The Snubs, Surprises, and WTFs of the 2025 Golden Globe Nominations. Plus: Richard Gere!

Sean is joined by Joanna Robinson to give their immediate reactions to the Golden Globe nominations (1:00), discuss the evolution of the awards and how these nominations stack up against expectations, and opine about what these short lists mean for the Academy Awards. Then, Sean is joined by longtime movie star Richard Gere to discuss his work in Paul Schrader’s ‘Oh, Canada,’ the actor’s collaboration with Schrader over the decades, how he thinks about his career at this moment, and more (59:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Richard Gere and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellini, I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. With my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow The Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:40Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

• 1:25Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:59Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Golden Globes. My goodness, it is a beautiful Monday morning here in Juan Soto's America. Congratulations to him for signing with the New York Mets. Later in this episode, I have a conversation with Richard Gere. That's right, the Richard Gere, one of the signature movie stars and actors, frankly, of the last half-century. He has a new film directed by my beloved Paul Schrader. It's a reunion of the guys from American Gigolo. It's an adaptation of the Russell Banks novel Fort Gon. This is a beautiful movie about a guy remembering, or maybe misremembering, his past as he's being portrayed in a documentary. Fascinating film. Richard Gere, what can you say? Great interview, insightful as always, dashing as always. Please stick around for our conversation.

• 2:43Sean Fennessey?

  But first, something a little less dashing, though somewhat dashing, is the Golden Globe nominations, always dashing, Joanna Robinson. Hey, Jo, how are you?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Oh, hello, how are you? I'm thrilled to listen to your Richard Gere convo. He's also currently crushing it on the agency. Like, he's just, it's Gere season and I'm thrilled.

• 3:03Sean Fennessey?

  It really is. I haven't had a chance to see the agency yet, but I look forward to it. Did the agency get any TV nominations at the Golden Globes?

• 3:10Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's very sad. We will not be discussing the TV nominations at the Golden Globes because I don't watch enough television to really understand what's going on there. But we will talk about the film nominations. And there were, gosh, there were a bundle of them. This is always a complicated conversation, Joanna. We'll talk about the perceived snubs. There's no such thing as a snub, we recognize that, but we're going to use that term anyway to discuss these things. The surprises, the WTFs. WTFs is something that I have leaned on in the past at the Golden Globes. This year, maybe fewer than ever? Maybe the Golden Globes are changing a little bit? What do you think?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, definitely, I think what you and I agree on, based on me perusing your notes so far, is that it's some of the same antics, silly gooseery that we've ever seen from the Globes. And then there's some, "take us serious, please, take us seriously, please." So it's just like an interesting combination of like... New Globes and Old Globes, the Old Globes are not dead yet, based on these nominations. Yeah, I love how hard it is to guess what the Globes are gonna do. That's actually, we've been talking, you know, checking in all season about how this is an unpredictable season and it is,

• 4:23Speaker 02

  and that's been a really fun part of it. We don't have any of these like foregone conclusions necessarily. Some are shaping up right now, but the Globes are always going to be the weirdest. You know, and, and, and odd in a way that, that like National Board of Review, NBR, isn't because that, they seem like odd for odd sake in a lot of ways, or just sort of defiantly odd. Whereas the Golden Globes are politically odd, and that's even more interesting, I think, to talk about, so.

• 4:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I agree with that. I think obviously there are a few things that make the Golden Globes a little bit different from the Academy Awards, or the BAFTAs, or any other major voting bodies. One is that they delineate between drama and musical or comedy. So you've got the option to nominate significantly more people, both in that category and in the acting categories, the major acting categories where they also split. Then on top of that, you've got six nominations in these key categories and not five. So it's actually harder than ever for the Golden Globes to quote unquote, "miss" an obvious nomination. And yet, there are some misses here. Just to, just to start the convo, I just want to go through the best drama and best musical or comedy, best film nominees, and then we'll get into what we think are the snubs and the surprises, and we can talk through each category where those exist. Sound good?

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, perfect.

• 5:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so, four, best motion picture, drama, here are your six nominees. The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune Part Two, Nickel Boys, and September Five. And in best motion picture, musical or comedy, you've got Enora, Challengers, Emilia Perez, A Real Pain, The Substance, and Wicked. I wouldn't say that there are any stunning omissions from those lists. What do you think?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Not stunning, I would say on a personal level. I'm sad to not see Sing Sing in here, but Sing Sing is having a good couple of weeks. So I'm not despondent over it. And we'll talk about some of the sort of trends of some of the misses that the the Globes put forth this year.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  But I love to hear you start this list with as as the chief architect of The Brutalist Hive, like with, you know, hope and joy in your heart and then end it with Wicked. How are you feeling? Those two, two poles of these nominees.

• 6:36Sean Fennessey?

  I feel fine. I mean, of course, Wicked was going to perform incredibly well at this award show because it's a musical. It's got an opportunity to fill out a lot of those categories. It's got great performances, of course. So Cynthia Revo and Ariana Grande are both recognized. It's notably missing in director, which is someplace where it was not missing at NBR, which Adam Naaman pointed out last week on the show. It won John M Chu the award for best director. That's not the case here. I think it could be a favorite to win in this category at musical or comedy.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:05Sean Fennessey?

  As far as The Brutalist goes, The Brutalist has had a kind of an up and down precursor season, especially in the last couple of weeks, where it missed in some kind of big and obvious places. And Adrian Brody has missed in a couple of big and obvious places as well. And that's not the case here. The Brutalist has seven nominations, which is the second most to Amelia Perez's 10 nominations, which is something I wanted to ask you about, too. So 10 nominations for Amelia Perez, a movie that I think I'm, I'm, I'm pretty mixed on, pretty mixed to down on, although I think it does have some really cool performances and has been critically kind of pilloried for the last two months since it hit Netflix. But still was incredibly strong at the European Film Awards, has been incredibly strong at a series of overseas awards bodies.

• 7:49Sean Fennessey?

  And now the Globes, which is an international group, is over 300 international journalists, critics that vote on this sort of thing, have really rubber stamped it as a true blue contender. Would you agree with that?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know. I don't know that I agree. I think, you know, we have a lot of data coming out of the Gothams, New York film critics, the LA film critics, NBR. These are all sort of data points to put in the mix and to think about what they have been precursors of. I think we really have to, more than ever before with the Globes. Understand them as a international voting body and that that has always purportedly been what they were, but they weren't before because before you had to be based in LA, even if you weren't, you know, originating from the States. And that is no longer the case. They've made all these efforts to really sort of broaden their membership. And it's still, you know, a smallish voting body, but broaden their membership, make it

• 8:45Speaker 02

  significantly international. So there are some data points in the voting here that is really lead us towards, you have to think about the way in which these things played abroad and that comes through with like stuff like The Apprentice and some other things that feel like persona non grata in the American States, but doing well internationally. And so for both the European Film Awards and the Golden Globes to anoint Amelia Perez does not mean to me that it's automatically going to bloom and flourish at the Oscars. But I don't, you know, it is always also like the thing that the Globes can do and the things, the thing that happens if you miss a Globe nomination is keep your film, your actor in the conversation.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  And so it is helpful for Amelia Perez to have this stat and it's helpful for us to be talking about it significantly this morning and that there are some, you know, we'll talk about some actors who aren't here when it, and the fact that they aren't here probably means their campaign's kind of over based on, you know, some of the precursors and stuff like that. So I don't know that I'm ready to rubber stamp it as a major contender, but I do think we will see it for sure at the Oscars.

• 9:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think you're ultimately right. I think that there's no doubt that this is a day where some campaigns die. I don't know if it's a day where some campaigns really rise in stature.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a little bit of a tricky thing. I think the Globes, to your point about international, there are a number of other films here that have been recognized that suggest that's the case. One, The Substance did very, very well here and we put The Substance at number 10 last time we power ranked best picture films, which we'll do again next week after this information.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:20Sean Fennessey?

  I I'm not sure I still believe that is getting in at number 10 relative to the praise for a complete unknown of late. That being said, this doesn't hurt. This doesn't hurt at all to get two acting nominations, to get Corle Farge in Best Director and to get Best Comedy or Musical nomination. I mean, that's a huge haul for a strange French body horror movie. What do you think?

• 10:44Speaker 02

  I mean, completely. I mean, and I hope Katie Rich is feeling pleased this morning because that was her insistence that we put it in. I think that it's the best news for Demi, right? And I think there were a lot of, a lot of the school of thought leading up to this is that this, it would be Demi alone representing this movie through various things. It's the fact that she is surrounded by, you know, that Margaret Qualley is also here, that there's, there's a larger sense of support. Just the way in which you see films absent from certain categories makes you worried about its legs. The substance grows stability here, but I think it's the best news ultimately for Demi and her possibility of sliding into a pretty competitive Best Actress race. There isn't a lot of room in

• 11:27Speaker 02

  there. And there's like, in a lot of these acting categories, it seems like there are, you like to say, there's no such thing as a lock. I would say that there are like four very strong contenders in a lot of these categories and then a mystery slot for a lot of them. And Demi is definitely flirting with that fifth slot. So that's exciting.

• 11:45Sean Fennessey?

  Let's break down the actor and actress races a little bit because there's something interesting that has, that the Golden Globes underlines, I think. In the actor race in particular, I think you find a heavy concentration of probable nominees in the drama category. Whereas now, I think it is potentially shifting towards a concentration of nominees in the actress category in musical or comedy. So this is kind of unusual for that category for that to be the case. But so for actor, you've got Adrian Brody in The Brutalist in drama, Timothy Chalamet for A Complete Unknown, Daniel Craig for Queer, Coleman Domingo for Sing Sing, Ralph Fiennes for Conclave. And surprise, but I think a good surprise, Sebastian Stan, the first of his two nominations for The Apprentice, a film that, as you pointed

• 12:30Sean Fennessey?

  out, probably going to do better with non-American voters for a variety of reasons. And I would say four and possibly even five of the future nominees are sitting right in that category. My, my gut tells me Daniel Craig is in right now, him being the potential fifth. What do you think?

• 12:49Speaker 02

  It's really interesting because nobody really likes that movie. But I can't disagree. I mean, Brody, Timmy, Coleman Domingo, Ralph Fiennes, those four seem

• 13:02Sean Fennessey?

  They seem pretty locked in, yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so the fifth is a question mark. And like Daniel Craig could certainly get in. And certainly, I think it would feel more like an anointing of his body of work than anything else, because really, people genuinely don't seem to enjoy queer that much, or at least divisive. But Sebastian Stan, I mean, the problem for Sebastian Stan, and this is, this is a, you know, embarrassment of riches, is like the, the split attention of campaign. If you can focus around a different man, like, because I really don't think The Apprentice is gonna go, just nobody wants to touch it here in the United States. And, and that is evidenced by the fact that Sebastian Stan was cut out of the Variety Actors on Actors campaigning opportunity because

• 13:46Speaker 02

  nobody wanted to talk about Trump. You know, there's just like a, a lot of ways in which that is, you know, for better, for worse. And, and I actually think there are things to definitely discuss and regard in that movie. So I wouldn't want to not talk about it, but plenty of people don't want to talk about it. So if you can focus the campaign around a different man, another, a movie that I really, really enjoyed even more than The Apprentice, I think Sebastian has a, has a good chance. And also, one of those chances of you were in, do you remember when Sebastian Stan was coming in the studio to talk to you? And I was, I was like asking you questions about, you know, Sebastian Stan as an interviewee, and whether or not he liked to do press a lot. And you said, well, I think he knows he's into really good movies this year. And that's, that's true. And so I would love to see, I mean,

• 14:27Speaker 02

  this isn't just me being like Avengers build. Like, I would love to see Sebastian Stan get nominated for his work this year.

• 14:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I want to spend a little time, spend a little bit of time on him. And we can talk about the musical or comedy male actor race as well, because it's, Stan is also there. I think that it's possible, not likely, but possible, that the best thing that ever happened to Sebastian Stan's Oscar chances is him being, quote unquote, unable, unable to book a companion in the Actors on Actors series that Variety does, where no one was willing to Sit down with him to talk about The Apprentice because they don't want to be associated with any kind of conversation about Donald Trump. Now Sebastian Stan and I talked about Donald Trump quite a bit on this podcast when he came on the show. He was a great guest. I think he was a great guest for a variety of reasons. I think part of it was that he knew he had given two really strong performances, was really proud of the movies.

• 15:16Sean Fennessey?

  He worked for years with Ali Abasi to get The Apprentice off the ground. He'd been attached to that movie for a very long time. And A Different Man, which he's nominated for in musical or comedy, which is a very dark comedy, borderline not a comedy. The Aaron Shimbork movie, which did just win Best Film at the Gothams a week and a half ago, and I think is getting a little bit more attention now that it's available on VOD and I encourage people to watch it, is really like an exceptional example of what you can do with that Avengers coin. You know, that you can get a film like that made, that you can take on a part like that. Like, to me, that is the perfect balance of if you use the franchise stuff to raise the water of your career, float on top of it with a movie like A Different Man. That's kind of how I feel. So I think that there's some goodwill towards him in that respect, too.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  And I think Sebastian Stan, that has been a focus of his, because he's not like, unlike many of his counterparts, he's not even in his post Avengers era, right? Because he's still in the mix at Marvel.

• 16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Thunderbolts coming.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  He's about to lead Thunderbolts, you know, like, so he's still doing it. But like, you know, you and I were talking about this when we talked about the cinematic classic Red One. We were like, what has Chris Evans done with his Steve Rogers fuel? What has Downey done? Downey won an Oscar, so like, he's doing fine. But like, to think about what do these Avengers or Marvel stars do, I think for years now, Sebastian Stan has been sort of one of the most interesting people to watch in that regard, so.

• 16:40Sean Fennessey?

  I fully agree. The other nominees in this category, which is a really cool category of nominees, but I don't think one that you'll see too many Oscar nominations for, but it includes Jesse Eisenberg from A Real Pain, which we recently talked about, Hugh Grant for Heretic, which I just told you in a future episode, one of my favorite performances of the year, absolutely laugh out loud funny, Gabriel LaBelle for Saturday Night, the lone nomination for Saturday Night, we'll come back to that, Jesse Plemons, Your Beloved, My Beloved, for Kind of Kindness, a movie that 18 people have seen, but he is actually quite good in that film, the anthology movie from Yorgos Lanthimos, and Glenn Powell for Hitman, which was long predicted, but congratulations to the homie Glenn Powell for his Golden Globe nomination.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  This is a tremendous Globes. This is the best of what the Globes could be. Because there are, I don't think there's anyone here where you're saying, oh, clearly this is just here so they can get, I don't know, Hugh Grant to make funny faces at the camera at the award ceremony. I would argue there's, there's some of that in some of these other categories. But um, this is crazy. Hugh Grant should be honored for what he did in Heretic. I, in that future episode that you just alluded to, I, I was highlighting Gabriel LaBelle as like someone that I, I didn't really enjoy Saturday Night that much, but I thought he was wonderful in it, and I think his performance should be honored. Jesse Plemons is the real surprise. For me, he wasn't, I was scouring, uh, you know, the predictions list, predicting the Golden Globes, as we mentioned, it's a very, very tricky thing to do. Um, some people

• 18:02Speaker 02

  got it pretty close, including the double Sebastian Stan nomination, which I was like, I guess emotionally and mentally prepared for. But no one really had Plemons on the list. He's of course an award season kind of guy these days, but Kind of Kindness doesn't feel like it exists as a film, so.

• 18:17Sean Fennessey?

  I saw a couple of people had it. I want to say some folks at Next Best Picture had it, like a couple of spots had it as I was perusing the list last night. The thing that happened is, in the old days, Ryan Reynolds simply would have been nominated for Deadpool versus Wolverine, or Deadpool and Wolverine, I should say.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:36Sean Fennessey?

  And many thought he would be nominated today. So you could make the case that the biggest snub of this Golden Globes race is poor Ryan Reynolds, the most successful and richest smart machine in Hollywood, and he didn't get in. And so because he didn't get in, someone like Jesse Plemons, or Gabriel LaBelle, or Sebastian Stan for A Different Man is able to get in. A movie like A Different Man getting in over a movie, like a big Marvel movie that has a lot of good jokes in it, is a, is a change for the Globes. It doesn't mean the Globes is fully good, but it is a new Globes.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  I think, we'll, we'll just say this is new Globes, and then we'll talk about what, what feels like old Globes. Um, can you remind me why you don't feel like snubs, like why the concept of snubs doesn't exist for you?

• 19:16Sean Fennessey?

  Well, snub implies intention. You know, snub is like a very purposeful choice, and so it indicates that, um, it's against someone rather than for someone else. And so I don't think people vote, especially- Especially in these circumstances, like against people as often, this isn't like, these aren't like political elections. I think that's actually more likely to have a snub loser in the Academy Awards. When you're making the winner choice, because you've got a list of people already that you're like, I don't want that person.

• 19:45Sean Fennessey?

  So at nominations time, it's kind of a complicated terminology, but it doesn't really. It serves an elegant purpose for podcasting.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I think, I think that's a good point. And I do think that sometimes there are active snubs, but I think it's, you're, you're right that it's, it's useful to like sort of delineate between the two. As someone who votes in the Critics' Choice Awards, I find the act of filling out my ballot to like, it feels like the nominations ballot feels like you're in the middle of an ocean somewhere. And you just don't, you can't even see shore. You don't even know like what you're doing. And you're just like, I, I know I'm going to miss someone like I, I'm, I'm trying. And, and then, yeah, the act of voting is so easy because they're sort of like, oh, clearly it's, it's this one.

• 20:26Sean Fennessey?

  You know what I've tried to do? I, I vote in the Producers Guild Awards and, and when, and when I vote there, I basically just try to vote for my 10 favorite movies of the year for that, for the feature category. And just say like, look, this is what I say publicly is my favorite thing. There's no reason for me to go against this. Um, I'm just going to stick to it. It is one of the reasons why I try to get like the 350 movies a year though. Cause I'm like, I really want to feel like I've seen, like I saw Flo over the weekend, the Latvia animated film, which I absolutely loved and hadn't seen in time for my end of the year episode. And it's, it's so good. I don't, it's probably right outside of my top 10, but it's so good. And it's useful to have the totality of understanding when you're doing this stuff, because it can be daunting. You know, like we make fun of the people who vote on this stuff, but you really want to feel like you've given it a solid and sincere effort every time you put names down.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  I think that, um, in the last couple of years, I think this, this is true with PGA as well. They've started, um, you know, instead of us getting physical screeners, which I would like literally physically sort around the house into like piles of priority and all this sort of stuff like that. And it's so onerous to, it's like environmentally unfriendly, onerous to your mail carrier, all this sort of stuff like that. So they've, they've eventually, and like, I think it this year fully moved on to like a digital screening platform. And it's so helpful to me to just like, open the platform and just say like, "All right, I haven't seen this one yet. What do I need to like, tick off the list?" And I think I'm done, which is exciting. I mean, actually, I know I'm done because my ballot's due tomorrow. So it's like, if I'm not done, then, you know, here we go.

• 21:55Sean Fennessey?

  There's only one film that was nominated today for, that I haven't seen yet. And we can get to that when we get to the international race.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:02Sean Fennessey?

  Filling in some gaps. Let's just talk quickly about actresses in the drama and musical or comedy category. So best actress, best female actor in a motion picture drama is Pamela Anderson for The Last Showgirl, Angelina Jolie for Maria, Nicole Kidman for Baby Girl, Tilda Swinton for The Room Next Door, the lone nomination for The Room Next Door, I believe. Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film. Kate Winslet for Lee. And then for musical or comedy, Amy Adams for Night Bitch, a film that we spoke about at length on a future episode of this show. Cynthia Erivo for Wicked, Carla Sofia Gascón for Amelia Perez, Mikey Madison for Enora, Demi Moore for The Substance, and Zendaya for Challengers. So much like the act, the male acting categories, it's possible

• 22:47Sean Fennessey?

  that Cynthia Erivo, Carla Sofia Gascón, Mikey Madison, and maybe even Demi Moore all get in at Best Actress? Now, there's clearly some bloodsport going on in drama here where you've got Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman, who there's a lot of passion for in both directions. I wouldn't rule out Fernanda Torres or Kate Winslet here either. So this category feels like a bit of a knife fight at the moment. What do you think?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  I feel like Angelina Jolie and Pamela Anderson and Nicole Kidman to a certain degree. Because Baby Girl is a film I really loved, but like,

• 23:20Speaker 02

  a lot of this feels like Old Globes to me.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Angelina Jolie, I think, is most famously associated with the most ridiculous Old Globes move, which is nominating her for the Tourist, right? So like, the Tourist is just infamous, so.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  I, a lot of people felt like Angie was gonna be in here, sort of no matter what. Pamela Anderson being in here is also a very Globes-y, old Globes-y kind of pick. Fernanda Torres, I'm still here, phenomenal film. Fernanda Torres, wonderful in it, and this is a real New Globes critics-friendly pick. Not just an international-friendly pick, but a critics, like, the critics really seem to want Fernanda Torres in the conversation, and I, I wouldn't disagree with them. And then Kate Winslet, as you and I have been, like, talking to Kitty Rich a little bit, you know, off pod, this is a, this is a campaign boondoggle that has been happening this season. Do you want to talk about that at all?

• 24:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, Lee is a film that premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It was acquired out of that festival by a much smaller distributor. Kate Winslet is beloved. It's directed by, is Ellen Curris is the filmmaker?

• 24:28Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 24:29Sean Fennessey?

  Longtime cinematographer, and it's her feature directorial debut. Kate Winslet gives kind of a classical Academy bait performance as a wartime photographer.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Unglamorous, sort of thing, yeah.

• 24:47Sean Fennessey?

  And it's a great cast, notably Andrea Riseborough is in this film. It does feel like this campaign has a little bit of that energy to it.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  I think it has a lot of Andrea Riseborough and To Leslie energy is, is what most people have been comparing, what Kate Winslet and the supporters of Kate Winslet and this film, some of the same people are involved in this as were involved in the Andrea Riseborough push. Though, if she were to get an Oscar nomination, unlike Andrea Riseborough, she would have this, she, they would be like, she, she was nominated for the Globes. So it's not as out of nowhere, the way that Andrea Riseborough being nominated for To Leslie felt in that year. And Kate Winslet, I mean, obviously, like, Andrea Riseborough also was like an actress so talented, such a comedian, that people don't, like, really... Remember that they've seen her in a million things already, whereas Kate Winslet is, you

• 25:40Speaker 02

  know, a minted, bona fide movie star. So there's like slightly different circumstances here. I wouldn't begrudge her a nomination. It just feels like more political than anything else, or more attention economy than anything else. Fernanda Torres would thrill me. And then Tilda Swinton being here, The Room Next Door, if Tilda had not been nominated, I would say The Room Next Door is out of, you know, it had a really tough run the last couple of weeks in the precursors. It just felt like it was not getting any of the attention that you would hope for. This cast, this director, all of that sort of stuff. But Tilda being here means that there's still some life in the old girl.

• 26:18Sean Fennessey?

  It's just a flicker, honestly, you know, and a movie that I really wanted to love, but didn't really click with that. This is Almodovar's new movie that is coming out later this year. You know, there's another name that isn't on this list of 12 that is considered one of the major snubs of the morning, which is Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths. And she's won some precursors. There's a strong sense that she'll, she could potentially even win BAFTA. And it is one of the best performances of the year. I've talked about it a couple of times. I saw it at the New York Film Festival. Mike Lee has been able to get, deliver acting nominations for actors in the past. Not recognized here in favor of, you know, some other, you know, Pamela Anderson over Marianne Jean-Baptiste is one of those things where it's like, the Pamela Anderson story is a great story.

• 27:03Sean Fennessey?

  The Last Showgirl is really a film, which has two nominations here that is really a cut below the new critically acclaimed Globes. And there's something kind of funky about this. And I'm not really sure, you know, there's, there's four significant black actors who are not recognized today. That is going to be a takeaway. This is a common takeaway for, you know, decades, frankly, with awards bodies. But there are some standouts. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is one of them that we should talk through a little bit. In addition to them, there's also Angelis Taylor for Nickel Boys. There's Clarence Macklin for Sing Sing, which is a huge performance for me, something that I talked about a lot when Amanda and I talked about the movie, and I talked about it in a future episode. And then Danielle DeDwyer for The Piano Lesson, which I also loved and loved her in it.

• 27:48Sean Fennessey?

  So none of them are here. And I think they're all pretty significant quote unquote snubs. Clarence Macklin and Daniel Dedwiler in particular, I feel like should have a real chance at the Oscars.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Like Danielle Dedwiler has been all over the place as some, as people like just, and she's wonderful. And everything she does, but like, she seems, and like, unlike in previous, a previous year when Danielle Dedwiler has been someone overlooked, she is really campaigning this year. So she's really going for it. That's great. Clarence Macklin, um, you know, Coleman Domingo's in here.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  And that makes me thrilled, but like, it's bizarre to have Coleman Domingo without Clarence Macklin, especially given the narrative of the last couple of weeks, you know, both Coleman Domingo and Clarence Macklin winning in New York, like, um, and, you know, um, my, uh, former colleague at Vanity Fair, uh, Richard Lawson was in the room at the Gothams and he was talking about, we love, we love to hear insight from the room and like, sort of, who are the people that are like a hit with the crowd? And it was Coleman Domingo and Clarence Macklin winning at the Gothams was the most rousing, uh, reaction for the crowd. And so I know that you and I had talked to a couple of weeks ago about this idea of like, the goodwill, uh, the good time goodwill. You just want these people, you just want to talk to these people. You want to be around these people.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  This is true of like the Parasite cast, of the Coda folks, of everywhere, we're all as one folks, like all of that. And I think I was gonna say that Wicked had that, but I think it's Sing Sing that has it, like that this cast or these particular artists are who people want to talk to. And so Clarence Macklin not being here, especially as representative of the non-professional actors in this film, is, is a huge miss for the cause.

• 29:33Sean Fennessey?

  The Last Showgirl having more nominations than Sing Sing is not, not ideal. But I do think, I, I think it's fine. I don't think it's, I don't think it's meaningfully affected. I mean, Sing Sing. In some respects, it's a very American story and its lack of glamour around this the series of either non-professional or non-feature film traditional actors might be working against it in the in the eyes of the Globes. I don't know, it's hard though, because on the other hand, they're nominating folks like Fernando Torres, who have very minimal visibility worldwide. The Brazilian journalists and critics have been extremely passionate about the Walter Salles movie, I'm Still Here, and so they've been, there's been a really forceful campaign for that movie, but there's just a sense of imbalance.

• 30:17Sean Fennessey?

  There's also something really interesting related in director, which I don't know if I see this as the biggest surprise, but it is one that could have a meaningful ripple effect. The director's branch of the Academy is very high-minded, very auteur-driven.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, they at least have at least one European or non-American director in there, if not a couple.

• 30:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and so I think there had been a lot of speculation, and I think there is still speculation, that Ramel Ross, the Nickel Boys director, will fill one of those slots as a, you know, not a European filmmaker, but someone who's made something more, a little bit more conventionally challenging. Ramel not nominated here. In addition to that, again, one of the biggest snubs, quote-unquote, of the day is Denis Villeneuve not being nominated for Dune Part II. Dune Part II only got two nominations here today, which is very sad, probably even more sad for the fanboys.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Staggering.

• 31:12Sean Fennessey?

  But-

• 31:13Speaker 02

  That's us, right? Aren't we the Dune fanboys?

• 31:17Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I love Dune. I'm not, I'm not stumping for Dune to win Best Picture, though. You know what I mean?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  I know you're not.

• 31:23Sean Fennessey?

  I, I feel the same way about it that I feel about a lot of these kind of like unfinished stories. I'm like, it's a great science fiction movie. It basically never had a chance to win, and I never really thought about it.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  From the beginning of the year, you've been saying that, and I was hopeful that you were wrong. This is one of the cases where you were right, and, and that's, couldn't be clearer in the way that Dune Part II is, like, at the Globes of all places. Dune Part II should have performed much better than it did today. So that's really tough. I still think it could be in the 10 nominations for Best Picture, definitely in a lot of the below-the-line stuff, but I think you're right that the fact that this is a part two of a planned trilogy means we'll have to wait and see. And, and I'm, at the end of the day, I'm, I'm- Not optimistic about that because Doom Part Three is gonna be probably quite challenging. So we'll see.

• 32:14Sean Fennessey?

  The filmmakers who did get in, in Denise Stead, in Ramel Ross's stead, in John M. Chu's stead are Pial Kapadia, the filmmaker behind All We Imagine Is Light, which is a film that somewhat controversially was not selected by India to be the representative for international feature for the Academy Awards, but has been one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. I know Bobby Wagner, our producer, it's one of his favorite films of the year. And she's been nominated here, which is a cool pick. And her nomination, as well as the nomination of Corle Farge for The Substance, does something very interesting, which is that a month ago, I started thinking hard about Best Director and I was like, oh, the boys' club is back. This is really, this is very, this is a male crew here with, you know, Brady Corbeil

• 32:59Sean Fennessey?

  and Ramel and Sean Baker and Jacques Audiard and all the people who are contending for this award. This could upend that? I don't know. What do you make of Pial Kapadia and Corle Farge getting in here?

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Happy, I mean, like, once again, this is maybe the benefit. Should every category be six nominees or 10? You know what I mean?

• 33:20Sean Fennessey?

  Why not 15?

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is the benefit of having six places here. Ramel Ross is really surprising to me because I think if you, if you look at the precursors of the last couple of weeks, Nickel Boys is one of the biggest sort of memento builders around cinematography, around direction. You know, it's, it's less of a, it's less of a getting acknowledged for its performances film and more for the technical challenges, for the ambition of it. And so Ramel Ross missing here is very, was very surprising to me, though I shouldn't be surprised. It feels very Old Globes for them to miss on that front. That being said, I mean, Corle Farge and Pial Kapadia, and especially Kapadia as a narrative nominee, you just mentioned this idea.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  It's not just that the film wasn't picked to represent India, it's that Kapadia as a filmmaker has been unfriendly to the Indian government. And so it's just sort of this, you know, but, but this was, you know, honored, has been honored in Europe, but. The reasons it wasn't picked by India feel unclean. And so this then becomes an underdog, right? Like, so, yeah.

• 34:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I know there, I mean, there is a campaign for this movie for the Oscars for screenplay, for director, for best picture.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Right, because it can't get in international feature.

• 34:46Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly. And there had been some expectation that Emilio Perez was going to steamroll its way to international feature. I'm not so sure that's true anymore. When you see.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  I don't think that's true at all.

• 34:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, you see a movie like I'm Still Here, doing really well here today. There's, there's, there's a lot of opportunity here. So actually, let's talk about international feature very, very quickly. So here are the nominees. All We Imagine Is Light, Capadia's film, Emilio Perez, The Girl With The Needle, I'm Still Here, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, and Vermiglio, which is the movie that I have not yet seen.

• 35:16Sean Fennessey?

  The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is doing very well.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Really is.

• 35:19Sean Fennessey?

  In a lot of different places. Uh, I, not really.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Okay, it's divisive. It really is.

• 35:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  People think it's a masterpiece and some people are not feeling it at all whatsoever. But it is definitely the, the international feature of the last few weeks that has been building a bit of steam.

• 35:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Mohamed Rossoloff, the director, won Best Director at the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards over the weekend. And, you know, that, the critics' bodies are, proceed with caution when trying to make your Oscar predictions against those things. But that's a big boost. That's a big boost of visibility. And Seed Of The Sacred Fig, you know, I thought narratively just had a lot of problems pacing wise. I, I feel similarly about a few of the international films. You know, All We Imagine Is Light is a movie that didn't work for, as well for me also. And I found there's a kind of like, um, there was a, uh, I don't know what the right word I'm trying to think of is. There's just a pacing issue on some of these movies that didn't click for me. And I, like, Evil Does Not Exist is a movie for me that I, I would love to see in the, in these spaces and in this discussion.

• 36:22Sean Fennessey?

  Just seems like they were like, ah, we, we acknowledged Tom Maguji on Drive My Car, we're good here. We don't need to get into that, into that film anymore. But, um, I still haven't seen every film in this category yet, so it's a little bit hard to say. The 10 win, the 10 nominations for Emilio Perez makes me think that this film is sitting pretty in that race in this award show. What do you think?

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Um, I loved Evil Does Not Exist. Um, I thought that was an incredible film with a really leaves you unsettled in a really nourishing way. Um, if I were to pick one, uh, an international feature that I would most want to win with my heart, I would say I'm Still Here. I really, really, really loved that film. Um, Amelia Perez is so interesting because if you had asked me before the Globe's nominations came out, based on what has been happening around, I would say it's not going to win international feature, but perhaps now, I don't know. I, I have, I have some questions, but I'm Still Here is one that I really hope people get a chance to see because phenomenal film, really.

• 37:26Sean Fennessey?

  Where should we go next? Should we go to, we've hit Sebastian Stan.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Supporting?

• 37:32Sean Fennessey?

  Supporting. Okay. Let's talk about the supporting actors races. Um, now there's only 12 here, six for the women and six for the men.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 37:41Sean Fennessey?

  For the women, the nominees are Selena Gomez for Amelia Perez, Ariana Grande for Wicked, Felicity Jones for The Brutalist, Margaret Qualley for The Substance, Isabella Rossellini for Conclave, and Zoe Saldana for Amelia Perez. As I mentioned, Daniel Dedwiler not here, Angelina Ellis Taylor not here. Uh, who else is not here? Anybody else that I'm forgetting?

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Um, those are the main, the main ones that feel overlooked to me. And in their place, we have Margaret Qualley and Selena Gomez.

• 38:13Sean Fennessey?

  Selena Gomez, Joanna. Selena Gomez.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  I just really did not like her performance in this movie at all.

• 38:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's not great.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  It's not good. Zoe Saldana, great. I mean,

• 38:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she's great. I loved her.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  She's great. She should be in there. She might even win it.

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  She might even win.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  I wouldn't be mad about it. But, and then Isabella Rossellini, who has, you know, a minuscule amount of, uh, screen time in Conclave, but is, is You know, you know how they like say she's running, she's running. Isabella Rossellini is running and she's running on the, on the energy of, um, I heard someone compare it to like the Jamie Lee Curtis, sort of like legacy nepo baby sort of thing. It's like Isabella Rossellini is film history. The way that, you know, Margaret Qualley is to a certain degree. So, you know, it's just like, um, it seems silly at this point to call Isabella Rossellini a nepo baby. That's not really how I think about her at all. But when you think about Isabella Rossellini, you think about cinema, old Hollywood, legacy, history. So, yeah. And then she's just like

• 39:08Speaker 02

  yucking it up on Fallon as well. You know what I mean? Like she's just, she's just making the whole entire circuit. So, yeah.

• 39:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. The thing is, she's not a nepo baby. She's an incredible ambassador for movie history. Her mom is Ingrid Bergman. Her dad is Roberto Rossellini.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  I meant in the same way.

• 39:23Sean Fennessey?

  Films by David Lynch. She, she was married to Martin Scorsese. Like she, she is.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  I meant in the same way that, that people were calling, even though she is not Jamie Lee Curtis, a nepo baby. And as like the globes, especially like the globes in the way that they have in their history centered the children of famous people as part of their ceremony, you know?

• 39:43Sean Fennessey?

  Great point.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  So, no, I would never call Isabella Rossellini a, she's a legend. Have you, how, how, uh, familiar slash, uh, in love with her sort of like sex series that she did for, what was it? Like independent, the independent channel?

• 39:57Sean Fennessey?

  I think you can find it on the Criterion Channel right now, actually.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 40:00Sean Fennessey?

  She's, uh,

• 40:01Speaker 02

  That's cinema to me.

• 40:01Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's the thing is that she's, she's kind of a fun hang. And so if you're a fun hang at all these events, you know, she's got a lot of opinions. I stayed in, I want to say it was Brookhaven on Long Island in an Airbnb a couple of years ago and was driving around and I learned that Isabella Rossellini has lived there for like decades and is sort of like the matriarch of the town, which I didn't realize. And she's like, you know, can see her at the farmer's market every weekend and just a very chill lady who's been hanging out in my, my home island for some time. Um, I'm a big fan of hers. I, I hope she does well. She's in Seven Minutes of Conclave.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:36Sean Fennessey?

  Saoirse Ronan, for example, is in quite a bit of Blitz and she was snubbed in that category. She was also snubbed for the outrun in Actress. No Saoirse Ronan. Is Saoirse Ronan's awards trail dead?

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Dead. Yeah.

• 40:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's dead.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  It's dead. It said, I don't think of the Blitz, I mean Blitz is a bit of a, of a snub, I suppose. Outrun is the one where like, I think people are really optimistic about that, but the fact that she's not here at all, um, is a tough one for her.

• 41:04Sean Fennessey?

  Not a, not a great sign.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Especially Isabella Rossellini in Conclave. And again, I, I, you don't care about category fraud and supporting, I kind of do. So, um, I applaud like a true, true, true supporting. And like, she's barely, not only is she barely in the movie, but for a lot of that movie, she's just sort of like glowering and glaring rather than actually talking.

• 41:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  But she's there, uh, you know, and that matters. Tootsie didn't get nominated, but Isabella Rossellini did. So here we are.

• 41:33Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about supporting actor. Um, here are the nominees. Yurba Borasov for Enora. I know what you're very excited about.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:40Sean Fennessey?

  Here in Colkin for A Real Pain, speaking of category fraud, Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce for The Brutalist, my guy, Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice, and Denzel Washington for Gladiator 2. Mixed bag here, fun category. A lot of guys having a grand old time. A lot of guys doing accents and voices and, you know, mingling around, chewing up scenery.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Edward Norton sure is playing that banjo, uh, in, in A Complete Unknown. Did you, okay.

• 42:11Sean Fennessey?

  I'm working on my Edward Norton as Pete Seeger voice and I think I'm gonna break it out when I do the Complete Unknown episode.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Oh, I can't wait.

• 42:18Sean Fennessey?

  But I gotta re-watch the trailer a few more times, cause

• 42:20Speaker 02

  I can't wait for it.

• 42:21Sean Fennessey?

  The voice he's doing is, is, is kind of adorable, honestly.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Oh, it's, oh, it's very cute in a shucks sort of way. I'm very like an Edward Norton demeanor sort of thing, but like, uh, have you heard, as I did, James Mangold compare A Complete Unknown to, uh, Amadeus?

• 42:40Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I haven't. I, I'm, I think you can make a comparison.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  In that vein.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know how, how, what light it sits in.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Edward Norton is allegedly our saliary and that is, um, just, I want everyone to just think about that, uh, when they watch that movie. A movie I really liked.

• 42:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I liked it. I mean, God, it's a little hard to not spoil things, but I think that there's like a bit of an. An overemphasis on the perception of like, why not me around Bob Dylan? Which I think is wrong. I don't, I think it's like slightly mischaracterized. It's one of the only things where I was like, this doesn't feel right to me. But I'll, I'll save that for.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Does it? I haven't read, I have, okay, I'm gonna stop, stop trying to podcast about a complete unknown with you, but I, I want to ask really quickly. Have you read this, the, the book?

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  The Elijah Wall book, yeah, yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  And do you think that's part of the book as well? Or do you think that's like a?

• 43:31Sean Fennessey?

  It is, but the thing is that like, the movie has clearly been, that Jay Cox wrote the script.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 43:37Sean Fennessey?

  And then James Mangold rewrote the script.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Rewrote it.

• 43:39Sean Fennessey?

  And in rewriting the script, I think clearly put in a lot more of the Susie Rotolo stand in that L. Fanning plays. And emphasized Joan Baez a little bit more in the kind of tempestuous nature of their relationship. And so in doing so, you, I think, kind of mangle a little bit of the like Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger versus the electric guys, you know, like, anyway, I'll get to it when I talk about it next.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Here's, here's what I know. That podcast is, that episode of The Big Pick is gonna be a must-listen. They all are, obviously, but um.

• 44:13Sean Fennessey?

  Nice of you to say. I won't, I probably won't be having a meltdown is the thing. Like, I was expecting a full-blown, like, maybe we have to wrap this show up because I can't hold it together kind of situation. It's, it's, like you said, it's, it's pretty good.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  I liked it. I liked it a lot. I'm, I love that Timmy's in here for it. Um. My guy Yurbaorsov for an aura. This feels like, I feel like he's gonna get nominated.

• 44:34Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like it.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  For an Oscar.

• 44:36Sean Fennessey?

  It does. Especially Tucci going out here, I think is somebody who that is his spot. And I don't know, it's interesting. Tucci, I think Tucci's fine. I've been saying for a few weeks now that I think Tucci was missing one more kind of whiz-bang scene where he raises his voice a little bit.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  For the real, yeah.

• 44:50Sean Fennessey?

  But tell me about Conclave. Like, where do you think Conclave sits now? Because Edward Berger got recognized for Best Director here. You've got, uh, I think we have Vocal Burdlesman got the, got the score nomination. It's obviously in Best Drama right now. Conclave is the movie that everyone thinks is kind of like sitting in fourth place, but could win. What do you think?

• 45:08Speaker 02

  I don't think it can win. Um, I think Rafe is gonna get nominated. I think it's definitely nominated for Best Picture. I think it's best hope is screenplay. And I'm not even sure that that's gonna happen. But I think you could see it, yeah, but I think you could see it at, um. Winning like the SAG Ensemble Award, you know what I mean? Like, I can see it popping up around, but I don't think it's as hot in Best Picture as some people are rating it. I loved that movie. I really liked it. I don't, actually, I wouldn't say I really, really liked it, but I don't know anyone who like, loved it. Do you think, is the thinking that enough people really, really liked it, that in sort of a ranked ballot, it would emerge?

• 45:53Sean Fennessey?

  I do, yeah. I think Amelia Perez is divisive. I think Wicked is divisive. I think The Birdless is divisive. I think Conclave is not really that divisive.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  See, I feel like-

• 46:03Sean Fennessey?

  Everybody's just like, this movie is good.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Yes, Meatball, Down the Middle, Conclave, but I feel like Adora has that sort of everybody likes it spot locked.

• 46:10Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. I've kind of been holding my water on that because I feel like that can be the last part of this discussion.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 46:17Sean Fennessey?

  But the Conclave screenplay nomination here is interesting because that's the only real adaptation. Everything else here is an original. And so when you only have one screenplay category, as the Globes do, and six nominees, to put Conclave there is notable, I'll say. And so I think you're right, that Peter Strawn's adaptation of the novel could do very well at the Academy Awards.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  I think it's also just, you know, I heard a lot of people in watching it and talking to people who had seen it, who work at the industry, sort of like Sorkin's name keeps coming up as like people thinking of it as like Sorkin-esque in a way, and they mean it as a compliment and sort of like, so when you think of like, sort of dialogue-rich. Some people think that screenplay means, as is the case with editing, as is the case with sound, the most, the most talking, the most sound, the most, you know, editing. And so I can really see Conclave getting that award.

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's talk about box office in relationship to this show.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Isn't Amelia Perez in Adopted because it's based on an opera?

• 47:21Sean Fennessey?

  Technically, yes, yes. I see, you know, it is based on an opera that O'Donnell wrote that is based on another opera. But it is more original, I would say, than Conclave.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  True.

• 47:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So, two things. One, in terms of box office, you've got-

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, can I just say, can I just say one last thing about your guy, Guy Pearce?

• 47:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Please do not rob me of an opportunity to talk to you about The Brutalist.

• 47:47Sean Fennessey?

  Please speak about him. I'm 100% rooting for him, even though I don't think he's gonna have a chance to win this category.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  I know, and I've been really happy for you in terms of like The Brutalist's Rise. The Brutalist has emerged as this sort of like, if you care about cinema, it will be The Brutalist.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  Are you saying that's my fault?

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Um, I, I, not fault, you're a thought leader, Sean, you know?

• 48:09Sean Fennessey?

  I am but a scout master to The Brutalist Boys, you know? I am but a simple, noble man, teaching lessons of great cinema.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Um, and I love that for you. Guy Pearce, Adrian Brody and The Brutalist have been having like a really steady time.

• 48:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Guy Pearce has actually not been popping up the way that I think a lot of us expected him to.

• 48:28Sean Fennessey?

  He hasn't really been winning critics prizes, you know? That's usually where you wanna see, yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, he really needed this, like, it feels like a foregone conclusion that Kieran Culkin is gonna win this category. And I know you and I talked about that several weeks ago.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  But Guy Pearce needed something like this to keep his name in the conversation. So I'm happy, because I would love to see him nominated for this.

• 48:50Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very curious, because, you know, just most people have not seen The Brutalist yet, just like they haven't seen Nickel Boys. But The Brutalist, I think, is the last big movie that is more or less unseen, that rides on its performances in a big way, you know?

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Hmm, that's a good, that's a good point.

• 49:07Sean Fennessey?

  And in all likelihood, all three of those actors are going to be nominated at the Academy Awards. Felicity Jones and Adrian Brody and Guy Pearce. And so, you know, could there be a late wave for some of those performers potentially? I'll say Felicity Jones, the first time I watched the movie, I was a little bit mixed on what she did. And then the second time, I was fully dragged over and I, I'm like, yeah. And I really, I love that character and hearing, I think Brady Corbeil and Mona Fastfold, like, writing that movie together, you can feel the dynamic of like, the great man and the woman that supports him and the way that they're trying to kind of support that idea and upend that idea at the same time. So I wonder as more people see it, if the acting will get a little bit of a boost in that category, in those categories.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  You know, you have to wait. A bit to get to Felicity Jones in that film and um I was worried when she showed up that she was just going to be, you know, the wife character and that's they definitely complicated that. So I appreciate that. Um, but yeah, Guy Pearce being here is is wonderful news and my guy Yurba is off. Keep on keeping on.

• 50:10Sean Fennessey?

  I'm happy for you. I'm happy for him. He's wonderful in that movie. Uh, okay. Let's talk about box office because one thing that happened that's interesting to me is that box office doesn't maybe matter as much for these nominations. Um, Dune, Wicked and Gladiator two combined only managed eight nominations. And that's fairly unusual, given the context here. They have since, you know, in the last couple of years, added the box office achievement award. This is, as with all box office achievement awards, extremely stupid, but I'm going to read the nominees. The nominees are Alien Romulus, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Deadpool and Wolverine Gladiator two Inside Out two Twisters Wicked, The Wild Robot.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  So here's two things that happened here. Moana two is already the fifth highest grossing movie of the year internationally, worldwide, not nominated. Dune part two also among the top 10, not here. Why?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Part two not being here is astonishing. I had to go look up what Alien Romulus made because that was the one in here that I was quite surprised by.

• 51:14Sean Fennessey?

  It did quite well internationally.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  It is the second highest grossing alien film. So just behind Prometheus. So I can't, I can't fault it, but this is the one where when you look at people's predictions, they did have Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on here like this. This was expected. Alien Romulus, I didn't think was like, uh, really high up on people's expectations for here because I think everyone assumed that Dune two would be in here. It's really wild that it isn't. This is such a weird category because, you know, it is of course trying to chase that sort of like, popular populist, popular vote. Uh, let's let Twitter vote on, uh, this sort of ill advised boondoggles that a lot of, uh, awards bodies have been attempting. And this is some S like really esoteric sort of blend of it made a lot of money and we think it has cinematic value. Um,

• 52:01Sean Fennessey?

  Where the fuck is Venom three Joanna? That's what I want to know.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  I don't know. Maybe they are hoping he'll dance again.

• 52:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's his last dance. Are we not willing to recognize him? Return of the King style?

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Um, I know you think that movie is trash.

• 52:16Sean Fennessey?

  It is trash.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  But I do appreciate the bit.

• 52:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I mean, box office achievement is such a stupid idea for a variety of reasons. But for example, one of the amazing box office stories of 2024 is The Substance. The Substance making 50 some odd million dollars in America and like more than that overseas. That's just remarkable that that happened.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  I think it should be less like, because there is, I forget what the number is, but there is like a benchmark of how much it has to make. But I think it should be that the, you know, especially like, you know, something like The Brutalist too, even not, not that I need The Brutalist in every category, but like, again, that hasn't been released yet, so we don't know, but that's a, that's a deceptively tiny budget on that film. So the, I think that's sort of like the gap between budget and box office is one I would love to see rewarded. That sounds like a fascinating thing to chase versus.

• 53:04Sean Fennessey?

  Give Paranormal Activity a Golden Globe. Yeah, absolutely.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  But Deadpool and Wolverine is so, I guess you can have Ryan Reynolds and, and Hugh Jackman show up and say, I'm sorry, Blake Lively, you're not getting a Globe nomination, but maybe you'll show up in your Lady Deadpool vibe, you know?

• 53:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's tough. It's really tough. Um, all right, let's try to wrap this up. Give me your big winners and, and, and big losers of this morning.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Um, okay. So big winners, I think the biggest winner is, uh, Sebastian Stan.

• 53:35Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna give to Sub and I'm gonna hope that, that whoever is helping him run his various campaigns, we sort of like drill down on, uh, on what we want to focus on. Um, Amelia Perez, Challengers, we haven't talked about it a ton, but like Zendaya getting in here, wonderful stuff. And I'm tempted.

• 53:56Sean Fennessey?

  Four nominations.

• 53:57Speaker 02

  I'm tempted to say Zendaya is in here in the same way that like Selena and Ari and like all this sort of stuff is in here, but actually she's great in that movie. So I will take it. Um, Challengers, which has been absent from the conversation. It's just been sort of, uh, shrinking and shrinking and shrinking in people's memory. And so just this keeping it alive is great news for Challengers.

• 54:21Sean Fennessey?

  People still really like it.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Everyone likes it.

• 54:25Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if it's because. You know, Luca has a movie that's out right now, plus Amazon MGM has thrown their way behind Nickel Boys. And so there's maybe not, or there's a sense that it's just a frivolous film and so it's not serious. But like, I don't know, there's plenty of frivolity across the Best Picture race this year. So I, I just, I don't know. I, I said, I went on Katie's show like three months ago and I was like, I'm not writing off Challengers. I think that there is a universe in which you could get in. Now, there's currently, I think the relative success of A Complete Unknown, plus Sing Sing surging back, makes it very hard for a movie like this to get in. But you never know. You never know.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Um, I, I mean, where would you most like to see Challengers win?

• 55:12Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I think it, it could win in score, and that would be a very justified win. And I love the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score. And I think it is like, I don't want to say a step forward in movie score, but it's like, it is a way to kind of contemporaneous, contemporize what scores are, you know, and the way that written instrumental music works in mainstream movie making. Because, you know, you think score and you just think like Alan Silvestri, you know, you think Thomas Newman, you think even Hans Zimmer, who has some aspects of kind of pushing the ball forward instrumentally. It still is like John Williams and Max Steiner and the whole history of orchestral music supporting

• 55:51Sean Fennessey?

  film. And using club music as a score of a movie is, has been done before, but in, in this context is relatively new to me. And so I would love to see something like that happen.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  I think especially in a sports movie like this, um, like a, a, you know, a sexy sports movie like this. And I think that the Challengers score is so good and does exactly what I think the Saturday Night Score thinks it's doing, with love and respect to Jean Baptiste. But like, that score actually really did not work for me. It was distracting, whereas Challengers' score, I think, is enhancing. So, um, yeah, Challengers, let's go. Um, yeah. So those are my biggest winners, I would say. And then-

• 56:30Sean Fennessey?

  We mentioned The Brutalist that did well today, obviously. And Enora, I think, basically held serve, you know, and that's really what it needs to do. I think it's trying to not overshoot too soon. You know, we've got two and a half full months of this left. And it's here in Best Picture, it's here in Director, it's here in Actress, it's here in Supporting Actor, it's here in Screenplay. Like, it's kind of where it needs to be.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Would you say A24 is a big winner? Today?

• 56:58Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I mean, it's gotten nominations here for The Brutalist, for Sing Sing, for Queer. What am I forgetting?

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Heretic?

• 57:07Sean Fennessey?

  And Heretic, of course.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  Baby Girl?

• 57:09Sean Fennessey?

  And Baby Girl. Yeah, I mean, but, you know, news flash, A24 knows how to run the awards game. You know, like, they're great at this.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  I think the way that The Brutalist and Enora are sort of sitting at the top, usually it's A24 against, A24 against something else. I don't know why I say A24, I'm just sometimes stupid, like, against something else that feels bigger, glossier, but this is like The Brutalist versus Enora year?

• 57:32Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, imagine if Enora was an A24 movie where there's a universe in which that could have happened, you know, Sean Baker's last movie was an A24 movie.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:43Sean Fennessey?

  But that's not the case. But regardless, like, those kinds of studios are very nimble in this environment. You know, The Substance is a movie movie and movie is putting all of their energy behind it because they can. They don't have another movie to put their energy behind. So, I don't know. And also, frankly, those movies have a lot to gain in terms of box office and VOD purchase that some bigger movies don't, maybe don't have as much. I don't know. We'll see. We'll have to keep a close watch on a couple of movies that, you know, Wicked is in the midst of its, you know, huge peaking moment, or maybe it's not peaking. You know, maybe this is an extended run. It's doing incredibly well at the domestic box office, not super well overseas, and I don't know if there's any ramifications on that with the Oscar race.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  I'm curious about Sing Sing because there is this, there was this question, like, what are they doing with Sing Sing? They dropped it in August. Why would they drop it in August? And they're re-releasing it on, is it the day that the Oscar nominations are coming out?

• 58:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, whatever January date that is.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  That's the strategy and that's fascinating to me.

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it's gonna really matter with the box office. I think it's all about what you said, which is getting people either in the room with them or just getting them to show, like, fire up the Academy portal and watch it. And if they watch it, they're gonna feel just like we did, which is just like, it's a great movie. It just makes you feel good, it's moving, the performances are spectacular. It's just a good, good film. And that goes a long way sometimes, especially in a race with such an unsettled crop.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  I want to shout out one last loser, if I may.

• 59:14Sean Fennessey?

  Please.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Which is, let's pay our respects to We Live in Time. If Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh weren't going to get nominated, the Globes are not going to get nominated anywhere. And I don't think this film is going to get nominated anywhere. It's a film I quite enjoyed, so.

• 59:26Sean Fennessey?

  I did as well.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Very well.

• 59:28Sean Fennessey?

  I was moved. And that's the one 824 loser, I guess, in this race. You did point out that we've got Ariana versus Selena Gomez coming. You feeling excited about that?

• 59:37Speaker 02

  I just, I just felt, I feel like Amanda would have said it, so I thought I should say it, to honor her. And also, Miley is in the mix here with an original song.

• 59:47Sean Fennessey?

  How do we get Sabrina Carpenter in here? Can we get Olivia Rodrigo nominated somehow?

• 59:50Speaker 02

  What is Taylor doing?

• 59:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, what is she doing?

• 59:52Speaker 02

  She's just finished The Eras tour.

• 59:53Sean Fennessey?

  Great point.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  So she's got some time, you know?

• 59:55Sean Fennessey?

  She was nominated last year for box office achievement for her film.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  For The Eras Tour.

• 59:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was super cool.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Which is cinema, right? That's cinema.

• 1:00:02Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 1:00:04Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Joanna, thank you so much.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:00:07Sean Fennessey?

  We're, we're, we're coming back to talk about the Globes. You'll be back. You'll do some predictions with me at the, at the beginning of January, and then we'll cover the show. Who's hosting the show? I forget.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Nikki Glaser.

• 1:00:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, great. I love Nikki Glaser. How wonderful.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  She's the best.

• 1:00:20Sean Fennessey?

  She's so funny. Oh, that's actually great news. I'm actually, I'm really excited to watch it. She's very, very mean in the best way possible. So I hope that plays out well. Joanna, thank you so much. I'm going to throw to Richard Gere now. Can you believe that?

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:00:32Sean Fennessey?

  Wild times. Thanks, Joanna. Let's go to my conversation now with Richard Gere.

• 1:00:49Sean Fennessey?

  The great Richard Gere is here.

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  Ooh, the great.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  Richard, thank you for doing this.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is one of my first podcasts. I think it might be.

• 1:00:58Sean Fennessey?

  Congratulations. I'm honored that this would be the one.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  This is number one.

• 1:01:01Sean Fennessey?

  When I saw Canada, I was wondering, have you and Paul Schrader been in touch over the years, since you worked together so many years ago?

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, now we talk once in a while, and he's, he's always writing. So there's always an idea there. And we run into each other. I actually, before we made this film, I ran into him. He was being feted for one of his films.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  Which was terrific. There was either his last film before this or the one before that, I forget. And, um, you know, we started kind of talking again, then this script came. And, um, I didn't know the book. And Russell Banks, obviously, is an author that almost everyone has read something of Russell's work. And his books have made terrific films. So, um.

• 1:01:48Sean Fennessey?

  Paul made one from one of his books?

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, he made a terrific one. It's one of my favorite of his. And, um, so anyhow, Paul had written a really wonderful script. For me, it was a no-brainer. It was, um. My, my dad had passed away just before he sent me the script and he was one month shy of, of a hundred and one.

• 1:02:11Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  And he was living with me. And, but I saw this, he, he was quite there. He was present, but things became kind of contrapuntal. That time didn't really mean anything anymore and they were images. He remembered things. We could have cogent emotional conversations. And he remembered where everyone was at emotionally and what their narrative was, what their story was. But his own background became present and future and past were all kind of mixed up.

• 1:02:45Sean Fennessey?

  So this seemed appealing in some way to try to work through that?

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I thought this was really something to, for me to play with and kind of work through my own emotions of watching him pass away.

• 1:02:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm curious, how had Paul changed as a filmmaker since you guys did American Gigolo? So, so long ago, he's made so many films, you've made so many films.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, was I, we're trying to figure out, I think it was forty-five years ago, we worked together. I mean, Paul's got his groove now. He's got his, his thing. I mean, the talent and the drive are still there, but he, I think he very much knows his niche now. And he writes to. What his expectation of of his budget.

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  So he knows it's a ninety page script or whatever. And he knows what that's gonna cost. And he's pretty much designed and directed the movie when he writes it.

• 1:03:42Sean Fennessey?

  How do you how do you feel in terms of working on a big production versus a more modest production like this? Do you feel more comfortable when it's a smaller crew and you know that it's a ninety page script? Or do you like to be on a big set and a big? Is there any difference for you as a performer?

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  I like I like the movement of of indie filmmaking. The last, I have to count, five, ten movies of mine have all been very small budgets with wonderful directors, but challenging scripts that never would be made by a studio now, ever. And but I like that. I like the motion of that. I like the you're on your feet. You're on your toes, not back on your heels all the time.

• 1:04:20Sean Fennessey?

  Right. I was wondering if you felt like or if you and Paul discussed Ok, Canada being a kind of demythologizing of the Julian character from American Gigolo or sort of like taking a Lothario type. You didn't.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  No, but he said, but other people will be.

• 1:04:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Speaker 03

  You know?

• 1:04:38Sean Fennessey?

  I was.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  One of the things he liked about us doing this together is that some of there is some kind of a connection there, some meta connection of Paul and me and the character and us both at older stages of our lives now and at that that stage of telling stories of what it was like in the beginning.

• 1:05:00Sean Fennessey?

  So my reading of this movie, tell me if you agree with this at all. And I don't know if you are feel sort of incorporated into this idea, but it's like a very venerated, celebrated person who's looking back on his life and saying like, do not celebrate me. I've done a lot of terrible things. I'm a very flawed person. I'm a very confused person at this stage because of what I'm enduring. Don't overstate what I've accomplished. And I feel like Paul has this complicated relationship to that, to being a great celebrated artist, but also a person who is very flawed. And I don't, I don't know how you feel about being accomplished and celebrated for those accomplishments at this stage of your life. Do you like it when you were given awards at this stage of your career? And they look back and they show you your old movies?

• 1:05:44Sean Fennessey?

  Or would you rather not think about those things?

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  I don't lean into it. But if people, you know, they want to say nice things and, and, you know, express kindness and love towards me, of course, why not?

• 1:05:57Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, some people feel discomfort with even just being forced to look back at certain things, I guess.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  Well, I don't take it all that seriously. But, um, look, every time there's a film festival does something for me and they, they, they do their compilation of my career. It's always kind of amazing and weird to me. And delightful at the same time of seeing my life edited through someone else's idea of my life.

• 1:06:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  Cause they're editing even what they choose in each of the films. What was interesting to that editor? It's going to be different person to person. But, you know, a lot of this stuff I forget. There are scenes that, that they'll pick out and put in a film that I forgot I shot that. And I forgot that moment and I'll be flooded with memories. Paul and I talked about, a lot about Crap's last tape. It's a story about a guy in a room and he's been making tapes his entire life, kind of narrating his story. And it's someone sitting in a room, going to the old tapes and playing them. And re-acquainting himself with a version of his past.

• 1:07:16Speaker 03

  And I think what Paul and I are playing with here is I'm not so sure the facts are really the story. And if they are the story, they're irrelevant anyhow. Because they're not an experience, facts are not an experience. We deal in the realm of, of emotions and how we feel about things. How we feel about an experience. And, um, that's what this character Leonard Fife is going through. He, he accepted.

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  The moment of telling his story, no interest, as we get right in the beginning, of telling the story that he's expected to tell of a filmmaker.

• 1:08:01Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  He's telling the story of a man. And he's saying things that have been difficult to say, and as he said, if the camera was not on, he wouldn't be able to say it.

• 1:08:10Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  He has to be honest, or his version of being honest, because the camera is on and his wife is there listening.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  There's a choice made in the movie that I think is really interesting. I was wondering if you feel similarly in your life through this, which is there are moments that are rendered that are the Jacob Elordi version of Leonard Fyffe, and then you appear in the frame. You are the Leonard, the present day Leonard Fyffe is appearing in this historical context. And that's sort of the only, like, connected to that idea, because I can only see my present self in my past experience. And is that, I assume that was in the script, but I'm curious kind of how you talked through that and how, if you feel similarly about going through your memories.

• 1:08:50Speaker 03

  It's easier, I find it easier to relate to who I was. I can't imagine myself being a 75-year-old man.

• 1:08:57Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  That's kind of like, what? How did that happen?

• 1:09:03Speaker 03

  So, I, I, I sometimes see myself in the mirror and wonder who that is.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Do you remember the end of 2001?

• 1:09:15Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, in the bedroom?

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  When it starts to go crazy at the end.

• 1:09:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Speaker 03

  You know, as I get older, that, I understand that. I mean, really understand it, not just, wow, but no, I get that.

• 1:09:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's mystifying when you're young, though, to watch that movie, because you have no relationship.

• 1:09:33Speaker 03

  Equally fascinating to me.

• 1:09:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  What that ending was, but I, I feel it viscerally now.

• 1:09:39Sean Fennessey?

  So you were, it felt like you were tapping into some of that sensation for this?

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  I think so. The childhood, childhood memories and, and, you know, end of life memories and projections are all in the same fabric.

• 1:09:53Sean Fennessey?

  What about the acting style into that Intertron-esque camera? That's pretty unusual as an actor to be asked to go into camera in the way that Leonard is because of this kind of documentary that's being made about him. Was that? Do you think much about like the performance style and how as opposed to playing off of someone specifically? Or you're you're in close up for extended periods of time delivering dialogue?

• 1:10:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can't remember. Well, we had, I mean, I was, as is true to the technique, the Errol Morris, Errol Morris technique, you do see someone.

• 1:10:26Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. Was it Michael that you were seeing?

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  I was seeing Michael and then I had the idea, I said, look, this, he's doing it for her, for his wife, for Uma. I said, Paul, don't you think you should get her into it so we can talk directly to her?

• 1:10:42Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  And he thought that was a good idea. So we fashioned a way to get her, I insisted.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  I said, I don't want to talk to you anymore, Michael.

• 1:10:53Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:10:53Speaker 03

  I don't even like you. I want to talk to my wife. And he acquiesces to that and she moves over. So I am speaking directly to her.

• 1:11:03Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:04Speaker 03

  It's just the viewer doesn't see that.

• 1:11:06Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. Yeah, it's it just it struck me as an unusual way of seeing you perform. You just very rarely see an actor, a movie star into camera saying, saying.

• 1:11:16Speaker 03

  There's another film that we just completed, and it's actually on the Dalai Lama. And it's this footage that was done by the Swiss filmmakers. It was pre-COVID and they used the same technique. And His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is looking right into the camera.

• 1:11:33Sean Fennessey?

  Huh.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  And it's extraordinary. Someone that developed, but to be able, it's like you're having a private teaching with him, seeing directly into his intent.

• 1:11:44Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  It's not peripheral, it's directly. And again, someone that developed, you're getting it. Now, you know, this, this character and this actor, Richard Gere, are not of that quality. But you get, so there is something about looking directly into a lens that as a viewer, it touches you in a different place.

• 1:12:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  Psychologically, emotionally.

• 1:12:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's the, I'm obsessed with with Errol's movies. And it's one of the reasons why I sort of like, even if people are lying, the camera cannot lie specifically in that context when you're forced to look down the barrel. So I thought that was just such a great stroke of inspiration for this movie. Um, I was wondering about you and Jacob, you know, Jacob is kind of at this phase that you were once at.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  We had no idea, by the way.

• 1:12:31Sean Fennessey?

  That he was going to be in that because of when you made this.

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

  No, I mean, we, I kind of like the radar was, he's one of the young actors who was terrific. And Paul gave me a list of possible actors who could play me. So of course, we talked about it. I, I went and looked at one of his things. He said, look, he's really good. He's striking, you know, he's, he's got some magic about him. But we didn't know that he was gonna, you know, like, there's one day, I was not shooting there, but they said 500 girls showed up. It was like, everyone was like, whoa, what is going on here? So Paul and I kind of lucked into having this kid in the movie, who's, who's wonderful in the film, but he's also a really nice kid.

• 1:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  He's really a sweetheart.

• 1:13:20Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, I mean, does he want advice from you? Do you have advice for him? I mean, it is striking, actually, how similar the, the sort of like arc of simultaneously, you know, being identified very early on as a very, very talented actor, but a beautiful kind of rising star. And you're, there's a mirror there.

• 1:13:39Speaker 03

  It was, it was later for me. There'd been a lot of theater work. And I had done regional theater in New York and London and it, I, I feel like I'd been around a lot before, before I was even pointed towards making movies.

• 1:13:56Sean Fennessey?

  And is this happening more fast?

• 1:13:57Speaker 03

  That happens anymore. It kind of happens really quick before actors are able to kind of explore themselves more before they're out there.

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  You think that's a good or a bad thing?

• 1:14:09Speaker 03

  I, I tend to think it's a challenge that maybe can destroy people.

• 1:14:16Sean Fennessey?

  Did you have?

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  I think it's healthier to, to wait a, and I, certainly, I was, I was in my late twenties when it started to happen.

• 1:14:22Sean Fennessey?

  Was your hope that it would happen faster back then? Do you remember?

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  You were comfortable with it?

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  I was really happy doing theater. In fact, I might have had a little chip in my shoulder about movies as being, you know.

• 1:14:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you hear that sometimes, that that was, that's not the real acting, the movie acting.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Sean Fennessey?

  You miss the theater?

• 1:14:39Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:14:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's very hard.

• 1:14:41Speaker 03

  The last piece that I did was over 40 years ago.

• 1:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  In fact, it was right after, I think it was right after I did Gigolo with, with Paul. And, um, I must say that the, doing a long run, I don't know that I have the muscle for that. I get, I get tired of the repetition. And there's a lot of repetition in filmmaking, all the different angles and some of you end up saying a line or a sequence fifty to a hundred times and, you know, by the end of that, your brain is kind of fluid.

• 1:15:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:21Speaker 03

  But I'm, I think I'm more built for making films.

• 1:15:26Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about your career, which is now almost fifty years long. You've worked with...

• 1:15:32Speaker 03

  Longer.

• 1:15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Longer. Well, I guess if you include the theater as well.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  Nineteen, so that's fifty, fifty-six years, yeah, fifty-six years.

• 1:15:42Sean Fennessey?

  As a person obsessed with movies, I think of the movie as the beginning of the career. But Malek, Coppola, Lumet, Altman, Schrader, many, many of the legendary figures of that time.

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  I was talking to my son about this, and my son is beginning a career, himself as an actor, and that, which came out of nowhere. He had no interest and then started fooling around at school and, and really, wow, this is really fun. Which it is, it's really fun. And it's, it's play.

• 1:16:11Speaker 03

  I said, look, I was really, partly was my choice, is that I was smart enough to know that I wanted to work with really good directors. But also, I, the opportunities presented themselves and I took advantage of that. So, really, all of my early films were, were some of the very best directors around.

• 1:16:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, looking at the filmography, I noticed like a real lack of cynicism in all the choices that you're making, you know, there's not a lot of, you're not trying to cash in at any time. I really, I really admire that.

• 1:16:44Speaker 03

  No, if anything, it was probably the opposite. When, when things got too big, I kind of pulled way back and did some... Obviously uncommercial projects that would probably obfuscate, you know, what I was.

• 1:16:56Sean Fennessey?

  Was that because of a sense of fear or concern about?

• 1:16:59Speaker 03

  I think I just wanted to get out of it.

• 1:17:00Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was too much.

• 1:17:02Sean Fennessey?

  You feel like that was a good choice, looking back on it now?

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:17:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  There certainly were, you know, periods where maybe I had less opportunities because my movies were not making that kind of money.

• 1:17:14Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  And I like to have the opportunities, like all of us, everyone in this, the three of us in this room.

• 1:17:24Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think our opportunities are quite the same as yours, but we're trying.

• 1:17:27Speaker 03

  No, but you, whatever you choose, you know, you want, you want to be moving into a position of, you know, working with the best, doing the best, having the most fun.

• 1:17:36Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. Um, is there a great filmmaker you always wanted to work with and it never worked out?

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  There have been a lot. I can't remember one, you know, kind of going, I'm gonna hold my breath.

• 1:17:49Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  Die unless I work with that.

• 1:17:52Sean Fennessey?

  No, wait, well, um, so having been through the business for this many years, you have a sense of the health of movies? It's an ongoing discussion on this show about if this is all going to be okay, if this art form.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm a dinosaur, so, you know, I don't know.

• 1:18:12Sean Fennessey?

  You care?

• 1:18:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do care, because I think there was, I remember in New York that it was a deep part of who everyone was, was going to the movies together and having that communal experience. And if there was a new Bergman or Truffaut or a Kurosawa or a Fellini or Antonioni or whatever, it's like you, ah, you just waited for that moment and you were in line for the first showing.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  And I don't know that that happens. If it is, it's for kind of a popcorn movie.

• 1:18:54Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:55Speaker 03

  Which, you know, is fine, but it's it's a sugar experience.

• 1:18:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:59Speaker 03

  These the that that in the sixties and seventies, it was um. It was nurturing. It was it made you think, it made you feel, challenge. Your how you saw the universe, how you saw yourself and others. I'm not sure that that's happening.

• 1:19:19Sean Fennessey?

  What about your kids? You know, you mentioned your son is pursuing acting like. Do you did you give movies to them? Do they or did they reject it because of your career in any way?

• 1:19:28Speaker 03

  No, I mean, my son, he's he's very thankful that, you know, when I would put him to sleep at night. We would often sit and watch Turner Classic Movies. So he from very early age, he's watching black and white films. When when there was this incredible mix of of entertainment, but of literature.

• 1:19:49Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  And the language of film was was evolving, was becoming itself at that point. Um, and he realizes now that just became part of his DNA. He understands that.

• 1:20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Is there a film in your career that you think is misunderstood or underrated? Or something that you think people should go back to and take a look at? Because there's a there was.

• 1:20:12Speaker 03

  You should talk to my friend Jonathan Cott, because he has several of those.

• 1:20:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  That he brings up all the time.

• 1:20:18Sean Fennessey?

  What's is there an example of one like I was thinking about Yanks recently?

• 1:20:20Speaker 03

  Mister Jones was one.

• 1:20:22Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting. I haven't seen that in some time.

• 1:20:24Speaker 03

  Extreme bipolar guy.

• 1:20:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  He thinks that was completely off the radar, never should have been. It should have been seen.

• 1:20:35Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:20:35Speaker 03

  And appreciated for what it was. Um, and it was a film I did a few years ago called Norman.

• 1:20:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:42Speaker 03

  Which, uh, you know, was a small movie with a small release that probably not enough people saw. Uh, Joseph Cedar, a wonderful Israeli director, directed that. And Orin Moverman produced that, who had done, I think, five or six movies with now.

• 1:20:58Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  The Hoax, my friend brings up a lot too.

• 1:21:03Sean Fennessey?

  I love The Hoax.

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  I thought The Hoax also was was a really good film.

• 1:21:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great performance.

• 1:21:09Speaker 03

  Mr. What was it called? Dr. T and the Women.

• 1:21:11Sean Fennessey?

  I just watched it the other day.

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  You know, I remember Bob saying to me, I said, it's the best I can do. What do they want from me?

• 1:21:18Sean Fennessey?

  They were hard on that one.

• 1:21:19Speaker 03

  What do they want?

• 1:21:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. It feels very much like a Robert Altman film. It's not any different than any of the 70s movies, the way that it works. That's a fun movie.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  It is a fun movie. I think it's it's he was, I mean, the last sequence is is a young woman giving birth and it's in close up. And you can imagine, especially all the Catholic countries, wanted the scene out. But Bob and I talked about it. I said, the movie doesn't work unless that's there.

• 1:21:48Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  It actually is.

• 1:21:51Speaker 03

  It's it's the the magic of that is the magic of the film is that we are inventing and creating our universe all the time. And in kind of unimaginable ways. And he refused to take it out. So we didn't have release in a lot of Catholic countries.

• 1:22:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's so strange. That's a that's a really interesting movie. That's a good example of a movie that people should go back to and take a look at, maybe reconsider. You took a break between 17 and 23 from making any movies. I, you know, as a casual observer was like, oh, I guess Richard Gere's not, he's retired or he's not going to make movies anymore.

• 1:22:26Speaker 03

  From when?

• 1:22:27Sean Fennessey?

  From 2017 to 2023. No real films released at that time. Was that like?

• 1:22:31Speaker 03

  No, I have to look up. Doesn't I don't feel like I've.

• 1:22:34Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing not, nothing purposeful about that.

• 1:22:37Speaker 03

  I think there were films.

• 1:22:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  Look it up. I don't know.

• 1:22:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't. I don't think so.

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  Five years without making a movie?

• 1:22:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, unless some stuff was sitting on the shelf. Yeah. You've got The Dinner and Three Christs in 17, and then Maybe I Do last year, and that's there's a there's a gap there. I guess maybe you were making movies during that period?

• 1:22:54Speaker 03

  Well, I didn't. I didn't make any movies during COVID. I mean, that was a two year period.

• 1:23:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  I don't know. Wasn't any conscious thing?

• 1:23:05Sean Fennessey?

  Strategic. You think about retiring? Is that something you is that even an idea that matters to you?

• 1:23:10Speaker 03

  I keep talking to my wife about it, but she says you can't.

• 1:23:14Sean Fennessey?

  Why? Because you have young kids? That's funny. I'm curious also, whenever I talk to actors and I say like, is there a kind of part you'd be curious to like to try to play? They always say, I'd like to do a musical. So there's not as many musicals made, but you've done that. You've done a musical. Is there like a certain kind of a part or like a certain kind of a film you've always wanted to do?

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  No, I like to do more, more things with music. I'll really like, when I started and when I came to New York from regional theaters, it was the time of rock operas. I was very lucky. I had hair down to my tits, I was gonna say.

• 1:23:53Sean Fennessey?

  You can say it.

• 1:23:54Speaker 03

  And I was in rock bands and I could play a lot of instruments. I could sing and all that. So I was working immediately. I was very fortunate. And, and then I, I didn't do musicals for all these years and then did Chicago. I'd forgotten how much fun it is.

• 1:24:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Is there a reason why? Because, you know, you were on Broadway in a musical right before the films in the seventies, right? And then that wasn't really a part of your on-screen persona at all.

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  No, it's not like I, I was saying no to it. It just didn't.

• 1:24:27Sean Fennessey?

  Never came up. People didn't know or did you go up for stuff? Do you remember?

• 1:24:32Speaker 03

  They just weren't happening. I mean, what, what musicals were happening then?

• 1:24:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I guess that's true. It is sort of a lost style.

• 1:24:39Speaker 03

  But it's, it's also, I probably shouldn't say this, but I didn't, I didn't really, I was entertained by Chicago on Broadway, but I didn't think it was great. And I was kind of like, hmm, when it came my way. And I read the script and the script was brilliant. It was brilliant. Made sense of it and in a, as a movie. And a deeper kind of weird exploration of, of people.

• 1:25:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:10Speaker 03

  Especially that woman.

• 1:25:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great movie about fame.

• 1:25:14Speaker 03

  Projection. Fame. Who am I? What's real? What is power? You know, I play the cynical guy in it who understands it all and plays it. But it's all literally seen through her. I mean, it's in her eye, it comes out of her eye. And you see her being swept into this, this dream of, you know, being somebody.

• 1:25:42Speaker 03

  I mean, it was very rare. And then with Rob Marshall, who's such a brilliant director.

• 1:25:47Sean Fennessey?

  You're about to do your first US TV series, or you've already shot it?

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  We shot the first 10 episodes, yeah.

• 1:25:53Sean Fennessey?

  So, you know, I know you did something in, in the UK at some point, but not-

• 1:25:57Speaker 03

  Did, did a BBC thing, yeah.

• 1:25:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but, but no other television besides that over the years. I assume they must have come to you many times.

• 1:26:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I, there was a stigma, I guess, about that early on, but that stigma went away years ago.

• 1:26:11Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. But still, you held out.

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  One, that the quality was so high in these things. Not everything, but it was, is higher, higher than most of the movies being made.

• 1:26:19Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:20Speaker 03

  And this was, um, you know, it came to me and it was, it was a version of a, of a French series called Le Bureau. The Bureau. And a spy thing.

• 1:26:32Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. I've seen it. It's very good.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  Terrific, terrific series. I think it was six years or seven years, something like that, of stuff. And my wife and I were hooked on it. We loved it.

• 1:26:43Speaker 03

  One of the few things we could see after the kids went to bed and we couldn't, you know, we were about ready, but, okay. The hour of that was great. That's a great show. And this was put together with terrific actors. You know, Michael Fassbender and Jeffrey Wright. It just seemed like, okay, that made sense. Plus, I was gonna be living in Madrid and that would be easy to go to London and shoot.

• 1:27:13Sean Fennessey?

  Different at all from making the films?

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  None.

• 1:27:16Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 1:27:17Speaker 03

  None. You, you have a script, you have characters, you have, every day you've gotta make the scenes work.

• 1:27:22Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  And everyone there comes out of movie making. The crews, you know, same. They come out of movie making.

• 1:27:31Sean Fennessey?

  The trailer, to me, just looks like a movie. Every actor in it is a movie actor. It is kind of fascinating.

• 1:27:38Speaker 03

  I was shocked with those, look, it's the biggest set I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:27:41Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:42Speaker 03

  It's huge soundstage in London, outside of London. And a bigger budget. I mean, I've been making, happily making movies, four million, five million, six million dollars, and we shoot for twenty, twenty-five days. I'm fine with that. I'm perfect. This is, that's half an episode on these TV shows.

• 1:28:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. It was a big deal. Richard, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen?

• 1:28:13Speaker 03

  The last great thing I've seen?

• 1:28:15Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen, you know, obviously a cinephile.

• 1:28:18Speaker 03

  I have to be honest with you, and this is not self-serving. I just, this film that we've been editing, and we just finished on the Dalai Lama.

• 1:28:27Sean Fennessey?

  What is, does it have a title?

• 1:28:28Speaker 03

  It's very moving, yeah. It's called The Wisdom of Happiness. And it has footage of, of his holiness the Dalai Lama as, as a, as a child, but takes him through his whole life. The invasion from China.

• 1:28:49Sean Fennessey?

  This is someone you've been friends with for years. This is someone you've been friends with for years, too.

• 1:28:53Speaker 03

  Forty, forty-five years. It's been a teacher of mine. And I, I just move, I was so moved, working on it. And we, Orin and I re-edited the entire thing, and then found the footage, and we did, but I, I was just... And when we showed it the first time at the Zurich Film Festival last month, I was just devastated. It was, I found it so moving, so powerful.

• 1:29:21Sean Fennessey?

  The Wisdom of Happiness.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:23Sean Fennessey?

  Richard Gere, thank you so much for doing this.

• 1:29:24Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:29:33Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Richard Gere. Thanks to Joanna Robinson. Thank you to Jack Sanders for his work on today's episode. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Shout out to Jack and Bobby. We got fucking one solo, baby! Later this week, the king of physical media comes to the big picture. Who is that, you might ask? You'll have to listen in to find out. See you then.