Pop Culture Happy Hour - Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is a comedy, but it’s mostly a very funny hang. Zoey Deutch plays a small town hairdresser whose fiancee has just had sex with the celebrity on his sex pass list. She's determined to do the same – with Jon Hamm. She sets off to Hollywood to find him and gathers a motley crew along the way. The film was directed by David Wain, also is known for Wet Hot American Summer. For other goofy comedies, check out these episodes: 'Jackass: Best and Last' looks back, misty-eyed, at a legacy of mayhem‘Stop! That! Train!’ goes off the rails in a good way Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport Pop Culture Happy Hour+See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Do you all remember the movie Wet Hot American Summer? How about the sketch comedy series The State? Well, the folks behind those things and a lot of other very funny things have come together to make a deeply goofy comedy called Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. Boy, it is goofy. It's about a small town gal who comes to Hollywood and has an adventure involving a lot of celebrity cameos and even more dumb jokes. I'm Linda Holmes.

And I'm Glenn Weldon, and joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, Our our co-hosts, Aisha Harris. Hey, Ayesha. Hello, hello. And Stephen Thompson. Hey, Stephen. Hello, Glenn. Hey. Gail Daughtry and the celebrity sex pass is a comedy, but it's mostly a vibe. It stars Zoe Deutsch as a sweet Kansas hairdresser who heads to Hollywood. Gail's fiancé has just had sex with the celebrity on his sex pass list, so Gail's determined to do the same thing with John Hamm. Along the way, she meets an agent, played by Ben Wong and a paparazzo, played by Ken Marino. But there's also an evil criminal. anarchist or something, on their trail. If that description leads you to believe that there's a steel trap plot to follow here, remember what I said about it being a vibe. This is a hang-up movie. It features lots of great people

and some very random cameos. Put it this way, it's the kind of movie that features a crazed, gun-toting weird ale Yankovic as himself, and you're just like, sure. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is in theaters now. Aisha, what do you think? Oh, man. I mean,

as you've already said, this is a weirdo movie. It's a movie set somewhere over the rainbow in the bizarre world of Lala Land. Do all the jokes land? No. But I think that the energy, the gameness, the yes andness of all the performers here, especially Zoe Deutsch, especially Miles Gutierrez, Riley, and Ben Wong, I just very much enjoy this and it tickled my senses and it just made me really happy. I had a smile on my face the whole time. I was watching this movie. Cool. I think you said the magic word gameness that is on display throughout. Stephen, I think you probably like this. I'm guessing you probably like this. Did you like this?

I mean, look, it's funny. It really is as simple as that. There is a very clear metric that you can use when you're watching any comedy. And that's just, did I laugh? Did I laugh more or less from start to finish? Absolutely. Is there a shagginess, a silliness, a slight kind of disposability to it? Does it feel like a little bit more of a streaming hang than a get a sitter and go out to the theater and see it on a big screen hang? To me, it leans more on kind of the streaming side of things, but I also want to support this movie. I want to support more movies like this being made. Just give me a fun 90-minute hang full of laughs. And I think that unlike a lot of comedies of this sort, I think this movie actually gets funnier as it goes along. And I think that there are some big laughs in this film's final moments. And very often movies like this kind of front load the laughs and then they have to go through all these plot mechanics.

But as you said, Glenn, the plot not super critical to this film. This film gets its plot underway within the first 10 minutes. And very often it's just like, here's some exposition for you. Just like get to the laughs. And this movie gets to the laughs. Okay. Wow, man. You said a lot of things I want to come back to, but first, Linda, let's hear from you.

What did you make of this? Yeah, I really like this, too. It's a lot of fun. This is your, you know, all the things you mentioned, the state, wet hot American summer. This is also, to me, in the realm of your pop star, never stop, never stopping. High praise. Stuff like that. Yeah.

And I might not love it quite as much as that one. But did I enjoy this? Did I have a great time? Yes, I did. Were there things where I thought, oh, that's really funny and clever. And I love that joke. Yes. Is this something I'm going to return to? Probably not, right? And I had the same reaction. You know, people loved Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar so very much. And I watched it and I've rarely thought about it again, which a lot of people are not like that. They've thought about it many times and rewatched it many times.

Eisha among them. I am one of those people. I love Barbin Star. Exactly. And that's more how I am closer to being like that with Pop Star. I have rewatched Pop Star. With this one, probably it's, you know, I watched it. I'm probably going to forget. about it, but I did enjoy watching it a lot when it was happening. And I think what I appreciate about it is it does have a very specific point of view and commitment. I agree with Stephen that it remains funny throughout. I still think movies like this, and this is, they brought this in it just about an hour and a half. It's not over long. But I actually probably with things like this would rather do like an hour for me personally. Can you make a 60-minute movie? It's just more that for me personally, that's about the ideal length of time and ours about the ideal length of time for this kind of very jokesy kind of a point of view and angle. That's where it starts to drop off for me no matter how good it is, right?

But at the same time, there's a lot of people who are terrific in this. There are certainly some people we're not going to talk about. But I think you can talk about all of the cast members you've already mentioned. Can we talk about John Slaughtery? We can talk about John Slaherty. Oh, we sure. Oh, yeah. John Slahery, who, of course, worked with John Hamm on Mad Men,

comes into this movie and, boy, makes his presence known, feels like a gross understatement of the commitment. He is committed to the bit. Fully, fully. This is commit to the bit, the movie. I so admire the way that Ken Marino is always Ken Marino in a way. And yet, I consistently find it delightful. Always. Yes. Even though he is always kind of that dude.

I wasn't so familiar with Ben Wong, thought he was great in this. Oh, he's in Karate Kid Legends. I thought he was great in this, really good, really, really funny. You know, like I said, we don't want to spoil too many of the cameos, but there are a lot. And there are people where I was like, I'm impressed about that person to do this particular thing they're having them do. And then a couple that are just, the ones that I most wouldn't spoil are some that are just like total throwaways. and it's just what? And I appreciated those as well.

So am I going to go back and think about this movie a whole lot more times? Probably not. Did I enjoy it greatly? Yes, I did. Yeah, boy, when our camps are so close together, it's tough for me to pick one to be in. But I'm going to go with Linda here.

I mean, I am so favorably inclined to this movie and absolutely everybody in it. I love everything it represents to me, maybe more than the movie itself, because it represents to me a lot of performers I have loved for years and years and years getting back together to have a great time in what is clearly their own backyards on the cheap. I mean, there is, there's the Gilmore Girls downtown set from the back lot of sub-studio. And, you know, they made an actual movie here, a movie that doesn't have much to say and is rightly proud of the fact that it has nothing to say.

I had a good time, but here's where we differ. I didn't laugh. Oh, wow. I grinned affably throughout it. But here's the thing. I almost never laugh at home. Like, I almost never laugh out loud at home. And here's where I would differ slightly with Stephen.

I agree with Stephen that the tone of this and the feel of this is more streaming-y. But I also really like seeing silly comedies in theaters with crowds. And I actually suspect that if I had seen it in a theater with a crowd, I might have laughed out loud more than I did. Because at home, I tend to just go like, ha. That's pretty good. I make my own crowd. I know you do. Look, this is a shaggy movie, as you mentioned.

And I don't know if it was anything that I normally look for, if it was crisper, tighter, sharper, faster, more honed. It wouldn't be this movie. Right, right, right, right. This movie is loose and shaggy and dumb and silly. It goes for the joke. It will shatter the reality of a scene and just kind of keep tromping through the wreckage of that scene. And that's fine.

It's not going to stick with me. I'm not going to return it the way I've returned to Barb and Star and returned to Pop Star. I think they're in a different echelon for me. It's perfectly fine. Yeah. I think it's maybe more in a tier with something like Weird, the Al Yankovic story. Oh, okay. That makes sense.

Where it's like shaggy and silly eventually kind of runs out of things to comment on but is having fun along the way, makes some similar tonal shifts, and is not like ultimately major. And they both have Weird Al Yankovic. Yeah, always great to see Weird Al. We have some more thoughts about Gail Dautry and the Celebrity Sex Pess, but first let's take a quick break. Welcome back. Aisha, you were pretty enthusiastic about this movie. Tell us more about why you think people should give it a chance. I'm going to not full-throatedly, but I'll a little softly defend this movie a bit.

Do you know what? I don't think you have to defend it. I think we're picking around the edges of something we all enjoy. It's fair. And I guess this is where it gets hard to talk about comedy because comedy is so, like, even more than most things. It's so subjective. And it's like, we're not all going to laugh at the same things. I will say, like, yes, it's Shaggy, but it still does have.

have sort of, I mean, if you want to really reach for it, I think it does have some commentary around both L.A. It's very super like L.A. inside jokes, whatever. But also there's the entire theme of the Wizard of Oz, which is not at all subtle. Yes. But I think is deployed in interesting and fun ways. And while the Wizard of Oz, of course, has been done to death. Like, every Western genre has somehow riffed on the Wizard of Oz. It's just part of the lexicon. It is part of the I do think that the way that it kind of implants it into this story and uses these characters as very obvious analogs for those original characters in the movie and in the book, I don't know.

I just found it really delightful. And I do think that even when the jokes don't land, the commitments, like, I was happy to see not only the people that we're all familiar with, but also the newcomers here who I think get some really great lines. And like, it's all about the delivery, right? The first time I saw this was at Sundance with a crowd. And it was a different experience. It was a communal experience.

Obviously, there's no, like, I'm sure there are plenty of people who are still like, it's fine. But it did get a lot of laughs. And I think that just the idea of this very basic idea of something that we all, well, maybe not all, but like many of us have partaking in or talked about is like the celebrity sex past, like, who would your person be? Just taking that germ of an idea and then running with. it in the silliest way possible.

That was all I wanted. And, yeah. Treating that as the central quest is funny. Treating it like as a quest movie instead of as like a rom-com. Oh, yeah. If I may pick apart sort of the comedic DNA of this film, I think one reason that Aisha and I may have been the biggest fans of this movie on this panel is for me, I felt a consistent kind of Tina Faye Robert Carlock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt vibe to some of

this comedy. Very much. I get that. Yeah. And if that's kind of your bag, if that's the feel that you like in a lot of your comedy, this film I felt like was speaking that language with a little bit of like Brooklyn 9-9 DNA kind of sprinkled throughout. Plus, the co-writer and director of this movie is David Wayne, who worked on Wet Hot American Summer. You get a sense of just sort of the comedic sensibility that we're working with here.

Yeah, I want to make clear. My reaction to this movie is not like, eh, it's fine, right? Of course not. It's just I really enjoyed it. It's just that when you get, when you're trying to figure out, as you said, Aisha, how to talk about comedy. It's like you start to think about, like, why is one thing something that you find funny and watch over and over again, where something else is maybe something funny that you watch once. I agree with you about the Wizard of Oz. Obviously, the Wizard of Us thing, as you said, is not subtle.

They're not hiding it, particularly toward the end. They really give you a pretty clear Wizard of Oz situation. And for that reason, it also, I think, has a lot of Muppet movie in it. Because the Muppet movie, of course, has a lot of Wizard of Oz in it in the sense that you're going on this quest and you're kind of picking up people along the way. To me, because of the tone of it, there's a lot of Muppet movie. I really did feel quite a bit of like how they pick up Gonzo and they pick up Miss Piggy. And it's sort of like, well, everybody who wants to come, sure, why don't you come with us? And that comes up.

Nobody's got anything going on in this movie. And that comes up over and over again with people where they run into something. somebody on this journey and it's like, sure, well, why do you come with us? And I do enjoy that. I think that's a really fun structure for a movie like this. And I think they make pretty much across the board great choices in choosing, in casting the people who become part of that sort of traveling gang as they go out to L.A. and try to find poor John Hamm. I say poor John Ham only because he does become something of a cartoon in this movie. Intentionally. Yes. But intentionally so. It is certainly not the first time that we

We have learned that he is a game individual. There are some other game individuals that maybe I was a little less expecting and enjoyed that a great deal. It's a lot of fun. I definitely recommend it. And part of me does want to tell people to try it in a theater because I am curious about whether I would have cackled more full-throatedly. I was thinking about this movie and my reaction to it. And it occurred to me that there are just performers in your life who get a pass, not a sex pass, but just like they get. they get grandfathered into your life, right?

They did something you loved at some point in the past. And now with every project that comes down the road, they're always going to start on third base. Yeah. But not in a sex pass way. Not in a sex best way. This is one of the things that spending decades consuming pop culture does to you. And I think my instinct as I age, and I don't think you guys are like this,

but as I age into senescence. And as a critic, my instinct is to narrow that aperture and let fewer things in and be less open. And that's something I feel like I have to find. But it's so good to be reminded. This is unofficially a reunion of the state. I think pretty much every member of the state gets a little thing to do. And it's just like, oh, I miss the state, and I miss these guys. And they're still together.

And they're hanging out together. And they're clearly having a great time. It's a reunion of your college buds. It's exactly it. It feels like that. Although I wouldn't get together with my college buds if it paid me. But I would. Yeah.

But like, I don't know. It's enough. I didn't yuck it up in the way I did with some other very silly comedies that out this summer, but like, I still had a great time. And what's wrong with a great time? Nothing. Nothing. Especially if you get to have John Ham be game and also John Slattery and a little, it's also a little madman reunion, which is, which is very fun. Exactly. I do just want to throw in one more good word for Zoe Deutsch. You talk about gameness and you talk about commitment. I think she's really, really funny in this movie. And I really appreciate the way this seems like it's going to be kind of a one-neux.

note cheerful, she's naive. And then this film lets her get weird in ways that I really appreciated. I agree. I think she's super, super funny at the center of this movie. This movie isn't just a gathering of people I already knew and liked. I think this is a really, really fun performance at this film's center. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't be the Muppet movie without Kermit the Frog. That's right. There you go. There you go. It's very Ellie Kemper in Unbreakable Commission. in many ways. Absolutely. I also do want to really quickly shout out the character of Terrence,

who's played by Toby Wyndham. He's playing John Hamm's bodyguard, I guess, or security guard or whatever. He doesn't have too many things on his credits, as far as I could tell, looking, but he's very great delivery, very fun, has a repeated gag that I think really works. And just, again, he comes in kind of later in the movie, but injects more energy into the movie. If one thing doesn't land for you, something else might. by the end of this film. And that, as Linda has already pointed out,

that's like a ringing endorsement of a movie in and of itself. Yeah. Sex pass. Yay. Absolutely. Listeners do not get it twisted. We all like this movie. We all are more, I think, more to the point. We are all encouraging you to go see it in the theater if you see it.

All right. Well, that brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris, Stephen Thompson, Linda Holmes. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. This episode was produced by Hufza Fafat. and Mike Katz have been edited by our sure runner Jessica Reedy,

and although it provides our theme music, thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.