The Big Picture - 'Downton Abbey,' 'Breaking Bad,' and Why TV Is Still Jealous of Movies | The Oscars Show

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to break down the phenomenon of turning TV series into movies after the box office success of 'Downton Abbey.' Then, the trio discuss the shows they'd like to see extended into new movies, explore Maggie Smith's chances at a third Academy Award, and rank their favorite awards shows in the aftermath of a lackluster Emmys ceremony (1:00). After that, 'Downton' director Michael Engler swings by to talk about supersizing the costume drama into one of the year's most surprising movie hits (57:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Michael Engler and Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys? It's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. We hope you enjoyed listening to Break Stuff, the story of Woodstock 99 on Luminary. Now continuing with our 99 theme, I wanted to let you guys know we've got all new episodes of The Rewatchables 1999 starting back up right now. Since we've returned, we have rewatched Eyes Wide Shut and Election, and up next is Never Been Kissed and many more 1999 classics. So make sure to check out The Rewatchables 1999 on Luminary. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about TV, sort of,

which is a strange thing to be happening on this show. We're joined by Chris Ryan, co-host of The Watch, general all-around good guy. Hi, Chris. When you got the small screen and the big screen, there's the Chris screen right in between. Hopefully, we'll see some beautiful pictures on the Chris screen on this episode. Later in the show, I have an interview with longtime television and theater director Michael Engler, who has directed episodes of shows like Six Feet Under, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Deadwood, and 30 Rock. Why is he on the show? Well, he's also the director of the Downton Abbey movie, which absolutely dominated at the box office this weekend. Let's go to the big picture's big picture.

This is a problem in the big picture. Do you know what I mean? Chris, you're here along with Amanda because you know a lot about television. And Amanda and I are a little bit out on television, sort of as a general rule. I'm post-TV. Post-TV. Except for Succession. Now, there are some television shows that I love.

I started to watch one this weekend that I think is incredibly well-made, which is called Unbelievable. But, why are you i was just so i was just home with my mom for a little while and she while it's not like she's a stranger to cable news but she adorably still gets a lot of her news from the newspaper so like two days later she'll be like did you hear about joe biden and i'll be like what do you what do you mean did something new happen she's like no did you hear about this phone call and that's just what you did with Unbelievable, where you were like, I'm breaking it to you guys that there's this show? Well, no.

Now, I admit I am one week late, and you've already covered the show on the watch. We've already covered the show on the site. I just didn't have the time to get to it. I hear you. I'm seeing all these movies. But one thing that is interesting that is happening right now is that even though the Emmys just happened,

and even though TV is having this incredible boom time, I feel like TV is still a little jealous of the movies. And we know that because Downton Abbey, rather than come back as an eight-part miniseries, has decided to become a full-length feature film. And the people said yes. They said yes to the tune of $33 million, which is a lot of money for an extension of the Downton Abbey universe,

which was a show that was popular and a phenomenon sort of when it started. I believe the first episode of the Hollywood Perspectives podcast was a recap of the Downton Abbey premiere. Yes. Which is just amazing. What a time capsule. That's why we're friends. It's Snitch Butlers. Snitch Butlers. That's right. And, you know, that's a show that I liked. And I feel like you, did you recap it, Amanda? I did. You recapped it. I mean, what an amazing time capsule of our life on the internet and creating culture. And now it's a full-length feature film, which is something that I think 20 years ago, if it had happened, you would have said, Downton Abbey really grew up and stepped up to the big leagues.

In this case, I wonder how you guys feel about what it means to extend what was once a broadcast TV show into movie platform. And also, like, why did this movie work? Why did it work so well? Well, I have a couple thoughts. The answer of why to turn it into a feature film is money, which worked out because it made $33 million. We had a great piece on The Ringer last week by a writer named Kate Lloyd, who is based in London.

And it was about the Downton Abbey economy, essentially, and how the show changed both tourism in the UK, and she went to a lot of fancy locations and talked to weird British people, but also how it changed the British TV industry. And Downton Abbey, the show, was this wake-up call, I think, for people in the UK that people from other parts of the world would watch these costume dramas. It was kind of a revival of the world, would watch these costume dramas. It was kind of a revival of the costume drama and also how to finance the shows so that they could be distributed around the world. And so the piece argues that, you know, everything from Peaky Blinders to Howard's End to all

of the things that we now consume and treat as part of like the television firmament, at least the latest generation of them are a result of Downton Abbey's success. Right, that show relaunched that idea. So in that way, it's not that surprising to me that it did well because it was like a legitimate phenomenon. And we've lived with it for a long time and maybe season six wasn't as great as season one,

but it made a lot of money and a lot of people liked watching it. It's in sharp relief too because the two other big releases over the weekend that it beat out were Ad Astra, which was covered at length on this podcast last week and is a movie that I would recommend people see, and Rambo Last Blood.

Did you catch up with that, Chris? I didn't see, I saw Ad Astra instead of Rambo because Rambo was not playing anywhere near me. Oh, that's a shame. Why was that? Too woke a neighborhood for you? That's right. So neither of those films, which are both very male-centric.

Stallone doesn't play well in Philly. Yeah, that's a good point. You'd think he'd be in every theater. No, I'm just kidding. But I guess partially one of the reasons why Downton succeeded so well is because a lot of women saw this movie. And it was the primary opportunity for women to check out films one week after Hustlers dominated the box office. I'm sensing a trend here. I feel like this happens four or five times a year when people are like, there are movies for women as well. Yeah, I think that's true. Let me also float.

Yes, women see movies, rah, rah, rah, whatever. Old people really see movies and they really see them in theaters and there is nothing better to do with your time if you've got a mom or grandma than to take them to see the Downton Abbey movie that it's just wholesome entertainment for everyone so I I think that that is as important the age is as important as the gender breakdown on this one let's just very quickly even though Chris has not seen the Downton movie, talk about what's good about the Downton movie. You and I attempted to recap the film for Chris via Slack last week. Do you feel like we did a good job?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I recognized all the names and all the actions made sense. They didn't really come together in a sort of visual sense for me. So that is actually a notable part of it. I spoke to Michael Engler about this. It is a little bit of Downton on steroids. You know, the theme music is amplified in such a way that maybe they had 300 more brass instruments played playing the theme song. There's a lot of drone shots of Downton Abbey. It is it is a muscularized version of this upstairs downstairs costume drama. The

film itself did strike me, though, and I think you may have originally said this to me, as just one long episode of Downton Abbey. To me, it was like a Christmas special, which they do in the UK. And I think it was the season two Christmas special of Downton Abbey, which is when Matthew and Mary finally get together and kiss in the snow outside of the house. I would say it's on par with the Christmas special, except there are like two party set pieces instead of one, as you said, and fancier dresses. And I guess there's like a first episode climax

halfway through the movie and then a second episode kind of bringing everyone home. The thing is, downstairs they get into some hijinks and then there's ramifications upstairs. It's crazy what happens on this show. Almost like it's upstairs, downstairs. Exactly.

I thought it was an enjoyable movie and I'm not surprised that it was successful. I'm surprised it was this successful. It was also the biggest movie in the history of Focus Features, which is just fascinating. I have spoken to some people who worked on this movie and when they acquired the rights to release this movie, they said, we have our IP. We have our version of a superhero movie and Focus Features.

That's what I was going to say. Really leans into that older audience that you're talking about. They identify women as their audience much more clearly. And this is like a, all part of the same strategy. So I wouldn't say necessarily that Ad Astra had this problem, but I do think that it is near impossible to sell anything anymore without some preexisting kind of awareness of what you're getting when you walk into it, just because there's so many options for people that if you just are like, here's a movie about butlers and rich people starring Michelle Dockery, people are going to be like, I don't know. But like, if it's something that

they have this decade long relationship with, if they have the kind of extra screen relationship that they have that Kate wrote about. And if there is, like, I was watching a lot of linear television this week because I was with my mom. We were watching the Ken Burns documentary. There was Down Abbey stuff sandwiching every episode of the Ken Burns documentary. Country music you're talking about. Country music to let you know it's coming out. Here's the history of the show. Here's like a recap of everything that happened. Here's the making of the show. Like they actually did their push. It just happened on public television. We didn't see it as much necessarily as like Robert Downey Jr.

driving around in an Audi with a Samsung phone, like pushing Avengers. Do you think that this is now a sort of MCU-ization of Downton? Or is this just a one-off thing that they struck gold on this one movie? Or is there going to be another one? They have been teasing the sequel for weeks now. Is that true? Yeah, they've been talking about how the possibilities open.

And I think, you know, which is code for, yes, it will happen. And they certainly leave the door open in the movie. Everyone is in a happy place, but more hijinks can ensue. And I'm sure will at Downton. I'm curious how far you can probably only take Downton to World War II because post-World War II, I think all of those

estates just fall apart. They're museums or whatever. Yeah, they're museums. The economy of the upper class in the UK just breaks down and it's just not how upstairs downstairs doesn't really apply as much anymore the film kind of glances at that at the end too the idea of how much longer can this go on which I thought was an interesting potential way to seal off a sequel in a way the answer is Dunkirk yeah but we'll talk about this some more um Maggie Smith is in this movie yeah Maggie Smith um chris do you mind if i spoil this for you okay i guess if you are really really strict about spoilers turn it off now even but maggie smith gives a speech that's kind of like a farewell speech but notably nothing actually

conclusively happens to whether maggie smith will be in future episodes of down nappy the tv show or the movie something happens to her but then they're like, we'll see what happens. Does she go to Dunkirk? She becomes Iron Man. It's incredible. She defeats Thanos at the end of the movie. It's wild. But what? It's 1927 in this movie? I think that's right. So they've got like 20 more years. Yeah. You know. Okay.

What's interesting to me about this is the movies in theaters, it's an extension of a television show. There's been this supersizing of TV shows into movie form a lot over the last year. This isn't the first time it's happened. In the 90s, we saw the kind of like meta riff commentary on things by having Beverly Hillbillies movies and Brady Bunch movies. Now what we have is just a more clear extension of the stories that are originally told.

There was a Deadwood movie earlier this year. There was a Between Two Ferns movie also released over the weekend, which is not quite the same as serialized television, but is in the same tradition in a way. And then in October, we have a Breaking Bad movie called El Camino. They've been dying to do this for a long time. They've been dying to get this kind of multi-platform storytelling going because of the amount of money there is. If you can actually do what they wanted to do with Dark Tower, you know, where you can tell something that has a feature presentation that maybe is the sort of the denouement of the story, but like you have other storylines going on on TV and that you could actually create a like

12 month a year sport out of your story. That's what they want, you know? And now there are different things. Now I think El Camino is a different situation, but it's not that odd. I mean, like Breaking Bad ended, Better Call Saul started. Now they have a Breaking Bad movie and Better Call Saul will be coming back shortly after that. I mean, I think that this is definitely, they finally have the tech and the viewing behavior

to catch up with their storytelling ambitions slash their interest in making money. Would you guys say that you actually like this, though? Like, it's easy for us to analyze why these things are happening. And it's interesting to me what platforms they go to. Some are going to Netflix, whereas once they were linear television shows, some are going into movie theaters after being on public broadcast television. Are these things good?

Is it useful or is it just like seeing the fourth Captain America movie? I mean, useful is a heavy burden to put on literally anything. We are talking about movies and TV right now. Let's, you know, put our practical cap on. But I enjoyed watching the Downton movie. I think that two-hour feature film was a better expression of the story and what they had to tell. If they had tried to do a seventh season of Downton Abbey, I would have liked it, but it probably would have felt a little flat. I think it was certainly running out of story by the sixth season. We've seen a lot of

shows that come back for another season 10 and 15 years later. Has there been a good one? Not in my experience. No, I mean, an interesting case study of that is Veronica Mars, which did the movie version, which was essentially just a reunion episode and, and all fan service quite literally down to the fans paying for the movie itself, then came back on Hulu and had an excellent new season of the show. I,

I think that, um, I kind of feel about this the way I used to feel about bands getting back together, which was like when it first happened, I was like, I don't, should mission of way I used to feel about bands getting back together, which was like, when it first happened, I was like, I don't,

should Mission of Burma really be getting back together? I just, are they going to tarnish their legacy as post-punk trailblazers? And then I'm like, who gives a shit?

And that's how I kind of feel about El Camino. I don't think that they are so hard up for money or attention that they would do something that they were like, this is just Jesse

bumping into Huel, you know, so that we can get that thrill. Everybody was pretty happy with the way that ended. I think also a lot of these shows could stand to tighten up their storytelling. So there's a world in which, I mean, I have very high hopes for El Camino. And I hate to say it, but there's a world in which we just do a Don Draper in the 80s movie. Yeah, Mad Men crossed my mind quite a bit last night watching the Emmys. And I've been thinking about Mad Men just because I've been thinking about Succession and the continuity there of those shows.

And those are two shows that are notably still linear television, and it's a little bit harder. The other thing that I was thinking about was very quickly over a period of time, within three or four years, I think limited series has become arguably more important than the other categories at the Emmys. And so I think it's because we are now conditioned to expect and enjoy shows that are four or six or eight hours. Whereas once upon a time, I mean, I think all of us grew up watching shows that had 21 episodes in a season and buying into this long serialized version where maybe you didn't realize it at the time, but we know now, man, the writer's rooms are really stretching to fill all of those hours.

And now there's a lot more storytelling that is kind of more neatly fitting the buckets they deserve. One of the things we talked about with the Goldfinch last week, Amanda, was just that so clearly should have been a miniseries to lean into what the purpose of that story was. Do you think that we're kind of all moving towards a middle ground of storytelling where at some point everything is going to be between four and eight hours? Because even with Downton, I was like, I actually could go for another two hours of this three months from now and I would be fine with it because it was enjoyable and like kind of effortless.

But I agree with you that it would have been flat if they were like, what we have now is 12 more hours of Downton Abbey. So just in terms of the storytelling shape, do you guys see a world in which theatrical movies are clearly dying? Maybe it's happening very slowly, but they're starting to be extinguished. Long TV series are frequently no longer the case. Even on CBS,

you're seeing 10 and 12 episode orders regularly. Is everything just going to be right in the middle going forward? Yeah, I think so. And I think also there will just continue to be the, we will have movies and TV, though again, the definition of both of those is really rapidly coming together, but they'll continue to be in conversation with each other. We were talking a lot about how TV shows are now becoming movies, but in a lot of ways, especially Marvel has been doing this for years now, they have established like the big tent event movies like Avengers, and then you go watch, you know, Jessica Jones or whatever series on Netflix. And everyone has started parceling in the content in different

ways. So every three or four months, they have your attention and they have your money. And movies have been invading TV in that way. And I think TV is now realizing, oh, there's a model for us to kind of make movies. And like you said, just create an attention economy and continuing storytelling experience. So I think just honestly, everything will become a multiverse Yeah Chris you're a big fan of the show

Ozark. The only person I know who is a fan of the show Ozark except for the television academy which rewarded it greatly last night do you think do you agree basically? Do you think that this is kind of where things are going? That the 10 episode run is the run

that we should expect for all storytelling by 2030? Well, I would actually argue that more shows should do the Peaky Blinders style of six episodes. I think that Ozark is a show that is going to suffer for stretching for 10, even for 10. There's only so many things that can happen to that family over the course of 10 episodes. You really do have to have entire episodes of Julia Garner doing accounting when that happens. And going forward, I actually think you can start a show with 10, but you should gradually come down from there. I think that you don't need that much. One of the reasons why they introduced, here's a new character who will obviously be killed off at the end of the season, but we needed somebody to talk so that we could fill out 10 episodes.

So I think actually like something that's closer to the British model, which is a little bit more of like based on availability, based on strength of story, shorter runs, more erratic like when it comes back, like Sherlock will just come back when the two of them have the time to do that. I think it would be better for more shows to do stuff like that. Ozark is going to be interesting because it'll probably have more eyes on it next, this coming season than it ever has before.

But in some ways, it'll be the worst time to start watching Ozark because it's kind of pushed beyond the point of believability. One of the things that is fascinating to me about this year in particular is the most talked about television shows are often things like Big Little Lies, where all of the stars are movie stars. And a movie like Downton Abbey, which does not really truly have a single famous person in it, at least to American audiences, can be the biggest movie at the box office up against Sylvester Stallone and Brad Pitt. And that inversion, I wonder, like, do you guys think that that will continue? Do you think that more and more, quote unquote, big top famous people

will go into these spaces, these miniseries, these series, while increasingly fame matters less to theatrical movies? Yes, because we've been talking about this. As Chris said earlier, Downton Abbey is just another, or you said it's Downton Abbey is another form of IP. And in the same way, we've talked about how superhero franchises have kind of eaten a movie star and people go to see Spider-Man and Batman and not Brad Pitt, unfortunately. I think that that's going to continue to be true. It's the recognizable franchise as opposed to the person. And I guess the people will look for, you know, I don't know. I suppose more and more movie stars will do many series stuff. I mean, we've certainly seen that trend. But, you know,

Brad Pitt is an exception to that. Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers is an exception to that. There is still an opportunity for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is an exception to that, though I guess you could argue that like Tarantino counts as his own IP franchise at this point. Yep. It feels like a bit of an outlier in that respect. There's also like just like a way, I think the roles are just better in television. I think for, especially for younger actors

who are trying to become bigger deals, and this is a really stupid example, but say somebody like Catherine Newton, who was in Blockers and Detective Pikachu, like those are the kinds of movie roles she gets. But even though it's not necessarily a rich tapestry of, of acting, like she gets to be, she gets different stuff in big little lies in society. She gets to do much different things than she does in the movies. So she gets to essentially like prove herself in television in a way that I don't think that a lot of people have that opportunity anymore on the big screens. It might become more famous because of those things than blockers and Pikachu because

she is at the center of the frame in the society. And if you're a 16 year old and you see that show and you binge that show, you build a relationship with her in the way that you don't when you're watching blockers. It's an interesting thing. What are some shows that you guys think deserve the Downton Abbey treatment? Are there some, you know, we know that there's a prequel to The Sopranos coming out next year, which I think is now just called Newark from David Chase. What else? What do you want to see, Amanda? I would watch a West Wing movie written by Sorkin. You know, I really, I feel, especially since we have been rewatching a lot of Sorkin or Sorkin doctored movies recently, he's stronger in the two-hour format.

Truly. When it's really, when it's focused. I completely agree with you. Re-watching West Wing, which was extremely formative to me, I'm just like, oh, wow, this is really some 1999 network TV stuff. And I still think it's great, but I think also Sorkin, well, it would be interesting to find out what he has to say in a political context in 2019 or 20. As I was saying that out loud, I was like, well, no, I think it would be great. And I think it would honestly be better than another season of West Wing as a TV show.

Agree. I think his movie scripts are more likely to be diamonds, too. You know, you're more likely to get something that is deeply polished. And the TV production schedule means you got to move. You got to put the show out quickly because it's happening every single week. Chris, what about you? What's a show that you would really want to see the movie version of? I know this is going to seem sort of on brand, but I would actually like prefer to see a True Detective that was two hours and 20 minutes. I think it would just be an interesting experiment. I also think that some of the stuff that kind of gets annoying about True Detective after a while, which is like sort of these repeat interior scenes because, you know, I think it would just be an interesting experiment. I also think that some of the stuff that kind of gets annoying about True Detective

after a while, which is like sort of these repeat interior scenes because, you know, you build a set and you have to just get as much stuff done in Mahershala Ali's office as you possibly can because that's the most cost-effective way of making television. I would like to see a just,

hey, it's two and a half hours, it's a manhunt, whatever it is, but it has some of the sort of mysticism and tough guy bullshit that goes along with it. So I would love to see some of the crime shows rather than being like, we're going to kind of painstakingly tell this over the course of eight to 10 hours.

I would love to see just a breakneck version of that in two hours and 20 minutes because we don't really have that in movies anymore. That's a good one. The thing that the Downton Abbey movie showed me is that an ensemble movie like this can work. And so I think for me, I'd probably like to see something that I felt like I didn't get enough of when it ended. So I think it would be great to get a Friday Night Lights movie. I think

that people would go apeshit for that. Like, oh, where are they now? Yeah. And just knowing where people's lives are right now. And similarly, I think it would be really fun to see a Freaks and Geeks movie and do like, this is what happened. This is the adult version of these kids that you saw, which, I don't, that doesn't seem impossible in a way.

Send us some money. We'll be happy to work on it with you guys. I just, I would love that. I think it's, El Camino feels, and we've only gotten

these incredibly brief snippets, but if I had to guess with what they did, it's going to feel pretty white knuckled like this guy's being chased, which is a great premise for a movie. It's not about let's get everybody back here.

Let's make sure he stops and meets every single person that you would want to see from who's still alive in the Breaking Bad universe. And I think that that's often the thing that trips up these adaptations or these extensions. I wouldn't even be surprised if the Rick movies from Walking Dead are way better than the show. If they did a better job with just telling one story for two hours.

You make a great point. I had completely forgotten that they were even doing that. They're making two or three of them, I think. Yeah, that is amazing. Where do you think that all these things belong? Where does your new movie, does it belong on Netflix? Does it belong on network television?

Does it belong in a movie theater? Well, it depends on what it is. I think there's, if it's Aaron Sorkin's If it's Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, put it in the theater.

And, you know, and let's hire a real director. Let's make it an actual, let's apply craft. Let's have some locations. Yeah. Give me some locations, baby. Yeah.

And, and make it a movie movie. But I really think it depends on the project. You mentioned Between Two Ferns, which is like slightly different, but and is barely a movie in a lot of ways. I was just going to say, it's not quite a movie for those of you who've seen it. But on Netflix, I turned it on and I was like, all right. Yeah, it's like watching stand-up. Sure, why not? And it had that ensemble thing of it just, they had a lot of famous people who were on for about two to three minutes each. And I was like, oh, it's that guy. Love that guy too. And that was a welcome Netflix experience in my home, just kind of chuckling. And then

I have even thought about it briefly since I watched it. Can I ask you something? Yeah. What's your favorite between two ferns? Oh my God, this is a great question. I did rewatch a lot of them. I rewatched the Obama one recently, which I really enjoyed. And then I was just like, do you remember the world we lived in where this was possible?

And I got really depressed. He literally was there to promote Obamacare. Yes. That's why he was there. But first, he's doing like three minutes of self-effacing jokes, some of which frankly are not totally appropriate. They're like drone jokes in the middle of it. It's really, but I just, that we lived in a world where the president could both be trusted and enough to do that. And also that, you know, had a sense of humor, whatever.

I also, the Bradley Cooper one's really good. I was going to say Bradley Cooper. It's unbelievable. The Bradley Cooper one might be his best performance. It's so much better post the Star Wars movie. Why are you being mean to me? You know that I'm sensitive

about this. It's great stuff. I also really like the Charlize Theron one. That one is really funny because she, I think I know this just from her conversation

with Bill Simmons on his podcast, I think enjoys fucking with a person who's a little bit anxious about talking to her. So, Chris,

do you want to stick around for the rest of this show? Sure, man. Okay, we're going to move on to our next segment, which is, of course, Stock Up, Stock Down. If it goes bust, you can make 10 to 1, even 20 to 1 return, and it's already slowly going bust. Amanda, I'm looking here in my notes, and I see Stock Up, and what I've got written down is Maggie motherfucking Smith.

You do have this written down. You mentioned briefly that Maggie Smith has an interesting turn of events in the Downton Abbey movie. I'm curious if you think she has a chance to get her stock up to the Oscars because she's an older woman who has been recognized at the Oscars in the past. And she does have the kind of showy platform, all the best lines role that is frequently recognized in the best supporting actress category. I mean, she sort of does. The thing about, with all respect to Haley Smith, she doesn't actually die in this movie. She just kind of gives this speech without proper nouns. She's like, I'm sick, but I believe in you.

And it's like pretty treacly and it doesn't bring home the waterworks in the way that I, a Downton Abbey stan, would expect from you telling me that the Dowager Countess is not long for this world. So we start the campaign here now, Chris. I need you to get on Twitter right now and fire up this hashtag, hashtag kill the Dowager Countess so that we can get Maggie Smith and Oscar. Hashtag dead Dowager. Just get her, just murder her and then we will get her to Oscar

territory. Yeah, I agree with you. On the other hand, I think the kind of like low stakes no stakes quality of Downton Abbey is part of its appeal and if you put an act like when Cousin Matthew died, I think a lot of people were like, oh, fuck this. Under no circumstances will a person die.

And then Sybil dies. And then the show got, as the show got weightier, I got less interested in it, honestly. I liked it more when it was just a series of inconveniences. I think that's fair, but they're really trying to have their cake

and eat it too. Like she gives a speech that is like, I'm going to die, but we all are going to die at some point Maggie Smith and it's just I I don't know it it feels like they're leaving the door open I just also thought it was not that's not what's fun about that character like even when she is relating to other characters and kind of being surprising and has a heart it's always in like a wry zinger sort of way. And this was like, it was a little sentimental. Let me throw some trivia questions at you guys. Do you know how many times Maggie

Smith has been nominated for an Oscar? 63. She's the all-time leader in nomination. Well, I Googled it because I do my research. Oh my God. Okay. How many times? Six. Six. And how many times has she won? Twice. She's won twice. That's too much. Too much. Excuse me. I think that she's great, but like, come on. Are we... Is Maggie Smith like a little overrated?

Okay. Okay, but like there's lots of really good performances, right? Like Maggie Smith, does Maggie Smith a little one note? I mean, maybe now. It depends on what movie you're watching we're talking about over like the course of literally 60 years she

won for the prime of Miss Jean Brody and California Suite I can't say that I've seen either yeah I can't remember those performances California Suite Neil Simon I

don't know Maggie Smith yes the prime of Miss Jean Brody is quite good yes I haven't seen all of these classic big picture own like I have seen I've not seen the prime Miss Jean Brody is quite good. Yes. I haven't seen all of these. It's a classic big picture own. Like, I have not seen The Pride of Jean Brody. You went to the Coliseum.

You had a fight with the lion. It's fine. She was also nominated for A Room with a View, which Sean has never seen, even though it's one of the great films of our time. That's a fact. She was also nominated for Gosford Park, which is really the reason why she got the job on Downton Abbey, which was, of course, written by Julian Fellows and directed by Robert Altman. Because Fellows needed a little bit more tape on her.

I don't know. Could you really play the Dowager? I don't know. She really is one of the most decorated actresses of her time. I think she's a triple crown winner. You know, she's got the Academy Award, the Emmy, and the Tony. No EGOT. How do we get, can we

get Maggie Smith on a record with like Post Malone just to get her that Grammy? Sure. EGOT. First do we get, can we get Maggie Smith on a record with like Post Malone just to get her that Grammy? Sure. EGOT. First we have to kill the Dowager Countess. Then we have to get Maggie and EGOT. Yeah. She should do a revival of the revival of Oklahoma.

Here's my thing. She won the Emmy for this role three times. And she didn't show up to any of them. Iconic. Which I love and support. And I think she definitely deserved the Emmy for them. But if she has already won several times, she's already won several Oscars, and she's not going to campaign, which we know to be the case. Because she did not show up for any of the Emmys or Golden Globes.

I think she's been nominated like every year for Golden Globe. And it's just always a picture of her and her little dowager countess get up while everyone else is like, it's my one moment in the sun. I believe you mean costume,

not get up. Yeah, well, it's a little involved. It's going to be a massive bummer if she wins over Jennifer Lopez. So that is where

I was going with this, which is last week you very quickly identified to me, Amanda, that Jennifer Lopez had returned in a revised version

of her Versace gown, which I believe she wore in Milan. Yes, for Versace Fashion Week. And it's just staggering what's going on with Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Lopez is 50 years old. It's just amazing. Your note to me, of course, was that she is in fact running. Jennifer Lopez is running. We don't know if Maggie Smith is running this year because she never shows up to anything. Jennifer Lopez is running very hard. And I think she actually is the person who wants to hashtag kill the Dowager Countess. Aside from Jennifer,

there's just like a lot of other stuff happening in this category this year that I think it would be a mistake to give it to somebody who is playing the same role that she's been playing for a really long time, has gotten extremely dapped up for that. Yep. And has won Oscars before.

Lay it on me, Rex Reed. Who do you got? Well, I mean, I haven't seen The Laundromat, but Meryl Streep in The Laundromat. Sure. Yeah, she's never won an award. She plays different people, though. She's like out here trying to like do different accents

and wear different outfits. Meryl Streep is the number one for me. So I'm with you. Okay. But I just, you know. Meryl, whatever. Laura Dern, Marriage Story. That's going to be, I think the thing that is happening right now is that everybody who

was quite certain that Laura Dern was going to win for Marriage Story is recounting their votes to figure out what to do about Jennifer Lopez. Because Hustlers, people thought was going to be a big commercial hit, but they weren't quite sure if the Oscar wave was going to come for it. And who knows about the Dowager Countess wave at this point. But J-Lo is running hot. Yeah.

J-Lo, Dern, I guess Maggie. Is Margot Robbie going to go for supporting actress? I believe so. We talked about it a couple weeks ago

on this show. I also, I need to make a correction of myself. Apparently, the actress's name is Katrina Balfe from Outlander,

not Catriona Balfe, which I guess I should know that as an Irishman. Do you watch Outlander? No, my mom explained the plot to me, though, this week. How did it sound? Should there be an Outlander movie? So there's like this thing. She doesn't listen to podcasts, so this is okay.

Are you going to insult your mother on this podcast? Do you know the plot of Outlander? Certainly not. Okay, I think talking about the plot of Outlander with your mother might be a little complex. She stops short of the appeal of Outlander with your mother might be a little complex. She stopped sort of the appeal of Outlander, which is what I understand is just like a lot of bare-chested guys just being like, here I am on the moors. That, I think, is the appeal to Mallory Rubin, who's the only human being I know who watches the show. My mom does too, and she was like, do you watch Outlander?

And I was like, no. And I know that if I had just said, but I know the plot, I could have stopped this. But then, for 15 to 20 minutes as we were driving to the movie theater to get to Ad Astra, she just told me the plot of Outlander. And what'd you think?

Did you think I'm in? I was like, I don't have to watch it now. I'm good. I guess we're going to see what happens if Katrina Balfe has a chance to run against

Jennifer Lopez, Maggie Smith, Laura Dern, Margot Robbie. That's for Ford versus Ferrari. Ford versus Ferrari, yeah. What about Annette Bening as Dianne Feinstein? She also is in the mix.

What about the three little women who are not Joe? They are also in the mix. Can either of you name the three little women? Let's go. The characters or the actors? Characters or, yeah, characters. Beth. Yeah.

Joe. Okay, yeah. Last time we were here, I mentioned little Rhonda. Okay. We got to give little Rhonda a shout out. Beth and Joe. Yeah. Joe. Okay. Yeah. Last time we were here, I mentioned little Rhonda. Okay. We got to give little Rhonda a shout out. Beth and Joe. Yeah. Okay.

Georgette. All right. No, I got it. I got this. Two is better than zero. Is there a Mary? No. Is there a Sarah?

No. Is there a Katrina? No. Is there a Belf? So it's September and we've learned two of the four, and that's good. And maybe by the time this movie comes out on Christmas Day, you can name all four. I know all the actors. Okay.

Yeah. That's good. We'll check back in. I think there might be five candidates for Best Supporting Actress in that movie. Because Laura Dern and Meryl Streep are also in that movie, along with Florence Pugh and Emma Watson. And obviously, Saoirse Ronan is the lead. Is there another little woman who is running? Yes, there is little Amy, but I can't remember her name. There's a little, yeah,

Scanlon. Yeah, Eliza Scanlon. Eliza Scanlon, wow. I think she's Beth actually. What a time. Very quickly, we'll go to stock down. One pointy-headed Oscar thing that happened that is interesting is this film Portrait of a Lady on Fire is one of the most, is one of the best reviewed movies of the year. It was a huge hit. It won a prize at Cannes in May. It was picked up by Neon. It's going to be distributed. Everybody I know who's seen it has said this is absolutely one of the best movies of the year. And it was not chosen by France to be the entrant for best foreign film. That film, of course, is a film called Les Miserables, which is made by someone named Lajli, who is the first African American person selected to run for Best Foreign Film for the Oscars, which is great. I haven't seen neither of these films, but it is kind of a fascinating thing because I think in part

that movie was acquired with the expectation that it would be at the Oscars and thus make money for Neon. Now, Amazon bought Les Miserables, which is notable because last year Amazon had a movie called Cold War which they managed to platform not just into a Best Foreign Film nomination

but to a Best Director nomination a lot of people think Bong Joon-ho might get that Best Director slot but there's a feeling like with the

internationalization of the Academy things like this matter more than they did even five or ten years ago so interesting little bit of

I don't know I guess gamesmanship from the nations who get to choose which movies get to run here or not. I feel like, do you think that that's a good way to do things that a country gets to select what film runs in the category? Like they're not putting it to a vote in France though. No, there's a committee. Honestly, that would be great. Just a public vote. The fucking gilets jaunes.

The yellow vests are just like, no, Portrait of a Lady. Macron out. You want Portrait of a Lady on fire to be the president of France? Yes. Instead of getting an Oscar, you get to be the president of France. That would be a unique formulation. Let's move on to our last segment of the show, which is, of course, called The Big Race. Well, mama, look at me now.

I'm a star. We're changing The Big Race this week. I don't want to prognosticate, and I make the rules. There's a lot of categories that we're going to talk about. It's a lot easier to talk about them after we've seen some of the movies. We've already walked through a couple. You got a little bit of a

best supporting actress conversation just now. But what I want to do instead is just rank award shows. Love it. Because I watched the Emmys last night, or at least I half watched them, and they were bad. They were quite bad. Amanda, you and Kate Halliwell and Juliette Lippman on Ring or Dish broke down everything that happened on the award show. It was poor. Whereas the Oscars went with no host this year and I think succeeded. The Emmys went with no host this year and failed.

And in general, I think there's an understanding that the Emmys are kind of the runt of the litter. Despite the fact that TV is more important to people's lives than it probably ever has been.

And Game of Thrones won, which was, of course, the signal event of television this year, but also wins for Fleabag and wins for lots of shows that people care deeply about. Ozark. Ozark, which you care deeply about. When Bateman won, everyone that I know that knows you thought of you.

I know. Which is so weird. How many text messages did you get? I got a lot of, like, tweets and just, like, a lot of people being like, wow, like, did you bet on that? Yeah. You asked me. I did ask you that, but that's because we had a conversation about how Ozark was apparently a good value bet.

Yeah. But it didn't work out. So my question to you guys is, is the Emmys the worst award show? Yeah. Can you guys fucking imagine if you had to do this podcast and as you were just talking about like a show,

like an award show that was coming up that was going to define this year in cinema and then in the weeks leading up to the awards show 10 other fucking movies that were amazing were on it's a great point and you were just like how am i supposed to process something that came out in september or august or whenever as like a best picture or the best actor when in fact the most urgent and like interesting stuff that i could possibly be talking about is coming out in theaters now because that's what's happening in television so it is an astonishingly good month for television right now and will be

next month too. And we are in this moment and yet we are talking about season two of Ozark and we are talking and God bless Flea Blank. It's the best thing that came out this year. But even that seems like behind the times. I think that they should do the Emmys twice a year. I don't think that they have, they cannot wrap twice a year I don't think that they have they cannot wrap up a year of television especially if none of these networks are going to say like hey this is when the good stuff comes out so I think movies have actually gotten better at this absolutely because what they do now is they release usually about one to two good movies in February or March in the past we've seen Black Panther was released in February we saw Get Out was released in February when When those movies came out, they were,

it felt like movies had a level of cultural import that I think was helpful to the Oscars in a lot of ways. But there was only one or two movies like that at the time. It's not like what you're saying now where this weekend, my wife and I had a lot of free time and we were like, let's watch a TV show. And we really had to make a decision. There were four or five things that we knew we wanted to catch up on. And many of them were thought to be quite good. And we did watch Unbelievable, which I think is really, really quite good. And I don't know what that necessarily means. Like splitting the Emmys in half also feels, I don't know, somehow not perfect in terms of solving this issue. I don't know what to do about how to make it feel important. Well, I have an idea, which is that they should absolutely move it to the beginning of the year. Yeah. And we'll just have awards show season.

It'll be the Oscars and the Emmys and the Grammys. And then you make the eligibility window, like the calendar year before. Yeah, absolutely. The Grammys need to do that as well. The worst award show is actually the Grammys. And I say this as a person who has like fucking covered award shows

for over a decade. And the lowest moment of covering an award show is when you look at the clock at like 1045 Eastern and realize that the Grammys are going until 1130 instead of 11. They are three and a half hours long. The eligibility window is honestly even like more dissociated from the when it airs than the Emmys. They don't show any awards. The awards they show are laughable. No one respects the industry.

You have Neil Portnow who comes on and gives a self-aggrandizing speech. And there's always some sort of disaster like Adele, who I love, defeating Beyonce. It's a train wreck every single time. Neil Portnow is out, which is great. Maybe they'll find a new way to do the Grammys. But I agree with you. In fact, we forget after we watch the Emmys. Maggie Smith for let her run the Academy of Music.

Do you think she should host? Or do you think she should take Neil's job? Take Neil's job. She's just, everything she does, she wins. This is an amazing episode for Maggie, who has been both murdered, but also has won an Oscar and is now running

the Recording Academy, which is very exciting for her. The Grammys are trash. There was a time when I was a young and hopeful man covering music a lot more closely when I felt like even though the VMAs were stupid, they had a kind of cultural power that I thought evened out the Grammys and actually made both of them make sense to me. One was old and one was young. One was pop and one was post-pop. It was sort of like when pop is old enough to be recognized appropriately, like Herbie Hancock winning that album of the year and things like that. Now, neither of those shows seem essential. And there's something, there's a weird dissonance. Award shows are in this very perilous state of course you and i are obsessed with this stuff and are talking about it all the

time but mostly only about the oscars yeah because there's still something the oscars still can draw 20 million people to the table which is meaningful every other show i mean i was looking at the ratings for the emmys last night and just over the last couple of years, they run the risk of sinking beneath 10 million people. That's low for a big-time award show like this on a broadcast network on a Sunday night. That's pretty rough. What other awards—are there any awards shows that are good? Are the Tonys good? I don't routinely watch the Tonys? I watched the Oklahoma performance during this year's Tonys because, you know,

the new production of Oklahoma is basically a meme at this point. It's like sexy Oklahoma or whatever, like Oklahoma that fucks or is apparently the word on this. That's the full title, Oklahoma that fucks. Well, and so I was like, oh, you know, I'm curious. And I think the idealized version of the Tonys is that it is a place for people across the United States who cannot make it to New York to buy a very expensive theater ticket can get a taste of what is happening. Yeah, of Hamilton. I think my mother saw Hamilton for the first time on the Tonys and then was like, could you please buy me the Hamilton CD for Christmas and also the book so I can understand what's happening, which was very cute. I have never been more horrified than the three minutes when I was watching Oklahoma on the Tonys. Let me tell you, no one was fucking or anything close.

Like, whatever sexual tension that is apparently you feel in the theater was not apparent on a network TV situation. So it was not for me. At least the Tonys have that purpose of you can't go see, not everyone can go see a theater production. So if it's something that you're interested in, they're making it available every year. Otherwise, I don't know. Chris, I think you're one of the best hosts

we have at The Ringer. You can host any show. You're dexterous in any category. Thanks, Sean. But I feel like of all the award shows, you would be best at hosting. The Tonys? It would be the Tonys. I feel like you have Tonys energy. I'm just a footlight kind of guy.

You know, and that moment, you know, when you walk out on stage and the curtain rises and you're about to just launch into Fool for Love or, you know, Sundays in the Park with, what was it, Neil Simon?

George. It's unlike anything else, you know? You do like the theater, though. That's fucking amazing. It's exactly what you're saying. It's, when you're watching it, you're like, I'm the only one who's seen this tonight. That's amazing. And that is actually an inefficiency that the Tonys really have, is that they can give

you something incredibly special. Now, when you're watching an Emmy, a Tony broadcast, do you want to watch an eight-minute Jeff Daniels monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird? Maybe not. Maybe that's a little bit of a jolt. But focusing on things that people can't get anywhere else. Last night, I will be completely honest. I have a podcast that is largely about television.

What happens at the Emmys has a huge impact on my podcast and the stuff that I cover. I'm kind of becoming that guy from the Whit Stillman movie Metropolitan, where it's like, I didn't actually read the book. I just read literary criticism because I can get the plot and an opinion. Like, you don't really have to watch these things because you can watch them on social media after the fact or during the fact and also watch Baker Mayfield. And then you can just kind of like read the winners and you get none of the, I can't believe I've spent four hours with this. This is so torturous.

Like I would love to see one of these shows just come out and say like, this is going to be 65 minutes and it's just going to go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. So one of my favorite award shows is the Independent Spirit Awards, partially because of what you're saying. One, it's two hours. Two, it has commercials, but it's happening in the middle of the day on a Saturday. So inevitably what happens is it's usually a February or March Saturday afternoon. My wife and I are out doing something, living our lives. Maybe we're shopping at a store or having lunch somewhere. And then I come home.

Wow. I know, it's a crazy life I'm living. I know, I'm just absolutely out of my mind. Come home. Wife, would you like to shop at a store for products for our living pod? As always, I've been made to seem like a sociopath on my own show. And wife, look at this couch. Sitting on it would be pleasant, yes?

No. I can't be. So I come home on a Saturday afternoon and I watch the Independent Spirit Awards, which are a brisk hour and a half on the DVR. Yeah. And it's easy. It's digestible.

It's not important. It ultimately doesn't really matter who wins. And it's nice that people win, but it's a much looser show. And inevitably, the hosts are people like Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. They're not these sort of haughty types. They're not even like late-night talk show hosts

who I think we once thought of as the standard bearer of these hosting duties. Now it's more like guys like you, Chris Ryan. Yeah. It's more like, you know, podcast hosts, after show. Just shooting from the hip. Just telling it like it is. Yeah.

Yeah. Just breaking down the truth about the space. Do you have a favorite award show, Amanda? I mean, besides the Oscars, which for all of its problems, I had to watch all four hours of the Emmys last night. And it was really dark. And I was very upset. And still the lowest part for me was when my friends and colleagues spoiled the movie Last Christmas for me. Just like during a commercial, Juliet was like, hey, so he's dead.

And that's not a spoiler because the movie hasn't come out yet. And Juliet hasn't seen it. It's also like pretty clearly indicated in the trailer. Okay. It wasn't to me, Sean. Okay. And then. He's the ghost of Christmas?

Yeah. Well, it's like based on the way of movies. So it's Last Christmas. I gave you my heart, but I think that's the ghost of Christmas. Yeah. Well, it's like based on the last Christmas. I gave you my heart. But I think that's been being. I thought he was alive, but he was going to give her his heart. I mean, we don't know. Because to be clear, they made that movie.

Isn't she like in the movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that he is like a ghost who gave her the heart last year. Oh, that's what they said. That's what a great movie. So but no one's seen that movie, so it's not spoilers, but as soon as,

Juliet just said that very casually, and Kate Hallow was like, oh yeah, and I honestly just felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water in my face. That's what I want to say. I was so upset.

All you fucking guys out there, I see you trying to ruin Ad Astra before it's coming out. Not you, you were really good. Congratulations to you. I worked very hard to not tell anybody anything about these movies.

You were fine. You didn't do anything. I'm only fine? You were great. I expect, I have higher expectations of you. You know, like you wouldn't do that to me.

Okay. But a lot of motherfuckers out there being like, space pirates. Like I got, like let me have that. You know, it's funny that you say that

because I noticed when I was reading Miles Suri's piece about Ad Astra this morning on The Ringer, he embedded a clip from the film and it is the space pirates moment. And Fox put that on YouTube. What? September 5th. It is like, it is the great moment, maybe not the great moment of the movie. There's a couple of incredible emotional moments in the film. But as far as the set pieces go, it's just a riveting, incredibly well-made sequence. That's crazy. And it's on YouTube. I don't know why. It's like,

if you don't experience that in the theater and you see it on YouTube first, you've made a mistake. So don't, this thing I'm describing to you, if you haven't seen it, don't watch it. But you're right. A lot of people are eager to overshare the things that happen in films. And frankly, movie studios, which don't quite know how to market their films, are just putting out all the best stuff way ahead of time. And it's really unfortunate. You have any Ad Astra thoughts you want to share before we wrap up this episode of the show? I loved it until he was alone.

I didn't hate it when he was alone. But I just thought the… How dare you come into this sacred space and speak ill of Brad Pitt? I loved the movie. I just thought that once he was by himself, the psyche eval and the voiceover and his solemn sort of, you know, isolation kind of all maybe intentionally started to blend together. And I thought that,

whereas there are some other precedents of like using VO really well, whether Apocalypse Now, which is obviously drawn from a lot, and Goodfellas, which both of those felt like the vo was happening for a purpose like you know um martin sheen's character is is this obviously like we're doing a report on on his trip to go find kurtz and in goodfellas it's a testimony i wasn't i just felt like they were just getting way too malik with it and it was like i got it i got what's going on in this and him being like my

dad i was like fuck don't say that i know what's going on in this. And him being like, my dad. I was like, fuck, don't say that. I can see it. Do you think it would have worked better if it was more of a device? This is actually a really interesting question. Funny you should mention Apocalypse Now. I've been re-watching it a lot the last couple of weeks

in part because I'm thinking about movies like this. Had Astro has a lot in common with Apocalypse Now, going into the far reaches of pain to confront a father figure who's kind of gone off the reservation, so to speak. But I think you could, that's a generous assessment

what you're saying about Apocalypse Now because I think that that voiceover was a little bit of a hack to make a movie that was very difficult to make work well. And I think we're going to find out in years to come that Ad Astra has also similarly

gone through some complicated stages of post-production. When James Gray was on the show, he talked about some of the compromises he had to make. And when you make a movie this big, you inevitably are forced to answer to a lot of people and you have to change some things. And there are a couple of moments

where you can see that they've changed some things, you know, that they have tweaked what was once probably a little bit more of a meditative movie into something that is slightly more commercial, just slightly. And I wonder if in the doing, they hurt something that was a little bit more pure about what the filmmakers were going for.

It's impossible to say right now. The voiceover is what stuck out to me as well. And I think what was frustrating about it, it was that there was a device built into the movie where the Brad Pitt character could be speaking about his emotions in the first person it is the psych eval and it was kind of like everything that you needed to do in terms of exposition and even communicating some pretty on-the-nose feelings could have been done in the context of this movie and make a lot more sense and it was such a cool device yeah it was such a

cool storytelling device that they kind of then just sort of played for a joke towards the end when he gets like locked out of his own account. Yeah. But yeah, I agree with you. I just, it was repetitive. I don't know. I walked away from it thinking it's a lot of feelings all at once. It really is very raw.

And there is something to that idea of when you really, it's a movie about not being able to communicate those things and searching for ways to communicate them. And when you finally unlock it, it does come tumbling out all at once. And there is not always a lot of art around being able to express those very deep emotions. So in that sense, the conflicting mess of it all worked for me, though I think the voiceover could have been pared back. That would have been my note, but James Gray doesn't need my notes. No, but what you guys are saying makes sense, and I've seen that criticism from people, and I think that there is this expectation that voiceover means problem or overthought. And, you know, I did just see the Terrence Malick movie, A Hidden Life, which is also laden with voiceover.

And to me, there was way too much. And it was way overstating a lot of the themes of the film. And that's obviously something that he has carried through 40 years of filmmaking. But at some point, it can be it can brutalize the subtlety of what you're trying to do in a film. And Astro to me, the thing that about it is, aside from those themes that you're talking about Amanda and the way that they're handled is as far as filmmaking goes it is utterly unique. It is different

enough from First Man from Interstellar from Gravity the movies in the last few years that have been the signal outer space films. It feels like a different kind of movie. The tonality of it even the way that it looks they're using different technology and it feels like a big achievement in that respect to me. I've seen some people say that they feel like the post-production is not that strong in the movie, which I couldn't,

I can't understand that at all. I don't know if that's like what movie theater you see it in or what projection you're seeing it in. But the version that I saw, I was like, this is one of the most pristine movies I've ever seen. I was texting with former Ringer staff writer Sam Donsky over the weekend, and we were talking a little bit about the space movies that have come out over the last couple of years. And he gave me this interesting prompt,

which I'll share with you, because I'm curious to see what you do. Please rank the following movies. Gravity, Interstellar, Arrival, Martian, and Ad Astra. Oh, wow. Dead Last is Interstellar for me. and ad astra oh wow dead last is interstellar for me number i'm on the record what was number four uh gravity interstellar arrival the martian ad astra number one for me is arrival no question okay i was just unbelievably moved by that movie and saw it twice and both times it it walloped me great film that's a film that probably has

more in common with ad astra than with The Martian or Gravity. And there is a little bit of a like, I think it might have even been Sam who was commenting on this, but the kind of like jovial, wisecracking astronaut archetype is one that I think we're all a little bit tired of. And The Martian, it's expertly done and it makes sense why it's executed that way. Gravity and Clooney a little bit less so and the character there. I find Gravity to be very not rewatchable.

And so it's not aging that well in my mind even though I think I had the reaction that a lot of people did when they first saw it which is what an incredible achievement this is. The Martian, I don't know if I've really rewatched it. It's actually a pretty rewatchable movie when it's on HBO. You'll be like, oh, this is the potato scene.

You know, like, you're kind of like, this is pretty cool. His bit is a lot for the entire sustained two hours or whatever. That movie is where

my Kristen Wiig should only be in comedy is like pure comedy's argument starts. The take starts. Yeah. Remember Donald Glover in The Martian?

That was really something. Oh, yeah. That's also aging oddly. It was the first man on his list? It was not. This is just, and nor was Prometheus, which I think sort of is among the new space genre.

Interesting. I wouldn't know how to rank them. I feel like there would be recency bias with anything I did. I loved Interstellar, so that's very high up. I think Interstellar and Arrival are pretty much neck and neck with me. Arrival destroyed me twice in five days, like I think I saw in theaters. Arrival is pretty incredible.

Is that really number one out of those movies? Wouldn't that be something? It's no question for me. Wow. Okay. That's a really good question. We should have a Space Movies episode of this show at some point soon. If we didn't do it for Ad Astra, I don't know what I'd do. Guess what? I think they'll make a Space Movie again.

Yeah, you're probably right. Although at Astra, you know, it did not exactly light the box office on fire. So it's hard to say. Let's do space movies for Suicide Squad 2. Okay, you got a deal. Amanda, Chris, thank you so much for joining me on this winding and fascinating episode

of a podcast about TV and movies. Now let's go to my conversation with the director of Downton Abbey, Michael Engler. I'm delighted to be joined by the director of Downton Abbey, Michael Engler. Michael, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Michael, you have had a fascinating career to me and you seem an unlikely person to be directing the feature film of Downton Abbey. So you are a theater director and an episodic television director, and also you've made a few films. Tell me what the difference is between those three things. Well, there's a lot of differences. I think the things that overlap that are the same are that I love work, taking a script and working with actors to bring it to life and sort of tell the story through the people.

So I was always interested in the visual aspects on stage and all of that. But what I would say one of the key differences as I moved into working on film, whether it's for television or film, whatever that format is, is that the storytelling obviously is much more visual in terms of the actual story being told. Whereas in the theater and even a lot on television, there is a tendency toward just sort of dialogue being the basis of how the story gets told. Static.

The camera's not moving. Well, it's not necessarily that even. It's just whatever the camera's doing, someone's talking. And so, you know, it's not that, you know, somebody comes in and you have a shot of them noticing something and then you have a shot of what they notice and then they go toward it and they pick up a prop and you realize that prop means something to them. And then, you know, that is how the story is told. It's very rare that that happens on stage like that. And in television, which is becoming much more influenced by film and the overlap, I think is much more fluid nowadays, really for everybody. But in

television, the tradition has been a much more dialogue-driven storytelling mode. And so even though this is a big film and there's a lot of cinematic aspects to it and to the storytelling even, because it is one unified piece, it doesn't feel necessarily like it has to have been, you know, part of a chapter of something. But I think one of the things that attracts me to Julian's writing and why he and I have a good relationship is because I think he is essentially a playwright. I really do. I think he writes, that is the thing that interests him most, which is text and subtext and how people communicate, the tension between sort of the modes of expected communication and then how people actually communicate, whether they break those things or push against those barriers. And subtext, you know, the unspoken but the acted, you know. And so that's something I've always been interested in. And I think those are the through lines there.

In terms of being an unlikely person to direct a film, I think nobody is more surprised than I, in a way, except that it's a kind of work I've always loved. I've always been a big fan of, first of all, the kind of literature that, you know, the British period drama springs from, but British period dramas too, and other kinds of things. I love historical fiction. I always have. So that was one thing, and I was a huge fan of the show. And so- And of course, you directed several episodes of the show. It's not that you're unlikely in that respect. Right, right, right. But even just getting to direct several episodes of the show,

they hadn't had an American director before. And as a big fan of it, I didn't think they should or would, you know. And why would they, I thought, you know, when there would be so many people from within that world who would have so, I assumed, so much more insight than I would. But then it was interesting because when I met Liz Trubridge, who's the producer who really brought me into the group and introduced me to Gareth Neame and Julian Fellows, we had both just been talking about kind of modes of working in television and how their system works and our system works and just so much about Downton and other things. And I think she just thought at that point in the series, which was going into their fifth season of Six, I think she thought the combination of just my absolute passion for

the show and that I was a little bit outside it, too, might make it an interesting chemistry, a little bit of a wild card to throw in at a point where everybody already thinks they know what they're doing and does, you know, because a great pattern has been set. And the strange thing was once I went in there, I never felt more at home. And I think it's because all the values of how they work and what that work requires are things that I've tried to work my whole life on getting good at. So before we go too far headlong into Downton, I'm actually interested relative to that, how you either got jobs or sought work before the films that you've been making. Episodic television director as a job is fascinating to me, and I feel like we don't

necessarily understand completely how it works. So you've directed many episodes of TV in your career. How do you go about getting jobs, you know, over the last 10, 15, 20 years? Is it producers are identifying the work that you've done previously? Are you pitching yourself to the world? Like, how does it actually work? It varies. It varies. You know, I mean, the thing I think I've learned about this is like when you do something well, what it gets you is the opportunity to do that same thing again. And that's about it. Sometimes a bigger version of it, but really it doesn't suddenly open up all these new doors where, oh, you did this wonderful broad comedy. Maybe somebody who's doing a sophisticated, you know, verbal comedy will, no, they don't really. Everybody sort of thinks what they do is the hardest thing and no one else can do it. And so there is a certain amount of, first of all, just the people I've worked with and had good relationships with, particularly writers and producers, they often are, I would say more often than not,

more than half the time, work is initiated from them saying, hey, I've got this project I'm working on. Is it something you'd like to be involved in? And we work it out. And usually, if it's people I like working with, I try to because that's a hard enough thing to find. So there's that. And then that often leads into new areas because people are creating new things. And then if there's something that I really, really like, I will talk to my agents or people I know in the business who know the people who are making it and say, I would really love to do that. And I know I haven't really done that kind of thing, but I think I'd be really good at it. And I'd be more than happy to go in and talk about why. Can you give me an example of that? Like with Six Feet Under, that was a show I had seen the pilot of it. And I had been,

I had made the transition from theater to television and I I was working fairly regularly. But I had kind of, again, made a sort of headway and in a very comfortable way in the American network family drama circuit. And I was enjoying it very much. But this was much edgier, the style of it, the filmmaking of it, everything. And, and my agents, I know were, were, they said, yeah, yeah, they, I mean, they like you, but you know, they're looking for people, more independent film type people they're looking for. And so I said, okay, that's all great. I get it. I get it. But let me just, just see if we could sit down together. And I had known Alan Poole through people over the years and said to Alan and my agents, I would love to just sit down, talk to you and Alan Ball about my take on the pilot and why I love it so much and why I want to do it.

And then that turned into a relationship that developed on that show. So sometimes that does happen that way. It has happened other times. It was the same thing with Deadwood. I really, you know, again, it was a thing that was nothing like what I had done, but I just felt I could do it. And then I wanted to do it. It was the strangest thing because it wasn't like I'm into Westerns or it just, I felt

like there was something about what he's doing and how he works and writes for actors. Yeah. The scripts were unreal. Yeah. That I just thought I connect with this and I have learned to trust that if I am affected by something in a certain way, I can recreate that experience for an audience, you know? And, and if I don't have that reaction, it doesn't matter how much my agents think this would be a good thing for me, or, you know, oh, these, everybody's, you know, this is the, the show that all the feature producers are watching. So it would be great for you to work on. And a couple of those I've said, I, you know, I get it and I know why, but I don't, I don't, I wouldn't know how to do it because I, I don't have that reaction to it. When I watch it, I don't find it funny or moving or whatever it's supposed to be. And so I wouldn't know how to do it, you know? It's fascinating. I mean, obviously you've worked on Downton, you've worked on Six Feet Under, you mentioned Deadwood, but you've also worked on 30 Rock and The Big C and Sex and the City.

Kimmy Schmidt. Kimmy Schmidt. Yeah. Like Kimmy Schmidt to, to Downton Abbey. I mean, in the last couple of years, those are the main shows I worked on. And the craziest thing was everybody on Downton Abbey wanted to talk about Kimmy Schmidt. It was unbelievable. I was so surprised, but in a funny way, I thought, well, you know what? It's in a funny way, people who appreciate style, appreciate lots of different kinds of style because it's not usually one thing as opposed to – there's a lot of people who just kind of like realistic dramas or procedurals, cop, lawyer, medical kinds of things that tell those kinds of – I was going to say repetitive stories. But a certain area of storytelling that they like, that they find interesting.

Case of the week kind of stories. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But the reason I bring it up is because what is that like to have to be so chameleonic to work inside of not just different shows, but different genres, different lengths, different story types? That's pretty fascinating. Not many people are getting that kind of experience in the world. That's right.

That's right. And I have fought hard to do it and really pushed. And because in my theater background I had done a lot of comedies and a lot and to really push in those ways and to make my agents push for me. And like I said, really make a case for myself on things, put myself out there, because that is the thing I love to do. And I think that is like my classical theater training. You know, I went to, had a real conservatory training and it was all about obviously a director in the theater, especially the really significant ones. You know, you put your stamp on something, but the idea is always to sort of what is the voice of the playwright and how do you bring that out? You might do that in any number of very different ways,

but it's filmmaking, I think, has grown up in a way where there was sort of the auteur theory and the filmmaker being the one who gets sort of his name on the film in a way that the writer doesn't. Now, that's not always the case, of course, but it's a funny thing. But I love that process of sort of like, what is this? What is the rhythm of this and the music of this and the style of it? And so that's the thing that television has been really exciting for me in that way, in that going into something and saying, well, what is the vocabulary of this? What is the style of this? How do you find the acting in this that makes sense for this show that isn't just kooky

because it's a kooky show or, you know, really, really try to make sense of it. And, um, yeah. When you were doing that conservatory training, who were the people that you looked up to? Who were the people that you said, I want to have a career like this person? Well, probably the only one in America was Mike Nichols, you know, and they're really, the trouble is we haven't had that. I kept, I always used to say when I first got out, like, I should be an English director. Like, really, that's my goal is to be, because they do theater and then they get into television and film and they, they've kind of always do that. And it's true in a lot of places. I think primarily because London is the capital of theater and then they get into television and film and they kind of always do that. And it's true in a lot of places. I think primarily because London is the capital of theater and film and television and everything.

And there's a sense that all of those skills overlap. And, of course, you have to learn more and develop more each thing you get into. But that wasn't so much here. And especially when I was starting where, like, if you wanted to be in television and film, television in particular, you had to go to L.A. And I was living in New York. And I did come to L.A. for a while. And, you know, I enjoyed that. And that was good. But so, yeah, there were just a few people like, you know, like that.

Why do you think we don't have that more people who are able to make that transition or not making that transition as frequently as somebody like Mike Nichols, though? Or at least not as sort of legendarily. Yeah. Well, I think we're just beginning to. I mean, I think it's because the worlds were so isolated before, you know. And. Yeah, I mean, it was just kind of I I think, I really think that I have this theory that everybody thinks what they do is the hardest thing to do and nobody else is going to be

able to figure it out. And so the TV people, TV people, it used to even be like film people couldn't even get into television before like feature directors. Cause it would be, Oh, they don't know how to work fast enough. And Oh, it's such a different thing coming in with the actors who already know they're all these different things. And, oh, it's such a different thing coming in with the actors who already know all these different things. And I think now that everything is kind of overlapping more, that film and television worlds, and they're not so much circumscribed by this kind of thing happens on television and this kind of thing happens in features, that you have the sense like, well, what's the

best way to tell the story? If it's six hours, then you bring it to Netflix or, you know, Amazon or HBO or whatever. And if it's really a two-hour story that needs some scale, then it probably is a feature and those kinds of things. And so actors, directors, writers, they just want to make good things. And I think I realized, oh, this kind of adaptation of a novel into six hours for HBO, that wasn't a possibility. But that's actually the best way to tell that particular story, the sharp objects and things like that. Whereas certain things you think, no, that that really is, that makes perfect sense as a, you know, as one event, you know, standalone.

And then some things seem to want to go on for a long time, like a long novel. So I think that's one big thing, that filmmakers and the important people around it who get things made want to do all those different things now, including theater and all that. But part of it, I think it's just that people are realizing that with a more demand for more people, just because the market has gotten huge, the idea that you never know where it's going to come from is a little more embraced rather than kind of feared. Did you feel like you were targeting making feature films at any point? Or is this something that just sort of happened due right for that, you know, that length, that amount of story, that kind of focus. And so I would like to do that. But I also feel now like, you know, one of them would really make sense on the big screen and another one wouldn't. I mean, not that it wouldn't, I think it would be fine, but it would be perfectly wonderful to do a feature-length film of this one for Netflix or Amazon or HBO or somebody who, knowing people were going to be watching it at home.

Because that's not what's interesting about that particular thing is the sort of the scale of it isn't relevant. What did you think when you heard that there might be a Downton Abbey movie? Made sense to me, actually, right away. Like a lot of things just seem like a good marketing idea, which it did seem like it could be. But first of all, it always was referred to and discussed as a very cinematic piece of work. And the canvas of it is so conducive to kind of lush cinematic uh countryside vistas

this beautiful home yeah exactly beautiful clothing and settings and and um yeah the period of it lends itself well to all of that i think but i did know that it was going to be tricky because first of all there's so many expectations that people, especially with something that's so beloved, that they would want the things that made them love it there, like a lot of different characters' stories, which is much easier to do in a weekly format where every week everyone doesn't have to have a story or a big story. Julie says one week Daisy's buying a hat, and that's a story while Mary is in a five-episode long arc with a potential lover. And then the next week something else is going on, and it's a big mix. And this had to feel like it was one story, one event that would pull everybody in together with some sense of stakes and then still allow you enough room to move around and and see where everybody else was in their lives learn a little bit more about about where they were so it had to do that and then

it also had to be something that would, because it was perfectly satisfying to watch on a good television, something that would feel like, oh, if you went out to see it and pay the ticket and sit in the theater, that the sound and the vision and the screen and the scale of it would pay off, that it wouldn't feel like it was just a money grab or pulling something out of mothballs, that it was brought to a new level, to a new dimension. And I think if he hadn't solved it so well at the script stage, I just don't think any of that would have mattered. But I think he did by creating the sort of the story of hanging it on the story of the

royal visit. So tell me about that because it's very noticeable. I just saw the film last night. It is a much more cinematic version of Downton Abbey. The camera is moving a lot more. It feels like it's on a drone many a time. We see these grand vistas, like I said, but we also see it's really a much more active version of Downton, it feels like. Did you and Julian talk about that a great deal at the beginning? Do you wait to see the script and say, here's how I'm visualizing exactly how we're going to move through this world this time around? Absolutely. I did. And again, I do take it all from the script and then say, oh, here are opportunities to really take what's there and grow and expand it. And one of the things we did want to do is without changing the DNA of it, because that, again, even as a piece of filmmaking, we didn't want to completely change the DNA, not just in the storytelling, but to sort of say, well, okay,

here is how we kind of shoot this, but let's grow it. Let's let the vocabulary expand. And there are definitely things, drone shots for sure, they're the most noticeable. But there's a lot of things. I mean, there's a scene we shot that I won't do any spoilers on, but there's a scene we shot that's kind of the comic high point of the comic storyline anyway, and takes place in the big dining room and it's a royal banquet. And it all comes to a big comic culmination. And the way we shot that scene would never have been done on the series. But then again, a scene like that hadn't really been on the series. That was quite so, you know, the combination of sort of comedy of manners and physical comedy coming together.

And so we just said, well, let's push it further. Let's be bolder in whatever ways that we can that makes sense. And if it doesn't work, we can always pull back on it. But we did try to challenge ourselves so that, again, it would feel familiar, but elevated and more fun and more playful and more intense at times. And I think we sort of – I'm happy with the balance we found. And I'm not always happy. No, it works very well. I wonder, is that because you have more time? Is it because you have more money?

Or is it just because you feel like it demands it because it's going on a big screen? It's all of those things. It's all of those things. I mean, well, it demands it because it's going on a big screen. And so everybody understands that it will take more time and more money to create those things and to give yourself those kinds of options reasons that television or even just a particular television show kind of falls into certain very repetitive patterns of filmmaking are just because you have the same sets, you have the same crews, you have the same actors, and you have a very limited amount of time. And so you start to understand where you can be more playful and artistically original each time and where you can just sort of get stuff done in a day where you have to hammer out a lot of pages and you start to learn this room works well like this. And these kinds of scenes seem to suit us best when shot like this. And so you can, you kind of learn certain aspects of a vocabulary that you, that, that, you know, you can always go

to. So it's not that we threw that out, but we just said, we have more time. We have more room. We have also just, if it's going to appear on a much bigger screen, we're going to watch it differently. And even things, it's interesting. In a couple of ways, I noticed in the editing room, things changing for me a lot. Because one was, even very classic Downton scenes, two people in a room having a very intimate conversation, it just felt completely different on the big screen. It felt like you were in the room, and somehow the size, the actual scale of the room changed your perception of what an intimate scene in a room like that is. And so I definitely cut them differently

and used different sort of cutting patterns than I would have used. We stayed in wider shots and two shots much, much longer and let things settle and play more than they did because you could really see the detail of people's performances and take them in, in what they were doing, you know, simultaneously. And the same thing, like in these big group scenes, just the idea that down a long table, you could watch a bunch of people react and kind of choose who you wanted to look at rather than on television, which, you know, again, a lot of people have big screens, but you're, in some ways you sort of feel like if I don't make a choice here, no one will know, no one will see into the important reaction that I want to focus on, you know.

That's so interesting. You mentioned Deadwood earlier, and there is a trend now that is interesting, which is the feature-length film follow-up to the beloved series. I wonder what you make of that, given that many of these people, you know, built relationships with television, and television is a very dominant medium right now. We have a lot of conversations on this show about the struggles of movies and theaters and how that is obviously the business is changing a lot. What do you make of the movie sizing of TV shows? I think partly it has to do with when these writers, especially of a certain level, have created a world of characters that they really know well and a world of actors that

they really know how to write for, it almost could go on forever. And so the idea that at some point everyone just decides to stop because you do want to quit while you're ahead and it gets exhausting and you want to feel like you have a fair amount to tell. But when you're done, it's time to move on and do other things and have other challenges. And so I think what happens is when it's clear that an audience is ready for more again, has gone on to other things and says, hey, you know what? I missed that. I wouldn't mind that. I think it's very enticing for a writer to say,

you know what? There was this story, actually, I always thought would be an interesting one to tell of them. And if I only have to do it once and we get together and it has a different kind of shape, the structural challenges are so different that I think you feel like you're, you know, like, I don't know, I guess it would be like if you like a certain series of novels or whatever, like you can go back to it again and feel like you're not just treading water. I don't really know what it was like on the set of the series, of the Downton series, but, you know, we think of the writer as kind of king in that medium in a lot of ways. And I don't know if Julian was on set frequently, but how does it work there? Are you the king of directing that series in the way that you would be on a film set as well? And casting, he's got a really good eye for that. And he oversees and looks at, checks into things, production.

He doesn't spend much time on set. And then he reviews the dailies every day and gives feedback. And then at the editing stage, he's very involved again. And he's very insightful. And he's also very unpretitious about his lines, his words. And he will often just say, oh, we don't need that or cut that or let's move that around. Or, you know what, she's doing that so beautifully with her face. Let's not even have her say the line. You know, he really is looking at all of that. Um, and so, and also just in the English television system, the director of even just the episodes is given much more freedom,

is encouraged to be more of the sort of director in the kind of feature, you know, filmmaking, authorial sense. And then on the feature, it was the same, but it just both, both sides of it kind of grew more. There was more to direct and there was more for him to have input on. And I think also, especially as we got into editing and we, it wasn't, there was, there was a crazy amount extra, but it was, it was more about with everybody having a story at certain points, we thought, okay, if her story is 10 minutes, his could be eight and a half and hers could be six. We started to realize, actually, they can feed each other, but at a certain point, it became clear how to balance them out and which ones you could go away to without feeling like when you came back to the central story, you weren't jerked around, you know? That's one of the amazing accomplishments of the movie is that almost everyone gets their chance. Was it difficult to figure out how to remind people where we left off with some of these characters? I thought it would be, but what was interesting, in the original script, he put a lot more reference and exposition that I thought, okay, good.

Is it going to be too chatty like we're trying to remind? Is it going to feel like a recap here? And then what was really interesting is we started to realize like, oh, like with Andy and Daisy, all you need to know is that they're engaged. And so in their first scene, he says, what's wrong? And she says, what's wrong? He says, well, you never talk about our wedding anymore. It's like, oh, okay, great. We know that. And we know that, and we know that he's insecure about it. Great. That's all we need to know. You don't need to know how it got there, that she married William and he died. And same thing with Tom Branson. There were other references, but we realized like, oh,

we don't have to actually in any way be emotional about the fact that Tom is a widower with a daughter. We just need to know that that happened so that when he meets this girl and she knows him and, oh, why does he have a little girl running around? What is that? I feel like an hour passes before we even hear the name Sybil. That's right. It's kind of fascinating. It's a very funny thing that happened on the set, you know, because we wanted it to feel like if you hadn't come in, if you didn't know the show, you could come into it and just whatever you learned would be enough. And maybe if you went back and looked at it, you'd be like, oh, my God, that's what that meant. But not that you would have been confused without knowing it.

But there was a guy who was on the camera crew who had never really, I mean, had never seen the show. Had never seen the show. And he, the first week, he was like, this is really good. This is really good writing. And the script is good and all that. And so he went and he binged the first two seasons, just the first weekend after we started shooting. And he came back in the second week and he said, oh, my God, I love the show, but where's Sybil? I was like, well, next weekend.

It's going to be tough. Brace yourself. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the great thing was, like, you don't need to know it. But, you know, I hope the fans got what they needed and that people who don't will sort of say, oh, maybe I should go back and check this out and see how they all got here. What about you? What are you going to do now that you've made this film? Well, my next thing is also with Julian Fellows and Gareth Neame for HBO.

We're doing a series called The Gilded Age. Yeah, exciting. Starts New York in 1882. And it's sort of the clash between old entrenched New York society and then the invasion of the big industrialist robber baron money in the Gilded Age and sort of the new huge money. And it's basically two houses. If Downton was sort of Downton Abbey, this is kind of two houses, an old townhouse with two sisters who've been part of old New York their whole lives, pretty much.

And then the house that's just opening, that was just built, that this wealthy family, sort of like Vanderbilts or Jay Gould or somebody, have just built. And it's like the Frick Museum or one of these enormous, enormous things. And kind of the cultural clash of those people trying to break in. It's kind of Edith Wharton, New York. Fascinating. So are you, how many, is it a mini series or a full series? It's, the goal would be for it to be an ongoing series.

We're making 10 hours. That we know we're making and that starts shooting next year sometime and it'll be out in 2021 so it's a big project with enormous sets and a big cast and an exciting project but really very much an american story it has a kind of american feel to it even though it obviously overlaps in some ways with down the households the servants the servants, the kind of social sexual politics of men and women and power and money and status and all that. I look forward to it. Michael, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they've seen?

What is the last great thing you've seen? The last great thing I've seen that I was blown away by was Capernaum. I think that's how you pronounce it. I just thought the – first of all, I am amazed when I see behavior happen in a film. And I just can't imagine how it was created and gotten on film. You know, those scenes with a child and an infant, a toddler, their interaction, the details of the interaction. And then looking at it and knowing by the lenses how close the cameras had to be to it all.

I just, I was just amazed by that. And then that somebody could get so inside a world that most of us could never have any access to, make you really believe it and understand it, and tell a really sophisticated, detailed story. I just thought that was incredible. And also, I think because I just feel like I have none of the skills it would take to make that film. You know, I wouldn't know how to do that really. And that to me is like just a true artist. Like she's found her own palette, her own approach, her own process, her own stories. I mean, really masterful.

That's a wonderful recommendation, Michael. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Pleasure. Thanks again to Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan. And thanks again, of course, to Michael Engler. Please tune in later this week on the show where I will have a conversation with the director of The Death of Dick Long, Daniel Shiner. Really funny conversation with that guy about a really fascinating and weird and clever film.

And Amanda and I will be breaking down a little movie called Judy.