The Best Paid Actor In The World

0:00I'm NFL linebacker TJ Watt and this is my personal best. YPB by Abercrombie is the activewear I'm always wearing. That's why I reached out to co-design their latest drop. I work with designers to create high-performance activewear that holds up to my toughest workouts. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in-store, online, and in the app. Because your personal best is greater than anything.

0:49We'll be right back. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold-out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org. Jack Daniels and Old No. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40 % alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.

1:25Hello and welcome to another episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osborne. Hey Marina. How are you Richard? I'm alright, we're in another new studio today. Yes, we're doing a tour of many studios. Aren't we? I think we'll be back on our normal one next week. It's quite bijou, except the seats are very high so your feet do not reach the floor. Your feet always reach the floor. Mine are swinging like a little five-year-old girl. Which is appropriate because we're going to be talking about a brand new celebrity lifestyle brand. because Megan has launched one. It's about time a celebrity launched a lifestyle brand.

1:57Yeah, I know. My God, there's so few of them out there, a matter we'll discuss. What else are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about the fact that people from the UAE are no longer allowed to buy the Daily Telegraph and so it might be bought by the man behind GB News, Paul Marshall. So we're going to talk about him a little bit. How have we not covered him on a showbiz podcast before? And then we're going to talk about... The 10 highest paid actors in the world. And I'm going to turn it into a little bit of a game, which is your absolute nightmare. But who are the 10 best paid actors in the world from last year?

2:29Number one will surprise you. You see how this is done? Yeah, I see how it's done. I see how it's done. You're teaching me all the time. Yeah, you see how I don't really work so much in TV anymore? Let us begin with Megan's new kind of lifestyle brand. We're not quite sure what it is, although we do know a bit by the trademark applications. It is called American Riviera Orchard, which I love because it sounds like three random words. Yes, or three kids of Chris Martin or Jamie Oliver. So American Riviera Orchard. It's a bit like a what, three words? That's the Esso Garage out on the Ring Roads.

3:04It's past Darnown. But if you get to Quicktie, you've gone too far. Yeah, honestly, if you put the postcode in, you won't find it. So it's, yeah. American Riviera Orchard. Honestly, it takes you to our front door. Yeah, right there in Montecito, which is where she is operating out of, as I believe they say in these things, because, as you know, this is the sort of expensive celebrity enclave she lives in in California. Now, we've seen an Instagram video of her arranging some flowers, doing some cooking. Keep talking. And the sort of logo. Yeah, I know, you're scintillated. A logo. And so it's quite clear it's going to sell you products, because what we do know is that via the trademark application, it's going to sell things like jellies, pans, decanters, kitchen linens, luxury...

3:44Kitchen linens. Linens. Oh, kitchen linens. Luxury pet accessories, what I would call all the sort of branded homespunery of late stage capitalism. All of that will be sold. Just all the important stuff that our grandparents spent all of their money on. Yes, but she's not the only celebrity with a brand. There's quite a few people who have gone into, I think they used to be called lifestyle portals. And we've talked about ghostwritten celebrity books before as a sort of extension of the brand. But I know that your wife Ingrid is very keen on one particular celebrity brand, which I didn't even actually know existed.

4:20Ava Mendes? Ava Mendes, who, you know, one of the most glamorous women in the world, incredibly talented actor, married to Ryan Gosling. And she has her own range of sponges. Kitchen sponges. Kitchen sponges. You're probably thinking some really expensive, like, natural Dead Sea sponge. No, this is a kitchen sponge. Yeah, a kitchen sponge just for, you know, the sort of stuff that our grandparents did actually use. I'll tell you what, it's$4 though per sponge. And that is not... Is it$4 a sponge? You see, it's always a luxury brand, even if it's a kitchen sponge. How are they justifying$4 a sponge?

4:58Is it antibacterial? Obviously, I have genuinely ordered some over the weekend. No, have you? Of course. I mean, as a committed ironist, I now want to have the product. Yeah, I'm not a marble statue. No, I'm not. Presumably postage is not massive. because they're very light. They're light as air, Richard, and they're coming from the United States of America. I will tell you what the Ava Mendes sponges are like. So Ava Mendes said she was shocked when she discovered that her sponge was the dirtiest thing in her house. What about Ryan Gosling? That's, yeah, Ryan Gosling aside. Actually, he's a clean-living, clean-fuck guy.

5:30Yeah, he's a clean-living guy. But yeah, so she's done sponges. I mean, essentially, they're all desperately trying to walk in the shadow of the great goddess herself, Paltrow. Her Vajesty. Her Vajesty. Her Vajesty Gwyneth Paltrow with her website Goop, which again, a bit like Megan. Megan used to have a blog called The Tig, which was a bit sort of, like all of these things, it recommended you how to lay your table, but also as a place for discussion about global issues. I mean, when aren't they? And Gwyneth Paltrow used to also have, Goop started out as an email, a bit like that, a blog, whatever, and has now become something that's valued at, I think$250 million the last time.

6:10Yeah, I know it's a lot. I pronounce it go-op, like co-op. Yeah, go-op. But a lot of the celebrity brands are wellness, which I find slightly interesting. First of all, celebrities are a bit of a religion. I do think wellness is one of those words that only really awful people know what it actually means, a bit like neoliberalism or something like that. You know, like L. Ron Hubbard said, the guy who founded Scientology, if you want to get rich, start a religion. And there's something about religion having gone out of societies and this kind of weird idea of self-care coming in. But it's so individualised and it's so sort of atomised and it's so consumerist.

6:46The answer to all of our problems are apparently buying another thing. And I suppose to some extent, you know, Megan, for all her woo-woo talk about this and that, is essentially going to be in retail. She's going to try and sell you some stuff because she's going to say that the answer is buying some more stuff. She's like WH Smith. Yeah. But operating Adam Montecito. and I do think there's something quite odd about sort of celebrities trying they're sort of icons in the old religious sense and I don't know in the sort of late middle ages the Catholic Church sold indulgences this is part of the reason why they went ahead with the Reformation there's something about that word finally we're back to the Reformation yeah but they use well I wonder if this sort of wellness culture needs a bit of a Reformation they're also selling what we might call indulgences And certainly the word indulgent is used in all the marketing, all the time.

7:36And you're sort of being this idea of self-care, but you're on a journey where you never quite arrive because you fix one thing and then there's another thing and there's another thing and there's... But it is a totally atomised journey. And so when Megan is saying, as Gwyneth Paltrow does to some extent, you know, I'm going to become a talking shop for ideas, you're not really, you're in retail. And I think that that's what a lot of these celebrity brands are. Yes, and it makes them feel better about themselves. Well, that's the thing I always think with celebrities. Say you're an actor and you're very, very well paid and suddenly you're on$10 million a movie, right?

8:10And so for the rest of us, we'd be like, well, that's insane. You never have to work again. You never have to do anything again. And they're saying, well, I do get paid$10 million for a movie, but then I actually have to make the movie, you know, and I have to turn up and I'm like there for six weeks and there's some CGI stuff. Sometimes I'm in my trailer and I find that boring and I'm getting 10 million and the next movie they do is just 10 million again and suddenly they're looking at a house in Montecito that's like 112 million and they're thinking I've got to do 12 movies to get this so the only other thing to do the way to instead of making 10 million to make 100 million is to set up a business you know that's the way to do it Ryan Reynolds did it twice Ryan Reynolds sold his stake in Mint Mobile for kind of half a billion he's got a gin brand he's got all sorts of things and then aviation gin because if you're used to being paid 10 million Any job you do, you want to be paid a bit more.

9:02And if you're an actor in films, it is impossible to be paid a bit more. There isn't another job in the world, unless you're going to be like a LeBron James, that pays more. So essentially, you then have to found and own a company and then sell that company. Dr. Dre, there's no way he could have made more money until he put his name to some headphones. And suddenly they set it for$3 billion. You're going to have to sell a lot of records to make$3 billion. I agree with that. But isn't that also something which we talked about a bit when we were talking about the Beckham documentary and things like that, that they only properly feel they have arrived because they think at some level there's something quite silly about stardom or celebrity or whatever.

9:40And that actually the only really thing that really matters is business because then you have power. And even if you treat yourself as a business and talk about sort of money a lot in a certain in a very sort of aggressive way, then it sounds like you really know what you're talking about. But I do think there's a thing with celebrities where they feel, unless they have a business, they're not taken seriously in the world, that they're regarded as sort of ornamental something or other that we don't really quite understand. Whereas business saying, I've got a boardroom, I've this, we might, you know, we might go to IPO, really makes them feel like they have arrived in the thing that our culture values the absolute most, which is business.

10:12But then there's also that thing that they do still come from that creative world. And so there's a bit of them that still thinks business is dirty, which is why they have to go, actually, it's not really sort of a business. It is a talking shop. Yeah, it's changing the world. What I actually want to do is raise awareness and enlightenment around the world and stop bullying. To do that, I am going to set up a multi-billion pound business selling dishcloths. Kitchen linen. To use the technical trademark term. Kitchen linen is hard to say. And so they're sort of having their cake and eating it and then selling that cake.

10:44That's the sticking plaster that says, I'm not actually going into this for the billions. I'm going into it because I just think there's a lot of disagreement in the world. and I would like to put that right. I mean, it's a beautiful gig. But they make you feel worse about yourself. There's a brilliant profile of Gwyneth Paltrow by someone I've talked about before on this podcast. It's absolutely sensational called Taffy Brodus at Acne and she does the profiles in the New York Times. She also is an author and she's had a TV show. She wrote the book, Fleischman is in Trouble. Does she make sponges though?

11:10She doesn't make any sponges, but her profile of Gwyneth Paltrow is absolutely amazing. I strongly suggest you seek it out. And she really manages to distill that way that Gwyneth actually sort of makes you feel sort of shit about yourself. And wellness as an industry does. It makes you feel that you're sick in ways that you only sort of dimly grasp and that the cure is consumerism. Well, it's like Middlemarch where they've got all sorts of potions and powders for whenever you've got whatever egg you have. You go, oh, I need Dr. Robertson's tablets and Dr. Robertson's pills. And you don't really know if they work because if you're buying one Gwyneth Paltrow product, you're probably taking about eight different products and also your body is healing itself at various times anyway.

11:50So one day you will, it's like when people go to chiropractors and their back just gets better automatically and they go, you have to go to my chiropractor. And it's the same thing. I took, you know, Gwyneth Paltrow's, I don't really know what any of our products are. There was a candle called This Smells Like My Vagina. There's some jade eggs you put up your family. There's a lot of... Honestly, there's not a lot there. Her work is strongly vaginal. There is not a lot there for me, I'm going to say. Yeah, no, there's not a lot there. There's a whole other load of stuff for you. But what is very interesting, And I read there's a really interesting article out there, which is that a lot of the stuff, do you know Alex Jones from Infowars, a kind of horrific person?

12:25He's a sort of alt-right kind of fringe wingnut who had a TV show that he was sued in the end successfully by the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre children because he said that that was a fake sort of event and that all the dead children were crisis actors. I mean, absolutely insane. But you know what? He sells the same stuff. He's got one, e.g., called Brain Force. she's got the same supplement that is called Why Am I So F-ing Tired and of course it's in her different packaging but so much of the stuff that they sell are the same things and you know as you say it's like middle march a cure for what ails you or maybe doesn't but it's also it's like Diet Coke and Coke Zero so Alex Jones it's the same stuff but you know Coke Zero is in a black can with black writing that's for the extreme sport person in all I'll say for loving life I for example would never ever buy Diet Coke but Coke Zero No, of course I would.

13:17Of course you wouldn't. It's for people who think they might one day do a triathlon, but haven't done it yet. Oh, I would never do a triathlon. No, that's good. But you know yourself, Richard. Because I'm allergic to being sponsored. It's always, listen, there'll be some triathletes out there, but by and large, it's a cry for help, isn't it? This will be incredibly controversial. There'll be a lot of emails about this one. Listen, some people love triathlons. I absolutely get it. Some people are triathletes. But yeah, by and large, if someone in the office is saying, I'm doing a triathlon, you just go, you just got divorced didn't you listen don't at me it's just a bit don't at him I've obviously never done the triathlon either oh god neither listen anyone who can do it yeah we take our hats off collectively I respect that we take our hats off in the transition area yeah very good after the cycle so there's lots of other brands as well I was looking through my favourite sort of slightly mental one Sylvester Stallone has got two very different brands He's got some high-protein puddings in a can that he makes a lot of money from.

14:17But also, you can buy a Sylvester Stallone pen for$48 ,000. Wow. Yeah, interested. Does he sell a lot? We don't need to, does he? No, he doesn't. He'll sell two. Yeah, exactly. It's not like sponges. Yeah. But it is, you know, so George Foreman, he's made$150 million-odd. That is a good product, though. From the grill. Exactly. But again, that is, I was talking to someone recently about this. There's a lot of celebrities with wines. You know, if you know what I mean, wines without an H. A lot of people have sort of launched their own brand. So the biggest selling wine in the UK is Kylie's Rose.

14:49It's the biggest selling brand in the country. Yeah. You know, she sells 7 million bottles a year in the UK. So it does incredibly well. She seems to be involved somehow in the making of that wine. Graham Norton sells 15 million bottles a year around the world. Shut the front door. Yeah, how about that? Yeah, he does. Well done, Graham. I didn't know this. Yeah, and again, he's very closely involved in it. But this idea, someone introduced me, of brand slap, which is just someone else has already made something and you can put your name on it, which is what George Foreman did. I think Hulk Hogan was originally asked.

15:21I don't imagine he was there with the circuitry trying to work out how to do the grill. You never know. No disrespect to him. But he made a huge amount of money. Ian Botham's wine, I don't know how involved he is, but he's got Australian wines that you can, including the Botham All Rounder. when you are in a career in show business and i've always been behind the scenes so i've always had an actual job but when you get someone who's just a presenter or something like that eventually they get so bored so if somebody from a sort of wine brand in france says you know can we meet ben shepherd uh ben goes yeah sure i've got nothing else to do on wednesday and then they say well why don't we give you 250 000 pound to put your name on a bottle of wine you go yeah okay i suppose So by the way, Ben Shepard is not doing that.

16:06No, no. He's working very hard on the new, just this morning's sofa. And if he is doing that, now he's not able to because we pre-empted it. So yeah, this brand thing is a combination of how do I make an unimaginable amount of money and I'm quite bored on a Thursday. Should I take a meeting? Hanson have got a beer called... Hanson, how? Hanson, the band. And it's called Mhops. Oh, that's incredible. I'm about 59 now. What's the age of Hanson now? or are they in Aspik still a 10 year old so it's I have any well I suppose are you issuing a come and get me please at any brand to come and give your Richard would do brands the only brand I would like to do here's something I would like to do I would like to launch an alternative to celebrations of miniature heroes on Quality Street at Christmas like I think there's room for a new chocolate box at Christmas oh yeah and a crowd sourced one where the rest of the entertainment listeners choose what's going to be in the tin.

17:03Oh my gosh, choose the full makeup. Yes. Oh, I really like that. I do think, you know, with Megan, to bring it back to her and American Riviera Orchard. Yes, those are the words. And you've got them in the right order. But they are so interchangeable. But it's sort of a no brainer. Yeah. In a funny kind of way, because... Yes, I don't think it's a strictly intellectual enterprise. Yeah. Because she's got enough people who love her. And as you say, people do need sponges and kitchen linen. And why wouldn't you put your name to something. And Harry's only got one autobiography in him. One's assuming.

17:37But also next week, will you tell us about your sponges when they arrive? If the sponges have made landfall, I will be talking about them. Believe me. Yes, if the sponges have arrived from the United States of America, we'll be talking about my sponges. That's a proper cliffhanger. Now, talking of celebrities doing anything to sell their soul. Yes. Shall we go to an advert break? Yes, please. Let's do that now, Richard.

18:02is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. At Sierra, discover great deals on top-brand workout gear, like high-quality walking shoes, which might lead to another discovery. 40 ,000 steps, baby! Who's on top now, Karen? You've taken the office step challenge a step too far. Don't worry, though. Sierra also has yoga gear.

18:40It might be a good place to find your zen. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. Raise the rudders. Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sails professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

19:23We are back. During that ad break, I discovered that one of Hanson is still in his 30s. That's not bad, but they were a lot older than... I mean, I was joking when I thought they were like 49, but... Yeah, but it feels like that was 40. Anyway, listen. Right. Let's continue. Let's continue. Tell us about the Daily Telegraph. The Daily Telegraph, which Telegraph newspapers comprises three titles, really. Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator magazine. And they were about to be bought by something called Redbird AMI, who were essentially an investment arm of the UAE. And they've been trying to take it over.

19:57But at the sort of last minute, which tells you quite how much those titles, even though we think of newspapers as kind of denuded of a lot of their political clout that they used to have, I don't think in some ways that's the case with the Telegraph because Rishi Sunak has stepped in and the conservatives are bringing forth an amendment which say that you can't be a foreign state power and own newspapers in our country, which we have obviously sold half the rest of the country off to foreign state powers, particularly in the Middle East. But it's good that there is going to be a ban on foreign ownership of newspapers.

20:28Why is that good, do we think? Well, first of all, it's a sort of monarchical dictatorship, the UAE. And I don't think that people who have obviously zero commitment to free speech and democracy should really have any of those things. And I wish that they hadn't been allowed many of those repressive autocracies in the Middle East to buy lots and lots of other parts of our country, from football clubs to, I don't know, even shops, I suppose, and lots of other things. I think it would have been better if they hadn't. Anyway, we've gone down the river with that. People at The Telegraph are very happy about this because they have not wanted the newspapers and they've mounted a real campaign involving their sort of old grandees, former editors, things like that, saying we don't want it to fall in the hands of a foreign state.

21:07And so they'll be happy about this. But they had a six... The Barclay brothers who used to own it had a sort of£600 million debt, which was going to be covered by Redbird AMI. So you can see that maybe they make some profit. They do make some profit. What they are, they are outsized. And the amount we talk about them is because of their influence. And they retain a lot of influence. So it's vanity publishing, essentially. It is in a way. However, it has always had this big, big stranglehold on the debate within the Conservative Party, the Telegraph titles. It's where people would launch their leadership bids.

21:36It's where candidates for the next leadership, which obviously we have a Tory leadership election every 15 minutes these days, where they would think that they would be reaching out to grassroots, all sorts of things like that. So it does say something about how influential those titles still remain, that Sunak has stepped in and done something about it. So we're thinking now, who will buy it? Who will buy my newspaper? God, who will buy my newspaper? A real sort of rogues gallery of people are coming in. I mean, they're all rogues. Paul Marshall, who's the guy who owns GB News and the UnHerd website, he's a hedge funder.

22:10People have often thought he would like to get into newspapers because obviously, again, GB News, he keeps bankrolling their losses. And if you were able to put it together with print titles and a digital business, just that alone, even as it is now, would make him far, far more influential. He was recently described as unfit to own a newspaper. I mean, God, how low it is. Is that the lowest bar in the world? I mean, God, Richard Desmond's had a few of them. I mean, you know, Murdoch's got loads of them. Yeah. He's obviously, Murdoch's in for it as well. Is he? Yes. I think Murdoch, he can't let it go.

22:46The rumours are that he's considering a bid for the Spectator part of it. He can't own the newspapers on competition grounds. So the Spectator is like a magazine that I don't think I've ever seen it in a shop. Haven't you? No, it's in the shop. It's in the shop and it's got a very successful print subscription. So yeah, it does well, the Spectator. And then there's people like David Montgomery. As I say, I mean, these are some of the worst people in this country and other countries. And then Paul Marshall. He's also bringing in a guy called Ken Griffin, who's a sort of mega donor to the Republican Party.

23:15And I think there is a sense that the Telegraph and those titles are unexploited online. And the Anglophone world for subscription-based news sites is massive. Like when I talked to the New York Times about going there, and the reason that they were sort of talking to me is because, you know, they need to get subscribers. And you work in an English-speaking country, then you can get, don't just think of America. They think you can think of around the world, the Anglophone world. And that is where a lot of these people are making more money. you can see how well the Mail Online has done in the US.

23:47The Guardian has obviously invested massively in the US and it's done very well. New York Times is a huge brand now around. I mean, it's very, very profitable. Around the world, yeah. Obviously the FT. So you take it out of the country's borders where it might have originally been sort of domiciled and you can make a lot of money out of that. So I guess the question is, what would Paul Marshall or someone like that or anyone really, I suppose, want to do with the telegraph brand in the US? And some people are saying, oh, there's a real gap in the market for the kind of sensible conservatism that sort of telegraph readers might like to think themselves part of.

24:19And you think, but is there? I mean, I'm looking at American politics and I'm thinking, is there a great, you know, to break through as a new brand in that country? I don't think there is such a big... And Paul Marshall says that, oh, that's the sort of conservative I'm interested in. Not necessarily. He was recently found to have liked all sorts of quite extreme tweets. He bankrolled a sort of big conference in London where it was sort of about conservatism, but there were a lot of real wingnuts speaking there. And so I think people think, yeah, your actual politics is not the old Argers and Heartland telegraph conservatism that you would have seen in previous years.