
In This Episode
Ira Madison III [AD]
Ira Madison III And we are back for an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison, the third. Published author.
Louis Virtel And I’m Louis Virtel, a lowly Emmy nominee. Out here making television and not literature, like Ira.
Ira Madison III My book came out today. I’m excited.
Louis Virtel What a crazy feeling. My God. It’s been so long coming. I mean, this was announced. This is how books work. This was announced very long ago, and now it’s coming out. When did you get around to the first draft? Like a couple of weeks ago.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. It was a really quick rush process, you know? And then they were like, Well, we got a week to edit this. Let’s make it work.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. It’s like Parade magazine. They’re just like, okay, well, stamp it together. Go. Yeah.
Ira Madison III Not parade catching a stray.
Louis Virtel I would read Maryland votes often and parade every week. Her little I.Q. Brainteasers.
Ira Madison III But speaking of the book, I was just in Milwaukee last night, my hometown, where much of the book is set. And I loved being there and like talking about the book and then meeting people who came to see it who are obviously keep it listeners. And we were talking about this with Graham Norton, right. You know, the idea that people haven’t really read the book yet, so they’re just asking you general questions. And mostly the questions are just questions you’d get from people who listen and keep it. They were just asking me my opinions on pop culture. And of course, someone said, What are your thoughts on Carlos Sophia Gascon? And I said, You’re going to have to wait till this week’s episode, baby.
Louis Virtel And you tip your hat. Yes. Good day, madam. You said flying off in your copter.
Ira Madison III And so here we are.
Louis Virtel I here’s the thing. I am so grateful for the magnificent Grammys we had. Otherwise, this would be the most enervating topic of all time. I mean, I am here to talk about the Oscars just in general. It doesn’t have to be February. It could be middle of August, whatever it could be three in the morning at a club. I’m I’m ready to talk about the Oscars. Carlos Sophia Gascon is a new frontier. I truly am struggling to even begin to discuss this insane issue. I are. And I both remember very vividly a few years ago the Oscars Snow White phenomenon, which several actors responded poorly to. I kind of thought that would be as bad as this kind of conversation would get. And now we’re in the thick of this controversy where the best actress nominee from Amelia Perez, a movie that is universally adored. I don’t know if you’ve I’m kidding. If you’ve ever been on the Internet, you know that’s not the case. Somebody uncovered a number of old tweets from this person. And I’ll say this about Cancelable tweets. Usually you can hear that they were trying to write a joke or be funny, not one motherfucking time. This is simply racism.
Ira Madison III How bad is it? She was a keyboard warrior. Yeah. Okay.
Louis Virtel She stayed at the desktop at first.
Ira Madison III When I heard someone said color. Sophia Gascon’s tweets. Where on earth you know they’re racist. I was kind of like, Are we still doing this shit? Ah, like. Like she should have scrubs walk out. Sure. But they can’t be that bad. It’s probably something stupid that we’re, you know, taking to an extreme. And then I saw she was up in the OscarsSoWhite hashtag. She was live tweeting the show. She she had her opinions on not just that, but also her costar who is in Amelia Perez with her, which is the funniest tweet to me, waiting into Selena Gomez’s alleged feud with Hailey Bieber over Selena Gomez’s former relationship with Justin Bieber. Singer Selena Gomez is a rich rat.
Louis Virtel Okay. Let me just say this about the phrase rich rap. You should be calm, but picture a rich rap. It’s kind of cool. It’s like the winner of all those bets. He’s got a little cane. He’s by the water. She also denies that she tweeted that, by the way. She says that she would never say that about Selena Gomez. However, she did say a lot of other things about literally every other human being.
Ira Madison III So I’m not.
Louis Virtel Really much of an apology. I guess we have to read some of them. Should we read like three of them? I don’t know. I mean, it goes on and on and on. I’m so sorry that we’re going to be reciting this.
Ira Madison III Here’s just a few of her highlights. New attack in France, beheadings in mass by one of these retarded followers of Allah. How many times when we have to expel these mad men from Europe until we realize that their religion is incompatible with Western values? We do not learn. Thank you, Erdogan.
Louis Virtel Unbelievable. That’s, by the way, one tweet.
Ira Madison III Yeah. I have never seen tweet this racist from someone who is running for an Oscar.
Louis Virtel No, I mean, like it’s one of those things people are like, should she have her Oscar nomination taken away? And my response to that is, I don’t really think it’s up to the academy to be like this person’s parents. Like, it’s like awarding somebody for a performance to me has nothing to do with this other thing. Like guys like Mel Gibson still has an Oscar. Kevin Spacey still has his two Oscars. Roman Polanski is still an Oscar winner and nominee, etc.. So we would have to start there if he were taking away Oscars, in my opinion.
Ira Madison III Also, we’re still in the midst of voting for the Oscars. So you could also just not vote for her.
Louis Virtel That’s true. And I’m just going to kindly suggest that she wasn’t going to win anyway. And it’s like, you know, there’s only five slots in the best actors category. And I have to thank Sorry, it’s getting really warm in here. If I had to pick another person, we could have voted for instead of not really coming to mind. You know, like I haven’t already.
Ira Madison III Like, that’s what they really feel. Can you.
Louis Virtel Believe that? People can’t see this at home? It’s a podcast, but I just pulled off my jacket underneath. Somebody sent me a lovely shirt with Marianne Jean-Baptiste named in all black letters, which I thank God they said, I guess it was from God. I don’t know who sent it, but.
Ira Madison III Minus across the road.
Louis Virtel God. It would have been weird if we. Baltimore.
Ira Madison III But her next tweet is on this becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured. I’m sorry. The bitches just racist.
Louis Virtel Yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s just. It’s just blatantly racist. Like if you had to come up with, like, a dictionary definition, this would be it.
Ira Madison III There’s no joke here. There’s no, like, ain’t no metaphor a punch line. She’s really sitting in racism.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. The Covid vaccine, the Chinese vaccine, apart from the mandatory chip, comes with two spring rolls. Okay. Now it’s sort of sounding like Greg Gutfeld comedy anyway. My cat that moves its hand to plastic flowers, a pop up lantern, racist telephone lines and €1 for your controlled purchase. Should we get into George Floyd for a second? I really think that few people ever cared about George Floyd. A drug addict. Swindler. Come on. But his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys. The writing, the writing without rights and consider policemen to be assassins, they’re all wrong. Now, this is interesting to me, too. She was tweeting during the 2021 Oscars. That’s the Nomadland one. And she said, more and more, the Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films. I don’t know if I was watching an Afro Korean festival. A Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8 a.m.. Now, let me say this. Dropping Black Lives Matter in this context is already insane when she says Afro Korean festival. That was interesting to me because I was like, What are you talking about?
Ira Madison III They do love fried chicken.
Louis Virtel I’m pretty sure what she means is Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar for Judas and the Black Messiah, and Euna Jang won an Oscar for Minari. So what she’s actually just saying is she’s turning the fact that two nonwhite actors won Oscars into a reason to complain.
Ira Madison III Listen, I just think that she is really into Korean fried chicken.
Louis Virtel I must also add about her. Unfortunately, right now her name is an amazing punch line. Like I was. Somebody invited me to their like, pre-game for Drag Race over the weekend. I was like, Can I bring a friend? It’s Carlos Sophia Gascon. Can I bring a friend? You know, it’s just it’s like you get instantly jolted with electricity.
Ira Madison III I would love. If someone hosting the Oscars did a song that was the guest on song from Beauty and the Beast, but about karma of be a gas God.
Louis Virtel My God. Why can’t we get you in the writers room? Conan Right.
Ira Madison III Here. No one tweets like Gascon.
Louis Virtel God. Well, it remains to be seen how visible Carla will be in the upcoming awards. I guess she’s doing none of the like the Producers Guild Awards or this week she won’t be there. They just announced that she.
Ira Madison III They’ve removed her from everything, honey. Yeah. The last thing that these producers want is her to be in the face of reporters.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Apparently, Also, I had heard that they were considering doing the Fab Five thing again at the Oscars, where they have five winners or nominees present to the five new nominees. And I feel like you cannot do that now. Like who is going to present to Carlos Sofia Gascon? Actually, there’s one answer. It could be Marion Cotillard, the French actress. And you know, something about her is kind of like, what did she say? I’ve never heard of Twitter. You know what I mean?
Ira Madison III Yeah. I want to know if she’s going to be booed.
Louis Virtel Right. I can’t remember anybody being booed at the Oscars. I remember when Elia Kazan won that award. You know, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan didn’t stand. But I don’t remember any booing Really?
Ira Madison III Well, they booed my good, says Littlefeather.
Louis Virtel That’s true. Yes. Sacheen, who turned out the only littlefeather she bought, was that bad mouth and beyond. Because she wasn’t really a Native American or something. We found out when she died.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Well, you know, Marlon Brando was always up to something.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. You know, bisexual sex was the answer to that. Yes. Yeah. This is just an unbelievable situation. I feel bad for the other actors in this movie. I feel, you know, they are obligated to say something when clearly a lot of these tweets happened when they didn’t even know this person.
Ira Madison III Well, to be fair, I already felt bad for all of the actors in the movie.
Louis Virtel You were advanced in that way.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. I saw the movie. Yeah.
Louis Virtel I will say this about Amelia Perez. I thought it was an entertaining enough movie. I don’t know that I needed to see it in the Oscars conversation. If. If all it got were the Zoe nomination. I’d have been fine with that. That said, when you say you kind of enjoyed anything about this movie, people pretend like you put a cat in the microwave. I mean, like, it’s it’s it’s a movie.
Ira Madison III Yeah. People act like you’re Carlos. Sophia Gascon tweeting. Yeah.
Louis Virtel Yes, exactly.
Ira Madison III Is a great punchline.
Louis Virtel Yeah. No, it’s just the right amount of syllables. You know what I’m saying?
Ira Madison III Wow. Anyway, she has said in an interview that she will not withdraw from the race.
Louis Virtel Nor do I think she should. Really. I just don’t think. I don’t think this conversation on the Oscars conversation is like dovetailing with this conversation about, you said these unbelievably horrible things and now you probably just won’t get cast in anything. Like I think that’s the punishment. But, you know, been wrong before. And, you know, those movies with like Candace Cameron Bure probably need an antagonist and they’ll she’ll probably get a call.
Ira Madison III Now the tweets were originally posted. Shout out to Sarah Hagy, who I love. She screenshotted them and put them on Twitter. And Karla, Sophia Gascon has said that she doesn’t recognize many of these tweets and that she has been judged, condemned, sacrificed, crucified and stoned without a trial and without the option to defend myself. Okay, Vicki Gunvalson.
Louis Virtel Also, all you’re doing is defending yourself. And second of.
Ira Madison III All, she’s doing.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III She drops a new interview every day.
Louis Virtel Right. Also, it’s like reposting tweets you posted. How is that stoning you or whatever you just said? It’s literally just the words out of your mouth. There’s no additional commentary needed. No, I’m shocked at the defensiveness of her tone. I would just be immediately humbled and apologetic if if something like that befell me. But she constantly is treating the situation like if I yell hard enough back at it, it’ll go away. I don’t understand what she’s doing. She just did in an unauthorized CNN interview that had nothing to do with the Amelia Perez campaign, like she arranged it herself. And then that was another snafu of hers. So I don’t really know what she thinks her endgame here is, but everything out of her mouth is just kind of making things worse.
Ira Madison III Would you say that she’s going rogue?
Louis Virtel Like, sorry, Is that Sarah Palin?
Ira Madison III Okay. Yes.
Louis Virtel I remember Speaking of literature.
Ira Madison III She’s going to Cairo.
Louis Virtel My God. When you called her a poodle last week, I mean, Amelia. Amelia Perez, not her.
Ira Madison III Well, right now, I’m sure someone has this week.
Louis Virtel It’s so it’s awkward to comment on this also, because we’re not at the end of it. No, we don’t know what’s going to happen with her on this campaign.
Ira Madison III We’ve got a month.
Louis Virtel She was not in danger of winning this Oscar. I mean, I’ll say that. Yes, you’re right. The Oscars are still a month away. So maybe and I’m curious, like, does Conan O’Brien address that at all? It’s so strange. It’s such a strange.
Ira Madison III Yeah, It’s I mean, honestly, though, this is Trump’s America and 2025 has been crazy. What if she won?
Louis Virtel God. I mean, like that. I mean, if that.
Ira Madison III Happens, what if the race is contingent on the voting body was like, finally a voice?
Louis Virtel I mean, truly, that would mean I don’t know the academy at all. I mean, if there was any headway in her direction, especially since the rising tide against this movie is only rising even higher.
Ira Madison III That’s fair. I bet the Hollywood Foreign Press would have still voted for her, though. I’m sure the tweets have come out earlier.
Louis Virtel Again, I only feels like I’m going to discover more tweets in the future, so I don’t even know why we began commenting on it now.
Ira Madison III We’ll discover a whole manifesto from her probably when she blows up the Oscars.
Louis Virtel Or we’ll just read her book. That’ll come out in six months on some self-publishing website or something.
Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. I think we’ve devoted enough time to our sister in arms. So what are we talking about this week?
Louis Virtel Well, luckily, we had a very rejuvenating award show on Sunday, the Grammys, and they kind of treated it like it was the last possible Grammys because everyone was there. Yeah, there’s there was no musician left on this. Of course, John Legend was there. You know, they keep him in a little cage under the Grammys and they just like the door opens and he runs up there. Yeah, but everybody else was there, too. And it was, as you know, IRA, a pretty exciting awards rollout, actually. They did not make many bad decisions when it came to the actual awards. We’ll get into that.
Ira Madison III So we have that. And then we also have the fantastic Edward Norton here.
Louis Virtel An intimidatingly talented and fabulous actor. I mean, somebody who is so talented, you can’t pick a signature role for them. Like, every part of their career is packed with unbelievable moments. Like we could talk just about American history alone. Obviously, he is nominated now for playing Pete Seeger in a complete unknown. We’ll talk about that and that mysterious little man, Timothee Chalamet. Who is he? Does he still wear the Wonka hat?
Ira Madison III You know, he keep that thing on him. He’s stuck in.
Louis Virtel The Wonka hat.
Ira Madison III I need to know if Timothee pulled up in the Sri Lanka to set up.
Louis Virtel The Sri Lanka. Yes.
Ira Madison III All right. Well, we’re back. More. Keep it.
Ira Madison III [AD].
Ira Madison III The 67th Grammy Awards were held on Sunday honoring the industry’s biggest stars, LA’s recovery efforts, and Trevor Noah. Doing his standup routine.
Louis Virtel Just wandering between all those celebrities. It was giving lounge act. I mean, he’s determined to do the jokes while the celebrities are sitting right there. And I have to say, I’m going to call that brave and don’t do it again.
Ira Madison III Yeah, I will say that once again, Trevor Noah is just he’s on top of people. And I would find that uncomfortable if I were in the audience. In fact, I will say that many of them were visibly uncomfortable. Name Chappell Roan. Did you notice at one point when he’s doing his opening monologue, the camera is just focused on her, and even when he shifts, they make sure that they get her in like the lower part of the corner of the camera. And it’s just like, Can we leave the bitch alone?
Louis Virtel They’re like, Sure, she’s going to snarl or something.
Ira Madison III And you could tell that she was like aware that the cameras are just on her and she’s just making sure that she nods and, you know, she, like, you know, cheers. You know, was he supposed to? But that was stressful for me to watch.
Louis Virtel I know. I mean, it’s stressful if you’re watching any standup and then you can see any of the audience having to react, knowing they’re on camera, just like. Like for me, I find it stressful period, to laugh, let alone consistently at someone doing anything. So it would appear that I was having a stony reaction to anything going up when truly I’m just listening. So I kind of feel bad for people being literally on camera while they’re supposed to be reacting like clowns at whatever he’s saying. But by the way, like, his hosting style is so strange for the Grammys. Like he’s very frenetic, but then not saying much. So it just felt like it felt like he was constantly saying that was amazing at everything. And you were supposed to be it was very red carpet commentary from the 2000s.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Wow. That was amazing.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III Give it up for Beyonce, everyone. And I’m like, where are the jokes baby?
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III I know you’re funny. Maybe that girl from selling Sunset really did write all his jokes.
Louis Virtel He that’s right. I remember that claim. He had some joke about Columbia and Shakira. Like she’s the best export since. And the joke was something to do with crimes of some kind or cocaine. I don’t know. It felt very first thought too. It felt like whoever was writing the jokes for this was not a pop culture person. Maybe just a long time Daily Show writer. I have no idea. But like the voice was out of sync with what I wanted to hear at that award show.
Ira Madison III Also, his joke about immigrants voting. Obviously it was a joke about, you know, something that Trump would say, etc., but the joke didn’t really land. And I think we all saw Doechii roll her eyes at that joke.
Louis Virtel But honestly, it’s a testament to the power of the ceremony that I thought it was such a success. And by the way, old school in a way where this was literally a four hour award show, like people time award shows are four hours long, like this one gave you the full Gone with the Wind. We were there that long, but it was mostly fabulous. I mean, like the Grammys have the kind of hardest obligation because they have to put so much in there. They have to get all of the new artists and then lots of legacy collaborations and then like that’s talk about the foundation. And then this year they had to talk about Los Angeles. So there’s just so much they had to get in there. But the awards rollout itself I thought was pretty rad. I don’t know. I wasn’t mad at almost anything. I don’t think.
Ira Madison III I will say what I’m mad at is. Charlie XCX. They trotted her out. She has so many nominations and she won shit that was off camera.
Louis Virtel Yes. I happened to be in my car early on on Sunday, and I listened to the that the pre-show rollout of awards, which just goes on and on and on. Obviously, there’s tons and tons of categories. I heard somebody named Sierra Ferrell, whose music I enjoy when four Grammys in a row. It’s like, wow, they just like it’s like Costco. You just like come away with awards and you’re like, I’m barely here. But yes, Charlie actually won for dance recording for Von Dutch and two others.
Ira Madison III Yeah. And she won Best Dance electronic album for Brat, which, by the way, has been won by four women.
Louis Virtel Really?
Ira Madison III Yes.
Louis Virtel Dansel, is that a Madonna ray of light?
Ira Madison III Confessions on the dance floor.
Louis Virtel Confessions on the dance floor, of course. Yes. Yeah.
Ira Madison III GA GA. The fame. And you know the other one? It’s recent.
Louis Virtel It’s not Kylie Minogue.
Ira Madison III No. They televise this one.
Louis Virtel Dance album. Who is it?
Ira Madison III Beyonce. Renaissance.
Louis Virtel Okay. Very good. Very good. She does win Grammys sometimes. I don’t know if people are aware of that.
Ira Madison III But. It’s so upsetting that she was just sort of sitting there doing nothing. All awards show. And then she performs at the end, too, which I guess they were like, got to keep these fagots watching.
Louis Virtel That must have been why they did that. But it felt very weird that that was the last performance while you were between like Song of the Year and Album of the year. I felt like that should have gotten everybody into the Grammys. They should have led with that because it was very a party atmosphere. And by the time the Grammys were over, we wanted to leave the party.
Ira Madison III Yeah. And obviously, there were some complaints from people that the ceremony wasn’t really, you know, honoring Ella and the firefighters. I think there was someone wrote an opinion piece that, you know, they sort of used the victims as props in a way. And it still was sort of celebrating the Grammys in a way. Like it felt very weird to have all of this stuff at one point starting out the show in a very sort of somber way. And then you’re ending it with Charlie Acts doing guests. And then, by the way, here are the firefighters. It was a bit of whiplash.
Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, that is sort of the danger with the show. I mean, like just tonally, it does have to be all over the place as the music itself is all over the place. Like these artists, there’s no Venn diagram encompassing all of these things, but like looking at record and song of the year, can I just say we were stupid not to guess that Kendrick Lamar would win this? I feel like that was like a definitive track that came out in the summer.
Ira Madison III I wasn’t shocked at all. Yeah, the people with me were like, This song won and I was like, Yeah, S-presso was not the song of the year for everyone.
Louis Virtel And also, S-presso won the categories that should have won. Like Sabrina Carpenter won two Grammys. That is the appropriate amount. She won like pop vocal album. It’s like, how like Call Me maybe didn’t win record of the year, right? There’s some there’s this should be an added element of like, gravitas and heft to what I think wins record of the year ultimately. And by the way, that doesn’t always happen. You know, Flowers is a lovely song, but even then, it’s like you got kind of a richer, harder vocal on that song. I just think that S-presso is a great song, a very rich, listenable song, but I think it lacks, you know. That extra thing that the thing that makes it great.
Ira Madison III Well, the other thing is I knew that Kendrick Lamar was going to be walking away with an award because he was just one of the biggest things of this year. The Kendrick and Drake feud. This past year was one of the biggest stories. A pop culture, period.
Louis Virtel Correct. Now, best new artist chaperoned did when this. Chappell Roan didn’t walk away with that much last night, which I think is a little bit surprising. But I just want to say I have a friend in San Francisco named Allie who got in my face once and said, Sabrina Carpenter is going to win Best New Artist. And I said, this is clearly a chaperon when they love to give it to the upcoming singer songwriter person who has their own point of view, who isn’t contrived, who doesn’t feel like the industry invented her. No offense to Sabrina Carpenter, I’m obsessed with that album, but I just want to say that he has been really motherfucking silent. I’ve not heard a fucking peep from him after I read him two fouls.
Ira Madison III So okay. Jafar coming for an Ali on the podcast, Hot Shots are fired at your place.
Louis Virtel Right Abu leaps on my shoulder. Yes.
Ira Madison III No. Chappell Roan seems like the perfect person to win this. And I loved her speech with her book.
Louis Virtel And let me tell you something. She prefers to be off book if you know her commentary. And this time she was like, Let me write a little acrostic poem to put it all together. Yes. And she talked about how new artists in the industry get signed and then they still don’t have things like health insurance. And record companies sort of take advantage of their constant toiling without giving them health insurance. And so that was a pretty awesome perspective. And she also like look, debt, the dead the camera while she did it too. Like this is really serious. I saw a tweet being like, this is why it’s important not to have every celebrity be a Napa baby, because they they’re just not going to get up on stage and talk about health insurance.
Ira Madison III Right. And we need health insurance in the music industry, because if everybody’s doing backflips like Benson Burns and people are going to get hurt.
Louis Virtel Also, he’s doing backflips excuse me, in that jumpsuit where I could see I’m sorry, the veins in his balls. I mean, like something’s going to rip. It’s going to be a Lenny Kravitz situation, if you remember that.
Ira Madison III And I love to see it. He apologized for adjusting his junk on stage and I said, You could have done it again.
Louis Virtel Encore you screamed.
Ira Madison III I love Benson Boone so much on Instagram.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III I would love for an album with more songs that I want to listen to.
Louis Virtel Somebody unfortunately associated his songs with Imagine Dragons and it just feels like Imagine Dragons as a genre is what this fits into, and it sort of defends that as as having any kind of raw male sexual power or whatever. We’re kind of associating with him at the moment, so I look forward to his future music.
Ira Madison III Yeah. I will say though, going back to Chappell, it was shocking that we had a lack of. Just sort of like political commentary or anyone with any other sort of bias in their speeches besides her.
Louis Virtel Yeah. No, I do feel like the speeches were pretty quick. Maybe like there’s a timer that was like intimidating people off stage or whatever, because even Beyonce, not that she’s like a verbose person. I felt like she spoke for two seconds and then got the hell out of there. But that’s another question I have. So Beyoncé first won Best Country album, which is, you know, is like a triumphant fabulist or whatever. Yeah.
Ira Madison III Taylor got to give it to her.
Louis Virtel Taylor Swift got to give it to her. I believe in the sanctity of all award shows. I don’t think they’re pulling the wool over any of our eyes or whatever. Bitche you showed her the envelope. I absolutely know. She was only going to be there if she won. You think she’s going to be there and be like Kacey Musgraves? Absolutely not.
Ira Madison III I mean, it’s so funny watching the awards shows and just trying to figure out what’s going on with them. Who knew and like why people here? Because. Yet. The Taylor Swift handing it over to Beyoncé is just too perfect. But then again, you remember when the Oscars tried to engineer a moment by keeping best actor to last.
Louis Virtel For Chadwick Boseman? And then I have never seen an awards show end like that. This is I believe I believe this is the Oscars we were talking about before the Nomadland one, where where the idea was that Chadwick Boseman, the late Chadwick Boseman, would win for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. And he didn’t. And Anthony Hopkins won for the father, and he was not there. And they just said, We accept this award on his behalf. And then the Oscars were over. That is truly the and I believe wasn’t Steven Soderbergh, the director of that Oscars to the flop of his career.
Ira Madison III You know who was happy with that win though? Karla Sofía Gascón
Louis Virtel Karla Sofía Gascón. She cheered. She said “I love the Oscars”.
Ira Madison III Otherwise she would have written a Wakanda Korean festival?
Louis Virtel Now. Best pop duo group performance Die with a smile. Guys, are we sure? I know it’s a huge hit and I still kind of couldn’t identify that melody. If you gave me like $10,000. I just don’t think it’s like the peak of either of their careers. I’m talking about Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga.
Ira Madison III Well, you mean if the party was over, then I want to be next. I love that song. I’m sorry, Mother. It’s platinum in my house.
Louis Virtel Okay, well, it’s platinum in general, so.
Ira Madison III Yeah.
Louis Virtel For once, your fantasies or your delusions are running into reality.
Ira Madison III This is one of the weirdest songs to me, though. Only because you keep having to remind people that it was like one of the biggest songs of last year.
Louis Virtel No, people right now are talking about in the middle of the Grammys. Lady Gaga debuted a new music video. Abracadabra.
Ira Madison III Thank fucking God.
Louis Virtel And the tone around this conversation is I hope this one charts. I hope this one gets her back on the. It’s a girl. She was number one last week with Die with the Smile.
Ira Madison III Let’s do a quick diversion now into Abracadabra, which debuted in the middle of the Grammys sponsored by Mastercard. I believe they just paid for the ad space. But at first I thought it was just going to be a commercial. And then the video kept going on and that I was entranced and screaming.
Louis Virtel Well, at the beginning of the video, you see it says Lady Gaga, abracadabra and specialized spooky font. And it looks like it’s going to be a preview of a coming.
Ira Madison III Yeah.
Louis Virtel Album or song or whatever. And then it just kept going. And everybody in the room, I was watching and realized, this is new. And yet throwback Lady Gaga and yet also going very, very hard. It’s sort of like if Bad Romance was one kind of monster stomp and then Judas sped it up. This is sort of the taking it to 11. Like it went even, even, even harder with the same kind of, you know, high fashion Suspiria costuming that we’re familiar with from her.
Ira Madison III It was a Monster Mash.
Louis Virtel Yes, Right. Right here in February, as my friend Chris once tweeted, people think the monster mash is that Halloween. They never specify a specific date. It could be Easter.
Ira Madison III I love this song.
Louis Virtel Me, too. I’m a big fan also. I love how it just has, like, bad romance, different sections that are raw and crazier. And then it goes back to like, a really good melody. So it just has all the ingredients of classic Lady Gaga. Again, it’s one of those things like her last single where I kind of knew she could do this, but I’m happy we’re getting this kind of retread.
Ira Madison III Also, that lady with the cane. I’m loving this narrative because this is this video set before disease.
Louis Virtel Maybe. You think they’re connected?
Ira Madison III Well, when you watch the disease video, which of course, I did right after you see the woman in black who is stalking Lady Gaga through the video. Right. And she has the cane, but she’s she has this, like, black sort of like leather thing. You can’t really see your face. But when you look closely at her, like in the car, you could see bits of red coming out from underneath her black. And so I’m thinking, has that woman in red who’s been stalking her in the Abracadabra video? Does she turn into that God?
Louis Virtel It is so exhausting. What must go into the planning of, like, an era?
Ira Madison III Like, yeah.
Louis Virtel I’m picturing a whiteboard with no cards on it. Like Woman in Black will be woman in red at this, you know, just like red strings everywhere, connecting everything.
Ira Madison III When Madonna had a new era, she just put her pussy in a book.
Louis Virtel Right? She’s like, And I’m Asian this time.
Ira Madison III That’s it.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III She went and got the chopsticks.
Louis Virtel Yeah. Right now she’s like kimono and patent leather. Who cares? I’ll do it. No, it it really is a fabulous video. And also, you get some really hard dancing from Lady Gaga. And I always forget that that’s a serious part of what she does. She is a choreography queen. I think maybe we were always kind of comparing her to Beyoncé or, you know, other people of that era who are, I don’t know, even Janet or Madonna, people from that time who dancing is their primary thing. But really, she is an athletic dancer. And what goes on here is very memorable and just shocking and jarring. And even her facial expressions are like classically hilarious Gaga. So anytime she like, rummages into funny again, I’m so happy because I always felt like that instinct was getting killed in her. Every single new decision she made in the 20 tens.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Now, Louis. You know, I thought of you immediately when. GA GA. When she was during the ceremony.
Louis Virtel Hold on. She. Well, she. She spoke up for trans people. Did that remind you of me? Activist Louis Frizzell?
Ira Madison III No. Her performance of Bruno Mars.
Louis Virtel Wait, what did she do?
Ira Madison III She sang The Mamas and the Papas.
Louis Virtel Yes. Which, as you know, I was listening to them that day. Like any rational human being. We still don’t have a mama Cass biopic. Aidy Bryant. Pick up the phone. Anyway.
Ira Madison III Bruno Mars. Mama Cass. I said this is perfect. Louis and Ira bait.
Louis Virtel Yes, totally. Also, they sounded magnificent. I mean, Mamas and the Papas. You know, like ABBA or carpenters. Defined by the miraculous quality of their harmonies. And they really picked it. Like Bruno Mars, we think of as a, you know, a talented vocalist on any pop track. But he really was like belting it and helping us lose the memory of John Phillips, which, if you’ve read Mackenzie Phillips book, is a good thing.
Ira Madison III I missed the show. So weird.
Louis Virtel She was amazing on that show. She’s also a big board game fan. Mackenzie Phillips. I ran into her at a game night once. That woman is obsessed with board games.
Ira Madison III Wow. I thought that her get up was, like, pitch perfect. I love the be me. I love, you know, the Woodstock ish outfit. And I’m kind of like, on board for whatever they’re cooking. I don’t like maybe it’s just the one off for the song, but I feel like I’m involved. And she and Bruno want to keep doing the shit.
Louis Virtel Well, I mean, it does feel like she’s looking for somebody to replace Tony Bennett was to her, which is, you know, there is an element of it’s the crooner thing. It’s the old school thing. But also really sing with me, you know. So I feel like he does check all of those boxes since he’s one of these people that will just casually bounce into a hundred genres and nobody will think twice about it, won’t seem contrived to people.
Ira Madison III And he loves doing that shit anyway, I mean, Silk Sonic.
Louis Virtel Right.
Ira Madison III I still miss them. And also it must be sad. I fucking love his song with Sexy Redd, “Fat, Juicy and Wet” also.
Louis Virtel Isn’t he the one who tweeted like, I don’t know what the occasion was, but he said something like he had like a not like 1 billion streams of something or I don’t know what, but he responded, Thank you. Maybe I’ll be out of debt soon.
Ira Madison III So funny. Cocaine cost a lot of money.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. And look, and being styled like Lena Horne cost a lot of money. Okay. That’s the first half of our Grammys conversation. We will be right back in a second with the second half. We’ll see who won album of the year. It’s a new artist to me. Never heard of her.
Ira Madison III [AD]
Louis Virtel Life, bug eyed and full of one liners.
Ira Madison III And we’re back with our Grammys discussion. I want to shout out, by the way, this was not a award that aired, but one of the s-presso wins was the Mark Ronson F in the Workplace remix. And I fucking love that song.
Louis Virtel That’s that song takes off. Also, it’s one of those espresso is a song that doesn’t need to be remixed every time it comes on. It’s quote unquote, a vibe and you’re just in it. This is a fabulous and a departure from that song that still has the kernel of what makes that song great in it.
Ira Madison III Yeah. So shout out to Mark Ronson. Always doing it.
Louis Virtel What did we think of donkey’s performance? Because, by the way, I’m still reeling from her guest judging stint on RuPaul’s Drag Race. I think she is one of the best guess judges of all time.
Ira Madison III Yeah. And the performance of Alter Ego was fantastic.
Louis Virtel Certainly.
Ira Madison III Although that. But Dr. Dong thing is a scam. I’m just going to say it.
Louis Virtel Yeah. You think so? You mean on RuPaul’s Drag Race?
Ira Madison III RuPaul’s Drag Race. I think it was a scam.
Louis Virtel Of their standards and practices, though. You think you could get away with that?
Ira Madison III You think RU cares about standards?
Louis Virtel Well, it’s like. It’s like quiz show. They can do it. If everybody signs on and says, okay, it can be rigged in this person’s favor or whatever, you know?
Ira Madison III That’s fair. But back to Doechii. She is just phenomenal. And her performance of Catfish and Denial is a river. First of all, those songs are at the top of my on repeat playlist on Spotify. I love that album. And she won best rap album, and she is only the third woman to do so, by the way. You know, the other two were crazy Sean and Madonna.
Louis Virtel It was actually Lauryn Hill and Cardi B and which is crazy because it’s like you’re telling me Missy Elliott never won that, though. I guess all her albums really came out in the heat of like, Eminem, Dr. Dre, those people, too. So there’s probably a lot of competition, but under construction, Come on, That should be in that category.
Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s kind of disgraceful. But I loved Cardi B getting to present the award to Dolce. So imagine she had to present it to Eminem. Tough, right?
Louis Virtel By the way, I didn’t realize his new thing is called the death of Slim Shady or something. Can we. Can we not? I just don’t want to hear about it.
Ira Madison III I thought you wanted Slim Shady dead.
Louis Virtel Yes, but, like, it’s on someone else’s time.
Ira Madison III But ever since I’ve seen her perform at Coachella. And then I saw her perform at the paper magazine party last year, she’s just so energetic on stage and fun in the way that Janelle Monae sort of used to really be for me. I still enjoy Janelle Monae, but I remember when Janelle Monae first started out, you know, sort of as Prince’s protege in the sense that, like, remember when she performed at the. At the forum?
Louis Virtel Yes, Right.
Ira Madison III Open it for him. I just love watching Jose on stage and I love that people got to see that live.
Louis Virtel Well, also, let’s talk about Janelle Monae, who performed the Quincy Jones tribute, which had two parts that were especially amazing to me. First of all, you had Cynthia Erivo doing Fly Me to the Moon, which you forget that she is this like I guess you don’t forget but sharpshooter vocalist.
Ira Madison III She’s been a lying all over the place. Yeah, So.
Louis Virtel Right. But like, we’re aware that she has belting capabilities, but like this kind of Frank Sinatra quality of hers that she displayed was very novel to me. And she just, like, was extremely captivating right away. Nobody has had a better year than Cynthia Erivo. Like the fact that she is now on her third Oscar nomination for this unbelievably popular movie. I feel like her popularity, just as a name, has risen hyperbolically over the past few months. I was watching an episode of Pop Culture Jeopardy, which was taped during the summer, and somebody buzzed in on a clue where she was the response, and they said, Cynthia Erivo like that, Like they didn’t know how to say her name. That would never happen now.
Ira Madison III Yeah, she’s really become like the moment. This year, I think that Wicked is just such a the kind of film that we’ve been missing. By the way, I’m always going to commend Wicked, to be honest, because I feel like we’ve been missing star making turns in Hollywood.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III For a minute. And this is something that took a really well-regarded actress who had already been an Oscar nominee, but she wasn’t sort of a household name. And Wicked has turned her into that.
Louis Virtel Totally. No, it’s like a completely different level of stardom. But then another part of the Quincy Jones tribute, you had Janelle Monae doing Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough. Now, this is one of those things that could have been really awkward because, of course, something about her dancing does call to mind Michael Jackson, like the jagged ness of the moves, like the black and white uniform. But she I thought she really, while performing the song, kept all of the moves her own thing while only lightly referencing Michael Jackson and one of the she did literally do the moonwalk. So I’m not saying she didn’t go there but she did. And I thought she kept it cool. It didn’t feel awkward to me. Even though there’s no getting around a Quincy Jones tribute that doesn’t have Michael Jackson in it.
Ira Madison III Yeah, I know. The hair threw me off, though. I will say that.
Louis Virtel Yes. Very unfamiliar. Look for.
Ira Madison III Her. Yeah.
Louis Virtel Did you see her performing afterwards? Where? She did a moment of Nelly’s hot in here and then.
Ira Madison III Said, Fuck you, Nelly. Yes, Very attractive.
Louis Virtel She was getting hot in here, but in a different way.
Ira Madison III Yes. Yeah.
Louis Virtel She had no dilemma. She said I’m just going to fight Nelly.
Ira Madison III She was flapping those wings all over the place. Yes.
Louis Virtel She got out and shook her tail feather in his face. Yes.
Ira Madison III I felt a lot of sweat in my suit after that. That’s the end of our Nelly puns.
Louis Virtel I don’t think I have any other references there.
Ira Madison III I mean, I could talk my head back and cackle out a few more, but.
Louis Virtel Right. And I’ll laugh over and over again if we keep going this route.
Ira Madison III Should we just get to the biggest award of the evening?
Louis Virtel Which, by the way, you know what? Over the years we’ve been wanting the Beyoncé album of the year when she’s like our definitive album artist. Beyoncé is never going to come out with something and not attached to it. A fully realized album. This is just a part, part and parcel of who she is as an artist. I feel like people are kind of like, this is a Al Pacino incentive, a woman win. You know, like they were they wanted to give it to her for something. This isn’t her best album, but this is a very cool album.
Ira Madison III Yeah.
Louis Virtel Nothing about this is an underqualified win and, you know, it has lots of flavors, goes all over the place and it has the thing the Grammys love, which I’m always railing about, which is it’s the new thing that has a lot of the old thing in it. You know, you’re not leaving behind any old Grammy voters, you know? They’re like, she’s going to perform Blackbird. She did, Jolene. But then, you know, there’s that that slap funk of Chaka Khan, as in Desert Eagle, for example. But then the songs that are all new are completely novel, and you wouldn’t get them from any other artist. I’m sorry. Bodyguard is coming from nobody but Beyonce. So.
Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, I really love this when only because I think this album is exactly what you want from a legacy artist like Beyoncé. You know, she has given us Renaissance, which is my favorite of hers. You know, it’s an opus, you know. But she has bidets, she has lemonade, she has self-titled. She has so many different big albums. And I think the fact that she was like, I want to like, play around in country and Americana and folk and whatever and do that for Cowboy Carter. More artists should be doing that to be artists. And I love. That she just keeps going on about how genres are limiting to people. You know, she said it again in her speech because I don’t want everyone trying to win awards by just doing what they do best each time, you know, make something weird and make something fun. And I enjoy the fuck out of Cowboy Carter. And I think that that is exactly the kind of album that from an artist that you love from the past, right? Like a Donna Summer or like a Diana Ross or whatever you are. You are at the record store, you’re flipping through vinyl. You’re not you’re familiar with the big singles, you’re familiar with, you know, the most popular albums. You find Cowboy Carter amongst the vinyls there. And you go home and listen to it and you’re like, Man, this is a really fucking cool album.
Louis Virtel Right? And unexpected. You know, it’s like Bob Dylan with like Nashville Skyline or something, like people that do these two parts, like whatever Paul Simon with Graceland or whatever became like, his definitive album. You know, it’s cool to recognize that she made this artistic leap. And by the way, it was like a critical success, too. I think it has like a 91 on Metacritic or something.
Ira Madison III You know what it is? It is not her scent of a woman because that the Who was in that movie, you know, I would say this is her. Denzel Washington in Training Day.
Louis Virtel Yes. Right. Yes. Unexpected and coming at a point when we’re very familiar with her as an artist.
Ira Madison III And probably he should have won for Malcolm X, but he didn’t. And so he is winning for this. But also, it’s a great fucking performance. And if you revisit Training Day, he deserved that Oscar.
Louis Virtel Precisely. Okay. That’s extremely fair. I also like her winning this year though, because it was a competitive album year. It could have been five different ones. So it’s not just like we’re giving it to Beyonce because we’re out of ideas at the moment. There are lots of things that could have contended. I maintain that Brat, which is probably the best known album title of the year and color Scheme. I just can’t picture the old Grammy voters sitting down with this album and vibing with it. I say that appreciatively of this because the album is for 31 year olds who are so annoying and you guys are all my friends and I love you and need you. But I think in terms of. How much library of music Beyonce I brought to Cowboy Carter. It was likely hard to go her direction.
Ira Madison III Yeah, I agree.
Louis Virtel You know, and short and sweet, of course, I listen to a million times. And also, who is Jacob Collier and why does he get into album of the year?
Ira Madison III There’s always someone.
Louis Virtel Yeah, just like Andre 3000 with his like, what is it, like a flute medley or something?
Ira Madison III Yeah, you know, he’s a flutist.
Louis Virtel I thought Lizzo was the only legal flower dust we had, and now there’s two. And I’m confused. I don’t think Jethro Tull performs anymore.
Ira Madison III That’s actually what the lawsuit was about, though.
Louis Virtel And there can only be one fire.
Ira Madison III I mean, yeah, it’s a wrap up. Like, I loved Sabrina Carpenter’s performance as well. The Goldie Hawn reference for her 78 TV special was so funny.
Louis Virtel She descends these stairs and it looks like she’s going to go all the way down, you know, classic sort of Busby Berkeley entrance. And then there’s a visual, there’s a schism between a couple of the stairs and she just descends into the floor. It’s very funny. Very Miss Piggy.
Ira Madison III Yeah. And I will say that there’s video of Beyoncé hugging Sabrina after she wins and Sabrina congratulates her and Beyonce is like, I love you. And she calls her a breath of fresh air.
Louis Virtel I can’t get over that gif of Beyoncé winning best country album, though. She’s sitting. It can only she’s sitting like there can be no other comparison. Genghis Khan. She is sitting with her arms out as if to say, I. I run the Grammys and they’re.
Ira Madison III All, you know. Well, they are part of the world.
Louis Virtel Yes. Right.
Ira Madison III And she, who run?
Louis Virtel Girls. See Beyonce’s vibe. I have never seen her like this ever. She was, like befuddled by everything. It kind of felt like she’s she was sat down in her seat like halfway through the ceremony, as you know, of course. But it felt like something else was maybe on her mind. And then when the awards happened to her, she kind of like sprang into form and realized this was very emotional and had to kind of change where her brain space was at entirely. And then by the time she won album of the year, she was just like. It was so surreal for her. She could barely comment on it. She had to leave the stage immediately.
Ira Madison III Yeah, I think people were commenting that it was like fake fake shock. But I really think that she her mind was elsewhere, as you said. But then also, I don’t think she would have been shocked for the Grammys to play in her face again.
Louis Virtel That’s all they do. Excuse me. Yeah. When people show you who they are, believe them. I mean, you know what I’m saying? Yeah.
Ira Madison III Oprah.
Louis Virtel Maya Angelou. But, yes.
Ira Madison III Also, I want to give a special shout out to the fire chief who presented the award to Beyonce at the end. At first, I was a little mad that they were trotting out the firefighters at the end because we could have mentioned something about, you know, the incarcerated people who also helped stop the fires in Los Angeles. But I thought it was a nice way to sort of tribute the firefighters and the woman who read the award, the Beyoncé one. I knew that Beyoncé had won the minute she opened the envelope because that woman, I could tell she was beehive.
Louis Virtel She reacted like a stan.
Ira Madison III She opened that and her face. She was like she stumbled. Someone was like, I wish she had had stumbled over her words. I said, No, bitch. She stumbled over her words because she was like, my God. Beyonce. And Beyonce is about to come on stage and I am about to give her a hug.
Louis Virtel Yes. Right, right, right. No, she knew the gravity of the moment, which is not a guarantee when you’re you know, if these could be non-music fans, I don’t know. But you could tell her reading it, it was an exciting moment for her and a stumble that was very endearing.
Ira Madison III Yeah. So I love that moment. Just. Just a fun ceremony, to be honest.
Louis Virtel I enjoyed it. Top to bottom. I ate way too much, which I. When I enjoy an awards show, I’m like Templeton on Charlotte’s Web. I’m like, I’m pulling all the foods.
[AD]
Ira Madison III This week’s guest is a four time Oscar nominee who has delivered one phenomenal performance after another four decades from Primal Fear to fight club to Bird Man to glass onion. He has left an indelible mark on the art form, and his latest role as Pete Seeger in a Complete Unknown, has only added to that legacy. Please welcome to Keep It. Edward Norton.
Edward Norton Hey guys.
Louis Virtel Oh man. Not only am I thrilled you are here, you were one of the few actors I can think of who is truly intimidating in terms of what you bring to the silver screen. I’m always surprised by what you bring and what you are interested in. Are you surprised to have had as varied a career as you have and feels like you are willing to do anything? And the level of quality with which you do it is so staggering.
Edward Norton That’s nice. I, I think that. It’s funny, the whole idea of of career, you know, and body of work because I think it’s it’s a lens that people tend to bring from the outside. Right. You I mean, I suppose there are people who can shape, you know, a career like and I’m not I’m not saying this anywhere, but it’s sort of the Tom Cruise modality. Right? You can say like, I’m going to make the biggest types of films I’m going to thing. And I but I I’ve never really related to that. But I also it’s just not the way I find the, the ebbs and flows of inspiration work for me. I. I can’t explain why a thing gets under my skin, you know, and and becomes like. You know, summons in me the motivation or the inspiration or the, you know, the mojo, if you want to call it that, to get a go at something with focus and passion and if you want to call it that. But I don’t tend to interrelate them, if that makes any sense. I don’t tend to I don’t tend to cross connect the, you know, the decision to do American history X with the decision to do that to Smoochy, you know, it’s not it’s not like, would be fun to do. A comedy would be fun. Anything. I just I just sort of have to. I end up I end up looking back mostly because other people, other people will bring an external lens on on it and sometimes find connectivity that I don’t I didn’t even really intend or don’t. You know, and I. I think it’s interesting. I once went to a film festival in China and I saw they were running a series of films in Shanghai that I didn’t. And I saw that there was this like run of characters in Chinese. And then my name. And I said at the time and I said, What is that? What does that mean? She said, that’s the theme of your your film series. And I said, what’s the theme? And she said, It’s the search for the spiritual center in the new youth generation, the films of. And I said, Wow. Like, that’s that’s cool. The search for the spiritual center in the new youth generation. And I you know, I kind of loved watching the way other people apply. A skew or an interpretation or something to the stuff I’ve done. But but I like the variety. I mean, I think it’s not again, it’s not something I said, I want to go out and be diverse. It’s more when I look at things over time, my own interests shift or that, you know. It’s not an intellectual process. You know, It’s a it’s a it’s something I’ve sort of stumbled my way through or followed by online. I mean, it’s I’m not equating myself to Bob Dylan, but I will say that one of the things I’ve always admired enormously about Dylan and I think the movie that we did sort of captures is the idea of the idea of just sort of following the line of your interests, that integrity to your own sense of what you want to do in the moment, not in a careerist sense, but in the moment is sometimes what ends up producing the most vital or connected work. I don’t know.
Louis Virtel It’s been such a pleasure listening to you talk about this movie. A complete unknown, especially since when you talk about Timothee Chalamet, you see him every once in a while and actors seem so kind of wowed by another. We had Cate Blanchett here once and she was talking about Diane. We used to just trying to get to the heart of what it is Diane was does onscreen. It was like a pleasure. Listen to her, figure it out. And you called Timothee Chalamet a subset of one. Like he’s the only person who could have done this performance of Bob Dylan. And I was wondering if you could get into that. What is it he brings to it that is, you know, kind of goes beyond the expectation of a Bob Dylan performance?
Edward Norton You know, I think I’ve always felt that actors have more or less plasticity. And I don’t mean by that talent. I think I think there’s some there’s great actors who are extremely plastic. They have an incredible ability to stretch and change and morphing and kind of you lose an essential sense of them. And then there’s other actors who are really excellent actors who are maybe not as they they stay within a kind of an iconic frame of some sort. And I think both are super interesting. I think we have we have actors who are very iconic. And then we have those who are more like shapeshifters. And I actually think the same is true of roles. I think there are certain roles that have a lot of ways you could interpret them. You could see many different Macbeth, right? You can. There are there have been and there will be many more great interpretations of Macbeth or Hamlet or and then there are roles that I don’t think have a certain huge amount of plasticity. And Bob Dylan is probably one of them. Like, you know, he’s an extremely, extremely specific person. His voice was very specific. He looked at very specific way. And so I think, you know, the role of Dylan playing young Bob Dylan. I just I don’t think there’s that many people who have the combination of the physical DNA and the talent to. To achieve the kind of bravura act of of letting a world that knows a lot about this person and who’s been made iconic through photographs and films and documentaries and all this stuff, actually suspend disbelief and feel that that they are there immersed with that person. And I thought he achieved that. You know, I don’t get that feeling that often. I sort of felt that way about Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Day-Louis. I sort of felt that is a role of a figure that found the person that is best equipped to take on the monumental challenge of representing that figure. You know, and I feel that way about Timothy and Dylan. It I think he really had a singular kind of capacity to to get down in him at that age of his life. And and I think the right actor lined up with this very, very challenging and specific role. And it’s exciting when that happens.
Ira Madison III And how did you feel, conversely, I guess, representing Seeger in this film? You rarely play characters to who are real people with things to draw upon.
Edward Norton Yeah, I haven’t. Let’s see. How far can that match? You’re right, I.
Ira Madison III Frieda, I believe you played Nelson Rockefeller.
Edward Norton Yeah, I did Nelson Rockefeller a little bit. And Alan Isaacman. And the People versus Larry Flynt. Larry Flynt lawyer was a real person who I did get to meet, although we distilled, we distilled the number of people who worked with Larry into that character. But I did get to meet Alan Isaacman, who was very young when he argued that case in the Supreme Court. And that was really interesting. Pete Seeger obviously didn’t get to me. I was lucky and I was lucky and and had access to conversations with Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow from Peter Paul and Mary and Bruce Springsteen and and many others who knew him well and even his daughters and. And then there’s a there’s a treasure trove of film and recording of of Pete. Not only performing, but even being interviewed right after his, you know, trial for contempt of Congress and all these things. So, you know, let’s see. That’s an interesting question. I mean, Pete Seeger himself is very specific. He has a very specific body posture. And his hair and his teeth and his his look and his aspect and his voice, he spoke, but he spoke in an extremely. It sounded to me like a man Out of another time. He had an almost Jesuit, kind of a quality, a preacher Lee formality to the way he spoke. And I think that Timothy and Monica and I all had a similar challenge, which is you can get very hung up in the Wikipedia of a person and you can get very hung up in in the in the nuance detail of exactly what happened and how they spoke and how they sang a thing. And and it can become a trap in a way because imitation, imitation impersonation and representation of of. I think is important. But then you’ve also got to get down into kind of what’s more universal about the interactions between these people. And I think Jim Mangold, our director. Had a very, very adept and astute kind of. He was like a good therapist. He really he really gave us all the freedom to spend the time getting deeply familiar with the physical reality of the people, but then to also release ourselves from from the burden of documentary or of history or whatever, and, and, and, and, and get down into the essential truths of relationships, you know, like and I love the way Jim put it is he sort of said, you know, what’s interesting in this scene is not that it’s Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, it’s that you can be falling in love with a person at the same moment that you feel competitive with them. You know, and that’s what makes the scene interesting. Or you can, you know, from from Bob to you can deeply Revere and love and admire a person and you can still want to break away from them and go your own way, you know, And those paradoxes, those those those things are what make the relationships have emotional stakes. And I think we all needed we all needed, Jim, to kind of give us the freedom to get away from impersonation. But it’s a it’s a tricky thing. It’s a tricky thing, especially when there’s enormous respect in the world for those people. You know.
Louis Virtel Just as you had said that there are two types of actors with sums that are more have more plasticity than others. I feel like there are two different types of actors in that I feel like I’m getting to know certain actors as I watch them on screen and then other people. I feel like I’m learning nothing about the actual person behind the role. Like it’s all technique or, you know, it’s not as revealing. Like if I watch Jane Fonda in a movie, I feel like I’m getting some Jane Fonda from real life. Either she’s playing Lillian Hellman or Klute or whatever. You, I think, are the opposite, where I feel like your roles are so varied, I can’t look to almost any of them and think, that was that was Edward Norton. And I was wondering if at all Birdman gave you even a moment to express something about the profession of acting that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to express as an actor.
Edward Norton It’s a funny question. I. The answer to that one is yes and no. Mike Shiner is for me. There was a very specific person who was the inspiration for Mike Shiner. I once I locked in on once I locked in on which actor that I grew up loving and knowing was was tempestuous and problematic and difficult and all these things. Once I had it, I couldn’t get off of it. I in my mind, I know exactly who Mike Shiner is, is channeling. But. Inevitably, as you say, because I am an actor and because I come from a theater background and things like that, there were things that, you know, Alejandro was so wonderful on that film in terms of saying, Hey, look, there’s a script and I want to follow it. But, you know, he said, You came up in New York theater, and if there’s things that if you know and he gave me, he gave me an amount of rope to lay things in that I feel and that I’ve heard people say, not always my own statements, but I there’s a part where Mike said where where Michael Keaton’s character is getting really uptight about what went on in the rehearsal, in the, you know, in the in the preview. And Shiner says, you know, are you getting your panties in your twist about previews? That’s you know, that’s that’s for the people who are dumb enough to pay to watch us rehearse, you know. And and it was a line I, I kind of came up with because I remembered someone saying it to me once. And I loved getting to put into it things that I know or have experienced or remember. But going back to your original question, the answer is kind of no. Like Shiner is a lot more miserable than I am.
Ira Madison III That’s good. He’s he’s pretty.
Edward Norton You know, he’s pretty. I’m not. I think he’s he’s he’s a lot of ego wrapped in insecurity and I would say a self-imposed misery. I don’t I don’t think I’m as as tortured as, as. Mike.
Ira Madison III Would you say there is a role that you felt that you most connected with the most in your career?
Edward Norton You know, it’s a funny thing because. I believe that. I believe that most of the choices I’ve made have been. Driven by the fact that something in the peace spoke to me in that moment. And so. And so there’s something there’s something of of me in them because. Because there was something about the peace in the moment that expressed something that I that I was particularly interested in. And my interests have changed, you know. And in fact, I’ll give you an interesting a it’s a weird way to answer the question, but recently someone that I. I think is a wonderful writer who I’ve worked with before and want to work with again. And everything sent me a piece that he wrote that is really well-written, really good. And I knew I knew I just didn’t have it in me, you know, I knew I knew it intellectually. It was a very excellent piece of writing and a terrific role. And I knew. I couldn’t connect and I didn’t have the edge. I didn’t feel I didn’t feel in my bones that I could connect with the frequency that it was requiring, you know? And and sometimes sometimes that’s just by contrast. Pete Seeger, I can’t explain it when I even when Jim even suggested it to me, I kind of teared up. I got I got an emotional I felt this emotional pulse come up through me at the idea of representing his fundamental decency and goodness. And the idea of of channeling Pete Seeger’s energy gave me a wave of. Joy in a way I can’t I can’t explain it. I knew I knew it was something I wanted to tap into. And maybe. Maybe I was feeling something that I think people are feeling watching the film. Some people have written me and said that they just started weeping at times, not because of an event in the film, but because of the depiction of the values and the good, the goodness and the conviction that these people had. And I felt that, too. I felt and I do think in some ways I think Pete Seeger, through the film, me channeling him, is communicating something to people that maybe they need right now, like they I think a lot of people feel raw for different reasons. And I think I think the portrait of of someone who lived his life in service in that way is touching people in this particular moment in our in. And that’s how I felt before I even read a line of it and and so it was right for me in this moment in this moment, I felt Pete Seeger’s energy was something I wanted to you know, it was a vein I wanted to tap into.
Ira Madison III I love that. I wanted to say. Lastly, as we let go of you then ask, you’ve talked a lot about Spike Lee being very important to you and do the right thing. How it was sort of inspirational for you. Is that sort of something that you also felt getting to work with him on the 25th hour?
Edward Norton Very profoundly like I and the late, you know, Phil Hoffman, who I loved and respected so much, was also a big fan of of Spike’s. We had this moment early on. Spike conducts rigorous rehearsal like I think we had a 5 or 6 week rehearsal period on that film, which is so unusual. Spike Working with us like, like, like the Actors Studio or something, it was really intensive rehearsal work. And because he was going to shoot the film really fast and at one point we were driving back into the city and Phil kind of gave me this. He looked at me and I was looking in the rearview mirror and I look back and he just goes, heaven. He just went heaven, you know? And I and I think we I felt that way because I feel that Spike is. He had a profound impact on me. His films changed what I realized you could do with film. Do Do the Right Thing was a. It was beyond seminal to so many of us. It it was like it was like you could peel the skin back on American life in a form that was so explosive and and defied all elements of plot and camera moves. And it was it was as a as a as a cinematic act. It was so vital as a social piece of commentary. It was so vital. And then it also didn’t give you the answers. In the end, it it, you know, has the quote from Malcolm in the quote from Martin Luther King. They’re diametrically opposed. And it basically said, You have to think through what this all means and what’s right. And it was so electrifying to so many of us that summer. And and I feel that way about many of his films. I feel that he got game as a masterpiece. I feel that Crooklyn is a masterpiece. I feel that, you know, Malcolm X is is a Titanic, you know, modern, monumental piece of work. And I think I think. I wanted. I desperately dreamed of working with Spike, and I felt on that one what was beautiful about it was that Spike was in a very deep emotional place, post-9-11. He wanted to he wanted to tap into the mood of the city in that moment and capture it without and without commentary on the event. Specifically, he found a way to channel his feeling of melancholy. Into a story that became like this, almost like this analog for what was going on in the city. And I felt I felt in a it was created. Phil was right. It was heaven. It was like it was it was a very deep, deeply satisfying, creative experience to work with him and work on something that that was tapping into the zeitgeist of the city we all lived in.
Louis Virtel Well, I want to thank you for being here. And I just want to say we already we only briefly mentioned primal fear, but I want to say that your performance in that is, I think, the last great Agatha Christie style performance. And I want the filmmakers of the world to bring me more Agatha Christie style performances. I’m missing thee like Marlene Dietrich and witness for the prosecution type. What is going on with this character roles in a courtroom that I so long for that. So thank you for being the last great example of that.
Edward Norton I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve never been compared to Marlene Dietrich time. You like. Like you. And by the way, I’m going to say I love that you’re wearing marriage. I’m about baptized on your shirt. That she is amazing. And let’s shout Mike Lee, too, because I’m going to I’m just gonna add a little thing. Mike Lee, who is a legend and did so many great films and she’s so great in that film. But the but also Mike’s lifelong cinematographer, Dick Pope, one of the great. Yes. DPS ever who shot Motherless Brooklyn for me and who I shot the Illusionist with passed this year and and and that that film was, I think, his last film with Mike and it’s a if you know if you for those listening who have not taken a deep dive into the work of Mike and and that crew of people it’s it’s such rich stuff it’s great stuff.
Louis Virtel And you can start anywhere too. It could be Topsy-Turvy or Secrets and Lies or you can go up down about Peterloo like all of the films are so wonderful.
Edward Norton Yeah, yeah. Vera Drake is one I love and they’re so great. Naked and on and on and on. He’s he’s thing and she is. She is just so, so great.
Louis Virtel yes she’s wonderful. Also Vera Drake, one of the rare screenplay Oscar nominations where there was no screenplay. He had to write it down afterwards so that people could read it. I love that story. It’s so amazing. Yeah.
Edward Norton Yeah, yeah.
Louis Virtel Thank you so much for being here, Edward. Much appreciated it.
Edward Norton Absolutely. Thanks for the time, guys.
Louis Virtel Thank you. Have a good one.
Ira Madison III Thank you. All right. When we are back, Keep it.
[AD]
Ira Madison III And we are back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep it. I got to go. I got to. I got to discuss this breaking news that. Okay. Yesterday and shook me, to be honest.
Louis Virtel You’re like running into the newsroom, like, just like second broadcast news. A VHS in your hand.
Ira Madison III You know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is potentially getting a reboot directed by Chloe Zhao.
Louis Virtel Could I bring up Nomadland one more fucking time this episode? Jesus Christ. Chloe Zhao is in the news. I loved Nomadland. I loved that. I loved the writer. Which you didn’t love, but I loved the writer.
Ira Madison III I enjoyed it. I really. I really did. I thought that. I think that after nomadland, when I watched the rider, I was expecting something a bit more grand, and it was really just sort of a small character piece. But revisiting it, I enjoyed it.
Louis Virtel But yes, so is this. How are you going to turn this into a keeper? I look forward to you spinning your words into a way where this possibly could be a negative situation for you.
Ira Madison III Well, Sarah Michelle Gellar is on board as well to come back. My keeper, is to the fact that. My phone is not ringing off the hook from my agent that I’ve been hired on this show.
Louis Virtel Yeah. What’s happening there?
Ira Madison III What’s going on?
Louis Virtel Okay, well, they’re too busy calling Stacey Abrams to do that job, IRA, so you’ll just have to wait in line. But of course, she is hosting assembly required here at Crooked Media, so maybe she’ll pass it up. Get in line, bitch.
Ira Madison III This is by pop culture. Jeopardy!
Louis Virtel You are correct.
Ira Madison III Yes. You know, this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There is an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this book.
Louis Virtel Which brings me to my keep it. Which is. Can you believe I have to read the Iris book in two days before I host with him a live Keep It Extra episode, which will be in Boston this weekend. People are always telling me, Louis, you have to go to Boston around Valentine’s Day when it is simply bone chilling. You must go there. Well, I’m going to be there with IRA. We’ll be talking a lot about, first of all, his book. But a big part of the book is the 2000s. And so a big part of the show will be about the twins. That’s all I’ll say about that. And I just I don’t remember the last book I read. My name is Barbara, you know what I’m saying? Which, by the way. That’s another keep it. My actual keep at this week is that Barbra Streisand did not win the audio book Grammy for My Name is Barbra, which as you know, she painstakingly read for over 775 hours. The winner went to that tone. Deaf heck bitch. Jimmy Carter. Honey, I do not want to hear the record. I do not want to hear you on showtunes. That is not Fanny Brice to me.
Ira Madison III I didn’t know he did audio books, but he built houses or whatever.
Louis Virtel Yeah. No, this Habitat for Humanity. I have a match and it’s coming down. I do not need to hear him talk for that long. Barbara nailed it with that audio book, the definitive audio book of our generation. I can’t believe she didn’t. Okay, I’m checking this Wikipedia, though. She does have some Grammys. She does have.
Ira Madison III That would be beating her. Mariah, by the way.
Louis Virtel Yes. That to more. Mariah is a very special situation also. Yes. And we’re still mad at Cher that she didn’t read the entire thing. I don’t care if she has, quote unquote, dyslexia.
Ira Madison III What’s more important is that I’ve decided I will be campaigning for audiobook at the Grammys next year.
Louis Virtel My God. That’s hard because you’re usually up against a former president.
Ira Madison III Yeah.
Louis Virtel You know, like a very, very accomplished musician. And as you know, you your whole thing professionally is that you have fun T-shirts. So I’m trying to figure out how you’re going to fit in there.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Listen, I just need the nomination, Ari, to win the Grammy.
Louis Virtel I know the feeling. When I got the nomination, I’m like, you can’t take that away from me. Yeah. By the way, pop culture. Jeopardy! Did you know this for best game show? The writers get nominated, too.
Ira Madison III Okay.
Louis Virtel I’m going to be a double nominee. And then I won’t be just a single nominee like these. Scrubs. Like, you know, You know our friend Mandy Moore. Whatever. I got to be in the double nominee category.
Ira Madison III Now, what if you lose to the floor?
Louis Virtel Which I’m on. You are on the new season of the floor, which is coming up. I’ve had to keep this secret for months. There’s previews now so we can see that.
Ira Madison III It comes out on Sunday after the Super Bowl.
Louis Virtel I cannot, which is crazy. So you might be on the post-Super Bowl viewing?
Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m like Jennifer Garner on that Alias episode where she was wearing the lingerie.
Louis Virtel Right. Or the premiere of The Wonder Years or plenty of other things that have premiered after the Super Bowl. I cannot wait to watch it and see what Rob Lowe has to say about your whole thing.
Ira Madison III Yeah, you know, I think that. It’s just like more than a feeling, you know?
Louis Virtel Do not take this back to Boston. Speaking of Joan Baez, please come to Boston. Lovely song.
Ira Madison III Yeah. But listen, I can’t wait till our show on Friday. It’s going to be smokier. I know. Two Boston songs.
Louis Virtel Okay. Got it. I was gonna say, Is that obvious? I didn’t even know that.
Ira Madison III All right. You thought I was making a mask reference?
Louis Virtel Yeah. Very confusing. Very confusing. Anyway, if you’re coming to the Boston show, I can’t wait to see. You will be there after the show. Also. And I’ll be there throwing copies of Irish book at the crowd, you know, from a big T-shirt gun. It might be violent.
Ira Madison III That just made me think of Julia Louis-Dreyfus getting hit with a book in a restaurant. All right.
Louis Virtel We will see you next week.
Ira Madison III Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. You can also subscribe to keep it on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us for review or leaving comments on the YouTube page.
Louis Virtel Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Bill McGrath. Our associate producer is Kennedy Hiell and our executive producers are Ira Madison, the third, Louis Virtel and Kendra James. Our digital team is Megan Patsel, Claudia Sheng and Rachel Gaieski.
Ira Madison III This episode was recorded and mixed by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Thank you to Matt DeGroot, David Toles, Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landes for production support every week. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. And as always, Keep It is filmed in front of a live studio audience.