Fran the fucking no one can no one can hit it the elf bar down.
Look, it's just it's just getting me through. I thought you were throwing it away. I am gonna throw it away. She's sheen.
I'm me no, ma, not hone yo no no, what is your childhood trauma? I am a uk.
You what's going down the floor?
Like round?
Welcome to Like a Virgin, the show where we give yesterday's pop culture today's takes.
I'm Rose Domin and I'm Fran Dorado.
Fran, are you an allergy Girlie?
No, I'm not.
I'm not, but I know that you are, as a Caucasian constantly suffering through this.
I am suffering. I just want to show you.
I have this little like decorative bowl here that I usually keep fruit in, and during allergy season it has instead become home to hills eye drops. Ooh, nasal spray. Yeah, we need to get some real there and I beuprofen and then also make up.
But I did buy some fruit this morning. We love that.
I'm going to try to fill it in again, because it's not as aesthetic when it's full of pill.
Bobby, I actually if you could argue that it's more even more aesthetic when filled with allergy medications, it's more ownable. It's a stylistic choice rose your culture.
I don't know, but I am down bad with allergies.
It is.
I do think it says a lot about me as a person that the more beautiful it becomes outside, the more miserable I become, and the more.
My body attacks me. But you know, I am, I am.
I'm fighting it, and I'm going to spend the afternoon in Fort Green Park.
Yes, oh, what are you doing there?
Peyton and I are meeting up and we're just gonna read and eat snacks.
Okay, that's so day, Yes it is. What are you reading right now? Oh?
Well so I as I said a couple of months ago. You know, so we have officially moved Ros's book Club over to the Patreon Yes, patreon dot com slash like a virgin if you're not already a patron. And the book that I said was going to be our next discussion topic is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, and I it's been it's been hard for me to get started on that because it's very dense, it's historical fiction, and so it's really been sitting on the back burner for me.
And so actually this weekend I read something that I think you would like, Frand and I kind of want to like pitch you on it and convince you to read it. Okay, so we can talk about it on the Patreon.
First of all, how long is it? It's very short.
I was going to run errands on Saturday and I looked at Fingersmith and I was like, Okay, I don't want to carry this heavyest book with me, and you need something like short that I can read very quickly. So I went to my shelf where I keep all the books that I haven't read, and there's a lot of them. Because I really love to buy books.
I just bought.
I just bought two books literally like in a haze yesterday with like you know points, and I was like, the audacity to buy two more books.
We're going to make it free.
Actually, I will lend you this book so the book can get a copy. The book is The Sluts by Dennis Cooper, and it is a dark, twisted, perverted, sickening terrible book that I loved and read in one day.
It takes place entirely on a website where men review gay male escorts, and it's all set in two thousand and one, two and two, and it starts off with someone reviewing this escort named Brad, and he sort of kicks off all of the like fantasies of the men who were on the message board, and other men leave reviews of him that you're not sure if they're true
or not. And he is involved in this like horrific relationship with this man named Brian who wants to kill him, and he kind of wants to be killed, and so the book is all told killed wants to be killed.
So the book is all told through these reviews, through emails and faxes, and it all spirals and it you know, it takes place when the Internet was first like a thing, really And it actually ended up being a very nice pairing with a movie that I watched last week, Videodrome, the David Cronenberg movie, which is also sort of about this idea of like the intersection between sex and violence in media, and like the Chicken or the Egg kind of question about that, which is like, did media create
this violence that in that in consuming it made us more violent? Or did we create violent media in our own image? Because you know in these reviews that these men leave there like spinning these really horrific, violent, sexually deviant, pedophilic fantasies, and you're realizing that the freedom to share them has like made these fantasies even worse than they
might have been otherwise. But obviously they were like still already there and in some way, and they're like it's very funny, it's very disgusting, and there's so much about like who's lying, who's telling the truth, lots of unreliable narration, and like I finished the book thinking I probably didn't ever want to read it again, or like read anything else the author had written, but I loved the experience of reading it.
Okay, I have three follow up questions. Okay, so it's an epistolatory novel, like it's told one hundred percent through these messages. Yes, okay, cool, So in that it's kind of you said, it's like at the dawn of the Internet. So is it kind of like you've got mail coded a little bit?
Yeah, you've got mail coded.
If Tom Hanks murdered Meg Ryan and then like.
Raped her corpse.
All of a sudden, I've forgotten my third question.
Oh my God, as I said, I read this the same week that I watched Video Drome for the first time. And I watched Video Drome because on your recommendation. I've been watching Dead Ringers on Amazon and I haven't finished it yet, but when I do, we'll we'll talk about it. And Dead Ringers is based off of a David Cronenberg movie called Dead Ringers. In that movie, the twins that Rachel Weiss plays are men, so like the TV show is a.
Version of that.
And before Video Drome, I had only seen one other David Cronenberg movie, Crimes of the Future, which I saw last year and hated. I think I talked about it here at the time Video Drome, however, I loved. It's so fucking weird and a young James Woods is in it and he's really hot in it, and also Blondie's in it and she's really hot in it. It's likedy, so good, so fucked up, and also very much about like you know, violence, and like snuff films are a
big part of it. And it's really gross. There's like body horror, and it just like sick and twisted, and I loved every second of it. Okay, all right, I don't know if I'm a Cronenberg early, but I'm definitely gonna try and read that book.
So reading Fundamental. Do you know what else is fundamental? Suck session as you called it to me yesterday when we were on the.
Yes a joke which I had definitely made before and when even when the first time I made it, I thought, this is very obvious, and I'm sure many other people.
Have made it, and it got like ten thousand lies. No.
Last night's succession was another banger episode, you know, all around this tailgate party that was happening at Tom and shives in the inside the episode thing that they do after the episodes on HBO. Sarah Snook said that the creator kind of said that the vibe of the episode was Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? You know, this is having a party at their house and like hate each other. Good reference, and that really was.
The vibe of it.
Like there, I loved how they started the episode like flirty, but also like angry at each other when Tom gave
Shiv the scorpion. But then they're still sending each other these texts where she was like, sorry if I broke your dick last night and then by the end of the episode, they finally have this knockdown, drag out brawl where they bring up basically all of the ship that they've been holding on through throughout the entire show, and especially everything that happened at the end of last season.
I loved it.
And I mean, Sarah snook emmy campaign is is.
She's She's She's taking it.
I mean, she is a character that has ascended on the power rankings for sure. I yeah, the shive Tom thing, now that I have heard this Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf kind of parallel like that, it makes perfect sense to me. You can see everything that has gone on said for the you know years that they've been kind
of in a relationship together. Have you ever been in a relationship like that where like there was something going on in the relationship, like it was a bit of a situationship kind of and it was never spoken about until like some explosion moment.
Never a romantic relationship. But I definitely have had close friendships where there have been things that we were both avoiding and they came out in some explosive moment.
Yeah, because I have definitely had at least one situationship like this where there was a somewhat verbal, somewhat nonverbal agreement that like we were just kind of let the relationship be the what it was, right, and then all of a sudden, all the things that you've been feeling come out.
You know.
And when Tom when they were out on the patio and Tom was like, Tom was like, can we just have a real conversation? It was like it was such a like mind fuck because you're like, damn, like what have they what kind of conversations have they been having
up into this point? And when Schiff says I don't care about you and I've never cared about you something that I don't know how you feel about that roast, But I, as of you personally think that's true based on everything we've seen in the three seasons, Like I think that Shiv might have a shred of care for Tom for the most part, he is an accessory or a pawn in everything she does. Like, I think that's totally true.
I actually disagree.
I think that was the only part in that fight where she was being dishonest, and I really believe that the reason that Tom was able to betray her so much when he sold the kids out to Logan at the end of season three, like proved to Shive for the first time that Tom was someone who.
Could hurt her.
And I almost think we've been seeing this season her finally opening up to him in a way she never had before, like even in last night's episode, I think a season or two ago. So she never would have let him in on what was going on with Madsen.
She would have like kept it all very close to the chest, and in trying out their relationship for a second time, she to me it least seemed like she was opening up to him in a way she never had before and was really letting herself trust him and care about him because like realizing that she was fucking over her family and like Tom might be the only.
Person in her corner.
And after that happened, so yeah, I feel like she was lying in that moment and just trying to hurt him TBD.
But like truth is a rather the thing that we both know is that Tom is about to fuck shit up, like you could when he was laying in bed in that final frame, like the mechanations going on, like he is one thousand percent about to make a big move and I'm very excited about that because he's so delightfully slippery, spineless, ethicless, like so good he is.
Yeah, I was listening to the Succession podcast this morning.
Oh you listened to the Succession podcast?
Yeah, so good, And Matthew, who plays Tom, was on it this week and he was saying that one of the ways he plays Tom is like Tom is basically a different character depending on who he's talking to, and he really like he has kind of no agenda other than survival and advancement and success, and so that I think is what makes him very dangerous, is like he's
willing to do anything. And so now he came on this bitch mad as hell, like he's at his lowest, you know, because he this whole party, like everyone was talking about how he's going to get fired, and now he's lost Shiv, who was like his one tether into the family, So who knows what he'll do. The last time that he was in a similar position was when he betrayed Shiv and went to Team Logan. So yeah, he really could do anything. But I have kind of come around to.
Be like a Tomshive girl and like.
Their kind of end game for me and one thing I really loved is that she never, like, even when he said I don't think you'd be a good person to be a mother, I love that she didn't say, well, I'm carrying your baby. I think a lot of people expect that kind of revelation to come in that moment, and on a different TV show, that would have been the moment where Shiv said, well, I'm pregnant. But this
is Succession and she's not gonna say that. And I wouldn't be surprised if that admission happened like off screen, or like in the very last episode in a sort of inconsequential way, or if she like miscarries or something like. That's not what Succession is about.
So I don't know. I'm just like, there's only three episodes left.
Can I confide something in you to you in this unsafe space?
Yes, I have never been a shive girl.
I've never like Want, I've never rooted for her as a character. I'm not quite sure why, and I've never necessarily rooted for Tom in past seasons. But this season I'm rooting for Tom, and I'm also rooting for Jerry.
I'm definitely rooting for Roman, but I don't know. I'm just like really curious to see who will end up, who will end up on top, or if they will all just get fucked over because of this thing, this India thing, which I think is also a plausibility where they just all end up fat, nasty and broke.
You know who I'm rooting for and who is the best horse to bet on? Willa Roy. Willa to me was the MVP of this episode. She said, I'm not fucking going wherever you're sending me off to to be an ambassador's wife. I am Connor's wife now, and I'm telling my man, what's what?
Sorry, I'm extremely caffeinated.
Like yeah, like that truly, like the fact that they were like calling him asking him to withdraw h Like what was it like liaison to the UN, and like this has like international implications whatever, And that Willa is the person that actually made the call at the end of the day, something that has international implications, like sex workers be making.
The calls sometimes, and I think that is dope.
Yeah, I don't necessarily root for anyone. These are all bad people, you know, as this episode specifically pointed out, These are all people who like are back channeling shaping the future of our country and of politics, and like none of them really care about whatever it is they stand for. But if I had to root for anyone, it definitely would would be Willa.
It would be Willa. Yeah.
I mean, it's interesting to watch this become the most popular show on TV right now and to also know that it is in some ways a critique of capitalism and power.
But like.
All the kind of like eat the Rich media that's been coming out, whether it's like The Menu, which, to be honest thinking about it, didn't really love triangle sentence is great. I think it was a perfect balance. White Lotus, like all these other things following a kind of trend are doing so with a very ham fisted execution, right, Like they're really nitche like trying to nail down this
eat the Rich idea, and Succession doesn't do that. Like it's subtle and it doesn't need to say what it needs to say explicitly in order to get it to message across.
And it's not necessarily.
Even telling you who's right and wrong, so to speak, because obviously they're all wrong. I just yeah, the complexity is like what we need. We don't need a message, We need complication, and that's what I.
Love about the show absolutely.
Speaking of Survival, as you said earlier, h M, I finally I had fallen off of not fallen off of Yellow Jackets, but I like quite a few episodes rack Up before I finally got caught up.
Are you all caught up?
I am all caught up. I've been in a similar scenar as you. I will say that I think mostly because of it being programmed on Friday nights, I just haven't been driven to watch it as consistently as I was in season one. Also, there's been it's had some weeks recently where it hasn't aired, so I was kind
of confused about that. But this past week's episode was amazing, and I do think I didn't realize it until the very end of this week's episode when all of the women were together that I think that has been the problem for me with this season is that in the present day storyline, the women have all been off doing their own things, and last season I loved that they were all together, and I think that's why it's been
a little slower for me. But this season, between when Shauna giving birth in the past and the women's storylines finally converging in the future.
I'm all in. I'm ready to like ride this thing through till the end. The next episode's gonna be banger.
I have been like thinking so hard about what will happen when future Shauna meets future Lottie, because, as we're seeing more and more, their past relationship in the Wilderness was so overwrought and it seems like they truly truly hate each other, or at the very least have a past that's like way more complicated than we've seen yet. But Melanie Lynsky delivering her monologue in the kind of interrogation room with the police.
Oh my god.
I think it was like maybe my favorite Melanie Linsky performance since the series has started. Like it was like she was on It felt like something that as an actor she had really really worked on, Like it looked like it took so much work, and yet it felt completely natural, like there was no reason for her to confess what she confessed, but it happened because of what.
Was happening with the character. It was just so good.
Also, young Shauna played by Sophia Elise I thought was so incredible in this episode. You know, in the birthing scene and then her what turned out to be fantasies of her child surviving and then finding out the child had died.
Just she was so good.
Jasmine Savoy Brown is incredible also, like I mean, just really great acting across the board. Also, this was the first time that I kind of liked Shauna's.
Daughter, Callie's like who I hate. But when she.
Told me the detective that the that the other cop that she had sex with him, I was finally like, Okay, you were like living up to, you know, your mother, the example set by your mother in the worst way possible but also the best way.
Poppas so smart. But also wait, so they didn't have sex though, correct?
No, wow damn.
But I think the thing that she said about his balls, Like I think he said something to her about his balls, so that's why.
She knows that. Oh my god, I missed that. Okay, yeah, No.
This was also the first time that I liked the daughter, and it was like a very and honestly you and I called it like when we were complaining about her, like in previous episodes, something that we both said is just like she needs to either get on Melanie Lensky's side and like help be an evil person or she needs.
To die, like it's one or the other. And look here she is, she's showing up. Yeah.
I saw someone on Twitter saying that they fast forward through all of the present day scenes and Yellow Jackets and was like, why are you watching this show?
I mean, look, I would love to watch the show just with the wilderness scenes, Like, yes, I would watch that version of the show, but I I don't know how it would make sense if you're skipping all the other stuff, which I think enriches the story, you know.
Yeah, especially in this episode because Shanna her confession at the police station is so unearned if you're not seeing what happened when she was giving birth in the past and vice versa, like, it's not as devastating if you're not seeing how it ended up. So yeah, something that we're also seeing in the future montages is this further
investigation of the supernatural elements of the show. And last time we talked about Yellowjackets, you had basically said that you're still not convinced that Lottie's magic or that there's kind of magic going on. But in this most recent episode, in the therapy scene with Lottie, we got like a lot more information about around what quote unquote it is and this kind of demon ghost that is purported to
be inhabiting some of these girls and making their lives worse. Like, what's your thinking since we are, you know, a Byelo Jackets Conspiracy Theory podcast, what's some of your kind of thinking on that?
Now?
Well, what I liked in that therapy session that Lottie has is she's saying she.
Kind of needed.
It to be part of her delusion because then it wasn't real, and now she is questioning whether she like actually is crazy and maybe it was real. It really has kind of solidified for me this season that I really don't want there to be something supernatural going on. I think it's much more interesting if it's all just reality and this is about these people who a really fucked up thing happened to and they're just dealing with a lot of trauma.
They're all fucked up. I think.
The show really wants to have it both ways a little and wants to keep us guessing, and I don't think they can do that forever. Yeah, at some point they're going to have to commit either way, And like I think I will be slightly disappointed if there's a supernatural thing going on, but at least I'll like be happy to know, rather than them trying to keep us guessing. I don't think that's sustainable. Yeah, what do you think?
No?
I kind of agree with that. It does mix up the genre quite a bit. I mean, supernatural stuff has kind of been here since season one, but it's not necessarily the show I wanted to see, the show you wanted to see. But I'm appreciative of how it's like coming down, like it's moving the action forward, and I don't mind that. Are you watching the other two? Because there's a kind of a tonal disstonance. I was catching up on the other two, which just released new episodes.
I'm sure a lot of virgins watch this like now on HBO show that used to be on Comedy Central. Show about a gay guy and a sister who has a brother, a Justin Bieber esque brother that blows up in popularity. The show's very funny, but I'm frustrated now because the show wants to be a pie in the sky absurdist comedy, like the most absolutely deranged things that
would never happen in real life. Happening in the show, which I love very like broad City esque, but also it's now and it's third season, really writing emotional realism, like it wants to have serious conversations and like emotional like you know, diatribes about like what these characters going through. And I was like, I was like, I can take a comedy with heart, but not this, like all of a sudden, it's trying.
To be a drama, like truly a drama.
Yeah, well, dramedies have been so in vogue in the past years, and like I've never watched the other two, so I can't really speak to that, but I do think to introduce that element season in h is off putting. If that's if that's the kind of show you're going to be, that's the kind of show you're going to be. But I think it kind of has to be in the DNA of your show from the beginning. Well, I just wanted to get that off my chest, because I did. I did watch it this week. Thank you for getting
off your breasts and dress. I think since we're talking, we've been talking about TV, we should say that we stand in solidarity with the writer's Gil absolutely and WGA strong even though.
Neither of us are in it.
Not neither of us are in it, but we did post an amazing Nicole Kiinman meme on the feed in solidarity with the writers strikes.
Yes, give those girlies what they would deserve. Well, we have a very exciting guest today, Tommy Dorfman, who is an actress, IT girl director soon to be, so she is here to talk about Spring Awakening, which, if you aren't familiar, is a musical based on a German play of the same name that's all about teens in the old he Haw Germany discovering their sexuality, my sexuality, as Jenna Moroni would say. It was famously on Broadway, originated
by the likes of Liam Michelle and Jonathan Groff. I saw it many times in its original run, and both of us are very familiar with the soundtrack. We also went on a couple of tangents about things like friends and I don't know, some other stuff. It's been a while since we recorded the episode, but Alexa play Mama who Bore Me by Liam Michelle. Now she's actually doing it, Alexa stop.
There was like a brief overlap of Spring Awakening musical.
The bunke Ching musical og Lea Michelle Broadway cast and I think Friends still being maybe on air.
Because what year did Friends? I think it ended when I was still in high school. And I saw the original run of Spring Awakening off Broadway this summer before I went to college.
So summer of two thousand and six. Wow. Original Yeah, Lea Michelle sat next to me on stage.
Oh, because that was the station where like folks were on stage.
I mean they did that on Broadway too, but it was a little more intimate.
Yeah, I think at which theater the Atlantic? Oh slive off Broadway work.
No, the first time I saw Spring Working was on tour at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia in high school.
And were you a musical theater? I was gurly, of course, yeah, yeah, that tracks. And how old were you?
I think I was a sophomore.
How old were you rose?
It was the summer before I went to college. My friends and I all went on a trip together to New York City the summer before we went to college, and I was going to college in New York, so it was more like a preview for me, and we saw Spring Awakening. So one of us had heard about it. It was kind of getting buzzy, and we saw it off Broadway and I was gagged. I was like, this
is this is it? Because up until up until then, I had only seen kind of the big musicals, right, and this was I didn't know that a musical could.
Be like this.
Yeah.
No, I feel that way too, although I had seen a touring production of Rent, which I guess was like.
In a lot of ways.
But I think, like for Spring Awakening, I came at it having drowned myself in the soundtrack. So I remember going to see it and knowing every single like word harmony. We sang song of Purple Summer. At high school graduation a couple of years later, we would do these musical reviews that were student directed, and.
Everybody picked Spring Awakening.
Well, we would we would do like songs from different musicals and then like weave them together in some very unfashionable way.
It's actually so good that Spring Awakening didn't come out until after I was out of high school. Otherwise I would have been insufferable. Every theater competition would have been a bitch of living. As I'm sure it was.
After I graduated, I still would sorry, like in college sing some Spring Awakening.
Yeah.
Spring Awakening I think is like responsible for a generation of insufferable adolescence for sure, I certainly.
I feel like so I saw it in high school as well.
I had one of my friends in my like group was like very wealthy and took like her whole friend group to see Spring Awakening for her birthday.
Wow, And I was.
Like, yeah, flu they got flued out.
No, actually it was it was the traveling. It was the traveling. It was the touring production.
It was the traveling circus.
Yes, and it was in Chicago, So yeah, it was. I remember just being like fully, I mean, we all were listening to the soundtrack just as you were, like, all the way like up to the performance.
So by the time we were there were like screaming.
Okay, So of the three of us, I'm the only one who seen Jonathan Groff spit on Leah.
Michelle in person, did you guys?
Context, So why why did Spring Wakening sort of you know, catch your imagination?
I think the sheer fagotry of it and being like a self harm teenage drug addict, like all of those things wrapped up in a little black silk dystopian.
Bow for me.
I also my entry point into it was like a boy I had a crush on who was a couple of years older than me, was going to Northwestern and he was like, do you know this musical?
And you were like, yeah, of course I know. Yeah I would.
I still to this day will say if I don't know something, but I will learn it. Yeah, I will learn it expediently. At the time for Dick, yeah white lie occasion.
No, I didn't lie.
I said I didn't know it, but then I learned it immediately, and I was like, yes, okay, I'm on this.
I'm on the same page as you.
He was named after a vegetable I won't say which one, which I always thought was weird rude beiga, but before the vegetable became really popular rise.
Tail, so Russell sprouts.
I know. I think I think all of those things.
I think, like any musical opening with like boobies was so exciting to be as a kid, and just the sexualization of that particular story and just the feeling. I think I can't imagine a queer person of our generation who wouldn't have been obsessed with Spring Awakening in some capacity.
You're very right.
And also I think is this litmus test within musical theater of like are you a cool musical theater nerd or are you a nerd musical theater right, because it made like uncool theater kids feel like we had rock stars. True.
Yeah, were you a theater kid? Girl? Yeah?
I was. We are.
Our high school was, like, I had a very robust theater program. We did twelve shows a year, so many, way too many.
And that is like the school year summer stock we.
Did too, It was we did too. We did we did to main stage production. Yeah, like no, we just had one main stage.
But I went to a really small school.
I went to a big public school and we had a big theater program. And so I you know, became a workaholic at a high school age and was working on multiple productions at a time during my school year, like whether that was like assistant directing or like stage managing or being a part of the crew or whatever. Doing social yeah, doing doing yeah, so doing social media management, spring and waginning. I think it's just like there's something about it that I like, I was listening to it
again this morning. I hadn't listened to it in Ages, and I was like, it just is it perfectly encapsulates all this angst that we wanted to channel when we were like fifteen sixteen, I know, like the characters I think are like fourteen in the original play. Leah Michelle was fourteen when she started workshopping this. Yeah, which is Kuckoo Bananas.
She's too young, Yeah, very young, but.
She was very, very perfect.
And I think Leah and Jonathan Groff were like two of the most prevalent voices of that generation of Broadway and so but.
Also like perfectly streamlined into the Glee obsession of my high school.
Oh you're a gleek. I was a gleek.
Of course I was a gleek. Of course I was a gleek. And I think just the shared history and admiration of both of those things, and like knowing where Leah Michelle came from.
Was sort of like a cool card to play, right.
Watching that audition over and over and over again where she like slaps the producer of Glee in the face when she's auditioning for Rachel Barry.
Have you seen this? No, please watch this later, Please somebody describe it.
Okay, Leah Michelle is doing on my own, Okay, this is a song. And then she's doing a scene with what I think would have been like, yeah, the late great Coreymntee's character, but she it's like a chemistry. Read the story goes that on her way to this like final audition for Glee, she got into a car accident and there was a glass still in her hair and like in her body and face when she showed up, didn't tell anybody, and then like away through the scene.
In the scene, she slaps Corey in the face and she walks past camera and you just hear her go to whoever's reading with her, and the whole room like erupted in laughter. And then she she iconically is like that wasn't supposed to be funny, funny, but it was very Rachel, Barry, Lea, Michelle merging together as one. I also think it's really crazy that like she ever had
to audition for this. I understand it, I guess, but it felt so clear to me that like Ryan Murphy had written this part for her, and like has always been inspired by Broadway and like finding ways to bring the theater into like film and television.
For better or worse.
And I also remember.
That pilot just being like one of the best still I think, like one of the best TV pilots.
Of all time. It's an incredible I used to have.
It was supposed to not be a network show.
I think it was like an FX show originally or something, so it was cable and it was supposed to be much darker.
I would have liked the darker version because I think I think that's what that's what hooked me right at the beginning. It was a very different show than what it eventually became, and I really liked that first season and then when it started being about like bullying and then I.
School shooting by oh my god, I forgot about that school shooting.
Yes in the Glee and season two or three. Yeah, And that was the same thing with Pose too. It's like when Ryan got the script, the pilot that Steve had written was like dark and angsty and like did not leave a lot of hope. And I think that like Ryan is really like attracted to that like dichotomy of something that's like dark and angsty but like still
has this like campy levity to it. And so that's why I pose is you know, they they rewrote it obviously over and over again, as you do with every pilot. But yeah, I feel like, so I don't know what you know. If you know this about me, tell me. But I grew up super religious. I was like in a super duper sheltered like family. Every one of the ever, all the virgins at home are like, yes, yes, we know Fran, like they've heard the story over and over again.
But like that what there was not a more perfect musical to like comment too my periphery at the time in my life where I was like, oh, I don't think I believe in God anymore.
And that's literally exactly like I was probably like sixteen.
So so to sum it up spring awakening major an atheists, you.
Know, I had read I had to read God is totally fucked.
I was on the cusp of atheism at the time. I think I still kind of had a light belief in God that was like wavering. And at the time I was also experiencing high school relationship, like a cooi relationship with a boy in my school, and it was
so everything about it felt hidden. It felt like something that you know, was at odds with you know, my family, with my belief systems and like this show like really encapsulated everything that I was feeling, even though it's like obviously it's so stupid to think about like high schoolers trying to relate to something that's like so extreme and so dark, but it is kind of like Skins or you know, like all these it.
Is the teenage experience like totally, and there's also something really like private about it because it was like we had iPods or a version of we had like MB three priors with most kids that like of our generation had some access to a laptop or like a computer with some private time, and I remember like it felt like a shared secret or something like it wasn't supposed to necessarily. I mean I grew very differently in a household that was like incredibly I.
Would say, like like two funerals. So I remember when I went to see it.
I remember like getting drunk like with my friends, and I think like my mom before seeing it or something like, and I remember being like very very very tipsy in the theater like in high school, but still like this auditory exclusively like auditory experience of like having this music to like lean back on and rely on and like walk to school with or whatever felt really intimate.
Favorite song totally.
It was totally fucked for me, just because like just like the everything that was like repressed about me, like got let out in that song, you know what I mean. Like we were We've talked before about like when during the Panic of the disco era, where like you know, we as high school high schoolers, us as like teenagers, we were like waiting for the moment to say like harror,
you know, just scream hohorror along with the song. And with this it was like, of course we're all like waiting, waiting, waiting to say totally fucked, you know what I mean, Like because.
We got to getting away with something bad.
Yes, we got to scream along to a song where like fuck was in the chorus and that was like.
That was crazy. That was crazy to me. I could not fathom it, And yeah, it was. It was really liberating. My favorite is the Dark I know.
Well, of course as a you know, traumatized little pre girl really latched onto that. What about you, Tommy, she's scanning the track player, you know, I think it has to be Don't Do Sadness, Slash Blue Wind so good.
Oh that girl with the braids.
Remind me that song again. What's like the kind of emotional cooks of that of that song.
It's the one where Moritz Moritz.
Is singing basically like before death he himself, before he unlives himself and runs into that weld. Wendla runs into when La and she's like, come play with me, and he's like, I got business.
He's like, I got business to a tint too. The names in this musical, I mean, it's amazing. Something that must be said is that because this show was like adapted from like a German stage play in the late eighteen hundreds, they all have crazy archaic names like they have. They're all named like melchi Or and Moritz, and like I'm just like, what are these kids names?
I love it.
We should we should bring back trans little baby Trance is out there when you're picking those chosen names.
Yeah, go back to the old tech. Yeah, awesome, Tommy Lease whole auto.
You you saying unlive yourselves is just making me think of like this. I know that's like TikTok speak because it's like, you know, people have started talking that way because they don't want to get like their you know content, you know, Shadow Band by the body.
Yeah, but it is.
Like I do feel like the the the prudification of gen z is like indirect opposition to what we were growing.
When we would just like the word and everybody like watch Pretty Awakening and like didn't have We weren't worried about that type of censorship because we didn't have like well, we had photos that were posted like by the dozen, for me at least on Facebook, Like I still have
my Facebook history from before I deleted my Facebook. I like downloaded it, and it's like it's crazy to me because I would post like hundreds of photos at a time, but uh, they were all super inappropriate though to your point, Like it was like I had like two cigarettes in my mouth and like it was like like biting on someone's Tit like.
Like like as you should have been like high school party chaos.
And we didn't have the sort of globalization of social media. We had like the intimacy of it between friends and friends of friends and it was very like am I going to accept your friend request or not? It hadn't there was no this idea of like followers didn't exist, like this idea of uh sort of gratification via likes comments, et cetera wasn't at all developed in the way that it is now, and I don't think like Instagram didn't come into my life until college.
So yeah, I'm I'm grateful that we.
Didn't have that sort of purification if as you phrased it so beautifully like when I'm on TikTok, I do feel for some of the ways in which like these kids have had to create as a militial to I've like picked it up this unlived but I do think I think because I went through so much like pr training around thirteen reasons why and like how to talk about suicide and alive actually just feels like a a cleaner way of saying died by suicide to me or like,
and I understand the sort of protocols have at all. But I ultimately, yeah, I definitely have picked up some like stupid jargon.
I mean, we all have, it's ingrained in us now. I don't think hold, I don't think it's stupid.
I think it's it's like a euphemism to to not glamor and also like reframe the ways that you know, we think about suicide, and it's like I think it's better than just like not talking about it at all because we're all kids.
Thinking about this stuff.
And and unfortunately, like musicals and other cultural objects like Spring Awakening, we're glamorizing it for a lack of a better way of putting it, like maybe not glamorizing, but it was.
There's any but there's a romanticism to it in certain theater in movies.
I mean, you know, I watched Romeo.
Plus Juliet and watched Leo and Claire kill themselves, and I was like, I want to do it too, and saying.
I've tried Tommy like a Romeo plus Juliet. Wait, you said Romeo plus Julia bad, Well you haven't got me. Yes, you're I'm rubbing up.
That is the poster.
Yeah, did you watch that? Were you a fig of course as Learmon?
Of course I was and am.
Of course I had boyfriends that I would like scream onwards.
The musical movie.
Songs with like speeding down Peachtree Street in Atlanta where I grew up actually referenced stills from Romeo plus Juliet. And for my movie, my first movie that I just finished making, and there's like that the scene with all the candle light like the sex can't.
Like.
I was like, that's there's some of the most beautiful imagery in that film, in particular, like the fish tang, the.
Mish tang, like come on piercing you.
Bas Lehman's a trans icon.
I don't know why, but I don't think a little bit like it away.
Elvis is kind of as a little trans mass Marcutio. I would say Leo is trans mass obviously literally obviously RuPaul brought you know, not trans at all.
Sorry drag queens to mainstream media. But I would say bas Learmon was maybe doing it first, yeah, like actors, And I was like thinking, I love when actors do drag, like really beautiful character work that also is like cinematic drag like Housi Gucci.
I'm not sure it's all beautiful character work.
What I will say is like everyone in that movie, except for Adam Driver, is a drag quean.
And the best way possible can.
We all do a father son house of Gucci one, two, three, five.
Gucci? We all did that forehead shoulder shoulder.
At you actually give us two topics for today, and I think we should discuss.
Okay, so we've done a second one I.
Did all my album.
We'll vacillate between the two.
And now we're going to talk about friends, my personal arch nemesis, and I want to give that some context to that by talking about why so my brother and his wife, who are like the straightest straight people who have ever lived, love friends, Like they just watch friends all the time, and in fact, at their wedding both of them mentioned friends in.
Their vows, and that is sis culture.
My sister in law, sister who was the maid of honor, in her speech at the reception, you know how every friend's episode is like the one where something something, So her speech was split up into sections and they were things like the one where my sister. No, it's like the one where my sister met the man of her dreams.
Oh no, we will let me love that.
That's so, that's like if that you can love.
I'm a hater.
Yeah, I'm a hater with you. Honestly, that's really cheesy. Sorry you heard it here? Why not first?
I'm sure, but when you said friends, I like my jaw dropped. Tommy.
I was like yes, yes and yes and yes, Like that is so perfect. It's something that has it's kind of bizarre now that when you go to hot topic, it's not like you know, Timburton paraphernalia. It's like T shirts with the Friends.
Central Perk like logo T shirt.
Yes, and it has this like nostalgic quality that has been re enlivened by gen Z but like as omnipotent in our generation, you know, like that's really interesting.
I think.
Also, they did the Central Park thing in the city a couple of years ago, and it was on the street that I was living on with Kaya, and it was like we would leave and it would just be like chaos Central Perk all the time. But I always, like very very much wanted to experience that, but I couldn't. I couldn't fathom doing it in those circumstances. Just felt
like very stressful. And I also feel like again Friends for me was a communal thing, but it was also it's still a very like private and personal thing because for many many many years instill to this day, it's like what I put.
On to help me fall asleep.
If I can't say it's your comfort show, it's so comfortable, I know it's so.
Well.
And then also because it's sort of like I was talking to someone who was in the original class of Hamilton, and I was like, how is it You're on your like thirtieth year and he was like, I literally forgot my lines the other night, Like this was a couple of years ago, when he was still doing the show. He was like, I've been doing this for so long
that I forgot the show. Like in a way like it's been It's like I've gone through so many phases of like and to me with Friends, it's like I know that show like the back of my hand, and yet like I also would struggle to like bring up every single detail of it because I've watched it so.
Many times in and out of niousness, like bec.
Yeah, there's a trans character on the trans character, let's Chandler's dad, Tadler's Daddler's or if Chandler's dad's anything like Caitlyn Jenner and Chandler's dad.
The one on My Friends is like Coco Melon for adults.
What is Coco Cocomelan is like one of those shows that they put on for kids that.
Oh, my niece the other night and was like it was three am. Crawled in the bed with me in Colorado, was with my family obviously, and she woke me up and she's like, I can't sleep.
She's like four, She's like, I can't sleep. Can we watch Blue?
And I didn't know what Blue he was, but Blue sounds like one of those shows too. It's like the show like the kids watch. It's these like micro eight minute episodes.
It's for them to associate too. It's like it's like Visual Academy's.
Okay, can you remind me of the storyline around Chandler's was like a.
Parent I really wanted to it was a performer who then ultimately I think, did transition, like was a drag queen turn transfeme maybe like in Vegas.
I just remember them going to that show at some point.
Played by assist woman.
No no, no, no, play by assist man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was the nineties after all.
I think because it was the nineties, there was there's lack of clarity in the obviously and how it's written and how they were probably thinking about the character about about Chandler's quote unquote mom, Dad's like gender because like you know, in theory, like Chandler's quote unquote dad could be a cross dresser and not a trans person. Totally trans Yeah, that's kind of the way they frame it. But also like we we have no way of knowing right how good we know?
Some things are better left on said that's true, which which friend would you say that you are?
M question? Would say, because I'm Baby, I'm Rachel.
You are Rachel. I don't think there's any other answer.
I know, I think like I'm definitely not Ross. I'm definitely not Chandler. I have Monica tendencies at home around like doing the dishes, for example, and like the cleanliness of things at times. But I would say overall, I have the like very I have at my core, I'm a Rachel.
Okay, who do you think we are? Because I don't. I'm not like well versed. I know, I think, Okay, who are you are here?
Maybe I'm Monica Crystal Clear. I'm Monica. Unfortunately I wish I wasn't. But I've done a lot of searching and it was like Monica or like Ross, I might be Chandler.
You actually are Chandler of Chandler.
I actually think you are Chandler, Like if you had that kind of nine to five, because it like you would I have. Yeah, and you come in with the singers and singer. Yeah, I think like you're my dad's.
If I can really, I don't know version if I think about my introduction.
To yours was like Twitter and like you're really and you're an incredible tweeter and that Chandler would have a.
Fire fire.
Could I Could I be any more? Trip?
Could I be anymore? So? I don't know, I'd be like Chandler.
Yeah, like was just this like really there was something really dark about him because he was so out of step with his like own emotions and that was something he was constantly like coming up against. It's like he used comedy to deflect and.
He was a smoker and he was the last time you could smoke in a sitcom.
Yeah.
I mean in many ways, that show like solidified my knee to move to New York or a version of New York like.
That with the LA version of New York.
Yeah, but I didn't know any better.
Like that with the Sex and the City sort of like came together and made me feel lots of feelings about the city in particular growing up in Georgia. But God, it's like I'm trying, I'm struggling to think who my Phoebe is in my life.
I was thinking about that.
Everyone has like a Phoebe, this kind of like person that pops in and out and does completely random things.
They're like spacey friend who is.
Tons of past lives, a many vibes, many past lives, has somehow like survived everything.
As an evil twin for some reason.
Has named I remind my remembering all this friend stuff because I all know friends against It was always this is the thing with friends. It's because like I grew up in the nineties, it was always on in the background. I never actively watched it because I was never into it. I was a Will and Grace girl.
Oh yeah, I like Dwell and Grace a lot.
I was not a Seinfeld girl.
I was not a Seinfeld girl either, But for.
Friends was always around. I watched a lot of it, but it was never my thing. I'm just dipping if you can hear that. It's just my bag and I'm grabbing some glass game.
Can you do some as Mr Ring for the Virgin.
Bomb dot com Swiss miss bomb dot com.
Okay, I'm sorry, Swiss Miss Flavor. I'm judging you. You like this out of every flavor you picked, Swiss miss.
To be fair, they've gifted me all of them. So it's just a matter of like what's in what bag? Got not to be Rachel about.
It, but you are Rachel, and eventually you will get the Rachel haircut at some point.
Naturally I will have to, especially when I have like kids or something. I think also like I was a retail girly. I was a fashion girly. Like still am a sort of fashion file in a lot of ways. But before acting and working in entertainment, I was working in retail.
And what was her job? She worked at Rolph Lauren. Yeah, she was like a buyer. How did she get there? From the show when the show started?
When the show.
Started, saying, so there's like a certain amount of like jenness a Quah and privilege and looking like Jennifer Anistander.
Certain amount of Elgebuqua and.
Also like the delusions of her, like the ability to just be like.
El if you have that haircut, you can and you can kind of make shit happen.
Yeah, And I think like, if you look good in clothes, you can work in fashion.
Actually, Like that's literally like so you.
Know, and I don't think I think for her, she she as I think.
She was like as a shop beer, I know what people want to buy.
I'm sure that's what she said in her interview and the guy was just drooling over her. Do you remember when Chandler was briefly dating Rachel's boss and then got like locked in her office like naked with handcuffs on, like a like a sexy lunch date. Oh yea, because the boss was like it was like a kinky, perpetually single like girl boss in her like late forties.
I forgot about that, honestly.
I feel like that all of the episodes kind of like meshed together in your head and you're like, what happened?
That was the one where the that was season six or something.
I love I love Chandla Ross Handler.
Ever present a question in the culture as a Rachel do you think that Rachel, you know, was meant to be with Ross? Do you think that when she got with Joey was totally like wedged in Like a lot of people feel like when she got with Joey it made no sense.
But do you think that who who is Rachel's sole me?
I think getting with I think Ross is Rachel sow me for better or worse? For her her cell mat for her sell Ma.
I think Joey makes a lot of sense because in so many ways he's the opposite. He plays the opposite of Ross, right, and like that's why they work in a room, and that's why their humor works, because Ross is like hyper intellectual and intelligence and Joey's like a little like duf this goofball. He was so hot in the early season, and I think, like, I think it makes a lot of sense that we child would sort of rebound with Joey and then find him really like
endearing and find some love there. Like it wouldn't just be like a one off thing, like if you're getting fucked like that, presumably Joy was fucking very well. Oh yeah, Oh, I had a reputation going, you know, and then eventually like she sort of meanders back into stability with Ross.
We were on upbreak and his kid col Dylan's Prouse.
Wait is that who played it? Really? Yeah? Star of your upcoming movie.
Col Dylan'sprosse plays Ross's kid.
Oh and also Ross's ex wife was a lesbian, Yeah, and that was very you know, and in the.
Beginning it's like kind of a cool lesbian, like not it wasn't like I mean, there was some definitely homophobic remarks, but like, oh absolutely very truthful to like what a straight man would have said at that time.
It was I mean, I listen, I'm not going to say The Friends was surprisingly queer, but like it was, it was a more honest depiction of I think what what like metropolitan life would have been for these people? Then we would have gotten on like a CBS sitcom.
Yeah, yeah, are there characters that you so obviously these characters are like the siss straightest characters all except for Chandler's dad. Except for Chandler's dad. But of the six, do you do you think or maybe if there's anybody else in this like ensemble, do.
You think any of these folks were eventually queer after the show ended.
I mean maybe had to have babe right, but also.
Happily married to a man.
But I do think she's definitely like scissored a few girls in her life.
Sure, But I also have found that it is like the crunchiest like sis straight girls in your life who you think will be so down, who are actually like the most tied to the heteropatriarchy, yeah, and have never done anything.
Literally, I actually feel like Monica is the repress lesbian maybe out of.
All Yes, I could.
Yes, Rachel's certainly straight. Phoebe I could see being like a really like very very like Anti five g or right now, very straight with like seventeen kids with that hot guy who I think is also in se right, the same guy who plays Aiden plays her?
Is that true? I don't know, actually.
Does end up with Paul Rudd?
Is Paul which has this Paul Rudd has a similar energy to the guy who plays Aiden, So I think that's.
Where John Confused would suck.
I also feel I mean, there's a world I think where if there's like a Friend's reboot or whatever, I feel like Phoebe would be the one that was like transamorous, Like she gets like a like a sexy trans but you're like no, Tommy's like no, no, no, I don't know.
I think she's a terf.
Actually Phoebe's a term.
Yeah, I don't see it. From Phoebe's evil. I couldn't see Ursula. No, I could see Ursula.
With a trans man.
Maybe maybe maybe Ursula film Phoebe's fraternal twin who transitions.
Oh, and that's why Phoebe hates her so much. No smelly cats.
I think Chandler is By.
Maybe I could see by energy.
For think Chandler sucked to Dick in college. I don't know if he is By personally.
I don't.
I think he's been in a dark room in his life or two.
I actually think Joey is probably By in some capacity, and like fluid.
I'm also just remembering now, Okay, we said earlier that Chandler's quote unquote dad was played by a man, which which he was for some of which they was a woman sis woman at the end, and like the last season, I think a sis woman came in and played Chandler's quote unquote dad, because.
That was the thing with any sort of Transish characters, you know, they would always be played by sis women to like heighten the joke of like you used to be a man.
Yeah right, it's very ugly, Betty. Yeah, it's very ugly, Betty. Yeah right oheut of its time. Did you have a favorite episode?
Well, I love when they go on vacation, like the London for Ross's London wedding.
It's like we.
Look for the first It's such a fun little moment I think there's an episode.
I don't know why it's coming to my head, but like I love all the present day stuff with Monica and Ross's parents, like whenever they're in the picture, I just think they're really funny. And there's an episode where, like Monica Cater's is invited to cater something for the first time for her parents, and she loses a fingernail in like one of the Shepherd's pies or whatever she's making, which is really funny, Like she it's a fake fingernails.
She really wants to impress her mom, so she's wearing like press ons.
Friends always makes me think of Thanksgiving because they always did thinks.
Oh yeah, like the Turkey Head.
Well they all those shows used to do these every they cool they were, they were on every week. I also used to watch it with my family every week. So really like it was like we must see tea. We went from Seventh Heaven to Friends weekly basically Seventh Heaven, I know, and I was not religion, We were not religious, but Jessica Bill.
Forever we were not allowed to watch Friends.
Jessca Bill is actually the archetype for me, Like she's like she's the blueprint She's the blueprint. Jessca Bill is like the rebellious Christian daughter on Seventh Heaven who then did eventually leave the show because she was like, onto, bigger and better.
Were you allowed to watch Seventh Heaven?
We were, We were allowed to watch Seventh Heaven, but we didn't as a family, We didn't really watch it, like, you know, religiously, even though we were religiously emphasis on religious.
We were not allowed to watch Friends. Forbidden in my household.
And when I was like, you know, I would say in my like late like preteen years or maybe like yeah, preteen years, still in high school. Though I remember like at this point I was starting to make choices for myself about like what I could watch and what I
couldn't watch. Still wasn't allowed to watch Friends, but like you know, I was, I was becoming an adult, and I knew that my mom watched Friends as a comfort show, Like I knew that she would engage in it even though she was she wouldn't allow us to watch it, like it was her kind of quote unquote guilty pleasure or whatever. And so one Christmas, a Christmas that we spent with my mom's family in Colorado, I found a
box set of Friends. I don't even remember what season, but I found a box set of Friends at like Borders or whatever, and I got it from my mom for Christmas. And I was like I thought I was being thoughtful and like just being like, hey, like I you know, especially when you're when you're that age, just like you're learning how to give gifts, You're learning how
to like express love. I'm a big giver. And my mom, who was opening this present in front of like our entire family, saw like a peak of like the friend's logo or whatever, and she just kind of like immediately left the room. Yes, and she and I remember, and I like what I remember, like just kind of being like oh, and she was just.
Like I just don't want I don't want my sisters to see. And she like put it in her bag and she was like, thank you for the gift. Oh wow. It was.
It was such an intense moment and it actually speaks, it speaks volumes about like the relationship I had with my mom.
But like it was her shame. Oh my gosh. That isn't yes, it's not even that controversial. I honestly think you people should be ashamed of liking friends.
Were like, I think, wow, that's really interesting.
I feel like, do you have a relationship their mom?
Yeah? I do. My parents were we're cool now yeah, and they're chill. They're very very chill. Now they'll watch friends, will watch Friends together. It doesn't matter.
Great. Yeah, so now you're allowed to watch Friends.
I'm fine at that stage of my life, we're not allowed to watch. When HBO Max bought it, you were allowed to watch it.
Bought it back. I think.
I'm like, was it controversial?
I guess there were some themes around it that would have been inappropriate to watch as a kid. It's literally but it was all like in the windows though, right a little bit.
I yeah, maybe.
Anything that anything that referenced sex, that sex that depicted like two naked bodies and a bed waking up in the way that they do, and.
Sitcoms are like, well what do we just do?
Which is like the Chandler Moniker, I wake up every morning every another naked body.
You're like, what the what? Yeah? Yeah, oh no.
Yeah that was a gasp awake every morning, Like I'm Phoebe and charmed having a premonition.
In my household, in my household, the things that were forbidden. It was not.
I mean sometimes it was about swearing, but it wasn't about like violencer guns. It was about sex, and sex was what they were protecting me from. And that's why, you know, Spring Awakening was so radical to me too. It's like I was, you know, these these set things, sexual things, like you know Romeo plus Julia bas Lerman Rent, which we were talking about before we started recording, about this kind of predecessor to Spring Awakening, Like I wasn't.
That the pop rock musical.
Yeah, Rent really is the blueprint for Spring Awakening. And you know, I'm not a Rent girly. I never was, but I am a Spring Awakening girly.
Really. Yeah, why Spring Awakening and not Rent? I don't know.
And like the thing is, I'm extremely literate when it comes to Rent, you know, like I've seen it, I know the music.
I had that.
Double CD box set, we know, But it wasn't.
Like I was always when it came to musical theater, I was like more fabulous in what I was seeking out, Like Phantom of the Opera is my favorite show, Like I like.
A big musical spectacle.
And then I don't know, I guess Spring Awakening like hit me at the right time where I was looking for the intimacy that it provided. And I think it's also like the dunk and cheek of it all. It like is good, you know indie rock community. It's really good music and I love.
Very good lyrics.
What else did Duncan do?
He wrote that song Barely Breathing from the nineties where that is in the episode of Girls where booth Jonathan traps Marnie and the thing with all the TVs and it plays on a loop.
Do you like Girls?
I love Girls too? It is I.
I have revisited it so many times after it came off the air, and every time I watch it, I like it more and more. I think, I think it is just fine and like so it was so ahead of its time, but also so talk.
About it like Lena really redefined television and like what you could do with television, and like the intimacy and the groundedness of like bringing indie movies into television and like table television spaces.
A Sprouse is in one in your in an upcoming filed Tommy, what can you what can you tell the virgins?
In this very early stage, I mean, Cole Sprousse is in my movie. He plays this like small sort of not small, and he plays a substantive supporting role.
Great role for him.
You know, all of the names in this movie are really in support of Ben, the lead of our movie. And like so I feel really grateful for the actors that like showed up for to do this, who like I didn't need to, you.
Know what I mean.
Like, I feel really really grateful for like friends of mine or acquaintances of mine who kind of came in and helped get this movie made. Because if you're making projects like you need like financiable attributes to those for the most part, right and for me, it was with this kind of film in particular because it's it was sort of like an intimate coming of age film. It's not like a big broad you know, comedy or anything. Like I really like I needed to have some of the support of.
Certain types of.
People who are also really talented actors and who really believed in like this story and lending their artistry to it and also their their their cachet if you will.
And I've seen it.
I know we can't go such an early ca so crazy, but I'm so grateful because I feel like you gave me such really just such such really god feedback.
Oh thank you. Man is very good at feedback, I am to an extent.
But yeah, I seeing him in that role is this kind of supportive, like you know, father figure.
I was like, we've never seen him in a role like this. No, that's cool.
It was f I mean, looks like Cole's thirty thirty one this year. Alex Sadario is also in her mid thirties, Like, is this mom like thinking of these two people who are like of child bearing rearing age, like getting to sort of for coal like step out of a high school project or even college project and into like a proper like adult thing. Was it was really nice and like I'm grateful that like it. It's really nice to see him play like a human being again that makes sense?
Like no, true, not that like they're not human beings on Riverdale, but I sort of feel like, I mean, I feel like again, drag it is.
It is drag drag, right, They're always doing some version of drag on that show.
We did an episode about Disney Channel original movies and shows, Wow, and we that I think that, you know, the sweet like Life of Zack and Cody falls into this like it's fabulousm It's like not real life there, And that's what you're saying, is like to see him inhabit like a real character, I think is incredible.
Yeah, And I think like, I mean, I'll never forget both of them in Big Daddy, right, Like that was like sad Adam Chandler movie. You have to watch that tonight, Oh my got if you haven't. Yeah, they're the kid in Big Daddy. And like the first time I remember crying in a movie theater. Wow, or like watching a movie like sobbing at the end when when the sun's almost like it is like me is like they're going to take the sun away from Big Daddy.
Adam Sandler. I don't know why that really shook me to my core.
Adam Sandler loves like a kind of serious kind of like comedy that has a little serious job in it.
Yeah, I think especially during that time like he was he was peak comedy, like peak theater, like theatrical release like game as an actor and still is like such a fucking cool, interesting, like genre heavy movie star.
What's that movie where Adam Sandler can like control his family with a control.
Yeah.
Everyone talks about Click. Everyone's like Click was the best movie.
It was beautiful.
All those weird like supernatural comedies like Click, Bruce Almighty.
Oh yeah, yeah, these are really like there was a period where like subgenre genre films were like all that was being made, and I feel like maybe are coming back into that a little bit.
I would love that.
You know what's one of my favorites The Dazzle Uh yeah, be Dazzled, Dazzled with with Elizabeth Hurley and the Devil and.
He sells, he sells his soul.
He gets seven wishes. It's incredible. And Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil.
Or Shrink Shrink the honeye shrunk the cat, Yes, or.
Like I loved all of those Look Who's talking? Look Who's talking? You know the one where the baby the babies talk.
I loved that.
Jamie Lee when she was like winning her career Oscar, she was like talking about how she's basically only done genre movies, and I think that's like such a like a specific cool way to be an actor is like like you can be like Meryl Streep, or you can be like Mariska Haggerty or you can be just like genre only like very like and I and I love that. I feel like I'm like she's really for forty years, made such a career out of doing like iconic genre film.
And especially since the genre girlies are never at the Oscar. They never are.
I mean Mia Goth would talk about this on the podcast right now. I'm sure it's like this idea that like certain types of films aren't taken sered.
Are you a me? Are you a Mia Gothstan?
I love me a Goth?
Are you friends? Are you know?
I don't know her? I don't you.
Seem like you would?
I thank you again, Like I think I'm not that cool. Well, she seems so cool to me.
I'm gonna catch you. I'm gonna catch you, like in a photo with her, like weeks from now.
I mean so like I'm arising Leo. So I think people think of me a lot as like someone who's like friends with everybody, and like I'm definitely like well acquainted and like very friendly and like end up in certain whether it's like through manifestation or like sheer will or like luck, I don't really know, but like, especially when I was living in La I was just sort of like always like finding myself in like these rooms with certain types of people, and now that I'm back
in New York that feels very like far away.
But I do have I do have this.
Thing where it's like I think there's a period on twin before like I had any work come out where I was just like known as like the faggot who was friends with all the Alis celebrities for no reason or something. Yeah yeah right, yeah, no, no, no, for sure, everyone's just like, wow, I think that's accurate.
Yeah, totally.
No.
I know, I know, I know what's being said, but in my head, I'm like I'm so much more than that you are.
I'm working on all these things.
She's not her, and I'm finally happy to like be like three years later, like I'm finally like starting to like announce and release and shoot stuff that I've been working on for so long, because there was just like I'm not the type of girl who will like talk about stuff before it's more more or less baked.
So and you're just not even to.
Friends, really like to close friends, but like or like
in work meetings. But I wasn't like going around town being like I've sold like this many projects on this many things like until I had like like ink had dried and like things were going and even still I'm very, very very uh may be superstitious and also just trepidacious about the way in which I discussed work and what I choose to talk about or not talk about, as you should be, because I've also especially in how I would like so many people will be like they'll like
have had like a callback or producer session, and like I'll hear them being like I booked this role and I'm like.
Oh my god, you literally don't have that job, Like you're.
Just so stressful, Like I really hope you get that, and then like nine percent of the time, like they don't get the job, and I'm like that gives me like the most anxiety ever.
So I'm just really careful.
But but yeah, there was definitely a period of time like a little bit pre pandemic pandemic, like I just I, yeah, I have a lot of close friends who are really successful in their field and like significantly more successful.
Than I have been in mine.
Lena talked about this. Okay, there's a piece in the
cut that Brock wrote about me. It was basically talked a little bit about that, and I think like she she called Lena about it, and Lena was like, Lena very graciously said that I'm a person that you just want to be around, which I thought that was very sweet, because I'm not sure that's entirely well, I don't always want to be around me, but I do think like I'm a pretty good friend and like a good listener, and like I'm good at like I pick up the
phone when you're calling kind of person and like so, and I'm good at like keeping secrets as well. So I feel like I've just I don't know, but my hair hasn't gott any bigger from that.
Unfortunate honestly, Well, when it does, you can get the Rachel.
I can't the fucking Rachel cut.
Would you ever get the race Rachel cut.
I'm currently in the stage of trying to grow my hair out, but curly girls, no, like, it just takes so much longer. But I'm trying to. I think I'm trying to just like just just below the collar bone. I feel like the Rachel cut in my forties, so like in ten years feels appropriate.
Okay, and see you then then right, let's do it, Tommy.
I do see you entering like an era in your career that is kind of like the Lena or the Miya Goth moment where you're like, I'm going to do you know your writer, You're gonna get on your writer director, like you know what I mean? Like, and I honestly I love that you're I honestly, when when I heard the film announced, I thought that you were going to be in it as well, and you You're not.
No, You're entering you want to be a true girl boss.
Well, I no, I think I want to act too, Like I'm gonna undition for something after this today, like I'm I'm gonna go home and put myself on tape or something like. I'm still looking for that. But I'm very because I have like multiple streams of revenue and creative outlets, like I'm I'm not. I'm just no longer going to like do the bad acting job because I feel like I have to do it right now, which feels good.
But I do miss it and at some point I'll get back to it.
But yeah, I'm definitely in my like producorial bag at the moment, proudusorial.
Maybe you'll play Rachel in the Friends.
Ah.
Okay, that is the I want to make.
I want to make a sun Dance film that's about trans Rachel, about a trans girl who wakes up from a coma thinking that she's Rachel from friends who.
Sort of like that Rebel Wilson movie where she wakes up Yeah.
Yeah, exactly, So it's a version of it. I feel pretty, but she's a doll in like Tennessee.
Wait, would would absolutely watch Okay, cool.
Green Lan write it already, got somebody do it? I can't.
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