In short
Episode Summary: Clooney vs Trump
Podcast Title
The Rest Is Entertainment
Hosts
Richard Osman & Marina Hyde
Description
A podcast providing insider knowledge on TV, movies, and pop culture, exploring industry secrets and media gossip.
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Episode Overview In this episode titled "Clooney vs Trump," Richard Osman and Marina Hyde delve into several topics surrounding Hollywood, celebrity culture, and societal perceptions. Highlighting Donald Trump's critical remarks about George Clooney, the episode examines the concept of "nepo babies," explores celebrity status, and engages with listener questions regarding the entertainment industry.
Key Themes and Topics
- Clooney vs. Trump
- Trump's Critique: Donald Trump labels George Clooney a "third-rate actor."
- Clooney’s Status: Discussion on whether Clooney can still be considered an A-list actor or if he has transitioned to B-list status.
- Nepo Babies in Hollywood
- Definition: "Nepo babies" refers to individuals who benefit from nepotism within the entertainment industry.
- Discussion Points:
- The impact of nepotism on Hollywood careers.
- Examples of well-known figures with famous relatives, such as Patrick Schwarzenegger and Angelina Jolie.
- The notion that nepotism is pervasive in various industries, not just entertainment.
- Celebrity Status and Definitions
- A-Listers vs. B-Listers: The hosts discuss what defines an A-list celebrity, considering factors like box office draw, social media following, and the ability to open films.
- Contemporary Examples:
- The status of actors like Robert Downey Jr., Brad Pitt, and newer stars like Millie Bobby Brown and Jenna Ortega.
- Celebrity Taxonomy: They ponder the current state of A-list celebrities and how it has changed over time.
- Book Covers and Dust Jackets
- Listener Question: Why are there dust jackets on books?
- Historical Context: Origins of dust jackets and their role in book marketing and preservation.
- Cultural Significance: The importance of dust jackets to authors and collectors, including their impact on book value.
- Scoring in Sports
- Listener Inquiry: A question about scoring systems in badminton and how they relate to TV viewership.
- Discussion: How scoring formats can affect the entertainment value of sports and their appeal to audiences.
- Examples of Effective Formats: Mention of darts and T20 cricket as successful adaptations for television.
- Hiring Homes for Filming
- Listener Question: Insights into the pros and cons of renting one's home for film shoots.
- Financial Benefits: Potential earnings and the impact on privacy.
- Intrusiveness of Film Crews: Challenges and realities of having a film crew in one's space.
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Key Takeaways
- Celebrity Culture: There’s a complex interplay between talent, nepotism, and celebrity status. Not all famous people have the same standing in the industry.
- Nepotism’s Pervasiveness: It exists across numerous sectors, reflecting broader societal structures regarding privilege and opportunity.
- Media Influence: The conversation reflects a broader critique of capitalist structures within the entertainment industry, particularly regarding access and legacy.
- Dust Jackets: Serve not only as protective layers for books but also as critical marketing tools that can significantly affect a book's value.
- Sports Entertainment: The success of sports in the TV landscape hinges on how engaging and accessible their formats are for viewers.
- Filming Opportunities: Homeowners can benefit financially from renting their properties for filming, but they should weigh the potential downsides of privacy loss.
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Conclusion This episode of "The Rest Is Entertainment" provides a multifaceted analysis of current topics in pop culture, illustrating the intricate dynamics of celebrity, media influence, and societal trends. The engaging conversations between Richard Osman and Marina Hyde offer listeners both insight and entertainment, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in the entertainment industry.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This episode of Tron Ares has arrived. I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate AI soldier. He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent. You think you're in control of this? You're not. On October 10th. What are you? My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you. The war for our world begins in IMAX. Tron Ares. Rated PG-13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters October 10th. Get tickets now. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home, and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew.
0:41I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. So it is brought to you by Sky, which has great TV lovers we are delighted about. It's fantastic news. I'll be honest, though. I'm also a fan of Netflix, of Disney +, of iPlayer, and this is supposed to be an advert for Sky. Well, the good thing about Sky is that it's not just good for Sky shows.
1:15It's basically an all-you-can-eat buffet for TV lovers. Mmm, buffet. If you've got something specific in mind. What about that thing you were talking about the other day? Memento Mori. It's a one-off drama. It's on BBC iPlayer, if you like that sort of thing, based on the novel by Muriel Spark. Which I love. So it's got everything. The niche stuff, the mainstream stuff. It's got all the apps you like. If you want to go straight to watching the best the TV has to offer without the fuss of searching Sky is a game changer. Just go to sky.com to find out more. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment questions and answers edition.
1:50I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. We have lots of your questions. Thank you so much for... We get so many. So many. We get an unbelievable amount of emails now. So apologies if we don't get around to yours, I hope. But sometimes they're on similar subjects and we'll choose the one that's kind of the most... Or they become topical again. Or they become topical again. Anyway, it's TheRestIsEntertainment at GoalHanger.com. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to begin immediately with a question on Nepo Babies. I always used to say Nepo Babies because from nepotism, right? Yeah, I guess. But we can call it nepotism.
2:21Patrick Farrell would like to know, do you think that Hollywood is run by nepotism, especially in acting? do you think it helps or hinders the child in the long run? Helps. What's the next question? It's fascinating, isn't it? Because there's so much talk about nepotism. Even like Patrick Schwarzenegger in The White Lotus recently has come out and talked about the years of acting training he did and the small parts he did and things like that. And he says, oh, it's hard to have my surname. And you think, yeah, and I get it, by the way, because every single time he's interviewed, someone asks him about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2:56Also, by the way, he's absolutely amazing in The White Lotus. But of course it helps. And of course it helps. But, you know, if you think that children of actors going to acting is bad, then let me tell you about capitalism. Nepotism is not just a thing in the movie industry. You know, if you, like, all of Murdoch's children have gone into, you know, huge media roles. I'm not sure they would have done if they weren't Murdoch's children. In the line of succession, are they serious people? I'm not saying they're not serious people. but you know I mean I think they're serious people so it's a whole series of things firstly it's the way that also you know finance go to any of these places they've all you know walk around the city of London and you know throw something quite hard if you can and you're going to hit you're going to hit someone who's been helped by nepotism yeah and you look at a private bank that's been passed down generation after generation after generation these people are not natural bankers it's just that's what their dad did or that's what their mum did yeah it's you know nepotism is is the way that capitalism has always worked.
3:56And the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. It was one of the problems. Oh, my God. Yeah, one of them. Nepotism. Simony. We'll get into entertainment simony later, but anyway. What's simony? Simony. What's simony? I love you looking at Joey. If we have a question during the podcast, like about Sabrina Carpenter, we want something checked, we'll ask Joey. Like, simony in the pre-Reformation Church. I mean, he's good, Joey. Simony was... Is that where we get simonal cake from? No. and I don't think that's from Lambert's simile either but we can't get into that that's too much of a sidebar simile was the selling of you know blessings or pardons or whatever sort of offices of the church yeah okay I understand yeah so what were we talking about sorry we're talking about nepotism nepotism the other one now and yeah listen and it's always been around you know Angelina Jolie Nicholas Cage Michael Douglas Carrie Fisher Jamie Lee Curtis people we think of absolutely in their own right as huge stars you know all come from showbiz entertainment families and a number of reasons for it often we do the thing that we our parents do because we see what it is that they do we either love the thing that they do or we live somewhere where the thing that they do is actually the easiest thing for us to get into when we leave school as well you know the following one's parents into into a job is more prevalent now than it ever been really but Hollywood is a very very visual representation of that and of the unfairness of that you know it's all very well saying nepotism's everywhere and you look at and look at the Murdochs, it isn't particularly fair.
5:23You know, it's not a meritocracy. No. But at the same time, so many of these stars are amazing. But it's primarily, it's about contact. It's about being able to get in front of you. I mean, you know, I remember when Brooklyn Beckham's legendary, for all the wrong reasons, book of photography was brought out. I think it had one of its launch parties was at Christie's in New York for out-of-focus pictures of elephants. Yeah. I think Mel B's daughter, I think, from the Spice Girls, she did a documentary on this recently for Channel 4, and I think she was trying to get an art exhibition, and it was trying to say, you know, can I get an art exhibition?
5:58And no one was interested. Then she said, I'm Mel B's daughter, can I get one? And then she could. So we know this. By the way, it's also money. If you come from a successful family, that's like all of these things, as everyone knows, you can afford to keep waiting for your break. It's money, it's access. It is, of course, some talent. You know, Patrick Schwarzenegger is a talented actor. Oh, yeah, you're not going to make it if you're not talented. I do think that it's primarily contacts and access. Yeah, the main people you can't blame are the kids themselves. No. Because you grew up in the world you grew up in, and you take the opportunities you're given, and no one's saying that they're not working hard, because they are, you know, they're absolutely putting the hours in.
6:33So, of course, they're going to take it. Was he putting the hours in with the elephant photography? It is one of the ones, bless him, bless him, that I have to say, no, that wasn't acceptable. You ordered his delivery there, didn't you? You have to have talent. Well, you don't, actually. Yeah. I ordered his delivery, I mean, which I now turned that he didn't even cook it. So I would say it has ever been there. And you know, you've got to look at a family like the Skarsgårds. I love to look at them. Yeah, exactly. But everyone loves the Skarsgård. Everyone's got their favourite Skarsgård. Yeah.
7:03Alexander? Alexander? He could send me a block of his blood any time. That's from Succession. It's not literally he does that to people. I just want to make that very, very clear. Look at the Coppola's, you know, Francis Ford, Sophia, Nicolas Cage, Roman Coppola, I mean, Jason Schwartzman, I mean, there's these dynasties of families, as you say, as there are in banking, as there are in the auto industry, wealthy families who pass their jobs down through the generations in pretty much every industry. It's just we really, really see it. If it is something that you get exercised about, and I absolutely understand why people do, you really have to look at everything in the way that we run capitalism.
7:42You look at, you know, so many things about how wealth is passed down and how privilege is passed down. and how opportunities are passed down and how companies are passed down, parents to children. That's the world we live in. And there are many, many, many, many more billions being squirreled away in the world of media and cars and all those things. I do think it's a useful representation. It is clearly not fair. It is clearly not an even playing field. If you're a kid from England and you want to be a movie star or you want to be an auto executive or you want to be a media executive, the easiest way to do it is to be born into a family that already do that job.
8:19At a very high level. Listen, if we want to dismantle capitalism, okay, let's have a chat, count me in. There's ways and means we could do it. I think it's one for a spin-off podcast, actually. Absolute sidebar. The rest is dismantling capitalism, I think. The rest is dismantling capitalism. Let's ghettoise it for that one. It's a really good idea. Why don't you ask me a question about something awfully frivolous? I have a question here on the purges of Stalin. It's from, I don't really. No, sorry, not the purges of Stalin. Actually, dust covers on books. Thank you. Finally, something important.
8:50Graham May has this question. Graham May says, would you mind explaining to me? That's a hell of a way to start a question, Graham, isn't it? That's literally like someone that's like a parent coming to a room. Would anybody like explaining to me why there are Cheerios on the kitchen floor? Would you mind explaining to me, Marina, why books have a dust cover? Are people actually worried about dusty books? Is it some publishing slash marketing ploy? I'd much rather have a nicely designed hardback and my four-year-old will rip off the outer cover of any book she has. So that's two votes against them.
9:22Great, that's quite an unusually angry way of asking that question. And the four-year-old is always ripping stuff off. It's good though. It's passionate. Yes, it's passionate about dust jackets, which is exactly the intellectual space of this particular podcast. This is interesting because they weren't around on original books, but you couldn't print directly. You now can obviously print directly with modern techniques onto a hard back. Think of what a dust jacket gives you because it gives you, those two flaps are quite important. You know, the back has got some advertising, it's got blurbs maybe.
9:58And then the front has got whatever it is, something to make you want to buy the book. The front cover. The front cover. And then you've got a synopsis maybe inside and you've got something about the author. The flaps are important, okay. But in the early 19th century, people used to sort of, you'd buy a book and it would come to you and it didn't have anything we would recognise as a cover. That was it. They were unbound. And it was William Pickering, the publishing house, who thought, tell you what, what about we put some cloth, some leather, and we make a little bit of a thing of this thing.
10:27And well done. They were innovative in a number of ways. You could eventually print on those cloth bindings. And I've got some books which are really old, which have an art nouveau book, which is all printed on that. But anyway, let me tell you who often understands more than that. and you know this better than anyone, authors really care how their books are sold. They often think this is stupid. We could do something better here. It was Lewis Carroll wrote to his publisher in 1876. And he said, can you print the title of The Hunting of the Snark down the spine on my dust jacket? So he said, on the spine, the paper wrapper, he called it, so that the book will remain clean and in a more saleable condition.
11:08And also that people could see it. Yes, when it's in there. Yes. I mean, that seems fairly obvious. Printing on the spot, the name of the book on the spine. Okay, so... You could even put the publisher's logo on there if you wanted. But it's in the 1850s, between the 1850s and the 1880s, dust jackets as we know them turn up. It's very, very hard to print an interesting design on a cloth cover or a leather cover. It can be artistic, it can be art nouveau, like I'm saying. You can do whatever you like. You can advertise however you want, you can brand it however you want. It gives you like a blank canvas to do anything you want to sell your book.
11:42Yes. And then by the 1940s, these dust jackets are hugely popular. And actually, antiquarian booksellers will say certain books are worth whatever without... A friend of mine is an antiquarian bookseller. You surprised me. Certain books are worth something, but if they happen to have the dust jacket, then they are worth multiples, multiples, multiples more. If you're on the tube or a plane and someone's reading a hardback and they've taken the dust cover off, so it just looks like they're reading a 19th century book, to me it's like you have to be really careful around them that feels like psychopathy to me I'm sure it's not and I also want to know what the book is but usually they have it like it but it's much harder it's not great on the tube to begin like that I personally don't find I try to avoid doing it that's one for YouTube anyone else can ask a question about why books are that particular shape because even that's not normal ask that in another week and we'll talk about that Because even that is not...
12:41That's a great way to get a question on. So the exact question you want is... Why are books rectangles? Why are books rectangles? That's a question you want. I know that sounds stupid, but it's quite interesting, and we'll do it on another occasion. And if you could start your question with, would you mind explaining to me? So if you write the question, would you mind explaining to me... Why the hell? Why the hell books are rectangles? Yeah. Then we'll read that out. I'd love that. Thank you. When you get sent all the kind of proofs through for, you know, they'll send you what the cover is, but also that all the inside flap stuff is all on there as well.
13:11And you have to approve every single bit and every quote you can possibly have. There's quite a lot of real estate on a dust jacket, I think, is exactly what you're saying. And it's really significant. When I go into a shop and if I don't know what I'm going to read, I've read all of that if I'm going to buy it. Often you might know what you want to order, but if you're not, then those things are so, so important to sales. And there's a reason we do them like we do. I'm just at the stage now where I'm getting lots of the foreign editions of We Solve Murders over because they tend to come out a few months after in some of the territories.
13:37and the Slovakian one arrived this morning and you know you can just explore it the dust jacket and they've got lovely sprayed edges as well they've got like a gun on the edges and like a picture of a cat on the edges have they? yeah it's lovely why have the Slovakians spent all that money and then that's cool why haven't you got any books here is it because you simply sell too many of them no we had sprayed edges as well but like special limited edition oh you see I have a brief copy yeah exactly so I can actually have the original no you've got some loser one yeah have I? authors are obsessed over there dust jackets and it just it gives you so much scope to do things on a hardback and paperback it doesn't matter because paperbacks don't need them and you know they're printed on something you can just print onto but yeah just the old school thing of they've always had dust jackets everyone gets excited about a dust jacket it's just an awful lot of real estate but yeah absolutely take care of your dust jackets because your books are worth an absolute fortune with an extant dust jacket and if it doesn't have one they're worth about a tenth of the amount I even, here's a question for people at home as well I, for years and years you know, if you buy from you know, a shop that often they'll have stickers on it, if it's Waterstones it might be you know, two for one, or if it's an independent it might be, you know, independent bookshop week something like that, and I would always peel them off, but actually they're such great social history that now I leave them on, because in 30, 40 years time, and you see the kind of font and the independent book week, or the two for buy one, get one free, from W.A.
15:05Smith you leave them on because they're going to look like curios and also I suspect they might be worth more money with the stickers I could be wrong about that I love that you're going to be selling editions I think you're going to be okay I don't think you're going to be selling old editions of your books but you know if it comes to it why have I only got a proof? I need to get some more I'll go out and buy all of your books all over again but not in the proof form Richard they are available in shops shall we go for a break? let's do that
15:37This episode is brought to you by Sky, where you can watch unmissable shows, which includes the new season of the multiple Emmy Award winning Hacks, starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. We love Hacks so much. Absolutely love it. I'm so looking forward to this new series. For people who don't know Hacks, Marina, talk us through it a little bit. It's focused on the relationship between the older comedian who's played by Jean Smart, Deborah Vance, who's one of those real old showbiz troopers. She plays Vega, she does residency. She's almost like a Joan Rivers-y type character. Exactly. She's the boomer and Hannah Einbinder is a kind of Gen Z-er.
16:13It's really interesting on the stuff between the ages. So she plays Ava Daniels who essentially becomes Deborah Vance's writer. So she writes for very cool, very hip things. Having sort of been cancelled for a joke at the start. So we start in the culture war and we continue in it. But what I love about the show particularly is the absolute reverence for comedy and the graft and the craft of it. And what a tough kind of man's world it remains. Definitely, definitely. And so how hard it is to be a woman in that male-dominated industry. Yeah, amazing on showbiz, amazing on comedy, amazing on the industry.
16:47But also just the relationship between the two of them is a really lovely generational sort of, it's like a sitcom thing. It's very dramatic, but a lot of comedy in there as well. They've got some terrific gas stars in this season. They've got Helen Hunt, Tony Goldwyn, Eric Balfour, and obviously the returning cast who are peerless. Yep, the mix of comedy and drama is spot on. You can watch season four of the Emmy Award winning hacks right now on Sky. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name Your Price Tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills.
17:27Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
17:43Welcome back, everybody. I have a question, Richard, that has your name written all over it. And also some other words in the form of a question. It's about badminton scoring. Oh, wow. Thanks, Hank Grover. Hank Grover? I mean that. Come on, man. First of all, you've got a great name. Hank Grover, badminton scoring. Yeah. I mean, that's my sweet spot. That's every single pen diagram. Yeah. Badminton is considering changing its scoring again to better appeal to a TV audience. The last time they did this, they adopted a system very similar to volleyball, which I know Richard has some strong views on.
18:15I think we all can sense that he does. What is the secret behind a good scoring system for sport? Oh, my God. Listen, it's... Spin-off podcast. If I... Sport, God bless everyone who works in sport and administrates sport. It is an entertainment. Leisure sport, fine, go and play badminton. All you like, play whatever rules you want to. If you want to raise money for English badminton, whatever, then there's TV rights and there's people coming through the door. OK, so we accept we're in that commercial world. If you want to go and play badminton... We're not with a badminton purist, Richard, don't worry.
18:45Carry on. Exactly. Then you must play badminton how you want. If you want to sell badminton, then your job is to look at the format. Badminton is that thing where you serve passes across and all that kind of, you know, and it's just, volleyball is like endless. Sport has to be an entertainment. It is, of course, these people are incredibly skilled. Of course they are. But you want to show that to the maximum amount of people, the maximum amount of time, and for those people to be paid the maximum amount of money. Badminton, by the way, they're fine because it's massive in Malaysia. And so I don't want anyone shedding tears for badminton players.
19:14They're doing perfectly okay. But if you are a smaller sport, if you are a British volleyball player, the more exciting and entertaining you can make your sport, the more money you are going to make. You're competing against everything in the world. You're competing against video games. People can't just go, it's very, very interesting to see the ebb and flow of this game. And really, it's like a chess game, this game of volleyball. It doesn't matter. I've said a million times before, darts is the absolute perfect version of scoring, which is a few legs when a set and a lot of sets. So there's always, always in darts moments of jeopardy all the time.
19:48The skid is exactly the same, but they maximise the amount of jeopardy they have all the time. And the wonderful thing of finishing on a double is absolutely the perfect format. You don't have to make them shorter, but you have to give us moments of jeopardy all the time. Because others just switch off. You know, I've got in trouble talking about tennis before and just saying make it first to four in each set. But it's brilliant. I know on Tuesday we were talking about other jobs you could do. And, you know, not necessarily running a chain of Midwest cinemas. you could run a consultancy explaining how to make sports more televisable without any question and you would love it well the beautiful thing is lots of sports have worked it out you know t20 cricket whatever the purists think about it it's bought a huge new generation to cricket it's bought a huge amount of money into cricket michael johnson has just set up a new athletics league because athletics is a weird thing and you've got these incredible people he's saying people who can do these extraordinary feats and actually it's sort of dwindling as a tv spectacle we watch lots of these things including badminton once every four years and you get really into it and you're suddenly like you know everything about handball yeah and then you don't think about it again but now he's got the you know the grand slam of athletics and you know just making it more exciting just packaging it in a different way and all sports can do that there's always room for test cricket and the world snooker championships and stuff like that but then you have a thing like the you know t20 or you have the snooker shootout which is an amazing tournament and it brings a new group of people into a game you know people who love their sport have to accept that most of it is quite boring even listen i love football but we spend most of a football match most football matches you're just chatting to the person next year there's moments of excitement i can just use the alec baldwin character and glenn carrie gandross going into these sports to say right the first thing i'm going to say is everyone finds your sport very boring football i wouldn't change football football is absolutely fine you're very kind yeah but there There are plenty of sports.
21:35So, you know, volleyball is not boring. OK, volleyball is not boring. There's a huge amount of action in volleyball. There's a huge amount of athleticism in volleyball. It's a great sport. I've seen Top Gun. I know this. Exactly. But what it isn't is a great format. And you need to have a great format. You need to have just something. If I switch on for two minutes, people watching with their kids and just, you have to immediately hook them. You want to switch on for two minutes and not be able to switch off for 40 minutes at least. Exactly. Because you keep being asked questions and you keep being shown moments of jeopardy.
22:03you keep in show moments where this is a huge point you know a huge point is what you need all the way through sport if you want to sell your sport for television if you want to keep it just for yourself absolutely play it like it always has been but if you want it to be a huge entertainment and for the people who play it to be huge stars then you have to think about how other people watch sport it's insane what darts has done in the last 20 years and how big it has got as a live event and as a tv sport event it's extraordinary and it shouldn't you know there's no reason why it would be. I mean, it's got great characters, but it could so easily be very niche.
22:36You cannot be bored because someone is always winning or losing all of the time. No, and you can get it very quickly. You can get it very, very quickly. That's the other thing. It's not, like, incredibly arcane, which is another thing that puts lots of people off other sports. I do think that there is a new generation of sports administrators who get that. You know, McElroy's kind of golf league and all this. You know, it doesn't always work in the way that it should do, but everyone is trying stuff. Everyone's working out that athletes have extraordinary skills, but there are different ways to showcase those skills you know when we made international king of sports for for channel five it was essentially people are amazing at athletics but hadn't quite found the one thing they were best at so we invented new things and it is that there's a million quiz shows for people who are really good at trivia many different ways of doing it but these people are incredibly good at sport so let's find loads of different ways of testing that yeah you know gladiators you know it's a way of testing people who are really good at physical things that's where i'd place jason momoa actually I mean he would have just been a sort of great gladiator that's about the level just in the biggest movie of the year so far but that's where I'd have placed him he'd be an incredible gladiator he's no nitro but he'd be an incredible gladiator no he's no nitro our hero so yeah listen any sports no again I can't I don't have the bandwidth but I'm glad to see there's a generation of people who are going into sports and working out that you can make them as entertaining as you possibly can while still keeping the skills that make those sports so important Right, right.
24:00Leonie Beck has a question for you, Marina. My husband and I have what is now a 10-year-plus dispute argument. The best ones. This is good. On what it means for a celebrity to be considered an A-lister. Please, can we have your definition and what factors would you use to determine that? Box office? Social media following? Right. Here we go. A-lister or A-list celebrity? I think they're different and some people have crossed over from one to the other. Okay. It's harder now because not very many people can open a movie. IP opens movies. it's interesting Tom Hanks Tom Cruise Julia Roberts Denzel Washington they've all had misses by the way and people you know that doesn't mean you never have a miss and it's very significant that the same people who people will still go out and see from 20 years ago and in some cases 30 years ago but the biggest grossing stars now are all in like IP movies so you know is Robert Downey Jr.
24:45A-list I guess he is he's in the biggest he's been in the biggest film series and he was the kind of biggest character in it Samuel L. Jackson who just happens to be in all the Marvel movies Chris Pratt Scarlett Johansson but they've been in IP movies. Something Trump said recently. Judd Trump, the snooker player. Not Judd. Donald's the president one. George Clooney made some comments on press freedom and Trump called him a second-rate movie star and failed political pundit. Well, as is occasionally the case, I backed him on this. No, Clooney's not an A-list movie star. I think he's like an A-list celebrity now, which is part of the problem.
25:18But first of all, he was always a television star and he did become a movie star. I get it. But, you know, he was in ER, whatever, and then he jumped over and he did become, you know. But it was a while ago and I would say he is B-list now. I mean, okay. Clooney's B-list. Wolves. Wow. Wolves with Brad Pitt. Yes. Both of those have made the jump, in my view, from, he's still an A-list celebrity. I would definitely say that. Will Smith is still an A-list celebrity for various reasons, good and bad. Is he an A-list movie star? I mean, because of what happened, I suppose he's had one hit. Are you sorry?
25:50I think we skirted over the fact that you were suggesting that Brad Pitt also wasn't an A-list movie star. I think he's now B-list. Wow, Brad Pitt is a B-list movie star. It's harsh, yes, because I don't believe he can open a film in the same way that he used to be able to. I'm sorry, and you can come out of the categories, otherwise it's a meaningless category. And I mean, in terms of whether Clooney's a failed political ponder, I keep now thinking Clooney's running, don't you? Yeah, he might do, right? Let me talk to you about the Kardashians. Kim is A-list. This is hardcore, but this is the reality, because I say it is.
26:21Kylie's B-list. Yeah. Kendall's maybe B.C. I don't even know why I'm saying that. Kendall's C. That's the end of it, even if she's the world's highest paid model. Chris is C. And Courtney and Chloe are D to E. I mean, really. I don't make the rules. Yeah, yeah, I understand it. Do you think Millie Bobby Brand's an A-list star? She's one of the biggest stars on Netflix. She is in all their biggest things. She's huge for Netflix, although that electric state has cracked the bed, let's face it. But anyway, so if she were to be in a movie that opened in theatres, I don't think she'd get loads of people out there Jenna Ortega's interesting she is a star on Netflix but I think she's becoming I just think there's something about her she's going to be a movie star yeah she's going to be she is A-list well I think if at any given time there's 20 A-list stars like 20 football teams in the Premier League then there's teams in the playoffs Millie Bobby Brown and Jenna Ortega are in the playoffs to go up they're going to go up yeah there probably aren't 20 A-list stars Charlemagne Zendaya these are A-listers Charlemagne Zendaya Zendaya Zendaya without question they have both shown that lots of people go and see Glenn Piles is an awesome B-movie star.
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27:24But he so wants to be A-list, and that's part of his mesmerising charm for me. Where do you stand on Paul Mescal, Barry Kjogan, Joseph Quinn, Harris, Dickinson, the Beatles movie? So the four of them, probably, as I say, apart from Chalamet, the four biggest young male stars there are out there at the moment. Joshua Connor. I don't know. Yes, Joshua Connor. We won't get it, Austin Butler. Anyway, but he's not the leading gladiator, Paul Mescal. He's not the one who's over the movie. He's a Mars-off A-list though, is he? No, no. And maybe some of their parts in The Beatles is going to be, because that's, I guess...
27:56Between them. The point is that there's a... That's an A-list line-up. Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of fascinating to see them all together and et cetera, et cetera. But the days that, you know, trailers would say Stallone, Stone, and you'd be like, okay, here we go. This is, you know, people who open movies by themselves. Statham, he'll open a movie by himself. He's A-list. Yes, he is. I think he is. I mean, in a sort of slightly ridiculous way, but yes. Yes. My definition of A-list would be, are they next to Graham on the Graham Norton show? And, you know, are you excited about that? Yes.
28:25You know, so, you know, if Reynolds is on, great. A-list. Streep. Reynolds is A-list. Streep's A-list. But there's not a lot of movement in the A-list. Yeah. And that's what we said is that it's quite hard for people, you know, the young teams to break through against these established hegemonies. And so, yeah, it's helpful when Will Smith slaps someone because that's helpful. Not to them. I mean, I think it didn't do Chris Rock any harm, but obviously it was bad that it happened to him. But it's helpful because there has been such kind of stasis in that category. As I say, it's Tom Cruise, it's Julia Roberts, the same people.
29:00Are we saying stasis instead of stasis now? I say stasis. I'm probably saying it wrong. Stasis. Stasis feels American. No, any time you ever say anything, I assume it's the right way to do it. No, don't. I do. Stasis feels American to me, but literally I'm flying blind here. Yeah. Listen, let's not get on to hegemony. Yeah. it's interesting Leonie does not absolutely outline what the argument she has with her nameless husband is but I hope that's been helpful in some way or another because as you can hear I could go on all day long just categorize the endless taxonomy no yes no perhaps we should put together why don't we put together like the football league tables of who's A-list and who isn't A-list that'd be quite a fun thing to do yeah for comment relief I just sit in a dark room don't for God's sake televise this it's unwatchable I'm just showing pictures of people A A B C minus Doesn't rate Z That's great I'd love to I'll tell you what For next week Maybe I'll bring some flashcards along We'll do that for YouTube I'll just get a series of pictures Of movie stars And you tell And I'll just say a letter You place them into piles Okay I'd love that Okay I'd love that as well Let's do that Thank you Leonie For inventing that game Thank you very much Marina's taxonomy of celebrity People always ask this, Richard.
30:17It's about hiring your house out for filming. Kate Flower says, while working from home on an average Monday, a location scout from the BBC called Round Out of the Blue. They're apparently filming a long-running drama series and were interested in using our house for filming. We decided against it as we were worried they'd mess up our property and it would be too much hassle. Did we miss out on a good payday? Well, listen, there's two parts to this answer. I mean, yes, you missed out on a good payday. Even just absolutely starting point,£100 an hour, eight-hour day. Usually a filming day would be about 10 hours or so, so you're going to get a grand a day.
30:46Very, very rarely get the whole thing done in a day. Usually there's a prep day as well. So you get paid for all of that and you're not really having to do anything. And, you know, the gig is that they tidy everything up for you and they leave everything exactly as it was. Whether that always happens is a moot point. So, yeah, it's definitely... But they will put it back for you. If you say you've chipped all the paint on my staircase, they will have to redo it. And also every single film crew is full of amazing tradespeople. So, you know, they don't have to kind of ring up a carpenter They've got people, in fact, they can make your house even better.
31:17You could just say, oh, by the way, you've knocked a sight hole in between the kitchen and the dining room. I wonder if you could just turn that into a serving hatch and they will do that for you. So it is a good payday. I would say a couple of things about it. It is quite intrusive. You know, film sets, as we know, and TV sets and, you know, commercials, anything like that. They do need things to be exactly as they need them. There is a lot of heavy equipment. There are a lot of lights. There will be a lot of chipped paint. It is quite an invasive procedure. If you're away on holiday, then it sort of seems like a good way of doing it.
31:48But it is quite hard to film for sort of four days on something and leave your house exactly as it was found. There's a different thing if they're asking for it to be in a long running show because that's super, super lucrative for you. Obviously, it's sort of quite hard for you to live there. But if you know they're filming for three weeks a year, every year, then you're going to make a load of like those people who rent out their houses at Wimbledon. All the stately homes which have been basically saved by them like Downton Abbey at Highclere Castle I mean that really, when you've got something that you're basically just going to have to sell because just keeping it up costs however many millions a year that's really, really helpful You see, if you own a castle for sure or a stately home that's easy because everyone's going to want to film in there The interesting thing is, why do they want your house?
32:28You don't want to do it and suddenly you watch TV and it's a drug den and they haven't changed it at all They just sort of know, oh my god, this is absolutely perfect for our villain to live in there can be issues if you are in a long running series the big issue is if it becomes a huge hit i know the twilight movies uh shot in a place called um the hoke house in british columbia there's a beautiful old house and it is besieged or it was besieged for many years it was head of innovation oh my god by twilight fans because that's quite a lot who owned it yeah but he would be very good and you know invite people that you know people could have their photos taken but they sold it recently for 15 million dollars and the new owners put up enormous metal gates so no one can get near it because it was just yeah exactly it was just constantly besieged funnily enough there's a lady called joanna quintana who was exactly in the same situation that kate flower was in someone knocked on her door i said i wonder we could use your house we're filming a series here's the money we'll offer you and she's like okay yeah that sounds a lot of fun what's the name of the show and they go listen it's a new thing it's called breaking bad so essentially she owns walter white's house in breaking bad and she said like her life was sort of ruined by people just driving by, people throwing pizza onto the roof, people having pizzas delivered.
33:40I mean, it was absolutely nonstop. So she made money out of it, but she was besieged. She sold the house,$4 million. Thank you very much. So you do have to be careful. There are some real chisels out there. You know, I heard a story about someone on a show. It's The Weeknd, and it was The Idol on HBO, which, as you know, I've regarded as one of the worst uses of television I'd ever seen. but I can't remember whether it was his house that's being used as her house, Lily Rose's house, or whether it was actually even his house. I can't remember. Anyway, I think he said the crew had ruined one of the walls and the repaint job on it was going to cost$300 ,000.
34:18I'm sure The Weeknd would deny that story for the benefit of the tape. Just something I heard, I'm sure he would deny that story. But yeah, I guess if someone wants to hire you home for a Dairy Lee commercial for three days, it's a bit of fun. Yeah. It's a bit of cash. Adverts are great. Lots of people do adverts because it's obviously very time-limited and you know what you're getting. I would say long-term drama series, harder, more lucrative, but harder. I mean, because the thing is, the longer that show runs for, the more money you make. But the longer it runs for, the less privacy you have.
34:45Because if it's running for a long time, it means it's been a hit. And if it's been a hit, people will find out where you live. And they will drive past and they will take photos of it. And some people like that. Some people invite them in for a cup of tea. But if that's not your bag, then you've certainly turned down a sum of money. But maybe you've kept your sanity. The best one is the Taskmaster House. Oh, my gosh. which was sort of for sale in the first series. They said, oh, can we film it? And now it's sort of constantly rented out to Taskmaster and has been for kind of 10 years now. It's been a huge money spinner and they don't even live there.
35:15That's the dream, that you're trying to sell a house that no one wants to buy because it's in such a weird place and it's such a weird house. And a production company says, look, could we rent it while you're trying to sell it? And you go, yeah, sure, I guess you could have it. And then 10 years later, you think, well, I don't need to sell it. I've made about five times more than I would have done if I'd sold it. So, you know, that's the dream. But if you think it sounds fun, do it. It probably won't be left exactly as you hope it to be. And there might be, you know, someone who's parked a van on your front guard.
35:41And lovely though crews are and talented though they are, they're not always the people that I would trust with my China. Thank you so much. Everybody covered a lot there, didn't we? We did. A lot of passion. A lot of passion. From the questioners and from us. We have a bonus episode for members, which is about the life and works of Val Kilmer. That'll be out on Friday. If you want to sign up to the club, it's therestisentertainment.com and you can have ad-free listening, these bonus episodes, there's a Discord, etc. If not... The rest of the gang will see you all on Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.
36:29Well, that wraps up another episode of The Restless Entertainment brought to you by our friends at Sky. Now, what have you got on your must-watch list at the moment, Rachel? At the moment, White Lotus enjoying the latest season of that. Oh, it's such a treat. Oh, my God, it's incredible. It's so good. A dark treat. A dark treat. The visuals are really great. And with your Skyglass TV, you'll be able to enjoy it all in its 4K glory. And also the built-in soundbar means you can also listen to it in its full whatever the sound version of 4K glory is. But it sounds immense, I'll say that. It is indeed.
37:00It brings everything to life and it really gives that cinema experience at home. It feels like Jason Isaacs is in your house. Like sometimes I go downstairs, I'm like, Jason Isaacs, come on, man. God bless you, please. But he's not there. No. But for our listeners who want to experience this with Sky Glass too, visit sky.com to find out more.
From the publisher
Donald Trump says that George Clooney is a third-rate actor - is he right? Does Hollywood have a nepo-baby problem? Should we actually judge a book by its (dust) cover?
Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer questions on A-Listers, sports scoring and if they should lead an anti-capitalist coup.
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