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

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Sean Fennessey and Craig Horlbeck walk the red carpet to recap Episodes 3-8 of ‘The Studio.’ (0:00) Intro (2:44) How the show is operating as both a broad workplace comedy and an insider satire (13:25) Apple’s take on the Golden Globes (15:02) Midseason awards: best episode, most accurate character, favorite cameos, etc. (39:11) Closing thoughts Email us! [e-mail] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Sean Fantasy here with Craig Horelbeck. Craig, this is our first time recording a pod together. How do you feel? Is that right? Just me and you? Yeah, definitely. Just me and you. We've had you on the fantasy pod.

Yeah. Talking Jets. Yeah. I'm sort of the mat and you're the sow in this equation, right? I was actually wondering if you were going to say I'm the Sal or the Quinn. Thank you for saying Sal. You are the Sal. We're talking about the studio. This is a bit of a catch-up episode. Me, Bill, and Joanna did talk about the first two episodes and some of the third episode.

At the beginning of this season, this is a new Apple TV Plus show that is produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. And it is a massive parody, satire, loving homage to the absolute inanity of working in Hollywood. And the show, I would say, has broadly been a huge critical success. and I have absolutely no idea if people in the real world beyond our L.A. and New York denizens are engaging in it. Well, it's number two on Apple.

I don't know what that means. Me neither. But it's been consistently number one or number two, which is a good sign. It just got renewed for a second season. Also a good sign, right? Absolutely. I think also you are the first person in my life

who came to me and said, have you seen the studio when we first got screeners for this show? You, of course, are the producer of the 10. Yeah. And the host of the town, Matt Bellany, makes some cameo appearances on this series. Yeah, no spoilers. No spoilers.

The town podcast has been in, I think, the first episode or the second one. So we could say you're in the pocket of the studio in some ways. Yeah. I'm angling to get in season two. Oh, you were not invited to the season? Not yet. That's too bad. Okay.

But this show is, it's fascinating. The conversation that me, Bill and Joanna had was, I think, defined by this, like, who's paying attention, who's this for, what's this about? in the aftermath of stuff like Larry Sanders and the player and this long history of Hollywood self-saturizing. To me, this show is working really well as both a broad comedy and an insider story. Do you feel the same way?

Yes. Yeah. I'm probably too in the bag for this show to be objective because this is like everything I've ever wanted in a television show, so I really love it. When you say that, what do you mean? Not only do I, have I wanted to work in media or Hollywood, I've always found it to be the glamour, the sexiness of it

has always been very attractive to me and it's everything you want Hollywood to be in the best and worst ways which is why I really like it. It shows you like the backstabbing and the self-importance and the vanity of it all but it's also very glamorous and sexy and cool. It really is to me kind of a

it's honestly just kind of a workplace comedy that looks fucking awesome. Yes. And it is less, I think going in I thought there was going to be more arcs, more narrative, build, and there kind of isn't? I'd like to explore that with you a little bit.

Matt Remick is the Seth Rogen character. He, at the beginning of the series, was named the head of the Continental Studios, which is clearly a large historical movie studio, but maybe not quite at the top of the heap in terms of Disney and Netflix. It feels like it's more in the vein of a

paramount. And it feels very closely modeled on real world events. Yeah. But the energy of the show is complicated. And I think one of the reasons some people have had a hard time

hooking into it, but I think feels very true to the experience of working in Hollywood is there are no heroes on the show. And in fact, Matt, the lead,

is kind of a tragic dip shit and has not through eight episodes really turned that arc around in any meaningful way. In fact, he keeps kind of digging a deeper existential hole for himself, despite the fact that he is in theory

in one of the five key jobs in movie making. You know, he is incredibly powerful. He has the ability to greenlight films. He can work with his favorite artists if he wants to. And yet he's kind of a miserable schmuck. I see, yeah, and it's because I think this show is tapping more into Curb than it is hacks, where there's conflict and this resolution and character growth.

It kind of is just, let's tune in this week to see the misadventures of a Hollywood executive crew at a studio. And that's the only criticism I've heard is that people thought it was going to be more. honestly like serious in terms of its growth in the character development. And it's kind of just like Seth and Evan wanting to tell people that the behind the scenes of Hollywood is just as chaotic and embarrassing as you think, but we also kind of love it. And it's really funny. And it's just as funny what's going on behind the scenes as sometimes what you're seeing on screen. Yeah. I think it's a fascinating show too about essentially it's not just that the studio executives are buffoonish in some ways

and that they think that they are creative and in fact they are actually impeding the creative process of movie making but that when you are a boss and in charge of a creative endeavor, it's basically hard to seem cool or good in any way. There's not really like Matt Remick in theory aspires to not just making meaningful movies

that make him feel great about the work that he does but to do a good job at this job. And he wants people to like him. And he wants people to like him. And a lot of the show is how quickly people to abandon their integrity when it benefits them. Yep.

And that's like every character in the show, I mean, the Ron Howard episode, episode three is the perfect example of this. Everyone is like, I'm single-handedly saving film. And then one of them has to deliver a negative note to Ron Howard, and they're like,

actually, I'm never going to do that. Yes. Because I want Ron Howard to lay me. The passing of the baton is really interesting. I had heard that Ron Howard was the very first celebrity who signed onto a peer in the show, which is very interesting because it tells you

a lot about how this show is constructed to that they need these critical names to make the show makes sense. And it does the same thing that a show like Kerb does or a show like the Larry Sanders show does where they take famous people and they portray a kind of darkened version of themselves.

Or it takes a famous person and they play a character that exists within this world that is created around it. And it's a very clever delineation between who gets to be themselves, who gets to be a character. This is a world where Seth and Evan Dill really exist,

which is kind of an amusing way to think about this. Yeah. But it is also a world where Olivia Wilde, for example, is a successful but complicated and maybe deeply flawed filmmaker, which is something that most people who follow this stuff somewhat closely might know just from seeing the trail of press around, Don't worry, darling. And they managed to convince somebody who incurred all this negative press about the making of that movie to do something somewhat similar in the missing real, the fourth episode of the show. Yeah, I always think it's a good look when a celebrity plays into a stereotype about them. I think it's a humble move.

I think it's a great play for your ego. And I also think a lot of the reason why this stuff works, and it's probably why a lot of celebrities and people agreed to cameo, is, and I'm curious what you think, the show doesn't really tap into any macro-major issues in Hollywood. Like, it kind of hints at them. It points to them. Yeah.

But they're not really getting into streaming. Like, the word streaming might not even be uttered. in the show, maybe once or twice. AI is not a huge part of this show. There was a point made about it in episode seven, in casting, in the Kool-Aid casting episode. It became a point of rejection and revulsion at the end of that episode,

but it wasn't really explored. It was just the same thing you hear over and over again, which is AI bad, taking jobs away from people. Yeah. And that's basically it. But then it ends. And then the next episode begins, and that's no longer, you know, each episode is it so.

You can kind of just jump into the show. and watch an episode and kind of have an idea of what's going on. But like the theatrical decline, franchiseification, that stuff is all kind of floating around it, but none of it is actually driving the story. I guess the Kool-Aid of it all is a major plot point. But even that, again, it's not like people are really, like the Kool-Aid thing,

Matt's character is not really being hurt by that throughout the season. No, I mean, in fact, it's interesting that they even brought that film back into the center of the story three or four episodes since they had last really discussed it because it felt like the show had become this self-contained situational comedy where each episode was just a different problem that they had to deal with in that space.

It isn't a serialized drama in any of the ways that we come to expect with a show that looks this good from a big, fancy streamer and big stars. That's why it's so confusing, I think, to some people, is they're like, this looks maybe better than almost, and this looks better than some movies. The filmmaking is amazing. My favorite episode of this show is still,

the second episode, which we talked about, the oneer, and the filmmaking style and the location shooting and all that. It's just remarkable. Like, it's just really, really high-level stuff. And they're just using one camera, one lens. It's like a 35-millimeter lens, and they're shooting everything on it. And it honestly sounds like it's incredibly laborious to execute

on this show. I think Seth said on average it's 16 takes per one-er shot. And I would say each episode it can have, I don't know, 10 to 15 oneers. Yeah, it's just a tremendous amount of work that they're putting into what usually doesn't happen. I think part of the success of the show, too, is even though it's not a serialized show,

it is a deep character study. And there's a lot of time spent, not just with Matt, but with Sal Sapirstine, like Berenhold's character. We're getting some time with Chase Sui Wander's character and seeing what it's like

for someone who's kind of on the younger side of the executive stage. Catherine O'Harris character, who's sort of the Amy Pascal stand-in. So you are like, you're building a relationship with the characters in the series, even though their lives

doesn't feel like they're being charted in a linear way. It feels like we're kind of like dots on a map that are moving all over. the place. And it's not really emotional. It's more, it's more professional. I would have said that all the way up until the end of the Golden Globes. Yeah, when he sat in the limo at the end. When he's sitting alone in the limo and Matt and I was like, oh, this is a tragedy. I didn't realize that this show was a tragedy.

Now, you've seen ahead. I haven't seen ahead. We won't spoil anything about episodes nine. Maybe I think you and I will come back at the end of episode 10 to do another pot about this. But again, like I said with the end of the other episode where the next one begins and the conversation about AI has just ended. It's kind of the same thing. I don't want to spoil nine, but like the sadness that Matt feels at the end of eight doesn't really carry. Like, they are more contained. That's interesting. Do you feel that that is, like, reflective of the life of people that you are close to in the business?

There was an epic sadness inside of Matt. Yeah, it's funny, though, because there's a perpetual anxiety and sadness and stress in everybody. Yep. And then the next day you wake up and you just kind of start all over again and you try to win again the next day. And that's kind of what this show is. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

It's an interesting exploration of people who get in. into a job that is literally in the city of dreams, and they think that they're pursuing their dream. And their dream is just a mechanical, bureaucratic shame factory. Yeah, and it looks gorgeous on purpose. I mean, Continental Studios, it's like the coolest building I've ever seen in my life. Seth, Matt Remick's character is the best-dressed character I've ever seen in a show. It's immaculate.

And all the other characters look great, too. Yeah, it's a fantasy inside of a nightmare. It's fascinating. It's a surrealist show in a lot of ways, even though it feels very real. this is also on purpose. They don't get into the personal lives of really anybody. We do see a couple of moments. There are,

we see Chase Suey Wonder's boyfriend and there's like kind of a sex scene. You know, we see that Matt dates. That scene jumped. Did that kind of, the sex scene kind of like stick out to you? It did, but it also felt. That felt real to me like that happened.

Like this is what happens with 30-year-olds in these jobs living in dingy apartments in Silver Lake. You know, I was like, there's something real about what's happening here. I used to be one of those 30-year-olds, you know? Did this happen to you? Not that sex scene specifically, but, you know, this lifestyle. It's, it, I think that there's like a lot of wisdom and the real experiences of the people,

but it's pitched at a level that is like anxiety inducing, I would say. A lot of the show is very dependent on Matt's anxiety and then the anxiety that filters down from him to all the people that work with him. Yeah. And we haven't even mentioned Catherine Hahn's character. She, too, is like a speedball of rage and exultation in every episode that she appears in. it's a really odd show. It is. It's not.

Larry Sanders and the player are not the comparisons for this show. I think it's more VEP. It's more VEP. That's exactly what I was going to say. And then one of the creators, Alex Gregory,

worked on VIII. And that same sense of desperation and panic and we all fucked up today, but tomorrow's a new day. Yeah, and like this is what it's like at the top. It's stupid people

having stupid conversations in beautiful places. Yes. Yeah. Well, LA is more beautiful than D.C. But yeah, your point is taken.

Any other thoughts on the show? I mean, the most recent episode is the Golden Globes episode, which I thought was kind of masterful and seemed like it was incredibly hard to pull off because there's so many famous people in this episode. That sounds like it's easy to do when you're making a TV show, but it's not to get somebody to come in and work for two days. Especially when every shot is, every take is five minutes long.

You've got to get Adam Scott to hit his mark, and Dave Krumholtz day then hit his mark, and then it cuts to the hacks creators on stage and Ramah Yusuf then comes out after. It's extremely impressive. I spoke to somebody who worked on the show, and they were like, yeah, Apple basically just recreated the globes. It felt like you were at the Golden Globes.

It's an amazing achievement. They were at the Beverly Hilton. Yeah, and this show is every episode is incredibly propulsive because of that filmmaking style. And I thought this episode was quite funny because it was a real exploration of why Matt will never be happy. And that the thing that he thinks he wants that will help him, he's pursuing it in a way that is more desperate than any normal person would. Like, what happens in that episode, I would not say specifically would happen literally. but a version of someone working overtime to get thanked publicly literally does happen.

Yes. The fight for credit, for example, is so important to people in Hollywood. They are defined by the credit creep that comes with every project. So, I don't know, it felt something very true about this episode, too. And very curb. Also, I don't know if there are teleprompters for award speeches. That was news to me if that's something that happens.

if you get to contribute your potential speech if you're going to win. Maybe it's a Globes thing. Yeah, but maybe. We've cooked those in awards. So we're trying to cover six episodes here. So this is a pretty broad swath that we can talk through.

First award, best episode from three through eight. What's your pick? Casting. Episode seven. Okay. When they struggle to cast the Kool-Aid movie in the attempt to not be racist. And they don't actually care if they are racist.

They just don't want to appear racist. The perception of racism is. of being racist is driving the entire episode. The funniest bit to me is every like five minutes, they come up with a new cast that they think is the answer. And then it cuts back to one of them staring at the bulletin board with everyone's headshots on it. And the best one is at the end when they decide that actually

every character in the movie is going to be black. And then it cuts to Chase Sweet Wonder's character. And she goes, okay, now this is racist. It's so good. Yeah, it's a great episode. I really like that one too. I especially like the conversation with Lil Rel. when he's they're sort of examining whether or not.

Like he's like the decider for them. Him and Zeeway. Yeah, yeah. Are you saying that a black woman could not be with a man like Kool-Aid? Yeah. My favorite episode, I'm inclined to say the Golden Globes because I just watched it yesterday. And I thought it was a pretty amazing feat. But I thought the funniest episode was the war, which is an episode that kind of sidelines Matt in favor of Sal and Chase Sui Wunder's character.

and they're kind of like in this battle for deputy supremacy, this idea of them having the ability to choose a filmmaker on a project, to get Matt's attention on a certain project. This sort of like death battle that you tend to see in the second tier of leadership in a lot of places like this. And it's a lot of generational philosophies at war. Yeah, this sort of like white guy in his 40s with kids who hate him and he feels like he's lost.

And this young woman who's trying to be taken seriously, woman of color who's trying to be taken seriously and sort of like presenting herself as the future of the business, but doesn't quite know how to do her job yet. It's the only episode, in my opinion, that really shows strong character growth. And it's funny that it's the one without Matt

or that sidelines Matt. You actually, that's where you get to see Quinn's home life. You get to see Sal's home life with his daughters, which is a hilarious thing we could talk about. It's something I'd like to see a little more of in season two. And I'm kind of hoping that they'll let us go outside of the Matt Payne Cavemore. Yeah, I don't know if it's, you know, you only have 10 episodes and these are short episodes and you don't really have time.

And, you know, if you want to just cut to those scenes, the oneer style, I feel like when you're at home with your family, maybe it doesn't translate as well. It's not as dynamic, you're right. No. Yeah. I thought it worked pretty well, though, when Sal takes his kids out to the restaurant and the camera's kind of whipping around the table and their utter disinterest relative to his anxiety, it felt like very in sync with the show. but the reason that I picked it is because I think it has like the best visual physical comedy of the series

particularly the burrito throw which is just an amazing that's my visual gag for this this award show too because that's like epic orchestration at the end of a oneer. Yeah. That is like magical kind of Buster Keaton style movie making to me that I absolutely loved.

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you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. The first four, I think, kind of it's just Matt wanting to save Hollywood. And he loves movies and he has the great line in the first episode, I've always loved movies and now I think my job is to ruin them. And then, you know,

episode three with Olivia Wilde, he's championing the use of real film and paying for that and all that stuff. And then in episode five, I feel like you kind of get to see Matt settling into his job a little bit. And, you know, Owen Klein and Parker Finn show up. And he's kind of being a dick to them. And he is kind of siding with Sal about, well, this needs to make money. Yes. And you can kind of see that that Matt character, you know, he doesn't really grow, but he morphs. Yeah, he's becoming the Catherine O'Hara character. He's becoming cynical in real time and all of his aspirations for working with Martin Scorsese

and making real movies have dissipated. They're not really indicating to us how much time is passing, although it's an interesting thing to think about because did this happen in a month? It sounds like it's been a couple months, is my guess. I agree. We also have not really heard from Brian Cranston very much. His character who may or may not be Griffin Mill

from the film The Player, his character's name Griffin Mill. And his, he was very present. in the first couple of episodes because of his desire to get big projects going and to not make films but to make movies movies.

Does that bother you that phrase? How do you feel about that as the host of the big picture? Why not both? You know, like I don't have to choose. There's not a popcorn movie can be a film and a great work of art

can be a movie. Do you use the words interchangeably? More or less, but just because I have to say a version of them like nonstop every day in my life. It's like a college paper. You need a little bit.

You need to have some synonyms. Exactly. I don't delineate between the two. But I'm curious, I assume Griffin Mill will make a return near the end of the season. Safe to to set. I triumphant return, yeah. Interesting. Okay. I look forward to that. Um, my other favorite episode I have to say is the pediatric oncologist episode. The only one that hasn't come up yet in our conversation. Because it's, I mean, this is more of a bottle episode that you could pluck right out of the season and it wouldn't matter. This one was very curb to me. Perhaps the most curb. Yeah.

Yes. My sister-in-law is a pediatric oncologist in L.A. Does she look like Rebecca Hall? Blonde versus Brunette But I could see her out one of those gals Her one note was like Where are these pediatric oncologists getting $100,000 to bid on golf? Good question She's like, I don't know where they're working It did have me wondering what Matt's salary is

Given that he lays out Was he layout 200K for that? 200K I actually texted Matt Bellany about this And he texted a studio executive And he guessed that Matt is making about $5 million Interesting That would be a lot to pay for golf.

A sport he does not play. 200,000? Well, this is the curb of it all. Larry David would do that in a heartbeat. That's a good point. He is a buffoon. But yeah, this episode is nuts. And what's great about it is I,

it's like Seth and Evan know how ridiculous their jobs are and what they do. And Seth and Evan, Seth's wife, I believe, does a lot of philanthropy in the medical world. So he goes to a lot of events like this. And I think he literally has these conversations where they're like, oh, didn't you make Pineapple Express? It's all about smoking weed.

And he's like, well, yes, but that is art. And what I loved about this episode is you kind of seesaw back and forth between who you're hating, the doctors versus Seth versus Matt Remick. And they could have made it much more like, Matt is the idiot. The doctors are correct. But it shows that Hollywood still has this like self-importance to them where they're like, well, sure, but we still do matter. You may be working with children who have cancer, but we still do matter.

a little bit. You could argue that in this episode, Matt Remick gives his most unlikable and boneheaded social performance of the series. And yet, when you get to the end of the episode and they're outside the fountain and he's saying to them, I'll give you the trip if you just tell me what I do is important. It's as important as what you do. Yeah, him saying as important as what you do. There was a part of me that was like, he's not wrong. Like, the arts do matter. I'm not saying that it is more important than curing pediatric cancer. It's not. But when they were like, we cure cancer, and he's like, did you cure cancer? It's got to miss the headline. You know, he's not wrong. So I think the show is like weirdly, is so clearly aware of the absurdity and the silliness of Hollywood and show business. But there is this like little subterranean part of Seth and Evan that are like, we do make people happy and that matters a lot. And honestly, they're right. So as much as they want to curb themselves, curb stonlems.

themselves in some ways, Matt is just getting absolutely annihilated at the end of every episode of the show now. I still think that they sort of believe in the magic of entertainment. Absolutely. And the whole movie, I mean, the whole show is so romantic looking. It is. It also crests so beautifully in the Golden Globes episode in that kind of confrontation between Ted Sarandos and Matt Remick, where Sarandos, you know, this is just a fascinating cameo that the head of the studio of a rival streamer appears on an Apple TV. Plus show at a moment in which

Netflix is so far out in front of everybody else. It's a show about making movies and putting movies in theaters. Yes, and he of course is frankly the enemy of that. And Ted Sarandos gets to look like the smartest guy in the room. The most grounded and intelligent person

in the business because he knows, he identifies to Matt that he's not an artist, that he's the bean counter. And so he gets to have this sense of grace and Matt has none of that grace. Now, who knows if Sorandos is like that in real life. Because he's a huge movie He does love movies, which is why it's so painful what has happened with Netflix to me and why they operate the way that they do, because he knows everything about it. He's to work in video stores. Anyway, I'd love that scene and I thought that that was fascinating and just amazing that it happened, that Sarandos was that Apple allowed him to appear in the show, that he agreed to appear in an Apple show, that these are two streaming services that have an unhealthy relationship to theatrical, I would say. Apple, about to release Fountain of Youth straight to streaming, a film starring John, Krasinski and Natalie Portman.

And yet, like, this is Hollywood right now. Like, these are the most powerful people, the people who are making streaming TV shows. It's fascinating. Yeah, there's a self-awareness to it all where you get the sense that it's like even Ted Sarandos knows and probably does love going to the movie theater to watch a movie, but he knows the reality of the world he's in. And there's kind of the cognitive dissonance of like he's doing the thing at Netflix, but he also understands the other side.

And him being in the show, I think, kind of proves that. I also thought he was pretty believable as an actor. He was good. really good. He gets a quiet moment to himself after Matt walks away, and he pulled it off. He did. Also, he's in a water shot. Peeing all the way back out to the bar. Yes. That's not easy. No. Okay, what's your most believable Hollywood storyline so far? It's the Quinn character in the war, a young executive thinking it's their time to shine two weeks

after getting promoted. That just feels spot on. What are you saying about your generation? You know, we want things expedited. Yeah, a little over your skis. All of our bosses are old. Not here. But, you know, What are you trying to say? You're young. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that.

No, no sarcasm in your tone. Thank you. Yeah, blossoming more gray hair by the day. And then, I mean, you know, somebody working in media or the arts or whatever, conflating the importance of their job with a doctor also feels pretty accurate. That seemed realistic. Yeah, I just did it right here on this podcast. For me, most believable storyline, I really enjoyed the Parker Finn, director of Smile and Smile 2,

being brought in to remake his horror movie for the third consecutive time. which is retitling it, Wink, which is a very soft reboot of smile mere years after making it a smash sensation. I really like that sequence where Owen Klein in particular comes in to pitch against Parker Finns, basically his own movie. And he's presented by Quinn as the sort of a 24 cool guy who's up and coming, which is something that we do see quite often. One guy makes one feature film, and then all of a sudden he's springboarded into a big Hollywood production. and that's just, that is what happens. Yeah, I thought both of them were quite good as well, Parker. Because those are guys who are a little bit lesser known.

Owen Klein, though, Kevin Klein's son and was an actor in his own right. Kevin Klein's son, didn't know that. Yeah, he's Kevin Klein and Phoebe Kates his son, and he was one of the sons in the squid and the whale. And he has not acted in many years. He was really good. He's very good. They did a great job with the cameos. They clearly have an eye for who would work.

I mean, even the big names like Scorsese in episode one really kills it. Okay. Next category, least believe. Hollywood storyline. I had Zach Snyder presenting best picture at any award show. That doesn't feel, even at the Golden Globes, I'm not sure Zach Snyder's given out best pick. Yeah, a bit of a bit of a reach.

Marty was not available on this day. Everything else felt believable. Rami Youssef, all the people on stage. It all worked. And then Zach Snyder comes out. He had a funny joke, I will say, talking about how he's going to release his own Snyder cut of the Golden Globes. Yeah.

But every Golden Globes feels like the Snyder cut to me, but that's neither here nor there. Speaking of the podcast, award that the Golden Globes will be giving out? How are you feeling about that? Is it ringer fantasy football angling for... Oh, it's why I'm doing the show right now. I'm campaigning. FYC has started.

Yeah. Well, you're putting in the hours. For me, Lease Bluebill Storyline, I mentioned Matt desperately trying to get thanked by, like, trying to take over the teleprompter. Was a little far trying to get inside the teleprompter during the award show. Yeah. Strain some credulity?

When Ted Sarando said that he requires everyone who wins an award at Netflix to thank him. I love that. Yep. How often do, in your opinion, do executives get thanked? Because the Patty Lee character was basically saying, it never happens, that's the job. You're in the background and your name is not anywhere.

I think what often you, well, for starters, often the executive is the person who is most typically at war with the filmmakers, asking them to make changes, negotiating salary. They're seen as the person who is most responsible for blocking the things that the creatives want. So it's not common. I will say, though,

that the Amy Pascal types, the sort of like ex-executive producer, is a name you hear all the time getting thanked, that kind of a person who understands the sensitivities of artists and is unshackled from the necessity of being a corporate steward. So that part makes a lot of sense. But Matt Remick getting thanked, I don't know.

Like, what's going to win? What one best picture of this year? Nora. Tom Quinn probably did get thanked. Yeah. Well, A24 is a smaller independent studio. Neon, neon, right. Smaller independent studio.

That feels, you know, you're taking more of a risk. Yeah, yeah, when's the last time a big studio? Oppenheimer. I doubt Donna Langley was. I probably was. But you know what? Donna Langley is an interesting figure. Her name was uttered in the Golden Globes episode of this show.

Is widely considered, not just very powerful, but very well liked and respected as an executive. So, you know, it could happen. Well, you thank Bill Simmons when you win? When what? Best podcast at the Golden Gloves. I 100% will. I look forward to winning for my work on the watch as executive producer. Best guest guest, yeah.

Okay, most accurate character. I like this category. This is obviously a little hard. I'm not inside these studios, but it feels like although they are the most ridiculous and outsized, that's the marketing team of Catherine Hahn and Tyler. Maya, is her name Maya and Tyler? Yeah.

Her trying to cling on to whatever Gen Z language she can, And him trying to turn everything into a TikTok video or a Dune popcorn bucket, I find is spot on. It is tremendously accurate. You know, Joe and Bill pushed back a little bit on me in terms of the way that that Catherine Han character is written and styled. But it is clearly based on at least one real person who I won't name, but who is in the business, for sure. I think Catherine Hahn is crushing it.

I love her. I think she's so funny. I know that some people think it's too big. I don't think it's too big at all. I completely agree. I think it totally works. To me, the most accurate character is David Cromhole's agent character, Mitch. That's just that guy's an agent.

That is just a guy. And David Cromholtz has an agent, and he's been in Hollywood for a long time. And that is just a very recognizable shit-talking, fast-talking, deal-wheeling guy who exists. We've got to take a second to shout out, Crumholtz. Crummy is the man. He's been doing it. He's my beloved Bernard in the Santa Claus. The man was in Oppenheimer.

He's super bad. Who's doing it like him? I mean, he's O.G. Rogan, too. He's been in that crew forever. And I love him. And he's kind of like, I feel like he's like a father figure to those guys because he was the older guy when they were coming up. Crummy is great. Okay. Best cameo. You want to do top three? Yeah. I'll start. Sarandos is definitely in the top three. Yep. I'm going to give Adam Scott the third spot. He was good. I'm always impressed with Adam. I always forget how easy it is for Adam Scott to just turn right back into kind of a bro. Yeah.

Kind of a dick. Like the stepbrothers. Like the Eastbounded down guy. Yeah. Eastbound Derek from stepbrothers. He's so good at that that when you see him in Severance, you forget that that's... And Parks and Rec, he's not really like that at all. Yes.

So I love Adam Scott, and I think he was great in this with Sal. And then, number one, I think I'm going to give it to Anthony Mackey, who's an actor that I have like no... He's fine. He's fine. I have no relationship with him. But I thought he was great. And I think this was like, honestly, my favorite performance I've ever seen from him.

He was weirdly committed in this part as Anthony Mackey, the producer of a Ron Howard crime drama. I think the fun thing about the cameo performances in the show is that you can't really half-ass them because of the oner nature of it. Yes. An entourage or these other shows where there's cameos, it feels like, you know, a Bob Sagitt can come in, be there for 30 minutes in bail. And this is like Anthony Mackey is staging out and plotting out long, complicated oneers that require a ton of emotional range in one shot. so much directing and camera movements and I thought his turn to like hey man the last 45 minutes is dog shit

and I've been lying obviously was really good and believable it was very very funny I agree he's wonderful in it we already mentioned ZUA and Lil Rel I love that and Owen Klein and Parker Finn and Sarandos but I thought Zobovitz was phenomenal in the Golden Globes episode very very funny and just coming off

of directing her own real first feature Blink Twice which was not nominated for any awards didn't see that Not my favorite movie of 2024, but What was the original name of that film? It was like, Fuck Island or something?

Pussy Island. Hard to believe it wasn't released under that title. Although it would have been a better title. Yeah, she was great though. Best Fake Movie Slash which would actually work in real life. I liked Blackwing. This is Zoe Kravitz as soon to be.

Mitch, her agent, is trying to sell to Continental Studios. I'm going to quote the Mitch character. Zoe Kravitz has a vampire assassin in a black body suit holding a red glock dipped in holy water. Come on. What's your favorite part of that pitch?

The bodysuit is enticing. The holy water is a nice wrinkle. I didn't see that coming. Vampires are hot right now. They're checking everybody. Incredible. Yeah, sinners too. The apocalypse,

it seems gross and weird at the outset, which is a shit-oriented zombie apocalypse movie starring Johnny Knoxville. And yet, the Last of Us is very hot right now, and that's basically a mushroom zombie comedy. Or zombie drama, I should say. So I feel like this is going to happen.

This movie would absolutely work. I mean, a Kool-Aid movie that would probably be made. It's just not so far from reality. No. Do you like the name, D-Apocalypse? I actually don't know if I get the joke and then the pun in the name. I'm not sure I do either. It's just diarrhea and an apocalypse combined?

Dapacli. Is that all it is? Or is there something deeper on this thing? Or is it, duh, like, duh, you're dumb. Like, duh. maybe it's both. A poop calyps? I don't know.

I was like, oh, I think I'm missing something with this title, but certainly could be made. Johnny Knoxville is the perfect choice. Also, him insisting that it's a satire of medical disinformation.

Wonderful. Probably unanswerable question. This is borrowed from the rewatchables podcast. How much would you pay for a private weekend with Scotty Sheffler in Ireland? What is the right amount to pay for that? Well, I'm a huge golf fan,

but I find Scottie Schaeffler boring as shit. Yeah, but you're getting lessons from them. Is that something I was, want? Yeah. Like, do you want lessons from somebody who's the best ever? Like, would getting basketball lessons from Michael Jordan be good?

Or wouldn't you just feel horrible? No. If Steph Curry was like, let me teach you how to shoot threes, I would welcome that immediately. You're a Bay Area baby. You love the Warriors. That's not the same.

Regardless, if LeBron's like, let me show you some post moves, I would take them up on that. Also, golf is so, it's so lesson-based. Like, Scotty Shepler could give you three things that could change your life. I don't know.

To me, there's like some Goodwill hunting. Like, you know, easy this is for me? Like, what's Scott are you going to tell me? I can't, I don't have his build. I don't have his mind. Were the wives going on this trip? The two male doctors were obsessed with golf and they were bidding on it and the wives were very supportive.

Were they attending? I got to tell you, my wife would not be that supportive of a trip to Ireland where I played golf the whole time. We spent $100,000. Yeah, she would not appreciate that. I guess they would go and they would get to explore the Guinness Warehouse Factory? I don't know. Rogan and Evan Goldberg really like still instill there.

silly humor into the show. There's a lot of, like, Pratt Falls, there's a lot of swearing. Seth eat shit in almost every episode. Yes. And the one in the pediatric oncologist one is fantastic. I mean, cleverly mix in a stunt double. Yes, I saw that.

And have him eat shit on the table and break his finger. But yeah, the Ron Howard one, he, like, trips over a glass table. He's always eating shit, which is just, like, kind of a really lovely, funny wrinkle that you want to include. Yeah, the show is very silent comedy, like I said, very, like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Boyd.

Unanswerable question, has Matt had a hit yet? Well, I mean, he theoretically greenlit open. Was it a hit, though? It was an awards movie. You mean financially? But has he had the success that Griffin Mill wants him to have?

You're saying after he took over this head roll. Yeah. Because he obviously had the MK Ultra franchise. No. But I don't know if there's been enough time for a movie to develop and come out. Good point. Yeah, we just don't know.

That's the one tricky thing with the timeline of the show. Do you think Hollywood executives enjoy the show? It's a really good question. I'm trying to think of what the comp is for us, for if we saw something that was lightly satirizing our experience as professionals. Don't you think executives watching something like entourage?

That's mainly making fun of actors and agents and how ridiculous they are. And that's easier to kind of get behind and pile on. Well, I'll draw you back to, I don't know if you were watching the show at the time, but when the fifth season of The Wire came out, The Wire was the most critically acclaimed show of its era. It had a small audience, but people loved it.

All the way through the fourth season, which kind of culminated the drug trade storyline that started in season one. And season five turned its side of journalism. And all of a sudden, critics got a little uncomfortable. Yeah, a little uncomfortable with the way that there was a spotlight on some of the unethical practices that the writers portrayed in the show. Obviously, David Simon was a journalist for the Baltimore Sun for many years. and so he was kind of drawing on his experiences. But the reception of that season was much more muted, I would say, than the previous four, because it was people who knew about the world that was being portrayed

and feeling like its lack of fealty to the truth annoyed them or what they perceived to be a lack of fealty. In this case, I would imagine a lot of executives are like, that's cute Seth and Evan, but you guys have it so easy and you have no real empathy for what my life is actually like. I would guess. I would guess. Yeah, I mean, you have to imagine, though, now, I mean, Seth and Evan, they are executives now.

They have Point Gray. They are running a company and are kind of, this is a show they couldn't have made 10 years ago. 100%. And I'm sure that's a huge reason why they made the show is that they have now had the accrued experience of having a little bit of an understanding of what it's like to be Brian Robbins

or Tom Rothman or, you know, Donna Langley on a lower scale with Point Gray, but still, they've had a lot of success over that time. Okay, last category. Best use of L.A. I think the architecture is quite stunning. I'm sure you're going to mention. in Catherine O'Hara's house,

Paddy Lee's house. You know, I was thinking actually of the house in the Wanner is the one that was the most breathic me made. The Reiner-Burch House residence, which is in Silver Lake, where they shot that Greta Lee movie,

which is sick. And I could tell actually where they were at the beginning of that episode when they're racing in the car, in the sports car, driving up the hill in Silver Lake. I was like,

I've been here. I know where this is. Seth's house is also so perfect for his character. No idea where... I'm assuming that's in the hills. It's like simultaneously indoor and outdoor. I never know if he's inside or outside.

He's always wearing like a silk robe. Yeah, it's a bungalow. Yeah, it's like his dojo. I feel like that's Seth's real house. I imagine his estate is a little bigger these days, given it the success that he's had. He also sells weed for a living, houseplant, yeah. What else? Any other stray thoughts about the show?

I want everybody to watch it. I want more seasons of it. I'm happy season two is here. I think the more you watch it, and once you understand what they're trying to do, it's easier to just sit back and enjoy it. like we said, some of the criticisms was like, oh, where is this going?

I think it's a little more stressful than people thought. Yeah. These are pretty stressful episodes. I mean, there's a lot of, I was sitting next to my wife, Liz, and during, I mean, the pediatric oncology episode, she's like, can't look half the time. The secondhand embarrassment, the Michael Scott, the Larry David, there's a lot of that there. And that might be kind of only for a certain type of person.

But I think what you kind of know that that's what the show is, and that's what it's trying to do. It's easier to enjoy. Do you think that the show needs to evolve that in any way to continue to hold interest? Because what Larry David accomplished and what Gary Shanling accomplished and I guess the office in some way. I mean, the office had that kind of counterweight of Pam and Jim where you felt like you were getting invested in another kind of emotional strain of the office. Curb isn't like that. Curb is just a pure soft toxicity for 30 minutes every week.

Well, I think it's hard to do that in 10 episodes. I think the office getting, I think it's easier to build those relationships. over 24 episodes compared to 8 to 10. This is one thing I have heard from people who work in the industry is what is redeeming about Matt? What is the thing, even if he's not a hero, what is the thing that you ultimately can invest in, that you want to see something from him

that is just not utter embarrassment and failure? Yeah, what's funny about that is, I don't know if this is redeeming, but I think it's relatable. I think he is a human being, and I think a lot of people You can understand why he's doing the things he's doing. This is a workplace comedy,

and a lot of these things, although they take place in Hollywood and our surrounding movies, these are just like a lot of issues that people have at their jobs. Yeah. And so even if he's not redeeming or there's necessarily something you can root for or rest on, I do think what he's doing day to day as somebody at a job is really, really relatable.

And that's something that you can climb on to a little bit. It's so interesting because you don't strike me as like that at all. I do not sense the stress or anxiety of day-to-day work life in working with you. No, but you can, you know, the idea of like basically this whole show is people avoiding delivering bad news to other people. Yeah. And it's things like that that you can understand, you know, wanting to keep your reputation and wanting people to like you. That is a lot of our jobs, I think, at least on microphone. It's a perilous balance for me.

I'll leave it at that. Thanks so much, Craig. This was fun. Yeah. Episode 9 and 10 are a real rollic. I can't wait. We'll be back after the season finale of this show. Thanks to Kai Grady for producing.

Kai. Keep it locked on the Prestige TV podcast where the rehearsal, your friends and neighbors and the last of us are being covered on a week-to-week basis. Are you digging any of those shows? I'm bad at my job.

No, I'm not watching any of those shows. Oh my God, the rehearsal is absolutely fantastic. Talk about uncomfortable if you think the studio is stressful. I watched a couple episodes of that show. It's... It is in a league of its own. I couldn't support what he's doing anymore, but I'd rather somebody tell me about it than watch. If you want to hear Charles and Jody talk about it, tune into this show.

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