This Had Oscar Buzz - 139 – Carnage

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

After becoming a Broadway sensation, landing the Tony Award for Best Play and lead acting nominations for each member of its acting quartet (including a win for Marcia Gay Harden), Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage looked primed to become yet another stage-to-screen adaptation with Oscar in its sights. But when the movie version arrived, it eschewed the … Continue reading "139 – Carnage"

This episode is supported in part by Gateway Film Center, a non-profit cinema committed to supporting storytellers. Authentic stories can inspire new ideas, entertain, push boundaries, spark new levels of empathy, and advanced social change. To learn more about their program and plan your visit for award season weekend, please visit gatewayfilmcenter.org. Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Heck. I'm from Canada water Your son is a maniac

Zachary is not a maniac Yes he is Alan, Alan, why are you saying that? He's a maniac. What about you can hear me now? You better watch. They're both horrible. What the hell are we doing here?

I hope you're kidding. You think my son is a snitch? I don't think anything. Well, if you don't think anything, don't say anything. I'm sick to death of it. We were nice to you. We bought tulips. You know, my wife dressed me up as a liberal.

Yeah. Nanjur, what are you? There. Oh, my God. Where to go! You killed that hamster. What you did to that hamster was wrong. You can't enact.

You're blowing this all out of proportion! Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that knows that Jude Law is one of our finest actors. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my little apples and pears cobbler, Chris File. Hello, Chris. Good morning, Joe.

Very excited to be here today. Correct me if I'm wrong. This is our first sequel we've ever done, right? We are, of course, talking about the Venom sequel today. Carnage, yes. Oh, did I watch the wrong movie? Yes, you watched the wrong movie. You got your advanced, advanced screener to, is that what the second Venom movie is called, Carnage?

I think it's Let There Be Carnage. Oh, my God. I can't wait for the goddamn Venom sequel. I cannot even tell you. Bigger fish tanks. More weird sexual vibes between Tom Hardy and himself. It's just, yes, Venom, let there be carnage.

I was so angry at the Venom movie originally, and I feel like I could come around on it. I think you could. I think you could. Because I have no concept right now of why I was so mad about it other than that

I remember it looking terrible. I mean, it looks grody, but I don't know if I would say it looks terrible. I feel like I'm going to, I would maybe draw a line between that. But the bottom line here is I have no choice but to revisit the movie. Right. Well, now that you've seen the second one, you want to go back and see what all the fuss was about.

Yes, I, on the other hand, watched the film we were assigned, which is 2011's Carnage, based on the play God of Carnage, which in France is called Le Dieu de Carnage, which... The movie is really just the peasant of Carnage, comparative play. Yeah, I mean, have you ever... Not even a feudal lord of carnage. Have you ever seen a movie based on something that you like

that makes you question why you liked the original thing in the first place? Like, that's sort of what this movie did for me is I really, really loved the experience of watching God of Carnage in the theater. I saw it with the original Broadway cast. I just actually looked up in my Gmail to find out when I saw it. I saw it in October of 2009, so it was after the Tonys, which I would have sworn I had seen it before the Tonys. And then after they had extended it into 2010, so they let the original cast off for like a month or two to just go and like whatever, fulfill whatever contractual obligations they had to their other projects. And then they came back at the beginning of the fall.

And that's when I saw the original cast. and it was Marsha Gay Harden, James Gandalfini, Jeff Daniels, and Hope Davis will definitely get into it because you also saw that cast, yes? I did. Amazing.

Just like, I mean, without even, like, getting into the movie, because it's like all of the things that the movie just really fails at. What a fucking fun night of theater that, like,

you could absolutely, like, mine it for any more depth than, you are just watching this really fun farce or you could just enjoy the farce of it with like four really great performances, each of them really like working in tandem together

and the film version is very much not fun and kind of anti-fun and works against itself and we'll get into what we think of the individual performances because I think of a movie like this is very much about the performances. That's really, you don't adapt a single act, single set play like God of Carnage

for any other reason than we can cast, you know, we can let four, you know, big Hollywood actors do their thing, which I think is odd. Well, all right, let's just get into this part here. It's so strange to me that if you're going to adapt God of Carnage, you wouldn't just let the original cast do what they do because they're already movie stars. They're not the biggest movie stars. They're not like the A of the A list, but like Marcia A Hardin has an Oscar. James Gandelfini is the biggest star, like the best actor on television of his entire like generation. Jeff Daniels is a bona fide like film actor. And Hope Davis is an indie movie star. And like the movie made two and a half million dollars domestic anyway. So like I don't understand what making,

putting a list actors did for it. Box office. wise. And if you're going to then recast this cast of phenomenal film-ready actors, it better work, and it doesn't. Like, I would say three-fourths of it really doesn't. I don't think you can blame it for, like, a shift, an intentional shift in tone in the movie because, like, I don't think it's really going for that so much as it is just, like, floundering in all of the characterizations and like the really missing the mark

in the like interplay and the inner dynamics between the four performers on top of like textual stuff that I think that the movie just gets wrong that we can get into but I think the weakness of the performances by and large in the film to me

pointed out weaknesses in the script that I didn't linger on in the play because the acting in the play was so good and the pacing in the play was so good and the pacing in the play play was so good. That's the other thing, is the play is this, like, everything's, everybody's moving. The set is change in colors. You know what I mean? Like it's, there's, there's just a kinetic energy to all of it, a sort of, you know, at times, farcical mania to what's happening

with these, these characters as this argument escalates. And there's no time often to linger on the, you know, some questions or deficiencies or, like, irksome tones or, you know, irksome ideas in Yesmina Reza's play. And then you watch the film. And when the actors are not doing that work to really entertain you that way, and when the pacing is a good bit slower, you really have time to linger on that stuff. It's like, to put it in reductive, uh, metaphorical terms of like, I guess, modes of transportation, when you're, watching the show, it's a roller coaster. Even when, like, it breaks for these long audience, like, laughter beats, it, like, it still keeps moving and moving and moving. Whereas, like,

the rhythm of the movie is kind of like, uh, lurching public transportation. Um, it, it's not good. Um, but we're giving ahead of ourselves a little bit. I would just, we'll, we'll set the stage a little bit. again, the both of us saw this play. You saw it also, again, it must have been in 2009, the same as I did if you saw the original cast. Yeah. I would have saw it in the summer, I believe.

Yeah. Good time to see it. Stage adaptations like this to film, there's always this sort of expectation that you have to, you know, open it up rather than keep it staged. Like, yada, yada, yada. We've talked about, I'm trying to think of, like, what other previous movies on our podcast that we did that had this sort of stage to screen sort of trajectory. Like, obviously, we've done musicals. We've done rent and we've done hairspray and things like that.

But we did, okay, so like proof is a good example, right? Where I think, and it's not like proof, you know, is all of a sudden, like, this incredibly. cinematic thing. But I thought proof added to itself, and I never saw the stage play. So I guess it's not that I can't really like make that exact comparison. Proof the movie is sort of my

was my entry point into it. But even from like the video that I've seen, oh and by the way, there's no YouTube of anything of God of Carnage. The only thing you can find on YouTube is like it got scrubbed. Montage with like music over it. Yeah. And like normally with a play, like you're not going to find like a whole play online unless somebody bootlegged it

and whatever. But there's usually promotional... But like you could see the barf scene on YouTube to like... Can you still? Because a bunch of people put different... No, not anymore because I looked for it. Yeah. Because like people would record

different performances to see how they pulled the bit off, which is not that hard. Yeah, it's a... Yeah. Barfing... Yeah. Right. We all know how that goes, right? We all know how that works. Exactly. Yeah. She's like digging through her handbag before she even does it. She probably shoves

something up her sleeve. It's fine. Yeah. But normally with the promotion of a Broadway play, especially one of this sort of caliber, which had obviously a lot of money behind it and had a lot of Tony aspirations, and normally you'll get like a

clip reel of actual like scenes from the show that you can use in promotional whatever's for your video interviews and whatever. And for whatever reason, for God of Carnage, their version of that, was sort of a montage of showing a lot of action, but you didn't get any dialogue. It's all with, like, music scoring over it and whatever. And it's a bummer, because, like, I'd like to go back and watch, like, Marcia Gayhart and rip off a scene or just,

like, watch, you know, one of the big sort of, like, you know, arguments, argument scenes. And it was irksome in this age that we can usually find. She, like, jumps on James Gandalfini's back at one point. She's so, I mean, they're all so good in it, but she's Marcia Gayharton rules and God of Carnage. But yeah, this sort of age where I can go on YouTube and normally find whatever I want, now when I can't find something I want, I get very frustrated, which would have mystified, you know, teenage me who couldn't find anything, who had to like go to the library to get, what did I get, like, the Rocky Horror Show soundtrack to like finally be able to listen to that

because like I couldn't, they obviously, you know, didn't play it on the radio or anything like that. So now everything is excessive. and I'm just annoyed. YouTube bootlegs have gone through phases of things where it was like they would just put it up there and then to like get away with it

it would be like weird spellings of things or like you would use the at symbol for A's so that like you would have to know to search for it that way and then it went through people titling videos like definitely not God of Carnage Broadway original cast where it's like I know this is getting taken down and you make a joke out of it. it. And now you just can't find things. It felt like maybe five or so years ago, the environment

around YouTube bootlegs was a lot more laissez-faire. And people, like, it felt like there was less of an aggressive push to take it all down. And now they're all really hard to come by, which is too bad. Well, there's a whole culture around it, depending on what the show is. So I think that there's some shows that they let it go. Like, there's a whole, like, dissection and discussion that can keep a musical, like, wicked in the conversation because you have these YouTube reels of, like, 45 alphabas hitting the one closer notes. I've watched that plenty of times. It's so good. Yes, you're right.

Like, the more sort of like. So bad. Well, also. The bad alphabas. But the, you know, the theater audience and the, you know, intended audience for a production sort of dictated. it's sometimes that thing. But I do feel like the bare minimum is just put a couple of scenes online.

Just put a couple of promotional scenes online. I'm not going to spoil my dinner by watching two scenes of whatever. And I want to see these actors act again. Because the whole thing about the theaters, it's a federal. Well, yeah, that's the other thing. Also, that's the other crazy thing,

is if you had asked me in a vacuum and not knowing that Carnage was 2011, so I would then have to backdate the play, but I would have not have thought it was that early into my tenure as a New Yorker, that it was only 2009. I would have thought it was a good bit later. But yeah, wonderful play, wonderful experience. One, you know, one act, like, the film is 80 minutes. The play might have actually been a little bit longer than that, but, like, definitely a one-act show. I had, like, the second last row in the balcony,

and it was the most uncomfortable seat I've ever sat in in my entire, life, and I was just absolutely riveted the entire time watching this play. I mean, like, also to kind of set up this movie as, like, a potential Oscar player, this wasn't just, like, a big show on Broadway. This was kind of a big global show, or at least, like, in European countries where you have, like, major theater and film stars in all of the productions of it. It wasn't just the Broadway cast. Like, the French premiere had Isabelle pair. In London, it was Janet McTier and Ray Fines. Like, you know, as a stage show, it carries a prestige to it. Yeah. It's a real actor showcase, so it's really going to attract. It's one of those

shows that's just like, again, four people in a room and let it rip. And you're always going to be able to attract, you know, big theater actors and big performers to do something like that, especially because Yesmina Reza already had a pretty good reputation. She had done that play. art that may have also won the Tony Award for Best Play, or at least was nominated for it. And, yeah, and so there's, you know, the fact that this movie version was able to attract, you know, again, three Oscar winners and also John C. Riley, who's a, you know, major movie star, unsurprisingly, we should talk, we should do our little caveat about Roman Polansky. This is a film directed by Roman Polanski. We've been hesitant to cover films by the Roman Polanskys and Woody Allens and Brian Singers of the World because we don't want to talk about those people.

And not to sort of like we don't want to be, you know, separate the art from the artist and watch our hands of it. But the other side of it is these films can, you know, speak for themselves. More than one person goes into the work of putting on a film. just because a film is directed by somebody bad doesn't mean that that film disappears from the culture. The flip side of that is just because you can make a film worth talking about doesn't mean you're not also a piece of shit.

So we're not going to really linger on Roman Polanski. Is there anything you want to add to sort of that? It's going to be hard for me to completely avoid him because I do think that one of the movie's major problems is that it's very poorly directed. Yeah, yeah. And, like, in terms of, like, what the text is asking for. And, like, it constantly does these things that, like, like, nope, you don't get it.

You don't get it. You don't get what this is. I agree. And it's just, like, there's no rhythmic narrative control that would make this funny. That would make it. Like you said, it's 80 minutes long. It is the shortest movie we've ever done on this podcast. And it felt twice as long.

I felt the relief of knowing it wasn't going to be that much longer. I do feel like I was sort of like in and out quickly, but I was not satisfied by it. It felt like purgatory. But the other thing is, and I agree with you, that I don't think this is a well-directed movie, and I don't think this is a good movie. And I just don't want to, like, you know, with that caveat, like, I don't want to fall into this trap that I do find of people just being, like, well, I'm going to feel okay about this problematic artist by being like, well, all their art is crap. And the thing is, that's not always the case. We're going to talk a little bit

probably about the ghostwriter because this was a film that was Polanski's film right before that, which is actually a really good movie. And I think it's valuable to be able to say this piece of art that's really good doesn't change the fact that its author was a piece of shit. J.K. Rowling doesn't have to be a terrible author for her to be a terrible person. You know what I mean? It's one of those things where it's just like, I think sometimes people feel the need to just be like, J.K. Rowling, I never liked her anyway. And her books are shit. It's like, no, even if her books are good, she can still be a terrible person. Like, it's, like, that's, that's sort of where I'm, you know, coming down. Well, you have to reconcile what is horrible about them, regardless of how you feel about the text anyway.

Right. It doesn't make it any easier to, like, grapple with the fact that they've had an enormous impact on the culture, regardless of how you feel about that culture, that's still insidious and awful. Yeah, that is also a good point. So anyway, we're doing a Polansky movie, and we're dealing with it. I mean, like, truly, like, if you want to talk about the movie itself, I think a lot of the problems are Polanski. I also think it's some of the performances, and I think most of these actors are miscast.

Yes, I think that's the root of it. get into that on the other side of the plot description. But there is miscasting, and then there is also poor performances within the miscasting. But we'll definitely jump into that. On the other side of the plot description, we're going to be talking about the 2011 film Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski, written by Yasmina Ressa and Roman Polanski, based on the play by Yosemina Raysa, starring Jody Foster, John C. Riley, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet, and, you know, some other children in a park in weirdly Brooklyn Bridge Park

even though the play, well I guess the American version of the play when they transferred it was set in Cable Hill Park, which to me is a difference but probably not one worth lingering on for people who don't live in New York City. How precision is important

with the text for God of Carnage for things like that. Yes. Okay. This premiered at the Venice Film Festival, September 1st, 2011. And then it ended up getting a limited release on December 16th, 2011. It ended up expanding to like 500 screens in January of 2012. But yeah, God, not God of Carnage, Carnage. Chris, though, you are going to be tasked with summing up this movie in 60 seconds. So glad I got maybe one of the

easiest assignments ever. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I had to go through the Byzantine plot of all the King's Men list last week, and you're just look like, it's four people in an apartment, they're arguing, done, boom. 60 seconds on the clock for you whenever you're ready. I'm ready. All right, and begin.

All right, in Carnage, we're following two couples in the home of the long streets. That's Penelope and Michael, played by Jody Foster and John C. Riley. They have over Nancy and Allen, who both of their sons have gotten into a fight. Penelope and Michael's son has had a tooth knocked out,

or multiple teeth. Anyway, they are there to just establish common ground to discuss this fight. Obviously, that doesn't go so well. It starts with niceties and everything until the tensions make Nancy puke all over the apartment. And then they end up like kind of disintegrating the niceties. And then it devolves further and further until Michael breaks out the, it's not bourbon, but they have scotch. And then everybody gets drunk.

and then it's more and more fighting and blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing really comes of the meeting, and then we see the kids make up on their own, regardless of what the parents have tried to do. And time with one second to spare. Okay, so the fact that this film... It's kind of filling time. The film sort of sop towards opening the production up as a film

is it gets bookended by these scenes at Brooklyn Bridge Park, where at the beginning you see the actual incident of, you see it, and it's a long shot, so you don't really know the specifics of what led to it, but you see the one kid strike the other one with a stick. And then at the end, you see the two kids, and they've made up, and it's, you know, oh, you know, how silly these parents are that they have gone to war

over these two kids who have now forgotten about the disfiguring incident at the beginning. And I think showing this. Kids is problem number one. Thank you. That was my very first note that I wrote down. I think it is right off the bat. You're getting things off to a bad start because the whole point of the show of the play is that you don't know and you can't know. And these parents are all bringing their own perceptions to it. And the audience now being in on the idea that we know what actually happened. We've seen it and they don't. puts the audience already at a remove from it that doesn't, you know, help what's going on. And just the baseline thing that, like, their children should never be more than construct in this. Because, like, it is a, the play is partly about parenthood and, like, approaches to parenting and, like, how, you know, when you are in conflict with another set of parents, like, it's, almost irreconcilable regardless of what the circumstances are but it's also just kind of about like our beastly nature as people in terms of like we will never achieve full compromise whether it's

with our partner whether it's with an acquaintance like that's the like theme the text of the thing right so to see this act of violence at the very beginning of the movie really kind of weirdly defangs the movie because, like, there should be, like, a specter of violence over the whole thing. Like, they're meeting because of violence. And, like, you could think that at any time one of these people actually does become violent, but they never do, really. Right. And it just, like, that seems like a big thing to not understand about the text that we shouldn't see these kids. I think the strongest aspect of the text.

to me, and the text sort of like touches on some different things, including like sort of bourgeois liberal piety and parenting. I think the strongest things about it are when it sort of touches on this idea of this classical masculinity that these two men especially are very, very resistant to let go of when it comes to raising their own sons, that they both still kind of want to instill this physical, aggressive, macho, you know, get a gang together and, you know, remember when I beat up this one kid when I was when I was young, all this sort of stuff. I think that's the strongest stuff. And I think that's the stuff that then gets undercut when you cast those two roles with John C. Riley and Christoph Valtz instead of James Gandalfini and Jeff Daniels. And I think that also sort of like gets the whole thing off to a bad start. And it's not that John C. Riley and Christoph Waltz aren't good actors in, you know, different, you know, certain

roles of theirs. But like, Gandalfini especially, just projects a menace, even when he's not trying to, that really, really serves. Right. Really, really serves that character well because it's always there and it's always lurking. And John C. Riley projects the exact opposite of that and really has to work very hard to conjure up that menace. And it's never convincing, I don't think, in the movie? Well, and also to the point where it's like, I think that character specifically is like, he comes off as a nice guy,

but really underneath, he's a fucking caveman. I feel like that's one of the actual lines in the show. It is. Whereas when John C. Riley is doing that, it's never believable. And it's like, no, you're just maybe an asshole. Right.

And, like, you're maybe the, like, worst type of finger quotes nice guy when you put him in that role. Not saying that about John C. Riley, we love him. No, right, yeah, right. And then the other role there with, like, Jeff Daniels does such a good job of playing the sort of corporate macho, dad, asshole character in a way that feels sort of on par with what Gandalfini is doing in the play. And normally I don't think I would be doing this much.

Well, Jeff Daniels came back to the show with one of the later Broadway cast and swapped roles. And I think that's very telling because I think it shows how incredibly I think plugged into what, you know, both of those characters are doing. And Christoph Valtz just plays this part like he did in big eyes, actually, that we talked about pretty recently. at this sort of effete remove that feels irksome but not present. You know, I guess, I mean, this character's sort of like absence from the proceedings when he's on the phone all the time, whatever, is sort of part of the text. But Waltz never feels a part of this, I don't know, this Mill You, this dynamic. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think he might even be, well, no, I actually think Jody.

Foster is the most miscast, but I think he's like, he's not slick enough. He's not, he's probably the least funny. It's, you know, it should be more Wall Streety, I guess, for lack of a better term. It also has to be American. And I know the play was originally, you know, in French and set, you know, with British and British, I think it's British characters in Paris, I think is the original. Um, play, although correct me if I'm wrong somebody. But like... I'm pretty sure that they've changed it

with each production. Yes. Well, I saw a little clip of it. They were being the cast was being interviewed by Michael Riddle for the, obviously, the Broadway production of it. And they said that originally, I think Risa wanted them

to be French and to sort of like to, you know, be speaking in sort of French inflected dialect. And they sort of like shot that down kind of right away and she sort of had some resistance to it and Gandalfini has this

where Michael Reedle's just like well how did she take that and Gandalfini was just sort of quipsy's like she was on set for three days and then she was gone and they sort of talked about how it was like mostly Matthew Warcus who the director of the play Matthew Warcass. I mean I think if you did something like that it would change the dynamic of the show to

because especially if you're presenting it to on Broadway would be predominantly an American audience. Yeah. And this is something that's already about, like, class and bourgeois type of things. Yeah. It would completely change the dynamic of what the audience would receive from it. It's such a good fit for Brooklyn, and especially for the, like, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights types. Do you know what I mean? It's just like that it's always surprised me that it wasn't originally written for those, you know, for that demographic, because it really, really is an incredibly good fit. I think the unfortunate thing is that there are always those neighborhoods in American cities that's easily translatable. Sure, of course.

Yeah, the bougie white people district, yes. So talk about, you think Jody Foster is the most miscast. Talk a little bit about that. I'm on the precipice of agreeing with you. I mostly think she performs it poorly. I mean, I think both are true. she's the one who probably I mean I think

Christoph Waltz is the one who's not really bringing anything comedically to the table and that's partly because like you also have to believe that his character is like a bully and a boardroom right and you would never you would believe it to be more of a flunky right right right

I don't know it's just like there's a certain worldliness to this character an immodesty to this character that I think Jody Foster kind of actively works against as a screen presence and as a performer.

I feel like she's always relatable. I think she's always very down to earth. I mean, unless you disagree. No, no, no. I don't think I don't disagree at all. And I think when she tries then to play the comedic absurdities, the sort of like when this show sort of moves into more manic farcical comedy.

She just can't seem to modulate it. And she goes really over the top and really sort of hysterical. And I think Marcia Gay Harden, and again, as I said, I was started to say earlier, I normally wouldn't do this much, you know, compare contrast between, you know, a stage cast and a film cast. But, like, my point really is that like... It really is the symbol of everything that isn't working in the movie. And they really should have just cast The, and maybe, you know, they didn't all want to do it.

But, like, they really should have just cast the Broadway cast if you're going to make this a new movie and let, you know, more people see it and more people see this production. They really nail these characters. And Marcia Gay-Harton has such a great handle on because she can be very sort of, like, down-to-earth too, right? She has that sort of, she has those similar Jody Foster qualities.

But she also has the gear that can really go high-es in a way that's believable. And she's just really, she's a more versatile actress, I think, than sometimes people give her credit for. The fact that she could do Harper Pitt and Angels in America and also like the religious crazy lady in the mist and also the mom in Whippet and also, obviously like Lee Krasner, in Pollock, which she won the Oscar for.

And this, while still being sort of like, you know, Marsha Gay-Harden at her. core um i think is an underrated skill of hers we don't really talk about it that much but she's so so good we do stand marcia gay i don't know i think jody foster or at least what i got from this character was a little bit more um like they're both it's the play is also like these people think that they're adults and they're civilized but really they're just as like petuline as their children. Whereas like her approach to that was a little bit more wounded and pouty and like that kind of self-involved. Whereas Marcia's which feels more correct to the text and is funnier

is like rage. Like this like the thing that she's suppressing when this other couple is coming into her home and that their child has harmed her child. Yeah. The thing. that like the nice veneer of we're all going to do this in a civil way, we're all going to come to agreement together, is that she's suppressing her want to destroy them. Destroy them and destroy their child is the other thing, yes, which I also really love. Right, not that she's like sitting in a corner thinking about what has been like horribly done to her, you know, and that's what I got from Jody Foster. And in the play, the tensions are really appellate.

parent in all of the performances. You can tell that this is sort of like bubbling under the surface, right? And so there's these like great little releases of tension. There's so many lines in the film that I remember being like, that was such a huge laugh line in the play. And I've talked a little bit about this before, about how laugh reactions in a play are easier to come by than in film because in a play, you're all in a room together. You're all sort of seeking that release as a community.

And so the laughs are bigger when they come and you're sort of, you know, you're eager for them. And it's harder to do that in a film because you're watching it, you know, alone or everybody's quiet or whatever. Well, and there's also the thing of like, you know, the thread of you can't be as big on film as you would be on a stage because you have to fill a whole stage. You have to fill a whole theater. But I don't think that these are, these performances on the movie are like any more intimate. There's still, like, too, like, I don't, that's not the problem. There's a line where the Christoph Walt's character, Jeff Daniels in the play, says, just sort of blurts out, our son is a menace, which was a big laugh line in the show, as I recall, because it sort of like comes out of nowhere and it's like so blunt and it's so sort of, you know, harsh about their own kid, but it cuts through, you know, what everybody's sort of like dancing around. And it's so funny in the show.

And it lands so flatly in the film, and I think that's emblematic of a lot of that. You talk about the line in the play where Gandalfini goes, I'm a fucking caveman, which I don't think is in the movie at all. But it's such a big laugh line because it's, again, it's just like this release of, you know, emotion and tension in the play. And because the energy in the play is so up. and the energy in the film is just not at that level. And even when like the puking scene where it's supposed to be really, really, you know, manic and everybody's running around and nobody knows what to do and the audience in the play is going insane.

It's the valve being released of all the tension, but there's been no tension to release. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You agree with me that Kate Winslet's the best performer in the film. I thought that until maybe the final stretch of the movie. Winslet is not someone who can play drunk very well. I did think that, but I still think she's the one giving a good performance in the film. I mean, maybe throughout the movie, she's giving the best in terms of, like, if the film is going to take this pivot tonally from what the stage show is,

I think she achieves that the best while still being, while still playing to the dynamics and still being, like, maybe not laugh out loud funny, but like, ha ha funny. She seems the most dialed into what the tone should be for the majority. And I agree with you that... And she's the least miscast. Oh, by a mile. By a mile.

She's actually really pretty well cast, I would think. I mean, if she was with a Jeff Daniels, I think, like, it would change the movie. Oh, Steve Jobs' pre-reunion. I love that. Even though I don't think they were ever in a scene together. The thing that I am saying is that when you are my father... Fix it, Alan. Fix it.

God love. God knows I love that performance in Steve Jobs. I'm so mad not to talk about other podcasts here, but I'm so mad that Danny Boyle lost the blank check in the blank check March Madness. I still think he's the ideal blank check filmography. It's the best mixture of great stuff, terrible stuff, and just like really interesting stuff. Like, sigh, anyway. Anyway, no, I think she's good. I think she's the one that, like, maneuvers through the dynamics the best and probably

comes ahead in terms of, like, her chemistry with everyone else the best. Like, I could kind of conceive this couple, even though I think Christoph Waltz was really miscast in a way that I never. for a second could believe the couple that John C. Riley and Jody Foster were giving. Yeah. I don't know. So this is our second Kate Winslet film in as many episodes, which we didn't originally want to do, but we moved up carnage because it was expiring on Amazon Prime, so we wanted to...

And we didn't want to pay for it. Did not want to pay for it, so I think we made the right decision. So we talked about all the Kingsmen last week, but we didn't really talk too much about, like, Kate Winslet as an Oscar entity, and her Oscar story is an incredibly interesting one, even as it, well, I think also, like, because of the way it crested, you know, and how she did win her Oscar. And we've talked about that, I think, before, about the ins and outs of how she went from a supporting campaign for the reader to a lead actress nomination, and my theory that she... She had and hashed out a ton this season because of the little Keith Stanfield nomination. Exactly. Exactly. But her Oscar story in general begins pretty much right from the beginning. Her film debut is Heavenly Creatures, which is an incredible film debut. She's a teenager. It's a film that gets a screenplay nomination at the Oscars, which I think is a pretty great achievement for that film, being the sort of like small film from New Zealand with a challenging subject matter and, you know, an odd tone. And obviously this very kind of

queer relationship between two young friends at the center of it, Winslet and Melanie Linsky. And it's just a great breakthrough performance for her. And I think if Oscar voters were more attuned to voting for teenage girls

in excellent teenage girl performances, She probably would have been maybe hopefully a bigger contender and best actress. But the very next year, she gets her first Oscar nomination, supporting actress for Sense and Sensibility. She's so good in that movie. Everybody's so good in that movie, I feel like. And I think her proximity to Emma Thompson in that movie kind of elevates her even more in terms of her stature.

She doesn't win. She won one of the precursors for Sense and Sensibility. right? Was it SAG? I'll look it up. I wonder if it's actually BAFTA? It was one of those. It was either SAG or BAFTA, because the Globe, I think Mira Sorvino won both the Globe and the Oscar. I'm pretty sure Mira Sorvino got all of the stateside prizes. I'd have to refer to my spreadsheet. Hold on one second.

Yeah, because Emma Thompson wins the screenplay globe. That's where she has that incredible speech as Jane Austen. Oh, which I love. I wrote about that on Vulture this year. No, actually, Kate, we were both correct. Kate Winslet won SAG and BAFTA.

And BAFTA. Look at that. Sense and Sensibility. Again, a great performance in a great film. And so then, and she's like, she's still incredibly young when she gets the Sense and Sensibility nomination.

And then she goes and makes some pretty interesting film choices, among some really, you know, canny career choices as well. But she's in that film Jude, the Michael Winterbottom film Jude in 1996.

Based off Jude the obscure. Right. Opposite Christopher Eccleston. She's in Hamlet, the, you know, billion hours long Kenneth Branagh Hamlet playing Ophelia, which is like a really, like, that's, you know, and incredibly among that cast

to have gotten the Ophelia. role among that cast is pretty amazing for her and then obviously a little film called Titanic in 1997 her second Oscar nomination and she becomes With a director who didn't want her

who like made cracks about her weight on the set asshole James Cameron after making her trudge around in like freezing cold water and a tank of freezing cold water has the fucking nerve to make a crack about her weight asshole

but she becomes two-time Oscar nominee. How old is she even in 2000 or in 1997? She was born in... She would have been 22 when Titanic came out. Because she remember she had that American Express commercial or whatever

where she talked about all of the, like, how old she was when she, you know, when I was in a ship that sank when I was 20 or whatever. At 17, I went to prison for murder. By 19, I was penniless and heartbroken. I almost drowned at 20.

Then I have my memory erased at 28. And by 29, I was in Neverland. My real life doesn't need any extra drama. That's why my card is American Express. But she also becomes like a legit movie star then. Like that really, that film, you know, obviously does it all for her. She gets nominated. She loses to Helen Hunt for as good as it gets.

Then she, again, keeps making these really daring film choices. She's in Hideous Kinky in 1998. She's in Holy Smoke, Jane Campion's Holy Smoke, in 1999, which is an incredibly, like, Jane Campion following up the piano and portrait of a lady with this very much not, like, the piano and portrait of a lady are also, like, sneakily horny slash, you know, not as buttoned up costume drama as you think. But, like, Holy Smoke is just like, what if Kate Winslet went into the Australian desert and joined a cult and...

Peed in front of Harvey Keitel. Right, exactly. Amazing, amazing movie. Really, really fascinating. She's also in Quills, which, again, you know, is about the Marquis de Sade. But that's a very sort of, like, Oscar-friendly movie. She gets a little bit of precursor attention for Quills, but doesn't... Sag nominated for it.

Thank you. That was, like, the first time that it... because the other ones were like indies that didn't really have wide distribution and quills felt like the first time that I was like, ah, yes, the Titanic actress is back doing whatever. And even that, it's still quills. Right. It's still about the Marquis de Sade spreading his feces on the wall and his prison cell. Yes, exactly. Yeah, you're right. So SAG nomination for Quills doesn't quite get the Oscar nomination. She does the next year in supporting actress for playing the young. version of Iris Murdoch and Iris, Judy Dench got the lead actress nomination. Again, an incredibly well-received performance, her third Oscar nomination, and then into the

2000s, she sort of alternates kind of bad Oscar bait with these really, you know, good performances where, like, Life of David Gale is a disaster. She plays a character named Bidsey Bloom, probably the less said about. the movie the better. But it's Alan Parker. It's, you know, it had the stuff of prestige. We will probably eventually at some point do it once we get the stomach to do a Kevin Spacey movie. Um, but- Fuck the end of that movie. Oh, my God. The twist in that movie is terrible. I don't even want to talk about it. It's so bad. Apphorrent. Um, but then 2004, she's in like, again, finding Neverland, Oscar Bate, whatever. Johnny Depp gets an Oscar nomination. It is such a snooze of a movie. But same year, Eternal Sunshine and Spotless Mind, her fourth Oscar nomination. And getting an Oscar nomination, for Eternal Suncheon at the Spotless Mind is maybe the best example of where she was as an actress at that time were like, that is not a film that screams Oscar bait to me, right? It's very, it's quirky, it's got its own sort of like spikey humanity to it. It's obviously Charlie Kaufman sort of, you know, who was obviously a very Oscary, you know, had been nominated for multiple Oscars by that point, but it's still a strange little movie. And, well, it was a March release, too. So, like, it took, it's probably benefited from people having a long time to sit with it or to watch it if they were maybe stuffier academy voters.

And she's so good in it. She absolutely should have won that year. Like, Hillary Swank wins for a million dollar baby that year. A lot of the talk was Swank versus Benning Round 2. And meanwhile, Kate Winslet and also Imelda Stanton in Vera Drake, who got a lot of the critics awards that year for actress. But, like, absolutely my pick to win is Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine. She's one of my favorite, maybe my favorite performance of hers and one of my favorite performances of the 2000s.

We're probably coming up on my favorite performance of Kate Winslet. It's hard to say what my favorite is, but it's probably the one we're coming up. I don't want to gloss over John Tituro's musical, romantic comedy, romance, and cigarettes. A film I've still not seen, but I would like to because the cast... Oh, did you think I was talking about a different movie? Oh, no, it's a romantic favorite. I've never seen that movie either. We don't need to talk about all the Kingsmen.

We did that last week. I'm imagining Little Children is your favorite Kate Winslow performance. I do think so, yeah, because Kate Winslet gets put in this box, and I think especially with what we're coming up, what the nominations will be talking about next or performances next. But like, what she actually, I think, excels at is like smarter, wordier, more complicated characters in modern-minded films, like Eternal Sunshine and Little Children. And, like, little children could very easily be this kind of dull, uninteresting, like, you've seen this movie before, right?

And you've seen it not be very good, but because you have a smart performer. Suburban on Wii. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Exactly. Just, like, complicating things in really. interesting way. She's really funny in it, too. Yes, she is. And also, like, that's a very

like, horny, sexy movie that you maybe also wouldn't expect. Like, she and Patrick Wilson just fully get it on, and it's amazing. And they should. Good for them. Good for them. Patrick Wilson's button, that movie looks really good. I'm just going to say it. I'm just going to throw it. Very formative. Yeah. So that's Oscar

nomination number five. And I think when we get to Oscar nomination number five, that's when she sort of hits the Amy Adams level of, when's it going to have, you know, when's she going to win an Oscar? What the hell? She's five times Oscar nominated. Because in 2006, she was never going to win the Oscar that year. A, Little Children was too small, and B, Helen Mirren was not going to be stopped that year. So everybody sort of knew what the score was. But when she got that nomination, there was, there did feel like an

implicit kind of like, we'll get you on the next go-around, Kate, like one of those kind of things. And the next go-round was two years later. And all of a sudden, we go into 2008 and from a distance Revolutionary Road was the bigger film but there was always the sense that like Kate Winslow's got two movies that could happen because Stephen Daldry was already sort of into his Oscar whisperer sort of reputation right

he had been Best Director nominee for Billy Elliott he's a Best Picture nominee and Best Director nominee for the hours and his next movie is called The Reader and it's about World War II. And Kate Winslet had been on extras and made that joke about if you want to win an Oscar

starring something about the Holocaust. You know, you doing this is so commendable, you know, using your profile to keep the message alive about the Holocaust. My God, I'm not doing it for that. I don't think we need another film about the Holocaust, do we? It's like how many have there been?

You know, we get it. It was grim, move on. Now, I'm doing it because I've noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times. Never won. And the whole world is going.

Why hasn't Winslet won one? Death, yeah. That's it. That's why I'm doing it. Schindler's bloody list. A pianist. Oscars coming out of their ass. You both good luck then.

And it's like, it was so incredibly prophetic. And that little guest appearance was like one of the things It's just like, this is why we love Kate Winslet. She can, you know, have a laugh at herself. She's secretly pretty funny, yada, yada. And so it's like this big sort of heavy relationship drama reunion with Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic and Revolutionary Road. And then the World War II Stephen Daldry picture with Harvey Weinstein backing it up in The Reader. So like, and again, sometimes we go into these Oscar seasons and it's just like, this person has two,

you know, two or two or three movies that they're going in, how can they miss? And most of the time, it's like, well, because, you know, there's no focus on one of them, and it, you know, peters out. And in this one, neither one was backing down. The season would move on, and neither one of those performances was sort of receding to be the also ran. And then so... Well, and it was also, like, the Battle of Wars between Harvey Weinstein and Scott... And Scott Rudin, right. That's very good.

That's a very good point. That's secretly what the story is behind Kate Winslet's Oscar win. That's actually incredibly true. And then so the Golden Globes happen, and it's just like she's nominated in Lead for Revolutionary Road, and supporting for the reader, even though she's not a supporting actress in the reader, but Harvey Weinstein and the Weinstein Company knew that she was absolutely getting campaigned as lead for Revolutionary Road, and they didn't want to have her compete with herself, so they put her in supporting. And everybody was like, well, which one is she going to win for?

Is it going to be for lead for revolutionary or supporting for the reader? Surprise, the Hollywood foreign press is like, why not have both? And so she wins both of them. And then she also wins both of them at the SAG. And that's when it was just like, and I think the SAG awards happened before the Oscar nominations happened, right? It's always so different every year. that wrinkle I do not remember, but like I definitely, I remember that whole like conversation being in the ether well before the SAG nominations happened. So actually the SAG Awards happened like

three days after the Oscar nominations were announced. January 22nd for the Oscar nominations and then January 25th for the SAG Awards. But anyway, it all sort of was happening in the same sort of swirl of timing. And we've talked about before about sort of our theories about Winslet getting the lead actress nomination for the reader and then nothing for Revolutionary Road. My theory, of course, is that she got, she was in the top 10 of vote geters for both of those performances in lead actress. Yeah, it's whichever one you get the votes for first, not what the final number would have been. I definitely think she would have had the votes for both, and probably enough to also have the votes for supporting actress for

the reader as well. That is my theory. She had enough votes to get three nominations, but you can't get twice in one category and you can't get obviously nominated for the same performance in two different categories. And so the reader got there first. And it's not for like the reader in lead actress and supporting actress, it's not where you got the most votes. It's where you got the votes first. In the tally. Right. Which is always an... So like she could have had more votes in supporting but... Do you think... Because of tally. Do you think that they do that in the tallying so that late arriving votes don't matter so that they don't have to worry about like, oh, my God, these votes didn't come into later. And it's just like, yeah, well, we had already,

you know, reached our tallies by then anyway. Well, they don't count ballots as they come in. They count the ballots all at the same time. Oh, interesting. Well, then I have no idea why they do it that way. It seems an odd way to do it. Because it's done over basically a weekend. Right. Okay. So anyway, she wins the Oscar for the reader. It is poorly received by, by Oscar nerds and Twitter bitches is how I will describe that, I think. Pre-Twitter, but yes, Twitter bitches. I don't think it was, I think it was early stages Twitter.

Anyway, I think by... I mean, that would have been early 2009? Yeah, I think by 2008 I was on Twitter. I think it was very early stages. But anyway, I could be wrong. But anyway, bitches of all kinds. And... Like two of us.

There was the sense of, oh, she seems so desperate. She seems to want it so bad, and it's so gauche, and it's so, she seems so unchill. Her speeches at the Golden Globes felt very unchill, and the, before we had all sort of projected this idea of, and I think that the guest appearance on extras sort of feeds into that, that she was cool about it, that she was chill and British, and, you know, she didn't, you know, care about that. that kind of thing. And all of a sudden, we realized that, oh, no, she very much, you know, cared about this. She wanted, you know, she pretended to the shampoo bottle was the Oscar all those years in the shower. They all care about it. They wouldn't show up. They wouldn't do a billion interviews and go to a bunch of luncheons filled with strangers if they didn't want it. Who cares? This is what's gotten Kate Winslet tripped up. This is what got Anne Hathaway tripped up.

There is this sense of, and we do it to actresses most often, we want, we want, we want these things for you until you seem to want it more than we want it for you and then there's this a switch seems to get flipped and then I can't remember what the funny

thing is in 2008 probably the person that most of the people who were being bitches about Kate Winslet would have wanted to win was Anne Hathaway for Rachel getting married. I mean I'm sure there was the Merrill contingent as well but it was it was a bummer to me to watch everybody kind of

turn on Winsland. And like, people didn't like the reader for legitimate reasons, for many, you know, legitimate reasons, for, you know, topical reasons, but also aesthetic reasons. Bad movie. Yeah. So like... It is offensive. Right. And so when a performer wins a long awaited Oscar for a film that we do not feel is of sufficient quality, that is also like backlash material. See also Glenn Close. I was also the like very, very small content. of the people who was bitching because I still think her better performance is in Revolutionary Road. I think it's closer along the lines of the type of thing that I just praised her for that I think she does very well. I agree with you. I don't like Revolutionary Road, but I do think it's the better performance.

And I think you're right about that it's much more in line with what kind of performance she should have her Oscar for. An Oscar for it. Yeah, it's more in line with what her best work is. Yeah. And so... I don't think she's bad in the reader. It's just... No, I don't think she's bad, but she's... When I think Kate Winslet, I think of a performance like that. Yeah, I agree with you. And so she wins the Oscar, and then she's not in a film for three years, and what's the first film she's in? Next, it's carnage. It's this.

It's technically contagion. Oh, contagion comes out... Right. You're right. Yeah, that's a fall release. Carnage is the very end of the year. But it's also the year of Mildred Pierce, where it's like, she goes away for three years. She's, you know, she deserves a break, you know. Everybody got sick of her because she was winning too many awards.

And then she comes back and gobbles up every award in sight for Mildred Pierce. Which she deserved. Yes, she did. I agree with you. I agree with you. Yeah, and people were, I remember when she won the Globe first. Mildred Pierce, she gets up there and she's like, yes, I didn't think we were

going to win anything. Yeah. And everybody was like, bitch. Because they kept blanking and it's like, no, she obviously has a lot of pride in her work and she wants the show recognized in some way. Yes. Should have been recognized for Todd Haynes, obviously. I agree.

But yeah, I did not take offense to that. Yeah. But no, you're right. The Mildred Pierce of It All was the next thing. But it's so funny to see it's just like picks up where she left off, where she left off awards-wise. I think she's quite good in Contagion. I think, I mean, again, Contagion is not a film.

I decided to revisit this year for obvious reasons. A lot of people went the other way with Contagion and decided to re-watch it this year. I don't understand it. And then so her 2010s get odd, where she doesn't make a ton of movies. And then the ones she decides to make, you're like, interesting. So, like, you're not going to make a ton of movies, but you're going to be in movie 43. You're not going to make a ton of movies, but you're going to be in Labor Day, which... I understand her being in Labor Day, but it's not a good movie.

It's not a good movie. Yeah, I guess, like, yeah, you know, be in a Jason Reitman movie on the heels of, you know, Juno and up in the air. Fine. But then, oops, surprise, you're in the worst Jason Wrightman movie. Second worst. I think it's worse than men, women, and children. Ooh, we'll get into it whenever we eventually do that movie. At least men, women, and children has a lot of different actors to keep you

on your toes and sort of occupied and whatever. A lot of good actors being terrible. Yeah, but it's, you know, kept me interested. I thought Labor Day was powerful, boring. Anyway, we will get into it. We'll make a peach pie. It'll be a whole thing. You also haven't said the worst one that's like, really?

You're going to make no movies, but you're going to make the Divergent movies. Right. Well, I do feel like for actors of that caliber, I've got to figure there's a pressure to be like, yeah, but like, can you still make money? And she hadn't been in anything that had made any degree of money, like, she hasn't been a lead in anything to make a degree of money and like forever in a day, right? So like, I get that where she's just like, I need to establish myself as a box office present so that I can maybe make the kinds of movies I want to. She got to play a villain, too. Sure. It's not, you know, it's not like I'm writing home about the Kate Winslet performance in Divergent, but she's only in it for, oh, she's in both of the movies, right, because Naomi Watts kills her at the end of the second movie. Spoiler, but I just saved you having to watch the Diversion movies. She's also in a tiny little film directed by Alan Rickman called A Little Chaos that I talk about every once in a while here. It's a, it's a, she plays a, she designs the gardens at Versailles, for the king. And it's really, really quite well done. She's very good in it. I got to go to the New York premiere of it, because our friend and past guest, Richard Lawson, brought me along

as his guest. One of the two of us sort of accidentally nearly bumped into her as we were like turning around with a plate of hors d'oeuvres in her hand or whatever. And then I kept being like, should I go up and talk to her? And I ultimately didn't. I ultimately was too scared to talk to Kate Winslet. That's the story of my night at the Little Chaos premiere. fantastic score. Never a question for me. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm too scared. Fantastic score on that film, Peter Gregson's score and a little chaos. Really good. And then her final to date, her most recent to date, Oscar nomination comes in 2015. For Steve Jobs, we've talked about it before. We've talked about it on this podcast.

I love her. The performance that I think is so very a performance that has a lot of when you are a father. she's so good her I love the roving accent I love everything I love everything I do not talk to me about the accent work I don't care I love it I love it love the performance she wins the Golden Globe for that because the Golden Globes put both Rooney Mara and Alicia Vikander in lead where they belonged that year and so Kate had the supporting actress category sort of alter herself and she took advantage of that but again everything after Steve Jobs it's like you have this like you have this like you you know, return to an Oscar nomination for Steve Jobs. Everybody, you know, or whatever, it's a largely very well-received performance in a largely very well-received movie. I remember when I saw that film at the New York Film Festival press screening,

I walked out, and I think I tweeted. I was just like, well, congratulations to 2015 supporting actress winner Kate Winslet, because I was like, this is, you know, she's back, maybe. But then she moves on to- If they hadn't given it to her for the reader, she could have won for that, and it would have been a better Oscar, in my opinion.

A lot of people will decide. agree with me on that, but... I don't. I agree with you. You are right. But then look at what she makes after that. The Dressmaker, which I haven't seen, but... It's fun movie. At Tiff, the one year, Kate Arthur, uh, varieties Kate Arthur, uh, explained the plot of that movie to me and Adam Very at dinner, and we were just, like, wrapped with just like we could not believe, uh, uh, what she was telling us about that film. She makes triple nine, a film I have also not seen, uh, that is...

A Russian mob maven type of thing. Right, right. Our beloved slash bewildering collateral beauty, also in 2016. She fucks Cedris Elba on a mountain in the mountain between us. Fuck Mountain. She willingly works with Woody Allen in 2017 and Wonderwheel. The year that the Me Too movement really kicks off, like terrible timing there, Kate. They disband the, because it premiered.

at New York Film Festival. They canceled the red carpet gal of for it. Terrible timing. She's not good in that terrible movie, though. No, she's not. She most recently has been in a film called Blackbird, directed by my beloved Roger Michel, who we talked about when we did Hyde Park on Hudson,

which is not a good movie, but he's done films like The Weekend, which I talk about all the time, which is really good. She plays Susan Sarandon's daughter in this. It's not my favorite Kate Winslet performance. I think the best performances in that film are Sarandon and also Lindsay Duncan. But it's a really good movie, and you should seek it out. It's probably, if it's not streaming for free somewhere, it's on VOD.

It's called Blackbird. You should check it out. It was one of the early pandemic VOD movies that just got buried because no one was paying attention. I had seen it at Tiff the year before, but yeah, it did not. not make much of impression. And then we've talked about Ammonite on both our TIF episode and our class of 2020 episodes. The Oscar hopeful that didn't pan out, we will eventually do an Ammonite episode. I still haven't seen it.

I heard she's very good. Yeah, I'm excited to revisit that movie whenever we do the episode. Yeah. And then coming up, this month, she has, she's returning to HBO with Mayor of East Town. And then, y'all laugh, but I'll be. I'll be probably the most excited for Avatar, too. Oh, boy. I can't join you there.

But, um, re-teaming with James Cameron is, uh, worth, you know, some ink for sure. I just, I like Avatar, Dickie. Oh, I, I, I, you know, praise you for that. I don't know. So, yeah, so the Kate Winslet Oscar story, a really fascinating one. I'm glad we were able to sort of, you know, map it out. I'm hopeful that she returns to the realm of she's somebody who I feel like by the end of her career

should have like 14 Oscar nominations you know what I mean? She's that talented She's got so much career ahead of her It's funny that she's in a show that is called Mayor of East Town which is like the most dour-sounding title To anything I've ever heard of in my entire life I love that Mayor of East Town is actually set in America It seems like it should be set on some type of isolated aisle

mayor of east town sounds like in the process of being overtaken by waves um she has to like board up her house with her corsets mayor of east town sounds like a town in wales like that's what it sounds like yeah it's just but again i'm excited for this show it looks like you know sharp objects meets broad church which everything these days looks like sharp objects meets broad church but you know what i'm into it i'm here for it uh yeah So, Kate Winslet, I want to sort of circle back for a second to God of Carnage, the play. We talked about it is, it was a Tony Award-winning play. All four of the principal actors were nominated for Tonys. Marsha Gay Hardin and Hope Davis in lead actress, James Gandalfini and Jeff Daniels in lead actor.

The Tonys don't fuck around with categorization. It's, you know, it's in their bylaws. if you're above the title, you are elite. Marsha Gay-Hardin wins the Tony after the CBS producers accidentally put the Chiron for Janet McTeer under Harriet Walter's face and the Chiron for Harriet Walter

under Janet McTeer's face because they were both nominated for Mary Stewart. And Marsha Gay-Harden beats them both and then very graciously from the stage corrects the error, corrects the production error, I always thought was just like classic.

Queen, what an icon. She is, by the way, she was favored to win that, Tony, and she is so much more animated and excited winning that one than she was for the surprise of the century when she wins the Oscar for What a Thrill Pollock. It's so fun. That's also so funny to me. I adore Marcia Gay Harden. I would love to just, like, have a drink with her one day.

So, God of Carnage, Tony Award winning play. We've talked about, as I said, you know, play to. film adaptations before. I had given you an Alter Egos quiz on Pulitzer Prize-winning play-turned films. Now, I want to give you an Alter Egos round about Tony Award-winning plays. I took out any of the ones that overlapped our last Pulitzer game, so these are all going to be new ones. So, once again, Alter Egos is the game where I quiz Chris.

I give him the names of three film characters. He has to tell me what the actors who played all those characters were in together. answers to these will all have been winners of the Tony Award for Best Play at some point. Are you ready for this, Chris? I am ready. All right. So your first one,

Vernon Dursley, Howard Stark, and Barry Glickman. This is the history boys. Vernon Dersley is Richard Griffiths in Harry Potter films. Correct. Howard Stark is Dominant Cooper

in one of the Marvel movies. Captain America, the first Avenger. Yes, yes, yes. Also, Agent Carter on television. Yeah, and who's the third one? Barry Glickman. That is James Corden in the prom.

In the prom. Indeed, yes. All right, next one. S.R. Haddon, John Quincy Adams, and Mrs. Robinson. Mrs. Robinson is Anne Bancroft. S.R. Haddon is that is John Hurt in contact

Correct My beloved contact John Quincy Adams Is that Hopkins Hopkins in Amistad John Hurt Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft

I know that this is going to be embarrassing that I don't have this I will say the film was an Oscar nominee. Oh, it's the Elephant Man. It's the Elephant Man. Very good. Elephant Man. Well done.

All right. Next one. Winston Churchill, Mr. Orange, and Glenn Holland. Well, Mr. Orange is definitely a reservoir dogs person. Winston Churchill could be a million people, but I will just say Gary Oldman. Yes. Mr. Holland, did you say? Glenn Holland, yes.

Glenn Holland, is that Richard Dreyfus? Correct. Okay, so Richard Dreyfus and Gary Oldman, and then Mr. Orange, is Mr. Orange Bushemi? No. Bishemi is Mr. Pink. Cool. Harvey Kytel? He's Mr. White.

Great. Michael Madsen. No, he's Mr. Blonde. Okay, you just have to tell me. It's Tim Roth in Reservoirs. Okay, so Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, and Richard Dreyfus. What is this dude movie? It's probably from the 90s.

I'm pretty sure it is from the 90s. It might be from the late 80s, but hold on. I think it's from the 90s. Is it a mammoth play? Is it like American Buffalo? It is not a mammoth play, but it is a very acclaim. and successful playwright, I will say. Okay.

It's very, um, this is from the 80s, right? Oh, 80s. Wait, no, sorry. I'm all over the place, aren't I? Oh, wait, I didn't realize this. Sorry. I, this is, the play is from the 60s. The film is from the 90s.

Oh, okay. So, interesting. Yes. Not quite what I was thinking. So it's from the 60. This is an incredibly, again, acclaimed and prolific playwright who has an Academy Award for co-writing a Best Picture winner. It's not Tennessee Williams.

It's not Arthur Miller. No. Later, a little later than that. What is this playwright's most? He's like, he keeps, he's still, you know, writing new stuff today. Oh. His most recent play... Hold on.

Still working. Oh, he also was accredited screenwriter on our second ever this had Oscar Buzz episode. Really? Yeah. Credited with, wasn't that, pay it forward? No. No. No.

That is Tulip Fever. Christopher Hampton? Not Christopher Hampton. Hmm. Okay. Who? He also did the screenplay adaptation

for Anna Karenina. Oh my God. Is it not so it's a British person. definitely a British person Tom Stoppard Tom Stoppard Tom Stoppard was working that long

Oh yeah Interesting Okay a Tom Stoppard movie With Gary Oldman Tim Roth and Dreyfuss This was pretty much his first major role

work. It was like this was his stopper. It's big breakthrough play. The real thing? No. It is an offshoot. It is, what's it? That was in the 80s. Yeah. This is an offshoot of a very famous Shakespeare work. Okay.

Huh. Like, what's the most famous Shakespeare work? Oh, um, uh, it's, uh, Rosencranton, Guildenstern, or dead. It's Rosencranton, Guildensterner dead. Yes. Gary Oldman, Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Richard, Richard Reiface, yes, okay.

So next one. God. All right, I especially want you to listen to the name of this first one. Angela McCourt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dr. Stephen Strange. Angela McCourt's got to be Frank McCourt's mother, so Emily Watson. Angela's ashes, very good. Yes. It tastes like Angela's ashes.

What were the other two? F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dr. Stephen Strange. Well, Benedict Cumberbatch is Dr. Stephen Strange. F. Scott Fitzgerald is that Tom Hiddleston in Midnight in Paris. Yes, it is. This is British. It is... Hittleston and Cumberbatch could be conceivably in a billion things.

Emily Watson though From a play From a play And because it's those two actors It has to be relatively recent Like the last 15 years Correct very correct It's

Turnaround from play to film Was very quick And like Emily Watson doesn't do stage So that's not It's not like it's, the fast turnaround was because they just used the same cast. No, none of the actors in the film were in the original stage production. It was a Best Picture nominee. I love it.

What? Okay. A lot of people don't. But I love it. That's the biggest hint. It is War Horse. It is War Horse, my beloved War Horse. Okay. Amy March, Mark Antony, and Irina.

Okay. Well, Amy March could go a bunch of different ways. Is it Kirsten Dunst and then is it Bachelor? No, it's not Bachelorette. That didn't win a Tony. It did not, unfortunately. So it could be Florence Pugh. It could be Samantha Mathis. Florence Pugh, I don't think, has been in a play adaptation. She has not. So I guess it's Kirsten Dunst or Samantha Mathis, probably.

What are the other two? Mark Antony and Irina. Is it... Elizabeth Taylor didn't play Amy March. she? Didn't she? Is it who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Elizabeth Taylor did play Amy March in a version of Little Women. Mark Anthony. That's the one I haven't seen.

Yes, nor I. Mark Antony is Richard Burton and Julius Caesar. In Cleopatra. And Irina, it was the only, I tried to find a character name recognizable for either George Siegel, may he rest in peace, and Sandy Dennis. And the only one I could find is Sandy Dennis was in a three Three Sisters movie, so she played Irina. All right, next one.

Christy Brown, Joe March, and Georgia O'Keefe. Well, Christy Brown is Daniel Day Lewis and my left foot, correct? Correct. Which brings Joe March to either be Sersha or Winona. I'm going to say it's Winona. because I don't think Daniel Day has done a lot of play adaptations. Or, I mean, Sershah hasn't. But the only Daniel Day movie with Winona that I can think of,

unless there is one that I'm forgetting, is Age of Innocence, which is based on a book. It's not the Age of Innocence. You are forgetting something. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah, they did reunite for something, but what the hell was it? What was the third name?

Georgia O'Keefe. Okay, who played Georgia O'Keefe in something? There's not like a Georgia O'Keefe bio-Pic that I'm forgetting? It was on television. The director of this film also directed one of the earlier answers in this round. I'm so behind the weeds that I can't even remember what that was. This was an awesome. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

They were on the same damn poster together. It's the crucible. Let him have his name. It is the crucible. Yes. All right. Duh. Next one. Margaret Thatcher, Albus Dumbledore, and Beaufield Nutbeam.

That would be Merrill Streep as Margaret Thatcher. Yep. Albus Dumbledore, I'm going to guess is Jude Law. Yes? No. No. Okay. So Michael Gambon?

Yes. Meryl and Gambon. and the third name was something bizarre Beaufield Nutbeam I'm not going to get that you're not get yeah you're not I'm trying to think of Michael Gambin

and all I can think of is the life and death of John F. Donovan where he plays some type of gay ghost this is a Meryl movie from the late 90s. Oh, okay, well, that's helpful. Not music of the heart, not one true thing. Not the Bridges of Madison County. What was?

Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, I'm trying to think. I know Lunaza is dancing at Lunaza is a play, but I do. don't think it was a best, it was a Tony winner. Wasn't it? Is it dancing at Lunaza? It's dancing at Lunaza. Yes, very good. Really? I thought that was like an off-Broadway thing.

It won the Tony Award in 1992 for best play. Beaufield Nutbeam, I just included, because that is the Reese Eiffon's character in, of course, the shipping news, because everybody in the shipping news is named something fucking crazy. That's a stupid name. Fucking crazy. Beaufield and Nutbeam. Get the hell out of here, any parole. All right. Last one. Leo Bloom, Wilbur Turnblad, and Betty Lou. Harvey Firestein for Wilbur Turnblad.

Leo Bloom is Matthew Broderick. Is this like Biloxi Blues? It's Biloxi Blues, but you are wrong about Wilbur Turnblad. It's not... Oh, is it Travolta? No. it's Christopher Walken Oh, I just

I only focused on the Turnblad Yeah Leo Bloom is Matthew Broderick In obviously the producers Christopher Walken is Wilbur Turnblad and Hairspray Betty Lou is the only name I could find For Penelope Ann Miller That is her character in The Gun in Betty Lou's handbag

Which is another film I only know as a title I should do like a film festival Of films I only know as a title And just like watch them all That'd be a fun project maybe this summer when things are quiet. All right. Next one.

Polly Perkins, Don Diego de la Vega, and Jack Twist. Jack Twist, Jack Nasty, Jake Gyllenhaal. What were the first two? Polly Perkins and Don Diego de la Vega. Okay. I think Jake's going to be the best. way for me to get what this is. What has he

done that's been based on a play? Mr. Dillon Hall fashions himself a theater actor now. Indeed. He's reportedly very good on the stage. Yeah, he is from what I've seen. I was in a play, and I can never remember the title of it, but where

they flooded the set at the end of it, and it was very fascinating. It was like a living room that gets flooded. Okay, so Jake Jillen Hall not, obviously not Brokeback Mountain, not nocturnal

animals, not night crawler, not wildlife, obviously not end of watch. But he's also third, so he's not going to be the lead lead of whatever you're giving me. Right. Not Zodiac.

Oh, it's got to be proof. It is proof. Polly Perkins is Gwinneth Paltrow's character in Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow. tomorrow, another film with insane names. And then Don Diego de la Vega, any guesses? It's Anthony Hopkins in something where he is playing Spanish.

It's the Mask of Zorro. It's his character's name in the Mask of Zorro. Oh my God, I love that movie. So, yes, he's playing Mexican in that movie. So back to the film at hand. We are talking about Carnage. We took a bit of a detour there. It's fine.

This movie got such a better Rotten Tomato score than I ever could have imagined. It just got, like, this is the one thing that we should maybe say about the Polanski thing is, like, people were still even talking about, Polanski is maybe the only person that we still kept it in conversation when, like, horrible shit has come out about them. And it's maybe never gone away for Polanski, but, like, still releasing movies. Like, people like Mark Wahlberg got it buried, like, their bad behavior and, like, whatever. But, like, it never went away for Polansky. And it's, like, it's, like, like, it never went away for Polansky. And it's, like, like, Like, people were still kind to this movie. Well, remember when Polanski won the Oscar for the pianist in 2002, and there was like at least a partial standing ovation. He's not there, obviously. You can't come back into the United States. There was, I feel like the way that we conceived these kinds of things, these kind of celebrity scandals, where I think back in that era, the thing that was prized and prioritized, was separating the art from the artist

and also that someone's work stood aside from any kind of other considerations and all these other considerations were sort of lumped in this like what Roman Polansky did was sort of lumped in the same bucket as like Hugh Grant picking up a hooker like that kind of thing where like there was no differentiation

there was no investigation everybody just sort of decided that like oh like let alone he was convicted and what he escaped was his actual jail sentence that was coming. And it's a terrible look on Hollywood as you go back, but like it's very instructive in terms of how the sort of social mores of Hollywood have changed in the ensuing years, where now that kind of, like, it's the complete opposite, and there's been a, you know, social awakening. And what, you know, is that good PR? Is that a change in the way people are thinking? I want to say

it's a little bit of both. I would like to think that at some point, people sort of were able to take a step back and be like, what exactly are we rallying behind when we rally behind somebody like Roman Polanski? But anyway. Well, and like to this specific movie's point, like the positive Rotten Tomato score,

I just want to be like, what movie did you watch? Even aside from the Polansky things, because like we're also two people who did see the play. And like, I'm curious to hear from somebody what they think about this movie works. they haven't seen it because like I think regardless of knowing what the play's experience it you're right like you said earlier it's very easy having seen the two to compare them yes but at the same time I still think there's just like real problems like the movie begins in the way that they stage it and it's not scripted this way necessarily that like they resolved what they're there to do and then they go in the hallway to go down the the elevator and then they still go back into the house like it puts them back into this home

several times and like i know even in some of the reviews of the stage show there was like why wouldn't you just leave right notices at certain points but like i think the play does get that balance writer like well it's in this almost slightly abstract world where it's like yes If you as an audience member get past that, like, you don't even think about it. But this movie asks us to think about it from the very opening moments. And it's like... It's able to be a lot more insidious in the play, which I think is much more effective. In the film, you are always conscious of the fact that, like, A, it's like the setting sun outside.

Like, the day is getting dark and darker. But yes, every single time they keep trying to escape this apartment and they get, you know, they're at the elevator and like two or three times they have to like let the open door. of the elevator shut because they get detoured and whatever. Every time that they go back into the house is for a reason that you as a person would not go back into the house. Right. The first one is like, oh, do you guys want some coffee after you've already have your coats on?

Right. You're already leaving. It's like, yeah, I do want a coffee from Starbucks when I get out of here. Right. Whereas in a play, we're much more accustomed to things like plays happening in one room, right? So like it's not as jarring. And also, so the set of the play As the play goes on, the lighting, the back lighting along the back wall of this living room that they're in gets progressively redder and redder. Like the lighting on it, like very, to the point where you start to notice it, and then you're just like, wasn't always that red? Like, what is just, you're at least like, that was my experience when I just was just been like, you know, you start to, and then you, and then you sort of slowly realize the kind of surreal. surreality of

that aspect of what's going on and then it becomes more oppressive and it becomes, you know, as temperatures get hotter, like the lighting gets, you know, more and more intensely read. And there's nothing included in the set design that doesn't get smashed, obliterated

or destroyed at some point. So it's like all the books get puked on. The flowers get smashed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the tulips really take a beating. The tulips are so funny in the stage show because they're referenced more

pointedly and it's just such an afterthought in the movie. Well and Hope Davis really goes like Kate Winslet actually does a pretty good job with that of just like but it's not built to in any way and it's again you don't get that release when that happens in the stage show again like the audience is just like losing their minds at that point. It's a really great audience

show like the experience of watching that is just like it's a lot of fun but reading a lot of the reviews we talk about 71% Rotten Tomatoes rating which is insane but almost all of the reviews, the positive reviews, where this sort of like hand-waving kind of just like, it's 80 minutes, it's Roman Polanski, it's these four, you know, A-list actors, what do you got to lose, kind of a thing. Like Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, and I don't think

said anything particularly positive of it in his entire review. And so I think it was a lot of that kind of thing, where it was this very, it was a 71% rotten tomatoes, but there was nobody who was like championing this movie. Yeah. Even though it did get two Golden Globe nominations for both of the actresses, which if you are, you know, an A-list actress in a musical or comedy, the Golden Globes are going to take your call. Like the Hollywood Foreign Press is going to take your call as we have learned. The thing that more vexed me, it got a Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Ensemble, which is real stupid. It's just, it's not a best ensemble. Most of them are actually pretty bad. I mean, I guess it's flat.

But you're also talking about a year that includes bridesmaids, that even includes things like the help, you know, where there's like, just as, well, I guess those aren't as like A-list starry in terms of where we were in 2011. But it's like, there are other options. You could pick another movie. Even if you want to go with, like, stars being huge, you could do, like, the Ids of March. Right, exactly. Margaret is that year, which was the runner-up to the Best Ensemble Award. They gave it to Carnage. Margaret, finished number two, and I just have to question your choices when these are the decisions that you are making.

Yeah. If there's a movie that you should be nominating for two performances that year in the Golden Globe musical or comedy category, it's bridesmaids. Like, Michelle Williams wins this Golden Globe. because Marilyn Monroe sings in one scene. It's one of the more fraudulent... We talked about... We just, like, literally minutes ago, talked about how the Golden Globes

did right by Alicia Vikander and Runei Mara's performances in the Danish girl and Carol, respectively, putting them in lead. And sometimes, like, they're good about categories, and sometimes they're just incredibly shameless. Big example being, My Week with Marilyn being counted as a musical,

which Jesus age. Yeah. Yeah. So. And then you have Kristen Wig nominated for bridesmaids, and my, like, buy-a-long-shop pile is Charlize Theron nominated for young adults. I know. Again, some really good nominations and some really, really terrible ones.

Yeah. Is there any—let me dip into my little notebook. What did I write to? Oh, we didn't talk about John C. Riley at all. So I just wrote down great moments in John C. Riley miscasting, carnage, and we need to talk about Kevin happening in adjacent years. He's incredibly miscast in both of those roles. And it's not fatal to we need to talk about Kevin, but I think it is part of what is fatal to carnage. And it just every, I just wanted to see James Gandalfini in that role so, so much.

And he's just not right for it. We talked about that a little bit. You said you had some thoughts on the changing of, I mentioned that it's Brooklyn Bridge Park in the film. It is Cable Hill Park in the play, which I do think, again, a small difference that I think does communicate a little bit more. It's a lot of small differences that make this way less precise, way less interesting, way less funny, and way less like cutting of a movie. This isn't the same translation as the one that you'll see on an American stage. I get the translator's name that it shows up in the credits, but it's not Christopher Hampton. The Broadway version, the one that you will get, like, if you go and buy a Samuel French version of this,

you'll get the Christopher Hampton text if you're getting the American translation, or the British translation, too. And it's just like, Christopher Hampton clearly knows what he is doing, probably worked very closely with Yasmean Reza, but these it's just like small touches to the language like throughout this movie there were so many lines I was like that's not exactly how it was in the show yeah that's not that that's not that's not where that line hit that's not you know and it makes a difference I think especially when you have something that's not originally an English language text for the translation to like really kind of pack that punch of like being funny being this kind of wild farce like yeah It needs a level of precision that this movie just doesn't have. Yeah. What else? Oh, I wrote down some very realistic barfing. I think if one thing we can give the film credit for is that barf-

The bar is upsetting. It's so upsetting. It's so chunky. It's so much like, and it, like, I love the idea of an apples and pears cobbler and, like, not anymore now. That's also changed. I think it's a klofutti in the stage show. Oh, I think you're right. Like, that's, that is one of the key points of, like, precision makes this less funny because, like, these four uppity, like, wealthy people, half of whom try to pretend that they're not that person, it is funnier when they keep saying clefutti a million times.

Yes, it is. Then it is when they're saying cobbler. Well, and they try, they try to recapture that a little. how much Jody Foster keeps talking about the art book that got barfed on. And by the way, if the barfing wasn't enough, watching Jody Foster and John C. Riley like, sop up this chunky barf with like clots and whatever and try to clean off the papers and then spray cologne over everything and then hairdry it to try and fix the pages. And it's just like, it's so effectively gross.

It's the only time in the movie that I feel any kind of like active reaction to what's happening in a way that I feel like I'm supposed to. And, like, naturally, the one thing it does well is, is barfing. So, okay. I also wrote down the Venus and Fur of it all, because after, I'm trying to remember what year, it was like 2014, maybe, a few years after Carnage, Roman Polansky did another film adaptation of a Broadway play that I very much liked, which was the David Ives play Venus and Fur, and I just refused to seek it out. I did not want Venus and Fur. First of all, I did not want to have the letdown that I had from Gone of Carnage to Carnage in Venus and Fur, which is a play that I loved very much, Nina Arianda's

role, I think, is untouchable in that. I think she's so incredible. But the other thing is, the subject matter of Venus and Fur is very, very much sexual politics and, you know, sort of... And he cast his wife. And he cast his wife. And I didn't want any part of that. So I... Absolutely not. I think it barely got released in the States. Yeah, no, I would have had to really, like, seek it out to find it. And I didn't want to do that. So let's... lesson learned. Fool me once. Shame on you. So now you from me. Yeah. Anyway.

Yeah. So anything else that you wanted to say before we move into the IMDB game? No, let's move into the IMDB game. All right. Why don't you tell us what that is? So, guys, every episode we end our, well, we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other to guess the top four titles that IMDB says the performer is most known for. If there are any titles that are television or voiceover work, we'll mention that up front. But after two wrong guesses, we'll get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints.

That's the IMDB game. Haza! Yes. All right. So, Chris, would you like to quiz me or get quizzed? I think rather than barfing on you, I'm going to give you a cobbler, so I'm going to give to you first. All right, let's hear it. Okay, so for your IMDB game, I did not see any other avenue I can go other than this performer who was in God of Carnage, both in London and on Broadway, was nominated against God of Carnage when Martha Gayharden won, and also was Oscar nominated the year that we're talking about. Do you know who I am giving you?

No, but I just want to give you a hard time for saying Martha Gay Hardin, and I think it's because, you've watched the Snyder cut a billion times this week. That is what I'm going to chalking up to. I'm just talking too fast. I'm trying to get to the end point. You know who I'm... I've already talked about how much... I love Marsh Gae.

Wait, so she was up against Harriet Walter. I fumble my words. Oh, it's Janet McTeer. Janet McTeer from Mary Stewart. I love Janet McTeer. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you too much of a hard time, but I thought the Martha connection was... I mean, I'm sure a listener might have as well.

I get excited and I fumbled my words. Leave me alone. Janet McTeer. We love her. Yeah. Any television? No. One of these is, it's not, it's technically a voiceover, but it is not an animated movie. She narrates one of the movies in her known for. All right. Is one of them, Albert Knobbs?

Albert Knobbs. Oscar nominated for Albert Knobbs, the scene where she pulls down her shirt and shows off her boobs is shows off her knobs just just exquisite knockers i will say um well done well done janet there um all right is the other oscar nomination in her uh on her filmography and there is it tumbleweeds tumbleweeds yes all right so we've gotten past that now the difficult ones them as a narrator. What would she have narrated? Janet McTeer. I'm imagining it's something British. I feel like I'm not going too much out on a limb for that. I really can't give you

hints at the very least until you get something wrong. Okay. No. I agree with that. All right. Other things that Janet McTeer is in, I can only think of television things at this point. She, wait, she was in something I saw recently, I think. What would it have been? Oh, you know what it is, though. Speaking of Kate Winslet's in the Divergent movies, she's in one of the Divergent movies also. And I'm going to guess, well, I never saw Allegiance.

So I'm going to guess insurgent. She's an Allegiant, but it's not in her known for. It's not in her known for. Okay. Oh, wait, she is an insurgent, too. Okay. Here's another thing about this goddamn, uh, entirely scrubbed from the face of the Earth series. The insurgent is technically titled the Divergent series.

Oh, yeah. They dumped Allegiance so much that like, you know what, we're just going to call it Allegiant. Um, okay, I believe she is in that Emma Thompson film Carrington from like 94. Um, well, it is not in her known for, but I will look and see if she is in Carrington. She indeed is from 1995 Carrington, but that is your two wrong guesses. Okay. Your years are 2014 and 2016. I will help you out and say that her narrative.

narration is 2014, and it is, to answer your previous question, not British. Okay. Okay. 2014, not British, voiceover, and it's not an animated film that she's voicing over, right? It's a live action. It's not an animated film, but it has, shall we say, animated origins. Animated origins. Please welcome to the stage

Okay So was it originally It was originally an animated film And then it got a live action remake So it's probably Disney In 2014 Maleficent She narrates Maleficent

I don't think I knew that That's amazing Okay You who can always catch a Voiceover actor I know I know All right

Okay, so 2016, this is an adaptation. I'm sure that the book has never left the shelves of Target for a decade. Oh, God. You can go into probably any Target in America right now and buy this book. Is it like an Oprah style, like Oprah's Book Club style? Would it have been in the Oprah's Book Club in the 90s? No, but it's definitely read by like, it's a romance novel. It's a romance novel.

2016. Is she like one of the romances? Is it like an older person romance or is she like the mother? No, she is not the lead love interest. She's not the lead love interest. It is definite, the two leads are definitely people that come from franchises, perhaps one of them not in movies

but that people have tried to make movie stars and these are like at this point they are like C-list romantic leads at this point all right television

franchise law and order no maybe franchise isn't the right word for this television show okay but it's like a big television show

yes Game of Thrones Yes Sophie Turner No Amelia Clark Oh oh oh Is it the one where

One of them is paralyzed Or dying Do you have a title for me? Wait, I'll get it I'll get it Because I didn't see this movie But I definitely saw this trailer a bunch It's her

and it's like... I hated this movie. It's not Sam Riley. It's, um... It is a Sam. Claflin. Yes. Amelia Clark, Sam Claflin.

He's paralyzed or she's paralyzed. He is. Janet McTeer is his mother, I believe. It's like, it's one of those, it's like... It's not the U and the Eye, but it's one of those that's just like, um, um, um, like... Oh, God, what is it? It's, um... The author is Jojo Moez.

Yeah, I don't know who that is. I don't... I was not familiar with this book as like a thing until I saw that it was a movie. Oh, it's called, um, uh, it's me before you. Me before you. Jesus. Crime-a-nee.

Okay. Hated that movie. I did not see it, but I believe it. I believe that you hated it. Okay. And Janet McTeer is challenging. I like that. Okay.

All right. For you, we talked briefly about Roman Polanski having a really good success in 2010 with a film called The Ghost Writer, which got, I don't think it got a major nomination anywhere, but I think it showed up on a bunch of, like, top ten lists and sort of, you know, got little minor, you know, things here or there. But that starred Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor. And the female star of that film is Miss Olivia Williams. Ah, yes. Great British actress Olivia Williams. We both want British actresses. Yes, we did.

Star of current Best Picture nominee, La Faja. Oh, she's in the Fajja. She is the Fajah. Well, she's not the Fajha. She's in the fascia. Have you seen the fascia yet? Not yet. But now that it's available on the ODA, I will be seeing it.

I won't go into too much detail about her role in Zafaja. Is she imaginary? She's imaginary. I'm not talking about it. All right. I'm not talking. No, I'm not telling you what's happening. All right.

Give me, give me, uh, give me, uh, give me, Olivia Williams is known for. I mean, you primed her up with the ghost writer. She actually won like critics prizes and I think was like BAFTA nominated for that movie. so I am actually going to guess that one. You are correct. She won, let's see, what did she win for the Ghost Rider? She was a nominee at the Indy Wire Critics Poll. She won the London Film Critics Circle Award.

She was a runner-up at the Los Angeles Film Critic Circle. She won the National Society of Film Critics for that. and yeah National Society and London All right Three more Obviously the six cents

Obviously the six cents Speaking of characters Who are not there Not her But obviously Rushmore Rushmore She's so good in Rushmore

That's a very crucial role That she plays just right She is the woman caught in between Getting snubbed for that movie I feel like we should have the same conversation about her Yes We talked about her in Hyde Park on Hudson I feel like while she maybe didn't have like

Critics Prizes or anything We definitely were predicting her For that movie before people saw it So I'm going to guess Hyde Park on Hudson In her role as Eleanor Roosevelt's not one of her known for. Damn. I would have loved to have gotten a perfect score.

You almost ran the table. Yes, okay. One strike. Okay, I do feel the pressure to get this without any hints. Okay. Trying to think of what else she was in. She was also in Cronaberg's Maps to the Stars.

Not her, but that movie. she definitely gets what that movie is doing and I remember liking her in that movie didn't that show up for somebody I feel like it showed up for like Julianne Moore I'm gonna guess that movie uh no not Maps to the Stars

sorry two strikes now you get a hint your hint is 2009 okay what was British in 2009 it's a good avenue to go down Hmm What are the British It was her only film from 2009

She's a teacher in an education And she's just like everybody else Who has a scene or two in that movie She's great Is it an education? It is an education Best Picture nominee An Education

Very good Carrie Mulligan's other Oscar nomination Well done Good job Thank you very much. Well, we went incredibly long on an 80-minute movie, which I love for us. So thank you for joining this conversation with us. But that is our episode. If you want

more, This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.tumler.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Chris, tell the people where they can find you. You can find me on Twitter, puking and destroying tulips or whatever those were, at Krispy File, that's F-E-I-L, also on letterboxed under the same name baking cobblers.

You know what I call that? That is the real tulip fever. You can find me baking Tom McCarthy's the cobbler. Oh, God. Yeah, burn that one in the oven. Burn Tom McCarthy's the coblin in the oven. I've never seen that movie.

I can't even talk about it. All right. Either of I. I am on Twitter at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I'm also on Letterboxed, as Joe Reed reed spelled the exact same way. This episode is supported in part by Gateway Film Center,

a non-profit cinema committed to supporting storytellers. Authentic stories can inspire new ideas, entertain, push boundaries, spark new levels of empathy, and advance social change. To learn more about their program and plan your visit for award season weekend, please visit gatewayfilm center.org.

We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mavius for their technical guidance. please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility, so spray some cologne and let your barfed-on art books dry while you write something nice about us, won't you? That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. It's not It's no

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