The Rest Is Entertainment - Oscars, Clichés and Cool

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

We deal with the fallout of Richard and Marina’s debate over who and what is ‘cool’ with a third voice joining the conversation… but whose side are they on?

 Movies are full of clichés, Marina shares her dramatic pet peeves. Richard explains the politics of hosting awards ceremonies from seating plans to scripting nominee announcements. 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] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osborne. Listen, we have to start where we left off last week talking about cool because we had a row. A lot of people on social media was very touched. They said I don't like it when mommy and daddy row.

We had a discussion. Oh, it was an argument. It was a full on argument. If you didn't listen to it. Oh, buck up. First you see, see, do you think we're having a round now? No. Do you? I think a little bit, because you just told me to buck up. We were talking, someone asked a question about what we consider to be cool. Marina had, I thought, a very traditional version of it, a sort of Steve McQueen type version of it. And I was trying to expand

the definition of cool. You were trying to expand it infinitely weren't you to people you liked. Pierce Brosnan I said was cool. He's suave Richard I give 100% to him that. Do you let listeners weigh in rather than we can't refight the second world war. I'm told that the support was overwhelmingly for my position in the inbox. The support is massively in your favour I would say that but it's not always. How cool you're out on the edge you're an outlier.

Sounds like it right? Yeah. I said Pierce Brosnan was cool you don't think he is. I would say that, but it's not always... Wow, how cool. You're out on the edge. You're an outlier. Sounds like it, right? Yeah. I said Piers Bosner was cool. You don't think he is. I said... I think he's 12. Victoria Wood was cool. I said Stephen Henry was cool. Shall we go through what a few other people said? As you say, most people agree with you. I have to say, Jemma Mead says, I'm with Marina. A lot of the messages started with I'm with Marina.

Yeah. I'm with Marina or hashtag team Marina. Richard was naming brilliant people but not cool. Cool is different. End of. If only that were the end, Gemma. Megan Morris says, it was all a bit personal. She said, I would say that Marina is cool and Richard is nice. Oh man. I'm not cool though. Pierce Brosnan is absolutely not cool and Norris Victoria Wood says Megan okay Paul Williams I'm 58 and from the era of big snooker same as much as I love Richard Henry was never cool he was the least cool of all the snooker players ever if I had to go for one it would be big Bill Wurbenjuch. Oh really I thought he was going to say Jimmy White. No Bill Wurbenjuch was

cool and legit come on let's not do let's not do let's not go back to snooker. Chris Ship great name if you say it quickly it sounds like cruise ship. Yeah. So people must think if he's like on a crackly phone, a cruise ship is ringing me. Anyway, Chris ship says, again, a lot of this cuts fairly to the quick for me. Couldn't help but feel Richard's coolest was close to what I assume Alan Partridge would say. Wow. Wow. Listen, I get it. I do get it. Andrew Knight says, I too like Piers Brosnan, but he is not cool. My wife certainly doesn't think so. On our honeymoon to Bora Bora, it's a hell of a place to go on a honeymoon, isn't it? It's a bit white lotus. He and his

wife were in the same hotel in the next bungalow to ours. Oh, he's got a bit of money. Andrew Knight, if he's staying at the same resort as Brosnan, because listen, he may not be cool with it, he's loaded. He said, my wife found him to be overly flirty, even while at dinner with his wife. Nine months later, when our daughter was born with very dark hair, we joked that Brosnan was the father. You just read that out? Yeah, well, he told us.

He said, well, he's written it in. I'm not saying Brosnan was the father. He's just saying that, you know. I had a lot to say last week, but I'm speechless at this moment. Carry on. But I think, so listen, most people agree with you. Paul Oliver, I think sums it up best when he says, as usual, Marina is right.

That's not true. Richard has just described people my nan likes. Oh. Yeah. But Sam Rucker, it's interesting this, isn't it? Because sometimes, and this was my point, I think, is I thought your definition of cool was very traditional. And surely it's changed since the 50s. I know that James Dean used to be cool.

The words mean different things than they did in the 90s. That's interesting. Yeah, they do and this is one of them. This definition means the same thing. Sam Rucker, okay. Sam Rucker says this, he or she, you can tell he or she is young because he starts with Marina, I think you are sick. He means that in a good way. Semantic shift, word has changed. Semantic shift word has changed the meaning. Semantic shift, exactly. We haven't said that on the show before. I think you are sick but Richard is right about cool. The definition has 100% changed

and the fact that you don't know that is very much uncool. These days you can be sensitive, intelligent and maybe even slightly nerdy and be very cool. Thank you Sam, that was my point. Well then you can be anything can't you? You can be an infinite number of qualities. Well, we're not going to get back into it, but I do believe there has been contact. Yes, there has. I said, and I stick by it, Stephen Hendry is cool. And the reason I said Stephen Hendry is cool

is because he comes across as very uncool on television. And when you meet him, he's very different and he is very cool, especially for a snooker player. You, and I have to say 90% of our respondents disagree with me strongly about that. Should I tell you someone who agrees with me that Stephen Hendry is cool? Stephen Hendry, take a listen to this. Hey Richard, thank you also much for your compliments saying that I'm cooler than Johnny Depp, as you and I know it without question and Marina I'm very

disappointed. What's not cool about spending your whole life in a dark room potting bowls with a wooden stick on a 12 bit by 6 table for six hours every day wearing a dinner suit every day as your work clothes. What's not cool about that? It's way cooler than... What's his name? Captain Jack Sparrow. Cheers guys. Yeah? You see, I love Stephen Henry, but he is actually... I'm sorry, that's a real Rorschach video there because he's agreeing with me. He's making a joke about it. And you could say there's elements of cool in doing it. He's not making a joke about it. Oh please. Of course he's not. Wearing a dinner suit with your work clothes. Yes he is making a joke. I'm sorry you couldn't hear it. Oh my god. Wow. So I tell you something else I'm gonna do at the

premiere of Thursday Murder Club. I'm gonna get Brosnan to come and talk to you. Right I'm gonna give him. Yes please. I'm gonna give him. He's so suave Richard. He's so suave. You know what I I'm going to give him 10 minutes with you and after this I'm going to say, do we still think he's suave or do we think he's cool? If you still think he's not cool after that, I will let it lie, but I'm going to give you 10 minutes alone with Brosnan. Great, you've just booked an item for that week's podcast, so I'm in. But thank you very much everybody for your many responses. Thank you very much for continuing. But yes, listen, almost everyone agrees with you. But listen, I'm very, very used to that on this podcast.

I'm a voice in the wind. I really, really understand it. No, you're not. Yes, I am. No, you're not. Let's get to some questions, Richard. Come on. Let's do that and let's hope there's no rounds this time.

We'll start with a topical one from Kate Bradley. With the Oscars soon, just wondering how they decide who sits where. With road seating, how has it decided who sits further at the front? And with rows and tables, do big names get to veto who they sit next to? Any tales of people refusing their seating allocation? Ah, that is interesting. This has been fraught with danger and politics, this particular thing. There was a guy called Otto Sporari who did it for about 20 years. He gave quite lengthy interviews, but he stopped doing it honestly about 20 years ago, but he gave quite lengthy interviews about the whole process.

And I think the first year he did it, he put some people who he didn't realise they'd had a relationship together. And, you know, so he thought after that I did my homework. Oh, really? Yeah. But there's so many things to consider. The most important thing to consider with the Oscars is that it is a TV event. It is entirely made for television and it has to be a show. So if you've got someone in the wrong place and they've got to do a 25 second walk to the podium and you have a few of those, the producers are tearing their hair out because it takes so long. So you need to get them like close. Everything has to be guessed. They don't get told. As you know, do you remember there's this whole sort of thing, like it's chained to an accountant's wrist or whatever, these things.

And it's like, yeah, but you still awarded best picture to the film, you know, when they awarded it to La La Land instead of Moonlight. Anyway, but before they'll have pictures from the theatre and you will have those pictures of where everyone's going to sit and it will be their kind of acting directory, your headshot in the seats and where they're going to see. But they have many, many seat fillers. I think they have 300 seat fillers on the night because you're supposed never to see because this thing goes on forever and when people want to go to the Lille, or go out for whatever

reason, you can't see empty seats at the Oscars because who wouldn't kill to be there? So they get them all done up in their gowns and their whatever and you're not allowed to speak unless you're spoken to but you're kind of bust in and you have to you can see someone leaving in one of the outbreaks and you have to go and sit there but the main thing you see everything think about this show as a television program so you have to have clear shots camera shots lined for the reaction so you have to think we don't know who's going to win best actor but i want to be able to see each of them looks oh happy it wasn't them.

You need to know that camera three has got Adrian Brody, for example, and you've got a clear shot of him and no one tall is in the way of that person. So the director knows exactly where everyone is. And you need to do that with a ton of categories. By the way, I was, listen, I know that I'm on TV a lot and I apologize, but there was a cutaway of me and my brother and Ingrid on match of the day. Oh my God, I was I was so excited. I was like oh my god I'm on TV. That was one of the best things that ever happened to me. On Match of the Day as well.

On Match of the Day. I was so happy. It's so weird like of all the things you've been on and you're like oh my god I've been in a cutaway on Match of the Day. That's it. I was really excited. So in terms of the actual sort of seating it's obviously actors and Mr Spielberg at the front basically and then the crafts categoriesberg at the front basically and then the crafts categories are at the back because no one really cares about them, although we do care blah blah. But then there are weird, you know, there are

local politicians, there are like ABC dignitaries, there are money people, lawyers. And they want to sit near celebrities. If you've got someone who's giving you a lot of money or someone who's broadcasting your event, then you put them as near to Jack Nicholson as you can. You do but the If you've got someone who's giving you a lot of money or someone who's broadcasting your event, then you put them as near to Jack Nicholson as you can. You do, but the Academy makes 90% of all of its activities off this TV broadcast from ABC, so they need to make it a really good show. And they sometimes put movie casts together, so you can see that we're all patting each other on the back when we get it.

And the thing about the seating now is that we live in freeze frame culture, we live in a nightmarish world. It is so dangerous. Not only have they got lip readers on all the people, you have to be hyper disciplined because no one ever paused before we had digital TV, any of this stuff. But so many of them become a reaction meme. Most famous one of all like Chrissy Teigen looking like she's crying. That's actually from the Golden Globe. But we did a terrible one at the BAFTAs once because we forgot we were on camera. We were very annoyed about a particular decision. And yeah, we were on camera at the time. Will you become a meme forever? Think of that one where Meryl Streep is like in the audience

pointing at the stage that I think Patricia Garquette had said something about wager quality or something. Do you remember Nicole Kidman's like really weird clapping with her fingers? It's so weird. Google Nicole, given clapping or you've probably just attached that meme to a million other things. Andrew Garfield likes grunting his teeth in excruciation. Jennifer Aniston waving and not getting waved back up because the person doesn't see her. It's like, yeah, it happens to her as well. When Green Book won, Chadwick Boseman giving it real side-eyed somewhere behind him. You become a meme like really quickly and so every year yields new ones. So you have to be very, very disciplined. But I will love all those sort

of seating plans. They used to have them on Concord, which was at Concord they only had... People can't sit next to certain other people. Well, yeah, but it also on Concord they had the first three rows were a complete, more than your stock price, more than anything. It was like your personal price as a, you know, like is Murdoch in 1A? And if he's not not in 1A then who the hell else is on that flight? Because it was all the seats are the same and there are two on either side of a long aisle. And that was a huge thing. Where you sat on Concord for certain people was at City Massive.

I was on two sides of one story once. There was a celebrity and they were saying that they were sat in their like seat 1B on a British Airways flight. And as they got there, they realized that in seat 1A was Piers Morgan. And they were like, ah, and so they swapped seats with one other person in their party. So they sat in two and the other person sit next to Piers Morgan. And then I saw Piers Morgan in his column just go, I'm not saying that I'm famous, but I was in row one and XXX was in row two. And I'm like, yeah. It wasn't about that. No it wasn't about that. So essentially it's a combination of there's like a

social secretary who does all their research into who can't sit next to who and previous relationships and things and then you run it past ABC who are saying we need this person here this person there. Correct but you can petition and they always say if you do it politely and explain there's a reason we can't and your people do it politely, then they do occasionally make alterations to their plasma as it were. And that does happen. Have you ever been at a wedding where someone's swapped a place? Oh, I mean like almost every wedding I think. Yeah, I'm not doing that. Yeah. At some ceremonies,

people just go and sit next to each other. Celebrities, it's like people will say that Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez say, we're going to sit next to each other. Celebrities, it's like people will say that Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez say, we're gonna sit next to each other. So either put them next to each other or just accept that they will simply do it and you're not gonna go and say to those two, hi, you're not important enough, you have to, you know. So they can do it, but you can make representations, but in general, there's a lot of reasons

for eyelines and whatever. And everyone who's probably worked, you know, worked a bit in the film industry understands that. Let's have a quick break and then move on to more. We've only done one question. And that's because we talked about cool for so long. We'll do a whole load of questions in the second half. Welcome back everybody. Now, by the way, we get so many emails a week to this, to this portion of the show, email addresses, the restisentertainment.gmail.com.

But this one is actually slightly dated, but I think it's interesting, because I think product placement is always really interesting. Poppy Hooper said she'd watched the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special, and they're curious whether Samsung had some product placement in there.

Everyone had Samsung phones. Rob Brydon's character had a very stage line about how good his Samsung phone is. I thought product placement was allowed on the BBC, so are there loopholes around this or was it not paid for at all? The reason I thought this was a fun question to answer is not about that at all. On BBC it's almost impossible to have product placement, but James and Ruth are both, I try and do you write about brands all the time because it's funny and you think about characters in terms of what brands they might use and so I think it's just one of those things where

probably in another show they wouldn't have got away with it because Gavin and Stacey is so huge that you can slightly do what you want. But they're incredibly tough on product placement on the BBC. They would say you have to have some because otherwise no one in EastEnders is driving a car. But you have to make sure it's different ones. But the reason I wanted to answer this is because of something which I became aware of recently, which think is really really interesting. It might be a spoiler for people but but the Apple whenever they provide phones and things like that for television shows they have a no villains clause. So

if you're watching a whodunit and you're not sure whodunit, if someone is using an Apple phone or an Apple laptop then they did not doit. If someone is using an Apple phone or an Apple laptop, then they did not do it. If someone is using a non-branded phone or phone that isn't Apple, then they probably did. And so I just thought that was one of those bits of product placement things which actually provide spoilers to television programmes. But they have a no-villains clause. That is brilliant. I didn't know that. I love that. But it means that Rob Brydon with his Samsung, if he turns up in a murder mystery, then he probably did it.

Marina Laura Herbert asks, if you could retire one overused trope or cliche in movies and or stories, what would it be and why? Okay, I knew this was coming. And I genuinely believe this could be an entire separate, always on podcast. And I'm very sorry, a lot of what follows may be controversial. Well, why don't we never ever do two part answers, but we could do a two part answer if there's a... Okay, here's things that are currently and relatively recently annoying me. Saintly dead

wives, a character having a saintly dead wife, any form of rape to make you care about the character because you can't be bothered to make me care about this character so you just visit terrible sexual violence on them and then it's like oh I guess this feels really important and I have to care but that feels very wrong. You know my feelings about they've got a podcast counting as a b-plot, no. That's such a big deal. I think we talked before about why is an amateur person investigating a murder and if they've got a podcast that's why they're investigating. Yeah, it's enough. There is a lot of it. Six months earlier, coming on the screen, and I've actually written something once,

it was very difficult, there was no really other way to get around the fact that you had to show that there were stakes to this thing, but I don't like that. Kisses being interrupted and then it's like, well, they're not really together. By the way, if you've come that close to kissing, then there's a thing happening between you. Oh, you mean, you mean kisses people getting close to kissing and then stop. And then some events intervene and you're like, okay, nothing happened. It did happen. Okay, you need to get to it. That's rubbish. Okay. All the bathos and irony and that particular way of doing it, like cheeky one-liners after suddenings, which was brilliant in Die Hard,

but is now the absolute reductio ad absurdum in Marvel things that I can't stand it. Drone shots are starting to piss me off. Oh, really? Drone shots are pissing me off. Particularly the downward vertical going over like a pine forest or something. Can someone please subvert this? Can we have a cat stuck up one of the pine trees? What's that? Move back. Every Netflix documentary that starts here with a pine forest and one of those big water towers with the name of the town on it. But I think the thing I like about drone shots is they've made cheaper TV look much better. That's what they are. they make it look much more expensive.

You know, you look at that amazing Mortimer and White House go fishing and the drone shots just make that, they add so much to it. Yes, I agree. Given you can afford a helicopter. You used to see lens flares too much, you know, and that very, very focused centre of frame when the outside is all blurry, it's like an animal, maybe they're using an anamorphic wide angle, this is such a piece of Netflix house style at the moment. I really just, it manages to look both

cheap and like really... I don't know what you're referring to there. Okay, yes, it's, that's annoying. Like when you're, like an animal is looking at something. No, no, it's very, no, it's very, very focused in the centre of the frame and all the outside is blurry and it's a particular way of doing it and it just looks so, it's so part of their house style now. They do it in so many things and I just don't like it. Never noticed it. Okay. AI being the villain. Pointless one-shots. The director's got to do a really long one-shot. Pointless the quiz.

Not the quiz, sadly. I'd love you to do that in one-shot. We haven't tried to do a live episode. But those one-ers where you're, and you become so aware that it's like a dick waving move by the director that I'm thinking, have they cut yet? No, they've not cut. Okay, they're not cutting. Oh, I see. Oh, all right, I get it. They're doing a Wanna.

They're doing a Wanna. They're doing a Wanna. Wow, they must be a really cool guy. Superheroes not really dying, we're just being able to be bought, you know, like no steak stuff. Multiverses, they can do one. Yeah.

Kitchen Islands, I don't know why, they're starting to annoy me a lot. Kitchen islands. We went to someone's house recently and they had two kitchen islands. Shut up. Can you believe that? It was in LA, so I guess it's the norm.

In the same kitchen? In the same kitchen, yeah. I call them St. Kitts and Nevis. I love that so much. Two in the same, they were renting a place in LA. Yeah, like I said. It had two kitchen islands. Exactly.

What do you think about that? So I said to Megan, that's a lot of islands, Megan. And Harry said, I've got more islands than that mate. Kitchen archipelago. Yeah. Okay. Passwords being something you can work out if you look around the room or know one thing about the person.

This is so ridiculous. Okay. This is so ridiculous. I always think when you're downloading something and it says loading in really big letters, it tells you exactly what's happening on screen in a way that your computer doesn't say. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, that's the prime example of that, which is another thing that pisses me off is timers that someone's bothered to have helpfully fit a digital display. So there's no need. What were you doing this for? For the person that diffuses it? Telling him how long then you got. That's true. It's absolutely totally unnecessary to put a clock on a bomb. Unless you're standing around with it, in which case you presumably know when it's going to go off. It's not an oven. And if it was an oven it

would be like an hour off because you wouldn't have changed it from daylight savings. But sometimes you need a clock in a bomb, sometimes that's the mechanism. So I would say that's that's where they get it. Is it 1961? You don't need one. I have to say in the year 2025, you don't actually need a clock in a bomb. Oh, you know a lot about bombs. Yeah, I mean, I know that much. I look at the technology. I mean, you know, I can see. Where are you looking at the technology? In news stories, wherever it's being exercised against people.

And you look at the thing and goes, was there a clock involved? They don't normally mention if there was a clock involved or not. They're like two bottles of peroxide they bought off the internet. You can see what's involved. But I'll say this, which is sometimes we copy what we see on television, so perhaps bomb makers are thinking, do you know what, this is missing? It's a little red digital clock. Okay, speaking of which, villains that you don't know what they want or why, and it, by

the way, world domination is not a reason. There has to be something more than that. Um, I didn't mind this at first, but, um, like modern music, like hip hop in historical dramas or whatever that's starting to annoy me. I, at the first, it seemed like, you know, they're cool. They're just like our era. Um, that can be quite annoying. Also like Miami based hip hop on all property shows, like Selling Sunset,

selling everything, but it's all some sort of, yeah, sort of sub pit bull. The genre most likely to make you care about kitchen archipelagos. Yeah. Okay. Oh, actually speaking from bomb clocks, just bomb bomb clocks 60 seconds taking longer in in the time of you watching it than the 60 seconds on the screen That's annoying. That's been going forever by the way When someone goes underwater on a television program, do you hold your breath? I don't know I bet you do. Yeah, of course because then you're like because then you really understand the jeopardy

Man, this is really because if I'm struggling with my lung capacity, then this person's panicking. I love that. You know I'm doing that forever now. Okay, fine. Same as when you go under a bridge, right? You've got to hold your breath. Go through a tunnel.

Do you? Yeah, do you not? No. Wow. You're a monster. I'm just going to be doing this forever now. Yeah, the second you go under, you hold a breath and then you yeah, I mean if you were ever in a traffic jam under a tunnel That's how I'm gonna go

Eventually, okay. What happened to him? I don't know. I'd all I know was he was in a tunnel. There was a traffic jam Yeah, and he was what he was watching skyfall on his phone as well. He was watching the opening of that. Okay and being able to be shot and be essentially fine. Yeah. No consequence major injury, ultra violence that you can still like run a marathon practically. I don't mind that because because I like it when Reacher is injured and he's still okay. But he's not like us. No he's not like us. When it's people, ordinary people, relatively ordinary people, it's Reacher, I just feel that he's just, he can rebuild in front of me. Exposition dialogue, I honestly, I'm seeing this more and more. I saw some written by a very good TV writer recently and I just thought I can't, will that be in the reviews? Because I'm stunned

that you can't just, you've dealt with about five minutes of on-screen action to make me care about why I care about this by simply saying this this is important because, I almost know what the words were, it's important that people care about this because. Yeah, first episode of Things particularly have that and I think it's got worse and I think that must be notes because writers usually, you can hide your expositions. One of the key things in writing any TV or any books at all is you have to get information across but it cannot come across in the form of information. It has to come across. You're doing something else and it comes across. And I think the Netflixes and Amazon primes of this world

want you to spread it out a little bit more. So I think we're seeing more of it. I'm starting to feel that the eat the rich genre needs a little bit of refreshing slightly. And my, we can't, obviously I said this could be a whole separate podcast. I'll do my last one. This is the thing that probably annoys me more than anything. Any form of stupid misunderstanding that could simply be cleared up by people talking about it. And yet it's allowed to continue and drive the plot for, you know, a third, a half, the whole episode is so ridiculous.

And it's just not how life works and it always takes me out of it because you think you would just ask one more follow-up question or something. No, I've got to go. I have to go. No, but the thing I've got to say is actually really important. It's so stupid. I've got to go.

Sorry. Talk to you later. Just shout it after them. Yeah. There's a bomb under your car. Ring back. Text them. I mean, this is so stupid.

And there's all sorts of different varieties of that. but anything that could be sorted out by people talking in the way that people talk all the time to me becomes like oh I'm just watching some sort of coincidence coincidence thing and I can't. You see in police procedurals an awful lot which is they're aware of the five things that are the pieces of evidence that are going to convict the person but you have to drip feed them across and for example, the second the fingerprints come through, we know that that's going to be the thing that said, he just go, Oh yeah, no, so it's still haven't come through. I think, come on, really? They haven't come through. They said, we'll move on to something

else. You go, but yeah, but we're just waiting for that. When that comes through or goes, yeah, Garth, can I just tell you something about this? He goes, sorry, I can't. I'm in a meeting. You go, no, you're a, you're a police officer. He's literally just said, he's looking through the CCTV. He spotted something. You're not, I'm in a meeting. You go, no you're a police officer, he's literally just said he's looking through the CCTV, he's spotted something, you're not going to go into a meeting with the chief constable even if your ass is on the line, you are going to go, what is it John? And you go, oh it's just because I've seen the car that we were talked about and he has, which means he did the murder. You know, he has to go, yeah, later. Yeah, come on.

No, yeah, anyone who says you can't report a missing person for 48 hours, that might be very helpful to the plot of your television series. But if you think that in this country, if your daughter's gone missing, they'll say, come back in 48 hours and tell us your daughter's gone missing. No, they're not going to say that. And in fact, the sort of golden hour of when you can find people is really quite near the start. So they're not going to make you wait for 48 hours, but it might be helpful if you have to do it. If you have to go and just track down this thing yourself. A fun thing to look out for is how long forensics takes in different shows. And I tell you, should I tell you how long it takes? It takes exactly how long is most helpful to the script.

So often it'll be like, Oh, actually, we need this fingerprint thing now. You go, I've asked them to rush this through boss. And they are wired. They got that. They got that through pretty quickly. Or they go, listen, they're absolutely snowed under there. They said it could be 72 hours and it's like, it takes how long it takes, but you know exactly how you just go, okay, that's going to be important, but it's going to be important in episode four. But, and this bit of information we need now. So forensics is that beautiful piece of elastic for any crime writer.

It can take as long or as short as you want. Then everyone goes, Oh, I can't believe they absolutely snowed under or, wow, it's amazing they got that through in 35 minutes. Yeah, we got the phone records through. You got the phone records through because on the last series, it took you like two weeks to get the phone records through. You seem to have got it through in 45 minutes this time. That I don't mind.

Yeah. Because listen, give us a break. You've got to have something. Laura, thank you so much for that question. Thank you, we'll snap this back. But maybe we'll want another time. We'll always remember as Laura's question and we'll go back every now and again and say, should we do a Laura Herbert?

Topical, this one from Pete Chao. Who writes the script for Celebs Reading the Nominees at award ceremonies and why is it always so dreadful? I think what Pete is talking about is, so you've got your postscript monologue, which is different, and then you've got two people that come up, Adam Wojciak will come on with Natalie Cassidy and they'll be giving away the best makeup and they read out the citation essentially.

Believe it or not, it's written by an entirely different group of people to the people writing the monologue script. The monologue script is usually quite fun if you've got like a David Tennant or someone like that hosting. Can be less fun if you've got someone who's a less easy to work with actor or somebody who thinks that they can do their own material. I talked to two people, Sean Pye and Christine Rose,

who are two of the absolute best writers in the business. They do loads of awards things, do loads of comedy shows as well. So if you're looking for writers, they're the people to go for. In We Solve Murders, my last book, there's a character called Max Highfield, who's a Tom Hardy-esque actor, and he's doing the World Diamond Awards in Dubai. And I wanted to, I thought it'd be funny if I just give him Sean and Christine as writers. And so I mentioned, I got Sean and Christine to write the script for Max Highfield. I forgot that, yes. And he, listen, he does not go with all their material.

No. I'll say that. Sean says it's quite fun to write citations, because it's the only time anyone ever says transcendent or incomparable. So he enjoys that. Christine says it's the worst job in the business. And I absolutely accept that that's true. She said she by and large, you want to do the monologue. Occasionally, you'll take a citations job

if it's like last minute. And you think, do you know what? I'm not working today, and this is quite an easy way to do it. So she was doing one big award ceremony, the guy did it the previous year, said look sometimes it's the best job in the world because occasionally you'll write something and Kelsey Grammer will be giving it out and Kelsey Grammer will look at it and go, oh this is great I don't need to change a word because he understands comedy and then you're like

this is great. He said and then immediately after there'll be two people from Downton you don't recognize us going, what's this rubbish, we're gonna do our own stuff. And by and large that's why citations are so bad. Firstly, you have to get across information. Secondly, most people who are going along to do that, they haven't spent the last three days rehearsing, they just turn up, they see a bit of paper,

and most people go, I know, I'm just going to say my own thing. And so the citations writers do all of this work, and lots of talent come along and say I'm not going to say that. The comic talent comes along and goes oh yeah that's good that's nice I can can I use that you know maybe put it in their own words but non-comic talent will go I don't I don't understand why would I say that that feels like I'm undercutting the craft of hair and makeup and they will say their own things. By the way they'll do this last minute the ones where they rehearse are like the Oscars they rehearse they make them rehearse because we're so important. The Golden Globes recently,

you could tell they hadn't rehearsed and it was, it can be absolutely excruciating. People are like, what's going on? And it's not, it's not clear often to the people who have freestyles in the way they have that they are absolutely dying when they're asked until it's actually happening. Yeah, exactly that. Sean has very kindly written me a citation for citation writers. The citation writer, they transcend what we accept to be possible, bringing imagination and wonder in incomparable measure. They thrill us and scare us.

They truly are the masters of their craft. The nominations are. It's paid work, but it's probably not the most fun paid work you're ever going to get. But yeah, written by completely different people to the people who write the monologue, which is a very funny like, and weirdly they sort of swap around. There's no reason why someone's doing one and someone's doing the other. It's just the order in which you get the gig. I have a question for you, Marina from Daniel B, Mel B's brother. No, Daniel B, B-E-E. That's a cool surname, isn't it?

Yes, it is. I like it. I have just watched the closing credits for Love Again on Netflix, and they listed two eyeline actors. What are these, and what are the attributes of a good eyeline actor? An eyeline actor is basically someone who is standing in for one reason or another,

which we'll come to, of the same height as the eyes of the person that maybe you're talking to in that scene, Or sometimes, to be honest, it's used a lot in things with lots of CGI. As I say, I don't know what, Love Again doesn't sound like it's got a lot of CGI, but never mind. In shows where you have, or in something where, movies where there's a whole CGI characters, then you're going to have somebody standing there so that people in scenes can... Because sometimes it'll be like a tennis ball on a pole weighted, but actually it's more useful if someone is standing in there who is the same size, height and dimensions of

whatever character is going to be portrayed on screen. Whatever it is that's going to be there. And even in Marvel for Thanos, Josh Brolin had this ridiculous sort of... I mean it did look really rubbish. It's like he's there with his mocap suit on and because Thanos is very, very big, then there's this stick that's sort of taped to something across his shoulders. And honestly, a cardboard cutout of Thanos' face, but that's for eyeline so that the actors, when talking, were looking in the right place and not at Josh,

not at basically Thanos' neck or sternum. Not at actual Thanos. Not actual Thanos. But on TV Thanos. By the time they've added all the CGI and post where it's going to be. But having said that, there's another reason that you might need I Learn Actors, which I would sort of describe as actor arsehole already really. The more traditional. The more traditional. Which is that, or scheduling. There's a lot of films by the way nowadays,

particularly by the way in some of the many spin-offs of Marvels, where you'd be shocked how many of those characters never even were in the same room together, because scheduling just made it impossible. They were all doing other things. There were so many characters. People acted opposite an eyeline actor who was just there to take the line. And to put it in the most simple terms, if there's a conversation, if I'm having a conversation with Richard Armitage in a television program, goes to me then it goes to him then it goes to me then it goes to him those can be shot completely separately yeah but if they are shot separately then I need to be looking at someone who's the height

of Richard Armitage and more to the point he needs to be looking at someone who's the height of me. And also it can happen because for whatever reason when actually when actors are rehearsing, they'll do the rehearsal on a set, then you'll have a crew rehearsal so you can see where everyone is and then the actors go off and sit and relax and their stand-ins are there for all the way for it being lit and all of that. So the cameras know exactly where they are, how to light the person, because they're lighting someone exactly the same height. As I say, actor arsehole-ery. There are certain actors, or there are times when relationships have broken down so badly

that you're getting somebody else to be in all the scenes. Like most of that I love trouble, Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte, that's the her worst ever job. She hated him so much. And I think they weren't in, it was a romantic comedy and they're really not in barely any scenes. And so again, quite often what will happen there is if you've got, say, Julia Roberts, I'll use the example of me and Richard Armatjitz again, and it's no shade on Richard Armatjitz,

by the way, I've just chosen him at random. Say he's the main character in the scene, they will shoot his lines first. So I'll be doing my lines, but the camera is not on me. So they'll shoot all of his stuff first. They will then do the reverse, which is me. So you're doing the same scene, but the camera pointed at me. But Richard Armitage does not have to stick around if he doesn't want to when I'm doing my scenes. Which is so obnoxious because it's much harder to act with someone no disrespect to either actors who...

So most actors will stay exactly where they are and say, no, you were there for me, so I'm staying there for you. That's what most actors do. For your coverage, as we would call it. Exactly that. So they will stick around until you are done but yes certain actors, not Richard, sorry, genuinely not Richard Armitage, will just go back to their trailer and go no you can put on our actor. We can go back to Wesley Snipes on Blade which is like the almost example of all of these things. Remember I told you about when he refuses to open his eyes? Yeah. So they have to, that's the last blade. I mean and by the end of those blades he

was refusing to do absolutely everything, almost everything apparently was done by stand-ins. He was so completely obnoxious by this point. And he wouldn't do, and it is obviously very hard to act versus a crew member just holding a sort of green thing here as to insert Wesley Snipes here. Insert Wesley Snipes here. That's my new novel. Yeah. I wish that wasn't it. Yes. Okay. So sometimes it's CGI. Sometimes it's the two actors in completely different places and needs to be fitted together. And sometimes it's one actor who just the second they finish their bit goes back to their trailer. Those

are the three big reasons for highland actors. Because relations have broken down. That's us for this episode. And we will actually have an episode coming out tomorrow for a bonus episode for our club members. If you want to sign up, it's therestisentertainment.com and that is going to be about... Ryan Murphy, one of the great Hollywood show runners of modern times. Yes. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say

about him. Thanks for listening everybody. Thanks for all your messages about coolness. I do accept that there is a sea change that goes towards Marina, but I think sometimes history proves us right. So I will honestly, I will wait. I'm happy to wait it out. All right, Tony Blair on your Art War. Okay, very good. Other than that, we'll see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday. Let me know that you love me