Richard’s Superpower & Marina’s Warren Beatty Meeting

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1:27Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rester's Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osman. so many great questions to get through today there are some really good ones I have to say I am excited for this first one which is about are we going to go straight in oh no we don't have to we don't have to are we going to go straight in are we okay come on do some any other business do whatever you want people walking their dogs going do you think they like each other actually I listened do you know what I listened this week I went straight into the questions it was actually quite frosty there was something in the air and it wasn't chemistry no go on let's do it now listen this is from John and Sue winners of Pointless Series 7, episode 63, Richard.

2:06Oh, John and Suze. Yes. I remember John and Suze. Now, they would like to know how real the marriages are in shows like Married at First Sight et al. Having been through this process twice between us... Oh, I see. With the weddings. Sorry, I thought it meant they'd been twice on Married at First Sight. Sorry. Having been through this process twice between us, that's the standard marriage process. But were they married to each other? Because then they just got married to each other. So that's showing us... You could say it three times between. We've been through this twice. you go yeah that's because you're a couple but maybe they've both been through it twice or maybe they're not a couple maybe what they mean is is four times three times because once each and then once together John and Sue will you get back in touch and say have you both been married twice in which case you've been through it four times between you or have you just been married to each other in which case you can't say we've been through this twice surely they've been through it three times between them if they've been married to each other been married once before and then to each other because then that sorry if I can just corral both of us back towards the question do you know what we did so well getting on to the first question so quickly and now look at us by the way we're not even halfway through it see you next Tuesday bye okay having been through this process twice between us citation needed we know there's lots of wedding admin like having your notice of marriage on display in your local registry office etc and you also can't get divorced without having been married for a year so how real are marriages John and Suze lovely to hear from you again it's nice to have a simple answer to a simple question they are not real I mean they're just not because of course they know it can't be legally binding you can't just turn up and meet someone and you haven't met for lots of the reasons that you say turning up on the date to marry a stranger is not legally binding.

3:36England and Australia must give notice to the registry office, as you say, at least 28 days before, which, of course, they don't hear. In fact, each participant in Married at First Sight, they embark on a commitment ceremony with a wedding celebrant. Oh, please. I've done that at festivals. I mean, that's nothing. You can do that with anyone. Yeah, it's essentially like the Avalon Fjord at Glastonbury. Brides and grooms in Married at First Sight, They get to write a booklet to producers what their ideal wedding would be like. Oh my God, that's grim. Ever since I was a young girl, I've dreamed of my wedding and now I get to write it in a little booklet for a producer who doesn't care.

4:10Yeah, but also when I was a little girl, surely I didn't dream of just for an appearance fee, getting married on reality television. To an awful Australian man. So we're all making compromises here. But also I didn't dream of a wedding which I would then write down and then a producer would go, So we're not going to be doing that. I mean, listen, it takes nothing away from Married at First Sight, which is one of the great pieces of art of the 21st century. Oh, my God. Do you not think? No, I don't. Oh, really? Yeah. Not even Married at First Sight Australia? Okay, fine. All right, you can have one for the news.

4:43And that's it. Yeah, Maffsa. Not even Maffsa. So, yeah, we talked before, I'm sure, about how anyone who has any interest in human psychology, there are certain shows which just are extraordinary to watch. Below Deck for me is the thing that tells me about the human condition. Married at First Sight, I think, tells you unusual stories that you wouldn't dream up yourself. So it has a lot to commend it. It is not, unfortunately, part of the sacred ritual of marriage, which we know and understand. I hope, John and Sue, that that answers your communal question. But do you think, I mean, they must be married.

5:17Why don't you go into your big old pointless archive and blow the dust off Series 7, Episode 63, and look in your little producer's backpack. I'm going to text now, I'm going to text the pointless producer, see if I can get that information before the end of the episode. Very good. I'll do that. A question for you, Marina. Geoffrey Esdale asks, what are the consequences for a journalist when they stray into questions that are not on topic for a press junket and that mysterious voice off camera is heard to say, we're going to have to leave it there, thanks. Marina, have you ever been blacklisted?

5:50I bet she has been, or shut out for asking too close to the bone question? Ah, OK, that's a very good question. Press junkets are, when you've got major film studios and they've got a film to promote, they'll sometimes just take out the whole floor of a hotel and they've got all the cast members in different rooms and there's a publicist in each and they've got so many rules. I'll give you the rules of one prominent film studio and they have a sort of escalation policy for dealing with journalists who won't stick to the... It's not a script, but you're told you can't ask about this, You can't ask about their relationship.

6:21You can't ask about... There are many things, a sort of prescribed subject, okay? Number one, a polite request in person to move away from the topic that was not agreed upon. Number two, if the journalist persists, even if time remains, the interview may be abruptly cut short to prevent further discussion of sensitive topics. In the case of a repeat offence or a wildly inappropriate question, the journalist may be unofficially labelled as difficult. Now, this does happen where you just can't get interviews with people. And that limits your access to all high-profile interviews, advanced screenings, press materials.

6:52They just won't give you any of the advanced stuff. And would that be spread across the different companies as well? Is it like shoplifters in a shopping centre where their picture gets sent to all the shops? Yeah. So say this is Warners, it's not, then they may not let you review Warners films. They may not let you have any advanced materials. You're definitely not allowed to do the interviews. In the most severe cases, the journalists could be officially blacklisted, meaning they're excluded from all future interviews, events, press opportunities, whole companies. This definitely happens. I don't really do interviews very much anymore at all.

7:23In fact, vanishingly rarely. But when I used to do interviews, and I remember, God, one of the ones I did, this is an example of the star just saying, don't worry about any of that nonsense. It was at The Sun, and it was honestly for like a listings magazine that The Sun briefly ran for London. I interviewed Warren Beatty. It was so like disproportionate. I used to wear my hair in sort of bunches and pink ribbons. I was honestly 23 or something. I was interviewing Warren Beatty. I did it at the Dorchester, somewhere like that. I was going somewhere later and my husband said, oh, I'll just wait in the lobby for you anyway.

7:54No, no, it was a bit... Yeah, I'd wait if Warren Beatty was there. Anyway, so Warren Beatty was brilliant, obviously a proper star. And I was a huge film fan, so it was amazing. The movie at the time was called Bullworth, very sort of slightly forgettable sort of weird race thing. So anyway, so I was doing this interview with him and I was, you know, because I was really young and I just had a load of really stupid cliche questions to ask him and only allowed to ask about Bulwath, a film about kind of race relations. Obviously, I just wanted to ask about things like, so is he also vain by Carly Simon about you?

8:28Yeah. And the PR was constantly saying, there was this guy in the room saying, trying to stop all of it. But Warren Beatty just had taken a shine to me, not in the classic Warren Beatty sense, sadly, but he was just, he was, we were having great fun. It was hilarious. I asked all these questions. I said, you know, because people say it's, some people say that you're so vones about Mick Jagger. He put his hand right over my table and said, yeah, it's not about Mick. Hilarious. Okay. Then we continued. The PR is really trying to stop the whole thing. And he's saying, no, no, no, no, no. It's just fun.

8:58I'm happy. I'm having fun. I'm having fun. So the guy has to just sit there with the face like a lemon. This PR. I was saying, well, no, I've got to actually go now. And my husband's waiting downstairs. And Ron Beattie was like, why don't you do all your buttons up in a whole different way and say, sorry, I've just been interviewing Ron Beattie. The PR was having an absolute meltdown and it was all allowed to happen. And I've got some really funny photos of it all somewhere. And I absolutely loved him. I thought he was totally brilliant. He kept saying to me, you're going to end up on television.

9:24You're going to be on television. I was like, oh, no, I definitely wouldn't want to do anything like that. He was like, don't worry. Thank me later. You're going to be on television. I was like, no, no, I really won't. But he was he was such fun. But the PR was having a sort of meltdown, even though the star was saying, yeah, I don't want to. Oftentimes the star would just say, I don't want to be involved with these rules. I don't care. you know they've built a rapport with the interview or whatever it is and they're perfectly happy to talk about these other things they haven't given a list of prescribed topics but the pr has just taken it upon themselves to say this person only wants to talk about racial politics in america and the answer is bt doesn't just want to talk about that he'll talk about any old thing he'd have a very different career as that's that's all he wanted to talk about question for you about writing richard which you know is something i believe you do in the middle of it now in not Right now, I'm doing the podcast.

10:10Imagine if I was like, even during the podcast, I would be like, yeah, sorry, Marina, what were you saying? I back you to be able to do that. Alex McLean would like to ask, what are the roles of an editor and a proofreader when you write a novel? Do they correct errors in grammar, such as failing to use the correct subjunctive tense? Can you get away with just writing a good story without having to focus on the details like this? I know what you mean. Listen, I had a comprehensive school education in the 1980s, so my grammar is terrible. I wouldn't even know what the correct subjunctive tense is.

10:39So I just, you know. Yeah, if you are sitting down writing at the moment, do not worry too much about all of that kind of stuff. Obviously, stuff has to make sense. And if you, you know, if your grammar is so bad that your sentences are unreadable, then you have an issue. But, you know, if you're using, you know, that instead of when and various things, you'll be absolutely fine. It just sounds like people talk. It's fun. A hundred percent that. A hundred percent that. So the roles are different people. So your editor has a very, very strong relationship with you, and they're involved in the whole process of selling the book and marketing the book, and they're sort of in charge of all of that.

11:12And when you're given a manuscript, they will read the book and essentially tell you if they like it or not. That's the job of an editor. They'll say, you know, these are the bits I liked. Is this character believable, or did this happen in the wrong order? The sort of big picture things, did I enjoy this book, essentially, is your editor's job. And, you know, is in a position to make suggestions. If you want or need suggestions, you can ignore all of them. But, you know, it's just having somebody read the book. Those are the scary notes. Who loves books and, you know, comes back and tells you what worked and what didn't work.

11:42There are copy editors and proofreaders, which are different things. So your copy editor is the one who is unbelievably great at, yes, if you're worried about some of your grammar somewhere, they'll say, oh yeah, you can just, if you change it around this way, that would be the grammar. As I say, if your grammar is so bad or your sentence structure is so bad that your book is unreadable, then your book is unreadable. If you just don't know the correct rules of English grammar and you make the odd mistake here and there, they will absolutely be taken out. So if you're writing a story at the moment, Alex, and it's propulsive and we care about the characters, don't worry about that stuff because it won't go into print without somebody having looked at it.

12:16And then a proofreader actually is the very final bit, which is just making sure that all the full stops or where they should be and there isn't a straight. And it's literally like a printing thing, just making sure that there's nothing wrong. And occasionally books, first editions of books, do go out with slight errors in them and become very valuable because of it. But yeah, I would say that I know a lot of agents and editors get books in that are unreadable because people just can't. There's just no sort of command of how a sentence is structured or how a paragraph is structured or how a story continues.

12:46So if we're not talking about that, if we're just talking about I worry slightly that I'm not entirely sure where the verb should go in this sentence or you know do not worry about it for a single second if you're a great writer Alex it's because of your characters and your story and the heart you put into it and if people spot that someone's job is to make sure that doesn't go into the bookshops without somebody taking care of you and making sure you know the things I get uh you know it's always just just words in the wrong place and what you're saying about dialogue is absolutely right Marina sometimes a copy editor will change dialogue because it's not grammatical and they're going oh no that's absolutely supposed to not be grammatical that's the way that character talks yeah that character has an absolute different use you know like most of us do the way we are ungrammatical when we speak and that's how I like my characters to be the nuts and bolts of the thing don't worry about it just get on with your story get on with writing the stuff get on with your characters I totally agree I think colloquial grammar definitely you know I really don't want it correct corrected in a column because writing it in a certain way can make the point sound particularly wanky, pretending on what's come before or perhaps after.

13:50Whereas just writing it in a way that how you might speak diffuses all that and you can get away with saying many different things that otherwise would sound not quite right. But I always want it to stay. I always feel like I know the grammar, but I want it to stay like this because it works much better like this. Yeah, I often do that. If something is funnier, if it is written in a way where you mess about with a grammar, occasionally you'll repeat a word for comic effect and one thing that all copy editors always do is oh you know you've repeated a word paragraph which can be incredibly useful by and large you don't but i never felt dan brown's edited copy editors ever said that to him i remember reading one dan brown paragraph the same adjective was used honestly three times in ten lines and i just remember thinking guys did anyone have a quick look at this but it is you know story character writing every agent and every publisher you would ever send a book to they don't care what your grammar is if you've got a story that makes them keep turning the pages that's all they care about and everything else can be dealt with if you don't have those things no one can fix it no one's going to be able to fix that stuff but they can definitely fix all that you know if like me you grew up in an era where no one really taught you what an adverb was you know it in your head what it is and if there's the odd error here and there someone will absolutely clear that up for you now shall we go to a break richard oh my god are you serious yeah eczema isn't always obvious but it's real and so is the relief from ebglis after an initial dosing phase about four in ten people taking ebglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing ebglis libri kizumab lbkz a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema.

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17:06Welcome back, everybody. One of our producers, Joey, just told us it's our 100th episode. Tell us, you're in the adverts. Yeah, we've buried the lead here. This is our 100th episode, everybody. Wow. If this was a TV show, we'd be doing a celebrity special. That's what this would be. We'd both be celebrities instead of us. And to celebrate our 100th episode, shall we do a question about The Rock? Yes, please. Yeah, friend of the podcast. Danny Watts, good name, Danny, says, is The Rock's Hollywood career over with Red One flopping on opening weekend? First of all, I don't necessarily think it has flopped, but Red One is a movie that has been made by Amazon, but they've put it in theatres.

17:42The Rock is like a North Pole security guard who has to, I think, get Chris Evans, who's a mercenary, because Santa's been kidnapped and he has to get... Him and Chris Evans have to find him. They're trying to set up... That's a hell of an elevator pitch, by the way. Yeah. They're trying to set it up as a sort of new comedy action franchise, right? The issue with this movie is the cost. By the way, this opening weekend was£34 million. That is fine. That's really quite good for a Christmas action comedy. There's lots of reasons that Christmas movies are slightly a hard sell. In Asia, people aren't Christian.

18:16It's not such a big thing. So you're already limiting. Even in France, sorry, in Spain and Italy and places like that, like Father Christmas himself is not such a big thing. Yeah, no, I know. Well, you know. In Spain, Father Chris is not as much. Their loss. Yeah, isn't it just? Problem with this movie is that it cost something like, I think it cost$253 million without marketing and distribution. Okay. This is nuts, right? This is completely ridiculous. The Rock got$50 million of that. Remember, we've talked about this before. When things are put on streaming, you have to say to stars, oh, you're not going to get any sort of performance-based box office returns.

18:51So we'll just give you a massive fee up front. So he got$50 million, right? It's meant for streaming. They then decide they're going to put it in theatres. At that point, they should have said, you're going to have to take less because you're going to get some... Once they put it in theatres, they could have done the deal differently. This is what they did, by the way, with something like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, which I think was budgeted to say it was about 150 million and they were going to put it just on streaming because it makes sense for that. Then they said, actually, no, we're going to put it in theatres.

19:18It's made a huge amount of money. It's done really well, but they brought the budget down at that point to 100 million, right? because things are changing and you don't have to pay so much in Star-Sara Louise because you can do more performance rated. This is a fine opening figure for this kind of thing, okay? But it costs at least 100 million too much, right? The Rock, okay, The Rock has got special rock maths, by the way, though. He'll tell you that this is, you know, he's got all kinds of ways of saying that movies that haven't done as well as they should have done that he is in are actually runaway successes.

19:48So with Black Adam, he had to say, you know, this is actually the biggest opening weekend of my career, guys. And it was, but the film was very expensive and it didn't even make back its money. So it was actually a flop. Everyone who works in TV does that with ratings all the time. They go, great news in the 16 to 34 demographic. Oh, did you get bad ratings? Rock movies, in my view, and the view, by the way, after this, an increasing view of Hollywood executives, certainly, is if they cost about 120 million, that's great. And certainly if you're putting them in theatres, Things like all of the Jumanji things he's been in, those are making really good money and they're making three or four times what they cost and they're doing well.

20:30If you're spending basically a quarter of a billion dollars on something without marketing. So half a billion with marketing. It's just mad. It needs to be so enormous, this thing, to make it work. It doesn't work. What you'll notice about The Rock is that special rock, Matt, is that The Rock behaves like the biggest movie star in the world. Okay. And actually, I know you're going to just really roll your eyes at this. For reasons that are not relevant to this podcast, I was looking back over that. There's a really good biography of Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson. And yeah, I know this is very me.

21:02Sorry. Where's this going? Charles de Gaulle. How do you have time to read biographies of Charles de Gaulle? That's just a sub-question. It's 900 pages. It's huge. But it's brilliant, by the way. Charles de Gaulle recommendation in an item about The Rock. Charles de Gaulle is in exile in the Second World War. He's got basically a borrowed office. Don't tell me everything because I want to read it. Spoiler alert, he's got a borrowed office, but he looks down on Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, all of them. And Julian Jackson says, behaving like a great power was de Gaulle's chief means of becoming one.

21:32Okay, so that's what he does. He just acts like he's... The Rock is like Charles de Gaulle in the Second World War, but he's not actually going to go and be president of France afterwards. okay. The Rock just acts like he's the biggest movie star in the world and he's basically also got a borrowed office in London, isn't bigger than lots of other stars but it's the way he acts. If he hears this if The Rock hears this and I know he listens then he will run for president of France. It's called A Certain Idea of France by the way, the brilliant Charles de Gaulle biography that's 900 pages. A Certain Idea of France and you've read that.

22:05I've read it Richard. Where is that on your bookshelf system? It's in Political Biography, sorry if it's confusing. Would it be pre-war or post-war? Because it feels like it's during the war. It's only novels that are divided pre and post-war. Do you know what? I'm an idiot. I can't get back into that. What an absolute imbecile I am. So stupid of me. I can't get back into that. Anyway, so that's my guess. The Rock is like Charles de Gaulle, but is not going to become President of the United States, either, or President of France. He is not the biggest movie star in the world, but he acts like he is.

22:37He's on fumes now. He can't keep doing that. he's going to have to make cheaper movies that are actually at his sweet spot, which is about 100, 120 million. And he's great at that price. Which was also Charles de Gaulle's sweet spot, wasn't it? Which was also his sweet spot, yeah. 120 million movies. Danny, thank you so much for your Charles de Gaulle question there. I hope it was answered for you. Oh, I have news. Breaking. Breaking news. Why don't we have a ticker on this? I'd love it if we did. John and Suze are married to each other. Congratulations, guys. John and Suze, congratulations. Belutedly.

23:08I'm so sorry. can I just go back to the question? Having gone through this process ourself... Twice. Twice. There are various possibilities that John and Suze count their marriage as their one marriage. It's their first marriage, but they count it as... Well, they've both been through it. You know, yeah. Like Bertrand Russell said, the wife and husband, you know, in their private lives, they must be free. I'm going to bring him in now after Charles de Gaulle. Sorry, who said that? Bertrand Russell? Bertrand Russell. What did you say that in? Oh, was it in Con Air? It was in Con Air. Yeah. So there we go.

23:33They're married to each other and they're counting that as two experiences of it. It's an unusual way of saying it. We've been through that experience twice. Yeah, so that's probably the most discountable option. Okay. So maybe they've both been married once before, in which case they've been through it four times. Three times. Three times. Three times, yes. Okay. So John and Suze, God bless you and thank you. Richard's corrected your question. Listen, you do... By the way, you are a service journalist. You do Charles de Gaulle and Bertrand Russell. I do marriage maths. We know that. Should we do another question?