens in that episode, I would not say specifically would happen literally but a version of someone working overtime to get thanked publicly literally does happen yes the the fight for credit for example is so important to people in hollywood they are defined by their the the like credit creep that comes with every project so i don't know there felt something very true about this episode too and very curb uh also i don't know if I don't know if there are teleprompters for award speeches.

Speaker 2 That was news to me if that's something that happens. If you get to contribute your potential speech, if you're going to win, maybe it's a Globes thing.
Yeah, but it may be.

Speaker 2 We've cooked up some awards. So we're trying to cover six episodes here.
So this is a pretty broad swath that we can talk through. First award, best episode from three through eight.
What's your pick?

Speaker 2 Casting. Episode seven.
Okay. When they struggle to cast the Kool-Aid movie in the attempt to not be racist.
And they don't actually care if they are racist. They just don't want to appear racist.

Speaker 2 The perception of racism. The perception of being racist is driving the entire episode.

Speaker 2 Um, the funniest bit to me is every like five minutes, they come up with a new cast that they think is the answer, and then it cuts back to one of them staring at the bulletin board with everyone's headshots on it.

Speaker 2 And the best one is at the end when they decide that actually every character in the movie is going to be black, and then it cuts to Chase Sweet Wonders character, and she goes, Okay, now this is racist.

Speaker 2 So good, yeah, it's a great episode. I really like that one, too.

Speaker 2 I especially like the conversation with uh, with Lil Rel when he's there, so he's sort of examining whether or not he's like the decider for them. Him and Z-Way.

Speaker 2 Are you saying that a black woman could not be with a man like Kool-Aid?

Speaker 2 My favorite episode, I'm inclined to say The Golden Globes because I just watched it yesterday and I thought it was a pretty amazing feat. But I thought the funniest episode was The War,

Speaker 2 which is an episode that kind of sidelines Matt in favor of Sal and Chase Wonder's character.

Speaker 2 And they're kind of like in this battle for deputy supremacy, this idea of their them having the ability to choose a filmmaker on a project to get Matt's attention on a certain project.

Speaker 2 This sort of like

Speaker 2 death battle that you tend to see in the second tier of leadership in a lot of places like this. And it's a lot of generational philosophy

Speaker 2 at war. Yeah, this sort of like white guy in his 40s with kids who hate him and he feels like he's lost.

Speaker 2 And this young woman who's trying to be taken seriously, woman of color who's trying to be taken seriously and sort of like presenting herself as the future of the business, but doesn't quite know how to do her job yet.

Speaker 2 It's the only episode, in my opinion, that really shows strong character growth. And it's funny that it's the one without Matt or that sidelines Matt.

Speaker 2 You actually, that's where you get to see Quinn's home life. You get to see Sal's home life with his daughters, which is a hilarious scene we could talk about.

Speaker 2 It's something I'd like to see a little more of in season two. And I'm kind of hoping that they'll let us go outside of the Matt Payne cave more.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know if it's, you know, you only have 10 episodes and these are short episodes and you don't really have time.

Speaker 2 And I, you know, if you want to just cut to those scenes, the one-er style, I feel like when you're at home with your family, maybe it doesn't translate as well. It's not as dynamic, you're right.

Speaker 2 No, yeah.

Speaker 2 I thought it worked pretty well, though, when Sal takes his kids out to the restaurant, and the camera is kind of whipping around the table, and their utter disinterest relative to his anxiety

Speaker 2 felt like very in sync with the show.

Speaker 2 But the reason that I picked it is because I think it has like the best visual physical comedy of the series, particularly the burrito throw, which is just an amazing.

Speaker 2 That's my visual gag for this award show, too, because that's like epic orchestration at the end of a wonner that is like magical, kind of Buster Keaton-style movie making to me that I absolutely loved.

Speaker 3 Sparkle throughout the night with Born in Roma fragrances by Valentino Beauty. Each bottle holds the energy of Rome after dark.
Donna Born in Roma blends luxurious jasmine with rich, creamy vanilla.

Speaker 3 creating a sensual and vibrant signature scent. Uoma Born in Roma fuses aromatic sage and smoked vetiver, leaving a lasting impression that lingers well into the early hours.

Speaker 3 Shop Born in Roma by Valentino Beauty, now at Ulta.

Speaker 4 This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Oh, what fun.
Nordstrom has tons of gifts under $100 for all your favorite people, all in one place.

Speaker 4 Like beauty and grooming sets, Ugg gifts, jewelry and toys. Neat ideas? Check out gifts from Ugg, Skims, Dipteep, Free People, Stanley, and more.

Speaker 4 Plus, explore their amazing gift shop in stores and online. Free gift finding help, free shipping, and order pickup make it all easy.
At Nordstrom.

Speaker 5 Long day.

Speaker 2 Late night?

Speaker 5 Love putting on your makeup, but hate taking it off? There's really no better feeling than coming home, getting comfy, and removing your makeup with Garnier Waterproof Micellar Water.

Speaker 5 It easily removes even stubborn waterproof mascara. None of that harsh rubbing needed, and you don't even have to rinse afterwards.
It leaves skin skin cleansed, refreshed, and never dry.

Speaker 5 Head to Amazon to shop Garnier Waterproof MySeller Order Now.

Speaker 2 The first four, I think, kind of it's just Matt wanting to save Hollywood.

Speaker 2 And he loves movies, and he has the, you know, the great line in the first episode.

Speaker 2 I've always loved movies, and now I think my job is to ruin them. And then, you know, episode three with Olivia Wilde, he's championing the use of real film and paying for that and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 And then in episode five, I feel like you kind of get to see Matt settling into his job a little bit.

Speaker 2 And, you know, Owen Klein and Parker Finn show up and he's kind of being a dick to them. And he is kind of siding with Sal about, well, this needs to make money.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And you can kind of see that that Matt character, you know, he doesn't really grow, but he morphs. Yeah, he's becoming the Catherine O'Hara character.
He's becoming cynical in real time.

Speaker 2 And all of his aspirations for working with Martin Scorsese and making real movies have dissipated.

Speaker 2 They're not really indicating to us how much time is passing, although it's an interesting thing to think about because did this happen in a month?

Speaker 2 Did it happen in like six months It's a couple months. Yeah.
Is my guess. I agree.
We also have not really heard from Brian Cranston very much.

Speaker 2 His character who may or may not be Griffin Mill from the film The Player. His character's name Griffin Mill.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he was very present in the first couple of episodes because of his desire to get big projects going and to not make films, but to make movies, movies.

Speaker 2 Does that bother you, that phrase? How do you feel about that as the host of the big picture? Why not both? You know, like, I don't have to choose.

Speaker 2 We don't, there's not a popcorn movie can can be a film and a great work of art can be a movie. Do you use the words interchangeably?

Speaker 2 More or less, but just because I have to say a version of them like nonstop every day in my life. College paper, you need to do a little bit of a lot of synonyms.
It needs to have some synonyms.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 I don't delineate between the two, but

Speaker 2 I'm curious. I assume Griffin Mill will make a return near the end of the season.
Safe to say. A triumphant return, yeah.
Interesting. Okay, I look forward to that.

Speaker 2 My other favorite episode, I have to say, is the pediatric oncologist episode. The only one that hasn't come up yet in our conversation.

Speaker 2 Because it's, I mean, mean, this is more of a bottle episode that you could pluck right out of the season and it wouldn't matter. This one was very curbed to me.
One of perhaps the most curbed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yes. My sister-in-law is a pediatric oncologist in LA.
Does she look like Rebecca Hall?

Speaker 2 Blonde versus brunette. Okay.
But I could see her at one of those galas. Okay.
Her one note was like, where are these pediatric oncologists getting $100,000 to bid on golf?

Speaker 2 Good question.

Speaker 2 She's like, I don't know where they're working.

Speaker 2 It did have me wondering what Matt's salary is.

Speaker 2 I mean that he lays out. Was he layout 200K for that? 200K.
I actually texted Matt Bellany about this and he texted a studio executive and he guessed that Matt is making about 5 million. Interesting.

Speaker 2 That would be a lot to pay for golf in a sport he does not play. 200,000? Well, this is the curb of it all.
Larry David would do that in a heartbeat. That's a good point.
He is a buffoon.

Speaker 2 But yeah, this episode is nuts. And what's great about it is

Speaker 2 it's like Seth and Evan know how ridiculous their jobs are and what they do. And Seth and Evan, Seth's wife, I believe, does a lot of philanthropy in the medical world.

Speaker 2 So he goes to a lot of events like this. And I think he literally has these conversations where they're like, oh, didn't you make Pineapple Express? It's all about smoking weed.

Speaker 2 And he's like, well, yes, but that is art. And what I loved about this episode is

Speaker 2 you kind of seesaw back and forth between who you're hating, the doctors versus Seth versus Matt Remick.

Speaker 2 And they could have made it much more like, Matt is the idiot, the doctors are correct. But it shows that Hollywood still has this like

Speaker 2 self-importance to them where they're like, well, sure, but we still do matter. You may be working with children who have cancer, but we still do matter a little bit.

Speaker 2 You could argue that in this episode, Matt Remick gives his most unlikable and boneheaded social performance of the series.

Speaker 2 And yet, when you get to the end of the episode and they're outside the fountain, and he's saying to them, I'll give you the trip if you just tell me what I do is important.

Speaker 2 It's as important as what you do. Yeah, him saying as important as what you do.
There was a part of me that was like, he's not wrong. Like the arts do matter.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying that it is more important than curing pediatric cancer.

Speaker 2 It's not. But when they were like, we cure cancer and he's like, did you cure cancer?

Speaker 2 God, it's the headline. You know, he's not wrong.
So I think the show is like weirdly is so clearly aware of the absurdity and the silliness of Hollywood and show business.

Speaker 2 But there is a, this like little subterranean part of Seth and Evan that are like, we do make people happy and that matters a lot. And honestly, they're right.

Speaker 2 So as much as they want to curb themselves, curb stomp themselves in some ways, Matt is just getting absolutely annihilated at the end of every episode of the show now.

Speaker 2 I still think that they sort of believe in the magic of entertainment. Absolutely.
And the whole movie, I mean, the whole show is so romantic looking. It is.

Speaker 2 It also crests so beautifully in the Golden Globes episode in that kind of confrontation between Ted Sarandos and Matt Remick, where Sarandos,

Speaker 2 you know, this is just a fascinating cameo that the head of the studio of a rival streamer appears on an Apple TV Plus show at a moment in which Netflix is so far out in front of everybody else.

Speaker 2 And it's a show about making movies and putting movies in theaters. Yes.
And he, of course, is frankly the enemy of that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Ted Sarandos gets to look like the smartest guy in the room, the most grounded and intelligent person in the business. That's a really good way to put it.

Speaker 2 Because he knows, he identifies to Matt that he's not an artist, that he's the bean counter.

Speaker 2 And so he gets to have this sense of grace. And Matt has none of that grace.
Now, who knows if Sarandos is like that in real life?

Speaker 2 He's a huge movie lover himself. He does love movies, which is why it's so painful what has happened with Netflix to me and why they operate the way that they do, because he knows everything about it.

Speaker 2 He's a work in video stores. Anyway,

Speaker 2 I love that scene and I thought that that was fascinating and just amazing that it happened that Sarandos was, that Apple allowed him to appear in the show, that he agreed to appear in in an Apple show, that these are two streaming services that have an like an unhealthy relationship to theatrical, I would say.

Speaker 2 Apple on about to release Fountain of Youth Straight to Streaming, a film starring John Krasinski and Natalie Portman.

Speaker 2 And yet, like, this is Hollywood right now. Like, these are the most powerful people, the people who are making streaming TV shows.
It's fascinating.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's a self-awareness to it all where you get the sense that it's like even Ted Sarandos knows and probably does love going to the movie theater to watch a movie, but he knows the reality of the world he's in.

Speaker 2 And there's kind of the cognitive dissonance of like, he's doing the thing at Netflix, but he also understands the other side. And him being in the show, I think, kind of proves that.

Speaker 2 I also thought he was pretty believable as an actor. He was good.
He was really good. He gets a quiet moment to himself after Matt walks away, and he pulled it off.
He did. Also, he's in a water shot.

Speaker 2 Peeing all the way back out to the bar. Yes.
That's not easy. No.
Okay. What's your most believable Hollywood storyline so far?

Speaker 2 It's the Quinn character in the war, a young executive thinking it's their time to shine two weeks after getting promoted. That just feels spot on.

Speaker 2 What are you saying about your generation?

Speaker 2 You know, we want things expedited. Yeah, a little over your skis.
All of our bosses are old.

Speaker 2 Not here, but, you know.

Speaker 2 What are you trying to say? You are young. Okay, thank you.
Appreciate that. No, no sarcasm in your tone.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Yeah.
Blossoming more gray hair by the day.

Speaker 2 And then, I mean, you know, somebody working in media or the arts or whatever, conflating the importance of their job with a doctor also feels pretty accurate. That seemed realistic.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just did it right here on this podcast.

Speaker 2 For me, most believable storyline, I really enjoyed the Parker Finn, director of Smile and Smile 2, being brought in to remake his horror movie for the third consecutive time, which is retitling it Wink, which is a very soft reboot of Smile

Speaker 2 mere years after making it a smash sensation. I really like that sequence where...
Owen Klein in particular comes in to pitch against Parker Finn's basically his own movie.

Speaker 2 And he's presented by Quinn as the sort of A24 cool guy who's up and coming, which is something that we do see quite often.

Speaker 2 One guy makes one feature film, and then all of a sudden he's springboarded into a big Hollywood production. That's just, that is what happens.
Yeah. I thought both of them were quite good as well.

Speaker 2 Parker and because those are guys who are a little bit lesser known. But

Speaker 2 Owen Klein, though, Kevin Klein's son, and was an actor in his own right. He's Kevin Klein's son.
Didn't that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's Kevin Klein and PhBK's son, and he was one of the sons in the Squid and the Whale. And he has not acted in many years.
He was really good. He's very good.

Speaker 2 They did a great job with the cameos. They clearly have an eye for who would work.
I mean, even the big names like Scorsese in episode one really kills it.

Speaker 2 Okay, next category, least believable Hollywood storyline. I had Zack Snyder presenting Best Picture at any award show.

Speaker 2 That doesn't feel, even at the Golden Globes, I'm not sure Zack Snyder's given out Best Pick. Yeah, bit of a reach.

Speaker 2 Marty was not available on this day. Everything else felt believable.
Rami Youssef,

Speaker 2 all the people on stage, it all worked. And then Zack Snyder comes out.
He had had a funny joke, I will say, talking about how he's going to release his own Snyder cut of the Golden Globes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But every Golden Globes feels like the Snyder cut to me, but that's neither here nor there. Speaking of the podcast award that the Golden Globes will be giving out, how are you feeling about that?

Speaker 2 Is Ringer Fantasy Football angling for? Oh, it's why I'm doing this show right now. I'm campaigning.

Speaker 2 FYC has started. Yeah.
Well, you're putting in the hours. For me, at least people storyline.
I mentioned Matt desperately trying to get thanked by trying to take over the teleprompter.

Speaker 2 Was a little far trying to get inside the teleprompter during the award show yeah strained some credulity when ted sarando said that uh he requires everyone who wins an award at netflix to to thank him um i love that yep how how often do in your opinion do executives get thanked

Speaker 2 because the you know the catcheroo character was basically saying it never happens that's the job is you're in the background and your name is not anywhere i think what often you well for starters often the executive is the person who is most typically at war with the filmmakers, asking them to make changes, negotiating salary.

Speaker 2 They're seen as the person who is most responsible for blocking the things that the creatives want. So it's not common.

Speaker 2 I will say, though, that the Amy Pascal types, the sort of like ex-executive producer.

Speaker 2 is a name you hear all the time getting thanked. That kind of a person who understands the sensitivities of artists and is unshackled from the necessity of being a corporate steward.

Speaker 2 So that part makes a lot of sense. But Matt Remick getting thanked, I don't don't know.
Like, what's going to win? What won best picture of this year? Hanora.

Speaker 2 Tom Quinn probably did get thanked.

Speaker 2 Well, A24 is, it's a smaller independent studio. Neon, Neon.
Neon, right. Smaller independent studio.

Speaker 2 That feels, you know, you're taking more of a risk.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
When's the last time a big studio? Oppenheimer. I doubt Donna Langley was.

Speaker 2 She probably was. But you know what? Donna Langley is an interesting figure.
Her name was uttered in the Golden Globes episode of this show.

Speaker 2 Is widely considered not just very powerful, but very well liked and respected

Speaker 2 as an executive. So, you know, it could happen.
Will you thank Bill Simmons when you win? Win what?

Speaker 2 Best podcast at the Golden Globes.

Speaker 2 I 100%.

Speaker 2 Yes. I look forward to winning for my work on The Watch as executive producer.
Best guest daniel.

Speaker 2 Okay, most accurate character. I like this category.

Speaker 2 This is obviously a little hard.

Speaker 2 I'm not inside these studios, but it feels like although they are the most ridiculous and outsized, that the marketing team of Catherine Hahn and Tyler, Maya, is her name, Maya and Tyler. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Her trying to cling on to whatever Gen Z language she can and him trying to turn everything into a TikTok video or a dune popcorn bucket, I find is

Speaker 2 spot on. It is tremendously accurate.

Speaker 2 You know, Joe and Bill push back a little bit on me in terms of the way that that Catherine Hahn character is written and styled, but it is clearly based on at least one real person who I won't name, but who is in the business for sure.

Speaker 2 I think Catherine Hunt is crushing it. I love her.
I think she's so funny. I know that some people think it's too big.
I don't think it's too big at all. I completely agree.
I think it totally works.

Speaker 2 To me, the most accurate character is David Crumhol's agent character, Mitch.

Speaker 2 That's just, that guy's an agent. That is just a guy.
And David Crumholt has an agent, and he's been in Hollywood for a long time.

Speaker 2 And that is just a very recognizable, shit-talking, fast-talking, deal-wheeling guy. who exists.
We got to take a second to shout out Crumholtz. Crummy is the man.
He's been doing it.

Speaker 2 He's my beloved Bernard in the Santa Claus. The man with an Oppenheimer.
He's super bad. Who's doing it like him? I mean, he's OG Rogan, too.
He's been in that crew forever. And I love him.

Speaker 2 And he's kind of like, I feel like he's like a father figure to those guys because he was the older guy when they were coming up.

Speaker 2 Crummy is great. Okay.
Best cameo. You want to do top three? Yeah.
I'll start.

Speaker 2 Sarandos is definitely in the top three. Yep.
I'm going to give Adam Scott the third spot. He was good.
I'm always impressed with Adam.

Speaker 2 I always forget forget how easy it is for Adam Scott to just turn right back into kind of a bro. Yeah.
Kind of a dick, like the step brothers. Eastbound and down guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Eastbound Derek from Stepbrothers. He's so good at that that when you see him in severance, you forget that that's and Parks and Rec, he's not really like that at all.
Yes.

Speaker 2 So I love Adam Scott. And I think he was great in this with Sal.
And then number one, I think I'm going to give it to Anthony Mackey, who's an actor that I have like no,

Speaker 2 I like Anthony Mackey. She's fine.
He's fine. I have no real relationship with with him, but I thought he was great.

Speaker 2 And I think this was like, honestly, my favorite performance I've ever seen from him. He was weirdly committed in this part as Anthony Mackey, the producer of a Ron Howard crime drama.

Speaker 2 I think the fun thing about the cameo performances in the show is that you can't really half-ass them because of the one-ner nature of it. Yes.

Speaker 2 In Entourage or these other shows where there's cameos, it feels like, you know, a Bob Sagett can come in, be there for 30 minutes and bail.

Speaker 2 And this is like Anthony Mackey is staging out and plotting out long, complicated oneners that require a ton of emotional range and one shot, so much, you know, directing and camera movements.

Speaker 2 And I thought his turn to like, hey, man, the last 45 minutes is dog shit. And I've been lying, obviously, was really good and believable.
It was very, very funny. I agree.
He's wonderful in it.

Speaker 2 We already mentioned Z-Way and Lil Rell. I love that.
And Owen Klein and Parker Finn and Sarandos.

Speaker 2 So I thought Zoe Kravitz was phenomenal in the Golden Globes episode. Very, very funny.

Speaker 2 And just coming off of directing her own real first feature, Blink Twice, which was not nominated for any awards. Didn't see that.

Speaker 2 Not my favorite movie of 2024.

Speaker 2 What was the original name of that film? It was like Fuck Island or something. Pussy Island.

Speaker 2 Hard to believe it wasn't released under that title. Though it would have been a better title.
Yeah, she was great, though. Best fake movie slash which would actually work in real life.

Speaker 2 I liked Blackwing. This is the Zoe Kravitz

Speaker 2 movie that Mitch, her agent, is trying to sell to Continental Studios. I'm going to quote the Mitch character.

Speaker 2 Zoe Kravitz as a vampire assassin in a black bodysuit holding a red Glock dipped in holy water.

Speaker 2 Come on. What's your favorite part of that pitch?

Speaker 2 The bodysuit is enticing.

Speaker 2 The holy water is a nice wrinkle. I didn't see that coming.
Vampires are hot right now. They're checking everybody.
Incredible. Yeah.
Cinders too.

Speaker 2 Duh Apocalypse. It seems gross and weird at the outset, which is a shit-oriented zombie apocalypse movie starring Johnny Knoxville.
And yet, The Last of Us is very hot right now.

Speaker 2 And that's basically a mushroom zombie comedy or zombie drama, I should say. So I feel like this is going to happen.
This movie would absolutely work.

Speaker 2 I mean, a Kool-Aid movie that would probably could probably be made. It's just not so far from reality.
No.

Speaker 2 Do you like the name Duhpocalypse?

Speaker 2 I actually don't know if I get the joke

Speaker 2 or the pun in the name. I'm not sure I do.
It's diarrhea and apocalypse combined?

Speaker 2 Is that all it is? Or is there something deeper on this? Or is it duh, like, duh, you're dumb? Like, duh.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's both.

Speaker 2 A poop collyse. I don't know.
I didn't, I was like, oh, I think I'm missing something with this title, but certainly could be made. Johnny Knoxville is the perfect choice.

Speaker 2 Also, him insisting that it's a satire of medical disinformation. Wonderful.
Probably unanswerable question. This is borrowed from the Rewatchables podcast.

Speaker 2 How much would you pay for a private weekend with Scotty Scheffler in Ireland? What is the right amount to pay for that? Well, I'm a huge golf fan, but I find Scotty Scheffler boring as shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but you're getting lessons from him. Is that something I want? Yeah.
Like, do you want lessons from somebody who's the best ever?

Speaker 2 Like, would getting basketball lessons from Michael Jordan be good, or wouldn't you just feel horrible? No, if Steph Curry was like, let me teach you how to shoot threes, I would welcome that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but you're a Bay Area baby. You love the Warriors.
That's not the same. Regardless, if LeBron's like, let me show you some post moves,

Speaker 2 I would take him up on that.

Speaker 2 Also, golf is so... It's so lesson-based.
Like, Scotty Scheffler could give you three things that could change your life.

Speaker 2 I don't know. To me, there's like some goodwill hunting.
Like, you know how easy this is for me? Like, just like, what's Scotty going to tell me? I can't, I don't have his build.

Speaker 2 I don't have his mind. Were the wives going on this trip? The two male doctors were obsessed with golf and they were bidding on it.
And the wives were very supportive. Were they attending?

Speaker 2 I got to tell you, my wife would not be that supportive of a trip to Ireland where I played golf the whole time. Where you spent $100,000.
Yeah, she would not appreciate that.

Speaker 2 I guess they would go and they would get to explore the Guinness

Speaker 2 warehouse factory. I don't know.
Rogan and Evan Goldberg really

Speaker 2 still

Speaker 2 instill their silly humor into the show. There's a lot of Pratt falls.
There's a lot of swearing. Seth eats shit in almost every episode.
Yes. And the one in

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 pediatric oncologist one is fantastic. They cleverly mix in a stunt double

Speaker 2 and have him eat shit on the table and break his finger.

Speaker 2 But yeah, he's at the Ron Howard one, he like trips over a glass table. He's always eating shit, which is just like a kind of a really lovely, funny wrinkle that you want to include.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the show is very silent comedy, like I said, very like buster keaton charlie chaplin harold boyd um

Speaker 2 unanswerable question has matt had a hit yet

Speaker 2 uh well he i mean he theoretically green lit open

Speaker 2 zoe was it a hit though it was an awards movie you mean financially but has he had the success that griffin mill wants him to have you're saying after he took over this head role yeah because he obviously had the mk ultra franchise before but i don't know if there's been enough time for a movie to develop and come out good point yeah we just don't know that's the one tricky thing with the timeline of the show.

Speaker 2 Do you think Hollywood executives enjoy this show?

Speaker 2 It's a really good question.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to think of what the comp is for us, for if we saw something that was lightly satirizing our experience as professionals.

Speaker 2 Because don't you think executives watching something like Entourage, that's mainly making fun of actors and agents and how ridiculous they are? And that's easier to kind of get behind and pile on?

Speaker 2 Well, I'll draw you back to, I don't know if you were watching this show at the time, but when the fifth season of The Wire came out, The Wire was the most critically acclaimed show of its era.

Speaker 2 It had a small audience, but people loved it, all the way through the fourth season, which kind of culminated the drug trade storyline that started in season one.

Speaker 2 And then season five turned its side of journalism. And all of a sudden, critics got a little uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a little uncomfortable with the way that there was a spotlight on some of the unethical practices that the writers portrayed in the show.

Speaker 2 Obviously, David Simon was a journalist for the Baltimore Sun for many years, and so he was kind of drawing on his experiences.

Speaker 2 But that the reception of that season was much more muted, I would say, than the previous four, because it was people who knew about the world that was being portrayed and feeling like its lack of fealty to the truth annoyed them, or what they perceived to be a lack of fealty.

Speaker 2 In this case, I would imagine a lot of executives are like, that's cute, Seth and Evan, but you guys have it so easy and you have no real empathy for what my life is actually like. I would guess.

Speaker 2 I would guess. Yeah, I mean, and you have to imagine, though, now, I mean, Seth and Evan, they are executives now.
They have Point Gray.

Speaker 2 They are running a company and are kind of, this is a show they couldn't have made 10 years ago. 100%.

Speaker 2 And I'm sure that's a huge reason why they made the show is that they have now had the accrued experience of having a little bit of an understanding of what it's like to be Brian Robbins or Tom Rothman or, you know, Donna Langley on a lower scale with Point Gray, but still, they've had a lot of success over that time.

Speaker 2 Okay, last category, best use of LA.

Speaker 2 I think the architecture is quite stunning. I'm sure you're going to mention Catherine O'Hara's house, Patty Lee's house.

Speaker 2 You know, I was thinking actually of the house in the Warner is the one that was

Speaker 2 most breathtaking to me. The Reiner Birch House residence, which is in Silver Lake, where they shot that Greta Lee movie, which is sick.

Speaker 2 And I could tell actually where they were at the beginning of that episode when they're racing in the car in the sports car,

Speaker 2 driving up the hill in Silver Lake. I was like, I've been here.
I know where this is. Seth's house is also so perfect for his character.
No idea where I'm assuming that's in the hills.

Speaker 2 It's like simultaneously indoor and outdoor. I never know if he's inside or outside.
He's always wearing like a silk robe. Yeah, it's a bungalow.
Bungalow.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like his dojo. I feel like that's Seth's real house.
I imagine his estate is a little bigger these days, given the success that he's had. He also sells weed

Speaker 2 for a living. Houseplant, yeah.
What else? Any other stray thoughts about the show? I want everybody to watch it. I want more seasons of it.
I'm happy season two is here.

Speaker 2 I think the more you watch it and once you understand what they're trying to do, it's easier to just sit back and enjoy it.

Speaker 2 Like we said, some of the criticisms was like, oh,

Speaker 2 where is this going? I think it's a little more stressful than people thought.

Speaker 2 These are pretty stressful episodes. I mean, there's a lot of, I was sitting next to my wife, Liz, and during, I mean, the pediatric oncology episode, she's like, can't look half the time.

Speaker 2 The secondhand embarrassment, the Michael Scott, the Larry David, there's a lot of that there.

Speaker 2 And that might be kind of only for a certain type of person.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I think once you kind of know that that's what the show is and that's what it's trying to do, it's easier to enjoy.

Speaker 2 Do you think that the show needs to evolve that in any way to continue to hold interest? Because what Larry David accomplished and what Gary Shandling accomplished and I guess

Speaker 2 the office in some way, I mean, the office had that kind of counterweight of Pam and Jim, where you felt like you were getting invested in another kind of emotional strain of the office.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of emotional. Curb isn't like that.
Curb is just a pure soft toxicity for 30 minutes every week. Well, I think it's hard to do that in 10 episodes.

Speaker 2 I think the office getting, I think it's easier to build those those relationships over 24 episodes compared to eight to 10.

Speaker 2 This is one thing I have heard from people who work in the industry is what is redeeming about Matt?

Speaker 2 What is the thing, even if it's not, even if he's not a hero, what is the thing that you ultimately can invest in that you want to see

Speaker 2 something from him that is just not utter embarrassment and failure. Yeah.
What's funny about that is I don't know if this is redeeming, but I think it's relatable. I think he is a human being.

Speaker 2 And I think a lot of people are like, you can understand why he's doing the things he's doing. This is a workplace comedy.

Speaker 2 And a lot of these things, although they take place in Hollywood and our surrounding movies, these are just like a lot of issues that people have at their jobs.

Speaker 2 And so even if he's not redeeming or there's necessarily something you can root for or rest on, I do think what he's doing day to day as somebody at a job is really, really relatable.

Speaker 2 And that's something that you can clam onto a little bit. It's so interesting because I don't, that you don't strike me as like that at all.

Speaker 2 I do not sense the stress or anxiety of day-to-day work life in working with you no but you can you know the idea of like basically this whole show is people avoiding delivering bad news to other people yeah and it's things like that that you can understand um

Speaker 2 you know wanting to keep your reputation and wanting people to like you that is a lot of uh our jobs i think at least on microphone It's a perilous balance for me. I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much, Craig. This was fun.
Yeah. Episode nine and 10 are a real rollic.
I can't wait. We'll be back after the season finale of this show.
Thanks to Kai Grady for producing. Kai.

Speaker 2 Keep it locked on the Prestige TV podcast where the rehearsal, your friends and neighbors, and The Last of Us are being covered on a week-to-week basis. Are you digging any of those shows?

Speaker 2 I'm bad on my job. No, I'm not watching any of those shows.
Oh, my God. The rehearsal is absolutely fantastic.
Talk about uncomfortable

Speaker 2 if you think the studio is stressful. I watched a couple episodes of that show.

Speaker 2 It is in a league of its own. I couldn't support what he's doing anymore, but I need to, I'd rather somebody tell me about it than watch it.

Speaker 2 If you want to hear Charles and Jody talk about it, tune into this show. We'll see you guys soon to talk about the studio.