The Rest Is Entertainment - Who Is The Most Powerful Person In Hollywood?

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

How does the world of red carpet jewellery work, and why has Margot Robbie been sporting bracelets made of human hair? Who won the Disney succession battle? And do stand-ups actually enjoy crowd work? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer your questions about celebrity jewels, Hollywood hierarchies and Richard's favourite font. The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: James Clayton Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Octopus Energy. Some people in the entertainment industry are successful, but a much, much smaller number are genuinely admired. I was trying to think in TV, who everyone likes. I mean, Attenborough. In movies, Julia, Merrill, you will not hear a bad word said about any of those people. There are actually very few that no one is rude about behind their back,

but those two are certainly two of them. Can I tell you about a company that no one is rude about behind their back and that people admire? Would it shock you to learn? It is our friends at Octopus Energy. Octopus Energy has ended up being named Britain's most admired company, 2025. That's nice. That's really nice, isn't it? I'm sure companies are like Hollywood, just absolutely vicious behind each other's backs.

But to actually be elected, most admired, it's pretty good. All the other companies just sitting around going, should I tell you I met the other day? Octopus Energy, actually, you know what? lovely bunch really really lovely bunch all of them the most admired company in the UK 2025 which is why we're very very happy that they are our our sponsors hello and welcome to this episode of the resters entertainment questions and answers edition I'm marina hi and I'm Richard osman ready for some questions I'm really ready for some hit me with one ready for some answers listeners I'm not ready to answer I'm just listening for the listeners saying yes we're ready for some answers yeah and they are it's mixed it's

Some are, some art. Mia G has a question for you, Marina. The famous rapper Mia G. She says Margot Robbie was photographed wearing the late Elizabeth Taylor's Taj Mahal diamond necklace worth $8 million on the red carpet of Wuthering Heights. It was apparently on loan from the estate. How does the world of red carpet jewelry work and how do you go about ensuring that? Oh, well, you can imagine I'm really into this question. It's a loan system, obviously.

and it's pretty high stakes because these things are worth a lot of money. First of all, I'll talk a tiny little bit about how they did this because Margot Robby's got a very distinctive way that she kind of honed with her stylist who does a guy called Andrew McCommel. And they started it on Barbie and she, I think they call it method dressing. So for Wuthering Heights, the fashion has become a huge part of how she promotes. If you think of all the Barbie things that she went all the way around the world and they had a premiere everywhere and she had a different amazing pink outfit for all of that.

And is that the idea also that Timothy Sanamay, when he's always wearing orange for Marti Supreme and everything? He is becoming because he's kind of immersive promotion, method dressing, they call it. Anyway, they even did a coffee table book of all her Barbie looks. It's called it something like Barbie the World Tour. Anyway, so Andrew McCammer, he's a brilliant stylist, but he works with her, he does lots of different people like Zoe Kravitz, Haley Bieber. He works with Margot Robbie on these big tours for her movies. And he posts them all. So there's times like where she's wearing a feathered Victoria Beckham dress and he's posted a bit of text from the original Wuthering Heights where Kathy sort of ends up biting her pillow and the feathers come out and she layers, you know, so it's all got this whole backstory to it.

But for the world premiere in LA, yes, she was wearing a chaparelli dress, a custom chaparelli dress and this Taj Mahal diamond, which is a heart-shaped diamond inscribed. This is a bit for our colleagues on Empire. It's inscribed with the name of a Mughal Empress. It was given by Shah Jahan, which Willie Darlanepool can do your huge book about. And it says love is everlasting on it. And it was given by Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor for her 40th birthday in 172. How do you inscribe a diamond? I thought they were famously... Because the way it's set, it's set in a, you know, it has to be set in metal.

And it's set in gold and glove. So they were ascribed it out. Yeah. They didn't write on the diamond. So, yeah. If I was Elizabeth Taylor, I'd have gone inscribe it on the diamond. Oh, you can be sure they would have been having it around within about 14 minutes. about getting that, but he bought him 14 minutes, let's put it that way. And there's obviously

some talk about the kind of cultural appropriation of all of these things and the cultural politics of it all. But anyway, she wore it differently, Margot, Robbie. Like Elizabeth Taylor wore much more like a medallion. She has it like up here like a choker. That was worth a lot of money and we'll get to the expensive jewels in a minute and what happens with all those. The other thing she did was she wore a replica of a bronze team. She had this amazing dress that was all made out of, if you look really closely, it was all sort of weirdly corseted, but it was kind of the seams were made of hair or pretend hair braided. The bracelet she wore is a replica of Charlotte Bronte's morning bracelet,

which had Emily and Anne Bronte's hair in. And the real one is kept at the Bronte Museum, the Bronte Parsonage Museum. And they wanted to borrow it, but it was just too delicate. So they asked if they could borrow it to have a replica made. And an amazing sort of Yorkshire Heritage Weaving Company has made one. That's so cool. And then, of course, the director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. Museum gets to talk to the press and, you know, so it's really wonderful how these kind of thing,

and you can see the level of detail and thought that goes into all of these kind of particular outfits. Okay, let's get back to the jewels. Why do jewelry houses lend these things? Obviously, they do it for marketing. So there are lots of, you know, lots of different ones, Lorraine Schwartz, Cartiery Chopin, Tiffany, Harry Winston, all the sort of big people. A stylist have a relationship with them.

and also some stars have ambassador deals and then you have to wear that particular house so some people might be an ambassador for Tiffany in which case you're always going to be wearing Tiffany things that's a hell of a gig isn't it? It is yeah you know you've got the Oscars coming up and what they kind of do a lot of the big houses

is think okay well I'm not going to commit to anything before we see who's nominated because if you're not nominated and you miss out so they bring out the big guns for the big guns so when Lady Gaga was nominated in 2019 she was wearing a huge huge 128-carat yellow diamond. And the only other time that thing has been seen in public

was on the, was on Audrey Hepburn during the press photos for breakfast at Tiffany's. Yeah, she was 58 years before. So how much stuff do they have in their vaults? It's just saying. It's literally they've just got that in their vaults. And that hasn't been seen in public for 58 years. But they wouldn't set it.

Isn't it? Well, that's the thing. As I told you, it's for marketing. and before then I think the most expensive thing that had been out on the red carpet was Gloria Stewart who played the very old version of Kate Winslet in Titanic she had a $20 million necklace on for that which was not, which we had a blue dark thing on

but it wasn't the same as the one in the movie anyway she didn't win she was up for best supporting but the logistics of it all is huge every single one of those things that gets lent has its own security guards, arm security guards that are not allowed, it is put on the last thing when you've done all the makeup, all of everything, it's put on from that moment,

the security guard always has sight on them. So a huge part of the red carpet, which by the way, one time if you ever see what a red carpet looks like, you kind of have the idea that it's a little bit of an entrance way to something. It is vast, there's this huge, huge geographical area. And the guy who is the security guard, or in some cases multiple security guards for what you're wearing, is watching you the whole time.

and if you win and you go to the party and you're still wearing it, they come to the party with you and they're around the whole time. If I was a security card, I'll go, no, keep it on. Yeah. Are you going to Elton John's party? Keep it on, honestly, keep it on. It's fine. No, honestly, I'm right behind you.

Yeah. But you have to get temporary insurance for them. And sometimes even the temporary insurance can go into six figures because these things are worth so much money. And you can see that the night is to some extent, whilst very controlled, also mildly chaotic. So I guess what you're saying is, what is the point? does it translate into sales?

Yes. Are there enough high-end clients out there who are not famous who see, I don't know, Charlize or Julia Moore or someone wearing an amazing thing? And the answer is yes. First of all, very occasionally someone connected with the star who wore it, we'll buy it. The necklace that Gwyneth Paltrow was wearing

when she got the Oscar for Shakespeare in love, her father, Bruce Paltrow then bought for her. Wow. But people often try to buy the piece that they have seen on the red carpet and they will know it's, you know, because all the designers and the stylist tag who it is and they'll think, that's Tiffany and then a week later it will sell to a private client. It is extraordinary. But as you say, to have the idea that there are just like random $20 million, $30 million necklaces sitting in vaults that you don't see for

six decades at a time, there is a huge amount of it and it does all sell to private clients and it's used as a massive marketing thing. So who owns the Taj Mahal? We don't know. An anonymous person who wanted a bite. As I say, there's a lot of very, very private high-owned clients out there who owns the Taj Mahal diamond, but has lent it for use in these circumstances. It's a little bit like having an amazing art painting and lending it to a museum when they have a sort of retrospective show of whoever it is. Well, firstly, you love it and you want people to see it, but secondly, the value goes up. Yeah, maybe.

It becomes, the iconography, it's further invested with something. But yeah, it's a huge business for all of the jewelry houses. And it's kind of, along with like the MetGarler and things like that, these are the times when you see this sort of jewelry on people at all. Because otherwise, it's culturally worn by people who don't go on red carpets. My only two experiences really with security guards in the world of entertainment. Well, firstly, whenever they bring the FAA Cup anywhere, there's always a security guard. But then when we did a million pound drop,

and part of that was we really had a million pound in the studio. the money was real and that was just pretty you know because any studio day you always think about oh they would do that and then the contestants are turning up and we'll rehearse in the afternoon and then question cards and then you know would do you know the computer stuff and just make sure that's all working but that one was also oh don't forget the armed guards have got to leave with a in the armored truck at 415 and then they turn up here but they're just these guys before guys they were armed were with the money at all times that was I was going to say stressful, but actually it was cool.

It was exciting. Yeah, it was really, really great. And you absolutely didn't need it to be real money, but there's something that it made it much more fun. Yes. But it really was, that you literally put a million pound in front of people. But yeah, the logistics on that were more complicated than you might imagine. Come on, just give us a million.

Just give us a million quid. Come on. No one's going to steal it. A question from Mari about gladiators. Do they do do doping checks on? Are we talking about the new gladiators or the old one? Let's talk about the new one. Yes, they do.

They absolutely have to. You know, that show is a BBC show. It's a BBC show. It's incredibly family-focused as well. And there have been, I know, giant who's on that show, I know he'd admitted previously in the past that he'd taken performing enhancing drugs. There's a lot of people in the worlds of, you know, weightlifting and bodybuilding. You know, there's a thin membrane between.

He's done some videos, I reckon. He did some videos and he said, if you take these, you'll get masses of gains right back in a long time before. And obviously he hadn't removed them from wherever he posted them. Exactly. And the BBC of stood by and because he gets tested all the time. So he's not doing them now. And the contestants do as well. And the contestants are absolutely dope tested too.

So, yeah, it's back in the early days of American gladiators. Again, that documentary about the very early days of American Gladiators is brilliant. It's amazing. I would say eye opening. There isn't a drug that they didn't take. I mean, yeah, there really, really wasn't. Doesn't have to be performance enhancing. But, you know, I can exclusively reveal to everyone who is at the Royal Albert Hall

to see our Christmas show that when Nitro was carrying Marina on his shoulders, it was done entirely naturally. That's why he's out for the next season. Exactly. I mean, you were absolutely out of your mind on everything. Yeah. But Nitro. I was high in Nitro.

Clean as a whistle. So, yeah, they, they, they, they, They are tested, as you say, the contestants are contested. And you couldn't not these days. You know, we live in a world in which you have to be squeaky clean on that show. But it does, I mean, Nitro, you've seen him up close. And I've seen a few of those gladiators up close now. Giant, famously, shorter than me.

That's the stack that comes up every time he to turn down towards the camera. He looks amazing, doesn't he? Nitro. Is that the word? Oh, Nitro, yes. Sculpted. Yeah. Sculpted.

Yeah. Well, you saw one strictly. I mean, yeah, it's extraordinary. But, yeah. We've had a few gladiators on House of Games. And on there, we always drug test. And I would say they're pretty much the only people to pass. Yeah.

Right. On that bombshell, let us go to a break. Yeah. And we have a question about stand-up in the second half, which the lovely John Bishop has answered for us as well. Welcome back, everyone. This is a proper business of entertainment question from Reese Matthews for you, Marina. With Josh DeMorrow winning the Succession Battle at Disney,

where does this put him on the Hollywood Power Ranking? Who are the most powerful people in the industry now? Ah, okay, that's a very good question. I think I said on this podcast that I thought he would win it. Well done. And he's the guy who, they had four people come from four different parts of the business, but he was the guy who runs part. parks, which is, by the way, as we've seen just from, I think it was last week, they had another

sort of earnings call. Disney make the vast amount of their profit off from parks. And you can't have parks without the entertainment business to back it up. One of those four candidates, by the way, I thought was interesting, was animated, right? Which absolutely makes sense. That's who I would have given it to. Jimmy Pitaro is just, the ESPN guys, just like an little avatar. But the parks makes up like 3.3 billion profit and entertainment. All of the Disney entertainment makes 1.1 billion profit. So the vast majority of their operating income. I'm just going to do this as a top three. You've got three phones that are ringing and you can see who each of them are.

Oh, that's clever. Who's called you tape fast? Okay. This is controversial. In some ways, why are you not putting them at one? But at three, I'm going to put Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube. Oh, yeah. And YouTube are regarded as such outsiders, I think maybe he's number three in terms of

who's called you tape because what are they really giving you? It's almost like they exist. They exist in a world. This is why Hollywood is so scared of them because even Netflix, they think, this I understand, but they cannot, they've got this kind of remote thing that's just creeping up and eating everybody's lunch,

so they don't know quite what to do with. So he's going to be the richest guy ringing you, but maybe he doesn't have the most opportunities for you. Two is Josh DeMorrow from Disney. Yeah. And number one is Ted Sarandos. You're taking his call first. He's become, he's the entertainment guy

they think they understand better than this, than the YouTube guy who they're, I'm really scared by. But yes, I think number one, that's the call you take. It's Ted Sarandos. So if it was to ring you, what would be... I would say, Richard's really sorry about the way we roasted you because we didn't realize you were in the room still when we did it at that conference.

It's amazing. But I'm not. But I'm not sorry, Ted. Yeah, I do it again. I do it again right now. In fact, I'll do it for you right now. Here's a nice one on crowd work from Nadine Johnson. She says, how do comedians pick audience members to speak to you when performing crowdwork?

are there immediate red flags for stand-ups when looking across the front row that they know not to pick on? How do you think Nadine Johnson, thank you for your question, Nadine, felt when Nadine Dorees and Boris Johnson were absolutely at the forefront of news? It'd be like now being called Melania Epstein. Do you know what I mean? There must be one out there. There must be one out there. Nadine, thank you so much for your question. And I'm glad that Nadine Dories and Boris Johnson have faded from the scene a little bit.

To answer this question, we asked our old friend John Bishop. Well, Nadine, the thing is stand-up is now on social media, people think that's all stand-up is. It's all into people in the front row. And it's not, it's a, to be honest with it, it's a bit of a contrivance and it's a bit of a trick because most comedians, you start doing open spots and then someone gives you a job to be the compere,

and the compere you do it because that gives you more time on stage. but the compere's job is to set up the room so you talk to people in the room to get them settled and to get them focused on the acts that are coming and so often the compere would be the person with the least amount of jokes

as it were, the least amounts of material but would work with the audience and it's now it's a thing that people clip up on social media and so people think oh that's part of every comedy show the hardest part of comedy is writing a joke it's not hard to see to someone on the front row

you're a dickhead and that shirt's shit and look at that air cuss that's not hard and so what you do as a comedian you walk on if you've got a front row within a venue you might pick on someone to settle them down because they look agitated they look like the one who is likely to ruin it

for the comics coming on so you might do that you might pick on someone because it's obvious You know, you've got a guy on the front row who's 6'12. Everyone can see 6'412. It's obvious, so you might say something to him. But the reality is it just becomes an unlearned skill in the fact that, when I say an unlearned skill, a skill that you can't teach unless you do it. You just do it.

You just be able to see who to talk to. The red flag are the people who don't laugh. so you walk on stage and you'll see some people and there'll be some people clapping some not clapping some people you say something they laugh and the face

doesn't crack not everyone you're going to remember not everyone in a comedy club wanted to go not everyone people don't buy their own individual tickets some of them went because the person they live with

wanted to go and because they like sex they've gone that's the deal they've gone well if you want to go I'll go because it's what you want to do

And some of them sat there So if they're not laughing And they're not looking like they're enjoying it You don't chat to them Because what's the point? I've done that by the way I have done that where I've cracked somebody On the front row

Who's not been laughing I'm going, what is wrong with you What is wrong with you? And then they say my mum's just died And then you go Oh wow Now that's killed the gig, on it Thank you so much John

And funny enough If you recommended a movie That's based on his life story, is this on? It reminds me actually a lot of parenting. Everything he was saying there also applies to parenting multiple children. I don't want to say it's deciding which one to pick on. It's deciding which one to single out, sometimes for praise, sometimes for something different. Marina, Vince Melia has a question for you. Marina, who would be your dream narrator for your forthcoming book in audio form? That's good because you get a chance to talk about your book. Vince says,

I vote for Glenn Powell. Well, he could do it, like I would say. He could do. Could he do the voice? I'm actually doing it myself, which I didn't do for my last book. It's a book of columns, right? Yeah. What's the time to be alive, Richard? It's coming out in September. Your previous book was a book of columns and you got someone else to read it. Yeah, because I did the introduction, but I just thought, oh, I'd be so bad.

This is really weird. It's before I did this podcast. And I thought, I just couldn't do that. I couldn't, you know. And actually now. Look at you now. Because I talk out loud on this podcast all the time. I thought, I can do it.

I have to do it in an order. Oh, you're doing that in another top three? Yeah, I can't stop doing it now. If this ends as well with Ted Sarandars, he's got going, right, I get it. He was great in the studio. All right. Number three, Connerstory. He's the Russian. He just want him to do all the things connected with my work for me. That'd be cool. How do you think he'd be with some of the references to like Paula Venals and stuff like that? He could, listen, look at the Russian accent. He can do anything. He can do anything. He can do anything.

Catherine Hahn, the marketing psycho from the studio. But I want her to play her, Catherine Horn as that character in the studio, who is an un... But it would be so remorseless all my columns read in that voice. That's how I read your columns. Yeah, I hope so. She's my internal monologue. And this is so niche my number one,

but I just, I love it so much. If you've, you probably saw it this last year, but it's so funny on TikTok or either on YouTube. Sydney Joe Robertson, the group chat, and she plays all the seven girls in a group chat. It's hysterical. Oh, we haven't seen that. Oh, my God, it's so good.

Okay, I want to be the, one who is always throwing open the door of her roommate's room, and she begins almost all of the episodes, because it's just like, what the hell? She's brilliant. The whole series is brilliant if you haven't seen it. What she called again? Sydney Joe Robinson.

Sydney Joe Robertson. And I just feel that that particular one of all the girls she plays has the vibe of like, what the hell has just happened that I think would be good for voicing my book. What a time to be alive. That's an amazing recommendation, though, because now anyone who has not seen that has to watch it because they want to hear who you're talking about.

There's more seasons of it. And each episode is like two minutes. It's so good. She worked on it for a long time when she did it. She worked on it for maybe a year. And it's just those people who think that those kind of videos are kind of dashed off. It's so well done. It's so well written.

And it's just hysterical. That's like, do I recommend that guy Tommy Stewart, who does the, if recreational golfers did press conferences. You have a recommend it. So please recommend. Yeah. That's amazing. It's just like a weekend golfer talking to journalists as if he was, you know, Tiger Woods.

It's very, very funny. It's such a good thing. Yeah, yeah. It's really good. Okay, very good. Question for you, Richard, about the highly contentious subject of fonts. Luciana says, Richard, what font are your books in? Do you get a choice and have you considered requesting a more accessible font for people with eyesight problems?

It's a very good question. First, it is in Garamond, which is the Garamond. Yeah, I mean, fine. They're like nail polish colours But although those are always slightly better I've also got my hallway done in Garamond as well And that's the Penguin Random House font But they do show you

You know, galley proofs and all those things beforehand And as I'm sure you know I've visual difficulties And I've always been comfortable with Garamond They showed it to me They show me other fonts Yeah, pit your battles But I also you know

None of them are particularly more useful than any of the others for me. But so I always make sure there are large print versions of all the books as well in all the different territories. That's important to me. That's why I listen to a lot of audio books anyway and I know exactly what you mean some fonts. It's the size of font really, but Garamond is sort of fine for me. I'll say that in America they use Adobe Jensen Pro. That's the fonts. They make everything so poetic. Yeah, don't they just? But yeah, So I always make sure every territory there is a large print copy as well, last print version.

I was at a friend's house the other day and they had, they'd accidentally bought the large print version and we were all passing it around going, oh my God, this is great, because we're all in our 50s. Yes. And we can't see anything. Everyone's coming towards me now. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Now nobody can see.

And I'm like, yeah, this is what it's been like for my whole life. So, yeah, if I wanted a different font, I could definitely ask for a different font, but Garamond is chosen because it's fairly clear to read. And if you do find it difficult, there is a large print version available as well. That about wraps us up. We will be back tomorrow for our members with a bonus episode about Hollywood's worst couples. Yes, worst, weirdest, best, all sorts of things, lots of great stories in there. For everyone else, though, we will see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.