It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZY, Boston's news radio Dance.
Thanks a lot, Buddy, Welcome Nightside WBZ. No heavy lifting here tonight. I'm gonna tell you right now, if you want to think too much, watch Fox are singing and we're not doing that stuff here. We're having fun. Emily Kennedy is joining us. She is an entertainment powerhouse ladies and gentlemen. She's with the WSM Agency. And we're going
to talk about the state of entertainment. But before we get going, because my previous guest, greenwriter and personal friend of one Gary Tangway Dreuiano said that Diehard is not a Christmas movie.
Now, Rob Brooks, our producer, says, it is.
What say you, I don't.
Know if I can provide much insight on that.
Sure, I mean, there's a Christmas party.
It's an office Christmas party that Bruce willis. There you go. It's an office Christmas party.
That's enough. That's enough for me.
There you go.
So anyways, Emily is because I want to there is a serious tone to this conversation about the state of entertainment now, and you know, and it's very important to our society how we consume it. And I sit there and I wonder, you know, is Instagram going to be the new thing? Because my wife will sit there on Instagram and just go for a half hour and just laugh at stuff, and I go, you gotta be kidding me. There's no three acts in Instagram. There's no rising action. Okay,
there's no hero there's no comedy. There's like one punchline and you move on. So do you think that the entertainment arena will be back like it was before COVID.
I think it definitely will. I think it's definitely influenced by social media, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing. I think people are consuming you know, media in a different way. But I think people will always
respond to authentic storytelling. And I think with streamers right now, it really opens up the doors for a lot more storytelling to be had, and people want authenticity and they want you know, they see you know, Real Housewives and they see all of these stories being told and they don't really know the difference between reality and you know,
scripted television. But I think that there's really an opportunity for a lot of stories to be told in not what you know, in the nineties, who would say like happy ending and like all of these things that needed, you know, like likable characters. I think that that's gone, and I think that's a good thing. And I'm excited to see what stories come out and what has come
out like it's I think it's a good thing. I think people want to see people being real and honest, and they want to see themselves reflected in that.
That's a great point. That is a really good point because you look at what's going on with the Menendez brothers now, and they did kill their parents. I mean they did. They did, and I'm not going to get into that topic, but they're there right now because of the documentary and because of the series.
They're here right Did you see it?
I did not. I couldn't. I just can't. I can't.
Like they did Dahmer, I forgot, what's the name of the series. It's uh uh, they did Dahmer, and then they did the Menendez Brothers.
Yeah, Ryan Murphy, who who's very skewed to like the kind of like twisted and dark darkness of society, which.
Well, yeah, I mean, but but I can't. Did you did you watch it?
I did watch it. I found it fascinating. I think the Menenda's brothers did not agree with the way that they were portrayed. But I think people have a deep interest in the darkness, and because the darkness is there, it's it's real. People want to see authentic and realness, whether it's true or not, but like they want to understand themselves in that kind of aspect, and I think
it's a good interesting way to go down. You know, I'm tired of like the happy endings and like the easy, easy ways out like for it.
But oh no, you're breaking my heart. I mean, I'm a sap.
Are you kidding me? I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna watch planes, trains and automobiles, you know, tomorrow night. I want I want the happy ending. I want the payoff. I mean, I'm so depressed with everything that's been going on. I need a little I need a little uh happy ending here this Christmas. But no, I understand what you're saying, because there's no doubt with shows like Succession, right, and with the fact that people love reality TV or scripted television now is based on true stories.
I mean that's the whole thing.
Is you take a look at the process that first there's a book, then there's a documentary, and then there's the scripted series right which is based loosely on the documentary.
So there's no doubt that there is a fascination with the darkness.
And it's so interesting because I'm working on a play right now where I'm playing Norman Mailer. Yes, that is self promotion by tango here, and he says it in the monologue. He says it in the monologue. He goes, you know, I'm fascinated with the darkness. And my wife is right there with you. When we're driving. She listens to murder podcasts and I'm like, what are we doing?
And I'm telling you.
The female audience I'm gonna I guess I'm stereotyping. I don't know how you and your friends think, but the female audience from murder podcasts, I think are through the roof.
Yeah, it is, it is. I think there's I think honestly, it's if you can involve yourself in the drama of something else that is worse than what you're going through. There's like a sort of convalescence in that, or sort of like a comfort and you feel a little bit better, which I don't necessarily agree with, but I understand that dynamic of seeing something horrific happen and then you can like take your I mean, the whole thing about entertainment
is put your brain on the shelf. Right, whatever you're going through and whatever is bad in your life, you can like put your brain on the shelf and just live through something else. And I think there is a fascination with living through something horrific watching it on screen and it almost makes you feel better about whatever you're going through.
Which, yeah, that certainly makes sense, because I mean, I have a friend, Sam Maler, was with us last night and he just signed a deal. He's doing a podcast. He's doing forty eight episodes. Forty eight episodes. And Sam
went out to LA to be a stand up comic. Okay, he ended up pitching and producing Oh my god, I just got I just faced the Intervention Intervention show right, which is still going twenty five years later, which is about intervention when people like have addictions, whether it's drugs or co you know, hard drugs, or cutting, or shopaholics.
Or people who can't throw stuff away?
What do they call it? When you've this's a word for yes. You know, he did one on hoarders, you know, where they have to have an intervention. I said, I thought you went out to la be a stand up comic. He goes, hey, man, it's paying the bills. It's been on for twenty five years.
Now five years.
And now the podcast he's got coming out which people have to look out for. It's all about families where relatives have murdered each other. You sound like you were into that. I mean, you just sounded like, Okay, I can't wait. I can't wait to hear that. I said, Meloe, you've got to be kidding me. And he goes, and that, and that's be on the lookout for that, folks. It's going to be on all the podcasting. You know, apple whatever iHeart, I'm gonna promote iHeart here they're the boss.
But what it is is like he's he he as a co host and in her family, I can't remember what her daughter, her sister killed her father or kissed him. And that's what the whole thing is about, is about siblings killing parents, or brothers killing sisters or parents killing each other.
It's insane, and I know it's going to be successful.
Yeah.
I mean, I also think there's something about us that has a rage inside us. I was just listening to a podcast that's Happier Verdam who played Pablo Escobar, and he was talking about how he got into the role and he was saying, there is rage and violence inside of you, and he's like, it's so freeing to inhabit a role where you actually get to expand that and
see that without consequence. And I think that's the same thing with the media, Like there is I mean, we're divided, there's a lot going on in the country right now. There's a lot of rage inside of people, and to see it portrayed in that way, it kind of like therapeutically allows you to feel those feelings. Like I you know, people you know might want to hurt someone, but they
they're not going to because they're a human being. But like to see that portrayed it kind of like, I don't know, it's cathartic to them in a way, which I don't know what that says about where we are right now, but I think there is definitely something that people gravitate to towards you know, true crime and all these stories, and I think, you know, it the dark look at our country.
But no, I think what you're saying is on the money, it gives you permission to go to.
The dark side.
Yeah, exactly, I'm watching a TV show. I'm not evil, they are right, right, but I'm watching the TV show you know where family members are killing each other. It's it's insane, it's it's but it's huge. I mean, there's no doubt about it. Okay, we got more to cover here on what's going on in how what's going on with content And obviously NBC made a big move. Uh, they're going to be putting more money into Peacock. We'll talk about that with Emily Kennedy. Uh, she's a manager
with w SM Talent. More after this on WBZ.
Now back to Dan Ray Live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
The State of Entertainment, it's that topic right now, Emily Kennedy joining us from WSM Talent.
Okay, Emily Peacock.
NBC just made this announcement that they're taking MSNBC and the Sci Fi Channel and E and all these other channels and they're putting them under another title. Disney did this with ESPN, right so Disney spot off ESPN, feeling that ESPN was eventually going to be sold.
I don't know if that's going to happen or not. That was talked that Apple may buy them.
And then now obviously what NBC is doing or Comcast is they're spinning off these these stations that aren't successful anymore. Perhaps somebody will buy them, we don't know, but they're putting more money into Peacock. So streaming, I mean, we we know, and this has been happening, but now it seems like it's what are we going to have? We're going to have just like we had NBC, ABC, UH, CBS.
Are we going to have Peacock, Netflix and Disney, except it's going to be streaming instead of watching it on your TV or flipping.
Channels, right, I mean, the biggest problem I just read Peter Biskins's book about like the clash of like what's happening with the streamers and like you know, Netflix and all this stuff. The big their biggest problem is they're hiring tech people inside and they're kicking out all the
executive suites of creative people. So now they have executives that are holding these offices and they're seeing the approach to storytelling in a way that's very much algorithm drawn, and you know, they're they're not really making a creative home or directors and cinematographers and people who actually care about the creative process. And it's creating a lot of problems. I mean, Bob Ager just came back for Disney and he kind of like cleaned it up and made it
a little bit better. But it's it's a problem, like, we don't want algorithms. We want creative people. We want to keep the creativeness in our storytelling, and we don't want it to be an algorithm that's on our phone. We want it to be you know, but it used to be.
But well, I mean you could certainly, you know, if you want however you want to measure it, right, if you want to however you want to measure it, that doesn't mean that it can't be creative. Because Sarrandos, who runs Netflix, whenever I hear him speak, he seems to
be a pretty intelligent guy. Noweh, Obviously, you know when Netflix had the meeting with the agencies, and if people don't know, Netflix had a big meeting with all the big agencies in Hollywood, William Morris and Cia and so forth, uta and it didn't go according to plan where they didn't exactly come together on this, but he was trying to explain to them that there's a new business model out there, which we all understand to a degree. But he seems to be a smart guy that would that
would get this. But maybe that's just not the case, because I agree with you. You know, when you sit there and you look at films, right and we even talk about the previous segment, we talked about holiday movies right now, you like, for example, you were talking about you like the drama and the darkness and maybe the comedies of the nineties aren't there anymore. But there really hasn't been a decent holiday movie in a long time where planes, trains and automobiles and home alone or things.
Of that native actually and holiday holiday holiday Cameron Diez and love actually yes, and all of those.
I mean, Kurt Russell did one on Netflix that The Christmas Chronicles, that I actually thought was pretty good. But other than that, they've tried to do it on Netflix, and they've tried to do it with Disney, but it just hasn't worked out. So whenever a Disney plush or the Netflix or whenever they try to do a movie like a film, they screw it up.
Yeah, I mean and again, like holiday movies are not meant to be horrifying you or you know what we talked about before, They're meant to be heartfelt happy. Hallmark, you know, Hallmark has like so many movies out that are coming out.
Are you surprised the success of Hallmark?
I'm not.
I am not, because like I wanted to say this point earlier, like with the advent of like we're opening up the door for so many you know, ways of storytelling and people consuming it. Once you've watched too many dark things, you kind of want to swing back the pendulum and say I want something feel good. I want something that makes me happy. And I think Christmas movies are those things that make you happy. It's all always
a happy ending. You're getting together with your family and there's like little fights and you like kind of like see yourself in that and then everything works out and kind of you want a warm blanket to be like everything's going to be okay, because that's what the holidays are. They're meant to be feel good, even it's meant to be a break from your chaotic life. You know.
Well, even even when I watched the Hallmark channel, the only problem I have with that is everybody's too damn good looking to go back to the small town.
Look. I grew up in a small town there. I don't know, but we didn't have that many supermodels and run from there.
It's always like the small town girl from the big city that comes back and finds her like high school boyfriend and like it all works out.
Family.
She's got to go back and she has to do a big presentation in New York City, and she's got a promotion on the life and my wife, I swear to God, and she she also loves I also want to talk about the Law and Order franchise. She has watched every Lawn Order episode at least three times, and she's brilliant. She's much smarter than me. And she said, you know what, I go, why do you want? She goes, just shut up.
Just shut up.
I just want to watch something mindless.
Yeah, it's true.
They just want to.
Watch something mindless, because like the Hallmark thing is like you're gonna want like you know what's going to happen, you know what I mean. And they don't even suspend belief. It's you know, basically hot chocolate, a little fight over the marshmallows. Then they kiss under the missile till fate the black. But they're killing it. They are absolutely killing it, you know. I mean, they're in production.
All the time. Now here's a here's a question I have for you.
Yeah, do you think streamers are more concerned with younger audiences versus or older audiences?
And is that the right way to go?
Streamers are definitely concerned with younger audiences because the older audiences, you know, you know, the unfair biases that they can't figure out how to you know, stream and they can't figure out you know, they're used to the old system. I don't think it's wrong. I think it's it's evolution. Like everything has to change, you know, the Hollywood studio system had to change. It's just the way that things go.
And I think I think it's the reason why I love it is because it's open doors for so much more storytelling and so much more interesting storytelling. With it, you get, like, you know, some bad stuff, but I think it's a positive way to go. I enjoy seeing more, you know, ethnically stories that are sort of like specific and niche, and those stories are told and then we can all consume them and we can all like understand
different parts of the society. I think it's great, but it's definitely changed a lot.
For sure.
I think that they need to be a little more concerned with the older audience, because I mean, you have somebody like me, I love streamers.
I mean I want and I think a lot of people do.
So I think there is you know, that's why Brian Cranston still works, or that's why you know, I think there I think there is still a market for people that are fifty sixty. I think I think it's not unusual enough for somebody in their sixties to to you know, watch something on Disney Plus or to watch something on Amazon or like Mazel, like marvel Smissus Mazel. I mean, that's phenomenal writing. And what I mean tremended Tony Shaloub and Rachel unbelievable.
And well Grace and Frankie with James Samba. I watched that with my parents. They love that show. They adore that show, and it's telling the story from a different perspective and older perspective, and it's it's told, well, it's great, she's amazing. They're both amazing. And there's definitely like a market for people of an older age to find, you know, in the streamers as well for sure.
Now then and then my in my house, Outer Banks is the thing.
I haven't watched it.
Yeah, well you're not missing anything, but you know, but I tried.
I tried.
Yeah, it's you know what it is. And I remember because I people know. I mean, I auditioned and stuff, and I had an agent tell me this in La Goes. Listen kid, It's like, this is what you need. You get a couple of good looking kid. You got a couple of good looking people in their twenties. They make out a little bit, they have a fight. That's all you need. Right, So if you look at like Out of Banks, I mean, it's just it's a bunch of good looking people running around, you know, and and having
these relationships. But the thing that's so crazy about it is I'm watching my daughters and even my wife cry at the ending because one of the characters dies. Right, It's so over the top. It's just so over the top. But I think there's something about like every generation has that. They had their nine O two one, Oh, they had.
My son. I go to my my son who's home from college. Ago, what do you do?
What?
He says, I'm catching up on the oc like what the O c But like every generation has that. I think it started with Dawson's Creek.
To the Ocean.
I mean, that's what I love about The Office. The Office was a phenomenal perfect tens across the board show and it, you know, went on the air, went off the air, and people like young kids are obsessed with it who were not around to see it, and they love it. It's a comfort blanket. They think it's hysterical,
they think it's funny that. I mean, that's what I really do love about streamers is that these things exist in real time, whereas before it would be something old where you'd have to really search for it or find it. But I mean the Office is a great, great case study in like how it's had such a big resurgence with young kids that run around for that.
You're right, because you take a look at Friends, right, Yeah, I mean how many generations have watched Friends?
Probably three?
I would see three generations like you could say, you know, my generation and my wife's generation, then my daughter in her twenties, and you know my other daughter who's a teenager.
Right, Yes, so they've seen friends.
But what that does do is that does give streamers the opportunity to not have to enter into production because they have friends, they have the off they just pay for it. They don't have to make anything new. Yeah, and they could just I mean, and they could just run that.
But it's enormously extensive. Like how much was it for Netflix to buy Seinfeld? Was like I don't know, like a couple of billion dollars to buy Seinfeld?
Was that much or I didn't know it was that much.
Yeah, yeah, it was insane. It was insane. But well that should.
Tell people though, This is my argument, like if people like to watch that, you would think they should still make more abbed elementaries or you know, you make more comedies because I do, like, you know, the situation comedy is dead, which I loved growing up, whether it be cheers, but you know, I mean, I guess you got the good place, but there's only a handful of them.
Before there used to be all over the place.
Yeah, it's true, I know.
You know.
So that's that's something I definitely miss. Okay, is the movie star dead? We're going to talk about that with our guest Emily Kennedy from WSM Talent right after this on.
WBZNI with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Grey Tagway filling it for Dayer tonight.
It is the holiday week. Happy Thanksgiving week. Everybody no here, we lifting no politics, nothing. We really have to think about this evening, you know, I really do. I have Fox News on here in the studio and I'm like, uh, and CNN two.
I gotta shut him off.
I gotta put LF on one channel and planes, trains and automobiles on the other channel. Emily Kennedy is laughing and joining us. Uh, usually talent manager WSM Agency of New York City. But talking about the state of entertainment right now. So is Tom Cruise the last movie star?
Possibly? But however, the Marvel Universe and I feel like these big, huge franchise movies create movie stars. But it predicates on a star opening a movie, which the box office determines that. And right now we don't have a huge box office. We don't. We're sort of in this different landscape of stars not opening movies. You know, it used to be like they opened a movie, it did this much in box office. Now it's totally different and the landscape is totally different. So I think it's an
entirely different thing to have box office stars. It's different. It's opened it up in an entirely different way.
Yeah, I think it's the star doesn't bring you to the theater, it's the franchise. For example, Sunday night, the Tangue five went out to see Wicked.
How was it?
I loved it? It was great.
First twenty minutes. Probably didn't have to be there. They dragged their feet a little bit, you know, they could have just got to the popular a little quicker, you know. But because that when when when that kicked in, we got going. It was phenomenal and you have to see it.
Jeff Goldbloom. I'm a huge Jeff Goldbloom fan.
The only problem I had with gold Bloom, oh no, okay, but just okay, relaxed.
My god.
Is he would start to do a spiel like well, like he would you know, a speech, He would you know, you start to talk and I would go, oh my god, I just keep hearing apartments dot Com in the in my back of my head because I see those commercials all the time, Apartments dot Com. He's perfect, he's perfectly role. The movie is perfectly cast. And you even have you know Chinnawith and Menzel and they they're in it and they make an appearance, which is terrific. The movie's perfectly cast.
I mean Bowen Wang from SNL. He's in it.
He's great.
The movie is perfectly cast. It's it's a home run. My family loved it, my two daughters, my son who loves movies, who loves film, he loved it too. You know, it's part two, so you gotta wait a year for the like and if you've seen it on Broadway, like I saw it here in Boston, and so you know, the first act is this movie and you have to wait for the second act for like a year from now.
So you know, I loved it.
I thought it was great and hopefully they'll make more now from I don't know if you heard this, but I heard a man of Sipher also wanted the area Ina grande role.
I love her. She would have been amazing.
She would have been amazing.
Here's the thing, and I loved her and Mamma Mia, and I think she's good in any Oh it's clueless too. I think she can do anything le miserab, thank you, but I think she can do drama.
She can do anything. I think she was in a detective series, wasn't she?
Or that? I think that was just filmed in needless to say, you know, but Grande was the perfect choice because she can she can Okay, Okay, I don't know, and I'll tell you why. Yeah, Glinda, Linda the good Witch.
She's kind of a pop star, you.
Know what I mean if you look at the character and I think, you know, this is so sad that I know this because my kids watched all this stuff Victorious.
I sound like a like a like a week when.
I talk about Victorious, But like you know, Ariana Grande played Cat of Victorious, right right, and all my kids watch that all the time. And she plays kind of a dizzy person, like kind of a thick, you know, not very smart.
And Glenda is that type.
So if you take what she did in Victoria and you put her musical talent together, she's perfect for the role. I will say this, I think she's perfect for the role because her. She plays dumb very well, right, and she could sing.
I mean, my god, that.
Which means she probably can't act though probably.
I mean i'd be interested once you see it, I would be interested to see.
Yeah what you think?
I thought it was phenomenal. I mean I just thought it was off the charge. Sifried's great too. I mean I would see her in anything. She's probably a better actor. You're probably right, yeah, you know, she'd.
Probably a better But do you think this was casting, like stunt casting? The fact that in the Grande is probably like bigger with like the you know, younger kids, and like has a better presence on the social media.
Oh question, no question.
But when it comes to singing, I don't know if she's if Cifried's better than her, yeah, I mean, and it's a musical. I mean there's some acting, you know, but she's very funny. I mean, she definitely pulls it off. But I don't know if she could actually cipher you. She definitely pulls it off, you know, And they did a great But gold Bloom's great, he is he's and the thing about Goldbloom in this is he can play.
You're coming back on your gold Bloom yeah, said gold Bloom.
Yeah, I have to come back. But he you know, the apartments dot com thing. I was able to get rid of that quickly. Okay, what's the slogan for apartments dot com? Apartments dot com rule the world?
I can't remember.
But anyways, because he does one thing. I mean, he's not a character actor. He plays the same thing every time.
He's a he's gold Bloomish. It's a gold bloom thing. It's a whole universe, right, it's what he does.
I mean, he's the same guy every time. Whether it's The Fly or whether it's Jurassic Park.
Or whether it's Chaos, right or Chaos or.
The Big Chill, whether it's the Big he's the same guy. I mean, good him, you know, but he he walks in this. What he does very well is he watch the fine line of gray, which is the best character you can have, good and bad. Like he starts out that, you know, he wants his daughter there, right, he wants that's the whole thing he wants. He wants to he wants to bring in the wicked Witch of the West. He wants to, you know, come in, be part of the family. Then as soon as she says, well, you know,
you gotta free the animals. Boom, she's out the door. So he's able to walk that line of good and bad simultaneously.
Which is really hard to do and not go over the top. So I liked him.
Innute a spice of gold bloom in any movie. You don't want to see him on the screen all the time because it's too much gold bloom. But you want him an ingredient in your film, just a little spice, little little something. He's he brings something interesting into any family event.
Yeah, he does. Absolutely. Yeah, you got to see it. I mean, it's terrific. I think, I think, I think, I think they did a great job with it. But when it comes to going to the movie theater, and I love to go to the movies, especially when they get the big comfy seats right now you can put your feet up and stuff.
And now they bring the.
Little cocktail, you get a little sliders.
Oh my god, it's crazy, it's unbelievable. So and then you leave and you spent two hundred and fifty bucks, but you know, what the hell, it's only money, you know, it's only money.
I could have seen it for twenty bucks at home.
But yeah, I could have seen it for nineteen to ninety nine at home and put some poppers in the microwave. But you're either it's got to be one or two things. You're either going to have a big musical like this or you're gonna have a superhero movie.
It has to be conduced to the screen.
Because Conclave is getting great reviews, right, which which one conclave? You know, the Vatican great fines my buddys, and it's phenomenal. But it was a week in the theater. That's that's not a theater movie.
It's sadly, it's not sadly, it's not it's used to be.
It used to be.
But see, I'm this is where I'm okay with it, okay, And I know the residuals aren't pouring in like they used to when you were in the theater. But this is where people have to adjust. Excuse me for me, is that Conclave? As a consumer, I want to sit and I want to watch.
It on my TV.
I do I do when I see Wicked. I want to see it on a huge screen in.
A movie theater.
I mean, that's just the way it is, and that's what we're gonna have to We're gonna have to adjust to that.
I think the dps would be sad to hear that.
But yes, well, but I understand your director of photography. But I still think with the size of our TV's Emily White, I mean, you still need.
A great DP.
Yeah, yeah, true, I mean to me, I.
Think, I mean, I I you know, I don't want them to be offended because if I ever get in a movie again, I want to make a movie it make me look good.
I mean, the worst thing you want to do is piss off the camera person. I mean.
But there's also the communal experience of like when you see something on screen and you communally are terrified or you communally are upset, and when you have that experience and that emotion, it feels so much more cathartic and different when you're sharing it with a group of people, whether you even have talked to them, you don't know them, but you're in a theater with human beings that are experiencing it with you. And I'm sad that I feel like that's getting lost.
Well it is, it's gone.
I think it's gone unless you have a big movie like this, whether screen really makes the difference, or you have something targeted at young people who want to go out. Now, the one exception is, excuse me, my mother in law who's like eighty years old and still like walks ten miles a day. She loves to go to the movies. It's like senior citizens and young people. You know, people our age generally don't go because you're working all day and you want to just tuo about when you get home.
You know, that's the issue.
And that's and I don't know, maybe as a manager you have I don't know if you have an answer to this, but that's and I'm putting you on the spot because I don't think there is an answer when it comes to when it comes to dealing with the actors and sag versus the studios. You know, when William Morris goes in there and fights with Netflix, you know, I don't know how they're going to figure that out, because.
I mean, Scarlotte Charleson Hampton had that famous fight with the studio about they were opening one of her Marvel movies and it didn't release in theaters worldwide, and so she lost all these back end points and she sued them because she expected to make all this money, and it was a huge thing. And it's it's a difficult thing for from the business point of a manager, you know, representing an actor and having a movie come out and then then not releasing it in to theaters. It's your
your client is losing a lot of money. I know, that's difficult thing.
I know.
I don't but I don't. I don't see it changing. I don't know, I mean anything. Here's the thing. You got to have the leverage, Like Scarlet Johnson has.
Leverage, Yeah, exactly.
Gary Tangley does not yet. Yeah, but we're getting there. But like so Charlott Johnson has said no going in that that has to be a situation like you got to make a deal, like you got to get all your money up front. Like if Netflix wants to put me in a film, you're gotta pay me.
The ten million dollars up front. Yeah, I mean, that's that's that's what you're going to have to do.
The tough part right now is that for the And this is what people don't understand is the working actor that you don't know, the one who makes one hundred to two hundred grand a year by playing all these various guest roles and you know their face, but you don't know their name. Those are the ones that are getting killed.
Yeah, they're not participating on any of the profits. They're not. I mean, I think the Writer's Strike was trying to help with a lot of that. I think I don't know how much headway they made with that, but like that was a lot of plight. Also was you know, the back end deals and all that stuff. But it's it's it's hard to adjust to a new regime. It's hard to adjust a new situation.
Because I mean, after Reagan negotiated in nineteen sixty for the actors, which people don't realize that that guy was pro labor when he was leading the Actors Union.
They got a great deal. I mean I still get checks.
I got to check the other day for Chap Aquatic that I did in two thousand and eight.
You know how much?
How much was it? We don't have to say it on there, but was it? Is it enough to pay for dinner?
Yeah? Yeah, I McDonald's. We think of it is when you.
Get a residual check like that, you first you look at you go, oh my god, it's thirty four twenty seven cents and you go, oh, wait a minute, after taxes, it's only nineteen all right, We're gonna ring things up with them. And we want to talk about AI in the Law and Order franchise next on WBZ.
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World night Sight Studios on WBZ.
Welcome back Gary Tangwavetonight on WBZ. Annilie Kennedy, WSM talent our manager, is joining us.
Talking about the entertainment industry.
We've covered a lot of territory and Rob Brooks, our producer, just wanted to say the problem with the Hallmark movies.
Is the trees are too perfect, the perfect. Now, I do want to ask you.
About AI in Law and Order, but I do want to get this in first, because we are a ton of time. You've been on a lot of TV sets or movie sets. Who is that one star or somebody that you met that did not disappoint.
Oh my god. Sullivan Stapleton, Nobody knows him. He's a three hundred rids of the Empire, he did live spot here in New York. He's so many, so many, but he he's an Ozzy And I feel like there's something intrinsic about either Australian or Ozzy actors where they just have like an innate ability to tell the truth very easily and honestly. And he was amazing always like watching him.
Yeah, there's a confidence with that, there's a confidence.
There is, you know, it's just an innate confidence and honestly, that is what you need in actors is just tell the truth in front of the camera and if you're confident you're telling the truth, whether it's a lie or not, you're telling the truth, and it's it comes across. I don't I don't quite understand why sometimes American actors have a hard time with say especially from La but he was brilliant always.
That's because American actors we need a hug, you.
Know, I need a hug and say you're doing good.
Job and go well to hell with you pal, and they go out and you know, they skin a crocodile. So, oh, do you think the deal with AI how big of a problem?
I mean, that's kind of the biggest thing. We went to war with our with our strike. I think it's a problem. But I think you know, SAG did the best they could to reach that deal and make sure that the actors were working. It's a problem, but I don't think it's that big a problem because I honestly think AI cannot replace human beings. Maybe I'm naive in saying this, but like human beings, if you go to the theater and you see a human being acting in
front of you, you have a visceral reactions. It's honest, it's true, you see it, you feel it. I don't think AI can ever compete with that honesty. I know they definitely try, but I mean, that's that human intrinsic thing you feel when you watch someone who's telling you the truth in a film, it makes you cry. I don't think AI can ever replicate that feeling. I don't think so.
Have you seen the movie Good Fellows?
Yeah, of course, yes.
Just making sure when Joe Pashi, when Joe Peshi.
And uh Leoda are in the bar and he goes, do you think I'm funny?
Right?
Do you think?
I mean?
It's iconic? Yeah, it's ad libbed, it was not written. That was not written. Scorsese's like, hey, we gotta do something here, blah blah bah.
They go through it. They do it a couple of times.
The whole things had lived it's one of the greatest moments in cinema history. People people, people would like, you know, do you think I'm funny? What do you think about you know what you think of funny? I mean funny? Look and people repeating that stuff.
That's it.
There's so much that AD lived and there's so much about that magic in the bottle that AI can't do that. I agree with you, what can AI do? Obviously it hurts background actors. Obviously it's gonna hurt some of the crew because you know, it's gonna replace certain jobs. You know, we've seen it in television, we've seen it in radio. But you're not gonna watch computer generated movies. I mean, even if you look, I mean, even when you play
video games, they're voice by real people. But video games is a different situation because video games, you can say it's creative. Obviously it's computer generated, but you're making the decisions for the computer in the video game. But I agree with you, it's the spontaneity. It's that magic in the bottle, you know.
Yeah, I mean, and I feel like AI is. You know, they're taking they're so advanced, they're taking all these algorithms that they're tailoring it, and they're so good at it. They're so good at it, right. But there is something about the human being and your feeling and your nature of who you are that you can feel when something is truly authentic and real. And that's what really resonates
with people. And that's why actors are really important, because they are telling an experience that is not generated by an algorithm, is generated by human emotion that is messy and not understandable and not explainable. But they are giving you a human emotion that you are empathizing with, and people respond to that. I don't think AI can compete with that, because there's no way a computer can understand
an algorithm of who you are. They can understand where you like to eat, what colors you like, what you know, what you know, news source you prefer, and all these things that like. You can never replace a human being with a computer ever. I don't think.
Put it in a botti. She is a starmaker. Emily Kennedy WSM talent. Thanks for joining, Emily, has been a blast talking to you. Have a raco, have a great Turkey day.
Okay, you too, Happy Thanksgiving?
Okay, take care all right? Time for News coming up on WBC. We got to do some Celtics coming
Up, and speaking of a guy, We're going to do the Dark Side of AI at ten thirty right here on WBZ.