Margo's Got Money Troubles

The great new Apple TV series Margo's Got Money Troubles boasts an impressive cast: Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, Nicole Kidman--there's no shortage of star power. Fanning plays a college student whose life gets very complicated when she becomes a mother at 19 and joins OnlyFans. It was created by David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies), and is based on a novel by Rufi Thorpe. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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

• 0:00Linda Holmes?

  This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics, presenting the acclaimed new crime thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, starring John Turturro. Only in theaters October 23rd in New York and LA. Nationwide, October 30th.

• 0:17Linda Holmes?

  The new Apple TV series, Margot's Got Money Troubles, boasts a big and impressive cast. Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, Nicole Kidman. There's no shortage of star power. It's based on a well-received novel by Ruthie Thorpe, and it was created for television by the prolific producer and writer David E. Kelley. Does the series about a college student whose life gets very complicated when she becomes pregnant and decides to be a single mom live up to the many big names in the credits? It does, and it's a real pleasure. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about Margot's Got Money Troubles on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

• 0:59Speaker 01

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  This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics, proudly presenting the acclaimed new crime thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. The Daily Beast raves, "A perfect crime film." John Turturro gives a career-best performance. Also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls "instantly classic." Opens only in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles. Nationwide, October 30th.

• 2:19Linda Holmes?

  Joining me today is Kristin Meinzler. She co-hosts The Nightly, a bedtime podcast for pop culture lovers. Hello, Kristin.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  Hi, Lynda. Thanks for having me back.

• 2:28Linda Holmes?

  Of course. Also with us is the host of the podcast, happy to be here, Greta Johnson. Hello, Greta. Hello. This is a dream team. I'm so excited to be here. Dream team. Delighted to see you both. So in Margo's Got Money Troubles, Elle Fanning stars as Margot Millet, a young woman who's studying writing in college. She was herself raised by a single mom, former Hooters waitress Cheyenne, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, and has only a limited relationship with her dad, a former professional wrestler named Jinx, played by Nick Offerman. Margot is doing well in school and holding down a job, but things change when she has an affair with her married professor. When she gets pregnant, she decides to have the baby, a boy she names Bodie.

• 3:12Linda Holmes?

  Bodie's dad is not helpful, and eventually Margot's need to support herself and Bodie leads her to explore online sex work with an OnlyFans account. It makes sense to Margot. It's something she can do that's creative. She can do it from home, and she doesn't have to deal with anybody in person. As all this is happening, Margot also struggles with her relationship with her mom, who fears that Margot is repeating all her most painful mistakes, and with her dad, who's recently out of rehab and wants to help. The show was created for TV by David E. Kelley, who way back in the day made shows like Ally McBeal and The Practice, and who in the more contemporary cable and streaming era has done work like Big Little Lies and The Undoing. Margo's Got Money Troubles is airing now on Apple TV.

• 3:57Linda Holmes?

  I'm going to start with you, Greta. How did you like Margo's Got Money Troubles?

• 4:01Speaker 04

  I loved Margo's Got Money troubles. I am a huge fan of the book, big fan of Ruffey Thorpe, the author. I think what's tricky for me with an adaptation, especially of something that I do really love is I want it to feel familiar, but I also want to be surprised and excited. And I think this TV show did that perfectly. It is not a like scene for scene copy of the book, and it should not be. You used the word real pleasure earlier. It is just a real pleasure to watch this show.

• 4:30Linda Holmes?

  Yeah. So I have sort of the same reaction to adaptations. It's always going to be something different. It's not going to be the exact thing.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  It has to be.

• 4:38Linda Holmes?

  It has to be. And I think when they're too faithful, it can be a real problem. And I haven't read the book, but as I understand it, some choices here that I think are to the benefit of the ultimate project. Kristin, how about you? What'd you think?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Well, ditto on everything you've both set up until now. I thought it was such a pleasure. So I've read it twice. Once I read it with my eyes and the second time I listened with my ears because, you know, I wanted to hear Elle Fanning narrate this.

• 5:04Linda Holmes?

  Yes.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  And I will say there are definite differences as far as the tone. In my opinion, the book is a little sadder, a little darker. And then on top of the tone, I think that the book has some things I don't like very much that I'm glad are not in the TV show thus far. So, for example, the book has Margot involved in a romance with one of her OnlyFans subscribers.

• 5:29Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  And much to my chagrin, that OnlyFans subscriber rescues Margot in the end financially by setting up a discovery algorithm so that her OnlyFans can attract more customers so that she can make all the money she needs to, to take care of everything. And I just prefer, I'll say it in the TV show, there's not this guy trying to rescue her in it. There are a lot of people who are helping each other out in the TV show, but nobody's really being rescued.

• 5:56Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Everyone's making mistakes.

• 5:58Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Everyone's trying to rescue themselves. And sometimes they're actually failing themselves and failing the people around them that they love. But no one's really being rescued. And I so appreciate that about the TV show.

• 6:09Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  Everyone's flawed. Everyone's. Wonderful. Everyone's terrible. Everyone's relatable. And I just want it to be a delight.

• 6:16Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, I really like the community that she is surrounded by. Her parents are both such flawed people. But I think in the hands of Pfeiffer and Offerman, they're also kind of, they fiercely love her, but they also both make tons of mistakes and have, you know, lots of problems. As I understand it, Cheyenne is more generous in the TV show than she is in the, in the book.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  I like TV Cheyenne a lot more than book Cheyenne. Yeah.

• 6:43Linda Holmes?

  For all I know, maybe that's the result of casting Michelle Pfeiffer, who of course is married to David E. Kelly. And I was really happy to see her in this role. She, she's been working, you know? She's also in this show, The Madison. And it's not that she ever stopped working, but like, this is a really good reminder of kind of what an empathetic and I think interesting actor she is and can be. I'll say this for, listen, you know, streaming has been, has had its ups and its downs and its goods and its bads. But it remains true that there are a lot of women who are over 40 or over 50, who did not used to get a lot of juicy opportunities for really good parts.

• 7:23Linda Holmes?

  I think she's great in this. This is, I think, my favorite Nick Offerman performance besides Ron Swanson.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  I think I might even like it more than Ron. He giggles more, which is such a delight.

• 7:33Linda Holmes?

  I would never let anybody take the place of Ron Swanson.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  I respect that. I respect.

• 7:37Linda Holmes?

  But this is also a completely different thing, right? It's much more dramatic. It's a completely different kind of dude.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  I mean, the neck tattoos alone are like, I am here for this.

• 7:45Linda Holmes?

  I think he is fantastic in this. This is all aside from the fact that I think Elle Fanning is so good in this. And it's such a role that could so easily go wrong in various ways. She could be too sad. She could be too, I mean, a lot of young women that you see in roles like this, they come off flighty in some way, or they come off unserious about parenting or unserious about their lives. This character, you know, the way she's written and the way she's performed. For her, doing work on OnlyFans is not as loaded as television and film sometimes treat sex work as being. For her, it's like, listen, it's a job I can do from home. It's

• 8:26Linda Holmes?

  a job I can do while managing my kid. There's not a lot of startup expenses for me as a as a content creator in this context. It doesn't feel dangerous because she doesn't have to see people in person. And so sort of other than some idea that you should be embarrassed by it, or that you should be ashamed of it, for her, this is a thing that makes sense as a way to make money. And television and film have such a long history of being so bad at talking about sex work and dealing with sex work. There have been, you know, some good shows, I think P. Valley on Starz, which took place at a strip club, which is obviously very different from OnlyFans, but it is also a kind of sex work that I think people felt like that was a better portrayal in terms of the fact

• 9:09Linda Holmes?

  that it was a little fuller, in terms of the characters. You know, this to me is an example of how to talk about a thing that is a real part of a lot of people's lives without either eliding the fact that it can, there can be difficult things about it, because obviously she is not eager to have everybody find out for a variety of reasons. But like, it doesn't present this as an incredibly grim thing, because she has this circle of people that she cares about, her roommates, but also she ends up with, you know, these kind of coworkers, these other women who work as creators who kind of form a little collective with her. I like this portrayal of the work that she does.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  And she likes it.

• 9:50Linda Holmes?

  Yes.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Which I think is notable.

• 9:52Linda Holmes?

  Yes.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  It's not just depicted as something tragic, last resort.

• 9:56Linda Holmes?

  Right, exactly.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  And now she is Fantine and Les Misérables and going to the streets because she has no other choice.

• 10:01Linda Holmes?

  Right.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  It's not depicted that way. Initially, it's like, uh, is this something, uh, but she's a storyteller, and this gives her a chance to be a storyteller.

• 10:09Linda Holmes?

  And she's funny, and she finds ways to engage with people, and yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And so it's not her who's feeling any shame about it, but she is dealing with public shaming throughout her journey on the show. But it's not coming from her. And even though at times it might seem like it's even coming from her mom, her mom who was a Hooters waitress, it's not so much shame, it's fear of, I don't want my daughter to end up just like me, is really much more what it's about.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  I think when it comes to the sex work aspect of the story too, I mean, it's also worth noting how much OnlyFans has changed sex work in terms of, Lynda, as you mentioned, like, the fact that you don't have to meet people in real life. Like, so many of the safety aspects that make me nervous when I think about sex work don't exist in this world, which is also, you know, it just like completely changes what that looks like in a way that I think is really interesting and which the book and the series also explore.

• 11:07Linda Holmes?

  And I think she feels very in control of this business.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah.

• 11:12Linda Holmes?

  Like, when she sets this up, it's like, I will do the things that I want to do to make money for myself. It is to make money. You know, regardless of that, you still do have a story about a young woman who is trying really hard to make ends meet. It's not easy to make ends meet. It's not easy to have the life that she wants. She does worry about her kid, but also partly because she's got all these other things going on. And when you eventually see Nicole Kidman make her way into this story, she doesn't have a huge role until kind of the later episodes, but when you see her make her way into this story in a serious way, it's because she's an attorney and she gets involved because there is some legal stuff around Bodie's father. It's not that Margot's situation isn't difficult.

• 11:56Linda Holmes?

  It's that doing sex work is not what makes it difficult. It's other things that make her situation difficult. I think the way that they give her, like I said, all these people in her life who care about her, it becomes a kind of a, I don't know, it's like, it's a wonderful life, kind of, you know, even when other things are really, really bad, you at least have this group of people that cares about you.

• 12:23Speaker 04

  It takes the village. You really get that in the, it's very funny how like sweet and wholehearted this show is, given how also like raunchy and imperfect everyone is too, you know?

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I love, as part of that sweetness, that people are constantly reinventing themselves. The characters are always deciding, I'm going to do this instead of this. And, you know, Nicole Kidman's character wasn't always an attorney.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  When we first meet her, she's actually one of Jinx's former wrestling co-stars.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  But she can be lots of things in life and Michelle Pfeiffer can be lots of things in life. Michelle Pfeiffer is trying to reinvent herself in a way that some people might also question. Like, is she being true to herself?

• 13:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Is she being aspirational? Is she trying to do what's best for herself? Or is she doing what looks best to others? And sometimes when we reinvent ourselves, it's not always straightforward. Like, this is an A-plus decision. Sometimes it's a B minus, but also, you know, a little bit of best effort and commendation along with that.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I also think it's interesting how much these characters disappoint each other.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  You know, and the fact that they also are able to apologize and make amends. Like, I think so often, especially in a really dramatic show, you know, it's like that one thing is like, you've crossed the line, this is it, I'm never going to speak to you again. Whereas this, there is so much sort of like coming apart and coming back together and like just trying to figure it out. And I think it's so lovely to watch all these characters do that.

• 13:56Linda Holmes?

  I did want to say one other thing about Nicole Kidman, which is, as Kristen mentioned, she's a wrestler turned lawyer. And having watched Nicole Kidman play an awful lot of these kind of chilly, rich, ice in the veins kind of women on streaming shows in the last few years. Like, Scarpetta is supposed to be like a fiery character, but there's something remote about her. I found watching Nicole Kidman in this part, which is a little more fire in the belly. There's a little, she seems to be having a little more fun. And I really welcomed that, you know? This is a character who, you know, at one point, you look at this and you see, you know,

• 14:41Linda Holmes?

  you're going from a scene that's like Michelle Pfeiffer, Elle Fanning. Nicole Kidman, then you go into another room and it's Marcia Gay Harden. And it's like, this is just a really cool collection of people. This is just a really cool collection of actors.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  So yeah, can we also shout out Greg Kinnear as Cheyenne's boyfriend? Oh, my God, he is very different than his book character also in ways that I find very endearing. And yeah, he's just, he's so perfect.

• 15:12Linda Holmes?

  Cheyenne's very pious boyfriend.

• 15:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 15:16Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. And in some ways, in his piousness, he is just also not perfect.

• 15:23Linda Holmes?

  Totally clueless. Very, very flawed.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  He's very flawed. That's a nice way to put it. I was gonna say like, I don't want to spoil it, but yeah. He's very flawed himself.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  But like more kind than you would think than I thought he would be, you know? Like, I was really pleasantly surprised by his character.

• 15:37Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, at certain times, very generous in his spirit, like so generous and like we're humans and humans do things. And that's okay. And then in other moments, maybe not so much.

• 15:49Linda Holmes?

  He'll surprise you. There are moments where you expect him to be really judgy because he is so, so proud of his piety. And then he isn't. And then there are other times where you kind of expect he wouldn't be and he is. And you sort of don't know for sure. I also want to give a shout to Michael Angarano, who plays the professor who is Bodhi's father. You really have to be careful when you play the odious person in a story like this, which he essentially is because he offers her no help. First of all, he sleeps with a student and gets her pregnant. And but then is not helpful, is not interested, is kind of callous to her.

• 16:30Linda Holmes?

  Is definitely one of these guys who sees it as like, if you insist on having this baby, that becomes your problem.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. Doesn't he say you're aborting your future?

• 16:37Linda Holmes?

  Yes.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  I mean, that's a hell of a statement.

• 16:40Linda Holmes?

  It's quite a thing to say. Like, you have to be able to like revel in his awfulness without making it impossible to understand why she had an affair with him. And I think they sort of give him enough, like from the things that he's saying to her at the beginning of the book, he's giving her for one, of the story, for one thing, he's giving her a lot of reassurance that she needs. He's praising her writing and you can see it in retrospect, like when you're older, you can kind of see how he's sort of setting it up that he wants to have sex with her. But you understand how like she's young, she's, you know, she has not had much stability in her life. This man taking an interest in her is very interesting to her. But I think

• 17:24Linda Holmes?

  the way that he plays this part is sort of, I think he finds the right way to do it, where you hate him, but it doesn't seem ridiculous that she ever had sex with him.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Well, I think it's also like, he's such a loser. You know, the fact that like, you mentioned Marsha Gay Hardin, she plays his mother. Like, she's more of the villain, arguably, than he is. Like, I think of him as sort of like, almost irrelevant, you know? It's like, aside from being the sperm contributor, like, he doesn't matter. It's that his mother is so insistent about all of it, that he ends up, you know, part of the drama still.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  You know, he actually just struck me as the kind of guy who could only score with a 19-year-old who is insecure. That's kind of how I read him. Like, in his own way, I think he is likable to that 19-year-old who doesn't know any better. But yeah, obviously, any grown woman would not fall for that.

• 18:19Linda Holmes?

  And through the entire thing, you know, you mentioned, Kristin, that there isn't really a love interest for her in this version of the story, which I found really refreshing. Because I think for a lot of people who are in this kind of situation, they're single parents, they're trying to find work, they're trying to make ends meet, they have chaotic family situations, they don't even necessarily have time or emotional energy to be out here thinking about romance.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  When are you dating?

• 18:48Linda Holmes?

  For this season, I found it refreshing not to be dealing with a romance element.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, she's also a great mom. And I think they depict that really nicely in the TV show. There are some really lovely moments of just her with her baby, smiling at each other, you know?

• 19:03Linda Holmes?

  Who is so cute. Oh, her baby is so cute.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  And also, without sugarcoating, how hard it is. I mean, that baby is crying round the clock 23 and a half hours a day. And that's not something they gloss over, you know? Being a teen mom, being a mom of any age with a newborn is tough.

• 19:20Linda Holmes?

  Yes. And the pregnancy itself, there's a sort of a montage where they show. How uncomfortable and difficult being very pregnant is for her. She's not one of these people who's like, oh, I just constantly go around feeling so.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  I just glow.

• 19:35Linda Holmes?

  I'm glowing. I feel so wonderful. She, you know, there are moments where she's like lying on the floor of a store because she's so uncomfortable. She just has to lie down. She's, you know, lying on her side on the bed because it's the only position she can find that she's comfortable in. And I think it's more honest about some of the physical realities of pregnancy and babies than a lot of other shows about pregnancy and babies have been.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  Yes, I had the pleasure of interviewing author Rufi Thorpe to talk about the adaptation on my podcast, Happy to Be Here. And she also brought up a really good point around Elle Fanning's body and the idea that by the time you get to the OnlyFans stuff, you're actually kind of sick of seeing her boobs.

• 20:17Linda Holmes?

  That's true.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Because there have been so many scenes of her trying to breastfeed an infuriated infant. And I think even that is like such a fascinating, like, we don't see that on TV like that.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she's leaking everywhere. Yeah.

• 20:32Linda Holmes?

  I really liked the fact that when they do start showing you some of what the OnlyFans content looks like, I like the balance that they strike where like you can understand how it is sexy, but you can also understand how it's funny and intentionally funny. And it's like, kind of intentionally corny and like, it's like sexy Plan 9 from outer space at one point. And you can kind of understand how, for her, it's creatively fulfilling to make these little essentially vignettes. And the fact that she and some of her colleagues might be naked in it doesn't mean it's not a funny little skit

• 21:14Linda Holmes?

  like you would do in any other setting, you know? So I think by the time she makes the point that she likes it because it's creative. You know, they've given you reason to understand that.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:27Linda Holmes?

  You know?

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:28Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, well, I think we all really enjoyed this show. It is airing on Apple TV. I think it's, I think it's well worth your time, you know? And as somebody who didn't read the book, I liked it. As people who did read the book, you guys both liked it. So that brings us to the end of our show. Greta Johnson, Kristin Meinzner, thank you so much for being here. It's so fun to talk about something we all like.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:48Linda Holmes?

  Thank you.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  What a treat.

• 21:49Linda Holmes?

  What a treat. This episode is produced by Hufse Fathama and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.

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