The Rest Is Entertainment - Which Dumped Tory Will Do 'Strictly'?

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

In an act of disastrous political timing, Jill Biden has appeared on the front cover of US Vogue. Does this tin-eared response to her husband’s catastrophic debate performance spell the end to Hollywood’s elite support for the Democrats. Who the hell is Glen Powell and why is he always on my screen? Richard and Marina give us a bluffers guide to the biggest celebrities in the world right now - and explain why you probably don’t know who Sabrina Carpenter is. And finally, as Thursday’s General Election brought forth a Tory Wipeout - Richard tells us which former MPs would be best at a Bushtucker Trial. Sign-up to The Rest Is Entertainment newsletter for more insights and recommendations - http://www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations: Marina: The Traitors US (iPlayer), Barbie (The Design Museum) Richard: Beverley Hills Cop 4 (Netflix) 🌏 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

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Live passionately, drink responsibly. Copyright 2024. Bacardi, it's trade dress and the bat device are trademarks of Bacardi and Company Limited. Rum 40% alcohol by volume. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina High. And me, Richard Osmond. Busy week Marina? It has been busy but it's now calming

down which I'm very pleased about. Yeah I was quite busy, election and all that jazz and how about you? Yeah not bad honestly the election I'm gonna try and catch up this week. No spoilers from anyone please. Yeah please yeah I've got it I've got it taped but I have high hopes for the Lib Dems. It's a fantastic box set I will tell you. I think they're going to win. What are we going to talk about this week? We are going to talk about Jill Biden. The First Lady has done a Vogue cover, possibly the worst time to ever Vogue cover. So we can talk about why First Ladies might do Vogue covers, why this is a bit of a horror show.

And also Hollywood's backing of Joe Biden and why that is slightly unraveling. Yeah, the money coming from Hollywood is drying up in a very public way because obviously they don't like to, they're not backward in coming forward. So we'll talk about that. We're going to talk about the new superstars. We're going to talk about famous people from different areas who you might not have heard of yet. So we're going to fill you in like a bluffers guide to the biggest new stars in the world.

So you will never look an idiot in a dim in a party conversation again. People who are some of the biggest movie stars and simultaneously no one's ever heard of and why that might be. And also I am gonna take us through all the people who lost their jobs in the election and what TV futures might await them. There's lots of talks.

We're not doing all of them. We're not doing all 250 or whatever it is. I'm not doing everybody, but yes, that thing of saying, oh, someone's gonna be on Strictly, someone's gonna be in the jungle. So I'm gonna take you through exactly what I think is going to happen to all of the big beasts of politics who lost their jobs last week with my producers hat on. I love your producers hat.

Yes. If you're watching on YouTube, it is an invisible producers hat. I'll give you that. But I've often been an invisible producer. Let's get on to Jill Biden's Vogue cover. Jill Biden has done a Vogue cover. You'll be aware that her husband had a not great performance in the first debate. In other ways, partly memorable for her saying afterwards, grabbing a microphone and saying,

Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question. You knew all the facts. Which if you're trying to sort of convey the image of being, you know, commander in chief of your own self is not great. If you're trying to sort of convey the image of being, you know, commander in chief of your own self is not great. And whatever the fairness of looking at Jill Biden as the power behind the throne or whatever, this is the perception of Jill Biden currently.

She's a very significant advisor to her husband, who many people think is suffering some kind of cognitive decline. So the perception matters of her as the power behind the throne. And she's done a Vogue cover. Right, when you say Vogue cover, you mean she's on the cover of Vogue magazine, she hasn't done a cover version of Madonna's Vogue, which would be a real pivot. Yeah, I mean at this point throw anything at it. But you might as well, right?

Why not? You know, it's weird, the thing that really changed the dial is when Jill released that cover version. I am in fact talking about a cover of US Vogue, the magazine. For me it's not a great cover by the way because I'm not interested in magazine covers in sort of biscuit-y oatmeal tones. Is that what it is? Yeah and she's not, I don't like the subject, unless something very dynamic is happening, I don't like the subject not looking at the camera in a magazine cover.

Oh where's she looking? A sconce. Is she? I bet she is. And I'm afraid the cover line is, we will decide our future. Which is a sort of slightly imperious royal wee signed thing. It couldn't really in many ways be worse timed. It's interesting for various reasons. First Lady's doing Vogue covers was not a thing for a long time, but it used to be regarded

as this incredibly prestigious thing. Hillary Clinton did it and it was after the monocle, it was at the end of the year of the monocle with CSCAN, it was after the monocular, it was at the end of the year of the monocular wincy scan, it was the December issue and they got her up in a sort of, it was a long black dress but she looked pretty elegant and like, I've won. Yeah. Talked about a huge amount and Anna Wintour, who's still the legendary editor of US Vogue and was at the time, said she's now an icon, she's above politics because she's been on the cover of Vogue.

Wow. Which she did. She should have run have run for president. She would definitely win. Yeah, you don't hear that so often nowadays because Vogue has become associated with something that's become very bad, which is aspiration and elitism. Other people have done it and Michelle Obama did it three times. She did it in 2009, not before the election, maybe 2013 again after the election. And she did look quite sort of smart, but the one she did at the very end in 2016 after the election was bridal. It's all like full Annie Leibovitz. Annie Leibovitz did all the pictures. She's kind of splayed out against some moss. It's sort of like, hi, I'm about to get married to my new life as a mega celebrity, and we're no longer in politics anymore.

Melania Trump has never done it. She didn't ever get offered the cover, and they were very, very angry. And it's a sort of thing in Trump world that why wasn't Melania offered the cover? They couldn't guarantee her the cover. And so she's never done it. Anna Wintour is a big, big fundraiser. I think she was Obama's in something like in 2012. I think she was like Obama's fourth biggest fundraiser.

She is a huge fundraiser. The Vogue cover was always seen by first ladies as, this is a good way to talk, but it's kind of, it's a puff piece. I think puff pieces can always backfire. It doesn't matter which publication you do them in. The French Vogue editor, Joan Juliette Barthes, the former French Vogue editor,

was sent to go and interview in 2010, ding, ding dong, the Harrah Springs just starting, Bashar al-Assad's wife in Syria. And she went and did it and it became this, it was a huge profile, I mean, completely flattering, headlined, A Rose in the Desert, all about her sort of ordering Jimmy Choos online and things like that. By the way, all that red is not roses. Yeah, yeah. While her husband was sort of ordering the torture of kind of young revolutionaries. And it was a really bad, it was really bad for Vogue. It was really bad.

Joan Juliette Bluck's, I think, contract was never really renewed, which was, you know, she did the assignment. But anyway, it's like this big sort of double spread articles about Jimmy Savile used to read in Loaded. And you look back and you think, oh, that's not great. We now know puff pieces can backfire. This one has backfired. The reason that Jill Biden has done this is because, particularly perhaps at this time, is because Joe Biden is not doing interviews currently, which perhaps tells its own story. And this is a way of sort of getting the campaign

message out there in that slightly soft way. But clearly in this case, it's her third time doing it too. It is backfired badly. Or I wonder whether the idea of Vogue as a campaign stop at all is sort of fading because of this elitism thing I was talking about. I mean, I have to say it's the first time I've heard of Vogue as being a campaign step. I'm not as across Vogue as you are. Sometimes it's like, sometimes if we talk about World Snooker, I tend to take the lead. And if we talk about Vogue, you do. But it's essentially been a player. And that's why it's interesting sometimes if we talk about World Snooker I tend to take the lead and if we talk about Vogue you do but it's essentially been a player and that's why it's interesting to us the entertainment industry is quite a big player in the US election and Vogue would be a part of that there are various finances in Hollywood and the Hollywood movie machine are promoting the Democrats but Vogue by and large would be this would be a stop you have

to make on this tour but now it's more of a poison chalice maybe. It is, I think it's risky on the campaign trail as I say, Puppet pieces can backfire. Politicians have always been very, very fussy about how they appear in magazines. There's an interesting bit in Tina Brown's diaries of editing Vanity Fair. When she goes in the 80s, they go to the White House, they're doing Reagan and they're doing an interview with Reagan. They go into, I think, the map room and maybe the photographer puts on some music and Reagan says to Nancy, Nancy Reagan, let's dance. And for 15 minutes they dance and then he gives her a kiss. The photographer got the shot. Tina Brown obviously can't believe it. It gets back and thinks obviously the kiss is the cover. It's, and this is brilliant. And then the White House call and get very, very stressed and say, we don't actually,

Nancy, we don't know about any of this. We don't think we want any of these pictures in. So she has to go back and try and make it work. And in the end, they have to settle on not doing the kiss on the cover. But there's a picture of them dancing and Nancy sort of kicking up one of her legs behind. It's a sort of great shot, but they're so fussy. This is by the way, by the point he's in the White House, they are always worried about how things come across.

And also, and usually quite bad at understanding how things would come across as well. But those two understood better than most people because they came from the entertainment industry, maybe from the B string of it, but they came from it and they understood it better. And I think Obama had an instinctive understanding of those types of things. This is now a sort of a bit of a millstone, a bit of a jillstone, if you will. If you're thinking that the first lady is the power line, the throne, directing operations from the back room, and if you're on the cover of Vogue looking out away saying we will decide our future. So I'm thinking that that might change. But Hollywood in general is having a little bit of a moment about Joe Biden. So Jeffrey Katzenberg, who you know, one of the big Hollywood moguls who set up DreamWorks

with Spielberg and David Geffen, he has been the sort of chief cheerleader for Biden for many years now. I think he's the deputy chair of his campaign committee. He's one of seven campaign chairs, I think. And you know, he's been involved in getting money into the Democratic coffers. He has continued to do that over the last few months. People are starting to fall away a little bit and people are starting to blame Katzenberg for not intervening with Biden as well.

And the interesting thing about it is it's not just money. There's plenty of money in Hollywood and American politics, if you know less about it than the UK, it is driven by millions upon millions upon millions of dollars, individual contributions and things which are called PACs and super PACs, which essentially are almost like an investment fund, a way of investing in a presidential candidate. And it's enormous in America and you have to outspend your opponents across such a big territory.

So Hollywood has been a big deal in that in raising money. But they also have a lot of sway over the narrative of a campaign. And Katzenberg and various other Hollywood people, they are bought in to talk about what the story of the campaign is. And he has been, you know, like any, you get a script in and you have an 81 year old in the script and you're kind of going, yeah, but are we really going to buy that this is the great hero of the story? Because 81 is old and then a decent Hollywood script editor goes, no, we lean into it. And Katzenberger said that about Biden. He said, no, that's his superpower.

His age is his superpower. His wisdom is his superpower. And so that Hollywood thing of going, there's a script problem here, which for sure there is, right, this guy's age and his cognitive abilities. There is a script problem, but we can fix script problems. And we fix it by saying, no, actually, it's the opposite. It is this wisdom and actually this is exactly who we need and Katzenberg has really bought into this narrative and the rest of Hollywood seem to have gone, I'm not sure this script note is working. It's interesting that what happened at the start when people who were defending kind of Katzenberg being the level of involved he is, which is very significant, and he's always by the way, being a long, long time donor

to the democratic cause. George Clooney said, I always say, look, everybody keeps coming into Hollywood for cash and they don't come for us to ask for the one thing we do better than anybody else, which is to tell stories. And I think it's a very good idea that they're going to Jeffrey, not for raising money, but for narratives. I think that's a very good thing.

Now, anyone who thinks that politics is the same as their business, it is not the same as their business. We've had versions of it here. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of when David Cameron made Philip Green his efficiency's are. And Philip Green, at the time, the chairman of Topshop and BHS and things like that,

most of which are no longer with us, but he is enjoying his billions somewhere in a... I mean, to be fair, that is efficient. A tax jurisdiction, yes. He produced this report in which he essentially thought that the state was analogous to retail and he kept saying, well why don't you just pay our suppliers later? It's like, it doesn't work like that in the NHS. They don't understand these things and actually I have to say, it's nonsense that Hollywood can create the narrative for the presidential campaign. But people who know much, much more about it than George Clooney or Jeffrey Katzenberg or anyone, it is not the same.

They are not analogous. And people who think that they are, it's another version of Hollywood self-importance, I'm sorry to say. And I think we can all live without it. Give us your money and be on your way. And they have given their money. And maybe Biden won't need to go back to Hollywood because he's there was some party that Katzenberg threw about a few weeks ago and they raised $30 million out on one night and Julia Roberts

was there and George Clooney was there and all these sorts of things. But you're now seeing people really turn on it and people are saying about Katzenberg that he, AI buzzwords, that you digitally de-aged him. You said that it was fine and it's not fine. I quite enjoyed the plain speaking Ari Emanuel, who is the CEO of Endeavour, one of the very big talent agencies that also owns things like UFC and WWE. And he put it simply, we are in fuck city. And I, yeah, he also then said his cohorts have said he's healthy for over a year. It's a very simple test for me.

This is the test, by the way, if you were driving from downtown Beverly Hills to Malibu, would you want Biden to do it at night? Would you want Trump to do it at night? Or neither? If it's neither, you cannot have them running a $27 trillion company called the United States. Oh, that's great. That should be my test. Yeah, just get them in Beverly Hills and say, now get to Malibu without any form of accident, and if neither of them can do it, then get someone new. See, and that's the difference, because Ari Emmanuelle is an agent, and Katzenberg obviously is a producer and a creative, and producers and creatives are used to something coming

on their desk in the morning that has to be shot that afternoon and going, oh no, it's easy, no, he's wise. You know what, just make him wise. It's absolutely fine. All day, every day for 50 years, that's been his job. Do you know what? Why don't we just shift the perspective a tiny bit and then it'll all be okay. But half the movies he makes fails. So you know, that's where we are. Whereas an agent has absolutely, just doesn't care anything, any of that. An agent is just thinking, I just got to get some business done and I've got to get, and if I've got a client who's in trouble, I just, you know what, you have to cut people off. And they're much, much, much more ruthless than producers.

I completely agree with this. However, even the wishy-washy Hollywood liberals are now coming out to say, Damon Lindelof, who's a big showrunner, has written an op-ed saying, no more checks to anyone now. I give lots of checks, now I'm not giving checks to anyone, even including down-ballot people. So they're on strike with their millions, which I find is a little bit... Down-ballot people, during every election, there's also lots and lots of state-level elections and federal elections where Democrats try and get in against Republicans and actually big Democratic presidential run is very, very important for all those smaller roles in states everywhere. And so

it's not just the presidency, it's the whole infrastructure of America, the whole Democratic infrastructure of America comes from this. And yeah, so Hollywood's going to try and fix it. Well, I don't know. I mean, people like Barry Diller have said enormous mogul used to run Paramount, then started Fox. So he's saying no more money now. Abigail Disney has come out and said no more money now. She said-

What does she do for a living? Yeah, exactly. Not a lot. You don't need to do a lot of your Abigail Disney. But you write checks and she's not going to be writing any to him. Reed Hastings, who co-founded Netflix, he's saying we're not giving any further money to anyone now.

It's slightly unhelpful, isn't it? Oh, you see, is Hollywood going to choose them? I mean, that's a great attack line you've got right there. Fascinating thing is, I genuinely think this is every single election over here and in America, show business does get involved. And we hear the opinions of celebrities. And we hear about the importance of their views

on the records of different candidates and their views on the records of different candidates and their views on the direction of the country that they live in. Nobody has ever given the first toss about anything anyone from the entertainment industry has ever said about any political issue. I could not agree more. Of all time. When you have an election, there's loads of little things that happen in this country and you can send a tweet and people go, oh yeah, that was an interesting take on that. An election is such a deep and broad thing, millions upon millions upon millions of people and it is way beyond the scale of the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry is huge. It is a big thing. It is not Coca Cola and it is not elections. You can have all the opinions you want. You can spout off whatever you

want to do on whatever forum you want to. You can talk on the opinions you want, you can spout off whatever you want to do on whatever forum you want to, you can talk on whatever chat show you want to, nobody is listening to you. Because in elections people are thinking about their house, their neighbours, their school, their town, their infrastructure, their safety, that's all they are thinking about. And every single time somebody in show business gives an opinion on an election, it does the exact opposite thing of what it's supposed to do and yet they still do it. They can't help themselves. They want to use their platform for good.

But you know, people always say, you know, do you tweet more about this or the other? I think no, because if I want, no one is listening. It's absolutely fine not to tweet. We've discussed it so many times on the podcast, but it's absolutely fine not to. It's absolutely fine. Listen, George Clooney does many good things around the world, quietly, and he does an awful lot of good in an awful lot of countries and for an awful lot of people. It's not intensely silent, I wouldn't describe it as totally quiet. Nobody in the world has ever gone, before I vote, just need to check on who George Clooney

thinks I should vote for. Nobody. You must know that, celebrities. Yeah. You must know it. Just give them your money and be on your way. Exactly. I've said it before. Give them your money and be on your way.

No one wants anything other than your money. Yeah. And lots of celebrities very quietly do amazing work and do work with charities and work with all sorts of things and also absolutely taking none of that away. But the one thing we don't need is public pronouncements of opinions. You just don't need it. As someone whose job is sort of public pronouncements of my opinions, I feel bad about it, but it's true. Oh, you're a celebrity now, are you?

No, I'm not a celebrity. I feel bad saying I can talk about these things, but other people can't. No, but we know what we're talking about. You're a journalist and you look into things and you write about things. And that's a job that we understand in our culture. If you've just come off the set of a movie or you've just made your new album and you then decide you want to tell us about the election, you think don't just, you're really good at making albums. Just go back in and do that. Write an album that's full of empathy and love and that gives people an emotion and a feeling. That's what you're good at. Make a film that makes people see the world in a different way. That's what you're good at. Don't then go, I also have the moral authority to tell you who I'm voting for and who you should vote for as well. And I do think that this thing of the idea of elitism and things like that, people have been so vocal about it in recent years,

and it's been such a successful attack line that you're honestly just contributing and giving more ammunition to that these days. Every time an actor supports the Democrats, Trump rubs his hands in glee. But I love billionaires and rich millionaires, multi-multi-millionaires in Hollywood, withdrawing their finances, withdrawing their labour essentially for the Biden campaign. Yeah, and say good luck now Joe without Hollywood. But the truth is if you do lose that group, it very quickly leads to you losing the media. It does have knock-on effects, but also essentially jumping on a train that's already left the station, which is this is not Hollywood has spotted something the rest of us haven't spotted.

It's everyone spotted something and Hollywood went, whoa, wait a minute. One suspects there'll be a new candidate in place and one suspects that it won't be George Clooney who chooses them. They will unfortunately have to recast some way into production. People keep saying, well, perhaps Taylor Swift will come up for the Democrats. It doesn't matter. It genuinely will not move the needle a tiny bit. It will lose Taylor Swift a lot of respect. She's smart enough to know it. If she genuinely thought she could make a difference then she would, but she knows for a fact that

she can't. Yes absolutely and this is partly what we were talking about a few weeks ago. It's absolutely fine. You don't have to use your platform supposedly for good because it's mostly often for bad. You don't need to speak out about the election because if you sat silent you couldn't forgive yourself. Don't forgive yourself for making things worse. Be quiet. Show don't tell. Do good work. Work with good people. Do good things. Don't need to use your platform to tell people what to do because people do not like being told what to do. Your puff piece will about fire. Oh yeah, sorry about that.

Shall we go to a break? Welcome back everybody. What are we going to talk about now, Richard? We're going to talk a little bit more about the Democrats. No, we're not. Don't panic. Don't worry. We're going to talk about that interesting thing of when a big new celebrity comes along and you think, do I need to know about this person? And you sort of leave it long enough. And you think because most of them disappear and you think, I did not need to find out about them. Some people are staying in the firmament. So we are just going to

tell you about four people who are sticking around who are the new superstars Just so we've got you covered just so if a conversation comes up, you've heard of them You know roughly who they are. Should we start with music? Go ahead. So who's your music pick? Listen, you've heard of Taylor Swift you learned about Olivia Rodrigo the new massive superstar in music in the US and the UK Sabrina Carpenter. Okay, if you need a moment to write that down, you can do Sabrina Carpenter. She's had the number one and number two single in the UK for the last three weeks, Sabrina Carpenter. She's an actress and writer. She's been around a genuinely long time. She's another one of

those people who came from the sort of Disney factory. So she's been in all sorts of movies, made all sorts of music, but she opened on Taylor's Eras tour and it's the thing that's absolutely catapulted her now into absolute megastardom all around the world. As I say, she's got the biggest songs in the UK at the moment, Espresso. That song also, something can come along that people are so aware nowadays of just all this stuff happening on bits of TikTok they don't necessarily go on or whatever it is. And then something has the word breakthrough means so much more than it used to in the old days. You know, your breakthrough hit, if you have a breakthrough hit quite atomized and fragmented celebrity culture, you can suddenly be surfaced. So

everyone's like, Oh yeah, no, I heard that song, which also contains one of my favorite lines that keeps making me laugh. I'm working late because I'm a singer. I really enjoy that line. There's something about it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just... She is also, by the way, very good. Espresso is a great song, Please, Please, Please, which is number two this week as well, is also a great song. She is not going anywhere. Her new album is coming out in August and is going to be absolutely massive everywhere in the world. So I would say get used to Sabrina Carpenter. And she dates Barry Kiyogan, who is another of the great new global superstars.

Now people do know him, particularly because he was in Saltburn. The dance of him at the end, many, this obviously was the big viral moment, but that got people actually to go and watch the film. But that's the fascinating thing about when you turn from someone who's big and has done lots of work into someone who is a global superstar, usually it's a thing, usually it's one thing that does it. So Barry Kiergen has been acting brilliantly for many many years, he's unbelievable in the banshees of Inisheirin. So he's absolutely, everyone goes, oh yeah, I know that guy, I know that guy. Salt Burn with the dance, there's a there's a lightning rod and everyone in the world at the same time goes,

that's that guy. It's the guy from the GIF. Exactly, it's the guy from the GIF. Exactly, it's the guy from the GIF. And Sabrina Carpenter is the same in that she came up with a song and then she became famous. She's been working for years and years and years. Suddenly she does the Taylor tour and she releases Espresso at the same time.

Absolutely everything goes off and you've got a global megastar. And that sort of happened for both of them. That's a real power couple. I'm gonna now talk to you about Glenn Powell. Yes, again, I mean, who? Okay, Glenn Powell is sort of, in some of the biggest movies, he is a movie star, I should say, but is he a movie star? Because lots of people don't know who he is. He was

first in Top Gun Maverick, where he played the sort of Iceman analogue, you know, it was almost, everyone was almost identical, including Goose's son, who looked just like Goose. He was the sort of Iceman 2.0 in that movie. I mean, he was quite honest about this. He said he has said in interviews that he could be talking to someone who was wearing a Top Gun Maverick t-shirt and they just wouldn't recognise him. Which is sort of like you've been in a movie that grosses one and a half maybe more billion dollars. Biggest movie of that summer and no one knows who you are. This couldn't have happened in the old days. Can I just say this? Just couldn't have happened. Everyone knew who Val Kilmer was.

Yeah, everyone knew who Val Kilmer was. It couldn't happen, but as I say, it's all much more fragmented, the celebrity culture. He then was in a Sidney Sweeney rom-com called Anyone But You, in a genre that people think is on life support. It was actually R-rated, so it's sort of 18, but people who thought that genre was on life support. It was actually R rated so it's you know it's a sort of 18 but people who thought that genre was on life support it became a big thing. Sydney Sweeney is very very hot because of euphoria and she is very hot as a as a physical being. And she's white lotus. Yeah yeah she was yes and for some reason when they put her in Madame Webb of course they made her unhot that was the

sort of joke she was a nerd like wow Madame Webb you really did get every single thing wrong. Anyway sorry back to back to another drive by a Madam Webby. But that was very TikTok driven, the support for Anyone But You and lots of people went and watched it. He then, Glenn Powell, was in Hitman, which was this Richard Link later film that people thought, oh, this is actually quite good and had a bit of theatrical release. And then he's about to be in a big movie for Universal called Twisters which is... Is it about the ice cream? It's...

Because it is, I'm interested. It's the backstory, it's like air isn't it? No, it's actually the backstory of the crew. How do they make them? Because you've got the raspberry bit in the middle and then you've got lime and vanilla around the outside. Yeah. So it's about how they made the machine to make them.

Yeah, the strog is in Act 3. It's about hurricanes, whatever, we know this. But Glenn Powell is an example of like everyone, I saw him giving an interview when he said, the real benefit of getting to this point in Hollywood is that I can now leave Hollywood. You know, he's one of those actors who's got a ranch in some place in Texas that he wants to go back to because Hollywood's a fake town. It's like, you've got to the point in Hollywood, but also lots of people don't know who you are in Hollywood, but equally you're maybe one of the young, hot movie stars.

It's very, very unclear where exactly you fit Glenn Powell in. He is aware of this himself because I think one of his sort of breakthroughs, we say maybe I'm misusing breakthrough given how I defined it earlier on in this chat. One of his roles was in Expendables 3. Again, nobody knows Glenn Powell was in Expendables 3. With him were like Antonio Banderas,

Harrison Ford and Schwarzenegger. And they all said to him, oh, they told him all about fun stories about being immense movie stars in the 80s and 90s and said, oh man, you're really doing this at the wrong time. And so Glenn Powell knows that movie stars are not the same as they were and they're never going to be again. And so he understands that and he exists in the time of knowing, you know, Glenn Powell is never going to be Harrison Ford. We speak about him because if you're in Hollywood today and you want to know who the stars are,

who can open a movie, everyone is looking for a movie for Glenn Powell or Sidney Sweeney. Those are the two names. If given, we can't get Chalamet. Chalamet is already gone, right? He's already in the ether. Chalamet is already doing it with Warner's. So he's done a deal with them. So Glenn Powell and Sidney Sweeney are the names now that everyone is trying to get in every single movie.

Sidney Sweeney is really fascinating there but I think there's something very interesting about her type of stardom. Sidney Sweeney is someone who it's okay for red state people to love. Now we've talked a lot about Hollywood elites and people always feel like, oh they're saying she will not nail her colors to any mast. People think she's hot, people think she makes jokes about herself, grew up in what people think might be, they're not quite sure but they think she might have, her family might have voted Republican, they're not at all sure. She exists in quite a weird space where she, it's sort of okay to like Sidney Sweeney. I don't want to make it sound like it's like Michael Jordan, you know, Republicans buy sneakers too, but she's a little bit, Republicans find me hot too. And so I'm interested in seeing what she does with that. But she seems great fun. I kind of like her as an actress. I like both of those people. I

like Glenn Powell. I like his presence. I like Sydney Sweeney. One interesting thing, just as a side note on Glenn Powell, that thing of you're seeing sports a lot now, of there was the generation of your Sylvester Stallone's and Tom Cruise's and what have you. They made an awful lot of money but then that drive to just keep making more and more money, have bigger and bigger franchises and just keep that kind of star power going. And the Glenn Pounds of this world, and again as I say you do sit in sport, people who just go do you know what I might just leave it.

I've made an app, if you were in any sort of big movies, five or six big movies, you've got enough money to set you up for life. You don't need to work ever again. What on earth is Harrison Ford doing in Expendables 3? I mean, please someone explain that to me. How much money is enough? This generation are very, very smart at just going, I might just, I've got it. You know, I just bought a ranch. Yeah, I'm quite quitting. Yeah. The reason I bought a ranch is it's really fun to spend some time on a ranch.

I might just do that. I like the fact that this generation are quite good at saying that. I don't believe it for one minute. Glenn Powell wants it more than anyone wants it. Glenn Powell's going to be in Expendables 40 when he's 70. He will be. He wants it a lot. And of course from that very, very last generation of non-AI actors. So these are your last human beings who are going to be stars, which is an interesting one. Books. Now, I've spoken before about books.

People say, oh, it's hard, you know, about books, about it's a hard industry to get into. And I've said, look, all of the biggest names over the last 10 years, pretty much around the world have come from self-publishing. So Colleen Hoover, who's the biggest selling author in the world, absolutely came through self-publishing. Rebecca Yarrow, Sarah J. Mass, all these people who are selling billions upon billions around the world and not people who are sort of plucked from somewhere and sort of given huge star billing. They just wrote books that people really, really liked online and then traditional publishing, bought them in house and they sold even more. And that's happened again this year. There's a huge, huge new name, the biggest selling writer in the world this year. It's called Freedom McFadden. McFadden,, been a long time since we had a big McFadden news. Steve McFadden and Joe McFadden existed at the same time. We've now got Pat McFadden. What about Ryan McFadden? Don't leave out the Westlife. There's a lot of McFadden's around. Pat McFadden who masterminded the Labour

election victory and then we got Freida McFadden. Now Freida McFadden is a... They're all related by the way. They're all part of the same Schoeper's family. Yeah, the McFadden's. Now she is a doctor in Boston and she writes under a pen name, so Freedom McFadden is not her real name. She started writing about 10, 12 years ago. She said, I just quite like to write a book about what my life is like as a doctor. So she's a neurologist, her specialty. She wrote a book about the Devil Wears Scrubs, it was called. She just wanted to write something quite autobiographical about her world. She thought a few people would be interested.

Sold like 2000 copies of this all online. And she went, oh, people seem to quite like it. So she did a few more medical thrillers, again, self-published. She's working as a doctor this entire time and then wrote a book called The Housemaid. This is only a few years ago, called The Housemaid about a woman who's sleeping in her car gets a job with a rich family and there's lots of secrets and psychological thriller essentially. Now The Housemaid is the biggest selling book in the world this year. There's two follow-ups. There's The Housemaid's Secret The Housemaid is Watching. So, Freedom McFadden, now she's with traditional publishers, bought every single one of her back titles and is now releasing them like every three months a new Freedom

McFadden comes out. Have they scrubbed them off the internet? It's a very good question. I assume that they have, yeah. I assume as part of the deal you must do. Three of the top five books on the New York Times bestseller list this week are Freedom McFadden books. She's got three in the UK top 10 as well. So that's a name that you may well have picked up one of her books recently. If you haven't, that's the name that's going to be the biggest author in the world for the next couple of years. And again, it's somebody who just sat down and said, I'm just going to try this and I'll show it to a few people and if people like it and people read it, showed other people,

those people showed other people. And the story of publishing in the last 10 years is that and that alone. And while publishers sort of keep chasing big names or, you know, offering deals to people, the biggest star, the biggest star in the world in literature at the moment will be someone who's writing a blog and who's just writing chapters of something and sending them to a few people. And if you can do it and you're good at it, the whole of the book world is word of mouth. The whole thing is people like it and show it to other people who like it, who show it to other people and like it. It's like pop songs. And Freedom McFadden

is just the latest. We can't keep being taught this example and still throw money at people who are not selling books. You know, time after time after time, it's somebody sitting at home writing something that people love. And that's where all of the money is in publishing. If you'd found Colleen Hoover 10 years ago when she was still, you know, selling things online, you'd be a billionaire now. And the same with whoever picked up on the Freedom McFadden. So that's the place where publishing should be looking. But Freedom McFadden goes alongside Sabrina Carpenter, Glenn Powell and Sidney Sweeney

as superstars you haven't heard of yet, but who are going to be the biggest names in the world. Lots of people we should say, by the way way have heard of these people and we're just being slightly tongue-in-cheek at this point. We are, of course we are. But also can you still get a neurology appointment with her or is she not? Yes, she's still working full-time. The reason she's got a pen name she said because I don't want my patients to be freaked out.

Oh my god, really? It might have gone beyond that, Frieda, to be honest. That's fantastic. You read interviews with her, she just sounds great. God, I'm ashamed of what I've achieved. She's doing all that and... right, okay. She doesn't really like doing your big author interviews, doesn't do live interviews, just the occasional Zoom thing because she wants to stay here. She wants to stay private and she wants to write her books and she wants to, you know, cure people. I think, oh my god, she sounds great. Wow.

So listen, hopefully that's a little bluffers guide. So if any of those names come up, at least, at least we hopefully we've given you something, a little morsel of who these people are. Moving to people who I wish we no longer knew who some of these people were, please place the producer's hat on your head. Yes. And tell me which deposed Tory grandees slash conservative cabinet ministers will now have a media career in some form or other

post their election defenestration. Yeah it's been that truism of you know anyone who gets kicked out who oh they're going to be on Strictly and so I thought I hate it when people say that I know so I'm gonna go through and tell you who who definitely isn't going to be on Strictly. By the way can we start with the fact that the ratings for the elections were quite seriously down on previous years? Which has been and can I say that readership in newspapers of all the election coverage, certainly people I've talked to across all titles, people did not want to read the election coverage. This was very much I think something I know you had to believe that people as the parties had you believe people were deciding up to the very last minute. I don't think

people were really deciding to the very last minute. I don't think people were really deciding till the very last minute. Readership was really down on all that stuff. You have to still do it. You could see the numbers were not great. It may well be because it was a fait accompli and everyone knew the result. And actually people were changing their mind, but the one thing they had made their mind up was, I'm not going to vote for the Conservatives. And so actually the last few days are quite a big movement. Am I going to vote Labour, Green, Lib Dem or Reform? And lots and lots of people were moving.

So who's going to be Portello, essentially is what people want to know. Who's going to go on street view? Or wear a pink blazer and present a train show. I mean, okay. Yeah, but that's a, do you know what? It's a genre. That is one of the greatest things to be in British life,

is the person who gets to wear a blazer and go on trains. I mean, who else do you want to be? Fine, do we have to film it? I'm happy to put them in a blazer and on a train. I mean, who else do you want to be? Do we have to film it? I'm happy to put them in a blazer and on a train. I'll buy them the ticket. But who have I got to watch? Tell me who I've got to watch, because I can already see, by the way,

that Rhys Mogg has got a documentary crew following him for Discovery Plus. Yeah, we'll start with the bad news. Rhys Mogg is going to be a big name. Why do we have, he's got a documentary crew following Discovery Plus, which is obviously like a very fourth tier channel. I also feel like, come on, it's like, you know, tell me again what happened to Batman's parents.

I already know this story. I know it all. I don't think he's ever going to be able to go on Strictly or I'm a Slave or any of the big ones. He will find a way to be rehabilitated as a character on British television because he has various different sides to him which have not come out. And so he's got a couple of years in play for him. But yeah, I think that is the reason why he is not going to be on Strictly. He is not going to be on I'm a Celebrity.

Which Tories are going to be on Strictly? None of them, I would say. It's not one of those fun things where it's, oh, you know, someone lost an election and a new party going. There is such a visceral dislike for what the Conservative Party have done in the last few years and how they've run the country and the culture wars, all that kind of stuff. We could see what was happening. Even in a show that, as we discussed on this, with that great more in common research, does

skew more Tory than any other show. Even then they won't put one on. It's an absolutely busted brand. The only person who might have any chance at all this go Because he got out early and because he's slightly stood aside from it So maybe he's got a chance, but I think go wants to do something slightly more intellectual So I think he might be a man on a train in a blazer or whatever the version of that is But I don't think there will be any Tories on strictly. I doubt that very much

You might get Harriet Harmon Maybe Theresa May if she wanted to do it some of the ones that weren't quite in the toxicity of the last few years where they- We know she likes dancing. We know she's a mover. So I'm a celebrity, so I'm a celebrity, who will they go for? I think they're quite nervy about political workings, but- The Faraj thing, it didn't make the show better, but it was something. Gove as well, they might try and book for I'm a Celebrity. The person they will get for I'm a Celebrity and who will do it, I think, is Johnny Mercer,

ex-army. I don't think he likes to talk about it. But you know, and he's done reality shows before we did reality. He did Celebrity Hunted with Kay Burley. So I think that- That was a fantastic- Oh my god. That was chaos. I mean, yeah, you're right. He has the potential to be chaos. Yeah.

I remember being in the control room of Hunted when that was on and when Capo and Johnny Mercer were sort of... They took it quite seriously. By the way, can I just say that these people want to get back. They want to be reselected for another seat when it becomes available. And part of the way of keeping them in the public eye is doing things like this. And I'm sure there's one particular that I'm sure you'll get along to. Oh, who's that?

I was thinking you might talk about Penny Mordent. See, Mordent is very, very interesting. So Mordent, she's done reality shows before, she did Splash. Now she, as you say, definitively want to get back into Parliament. So she is not going to do Strictly, I wouldn't have thought. She'd love to. That would be a great way back in. I don't think so. She won't get it. But here's what happens with Strictly, because it's what happened to do Strictly, I wouldn't have thought. She'd love to. That would be a great way back in. I don't think so.

Because she won't get it. But here's what happens with Strictly, because it's what happened to Ed Balls. So Ed Balls lost his seat, again, a very similar election. Ed Balls would have wanted to get back in. He does Strictly and he thinks, wait a minute, more people are listening to me, more people are interested in me. I'm getting paid more money just by being on television than I ever had in parliament. Why on earth would I go back into parliament? So I think Strictly actually makes you think I'm never going to go back into parliament.

I don't think there's a route back in, I would say. But I think she really does want to get back into parliament. And she, by the way, has spent such a long time visiting people, what used to be called the rubber chicken circuit, all the other, that she's almost ready, please select me in any of the many constituencies I've visited over the past year. So, Mordent podcast. Because it's hard to work it. So, we know the thing about political podcasts is you have to have people from different sides of the aisle. Okay? You have to have a Tory and a Labour. And that's very, very, very hard to do now because none of the Labour

people have lost their jobs. You know, unless you like Fangan Debener and Jonathan Ashworth and that's it and they're not moving the podcast, I don't. So Penny Morden has got to find again Morden and Harmon. Is that a thing? Is that anything? Is this anything? The biggest celebrity show of next year is a new show. So forget Strictly and forget I'm a celebrity. The biggest, biggest event celebrity show of next year is going to be Celebrity Traitors. There really is some business to be done if you're an extorti MP because one of the great things about traitors Especially celebrity one is you need people who are archetypes you only you need people who we? Automatically distrust conservative MPs actors, you know the type and so there will be spaces up for grabs there

And if I was so let's rate as if I if I was running the celebrities and I'm not quoting It's interesting for some traders. I mean, I'd love to say it if I was running with Celeb Traders and I'm not, Kua Teng is interested for Celeb Traders. I mean I'd love to see it. I don't think he wouldn't do it. He won't have watched the show and also he would just think he would be brilliant at it. But that's why you're leaving a weak one. But that's why they book him. Yeah, but he won't do it. People with lack of self-knowledge, absolutely nailed on, guaranteed. I think we'll probably do it because what else is he going to do?

Probably not quite as toxic as some of the others, would be a perfect fit for it, Grant Schapps. Oh my god, he would be very good. I said what Gove would be brilliant. I mean, he's never met anyone he hasn't wanted to betray, so that would be good. Actually having said that, this is going to be one of my recommendations, but let me just chuck it in right now because I want to talk about US traitors, which has John Berko on it. One of the things I'm enjoying about the show, the US traitors, which you

can now see on iPlayer. It's really good. It's really good, partly because the faithful have become slightly sentient, worked out certain things they can do. Game playing is advancing, as we always said, once people get to know the game more, they can think of strategies that we won't have seen on the show before. What I like about it is that John Burko, our former speaker of the House of Commons, is in it and he's an absolute nobody in it. Like, he should have been in our politics.

He's finally met some people who were bigger bullies than him, notably the Housewives contingent. I also like the way they're talking about, I hadn't realised, all the different real Housewives, because everyone, by the way, on the US edition of this show is a celebrity. Well, they're all sorts of reality stars. They're all reality stars. And people have been in shows that involve some tactics as sort of game show people. So it's quite an interesting bunch. Yes, it is.

The Real Housewives franchise, which has obviously got them in many, many different US cities. What I kind of like is that people have already decided that they vote as a sort of sectarian bloc, which I find the way they're talking about them is like, yeah, don't betray my housewives or you're just acting with your housewives. So yes, we're seeing the sectarian voting in traders and other formats. But yeah, but it is genuinely as you say, because I would like let us never ever speak the name again of Australian Traders Series 2, Traders Series ever, where it was The Franchise Killer. Yeah, you've got people who are used to being in shows and who understand the tactics behind

it. So it's really properly interesting. It's not one of those ones where it's just a landslide every week for the person who goes, oh, it must be that person because they just accidentally said they were a traitor. But yeah, I would have thought Celebrity Traitors would be a great home for one of the less toxic of the Tories. So absolutely. So I've got Mercer in, I'm a celebrity. I've got the less toxic of the Tories. Absolutely. So I've got Mercer in, I'm a celebrity, I've got Shaps in celebrity traders, I've got no

one in Strictly. But Gove is the ultimate celebrity trader, just book him. But would he do it? I think he is going to want to be... Catch him at the right time of day, you might. Then you have of course GB News. Weirdly, a channel like GB News should work much better in opposition. Yes, but they have set themselves up as an opposition already but when they were in power and so it's quite hard to know what their next chess move is.

There are lots of people they've got a short term move, which is that they can be the future of the party is discussed is discussed and they can you know give Suella a show which is obviously going to happen. But apart from that... Well certainly if she'd lost, yeah, I think she would have been on it. I think she would do it. I think she'd do one now anyway. Why wouldn't you? Do you think? Well why wouldn't she have done it before? Because she was waiting to see. There's no need to do it before. Now she'll do it.

So those are my recommendations. There's either chaps on Celebrity Traitors, Johnny Mercer on I'm a Celeb, no one on Strictly. The breakout star of the election is someone who could be on any television show he wants to. I'd have chaps on Celebrity Traitors, Johnny Mercer on I'm a Celeb, no one on Strictly. The breakout star of the election, someone who could be on any television show he wants to and have any career he wants to from here on in is Ed Davey. Connected with the public in such an interesting way and the way you really connect with the public is everybody individually by themselves thinks, oh I like that person or they've spotted, everyone thinks they've spotted like a personality trait in someone. A large

proportion of the British public all at the same time have gone, oh I quite like that Ed Davey guy and again whatever has happened in politics people tend to forget and don't care about but if they have been exposed to somebody like the cut of their jib then that person can essentially write a check for the rest of the life. So Ed Balls can be on TV for the rest of their jib, then that person can essentially write a check for the rest of their life. So Ed Balls can be on TV for the rest of his life now because there's something about him that people like. Portillo, again, whatever his political past is, there's something about him that people go, I'm happy to watch you on TV. And Ed Davey, I know he's now got a lot on his hands, he's got an awful lot of

MPs. As and when Ed decides to hang up his political spurs, the first name on strictly his list if he ever gave up and that's what you need, just someone that the public connects with. Shall we do some recommendations? We've already recommended US Traders. Yes, both of us recommended that or no, neither of us have finished it, I don't think. I would really like to recommend the Barbie exhibition that opened on Friday, which is at the Design Museum in Kensington in London. It's really well done. I thought it was absolutely brilliantly done. If you had Barbies when you were younger then you will love to see some of the dolls but it's really brilliant. It's much more clever than that. It's done as a sort of design story

and there's so much sort of old footage of how the doll was advertised. All the many different heads and how they get the different the the X-rays of the doll. There's so many interesting things. And just about the iconography and how she's fitted into the culture, it's really fascinating and they have lots and lots of stuff and many dream houses, me and my sisters asked for dream houses every year and never got them.

But which my mother quite rightly worked at that us building our own houses took much longer to do. And therefore, each time and therefore the game lasted longer and probably kept us out of our hair for longer. I think it goes through till next February but it's really worth going to see. It's very interesting as a design story and as a sort of product story which I know makes it sound more boring than it is but it isn't, it's fascinating. And it's a perfect summer holiday thing for the kids as well.

The other thing is, again it's not a recommendation, but I think next week we both want to talk about Beverly Hills Cop Four, which we haven't watched yet. So I think we're both gonna watch it. So if you wanna watch it as well, and we'll have a chatter, cause that's a big iconic thing. It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix.

It did not get theatrical release. Right now. Do you want the final, final, final bits of Thursday in Miracle Casting News? Yes, please. I'm literally heading down there after this, as you know, heading down to Shepperton to the filming. The wonderful Sarah Niles from Ted Lasso in I May Destroy You is in it. She's Patrice. Richelieu Grant has just been cast in it as a baddie. And

my lovely lady wife Ingrid is also in it as Joyce's daughter. Oh, that's brilliant. Not my idea, I have to say, but Chris Columbus's idea, not mine. You did everything to stand in her way. I said, are you sure? That's pretty much, we pretty much got the whole cast, there's other people, but it's filming right now

and I'm gonna go down now and take some shots as well, which I'll put on the old socials. Oh, please do. I think that's us done, is it? That is us done. Yeah, what fun. Will you please join us again on Thursday for the questions and answers. The address is therestisentertainmentatgmail.com and we would love to hear from you. We'll see you then.

Take care, bye bye. The end.