Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Can a Bad Movie Have a Perfect Performance? | Quick Question Ep. 319

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Two Best Friends and Comedy Writers Soren Bowie & Daniel O'Brien present a passionate defense of Chris Pine as a methed-out white nationalist in Smoking Aces while mourning Toby Kebbell's lost stardom after RocknRolla. Along the way: James Austin Johnson's Trump impression has shades of Ferrell's W; the revelation that Gilbert Godfrey's entire persona was a put-on; why Sebastian Maniscalco's choreographed segues make zero logical sense and the quiet devastation of realizing Oscar season has become a conveyor belt of biopics about men who solved being alive by blowing their brains out. You'll leave armed with warm feelings for Ben Foster, Nicole Kidman, and Michael Stuhlbarg's monologue supremacy. They say honey, turn the television on—but you can't, because there was no wind. Thanks to Butcherbox for sponsoring this episode. Go to ButcherBox.com/QQ for $20 off, free shipping always, and choose organic ground beef, chicken breast or ground turkey in every box for a year, new subscribers only.Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

Sorry. If there's an great question for you all right? Sorin, we're back is the Quick Question podcast It is the Donald Trump podcast Where we do our Donald Trump voice the whole time I'm Daniel Sorin

Do you have a Trump in you Oh, let's see. It's a lot like our accent episode. It's a lot like the accent episode, but it's different. I've got a big beautiful accent. Let me try. Tariffs. No, I don't have it.

I don't have it. I don't have it either, but do you ever do you ever do you ever do it? No, because I'm so annoyed. I know. No, go ahead, go ahead. I don't want to yuck your y'em here. But it's, it's very fun. And it's, and I, obviously, I, I hear his horrible voice a lot for work,

because I, because he comes up in every story that we do. And, and he's also just like on the news all the time, because he's the president. And he, and he talks so much. He's doing weird shit. And he's so bad at talking. but it's, I've never seen anything like it before in terms of, like a, he's just got such a specific idyllect, such a specific voice, the words he uses, the way he talks, it's, I, I haven't been, I've never felt like so seduced by Christopher Walkins' voice, who also has a specific cadence to it.

Sometimes I, like, I'll see a picture of Jeff Goldblum and I'll, and I'll just go, oh, oh, oh, oh. Like, he, like, he will sometimes, like, pull me into his orbit. But it's mostly just Trump. I just, I've heard him talk so much. And then sometimes I'll, I'll, I'll be talking about something else in my life. And I'll just, just, just dip into it. Just talking about, oh, you see this thing that, uh, my cousin, she just went to China. And I, and just, just.

It just leaps out of me. I can't. I don't know. Sometimes you see someone or you hear someone talking in a certain way. It's just like, I don't want to try it out. I want to see. I want to see what it feels like. So he has, he's got a very, you're absolutely right.

He's a very distinct voice. And people do something, some dead on ringer impressions of him. But I occasionally watch Seth Myers. And Seth Myers thinks that he's got a really good Trump. It's never, nothing's. ever been clear than that Seth Myers thinks he's nailing it. So you watch the show and anytime he's talking about politics, he's like, he's not saying exactly these words, but this is the sentiment a lot of time.

I think it would go a little something like this. And then he does like a little like sketch with Trump, you know, anywhere from five to 12 seconds. And I'm like, I hate this. I hate watching somebody try to do Trump. Colbert does it too. I mean, and Colbert and Seth seem pretty similar. in that they have found one aspect of his, of the spectrum of his voice,

because he has so many different modes. And they have found one and they have just decided, I'm going to latch on to this and this is my Trump. Colbert doesn't have been like, we're going to build this up and it's going to be great and you're going to love it, which is like, again, one of the shades of Trump's voice. And it's not, it's not the full picture. It's not super great as far as impressions go.

The guy on Saturday Night Live, James Austin Johnson, has it dialed down so fucking well. It's so good. And it started as a great impression that has since evolved into its own. In the way that, like, Will Ferrell's George W. Bush was never, never really sounded like him. It just became, like, culturally what W sounds like for a lot of people was Farrell's impression. and that's what James Austin Johnson does for Trump now, just knocking it out of the park. And I was listening to The Flagrant Ones podcast,

which one of the, Carl Tart, one of the hosts of it, is a hilarious sketch performer and a writer on SNL right now. And the way that they write the cold opens with, or I guess any Trump sketch, is they just have James in character. They like hit record on a voice memo and just have him start talking and then writers like throw some things at him.

They're just like, now talk about get distracted by shoes or get distracted by how pretty this person is and just sort of like let him riff in character as Donald Trump, as his specific dialed in version of Donald Trump. Yeah. Doing improv and like, man, that sounds fun.

It seems like such a fun job. I want to do that. Speaking of the dead on impressions and this one's super niche, but I appreciate it so much. You know Marcelo Hernandez is, right? So he does Sebastian Manascalco. He does. It's so fucking good.

Fucking rules. God. He's really got it dialed in in a way where I'm like, who else knows who is Sebastian? I guess he, like, fills arenas and stuff like that. But no one in my world in my orbit knows who Sebastian Manascalco is. I feel the same, like, I feel the exact same kind of contradictory way that you do, where he clearly is one of the most successful touring stand-of-comedians in the world. Yeah.

And comedians love him. What? What? What comedians love him? Jerry Seinfeld. John. John Mullaney. What?

They love him. I know. I don't completely understand it. I know. I thought you were going to talk about like the Austin orbit, like the Joe Rogan Codray. No, it's not the mothership. Yeah. It's probably your.

favorite comedian love Sebastian Menacecalco. And I, he will sometimes... Gary Goldman loves Sebastian Scalco. He will sometimes, some like clips of his will get sent around at work among the writers in a non-complementary way. And I'll also watch his specials.

Shea and I will watch his specials just because like, like, you know, he's big and I, and every once in a while, I get a huge fucking laugh out of his stuff. I don't love all of it, but a couple of times in every set, I'm just like, yeah, that's really good. You're keeping your finger on the comedy pulse. But despite all that, it doesn't seem like he's a household name.

Certainly, it doesn't seem like it's an impression that would warrant a full sketch on Saturday Night Live. And the episode when Marcello first trotted it out, it was like the Glenn Powell episode. And Glenn is just like, my buddy is coming to my bachelor party. I've not mentioned this before, but my buddy is Sebastian Manuscalco. And out comes Marcello with a perfect Sebastian. And I'm just like, this is for me. For me. This is just for me.

That's exactly what I felt when I saw it. I was like, who could this possibly be for about me? Because I, the same thing at work. Nobody at work knew who he was Sebastian Manuscalco was. And I was like, oh, I can't wait to introduce you to this. And got to like, usher them into this weird guy that menses around. on stage and has these, every punchline has a choreographed move that goes with it. And I was like, please watch this with me.

And people are like, what is, and this? And people like, apparently, yes, yes, people are very into this. All of his segways are insane. Not the impression, the real life Sebastian, where he'll finish a joke. And then I'd be like, there's so many websites now. Technology. Uber. I was in an Uber the other day.

And he's like, how do we? get there. Why even, if you just wanted a story about Uber, why would you say there are so many websites now? Why would you? When he, when we first started doing this podcast, I was listening to a lot of like comedy podcasts because I was like, what do we want to be? And, um, is that true? Yeah, that's true. It's crazy. And like, what don't we want to be was a lot of it. So when I was, we were thinking of what this podcast would be, I was like, what? I don't really have an idea for like, what I want like the. We want to. We want to. like a voice to it same way we wanted a voice for correct and um i was listening to a lot of podcasts

i listened to a podcast that sebastian mascoco did with his friend pete carelli which isn't actually super different than this one in that they live on opposite coasts their comedians and they're good buddies and uh i was listening to it and i'm like i can't see his mannerisms as he's talking and i'm like i find him much more agreeable in this in this medium sebastian mascarco is easier to listen to when i'm not watching him at the same thing you're not watching him at the same time. Him on a podcast, he's done Conan's podcast and when he's not performing and A, his, his voices is way less annoying. And B, he is just, he's clearly thought a lot about and worked very hard at comedy. So he's just like really good at talking about it as a craft.

Yeah, which is, was shocking to me. But I really, I did, I do actually enjoy that podcast. I think it's pretty good. I wouldn't say that, you know what, this might be a dangerous binger. This is something I listened to eight years ago when we started this podcast. I have no idea if those guys have what their political spectrum is like at this point or what they talk about on their podcast anymore. I don't want to encourage anyone to go there and find out that he's talking about how the government might take our guns. The trash island. Yeah.

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Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. You know who's got a great Sebastian Manascalco? My wife. My wife. She has... Really? Yeah. She really surprises me every once in a number.

Because she's not like, she's not an impression comic or anything, folks. She doesn't, and I don't think she does what I do, which is just like do voices around the house and in the car that I like. But she'll just like very casually start doing Sebastian Manuscalco. She started doing all we were dating and I was like, what the f? Why do you have that? What are you doing with that? Hey, hey, that's amazing. Good for her.

Yeah, there's certain accents that you can just lock. I don't know why. Like, it's your slumdog millionaire accent. Like, your whole life has led you to lock in on a certain accent. Like, there's just, you're upbringing and everything. There's some things that you can just be like, oh, shit, I'm really good at that from the jump. Like, I don't even need any work at it. I was so panicked that you were alluding to the possibility that I, Daniel, had a slumdog millionaire accent.

No, I'm saying your wife is a slumdog millionaire. Yeah, okay, that's fine. That's better than like. Our shared history where off Mike, I do a slumdog millionaire accent for you. I don't have one of those. No, well, I mean, it's a good Danny Boyle is what it is. Yes, that's doing an Indian accent. You know what I was thinking about recently that we had a running gag on the show we used to do after hours where the character, Daniel, would do an impression of,

an actor or sometimes it was an accent and it was very bad but canonically the character of Sorin loved it and thought it was good and thought it was accurate and I don't think we ever some bits you some bits have a lot of lore behind them and some some do not I don't think we ever landed on whether Sorin likes Daniel doing voices and wants to encourage that or Or if Soren thought the voices were really good. I don't think we ever settled on the reality. I don't even think we discussed it. Do you have it in your head?

Yes, I know, like I remember the trajectory of it. I remember that they was, you were doing Yoda or something like that in it. And the joke was in the script that everyone hated it. And every once in a while on those, because you've got three other people, or you got three people all doing something the same. I was like, I'm going to do something different. Like, I'll do something. I was like, I'm going to really like this.

I'm going to be really into it. It doesn't hurt the script. It doesn't, there's nothing wrong with it. It's like, I was really into it. And then I wrote an episode in which Sorin was also really into one of Dan's accents. And I was like, oh, this is like a fun bit. This is a fun thing where Sorin is like, he's the only one who likes this. And this is all like for him.

And then we did an episode where about different dimensions, where Soren from a different dimension is there. And that's the one where I cough up a feather at one point. And that one was Dan doesn't act, does a impression of somebody, and that Soren is mad. He really hates it. It's like he's allergic to it. He really hates it. In the reality of After Hours, every impression that the Dan character did was bad. And Soren loved it.

And in this episode, I did an impression well. Whatever impression it was, it was like one of the better impressions that I have. It's something you have in your back pocket. Yeah, and the Soren character in that world didn't like it. It was a really fun twist on the running bit. But I still don't know, like... I think it was that Sorin genuinely liked it. He was really...

Because, like, I was... It wasn't just like, hey, keep going. But it was like a... Oh, my God, this is magic. Do more. Well, speaking of acting, speaking of acting, Sorin, we're going to get into it.

We're going to get into an episode. And it's going to be a lot of fun. People can't see it, but Dan, I think part of the appeal is, Dan, you're doing the head turn that he does when he thinks about windmills. When meals are bad. They say, honey, turn the television on, but you can't because there was no wind. Honey, turn the television on is a thing he would say in one of his little actouts. You know, man and wife, they're sitting there's the newspaper. And wife is like, honey, turn the television on, but you can't.

They can't. There's no wind. Because the windmill where I like to go over there. Honey, check outside. Is it windy? Can we watch television yet? No. If he was, if he had any other job or trajectory, he would be so fun.

He would be so great. If he was just a fucking Hollywood square, just our generation's Charles Nelson Riley as this strange cartoon that we all love to kind of make fun of. Oh, there's one of the thing I want to bring up regarding accents before we get into the real podcast.

Gilbert Godfrey, have you ever heard him not doing Gilbert Godfrey? Yeah. It's insane. I did not realize that Gilbert Godfrey's voice was a put on,

that that was something he landed on was like, well, this is working, I'm going to keep doing it. He's got like messages, you can listen to messages that he leaves for people on their voicemail.

And it's like, that's a different human being completely. Completely. It's very, it was, it's confusing because he's, he's got a character on stage when he's doing comedy. He's doing the Gilbert character. And sometimes they would bring him out for TV shows doing the Gilbert character.

And then when he did a voice in a Latin when he was a Yagio, he was still the Gilbert character. Yeah. That, that really, that's a, that's a, that's quite a prestige. That's quite a long time of, of putting on this thing. That's why I would have a. that was really him. But I guess the story is that Disney liked him.

They wanted him for the parrot. They wanted somebody loud and obtrusive. And they built the parrot around him. They even tried to make it look like him. I know they tried a similar thing at the peak Will and Grace era when they were working on finding Nemo. And they wanted Megan Malali for Dory. They were like, we want you to do this. And she was like, great, I'm going to come in and I'm an actor and I'm going to do this part.

And they were like, no, no, no, we, we want Karen. We want your character from Will and Grace. We want that voice. And she was like, well, I'm an actress and I'm trying to do other things that are not that. So I'd rather just like, either do my voice or do a different voice. And they're like, totally, that's great. And they replaced her with Ellen DeGeneres because they, which is an odd thing, like, because she's not doing Karen.

She is doing Ellen DeGeneres. It's a strange. They had a specific thing. They didn't get exactly what. they wanted and rather than letting her do something else they just went in a completely different direction that was also not her. I feel a little bad. We did that.

So Kathy and Jimmy came in and did a character for me in one of my episodes. And I was like, without saying it, I was like, I really just want you to do the none that you played in Sister Act. It would really be helpful if that was the character. Because she came in and she had different stuff planned. She was like, what if I did it kind of like this? And I was like, oh, that is cool. It's not what I'm looking for.

Yeah. A little shyer, but a little more flighty, a little aloof. Yeah, I wanted something very specific and it was something she'd already done because I have no imagination. And I felt a little bad, but we eventually got it. I was, you didn't replace her with someone doing a, a nun-like role? Okay. No.

All right, well, let's do, let's talk about actors. Let's talk about, so technology, technology is crazy. Websites. Uber. What are some other websites? IMB is a website. Let's talk about actors. It's Oscar season, Soren.

And lately I've been thinking about the best acting performance from a bad movie. You always hear actors talking about actors saying, like, they are good in everything. Like Sam Rockwell, no matter what the movie is, is going to be good. He's going to deliver.

Amy Adams is just going to be, a fucking slam-dunk Amy Adams part in anything. And I've been trying to think what is the best performance in a shitty movie. For the purposes of making this a manageable conversation,

my instinct was to narrow our field to people who have won best actor. Because that's something I feel like we could point to, like this was a really good performance, but this movie kind of sucked. I don't know if that

is too limiting for us. There are, I immediately when you were talking to saying that, I had like two that jump into my head. Do it. And I was very concerned immediately when you're like, I should create rules around this. I thought you were going to be like, Soren, you're not allowed to talk about Ben Foster. God damn it.

Because I love Ben Foster. I think that he is pure magic in the movie screen. I think he's so compelling. He's an alpha dog. Alpha dog is I think objectively not a great movie. It's a weird, dark movie. But he is acting his fucking ass off in that movie.

He's so good. But that's not the main one I want to talk about. The main one I want to talk about is, first of all, let me back up. I've got an eye. I've got an eye for talent. When I see a young actor on the screen or a young actress who is new to the industry, I occasionally will see someone and I'll be like, oh, fuck, that person is a star. I can see it on them already.

I know it. And the problem is that this generally happens six or seven years after they'd become a star And I'm just not aware of it It happened with I watched Thelma and Louise when I was young And I was like, that Brad Pitt boy is going to be good I have a feeling

And he already was He had already been in lots of movies And I just didn't know And that happened to me When I watched Smoking Aces Chris Pines' performance in Smoking Aces For sure Is unbelievable

He plays a meth-doubt white nationalist. I don't know what they are. They're like backwoods, racist, coming to kill Jeremy Piven. And there's three of them, it's three brothers. And he has these long, stringy, sweaty hair. And he does this. There's a whole scene where he talks to Ben Affleck's dead body, and he just moves Ben Affleck's lip.

But he's like, he's forgiving himself for killing him. And it's so well, he's so good. It's unbelievable. It has no business being in that movie. But I think that they probably got it. And they were like, well, it doesn't fit the tone at all. But this guy is amazing. He's wonderful in it.

That smoking ace is worth watching just for him. I think I need to rewatch Smokin Hases because the element that's missing for me on it is I think. I think smoking Aces is good. What? I don't think it's a bad movie. I only saw it once. in theaters, and I remembered enjoying myself. I think just, like, I'm, I'm a huge sucker for movies with lots of people in them.

And so when I'm watching this movie, which, like, has lots of people, like, like, any of those guy-richi movies where it just seems like there's, like, six different, uh, unique gangs of criminals who are all converging on one thing and, and, uh, or any of those, like, Gary Marshall Valentine's Day New Year's Eve movies Love Actually style where there's just like different You know

Little bits and pieces with actors I like it I like it no matter what's happening And smoke and aces We're just like Look it's common Look it's Alicia Keys

This is so fun Look at all the people in this movie Ben Affleck How'd they get you? It sucks so bad It's a really bad It's a bad movie It's such a bummer

This came out in the time When I was testing DVDs So I've watched it several times. And it is, it's an objectively bad movie. Like, you have that great cast. You have this premise that I think is actually kind of a cool premise, is that there's a man hold up in a hotel in a low rent Las Vegas. I think they're in Reno, somewhere like that.

And there's a contract out on him. And so all of these contract killers are coming to this small town to kill this man. And it's such a cool, fun premise. and I think the execution sucks so bad. Because also you don't, there's just like nothing's ever, maybe this is intentional, but nothing's wrapped up the way you want,

cinematically, like the way you want it to be. Ben Affleck's got a whole team. He's got a team of guys that are all going in. They don't even get close to the town. They get wiped out long before they ever get there in a very unceremonious way. And I'm like, okay, well, fuck, why do we follow them at all?

What do we get out of that? If I want each of these teams, I want to be like when I'm a kid and I've got my action figures, let's be honest, I was 17. I've got my action figures and they're all got to, they'm all going to come to this big war and like, I want a death for each of them. I want something cool and rad. And I'm not getting that. And so I was getting angry. Ray Leota's death is really unceremonious. The Otis in that movie.

Yeah. This makes me think of an adjacent option for this. and it's another movie with a huge cast that I should probably see again to find out if it's good or bad. But rock and rolla by Guy Ritchie, I remember seeing that in theaters. I had recently moved to L.A. and I did not have any friends. And so I saw it alone in a theater on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, that sentence just kept getting better. And I'm looking at the cast now, and it's fucking mind-blowing, especially when I land on the actor that I think was.

stand out incredible. This cast, it was starring Gerard Butler, you got Tom Hardy, got Idris Elba, you got Tandyway Newton, Mark Strong, Tom Wilkinson, ludicrous, our friend once again Jeremy Piven, Master of the Ensemble, and I walked away from this movie, that was pretty underwhelming, and I thought this guy,

Toby Cabell, is going to be a fucking star. He is so good in this movie, For so much of it, he plays this, like, strung out, drugged out piece of mayhem, who then turns everything around by the end of the movie. And he is just electrifying every second that he's on screen. And he's doing, he's so good that I didn't until this moment remember that Tom Hardy and Idris Elba and Mark Strong were in this movie. And that's a guy, I'm also, I'm like you too, where I'll see an actor who. who's already famous and I'll say he's going to be famous.

And I'm right because they're already famous. This was a miss for me because I see Toby Cabell and I was like, I watched that movie thinking the movies, whatever, Toby Cabell is going to be the name that everyone talks about for the next 20 years of movies. And he is simply not. This defied you at every turn. I was like, what do I know him from?

And I was like, something where he's like with a fighting a monster I was like oh it's Kong Skull Island that's all I know him from and he's like he like played an ape in dawn of the planet of the apes I'm looking at his list now and like

who boy the new fantastic four but not the new new fantastic four he was in the the really the came and went fantastic four that was so bad that that no one claims it the director has like, this is, this, fuck this movie, the studios ruin this movie.

And all the actors in it are like, yeah, I don't, I, this was not good. And I didn't like working on it. And there's no one who caps for this movie. And Toby Cabell was Dr. Doom. He was in Warcraft, which also disappeared all the same as it hit theaters. And then a bunch of movies I've never heard of. But that's not saying much. Don't, don't you, don't, you don't.

No, but still, he's, even looking at me. He's even looking at his Wikipedia right now and learning that there was a 2016 Ben Her movie. Yeah. It was like that. That was a shock to me, but I didn't want to say anything. I assumed everyone knew that happened. Maybe he's, oh, I see he's got like, like a lot of actors that I like. It turns out he's working in an Apple TV series that I've never heard of.

But that's good. That's work. Servant? Is that it? For all mankind. Oh. Oh, wait. I met a bunch of books.

those people. When we were striking, I met a bunch of the for all mankind folks. They seem nice. So, people, people love for all mankind. And unfortunately, too many of them have told me to watch it that I never will. It passed the threshold for you. Where you know, it's part of your personality to not watch it. Someone looks me in the eyes and tells me, you specifically will love this movie. And I'm like, I am unknowable, sir. Oh, you're going to put me in a hole? Is that what you think? You think you got a little cubby just for me?

Jokes on you. I hate movies. I like art. And I'm writing that down because I'm going to have to remember that that's my personality. Okay, Tony Cabell, I got to see more stuff with him. He didn't strike, his face is recognizable, but he wasn't somebody that I was like, was memorable from Kong Skull Island. Other than King Kong, I don't know that anyone was, oh, no, Tom Hiddleston. I believe.

Well, who did motion... Who played King Kong in Kong Skull Island? Can it be anybody other than Andy Circus? He was Kong in one of the other ones. Let's see, let's see. Can we trust IMDB anymore? Can we trust websites? Uber.

Ober. Toby Cabell. Waymo. Who was... Who was Kong? I look at this Waymo. Oh! Guess what, motherfucker.

In Kong Skull Island, Toby Cabell was Jack Chapman, a guy who, just one of the army guys who died, and he was also Kong. How about that? Redemption. That's amazing. So that's like a real good career, by the way. If you're a monster,

like Annie Circus's career where he's like the mocap monster, but there are guys that are like, what's the guy's name who's the alien and he did? He's been a predator. Doug Jones. Like that type of career where you are a very specific body type and you can play a fawn in Pan's Labyrinth and a fucking shape of water and a shape of water.

You can do all those things. Like that's like a real amazing career to have. And I know somebody who is currently on that path. Is it the guy from Barbarian? Yes. He plays the mother in Barbarian. And talking to him about it is fascinating. because it's a small community.

It's like there's not a lot of guys who all are 6-9 and weigh 160 pounds. And they can go in, you can put them in anything. Yeah. And they just, they don't look like humans to begin with. You're reading for a role and you look in the hallway at the other actress waiting and it's Doug Jones and Wemby. You're like, I'm not getting this fucking shit. I'm going to get out of here.

You're supposed to be in preseason. Yeah, they have a very specific. strange look, but then they, Doug Jones has been basically a mentor to him. Like, Doug Jones has contacted him, be like, here's the things you need to be aware of that they're not going to think of that only you are going to know. Like, you need to be able to breathe in your costume. And here, like, the demands you have to make at the beginning of a movie to ensure that you're going to be able to move, that you're going to be able to not, that you're not going to

injure yourself in this thing. Because nobody knows. Nobody but them know what it's like to be in something like that, like that because, and how it affects a body that has a reach of seven feet. Yeah. I'm certainly, I don't, as much as Doug Jones has worked and has great as he's always been,

I don't, I don't think directors other than Guillermo del Toro even think of him as a person. It's just like this, this massive prop that they have. Yeah. I think that's probably true. It's like just, yeah,

they think when the face isn't, isn't there, like just hit the, Hit the cues, man. Yeah. Like, hit your lines. Jump when you need to jump. But Matt Davis, friend of the show.

Also, friend of Joe Chandler, another friend of show. Great. Shout out, Joe. Matt Davis is one of the funniest people I've ever met, too. He's like a guy who got his start doing stand-up. I'm not sitting-up. Doing sketch. And he's so, so funny.

But yeah, he plays all the horror monsters now. And he's the nicest person in the world. so calm and collected but you see him as mother and barbarian and it's horrifying and he posts a lot of pictures from set of him like as mother just drinking a sprite or whatever it's really enjoyable playing cards

with somebody on set it's really fun I used to live for shit like that I used to run a blog called characters in the wild where I would just an old Tumblr blog where I would just like find and post pictures of actors

in their costume on set doing things and it would be like Voldemort with little like old lady John Lennon glasses reading his phone. Like this rules. This is awesome. Poor guy. It just keeps slipping down his face because there's no nose there. That's, yeah, that's wonderful. It's wonderful to see.

Oh, the quintessential one is Boba Fett wearing high heels talking to Lucas. But like he's got, yeah, it's a woman in there. It's really wonderful. In working on this, this podcast project I'm seeing now because I wanted to go to the list of people who have won best actor over the last like 15, 20 years

and this is a pretty bad list. Is it really? Are you looking at it on IMDB? I'm looking at it on Wikipedia and like, last year was Adrian Brody. That movie's supposed to be good. I haven't seen it.

I think Adrian Brody's kind of annoying. Killian Murphy the year before that winning for Oppenheimer. That seems good. I love that movie. I loved him. Whale. Brendan Fraser for the Whale.

A movie that no one talks about before that. Will Smith for King Richard. Yeah, for a movie about tennis. Anthony Hopkins for the father. That was the year that he made everyone upset

because he beat Chadwick Boseman for his last on-screen performance. We've got shocking. We've got Joaquin Phoenix for Joe. We're coming up on a stretch here that is shocking. Randy Malick for Freddie Mercury, Gary Oldman for Winston Churchill, Casey Affleck.

Jesus Christ. What were we doing? What were we thinking? This is such a cursed list. Who did Casey Affleck beat? Andrew Garfield. I didn't see the movie, but Andrew was better. Ryan Gosling, Lalleland. Probably better.

Vigo Mortensen. Sure. A Washington Shrap. Oh. Not a good look. Not a good look. For an Oscar.

Oh, 2016. What was going on? I'll tell you what was going on. Wait, let's see. We got the King's speech. Colin Firth one for the King's speech. Man, 2010. These are just like completely forgettable movies.

This is the thing. I guess they were bait at the time. Almost all these are biopics. 2014 looks like a dog shit. Eddie Redmayne won for Stephen Hawking. The other nominees were Steve Carell for Foxcatcher, Bradley Cooper, American sniper, Benedict Cumberbatch imitation game, Michael Keaton for Birdman. I give it to Birdman.

Other than Birdman, they're all biopics. That's all we make for Emmys anymore. For Oscars anymore, are biopics. This is the first time realizing it. I assume everyone else has already known this. But I'm like, I'm just going through this list. I'm like, yeah, that actually happened. That actually happened.

That actually happened. Pre-existing IP. I feel like Pre-existing IP Future Entertainment historians We'll look back On 2011

The year we awarded Jean Dugardin Best Actor For Artist And we'll just have to be We'll have to be like Look I can't

I can't I can't overstate How charmed we all were By this black and light Black and White Dantsey Danty talkingy movie With a fun

dog that we all fell in love with and we liked this guy we'd never seen him before he looked like old Hollywood he was french it's i don't entirely know what the movie was about we were just it was just collective madness that we all were like yes jean du jardine our new favorite actor who might be dead i don't know well it also it was a period of of realizing that the celebrities that we liked the most were pretty awful people. And so we were like, uh-oh, clear the slate. Like, let's just start over. Let's just start with people we know nothing about and give them awards.

And we kept fucking up. Like we were like, ah, Casey Affleck, there we go. Oh, we shouldn't have done that. We really blew it. Sorry. But we wanted people that made us feel good about giving them an award. In the ebb and flow of society's relationship with Ben Affleck, that was a down year for Ben for us.

And we were like, Casey is the superior affleck. We didn't know yet that Ben is, is, is, is prime Affleck. We didn't know that we nailed it the first time. Yeah, that he was just in a slump. That's all. Yeah, it was a weird time when we were like, we wanted to feel good about our choices. Because we, up until that point, did not anymore. And so we were making some strange choices.

We were like, let's choose a movie that we think is good for us, but tastes like, Yeah. Mystic River. That's a tough movie to watch. Mystic River's awesome. Would you just like throw it on though? You gotta be in a real mood for Mr. I would throw Mystic River on. Yeah. Really? Okay. I would reread the book too. I'm, I'm Mystic River-pilled for sure.

Theory of Everything. That's the Stephen Hawking movie. Yeah. Made me feel good to vote for that one. This is, this is an insane. I wonder, let's pull up best actress to see if that is similarly cursed. I bet it's not. I bet there's no problematic actresses that we feel bad about now. I think some people...

You know it for Renee Zilweger, for Judy Garland? Huh, that's interesting. I don't know that we did that. This is immediately a better list, though. Olivia Coleman feels like we're going to stand up for Olivia Coleman forever. Francis McDormant. Emma Stone. We still clearly like her.

Brie Larson and Room. That's good. Julianne Moore. I was just thinking the other day. Julianne Moore deserves an Oscar. Well done. 2014. Boy, we,

oh, Brie Larson won for Room. Oh, I remember. Okay. Yeah. Like, these all look legit. These are good. These are all people who... We do just give it to white women, though, don't we?

Except for everything, everything everywhere. all at once. Yeah. It was like the real departure from that. But looking through this list, I'm like, okay,

it's got a real theme. This, we sure do. I guess, Hallie Berry, thank you. Monsters Paul. Look at 2001.

That wasn't that long ago, was it? I think we can probably re-evaluate 2009, Sandra Bullock winning for the blindside. That was another

collective madness that we all rode, rode hard for the blinds. At the time, we were feeling very good about ourselves, Daniel. that was that was that was that McElmore gay song where we were all like we're good people for listening to this

I can't believe how good I am that I love this man yeah Francis McDormand for this these are great these are good these are these are solid picks oh boy Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for playing Virginia wolf yeah the hours I got to see more movie I never saw that's a movie that's a that was a plane movie for me that I wept openly for about three hours on the plane just about not even about what happened in the movie, just about

Virginia Woolf. Yeah. Thinking about her and thinking about writing about writers who killed themselves. Because I was a point in my life where I was really thinking, oh, writers, we love writers because they have

solved being alive. Like we love to read from them because they have solved this great mystery. And they have seen things that we have not seen. They're privy to sensory information around us that we don't get. And they can convey that to us. And I was like, and they're all choosing to kill themselves.

And that was making me feel pretty bad. It was making me think about like Hemingway and stuff. Right. You learn about Hemingway where like his entire ethos was like, every sentence you write, your only job is to write something true. I'm obsessed with truth. I'm going to do the true. thing in the world.

This is truth. This is what life is. I've got to fucking kill myself. I have to pull my brains out because I've seen the truth too hard. And I was getting really down. And I was thinking about the sister job to that and the sister creation of that is a musical artist. And I was like,

fuck, dude, there's so many more. It's musicians who did the exact same thing. They got a glimpse of the truth. And then they were like, this is too much. I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to walk into a pond. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just stab myself in the heart.

And yeah, and they do it in such terrible ways. Virginia Woolf was one where I was like, why did you do that? She just put stones in her dress and walked into the sea. Or was it a lake or something like that? I don't know how Virginia Woolf faded. I think Virginia Woolf put, she put a bunch of stones in her dress, dress with pockets, I'm assuming.

And then. Smart. Walked into the ocean. Yes, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones. And I don't know why I was assuming it was a dress because she's a girl. That and girls wear dresses. That was my assumption. Well, it was the past.

She walked into a river in Sussex and drowned herself. And what a, just like, what a terrible way to go, I think. Maybe she just didn't have access to other stuff. No, you have to be so sad. That is, that's extreme, that's some real. That's a writer's depression. That's a cinematic sadness. Your body will do that your body takes over at some point.

It's going to cut off the brain, which is telling it to stay underwater and try to get above the surface. And you have to fight that. You have to fight your body's instinct to stay alive with enough sadness to be like, no, I'm just going to stay down here. I'm going to stay on here forever. It's horrifying. And I was on a plane just weeping. at S S. I go as a stewardess was like, do you want a Biscoff cookie?

No, thank you. That's a bummer, yep. Good actress, though. Sounds like good performance. Yeah, she deserves one. Nicole Kimman's great. I think is it. I think she's great.

And I also think she's really cool. Yeah. You know? I mean, we all agree. The Tom Cruise era. Ethan Hawke, he's the last cool actor, don't you feel? Oh. Don't we feel?

And Nicole Kidman is the last cool actress? I think so. I think Nicole Kidman. She's cool. Was, like, kept behind doors during the Tom Cruise era, and it takes a while to wash oneself free of that stink. And she is just, she has weirdly done so many strange things. separate from Tom Cruise, there was like a memeification of the way she clapped at some award show where she wasn't getting her, didn't want her fingers to touch, probably because a hardworking member of her glam team gave her great nails that she didn't want to destroy.

But I was like, look at her fucking freak alien hands. And then she did that the pre-roll at AMC that has been endlessly memed about her just like welcoming people back to the movies. And it's, and it's. Yeah, I remember that. An alien. A strange thing. But I don't know. I think she works a lot and I think she's cool.

And she's good and everything. I see her pop up on, like, talk shows. And I think she's like, you're a little bit weird, but you know you're a little bit weird. And I think people don't expect her to be funny. So they don't, they don't offer her the same, like when she's on Fallon or Colbert or whatever, they don't offer her the same grace. You need to like, you have to like be welcoming of a funny person. You know, you have to like let your guard down to a certain degree if you're going to have

Will or net come on your talk show. You're like, he's going to be funny. So I'm going to, I'm going to trust him. And I'm going to look at him like a comedy peer. And I'm going to set him up to score comedically. They don't really offer that to Nicole Kidman. They have, they, they, they see her come in and it's like, this is, this one is beautiful actress. And she's probably nervous in front of this crowd.

So I've got to, like, I've got to set her up to succeed in a different way. And we're like, no, give her, give her the latitude that you would give fucking Jason Bateman. She, she is, she's, she's funny. She can hold her. And she will be funnier if you are, are a good, uh, partner to it. Have you? thought about this? Nope. Just talking.

I think you're absolutely right. I think you're right that there's, there is like a talk show host have that different shape that sits on that couch every week and they have like a certain energy that they bring depending on the shape. And they're like, oh, this is, this is pretty woman shape. I will be, I'll be this. I want, the only deviation I can think of from that is like when David Letterman used to have Julia Roberts on the show. First of all, he was inappropriate with her. but in a way that was like it was pointedly inappropriate. He was like he had such a big crush on her.

But he would come at it from the perspective of like knowing that she was going to give jokes back in a way that like I don't ever see. I see like I can see a host deciding I'm just going to run this. I will they, I know that they have this one story. I will work as hard as I can to get to that story. And other than that, I will fill all of the extra air when I ask them a question and they give a one sentence answer. and they're planning for that. And Dave wouldn't do that with Julie Roberts. So Dave would just be like he'd hit on her

and then leave the silence there. Hit on her in a way that was like, you know what would be interesting? I want to kiss you on the mouth. Nothing subtle about it. You are so mesmerizing to me. I think I'd like to just, can I kiss your eyelids?

I'm not even listening to you. You have anything to say about that? Speaking of Nicole Kimman, though, Did you ever watch A Killing of a Sacred Deer? It's a, I wish you could live your life like I live my life where movies don't exist until I see them. And then I'm like, how did it do that? Look at this. Look at this amazing movie.

Is that your ghost? I don't know. It's Colin Farrell and Cole Kimman and that boy, that Irish boy who's so good in everything. Barry Kean. That's the one. Cohen. I was watching... Kehotay.

Yeah, it's got a bunch of G's and H's in his last name. Yeah. I was... Some fucking irresponsible Irish mess of consonants. I saw... I'm really sorry. I saw a poster for that. And I was like, oh, everybody that I like is in this.

Let's watch it. And I didn't know it existed. It'd been out for a very long time. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, fucking I know this story. Well, how do I know this story? And I was like, there's something about this that feels like the fates in ancient Greek stuff.

And I was like, this is the fates. And I'm like, fuck. This has got to be an ancient Greek story. And I went and looked it up. And of course, it's about the killing it with Viginaia before the Trojans can get to Troy. I'm not the Trojan, before the Greeks can get to Troy. Like, they don't want to be wind. So this guy's got to sacrifice his daughter to Poseidon.

And then like, they're fallout from that of having sacrifice his daughter. that's not true. It's, that's not entirely true. The sacrificing of the daughter is the fallout. Anyway, but I was like, I couldn't like recognize what story it was, but I was like, this feels like the fucking fates. Like, this is Orestes through and through.

And so I looked it up and I was like, oh yeah, okay, that's why I'm liking this so much. It has very much the feeling of like a Greek tragedy. But it's wonderful. It's a very good movie. I'm sure it is, in fact, And Jorgos Lantmos, who I think is so good and so weird. But every once in a while, I will skip one of his movies because I think not for me.

But he did, he did Borgonia and Poor Things and the lobster. Yes. And kinds of kindness, which is another one that I leap from to get to someone once. I'm scared of. I don't think I'm going to handle it well. Bologna was so good if you haven't seen Bagonia. Okay. I'll watch it.

That's the one that's just got an Academy, a few Academy Award nominations, including one for screenplay for Will Tracy, friend of the show. First, last week tonight writer, to get an Oscar nomination. Kudos to you, Will. We love you, Will. Speaking of other stuff, I had an actor on here, but I don't think it fits the premise because the performance is not in a movie. Oh. Can I talk about it anyway? Yeah, absolutely. Great. and people might

I don't know where boardwalk empire exists in people's minds I think it's a pretty bad show that was very expensive and it has a lot of otherwise good people in it but is mostly a bad show with a

horribly miscast Steve Busemi who was great but has no business playing Nucky Thompson and there's just a cast that's too sprawling and it's too unrelentingly sad and a lot of it is boring but my guy, my friend and yours, fucking Michael Stoelbarg

has a small part in that show He plays Arnold Rothstein on the show and he is a quiet gangster. He's like one of the other like if if Nucky Thompson is one of like the lead gangstores. Ross scene is like this gentleman's gangster who is so like calm all the time and and quietly menacing. And every second he's on screen, he is so good in that show. And he's one of those actors that has truly never been bad in anything.

What would you know him from? I'm trying to think. Did you see call me by your name? No. That's another one where... That just came out, Dan. How come that's like that. Oh, shape of water.

Yeah, he's great in shape of water. It's very clearly Army Hammer and Timothy Shalamey's movie. And it's like, it's really Timothy Shalemey's movie. And there is, Stuhlbarg is the father who is just sort of like in the background for so much of it. And then has one monologue that needs to, it's not just like, we need a good actor for this monologue. the movie succeeds or fails based on the monologue. And that is why you fucking call Michael Stulbar, baby, if you've got,

if you need a character actor who's just going to come in on a day and knock it out of the park and like be the thing that people talk about when they leave that theater, he is your guy. He's so goddamn good. I didn't even know he's one of those guys that's just outside of my periphery.

Like I would see him. see his face. I'm like, yeah, I know who that is. But I will, I never knew his name. He pops up all over the place. He's, he's, sometimes actors get like lodged in your brain for, for autobiographical reasons. I saw him on Broadway years ago. There was a play by Martin McDonough, Martin McDonough who has done seven psychopaths and in Bruges and. Yes, that's right. He's phenomenal. And I hate how prolific he is. This play, the Pillow Man that I saw on Broadway, this cast, Michael Schoelberg, Billy Crudup, Jeff Goldblum, Seljeco Ivano, who you would also know if you saw.

But he's another like that guy character actor who knocks it out of the park. Four person show with those four guys in it. They're all so good. I was in college when this show came out, maybe high school, and saw it thinking like, oh, I know Jeff Gold. This is exciting. I'm going to see Jeff Goldblum on Broadway doing a Jeff Goldblum thing. And Billy Crudeup, we love him.

He did Pre Fontaine. And we're a fan. family of runners. And then there's some other guys in it. And man, walking out of that theater and being like, who the fuck is Michael Stulberg who took this play and ran away with it? It's two acts. He's only in one of them. And he crushed it. Who is he? Yeah. He's your Ben Foster, Dan. He's my Ben Foster. Well, everyone, thank you for listening to our podcast about our favorite actors. A premise that I had been sitting on since Christmas that we didn't deliver on. Well, we talked about some good guys, man. There were some good guys. We didn't talk about some good guys.

Some good ladies. We didn't discuss whether they were broads or not, but we did discuss some good ladies. If you like this podcast, you can listen to more of it. We do a Patreon exclusive podcast every other week that you can hear. If you become a Patreon subscriber If you'd like watching this You could do it on YouTube

You just see Daniel and I talking Talking to each other And you see our facial reactions When somebody says something surprising I think that there's value to that I think there's value To seeing our faces

When we really genuinely react to each other And I feel like our theme song That's me Rex If you like this podcast in general Our sound engineer, editor, producer Gabe Harder Glue to the show And that's it

Goodbye. Bye. All right. I got a piece so bad. I'll be right back. Are you coming back? Do we need to do it? I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right.

The answer's not important. I'm just glad that we can talk tonight. So what's your favorite? How did you get? What would be? Uh-bror? Yes, random comedy. If there's an answer, they're going to find it.

I think you'll have a green. time here I think you have a great time here