The Rest Is Entertainment - How To Fix The Oscars

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Will the Oscars shift to YouTube save the ageing ceremony? Why are the awards over three and a half hours long? Why does The Academy hate Timothée Chalamet? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde review last night’s Oscars ceremony, asking if there is any way you can ‘fix’ the interminably long television broadcast. Plus, they look at the looming legal case that Daryl Hannah could bring against Ryan Murphy over her portrayal in the controversial 'Love Story' TV series. The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Max Archer & Adam Thornton Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Rest's Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, can I tell you something cool that Octopus Energy do if you ring them and you have to be put on hold? Because they know who you are. They know your birthday. The Hold Music is the best-selling single from the year that you were 14. That's quite cool, isn't it? Yes. I love this.

Exactly. I've looked into it for you. Do you want to know the best-selling single in the year that you turned 14? So this would be your hold music on Octopus Energy. It is Yaz, the only way is up. What do we think to that? Well, Yaz and the plastic population. Yes, and the plastic population.

Oh, of course. Do you know what? I sometimes think the plastic population do not get their due. They don't get there. They don't get their credit, do they? You know, I need to ring it to Octopus now and just listen to it. You can choose to say, oh, I don't want to have any whole music at all. Absolutely, yeah, you can do whatever you want.

Okay, what animals? What monsters? Okay, it might be a really bad song, but what monsters don't choose to listen? I have to say. To the song. Yeah. I love that they do now. I hope we're going to do this for me in another episode.

But then we find out if I, yeah, I can. I think I'm considerably older than you, aren't I? Not that much. What, it's like two, three years? Yeah, you'll be saying, and the best-selling single in the year that you were 14, Richard, it's Cumberland Gap by Lonnie Donegan. At Desjardin Insurance,

we know that when you own a law firm, your bar for everything is high. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com

slash business coverage. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Restes Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osman. Hello Marina. Hello Richard. How are you? Yeah, I'm 24 hours earlier than I normally am. Yes, you are. We are. Say what? We are coming out early to catch the post-Oskers buzz. We've, oh my God. It's. It's, Are you feeling crazy? I'm, you know, I'm just managing to touch Earth again. It's like, you're touching it now. Yeah.

Yeah, that's different to touching cloth, right. Yeah. Yeah, listen, it's crazy. Absolutely crazy. But we'll talk about everything that happened last night, the winners, the losers, and what it tells us about the state of Hollywood. Yes, plenty. And we're also going to talk about Love Story, the Monster Ryan Murphy show from Monster Ryan Murphy.

about the love story between Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr. and all the controversy. Yeah, because specifically they portrayed Daryl Hannah as a baddie and she's like, I didn't do any of this and they went, yeah, we know. So we're going to talk about how that's acceptable. Right, let's get into it. Yes, shall we. The Academy Awards. It was a very good night for horror.

It was not a good night for Timothy Shalameau. But I do find there to be something increasingly sort of elegiac about this. The Oscars. Yeah. And, you know, in Conan O'Brien, who hosted and did a very good job, yeah. But when your opening monologue contains a lot of stuff about AI streaming, there is a sense that the bit that they can't say out loud is how relevant are we really, even though surely we're the most relevant people in the world.

And there is, and I find it increasingly something that fits with an industry and decline. Well, it's certainly the biggest award ceremony in the world. but not for the biggest creative industry in the world. No. Because television and music and, you know, arguably even video games to sort of have slightly more sway over the world. And yet the Oscars, there is still something great about them. There is still that legacy thing.

You know, it is, even though we don't want to care about them. It's like the League Cup final. Later we'll talk about what actually is this event, because it has sort of been going on for longer than ever this year. It's kind of a six and a half months campaign. Yeah. And the broadcast itself. That was just last night.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the big winners were one battle after another and sinners. And they were, you know, they're both Warner Brothers films. They're both from, they got a lot of shoutouts. Mike Deluca and Pam Abdi, who run the film division at Warner's. And had those nine 30 million plus dollar movies in a row. Lots of big swings. And these were two of them. And they, and they won big. And yet already that studio has just been acquired by the Ellisons. They're saying they're going to meet 30 movies a year. Maybe humans, will make some of those movies. I don't know. It almost seemed like, you know, we were already in a new and much more difficult era. Yes, if I was Mike and Pam, I'd be, I would certainly be, you know, I'd be having meetings. Yeah, this is a high water mark.

Yeah. Anyway, there were a series of races that seemed so locked on throughout this. I mean, people do say that this one has gone on longer than ever. I always think that Oscar campaigning basically is nine months of the year, but that's because I exaggerate for some form of. of comic effect, but I think it genuinely is like seven months. Timothy Shalime hasn't sort of stopped campaigning from a complete unknown. He's sort of just been on a rolling Oscar campaign. And he was one of the ones who, I mean, it seemed it was going to be between him and Leonardo DiCaprio for Best Actor. And in the end, Michael B. Jordan got it for sinners.

Quite a few of these races, it seemed like, oh my gosh, are they going to completely break open in the late stages? Actually, they didn't. They never do. No, no, it was, the things that were sort of locked on were almost locked on. It's like Eurovision these days. There's so many people know exactly what's going to happen before it happens. Yes. I try and avoid it. Or you can't.

You have to just let it happen on the night. Well, you can, they do need to, with anything that goes on this long, and I'm pretty sure we're going to be talking about this in the love story section of this podcast as well. With anything goes on this long, you sort of need a villain. The whole, the campaign season itself almost has to sort of function as a narrative. And so when Timothy Shalami comes out, and I mean, I feel so ridiculously sorry of him for this. these comments he made about ballet and opera and people not caring about them. And the fact is, those art forms are not as big as they were in previous centuries.

Movies, the great art form of the 20th century, may not be as big in the future. First of all, don't ever do anything on a live stream. That was his first mistake. That is absolutely the street. Yeah, it feels it because... He said he's in a live stream with Matthew McConaughey, some sort of... Because when you read it forthhand, you're like, oh, come on, man. Come on, don't have a go at ballet and opera people.

that's people's livelihoods. I'll say a couple of things about it. Firstly, yes, he's literally just on a stage with a friend in front of a live audience doing some like banter, which, you know, it's absolutely fine. And then you forget that it's live streamed and everyone around the world sees it. I imagine if you asked him, do you think that ballet and opera are worth this? He would say they are not for me, but I don't think they're worthless. But the great thing about it is the ballet and opera worlds have come out and used it in incredibly smart ways, like all the kind of ballet companies who are now saying, if you ring up and quote the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the code Chalame, when you book you get 10% off your tickets. And it's sort of, in a weird kind of way, been the best publicity, ballet and opera have had for many, many years. Well, that says a lot. Yeah. Anyway, he emerged as the villain, effectively. Yes.

Although he did actually say that after the Academy had voted. So that had no effect on whether he was going to win best actor or not. Jesse Buckley said something about having some her boyfriend's cats or her husband's cats re-homed when they first moved in together or something like that. she nearly became villainous cat lady. She then had to go on a talk show and say, I actually once audition to play a cat. Oh, you wonder in what movie.

And did you get it? And sort of made a, you know. I'm guessing not Garfield too. No, I don't think so. So she sort of survived that and won best actress. She was the biggest lock, I think. She was the biggest lot. I thought in terms of the big awards,

I do think actually are more fun Oscars than there has been for years because there were proper races, apart from Jesse Buckley, who we knew was going to win, that battle that was supposed to be between DiCaprio and Chalame, and then actually Michael B, Jordan and Windsor, and correctly, in my opinion, I think all three performances are brilliant. That's the other good thing,

some really good films out there this year, nominated and crowd-pleasy type films as well. And I thought Timothy Shanamee was amazing, and Marty Supreme, I think DiCaprio, you forget what a brilliant comic actor, DeCaprio is. Oh, it was so funny. And in one battle after another, he's just, it's a really, really great performance.

But I think Michael B. Jordan, listen, he's playing twins, which I didn't realize at first. I thought, well, they got somebody really looks like Michael B. Jordan to play his brother. Because of my eyesight. I sometimes like it takes me a little while. And then I was like, it was Tony Dinkwood and goes, I think both Michael B. Jordan. She's like, yeah, they're both Michael B. Jordan. Okay, good. I can enjoy the rest of the film now.

I thought, I love that film so much. And he's so great. And he's such a class actor, which I know is nothing to do with whether he should win an Oscar or not. But I love we didn't know he was going to win, which, you know, which it's not always the case. and also the best movie, we didn't know that one battle after another was going to win. No, I sort of felt it would, and I actually felt by the end that he was for sure going to win.

Can I say something that I think I said last year, but it remains a big thing for me. If you go to any music awards, music artists talk about their fans all the time. They literally talk about them all the time. They thank them all the time. They thank Michael B, again, you don't see it at the Oscars at all. even though the industry is besieged

and people, Michael B. Jordan, such a class act, he said, I want to thank people who went out and saw this movie once, twice, three times. And that was a thing with Sinners. It was this kind of cultural phenomenon. And I find it extraordinary that you just don't see these people acknowledge. I think he was the only one he did, right? All those wonderful people out there in the dark. Yeah.

When we can see that fewer people are going to the cinema, I really think it would be time, guys, to look outwards and say thank you to the people who go, Music artists do this all the time and they live in a world where they are constantly interacting with and acknowledging the fan base that pays their salaries if I can put it in that. Well, film still has, especially the very core of it and especially the Academy Awards, and this is one of the reasons it's so long, it still has that thing of we are an art form. And of course you are. Of course you're an art form. We absolutely get that. But when you're on that size of stage, when you're doing something like the Oscars, which is huge and it's about these mass platforms. films, you also have to understand your... We'll get to that.

You are entertainment. You are entertainment. And people don't like to be in the entertainment business. Sometimes they want to be in the art business. And at that level of Hollywood, you are in the entertainment business. And when you're in the entertainment business, it is about whether people come and see you. And you're right. Who's the only person who said thank you? He's the only one.

He's the only person who said thank you. You got a joke in the opening monologue about Ted Sarandos who's sitting there. By the way, he is so good at this. I mean, the studio cameo is obviously ridiculously good. He's really good in that. But the big joke in the thing is like, oh, look, Ted the Surrounders, you're in a theatre. This is what people are talking about. You see, you know, and he last in a theatre.

You first time in a theatre. People, he laughed at all of that. Michael B. Jordan, by the way, is not only the only person to thank the fans. He's also, if you want to know what I was doing last night, of the, of the, I think, around about 400 Oscar-winning actors in the history of the Oscars. It's the first one with a country as a surname. First one. Can you believe it? I was going through and through and through.

Well, they didn't make anything of that. Listen, there's loads of cities. How old? There's Bert Lancaster. There's Wachim Phoenix. There's Glenda Jackson. It's Denzel Washington. For Lancashians listening, there's Vivian Lee.

So that's all been taken care of. But he's the first one with a surname as a country. There was, however, someone with a country for a first name, who's won an acting Oscar. Oh. Anyone at home? anyone at home? I should do this whole thing as a quiz.

Cuba Gooding Jr. Okay, very good. There you go. Very good. Okay. So again, let's go back to horror because I'm very happy about that aspect of it. Horror is finally prestige. Finally.

Every now and then you get these movies that break out for horror, like something like Silence of the Lambs or maybe Get Out or whatever it is. Last year people thought that maybe Nosferatu and the substance would go further than they did, but they didn't. but this year Sinners is you know effectively a horror It's not really a horror Is it not really a horror?

Well half of it is a horror And the other half of it is like is it's not a horror Well I love yeah Well I love the Amy Madigan one for weapons Which is again which is kind of like a creepy thriller But it is a horror thing So that was for some reason The Academy is regarded it as a little bit too rich for the blood

All of these kind of movies But it was great to see them do well and particularly when horror as a genre props up a huge amount of Hollywood and actually makes money. Because I have to say, can we talk about the best picture nominations? Yes, please. To me, it's really interesting. I was thinking, what does this actually tell us about Hollywood? Which ones earned out at the box office?

So they earned their budget and the marketing. And one battle after another, no. Sinners, yes. F1 just about, we don't know how much that movie cost. It probably cost more than 300 million. There's an awful lot of side bets on that, though, aren't there. If you're in bed with Formula One and Apple, there's, listen. It's so unclear.

Nobody, nobody's having to put their hand in that. I'm giving it a yes, right? Secret agent, yes. Sentimental value, yes. Begonia, no. Train dreams, no, it's Netflix. No, it's Netflix. So that is four out of the 10 nominees earned out in that first crucial window,

the theatrical window, the time it's in cinemas. and two of those are very low budget foreign films. What does that say about the supposedly still prime entertainment product? Well, I don't know. I don't mind that so much because I'm going to argue against myself now because I was saying that thing about art and entertainment. And I do think as a human being, you have to accept you're in the entertainment business. I think it's nice, though, that as an academy, you're allowed to vote for movies

that perhaps the public didn't go crazy for, just to say, oh, by the way, maybe, you know, Like I wouldn't have watched Train Dreams without it being on that Academy Award list. I'm very, very... I wouldn't watch it without being on Netflix, let's face it. But you know what I mean. Yeah. I think that, you know, I think it's good to have something like F1 on that list because at least, oh, look, there's a big sort of tent pole movie. You know, the trouble with Hollywood is they think that one battle after another is a big movie.

And, you know, it isn't particularly... That is still an art house movie to almost every single person who watches movies. You know, Sinners is probably the closest thing on that list if you discount F1 to being like a tent pole movie that lots and lots of people actually were excited to go and see. You know, one battle against another, Paul Thomas Anderson, he is sort of, he's an art house director who can make some money. But, you know, he's not, if you ask 100 people in the street, this has come from years of doing pointless. Yeah. Who Paul Thomas Anderson is two people will know. And 98 people will not know.

I mean, same with Ryan Cougler, but more people will have heard. third of sinners than one battle against another. But, you know, I don't mind that so much. It is just there is an absence of, because there's an absence in the marketplace of your Forrest Gump's and Lord of the Rings and Titanic's and these huge movies that used to win at the Oscars. You know, those movies have disappeared. Well, maybe we'll get that this year.

We know that there are a huge number of sort of big films and some of them are big swing films that are coming out. But we had it with, we had it with Barbie and Oppenheimer. Yes, we did. So it is possible still. It's doable. But so much. of that huge money has gone into animation sequels and still, you know, Marvel things.

And so, you know, the money for those huge, you know, movies is just not there anymore. But it's, you know, the Oscars is sort of bigger than the films inside it or has been for a long time. But the question is, is that going to continue? Can you talk a little bit about what's happening with it? It's going to go to YouTube, right? It's going to go to YouTube, which I think is, okay, the Academy has one event, okay? and it can sell it to anyone it likes. And it's been with ABC,

and we show it on ITV here, but you can show, that lie that Conan O'Brien said, again, in the opening monologue, a billion people are watching, a billion people are not watching. I mean, that's one in seven, like, of people in the entire world. It's a nonsense and it's not true.

It gets around, if it does well, like it keeps getting about 19 million viewers in the US. Okay, say it gets 20 million. There are 340 million of people in the, the US. It's the equivalent of getting about 4 million people in the UK. It's the equivalent of what the BBC London 6.30pm bulletin gets any given weekday in

our country. So what is it? Is it a broadcast at all? Because it's actually a sort of weird cultural event that, as we say, has been running for what feels like very, very, very, and has been running for very, very many months. There are whole newsletters that come out every week that make a lot of, do a lot of business on, you know, who's up, who's down, which the big plays are. you know, where it can see the tracking going.

There's an unbelievable amount of money bet on it. I think the last count they said was a couple of days ago was 120 million on Calci, Polymarket, those kind of prediction sites. It will be a lot more now. Most of it will be, we've talked about CaliChi and Polymarket being real two screen things. And if you're watching the Oscars, it's so long,

it's so interminably long, that actually betting on it, having something to at least look through is one of the few things you can do. I've been betting on the Oscars. You know, you're not going to make any money from it. But, you know, listen, but if it gets you through the Oscars, all winning good. But nothing gets as much coverage for as long in almost our entire culture. And it amounts to 20 million US viewers on a very good day.

Okay. So where is the event actually happening? That's why I think it's good that they've gone to YouTube. They've gone to some of the places that the conversation, the buzzer. Because right now, the buzz is not happening within the ceremony itself. And we've said it before. It's difficult. And the buzz is not happening on the TV stream.

Not at all. The buzz is happening around it. And it's difficult because it's much easier when it's the Grammys or running like that or the Brits. The art that you were celebrating is handily comes in a three minute long thing and it can be performed on the night and it's quite exciting. And it's okay not to hear from the person who did it afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

So the buzz is happening on TikTok on Instagram on YouTube. So they'll be able to collaborate. They've already brought in for a long time, Amelia de Moldenberg, who does the red carpet things. They've tried to do things. But ultimately, it feels like a very sort of 1.0 thing, still, this long, long, long, telecast. And it will be much better to see what they can do with it. Since they only have this one thing, I don't think everyone putting all their content on YouTube is a great idea. But for the Academy, who have one shop front, they may as well. Because also, and this is the reason it's so long,

and this is the reason why something has to be done, is because there's so many stakeholders in the Oscars, the channel who make it, the Academy themselves, and then all the different studios and all the different movies, and then all the most famous people who are going to the Oscars. All of those people have a view as to what the most important thing about the Oscars is. And the most important thing about the Oscars for all of them is their selves or their organizations or whatever it is. So if you're at the Academy, they need things to be done in a respectful way. That's what they need. And they need, you know, the Academy to be held above all things.

If you're any of the actors, if you're any of the people, they need to be respected. They need to be given their time. They need, if they want to take a long walk up to the stage, they're going to take a long walk up to the stage because they're like super, super famous. And it has become so calcified over years and years and years and years that the thing that happens in television all the time is if you've got a show with lots of moving parts,

which has a whole bunch of different awards, it's every time you add 30 seconds to each of them, suddenly you've added another 20 minutes to your whole thing. And then if you add another 30 seconds, you've added another 20 minutes. And the whole point of these shows is everything has to be brutal. And if you're YouTube, they're the first people who will be able to say, oh, no, this is sorry, this is not going to be three hours and 30 minutes long. But everyone's going to look, here's the numbers.

This is when people are going to switch off. This you've got one minute for speeches we can do in a way that we'll stick them in a different room and we'll play them as an inset while you're doing something else. We are not going to sit and have that attention span on YouTube. But you'll be able to go to the sidebar the entire time the minute you're not. interested in something. Exactly. That will be a bit that you are interested.

Like a sporting event. The whole point about those things is there's people in the audience, there's people on the stage and there's loads of people backstage who've just won or are about to win. So you can hear from all of them all the time. If you only only three and a half hours, you've got to give people three and a half hours worth of content. And if you looked at that,

maybe you've got an hour and 50 of content in three and a half hours. And it's just that's not going to wash with people. But I think it's because when you've done something for so long and there's so much money and so much art and prestige and ego involved, nobody wants to give away their 30 seconds. Nobody does. And if everyone wants to keep their 30 seconds, then it's really, really long. So hopefully YouTube will be able to say, we do this quickly now. We do it multi-camera. We do it multi-site. We do it, you know, multi-feed, and we're going to absolutely race through it. And then if you want to do a seven-minute

speech, by all means do it. And then look at your numbers the next day to see if anyone had migrated backstage or if anyone was at the kind of watch-along party. If your agent is worth anything, they will find a way of burying and hiding those numbers for you so that you never find out that actually people don't care about this stuff. No, but your agent is getting thanked in your speech and your agent will see those numbers. So your agent knows if you give a seven minutes speech, I know they can't give long speeches now, but if you give a long speech nobody is watching, if you give a really cracking, funny 30 second speech with one absolute big soundbite in the middle of it,

everyone's going to watch it. It's going to be clipped everywhere and everyone's going to hear their name. That's the key. I think it will shake it up in a way that it definitely needs to be. Something we talked about last year, and sadly we have to talk about each year because it does matter. What tells the biggest truth is what advertising is bought in supposedly this event where, you know, everybody's watching. There was one movie, yes again, one upcoming movie, Project Hail Mary, the thing where, for reasons not at all clear in the trailer, Ryan Gosling is going to space. I will watch it next weekend.

It does look. I'll have a look. That's one advert for a film about to come into cinemas. There's lots of adverts for things on streaming. There's lots of TV adverts. And by the way, there's no adverts from the big tech company. So during the Super Bowl, which is something that people actually do care about. And watch.

And a lot of people watch that. A lot of people watch it. And people who don't like the thing that it is about, which is American football. They will still watch the Super Bowl. that had all of your AI companies and the people with all the money. And on the Oscars, no, they're not spending that. It's not an audience that they're particularly interested in. Maybe they try and keep them out.

We just don't know. But they'll suddenly be having a few adverts from, what's the Google, a Gemini AI next time, weren't they? Once it's on YouTube, I think they will be. Yes, that's true. But yes, but I think they are sort of kept out. And the people who are watching, I can assure you, are 20 million movie fans, people who have gone out and bought the tickets. So thank them more.

Let it not just be Michael B. Jordan's job to thank the people who actually go and leave their house and pay to see things. But also, maybe you'd like to advertise some upcoming attractions to them. Or why are you advertising things that are on streaming? Even during the ceremony. Turn it into a celebration of movies. And don't, you know, it's, you know, the orchestral sting, lighting change. I mean, just.

It's desiccated. it is old and boring. But of course it is, by the way, because that's how, you know, my generation grew up making those shows. You want to, the idea of it is you make it grand. The idea of it is you do have these incredible lighting changes and you do have these incredible orchestral stings because that was the language of television and you wanted it better than anyone else. And often better means longer. And so you can see why it got that way, but there is a new generation who watched television differently and you are in the business of storytelling. And by the way, there will be lots of people behind the scenes of the Oscars who know this.

but because of the idea there are so many stakeholders, it's going to take them a couple of years really to persuade people that maybe they, you know, if you have to persuade a room of people my age that you have to make it quicker and you can lose X, Y or Z, that takes a couple of years, I would say. But, you know, you could see the Oscars being unbelievable entertainment. You know, absolutely full of clips, absolutely full of upcoming things,

absolutely full of outtakes, you know, full of, you know, little remixes of movies, actors talking to each other, you know, behind the sort of stuff that people have shown you time and time and time again. They want to watch. That's the stuff about movies they want to watch. And I know you want to make it feel incredibly blue chip and incredibly important. And you do have to do that. That's a banish you have to strike. But you do not do that by making it three and a half hours long. I think they know that.

I think they know that by now. But the Oscars could be unbelievable. I think they don't know what to. I mean, honestly, that's what I said at the start of this. I find it an elegiac event to a huge. huge extent. It is, they are not quite sure what to do. And there, for many years, even though lots of the best picture nomination, you know, nobody had really seen them and they, all of those sorts of things. And there was a sort of bombist to it all. I didn't detect that at all this year.

It's like they now know. They can't say the bit about irrelevance out loud. But my God, it hung over it. It really did. And I, I feel that it is there in the room now and people know and they don't really know what to do about it. So it is going to take some quite significant disruption. They've got a great host, by the way, now. Conan, you could take straight to YouTube and would be absolutely accepted. I like the cold open, the weapons stuff. All of that.

That was great. As you say, Amelia de Moldenberg, absolutely, you know, that's a YouTube native. All the pieces are in place for someone just to go, we just, we are absolutely, you know, the running order that we start from each year and we fill in the gaps. We get rid of that running order this year. We just do it. we're going to do it completely differently. And you would think that maybe the YouTube move will be when they can do that.

The big thing I was thinking about because of WOMME Mascarco, and this is the – I haven't seen a lot written about this, certainly in the American trades, is whether there have been more actors who've appeared in casualty who've been nominated for Academy Awards or more actors who have appeared on the bill. Why didn't – why wasn't that whole section? I haven't seen it at all.

But I've done that – I've run the numbers. Of course. You'll be absolutely delighted to hear. You surprise me. Yeah. So people who appeared on the bill and been nominated for Oscars and won some of them. Olivia Coleman has been on the bill. Pete Posslethwaite.

Womi Masako, who I thought was amazing in sinners. Ron Moody, who was nominated for his role as Fagan. He's been on the bill. Daniel Kaluya and Kira Knightley. So they've got six on the bill. Casualty. Or Brenda Fricker, who of course was big on casualty for a long time and then won the Oscar for my left foot. Winslet, Orlando Bloom, Emily Watson, Riz Ahmed.

So we've got five there. Don't forget we had six on the bill. Yeah. So we got five. But there are two people to build on the bill. Who've also been on casualty. And they are Daniel Kaluja and Kira Knightley. So Casualty has seven against the Bill six.

So seven people who've appeared in Casualty have been nominated for an Oscar. It would have been nice if they'd said thank you to both those shows from the stage. Well, can I tell you? Did you even say thank you? you. I'm the Jady Vance of this, Oscar. Did you even say thank you? I was tweeting nonstop, and then I forgot that no one could see it. I'll tell you the show that's coming up on the rails, though. They've only got two at the moment, then that's silent witness. So silent witness has got Cumberbatch and Daniel, who's doing a lot of, Daniel, thank you, doing a lot

of heavy lifting. But also in the silent wisdom, as you can imagine all of these, I had to look through to check the couple of these hadn't ever been nominated. Idris Elbe has been in it, Jody Comer has been in it. Daisy Ridley, Nicholas Holt, they've all been in silent witness. So you would think maybe they could give Casualty a run for their money. But Casualty keeps going. Yeah. Yeah.

But that feels to me like a real missed opportunity for Kalshi, for Polly Market, for Conan. I mean, I would have done almost all of the, you know, I would have almost all the monologue about silent witness, casualty and the bill. And then my closing remarks would have been about Michael B. Jordan being having a surname as a country. And that's how I would have done it. And YouTube, I am available. Come and get me plea today for hosting duties in the future. Can you imagine anyone less suited to doing the Oscars on YouTube? It is me.

Can I just say that I find this very interesting? You'd be saying. That is all I'd be doing. I'm not even going to go into this, but people with middle initials in their names as well. But I'm not, I cannot because, listen, I know it's Monday morning everybody and we all have lives. My favourite fact, though, is Michael B. Jordan is the first person to win an Oscar for playing multiple roles since Lee Marvin in Capaloo. And yes, I double-checked and Eddie Murphy did not win an Oscar for Norbert. Robbed.

Robbed. Absolutely robbed. So congratulations to Sinners. If you were choosing the best pitcher winner, what would you have gone for? It's never going to win. I absolutely loved the secret agent. Yes. You know what? I would have gone for one battle after another.

by chance it ended up being about its times and I thought it was very well done. I appreciate that it is an art house film and I would have tried to bring it in for 90 or $100 million then we're not having the same conversation. Yeah. And he was, which you shouldn't ever say, but he was due a win.

I mean, genuinely, if Paul Thomas Anderson has not won an Oscar is crazy because he's made some of the best Hollywood movies, there are. I wouldn't have given it this year, but again, you kind of go, yeah, but what if he's always done the second best every year

and he never wins one? So I'm very happy that he won it. I would choose between sinners and Marty Supreme. I really liked Marty Supreme. Oh my God, why didn't I even say that? I should have said Marty Supreme. I absolutely, by the way, yeah, you're right. What on earth?

Okay. It disappeared. I'm so sorry. My actual answer is Marty Supreme. I don't know how I forgot. Yeah, it disappeared. Paul, the secret agent is brilliant. But it's an art house movie.

But I loved Marty Supreme. I love a young star. One of the reasons I don't think they like Timothy Shalameh to some degree is that there's some, that's part of the whole calcified thing. You've got to be a certain age to get an Oscar. You can't want it too much. You can't, you know, he's very hungry. He's very obvious.

He says what he wants. But he's a young star that people are, young people are excited about. And they should be thrilled they have someone. By the way, this is not taken away from Michael B. Jordan at all. But the amount of a probium he peeped on Timothy Chalameh, I thought he was extraordinary. I thought the movie, I loved the movie. Yeah, okay, I would have picked that.

I'm sorry. Marty Supreme, yeah. I don't, yeah, either Marty Supreme was sinners. I really, really liked sinners. What I will say... I felt it was quite three and a half star for me. Really? Really?

I really liked it. I know it was roughly from Dust or Dawn, but it was... Yeah. There was something about it I loved. I think that, um, what I will say is, if you have not seen a lot of these 10 movies, you genuinely have a treat and store,

and that's not the same every year, but I think you would... I think Sinners is a really enjoyable watch. I think one battle after another is, Marty Supreme is, Secret Agent is, train dreams is, you know,

I haven't seen Frankenstein, even though I sat next to, Ahmed Datoro on a plane, as we've discussed. But of the movies on that list, there are some actual fun evenings to be had. And how lovely that we can say that at least. And yeah,

and Michael B. Jordan, I thought, was just class personified. Yeah. So nice to see that. Thank the fans. Always thank the fans. And congratulations to casualty, of course. Of course. Yes. Right. Shall we go to a break? After the break, we are going to be talking about the huge hit love story, the Ryan Murphy series about Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr., which has caused some significant controversies.

Oh, you're going to love it. I'm not going to put a jacket on because I'm quite cold. Are you not cold? I'm not going to go. This episode is brought to you by Bumble. Now, Richard, people get very nervous before sending the first message on dating apps. Your finger hovers over the phone screen thinking, am I actually going to do this? Yeah, they debate if the person is who they say they are and if replying is going to feel comfortable or mildly stressful. But Bumble's photo number and ID verification makes it much clearer who is behind the profile,

giving you the subtle reassurance that lowers the stakes of sending the first hey. And when that pressure drops, something interesting happens. Profiles become more relaxed, more specific and way more human. and the conversation just starts to flow. This is why Bumble isn't at people trust, the one friends recommend, because safety and confidence are what lets real connection happen in the first place. So show more of the real you on Bumble. Welcome back everybody now.

We are talking about the strange case of Daryl Hanna. And the basic question in this story is, what do you do when the biggest TV show in the world portrays you as yourself, but completely misrepresents you, Which is what's happened here? She's become embroiled in a scandal not of her own making. Not at all. She...

Quite the opposite, in fact. Love story, which is the story of the, you know, fact or fiction story of Caroline Bessette and John F. Kennedy, Jr. It's the most watched limited series now ever on Disney. It's not even finished yet. They're dropping... It's Ryan Murphy. Yeah, it's Ryan Murphy. Friend of the podcast.

Yeah. And of course, it's re-triggered everyone's complete style obsession. with Carolyn Bessette has been a huge halo effect. All these, even just the chemist that sells the tortoiseshell head band that she wears has had greater sales than ever and it's sort of 188 year history. Yeah, I know it's absolutely mad. Yeah, it came from a sort of, you know, fancy New York chemist. They call them drugstores, surely.

They do, don't know. They don't have chemists over there, do they? Yeah, I don't know, but I'd want to confuse it with the drug elements of Daryl Hammer's story. That's put it that way. Do you know what? That's so clever. Thank you. I'm learning from the best, aren't I, Richard?

I think it's eight, it's eight one hours, basically, or nearly eight one hours. And you need an antagonist in a story like that, considering they got, we know they got together and they married and then they tragically died. For those of us who know very little about Carolyn Bissett and John F. Kennedy, Jr. What's the basic story before we get into what love story shows us? He was JFK's child who we saw at the funeral. That I worked out. He's American royalty, you know, the tragic son of Camelot. he falls in love and marries Karen and Bessette, who's incredibly stylish.

One time that he's piloting her, them down to the family compound on Martha's Vineyard, and they die in a plane crash. And it's a sort of tragic love story. She's actually relatively little photograph compared to any single woman on the planet now, including people you've never heard of because everyone is their own paparazzi now and photographs themselves all the time. So who was she? What was her background?

She's a fashion sort of, she worked for Calvin Clark. She was a sort of fashion icon, but she's particularly become a fashion icon after her death, and most particularly over the last few years, Ryan Murphy, all this knows how to tap into these zeitgeist things slightly before they hit the absolute mainstream zeitgeist, and he's done it with this again. So you think, so you've got an idea for the story, JFK Jr., Carolyn Bissette, as you say, comes from a certain era, which he knows is going to look amazing. It's based on real people, which is, you know, a classic,

Ryan Murphy playbook. And the genre all of its own now, which we will certainly get to in this discussion. But then you have to expand the story out a little bit, which is what he's done. And he previously, John F. Kennedy Jr. had had a relationship with Daryl Hannah that was a bit on again, off again. Anyway. She was the actress who we remember from the 1980s from Splash and all that kind of stuff. She's huge, right she? Yeah.

I mean, absolutely huge. I think these days perhaps there's a generation who might not know who she is quite so much. Yeah, she's sort of withdrawn from that kind of world, particularly. But all of these stories kind of need an antagonist once they stop being real life and become something that you watch on TV. Darrell Hannah last weekend published this op-ed in the New York Times, an opinion piece, which I have to say seems to me like it's really written under the advice of lawyers. And it's headlined, how can Love Story get away with this? It's a completely searing attack. There are too many quotable bits, but.

So what, how can they get away with what? What's there? Okay, let me just do some quotes from Darrell. A recent tragedy exploiting television series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissette features a character using my name and presents her as me. The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident. And then she cites one of the producers of Love Story who'd said, given how much we're rooting for John and Carolyn,

Darrell Hanna occupies a space where she's an adversary to what you want narratively to the story. Wow, why did you say that out loud, even though that's obviously what you've done, Okay, she even says there's a gender dimension to this. It's always, you know, there has to be a bad woman and all of this. But here's a paragraph that I find particularly would be quite hard to swallow unless you're Ryan Murphy and you literally don't have to do even your own swallowing. The character Darrell Hanna portrayed in this series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John. The actions and behaviours attributed to me are untrue. I have never used cocaine in my life nor hosted cocaine-fuelled parties.

I have never pressured anyone to marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded on anyone's private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Anassis' death to a dog's. Oh, no, I don't know. Anyway, and what she does say, though, as well is that when so many people watch a real dramatization,

real life consequences follow, and she's had threatening messages from people who believe the portrayal is factual. And she says, when entertainment borrows a real person's name, it can permanently impact her. reputation. Now, oh my goodness me. I mean, what a thing to have done. I mean, you know, very famously people's, lots of his shows with, you know, real people from history. And I'll go on to a particular example in a bit. But in this case, it's absolutely picked on someone who is still

very much alive and kicking, very much out there, and has used her likeness, used her name. You know, you portrayed a living person as something that they're not, making her do illegal things, for example, certainly making a doing morally questionable things. And as you say, when you go to such trouble to make everything else in your drama look so real and look so vivid, then as a viewer, why would you not think that this is true? For instance, the original, when they put out some original publicity shots of this thing. And because everyone's so obsessed with the details of her style, everyone's like, oh my God, this looks so awful, the hair's too blonde, this is that. So Ryan Murphy sort of swooped in and got rid of that costume designer.

I should say, we should say, that there is another showrunner for this project, a guy called Connor Hines. And all of these things kind of happen, just to give you the background to how Ryan Murphy's unbelievable factory of content works, because he's got huge numbers of shows on at any one time. Connor Hines is a showrunner, but clearly it's all under the aegis of Ryan Murphy. He does these huge deals. His last deal was with Netflix. He got $300 million for, I think, a five-year deal for them. The new deal is with Disney, which they say is for Lennie. But, you know, he's almost like, is he inching towards being the first billionaire screenwriter?

You know, he's part of the most sort of valuable showrunners or people who have lots of different shows on American TV are, I guess, for me, they would be Taylor Sheridan, who does all the Yellowstone and various other spin-offs, and Shonda Rhimes, who has Bridgeton, Gray's Anatomy, all those sorts of things. Ryan Murphy, for me, is much more of a, I mean, he's obviously, it's much more splashy in some ways, but he's much more of a liability. but he has so many more shows in some ways than them. And he is brilliant at capturing, you know, where the park's going to go. He understands the zeitgeist in a way that he's sort of got, there's a show coming out before you've even quite realized that this has become mainstream. There's also another part of the zeitgeist, which is not just what are people interested in. It's how is the culture thinking about things.

And one of the ways the culture thinks about things is facts are very movable and changeable. And narratives are very movable and changeable. and actually you can remix history all you like. So he's sort of ahead of the curve on that. But then you get to a situation like this. You think, well, that's great. But the fact you understand the zeitgeist and you understand how people sort of look back at narrative

and look back how the world is. You have therefore ended up with a show where you have betrayed a living human being who's just written an op-ed in the New York Times as a cocaine-fueled monster. And what happens next? If you're Darrell Hanna, where do you go? Ryan Murphy, how do you defend it?

We can talk about how the success people have had, the people versus Ryan Murphy, we can talk about that. Let's talk about that real-life genre, though, because that has become so huge. And all of these that, you know, things that are true stories or based on true stories didn't used to be, you know, we had biopics,

but they were kind of like, they were looked down on, really, to be perfectly honest with you. And turbocharging events, in my view, happen in 2016. Ryan Murphy brings out the People versus OJ, Simpson, which by the way, is quite prestige because everyone sort of remembers this thing. It happened, but it's long enough away, you know, at the OJ case, and he's able to go back and

excavate it in a quite an interesting way. The other thing that happens in 2016 is that the crown starts airing. And that obviously is a sort of, again, it's got real people and it's telling real stories, but is it, you know, they haven't bought any of those people up, as we would say. The crown grew out of the queen and even that, maybe even out of the deal, both of which were actually directed by Stephen Fris. And I've talked to him a lot

about using real people. He's done lots of things that use real people. Norman Scott still alive. He did the Jeremy Thorpe very British scandal. Quiz about the coughing major, all those sort of things. So he's very, you know, he says normally you have to sit down and talk to people and say, ultimately

we are making a sort of piece of art here. as well, so it may not be. But equally, people do sometimes feel to reduce, in the Lost King, the one about the finding of the Richard 3rd in the car park, the university professor has successfully won some money for being made to look like he was just a sort of sexist

person who didn't care about the woman who eventually did find and Richard was there in the car park. What's behind all of this is any screenwriter will tell you, any channel will tell you, people's lives are not lived in the order of a movie.

We tend not to live our life with a neat first act, second act, third act, with an inciting incidents and beats happening exactly when we want them and adversaries popping up where we want them and then a clear delineation between good and evil. So whatever story you're telling, be that entirely fictional or, you know, a mixture of both, you are always manipulating people's emotions. You're always manipulating the order of events and making sure that things happen in the exact order that's going to give an audience the most satisfaction. So that's just how you write any screenplay, any book, with obvious exceptions. But the second that this genre becomes incredibly popular, and there's huge amounts of this story, you know, stories from the news. I mean, it's the new IP, isn't it? Yeah.

Stuff that happens. Baby reindeer. Well, we must talk about baby reindeer because that I want to know how has impacted exactly. But the second you start writing in this sort of genre, and the second people go, oh, but it's, you know, actually we can, you know, we can be a little bit loose with the truth and we can change things and we can sort of, you know, kind of mould two characters into two, absolutely inevitable that, of course, you change the lives of real people

and you change the personalities of real people. And you certainly change the personalities of people who come into the story and they happen to be real as well. So this story is not about Darrell Hanna, but as he said, we need an adversary and she fits it perfectly. So you see how it happens, but I don't think, to me, it is acceptable. Completely. Is it not also a function of this type and this era of long-fold?

television. Okay. When we had biopics, they were two hours long. With US ad breaks, that's 90 minutes. Okay, so you can sort of do the love story of two people and they're very, very ancillary characters. TV eats plot. You cannot get eight hours of television out of two people. You need eight characters. They all need to have very significant arcs. A whole lot needs to, you know, I mean, just, I'm putting a number on it eight. Not necessarily, but maybe, actually, I think you do. And in order for all of this stuff to happen, it would be rich enough to sustain. And actually, Lots of these things you think, God, in the old days, this would have been a lot shorter and you strung it out every an hour. Fine. But in order to sustain effectively eight hours of television, you need a lot more. And this is why you end up bigging up these people who are really just completely, as I say, I mean, they would be answerly nothings in their life. And it's very hard to sit in a writer's room and go, oh my God, that would be amazing. Oh, but it didn't happen. Is that okay? I think maybe, but you know, you're always going to pitch the story. because they can't answer back.

Well, that's it. They were lucky with that. I was looking at the people, you know, who have tried to sue and couldn't, and, you know, you can get away with the crown because the principles are not going to sue in that case. And, you know, Oliver Deldon, who was the culture secretary at the time, said, told Netflix, you have to write parts of this are fictionalized, and Netflix didn't. Because, yeah, I mean, who's going to go to court, sort of nobody. Eduardo Severin, who was one of the co-founders of Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg,

he took great exception to the social network and said, look, this is nothing like our relationship. You know, Andrew Garfield plays him in the movie. He didn't sue, because he'd already reached some sort of enormous financial settlement with Mark Zuckerberg anyway. So they can sort of say what they're like about Eduardo Severin because he's unbelievably loaded. The crown you get away with.

Jeffrey Sarva, who's the guy who the Hurt Locker is based on, he tries to sue as well. But they changed his name. And sometimes that's all, that's all you really need to do. So you can say, well, look, it's obviously me. And the judge in that case goes, well, it's not obvious to almost anybody. You know, but the public don't know. So, you know, you can't sue either.

The closest to this one would be Olivia de Haverland. So Ryan Murphy's The Feud, which is 2016, which was Joan Crawford and Betty Davis. He was about their feud, and Olivia de Havelin is in it. And Olivia de Haveland sues, and she says, look, you have, Catherine Zita-Jange, plays her. And there's a scene where she calls her sister a bitch. And Olivia De Haverland and her sister, Joan Fontaine, famously had a very fractious relationship. But you said, I never called her a bitch.

You made me out to be something I'm not. I'm a real human being. She was 101 years old at the time where she sued, lived to 104, Olivia de Havelin. She was, see, Ryan Murphy's thinking with that, every single person in this is no longer with us. There's a sonatra's in it. There's loads of people in that.

But, you know, no one can sue. I can tell this story. Olivia de Haverland, of course, is still with us because she's 101 years old. And they said, well, did you not, when you're representing her, did you not go and talk to her and say this is happening? And he said, I didn't like to intrude. That was his reason.

Conno Hyatton said. She, by the way, did not win her. No, I know. Loss it, because in America it's very, very, very hard. You have to show that someone intended malice. Yeah, well, that's why we can get away with the crown in this country because the royals won't sue. Anyone else, it is very, very difficult,

and you can sue for libel. But Conorhine said, he's the showrunner of Love Story, said that they didn't want to talk to the Kennedys because it allowed them to be objective. So they're always doing this. I'll tell you who has has success. But this is ages ago as well. And by the way, this is quite a good precedent, though, because this was in 2013. VH1, that takes you back, which is at the time owned by Viacom. Again, that takes you back, one of the many previous owners of Paramount.

Perry Reid, who was nicknamed Pebble. She was a manager of TLC. And they did a biopic of TLC, the girl band, and it's called Crazy Sexy Cool, which was also the name of one of their albums. But she managed them in the early 90s, and they portrayed her as completely sort of manipulative and villainous and someone who withheld all the money from them and all of this. She sued Violetcom for absolute years. She asked for $40 million.

I don't know what she got because she's settled, and it's never ever been revealed what she got, but she would have got a lot for that. So there is that. A comparable case, maybe Rachel Delaro, she was the Vanity Fair journalist who's shown as Anna Delvey, the sort of scammer's friend and then she sort of falls out with her in inventing Anna, Netflix's series about that. Now she did sue

and she settled with Netflix for quite a significant amount. There's Albert Friedman who was the TV producers portrayed on quiz show and portrayed as being part of the scandal and he sued. There's Vincent Disimony who was one of the lawyers in the Ruben Carter case

so in that movie Hurricane he is shown as deliberately using falsified evidence. So in both those cases, they won. It's very, very, very hard, and I've looked everywhere to find anyone who's won. But of the few cases where they have one, is where people have been deliberately named, named as themselves, and they've been shown doing something illegal,

which they can prove they did not do. Well, I mean, that's why baby reindeer. The character that Martha, the stalker, is based on. He's played by Jessica Garley. Well, the actual person that Martha, the character is based on. Yeah, the actual person who's, yeah, I'm afraid his name is now so ubiquitous that I forgot that the character was called Martha. She is suing Netflix for, I mean, I can't remember it's more than 100 million.

It's a huge amount of money. Okay, she's not going to get that. But they've allowed this case to proceed at every point they could have stopped it through the American courts. Netflix will settle with her, I think. It's my, okay, if they don't, then I'm wrong. But my feeling is they will settle with her and she will get millions. A lot of money. Like a lot of money.

And you know what? Because they said that she, they say that she goes to prison at the end of it. And that doesn't happen. and they've made her identifiable. And a large part of the marketing for that show is this is a true story. Well, I mean, obviously. The one defence they will have is they didn't give her the same name as the person. So, you know, they could say, well, we hid her away.

But in a court of law, she was so readily identifiable, like screen shots from, you know, tweets and things like that, that Gossamer sort of screen between, you know, her fake name and her real name is pretty much non-existent. I think Darrell Hanna might sue because the way she, maybe she'll just think, I can't, it's so, I mean, as I've said before in this podcast, don't litigate unless you really can't not. And she, I would have thought that that was written with a lawyer, a lot of that, I think. It comes across, it's so well done. And maybe she, maybe she will sue. Certain people have sort of felt, it's like Pamela Anderson felt it was a sort of violation, but she didn't sue. I do really, the Pam and Tommy thing.

I think that is harder. this one is quite easy because it's showing her involved in a legal activity and she can just say you do prove it. It may be that she doesn't want to go down that road for all kinds of reasons and lots of us would not just really want to have to go through the whole discovery process. If a version of yourself has been given such a huge platform, which it has, then your real self maybe wants a platform that size which a lawsuit might bring. I mean, I absolutely agree with you. These things never work out as intended. It's definitely worth reading. And by the way, the journey of Ryan Murphy in this direction, I think is really interesting because as I say, he didn't start off like this. If you look at that original... You can see how he ended up there. You can see how I end up. But if you look at that original People versus OJ, which was very good and which really takes care with all the different people and really humanises people. The prosecutor in that, Marcia Clark, who was, oh my God, the subject of such vitriol because, you know, it just became this complete kind of cultural obsession while it was going on the court. You know, it really humanises her and shows her having to go through all that.

It was really well received that series. But as it's progressed, one of the ones he did recently was about those Menendez brothers who murdered their parents. But there's a whole sort of counter thing that they were being abused. But they're in prison and they were sort of distraught. And all people around, many of their family members who believe that they were being abused and that this was a sort of form of self-defense or whatever it is really couldn't stand him for the way. he portrayed it and he didn't care remotely and he was quite obviously

every time we went on the record he didn't care and I would say that the journey from him for doing things much more like people versus OJ to much less defensible stuff we actually ended up doing do you remember we covered it we did it of three bonus episodes sitting on our three of them his arc

is quite big and it's suddenly not over we'll probably have to go back and do a fourth but there are three bonus episodes sitting on our archive about that because I think that's been such a journey for him And it's really, he's really gone over to the dark side. But the problem is he's so talented that if he tells your story, then a lot of people will watch it. Certainly if he said, oh, Marino, I'm going to do your life story.

You would be like, this is a nightmare because you know it's going to be big. And you know you're going to have no control over it at all. No, he's not suddenly not going to come to me about my life story. I mean, that's the last thing he'd want to do. You never know. It really gets in the way. Although if he hears this. But he doesn't want to, as we said, they don't want to go to the people who are involved

because it gets in the way of their much clearer. revision as to what actually happened. So anyway, I think that that's sort of one to watch, maybe she'll sue. Yeah, but certainly the person I'm more interested in is the baby reindeer. Well, we'll keep an eye on that one because that's continuing to go through the courts. Yeah. I don't think you'll ever get a day in court because that will be settled, but yeah, then somebody will become a millionaire. That would be an interesting story as well. I mean, it really would. There's a documentary. Series two. I mean, Netflix probably won't make it. Actually, they probably were, that's the way our culture's going. Netflix will say,

Either you could be 20 million or you can have 15 million plus your own documentary about how you spend that 15 million. But we are seeing more and more of it, I think, in the end, with all of these things, because real life or supposed real life has become this absolute runaway genre. And it's regarded just by saying this is a true story. This is based on a true story gives you a massive viewership bump just by claiming that. Yeah. I'd like to see what Darrell Hanna does next, certainly. And we wish her very, very, very well.

And I hope she can get her story amplified as much as possible. because that must feel powerless. Any recommendations, Richard? Yes, I want to recommend the three-part documentary on Channel 4 about Tony Blair, which I thought was fascinating. Really, really interesting. Tony Blair talks. You don't always get as much as you want out of him.

Alastair Campbell talks. Almost everyone involved talks Bill Clinton talks. So they got really, really good access to people. Jeremy Corbyn talks about it. And it's kind of the rise of Tony Blair, then Iraq. and then, you know, the post-Iraq. But it's really beautifully made, made by 72 films David Glover and his team. And it's just one of those things, again, that doesn't hammer home what you should think.

It asks questions, it puts the camera in people's faces. It lets them answer at length and lets you make your own mind up about what you think, which I've found incredibly refreshing. Documentary not commissioned by its own subject, Richard. I know, right? Could it catch on again, please? Wow. But also, like someone agreeing to do a documentary made by someone else,

They didn't have greater control over. Could that catch on? How about you? I would like to recommend the Last Kings of Hollywood by Paul Fisher, which I think came out last week, which is a book about Stephen Spielberg, Francis Paul Coppola and George Lucas. Oh my God, it's so well done. Some of the stuff is sort of covered in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,

but if you're interested at all in that period, he's taught to so many people. It's beautifully written. The story is amazing. I mean, it's so interesting to think of how these guys, you know, they're the absolute anti-Hollywood. They set out to be anti-Hollywood. They kind of make their first films as sort of these weird tone poems.

They wonder if they can continue to do that and retain their integrity and just kind of be outside of the whole system. And yet each of them makes the most successful film of all time. You know, Kobler makes a godfielder. Then it's Jaws. Then it's Star Wars. And it's interesting how they sort of diverge. You know, Spielberg and Lucas become obviously the most commercial possible filmmakers

you can possibly imagine. And yet Lucas doesn't even really want to make films anymore, you can see. And Coppola just, he can't quite, I mean, he is the soul of the true artist, really. It is so well written and it's so interesting. The stories and some of the details are just amazing. A perfect re for Oscars Week as well. Yeah, it's a really good read. I loved it.

And that's The Last Kings of Hollywood by Paul Fisher. Excellent. Thursday, we will have a Q&A episode. Thank you very much, by the way, for all your feedback on the Tim Davy, the DJ of BBC for our Q and A with him and thank you for your questions with that as well. That was fascinating but we're back to your questions this week and for our subscribers, for our members. We have the second part of the village people.

The second part. It's such an insane story. Anyway, if you want to... The first part was great. It's genuinely great. It takes an even weirder turn. You want to be a member and sign up for ad-free listening and so on it and the bonus episodes. It's the rest is entertainment.com.

Otherwise... We'll see you on Thursday. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder.

Anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.