The Rest Is Entertainment - Clooney vs Trump

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Donald Trump says that George Clooney is a third-rate actor - is he right? Does Hollywood have a nepo-baby problem? Should we actually judge a book by its (dust) cover? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer questions on A-Listers, sports scoring and if they should lead an anti-capitalist coup. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Joey McCarthy
 Senior Producer: Neil Fearn Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Producers: Kieron Lesley + Harry Swan + Charlie Rothwell Head Of Content: Tom Whiter Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Sky, which has great TV lovers we are delighted about. It's fantastic news. I'll be honest though, I'm also a fan of Netflix, of Disney+, of iPlayer, and this is supposed to be an advert for Sky. Well, the good thing about Sky is that it's not just good for Sky shows, it's basically an all-you-can-eat buffet for TV lovers. Mmm, buffet. If you've got something specific in mind.

What about that thing you were talking about the other day? Memento Mori. It's a one-off drama some BBC I play if you like that sort of thing based on the novel by Muriel Spark that's nice So it's got everything the niche stuff the mainstream stuff It's got all the apps you like if you want to go straight to watching the best the TV has to offer without the fuss Of searching sky is a game changer. Just go to sky.com to find out more game changer. Just go to sky.com to find out more. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment questions and answers edition.

I'm Marina Hyatt. And I'm Richard Osmond. We have lots of your questions. Thank you so much for, we get so many. So many. We get an unbelievable amount of emails now. So apologies if we don't get around to yours. I hope that sometimes they're on similar subjects and we'll choose the one that's kind of the most... Or they become topical again. Or they become topical again.

Anyway, it's therestisentertainmentatgoalhanger.com and I'm afraid I'm going to have to begin immediately with a question on nepo babies. I always used to say nepo babies because of nepotism, right? Yeah, I guess, but we can call it nepotism. Patrick Farrell would like to know, do you think that Hollywood is run by nepotism, especially in acting? Do you think it helps or hinders the child in the long run? It helps. What's the next question? It's fascinating, isn't it? Because there's so much talk about nepotism, nepotism. Even Patrick Schwarzenegger in The White Lotus recently has come out and

talked about the kind of years of kind of acting training he did and the small parts he did and things like that. And you know, and he says, oh, you know, it's hard to have my surname. And you think, yeah, and I get it by the way, because every single time he's interviewed, someone says, ask him about, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also, by the way, he's absolutely amazing in the White Lotus. But of course it helps. And of course it helps. But, you know, if you think that children of actors going into acting is bad, then let me tell you about capitalism. Nepotism is not just a thing in the movie industry. You know, if you, like all of Murdoch's children have gone into, you know, huge media roles, I'm not sure they would have done if they weren't Murdoch's children.

In the line of succession, are they serious people? I'm not saying they're not serious people. But, you know, I mean not saying they're not serious people. But you know, I think they're serious people. So it's a whole series of things. Firstly, it's the way that... Also, finance, go to any of these places. They've all, you know, walk around the city of London and throw something quite hard if you can.

And you're gonna hit someone who's been helped by nepotism. Yeah, and you look at a private bank that's been passed down generation after generation after generation. These people are not natural bankers. It's just that's what their dad did, that's what their mum did. There they are. Yeah. It's, you know, nepotism is the way that capitalism has always worked. And the pre-Reformation Catholic Church, it was one of the problems.

Oh my god, yeah, one of them. Nepotism. Simony. We'll get into entertainment Simony later, but anyway. What's Simony? Simony, what was Simony? I love you looking at Joey. If we have a question during the podcast, like about Sabrina Carpenter, we want somebody checked, we'll ask Joey. Like Simony in the pre-Reformation church, I mean, he's good Joey.

Is that where we get Simnel cake from? No, and I don't think that's from Lambert Simnel either. But we can't get into that, that's too much of a sidebar. Simnel was the selling of blessings or pardons or whatever, so offices at the church. Yeah. OK, I understand. Yeah.

So what were we talking about? Sorry, we're talking about nepotism, the other one. And yeah, listen, and it's always been around. Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Cage, Michael Douglas, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Lee Curtis, people we think of absolutely in their own right as huge stars, you know, all come from showbiz entertainment families. And a number of reasons for it. Often we do the thing that our parents do, because we see what it is that they do.

We either love the thing that they do, or we live somewhere where the thing that they do is actually the easiest thing for us to get into when we leave school as well. You know, the following one's parents into a job is more prevalent now than it's ever been really. But Hollywood is a very, very visual representation of that and of the unfairness of that. You know, it's all very well saying nepotism is everywhere and you look at bankers and look at the Murdochs. It isn't particularly fair. You know, it's not a meritocracy. But at the same time, so many of these stars are on it. But it's primarily it's about contact. It's about being able to get in front of you. I mean, you know, I remember when Brooklyn Beckham's legendary, for all the wrong reasons, book

of photography was brought out. I think it had one of its launch parties was at Christie's in New York for out of focus pictures of elephants. I think you've got, I think Mel had one of its launch parties was at Christie's in New York for out-of-focus pictures of elephants Yeah, I think you've got I think Mel B's daughter. I think from the Spice Girls She did it She did a documentary on this recently for Channel 4 and I think she was trying to get an art Exhibition and it was trying to say, you know, can I get an art exhibition and no one was interested Then she said I'm Mel B's daughter. Can I get one and then she could so we know this is contest By the way, it's also money. If you've come from a successful family, that's all of these things,

as everyone knows, you can afford to keep waiting for your break. It's money, it's access. It is of course some talent, you know, Patrick Schwarzenegger is a talented actor. Oh yeah, you're not going to make it if you're not talented. I do think that it's primarily contacts and access. Yeah, the main people you can't blame are the kids themselves. No. Because you grew up in the world you grew up in and you take the opportunities you're given and no one's saying that they're not working hard because they are, you know,

they're absolutely putting the hours in. So of course they're going to take it. Was he putting the hours in with the elephant photography? It is one of the ones, bless him, bless him, that I have to say, no, that wasn't acceptable. You ordered his delivery there his delivery. They have talent. Well, you don't actually yeah I would have his delivery. I mean which I now time doesn't even go so it's I would say Yeah, it is it has ever been there and that you know, you got look at the family like the scar scar scarreds I love to look at them. Yeah, exactly. But they're all everyone loves the scar scarred. Everyone's got their favorite scar scarred. Yeah Is that? He could send me a block of his blood anytime. That's from succession, it's not literally he does that to people, I just want to make

that very, very clear. Look at the Coppola's, you know, Francis Ford, Sophia, Nicholas Cage, Roman Coppola, I mean Jason Schwartzman, I mean there's these dynasties of families, as you say, as there are in banking, as there are in the auto industry, wealthy families who pass their jobs down through the generations in pretty much every industry is just we really, really see it. If it is something that you get exercised about and I absolutely understand why people do, you really have to look at everything in the way that we run capitalism. You look at, you know, so many things about how wealth

is passed down and how privilege is passed down and, you know, how opportunities are passed down and how companies are passed down, parents to children. That's the world we live in. And there are many, many, many, many more billions being squirreled away in the world of media and, you know, cars and all those things. I do think it's a useful representation. It is clearly not fair. It is clearly not an even playing field. If you're a kid from England and you want to be a movie star, or you want to be an auto executive, or you want to be a media executive, the easiest way to do it is to be born into a family that already do that job. At a very high level. Listen, if we want to dismantle capitalism, okay, let's have a chat, count me in. There's ways and

means we could do it. I think it's one for a spin-off podcast. Do you think? Yeah. Absolute sidebar. The rest is dismantling capitalism, I think. The rest is dismantling capitalism. Let's getterise it for that one. It's a really good idea. Why don't you ask me a question about something utterly frivolous? I have a question here on the purges of Stalin. It's from, I don't really. No, sorry, not the purges of Stalin, actually dust covers on books. Thank you. Finally, something important. Graham May has this question. Graham May says, would you mind explaining to me, that's a

hell of a way to start a question, Graham, isn't it? That's literally like someone, that's like a parent coming to a room. Would anybody like explaining to me why there are Cheerios on the kitchen floor? Would you mind explaining to me Marina, why books have a dust cover? Are people actually worried about dusty books? Is it some publishing slash marketing ploy? I'd much rather have a nicely designed hardback and my four-year-old will rip off the outer cover of any book she has. So that's two votes against them. Great. That's quite an unusually angry way of asking that question.

And the four year old is ripping stuff off. It's good though. It's passionate. Yes. It's passionate about dust jackets, which is exactly the intellectual space of this particular podcast. This is interesting because they weren't around on original books, but you couldn't print directly.

You now can obviously print directly with modern techniques onto a hard back think of what a dust jacket gives you because it gives you those two flaps are quite important you know the back has got some advertising it's got blurbs maybe it's not and then the front has got whatever it is something to make you want to buy the book and then you've got a synopsis maybe inside and you've got something about the author. The flaps are important, okay, but in the early 19th century, people used to sort of, you'd buy a book and it would come to you and it didn't have anything we would recognise as a cover.

It was, that was it. They were unbound and it was William Pickering, the publishing house, who thought, tell you what, what about we put some cloth, some leather, and we make a little bit of a thing of this thing. And well done, they were innovative in a number of ways. You could eventually print on those cloth bindings. And I've got some books which are really old, which have like an art nouveau, but which is all printed on that. But anyway, let me tell you who often understands more than, and you know this better than anyone, authors really care how their books are sold. They often think this is stupid,

we could do something better here. It was Lewis Carroll wrote to his publisher in 1876 and he said, can you print the title of The Hunting of the Snark down the spine on my dust jacket? So he said, on the spine, the paper wrapper, he called it so that the book will remain cleaner and in a more saleable condition and also that people could see it. Yes. When it's in there. Yes. I mean, that seems fairly obvious. Printing on the spot, the name of the book on the spine. Okay. So you could even put the publisher's logo on there if you want to. But it's in the 1850s and the between the 1850s and 1880s dust jackets as

we know them turn up. It's very very hard to print an interesting design on a cloth cover or a leather cover. It can be artistic, it can be art nouveau like I'm saying. You can do whatever you want, you can advertise whatever you want, you can make it, you can brand it however you want, it just it gives you like a blank canvas to do anything you want to sell your book. Yes, but then by the 1940s, these dust jackets are hugely popular. And actually, antiquarian books sellers will say, certain books are worth whatever without a friend of mine is an antiquarian book seller. You surprised me.

Certain books are worth something, but if they happen to have the dust jacket, then they are worth like multiples, multiples, multiples more. If you're on the tube or a plane and someone's reading a hardback and they've taken the dust cover off so it just looks like they're reading like a 19th century book, to me it's like you have to be really careful around them. That feels like psychopathy to me. I'm sure it's not. And they also want to know what the book is.

You can usually, usually they have it like that. Yeah, but it's much harder. It's not great on the tube to be in like that, I personally don't find. I try usually they have it like that. Yeah, but it's much harder. It's not great on the tube to be in like that. I personally don't find I try to avoid doing it. But actually that's one for YouTube. But how but okay, anyone else can ask a question about why books are that particular shape and size because even that's not normal. Ask that and another week and we'll talk about that because even that is not that's a great way to get a question on the exact question you want is why why books rectangles? Why books rectang not... That's a great way to get a question on. So the exact question you want is...

Why are books rectangles? Why are books rectangles? That's a question you want. I know that sounds stupid, but it's quite interesting and we'll do it on another occasion. If you could start your question with, would you mind explaining it to me? So if you like the question, would you mind explaining to me... Why the hell... Why the hell books are rectangles?

Yeah. Then we'll read that out. I love that. Thank you. When you get sent all the kind of proofs through for, you know, they'll send you what the cover is, but also that all the inside flap stuff is all on there as well. And you have to approve every single bit and every quote you can possibly have it. There's quite a lot of real estate on

a dust jacket, I think is exactly what you're saying. And it's really significant. When I go into a shop and if I don't know what I'm going to read, I've read all of that if I'm going to buy it. Often you might know what you want to order but if you're not then those things are so so important to sales and there's a reason we do them like we do. I'm just at the stage now where I'm getting lots of the foreign editions of We Solved Murders over because they tend to come out a few months after in some of the territories and the Slovakian one arrived this morning and you know you can just explore it the dust jacket and they've got lovely sprayed edges as well they've got like a gun on the edges and like a like a picture of a cat on the edges. Why have you spent all that money and then that's cool

that's good why haven't you got any books here? We had sprayed edges as well but like special limited edition. I have a group copy. You. So I can actually have the original. Okay. You've got some loser one. Yeah, have I? Authors are obsessed over their dust jackets and it just, it gives you so much scope to do things on a hardback. A paperback, it doesn't matter because paperbacks don't need them and you know, they're printed on something you can just print onto.

But yeah, just the old school thing of they've always had dust jackets. Everyone gets excited about a dust jacket. It's just an awful lot of real estate. But yeah, absolutely take care of your dust jackets because your books are worth an absolute fortune with an extant dust jacket. And if it doesn't have one, they're worth about a tenth of the amount. I even, here's a question for people at home as well. I, for years and years, you know, if you buy from, you know, a shop that often they'll have stickers on it, it's waterstones, it might be, you know, two for one or if it's

an independent, it might be, you know, independent bookshop week, something like that. And I would always peel them off. But actually, this they're such great social history. Now I leave them on because in 30 40 years time and you see the kind of font and the independent book week or the two foot buy one get one free from W.A. Smith you leave them on because they're gonna look like curios and also I suspect they might be worth more money with the stickers I could be wrong about that I love that you're gonna be selling editions if you're I think you're gonna be okay I don't think you're selling old editions of your books but you know if it comes to it why have I only got a

proof I need to get some more yeah just go out and buy all of your books all over again but not in the preform Richard yeah they are available in shops shall we go for a break let's do that this episode is brought to you by Sky where you can watch unmissable shows which includes the new season of the multiple Emmy Award-winning Hacks starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. We love Hacks so much. I'm so looking forward to this new series. For people who don't know Hacks Marina, talk us through it a little bit. It's focused on the relationship between the older comedian who's played by Jean Smart, Deborah Vance, who's one of

those real old showbiz troopers. She plays Vegas, she does residency, she's sort of, yeah, almost like a Joan Rivers-y type character. Exactly. Old school. She's the boomer and Hannah Einbinder is kind of Gen Z-er. It's really interesting on the stuff between the ages. Yeah, so she plays Ava Daniels who essentially becomes Deborah Vance's writer. Yeah.

So she writes very cool, very hip things. Having sort of been cancelled for a joke at the start. Yes. So we start in the culture war and we continue in it. And, but what I love about the show particularly is the absolute reverence for comedy and the, the graft and the craft of it. And what a tough kind of man's world it remains. Definitely, definitely. And so how hard it is to be a woman in that male dominated industry. Yeah. Amazing on showbiz, amazing on comedy, amazing on the industry, but also just the

relationship between the two of them is a really lovely generational sort of, it's like a sitcom thing. It's very dramatic, but a lot of comedy in there as well. They've got some terrific gas stars in this season. They've got Helen Hunt, Tony Goldwyn, Eric Balfour, and obviously the returning cast who are pillars. Yep. The mix of comedy and drama is spot on. You can watch season four of the Emmy award-winning hacks right now on Sky. Hello, it's Steph McGovern and Robert Peston from The Rest Is Money here. Now it's absolute carnage at the minute on the stock market across the world,

all thanks to Donald Trump and his tariff. So this week we've gone daily, we're going to bring you shorter episodes every lunchtime, just trying to make sense of it all because Robert, I mean we've been in crises before haven't we? Yeah, I mean I've been at the front line of reporting financial crises for decades from Black Monday in 1987 through the global financial crisis through the COVID crisis I mean you know the list goes on this is a unique crisis because it is driven by one man Donald Trump but it does share lots in common with those sagas we have lived through before and as we know although what people see is

falling share prices it is to an extent what goes on in debt markets, financial markets, which is more important to our prosperity. And we are seeing absolute turmoil in bond markets, for example. So this is going to affect every part of our lives. Yes. And so we'll be looking at things like what do we think is going to happen next? How much pain is Trump willing to take? And what similarities are there with things like the credit crunch that you and I covered together. So to try and make sense of all the mess, join us on The Rest Is Money wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everybody. I have a question Richard that has your name written all

over it and also some other words in the form of a question. It's about badminton scoring. Oh wow. Thanks Hank Grover. Hank Grover? I mean that. Come on man. First of all you've got a great name. Hank Grover, badminton scoring.

Yeah. I mean that's my sweet spot. That's every single diagram. Yeah. Badminton is considering changing its scoring again to better appeal to a TV audience. The last time they did this they adopted a system very similar to volleyball, which I know Richard has some strong views on. I think we all can sense that he does. What is the secret behind a good scoring system for sport? Oh my God. Listen, it's enough podcast.

Sport, God bless everyone who works in sport and administrates sport. It is an entertainment. Laser sport, fine, go and play badminton, or you like play whatever rules you want to. If you want to raise money for English badminton, whatever, then there's TV rights and there's people coming through the door. Okay, so we accept we're in that commercial world. If you want to go and play badminton... We're not with the badminton purists, Richard, don't worry, carry on. Exactly.

Then you must play badminton how you want. If you want to sell badminton, then your job is to look at the format. Badminton is that thing where you know, serve passes across and all that kind of, you know, and it's just... Volleyball is like endless. Sport has to be an entertainment. It is, of course, these people are incredibly skilled. Of course they are. But you want to show that to the maximum amount of people, the maximum amount of time, and for those people to be paid the maximum amount of money. Badminton, by the way, they're fine because it's massive in Malaysia. And so I don't want anyone shedding tears for badminton players.

They're doing perfectly okay. But if you are a smaller sport, if you are a British volleyball player, the more exciting and entertaining you can make your sport, the more money you are going to make. You're competing against everything in the world. You're competing against video games. People can't just go, it's very, very interesting to see the ebb and flow of this game. And really, it's a psychic chess game, this game of volleyball, doesn't matter. I said a million times before, darts is the absolute, the perfect version of scoring, which is, you know, a few legs, the winner set and a lot of sets. So there's

always, always in darts moments of jeopardy all the time. The skid is exactly the same, but they maximize the amount of jeopardy they have all the time. And the wonderful thing of finishing on a double is absolutely the perfect format. Don't have to make them shorter, but you have to give us moments of jeopardy all the time because others just switch off. You know, I've got in trouble talking about tennis before and just saying make it first to four in each set. But it's brilliant. I know on Tuesday we were talking about other jobs you could do and like you know not necessarily running a chain of Midwest cinemas. You could run a consultancy explaining how to make sports more televisible without any question and you would love it.

Well the beautiful thing is lots of sports have worked it out you know T20 cricket whatever the purists think about it it's bought a huge new generation of crickets bought a huge amount of money into cricket. Michael Johnson has just set up a new athletics league because athletics is a weird thing and that you've got these incredible people, these same old people who can do these extraordinary feats and actually it's sort of dwindling as a TV spectacle. We watch lots of these things, including badminton once every four years and you get really into it and you're suddenly like, you know, everything about handball and then you don't think about it again.

But now he's got the, you know, the grand slam of athletics and you know, it's just making it more exciting, just packaging it in a different way. And all sports can do that. There's always room for test cricket and the world snooker championships and stuff like that. But then you have a thing like the, you know, T 20, or you have the snooker shootout, which is an amazing tournament. And it brings a new group of people into a game.

You know, people who love their sport have to accept that most of it is quite boring. Even listen, I love football, but we spend most of a football match, most football matches, you're just chatting to the person next to you. There's moments of excitement. I can just see you as the Alec Baldwin character in Glenn Carey going into these sports to say, right, the first thing I want to say is everyone finds your sport very boring. Football, I wouldn't change. football is absolutely fine you're very kind yeah but there are plenty of sports so you know volleyball is not boring okay

volleyball is not but there's a huge amount of action in volleyball there's a huge amount of athleticism in volleyball it's a great sport in Top Gun I know this exactly but what it isn't is a great format and you need to have a great format you need to have to something if I switch on for two minutes, people watching with their kids and just you have to switch on for two minutes and not be able to switch off for 40 minutes. Yes, exactly. Because you keep being asked questions and you keep being shown moments of jeopardy. You keep being shown moments where this is a huge point. You know, a huge point is what you need all the way through sport. If you want to sell your sport for television. If you want to keep it just for yourself, absolutely play

it like it always has been. But if you want it to be a huge entertainment and for the people who play it to be huge stars, then you have to think about how other people watch sport. It's insane what Darts has done in the last 20 years and how big it has got as a live event and as a TV sport event. It's extraordinary and it shouldn't, there's no reason why it would be. It's got great characters but it could so easily be very niche, you cannot be bored because someone is always winning or losing all the time. No, and you can get it very quickly. You can get it very quickly.

That's the other thing. It's not incredibly arcane which is another thing that puts lots of people off other sports. I do think that there is a new generation of sports administrators who get that. Rory McElroy's Golf League, it doesn't this, you know, that doesn't always work in the way that it should do, but everyone is trying stuff. Everyone's working out that athletes have extraordinary skills, but there are different ways to showcase those skills. You know, when we made International King of Sports for Channel 5, it was essentially

people who are amazing at athletics, but hadn't quite found the one thing they were best at. So we invented new things. And it is that there's a million quiz shows for people who are really good at trivia, many different ways of doing it. But these people are incredibly good at sport. So let's find loads of different ways of testing that. You know, gladiators, you know, it's a way of testing people who are really good at physical things. That's where I'd place Jason Momoa, actually, as I mean he would have just been a sort of great gladiator. That's about the level. He'd have been an amazing gladiator. Just in the biggest movie of the year so far, but that's where I'd have placed him.

I mean, listen, he'd be an incredible gladiator. He's no Nitro, but he'd be an incredible gladiator. No, no, he's no Nitro. Our hero. So yeah, listen, any sports coming, no again, I can't, I don't have the bandwidth, but I'm glad to see there's a generation of people going into sports and working out that you can make them as entertaining as you possibly can while still keeping the skills

that make those sports so important. All right. Leonie Beck has a question for you, Marina. My husband and I have what is now a 10 year plus dispute argument. The best ones. On what it means for a celebrity to be considered an A-lister.

Please can we have your definition and what factors would you use to determine that? Box office, social media following? Right. Here we go. A-list actor or A-list celebrity? I think they're different and some people have crossed over from one to the other. Okay.

It's harder now because not very many people can open a movie. IP opens movies. It's interesting, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington. They've all had misses by the way and people, you that doesn't mean you you never have a miss and it's very significant that the same people who people will still go out and see her from 20 years ago and in some cases 30 years ago. But the biggest grossing stars now are all in like IP movies so you know is Robert Downey Jr A-list? I guess he is he's in the biggest he's been in the biggest film series and he was the kind of biggest character in it. Samuel L Jackson who just happens to be in all the Marvel movies.

Chris Pratt, Scarlett Johansson, but they've been in IP movies. Something Trump said recently. Judd Trump, the snooker player. Not Judd, Donald, the president one. George Clooney made some comments on Press Freedom and Trump called him a second rate movie star and failed political pundit. Well, as is occasionally the case, I backed him on this.

No, Clooney's not an A-list movie star. I think he's like an A-list celebrity now, which is part of the problem, but first of all, he was always a television star and he did become a movie star. I get it. But you know, he was in ER or whatever and then he jumped over and he did become a, you know, but it was a while ago and I would say he is B-list now. I mean, okay. Clooney's B-list now. I mean, okay Okay, what B list wolfs wolfs with Brad Pitt Both of those have made the jump in my view from he's still an a-list celebrity I would definitely say that Will Smith is still an a-list

Celebrity for various reasons good and bad. Is he an a-list movie star? I mean because of what happened I suppose he's had one here. You saw it We just just I think we skirted over the fact that you were suggesting that Brad Pitt also wasn't an a-list movie star. I mean, because of what happened, I suppose he's had one here. Are you sorry? Were you just, I think we skirted over the fact that you were suggesting that Brad Pitt also wasn't an A-list movie star. I think he's now B-list. Wow, Brad Pitt is a B-list movie star. It's harsh, it's harsh, yes. Because I don't believe he can open a film in the same way that he used to be able to. I'm sorry. And you can come out of the categories, otherwise

it's a meaningless category. And I mean, in terms of whether Clooney's a fair political ponder, I keep now thinking Clooney's running don't you? Yeah he might do right. Let me talk to you about the Kardashians. Kim is A-list this is hardcore but this is the reality because I say it is. Kylie's B-list Kendall's maybe B-C I don't even know I'm saying that Kendall's C that's the end of it even if she is the world's highest paid model. Chris is C and Courtney and Chloe are D to E. I mean really, I don't make the rules.

Yeah, I understand. Do you think Millie Bobby Brown's an A-list star? She's one of the biggest stars on Netflix. She is in all their biggest things. She's huge for Netflix, although that electric state has cracked the bed, let's face it. But anyway, so if she were to be in a movie that opened in theatres, I don't think she'd get loads of people out. let's face it. But anyway, so if she were to be in a movie that opened in theaters, I don't think she'd get loads of people out. Jenna Ortega is interesting. She is a star on Netflix, but I think she's becoming, I just think there's something about her. She's going to be a movie star. Yeah. She's going to be, she is A-list.

Well, I think if at any given time there's 20 A-list stars, 20 football teams in the premier league, then there's teams in the playoffs. Milly Bobby Brown and Jenna Ortega are in the playoffs to go up. And they're going to go up. And there's people, there probably aren't 20 A-list stars, right? Chalamet, Zendaya, these are A-listers. Chalamet, Zendaya, Zendaya, Zendaya. With that question, they have both shown that lots of people go and see.

Glenn Powell. Glenn Powell is a B-movie star. But he so wants to be A-list and that's part of his mesmerizing charm for me. Where do you stand on like Paul Mescal, Barry Giogan, Joseph Quinn, Harris, Dickinson, The Beatles movie? So there's the four of them, probably as I say apart from Shana Mae, the four biggest male young male stars there are out there at the moment. Josh Iacono, I don't know. Anyway, but he's not the leading gladiator, Paul Mescal. He's

not the one who's opening the movie. He's not a million miles off A-list though, is he? No, no. And maybe the sum of their parts in The Beatles is going to be, because that's, I guess. Between them. The point is that there's a... That's an A-list line up. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's kind of fascinating to see them all together and et cetera, et cetera. But the days that, you know, trailers would say Stallone, Stone, and you'd be like, okay, here we go. This is, you know, people who open movies by themselves. Statham, he'll open movies by themselves stay them He'll open a movie by himself. He's a list. Yes. Yes. I think it's In a sort of slightly ridiculous way But yes, my definition of a list would be are they next to Graham on the Graham Norton show and you know

Are you excited about that? Yes, you know, so, you know if Reynolds is on great a list street Reynolds is a list street a list, but there's not a lot of movement in the A-list. And that's what we said, is that it's quite hard for people, you know, the young teams to break through against these established hegemony's. And so, yeah, it's helpful when Will Smith slaps someone because that's helpful. Not to them. I mean, I think, you know, didn't do it at Chris Rock in the Homme, but you know, obviously it was bad that it happened to them. I mean, I think it didn't do Chris Rock any harm, but you know, obviously it was bad that it happened to him. But it's helpful because there has been such kind of

stasis in that category with it, as I say, it's, you know, it's Tom Cruise, it's Julia Roberts, it's the same people. Are we saying stasis instead of stasis now? I say stasis. I'm probably saying it wrong. Stasis. Stasis feels American. Any time you ever say anything, I assume it's the right way to do it. No, don't. I think stasis feels American to me, but I'm literally, I'm flying blind here. Yeah. Listen, let's not get onto hegemony. Yeah. It's interesting.

Leonie does not absolutely outline what the argument she has with her nameless husband is, but I hope that's been helpful in some way or another. Cause as you can hear, I could go on all day long, just categorize the endless taxonomy, no, yes, yes no it's a good thing perhaps we should put together why don't we put together like like the football league tables of who's a list and who isn't a list all right be quite a fun thing to do yeah yeah but for comment really if I just sit in a dark room don't for God's sake televise this it's unwatchable I'm just sharing pictures of people. A, A, B, C-, doesn't rate, said, all the way through.

I tell you what, next week maybe I'll bring some flashcards along. We'll do that for YouTube. I'll just get a series of pictures of movie stars and you can tell that you place them into piles. I'd love that. Okay, I'd love that as well. Let's do that. Thank you, Leonie, for inventing that game. Thank you very much. Marina's taxonomy of celebrity. People always ask this, Richard. It's about hiring your house out for filming. Kate Flower says, while working from home on an average Monday, a location scout from the BBC called round out of the blue, they're apparently filming a long running drama series and we're interested in using our house for filming. We decided against it as we

were worried they'd mess up our property and it would be too much hassle. Did we miss out on a good payday?" Well, listen, there's two parts to this answer. I mean, yes, you missed out on a good payday. Even just absolute starting point, £100 an hour, 8 hour day, usually a filming day would be about 10 hours or so, so you're going to get a grand a day. Very, very rarely get the whole thing done in a day. Usually there's a prep day as well. So you get paid for all of that and you're not really having to do anything. And you know, the gig is that they tidy everything up for you and they leave everything exactly as it was, whether that

always happens is a moot point. So yeah, it's definitely- But they will put it back for you. If you say you've chipped all the paint on my staircase, they will have to redo it. And also every single film crew is full of amazing tradespeople. So, you know, they don't have to kind of ring up a carpenter. They've got people that in fact they can make your house even better. You could just say, Oh, by the way, you've knocked a slight hole in between the kitchen and the dining room. I wonder if you could just turn that into a serving hatch and they will they'll do that for you. So it is a good payday. I would say

a couple of things about it. It is quite intrusive. You know, film sets as we know and TV sets and you know, commercials, anything like that. They do need things to be exactly as they need them. There is a lot of heavy equipment. There are a lot of lights. There will be a lot of chipped paint. It is quite an invasive procedure. If you're away on holiday, then you know, it sort of seems like a good way of doing it. But it is quite hard to film for four days on something and leave your house exactly as it was found. There's a different thing if they're asking for it to be in a long running show, because

that's super, super lucrative for you. Obviously it's quite hard for you to live there, but if you know they're filming for three weeks a year, every year, then you're going to make loads of those people who rent out their houses at Wimbledon. The downsides of- All the stately homes which have been basically saved by them, like Downton Abbey at Highclere Castle. I mean, that really, when you've got something that you basically just going to have to sell because just keeping it up costs however many millions a year,

that's really, really helpful. If you own a castle for sure, or a state-leased home, that's easy because everyone's going to want to film in there. The interesting thing is, why do they want your house? You don't want to do it and suddenly you watch TV and it's a drug den and they haven't changed it at all. They just sort of know that, oh my God, this is absolutely perfect for our villain to live in. There can be issues if you are in a long running series.

The big issue is if it becomes a huge hit. I know the Twilight movies shot in a place called the Hoke House in British Columbia as a beautiful old house and it is besieged or it was besieged for many years. It was head of innovation at night. Oh my god, by Twilight fans, because that's quite a lot. Oh really? Yeah, but he would be very good and invite people to have their photos taken. But they sold it recently for 15 million dollars and the new owner has put up enormous metal gates so no one can get near it. Gone turrets. Yeah, exactly. It was just constantly besieged. Funny enough, there's

a lady called Joanna Quintana, who was exactly in the same situation that Kate Flower was in. Someone knocked on her door said, I wonder if we could use your house, we're filming a series, here's the money we'll offer you. And she's like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds a lot of fun. What's the name of the show? And they go, listen, it's a new thing. It's called Breaking Bad. So essentially she owns Walter White's house in Breaking Bad. And she said like her life was sort of ruined by people just driving by, people throwing pizza onto the roof, people having pizzas delivered. I mean, it was absolutely nonstop. So she made money out of it, but she was besieged. She sold the house, $4 million. Thank you very much. So you do have to be careful.

There are some real chisels out there. You know, I had a story about someone on a show, it's the weekend and it was the idol on HBO, which as you know, I've... The band The Weeknd. ...regarded as one of the worst uses of television I'd ever seen. But I can't remember whether it was his house that's being used as her house, Lily Rosette's house, or whether it was actually even his house. I can't remember. Anyway, I think he said the crew had ruined one of the walls and the repaint chauvinist was going to cost $300,000. I'm sure The Weeknd would deny that story for the band of the tape, just something I

heard. I'm sure he would deny that story. But yeah, I guess if someone wants to hire your home for a Derry Lee commercial for three days, it's a bit of fun. It's a bit of cash. Adverts are great. Lots of people do adverts because it's obviously very time limited. You know what you're getting. I would say long term drama series, harder, more lucrative, but harder. I mean, because

the thing is, the longer that show runs for, the more money you make, but the longer it runs for, the less privacy you have. Because if it's running for a long time, it means it's been a hit. And if it's been a hit, people will find out where you live and they will drive past and they will take photos of it and some people like that some people invite them in for a cup of tea but if that's not your bag then you've certainly turned down a sum of money but maybe you've kept your sanity the best one is the Taskmaster house which was sort of for sale and in the first series they said oh can we film it now and they now it's sort of

constantly rented out to Taskmaster it has been for kind of 10 years now has been a huge money spinner and they don't even live there. That's the dream that you're trying to set a house that no one's to buy. It's such a weird place and it's such a weird house. And a production company says, look, could we rent it while you're trying to sell it? And you go, yeah, sure. I guess you could have it. And then 10 years later, you think, well, I don't need to sell it. I've made about five times more than I would have done if I'd sold it. So, you know, that's the dream. But if you think it sounds fun, do it. It probably won't be left exactly as you hope it to be. And there might be, you know, someone has parked a van on your front garden and lovely though crews

are and talented though they are, they're not always the people that I would trust with my China. Thank you so much, everybody. Covered a lot there, didn't we? We did. A lot of passion. A lot of passion. From the questioners and from us. We have a bonus episode for members which is about the life and works of Val Kilmer. That'll be out on Friday. If you want to sign up to the club it's therestisentertainment.com and you can have ad-free listening, these bonus episodes, there's a discord etc.

If not... The rest of the gang will see you all on Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. Well, that wraps up another episode of The Rest Is Entertainment brought to you by our friends at Sky. Now, what have you got on your must watch list at the moment, Richard? At the moment, the White Lotus enjoying the latest season of that. Oh, it's such a treat. Oh my God, it's incredible.

It's so good. A dark treat. A dark treat. The visuals are really great and with your Skyglass TV, you'll be able to enjoy it all in its 4K glory. And also the built-in sound bar means you can also listen to it in its full whatever the sound version of 4K glory is, but it sounds immense, I'll say that. It is indeed, it brings everything to life and it really gives that cinema experience

at home. It feels like Jason Isaacs is in your house. Like sometimes I go downstairs and I'm like, Jason Isaacs, come on man. God bless you please. But he's not there. No. But for our listeners who want to experience this with Skyglass 2, visit sky.com to find out more.