Blank Check with Griffin & David - Cabaret with Rachel Zegler

Episode Date: July 10, 2022

Wilkommen and Bienvenue to our “Cabaret” episode! Literal Disney Princess and musical theater superstar Rachel Zegler joins us to gush over Fosse’s 1972 film - a game-changer for the musical genre, and an Oscar-winning guarantor for Fosse’s cinematic “blank check” after the failure of “Sweet Charity.” Topics discussed include: the differences between the screen version and the stage show; Joel Grey’s Emcee being nearly cut out of the film; Liza Minnelli crafting her own unique look for Sally Bowles; Whether Michael York’s best role was on “Gilmore Girls”; and more! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Welcome and Bienvenue podcast Is that it or do you want to do more? Franchise podcast Je suis podcast Happy to see you Bleve rest Stay Welcome and Bienvenue podcast I'm losing it i lost it i lost it i lost

it i lost it the only reason i thought you might not do that is i don't you're not that adept with other languages no offense to you of course uh i can't believe you say that about someone who uh took french one seven times he took french seven i you gotta start with seven and go down that's i know that's what you do you start out french seven is just you're in a cafe smoking cigarettes and someone just makes conversation with you and you have to you have to keep up i'm great at ordering right well. Well, you point. No. No, I say it. Okay. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. For the record, I say it. He says it. I say it. Hamburger. Hamburger. I don't say ambagare.

Orangina? I say Orangina, Sifu Play. I'm not fucking Steve Martin's Spectre Clouseau though I know what to call it That's the opposite That's him struggling to order in English Right? Yeah he's French

He's trying to say I would like a hamburger Yeah Our guests can speak at any time At any time Just chime right in please save us save us no yeah yeah you're staying out of this uh great job griffin thank you i don't know i probably should have just stuck with the one line but i i i want i want to risk it basically you said welcome welcome podcast stranger stranger podcast right you kept you kept throwing podcast

in for different words which was funny yeah it was uh well thank you for saying it was funny i think it was up for debate but now it's finally been settled listen this is a podcast called blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david uh producer ben with us as always and uh this is a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce. Baby.

Right into it. I was like, is there a way to put a German word in there? And I couldn't fucking pull one. This is a me series on the films of Bob Fosse. It is called Pod That Jazz Cast. Nice. Thank you. Now, I want to ask our our guests it's not a pre-litigation it has been settled i just want to ask our guest i won't say whose pitch was whose the alternate pitch was pod that cast oh c-a-z-z-t sorry was that not the reaction that i should have given

it was the honest reaction i appreciate your candor of course candor and ebb my you're getting flipped a comedy point early okay david i just want to let you know that i googled uh what the german word for baby is and it is baby so oh so i did say it i got it fucking right on the first try yep uh our our guest today on the show i i think i think already a young legend of musicals. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. And dare I say it, because I hope you just now default to this being your primary credit, a literal Disney princess. It's true.

The rumors are true. You should just say literal. You should tell people, I'm a literal Disney princess. You cannot debate that. That will hold up in court. Yep. Rachel Zegler. Thank you. On the show. people i'm a literal disney princess you cannot debate that that will hold up in court yep rachel zegler thank you on the show it's like that clip of barbara ralph saying you are beyonce beyonce says thank you

i am not beyonce finally someone says it yeah not beyonce thank you is an incredible response rachel thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me. Thank you. It's so cool to be here. I should let you know that for the last couple of weeks, every time we've sort of talked about trying to schedule with you because you're being very generous with your time in the middle of busy filming

in a foreign country and crazy schedule and all this sort of stuff. Every time we were sort of like uh trying to hash things out david would just go why the fuck is she doing this show because i love movies but above all i love musicals so much and when you asked me to do this and to do this particular film which is a film that i'm passionate about not not only because of the film, but I love the stage show more than anything. So I'm just really excited to just talk about it. Right off the bat, can we talk a little about your history with Cabaret? Cabaret. I assume you would have seen the the revival you know i've actually met yeah i i never saw it on broadway oh wow okay yeah even though i grew up in like a close proximity to new york yeah that was never a show that i saw i don't really know why in the sense that i think the latest revival

was probably like 2014 is that right right yeah that's that's the that's the michelle williams alan cummings right and then emma stone was the the second yes and i think i was i think my parents might have thought i was too young at that point to see it but at that point i had already seen the film uh because i frequented my family frequented turner classic movies when i was growing up so whatever was on we'd just watch and so i i'd seen the film a couple of times it wasn't until i think i was like 15 years old and my local theater did it in clifton new jersey and my director who had directed me in fiddler on the roof and thoroughly modern millie she had cast her son chris and her daughter sarah as mc and sally bowls and she was so worried that it was gonna look so like nepotism baby ish yeah but they were perfect and the show was so astoundingly beautiful and the stage show gives such a new meaning to the music that if you

are only familiar with the film you would actually it would just go right over your head and the the stage show really just hits that home and so since then i saw a couple of other local productions of it because i was obsessed with it and then when i moved to london uh my boyfriend came to visit me for valentine's day and i did everything in my power please i did everything in my power to see eddie redmayne and jesse buckley in the west end revival and it was fantastic it was really really wonderful the direction is very interesting it's very different from what i've seen in the past again never seen a professional production of it live and it was super interesting and eddie redmayne was just shockingly like a

nimble mover and an incredible dancer that added a new storytelling aspect that I had never seen before with the MC and and Jesse was so uh beautiful a lot of people were saying um people that I was working with on Snow White who had seen it as well were like well Eddie is act one and Jesse is act two and that really it was the best way to put it. It was like act one was all about MC and act two was really all about Sally. And it was fantastic. And that's, you know, and then I rewatched the film last night.

And so that's my history with Cabaret. Cabaret. I want to see this London production. I know. Did they just leave? They both just left in March. All right, fine.

I'm not going. No, no, no. It's still... I have a couple friends saw it recently. It's Froffy and... Amy Lennox. Amy Lennox.

I don't know Amy Lennox. I'll say. I do know Froffy. Yeah. And Amy Lennox's performance on the Olivier Awards was fantastic. And so it kind of made me want to see it again.

Super expensive, super worth it, though. I am sort of embarrassed that I never saw the show live, that I didn't go to the last revival, which I guess technically was the legacy of the Mendes Marshall production has sort of just like, because even a lot of the international outposts of the show for the last 20 years were like transplanting their design choreography, right? Yes. And the whole, you know, concept of housing it in a club and you're sitting, you know, by a table and it's all, you know. I saw... I don't want to brag. And Rachel possibly wasn't alive when I did this, which is depressing, but also good and normal because I'm not old. I'm just

mature. You are the one correct age. I saw the 1998 production. So I didn't see it in London. I was too young for that, but I saw it with Natasha Richardson. I'm sorry. Of course you didn't see it in London. I was too young for that, but I saw it with Natasha Richardson. I'm sorry, of course you didn't see it in London. You grew up in New York City.

I am so jealous. So you saw Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming. And Alan Cumming in New York. And it did kind of blow my mind to the point that I think briefly I would say that Natasha Richardson was my favorite actress when I was

12 years old. She would have been so good in that favorite actress when I was like 12 years old because she would have been so good in that even though like I probably had not seen her well I'd seen the parent trap I was gonna say you'd seen the parent trap so I had seen her in at least one movie but I probably hadn't seen her in much else um but she was so cool and that was so incredible and Alan Cumming was so you you know, different from the movie version, which I probably, I don't know if, I probably hadn't seen yet. I'm not sure. I don't know.

I can't remember the timeline of all that. But anyway, that was cool. But yeah, I never saw the Michelle Williams, whatever, revival of the revival. I never, I, you know, people went after it at the time being like, well, she's not a strong enough singer. And like, and then there's the sort of the backlash of like, well, Sally Bowles isn't actually supposed to be that strong. Right?

You know, there's this weird tension with Cabaret where you can kind of play it amateurish in a way, I guess. Like that can be part of the drama of what you're doing. I fully subscribe to the character Sally Bowles not being uberly talented because then, you know, it adds to the plot of why her career kind of isn't taking off the way that she thinks it should. stardom that Liza Minnelli gives the role in the film where you're like why is Liza Minnelli in this like sad club when she's like a smoking hot babe who's so good at this babe who is the daughter of Judy Garland and her career can't take off right uh yes and she's doing like the these these numbers that you're like wow this is incredible people would be like running from all over the city to see this shit

but anyway we can get not to jump ahead there it's the thing it's the innate thing about uh liza that i think like fossy taps into really well here with there's just something a little too vulnerable about her which on stage I think you know if you're seeing her live uh it's is all about the connection with the audience and in a movie like this the way he shoots her even though she's fucking killing these numbers you're like there's something a little uncomfortable about it yeah you know it's it's a little too raw it's a little too naked and and how clearly she wants to be loved which is like the achilles heel of this character right right can i just speed run through because i've forgotten some of these because that production ran for so long the the 98 right and they kept on star casting sally bowls

uh i mean the the 2014 was unique to have like two people that big play sally and just be like two gigantic movie stars who both had performances that people had strong takes on and then the show closes right well sienna miller actually did it as well and then and then it closed sienna miller did it as well she was the last sally bowles yeah yeah this is interesting this was the 98 run okay not in order jennifer jason lee susan egan joley fisher gina gershon debbie gibson terry hatcher always struggle with this name melina canna caretti's canna caretti's canna caretti's from csi new york yes jane leaves molly ringwald brook shields leah thompson oh jane leaves leah thompson weird list right leah thompson would be so good

yeah yeah interesting right but there's a real range of different types of performers and different levels of comfort with musical theater and yeah i remember michael c hall being the mc i remember the posters of him ralph esparza neil patrick harris yes yes sort of pre you know adam pascal right adam pascal yeah john stamos norman leo butts exactly yeah john stamos who is he Robert Leo Butts did it is that what you just said yeah that must have been pretty early for him yeah yeah I mean you gotta you gotta really throw yourself around I mean it's a demanding role I mean that's like pre-wicked Norbert post Dirty Rotten Scoundrels I think it might be pre-Dirty Rotten

Scoundrels right absolutely has to be when was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, right? Pre-Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? Absolutely has to be. When was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? 2005. Yeah. So he does that right off of Wicked. Wow, this is going to be a musical nerdy episode, which I love. But what he had done, Rachel, was he had been in Rent for years.

Right. He was part of the replacement cast in Rent. Yeah. And I guess he jumps from that to the Cabaret revival. And then he does like, he did the last five years right uh well yeah that was his off broadway right yeah yeah god i'm sorry i just didn't even realize that the mendes production starts in 93 it doesn't come to broadway until 98 but that essentially 93 out here right it was out here yes with adam godley and yes rachel is broadcasting from london right i don't

know how yes oh sorry yeah i didn't adam godley and and the great jane horrocks little voice herself was was sally bowles love jane horrocks so good in that too um it is funny i mean i don't know like fossy's uh take on cabaret cast such a long shadow and then like you know uh 20 years later mendez comes in and then that becomes the definitive thing like everyone's riffing on for 30 years almost yeah i mean i it's funny i feel like he's the one coming as the one who sort of i cannot reinvent but he he he more hyperxualizes the MC, right? Versus the Joel Grey take, I guess. The MC in the stage production is the omnipresent spectator

and the puppet master of the whole thing, whereas Joel Grey didn't really get that opportunity because it was on the screen. Yeah, and because of the way he sort of fossey makes the movie realistic or whatever like you know he makes the songs diegetic and all that right although i love that too because i do love that the mc in the movie is this utter mystery that you you know that like you just you just have no idea what his relationship... He almost seems like he only lives on the stage. He's...

Yes. He feels demonic. He feels otherworldly. He doesn't feel like a literal presence. There's... I mean, jumping around here, but I've been watching Joel Grey interviews recently. I guess he did a memoir a couple years back. So like a lot of his

like 92nd Street Y style sit down long talk about his whole life. His memoir was called Master of Ceremonies. Well. As it should be I guess. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Fosse was like so burned by the response to Sweet Charity that he was

really at odds with like I don't want to be a musical guy. And he said the first cut he saw, that Joel Grey saw of Cabaret, Fosse did not let a single musical number play out in full. Like, they obviously shot all of this, and there was a cut of the movie

where Fosse was so like, I just don't want to fucking do the musical thing, that it was like you would get either just the first 10 seconds or the last 10 seconds of a song intercut in montage and no full performances. And Joel Grey was like, well, there's my career fucking out the window. And then every producer in the screening was like, Bob, what the fuck are you doing? This is a Broadway show. Yeah, they were like, first of all, no one ever sees this version of the movie ever again.

Put the songs back in, you lunatic. But it's funny to think of like Joel Grey watching this version where you have such a strong take on the structure and the musical numbers being so removed from everything. And then watching them just kind of remove them literally from the film and being like, oh, I have nothing to do with this movie. Hot take. This movie wouldn't work without the musical numbers. I think they're pretty good. No, I don't even think that's a hot take. I mean, it's a genuine, this ignorance of the political unrest outside of the Kit Kat

club is the whole reason the musical numbers exist. Completely agree. David, let's dig into the dossier because this movie certainly has an interesting journey the the fossey the fossey i'm sorry the bob fossey there it is our researcher has decided to call the dossier the fossey now which i love um yeah uh so rachel have you ever seen sweet charity bob fossey's sweet charity yes i. What do you think of that one? We just talked about it on the show last week. Well, as the world's biggest Chita Rivera fan, I have to say that I do like Sweet Charity.

I haven't seen it in recent years. I get the reason why it probably didn't do well at the time. It probably was ahead of its time in a strange, strange way. But I also, you know, I remember watching Fosse-Verdon and seeing all the, you know, dramatized behind the scenes of Sweet Charity. And it all makes sense and how they, you know, they didn't think they had a real star at the helm. And they thought it should have been Gwen Verdon and all these things.

But it served a purpose. It's a musical movie. And it fits that formula of those, right? It was released, what, late 60s? Was it late 60s? 69. It's like the year the Hollywood musical is kind of collapsing. Yeah, because you just had a whole year, a whole decade of West Side Story and Mary Poppins

and all of these incredible films coming out. Sound of Music. And then the decade sort of ends with Hello Dolly and that and Dr. Dolittle and all these huge cacophonous kind of big disappointment movies that were expensive. But Sweet Charity is good. Overhyped. Sweet expensive charity is good overhyped charity

charity is good it just it just didn't it just didn't do well and it's a it's a shitty category to get stuck in of this like genuinely well thought out well-made movie with great performances that just fell in a terrible time for a musical movie to be made or released. It's right. Weird transitional time. Yes. For a guy like Fosse who had been on such a hot streak leading up to that movie, and, you know, he's 42 making his first film, but his career was always sort of growing, growing, growing, legacy growing,

even when he had, you know, flops, things that didn't work on broadway i don't think any of that dinged him as much as sweet charity did because it was treated i think like well he's just that's this isn't his medium that's not a thing he's good at rather than this show missed you know on broadway proven himself enough that like if you had a flop it was like well this one didn't work um but right because sweet charity did badly fossey's very burned by that he does not want to go back to stage i assume he sort of thinks that will look like a retreat uh or whatever so he's trying to get some stuff going he tried to make a movie a big deal of on madonna street the uh italian film about small-time thieves right he's working on that for a while i like that he was like i need a different fucking italian i need a different movie to turn into a movie musical yeah uh that falls

apart um he tries to make a movie called the eagle of naptown which is like a sort of midwestern kid makes good musical uh thing it doesn't. It eventually gets turned into the movie Breaking Away many years later. Wild! Which is not a musical, of course. No. Famously. Right. But for whatever reason, that project that he started the ball rolling on,

eight or nine years later, becomes Breaking Away. Holy shit! Do you see number three here? I do. So he got connected to a movie called Burnt Offerings, which is a horror movie. A movie that we know very well. We know and we pay a lot of respect to. shit do you see number three i do so he tried he got connected to a movie called burnt offerings which is a movie that we know very well we know and we pay a lot of respect to which i rachel once could not identify i would like i've never heard of it and then people yelled at me for i've never heard of this random horror movie from the 70s if it was like some horror movie i've never heard of in like a thousand people yelled us and they were like canonical it's a classic it's a classic burnt

offerings uh which is not a musical at all of course but i guess he's just kind of like well what if i do a haunted house movie um that doesn't that doesn't come together then he goes to dinner with neil simon and hal prince probably a pretty fun dinner uh and hal prince says, I was going to make a cabaret movie, but I had to turn it down because I'm too busy preparing to direct Company on Broadway. Right. Pretty cool to think about that.

Just in general, Hal Prince being like, couldn't do cabaret, have to do Company. Anyway, obviously, Hal Prince, pretty much the greatest Broadway director of all time

or whatever, however you want to think about it. Right. Hall of Fame guy. And he tells Fosse, look, yeah, no, it's all set up. They've bought the rights. Liza Minnelli is attached to star. Jay Preston Allen's writing the script.

Cy Feuer is producing it, you know. And Bobby, Bob Fosse, Bobby apparently just corners him and is like, tell me how you did Cabaret. Like, break it down for me every moment. I want to know about this. And after that, he basically just starts lobbying the studio. He's like, I have to do Cabaret. You've got to let me at Cabaret, which was a big pitch because it was a big hit show. And he was not, the Hollywood was not interested.

Yeah. Like Hollywood was like no the hollywood tried to get billy wilder they tried to get gene kelly they tried to get joe mankiewicz they all said no and so uh and i like this quote i like this quote this is emmanuel wolf at allied artists which is the movie the studio that made this movie he said that i knew the best time to get a talented director was after a failure so it's sort of like that idea of like you know he's been knocked down a peg he'll be whatever hungry he'll be ready to you know earn everyone's respect back that's why that's why he went for fossy i i want to just put a pin in jay press now and make sure we do a little jay press and alan sidebar

in a bit i we keep moving forward through this. Well, we'll talk about it. It comes up again. Great. Because there was a lot of fighting over the script. But J. Preston Allen is a legend. I assume that's what you want to bring up. A fucking legend. And I think an undersung legend.

And I want to talk about her a little bit. But let's move through time. Sure. Anyway, yeah, they bring on Bob Fosse. And yeah, I mean, look, Rachel, you mentioned you watch Fosse Verdon. You're aware of the legend around this guy. He he's a pain in the neck he's he's a huge he's a very strong personality he's very difficult to control he you know he wants he clashes with every producer he works with he immediately uh starts fighting over like you know the cinematographer they're

gonna hire all that kind of stuff but I want to note something he is not the one who has the idea to eliminate all the songs that are not set at the club that had already been established by the producer sy fewer he was the one who was like we need to do that and bob fossey agreed like i i'd like you say griff i don't want to make a classic musical i because he's burned by sweet charity i want to do you know a diegetic musical where we're not just having people singing as they walk down the street and hanging the laundry or whatever he thinks he thinks like they've got to break the mold on that now i love people singing while they hang the laundry personally but me too yeah but i get that in the 60s that maybe had just gotten stayed or whatever, right? You know, just the idea of doing something different was exciting. Yeah, it's so funny here.

There's this fewer quote. As I saw it, if one or two of the numbers didn't work, we had a flop. On the other hand, if all eight worked and the picture was a little short on dramatic direction, we could still have a hit. My bet was on the numbers. I had to protect the musical numbers. And there's nobody better on musical numbers than Bob Fosse. the musical numbers and there's nobody better on musical numbers than bob fossey sweet charity is like a movie where every musical number is a showcase not just for choreography but like his filmmaking techniques and then this is a movie where it feels like in a certain way

agreeing to do the musical numbers is the thing that gave him the access to do the other parts of the movie that he was maybe more excited to do, or just show that he could do a test himself for the first time, you know? Sure. Yeah. He may, he was given not much money, 175 grand and 7.5% of the profits,

which I think was a good deal for him eventually. Yes. Yeah. Pretty good. Tiny budget. This movie had a $3 million budget. It's very cheaply made which is crazy um and he goes to berlin to start you know or i think berlin it's certainly germany they shot

this in germany um to to start work but uh yeah but he does he brings in neil simon to try and rewrite jay press now in script because she does he doesn't like uh whatever he doesn't like various things about it he's he's look he's a pain in the ass like i love his movies but every time you read about him he just seems like a huge pain in the ass yes yeah he bring bring in another guy hugh wheeler uh who worked on the script and they tried to get him a co-writing credit but he didn't get one uh he's listed as a research consultant but what do you want to say about jay allen griff i mean first of all if you just hit the bullet points right of her career at a time where there are very very few female screenwriters

and very very few uh real careers you know that span decades she fucking writes marnie yeah adapts the prime of mystery and brody amazing movie cabaret and then like in the 80s i mean other stuff in between obviously funny lady right right but in the 80s like rebuilds herself with fucking sydney lumet as like the most like fucking hard-edged brutal like prince of the city and then does death trap with him like she's uh incredible uh and right the fucking uncredited on la cage a faux did the prime mystery and brody adaptation for broadway as well but she's one of these people where like a she's kind of one of those uh amazing undersung secret script doctors who like worked on fucking everything and at a certain point got so burned out on the industry but she

was like just send me the fucking thing tell me how many days i have pay me the money and i'll fix it right like i don't need to play this whole game i'll just come in here be a surgeon but she like i i don't know i i think she if you read about her and her like tenacity and and her stubbornness i mean she was like i think notoriously a uh a difficult pain in the ass person as well like fossy and a lot of her best collaborations with were with people who were also sort of perfectionist control freaks she has a great quote about fossey here which is i didn't find him the happiest collaborator i ever had for a man who dealt with women as much as he was obliged to let's say he had an extremely parochial view of women so she was definitely looking at him askance as he was trying to like tear her

script up or whatever but uh she does get the credit and the oscar nomination yeah uh she lost her friends for coppola obviously yeah um but yeah she's cool she's a badass i don't know yeah she wanted to be an actress she was frustrated by it she got married too young and then she was like i need some way to support myself to get out of this marriage and then was like i don't know i'll write if you write you have no boss and i read a lot and she just like fucking wrote a novel and a play and then started writing screenplays and was just like yeah what are you talking i'm just gonna write like she is one of those people i find fascinating in that i don't think she ever accepted credit for how uh much of a trailblazer she was sure because she was just like what are you talking about i just sat down a typewriter i

wrote shit uh she also did what's it called just tell me what you want that's the uh her right her novel which is kind of a you know um big corporate satire that's a crazy movie that's a sydney lumiere movie as well anyway jay presnell anyway jay presnell uh everyone's fighting um they're fighting over what cinematographer to hire. He wants to hire Robert Surtees, who he did Sweet Charity with. Cypher, the producer, is like, no, you can't go over the top like that again. Eventually, he's suggesting huge names to him. Eventually, they settle on Jeffrey Unsworth,

who's the guy who shot 2001. Like, no chump, obviously. But there's a big fight about that. I don't know. It it's just it's a lot of the it's one of these movies where like everything about the creative process seems to be like tension and fighting and not enough money and sort of everything's held together with tape and glue and then they produce a masterpiece but then when you sit any of them down they're like i don't know it could have been better and i'm like i't know. The movie's pretty good guys.

Like take, take, take, take comfort in what you did. I also just think, I think there's a genuine palpable sense of mania and desperation. Sure. Baked into this movie that cannot be faked.

You know, like I, I think when you hear that the production was that much of a nightmare and that no one thought the movie was working out, this isn't one of those cases where you're like, how is that possible? You must've been looking at the dailies every day and feeling like you fucking won the lottery.

I'm like, I can imagine this being a bummer to work on. I can imagine everyone feeling weird making this movie. Uh, Liza Minnelli obviously had gotten passed over for the stage role uh in in broad even though she was a tony winner at the age of 19 and she was judy garland's daughter uh they thought she couldn't do the english accent because the role is traditionally an english girl sally balls and then she does sterile cuckoo after that yeah and okay you know becomes a big enough star that

by the time the movie is coming around she is like part of the draw she's part of the reason it's getting you know funded um but she claims when she didn't get the accent they said we're gonna catch when she didn't get the accent right they say they're gonna cast someone else she says that's fine i'll just do the movie i was young and i just knew it. And then whatever. Imagine. A few years later, you know, she goes to meet with a producer and she sings Cabaret for him, the song Cabaret.

And he said, you got it. And so that's when I got it. That is so funny. And the coolest thing, I think, of course, is that she designs the whole look of Sally Bowles herself. Like Sally Bowles doesn't usually look like this. She's usually blonde on stage uh you know in previous productions

or whatever and her dad uh vincent minnelli one of the greatest directors who ever lived who understands movie musicals better than anyone basically shows her lots of pictures of louise brooks and is like you know this was hot stuff in the 30s. Like, this is, you know, don't just think like Marlena Dietrich. Don't just think like blonde movie idol. And so, Joel Grey cut her hair for her. She dyes it black.

She does the, you know, the look that she's got. The sort of, how do you describe it? She looks like an owl. It's like a bowl cut, but with a little point. The widow's peak. Yes. Right. Yes.

And she knocks on Fosse's door the night before they start shooting and says, what do you think? I wish I could do Liza. Can you do Liza, Rachel? Can anyone do Liza? No. Not offensively. I feel like I would offend her and I don't want to do that. It would be very easy to do a corny Liza.

I can do a singing Liza, not a speaking Liza. Can I do my terrible speaking Liza? Yeah, and we'll cut it out. What do you think? Yep, let's cut that out. That's more Arrested Development, like Lucille 2, being like,

Basta! Basta! Basta! In Wasson's account she's basically the the the the account is that she said what do you think do you like it and fossy said what if i hadn't but that meant that he did like it yeah uh anyway and joel gray bob fossy doesn't want to cast him he's like no uh you're the theater guy you're the you know you did this on stage he looked at every other actor joel gray says he was heartbroken by this i just have to laugh at bob fossey being like

no you're a theater guy like yeah you know well yeah no but it's so my friend well absolutely he's like terrified by the fact that i think people view him that way as the theater guy well yeah that that could be said for a lot of horrible things he said to a lot of people yeah right the other yes there's a lot of self-loathing in bob fossey which is born out by all that jazz the most self-loathing film ever made yes yes yes all that jazz is the most self-loathing film ever made right it really is right he's just like, take a look at me. And we're like, whoa, Bob. This fucking sucks. It's showtime. It's so good, though. But also what Joel Grey thinks is that Bob Fosse secretly wanted to play the part himself.

Now, this is Joel Grey's opinion on that. But that makes some sense, obviously. Like, Bob Fosse, a great actor and performer in his own right, had never really gotten to do it, you know, have a big role in a movie. Yeah. I don't know. And he kind of started when he was a kid, like as a tap dancer in Vaudeville. Like it just makes sense. Yeah. Which I think Bob Fosse also relates to the Sally Bowles thing we talked about in the last episode.

But the thing where he was like, all I want to do is just be a song and dance man. And everyone was like, there's something creepy to you like you're not gene kelly there's you're not happy you know yeah i think there's more of himself in both of these characters than maybe he'd even want to admit um but but perhaps yeah i don't know i watched this long interview with joel gray and he was saying that he really felt like it was Fosse keeping him down and sort of, you know, kind of wishing away whenever the producers went like, just hire Joel Grey. He was like, I don't know. I don't know. That doesn't feel like the right thing. Let's see more people. And there was no one else who was ever serious option. And Joel Grey said that he heard there was a moment where they said to Fosse, it's either you or it's Joel Grey. Like they sort of challenged him. And when they finally challenged him point blank that he was like, it's Grey. Like when the producers finally sort of said like, are you trying to get this part for yourself?

He then was like, I know I fucking should do it. He's going to do it better. Because at this point, how old is he as well? He's 45, right? Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, not that you can't do this role at 45. It's an ageless role in many ways.

I mean, Alan Cumming is still doing it. He's still doing it. And it does feel like a role you can't shake. Like Joel Grey obviously did it twice on Broadway. Alan Cumming has done it twice on broadway and on the west you know like it does feel like a role that kind of like sort of defines you even even if you do lots of other stuff well it's one of the most haunting roles ever written for us for someone on stage i think like it's such a haunting part and the i mean the even just by the the act two songs given to the MC with I Don't Care Much, those songs resonate throughout the entirety of someone's career, let alone the political

aspects of the song in the show that I can't imagine. If I had the opportunity to play that role, I would be playing it well into my 80s if they'd let me. Wait, Rachel, you should play the emcee. That would be cool. I would love it. I do think having a woman play the emcee might defeat the purpose of the character. I've seen it done very well before, I will say.

I've seen it in a high school production and I was confused. But it's supposed to confuse. That could be the fact that it was high school yeah it could be the fact that it was a 17 year old person the joel gray interview i keep on going back to because i thought it was really fascinating he said that when he was cast in the show on broadway he had no fucking idea how to play the character and that everyone just kept to being like Joel you got this and he's like I don't I have no handle on this I have no grip on this I cannot figure out it feels like this is such a sort of turnkey for the whole show sure that I really have to set a tone and a mood and I don't know what the right level of because he is

such an inscrutable character like what is the thing I'm holding on to here? And that he went to a comedy club and he saw a comedian who was just so nakedly desperate to be loved. That he saw this, like, incredibly uncomfortable performance by someone who could not hide their desperation to win over the crowd. And he was like, this is so off-putting and unbecoming. And it tilts over into scary. And he was like, that's the root of the thing for me. That there's this weird energy of like,

he wants it too much. He's trying a little too hard. That's interesting. Because I think of him as so confident in the movie. But he was like, that's the element that makes it uncomfortable that I latched onto. And then I think what's smart about that is it's like, right, that's ultimately the scariest thing about this show is like,

this guy is willing to win over Nazis. If they're the people in the audience he will play to them it's it's just this like obsessive serving of whoever the crowd is and it's the mirror you know a weird twisted mirror that he's in front of um a black mirror almost exactly it is funny how much though for how iconic these two performances are and both of them win their oscars that like they both have incredibly limited film careers for people who are considered major movie stars they both don't do much they're very no sporadic that yeah i mean they both have very robust careers as entertainers yes especially liza obviously is just sort of like a name onto herself forever right

but yeah you you'd think liza would like do a bunch more movies off of this she doesn't even do a movie for three years after she does lucky lady three years later which is a stanley donah movie with gene hackman and burt reynolds that i've never seen that i'm sure i don't was a bomb and then after that cameo as herself in silent movie matter of time with her father then new york new york is like her next big ass movie which she's so good in i mean i love her in new york new york but that movie obviously is a bomb at the time then and then four years until arthur king of comedy she plays herself muppet sake manhattan she plays herself then rent a cop then arthurup. Then Arthur 2 on the Rocks.

Yeah, she basically just doesn't do it much. Yeah, that's, you know. Sex and the City 2, she plays herself. Like, Stepping Out and The O in Ohio are her last two movies that she played other people in. And yeah, and then Arrested Development is like most of her work. I mean, obviously she's-

Iconic. Yeah, incredibly iconic. Probably most millennials introduction to lisa minnelli is lucille austero yeah i feel like that might be the only way certain people know is that she's lucille too but you look at joel gray and it's like post cabaret man on a swing seven percent solution buffalo bill right yeah then nine years until remo williams then six years until kafka then it's like the player as himself no it's yeah i mean he went he went to stage primarily too i mean because joel gray then went and you know iconically did wicked he did the

anything goes revival with seton foster and everything he did cabaret many times like yeah yeah and he he he was amos in the uh chicago you know the the chicago we all know that's still running yes and uh you know he's he's he is an a-lister on broadway forever and right now a character actor in movies you're not mentioning that he's doc on buffy griffin i'm sorry i guess i forgot you've never seen buffy right oh well didn't he do alias too probably i don't know yeah uh alias okay uh no it's three episodes alias yeah it's it's fascinating i just think how defined both of them are by these roles yeah i think it's hard to shake i you know i and that's fine like it like, Joel Grey beat out Al Pacino and the rest of the cast of The Godfather

to an Oscar, and no one really, you know, objected to that. They maybe object to Al Pacino not having an Oscar, but they don't, you know, it's not like he lost to some chump. Anyway.

Who was the non-Godfather, non-Cabaret nominee? I can look it up for you. Yeah. I know you just said we'll talk about the Oscars later, but I have to know. You have to know. Because Cabaret won eight of them, right?

Eight? Yeah. Cabaret won eight Oscars to The Godfather's three, but it did not win Best Picture. Right. And Joel Grey did win Best Supporting Actor. Oh, of course, Eddie Albert and the Heartbreak Kid. Oh, yes.

Great performance. Great performance. Three Godffathers joel gray and eddie albert obviously al pacino should have been a lead but whatever it doesn't matter yeah ben ben has a question ben's hand went up well yeah i i'm hoping i'm not interrupting the flow here i just i gotta ask on behalf of people who are not familiar with cabaret like what is up with the source material great what question is this great it is great to me because what it's technically two things right okay yeah ben's two books you will be more confused when we tell you the journey that is becoming a fucking musical well christopher isherwood uh who's just one of those guys who just kind of guy you want to be just an english guy who wears a scarf who you know wrote plays and movies but also diaries and novels and wrote his own memories and uh you know one of the most important members of like you know, one of the most important members of, like, sort of gay liberation in literature. But as you're saying, David, like, his fiction work was as interesting as his life.

It's all great. And he was the best at telling his life. He wrote a book called Goodbye to Berlin, which is about his life in Berlin during the end of the Jazz Age, during the end of the jazz age during the end of the weimar republic right and he's about his sort of fascination with this cabaret singer named gene ross uh and how he helped her get an abortion and all that so like that's that's the basic source material he's the michael york character right and then there's a movie called and a play a movie in a play called i am a camera that's based on that that this is kind of springing out of more than the book i guess is the best way it's like a copy of a copy of a copy right right and and when they first tried to turn this into a musical the approach was act one is a review it's a kit

kat club a night at at the kit kat club and then act two is straight dramatic play uh right it's a night at the Kit Kat club, and then act two is straight dramatic play. Right. It's technically a fair assessment still to this day that the first act is all fun and games until somebody starts singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me at a Party. And then when I first, when I saw it, my boyfriend had never seen it before.

When I saw it here on the West End, my boyfriend was not familiar with anything having to do with cabaret and didn't see the Nazi plot coming. And I was like, really? But he genuinely didn't see it coming. And it wasn't until the guy from the train that the character Cliff is doing

all of this bidding for in Paris takes off his jacket and is wearing a red armband that my boyfriend was like, oh, they're Nazi. I was like, yes. You like look at the calendar and it's like 1930 1931 war one had happened yeah war two wait when did that start okay and then i was asking people who had just recently saw it and I was like, were you familiar with it? But they all, they too didn't see it coming, which I think is really, uh,

which is the success of the show is that it, it proper distracts you from what you should be thinking about. Yeah. You're having fun. Life is a cabaret and it's fantastic. And in light in here, life is beautiful. And act one is all the fun songs, basically.

Exactly. Like all the upbeat songs. As most musicals of that era tend to be, is that Act One is all fun and games, and then Act Two is like death. And that's it. I mean, you were in a musical that is very like that. Yes.

And the only Act Two respite you got was like a number about the least brutality. That was what you got in West Side. Well, and that was it's often like a struggle when they try to adapt these things for movies where they're just like. This is right. This this is a lot at the back half. You can get away with sort of the grand tragedy. I remember Frank Oz saying when he screened when they tested Little Shop of Horrors and they had the original ending where

Audrey 2 just takes over the world, needs everybody, everybody dies. Seymour feeds Audrey, he dies, everyone dies, right? And the audience just like fucking revolted and it always worked off Broadway. And he was like, the difference is at the end of a live stage show, the curtain comes up and the whole cast comes out and they take a bow and everyone feels a sense of relief you know and when you watch people die in a movie then you just walk out and they remain dead like you're just back in the real world you know it's true and in on a broadway show you're like they're gonna do that again tomorrow like you know there's also that kind of feeling of yeah yeah right but like west side story and cabaret are unique not not the only ones but they're unique examples of like

they worked being translated to movies with endings of like doomed inevitability i mean i watched this with someone who had never seen it before uh a friend of mine who fell asleep in the last like 20 minutes and then uh paramount Plus started auto-playing Footloose, which I'll say it's pretty jarring to go from the end of this movie to like, It's a Kevin Bacon. But it's also about, Footloose is also about autocracy. It is. It's about dance fascism. They want to ban dancing.

But it was still a splash of cold water, right? And she says, I'm sorry I fell asleep. What happened at the end? And I went like, you know, like the Nazis went. They're coming. I don't have to tell you. The whole thing's bad. The Nazis.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know how else you're going to end Cabaret. But Cabaret has a weird, unsettling ending. Like, it's not like West Side Story where someone gets shot and people are crying. Curtain, you know? Like, I mean, which I love the end of West Side Story, to be clear,

but it's a punctuation. Whereas Cabaret is just this kind of stomachache at the end where you're kind of just like, oh God, right. It's only gonna get worse from here. Yes. Well, and even like,

if you could see her, which is probably quote unquote the most fun number in the second half ends with this horrible mic drop. Right. You're like, oh, this number, it's fun and good. We're back into like good times. And then Joel Grey, like looking you dead in the eyes and saying like, achoo. Yeah.

OK. OK. Michael York. I want to shout out briefly Michael York. Logan's run. Let's all let's let's shift gears and talk about Logan's Run. Are you a Logan's Run fan? Are you a Logan's Runner?

It was one of the... Are you a Logan's Runner? You know what, Rachel? That is a TCM classic. It plays on TCM all the time. It is. It's always on fucking TCM. I don't know why.

So that's why I've seen it so many times. I guess it's an MGM movie they just know that it must be one of those things it really must be because I remember being so wildly uncomfortable the first time I saw it and now I can't associate Michael York with anything else so every time like and I forgot

he was in this movie because I have not seen this movie in a long time and when I rewatched it I was like oh my god it's Logan's uh i got a hot take on michael york yeah what's that you think his you think his best work was on gilmore girls i agree i think his best work was on gilmore girls but also he is good on gilmore girls he's also hot on gilmore girls which is supposed to be the idea obviously it makes sense why paris loves him sorry and look the man aged well continues to

look good. Yeah. But when you see just a splash of young York in like this or Logan's Runner, whatever you're like, fuck. Yeah. What a face this guy has. He's really good looking in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. He plays Tibble. Oh, right. I forgot. Well, Rachel, that's exactly

it. He had just popped in Romeo and Juliet. And so Fosse puts out a casting call looking for a, quote, Michael York type, and Michael York calls his agent and is like, do you think I could qualify for this? He basically is like, I heard you were looking for a Michael York type. My name's Michael York.

It would be really, really embarrassing if Fosse said no. No, I was looking for a Michael York type. No. So he brings in michael york uh who right who which who is really good in romeo and juliet and that that was sort of his breakout i guess he was in uh that very early merchant ivory movie the guru as well oh weird but but um i've i've another hot michael york hot take Okay you think he's hot Good voice Does anyone else in history sound like Michael York

Hello Austin Yeah like the way he's He has a very captivating speaking voice It's like I don't even know him personally She was a fembot Sadly we knew all along That's one of my favorite jokes He did do that

He's Basil Exposition That role I mean I was so along that's one of my favorite jokes he did do that he's basil exposition yes it's that role i mean i was so kept that was like obviously my fucking franchise as a child but like i was so captivated by him in that where it's just like the way this guy says everything is so bizarre and his role in that movie is literally just to deliver exposition yes but he's very i mean him saying sadly we knew all along in the second movie which and it's just dismissed is so funny. The whole scene with his mother. I just think like both the resonance of his voice and then he's got this very odd speaking rhythm that is so unique.

Yeah, he's, you know, I think it's 1972. He wants to figure out how we're going to play this character. The character is presented as bisexual in the movie. Isherwood was gay. But I mean, even presenting him as bisexual in 1972 was relatively daring for a studio movie. Isherwood doesn't like it. Isherwood says that he thinks that the movie

sort of considers homosexuality a kink, not like an identity. I don't know if I agree with that because I always watch this movie and just think like, he's gay. He's not really. That's what I think too. Yes.

Because like, he basically says like, I'd never be able to make it work with women except for Liza Minnelli. Like, you know, that's the only one where he has a connection. Right.

But like, he largely seems gay. And even like the, the jealousy that he gets of the, of Max is not really based in the fact that he wants the attention of sally he wants the attention of max so yeah i always kind of viewed even like the the cliff bradshaw character in the stage show i just always consider that character to be to be gay but i don't know what the does it has anyone ever made the definitive intention behind the

character known or was it has it always been this kind of very vague it always shifts i think you know there's been various productions that do things various ways and obviously ishiro was gay so if you want to take it all the way back to him then there you go but like yeah no i think it's this is the thing that's funny about cabaret it's It's been a lot of different things over the years. And there's songs, Money and maybe this time, they're put in for this movie and then the stage shows after this movie take them. Because they're like, well, those are good songs.

We'll keep them. But they weren't in the original production and things like that. It's just funny. I have seen this movie many times, Humblebrag. I have never once thought of this character as bisexual i i truly am like this is a gay man who has a relationship with a woman to make it work sure right not not to uh paint with too broad a brush but he's neither the first nor the last gay man to only be able to make a relationship with a woman work with Liza Minnelli, right?

Yes. I mean, referring to, what's his name? Peter Allen. Yes, go on. Go on. Yes. I'm referring to possibly several people. But I do think it's, he outright says, I tried, it didn't work, right?

Yeah. And then I think they have such a unique bond that he is able to engage with it more but he he knows it isn't where i mean it's it's her heartbreaking scene with the like uh where she's talking about if they had the baby and like how long before i need to get up perform at some some CD club again. And how long before you, and she can't finish the sentence again. And it's like, we both know what we innately are.

I'm always going to need to perform. And you're always going to want to be in the arms of another man. It's a little tragic. Much like lots of things in cabaret. All right. They make the movie. They're in Germany because they're in Germany. Nobody can really

tell bob fossey what to do because no one's actually there at one point he got a telegram from the studio saying he was using too much smoke in the kit kat club and he tore it up and threw it over his shoulder uh there's a really good quote about how he was so intense that he would smoke cigarettes and not know that they were done so they would be about to burn his mouth and people would come and pick cigarettes out of his mouth because he was about to hurt himself and he would not even notice just a sort of

crazy person and he's obviously doing all the choreography and is sort of like trying to balance the Bob Fosse-ness with the sort of like this is supposed to be a seedy 1930s club. Their dances wouldn't look like Bob Fosse dances. So it's like that weird sort of balance that he's trying to strike, being a little less elaborate, I guess.

Yeah, I also think this movie looks dirty in a fascinating way. Like, this is obviously the same year as The Godfather, which is a movie that is infamous for how much, how radical the darkness of its cinematography was, right? The whole Gordon Willis, like, dark, dark colors, shadows kinds of things. But it's clean looking in its darkness. And this movie looks, like, underexposed. It's the smoke. It's the smoke.

It's the color palettes. It's the dinginess of every room, you know, of the clothes. Everything is so. Yes. Especially when you compare it to Sweet Charity, which is so sort of meticulously designed. Everything in this movie feels really cluttered and dirty and kind of obscure. He wanted it to be dark. He wanted it to be dark. He wanted it to be smoky, as I said.

Jeffrey Unsworth initially was like, well, I wanted it to be kind of Bertolt Brecht-y. I wanted it to be hard and cold. And Fosse was like, no, soft and smoky. And Jeffrey Unsworth says that was the right move. Everything was so dark, and they didn't have monitors back then, that they were worried that things would literally come back unviewable.

Like just so underdeveloped that it would be underexplosed, that it would be just really, really dark. But it all worked. And at a certain point, I'm sorry, I just have to, these little anecdotes are so funny. Cy Feuer, the producer, tried to steal Bob Fosse's filters because he was like, it's too dark, it's too dark. The woman that Bob Fosse was having an affair with on set, whose name was Ilse Schwarzwald,

diverted him and gave him some fake filters to throw away. The producer actually tried to throw away Bob Fosse's lens with camera filters and was distracted from it. vilmos jigmond at the time uh saw this movie and got fired from funny lady which he was trying which he was the cinematographer for because he was trying to make it look like cabaret because he was like

that's what musicals should look like now and he got fired um anyway uh yeah so and then and of course gwen verdon who is so crucial to sweet charity she's on set for this she's helping design lies his clothes she's going to like you know berlin vintage stores to find like cool 30s clothes for her monkey suit didn't she she found the monkey suit absolutely they the studio had sent some kind of blue velour monkey suit and she uh was like this won't work and finds a real gorilla costume and like flies it to munich it's munich not berlin where they're shooting it of course because berlin would have been under the iron curtain what am i thinking um david david david what were you what was i thinking and she also walks in on fossy you know sleeping with this other

woman and it's a huge it's basically the last straw Bob Fosse was sleeping with a woman Bob Fosse you know he was a philanderer which one David a couple other things on money initially Gwen Vernon wanted to dress Jill Graham

Liza Minnelli as bums but once he dressed Liza Minnelli as a bum apparently she looked so much like Judy Garland dressed as a tramp that it was distracting so they instead were like okay we'll make them look rich we'll we'll you know we'll uh yeah have them wear monocles and top hats and all that and during money money uh fossy kept being like more sexual like you know pelvis thrusts all this kind of stuff he tells minnelli you know at one point you weren't as serious and sexual as i wanted you to be liza minnelli starts crying then he goes over to joel gray he knocks on joel gray's door and he says didn't come out the way

i wanted it to i wasn't sexual enough it wasn't serious enough and joel gray said too bad i'm sorry to hear that in close so more people that's what more people should have done to bob fozzie in his life yeah well it's too bad bob look you got some takes so like i hope you enjoy it that's how i want to respond when anyone criticizes me on any count yeah too bad i'm sorry to hear that i'm so sorry that you think that god damn um and you know then they make the movie and then they cut it together

they get a PG rating because he was initially he was initially going to say oh fuck Maximilian and she replies I do they turned it to screw Maximilian because they knew that might get them in trouble and that's what gets them a PG rating but you also have to remember

there's no pg-13 at this point there's the gulf is huge between the two yeah yeah uh and it comes out and it's a gigantic hit and it wins eight oscars and of course bob fossey's only reaction is i can't believe i lost best picture though to the godfather to the godfather nonetheless he's like and so he thinks he could have done even better but it is funny cabaret i mean godfather was the highest grossing film of that year right uh yeah godfather is a hit upon hits yes right this must have almost been seen as more of like the critic's darling movie which is absolutely think about but it was it was certainly a big hit but nothing like yes it was

right this it was the sixth biggest hit of the year. That's pretty good. Absolutely. But Godfather was like a blockbuster. Yeah. It's Godfather far and above anything that year. And then the Poseidon Adventure, What's Up, Doc? Right.

Which is a great movie. Deliverance and Jeremiah Johnson, two kind of like, you know, country thrillers. God, can you imagine again a year where the five best picture nominees mirror the top five highest grossing films of the year that closely uh-huh okay oh like godfather yeah yeah sure yeah yeah deliverance cabaret you're right you're right i mean it's a good year in film. An excellent year. The nominees for Best Picture that year are The Godfather, Cabaret, Deliverance, Sounder, which is a great movie. Oh, right.

Martin Ritt movie. And The Immigrants, the, you know. Oh, sure. Gen Troll. It's a Swedish movie with Max von Sydow and stuff. Anyway. It's a good year. It's a good year.

You also got like Sleuth that year. You got The Heartbreak Kid. You got Fat City. You got a lot of good. Lady Sings the Blues. You know, Diana Ross sort of successfully moving to serious acting. You know, a lot of good stuff. This movie opens with a number called Vilkerman.

So did this podcast, if anyone remembers. It did. Another commonality between this movie and this podcast they all both open with a mischievous possibly dangerous puck like figures welcoming you into a hostile environment i played puck in high school griff did you know that no really yep i played public in a midsummer night. Oh, I thought you meant in a stage production of The Real World. Wow. But Joel Grey immediately just sort of like

sets the tone of the entire film, right? It's so important. Yes, Joel Grey's performance, yes. And tone. Go ahead, Rachel. But I have to say that liza minnelli has the worst entrance in the movie like she's such it's such a it's it's so disappointing because he just kind of tosses just like and also sally bulls is here and then she's

just kind of like hey sally bulls and then that's it right that's literally it and then like the next scene you see her with the when when Michael York moves into the building, but it's so, I don't, I remember that was like one of the notes I took when I watched it last night was like, where the hell was her entrance? She's Liza freaking Minnelli.

I know. They just, yeah. Another one of the performers, right? Like it's, it's that weird kind of mundaneness. I mean,

mine, mine air is a good number of, Oh, mine hair is one of my favorite stage numbers ever but i i do wonder if it was intentional in the way that like she probably felt unimportant in that club and maybe that was the reason but it did feel like maybe considering she's the lead actress of the like that entrance should have been a bit yeah just a bit more something i don't know because like on on stage her entrance is incredible it's it's it's show-stopping there's nothing like being you

know being a broadway show i was just talking about this griff that's what's on the sweet charity episode right where like you know the whole audience is just kind of like trembling with excitement waiting for the star to drop in and like for them all to lose their mind. Yeah. Yeah. How important do you think Sally Bowles is to the Kit Kat Club? Like, is she a big draw? Is she just one of many performers?

I think in the stage version, she's a huge draw. She's kind of the name performer at this point. And that's why when she gets fired, it's a big deal. And then she goes back because she's kind of the the the name performer at this point yeah and that's why when she gets fired it's a big deal and then she goes back because she's a crowd favorite the club needs her this whole vibe in this movie i think she's not right it's not that she's not that big of a deal i mean we don't really see anyone else you know we see group numbers obviously we see the mc she's the only one we see being introduced by name yeah but it is sort of hard to tell right is she you know like how crucial is she to the kit kat club right but you you know the sweet charity episode i said that that movie is like fundamentally about someone trying to convince themselves that they are worthy of love that

they are lovable right right and bob fossey has this huge huge uh self-loathing uh superiority complex yeah right that that clouds all of his work and the other thing is i i think he views show business and the weird drive of show people to be a dark thing and you really look at all of his movies and they are people who are like burdened by the perception of their work you know not being taken seriously or not being loved enough or being viewed as dangerous or illegitimate or whatever it is people who cannot make their art connect in a way that they want uh who also just fundamentally feel like. I'm probably unlovable. I'm desperate for love.

And I'm probably not worthy of it. And I'm trying to replace it. With my relationship to the audience. And vices. And everything in between. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean it's like.

And the characters do that. All of his characters are vehicles for that. Right. That difference in how Sally Bowles is positioned within this movie, I think, speaks to Bob Fosse's complex. Yeah. His basic worldview. It's just echoed in all five movies. Yes.

Which is fascinating. Because, right, it's like he is such an auteur. And we're talking about him on this podcast. And obviously he's, you know, this creatively focused guy. But, right, he's coming on to a show that's not his uh right and he's telling you know a story that's not his or whatever obviously but but you can feel him in any and it's a female protagonist and it's said but you right you can feel just just him behind everything as you can with sweet charity and and everything else well it's it's that director thing like obviously all that jazz is all about

him but and then the two movies on either side of that are him doing non-fiction you know true life ripped from headline stories and yet he focuses in on the exact same elements of those very different characters and different time periods and different uh scenes you know yeah uh it's he's just a guy whose themes are really fucking big then. Yeah, because his follow-up to this is Lenny, where it's like, you know, I need to make a movie about another self-loathing, intense performer.

Self-disruptive. Yeah, you know. Anyway. Which he also notoriously hated that cutting it together and everything like that. He just had such like a breakdown cutting that film together that was the other thing of how dedicated he was in the editing process dedicated in all of

the films editing those movies and absolutely hating them which i always wonder how directors edit their own films it seems horrible and it seems terrible like i've been in the editing room with Steven Spielberg editing his new movie, and I remember just being like... I'm sorry, your buddy Steve invited you? Your buddy Steve invited you to watch fucking Fableman's footage? It wasn't. I haven't seen any of it. I need to clarify.

I've not seen any of it. I dropped in to give him a birthday present back in December. Wait, what was the birthday present? Yeah, you gotta tell us the present. Oh, I can tell you the present. What do you get the man who has everything? I know. Well, that's exactly the dilemma I end up having

when I have to get him anything. Jurassic Park on Blu-ray, does he have that? Yeah, I'm like, actually, here's all of the cuts. This is a list of cut scenes I want. You can give me them for your birthday. You can, right, right, right. But no, I got him a, I took a really beautiful picture of him and Steve Sondheim in the recording studio when we were doing G Officer Krupke.

And I got it framed. Him and Steve were really good friends. And when he passed away, obviously, we were all gutted. And that was his birthday present. But I went, I dropped in at his Amblin offices to go give it to him. And I remember walking into the editing room and he was in there with with michael and the whole team that edits with him and has been for years and years and years and i just remember like the vibe was very chill but

i felt very uneasy i was like right how do you people lock yourself in these four walls for maybe 12 hours a day watching the same 35 seconds over and over again like no wonder bob fossey hated his films by the time he was done it was usually him and one other person in a dark room just cutting the same thing together like nowadays i guess it's a little bit different within the digital age but steven still shoots on film so there's so much that goes into i i can't imagine so when it comes to bob fossey and his self-loathing complex which is an understandable complex even though he took it to the next level right i i probably would also be in the same the same boat because he was i just right i don't get how you don't just hate what you've done if you watch it a hundred times it's like saying the

same word over and over again it starts to sound like not a word i can't i can't watch my own performances let like i i i saw west side story 10 times and it was sadistic like it got to a point where i was like i can't do this ever again like rest assured shazam 2 will be viewed once one time never again it is it's the thing that i find most astounding in directors who also star in their own films where i'm like i don't know how they do it the two brains doing both at the same time being aware of both things during takes thing is one you know i can almost get my head around how a very high functioning person can handle that but the idea of then you have to go into an editing room and watch all your fucking stuff

well right well that's that's the thing because like you know there's one thing being you're bradley cooper you're directing a star is born and you're half the movie there that's crazy and then but then also like you know i i asked i remember asking um you know choreographers and stuff like can you watch your own work? Like, we all have that complex. I can't watch playback. Do they get in their heads? Yeah, well, that's the thing.

I can't watch playback when I'm on set, let alone having to watch the whole thing back. And being a director, I assume you're watching it back being like, this is the baby that I conceived. And I'm watching it for the 1500th time. Like, no wonder Steven Spielberg doesn't sit in at the premieres. I think he sat in at our New York premiere. He sat in at New York because he wanted to see it with everybody. Our whole cast was there.

And then LA, he went and took a nap and then came down to the party. King shit. Went to nap. Taking a nap at any point is a king move. I would do the same exact thing if I were a director. Because there's one thing being in over an hour of a two and a half hour film. And then just like, that's it.

But then you lay claim to the whole two and a half hours. It's every inch of it is your thing. I am now realizing that I can't watch Snow White ever. Goodbye. Oh, you can. Because you're all over Snow White. It's the whole movie. It is.

You know, there's the thing they say of like, you write the movie three times, right? You write the script, then you write it when you're filming. And the final time you write it is in the editing room. And I feel like every director that I consider great, I have read a quote from at some point in time where they say, like, inevitably at some point in the journey, you hit a point where you have made the worst movie anyone has ever seen where you're in the editing room. The thing you're watching is truly the worst thing.

And if anyone sees this, I'm ruined, unsalvageable, like just impossible. And I do think there's that thing of like editing, especially look, if you're a good director it means you're discerning right so the people who i think have an easy time editing are people probably who lack a taste or skill but if you are a discerning director you're watching

footage and just i i imagine hyper fixated on the things you didn't get the things that are wrong that's the thing you can't fix right even if you're making a great film you probably there was probably some moment in the editing room where you had to be like well this is the best i can do with this and we're gonna have to move on like there you know we've looked at everything and this is the best i don't love it right like even and like obviously that's what so many directors say like if they watch a movie of their own they're like ah this is this is like 30 seconds too long or i remember this day where like we just you know couldn't get a take because of whatever the weather his editing style is so unconventional he has such bizarre sort of like

structures to his movies with these sort of like different russian nesting doll timelines and and things like that where his editing is also like choreography so it's not just that he's trying to like rewrite a movie in post but he's trying to find this like very specific rhythm and like the relationship between the images and shit it must drive him insane and that's that's where you get the the the joys of having someone who knows the world of choreography in the directing world. And that's where you win. That is where you have an absolute win as a movie viewer, as a movie maker,

people who were on that set. If they were working with a director who had no idea, it's the same way that Jerry Robbins was so successful with the original West Side Story, even though he got fired. It was, you know, it was the fact that the camera was choreographed. It's why we were so blessed. We had Justin Peck guiding our, you know, our dolly cam and guiding our steady cams through the weaving them through dance numbers. It's important. And that's why fossey movies in retrospect maybe in

the day didn't necessarily look like they were working but that's why we look back on them and we're like this is genius it's because the man knew his own work and and that's why it's like it's it's like the reason i think so many times we talk about um movie musicals that don't do well or don't necessarily fit the mold in the right way. It's because you have a director that has no musical vision, no rhythm, no sense of dance,

which is so, like, it's the most integral part of a musical when you're making a musical movie. And it's so depressing when, yeah, like the musical movies don't, some of them don't seem to have the fake

in the audience or whatever it just doesn't move it doesn't move at all they don't it's just chopped up yeah see it and feel it yeah i mean it's what is unique about him is he is so much less reliant on camera movement because you're right in in the history of movie musicals that tends to be the most successful way to handle it is you have to treat the camera as its own piece of choreography you need to sync up the movement in that sort of sense and Fosse at this point in particular so much more locked down and he's achieving that sense of choreography only through the cutting uh which I I think people continue to learn the wrong lessons from it's what you're saying they go oh well Fosse is able to create this rhythm with a cutting I can just shoot a bunch of fucking coverage and stitch it together and that will work and it's

like yeah no but he understands the movement of going from one image to the next yeah and then then it becomes evident why he you know the the original idea was to just cut all like cut all but 10 seconds of a musical number in it you can see those moments where you can tell there was a sense of hesitation. I do struggle with the loss of certain songs in this film. There are great songs from the show that are not in this script. I think Fraulein Schneider gets some of the best songs in that musical, and it totally sucks that they don't ever delve into the plot. There's no Herr Schultz character. That is like a co-lead basically in the musical is that the musical is absolutely built upon this old woman and her her house and like the whole you know who cares so what

what would you do is one of the greatest musical theater songs, not because it's the most interesting or flashy. There's no dance or costumes that are crazy, but it grounds that plot in a way that I don't think any other musical has ever had something like that. That just brings it all into this full perspective for the audience to be like, holy shit, of course. You're obviously rooting for this relationship between Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. But when she sits there and says, they throw fruit through my windows, I will still be here when the war is over.

Because I've been here all along and I'm going to be here again. And you just kind of see the reality and the shininess of see the reality and the the the shininess of the kit kat club is shattered by that one song and you're like shit dude this is this is real life this is what's happening and that's what the whole song cabaret is about the whole breakdown that sally has which i think also the movie is missing that that song is a mental breakdown realizing that she can no longer silence what's going on outside the walls because it's going to come in at one point

like that's something that i always struggle with with this movie is just not i i miss that and i think the reason that never made it in there is because bob fossey was really hesitant about making another musical i and i think i think the number in in the film version ends up being played more as a form of denial than what you're saying. It's her being like, I'm just going to live on stage. Like, I can't think about it.

Yeah. It's not a protest song, which is what you're saying. Yeah. It's more of like her throwing herself into this side of herself and like being like,

it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Life is a cabaret. It's all going to be fine. And obviously, if the movie ended on that, that that would be a weird note but then the movie ends on the weird reprise of we'll come in that is so discordant and scary and the mirror and all that stuff yeah but um can i just make a joke i wanted to make 15 minutes ago please please do you think when bradley cooper was editing a is Born, he just would say,

I just want to take another look at that. I just want to take another look at that. I just want to take another look at that. Can you load that up? I just want to take another look at that. Hey, roll it back. Sam's take. Oh, wow.

Roll it back. I just want to take another look at that. Remember A Star is Born? God, we need it back. They need to just bring it back. Just put it back in movie theaters right now. Let's do that. Remember A Star is Born? God, we need it back. They need to just bring it back. Just put it back in movie theaters right now. Let's do another one. A Star is Reborn.

Oh, just do another one. That's fine. We need a fifth one. A Star is Reborn. Do a fucking bionic Jackson Maine comes back. Yes. Jackson Maine is a head in a jar or something. I just wanted to take another look at you.

Sorry. I just had to do that joke. Yeah. This is, I think, I mean, we're talking about the things, you know, it's very much Bob Fosse's cabaret. And you're right, Rachel. There's a lot of decisions he makes and takes away from inherent power from the show. Yeah. But they're all to serve his weird, not weird but his yeah it's fascinations

his pet peeves is weird it's idiosyncratic it's right and like adapting a broadway show to movies is hard and yeah probably shows are long and they are structured you know well that's how you end up with wicked part one and wicked part two like that's why we're getting you know that's how you end up with part one and wicked part two like that's why we're getting you know that's how you talk yourself into that decision i think you're like well this is so big and unwieldy and there's this clear act break what if we do it as two movies and it's like you know i get it but i also i'm like are people going to want to wait two years to see wicked part two or whatever rather than 20 minutes look how are they going to feel walking out of part one how are they going to feel with how part two starts like i i just think the flow of those

movies is gonna be very strange um but i i proved me wrong though i mean i've always said like maybe it'll be good i have no idea it really is like if we ended cabaret at tomorrow belongs to me yes and then was like gee i wonder what's gonna happen that's the thing with wicked it's like hmm is she gonna be a wicked witch at the end of this it's like we know what's gonna happen she's defying gravity and i hope she just keeps flying up up and away especially since wicked is a prequel to another story. To a well-known story. Working towards a fixed point in time. But I think the thing that he is able to do with the movie more successfully, and I think you can do it on stage, is because you're cutting back and forth between these two realities.

The tension between the show, the musical elements of the movie, the sort of fantasia of the Kit Kat Club, and just the slow creep of the rise of the thrown off jokes. That stuff, I think, hits differently if you're actually seeing that in the outside world rather than in the construction of a stage, you know? I mean, it's the fucking line that's like the most frightening in the movie for me. I pulled it up so I don't, I didn't fucking mangle it. The Nazis are just a gang of stupid hooligans, but they do serve a purpose.

Let them get rid of the communists. Later, we'll be able to control them. Yeah. Well, for me, the most haunting line is when he's like, do you still think you can control them? Yeah. It's just so like, oh, God, I know it's going to happen. And so it's it. And that's that's part of the brilliance of it, though, is is is the knowing that the audience knows exactly what's going to happen and the irony of the whole plot because of that fact.

But it is so perfectly woven whenever he hits a beat of it. I mean, them throwing the Nazi out of the club at the beginning and the audience cheering and being like, we all fucking agree on this, right? We can make fun of them. Right. Yeah. And that's like the first half of the movie when, you know,

the songs, but also just the kind of romantic uh bohemian like oh we all live in this crazy boarding house and you know try a prairie oyster and you know who do you like to sleep with and like i live in this weird room and you'll live in this weird room you know and it's like very it is very winning and it is very romantic and you do like have this kind of automatic love for like oh this idea of like you know berlin in the 30s you know everyone's just kind of an artist and everyone's creative and everyone's bouncing off of each other but it's all doomed even their little dynamic is and then the tomorrow belongs to me number which is like the only number number it's a great number uh is the only song that's like both outside but also in the

daytime like it's so jarring where you're like oh god right like in the daytime it's a whole different society like and there are people that aren't bohemian artists in this country right yeah like it's in and when you just i mean that that that whole sequence is so incredibly well done the the cuts to like the old guy who's kind of just like the one yeah you know who's just like you know and then but then the weird swell of passion that all these people are more and more emboldened as it's going on and standing uh it's so good uh it's so freaky um it's it is so freaky it really feels like from another planet or something the aesthetic the band the way they're all dressed it like for me i'm truly like what is this stuff

like this is so an amalgamation of like a bunch of but it's also this is just it's it's how it always fucking happens like Like history repeats itself and people are seen as so absurd as to not be threatening until the moment where there is that sort of just like single-minded focus and calm and confidence, you know, inevitability to how they behave

where you're just like, oh, it's fucking too late. We've let this metastasize into something we can't roll back, know obviously that song is so effective that people thought it was a real like you know nazi anthem and not a song written by two badass jews right yeah yeah um just because it's so it's so perfectly like matches the sort of creepy pastoral folky you know anthem uh idea that of of the sort of 30s nazi anthems um anyway uh but that's yeah what else happens in cabaret uh you know you got yeah the prairie oysters and you got uh sally making I would say a fairly, fairly bold pass at Brian.

I like her move, which is basically like, you know, I got an okay body, like touch my stomach, for example, pretty good. Boob.

Thoughts? Got them too. Thoughts? Question mark? Your hands on it, so. My favorite part of that, my favorite part of that whole sequence

is when she gets out of the shower, but she's still in full hair and makeup. Full hair and makeup. It's like eyeliner didn't even smudge. The lashes are there. It's perfect. Maybe she wears just a shower cap over her entire head. Yes.

She just pulls it all the way down. It's just a head of a hazmat suit and she's just like yeah this is fine i want to believe that her shower cap is the exact same lines as her hair it's the widow's peak it's just a rubber version of that she tightly pulls over well that would make sense that's like yeah that's like a dancer in like whatever 42nd street like some kind of right they always have like the shower caps yeah the bathing caps yes um it's oddly her hair is oddly the evil queen from snow white's like you know how she wears that like cowl on her head it's very interesting i was watching that yesterday i thought it was very interesting that that was and also considering the characters in snow white because snow Snow White was 37, I think.

I should know that. And it was, you know, Snow White was based off Hedy Lamarr. So I feel like that, just that era of everything was the inspiration behind. Well, yeah. I'm just looking through now, but like Maleficent had that too.

I feel like a lot of the Disney villains have that weird Widow's Peak head cap. It seems aggressive. It's a point. It's like a weapon. A constant furrowed brow. But it also gives this heart-shaped face that's very deceiving for the kids to watch.

Yes. I mean, even though the Wicked Queen is called the Wicked Queen, so maybe you could figure it out. This is true. Hi, I'm your stepmother. My name's Wicked Queen. It's going to be great. Come live with me. This is true. Hi. I'm your stepmother. My name's Wicked Queen. It's going to be great.

Come live with me. We're friends. Yeah. I'm really chill. First and foremost, I want you to think of me as a friend. And of course,

everyone knows I'm the world's biggest hottie, so that's well known. I'm the fairest. Number one fairest of them all. No contest.

Check in on that once in a while. No big deal. Anyway, Cabaret. So yeah, so they start, Sally and Brian, they start hanging out. They start sleeping together. He tried it with three other girls and it hadn't worked, but they were all the wrong three girls. The wrong three girls.

Right. And then they start hanging out with this barren dude, Maximilian von Hune, played by Helmut Grimm. Who's a Nazi. Who's, you know, but he's got a nice country estate. And a mustache. And a mustache. And there's this sort of, I remember when i saw this movie as a young like i i don't

think i i must have been like 12 or whatever i don't think i picked up on it until because their whole kind of three-way affair is happening off screen until it sort of spills out on screen sequence right where all three of them start slow dancing together that's so fucking well done and then yeah and then it's not really made explicit into the the youtube bastards which has one of my like is my pet peeve with my pet peeve with this movie that zoom right after he says so am i it's just it's like the only zoom in the freaking film and it's the it would be so much more powerful if it didn't zoom that's me being nitpicky no but fossey loves to zoom i do think so much of it was him trying to like go against the standard language of musicals because even

sweet charity is a lot more conventional and has a lot of zooms rather than dolly moves you know yeah um yeah uh you know just i baron is bad news by the way just anyone that kind of kind of classically handsome i'm in germany i'm scared of i don't i don't like that yeah if someone has like paintings of their relatives you know that's a red flag way back sure that's a real red flag welcome to my house this is max the second i'm max the 14th of course uh yeah all right uh what else i mean maybe this time is obviously that's kind of the early optimistic number that is like you know completely incredible i don't know that's the number added for this movie it is the thing that sort of uh i this surprises me every time i watch it is uh how much more restrained her rendition is in this movie than i feel like this has become such a big

liza anthem it's such an anthem yes right but not in this it's very bittersweet you kind of it's very bittersweet right it's more it's more hopeful i think than it than it hasn't because it's usually i correct me if i'm wrong because i don't know it's been a second in the stage production i believe that's placed after he like agrees to to raise the baby with her right yes i think in the stage production they put it uh much later yeah and that's why it's very early it's a little bit more tinged with heartbreak you know she's lying to herself yeah right and so in this it's right it happens right after they sleep together for the first time so she's she actually is extremely hopeful about the relationship yes um and uh that this right this and mine air are both added later to the shows.

Right. But you know, but still it does have you kind of I mean, I've seen this movie so many times. It's sort of hard to remember how I felt the first time. But you know, yeah, you do have the idea. It's a little doomed or she's she's fooling herself a little bit. Oh, it's like call your girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. or she's she's fooling herself a little bit oh it's like call your girlfriend yeah yes one of my favorite melancholy uh pop songs that's anthemic right yes no this is this is a song i listen to when i want to when i want a good little cry or i want to be in my feels it's it's

no it's it's i find it to be a very uh heartbreaking song but there's something about you know, when Liza's at the palace or whatever and she's like fucking belting it to the rafters that makes it even more tragic to me. It gives the same vibes

of the one very famous performance of Judy Garland sitting without any amplification singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow that's just like gut-wrenching. Insane. I saw Liza at City Hall I guess maybe 10 years ago now.

City Center, surely. No, Times Square. Town Hall. I'm sorry, that's what I mean. Sorry, I combined the two. City Hall's where the mayor is. I know. Actually, Liza Minnelli is the mayor of New York City. That'd be just fine. That's a vector. Bring her ini is the mayor of New York City. That'd be just fine. That's a director.

Bring her in. Lifetime mayor of Broadway. Sorry, it was, yes, at Town Hall. Her and Alan Cumming did a shared night. And it was sort of feeling like that might have been the last major, major sort of run she did. But it was like, she can't do a whole night. She's going to do a couple songs. He'll take a

swing it was 2013 liza and alan so nine years ago uh and she was incredible but uh there was a moment uh when between songs her banter to set up song some guy in the audience yelled out liza i love you sure and she like looked him dead in the eyes she fucking stared straight into the soul of the man and she went like i love you too and then she went really i mean it i do i love you too and it was like that moment i was like that's the whole fucking liza minnelli thing in a nutshell where there there was there liza she's very like hard on sleeve nakedly like you're you're feeling for her so powerfully the mask is removed with her like that's why that moment at the oscars was so touching this year with her and lady gaga where she was obviously

struggling and lady gaga said i got you and liza minnelli said I know and it was such a real I know I was I know I was having such a moment in the audience being like oh god it's Liza it was just but that's always been her mo and I have to say that was her mom's too towards the ends the end of her life and it was right it's a really beautiful thing to and and sort of sad just to see it comes so full circle but Liza's lived this incredible life and and and established sad just to see it comes so full circle but liza's lived this incredible life and and and established herself just as we were saying before establish herself as an icon of film despite not doing much but it doesn't matter yeah there's still no one like her and that's the sort of that's the rarest peak that you can get to as a performer where it's just like yeah

she's liza minnelli she's a type onto herself if she's in a movie you understand like this is liza you know and even crazier to think that she has one of the you know her mother is one of the even greater icon like it's you know one of the most both of her parents she like yeah she couldn't lose she won the lottery. If there was anyone out there who won the genetic lottery, it's her. I don't remember who it is. I don't know how much it was meant to be catty or not. I don't think it is a criticism, but I think about it whenever I'm watching her. Some critic, I think when this movie came out, said like her face is pointing in like seven different directions.

like her face is pointing in like seven different directions she's got that fascinating thing where it's just like her eyes are going this way and her teeth are going this way her mouth is this way her nose is this way like no one else in the history of the world has looked like her despite the fact that she looks like both of her parents yeah and she's gorgeous and that's the thing it's like she's so she's such a dime piece and like and it becomes the that's that's right rachel well said rachel that's you're right you're right to say it it becomes her like it be it becomes her that it's so it's so beautiful and i think she owns it in such a way because she doesn't look like everybody else and it and it makes her character more intriguing no matter what she's doing but also

as a movie star in her own right and a stage star just a star in general she owned that look that she had and it and it made it it made it even better because her mom struggled so long in the early you know studio days where people called her a hunchback and said she was ugly and made her fix everything i mean drugs yeah insane insane so to see her kind of win in that regard even back then especially now in retrospect is such a cool thing well liza like really was able to especially at the beginning part of her career come out of the gates so strong and really do shit on her own terms in a way that her mother didn't have that level of control uh right but but yeah i i mean i do just think it's fascinating because i i do think it is part of the take of this movie that like she's not a great performer she is never going to be a movie star for any number of reasons liza's a great performer

but there's that thing you know that makes her uncomfortable to watch that that added vulnerability or whatever whereas like liza can perform on stage and still have that like that removal of the mask and have it work for her uh and something like new york new york where she's giving like a far more sort of naturalistic dramatic performance in the non-musical sections of that movie there's something about the fact that sally is like always on that she's always performing you know that yeah even when she's leading brian around or whatever right yeah because michael york his performance is at such a different pitch than hers right yeah and then joel gray is at a similar

pitch and she moves back and forth between the two worlds but she stays always in kind of stage show zone i mean even the scene where he comes home and finds her after she's had the abortion and she like cannot help but try to sort of make a show out of it right you know like in how to sort of i don't want to play her sadness but like her sort of wistful jokes about everything yeah it's the it's what it's how she understands love yeah is being able to make other people feel something i get it yeah i get it yeah um i get it i get it sally um i and i also get the kind of nihilism uh you know that she settles on by the end of the by the end of the show i get that too you know it's it's hard to deal with such turbulent times um it's a harbintown a podcast that you and i uh used to listen to

religiously uh there's an episode uh i remember where uh dan harman was talking about uh the maybe the tiki torch rally or one of the fucking awful things that's happened in the last five or six years and he said like that's it's the defining thing about like who you are as a human being that everyone of course wants to be loved and the ultimate test of that is if you're alone and unloved and the only person waving you over is a nazi do you cross the street right you know which is i it just you know i think he put that really beautifully but it's sort of the whole tension of this movie of like you could discount and discount until the point where the choice is do you care to pursue a nazi's love do you want the approval of a nazi you know if the only way for you to perform is for an audience of the fucking armbands what's more important to you yeah right right um yeah we're all a little complicit but then right

and then you always have the the emc who is this this creature who is like completely devoid of motive and yes like character right you don't know anything about him you don't know who he is it feels like pennywise from it you're like this is just some yes enigmatic supernatural being yeah and so he's like pure nihilism right like he he is yeah which is so entrancing like and it's so cool there's that one shot where you see him uh grabbing her breasts at the not grabbing but like touching them as he's about to put her on stage and it's like it's a shot that fossey obviously put in like to suggest something to the audience,

but without really, you knowing what's going like. So it's when he's sort of in the wings. Yeah. And he's just like, he's just grabbing her for a second before she's going. And you're like, I always saw that not as a breast grab,

but as a heart grab. Am I the only one who saw that? No, you might be right. Like, I can't tell if he is sort of being a little sinister in that moment or if he's just prepping her for you know getting out on stage like if he's just sort of like yeah i always kind of saw it as this like this is this is your home and

your life is beautiful and like so that it's not just to the audience but it's also like a mask that everyone who works there is also putting on um it's right and it's their alliance i think that's absolutely up for interpretation and i have i don't think that i'm i don't think there's a right and wrong no no i think it's supposed to be very ambiguous like it's it's very it's just it's just like this one peak you have of him not on stage like he's directly off stage but like he's about to be on stage uh that's just you all but you do you do also see him watching he's watching her at one point no he's watching them yeah two of them uh watching michael york and and and liza manelli interact right that is it

i think did i make that up okay no you didn't make that up i think you're right yes but i mean that but i do think that both of those moments are very interesting because they are the only moments where you don't see him on stage performing, but it also still feels like

he's putting on a face and he's giving this like annoyed look. Well, because he doesn't want to lose her to the real world, one assumes. But you can assume a lot of things, obviously.

You don't really know, but that would be the idea. Oddly enough enough it's leading player in pippin it's it's it gives that same which is also a fossey classic uh but it does give that same kind of feeling i mean i love it's a much more empathetic character but hermes in Hadestown more recently like it's always a good character that kind of guy who's like I'm here I'll always be here I'm the MC I'm here to explain

things I'm here to entertain you and then like as it goes on you're like who is this guy is he like part of the show or is he part of the plot like I don't understand the interesting part with Hermes or is he part of the plot? Like, I don't understand. The interesting part with Hermes, especially is just that, that last song where it's like,

you know, it's a sad song and we're going to sing it again. And, and the sad, tragic thing about his character is that he's going to watch it happen all over again. And it doesn't seem like there's anything he can do, but be there and know,

but he does sort of say in that final song. And I love Hadestown so much. And that's the only reason I'm thinking of it, where he's like, it could be different next time. You never know. And that is sort of the weird, right? You know, like maybe, even though we all kind of know this is the sad poetic song that always ends in tragedy,

like you'll watch it again because maybe it'll be different next time. And that is like the allure of entertainment. It's so cool. That's why we watch Titanic over and over and over and hoping the iceberg doesn't... Absolutely. But you know what else rachel titanic has a happy ending which which weirdly lead you you know like like the weird the weird dreamy ending of them back on the boat and only the nice people are there it's the miracle that movie that it was able to yes right yes

it's so crazy can i just shout out uh my favorite uh version of the musical trope the two of you are talking about please i i think an underrated one officer lockstock in urinetown i think no that's fucking hell yeah fascinating character it's very true and the way he does and does not intersect with the plot when he's sort of impartially commenting and when he's actually affecting things. Yeah. And whether he's benevolent or not. Yeah. That is.

Did you say you're in town? You would love you're in town, Ben. It's true. I mean, I'm interested. Run for your own. It's Ben. It's a musical from, I want to say, like 2001, 2002. Right.

Early 2000s. That's set uh well it's set in a world basically where uh you have to pay money to pee all the all the urines urinals are controlled by a corporation it's a privilege to pee it's a privilege to pee yeah and it's one of those shows that was so like peeing somewhere else kept you peeing somewhere else, they send you to Urinetown. Urinetown's the mythical place where people get sent to and never seen again. I wouldn't want to go there. You piss in a jar, they send you to Urinetown. Way down, Urinetown.

Way down under the ground. Why has Urinetown never come back? I was going to say. I don't know. Slash bin film. I've never understood it. It's been doomed to college productions. That's really it and i also

feel like a lot of times when i see productions of you're in town they they don't quite get the humor they're there it's such a fine line you should play hope harcourt though i'm realizing now hope harcourt in your in your town yes oh that's also that's anything goes is anything goes but that character's name is also hope i'm getting the last name right sorry it's hope cladwell cladwell cladwell yeah but you should also play hope hardcore my sister fun fact my sister played hope hardcore her sophomore year of high school and anything goes and yes it was racist that show is so racist that show that show that show it would be show would be tough to film, I think. Yes, there's a few things that might not work.

I can't believe it's playing out here in London. I'm like, I cannot believe that this show is still allowed to exist. London loves to do Anything Goes. I saw Anything Goes twice in London, I think. They're always reviving it. They keep doing it. I love Anything Goes. I did it twice when I was young.

I do feel like both productions I was in, they tried to solve the problem where they were like, can they be like monks? Like Jesuit monks? Like what is the... I saw a production with Corbin Blue out in DC in like a round theater a couple years ago. And they tried to fix it

by making certain characters Asian and therefore being like different other characters Asian and being like, well, see, it can't be racist. And it was like, no, it's still a little bit racist. You shouldn't do that.

It was very interesting to see in that, I think I saw it in 2018. And that 2018 lens was very interesting. Which is so deeply woven in with the plum blossom shit and whatever. You have to make such wholesale changes to get around it. That's the thing. You have to completely shift it.

Yeah. Anyway, you should play both hopes. Okay. Yeah, why not? But woke anything goes uh someone will solve the problem someone someone will i mean the same the same way that they're planning to solve thoroughly modern millie i'm sure they'll solve um that's another tough solve anything goes yeah are they doing a thoroughly modern millie movie are they are they no they

were gonna revive it a couple years yeah they were going to do a city center revival with Ashley Park. And I remember they were developing it while we were working on West Side Story. And I remember talking to Janine Tesori about it. And she was talking about how Ashley was such a great pick, which she is. She's brilliant. And how there was going to be some alterations made because you have an Asian't you have an asian lead of a show that is notoriously not kind to asian stereotypes insane stereotypical stuff in that show that's like weird for the yeah anyway for modern day audiences yeah um that that would be fascinating

though to see someone try and thread that needle but david what when you read reviews of the movie cabaret from when it came cabaret oh yes so many of like the classic golden age hollywood directors and especially movie musical directors were like so rhapsodic about this fucking thing where they were like someone has made a musical that is actually dark that is genuinely engaging with grime and darkness and not sort of just weirdly working in elements in a cartoonish way that it like what we're talking about these musicals that would often have like weird underbellies that were not treated with appropriate amounts of weight right yeah um yeah i mean it's funny because of course like west side story existed there were lots of like movie

musicals that had dark endings but they the you know the original west side story does feel you know it's it's it's so poppy and it's so colorful and it's so magic and it's so surreal weirdly like it way like it's not set in our gritty world i guess is the difference yeah i don't. And that was the number one thing we wanted to change when we, when we brought it again. And that,

and that was, you know, Tony Kushner was really the main proponent in doing that. Right. He was amazing at creating a gritty,

the reality. Genuinely dangerous. Yeah. But what's, what's so good about the movie that you're in, Rachel Ziegler, which is called West Side Story that we're referencing right now. Directed by your buddy Steve.

Is that it is still a fucking musical. I think the worry, obviously, is you're always going to do the let's make it gritty, let's make it real. And you're just going to forget that this is still a show where people are going to break out into dance and song. And it's still going to have that heightened feel and like yeah and Cabaret is definitely more low key obviously but it is still

it is still a musical it still does obviously it's an iconic piece of musical yes but the performances do happen in a performance space similar to Rob Marshall's Chicago which I think he probably took his inspiration from there for sure absolutely right and that was the first musical which I think he probably took his inspiration from there for sure.

Right. And that was the first musical to really explode in a long, long time. And it made sense. That made sense. I remember thinking for a really long time that it was one of the only movie musicals to get it right because it takes place in a dance hall. That's what all that jazz is all about. It's just kind of like, you know, this is a music hall where everybody sings about everything and life is fine and and we can escape the harsh realities of the world but there is that thing yeah i mean cabaret kind of breaks

the movie musical and that everyone else struggles after this to get away with the unabashed we just break into song and do whatever the fuck we want kind of movie they're always people are always a little bit cautious it feels like um yeah this joseph mankowitz quote fossy brought the stink of truth to cabaret is really fucking good he's one of the few directors i'd write for stanley donan wrote fossy a letter said that stanley kubrick said that he thinks cabaret is one of the best pictures he's ever seen in his life. Pretty cool. And then I think he later said that All That Jazz was perhaps the singular best movie he had ever seen. Vincent Minnelli went to the preview with Liza and said to DeFossi, I have just seen the perfect movie.

Like, I just think all these people were sort of astounded by, like, this thing is actually gritty. Right. like this thing is actually gritty right um but but like you you feel in that in these reviews that you read because not just those reactions but from the critics as well where like pauline kale is like this is made without compromises and it's hard and unsentimental you feel the critical community reacting to a decade of musicals that we might consider a lot of them are classics, but are so gaudy and theatrical and colorful and poppy and whatever. Critics are longing for

something different. You're in a far more cynical decade now. And there was, I think, right. So much of the praise for this movie came from being like they found a musical that matches our times. Yes. Sure. And it is good. Yes. Oh, yeah. Sure. And it is good.

I do like Cabaret. I think it's pretty good. I think it's a pretty great movie. Yeah. It's a wonderful movie. It's a great musical and it just comes from great source material, which is, you know,

the greatest foundation you can have for a good musical is like crazy ass source material. Fosse's petty petty quote with just a little more money i could have made a great film if i've been able to get the period right i would have won best picture oh my god but you know i do get what he means not i don't agree with him at all but i imagine he's watching it being like man i only had three million dollars and like yeah i can see everywhere where like our budget is straining you know and we can't like get

out into the city or we can't do this or that or right you know like whereas i'm like i love that i love that this movie's felt feels like it's taking place in this weird little bubble it's so you barely understand what's going on outside right like i think that's so cool but he's looking at the godfather and he's like man they, they let him shoot sets. Yeah. Sure. Godfather's a good looking movie. Blocked off entire city streets. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what, you know, what can you say? It's two good movies came

out the same year. But you know, Fosse wins an Oscar. It's pretty good. He should be happy. Yeah. And he gets never happy. He gets the triple crown. He wins the Tony, the Emmy, the Oscar. He won a Tony, an Emmy, and an Oscar in the same year. He's the only person to ever do that. Because he wins the Tony for Pippin and the Emmy for Liza with a Z.

Liza really having a hell of a year. Unbelievable. Let's talk about Liza having a really good year. And we will be doing Liza with a z on our patreon right griff uh yes forgetting yeah yes um which it will be cool it's gonna be super cool actually it's tomorrow in fact it's posting tomorrow so enjoy that hey now that worked out well uh david do you have the box office game for this i do um rachel we're gonna play the box office game we're gonna look at the top five uh films at the box office the week this came out uh and griffin is gonna try

and guess them now usually he's good at this but in 1972 he might not be so good right with things in my lifetime i have a weird recall i can i can go into the memory palace and pull them out. This one I might be grasping at straws. And so this movie came out, yeah, February 1972. Just want to say that as well. February 19th? No, the 20th, sorry.

Is it February 19th? Let me see. It's February 13th, 1972. That's the week of my dad's 10th birthday. Hey! Oh! Happy 10th birthday, Craig. my dad's 10th birthday hey oh happy 10th birthday craig yes happy 10th craig shout out rachel's dad craig um craig zegler um what up craig uh and that's it's just you know this came out in february it wins the oscar like a full year and change later like you know right and godfather came out in march. It wins the Oscar like a full year and change later. Like, you know. Right. And Godfather came out in March.

Like, those are both movies that just kind of took over the year. Yeah, just ran the table. Yeah. But number one is a movie from 1971. One of the biggest hits in 1971. It's an action thriller with a big star that launches a franchise. Huh. Is it Dirty Harry?

That's right. Dirty Harry. There we go. Number two, Griffin, is the best picture winner of 1971 uh french connection the french connection you're doing good you're doing great thank you another kind of launches a franchise huge star action thriller absolutely yeah uh number three is less well known this is a crime comedy it's based on a sort of well-known novel uh about funny gangsters uh it stars a broadway legend one of the greatest of all time huh do you think you know what this is rachel are your eyes widening at the possibility

i just like the word broadway legend yeah broadway legend yeah funny gangsters based on a true and a disney legend i'll say and a disney legend and a disney voice an iconic disney character so is it a jerry orbach movie that's right jerry orbach yeah the king yeah yeah what is this but he put baby in the corner yeah and i dare to put baby in the corner and he also was lenny briscoe for a million years joel gray's daughter in the corner that's true i'm not look i'm not trying to virtue signal here but i tend to fall down on the side of that no one should do that you should say i'm sorry hot take guys i don't think anyone should i don't think anyone should baby that's what says he comes up to he says look yeah but you can't do that no good everyone should go buy

jennifer gray's book out of the corner thank you everyone shameless plug for my girl can i say the greatest yeah it's fucking sidebar i embarrassingly only watched Dirty Dancing for the first time like this month. No. What? Really? No. That's funny. Weird blind spot for me.

And one of those guys that I was just like, I feel like I've seen it through cultural osmosis. I've seen scenes. I know the songs. I've seen it. I was just like, I feel like I've seen this. So I just never got around to watching it. What were you going to say, Rachel?

I would kill to watch that for the first time again. I'll tell you my experience. Yeah rules yes so good uh could not believe how good it was yes like i i equated some of the sounds of the lambs or i'm like yeah yeah no i get it i get i know i should see it everybody's always fucking great and then you watch it and it feels like so fresh so striking but also it's one of the it's the simpsons it's i can see why this was so popular absolutely oh shit right but here's another thing that i think isn't discussed about enough with that movie uh-huh the dancing is so fucking dirty i swear to god i thought oh that's some some buzzy title and what are they they understood the assignment you might i got

fucking hot under the collar every five minutes watching that movie. They are dirty dancing. The dirtiest dancing I've ever seen. Jennifer Grey in the, you know, in Ferris Bueller is like one of my earliest crushes. I was just like, who is this? I'm obsessed. And she's so gorgeous in Dirty Dancing. And yeah, it's hot. And she says one of the

greatest lines, it gives one of the greatest line readings ever in Dirty Dancing, which is is i carried a watermelon man i want to re-watch dirty dancing i thought my wife would be like would be fine if i just threw out dirty dancing tonight right yeah i'm gonna watch dirty dancing i'm very compelled by this this sequel announced what this is wait what's the sequel yeah she's gonna be in it they're doing a sequel with they're doing a legacy sequel yeah right will they incorporate havana knights will right we're we're i think we're ignoring the fact that that ever happened i think that's why

fucking tie havana knights back in it would be so funny they do a post-credit scene of diego luna and romola gary because swayze is in havana knights i just yes but i just like the idea and holler in the theater. They do a post-credits scene of Diego Luna and Ronald Gary. Because Swayze is in Havana Nights. Yes, but I just like the idea. Griffin, are you telling me you've seen Havana Nights, but you hadn't seen Dirty Dancing? Okay, yep.

You have outed me. Embarrassing. I saw Havana Nights in theaters, and then it still took me an additional 20 years to watch the first movie. Why would you? Why?

I don't know. I'm a broken person. That's so odd odd i saw it in theaters it's so funny that like after they like the idea of like let's do a dirty dancing sequel the only thing that will remain is the dirty dancing like it won't be connected in any other way well some may say the dirty dancing the dirty dancing is the friends we made along the way and so it has to be in the sequel it has to but that's a titular role that's a weird example of that movie is written by like uh like a radio host right it was like written as like just a sort of it was it was like a memoir of growing up in

cuba in the 50s yes it was about like being there during the Cuban Revolution. It's like that movie Becoming, Breaking Away, where it was like this script that bounced around for like 15 years. Then someone was like, we could put some Dirty Dancing in this. Right. This thing is missing something. What is it? And I think he's credited as the sole screenwriter. And he's like, there's not a word of my movie in there.

It's Peter Segal is the NPR host. Anyway, Dirty Dancing, Havana Nights. Dirty Dancing 1 is not. in there uh it's peter seagal uh is the is the npr host anyway dirty dancing havana nights dirty dancing one uh is not uh you actually have not guessed the movie right uh but it is a gerry gangster comedy yes um do i know this movie you might know it you'll probably know the title okay um it's based on a book by Jimmy Breslin famous newspaper columnist worked with my mother for many years shout out Jimmy Breslin ran for mayor of course

what the fuck is the title of this movie the movie is called The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight a young Robert De Niro of course dad yes um and basically based based on the life of joe gallo crazy joe gallo you know i know that title and i think it's a great movie title and i never ever had any idea what that movie was about or who was in it yeah um okay that's number three at the box office. Number four, Griffin, is a musical.

The biggest hit of 1971. It's in its 16th week. It's going to run forever. Gigantic three-hour musical. It's not Fiddler on the Roof. It is Fiddler on the Roof. I thought that was 70 for some reason. Who did the musical arrangements for Fiddler on the Roof,

which I didn't realize this? John Williams. That's right yes i think he even won an oscar or something i blows my mind music yes that anyone ever was able to touch it again after that baby john williams we're talking like 30 wow fetus john 30s. Yeah, literally fetus John Williams, just fresh out the womb, just doing things for Topol, which is just crazy. Fiddler on the Roof, which is one of the last big blown out, like, you know, that really is so different from Cabaret. I mean, it's a lot of fun, obviously. Fantastic film, fantastic film.

But it's so big. It's his first Oscar win, but already his fourth nominee. That was my first musical I ever did on stage. Oh, really? Yes. You played Tevye? I was Tevye's understudy. Tevye's understudy, Griffin.

I was Sprinza, the second youngest of Tevye's five daughters. Okay. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Humble brag. You're welcome. Humble brag.

Number five at the box office is another Best Picture nominee. Great film. A drama. Sensitive, coming-of-age drama. One of the ones we just cited earlier. No, we have actually not mentioned it. You're saying a 71. Okay.

Because it's only February. A lot of holdovers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It won two oscars um launched the director's career center of coming of age drama launched a director's career i mean he'd made movies before this but this was his big breakout it's a great film it's a great film it's very sad and beautiful and wonderfully acted uh and it stars a bunch of great people it's got a scene that my mother described as the most harrowing scene she's ever seen in a movie

theater but she must have been 16 when this came out is this my beloved uh one of my all-time favorite movies i think so last picture show it's It's The Last Picture Show. Which scene? Where Sybil Shepard has to strip on the diving board. Okay, the pool part. I think my mom has basically said, I was 16 years old. It was my worst nightmare, watching that idea.

And it must have been so shocking in 1971 to see that in a movie. I finally got to see that movie in a theater when I was in LA recently. I've seen it so many fucking times. I never got to see it on big screen theater when I was in L.A. recently. I've seen it so many fucking times. I never got to see it on big screen. Jesus Christ, is that thing good. I saw it with a friend of the podcast, Alex Merzonia, very kindly gave me his extra ticket. You've seen that movie, Rachel?

A long time ago. A long time ago. I think the thing that stuck out to me the most as well was the same scene that your mother described. The diving board. When you said that, I was like, oh, I have seen that film. So I have a list. It's going on the list, everyone. I will say I am still obviously a young man by most metrics.

But every time I rewatch that movie and I get a little bit older, that fucking Cloris Leachman performance hits harder and cuts deeper. She's so good. Number, yeah, so that's the top five. You've also got The Hospital, George C. Scott, Paddy Shafsky drama, where he's a doctor and he's going crazy. What are those two doing in this hospital?

I've never seen it. I know it's a big deal. You've got A Clockwork Orange, another 1971 Best Picture nominee. Never talk about it on this show. You've got a John Wayne movie called The Cowboys, which sort of seems like he's phoning it in, but okay. I don't know.

You got any movies called The Cowboys? John Wayne. Yeah, Mark Rydell film. And you have Diamonds Are Forever. Okay. The final Connery-Bond movie, officially. If you don't count his revival. You are such...

Yeah, you love to discount. You don't count Never Say Never Again. It's not canon. And Cabaret, opening at number 10. Wow. That's it. Yeah. We did it. What a's it what a time to be alive we made Rachel come on our podcast I know wild Rachel thank you so much for doing this

it's literally like you're one day off of being a fucking star of a giant movie in a foreign country on a different time zone it's deeply appreciated guys anytime this is such a joy and I love okay i love getting to i learned so much today and i i hope i offered some insight absolutely definitely i have

no idea no i don't remember what i said you said you said great things are there any final thoughts is there any things you want to say about uh uh i guess, the rest of Fosse's career since you're only on this one episode, his other films, anything? I'm extremely envious of the All That Jazz episode because that's one of my favorite movies of all time. And it's also something that I only recently saw full through recently. I just said the recently twice. I've only seen it full through for the first time recently. And it was because I could only find it on a plane. It is not in circulation now.

You cannot rent it or stream it or digital purchase it fucking anywhere. You gotta buy that Criterion D Blu-ray if you want to watch it. It's a Fox movie. I have no DVD player here. Someone get Rachel a DVD player. I have nothing that I can do for that. So I was on a plane back from the Grammys from Vegas.

Layover in Michigan. And then when I flew from Michigan back to London, it was on my flight and I was like, settle in boys. It slipped through all the weird streaming rights to make it to a plane.

It was on my Delta flight back to Great Britain. I'm like, fuck it, Fox. Disney, take that movie off the goddamn shelf. Yeah, put it. God, there's so many interesting things that have been put on Disney Plus that I'm like, why not All That Jazz? Imagine though. Why not?

I use Disney Plus to watch Bluey and Toy Story with my daughter. What if my finger slips? All that showtime. All that jazz. Yeah. But I have to say that even, you know, I was talking to Mark Webb, who directs Snow White, and he loves all that jazz. And I was able to have such an amazing intellectual conversation with him about that,

because it's just the quintessential Fosse movie because it's about Fosse by Fosse and it's such an interesting movie now that Fosse's no longer with us it's such a we can watch it with it's right with a different perspective about himself right yeah like that he left by it's his legacy yeah about himself it's you know and the way that he knew he was hurting people and and even though we see little bits of it in all of his movies of this like acknowledgement of the way that he treated people wasn't right and also the self-deprecation of his his entire sense of self all that jazz is just the epitome of that and it's one of the greatest movies ever made and i'll die on that hill i really love no no no i'm with you yeah fantastic

performance by ann ranking i don't know how she did it without breaking down every day um to be playing out her real life in such a way that seems really unfair but she did such an incredible job may may she rest easy um i just yeah so i just have to say that yeah this shockingly recent departure from the world. I was so heartbroken by that. Also, an incredible Sally Bowles in ranking was, I have to say. But you heard it here, a gauntlet thrown down, whoever does the All That Jazz episode, don't fuck it up.

No, don't fuck it up, man. Yeah. Do you ever call Mark Webb the Webster? No, I call him madam webb um even better if he's ever in a bad he's never in a bad mood but i told him that if he's ever in a bad mood i'd call him the dark web uh that's good of course what a tangled web you weave do you ever say shit like that to him yeah i have to say one of nicest, nicest normal guys working in this industry right now, a great dad who is making Snow White for his daughter to watch. And it's making me just, it makes my work so much more fulfilling to work with him.

So just shout out to Mark Webb. Shout out to Madam Webb. That's very nice. Can I ask you one question? Please. Do they have apples at craft services on that movie or does it feel like a little like have you seen my thread on twitter yeah rachel rachel you've been posting apples on twitter i feel like i feel like i'm doing this my twitter thread of

the snacks of the the insensitive snacking that happens on snow white because i've made a lot of jokes about how i'm going method versus Snow White and now I'm scared of apples. You should be. So, but I've had to eat 75 apples on this set. And by eat, it's just a bite. One bite, sure. But it's still like 75,

your jaw is like, what am I doing? And also you become very self-aware of what you look like when you bite into an apple. So I sat there and took a video on my, I have a video, like a 15 minute long video on my phone of me just being like, this way maybe? Or this way? Trying to figure out your apple angles. What's the most attractive apple biting angle?

Yeah. Fun fact, you won't find one. There's just no attractive way to eat an apple. But yes, there's a lot of apple-themed snacks. Crafty does a dessert every day with lunch, and it's almost always an apple crumble or something. Fucking rude. They're not thinking about you.

Can you believe? Yeah. It's fun and games for everyone else. Yeah. I'm like, there's nothing that Gal has, and there's no food that Gal has to be afraid of yeah they don't fucking golden lasso her in between takes

she's afraid of mirrors maybe she fears the mirror oh guys the film's so fucking good though I can't wait for everybody to see it it's so good can't wait to see it either thank you so much for doing the show thanks for having me this is so fun

people should watch you be a movie uh that's my plug for you watch rachel on disney plus be a movie star continue to be a movie star thank you but i got that 4k steelbook and hbo max it's on hbo oh yeah right it's also on hbo got options yeah um thanks guys i appreciate it. No, thank you, truly. And thank you all, the listener. I'm now like the MC shifting over, looking straight the eyes of the audience. Holding up a mirror. Yep. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. JJ Birch for our research. Good job on the Fossier, JJ. Yes. And 10 comedy points for the Fossier joke. Thank you to

Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Leigh Montgomery, the Great American Owl for our theme song. AJ McKeon and Alex Barron for our editing. You can go to

patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where we do commentaries on franchises like the Batman movies, but also talk a little Liza with a Z and you can go to blankcheckpod.com for links

to all the other nerdy stupid bullshit that we do tune in next week for Lenny Lenny another very bad dark performer who doesn't know how to treat people nicely yikes and as always

welcome in no what's the opposite auf wiedersehen I should have said I'm just going to let you do it yeah do it oh that's really all I've got adieu

podcast adieu podcast